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1 • Tumbleweed vs. perennity (by Microlinux on 2012-12-17 09:12:39 GMT from France)
It looks like perennity is becoming an increasingly rare value in the Linux & FOSS biosphere. Tumbleweed is the latest sad example. Projects and distributions jump from one release to the next in a breathless frenzy, completely oblivious of long-term usability.
2 • Are ... OpenJDK and Icedtea ... equal to ... Oracle's Java? (by Anamezon on 2012-12-17 09:42:37 GMT from Finland)
Unfortunately not quite (at least, not to my experience) - here where I live (i.e Finland) only Oracle's Java can run the applets necessary for online banking (with DanskeBank).
3 • Cinnamon Arch, OpenMandriva (by Van on 2012-12-17 09:50:23 GMT from Austria)
Manjaro also offers a Cinnamon. Just saying...
OpenMandriva- some of the back and forth on the mailing lists (cooker, etc) doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. It seems as if OpenMandriva is caught in a no man's land between Mageia and ROSA. Those users wanting an evolutionary continuation from Mandriva 2010 probably went to Mageia. Meanwhile on the revolutionary front, ROSA has (by outward appearances) been more productive than Mandriva release-wise. And about the name- when Mandriva SA goes out of business or is purchased by another entity and broken apart, it won't make much sense for there to be an "OpenMandriva" when there is no Mandriva proper. Someone might try to draw a comparison to openSUSE, but I am much more confident about SUSE's future viability than I am about Mandriva's.
4 • my experience with linux (by Avelinus on 2012-12-17 09:53:40 GMT from Portugal)
That`s the second post about my experience with linux.
I have a Hp laptop dv6 with a i5 520 2.4ghz and now with 8gbDDR3.
I a use good Zorin 3 remaster that work very well and Sabayon 10 KDE 64bits
because it keep everything current..
However'm testing the lasts releases of major distros and other less but at the end
always decided keep Zorin 3 based on ubuntu 10.04 32bit, 64bits and Sabayon 10 KDE 64bits
Now I'm also keeping Mageia 2.
Mageia 2 64bit KDE is better than the previous one but has a startup time incomprehensibly long.
From Mandriva 2008 I am seduced by the orientation of the distro and especially by its control center
Mageia now is more stable.
Able to trust the control center to activate security profiles, perhaps wrongly, let me safe.
The choice of my distros has been based on the possibility of easy configuration they provide.
Path which Gnome 3, Unity and others proudly walked away. I tried Mint Mate13 but without total satisfaction with the releases.
I made what i`ve call minimal zorin 3 custom with less than 900mb an use it to return to life the m40 toshiba of my wife with a 2ghz cpu and 2gbddr wich doesen`t worked well for long with Mint13 mate.
That`s why i like Zorin 3. The remastersys program help us create our flavour wiht only what we need.
I still have Ubuntu 12.10 installed ... but anyway ...
5 • @4 (by TonyA on 2012-12-17 12:04:29 GMT from Thailand)
..................Mageia 2 64bit KDE is better than the previous one but has a startup time incomprehensibly long...........
On my 64bit hardware with 6Gb RAM , the startup time is 56 seconds !
I do not find that inco........long.
6 • Cinnarch (by silent on 2012-12-17 12:27:50 GMT from France)
"Cinnarch uses the Arch Linux official repo and AUR" (Cinnarch site). AUR (Arch User Repository) is a huge collection of user created build scripts. Unfortunately Cinnamon and PacmanXG are only available from AUR, which means no official support by Arch Linux. Although Cinnamon built with AUR scripts generally works quite well, I think that the "quick and easy way in" mentioned in the article is just reading first the Official Install Guide of Arch Linux and installing after that a supported DE or WM. On the other hand, Linux Mint should be the easiest way to try Cinnamon, after all it is their child.
7 • Boottime?? (by Wolf Mondschein on 2012-12-17 12:54:38 GMT from Germany)
I always thaught that Boottime isn't relevant compared to uptime so what is let us say 30-60s against 14 Days of stable uptime. So it all depends which way you wanna go. I understand that for Distro testers it may be a big factor but a fairly useless for the users am I right?
8 • @1 (by David on 2012-12-17 13:14:51 GMT from Israel)
Having used only rolling release distros since the release of LMDE in 2010, and now using only full-rolling distros (Semplice and Manjaro), I wonder why I was previously willing - for over 9 years! - to either (a) do a complete reinstall every six months, or (b) install the new variant in a parallel partition and copy configuration over from old to new. Life with a rolling release is infinitely preferable!
9 • @5 time (by greg on 2012-12-17 13:24:14 GMT from Slovenia)
that seems long for such a mashcine.
it should be less than 30 secs.
its been a while since i measured boot time. but Kubuntu used to be under 30 secs on oldish celeron with 1 Gb ram and old ide drive.
10 • When my Linux yesterday suddenly wouldn't open anything... (by os2user on 2012-12-17 13:52:47 GMT from United States)
I began thinking again that most of the effort is going into NEW rather than SOLID. Seems in line with previous comments.
I won't name the distribution, but it's 5 years old and previously okay except for minor problems; I stick with it because does all I need and newer versions (& GUIs) are much worse. Yesterday it crashed out of Firefox, then out of Bittorrent, then when I tried to restart anything on the desktop, it put up a bunch of wacky never before seen messages, stating that it couldn't open "My Computer" or folders because of some HTML-related problem (Konqueror, and those had nothing to do with HTML). SO log out and back -- I run as ROOT without password because despise asking to use my own personal computer -- but no, not a virus any other external problem -- then it bailed out of the open Konqueror windows, and I gave up, not much could be done with it then. Restart last night all looked normal, but Bittorrent bailed out spontaneously, had to be restarted. -- Well, details don't matter. Point is that OS/2 or even Windows just never go FLAKY in such a basic item as the file manager.
Another recent boot supports that it's just wacky on that installation; the verbose mode showed me were some unrecognized "Window" commands in a (text) config file. Looked, and yes, were a bunch, nothing to do with anything, NO idea how they got in there, but by that I rule out flaky disk drive and board, unless you want to maintain that a deal of recognizable text was spontaneously generated and inserted neatly into a file, with line feeds.
Anyhow, if you guys don't quit playing around with new frills, you're going to lose the basics -- and whatever holds you've got on users. That's in evidence here every week. I know it's dull to fix things without any visible results to show off, but is more and more what needs done.
11 • Re: #7 - Bootime? (by Leo on 2012-12-17 13:53:00 GMT from United States)
I think it depends on the computer type. For servers, I agree. Desktops, not so much. A desktop may need a lot more frequent reboots, depending on how the user chooses to use it. And a laptop, even more. Sure, you can suspend to ram, but sometimes you want zero battery consumption, and you want to power off.
