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1 • Commitment (by macias on 2011-05-23 08:19:20 GMT from Poland)
"Last week it was Attachmate, a company that acquired Novell (and openSUSE) some six months ago, that affirmed commitment to the open-source project". It is rather very ironic knowing the fact Mono developers were fired.
The old wisdom -- words are cheap.
2 • Lack of Polish (by manmath sahu on 2011-05-23 08:45:02 GMT from India)
For me there's just one major problem - "Workaround"! Hardware vendor don't always support linux, and story becomes a catch 22. Either it should work or it should not, work arounds suck. For example, both, Windows 7 and Linux Mint 10 sit on my Asus 1215B. There's no out-of-the box support for this device (as it's brand new) in linux, you've to do some workaround. And sadly, workarounds are not as effective as the proper drivers supplied by manufacturers. In my case the proprietary catalyst drivers work better under windows than the opensource drivers or those in kernel. Besides, there are several issues related to suspend/resume.
In addition to drivers, updating bios/firmware and other tools in linux is not as straight forward as in Windows.
3 • Polish is right (by NK on 2011-05-23 09:27:30 GMT from United States)
Really, the only polish around is in an Apple operating system. Windows has a long history of clunkiness with one thing or another. The USB transfer speed problem *also* exists in windows to various degrees. The operating system needs to "fail gracefully" and be able to pick up a transfer where it was left off rather than halting.
Suse's latest release, a distro in Distrowatch's top ten ten list, has a number of "showstopper" bugs that have not been taken care of. Distro's really need to stop having releases until they can take care of basic functionality.
4 • CentOS 6.0 is good news (by Hobbitland on 2011-05-23 09:47:06 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi, The news on CentOS 6.0 is good news. If CentOS 6.1 will follow CentOS 6.0 after a few weeks I will wait for CentOS 6.1 instead. We use CentOS 5.5 at present.
5 • Lack of Polish (by Eric Yeoh on 2011-05-23 10:00:58 GMT from Malaysia)
@#2 - As you well know, most Linux distros are generally built by a bunch of enthusiastic, talented people who also have day jobs and probably kids to take care. Since they are not salaried to do a job - there are less motivation to "polish" or to write drivers and such. Yes money talks. Perhaps you would have better chance of getting the sort of polish and support you desire by subscribing to either SLED or RHEL? Just a thought.
6 • Polish? It's free as in cost. (by Eric Yeoh on 2011-05-23 10:06:24 GMT from Malaysia)
Since openSUSE or Fedora are community projects do not contribute to revenues of SUSE or RH, there may be some bugs here and there. Perhaps you can help with the bugs triaging? That is why, there are "Enterprise" distros around that does much to make Linux as reliable and stable as advertised. Yes Enterprise distros are not sexy (i.e. missing latest packages) and are generally unsuitable to many tinkerers but it just works.
7 • Dynamic Fire with applications request? (by Oz on 2011-05-23 10:17:31 GMT from Germany)
Correct me if I am wrong, don't we have this great engeeniring in Windows already ?
Firewalls ARE CRITICAL, so they should be carefully planned and deployed and not dynamicaly loaded.
The next thing we will have is that script kiddies with python knowlegde will write python-dbus-dynamic-firwall script, which will overload users with dumb questions, so dumb users who don't read about security will click 'Yes, ofcourse I want to do that' and TA DA! Linux will start becoming infested with crap. Which is dangerous, especially with the rising popularity of Linux on the Desktop.
IMHO - From what it sounds - Dynamic firewall which talks to applications, sounds like a very bad design choice.
Just because I am worried about this, I would be happy to be contraticted, and slammed and proved wrong.
8 • CentOS Team (by bugz on 2011-05-23 10:28:08 GMT from United States)
This is a good news to all CentOS lovers. Keep up the good work.
9 • Re: 7 • Dynamic Fire with applications request? (by Rahul Sundaram on 2011-05-23 10:54:17 GMT from India)
Unless you can authenticate, any requests to change firewall settings will not be honoured. I recommend reading through
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/DynamicFirewall
Get a recent nightly build or release candidate of Fedora 15 and try it out.
10 • CentOS (by Andrew on 2011-05-23 10:55:46 GMT from Australia)
I'm eagerly awaiting CentOS 6.1 for some cluster work, fingers crossed it comes before EOFY!!
11 • Polish (by megadriver on 2011-05-23 10:57:22 GMT from Spain)
"Polish", like many things, is in the eye of the beholder.
The "price of admission" metaphor really hits the nail on the head. I find the "price" quite affordable, and you get a lot of "bang for the buck", too!
12 • Lack of Polish - Distros ruined Setups (by Openly Together on 2011-05-23 11:09:50 GMT from Finland)
I have heard so much talking of open, community, free,... work with linux, that compared to that I have always wondered, why then so many distros, new ones again and again.
So why shatter the open work and few resources together to all these distros? If some people like to have a little different kind linux, why don't they just do it by adding setup-alternatives to upstream projects to gain the differences, that they want?
Now with all these distros there goes lots of work, energy and resources for vain - compared to work more together with fewer distros and separate communities. And that way maybe more planning too before doing, fewer communities to look for help and guidance - so more benefit of the open and co--work kernel-nature of linux-world, than this present very shattered way. So much more "back" to the original co-work way of linux.
13 • DouDouLinux (by Erik on 2011-05-23 11:31:52 GMT from United States)
I guess this is not developed in an English-speaking country. Kids in those countries will, no doubt, find the name funny.
14 • Lack of Polish (by skin27 on 2011-05-23 11:43:37 GMT from Netherlands)
Problems with hardware support or usability are indeed important issues which doesn't get enough attention. If you find the problem, it's also not always easy to find the right upstream component and provide the developers with the correct information to fix the problem.
The Linux way of things asks for a more active approach in solving your problem. This has its advantages as you have the possibility to talk directly to the guys who can fix your problem or do it yourself. As not everybody is able to do this, it would be nice if there would be some kind of Community Linux Helpdesk which can guide new users in this process.
On this helpdesk website everyone could also post the quirks he has with a certain platform, desktop environment or distribution. Let more experienced users or developers give answers or work arounds and let users vote on which quirks annoy them the most. This works better than a discussion in a forum (As for example KDE brainstorm for new ideas has shown).
As the vote passes a certain number this issue can redirected as a founded feature request to the right component. It also gives developers or distributions the opportunity to solve those issues which Linux users annoy the most.
Right now it is a fact that there are so many components (like hardware, kernel, drivers, os components and software) that there is not same kind of support and integration as for example Apple can offer. An interesting discussion about giving a more integrated experience is on GNOME OS. See for examples the following articles at OMG! Ubuntu!:
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/08/proposal-to-make-gnome-a-fully-fledged-os/
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/05/some-gnome-os-clarity-on-the-beauty-of-interfaces-and-systemd/
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/05/systemd-in-gnome-packagekit-and-what-gnome-as-an-os-really-means/
15 • OpenIndiana (by Olaf on 2011-05-23 11:49:51 GMT from Germany)
Solaris and OpenIndiana are not for Desktops. In Linux world there are bugs in software pakcages, in repos and bug in 3D and printing and partitioning... fairly good review but conclusion is weak.
16 • OpenIndiana and others (by Mathew John Roberts on 2011-05-23 12:03:57 GMT from United Kingdom)
I liked the review of OI 148. I got the same error trying to update my 148 vm. The 151 release should be out soon, so i'm really looking forward to it. However, I would like them to add the option of where to put the bootloader during the install instead of just assuming you want it on the MBR.
It is refreshing to see competition for linux nowadays. I re-read the review of openbsd 4.8 from distrowatch weekly and enjoyed that too. I can't wait for pc-bsd 9 to come out; desktop selection at install is going to be awesome!
It would be really great to see minix get some serious development attention. 3.1.9 seems to be just around the corner.
Also, for those interested, haiku is slated to release alpha 3 on the 1st of June. (I also noticed in the reactos commits that the usb stack has some code from haiku)
My, my, we are living in exciting times!
17 • Igor Ljubuncic review (by jovcek on 2011-05-23 12:39:12 GMT from Macedonia)
I have read a lot of reviews on dedoimedo, and I think that the reviewer is missing the point of what OS is, and should be, completely, plus obviously never cares for the technology of the distribution that the distro reviewed is having/bringing. The first thing that he checks is flash, mp3, and video watching. Those are his most important things that form the biggest part of his conclusion. Flash, mp3 and other codecs and videos are only extras to the OS. How about the newest technology and the possibility of deployment of the OS? After his review, one never really knows what the "reviewed" OSs' strenghts or weakness are.
But hey, now we know that flash, mp3 codecs and vlc is not installed in the default OS configuration.
Really, thank you.
18 • 9 • Re: 7 • Dynamic Fire with applications request? (by Rahul Sundaram on 2011-0 (by Oz on 2011-05-23 12:46:35 GMT from Germany)
I am sorry, but I am not convinced. This wiki page, does not say how authetication is made.
If ROOT user is needed, most users will anyway give it with thinking twice. See windows case.
19 • Lack of Polish (by Leo on 2011-05-23 13:01:52 GMT from United States)
Great topic to bring up. I think the best place for Free Software projects is to provide baseline technologies, but then you need a corporation with payed employees give the magic final touches. Google did that with Android :)
20 • OpenIndiana (by djhyland on 2011-05-23 13:31:04 GMT from United States)
Thanks for doing the review of OpenIndiana. I agree that it isn't a good choice for the usual desktop user, and I agree with the reasons listed in the review. However, there are ways around some of these problems, and with some research and work, OpenIndiana can make a pretty good desktop system too. Regardless, it's nice to see OpenIndiana getting some coverage, and hopefully more people will try it out and report the rough patches so they get fixed.
