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1 • Mint-cinnamon.SUPER! (by Jow on 2013-12-09 09:50:20 GMT from Mexico)
Mint cinnamon Petra does not fail at all. It recognize any periferic, It is fast, abd very beautiful. It give us a marvelous out of the box experience with all needed codecs. News apps,etc. The next LTS in May.2014 will be best than any Win and Mac. Congrats to Clem!
2 • PCLinuxOS 2013.12 (by Sondar on 2013-12-09 10:20:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
Shame that PCL apparently still seems to suffer from ancient animosities within its camp, now long since past, accusations of DW PHR fixing and dismissal by some pundits as too 'elementary' and a plethera of other inappropriate adjectives. Personally, I've never found much value in any of those allegations. I have regularly recommended it to a range of disenchanted defectors from you-know-where, whatever their abilities and preferences. Shame, therefore, that the present release of PCL came so late in the week for RoW and reviewers. The LXDE version is a real cracker for Christmas. Fast, comprehensive and clean; even Tex from the Deep South has managed to incorporate the correct FlashPlayer files for limeys. So far not missing any expected features, so recommend a gander, even to Jesse.
3 • Mint, Ubuntu and... FUD (by Koroshiya Itchy on 2013-12-09 10:22:40 GMT from Belgium)
Being the target of a FUD campaign usually means you are on the right path. Congratulations Linux Mint!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt
4 • Mint updates for Flash plugin ? (by Fred on 2013-12-09 10:28:44 GMT from France)
Last time I used Mint/Cinnamon, I checked Firefox plugins with firefox's built-in verification, and it complains about Flash plugin being out-dated.
At the same time, flash-plugin from canonical (on an Ubuntu PC) was up-to-date (and flash-plugin installer was installing the same up-to-date version).
I finally figured out that Flash plugin in Mint was provided by Mint repository, you can check here:
http://packages.linuxmint.com/list.php?release=Maya
Package: mint-flashplugin
Even for "Petra" (ubuntu 13.10) http://packages.linuxmint.com/list.php?release=Petra
Package mint-flashplugin is still 2011.10.19 !!!!!
Mint packages organization is done with clever apt pinning configuration, but it is true the security of some packages is really not handle the right way.
Having Firefox up-to-date is good, but most of vulnerabilities on the web are due to this cr*p of flash plugin...
I am no more using Mint... because I understand a bit of security and debian internal.
For common users (the target of Linux Mint) it is a serious concern !!!
5 • openmandriva (by gino on 2013-12-09 10:49:20 GMT from Italy)
openmandriva is not a mandriva fork, but a ROSA based distribution
6 • OpenMandriva (by Teresa e Junior on 2013-12-09 10:56:44 GMT from United States)
Just skipped the review. We all knew it was just a hard copy of Rosa, didn't we?
7 • @4 • Mint updates for Flash plugin (by mandog on 2013-12-09 12:02:38 GMT from Peru)
Which planet are you on the flash plug-in used in mint Petra is exactly the same version as used in my archbox, so either arch is also outdated by 2 years or you my friend are just a Ubuntu fanboy spreading fud.
8 • no fud... for sure (by Fred on 2013-12-09 12:15:45 GMT from France)
@mandog
No fud, for sure, not what I mean. Fud are useless. Just 1 reason why I don't use Mint anymore is updates.
Maybe the web page is no more accurate ?
Last time I used Mint, a LTS version, the flash version used was subject to vulnerabilities, and not updated by the Mint updater.
"apt-cache policy" gives me the answer: unfortunately, flash-plugin with Mint is provided by Mint, with a higher priority.
Maybe they corrected this issue by now ?
9 • LMDE (by Paraquat on 2013-12-09 12:19:31 GMT from Sweden)
I won't get into a flamefest over Mint vs Ubuntu, but if you're concerned about security (you should be) it is for sure a good idea to keep your Firefox or Chrome browser up-to-date.
I personally use LMDE (Linux Mint Debian). Very nice Debian-based distro, but I found that the Linux Mint repository was lacking a whole lot of programs I use. So I just edited file /etc/apt/sources.list and commented-out all the lines and then added these two:
deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb-src http://http.debian.net/debian testing main
While you're at it, deinstall the icedtea plugin, which is a Java security hole. Most people do not need it, but it comes installed by default in many distros.
Then "apt-get update" and "apt-get dist-upgrade" and I have a very nice up-to-date system.
10 • OpenMandriva vs ROSA (by Carlos Felipe on 2013-12-09 12:26:36 GMT from Brazil)
Visually, they are the same distro.
Rosa has codecs and flash preinstalled.
11 • Re. 4 & 8 (by Woof on 2013-12-09 13:07:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
We've had all this Flash nonsense with Puppy over the years. Use the version provided - more recent ones often don't work! For example, v.10.3.183.18 is getting very long in the tooth, but is still one of the most reliable for a wide range of distros and apps. Clem is more likely to get the FP spec. correct with his rigorous testing regime. Better still, abandon Firefox and switch to Opera.
12 • Ubuntu Binary Fee... (by Ron on 2013-12-09 13:20:05 GMT from United States)
Charging fees for their binary packages, even if it is just some? You have got to be kidding me. It is getting harder and harder to defend Canonical these days. Profit is one thing but they are going way overboard. This path they are on won't work for them, but they will find out the hard way. All it is going to take is a few distro's/clones splitting from Ubuntu and basing things on Debian and creating shared, Ubuntu like repositories to work along side of the Debian repos. You will see the Ubuntu numbers drop even more when that happens. I said the same thing, about number dropping, just before Mint became so much more popular. Hardcore fans will argue this like they did before. However time will tell.
I miss the old Ubuntu. This new MS/Apple like Ubuntu is just not the same as the old Ubuntu.
13 • Mint Flash plugin manual upgrade (by byku on 2013-12-09 13:42:00 GMT from Poland)
@4
I'm not Mint user, but You can try to upgrade Flash plugin for yourself (I think for other buntu distros it should be similar).
http://www.wikihow.com/Upgrade-Adobe-Flash-Player-on-Linux-Mint
14 • Mint-Canonical Fuss Example of Inherent FOSS-Business Conflicts (by joncr on 2013-12-09 13:51:30 GMT from United States)
It isn't surprising that Canonical is making noises about trying to block use of its binaries in competitive commercial products, especially if their effort to use one common OS on all devices actually succeeds.
A lot of people will freak out about this, in an ill-informed way, using it as another hammer to bash on Canonical.
But, the larger point is that any attempt to marry FOSS code and a for-profit hardware business inevitably exposes the tensions between those two very different ecologies. If you are in the business of selling products that use FOSS binaries (rather than selling support for FOSS server support) then the availability of those binaries, and their source, to others opens a huge door for competitors to put your code on their hardware and undercut your business.
Any rational business would want to prevent that. (In fact, any rational business might be better off deciding that FOSS contains what amounts to a poison pill and back away from any effort to use FOSS code in proprietary hardware.)
As far as access to Ubuntu binaries on Canonical servers goes, as long as the source remains available, anyone, include the Mint team, could rebuild the source and host those binaries on their own servers. This is exactly what CentOS, et al, do with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Distributions allowing anyone to pull binaries off their servers is one of the expectations that has developed in FOSS culture, but nothing in the licenses mandates that.
15 • Mint and Ubuntu (by silent on 2013-12-09 14:03:16 GMT from France)
The information is a bit scarce, but it can be actually good for Mint to make a license agreement with Ubuntu about using their binary packages for commercial purposes. The result would be a transparent an reliable business model that could boost cooperation between the two leading Linux distributions. On the other hand, I think that Mint should simplify the 1-5 rating of updates (as probably this is somewhat overcomplicated for both some of the users of a beginner-friendly flavour, and for some of the Ubuntu developers), and provide a better integration for Ubuntu and Mint repositories.
16 • @2 PCLunxOS (by kc1di on 2013-12-09 14:16:49 GMT from United States)
I'm not sure about any unsettled stuff, but I fine PCLinuxOS a very good Distro and use it on several machines here. It's one of my go to Distro. and just seems to work for me.
2013.12 is very good. but no need to download each quarterly update, essentially you have a semi rolling distro and as long as you keep it up to date you have the lastest packages.
17 • Flash what? (by Koroshiya Itchy on 2013-12-09 14:49:52 GMT from Belgium)
What flash plugin are you talking about? This one (quote from Adobe site)?
NOTE: Adobe Flash Player 11.2 will be the last version to target Linux as a supported platform. Adobe will continue to provide security backports to Flash Player 11.2 for Linux.
This happened almost 2 years ago...
How do you expect to get updates?
I have the Google Pepper plugin installed in Chromium (not Chrome).
18 • Flash what? (and II) (by Koroshiya Itchy on 2013-12-09 14:54:46 GMT from Belgium)
Besides, if you use flash (as I do) it means that you are not really concerned about security (unless if you do it inside of a well isolated virtual machine, jail, chroot or whatever)...
19 • Ubuntu/Mint license kerfuffle (by Linadian on 2013-12-09 15:14:14 GMT from Canada)
Ubuntu has an uphill battle enforcing licensing of anything that has any GNU/GPL code in it. Unless they wrote a package from scratch and obtained a patent, good luck with that Canonical.
Just in case they forgot the terms of GNU/GPL, you can use, modify, distribute, but any modifications must be shared if built upon existing GNU/GPL code.
Just my $0.02
Speaking of Mint, where is the DW Mint 16 Cinnamon review?
20 • If you were answering to me (by byku on 2013-12-09 15:25:41 GMT from Poland)
@17, 18
I'm not using flash in browser or as standalone player. And yep i forgot that there will be no new flash for Linux. People can watch some YouTube movies via HTML5 (and play some games too).
21 • @ 10 • OpenMandriva vs ROSA - Carlos Felipe (by Chanath on 2013-12-09 15:42:56 GMT from Sri Lanka)
"Visually, they are the same distro."
Carlos, do you have both installed? What's the reason to say that visually, they are same? Is it because of the ROSA menu, or do you find them alike?
As these two have the same Mandriva base, and the Rosa menu, they may look alike, like all the distros with Gnome shell, but do you find them only visually alike or completely alike? Interesting to know.
22 • Cinnamon (by Sasi on 2013-12-09 15:44:55 GMT from Kuwait)
Cinnamon on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS is really superb! Thanks to Mint. I am finally settled on this desktop environment, after testing several distros and DEs. Its Nemo File Manager is very useful.
23 • Crunchbang vs. Complicated... (by Gwilson on 2013-12-09 15:51:58 GMT from United States)
This is perhaps getting wide of any topic in this week's Distrowatch, but really find myself tuning out when I read articles about various desktops and window managers or Canonical feeling threatened by Linux Mint. I don't do much distro hopping anymore, but I do like to try out various distros and see what nifty things developers have done or what other people seem to feel is either necessary or practical in a GUI. In the end, though, I seem to keep coming back to Cruncbang with it's Openbox interface and Debian Stable repository. It is just so blessedly simple, unpretentious and efficient. I have a friend who loves LibreOffice on Win7 but doesn't want to "learn" Linux (she's just a user, not a tinkerer). I have told her that both OS's are running the identical program, and all we really need is a system that gets the program up on the display for us to use. I am greatly appreciative of all the work that developers and maintainers do. I love to play around and tinker with things. I even enjoy the occasional challenge of sorting out some issue. But I primarily just need a distribution and its user interface to just show me a selection of programs I can run and get me on my way. Some of these controversies start to sound like deadly serious religious or political fights. This stuff really isn't a matter of life and death from where I sit.
24 • undercuting business (by Fred on 2013-12-09 16:24:41 GMT from France)
Oracle is undercutting Redhat's business with OEL.
Canonical fond a way to protect their work, with their new license agreement.
Hopefully OSS designers are not acting the same way as Canonical !
It would be funny if OSS blockbusters such as Gimp, LibreOffice or VLC would decide to do the same. And ask for a specific license fee model !
