 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 448, 19 March 2012 |
Welcome to this year's 12th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! MINIX, an operating system created by Andrew S. Tanenbaum back in 1987, is a project that has had a reputation for being a student's toy rather than a serious system with practical implications. Although the developers are now trying to present MINIX as a potential alternative for the embedded systems market, the competition is tough and success stories rare. Yet, the system continues to thrive in academic environments. Jesse Smith finds the recently-released MINIX 3.2.0 "small, modular and clean", which are positives that many widely-used operating systems nowadays lack. In the news section, Anonymous-OS shoots to instant fame amid controversial media reports about the project's goals, Mythbuntu announces a new release cycle tracking Ubuntu's LTS releases, and IBM developerWorks publishes an article celebrating the advances Linux has made over the last two decades. Also in this issue, a command-line tips and tricks session presenting a number of handy one-liners, and the usual regular sections, including the addition of OpenMediaVault to the list of distributions tracked by DistroWatch. Happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
MINIX 3.2.0 - the little operating system that could?
 The MINIX operating system, I'm sorry to say, is probably best known in open source circles as the inspiration behind the creation of Linux rather than for its own accomplishments. While MINIX certainly has been a useful aid in inspiring developers and giving them a place from which to start, I feel it deserves a good deal more recognition. MINIX first appeared in the late 80s and the first two major versions focused on being ideal teaching projects. They were small, modular and presented a working microkernel which would be theoretically more stable and more secure than traditional monolithic kernels. MINIX 3, which is the most recent descendant of MINIX, keeps these same virtues, it is still a small, modular microkernel. However, MINIX 3 is also trying to be more practical and willingly adopts technology from other open source projects. This makes it an attractive operating system for people hoping to revive old hardware or who are working on embedded systems.
Going over the MINIX release notes we find version 3.2.0 is a big change from the 3.1.8 release that came out a year and a half ago. And it seems as though this release has been "BSDed" somewhat. Besides featuring a BSD-style license, MINIX now uses the NetBSD C library, experimental SMP support has been added, some FUSE file system support has been added and MINIX now uses the Clang compiler, which is becoming popular in BSD circles. A proc file system has been added and several command line utilities have been imported from NetBSD.
All of this sounds good, but there is a catch. MINIX, being a small project, has a limited amount of hardware support. The operating system doesn't come in a 64-bit build yet and requires a Pentium level processor or higher to run. Though some projects have been started to add USB support to MINIX the operating system still doesn't support USB peripherals and the range of support for network cards is limited. Unfortunately these restrictions meant I wasn't going to be able to run MINIX properly on my physical hardware and I turned to creating virtual machines for the purposes of this review.
The MINIX CD image comes in a compressed format. Unpacking the ISO presents us with a 654MB CD image. Oddly enough it appears as though the checksums provided on the MINIX website are for the compressed file and not the ISO itself, meaning if something corrupts the uncompressed file we don't have a checksum for comparison.
My usual virtual environment of choice is VirtualBox and, as the MINIX website lays out easy to follow steps for installing the operating system inside VirtualBox, I started there. After creating the virtual machine and launching it the MINIX boot menu appears and then the operating system almost immediately crashes. I went back, checked through the documentation, confirmed with another user MINIX would run in my version of VirtualBox (version 4.1), but I failed to get any further. I tried downloading the image again in case my first copy was corrupted, but again couldn't find a way to make MINIX boot in the VirtualBox environment.
Next up I tried running MINIX in a QEMU environment. This went better as MINIX was able to boot cleanly from the CD. When the boot process is finished we're presented with a text login screen. We can login as root without any password and run the command "setup" to begin an installation.
The MINIX text-based installer will probably be most familiar to people who have worked with OpenBSD. As with the OpenBSD installer we're shown an explanation of the step we're currently on, asked to type in our selection and provided with a sane default. One could almost get through the MINIX installer by rapidly pressing the Enter key, assuming there is no important information on the hard drive we would risk losing. The first step in the installer is confirming our keyboard layout. Then we get into partitioning where most people can probably get by with the defaults, but there is an "expert" option which will give the user enough rope to hang themselves in the cryptic text-based interface. Some questions we may be asked are how big to make the /home partition, what block size to use and what region/partition of the hard disk to set aside for MINIX. With partitioning complete we wait while the installer copies files to the local drive, during which time we're shown detailed progress information. When all required files have been copied over we're asked to select our network card from a short list of supported cards and asked whether we want to manually configure network access or use DHCP. We're then advised to reboot the system and customize the operating system as we see fit.
I'd like to point out that, unlike most Linux installers, the MINIX installer does not create user accounts, does not set a root password and it doesn't handle things like package selection or setting up a graphical interface. What we get when we boot from the hard drive is a very plain UNIX-like environment with a command line interface. If you're not already familiar with MINIX it's a good idea to have a copy of the documentation nearby.
Poking around the system my first impression is that it feels much the same as working with the BSDs, not surprising considering how much MINIX has borrowed from NetBSD for this release. After setting a root password and creating a user account I found a full compliment of man(ual) pages were available. The Clang compiler is installed and the usual command line tools for handling files, manipulating text and getting on-line are included. What is more obvious is what is not included. For instance, we have no graphical environment.
This seems like a good time to bring up the package manager. MINIX uses a software manager called "pkgin" for handling binary packages. It works in a similar manner to Linux command line software managers such as apt-get or YUM. The pkgin utility allows us to quickly synchronize our package database with the one on the MINIX servers, we can search for items by name or keyword, we can install, upgrade and remove items, list all available software or list all locally installed packages. The tool comes with a useful help page and uses intuitive keywords like "install", "search" and "available". I found pkgin to be quite fast and it provides us with progress information while it's downloading items.
It is possible to install software using source code and a ports framework. Doing so gives the user some flexibility, but, as the documentation points out, building software from source code takes a lot more time than installing binary packages. The documentation also points out that to build software from source will probably require installation of the GNU Compiler Collection and over 1 GB of free disk space and not all items in the ports tree will necessarily build properly. In other words, you can install packages from source, but you should have a good reason for going that route.
Getting back to the graphical desktop issue, there is a pre-compiled X11 package in the repositories, that's the good news. The bad news is the documentation appears to be out of date on the subject of getting a graphical interface up and running. The documentation suggests running X should automatically give us an environment with a window manager, however that was not the case during my trial. In fact I didn't find any window manager in my default install, nor in the project's package repository. I certainly got X itself running, but beyond that expect to do a bit of digging and manual setup if you're determined to run programs from a window manager. I suspect, however, most people interested in MINIX aren't overly worried about the prospect of working from a command line.
Here are a few other observations I had while playing with MINIX, in no particular order... Aside from the rare piece of documentation which looked to be for an older version of MINIX I found the project's User Guide to be very helpful. MINIX is a small, clean system and that style is reflected in the simple, no nonsense documentation. It's terse and easy to navigate, characteristics I'm sure new users will appreciate. Perhaps because I was running MINIX in a virtual machine I found the system to be strangely slow to respond. When running a new program or printing large amounts of text to the screen the display tended to stutter a bit, something I usually don't see when running Linux or the BSDs in a virtual environment. An odd quirk which came and went was sometimes my keyboard layout would change, for no apparent reason. I'd be typing away and suddenly I'd be typing gibberish, which would keep up until I rebooted. Upon reboot I'd usually be fine. This happened on a few different occasions, but stopped after a while and didn't come back -- cause and resolution unknown. And, finally, MINIX has a fairly small (yet friendly) community and their repository is similarly small. This makes MINIX an interesting operating system to study, even fun to play with, but it does have limited functionality as most open source software hasn't been ported to it yet.
