 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 559, 19 May 2014 |
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Welcome to this year's 20th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Our computers are not just devices for work and communication, they are also great platforms for entertainment. With that in mind, this week we turn our eyes to the VortexBox distribution. VortexBox is a Fedora-based media server and the subject of our feature review this week. Also in this issue, we talk about Linux support for suspend and resume on laptops and what a person can do to work around a laptop which does not resume properly. Much of the news in the open source community last week focused on a bug discovered in the Linux kernel which could allow a local user to gain administrator privileges. In our News section this week we talk about the bug and the responses from various distributions to the issue. We also talk about Linux Mint's decision to follow Ubuntu's LTS releases and the FreeBSD developers' ambitious roadmap for their next release. Plus we sneak a peek at the latest KDE 5 beta and the improvements coming to the popular desktop environment. As usual, we cover the distribution releases of the past week and look ahead to fun new developers to come. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
Content:
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Playing with VortexBox 2.3
 VortexBox is a Linux distribution which acts as a media server and jukebox. It is based on Fedora (version 2.3 on Fedora 20) and the project reports that VortexBox can rip optical media, tag files and share multimedia files over Samba and NFS shares. The distribution is available in just one edition for the x86 architecture and the download image for VortexBox is approximately 38 MB in size.
Booting from the project's ISO brings up a screen that lets us launch the distribution's system installer. On the screen is a warning letting us know that installing VortexBox will wipe the hard drive of our computer. Opting to launch the system installer brings us to a text screen where we are told VortexBox is trying to download 224MB of files to use in the installation process. Once the download completes one of two things happens. I found that if the primary drive in our server is quite small then a text-based version of the Anaconda system installer is launched. This text version of the installer features a hub style form of navigation where we are prompted to type the number of a menu item we want to access.
Each component of the installer asks us a question and we type the response, which takes us back to the hub. It is a bit awkward and an unfortunate downgrade from older versions of Anaconda's text interface. Eventually I found that Anaconda wouldn't complete the installation as it felt the available hard drive was not large enough. (At this point I was working in a virtual environment with a 8GB hard disk.) I restarted the process with a larger hard drive and found this time, once the 224MB download had completed, VortexBox took over the entire hard drive and automatically installed all its files. I did not need to perform any steps at all, the installation was entirely automatic and, when the installation completed, the machine rebooted and brought me to a login prompt on a text screen.
The project's documentation provides the default login credentials and I signed in to have a look at my new Linux-based jukebox. A short time later I noticed the hard drive was experiencing a lot of activity. A quick look at running processes showed that an update was in progress. A moment after I discovered this the machine rebooted without warning, presumably to complete the update process. After VortexBox rebooted I was brought back to a text console and login prompt.
VortexBox 2.3 - checking system status
(full image size: 180kB, screen resolution 1280x997 pixels)
Most of what makes VortexBox interesting and useful is accessed via the project's web interface, but before I get to that, I'd like to explore a little of what is running under the hood. VortexBox's automated system installer sets up four partitions for us, a root partition, a boot partition, swap space and a LVM volume where our media will be stored. The media volume is mounted under the /storage directory and is accessible via Samba shares. The VortexBox operating system requires approximately 1.3GB of hard drive space, which raises the question why the distribution refuses to install on a 8GB drive. While sitting idle, VortexBox uses about 115MB of memory. The distribution ships with a few network services running, including Samba, secure shell, a web server (which provides the web-based user interface) and NFS shares. In the background, VortexBox runs on the Linux kernel, version 3.12.
Most of our interaction with VortexBox will be through the distribution's web interface. The web interface is accessible without a password and provides us with a handful of categories of functions in a menu down the left side of the screen. Over on the right side of the window we see specific options and functions in the selected category. One page of the web interface shows us current storage statistics and upper storage limits. Another page allows us to configure the computer's network interface. Another page covers extracting tracks from optical media such as audio CDs and video DVDs. Another button brings up a media player and the ability to import media into the player. Another screens let us backup our media to an external drive, connected to the computer via a USB port. One screen allows us to select our preferred language and time zone. A final screen lets us upgrade installed packages and acquire a few additional software packages such alternative media servers and bittorrent software.
