 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 427, 17 October 2011 |
Welcome to this year's 42nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The release season is now upon us. This week we saw a deluge of releases from the Ubuntu family as version 11.10 became available in a variety of flavours. Though marked with a little less fanfare, Debian released a security update to Squeeze and the Sabayon project delivered version 7 of their distribution -- we cover these updates and more below. This week Jesse Smith takes a look at the Zenwalk distribution and reports on how that project compares to more main stream distros. In our Question & Answers section we cover UEFI secure booting and what it means to Linux users. This week in the news section we talk about a new branch of the KDE project for mobile devices and why some Linux kernel developers are frustrated with VirtualBox. And, finally, we welcome back Linux.com after a month of down time and say a sad farewell to Dennis Ritchie.
We hope you have a safe and pleasant week.
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (18MB) and MP3 (26MB) formats
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Take a Walk on the Zen Side
Frequent readers of DistroWatch may recall the last time I tried Zenwalk I was quite happy with it. The medium-sized distro provided a polished and responsive desktop platform which ran like a cat with its tail on fire. Though armed with fewer resources than the big-name projects Zenwalk was a strong contender last year, making my Top Five list in 2010. With this in mind it should be no surprise I was eager to try Zenwalk 7 when it arrived in early 2011. So it would appear this review is coming out quite late, and there is a reason for that.
When I first downloaded Zenwalk 7 (Standard Edition) I popped the disc into a machine, walked through the text-based menu system of the installer and went away to do other things. An hour later the distribution still hadn't finished installing and, further, it appeared to have stalled. You see, the Zenwalk installer doesn't display a progress bar or per cent completion, instead it shows the user which package it is currently copying to the hard drive. Twenty minutes after my return to the computer Zenwalk was still on the same package and there was no sign of life from the disc drive. I rebooted the machine, checked the install media and gave it another go. Once again I walked through the install steps and waited while files copied to my drive. After an hour and a half, forty minutes of which was spent allegedly copying the same package, I decided to cut my losses and move on to something else. Unfortunately I was busy that week and didn't have time to trouble-shoot.
Well, I was clearing out some stuff form my desk this week and rediscovered the Zenwalk 7 CD and, feeling bold (or bored), I decided to give it another shot. I loaded up the installer, told it to perform an automatic partition & install and walked away. It took some time, about two hours, but the CD, which represents a 583MB ISO, finally finished. Generally I'd expect a distribution of this size to finish copying within thirty minutes, but I guess waiting is part of the Zen experience, at least on my hardware.
The installer doesn't do much, aside from installing packages and the LILO boot loader. This means the first time we boot into Zenwalk we're asked to perform a few configuration steps. We're shown a license screen and asked to confirm our preferred language. Next we set a password for the root account and we have the option of creating a regular user account. Once Zenwalk is configured the system boots into a graphical login screen. Signing in brings up an Xfce 4.8 desktop environment with a pleasant blue background. At the top of the screen we find the application menu and task switcher. Icons for navigating the file system and a link to the project's website appear on the desktop. At the bottom of the screen we find a quick-launch bar with another copy of the application menu along with the Icecat web browser, Icedove e-mail client, file browser, volume control and network manager. Despite concerns my desktop might suffer from the same sluggishness as the installer, I ran into no performance problems post-install.
Zenwalk 7.0 -- Running office software and changing settings
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I ran Zenwalk on two machines, my HP laptop (dual-core 2GHz CPU, 3GB of RAM, Intel video card) and a generic desktop box (2.5GHz CPU, 2GB of RAM, NVIDIA video card). On both machines Zenwalk not only performed well, but automatically detected and utilized all of my hardware without any work on my part. The Intel wireless card in my laptop, which had stumped Zenwalk 6.x last year, was handled smoothly, audio volume was set to a good level and my screens were set to reasonable resolutions. The distribution, running the Xfce desktop environment, performed quickly on both computers and the experience was pleasantly error-free. One thing I found unusual is, by default, window focus followed my mouse pointer. I suppose some people find it convenient to not have to click on windows, but I found it interrupted my work flow, especially if I had more than two windows open. There's a GUI configuration app available to alter the behaviour.
The Zenwalk developers try to provide one program per task and this leaves the application menu uncluttered while providing a good range of software in the default install. We're given Icecat 3.6 for browsing the web, Icedove for e-mail, the Pidgin instant messenger client and the Transmission bittorrent client. The gFTP file transfer client is included, as is the Zenmap network scanner. The GNU Image Manipulation Project is available, along with a document viewer, disc burner and sound recorder. The Totem multimedia player is installed and supports popular audio and video codecs out of the box. The ISO Master program is included as are LibreOffice (version 3.3) and the Geany IDE. For scheduling our lives Orage is included. A simple backup tool, Grsync, is in the menu along side the LSHW hardware lister. We're giving Netpkg for managing software packages, a text editor, calculator and archive manager. Rounding out the selection are Catfish, a utility for finding local files, and several apps for configuring the look and feel of the desktop. Zenwalk comes equipped with Flash, Java and the GNU Compiler Collection. In the background we find the 2.6.37 version of the Linux kernel.
Zenwalk 7.0 -- Running various applications
(full image size: 258kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
For people coming from more mainstream Linux distros package management may be the Achilles' heel of the distribution. Zenwalk comes equipped with Netpkg, a graphical software manager which has a fairly simple, uncluttered interface. The Netpkg window is essentially divided into four parts. At the top is a drop-down box containing a list of software repositories, below that is a list of packages. Over on the right are checkboxes for filtering packages by their status and at the bottom is an area dedicated to the description of each package. As usual, clicking on a package allows us to install or remove it. And while Netpkg works efficiently and, in my experience, without error, the user needs to be more involved in the process than with most package managers. Before making use of Netpkg we must manually select a mirror, then refresh the package list. At this point no packages are displayed because, by default, no filters are set. Once we are up and running and we're installing software, not much feedback is provided. I suppose it's a matter of perspective. If you're accustomed to Slackware or the BSDs, Netpkg will probably be a walk in the park. If you're in the habit of using openSUSE, Ubuntu or Mandriva, the Netpkg application will probably feel sparse with unnecessary manual steps. One additional aspect Slackware fans will probably appreciate is Netpkg, before downloading packages, will ask for confirmation before also resolving dependencies.
Zenwalk 7.0 - Managing packages with Netpkg
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I know the term "just works" gets thrown around a lot, but Zenwalk walks very close to that line and does so in a way I find appealing. By modern standards, Zenwalk is a fairly light distro. It has a small footprint on both the disk and in memory, thanks both to its Slackware parentage and Xfce. And, being light-weight, the functionality it presents is all the more impressive. People who just want to browse the web, check e-mail and listen to music are covered. People who want to develop code are also covered by the default selection of programs. Users who need an office suite are all set. Maybe I've been using GNOME and KDE live CDs too much recently, but I was surprised how much software was available before I even opened the package manager. Yet "just works" is more than that, more than just having a lot of software on hand. The user also needs to be able to navigate and intuitively use the system and I feel Zenwalk's interface will appeal to a wide range of users. Even though I rarely use Xfce (or Zenwalk) I was able to quickly and easily find everything I wanted.
Admittedly Zenwalk 7 and I got off to a rocky start with the installer taking so long I thought it had stalled. However, pushing beyond that, running Zenwalk was a fairly smooth and rewarding experience. What I enjoy about this distribution is the sense of balance I get from it. It's fairly small and uses Xfce, yet the developers have done a good job at providing a friendly interface, which I believe will be appealing to newcomers. The menu is pleasantly uncluttered, yet with the distro's one-application-per-task philosophy there is a wide range of functionality to be had. Performance was good and, this time around, all of my hardware was supported. Wireless worked out of the box, popular video and audio formats play, Java and Flash are included, there are developer tools installed, up to date office software is in the menu and all of this is bundled on an ISO smaller than 600MB. As I mentioned above the package manager, while functional, is a bit sparse and the text-based installer may not be novice-friendly. However those are the only complaints I could raise from an otherwise fast, stable distribution which packs a lot of functionality into a well laid out desktop.
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| Miscellaneous News |
KDE releases Plasma Active One, Linux.com is back on-line and we say good-bye to Dennis Ritchie
 Linux users who love living on the cutting edge of open source technology will be happy to know Fedora 16 Beta was released this past week. The beta includes cloud technology, such as OpenStack, HekaFS and Pacemaker-cloud, enhancements to virtualization technology, including safe simultaneous writes to disk images when using QEMU/KVM, and the new GNOME 3.2 desktop environment. The Fedora team is encouraging users to test the release so they can squash any serious bugs before their final release in November.
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The KDE team has announced the availability of Plasma Active One. While the GNOME project has decided to rework their entire desktop in order to address tablets and touch screens, the KDE project is taking a different approach. The KDE4 desktop will remain as it is and a branch of KDE is being designed specifically for mobile devices. From the release announcement: "Plasma Active is compatible with the Plasma Desktop and Plasma Netbook Workspaces. They are all based on the same framework, sharing more than 95% of code. This is a radically different approach to interface commonality across devices. Most other tablet products are either unique to themselves (sharing little or nothing in common with other device interfaces), or attempts to use desktop interfaces on smaller displays. But Plasma-based interfaces are crafted for specific device types, and are able to do so while having nearly all their code and engineering efforts in common."
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Last week we reported kernel.org was brought back on-line and, this week, it's Linux.com's turn. The Linux Foundation website was taken off-line last month after a security breach was discovered. The team behind Linux.com has used the time to make improvements to the website, including the introduction of a new forum and spam filters. You can read the complete announcement in Jennifer Cloer's blog post.
A handy article on the newly restored Linux.com site talks about grammar-checkers (or the lack of) in open source office suites. The brief piece talks about available grammar-checkers which can be used either as stand-alone applications are as extensions to LibreOffice and OpenOffice.
