 DistroWatch Weekly |
| Tip Jar |
If you've enjoyed this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly, please consider sending us a tip.
(Tips this week: 0, value: US$0.00) |
|
|
|
 bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx  lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr  86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le paypal.me/distrowatchweekly • patreon.com/distrowatch |
|
| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
|
|
| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • razor-qt (by fuji on 2013-07-29 09:36:52 GMT from Czech Republic)
Razor-qt looks fine. I just wanned to add - in longrun, they gonna merge it with lxde to create new gui instead of these two. Will use qt as toolkit. see https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/razor-qt/PNvkoidV2Ik
2 • The future of Razor-qt (and LXDE) (by :wq on 2013-07-29 09:39:48 GMT from United States)
"...the LXDE team has made tremendous progress in their Qt port. This is excellent news for LXDE, for the Qt community and especially for us because the LXDE project has always shared our philosophy. We both strive for small footprint, limited dependencies and modularity.
So what happens now?
Our two teams have met up and discussed the issues and we have decided that the best course of action for both projects is to focus on a single desktop environment, instead of two.
There have been talks of "merging" ever since LXDE-Qt was announced. Having taken the decision to collaborate, we've all had the pleasure of working together already. Our plan is to cherry-pick the best parts of Razor and LXDE and include or port those to LXDE-Qt."
"The GTK2 port will still be maintained by Andrej and will remain available for as long as possible. The plan is to keep the two branches in sync; as long as GTK2 is still widely in use, the GTK branch will be fully supported and receive further improvements and bugfixes."
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/razor-qt/PNvkoidV2Ik
3 • About Ubuntu Edge Fund Raising (by Marcos Jacoby on 2013-07-29 12:38:30 GMT from Brazil)
With respect to campaign fundraiser for Ubuntu Edge project, I want to make the following remark, taking into account what was said by Richard Stallman in http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CP8CNp-vksc
Now, taking into account what was said by him in this video, I wonder why amazon.com does not finance the entire project?
Whether they will continue sending sensitive user data to amazon.com as I have done so far, that they banquem the project. Just this.
4 • Sparky3 (by Joe on 2013-07-29 12:51:58 GMT from Mexico)
All excellent,but....in the light version in the openbox flavour there is a tremendous bug: the applications submenu is failed, it's urgent fix it.
Really sparky is a marvelous distro. Congrats!
5 • MidnightBSD packages failing hash authentication (by luvr on 2013-07-29 13:13:29 GMT from Belgium)
According to the MidnightBSD News page http://www.midnightbsd.org/news/ a bug was identified that causes this problem.
I haven't tried it myself, but a solution is provided on the news page.
6 • Razor-qt vs. KDE (by luvr on 2013-07-29 13:17:52 GMT from Belgium)
"I've often heard people say they like Qt and they would like KDE if it weren't for all the options and little distractions. Razor-qt 0.5 is, I suspect, what those people have been waiting for."
That's certainly how I have been feeling all along. Sounds like I should take a serious look at Razor-qt, then.
7 • Ubuntu Edge (by bam on 2013-07-29 13:25:24 GMT from United States)
With respect to Richard Stalllman; http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/support-an-ubuntu-edge-enthusiast-supporter
Also once you open a browser your privacy is gone. Don't delude yourselves, there is no privacy on the internet.
People are supporting Ubuntu Edge. We should not be hateful of a company that has not personally offended you.
8 • MidnightBSD (by Jon Wright on 2013-07-29 14:02:45 GMT from Vietnam)
I'm a bit confused, is MidnightBSD forked from FreeBSD 6.1 or FreeBSD 9? Must be the latter?
9 • Mounting infected disks - easy and flexible hardware option (by Sondar on 2013-07-29 14:11:29 GMT from United Kingdom)
If you're testing, cleaning and changing partitions, for example, on a regular basis, it's quicker to set up an old-ish motherboard on a piece of board (I use a slab cut from an old kitchen unit because melamine is an insulator) and plug in/remove peripherals for testing as and when needed, ie no case needed. Then use a compact distro liveCD like Puppy (new version without PAE for old (& new) machines announced today), see above.This breadboard assembly can be raised on a set of stick-on plastic feet or four dowels if it has to be placed on a polished surface/carpet/w.h.y. Choose an old m/board with IDE ports (use a SATA adapter when necessary) then flying 40w and 80w cables can be left permanently attached for working on drives that insist on one or other but not both. Great workshop test station which is quickly configurable and portable.
10 • Ubuntu Edge (by bam on 2013-07-29 13:25:24 GMT from United States) (by Marcos Jacoby on 2013-07-29 15:21:46 GMT from Brazil)
My dear!
No one here are blamming Cannonical or hatefull them.
Really Cannonical that has not personally offended anyone.
I just said "Why amazon.com does not fund the entire project as it will continue taking advantage of the partnership?".
For ordinary people play has to develop a product that will produce even greater benefits to amazon.com?
Just this.
There is no general criticism for Cannonical, but I think Cannonical should press amazon.com to invest at least half the required amount.
11 • KDE - 230 MB?? (by Will Brokenbourgh on 2013-07-29 16:32:27 GMT from United States)
"I did note the distro used more memory than I had expected. Logging into Razor-qt used approximately 230 MB of RAM on my system, which is about the same amount I would expect from an installation running the more fully featured KDE interface."