21 • Polish? Bounty Bugs! (by benQ on 2011-05-23 13:57:09 GMT from Germany)
The problem is, some "bugs" are only missing features, or features not done user friendly, sometimes its just against your likings ...
However, I would encourage projects that actually have a bugtracker to implement the "Bounty Bug". How does it work? Roughly:
A user finds Error X or requests Feature A. He attributes a price in real money for the squashing of the bug / the implementing of the feature and pays this price to a trustees account of the project. The payment is accepted only if the description of the bug or the featrue request are sufficiently detailed to enable adressing them. Others may vote as usual or increase this "ante". Now everybody who sends in a patch that solves the bug / implements the feature may earn that money (he may decide to donate the money to the project or donate 50% ...).
As usual, if money is on the table, there may come hassle, but one may keep the hassle at a low level by setting up appropriate rules (e.g. in case of dispute, the money goes to the project, or to a charity organization, (or 50/50); payments stored longer than a given time will be transferred back, and so on ...)
Such a system would :
a) motivate the (detailed) filing of bugs and feature requests
b) motivate developers to also adress annoyancies that do not meet their primary interest (but which fill the fridge ;-)
c) provide income for the project (depending on the rules) or the developers
d) make me open up a paypal account
22 • UnPolished operating systems (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-05-23 14:14:39 GMT from Spain)
Let's face it, many open source proyects are extremely buggy. Developers are more interested in adding features than in making them work properly, and that is a fact. Only few organizations force a strict policy regarding bug managing and fixing, while others ignore minor bugs and let them pass into "stable releases".
Glad I use Debian, with its excelent bug tracking system and release policy. And even Debian "the rock" has some trouble when trying to package some low-quality upstream software.
Yes, I know GNU/Linux is (usualy) for free, and we shouldn't start launching critics against developers as if they had got payed by us. But bugs can kill your data, and a unpolished filemanager can smash a million dolar deal if you are unlucky to have a bug eating your files (I have seen Ubuntu Lucid kill lots of filesystems without warning). I expect developers to call their works "stable" just when they are stable enough. Any other way of working is inapropiate and dangerous for thousand of users.
23 • OpenIndiana (by Tony on 2011-05-23 14:16:59 GMT from United States)
I have to agree that OpenIndiana is not a Desktop product. Historically, the Sun OS (Solaris) has targeted the the server platform where music, videos, and Flash are NOT the norm. Interesting review however. Thanks!
24 • OI review (by bierlandson on 2011-05-23 14:19:28 GMT from Brazil)
Comment deleted (troll).
25 • RE:21 (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-05-23 14:25:11 GMT from Spain)
Nice idea. Now, go and convince distro mantainers to implement it!
...but, there is a problem. I do send bug reports because they cost nothing to me. If users had to pay for having the bug fixed, then bug tracking systems will have many less reports.
You'd better contact the package mantainer and offer him the money directly. Or better yet, learn some C and C++ and fix the problem yourself!
26 • Money for bugs (by Jesse on 2011-05-23 14:37:22 GMT from Canada)
The bounty for bugs thing, sadly, rarely works. A few times I've offered to fund the fixing of a bug or implementation of a feature. The challenge has never been accepted. Sometimes it's for legal reasons (ie projects like Fedora don't want to complicate things because of their legal status and existing funding), with some it flies in the face of their free software philosophy. And generally the end user isn't going to be able to offer up enough money to make it worth a developer's time.
I think it's fine if you want to try to temp developers with money, but money won't automatically fix things and sometimes introduces its own problems. (See the Debian release debate from a few years ago.)
27 • @22 (by TobiSGD on 2011-05-23 14:48:03 GMT from Germany)
Smashing a million dollar deal because a bug in the file manager? Then you deserve it. Make backups, bugs can happen anytime (not only in OS software), also hardware failures.
28 • OpenIdiana (by Geekboula on 2011-05-23 15:24:37 GMT from Canada)
I'm glad you took the time to make a review of OpenIndiana. I used this Unix system for 3 months on a Netbook.
In my case, I had no problem with the installation. I had the same problem regarding the update. The problem is that we must select a directory before proceeding. Once done updating this fact very well.
Installing the package manager has always worked well for me
Installing Flash is not easy for a normal user I agree but not impossible. I think the multimedia codecs should be out of the box In 2011 because they are essential for a full user experience on the computer.
I also have a intall cairo-dock so I ask a little work on the command line and I have gone through a directory * OpenSolaris *. Moreover several packets may have to install command line on the Directory of OpenSolaris.
My daily experience was correct. Of course there were some irritating little here and there but overall the user experience has been successful. When I wanted to install on my desktop, there, I can say it was very different experience. The latest generation of AMD hardware caused problems with video card.
I think OpenIndiana has a bright future! I subscribe to the mailing list and there are many competent person exchange of ideas and assistance for less experienced users.
I also believe that OpenIndiana is a perfect system to learn the command lines for a beginner interested in his computer. The command are very simple terminals at all times and no matter what you do.
I look forward to the new version due out soon! I think the end of June or early September at the latest
29 • RE:27 (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-05-23 15:41:33 GMT from Spain)
Well, I keep two separated full backups of my personal computer, so I can resume working in few hours even if my PC and one of the backups is destroyed (I keep them separated by 30 kilometers or so). Don't worry, it is unlikely for a bug to destroy something I have not a copy for.
However, the usual computer user does rarely backup his birthday pics, and if a bug smashed them, he would not be very happy, right? There was a nasty bug in PCmanFM that deleted 1500 files from my computer once. Some of them were REALLY important. As I didn't want to take the car for getting the drive with the backup (yes, I had it!), I just employed foremost to retrieve them. Anyways, this bug took me some time I would have not spent if PCmanFM was more "polished".
30 • Fedora 15 and Gnome 3 (by Edwin on 2011-05-23 16:00:16 GMT from United States)
When Fedora 15 comes tomorrow, I'll have a problem to choose between Fedora and Ubuntu as I have Gnome 3 on Ubuntu and Fedora 15 beta. Maybe the only difference is apt-get or yum, but in certain areas Fedora 15 is much better than Ubuntu.
I believe that other mainstream distros should try Gnome 3.
31 • Lack of 'Polish' in Linux for Desktops (by Barista Uno on 2011-05-23 16:21:24 GMT from Philippines)
This is a very valid complaint. It boils down to the question of quality control. Can quality really be achieved under the standard six-month release cycle? I doubt it. By the time most of the bugs are fixed in the current release, a new one is put out with a whole new set of bugs. Releases should be made every 12 months at the most. This is the only way some polish can be attained.
32 • Flash, etc. (by OnoSendai58 on 2011-05-23 16:26:13 GMT from United States)
@17 It`s a valid concern to a lot of us, why wouldn`t it be? I personally like some tunes while working.
33 • @29 (by TobiSGD on 2011-05-23 16:46:21 GMT from Germany)
Good to hear that you are making backups. But that doesn't change anything.
Of course it is annoying when a bug in any software leads to data loss, but it simply isn't possible to find all bugs in a software. It doesn't matter if it Open Source or proprietary software, and it doesn't matter if the developers are paid or not. Otherwise neither Microsoft nor Red Hat had to release bug fixes, and Ubuntu 11.04 wouldn't be as buggy as it is.
And if a "usual computer user" doesn't backup his important data, in which way is that the fault of the developers?
Don't get me wrong, of course a software should be tested before release, but you can't expect a 100% bug-free software. From no one.
34 • Fedora 15 (by Quintus on 2011-05-23 17:10:26 GMT from United States)
I've been a faithful user of Ubuntu since Warty and Mint since Ada. But with all the new changes in both, I'm done.
I've been using Fedora 15 since Beta and if the final release is the same or even better, then I'm a user for life.
I can't say anything bad about Fedora, never have, it was just never to my liking. But now, I have to say: Simply Awesome!
A HUGE Thank you to the team at Fedora Project for staying with the times, but still keeping it simple AND usable. Which Ubuntu and Mint no longer are usable in my opinion.
I am not going to bash them. Clem and the team at Mint are doing a fabulous job and taking Mint down a road I just can't travel. If it wasn't for Clem and the Mint team, I would have left Linux a long time ago.
As for Ubuntu, well, they are doing what THEY want to do and not what the USER base wants or needs. But I still will not bash them or disrespect them.
Quintus
Legio IX Hispana
35 • @22 (by Micah on 2011-05-23 17:48:09 GMT from United States)
I installed openSUSE 11.4 on a friend's rig, thinking that it would be a good distro to start him out with. Imagine my disappointment when I had to shamefacedly explain why suspend won't work, why he can't add the gnome main menu to the taskbar to replace the slab without an error message appearing, why thunderbird doesn't have an icon after it installs, why his virus scanning program (klamav) seems to be broken out of the box, etc.
Really, however much polish and "ease of use" distros like openSUSE and Ubuntu have, they're pretty much unsuitable for new users as long as they don't work as expected.
In my view, Debian Stable or some other very stable distro is the place new users should begin.
36 • Release cycle (by Jesse on 2011-05-23 17:53:45 GMT from Canada)
>> "Can quality really be achieved under the standard six-month release cycle? I doubt it."
I think quality has a lot more to do with the project's processes and scope than it does with the length of the length of the release cycle. OpenBSD, for example, has a six-month release cycle and they're known for high-quality, relatively bug-free code. The difference is OpenBSD is focused on making stable, bug-free code and projects like Ubuntu and Fedora are focused on pushing new features out the door for people to try.
