 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 437, 2 January 2012 |
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Welcome to this year's first issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Enlightenment 17, in development for over a decade, has yet to become a widely-used window manager. Luckily, its niche following is occasionally exploited by a project that successfully combines its power and features to provide an attractive and usable desktop. Bodhi Linux, an Ubuntu-based system and the subject of today's feature article, is a relatively new distribution that is making dramatic strides towards creating a highly usable and enticing desktop that would work even on modest hardware. In the news section, a popular Linux review site reveals the "distro of the year", Linux Deepin improves on the Ubuntu Software Centre, Linux Mint forks GNOME Shell to deliver a more GNOME 2-like experience with Cinnamon, and a Fedora contributor explains why it's a bad idea to disable SELinux. Also in this issue, a link to a nice overview of Clonezilla Live, news about the termination of LinEx and "restructuring" of Pardus Linux, year-end comparison of our Page Hit Ranking statistics, and a tip for combining files to create an ISO image. There is more, so enjoy the read and have a great start of the New Year with DistroWatch!
Content:
- Reviews: An enlightening experience - Bodhi Linux 1.3.0
- News: Bodhi release plans, Deepin Software Centre, Linux Mint's Cinnamon, Pardus "restructuring", end of LinEx, SELinux tips, overview of Clonezilla
- Statistics: Page Hit Ranking in 2010 and 2011
- Questions and answers: Creating ISO images
- Released last week: Dreamlinux 5, ExTiX 9, Linux Deepin 11.12, Netrunner 4.0, Calculate Linux 11.12
- New additions: ROSA, siduction
- New distributions: Live Voyager, roblinux, Ubuntu Razor-qt Remix
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (37MB) and MP3 (45MB) formats
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story (by Robert Storey) |
An enlightening experience: Bodhi Linux 1.3.0
 Siddhartha Gautama Buddha (also known as Sakyamuni) was born a wealthy prince approximately 2,500 years ago. At the age of 29, he gave up his privileged princely lifestyle to spend the next six years as an ascetic seeking truth. After a marathon 49 days in meditation while sitting beneath a Bodhi tree, he obtained Enlightenment.
I admire Siddhartha's patience, but I'm relieved that I only needed to spend about two minutes attaining Enlightenment, version 0.17, via the "e17" package that is available in Ubuntu. Like many others, I was driven to seek Enlightenment by despair. Mainly, despair after Ubuntu attached itself to a sinking ship called Unity, while another unenlightened contingent is grappling with the horrors of GNOME 3. Desperately seeking answers - not to mention a usable desktop window manager - I decided to give Enlightenment a try.
I was impressed. Lurking almost unnoticed in the bowels of the Ubuntu package repository, E17 proved to be a lightweight desktop manager with lots of eye candy. It's also highly configurable, if you know how. The brainchild of Carsten Haitzler (also known as Rasterman), E17 has been in development for over a decade. After discovering its charms, I figured that it was just a matter of time before someone would release a Linux distro using Enlightenment as its default desktop. And now someone has.
Enter Bodhi Linux. I cannot say with authority that this is the very first Enlightenment distro. Indeed, I know of three others (Elive, OpenGEU and MoonOS), but Bodhi is the first to attract a significant following, and the enthusiastic user base is still growing. Bodhi now sits at number 20 on the DistroWatch hit list, impressive considering the first release was 2011-03-11, a mere 10 months ago. The development team - led by Jeff Hoogland - is small, but Bodhi is based on Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx), the current "long-term support" (LTS) version of Ubuntu. The next LTS release of Ubuntu will be 12.04 (now in alpha), and Bodhi 2.0.0 (planned for release in the middle of 2012) will be based on it - but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Installation
Bodhi prides itself on being a "minimalist" distro, so perhaps it comes as no surprise that the current version 1.3.0 ISO file is a diminutive 374 megabytes. That makes for a pretty quick download. Although it can be run as a live CD, installation requirements are impressively lightweight - 300 MHz i386 processor, 128 MB of RAM and 1.5 GB hard disk space. Needless to say, beefier hardware will bestow a better user experience upon you, but it's nice to know that a lame computer from circa 2001 might be able to run Bodhi.
My current machine is an ASUS Eee PC netbook, which allows me to bask in the glow of moral superiority that one gains from using an energy-saving low-power device. Not to mention the fact that, like Siddhartha, I've been living the life of an ascetic (i.e. I'm unemployed) and the Eee PC was the cheapest model in the computer store. As bottom-end hardware, it lacks a built-in CD drive. Therefore, I used UNetbootin to burn the ISO file to a USB stick and booted from it. From cold start to login prompt, boot speed was an impressive 20 seconds. At boot-up, one can select different themes - the one you see here is A-Angelic2.
Bodhi Linux 1.3.0 - the A-Angelic2 theme
(full image size: 197kB, screen resolution 1024x600 pixels)
Bodhi uses the user-friendly Ubuntu installer. Survivors of previous Linux installs should breeze through the routine almost with their eyes closed. Due to the fact that this is a minimalist distro, the installation proceeds rapidly - mine required a mere 10 minutes.
First Boot
Although I was expecting the desktop to be mean, lean and clean, one thing I didn't expect was "dim." I mean this not as some sort of insult (i.e. dimwitted) but rather as is in "dark and dim." Adjusting screen brightness with the ASUS's hardware key combination FN+F6 was insufficient to solve the problem - even at the maximum brightness setting, it was still too dim for my tastes. This sent me scurrying to Google to seek a solution, and it wasn't long before I was enlightened... I could recover full brightness by opening a terminal and typing this not-very-intuitive message:
sudo setpci -s 00:02.0 F4.B=ff
My screen looked fine after this, and indeed I had to dim it a bit with the FN+F5 key combo. I wondered if my fix would carry over into the next reboot, so I went ahead and gave that a try. To my dismay, the dim screen was reincarnated. Fortunately, I'm not a total ignoramus when it comes to Ubuntu/Debian things, though others may disagree. One thing my fellow Debianistas have managed to beat into my head is the procedure to create a script that runs each time you boot up. Thus, I did the following from a terminal (after using "su" to become root):
Used the included nano text editor to create a file named...
/etc/init.d/brightness.sh
...with this content...
setpci -s 00:02.0 F4.B=ff
Then I made the file executable...
chmod +x /etc/init.d/brightness.sh
Finally, I set up the system to run this script on every boot-up...
update-rc.d brightness.sh defaults
Upon the next reboot, I still saw a slightly dim screen after I logged in, but I could easily adjust it to full brightness with the hardware keys, this time without the need to run my script again. On subsequent reboots, I no longer needed to make any adjustments. All things considered, an effective workaround, and safe to leave it in place even if the original bug (whatever it might be) gets fixed in a subsequent update.
Speaking of updates, with my screen issues safely out of the way, updating Bodhi's software packages was my next highest priority. This was my first hint that Bodhi might be a little intimidating for Linux newbies. Most of the *buntus have an "update-manager" utility that informs you when new packages are available and nags you to install them. Bodhi does no such thing, thus you must resort to the command line with the following:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
(Or better yet, "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade".) Since Bodhi installs very few packages by default, the first update/upgrade should go relatively fast. With this task accomplished, you may want to reboot (important if your update installed a new kernel) before installing new packages.
Making Bodhi Useful
Like Siddhartha himself, the default install of Bodhi is ascetic, if not outright famished. You'll need to beef things up with quite a few packages to make the bare bones desktop genuinely useful. Debian/Ubuntu veterans are most likely already familiar with Synaptic, which puts a nice warm fuzzy point-and-click interface onto Debian package management. If Synaptic isn't warm and fuzzy enough, fire up the included Midori web browser and visit the Bodhi Linux Appcenter. If you find a package you like, click the "Install Now" - this is just the same as installing via Synaptic, only with a prettier interface.
What you should not do if at all possible is to click the "Download" button in the Appcenter. If you ignore that advice and plunge ahead, what happens is that you will download a *.bod file. This is a unique Bodhi approach that isn't especially intuitive. After you've downloaded, for example, file bodhi-printing.bod, you then have to first make it executable. This can be done on the command line with the sudo chmod +x filename.bod command, or you can do it with point-and-click by right-clicking them and editing their properties. Once made executable, you can then double-click the bods which will launch the installer. The only reason why Bodhi offers up the *.bod files is so that they can be transferred to computers that have limited or no Internet access. Even the Bodhi developers don't advise you to take this approach if you can get online instead.
Card-carrying geeks and other fans of the traditional command line interface will probably find it easiest to just forget all the above. Rather, open a terminal and type:
sudo apt-get install package-name
Bodhi does have repositories of its own with some packages that are not in the standard Ubuntu base. As I've already hinted, there is an important printing package (important if you have a printer, that is). Not surprisingly, it's named bodhi-printing. If you have an HP printer, you'd be well-advised to install package hplip-gui.
I live in Asia, so Asian-language support is a rather big issue with me. One thing I soon discovered is that Bodhi does not have any Asian fonts installed. Visit a page in Chinese, Japanese or Korean, and all you'll see are little boxes with numbers in them where the Asian script should be. This can be remedied by installing a few unicode fonts - at the minimum, I'd suggest installing package ttf-wqy-zenhei.
Once you've got all your preferred applications installed, check to see if they appear some place in the main menu. If for any reason they aren't, you can always create a launcher for your favorite app as follows: Settings --> Settings_Panel --> Apps --> Create_Launcher, click Applications and type in /usr/bin/My_Favorite_App. After this, your favorite application should appear in the main menu: Applications --> Other --> My_Favorite_App.
Multimedia Issues
There are no codecs installed by default, so if you plan to watch or listen to any multimedia, the package ubuntu-restricted-extras will work wonders. Nevertheless, I did encounter a few sound problems, some of which I could resolve, others not.
The first audio glitch I ran into was that I my USB plug-and-play headphones didn't work with the default ALSA sound server. Fortunately, my cry for help was answered in this thread. At least in the current rendition of Bodhi, it's necessary to disable internal audio in order to get USB audio working. That is not the case in some other distros I've tried that use PulseAudio instead of ALSA, but for now PulseAudio doesn't seem to work at all in Bodhi. Anyway, without further ado, to make USB audio work, create a hidden dot file in each user's home directory named .asoundrc with the following content:
pcm.!default {
type hw
card 1
}
ctl.!default {
type hw
card 1
}
After you've done this and logged-out/logged-in, the new setting will take effect. Your USB audio should work fine. On the downside, if you have any standard analog headphones, speakers or microphone, they will cease functioning until such time that you delete ~/.asoundrc or rename it. Admittedly, this is a somewhat ugly hack, but it gets the job done.
A more stubborn problem I experienced was that certain recording programs did not work at all with Bodhi - in particular, professional programs that rely on the Jack sound server. My most critical voice recording program, Google-Talk, functioned flawlessly - blessedly, it does not rely on Jack. But I couldn't do jack when I attempted to record with Mhwaveedit. I spent some time searching online for solutions, and among the suggestions were to install the packages jackd and qjackctl (for starting and configuring jackd). Despite my best efforts, Mhwaveedit would stubbornly spit out an error message about not being able to start the Jack server (used by other Jack-enabled applications such as Ardour and Hydrogen. According to the documentation on Mhwaveedit, it is supposed to work with both ALSA and Jack, so this remains a mystery. For now, the issue is unresolved.
User Management
Bodhi does not, as yet, offer any nice touchy-feely user-friendly tools to add or delete user accounts. For this you have to rely on good old-fashioned Unix command line tools.
To add a new user:
sudo adduser user-name
To delete a user:
sudo deluser user-name
To change a user's password:
sudo passwd user-name
To give the new user sudo (administrative) privileges, add him/her to the admin group:
sudo adduser user-name admin
If you want to know more, check out the man pages:
man adduser
man deluser
Auto-mounting External Devices
Although not everybody needs or wants this feature, most users expect that when they plug an external USB device into their computer, an icon will pop up on their desktop. Some distros (Puppy comes to mind) automatically put in icon on your screen but the device doesn't auto-mount - you have to click it first, which is no big deal. Most modern operating systems will, however, instantly auto-mount USB gizmos, and immediately thereafter will load some sort of file manager showing the content of the device.
In Bodhi, auto-mounting is turned off by default. To turn it on use Main Menu: Settings --> Settings Panel --> Files --> Places, click the checkbox "Mount volumes on insert" and (if you like) "Open filemanager on insert". Unfortunately, I experienced mixed results with this. Yes, my USB devices would auto-mount, and the default file manager PCManFM would open. But after a reboot the system reverted to its former non-mounting state. Having to turn this on each time was annoying, and the result was often unpredictable.
Adding insult to injury, PCManFM has an abominable interface. As an example, when you want to umount a device, you have to unintuitively right-click on its name in the column on the left (rather than the icon itself) and select "eject" rather than "umount." I could live with that (indeed, I'd really be impressed if PCManFM actually ejected my USB memory stick rather than merely umounted it). However, PCManFM had the considerably rude habit of randomly refusing to umount the device and popping up an error message informing me that the device as "busy," even though it wasn't.
Bodhi Linux 1.3.0 - don't believe PCManFM
(full image size: 49kB, screen resolution 804x565 pixels)
Since I am obviously not a fan of PCManFM, I replaced it with the far more elegant (but still lightweight) Xfe file manager. Once installed, it appeared in the main menu under Applications --> System_Tools. To make Xfe the default file manager use Main Menu: Settings --> Settings Panel --> Files --> Places, click "Use a custom file manager" and type "/usr/bin/xfe". Log out and log back in for the new settings to take effect.
Unfortunately (I'm beginning to hate that word), even the pretty face of Xfe did nothing to solve the problem of USB auto-mounting failing to work whenever it felt like it. This sent me scurrying to the Bodhi Linux forum to search for a revelation, but I found no joy there. It became apparent that not everybody is having this problem, so maybe it's just my hardware.
In the end, I decided to deploy a brute force solution by installing the USBmount package, plus the recommended but optional Pmount. This unfailingly mounted whatever USB device I could throw at it. These will appear as folder /media/usb0, /media/usb1, /media/usb2, etc, but it will not put an icon on your desktop no matter how hard you push, pull or reboot. The documentation for USBmount indicates that to umount, you can just pull out the device - a good thing, because I could not get Xfe (let alone PCManFM) to umount devices mounted by USBmount, unless I started Xfe with root privileges (sudo xfe) which isn't really recommended.
Actually, let me backtrack - one feature of Enlightenment is that you can assign any GUI application to have root privileges without resorting to the sudo command. To do this, first start the application as normal. Then right-click on the top border - the menu that pops up starts with the program's name. Put the mouse cursor over it and you'll see a pop-up submenu, starting with "Edit Icon". Click that and a dialog box appears. The third field of the dialog box (where it says "Application") can be edited: put the word "gksu" in front of the application's name and click "Apply." Now close the application - next time you open it, you'll be prompted for your password, and then the app will run with root privileges. Use this feature with caution - running a file manager with root privileges gives you (among other powers) the ability to delete system files with a mere mouse click. For this reason, you may wish to have one file manager set up with root privileges and another without.
All things considered, I think the auto-mounting and file browsing in Bodhi needs a little attention, and hopefully will improve in future releases.
Conclusion
Despite a few quirks and a somewhat buggy audio setup, I was overall very pleased with Bodhi Linux. So pleased, actually, that I will continue to use it despite the fact that I'm finished writing this review. I can honestly say that this is one of the most fun distros I've ever used - maybe not quite nirvana, but getting close.
Linux newbies will perhaps be unsettled by the need to occasionally go to the command line to perform administrative tasks. If point-and-click everything is required, there are other distros that better serve this need.
On the other hand, tech-savvy refugees from GNOME 3, Unity and (dare I say it) KDE should be pleased by the speed of the attractive Enlightenment desktop. Bodhi's developers deserve kudos for producing the first really usable Enlightenment-based Linux distribution. This is just possibly the best OS yet to restore a tired old computer suffering from bad karma and a wimpy CPU.