VortexBox 2.3 - web-based media player
(full image size: 112kB, screen resolution 1280x997 pixels)
Going through the various options I found some features of VortexBox worked really well while others either didn't work or seemed overly complicated. Upgrading software packages and installing new software through the web interface worked well. I also found configuring my network interface worked well through the web portal. Samba shares were enabled by default and I found it was easy to upload media to the VortexBox server for later use. These features worked smoothly and I encountered no problems using them.
On the other hand, I did run into frustrations when trying to play media that I had uploaded to the server. Opening the provided web-based media player I noticed none of the audio files I had uploaded to the Samba share were listed. Going into the player's options I found that the player only looked for media in a directory labelled "flac" and was ignoring files in the "music" and "mp3" directories. This was easy enough to fix. I added the "music" folder to the list of directories to scan and my audio files appeared in the player. Hitting the Play button didn't produce any sound. Digging through the menu options further I found the VortexBox player would only send sound output to specified devices. The hardware address of a device must be typed in manually for VortexBox to use the device. Further down the page was a list of connected devices that might be used for sound.
I'm not sure why we need to manually type hardware addresses when the addresses are listed on the same page, this seems like a good place for a drop-down box where we can click on the device we want to use. At any rate, I added my sound card as a device and found VortexBox would play my music. Later I experimented to streaming music over the network to other computers. VortexBox provides us with a URL that can be used to connect to our streaming music. This worked, but I found the process a bit awkward as, for example, changing from one song to the next required three steps: Stopping the local audio player, changing tracks in the VortexBox web interface and then restarting the local audio player. It was easier, I found, to open a VortexBox folder using Samba and dragging-and-dropping files into my local media player as I wanted them.
Another feature I experimented with was ripping DVDs. In theory VortexBox will scan a disc, find tracks over a certain length (to avoid grabbing intro screens and advertisements) and copy those tracks into a directory on the server. I tried this with a few different video DVDs. In each case VortexBox detected the disc, properly identified the desires tracks, indicated it was working for a while and then reported the operation had failed. The most I ever got out of the ripping experience was an empty directory (named after the video) on my Samba share. Ultimately, while the disc ripping feature sounds appealing for backup purposes, it did not work for me in practice.
VortexBox 2.3 - configuring audio output
(full image size: 200kB, screen resolution 1280x997 pixels)
What my time with VortexBox generally consisted of was a series of finding features which sounded great on paper, but finding they tended not to work well in practice. This combined with a number of features which did not, to my mind at least, make sense in theory. Take, for example, VortexBox shipping as a 38MB ISO. This seems nice, but the first thing the installation media does is download 224MB of data. If a person is on a slow (or buggy) network connection or if they need to run the install multiple times, the net-install approach is highly inconvenient. It also doesn't make sense in this context, because the downloaded packages do not appear to be up to date since the first thing VortexBox did, post-installation, was download and install updated packages. It would have been much nicer to have a single, medium sized ISO to download right from the start. Another thing which bothered me was that the installer, if it doesn't have a certain amount of free space, will not only refuse to proceed, it will toss us into an awkward text-based installer. There doesn't appear to be any way to override the space limitation and tell the installer to proceed, a shame since the distribution doesn't actually use all the space it claims to require.
Couple the above setup issues with the need to manually enter hardware addresses to get sound working, the inability of the disc extractor to rip any of the DVDs I presented to it and the awkward web-based music player and I found VortexBox to be generally awkward to use. I would normally expect a project that is designed for media servers to be more user-friendly. That being said, I do think the VortexBox developers are aiming at user friendliness. The installer is automated, which is nice, and the web interface is easy to navigate. The automatically enabled network shares are a good touch. Were I reviewing VortexBox as a NAS solution rather than a media player it probably would score highly. As it was, anything media related tended to fall flat during my trial while data storage, package management and network configuration went smoothly.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith and Ladislav Bodnar) |
Mint switches to LTS mode; FreeBSD developers plan next release, KDE launches new beta, new Linux kernel vulnerability
 Let's start the news section with an interesting announcement made last week by the ever popular Linux Mint distribution. A few days before the release candidate for the upcoming version 17 came a rather quiet notice about the project's new release strategy. This was buried deep in the April 2014 monthly news where project leader Clement Lefebvre announced that, starting with Mint 17, the distribution will be based on Ubuntu's LTS (long-term support) releases only: "The decision was made to stick to LTS bases. In other words, the development team will be focused on the very same package base used by Linux Mint 17 for the next 2 years. It will also be trivial to upgrade from version 17 to 17.1, then 17.2 and so on. Important applications will be backported and we expect this change to boost the pace of our development and reduce the amount of regressions in each new Linux Mint release. This makes Linux Mint 17.x very important to us, not just yet another release, but one that will receive security updates until 2019, one that will receive backports and new features until 2016 and even more importantly, the only package base besides LMDE which we'll be focused on until 2016."
