 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 459, 4 June 2012 |
Welcome to this year's 23rd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The Fedora distribution won most of the headlines this past week with the release of the cutting-edge Fedora 17. The project has been hard at work improving SELinux, updating GNOME Shell and adding new features under the hood. Be sure to check out the News section to learn more about the release and unofficial plans on how the project will handle secure boot when consumer computers start shipping with that feature later
this year. We will also hear some initial impressions of the mini-computer called the Raspberry Pi and updates
from the Oracle vs Google Android trial. Also in this week's edition, Jesse Smith takes Mageia 2 for a spin and reports on his findings. Does the community-based project live up to the quality of its Mandriva
linage? This week we also look at the pros and cons of compiling packages from their source code in our Questions and Answers section. And, as usual, we bring you a list of distributions released last week and
look forward to scheduled releases to come later this year. We here at DistroWatch wish you a pleasant week and happy reading!
Content:
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
First Impressions of Mageia 2
 Mageia began its life not so long ago by being a community fork of the Mandriva Linux distribution. The future of Mandriva, as a company, has been in question for years prompting several developers and users to push for an independent, community-oriented distro. The first release of Mageia, version 1, got off to a fairly good start. It didn't vary much technologically from Mandriva and felt a bit like a test run, as though the developers were making sure all the proper infrastructure was in place.
This May Mageia returned with version 2 and it looks as though the community has filled in any missing gaps. The distribution is available in many different editions. There's a DVD edition, GNOME and KDE editions, 32-bit and 64-bit builds and live CDs featuring a variety of language packs. In total I counted about 20 different download options, not including the torrent files. This variety is very much in line with the Mandriva tradition and may be, in my opinion, the biggest hurdle to trying out Mageia as the array of options is likely to be overwhelming to new users. However, the release notes are well laid out and detailed which will hopefully level out the experience for newcomers. I decided to try the 32-bit KDE edition of Mageia in the form of a live CD.
Booting from the live CD brings up a menu asking if we'd like to try the live environment or launch the system installer. I opted to try the live environment and, a few minutes later, was shown a series of option screens where I was asked to provide my preferred language, accept the distribution's license, choose my time zone and confirm my keyboard layout. Shortly after entering my information I was shown a blue-themed classic desktop environment. An application menu, quick-launch icons and task switcher sat at the bottom of the screen. Along the left side of the display were icons for browsing the file system, launching the installer and visiting Mageia's website. The application menu, as it turns out, is presented in the classic fashion and I found it to be both compact and easy to navigate.
Mageia's installer provides us with a graphical interface and takes us through a series of screens which are fairly simple in layout. The disk partitioning section comes first and we can either instruct the installer to use the existing layout as it wishes or proceed with manual partitioning. I thought it was a nice touch that the installer recommends we backup existing files before continuing with the installation. Manual partitioning I found to be nicely arranged. At the top of the window we're shown a visual representation of our disk. Clicking on parts of the diagram or various action buttons allows us to create, format, delete and resize sections of the disk. Supported file systems include ext3, ext4, ReiserFS, JFS, XFS and NTFS. We can also make use of LVM layouts and RAID configurations. The installer also supports partition encryption. Yet, with all of these options, the developers have managed to keep the layout uncluttered and one action tends to flow seamlessly into the next. After setting up our partitions we're given the option to remove unused hardware support and extra localization files to free up disk space. Then we wait while the installer copies the files it needs to our local disk. When it is finished we're asked if we would like to install the GRUB boot loader or the LILO boot loader and we can set the location where we'd like the boot loader installed. We also have the option of editing the boot options the installer detects for us. Then the installer advises us to reboot the machine.
What I especially appreciate about the Mageia installer is each screen is simple. We are typically asked one straight forward question and offered reasonable defaults. For more experienced users almost every screen has an "Advanced" button which brings up more options. The approach makes for a clean design while allowing for more fine-tuned installations.
Mageia 2 -- System installer
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The first time we boot our local copy of Mageia the distribution downloads a series of files. The notice that a download was in progress went by quickly and no explanation was given -- I suspect the system was downloading repository information. Then a first-run wizard appears, asking us to set a root password and to create a regular user account. With our account created we're handed over to a graphical login screen. The login screen allows us to login as our regular user and also provides the option to login as a guest user. The guest account requires no password and wipes out any changes made to the account when the user logs out, leaving the account in a pristine state. Not only is this feature useful for when friends wish to borrow our computer, but the guest account can be managed (and deleted) just like any other user account via the system's control centre. The login screen also offers us the option of logging into either a KDE desktop or into IceWM, a useful fall-back option for lower-resource machines or to rescue the system if a problem develops with KDE.
Exploring the application menu we find Mageia comes with Firefox and Konqueror for web browsing, the LibreOffice suite and a document viewer in the default installation. We also find the GNU Image Manipulation Program, a system monitor and the Drake Network Centre (draknetcenter) for managing network connections. In the Multimedia section we find the Amarok music player, the KsCD audio CD player and the Dragon video player. The application menu includes the usual small apps such as a text editor, calculator and archive manager. The system comes with the KDE System Settings panel and a system control centre. The application menu also features a copy of the KDE documentation. While using the distribution I found some multimedia codecs were installed by default, mp3 files could be played on a fresh install for instance. Some video files would play, but generally opening a video file brought up a dialog box saying the proper codec could not be found and gave the option of searching the repositories for the proper software. With the default (free) repositories enabled these searches could not locate the required codecs. To get the required package the user must manually enable the extra (non-free) repositories. Adding the repositories is fairly easy to do, but I feel it's something the search software should offer to do for us automatically. Offering to search free repositories we know do not include the required packages isn't helpful in itself. The default install from a live CD doesn't include Flash, nor Java, nor a compiler, though each of these things may be installed from the repositories. Mageia ships with the 3.3 version of the Linux kernel and it is one of the few distributions shipping with up to date software which still installs the Legacy version of the GRUB boot loader.
The Mageia package manager presents us with a fairly simple graphical interface. Down the left side of the window we see application categories and, down the right side, we see a list of software in the selected category. Packages are displayed with a name and description and items can be added or removed from the system by checking a box. Actions we want to perform are queued together and run in batches. One nice feature of the package manager is it provides a collection of easy to understand filters. Software can be displayed by type (meta package, GUI application, all applications, updates) and by status (installed or available). I found the package manager to be quick to respond and, like most utilities in Mageia, straight forward to use. There is a secondary graphical package manager in Mageia called Apper. Apper feels less structured, presenting all categories and items in one large pane in the manager's window. Though Apper worked well for me and also provided clear software categories, I found the structure of the main package manager more appealing.
Mageia 2 -- Managing software packages
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I ran into some problems when it came to updating software on the system. Shortly after installing Mageia I went to the control centre and launched the update manager. It informed me there were no updates available at the time. I went into the package manager and refreshed the repository information. Again, both the main package manager and the update manager reported no updates were available, a claim they maintained during the course of the entire week. However, when I went into the Apper package manager and clicked the Updates icon it informed me there were over a dozen packages waiting to be updated. Apper downloaded and installed the updates without any problems. This pattern continued as the week went on where updates would appear in Apper only.
The Mageia control centre is probably the most distinct feature of the distribution. It provides an excellent way to configure most aspects of the operating system and does so in a way which should be either familiar, or at least easy to learn, for new users. The control centre is broken into several sections including software management, hardware, booting, security and the general system. Opening one of these sections presents us with labeled icons which launch specific modules, much the same way the KDE System Settings panel works. Through the Mageia control centre we can handle adding and removing software, timing checks for updates and enabling or disabling 3D visual effects. We can set up printers and scanners, connect to UPS devices to monitor the available power, configure our keyboard and mouse and adjust network settings. We can also set up proxies and virtual private networks. We can adjust our login authentication, enable or disable system services and manage user accounts (including the guest account). There is a module for importing documents and settings from a Windows partition, another for viewing and searching through log files. We find modules for creating NFS and Samba shares, a module to manage disk partitions and a firewall utility. There is a section for enabling website filtering and parental controls, a module for configuring the boot loader and a tool for enabling more fine-gained system-wide security. Though fine-tuned security models like SELinux and AppArmor can be intimidating to new users, Mageia comes with preset profiles which are easy to understand and enable. Some optional security profiles include "standard", "netbook" & "webserver" and each comes with an explanation to help users get started.
I did run into a few problems when working with the control centre. For instance, when trying to launch a module called "snapshots", presumably a backup tool, the module instantly crashed and offered to send a bug report. This happened each time I tried to access the snapshot module. Another utility which didn't appear to work as expected was the parental control for blocking access to specific applications. For example, I installed Kate and blocked my user from having access to the text editor. If I opened a virtual terminal and tried to launch Kate I'd get an access denied error and the application wouldn't show up in my path. However, if I went to the application menu and simply clicked on the Kate icon, the editor would open. Apparently there is a hole there which hasn't yet been plugged. These two bugs, and the issue of the missing package updates aside, I found things in the control centre worked as expected and I found all of the tools easy to use.
Mageia 2 -- System and desktop settings
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I tried running Mageia on two test machines, my HP laptop (dual-core 2 GHz CPU, 3GB of RAM, Intel video card) and a desktop box (2.5 GHz CPU, 2 GB of RAM, NVIDIA video card). On both machines Mageia ran well. The desktop was responsive, even with effects turned on. The operating system correctly detected and utilized my laptop's Intel wireless card and I encountered no hardware compatibility issues. I did note that Mageia is a bit slower to boot than some other modern Linux distros, such as Ubuntu and Fedora. However, once up and running Mageia performed well. Running the KDE desktop without any applications open typically used around 220MB of RAM. I also ran Mageia in a VirtualBox virtual machine and found the experience to be nearly identical to running on physical hardware. Though desktop responsiveness did suffer in the virtual environment if visual effects were enabled.
Going into this review one of my internal questions was whether the community around Mageia had managed to introduce a significant amount of documentation and infrastructure to the project. Mageia, after all, having come from Mandriva was bound to contain the same useful, polished technology, the same excellent control panel and up to date desktop environments, but what about the project's website, its support? If we were to look strictly at the wiki and the documentation provided there we would soon see there is still work to be done. The release notes are quite good, but instructions and how-tos are in short supply. The flip side to this is Mageia's active forum community. We might assume from this situation support is less likely to come from the top down, but rather from users helping each other. As for the distribution itself, its quality is, for the most part, well above average. The CD is a bit light on software (there doesn't appear to be any default e-mail client, for example), but most of the basics are present. The control panel is easily the nicest and (nearly) the most complete in the Linux ecosystem, its only real rival being the very powerful, but notably less novice-friendly, YaST from the openSUSE project.
