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1 • Restricting commands to specific users (by Béranger on 2011-06-06 09:18:23 GMT from Romania)
I thought the right answer (not SELinux/RedHat-specific) was ConsoleKit/PolicyKit.
2 • Zorin OS 5 32 bit from Zorin OS 5 RC (by Roy H Huddleston on 2011-06-06 09:27:03 GMT from United States)
Nvidia graphics driver works better. Google Chrome is pinned down. It is a wonderful operating system. :)
3 • pekwm (by bronson on 2011-06-06 09:38:25 GMT from Australia)
nice to see a distro featuring the pekwm desktop.
4 • Slackware (by RobertD on 2011-06-06 09:42:45 GMT from United States)
The possible removal of KDE from the official release of Slackware comes as a surprise to me. It seems Eric Hameleers has decided not to build packages for the time being.
Being a user of Slackware this does not bother me in the slightest as long as there is a mechanism to get it installed painlessly. Something like slacke17 comes to mind but I would not be opposed to building it from source either.
RobertD
5 • Slackware & KDE (by mjjzf on 2011-06-06 11:03:10 GMT from Denmark)
Interesting suggestion that it might actually be a consideration to remove KDE from Slackware. As an Xfce user it would only make the difference that it would slim down the installers (make room for LibreOffice, perchance?), but I do get the impression a lot of Slackware users still find KDE usable.
6 • Slackware drops KDE (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-06-06 11:10:21 GMT from Spain)
First of all: KDE is still being an official Slackware desktop. Thet are considering dropping it, but haven't done it... yet.
It is not a surprise at all. The increasing complexity of KDE, the rising of udisk and other facts have been around for a long time. I remember Eric saying two years ago that big desktops were becoming very hard to mantain. This, added to the fact the same desktops bring no good improvenments as a trade off, is what has made many users (and now, distros) to get rid of KDE and Gnome.
They are no good news, but I always say that a project should no try to mantain something if it is a hindrance, or there are no resources enough. I am sorry for KDE users, but (I am going to be damn selfish here) KDE is big, complex, and slow. If they take it away, then good rid of it. If every distro droped software because its low quality, compexity or lack of fitness for a purpose, then we would have better mainstream software.
I wonder what would take KDE's place. LXDE would seem a good option, but PCmanfm needs some gnome components or udisk for volume management, so I guess Slacware's team is not going to like the idea. ROX-Desktop is surely out of the question. XFCE is nice, but I think is unwise to ship only a desktop environment. Slackware comes with tons of Window Managers (I use Fluxbox in Slack), but I understand some people needs a full-featured desktop.
I hope someone gathers an unofficial team and continues KDE support for Slacware if it is taken out of the official release.
7 • Gnome 3 in Fedora and Ubuntu Unity (by rich52 on 2011-06-06 11:49:30 GMT from United States)
I've tried both distro's and have come to the same conclusions about Gnome 3 and Fedora as in the article above. Biggest dislike was the fact that 3D with ATI video showed the program panel at the top of the screen as a inconsistent rainbow blur of color not a solid black as it should be. I'm no longing using Gnome. Especially 3.0.
Unity worked a little better and my hopes are that 3D video will be in cooperated much more. I've got the 2D version on a laptop with crappy Intel graphic chipset. No loss there. But on a Desktop Computer and a Descent video card I want to see and use much more because of the card. It took is lacking a lot of good features and doesnt' seem to give me the advertised better results on my 23 desktop screen. For now I'll wait and see on them.
I'm running Kubuntu 11.04 with 4.6.3 KDE and loving it because it hasn't yet been destroyed or re-invented. It works very well and now meets my needs.
Rich
8 • Slackware and Kde (by Rudolf Steiner on 2011-06-06 11:53:36 GMT from United States)
I think slackware should take more of the OpenBSD approach and ship with only a minimal selection of DE's. This could free up room on the disk but more importantly not install so many dependencies by default.
Of course there are many derivatives that satisfy this need currently.
RS
9 • RE: Desktops and such. (by Eddie on 2011-06-06 12:12:18 GMT from United States)
So much change is taking place and it's happening so fast. Some change is needed in order to stay ahead of the game but it can come at some price. For example we have Unity, Gnome3, the ever changing world of KDE, Xfce, and several other different menu layouts and desktops and they all seem to work a different way. I've been using Unity, or let's just say trying to use it, and I've had several good comments from people who say that they really like it. But I have found myself logging into the Gnome classic system more and more lately. I'm sure that won't last long tho because I won't have the option. People say to try another distro but that really is no solution to the problem. Every mainstream distro will have to go through some change in order to stay usable. Even Slackware. The changes don't affect those of us who have been using Linux for many a years because we can take care of ourselves. The new ones it will hurt somewhat. Distros like Mint will have to come to a decision on what to do. Even tho popular they are not big enough at this time to be self sufficient. What this has taught me is that while change can be exciting it can also be dangerous. Then again, new ones who try some Linux distro for the first time don't know anything else, so it may work for them.:)
10 • Fedora 15 (by Bill Julian on 2011-06-06 12:26:42 GMT from United States)
Good review by Jesse Smith. I ran Fed15 for approx one week. Very smooth installation. Gnome3 OK if a person agrees with the "do it our way" design philosophy. Forum has a suggestion for putting Max/Min buttons back on upper right of windows.
I did not have the software update problem when I ran the system. That all seemed to work smoothy.
Installing Nvidia driver was a nuisance. I could not get the "how to" on the forum to work for me. Meanwhile nouveau driver does not permit proper power management, which is a large problem for those of us on laptops.
I suspect Gnome3 is going to be smoothed out quickly and then it becomes each user's decision as to how they like it. Suffice it to say I just finished installing Arch with Xfce.
Bigger problem, it seems to me, is with video cards. FOSS drivers that do not allow power management are not satisfactory.
11 • ZorinOS 5 (by ceti on 2011-06-06 12:27:45 GMT from Brazil)
Just took notice of this distro. It's great, much better than Mint. The artwork is superb, Compiz works out-of-the-box, the general look is professional. A pleasant surprise. The next big thing?
12 • gnome3 shell (by mandog on 2011-06-06 12:39:29 GMT from United Kingdom)
I've used gnome shell since it updated in Arch Linux and although my 1st impression was not favorable it has now changed it is now customizable I have most of the functionality I need back window switcher yes, 3 buttons yes, Alt menu yes, Gnome dock yes, switchable user shells yes.Icons on desktop drop files yes if you want clutter, Nautilus compact yes if that way inclined, Show all running apps on desktop yes press ALT, Desktop switcher in top panel yes, open/close/eject removable devices on top panel yes, Nautilus as desktop yes, gnome printer manager finds printer and sets it up in a couple of clicks. My USB microphone headset is now plug and play that a Linux 1st for me. All this is vanilla gnome3 and in 14 days imagine the function-ability in 6/12 months unlike KDE its still got a lot of work in progress 2 year on but now starting to shine.
13 • @ 10 • Fedora 15 (by flip23 on 2011-06-06 12:51:14 GMT from United States)
Try EasyLife for Fedora I am not sure they are up to the 15 release but i think it is it will instal nvidia flash and most other things you need with one click. Just checked they do have a 15 version.
14 • @ 10 • Fedora 15 (by flip23 on 2011-06-06 12:55:23 GMT from United States)
By the way you will have to do a search for it easy life is not on the Fedora website.
