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Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Hardcore users (by megadriver on 2012-01-30 09:45:04 GMT from Spain)
Guess I'm a "hardcore user", then. Awesome! :)
You (yes, you!) can become a "hardcore user", too! You just need a basic understanding of computers, an open mind and some reading comprehension. Your way to "hardcoreness" starts here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_Guide
2 • PC-BSD (by any on 2012-01-30 09:53:01 GMT from Spain)
Tried PC-BSD9.0x64 on my main machine and a virtual machine. While being a nice desktop it could not handle my wireless cards. A good project but I will wait for a release that handles all my hardware without tinkering. I used the first releases of PC-BSD as desktop though. Same with Ghost-BSD - very good design but it lacks a little bit to be my main desktop OS. And surprisingly or not the later looks more "neat and tidy" :) . For now HUD - Hesitancy, Uneasiness and Doubt.
3 • PC-BSD (by ShaulbenAvrahamYitzhak on 2012-01-30 10:22:09 GMT from Canada)
The problems you mention with wireless and especially boot time, I would suspect it is your hardware. If you are running AMD64, I don't see how bad the boot could be, and for the wifi, you should be able to get a G connection regardless, N support is being worked on. I can not speak in comparison to Linux, as I am not willing to touch Linux for system engineering reasons.
I only use the PC-BSD installation to install FreeBSD. I do not use PC-BSD because of all the extra code in there to make it user friendly I find does make a difference in speed compared to running pure FreeBSD from shell and building everything from ports. So when you say you had no success with FreeBSD, what exactly is it you mean? Do you mean FreeBSD could not function or is that you are not knowledgeable enough to get everything going the way you would prefer it to be?
For the PBI's, if you want more you can build them yourself. Whether you are using PC-BSD or FreeBSD 9, you can build the PBI's yourself from ports and they can update themself. I'm considering setting up a PBI server running FreeBSD that builds PBI's of everything I want and then I don't have to use ports on each FreeBSD system, I can just install the PBI from my server without requiring root or sudo, and be up and running, and saving on all the build/compile time for each machine.
4 • PC-BSD (by django on 2012-01-30 10:34:37 GMT from Netherlands)
Very positive review of PC-BSD, Jesse. I reinstalled PC-BSD on my machine yesterday as I wanted to have my harddrives mirrir with RAID 1. Everything went ok.
There are a few problems though. Hardware support, my printer, a Samsung ML-1610, was not automatically configured. I installed a freebsd port for that reason. Although CUPS was configured correctl, printing is not as stable as I wanted (from a multi-page document only the first page gets printed, or some documents don't print at all or the docs print garbled) In this area PC-BSD will have to look at how the Linux distro's have tackled this problem as my printer was always detected the desktop oriented Linux distros.
Another major problem is the support for auto-mounting external harddrives. I had to revert to a cli solution to be able to do that.
A minor issue is that whenever I install a desktop application, the icons are not automatically created for all users on the system. This requires manual intervention.
Positive points are the very modest memory consumption, the stability and bsd based tools like pf for firewalling and easy configuration of system services (/etc/rc.conf plus /etc/rc.d/)
5 • Arch and PCBSD (by Mathew John Roberts on 2012-01-30 10:38:12 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hardcore linux user eh? I've never thought of myself like that. Arch is my favourite linux distro by quite a bit. Like one of the earlier comments said, all you really need is a willingness to read and learn. It really is rather easy. Before I installed it as my main system I had a few practice runs in a vm (and I made mistakes, learning is fun!). I have yet to find a better linux to suit my needs. Hardcore? I'd consider slackware or gentoo to be hardcore.
Now to PCBSD. I am thoroughly impressed! I love the pbi system. I've completely replaced xubuntu with PCBSD and am loving it. The only slight problem I really had was trying to disable suspend when closing my laptop lid. Managed to work around it by disabling a certain acpi module that just controlled what happens on lid close. Other than the introduction of a GUI for bluetooth, I can't imagine how they will improve on it in 9.1. Very looking forward to see how.
As a side note, I can't wait for a stable release for openindiana.
Opensource is so awesome!
6 • PC-BSD (by caieng on 2012-01-30 11:19:51 GMT from United States)
@#3: Why would you use PC-BSD to install Free BSD?
When I write, that at my hands neither of them works, I am writing nothing about myself.
I note, by way of comparison, that with Ghost BSD, I at least make it to the login screen, where I fail to enter, upon presenting this ancient software with my login name and password.
The review was partial, as properly noted, hence, of very little value. I am disappointed in myself, for I seek to get one of these "authentic" UNIX flavours running, to test how they compare, on the internet radio receiver benchmark test.
I am sure that, as Jesse described, the respective teams developing BSD, (including Jesse himself,) and Ghost, are hard working, skillful, and clever. I am less confident that they understand the concept of rigorous testing....
CAI ENG
7 • suspend (by divadgnol on 2012-01-30 11:22:05 GMT from United States)
@5 I think you can just comment out the appropriate line in /etc/sysctl.conf to keep your laptop from going into suspend. At least that is how I do it in OpenBSD.