I did run into some minor issues while using Mageia, the snapshot utility and the main software update utility being the notable areas of concern, but mostly my time with Mageia was smooth, pleasant, largely complete and welcoming. I write "welcoming" because Mageia's greatest strength may not be its technical merits (though those are good), but in its design. The Mageia developers have produced one of the nicest feeling distributions I have experienced in a while. The Mageia developers really appear to understand the reasoning that just because a feature is available that doesn't mean it should be enabled by default.
Take, for example, the desktop. It's a modern KDE 4.8 desktop, yet windows don't change shape or size when they bump into the top of the screen, there are no desktop widgets and the few effects which are enabled by default are minor. The application menu is presented in the classic style and is cleanly laid out, without clutter or redundancy. Even little things like the way the virtual terminal is a plain white on black with no transparency nor flashing cursor are a nice change from what I've experienced recently. The theme is interesting without being distracting and the Mageia developers have provided GRUB Legacy for a boot loader, making managing the boot options less complicated for the user. All in all, the distribution provides a modern environment in which to work with all the modern conveniences, but with most of the frills turned off by default and it makes for a quiet, productive workspace. I found I enjoyed the combination of having a lot of options, but having them turned off at the beginning as opposed to many other environments where the options either do not exist, or they do exist and every bell and whistle is enabled.
Despite a few bugs, most of which I hope will be fixed in the coming months, I found Mageia to be solid, useful and novice-friendly. The team's infrastructure appears to be in place and working well. Once the wiki gets padded out with additional documentation I suspect Mageia will float to the top of my recommendation list.
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| Miscellaneous News |
Fedora updates, preparing for secure boot, Debian on Raspberry Pi
The big news from this past week was the release of Fedora 17, from the open source community distribution sponsored by Red Hat. The popular Linux distribution, code named "Beefy Miracle", was presented to the
world with the Fedora team's usual sense of humour: "At the heat of a thousand hot dog cookers, the seventeenth release of Fedora shall be forged by contributors the world over, and it will be known as: Beefy Miracle. The mustard shall indicate progress. For six months, participants in the Fedora Project shall freely contribute to the release of the distribution, in the spirit of the Four Foundations -- Freedom, Friends, Features, and First -- and moreover, they shall relish in Fun, as a community without Fun would be like a day without sunshine..." The latest release includes the latest GNOME desktop, version 3.4, easy access for users hot plugging external media, quick-n-easy multi-seat support and many bug fixes and updates.
Alongside the release of Fedora's "Beefy Miracle" the project's community is looking at changing the
way names, themes and version numbers will be applied to future Fedora releases. Some proposals include
separating names from the theming and artwork, no longer forcing a relationship between the previous release name and the next version's name and coming up with a more descriptive naming scheme.
Later this year we will see consumer desktop and laptop computers shipping with secure boot enabled
by default. This new technology, while it provides a useful defense against some forms of malware, also
poses a hurdle to users wishing to install open source operating systems. Matthew Garrett, an employee at
Red Hat, blogged last week about some of the plans being looked at to make sure Fedora 18 is able to run in
secure environments. His well written and detailed blog post, entitled "Implementing UEFI Secure Boot in Fedora",
outlines the challenges and potential benefits from the various approaches under consideration.
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For months the tech sector and hobbyist websites have been buzzing with news about the
Raspberry Pi, a small, US$25 computer. The tiny computer, about the size of a credit card, features an ARM processor, a USB port, HDMI video and an ethernet port.
The creators of the Raspberry Pi hope it will be used primarily as an educational tool, but its ability to run Linux distributions, such as Debian GNU/Linux, makes it a very flexible platform. Last week Thom Holwerda
posted his first impressions of the Pi. His impression of running Debian on the Raspberry? "I came away impressed. X and LXDE were slow, but everything seemed to work just fine, and that alone turned a big smile on my face."
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The Software Freedom Conservancy announced last week a new series of projects designed to
uphold the rights of free and open source software developers, users and distributors. Occasionally open source code gets used in a project or product with the best of intentions, however some
organizations slip up and fail to obey all of the requirements of their license. In an effort to
make sure the rights of developers and users are being upheld one of the Conservancy's new projects is the
"GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers. This new project is comprised of copyright holders in the Linux kernel who have contributed to Linux under its license, the GPLv2. These seven copyright holders have formally asked Conservancy to engage in compliance efforts for their copyrights in the Linux kernel." Once again we hear from Matthew Garrett, one of seven kernel developers to support this new project: "For some time, many Linux kernel copyright holders have offered our moral support to the BusyBox enforcement efforts through Conservancy, but didn't have the ability to formalize that support. I'm glad to put my copyrights forward for this new initiative, and welcome any Linux kernel copyright holders who wish to join us to reach out to Conservancy..."
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Some more good news for fans of Android, the mobile operating system based on the Linux kernel: the APIs used in the Android platform have been found to not be subject to copyright. According to
Ars Technica Judge Alsup compared APIs and source code to a library, declaring, "...the Java and Android libraries are organized in the same basic way but all of the chapters in Android have been written with implementations different from Java but solving the same problems and providing the same functions." This all but concludes the Android case in favour of Google.
It is reported Oracle plans to appeal the decision.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Improving software performance
Doing-some-work-under-the-hood asks:
Is there a noticeable advantage to the average user to justify spending some time compiling from scratch? What extra control do I have that would be different from what the developer compiling the app already incorporates for me (what do they assume about me I might like to change during compilation)? Is it worth the time and effort (other than gaining some knowledge of the inner workings of Linux)?
DistroWatch answers:
It's been my experience that no, compiling software from scratch usually does not present a noticeable advantage for average users. There are a lot of qualifiers in that statement I feel I should explain. Let's back up a bit.
When someone else is putting together packages for a software repository the software is generally compiled with a wide range of CPU architectures in mind. They are targeting the lowest common denominator. This means the package is likely to run on a wide range of processors, but it also means potential short-cuts aren't taken. It's also possible certain compiler optimizations might not be taken, either to insure functionality across many processors or to avoid uncovering bugs in the code itself. When we compile our own software we have the option of taking all the short-cuts and optimizations specific to our processor. This lets us focus on what our CPU can do for us, rather than taking the lowest common denominator. In case this seems a bit abstract, imagine you have an old calculator that can only add, subtract, multiply and divide. You want to find out what 2 to the 4th power is. On the old calculator you type in
2 X 2 X 2 X 2 =
Now let's swap out our old calculator for a new one which can handle exponents and we can type
2 ^ 4 =
Either way we end up with the same answer, but the second way takes fewer steps. When we compile our own code, we can make sure of all the features and short-cuts are used instead of going the round about safe way that will work on all processors.
All of this sounds great, so why not compile everything to match our CPU? Sadly, as the saying goes, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Compiling software takes time. For small packages it might take a minute or two, for larger packages it can take several hours. Even if we're using a ports system or our distribution's package manager to make sure dependencies are handled for us, compiling significantly large software takes a long time. It takes time, it takes (electrical) energy and it occupies our CPU when we might want it for other things (unless we schedule our compiling to happen when we're not around). Then, once our software has been compiled and installed, the results can be a bit underwhelming.
Many of the programs we use day-to-day do not run flat out, but rather have other bottlenecks for performance. A word processor, for example, spends almost all of its time waiting for us to type. A web browser spends a good deal of its time waiting for network traffic. Further, most of us will not notice if our music player uses 10% less memory than it did before. In most cases the CPU is not what slows down our software, it's the network or the hard drive or even us. There are cases when optimizations are useful, even important. Massive websites, such as Google and Facebook, are probably happy to compile their software to get a 5% boost in performance because they're dealing with millions of users at a time. Gamers may find compiling their favourite titles provides better performance. People who find themselves converting large libraries of multimedia from one format to another will likely see a benefit to compiling. Likewise people using very low-spec hardware might want to compile their software to squeeze more functionality into a limited environment. However, for most of us, most of the time, we won't see a noticeable difference between a custom compiled application and a generic package from a distribution's repository.
What I'm coming around to is rather than deciding to compile all of our applications from scratch in an effort to boost performance, we would be better off looking at each application on its own and asking "what is slowing its performance?" What can we do to speed up this process? For instance, rather than spending hours recompiling our web browser, we might simply switch off pre-fetching or block Flash content. Applications slowed by disk performance might benefit more from running on a different file system instead of being recompiled. There is a time and a place for building from scratch, but we should make sure the main barrier to performance is the CPU before we choose to compile our own software with custom settings.
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| Released Last Week |
Caixa Mágica 18
Caixa Mágica 18, a Portuguese Linux distribution for desktops and servers based on Ubuntu, has been released. Caixa Mágica 18 is a long-term support release which guarantees that it will receive security updates for the period of five years. Four different editions - GNOME, KDE, LXDE and "servidor" - are available. The major software packages included in this release are GNOME 3.4.1, KDE 4.8.2, LibreOffice 3.5.2, Linux kernel 3.2, as well as a new Portuguese citizen card software program. Additionally, the project now offers a new web-based utility for one-click installation of software applications. See the release
announcement (in Portuguese) for more information.
Fedora 17
Robyn Bergeron has announced the release of Fedora 17, the latest stable version of the Red Hat-sponsored community distribution of Linux: "The 'Beefy Miracle' hath arrived. We believe this is the beefiest release ever - chock full of features to customize your experience to your tastes. On the desktop, GNOME 3.4 introduces new search capabilities in the activities overview, improved themes, and enhancements to the Documents and Contacts applications. A new application, GNOME-boxes, provides easy access to virtual machines. Additionally, GIMP 2.8 brings new improvements, such as single-window mode, layer groups, and on-canvas editing." See the release announcement and release notes for further information.
Fedora 17 -- GNOME Shell environment
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Grml 2012.05
Michael Prokop has announced the release of Grml 2012.05, a Debian-based live CD designed for system administrators and users of text tools: "We just released Grml 2012.05 'Ponyhof'. Thanks for all the feedback we received for our 2011.12 release, we took it serious and hope that everyone finds 2012.05 such a wonderful release as we consider it to be. There were some changes between 2012.05-rc1 and the new stable release. The most important ones are: update to Linux kernel 3.3.7; added sysstat (and imvirt-helper was pulled in as dependency); fixed GRUB 2, iPXE and MirOS bsd4grml boot options for 64-bit ISO images; added wallpaper; fixed language boot option for the grml-small flavour." Read the release announcement and release notes for more details.