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 Last week saw the arrival of the BSDCan developer summit, a place where BSD contributors come together to talk about current projects and future plans. Some of the discussions focused on what we may see in FreeBSD 11. Michael Lucas has a point form list of items discussed at the summit. Some highlights include adding support for ARM64 hardware and removing support for the Intel Itanium architecture. The FreeBSD team is also talking about supporting 64-bit Linux executables, improving suspend/resume capabilities and implementing kdbus. There are many other features planned for FreeBSD 11 and the next release of FreeBSD appears to be very ambitious.
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 Last week we covered the initial releases of two new desktop environments, LXQt and Lumina. Not to be left out, the KDE team announced last week a beta release for the upcoming KDE 5 desktop environment. The KDE 5 beta, which the developers are quick to point out is ready for testing, but not production use, is a gentle evolution from the KDE 4 desktop. The KDE 5 beta contains relatively few changes on the surface such as a more subtle desktop menu button and the Oxygen Font. Most of the interesting changes are behind the scenes and include the Qt 5 toolkit and hardware acceleration. People hoping to test drive the new KDE beta can download packages for Fedora, Gentoo, Kubuntu and openSUSE. Alternatively, a live DVD image is also available.
Neon 5-20140513 - running the KDE 5 Beta
(full image size: 455kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
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 Last week it was reported that a bug in the Linux kernel could potentially allow users on a Linux-based system to gain privileges and run malicious code. The flaw was introduced during the development of the 2.6.31 kernel and affects kernels up to version 3.14.3. Dan Rosenberg, a security researcher with Azimuth Security opined that a bug like this one, which can affect a wide range of architectures and distributions, is rare. "A bug this serious only comes out once every couple years," he said. Distributions have reacted quickly. The Ubuntu developers have released a patch, as has the Debian project. Red Hat has reported they are looking into the issue, but believe the exploit may not affect Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
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Troubleshooting waking-from-sleep on laptops
Having-trouble-waking asks: Are there versions of Linux that are more compatible with laptops than others? I have an older Dell Latitude e1505. I've tried a couple distros, but they seem to have a problem: when I close the lid, even if I put Linux in hibernation before closing the lid, they don't wake up. Then I have to hit the power button and it has to recheck the file system. Is this a common issue with Linux, that they do not like going to sleep?
DistroWatch answers: Different Linux distributions ship with different versions of the kernel and, therefore, have different hardware drivers. This can make different distributions more or less likely to suspend and wake properly.
You have a few options. One would be to experiment with various distributions to see if one works with your laptop better than another. In the past I've typically found distributions with newer kernels worked better at suspend/resume than distributions with older kernels.
Another way to go would be to make sure all your drivers are up to date. Not waking up from sleep is often a sign one of your drivers is not working properly. Sometimes switching between an open driver and a proprietary one or upgrading to a newer version of an existing driver can help.
A third approach would be to ask for help on your specific distribution's forum. Someone there may provide a workaround, either a kernel parameter or a driver fix. Distributions can handle the same process differently, so it is best to ask for support from people who use (and develop) your distribution of choice.
Finally, consider buying a newer laptop which is certified to work with Linux. Distributions such as Linux Mint and Ubuntu maintain lists of supported hardware on their websites and there are Linux-friendly companies like Think Penguin and System76 which cater specifically to Linux users.