8 • PC-BSD (by Koroshiya Itchy on 2012-01-30 11:25:05 GMT from Belgium)
It is clear that, as we say, each one speaks of the fair according to how well businesses were for him. I have recently tested PC-BSD in my laptop and hardware support was 100% perfect out of the box. I used the AMD64 install DVD (not the Live DVD). Most Linux distros does not like very much this laptop. With Linux, I have had systematic problems with both network cards until Debian Squeeze became stable. My sound card (ALC262) seems to have been deprecated by Linux kernels newer than 2.6.32 and the graphics card (NVIDIA 8800M GTX) seems to have been deprecated by NVIDIA (the proprietary drivers do not work with recent Linux distributions). They still work with Squeeze, though. That is why I am considering migrating to PC-BSD. If I ever do, PC-BSD would be my distro of choice. The only limitation I see at the moment is that I would wish it had a package management system similar to apt and with as many packages available as I have in Debian.
9 • Arch Linux Hardcore (by mandog on 2012-01-30 11:30:39 GMT from Peru)
Wow now I'm called a hardcore user because I use Arch, I don'd think there is any thing hardcore in setting up and running Arch its all logical.
10 • Ubuntu-Unity-HUD (by TiPaul on 2012-01-30 11:50:21 GMT from Canada)
I'm not against change.
I'm against inconstistencies and abnormal behavior.
I've switched from Ubuntu 11.10 to Debian testing because : 1) Unity pannel behavior is not uniform (sometimes, i couldn't unhide it) 2) Controls of the windows (Maximize-Minimize-Close) are also not always fonctional 3) Top pannel for application menu was not my "cup of tea"
I like simplicity and responsiveness of Gnome3 Shell and mostly, the stability of Debian.
Note that it is my first experience with Debian (testing/Weezy) and so far, i'm delighted with it !
11 • Rigorous testing (by Toolz on 2012-01-30 11:57:41 GMT from Vietnam)
> "I am less confident that they understand the concept of rigorous testing..."
Ironic. It seems like some are constantly 'testing' distros that are a bit beyond them and then going to this or that forum to complain, often within hours of the iso hitting the server. How about rigorously testing a distro more within reach, for at least a week?
12 • Ubuntu-Unity-HUD (by parsoft on 2012-01-30 12:02:29 GMT from Bulgaria)
Sorry, Mark (Shuttleworth),
I've switched to Mint and it seems to me I'll stick to it for quite a long time ;-)
I will even dare to recommend it to all people, who feel uncertain about Ubuntu experiments!
13 • Hardcore does not mean everything needs to be difficult (by evdvelde on 2012-01-30 12:44:30 GMT from Belgium)
I used ArchLinux for quite some time but the it dawned on me: you can learn a lot about Linux even though there is a graphical configuration tool available! I switched to Kubuntu and later to OpenSuse and never looked back. Now, if I have to do something quickly, I use YAST and all works nicely in a few seconds. Later on, if I want to know more about it, I can still dive into the configuration files and see what is going on, tweaking options the user interfaces do not allow me to change. My conclusion: ArchLinux is nice, but you can do the same and more with other distributions. If only they would notice the rolling release feature and copy that as wel... :-)
14 • PC-BSD (by Carlos Felipe on 2012-01-30 13:09:19 GMT from Brazil)
Linux has more drivers (kexts), function live CD works faster; a "BSD" like desktop is a dream called Mac OS X.
And the devil in the system does not help them [..]
15 • @evdvelde (# 13) (by michael on 2012-01-30 13:17:18 GMT from Germany)
If you are running OpenSuse and are looking for a rolling release distro, you should take a look at the tumbleweed-repo (http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Tumbleweed)
16 • PC-BSD (by TuxTest on 2012-01-30 13:31:41 GMT from Canada)
I tested PC-BSD 9 on my laptop netbook and all the hardware has been properly recognized. My wireless laptop integrate card work correctly. All my usb wireless card is not recognized. The biggest problem with this version is the automatic mounting external hard drives. Essential for me! I use version 8.2 on my desktop day to day is stable and mounting external hard drive does not cause any problem. As with previous version 7 and 8, I think the 9.2 will be the really stable for 9 version. I'll wait
We must consider that in this version there are many new difficulties and managed all office environment with the installation. The PC-BSD dev team has done a great job! Congratulations!
Last week I tested too Ghostbsd is really responsive and fast. But still the same problem of other previous version, no wifi! GhostBSD will have a bright future
17 • PC-BSD, HUD, Menus back into apps. (by Eddie on 2012-01-30 13:56:58 GMT from United States)
I've always liked PC-BSD but I've also always had problems with it. Mostly hardware issuse but that can be different for everybody. I really love the PBI install method for applications. Though larger they have mobility. If would be nice if we had that type of system in a Linux distro. Deb's and Rpm's are nice but everything you need is not self contained.
The HUD system will just be an option in 12.04. It looks interesting but I'll have to use it first to form an opinion. Also the application menus will be back in the applications itself. There will be more options to turn things off that a person doesn't like. All in all Ubuntu seems to be moving in the right direction for the modern age of computing. If you don't like any of the stuff in Unity or Gnome 3, or want to stay with traditional ways, then you can use Cinnamon. It looks very slick and is available for Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSuse.