37 • Easy distros are not so easy? (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-05-23 19:01:40 GMT from Spain)
Micah wrote:
----------------------------------------
Really, however much polish and "ease of use" distros like openSUSE and Ubuntu have, they're pretty
much unsuitable for new users as long as they don't work as expected.
In my view, Debian Stable or some other very stable distro is the place new users should begin.
----------------------------------------
That is exactly what I think. Debian is not so hard anymore, for example. In fact, is almost as 'easy' as Ubuntu, but without so many bug related problems. That doesn't mean is bug free, but when I introduce someone to GNU/Linux, I do it with Debian. Any newbie who is not able to administrate a recent Debian release (Lenny, Squeeze or above) is probably not able to administrate any Operating System at all. Ubuntu alsmost made me leave GNU/Linux when I first discovered it. Two weeks with Debian and its documentation made me love it!
38 • Debian vs Ubuntu (by Gustavo on 2011-05-23 20:11:42 GMT from Brazil)
Debian Lenny was way "buggier" than Ubuntu. The problem is that most Linux software are always in "beta" stage, so newer versions has some bugs fixed (apart from creating new ones).
When Squeeze was launched it couldn´t even connect to MSN network. Well Ubuntu couldn´t too, but neither should be launched with this unacceptable bug.
39 • @38 (by fernbap on 2011-05-23 20:26:29 GMT from Portugal)
Gustavo, anyone who wants to connect to the MSN network has a bug in his head....
40 • @39 (by Gustavo on 2011-05-23 20:36:48 GMT from Brazil)
I meant chat using MSN protocol. Was a bug in Telepathy libs.
41 • @ 37 Debian for which beginners? (by sam on 2011-05-23 20:55:12 GMT from Italy)
If by beginner you mean a good geek passing from windows to Linux, Debian might be Ok. Debian documentation is good but only when you know computer jargon. When new in Linux I needed something like Linux Mint where I could connect to a printer on a windows machine without knowing what is samba, listen to mp3 music and play videos without knowing what are codecs, add and change system languages without knowing what is locales and very important have fonts that are not very ugly without knowing what is hinting.
However after some experience in Linux and hours spent on reading distrowatch and forums I have discovered that Debian Stable is the best. Final. No more distro hopping.
A point aside: I discovered distrowatch through Linux Mint, because it was included as a bookmark in their the default browser, firefox. Thanks to Clem.
42 • Re 34, 30 Gnome3 (by shady on 2011-05-23 21:16:49 GMT from United States)
Hells yea! Good to see some Gnome 3 love on here.
43 • Slackware Based Distro's (by Rudolf Steiner on 2011-05-23 21:20:54 GMT from United States)
Does anyone on here have any insight into the possibility of a Wolvix release for 2011?
RS
44 • OpenIndiana (by koroshiya itchy on 2011-05-23 21:36:35 GMT from Belgium)
OpenIndiana is an excellent and very necessary project. It brings new technological concepts to the open source community and fosters technological development. ZFS is one example. On the other hand, depending only on one kernel (Linux) is not good. I am a happy GNU/Linux user, but I think real technological diversity is positive (unlike having 1000 Ubuntu-based distros, which is pointless). It is a pity than the ambitious Hurd project had not delivered something really new and useful yet.
45 • Easy distros are not so easy? (by mandog on 2011-05-23 21:38:57 GMT from United Kingdom)
I really don't know what all this fuss is I went from windows to Arch Linux its not hard and is my main distro for 4 years. Then tried Suse so much never works, then Ubuntu and was so disappointed after Dapper Ubuntu has just gone down and down as soon as a new release is out they start testing for the next release and the interest is totally gone to fix the multitude of bugs from the last unfinished release, the latest installer is a step back to my mind. Debian squeeze is simple to install with its many steps for a newby. and very user friendly needs better documentation about non free and the multimedia repros but that's all, even fedora is not hiding the non free stuff as in the past but always breaks for me it always dies after grub after a few days as did The very polished Mandriver. This is where Arch is so good excellent documentation excellent forum with the devs taking a active role so when things do go bad its fixed, the forums are very serious not a bad thing as its a help forum. This is where Ubuntu really fails. i'm sorry but the forums are a total mess. Its a case of the blind helping the blind. what did you eat last night is a typical topic in the help section.
46 • RE:34, What users? (by Eddie on 2011-05-23 21:47:57 GMT from United States)
"As for Ubuntu, well, they are doing what THEY want to do and not what the USER base wants or needs. But I still will not bash them or disrespect them."
Now what makes you think that? What user base are you talking about? Maybe they are not doing what you want them to but I really see nothing wrong with what they are doing. I do respect you for not bashing or disrespecting any distro. That shows great maturity on your part and it's a practice that should be followed by all.
As far as polish goes either stick with a LTS distro or en enterprise distro. Very few bugs and the software can be kept up to date.
@42, I find it rather strange, but cool, that Ubuntu 11.10 will include Gnome 3.
47 • RE:45, What is so hard about other distros? (by Eddie on 2011-05-23 22:08:26 GMT from United States)
I hear a lot of this crap. Ubuntu, Suse, Mandriva, Fedora, are such a mess. Even Debian seems to fall short in your eyes. I don't think so. Most problems are caused by hardware setups that are not the norm or something the user shouldn't have done. Arch LInux, while superb, is not a beginners distro. They don't claim to be so don't try to push them off as one. Anyway, what was the purpose of your post? If it was to raise up the position of Arch LInux in others eyes then you can do that without bashing other distros and creating FUD. Why are people so critical of every other distro except what they like and use?
48 • @40 (by fernbap on 2011-05-23 23:14:00 GMT from Portugal)
I don't know about that, i never used telepathy. That's the beauty of Linux, you have much to chose from.
I always used Pidgin (which always worked), but you have others to chose from, like emesene.
49 • Re: 46 What users you say? (by Quintus on 2011-05-23 23:32:45 GMT from United States)
Hmmm are you out of the loop at the Ubuntu forums? It's all over the place.
1. Buttons. They decided they want Mac style buttons. Ok, that's not a big deal, it's an easy fix. But a LOT of users complained.
2. Unity. They then give us Unity. How many complaints did they recieve over that? Again, a LOT.
3. Bugs. Do they EVER fix the simplest of bugs BEFORE they start working on the next release? No. I still have issues with my Ralink USB wifi adapter. How many people have posted about that? A LOT.
Anyways, If it hadn't been for Ubuntu, I would NEVER have switched away from Windows long time ago. I would still be stuck in the muck. So to speak.
You wonder why I don't bash? It's because for me Ubuntu and Linux in general, saved me from a life of drudgery. I was lost and Ubuntu found me.
50 • meego (by anonymous on 2011-05-24 00:20:25 GMT from United States)
Looking forward to the new merging release. Android really needs a well done open source competitor. Hopefully it will be a true Linux distribution just on the phone rather than the basterdized combination of open and closed that android has become combining the worst of both.
51 • Lack of polish (by jslozier on 2011-05-24 01:03:05 GMT from United States)
In the Windows world many refuse to touch the latest release unitl sp1 has come out because of bugs. The problem of polish is not one of distros not fixing or caring but the inherent complexity of an OS. I have Linux distros much more dependable and stable than Windows.Is the complaint truly a lack of polish of you do not lack how something is done?
52 • Say What??? No, Really?? (by RollMeAway on 2011-05-24 01:20:55 GMT from United States)
New distributions added to database
DoudouLinux.
[1] Pronounced “DueDueLinux”.
What kid is not going to say "I use do-do linux"?
Strongly suggest this distribution should take a pole on a new name!
53 • For Kids Distro (by JM on 2011-05-24 03:05:58 GMT from Canada)
A community center I help out with they have some old iMacs there that might need and OS lift. Any suggests for some kids distros with games? Internet not required :P
54 • re #43 Wolvix to rise again? (by gnomic on 2011-05-24 05:47:33 GMT from New Zealand)
No special knowledge about Wolvix status, but as it has now been over a year I think since anything new appeared I wouldn't hold my breath. Seems I can't connect to the site just now, server takes too long to respond. Did seem some passing mention on another distro's forum saying the Wolvix guys had been waylaid by real life, and were perhaps also getting antsy about including components that certain commercial entities might resent.
The action seems to be with Salix these days, or Vector or Zenwalk. The exton guy from Sweden has a recent Slackware live DVD.
Imagineos seems to have gone silent of late too, and Slax might be described as on hold. A recent arrival is Porteus.
55 • Fedora 15 (by Bronson on 2011-05-24 06:18:53 GMT from Australia)
Im looking forward to the latest fedora 15, I'm sure that soon there will be a multitude of add-ons and themes to customize the interface but I really like the default at present, just modified the padding a little on the default theme and it looks a lot better. I must say that gnome 3 has really changed the way the desktop looks and behaves, a very forward thinking bunch methinks.
56 • chat rooms (by juliette on 2011-05-24 07:11:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have never got internet chat rooms to work in ANY linux distro! chat rooms like gaydar.co.uk & tvchix.com just hang when there trying to connect. Done all the usual like latest flash & java! but to no avail. Linux still has way to many bugs.
57 • Distro hopping... (by Hobbitland on 2011-05-24 08:37:29 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have stopped distro hopping for a couple years now. We use CentOS 5.5 at work and I use Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS at home and family PC. I also skip Ubuntu cutting edge versions 10.10 and 11.04 planning to stay with LTS only.