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| Released Last Week |
Pinguy OS 14.04
Antoni Norman has announced the release of Pinguy OS 14.04, an Ubuntu-based desktop Linux distribution with a customised GNOME Shell desktop. This arrives after several "false" releases; yet the release announcement largely concentrates on further bugs and known issues: "The full final has been released. Known bugs: selecting auto login in the installer does not work - I had to disable it so the live session would auto login; Apturl is broken, this is an issue with Ubuntu; to make the distro work with GNOME 3.12 I had to add restore extensions to start-ups - this forces the extensions to start; if you use symbols in your password make sure you pick the correct keyboard; in Firefox some of the add-ons are disabled, just run add-on update to enable them."
Pinguy OS 14.04 - an Ubuntu-based distribution with a custom GNOME 3 desktop
(full image size: 893kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Univention Corporate Server 3.2-2
Univention Gmbh has announced the release of an updated build of Univention Corporate Server 3.2, a Debian-based server distribution with a web-based server management system: "We are pleased to announce the availability of UCS 3.2-2, the second point release of Univention Corporate Server (UCS). It includes all errata updates issued for UCS 3.2-0 and comprises the following highlights: domain joining of Windows clients with incorrect system times has been simplified - it is now no longer necessary to synchronise the system time in advance; Univention AD Takeover - the UCS solution for the automatic migration of an Active Directory domain to UCS - can now also be performed via a Univention Management Console module; the Univention App Center has been expanded further, for example it is now also possible to provide applications which are not available for all processor architectures...." Read the release announcement and release notes for more details.
SalentOS 14.04
Gabriele Martina has announced the release of SalentOS 14.04, a brand-new version of the project's Ubuntu-based desktop distribution featuring a highly configurable Openbox window manager: "With great pleasure I announce the release of SalentOS 14:04. After months of work, here's the new operating system, available in four editions: SalentOS 32-bit 'Full' and 'Light', SalentOS 64-bit 'Full' and 'Light'. The 'Full' edition is complete with all the software available so it can be used right away to surf the web, enjoy multimedia content and work. The live image weighs around 850 MB, it is installable and can be burned to DVD, or used to create a bootable USB device. The 'Light' edition is designed to use alternative software and programs according to the tastes and preferences of each user. It contains the base system and has only a web browser and text editor installed." Here is the brief release announcement (scroll down the page for the English version) with a screenshot.
SalentOS 14.04 - an Ubuntu-based distribution with Openbox
(full image size: 2,049kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to database
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New distributions added to waiting list
- NethServer. NethServer is an operating system for Linux enthusiasts, designed for small offices and medium enterprises. Based on CentOS, it includes a powerful web interface that simplifies common administration tasks and many pre-configured modules that are installable with a single click.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 26 May 2014. To contact the authors please send email to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, suggestions and corrections: news, donations, distribution submissions, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (feedback and suggestions: podcast edition)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Q4OS (by Somewhat Reticent on 2014-05-19 09:13:33 GMT from United States)
Installation 'look-and-feel' definitely like initial classic Microsoft Windows setup.
2 • Q4OS (by cykodrone on 2014-05-19 13:27:51 GMT from Canada)
No offence guys but talk about being stuck in the past, is that supposed to look like Win 2K? That's FOUR major MS releases ago. At least make it look like XP, lol. I guess if a retro industrial MS looking OS is your thing...
AFAIAC, if I were to switch to pseudo Win Linux, I certainly wouldn't want something that MS retro.
3 • Q4OS, don't need da bling. (by Garon on 2014-05-19 13:54:39 GMT from United States)
It seems to me to be something just simple enough to use as a base for virtualbox or something like what is stated in the description. I don't believe it was designed as a standalone complete desktop operating system. In this case looks are irrelevant and bling is unnecessary. Also it would be a good base for machine control. Aka, CNC.
4 • Mint goes LTS (by Mark on 2014-05-19 14:41:44 GMT from United States)
Generally I'm happy that Clem & co. have decided to stick with the LTS releases of Ubuntu for their base. Most users don't want to do a major upgrade every 6 months, as long as they're getting essential patches and driver updates. Now the Mint team can focus on upgrading Cinnamon for everybody who's using Ubuntu 14.04 as a base, without having to worry about compatibility with the next three upstream Ubuntu releases.
5 • VortexBox (by Brisbane on 2014-05-19 17:17:00 GMT from United States)
I'm willing to bet that DVD ripping failed because the MakeMKV trial key is expired. Go here to get an up-to-date one: http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1053
Once that's done, you'll find it rips about 98% of the discs you put in. Hope that helps.