15 • Mint Debian (by Jaan Sass on 2011-06-06 13:23:35 GMT from United States)
I loaded LDME and I am definitely amazed a rolling distribution with drivers and codecs that just work no need for extreme hunting. the only issue that I have found ( it includes all the newer distros that I have tried) is my Celeron 64bit chip and embedded intel graphics card seem to be unable to run the latest linux kernel. the easy fix was to remove the new kernel in favor the older current one. Other wise I am impressed with LDME.
16 • @#9: Desktop Changes (by dragonmouth on 2011-06-06 14:06:48 GMT from United States)
"Some change is needed in order to stay ahead of the game"
What game? What IS the game? Sounds like a semantically null marketing term. From where I sit, it looks like Linux developers have gone down the same road as M$ developers - features for features' sake and change for change's sake. Old, useful features are being removed and are being replaced by esoteric ones, and/or eye-candy and glitz. All this "to stay ahead of the game".
17 • KDE & HAL (by Leo on 2011-06-06 14:12:58 GMT from United States)
Wait, the move away from HAL is not a KDE thing, but really a global decision of kernel + freedesktop, right? I don;t see why they blame it on KDE
The repackaging of the source, yes, it is annoying, and KDE seems to be always experimenting. The plasma shell is a beauty, and I run Kubuntu so I obviously like it. But things like Akonadi, Nepomuk, these are all great concepts but they have produced all sorts of weird login errors and what not. I think simpler but slicker, more stable and complete, would be a lit better. Think Android :)
Cheers!
18 • Synergy Linux Website (by JMiahMan on 2011-06-06 14:13:42 GMT from United States)
Right now the Synergy-Linux website is down :( it will be up in the next few hours. Picked an awful time for server maintenance.
19 • What game? (by megadriver on 2011-06-06 14:17:01 GMT from Spain)
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
20 • @ 17 (by JMiahMan on 2011-06-06 14:22:04 GMT from United States)
Yes pretty much everyone is attempting to move away from Hal as it's deprecated. At least with Fedora there were some bumps in the road, some apps like fedora-liveusb still needed HAL but didn't have it as a requires, at least for this application it was fixed with Fedora 15.
Speaking of Fedora 15, I would like to point out really the slowness of the yum frontend is due to the packagekit backend and not yum itself. There's been an interesting development called zif:
https://github.com/hughsie/zif/blob/ed7d89737ebe7978a1570a9ceb83b54152cab3bf/README
Which is kinda a yum replacement written for Packagekit (kinda backwards) however it is not supported by Fedora and caused issues if you still wanted to use yum. It's rather temping though for me doing a respin of fedora.
21 • Ubuntu's "sins" (by sfn on 2011-06-06 14:30:59 GMT from United States)
"Fair or not, Ubuntu reflects on the Linux community as a whole."
The notion that distro X should be held responsible for the wants and needs of people that don't even use it is ludicrous. The argument that this was meant to counter ("why don't you just run another operating system?") is completely on the mark.
If someone is going to bitch about what comes pre-installed on a machine, go whine at Microsoft's door.
22 • kde (by neeraj on 2011-06-06 14:33:15 GMT from India)
given a decent hardware, KDE is simply great...for those saying its slow just try to open a heavy folder with nautilus as well as dolphin, dolphin does the job much faster...check it yourself.
Zorin is nice, however, given the gnomenu is not actively developed by its developer with ubuntu adopting unity, it needs to be seen how the distribution goes for its future release.
23 • KDE should still have a future on Slackware (by otho on 2011-06-06 14:40:22 GMT from United States)
It should be noted that Slackware's BDFL uses KDE and wants it to remain in the distro:
http://slackblogs.blogspot.com/2011/06/kde-future-on-slackware.html
Also of note.. Hameleers (author of the DW source blog) comments on the linked blog stating his support of KDE.
24 • Re: #22 (by Leo on 2011-06-06 14:41:27 GMT from United States)
I agree. KDE is really fast and really responsive. I can't really tell the difference with the light DM's (such as LXDE) in any of my hardware. I am sure there is some, but it must be evident with legacy iron.
25 • @ 22 (by JMiahMan on 2011-06-06 14:44:35 GMT from United States)
KDE is slow running Nepomuk, Akonadi and Stigi. Thought the Moderators on the KDE forum seem to not think so, however Akonadi runs mysqld in the background that alone takes up 30+ Meg running Idle add the Mysql daemon also running in the background Strigi indexing and the 10-15 Meg Nepomuk takes up you have over a 100 Meg taken up at idle and 200+ when something like a Strigi index is going on. It's slow. Don't get me wrong though I Love KDE however I still feel a little force fed with some of these "Features" however I have found ways to turn them off and in fact do for Synergy-Linux by default.
26 • Slackware & KDE (by Johnathan on 2011-06-06 14:47:40 GMT from Canada)
Before we get into a DE war:
Eric's comment was pretty much a signal (some might say threat) to the KDE developers that their code should be easier to package. Eric and Pat V both love _using_ KDE and are happy with the direction of the finished product ... but they find packages hard to maintain now that the sources have been reorganised.
From the messages I saw on the KDE mailing list it looks like the KDE devs were fairly responsive to this, and my prediction is that the world keeps on spinning and Slackware remains a KDE distro.
27 • Re:24 (by Leo on 2011-06-06 14:50:45 GMT from United States)
I should have added that the embedded space is now looking at light environments such as enlightenment, etc. It only makes sense, and it brings new life to all these projects. Nice!
28 • Gnome 3 (by Carl on 2011-06-06 14:55:54 GMT from United States)
I have tried the Gnome 3 GUI and found it very awkward when I tried Fedora 15. I am using Linux Mint 11 now in 64 bit. I downloaded and installed XFCE4 through the software manager. So I am now using Linux Mint 11 with XFCE4 because gnome is very unstable on my laptop. Linux Mint should come out with a 64 bit version of Linux Mint LXDE and make it a high priority to do so. As a matter of fact the Lubuntu developers should make a 64 bit version of Lubuntu. Just imagine the performance you could get out of an AMD dual core laptop with a 64 bit version of Lubuntu. Then while you are running it you can run VMware player or VMware Workstation and run Windows XP 64 bit in the virtual machine without the computer overheating, freezing, crashing or even straining in any way.
29 • MAGEIA (by GodTux on 2011-06-06 15:02:04 GMT from France)
Please do a full on review of Mageia next week !
30 • RE:22 kde & Ultimatums (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-06-06 15:37:44 GMT from Spain)
naaraj wrote:
------------------------------------------------------
given a decent hardware, KDE is simply great...for those saying its slow just try to open a heavy folder with nautilus as well as dolphin, dolphin does the job much faster...check it yourself.
-------------------------------------------------------
No one has said Dolphin was bloated. It has been said that KDE, as a whole, weights too much. I think Gnome is worse. Look, Distrowatch is not a good place for a Desktop War, so we'd better remember that the only movement you need to win is not to play : ^)
Further research has shown that Slackware's Ultimatum was exactly that: an Ultimatum. This is what free software has been lacking all theese years: someone stubborn enough to shout "I am not accepting your chumsy way of doing things! Build something decent, or prepare to be taken out of our major distribution!" Many apps deserve this kind of treatment.
Nort to mean this Ultimatum wasn't a serious threat.