12 • Slax? (by Leo on 2012-12-17 15:17:21 GMT from United States)
Anyone played with Slax? I'd love a light KDE based distro (if such a thing can be done). I really really prefer Ubuntu based, and if not, Debian based (Ubuntu is really more polished in its packages, and there is a ton of software available)
13 • @7, 11 Boot time (by DavidEF on 2012-12-17 15:20:03 GMT from United States)
Wolf and Leo,
Boot time is extremely important to me. I use linux on my laptop and choose to shutdown while not in use. I want my computer to cold boot in less than 20 seconds. I would consider 56 seconds incomprehensibly long for sure.
14 • Fedora Magazine (by djohnston on 2012-12-17 15:30:51 GMT from United States)
No mention of the PCLinuxOS magazine? It's been published since September 2006. http://pclosmag.com/html/enter2006.html
15 • Emmabuntus? (by DavidEF on 2012-12-17 16:03:30 GMT from United States)
Not trying to sound too cynical, but does anybody else see the short description of Emmabuntus above and think "So what?" It just sems so underwhelming. Maybe it's better than that description gives it credit for, but that sounds like about 200 - 300 other linux distros in existence, to me. What makes Emmabuntus different and better? Anybody know?
16 • Disto boot time vs multitasking (by Rajesh on 2012-12-17 16:19:57 GMT from Qatar)
I feel that the boot time of any OS should not be more than a minute. But more importantly The snappiness of the desktop and the quick launch of each and every program is the most important factor in every day use because we boot an os only once every session (i.e.) lasting from a few hours to a couple of days or months. I do multiple work at the same time. like listening to music, downloading files in firefox. Browsing the net and copying some materials from the websites to the Libreoffice writer. i will be re-sizing and editing some image in gimp. While opening, switching and using these multiple programs at the same time i want everything to be quick and snappy without crashes.
17 • Boycott all PC that forces us to use Microsoft software using secure boot (by Rajesh on 2012-12-17 16:34:47 GMT from Qatar)
Microsoft cannot survives without profits.
To keep demand for their products and services they have been producing products every now and then. Thereby forcing people to buy then upgrade upgrade upgrade. or buy newer products as older ones are not supported after a few months or years.
As more and more people get frustrated and move away from some of their Operating systems they have to implement and force OEM manufacturers to implement features like secure boot to prevent other Operating systems from being installed on retail PC and such.
In the beginning they will use these feature and it can be turned off by the uses. As time goes by they will make anyone unable to turn off theses feature thereby preventing people from installing other operating systems.
I buy a pc or laptop so that i have a freedom of choice of Operating System, otherwise i would use a smartphone or Tablet.
Next people will have to stop buying retail PC and start Assembling their laptops and desktops.
18 • Slax 7.0 (by Nobody Special on 2012-12-17 16:47:06 GMT from Canada)
Looks interesting, I must give it a try, it's always been a pretty cool little distro.
19 • Tumbleweed & Erwin's Van de Veld's blog (by Andy Prough on 2012-12-17 18:05:07 GMT from United States)
Looks like Mr. Van de Veld needed to read the official warnings on Tumbleweed before he jumped in so enthusiastically:
"At this point there is no guarantee to have all additional modules available in the stable release like for Vmware or Virtualbox. And while the Packman Tumbleweed Essential repository attempts to deliver them there is no guarantee they will always succeed due to the incompatibilities with the quickly advancing Linux Kernel. The problems with proprietary Graphics drivers are similar and there is no guarantee they will work tomorrow, even if they do today. If you don't know how to compile your own additional kernel modules and you don't wish to learn or keep a very close eye on what is being updated, please don't use Tumbleweed."
As many others have, I played around with Tumbleweed, and eventually went back to the more stable repositories (despite Mr. Van de Veld's complaints, there are excellent instructions available on how to do this). I would suggest that users have their eyes wide open rather than shut prior to jumping into a new rolling release.
20 • Cinnarch (by Phil on 2012-12-17 18:16:46 GMT from United States)
I tried booting Cinnarch Beta on 3 computers: Dell Inspiron with Centrino 1.5Ghz, Acer Aspire with Intel I5 and a homebuilt desktop with Athlon 1700. I could only get it to boot to the desktop on the Acer and it was so slow on it I couldn't test it plus no matter what I did the wireless would not connect. The Dell wouldn't boot at all and the homebuilt would only boot to a terminal login.
I have all 3 of those computers running with the latest version of Chakra on livecd, which is also based on Arch. The Dell only uses 186mb ram at idol and the other 2 use around 230mb at idol. Chakra also comes with XBMC for multimedia and have been using that on the homebuilt hooked up to a 46 inch flat screen TV to playback DVDs and videos.
I have been messing around with Linux since the late 90s so I know how to solve a lot of problems with live distributions but I must admit I was quite disappointed by Cinnarch.
21 • Don't heap all the blame for bad hardware on Microsoft (by Devil's Advocate? on 2012-12-17 18:37:01 GMT from United States)
If OEMs put out intentionally defective hardware let's avoid assuming they were coerced. Microsoft may enable, but it's the OEM's own greed. Planned obsolescence, vapor-support and hardware Defects Required Mandates are short-sighted and all too common. In MS's defense, Windows often maintains driver support after an OEM has dropped any pretense thereto.
If Windows 8 certification requires SecureBoot/UEFI be subject to the purchaser, and an OEM puts out an uncertified product with W'8 that can't be restored, recovered, or updated to another key, is it right to blame Microsoft for these deficiencies? Shouldn't we educate consumers on what to look for before buying?
22 • SLAX7 (by just-somebody on 2012-12-17 19:42:27 GMT from United States)
All I liked SLAX for was ability to run fully in RAM to free up the burner, an easy to use burner program and usable file manager to burn files off a computer for rescue purposes, but there does not seem to be a graphical burner program in v7, It is no longer useful to me. I have to use Puppy for that purpose.
23 • Mandriva (by Charles Burge on 2012-12-17 19:44:03 GMT from United States)
Mandrake/Mandriva was my distro of choice from 1998 up until last year, so I always take interest in news about it. About a year ago I decided to see "what else is out there" in terms of distros. After trying pretty much everything in Distrowatch's top ten list, I settled on Arch. However, Mageia was second on my list, and I still feel a sense of allegiance to it. To me, it picks up where Mandriva 2010 left off in a much better way than Mandriva itself does. This may be just one man's opinion, but I see Mageia as the natural continuation of the distro I have known and loved, and the modern Mandriva is .. something alien.
