DistroWatch Weekly |
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 483, 19 November 2012 |
Welcome to this year's 47th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! As many of us await the stable release of Linux Mint 14, a rather quiet week has resulted in a triple first-look review of Debian GNU/Hurd, DragonFly BSD and Xubuntu 12.10. Xubuntu is perhaps the most exciting project of the three, combining a well-tested base system with a lightweight desktop environment that could deliver a winner in these days of confusing desktop interfaces. But will the traditional desktop win the hearts and minds of users in this age of touch-screen interfaces? Read on to find out. In the news section, a link to an article suggesting improvements over a stock Ubuntu 12.10 install, Gentoo developers on the verge of forking the good-old udev device manager, and an unexpected FreeBSD server compromise that reminds us only too well about the insecurities of the Internet today. Also in the news, a Question & Answers section that talks about switching to a different file system on the fly and the usual sections, including an introduction to the Ubuntu-based SalentOS. Happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (38MB) and MP3 (37MB) formats
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Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
A tale of three projects
This week I had the urge to experiment with a few operating systems to which I usually don't pay attention. With that in mind I decided to give three projects very quick first-impression reviews, starting with the GNU/Hurd branch of the Debian project. Debian's GNU/Hurd is essentially a regular installation of Debian with the usual installer and userland programs, but the kernel shipping with this operating system isn't Linux, it is GNU's Hurd. Hurd hasn't led a particularly glamorous existence. Despite repeated efforts to breathe life into the project it has never gained the attention other kernel projects, such as Linux, have. That being said, some earnest developers decided to wed the Debian project to Hurd and I wanted to see what came from this union.
Debian GNU/Hurd can be downloaded as either a set of three full sized CDs or as a single 1.4 GB DVD. I opted for the DVD option. Booting from this media brings up a GRUB 2 boot menu where we are asked if we would like to launch the system installer in graphical mode, in text mode or in pseudo-graphical mode. Other options include performing an "expert" install or an "automated" install. As it turned out, the choices didn't make any difference. Regardless of which option I selected the machine would simply reboot, bringing me back to the menu. It didn't seem to matter whether I was using physical hardware, VirtualBox or KVM, I couldn't get as far as the project's system installer.
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Let's move on to DragonFly BSD. DragonFly was originally forked from the FreeBSD project and it takes on some interesting characteristics not found in its parent. For instance, DragonFly will let kernel instances run as userland programs, making testing new kernels easier for developers. Perhaps most important though, among DragonFly's features, is the HAMMER file system. HAMMER is a next generation file system which allows for massive volumes, sub-volumes, snapshots and practically instant recovery from a crash. Despite the praise often given to this file system it has not be successfully adopted elsewhere. (At the moment there are on-going efforts to get HAMMER ported to FreeBSD.) In the past I hadn't had much luck getting DragonFly BSD to run, but I decided to take the latest release, version 3.2.1, for a spin.
The operating system comes in 32-bit and 64-bit builds and the ISO for either build is approximately 1.9 GB in size. Booting from this media we're brought to a text login screen where we are told we can login as root to use the command line interface or we can login using an "installer" account in order to run the system installer. The DragonFly BSD installer is text based and reminds me of the older FreeBSD installers (those which appeared prior to FreeBSD 9). We're asked to confirm we really want to install DragonFly, then we're walked through creating slices and partitions (the Linux community generally refers to these as partitions and sub-partitions). We're asked which file system we would like to use, the popular UFS option or HAMMER. Given the limited size of the partitions I was using I opted for UFS. From there files are copied to our local hard drive and then we are walked through a few configuration steps. We're asked to set our time zone, set a password for the root account and configure the machine's network card. When in doubt we can usually take the default options. While the installer was running I noticed there was a hint at the top of the screen saying pressing F10 would refresh the display. I thought this was odd until, during the configuration process, the installer appeared to lock-up each time I completed a step. I found that pressing F10 would cause the next prompt to appear.
DragonFly BSD, like many other BSD operating systems, doesn't default to a graphical user interface. When we boot into DragonFly we're brought to a text-based login screen. Logging in we can navigate around the command line, create new user accounts and install additional software from a ports collection (more on ports in a moment). By default DragonFly is a fairly light system, using just 20 MB of RAM and taking up approximately 2 GB of hard drive space. In the background a mail server and a secure shell are running. One thing I discovered early on in my trial was that OpenSSH would block login attempts by default, requiring the secure shell server to be configured before users could login remotely.
Should we wish to install third-party software on top of DragonFly BSD we can do this by selecting software from a ports and packages collection. All software is available in the form of source code and most ports also provide pre-built binary packages for our convenience. I found the process of acquiring new software on DragonFly to be quite similar to the way we install software on FreeBSD or NetBSD. The primary difference appeared to be that when I downloaded binary packages they would be installed in the /usr/pkg directory (rather than /usr/local) and the /usr/pkg directory isn't in the user's default path. This means if we install an application called "foo", by default we need to specify its entire path, such as "/usr/pkg/bin/foo". Updating our user's path gets around this inconvenience.
Though I only played around with DragonFly BSD for a day my overall impression was fairly good. Not because the system itself is particularly friendly or easy to use, but because the project has excellent documentation. The DragonFly Handbook is well organized and the instructions are clear. This makes it fairly easy to dive into DragonFly if we already have a basic understanding of BSD or Linux operating systems. My only serious issue with DragonFly was with regard to hardware. The operating system wouldn't boot in VirtualBox and, on physical hardware, it wasn't able to find my wireless network card, nor could I get X running for a graphical interface. I suspect DragonFly is mostly run on physical servers anyway, reducing the need for a wide range of hardware support.
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On that note, let's look at a project which is designed with desktop users in mind: Xubuntu. After my review of Ubuntu several people pointed out that I've never done a review of Xubuntu. All of the exciting developments seem to happen in Ubuntu and Kubuntu, leaving the relatively calm Xubuntu out of the spotlight. Let's take a moment to shine that light on Xubuntu 12.10. The ISO we download for Xubuntu is approximately 693MB in size. As with its siblings in the Ubuntu community, the Xubuntu disc boots into a graphical environment where we are asked whether we'd like to try the distribution, running it from the CD, or install the operating system. The system installer is the same as Ubuntu's (and other members of the Ubuntu family) and I encountered no problems getting the disk partitioned and the distribution installed.
Once Xubuntu is installed and we boot from the local hard drive we're brought to a graphical login screen. Xubuntu supports regular user accounts and there is also a guest account which can be accessed without the need of a password. The desktop is laid out in an elegant manner with the application menu and task switcher placed at the top of the display. Icons for accessing the file system are placed on the desktop and the wallpaper is neutral blue. I found the clean layout and colour theme calming and pleasant.
Something I found odd about browsing the application menu of Xubuntu was that items are named in three different ways. Some items in the menu are labeled with the application's name, such as "gThumb". Others are labeled according to their job, such as "File Manager", and another group has a combination of name and description, such as "Firefox Web Browser". Some other programs available in the menu are the Ubuntu Software Centre for managing packages, the AbiWord word processor, Parole for watching videos and an app called gmusicbrowser for playing audio files. The Orage calendar is included along with a disc burner, many little programs for editing text files, dealing with archives and other common tasks. There are a handful of programs to help us adjust the look and feel of the desktop too. Network Manager is included to help us get on-line and the Linux kernel, version 3.5, provides an excellent range of hardware support. Whether multimedia extras such as Flash and mp3 playback support are included will depend on our choices at install time. Software package management is handled by two programs, a simple graphical software updater and the Ubuntu Software Centre. I found both programs worked quite well and provide the user with a huge collection of software via the Ubuntu repositories.
Xubuntu did a good job of detecting and using my hardware. I was able to get on-line without any problems, my screen was set to a medium resolution by default and audio worked out of the box. The Xfce desktop doesn't require much memory and I found logging in to my account used approximately 180MB of RAM, fairly low by today's standards.
I've only been using Xubuntu for a little over a day, but so far the experience has been quite good. The installer is very easy to use, the Xfce desktop is stable and responsive. I really like that the Xfce developers have stayed focused on making minor improvements to their project rather than dropping their working code and chasing after new paradigms. I feel as though Xubuntu has managed to benefit from the vast array of software and technology available in the Ubuntu repositories without getting caught up in unstable new features. I quite like the combination of the elegant Xfce desktop with modern technology such as the Ubuntu Software Centre.