KNOPPIX 7.0.1
Klaus Knopper has announced the release of KNOPPIX 7.0.1, a major new update to the project's Debian-based live DVD consisting of a representative collection of GNU/Linux software and automatic hardware detection: "Version 7.0.1 of KNOPPIX is based on the usual picks from Debian stable and newer desktop packages from Debian testing and Debian unstable. It includes: Linux kernel 3.3.7 and X.Org 7.6 (core 1.12.1.902); optional 64-bit kernel via the 'knoppix64' boot option supporting systems with more than 4 GB of RAM and chroot to 64-bit installations for system rescue tasks; LibreOffice 3.5.3; Chromium 18.0.1025.168 and Firefox/Iceweasel 10.0 web browsers; LXDE (default), KDE 4.7.4 (boot option 'knoppix desktop=kde'), GNOME 3.4 (boot option 'knoppix desktop=gnome')." Read the rest of the release notes for further
information.
Clonezilla 1.2.12-60
Steven Shiau has announced the release of Clonezilla Live 1.2.12-60, a new stable version of the specialist Debian-based live CD with free disk cloning software: "This release of Clonezilla live (1.2.12-60) includes major enhancements and minor bug fixes. Enhancements and changes: the underlying GNU/Linux operating system was upgraded, this release is based on the Debian 'Sid' repository as of 2012-05-25; Linux kernel was updated to 3.2.18; the drbl package was updated to 1.12.9 and Clonezilla was to 2.5.36; Partclone was updated to 0.2.48; Gdisk was updated to 0.8.4; Allowing to enter command-line prompt to create partition table when blank destination disk is found in restoreparts mode; the vlan package was added; vmfs5 file systems support was enabled again..." The release announcement has all the details.
Parted Magic 2012_05_30
Patrick Verner has announced the release of Parted Magic 2012_05_30, a utility live CD designed primarily for disk management and data rescue tasks: "Minor bug fix release with some added programs and updates. SpaceFM was updated to 0.7.7 and now uses udevil for device mounting. pyNeighborhood 0.5.4, Shorewall 4.4.27, Shorewall6 4.4.27.3, gptsync 0.14 and udevil 0.2.4 were added. Coreutils 8.17, File 5.11, LFTP 4.3.6, MB 1.1.11, OpenSSH 6.0p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8x, rdesktop 1.7.1, SSHFS FUSE 2.4, UNetbootin 575, zerofree 1.0.2, ClamAV 0.97.4, e2fsprogs 1.42.3, FUSE 2.9.0, rsync 3.0.9, cifs-utils 5.4, keyutils 1.5.5, krb5 1.7.1, cURL 7.25.0, Libidn 1.25, OpenLDAP client 2.4.31, and SpaceFM 0.7.7 were updated. The Download Java program has been completely rewritten and works more reliably now. Work on a GUI for Shorewall has started." Visit the project's news page to read the release announcement.
VectorLinux 7.0 "SOHO"
Robert Lange has announced the release of VectorLinux 7.0 "SOHO" edition, a Slackware-based distribution with KDE optimised for business and office use: "The final release of VectorLinux 7.0 SOHO is now available. This release is built on the 7.0 GOLD release featuring the recently released KDE 4.8.3 desktop experience. VectorLinux is the fastest Linux desktop in its class bar none. We have spared no expense to bring the KDE 4 desktop to the Linux community in a unique fashion that is best tried to see KDE 4 at its most awesome potential. With the custom artwork, visual tweaks and a little Vector magic, behold SOHO as you have never seen it before. DVD playback, audio and video codecs, multimedia and Java plugins are installed and working out of the box." See the release announcement for more information.
VectorLinux 7.0 -- Desktop
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SolusOS 1.1
Ikey Doherty has announced the release of SolusOS 1.1, a desktop Linux distribution based on Debian's stable branch but with a newer kernel and up-to-date software packages: "The SolusOS team is pleased to announce the release of SolusOS 1.1. This release brings greater hardware support and newer application versions, as well as support for hybrid GPUs, such as the NVIDIA Optimus. A new 3.3.6 kernel is at its core with the BFS patch, alongside the GNOME 2.30 desktop environment. Many new application versions are present. Brief overview of software versions: Firefox 12.0, Thunderbird 12.0.1, LibreOffice 3.5.4, OpenShot 1.4.2, VLC 2.0.1.... The 1.1 series, although based on the 'Eveline' repositories, is to be maintained separately from the 1.0 series." Read the rest of the release announcement for more details.
ZevenOS 2.5 "Neptune"
Leszek Lesner has announced the release of ZevenOS 2.5 "Neptune" edition, a Debian-based distribution with a choice of KDE, LXDE and Enlightenment desktops and a number of wireless network diagnostic tools: "The Neptune team is proud to announce the release of ZevnOS 'Neptune' 2.5. This release comes with Linux kernel 3.3.4 with lots of patches and drivers. As usual and for the last time we ship two official variants - 'full' edition with KDE 4.8.3 and 'minimal' edition with LXDE and Enlightenment 17. The full edition comes with Chromium 18, Icedove 10, GIMP 2.8, Kdenlive 0.9.2, Amarok 2.6, VLC 2.0.1 and many more updates. We ship with the latest and greatest multimedia codecs pre-installed. For wireless diagnosis we ship Wireshark, Aircrack-ng and Kismon." Here is the full
release announcement.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 11 June 2012. To contact the authors please send email to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, suggestions and corrections: news, donations, distribution submissions, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (feedback and suggestions: podcast edition)
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1 • Mageia (by Mike on 2012-06-04 10:31:55 GMT from Netherlands)
I have tried Mageia 2 during the last week, but keep having problems that made me decide to look for a new distro. I have the problem that sometimes the machine does not seem to react. It freezes. This often turns up when I use firefox. I also hav problems with devede. I have sync problems I did not have when I was using PCLinuxOS. Although there is no 64-bit version of PCLinuxOS, I will install it on my i7 system.
2 • Mageia release (by gtarn409 on 2012-06-04 10:57:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
I wish all the best to the Mageia team but first impressions are not good.
It uses American English in its Menus, doesn't it? Even if you select British English and are a Brit living in the UK or elsewhere in Europe.
Also it it is difficult to multiboot with it, as Mageia uses Grub legacy whilst the rest of us have moved on to Grub 2. There are conflicts and sometimes "you need to load the kernel first" message pops up on boot.
A note to Mandriva developers - please use Grub 2 when you bring out your new release this year. It's the standard now.
3 • Mageia / Fedora F17 KDE (by rich52 on 2012-06-04 11:09:58 GMT from United States)
I found both distro's to work fairly well. I installed Mageia 2 for about a week and the only issue I had which I did fix was to use auto screen resolution for my large 27 in. flat screen monitor which did fixed my messed up aspect ratio. I finally go that fixed and it all worked smoothly to my surprise. The recognition of my Nvidia driver and wifi card during installation was a snap. Overall it looks and works very well. I also like KDE and l refuse to use Gnome on any desktop system.
Fedora F17 KDE also now my primary distro works very well also. It too is excellent.My biggest disappointment was not to see btrfs as the default file system as it's been in the works for a long time a waiting but who knows eventually it will come??? I like the volume management system setup for multiple hard drives. . .this has always been a nice feature to me. KDE is looking so very good to me now that I could care less about Gnome. I've got it only installed on a laptop where I think it looks and performs well there. On a desktop. . forget it.
Rich :)
4 • Bugs Fixed? (by Bob on 2012-06-04 11:48:35 GMT from Austria)
Quote: "Despite a few bugs, most of which I hope will be fixed in the coming months ...".
That's a good one! I am using all kinds of Tuxes for more than 10 years now and I never got the impression that the number of bugs is on the decline. But there is always hope, of course. ;-)
5 • Pls. try to "boot from USB key" instead of poluting the Earth with CDs :) (by serge on 2012-06-04 12:30:37 GMT from Canada)
Hi Jesse:
This is NOT a criticism, but just a comment on the possibility of trying to lower the amount of plastic being wasted and polluting our Earth. If the distro allows, what do u think of using a USB key and boot from it. Ubuntu has its own utility, or there are other utilities to make a USB key from any distro's ISOs. It's so easy and the USB key can be re-used again and again, especially for testing.
Thanks and love your writings on Distrowatch.
Cheers.
6 • Magiea (by KC1DI on 2012-06-04 12:36:37 GMT from United States)
I too have tried Magiea 2 but found too many problems with it.
for one could not get vlc to work at all on 64 bit system. system repositories were extermly slow too over an hour to install basic needs then dependencies were not all met.
think there repositories need to be up to speed first.
7 • @2 gtarn409 mageia vs grub1/2 (by kernelpanic! on 2012-06-04 13:21:53 GMT from Germany)
gtarn409 ... I totally disagree with you concerning grub legacy.
on my 2 desktop pcs (each one with 2 HDs) I usually have multiboot systems up to 10 or so different linux distros, each of them is booting up happily with grub LEGACY, sitting in MBR.
after each new installation, it`s just editing a few lines in "menu.lst" and off we go! no complicated grub.cfg that can be only handled by "update grub" and stuff.
for me grub2 was just a big regression and nobody yet could tell me what improvement was achieved with it for the "standard user". (does this remind anyone to the gnome3 vs gnome2 debate?)
so I find delivering grub legacy instead of grub2 with a distribution shows a sense of what is really needed, and what isn`t.
because it`s (grub2) "the standard now"?
wasn`t/isn`t windows standard on PCs? therefore stick with it? come on ... ;-)
which you all nice and simple booting!
8 • USB key (by Jesse on 2012-06-04 14:02:56 GMT from Canada)
>> "This is NOT a criticism, but just a comment on the possibility of trying to lower the amount of plastic being wasted and polluting our Earth. If the distro allows, what do u think of using a USB key and boot from it. "
It's an idea I like, however it isn't practical in my case. One of my test machines (the desktop) does not support booting from a USB thumb drive. This means I either have to drop one of my testing machines or continue to use optical discs for testing.
9 • USB key (by Anonymous Coward on 2012-06-04 14:19:07 GMT from Spain)
You don´t need a CD or USB to test a distribution.
Most distributions I have tested recently were not recorded to external media. You can just unpack the ISO in an internal partition of the device and point LILO (or any boot loader) to that partition. The partition will boot as if it was a CD, but you will have saved a CD or USB.
This method has been refered to as "Frugal Install" somewhere. It should work in any computer which can boot from its internal drives.
10 • 1 problem with SolusOS (by tek_heretik on 2012-06-04 14:47:11 GMT from Canada)
It's i386.
11 • Never much cared for Mandriva/Mandrake... (by tek_heretik on 2012-06-04 14:49:27 GMT from Canada)
so after reading about the bugs in Mageia, I think I'll give it a pass until it matures.
12 • Oracle vs. Google... (by Thom on 2012-06-04 15:08:46 GMT from Sweden)
I can recommend Groklaw for those wanting to know more about the legal war being fought against open source. Many battles are waged by the Dark Side to force technology through their toll Gates.