Thus far in the review I've compared MINIX quite a bit to Linux and to the BSDs which isn't really fair to MINIX. It's a smaller project with different goals and it's going to lose out in most side-by-side comparisons. MINIX just doesn't have the performance, developers, software and drivers the big open source operating systems have. So why would you be interested in MINIX? Well, for work you probably wouldn't, unless you're an embedded developer. But in the realm of education I think MINIX is still king. It's small, it's modular, and it's clean. MINIX 3 isn't as old as the BSDs and it doesn't carry the weight of hacks and features Linux does. The MINIX project strikes me as an ideal teaching tool for people interested in system administration, kernel development or software porting. If you're the sort of person who likes operating systems for the sake of operating systems and likes tinkering with them then MINIX is a good choice. It hasn't climbed out of its educational niche and I think that may be good, we need projects which stay small and simple. We need tools which are easy to learn just like we need textbooks and chemistry sets -- MINIX continues to fill that role.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
Anonymous-OS, Mythbuntu to lengthen release cycle, "Linux is everywhere"
News about Anonymous-OS, an Ubuntu-based distribution supposedly released by the Anonymous movement, started circulating around the Internet early last week. Tom's Hardware was one of the many websites reporting about the new hacker's distro: "Anonymous has released an operating system based on Ubuntu 11.10 called Anonymous-OS." Upon closer investigation it turned out that the freely available live DVD was not build by Anonymous and, worse, it was reportedly riddled with malware: "Anonymous this week warned against downloading the new Anonymous OS, suggesting it was full of malware that could harm your system and steal your personal information." SourceForge, the popular open-source software repository where the DVD images were originally hosted, reacted by closing down the project's page and removing the files from its servers: "By taking an intentionally misleading name, this project has attempted to capitalize on the press surrounding a well-known movement in order to push downloads of a project that is less than a week old. We have therefore decided to take this download offline and suspend this project until we have more information." The project itself has denied any wrongdoing: "If any user believes that Anonymous-OS 'is wrapped in trojans' or 'backdoored by any law enforcement company or hacker' please don't download it! But don't mislead the world that Linux is dangerous and has trojans!" Even though SourceForge no longer provides the DVD images, it is still available from other sources, including Linux Tracker.
Anonymous-OS 0.1 - an Ubuntu-based hacker's tool of dubious origins
(full image size: 808kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
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 Mythbuntu, an official Ubuntu sub-project providing a distribution with an easy-to-use MythTV front-end, announced late last week that it was switching to a less frequent release schedule, tracking Ubuntu's LTS release only: "The Mythbuntu team would like to announce that, starting with the 12.04 release, we will be moving to LTS-only releases. Mythbuntu ISO images will only be released for LTS releases. MythTV packages will still be provided in the Ubuntu and Mythbuntu repositories for every Ubuntu release (both LTS and non-LTS). This means that going forward, there will no longer be Mythbuntu ISO images for releases that are not deemed LTS. The Mythbuntu team will still provide MythTV packages for non-LTS releases in the standard Ubuntu repositories and the Mythbuntu repositories. The only thing that changes is that Mythbuntu ISO images will not be available for non-LTS releases. Install the 'mythbuntu-control-centre' package and configure from there. The Mythbuntu team provides Mythbuntu repositories which contain the latest MythTV release for LTS releases. Using this method, you can stay up-to-date with the latest version of MythTV while staying on the stable underlying LTS release."
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The Internet is an open and unregulated information medium which means that, by nature, it is easy for just about anybody to express views and opinions and sometimes present them as facts. In the world of Linux, we've seen misleading information ever since Linux came into existence. And even though it has been around for over 20 years during which it has been able to conquer large segments of the computing market, there are still people who choose to ridicule the popular open-source operating system at every opportunity. For those, here is a great article published last week by Tim Jones at IBM developerWorks, entitled "Look at Linux, the operating system that is an universal platform": "Where Linux is might be harder to answer than where it isn't. Linux, with its ability to morph and scale, can be found in all computing segments (and even some that are not yet fully defined)." With the exception of the desktop market, Linux is a dominant platform in just about any other area of computing, reaching as much as 90% market share in some specific areas: "Supercomputers are a constant arms race to hold the title of fastest, from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Jaguar supercomputer (2009) to the Chinese Tianhe-I (2010) to the current leader, Japan's RIKEN Kei computer (2011). What each of these supercomputers has in common is that they all run Linux. Linux is not only efficient, it's also adaptable to the various hardware platforms that push its performance. This shouldn't be surprising at all, given that more than 90% of supercomputers run Linux."
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Simple command-line tricks
It has been a while since we had a column dedicated to useful command line tips. This week we will cover some simple, but often useful, command line tricks.
This first command will play all of the MP3 files in my Music directory, including all of the files found in sub-directories. It uses the find program to locate all MP3 files in the music directory and passes them off to the mplayer multimedia program to be played. The "-iname" flag tells find to ignore the case of the file name so that myfile.mp3 will be treated the same as MyFile.MP3. The braces, {}, toward the end of the command represent a file located by the find program which will be handed over to mplayer.
find ~/Music -iname "*".mp3 -exec mplayer {} \;
Sometimes people send me archives or CDs which contain files with improper access permissions. The first of the following two commands locates all folders in the current directory and grants my user full access to them. The second command locates all files in the current directory (and sub-directories) and provides read and write access to them without making them executable. The "-type" flag lets us select whether we are operating on a (d)irectory or on a (f)ile. The chmod program then applies the proper permissions to each directory and file.
find . -type d -exec chmod 700 {} \;
find . -type f -exec chmod 600 {} \;
When we first install our operating system we sometimes need to change the system date. Or, if our computer clocks don't automatically change to accommodate daylight saving time we might need to make adjustments. From the command line this is fairly straight forward. The following command sets the current system time to noon.
date -s "12:00"
Please note we will need to have administrator access to change the date and time. The next command tells the machine to change the clock to March 24, 12:30.
date -s "Mar 24 12:30"
They say timing is everything and it is useful to be able to schedule commands to be run at a later point in time. The following command will cause the sound file alarm.wav to play at 5pm.
echo mplayer alarm.wav | at 17:00
The at command can also be used to run scripts at a given time as in the following example where we run my_script at 11:40.
at 11:40 < my_script
Last, but not least, this is a very handy command to have when an application needs to be terminated. Let's say we have the VLC multimedia player running and, for some reason, we need to close it. Rather than look up its process ID and terminate the program with the kill command we can use a program called pkill to shut down the process by name.
pkill vlc
The command line is very flexible and often useful, not only for complex tasks and processing information, but also for common day-to-day activities.
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| Released Last Week |
Guadalinex 8
The Council of Economy, Innovation and Science of the Government of Andalucía has announced the release of Guadalinex 8, an Ubuntu-based, easy-to-use, desktop Linux distribution developed to facilitate the access to information technology for all citizens. With a 40% improvement in boot speed and a complete redesign of the default desktop, the distribution incorporates the latest free software technologies, such as GNOME Shell, which provides for a more productive working environment while allowing high levels of customisation thanks to a multitude of extensions downloadable from the Internet. Most applications included in the default install have been upgraded to newer versions; this includes LibreOffice 3.5.0, Firefox 10, GNOME 3.2 and Linux kernel 3.0. Hardware device drivers have also been updated, while a brand-new "centro de software de Guadalinex" provides an easy way to install extra applications from the Internet. See the complete release announcement (in Spanish) for more details.
Guadalinex 8 - with a highly customised GNOME 3 user interface
(full image size: 915kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Calculate Linux 11.15
Alexander Tratsevskiy has announced the release of Calculate Linux 11.15, a Gentoo-based distribution for desktops (with KDE, GNOME 3 or Xfce) and servers: "We are pleased to announce the release of Calculate Linux 11.15, a Gentoo-based distribution fully compatible with the original Gentoo, but using its own installer, configuring your system with Calculate utilities and providing an all-ready heterogeneous client-server solution for rapid deployment in corporate environment. The major change in Calculate Linux 11.15 is the migration to GNOME 3 and to GNOME Shell, while the desktop interface of Calculate Linux remains visually the same." Read the rest of the release announcement which includes screenshots of the customised GNOME desktop.