However, I use a heavily personal customized Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS. I remove some rubbish defaults Canonical set and put my own selection. Also using official LibreOffice, Firefox 4, Java etc installed at "/usr/local"
I also respin my own bootable ISO which I put onto a USB pen. Usign GRUB 2 I can boot ISO directly from USB pen. There is no point complaining about distros. Just make your own customized ISO.
58 • ZFS ... (by vermaden on 2011-05-24 10:57:08 GMT from Poland)
> Normally, OpenSolaris would take as much
> time as a nuclear reactor to power up,
> because of its fancy ZFS file system
Check FreeBSD with ZFS, it does not boot slower then with UFS2, its not ZFS fault that OpenIndiana boots slow.
59 • DouDou Linux (by Barista Uno on 2011-05-24 14:12:56 GMT from Philippines)
I will certainly try this out. Children should be targeted by more Linux developers. Nothing like starting them young on Linux.
60 • RE: 53 • For Kids Distro (by :wq on 2011-05-24 15:04:16 GMT from United States)
> A community center I help out with they have some old iMacs there that might need and
> OS lift. Any suggests for some kids distros with games? Internet not required :P
I'm not certain what age range that entails and if these are PPC or Intel iMacs, but there is the aforementioned DoudouLinux (what a name), http://www.doudoulinux.org/web/english/index.html; Qimo, http://www.qimo4kids.com/ (lastest release 2010 May); UKnow4Kids, http://www.uknow4kids.org/ (latest release 2010 February); LinuxKidX, http://linuxkidx.blogspot.com/2009/03/linuxkidx-english-version-developed.html (latest release 2009 March); and Foresight Kids, http://www.foresightlinux.org/foresight-kids/ (latest release 2008 November). Also, there is the Sugar desktop environment, http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Downloads. If these are young teens looking for video games, there are the gaming distros listed on DW [in addition to those, there are gaming editions available of some distros, such as Fedora Games (http://spins.fedoraproject.org/games/)]. You might also want to take a look a DW's list of education distros [in addition to those there are education editions of some distros, such as openSUSE-Edu Li-f-e (http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Education-Li-f-e)].
61 • Part of the problem... (by Sean on 2011-05-24 16:58:53 GMT from Canada)
Actually most of the problem are people not paying attention to the Mark Twain quote at the bottom of the page...
So application foo has a problem in Distrux, obviously that's the problem of the Distrux developers...
But wait, Distrux relies on rebranding the source from the Onestopix package, who rebrand their source out of the developers own git repositories.
So, is the problem with Distrux, Onestopix or the actual developer of foo?
Perhaps, just pmaybe, the reasonable approach is to submit a polite bug report to the Distrux dev team, and let them worry about which trolls live under what bridges upstream.
But it's certainly not a reasonable option to come on here and slam the Distrux dev team as bottling it as if you had done all the research and knew exactly where the problem arose...
62 • RE:Part of the problem (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-05-24 20:09:35 GMT from Spain)
Sean wrote:
---------------------------------
Actually most of the problem are people not paying attention to the Mark Twain quote at the bottom
of the page...
So application foo has a problem in Distrux, obviously that's the problem of the Distrux
developers...
But wait, Distrux relies on rebranding the source from the Onestopix package, who rebrand their
source out of the developers own git repositories.
So, is the problem with Distrux, Onestopix or the actual developer of foo?
---------------------------------
It is a problem for both. Upstream mantainers should ensure their work is as stable as feasible, while distro mantainers should ensure they don't accept badly broken software.
In fact, many times bug are distro related, that is, the bug was introduced by a custom patch from the disitribution developers. That's why users are suposed to remit bug reports to the distro's bug tracker, and not to uptstream authors. Slackware tries to avoid this kind of issue by avoiding
custom pactches or modifications (bringing other drawbacks in...)
No mather who the bug belongs to, a proper quality control is mandatory for any distro to keep bug incidence low.
63 • Importing bugs (by Jesse on 2011-05-24 21:07:34 GMT from Canada)
I think the poster of 62 is bang on. Distributions often replace working software with buggy (newer) versions. It's quite frustrating, especially when older (functioning) versions are available. The KDE 4.0 release is an obvious example, as are early releases of Pulse Audio and GRUB2. There are others, but those stand out as obviously buggy software which shouldn't have been included until upstream had matured.
64 • What is so hard about other distros? (by mandog on 2011-05-24 21:45:31 GMT from United Kingdom)
45'@ If you were to take your tinted sunglasses off and read instead of assuming. you would realise I was referring to the fact that distros like Ubuntu are aimed at newbies and yes Arch is aimed at intermediate users. The claims from Ubuntu and others is they are newbie friendly and work out of the box,Mint/pclinux/Mepis/even zenwalk, and a few others do. but when we talk about Ubuntu we are talking about the top ranking distro on DW and its not stable the forums are a mess Mint Is Ubuntu as it should be fast classy and stable excellent help/forums and deserves to be No1 not No2. On the subject of Arch as a newbie 4 years ago never used Linux I was able to follow the wiki and do a net install that is not a crime that's a fact so newbie can use Arch, the forums/wiki are exellent that is also fact. I must also point out I also use Debian. Parsix, crunchbang, and Mint and they are all Debian easy to install very stable fast and user friendly. devs use the forums as do the devs in Mepis/Mint. Ubuntu devs do not I posted over 1,000 posts on the forum wrote some how/tos. Fedora I love Fedora but alas it does not like my Nvidia setup for the last 2 years nor does Mepis. So stop pretending Not to be a fanboy and except others do have a lot of experience with other distros also help others on forums and are allowed to have differing opinions to yours please
65 • re £53 Linux for old iMacs (by gnomic on 2011-05-24 22:11:59 GMT from New Zealand)
'A community center I help out with they have some old iMacs there that might need an OS lift.'
I'm going to assume these are the CRT iMacs which likely have G3 PowerPC CPUs. They probably also have less than 256MB RAM and perhaps 8MB video cards. If this is the case your Linux options are limited.
Your best bet is probably Debian with a lightish window manager such as Xfce. As to games, you will probably be able to find sundry puzzles and educational programmes, maybe Mr Potato Head and such. These machines are not going to play the latest first person shooters obviously even if these were thought suitable for the young persons.
There are other Linux versions for PowerPC but in the main these are for nerds or require more powerful machines than these are likely to be. If you can find out more details of the exact hardware specs it will be easier to determine what is likely to be possible.
66 • Earlier incarnations of existing distributions (by Rudolf Steiner on 2011-05-24 23:51:19 GMT from United States)
This question is for the long time Linux users not the Johnny-come-latelies. To be more specific this question is aimed at those of you that have been using Linux since the 90's.
Q: Are any of you using an earlier incarnation of an existing distro due to hardware restraints, personnel preference or just because you can?
I occasionally like to install my very first Linux distro's (Caldera), and then my second distro (Red Hat 7).
Wow, Linux has come a long way but there is something more than nostalgia that I like about those older versions.
RS
67 • Old distros (by Jesse on 2011-05-25 00:35:50 GMT from Canada)
>> "Q: Are any of you using an earlier incarnation of an existing distro due to hardware restraints, personnel preference or just because you can?"
No. I use fairly modern distributions, or at least ones which are still receiving security updates. There are enough light distros out there I've never seen a need to use an older version to run on old hardware. Current versions of SliTaz still runs on 486 computers with low RAM.
68 • Security Update (by Rudolf Steiner on 2011-05-25 01:05:49 GMT from United States)
Jesse,
I know very well the importance of security updates but to be honest have never been a victim of any type of virus or breached security.
My wife is using the same xp installation that came on here DELL 9100 almost 9 years ago. We practice safe surfing in this house and thus remain free of surfing transmitted diseases.
I too run more modern distros on a regular basis (openbsd 4.9) but do enjoy looking back in time.
RS
69 • CentOS (by Anonymous on 2011-05-25 01:16:50 GMT from United States)
Will there be another three months without security updates between CentOS 6.0 and 6.1? Have they fixed their issues? That is what we need to know.
70 • The New Fedora. (by Chris H on 2011-05-25 01:39:18 GMT from United States)
My install and initial setup of the new Fedora reminded me of Aptosid: lean and fast.
There's no LibreOffice and no screensaver. The iso was just 565 meg.
There's a new look, but it's still Fedora.
There's still a security problem: too much security.
I tried to copy my pictures from another Linux partition,
and Fedora gave me a hard time.
Fedora likes to copy from Windows and flash drives.
You still install flash by adding the Adobe repository with a package from the Adobe website. Then add flash.
Google Chrome installed without issue.
Chris H.
71 • Mepis (by Pat M on 2011-05-25 07:29:16 GMT from United States)
Was wondering if we could possibly see a review of the recently released Mepis 11. It's been quite a while between releases and I'd be interested in seeing what's changed before I give it a spin.
72 • Fedora 15, Ubuntu and Gnome 3 (by Edwin on 2011-05-25 09:16:09 GMT from United States)
I really don't know whether I should stay away from Ubuntu 11.04 after I got the Gnome 3 installed thanks to DWW's last issue. I have the Fedora 15 now. Quite a nice looking fast working distro.
Fedora doesn't have the automatic spell check, while Ubuntu has that. Fedora reads many different exotic fonts, while Ubuntu reads some. Ubuntu has Libre Office, while Fedora doesn't.
Anyway, after Gnome 3 had come, no other DE looks better, not even Unity or Moblin. Gnome 3 had changed the way GNU/Linux would look in the future. This is the easiest DE I have used, just one mouse movement to the top left corner is all that's needed!