31 • Easy Life (by Scott on 2011-06-06 15:45:16 GMT from United States)
If you go to Fedoraforum.org and click the yellow setup guides link, one of them is to easylife. (Another is to autoplus which is similar)
32 • Fedora / Gnome3 (by Brian on 2011-06-06 15:55:06 GMT from Canada)
I have Fedora 15 running with all major desktops. Aside from a bit of menu clutter, given today's hard-rive sizes, there's really no reason not to try at least a few unless someone is running some old flea market box. While I find Gnome3 a pleasure to use for day-to-day tasks and looks very nice, it is not without problems. Full screen gaming crashed the desktop on Gnome, while KDE had no such problem. KDE can also toggle desktop effects. Bluetooth set-up was impossible on my box from Gnome. Again, set-up from KDE , but still problematic. These are pretty big oversights - we're not talking about running some obscure task here, people game and use Bluetooth every day. No fault of Fedora here, their execution of an incomplete DE is awesome, and installing KDE, LXDE, or XFCE via a much improved package manager is painless.
33 • Beta Releases Much Better Then Final Releases (by LinuXFroG on 2011-06-06 16:38:09 GMT from United States)
I have never been a Fedora fan, until the release of 15 beta. I have to say, it just works. Which I am still using. I have had 0 issues with it, except for the ones I caused myself.
But, something has me perplexed. No matter WHAT distro you choose, why is it that lately, the betas are much better then the final? Are the devs doing this on purpose? Are they losing their touch? Really, I want to know.
Recently I installed Fedora 15 Final and within a few minutes, there were issues. LOTS of issues. Every thing was crashing. Can't keep music playing for any length of time without my music sounding like a fart factory and then crashing.
I am now back on the Beta release of Fedora 15 and will stay there.
~ LF ~
34 • KDE in Slackware (by JK Wood on 2011-06-06 18:05:31 GMT from United States)
I believe that Eric's comments towards KDE accomplished the mission they needed to. I also believe that KDE wants to keep Slackware around, if only for the fact that it's the purest example of the software collection around. When Slackware users find a bug in KDE, there's no question of the packager futzing with the source.
35 • FEDORA latest software but with an lame archaic package manager (by MacLone on 2011-06-06 18:30:21 GMT from Mexico)
I really don't know why FEDORA always use the same lame archaic package manager GUI. If they love to live on the edge with the latest greatest software... why still using this sh...t.. software manager? You can do better than this... you have the manpower but you don't have the will ... why? Even openSUSE made it much better with yast2 GUI, why you don't?
36 • Poor Slackware fans (by MacLone on 2011-06-06 18:34:27 GMT from Mexico)
Stuck with older software because its benevolent permanent leader don't want to look for more help.
37 • P@xtreme Lightweight Linux (by Ralph on 2011-06-06 19:06:11 GMT from United States)
P@xtreme Lightweight Linux looks very nice, and I'd like to use it. I don't suppose there's an English language version...
38 • gnome3 and fedora (by meanpt on 2011-06-06 19:40:29 GMT from Portugal)
I'm a pretty recent linux user, my main distro is the enlightened bodhi and I do like the gnome3 - easy and intuitive. It only lacks a suitable and better onscreen keyboard complying with my chosen country's qwerty keyboard layout. On the other hand I've found some gnomish applications may not work anymore, For instance, onboard isn't displayed. Despite these flaws, anytime I want to use my convertible in tablet mode I switch to fedora 15, where gnome 3 works fine on fingers. It has nothing to do with smartphones, but with touchscreens that have been around before the breed of smartphones and smart tablets. I never opted or considered using fedora, until now.
39 • Fedora 15 (by JR on 2011-06-06 19:53:11 GMT from Poland)
1st thought on Fedora 15 ? Not bad, but why there's no btrfs for / partition ? And Anaconda without NTFS support, but still mantaining weird ReiserFS ?
Great job guys, reeeeeeeeeeeeally good job considering most people in the world use NTFS based partitions.
40 • KDE packages and Slackware (by dialup on 2011-06-06 19:57:23 GMT from United States)
It would be regretable if subdividing packages causes Slackware a serious problem. Otoh, for me it would be a plus to no longer have to install a half-dozen applications I care nothing about to get one must-have. (I never used Gentoo but iirc, they broke at least some of the individual apps out of the KDE packages.)
41 • Gnome Shells (by Mike Thomas on 2011-06-06 20:56:55 GMT from United States)
The 'Gnome 3 shell' and Unity are both shell environments over the Gnome 3.x/GTK+ 3 libraries. Doesn't this imply it would be possible to create a Gnome 2 style shell in lieu of these others? What would such a project entail?
Cheers,
Mike T
42 • Fedora 15 (by arnold on 2011-06-06 20:57:44 GMT from United States)
I can't abide by Gnome 3. However, I installed the KDE live CD and then installed the Gnome apps that I wanted to use. Fedora 15 then works fine.
I have been a Gnome user exclusively since the first Ubuntu. However, again, Unity drove me off. I just needed to find a desktop with the OS for me. I think Fedora 15 may just fit the bill.
43 • Donation to RIP Linux (by Jan on 2011-06-06 21:13:50 GMT from Netherlands)
I agree this donation. RIP is nowadays very active in updating and correcting.
RIP, and a few other bootable CD tools, are really essential for distrohoppers.
You first need to have this tool ready on a CD, before starting to fiddle with a new Linux-distro.
Jan
44 • Mint, Mageia (by fernbap on 2011-06-06 21:26:02 GMT from Portugal)
I know i'm not the typical desktop user, but i keep at least 2 different linuxes on my computer, besides a small XP one just for experimenting.
I always the desktop i use for my work, and a cadidate one i can switch to in order to compare the usability of both. Had Mint 10 and LMDE until i decided for LMDE.
When Squeeze came up, i also installed it,and experimented with lots of stuff. Using it for multimedia, mostly.
Meanwhile, replaced Mint 10 with 11. I didn't take long to realise that 11 is the first Mint release that i will never use, because of its many issues coming from the Ubuntu 11.04 base. Better stick with 10 or even the LTS Mint 9.
Mageia is an interesting project, worthy of support. I was very curious, and decided to replace Mint 11 with Mageia.
Unfortunately, i couldn't give Mageia a chance, because the installer didn't allow me not to install the (grub legacy or lilo) bootloader.
Is that so hard to add an option in the installer NOT to install the bootloader? Sorry, Mageia, that is a no go to me.
45 • As I said late last week... (by Joker's Wild on 2011-06-06 21:55:20 GMT from Canada)
What are these perceived needs to develop a different desktop paradigm like gnome 3? Are people so ADHD these days that they think they need a "fresh new look"™ to keep everyone happy and loyal to their cause. Really, there is only so much you an do with a keyboard, mouse and monitor. Other than the cool effects, the same thing is accomplished…a window is opened on the screen.
What they should really be doing is nothing. Then users would get bored enough that they turn off their computers and go outside and get some fresh air and get a life.
As with most anything, if Gnome 3/Unity/etc. is such a pain, people will seek out an alternative like Xfce or LXDE and development and improvements will increase on those DM's. Hopefully then the Gnome 3 folks willsee the exodus of users and re-engineer their product.
46 • Slackware and the impact of dropping KDE (by Radicoil on 2011-06-06 23:23:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
One thing that no one here has mentioned so far is that KDE is the only desktop environment supplied with Slack that is decently multilingual. So if Slack drops KDE it will become a purely anglophone distro.