Does anyone at Canonical think about giving money to OSS developers, for any downloaded package ?
Redhat's behavior is much more respectful of what is opensource. Canonical's guys should never forget they are nothing without Open source developers, despite what they provides to OSS !
what Canonical does is simply the end of opensource...
25 • Flash & Mint security (by Pinky Eye on 2013-12-09 16:25:32 GMT from Czech Republic)
@17
"NOTE: Adobe Flash Player 11.2 will be the last version to target Linux as a supported platform. Adobe will continue to provide security backports to Flash Player 11.2 for Linux.
This happened almost 2 years ago...
How do you expect to get updates?"
Ehm, you answered yourself:
"Adobe will continue to provide security backports to Flash Player 11.2 for Linux."
Recent version was 11.2.301, now we have 11.2.327 or something.
Aboout Mint, although it somewhat snowballed with FUD, the main premise is still valid: Mint by default doesn't upgrade rank 4 & 5 updates (mostly Xorg and Kernel packages). The warning about enabling this looks rather severe, so i expect most Mint users won't enable upgrading those packages. Clem may argue about the poor quality of Ubuntu kernel packages/updates, but as Quidsup stated in his review, there is no reason he couldn't use other sources if he is not satisfied with the ones he has.
The issue stands, some of Mint's packages don't recieve security updates by default.
Clem is right that the option is configurable -- the user himself/herself can ultimately decide if the added security is worth possible breakages, just be open about it: some of Mint's packages don't recieve security updates by default.
26 • @19: GPL permits charging a fee for distribution (by Serge on 2013-12-09 16:29:41 GMT from United States)
The GPL explicitly permits charging a fee for distribution of binaries. Canonical might not have the right to charge for access to binaries of software in Ubuntu's repositories under other licenses, though. It appears that Canonical is arguing that their act of building the binaries from source is a creative act that gives them a copyright stake in the resultant binaries and therefore the right to dictate additional terms, and it seems that Clem Lefebvre counters by saying that building binaries is a deterministic act that does not grant Canonical a copyright stake.
I think Clem is right, but I would bet that the vast majority of the software in the Ubuntu repositories is either GPL licensed or permissively licensed. I have a hard time imagining that there is any significant volume of software in there that's under licenses that do not permit charging a fee for distribution of binaries.
A better legal question, in my opinion, is why does Linux Mint have to pay but other users are allowed free access?
Note: I'm not a lawyer, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
27 • @19 Opinions about sharing (by DavidEF on 2013-12-09 16:47:26 GMT from United States)
The conversations between Mint and Canonical are about binaries. I could be wrong, but I think the GPL says that you must share your code, not that you must freely distribute your binaries. I haven't read it lately, so forgive my ignorance, if I'm mistaken. But if I'm right, it would be like charging for media (floppies, CD's, DVD's etc.) with a free software. If it costs you to distribute, shouldn't you have the right to recover the costs? Or should Canonical have to pay for very expensive server environments, with continuing maintenance needs, and the electricity to power them, and the Mint people have the right to compete with them for free?
28 • RE 24 binaries are not source. Neither are logos.... (by dbrion on 2013-12-09 16:51:37 GMT from France)
"Redhat's behavior is much more respectful of what is opensource. "
Well, RH makes his source available to anyone wishing to clone RH (and helps to remove his logos, which are not free).
Many Centos (or SL, or ...) are very happy getting binaries... and, if they feel it might be complicated (though users are satisfied with the clone), decide to hire Red Hats support...
Thus, everyone is free to recompile ***sources***.... but AFAIK sources are not binaries (and recompiling "deterministically" eats resources)...
BTW, logos are not opensource... And UBUlinux already gave, 120 years ago, the Debian Logo (""la gidouille du père Ubu: -1896- " http://therebantynezoe8.skyblog.com/pics/726057884.jpg or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ubu-Jarry.png ). Maybe they do not want to give their newer logo....
29 • @26 (by byku on 2013-12-09 17:01:23 GMT from Poland)
"A better legal question, in my opinion, is why does Linux Mint have to pay but other users are allowed free access?"
"to prevent Mint from competing with Canonical in front of the same commercial partners."
I think that some vendors could ship computers (maybe some wants?) with preinstaled Mint. And users of Mint don't have to use Canonical clouds, shops and others stuff that could give Canonical money eg. shoping lenses. So maybe Canonical afraid this and want some money from licences?
I wonder if other buntu distros will have to pay?
30 • Binary Fee @12 (by vw72 on 2013-12-09 17:04:33 GMT from United States)
FOSS means the source code has to be available. Since it takes a lot of time, effort and infrastructure to compile all of the binaries for a full distro, if the compilation is viewed as a service, why would Canonical or anybody else not be allowed to charge a competing distro for that service?
The reality is that LM is a direct competitor of Canonical in the commercial space. Under the GPL, Canonical has to make the source code available, but that doesn't extend to the binaries. The same is true for Redhat, SUSE or any other distribution. There is a difference between forking a distro into a new distro and simply redistributing the original binaries from the original distro and claiming it as yours, particularly if you are trademarking and copyrighting your distro.
Besides, there isn't much of a controversy here. From the interview, the licensing fee is in the single digit range. Basically, to have a contract, something of value has to be exchanged. $1 (or even $9 or the equivalent euro amount) doesn't seem too excessive.
31 • Ubuntu Binary Fees (by dragonmouth on 2013-12-09 17:26:47 GMT from United States)
Linux used to be free, now Canonical is trying to make it proprietary. Every day Canonical is acting more and more like Microsoft. Is Canonical going to pay licensing fees for Debian binaries they have "borrowed", or, like Microsoft, are they going to pretend/deny that they don't use any Debian binaries?
32 • @31 (by jaws222 on 2013-12-09 17:31:49 GMT from United States)
"Linux used to be free, now Canonical is trying to make it proprietary. Every day Canonical is acting more and more like Microsoft. Is Canonical going to pay licensing fees for Debian binaries they have "borrowed", or, like Microsoft, are they going to pretend/deny that they don't use any Debian binaries?"
You still have Debian, Fedora, OpenSuse, PCLinuxOS, Arch, Slackware... I could go on. If that's the direction Ubuntu's headed so be it. I have a 12.04 install running Unity and it's okay, but there are much better out there,
33 • On Mint updates being held back (by Kirk M on 2013-12-09 17:35:38 GMT from United States)
Not all kernel and Xorg updates are security related. In my experience, the majority of these updates pertain to bug fixes that often affect only a minority of users, removal of deprecated code/code for hardware that no longer exists or even a simple bump in revision numbers (kernel).
In the case of Linux Mint, if a kernel or Xorg update provides a fix to a security issue, the Mint devs have never failed to get the word out along with instructions in how to receive these critical updates. But these types of kernel and Xorg updates don't happen that often.
Also, this so-called "holding back" of updates by default only applies to the Mint Update Manager (MintUpdate) and nothing else! There's 3 ways to update a Linux Mint install. MintUpdate (filtered by default but user configurable), Apt and Synaptic and the latter two are not affected by MintUpdate's filtering system. They hold back nothing.
Nothing but a "taken-out-of-context" (Grawert's "statement" consisted of 5 or 6 words *in parenthesis* that was posted on an Ubuntu mailing list 2 weeks before the news first picked it up), overblown non-issue.
34 • @30 (by byku on 2013-12-09 17:42:23 GMT from Poland)
Only my speculations (i don't want to start another war).
"$1 (or even $9 or the equivalent euro amount) doesn't seem too excessive."
If a vendor will want to sell eg. 1m computers with Mint on board - will have to paid $1-9m to Canonical. So if it will be small vendor it will be cheaper for him preintsal Ubuntu instead Mint.
But I wonder if other buntu distros will have to pay? Especially if will get more attencion (like Mint) in their country of origin (i mean where live developers of derivative).
But i think if any derivative will not cooperate with big vendor there will be no problems from Canonical.
35 • Woof: regarding Opera browser (by hotdiggettydog on 2013-12-09 17:52:10 GMT from United States)
Don't know if you know this.
Opera has abandoned linux. Yes, there is still a linux version available but its old and rarely updated.
Opera is putting all their resources into Chopera, their new Chrome clone. They are also going strong on the mobile browser as well.
Opera is also closing down its myopera branch in March as stated in Opera blog.
Losing myopera email does not sit well with me and many others.
I was a happy Opera user since version 6. Very disappointing.
36 • @23 (by jaws222 on 2013-12-09 18:13:07 GMT from United States)
"In the end, though, I seem to keep coming back to Cruncbang with it's Openbox interface and Debian Stable repository. It is just so blessedly simple, unpretentious and efficient"
That's not at all surprising. I'd bet if you took a vote of experienced Linux users to rank distros Crunchbang would be #1 on the list. # rules!
37 • Adobe Flash (by denflen on 2013-12-09 18:15:22 GMT from United States)
Regarding updates to Adobe Flash Player: I am running Lubuntu 12.04 on 2 different desktops. One has Google Chrome Browser, version 31.0, and Flash Player version 11.9. The other desktop has the Ubuntu version of Chrome (Chromium that is). It is version 30.0 and Flash Player version 11.2. So the options seem to be if one is concerned about Flash Player, install the Google Chrome browser and get Flash Player updates. If Google Chrome isn't trusted, stick with Chromium Browser and an older version of Flash Player. I can't say which way is better, or I wouldn't have both. Just putting it out there...
38 • Ubuntu is going on the wrong way (by Daniel Mery on 2013-12-09 18:20:44 GMT from United States)
Sad to write this, but Ubuntu is going on so bad. Linux World is a freedom place, not space for mercenaries atittude like this. Really, I prefer Linux Mint, Cinnamon is better than Unity. Mir was really a 'fiasco'.
Dan
39 • @38 Re: Ubuntu going the wrong way. (by Rev_Don on 2013-12-09 19:21:00 GMT from United States)
In more ways than one. Canonical is also missing out on a golden opportunity to pick up more XP orphans and are taking all of the distro's based on 'Buntu with it. By that I mean that stubbornly sticking to their 2 year/4 release cycle between LTS releases. The world at large, and Canonical has known that XP support will run out in April 2014 and instead of revamping their cycle to put out a LTS release in 2013 (either 13.04 or 13.10) and having time for the first update to that to mature to the 13.04.1 (or 13.10.1) stage users wanting to switch from XP to a 'Buntu based distro either need to go with a short term release that is only supported for 9 months or with a 2 year old LTS release.
I seriously doubt that these new converts, especially the less technically savvy ones will want to install a new LTS release in a few months. These people just want to use their computers, not mess around with them. And sure there are other distros like PCLinuxOS that are good choices for newbies, but seriously how difficult would it have been to drop an interim release or two and get a fairly fresh LTS out in late 2013. Sorry, but not doing so is simply shortsighted IMNSHO, especially when the vast majority of distros designed for these newbies are based on a Ubuntu and more than likely won't have their LTS release ready until May, well after the XP orphans need to be off of XP.
40 • @39 (by byku on 2013-12-09 19:52:47 GMT from Poland)
Users of XP have old computers. Most of them are too weak for Unity (too weak GPU to render GUI?). If XP users will choose Linux they will swich to less power demand distros (maybe Mint or other buntus) or have to install other DE/WM (without shopping lenses). If they will want to buy computer they will buy one with Windows (most people don't know that they are paying for Windows when buying new computer so the price of the system isn't their concern) or Ubuntu (if there will be no other desktop system preinstalled eg. Mint that is quite popular these days and some users could buy new computer with it).
41 • @40 (by byku on 2013-12-09 19:56:17 GMT from Poland)
But i heard something about Ubuntu with MATE (maybe Mubuntu). Maybe some XP users will choose this configuration and will stay in Ubuntu's ecosystem?
42 • @40 (by jaws222 on 2013-12-09 20:22:50 GMT from United States)
"Users of XP have old computers. Most of them are too weak for Unity (too weak GPU to render GUI?). If XP users will choose Linux they will swich to less power demand distros (maybe Mint or other buntus"
Or they could install Crunchbang and have blazing fast speed on old hardware. But, more than likely they will stick with Windows and run 7 or 8 which would mean buying a new machine since 7 and 8 are bloated resource hogs.