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The Linux kernel developers are tired of receiving bug reports relating to the VirtualBox module. When VirtualBox is installed on a Linux system the module "vboxdrv" is loaded into the kernel. According to Dave Jones' post to the Linux Kernel Mailing List this module contains too many bugs and causes too many problems. The module is open source, licensed under the GPL, but is not part of the kernel source code. Mr Jones has written a patch which will flag the VirtualBox module as being tainted. This will mean " automatic bug filing tools
can opt out of automatically filing kernel bugs, and inform the user to file
bugs somewhere more appropriate." Users experiencing problems related to the VirtualBox driver can visit that project's bugtracker to file a report.
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We are very sorry to report this week that Dennis Ritchie has passed away. Mr Ritchie is probably best known for creating the C programming language, which is used to develop, directly or indirectly, much of the software we run every day. He also co-authored the book The C Programming Language with Brian Kernighan, a guide which has taught many students C over the years. Mr Ritchie is one of the developers of the original UNIX, the operating system which eventually branched into BSD, Solaris/OpenIndiana and parts of OS X. His work additionally caused the birth of UNIX-like operating systems, such as Linux and MINIX. For his work in computing Dennis Ritchie has received many honours, including the Turing Award, the National Medal of Technology, the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal and the Japan Prize for Information and Communications. It would be difficult to overstate Mr Ritchie's impact on our lives and he will be missed. DistroWatch would like to offer our condolences to his family and friends. May he rest in peace.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Locked-out-without-a-key asks:
I was wondering what DistroWatch thinks on the subject of implementing secure boot for Windows and what it implies for Linux users in the future? Also from all I have read on the subject there are quite a few people angry over it, including me. This registry key on the BIOS means that Linux users will no longer be able to install Linux.
DistroWatch answers:
In case some of our readers aren't familiar with this topic, let me provide a little background. A few weeks ago Matthew Garrett, an employee at Red Hat, made a blog posting in which he raised concerns about Microsoft's Windows 8 logo program. That is, the program which allows OEMs to attach a "Designed for Windows 8" sticker on the machines they sell. One of the requirements in the new logo program is that computers displaying the logo and shipping with a client version of Windows 8 pre-installed must also have secure boot enabled. What is secure boot? Basically computers will be shipped with signing keys installed into their firmware. When the secure boot feature is enabled executable programs and drivers cannot be run unless they're signed by one of these keys. In theory this would prevent malware from installing itself on a computer in such a way that would allow the malware to be run before the operating system. However, while this may be an attractive security feature, Matthew Garrett points out such a feature would also prevent alternative operating systems, such as Linux, from being installed.
There are a few points which further complicate things. There is no central signing authority, so it's not a simple matter of getting one set of keys that will work everywhere, each vendor will have their own keys and getting executables signed will probably require striking a deal with each vendor. Another issue is that GRUB2, which is used in many big name Linux distributions, is prevented from using such keys due to the GPLv3 license. Linux distributions will have to roll back to GRUB Legacy, LILO or some other boot loader if they wish to support secure booting.
It's understandable this news has raised concerns in the Linux community that the next generation of hardware may prevent installing Linux. However, I personally don't think we need to worry yet. For one thing OEMs will probably include the ability to disable secure boot. Just because machines shipping with Windows 8 (client) need to have the feature enabled doesn't mean users will be blocked from turning it off. In fact OEMs would be shooting themselves in the foot, would probably shoot both feet clean off, if they didn't include an option to disable secure booting. The European Union tends to keep a close eye on these sorts of things and they are likely to demand hardware can be unlocked. Even if the EU doesn't some companies, like Dell, have found it's profitable to sell Linux boxes and don't show any sign of leaving that customer base behind. It's likely many machines will ship without the logo and without secure booting enabled. After all, it's not just Linux users who aren't going to want to wrestle with secure booting, the IT departments of medium and large companies, places that roll out standard images to a variety of hardware, are not going to want to manually disable secure booting on each machine. Even Matthew Garrett, who raised the issue, points out it's "not worth panicking yet".
However, just because there isn't cause to panic doesn't mean we should sit quietly on the sidelines and wait. This is a good time to get in touch with the companies you may be purchasing computers from in the future and let them know what you think. Dell, HP, Toshiba, IBM, Acer and the rest have contact pages just for moments like this. Tell them which is more important to you, the sticker or the ability to use your computer the way you want. You may also wish to sign the Free Software Foundation's statement urging computer makers to implement secure booting in such a way that will allow alternative operating systems to be installed.
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| Released Last Week |
Bodhi Linux 1.2.1
Jeff Hoogland has announced the release of Bodhi Linux 1.2.1, a bug-fix update of the Ubuntu-based distribution featuring a highly customised Enlightenment 17 desktop: "At little over a month ago the Bodhi team and I released our second update release. We were unaware at the time that the version of GCC used to compile the kernel on this release had an issue that caused an issue for some users when compiling and inserting extra kernel modules (such as the NVIDIA drivers and VirtualBox). This update release today contains a kernel in which this issue has been resolved. If you already installed Bodhi 1.2.0 (or an earlier release) and your system is working fine (odds are it is, this issue was only affecting some users) there is no reason to install this new release. It is simply a bug-fix release so the ISO image has the updated kernel by default." Read the rest of the release announcement for some more details about the new release and to learn about the project's new web-based "App Centre".
Superb Mini Server 1.6.2
An updated build of Superb Mini Server (SMS), a Slackware-based distribution for servers, was released earlier today: "Superb Mini Server version 1.6.2 released (Linux kernel 2.6.39.3). SMS 1.6.2 brings updates, security patches and the latest stable packages, such as httpd 2.2.21, PHP 5.3.8, Perl 5.14.2, BIND 9.8.1, Postfix 2.8.5, ClamAV 0.97.2, Dovecot 2.0.15, MailScanner 4.84.3 and, last but not least, Samba 3.6.0 with SMB2 support. Samba's 'Security = share' is deprecated and will not work with SMB2, although it is set in smb.conf, but it's enough to get you started - look at SMS wiki on how to switch to 'Security = User'. Also 'client ntlmv2 auth yes' is set by default. Dovecot needs your attention, since many deprecated options have been removed. SMS 1.6.2 features smbldap-tools, a set of Perl scripts designed to manage user and group accounts stored in an LDAP directory, making Samba and OpenLDAP configuration easier. See the full release announcement additional notes and brief changelog.
Sabayon Linux 7
Fabio Erculiani has announced the release of Sabayon Linux 7, a Gentoo-based desktop distribution with KDE 4.7, GNOME 3.2 and Xfce 4.8 desktops: "More busy than busy bees, we're once again here to announce the immediate availability of Sabayon 7. Linux kernel 3.0, GNOME 3.2, KDE 4.7, Xfce 4.8, LibreOffice 3.4 are just some of the things you will find inside the box. During this cycle, the development team spent a lot of time on integrating GNOME 3.2 the way users might actually start to love it. At the same time, Sabayon Xfce has been promoted to non-experimental release, for those missing GNOME 2." Read the release announcement for a list of features and improvements.
Ubuntu 11.10
Ubuntu 11.10, the latest version of the popular Linux-based operating system for desktops and servers, has been released: "The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce Ubuntu 11.10, code-named 'Oneiric Ocelot'. 11.10 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. For PC users, Ubuntu 11.10 supports laptops, desktops and netbooks with a unified look and feel based on an updated version of the desktop shell called 'Unity', which introduces specialized 'Lenses'. Finding and installing software using the Ubuntu Software Centre is now easier thanks to improvements in speed, search functionality enhancements, and usability improvements. Aside from updates on the performance side, it's also more aesthetically appealing." See the release announcement and release notes for further information.
Ubuntu 11.10 with Unity Desktop
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Kubuntu 11.10
Kubuntu 11.10, a new version of the official Ubuntu subproject designed for users favouring the popular KDE desktop, has been released: "We are proud to announce the release of Kubuntu 11.10, the 'Oneiric Ocelot': the latest release of our friendly operating system, built on Ubuntu's core, polished with KDE's applications and workspaces. The latest stable release of KDE's Plasma Workspaces and Applications brings new features and improvements all around. Highlights include: visual updates include a new Oxygen icon theme; a cleaner default look to Dolphin; Gwenview's new ability to compare two or more images; new breadcrumb feature in the Kickoff menu that simplifies navigating submenus; more improvements in the Network Management widget." Here is the detailed release announcement.
Xubuntu 11.10
Xubuntu 11.10 is the latest version of the official Ubuntu variant featuring the light and elegant Xfce desktop environment: "There are a few times when, through hard work and diligence, we get things right. The developers and contributors of Xubuntu 11.10 believe they have it right. They are proud to announce the release of Xubuntu 11.10, 'Oneiric Ocelot'. Through the outstanding efforts of all involved, this sleek and smooth release offered for your enjoyment and use. Changes for this release include the following applications included by default: gThumb, pastebinit, and onboard. The team has also chosen to switch from GDM to LightDM as the default display manager and from Mousepad to Leafpad as the default text editor." Read the release announcement and release notes for more details.
Edubuntu 11.10
Edubuntu 11.10, a specialist flavour of Ubuntu optimised for classroom use, has been released: "The Edubuntu development team is really proud and happy to announce that Edubuntu 11.10 has now been released. This release brings a refreshed desktop environment based on Ubuntu's Unity while still offering you easy access to the familiar classic GNOME environment (through the GNOME fallback mode). Additionally, this release brings you: new updated version of LTSP Live, translated in multiple languages; updated installer featuring translations in over 25 languages; a new version of Gobby, the collaborative text editor, now at version 0.5; the latest and greatest version 2 of gbrainy; a refreshed user interface, now based on Unity by default and featuring a different icon theme and wallpaper." The release announcement.