My friend, if you're able to get KDE running at 230 MB, I want to talk to you. I have never seen it use less than 600 MB, even running the minimal installation. I want to know your secrets! :-)
12 • Ubuntu Edge Fund Raising & Razor-qt (by Vukota on 2013-07-29 16:45:00 GMT from United States)
I think fund raising model as defined will not work for Ubuntu Edge. If they started company and asked for money, that would maybe work. This way I am skeptic of the success. Price for the uncertain device is too steep.
Razor-qt definitely looks promising and I will look forward to it. LXDE merger may help it, but I would like to see some real performance results of the apps running under it first.
13 • Razor-qt and RAM usage (by Jeff on 2013-07-29 18:21:46 GMT from United States)
I have had XFCE running in about 120 mb RAM
Razor-qt is not very light at all
14 • #13 (by jaws222 on 2013-07-29 18:57:02 GMT from United States)
Yes, XFCE is extremely light as is Openbox. I love both of these, especially on laptops.
15 • @13: Razor-Qt vs XFCE, "lightweight" (by Pearson on 2013-07-29 19:30:59 GMT from United States)
Honest question: which distribution are you using? I seem to recall someone mentioning that XFCE on some distros is lighter than others. I wonder if this version of Razor-Qt happens to be "heavier" than needed, while your XFCE is "lighter" than most.
Not refuting your point, just wondering.
16 • *BSD Encryption (by Zybersun on 2013-07-29 20:38:56 GMT from United States)
I am a fan of the BSD family. However I only try it out once and awhile, briefly. My biggest thing is having full disk encryption available at install. Now I can do it the long and hard way if needed, but I just don't want to. I am patiently waiting for the *BSD that does that easily, like Debian or Fedora does. I can do it the long way with other Linux distro's however I choose not to. Somethings I just like do get done faster. Arch Linux was fun when I did it a few years ago, but it had to be done carefully yet it was still much easier than, for example, FreeBSD. FreeBSD's "easy" way of doing this is: http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=19082 Not really what I want.
Other than that I am hoping there are more forks of any of the BSD's. It would be great to see this OS gain more ground. It is the only real alternative to Linux that is worth anything.
17 • @11 (by dmatt on 2013-07-29 21:48:46 GMT from Slovakia)
install kubuntu and their kubuntu-low-fat-settings package
or check Klyde initiative from openSuse http://susestudio.com/a/pRvzFf/minimal-klyde, there should be lot of tips
I remember getting to around 160 MB with Kubuntu last time I tried (around year ago).
18 • @11 KDE RAM req'd (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2013-07-30 01:15:35 GMT from United States)
Slax 7 only wants 256Mb for KDE4 ... but that's without bling?
19 • KDE & such (by MZ on 2013-07-30 02:52:18 GMT from United States)
"One thing I find I miss when I go from a light window manager back to the larger desktop environments is the ability to right-click on a blank portion of the desktop to access a pop-up version of the application menu."
The simple fix in KDE is to right click on the desktop, go to settings at the bottom of the menu & click on mouse actions on the right of the window that pops up. Personally I set the application launcher to open when I middle click so as to preserve the default for the standard menu, but you can configure it to any mouse button you want, or even the scroll wheel.
@ 11
Are you running 64 bit or 32? 32 is supposed to be lighter & I'm fairly certain I've gotten down to the 300 MB range fairly easy by just turning off bells & whistles. If you want to lighten KDE always start by going to system settings > desktop search, and unchecking the 'Enable Nepomuk Semantic Desktop'. You might also try going to system settings > desktop effects & unchecking stuff there too.
20 • Razor-Qt & Xfce (by Serge on 2013-07-30 03:21:39 GMT from United States)
I've been using Razor-Qt and QupZilla on an old 1 GB RAM + Athlon XP-powered machine for several months and have grown quite fond of that pairing (the Athlon XP was an AMD processor that roughly correlates to the first half of the Pentium 4 era). I'm not gonna kid anyone by saying "it's just as good of a combination as any modern environment would be!", but at least both are as responsive and fast-loading on that low-end machine as a GNOME 3 / Firefox combination is on more modern hardware. I've seen mention before that Razor-Qt has a large memory footprint, but practical experience in the above mentioned system has shown me that this hasn't had any impact on performance for me. Running "stock" KDE 4 or GNOME 3 on that machine, however, is unbearable.
I like using Openbox with Razor-Qt as Openbox's features and configuration options pick up where Razor-Qt leaves off. I don't get the same impression when using Openbox with LXDE - I find LXDE a bit too advanced and intrusive for it to be a good fit with Openbox.
With that in mind, I was somewhat saddened to learn that LXDE will be cannibalizing Razor-Qt. However, I understand that Razor-Qt's developers are shorthanded, and if the choices are between Razor-Qt entering bitrot due to lack of development time and Razor-Qt being discontinued in order to help make LXDE-Qt better, I guess the later is preferable.
***
As for Xfce's default footprint: Xfce is highly modular. Because it is mature, it has picked up a number of components over the years that some might find superfluous.
