 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 462, 25 June 2012 |
Welcome to this year's 26th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! For many, Sabayon Linux represents an ideal distribution - a perfect combination of a highly up-to-date Gentoo system with a more traditional, binary package management option. The project's recent release has brought increased security from Gentoo Hardened, together with Rigo, a new graphical package browser. Susan Linton takes a first look at Sabayon 9 in this week's feature story. In the news section, Debian developers announce an imminent freeze of their testing branch in preparation for the release of "Wheezy", Mandriva launches the first round of foundation talks, PC World suggests Zorin OS 6 as a superb distribution for Linux first-timers, and Unixmen interviews Mobeen Iqbal, the lead developer of the Vinux project. Also in this week's issue, a quick tip on mounting network shares at boot time and the usual columns with a list of upcoming releases and new distro submissions. Happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (24MB) and MP3 (22MB) formats
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story (by Susan Linton) |
First look at Sabayon Linux 9
 Sabayon Linux is a Gentoo-based binary distribution whose goal is to provide an easy and complete desktop experience right out-of-the-box. Sabayon began life as RR4 and, if memory serves, was basically a live system that tried to install Gentoo using a familiar wizard interface. It didn't really work well. When Fabio Erculiani, founder of Sabayon, decided to go the binary route and adopt Fedora's Anaconda installer, the distro really began to take off. It usually sits in the DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking chart in the top 15 these days.
Sabayon Linux 9 was released last week, and since I'm still torn between using Mageia and Sabayon, I knew I had to at least test it. I downloaded and booted the 64-bit KDE edition.
I was struck by how soothingly simplistic the default background is in version 9, which wasn't always the case. The install proceeded without any problems, although I do have a few complaints. For example, after the user chooses the install drive, they need to choose which kind of install and "Replace Existing Linux Systems" is the default choice. I hope no one clicks through there too fast without reading closely. Another is that only the install drive showed up in Boot Loader Device. So, I was stuck installing the bootloader on the install partition and manually adding Sabayon 9 to the legacy GRUB configuration (that I was hoping to replace). No one ever accused Sabayon of being a fast booter, but how often does one restart anyway?
Sabayon Linux 9 - the default KDE desktop
(full image size: 350kB, screen resolution 1920x1080 pixels)
Rigo Application Browser
The big news this release is the new Entropy (package manager) front-end, dubbed Rigo Application Browser. Search is the main philosophy behind Rigo and as long as you know what you're looking for, it's quick and easy. It's a little harder to browse around and see what's there. For example, "games" pulls up some games and "office" finds a lot of office stuff, but "desktops" doesn't retrieve desktops. I like a straight-forward category browsing.
Sabayon Linux 9 - Rigo search result
(full image size: 240kB, screen resolution 1187x790 pixels)
Updates are handled through Rigo now too. The user is informed of any updates available and can choose to Update System, Show, or Ignore. There was only one update offered as I was testing, and I clicked Update System. Well, I sat there and sat there, and finally thought, "oh man, this thing isn't working." But when I closed out the Rigo window, I saw underneath the root password pop-up that had actually popped-under. It works real good after you give the password. However, that popping under is reproducible. In fact, it does it every time.
Sabayon Linux 9 - Rigo Notices pane
(full image size: 214kB, screen resolution 780x569 pixels)
The development team sends out little notices from time to time and users can receive them in Rigo. It makes it easy to see any issues that may come up like this LibreOffice announcement and workaround (an upstream issue, btw). Clicking More Info on any package does just that, gives all the package particulars. Show Me lets users see the command-line output from any operation. From the configuration screen one can update repositories, clean Entropy web service cache, or view any configuration files that need updating. Rigo packs a lot of functionality in a tiny space and it seems to work well. It's quicker, more responsive than Sulfur, but some will still prefer equo at the command-line for those quick installs.
Hardware Configuration
Most hardware today is auto-detected and auto-configured, but I still have some old confusing hardware. One thing Sabayon could use is a hardware configuration tool. There are some individual tools, but no centralized control center or anything. First up, I have two monitors attached and the easiest way to a fresh configure is NVIDIA Settings. (Sabayon had automagically configured my graphics card to use the NVIDIA drivers.) But I couldn't get the sound on my old TV/FM card to work; I'm almost afraid it may not work with the newer kernels. Sabayon 9 ships with Linux 3.4.0. All my other hardware seems to be functioning properly.
Another new feature of Sabayon 9 is for the 32-bit user. According to the press release, those downloading 32-bit editions will get a PAE kernel "to allow systems stuck with this ancient architecture to support more than 4GB of RAM."
Software
The standard desktop versions of Sabayon usually ship with lots of handy applications, although the list seems to be shrinking more and more as time goes on. The KDE version includes things like Gwenview, Chromium, Clementine, XBMC, VLC Media Player, and Yakuake. I had to install LibreOffice, Firefox, KMail, and GIMP. Of course, all that was really easy with Rigo! You'll probably find your favorites in the repositories too because that's one of Sabayon's best selling points. They have a very large repository of additional software and, in fact, it's probably one of the best. I rarely attempt to find something that isn't in there.
Sabayon Linux 9 - LibreOffice, Chromium, VLC, and Dolphin
(full image size: 1,305kB, screen resolution 1680x1050 pixels)
Users can choose between GNOME 3.2.3, KDE 4.8.3, and Xfce 4.10. As a KDE user and someone who's been using Mageia 1 for a year, I've been anxious to test newer versions of KDE. I've been hearing some good things about KDE 4.8.x. My main concern was Kmail, but fortunately, the talk of KDE's recent improvements proved accurate. Kontact crashed a couple of times while importing and moving folders around, but under normal operation it seems stable (if not exactly quirk-free). Akregator also seems stable so far, but I've learned not to turn my back on that one.
Wrap Up
Sabayon Linux has been for quite a while a top-flight distribution and version 9 only adds to that reputation. The new package management GUI has a modern or trendy feel to it that could appeal to the younger set, while others might miss advanced features. I worried about the integration of Gentoo Hardened, but I haven't detected any weirdness from it as of yet. The KDE desktop seems stable so far, which is always a selling point. Everything about Sabayon is easy enough for a newcomer, as easy as any other, unless they have some hardware that needs manual configuration. For me, it just feels like going /home.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
Debian 7.0 freeze, Mandriva foundation talks, overview of Zorin OS, Vinux interview
 The next stable release of Debian GNU/Linux, version 7.0 and code-named "Wheezy", is still some distance away on the time horizon, but with the increasing use of the magic word "freeze" on the Debian mailing lists, we sense that the time is approaching fast. The H Online has set a rough release time as "early 2013": "The Debian release team has announced that on 30 June, the Debian project will stop the automatic migration of packages from unstable to testing; with this move, the development of Debian 7.0 (Wheezy), which is currently being prepared in testing, will be frozen. During the freeze phase, no further major changes will be integrated into the Linux distribution and work will instead focus mainly on bug fixes. As during the completion of the current version, Debian 6.0 (Squeeze), the freeze process will be gradual; if developers still need to update packages, the release team has said that it will adopt a liberal acceptance policy in the early stages. Details on this procedure are to follow. Debian 7 is roughly scheduled to arrive in early 2013 and is planned to be based on version 3.2 of the Linux kernel."