24 • Cinnarch (by claudecat on 2012-12-17 19:52:50 GMT from United States)
I find Cinnarch's install method of downloading updated versions of the packages used to comprise the livecd to be potentially problematic. Would it not be possible for these updated packages to leave the freshly installed system in an unbootable state as was later experienced by Jesse?
I'd rather the installer put a proven and tested image of the livecd on the hard drive and leave the updates as a post-install task, as is the norm on other Arch based distros like Manjaro, Bridge and Chakra. At least one can gauge the usability of the distro on bare metal without investing time and bandwidth to update a system that ultimately may not even be kept. If I want a net-install I'll choose that ISO.
25 • Cinnarch net-install (by Jesse on 2012-12-17 20:24:16 GMT from Canada)
@24:
Yes, I suppose if a user was unlucky they could end up installing packages from the repositories which would not work. Of course, if the user installed the distro the day before the update then the following day their system would update and no longer work. Either way, they end up with a non-functional system, whether at install time or on a different day. Such is always part of the risk of running a rolling release distribution. Personally, I don't think it matters a whole lot if the distro dies at install time or a day or two in the future, either way the user ends up with a malfunctioning OS.
26 • Cinnarch net-install (by claudecat on 2012-12-17 20:45:30 GMT from United States)
Of course I understand what you're saying, but my point is that I don't want to download a full size ISO and then have to download a big chunk of it again as updates as part of the install process. I test lots of distros and very few end up staying, so I use the quality of the installed system before updates as an element in the decision process as to whether to devote my limited bandwidth to updating/maintaining it. I'd rather Cinnarch left the choice to update to the prospective user and installed a usable system from the livecd. Sorry if that wasn't clear initially.
27 • LinuxBBQ (by Koro on 2012-12-17 21:13:50 GMT from Luxembourg)
LinuxBBQ: If the OS is half as funny as the website, this is indeed one thing I must try before dying. Check out the site if you are longing for a good laugh.
28 • Cinnarch (by Jesse on 2012-12-17 21:58:31 GMT from Canada)
>> "Of course I understand what you're saying, but my point is that I don't want to download a full size ISO and then have to download a big chunk of it again as updates as part of the install process."
I entirely agree. It seems strange to download a full sized CD just to have the package files downloaded from the repositories. It's a lot of extra downloading (especially if you perform multiple installs). In my mind the only way net-installs make sense is if the ISO is small to allow for a minimal download in size and time. I hope future releases offer a local install option so the user can get, as you said, a base image that is known to be good.
29 • LinuxBBQ (by Barnabyh on 2012-12-17 22:19:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
Yeah, nice to have some humour inserted back into the sometimes stern realms of our subject. Now, who wants to be the Minister of Agriculture and Food? Take a look if yer puzzled.
30 • @3: ROSA is part of OpenMandriva (by bero on 2012-12-17 22:51:52 GMT from Switzerland)
OpenMandriva isn't going to be squeezed between Mageia and ROSA because ROSA is part of the OpenMandriva foundation -- ROSA developers are working inside the OpenMandriva repositories these days.
31 • @14 (by Adam Williamson on 2012-12-17 22:52:00 GMT from Canada)
"No mention of the PCLinuxOS magazine? It's been published since September 2006."
Well then it's not Weekly News, is it? :)
32 • Perennity (by Peter Besenbruch on 2012-12-17 23:03:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
"It looks like perennity is becoming an increasingly rare value in the Linux & FOSS biosphere. Tumbleweed is the latest sad example. Projects and distributions jump from one release to the next in a breathless frenzy, completely oblivious of long-term usability."
I have never encountered too many rolling releases with Linux, partly, because effective (i.e. non-crashing) distros that practice this take hard work. The closest I have seen is Debian's testing branch. Even then, you alternate between sometimes nail biting changes (Think Gnome 2 to 3) with periods of increasingly stable freeze, as the testing branch moves towards a stable release.
If you want "perenity," you should be prepared to run a little behind the times. Ubuntu's long term releases offer five years of security updates, and offer better stability than their other releases. Debian updates pretty well from stable to stable release. Yes, the home directory gets a bit messy after a couple of updates, but frankly, a computer is likely to see no more than three of them, given Debian's release schedule.
I am currently running Debian Wheezy (the testing branch on several machines, and Squeeze (the current stable branch) on a couple of others. In practice, there is little difference between them. The kernel may be named differently, but the stable machine is still running a re-badged kernel from testing. Iceweasel (and Flash) updates a little faster in the stable branch, because the maintainers update the Mozilla Backports directory before they do anything else. Likewise, Deb-Multimedia updates flash for stable first.
Desktops, like XFCE track testing in the Debian Desktop repository. Gnome is a different story. Neither it, or programs like the GIMP, ever seem to make it into any of Debian's backport repositories. The same holds true for KDE based stuff.
Still, when it came time to "upgrade," I found very little changed. That counts as "perennity," I think.
33 • Slax (by Somewhat Reticent on 2012-12-17 23:12:46 GMT from United States)
Slax core/base 7 has just begun; the repository/library of apps/tools/programs will follow.
One of the frustrations of prior Slax is the lack of a database to sift through the multitude of versions and permutations of apps and their dependencies. Let's hope for a more organized version this time around!
34 • Re: 13 by David (boot time) (by Leo on 2012-12-17 23:16:09 GMT from United States)
Yes, David, that's what I meant to say. Except if you are running a headless server, it matters. And even there, I'd rather see my server boot in 10 seconds and not 5 minutes. Especially if I had a crash and I need to be up again asap.
I also care. In most of my home computers, I use a script to measure boot up time to a fully (auto) logged in environment.I open a console with the script, and after that I record the time.
My home desktop (first gen amd 3 core @ 2.7Ghz) went twice as fast by switching to an SSD. Now it boots Kubuntu's KDE4 in 24 secs (login manager probably pops up in 15).
My dell mini 9 netbook has a crappy 2 core atom processor, but with the ssd and razor-qt it boots really fast (Less than 20 secs, to a full login, I can provide numbers later, I think it's 17s)
I really think razor-qt has a lot of potential.
35 • Unity 2D and something else (by Chanath on 2012-12-17 23:17:57 GMT from Sri Lanka)
If you guys are interested in Unity 2D, invite you here; http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2095113
36 • Cinnarch (by Pierre on 2012-12-17 23:26:41 GMT from Germany)
I used Arch Linux back in 2010 for a longer period. These days it is even becoming more widely known via a growing number of distributions based on it. There are certain reasons for choosing Arch.
The KISS-philosophy with BSD-like config files, nice package manager pacman, quite vanilla system like Slackware and some more.