Did you know that Samsung pays Microsoft $$ for every Android device they ship (as in pay Microsoft for not buying a WinPhone)??
www.groklaw.net
13 • USB Key or CD? (by Vishwanath on 2012-06-04 15:16:10 GMT from India)
How do you forget the rewritable CD/ DVD? This lowers the pain for the env ironment lover.
14 • USB Key or CD (by Dieter on 2012-06-04 15:35:32 GMT from Germany)
Every system can boot from USB with the help from plop - plop bootmanager -> http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanagers.html
Install plop bootmanager on hdd or cd and boot with it.
I have to reconfigure plop bootmanager via setup and the point "force usb 1.1" to "mode 1" or "mode 2" on all of my non-usb-able-boot-systems!
plop bootmanager is also included at "OmniBootDVD"
That's my two €urocents from Bavaria.
Dieter
15 • @10 (by Rajamohan on 2012-06-04 15:38:15 GMT from India)
SolusOs1.1 has now 64Bit release, I had made it as a main stream system after some tweaks to my need
16 • Mageia 2 (by The Rifleman on 2012-06-04 15:50:23 GMT from United States)
I had a well configured Mageia 1 running and chose the "Upgrade" option to go to Mageia 2 from the DVD. (Mageia 1 was also installed from the DVD) So much stuff is broken after this upgrade that Mageia 2 is not worth running. Firefox doesn't run at all and is still at version 10 with version 13 immanent. K-Mail was broken from the starting line! While a User in the forums helped to me to get it going, it's still broken with new E-Mails hitting my mailbox as read! Filters don't work at all! Even when manually executed.
I have the latest Adobe Flash and Web-Sites either don't run video or they report my Flash is out-of-date!
I suspect the reasoning for all these issues and ones I don't have space for here, is that curtain files and/or folders in the KDE4 Directory are not properly being modified, overwritten, or outright replaced as they should since, Mageia 2 has none of these issues if installed on a drive with no O.S.
Mageia 1 made a great impression on me but, Mageia 2 has turned me to looking for another Distro like Fedora as I have nothing good to say about Mageia 2. I have work to do and this is not helping me. Windows upgrades without all this, so why can't Linux?!
17 • Improving Software Performance: get an SSD (by Leo on 2012-06-04 16:02:31 GMT from United States)
I liked very much the article about performance. I do think it would make sense to compile things like the kernel. I wish ubuntu had an easy way to download a source deb and build and install it.
Anyways, IMHO, the greatest improvement a user can get these days is by using a fast SSD. The disk is the worst bottleneck, these days, and a fast SSD can be orders of magnitude faster for certain operations, particularly random I/O
Cheers!
18 • Stability of the Kernel (by Bestieboy on 2012-06-04 16:23:50 GMT from Puerto Rico)
kernelpanic, while grub2 has still some missing features provided by grub legacy, it provide some nice tools to manage it's config files and even if you include osprober helper app, it can find other OS's installed automatically, which facilitates a lot the work needed by distribution packagers and end users.
But as Jeffersonian said, quality in the kernel since last year or so have been not that good. I have also been affected by bugs in certain kernel releases that end up in distributions, my last one being a regression (video card issue) that affected all distributions that were released with kernel 3.0. None of them were able to boot my machine from a livecd. That's why I switched my server to FreeBSD.
19 • @17 (by seacat on 2012-06-04 16:36:42 GMT from Argentina)
I had a lot of troubles to update Mageia 1 with Mageia 2 DVD. For that reason, I did a clean installation with CD version. Now I'm running Mageia 2 without any trouble.
20 • Intresting distro... (by Pete on 2012-06-04 16:38:56 GMT from Czech Republic)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
21 • Compiling (by Magic Banana on 2012-06-04 16:54:20 GMT from Brazil)
I totally agree that speed gain is not *the* reason to compile one's system. However there are reasons to do so: having the minimal number of minimally configured applications means less security risks, an easier maintenance, less potential bugs, etc.
Taking Gentoo (the most famous compiled GNU/Linux distribution) as an example, I would say that the point of compiling is expressed by the "raison d'être" of the USE variable: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=2&chap=2#doc_chap1
22 • @7/ GRUB 2 (by mz on 2012-06-04 16:02:39 GMT from United States)
Wasn't there some feature in recent versions of KDE that allow GRUB 2 users to restart their computer to a specific O? I thought I saw that somewhere and decided there were neat features in GRUB 2, if they work.
23 • @8 (by Serge on 2012-06-04 14:23:54 GMT from Canada)
"It's an idea I like, however it isn't practical in my case. One of my test machines (the desktop) does not support booting from a USB thumb drive. This means I either have to drop one of my testing machines or continue to use optical discs for testing."
Perfectly good reason. AND, again, I hope I didn't come across as a bit arrogant, and critical - wasn't my intention at all. I should've used more appropriate wording - well as Ladislav likes to quote Mark Twain: "It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt" - Boy, how many times I wish I used that principle in my life :)
Again, keep up the good work and cheers.
Serge.
24 • Alternative install media (by Jesse on 2012-06-04 21:02:28 GMT from Canada)
@Serge,
You didn't come across at all arrogant. Quite the opposite and I appreciate the suggestion. I try to be environmentally aware and do as much as I can to reduce my footprint upon the world. I am considering moving away from testing distros on the older machine and, if I do drop it, I hope to move all my testing to a USB drive to avoid making "coasters".
Re: 17
I also think SSD drives are a good way to go with regard to improving performance. The hard drive is often my biggest performance block and SSDs help.
25 • Snows new release (by Jurek78 on 2012-06-04 21:24:18 GMT from Germany)
@rifleman Mageia 2 is surely a grab into toilet. But guess what, I already prepared a bucket for testing out Snow. (only for the laughter of this LTS- thing in the announcement)
26 • Mageia 2 (by Saptech on 2012-06-04 21:29:13 GMT from United States)
I had upgrade my Mga1 since Beta 2 and haven't had any issues with Mageia. I've been using it since it first came out and will continue to use it. I also dual boot with Salix OS using Mga grub. No issues. I'm glad to have an alternative to Mandriva since we don't know how Mandriva will end.
Keep up the good work Mageia's team!
27 • Upgrade (by Smellyman on 2012-06-04 22:11:08 GMT from Hong Kong)
I am always amazed about the amount of people upgrading distros.
Clean upgrade always...
28 • Mageia 2 (by ianki on 2012-06-04 22:16:47 GMT from Spain)
I like Grub Legacy. I like Megeia 2. I like a straight forward distribution. I like the user freindliness. That's why I left Windows long time ago. I'm a user who needs a good tool that does not require a lot of time, effort and knowledge to maintain. But, I am afraid that much Linux is now heading in that direction. Becoming more sofisticated and complicated and as much a pain in a certain body part as was Windows. To me Linux has been a relief for years and I sincerely hope that the Mageia team does not jump on the geek-waggon.
29 • 13,14 USB Key or CD (by TheBulldog on 2012-06-04 22:21:32 GMT from United States)
I agree with 13 and 14. I use CD-RW and DVD-RW discs for testing. I also have one machine that won't boot from USB, so I use plop to launch the CD/DVD. Works great.
30 • Mageia 2 (by Caitlyn Maritn on 2012-06-04 22:33:26 GMT from United States)
I've played with Mageia 2 and ROSA 2012 Marathon (my review is at: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2012/05/the-russians-are-coming-a-firs.html ) and of the two I think ROSA is the better choice and is further along in developing a user friendly fork of Mandriva.
31 • @ 16 (by claudecat on 2012-06-04 22:35:07 GMT from United States)
Basing your opinion of Mageia 2 on an apparently unsuccessful in-place upgrade really isn't fair. Such upgrades are inherently unreliable for any distro. I did a clean install and everything is working flawlessly
Firefox is at version 10 as that is the LTS (long-term-support) release. They chose to offer that rather than the standard version for stability reasons. If you truly need it you can get regular Firefox via the mozilla website or other repos.
"Windows upgrades without all this, so why can't Linux?!"
Huh? It has never been possible to upgrade windows in the way that you upgraded Mageia. That would be like having a Vista install and magically turning it into Windows 7 via downloads. Ain't never gonna happen...
32 • @9 (by Brandon Sniadajewski on 2012-06-04 22:57:31 GMT from United States)
Is there a recommended file system to use for such partition setup? I tlooks like something I could try next time.
@27
I'd personally would rather do an in-place upgrade. When I installed from Live CD, I took things out that I don't need or want (like drivers, language packs, programs I don't use at all). If I upgraded via clean install, all that (extra) stuff gets reinstalled along with the upgrade, only for me to remove them again. With a "sudo do-release-upgrade" (using Kubuntu), I only upgrade the stuff I have already installed, saving some bandwidth in the process. I have yet to run into any major problems going this route.
33 • #32/31/16: In place upgrades (by Caitlyn Maritn on 2012-06-04 23:40:41 GMT from United States)
The problem is that in place upgrades generally don't work well between major releases. There is a reason why Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server/Desktop don't offer them. Sometimes they work OK, sometimes they don't. That's not what distros aiming at stability and reliability can offer.
@Brandon, with all due respect, you've been lucky. Maybe it will work just as well next time. Maybe it won't. A clean install always works. That's one of the big reasons I advocate keeping a separate /home partition: you can do a clean distro install and preserve your data and some application configuration as well.
One of the reasons I'm not a fan of Ubuntu or Fedora is that six months and then upgrade seems ridiculous to me. I also don't like living on the leading or often bleeding edge. Ubuntu LTS could be a better choice if they would do what Red Hat and SUSE do and backport new hardware support and drivers into their LTS kernel. They don't. openSUSE, Slackware and some others strike a middle ground between the very short and very long release cycles. That's also a good alternative. It looks like Mageia and ROSA are heading in that direction as well. I don't know that there is a published release schedule or cycle for either yet. We'll see as the two move forward.
34 • In place upgrades (by TobiSGD on 2012-06-05 00:33:00 GMT from Germany)
There are distros that can upgrade major versions without being a pain in the XXX, like Debian or Slackware. This is simply because they are well tested and in general the developers more or less imply that the users are knowing what they are doing. If you look at the forums for threads with failed upgrades you will find that in the most cases the installations that have failed to upgrade are those with a number of third party repositories (like Ubuntu's PPAs) enabled or the more unusual setups.
And I wouldn't expect it to be different. No distro developer can test the upgrade of their distro for any setup type out there, especially if third party software is involved and if the developers simply don't have the time to do proper tests (like on the distros with a six month release cycle).
What also can be observed is some kind of panic when a distro rolls out a new version. "Ubuntu 12.04 is there, I have to update my 11.10, despite the fact that it is running just fine." No, you don't, 11.10 is still supported for a year, you don't have to upgrade right now. I really ask myself where this behavior to always have the latest comes from.