* * * * *
 Still staying on the excellent The H Online website, but turning our attention to Mandriva Linux. The latest news concerning the troubled company and project is that the first meeting of interested parties on forming a Mandriva foundation, a community organisation that will oversee the development of the distribution, was held last week in Paris: "Moving forward on plans to create a foundation for the Mandriva Linux distribution, the first meeting of interested parties has taken place in Paris. Charles-H. Schulz, who was recently brought on by Mandriva to coordinate the community's taking over of Mandriva Linux development, wrote on the Mandriva blog that the meeting was 'fruitful' and that 'All in all, this has been a fantastic day'. The aim of the process is, says Schulz, to create an inclusive, independent, meritocratic and transparent foundation that's strong enough to sustain the project. He says that the work on the 'essential building blocks', such as infrastructure and governance, has now started and the discussions will move to the mailing lists and forums. 'You, the community, are now in charge' Schulz says in closing."
* * * * *
 Attracting non-technical users to Linux has never an easy task, mainly due to the platform's reputation as a hard-to-use and unintuitive system that requires a long learning curve. But with the growing number of distributions catering to this difficult market, there is hope that newcomers to Linux will be able to find their ideal starting point. One promising project which specifically targets Windows users is Zorin OS. And it is doing an excellent job; according to Katherine Noyes at PCWorld, the just-released Zorin OS 6 makes the transition very easy: "Making that switch has never been easier thanks to supremely user-friendly options like Ubuntu Linux and Linux Mint, but there's also a lesser-known Linux flavor that's designed specifically to offer an easy transition from Microsoft's operating system. Zorin OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution that actually bills itself as 'the gateway to Linux for Windows users.' I wrote about the free and open-source operating system once back in 2010, but just this week a brand-new version 6 made its début. If you're accustomed to Windows but are feeling anxious about Windows 8 and all the changes it will bring, Zorin OS 6 could be just what you need."
Zorin OS 6 - an Ubuntu-based distribution for newcomers to Linux
(full image size: 633kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
* * * * *
 Our recent feature story on accessibility has given much needed attention to the less fortunate citizens among us - those who need special software for making use of computers. Luckily, the Linux world seems to be one step ahead in this area and several distributions exist that cater for blind or otherwise handicapped users. One of them is Vinux. Last week Unixmen interviewed Mobeen Iqbal, the lead developer of this specialist Ubuntu-based distribution: "Vinux was initially born out of a frustration with the default accessibility support provided by mainstream Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE. Although all three of these distributions did provide the Orca Screen Reader and Magnifier, it was not configured to start automatically, its performance was poor and many vital applications were still inaccessible. This meant that a visually impaired user could only really use these distributions if they knew how to start and/or configure Orca already. Even if they got it working it was very unresponsive and unstable, and they had to be comfortable using the terminal to get most administrative tasks done. This effectively meant that these distributions were all but inaccessible to any visually impaired user who was new to Linux."
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Mounting network shares at boot
Automatic-connection asks: I mapped (mounted) a remote network share, but when I reboot the computer it disappears. Is there a way to make the link to my shared network folder permanent?
DistroWatch answers: Yes, indeed, network shares can be set up to mount automatically. There are just a few steps to perform to get the desired effect. The first thing we should do is put a couple of things in place in our home directory. The remote share will need a directory where we can attach it to our system. In this case I'm going to create a folder in my home directory called Shared:
mkdir ~/Shared
Also in the home directory we should create a file with our credentials for accessing the remote share. In this example I'm going to assume the remote share is a Samba share. In my home directory I create a file called MyCredentials and place the following two lines inside the file:
username=jesse
password=Try2GuessThis
Then I make sure I'm the only user who can access the file by changing its permissions:
chmod 600 MyCredentials
The next step is to add an entry to our /etc/fstab file. This file contains a list of all the file systems our operating system recognizes and instructs the system where to mount these file systems. By default we will probably find at least three entries in our /etc/fstab file, one for the root (/) file system, one for swap space and one for the /proc directory. What we will need to do is add an additional line which will instruct our operating system how to handle the remote share.
The first item on the line will be the location of the share on our network and the second item will be the location where we wish to mount the share. The third field specifies the type of share and then we provide a few parameters telling the OS how to go about connecting to the share. Really, the only required part of this forth field is the location of our credentials file we created in the previous step:
//remotebox/myshare /home/jesse/Shared smbfs credentials=/home/jesse/MyCredentials,noatime,nofail 0 0
If we were connecting to a NFS share rather than a Samba share a similar line would work, but with the file system type, "smbfs", changed to "nfs". Once the appropriate line has been added to our /etc/fstab file we can test to make sure it works by running:
mount -a
The Just Linux website has more details on the various options which can be used when mounting Samba shares and the NFS manual page has examples and options for automatically connecting to NFS shares.
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| Released Last Week |
Zorin OS 6
Artyom Zorin has announced the release of Zorin OS 6, an Ubuntu-based distribution created with beginning Linux users in mind: "The Zorin OS team is proud to release Zorin OS 6 'Core' and 'Ultimate', the latest version of our operating system designed for Windows users and those who are dissatisfied with the Unity and GNOME Shell offerings. At the core of Zorin OS 6 lies our new and unique desktop environment named 'Zorin Desktop'. We also include our innovative Zorin Look Changer which allows users to choose between the Windows 7, XP and GNOME 2 graphical interfaces in Core as well as the Mac OS X, Unity and Windows 2000 interfaces in Zorin OS Ultimate. Zorin Desktop embraces all of the latest and greatest open-source software and technologies such as GTK+ 3 and other software applications from the GNOME 3 software stack, all without affecting the familiarity, usability and customizability of the desktop and retaining the Compiz window manager." See the full release announcement for more information.