47 • @44, Mageia (by Stan on 2011-06-06 23:36:40 GMT from United States)
Just install the bootloader to the partition, not the drive as a whole. Worked perfectly well for me, for the betas at least, and I can't see why they would remove the option in the final version. Then you can chainload even, instead of having to manually update your main GRUB on every kernel update.
48 • @47 (by fernbap on 2011-06-06 23:54:42 GMT from Portugal)
Installed the bootloader in the partition. Grub 2 was unable to boot it, and so i manually edited grub.cfg, to no result as well.
However, if i had the option not to install the bootloader, grub2 would be able to boot it.
Didn't try installing lilo instead of grub legacy, though. Will make that attempt....
49 • @48 (by Stan on 2011-06-07 00:08:39 GMT from United States)
If it helps, here are my GRUB lines for Mageia:
title linux
kernel (hdX,Y)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=(uuid) nokmsboot resume=UUID=(uuid) splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hdX,Y)/boot/initrd.img
Which in GRUB 2 would translate to:
set root=(hdX,Y+1)
linux /boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=(uuid) nokmsboot resume=UUID=(uuid) splash=silent vga=788
initrd /boot/initrd.img
Replace X,Y with your real partition numbers, and (uuid) with the partition's UUID (or simply use /dev/sd* instead). To chainload instead (what I would do), use:
set root=(hdX,Y+1)
chainloader +1
Hope this helps!
50 • Gnome3 and Unity (by bam on 2011-06-07 00:21:35 GMT from United States)
The Linux community is complaining about Unity and Gnome 3. The interface of computing is Unity and Gnome 3. Microsoft is already ripping off Gnome 3 for it's Windows 8 interface.
Heck, they ripped off KDE to implement Win7 start menu. Sure Gnome 3 and Unity have some bugs or getting use too, fact of the matter is Gnome and Ubuntu are ahead of the curve. Read PC magazine and others magazines and you see the point of view I write from.
Gnome and Ubuntu are making user interfaces for the masses.
Bam
51 • Re: 50, Gnome3 and Unity (by Coffee on 2011-06-07 01:36:53 GMT from France)
> The interface of computing is Unity and Gnome 3.
What a silly statement. Thankfully there are a lot more desktop environments than these two. Gnome3 and Unity are in my opinion dumbed down desktops for icon clickers who can't have enough bells and whistles, preferably of the animated 3-d variety. I much prefer simple, more functional and therefore more attractive DEs like Xfce or Lxde.
52 • @29 (by Ron on 2011-06-07 02:57:13 GMT from United States)
""29 • MAGEIA (by GodTux on 2011-06-06 15:02:04 GMT from France)
Please do a full on review of Mageia next week !""
I agree with this. I am using Mageia right now and I really think this is going to be great once they get moving in their own direction. They have done a great job with getting things started. I am impressed.
53 • KDE and Package Management in Fedora (by Pumpino on 2011-06-07 04:08:06 GMT from Australia)
Does anyone else find that while KDE is responsive once it's been up and running for a while, there's an initial delay to launch applications immediately after the desktop has fully loaded? If I click on Dolphin, Konsole or Firefox, for example, there's a significant delay in Fedora and Kubuntu before programs appear. However, in Arch, any of these applications launch instantaneously.
In relation to a graphical package manager in Fedora, yes the default gtk-based offering has always been overly simplistic. However, I actually find KPackageKit to be perfect...not only in Fedora, but in Kubuntu and Arch, too. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the program worked fine in Arch.
54 • re:51 (by bam on 2011-06-07 04:16:00 GMT from United States)
Please read the entire paragraph. Most user ARE icon clickers.
>I much prefer simple, more functional and therefore more attractive DEs like Xfce or Lxde.
You and a few other people will be using Xfce and Lxde.
Gnome 3 and Unity are here to stay! Silly or not!
I Install Ubuntu on my clients desktops, 100 and growing.
Icon clickers like the new interfaces. Commercial distros will have Gnome 3 or Unity, Open Suse. Ubuntu and Fedora. It's here and not going away.
No more complaining about this I/F or that I/F. This needs to be looked at from a business prespective.
55 • @49 (by fernbap on 2011-06-07 05:40:05 GMT from Portugal)
Thanks a lot.
Managed to make it work, it seems it somehow becomes confused with the UUIDS, only managed to make it work by using the device names.
Anyway, it would be VERY simple to add an option to the installer not to install any bootloader, in which case an update-grub would set everything right. Had no problem at all with slackware derived distros like Salix, by simply not installing the bootloader.
Mageia looks good so far, but after installing you have to do several tasks, like removing the DVD as repo and adding the mirrors, if you want to install anything, including multimedia codecs.
56 • Zoryn OS (by Edwin on 2011-06-07 05:43:50 GMT from United States)
Zoryn Os is quite good. It has all the bells and whistles and developed by one person, just as the Crunchbang. It is better than Mint and better than Ubuntu too in responsiveness.
The only problem it will have in the future is when Zoryn has to embrace either Unity or Gnome3, it will lose the bells and whistles of Compiz.
Maybe we have to be ready for the time without Compiz type bells & whistles, and the time is catching up with us very quickly!
57 • @55 (by Stan on 2011-06-07 05:48:48 GMT from United States)
You're welcome!
I agree that there's really no reason to not install any bootloader at all, but the real problem is that, for whatever strange reason, Mandriva/Mageia requires such complicated kernel command-lines in the first place. In most other distros, something as simple as "kernal /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sdXY ro" is enough, perhaps with an initrd, even if it forgoes some fancy features. Not so with Mageia.
58 • Correction to 57 (by Stan on 2011-06-07 05:51:39 GMT from United States)
...there's really no reason to not give the option to forgo installing any bootloader...
59 • Linux Action Show (by DigitalVampire on 2011-06-07 06:32:42 GMT from United States)
I hate that the Linux Action Show was used as a reference in a Fedora review as they are notoriously anti-Fedora (especially the loud one, I forgot his name, but he's always pushing his software project that is supposed to make 'programming' easier for idiots).
60 • Adobe Flash support for 64-bit Linux has disappeared again... (by Caitlyn Martin on 2011-06-07 07:10:59 GMT from United States)
A bit of shameless self-promotion: My latest article for O'Reilly Broadcast on Adobe quietly dropping 64-bit Linux support again: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2011/06/one-year-later-adobe-abandons.html Enjoy!
61 • Unity, Gnome 3 and Ubuntu, also Zoryn (by Edwin on 2011-06-07 12:00:56 GMT from United States)
After sometime having Gnome 3, Unity broke. I had to shutdown and get back to Gnome 3. At the beginning Unity & Gnome 4 worked well.
Later, I downloaded Ubuntu again and installed it to another partition, so I could play with Unity too, but I got so used to Gnome 3, I simply didn't go back to Unity after 2-3 times.
Now, that Zoryn 5 had come in with Gnome 2 and all the bells but no & whistles, there'll be a competition between Gnome 3 & 2. Linux Mint didn't give that competition, but Zoryn 5 would. The other distro that might give a competition would be Macbuntu.
With Ubuntu around, only Fedora could be distro I'd use, and Bodhi, Zenwalk, Archbang, etc in other partitions just idling around, I may simply format those partitions and use them for storage.