Xubuntu 12.10 - the Xfce desktop settings (full image size: 233kB, screen resolution 1024x768 pixels)
I did have a few minor complaints after playing with Xubuntu. Nothing serious, but little things which I'd like to see either fixed or changed. One was that the system installer asks if we would like to download all available updates at install time and I opted into this to avoid manually downloading updates post-install. However, the first time I logged into Xubuntu a pop-up appeared to let me know there were 21 updates available to be downloaded. It appears as though my instruction at install time was not followed. Another thing which bothered me was that I wanted to change around some of the items in the application menu. I found the menu editor, made my changes and later found those changes hadn't been applied. Logging out and in again still showed the original application menu and returning to the menu editor showed my changes had been reverted. I tried making changes several times, adjusting different menu items and my changes never stuck. Additionally, on the topic of the application menu, I find some of the default programs unusual. I suspect some of the choices were a reflection on the limited space on the Xubuntu CD. Having AbiWord as the only productivity program and Parole as the video player stuck me as unusual and not all that appealing. I think if these choices were made in order to save space then it would be nice to have a DVD edition of Xubuntu with a full office suite and more popular multimedia applications.
The above minor concerns aside, Xubuntu 12.10 worked well for me. It's relatively light on resources, it remained stable during my short time with it and the interface was very responsive. It has a nice mix of dependable software, like Xfce and the Ubuntu installer, but it also has newer features which give the user all of the benefits of modern package management and hardware support. I found using Xubuntu to be pleasant and happily uneventful.
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Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
What do to after installing Ubuntu 12.10, Gentoo forks udev, FreeBSD security compromise
So you installed Ubuntu 12.10 and now what? Well, there is still quite a bit to do and Julian Fernandes will happily guide you through the next steps: "Another Ubuntu version is out and, once again, many users rush to download and install the orange operating system. But release after release we ask ourselves: what to do after installing Ubuntu? Installed Ubuntu and have no clue about what to do now? There is no easy answer for this question, because every person have different needs, but in this post you will find some essential steps to make your Ubuntu desktop perfect. It’s a compilation of software and tips I use to make my Ubuntu ready for daily use. Ready? Then let’s get to work. The first thing to do after your install Ubuntu is update it. Canonical usually release a update package after the release, so this step is really important. Open Unity’s dash with the >Super< key (the one with the Windows logo) and type software channels, clicking on the result after that. When the software is open, configure it like the images below."
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An average Linux developer is a surprisingly stubborn individual, never easy to please. The latest conflict in the distro world is over the well-established udev device manager which is now forcefully being replaced by Fedora's systemd. But some developers fear that this is yet another exercise of commercialism over common sense. Gentoo developer Richard Yao is the latest to add discontent over the situation: "It is no secret that many of us are unhappy with the direction that udev has taken under the leadership of the systemd developers. That includes Linus Torvalds, who is 'leery of the fact that the udev maintenance seems to have gone into some 'crazy mode' where they have made changes that were known to be problematic, and are pure and utter stupidity. After speaking with several other Gentoo developers that share Linus' concerns, I have decided to form a team to fork udev. Our plan is to eliminate the separate /usr requirement from our fork, among other things. We will announce the project later this week." Similar concerns have been expressed by some of the Debian developers in Gentoo guys starting a fork of udev.
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It's never a pleasure to report a compromise of a well-known open-source project, but it seems to be a norm of these days of Internet troubles. The latest one is FreeBSD whose servers have suffered a break-in through a stolen SSH key. From the announcement by the project's security officer: "On Sunday 11th of November, an intrusion was detected on two machines within the FreeBSD.org cluster. The affected machines were taken offline for analysis. Additionally, a large portion of the remaining infrastructure machines were also taken offline as a precaution. We have found no evidence of any modifications that would put any end user at risk. However, we do urge all users to read the report available at here and decide on any required actions themselves. We will continue to update that page as further information becomes known. We do not currently believe users have been affected given current forensic analysis, but we will provide updated information if this changes. As a result of this event, a number of operational security changes are being made at the FreeBSD Project, in order to further improve our resilience to potential attacks."
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Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Switching file systems on the fly
Curious-about-file-systems asks: 1) I know a file system type code can be changed via a program for a given file system, then all is fine after a reboot, but can a file system itself somehow be changed under any one partition, and the OS and its data still be intact after a reboot? For example, perhaps, an ext4 partition changed to ext3 on the fly by some program? 2) Regarding ReiserFS, I actually read a great article from Wired magazine where a journalist interviewed Hans Reiser. The writer found that within the ReiserFS source code, at the very end, a line or two from the end perhaps, Hans Reiser added some phrase within it relating to his beliefs, frustrations or theories. I cannot recall what it was though. Where would I find the source code for ReiserFS, in the Linux directory tree, /usr/src or another place?
DistroWatch answers: 1) In some cases, yes, it is possible to convert one file system into another. One of the attractions of Btrfs is the ability to convert a given ext3 or ext4 partition to Btrfs and, if necessary, convert back to ext4 afterward. A decade ago it was also common for people to convert from ext2 to the journaled ext3 file system. It's the sort of operation you want to prepare for by making backups of your data first, but it is possible to make the change. Also, I feel it important to point out that the ext2/3/4 and Btrfs family of file systems is a bit of a special case as it is generally assumed people will convert from one up to the next and tools have been made to assist system administrators in moving from older file systems to newer ones in the family. It's less likely you will find file system utilities for switching between file systems which aren't so closely related. For example, I don't recall ever hearing of a tool for converting ext4 to ZFS or UFS to XFS, those are big jumps. When switching between those file systems I think you would have to backup your data, reformat the partition and then copy the data back to the new file system.
2) Someone once told me our lives are 10% what happens and 90% how we react to those events. As such I've always been disappointed by the way in which the tech media (in general) handled the Hans Reiser trial. There was a distinct lack of decorum, a lot of sensationalist reporting and no small number of conspiracy theories put forward in an effort to generate page hits. The Wired article in question, to which I will refrain from linking, seems to fall under the conspiracy theory category as the author pretends there are clues about the trial, or at least Han Reiser's philosophies, hidden in the source code. There are none. The source code in question, that of the Reiser4 file system, is available on SourceForge. The section referenced by the Wired article begins on line 77,340 of the source code and ends on line 77,449. The comment block explains how parts of the file system, specifically znodes, work. While interesting from a technical perspective, the code comment doesn't contain any information beyond dealing with znodes.
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Released Last Week |
m0n0wall 1.34
Manuel Kasper has announced the release of m0n0wall 1.34, a tiny FreeBSD-based operating system for firewalls: "m0n0wall 1.34 released. m0n0wall 1.34 is a maintenance release with low-priority security fixes for CSRF/XSS issues in the webGUI. Changes in this release: eliminate modifying GETs from webGUI pages; make rule moving and deletion on shaper rules page work like for firewall rules; add csrf-magic for CSRF protection in webGUI; fix potential XSS in diag_ping.php and diag_traceroute.php; increase key size of auto-generated webGUI certificates to 2,048 bits; update default webGUI certificate/key; remove domain name handling from dhclient-script and change ARP command not to use sed (not used/available in m0n0wall); change virtualHW version to 7 for VMWare image to avoid errors in ESX 4." Visit the project's download page to read the full changelog.
ROSA 2012 "Enterprise Linux Server"
Konstantin Kochereshkin has announced the release of ROSA 2012 "Enterprise Linux Server", a server distribution based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux: "The ROSA team is happy to announce ROSA Enterprise Linux Server (RELS) 'Helium' 2012 server operating system. RELS 2012 is based on a combination of a package base from Red Hat, the world leader in the server operating system market, modern open technologies from upstream and brand-name ROSA tools and applications. This allows to achieve binary-level compatibility with popular enterprise applications and at the same time extend the system functionality, e.g., for easier integration with existing corporate networks, visual server configuration and management, etc." Read the rest of the release announcement for features, technical specifications and other information.
Tails 0.14
Tails 0.14 has been released. Tails is a Debian-based live system with the goal of providing complete Internet anonymity for the user. From the release announcement: "Tails (The Amnesic Incognito Live System) version 0.14 is out. All users must upgrade as soon as possible. Notable user-visible changes include: Tor upgrade to 0.2.3.24-rc, enable stream isolation; upgrade Iceweasel to 10.0.10esr, with anonymity enhancing patches from the TorBrowser applied; fix Iceweasel's file associations No longer should you be prompted to open a PDF in the GIMP; hardware support - upgrade Linux kernel to 3.2.32, support more than 4 GB of RAM, support more than one CPU core; fix memory wiping at shutdown; gpgApplet can now handle public key cryptography; add a persistence preset for NetworkManager connections; better support setting up persistence on large USB sticks...."