Bodhi Linux is less than a year old, and I think it's only fair to cut the developers some slack as they stamp out bugs and add new features. Hopefully they can accomplish all that without hurting the currently superb performance. With a rapidly growing base of users, I expect that we will be hearing about Bodhi for quite some time.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
Bodhi release plans, Deepin Software Centre, Linux Mint's Cinnamon, Pardus "restructuring", end of LinEx, SELinux tips, overview of Clonezilla
 Continuing with the theme from the feature story, Bodhi Linux developer Jeff Hoogland has published a release schedule for the distro's upcoming releases, up to July 2014. With Bodhi being based on Ubuntu's LTS (long-term support) versions and with point releases provided every three months, the first major new release is only expected in July 2012: "With the recent release of Bodhi Linux 1.3.0 I've had a few questions as to what our release cycle is exactly. I'd like to take a short moment today to clarify what exactly on current release schedule looks like. Our version numbering looks something like this: x.y.z, where x represents a major release, y represents an update (or point) release and z represents a bug fix release. We have a two year major release cycle. These releases will be centered around each new Ubuntu long term support (LTS) release. Our goal is to release our new major version in the July following the release of an Ubuntu LTS. Because we have such a long major release cycle, we will be releasing our 'update' releases every three months. The goal of update releases is to keep the software on the live CD current and continue making small improvements to the default look of the system. Finally our bug fix releases will happen as needed when an issue is discovered with the default configuration."
* * * * *
 Igor Ljubuncic, the webmaster of Dedoimedo and a keen reviewer of free operating systems, has compiled a list of "best" distributions of 2011. The winner? Despite all the recent negative media coverage, the somewhat surprising champion is Ubuntu 11.10: "In my testing, Oneiric Ocelot, for all its silly name, was virtually spotless. It worked without any problems on both low and high-end hardware, in complex multi-boot configurations, with pretty much everything and anything tested. Ocelot is also visually pleasing, it is fast and responsive. Unity is becoming more and more normal, and with the ability to move the Launcher to the bottom, you're all set. What more, Ubuntu is turning into a true brand, allowing you to buy programs, games and music from within the desktop, which is quite nice. I may not be the target user for Ubuntu and its new interface, but the charm and practicality cannot be denied, even by hardcore geeks. It's not quite Mac, but it definitely is not GNOME 3, as you can actually interact with your desktop and you have shortcuts. Aesthetics aside, and most importantly, everything works. As simple as that." CentOS 6, Kubuntu 11.04, Chakra GNU/Linux 2011.09 and Linux Mint 12 have all made Dedoimedo's shortlist for 2011.
* * * * *
 It is not often that an English-language Linux website takes an interest in a Chinese distro. But Joey Sneddon, an editor of OMG! Ubuntu!, was so impressed with the software centre in the recently-released Linux Deepin 11.12 that he brought attention to it in "Is This the Best Software Store on Linux?" "Some distros simply ship Ubuntu's Software Centre as standard. And why not? It does the job admirably. But for the developers of Linux Deepin it wasn't quite what they were looking for – they wanted something that not only looked that bit flashier but allowed users to complete basic packaging tasks from the same window with relative ease. All goals in mind for Ubuntu's Software Centre, but Linux Deepin needed it now. And so the Linux Deepin Software Centre was created. The Software Centre comes with a number of really neat features that, whilst likely breaking all sorts of designer conventions, are brilliant – and useful – touches." The author follows up the above post with another, hinting that the Linux Deepin Software Centre might soon be available for installation on Ubuntu, pending a complete translation of the open-source software package into English.
Linux Deepin 11.12 - a Chinese Ubuntu-based distribution with a heavily-tweaked GNOME Shell
(full image size: 1,913kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
* * * * *
 Linux Mint, once a project that was content to make small usability improvements to Ubuntu based on user feedback, is seemingly taking giant steps to distance itself further from its parent. The latest indication confirming the above observation is Cinnamon, a Mint-initiated fork of GNOME Shell. Andrei Alin from Web Upd8 explains in "Cinnamon: GNOME Shell Fork With A GNOME 2-Like Layout": "Clement Lefebvre, the Linux Mint founder, has started working on a GNOME Shell fork called Cinnamon, which tries to offer a layout similar to GNOME 2, with emphasis on 'making users feel at home and providing them with an easy to use and comfortable desktop experience': 'Cinnamon is a Linux desktop which provides advanced innovative features and a traditional user experience. The desktop layout is similar to GNOME 2. The underlying technology is forked from GNOME Shell.' Why fork GNOME Shell? According to Clement Lefebvre (who talked about this on IRC @ #mate), the reason is that even though extensions are cool, you can only do a small amount of stuff with them and you can't control interactions between extensions, their loading order and so on. Among the features that we'll probably see in Cinnamon are GNOME 2-like notifications and system tray icons, option to change the panel position and other panel options like auto-hide, etc."
* * * * *
 Potentially bad news for the fans of Pardus Linux, a distribution funded and developed by the Scientific & Technological Research Council of Turkey. Based on whatever little communication we've had from the Pardus team, chances are that the project's days are numbered. Or more precisely, it is currently undergoing "restructuring", at least according to some rumour-like posts published here (in Turkish) and more recently on the Pardus mailing list: "According to what Ozan Caglayan (a Pardus developer who is also a TUBITAK employee) says, there is a strict order to keep silent given by the Pardus staff. Due to ongoing regulations and restructuring for the last 3 months in TUBITAK, some (three developers as far as I know) have resigned, and some (three others) have left for other reasons. Rumors say that the development of the corporate edition will continue, but the personal edition (2011.2 as we know it) will stop! There is nobody denying or confirming this rumor among the Pardus staff. Also another source says that according to the information he got from different sources in TUBITAK and the manager of the department which develops the Pardus Project in TUBITAK, the project will continue from where it left in January 2012." Let's hope we hear a more official word soon!
* * * * *
 More bad news, this time from Spain. LinEx, a Debian-based distribution developed by the Extremadura regional government and deployed widely in local schools and government offices, has closed down: "A PARTIR DEL 31 DE DICIEMBRE DE 2011, EL PROYECTO LINEX DEJA DE EXISTIR... VIVA LA LIBERTAD !!" That's all we know officially. But José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of the developers of LinEx, has offered some insight on the debian-project mailing list, suggesting that the move to discontinue LinEx is political rather than technical: "The new people in charge of the Extremadura government don't like the good press and name that LinEx and free software gave to the previous party in the government. And they want to change things. I don't say they're going to remove all the free software we have in education (I don't think that's technically possible, and also we can not afford it ), but they maybe will move from Debian to Ubuntu or to openSUSE or Fedora. They are firing all the people who made the previous situation possible. Also, they are in negotiation with some very big and famous privative companies, to put some applications (office applications mainly) in their privative clouds, etc." It's interesting to see that free software can play such an important role in politics these days...
* * * * *
 Security-Enhanced Linux (or SELinux for short) has been an integral part of Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (as well as all of their derivatives) for many years. While few users would question the usefulness of this extra security layer in preventing attacks, some of its limitations might prompt the less security-conscious users to disable SELinux on their systems. Jeff Sheltren has this advice (and a bunch of SELinux tips and trick) for such users: "Stop Disabling SELinux!" "I see a lot of people coming by #centos and similar channels asking for help when they're experiencing a problem with their Linux systems. It amazes me how many people describe their problem, and then say something along the lines of, 'and I disabled SELinux...'. Most of the time SELinux has nothing to do with the problem, and if SELinux is the cause of the problem, why would you throw out the extra security by disabling it completely rather than configuring it to work with your application? This may have made sense in the Fedora 3 days when SELinux settings and tools weren't quite as fleshed out, but the tools and the default SELinux policy have come a long way since then, and it's very worthwhile to spend a little time to understand how to configure SELinux instead of reflexively disabling it. In this post, I'm going to describe some useful tools for SELinux and walk through how to configure SELinux to work when setting up a Drupal web site using a local memcached server and a remote MySQL database server -- a pretty common setup for sites which receive a fair amount of traffic."
* * * * *
 Finally, a link to a useful article by Jack M. Germain featuring Clonezilla Live, a utility live CD designed for disk cloning tasks. From "Clonezilla: A Drive-Duping Monster With a Fearsome Face": "Backing up data and restoring a crashed computer are two of those 'I wish I hadda' moments in the life of every computer user. When you maintain a collection of computers for your job or organization, those tasks can be critical. One of the fastest and most reliable ways to restore an afflicted computer is to copy its previously saved image onto the hard drive. This is particularly useful when the cure for what crashed your computer is a failed hard drive. Clonezilla is one of my top choices for open-source imaging solutions. But using it comes with a caveat: Its interface is intimidating. Interface aside, Clonezilla ranks among the most popular open-source options. It is a bit more challenging to use than my long-time favorite EASEUS Disk Copy. But Clonezilla gets the job done with a bevy of options to select. Hence, it often scares away the less technically comfortable users."
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| Statistics (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics in 2010 and 2011
DistroWatch's Page Hit Ranking once again attracted much attention in the tech media in 2011, perhaps more than it deserved. It was largely the change in the top spot that triggered it - after occupying it for nearly six years, Ubuntu found itself letting one of its own derivatives, Linux Mint, take over the number one position in early November 2011. This, in turn, resulted in a string of opinions, analyses and speculations in the Linux media, blaming the Unity desktop, the loss of communication between the developers and users, and even the Ubuntu BDFL Mark Shuttleworth's iron fist rule for "losing users". This is unlikely what happened. Although there is no doubt that some formerly happy Ubuntu fans have switched to Mint, it's also possible that Canonical's flagship product has attracted many new users - the kind that have not yet discovered (and may never discover) DistroWatch and the zillions of other free operating systems available on the Internet.
Nevertheless, due to all the attention Linux Mint received late last year, there is little doubt that this distribution is growing rapidly. The record US$9,175 in voluntary donations in November 2011 is perhaps the clearest indication of how much its users appreciate Clement Lefebvre's vision. The effort of the development team to make GNOME 3 resemble the familiar GNOME 2 desktop has received high marks in many reviews. And with the recent news about Linux Mint's GNOME Shell fork called Cinnamon, there is even a stronger case for many GNOME 2 fans to take a closer look at Mint and its future releases. In a word, the momentum is clearly behind Mint and although these forces tend to shift a lot, we are witnessing a start of an interesting period of battle between the "modern" touch-screen type of user interfaces (as represented by Unity and GNOME 3) and the "traditional" desktop looks. Only time will tell whether the former can garner the love of desktop computer users.
Away from the top spot contest, there are several distributions that have embarked on noticeable upward movements. Among them, Mageia, a Mandriva fork developed mostly by ex-Mandriva employees and contributors, is the highest new entry at number 15. Scientific Linux, a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), has also made an impact, although it's likely that the distribution will start losing some of its glamour now that CentOS has finally caught up with Red Hat's releases. Other new distributions in the list are all Ubuntu-based - Zorin OS, Bodhi Linux and Pinguy OS. The biggest loser of the year is Tiny Core Linux, which, together with Kubuntu, Dreamlinux, Red Hat Enteprise Linux and Zenwalk Linux, no longer appears in the top 25 list.
As always, the DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics shouldn't be taken too seriously - they are a fun way of looking at what's hot and what's not among this site's visitors, but they almost certainly do not reflect install base or distribution quality.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
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Creating ISO images
Combine-them-together asks: How can I make an ISO image out of a collection of files on my hard drive?
DistroWatch answers: The easiest way I can think of to make an ISO image and place various data files inside it, like a backup archive, is to use a disc burning tool such as K3b. If we install and run the K3b application one of the options it gives us is making a new data project. We can then add all the files we want from our file system into the project. Then click the Burn button and, when the burn dialog box appears, click the box marked "Only create image". Clicking on the "image" tab will give us the option of choosing where to save the resulting ISO file.
K3b - creating an ISO image file
Another option is to use the command line. We can use the genisoimage command, sometimes called mkisofs, to take the contents of a given directory and copy it into an ISO file:
genisoimage -o myimage.iso MyFiles/
Once the ISO file has been created using either of the above methods we can access its contents by opening it with an archive application. Ark, for example, will open and browse ISO images. We can also use the command line, mounting our image using:
mkdir mount-point
mount -o loop myimage.iso mount-point
When we are done accessing the image we can unmount the ISO using
umount mount-point
Generally speaking it's probably best not to use ISO images as archives. Technically they work, but they don't feature compression or other nice features found in more popular archive formats.
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| Released During Last Two Weeks |
Webconverger 10.2
Kai Hendry has announced the release of Webconverger 10.2, a Debian-based live CD designed for Internet kiosks: "Without further delay may I present Webconverger 10 with an accompanying site redesign. At 9.0 - 10.2 you will notice the usual Flash update, Firefox 8, additional firmware for Ralink wireless and quite a few removed packages. The removed packages are mostly unnecessary for trying Webconverger. I think it's better to customise Webconverger with your chosen locale than altering the boot menu and then choosing the appropriate dictionary once Webconverger is booted. Likewise printing is best left as a customisation option, as it makes the initial download a bit too bulky otherwise. There are a couple of other additions in this release that warrant blog posts in the new year." Here is the complete release announcement with a screenshot.
Sabily 11.10
Mehdi Magnon has announced the release of Sabily 11.10, an Ubuntu-based distribution customised to include a collection of Islamic software and artwork: "The Sabily team is proud to announce the release of the new version of Sabily 11.10, codename 'Uhud'. What's new: new 'Uhud' pictures and wallpapers, new Plymouth and GDM themes; Hijra - better support for GNOME 3, added GNOME Shell extension; Thawab - added support for configurable themes, added bok2ki script; Monajat - prayer times reminder and Azan player; fonts-hosny-amiri - Arabic Naskh style typographically oriented font. New applications: Alfanous - Quranic search engine; GNOME Shell extension Islamic date and time - GNOME Shell extension providing Islamic date/time functions; GNOME Tweak Tool - a tool to customize advanced GNOME 3 options." Read the rest of the release announcement for additional details an an important note about Nanny, the parental web control tool.
Sabily 11.10 - an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring a collection of Islamic software
(full image size: 651kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Linpus Linux 1.6 "Lite Desktop"
Linpus Technologies has announced the release of Linpus Linux 1.6 "Lite Desktop" edition, a Fedora-based distribution with GNOME 3 and several user interface enhancements: "Linpus announced today the release of Linpus Lite Desktop Edition. Linpus Lite Desktop Edition is an extremely powerful yet versatile desktop, all-in-one, notebook and netbook operating system. Based on GNOME 3, it has a significant array of enhancements that make it is the ideal choice whether you require productivity, entertainment or lead an extremely social, connected online life. In the first instance, productivity, Linpus has worked hard to improve the user experience in a number of ways. In particular to reduce the number of clicks to launch, view and manage your applications." Read the full press release and this Quick Start Guide (in PDF format) for more information.
Oracle Linux 6.2
Oracle has announced the release of Oracle Linux 6.2, a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux which is free to download, but requires a paid contract for security and other updates: "Oracle is pleased to announce the general availability of Oracle Linux 6.2 for x86 (32-bit) and x86_64 (64-bit) architectures. Oracle Linux 6.2 includes both a 32-bit and a 64-bit Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel. By default, both the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel and the Red Hat Compatible Kernel are installed. Unbreakable Enterprise kernel shipped in this update has following driver updates: updated igb to version 3.0.6-k, be2net to version 4.0.160r, bna to version 3.0.2.2, bnx2 to version 2.1.11, bnx2x to version 1.70.00-0...." See the release announcement and release notes for further details.
CentOS 6.2
Karanbir Singh has announced the release of CentOS 6.2, the latest version of the community distribution built by compiling the source code for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2: "We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of CentOS 6.2 for i386 and x86_64 architectures. CentOS 6.2 is based on the upstream release EL 6.2 and includes packages from all variants. All upstream repositories have been combined into one, to make it easier for end users to work with. All updates released since upstream 6.2 release are also released to the CentOS 6.2 mirrors. With this release we are now back to a regular, managed and tested release path and time scales. However, for the time being, we are going to retain the CR/ repository in the event it's needed in the future to push ahead-of-release updates." Read the release announcement and release notes to learn more about the new release.
PUIAS Linux 6.2
Thomas Uphill has announced the release of PUIAS Linux 6.2 (code name "Pisa"), a distribution built by compiling the source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2, with extra repositories with additional software packages. It is maintained by the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University in the USA. The announcement was made last week, but the installation DVD images only appeared on the project's download server yesterday. "PUIAS Linux 6.2 released. We are publishing the final PUIAS 6.2 today and we made it the default for PUIAS 6. Machines on automatic setup can expect to receive the update tonight - if you would like to keep your machines at 6.1 for now consider either stopping your rsync of the main mirror or creating /etc/yum/vars/releasever file with content 6.1 on such machines." Here is the brief release announcement.
pfSense 2.0.1
Chris Buechler has announced the release of pfSense 2.0.1, an updated version of the project's FreeBSD-based operating system for firewalls: "The pfSense 2.0.1 release is now available. This is a maintenance release with some bug and security fixes since the 2.0 release. This is the recommended release for all installations. As always, you can upgrade from any previous release to 2.0.1, so if you haven't upgraded to 2.0 yet, just upgrade straight to 2.0.1. For those who use the built-in certificate manager, pay close attention to the notes below on a potential security issue with those certificates. The following changes were made since 2.0 release: improved accuracy of automated state killing in various cases; various fixes and improvements to relayd...." Here is the brief release announcement.