73 • Fedora 15 (by Harry on 2011-05-25 13:31:43 GMT from United States)
Downloaded the 64 bit version of Fedora 15 Gnome, yesterday, and it booted to a striped blue screen. No taskbar, no icons, nothing. CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE bought up the lon in scree, with the option for live users, but still went back to striped blue screen. Put CD in the trash. Today I downloaded the 32 bit, Gnome, and again the blue striped screen, but CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE did not work this time. Put CD in trash. The 64 bit computer is an AMD quad core, 3.0 ghz, 16 gig of ram, 20" flat screen monitor. The 32 bit machine is an Intel core 2 duo, with 2 gig of ram and a 22" flatscreen monitor.
74 • Fedora 15 Live Alternative DE's (by Paul J. Long Jr. on 2011-05-25 15:01:14 GMT from United States)
I downloaded the Fedora 15 LXDE, XFCE, and KDE Live X86_64 iso's and promptly booted the LXDE version first. It ran very fast, so I decided to do a test install and everything worked without a hitch. My first login was without issues. After spending approximately fifteen minutes surfing the net, I decided to test the reboot speed. When it reached the login manager, it would no longer allow me to login whatsoever, in any form or attempt. So I rebooted the live LXDE media and reinstalled Fedora 15 once more. I then duplicated my actions almost exactly, and guess what? It wouldn't allow me to log in to my desktop again!
I promptly trashed all the new Fedora 15 live disks I had burned and installed another distro without a hitch and haven't had a single issue again. If that's the best the Fedora people can do, then all I can say is "somebody has been asleep."
75 • Ubuntu Unity, GNOME 3: The Video Driver March of Folly (by RollMeAway on 2011-05-25 19:56:03 GMT from United States)
Excellent article on the decision to require 3D drivers for a linux desktop:
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/12068_3934346_1/Ubuntu-Unity-GNOME-3-The-Video-Driver-March-of-Folly.htm
76 • @74 (by Adam Williamson on 2011-05-25 20:10:47 GMT from Canada)
That's not a typical experience at all; we have quite a few people running LXDE on Fedora long term and I haven't seen such an issue reported in Bugzilla or on the Fedora LXDE mailing list. It would help if you could provide some details so we could debug and fix the problem; if instead you just write about it and then go to another distribution, there's really very little we can do.
77 • @73 (by Adam Williamson on 2011-05-25 20:12:00 GMT from Canada)
You left out the most important spec of all, which is what graphics card the machines are using; that sounds like a problem with rendering the Shell.
78 • @72 (by Adam Williamson on 2011-05-25 20:13:21 GMT from Canada)
"Fedora doesn't have the automatic spell check"
it's rather more complex than that; there are several spell check methods for Linux and it all varies by desktop and application and so on. Where exactly are you seeing spell checking in Ubuntu that you aren't seeing it in Fedora?
(Ironically, there's a red squiggly underline beneath the word 'Ubuntu' as I type this...in Firefox 4, running, on Fedora 15...)
79 • @70 (by Adam Williamson on 2011-05-25 20:17:13 GMT from Canada)
"There's still a security problem: too much security. I tried to copy my pictures from another Linux partition, and Fedora gave me a hard time. Fedora likes to copy from Windows and flash drives."
When you mount a Linux-native partition (i.e. one that uses a Linux-y filesystem like ext* or reiserfs or xfs or btrfs) you get the full Linux file permissions system. Windows-y file systems like NTFS and FAT32, which is what your Windows and flash drives likely use, don't understand the Linux permissions system, and when you mount them on Linux they get mounted by default with very open permissions overlaid - they usually simply get set up so that any user can read/write/execute any file. This is why you can get permissions problems with Linux-y filesystems that you don't get with Windows-y ones.
I suspect that what's happening here is your user's UID on Fedora is not the same as your user's UID on whatever other Linux owns this other partition you're mounting, so as far as the two Linuxes are concerned, the files are owned by different users. You can either set very generous permissions on the files, or you can change your UIDs to match on both systems.
80 • @68 (by Adam Williamson on 2011-05-25 20:18:07 GMT from Canada)
"I know very well the importance of security updates but to be honest have never been a victim of any type of virus or breached security."
How do you know?
81 • Re #75 and 3d drivers (by Astrojumper on 2011-05-25 20:49:41 GMT from Switzerland)
The linked article states that 3d is only available with proprietary drivers. This is no longer true, is it? The Fedora 15 release notes say that the nouveau and radeon drivers have 3d support:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/15/html/Release_Notes/sect-Release_Notes-Changes_for_Desktop_Users.html#sect-RelNotes-Desktop
"The new GNOME 3 user experience requires a video card capable of 3D acceleration. Fedora 15 supports the widest possible range of these cards through free software drivers, including the nouveau driver for NVidia graphics cards, the radeon driver for AMD graphics cards, and the intel driver for Intel graphics cards. In situations where properly supported 3D acceleration is not detected, GNOME 3 offers a fallback mode that models the GNOME Shell behavior. 3D support in Nouveau is now available by default, and the mesa-dri-drivers-experimental package no longer needs to be installed."
82 • @79 (by Stan on 2011-05-25 22:09:18 GMT from United States)
And that's exactly why I always make sure to set my UID and GID to 1000 (instead of the default 500) when installing Fedora or Mandrake/Mandriva/Mageia, so it matches the default of pretty much every other popular Linux distribution. It's a shame that they are different from each other in the first place, but I suspect the Red Hat tradition of 500 and the Debian (and independent) tradition of 1000 probably arose a long, long time ago.
83 • Fedora 15 - no joy of Gnome 3 so far (by gnomic on 2011-05-25 23:02:03 GMT from New Zealand)
Got the 32 bit live CD of F15 - tried it so far only on a ThinkPad R51 with the dread Intel 82852/855GM video - alas no fun with Gnome 3 for me, however did get a fallback session OK.
One little oddity - uname says 2.6.38.6-26.rc1.fc15.i686. The iso came from mirror.aarnet.edu.au in Australia. Anyone know whether this is just a wee glitch in the tidying process before final, ie have I got the real deal, the actual final release despite the rc1 bit?
Anyone seen a listing of video cards which are capable of running Gnome 3?
84 • fedora and other linux (by anticapitalista on 2011-05-25 23:39:10 GMT from Greece)
FWIW I have always had issues with fedora on my box, my box just doesn't like fedora and even if I can boot, it is slow and once in desktop performance is also sluggish.
On the other hand, I have friends who swear by fedora and have no complaints whatsoever. (I have seen their fedora working and it does work very well on their boxes).
Anyone tried any of the lesser known distros announced here at Distrowatch that have been released over the last 3 weeks?
85 • Fedora 15 (by Woody Oaks on 2011-05-26 00:17:15 GMT from United States)
Does anyone know how much RAM is needed to sate this distro's voracious installer? I gave up on Fedora 9 because of the KDE 4.0 debacle, but this installer bug is far more ridiculous. Just how elaborate must an installer be? Spinning cubes? Bouncy, diaphanous windows (with racy icons, maybe)? And if not, why then the enormous hardware requirements? I might try Fedora 16 later this year, but with Slackware running and doing everything right there really isn't much reason to.
86 • Even Debian has bugs - get over it (by imnotrich on 2011-05-26 00:29:19 GMT from Mexico)
Here's the deal, every Linux distro will have bugs. Debian Squeeze, for example, did a lot of things right but it's still (in my experience) one of the buggiest Debian releases in a long time.
Update manager is broken. Wine is broken. Wifi support is...lacking but I eventually got it working on my lappy.
There are lots of other things that are totally screwed up, and I've tried both the 32bit and amd64 version on a couple different machines .
All the issues I've documented in recent posts are reproduce-able. Some of the issues are related to hardware. Some of the issues are Debian's fault. And some of the issues are related to packages in the repos that were not updated to peacefully co-exist and maybe even RUN with Squeeze.
And you don't even want to know how much pain I had to go through to get Debian to run on my laptop.
Many of the programs I enjoyed from previous versions of Debian no longer work. I appreciate the complexity and size of the task faced by package maintainers but if the package won't install, or won't run flawlessly DON'T PUT IT IN THE MAIN REPOS! You'd think that's a no brainer, 'specially for a distro which claims to be #1 stable to the point of boring.
Well I'm good with stable, if it's truly stable and supports a wide variety of hardware. But I got to claim "false advertising" where it came to Squeeze "Stable." It's not.
Here's the thing - most Linux distros are built by very talented hobbyists and coders who work pretty much for free, volunteering their time to a project out of love. Many of them probably have jobs on the side. Families. Other obligations. It's just not possible for a handful of people to create a stable distro that works on a wide variety of hardware and is compatible with tens of thousands of packages in whatever repo. It's just not. And this is why, sad to say, Linux will never overtake MAC or Windows for user share because all distros, to varying degrees, will appeal primarily to hobbyists who like to tinker (not counting the IT professionals running servers-Linux has the advantage there).
There's no such thing as "just works" in the Linux world.
87 • @81 (by Adam Williamson on 2011-05-26 00:52:57 GMT from Canada)
The article is somewhat...confused, IMHO. Bruce seems to be arguing that the 3D support of the open drivers is either so poor or so unreliable as to be not worth relying on, both of which Fedora would take issue with: we think a solid majority of users will be able to use the Shell with free drivers. The article also admits in its first page that both GNOME 3 and Unity implement perfectly decent non-accelerated fallbacks for unsupported hardware, but from then on, seems to ignore this fact for the sake of apparently strengthening its argument; it uses lots of phrases which imply that those who don't have compositing support are left high and dry, which isn't at all true in either case.