Peppermint OS Three-20121105
Kendall Weaver has announced the release of an updated build of Peppermint OS Three, a lightweight Linux distribution with Openbox, based on Ubuntu 12.04: "We're proud and happy to announce the first re-spin of Peppermint Three in both 32-bit and 64-bit editions. The downloads are live now via our standard download links and are also available for purchase in both CD and USB format. The re-spins offer a fully updated install as of November 5th, 2012, so you aren't left needing to download hundreds of megabytes of updates immediately after the install. In addition, we changed the desktop notifications back to the way they were in Peppermint Two after several users noted that the way they were implemented in Three seemed to be a bit of a step backward compared to the previous iterations. For users already running Three that also want this, it's actually quite simple: simply install the packages 'notify-osd' and 'notify-osd-icons'." Continue reading the release announcement for further details.
Parsix GNU/Linux 4.0
Alan Baghumian has announced the release of Parsix GNU/Linux 4.0, a desktop Linux distribution with GNOME Shell, based on Debian's 'testing' branch: "Parsix GNU/Linux 4.0 (code name 'Gloria') brings tons of updated packages, faster live boot, improved installer system and quality new features. This version has been synchronized with Debian testing repositories as of November 7, 2012 and brings lot of updated packages compared to Parsix 3.7. Parsix Gloria is the project's first release with the GNOME 3 series and it ships with LibreOffice productivity suit by default. Gloria has a brand-new software manager package. Highlights: GNOME 3.4.2, X.Org 7.7, GRUB 2, GNU Iceweasel 16.0.2, GParted 0.12.1, Empathy 3.4.2.3, LibreOffice 3.5.4, VirtualBox 4.1.18 and a brand-new kernel based on Linux 3.2.28 with TuxOnIce, BFS and other extra patches. The live DVD has been compressed using Squashfs and xz." See the detailed release notes for more information.
Parsix GNU/Linux 4.0 - a Debian-based desktop Linux distribution with GNOME Shell (full image size: 778kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Dream Studio 12.04.1
Dick MacInnis has announced the release of Dream Studio 12.04.1, an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring a collection of open-source applications for creating graphics, videos, music and websites: "Dream Studio 12.04.1 has been officially released. New features include: upgraded base system, based on the Ubuntu 12.04.1 install disc; many upgraded packages, such as Ardour, Blender, and GIMP; the Dream Studio audio indicator by default, instead of QJackctl; the addition of a hardware-specific software installer for some audio hardware; the addition of all the KXStudio repositories; the addition of slowmovideo by default, as well as a new graphics repository; many, many, small tweaks and performance upgrades. This is the latest release in the 12.04 series for Dream Studio. Any current 12.04 users will be upgraded automatically." Here is the brief release announcement.
GALPon MiniNo 2.0
Miguel Anxo Bouzada has announced the release of GALPon MiniNo 2.0, a Debian-based distributions for legacy computers - the ones made twelve (or more) years ago: "On 16 November 2002 the Pontevedra Linux Users Group, Grupo de Amigos Linux de Pontevedra 'GALPon', was formed in Vigo, a city in the province of Pontevedra, in Galicia in north-west Spain; its objective was to promote the use of GNU/Linux and free software in general, while offering a meeting point for all enthusiasts for this software. Today, 10 years later, to commemorate that day, we are releasing the latest version of our 'distro' GALPon MiniNo v_2.0 aka 'Ártabros' and we are launching this new website which we hope will be more user friendly than the earlier one. It is our hope that this latest version of GALPon MiniNo will be useful and we look forward to your continuing support and your suggestions for further enhancements." Visit the distribution's news page to read the brief release announcement.
GALPon MiniNo 2.0 - a Debian-based desktop Linux distribution with LXDE (full image size: 172kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Canaima GNU/Linux 3.1
Canaima GNU/Linux is a Debian-based desktop Linux distribution from Venezuela. An updated build, version 3.1 based on "Squeeze", was released a couple of days ago. According to the project's website, the distribution is built in the spirit of social and technological policies leading to increased knowledge, innovation and technological independence in Venezuela and is meant for use in government organisations and communities of users. Some of the changes in this release include: software updates to LibreOffice 3.4, Cunaguaro 8.0 web browser with complete support for HTML 5, Turpial 1.6.6, Amigu 0.7.2; new applications, such as Ucumari - a control centre based on Ailurus Centro, Canaima Instalador - a new system installer written in Python.... Read the release announcement and also the detailed release notes (both links in Spanish) for further information.
Kwort Linux 3.5
David Cortarello has announced the release of Kwort Linux 3.5, lightweight distribution based on CRUX with a custom package management tool: "Finally Kwort Linux 3.5 has arrived. We have been testing this release for a month and it needed just one public release candidate to get a known bug-free system. Those who installed RC1 can upgrade to the final version with kpkg. In this version our system received a complete update, from the toolchain to the latest X11 applications. This might be the last i686 version as we are planning to move to x86_64 for our next release. We are rolling this release with Linux kernel 3.5.4, the latest stable version of Chromium (Firefox is available on the CD image in more/xapps). The latest LibreOffice is also available on the CD image for you to install with kpkg. Most noticeable changes are in the installer and kpkg, as both got a speed up and also I gave kpkg the ability to upgrade a single package or the whole system." Visit the project's home page to read the complete release announcement.
Manjaro Linux 0.8.2 "LXDE"
Philip Müller has announced the release of Manjaro Linux 0.8.2 "LXDE" edition, an lightweight desktop distribution based on Arch Linux: "The culmination of substantial refinements and exciting new developments, Manjaro 0.8.2 is the most polished, feature-rich, and accessible release yet. A lot of people asked me for a LXDE edition. Here it is. It has the same look and functionality as our Xfce edition. With this release you get a better EFI-support through rEFInd, it includes support for Steam gaming, automatic desktop notifications for new system updates, and -- developed exclusively for Manjaro -- a user-friendly graphical interface to easily manage and maintain the system. A more detailed overview of the improvements in the 0.8.2 release is as follows: the default Linux kernel series has been changed to 3.4-longterm for better upstream support; LXDE got updated to 0.5.5...." Read the full release announcement for more details, screenshot and a link to the changelog.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to the database
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 26 November 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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Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Xubuntu (by Wine Curmudgeon on 2012-11-19 11:20:17 GMT from United States)
Been running Xubuntu since 9.04, and save for one horrible release around 10.04, it is quick, stable and easy to use. The current 12.04 LTS is an excellent effort, and does most of what Mint/Cinnamon does without the occasional glitch of the latter.
2 • @xubuntu applicaitons menu (by greg on 2012-11-19 11:20:23 GMT from Slovenia)
i too had a difficulty adding a launcher just this weekend. In the end i did it manually by creating desktop file in text editor etc. however this kind of things should be done with GUI perhaps in even simpler way.
3 • Xubuntu (by kc1di on 2012-11-19 11:38:49 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the review, I too have had the same problem with XFCE menu editing. It has long been one of the major hold ups in this D.E. IMHO they would do well to build a good Menu editor. This is not Xubuntu's doing though I'm sure there are devs. there that could take on the task, So far as I know XFCE Devs have refused to do it and I haven't found any others that have save maybe mint xfce , but I'm not sure on that one as I don't have it installed at the moment. anyway thanks for your reviews I always enjoy reading them. Happy Thankgiving to all you who live in lands that celebrate it :)
4 • Xubuntu (and Lubuntu) (by gvnmcknz on 2012-11-19 12:08:06 GMT from United Kingdom)
Xubuntu or Lubuntu are both excellent, and deserve more attention. Most of what I am interested in (apart from distrohopping), is browser based anyway. One WINE program and a decent word processor and I'm good to go! The whole of the Ubuntu repositories are there if you need more.
Lubuntu is especially easy for Launchers, a right click in the menu, send to desktop and it's done.
Both X/Lubuntu are ideal in older systems/netbooks etc.. If bling is less important than functionality and speed they're the way to go. Faced with the Win8/UEFI debacle then we may need to get the most out of older hardware. Regards gvnmcknz
5 • Ubuntu XFCE menu editor (by silent on 2012-11-19 12:14:33 GMT from Europe)
Apparently, Alacarte is the menu editor mentioned in the article about Xubuntu. It was broken in 12.10, but a fix is already in the pipeline (see bug reports). One can also try Xame or LXMenuEditor as a replacement.
6 • Xubuntu 12.04 (by LAZA on 2012-11-19 12:17:52 GMT from Germany)
I myself use Xubuntu since the trendy Ubuntu 10.04 was a fail (IMHO) on my two machines and am happy with the smoothness and look - fast and reliable also on older hardware!
The 12.04 LTS-version comes with Abiword and Gnumeric which is for the most people adequat and supported till April 2015 (sadly no five years support like GNOME and KDE)...