Rolling release is one of the features that has it's downsides and advantages on the same time. On the one hand side the user is provided with a steady flow of updates and you are always cutting edge. On the other hand this means going to archlinux.org and reading the news before updating! It might always be that it needs user intervention before updating to avoid troubles afterwards, like Jesse experienced. This really is just a recommendation only, but it can avoid a lot of work and hassles. Just keep that in mind while using Arch.
And that is why I turned away from Arch.
It really is quite stable and there is a very well documentation wiki + news with tips that might always help you out, the KISS-philosophy is highly appreciated, it's always bleeding edge with just hitting pacman -Syu in the terminal. But before doing such a simple command you should really read the news on the distributions homepage and have a look if the update maybe needs some user intervention beforehand.
Even if you do so, there are breakages from time to time and on a productive system stability counts a lot more than staying fully up to date. It took me frequently a lot of time fixing things and I simply appreciate systems more that stay out of the way so that I can get work done.
This is the case for me with openSUSE 12.2 at the moment, it was the case for me with the highly stable Debian 6 and it was too with Slackware, and I had good experiences with FreeBSD as well.
Even Debian Testing was running more stable than Arch from time to time.
But in the end it just depends on your taste what you prefer and if you have no problems with doing some tweaking before and sometimes even after doing updates and like that a system only does what you make it to, then Arch Linux and this way Cinnarch, might really be good choices.
Greetings from Germany.
Pierre
37 • Arch and perennnity vs. stability (by claudecat on 2012-12-18 00:24:51 GMT from United States)
Pierre - I agree with most of what you say, but would add that after a few years of running Arch on a few machines, I've never lost more than a few minutes fixing things after an update. It should be noted that pacman itself will almost always warn the user of potential problems before (or sometimes while) it updates a package, so it's a good idea to then go to the forum for the solution. I'll admit that I've gotten lazy and almost never check before updating, as I so rarely experience problems.
Arch has, in the last few months, transitioned to systemd and to /lib as a sym-link to /usr/lib - both pretty major brain surgery. In both cases pacman gave me the warnings needed so that I could check the forum/homepage for the proper way of dealing with it. True, it is more work than the average distro, but not having to re-install every so often is well worth the few minutes here and there.
As for Debian testing and unstable - I wouldn't consider either of these rolling releases in the purest sense (take a look at the KDE or LibreOffice versions for example). They do tend to upgrade-in-place more successfully than the 'buntus, so there is a degree of perennity there, and testing at least is (for now) pretty darned stable.
Sorry to read that Tumbleweed has withered upon the release of openSUSE 12.2. I ran Tumbleweed until 12.2 was released and it worked quite well. I've always found openSUSE to be such an odd distribution. While solid and stable (mostly), it seems a bit too detail oriented and needlessly complex. I defy anyone to make sense of all the options in yast's GUI package management tool(s)! Maybe that's why there are so few (any?) distros based on it.
38 • Re: 10 When my Linux yesterday suddenly wouldn't open anything... (by os2user) (by Anon on 2012-12-18 00:19:38 GMT from Norway)
From your account, I suspect hardware problems. I've experienced almost exactly what you describe, twice, and on both occasions bad physical RAM (memory sticks) was the culprit. However, I would not rule out harddisk errors, which can elicit similar effects. Also, newish hardware, e.g. newer AMD/ATI cards, for which Linux does not yet have good/reliable drivers, can cause problems. Not long ago I 'upgraded' to a Radeon HD 7870 DirectCU II card, and now my machine mostly boots only on second or third try and Clementine quit working(!). Code does not change by itself.
39 • @37 by claudecat (by Pierre on 2012-12-18 01:45:38 GMT from Germany)
Well, I think it highly depends on your usecase and installed packages how many breakages you experience.
And if I remember correctly most of the problems I had were problems with KDE after bigger updates. So it might definitly be that the experienced bigger breakages are due to difficulties with KDE rather than such with Arch Linux itself.
But for someone who is often using KDE Software this is part of daily use and if this means being in trouble after updates quite often you simply start looking elsewhere and even on a release cycle with fixed stable releases where updates do not change a lot and therefore should cause less problems.
openSUSE 12.2 got just released when I was looking for another distro with good KDE support, so openSUSE was the deal for me. It was the first release of openSUSE since a few years that was very stable again. I love zypper and highly appreciate the power of Yast, although I never had proplems with editing config files like on Arch and pacman is really good, too.
I hardly use the Yast GUI for package managment and I even use Yast's text based UI on the terminal more often than the Qt- oder gtk-based GUI.
I think the reason why there are only few distros based on openSUSE maybe is a result of it's quite unique design that is centred around Yast. You cannot build an openSUSE based distro without using Yast, too. For some this is a big deal and most people do want a more simple design where Debian and Arch do fit a lot better and they have more possibilities to make them stand out and be more unique.
Nevertheless I really like openSUSE and feel at home with it. But this might be simply because I started my Linux life with SuSE a long time ago. :)
Greetings from Germany.
Pierre
40 • Linux Experience (by Sasi on 2012-12-18 02:31:37 GMT from Kuwait)
I am using Linux for the 13yrs and tested almost all major distros. Finally, I decided to settle for Gnome 3.6 using Ubuntu Remix. But not satisfied with the excessive boot & shut down time and more of frequent hangup. Now I am very happy with the Arch Linux and this being a rolling release distro it keeps my system with fresh packages. The G3.6 is superb; one day people will realize its ease of operation and performance coupled with elegance and switch back to Gnome3.
41 • re post 13 - Slax (by gnomic on 2012-12-18 05:17:27 GMT from New Zealand)
Slax hasn't been in active development for 3 years or so; when last released the desktop was KDE 3.5. The man behind the distro, Tomas, was I believe responsible for some noteworthy work on scripts for Linux live CDs. He had to put Slax on the back burner for a while to attend to real life. Now it seems he's back. I haven't looked at the 'final' of version 7 as yet, but it seems likely to be a work in progress. The Slax concept depends to some extent I think on a supply of loadable modules that can readily be added to the minimal core, and these will presumably take a while to appear in a form compatible with Slax 7.
While Tomas was resting from his labours, a distro called Porteus appeared based on much the same lines. This has versions based on KDE 3.5 and KDE 4, and may be worth a look. I have found v1.1 of the 32-bit edition useful at times as it comes with the burning programme K3b and runs in RAM freeing up a laptop's optical drive for burning yet more live Linux. K3b was omitted from the more recent v 1.2.
42 • Rolling distros (by smellyman on 2012-12-18 05:22:05 GMT from Hong Kong)
My anecdotal evidence is much different then what some seem to have with arch. I think perception may be different from reality. (in some cases)
I have been rolling with arch for over two year on 3 different machines and have needed a total of minutes to "fix" things. Usually because of my own doing. Arch stays very pure to upstream and if you update often (I do daily) the updates are small and simple.