43 • charging for binaries (by Jeff on 2013-12-09 20:24:17 GMT from United States)
I can understand that servers cost money to run.
The problem that I have with this is that somewhere between 80% and 93% of all Ubuntu packages (depending on the source of the statistic) are unchanged from Debian. Built directly from Debian source in Ubuntu.
Where is value being added ?
How much is Ubuntu/Canonical giving back in return ?
44 • Others will follow suit on license fees (by My Opinion on 2013-12-09 20:27:44 GMT from United States)
The end of free Linux is coming. I project that in two years, Linux will no longer be considered free, and all distributions will charge for their use (e.g. "we are just passing on the license fees to the user, that's all"). The end of free Linux is coming.
What do you think? I think I'm right. I wish it weren't true.
45 • XP orphans and #! (by Jeff on 2013-12-09 20:35:53 GMT from United States)
CrunchBang is probably going to be a bit too "scary" looking to many of the XP users.
This being said I use #! myself.
I am converting some of these peoples computers to Debian Xfce.
46 • @45 (by jaws222 on 2013-12-09 20:41:10 GMT from United States)
"CrunchBang is probably going to be a bit too "scary" looking to many of the XP users.
This being said I use #! myself.
I am converting some of these peoples computers to Debian Xfce."
I think you're right. It's a shame because with just a little time and effort Crunchbang is not that hard to learn. Also, many would feel Openbox as a DE is too simplistic. Maybe XFCE Crunchbang.
Debian XFCE? Have you looked at Point Linux yet? They recently put out a MATE version and it is really simple and works great out of the box. Check it out if you get a chance.
47 • More FUD (by RJA on 2013-12-09 20:44:47 GMT from United States)
Now there's someone thinking that Linux will become feeware?! (That wasn't a typo!) What the bleep!
48 • @44 (by jaws222 on 2013-12-09 20:47:35 GMT from United States)
"The end of free Linux is coming. I project that in two years, Linux will no longer be considered free"
So we will you just all go to Arch?
49 • @46 XFCE Crunchbang (by Jeff on 2013-12-09 20:54:03 GMT from United States)
Sadly, Phillip dropped XFCE Crunchbang a while ago, it was in my opinion a great Xfce distro/configuration
50 • @48 (by Jeff on 2013-12-09 20:57:00 GMT from United States)
Debian is still free and likely to stay that way, also.
51 • @49 CrunchBang (by CAI ENG on 2013-12-09 21:05:56 GMT from United States)
I too felt, when Philip dropped XFCE, that I had been missing an old friend. Now, I cannot abide anything but OpenBox. Philip was right, and I was wrong.
CrunchBang, in my testing experience, over the past several years, is the simplest, fastest, and easiest to learn. It is intimidating to an absolute novice, because it is so different in appearance from XP's desktop (XFCE is even more cluttered!). Anyone willing to spend FIVE minutes with it, however, will understand how lovely this distribution is.
I also enjoy and use several other distros, including PCLOS LXDE, and Lubuntu, and I have found them both excellent. I began with UNIX in the mid 70's, and graduated to Linux with Slackware, RedHat, Suse, in the mid 90's, but now, when I try any of those variants, I am just amazed at how little they have improved, compared with CrunchBang.
52 • damned if they do, damned if they don't (by tomas on 2013-12-09 21:10:34 GMT from United States)
"packages 80-93% are unchanged from Debian"
Wow, i've found fault by looking at the other portion, the changed packages. Too often I've found trivial changes (edit a glade file to widen the layout of a column. no other changes, period), plus unwarranted (or dubious) introduction of dependencies into the changed packages, such that they depend on other "-version1.2.18.22-ubuntu" (whatever) modded packages ~~ as though the intent is to render them unusable upstream.
For example, introduction of dependencies related to AppArmor or some other brick in the proprietary canonical stack. My criticism has been that it's a stretch to claim, or to believe, that these "add value" to the modded (sourced from upstream) packages. Thus, canonical seems to be intent on impinging upon our freedom (freedom of choice, on a per-package level) forcing an all-or-nothing scenario -- either drink our koolaid, in the prescribed manner, in the glass we provide... or you're free to (for all we care) stay thirsty.
53 • @31 - Re Ubuntu Paying Debian (by Tony on 2013-12-09 21:12:19 GMT from Canada)
You really should take a look at some of the base packages in Debian and see who the maintainer is. Now go see where they work. I think you might be surprised and it will answer your question. LOL
54 • @42 (by byku on 2013-12-09 21:18:02 GMT from Poland)
If they will not buy new computer they will probably choose distros like #!, Puppy or WattOS (there are plenty of less power demmand distros with small but nice communities and developers who listen).
We will see.
55 • @51 (by jaws222 on 2013-12-09 21:38:41 GMT from United States)
I too felt, when Philip dropped XFCE, that I had been missing an old friend. Now, I cannot abide anything but OpenBox. Philip was right, and I was wrong"
He certainly was, but my first go-round in Statler I put installed XFCE on my Openbox distro because at the time I was not familiar nor did I like Openbox. I'm pretty sure the same can be done in Waldorf if one chose to do so. But, yeah Philip was right! Openbox all the way!!
56 • Re: Ubuntu/Mint binaries kerfuffle, My apologies (by Linadian on 2013-12-09 22:41:33 GMT from Canada)
I stand corrected, if it's about Mint using Canonical's servers, then they will have to shut EVERYBODY out and put a secret encrypted signature in their OS similar to what MS does, no match, no updates, there's no other way around this.
57 • @52-You make a lot of good points (by Linadian on 2013-12-09 22:57:19 GMT from Canada)
I think there is a lot of sour grapes at play here and mirroring of MS's mistakes, ironically they both went with a bizarre GUI and spyware (I detest Ubuntu 'customizing' firefox with a forced plug-in, I shut it off and un-install it ASAP, I personally run Kubunt), because Mint booted Ubuntu from the #1 spot on this site and is running circles around them DE GUI wise, Mint is the one under attack. Check out this DW 'based on Ubuntu' search results, SEVENTY EIGHT distros: http://distrowatch.com/search.php?basedon=Ubuntu
58 • You make a lot of good points (by gee7 on 2013-12-10 00:11:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
#57 Linadian
Check out this DW 'based on Ubuntu' search results, SEVENTY EIGHT distros: http://distrowatch.com/search.php?basedon=Ubuntu
Only 87 distros based on Ubuntu?
There are 142 distros if you check out "based on Debian."
59 • Gnu/Linux, Ubuntu, Other Distros (by Ron on 2013-12-10 00:52:10 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu has a way of keeping their name in the news. They know how to get attention. As far as some saying that the days of Linux being free are numbered? I strongly disagree with that. Ubuntu is not the heart nor center of Gnu/Linux. Their goal of making money in itself is not a bad thing. I personally have no problem with that. Lets take a look at another Business. Red Hat. Now their focus is not on the desktop, though there is Fedora, yet they do strongly support opensource and are very fair with how they do things, while still making money. Oracle Linux is a competitor yet they base their product on Red Hat Enterprise. Than you have Centos(Fedora/Red Hat) and SME(Fedora/Centos), free alternatives. Look at the stock quotes for Red Hat and Oracle,
Red Hat - http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/rht
Oracle - http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/orcl
Red Hat, despite other alternatives and competition, is still doing better and they are respecting the Gnu/Linux community and spirit.
Why doesn't Ubuntu do something along those lines for the Desktop/Mobile market? When they first came out they encouraged others to clone/fork Ubuntu. Now it seems it is the opposite. Ubuntu can't and will never be able to destroy what Gnu/Linux is. They will have strong opposition from many, many others including big companies. Ubuntu needs to mend its relationship with the Linux community somehow.
Besides there are a lot of other great alternatives to Ubuntu and Ubuntu based distros. To name a few,
Debian (of course)
Fedora
Opensuse
Manjaro
Mageia
PCLinuxOS
Sabyon
Etc.,
And of course for those of us with the know how,
Slackware,
Arch
Gentoo
Etc.,
Of course there are more. Just take a look at the Distrowatch list. Gnu/Linux is here to stay and it will always be free. Sadly though some think they can become the next Microsoft or Apple by taking Gnu/Linux and turning it into something else, well trying to anyways. Honestly Gnu/Linux distros, any of them, can not survive or survive long without the support and backing of the Linux community.
60 • @40 Re: XP Orphans (by Rev_Don on 2013-12-10 02:54:21 GMT from United States)
If you take the time to actually read my post you'll notice that I stated Canonical and 'Buntu based distros, not Ubuntu specifically. I totally agree that saddling a newbie Linux user with an abomination like Unity (even if their computer supported it properly)would be a huge mistake. But a 'Buntu based distro with Mate, XFCE, or LXDE would be fairly simple for them to get comfortable with and would run quite nicely on the Pentium 4s with onboard Intel graphics and 512meg to 1gig ram that so many of them would have.
And as much as I would prefer to have them on Debian, PCLinuxOS, or even CentOS, the chances of them finding someone else besides me around here that would know about any of the other distros is somewhere between slim and none. Most people around here think that all Linux is Ubuntu and don't have a clue about anything else. I don't want to be the only one supporting them when there are some other 'Buntu users around to help shoulder the support load.
61 • Mint drama (by :wq on 2013-12-10 03:18:43 GMT from United States)
It was mentioned in comment #33, but it bears reiterating that the mintUpdate ruleset only affects mintUpdate. Using APT/aptitude or Synaptic (which comes included in Mint OOTB) for upgrades, one doesn't encounter this issue. While I expect novice users to use mintUpdate, it isn't the only option. In the end, some Ubuntu devs and users are no less culpable than some others outside their community for fostering an air of tribalism, but I have no interest this soap opera. It is my opinion that the Linux Mint team are trying to do what they believe to be in the general best interests of their users. They are not politicking for other distributions to follow suit. I am content to leave this as an internal Mint community self-determination discussion. If the majority of the Mint community wants a mintUpdate policy change, I believe it will probably come about. If they don't, it won't. Whenever I have Mint installed for a test drive, I don't use mintUpdate anyway; I personally prefer working from the console, but, as previously mentioned, mintUpdate is configurable.
In his statement, Clem touched on the point that (since around the time of Firefox 4 & Mint 9) Mint uses Ubuntu's user-agent string (and thus, since the time of Firefox 4/Mint 9, it will be recorded as "Ubuntu" on sites like Wikimedia's Traffic Analysis Report). Also, as previously discussed in DWW, any derivatives that make use of the Ubuntu security servers are counted as being "Ubuntu" when Canonical provides Ubuntu usage estimates (to be clear, I am not blaming Canonical for this or suggesting that they are being disingenuous because of it; it's not their job to try to sort it out, and, more to the point, in those cases it is Ubuntu's servers that are being used). While exact usage statistics will never be attainable, I would welcome any changes that provide even just a little added clarity. If charging for access to Ubuntu binary repos is indeed in the pipeline (it's too early to say with absolute certainty at this point in time), if it encourages Ubuntu derivatives to become more autonomous and self-reporting, good. Let Linux Mint be counted as "Linux Mint", elementary OS as "elementary OS", etc, and let Ubuntu be counted as "Ubuntu". Otherwise, let them all be counted as Debian(-ish) :)
If producing binary repos on the scale of Ubuntu is too much for smaller Ubuntu-derivative distribution projects to bear, perhaps a collection of individual volunteers, organizations and companies could provide this service free of charge.
As regards LMDE updates, for people who prefer LMDE over vanilla Debian Testing, but prefer more frequent update packs, SolydXK receives monthly update packs.