7 • DragonflyBSD (by Slacker_Mike on 2012-11-19 12:41:47 GMT from United States)
Thank you for the review of DragonflyBSD. I have never tried this particular BSD project before but I have always found it interesting.
It would be interesting to hear from someone who has deployed DragonflyBSD in a production environment to hear how the HAMMER file system benefits them.
8 • Debian GNU/Hurd (by nick on 2012-11-19 12:58:35 GMT from Greece)
I think Hurd has init set to systemctl reboot by default. Pun intended.
9 • Udev fork (by Microlinux on 2012-11-19 13:20:17 GMT from France)
Excellent news for all the Slackware and *BSD users out there. And one in the eye for Lennart Poettering.
10 • Gnome3, Gtk3, systemd, udev and all that ... (by FipRadioFan on 2012-11-19 13:22:29 GMT from France)
The 'Ignorant Guru' is author of the excellent new file manager SpaceFM. In his blog he frequently vents his frustration with developments emanating from the RedHat/Fedora world that change the way GNU/Linux works and that seem to be designed to leave very little choice for everybody else but to follow suit. Articles like these ...
Udisks2: Another Loss For Linux http://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/udisks2-another-loss-for-linux/
Red Hat Flag http://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/red-hat-flag/
Gentoo On systemd, Torvalds On Bullshit, udev Forked http://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/gentoo-systemd-torvalds/
GNOME (et al): Rotting In Threes http://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/gnome-et-al-rotting-in-threes/
... and the following comments make very interesting reading. Although I cannot say that I understand every last bit of what's being discussed there, I too get the feeling that not all the changes being planned and worked on behind the scenes (systemd, wayland etc.) are for the better of GNU/Linux.
11 • DVD Edition of Xubuntu (by impossiblescissors on 2012-11-19 13:37:30 GMT from United States)
If you like Xubuntu but wish it had some of the heavier applications like LibreOffice, I definitely recommend the Xfce edition of Linix Mint 13. It's actually based on Mint 13 plus Xfce rather than Xubuntu, but the user experience is similar. I actually prefer the way Mint 13 Xfce is configured, with the single taskbar and MintMenu.
12 • Re: 5, Ubuntu XFCE menu editor (by FipRadioFan on 2012-11-19 13:40:27 GMT from France)
Funny coincidence. A while back I posted a short comment on the Ignorant Guru's blog about the lack of a native menu editor in XFCE and the usage of Alacarte:
I always liked to arrange my desktop main menu the way I preferred it, with my own categories, sub-categories, nested folders and all. Until recently this wasn?t possible in XFCE. About two years ago one of the XFCE devs started to make XFCE ?Free Desktop compliant? which apparently was a major effort because it kept him busy for a long time. When he had finished his task, XFCE 4.8 was released. In the release announcement it said that one could now edit the XFCE menu with any ?Free Desktop compliant? menu editor. Great! ? except that I couldn?t think of any other editor than Alacarte, a sluggishly performing Python application from the Gnome desktop. In order to try this out I booted up a Xubuntu Live-CD, opened Synaptic, selected Alacarte ? and was shocked to see that the installation of this lo
usy little editor was trying to pull in 98 (!) dependencies, presumably the entire Gnome desktop and more. Who knows.
To me the lesson of all of this is, that sometimes it is better not to comply with standards set by people who have their own agenda and whose motives are dubious .
Source: http://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/udisks2-another-loss-for-linux/
13 • Light distro for older hardware? (by Leo on 2012-11-19 14:19:41 GMT from United States)
A couple weekends ago I tried Bodhi, Xubuntu and Lubuntu as a means to revive my first generation eeepc, which was running Bodhi but the USB it was running from got corrupted.
None of these would work, since Ubuntu doesn't support non-PAE processors (wise decision)
I installed Debian Mint XFCE. Not very impressed, it came with a LOT of software I didn't want or need. I guess.
Where do you turn for a light distro these days? Requirements? Modern kernel (hardware recognition), up to date Firefox/Chrome and Flash/plugins
THanks!
14 • @12 (by lutz on 2012-11-19 14:25:14 GMT from Germany)
use a WM and configure your menu in old plain text-files. works everytime ;-)
15 • @13 (by Donkeyotay on 2012-11-19 15:05:00 GMT from United Kingdom)
Try Crunchbang. I'm running on two ten+ year old laptops that were running Win98.
16 • Regarding the download of updates during Xubuntu installation (by KansasNoob on 2012-11-19 15:22:50 GMT from United States)
I noticed in the review Jesse said; "the system installer asks if we would like to download all available updates at install time and I opted into this to avoid manually downloading updates post-install. However, the first time I logged into Xubuntu a pop-up appeared to let me know there were 21 updates available to be downloaded."
I believe after logging in the first time you were notified that there were 21 updates available to be "installed" ;^)
In other words "download" means just that, NOT download "and install". If so instructed the available updates are downloaded during installation but not installed until post-install.
In fact consider the other option offered at the same point during OS installation - "Install this third party software" ;^)
Had you not chosen to download those updates you would have to wait for the "software-updater/update-manager" to run it's normal cycle before you'd be notified of any updates.
That said the installer dialogue should possibly be edited so it says "If you choose this option the updates will be available for review and installation after OS installation is complete".
Kudos for a great review though, both Xubuntu and Lubuntu are great options for those who will soon be missing Metacity and Gnome Panel :^)
17 • Re:15 (by Leo on 2012-11-19 15:29:45 GMT from United States)
Good idea. Debian based, so I should have access to anything I might need. Thanks, I'll try that next time!
18 • Crunchbang's size (by Leo on 2012-11-19 15:38:48 GMT from United States)
Mmm ... why is the image size 700 MB? Does it allow you to do a minimal installation? That was one of my issues with Mint Debian, it installed SOOOO much crap, and it takes forever on a usb drive. Thanks for any info! I really need something like a chromebook: connect to wifi and launch a browser to play internet radio. The eeepc is mostly dead, except for streaming radio
19 • #18 (by anticapitalista on 2012-11-19 15:43:03 GMT from Greece)
Try antiX-core (c135MB) or antiX-base (c355MB)
http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
20 • Re: @13 (by peer on 2012-11-19 15:56:31 GMT from Netherlands)
Try Peppermint. At this moment Peppermint 3 is running on my eeepc (1000H). It run's smoothly.
21 • @13 - Bodhi (by Uncle Slacky on 2012-11-19 16:10:31 GMT from France)
The latest Bodhi (2.1) works just fine on my eeePC 701 4G - not sure why you'd have problems with it. Alternatively, you could try Swift Linux (essentially LMDE but with ICEWM as the window manager). Crunchbang and AntiX are also viable alternatives, but not as pretty as Bodhi.
22 • Light distro (by scale on 2012-11-19 16:13:46 GMT from Spain)
@13: Crunchbang, Archbang, AntiX, Puppy, Salix LXDE edition, Fedora LXDE edition, CDLinux CE, PCLinuxOS LXDE edition, Vector Linux, Slitaz, http://www.remastersys.com/downloads/rem-lxde-lts-final-i386.iso
Antix, Salix, PCLinux, Slitaz and the last link offer built-in remastering tools, so you could adjust it to your needs. Especially with Slitaz it is possible to build a very light system with many apps. Salix is spectacular too. For a lighter distro try Tiny Core :)
23 • Re: 21 (by Leo on 2012-11-19 16:47:24 GMT from United States)
Hi Slacky, please see this http://forums.bodhilinux.com/index.php?/topic/6485-how-to-install-bodhi-210-on-non-pae-computer/
24 • @23 - Bodhi PAE (by Uncle Slacky on 2012-11-19 17:04:55 GMT from France)
That might explain it - I installed 2.0.1 from scratch, then upgraded to 2.1 via normal updates. I'm currently running the linux-image-generic kernel (version 3.2.0.33, presumably provided by Ubuntu 12.04) without problems, though.
There are also newer kernels compiled especially for early Celeron & Atom netbooks available here:http://tinyurl.com/DavAlan if you need to be up-to-date kernel-wise.
25 • re. No.13 (by Smasher on 2012-11-19 17:35:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
Taken a look in the kennel recently? Amazing progress for Puppy Precise, Puppy Slacko and Puppy Carolina. As far as lightness, speed and comprehensiveness are concerned, you won't be disappointed. Of course, you will get Abiword and other lightweights, but a few clicks in the repos and you're ready to draft a new constitution, business plan or nobel prize acceptance lecture. And you can put away all those DVD-RW discs - this really is life without the backpack.
26 • Minimum System Requirements of Peppermint? (by DavidEF on 2012-11-19 17:42:40 GMT from United States)
Does anyone know the bare minimum system requirements for Peppermint OS? I just waded through their site and searched the forums, and couldn't find an answer, although surely it's there, somewhere...?