However, whenever I try a new distro, buntu, Mint, Opesuse etc. the first freaking update after an install often borks my install. Always makes me appreciate how well Arch does rolling release so well.
43 • @31 (by djohnston on 2012-12-18 05:38:02 GMT from United States)
"Well then it's not Weekly News, is it? :)"
True, that. And it doesn't get all the media hype a multimillionaire's minions can create.
44 • LinuxBBQ (by Terence on 2012-12-18 05:38:54 GMT from China)
@27 I hope you realize you just ruined my weekend. Now I will be obligated to spend some time messing around with LinuxBBQ instead of messing around doing other worthless things. ;)
45 • @34 Leo (by DavidEF on 2012-12-18 13:32:50 GMT from United States)
Yeah, I didn't quite express it rightly, but I meant my post to agree with yours. I think it's funny how people look at things sometimes. If I never boot a computer, then it makes sense to me to say that boot time doesn't matter. But we need to look beyond our own experience, and see it might matter to someone. Of course, there are also those people who let everything matter too much, and drive themselves crazy complaining about things they never use.
Back on topic: I switched my laptop to an SSD, and the difference was significant, but I don't think it gave me twice the boot speed. I tried tweaking it with various guides I found online, but I'm sure I'm not squeezing all the performance I can out of it. It will be great when linux systems get familiar enough with flash memory that we no longer have to do any manual tweaking. I haven't tried razor-qt, so I don't know anything of it. But I've seen comments from other people about its speed. I've pretty much come to the conclusion in life that I can live with a little bit of performance-robbing for the sake of cool animations. So, if razor-qt gets its speed from being minimalistic, that's great for some people, but not my cup-of-tea.
46 • @42 (by Pierre on 2012-12-18 13:45:07 GMT from Germany)
Don't know why your experiences differ so much but as I pointed out it might be that a lot depends on what packages are installed.
On the contrary I had only a few small issues with various releases of openSUSE, Mint or others after updating the first time.
47 • Re: 45 by David (by Leo on 2012-12-18 14:43:02 GMT from United States)
Hi David
Besides the tweaking, some SSDs are simply _much_ faster than others, that might have had an impact.It's not so much the peak throughput, as it is the random IO. I waited a lot to upgrade my desktop, until prices of really fast SSDs were finally down to earth :)
Razor-qt is definitely minimalist. But all I run on the netbook is a browser, so I don't really care :) I'll rather boot 8 secs faster, because that sucker is booted on and off all the time ;)
The rest of the computers at home use beautiful KDE-4 desktops, yeah. But hey, it's a free (software) world, there is the right cup of tea for each and all of us :)
48 • @32 Rolling releases (by PePa on 2012-12-18 17:42:10 GMT from Canada)
I have for years enjoyed rolling releases (Gentoo and Arch), and many years switched to Ubuntu because it supports upgrading to a new release fairly well. I do remember always spending a lot of time reviewing config-files after an upgrade on Arch, which was OK, but I didn't miss it after switching to Ubuntu. I am still tracking Linux Mint Debian Edition, which uses a semi-rolling-release model that is meant to avoid breakages that are more common with rolling releases. I like the model, but it tends to be more resticted and conservative in tracking packages. I am sad to read that Tumbleweed seems to be withering.
Debian Testing is not meant to be a rolling release, although aptosid/siduction are using Unstable as a base for their rolling-release distributions (and there is probably a rolling-release distribution based on Debian Testing, is it LMDE??).
49 • Rolling releases & booting time (by Ika on 2012-12-18 18:59:30 GMT from Spain)
Well, speaking about rolling releases I'm happy with PCLinuxOS. Maybe it don't have "the last" kernel but the updates works quite fine. And I'm very pleased with the stability of this OS.
And the boot time is also good: 28 seconds (with KDE, XFCE and E17 on my hardware: an Acer desktop, Pentium D 925 - dual core - x86, 3.0 GHz, 4 Gb RAM DDR 2).
Also the Magazine is OK.
50 • Dreaming of a breakage free rolling release... (by cflow on 2012-12-18 19:35:55 GMT from United States)
Somehow, if there was a way that a distro to always have all the up-to-date "stable" technology that updates without any breakage whatsoever, that would be the best Linux distribution in my mind. However there are huge factors into making this happen:
-The term "stable" is utterly subjective. Some people think that the early point-releases of Libreoffice, the Linux Kernel, KDE, etc. are actually still in "beta" despite being labeled as "stable." Other software, such as elementary's Pantheon Desktop components are seen as "beta" by developers, but "stable" by other people. Some even define stable as "unchanging" - so a transition to a software that changes features, like in their interface, would be considered "breakage" in their minds.
-The schedules of project releases are heavily in flux. You can't figure out when many software projects will release something that corresponds to another project. Some "release early, release often" while others take many years to finish. Some realese when ready, while others have fixed schedules. Packaging according to many release philosophies and not breaking anything can get very tricky.
Hardware support keeps changing in many releases, and it extremely hard to take account every single type of hardware without breakage. Rolling releases can become a battle of what version of software best supports which computers, whether it is from old ones to those that are brand new. Which computer users to support?
The only way I can think of to make a stable rolling release is just have one desktop environment/window manager in the entire distribution, and focus the packaging and updates only on kernels, applications, and themes that are really known to "work" in it. Somehow, I think the pursuit of having so many desktop environments coinciding with a single base system makes it really overwhelming to get every single application working in each of them, all without breakage. Having 11 major desktop environments multiplies the chance of breakage of apps by quite a lot, and crossing between each one to make sure the apps work can just takes too much effort and resources to keep up with new technology. One desktop really simplifies things - you can then focus on the things that really do matter in the distribution, such as optimizing the resources it uses, and getting nice, new applications running on it...
51 • BootTime, DEs (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2012-12-18 20:03:27 GMT from United States)
Some hardware takes longer to boot simply because it has to wake more/slower devices; doing this with parallel processes seems to be in early (promising) development. I don't personally favor turning booting into some fancy DE; I'd prefer teaching a BIOS to handle new hardware and file systems. And regaining ownership of SecureBoot, of course.
Speaking of Desktop Environments, didn't someone recently publish 31 flavors? I vaguely remember the developer mentioned something valuable was learned in the process. A (new?) pearl of wisdom would be most timely before standardizing on DE ... if anyone's willing to listen. Sure would beat re-inventing the wheel a dozen times over. Of course, that's how spooks from corporate keep us disorganized ...
