DistroWatch Weekly |
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 566, 7 July 2014 |
Welcome to this year's 27th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Linux comes in all shapes and sizes. Linux may very well power your laptop or your smart phone, your server or maybe even your car. This week we talk about Linux and other open source operating systems, covering a variety of ways these projects can be used. We begin with a review of LXLE, a lightweight operating system which tries to combine user friendliness, power and small resource requirements. In our Questions and Answers column this week we discuss security for Linux users at home, sharing some practical steps for staying secure. In our News section we talk about a desktop environment designed with an unusual audience in mind, OpenBSD users. We also discuss plans to make the artwork in openSUSE more consistent and beautiful. Plus we discuss Linux-based software being used in automobiles, might Linux be coming to your car? We also talk about the distributions released over the past week and look ahead to fun new developments to come. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
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Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Playing with LXLE 14.04
What is LXLE? From the project's website: "LXLE is based on Lubuntu which is an Ubuntu OS using the LXDE desktop environment. It is designed to be a drop-in and go OS, primarily for ageing computers. Its intention is to be able to install it on any computer and be relatively done after install. At times removing unwanted programs or features is easier than configuring for a day. Our distro follows the same LTS schedule as Ubuntu. In short, LXLE is an eclectic re-spin of Lubuntu with its own user support." The latest release of LXLE supports one architecture, 64-bit x86, though people who wish to run a 32-bit build of LXLE can do so by downloading the older LXLE 12.04.4 long term support release. Looking at the download options it appears that LXLE is available only as a torrent download (of 1.4 GB) or potential users can purchase a physical disc containing LXLE.
Right off the bat one thing I appreciated about the LXLE project was that the distribution's website was written is clear language. Many small projects have either vague or overly technical descriptions of their distribution and it is nice to see LXLE explains things carefully and in a way non-technical users can understand. I especially like that the list of changes for this release includes reasons for the changes. The developers did not just swap out one application for another, they said why the choices were made. Some of the key features of the 14.04 release include multiple desktop styles, including themes for migrating Windows XP and OS X users. There are also themes which mimic GNOME 2/MATE, Unity and mobile devices. The new LXLE release features the BitTorrent Sync client (which replaces Ubuntu One), multimedia support out of the box and the LXDE desktop environment, making the distribution suitable for lower-end computers.
Booting from the LXLE media brings up a menu where we can opt to explore LXLE's live desktop environment or launch the project's system installer. Jumping into the installer we find that it is effectively the same installer Ubuntu and Lubuntu provide. We are asked to select our language from a list and we have the option of viewing the project's release notes. We are then asked if we would like to install third-party multimedia support and/or download software updates during the installation. Next we come to the disk partitioning section of the installer. We can take a guided option which can be given parameters such as encrypting our data or setting up LVM volumes. We can also take a manual partitioning option. I found the installer's manual partitioning screen to be easy to navigate and nicely streamlined. Next, the installer asks us to confirm our time zone using a map of the world and we then select our keyboard's layout from a list. The last screen of the installer gets us to create a user account and provide a password for this account. We have the chance, at this point, to encrypt our user's data. After that the installer finishes copying its files to our hard drive and we are asked to reboot the computer.
LXLE 14.04 - default desktop and application menu (full image size: 1,700kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
The locally installed copy of LXLE boots to a graphical login screen. From this screen we can select which style of desktop we wish to use with options including XP, GNOME 2, Unity, OS X and Netbook. I played around which each of these options and found they caused key elements of the desktop, such as the application menu and task switcher, to change position, but the style of icons and the behaviour of buttons and other interface elements did not change. When we login there is a system monitor in the upper-right corner of the display. Hidden over on the left side of the screen is a quick-launch panel which will appear when our mouse pointer gets near the edge of the display. The application menu is typically located in the upper-left or lower-left corner of the screen.
A few minutes after I logged in I noticed the interface had been staying quiet and out of the way. There had been no welcome screen, no pop-ups and no notification of software updates. I went looking for a software updating application and found an item in the application menu called Software Updater. This entry launched a small package upgrade application which showed me a summary of available updates. I agreed to download and install the 103MB of waiting software upgrades. These items were all fetched and installed on my system without any problems. Also on the topic of software management, LXLE ships with two graphical package managers. The first is a modern package manager called Lubuntu Software Centre which lets us browse categories of software using big, colourful icons. Clicking on an application name brings up a detailed information screen which shows us a description of the software and a screen shot. Items can be installed or removed by clicking a button.