62 • Ubuntu, license fees and graphical interface (by Thomas Mueller on 2013-12-10 03:26:10 GMT from United States)
I don't like the possibly upcoming binary license fees and prefer a less-configured distro where I can choose what packages and what graphical interface I prefer. I can find my way around IceWM better than GNOME 3! FreeBSD and NetBSD offer the ability to build software using a framework (FreeBSD ports or NetBSD pkgsrc) that keeps track of dependencies (unlike Slackware) and also the facility to build/update the entire base system from source. I'm trying to find what Linux distros or package managers offer those abilities (Gentoo?).
One downside of overreliance on graphic interfaces such as in Ubuntu is not knowing what really happens under the covers.
Support for new hardware and software tends to come to Linux ahead of the BSDs.
I became an infant mortality on the Arch Linux emailing lists when I asked such a question, rejected by the overaggressive moderator because he thought I should have found the answer on the wiki inside one minute (I still haven't). But I still have burning curiosity about pacman with Arch Build System.
63 • @44 (by :wq on 2013-12-10 03:30:43 GMT from United States)
Let's not give in to despair and doomsday thinking. Will GNU/Linux and the distributions thereof change in the next couple of years? Yes. Will all of those changes be positive? No. Will all of Linuxdom become an unrecognizable dystopia? No.
I am probably more concerned about the choices and impact Valve and Google make moving forward than I am about the impact Canonical or Oracle attempt.
64 • Mint outdated? ha ha ha (by Hugo Masse on 2013-12-10 03:40:33 GMT from Mexico)
I installed LMDE yesterday and after updating I am running Firefox 25 and the flashplugin is 11,2,202,310 from sept 24, 2013. I also realised that the infamous mint-flashplugin 2011.10.19 is a metapackage not the actual plugin. And finally, that on Synaptic you also have a flashplugin-nonfree to download the latest version from Adobe, if you so desire.
65 • @59 I totally agree, more than just Ubuntu (by Linadian on 2013-12-10 04:12:53 GMT from Canada)
Ubuntu is NOT the end all to be all, as a matter of fact, there is a reason they're losing the faithful, I will probably need my flame retardant suit after saying this, but Ubuntu is slowing becoming a mess and a joke. To further their alienation, they are going with the Mir graphics server soon, while the rest of the Linux world is sticking with X or going with Wayland. Gnome 3.x is not helping either, a smartphone GUI belongs on a smartphone.
When all the smoke clears, I can think of very little actual original Ubuntu packages/apps, most of what I use is cross platform anyway, meaning they will run on practically ANY distro, so if Ubuntu wants to shut me and millions of others out, not very many of us will cry or miss the drama, their developers bicker like opposing politicians, it's sad to watch. It might safe to say at this point Mark is the Bill of the Linux world, lol. ;-D
66 • @ 30 • Binary Fee @12 - vw72 (by Chanath on 2013-12-10 04:52:49 GMT from Sri Lanka)
"The reality is that LM is a direct competitor of Canonical in the commercial space. Under the GPL, Canonical has to make the source code available, but that doesn't extend to the binaries. The same is true for Redhat, SUSE or any other distribution. There is a difference between forking a distro into a new distro and simply redistributing the original binaries from the original distro and claiming it as yours, particularly if you are trademarking and copyrighting your distro."
I wonder what Clem is going to do, when Ubuntu moves to Mir, Unity 8 and so forth. He was complaining, practically, blackguarding Ubuntu devs, when they came out with the first Unity. Oh, he wrote so much against it in his blog. His try with Debian isn't going anywhere, as the main devs, had left Mint long ago, so he is left with Ubuntu. Mint is a simple copy of Ubuntu + Mint apps, and minus the upstream security updates. Okay, he and his devs made Cinnamon, and maybe Mate. Well, Deepin made a DE too, and lots of apps, and anyone can install them in even the Debian based distros.
I always have a look at any new release of Mint, but never stay with it. What for? When the vanilla Ubuntu can be used with any DE. There was such an uproar, when DWW Hits ranking of Mint overtook Ubuntu. That was done artificially by the fans, just like when Mageia's ranking jumped. One should always remember, where one started.
67 • Ubuntu/Mint nonsense (by TobiSGD on 2013-12-10 05:23:52 GMT from Germany)
Just to make that clear, I am neither Ubuntu nor Mint user, but I can't stand some of the outstanding nonsense people post here.
Canonical provides thousands of binary packages for free. To do this they have to invest in server farms to build them, they have to provide the infrastructure, they have to pay the energy costs. They also do QA on those packages, apply patches to some of them and even go so far to provide support for long-term kernels.
Now a competitor rises that beats them, at least with DW statistics, in size of user-base, but is using Canonical's infrastructure and their QA team. Why should Canonical provide these services to a serious competitor (Mint nowadays is far from being a hobby project) for free? And they don't even charge much, according to the very article in this DWW it is a single digit amount.
And then I see this hypocritical outcry about the end of free Linux and how evil Canonical is.
You know which other company takes money for giving you access to their binary repository servers? And not for a single digit amount for a whole distribution, but for at minimum 49$ per machine?
Red Hat.
Sure, you can use CentOS or one of the other derivatives, but guess what? They don't get access to Red Hat's binary servers for free, they have to use their own infrastructure to build the source they can get from Red Hat, just like Mint could do with Ubuntu's sources.
I have a few questions for you:
Where are the people raging against Red Hat for not giving free access to binary repository servers?
Why are you only complaining about Canonical?
If Mint is so successful that it is a serious competitor for Ubuntu in the Enterprise or hardware market, shouldn't they be able to have their own build servers?
Or shouldn't their competitors be allowed to charge for providing that service to them?
Using FOSS software for your projects does not mean at all that you are forced to provide binaries to all and anyone (and no, this is not in any way part of the GPL) for free. It means that you have to provide the changes to the source code you made (and even that only for copyleft licenses). Building binaries is a resource intensive service, as is doing the QA, a service you can charge money for if you want.
If you don't like how Canonical handles this there is a simple solution: Go ahead, collect money, provide that service for Mint yourself.
68 • The Ubuntu controversy (by cflow on 2013-12-10 05:52:10 GMT from United States)
As Jesse noted in the article: what looks like a conflict between developers of open source is often heavily exaggerated by the media and the fanboys. Looking at the comments section here, many posts here seem to prove this claim right. ;)
As for the canonical selling the binaries, that might be a complex issue. For one thing, much of the code is licensed under the GPL, so even though the binaries might be licensed, the source code must be available. Think CentOS - it clones the source code and changes from Red Hat, and makes it free. But I also know that there also is the Canonical License Agreement (CLA), of which if someone adheres their software to it, the company could change that software's licence to a non-free one.
Now this I hope the Mint and Canonical developers can work out - after all both sides do work together when fixing bugs and packaging things for the Ubuntu ecosystem. And I'll bet It will, regardless of the rants of distroracists throughout the internet. ^_^
69 • @67 Precisely why I don't use Fedora or openSuSE (by Linadian on 2013-12-10 06:32:55 GMT from Canada)
Both of them are blatant testing grounds for their corporate parents (the numerous release candidates tell that story), PCLinuxOS and Mepis have premium pay repositories. Although you made some good points in your rant, what about Ubuntu PAYING Debian? This is all typical Linux ecosystem food chain repeating itself. FYI, I get my updates/packages from the local mirror (a university's computer science club), so aside from the initial transfer of files from the Ubuntu server to my local mirror server, what 'resources'? Maybe it IS time Mint setup their OWN repository/mirror, then they wouldn't have to listen to so much whining, while Ubuntu is at it, they should tell the OTHER 73 repository 'leaching' distros to do the same. Mir is an obvious move to become completely proprietary, I smelled this coming ages ago, that being said, NOTHING in this world stays the same or lasts forever. I've noticed any distro that is not truly free (corporate parents or maintainers looking for a payday), winds up 'farming' funds somehow as opposed to voluntary donations.
Maybe it's time DW added 2 new categories to the distro search, 'free' and 'non-free'. Then they can shove Ubuntu in 'non-free' category along with Redhat, SuSE, etc.
Debian is still free, it's clinging to its roots. Ubuntu 'leached' from Debian, nuff said.
70 • Mint updates and Ubuntu binary packages (by Koroshiya Itchy on 2013-12-10 07:28:38 GMT from Belgium)
As a former Debian user and a current Funtoo user, I think:
The problem with kernel updates: Too many regressions.
The problem with Xorg updates: They often are not compatible with the graphics binary blobs some users may have installed.
In conclusion, if you want to offer an stable OS targeting a non-so-experienced community, you should be cautious about those kinds of updates. It seems that is the Mint policy. I do not actually know if they are doing it right for I have never really used Mint. But they are right about being cautious.
Regarding charging a fee for binary packages, that is an entirely legitimate policy and Canonical has every right to to so if they wish (as far as they provide the code in a convenient manner and free of charge).
My personal feeling is that, if the goal is making Canonical profitable, that strategy is not going to work. If the goal is to prevent others from profiting of those binaries in order to compete with Canonical in the mobile market, it may help a bit (just a bit, as we have seen with RedHat).
Also, with this move, Ubuntu will definitively lose most of its desktop share (not a big deal, I guess) so I hope they really have something solid for the mobile market, because, if they lose the desktop without conquering a significant share of the mobile market, it will be the end of Canonical. So I hope there is really a plan and not just the random wandering of a desperate headless chicken, as it seems...
The good news is that most Ubuntu derivatives will just vanish and the remaining few will migrate to a Debian base... ;-)
71 • server distros to be reviewd (by greg on 2013-12-10 07:34:08 GMT from Slovenia)
Zentyal and ClearOS - ok they are are more of a GUI for servers but still since they will be reviewed on how easy they are to setup and for home&small office...
72 • Unity, too much (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2013-12-10 08:45:25 GMT from United States)
"... a large, mobile-style grid of icons ... less efficient than the traditional menu system. ... less easy for newcomers to navigate" Indeed.
'Keep It Short & Simple' + 'Divide & Conquer'
versus
'Huge Homogeneous Haystack' + 'Names Instead of Descriptors'.
Is it really so difficult to organize icons into groups, perhaps indicating by background color/pattern?
How many sheep will break free of this chute before fully sheared, or worse?
73 • @ 67 • Ubuntu/Mint nonsense - TobiSGD (by Chanath on 2013-12-10 09:00:40 GMT from Sri Lanka)
Donate is a nice word, and that brings in revenue. If that's the only or the main source of earning, then taking other's work and living off it is not ethical. And, being a competitor to the "upstream" in quite unethical, if your living is off that "upstream."
One guy tried to do something alone, and live off his distro, but when the Big Business gave a well paid position, he dropped that distro, disappointed the users/followers and left. That was SolusOS. At least two guys live off their distros, in the nice words, from donations, Mint's Clem and Crunchbang's Newborough. At least the Crunchbang guy says so, and hails Debian, but you won't hear that from Clem. "I am the best, my Cinnamon is the best, I cut Ubuntu's security updates..." and, that's not true, for Petra can't even install Skype!
74 • OpenMandriva Lx (by Bernhard "bero" Rosenkränzer on 2013-12-10 09:04:45 GMT from Switzerland)
@5, 6, 10
OpenMandriva Lx is most definitely not just Rosa by a different name.
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=openmandriva
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=rosa
Doesn't quite look the same, does it?
There is some overlap -- we're using the same code base and even share some work -- but development and release cycles are completely independent.
FWIW the choice between the SimpleWelcome launcher and a more traditional launcher was done in a democratic election - something you won't find in the more commercial distributions.
http://blog.openmandriva.org/en/2013/12/openmandriva-and-rosa/
75 • @ 70 • Mint updates and Ubuntu binary packages - Koroshiya Itchy (by Chanath on 2013-12-10 09:17:48 GMT from Sri Lanka)
"The good news is that most Ubuntu derivatives will just vanish and the remaining few will migrate to a Debian base... ;-)"
Koroshiya, quite a hateful remark, hey :), :)
As a current Funtoo user...Koroshiya, tell us about Funtoo. We rarely hear about it. Would be nice to hear your experiences. (I use Calculate, based on Gentoo, a quite a snappy distro. I also use Ubuntu 14.04 and Mandriva, i.e., Rosa.)