Mythbuntu 11.10
Version 11.10 of Mythbuntu, an official Ubuntu media centre distribution integrating the MythTV media center software, has been released: "Mythbuntu 11.10 has been released. It is very important to note that this release is only compatible with MythTV 0.24 systems. Highlights: MythTV 0.24; Chromium installed instead of Firefox; no Bluetooth support (by default) in NetworkManager; no fglrx install during installation; Mythbuntu-bare scheduling now available for backups; Android and iOS devices can now be used as remote controls; recent snapshot of the MythTV 0.24 release is included; preview of the upcoming MythNetvision plugin; Mythbuntu theme fixes. Known issue: If upgrading and you have MythStream installed please remove it before upgrading as MythStream is no longer supported." Read the release announcement for additional information.
Ubuntu Studio 11.10
Ubuntu Studio 11.10, an Ubuntu variant tailored to audio, video and graphics enthusiasts, has been released - now defaulting to the Xfce desktop instead of GNOME: "Ubuntu Studio is a multimedia editing/creation flavor of Ubuntu, built for the GNU/Linux audio, video, and graphics enthusiast or professional. The Ubuntu Studio team is very excited over its tenth release: Oneiric Ocelot 11.10, Unfortunately, the Ubuntu Studio suffered an almost complete team fail during this cycle. This can be general categorized into two main reasons: normal, expected attrition experienced during most cycles and unforeseen circumstances that required team members to be absent. We apologize for any deficiencies in this release. But you can always help us make the next one better." The release notes explain the situation in more detail.
Lubuntu 11.10
Lubuntu 11.10 is the project's first release as an official Ubuntu derivative, a lightweight distribution showcasing the elegant LXDE desktop: "Lubuntu 11.10 is a brand-new flavor of Ubuntu based on Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment (LXDE) as its default graphical user interface. The goal is to provide a very lightweight distribution, with all the advantages of the Ubuntu world (repositories, support). Lubuntu is targeted at 'normal' PC and laptop users running on low-specification hardware. With many LXDE components, Lubuntu also uses well-known applications, such as Chromium, Openbox and Pidgin, to name a few. Features: PCManFM 0.9.9, a fast and lightweight file manager using GIO/GVFS; LXDE, a lightweight GTK+ display manager; Chromium, the open-source variant of Google Chrome; based on Ubuntu 11.10." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information.
Ubuntu Rescue Remix 11.10
Andrew Zajac has announced the release of Ubuntu Rescue Remix 11.10, a non-graphical utility live CD designed for data recovery tasks: "Version 11.10 'Oneiric Ocelot' of the very best free and open-source data recovery software toolkit based on Ubuntu is out. Ubuntu Rescue Remix provides a robust yet lean system for data recovery and forensics. No graphical interface is used; the live system can boot and function normally on machines with very little memory or processor power. Following Ubuntu's six-month release schedule, all the software is up-to-date, stable and supported. Ubuntu Rescue Remix features a full command-line environment with the newest versions of the most powerful free/libre open-source data recovery software including GNU ddrescue, PhotoRec, The Sleuth Kit, GNU fdisk and ClamAV. Using the Ubuntu Rescue Remix meta package, you can install the toolkit on any Ubuntu system as well." Check out the release announcement for more details.
Puppy Linux 5.2 "Wary"
Barry Kauler has announced the release of Puppy Linux 5.2 "Wary" edition, a small, fast and very light distribution designed for old and low-resource computers: "This is a massive upgrade relative to the 5.1.x series. All of the base packages were recompiled in T2. Certain choices were made in T2 with the plan of seamless upgrading from X.Org 7.3 to 7.6 - that is, the default Wary system has X.Org 7.3, but it is planned that Wary can be upgraded to X.Org 7.6 by installation of a single PET package, and all applications will work before and after. This required some very careful configuration. The idea is to 'have our cake and eat it too' - X.Org 7.3 for old hardware, easy upgrade to 7.6 for newer video hardware. The plan actually seems to be working. As usual, huge changes yet only a small version-number change. Many bug fixes, upgrades, new packages." Both the release announcement and the release notes contain many more interesting details.
LinEx 11
The regional government of Extremadura in Spain has announced the release of LinEx 2011, a Debian-based distribution designed for deployment in government offices and educational institutions in the province. According to the release announcement (in Spanish) the product is for users who seek a Linux distribution that is easy-to-use, robust and well-supported. LinEx 2011 is based on Debian 6.0.3 and features and intuitive system installer which includes an option to install extra applications according to the user's needs. Another new feature of the release is the possibility to transform the system into a multimedia box for professional video, audio and graphics editing or into a developer's workstation. Also, the system allows easy installation of a great variety of games for all age groups. More information can be found in the above-mentioned announcement.
FreeNAS 8.0.2
Josh Paetzel has announced the release of FreeNAS 8.0.2, a bug-fix update of the project's FreeBSD-based operating system providing free Network-Attached Storage (NAS) services: "The FreeNAS team is proud to announce FreeNAS 8.0.2, a follow-up release to 8.0.1. Major changes since 8.0.1-RELEASE: the email subsystem was not working correctly in 8.0.1-RELEASE, which resulted in the system not being able to send mail, as well as malfunction of the alerting system in the GUI. Changes since 8.0.1-RELEASE: allow decimal numbers for a dataset quota; fix setting recursive ACLs; start ProFTPd after ix-ssl to use the correct SSL certificate; use wildcards in cron and rsync jobs instead of listing all values; fix case in iSCSI targets to match the behavior specified by RFC 3722." Here is the complete release announcement.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 24 October 2011.
Jesse Smith
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Any news of CEntOS 6.1 (by manmath sahu on 2011-10-17 09:11:32 GMT from India)
Not related to this weekly. But I am interested to know if anybody has any idea when CEntOS 6.1 will come out? I know v. 6.0 came after 8 months of delay from TUB. And it's almost 5 months since TUV released v. 6.1. Or is that project dying?
2 • Zenwalk (by Spartan on 2011-10-17 09:29:16 GMT from United Kingdom)
Sometimes I find easy agreement with Jesse, but, whilst appreciating his diligence, afraid this is not one of them. The first few paragraphs about installation issues are a turn-off for many in this busy age, especially for neophytes for whom hoop-jumping at such an early moment could prove an instant turn-off. Most popular distros start up in liveCD mode these days, so putative users can trial the offering before deciding to install.
The issues of content and less than user friendly packaging is also well behind the line. There are plenty of alternative lightweight (even lighter!) distros with Xfce and LXDE which offer speed, simplicity, liveCD testing - I won't mention them by name because Ladislav will delete me, but cast an eye over the extensive DW list + helpful precis.
Most regular folks use GRUB these days and tend to shy away from LILO.
It may be personal, but I've also had very bad experiences with the Zen Forum.
Taken altogether for me, this is not a distro I shall be recommending.
3 • Ubuntu and mankind (by ange on 2011-10-17 09:30:53 GMT from Hungary)
Ubuntu defined as humanity to others, but it's a crime against humanity, destroy the work of users because ill-advised changes.
I'm going to boycott this product and replace with Fedora!
4 • @2 (by jerome on 2011-10-17 09:36:30 GMT from France)
Two bad arguments :
1. Zenwalk comes with an installable live-cd too !
2. Zenwalk belongs to the family of slackware which comes, like anyone should know, with LIlo as bootloader !
5 • Dennis Ritchie (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-10-17 11:17:58 GMT from Spain)
Is good to know that the media is spending some time regarding Dennies Ritchie. He was surely not as known as other characters of the IT theater, but he was one of the most important.
"Unix is very simple, you just need a genius to understand its simplicity"
6 • Linux.com (by Toolz on 2011-10-17 10:22:01 GMT from Vietnam)
I clicked the orange icon in my 'awesome' bar and got: "Error creating feed file, please check write permissions.".
BTW re "open source office suits" - the grammar checker could have come in handy there!
7 • @3 (by Sohryu on 2011-10-17 12:27:42 GMT from United States)
Destroying the work of users? If you didn't back up before updating, that's your own fault. As for the interface, I find it perfectly intuitive whether I'm using a notebook or my desktop (which has a touchscreen). If you need help figuring out how to do something...well, that's what man pages and community forums are for.
8 • Dennis Ritchie (by Darkman on 2011-10-17 12:29:13 GMT from United States)
We all are living in the house that Dennis Ritchie built.
9 • Ubuntu Our Way or No way (by Kurt on 2011-10-17 13:11:09 GMT from United States)
I would first like to say how much I have enjoyed the switch from Windows to Linux. Ubuntu 9.04 was the major factor in the move. If it were not for Media Monkey and my HP G4050 scanner I would not have a duel boot system.
Sorry! Now for the BAD. After a failed attempt to upgrade to 11.10 from 11.04 and finding or not finding any of my programs and my computer would not boot from the linux 3 kernel. Thank the programmers for not formating the drive, I still have my work. This is starting to seem more like MSoft’s you’ll like our way or goway!
What I don’t understand is why do I want my desk computer to function like my aged laptop?
I guess I’ll revert back to 10.04 LTS and start looking for a replacement for when this is no longer supported.
Thanks Ubuntu for making the switch to Linux fun. Sorry to see you go.
10 • Zenwalk (by MK on 2011-10-17 14:28:15 GMT from Saudi Arabia)
I have had a very positive experience with both Zenwalk openbox and XFCE. No problems in installation whatsoever. This is surely one of the fastest OSes around.
11 • Ubuntu and Kubuntu 11.10 (by rich52 on 2011-10-17 13:36:48 GMT from United States)
Installed both systems this past week and had numerous issues with Ubuntu and some with KDE Kubuntu. Needless to say I'm back on Fedora KDE 15 which runs very well and smooth. When 12.04 comes out I'll give them a try once again and only hope they'll have gotten their acts together once again. This whole Gnome facelift and Unity redesign OS shells have been nothing more than hype and new problems.