I found it was interesting that asking the package manager to install an item would cause the package to be queued for processing later. However, when I opted to remove an application this would cause the unwanted program to be removed immediately. Removing a package would also cause all queued installations to be processed right away. I ran into one problem where, if I removed a program and then located the removed item in the list of available items, the software manager would not allow me to re-installed the program. The software manager offered me a "Remove" button for these already removed items. I found that closing the software manager and then opening it again would refresh the package database and I could then re-install the removed program. The second graphical package manager is Synaptic. The Synaptic package manager displays available and installed software in a list and processes actions in batches. Synaptic features a sparser interface and focuses on specific packages where the first software manager, Lubuntu Software Centre, focuses on end-user desktop applications rather than underlying packages.
LXLE 14.04 - package management with the software centre (full image size: 371kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
I ran LXLE in two environments, a physical desktop machine and in a VirtualBox virtual machine. In both cases I found the distribution ran smoothly and quickly. LXLE properly configured my network connection, sound worked out of the box and my screen was set to its maximum resolution. The LXDE interface was pleasantly responsive. I found the distribution used approximately 190MB of memory, which seemed unusually high for an operating system running the LXDE desktop. A quick check showed that LXLE ships with the preload service running. The preload service loads commonly accessed programs into memory to make opening them faster. This leads to more RAM being used while some frequently accessed programs are loaded more quickly.
The LXLE distribution ships with a wide range of applications and there are desktop programs suited to most tasks. We are given the Firefox web browser and Flash plugin, the Claws e-mail client and the Filezilla file transfer application. BitTorrent Sync is provided to help us synchronize files between multiple computers. The distribution provides the Linphone software phone, the Pidgin messaging client, the XChat IRC client and the Transmission BitTorrent client. We are given the uGet download manager, the FBReader e-book reader, the LibreOffice productivity suite and a PDF document viewer. The Osmo personal organizer is included for us along with the Mirage image viewer, the Shotwell photo manager and the GNU Image Manipulation Program. LXLE comes with a large assortment of games, the Marble virtual globe and the Xfburn optical disc burner. The distribution ships with several multimedia applications, including the Totem video player, the Guayadeque music player, the OpenShot video editor and the Minitube YouTube client. The Audacity audio editor is available for us too.
We find a text editor, virtual calculator, file archive manager and backup utility in the application menu. There are some administrative tools, including a users & groups manager and an app for configuring printers. There is an application for downloading and enabling third-party device drivers and the Clam anti-virus software. LXLE comes with a few accessibility programs such as a virtual keyboard and a screen magnifying tool. I found both of these accessibility utilities worked, but the visual output from both programs was not reliable. For example, sometimes the keys on the virtual keyboard would not show up. I could still blindly click on the keys, but they were not visible. Likewise, sometimes the zoom tool would blank-out when I moved the magnifier around, forcing me to close and re-launch the accessibility app. The distribution ships with Network Manager to help us get on-line, the GNU Compiler Collection for developers and Java. There are also lots of small apps for adjusting the look and feel of the LXDE desktop interface. In the background we find the Linux kernel, version 3.13.
LXLE 14.04 - running various desktop applications (full image size: 986kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
Conclusions
Generally speaking, I enjoyed my time with LXLE. The distribution got off to a good start with a smooth installation process and the project features clear documentation and release notes, letting people know exactly what to expect from the distribution. I like the LXDE desktop as I feel it does an excellent job of balancing user friendliness, performance and features. The LXLE feature which allows us to change the look of our desktop session is a nice bonus and may make it easier for Linux newcomers to navigate the LXDE interface. The distribution ships with a lot of great desktop applications, almost all of them worked well for me. I feel that most people will be able to sit down and just start using this distribution without worrying about configuring software or downloading additional applications. The interface was responsive, the distribution doesn't use a lot of memory (even with preload enabled) and all of my hardware was handled properly.