Superb Mini Server 1.6.6
Superb Mini Server (SMS) 1.6.6, a new version of the project's Slackware-based distribution for servers, has been released: "Superb Mini Server version 1.6.6 released (Linux kernel 3.2.20). It's that time again, we have a new kernel, a lot of upgrades, security fixes and some new features. For our default web server we keep Apache HTTPD 2.2.22 and PHP 5.3.14, once again, to maintain stability and compatibility. New PHP 5.4.4 and HTTPD 2.4.2 packages are available though, under testing in Extra if someone wants to use them. MySQL has been upgraded to the 5.5.x branch so it needs your attention. If you are upgrading, be sure to backup your /var/lib/mysql folder containing your MySQL databases and restore it after and run mysql_upgrade. Perl has also been upgraded to 5.16, so if you have Perl modules installed by yourself, I would recommend that you remove them and install them again." See the release announcement for more warnings and recommendations.
Salix OS 13.37 "Live MATE"
George Vlahavas has announced the release of Salix OS 13.37 "Live MATE" edition, a Slackware-based live CD featuring the MATE desktop: "Salix Live MATE 13.37 has been officially released and is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures. This is another live release created using SaLT (Salix Live Technology) a new powerful system of live tools for Slackware-based distributions, developed in-house. This is also the first-ever Salix release to incorporate isohybrid technology. The Salix Live MATE 13.37 release, mirrors our previous 'standard installation' MATE release in terms of featured software. The MATE 1.2 desktop environment is included. MATE will be extremely familiar to every previous GNOME 2 user, as it is a direct fork of it, providing the user with all the functionality and work patterns they were accustomed to. All major GNOME 2 desktop applications have been ported and have been renamed." Read the full release announcement for additional details.
ROSA 2012 "LXDE"
Konstantin Kochereshkin has announced the release of ROSA 2012 "LXDE" edition, a Mandriva Linux fork featuring the lightweight LXDE desktop environment: "We are glad to announce the release of our community LXDE edition - ROSA LXDE 2012 LTS. The distro is based on ROSA Marathon packages and is 100% compatible with it. The only and main difference is the default graphic environment which is LXDE - Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment. This community release is designed primarily for users with old legacy hardware. Software versions: Linux kernel 3.0.28, LXPanel based on LXPanelx with some improvements from ROSA, PCManFM 0.9.10, LibreOffice, main European locales, Firefox 10, VLC 2, DeaDBeeF 0.5.2, LXDE Control Center, audio and video codecs by default." See the release announcement for system requirements and screenshots.
Snowlinux 2 "KDE"
Lars Torben Kremer has announced the release of Snowlinux 2 "KDE" edition, a Debian-based distribution showcasing the KDE 4.4.5 desktop: "The team is proud to announce the release of Snowlinux 2 'Ice' KDE. It comes with the Qt 4 theme Fushigi Plasma, the Icon set was set to Snowlinux Metal and the system font is Ubuntu by default. Also present in this edition is an improved live installer which detects country, offers keyboard variants and uses UUID in fstab. It has installed a firewall called gufw. To improve the difference between user and root terminal the terminal colors were introduced. To be more out-of-the-box OpenJDK 6 Java has been made available in the default installation. Snowlinux 2 'Ice' KDE comes with the Chromium browser, Icedove, Banshee, Shotwell." Here is the brief release announcement with a screenshot.
Netrunner 4.2
Clemens Toennies has announced the release of Netrunner 4.2, a Kubuntu-based distribution providing the very latest KDE 4.8.3 desktop: "Netrunner 4.2 'Dryland' - second edition released. These are some of the new features: KDE 4.8.3; Firefox KDE integration, GIMP 2.8 and Skype 4.0; Samba Mounter for easy NAS setup; web accounts for integrating your social accounts; Runners ID for free and libre cloud storage and music streaming; Muon Discover. Since this is a hybrid ISO, you can for example use UNetbootin or imagewriter for putting Netrunner on a USB stick. For 64-bit machines with EFI you may experience a crash during installation when trying to install the bootloader, it is advised to use imagewriter, as it does use another bootloader, which makes the ISO install fine." See the release announcement and release notes for more information.
Netrunner 4.2 - a Kubuntu-based distribution with latest KDE desktop
(full image size: 1,545kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3
Red Hat has announced the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3, the latest update of the company's enterprise-class operating system: "Red Hat is proud to announce the global availability of the next minor release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3 includes enhancements and new capabilities providing rich functionality particularly in the areas of developer tools, virtualization, security, scalability, file systems, and storage. Highlighted below is a small subset of the new features and enhancements in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3. In addition to OpenJDK 6 support in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, the newly introduced OpenJDK 7 allows customers running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3 to develop and test with the latest version of open source Java." Read the release announcement and release notes for a detailed description of the product.
Pinguy OS 12.04
Antoni Norman has announced the release of Pinguy OS 12.04, an Ubuntu-based desktop Linux distribution with a customised GNOME Shell user interface: "Here is the final release of Pinguy OS 12.04 LTS. We have fully embraced GNOME Shell here and wanted a modern, updated site to go with the new look of the desktop. In this release we have: Linux Kernel 3.2, GNOME 3.4.1, WINE 1.5.6, Skype 4.0, TeamViewer 7, XBMC-PVR 11.0 Eden, GNOME Shell Extension Updater and everything else that was present in the previous beta release. The GDM login is now themed to match the desktop. The distro comes with two menus - Cardapio (eefault) but also includes the Axe menu that is disabled." Read the release announcement which includes notes about known issues, including one about a problematic VLC player.
Pinguy OS 12.04 - an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring GNOME Shell
(full image size: 515kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Pure OS 5.0
Marc Poirette has announced the release of PureOS 5.0, a multilingual live DVD/USB based on Debian's testing branch and featuring the GNOME 3 desktop: "PureOS 5.0. PureOS 5.0 is a multilingual live DVD/USB based on Debian testing with GNOME. Main features: Linux kernel 3.3.6, GNOME 3.4.2. Office: LibreOffice 3.5.4 - Calc, Draw, Impress and Writer. Internet: Iceweasel 13.0, Icedove 10.0, Transmission, FileZilla. Multimedia: Banshee, VLC, Brasero. Graphics: GIMP 2.8.0, Evince, Eye of GNOME. System: GParted, smxi/sgfxi scripts, scripts and Nautilus actions for modules management - activate, debs2lzm, debs2lzm-file, dir2lzm, lzm2dir et find2lzm." See the release announcement which includes the full list of packages included on the live DVD image and artwork credentials.
siduction 12.1.1
Ferdinand Thommes has announced the release of siduction 12.1.1, a minor update of the project's 12.1 version released a month ago, based on Debian's unstable branch: "Today we released the first fix release of siduction 2012.1 'Desperado', called 2012.1.1 'Desperado Reloaded'. Besides small enhancements the main reason for this fix release was to ship the full set of KDE SC 4.8.4. This version is shipped with three desktop environments - KDE SC, Xfce and LXDE, all in 32-bit and 64-bit variants. The released images are a snapshot of Debian 'Unstable' from 2012-06-24. They are enhanced with some useful packages and scripts, our own installer and a custom-patched version of the linux-kernel 3.4.4, accompanied by X.Org Server 1.12.1." See the release notes for further details.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- BootMed. BootMed Plus, a commercial Linux-based live CD, is an easy-to-use recovery toolkit made with the average computer user in mind.