For those who feel Xfce is too large for what they want out of a lightweight DE, my advice is this: If your distribution packages Xfce in a way that makes it possible to install the various core components independently, then take the time to install your Xfce environment from the ground-up rather than just installing the meta / group / task / pattern package that your distribution might recommend for the best out-of-the-box experience. When stripped down to its "core", Xfce is still very light.
21 • Uninstalling KDE parts?/@ 11 (by MZ on 2013-07-30 03:36:06 GMT from United States)
I know PCLOS comes with a KDE mini edition that doesn't have extra parts installed, and I think you might also be able to get a similar effect by uninstalling parts, as long as your careful. It does seem a bit harder to slim things down than I remembered, but it can be done. In fact when I just turned on my old Debian box I get .22 GB of 1.5 GB & I noticed that I don't have any 'Akonadi Configuration' option in the system settings, so that might have something to do with it.
I'd say that whatever the defaults are on Debian 7 KDE 32 bit are very light to begin with, though I'm not sure if I made any tweaks. You might try downloading the live image of that & PCLOS KDE mini and comparing the results.
22 • @20 - LXDE and Openbox (by Hoos on 2013-07-30 03:51:48 GMT from Singapore)
WattOS uses LXDE with Openbox. They work well together, at least in versions r4 and r6, although I admit I haven't carried out checks or measurements. I use WattOS on my Pentium 4 PC with 1 GB RAM. I haven't tried version r7 though.
I've never tried Razor-Qt but it does sound very promising. Currently Linux Mint KDE does work on my system, although if I turn desktop effects on, it's certainly less snappy (but it still works fine).
23 • KDE Memory footprint @17 + 21 (by Peter on 2013-07-30 08:25:32 GMT from Spain)
Both statements are true: Kubuntu_low_fat does deactivate a bunch of blingy things: no 3D desktop or transparency in themes, less Krunner jobs, unlinking clock from reminders to avoid Akanodi, deactivate Nepomuk and Virtuoso, etc.
I've seen certain distros (Mageia, Kademar, Slax, Wifislax, PCLinuxOS Mini, Porteus, Manjaro KDE, Chakra, etc) do most of that out of the box and come down to 260 on a intel 2 Gb system (you can lower it). My intel laptop idles at 220 Mb (190 with EVERTHING deactivated). Believe me, at least when using the opensource graphic drivers, you can bring down the RAM footprint quite a lot.
But if they rebase LXDE on the more stylish Qt, i'll be a happy user of this "QLDE" desktop.
24 • razor qt memory (by mandog on 2013-07-30 11:54:23 GMT from Peru)
If the memory quoted is correct then its not good on a 10 year old HP laptop 32bt only Arch Linux, with open box 54mb of ram. with lxde 80mb with cairo-dock + compton 75mb. Crunbang gives similar results. As for all the KDE claims yes they can be achieved but that is just basterising a quality system I don't see the point. Would anybody in there right mind take top of the range merc remove all the goodies fit a 1ltr engine then say it uses less fuel that would be madness. so get real if you can't use KDE/Gnome on your lapton buy a laptop that can my laptop with win7 cost £185 in the UK. thats under 2 nights out clubbing. Or use openbox its still alive and kicking using plain gtk. but can also be used as a backend on KDE/Gnome/compiz/xfce or most other window managers?
25 • KDE memory usage (by greg on 2013-07-30 12:44:41 GMT from Slovenia)
we have 1.3 GB RAM on KDE maschine. i turned off nepomuk and later Akonadi since it went crazy and too all memorry and both CPU cores. anyway until it went crazy and also after turnin it off the memorry usage is about 280-300 MB on idle. we have some useful desktop effects turned on. it's working quite fast otherwise. LXDE uses about 100-130 on Ubuntu, so RazorQt, has to aim close to this. somewhere between 100 and 150 MB ram with a bit of bling turned on..
26 • Razor-qt, LXDE, Xfce, KDE (by Pierre on 2013-07-30 14:36:09 GMT from Germany)
As I already mentioned some time ago I really like Xfce and KDE and prefer them both over other DEs. Some months ago I found by chance the i3 window manager, fell in love with it and don't want to miss it anymore.
Nevertheless KDE and Xfce are very nice DEs I spend a lot of time with before and which I am still running from time to time and at least still are delivering many apps for my day to day tasks.
Both DEs are highly modular and customizable, KDE more than any other DE out there. Since 4.10 KDE is now finally even very fast, responsive and stable.
I don't know when it was most of the people here test drove KDE the last time, but it must be back some more releases and I especially don't know what Mr. Brokenbourgh broke or ran additionally to have KDE at a footprint of more than 600 MB of RAM.
With KDE 4.10 I mostly have something around 300 to 400 MB what is ok if I think about what KDE is doing with these MBs and has in store for me.
Even most Xfce systems do run with only 100 to 200 MB less than these 300 to 400 of KDE and Xfce by far doesn't have so many features like KDE has. So it's all about the services you are running. You can tweak KDE quite easily to run with 200 to 300 MB of RAM if you turn off some more features.
This is the reason why I am a little sad about such a relatively big footprint for a quite lightwight DE like Razor-qt.
When I first read about it I was excited about it and dreamt of a more KDE 3.5 like DE or someting like Qt-based Xfce. In the end it's more a LXDE with a footprint of stripped down KDE. I'd then prefer KDE over Razor-qt by far.