I've got an old PII tower that belongs to a friend of mine that is not currently working. It came with Windows 98. If I get it fixed, I was thinking of upgrading it to linux. I haven't yet looked at the hardware specs, but the label on the front says Pentium II, so I'm sure it qualifies as "low-resource" by almost any definition. I'm a little familiar with Puppy linux. I've also played around with DSL, Vector, and others in the past. So, I'm not "looking" for a light distro, cause I know I can do that already. But it wouldn't hurt to consider all options, therefore my request above.
27 • @13 and The Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) (by Pierre on 2012-11-19 17:44:40 GMT from Germany)
@ Feature Story / Jesse
If you are complaining about Parole, you must be complaining about every Xfce component. Xfce's goal is to deliver a lightwight Gnome-Alternative, so every implemented part, like Thunar and Parole as two examples, are quite similar to Gnome 2 Apps, in the mentioned case Nautilus and Totem. Both are based on Gtk3 now, Xfce still uses Gtk2 as their framework, so it is a good idea in sense of being lightwight only to include Gtk2-based apps. Parole does just fine on all my videos like Totem does, but is a lot more lightwight, integrates into Xfce a lot better and has no Gnome dependencies. It's like Xfburn in comparison to Brasero. You can complain about it being not as feature rich as it's Gnome alternative, but you are free to install it afterwards, as well as the whole LibreOffice Suite. But I like that Xubuntu does not force people who need a lightwight desktop, what is the intention of Xfce, to uninstall such bloat, instead of leaving it to the user to install additional apps afterwards, like they are needed - which is in my opinion always the better idea.
@13 I too recommend trying CrunchBang. It using Debian+OpenBox, damn fast and lightwight but nevertheless really easy to use and it delivers everything you might need. Arch is always a nice idea on low end PCs, too, as you can configure it according to what the PC is able to handle. Another option is a Minimal X Install of openSUSE 12.2 and configure the PC with OpenBox or something lightwight as that. Or just install openSUSE 12.2 with LXDE, which is very lightwight too, but you can start right away using it. :)
Greetings Pierre
28 • #Leo (by Ika on 2012-11-19 18:02:30 GMT from Spain)
If you like E 17, can try MacPup. It looks great and the iso about 150 MB. Or, well, other Puppies.
29 • Distro Lightness (by DavidEF on 2012-11-19 18:05:15 GMT from United States)
In the interest of giving back to this conversation from which I've made a request, I'd like to add a +1 to Puppy linux. In my opinion, it is an extremely versatile, flexible, useful lightweight distro. I've had Puppy 3.x installed on an old Compaq with a Cyrix 5x86 processor and 16MB RAM. It didn't have usb, ethernet, or a pci bus, and the internal modem was somewhat less than 56k. I had no way of using this thing, but it was fun to watch Puppy humming happily along on it.
I've used Puppy for working on Windows computers, recovering files and such. I once had an old laptop that I let my very young daughter play with. I'd installed an educational games version of puppy 1.x that I'd found somewhere. She loved it. I've seen Puppy run on hardware when nothing else would. The only reason I don't use it on my main machine is that I prefer the heavier applications, so it makes more sense to use a larger OS that is configured with those applications already. But I still use Puppy live CD's when I just need to work on a (usually crashed) Windows computer, or quickly check for linux compatibility.
30 • Xfce and components (by Jesse on 2012-11-19 18:16:48 GMT from Canada)
>> "If you are complaining about Parole, you must be complaining about every Xfce component."
That's obviously not the case. I pointed out things I liked and things I didn't about the default Xubuntu desktop environment. Just because I didn't like one thing doesn't mean I dislike them all.
>> " like Thunar and Parole as two examples, are quite similar to Gnome 2 Apps, in the mentioned case Nautilus and Totem."
I didn't mention Nautilus nor Totem in my review.
>> " what is the intention of Xfce, to uninstall such bloat, instead of leaving it to the user to install additional apps afterwards, like they are needed - which is in my opinion always the better idea."
Which is why I suggested the idea of two Xubuntu editions, one for people who want a light, uncluttered install and one for people who want more features and applications.
31 • salentOS (by Barnabyh on 2012-11-19 18:28:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
OMG, please not yet another Ubuntu based 'new' distribution. By dog, I can't take it anymore.
On a more constructive note, I can second and recommend Puppy and CrunchBang to Leo as well, or try Zenwalk for a light and fast Xfce base.
32 • Xbuntu (by Johannes on 2012-11-19 18:35:10 GMT from Germany)
Last time I tried Xubuntu it wasn't stable at all. Neither was Zenwalk, a nice project that I used to install some years ago. Nice, but not usable on a daily basis. On the vontrary, Linux Mint (Cinnamon) reveals very stable on daily use. And they say next version will be better and even more stable. A distro to get things done :-)
33 • @13 Light distro (by Koroshiya Itchy on 2012-11-19 18:39:32 GMT from Luxembourg)
Snow Linux also has a Debian-based brand with 3 desktops to choose from (Gnome, XFCE and E17). I will give the Enlightenment version a try as soon as I have the time:
http://www.snowlinux.de/449-snowlinux-3-download
Being Debian and being E17 should be pretty lightweight on older hardware as long as it is supported.
Now, if your hardware is really old and nothing else works, you can try DSL:
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall
Still with a 2.4-series kernel...
34 • @13 Light distro (by Koroshiya Itchy on 2012-11-19 18:43:54 GMT from Luxembourg)
The list of distros for old computers:
http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=Old+Computers
35 • @ 30 by Jesse (by Pierre on 2012-11-19 18:49:15 GMT from Germany)
Sure you did not mention Totem or Nautilus in particular, but you wrote: >>Having AbiWord as the only productivity program and Parole as the video player stuck me as unusual and not all that appealing. <<
Unusual and unappealing I would call other programs than Parole for example. Why? Just because you would call a Totem replacement under Gnome 3 for sure unusual, too. With Parole it is just the same. Parole is (not necessarily) a part of the Xfce desktop environment. So replacing it with something else would not integrate as well as Parole and would be unusual - not otherwise.
If you want other apps for multimedia you are absolutely free to install them out of the large Ubuntu package repositories. It is better to give lightweight apps and the possibility to install other apps easily instead of deliver a lot of quite bloated software. So if you ask me, there is no need for any other edition, because you can easily turn that lightweight one into that with more features and apps and you can even do it the way you want.
Another point is my conclusion that you have to complain about the other components of Xfce as well if you complain about Parole. I apologize if I was led to a false conclusion but it simply seamed obvious that you would have to complain about all the other lightweight parts of Xfce too, if you complain about Parole and it's less features than other available apps, because Xfce and all of it's components - as I already pointed out - are designed to be lightweight and having as less dependencies as possible. To achieve that you have to make compromises and you simply have to abandon some features. And if you don't like that about Parole it seamed logical that you would not like it about the other components as well. That was all I wanted to say. :)
Greetings!
36 • @32 by Johannes (by Pierre on 2012-11-19 19:03:27 GMT from Germany)
Don't know what problems you have had with Xubuntu or Zenwalk, I never had some with any of the Xfce-distros. Although you are right, Mint + Cinnamon are really stable already, my girlfriend is using Mint 13 with Cinnamon and is really happy with it. And so am I. ;)
I personally use openSUSE 12.2 - really stable. On top of the KDE-version I installed the i3 tiling window manager and configured it to my needs and that really works like a charm! Rock solid, stable and damn fast! With hitting enter on the login screen you are right on the desktop, no delay, even though I configured Kmix, Kwallet and some more of my beloved K-stuff to start with it. And i3 really is a desktop to simply get things done! I know, does not look as good as Cinnamon or all the other nice and shiny desktops, but it is damn functional and you really get work done lightning fast. :)
And that's not said to show off or something like that. One really needs the wish to deal with the tiling concept but as soon as you know how it works, you do not want to use anything else anymore. At least that's what I experienced and that does not mean it fits your needs and working habit as well as it does fit mine. :) That is the beauty of open source. There is so much nice software to be explored.
Greetings and much fun with Cinnamon!
37 • XFCE and comments @30 (by Bob on 2012-11-19 19:04:44 GMT from Canada)
Jesse, I'm sorry but I disagree with the suggestion of a second Xubuntu edition and disagree that the choices of Parole and Abiword are not that appealing.
My main fear is that with many projects developer time is at such a premium reviews which criticize lighter software choices and suggest having a dvd with more mainstream choices will cause projects to discontinue using compact disks entirely and go only to dvds. That has already happened with many projects and with some computers that can make use of a distribution difficult.