It's all these options that gives the open source world a leg up on anything else. For work, experimentation, home use, or just plain fun you can't beat the many choices we enjoy.
18 • tabs in vi (by Pearson on 2012-01-30 14:02:13 GMT from United States)
Just a note. If you use the graphical vim (gvim, oftentimes in a package vim-X11) then the tabs look much like they do in other editors. I use them a *lot* at work (even on my Windows computer!)
19 • HUD (by leo on 2012-01-30 14:10:25 GMT from United States)
I have used the Search option in KDE-4 for years and love it (available both in the menu and as a plasma widget). I think that's the way to go. Webos has the same thing. This is a good thing. People care about what they wanna do (workflow). Not the name of a program, or whether it is an "Internet" or a "Multimedia" or whatever category program.
20 • Hardcore or...ArchBang (by joe f. on 2012-01-30 14:15:02 GMT from United States)
I started installing Arch using the ArchBang distro when my MacBook Pro refused to recognize the standard Arch installation CD. I've since built a new desktop and went right back to it. It installs a nicely configured OpenBox system, but once it's installed and you sync to the repositories it can be anything plain Arch can be.
If you stay with Openbox it's got some nice utilities, too. That's what I'm doing right now. I tried Gnome 3, KDE 4.8 (for a few hours) and XFCE4 4.8. All nice in their own ways, but none of them offers me anything OpenBox and fbpanel don't often.
21 • Q&A Video DVDs (by Tom on 2012-01-30 14:25:49 GMT from Germany)
I'd recommend DVDstyler. Intuitive to use, with some extra features. http://www.dvdstyler.de/
22 • @11: Toolz (by dragonmouth on 2012-01-30 14:26:14 GMT from United States)
>"It seems like some are constantly 'testing' distros that are a bit beyond them..."
How does one find out if a distro is "beyond them" if not by testing it? Or should one just "test" the top five distros in the DIstrowatch Page Hit Ranking? I wonder where you'd be if you did not try things that are "beyond you". You certainly would not be the Linux Guru you seem to be.
23 • Unity (by octathlon on 2012-01-30 14:50:49 GMT from United States)
Hmm, where do these ideas come from? "Hey I know, let's change our UI to a smartphone/tablet interface even for desktop users with big screens. Now it will work nice on touchscreen tablets." then "Ooh I know, now let's take away the menus and make them type the commands, even for tablet users with touchscreens."
24 • Rigorous testing (by Toolz on 2012-01-30 15:04:11 GMT from Vietnam)
> "How does one find out if a distro is "beyond them" if not by testing it?"
I think you know what I'm talking about. The "beyond them" label refers to patience level and inclination to "give and take", as well as "ability". If they download an alpha and go to the forum within hours and complain ungraciously and unconstructively - and they appear to have done the same same with a few dozen distros during a 365-day period - then they will come across a lot that is "beyond them".
25 • @23, No choices lost (by Eddie on 2012-01-30 15:59:09 GMT from United States)
Who has changed your UI? Who has taking away your menus. No one is taking away your choices. Why are you trying to flame-bait people? If you can have anything you want then what is the problem? You are not stuck in an Apple or MS world where you take what is given you. People need to appreciate the choices we have been given in the open source Linux, BSD world.
26 • BSD Review and Reviews in General (by Robert W. Hayden on 2012-01-30 16:10:20 GMT from United States)
I would like to request that all reviews discuss how the OS handles booting from a hard drive. Of late I have installed a number of distros that I wanted to try for more than a few minutes, only to have them mess up my system by overwriting the MBR without asking me, and by installing Grub2 in a manner that only boots about half the OSs that booted before I tried the new distro. In addition, Grub2 haqs no menu.lst I can edit to fix things manually, and I end up spending hours trying to recover. This has made me VERY reluctant to try new distros. A warning about such Microsoft-like "this machine is MINE" behavior by an OS would be greatly appreciated. (This post was precipitated by the fact that in the past Linux and BSD have had different boot managers, so it's doubly important to mention how a BSD OS boots and how well it handles other OSs on the system.) I would also like to thank Puppy Linux for always asking before overwriting the MBR and for automatically CORRECTLY finding and booting other OSs on the hard drives. Often I recover control of my machine by reinstalling Grub1 from Puppy.
27 • Arch (by newsbot on 2012-01-30 16:23:01 GMT from United States)
Q: How do you know if someone is using Arch linux? A: Don't worry - they'll tell you.
All in good fun!
28 • variety is fun (for me) (by Dave Postles on 2012-01-30 16:38:18 GMT from United Kingdom)
I love Linux and Unix (BSDs) simply because of the variety. I've been messing with GhostBSD with the Cairo Dock and it looks great - but I also like using the ...boxes with full screen real estate. In the longer term, I'm financially supporting Trisquel as an associate member and Mageia, but the whole scene is fantastic and I will try to push a few quid where I can (retired). What it means too is that I can acquire my kit from SMEs in this country which assemble it to my spec without an operating system thus adding value for this country (UK). I'm just so indebted to you guys who do all this stuff.