It looks like it would be Ubuntu and flavors for me in the near future!
62 • Multilingual Slackware (by mjjzf on 2011-06-07 12:01:52 GMT from Denmark)
As one of the translators of Xfce I would like to say that a lot of work goes into that one, too.
63 • @60 Flash (by JW on 2011-06-07 12:03:02 GMT from Canada)
Since the Chrome browser ships with built-in Flash, does the 64-bit browser version use 32-bit flash technology?
64 • hopping about - some data points (by gnomic on 2011-06-07 13:50:59 GMT from New Zealand)
Some observations whilst hopping to and fro . . . .
zenix was seen to boot on a 600Mhz PIII Compaq laptop with 320MB RAM and function in an adequately responsive fashion under a light load.
Legacy OS 2 also ran on this machine after a few hiccups around video and was capable of running Opera 10.10 on the web via a PCMCIA 3Com ethernet card. Armada E500.
The near invisible paldo distribution has Gnome 3 in its latest releases. In a careless moment I closed the lid of a ThinkPad and was astounded to see that a web browser was still alive and able to switch tabs on some pages saved for reading offline when the laptop resumed. It wasn't all good of course; the rest of the system seemed to be borked (couldn't issue commands in a terminal) and when the screen blanked after inactivity resumption was not found.
And what exactly is up with the power options in this Gnome 3? Where is my Do Nothing?!! And where exactly is the ability to change the look and feel to Aging Gorilla? I need my Aging Gorilla! Bring back 'Appearance' now. That's immediately please. What planet are these devs on?
And finally there was mini Pinguy. This suspended when the battery was near used up on the same ThinkPad Z60m and incredibly resumed and was able to carry on the session without bleating about squashfs errors, whatever they may be. Indeed it is still alive at this moment after a couple of hours. How do they do that? Some other distros should try to find out. So far this seems to be a worthwhile reworking of Ubuntu.
65 • Fedora 15 (by dc on 2011-06-07 18:56:51 GMT from United States)
I have been using Fedora 15 for over a week now and I like it quite a bit. It is now my primary desktop OS. The only real issue I've had with it is that if I have 3 separate X sessions all running Gnome Shell or KDE with desktop effects enabled attempting to suspend will fail and require a hard reboot. If I have 3 sessions all running KDE with desktop effects disabled I haven't had any problems. I prefer KDE 3.6 over Gnome (especially over Gnome Shell) anyway and I don't care about desktop effects, so it isn't much of an issue for me.
66 • Fedora 15 (by dc on 2011-06-07 18:58:54 GMT from United States)
In the previous comment I meant KDE 4.6, not 3.6.
67 • pekwm (by DrCR on 2011-06-07 22:09:34 GMT from United States)
pekwm window manager -- that's an interesting looking bit of kit.
http://pxtreme.hu/
Too bad Wikipedia moderators are so ... well, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all, so on that note I will make no comment. :
68 • Regd: Linux Mint (by kvv on 2011-06-07 22:12:42 GMT from United States)
"Now, that Zoryn 5 had come in with Gnome 2 and all the bells but no & whistles, there'll be a competition between Gnome 3 & 2. Linux Mint didn't give that competition, but Zoryn 5 would. The other distro that might give a competition would be Macbuntu. "
I haven't tried the latest Zorin, but I agree that it looks really good. However, comparing it with the latest Linux Mint is not really fair. What LM did is keep the desktop consistent, while providing the latest packages. Any other way would be a paradigm shift, which will happen by LM12 or LM13 anyway, when they switch to gnome3 or something totally different.
Currently, it seems as if the folks at Mint are being conservative in making changes, which suits me, and I think many other people, seeing the influx of users.
However, I suspect that other spinoffs like Zorin, Elementary, Xubuntu etc will be seeing similar increase in userbase.
69 • Fedora 15 review (by mf90 on 2011-06-07 22:28:08 GMT from United States)
The review was spot on - in both Gnome shell and Unity you have to move the cursor all the way across the desktop to do anything. This is progress?
Not having a customizable 'Start' menu like interface will not be popular with corporate IT departments who must deploy a simple, standardized desktop and limited app suite across the enterprise and support it. Yeah, let's make it harder to migrate from Windows XP.
Given the recent lack of priority to end user customization (see grub2 and gdm for instance) in these newer DE's I'm looking a lot closer at LXDE and XFCE. Unfortunately the latter team may have to pick up maintenance of some Gnome 2 code that will be deprecated in short order.
70 • RE: Catching up (by Landor on 2011-06-08 02:11:00 GMT from Canada)
gnomic:
First, I couldn't find a problem with Xubuntu at all ( I didn't forget eh :) ). Well, I did find one, the screensaver would crash periodically during the one where it displays the kernel, but it would still continue on its cycle. I never investigated why though.
Also, booting Fedora to RAM, I don't know if this still works, but here's how: When it boots and is counting down hit esc. Now highlight which boot option you want with the arrow keys and once you made your choice hit tab. Add live_ram to the end of the line and press enter. If it's still the same you should be good to go for booting the LiveCD to RAM. Also, you need to have at least 1 GB of RAM.
Pinguy. I find it a desktop that he just doesn't know what he wants with it. There's so many docks and panels, and click this, and that, you know? It's way too busy in my opinion.
--
Adam Williamson:
I was shocked to see your reply about Gnome 3 and 3D. Meaning, the reference to a PCI-E video card that would handle Gnome 3 easily. Reason being, unless I miss my mark here, and I'm more than confident I haven't, any system that supports a full PCI-E card would already be capable of supporting 3D either via a chipset, or stand alone card installed. It also kind of insults others who have older hardware and projects a 'if you want to use our system you need to be able make use of this level of technology'. Meaning, because you've upgraded your disribution, people who could have happily continued to with the Gnome 2.XX series are shutdown unless they run out and buy newer technology just to continue using what they had before.
That kind of logic from Gnome, Red Hat, and Fedora, alienates a large portion of their respective user base, even more so with a less functional fall-back system.
One last thing. I'm also surprised at the cost you threw out there. I would have showed a link to Memory Express for an ATI Radeon HD 5450 (which is better supported by Open Drivers to say the least) for $14.99 CDN after a MIR (forget how much now). If I was going to try to sell someone on upgrading, even just and example, I'd definitely offer up that instead of your card to lessen insult to injury on the cost outlay of the people I'm trying to get to my of thinking.
---
Ladislav:
Congratulations! 10 Years! How do you feel?
I have a question that I truly hope you answer. Out of the 10 years, what is the biggest thing that stands out in your mind from it all? It could be to do with a distribution, some even in the community, something with the site, anything you learned or got good at because of all this, what was it?
I'm really curious to know, and I think some others would probably enjoy knowing that answer too.
Oh, and I really hope someone interviews you for this milestone. In case others haven't seen me comment about this before, you're a historian for some much in this community in my opinion, you deserve the interview for a decade of work done.
Congratulations again Ladislav. I for one appreciate how you follow the packages, the newsletters, the podcasts, reviews, newsworthy items, DWW (with this comments section), and of course the distributions, their individual pages, release announcements, etc. Thank you.
----
I have some more but that will wait until later.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
71 • Parted Magic, my favorite (by RollMeAway on 2011-06-08 03:06:18 GMT from United States)
Glad to see donations to help any project. Rescue disks are a major part of distro hopping.