Salix OS 13.37 "Live KDE"
Salix OS 13.37 "Live KDE", a Slackware-based live DVD featuring the KDE 4.5.5 desktop, has been released: "The Salix Live team is proud to announce the immediate release of Salix Live KDE 13.37. Following Salix Live Xfce 13.37, this release is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures. This release is also built using SaLT (Salix Live Technology), a new system of Live tools for Slackware-based distributions, developed in-house, in order to build live CDs in a more dynamic fashion with very little modifications from the host system. SaLT offers considerably more power when creating a live system compared to other tools that were used previously and is the reason that it is now possible to produce 64-bit images to complement the collection of Salix live images. The software included in this release is exactly the same as that present in the standard Salix KDE 13.37 release." See the release announcement for more information.
Vinux 3.0.2
Mobeen Iqbal has announced the release of Vinux 3.0.2, the latest update of the project's 3.0 series of the Ubuntu-based distribution designed for visually impaired users: "We are happy to announce the release of Vinux 3.0.2, based on Ubuntu 10.04.4. Changes in this release include: Linux kernel 2.6.32.39; Orca XDesktop 3.1.19; Firefox 10.0.2; Thunderbird 10.0.2; minor package changes as well as Vinux-specific console branding GRUB configuration; Vinux tips on console log in; Orca customizations and man text scripts; easy install scripts optimized; extra system sound schemes added; USB install script included; Luke's speak-up DKMS package included, you no longer need to run 'restorespeech' after a new kernel is installed; CFH, OpenSSH and CPU frequency daemon installed by default; Remastersys no longer deletes SSH keys; YASR is no longer included, encountered frequent errors and not used...." Visit the project's news page to read the release announcement.
Linpus Linux 1.7 "Lite Desktop"
Linpus has announced the release of Linpus Linux 1.7 "Lite Desktop" edition, a distribution for desktops and notebooks featuring GNOME 3 and a number of usability enhancements: "Linpus announced today the release of Linpus Lite Desktop Edition 1.7. Linpus Lite Desktop is the notebook and desktop-specific edition from the highly successful Linpus Lite product series. Linpus Lite Desktop Edition is based on GNOME 3.2, but has a significant array of enhancements that make it the ideal choice whether you require productivity, entertainment or lead an extremely social, connected online life. Features: it is now possible to drag the dock to both sides of the screen; open windows now appear as thumbnails on the dock and can be previewed and launched from there; smart icons displaying number of incoming and unread messages from your email and social networks; two additional panels; Linpus YouTube, LiveDesktop and Ereader applications...." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details.
Ultimate Edition 3.2
Glenn Cady has announced the release of Ultimate Edition 3.2, an Ubuntu-based distribution on a DVD with extra applications and desktop environments: "Ultimate Edition 3.2 was built off Ubuntu 11.10 'Oneiric Ocelot'. All updates fully upgraded, old kernels purged, new initrd and vmlinuz rebuilt. Ultimate Edition 3.2 is unlike any Linux distro I have seen. Ultimate Edition 3.2 has GNOME 3, GNOME Classic, GNOME fallback, Unity, Unity 2D, and XMBC selectable via login screen. A crisp new GTK+ 3 theme and a comprehensive software list. Ultimate Edition 3.2 gives you the freedom of choice in the realm of operating environments and the opportunity to check out new and upcoming technologies. I hope you appreciate the hard work involved in this release. I highly suggest the Ultimate Edition 3.2 specific release info above; getting environments to co-operate is no easy task." See the release notes for more info and screenshots.
Ultimate Edition 3.2 - based on Ubuntu 11.10
(full image size: 864kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Toorox 03.2012 "KDE"
Jörn Lindau has announced the release of Toorox 03.2012 "KDE", a Gentoo-based distribution and live DVD featuring the KDE 4.8.1 desktop: "A new version of the KDE edition has been finished. Toorox 03.2012 contains the Linux kernel 3.2.2-gentoo and the recent desktop environment, KDE 4.8.1. All packages are up-to-date. The nm-applet was replaced by the KDE NetworkManager for your network connections. Also contains: X.Org Server 1.11.4, Mesa 8.0.1, IceCat 10.0.1, WINE 1.4, VLC 2.0, LibreOffice 3.4.5, Audacious 3.2.1, Mixxx 1.10.0. Major change: Toorox now supports 11 languages: German, English, Czech, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Romanian, Russian and Turkish. Toorox 03.2012 'KDE' is available now in the download area as 32-bi and 64-bit variants." Here is the brief release announcement.
Toorox 03.2012 - featuring the brand-new KDE 4.8.1 desktop
(full image size: 917kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Tiny Core Linux 4.4
Robert Shingledecker has announced the release of Tiny Core Linux 4.4, a minimalist but extensible and fast distribution for the desktop: "Team Tiny Core is proud to announce the release of Core 4.4. The major theme for Core 4.4 is kernel and modules update and improved extension searching via tags. Changelog: minor kernel update to 3.0.21; updated tc-config with syslog/rsyslog patch; updated Xprogs.tcz: scmbrowser and smc-fetch.sh tweaks; updated search.sh added -t option for tag search; updated provides.sh for CLI use; updated appbrowser for new tag search; updated ab keyword is now a tag search; updated tce-size with date check on sizefile update; updated tce-setup fixed when base boot code is used with missing /tmp/tce/optional directory; updated tce-setdrive with a required readlink; updated filetool.sh with a required readlink when used after tce-setdrive...." Find the complete changelog in this forum post.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to database
- OpenMediaVault. OpenMediaVault is a Network-Attached Storage (NAS) solution based on Debian GNU/Linux. It contains services like SSH, (S)FTP, SMB/CIFS, DAAP media server, rsync, BitTorrent and many more. Thanks to a modular design it can be enhanced via plugins. OpenMediaVault is primarily designed to be used in home environments or small home offices, but is not limited to those scenarios. It is a simple and easy-to-use out-of-the-box solution that will allow everyone to install and administrate a Network-Attached Storage without deeper knowledge.
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Icaros Desktop Live. Icaros Desktop is a pre-configured AROS desktop environment for the PC platform, distributed on a bootable live medium. The AROS Research Operating System is a open-source, lightweight, efficient and flexible desktop operating system, aiming at being compatible with AmigaOS 3.1 at the API level, while improving on it in many areas.
- JoldzicOS. JoldzicOS is a desktop Linux distribution based on Ubuntu and Linux Mint.
- Live! Server! (USB Sharer). Live! Server! (USB Sharer) is a minimalist Debian-based live CD which provides an easy way to share the content of USB devices once plugged into a computer. If a USB Flash drive or a USB hard drive is inserted into a PC while Live! Server! (USB Sharer) is running, USB media content will be automatically shared with browsers, FTP clients, Windows shares and UPnP players. Live! Server! (USB Sharer) is a zero-install solution which eliminates the need to install server programs on a host, to configure them and to copy files onto a PC.
- Mystras. Mystras is an unofficial derivative of Xubuntu built around the Compiz window manager. It is intended to be a simple and elegant desktop environment, capable of providing users with everything needed for a pleasant browsing and an amusing productive experience. The goal is to offer the best and most attractive user interface that a light and powerful desktop environment, like Xfce, can offer.
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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, 26 March 2012.
Jesse Smith and Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Minix and OpenMediaVault (by musty on 2012-03-19 10:09:47 GMT from France)
A very interesting review of Minix, which learned me a lot. Thank you for putting light on its orrigines and its contribution to the linux world.
I use OpenMediaVault since 6 or 7 months and I love it, although I have some difficulties with iSCSI
thank you and good work (again)
2 • Question and plug (by Jesse on 2012-03-19 13:04:25 GMT from Canada)
Quick question: I'm thinking of covering an open source NAS solution in a future review. Is there interesting in hearing about network attached storage, or would people prefer I stick with desktop distributions?