So actually the real cause of failed upgrades is not the upgrade itself, but it is uninformed users and to short release cycles. Not because you have to upgrade every six months (which is simply not true), but because the short release cycle leaves no time for proper testing. There is a reason why Canonical recommends to users of their previous LTS to wait for the first point release before they make the upgrade. They don't want their business users to perform it before they have tested it more carefully.
35 • Backported kernels (by Jesse on 2012-06-05 01:24:26 GMT from Canada)
>> "Ubuntu LTS could be a better choice if they would do what Red Hat and SUSE do and backport new hardware support and drivers into their LTS kernel."
I'm curious as to what benefit would be gained from having new hardware support added via a backported kernel? If the original kernel didn't support one's hardware then the user/admin wouldn't install it in the first place. On the other hand if all the hardware works with the original kernel then there isn't any reason to upgrade. The only cases where I think it would make sense to have new drivers in a backported kernel is if the user upgraded key pieces of hardware to newer, unsupported items. Or an admin decided to add a bunch of new, unsupported, equipment to their environment between releases. Neither strikes me as a good idea.
Personally I'd rather not have backported drivers introduced in my kernel in case it breaks existing hardware support or reduces performance.
36 • Ubuntu LTS kernels (by Jesse on 2012-06-05 01:47:47 GMT from Canada)
Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to mention that Ubuntu LTS releases do offer the option of backported kernels with all the up to date drivers and goodies. I think Canonical started doing this with their Lucid (10.04) release. People running Ubuntu 10.04 can optionally install kernels 2.6.32, 2.6.35, 2.6.38 and 3.0.0 from the standard repositories. This allows people like me who like a static kernel to stick with the old version and people looking for newer hardware support to get the latest kernel releases.
37 • Can we get a MORE indepth review of non 'buntu distros (by Brad on 2012-06-05 02:47:46 GMT from United States)
I am personally using ArchLinux... only because after using pclinuxos, mint, vector, chakra, I went back to Arch..its like gentoo without the painfully long compile times, its' awesomely fast, and is worth the learning curve to install it. I am personally tired of all the 100's of "buntu" respun distros.. I mean it's almost getting to the point of a new 'buntu based distro is just ubuntu w/one extra package, custom wallpaper, a "different" kernel or a snazzy new name.. I, until I can no longer use, a non ubuntu distro, will stay away from them.. but on a side note, if I HAD to use a 'buntu based distro or recommend on, I'd go wtih mint/kubuntu.. But using arch has taught me so much about CLI editng,.. config files and tweaking, that I can pesonally tweak ubuntu(s) to my liking and its' fast.. jsut my .02 now I'm broke
38 • Re. 16: Upgrades (by uz64 on 2012-06-05 08:09:02 GMT from United States)
Why "upgrade" in the traditional Windows sense to begin with? That method is unreliable and buggy by its nature, no matter what the OS. Linux allows much more advanced, seamless partitioning of system and user data file systems that it inherited from UNIX... take advantage of it. Just back up your files if you're afraid you'll accidentally nuke the /home partition when you mean to only format the / partition (a good thing to do anyway) and enjoy a fresh new installation... with all your user data and configurations intact. You've got a fresh installation that is far more useful than any version of Windows fresh off the installation media, but if you need to use programs that are not installed by default, installing them is much more convenient than in Windows... AND you get to use your old configuration right away, no adjusting settings.
Sounds like you've just had a bad experience with an already-questionable "upgrade" method and now that you ran into a bug using that method (not surprising), you ended up with a broken upgrade... and now, somehow the whole distro is bad. It sounds like you need a cleaner, safer upgrade method... or maybe you're right and Mageia is not the right distro for you.
39 • Filesystem for @9 setup, short release cycles. (by Anonymous Coward on 2012-06-05 09:28:46 GMT from Spain)
Brandon Sniadajewski wrote:
-----------------------------------
Is there a recommended file system to use for such partition setup? I tlooks like something I could try next time.
-----------------------------------
Given your bootloader and your distribution support the filesystem out of the box, any filesystem will do the trick.
I have had a Knoppix CD dumped in a FAT partition and booting flawlessly. I currently have Knoppix 7.0.0 (DVD size) installed, but I don´t remember which filesystem I used :-)
The main advantage is that you can boot a Live "DVD" this way, so that system is always the same (no persistence, no degradation). I just remaster the distribution as described in the documentation, then pass the "noimage" option through the boot loader. This makes for a great secondary install. You never know when is your main operating system going to fail five minutes before the deadline you have to mail a report to your research team (for example :-D).
Another nice feature is that you can "frugal install" a distribution which loads itsef to RAM, such as Slitaz (Knoppix can if you have memory enough). The distribution copies itsellf to the memory and does not touch the drive after booting, so you can turn the drives off with hdparm and save some Watts of energy...
40 • Short Release Cycles (by Anonymous Coward on 2012-06-05 09:36:39 GMT from Spain)
Most of the times, short release cycles are more of a marketing stuff than of a quality thing. However, the quality of the release is more related to how seriously do the developers work. OpenBSD is released every six months and is considered a very bug-free system.
Maybe it is because the core system is not very big.
However, I agree that most linux distributions out there are released without proper testing and quality control, and fast scheduled releases do not help in this regard.
41 • #35/#36: Minsunderstanding of enterprise kernels (by Caitlyn Maritn on 2012-06-05 12:11:55 GMT from United States)
Hi, Jesse:
What Canonical does is offer different kernel versions with different levels of support rather than backporting drivers into a single kernel version as Red Hat and SUSE do. That doesn't work in an enterprise environment because large ISVs build their code for a specific kernel. A perfect example is an Oracle database, which is only certified against a single, specific kernel version. The software *may* work on something else but then you lose all Oracle support, something no enterprise shop is willing to do.
What Red Hat and SUSE do is offer a single kernel version, add hardware support, bug fixes and patches, without changing the core kernel code. The net result is that throughout the 10 year life of a RHEL version or the 7 year life of a SLES version the OS is guaranteed to work with the ISV software and will still support newer hardware. With Ubuntu LTS you have to sacrifice one or the other. This is the #1 reason Canonical has not made significant inroads with businesses.
Regarding breakage, my experience with both RHEL and SLES/SLED over the past 10 years or so tells me your fear is unwarranted. Both enterprise distributors have to avoid regressions and breakage or risk losing millions of dollars worth of business. No, they are not perfect but they avoid breaking hardware support for what was supported in the original release at all costs and are very fast at putting out patches if needed. They rarely are needed.
Finally, I'm sure someone will point out that I am talking about proprietary software support. Unfortunately for high end or highly specialized applications there often is no acceptable FOSS alternative. Let's say you want to do professional animation. You're going to use software like Maya and Houdini simply because there isn't anything FOSS that can touch the features of those proprietary products. That's true for all sorts of specialized business or industrial software as well.
42 • Short release cycles (by TobiSGD on 2012-06-05 14:05:42 GMT from Germany)
"Most of the times, short release cycles are more of a marketing stuff than of a quality thing. However, the quality of the release is more related to how seriously do the developers work. OpenBSD is released every six months and is considered a very bug-free system."
Of course you have to take the length of the release cycles in comparison with the amount and kind of changes. The changes made in OpenBSD are not comparable in number and "intrusiveness" to the changes made in Ubuntu or Fedora with every release.
43 • @41 (by Patrick on 2012-06-05 14:12:40 GMT from United States)
I have to admit I'm (happily!) not very involved in enterprise stuff, so I'm probably ignorant about these things, but I always wonder if these old kernels with backported stuff provide a real benefit or only a perceived one, just to keep the paper pushers happy by being able to say: "See, it still has the same version number."
An updated kernel obviously is not the same code as the kernel the ISV initially certified for their product. Does it really make that much difference whether it is the kernel developers that are making a change, and they properly bump the version number to reflect this change, or whether it is the disto developers that grab that same code, rip it out of the new kernel and bolt in onto the old kernel, just so they can NOT bump the version number?
Or in case ISVs would be re-certifying their code for every update to this old kernel, why couldn't they do the same with a new kernel, with a properly bumped version number? (Don't know if this is something that's typically done.)
Also, what applications are in such close contact with the kernel anyway? Aren't there a lot of system libraries that provide padding between the kernel and an application? Is the same version game played with those too, or are those really kept stable instead of faking it (ie no feature updates, only bug fixes)? I would think that for most applications, the kernel version is of minor concern compared to the version of GCC and libc it is built against. As long as the kernel stays compatible with the libraries the application is built against, would an application really care what kernel is running underneath it all?
44 • Kernel versions (by Jesse on 2012-06-05 14:58:37 GMT from Canada)
>> "As long as the kernel stays compatible with the libraries the application is built against, would an application really care what kernel is running underneath it all?"
The problem is, the kernel often does not remain compatible with the libraries and applications on top of it. The Linux kernel tends to change fairly quickly, even in so-called stable branches. One of the problems the ZFS porters ran into was the changing module interface (I think there were three or four distinct changes during the 2.6.x series). Look at the problems k3b had back around 2.6.8 when kernel changes prevented disc burning. This is why long term support distributions freeze their kernel at a certain point and only provide fixes to it, rather than keep up with the newer kernel, the Linux developers present a moving target.
45 • NVIDIA Optimus (by Blue Knight on 2012-06-05 15:19:22 GMT from France)
SolusOS says: «...support for hybrid GPUs, such as the NVIDIA Optimus.» I know Linux had some problems with the Optimus technology. Someone knows if now the things are better and if the support in Linux/BSD is improved? Also, SolusOS is really good with them? And mainly, what about Fedora and specially Mageia, please? Thank you very much... :D
46 • @44 (by Patrick on 2012-06-05 15:22:00 GMT from United States)
I see your point but the examples you provide are not the typical cases I was wondering about.
I know the kernel changes quite a lot in its internal interfaces, that's what the ZFS people would have had to deal with, but it is very much kernel work we're talking about in that case. Typical applications would not have to deal with any of this, being external to the kernel and isolated from it by system libraries.
The K3B problem is similar. It is obvious you're exposed to changes in the kernel if your job is to talk to hardware, as in the case of disk burning.
I was more wondering about standard business applications like the example of an Oracle database that was brought up. I don't get why an application like that has to care what kernel it is running on.
47 • @16, @38: Upgrade? (by Johannes on 2012-06-05 15:43:32 GMT from Germany)
« Just back up your files if you're afraid you'll accidentally nuke the /home partition when you mean to only format the / partition (a good thing to do anyway) and enjoy a fresh new installation... with all your user data and configurations intact. You've got a fresh installation »
This is the most reliable "upgrade" method :-) It is also the fastest.