6 • VortexBox (by Brisbane on 2014-05-19 17:20:14 GMT from United States)
Almost forgot, one of the best parts of Vortexbox is that you can do a one-click install of Plex and use it with a LOT more devices. I sat at lunch today at work and streamed a movie from my Vortexbox server AT HOME to my tablet. Works like a charm!
7 • KDE5? (by Marco on 2014-05-19 19:00:46 GMT from United States)
Maybe I sound like those pushing for gnu / Linux, but KDE is trying hard to re-brand itself as a community. Yes, there was KDE 3.5, but now they brand their workspaces as Plasma Desktop / Plasma Netbook.
8 • LTS Mint (by Goetz Kluge on 2014-05-19 19:22:43 GMT from Germany)
The older I get, the less I want to spend time with maintaining the OS on my computer. And also for young "family administrators" who want to assist their parents it is nice to work with LTS distributions. From what I know, Mint presently is the best choice for such kind of users.
9 • Q4OS (by MondCane on 2014-05-19 21:05:39 GMT from Argentina)
@cykodrone : Actually, that is pretty much how a fresh Win 2008 R2 desktop looks like... How's that for Retro? =)
10 • Mint goes LTS (by minter on 2014-05-19 22:06:34 GMT from Poland)
"It will also be trivial to upgrade from version 17 to 17.1, then 17.2 and so on." If that's the case, why bother releasing intermediate versions of the system, i.e. 17.1, 17.2 and not focus more energy on the LTS versions to make it even better? Could someone please explain this further?
11 • Mint LTS Base (by Ray on 2014-05-19 22:07:33 GMT from United States)
Theres going to be haters and naysayers, but frankly, I am pleased that Mint team switched to an lts base, especially considering interim *buntu releases are only supported 9 months (unless that changed again and I missed it), forcing either risky complete upgrades, or complete reinstalls. Bodhi does the same, and I have been happily using that on my netbook forever now lol. Good decision (imo) Clem :)
12 • @9 & 11 (by cykodrone on 2014-05-20 01:01:51 GMT from Canada)
@9...I believe you, the irony is I held out with Win 2K for the longest time, I finally had to break down and buy an OEM XP Home, my last MS purchase, been an XP free happy Linux user for years now.
@11...I agree, it makes me wonder why Ubuntu has to have that frequent release 'presence' (market saturation?), I guess they have the time and bucks to throw around like a drunk sailor on shore-leave, lol. I would rather have a stable OS for 2 years than deal with basically beta releases in between, personally I've found the in between releases to be sloppy. I don't have that problem anymore though, I run Debian stable with custom repos. :D
13 • @10 (minter) (by kneekoo on 2014-05-20 02:44:32 GMT from Romania)
The new ISO images (x.1, x.2 etc) are essential for people installing the operating system months/years after the release. You'd have to perform a lot of updates, which takes a lot of time and bandwidth.
14 • BSD removing Itanium (by Nate on 2014-05-20 03:50:52 GMT from United States)
I wonder why they intend to remove support for Itanium. I'll admit that Itanium wasn't exactly successful. It took almost a decade to break even. But that shows that there's still a large number of Itanium machines in the wild. Dropping support for them seems counter-productive. This would be totally different if this were something nobody used, like the iAPX-432.
On the other hand, I appreciate that they're planning to improve ARM and Mips support, and I get that they probably had to kill itanium support to compensate for the developer overhead.
Still, killing support for an entire active branch of processors seems reckless. Thoughts anyone?
15 • @7 KDE (by greg on 2014-05-20 06:29:14 GMT from Slovenia)
You forgot plasma active. It's all KDE desktop modified for use in various devices. the phisolophy and apps stay the same i believe. Netbook plasma is ment for use on smaller screens found in netbooks, active plasma is ment for use on tocuh devices (tablets). they all share the look and feel and also the way htings are done.
16 • Elementary (by Sayth on 2014-05-20 06:30:29 GMT from Australia)
Wonder if you could do a few more interviews in the next weeks on Distrowatch.
Would be intereested to here more from the Elementary team and see if you can't squeeze a little juice out of them on what their new release will feature.