And, I know I've been plugging this a lot recently, but I'm trying to increase interest in open source gaming. It's an area often overlooked. Please check out my blog Blowing Up Bits for gaming on Linux ideas. http://www.squidoo.com/blowing-up-bits
3 • Ultimate Edition 3.2 (by chris on 2012-03-19 13:30:42 GMT from Australia)
The best eye candy distro I have seen.... spectacular. Currently testing it in other areas and so far it certainly performs well.
4 • NAS (by Pongo Pan on 2012-03-19 13:35:24 GMT from United States)
I'd be interested in reviews of open source NAS as we're looking to do something in this area for a small business and haven't been particularly enthralled with the pre-packaged things you can buy; rolling our own is beginning to sound like the right way to go. Gaming: meh.
5 • NAS review (by musty on 2012-03-19 13:37:51 GMT from France)
@2
1000 times Yes for NAS reviews. There are many distro to compare. For example: Freenas, OpenFiler, OpenMediaVault, Open-e, cryptonas and PulsarOs... and certainly many others.
I keep my eyes wide open....as in fact every Monday
6 • NAS (by WoodCAT on 2012-03-19 13:51:07 GMT from Canada)
Good idea Jesse. I am very interested in reading about open source NAS running on x86 or even Arm platforms.
7 • NAS distros - for home use? (by Pearson on 2012-03-19 14:29:03 GMT from United States)
Jesse, It seems to me that there might be a legitimate "desktop" approach to reviewing NAS distributions. A home (or small office) user could re-purpose an older computer (or inexpensive new computer) as a "backup server." Or some similar approach. I've been thinking about it at home, so support my Linux *and* Windows computers.
8 • ownCloud (by vw72 on 2012-03-19 15:27:24 GMT from United States)
Don't forget ownCloud, while not actually a NAS, it does very well at sharing files plus a whole lot more.
9 • NAS (by Jose on 2012-03-19 15:37:29 GMT from United States)
Good idea on reviewing NAS distros. Maybe even a small article on setting one up for home use. I would like to know how they stack up against each other.
Which NAS distro would be considered the STANDARD that the others are compared too?
10 • Anonymous-OS has been removed from Linux Tracker (by Caitlyn Martin on 2012-03-19 15:42:29 GMT from United States)
...which is probably no loss.
11 • NAS review (by walter_j on 2012-03-19 15:50:52 GMT from Canada)
Please review NAS Jessie. I'd be interested in how to get it working with windows 7. I'm also interested in the differences between a server os. Why would you use NAS when you can install a server os? A local retailer who sells MS systems said NAS is slower than a server. I didn't believe him, but have no data or experience to say otherwise.
Anonymous OS set some alarms going in my mind when I first saw it. Glad I stayed away.
12 • NAS... (by Vic on 2012-03-19 16:01:16 GMT from United States)
Very interested in a piece on NAS. I currently use freeNAS, which works fine but I'm always interested in alternatives. If it fits in the scope of your review a comparison would be great!
Cheers, Vic.
13 • NAS Review, Ultimate Edition, Anonymous-OS (by DavidEF on 2012-03-19 16:07:04 GMT from United States)
@2 Jesse, please do some NAS reviews. I've never set up a server, but I'm thinking about a file server at my house, and would like to know how well these work.
@3 chris, I'm with you on eye candy. I'm downloading Ultimate Edition 3.2 right now, to test. Have they gotten in-place upgrading figured out yet? In the past, it's always been a pain, so I have just always used vanilla Ubuntu and I install all my favorite applications myself. Ultimate Edition has way more "cool" factor, though, no doubt.
@10 Caitlyn, I'm sure you're right, and I'll go a step further. Very few Ubuntu re-spins offer anything new that can't be found in the repositories already. If anything, they may add a ppa or two. A hundred or so of these could disappear and we wouldn't even know it.
14 • Amendment #1 to my comment above (by DavidEF on 2012-03-19 16:54:07 GMT from United States)
I meant to say this above, but I forgot and left it out. Although we could do without most of the dozens of derivitives of Ubuntu, I happen to like Ubuntu, and I think it's interesting to note that even with all the negative reactions to their (Canonical's) current direction, people, companies, and governments still continue to make new derivitives, and support existing ones. To me, that says a lot about how the majority really feel, as opposed to the vocal minority who continue to presume to speak for the rest of us, and spout out "facts" about how bad Unity is, and how Canonical has "turned their backs on the users."
15 • RE:14 (by Anonymous Coward on 2012-03-19 19:38:31 GMT from Spain)
Don't take this as an offense against any distro or a try to start a flamewar.
If a particular distribution is remade and derivated many times, it can be because of some or all of these reasons:
-The distribution is a good base, so developers can create a new distribution over it for a particular purpose (e.g: You take Ubuntu and create a Live CD for penetration testing).
-The distribution is a good idea but is badly taken to practice (e.g: You like how Ubuntu works but don't like some of its particularities, such as booting mechanics or desktop environments). This means developers will try to make "fixed" forks.
-The distribution is popular and there are many kids trying to make their own perfect distribution. A distribution only they will like :-) Chances are that they will use a popular base instead of an unpopular one (for example, they will take Ubuntu instead of Slackware).
Only the first one is elates the quality of the distribution. I have my own opinion but I wouldn't post it here.
16 • Network-attached storage (by eco2geek on 2012-03-19 19:45:26 GMT from United States)
It would not only be nice to read about NAS software solutions, it would also be nice to hear about NAS hardware solutions as well.
For exmample, in these days of multi-terrabyte hard drives, what do you do when you have over half a dozen different distros installed on one computer? Do you image their /home partitions? Or do you just save the data files? With or without compression? How do you automate it? Etc. I'd make a wild guess that most home users think about backups as unwieldy and time-consuming, and then kick themselves for not doing them after they suffer a data loss
17 • NAS (by historyb on 2012-03-19 20:27:00 GMT from United States)
I would like a NAS review. I want to setup a server with a mixed environment (windows and Linux)
18 • NAS Reviews (by BryanC1968 on 2012-03-19 21:37:05 GMT from United States)
Another one here that would love to see some reviews and/or comparisons of different NAS distros... I current am running Ubuntu Server as my home file & print server, but am always looking for something new or better that may come along...
Also, I think I might have posted this before, but I would also be nice to see some reviews of some of the firewall distros as well...
19 • OpenMediaVault (by BryanC1968 on 2012-03-19 21:59:05 GMT from United States)
I just noticed the posting about OpenMediaVault... 1st time I have heard of it... I checked out their website and it looks interesting... It kind of reminds me of FreeNAS only based on Debian instead of FreeBSD... I use to use FreeNAS 7.x, but after they went to 8.x they removed a lot of the features from it and that is when I started using Ubuntu Server with Webmin...
20 • Pretty good (by Bob on 2012-03-19 22:48:24 GMT from Austria)
It's probably the first time that I am tempted to praise OpenSuse - although I've been using it for years. Just tried their Factory variant (KDE 4.8.1, Kernel 3.3 rc6) from a USB stick and everything seems to be working despite the alpha status. This is quite astonishing because even their last releases were pretty far from being perfect. OpenSuse 12.2 might be a keeper if they do not mess up anything with it until it is ready. One nuisance, however, remains the fact that they are apparently unable to package the latest LibreOffice versions in time. That is no big deal for some of us but probably a bit inconvenient for most inexperienced Windows defectors.
21 • NAS review (by disi on 2012-03-20 00:22:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
Does it need to be a whole distribution specialized on NAS (any system running ZFS is a really nice NAS and easy to maintain IMHO). How about some media software [and|or] web-frontends to network storages?