I'm sure the RIPLinux project has a little more motivation now.
My personal favorite, and the only one I have contributed to, is Parted Magic.
I keep a copy always handy, and frequently use the "Extras Menu", grub1 and/or grub2 utilities to install/repair installations.
I like the "Runs from ram", and it boots into gui (openbox). Multiple boot options and languages.
Check it out.
72 • Ladislav interview. (by Antony on 2011-06-08 11:48:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
Landor said: "Oh, and I really hope someone interviews you for this milestone."
Excellent idea. I second that.
73 • Sins of Ubuntu article (by mpadair00 on 2011-06-08 12:28:42 GMT from United States)
I've seen the complaint of "I have to install adobe, codecs, drivers, etc" on a lot of distros and I don't quite understand it. Last time I installed windows ( a couple months ago), I had to install all of that. Why is it any different. Get over it, quit whining, and do it...
74 • Stable and enjoyable AVLinux on dwatch (by NarratorJay on 2011-06-08 13:20:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
I'm impressed by how far Linux baby distros have come. I installed AVLinux while waiting for 64studio and have merrily been slicing/ equalizing/compressing old audio files and it's done everything I've asked and it even found my M-Audio 24/96 card oob... and then I realise it's just made it into distrowatch. Even the stuff that's on the fringes of distrowatch works!
75 • Comparing DW's reviews of Debian, openSUSE, Ubuntu, Fedora (by Andy Prough on 2011-06-08 21:51:23 GMT from United States)
Four big distros released this year, and four reviews by DW. How did they stack up?
Here are highlights in chronological order:
1. Debian - Disappointing, failure to excel: "My first reaction to Debian's latest was one of disappointment.... I found that, once it was up and running, Debian was all very satisfactory -- stable, useful, fast, accessible -- but by being so general, so universal, I felt Squeeze didn't excel at anything."
2. openSUSE - Enjoyable, hard to beat: "the more I used the distribution the more I enjoyed it.... I'm of the opinion it will be hard to beat the openSUSE experience in 2011."
3. Ubuntu - Buggy, missed the mark: "Ubuntu aims to be novice-friendly, but this release is buggy and I think they missed the mark this time around. I'm limiting my recommendation of 11.04 to people who want to play with an early release of Unity."
4. Fedora - Lacking features, inconsistent: "It seems more and more that Fedora is interested solely on being a test bed for technology and not the "operating system for everyday use" the project's website declares it to be. And if that's what you're looking for, a distro from which to test drive new technology, then Fedora is a good option. But for regular, general-purpose use, I found Fedora 15 to be lacking in features and consistency."
76 • @70 - Ref Landor's comment on to Adam W.'s post (by dialup on 2011-06-08 22:13:53 GMT from United States)
It was my question Adam W had replied to. His post was responsive to the specific question I asked. It was me who had - incorrectly as it turned out - decided that the on-board graphics would not be sufficient to run Gnome 3 To his credit, he didn't try to second-guess me.
Incidentally, vanilla PCI Express goes back to 2003, so it's not a good indicater of whether a board's graphics will run Gnome 3. Also, I wouldn't consider a dime a day for a year an excessive amount (to pay for a card) to be able to run a distro I liked.
To get back to F15/G3, I decided to wait to order a graphics card until after I'd gotten/tried the LiveCD with the 945GC on-board graphics. It not only ran; it ran well.
77 • DistroWatch Reviews (by tdockery97 on 2011-06-08 23:38:46 GMT from United States)
I thoroughly enjoy each and every review, and have been prompted to try different distros as a result. While I have to agree that Ubuntu 11.04 is "Buggy, missed the mark", I think it would be worth your time to review Kubuntu 11.04. It is in my humble opinion the best implementation of KDE at the present time, and does not suffer from the bugs plaguing Ubuntu 11.04. openSUSE 11.4 is very, very good, but Kubuntu 11.04 sparkles.
78 • re #70 Landor's observations (by gnomic on 2011-06-09 02:58:04 GMT from New Zealand)
OK, thanks for getting back with your findings on Xubuntu - will have to try a desktop or two, have a couple that have been standing idle for a while which need the dust blown out of them. The problems I saw were on a couple of laptops. I did suspect this might be a video problem and have had freezes previously that seemed to involve screensavers, including the one you mention iirc.
Will try the Fedora in RAM option - have managed to scratch together 1.8 gigs of RAM for a couple of machines which should be enough for the live CD.
The recent CD sized version of Pinguy is the only one I've tried as a daily data cap prevents me from d/ling DVDs. I've only had one session with it so far, and was initially favourably impressed by the look. Coming back from suspend always rates extra points. After closing the laptop lid for a second time, the result was not so good on trying to resume, a black screen still adorned by a mouse pointer. I was able to switch to a console and the X apps still seemed to be running somewhere in the darkness. Was able to shut the machine down from the console at least, so the system was still somewhat functional.
79 • gnome 3 (by Anon on 2011-06-09 02:59:38 GMT from Australia)
I really don't see what all the fuss is about with moving the mouse across the screen.
In classic gnome 2 to open a program one has to move the mouse across the screen to the applications menu click then move down to said application folder then move the mouse to the required program and then click again.
With gnome 3 move to top left or hit win key, 1.start typing name of program hit enter or 2. move mouse to applications, click, select program and click again not so hard.
And anyway to move the mouse across my screen i only have to move my wrist about 1" anyway
Another alternative is to have short cuts on the desktop.
80 • Four Reviews (by Joseph on 2011-06-09 03:08:05 GMT from United States)
>Four big distros released this year, and four reviews by DW. How did >they stack up?
Sadly, no matter the review's conclusions, everyone will continue to use Ubuntu by default. It's the Apple of Linux (minus the evil).
"...but Kubuntu 11.04 sparkles." Is Kubuntu the Twilight respin? :-) :-) :-)
On another note, why is it that Slackware can't handle KDE but everyone else can, such as the aforementioned Kubuntu and openSUSE, the undermanned Sabayon, Pardus, etc.?
81 • @80 (by Kailash on 2011-06-09 04:44:04 GMT from Singapore)
Good that you find ubuntu so useful ... well some prefer to use stable distros and some to enjoy the beauty linux is all about.
82 • Response from Adobe, article on virtualization and the cloud (by Caitlyn Martin on 2011-06-09 06:35:30 GMT from United States)
Earlier in the week I posted a link to an article I wrote for O'Reilly on the lack of a native 64-bit Flash Player. I actually received a response from Adobe so I had to write a follow up at: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2011/06/adobe-64-bit-flash-player-late.html I also read an incredibly ridiculous article on virtualization and The Cloud claiming that physical servers, as in all of them for every possible purpose, are now as obsolete as the horse and buggy. I wrote a response at: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2011/06/the-most-ridiculous-article-iv.html Oh, and yes, I'm working on a review for Ladislav as well and doing my regular work on top of all the writing. Busy week...
Oh, and yes, Jesse did an excellent review of Fedora this week.
83 • Fedora, GNOME3 and things... (by davemc on 2011-06-09 07:15:36 GMT from United States)
Fedora is Fedora. Nice to see that has not changed. TBH, I have not really liked a single release of theirs after Fedora 10, but they are always interesting. How do they do that? I guess Jesse summed that feeling I have up nicely in his conclusion. Kind of neat and the preview tech is fun to play with and try out, but I just don't get that "warm fuzzy" feeling from Fedora for a daily use system that I do from Debian or Mint.