AbulÉdu 11.08
AbulÉdu is an Ubuntu-based French Linux distribution designed for young children, featuring a collection of educational software running on top of a highly customised GNOME desktop. A new live DVD, version 11.08, was released yesterday and announced on the project's home page (in French). AbulÉdu 11.08 is based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS with lots of new applications and enhanced tools, such as LibreOffice 3.3, OOo4Kids with dictionaries, AbiWord, LyX, Firefox 7.0 with AdBlock Plus, DansGuardian, Thunderbird, Pidgin, TuxPaint, GIMP, Scribus, Stellarium, VLC, Audacity, TBI Sankoré 3.1, Dr Géo, Tux Math, Tux Type. It also includes all of AbulÉdu's LeTerrier pedagogics tools. The live DVD offers a possibility to test the distribution, to surf safely on the Internet, to connect to a school server in order to get one's home work done or to read private emails, and to connect the AbulÉdu client to an LTSP server. See also the features page for more information and screenshots.
AbulÉdu 11.08 - a French Ubuntu-based distribution for children
(full image size: 745kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Bodhi Linux 1.3.0
Jeff Hoogland has announced the release of Bodhi Linux 1.3.0, an updated version of the project's Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the latest Enlightenment 17 desktop: "The Bodhi team and I are happy to announce our next update release - Bodhi Linux 1.3.0. While you will not find any earth-shattering new features in this release there are many minor improvements. Most notably you will find the use of the new 'itask' module in three of our profiles, it is far more flexible than our old taskbar module. Also worth noting is that our installer slideshow has gotten a much needed makeover, along with further updates to our on-disc documentation and a pretty new installer icon. Software-wise you will find a fresh Enlightenment desktop built from SVN this week and the Midori 0.4.2 web browser. As this is just a minor release current Bodhi users can easily update their systems to these packages following the directions here." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information.
Grml 2011.12
Ulrich Dangel has announced the release of Grml 2011.12, a Debian-based live CD with an excellent collection of GNU/Linux software and scripts for system administrators: "We have just released Grml 2011.12 'Knecht Rootrecht', just in time to put it under the Christmas tree. There were quite a lot of changes between RC1 and the new stable release. The most important ones are: update to Linux kernel 3.1.6; easier remastering with grml-live and existing Grml ISO images; new GRUB boot theme; syslinux will indicate its boot menu with one beep; GRUB will indicate its boot menu with three beeps; enable all mixer controls at start-up and set volume to 75%; reworked and more flexible GRUB configuration file handling; grml2usb - use the GRUB configuration from the ISO image instead of creating a new one; additional key bindings for Fluxbox; fix keyboard layout bug." See the release announcement and release notes for a full list of changes and new features.
Semplice Linux 2.0.0
Eugenio Paolantonio has announced the release of Semplice Linux 2.0.0, a lightweight desktop distribution based on Debian's "unstable" branch and featuring the Openbox window manager: "The Semplice team is proud to announce the immediate release of the stable release of the 2.0.x branch (code-named 'emily') of Semplice Linux. The Semplice live system contains: Openbox 3.5.0, the window manager used in Semplice; Linux kernel 3.1.6, bringing the latest and greatest drivers and performance; Chromium web browser 15.0.874.121 based on the WebKit rendering engine; Exaile 0.3.2.2, a music manager and player for GTK+ written in Python; GNOME MPlayer 1.0.4, the power of MPlayer combined with a friendly interface; AbiWord 2.9.1 and Gnumeric 1.10.17; Pidgin 2.10.1 Internet messenger, a graphical, modular instant messaging client; Guake terminal 0.4.2, a GTK+ drop-down terminal." More information can be found in the release announcement and in the more detailed release notes.
Semplice Linux 2.0.0 - a lightweight Debian-based desktop distro
(full image size: 110kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Superb Mini Server 1.6.3
An updated build of Superb Mini Server (SMS), a Slackware-based distribution for servers, has been released: "Superb Mini Server version 1.6.3 released (Linux kernel 2.6.39.4). This Christmas release features an upgraded Linux kernel and new glibc. If you upgrading the proper way is to boot your machine into a single-user mode and do the upgrade as describe in the SMS Wiki. The glibc 2.14.1 library comes full of patches, including restoring RPC symbols. SMS 1.6.3 brings updates, security patches and the latest stable software releases, such as BIND 9.8.1-P1, ClamAV 0.97.3, CUPS 1.5.0, Dovecot 2.0.16, Postfix 2.8.7, Samba 3.6.1 and Squid 3.1.18. New packages in this release include libarchive and libstatgrab, a library that provides statistics, and SSHFS-FUSE were you can mount file systems across networks over SSH. A new package is Postfix Admin, a web GUI to configure virtual domains for postfix." Read the rest of the release announcement for more details.
Tiny Core Linux 4.2
Robert Shingledecker has announced the release of Tiny Core Linux 4.2, a nomadic, ultra-small graphical desktop operating system: "Team Tiny Core is proud to announce the release of Core 4.2. The main theme for the 4.2 release is the re-factoring of Tiny Core Linux to be highly modular by focusing on its core. With the Core project one starts with the kernel (vmlinuz 2.4 MB) and core.gz 5 MB. Micro Core 8 MB is simply the kernel + core.gz - this is the foundation for user created desktops. Tiny Core is simply the kernel + core.gz + Xvesa.tcz or Xorg.tcz + Xprogs + fltk-1.10.tcz + (user's choice of window manager) + wbar.tcz. The original Tiny Core becomes simply an example of what the Core project can produce, a 12 MB GUI desktop. 4.2 also introduces Core Plus, a simple way to get started using the Core philosophy with its included community-packaged extensions." Read the full release announcement for a detailed changelog.
Calculate Linux 11.12
Alexander Tratsevskiy has announced the release of Calculate Linux 11.12, a Gentoo-based distribution set with focus on desktop and server computing: "Calculate Linux 11.12 has been released. Major changes: updating the Portage trees has become much faster since we migrated on Git; binary repositories are better handled now that all changes are synchronized with Portage updates; support has been added for PXE network booting; from now on, you can specify the domain and the domain password when booting from a live CD or a live USB or via PXE; language and time zone preferences can now be specified for any newly created ISO image; software - Linux kernel 3.1.6, X.Org 7.4, KDE 4.7.4, GNOME 2.32, Chromium 16.0.912.63...." The release announcement.
Endian Firewall 2.5
The Endian development team has announced the release of Endian Firewall 2.5, an updated version of the project's Red Hat-based specialist distribution for firewalls: "Endian Firewall (EFW) Community version 2.5 is now available. This release introduces new features and lots of bug fixes that make EFW 2.5 a significant improvement in the development of the Endian product family. Release notes: the whole process management in the background of the system has been rewritten - with the new Endian Jobsengine the boot procedure now takes only half as long as before; some major changes have been made to various proxy and anti-virus settings - this resulted in almost 200 MB of memory being freed in a fully configured system; many small improvements have been made and hundreds of bugs have been fixed; supports trusted time-stamping using OpenTSA...." See the complete release announcement for more information.
Netrunner 4.0
Clemens Toennies has announced the release of Netrunner 4.0, a Kubuntu-based desktop distribution featuring a carefully-tuned KDE desktop and integrated KDE and GNOME applications: "Just 24 hours after RC came out, we officially release Netrunner 4.0 'Dryland' into the open. Dryland comes with quite a lot of changes regarding the look and features: built on Kubuntu with default integration of GNOME and WINE; one system for new users and power users; full suite of user workspace applications; KDE's Plasmoids make the system expandable; Linux kernel 3.0.0, KDE 4.7.3 desktop, LibreOffice 3.4.4 office suite, Mozilla Firefox 7.0.1 web browser, Mozilla Thunderbird 7.0.1 email client and calendar, VLC 1.1.12 media player; Clementine 0.7.1 music librarian...." Read the brief release announcement and visit the more detailed features page to learn more about the project's latest release.
Netrunner 4.0 - a Linux distribution based on Kubuntu 11.10
(full image size: 1,751kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Linux Deepin 11.12
Linux Deepin, a free, user-friendly, and full-featured community distribution from China based on Ubuntu, announced its 11.12 release on the last day of the year. This release employs GNOME Shell with a lot of tweaks as the default desktop. Deepin Software Center is upgraded to the official 2.0 version, with features like download management and improved search experience. Deepin-Scrot 1.0, an easy-to-use yet smart utility for taking screenshots, made its début. Upgrade from earlier versions, like Deepin 11.06, is not encouraged; please try a fresh installation instead. Although currently only the Chinese Simplified edition is available, multiple ISO images will be provided, each designed for a dedicated language (Chinese Traditional, English). Check the full release notes (in Chinese).
ExTiX 9
Arne Exton has announced the release of ExTiX 9, an Ubuntu-based desktop distribution for 64-bit computers with GNOME Shell and Razor-qt as the available desktop environments and the latest stable Linux kernel: "ExTiX 9 x64 is a remastered build of Ubuntu 11.10. The original system includes the Unity desktop with GNOME 3.2. In ExTiX 9, I have installed GNOME Shell and Razor-qt so that everyone can compare the two desktop environments. I have replaced the original kernel 3.0.0-14-generic with 'my' kernel 3.1.6-extix. Why? Support for many different kinds of hardware has been added in the latest stable kernel. So if you have acquired new hardware which is not supported in Ubuntu 11.10 and/or Linux systems based on Ubuntu 11.10 it might be worth testing ExTiX 9. There is, among other things, support for brand-new USB devices, like printers and cameras." Visit the project's home page to read the release announcement.
ExTiX 9 - an Ubuntu-based distribution with a choice of GNOME Shell or Razor-qt
(full image size: 914kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
siduction 11.1
Ferdinand Thommes has announced the release of siduction 11.1, a desktop-oriented distribution and live CD/DVD based on Debian's "unstable" branch, recently forked from aptosid: "We are excited to present to you, after last week's release candidate, the first final release of siduction, a new distribution based on our great mother Debian's 'Unstable' branch and forked from aptosid. This first release ships three desktop environments - KDE SC, Xfce and LXDE, all three in 32-bit and 64-bit editions. The released images represent a snapshot of Debian 'Sid' from 2011-12-30, improved with a few useful packages and scripts, an installer, and our own, patched version of kernel 3.1-6 and X.Org server 1.11.2.902." Read the remainder of the release notes for further details.
aptosid 2011-03
The first announcement of 2012 goes to aptosid and the project's brand-new release, version 2011-03: "We now have the pleasure to announce the immediate availability of the final aptosid 2011-03 'Ponos' release. New features are in particular kernel 3.1 and numerous integration and stabilisation fixes. Special focus has been cast upon improving the system compatibility with new hardware platforms and various corner cases. Kernel 3.1 doesn't only improve and stabilise hardware support for newer devices, it also improves latency and general system performance, particularly vastly improved I/O scheduling for LVM and MDADM on SSDs. Among the new features are initial Xen dom0 and PCI passthrough support as well as nested virtualization for KVM on Intel and AMD CPUs." See the detailed release notes for more information.
aptosid 2011-03 - the project's latest version includes newly-added support for virtualisation features
(full image size: 566kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
openSUSE 12.1 "Edu Li-f-e"
Jigish Gohil has announced the release of openSUSE 12.1 "Edu Li-f-e", an edition of openSUSE designed specially for educational institutions: "openSUSE Education team is proud to present another version of openSUSE - Edu Li-f-e (Linux for Education) based on openSUSE 12.1. Li-f-e comes loaded with everything that students, parents, teachers and system administrators of educational institutions may need. Software for mathematics, chemistry, astronomy and servers, like KIWI-LTSP, Fedena school ERP, Moodle course management, full multimedia, graphics, office suite, many popular programming languages, including AMP stack, Java, C, C++, Python and Ruby, latest stable GNOME and KDE desktop environments are all packed in this release. To know more about openSUSE Education project, file bugs, request enhancements, participate, or to get in touch with us visit the education portal." Here is the full release announcement as published today on news.opensuse.org.
Dreamlinux 5
After a long pause, the Dreamlinux project has sprung to life with the release of version 5 on the first day of the new year. Dreamlinux is a Debian-based desktop distribution featuring the latest Xfce desktop, a Mac OS X-like user interface, the SoftMaker office suite and a recent Linux kernel from the 3.1 series. From the features page: "100% Debian 'Testing' compatibility; minimalist desktop with the most recent stylized Xfce 4.8 full of new custom features; safe updates through dist-upgrade; powerful modern installer which allows for an easy and swift installation in less than 5 minutes; exclusive boot system which makes for a quick initialization - can be installed from a DVD media or any Flash memory, VFAT-formatted device; Ruby Lua, Vala, C, C++, Python and Perl programming environments, plus common development libraries already in place for immediate use."
Dreamlinux 5 - a Debian-based distro with a customised Xfce desktop
(full image size: 2,098kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
* * * * *
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 |
New distributions added to database
- siduction. The siduction distribution is a desktop-oriented operating system and live medium based on the "unstable" branch of Debian GNU/Linux. Forked from aptosid in late 2011, siduction offers three separate live media with KDE, LXDE and Xfce desktops. The project also promises regular releases, an open development model, and friendly relationship with its developer and user community.
siduction 11.1 - an aptosid fork with a community-oriented approach
(full image size: 237kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
- ROSA. ROSA is a Russian company developing a variety of Linux-based solutions. Its flagship product, ROSA Desktop, is a Mandriva-based distribution featuring a highly customised KDE desktop and a number of modifications designed to enhance the user-friendliness of the working environment.
ROSA Desktop 2011 - a Russian desktop distribution based on Mandriva Linux
(full image size: 156kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
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New distributions added to waiting list
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 9 January 2012.
Robert Storey, Ladislav Bodnar and Jesse Smith
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Thank you for Distrowatch (by Bill Savoie on 2012-01-02 09:28:41 GMT from United States)
I love the quality of your reporting on Linux. Bodhi is something I want to try out, but without all the tricks you placed in your feature story by Robert Storey, it would have taken a lot more time than I am willing to invest. After using Linux since Redhat 4.2, I am somewhat comfortable on the command line, but with so many places to visit and play in, Distrowatch is the perfect default landing for my browser. Keep up the good work, and thank you.
2 • Top distros (by Toolz on 2012-01-02 09:29:07 GMT from Vietnam)
I think Dedoimedo provides the best reviews out there but this list is a bit weird. Ubuntu top and Mint there too? From reading his reviews, I thought he was in love with Cent and I thought he much preferred Kubutu to Ubuntu. I say best reviewer, it's a pretty weak field - I wish he could iron out those incongruities in his prose like "What more, Ubuntu is turning into ...". But I like the honest style - he's never frightened to sound like a noob and not backwards and coming forwards with criticism.
3 • re: enlightenment (by paul on 2012-01-02 09:52:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi There
From reading your review of Enlightenment I got the impression that you have yet to discover one of its best kept secrets - namely the 'run everything' tool. With this program you can run almost any script or program installed on the system by simply typing it in, and by clicking on the launch tab you can choose to run it with sudo privileges. It really is a powerful tool and remembers everything you type in making re-running programs a simple two-click affair.
Worth investigating if you're going to carry on playing with Enlightenment. I am currently using e17 as my desktop running on a minimal install of 'oneiric' - installed from the tiny netinstall cd image (24mb) that ubuntu have made available. I chose this option in the end because of the problems of hardware support thrown up by Bodhi's Lucid base.
It has been on my mind to suggest to Jeff that he should consider an 'unstable' version of Bodhi that is a bit more cutting edge for those that want it - rather as in Debian world.
Best regards.
4 • Gnome 3 (by Billy Larlad on 2012-01-02 10:13:53 GMT from United States)
Seriously, people, give GNOME 3 a chance. I was on the fence for the first few days I used it, but now I'm perfectly content. And once you see some of the extensions the community is putting together, and which are absolutely dead simple to install, GNOME 3 starts to make a heck of a lot of sense.
(A bit of an aside here: as for the claim that they're "making decisions for me," get over yourself. Even a shell "makes decisions" for you -- GNOME 2.32 sure as hell isn't deciding any less for you than GNOME 3. Now, I can accept that the decisions it makes aren't the ones you might want made for you, but again, give it an honest try.)