Also same goes for the new Fedora workstation release in 21.
Aaron Siego and the new KDE etc.
17 • It's your choise (by Garon on 2014-05-20 13:03:14 GMT from United States)
@10, The purpose of the interim releases are to improve the next LTS release. If a person wants to experiment with some new technology then they will have the opportunity. Else you can stay with the LTS releases for stability, and there are still ways to get the latest applications and keep stability.
@11, Forcing upgrades? What are you talking about?
@12, The same explanation goes for you also. It seems that people don't realize what a LTS release is and what the interim releases in between the LTS releases are for. What makes people think they have to reinstall every 6 or 9 or 12 months? I don't on my main machine and it's pure bull to make people think that have to upgrade or reinstall every few months on their machines. You don't have to upgrade to have up to date software. That can be done with these so called custom repos, ppa's. I keep a machine set aside for the in between releases in case I can help the process along and help improve the next LTS release. Mint made a wise decision by going the same route as Ubuntu and if people have problems with the interim releases, or as some people say, beta quality release, of any distro then it is their choice but no one if forced to do so.
18 • Re: BSD removing Itanium (by Ralph on 2014-05-20 16:58:34 GMT from Canada)
There may be lots of Itanium machines in the world, but how many of them are running FreeBSD?
19 • Elementary and Zorin (by Georgia on 2014-05-22 20:40:45 GMT from Canada)
After trying a few distros that did not work as promised, last night I tried both Elementary and Zorin. I was very impressed with both. They kept me up trying them out making me retire to bed late. Now I'm looking forward to Mint 17 LTS.
20 • Mint LTS (by Jeff on 2014-05-23 01:21:37 GMT from United States)
It's about time they came to their senses.
The previous release system they had was rendered stupid by the nine month support from Ubuntu, then Mint would release three or four months later so only five or six months of support for each release, and the Mint team was back on the hamster wheel.
Really any non LTS from Ubuntu or based on it is for beta testers only.
21 • Ubuntu Non-LTS (by Somewhat Reticent on 2014-05-23 03:23:13 GMT from United States)
The latest-and-greatest features, but not-so-stable ... like Fedora is for RH, only more-so? ... or DebIan Sid? Rolling - and sometimes Reeling?
22 • Chakra Release (by Oliver on 2014-05-23 07:54:59 GMT from Germany)
From the release notes: "Nepomuk search has been replaced by Baloo, we have implemented a patch that permits the user to disable Baloo"
Kudos to the developer; at least someone has some sense.
Best regards, Oliver
23 • @22 baloo (by greg on 2014-05-23 09:33:18 GMT from Slovenia)
Yay for the patch.
on the other hand it would be better to just give a note to the user about what is happening. as it is now baloo runs and once it indexes things (it took about 3 hours in my case) quiet down and i do not have any interference from it. but it is never shown to the user that something is working "in the background". only massive CPU usage and a process jumping up an down the CPU monitor.
after all is indexed search is much faster.
24 • Mint should switch to Debian base (by hobbitland on 2014-05-23 11:37:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have also given up on Ubuntu 12/.04/14.04 and switched to Debian 7.5. Canonical keep releasing half baked releases that require a lot of time to fix.
Releasing Ubuntu 14.04 without gstreamer0.10 support and breaking Firefox 29 htm5 mp4 playback is just unforgiveable.
Debian 7.5 has both gstreamer0.10 and 1.0. Its these little things like pulseaudio, unity, mir that Canonical keeps screwing up and drives people crazy. Did you know even Xubuntu is infected with some unity libraries?
25 • re 21 (by corneliu on 2014-05-23 14:10:59 GMT from Canada)
I don't know where you got this idea that Fedora is no stable. I have been using Fedora as desktop both at work and at home since 2009 when Mandriva went down. All these years Fedora had been rock solid all the time. Yes, it's got the latest stable packages, and i don't see any problem with that (in fact that's why I use Fedora).
There are some stupid myths floating around in the Linux world and this (that latest packages means lack of stability) is one of the most annoying. Very often the latest packages contain fixes that improve the stability.
26 • @25 Fedora (by fernbap on 2014-05-23 19:09:43 GMT from Portugal)
Well, i can speak for myself. I don't use Fedora because it is the ONLY distro that refuses to boot after install on my pc.