IMO, the GNOME project is taking the wrong approach. Their new DE is probably awesome for Tablets, Laptops, and Smart Phones, but its wrong to shove that off on Desktop users as their only choice for future use (as I understand it). Ubuntu is doing the same thing with Unity. To be fair, KDE sort of did the same thing too.
Sure, users have the choice to switch to XFCE or some other DE that has some or most of the functionality they loved in their old DE of choice, but its not the same thing, and none of them asked for these changes to be made. I think in GNOME's case, they made these design decisions without seeking the input from their userbase at large via polling or other means. So are the the reasons for these changes really for the greater good? Was there a definitive purpose for this new UI revamp or was it just a wild idea that the dev team felt compelled to scratch? I don't get it. Really, I do not see how this new design improves upon the old one. I don't see how it does anything to improve the user experience over the old. I do not see any gains here, and apparently, I am not alone in feeling this way. To me, this is change for the sake of change, and in this case I think the wise old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" has a lot of relevance.
84 • re #83 what he said (by gnomic on 2011-06-09 13:26:53 GMT from New Zealand)
Used to be with enterprises, if you're not getting bigger, you're dying on the vine. Sometimes it seems it's the same with big projects like Gnome or KDE, if there's no super phantastic new stuff, you're nowhere. And maybe it's part of the nerd genome to be trying out new concepts even if it means things get a bit chaotic (or even simply broken) for a while . . . ;->
Dare I say, at the risk of going off-topic, that we all live in a technological cocoon, we computer users, and of course a computer is no use without the interwebs, which are like a fact of life. Meanwhile there are still humans who have no access to a telephone, let alone a CPU of their own. Some contemplate a future in the cloud, but does tomorrow's world definitely include an internet? Besides following distrowatch I also read the archdruid's weekly soothsayings on blogspot. See his latest gloomy prognostications about the possible future demise of the internet in this week's article headed A Bridge to Somewhere.
Meanwhile there is of course still Joe's Window Manager, as seen in Puppy Linux and derivatives operable even by newbies. Fluxbox and Openbox still work for me on occasion. Apparently there are actually people out there who can work with dwm and its congeners.
85 • Gnome 3 (by tdockery97 on 2011-06-09 14:33:00 GMT from United States)
Well, I think I now see why there has been such a great push to get Gnome 3 going. MS has given a little preview of what Windows 8 will be like, and guess what...so maybe the Gnome Team has just been trying to beat MS to the punch for a change.
86 • @80 (by notsure on 2011-06-10 13:49:11 GMT from United States)
"why is it that Slackware can't handle KDE but everyone else can"
Slackware has a very small development team, and alienbob is the kde maintainer. What is proposed is the same that was proposed with gnome, hand it off to a 3rd party and let them deal with the headache, so they can continue developing a killer base distribution (i would like to see it like that). if users want kde, they would just grab it somewhere else, that is all, no more, no less.
87 • Re #75 and Debian Squeeze (by imnotrich on 2011-06-10 16:50:26 GMT from Mexico)
1. Debian - Disappointing, failure to excel: "My first reaction to Debian's latest was one of disappointment.... I found that, once it was up and running, Debian was all very satisfactory -- stable, useful, fast, accessible -- but by being so general, so universal, I felt Squeeze didn't excel at anything."
I disagree. Squeeze installs a version of hplip that is "new" enough to support my 4 year old printer/scanner. Lenny did not - went through dependency hell and never could get hplip to work properly.
Squeeze's support for NVIDIA drivers - fantastic. Very simple, unlike previous Debian versions. The "nouveau" drivers have issues but thank goodness Debian developers allow us alternatives that actually work, at least with respect to video (a potential dealbreaker since video is kinda important for most folks).
Bugs - Squeeze excelled at breaking stuff that worked in previous versions. Wireless networking for one. Sound, USB, microphones, parallel ports, and hundreds of packages in the Squeeze main repo don't work like they're supposed to. I have other gripes about Squeeze as regular distrowatch peeps are aware.
Update regarding my Debian Squeeze slug bug series: In my last report, I removed Squeeze from my Gateway ML-3109 (which is not even 4 years old) laptop and tried a variety of different current distros. Most did not support my realtek 8185 wireless card, though some knew the card was there. All of them had difficulties supporting my very common ATI video card. Ubuntu 9.04, remarkably, was able to use my wireless card and had no trouble with the ATI video but as most people know Pulse was still not ready for prime time with 9.04, so I upgraded to 9.10-epic fail. No wireless, and no video. Desperate, willing to try anything I installed Debian Lenny from my netinst cd.
TAA DAA! Wireless works out of the box. Sound, Video, everything! Amazing! My only gripes so far is that the install hooked me up with the volatile repos, not stable lenny but so far nothing's failed except flash. There appears to be no copy of the flashplugin-nonfree in any of the repos including multimedia. Iceweasel and Epiph say Flash is installed, but it doesn't run and I'm having difficulties getting the official Flash version from Adobe to upgrade and run in those two browsers. Flash does work in Chrome, but video playback stutters/is choppy. And Chrome is giving me annoying error messages like "your OS is obsolete so we're not going to send you updates." Well no, Lenny is not obsolete. It's the best Debian ever. Another Chrome error - blocking java. Yes, even though Chrome's java is installed and will work, everytime a website calls java I have to manually click somewhere to give java permission to run. This is BS. Chrome refuses to run java because it's an "outdated" (downloaded yesterday from google, how can it be outdated) version but there appears to be no official or easy way to update java. BUG!
On my desktop - I'm still running Squeeze 64, but that may not last long either - Squeeze still has problems with usb headsets/mics. I had it working yesterday. Today, I've been fighting with Squeeze for 90 minutes now to recognize/use my usb headset and mic so I can make some Skype calls or record my voice. Guess what? Best I've been able to do so far is get sound to come through the headset. Still not recognizing the mic. This is crazy stupid. How many hours do I have to waste getting something BASIC to work? Something that should operate natively, with no hassle?
Are there any distros that "just work" with basic stuff? I'm not running obscure hardware, nothing very old, nothing very new just basic stuff! Arrgh!
88 • RE: 76 - 78 - 80 - Gnome (by Landor on 2011-06-10 16:51:27 GMT from Canada)
#76
I don't know about that. I am quite sure that even a couple older AGP based chipsets that I've used (and one board that still exists here) would be able to run Gnome 3. One is an NVIDIA 7600 GT standalone card. Then next that is on the board, and I know for a fact will play games like OpenArena and the like, is a VIA Chrome chipset that will do 3D very well from the openchrome driver in X11. As I said, I'd take a chance that it would be functional for Gnome 3. If it can play games like those, but not run gnome 3, then I personally believe the gnome 3 guys went a little too far and it's not worth using.
My point about the older card and chipset is that PCI-E as a scale in the 95%+ area would work with Gnome 3. It would be a rare find that it didn't work, unless it was some unsupported crap from ATI, or one of Intel's proprietary messes that everyone seems to enjoy and thinks are so wonderful. Also, one other point I didn't mention in regard to Adam's erroneous statement about the PCI-E based card, how does that help people who own a laptop? Which just shows yet again, he really just shouldn't have made that comment at all.