Would be nice like:
support up-/download yes/no
needs database yes/no
supports links yes/no
etc. etc. :)
22 • Canonical (by Someone Else on 2012-03-20 01:44:25 GMT from United States)
Canonical HAS turned their backs on the users. This is the truth. Note, for example, that the current head of PR there is a marketing drone. He has no interest in communicating with us. He dictates down to us. The only reason Ubuntu persists in the distribution community is because Mark Shuttleworth made a commitment (backed with tons of money) to insure Ubuntu's existence in the free software community.
Unity is still garbage, just as is Gnome Shell. This is a totally separate issue. But, of course, fan boys (as evidenced by comment 14) rush to the defense of Unity or Gnome Shell, and would prefer confusing the issues rather than addressing them. This is something they've been doing since at least 2008: plugging their ears, pretending we don't exist, and using every insult imaginable against us simply because we disagree with their poorly conceived ideas.
23 • canonical, taking on the big dogs (by Julian on 2012-03-20 02:53:48 GMT from United States)
Unity isn't useful for me but the ongoing criticism of it is kind of silly. I personally think it's great that canonical is going after a new vision for how GNU/Linux can go up against the big players in the operating systems world. I'd rather see the open source world try ineptly to compete in the world of OSes that combine ideas from the desktop and mobile-phone worlds than just give up on that market.
(And we inevitably will since we have freedoms that make it possible for anyone to do so)
If devices that integrate mobile and desktop UI concepts don't appeal to you, great. Don't use them. Like gnome2 better than unity/gnome3? Cool, do like i am and use Debian Squeeze. Don't love xfce, and stlil want gnome2 to keep improving? That's fine, but don't expect Mark Shuttleworth to do it for you!
Personally, i look forward to a future where mobile phones can run the regular GNU/Linux versions of apps like openoffice or gnumeric in addition to having mobile data access... where all of the best open source apps are advancing in the mobile phone world and forcing the proprietary software companies to innovate or die. The existing choices in open source desktops including kde/xfce/lxde/gnome2/e17 are good enough that they don't need help from canonical/red hat money to be great choices! Meanwhile they can try to beat apple and windows at the game they are playing.
24 • Unity/Gnome Shell and NAS (by Gmasterboots on 2012-03-20 02:59:29 GMT from United States)
Someone Else (#22) and others like you,
Please stop whining on DWW about Unity and Gnome Shell. Many people like them, and many dislike them, and you aren't going to change anyone's mind for them. It is frustrating to find every week that the comments section has a large number of posts arguing about these two shells, thus making this space less welcoming for those of us who wish to read about and discuss the topics brought up in the piece. Additionally, as you note Mark Shuttleworth "has no interest in communicatin with us." That is the path he has chosen to take, and you will not sway him otherwise.
On a more relevant subject, I would also like to see a review of NAS systems. I am thinking of buying an old tower to make into a home server and have no real experience with NAS, ZFS and other home server staples. Also, I enjoyed the review of MINIX. It's not something that most of us will try but it's very interesting to read about. Would you consider doing a review of Haiku or Kolibri OS or some other more obscure OS? Furthermore, when you do a review of a special or niche distro or OS, can you explain how they are unusual more specifically? You mention that MINIX has a small microkernel and is good for learning, but how does that manifest itself in the system and in the user's experience? I understand that when you do a review of Ubuntu or Opensuse or Fedora people are more interested in how the DE works and how well the various applications mesh, but for the niche distros I appreciate more discussion of the peculiarities. But if you keep the same style of review I won't grumble, as they are a good read and something I look forward to every Monday.
25 • Re: 2 (by Vakkotaur on 2012-03-20 03:26:51 GMT from United States)
As much as I like the desktop distribution reviews, I know that is not all there is. NAS and other non-desktop orient distribution should get some attention. Even if I never use any of them, reading the reviews could be informative. And then there's this thing where I might just need it someday, and it's better to be aware of things than not. Go for it.
26 • MINIX3.2.0 (by zykoda on 2012-03-20 08:19:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
Much appreciated the Minix3 review. I was hoping for a bare metal install, but I note the qemu approach. Install seems not to work for me, only to damage the first partition on the first disk, necessitating a re-install of the former contents. May try again after disconnecting valued disks.
27 • Unity, Gnome Shell, dogs (by sol on 2012-03-20 08:53:08 GMT from Hungary)
I was a Gnome Shell fangal but it's too unstable to everyday work.
Big dogs dictating, small dogs working on Cinnamon, Mate, Slickpanel. Waste of time or a beginning of something good? Who knows?
I believe real developers doesn't read DW comments and Shuttleworth's statements. Just coding. And it's good for us.
I recommend XFCE and KDE for anybody who tired about GS crashes and Unity's primitivity.
28 • OpenMediaVault (by Me on 2012-03-20 08:59:59 GMT from France)
I love this NAS software. i used to use Frenas 7.x on olds Pcs; but now, version 8.x require more Ram and more powerful CPU. So i tried OpenMediaVault (OMV) and found it very stable with a lot of features and it work on every machine.
29 • More obscure (by Jesse on 2012-03-20 13:52:53 GMT from Canada)
>> "Would you consider doing a review of Haiku or Kolibri OS or some other more obscure OS?"
I've reviewed both Haiku and Kolibri on DistroWatch before. These projects tend to move slowly so I'm not likely to touch on them again until they hit new milestones.
30 • NAS review- Yes, please (by octathlon on 2012-03-20 14:00:27 GMT from United States)
I have been thinking about repurposing my original Eee 701 netbook as a NAS to control a couple of USB hard drives on my network. It should be a good use because of its low power consumption and small size. Of course I could use any distro but I would like to read your take on dedicated NAS os's.
31 • linux distributions (by juliette on 2012-03-20 14:19:58 GMT from United Kingdom)
I just wish all the linux distributions would merge and come up with one super linux distribution so there isnt as much junk out there, one linux distribution seems to be like any other, and the distibutions never seem to change from one version to the next part from maybe the odd wallpaper change. Also support for intel graphic with opencl still needs to be addressed. Why cant Ubuntu for example support intel graphic in restricted drivers with opencl support for wine? would be nice.
32 • RE: 31 (by Landor on 2012-03-20 14:44:34 GMT from Canada)
I've come down to one simple question when I read stuff now, why do people want to use a FLOSS/OSS operating system if they want closed source code? Seriously? The logic eludes me.
The only answer I can come up with, and especially in the case of Linux Mint, is that the users want a free version of a closed source operating system. Meaning, they want all the proprietary crap they can get, pre-installed, without having to pay a licence.fee to any company.
I've come to seriously doubt that if they could freely install their own version of their original operating system as many times as they'd like, they'd ever be here using this now.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
33 • RE: 29 (by Gmasterboots on 2012-03-20 15:47:15 GMT from United States)
Sorry, I just didn't catch those reviews. I'll look at them now. Thanks for the reply.
Landor, can you explain the Linux Mint situation a bit? Thanks.
34 • OpenMediaVault (by octathlon on 2012-03-20 15:47:46 GMT from United States)
OMV looks interesting. I like the idea of installing the system on a thumb drive, but too bad it requires a minimum of 1 GiB RAM. That eliminates both of the machines I have available. Does it run entirely in RAM? (trying to figure why it needs so much RAM)
35 • RE: 33 (by Landor on 2012-03-20 15:53:56 GMT from Canada)
I meant in regard to its popularity. The majority of Mint users are commonly believed to be Ubuntu user previously, who want every piece of proprietary software preinstalled for them, much like when they bought their computer with the operating system it came with was.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
36 • Proprietary People (by DavidEF on 2012-03-20 16:36:37 GMT from United States)
Landor, I agree with your assessment that it seems people want all the proprietary stuff they can get their hands on, even though they may be using a Linux OS. Maybe we can put a positive spin on the situation by saying they very well might be recent Windows diverts, just looking for familiarity in a strange new world. I remember when I started using linux. I was tired of Windows and went looking for alternatives, so my expectation was that it would be different, better. Some of the people coming to linux are not looking for better, just free. They really would just use Windows, if they could install it as often as they like. And there is still a little learning curve to linux, even with all the shiny new stuff that is being added all the time in the name of ease of use.