Rich
12 • Kubuntu 11.10 (by Leo on 2011-10-17 13:39:57 GMT from United States)
I've been running Kubuntu 11.10 in a couple machines. Here go my thoughts
PROS:
• the Plasma desktop looks spending, and it has reached great stability
• the K-Menu is well laid out and easy to navigate. The search is great
• there are built in profiles for netbook style UI, etc
• Network, package management and sound have finally stabilized
CONS
• Basically, KDEPIM is broken … again! KMail 2 is based on akonadi, and people are having horror stories migrating to it, and running it afterwords
• Web browsing still needs non-kde apps (I use Chrome, which is actually based on khtml indirectly)
• Office depends on non-kde
• PIM should use non-kde
• Nepomuk is a huge resource hog, and keeps crashing on my machine
Basically, I think Kubuntu should focus on a light KDE desktop and external apps. I think Linux mint is the most likely contender to put that together
13 • Ubuntu stalls at purple screen. (by RayRay on 2011-10-17 13:44:27 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu stalls at purple screen.
I know it is probably because of the Nvidia drivers but it is a new bug and one that should have been fixed prior to it's debut. What are betas for?
They have improved some functionality since the 11.04 release but the stalling on splash must have been a known issue and they released it anyway.
Before anyone tells me that I should have backed up before install, I always backup my work.
Ubuntu is fun but I think it is becoming a bit weird, By the way I also tried tried Kubuntu with the same result.
Going back to the previous kernel works but if kernel 3 wasn't ready it shouldn't have been used.
14 • @3 (by Tom on 2011-10-17 13:51:36 GMT from United States)
So you're going to switch from a beginner friendly distro to someone's alpha sandbox for one of their products? fedora isn't a magic bullet and has a lot of different issues.
15 • Re: #13 (by Leo on 2011-10-17 14:05:42 GMT from United States)
RayRay: "Going back to the previous kernel works but if kernel 3 wasn't ready it shouldn't have been used."
For the past 16 years I have run Linux. For the past, circa 11, since Linux went more "mainstream", no release of ANY distro goes without some comments like yours.
The reality is, no release will work for all possible configurations of hardware/software, and no decision ever will make everyone happy. If they didn't move to linux 3.0, there will be people screaming that Ubuntu doesn't innovate anymore and they are still on an old kernel
Cheers!
Leo
16 • Zenwalk (by Some Linux Fan on 2011-10-17 14:26:59 GMT from United States)
Ah, Zenwalk. I used it for a while and thought it was great... And then stuff started breaking. As of right now, a huge number of packages in the "Extra" repository are unmaintained and/or broken, e.g. most GTK based programs there won't save their settings properly.
Also their package manager is... an unusual choice. To be frank, slapt-get is better, easier to use, and has existed for a long time; so I don't know why they reinvented the wheel.
17 • Nice Mention Of Dennis Ritchie... (by CliffyB on 2011-10-17 14:53:51 GMT from United States)
But none for Steve Jobs, or did I miss it last week? I know someone mentioned his death in a comment, but it was deleted as off-topic.
18 • re:9 • Ubuntu Our Way or No way (by Michael J King on 2011-10-17 15:08:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
Kurt, As an alternative to the Ubuntu LTS with a familiar Gnome desktop and very long release cycle have a look at CentOs or Scientific Linux, these are a good bet for your desktop and you will have many years without needing upgrades, While Changing your OS every six months Is fine for many of us and we love to play with new features and user environments there is a place for stability.
19 • Re:17 (by Leo on 2011-10-17 15:15:28 GMT from United States)
"But none for Steve Jobs, or did I miss it last week?"
While Jobs' is a sad loss and clearly has a strong impact in the consumer tech world, it has no clear implication on the focus of this site (Linux/BSD). Ritchie, on the other hand, was the co-creator of both C (the language the kernel and most of Linux/BSD is written in), and Unix (Linux/BSD precursor).
20 • No thanks to Unity, going over to OpenSUSE (by Nix guy on 2011-10-17 15:20:14 GMT from Canada)
I originally ran Debian for server, desktop, and laptop, until Ubuntu came on the scene. It made initial setup easier, loaded in all "the usual" pieces, and generally just worked. I've been relatively faithful to it since. (small boxes still get Debian, it's just lighter)
With 11.04 and Unity, I gave my head a scratch, but tried it for a while.....ended up dumping Unity and going "classic". No problem. Under 11.10, even "classic" seems to be a little mucked up, and I've finally tossed my hands in the air and put it aside.
SuSE/OpenSUSE has always caught my eye, and I've used it a few times, and it's even the "flavour of choice" for my employer, so I'm officially taking the plunge. I've flipped a few boxes over already, and, while quite different than Ubuntu, it seems very polished and well behaved. Being a more commercially aimed distro, I'm betting they won't make any sudden left turns, like Unity.
He's hoping Ubuntu listens to all the users, and gives us the ability to go back to a more standard Gnome desktop, if desired.
Just my 2 cents worth.
21 • RE: Kubuntu 11.10 (by kmailfanatic on 2011-10-17 15:20:52 GMT from United States)
"• the K-Menu is well laid out and easy to navigate. The search is great"
Navigation wise, it lacks the ease of use of the previous versions with the arrow to go back a level. Too much mouse movement go all the way to the upper right corner to navigate back .
"• Basically, KDEPIM is broken … again! KMail 2 is based on akonadi, and people are having horror stories migrating to it, and running it afterwords"
This is sadly, true. I am a die hard KMail fan, and I won't be upgrading till this issue is resolved.
I've read all the "sky is falling" mantra about why this needed to be changed, and lump it into the, invalid. Much like certain devs just refuse to hear the users input in re nepo and akon
Because I choose to not have my quad core system work like a VIC 20 from nepo I loose search in KMail? Really?! ? ? Kmail search should be independent of any other program or OS search function.
"• Web browsing still needs non-kde apps (I use Chrome, which is actually based on khtml indirectly)"
Hmm.. I only use Konqi, no worki, no visit. Simple.
" Office depends on non-kde"
Best tool for the task, and that is FreeOffice. I guess if you only want KDE tools then yes it doesn't meet that requirement.
" PIM should use non-kde"
I am not sure I understand this, but I only use KMail, the rest of the "PIM" stuff is just excess baggage as far as *I* am concerned, if you need those functions great... but fixing functions else where in KDE or PIM or anything else should not impact KMail, or other programs.
"• Nepomuk is a huge resource hog, and keeps crashing on my machine"
Ahmen! Unfortunately, KDE has buried its head in the sand and does not wish to engage in any discussion on this. Its here, and if you want x function(s) in say KMail and else where you will use! Just look at the KDE bug report on this whole nepo mess:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=258171
This KMail2 and nepo mess are tarnishing things WORSE than the KDE 4.x, after 3 years of HARD WORK to get back to the level of 3.5.10! Not good. Sadly the USERS do not share your "love and vision" in re nepo et al, and you should listen to them!
22 • Re: 21 (by Leo on 2011-10-17 15:45:39 GMT from United States)
Thanks for all the feedback!
Yes, I actually think you are right about best tool for the job, and you are right, Kubuntu IS distributing LibreOffice by default, which is a great decision. My bad.
On KDEPIM: what I mean is that KDE has underdelivered consistently, and Kubuntu should choose external applications. I have used KMail for a decade. I have had issues of all sorts, not so much with emails, but with loosing account information on early KDE4/plama crashes, contact syncronization and storage, usability issues with the calendar .... I wound up using ONLY KMail. And now, even that is not working. I fixed hte migration issues manually, but when I open a folder it takes a minute or two to refresh the contents and be able to see the emails. Akonadi crashes the KMail Folders a couple times a day
My wife already switched to the cloud completely (GMail, GCalendar on computer and droid phone). I am half way there.
Nepomuk, like you said, I tried enabling it, but it took several days and several crashes to complete SOME of the indexing in my home dir, and that is on a 64 bit, 3 core fast machine with plenty of ram. I ended up disabling it (it is great when it works, but hey)
23 • Ubuntu 11.10 (by mechanic on 2011-10-17 15:47:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
Innovation is all very well, but perhaps it should go hand in hand with a little testing? I found this latest Ubuntu version uninstallable (from the live-CD) on a multi-distro system, simply because it insists in writing grub information to a partition or the MBR. Re-booting results in the system hanging if the new U. partition is selected. Use the mini.iso instead - 25MB or so - install a command line system and add the rest of the U. file system afterwards. The bootloader is more configurable using that.
Installers should always have the option of not installing a boot loader.
24 • People complaining about Ubuntu (by TobiSGD on 2011-10-17 15:48:49 GMT from Germany)
I have to wonder about some of the comments here and in other forums. At first, I wonder why people don't make a backup before doing system critical tasks, like upgrading the OS (I wonder even more why they sometimes don't seem to backup their "important" data at all).
Then I wonder if people have thought about the distro they choose for their machines. If you need something stable go for RHEL (or derivatives), Debian, Slackware or one of the BSDs. If you want something cutting edge go for Ubuntu, Fedora or Arch.
Simple as that: stable and cutting edge are somewhat incompatible. Cutting edge always means a short testing phase.
The six month release cycle for a complete version of those distros is mostly shorter than the beta-phase of one of the stable distros. How do you think that in such a short time a rock solid version can suddenly appear?
In my eyes, the main goal for Ubuntu is GUI-centric design and social networking, not stability.
If you want something stable, use something stable. If you go for something with such a short testing phase, don't complain if there are bugs.
25 • @18: Gnome2 Look (by cba on 2011-10-17 15:53:40 GMT from Germany)
The best way for users who cannot live without their old Gnome2 GUI, is to fork the Gnome3 fallback mode. "Gnome2" is still there and can easily be resurrected. And in this way, such a future "Gnome2 Addon" for Gnome3 could be used in every modern distro without any compatibility problems.
26 • Ubuntu (by Gustavo on 2011-10-17 17:02:16 GMT from Brazil)
Just use Xubuntu instead of Ubuntu. XFCE is what most people expect from a desktop environment.