If you happen to use Linux Mint, you can use the tool to backup and recover installed software.
48 • 64-bit (by tek_heretik on 2012-06-05 16:11:34 GMT from Canada)
I don't understand why when ALL hardware sold these days is 64-bit capable, people even bother with 32-bit, I went 64 bit a couple of years ago and never looked back. Yeah, I know there are some old machines out there still but how many of YOU folks that come here have an old junker, I mean really, come on, lol. ;-)
49 • Business apps (by Jesse on 2012-06-05 16:15:46 GMT from Canada)
>> "I was more wondering about standard business applications like the example of an Oracle database that was brought up. I don't get why an application like that has to care what kernel it is running on."
Some of them don't, others... well. I remember a big issue coming up back around the time of Red Hat Linux 9, when Red Hat backported the new thread model from the 2.6 kernel series to 2.4. It broke some applications which made use of threads. I remember because it drove some of us nuts since the kernel version said 2.4, but we could only duplicate the crashes on machines running the new 2.6 kernels. Someone eventually found out Red Hat had backported code, making version checks useless.
In short, some apps may never run into compatibility issues on different kernels, but it's surprising when and where the problems will arise and that's why vendors offering commercial support target specific versions, to avoid surprises.
50 • #43/#44/#46: Business apps and kernel revisions (by Caitlyn Maritn on 2012-06-05 16:53:33 GMT from United States)
Does a change in kernel break Oracle (the database)? I have seen at least one case when it did. Having said that, Patrick is correct that in most cases it won't. That really doesn't matter if all Oracle support disappears as a result. No business wants to run an Oracle database or Oracle based application without Oracle support. That, not the technical validity of what can and can't run, is critical to businesses who depend on Oracle to backend the mission critical apps, the ones their business relies on. The same applies to government.
Does Oracle recertify their code for each upgrade to Red Hat's kernel? Yes, in fact, they do. However, there is often a delay of months between when Red Hat releases a dot upgrade to RHEL and when Oracle certifies against it.
I'll also point out that Oracle is just one example of the way proprietary ISVs in general support Linux. They usually only support one or two or three enterprise distros (almost always Red Hat, usually SLES, sometimes Debian, rarely Ubuntu) and nothing else. They do not support free clones no matter how close. Some may only support specific versions of a given distro. You run what's supported by the vendor even if it is a bit different than what the rest of your server room is running. Often security vulnerabilities are left open rather than breaking vendor support. The good news is that some large enterprise customers, most especially the U.S. government, are very security conscious and are big enough to force enterprise ISVs to take security seriously and certify against the most recent versions.
51 • @49 (by Patrick on 2012-06-05 17:02:36 GMT from United States)
"""In short, some apps may never run into compatibility issues on different kernels, but it's surprising when and where the problems will arise and that's why vendors offering commercial support target specific versions, to avoid surprises."""
Only, in the example you mentioned, it made squat difference and resulted in a really nasty surprise. Due to the backporting that had happened, the kernel they were running really wasn't what they had certified or what they thought they were running. The version number made them think it was, but it didn't accurately represent reality. Which was exactly my original point.
One can only hope that Red Hat and others have learned from this and are more careful about what they backport. Still, it strikes me as weird that a kernel that is some bastard version of new code bolted on top of old code (that it wasn't necessarily compatible with) just so it can be labeled as if it's still the original, and which it may or may not be compatible with, is trusted more than a well integrated new version, maintained by the experts, only because they have accurately indicated the changes that have happened by properly bumping the version number instead of hiding it. Sounds very much like a paper-only advantage to me.
You don't know what you're getting, but you trust it more because it claims to be what you want, even though you well know it isn't. Sounds exactly like what enterprises would be looking for, unfortunately. Must be why Microsoft does so well there too.
52 • Re: #48 • 64-bit (by tek_heretik) (by Leo on 2012-06-05 17:20:32 GMT from United States)
I agree. But I would say this: I use 64 bit whenever I can, and 32 bit whenever I must. I have two 32 bit machines and 3 64 bit. They are all running Kubuntu, and I definitely use 64 bit in the platform. It is much faster, period. (those saying "no", please look at the numerous benchmarks around)
As for older hardware, one is a first generation eeepc, the ones that started the netbook revolution and made millions of people run linux. That one is dear to me becasue of all that, and is mostly dead, with a flickering display, but running Bodhi from USB. I also have a Dell Vostro a90 (mini 9 for biz), running razor-qt on a minimal kubuntu install, beautifully. I use that one as a chromebook
The rest are running Kubuntu 64 bit.
53 • Re: #52 (by Leo on 2012-06-05 17:23:13 GMT from United States)
I forgot to mention that both the older machines are 32 bit, and they are still around mostly thanks to Linux. Also, the eeepc is used as an internet radio streamer in the garage ....
54 • @52, 64 bit (by TobiSGD on 2012-06-05 17:45:22 GMT from Germany)
"It is much faster, period."
Really? My machines:
- Atom 330, 1GB, used as file/web-server, running Debian 32 bit, no speed advantage for 64 bit
- Netbook with Atom 270, 2GB, used for mobile browsing and ebook reading, Slackware 32 bit, no speed advantage for 64 bit
- Laptop with Athlon QL-66, 4GB, used for browsing, watching videos and sometimes playing NES or C64 games in an emulator, Slackware 32 bit, no speed advantage for 32 bit
- Workstation, Phenom II X6, 16GB, Slackware 64 (no multilib), used for VMs, compiling stuff, media encoding and games, the only machine that really has advantages with using 64 bit.
64 bit is not faster by default, it depends on your applications.
By the way, if speed is important for you, why are you running Kubuntu?
55 • Regarding 32-bit vs 64-bit (by vmc on 2012-06-05 17:59:12 GMT from United States)
I tried bodhi's 32-bit (they only have that as of now).
The author states that there is no benefit in having 64-bit bohdi system on a 32-bit or 64-bit machine.
I beg to differ.
I bought into his theory until I tried to use handbrake.
First tried on the 32-bit bodhi, then on my ubuntu 64-bit. What a difference. Over twice as fast using the 64-bit OS. Both OS's were on the same 64-bit machine.
56 • @54 Re: running Kubuntu (by tek_heretik on 2012-06-05 18:07:14 GMT from Canada)
Because it installed seamlessly on my 4 drive Raid 0, because the GUI is still 'normal' and functional, unlike the other ugly monstrosity GUIs out there now, and because I have the hardware that eats it for breakfast, lol.
Tip: install kubuntu-low-fat-settings, it shuts off a lot of unwanted 'frills', you may have to, like I did, click around and turn a few wanted things back on, but it was worth it.
I have tried almost EVERY distro under the sun, there is a reason I ended up with 64-bit Kubuntu 12.04, because it works, it's easy on the eyes and it's stable, the 5 year support is just a bonus.
Tobi, are you enabling the 64-bit features of your machines in their BIOS's?
57 • #51: Frankenkernel (by Caitlyn Maritn on 2012-06-05 18:34:31 GMT from United States)
@Patrick: I've heard the Red Hat kernel as a "Frankenkernel" and there is some truth to that. I can't argue with your description of the end result.
However, your characterization of the mainline Linux developers as experts (which they are) implies that the Red Hat kernel developers are not. Nothing could be further from the truth. I believe Red Hat is still one of the top contributors of kernel code. Very often we are talking about one and the same developers. Red Hat has the resources to hire some of the best kernel engineers and developers out there. So... the result is not quite as dire as you might expect.
I'd also point out that they don't backport everything. Many changes and new features do not get backported and the result is that there really is a lot less change between the various enterprise kernel builds than there would be if Red Hat simply packaged a newer kernel. That does make a big difference in terms of compatibility.
I've limited this post to Red Hat since that is where my experience lies. However, from everything I've read and heard, what I've written applies equally well to SUSE.
58 • @55,56 64 bit (by TobiSGD on 2012-06-05 18:44:59 GMT from Germany)
"First tried on the 32-bit bodhi, then on my ubuntu 64-bit. What a difference. Over twice as fast using the 64-bit OS. Both OS's were on the same 64-bit machine."
this has nothing to do with 32 vs 64 bit. This is because 32 bit OSes are compiled to run on i686 CPUs, which don't support features like SSE, SSE2, 3DNOW, ... . Simply because it is the lowest common denominator. But the lowest common denominator on amd64 OSes is SSE2, which will of course give you a large speedup. But you won't see anything like "twice as fast" if you use a binary that has support for the advanced SIMD instructions on a 32 bit OS.
"Tobi, are you enabling the 64-bit features of your machines in their BIOS's?" I see no options to disable them in my BIOSes, but I can assure you that I have no problems in running 64 bit Linux on those machines. It is just that 64 bit has no performance benefit for many things i use the machines for. A 64 bit distro will not serve files faster to the net (because that is obviously limited by the network hardware), it will not show websites faster or render a PDF faster (at least not in a way that anyone would be able to notice) and video-decoding isn't faster also (since most of it should be done on the GPU anyways).
"because I have the hardware that eats it for breakfast"
O would have no problem with KDE 4 on my main machine, but I find it more than non-sensical to waste CPU cycles on a DE (even with low fat settings) when I can give those CPU cycles to the applications I run. May be i should add that I am that kind of person that is totally fine with using i3-wm, very fast, very lightweight, very configurable, no "no-frills"-package needed.
59 • Re: 64 bit (by Leo on 2012-06-05 19:01:06 GMT from United States)
@vmc, #55. Yes, this is my experience as well. I ran a bunch of benchmarks in the same machine (phoronix tests), and many operations were much faster in 64 bit (i had Kubuntu 32 and 64 at the time). Some were the same. Basically, in 64, you have twice as many registers per clock tick, so low level code can make optimizations that can give up to twice the speed.
@TobiSGD, #54. Sure, some stuff runs at the same speed. So, it's still a no brainer for me.
Re: Kubuntu. Yes, it sucks that some of the stuff they added (Akonadi, Nepomuk) are terrible in functionality and performance. KMail made me have to switch to thunderbird. I basically had to remove all the KDEPIM packages and do major surgery. Why did I do all that? Because I love the functionality of the plasma desktop
Somebody really should make all that phat configurable, so you can run a light KDE Plasma beautiful desktop. They might have to do it for tablets, anyway. So far the answer was a bit pedantic: "take or leave it". But I won't complain because these folks are mostly volunteering their time to give me a great software stack. They just made some bad decisions.
I will gladly jump to something else, whenever I have a suitable replacement. I haven't, so far.
60 • 32 bit vs. 64 bit on small amounts of ram (by Linux Newbie on 2012-06-05 23:12:37 GMT from United States)
Is it advantageous to run 64 bit linux when you have less than 4 gigs of ram? Like only 1.5 or 2 gigs?