88 • @83 (by Adam Williamson on 2011-05-26 00:59:35 GMT from Canada)
The rc1 refers to the kernel, not Fedora. That kernel is based on the upstream 2.6.38.6rc1 build. (In the event, 2.6.38rc1 became 2.6.38 with no changes). Such is the pace of development that there's already an official kernel update to 2.6.38.6-27: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/kernel-2.6.38.6-27.fc15
but yes, in general, uname output doesn't tell you anything about the version of a distribution you're using. /etc/system-release (or /etc/redhat-release or /etc/debian-release or something) should tell you that, but it won't tell you if you're using a release candidate of Fedora, because the whole point of a release candidate is lost if you make it look different from a release...if you do that, there's no way it can actually *be* the release :)
cards that can run shell, best I can make it:
Intel - i9xx and higher. i8xx is known to sort-of-work but have major issues if you forcibly override the blacklist.
Radeon - r300 and higher, that's Radeon 9500 and higher. r200 and r100 are the same story as i8xx: they have major rendering problems that can't be fixed, and are blacklisted by the gnome-session-is-accelerated check.
NVIDIA - GeForce (or possibly GeForce 2) up to GeForce 300 series. The Fermi cards (400 and 500 series, the most recent GeForces) don't have redistributable firmware quite yet (though it's coming as I speak), I believe if you use some tool to extract firmware from their Windows driver it can be made to work, but I have no experience with that. There's a bit more info in https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=679538 and probably more at Phoronix.
All this is _in general_; there will of course be individual cards within the 'supported' range which don't work due to some driver bug or another.
89 • @88 (by Adam Williamson on 2011-05-26 01:00:18 GMT from Canada)
Whoops, this bit:
That kernel is based on the upstream 2.6.38.6rc1 build. (In the event, 2.6.38rc1 became 2.6.38 with no changes).
should read:
That kernel is based on the upstream 2.6.38.6rc1 build. (In the event, 2.6.38.6rc1 became 2.6.38.6 with no changes).
90 • @85 (by Adam Williamson on 2011-05-26 01:03:12 GMT from Canada)
The measured minimum is around 560-580MB, we're quoting 640MB to be safe. The reason the requirement is substantially increased in F15 is that the previously separate stage1 and stage2 of anaconda were merged in F15 to make things simpler and more robust, but this came with a cost because it means the entire initramfs - which is several hundred MB on its own - has to be loaded into memory throughout install.
This is a temporary situation for F15, the anaconda team is already working on plans to mitigate the requirement but those changes were too significant to include into F15 without destabilising it. Chris Lumens from the anaconda team has an interesting blog post on this work at http://www.bangmoney.org/serendipity/index.php?/archives/165-This-Week-in-Anaconda-11.html .
91 • #84: Lesser known distros (by Caitlyn Martin on 2011-05-26 01:34:10 GMT from United States)
"Anyone tried any of the lesser known distros announced here at Distrowatch that have been released over the last 3 weeks? "
Yes, I'm running SalixOS 13.37 and preparing to write a review. I ran into installation issues on both systems I've tried so far. Once the problems were sorted everything worked well. Typical Slackware: installation and configuration takes more effort than distros trying to be user friendly but once it's sorted it's worth the effort. Those with older or limited resource systems will like the performance of SalixOS quite a lot.
More details soon... watch this space :)
92 • Fedora 15, Ubuntu and Gnome 3 (by Edwin on 2011-05-26 03:33:26 GMT from United States)
Thanks to a lesser known distro, rather a one just added to the waiting list in the last DWW, I could get Gnome 3 installed in Ubuntu 11.04 and it works. I had wanted to try Gnome 3 and Unity. I had tried Meego, which was quite fun to use, but not very good at doing things that other distros do automatically. I wish Meego good luck to get into the desktop/laptop area.
I had tried Gnome 3 in OpenSuse too, but that distro is quite buggy, so Fedora 15beta was doing a nice job. Then came Ubuntu 11.04 with its Unity, but as I had found that Gnome 3 is much better to work with, I was hoping to install Gnome 3 in Ubuntu. I could thanks to the waiting list of DWW!
I waited for Fedora 15 and installed it. It installed without a single problem in to my Acer laptop. Ubuntu 11.04 gave me a little problem in installing, but it was just a small problem. As I like Gnome 3 and I intend to use it, none of the other distros would give me any feeling to try them, if they won't have Gnome 3. All the other DEs remind me of some Windoz, and E17 looks too childish. KDE is out of question because of the "k" in front and looks like a copy of Vista.
Neither Windoz and Mac had come this far as Gnome 3. Mark Shuttleworth risked with Unity, but it is not that responsive as Gnome 3. I shall be awaiting Gnome 4 in the near future and wish the Gnome 3 devs all the luck! Thanks guys at Gnome 3!
93 • re 86 (by Geekboula on 2011-05-26 04:17:17 GMT from Canada)
I actually encountered a few problems with Debian squeeze. especially the level of wireless cards in my test. But I'm not a Debian user. I prefer Sabayon who also is strength and weakness is. But overall qualities and with the addition of a rolling release that is my main system.
I use Mandriva on my netbook that runs flawlessly for a long time. No problems with wireless and graphics driver.
Other systems I installed on my PC that I use regularly are LinuxMint 10, PC-BSD 8.2, Pardus 2011, they all work perfectly and flawlessly. VectorLinux is straight as a bar, complete with tools fast. PC-LinuxOs is also excellent!
They are full out of the box that you want more!
Debian and let go your way! Debian is not an end in itself. There was something else.
94 • Even Debian has Bugs (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-05-26 07:43:21 GMT from Spain)
imnotrich wrote:
--------------------------------------------
Here's the deal, every Linux distro will have bugs. Debian Squeeze, for example, did a lot of things right but it's still (in my experience) one of the buggiest Debian releases in a long time.
Update manager is broken. Wine is broken. Wifi support is...lacking but I eventually got it working on my lappy.
[...]
Many of the programs I enjoyed from previous versions of Debian no longer work. I appreciate the complexity and size of the task faced by package maintainers but if the package won't install, or won't run flawlessly DON'T PUT IT IN THE MAIN REPOS! You'd think that's a no brainer, 'specially for a distro which claims to be #1 stable to the point of boring.
Well I'm good with stable, if it's truly stable and supports a wide variety of hardware. But I got to claim "false advertising" where it came to Squeeze "Stable." It's not.
--------------------------------------------
Yes, its somehow true. Squeeze was a premature release, caused by a premature freeze. Lenny lasted for a little more than a year. Debian devs should have given it the two year cicle, and take advantege of the time to purge Squeeze's bugs in the meanwhile, so there would be not so many when the freeze was declared.
But no, it seems it was cooler to freeze Squeeze even with 700 critical bugs or so, then expect to fix them all in 6 months. This seems to me a very "Ubuntu" way, which is not bad when you are not expecting the release to be solid as a Titanium-Nitro-Carbridge block.
And it is worse than that. The developers where in a rush, so they started tagging some critical bugs as "Ignore" instead of fixing them, just to set the Release Critical bugs to zero sooner. Worse yet, I have seen some very dangerous bugs tagged as "Fixed" only because upstream did mend them, BUT DEBIAN DOES NOT INCLUDE A FIX FOR THEM, NOR ARE PLANNIG TO DO IN THE NEAR FUTURE!. Can someone see logic in this?
imnotrich said: " DON'T PUT IT (broken software) IN THE MAIN REPOS!". I agree. If I liked danger, I would use Debian Sid. If you want to speed releases up and you don't have time enough to fix bugs, just take the whole app from the distro until fixed.
Debian Lenny was far more solid. I would still use if it wasn't for some hardware issues Squeeze fixes.
That said, even Squeeze beats most other "Stable" dsitributions' solidity. As I use LXDE, which has less apps with can fail, most of what I have only enconuntered are minor bugs. Yet, they are annoying.
95 • re #88 Fedora 15 kernel & Gnome 3 video requirements (by gnomic on 2011-05-26 08:17:25 GMT from New Zealand)
Thanks for clarifying how rc1 came to be in the kernel version - not something one often sees, as an end user at any rate.Now I come to think about it maybe I have come across this once or twice before, but didn't realise it referred to the kernel as candidate. A little bit of a d'oh! moment. I used to cat /etc/version but for some reason this seems to have vanished these days.
Thanks also for the guidelines as to what video cards are likely to support Gnome 3. I'll try the live CD on another ThinkPad with a somewhat more respectable Intel video chip, and a Dell with an ATI card. Was meaning to try and get to grips with Gnome 3 using Fedora, have only dabbled with a pre-release based on SUSE so far.
96 • Fedora 15 (by Edwin on 2011-05-26 09:20:36 GMT from United States)
Gnomic, you must have downloaded the wrong iso. The one I downloaded was Fedora-15-i686-Live-Desktop.iso
97 • Fedora and Gnome 3 (by michael King on 2011-05-26 10:16:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
Running Fedora 15 with Gnome 3 seems intuitive, simple, stable, I always play with fedora each release to see some of those bleeding edge features but this one is different. I feel I can use this day to day after just an hour of using it.... Ubuntu and Unity after a week irritated the hell out of me and had to switch to classic mode.
Fedora 15 also informed me from booting up on the live disk that i had some bad sectors on my hard drive (old windows partition) and that I should back up my data and replace my drive... impressed.!