29 • @27 (by Burt on 2012-01-30 17:37:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
Lol, love it. Ha
30 • Arch Linux (by Dr.Saleem Khan on 2012-01-30 17:59:21 GMT from Pakistan)
I humbly disagree to the statement "Arch Linux: Only the Hardcore Need Apply" reflecting that Arch is for linux gurus/experts only because I use it on daily basis and I find it more easy to handle from installation to every day computing than the many other GUI oriented distros I have used in past.
IMHO such gestures about Arch linux scare away many users than attracting new ones .
Regards,
31 • Tearoff/Pinnable Main Menu - R.I.P. (by dialup on 2012-01-30 18:02:07 GMT from United States)
The hierarchical, tree view has existedfor centuries (Table of Contents) because it's intuitive and "just works". For those who didn't use Linux back then, the desktop main menu subsections could be torn off and pinned to the desktop. The user could add custom subsections of apps by task (or other category). Gnome dropped the menus first, then KDE.
One of the primary attractions of Linux for me was the desktops' adaptability to the way I work most efficiently. I'm not averse to new feature, but Gnome 3 in particular seems to be moving away from being a desktop for for creating to being an appliance for consuming. (Which is, of course, their choice to make.)
32 • PC-BSD 9.0 (by The Rifleman on 2012-01-30 18:48:20 GMT from United States)
I had the same installation issues in PC-BSD 7.x using the Live-Media. Nice to see their right on the ball in resolving this issue. - NOT! I used the install ISO in 8.x and I was never happy with PC-BSD 8.x thinking that it would be better for me but, no. It also looks like nothing will change for me in version 9 either.
I've tried 7.x and 8.x on my machine. A 4 core, 8GB of installed RAM, and a 1.5TB SATA Hard Drive. In every install PC-BSD felt heavy and slow. Again, from this report that echoes others along the way from 7.x, it sure seems that the only thing that has changed is the cosmetic stuff and not what really matters.
33 • Xubuntu only three years support!?! (by LAZA on 2012-01-30 19:00:46 GMT from Germany)
Does somebody know why the support for Xubuntu is 'only' 3 years? For Lubuntu is there an question mark - so lets say what else is changing... Found it in the german wiki.
Works for me good in Virtualbox, stable and also fast.
34 • Ubuntu, PC-BSD, GhostBSD, Arch and Linux Mint (by Ron on 2012-01-30 19:02:26 GMT from United States)
*Ubuntu - Did you guys ever hear of too much too fast? And just because something has been around for awhile doesn't mean that it is bad. We have had the wheel around for awhile and we have realized that its round shape is a good thing. Square wheels, triangular wheels, not all that great, even if it is something new and different.
*PC-BSD - They are the ones that got me liking BSD in general. Think about how many people use *Bsd compared to how many use Linux, you have to admit they are not lagging that far behind. That says a lot about the potential and future of PC-BSD, FreeBSD, etc. I am a new PC-BSD users, new to BSD in general. I think it is wirth keeping an eye on. Is this the start of a new era, one led by *BSD? It just might be that.
*GhostBSD - It is great to see another *BSD that is focusing on user ease. I hope things keep going well for them.
*Arch - Is just great. It is one of my top favorites. It really isn't that hard to use or set up once you understand a few basics.
* Linux Mint - I have a few things I am not happy about with them, but overall I think they are doing a great job. When you have some distros going in their own direction and either not listening to their user base or only listening to a small minority, it is nice to see a distro like Linux Mint listening to its majority of users. It is more then a coincidence that their users have increased while Ubuntu's has decreased. (Ubuntu community. I would like to take this time to say, "I told you so." Even though those words got my laughed off their forums not that long ago.
35 • Cinnamon (by Snowman on 2012-01-30 19:17:46 GMT from United States)
I use PinGuyOS. I like better than Mint and Ubuntu. Nothing against either one both are good distros just my choice that's all. I did however install Cinnamon on it and boot into it instead of Gnome 3 directly. Gotta say it runs great. It is a very nice and clean DE and it's has enough customization option to please most users.
36 • @8 (by PiotrKubaj on 2012-01-30 19:47:35 GMT from Poland)
Today pkgng beta1 has entered ports. It brings Linux-like package management to FreeBSD. It's in ports-mgm/pkg
37 • MBR overwriting & GRUB 2 (by Ralph on 2012-01-30 20:29:20 GMT from Canada)
@ 26 - I have installed several Linux distros, but other than the new FreeBSD installer and PC-BSD, they have all asked me where I want to install GRUB. So I was wondering if you could mention a few distros that don't -- it might save me a bit work in the future.
Also, you *can* manually edit GRUB2 to boot other OSs that don't automatically show up with grub-update. But compared to editing legacy grub it is something of a p-i-t-a.
38 • Geniuses "improving" interfaces? (by ArthurKoldt on 2012-01-30 21:08:54 GMT from Canada)
To be honest I have to confess that I'm not on the release early release often trip. I use Ubuntu Lucid Lynx and will only try the new "improvements" when the next LTS version comes out. But I have serious doubts. I would really prefer that noone touches the interface.