For example, you reviewed Xubuntu, which comes on CD. Linux Mint XFCE which comes from the same Ubuntu base and has the same desktop environment does not come in a CD edition.
There are still very usable older computers without dvd burners and even a few without dvd players.
If someone has no dvd burner on his or her only computer then a dvd only distro becomes difficult to download and use. It can sometimes be difficult to save the image to a usb drive in such a way that it will boot some older systems, so the various ways of saving to a usb drive will usually, but not always, help.
I think any distro, especially those with relatively lightweight desktop environments, should be encouraged to continue having cd images to install from and in view of the contraints on developer time, it seems to me suggestions of using dvds will often have the effect of ending use of compact disks. I'd rather see no office suite and install Libreoffice afterwards than lose the bootable CD.
Bob
38 • @13 Lightweight Distros (by Fencemeister717 on 2012-11-19 19:05:43 GMT from United States)
I too run old systems frequently. After downloading mostly live CD sized distros for the last 7 or 8 years, my advice to you as far as for recent ones would be Zenwalk or Semplice. Both very speed and run like a raped ape. Another would be the tried and proven PCLinuxOS which I have been using on the same machine since 2007 without a single fail.
39 • Peppermint Requirements (by fencemeister717 on 2012-11-19 19:16:48 GMT from United States)
well i can tell you that i ran it on an hp pII with 96 mb ram. It sucked. so i replaced the 32mb stick with a 128mb stick giving it 192mb total and it did just fine for browsing al gore's www. Im sure video streaming would take more ram but not as much as most others
40 • SalentOs And Peppermint (by Roy H Huddleston on 2012-11-19 19:20:39 GMT from United States)
I just noticed that both use the OpenBox. I would like to see a contrast and comparison of the two. I noticed that SalentOs offers two versions of its OpenBoxl
41 • CD vs DVD (by Jesse on 2012-11-19 19:24:27 GMT from Canada)
>> "I think any distro, especially those with relatively lightweight desktop environments, should be encouraged to continue having cd images to install from"
I agree wholeheartedly. Projects aiming at lower end hardware should keep CD images. Still, given the relatively small amount of time it takes to make a larger image once a base line is set down and given the large size of the Xubuntu community I really don't think it's realistic to think it's an either/or situation. Lots of projects smaller than Xubuntu have multiple spins of varying sizes or with different desktop environments. I don't think it's unrealistic to suggest Xubuntu could have two editions, Normal and Full.
42 • @32-other stable desktops (by Bob on 2012-11-19 19:26:14 GMT from Canada)
Johannes mentions Mint/Cinnamon as being stable in everyday use.
This past spring in updating both my desktop and my wife's I looked at the Mint forums. At that time (just after the release of Mint 13) there were a few problems being reported that were exclusive to Cinnamon which were not being complained of in Mate. Cinnamon was then quite new and probably those have since been cleaned up.
My computer got switched to Mint 13 with Mate and my wife's to Mint 13 with XFCE and both have been exceptionally stable and trouble-free (with the exception of the well-known Broadcomm installation but which we ran into on her computer.)
I had tried Xubuntu 12.04 and had a few problems which probably, with the passage of time to squash bugs, have been fixed.
My experience with Ubuntu/Xubuntu is that it is better to wait a month or more after release before installing. I also usually wait a few days after release before installing Mint.
b
43 • Reviews.. (by Alex on 2012-11-19 20:14:22 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
44 • @13/Light Distros (by mz on 2012-11-19 20:15:15 GMT from United States)
I'd definitely give PCLOS LXDE a try if you want something light & up to date that does it all out of the box. I really like the main edition, and all versions come with good hardware detection & stuff like flash included. I find firefox updates hit the repos within a week of release, and they run very stable. I noticed there are 2 LXDE CDs, the main one is 641 MB and the little one is 478. I think it's also good that you can install the PAE kernel from the from the repos after install if you want to, but it's not on the CD by default. I only use the main version, but I'm guessing that PCLOS LXDE is also first rate.
45 • Xfce is the new Gnome (by John Dough on 2012-11-19 20:22:46 GMT from Canada)
and I love it, when you are forced to use an older machine temporarily (my main machine has Kubuntu 12.04.1 on it), Xubuntu does the job.
46 • Xfce is the new Gnome @45 (by Jimshed on 2012-11-19 20:44:00 GMT from United States)
I wholeheartedly agree with that. The best distro I have is made by myself from the Ubuntu Minimal installation disk. I then just added Xfce. I have the fastest distro in the world.
47 • @41 (by Patrick on 2012-11-19 20:57:34 GMT from United States)
I can already hear the moaning about "Not another *buntu!" if there would be two Xubuntu editions!
No, the point of Xubuntu is to be a light edition of Ubuntu and it does that well as it is. Also, the names of the "heavy" apps are quite well known and can be installed if they are wanted. If the system came with the well-known heavy apps on the other hand, few would know what to use as a light equivalents (I actually didn't know about Parole until reading your review today). I think it is great for these lighter applications to get the exposure and testing, and subsequent improvements that come from being pre-installed.
48 • Thank you all! (by Leo on 2012-11-19 21:09:55 GMT from United States)
Thank you all for such a fantastic breadth of responses. I have actually one install where I started with mini.iso, and install minimal-kde, and later on razor-qt. That thing FLIES on a Dell Mini.
I think, most "light distros" take it wrong. They install a responsive desktop with gigs and gigs of apps of all types, in order to give you a full desktop. I think it would be much better for the installer to let you choose a few options. You start with a bare desktop, and then you can choose a few big meta-packages: PIM, OFFICE, etc. If you don't want ANY of that, you are left with a basic functional desktop, a terminal and a web browser. The rest, you can install as needed. It seems to me like this is the Puppy philosophy. I'll take a look ...
Cheers! Leo
49 • Multiple purposes (by Jesse on 2012-11-19 21:17:07 GMT from Canada)
>> "No, the point of Xubuntu is to be a light edition of Ubuntu and it does that well as it is."
I don't think that is the case, really. Xubuntu has never been all that light compared to other distributions. When Ubuntu was still using GNOME 2, both Ubuntu and Xubuntu used nearly the same amount of resources. Even now, with the Xubuntu developers using fairly light apps, their memory foot print is around 180MB of RAM, just to login to the desktop. That's about the same amount as Mint with the MATE desktop. Compare Xubuntu to Zenwalk, which also uses Xfce and more mainstream apps, and Zenwalk uses around 90MB of RAM, half of Xubuntu's foot print.
Xubuntu, in my mind, is not about being light so much as giving people in the Ubuntu community a stable GUI. With Ubuntu and Kubuntu and Mint going through big changes, Xubuntu (thanks to Xfce) has a consistent GUI. It's nice Xubuntu is also a little lighter than Unity and KDE, but it's a fairly thin margin.
50 • #41 CD vs. DVD by Jesse (by Ika on 2012-11-19 21:18:44 GMT from Spain)
I agree it always is wellcomed two variants. Why? Because a newcomer in Linux, have no idea about this OS. He/she don't know nothing about how it work, about repositories, packages, names of the programs he/she want or need etc., may have, at least, a complete usable OS. Once having learned enough, will chose the minimal version.
@mz Yes, PCLinuxOS is a great distro. I'm using it too, but with KDE, Xfce and E17. Fast and stable.
51 • Seriously? (by Ralph on 2012-11-19 23:10:28 GMT from United States)
"If someone has no dvd burner on his or her only computer then a dvd only distro becomes difficult to download and use."
Rather than spend effort in creating a DVD, why not just boot from a USB flash drive? If the target PC is so antiquated that its BIOS doesn't accommodate booting from a USB device... is it reasonable to expect it has enough RAM to run the bloaty, DVD-sized distro?
52 • Light or what? (by Pajarilo on 2012-11-19 23:30:44 GMT from Austria)
I tested xubuntu and lubuntu, and I must say: lubuntu is very unstable, crashes again and again, and xubuntu is about 100 years behind gnome second. What I do not understand is why there are dozens of so-called light distros over 1 GB? They come with a lot of packages that make a slim girl to a big fat ass. I just see hier a Distro named Manjaro with lxde and 1.2 gb .. Who needs that? Make it simple, gays, everybody can choose the soft he needs.