- Dracon Comodos Linux. Dracon Comodos Linux is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring penetration testing tools for security auditors and a collection of defence tools, such as honeyspots, firewalls and system IPS/IDS. It also includes forensics and reverse-engineering tools that are useful for auditing cyber crime.
- Linutop OS. Linutop OS is optimised and secured Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. It is dedicated to Internet access, media playing, desktop or appliance use.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 2 July 2012. To contact the authors please send email to:
- Susan Linton (feedback on this week's review of Sabayon Linux)
- 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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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Debian-based KDE distros (by BEN on 2012-06-25 10:18:16 GMT from Spain)
Hi,
do you have any idea on how the three distributions Kubuntu, Linux Mint KDE Edition and Netrunner differentiate one from each other? They all seem rather closely related and I can't really determine on which horse to bet.
Maybe an interesting article for future editions?
Thanks
Beni
2 • Re: #1 (by d00m3d on 2012-06-25 11:21:41 GMT from Hong Kong)
Before you bet, you should really study and understand which distro is Debian-based.
3 • "...unless they have some hardware that needs manual configuration" (by squashie on 2012-06-25 11:25:28 GMT from Satellite Provider)
Susan's opinions and reviews hold high regard in this household. She highlights just one of the stings in the proverbial tail of any Gentoo variant. There will always be a (small?) niche for ubergeeks; Gentoo scores highly in that regard. For mere mortals, abandon hope all who tangle therein. The world has moved on. Mint, in particular, has virtually no hang-ups about compiling, Flash, 'non-free', codecs and other restrictive practices, errr, practiced by ill-advised politicians, geeks, and the old ivory-tower brigade. But even they must recognise that Android on smart phones is already displacing the 'brick-under-the-desk'. The Green Lobby must rejoice at all that energy saving!
As for the Zorin and a few other recent releases - if you can't say it in CD-space (<=700Mb), perhaps better not at all? A well-endowed and maintained package manager obviates the need to impose a pre-determined (personalised?) bloated choice on unsuspecting users. Indeed, perhaps in that context, all anyone needs is a compact distro (or smart mobile)?! Why not try the new beta of Fatdog - it's 64bit, too.
And one for Lazslo: please can you add in the OED so that the red underlinings go away!
4 • debian based (by david on 2012-06-25 11:27:51 GMT from United States)
@2,
maybe you should, since all three are debian based.
5 • @2, What? (by Eddie on 2012-06-25 11:40:02 GMT from United States)
@1, All three distros are based on Ubuntu and thus Debian. You just need to study more on these three distros.
@2, Ubuntu, Debian. That's the order listed. Your comment made no sense.
6 • @3 nonsense (by Anonymous coward on 2012-06-25 12:08:16 GMT from France)
@3 You confuse a lot of different things. Android is for smartphones and tablets. It is displacing S40 in that task. It is not a replacement for desktop computers. Mint is not a replacement for Gentoo either.
7 • 2 greats distros (by Ubuntu-fanboy on 2012-06-25 12:47:44 GMT from France)
I want to mention two majors distros:
- Mix-220701-untu,
- Remix-325841-untu.
they are the same as ubuntu 12.04 but with wallpaper representing three monkeys for the first remix and three frogs for the second.
that's my only change :-(.
I hope it's not my last "remix of ubuntu"
ps: Just sarcasm.
8 • @3 - OED (by Pearson on 2012-06-25 13:11:11 GMT from United States)
As far as I know, Distrowatch doesn't provide a dictionary. The red "underlings" (I presume you mean underlines -- although I led underlings better!) are a feature of your browser's spell check. In Firefox, I had to not only enable spell check, but also had to explicitly select the language.
9 • re:3 (by WoodCAT on 2012-06-25 13:42:51 GMT from Canada)
I'm not sure what are you trying to say. Are you against progress?
"Android on smart phones is already displacing the 'brick-under-the-desk'" I'd like to see somebody get his work done edit photos or browse for more than 30 min. on 4inch screen :-)
I'm also glad distros are switching from using CD image in favour of DVDs since DVD disks are cheaper now.
And "abandon hope all who tangle therein", "old ivory-tower brigade", "The Green Lobby" What??? Are those movie titles? Seriously.
10 • Mix-220701-untu (by Mix-220701-untu lover on 2012-06-25 13:47:49 GMT from United States)
I urge everyone to test Mix-220701-untu. I was skeptical at first but I decided to test it and this distro really stands out. Everything works out of the box. No more manual configurtion. Even my obscuyre processor (intel Core i7) was recognised automatically and properly configured! And I didn't have to compile my kernel. This distro is fantastic.
11 • rejoinders (by squashie on 2012-06-25 14:24:08 GMT from Satellite Provider)
No.6. Who is confused? Not me. Your English is excellent, just the comprehension to master now.
No.8. Can't read, can't spell.? Deleted US in my language lists. Rarely use Firefox.
No.9. Niche player? Cheaper DVDs doesn't make them good. Think of all that space and precious metal coating you are wasting. Still using Gentoo? You're entitled, but don't try to drag everyone else into unnecessary compiling. Serious experimentalists are following the RaspberryPi & co. trail. Let the gurus get back to assembler, learn what it's all about and really make some progress! Squeeze an OS onto a FD? If a Russian can, why not others?
Over and out (Lazslo will delight.).
12 • Sabayon 32-bit with PAE by default? (by Mike on 2012-06-25 14:26:50 GMT from Netherlands)
Not a good idea! I have this nice laptop with a P4 mobile processor that can run a modern distro with a light DE, but does not know how to handle PAE. If PAE is offered, give it as an option, not as the default!
13 • Sabayon 9 (by Just some guy on 2012-06-25 14:28:41 GMT from Anonymous Proxy)
'Is Linux ready for the desktop?' has been a popular topic for authors for the past ten years or so.