For instance, quite often, you want to make many changes in a submenu. Every time you click a change, the menu closes and you have to reopen the submenus X depth deep. If nobody was ever able to figure out that, dor some menus, it would be better that the menus close only as you clic outside when you're done, I really freak out when I learn that those geniuses intend improving the interface.
39 • Arch for Hardcore users? (by asshur on 2012-01-30 21:17:59 GMT from Spain)
I'd say rather for demanding users. I switched to it some 3-4 years ago 'cause i wanted a setup in which I had full control of what was in each of my home machines (my tower, my laptops, my wife's, my daughters', ...), but using the same technological underpinnings, and didn't mind reading the manuals before/during the setup. Alhough I am a pro sysadmin (on z/OS environments) at home I want to be an end user, and beyond the setup phase, choosing the right software mix and runing now and then pacman to stay up to date ... Arch is for me even less demanding than M$s systems
40 • HUD (by aen on 2012-01-30 21:36:24 GMT from United States)
Many years ago I was forced to use the command line of DOS at work. Then Apple came out with a GUI and one look told me this was the way I needed/wanted to work on any computer. I turned to LINUX several years ago and was amazed at the choices one had to customize a work environment (desktop) to their liking and to their most efficient way of working. You can still do this today.
The point is what some people will like others will not. Use what you like and stop wasting time complaining. Things change -
41 • Microsoft likes *BSD too! (by ArthurKoldt on 2012-01-30 22:07:07 GMT from Canada)
Dear Ron,
I would like to assure you that you're not alone liking *BSDs. Apple just luuvs them! I mean their stupid licence. If it hadn't been for it, Apple would be dead by now.
Unfortunately for Apple, it's BSDs are now dead. Everybody figured that out. With the likes of IBM and HP behind Linux and the kernel evolving at a fabulous speed, even Berkely now teaches Linux.
No BSD figures on the Top 500 list: http://i.top500.org/stats
And, of course, it does even worst on the desktop.
Oh, I forgot! Distrowatch likes BSDs too. Compared to their importance on the market, BSDs receives here about ten times the coverage.
42 • Ubuntu and HUD (by Eric on 2012-01-30 23:24:07 GMT from Netherlands)
Honestly, I was not very happy with Unity, so I run Ubuntu with Gnome Shell / 3.0 But having seen the screenshot of HUD, I will stick with Ubuntu for another release. Have you ever navigated the menus for minutes to find the right command ? Now, that should all be history. So particularly for office components like text documents and spreadsheets, I won't have to switch to my mouse and back ever again!
For me it won't be a problem, but what about the wife? She complained for a while, moving from Gnome 2 to Unity to Gnome 3. Finally she got used to it after a few months. And now another change to come.....
So whatever Ubuntu is going to do, I for sure hope the keep the archaic menu structure in place, to be set when logging in. So double choices: desktop and menu interface. That will allow a smooth transition.
[Are you reading, Mark?]
43 • Ubuntu and HUD (by Eric on 2012-01-30 23:24:07 GMT from Netherlands)
Honestly, I was not very happy with Unity, so I run Ubuntu with Gnome Shell / 3.0 But having seen the screenshot of HUD, I will stick with Ubuntu for another release. Have you ever navigated the menus for minutes to find the right command ? Now, that should all be history. So particularly for office components like text documents and spreadsheets, I won't have to switch to my mouse and back ever again!
For me it won't be a problem, but what about the wife? She complained for a while, moving from Gnome 2 to Unity to Gnome 3. Finally she got used to it after a few months. And now another change to come.....
So whatever Ubuntu is going to do, I for sure hope the keep the archaic menu structure in place, to be set when logging in. So double choices: desktop and menu interface. That will allow a smooth transition.
[Are you reading, Mark?]
44 • @41 (by Ron on 2012-01-31 02:02:00 GMT from United States)
I still think BSD has a chance. I love Linux, but I will always love all os's in general. There are many, including Haiku, that I would like to see mature and grow. The only way for growth is for competition. A world with a few main operating systems seems a bit dull. But that is pretty much what we have now.
Think of it this way. If Gnome was the only DE available in Linux, then we would have lost a lot of users. However since we have Gnome, KDE, XFCE, LXDE and now Cinnamon, not to mention all the window managers, this gives us choice and at some levels competition.
It would be great to see the same with several different operating systems, whether their roots started with Unix or not.
45 • Which Distro? (by Jeffersonian on 2012-01-31 02:43:21 GMT from United States)
Like most of you I have tried many Linux Distros. I have mostly settled for Mint 12, but I would like to see in a distro is:
* A simple and consistent user's interface, ideally the same on multiple distros (Like Unix CDE attempted to do).
Mint 12, along with GNOME CLassic" seems close to that.
Also: * razor-qt seems to be a step in the right direction because: - fast and responsive. - distro agnostic (available on red-hat/fedora, and ubuntu/mint and debian - implemented in a stable, GPL'ed based framework. - has a rich GUI library, with active development. - building a system "control-panel" based on razor-qt seems highly desirable. (YAST on SUSE is great... but never finished, like most complex KDE projects).
* I would like to see GRUB 2 to be more civilized... or drop GRUB 2, altogether, because as it is it is very difficult to control, unlike GRUB 1, GRUB2's menus cannot be easily edited... and GRUB-2 has a mind of its own !