37 • RE: 36 (by Landor on 2012-03-20 16:52:58 GMT from Canada)
I have a hard time with it because I view it from my perspective. Which of course is the only way any of us can. I knew from experience that Linux was not going to be an easy go, nor were all the things I had been used to for about 6 or so years going to be available to me. I made a conscious choice though, and understood what that meant. If there wasn't a working alternative to flash, I didn't use flash at all. I used open codecs. If I had hardware that required closed source drivers, I operated with less functionality until my hardware, or the situation, changed.
One thing I gave up was flight combat sims. I had been playing them longer than most people here probably have even owned a computer. Playing them with CGA graphics. There still isn't a good flight combat sim in Linux in my opinion, and F117 doesn't come close. But I figure it's a small price to pay for all the great things I get in return. Not least of which is true respect for my freedoms.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
38 • Zorin 6 Lite (by TheBullDog on 2012-03-20 19:18:19 GMT from United States)
I installed Zorin 6 Lite on one of my Acer Aspire Ones (the one that originally came with Linpus Linux) and Zorin 6 Educational Lite on one of my desktops. I have to say I'm favorably impressed. Zorin recognized all of my hardware and 'everything' works. Even though the distros come with a capable suite of software, I can install any other packages I might need using the Synaptic Package Manager. I think Zorin 6 Lite has found a permanent home on my netbook. And, it's got me looking forward to the release of Zorin 6 Core/Business.
39 • Not about closed source (by sol on 2012-03-20 21:51:11 GMT from Hungary)
Landor, I think "open" doesn't mean "windy", I want a stable base with possibilities. When a working IDE or messaging program like Gnome 2.x or Kopete replaced with Gnome Shell or KTelepathy 0.2, it's like somebody cuts the tree under himself.
40 • @32 (by fernbap on 2012-03-20 23:18:52 GMT from Portugal)
"why do people want to use a FLOSS/OSS operating system if they want closed source code?"
It is obvious that the reason eludes you, because that is not what people want.
People just want to have a desktop system that works.
For example, until gnash enables anyone to watch a youtube video without any restricion, gnash is not a true alternative, is it?
Untill unrar-free is incapable of extracting a rar file, while unrar-unfree does it perfectly, unrar-free is not a true alternative, is it?
I could keep going, but i think by now you got the idea. Or not...
41 • RE: 39 (by mcellius on 2012-03-20 23:28:50 GMT from United States)
Nah. This is Linux; it's about choice. If you don't like a DE or whatever, there are lots of other possibilities. But what we've seen too much of is lots of hate and anger, including constant whining and complaining.
I've only been a Linux (and Ubuntu) user for a year, and all of this has really been disgusting. A week or so ago someone posted a very crude and profanity-laden message on AskUbuntu.com, ranting about Unity. (It was appropriately removed pretty quickly.) But why? What purpose did it serve? I don't mean to criticize everyone who isn't a fan of Unity, but grow up and use one of the many other options out there. This isn't a religion!
Personally, I like Unity. In my one-year's experience with Ubuntu and Linux, I've tried about thirty distros, and used every DE I could find. I do prefer Unity, but if they totally messed it up for me I'd just switch to another, most of which are quite good.
42 • @32 from Landor (by JR on 2012-03-20 23:54:25 GMT from Brazil)
If what matters to you is just the ideology / philosophy of open source, then you would naturally use Windows if the code was opened and the system was free for users ..
Freedom is not the only positive thing that Linux offers, in my opinion is infinitely superior to Windows in technical issues such as system integration, etc. .... etc .... is because I like the way it was designed that I use Linux, even if I have to appeal to proprietary drivers from time to time! is the set of all advantages which catches my attention in linux!
if the question were only ideology would be better for many hope for Windows or Mac done for free and open source and move away from the supposedly complicated world of linux ....
PS.: I know you agree with the technological superiority of Linux, the phrase is just to try to prove my point of view. And, sorry for my bad English!
43 • Re: 2 (by Vukota on 2012-03-21 01:46:52 GMT from United States)
+1 for NAS review. I think it would be interesting reviewing it in a light of a different hardware that may be used for running it.
I would be also interested in some reviews of (or comparisons against) ***WRT flash-able routers and how they can stack-up against or be used as poor man's NAS (and router at the same time).
44 • Thanks for sharing (by Sanjay on 2012-03-21 04:22:58 GMT from India)
Thanks for sharing Simple command-line tricks.It's great for Linux learner.I am a big fan of Linux because
Macs are for those who don't 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 for those who want to know why their computer works.
Linux is No.1 any way
45 • Re: Anonymous-OS (by Anonymous on 2012-03-21 07:40:32 GMT from United States)
Funny how people complain about it being a respin of Ubuntu and ignore the malware. Which is worse?
46 • #35 (by zykoda on 2012-03-21 08:34:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
"The majority of Mint users are commonly believed to be Ubuntu users previously, who want every piece of proprietary software preinstalled for them, much like when they bought their computer with the operating system it came with was." (Landor)
Believe what you will. Not so for me. The option of preinstallation for Mint is not known to me. The option for Windows preinstallation is almost universal.
Sometime 'buntu installer, but user...never. Mint 9 just works for what I need and the LTS is very useful..until 2013 of course! And my every machine over the last 15 years works, unlike with any other distro that I've tried. Debian comes a close second and can be persuaded to cooperate with much time, effort and "non-free" stuff. Just got to be realistic! Windows over the same machines (95, XP, Vista, 7) does not cut the mustard!
47 • 35, 46 (by octathlon on 2012-03-21 13:38:42 GMT from United States)
"The majority of Mint users are commonly believed to be Ubuntu users previously, who want every piece of proprietary software preinstalled for them, much like when they bought their computer with the operating system it came with was." (Landor)
Do you actually know what percentage of Mint users are previous Ubuntu users or just guessing? Anyway, that statement may have been true back when Mint first started and having those things included was pretty much the only difference.
But in the years since then many other user-friendly features were added, like their unique way of doing updates, their Mint menu, etc. They also have a reputation for responding well to community feedback. More recently, I have read that some Ubuntu users have been moving to Mint because of their Desktop Environment preferences.
[disclaimer: not a Mint user myself]
48 • Second +1 for CLI tricks (by SilentSam on 2012-03-21 14:29:29 GMT from Canada)
I find the CLI tricks section very cool and useful. Sometimes I already know what is shown, but sometimes I find extended usefulness on CLI applications I use all the time... Keep it up, it's appreciated!
49 • @46/47 (by Not Sure on 2012-03-21 14:31:45 GMT from United States)
He (landor) is generalizing, just because you didn't go to Mint that way, does not mean that most do not. i would agree with his assessment and he also stated it that way. I also agree with his proprietary on "free" software question. Only a handful of linuces are truly "free" and 1 bsd.
The free linux distributions have stuff yanked out, where as the bsd is developed to be open :^)
50 • @45 Ubuntu respin or Malware worse? (by DavidEF on 2012-03-21 14:47:30 GMT from United States)
Well, if you ask any Windows fanboi, it's pretty OBVIOUS that being an Ubuntu respin is worse than having malware on your computer!
Actually, as a few years linux user, I've gotten to the point that malware is a distant bad dream that no longer scares me. I still try to be careful, but I don't live in fear like I used to when I had Windows installed on my computers. It is a good thing that the malware has been exposed, so people know not to use this OS. It would be much worse if we were to find that the malware was in the wild, and we all might be infected. One of the benefits of the "many eyes" security layer, if you ask me.
51 • Small is beautiful (by glasiad on 2012-03-21 17:51:00 GMT from United Kingdom)
May Linux remain a minority-use OS. If it became too popular commercial interests would find some way to infiltrate and screw it up. If you use and love Linux - don't promote it!