61 • Distros in DWW (by Pete on 2012-06-06 00:03:38 GMT from Czech Republic)
Comment deleted (troll).
62 • @39 (by Brandon Sniadajewski on 2012-06-06 00:06:35 GMT from United States)
Another Question.
Would I have to install a bootloader to said partition (say, by using something like UNetBootin), or could I just use the bootloader that is in the ISO image (once extracted and copied to the partition).
BTW, This looks similar to what I've done with installing Windows 98 and XP (where instead of an image you'd copy all installation files over to a partition, boot up using a floopy, and and enter setup.exe and go). Correcr if I'm wrong though.
63 • Snow linux (by Pete on 2012-06-06 00:07:20 GMT from Czech Republic)
Comment deleted (troll).
64 • Re. 47 (by uz64 on 2012-06-06 02:11:03 GMT from United States)
No denying that it's the safest, fastest, and downright best way of "upgrading." I tend to think of it as the best of both worlds--a fresh new OS installation, fully upgraded while maintaining all user configuration data. I personally think that doing an in-place upgrade and expecting everything to go just fine is... insane. No matter what OS the upgrade operation is being performed on.
65 • @60 64 bit, @ 64 in place upgrade (by TobiSGD on 2012-06-06 02:29:44 GMT from Germany)
@60: "Is it advantageous to run 64 bit linux when you have less than 4 gigs of ram? Like only 1.5 or 2 gigs?"
It depends on which distro and applications you run (read: does your distro have packages optimized for your CPU or are you compiling from scratch) and of course which type of application you run. There are no real benefits for Office work or browsing the web for 64 bit. There are benefits when you use the machine for media encoding and such stuff, but the benefits are smaller if you have packages that are optimized or are compiling from scratch for your CPU.
@64: "I personally think that doing an in-place upgrade and expecting everything to go just fine is... insane."
Then I have to be insane. Previously I have upgraded my laptop with Slackware 13.37 to Slackware -current inplace. After -current updated X.Org server to 1.12 and AMD dropped support for my "legacy" hardware I downgraded in place back to 13.37 and the machine is still running fine. Now that AMD after all possibly will release a legacy driver with support support for the newer X.Org I plan to go back to -current, also in place. I have absolutely no doubt that this will work without any problem. So yes, I have to be insane.
66 • Re. 65 (by uz64 on 2012-06-06 03:57:44 GMT from United States)
One: Slackware is about as simple a Linux distro as you can get, top-quality and highly tested, so I think I'd make an exception there. I believe they, as well as Debian, recommend any people "upgrading" from one release to another carefully read over the release notes for potential problems. But really, being a Slackware or Debian user, that kind of knowledge is pretty much standard, right? Still, I would only "upgrade" a very basic system in that way--like, say, a command line-only terminal or something, where is less to break and no regular users, like a server where nuking the OS partition will clear all logs and server configurations.
Sure, some distros can do it quite successfully, but I still wouldn't prefer that type of upgrade myself. And come on, you run Slackware--I would assume that if you were to run into a roadblock in the upgrade path, you would be capable of figuring out the problem and fixing it yourself, no real problem. But the person complaining about Mageia probably would be shit out of luck.
And two: I should have added a couple words to my sentence, so people like you don't take my original meaning in a way I didn't intend:
"I personally think that doing an in-place upgrade and expecting everything to go just fine *in every single circumstance regardless the OS* is... insane."
Of course, I'm leaving out certain other distros that are designed to be kept as up-to-date as possible (rolling releases like Arch), but then... they seem to expect their users to be even more knowledgeable than Debian and Slack users, because they *know* that due to the drastic changes not only possible but likely at any time instead of just between "versions," there *will* be the occasional f***-up every once in a while.
67 • @58 (TobiSGD) (by tek_heretik on 2012-06-06 04:42:33 GMT from Canada)
Quote from TobiSGD: "O would have no problem with KDE 4 on my main machine, but I find it more than non-sensical to waste CPU cycles on a DE (even with low fat settings) when I can give those CPU cycles to the applications I run. May be i should add that I am that kind of person that is totally fine with using i3-wm, very fast, very lightweight, very configurable, no "no-frills"-package needed."
I don't know what you are doing wrong, I have a 2.83GHz quad core2 intel, with four programs open, it idles at 8% of 400% (4x100%), only 9% of my 8GB of memory is in use (not including the disk cache). Even when I am transcoding to make a DVD, have Transmission open and other programs, my CPU might peak at 150% of 400%. Maybe you wasted your money on an AMD CPU, they tend to get bogged down, that's part of the reason I don't buy them anymore, besides running too hot and going Chernobyl when the fan fails.
As for the BIOS settings thing you mentioned, yes, some machines have the option to turn off/on certain CPU features as well 32/64-bit event timers, etc, even turn on/off PAE.
68 • Too much distro, too few professional (by mousenstein on 2012-06-06 08:27:43 GMT from Hungary)
I wondering why big entertainment electronic companies like Sony, Hitachi, Panasonic, Yamaha, Bang & Olufsen etc... don't create commercial but opensource distributions with polished user interface?
Anybody knows?
Only use parts in embedded targets like TVs.
I hope somebody think about it at Sony, Panasonic, Hitachi...etc.
69 • In place upgrades (by Barnabyh on 2012-06-06 14:14:42 GMT from United Kingdom)
If you truly want to retain all settings in case the in place upgrade goes sour it would save a lot of time to also back up /etc and /var, or better even put them on their own partitions as well, in addition to the home directory.
People tend to forget that not all user data and configuration resides just in home. If you're using something like slrn or leafnode, a local news server or a mail spool, this will be in /var. Cron jobs for example are in /etc. (unless you're using a stripped down distribution like Puppy).
I can only second TobiSGD: A clean distro like Slackware is indeed the safest bet for success. I've up/downgraded packages on Slack and Salix many times without problems, or at least it's always been easy to find out what went wrong and rectify it. Not so much with others, that's why I stuck with it in the end.
70 • @67, wasting your CPU (by TobiSGD on 2012-06-06 14:55:53 GMT from Germany)
"Maybe you wasted your money on an AMD CPU, they tend to get bogged down, that's part of the reason I don't buy them anymore, besides running too hot and going Chernobyl when the fan fails."
I don't know where I have said that my system is bogging down, I can't see that anywhere. Regardless which CPU you have (and yes, I have one of those "crappy AMD six-core Phenoms, I replaced my Intel Q9550 with it, just because for the tasks i run mainly it runs in circles around that Intel), a CPU cycle that is used for displaying fancy stuff on the screen, running some obscure indexing service, etc. is not available for the applications you are running to get something done. I rather want to have those CPU cycles available for whatever task I currently run. Also, ever heard of aftermarket coolers? I run a fine Scythe Mugen 2 on my CPU and even if the fan would fail there would exactly happen this: Nothing!
"I don't know what you are doing wrong, I have a 2.83GHz quad core2 intel, with four programs open, it idles at 8% of 400% (4x100%), only 9% of my 8GB of memory is in use (not including the disk cache)." With the programs running I rely most on when not doing some actual work (Firefox displaying a few tabs, Claws-Mail, Newsbeuter, Audacious playing some music, Roxterm and Thunar) my cores jump between 0-2% of usage, with having 1GB of 16GB RAM in use. No problems at all.
"Even when I am transcoding to make a DVD, have Transmission open and other programs, my CPU might peak at 150% of 400%."
Then you are obviously the one doing something wrong. Why the hell are you buying a CPU with four cores and then are only using 37.5% of it? You should set up your working tasks that it actually use your CPU. Or may it be that your disk sub-system is not fast enough to transfer data to and from your CPU?
71 • @69 (by Patrick on 2012-06-06 15:13:52 GMT from United States)
The problem is that the more you carry over old settings during an upgrade, the more likely you'll run into "in place upgrade type problems". You can't really call it a "clean install" if your settings are not the package defaults to start out with.
I personally have experienced problems where my sound didn't work after an upgrade when I had kept my /home directory, because of old settings in an ALSA config file in /home that caused problems with my upgraded distro. Took me a while to figure out what was wrong, and deleting that file solved the issue. I can only imagine how many problems might occur when carrying over /etc during an upgrade.
72 • @70 Re: hardware peeing contest (by tek_heretik on 2012-06-06 15:59:20 GMT from Canada)
You win! Lol. AMD could build a 24 core CPU and I still wouldn't buy it. Fact is, you 'appear' to have a more powerful machine than me so why the whining? You are quibbling over a few extra things running when you know you have a way to shut them off.
As for my disk IO situation, 4x320GB Sata revision 2 Raid 0 works just fine, thank you very much. Also, I do have an after market cooler, my CPU runs 10C cooler than with the stock cooler, you on the other hand, may need refrigeration, lmao. So, you say AMD fixed the Chernobyl problem? Would love to see that.
73 • Installing Live CD on a partition (by Anonynous Coward on 2012-06-06 17:13:43 GMT from Spain)
Brandon wrote:
------------------------------------------
Would I have to install a bootloader to said partition (say, by using something like UNetBootin), or could I just use the bootloader that is in the ISO image (once extracted and copied to the partition).
------------------------------------------
There are many ways of making the partition boot.
In my main computer, I have Slackware (regular install) and Knoppix 7.0.0 (secondary install). First I installed Slackware, which set a LILO bootloader in the MBR. For Knoppix, I just created a regular partition and dumped all the files of the iso in it. Then, I booted Slackware, edited /etc/lilo.conf and added an entry for knoppix.
You have to manually select the kernel of the live OS and its initram/initrd image (usually they are both in the /boot directory of the parition). Remember to pass the proper options to the kernel when booting. Live distributions usually have a list of the options they use by default somewhere.
Some familiarity with your chosen bootloader is requiered, obviously. I suggest you to look at example configuration files and learn about how the booting process is pefiormed. It might seem scaring, but its just about adding 5 lines or so to a file.
74 • @ usage of hardware (by TobiSGD on 2012-06-06 17:21:06 GMT from Germany)
Hardware peeing contest?
Your words:
" I don't know what you are doing wrong"
I am doing nothing wrong, I simply don't buy powerful hardware to waste its power with eyecandy and unnecessary services. If you want to do that, fine, but that doesn't say that I am doing something wrong.
"Fact is, you 'appear' to have a more powerful machine than me so why the whining?"
Did I whine? Again, I stated that "I find it more than non-sensical to waste CPU cycles on a DE (even with low fat settings) when I can give those CPU cycles to the applications I run."
You realize that it is "I find" and not "it is"? It is my personal opinion, not a fact that has to be right for every one. Again, if you are fine with wasting your hardware's power do it. I won't.