#78
I was surprised that it would fail, then just keep working. I'm guessing each aspect of the screen saver is a component on top of the core, and if the component crashes the core keep going, that's just total theory though and I have absolutely no basis for it. :)
It's not often when I run a distribution in RAM, I'm sure 1.8 is more than enough for Fedora though. :)
Is that why I've come to notice that you download a lot of smaller distributions to test? I know you're already aware of this, but wouldn't a download manager, or using wget, to download part of the iso one day, then continue on the next, etc, until its done work? Oh, or is that the point, you find it more interesting testing out the smaller builds as opposed to a bigger one that doesn't hold much in the way of interest for you?
#80
For anyone that doesn't know, Slackware isn't dropping KDE at the moment, and the issue isn't at the level everyone believes it to be. There was a discussion over at LQ about this not linked to in this week's DWW that even the Slackware leader got involved in (comment #36 on page three of the thread). He stated that they were currently in discussion with the KDE team about how to better split the packages. He also stated that other distributions had voiced similar concerns and they were all working together to get it worked out. That doesn't tell me that Slackware, or any other distribution for that matter will be dropping KDE. They're working on it, as they should be, as a community. Here's the link: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/kick-away-kde-just-like-gnome-884323/
----
Gnome 3 is a shot at making Gnome modular for various applications of it. That's my opinion. Pretty well the same for Unity too.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
89 • RE: 88 and KDE (by Landor on 2011-06-10 20:43:34 GMT from Canada)
I just want to note that for anyone interested in KDE they should go to that link and read the thread, paying close attention to what AlienBob posts, as in post #42. He makes some great points in such a small space.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
90 • @88 (by dialup on 2011-06-11 05:00:25 GMT from United States)
You're persisting in taking Adam W,'s response out of context; here's the header:
"86 • @51 (by Adam Williamson on 2011-05-31 21:52:11 GMT from Canada)"
In #51, what I'd asked was: "Any suggestions of low cost graphics cards known to be compatible and preferably supported "out of the box" by the F15 Gnome CD?"
His response to the question was spot-on.
91 • @88 (by Antony on 2011-06-11 08:51:22 GMT from United Kingdom)
"Adam's erroneous statement about the PCI-E based card......... Which just shows yet again, he really just shouldn't have made that comment at all."
Adam was asked for advice in obtaining a low cost gfx card for use with Gnome 3. Therefore, as you perhaps read his comment a little to quickly at first, then I now assume you will admit that you really just shouldn't have made that comment at all?
92 • apropos of Gnome 3 working on a basic Intel video with paldo (by gnomic on 2011-06-11 13:26:15 GMT from New Zealand)
Just thought the world may like to know that paldo is providing me with the Gnome 3 'standard experience' on a rather average Intel chipset bearing the name 852GM/855GM in this ThinkPad R51. That's to say, I appear to be getting the full Gnome 3 thing such as it is. It's not utterly bad, but I still want my Aging Gorilla. Linux paldo 2.6.38.7-paldo1-x86 #1 SMP Mon May 23 12:41:27 UTC 2011 i686 GNU/Linux
By the way I seem to recall Adam W providing a useful guide as to what video cards are up to speed for Gnome 3 a couple of weeks back. May I quote? (i8xx does seem to be running Gnome 3 on paldo here currently, whereas on F15 it spat the dummy).
"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."
93 • desktops dying (by jack on 2011-06-11 14:40:27 GMT from Canada)
Some comments on /. today stating that desktops are dying :
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/06/11/137202/Apple-Now-Worlds-Largest-Semiconductor-Buyer
raises some questions about ergonomics
I have not heard anyone say that using a laptop at a desk is as comfortable as using a standard desktop computer.
If there are any ergonomic studies giving advice on which posture is best for all day work (using a laptop at a desk ) please post a link.
Thanks
94 • Finally a real LITE kde4? (by RollMeAway on 2011-06-11 21:31:45 GMT from United States)
After reading through this:
http://www.mail-archive.com/release-team@kde.org/msg04709.html
It appears the main reason for breaking kde4.7 into smaller packages is their move from svn to git.
I expect someone will create "meta" packages for the lazy packagers.
My long time hope is that some distro developers will use this opportunity to create a truly LITE kde4. Thus leaving out akonadi, nepomuk and other such bs.
As noted gentoo has, for a long time, broken kde pkgs into smaller groups, and I already have compiled a gentoo kde4 system WITHOUT akonadi, nepomuk. It can be done!
Think about it. If you like ONE game, why should you have to install 64 others, that you would never use?
I applaud the move.
95 • Desktops Dying (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-06-12 21:44:40 GMT from Spain)
jack wrote
------------------------------------------------
Some comments on /. today stating that desktops are dying :
------------------------------------------------
I bet the number of desktop computers is not rising as faster as laptop sales. I suppose this is because when someone wants a portable computer, he buys a notebook and, since he already has a machine, doesn't bother to purchase a proper workstation.
For actual domestic work, nothing beats a workstation. Desktop computers don't have batteries which can fail, are easily upgraded, are modular so you can replace defective components... Most important: they have big keyboards and screens! If something in your laptop breaks, you usually depend on the manofacturer to fix the device for you. Its components are highty integrated into the laptop, and most of the times they are build "ad hoc" under the ODM specifications, so you cannot fix many hardware problems easily. If something in your desktop machine breaks, you can replace it by yourself most of the times. When you trash an old desktop computer away, you can even take its working components and use them in modern PCs.
PCs have a bigger lifespan. I have here a desktop computer of 10 years or so which has been working flawlessly for its whole life, and it continues doing it. I still have to found a notebook which has survived for so long under heavy-work conditions. Desktop computers are more powerful, more solid. You can BUILD them from old components, but you won't be able to do that with a Notebook.
MIni-computers are not to take over the desktop market yet. A laptop is not a susbtitute for a good-old-style PC if you need it to work in a office. Keyboard and screen size make a difference when you are to work for six hours in front of them. Processor and memory make also a difference when you are to compile lots of software or comit other intensive tasks.
If I needed a portable computer, I would buy a (very cheap) portable computer, but I would still use a desktop unit for my day to day work. Many homes follow this approach.
A lot of future remains for the desktop computer.
96 • @ 94 (by JMiahMan on 2011-06-13 05:17:31 GMT from United States)
There are Distributions, at least running Live that disable Nepomuk and Akonadi. The memory that the applications take up (without MySQLd and Akonadi running) ranges from 180-190M. That's about pre KDE 4.0 numbers. The Sad part is, that Akonadi is now so ingrained into into kdepimlibs (required by kdebase-workspace) that it can't be taken out. It's also so ingrained into kmail, and the rest of the kdepim suite that it doesn;t function without it. Why anyone would want to have a 30-60M MySQL process running in the background for something as simple as fetching contacts is beyond me and just plain awful. It's quite simply bloat ware, and what makes it bloat ware is the fact it's force onto the user whether they want it or not. I'm sure it works great, but the trade off just isn't worth. SO no amount of packager trimming is going to fix that the KDE Developers are going to have to come up with a (way) lighter database system or allow applications to run without it. The way it's set up now severely handicaps KDE 4 and KDE PIM. Task Packages btw aren't for lazy packagers, but lazy users who don't want to click 15 packages to install a PIM Suite. Any Good packager should not be using task packages to pull in BuildRequires or Requires, that's not what they should be used for.
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