If you couldn't tell, this rant was prompted by the Bodhi Linux reviewer's attack on GNOME 3 and the bit about Mint forking GNOME.
5 • The Death of LinEx (by Anonymous Coward on 2012-01-02 10:56:09 GMT from Spain)
Even when I am a GNU/Linux guy, I think that we did good rid of LinEx.
We have (had) three important distributions made by local governments. The idea is that developing our own operating systems will allow us to save money that won't be spent in MS licenses, and that is good. However, I find some problems in this way of doing things:
1- There are (were) three distributions doing the same thing. That means Spain was spending three times the money needed to do one thing. It would have been better for us if all the local governments involved (which where the same political color) had joined forces to make a single distribution, instead of wasting the money in three separated projects.
2- I don't see the need to make a new distribution for our local governments. If they wanted to save money, they just should use Debian or a Red Hat clone. This way, they would be saving in the licenses AND in development.
3- The second point makes me believe that the creation of these distributions is more a political move than something else. In my University, where there are many FOSS advocates that want to have the work done, our supercomputer runs a mainstream Linux distribution. They didn't have to develop their own distribution to have a good working environment.
I don't deny that the shutdown of LinEx could be a new political move, anyway, but even if it was it is a wise one. For those who are not informed, it is basically part of the money-saving plan of the new coming government (which effectiveness or convenience can be argued, but I won't go there here).
6 • Gnome 3 (by Anonymous on 2012-01-02 11:13:26 GMT from Germany)
@ Billy Larlad : No! And even if it's just for protest! As long as an desktop environment doesn't even feature a shut-down-button without holding a special key at the same time (very user-friendly indeed, exactly the users the gnome-devs focus on), I won't use Gnome again! And even if you can install the shut-down-button back through an extension, I recommend any environment to feature an shut-down-button. Come on, SHUT DOWN! Who of you doesn't shut down his pc over night?
7 • Page Hit Rankings (by Clark on 2012-01-02 12:10:56 GMT from United States)
There are 3216 more page hits among the top 25 in 2011 than in 2010. Can we infer from this that DistroWatch has become more popular in 2011? Can this also mean that Linux has become more popular?
8 • enlightenment (by divad gnol on 2012-01-02 12:11:59 GMT from United States)
I have been using enlightenment as a desktop for about 8 years. For beta software it is pretty darn stable. I first started using it on a gentoo box but years later switched to Slackware and started compiling it myself. This is what I still do to this day. I get the stability of Slackware and the latest version of enlightenment. There is also slacke17, an easy installer for slackware users.
divas gnol
9 • Thnx Distrowatch (by rich52 on 2012-01-02 12:58:48 GMT from United States)
I've enjoyed the articles and commentary over the past several years with Distrowatch. It is an excellent website. Keep up the very good work on reporting what's going on with Linux and all the various Distro's. A most valuable site in my browser. . .
As to the site hits. . . doesn't really indicate to me true popularity. I've used about 15 distro's over the years and for the most part all of them are good . . . some a little bit more cutting edge too.
I might just want to add Gnome 3 is looking good but IMHO I'll wait for a couple more releases until they get more features into the OS shell. Still to minimal and lacking some needed features.
Kubuntu is low in the listings on Distrowatch but I'd put them up at the top with Ubuntu and Fedora KDE. It is very good and has show great stability and growth over the last few years. . . it is first class.
Rich :)
10 • Gnome 3 (by John Lewis on 2012-01-02 13:27:50 GMT from United Kingdom)
"Who of you doesn't shut down his pc over night?"
Me for one, I rarely reboot my desktop systems, let alone shut them down overnight.
Gnome 3 is a disaster and I am unable to use any of the "official extensions" as going to the website I get a message they are incompatible with the version of Gnome installed. (Debian Sid)
Thankfully, for now at leat, there is still Gnome Classic and that with gnome-tweak-tools allows me to work the way I want with six fixed workspace and a single app running in each workspace.
11 • Dreamlinux 5 (by Hank on 2012-01-02 13:40:56 GMT from Germany)
That was a big surprise yesterday when doing my daily DW-visit,
to see a new version of dreamlinux after such a long quiet time of this project. Congratz goes to nelson!
12 • Bodhi and more (by jon on 2012-01-02 13:52:19 GMT from United States)
I remember trying Bodhi when it was first released. I was highly impressed with e17, as it was the first time I had tried it. As for the reliance on the CLI, it shouldn't be a problem for any Linux user. If you aren't comfortable on the commandline, you aren't comfortable on Linux. It's not that hard!
It puzzles me that Ubuntu is listed as "distro of the year." Even before the horrendous screw-up that is called Unity, Mint offered improvements over Ubuntu in a number of areas. Why Mint doesn't make it to the top, I'm not sure. I feel that the reviewers are so used to listing Ubuntu as distro of the year that they are afraid to change their opinions.
What is with aptosid? The project has been forked three times and renamed at least once. Must be a wonderful bunch of people...
13 • Bodhi testimonial (by bb on 2012-01-02 13:53:37 GMT from Japan)
I am now running Bodhi Linux on a 2004 Vaio laptop that has 240 MB RAM, a 900 MHz Celron processor, and a 40 GB hard drive. It barely ran XP when it was my wife's PC, but could rip and burn DVDs... very slowly. I had it running Lubuntu for a while, but it somehow became unbootable, perhaps by crashing mid-update. Xubuntu and Crunchbang were also too heavy. Puppy Linux was able to install and run, but I prefer Bodhi (1.3.0), which is now installed in a dual boot configuration with Puppy as an alternative. Unlike the reviewer (Robert Storey), I had no problems at all after install. The display configuration was the right size and brightness, audio worked, wireless internet worked, and the DVD player worked (after installing codecs). Only the external volume buttons did not work, but I did not expect them to work. It is now useful as a multiregional DVD player, word processor, netbook, photo editor, and could be used for music or other purposes. Japanese language input has been installed, and it even runs LibreOffice comfortable without running out of memory despite having less than half of the minimum 512 MB recommended by LibreOffice. GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus, GoldenDict, Chromium, Firefox, Gnumeric, Abiword, DeadBeef, VLC and other apps run fine, altho only one or two apps at a time is better and after a few web pages are open it can slow to a crawl. I'm very satisfied, especially considering that I was told several times by my significant other to throw the garbage laptop away as I worked on it. Unlike the reviewer's experience, it seems to me that the hardware support is as good as Ubuntu, but unlike some fatter distros, the software that's pre-installed is mostly Midoi, Leafpad, and Synaptic. It's best to build up your own system as you need on limited hardware and it speeds the download and install processes. I was very impressed with the work of the developers, and Bodhi is my favorite distro of 2011. I really appreciate the leanness of the 374 MB ISO at a time when Ubuntu has seemed to be doing everything wrong for a few years (from my point of view), and I havent had much luck with Mint. The only negative experience I had with Bodhi was during installation. The Bodhi installer kept crashing on me. On my 3rd or 4th attempt, I chose the default vertically striped wallpaper instead of one which I think was animated and drawing memory at the same time as the partitioner (in particular) and other installation processes. I also waited a long time before clicking to perform each of the installation tasks, and the installation completed successfully. Bodhi also makes me more interested in examining some other lite distros which I have not yet used, such as Slitax, TinyCore, WattOS, and Porteus. Try Bodhi out but try not to crash the installer/partitioner/animated wallpaper if you have a low-spec system like mine.
14 • Pardus (by zeus984 on 2012-01-02 14:40:03 GMT from Malta)
I can't believe it, pardus is my favorite distro (and the one I am using right now) is going to die. I noticed a strange lack of updates these last few days. I guess I have to go distro-hopping again.
15 • Bodhi, Ubuntu, and Gnome 3 (by sbsher2 on 2012-01-02 15:31:30 GMT from United States)
I tried Bodhi on a number of different systems and liked it for what it is...but out of personal preference switched to other distributions. On a system with real power...it was overkill...and all the effects just irritated me (even though I could turn them off...). On a smaller laptop the way it handled the wireless also irritated me...a keychain issue it wouldn't let you manage properly...just a little thing I saw everyday...a nag.
My take on Gnome 3. I hated it at first in Fedora 15...then tried it in openSuse 12.1 (with a proper power off option) on a re-used Thinkpad (R60...a money-saver). Now, I'm good with it...which surprised even me. Acceptance might be the best word here. I installed Fedora 16 on another laptop and have been on good terms with that too. What Suse and Fedora bring to the table in extra stuff doesn't hurt either...put simply they both have things I want to try. Performance has been quite good too...snappy and I've seen idle memory usage as low as 209M. So I'm a user...(but still watching Mint closely...)
As far as Dedoimedo...I agree with him. Ocelot, in most cases, does just work. I have it on a high power desktop running to my tv and it does everything I could want (and loaded it on low-end laptops for friends with the same result...). My take is that it does work, it is polished, and what it offers is vast. Negatives; it is different (Change), and it is trying to be mainstream...neither are big enough issues for me to not use it to my benefit. I am happy to have it working for me.
16 • Pardus - Dreamlinux - Gentoo - Bodhi (by Geekboula on 2012-01-02 15:38:30 GMT from Canada)
Pardus: Real bad news about Pardus. This is my best system KDE
Strong, really stable and so well thought of installing. Easy day to day to use. The best Distro integration KDE desktop
Dreamlinux 5: Great news! But it is the same problem Wifi
all Debian derived. None of my cards are accepted and even that
internal on my laptop. Samething on PureOS - Salix and all other derivate Debian
GENTOO LiveDVD 12: Why do work as good and not being able to
to install. What can I do with a LiveDVD? Please answer me because I don't understand?
Bodhi 1.3: Many improvement Much better! Install test on my netbook AMD LT30 and work perfectly.
17 • Correction post (by Geekboula on 2012-01-02 15:42:28 GMT from Canada)
NOT Salix But SALINEOS
Dreamlinux 5: Great news! But it is the same problem Wifi on
all Debian derived. None of my cards are accepted and even that
internal on my laptop. Samething on PureOS - SalineOS and all other derivate Debian
18 • What Mystery? (by Eddie on 2012-01-02 15:44:08 GMT from United States)
There is no mystery why Ubuntu has remained "distro of the year". It is very much more polished then Mint, It has Unity which is not a horrendous screw-up in my opinion and leaves the Gnome 2 experience in the dust, also it deals with the general public much better then Mint does. The people who frequent Distrowatch are not the people who will make or break a disto. I'm really surprised that people cannot get through the Unity change. They keep bringing the same old junk up. That includes the people here at DW. Those are my opinions, just as important as yours. Sounds non-important doesn't it. Get my point?
19 • on LinEx Re:5 (by pmulax on 2012-01-02 16:10:29 GMT from Spain)
As Anonomous Coward said, and I cannot but agree, there have been too many distros/distrolets pumped out from almost all the regional governments in Spain. While they may have been badly executedd plans (and yes, to some extent based on pseudo-politics) the goal was (still is) a worthy one: deploy open software where money was an obstacle and limitations would affect users. I've seen dome distros with real work on them (like built-in drivers for the most popular 3G mobile dongles, simplified backup programs, etc) and others that were just localized Ubuntus with propagandistic wallpapers. GNU/Linux has come so far that soon (I hope) we shouldn't need "national" derivatives. But the alternative, as N5 pointed out, shouldn't be jumping onto the MS wagon because this new government favours what they have coinef as "open knowledge". Wikipedia can be that, but not MS (who remembers the NSAkey
20 • on LinEx Re:5 (by pmulax on 2012-01-02 16:15:52 GMT from Spain)
As Anonomous Coward said, and I cannot but agree, there have been too many distros/distrolets pumped out from almost all the regional governments in Spain. While they may have been badly executedd plans (and yes, to some extent based on pseudo-politics) the goal was (still is) a worthy one: deploy open software where money was an obstacle and limitations would affect users. I've seen dome distros with real work on them (like built-in drivers for the most popular 3G mobile dongles, simplified backup programs, etc) and others that were just localized Ubuntus with propagandistic wallpapers. GNU/Linux has come so far that soon (I hope) we shouldn't need "national" derivatives. But the alternative, as N5 pointed out, shouldn't be jumping onto the MS wagon because this new government favours what they have coinef as "open knowledge". Wikipedia can be that, but not MS (who remembers the "NSA_Key" from the Win2000 betas on test?). If we accept this all we will know will be what MS forces on the market. Why can't we keep open software though tutoured by, say, the ministery of education? One for all, and all for one....(sorry....that was tacky) :)
21 • Ref comment #2 - wow! (by verndog on 2012-01-02 16:46:38 GMT from United States)
I wasn't sure what you were referring to since I didn't see any referance to Dedoimedo or Best Distro 2011, so I visited Dedoimedo and saw his yearly best distro reviews. I too am impressed. He does like KDE and Centos. Ubuntu & Unity coming in #1 was a total shock!
I too also like his comments. Not the normal polish writing nor the lackadaisical blogs that I usually read. He does have a style of his own.
Thanks for reminding me of his web site.
22 • ROSA distribution (by Arelatensis on 2012-01-02 17:14:47 GMT from Russian Federation)
Can one say about ROSA as independent from Mandriva distro? In reviews it named as Mandriva/ Rosa. ROSA developed by the same organizations, moreover the same persons as Mandriva. It also allied with Mandriva communities, especially Russian Edu Mandriva. It is built for Russian usage only. Principal difference from Mandriva: only two localization - ru, eng-GB, certificated by Russian Federal Service in field of technical and export control, own labels and desktop themes. The last may also used in Mandriva and another distro (ROSA themes are available in OpenSuse repositories). I think that Rosa is not a distro, it is a built according the law of Russian Federation The web-page of RosaLab is only in Russian. It means that it is not for distribution beyond RF. (http://edumandriva.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=1802&hilit=RoSA&start=10 in Russian).
23 • "Bodhi = Too Much Fun." (by CliffyB on 2012-01-02 17:58:50 GMT from United States)
More like, too much trouble. I`ll stick with Ultimate, thanks.
24 • Ubuntu 10.04 and Bodhi Linux (by Peter on 2012-01-02 18:05:47 GMT from Germany)
Is it possible to use the Bodhi Linux repositories as a kind of big addon for an existing Ubuntu 10.04 installation?
In most cases Ubuntu is properly configured (e.g. all language packages are already installed and the right locale is correctly set) so that it is not necessary to start a slackware-style configuration procedure as described in the article.
Bodhi's E17 implementation is very good and very lightweight.
I would even import the Bodhi Linux bootsplash as my Ubuntu is all "black" at the moment.
25 • New Releases (by Daniel Mery on 2012-01-02 18:28:26 GMT from United States)
Good for:
Gentoo Live DVD
Dreamlinux
Good news !!!!!
:)
26 • 10 • Gnome 3 (by mandog on 2012-01-02 20:10:16 GMT from Peru)
I think your problem is the website as it is still alpha download from git hub unzip
check /home/kelvin/.local/share/gnome-shell place the folder with the extension there alt f2 they should appear in gnome tweak extensions they are not all compatible so it is hit and miss but they are more upto date from the git hub as they don't seem to get on the site till someone updates the site manualy
27 • 26 • 10 • Gnome 3 (by mandog on 2012-01-02 20:12:55 GMT from Peru)
I missed a bit there your home folder not mine alt f2 then r enter
28 • 24 • Ubuntu 10.04 (by mandog on 2012-01-02 20:17:15 GMT from Peru)
Better still use e17 easy script you will find it in the ubuntu forums the entry is old but the script is upto date as it downloads from git
29 • forget dreamlinux (by Roland on 2012-01-02 20:24:48 GMT from United States)
Look for md5sum: 509 bandwidth exceeded. Good luck downloading an iso!
30 • Linux Deepin's Software Center is already in English (by eco2geek on 2012-01-02 20:33:37 GMT from United States)
Dunno what Joey Sneddon wrote in his post, but Linux Deepin 11.12's Software Center doesn't need translation; it's already available in English.
Try it for yourself. Are you familiar with pressing F2 at the Ubuntu boot screen to select a language? Press F2 when Linux Deepin starts, and select English from the list. The entire thing will start up and run in US English, including the Software Center. (The desktop icons will still be in Chinese, but you can probably figure out what they do.)
Thanks, Distrowatch, for your Linux reviews and news.
31 • bodhi (by forlin on 2012-01-02 20:51:54 GMT from Portugal)
Bodhi looked like a good project.