27 • Fedora 16 Beta (by Gigi on 2011-10-17 16:56:50 GMT from India)
Talking about virtualization,you forgot to mention one of the key features of F16. After Fedora 8, it is the next release to support use as Xen Host using the new pv_ops features of the kernel.
28 • KDE and nepomuk (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-10-17 18:43:41 GMT from Spain)
kmailfanatic wrote:
-----------------------------------------
Just look at the KDE bug report on this whole nepo mess:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=258171
-----------------------------------------
Wow, this link is a must-read.
Glad I tossed big DEs some time ago and switched to a simple window manager. Fluxbox and other minimalistic approaches won't easily fall in the same pit big desktop environments use to.
29 • Ubuntu 11.10 First Impressions (by M. Edward (Ed) Borasky on 2011-10-17 19:54:58 GMT from United States)
The good: so far, it's the only Linux I've found that recognizes the touchpad as a touchpad on my Asus U46E-BAL5 notebook. This is a kernel problem, so I'm assuming all the other distros will catch up on this.
The bad: When I boot the LiveCD, it takes a very long time - minutes - to come to the point where I can decide whether to run as a LiveCD or install to my hard drive. That's simply unacceptable.
The ugly: I still hate the Unity desktop! It's a bit more like GNOME 3 than the version in 11.04 was, but still, there should be a "GNubuntu" for people who want a "pure GNOME 3" desktop.
So I won't be switching to Ubuntu now. Perhaps 12.04, which is supposedly going to be a long-term-support release, will entice me over the the brown-and-purple side.
30 • Ubuntu Server for Desktop/VM (by Casey on 2011-10-17 20:00:21 GMT from United States)
For those who hate Unity or desktop bloat, you could do what I've been doing for some time with my work VMs: install Ubuntu server and configure it how you like. I use Awesome as my WM and it works great in VirtualBox. The only issue is you have to do some manual configuration for X, but not too much. If you're not comfortable with that, then you probably don't want to do this.
31 • Re: 28 (Nepomuk) (by Leo on 2011-10-17 20:06:43 GMT from United States)
> -----------------------------------------
> Just look at the KDE bug report on this whole nepo mess:
>
> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=258171
> -----------------------------------------
>
> Wow, this link is a must-read.
How about this one, then :)
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdepim/+bug/857828
32 • zenwalk has no security updates (by dd on 2011-10-17 21:29:01 GMT from Hungary)
For all of you who would like to try zenwalk, be warned, that security support of zenwalk-stable is nearly nothing. Look for their changelog at http://www.zenwalk.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=128. The only update from may is flashplayer. No icecat, no icedove, pidgin, libpng just to name a few package with vulnerabilities etc.
33 • Sabayon xfce4 spot on (by Andy Figueroa on 2011-10-17 21:53:01 GMT from United States)
Although I've been primarily a Gentoo user since 2004, I thought I'd try the new Sabayon 7 on my older big Sony laptop just how much time it would save doing updates that don't require compiling. The installation of the x86 Gnome version went very well, though deciding the the new Gnome interface was insanity, I reinstalled with the xfce4 desktop. That was also trouble free, runs well, looks good, and might even be said to be fun. GOOD WORK Sabayon!
34 • Going to stay with Ubuntu 11.04 (by Taigong on 2011-10-17 22:28:55 GMT from Canada)
I couldn't find the login option in the 11.10, like I did with 11.04. Therefore, won't have the option to use Ubuntu classic instead of the Unity interface. Will stay with 11.04 until someone or I can find a way to do this.
35 • Ubuntu 11.10 and Classic Gnome (by tdockery97 on 2011-10-17 23:05:33 GMT from United States)
Yesterday I downloaded and installed Ubuntu 11.10. The first thing I did after that was to install Gnome Shell to try it out. Thanks to the new Gallium open-source drivers for those of us with ATI Cards it ran beautifully. My next task was to log into the classic Gnome desktop (the one with effects enabled). I usually use Cairo Dock in Gnome 2 and it installed perfectly in Gnome 3. I deleted the bottom panel, ran Cairo Dock (OpenGL) and it works fantastic. So there is at least one of us for whom Ubuntu 11.10 works the same as Gnome 2 did.
The downside is that it takes some research to find all the tweaks you can do to make Gnome 3 usable, but it can be done.
36 • KDE(PIM) (by Pierre on 2011-10-17 23:36:04 GMT from Germany)
I can't agree with all the people having problems with KMail. I'm currently using Fedora 15 KDE on my Laptop (ThinkPad R60) and everything runs great and smoothly.
I came to use Fedora 15 KDE because I definitly wanted to run KDE once again after using Xfce4 for some time now. KDE lost me -like so many else- as a fan and user after the switch from 3.x to 4.x series. OpenSUSE simply made the switch way to early and the KDE Team did not manage to find a solution for the bugfestival they released. Until now KDE evolved and the team really did a good job if you ask me. KDE 4.6.3 finally is usable and the KNetworkManager - a showstopper until lately - finally is able to handle WPA2-Enterprise encrypted WiFi-Connections.
So, I'm really looking foreward to Fedora 16 (KDE) and openSUSE 12.1, hoping the new releases are even better than the previous ones. Then finally openSUSE has a good chance for a come back on my desktop. Currently I'm running Mint Debian with Xfce on it. And Fedora 16 will replace version 15 on the Laptop. :)
Zenwalk never inspired me for a real test run. Salix OS instead does and the developers did a great job, although - for me, switching back to KDE and using Xfce4.8 already - the older versions (KDE 4.5.5 / Xfce 4.6) have a great influence on my dicision. I simply would miss a lot - too many - of the new features coming with the newer versions of the desktop environments.
On the other hand I really love Salix's stability and design - hard decision. ;)
I guess I'll give them all a try, maybe finally one distro really catches me. Until then I'll stick to distro hopping. ^^
37 • Ubuntu Our Way or No way (by Bill on 2011-10-18 00:17:27 GMT from United States)
About 1 1/2 years ago, I thought I'd give Linux another try. I hadn't tried it since I bought Red Hat Linux 7 at Walmart several years back. I goggled "best linux" and Ubuntu came up. I downloaded Hardy and WOW! I was hooked, I was so happy to give MS the boot, and format C:
The very top most thing I liked was FREEDOM! Freedom to choose. freedom to experiment, freedom as in GNU. And so I have enjoyed freedom with Ubuntu until now. Whereas I used to click on menu and then the application, now with Unity it takes four or five clicks. Whereas I used to design my desktop, color of panels, hide or show, large or small icons, cursors and other eye candy, now i feel again like I felt with Wdoze, I feel the cattle being directed in one direction only. (You Will use this side bar, you WILL not hide it, you WILL not change top panel, and so on and on).
I thank Ubuntu for giving me my freedom, and now that I've had it, I will not give it back. Once I found DistroWatch and Virtualbox I have been able to test drive over 50 Distros, (thank you so much).
Freedom, freedom, freedom, sorry Ubuntu, you lost that dream.
Thanks for being here Distrowatch.
Bill
38 • Win8 and linux (by BeckyA on 2011-10-18 01:10:36 GMT from New Zealand)
I've actually tried installing Linux Mint (the current version) on a VM which was running the developer version of Win 8. Beyond the fact that I don't want a 24'' smartphone on my desktop... it transpired that linux had problems with the partitions. There was only one on the Grub boot list and that was identified as a 'Windows Recovery Partition'. It seems to work and start Windows 8 - but it's 'messy'.
I'm suspecting that MS has also made some changes to the disk formats... or something... because I didn't get to see the partitions I knew were there.
Modern hardware... I'll let you know when I can afford some....
39 • you dont have to go the ubuntu way (by rocket robin hood on 2011-10-18 01:44:38 GMT from Canada)
Ubuntu has been heading in this direction for some time now, the decisions are made by canonical and not the users and that is not going to change. So it is up to the users to make the decision to switch to another distro if ubuntu is not working for you.
Bill has the right idea, dont dwell on one distro hoping that they can get their act together when their is so many alternatives with many different goals. I first started out on ubuntu as many others have, but when its shortcomings were made known to me I eventually switched to opensuse, and it worked rock solid and never let me down. Now I run many different distros, learned a thing or two about linux, and I have not gone back to ubuntu since.
Fedora, debian, opensuse, sabayon, mandriva: these are all beginner friendly enough, if ubuntu is not doing it for you, then try something else.
40 • Lubuntu 11.10 Alternate Debian Installer (by Roy H Huddleston on 2011-10-18 01:56:49 GMT from United States)
That was like so freaking awesome. Six hundred something files downloaded so fast. Which makes sense because Debian had a wonderful LXDE version already. It was nice to see the installer load the Nvidia drivers. I was so glad when Debian went to ext 4. I really like the grub2. Lubuntu sure is my favorite flavor of Ubuntu.
41 • 26 (by Vakkotaur on 2011-10-18 02:11:43 GMT from United States)
If one is going to use a *buntu flavor, I agree. It seems that KDE went to 4, GNOME went to 3, Ubuntu went to Unity... and many people went to Xfce.
42 • 2011-10-18 02:44:24 GMT from United States)
(off topic)
43 • ubuntu/kubuntu/xubuntu (by walter on 2011-10-18 02:57:32 GMT from Canada)
I installed kubuntu and xubuntu 11.10, and have had the problems others mentioned re kde - as well as amarok not seeing my ipod, so I'll wait and watch kubuntu for awhile yet, as it isn't ready for me. xubuntu is ok, and will test is some more. ubuntu though, i won't use.
I decided that I'll try to use centos 6 or sl 6 for work/production, and continue distro hopping for home. If i find that i really like a distro and can see it as a long term solution, i'll change. until then, I'll keep downloading distros. but then, thats half the fun.