The plans of the LXDE project to maybe switch to Qt as framework sounds nice. Maybe they are doing it right or at least better than Razor-qt, although I like most of what they are doing I simply expected more.
27 • RazorQt footprint (by Hugo Masse on 2013-07-30 15:14:55 GMT from Mexico)
Upon logging into a fresh install of Sparky-Razor Qt in my HP mini, 32 bit, 1 Gb RAM and HTop tells me it uses 149 Mb out of 999 Mb. Right now, with QupZilla on this page, it went up to 207 Mb. The lowest I've ever seen in this PC was 79 Mb in Crunchbang. Those 149 Mb are similar to what I get with Cinnamon and MATE. I guess you should make sure you don't compare 32bit and 64bit systems, apples and oranges and all that.
I was pleased to find Sparky RazorQt's review this week. I got an interest in it with the previous Sparky review a few weeks ago and tried out their different versions, I also noticed how it's climbed into the top 20 distros here, quite rocketing. Jesse must have read my mind when I thought this new flavour deserved a new review. Now with the LXDE merge, I guess this DE will give a lot to talk about in a few months.
One thing I don't like in Sparky RazorQt is the menus. They're a bit confusing, hard to navigate. LXDE is similar and so I hope they find a better way to present this (maybe a favourites area) when they work on the LXDE Qt? It seems this is what they're going to call it.
28 • RazorQT footprint (2) (by Hugo Masse on 2013-07-30 15:29:32 GMT from Mexico)
Now I logged into Linux Mint Debian Edition in the same PC as in entry 28 and System Monitor tells me that Cinnamon runs on 133 Mb right after starting. It is now at 249 Mb with Firefox, just the Distrowatch tab. Razor Qt is not that lightweight after all. Nevertheless, it's worth keeping an eye on it.
29 • @27 (by jaws222 on 2013-07-30 18:27:56 GMT from United States)
Crunchbang? Openbox I presume? Yes, lightning fast. That is my favorite OS.
30 • Fedora 19, install on an HP ProBook 6465B (A10 CPU) (by Jeffersonian on 2013-07-30 23:54:24 GMT from United States)
== FOREWORD ==
We shall all drink a glass of the best possible read wine, in the memory of Seth Vidal, (Fedora developer) deceased lately, and when you drive a car (or bigger), please respect cyclists, day and night ! When you ride a bicycle when light is low, please have some light on your bicycle : they are now cheap, and a flashing LED use very little energy .... this could save you life.
If you are young, be aware that older people night vision is probably not as good as yours...
== NOW ABOUT FEDORA 19 ==
Fedora 19 (x86_64), when installed is probably the very best "Linux Distro" I have used, since Red Hat 5 or 6 and Suse when it was pretty good (around Suse 8)...
I first upgraded from F18 to F19, and it went amazingly well, I concur here with the reader comment stating "Fedup is a little gem", because it is.
However one day one update bricked my Fedora 19, so I had to reinstall it from scratch: still painful on a multi--boot system.
And the installer will not create anymore the fstab entry for the NTFS partitions, this is not good and could be fixed...
For the custom partitioning, another distro (May be Chakra?) is using gparted a great idea. Actually I used a CD/DVD live distro with gparted to partition the disk and format the partitions, after two unsuccessful F19 install ! It would be quite nice if Fedora would do this...
This machine not having Nvidia Drivers, the AMD Radeon install was "magic" i.e excellent out of the box: cannot ask for more !
The bad is that my machine (HP ProBook 6465B) have a Wifi chip from Broadcom (BCM943228) and the STA driver from Broadcom is not installed, out of the box.
I found a workaround plugin the USB-Wifi dongle TL-WN821N from TP-Link: F19, out of the box has the Atheros 9k driver so you can install the Broadcom STA driver for the "in-box" Broadcom Wi-Fi chip.
This works quite well, but life would be a lot easier if both Video AND Wi-Fi would work out of the box !
Anyway the Broadcom STA driver+hardware is excellent: really fast, and stable as a rock ! Hopefully it will be integrated into the F19 (or RHLE 7)....
Another good surprise was that F19 new kernel, now support well the Alfa Wi-FI range extender (did not work on F18).
Overall Fedora 19 is great, and either updates or Fedora 20 will be able to make the install yet easier.
For the Windows manager, MATE is now pretty close to be perfect (I filed for a minor bug on Bugzilla)...
KDE that I tried is not for me (bloated, overly complex).
However I place great hope in the Razor-QT merged with LXDE (Please keep it simple guys !), because Qt is just outstanding !
Jeffersonian
31 • MidnightBSD, FreeBSD and desktop usage (by Thomas Mueller on 2013-07-31 02:03:11 GMT from United States)
There already is a version of FreeBSD dressed up for desktop use: PC-BSD, website www.pcbsd.org . Not a fork of FreeBSD, but a dressed-up version with a PBI (push-button installer) that can install additional software packages. But PC-BSD is designed to be ready for action immediately after installation, unlike FreeBSD or NetBSD base system.
But FreeBSD ports and NetBSD pkgsrc permit building many software applications, so you can do things like online banking and multimedia, though maybe not read digital magazines through zinio.com .