52 • Sarcasm or unware? (by Jesse on 2012-03-21 18:06:58 GMT from Canada)
>> "May Linux remain a minority-use OS. If it became too popular commercial interests would find some way to infiltrate and screw it up. If you use and love Linux - don't promote it!"
Are you being sarcastic? Linux is one of the most widely used operating systems in the world on phones, on servers, in super computing, in embedded devices... Most of the serious work being done in the Linux ecosystem these days is done by commercial interests. Red Hat, IBM, Google, Oracle, Canonical and other big name companies are the driving force behind a lot of key projects. The kernel, GNOME, OpenOffice, virtualization, etc are largely supported by big-name companies. Linux distributions are better, more polished and more diverse now than it ever has been in the past.
53 • @51, Maybe (by Eddie on 2012-03-21 18:29:42 GMT from United States)
That's funny, but seriously I see where you're heading with that statement. Commercialism isn't always a bad thing but it could be. Anyway I don't think that we have anything to worry about. As #41 pointed out there is enough hate and disgust in the Linux community to keep most commercial interest away. Anybody who has read the comments section often in DW knows that the people who show hate and immaturity seem to be never ending. I've fallen into the same trap myself. People sometimes just get over zealous about their distro (or someone elses distro). Stuff happens. :)
54 • Hate and choices (by sol on 2012-03-21 19:57:13 GMT from Hungary)
@53 It's not without reason. Microsoft customers hates Microsoft decision to drop classic start menu. Canonical customers hates the primitive and unusable Unity. Making wrong choices generates hate and anger.
Looks like hesitation from Canonical, but a wise decision:
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/03/gnome-classic-in-ubuntu-12-04-its-like-nothing-ever-changed/
55 • RE: 54 (by mcellius on 2012-03-21 23:50:20 GMT from United States)
Just because some decisions lead to "hate" doesn't mean the hate is reasonable. It's immature and very unreasonable. We're talking about a desktop environment, not a religion. And this is Linux: don't like a particular DE? Try another.
Canonical is wisely, probably, including more DEs in 12.04 (although I've also tried out other DEs in 11.10). More options is generally good, I believe. And if they decided to correct course a bit, good for them. That still doesn't mean the hate was ever reasonable, or ever made any sense.
As for "primitive and unusable Unity," well, perhaps that's what it is for many. It's a matter of opinion, and that's fine. I like Unty, and I've tried just about every other DE I could find, but I realize that my opinion is just that, and nothing more. Unity works for some and not for others. But that's great! This is Linux, an we have options!
56 • the marriage between open and closed source (by computergeek on 2012-03-22 03:16:49 GMT from Mexico)
It's a rocky marriage to be sure, but it was asked why people would mix open and closed and proprietary software on their computers.
The answer is simple: They want their hardware to work. They want the web to work. They want to get work done.
Another user commented why there's so much linux garbage out there.
Well one person's garbage is another person's treasure.
Besides, if there was only one distro...what DE would you include.
Unity? More garbage. There's nothing unifying about Unity. If Ubuntu wants to focus on smart phones and toy tablets fine but don't force your unwanted trash on the user base.
57 • RE: 56 (by mcellius on 2012-03-22 04:16:52 GMT from United States)
"If Ubuntu want to focus on smart phones and toy tablets fine but don't force your unwanted trash on the user base."
Who has forced anything on anybody? Don't you see how unreasonable your statement is? This is Linux: you can use anything you want. Canonical's decision may or may not have been wise, but one thing they never did was force anybody to use Unity. Were you required to upgrade 10.10 to 11.04? No.
But you take it further by calling Unity "unwanted trash." Well, not only do lots of people like it (meaning it was not "unwanted"), but it was also something new that attempted to move things in a certain direction. That may or may not have been successful (time will tell), but new products often have some bugs and there are generally things to work out. Again, nobody "forced" you to use it at all.
A more reasonable attitude would be, "I tried it, didn't like it, and moved on." Why all the emotion?
58 • Anonymous OS (by JesterRaiin on 2012-03-22 07:33:38 GMT from Poland)
Is it really full of crap ? All i could find were countless reposts of one and same message "omg, it's full of malware, stay away, yada yada yada". No precise reports, no list of said malware, no logs, no scan test, nothing...
59 • @54, hesitation (by julian on 2012-03-22 14:01:51 GMT from United States)
This is not about canonical hesitating... it's just that members of the community are showing you how to set up a non default desktop environment, with no direct involvement from canonical.
60 • Android... (by DigitalLight on 2012-03-22 17:09:35 GMT from United States)
I'm sure this has probably come up in the past, but why isn't Android on the list of distributions. It (very easily) qualifies as one.
61 • 58 • Anonymous OS (by mandog on 2012-03-22 23:34:02 GMT from Peru)
Apparently its clean on the torrent sites.
62 • Legacy OS4 has issues (by Neal on 2012-03-23 02:26:45 GMT from United States)
Is it just me or has anyone else tried the new release of Legacy OS4? I can't get the distro to boot....I've tried on three different machines and get the same results...."kernel not syncing...kernel panic" something or another right after it finishes copying to ram.
Tried on P3, P4 and dual core with no love.....two different iso downloads too....bummer.
63 • @62 Legacy OS4 Mini (by james on 2012-03-23 05:08:27 GMT from United States)
No problems booting Legacy OS4 here on several different test boxes.
64 • Legacy OS4 (by greg on 2012-03-23 10:17:17 GMT from United States)
No problems booting Legacy OS4, also. Although, I had to use another distro to resize the partition I used, and change it to ext2, first. Gparted has never worked with the liveCD, with Legacy, for me.
65 • Hate, Hate, and more Hate... (by DavidEF on 2012-03-23 18:44:12 GMT from United States)
I guess haters gonna hate. As for me, I use what I like. Anything I don't like, I get rid of. I try new things often. That's one of the things I like about linux. I get to try new stuff. "New" doesn't always translate into "Great", or even "Good." But, I don't see why people get so emotional. If it works, okay, that's what is expected. If it doesn't work, get rid of it. I've tried a lot of DE's and WM's. I use Unity because I like it. Other people use what they like, quietly, confidently. There's no need to fuss about what you don't like. That's just a waste of time - yours and that of everyone who has to put up with your ranting. I do believe in filing bug reports or feature requests if something you LIKE just has a few things about it that you DON'T LIKE, and you wish it to improve. Tell me what benefit there is to ranting about an application, or a DE or WM that you don't like and won't use. How does it help anyone? It doesn't.
66 • Legacy OS 4 boot problems (by DavidEF on 2012-03-23 18:58:41 GMT from United States)
I haven't yet tried Legacy OS 4. I've got it downloaded, but haven't had the time. There's my full disclosure.
However, In the past, when I've had trouble booting a version of puppy, there was usually a parameter of some kind that could be passed (to? through?) grub to help things along. One I used a lot in the early days of puppy was the no-hlt instruction. I got puppy 3.01 working on an old Compaq with a Cirrus x586 proc. with that. If you've tried on three different machines, with three different processors and had no joy, I don't know if this will help you or not, but I'd try some of the "safe" parameters, like using a generic vesa video driver.
67 • @57, @66 (by JR on 2012-03-23 21:47:41 GMT from Brazil)
.
we must learn to live in a world of criticism, where everyone wants to be heard the way they know how to express themselves, the only way I see it is always interpreted the criticism as feedback and try to learn from the claims of others, because, clearly, complain about the criticism is not helping ...
just an opinion ...
.
68 • Comments (by Ron on 2012-03-23 21:50:52 GMT from United States)
It never fails to amaze me how people complain about comments on a comment board, And think they have the right to tell someone to stop commenting.
69 • correction (by JR on 2012-03-23 22:26:11 GMT from Brazil)
the title of the comment 67 was supposed to be: "@ 57, @ 65". @ 66 is another matter....