With the new Sabayon 9 KDE, I think the answer is "yes." Scale down KDE's overdone space-stealing graphics, turn off the distracting special effects, revert to the classic menu, remove a few useless options from the menu bar, and I think we at last have a proper and good-looking desktop operating system.
14 • Sabayon and Star Wars. (by Eddie on 2012-06-25 16:01:25 GMT from United States)
@13, "Scale down KDE's overdone space-stealing graphics, turn off the distracting special effects, revert to the classic menu, remove a few useless options from the menu bar," and you know what we have? Windows 98,
@3 & 11, Yoda, is that you?
15 • Mint V. Sabayon (by mz on 2012-06-25 18:10:16 GMT from United States)
@3/11
Mint is great and all, but Sabayon offers something different for a different target user. You could go LMDE to get a rolling Mint, but it looks like the updates aren't near as fast with LMDE. I also saw a review that claimed it was easy to set up the ZFS file system on Sabayon, which would certainly have advantages for some users. Sabayon seems like a really neat distro, although Mint, Ubuntu, and others do have more user friendly and explorable package managers. If you can put up with the slow updates & the installer LMDE is great, but if you can put up with the search only package manager & a slight power user focus Sabayon looks like the winner. Any competent user willing to learn need not abandon all hope, they need only to consider their choices wisely.
16 • Auto mounting network shares (by bodhi.zazen on 2012-06-25 20:26:33 GMT from United States)
Although your fstab enteries are spot on, mounting your network shares this way will slow down the boot process.
IMO you have 2 better options - autofs and systemd
autofs is older but available on most distros. Autofs then mounts network shares on demand.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Autofs
systemd provides similar functionality (if you are using systemd).
Check the systemd syntax with your distro ;)
The advantage of systemd (over autofs) is that it is very easy to configure, simply add the option to fstab
http://www.happyassassin.net/2011/05/12/cute-systemd-trick-of-the-day-auto-mounting-remote-shares/
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd#Automount
17 • Auto mounting network shares (by starbuck on 2012-06-25 21:18:47 GMT from Germany)
Speaking of Netrunner release and network shares, it's a coincidence that Netrunner 4.2 also provides a new way to easily and permanently mount NAS drives with samba-mounter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i728rEKCPzE
18 • Debian-based KDE distro (by Darkman on 2012-06-25 21:44:13 GMT from United States)
From personal experience, one of the better Debian-based KDE distros is Mepis. Development seems to have gone into hiberation lately, but the latest version available is still quite good. I've used it off and on for years and it's still on two of my boxes. I can easily do things with it that require a lot of effort with other more popular distros.
19 • @3- maybe for some people, but... (by Alan on 2012-06-25 23:12:38 GMT from United States)
I'm not a trog or an uber; just a hobbyist and user. I own an Android phone (2.2.1) and a tablet (4.0.3) as well as several ''brick-under-the-desk'' machines. While I enjoy my Android devices, there is no way I would give up my desktop for high-speed web browsing, spreadsheets, word processing, diagramming, database work, or applying for a job. An Android doesn't cut it for me. You may be willing to throw out your "brick", but many others are not. Note I haven't even mentioned gaming, coding, video & audio manipulators (a lot of non-ubers there).
20 • re 14 (by Woody Oaks on 2012-06-25 23:33:19 GMT from United States)
Microsoft's GUI was a knockoff of Apple's GUI, and Steve Jobs got that idea from the Unix computers he saw at PARC, so don't think that there is anything "unUNIXy" about an efficient and functional window manager - quite the opposite: Computers should exist for the purpose of running applications and GUIs for the purpose of facilitating those processes and not just to be cute. LXDE, for example, does not waste hardware resources or the operator's attention; it helps the operator accomplish his tasks at hand. As for Windows 98, it didn't do much of anything properly - all too often it failed even to operate itself.
21 • @20 (by mz on 2012-06-26 00:33:40 GMT from United States)
I think that there is value added in everything depending on the situation and who you ask. LXDE is great for low end hardware, but if I have 6GB of RAM and a quad core processor then why on earth would I insist on a DE designed to run on single core machines with under 256 MB of RAM? You could argue various points, and I'll admit there are specific situations where I do run LXDE on all my machines, but for the vast majority of computing KDE is a thoroughly better experience for me. Aside from glitches caused by composting Window Managers running games, I see no reason to limit most of my hardware to a low resource desktop & I don't think many others do either. I'm a computer enthusiast and I want a little flash & style on my desktop, and if you have the hardware resources why not? Choice is good, & if you want loads of customization options or desktop effects built in then the recent KDE 4 releases are a great choice for machines with enough RAM.
22 • Sabayon and Rigo (by claudecat on 2012-06-26 01:18:44 GMT from United States)
While I like Sabayon as a distro, and it really has become more stable and less bloated over the last few releases, the package management is still a sore point. Sulfur was buggy and dog-slow, but at least one could browse available applications, though the hierarchy was (and is still) rather arcane. Rigo removes that functionality entirely. It's basically a text field into which one types the name of the package one wants - a far cry from the user friendliness of Software Center or the power of Synaptic. Even from the command line, equo is much slower than pacman/yum/apt-get, etc.
I know that Sabayon isn't necessarily aimed at new linux users, and maybe the Gentoo underpinnings won't let this happen, but it would really be nice if they could streamline the process of updating the system. It shouldn't take literally 3-4 times as long as on almost all other linux variants!
Oh well, at least they have removed the sniping at Debian stable from the install slide show...
BTW, nice overview by Susan - I wish it could have been a more in-depth review, but it's always nice to read her writing.
23 • @3 red underlinings spell checker (by Thomas Mueller on 2012-06-26 02:39:16 GMT from United States)
Running Linux and getting Mozilla Seamonkey and Firefox updates from their web sites, I get red wavy/zigzag underlinings with Seamonkey but not Firefox. Some of those underlinings are comical, as with USB, login, SMTP and even Seamonkey: Seamonkey doesn't even recognize its name! Seamonkey once crashed and wouldn't restart; I the downloaded and installed the latest Firefox, which ran. I was also successful, several days later, downloading and installing a later version of SeaMonkey (2.10.1).
24 • re 21 (by Woody Oaks on 2012-06-26 02:57:57 GMT from United States)
My AMD 4800 with 4GB of RAM is hardly a slouch, but KDE's four-series is a nuisance for me on any machine, and that Gnome-thing that shipped with Fedora 17 warrants some sort of adjective that has not yet been invented.
25 • Sabayon (by Thing on 2012-06-26 04:31:53 GMT from United States)
I like Sabayon a lot, but don't run it for a couple reasons. If the team could fix these, I would probably run it as my day-to-day distro.