32 • Making things lighter (by ARS on 2013-07-31 02:51:36 GMT from United States)
something like:
apt-get install --no-install-recommends
or,
aptitude --without-recommends install
33 • making it heavy / @26 (by MZ on 2013-07-31 07:32:55 GMT from United States)
'... don't know what Mr. Brokenbourgh broke or ran additionally to have KDE at a footprint of more than 600 MB...'
Actually it's very easy to get KDE extra fat. If your package manager has something akin to 'KDE full', then you could start to make your system heavy by installing that, & then turning on everything in sight. One of the quickest things I found to make KDE heavy was going to system settings > desktop search, & go to the "advanced settings" tab where you can turn up & down the memory usage from the default of 50 MB all the way to 1000 MB.
I'm sure I didn't need to turn it up on my main desktop, but I set it to 500 MB a while back & left it there. My desktop now idles at about 1.1 GB of RAM, but my main machine has 4 x the number of processor cores & 4 x the amount of RAM that my old backup machine has, so why not leave it there? It's really impressive how tweak able KDE is, going from 230 MB on my backup system with 1.5 GB of RAM, all the way up to 1 GB on my main 6 GB system. If you have the RAM & the desire you can use quite a bit of memory.
34 • @31, *BSD's (by Zybersun on 2013-07-31 14:38:40 GMT from United States)
PC-BSD, as you already said, is a dressed up version of FreeBSD with PBI. However try and ask for help at the FreeBSD forums with PC-BSD. Most, if not all, will jump down your throat. Just like the bickering you see within in the Linux community between distros, forks, etc. of various distros. Funny to see the same exact thing in the FreeBSD community. Guess that childishness and attitude is just something we humans will just have to outgrow.
I do know that there is a Linux Wrapper for BSD that will let you run Linux apps on BSD. Wine works with BSD which adds more. So even if, for ex. FreeBSD, has issues with a certain program or other issue it can usually be worked around. And one can also add a virtual machine.
I look forward to *BSD in general growing. I wonder where things will be in five or ten years.
35 • uninstall vs do not start in KDE (by dmatt on 2013-07-31 14:40:41 GMT from Slovakia)
KDE sort of hijacked this week discussion so I add one more tip. Lot of services start only when needed. I didn't uninstall advanced functionality. I setup the standard desktop in a way, which did not trigger services at the computer start. It's there if you need it, but it does not start if you only browse net or edit office documents.
36 • RAM uage (by Ika on 2013-07-31 23:13:09 GMT from Spain)
I think there are many factors wich affects the memory usage:
- the numbers of installed systems. Is it a single install or alongside others (Widows or/and other Linux syatem(s)
- the amount of data one have stored in the machine. Is not the same having 50 GB or 500 GB of data.
OTOH, I have two machines (a desktop with Win 7 with about 500 GB of data and several Linux instances and a laptop with Win 7 with 3 Linuxes very few data but hybrid graphics) and in both machines KDE is using aroun 600 MB.
Idle!
Simply, I don't know why...
I have only some basic effects enabled, nothing about Nepomuk, Aconadi or alike.
And no matter what distro I have installed, with all of them I have the same result... :(
37 • KDE RAM usage - Gentoo (by claudecat on 2013-08-01 05:47:19 GMT from United States)
Haven't compared recently, but as of 6-7 months ago, I was getting ~220MB RAM usage on Gentoo - 64 bit, with full KDE and effects enabled. Turned off akonadi and nepomuk and did a few other minor tweaks using Control Center. This was by far the lowest of the dozens of KDE distros I was comparing at the time.
That said, the perceptible benefits of this low RAM usage were negligible at best. Barring really old equipment, does a few hundred MB of RAM at idle really matter? I finally settled on Debian after years of obsessive hopping and haven't looked back. Unless you have low-end gear or really specific requirements, it really doesn't make much difference.
38 • @30 (by Adam Williamson on 2013-08-01 06:21:29 GMT from Canada)
By policy Fedora doesn't include out-of-tree kernel drivers - we only include stuff that's in the upstream stable tree or very definitely going to land in it soon. So the Broadcom driver would only wind up in Fedora if it got accepted for merging into the mainstream kernel, which last I heard, wasn't particularly likely. Sorry about that :/
39 • KlyDE (by Pierre on 2013-08-01 10:31:18 GMT from Germany)
Everyone who is not at all satisfied with the amount of RAM your KDE install is using by default should take a look at the KlyDE project which got initialized by Jos and some other openSUSE developers.
Sounds very promising and is in my eyes a much better alternative to Razor-qt and other lightwight desktops.
KlyDE, the 'K lightwight Desktop Environment', simply is demonstating the huge benefits of KDE's modularity and (re)assembles/(re)packages a Xfce like DE out of KDE components and can be afterwards extended to a full features KDE - if wanted.
Very promising. I am excited about that since I read about it. Hope for an integration into openSUSE 13.1 and if not, Cloverleaf Linux, the successor of Fuduntu, which will be based on openSUSE, will ship the first release with KlyDE if plans stay as they are at the moment.
40 • @34 Upstream attitude (by Jimcooncat on 2013-08-01 13:10:03 GMT from United States)
Yes, there is childishness and bickering, but please try to understand there is a good reason for an upstream forum (like FreeBSD) not to support people who run a derivative distro (like PC-BSD). Because we run open source software, a derivative distro can (and will) change anything. When the upstream guys try to help, they often run in to bugs or intentional differences caused by the changes made by the derivative distro's developers.