52 • @50 Good rolling-release distribution (by PePa on 2012-12-18 20:33:27 GMT from Canada)
I think stability in terms of breakage of rolling-release mechanism of updates is not that hard to define: the packages that were already installed should keep working well. (If a newer version is not found to work well, it can be downgraded in the repository.) Whatever is in the repository should all work well, and work well together. This is already a huge task, but a distro maintainer can always respond by downgrading package versions.
I think the hardware support mainly lies with the kernel, and not so much with the userland software. I think you can be conservative with offering kernel upgrades, and perhaps offer users a choice of upgrading to a version of the kernel that is a lot newer, while keeping things the same for those that are content.
I think the Linux Mint Debian Edition has all the tools to deliver such an experience.
53 • #50 • Dreaming of a breakage free rolling release... (by Ika on 2012-12-18 21:02:15 GMT from Spain)
I don't think the problem is the number of DEs/WMs. Not at all. It is the spicy of the diversity.
In my opinion the BIG problem is the "diversity" of a common, strong unified philosophy.
Let's see: I'm a "normal" user. What's the deal in such a multitude of packaging manners if the same software is doing the same? For instance; I'm using PCLinuxOS because it's my favorite and watching a movie with VLC. Another likes Debian, and is using VLC too. And another is doing the same in the favorite openSUSE. And so on...
Now, the same program is doing the same thing in the same way and quality. So, what's the deal in different packaging systems/codes? Isn't it a continuous headache for the software developers?
I'm just thinking...
54 • Sometimes diversity backfires (by Somewhat Reticent on 2012-12-18 22:04:11 GMT from United States)
There are times when standards pay. When there is no standard API (Application Programming Interface) dependency hell is worse.
Maybe that's why PiSi is too valuable (potentially) to abandon.
55 • Slax tiny footprint (by PePa on 2012-12-19 04:05:29 GMT from Canada)
I am so amazed that Slax over the years have managed to pull of a normally looking Live CD with such a small size of iso. To have a KDE4 with a number of additional packages in 222MB is incredible. How do they do that?? What can other distributions learn from the way Slax does things?
56 • #53 (by zykoda on 2012-12-19 08:11:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
Might as well ask about religion, nationality, language, customs, politics, economics, currency, law, ...etc. All are a continuous headache! Thinking is free; just like linux; resources cost. There is no universal force of cohesion to drive development in a particular direction. Creation of "new distroware" takes little energy for which there is little "energy penalty".
57 • @53, 56 (by DavidEF on 2012-12-19 13:13:55 GMT from United States)
To add to this, remeber that what moves most of free software is pride (both the good and the bad kind). Since most free software is done without compensation, people do what suits them. So, if I think your software is junk, or even if I like your software but see some problems with it, or some potential to improve it, I can fork it, or make my own from scratch. That is why we have so many programs that do the same thing, as well as package formats, package managers, etc. There are as many opinions as there are people. To an end user, sometimes two pieces of software seem to be functionally the same, but underneath they might be implemented differently, because they are driven by different philosophies. It's almost like sports in some regards. You have your favorite team and I have mine. We don't even have to have a good reason for our choice. It's just our choice. And that's what FOSS is all about.
58 • @55 (by Pierre on 2012-12-19 16:01:21 GMT from Germany)
Having a small KDE4 is no big deal if you simply go without a lot of the software what is offered by the KDE 4 SC.
So I don't see anything that is so incredible about Slax, although they really did a nice job by delivering a shrinked down KDE 4.
What we can learn about Slax?
That people who need for example the KDEPIM suite will need to install them additionally or just need to go with another distro directly. ;)
59 • #57 (by Ika on 2012-12-19 19:32:02 GMT from Spain)
"To add to this, remeber that what moves most of free software is pride (both the good and the bad kind)....etc..."
It's just I was thinking to write about, but didn't have time. Anyway, since I'm not a very good english speaker, you did it better than I would.
If Linux want be a serious variant, choice, competitor of Windows and not suffer the consequences of sh--s (like the newest secure boot) than it have to renounce this pride and collaborate and find a way to eliminate this fragmentation.
I said it and I'll repeat: Unity in diversity and diversity in unity!
60 • Re: #58 @ Pierre (by Leo on 2012-12-19 19:37:06 GMT from United States)
I actually agree with PePa. I was arguing this a week or two ago. Let the distros install something light, a la Chromebook.
For certain (rare) situation like the absence of a network, a full DVD is useful. But this is the exception and not the rule.
As for KDE4, KDE PIM uses akonadi, which uses a huge amount of space in the drive, and who knows how many resources. I always spend a lot of time stripping crap out of my KDE-4 systems (which I like because Plasma is great, but require a lot of work in thinning down). I would much rather have a quick 200MB download of a browser, a package manager, a file manager, and a fully functional desktop. I can install the software, it's only a few clicks.
Cheers
Leo
61 • #59 continuation (by Ika on 2012-12-19 20:28:02 GMT from Spain)
Let’s take an example: Arch Linux
Their KISS philosophy, as they state it out, sounds, IMHO, like an insult: “Keep it simple, stupid!” Why should someone who don’t know or don’t like the text mode be a stupid? Or simply don’t have time to loose or having less ability in typing chains of commands. Why not “keep it stupid simple” or “ keep it simple and stupid”?
What will be the loosing in giving (for just some megabytes) grafical options too? I’ll be very curious what will the preferences of the users if they might have such a coise... They don’t offere such an option; therefor are rising a number of spins. People need this. So, what’s the way to eliminate the fragmentation? My personal response is put it all together and create a complete featured system.
The same thing with Gentoo or *buntu.
A new comer in GNU/Linux world is really confused, scarred, lost. So, how Linux world can gain his attention and interest?
62 • Re: #61 (by Leo on 2012-12-19 21:02:36 GMT from United States)
Hi Ilka
People are using Linux, massively. Android is the dominant operating system in the mobile arena, by far. Chromebooks are gaining traction. RedHat is a huge player in the server Arena. Embedded Linux is king in the embedded arena.
Linux is very, very prevalent in our lives. And so is opensource. Sure, the (dying) phat desktop PC is MS Windows dominated. But that doesn't prevent me from running Linux in the only dinosaur PC I have at home, and Ubuntu is very simple to use.
Underneath this all, there is a Bazaar, the one that DavidEF was talking about. A crazy underworld of geeks who code for fun, or altruism, and create all sort of things out of their good hearts and minds. Some is good. Some is bad. Some forks, some merges. Some die. Some is reborn. It's a full evolution system. And we ALL win. Weirdos like me who have been running Linux in all their systems for the last 15 years, and "normal" users running it in their tablets and phones, and chromebooks.
It's all good.