I also would like to see each distro install integrating "gparted", as the standard optional partition tool, because it is simple to use... and (unlike most distro's optional partition tools, usually buggy) 'gparted' always works.
* Furthermore, and I realize this may not be easy, I would like every distro to have a common database for rpm AND debian packages.
* I would like the user to be able to install a package without having to worry about the hardware architecture (32/64/x86/ARM)... this should not be too hard !
If I like eye candy, it should not break the standard user's interface, and if it does, for experimentation it should be a separate login, preserving system integrity for the standard one: a 'bricked system' is the best way to push users to proprietary systems. Experimental system, can use standard libraries... but not delete them or modify them: they rather use a "sand boxed" area. This applies to /boot, to avoid breaking the system.
* Kernel Development, Including Drivers: I would like the gap between the "Ubuntu/Mint Way" and the "Fedora way" to be closed, and standard Makefile (s), and "kernel config tools" working exactly the same way on every distro, because the current situation is really not fun, here very little excuse because this is largely command line interface.
At the system level, I still see Fedora/Centos/RH as the most usable (difficult install though). Also the RPM packages & tools seems superior in functionality to debian's. At the user's level I see the Mint 12 model as the most usable (easy install).
So as a spoiled kid, I would like to get the best of both worlds*.
Jeffersonian.
* I have not yet used Debian.
46 • Lack of wireless support in FreeBSD/PC-BSD? Try ndiswrapper (by Thomas Mueller on 2012-01-31 03:52:43 GMT from United States)
Some users of FreeBSD and PC-BSD report being unable to set up their wireless cards or adapters. There is the possibility of getting wireless to work using ndiswrapper, which uses the MS-Windows driver and adapts it to work in Linux, BSD and other (quasi)-Unix OSes. I haven't tried it yet but intend to if I can't get my recently purchased USB wireless adapter to work in Linux, FreeBSD and/or NetBSD. While FreeBSD is evidently behind Linux for hardware support, FreeBSD is far ahead of NetBSD in that area.
47 • @45 by Jeffersonian (by klanger on 2012-01-31 07:01:03 GMT from Poland)
"If I like eye candy, it should not break the standard user's interface, and if it does, for experimentation it should be a separate login, preserving system integrity for the standard one: a 'bricked system' is the best way to push users to proprietary systems. Experimental system, can use standard libraries... but not delete them or modify them: they rather use a "sand boxed" area. This applies to /boot, to avoid breaking the system."
Well, this more or less is a virtual system, like the one you can install in Virtualbox, Qemu etc. You can use virtual OS and change what ever you like having an early snapshot of your system as a backup one click a way :-)
48 • Arch (by Koroshiya Itchy on 2012-01-31 09:37:23 GMT from Belgium)
Arch is a great distro. It is so cutting edge, though, that one should expect occasional breakage. That is my experience, at least. I have tried it only briefly on my laptop. But the same goes for other cutting-edge rolling distros such as Aptosid and derivatives. Please, do not get me wrong, on the whole, they are pretty stable for what they are.
They say Arch is good for learning and, indeed, it is. Both the wiki and the fora are among the best you can find in the free software community. The same goes for Aptosid.
Now, if I really wanted to learn GNU/Linux, I would go for something like Linux From Scratch or Gentoo (or even Funtoo). I had Gentoo installed on an old desktop for a few months and it was great. The only problem with these distros: Too much maintenance. Too much for me in any case.
49 • YaST (by Ken Yap on 2012-01-31 12:46:25 GMT from Australia)
@Jeffersonian
>YAST on SUSE is great... but never finished, like most complex KDE projects
Correction, YaST is not a KDE project but an (open)SUSE one. There is a YaST variant for the openSUSE GNOME desktop. I wouldn't call it complex. It's actually quite modular. Since it's always acquiring more new modules to configure more subsystems, I guess one could say it's never finished, but what is there is regarded as very usable by many users.
50 • @25 No Choices Lost (by DavidEF on 2012-01-31 13:34:54 GMT from United States)
+1
Eddie, I hope everybody reads your post. I'm tired of all these complaints against Gnome, KDE, Unity, etc. If you don't like one DE, use another! If you sorta like Unity, Gnome3, or KDE, but find there are too many glitches that drive you bonkers, file bug reports! Get involved! Help fix it!
There are PL:ENTY of choices available. If you disagree, make a new one yourself! (Hey, another choice!) My favorite statement of yours, with which I whole-heartedly agree:
"People need to appreciate the choices we have been given in the open source Linux, BSD world."
Of course, there is always another CHOICE available: go back to Windows or MacOS. That is a valid choice, even though it is costly in a number of ways. For some it is the best choice. I just wish people would make their choice SILENTLY sometimes...
51 • Ubuntu - Unity - HUD (by DavidEF on 2012-01-31 14:02:59 GMT from United States)
I like changes that are bold, differently thinking. I am not so change-averse as others seem to be. I don't always agree with the adage: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I think there are times when breaking it, in order to fix it, and make it better, is a cool thing. Maybe I'm too much of a tinkerer. But, I thought I would be in good company with Linux users.