I run into the same thing with Debian and Ubuntu-based distros. At this point, it may be common knowledge that the Debian devs cannot possibly know what changes Canonical and the Ubuntu communities have made.
The fix for the end user is to install the upstream distro, test the problem, *then* if it still exists to ask the upstream forum.
To expect the upstream team to test every derivative distribution for problems is a childish attitude on the user's part.
41 • @ #30 and #38 plus addition (by Pierre on 2013-08-01 13:13:50 GMT from Germany)
This is the reason why check for Linux compatibility of every piece of hardware I purchase.
42 • @40 upstream attitude (by Pearson on 2013-08-01 15:37:13 GMT from United States)
Well said. Taking it further, I've heard that the upstream application developers (editors, databases, etc) prefer bug reports from Slackware or Arch, because of their policy of minimal patching. If the developer of 'foo' gets a bug from an Ubuntu user, that developer has to make sure it wasn't introduced by an Ubuntu patch.
43 • @40, 42 Makes sense, but no evil intended. (by LinuxMan on 2013-08-01 17:31:00 GMT from United States)
It's true that if a developer works on an application for Debian then he shouldn't really be bothered with bug reports from Ubuntu. The same goes for FreeBSD and PC-BSD. However I don't believe that this is a common occurrence. If a person installs an application from the Ubuntu repositories then I can't really imagine why in the world they would file a bug report with the Debian devs. I've never done that because there's no reason to, and I've filed many a bug report, and I always try to take care of the problem within the distro's eco structure. I'm sure the case would be the same with the BSD distros. You wouldn't go to FreeBSD if you were having problems with a PBI application. That wouldn't make any sense, but I'm sure people still do that. There is nothing wrong with applications that have been patched for a certain reason. Many of times, its more often than not that it is an improvement or simply an alteration so the application can run in a certain environment. So no, it shouldn't be up to the upstream devs to repair or debug applications that have been altered by the distro's eco structure even tho some devs are nice enough to. We also have to remember that all patches are not evil, but sometimes bad stuff happens. :)
44 • @43 managing downstream patches (by Pearson on 2013-08-01 18:33:51 GMT from United States)
"[not] all patches are not evil, but sometimes bad stuff happens"
True. Plus, sometimes the upstream bug fix can be negated by the patch.
45 • Report bug to the Source (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2013-08-01 22:42:59 GMT from United States)
Doesn't matter which distro you use, you report a bug to the source.
If the software is "based on", "forked from", or otherwise modified, clearly the first question is where the bug came from. That can be checked and verified.
Nobody should sneer "not my clientele, not my problem". Your bug, own up.
46 • Salix 14.0.1 (by Jeff Dickey on 2013-08-02 03:43:48 GMT from Singapore)
Great job getting 14.0.1 out the door, but downloaders beware: though it's alluded to in the review, when you get to the download site, 14.0.1 is apparently officially available only in KDE and XFCE spins as opposed to the 6(!) different images available for 13.37.
This is NOT a complaint, IMO. If you've only got the time and resources to package two spins that you can be proud of, I'd probably pick those two as well. I would expect (hope?) that additional spins are released as resources and demand warrant.
Again, great job, but for Mate or LXDE fans, some assembly currently required.
47 • @45 - Report bug to the Source (by Marco on 2013-08-02 09:49:37 GMT from United States)
The challenge for newbies is that they can only guess at the source. I have a minor annoyance that I guessed was upstream from my main distro (Kubuntu), so I filed it with KDE (https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=311974). Eventually I loaded another distro and replicated the bug, and a commenter replicated it on a third distro, so it turned out I guessed right.
That said, better to report the bug somewhere than nowhere. And for most newbies, that means in their distro's bug tracker, and hopefully the distro's packagers can file it upstream if they think it belongs there.
48 • Oh no, my PayPal account has been limited! (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2013-08-02 17:16:16 GMT from United States)
All I need to do is follow a link (and reveal all my account access codes, of course) and I can get it all straightened out ... oh golly, how could this possible happen!?
Shame!
49 • Wanting a Ubuntu Tablet (by JWM on 2013-08-02 19:10:00 GMT from United States)
I dislike the fat phone feel of droid. I really want a Ubuntu or Mint Tablet with some PC normal functionality. I was hoping this would be available soon.
50 • Rant: Linux Distros are dumbing down as badly as Windows (by Ben Myers on 2013-08-05 05:56:45 GMT from United States)
Why it's getting so that the latest Linux distros out of the box are hiding more information from the user than Windows does. Earlier distros, maybe 3-4 years ago, had a convenient little icon on the screen to click and find out the state of your laptop battery. VERY nice for hardware testing, BTW. At a glance, you could easily see not only the percentage of full charge in the battery, but also the number of charge cycles and the percentage of original capacity in mWH that the battery holds at the moment. Then, the older System Monitor may or may not be renamed Details, or it is simply not present as part of the standard software that gets installed.
I don't know about you, but I like to know what is going on in my system, especially a laptop running on battery and maybe clogged with dust and dirt, possibly overheating. How about a standard system temperature monitor, showing at a glance the current temperature of each processor core? Windows has one, but it's a free download. Nudge, nudge.