Thanks!
76 • @Chanath (by Koroshiya Itchy on 2013-12-10 09:34:45 GMT from Belgium)
Hello,
It was a cold analysis. It may be right, it may be wrong or it may be completely foolish. But, hateful? Sorry, but IMHO someone who uses that kind of language in the course of a rational discussion about technology cannot be taken seriously.
Bye,
Koro
PS: Concerning Funtoo, you have an internet connection, right? So go and read.
77 • @ 76 (by Chanath on 2013-12-10 10:03:30 GMT from Sri Lanka)
Hi, you saw the 2 smiles? I wasn't saying that exactly as the word hateful means, but the other way. :)
I am already reading. The SystemRescueCD is being downloaded, and would start installing Funtoo sometime today.
Thanks!
78 • @73 (by byku on 2013-12-10 10:20:17 GMT from Poland)
"One guy tried to do something alone, and live off his distro, but when the Big Business gave a well paid position, he dropped that distro, disappointed the users/followers and left."
If anybody afraid that his belowed distro could be closed it is time to learn more about Linux and try to make own Linux From Scratch. As long stuff like kernel, X, Wayland, DE/WM will be Free as Free Speech everybody could make own distro. If anybody wants more freedom and learn more about Linux, should try LFS.
I think that distros like #! are good move to gain next level in Linux. If somebody will be only normal user that only like to click on buttons and afraid console it is always possible that will get the short end of the stick.
79 • @78 Byku (by Chanath on 2013-12-10 11:48:01 GMT from Sri Lanka)
Well, Byku, Solus OS was very good one. He wanted to make his own repos and some stuff else. He was struggling financially, no job etc. If you think, he was not at home with Linux, you should search about him. One of the reasons, Mint cannot go forward with the Debian based distro is that he left Mint. He has a very well job now with Linux's Big Business. What he shouldn't have done was to close doors. He should've handed it to the community. Anyway, that's all history now. Have you ever heard of Solus OS?
80 • @79 (by byku on 2013-12-10 12:18:56 GMT from Poland)
"Have you ever heard of Solus OS?"
Yep. But I don't care what people are doing with their own project.
"He should've handed it to the community."
What kind of community. If he will throw his distro into your hands, do you have knowlege to prepare new edition? Barry Kauler developer of Puppy left his distro but there was plenty developers (users) that was making own Puppy derivative thatnks to Barry's Woof tool. So they now for Woof and make Woof CE (community edition). So i wonder if there was a such group of developers in SolusOS community. If not so you have answer why SolusOS is closed. But if developer left some sources on eg. Git everybody with knowlege could try to make SolusOS live again.
81 • Canonical's projects (by Kazlu on 2013-12-10 13:07:17 GMT from France)
Oh come on ! we are given a piece of information (a quote of Clem's response to a question) of a piece of information (what Clem is willing to say about the subject considering ongoing discussions with Canonical), still a lot of people here take only a smaller piece of it (reducing the quote to just "restricting" or "fee") and rant about it. Please don't get it off the already thin context! It's not like Ubuntu was going entirely closed-source (they have no right to do it, period) or charged! After all, a few years ago it was indeed Ubuntu who broke the ground by distributing the first ever free of charge commercial GNU/Linux distro.
There is something else that Clem said that nobody has talked about yet, so I would like to point it out with the hope of bringing something to the discussion (feel free to disagree ;) ). Quoting: "The licensing aims at restricting what Mint can and cannot do, mostly in relation to the OEM market, to prevent Mint from competing with Canonical in front of the same commercial partners". I don't think it's about licencing binaries made out of free and open source software. By the way, to all who say that Canonical's intention of using closed source software is outrageous, and that Mint is better, did you already forget that Mint ships with MORE closed source or patent covered software than Ubuntu (Flash, multimedia codecs)? I'm not saying Mint is evil, but recalling the place of those two distros ;). Anyway, the quote from Clem makes me think it is mostly question of binary blobs, like closed source firmware that ship with standard Linux kernel. I suspect Canonical is in discussion with OEM for maybe PC but especially mobile devices, and the manufacturers may DEMAND that the drivers for their hardware remain linked to Ubuntu, because they have a juicy contract with it, and refuse that these drivers go out in the wild to be used with, say, Mint, Debian, Arch, openSUSE or anything. So it is even possible Canonical is not even the one wanting to restrict access to binaries! I may be wrong, but I think Canonical knows it's a benefit for them if someone take and use their open source software in a sister distro. After all, all those controversial home made software that is Mir or Unity is still free and open source. Yes, even those spyware Unity lenses are open source and may be wiped out of a custom Unity if anyone is willing to do so (or am I wrong?).
Right now, we have little intel on the subject, so let's be careful, but I think what I told is a quite probable hypothesis. Is that legal? Absolutely: those blobs are closed source and licenced, anything is possible. Is that ethical? Not really if you are pushing free and open source software. Is that right? Well, I'm not entirely happy with it, but it may not be completely wrong either. At least I have the impression Canonical and Clem are willing to clarify the situation in order to allow Ubuntu to run contracts with OEM and allow Mint to use freely Ubuntu binaries, minus the ones under OEM contract, for their desktop distro. I am looking forward to seeing this evolve. I personnally hope Canonical succeeds in general, even if Ubuntu goes apart from other distros. If they could catch more users out of Microsoft, Apple and even Google, I think it's a good thing for the entire GNU/Linux community. Even if Ubuntu becomes more and more questionnable: it would be far easier for anyone to switch from Ubuntu to another GNU/Linux distro for philosophical reasons that it is today to switch from Windows or Mac OS to GNU/Linux.
I personnaly don't fear what will happen with Ubuntu, so I wait and see. As the time goes, I become more and more OS agnostic (well, at least GNU/Linux distro agnostic). I mostly use Xubuntu and am happy with it today. Should Canonical close too many doors, I would just switch to another base (openSUSE, Debian, Manjaro for example, still have to decide based on philosophical and practical reasons) and keep my Xfce desktop and other software. Same thing for the people I helped installing and using Xubuntu instead of Windows.
One word to finish: if you are really disgusted by Canonical's attitude and use of closed source software, you should also be reluctant to use the Linux kernel and use the Linux-libre kernel instead. Only very few distro guarantee you free software, like Trisquel or gnewsense. Debian also, if you pay attention to what you install.
82 • SolusOS (by :wq on 2013-12-10 13:53:40 GMT from United States)
@79 "He should've handed it to the community."
@80 "So i wonder if there was a such group of developers in SolusOS community. If not so you have answer why SolusOS is closed. But if developer left some sources on eg. Git everybody with knowlege could try to make SolusOS live again."
From the SolusOS closure announcement:
"Simply put, there is no longer enough manpower to fulfil the vision . . . It should be noted that the SolusOS.com domain becomes available again in December, if anyone should wish to purchase the domain. All of the tools involved in creating SolusOS (regardless of their completion) will be uploaded to Github for historical reasons, and any remaining tools will be released (RepoHub, with all its problems) in order to assist the Pisi Linux project, because its nice to share :) . . . I have absolutely no issue in anyone forking the base, work, projects or concepts of SolusOS, and in fact I highly encourage it. The SolusOS 2 rocket has failed to launch many times now, simply due to a vastly underpopulated development team of One."
https://github.com/SolusOS-discontinued/
83 • @ 81 Kazlu (by Chanath on 2013-12-10 13:55:42 GMT from Sri Lanka)
"I personnally hope Canonical succeeds in general, even if Ubuntu goes apart from other distros. If they could catch more users out of Microsoft, Apple and even Google, I think it's a good thing for the entire GNU/Linux community."
I am with you on this. I remember the time of Ubuntu 4.10, and who'd have thought Linux world would go so far. With 4.10, all of sudden there was an alternative to MS Windows, and it went on and on. Technically all the Linux distros following Windows, and trying to overtake it. But, Ubuntu is on a different path; its making its own look, own image in the world, and the world knows about Ubuntu, just as it knows Android.
Ubuntu is a player, a very persistent one. When, I say ubuntu, I mean all the oficial derivatives too. Those, who use Ubuntu base, or even take the vanilla Ubuntu and uninstall apps, and add other ones, should be grateful to it, just like Norman hails Debian.
Of course, I wish Clem all success with Mint, but Clem and the Mint forum are arrogant, practically claiming they created the world.
There is absolutely no reason to help the competitor to gain over one. What Fedora does, helps Red Hat, so why not what Mint does help Ubuntu? Mint should make its own distro, if it can.
Zorin OS earns money and say so. It hadn't changed the Ubuntu repos. Pinguy says its a respin. And, that's the spirit!
84 • @62 (by jaws222 on 2013-12-10 14:15:21 GMT from United States)
"I became an infant mortality on the Arch Linux emailing lists when I asked such a question, rejected by the overaggressive moderator because he thought I should have found the answer on the wiki inside one minute (I still haven't). But I still have burning curiosity about pacman with Arch Build System."
If you have Arch related questions or want to run Arch check out the Manjaro forum. I had a question about a year and a half ago on the Archbang forum when I had an install issue. The moderator was extremely rude. It's not like that on Manjaro's forum and Manjaro works right out of the box, and an easy install. It's also the fastest distro out there next to Crunchbang.
85 • @82 (by jaws222 on 2013-12-10 14:30:35 GMT from United States)
"@79 "He should've handed it to the community."
@80 "So i wonder if there was a such group of developers in SolusOS community. If not so you have answer why SolusOS is closed. But if developer left some sources on eg. Git everybody with knowlege could try to make SolusOS live again."
SalineOS suffered the same fate. Anthony Nordquist also was working solo and was not able to put in the time. Here's his "goodbye":
"First I should apologize for being so silent around here lately. I decided quite some time ago; that I simply do not have enough free time in a day to complete all the work that needs to be done to make a release that lives up to my own quality standards. Working an over 40 hour a week job and trying to assemble a fully complete and just works Linux distribution is just entirely too much work for one person.
This project might be dead in the water, but I didn't want to come here and make a depressing post. So I spent some of the time I would have been working on SalineOS and took some ideas out of my head and put them into working code. I have been using Manjaro Linux as my current development environment. Manjaro appears to me to want to be to Arch what Mint is to Ubuntu. I needed something relatively stable and using the latest Xfce code, and Manjaro fit the bill perfectly. Manjaro is a young project that has quite a ways to go, but I like the direction they are headed. If you don't have a spare drive you can devote to Manjaro, you should probably only virtualize it until the 0.9 release, as that should have far better support for manual partitioning.
I wonder what would happen if Ikey and Anthony ever teamed up to form a distro. I'd bet it would blow everything else in the Linux world out of the water.
86 • @82 (by byku on 2013-12-10 14:51:46 GMT from Poland)
"Of course, I wish Clem all success with Mint, but Clem and the Mint forum are arrogant, practically claiming they created the world."
C'mon some people could say the same about Mr. S.
"There is absolutely no reason to help the competitor to gain over one. What Fedora does, helps Red Hat, so why not what Mint does help Ubuntu? Mint should make its own distro, if it can."
Canonical should make it's own distro, if it can not use Debian resources ;) (we could conversate like this until the whole World colapse)
"Zorin OS earns money and say so. It hadn't changed the Ubuntu repos. Pinguy says its a respin. And, that's the spirit!"
Ubuntu hadn't changet Debian repos and close them in own binary form. But if Canonical can do this why Mint can't? ;)
(we could conversate like this until the whole World colapse, but it is waste of time)
87 • @82, 85 (by byku on 2013-12-10 14:56:43 GMT from Poland)
It is nice if developers left their code on Git or similar place. All community can learn and use their code. And everyone can start the project again. This is spirit of FLOSS. Try to make something like this with closed source stuff.