98 • Linux Mint Katya (by Edwin on 2011-05-26 13:20:54 GMT from United States)
Linux Mint Katya had been released, but it looks like an old fashioned distro with its Gnome 2. It is based on Ubuntu, so it should look and work in a more modern way. I have had Mint many times, but at the end I had uninstalled it and kept the 'normal' Ubuntu.
There is something missing in Linux Mint...Its also become too large and this extra 167MBs is not needed! A waste of a DVDR
If it doesn't want Unity, it could go with Gnome 3.
99 • Gnome 3 (by Antony on 2011-05-26 15:22:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
I was skeptical of Gnome 3. Having actually used it for several days, I think it is pretty darn useable. I think it is probably underestimated and dismissed too easily (as I did, before even using it).
Have been using Linux for quite a while, and have mainly preferred to use KDE (> 90% of the time I guess). Have used others, but apart from KDE I have only used Gnome or xfce for extended periods.
I have recently been torn between KDE and Gnome (2). I like, and dislike, elements of both. I really dismissed Gnome 3 as not even worth trying. I think it would be a real shame for others to dismiss Gnome 3 as useless without giving it a fair trial.
Btw, using Gnome 3 with f15. A very nice combination. Fedora, also, seems to automatically put a lot of people off. I have not had any disastrous experiences whenever I have used it. I have not used a nicer multi-lib distro either.
100 • @95 (by Adam Williamson on 2011-05-26 16:59:25 GMT from Canada)
One more note on Intel: cards in the i915 to i945 range will only work up to a maximum horizontal or vertical resolution of 2048 pixels, due to hardware limitations - they can't actually do compositing if the screen size gets bigger than 2048 in either direction. So if you put two 1680x1050 monitors next to each other, it won't work.
101 • suse linux 11.4 (by john walker on 2011-05-26 17:31:12 GMT from United Kingdom)
when i installed the latest suse linux it would not go to the desktop all i got was a fuzzy screen is it due to nividia drives can anyone help thanks john walker
102 • Is that Gnome 3 then? (by mikkh on 2011-05-26 19:56:03 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just downloaded and installed Fedora 15 - all I can say is YUK, what a patronising and idiot proof pile of garbage that is, horrible !
I've already stopped using KDE because of the still buggy KDE 4 version and if that's Gnome 3, they can keep it
Luckily XFCE goes from strength to strength and LXDE is maturing nicely too
103 • @101: It is Nouveau (by cba on 2011-05-26 20:12:13 GMT from Germany)
Please type "nomodeset" at the boot prompt:
http://en.opensuse.org/File:Nomodeset-example.jpg
The system will then use the nv driver. After this, it is possible to install the non-free nividia driver via a yast repo if you need 3D functionality. In this case, nouveau will be automatically blacklisted by yast.
See also
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Configuring_graphics_cards
and
http://forums.opensuse.org/information-new-users/advanced-how-faq-read-only/438705-opensuse-graphic-card-practical-theory-guide-users.html
104 • @66: (by cba on 2011-05-26 20:31:59 GMT from Germany)
I am still using a slightly modified Suse 7.3 with Kernel 2.2.19 and KDE 1.1.2 on my old notebook (200MHz PI, 64MB RAM). This machine is my little "typewriter", without an internet connection, of course.
Sometimes you cannot upgrade. :-)
105 • #69: CentOS (by Caitlyn Martin on 2011-05-26 21:52:06 GMT from United States)
The questions you ask are fair ones. I have no clue why the delay in releasing CentOS 5.6 is supposed to have been somehow responsible for three months with no patches to 5.5. Scientific Linux has taken even longer to get 5.6 out and they have had a steady stream of patches and updates without a break. To me the one and only thing that makes CentOS pretty much unacceptable in the server room are the intermittent and sometimes long gaps in their release of security patches.
Are their issues solved? I don't think they can be so long as it remains a very small (basically two man) volunteer development team. That's fine for a hobby distro, not for the enterprise. I continue to recommend Scientific Linux over CentOS if you need a free Red Hat clone.
106 • re #100 running Gnome 3 (by gnomic on 2011-05-26 22:06:36 GMT from New Zealand)
Hi and thanks for further details about X on Intel - the restriction on maximum screen resolution not a worry here as I don't have a stack of widescreens to hand . . . . Can report however that this message comes from a ThinkPad Z60m and the F15 live CD with Gnome 3 (Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 03). Starting to get the hang of this Gnome 3 thang now, maybe I'll read the manual soon.
107 • = Fedora 15 and Mint 11 Distros lack of common GRUB loader is a problem = (by Jeffersonian on 2011-05-26 23:03:12 GMT from United States)
Hello:
I am quite please to see the almost simultaneous release of two great distros:
-- Fedora-15 and Mint-11 --
On the other hand I less pleased to see that they still use incompatible GRUB loader:
Grub 1 for FC15, and Grub 2 for Mint-11.
This create an unpleasant problem with updates:
Grub 1/Fedora15 will try to update /boot/grub/grub.conf (soft linked to menu.lst)
Grub 2/Mint-11 will try to update /boot/grub/grub.cfg
== And of course their format is incompatible ==
It would be quite nice if Fedora could provide GRUB2 support. As an option.
Or if Mint could provide GRUB1 support. As an option.
Also, in my view, a well behaved Distro would provide vmlinuz and initrd (etc...) files on /boot, with an unambiguous name like initrd.img-2.6.35-27-fc15-x64.
This would allow multi-boot systems a smoother ride.
Thanks for the attention.
J. May 26-2011
108 • GRUB (by Jesse on 2011-05-26 23:44:48 GMT from Canada)
>> "Or if Mint could provide GRUB1 support. As an option."
While Mint doesn't include GRUB Legacy in the default install, it is available in the repositories.
109 • @107 (by TobiSGD on 2011-05-27 01:10:05 GMT from Germany)
I don't see the point in installing two bootloaders. Install it only on one distro, it will pick up the other distro's kernel/initrd automatically.
110 • Fedora 15 DVD (by OnoSendai58 on 2011-05-27 03:08:59 GMT from United States)
Just downloaded and installed it and everything went perfectly. All hardware and wifi identified. Gnome 3 looked great, seemed easier than Unity, although I downloaded KDE because I didn`t feel like playing with Gnome 3 at the moment. KDE came with a stunning and original wallpaper, Compiz worked like a champ and it`s all superfast. Installed RPMFusion and I`m set. Way to go, Fedora team!
111 • Fedora File Transfers (by Chris H on 2011-05-27 04:02:08 GMT from United States)
Fedora has joined my collection of useful distributions.
I can now move my picture files between Fedora and my other distros: Suse and various Debians.
I created a user with GID and UID of 1000 and deleted my user with Fedora's GID and UID of 500. Problem solved.
Thank you Adam Williamson, # 79 and Stan # 82.
Chris H.
112 • Fedora 15 No-go (by tdockery97 on 2011-05-27 07:18:54 GMT from United States)
Well, I wanted to give Fedora 15 a fair trial, but apparently the kernel version doesn't agree with my hardware. When booting and when trying to do anything once booted, the system constantly stops and will contine only if I hit a key like shift, control, or ALT. I had the same problem with Parted Magic. My hardware worked completely with both older and newer kernels than the new Fedora 15 final. It means I can't even run it well enough to downgrade/install another kernel. Oh well, maybe Fedora 16 will play nice.
113 • Fedora + Nvidia (by Brandon Sniadajewski on 2011-05-27 11:55:11 GMT from United States)
I would like to try out Fedora 15, but I don't know if ther still is a problem with Nvidia drivers (both nouveau and nvidia). I have tried 12 through 14 but X always froze after a while of use with said drivers.
114 • @111 (by Adam Williamson on 2011-05-27 18:17:04 GMT from Canada)
No problem, glad that sorted out your issue!
115 • more broken packages Debian (by imnotrich on 2011-05-27 21:35:00 GMT from Mexico)
To the list add K3b. IMHO the best cd/dvd and iso burning program available. Fails to run as regular user in Squeeze. Segmentation fault error. You can try running as root, but that creates a whole new set of problems.
I think I mentioned this before but in Squeeze, the applications menus don't work either - installs of all variety usually do not create new icons-you have to do it manually. But when you go into "edit menus" that only works some of the time. What's up with that? A very basic feature one might think.
PCManFM by the way is the only file manager that worked for me in Squeeze when I was trying to set default applications by extension. The "regular" way by right clicking did not work, and editing text files failed as well. Only PCManFM was able to figure it out.
Broken packages can happen to even the best distros...reference Puppy 4.3.1 and the xfprot anti-virus scrum. When 4.3.1 was originally released, the xfprot packages worked great. But something changed at the repos since and now xfprot refuses to run. Says it's not able to determine it's own version. Huh?
Puppy was one of my favorites when I needed to rescue data for clients, or scan their systems for viruses and such.
In my personal life I'm a bit of a distro hopper, but for my computers where I actually do WORK instead of play/goof off/experiment, I've always used Puppy, Debian or Ubuntu (pre 9.04). I know everyone has their own preferences and that's cool but nowadays I don't have time to distrohop and most of the formerly old reliable stand-bys (puppy, debian, ubuntu) are unsuitable for getting actual work done.
Is it too much to ask for a distro that does audio, video, print, scan, the internet, wifi and other BASIC tasks?
"Just works" is a myth.
116 • @155 (k3b fails to run as regular user in Squeeze) (by Rick Moen on 2011-05-27 22:41:16 GMT from United States)
imnotrich, add yourself to the 'cdrom' group.