New to Linux, I supported Peppermint, and later, Bodhi. It looked like a worth project to get involved. I stayed with Bodhi, for a year. It took that long, before I knew the "blood" the guy Jeff is made of. I though he would grow with Bodhi. Not him, nor Bodhi E17, did.
A vain arrogant opportunistic person, engaged on benefiting on the work and effort of a few newbies, together with a bunch of "dear fellows" stepped on its foot prints, as is normal in an (apparent) successful "startup"
One more Distro condemned to die in a couple of years, due to lack of really innovation.
I'm just, really, sorry for the E17 desktop. It didn't deserve so bad luck.
Now, flame me.
32 • Ubuntu and Forlin (by Landor on 2012-01-02 21:47:15 GMT from Canada)
I'm not a huge fan of Ubuntu. The effort it takes to make it a Libre Distribution was enough for me to stop using it. I know there is a Libre alternative to Ubuntu, but that distribution doesn't fit my ideals either. Anyway, that said, 11.10 is the fastest booting distribution I've used. As soon as I build it again, it's going to be my 'instant-on' distribution for my laptop. There just isn't anything faster for booting, period. I also have to say that although I enjoy GNOME 3 Shell, The Unity Shell is more polished and nicer to use. I just wish it wasn't so fast moving, and ever changing. If it wasn't, other projects could pick it up easily. In the constant state of flux that it's in from one release to the next I'm to understand it's a maintainer's disaster, sadly.
Forlin. I remember when I had the problems in Fedora's IRC, you talked about ignorant kids and such. Then when I spoke of problems with Bodhi's developer you tried to tell me he was just young and made mistakes, etc. I let it go and didn't say anything. I was going to, but I figured you'd learn on your own. He had a pattern for this behaviour. I'm sorry to say I was right and hopefully it hasn't dulled your enthusiasm for this community. It has a lot to offer, and eventually, life works itself out, you'll see.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
33 • Bodhi and Ubuntu derivatives - I don't get it (by Sean Duncan on 2012-01-02 21:54:06 GMT from United States)
I've been using openSUSE for quite a few years now, and have used a bit of Red Hat and Debian and Slackware, and some small specialty firewall distros along the way.
What I don't really get is the fascination with Ubuntu derivatives. It seems to me that anyone could get Bodhi just by installing Enlightenment on Ubuntu? And, couldn't you get Kubuntu just by installing Ubuntu, and then installing the KDE desktop? Or Xubuntu by installing XFCE? Lubuntu just by installing LXDE? Etc...
Sorry - I always got all the desktop choices I wanted during the install or immediately afterwards with SUSE, Red Hat, Debian and Slack. Maybe users today are so unskilled with Linux systems that they can't install a simple desktop environment? Do they have to be spoon-fed all these different versions of the same distributions?
Your comments are welcome. I'm not trying to start a flame war - I'm just thinking that there may be better use for dev's time than packaging one desktop environment with a distribution at a time - a task so simple that I'm sure I could teach any reasonably intelligent 12-year old to do it all day long. And there may be better use for funding of opensource projects than throwing money at all these simplistic cloning projects. And users may be better off if they have to learn a few simple configuration tricks.
34 • bodhi (by azurehi on 2012-01-02 22:03:13 GMT from United States)
@31 Your views about bodhi linux and it's developer(s) are certainly strong...care to provide some supporting evidence to support your opinion?
@32 I cannot discern from your comment to forlin whether you think he is correct in his views or not...clarification appreciated.
I have tried bodhi several times but have difficulty with E17's complicated (to me) customizations.
35 • #33 (by anticapitalista on 2012-01-02 22:03:56 GMT from Greece)
Have you ever tried what you suggest?
If you have then you will see that Bodhi/Lubuntu etc is more than just e17/lxde on top of Ubuntu.
Same goes for the many Debian derivatives.
36 • RE: 33 (by Landor on 2012-01-02 22:07:34 GMT from Canada)
You're really over-simplifying the process. A lot of distributions add a bit of shine to the alternatives they're creating, than what their obvious parent does. Those are the things that intrigue others.
Of course though, I agree with you, to a point, only. I believe we have far too many distributions, and we're diversified to the point of lacking cohesion. But, it's that diversity that keeps the race going (that has multiple meanings).
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
37 • ubuntu (by walter_j on 2012-01-02 22:12:20 GMT from Canada)
I'm trying ubuntu 11.10, and although it isn't gnome 2.32, it's better than gnome 3. A few things about unity are annoying, and i wish i could change it, but maybe i can live with it. It is fast though. It makes me see exactly what a pig kde is - even on my i7 with a ssd. I mostly use opensuse 12.1 kde now, but will give unity a chance. I installed it, but will see if i can live with it. I still can't use gnome 3 for more than a few minutes before i get mad. I don't see becoming "enlightened" though. Clem better get cracking on his fork.
I installed win 7 home premium for my son, and took 2 days to get that mess sorted out. Win 7 is awful. I wish I got win 7 pro for him, and this just showed how ugly a proprietary system is. I wanted to upgrade his system to pro, but the cost is just a little less than buying win pro. Formatting a terabyte took hours, then found that win 7 home will not access samba shares. I'm trying a bunch of suggested fixes, but nothing yet. Even gnome 3 is preferable to win 7 (maybe).
Other than that, happy new year to everyone - especially to Distrowatch team.
38 • Re#33 (by 123 on 2012-01-02 22:16:15 GMT from United States)
That's how I look at it.
But I do realize that most newcomers here are basically expecting it all to work.
I use computers because they have integrated them into the workplace and at home I find them interesting to play with, basically a hobby.
Just because I can modify my computer's O.S. package selections, doesn't mean that anyone else could.
I understand this and if someone needs help and I'm around, then I probably would help.
I've used computers since the 1970's, so I expect that what I take for granted is probably very advanced knowledge to a newcomer.
For me It's simply something natural or maybe something I used to know.
I do agree that if possible, people should be educated, self sufficient.
But then again some people simply just do not want to know.
So that's my guess as to why all of the fascination with derivatives, there is a demand for them.
Thanks DistroWatch !
39 • Could, but should? (by Jesse on 2012-01-02 23:20:48 GMT from Canada)
>> "What I don't really get is the fascination with Ubuntu derivatives. It seems to me that anyone could get Bodhi just by installing Enlightenment on Ubuntu? And, couldn't you get Kubuntu just by installing Ubuntu, and then installing the KDE desktop? Or Xubuntu by installing XFCE? Lubuntu just by installing LXDE? "
As others above have pointed out, projects like Kubuntu are more than just Ubuntu + KDE. there are other details and polish involved. However, I think the bigger issue is a user _can_ install Ubuntu, add KDE and have something approaching Kubuntu, but do they _want_ to? I could install Ubuntu and easily add the environment and software of my choosing, but it's nice to have the convenience of simply installing Kubuntu. Likewise I could install plain Debian and then add non-free items, tweak the environment, etc... Or I could just install Mint. Perhaps turn the question around and ask, why would someone want to do it the hard way?
Sure some people want to build from the ground up to learn (been there) and some people like to have total control over everything, but if you just want to use the operating system it makes sense to go with the distribution which is already tailored to your preferences.
40 • Over the "Top XX distros of 2011" blogs (by Ben on 2012-01-03 00:16:15 GMT from United States)
The flood of top XX distros of 2011 (5,3,10,etc.) postings to syndicated blogs was initially fun to see the differences in communities vs overall desktop experiences, but now it has become more realistically: Best DESKTOP IMPLEMENTATION of 2011. Everyone likes one over another for less technical and more personal "Kubuntu is polished and fast" both things sound ridiculous when you're talking about a desktop environment, but also take into account those are subjective. dwm is mega polished and lightning fast. There are generally no differences in the majority of the choices either, *buntu will be the top, or near it, and some derivative of it will be 2,3,4 and they'll put Linux Mint and say it's different, when it's not. Same base, same package management, different desktop. Sabayon has a better base and has 7 different spins, same for Fedora, Salix, SuSE, etc. We get it, you like Debian, you just don't know that you do so you call it other names to trick yourself. *buntu is debian with newer packages and less stability and a different desktop and "friendlier" (whatever that means). Spare us the countdowns.
41 • Bodhi (by Wine Curmudgeon on 2012-01-03 00:17:50 GMT from United States)
This is easily the most usable version, as the review noted. I just wish they'd get rid of that goofy mouse pointer.
42 • Bodhi, Dreamlinux and (by Ruffian on 2012-01-03 00:19:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
I remember enjoying Bodhi when I played with an earlier version last year: it's pretty, and was very quick on my very old laptop (PIII processor and 320MB RAM). I shall download this latest release and test it soon.
Dreamlinux 3.5 was another OS I tested some time ago and I was greatly impressed with its slick operation and appearance, but wasn't too sure about the support. I'm going to get DL 5 as soon as I have the time and give it another chance.
43 • Redundant derivatives, retweaked distros (by Anonymous Coward on 2012-01-03 00:31:38 GMT from Spain)
Jesse wrote:
-------------------------------------------
Likewise I could install plain Debian and then add non-free items, tweak the environment, etc... Or I could just install Mint. Perhaps turn the question around and ask, why would someone want to do it the hard way?
-------------------------------------------
I was going to say that a system you build up from the basics is cleaner and offers you more control, but you have already gone there:
-----------------------------------------
Sure some people want to build from the ground up to learn (been there) and some people like to have total control over everything
-----------------------------------------
The problem with super-preloaded distributions is that they have tons of things you probably don't want. Sure, you can take them out, but usually I'll get more bang for the effort installing things in a basic system than removing things from a Super-Preloaded. Or you can stay with the useless extra stuff of the Super-Preloaded and live with the disadvantages.
---------------------------------------
If you just want to use the operating system it makes sense to go with the distribution which is already tailored to your preferences.
----------------------------------------
Fine. It all depends on personal preferences, so I feel it makes no sense to add anything else. Some don't mind having 300 additional libraries which will never be used. I use to repackage my own software to reduce the number of needed dependencies :-)
44 • RE #39 & #33 Ubuntu Gnome + KDE = Ultimate OS (by pfyearwood on 2012-01-03 00:37:57 GMT from United States)
I have added KDE to to my 11.04 Ubuntu. It is not that satisfactory. When you add the KDE desktop meta-package, you end up with nearly double everything. You get all the KDE packages added on to your Gnome install. You end up adding the Evil Bloat. And if you want to keep adding XFCE and LXDE you better have a very large hard drive with a big /root partition. Of course as Jesse points out, it is just easier to find a distro that is what you want. That is where using Virtual Box or VMware is handy for the first round of testing.
Or, you can just install Ultimate OS and have everything. I have used Ultimate OS in the past to find that it has more than I need. It does introduce me to packages I haven't heard of before trying it.
Paul
45 • @21 (by Toolz on 2012-01-03 00:44:17 GMT from Vietnam)
Dedoimedo: Miscellaneous News, second story
46 • Not Sure What Set You Off (by Jeff Hoogland on 2012-01-03 02:03:21 GMT from United States)
Re 31: Really wish you would provide some examples of what I did to offend you. You are very hostile.
Instead of contributing and letting us know what you felt was done poorly, you instead spammed several sections of our user forums (and private messaged piles of users) with the message "Jeff is stupid".
Again - not sure what provoked this but your refuse to cite and reasons so I guess we will never know.
Re 33: Install E17 on any Ubuntu base and then compare it to what you get on the Bodhi Live CD and you should see the world of difference.
Beyond these modifications, unlike many other Ubuntu derivatives at Bodhi we maintain our own repositories and continue to provide backed ported software updates to our latest major Bodhi release.
Cheers,
~Jeff Hoogland
47 • DE problems (by mz on 2012-01-03 02:09:28 GMT from United States)
@4
I've tried a little and the more MSGE extensions I've turned off the worse it got. Window management in vanilla Gnome 3 is a complete mess. Also as #6 points out there were some completely insane defaults in Gnome 3 that really shouldn't have been foisted on Linux nerds, let alone average users who may well walk away and write off 'that linux thing' for ever if they think Gnome is the only Linux DE. It really is hard to point out how bad the shutdown nonsense in Gnome 3 is, let alone what it could have been if disros hadn't started adding back in _basic_ functionality.
@12
Now that CLI thing depends on the version of Linux and the user now doesn't it. If your distro of choice is CLI heavy then more power to you, but there are versions of Linux that focus more on the average user. If a version is CLI heavy that should be pointed out so that users know what they are getting.
@18
It really is rather surprising that Ubuntu with Unity would be considered better than much of anything, but of course Gnome 3 is causing trouble and regressions in distros other than just Mint. I really think that the Ubuntu/Unity dash launcher thing is trash. I know you can search it through that bar, but as a GUI menu it is a click intensive horror show. I thought part of the point of Ubuntu was that is was supposed to be usable, so why make it so you have to fight and click through every time you want something other than the first 5 applications that appear? Using search has been around for a while and can be useful for many, but it shouldn't be used to compensate for poor GUI design.
@33
I've tried that too, and it sometimes comes with a catch. In Mint 12 I keep on getting issues with the Nautilus file manager opening up when I log into KDE and a few other ugly and poorly integrated things rearing their ugly head.
@37
First you complain how big KDE is then you go around installing Window on PCs? Last time I checked the newer versions of Windows were at least twice as fat as KDE 4.x. Of course I haven't run out to buy Win7 to replace the preinstalled copy of Vista on my main machine, I just leave it there and boot into Linux w/KDE. I idle at 10% RAM use PCLOS with loads of desktop effects enabled instead of using 25% of my RAM in Vista with Aero.
48 • Gentoo LiveDVD - not installable (by Steve on 2012-01-03 02:20:58 GMT from Philippines)
Gentoo would simply shoot to the top of the charts if they would create an installable LiveDVD with full features aside from their "core" or "net-install" versions.
Sabayon Linux is doing it right by offering many versions and even "core" or minimal install.
But for Gentoo to limit themselves to the "Gentoo hard-way" of installation, they are shooting themselves in the foot.
Just my opinion. I believe Linux Distros want to be at the top of the charts and not at the bottom.
Gentoo is a great distro.
Steve
49 • Mint Cinnamon (by Bill on 2012-01-03 02:28:28 GMT from United States)
I've been playing with Cinnamon 1.1.3 all day and it's pretty nice. Now I can right click in menu and add applets to the panel. I have Thunderbird with a nice icon to match.
There is auto-hide for the panel, its able to turn off network from the panel. And themes have thumbnails (I have a shiny theme installed). Overall a great improvement in a short time. With more on the way. Nice!
50 • @47 (by wlater_j on 2012-01-03 02:59:30 GMT from Canada)
"First you complain how big KDE is then you go around installing Window on PCs?"
My son's gaming rig. When he has trouble, I'm the one that fixes it. I try to convert him to linux, but he won't. I'm not complaining about kde being fat (it is), but unity boots so quick compared to opensuse kde. My boot time with kde seems to be getting slower lately too. I'll have to track that down. Win 7 is quicker than vista, but the home edition won't work with samba. Vista wasn't too bad working with samba. Is kde coming out with a "lite" version? Mind you, if I run into trouble with a "fat" DE slowing me down too much, I'll upgrade my system - although my i7 is fairly decent yet.
51 • bodhi linux (by RollMeAway on 2012-01-03 03:57:27 GMT from United States)
Thanks to Jeff and team for promoting e17. Surprisingly, no other distros are.
Pclinux has dropped the ball, leaving users to cobble together weird concoctions.
MoonOS switched to gnome and seems to be fading away.
Elive was a one man show, charging money up front.
Many other one man compilations don't stand a chance.
As noted above, most users don't want the hassle of building their own system.
They want it to work out of the box, as much as possible.
Bodhi devs take note: You need AT LEAST ONE release version that is complete,
and has ALL the necessary application ALREADY INSTALLED.
Imagine how popular bodhi would be if this happened.
52 • Re 51 (by Jeff Hoogland on 2012-01-03 04:12:17 GMT from United States)
Who decides what a "necessary application" is? Do I pick? Does the community pick?
If I pick we end up with tons of unhappy users asking why I chose X and not Y.
If the community votes we come to stale mates (thus why we ship with Midori instead of Firefox or Chromium).
Our AppCenter makes software installation as painless as it could possibly be. Honestly this is why our "software packages" where created. Want a per-defined tool for every task? It's as easy as clicking twice and entering your password - why do we need another CD image?
~Jeff Hoogland
53 • Re: Cinnamon (by tdockery97 on 2012-01-03 04:16:42 GMT from United States)
The newest release has just been announced on the Linux Mint Blog. Not only is it becoming an important fork of the Gnome 3 Shell desktop, but it is being shared with nearly every major Linux distribution in the DW top 10. This is, indeed, what Linux is all about.