Cheers
Leo
63 • Leo (by Ika on 2012-12-19 22:16:37 GMT from Spain)
I have a couple of years in Linux world and my preffered distro is PCLinuxOS. Nevertheless, I have to use Windows because programs I'm using don't work in Linux neither using wine, nor have an equivalent. If Linux world would be more unified, maybe the software developers might give Linux support too. As a consequence, more people and - very important - hardware developers will migrate to Linux.
Personally, I have no interest in smart phones or tablets, only in computers. I don't need internet in my pocket. When speaking about OSs, I'm speaking about computers: desktops, laptops...
Yes, in servers Linux is leading, but in home or in business, Linux is far behind Windows. So, it come out ever and ever the same question: WHY? We can't blame the monopolistic MS. A monopoly appears always when no real competence is given.
64 • @60 (by Pierre on 2012-12-19 23:16:15 GMT from Germany)
I agree on that, too, don't get me wrong please. :)
It definitely is nice to have a thin KDE 4 base on which one could build on and decide on the own what is needed to get the work done. It was not my intention to question that with my post even though it had a tone of irony in it.
My intention was to point out that it is not that difficult to deliver a KDE 4 desktop in a small 222MB iso and therefore i found no reason to call that incredible. It's very nice work indeed, but nothing what I would call incredible. :) That's all my post was about.
Greetings from Germany.
Pierre
65 • @64 (by PePa on 2012-12-20 01:18:27 GMT from Canada)
If it's so easy Pierre, why doesn't anybody else seem to be able to manage to do this? I would like a netinstall with a minimal system that I could install and then select all the packages that I need. A graphical system would make it friendly. Of course, this is not what Slax is, it's a live CD, but it wouldn't be too hard to make it installable.
Example, I don't run a KDE4 desktop, I install digikam. It needs 332MB extra space..! I need to download almost 100MB of packages. And I have several other desktop managers installed already. So I think 220 for a complete Live CD with GUI and a major desktop environment is pretty special. Nobody else is doing it.
66 • Coordinating Cats (by Somewhat Reticent on 2012-12-20 07:52:06 GMT from United States)
One bright hope of Slax and Puppy is keeping apps modular, loading only what's needed when wanted, avoiding dragging in a multitude of unnecessary 'dependencies'. With or without a 'cloud'. Iconoclasts may not need herding, but we all need to value teamwork. PiSi is one tool that can enable this worthy ambition, reaching beyond the shortcomings of Linux Standards. Rexx may be another. But these are dangerous thoughts indeed.
For a tension-relieving distraction: K.I.S.S. should be read as Keep It Short & Simple. Refusal to respect the importance of Short is foolish.
67 • @ Ika (by greg on 2012-12-20 07:52:27 GMT from Slovenia)
first @61 comment - you missunderstood the KISS principle. KISS principle means that it (porcess/os/whatever) is so simple even a stupid person would understand it.
second @63 comment - it is not as fragmented as it seems. if oyu donwload a source you can usually compile it on all distros. another option is that they provide the necessary libraries with programme and add an install script.
68 • NetworkManager and 3g modem (by gnomic on 2012-12-20 09:09:34 GMT from New Zealand)
It's those crazy Archbang guys again. Run through the prompts to get a 3g modem running via NM. Nothing happens. The device never appears in NM to be used. Oh well. Back to Bridge Linux where the 3g modem does work via NM. But my question is, anyone know how to make NetworkManager read its config files anew which is presumably what is not happening here? A few minutes with the manual didn't provide the answer.
69 • Re: #65 by PePa (by Leo on 2012-12-20 15:39:46 GMT from United States)
This is true. But you can ask apt-get not to install "recommends":
http://linux.koolsolutions.com/2009/01/07/howto-tell-apt-get-not-to-install-recommends-packages-in-debian-linux/
This can be configured on the command line, or in a conf file (as discussed in the article), and also in Synaptic. I am not sure how it would work in a general situation, but it's certainly the way to go in your case (installing a KDE app in a non-KDE desktop).
Cheers!
70 • Slax (by borion on 2012-12-20 19:53:32 GMT from United States)
Let me ask a simple question.
I used to like Slax for its simplicity. What made them make it a KDE based distro? Now, its neither simple ...nor working.
What are you guys thinking?
71 • @67 greg (by Ika on 2012-12-20 19:59:17 GMT from Spain)
first: a newbie in Linux is a "stupid" because this "simplicity" is very complicated and, of course, by no way short.
second: a newbie don understand nothing about source codes, compiling, packaging... etc.
All these things might make a person who is thinking migrate to Linux, turn back to Windows.
I was just putting me in the shoes of such a person.
If Linux comunity really want gain more users, then it must change something in its policy.
72 • Slax (by borion) (by Barnabyh on 2012-12-20 22:01:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
I agree, perhaps KDE 4 was an odd choice for a light live distro like that, but he probbaly alos wants to give users a full featured experience with an easy environment, and seeing that Slax was always based around KDE it's no surprise (although I think long ago there were other editions like Popcorn around that used Xfce or so). But the new Slax works very well. What is not working for you?
73 • @15: What makes Emmabuntus different and better ? (by PatrickdEmmabunts on 2012-12-21 15:38:41 GMT from France)
Hi David,
Actually reading the announcement of the distro, you can not see the difference between Emmabuntüs and other distros.
On the presenation of our wiki: http://wiki.emmabuntus.org, we find the following:
These distributions claim to be simple, open and fair. They are the results of the humanitarian crossing the free culture, to build together distributions for everyone.
Emmabuntüs includes all the required softwares to quickly and smoothly familiarise yourself with GNU/Linux. The version is based on Ubuntu and includes the script "Équitable", meaning “fair”. It has been necessary to find a compromise to ease the access of the distributions for everyone. That’s why we have included some proprietary softwares like Skype while waiting for a better solution but still for novice users.
In order to enhance the navigation a Dock has been added. You can access to all the included softwares through this great tool.
And great features are :
- Install standalone without Internet, everything is in the distribution
- Quick Setup Mode through automation scripts (preseed)
- Installation or not non-free software (Flash Player, Codec, Skype, etc.)
- An additional 60 applications
- A dock allowing access to all applications
- 3 languages (English, French, and Spanish) supported in distributions
If you see the Emmabuntüs announcement:
http://emmabuntus.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/December_8th,_2012,_the_Emmabunt%C3%BCs_2_celebrates_Al-Jerry
you see the following:
This distro was designed to facilitate the refurbishing of computers given to human help associations, especially Emmaüs communities (where the name comes from) and to promote the discovery of Linux and GNU by beginners, but also to extend the life of the equipments and to reduce waste caused by over-consumption of raw materials.
The purpose of Emmabuntüs is not to replace other Linux distro, but to provide an alternative for old computers on Windows 2000/XP/Vista !!!
I hope that my presentation was quite clear on our distribution, and feel free to make your own idea.