44 • Ubuntu (by Walter on 2011-10-18 07:11:46 GMT from Canada)
@2 (ange): I'm with you on that. I've looked at 11.04 and 11.10, and simply do not like either one. That's why I won't install either of those, or any to follow, and will stick with 10.10 as long as I'm able. Once/If I start having difficulty with it, another distro is installed. I'm disappointed that Canonical apparently believes it knows what's best for humanity.
45 • Signing in with the anti-hardware-lockdown: is hotmail playing dirty? (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-10-18 07:12:41 GMT from Spain)
A friend of mine who has tried to sign for the Secure Boot Statement of the FSF has had the confirmation mail of the FSF blocked by hotmail's spam filter.
Maybe Microsoft is trying to prevent people from signing?
46 • Upgrading from Ubuntu 11.04 to 11.10 (by eco2geek on 2011-10-18 07:13:02 GMT from United States)
I decided to get out of X windows and do the upgrade completely from the command line this time. It worked fine, although it probably would have been better if I hadn't accidentally tripped the circuit breaker powering my PC somewhere in the middle of the process, but it recovered nicely.
Ubuntu's biggest "bug": GNOME 2 is gone. Let's observe a moment of silence for GNOME 2, please.
Yes, that was sarcasm; it's been a long time coming. If you like Unity, more power to you. GNOME3 fallback mode (what the login manager refers to as "GNOME Classic") is pretty ugly and unloved-looking, and who knows if it'll be supported in the long run. Xfce/Xubuntu is now my main UI. The only thing it's really missing is a System Settings applet for controlling the touchpad.
I would have installed Kubuntu, except I've already got two other KDE-based distros on my hard drive. For an example of other people's problems with Kmail (and someone going over and above to help them out), see this forum post:
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=3118665.0
47 • Zorin for Ubuntu replacement (by Greybeard on 2011-10-18 07:14:07 GMT from United States)
Re 20, (Nix Guy). You might want to try Zorin. Default is a Windows 7 appearance, but you can easily obtain the legacy Gnome desktop with a couple of clicks. I have used Linux for 7-8 years including Mepis, OpenSuse, PCLinuxOS, Fedora, Sabayon, Ubuntu, and Mint. Compiz works out of the box on my two desktops and one laptop.
Cheers,
Greybeard
48 • Suggested alternatives to Ubuntu (by FitzLT on 2011-10-18 07:37:16 GMT from United States)
For all those having problems with Ubuntu and are looking for something else, I (HIGHLY) recommend Joli OS and Chakra Linux. Both of them are extremely fast.
Chakra Linux is the fastest KDE distro I have ever used...period! It's rolling release and installing/uninstalling/upgrading software is amazingly fast and easy. The only problem is getting past the actual installation(which is very buggy at the moment). IF you can though, you will be amazed by a very solid, well-designed distro.
Joli OS is the one I am currently using now. It is also fast, but the layout and design is what impresses me the most. To me, it has a superior layout to Ubuntu and is truly convenient for "getting things done". It's simplistic and does not get in your way. My only complaint is that it does not offer 86_64x bit support *yet*. Despite this, it is still my favorite distro(even with only 3 of my 4 GB of RAM being accessible).
Don't get me wrong--I have loved Ubuntu since 6.06 and have always come back to it as my default. I actually like the Unity interface, but 11.10 actually runs horribly slow on my laptop. My computer is powerful enough that there should be NO slowdown at all. I can run Windows 7 with all effects on without any problems. Plus my touchpad does not work--at all. Sure, I COULD try to fix it. I COULD even wait for the next iteration pending any speed improvement--if I felt like it. I'm just tired of "timed-release" schedule that has infected the Linux community. I would rather much have a distro that is either a)rolling-release, or b)release-when-ready. Either aim for stability or cutting-edge, but this half-way mentality is extremely inefficient.
"Jack-of-all-trades, master of none" sucks. Period. Just my penny's worth.
49 • re #38 win8 and Linux (by gnomic on 2011-10-18 09:09:49 GMT from New Zealand)
Not quite sure what's up here - this is an install of Linux Mint inside a VM running Windows 8? How would you do that? Ah, it seems I have missed the existence of Mint4Win based on Wubi and apparently included with Mint. I'm not surprised if Grub is a little confused under the circumstances.
What I have noticed of late on new laptops (alas the property of others) is a nasty tendency for there to be three primary partitions on the disk - not content with a Windows partition and a recovery partition some PC makers are now adding a partition featuring a fine selection of their own 'tools'. This means as I understand it that only one primary partition can be added after resizing the NTFS partition for the original OS. Gone the good old days when one could easily drop in a partition for Linux, and a swap partition, assuming that one wishes to retain Windows and the other preinstalled partitions. Paranoid minds might wonder whether this is a plot to impede installation of alternative operating systems.
50 • re #49, #39 (by Pierre on 2011-10-18 11:02:09 GMT from Germany)
@49:
I can't see the point why the new method of PC vendors to creat 3 primary partitions for their tools, OS etc. would make it difficult to install Linux on it.
After shrinking the NTFS partition you can easily created an extended partition and creat as many logical partitions in it as you desire.
@39:
I absolutly agree! If someone does not like the Ubuntu way you have the freedom to chose under so many other distros that are worth a try.
I started my Linux life with SuSE Linux 7 some time ago. Then got to use Ubuntu in 2008 but refused to go on using Ubuntu after copying ruined all my important data. For gods sake I had a quite new backup.
Actually I'm using, as mentioned, Fedora, Mint and openSUSE as soon as 12.1 is released and proofs stable.
There are so many nice and even better distros out there, no one has to stay with Ubuntu, if it doesn't fit anymore!
Greetz
51 • sabayon 7 xfce4 (by bert barten on 2011-10-18 11:18:19 GMT from Netherlands)
I agree with Andy Figueroa about Sabayon 7 xfce4. After the use of other distro's I thought I try Sabayon. In the past I tried it once more, but that was a disappointment. I could not install it. Now I installed the newest xfce 4.8 edition of Sabayon 7 the last weekend. I had no expectations and got totally surprised. Everything works out of the box. If I have a question I ask the forum or read it in the wiki. On my dell Latitude D 520 it works very fast. Faster then with Gnome or KDE. I will give this edition the benefit of the doubt. Everyone who wants t o try something else then Ubuntu I advise try Sabayon xfce 4.8. An other advantage is the fact that Sabayon is a rolling release. Unlike Ubuntu with a 6 months release Sabayon keeps getting updates without having to wait to a new release. In my case a great advantage.
52 • re #51 (Sabayon and rolling release) (by Pierre on 2011-10-18 12:07:14 GMT from Germany)
My girlfriend tried Sabayon again and again with KDE and Xfce and always came to the point of a complete system breakage after an update.
I don't know why, but at the beginning Sabayon looks great, works great but with time the problems increase until the system is so unusable that only a reinstall can help. We are not the only one with that experience. A good friend of ours also got to know how a Sabayon system update can break the complete system.
So I can't recommend Sabayon at all.
Arch, Mint Debian, aptosid, Sabayon etc. all are great distros, no discussion on that, and rolling release deffinitly has it's big advantages, but when it comes to stability even the genius Mint Debian update method with update packs does not solve every problem with a rolling system. From time to time the system makes such a big step that a lot of tweaking might be required. This costs time I could spend easily on reinstalling a newer version of a stable release cycle disto and configure it again to my needs.
This way rolling systems simply loose their big advantages for me and that's one reason for me for returning to a stable release cycle distro like openSUSE and Fedora.
Greetings from Germany.
53 • Classic Gnome option in login screen (by KaruppuSwamy Thangaraj on 2011-10-18 12:13:18 GMT from United States)
@34 There is a gear icon next to user name in login screen. Clicking that shows a popup menu to list down options to choose Classic/Unity2D/Unity3D. You have to install gnome-fallback-session to get classic option.
54 • For A Beautiful Gnome Shell Ubuntu... (by CliffyB on 2011-10-18 13:23:19 GMT from United States)
Try LinuxLex, you won`t be sorry!
55 • secure boot (by disi on 2011-10-18 15:52:22 GMT from Germany)
I agree with the article here. While some other things that concern me. Who are the manufacturers to tell me who I trust and who not?
In general it is easy for big supplier like "Dell" to just put up a manufacture line for normal customers and one line with the chips for big customers, who use prepared images to setup the computers for their company.
The normal users, who by their computer in a shop and "have" to pay the Windows tax anyway, will have it significantly harder to install e.g. Linux/BSD on them. This means they probably never try anything else.
What happens if a user decides to buy a Windows 8 computer and after a while wants to install something else? Or in 5 years time, we will have Windows 23, which doesn't run on older hardware any more, and users want to install some alternative system because MS dropped support for Windows 8?
Let's say RedHat or whatever bigger player in Linux gets the manufacturers to give them the key to sign their kernels? Users will never be able to use any cutomized kernel, they built on their own.
The word about secure boot should be spread, needs to be made public, people educated and people in normal shops should demand not to have secure boot on their systems (like I hate those stickers and ask them to remove it)
56 • Secure boot (by Jesse on 2011-10-18 16:57:36 GMT from Canada)
@55:
Agreed. This security feature has a whole lot of drawbacks.
"Let's say RedHat or whatever bigger player in Linux gets the manufacturers to give them the key to sign their kernels? Users will never be able to use any cutomized kernel, they built on their own."
Customized kernels shouldn't be a problem, because the Linux kernel is loaded into memory by the boot loader. So it's probably just the boot loader that would need to be signed. This does limit which boot loaders people can use as GRUB2's license isn't compatible with hardware keys.
However, if the Linux kernel expands to be able to bootstrap itself, then we could be facing a more serious problem where the kernel would need to be signed.