88 • @83 (by Ron on 2013-12-10 14:57:22 GMT from United States)
""
There is absolutely no reason to help the competitor to gain over one. What Fedora does, helps Red Hat, so why not what Mint does help Ubuntu? Mint should make its own distro, if it can. ""
True. Fedora is a testing ground for Red Hat in many areas. However Red Hat is in charge of Fedora. Ubuntu has Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu and so on, they are not in charge of LinuxMint. Fedora has officials spins as well. Fedora KDE, Fedora Jam and more. Now what Red Hat/Fedora does not do is make distro's jump through hoops, such as Korora(Based on Fedora,) Scientific(Based on Red Hat,) ClearOS (Red Hat/Fedora,) CentOS(Fedora,Red Hat,) SME(Fedora/CentOS,) and more. Now and than there may have been issues with Oracle, but that is another story. We all know how Oracle can be. LinuxMint can not be compared to Oracle by any means though. Oracle is a direct competitor that you have to pay for, LinuxMint is free all around. But you see the pattern here? Red Hat is known for protecting FOSS while still being a successful company. Canonical is just getting in the news for all the wrong choices and negative reasons. The only thing that can be compared between the twoiis that Canonical and Red hat wish to make money and there is nothing wrong with that. Red Hat has a much better plan than Canonical. I feel safe using Fedora, I don't feel safe using Ubuntu.
And no, I don't hate Canonical and I don't work for Red Hat or Fedora, lol.
89 • UBU fund raising: the solution is in Debian. (by Chanson du Decervelage on 2013-12-10 16:06:31 GMT from France)
"Since it takes a lot of time, effort and infrastructure to compile all of the binaries for a full distro,"
I agree; but it takes a lot of time, effort and infrastructure to copy existing sources, add minor patches, and recompiling them. Therefore, the original distribution should be asked for contribution for the lot of time, effort and infrastructure spent in copying and recompiling.
I see many advantages in UBU linux charging Debian, instead of Djihmint:
Debian's audience is huge (90% of the ARMs chips I know use Debian, though some had , at the beginning, a SDK to recompile from sources).
Apart from adding some noise ("Cinnamon is now able to play sounds when you perform common events such as closing windows, switching workspaces etc." can be translated into : some useless gadgets were added in for pure PR -anti users, at least those who are not deaf- "reasons"), I do not see what might be the use of Hammint. Therefore, as DWW hits are not real downloads and use, i do not see it will ever reach the use of Debian.
Therefore, a GNUlinux specialized in fund raising (with a 120 years old "pompe à phynance" http://www.pataphysiquelibre.org/concepts.html should charge Debian (have more $ati$fied user$ : it make$ more money) for being copied....
90 • OpenMandriva (by tuxtest on 2013-12-10 16:06:35 GMT from Canada)
I install on my laptop OpenMandriva LX and all works perfectly. Standby too. This is not the case for all distro linux. The desktop environment is nice and fun to use it. At the internet café everyone loves this desktop interface. I think I have big work in the next week because many people want it on his Laptop.
Good Work OpenMandriva Team and on the side Rosa team.
91 • Debian Wheezy (by Werner Meidlein on 2013-12-10 17:57:25 GMT from Canada)
I really don't know what's so hard about installing Debian, if you can read the Lines in the Installer you are home free , get the complete DVD Set (10) you are supporting Linux this Way and install, you will have all Programs on DVD so little downloading and the best thing everything is working including all Media and your Choice of Desktop from KDE,Gnome, XFCE,LXDE and Wheezy is fast too. Debian works great for me, thanks to all the Volunteers who have spend countless Hours to make this a great System.
92 • OpenMandriva (by Dave Postles on 2013-12-10 18:24:18 GMT from United Kingdom)
The artwork is more delightful than Mageia's. The Rosa panel at the bottom, when centred and reduced in length, resembles a dock - very nice. By right-clicking on the OpenMandriva start button, you can revert to a classic KDE menu (in fact, I upgraded from RC2 in which I had already changed the kicker menu button, so I seem to have lost the Rosa-type grid - no great loss). When you install clamtk from the repository, it arrives ready to use (no editing the .conf file). It would have been nice to have the logout button on the Rosa panel as in Mandriva of old, but it is easy enough to add the widget to the panel. It's a very nice distro.
93 • #! (by Dave Postles on 2013-12-10 18:34:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
It is indeed intimidating for newbies to Linux, if only for the reason that after installing new software applications, you have to edit the OpenBox menu. That's not difficult for us old sweats, but imagine how a newbie would feel: for a start, they wouldn't know that you can launch it from the cli or how to configure the OpenBox menu. S/he would just flounder until asking for help - and it would be very offputting, however genial the help.
94 • 89 • UBU fund raising: the solution is in Debian (by mandog on 2013-12-10 18:45:18 GMT from Peru)
Why would Debian want to contribute to Ubuntu for using Debian code?
Ubuntu uses Debian code, it gets it free in other words it leeches of Debian.
remember
95 • @93 (by jaws222 on 2013-12-10 18:45:56 GMT from United States)
"It is indeed intimidating for newbies to Linux, if only for the reason that after installing new software applications, you have to edit the OpenBox menu. That's not difficult for us old sweats, but imagine how a newbie would feel: for a start, they wouldn't know that you can launch it from the cli or how to configure the OpenBox menu. S/he would just flounder until asking for help - and it would be very offputting, however genial the help."
On top of that, Windows users love their desktop icons or the choice to pin to the takbar or start menu. The Openbox "right-click" method would be a turn-off for sure. However, you can go to Synaptic and easily install XFCE as your DE, but then again a Windows user will find this hard to grasp especially when you have to customize your panel. personally. I love having that freedom but most just want it to work out-of-the-box with no tinkering.
96 • Linux Mint as Independent OS (by jaws222 on 2013-12-10 18:59:31 GMT from United States)
I always wonder what would happen if Mint shifted from the Ubuntu repositories and went independent like OpenSUSE, PCLinuxOS, Mageia and some others. I'd imagine it would be harder for them to maintain, but I guess since they are technically #1 as far as page hits Mint and Clem are satisfied, but I think if they went Independent they could really separate from the pack. Any other thoughts?
97 • @95 (by byku on 2013-12-10 19:11:11 GMT from Poland)
"I love having that freedom but most just want it to work out-of-the-box with no tinkering."
I don't have problem if new users of Linux (maybe former XP users) will use Windows like distros and have everything like in Windows (most of them don't even know that CMD exists). But i'm worry if they will use Linux like they used Windows (without thinkerig) they will only perceive Linux as another Windows-like product. For Linux companies that want to earn money on Linux desktop more users (or better to said more clients) is more money. And i don't have problem with making money on Linux (serwers or desktops). But in these way we will have community similar to Apple/Windows communities - product community (brand community).
Does anybody know how many users of OSX are interested in BSD? How many use it or are interested in developing BSD?
98 • NVIDIA Warning (by Bob on 2013-12-10 19:28:50 GMT from Austria)
Maybe it's just this Samsung laptop, but after upgrading the NVIDIA/openSuse driver from 304.88 to 304.108 the system hung during the next boot. I'll probably have to keep the old version of the driver.
So far NVIDIA never let me down in many years and it is noticeably snappier than nouveau. Just wanted to post this in case someone else is about to "upgrade" ...
99 • Drama free Manjaro 0.8.8 (by Linadian on 2013-12-10 21:57:07 GMT from Canada)
I live booted the Manjaro 'community' KDE 64-bit DVD and tested it, very solid and polished, no Ubuntu drama negative karma cloud, very refreshing, lol. Manjaro is looking like a STRONG candidate to replace my Kubuntu 12.04.x LTS. I'm not going to wait for the Mir/Wayland poop to hit the fan, or license lockdown. On the upside, the installer 'sees' my dual SSD raid 0 but came with a warning it's beta, that's as far as I went, need a working system at the moment, I can 'tinker' on the weekend. On the downside, only half the available packages than *buntu (Manjaro=about 20Gs, *buntu disclaimer: approx 40Gs with repository tweaking), I love DVDStyler and it looks like it might be a challenge to install but that never scared me before, a few headaches is worth no drama and a stable up to date system.
100 • Saline, Manjaro, and otherwise (by kernelKurtz on 2013-12-10 22:53:17 GMT from United States)
@85
You and I are on similar trajectories. I thought Saline was great, was sad when it died, and have ended up in Manjaro day to day. The similarities are XFCE and a non-corporate set of motivations. The difference is that Manjaro is not a one-man show, and puts a lot more effort into aesthetics. I think they hit the sweet spot on a lot of those intangible or meta spectra, and that's why their popularity is skyrocketing.
One thing I do miss is the comfort of the Debian Community Guidelines. In that sense, I should just be running Crunchbang, but somehow I'm not. If Debian somehow ends up rejecting both of the corporate INIT upgrades and rolling their own modernized version, I'll have to re-evaluate again seriously. Arch philosophy does appeal to my libertarian side, but in my heart I'm probably more of a Debsocialist anyway.
101 • After XP (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2013-12-11 03:23:54 GMT from United States)
Desperate holdouts have been seeking and testing, some for years, adding to the sometimes-unwanted burden of mentoring newbies. However, while many things "just work", many fail, or break easily; the system falls apart. XP, when well-trained, is at least robust - the DE restarts, and life goes on.
Some talk as if most users of XP have P-II-vintage hardware. Not likely. (Even i686 and/or 64-bit are years old by now.) They have little love for implementations of bling designed to bog down any hardware, or dumbed-down GUIs imitating the worst sellout of the Linux world.
Many distro installs still default to arrogance indistinguishable from that of Microsoft, taking over an MBR and breaking the existing bootloader setup without warning. Few provide Windows-speak translation, or label 'apps' by function. Few support adding a live system to a USB flash drive without trashing the existing file-system, fewer still support multi-booting, even though most ISOs handle only one architecture, one desktop environment, a limited selection of 'apps'. Yet progress is happening: several distros have moved beyond breakage-prone to polished smoothness; some groups have begun mentoring and/or providing documentation and truth-in-labeling instead of deliberate obfuscation. Such progress benefits the entire community.
And then there's a few, not content with honest competition, who spread Fear-Uncertainty-&-Doubt. The recent increase in slurs against DebIan suggests a craven hatred of their hard-earned liberty.
102 • Ubuntu, Mint and other (by Chanath on 2013-12-11 04:48:14 GMT from Sri Lanka)
"Of course, I wish Clem all success with Mint, but Clem and the Mint forum are arrogant, practically claiming they created the world."
C'mon some people could say the same about Mr. S. < and, so forth...
The problem that troubles most people here is that Mark had money to throw in to make Ubuntu. This ability to throw in money, and having it had become a thorn under the skin for most. It is his money to spend, and he can do that anyway he wants. Money is there to be spend, not to be hoarded. Money gets its value by being spent on good deeds. The creation of Ubuntu was good deed, and today many makes a living out of it, even though not contributing anything for the development of Ubuntu. Mark's money gives money to others.
If you take Zorin OS, Artem didn't do much to make that distro. Artem saw how, and he made few apps, and changed the look of the vanilla Ubuntu. He struggled at first, but was persistent, and today lot of laptop sellers use Zorin OS as the OS on OS-less laptops, and have a good business. That is, those, who don't use Linux distros in their computers had seen the value of Zorin OS, and earn a living out of it. Incidentally, the guy, who made the main feature used by Zorin, the AWN dock had stopped its development and moved to the Ubuntu team, and one of the guys, who created the Unity DE. Artem now maintains the AWN dock.
There are lots of Ubuntu based distros, where the developers make some money out of it, and they say so, and are grateful to Ubuntu and Mark. They maybe worried about the upcoming Mir, but won't curse Mark for that.
All of us really don't use the vanilla Ubuntu, but change the look, add or delete apps, so we are also like Artem, or Antoni, making our own distros and using them. We can do that because Ubuntu is so easy to use and manipulate. And, most of us contribute back in our little ways.