I like the fact that they are not shy about installing non-free stuff from the beginning, Few distros do this. Its just about the only distro I've found lately that includes the nvidia driver on the live cd. Generally, it seems pretty stable. And thankfully, they got rid of that song at the beginning.
As most have already mentioned, what they really need to concentrate on now are 1) a package mgr with categories, like Synaptic, and 2) decreasing the update time, which is WAY longer than any other binary distro I know. The latter is why I don't run it. Sabayon tends to provide a lot of updates quickly, too, increasing the amount of time spent on updates.
26 • @24 (by mz on 2012-06-26 04:58:04 GMT from United States)
My guess would be that finicky hardware on your distro of choice would be the most likely problem if you run into problems with different DEs. I run KDE on two systems and it seems fairly responsive on both my single core laptop with 2GB of RAM, and on my quad core desktop. In fact I think PCLOS recently improved hardware support for my system, because up till a few months ago the dinky laptop actually seemed more responsive than the desktop. After a few rolling updates the opposite seems true, so I think your mileage may vary depending on hardware support.
27 • @24 (by claudecat on 2012-06-26 06:54:10 GMT from United States)
KDE 4 runs quite well on my lowly HP Mini netbook (ancient Atom cpu and 1Gb RAM). The old adage that KDE 4 is slow, bloated and buggy is getting really tiresome - it hasn't been true since maybe 4.5 or so. I agree with you about gnome-shell though :=}
28 • LXDE and others (by Jozsef on 2012-06-26 07:40:33 GMT from United Arab Emirates)
I use LXDE on i7 sandybridge with 8GB DDR3 RAM. Because I like it more than all other DEs.
29 • KDE (by RobertD on 2012-06-26 08:34:25 GMT from United States)
I too run KDE-3.5.10 sitting on top of openBSD 5.1. Purrs like a kitten.
30 • @1 Debian-based KDE distros (by greg on 2012-06-26 09:44:39 GMT from Slovenia)
They aree Ubuntu based distribution which is Debian based. Though there are plenty similarities between Debian and Ubuntu there are also some differences - e.g. not all .deb files than work on debian will also work on ubuntu, additionally Ubuntu has it's own repositories), then there are PPA's.
Anyway Kubutnu, Mint and Krunner use same reposotories and are really a remix of Ubuntu with KDE desktop.
Suggest you try them live and see if any differences between them mean anything to you.
31 • siduction 12.1.1 (by Mac on 2012-06-26 15:35:48 GMT from United States)
Thanks siducition that is much better for me. Keep up the good work.
Have fun
Mack
32 • @22,25 Updating Sabayon (by Enlightened Gentoo User on 2012-06-26 16:20:34 GMT from United States)
Sabayon is very agreesive in updating their packages in the repos. To help with decreasing update time, you may need to resort the repo mirrors with this command "equo repo mirrorsort sabayonlinux.org" . This command will ping all the mirrors and resort the mirrors based on response times to maximize download speeds.
33 • Storage, Disc - Old Tech? (by Somewhat Reticent on 2012-06-26 16:23:57 GMT from United States)
Isn't CD vs DVD obsolete? Who wastes time and plastic trying things out? Isn't that what flash storage is for? With room for not only 'multi-arch' base systems, but personalized repositories?
Perhaps the first question should be whether trying a distro requires wasting pendrive space with 'dd'?
34 • @33, CD/DVD obsolete (by TobiSGD on 2012-06-26 17:15:17 GMT from Germany)
First world thinking. No, CDs/DVDs are not obsolete. In many countries on this world machines are in use that just can't boot from USB, because they are to old, nor are pendrives as common as in the first world.
35 • re 26 and 27: (by Woody oaks on 2012-06-26 17:22:19 GMT from United States)
My problem with KDE's four-series is not that it doesn't respond but rather with the foolishness with which it does respond.
36 • Tech in 'non-first' world (by Somewhat Reticent on 2012-06-26 17:47:10 GMT from United States)
I read of a hospital that pxe-boots thin-client laptops supported by a host booted (annually) from business-card cd [Plop?] with a usb pendrive holding OS etc. They could be called "third-world", or "of modest means", but hardly uninformed.
37 • re:33 (by Ron on 2012-06-26 19:08:36 GMT from United States)
D"Isn't CD vs DVD obsolete? Who wastes time and plastic trying things out?"
Its called CD-RW, DVD-RW.
38 • Mulitimedia in Sabayon (by Enimil Ashun on 2012-06-26 19:41:01 GMT from Ghana)
Good write up I keep returning to Sabayon. In some Debian distro one can just play any web radio just by clicking without having=g to copy the urls or right clicking to 'open with' totem or mplayer etc. The irc chaps are good but like debian community the players should be able to ell which plugin is missing and offer to download.
39 • RW - Remainder-Write (by Somewhat Reticent on 2012-06-26 20:17:41 GMT from United States)
Using remaining disc space is better use of write-once media, which is good for archiving.
40 • @35 (by mz on 2012-06-26 21:18:03 GMT from United States)
I'm still leaning toward graphics or other minor hardware issues in your distro, as I said my more powerful quad core system didn't seem seem to respond as well or 'feel right' compared to my single core laptop until after applying some rolling updates. Maybe it was something in switching to kernel 3.2, perhaps it was a graphics driver or something else, but the same version of KDE on the same hardware now just feels better and more bolted together on my desktop. Of course if there is something visual, theme, or desktop effects related that you don't like in KDE there is likely a setting for that if you dig into it a little. Anyway, use what you like & feel free to try other stuff every few updates or so, and enjoy whatever you choose.
41 • bootable optical medai (by Pearson on 2012-06-26 21:52:14 GMT from United States)
It was only recently that *I* had a computer that would reasonably boot from USB, because I didn't have the money for the newer computers. I still don't have a thumb drive primarily because where I work I can't even take one into the building. Since my computers are networked and I rarely need to boot from CD/DVD, I'm still using the stack of CDs that I bought 5 years ago.
So, not everyone is "current".
42 • "For older hardware" (by Somewhat Reticent on 2012-06-26 23:39:13 GMT from United States)
Even though my hand-me-down pc was made in 2002, apparently it's not 'old' enough - a 64-bit cpu is just too new - but it's also too 'old' for newer distros: since the cpu's not Intel, it just couldn't be a 'real' 686. OTOH, for my cousin's 2008 box, audio thru hdmi only works OOTB on older distros ('buntu 10 and earlier) ... and the newest (like PureOS 5, Mageia 2, Solus 2, etc) as newer kernels make up for time lost to separating out drivers.