If some of you read the German view this article just published in LinuxUser, and speaks of our work with this title
"Multifunctional compact all-rounder for older computers"
http://www.linux-community.de/Internal/Artikel/Print-Artikel/LinuxUser/2013/01/Kompakter-Allrounder-fuer-aeltere-Computer
Cheers
Patrick
74 • @72, To Barnabyh (by borion on 2012-12-21 19:12:52 GMT from United States)
Thanks for your comment. Yes, I was referring to Slax and KDE4. I'm one of those who ... let me put it in a civic manner ... dislikes KDE4. Perhaps my dislike for KDE4 reflected in my comment on Slax. Nonetheless, the problem I see now is that it doesn't even boot. Not in VirtualBox, and not on a real machine (tried on two different machines). It just hangs in the middle.
With the limited time I have (and so many good distributions out there) I'm not even going to bother with something that fails to even give me a command prompt. It could be my hardware, doesn't matter. Every previous Slax version worked without problem on the same hardware. I could live with KDE3 if its presented right. And Slax did in previous versions. KDE4? To be honest, I was curious about what they did with it to be tolerable. Unfortunately, it didn't even get there.
Its supposed to be a lightweight distribution ... why not use something like Openbox that is well tested and that actually works?
On and off, I try some of these distributions to see what they have to offer. Nothing I've found so far to even remotely comes close to my choice, Crunchbang. I got to say, its a thing of beauty.
75 • Slax 7 (by Barnabyh on 2012-12-21 19:43:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
Oh yeah, CB is nice, I'm running it at the moment too. And Openbox is always a good choice in my view. Still, things being the way they are, I suppose the new corporate sponsor that actually pays Tomas for his work on Slax now might have specified they want KDE4 for the much touted 'You know what -like Interface'. Sorry to hear it doesn't boot for you. I'm running it in VB 3.8, admittedly an older version, and had no problems. I'm not sure what the issue could be. have you tried playing with the settings, more RAM etc? Cheers and good luck~ B.
76 • re #74 Slax, KDE4, and so on (by gnomic on 2012-12-22 09:42:25 GMT from New Zealand)
No problems booting Slax 7 final here on a couple of laptops, 32-bit and 64-bit. You don't say what you were trying to boot from; optical drives can always be quirky. Another reason for blank screen episodes is X Window. Nothing strange and unusual about your video card? Too new, too old?
As to KDE4, one way Slax has made it small is by omitting so far as I can tell such technological wonders as akonadi, strigi, and nepomuk. The whole semantic desktop collection. Some might say not much point to KDE4 without them since they are a big part of the vision thing. But KDE4 has finally almost become usable as far as I can tell if grotesquely large in its entirety. The project isn't completely pointless after all. It's not entirely my personal cup of tea, but I can see why there might be fans.
Crunchbang certainly has its merits :-)
77 • Re:63 (by CentOS fanboy on 2012-12-22 20:47:17 GMT from Brazil)
Ika wrote: "Yes, in servers Linux is leading, but in home or in business, Linux is far behind Windows. So, it come out ever and ever the same question: WHY?"
The answer is terribly obvious: Linux on the desktop is a big loser just because the vast majority of users don't use Stella or any other RHEL clone.
Did you know that every important commercial software for Linux is primarily written for RHEL? So don't expect an amazing "Photoshop for Linux" be released until the popularity of RHEL on the desktop grow higher and higher...
Yes, Ubuntu guys, you have chosen the wrong distro!
78 • @77 CentOS fanboy (by Ika on 2012-12-22 21:28:42 GMT from Spain)
"Yes, Ubuntu guys, you have chosen the wrong distro!"
Hoping you're not reffering to me!... :D
Speaking about RHEL clones, I tried to install CentoS but couldn't perform it.
Anyway, generally, my options are only for the "mother" distros, not for "based on" ones.
79 • @77 (by Sam Graf on 2012-12-23 00:18:15 GMT from United States)
Agreed about CentOS. Great out of the box as server software, but not terribly friendly to deploy on the desktop. If RHEL clones really do deserve wider use on the desktop, it's not because they are easy to set up.
80 • Oops (by Sam Graf on 2012-12-23 00:19:33 GMT from United States)
I'm sorry, I meant @78.
81 • Just curious (by RollMeAway on 2012-12-23 05:20:19 GMT from United States)
Has anyone ever tried to install ALL packages from a major distribution's repository?
I typically have 1500+ pkgs installed. Debian and *buntu have up to 40,000 available.
I'm sure some packages would conflict with others, but it sounds like a challenge to try.
Probably break most menu systems as well.
You could log into any desktop, run applications you've never heard of, let alone tried.
Might be an enlightening experience.
Anyone with a terabyte drive and some time on their hands ?
82 • @69 APT install suggests/recommends (by PePa on 2012-12-23 05:33:46 GMT from Canada)
Yes, after setting Install-Recommends and Install-Suggests to 0, digikam only pulls in an extra 198MB, still almost the size of the whole Slax iso..!
83 • @81 • Just curious (by Ika on 2012-12-23 11:37:41 GMT from Spain)
You made me curious. This idea passed through my mind some time ago but never put it in practice. I'll try. Soon.
I have a 1 TB HDD; free for Linux about 400 GB. Far enough. I think a full instal don't take more than 50-60 GB.
I don't like *buntus, with Debian I had problems in not recognizing the Windos install... so I'll do this with my favorite PCLinuxOS, though it have just little more than 13 000 packages. The case is that a full install includes also web servers for example, and don't know how will work Apace alongside others.
But... you made me really curious. :D
84 • @81 continuation (by Ika on 2012-12-23 12:08:24 GMT from Spain)
...The case is that opening Menu->Applications needs at least 10 monitors to display all things!!!... LOL
85 • Slax (by Mac on 2012-12-23 12:39:03 GMT from United States)
Works fine here and like the kde choice. Now will devote a pin drive to it. Would not have even tried it if had not been kde. Thanks to the Slax teem this should be fun.
Have fun Mack
86 • Gnome4 review, to be followed by Inanity ? (by TheOneLaw on 2012-12-23 13:49:34 GMT from Indonesia)
just a reminder:
some of us are still waiting for the review of _Inanity_
promised in
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20120402#humour
please don't let this slip the schedule....
Number of Comments: 86
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| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
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| Random Distribution | 
SymphonyOS
SymphonyOS was a Ubuntu-based desktop Linux distribution featuring a custom-built desktop environment called "Mezzo". Written in Perl and Gtk2::Webkit, Mezzo uses the lightweight but highly configurable FVWM window manager to create an unusual and eye-catching desktop user interface with focus on simplicity and usability.
Status: Discontinued
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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