If you look in the Ubuntu forums, there is section named Ubuntu+1, and that is the place, the real fight went on, not on the released distro, but on the upcoming one. It was a burning cauldron then with all kinds of bugs in Unity, but today, it has become the social meeting place, where tell about their experimenting, and enjoy that. The guys there, not only install the newest kernel, but also lots of other DEs/Overlays etc, the tiling ones for example. It is not the place to cry, argue, whine about a bug any more, but a place of enjoyment.
I was wondering, what Mint is going to do with the changes in Ubuntu base, from the time of Mint 12 Lisa. Every time, when a new Mint repo name appeared in Mint, I upgraded the present Mint release to the next, very much before the new Mint release came out. And I wrote about that in the Mint forums. And, when a new vanilla Ubuntu was out, I added the Mint repos, and had "the next number Mint" in my Ubuntu. Now with Ubuntu 14.04 "testing" is long out in the Linux world, all you have to do is add the Petra repo, and manipulate the Ubuntu installation, and you'd have the next Mint, and if you keep on updating and upgrading, you are having the Mint 17, the day Ubuntu 14.04 would be released. There'd be a new girl's name in the Mint repos, so change Petra to that name, play a little bit with the updating/upgrading, voila! you have fresh Mint 17, long before Clem releases that. And, Clem knows that we can do it; we had posted screenshots of such in his forums. The fanbois in the Mint forums might not like it, but it is very simple thing to do.
The problem is I don't like Cinnamon any more, as I don't want any XP looking stuff, so "creating" the next Mint 17 is just a hobby. Creating the next Zorin OS 8(?) is a boring thing, as the Zorin apps had not changed since Zorin 4. I won't try to make Pinguy, as Antoni says its a respin. That's his enjoyment, and shouldn't trouble him. There are lovely very practical Ubuntu respins coming from Australia, Israel etc that hardly gets a mention here. All of them mention that they are respins. There are few even from Sri Lanka, which are used in commercial entities. Actually, every user is a re-spinner of the vanilla Ubuntu.
The strange thing here is that most of the comments here arguing, whining against Ubuntu are from the guys, who don't use Ubuntu, but had "heard" about the "problems" of Ubuntu. Very funny, indeed!
103 • @102 (by Ron on 2013-12-11 09:59:48 GMT from United States)
""The strange thing here is that most of the comments here arguing, whining against Ubuntu are from the guys, who don't use Ubuntu, but had "heard" about the "problems" of Ubuntu. Very funny, indeed! ""
That could make it sound to some just to dismiss certain comments, though I don't think that is what you meant at all.
I honestly would love to see Canonical succeed. The worst Canonical is still better than the best, if there is a best, of Microsoft. The bottom line is this. I have compared two companies in my posts here. Red hat and Canonical. Not because they are the same. Obviously their focus and goals are different. I compare the two because they are both companies investing in Gu/Linux with the hopes of making a profit. Red hat has a much better plan. They handle things much better. Canonical does not do this. They do not make people feel they are a part of the change they are bringing forth, except the hardcore fans who will bow down to anything. Red Hat on the other hand is so much a part of the Gnu/Linux community and make others, even end users, feel the same way. So again I say Red Hat is doing things much better.
Canonical is bringing in new things. I think that is great. But they need to work more with the Gnu/Linux community, make people feel that they are a part of this change rather than idiots that know nothing and have to just deal with it. Canonical's PR is the worst.
As you said Canonical does employ others. This is good and important. The Ubuntu names is known, this is good and important. They do think outside of the box, whether it is good or bad, and that is good in itself and important. And as I have said there is nothing wrong with wanting to or making money. I think many of us that saw the birth of Ubuntu, heard the promises and goals and watched it grow up feel betrayed by their actions now, which are in some areas opposite from what they first said and promised.
Finally, as I have said before, if they think they can succeed without the Gnu/Linux community than they are sadly mistaking. Canonical needs to fix their image, the image outside of their fan base that is. If not than it will be a huge mistake.
It is not too late for Canonical to fix their image as well as a few other things. However if they think they know it all and have it all figured out than I have no hopes on this ever happening. I wonder if they plan on moving everything over to a non-linux platform. One of their own. Would it be a surprise if, in the near future, they came out with a non-linux kernel of their own as well, closed source of course. It feels to some that they have/are parasitically using what they can and have/are leaving the rest behind with their goals. True or not this is what I am talking about with their public image.
I think it is great when you have the freedom of Linux working along side of commercial interests. As long as the latter does not consume the former. Privacy, trust, working together as well as shared innovation must be a part of it all as well. Or it is possible that all the money that has been spent will be greater than all the money made. In the process of this failure the Gnu/Linux name will take a big hit since many only know Linux from the Ubuntu name.
Yes I am critical and yes I am outspoken and no I don't hate, as I have said many times, Canonical. I really hope they succeed but I strongly have my doubts with the road they have taken.
104 • RE 94 : Phynance pumping and Conical fund raising (by Chanson du Décervelage on 2013-12-11 10:51:07 GMT from France)
"Why would Debian want to contribute to Ubuntu for using Debian code?"
It is not a matter of wanting.... it is a matter of
****duty****
(and, if laws do not already exist, they should be invented and non payers should be severely sentenced http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I96ZEXDSwHc)
"Ubuntu uses Debian code, it gets it free in other words it leeches of Debian."
Debian should be sued for being leeched from UBU linux: suppose you hire a house and do not pay, do you think it is normal.
Same thing should apply to skilless copies.
105 • non-support - Lost in translation? (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2013-12-11 13:53:12 GMT from United States)
Is something being lost in translation here? I see attempts to explain the proposition that "Debian should contribute to Ubuntu" which appear to support the reverse. If, as in 104, DebIan is being leeched from, shouldn't the leeching agency be sued, not DebIan? Except, of course, that some licensing makes such behavior perfectly legal, if not moral.
Are there no ways Canonical has contributed? What of popularizing Linux, or backports? Not everything is about money.
Ah, well. Perhaps Ubuntu will move to the blackest sheep of the Linux family, the Android sellout?
I put my own reluctance to use OpenSUSE to a vague sense of unease. Perhaps this comes from a lack of data - I know of no contribution from Novell/OpenSUSE (or Red_Hat/Fedora, for that matter) to OpenSSH, for example. Or perhaps it's just to a too-friendly attitude toward proprietary tentacles.
If your stick is on the ice, keep it moving.
106 • @104 (by Jim on 2013-12-11 14:23:55 GMT from United States)
It is my impression that Shuttleworth wants to make it as hard as possible for any of Ubuntu's work to go back into Debian. So if there are any laws I am sure he will find away around them. Could someone explain to me why Shuttleworth decided to fork Debian's codebase? For some Debian developers integrating a patch from Ubuntu into Debian can be like starting from scratch. Unlike Ubuntu, Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) is fully compatible with Debian using the same codebase. If Ubuntu were to disappear LMDE could take it's place and there wouldn't be the animosity between them like there is with Debian and Ubuntu. They would both be on the same track working from the same codebase base meaning fewer bugs. They would be combining their resources instead of redoing each others work. If anybody is going to get hanged it is Ubuntu from Canonical's self destructive behavior trying to separate themselves as much as possible. I know all this is old news but it is still relevant problem that has not been fixed yet. To this day it is still painfully sad to see how much the Debian Ubuntu split as hurt the free software movement.
107 • @105 (by Ron on 2013-12-11 15:37:23 GMT from United States)
I am not sure, but are you saying Red Hat contributes nothing? If so check out,
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Red_Hat_contributions
and
http://www.sourceware.org/projects.html
I am really not sure what Canonical contributes. If someone can post some Canonical lists, like the ones I posted here for Red Hat, that would be great.
108 • @ 103 Ron (by Chanath on 2013-12-11 15:40:26 GMT from Sri Lanka)
"Finally, as I have said before, if they think they can succeed without the Gnu/Linux community than they are sadly mistaking. Canonical needs to fix their image, the image outside of their fan base that is. If not than it will be a huge mistake."
That's true.
I thin lot of very good, former free or freelancer developers are working for Canonical at full pay. Those guys actually developed Unity. At the beginning, there was Unity and Unity 2, the last was later taken off and Unity was scrambled. I could take apart Unity 2 and have the dash, without the left panel, and was bit angry with Ubuntu for scrambling Unity,, but later I understood the idea behind the scrambling. I once ran a prosperous business, so I understand Canonical/Ubuntu thoughts. These thoughts are not hidden. The idea is to have a successful business, even if some of it is given free.
No real business would help the competitor to overtake it and take its position in the market, and if it allows such, it would be utterly foolish.
109 • @103 (by jaws222 on 2013-12-11 15:49:45 GMT from United States)
"Finally, as I have said before, if they think they can succeed without the Gnu/Linux community than they are sadly mistaking. Canonical needs to fix their image, the image outside of their fan base that is. If not than it will be a huge mistake."
I'm not sure if they will succeed but when people think of Linux, Ubuntu usually is the first thing that comes to mind. it kinda reminds me of McDonalds. When you think of fast food you think of McDonalds but when you look at all the fast food joints McDonalds probably has the worst burgers out of the bunch.
110 • Giving back (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2013-12-11 15:51:53 GMT from United States)
Yes and No, Ron. I'm saying I'm unaware of direct financial support - to OpenSSH - from Cisco, Red_Hat/Fedora, Novell/OpenSUSE, Apple and several other organizations who profit substantially from its use.
111 • beneficiary of canonical´s crazy ideas. (by sam on 2013-12-11 16:01:06 GMT from Congo, The Democratic Republic of the)
My first linux cd was Ubuntu 8.04 shipped to me free of charge by canonical. The idea of shipping cds must have been then as crazy and some of the current ideas of canonical are todal. It was the first time I installed an OS on a machine and that gave me some confidence in trying new things with a computer. Since then I moved to linux mint, mandriva fedora and finally settled on Debian and Centos. Though I do not use Ubuntu today most probably I would not be using Linux if canonical had not popularised linux the way they did. No way I could have started with slackware. Even debian took me sometime to learn how to install and configure and it is the Ubuntu background that helped find my way around in Debian. If gaining one new user is good for debian, then Debian gained from canonical because canonical introduced me to linux and in Ubuntu they had links to Debian. I think therefore that distros benefit from each other there is some symbiosis not just leeching.
Canonical understands why mint is so popular, why don't they make a similar product and they are very capable?
112 • @110 (by Ron on 2013-12-11 16:07:20 GMT from United States)
I think I see what you mean. Openssh specifically. This brings in a whole other discussion between *bsd and Linux in general. I do feel that *bsd gets the short end of the stick but I believe it will have its time.
113 • @111 (by jaws222 on 2013-12-11 16:11:46 GMT from United States)
"My first linux cd was Ubuntu 8.04 shipped to me free of charge by canonical"
My first was 10.10 download to a cd. I remember how much I loved that OS with old school Gnome 2. Those were the days.
114 • @108 (by Ron on 2013-12-11 16:12:28 GMT from United States)
I am not sure. Red Hat does a lot, I mean a huge amount and at times that does help its competitors. Yet they have a successful business. I think Canonical could learn a lot from them when dealing with LinuxMint or others and even the Gnu/Linux community as a whole.
http://investors.redhat.com/results.cfm
115 • GNU/Linux mileage (by Koroshiya Itchy on 2013-12-11 17:13:04 GMT from Belgium)
1.- My first GNU/Linux was Mandrake 8 (good and easy-to-use but a bit unstable).
2.- Then it was RedHat 9 (just perfect).
3.- Then it was Ubuntu 5 - 9 (at the time it was still Debian-compatible and therefore it was great). Canonical presented itself as a charity.
4.- Next it came Debian 4 (just perfect).
I have used Debian ever since. At the same time, I have also used Scientific Linux (fantastic RHEL clone) for a while as a replacement for RedHat.
I have tried lost of distros (including BSDs). Right now I am giving Funtoo (Gentoo derivative) a long try (while still using Debian).
Ubuntu? Unreliable, deceiving... Their main contribution was setting high standards in the user-friendliness department while keeping it reasonably stable before they started to diverge from Debian. Today, others are doing better in almost every department.