Oh, don't tell me to install this or that. This stuff has gotta be standard and readily accessible in all the mainstream distros: Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, etc.
Don't dumb it down!
Number of Comments: 50
Display mode: DWW Only • Comments Only • Both DWW and Comments
| | |
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Archives |
| • Issue 1168 (2026-04-13): pearOS 2026.03, EndeavourOS 2026.03.06, which distros are adopting age verification, Arch adjusts its firewall packages, Linux dropping i486 support, Red Hat extends its release cycle, Debian's APT introduces rollbacks, Redox improves its scheduler |
| • Issue 1167 (2026-04-06): Origami Linux 2026.03, answering questions for Linux newcomers, Ubuntu MATE seeking new contributors, Ubuntu software centre is expanding Deb support, FreeBSD fixes forum exploit, openSUSE 15 Leap nears its end of life |
| • Issue 1166 (2026-03-30): NetBSD jails, publishing software for Linux, Ubuntu joins Rust Foundation, Canonical plans to trim GRUB features, Peppermint works on new utilities, PINE64 shows off open hardware capabilities |
| • Issue 1165 (2026-03-23): Argent Linux 1.5.3, disk space required by Linux, Manjaro team goes on strike, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA driver support and builds RISC-V packages, systemd introduces age tracking |
| • Issue 1164 (2026-03-16): d77void, age verification laws and Linux, SUSE may be for sale, TrueNAS takes its build system private, Debian publishes updated Trixie media, MidnightBSD and System76 respond to age verification laws |
| • Issue 1163 (2026-03-09): KaOS 2026.02, TinyCore 17.0, NuTyX 26.02.2, Would one big collection of packages help?, Guix offers 64-bit Hurd options, Linux communities discuss age delcaration laws, Mint unveils new screensaver for Cinnamon, Redox ports new COSMIC features |
| • Issue 1162 (2026-03-02): AerynOS 2026.01, anti-virus and firewall tools, Manjaro fixes website certificate, Ubuntu splits firmware package, jails for NetBSD, extended support for some Linux kernel releases, Murena creating a map app |
| • Issue 1161 (2026-02-23): The Guix package manager, quick Q&As, Gentoo migrating its mirrors, Fedora considers more informative kernel panic screens, GhostBSD testing alternative X11 implementation, Asahi makes progress with Apple M3, NetBSD userland ported, FreeBSD improves web-based system management |
| • Issue 1160 (2026-02-16): Noid and AgarimOS, command line tips, KDE Linux introduces delta updates, Redox OS hits development milestone, Linux Mint develops a desktop-neutral account manager, sudo developer seeks sponsorship |
| • Issue 1159 (2026-02-09): Sharing files on a network, isolating processes on Linux, LFS to focus on systemd, openSUSE polishes atomic updates, NetBSD not likely to adopt Rust code, COSMIC roadmap |
| • Issue 1158 (2026-02-02): Manjaro 26.0, fastest filesystem, postmarketOS progress report, Xfce begins developing its own Wayland window manager, Bazzite founder interviewed |
| • Issue 1157 (2026-01-26): Setting up a home server, what happened to convergence, malicious software entering the Snap store, postmarketOS automates hardware tests, KDE's login manager works with systemd only |
| • Issue 1156 (2026-01-19): Chimera Linux's new installer, using the DistroWatch Torrent Corner, new package tools for Arch, Haiku improves EFI support, Redcore streamlines branches, Synex introduces install-time ZFS options |
| • Issue 1155 (2026-01-12): MenuetOS, CDE on Sparky, iDeal OS 2025.12.07, recommended flavour of BSD, Debian seeks new Data Protection Team, Ubuntu 25.04 nears its end of life, Google limits Android source code releases, Fedora plans to replace SDDM, Budgie migrates to Wayland |
| • Issue 1154 (2026-01-05): postmarketOS 25.06/25.12, switching to Linux and educational resources, FreeBSD improving laptop support, Unix v4 available for download, new X11 server in development, CachyOS team plans server edtion |
| • Issue 1153 (2025-12-22): Best projects of 2025, is software ever truly finished?, Firefox to adopt AI components, Asahi works on improving the install experience, Mageia presents plans for version 10 |
| • Issue 1152 (2025-12-15): OpenBSD 7.8, filtering websites, Jolla working on a Linux phone, Germany saves money with Linux, Ubuntu to package AMD tools, Fedora demonstrates AI troubleshooting, Haiku packages Go language |
| • Issue 1151 (2025-12-08): FreeBSD 15.0, fun command line tricks, Canonical presents plans for Ubutnu 26.04, SparkyLinux updates CDE packages, Redox OS gets modesetting driver |
| • Issue 1150 (2025-12-01): Gnoppix 25_10, exploring if distributions matter, openSUSE updates tumbleweed's boot loader, Fedora plans better handling of broken packages, Plasma to become Wayland-only, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1149 (2025-11-24): MX Linux 25, why are video drivers special, systemd experiments with musl, Debian Libre Live publishes new media, Xubuntu reviews website hack |