$ gpasswd -a $YOURLOGIN cdrom
Can't help you with 'the application menus', as that sounds like a GNOME or KDE thing, which I don't do if I can avoid them.. (Ditto 'right clicking doesn't work in file managers', as yr. humble servant prefers bash, find, xargs, etc.)
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
117 • #116 (by imnotrich on 2011-05-27 22:55:32 GMT from Mexico)
Thanks for the suggestion, but I was already a member of the cdrom group.
Apparently Squeeze has issues with cd and iso burning beyond k3b. Tried Brasero to burn a 128mb puppy iso. The program runs, says it's burning, says it's done and to eject the cd manually because it cannot. But for some reason the cd drive is locked shut and pressing the button on the cd drive does nothing.
After closing out Brasero, something still has the cd drive locked tight so I tried to reboot. Instead of taking me back to grub, reboot took me back to Debian, but I was able to remove the cd. Rebooting again and got the grub menu so I could choose windows.
In the meantime, turns out that cd I burned? It's still blank!
I'm not a huge fan of the command line because I can point & click faster than type. But those text-only distros are starting to look really attractive.
118 • Fedora 15 - boots on a Dell - but suspend problems alas (by gnomic on 2011-05-27 23:26:47 GMT from New Zealand)
The F15 Gnome live CD boots on a Dell Latitude 610 laptop with ATI X300 video.
On the less good news front, when I closed the lid on a ThinkPad Z60m in a live session with default setting to suspend, the lid opened to blackness. No attempt to resume followed by a crash or freeze, just blackness. No response from trying to switch to a console, kill X, etc. Hmmm, perhaps a case of THIS SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN? POwer cycle required.
On the Dell 610 closing the lid resulted in an apparent good resume. However in the interest of testing to destruction I then tried suspend from the menu of options on upper RHS. On resume with power button the gui had substantially died, no panel or whatever it's called now. A terminal window was still on screen but with no window borders or title bar. No response to input at the prompt although oddly enough the menus were still responding to mouse clicks. Eventually had to power cycle.
Alas, is my dream of one day encountering a live Linux CD that can sleep a laptop, a futile one? The ThinkPad has 1.5G of swap, the Dell a blank disk. About the only distro I have found that would perform the sleep miracle reliably was a Puppy (Quirky I think) with a 2.6.30.5 kernel. That was live in RAM however.
By the way, how does one start Fedora in RAM? Don't see a startup option for that.
119 • PCmanFM and burnig CDs in Squeeze (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-05-28 09:20:44 GMT from Spain)
imnotrich wrote he has problems burning CDs.
He's not the only one. I'm lucky enough to be a command line kind of guy, and command line tools use to be the most reliable."wodim" is not beutiful, but it works for me very well. No graphical tool has ruined any of my CDs, since I don't use GUIs.
imnotrich wrote he had lots of issues with PCmanFM. I write now he has been lucky. Let me tell you a story:
On 19-9-2010(Squeeze is still in Testing), a bug is reported against PCmanFM 9.7 (in Squeeze). It is numbered as #593607, and refers to buggy deletion of files in many failed move operations.
On 30-9-2010, this bug is tagged as fixed-upstream, since PCmanFM 9.8 fixes the bug.
On 06-12-2010, Mr. Andrew Lee asks the developing team to update PCmanFM 9.7 to 9.8, thus fixing the bug for Squeeze. Mr. Mehdi Dogguy delcares that upgrading its not possible, because Squeeze is in a freeze stage.
On 28-12-2010, Mr. Julien Cristau asks PCmanFM 9.7 to be removed from Squeeze, thus avoiding this critical bug. Proposal is dismised.
Squeeze is released as Stable. PCmanFM's bug number #593607 is "fixed", but the defective software is in fact in the main repositories.
About two weeks after Debian 6 being released, PCmanFM bug number #593067 destroys over 1500 files in my computer. Recovery through forensic tools brings back about 90% of them (if I hadn't a backup of everithing, i would have lost 10% of my data). I tell myself: "Nah, it was just bad luck. Surely, developers will fix this as soon as I tell them". Then, I discover this bug was well known, and they let it pass into Stable without doing nothign about it!
Conclussion: every guy out there who still uses PCmanFM 9.7 should consider dropping it and using Xfe or ROX-filler. However, the damage is done. After this episode, my faith in Debian's quality control has greatly decreased.
120 • Correction (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-05-28 11:52:52 GMT from Spain)
When I said imnotrich had lots of issues with PCmanFM, I meant "with file managers".
121 • Laptops w/ Linux or No OS option (by Barnabyh on 2011-05-28 12:00:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
The question of where to purchase a laptop without the Big Ballmer OS comes up time and again. For those who are interested, I found this company https://www.zombieprocessus.com/gaming-laptops.php . Not necessarily only for gaming. One of the four models they are offering also has the nice option of a 128 GB SSD, but not cheap!
They can all be ordered with Ubuntu (doesn't say which one) or without OS, and it's easy to do, not hidden away like with Dell.
I've got nothing to do with this company, just letting you guys know.
Cheerio-
Barnaby
122 • Not Cheap... (by OnoSendai58 on 2011-05-28 12:33:04 GMT from United States)
@121 These are the operative words right here. Why pay a lot of money extra when you just buy a regular lappy and replace Windows, or at least dual-boot?
123 • Computer without OS (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-05-28 12:49:04 GMT from Spain)
OnoSendai58 wrote:
--------------------
Why pay a lot of money extra when you just buy a regular lappy and replace Windows [...]
--------------------
Because Microsoft does earn over 80$ of every computer sold with Windows on it.
Most vendors who sell Linux or No-OS computers are a bunch of betrayers. They just take regular lappys (Asus, HP, etc), format them and sell them to you, charging you the price of the Windows license anyway.
Who wants to scape form Microfoft monopoly should look for a Zareason, Novatech or Ahtec computer. Building a new computer from spare components is posible to. If you want to save money, it is always feasible to buy a second hand computer, which will no pay the Windows tax.
124 • Not cheap, @122 (by Barnabyh on 2011-05-28 13:00:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
Well, the not cheap was actually referring to the SSD option which will set you back an extra 226,- Euro.
These machines are not that much more expensive than an ASUS or Acer lappy, and you get to customise them. Many people here on DW would prefer not to pay the tax and count towards sales of that OS. If choosing Ubuntu or no OS you're 40 Euro better off. Seems to be in line with what we usually hear stated as the cost of a preinstalled license, which is $50.
Nice weekend everybody-
Barnaby
125 • Not cheap (by fernabp on 2011-05-29 00:12:04 GMT from Portugal)
Hey, why was my post deleted?
Was that because i said i assemble my own computers from parts?
126 • clarification re pcman fm and misc. squeeze annoyances (by imnotrich on 2011-05-29 20:36:31 GMT from Mexico)
Actually (knock on wood) I have not had troubles with PCMan fm yet. It works better than the "normal" file manager that shipped with Squeeze, which has many bugs.
Today's annoyance - trying to get wifi running faster than 33k. I've had modems that were faster.
It's a Realtek 8185, and I'm running g with wpa2 personal tkip+aes. There is no firmware blob for this common card in the repos, and during the install there was no message about a missing blob either. Getting Squeeze to run wireless was a huge chore, until I figured out that if I at any point plug in my wired card it disables wireless until a reboot. WICD failed due to multiple errors. The network manager which came with Debian kept asking for my password even though it was already set up in that wireless profile.
Sometimes wireless will connect automatically after a power up. Sometimes not. Wireless will disconnect during power management events and won't reconnect until a reboot-or occasionally, several reboots.
I could learn to live with the erratic wireless connection if it ran at normal speed. I reboot this same laptop into windows and get 4-8mb downloads (max for my isp). Running Debian? 28k-120k, basically dial up speeds. Why?
I don't find any blobs for my video card either, it's a common ati radeon mobile 200M. Video seems to be ok, now that I disabled a bunch of nouveau garbage but I want the correct driver, not one that is not entirely functional but "close enough" according to debian developers.
Another annoyance: I get no warnings from my laptop when the battery is near death, and when it does shut down due to being dead - it does so abruptly. Not particularly good for my hard drive...and I'm concerned that it has already caused some damage to the hdd.
Touchpad - the "default" for laptop apparently is to ignore taps (mouse clicks) on the touchpad. Don't most laptops have touchpads? Why would it only partially work as a default setting? Fortunately, this can be changed easily. But very weird. It speaks to how little thought the developers put into some aspects of this release.
I'm not a Debian basher, I love Debian and have been using it for many many years even with all it's imperfections. But not so long ago in this venue I got a tongue lashing from someone who claimed "debian always works perfectly with no tinkering or adjustments (and I see it now and then since) people try to say, "oh Debian works perfectly" or "it must be operator error."
Well, over the years I've installed many different versions of Debian on many different machines and it has never "just worked." Always something broken. In case of Squeeze a lot of things broken.
Anyone who says Debian "just works" is fibbing.
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| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1033 (2023-08-21): MiniOS 20230606, system user accounts, how Red Hat clones are moving forward, Haiku improves WINE performance, Debian turns 30 |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
SLAMPP Live
SLAMPP was a Linux distribution which can boot and run directly from a DVD, with possibility to be installed onto hard disk. It was designed to be used as an instant home server. Just like other Linux live DVDs, SLAMPP makes it possible to test Linux without messing up the user's existing system. What makes SLAMPP different was the fact that it comes with pre-configured tools and applications that turn a personal computer into a home server. SLAMPP was built using Zenwalk Linux as its base and Slackware Linux for packages.
Status: Discontinued
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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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