57 • VirtualBox module bugs? (by Andy Figueroa on 2011-10-18 18:57:44 GMT from United States)
With regard to the posting about the VirtualBox module being buggy, is this a bit of a trumped up charge? I definitely do NOT experience this and have not in the last four years. I am a heavy user & system admin running VirtualBox as a host on both Gentoo and Linux Mint systems. I run Windows XP on both distributions' desktops, and use VirtualBox as a virtual server on two machines that provide concurrent Linux web hosting, Linux mail hosting, and a Windows XP desktop (that's three virtual machines, 24/7). In four years I've never experienced a failure attributable to the kernel module. Some bugs (though not personally experienced) are reasonable to expect for any package under such heavy development. It strikes me the developers are doing a fine job. I very much appreciate the work they are doing. I appreciate the Linux kernel team too.
58 • VirtualBox (by Jesse on 2011-10-18 19:42:17 GMT from Canada)
@57
I suspect the issue between the Linux kernel devs and VirtualBox is part technical and part politics. There very well may be issues with the vboxdrv module. There are certainly bug reports indicating stability issues. See
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-bugs/2011-07/msg01244.html
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/buglist.cgi?query_...
But if you look at Red Hat's bugzilla you'll find more reports regarding KVM and VMWare. So far as I know those haven't received a black mark against them.
What bothers me is the kernel devs are saying it's VirtualBox's problem. The VirtualBox team claims there is no problem. (https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=45313). Meanwhile, while they point fingers at each other, the users are suffering.
The module is licensed under the GPL, anyone with the technical skills can step in and fix it. So far no one has. Okay, that isn't entirely true. One of the VBox developers has followed up on the mailing list and appears to be addressing the issue. https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/10/9/82
Personally I haven't experienced any problems with VirtualBox and I run it almost every day. So I'm guessing it only causes problems in specific cases.
59 • Props to Unity 2D (by Scott Dowdle on 2011-10-18 20:50:50 GMT from United States)
I'm not much of an Ubuntu fan. In fact, I'm often a Fedora/RHEL bigot... but I do always try out the Ubuntu releases for a day or two just to see what's there. I really like the fact that they are offering a Unity 2D option... that does almost everything Unity 3D does... but without requiring accelerated 3D video support. In fact, I'd recommend dropping Unity 3D and focusing on 2D.
I wish GNOME 3 Shell would offer a 2D version. I know so many people who have problems getting GNOME 3 Shell to work because they have problems with 3D acceleration. I know that requiring 3D will help get users to report bugs and hopefully they will be fixed... and maybe in another six months or a year... or two... maybe things will change... but new cards will appear... no one will care much about older cards... and I just don't see it getting fixed for enough people. There should be a 2D option for GNOME 3 Shell. I realize that that would be a lot of work I so understand not taking it on because they don't have the resources... but it would be nice if someone would give it a try.
I also know that Unity 3D and Unity 2D are two completely different code-bases because 2D is supposedly built on QT while 3D is built with GTK / GNOME libraries... so I don't really give Canonical design props for creating a lot of work for themselves... but at least they did pull it off.
60 • @53 Classic Gnome option in login screen (by Taigong on 2011-10-18 20:51:39 GMT from Canada)
Thanks, I forgot to mention that I was running live dvd not installed on hd. The image from Ubuntu doesn't give me the Classic option. I will give it a try on live USB to see if it works.
61 • Secure Boot (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-10-18 20:52:27 GMT from Spain)
I say what I always say. Vote with your dollars!
It is important to educate our friends so they fully understand the implications of this UEFI implementation. Even if manufacturers allowed us to disable Secure Booting, I think they would be discriminating us by not allowing to Securely Boot anything that is not the Windows version of the moment.
From my point of view, Secure Boot is only an acceptable feature if it allows the user to sign his own software, no matter where it came from. I has been told that the UEFI standard is supposed to allow people to install his software, then sign it, then be able to use Secure Boot with it. I have not verified the reliability of this information. If this is not put into practice, then I will claim Secure Boot is no good.
SO VOTE WITH YOUR DOLLARS!
The reason because is hard to buy computers without Windows preinstalled is because we don't vote with our dollars. If you ask in the shop how the UEFI standard and you don't like the answer, tell them why you are going to buy from a competitor. Ensure your friends know how bad Secure Boot is (by telling them that they won't be able to securely boot anything that is not an allowed system, even if it's from MS). I don't think Secure Boot is a threat, but it is an abuse indeed.
Dollars and Euros move the world. VOTE WITH YOUR DOLLARS!
By the way, I recommend 100% GNU/Linux users to buy only hardware that is not charged with the Windows tax. Self-building and used computers are good options if there is not a friendly OEM in your country.
62 • XFCE 4 (by Landor on 2011-10-18 20:40:45 GMT from Canada)
I don't see a reason personally for anyone to discuss giving up one Desktop Environment for another. Both projects are growing at considerable rates. For those that are using Fedora there are options available to remain with an older, unsupported Desktop Environment if you choose. For users of Ubuntu you could easily stay at 10.10 for another 6 months and keep an eye on The Unity Shell. Also, there's the option of just using 10.04 since it's a long term support release.
Anyway, my experience so far is there's nothing horribly wrong with either of the two Shells. I even briefly discuss that in a recent article I wrote about testing Ubuntu 11.10 over the weekend. I found enough interesting things to have me come back for another look. It might not be my personal choice for a desktop environment, but I don't hate anything inanimate, and I'm open to the distinct possibility that I just may find it a pleasure to work with in time as it , or GNOME Shell, matures.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
63 • vote............... (by m1k on 2011-10-18 21:13:54 GMT from Italy)
Totally agree with @61 !!!
64 • Meritocracy has nothing with humanity (by ange on 2011-10-18 21:31:07 GMT from Hungary)
#7: It's not about backups. We tried changing people's mindsets about Linux, and now all our work is in vain.
65 • Re: #49 (by BeckyA on 2011-10-18 22:56:52 GMT from New Zealand)
I'm not using Mint4Win at all - never have done because I want the benefits of the full filesystem - not something that's been grafted into an NTFS filesystem. I treat the VM just like a normal PC and use a cleared partition for installing Mint.
If you look at the Windows installs, ithey now give you two partitions - a small hidden one of 100MB for part of the system - and then the normal partition that becomes drive C: when it boots normally.
The problem/quirk that I found was that Mint didn't show both of these windows partitions, as it does with Windows 7, and the one it did recognise was labeled as a 'Windows Recovery Partition'.
As far as the other partitions go - linux seems to be quite happy working on extended/logical partitions... so there shouldn't ever be problems. I guess you might find fun with Solaris though - although I've not tried it myself on a disk that was already full with partitions.
66 • An apology to the Ubuntu family (by LinuXFroG on 2011-10-19 00:36:09 GMT from United States)
Last time I posted here, I had criticized Ubuntu, for all the new changes they made, that made my life miserable.Buttons made Mac style. GNOME 3. I left Ubuntu and went to Fedora. BAH!! As one poster mentioned, each distro has it's own bugs/issues.
But whether we like/hate those choices or not, they still have it right for the most part. Ubuntu was what pulled me out of the Windows Hell, many,many years ago. As with many other users, we owe our loyalty to Ubuntu. Ubuntu is and always will be family.
Kind of like when you come home and your spouse has moved the Living room around, but you really hate what they have done. But do we leave over it? No. I mean, why would we? So why leave Ubuntu over changes they have made?
Granted, I hate GNOME 3 and Unity, but WHY leave over those issues, when there are other DEs we can use? I now use Xfce, while not being exactly what I want, it's close enough.
So, I must apologize to my family, for being disloyal and running out on you.
LF
67 • @61 (by disi on 2011-10-19 08:37:24 GMT from Germany)
I have only pound here :/
For the last netbook I bought (should arrive today), I told me manufacturer he shouldn't bother installing Windows 7 Starter on the harddrive and remove all those stickers as well.
But there this doesn't matter since the price for that Windows licence is hardwired to the hardware. I decided to by the netbook, because the vendor allowed me to swap parts around except of that stupid Windows licence.
68 • #66 (by zykoda on 2011-10-19 16:20:23 GMT from United Kingdom)
It's OK for a change of house arrangement in the light, but if one is tired and goes to throw oneself on the bed in the dark, and that has moved, then that is a nasty surprise!
69 • re #59 (by Pierre on 2011-10-19 19:21:35 GMT from Germany)
If you would have taken the time to read a bit about the recently released Gnome 3.2 you would already know that with 3.2 the Gnome Shell got 2D support.
Give Fedora 16 Beta or openSUSE 12.1 Beta with Gnome a try and you'll see - it works quiet great already.
Greetings from Germany!
70 • KDEPIM problems (by GrzegorzW on 2011-10-19 19:48:22 GMT from Poland)
It's evident need to fork akonadi server and create someting like akonadi_light, which will be able to talk to libakonadi.
anonadi_light should be a very light daemon (one and only one) with SQLite or plain files storage intended for mainly desktop/one user environments with very simple, pesimistic locking. No nepomuk dependency, no MySQL server dependency, etc.
If anybody is aware of such project - please share the link.
After testing KDEPIM 4.7, I actually started to read about akonadi design in order to create such fork. If I ever create such thing - I will publish on kde-apps.org.
Of course current full-featured akonadi may be good for multi-user servers keeping TBytes of PIM data, but I don't relly need it on my personal desktop with +- 250 contacts and few mails per day.
Current KDE design looks little like let say some crazy Windows version that require Exchange Server just to run OS.
KISS - Keep it simple stupid.
71 • On Change (by Peter Besenbruch on 2011-10-19 21:42:49 GMT from United States)
The old Windows 98/NT4 interface with a start button and few quick launchers on a task bar wasn't/isn't a bad interface. Windows 95 had much of that implemented, and when it first came out, it was a breath of fresh air over the Windows 3 interface of Program Manager-File Manager.
If you think about it, the interface is still around in the various desktop environments. Probably the most faithful is LXDE, although it's desktop icon support isn't as flexible as Windows 98's. It makes up for that by using a more advanced window manager, Openbox. When combined with LXDE, Openbox makes an ideal environment for netbooks. Openbox's ability to hide window decorations allows it to make maximum use of a netbook's limited screen. The ability to use just 75 meg. to run isn't bad either.