| • Issue 1148 (2025-11-17): Zorin OS 18, deleting a file with an unusual name, NetBSD experiments with sandboxing, postmarketOS unifies its documentation, OpenBSD refines upgrades, Canonical offers 15 years of support for Ubuntu |
| • Issue 1147 (2025-11-10): Fedora 43, the size and stability of the Linux kernel, Debian introducing Rust to APT, Redox ports web engine, Kubuntu website off-line, Mint creates new troubleshooting tools, FreeBSD improves reproducible builds, Flatpak development resumes |
| • Issue 1146 (2025-11-03): StartOS 0.4.0, testing piped commands, Ubuntu Unity seeks help, Canonical offers Ubuntu credentials, Red Hat partners with NVIDIA, SUSE to bundle AI agent with SLE 16 |
| • Issue 1145 (2025-10-27): Linux Mint 7 "LMDE", advice for new Linux users, AlmaLinux to offer Btrfs, KDE launches Plasma 6.5, Fedora accepts contributions written by AI, Ubuntu 25.10 fails to install automatic updates |
| • Issue 1144 (2025-10-20): Kubuntu 25.10, creating and restoring encrypted backups, Fedora team debates AI, FSF plans free software for phones, ReactOS addresses newer drivers, Xubuntu reacts to website attack |
| • Issue 1143 (2025-10-13): openSUSE 16.0 Leap, safest source for new applications, Redox introduces performance improvements, TrueNAS Connect available for testing, Flatpaks do not work on Ubuntu 25.10, Kamarada plans to switch its base, Solus enters new epoch, Frugalware discontinued |
| • Issue 1142 (2025-10-06): Linux Kamarada 15.6, managing ZIP files with SQLite, F-Droid warns of impact of Android lockdown, Alpine moves ahead with merged /usr, Cinnamon gets a redesigned application menu |
| • Issue 1141 (2025-09-29): KDE Linux and GNOME OS, finding mobile flavours of Linux, Murena to offer phones with kill switches, Redox OS running on a smartphone, Artix drops GNOME |
| • Issue 1140 (2025-09-22): NetBSD 10.1, avoiding AI services, AlmaLinux enables CRB repository, Haiku improves disk access performance, Mageia addresses service outage, GNOME 49 released, Linux introduces multikernel support |
| • Issue 1139 (2025-09-15): EasyOS 7.0, Linux and central authority, FreeBSD running Plasma 6 on Wayland, GNOME restores X11 support temporarily, openSUSE dropping BCacheFS in new kernels |
| • Issue 1138 (2025-09-08): Shebang 25.8, LibreELEC 12.2.0, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, the importance of software updates, AerynOS introduces package sets, postmarketOS encourages patching upstream, openSUSE extends Leap support, Debian refreshes Trixie media |
| • Issue 1137 (2025-09-01): Tribblix 0m37, malware scanners flagging Linux ISO files, KDE introduces first-run setup wizard, CalyxOS plans update prior to infrastructure overhaul, FreeBSD publishes status report |
| • Issue 1136 (2025-08-25): CalyxOS 6.8.20, distros for running containers, Arch Linux website under attack,illumos Cafe launched, CachyOS creates web dashboard for repositories |
| • Issue 1135 (2025-08-18): Debian 13, Proton, WINE, Wayland, and Wayback, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, KDE gets advanced Liquid Glass, Haiku improves authentication tools |
| • Issue 1134 (2025-08-11): Rhino Linux 2025.3, thoughts on malware in the AUR, Fedora brings hammered websites back on-line, NetBSD reveals features for version 11, Ubuntu swaps some command line tools for 25.10, AlmaLinux improves NVIDIA support |
| • Issue 1133 (2025-08-04): Expirion Linux 6.0, running Plasma on Linux Mint, finding distros which support X11, Debian addresses 22 year old bug, FreeBSD discusses potential issues with pkgbase, CDE ported to OpenBSD, Btrfs corruption bug hitting Fedora users, more malware found in Arch User Repository |
| • Issue 1132 (2025-07-28): deepin 25, wars in the open source community, proposal to have Fedora enable Flathub repository, FreeBSD plans desktop install option, Wayback gets its first release |
| • Issue 1131 (2025-07-21): HeliumOS 10.0, settling on one distro, Mint plans new releases, Arch discovers malware in AUR, Plasma Bigscreen returns, Clear Linux discontinued |
| • Issue 1130 (2025-07-14): openSUSE MicroOS and RefreshOS, sharing aliases between computers, Bazzite makes Bazaar its default Flatpak store, Alpine plans Wayback release, Wayland and X11 benchmarked, Red Hat offers additional developer licenses, openSUSE seeks feedback from ARM users, Ubuntu 24.10 reaches the end of its life |
| • Issue 1129 (2025-07-07): GLF OS Omnislash, the worst Linux distro, Alpine introduces Wayback, Fedora drops plans to stop i686 support, AlmaLinux builds EPEL repository for older CPUs, Ubuntu dropping existing RISC-V device support, Rhino partners with UBports, PCLinuxOS recovering from website outage |
| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Full list of all issues |
| 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.
|
| Random Distribution | 
AliXe
AliXe was a SLAX-based, desktop-oriented live CD with the goal of promoting Linux among the French-speaking public of the Québec province in Canada.
Status: Discontinued
|
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| 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.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