70 • RE: 67 & 68 (by mcellius on 2012-03-24 02:36:11 GMT from United States)
I think criticism is fine, but not all is helpful. "It stinks!" doesn't move the ball forward at all; it's just a rant and not very useful at all. Do people have the right to say it? Absolutely. But let's not pretend it helps anyone, especially the Linux community. And the hate that has been expressed over desktop environments can actually cause damage, driving people away who might otherwise be interested in trying Linux.
I have not tried to silence anyone, I have not told anyone "to stop commenting." Rather, I have tried to point out that ranting from emotion is not helpful. You will notice, if you go back and read my comments, that I dealt either with inaccurate comments (eg Ubuntu trying to "force" its desktop environment on other) or with opinions (eg "unwanted trash" and "primitive and unusable Unity") as statements of fact. I even suggested a more reasonable and useful type of criticism: "I tried it, didn't like it, and moved on." (Perhaps suggestions would be useful, too, but not the "It stinks!" sort of comments.)
Or are you trying to tell me to stop commenting?
71 • @70 (by mandog on 2012-03-24 13:05:02 GMT from Peru)
I think your comments are very wise and well chosen and speak for the voice of the majority of readers.Times change as does everything in life we have to adapt and learn new technology. After using it for a while we look back at the old and think how did I ever use that?.
72 • legacy OS4 (by greg on 2012-03-24 14:08:42 GMT from United States)
I have installed Legacy OS4 to my hard drive. However, now I can't boot the liveCD for Slaco Puppy, which I have used many times before. Any Puppy distro searches for Puppy files, in the process of booting. I now also get "Kernel panic- not syncing". Apparently, for some reason, Legacy Puppy doesn't like playing with the other Puppys.
73 • RE: 70 • RE: 67 & 68 (by Ron on 2012-03-24 20:44:59 GMT from United States)
"Or are you trying to tell me to stop commenting?"
No, no, not at all. I'm directing this in general to those who just say stop talking about a certain subject. Its like they think one or two comments on a subject suffice to establish the matter. However just as Distrowatch shows 'Page Hit Ranking' for Linux operating systems, frequency and number of comments on a particular subject also provide useful information.
When people wonder why many are upset by something new like Unity, they say just ignore it or use something else. What the problem is with ignoring something is that it may just grow like a cancer. If objection is not put forth forcefully, what is there in the process of feedback?
Unity brings forth such emotions because thinking people realize that it could become dominant it left to its own destiny. I see more and more serious Linux distros moving to Unity or its brethren. Good or bad, I don't know, perhaps the opinions from so many people should not be taken as hate but as FEAR!
Cheers, Ron
74 • Re #57 (by computergeek on 2012-03-25 03:24:26 GMT from Mexico)
I don't know any desktop or laptop user pleased with Unity, it's counter intuitive. Requires far more mouse clicks than a standard DE, and it's buggy. If you know people who actually like Unity, they're in the minority and quite possibly paid Canonical shills as well. You need only look at how Ubuntu was recently dethroned in #1 position on DW to know I'm right.
Further, you confused me with someone who is upgrading from a previous Ubuntu edition. The last Ubuntu release that is compatible with my common, relatively modern hardware was 9.04 and when my attempts at the 10's met with compatibility and hardware failures I switched to another distro. Thing is Ubuntu has recent history of making changes that bork lots of installs, so nobody should be surprised about this Unity thing or Ubuntu's loss of popularity among actual users.
The point I was trying to make is that "experimental" should be just that. If you have something that doesn't make sense, is buggy, unwieldy and not well suited for use by humans you don't release it. Or at least you don't release it as the default with no other easy options. That's what I meant by forced. The garbage part, you can figure out if only you use Unity for a while.
75 • Unity (by divadgnol on 2012-03-25 08:11:43 GMT from United States)
I for one personally applaud Ubuntu's attempt to create something new and not just build on top of existing/legacy software. Needles to say I enjoy unity immensely. Don't judge me as I have been using Linux/Unix for more than 10 years. It's refreshing to try and use something new and innovative.
As others have pointed out it appears Ubuntu is creating a standard interface to be used across various platforms. This model on its face seems successful,
With all the other options out there I in no way feel forced to use any one desktop environment.
76 • RE: #74 (by mcellius on 2012-03-25 15:21:52 GMT from United States)
Sure, Canonical has employees, but "paid ... shills?" Do you really believe that?
Is your real name "Tim Martin?" (Sorry, folks: old OS/2 reference.)
77 • Bodhi (by Phil Dirt on 2012-03-25 15:32:56 GMT from United States)
Congratulations to the Bodhi team! Tired of all the arguing about Unity? Gnome 3? KDE bloat? LXDE minimalism? Check out Bodhi. IMO, Enlightenment is as close to pure pleasure as I've seen in my 11 years with Linux. If you're bored with the same old, same old, boot up Bodhi and learn a little about E17 and its configurability. You might like it!
It's pretty and fast!
78 • Linux (by Barry Schinnerer on 2012-03-25 23:25:21 GMT from United States)
Thanks to all the people who give up their time to develop and make available the different Linux systems out there. I use Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and can do just about anything I want to with my computer. No blue screens, no viruses and no money needed, just my time. I have a blast with my Linux system and use, VLC, Lives, Kompozer, Handbrake, Stellarium, Filezilla, Firefox and also Wine among other programs. Anything that needs Windows to run, I don't need. Thanks again for free and good software that works. People should stop complaining and thank the people who make Linux possible.
79 • Legacy OS4 mini (by Neal on 2012-03-26 02:31:26 GMT from United States)
I must have had either a bad iso or too little ram. I re-downloaded and it boots now but good greif....connecting to wpa2 wireless is impossible. For some reason it will onlym connect to wep encryption. I wish it had barrys simple network connector.....that one never fails me.
Such a nice distro but not much use to me if I cannot connect to modern wireless networks...
80 • re # 79 LegacyOS 4 mini and wifi (by gnomic on 2012-03-26 04:01:49 GMT from New Zealand)
LegacyOS is a bit crippled on the wifi front, and I don't think its maker claims much for it in that respect. Perhaps sit closer to the router and use an ethernet cable if you remember them :-) I found the same thing the one time I have booted this latest version on an Acer Extensa laptop with ath9k. In fact the system didn't seem to know anything about the wifi interface. I didn't bother looking into it at that point. In earlier versions few or no wifi firmware blobs were provided.
I guess one could always use wpa_supplicant at the command line, perhaps after reading the manual. And there are the forums; legacyOS has a current topic heading under Announcements.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=76887&sid=b7f5af5931e35e5d155a622ca6f773bd
In my one live CD session of an hour or so I found that both browsers seemed a bit unstable, not sure what that was about. Not something I've seen with more recent Puppy derivatives such as lupu-528.004-alt, or Dpup Exprimo, versions with more current kernels should I say. LegacyOS has 2.6.25 from 2008.
81 • possible trojan infestation on AriOS site (by kim metcalfe on 2012-03-26 04:02:05 GMT from Canada)
followed a link from this site to AriOS. was immediately advised of a trojan,
Trojan:JS/Redirector.IT
Encyclopedia entry
Published: Mar 16, 2012
Aliases
Not available
Alert Level (?)
Severe
Antimalware protection details
Microsoft recommends that you download the latest definitions to get protected.
Detection last updated:
Definition: 1.123.2.0
Released: Mar 20, 2012 Detection initially created:
Definition: 1.121.1660.0
Released: Mar 16, 2012
Number of Comments: 81
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
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YES Linux was an idea started by Arthur Copeland, CEO of Saphari.com. The idea was to build a low cost suite of products and services that could enable a Mom and Pop Store (MaPs) to quickly and easily build an internet presence. It was understood that not all MaPs need to have an internet presence, thus the suite would also have to work while not being connected to the internet. To the MaPs, it should be transparent. Thus, YourESale was born... and the rest was history. MaPs - MaPs are defined as companies that have between 1 and 20 employees or total gross revenue of less than $200,000.00 per year.
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