"Even when I am transcoding to make a DVD, have Transmission open and other programs, my CPU might peak at 150% of 400%." Would be nice to know why you wasted your money on a powerful CPU and then don't use that power. Nothing more I asked for.
"Maybe you wasted your money on an AMD CPU, they tend to get bogged down, that's part of the reason I don't buy them anymore" May be you show me a task that boggs down an AMD CPU in comparison to an Intel CPU with similar computing power to support your claims.
"besides running too hot and going Chernobyl when the fan fails."At first, the cooling system of the AMD CPUs may not be very silent, but it does its job. I have build literally hundreds of AMD and Intel machines and with the boxed cooler mounted properly none of them was overheating. Also, if the fan fails the cooling system is not in the state it is designed for, this will cause both, AMD and Intel machines to shut down. Yes, shut down, they won't explode or something similar. By the way, most of the time I have seen fans failing it was because of poor maintenance by the systems owner. You can't hardly blame AMD for this.
But may be you can support your "Chernobyl" claims with a few links?
75 • @74 (by tek_heretik on 2012-06-06 19:23:30 GMT from Canada)
What exactly do you need those few lost CPU cycles for?
I don't know about AMD CPUs melting down now, but they have in the past, where as Intels would shut down BEFORE any damage whatsoever. You wanted a link...knock yourself out... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxSqCdT7xPY&feature=related
...and lay off the coffee
76 • @75, CPU (by TobiSGD on 2012-06-07 03:53:25 GMT from Germany)
"What exactly do you need those few lost CPU cycles for?"
For whatever I currently work on, compiling software, running VMs/virtual networks, sometimes media encoding and gaming.
"I don't know about AMD CPUs melting down now, but they have in the past, where as Intels would shut down BEFORE any damage whatsoever. You wanted a link...knock yourself out... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxSqCdT7xPY&feature=related"
This is pathetic, you are comparing experiences with CPUs from 2001 to CPUs more than ten years later. That is your source of information? Really? By the way, in that video you linked to there was no failing fan, they removed the complete cooling system.
So here something with newer CPUs: http://youtu.be/cAqlA9EJ4ME
Don't be surprised, all CPUs survive.
And here something with an older Intel CPU: http://youtu.be/5umDJhIfrt0
According to your logic after the Pentium 3 smoked up in that video you should have never bought Intel, because all their CPUs go Chernobyl when you completely remove the heatsink.
77 • @73 (by Brandon Sniadajewski on 2012-06-07 03:55:30 GMT from United States)
That shouldn't be too bad. I have some familiarity with GRUB (version 2 that comes with Kubuntu by default) and there are ways I could make it work. I'm wondering , though, whether "(sudo) update-grub" will do the job.
78 • RE:77 (by Anonymous Coward on 2012-06-07 11:58:20 GMT from Spain)
You can try with update-grub, but I would not bet on it. There is not harm in trying...
79 • @76 (TobiSGD) (by tek_heretik on 2012-06-07 15:22:25 GMT from Canada)
Dude, what you have been doing is selectively reading what I post and then commenting on what you want to comment on, scroll back and READ THOROUGHLY what I have said. I hate repeating myself. Just in case you can't be bothered, I said there are ways to shut unwanted things off in Kubuntu, also, I am glad YOU have had good experiences with AMD CPUs, I HAVEN'T, so each to their own. Now, if you feel you must get the last word again, I won't be answering back, you take a few CPU cycles (that I previously said you can avoid using, the option is there) just a little TOO seriously. Is your 'powerhouse' system SO BUSY that you need those couple of cycles? Then you better build a better one. :-P
80 • CPU (by mandog on 2012-06-08 08:38:28 GMT from United Kingdom)
Without shouting to give my opinion
Well I watched that video link @75 I must admit that it was pathetic in the least. The only thing it proved was the cpu needs a heat sink and fan, yet people still fall for it.
I've used Amd cpu for 10 years in desktops they don't overheat when used correctly, In fact they are designed for running at a 100% work cycle. My dual core runs up-to 18hrs daily doing heavy processing av 90% cpu use, It runs at 40c and rises to 50c in the summer Its also overclocked.
My laptop on the other hand uses Intel Celeron runs much warmer,
the wifes laptop "windows" slightly older Intel over heats after a couple of hrs The HP laptop "Windows" before that intel kept frying the motherboard and was replaced by HP 3 times.
81 • openSuse 12.2 Beta (by Bob on 2012-06-08 15:00:54 GMT from Austria)
Amazing: new Kernel + gcc 4.7 and just a few glitches in this beta. Might be a keeper when the release is ready! Definitely an improvement over their attempts in the past.
82 • @80 (by tek_heretik on 2012-06-08 16:13:27 GMT from Canada)
Maybe AMD fixed their 'Chernobyl' problem, good for them, on the other hand, you are blaming Intel for an overheating laptop, you should yell at HP for building junk. You AMD fanboys make me laugh, I could care less how much YOU love them, if you bothered to read what I posted..I HAD bad experiences with them, easily tripped up and running way too hot under 'normal' conditions. I am not some newbie that just built their first 'junker', I have been building and fixing PCs since '98, AMDs included. One more time...EACH TO THEIR OWN.
As for the link in post 75, I KNOW it's old hardware, fact is, if they couldn't be bothered to build a decent CPU back then, why should I trust them now?
83 • @82 (by TobiSGD on 2012-06-08 18:54:13 GMT from Germany)
So why do you trust Intel to build decent CPUs after you have seen the video with the smoking Pentium 3?
Double standard?
84 • Chips (by ferd on 2012-06-09 01:40:33 GMT from United States)
most chips are in computers on in bags...some in this week's comments seem to be on shoulders
85 • tracked packages (by dc on 2012-06-09 02:05:17 GMT from United States)
The list of tracked packages is usually reviewed in June. I would like to suggest that systemd be added to the list.
86 • SolusOS 1.1 x64 kernel 3.3.6 - sound via HDMI ok OOTB (by Somewhat Reticent on 2012-06-09 06:10:29 GMT from United States)
First distro in dozens that fed sound from an old Dell Studio Hybrid 140g via HDMI cable to a 32in Sharp LCD TV Out Of The Box. For me, at least, as RUFUSB LiveUSB. Hope springs
87 • Kubuntu 12.10 Alpha 1 (by tdockery97 on 2012-06-09 15:16:09 GMT from United States)
Decided to give this one a try. KDE version is 4.8.80, and it looks and performs very nicely for an early alpha build. If you are a Kubuntu user you'll be surprised how well everything works. I'm amazed that it hasn't even had a minor crash yet.
88 • Sabayon 9 (by TuxTEST on 2012-06-10 03:13:17 GMT from Canada)
Ho la la la my friend! Sabayon is back with this 9 version.
The new RiGO work great!
Really good work by dev team... I think the top 10 is back for Sabayon
89 • @83 (by tek_heretik on 2012-06-10 14:16:50 GMT from Canada)
I base my CPU purchasing decisions on my own past experiences with both brands, they have nothing to do with that video.
90 • Upgrades/Speed Increases/CPUs (by Landor on 2012-06-10 23:01:04 GMT from Canada)
Upgrades:
I have to agree with Claude and Patrick on this one, upgrades are a foolish endeavour to say the least. I've personally run into numerous problems due to upgrades over the years. To do an upgrade and base a review on it isn't giving the current release any respect. What you're doing is carrying over parts of the last release (mainly in the home directory) that will have an affect on how the finished system functions.
I've also read where a lot of people advocate using one home folder for a number of distributions, this is absolutely ludicrous to do. Different versions of applications, as well as differently patched in some cases, can cause all kinds of crap to seep into your system.
Clean installs are the only way to go if you want any kind of peace of mind, and you want to give a distribution a chance based on that release, not some amalgamation of multiple versions.
Speed Increases:
While an SSD is a great speed increase, so is the latest technology. Would I tell someone who has a low-end cpu on a motherboard that supports SATA or SATA II to go out and buy an SSD for the best performance boost, no.
I would advise them to upgrade their system to something within reach of recent technology (or recent if they could afford it) and possibly include an SSD drive if again they can afford it.
Drive speeds are not the be all and end all of system speed improvements. They're just one more factor in the equation that you need to calculate. I would even say that putting an SSD in an older SATA based system with a low-end cpu would still be bottle-necked for performance.
CPUs:
I've used AMD/Cyrix/Intel/VIA. I've ran across many of them that get hot. Anyone who loses a CPU to overheating problems (in a desktop) is foolish because they were the direct cause, not the CPU. If someone builds their own system and doesn't provide adequate cooling and ventilation they shouldn't be blaming the CPU for their lack of knowledge and ability to deal with the heating issues of the system. I haven't once lost a system due to it overheating because I provide the means necessary to cool the system on a whole, not just the CPU. This is based on experience since the 80's as well.
The debate on which is worse, PIIs were hot beyond belief, and the 478 series was known to be a furnace, brutally hot. AMD has produced chips that were hot too. Some Cyrix and VIA CPUs were hot as well. But to complain about one being this or that is just fanbois BS, period. Oh, and in the way of a laptop, that's the manufacturer's fault. I'm running strictly AMD right now in all my systems and I can say even my dual core Toshiba lappy runs cooler than my N270 based netbook from ASUS did to the touch.
Build a system? Cool it properly, that's all. If it's an OEM box, make sure you clean it. Number one fault, owner not knowing how to care for their system, nor caring.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
91 • @90 (by tek_heretik on 2012-06-10 23:38:56 GMT from Canada)
And yet another one, talking to me like I am a retard, please, come on, fanboy BS?! Really?! I have NEVER lost a system to heat either, I just didn't like the flakey performance of past AMD processors I have used. I really wish you people would read more thoroughly and not jump to conclusions before posting. Do you not read what it says in red text below the new/empty Comment field? On the contrary, it would seem you AMD fanboiz are easily offened and defend your beloved CPUs with zeal. :-P
92 • RE: 90 (by Landor on 2012-06-11 05:29:52 GMT from Canada)
Funny, I never directed my comment at you specifically. I guess the way you generally comment towards others makes you believe people are doing the same to you. Nor did I even imply such a thing about anyone.
Now it's about 'flakey performance' as you put it. You should stick to one thing. How can we not jump to conclusions when people change what they're talking about to make themselves look better?
I'm an AMD fanbois? Seriously? That's funny since the majority of CPUs I've bought and built systems with for the last 28 years or so have been Intel. Assuming eh.
Maybe you should take your own advice and get off the caffeine. Also, you must feel really original quoting the quote Ladislav has here above the submit comment button.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
93 • oops (by Landor on 2012-06-11 05:30:43 GMT from Canada)
It should be RE: 91.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
Number of Comments: 93
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