54 • ROSA distro (by Raymond on 2012-01-03 04:28:51 GMT from United States)
Correct me if I am wrong, but isnt ROSA the same thing as 2011 Mandriva?
http://www.mandriva.com/en/linux/features/
55 • @51 Who decides. (by RollMeAway on 2012-01-03 04:39:09 GMT from United States)
Your existing community will likely continue to build their systems to suit their preferences.
Potential new users mostly don't care which applications, as long as it works.
If someone sends them a pdf file and they can't read it, they don't want to search
for an application to open it. Then the user tries to play some music. Oh, damn now
they have to search for a music player, and codecs for the file format.
Need to open a doc file in their email. Now they have to find then choose another
program to install.
The list goes on and on and on.
If someone has a strong preference for certain apps, perhaps they will change, say the browser.
If the user has to search for what apps can do what they need right now,
over and over again, they will find another distro.
56 • Re 55: (by Jeff Hoogland on 2012-01-03 05:28:23 GMT from United States)
So again - why is installing a single package from our web-based app center too hard?
~Jeff Hoogland
57 • Distrowatch Stats Page: Linux Mint and Ubuntu (by Ron on 2012-01-03 05:29:45 GMT from United States)
I checked out Google trends. Now this is to be taken for what you will. But this whole Linux Mint thing passing by Ubuntu is a bit more then some are saying.
http://www.google.com/trends?q=linux+mint&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
http://www.google.com/trends?q=ubuntu
Of course I see both as irrelevant, I use Debian. But the fact is there are many users who are upset with Ubuntu. They like the Debian based distro, so they moved over to Linux Mint.
Argue as you may. I think this is more then when PClinux OS took the lead shortly.
http://www.google.com/trends?q=pclinux+os&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
Of course :-) :-) :-) Debian is the best distro out there and Google trends says this, so I am not sure how much one wants to put into Google Trends, lol:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=debian&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
58 • @50 (by mz on 2012-01-03 05:43:17 GMT from United States)
I know there are some specific applications that people need windows for, and games is an area where Windows tends to be a goto solution, but I still find it a little ironic that you mention both ideas in a single post. Also, I don't think that a fat DE is necessarily the main contributer to boot times. After installing KDE on Mint 12 I noticed no noticeable increase in boot time, although KDE does take a couple extra seconds to load compared to other DEs. Of course that's after going through the login screen, and I think of getting to login as being the 'boot time'. Maybe I'm biased because I prefer KDE but it hardly seems like a wait to me, and again it's much better than Vista before or after getting to the login.
59 • Re: 51, 52, 55, 56 (Bodhi Linux) (by bb on 2012-01-03 05:53:40 GMT from Japan)
Hats off again to the Bodhi developers. I think it's great, but I do agree that Bodhi would benefit from having a few additional features.
One would be an automatic updater script or app of some kind for users who may forget or not know how to update and may run dangerously out-of-date software. One-click -- instead of sudo apt-get update in a terminal.
Another improvement would be a more full-featured install disk. Users could download Bodhi Linux Core (Theraveda?, Angkor?) Edition or Bodhi Linux Big (Mahayana? Borobodur?) Edition.
An updater and a full install option would make it easier to drop on Grampa's or Mom's computer and walk away, or simplify the installation process on, say, a small lab of 20 computers.
Rather than "necessary" _applications_, we should think of necessary _functionality_. This is decided by the masses, the user community or the target user community. DVD, html, pdf, docx, mp3, and other file types that most users encounter in a year of computing can be ranked in terms of how necessary they are. It's not preference, but prevalence.
For the process of deciding particular applications to address each desired functionality, other criteria than user (or developer) preference can be applied. Is it free? (Opera may not be.) is it functional/stable enough? (Midori?) How big is the download? (e.g. Firefox is less than Chromium) How big is the memory usage? With these criteria in mind, and a ranking of the most needed capabilities, and a 650-700 MB cap, a full edition disk image could be constructed. In other words, it can be seen as a math problem. And, in spite of the professed difficulty of choosing software applications, the Bodhi developers were able to decide on the contents of a Nikhila (bigger) application suite and a Pratibha (lighter) application suite.
Then I would expect Bodhi Linux to be at least as popular as Puppy and be in the top ten on Distrowatch -- not that that matters so much, but presumably more users is better than fewer for keeping the project going.
re 56: Installing one app from the appcenter is not so hard, but installing 20 apps or installing extra apps on 20 computers is enough to drive potential users away.
Personally, if I had to choose 1, I'd choose the minimal install for most purposes.
Thanks for reading. :-)
60 • Making decisions (by RollMeAway on 2012-01-03 06:39:43 GMT from United States)
Apple is popular because people don't like making decisions. Apple decides everything for them, hardware and software. Simple.
To make a decision requires much research and time.
If users mixes kde, gnome, apps their systems are burdened with large libs. etc.
I think this is why Mint is so popular. They have a fully functional disto when 1st installed.
61 • Desktop mayhem - wasted effort (by BitBurners.com on 2012-01-03 07:35:46 GMT from Finland)
Unity, Cinnamon, Gnome Shell...
The Linux family is again wasting effort in forking the crap out of everything. Why not focus on improving Gnome Shell and providing customizations/extensions to it? I never understood why Canonical had to re-invent the wheel with Unity, and now Mint is forking Gnome Shell.
Gnome, KDE, XFCE - there are already 3 great alternatives for different kinds of uses. Focus on those!
62 • Desktop mayhem - wasted effort (by howie105 on 2012-01-03 08:19:42 GMT from United States)
BB: The Linux family is again wasting effort in forking the crap out of everything. Why not focus on improving Gnome Shell and providing customizations/extensions to it?
H105: Lots of the projects that may look like a fork are actually "customizations/extensions" to G3.
BB: I never understood why Canonical had to re-invent the wheel with Unity, and now Mint is forking Gnome Shell.
Howie105: The Ubuntu folks get to do whatever they want with their time money and effort because its all on their dime. As to Mint, it appears to me that team leader Clem is trying to meet the demands of his user base and Cinnamon is the best way he has come up with.
BB: Gnome, KDE, XFCE - there are already 3 great alternatives for different kinds of uses. Focus on those!
Howie 105: Folks like to do things their own way and in an open environment creative people will give things like DEs a shot. You can't stop them or control them so it is not worth worrying about.
63 • @ 61 & 62 (Forking the… DEs) (by bb on 2012-01-03 11:17:56 GMT from Japan)
Agree, but with a different conclusion:
Since there are plenty of desktop environments, if one (Gnome3) wants to commit suicide, there are many to replace it. It would be better to let it go. Why wait a year or fuss with it to make it what it was? Gnome 2.x was perfect, my fav, but I'v used KDE, XFCE, LXDE, Enlightenment, so I'l carry on with them (and learn something new). Gnome 3 won't be in shape for LTS 12.4 (Precise), so I won't need to look at Gnome3 again until LTS 14.4 (Transcendent Tapir).
64 • Changing default audio in Bodhi (by Uncle Slacky on 2012-01-03 11:23:33 GMT from France)
I had a similar problem the other day, and installed "asoundconf-gtk" which provides a GUI interface to switch the default sound card. Unfortunately, it relies on the presence of "asoundconf", which is found in the old "alsa-utils" package, which is no longer included in the more recent Ubuntu repos.
There are instructions on how to install asoundconf here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/10964/how-to-fix-sound-issues-in-ubuntu-9.10/ (also applicable to later Ubuntus & derivatives like Bodhi)
65 • re #16 wifi in Debian and derivatives (by gnomic on 2012-01-03 12:39:34 GMT from New Zealand)
The most likely explanation for wifi not functioning is that the requisite firmware is not included. An expedient to get round this is to drop the required firmware into /lib/firmware. It may be necessary to use modprobe thereafter to get the OS to recognise the wireless interface. The firmware might be found on a live CD from some other less determinedly free distro for example. The dmesg command will usually provide a clue if missing firmware is the problem. Or just have a look at /lib/firmware - if it doesn't contain a number of files with the suffix .fw (or perhaps .ucode or .bin) there may be a problem.
Surely part of the joy of Linux is solving problems such as this? You wouldn't want it all to be easy surely? Then there is the issue of freedom. If you value that highly, you will be using hardware that doesn't require firmware blobs.
66 • aptosid (by Mac on 2012-01-03 13:52:24 GMT from United States)
Thanks for a great distro or debian child. I use nearly everything you do.
Just had to say thanks!!!
67 • @65 Debian wifi (by GeekBoula on 2012-01-03 14:04:44 GMT from Canada)
@ 65 Thanks for your answer!
For me, the wifi is elementary in 2011 regardless of the distribution. On my laptop I use as main system Trisquel Freedown completly. The wifi has never cause any problems.
Currently I am under aptosid last version which is a derivative of Debian, and I board no problem with wifi. On Siduction I also no problems.
Other Distro Wifi without any problem: Fedora, Gentoo, Slackware and derivate, OpenSuse, Mint, Sabayon, PCLinuxOS, Arch and derivate And Many Others ..
Only Debian is a problem at this level and most of these Derivates distro built on Squeeze.
Well I'am looking about firmware, if I can activate by simple command terminal.
best regard and happy new years at all and special big big big thank to distrowatch team for your great site and great work for the communautyl
68 • Pardus (by Sam on 2012-01-03 14:15:56 GMT from United States)
Poor Pardus. I really liked the effort those devs put into fine tuning KDE, even during the rough years of KDE 4.0-4.5ish. My one big problem with the distro was its limited software repos. And installing from source was a pain given the number of compilers and (for lack of a more technical word) parts of the usual linux tool chain (kernel sources, source packages, development environments) missing from the Pardus universe. Honestly, if the distro had been more compatible with RPM or some other binary packages, it would have easily been my standard desktop.
69 • Kubuntu distro vs. Ubuntu + kubuntu-desktop ? (by octathlon on 2012-01-03 15:20:38 GMT from United States)
I'm confused-- does installing regular Ubuntu, then installing the kubuntu-desktop package give the same result as using the Kubuntu distro or not?
I have done the former (back in the KDE 3.5 days) but have never tried installing the Kubuntu distro itself. In other words, if I want to use both Ubuntu and Kubuntu, do I have to install each distro as a dual boot or can I just install kubuntu-desktop on Ubuntu and choose my desired DE at login?
70 • #69 (by anticapitalista on 2012-01-03 16:10:40 GMT from Greece)
Why not try it and let us know the result.
71 • DEs (by mz on 2012-01-03 16:24:19 GMT from United States)
@61
The makers of Mint tried to work with the Gnome people to see if they were going in a direction that could properly satisfy Mint users, and the Gnome folks said sorry, take it or leave it. Then the Mint team decide to build a new shell on top of Gnome technology and reuse a lot of good stuff that was already there. If Gnome wants to build a boutique DE for a handful of power users so be it, but they were targeting average users before and distros need to satisfy their user base no matter how crazy/inventive the DE makers get. Both Unity & Cinnamon are already using Gnome bits under the shell to make everything work and to minimize duplication of efforts. I don't think the Mint team could create a full DE on their own while still putting out their distro so they are reusing as much as possible.
@69
Like I said there are programs that look ugly when transitioning from Gnome to KDE. It was really easy to get Nautilus to stop appearing; however, the Mint update manager and other Gnome bits look really bad in KDE. It's sorta like Windows 95 grade graphics wants to make an appearance every time I open the wrong application. Plus there is this weird thing where I see my Cinnamon/Gnome desktop with icons and background appear for a split second every time I logout or shut down through KDE. Seeing as Mint packages and Ubuntu packages for KDE are the same I would imagine the same thing could happen on Ubuntu with KDE added in on top. Plus I can't shake the feeling that their are other bits of Gnome floating around in Mint+KDE that are weighing down my system a little bit. It is certainly reason enough to pick the version prepackaged with your preferred DE if you have the option.
72 • Dream Linux 5 (by Frank on 2012-01-03 16:27:24 GMT from United States)
wow I just try it and is great what a pleasant surprise. Thank you DreamLinux Team!!!!
73 • @69 Kubuntu desktop (by DavidEF on 2012-01-03 16:41:31 GMT from United States)
If you install the Ubuntu (Unity) base distro, then install kubuntu-desktop from the repos, you will be able to login to either Unity or KDE environment. However, there are settings that are used by the system that are going to be optimized for Unity, and won't change when you login to KDE. Therefore, the "real" Kubuntu desktop experience will not be yours if you go that route. I believe there is a package for each desktop called *buntu-default-settings or something like that. But, it still won't add a new dimension, it will just change the defaults for both DE's.
If you want a "real" Ubuntu AND Kubuntu on the same computer, you can dual-boot. Even using one of them in VirtualBox will not be a true representation, because VB hardware is not real hardware, it's virtualized. I guess it depends on how close you want to get.
74 • Ubuntu #1 distro of 2011 (by DavidEF on 2012-01-03 17:14:49 GMT from United States)
I haven't read the Dedoimedo article, but I intend to later on. I just want to add my opinion to the pile. Unity has gotten a lot of bad publicity, but I don't think it is well deserved, for the most part. I had installed Ubuntu netbook on my daughter's laptop, just to get the interface. I love it. Now, all the computers in my household have Ubuntu with Unity installed.
I have found a lot to dislike. The interface is still not fully functional in some ways. Customization is still not there like I am used to. But, I know those things are coming. I've found that the interface design helps me get normal, everyday things done faster than before. I don't have to click through bunches of layered menus to get a file or application opened.
I'm not a KDE user. Most of my favorite apps are KDE related, so I still try it occasionally. I noticed that when KDE4 first replaced KDE3, it was not as functional, although prettier. But now, it is much better in every way. I think Gnome3 and Unity are both going to get better as well. If you compare to things like PulseAudio, improvement in Unity is moving at light speed. PulseAudio has a long way to go.
Anyway, why bother complaining? Some of the comments above are even complaining that we have TOO MANY desktop environments to choose from. It stands to reason that we at least have enough for everyone to find one they like. Stop bashing the ones you don't like. Just use the one you find best suits you, and let other people do the same. How is that so hard?
So, I guess I said all that to say this: Ubuntu has been very influential in many ways and fully deserves the title of #1 Distro for 2011. Maybe in 2012, Mint or some other will truly de-throne the King. If so, I will consider switching as well. Better is better, ya know. Currently, there is no better, overall O/S, IMHO.
75 • Hit-Per-Day (by Matt P on 2012-01-03 17:31:26 GMT from Finland)
Ignoring which distro is in what place on the 2010-2011 HPD side-by-side, there is an interesting and positive trend showing up: total all of the HPD of each list and you can see that the top 25 distro's have over 3,200 HPD more in 2011 than in 2010.
76 • Ubuntu vs Kubuntu (by octathlon on 2012-01-03 18:09:15 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the answers about Kubuntu vs. Ubuntu. I knew installing kubuntu-desktop did more than just installing plain KDE. So now I know that it is still not the same as using the full Kubuntu distro.
I only use the LTS versions of Ubuntu and consider the in-between ones as experimental, and let the guinea pigs (non-LTS users) deal with testing the new features. ;) So I intend to give Unity a fair chance when the next LTS comes out, expecting that they will have worked out some of the issues and allowed more customization by then. I've also heard that Kubuntu has improved tremendously since I last tried it. So come April I will dual boot them to get the full Kubuntu experience for a fair test.
77 • Linux How-To's and Reference (by Jan on 2012-01-03 18:49:26 GMT from Netherlands)
Huge info's w.r.t. Linux and BSD.
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-unix-bsd-documentations.html
Jan
78 • still a good review (by luca on 2012-01-03 18:52:38 GMT from Italy)
Comment deleted (spam).
79 • Bodhi, Desktop distros (by fernbap on 2012-01-03 19:09:47 GMT from Portugal)
Although Enlightenment is not exactly my cup of tea, i like Bodhi and used it eventually on old hardware. However, Bodhi is too much barebones for the general user, who needs to at least know Linux a little in order to know which packages to install.
Also, i only consider a distro as a desktop distro as long as you have a GUI for each administrative task you need in your daily work. According to that principle, Bodhi is not a desktop distro.
My sugestion: Why not used the extra available space in the CD to put there a collection of "recomended apps", so that it can be used as a local repo, with a set of the most common apps and at least, all the apps the user will need to administer the system.
As to DEs, i'm currently a happy MATE user. It had some bugs, mostly inherited from patches made by Ubuntu to accomodate GTK into Unity, but since those bugs were corrected, it has been rock solid.