If Linux is ever to be a market leader; If we in the open source world are to ever have anything to be proud of; If Linux is to ever take significant market-share from proprietary O/S, there has to be risk involved. A leader not afraid to risk losing it all is a stronger leader than someone who just follows all the same old paths. Mark Shuttleworth is making some mistakes. Good for him. If you never make a mistake, you're not trying hard enough!
I'm excited about the future of Linux in general, and Ubuntu in particular. I'm looking forward to downloading Alpha2 on Thursday! Now, if only someone would finally fix Pulseaudio, Grub2, and some of the other half-finished projects that have somehow become the new desktop standards, we'd be alot further on our way to market domination! In fact, that is my only complaint against Unity - It's not done. But, if it is just a step on our way to HUD, then by all means, let's get HUD going! I already use the search function in Unity to find files and apps almost instantly. Hud sounds like it might be a step in the right direction.
By the way, I'm still waiting to see Wayland replace Xserver in Ubuntu as well. Out with the old, in with the new!
52 • KDE 4.8 (by Michael J King on 2012-01-31 14:03:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
After a year of searching I have found that The latest KDE 4.8 installed on Kubuntu 11.10 runs so well on my old x40 thinkpad with just 1gb of ram that I no longer need a lighter weight distro (been using Linux Mint lxde for the last year) Installing the KDE Low Fat Settings help I am sure. Maybe a full review of KDE 4.8 on Distrowatch in the near future? It seems to have reached a point of stability in a rough sea of new Desktop environments.
53 • Music-making distro suggestions (by Jay Wilson on 2012-01-31 14:15:47 GMT from United Kingdom)
64studio 2.1 - amazing JACK and dependent apps but development now on a slow burn. AVLinux 5.0 - JACK and dependent apps worked well but wireless only worked for a few minutes Ubuntu Studio 10.10 - good for wireless & video (Imagination, Kino, DeVeDe & Brasero) but JACK caused Ubuntu to hang and stutter
I want to record & make music on a 6-7 year old PC with a M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 soundcard. Any suggestions as to what I should try next?
54 • KDE 4.8 (by Walt on 2012-01-31 14:27:18 GMT from Hungary)
@52 I found some instability in 4.8, but overall it's works well. Gnome 3 will be another competitor if gtk2 rolls out and gnome shell themes getting closer to gtk3 themes. Consistency is the hard problem.
55 • La touriste de l'espace qui rit (by Walt on 2012-01-31 14:29:08 GMT from Hungary)
@42 Mark is laughing at us. He destroys what he's built, it's the nature of meritocracy.
The Linux kernel itself going to wrong way too, I can't use Cisco VPN anymore on 3.2 due big incompatible changes. Forget about mad development of Linux. It's unacceptable, stupid, crazy.
I really don't know what we can do.
"Free" as do what you want, we don't care. No choises lost, no choises lost...
56 • #53 @Jay Wilson Music-making distro suggestions (by Koroshiya Itchy on 2012-01-31 16:02:50 GMT from Belgium)
For that machine, I guess you need a 32-bit system, in which case I would have a look at:
• dyne:bolic • Puredyne • ArtistX • Musix
http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=Multimedia
If I were you, though, I would try to figure out how fix the Wifi issues with AVLinux. Why? It is Debian, it comes with light-weight DEs and you already know it works for you.
57 • @55 (by Ken Yap on 2012-01-31 21:58:04 GMT from Australia)
>The Linux kernel itself going to wrong way too, I can't use Cisco VPN anymore on 3.2 due big incompatible changes. Forget about mad development of Linux. It's unacceptable, stupid, crazy.
You should blame Cisco for issuing proprietary software solutions that require tampering with insides of kernels.
58 • @48 (by tom on 2012-01-31 20:34:53 GMT from United States)
In response to "Now, if I really wanted to learn GNU/Linux, I would go for something like Linux From Scratch or Gentoo (or even Funtoo)."
I went through a complete linux from scratch install and a gentoo install, both were full of facts, but I ended up just copying and pasting a bunch of commands towards the end because of boredom. I never want to do that again.
On the other hand, my experience with arch was far better. It let me set up a system quickly and let me focus on the parts of the system I wanted to learn. And since arch keeps everything vanilla, what you learn on arch pretty much transfers over to every other distro.
59 • @57 (by me on 2012-02-01 01:26:31 GMT from United States)
That's a dumb statement. How can a module "tamper with the insides of kernels"? It can only call kernel functions. And therein lies the problem: the interfaces (API/ABI) changes all the time!
I've briefly messed around with Cisco VPN before and looked at the sources for the parts that you had to compile and it was a mess precisely because of Linux Kernel instability. Lots of #if -- #endif cases littered everywhere just to handle different cases for different kernel versions!
60 • Quiet lately (by Toolz on 2012-02-01 09:49:50 GMT from Vietnam)
I see three DistroWatch Weekly entries on the main page right now. All we have to look forward to is an Ubuntu alpha (I think I'll download and give it a chance). Does this beckon 2012 to be an even worse year for Linux than 2011 was? Surely Ubuntu will try their hardest for an LTS but I can't see the year being rescued unless Wheezy comes out around xmas. (Note all the good news on DW so far has been BSD-related.)