53 • About E17 - light distros (by forlin on 2012-11-20 01:01:22 GMT from Portugal)
E17 development has been resumed and the final release was announced for 21st Dez (yes, this year). For the *bunto users of light versions, who also like Enlightenment, the good news is that there's a ppa that will distribute each development release, up to the final one. That will allow its installation on your current (*bunto) distro, for a test drive, with a minimal download. http://strano.org/files/announcing_official_ppa_for_the_efl_and_e17.php
54 • #44 #50 (by Baltazar on 2012-11-20 01:14:29 GMT from Puerto Rico)
I have like PCLinuxOS since the kde 3.5 days... good distro. But I have a couple of times (like 3 times actually) been burned by updates that wreck havoc to the machine... always relating to KDE updates. My last experience, their change from 3.6 to 3.8 of KDE (don't remember exactly but something like that) that left me at an empty screen with a mouse after a restart post update.
They intend for me to be looking at the forum for news on updates. Which might be good but when you have the most resent DVD with the system and update after an install you would expect no big trouble...
Now am trying to figure out how to do the update, but since I can only read the forum and not become a member because they block all the IPs from my region (damned SPAMMERS)... am screwed. And I like the distro...
Considering I have PCLinuxOS install on some friends machines and I tend to recommend it to people, but I have to reconsider my recommendations...
Maybe I should give the Xfce version a try...
I now also consider (X,K)Ubuntu somewhat a better recommendation, though I hate that they use "sudo"! But at least their systems won't break or end up to and empty screen with a cursor wondering what the hell happened... or so it seems.
Don't know... am looking for something usable... to recommend Linux to others, but lately that's becoming difficult lately. I can manage with some inconsistencies but my friend will drive me mad if I change their desktop to much. I guess the year of Linux is next year :)
Anyways... Am looking for a good Linux for my new A10 5800K APU system... it seems I'm in for a wild search!
55 • RE: 48 That Is Pretty Much What Bodhi Is (by OnoSendai on 2012-11-20 03:58:29 GMT from United States)
A web browser, file system and the ability to download individual apps or meta-packages, (one light, one heavy), from the home site. Fast, beautiful and small.
56 • CDs vs. DVDs (by Thomas Mueller on 2012-11-20 04:05:26 GMT from United States)
>> "I think any distro, especially those with relatively lightweight desktop environments, should be encouraged to continue having cd images to install from"
I agree too, but would like to see the option to write the image to bootable USB stick.
Method of writing to USB stick should be dd, and should work on any (quasi-)Unix OS and also from MS-Windows, rather than any features likely to be specific to Linux or involve specific software such as having syslinux already installed in a particular path, which could screw a user who might have /usr/local/bin/syslinux instead of /usr/bin/syslinux. There could also be something workable for MS-Windows in the absence of dd.
57 • @54 (by mz on 2012-11-20 06:31:49 GMT from United States)
I had to do a little extra to get from KDE 4.6 to version 4.8 myself, but after carefully following the forums it all worked for me on both my PCLOS machines. I'd say my only caveat to a recommendation of PCLOS for any & all users is the need for a few careful tweaks every once in a while. Sorry it failed you, but I've only really seen it totally die on account of very weird hardware.
58 • @48 Leo & light distros (by greg on 2012-11-20 06:49:22 GMT from Slovenia)
Chrunchbang will install basic desktop on first boot a script is launched asking you for every component if you need it or not. for exmaple do you want libre/open office Y/n and then you decide if it installs it or not.
59 • A couple things... (by DavidEF on 2012-11-20 12:24:07 GMT from United States)
@39 Fencemeister717,
Thanks, that puts Peppermint on the radar at least. If I get my friend's computer running, I will try out Peppermint.
@51 Ralph,
You realize what you're saying AGREES with #37 right? The whole conversation is about whether "light" distros should have a dvd image or not. Yes, the dvd images are going to be more bloated. One more reason to stick to cd images for "light" distros!
And, if I remember correctly, dvd drives started making the rounds in new computers before usb booting did. So your point was missed. Perhaps it is hard for you to fathom people still using "antiquated" PC's on a daily basis, but it happens. Not everyone has the means to acquire more modern equipment. Some just don't have a need to. One of the greatest benefits, IMHO, of using open source software is the ability to choose for ourselves whether our equipment gets upgraded or not.
60 • Re: #58 by Greg (by Leo on 2012-11-20 13:39:30 GMT from United States)
@Greg: oh, that's awesome. Mandrake used to do that, a bit differently, why don;t all distros do it? It should be the norm.Before installing to the disk, the live could offer a package selection, so you'd get to choose the main components. It would probably be best for #! to just distribute a light image, and let that script download things as needed. Anyways, thanks for the info!
61 • Re: #55 That Is Pretty Much What Bodhi Is (by Leo on 2012-11-20 13:41:37 GMT from United States)
@OnoSendai - yes, that's right, I really liked Bodhi. But it won't run on older hardware anymore because Ubuntu doesn't support browsers older than *586, go figure. Thanks!
62 • @60 Welcome to the new norm (by DavidEF on 2012-11-20 14:02:17 GMT from United States)
Leo,
Back in the day, Package selection used to be the norm. Somewhere along the way, someone decided it was too much to ask of new users to have to select what they wanted in an OS. So, the "Sane Defaults" idea was implemented.
A good middle ground would be to have an initial setup wizard with package selection, but make it like Ubuntu's partitioning guide. The first screen would give you the choice of "Normal" "Light" "Max" or "Something Else". If you choose one of the first three, you move on, if the last choice is selected, you get a package manager interface similar to Software Center, where you can fine-tune your installation choices. Now, who out there is a developer and will implement this? Any takers?
63 • xubuntu (by gokk on 2012-11-20 14:13:29 GMT from Norway)
The xfce in Xubuntu has some extra configuration in comparison to debian xfce, such the possibility to make the panel transparent. They seem to use about same amount of resources as gnome 2. More resource usage would for me be totally unacceptable. Being relatively bug free is an important aspect to a distro. Maybe Xubuntu 12.04.2 will have less bugs.
64 • @49 Agreed but... (by John Dough on 2012-11-20 14:24:40 GMT from Canada)
KDE for example is fine on a full-bore system, it comes with tons of candy and background this and that (which I promptly shut off), as for xfce stability, yep, agreed, very good, and one can also tone down xfce's little bit of candy too. You are right about the fine line, at what point do you sacrifice functionality? Where does it end? On a machine in the command line running a command line browser? At a certain point you have to break down and get new hardware (or better used hardware). I hunted down and bought a DDR (1st gen) stick the other day, the minimum size I could find/they had was 1GB, that should tell us something, if it still has and ISA slot, recycle it, lol. ;-)
65 • Midori web browser (by John Dough on 2012-11-20 14:29:34 GMT from Canada)
Compliments xfce nicely on a low resource machine, not a lot of bells and whistles but just enough, watch out for the extensions, some will make it crash. When flash makes your CPU gag at 99%, who needs extensions, lol.
66 • Slitaz???? (by Pmulax on 2012-11-20 14:51:30 GMT from Spain)
Talking about light distros someone mentioned Slitaz, which was looking good (except on wifi compatibility) but then has gone silent since April. Anyone knows why? I run Macpup off an old 2 Gb pendrive on the various PC's in my company so I can access AND edit my spreadsheets from ANY of them, and it works like a charm........it flies even on an old 1 Ghz Duron with 256 Mb ram. I know e17 seems strange at first but you get used to it quickly.
Another very nimble distro you should try is Austrumi, with a pimped up JWM (i think) which looks quite nice. Being based on Slackware is a big plus. The 250 Mb Live CD has about everthing, including LibreOffice. Try it, I assure you will be surprised.
67 • Although Xubuntu is quite good (by John Dough on 2012-11-20 15:50:32 GMT from Canada)
and I am talking 11.10 here, the newer kernel hates my 11 year old D-Link PCI slot network adapter, I am going to try wattOS R6 since it still has the 3.2 kernel. In these tough times, people will be hanging on to their aging hardware as long as possible, distros like wattOS have a place in this world for sure.
68 • Re: 62 by DavidEF (by Leo on 2012-11-20 15:52:09 GMT from United States)
Yes, I totally agree, and miss the Mandrake installer. Honestly, I only install once and upgrade, in each machine. So, it's not a huge issue.
I understand the concept of simple installers. And, heck, what you are saying is done by the standard windows package installer. They offer a few options (including a default installation), but they also allow you to customize to your content. If you have no idea, you choose "default".
I think, the mistake is not in assuming that the users fall into two big categories: extremely sophisticated computer nerds, or busy "normal" people looking for a two click install. You should allow for the latter, for sure, but it's oh so easy to also give some flexibility. If Microsoft could do it, we certainly can.
Cheers! Leo
69 • Install time package selection (by Jesse on 2012-11-20 15:52:17 GMT from Canada)
@62: Package selection at install time is something Debian and the DVD version of Fedora have done for ages. I suppose the reason they do and most other distributions don't is Fedora and Debian are both designed to be general purpose platforms. Many other distributions are aimed at more niche crowds and have less use for highly customized package management. I think you will find Slackware, PC-BSD and FreeBSD also also package customization at install time.