XFCE lacks the ability to hide window decorations, but it, like KDE3 before it, lets me add more than one item to a quick launch button. It also has greater flexibility in arranging desktop icons. I have found XFCE to be exceptionally stable, as well.
When KDE added more capabilities (and bugs) with KDE4 than I wanted, I switched. I miss KDE3, largely because I think it was a close to ideal implementation of the basic desktop I first encountered in Windows 95, only better. It did a better job than LXDE hiding window decorations on netbooks, and had all of XFCE's flexibility. It was the Windows 98 desktop done right, with great flexibility and stability.
If Ubuntu wants to implement Unity, if Gnome3 wants to break with the past (and my version of Virtualbox), more power to them, but I will not follow.
72 • RE: 68..66 (by Ron on 2011-10-19 22:20:19 GMT from United States)
Think about what happened to NEW COKE!
73 • Ubuntu Unity (by Greg on 2011-10-19 23:18:56 GMT from United States)
I agree with tdockery97, on post 35. I have done the same. The new Lubuntu also works. Just move the bottom panel to the top, and put Cairo, AWN, or Docky at the bottom.
74 • Windows Tax (by Marco on 2011-10-20 18:33:26 GMT from United States)
@61: In Spain, there might be a Windows tax, but in practice here in the USA, the Windows Tax may actually be negative (at least in terms of your money, not your time). Why? When we buy a system from a retailer like newegg.com or from the consumer line direct from a manufacturer like Dell, we get a hard drive full of bloat ware, with demonstration, trial, and freemium offerings. The vendors of the bloat ware pay for the privilege of filling our hard drives, and slowing our boots. If the systems vendors offered 'clean' distributions, they would not only have to forgo their joint marketing payments from Microsoft, they would have to forgo these payments from bloat ware vendors.
75 • #69 (by zykoda on 2011-10-20 19:06:33 GMT from United Kingdom)
Gnome 3.2 with 2D support...that's the key. How did you find that out apart from testing?
Distrowatch should keep us informed of such innovations. Maybe Desktopwatch is required!
das die doch der teufel halt.
76 • Why Unity? (by BitBurner on 2011-10-20 20:36:12 GMT from Finland)
Why onearth Canonical is pushing Unity, while Gnome Shell offers a similar desktop approach, but is just much better at it.
The designer of Unity seems to make the presumption that the user has his hands laying on the keyboard all the time. It is convinient to use with keyboard, but the usability just sucks with the mouse. Just trying to shuffle in between multiple windows is a pain with Unity and requires far too manu clicks. Gnome Shell already does this much better with the top-left corner hotspot.
1st thing to do after 11.10 Ocelot install - get Gnome Shell and make it default!
77 • Gnome (by Jesse on 2011-10-20 20:51:57 GMT from Canada)
>> "Gnome 3.2 with 2D support...that's the key. How did you find that out apart from testing? Distrowatch should keep us informed of such innovations. "
We covered the release of Gnome 3.2 here about two weeks ago with a link to the release notes. You can read them again here: http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.2/
You'll note the release announcement doesn't mention 2D support for Gnome Shell, nor fallback mode, nor does it address driver issues. If Gnome Shell works on 2D drivers I've yet to see evidence of it. The last time I tried Gnome 3 it fell back to using the classic shell when 3D support wasn't available.
78 • secure boot BIOS and Dell (by Charles on 2011-10-20 23:18:57 GMT from United States)
I wouldn't be so sure of Dell and secure boot. They're awfully pally-pal with Microsoft. And, as much as they did finally sell me a linux-by-default netbook a couple years ago, it took three separate instances with their online manned-help system and four hours to make the purchase. Dell is not sold on Linux. I think more likely success is to be found with Lenovo and other non-US based manufacturers.
79 • @32 (by Anony Moss on 2011-10-21 10:42:09 GMT from India)
Was a bit concerned to hear about lack of security updates in Zenwalk. Seems like they heard you, or you barely missed their updated changelog.
http://www.zenwalk.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=127
Your comment dated: 17th Oct
Changelog dated: 16th Oct
:-)
Also saw that the concerns you raised are addressed in these updates. Thanks.
80 • @32 ... contd (by Anony Moss on 2011-10-21 10:48:20 GMT from India)
Hmm, upon a relook, Firefox and Thunderbird (they seemed to have reverted to these names), have not been updated since April in Zenwalk.
81 • Gnome 3.2 (by Burt Wilson on 2011-10-21 13:25:47 GMT from Netherlands)
I think i'm the only person who actually likes gnome 3. My desktop has a really old, cheap nvidia card and I find performance and usabilty perfectly good with gnome 3. Actually given time, it becomes quite a natural and second nature way of working. My productivity has increased with gnome 3 not diminished like some would have you believe.
82 • Windows Tax (by Anonymous Coward on 2011-10-21 15:03:32 GMT from Spain)
Marco wrote:
--------------------------------------------
In Spain, there might be a Windows tax, but in practice here in the USA, the Windows Tax may actually be negative (at least in terms of your money, not your time). Why? When we buy a system from a retailer like newegg.com or from the consumer line direct from a manufacturer like Dell, we get a hard drive full of bloat ware, with demonstration, trial, and freemium offerings. The vendors of the bloat ware pay for the privilege of filling our hard drives, and slowing our boots.
---------------------------------------------
The reasoning is accepted.
The main problem is not that, when buying a Windows computer, Microsoft profits. The problem is that you are paying the same money a Windows user pays, plus your guarantee will surely be voided if you use GNU/Linux, plus OEMs will not provide drive support for you. In addition, you will be counted as a Windows user in the stats!
I guess Zareason won't void your guarantee because you use GNU/Linux, and they provide driver support. If you self-build, you keep your guarantee for each component and have driver support (because you are supposed to have bought compatible hardware). No-OS computers may have driver problems, but at least they won't be troublesome because you uninstalled Windows.
83 • re @79,@80 (by dd on 2011-10-22 12:19:28 GMT from Hungary)
You are referring to changelog of 'snapshot' not the changelog of 'stable' stable change changed at Aug 26, if you doesn't count flash-player it's changed at May 31. zenwalk-snapshot is not the one for average users.
There is NO security support for zenwalk, and I don't understand WHY. It could be a good distro, but without it, is is nothing!
84 • Thank God for Xubuntu (by on 2011-10-23 01:29:50 GMT from United States)
Hats off to the Xubuntu team!
I tried working with Ubuntu on DVD and the stick, trying to figure out how I could possibly get back to a basic usable desktop. Unity is trash, makes for a nice sound bite but is worthless. Nothing was going to get me where I needed to be, too much junk had to be taken off too many hoops to jump through, as far as I am concerned Ubuntu has shot themselves in the head with Unity.
Enter Xubuntu, it just worked, even the live USB saved my settings better than Ubuntu. I had enough of the common applications to get moving. I had a fully functional panel I could place applets, a desktop where I could save things temporally. It was not love at first sight, I put it through its paces, I had a growing concern because IT WAS JUST TOO EASY and WORKED SO WELL. After seeing which applications it had and ESPECIALLY which applications it did not I installed it. (No MONO, No KD or !#$!# Unity)
Dual boot on a new winblows7 laptop from Acer with AMD quad 970n 17.3 from your local Wally*Mart. Now I wouldn't buy a toilet scrubber from these people (DullMart Asian Marked for atl things cheap) if I didn't have to but they had what I thought I wanted at a price (almost) too good to be true. Used the MiniTool Home Version Partition Wizard and moved the unmovable winblows partition and files on the first try. Booted into Xubuntu and ran their install utility, I tried it from the boot but it was acting really flaky and I didn't trust the outcome. Got everything but the swap right, gparted gave me an extra empty partition I deleted and had to reconfigure the swap out greater than the maximum memory this thing will hold, it left about 1MB at the end of the drive, cool!
Everything worked except fro hibernate. Again it was my fault munging with the SWAP. The grub template needed 'resume=/dev/sha7' as a grub command. Now everything works.
I've used a half dozen distros over the last dozen years starting with FORMAT Linux, Sorcerer, Mandrake, Gentoo (sux), Mint (nice)and have use Ubuntu derivatives for the past three years, with a few others along the way. So I'm an experienced power user having hosted scratch built servers on Linux for most of those years.
Xubutu 11.10 is the best distro I've used to date and it works on a modern laptop.
Canonical get your collective heads out of your collective asses. Unity not what the world wants.
World Unity is what I pray for in the coming 2012 epoch.:wq
85 • Ubuntu screenshot (by Brandon Sniadajewski on 2011-10-24 02:38:50 GMT from United States)
I just wanted to point out that the screenshot on the Ubuntu page needs to be updated to reflect 11.10.
86 • 85 Ubuntu screenshot (by ladislav on 2011-10-24 03:18:45 GMT from Taiwan)
I was on the road for a few weeks. I am back home now, so I'll start updating all the missing info, including screenshots, package lists, etc. Sorry for the delay, but I do need a break from time to time :-)
87 • @86 RE: Voyager (by CliffyB on 2011-10-24 05:56:45 GMT from United States)
It`s set for English as default. I`m running it now and it`s pretty sweet.
Number of Comments: 87
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| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
NethServer
NethServer is a CentOS-based Linux distribution for servers. The product's main feature is a modular design which makes it simple to turn the distribution into a mail server and filter, web server, groupware, firewall, web filter, IPS/IDS or VPN server. It also includes a comprehensive web-based user interface that simplifies common administration tasks and enables single-click installation of several pre-configured modules. NethServer is designed primarily for small offices and medium-size enterprises. NethServer continues to develop server-side software, though after the 7.x branch, the project has shifted away from creating its own distribution and focuses on providing software which can be installed on other enterprise-class server distributions. NethServer forms the basis of the NethSecurity firewall distribution.
Status: Dormant
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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!
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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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