43 • re 40 (by Woody Oaks on 2012-06-27 02:08:07 GMT from United States)
I have mentioned quite clearly that there is nothing wrong with my system's hardware at all; it can run the latest iterations of KDE swiftly and accurately and on par with some of the finest of today's desktop systems, such as yours. The problem lies with what KDE 4.8 does when it runs swiftly and accurately. KDE 3.5 was a great window manager with a well-designed desktop and useful applications. (And by the way, Trinity is worth a try.). But the KDE four-series presents a collage of visual nuisances: No matter how rapidly and accurately a system's hardware might handle the binary bloat there remain the awful consequences of the designers' intentions oozing forth across the poor operator's monitor. I'm reminded of tail fins and buckets of chrome on 50s cars - sure, with enough horsepower you could haul that junk around, but why would you want to?
44 • @43 (by mz on 2012-06-27 02:43:50 GMT from United States)
Well, the desktop effects can be turned off at your leisure as I mentioned. And of course you could run a non-compositing WM like openbox if you wanted. You may just prefer a bland as paste DE, and by all means go ahead and install one. If you hate cars that don't do anything but function the way you want go ahead and buy one shaped like an ugly brick, and if the same is true of your desktop go ahead and run a DE that _looks_ like windows 95. And if you hate choices of style so much you may also consider making a time machine to go back to some old school communist place where they make everyone wear the same clothes too, or you could just go to prison if that's easier. Me I like choice & freedom, and I get a certain satisfaction from running what I like to think of as a sort of Korvette DE with out having to pay any $ for it, which sadly isn't true of actual Corvettes. The reason for the existence of KDE is the same reason there are Mustangs & Ferraris, some people like things that aren't Yuogs.
45 • watch out for siduction installer !! (by Roland on 2012-06-27 03:26:42 GMT from United States)
Tried to install siduction 12.1.1 x64 to sdb1, sdb2 as home. Good thing I opened a terminal and ran 'df' before proceeding. It had mounted sda1,sda2,sda4, and sdb4 all to /tmp/partinfo-mount (on top of each other) without my permission !! It would have wiped my other OS (mint) and all my data partitions. Ran 'sudo umount', it complained until I found the right order and unmounted last-one-first. Of course, getting an account on their forum to report this bug at 8PM PDT which is ~5AM german time is impossible.
Separate rant: USB stick won't boot if I use unetbootin. 'dd' works, but it destroys a perfectly good filesystem, and rebuilding that is a PITA. Resolved: if your OS won't boot via unetbootin, it is broken. Non-buntu debians all seem to have these problems.
46 • rebus flagrantibus (by Woody Oaks on 2012-06-27 04:18:25 GMT from United States)
It was my sole intention way back there at post #20 to point out that Unix computers introduced archetypical windowing and that Microsoft's knockoff was really a knockoff of a knockoff, and a poor third at that. By comparison consider the '65 Mustang which was a '65 Falcon with reduced passenger space originally marketed for appeal to single women in their 20s as a "secretary's car". The Mustang had the same engine, transmission, and chassis as the Falcon; it didn't go any faster than the Falcon, but it wasn't any slower either. Bill Gates' first "Windows" release didn't work at all, though, so please don't try to liken an economical Unix GUI to the stuff he peddles (piddles?). As for my personal tastes, I must admit to visiting The People's Cube from time to time, along with Perseus and, of course, DistroWatch. Yes, there are some outdated stickynotes hanging from my monitor and a bran flake wedged between the Y and the 7 (I caught the raisin before it rolled onto the floor), but my computer exists for the purpose of running applications - applications such as LibreOffice, X-Plane, KStars (a KDE thing), and K3d (not a KDE thing). When I call up an application such as Free42s it is for the utility and possibly even the aesthetics of that application without much regard for what the screen behind its image might look like if that image weren't there. But enough of this: I'll check GPredict to see if I should be outside with the binoculars or maybe pop a Loeb for thirty minutes or so. Life is good.
47 • choice is good (by mz on 2012-06-27 05:10:44 GMT from United States)
Choice is good, some like one DE others pick something else. Just enjoy yours & then it's all good.
48 • @12 re: Sabayon default 32-bit PAE Kernel (by Willie Green on 2012-06-27 12:58:45 GMT from United States)
I have the same gripe with Ubuntu's lightweight desktop installations.
I understand that there may be some 32-bit users who have more than 4GB of RAM, but I would assume that the vast majority have less. Heck, I couldn't even install 4GB of RAM on my P4 machine if I wanted to, the M/B tops out at 2 GB max.
Why is Ubunutu shoving a PAE down my throat?
Please save it for the 64-bit guys.
49 • Linus Torvalds drops the "F" bomb on nVidia + a question (by DemonTek on 2012-06-27 14:32:12 GMT from United States)
So I was a bit surprised when Linus gave his "opinion" of nVidia the other day. I have been a die hard nVidia user for many years and yes, I have had issues regarding drop-offs or black-screens, but I dealt with it.
However, I am also an avid Windows gamer and have noticed recently that games are getting more robust and nVidia, even under Windows, just doesn't seem to be up to par. I am getting a bit annoyed with this. So I agree with Linus 110%. "nVidia, "F Bomb" you!!!
Now for my question:
I am currently running an nVidia GeForce 560ti and want to switch to AMD/ATI card. Which card should I get that would be an equivalent to what I already have and?
Thanx
50 • nVidia vs ATI/AMD (by kernelpanic! on 2012-06-27 16:15:17 GMT from Germany)
@ 49
you are talking about the proprietary drivers, I guess.
if you think nvidia cards give you trouble then just try ati/amd, have fun.
getting fglrx working is about 50/50 chance, success always pending on kernel and/or xserver version (my experience). I just gave up on it and built a machine with nvidia card, never had any issues with it.
you might also try intel drivers, the "proprietary" driver is "libre" there.
51 • android (by srobart on 2012-06-27 20:45:12 GMT from United States)
Come on folks, android isn't JUST for phones! I have a motorola xoom that I use on a daily basis for web browsing, emailing and other menial tasks that I used to need an actual computer to do. So it's not just a phone OS anymore.
Mind you, it sucks on a pc...
52 • Nvidia vs AMD (by shady on 2012-06-28 03:23:39 GMT from United States)
@50
You are correct sir.
Nvidia is graphics cards on 'easy' mode compared to getting AMD Fglrx 'nightmare' mode.
53 • KDE (by Mac on 2012-06-28 13:32:10 GMT from United States)
Siduction has never gave me trouble but (sda3) - (sda10) is what I use. And it puts the bootloader on partition where I want it and not the mbr. I hate when they go to the mbr no matter what I do.