Fedora is by definition not stable. It is an experimental distro used to test stuff that is to be later integrated on RHEL. If it has been stable on your pc, well, you have been just lucky.
And no, noone is saying here that newer is instable, what people says is that new software is not stable BEFORE it has been tested and proven to be stable.
Presently, i restle with a wine regression. Wine 1.4 runs starcraft 1 perfectly, while 1.6 and 1.7 do not.
It may be a regression of the "stable" Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, though.
27 • 26 • @25 Fedora (by mandog on 2014-05-24 13:00:02 GMT from Peru)
Fedora is to redhat as Ubuntu is to Debian both unstable if fedora will not boot after install then Redhat will not boot as Fedora becomes the next Redhat as Ubuntu becomes the next Debian.
28 • @27 (by Brandon Sniadajewski on 2014-05-25 01:18:34 GMT from United States)
You're only half-right. Fedora, yes, is basically the proving ground for RHEL, but Ubuntu takes its packages from Debian (Sid IIRC), except forthe Unity packages of course.
Number of Comments: 28
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| Archives |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Issue 1111 (2025-03-03): Orbitiny 0.01, the effect of Ubuntu Core Desktop, Gentoo offers disk images, elementary OS invites feature ideas, FreeBSD starts PinePhone Pro port, Mint warns of upcoming Firefox issue |
| • Issue 1110 (2025-02-24): iodeOS 6.0, learning to program, Arch retiring old repositories, openSUSE makes progress on reproducible builds, Fedora is getting more serious about open hardware, Tails changes its install instructions to offer better privacy, Murena's de-Googled tablet goes on sale |
| • Issue 1109 (2025-02-17): Rhino Linux 2025.1, MX Linux 23.5 with Xfce 4.20, replacing X.Org tools with Wayland tools, GhostBSD moving its base to FreeBSD -RELEASE, Redox stabilizes its ABI, UBports testing 24.04, Asahi changing its leadership, OBS in dispute with Fedora |
| • Issue 1108 (2025-02-10): Serpent OS 0.24.6, Aurora, sharing swap between distros, Peppermint tries Void base, GTK removinglegacy technologies, Red Hat plans more AI tools for Fedora, TrueNAS merges its editions |
| • Issue 1107 (2025-02-03): siduction 2024.1.0, timing tasks, Lomiri ported to postmarketOS, Alpine joins Open Collective, a new desktop for Linux called Orbitiny |
| • Issue 1106 (2025-01-27): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta 6, Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha 5, detecting whether a process is inside a virtual machine, drawing graphics to NetBSD terminal, Nix ported to FreeBSD, GhostBSD hosting desktop conference |
| • Issue 1105 (2025-01-20): CentOS 10 Stream, old Flatpak bundles in software centres, Haiku ports Iceweasel, Oracle shows off debugging tools, rsync vulnerability patched |
| • Issue 1104 (2025-01-13): DAT Linux 2.0, Silly things to do with a minimal computer, Budgie prepares Wayland only releases, SteamOS coming to third-party devices, Murena upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1103 (2025-01-06): elementary OS 8.0, filtering ads with Pi-hole, Debian testing its installer, Pop!_OS faces delays, Ubuntu Studio upgrades not working, Absolute discontinued |
| • Issue 1102 (2024-12-23): Best distros of 2024, changing a process name, Fedora to expand Btrfs support and releases Asahi Remix 41, openSUSE patches out security sandbox and donations from Bottles while ending support for Leap 15.5 |
| • Issue 1101 (2024-12-16): GhostBSD 24.10.1, sending attachments from the command line, openSUSE shows off GPU assignment tool, UBports publishes security update, Murena launches its first tablet, Xfce 4.20 released |
| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
UberStudent
UberStudent was an Ubuntu-based distribution on a DVD designed for learning and teaching academic computing at the higher education and advanced secondary levels. UberStudent comes with software for everyday computing tasks, plus a core set of programs and features designed to teach and make easier the tasks and habits common to high-performing students of all academic disciplines. Lifelong learners, as well as any sort of knowledge worker, will equally benefit. UberStudent was supported by a free Moodle virtual learning environment.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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