70 • Correction re D-Link and kernel (by John Dough on 2012-11-20 16:12:19 GMT from Canada)
it's the 3.2.x and up kernel that hates my 11 year old D-link PCI slot adapter, works with the 3.0.x kernel so will be trying wattOS R5.
71 • wattOS R5 is great EXCEPT (by John Dough on 2012-11-20 19:46:50 GMT from Canada)
I had to install lxinput to speed up the mouse, my God man, why would it not be in the default live or install? Nobody needs or want Carpal tunnel syndrome, lol. Sorry Xubuntu 11.10, watt has ya beat for shear performance, not as pretty as Xubuntu but that is the price you pay for more resources to run 'hog' flash in a web browser.
72 • #57 (by Baltazar on 2012-11-21 21:33:03 GMT from Puerto Rico)
Well, you see, I have liked the OS a lot for many years. But having this need to tweak a recently downloaded system just to be able to get up to date is not a good move for anyone that I have given the DVD with PCLinuxOS.
Mainly, they will install and do an update right away and be greeted on the reboot to an empty screen, that's just bad. I can deal with it but it brakes the simple desktop usability that many look for. Granted there are distros for that kind of user... though PCLOS was once a great candidate for newbies, hence my previous recommendations...
In time things should stabilize and a proper updated system image will be released but right now not that many new users will go to a forum just to update their newly install PCLOS...
Besides there needs to be a way to avoid this, eider by keeping certain packages from updating, thus managing users to actually go in to the forum or page to realize that a special care needs to be taken to update them, or some update manager messages that warns of said process to take... or even some scrip that allows the user to avoid possible horrors of updating their system...
I am aware that this is not the norm, for things to brake or leave the user in a useless state... noobs will get lost fast. And, a command line interface with no sensibility for those of us with bad spelling or poor memory for badly abbreviations of commands or apps to fix problems on the probably only machine at hand can be helpful...
I wish that someday the command line gets a little friendlier! I mean, look at how Google uses correction or suggestions for searches... if the command line ever gets that kind of interactivity it will help users be less scared of it and will be able learn commands easier... and no the man help is not good enough by itself...
But am running mad here... long read already...
Am frustrated with AMD's driver support... I am not to happy of my A10 now... will need to get Winblows 7 to be able to use the comp fully, but I knew it was not gona be simple... Lets see if Mint helps me by... damn I hate "sudo"... Why are they emulating Apple damn it... way to kill safety... at least for me...
Anyway.... happy turkey holocaust day!!!
:|
73 • (for John Dough) Hardware may drive kernel selection (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2012-11-22 01:59:06 GMT from United States)
Different Linux kernels include different hardware drivers; drivers can be added during boot, other boot parameters can tune your base further. Regardless of OS. How the system manages them after boot is another matter, of course. Recent Linux kernel development seems to be somewhat recovered from a near-moratorium on hardware accommodation in the early 2000's. (Something to do with separating some (proprietary?) drivers from the core. ) Is there any easily-used database of kernel vs hardware?
74 • @73 re:kernel selection (by John Dough on 2012-11-22 13:38:18 GMT from Canada)
I hear what you are saying and assumed the driver thing (which you confirmed, thank you) but at the end of the day, each kernel gets more and more bloated, like its Microsoft and Apple counterparts. That being said Xubuntu and wattOS, which I have been toying with on this experimental old junker, are supposed to be for ageing hardware, so inclusion of ageing drivers should be a consideration. Drivers, bloated kernel or not, at the end of the day, it's flash, you update flash to the newer version and it bogs the machine down, to the point of crashing flash and/or the browser. So in the end, wattOS wins for shear CPU cycle/video card load conservation, default install with only Midori updated. Btw, what ever happened to automatic hardware detection and appropriate driver initializing? Or at least a daemon to ask the user to install a driver(s) via download, etc, it's there for nVidia.
75 • RE:66 Austrumi (by greg on 2012-11-22 20:38:42 GMT from United States)
I am a fan of Austrumi, also. I just wish I could figure out how to get it to boot, after a hard drive install.
76 • @74 old hardware (by greg on 2012-11-23 07:15:43 GMT from Slovenia)
Xubuntu is not really ment for old hardware. it's ment for those that would liek different, lighter, XFCE desktop. as a result it does run on more old hardware than Ubuntu. for older hardware you have distributions such as Slitaz, DSL, PuppyLinux etc. some support for certain old hardware is getting constantly dropped out.nothing prevents people from picking up old kernel and continue to maintain it.
77 • Austrumi - how to wifi? (by gnomic on 2012-11-23 08:01:08 GMT from New Zealand)
Periodically I try out the latest version of Austrumi and am impressed by the look and the way they get LibreOffice into quite a small live CD. And how often does one see fvwm as window manager these days :-) Shades of 1997 or so. However I then try to connect via wifi with the gui utility provided. It finds the access point and wants the password. Then it goes away and does nothing as far I can tell, except eventually ask for the password again. This utility appears to be home-grown. On one occasion I even tried to join the forum so as to enquire about this but the captcha was so heavily obfuscated I had idea what it might be even after several tries. Anyone ever got Autrumi to do wifi with WPA, short of getting right under the hood with wpa_supplicant?
78 • Old hardware, @66 SliTAZ, @75 Austrumi (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2012-11-23 08:01:58 GMT from United States)
SliTAZ is very much alive, just not doing frequent minor updates.
There are many Puppies. And partial documentation here and there.
One (unofficial) Austrumi Linux English-speaking forum is at http://austrumi.punbb-hosting.com/index.php
There are many definitions of old hardware, aren't there?
79 • @78 (by brazilian guy on 2012-11-24 04:30:37 GMT from Brazil)
There are not many definitions of old hardware, only one older than others, you just have to specify how old the equipment is! it is not a definition, it is only when you can say that a machine is old, it is a perspective....
80 • RE@75,77,78 (by Pmulax on 2012-11-24 11:45:04 GMT from Spain)
RE@75 Austrumi
I confess I have never installed it on a HD, always pendrives. The program included in the CD does it's job though it doesn't say it's finished...after 20 mins I guessed it had either finished or failed, so I stopped it and tested: everything was fine.
RE@77 Austrumi Gnomic, I have the same situation: initial hopes seeing it sees the wifi networks and asks for the password...and then nothing. Something is amiss in the wifi config. Still, I always have it on a tiny microSD on my keyring, in case my other MacPup fails to boot. Plus Austrumi includes various translations, including spanish.
RE@78 Fossilizing Dinosaur I hadn't looked into the forums, thanks. I thought that, judging the rate of releases they had before 4.0, 7 months of inactivity was a bad indication, but I was wrong, fortunately. Thanks for the link to the Austrumi english forum. Cheers!
By the way, I call "old hardware" any piece I can recover, be given or discover in a bin....I've set up like half a dozen PC's with spare parts, most running Xubuntu or Lubuntu (easier config for Window users). Anything that can surf the Wikipedia is usefull.
81 • RE:Austrumi on HDD (by greg on 2012-11-24 14:07:09 GMT from United States)
After a little research, I tried installing Austrumi on the 1st partition, of my hard drive. I am now using it to post this.
82 • re: old hardware (by John Dough on 2012-11-24 16:56:22 GMT from Canada)
Anything more than 3 years old is considered aging, depends on the initial cash outlay, the more you spend, the better the specs and quality, the longer it lasts. To me, old hardware struggles to run a full-bore distro (sure, you can boot to the desktop, but that is where it ends, try running something huge, lol), bloatware in and out of Linux is a fact of life these days. My lean install of wattOS R5 on this old experimental junker is proof of that, install anything KDE related (don't get me wrong, love KDE, I run full-bore Kubuntu on my main machine) and it drags a ton of KDE libs, etc, with it, bogging down and old machine (K3B requires nepomuk?! How so?!). I didn't even install the proprietary nVidia driver, this thing works BETTER with nouveau, I kid you not. :-D
83 • Debian (by WM on 2012-11-24 21:40:44 GMT from Canada)
I have tried many but always come back to Debian, it just works, may not have the newest but it works!
84 • SalentOS (by SallyK on 2012-11-25 12:38:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thank you very much for the news of this - I really like Adeskbar as a panel, and I've been missing it since Madbox switched to standard LXDE.
It's a nice lightish weight distro, with the flexibility given by being based on Ubuntu.
85 • Salix (by Nick on 2012-11-25 13:43:38 GMT from Greece)
Not related to DWW but how is it possible that Salix is i686 when Slackware itself is i486?
Number of Comments: 85
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