I use mepis also wonder what has happened?
I want even try a distro that is not kde!!!
And that is my choice and that is what it is all about.
Have fun
Mack
54 • Sabayon (by Mac on 2012-06-28 13:41:21 GMT from United States)
And now with Susan's review I have Sabayon up next to try.
Have fun
Mack
55 • Network mounts at boot (by Bryan Sutherland on 2012-06-28 14:30:13 GMT from Canada)
When you are creating a file containing network credentials it is best to change your container file permissions to 0400 rather than 0600 to help reduce potential inadvertent edits.
Additionally I also advise hiding the file (say as .network_mount) to keep hidden from casual prying eyes, though anyone with access to your /etc/fstab will know where to look.
Bryan
56 • Added security (by Jesse on 2012-06-28 18:22:50 GMT from Canada)
>> "Additionally I also advise hiding the file (say as .network_mount) to keep hidden from casual prying eyes, though anyone with access to your /etc/fstab will know where to look."
If you have marked the file as being readable only by yourself then making the file hidden doesn't help you at all. It doesn't matter if other users can locate the file since they can't open it. Hiding a file no one else can access is just making things harder for yourself.
>> "Nvidia is graphics cards on 'easy' mode compared to getting AMD Fglrx 'nightmare' mode."
I second this. Throwing out NVIDIA in favour of ATI is like trading in a car with a flat tyre for a car with no engine.
57 • Nvidia vs. ATI (by DavidEF on 2012-06-29 15:06:36 GMT from United States)
Just my $0.02 worth. I've used Nvidia cards for years, and I've used ATI a couple of times as well. I've found this statement to be true:
"Throwing out NVIDIA in favour of ATI is like trading in a car with a flat tyre for a car with no engine."
One ATI I bought for a new build burned out from overheating in a few months. I returned it under warranty and bought an Nvidia to replace it. I thought I'd give ATI a chance to impress me. It obviously worked - I am now more impressed to always buy Nvidia. For added bonus - In the analogy above, Intel graphics would be the moped. Sure, it will get you places (I guess better than no engine), but don't expect it to take you far or fast, and do expect to be laughed at.
58 • my $0.01 worth on nVidia vs. ATI (by corneliu on 2012-06-29 16:35:45 GMT from Canada)
When I started my Linux life I had an embedded ATI that made it impossible for me to install Linux on my computer (it was probably because I was a beginner, I can't tell). So I bought an nVidia card and I never had graphics issues anymore. My only complain was that the free nv driver did not have 3D capabilities and the proprietary nVidia driver was a hassle to update. Every time I had a kernel update I had to recompile it with the nVidia driver.
Then my nVidia card died a natural death and I replaced it with an ATI. The free driver got 3D but caused frequent freezes so I had no choice but install fglrx. It always worked well, but I was back to compiling the kernel with the driver. Then suddenly, somewhere after kernel 3.0 (I think) the free ATI driver stopped freezing. Right now the free ATI driver works very well with my card. I'm happy, no more kernel compiling.
59 • ATI (by Gustavo on 2012-06-30 02:04:45 GMT from Brazil)
I also got decent performance (2D/3D) with free ATI driver (Radeon HD 6150), but only with the amd64 version. The i386 build is a little slow.
60 • Linutop OS (by John Smiley on 2012-07-01 00:58:30 GMT from Mexico)
Why is distrowatch even featuring Linutop OS. It is not free nor open source. I downloaded the ISO it is a demo and a commercial trying to sell computers and the use of there OS one that is based on ubuntu (free and open source) and firefox (also free and open source). What is the diferance between them and microsoft? Both take the best of the open source world and sell it for a profit with no value added.
61 • @57, AMD vs NVidia (by TobiSGD on 2012-07-01 06:54:07 GMT from Germany)
"One ATI I bought for a new build burned out from overheating in a few months. I returned it under warranty and bought an Nvidia to replace it. I thought I'd give ATI a chance to impress me. It obviously worked - I am now more impressed to always buy Nvidia."
Every time I read something like that I am rather astonished. Neither AMD nor Nvidia manufacture video cards. They just sell chips. The quality of the card you get is solely dependent on the card manufacturer. If you get a cheap low quality Nvidia card it will drop dead in the same rate as cheap low quality AMD card. We had at one time a whole bunch of failing Nvidia cards from Point of View. Does that mean that Nvidia is making low quality chips? No, that meant that those cards from Point of View were low quality.
So what are your evidences that the burning up of your card was caused by AMD's chip, not by the card manufacturer?
Number of Comments: 61
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| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
| • Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
| • Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
| • Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
| • Issue 1041 (2023-10-16): FydeOS 17.0, Dr.Parted 23.09, changing UIDs, Fedora partners with Slimbook, GNOME phasing out X11 sessions, Ubuntu revokes 23.10 install media |
| • Issue 1040 (2023-10-09): CROWZ 5.0, changing the location of default directories, Linux Mint updates its Edge edition, Murena crowdfunding new privacy phone, Debian publishes new install media |
| • Issue 1039 (2023-10-02): Zenwalk Current, finding the duration of media files, Peppermint OS tries out new edition, COSMIC gains new features, Canonical reports on security incident in Snap store |
| • Issue 1038 (2023-09-25): Mageia 9, trouble-shooting launchers, running desktop Linux in the cloud, New documentation for Nix, Linux phasing out ReiserFS, GNU celebrates 40 years |
| • Issue 1037 (2023-09-18): Bodhi Linux 7.0.0, finding specific distros and unified package managemnt, Zevenet replaced by two new forks, openSUSE introduces Slowroll branch, Fedora considering dropping Plasma X11 session |
| • Issue 1036 (2023-09-11): SDesk 2023.08.12, hiding command line passwords, openSUSE shares contributor survery results, Ubuntu plans seamless disk encryption, GNOME 45 to break extension compatibility |
| • Issue 1035 (2023-09-04): Debian GNU/Hurd 2023, PCLinuxOS 2023.07, do home users need a firewall, AlmaLinux introduces new repositories, Rocky Linux commits to RHEL compatibility, NetBSD machine runs unattended for nine years, Armbian runs wallpaper contest |
| • Issue 1034 (2023-08-28): Void 20230628, types of memory usage, FreeBSD receives port of Linux NVIDIA driver, Fedora plans improved theme handling for Qt applications, Canonical's plans for Ubuntu |
| • Full list of all issues |
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KoreLinux
Kore Linux was a Korean Linux distribution based on Fedora Core.
Status: Discontinued
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0x969CD4E778C7b6549A2B00e34114e0168c86A542 