Cinnamon is a very promising project, but it still sits on gnome 3 thus suffering from some unresolved issues that gnome 3 has. We need both Gnome 3 and Cinnamon to mature yet.
80 • DWW, Dreamlinux, OpenSUSE (by Vukota on 2012-01-03 19:13:19 GMT from United States)
Another year, and another great DWW!
I would like to see reviews of Dreamlinux 5 and openSUSE Edu Li-f-e 12.1.
81 • Landor (by forlin on 2012-01-03 19:26:57 GMT from Portugal)
Thanks Landor. You were wright, I was naif.
Regarding Open Source, I've got something to say.
This is for new comers.
People, listen to RS and understand the 4 principles of free, regarding software (maybe a beat more than that).
Look at this extraordinary interview. Though the interviewer was not top notch, watch up to the end.
After that, if you got it, engage (or never do it) FLOSS.
Remember that RS will never have the "aerial" time those common mortals use to get (Jobs et al). For very obvious reasons.
82 • Landor (by forlin on 2012-01-03 19:27:55 GMT from Portugal)
http://rt.com/news/richard-stallman-free-software-875/
83 • wrong link (by @82 on 2012-01-03 19:49:46 GMT from Portugal)
please see here
http://rt.com/programs/spotlight/liberating-software-richard-stallman/
84 • Bodhi (by shady on 2012-01-03 20:07:55 GMT from United States)
Bodhi is awesome. I have it running on a Fujitsu Lifebook with an Intel Celeron and 512 of Ram and that Midori runs my kids moshi monster game she likes to play like a champion. They hit the sweet spot of performance/usability, IMO.
85 • Top Distro and stuff.. (by buntunub on 2012-01-03 20:25:03 GMT from United States)
#48
"Gentoo would simply shoot to the top of the charts if they would create an installable LiveDVD with full features aside from their "core" or "net-install" versions."
No. This is not the Gentoo way. People who install Gentoo do it because they don't want to do things the way you suggest. They do it because they want a system done the Gentoo way, which is greatly unique and very special. Same could be said of Slackware and Archlinux. They are different and people love what makes them so.
#61
"The Linux family is again wasting effort in forking the crap out of everything. Why not focus on improving Gnome Shell and providing customizations/extensions to it? I never understood why Canonical had to re-invent the wheel with Unity, and now Mint is forking Gnome Shell."
This is the way things are done in the FOSS world. There is a very good reason for this which I won't get into here. Learn it and understand that this will never change. Ever. Any effort to change that would change the very fabric of what makes the FOSS community what it is today, which is without doubt the most innovative and productive group of Developers and contributors in the world. All the most interesting stuff is done in the FOSS world and on Linux because of this freedom and lack of central authority. There are only people who have itches they need to scratch and boy is there a lot of itching and scratching going on!
#31
"A vain arrogant opportunistic person, engaged on benefiting on the work and effort of a few newbies, together with a bunch of "dear fellows" stepped on its foot prints, as is normal in an (apparent) successful "startup"."
Why would you say such a thing about a Distro maintainer? There really is no reason for you to make such disparaging remarks, despite your personal misgivings. At the very least, the guy pushed his distro forward and maintains it which is more that can be said for the vast majority. Rate the software, not the Maintainer. Is Bodhi quality software, or is it not? I can't imagine how your personal issues with a distro's maintainer has anything to do with the final product, and none of us care about you and Landor's personal issues with the guy, so do us all a favor and keep it to yourselves.
The top distro for 2011 was Debian. Read the real story here.
http://www.tuxradar.com/content/best-distro-2011
Dodeimodo or whatever the name is nothing more than a distro reviewer and is not a credible source at that, although his reviews are entertaining, they should be taken with a grain of salt.
86 • re # 67 trouble with wifi in Debian (by gnomic on 2012-01-03 20:33:04 GMT from New Zealand)
Hmmm, seems a little odd that your wifi works with Trisquel which I thought was quite purist on the freedom front, but not Debian and the like. Do you happen to know what the hardware involved is? If in doubt, lspci command should supply the answer. Eg on the machine I'm using now:
14:02.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2915ABG [Calexico2] Network Connection (rev 05)
This requires a firmware blob found in /lib/firmware as below (actually in this case several blobs):
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 191154 2011-08-23 13:23 ipw2200-bss.fw
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 185428 2011-08-23 13:23 ipw2200-ibss.fw
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 187836 2011-08-23 13:23 ipw2200-sniffer.fw
When a distro doesn't contain the firmware, dmesg reports the firmware was not found or unable to be loaded, commonly an 'error 22' if I recall correctly.
87 • re: 79 Bodhi (by hoppper on 2012-01-03 21:17:24 GMT from United States)
I did my first install the way the article did and found the same issues with myEEE. But the second time I found a link to a webpage on the menu that had easy package groups to install. For the EEE i chose the light and added codecs and was done after i got the screen issue fixed. I think samba fixed my mounting issue and the light multimedia apps fixed the jackd sound problem.
88 • New desktop enviroments (by merkur on 2012-01-03 22:48:49 GMT from Malta)
What's with all these new desktop environments? Not that it's a bad thing. The last few months we had.
-Ubuntu Unity
-elementary Pantheon
-Cinnamon
-Mate
-Razor-QT
-Asturix On
89 • Bodhi and Tiny (by OldTimer2 on 2012-01-03 23:46:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
I like Bodhi, a bit rough in parts but with masses of potential.
I think Tiny Core will go up the rankings, eventually.
TC is a brilliant piece of software and has a very original design.
90 • Top distro (by Toolz on 2012-01-04 01:29:05 GMT from Vietnam)
@85: Thanks for the TuxRadar link. It certainly confirms what I believe, that Debian was the best distro of 2011 (in a poor year, I might add) although the methodology was a little suspect. Performance is key for me. I also like to be able to download packages from servers located near me (I guess at least on of Arch, Fedora and Suse has a comprehensive mirror network too).
91 • OpenSuse 12.1 and Kmix (by Sly on 2012-01-04 04:25:06 GMT from United States)
OpenSuse 12.1 KDE seems to have crippled KMix, taking away the ability to use it to capture streaming audio. Amarok, in OpenSuse seems to have trouble playing CD's even after codecs are added via 1click. This is a deal breaker for me and I will probably dump Suse quickly in favor of another distro.
92 • #90 (by zykoda on 2012-01-04 07:49:44 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just for fun
For comparison: Debian on Distrowatch by year, rank and HPD (Hits Per Day)
2002 4 311 2003 5 428 2004 5 832 2005 6 867 2006 7 819
2007 7 953 2008 6 1038 2009 5 1034 2010 5 1069 2011 4 1405
Figures taken from the published Distrowatch "database".
93 • Re: #88 New desktop enviroments (by Leo on 2012-01-04 13:19:13 GMT from United States)
It's the old Cathedral and Bazaar thing
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/cathedral-bazaar/
XFCE started like that, is now an established player.
Razor-qt, in particular, may provide a "much lighter" thin qt desktop. Heck, I m using it on my netbook. It boots to a full desktop in 15 secs. I have Google Chrome to autostart, which happens within 20 secs from cold boot. With KDE, the whole process takes 40 secs. Of course, KDE Plasma is just beautiful, and a ton more functional, but in that netbook I just need a browser :)
94 • @91 (by Peter on 2012-01-04 13:54:50 GMT from Germany)
Amarok plays CDs again, if you install and use phonon-vlc.
See e.g. http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=115&t=93254
and
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=732656
95 • @77 Jan - Linux How-To\'s and Reference (by LinuxFreak on 2012-01-04 14:44:24 GMT from Germany)
Thank you for the very comprehensive list of Linux How-To's and References. It's good to see it put together all in one place, complete with descriptions of what the linked sites are about. You can never know enough. Added it to my browser favorites, and will surely revisit...
96 • IceWM and Bodhi (by Neal on 2012-01-04 16:16:17 GMT from United States)
I would love to try someones rendition of Ubuntu running with IceWM.
With Bodhi, every time I would boot I had to re adjust the screen brightness....even with the live cd. Whats the deal with that?
97 • #91 (by Andy Prough on 2012-01-04 16:25:15 GMT from United States)
Users are reporting using pavucontrol with pulseaudio support instead of Kmix:
http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/multimedia/456987-opensuse-11-4-kmix-too-few-channels-probably-due-pulseaudio.html
98 • @86 (by Peter on 2012-01-04 18:03:22 GMT from Germany)
The needed firmware is located in Debian non-free:
http://packages.debian.org/de/squeeze/firmware-ipw2x00
You could activate the Debian non-free repo in synaptic and install this firmware.
The other way is to download the firmware here (e.g.)
http://packages.debian.org/de/squeeze/all/firmware-ipw2x00/download
Afterwards a
dpkg -i firmware-ipw2x00*.deb
in a terminal as root in the corresponding folder which contains the downloaded file will do the job.
99 • @16 GENTOO LiveDVD 12: (by Poke-N-Hope on 2012-01-04 18:52:44 GMT from United States)
Gentoo is a source based distro, you install the linux kernel, the drivers and the apps from source and complie them on your machine. The livedvd is a precomplied liveOS of Gentoo that is just for "Show N Tell" purposes. If you want to install a binary version based on Gentoo then use Sabayon.
100 • Re: #94 & 97 (by Sly on 2012-01-04 19:02:45 GMT from United States)
Thanks guys. I will give it a shot. Hopefully this will allow me to make SUSE 12.4 a keeper. Other than these two issues I really REALLY like what the SUSE group have done with this version.
101 • LinEX is back from the Death (by Anonymous Coward on 2012-01-04 20:24:36 GMT from Spain)
I am reading that the local government that condemned LinEX has thought it twice. It seems that its development will go on after all, but by the hand of CENATIC instead of the original firm.
102 • interface design (by Nate on 2012-01-04 22:37:44 GMT from United States)
I agree that GNOME3 and Unity are some of the most horrible interfaces ever built. However, forking desktops and adding extensions aren't the answers because they don't address the core problem. The core problem is that many developers are bad interface designers, and as a result, we have stable but unusable ugly interfaces. This isn't really their fault. No-one teaches good interface design, and there are very few platform independent rules which have been standardized and widely published. I have never heard of a school with a computer science program that had an interface design class. Maybe instead of constantly forking, we should try looking at why we're forking.
As a result, I have compiled this list of general interface design rules for people. I recommend you use them. Add to them, distribute them, whatever, just make sure they are good:
1. Contrast is good. Always choose colors so that everything is easy to read, use etc. for example, sky-blue is hard to read on grey, whereas red is easy. Purple and blue shouldn't overlap because they are hard to distinguish, as are red and green.
2. Use larger fonts because they are easier to read. size 12 is easier to read than size 6. I only write this one because keyboard manufacturers have forgotten it.
3. Sometimes text is better than an icon. "New E-mail" is easier to understand than an envelope with an asterisk.
4. While it's okay to add some application management tools, when you're making a multitasking tool, keep it task centric. This is why tabbed browsing got so popular.
5. Be handicap accessible. Some of your users are deaf, blind, or are missing body parts. They've suffered enough, help them out.
6. When you change something, have a good reason for it. People don't like change, so you have to offset that.
7. Make the most frequently used tasks easier than usual. This is why we have the close window button on most windows and a shutdown button. People are bound to use each of those at least once a day.
8. Be multilingual. Make it easy to use tildes or umlauts. There are 6 billion people on the planet who don't speak fluent English. Cater to them too.
9. Don't use images for no reason. This increases load time and is generally annoying.
10. Be a space saver. Don't sacrifice functionality to do it. It's usually possible to rearrange the interface without losing features. Most people forget this. Case in point: many browsers have removed the menu bar by default and added a large button at the top on certain platforms. Many features were hidden as a result. A better move would have been to move the menu bar to that area instead. More functionality would be available, but space would be saved.
11. Give the users choices without confusing them. Many developers make products that lack choices to not confuse the user. "I'm not going to name names here." Others add so much choice that it's annoying. Try to hit the right balance. A
ll of your users will appreciate it.
103 • 2012 will be the year for Linux (by Sanjay on 2012-01-04 22:38:03 GMT from India)
Macs are for those who don't want to know why their computer works.
Linux is for those who want to know why their computer works.
Windows is for those who don't want to know why their computer doesn't work.
Linux is No.1 any way
104 • #100 (by Andy Prough on 2012-01-04 23:43:09 GMT from United States)
Glad I could help.
Be sure to check out the opensuse forums also - forums.opensuse.org. The guys there are super helpful. Unlike some of the other forums (like some of my experiences with the *buntus), the opensuse forums are monitored almost round-the-clock by top-shelf professionals like oldcpu, swerdna, DenverD, and jmacdaniel3 who are engineers that really know how to debug hardware and software problems. You are sure to get a detailed plan of attack for your specific problem (as long as you are respectful on the boards).
105 • #102 (by jack on 2012-01-04 23:49:55 GMT from Canada)
Item #7
"close window button" is, I believe, a different category to the "minimize, maximize" buttons that are placed beside it.
If one accidently pushes the close button there is no easy way to recover what was on the screen; whereas it is only necessary to repush the minimize or maximise button to get back to the previous screen
Item @1 is definitely THE important advice.
Thanks for your advice.
106 • RE: 102 (by Landor on 2012-01-05 01:59:42 GMT from Canada)
To be completely honest here, you haven't studied the issue as deeply as one may thing. There's a whole course of study built around user interfaces. In fact, it goes as far as having an area of Psychological study just for that field.
I'll even go one step further and say 'I think' (though I'm probably wrong here) that a woman works for red hat that actually has studied that area of Psychology. I remember reading something about it, somewhere. It may just have been something someone else from red hat had been discussing and is why I'm now making the connection.
Regardless though, there's is a whole science built around it, and how could someone believe there not be when the modern world is being defined through computer interaction.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
107 • distrowatch (by tekwyzrd on 2012-01-05 07:58:52 GMT from United States)
Anyone who believes the page hits on distrowatch reflect actual popularity of a distribution is a fool. I used to visit this site regularly to read the weekly and check out other distributions. Now I mostly avoid it. Why? This site seems to be concerned with promoting ubuntu and it's derivatives above all else. Invariably, every weekly has some kind of praise for the 'buntus. Why bother visiting this site when I know once again I'll see some 'buntu fan singing it's praises?
It's sad that so many people are so intent on packaging "new" distributions based on what is in my experience one of the most over-hyped linux distributions ever created. If you want to help make linux better get involved in an existing project. We don't need more 'buntus. There's too many already.
108 • Girl with the dragon tatoo (by divad gnol on 2012-01-05 09:33:32 GMT from United States)
Did anyone see this movie? Wow, is it really as easy as typing "find so and so's laptop" and your instantly connected to their machine.
I mean "find" is a great command but she didn't even hack it using awk or sed to make it more useful.
Just a thought.....
109 • Interface design (by Jesse on 2012-01-05 14:28:25 GMT from Canada)
Landor is quite right, there is a whole field of study involved with user interface design. My computer science course included a component of interface design. (Admittedly I wasn't very good at it, but it helped me spot good and bad designs later.) It's definitely something developers should pay attention to. An interface doesn't just determine how easy a program is to use, but it's also the first thing a new user is exposed to, presentation is important.
110 • k3b... (by disi on 2012-01-05 15:06:09 GMT from Germany)
I didn't have to burn any data CD/DVD in ages!
For .iso images it is much quicker to just drop to shell and type 'cdrecord file.iso'
Anyway, it happened last week and I looked up a few tools with GUI to create a data DVD. Since most of the applications on my system are already qt4 and kde based, I tried k3b. Turns out, it is pretty straight forward.
No hassle with complicated menus etc. Thanks for this great tool :)
111 • Interface design importance (by DiveEd on 2012-01-05 15:43:38 GMT from United States)
I was doing consulting work for a Firefighter Local Union office. They were using a propritary software program, for their health plan, that ran on a Windows server. The software had a memory leak problem that caused the server to need rebooting weekly, and also had security issues. They developed a new version that ran on a Red Hat Linux server that solved all the problems. I recomended a trial install for testing.
The staff that used the program on a daily basis hated it! I interviewed them to find out why. It turned out that the design used the mouse for form navigation and lacked any keyboard shortcuts. They were all touch typists and hated having to constantly reach for the mouse. I went back to the company that made the software with their complaints and explained to the designer how to fix the design. They came back with an update in a few days that could be used without ever touching the mouse. The staff approved, the update was installed and all probles solved.