This combination of Debian (stability, versatility, reliability), SL (stability, reliability, compatibility) and Funtoo (cutting-edginess, fine-tuning, performance) seem to be a keep. I am done with distro-hopping until there is something really new.
116 • @115 (by jaws222 on 2013-12-11 17:19:52 GMT from United States)
"This combination of Debian (stability, versatility, reliability), SL (stability, reliability, compatibility) and Funtoo (cutting-edginess, fine-tuning, performance) seem to be a keep. I am done with distro-hopping until there is something really new."
If you like speed and reliability check out Crunchbang (Debian) and Manjaro (Arch). Two great distros.
117 • @102 Re:Mark's money & Ubuntu (by Linadian on 2013-12-11 18:21:42 GMT from Canada)
Nobody twisted Mark's arm to take other peoples' code (Debian) and slowly turn it propriety with the long term plan of creating a commercial OS out of it. People with money like to make more money with their money. Mark has no room to cry about anything now, what he SHOULD HAVE done was start with a vanilla kernel from https://www.kernel.org/ and build his OWN packaging system, GUI, etc, then he can call it proprietary all he wants, everything except the vanilla kernel of course.
All this is doing is driving people back in to the arms of Debian, me included, dumping Kubuntu and decided to go with Debian 7.2 KDE (Manjaro looks good but means learning a new set of commands and too few packages), not waiting for the *buntu meltdown, doing it NOW.
118 • @102 Chanath (by byku on 2013-12-11 18:26:27 GMT from Poland)
"C'mon some people could say the same about Mr. S. < and, so forth..."
You have said that one developer/maintainer/owner of distro is bad guy in your opinion. I have said that another owner of distro for some people is perceived the same.
You have said that one distro is raising on the shoulders of another distro. I have said that another distro was doing the same.
I don't have problem with Ubuntu, Mint or another distro.
You don't have to agree with my answers. I don't have to agree with yours.
119 • @ 116 jaws222 (by Chanath on 2013-12-11 18:28:13 GMT from Sri Lanka)
If you like speed and reliability check out Crunchbang (Debian) and Manjaro (Arch). Two great distros.
And, Ubuntu, of course!
Its interesting, that the guys, who say the other distros are great, don't use Ubuntu, and hadn't used it for last few years!
For example, Koroshiya's last known Ubuntu was 9! But he says; "Ubuntu? Unreliable, deceiving... "
Today its 14.04, and he "knew" Ubuntu so many years ago! What hypocrisy!
120 • @105 (by byku on 2013-12-11 18:55:51 GMT from Poland)
"Are there no ways Canonical has contributed? What of popularizing Linux, or backports? Not everything is about money.
Ah, well. Perhaps Ubuntu will move to the blackest sheep of the Linux family, the Android sellout?"
Ok. Canonical is great. Google is great (contributing to kernel). But many Windows people uses Android and don't know that under the hood is Linux and they are happy with Android and they don't want to switch to Linux (any distro even the best Ubuntu). I think that this will be the similar with Ubuntu phones. People will only using it nothing more. They will not switch to any Linux distro. So Android (on Linux), SalfishOS (on Linux and Android), Ubuntu Touch (on Linux, some library from SalfishOS, Android) will have many own users but this not give next 5% in users ranking for whole Linux (Linux have something ca. 5-6% if I remember well - i mean desktop Linux not whole Linux as a kernel). But i don't have problem with this. Let Google make money and Canonical too. But i still thinks that If anybody really wants to find Linux he will find it despite Google and Ubuntu. But big kudos for their work but i've found Linux without them.
121 • @119 Chanath (by jaws222 on 2013-12-11 20:33:16 GMT from United States)
"And, Ubuntu, of course!
Its interesting, that the guys, who say the other distros are great, don't use Ubuntu, and hadn't used it for last few years!"
Wrong. I have several partitions on my boxes and currently run Xubuntu 13.10, Kubuntu 12.04 and I have Ubuntu 12.04 on an old laptop. I would never trash it without using it. That being said, I also run or have run Crunchbang, Manjaro, SalineOS, SolusOS, Point Linux, Bodhi, OpenSUSE, PCLinuxOS, etc.. and find EVERY one of them superior to Ubuntu (including Xubuntu & Kubuntu)
122 • @ 120 Byku (by Chanath on 2013-12-11 20:46:41 GMT from Sri Lanka)
With all the negative comments about Ubuntu, when was the last time you've used Ubuntu, or its derivatives, and what was the release?
My guess is that you've never used Ubuntu.
As for me, I am using Calculate (Gentoo), Rosa (Mandriva) Manjaro (Arch) and my main distro out of the lot is Ubuntu 14.04 (not yet released, and on testing). I am not using the already released Ubuntu 13.10, but the not yet released, even as an Alpha testing Ubuntu 14.04. It boots up quickly, works without a hiccup.
Maybe, you might see, just see, the difference in what I say, and what you (and some others) say?
You (and some others) argue against what you don't use, and/or never used, or like Koroshiya, whose last use was in 2009(!). Doesn't that border with utter hypocrisy?!
123 • @ 121 jaws222 (by Chanath on 2013-12-11 20:55:48 GMT from Sri Lanka)
"That being said, I also run or have run Crunchbang, Manjaro, SalineOS, SolusOS, Point Linux, Bodhi, OpenSUSE, PCLinuxOS, etc.. and find EVERY one of them superior to Ubuntu (including Xubuntu & Kubuntu)"
Hmmm..."I also run or have run"
English is very interesting language, sort of the main language in the US....but, "I also run or have run" gives certain interesting aspect to the desired meaning...
Arguing for the sake of arguing is a .....(fill the blanks)
124 • @121 Jaws222 (by Chanath on 2013-12-11 21:04:06 GMT from Sri Lanka)
English is a very interesting language...
"That being said, I also run or have run Crunchbang, Manjaro, SalineOS, SolusOS, Point Linux, Bodhi, OpenSUSE, PCLinuxOS, etc.. and find EVERY one of them superior to Ubuntu (including Xubuntu & Kubuntu)"
This Bodhi that you've "run or have run" must've been made from the Fedora-base, or the OpenSuse-base, or the Arch-base, or even from the PCLOS-base! Excellent!
Absolutely superb!!!
125 • @124 Chanath (by jaws222 on 2013-12-11 21:12:30 GMT from United States)
I'm not exactly sure what you are getting at but here is my opinion regarding Ubuntu.
When you say "Ubuntu" I mean the literal Ubuntu, not the dervatives, spins like Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu etc. Also, Bodhi which I know is based on Ubuntu is Excellent. In general, the Unity interface, even though it is much improved since its inception, is probably my least favorite DE. Also Ubuntu I find is the least customizable. One of the main reasons I use Linux is because I can customize it. That being said, I am not putting Ubuntu down, rather just saying out of all the Linux OS's I use or have recently Ubuntu is at the bottom, but evven at the bottom it is still wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy above Windows IMO. So I am a Linux lover, I just love Ubuntu a little less. I hope that clears things up.
126 • @125 jaws222 (by Chanath on 2013-12-11 21:20:42 GMT from Sri Lanka)
"I'm not exactly sure what you are getting at but here is my opinion regarding Ubuntu."
Too bad, if you don't!
"When you say "Ubuntu" I mean the literal Ubuntu, not the dervatives, spins like Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu etc"
"Also, Bodhi which I know is based on Ubuntu is Excellent."
" Also Ubuntu I find is the least customizable."
Well, why get into deep water, if you have a problem with swimming? If this "terrible" Ubuntu is so un-customizable, how come this "Bodhi which I know is based on Ubuntu is Excellent."
One has to think twice, before jumping into deep water...
127 • @122 (by byku on 2013-12-11 21:24:23 GMT from Poland)
You have said (diferences):
"Of course, I wish Clem all success with Mint, but Clem and the Mint forum are arrogant, practically claiming they created the world."
It is nice PR move to wish success and in the same sentence said that one person is arrogant. So some people in Linux world could say similat things about your hero:
"Of course, I wish Mark all success with Ubuntu, but Mark and the Ubuntu forum are arrogant, practically claiming they created the world."
I've said only this in my post that you answered on. You can say i'm attack Ubuntu. Ok. But really i'm attack your bullshit. You many times show us that you have any knowlege about eg, RH or your answers was intencional (dbrion perceived them that).
"My guess is that you've never used Ubuntu."
Ok. I see that you don't have good memory. So in one of my posts in DWW i've said that i don't use Ubuntu now. But i've said that i've downloaded it one time (Mark don't have to send me CD, i didn't have to give him my name, address etc. because if i don'thave to give anybody my data i don't give and this CD i could download from Ubuntu page.) it was Ubuntu from 2006 v6.06. I didn't insatll it on my old computer and i was happy with Polish distros in those time Aurox and PLD. And i was using one version of Ubuntu for half year it was Hardy Heron (year 2008/9) but not as my work and main distro. And as for Linux user (RH, Mandrake, Debian Slackware, Knoppix and Polish distros) from the end of the 90' it wasn't any special to me. But it is my opinion. You can have your own.
As you were answering on my post no 120 i want to only add that it is my IT market analize (again main own) and my view on the topic from percpective Windows users that have phones with Android (yep ia have friends that use Windows and i don't converted them to Linux because Linux and FLOSS is a state of mind and they don't fill it). So Good that we have: Android, SalfishOS, Ubuntu Touch, FirefoxOS, ChromeOS and many more that i can't now remember. But in my opinion those systems didn't raise number of Linux desktop users. Android is on the market from 2009 (or late 2008) and the numebr of Linux desktop users didn't increase thatk to it. And i'm not angry on Google for that. If rest of the system will have OWN users and thank to them we will not have more desktop users i will not sad. Next we have TV, toasters, cars, washing machines (i saw one with Android). Is this brings more people to Linux? No. If we thinks about Linux as a desktop. But if this brings more people and companies to Linux as a Kernel? Yes. Ok so all this stuff that using kernel don't rise Linux desktop users base. But it give more attencion to kernel and thank to this we have better Linux (distros). So as ia said as Android didn't converted Windows or Apple or other systems users to Linux so i think that other mobile Linux system don't achieve too.
So you can call me racionalist, defeatist or a troll. I don't care.
128 • @126 (by jaws222 on 2013-12-11 21:27:42 GMT from United States)
"Well, why get into deep water, if you have a problem with swimming? If this "terrible" Ubuntu is so un-customizable, how come this "Bodhi which I know is based on Ubuntu is Excellent."
One has to think twice, before jumping into deep water..."
????
I have no idea what you're talking about. I did not use the word terrible. I just stated Ubuntu (with Unity) was my least favorite DE.
Why is Bodhi excellent? It's faster, has a better DE and is without a doubt probably the most customizable distro out there.
Unity however I cannot even move the panel to the top, bottom or right. I can do all that with Bodhi and more.
129 • Have we used Ubuntu? (by Jim on 2013-12-11 21:33:08 GMT from United States)
"With all the negative comments about Ubuntu, when was the last time you've used Ubuntu, or its derivatives, and what was the release?"
What difference does it make?
I doubt if they were to try it again they would change their mind, it's a bit like asking an atheist when was the last time you tried Christianity. Are they supposed to say wow! you were right and I was wrong.
130 • @127 Byku (by Chanath on 2013-12-11 21:39:39 GMT from Sri Lanka)
"So in one of my posts in DWW i've said that i don't use Ubuntu now. But i've said that i've downloaded it one time it was Ubuntu from 2006 v6.06. I didn't insatll it on my old computer and i was happy with Polish distros in those time Aurox and PLD. And i was using one version of Ubuntu for half year it was Hardy Heron (year 2008/9) but not as my work and main distro."
Sure!
You are very well versed to criticise Ubuntu, as you have used it in 2006 and then 2008/9!
But, if I may, I'd like to inform you that this is the last month of 2013.
A lot of water had gone under the bridge since last four years!
All, I can tell you is, why get into the deep water, if you have a problem in swimming...
Number of Comments: 130
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