61 • @45 Which Distro? (by Toolz on 2012-02-01 10:03:49 GMT from Vietnam)
Rather long on words, short on insight. I'm interested in why you say Razor-qt is "distro agnostic (available on red-hat/fedora, and ubuntu/mint and debian)" - what's *not* available on red-hat/fedora, and ubuntu/mint and debian?
62 • Humble Bundle adds Android OS version (by Vic on 2012-02-01 18:29:05 GMT from Canada)
For those with Android devices who like to support the cross platform game development project Humble Bundle, they just released an Android package that come with the added bonus of including the Linux versions. Check their site out if you are an interested gamer. Cheers!
63 • Arch/Fedora Installation (by Cosmo on 2012-02-02 02:39:47 GMT from Hong Kong)
just a comment on arch/fedora installation program... it would be great if there could be a "select all packages" options and allow me to deselect the ones i don't need... there are 1000+ packages in arch netinstall and fedora 16, and i guess this function is easy to implement.
i used slackware since 3.X, and moved to debian, zenwalk, fedora and now arch... other than the support for hardware (esp. new graphic cards) seems still to be lagging behind, i feel... it is just "right tool for the right job", you can always select a distro that suits your needs, and for the 5 distros that i used(and is using), i feel zenwalk is easiest to install and config, but all 5 are superb in their own areas.
64 • Yay for Mint and Cinnamon! (by Z on 2012-02-02 02:58:56 GMT from New Zealand)
As a new-ish (last 3 months) Mint user, looking forward to seeing what Cinnamon is like! I am **sold** on Mint's conservative, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach to user interfaces, unlike Ubuntu who throw something new at the users and say "here it is - lump it or leave it". I was a long-time Ubuntu user, but Shuttleworth has just gone "over the top" with his changing the interface every few months. Absolutely ridiculous. So, goodbye, Ubuntu - you are not missed, and it's great to be part of the Mint community!
65 • bye Ubuntu? (by Julian on 2012-02-02 03:20:21 GMT from United States)
(((So, goodbye, Ubuntu - you are not missed, and it's great to be part of the Mint community)) ... and part of why you don't miss ubuntu is that you are still using an Ubuntu-based OS -- plenty of functionality and compatibility in that base system, but no need to bring Shuttleworth's desktop environment along with it! (I like Xubuntu and Lubuntu myself)
66 • @56 thankyou Koroshiya-san (by Jay Wilson on 2012-02-02 10:08:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
Burning AVLinux 5.2 DVD now...
67 • Cinnamon, etc. (by Hugh Mayle on 2012-02-04 00:43:49 GMT from United States)
I'm sorry, but all of these extensions for gnome3 are Lipstick On a Pig for me. I'm switching to Mint KDE I think.
68 • Nightmare with FreeBSD 9.0 (by Liao Haohui on 2012-02-04 04:45:43 GMT from Malaysia)
When FreeBSD 9.0 was out, I downloaded the USB Image and try it on my laptop. The installation is similar to FreeBSD 8.1 (which I tried before) but the partition editor is different. Well, I created sub-partitions under /dev/sda1 (FreeBSD has a different name which I always forget, /dev/ad1???), and FreeBSD even allow me to connect to a WPA2 wifi! Seems all amazing. After rebooting, my laptop died! I can't even go to BIOS. The next thing I do is to go to Acer laptop centre and get my laptop fixed and I was told that the harddisk fail! I don't quite believe it is a coincidence since I have installed so many different versions of linux distros and I have never encountered harddisk failure after installation. So FreeBSD shuts its door for me to try in future. Too bad.
69 • FreeBSD 9 (by Jesse on 2012-02-04 18:19:43 GMT from Canada)
@68: If you read last week's article in which I mentioned FreeBSD you'll find I had the same problem on a couple of machines. The FreeBSD and PC-BSD forums both have a number of threads where people describe the same issue. It's not hard disk failure, FreeBSD 9 does something to the disk which prevents the machine from working. If you take the hard drive out of the machine and hook it up somewhere else (or if that's not possible, hot-plug it) you can boot off a live CD and wipe the disk, restoring its functionality. The issue looks like hard disk failure, but chances are the Acer people didn't look at it too carefully.
70 • Harddrive failures (by David Long on 2012-02-04 20:10:39 GMT from United States)
You may want to disable acpi during the bootstrap process. This can be done in the /boot/loader.conf file.
71 • Disk Failures (by Donald on 2012-02-04 22:19:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
@68,69
This has happened to me with Linux, your fix works, unplugging the disk and booting partedmagic then replugging it worked just fine.
i cant remember if the installed failed or not, but it has only happened once or twice.
72 • Ubuntu and Unity (by Paul Salmon on 2012-02-06 06:47:02 GMT from United States)
I really don't like the Unity interface with Ubuntu. I hate it when the screen goes dark to access the menu. It reminds me of the infamous User Access Control screen of Windows Vista. The UAC screen and Vista are why I switched to Linux in the first place. Now Ubuntu is doing the same thing? Geez! That's why I switched to Linux Mint Debian LXDE instead of Ubuntu.
Number of Comments: 72
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