If you design a program or interface for an office environment and fail to incorporate keyboard navigation it will not be well received.
112 • @31 (by Tim on 2012-01-05 15:51:57 GMT from Germany)
"A vain arrogant opportunistic person, engaged on benefiting on the work and effort of a few newbies, together with a bunch of "dear fellows" stepped on its foot prints, as is normal in an (apparent) successful "startup".
(...) lack of really innovation".
Bodhi Linux heavily depends on Ubuntu GNU/Linux and its repos. This is quite obvious.
But would it be legal to call such a Bodhi Linux release an "Ubuntu 10.04 Enlightenment 17 Remix" and to provide own installation media with new non-Ubuntu artwork?
At least Bodhi Linux provides a leightweight, fully functional and bleeding-edge Enlightenment 17 desktop.
And as long as enlightenment.org does not publish an Enlightenment 17 final, there is no reason to say "I'm just, really, sorry for the E17 desktop. It didn't deserve so bad luck."
In my opinion, they "deserved" every bit of this.
113 • @107 (by mz on 2012-01-05 17:59:38 GMT from United States)
I don't think anyone ever claimed that distrowatch was anything like an accurate poll, although it does gauge interest in various distros to some extent. I would also say that there are plenty of anti *buntu people around here, some of who even write opinion articles against Unity and Ubuntu:
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20111107
Of course there are fans of Ubuntu as well, but judging by the hit ranking of those who know about this site many are shifting away from Ubuntu proper and looking at other options. Of course the Debian family in general seems to have the most traction with distro makers and the *buntu base seems to be the most popular of the platforms based on Debian. I never cared for or used Ubuntu proper much or used any of its direct respins like Kubuntu; however, I do think it's better to have a Shuttleworth type backing Linux to some extent instead of using proprietary software in his quest to create a new Mac. They do cover lots of different distros here and go into the BSDs every now and then so I really don't see how you could call them nothing but *buntu boosters.
114 • Gnome 3 on Alpha 1 Lubuntu 12.04 (by Roy H Huddleston on 2012-01-05 18:48:41 GMT from United States)
It is working good. I installed the linux source file for kernel 3.2.0-7.13 and disabled the Alpha 1 CD in software sources. Classic Gnome is having problems with compiz right now. The Ubuntu in it looks like 11.04 but runs lighter as does the Openbox and the different window managers in it which you have to log out of and into. I really like the Debian Squeeze desktop effect as the wallpaper. The Gnome 3 looks and works pretty much the same as in Mint Lisa. Precise Pangolin is pretty cool.
115 • @10 (by John on 2012-01-06 01:38:06 GMT from United States)
I am running sid gnome3 with extensions. I am not getting that message but was before I went to sid. Make sure you have unstable as your repositories. You can not install from gnome website because gnome-shell-extentions have not moved from experimental to sid yet. You will as someone suggested have to do it manually. Patience Gnome 3 is fine and will only get better.
116 • RE: 113 (by Landor on 2012-01-06 06:19:52 GMT from Canada)
Not saying anything about your comments, but anyone who's been writing about people making this exodus from Ubuntu to specific distributions is just spreading pure hyperbole without any real evidence to back it up. Oh, and just to be clear here, the PHR here is not irrefutable evidence either.
Things change in this world, Ubuntu came on strong and focused on delivering a strong community message. Mark Shuttleworth is a billionaire, and he didn't get that way by being stupid. He drove the community aspect, and drove it well. It put him on top, and I believe his distribution is still there. What we are seeing in the fringe community of diehard users is simple attrition, nothing more. The numbers have been dropping off naturally, and also, so has Ubuntu's major focus. It's nothing more than natural attrition.
The rise of The Unity Shell in my opinion has absolutely minimal bearing on any aspect of a numerical decline. Only the fickle diehards (those two descriptives do not cancel each other out if you think about it) in our community have put emphasis on it.
Oh, and you'll also find a lot of people put a lot of stock into the numbers here. I honestly can't tell you the last time I looked at them, or why. I'm not one of the people that do, nor will probably ever be. Frankly, I personally only see them for entertainment value. My apologies Ladislav, I'm only being honest.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
117 • Popularity (by Jan on 2012-01-06 15:48:57 GMT from Netherlands)
The number of fully and succesfully downloaded ISO's is probably a better indication. There are sites which give this number.
There are also sites at which an appreciation can be given, after downloading and using the distro (however which also can be corrupted by fan-boys and fan-girls).
118 • RE: 116 and other stuff (by Verndog on 2012-01-06 16:34:38 GMT from United States)
Well said Landor! What I would like to see is here is anything but page rankings.
For example, I installed Cinnamon on both Mint12 and Fedora16, and for some reason it runs and looks better on Fedora. Go figure. I prefer Mint12 on its default MSGE.
===
Also I discovered 'vobcopy'. I know its been around for years but I have used it for one reason or another. It works great to rip the entire dvd to a folder.
119 • RE: 117-118 (by Landor on 2012-01-06 17:55:55 GMT from Canada)
#117
The only problem with downloads it only shows some level of interest. How often do you read here that someone says, 'distribution 'A' is amazing, I played with it for a bit'. Played with it. The only time we'll see any true numbers is from an OEM shipping a specific distribution. I myself even avoid being counted in the PHR. If there's a release from a distribution I'm interested in I'll go to their site via my own mean, not clicking through from here. At times though I do click through, as in when a new distribution is added to the list, etc, and I want to find out more about it.
#118
I don't think there could be anything else really. Everything would come under fire somehow. I like the stats of visits from other countries over the passing of the year the most. A lot more than I do the PHR. To me that shows growth, or not, and true interest on a global scale, while staying away from the competitive aspect of a ranking system.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
120 • @119, you mean like eeepc (by Julian on 2012-01-06 18:04:38 GMT from United States)
"The only time we'll see any true numbers is from an OEM shipping a specific distribution."
We saw something interesting with an OEM shipping linux on eeePC's. Namely that many buyers were disappointed, and didn't really want a Linux netbook that much. When the hardware makers started going with Windows, that's when they sold large numbers of netbooks.
121 • RE: 120 (by Landor on 2012-01-06 18:52:47 GMT from Canada)
#120
I knew someone would bring of the fiasco that ASUS had created, it was expected. It's one of the two reasons why I made the point of including 'shipping a specific distribution'.
Did you ever see the ASUS build? They were looking for a cheap, fast sale. That's it. They got it too, then they got returns. I just laughed thinking about the people that complain about GNOME Shell, or Unity Shell, then comparing it to the ASUS build.
But in essence, why does anyone care? You know why? Because the media within this community pumps everyone up about it, and a plethora of geeks and nerds genuflect about it always. Is knowing which distribution is number one among a bunch of people that have pretty well no bearing on the world market that important, really? I personally don't think so. I know that the millions we have out of the billions of people on the planet means absolutely nothing at all in the grand scheme of things.
Just to prove a point too, does any actually really believe that Clem and Mint will, and could supplant Ubuntu? Seriously? When is Clem going to start shipping CDs with Mint on them all over the world for free? When is he going to be putting up kiosks where people can obtain Mint from there? How often will we see him flying to different release parties, and summits for Mint, let alone other functions within our greater community? How many developers does he plan on hiring this years, and in what countries will he have offices?
The above wasn't an attack on Clem, or Mint. I'm pointing out a truth, and an obvious one when you read the above, Mint is only a small player that resides in this community. It would take years, and a huge amount of capital for it to get anywhere near the same level as Ubuntu. It's far from the distribution that will destroy it as so many people have been going on about for months.
The sad thing is, most people in the community prefer what they read from others than to use common sense.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
122 • Mint's popularity (by Jesse on 2012-01-06 19:40:45 GMT from Canada)
While Mint does have a long climb to achieve (and surpass) the numbers Ubuntu has, I don't think it's impossible. It may even be probable. A distribution's popularity is certainly helped by the things Ubuntu does, but there are other aspects to consider. Take CentOS vs Red Hat for example. I think CentOS has higher usage numbers, at least in certain sectors. In public-facing web hosting, for example, CentOS has huge numbers there. Yet CentOS is a small community project with very little backing, Red Hat is a billion dollar company with international offices and booths at conferences.
My point is Mint could be helped by reaching out and being more visible, but just building a solid distribution has gained them a large following and I suspect their numbers will continue to grow quickly.
123 • Simplice Linux (by David on 2012-01-07 00:54:53 GMT from United States)
I find Simplice Linux pointless, it just looks like CrunchBang to me, but I am probably wrong.
124 • @123 Semplice & Crunchbang (by Vic on 2012-01-07 01:58:46 GMT from Canada)
I'm going to assume you were referring to Semplice Linux, which shares some similar design elements of Crunchbang, so visually they appear much alike. They are also both Debian based, but with a difference. Semplice uses the Debian Sid repos being based on the unstable branch. Crunchbang uses Debian Squeeze's stable repos.
125 • Dreamlinux (by jeff on 2012-01-07 03:12:56 GMT from United States)
I would really like to see Dreamlinux make a 64 bit version.
Really, isn't it time ?
126 • Mint's popularity (by Toolz on 2012-01-07 03:53:57 GMT from Vietnam)
> "My point is Mint could be helped by reaching out and being more visible, but just building a solid distribution has gained them a large following and I suspect their numbers will continue to grow quickly."
Unfortunately it's been getting less and less solid. First Clem got more closely involved in the CE editions (KDE, Xfce, etc). Then he brought the Debian edition out (Xfce switched to Debian). Then Mate. Now Cinnamon. Also the infrastructure efforts, like mirroring the Debian testing repos. All too much for one guy - quality is taking a hit.
127 • #126 (by zykoda on 2012-01-07 09:15:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
True. Stick with Mint10 for now. There is no reason to "upgrade" Install "gnome-shell"
startx -- :1
gnome-shell --replace
Play with that.
128 • re #125 Dreamlinux with 64 bits (by gnomic on 2012-01-07 09:49:36 GMT from New Zealand)
Erm, maybe a more urgent priority would be organising the project so it doesn't take about 3 years between versions - leaving the casual observer with the impression the distro has dropped into the defunct basket. Haven't had a chance to look at the latest version yet. I do recall being somewhat bemused some years back when I tried each of the then 3 installers on offer in Dreamlinux only to find that none of them resulted in a system that would boot. I was left with the impression of a plenitude of ideas less than perfectly implemented. Hoping to find that the newest release has had the bugs ironed out thoroughly.
129 • @120 (by Toolz on 2012-01-07 15:06:32 GMT from Vietnam)
> "We saw something interesting with an OEM shipping linux on eeePC's. Namely that many buyers were disappointed, and didn't really want a Linux netbook that much. When the hardware makers started going with Windows, that's when they sold large numbers of netbooks."
My recollection is completely opposite. I remember the Eee selling like hot cakes thru 2007, 2008 then they started putting rotating disks and Win XP in them and not long after that Asus basically quit the netbook market.
130 • @123 Semplice (by Toolz on 2012-01-07 15:49:50 GMT from Vietnam)
> "I find Simplice Linux pointless, it just looks like CrunchBang to me, but I am probably wrong."
Okay so we have Openbox and tint2 (with a clipboard app in it) and both based on Debian. But different versions of Debian (unstable vs stable - note it goes stable-testing-unstable), Semplice lacking Crunchbang's trademark Conky desktop ... also lacking Crunchbang's trademark 'black' desktop. Not really that similar.
Some of us want to try out Debian testing/unstable, and we're also bored with the main three desktop environments. Please don't discourage those who want to help us. How many non-KDE/Gnome/Xfce distros are there? Like Crunchbang, Semplice development is undertaken by one guy who is just trying his best.
Semplice looks promising because it's "simple, lightweight, fast and Debian-based" - I hope in 2012 we'll see more distros adhering to those principles.
131 • Voyager 11.10 (by Sven on 2012-01-07 17:45:40 GMT from Sweden)
This Voyager 11.10 has done wonders with Xfce! You can read the site, which is in French through Google Translate. I have a liking to Xfce, and this is the first one, I've seen made Xfce look so polished. Try and you'd not be disappointed. If the site would be in English, Voyager 11.10 would have lot of followers.
132 • Popularity doesn't matter. Quality is everything! (by Arthur Martins on 2012-01-07 20:15:32 GMT from Brazil)
"The biggest loser of the year is Tiny Core Linux, which, together with Kubuntu, Dreamlinux, Red Hat Enteprise Linux and Zenwalk Linux, no longer appears in the top 25 list."
__ IMNSHO, the greatest winner of the present year (2012) is Dreamlinux, which is now making a glorious return to my desktop. And RHEL is the single most important distro ever, the absolute winner of all times. As for VectorLinux and other high-quality distros losing positions on PHR, several of them are waaaaay better than Mint (so far, the #1 in PHR).
"As always, the DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics shouldn't be taken too seriously - they are a fun way of looking at what's hot and what's not among this site's visitors, but they almost certainly do not reflect install base or distribution quality."
__ Quite right! That PHR thing is a very unuseful tool to evaluate anything other than "where the hell DistroWatch visitors are clicking".
133 • 126 • Mint's popularity (by mandog on 2012-01-08 01:24:54 GMT from Peru)
I don't think Clem has anything to do with community versions apart from final testing which is done by one of the devs then Clem approves it. he is only involved with the main edition. Unfortunately being based Ubuntu he can't fix everything that Ubuntu can't be bothered with lets face it the policy at Ubuntu is move on to the next release users will have to wait till the next release or two.
Clem does a great job with mint I say that as a non user that was involved with Mint in the past
134 • Mint's popularity (by Toolz on 2012-01-08 03:37:10 GMT from Vietnam)
@133: See current activity for KDE edition here:
http://community.linuxmint.com/iso
also see Xfce.
135 • re: #120 (by James Jones on 2012-01-08 11:41:59 GMT from United States)
I bought an Eee 900 at Best Buy. It came with Xandros Linux and a 4 GB SSD; it was set to use UnionFS, which had the advantage that one could easily return to the original state, but which meant that as soon as I fired it up and it tried to update software, the SSD immediately totally filled up and it froze.
Fortunately, I knew enough to wipe the SSD and install Ubuntu Eee (now Easy Peasy), and iti ran like a charm. (Later I maxed out the RAM and put in a 16 GB SSD.) I'll be installing the new Bodhi Linux on it.... but imagine Joe Average buying the netbook I did as a Christmas present for a child or grandchild. The big day arrives, and the kid is delighted to have a computer--until it's powered up, offers to update software, and renders itself useless. Joe Average doesn't know how to replace Xandros Linux with another distribution, and delight has turned to frustration and anger. He'll return to Best Buy, demand his money back, and probably get upsold to a more expensive system running Windows--and by golly, he'll never use that Linux junk again!
I can think of no better way for ASUS or possibly Best Buy to be able to claim that they'd given Linux a chance while stabbing it in the back, and I have to think that it was done intentionally.
136 • OpenBSD (by divadgnol on 2012-01-08 18:54:46 GMT from United States)
I have commented on openbsd many times, as well my love for this particular flavor of unix. OpenBSD 5.0 is no exception and in fact increases the ease of use for an average user.
For those of you that do not know, the installation program now asks if you would like to install missing firmware (wireless driver ipw3945 in my case). This makes post installation work much easier than before.
If you have tried openbsd in the past and found the installation daunting I suggest you try it again. You may be pleasantly surprised.
137 • win7, samba, and favorite distro (by imnotrich on 2012-01-09 05:34:42 GMT from Mexico)
Actually win7 and samba do work together, but you have to do a fresh win7 install. During the install, it will ask you if the computer is a home or work computer (this is well prior to the screen about networking home, public, private). If you tell the installer you're a home computer, you are hosed. Select "work" computer and win7 will install the necessary components for networking in a mixed neighborhood.
As for favorite distros? Until Squeeze, my favorite was Debian. Squeeze was a huge step backwards unfortunately. While I finally managed to resolve some (not all) of the Squeeze bugs and lack of hardware support for my 3 year old 64 bit desktop (hardly obscure or obsolete), I eventually rolled back my laptop - also recent vintage - to Lenny. At least wireless works. Now if I can only get a "real" browser for Lenny, but that's a project for a rainy day and as everybody knows it never rains in Southern California.
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| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Android-x86
Android-x86 was an unofficial initiative to port Google's Android mobile operating system to run on devices powered by Intel and AMD x86 processors, rather than RISC-based ARM chips. The project began as a series of patches to the Android source code to enable Android to run on various netbooks and ultra-mobile PCs, particularly the ASUS Eee PC.
Status: Discontinued
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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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