There were two things I felt were missing from LXLE. The first was any notification of software updates. This distribution appears to be targeting novice Linux users and I think having a subtle icon in the system tray that lets us know when updates are available would be a nice feature. I appreciate the developers setting up an interface without distractions, but I feel this should be balanced against the importance of letting users know when security updates are available. The second feature I had expected to see (and did not) was the WINE Windows compatibility software. LXLE is likely to appeal to a wide audience and, I suspect, people migrating from Windows XP will make up a large portion of the LXLE userbase. With that in mind, I feel having WINE included would be a suitable default. Still, WINE can be found in the project's software repositories and LXLE ships with enough functionality to appease most users.
All in all, I was happy with what LXLE has to offer. The distribution does a really good job of supplying a lot of functionality with a small resource footprint. The desktop environment is fairly lightweight, can be tailored to look familiar to a variety of users and is responsive. I found the system to be stable and easy to navigate. There were a few minor issues during my trial, but certainly no major problems. I think LXLE is a fine distribution for both ageing computers and new Linux users.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8 GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500 GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6 GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith and Ladislav Bodnar) |
A desktop designed for OpenBSD, openSUSE's artwork plans, Linux for your car, extra surveillance for Linux users
The OpenBSD operating system is well known for being secure, for having a clean design and for its accurate documentation. What OpenBSD is not typically known for is its role as a desktop operating system. The SimpleDE project may change that. SimpleDE is a desktop environment designed for the BSDs, particularly OpenBSD. SimpleDE tries not to tie itself to any particular platform and features detailed notes on getting the desktop environment installed on OpenBSD systems. The latest release of SimpleDE for OpenBSD 5.5 along with its release notes can be found on the Daemon Forums.
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One of the more important aspects of designing a desktop environment is consistency. The openSUSE project, known for its green palette and gecko mascot, is looking to update its artwork and design guidelines, making for a more consistent look across supported desktop environments. "Two of SUSE’s professional designers, and also members of the openSUSE community (of course) Kenneth Wimer and Zvezdana Marjanović, have decided to create new artwork and branding guidelines to freshen up, modernize and uniform the openSUSE brand, making it good looking, unique and homogeneous across the whole product spectrum."
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Many of us use Linux on our desktop computers, on our servers and on our smart phones, so why not use Linux to run your car? The Linux Foundation posted an update last week about running a Linux-based software stack for automobiles. From the report on Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) states: "AGL is building the industry's only fully open automotive platform, allowing automakers to leverage a growing software stack based on Linux while retaining the ability to create their own branded user experience. Standardizing on a single platform means the industry can rapidly innovate where it counts to create a safe and reliable connected car experience." More details on the AGL project can be found on the Linux Foundation's website.
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Back in 2006 this website published an April Fools article that jokingly hinted at a possibility of Linux users being looked at as extremists and even terrorists by the authorities in certain countries. Little did we know that in 2014 this proposition does indeed become a fact of life, at least in the minds of security personnel of a certain security organisation. As the Linux Journal magazine revealed last week, those of us who use the privacy-preserving Tails distribution and who read the Linux Journal magazine, are now labelled as "extremists" by USA's National Security Agency (NSA) and placed under increased surveillance: "While it has been revealed before that the NSA captures just about all Internet traffic for a short time, the Tagesschau story provides new details about how the NSA's XKEYSCORE program decides which traffic to keep indefinitely. XKEYSCORE uses specific selectors to flag traffic, and the article reveals that web searches for Tor and Tails - software I've covered here in Linux Journal that helps to protect a user's anonymity and privacy on the Internet - are among the selectors that will flag you as 'extremist' and targeted for further surveillance."
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Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Home security basics
Locking-the-front-door asks: I am a home user and pretty new to Linux. What are some basic security tips for those of us running Linux on a laptop at home who don't need fancy (complicated) security?
DistroWatch answers: The first thing I would suggest you do is turn off any network services running on your home computer. Many distributions ship with network services enabled and these services can act as a doorway for remote attacks. Distributions often enable, by default, the OpenSSH secure shell server, an e-mail server, Samba network shares or the CUPS printing software. Disabling these services (assuming you don't need them) is a good way to reduce the number of ways an attacker could access your computer. If you aren't sure how to disable network services, please ask on your distribution's support forum.
One quick way to check if any network services are running on your computer is to install the nmap network scanner. Open up a terminal and run the following command:
nmap localhost
If nmap finds any services running on your computer, then it will list them, one per line like this:
22/tcp open ssh 631/tcp open ipp
The above example lets us know there are two network services running on our computer and these should probably be disabled.
Another good idea is to keep up with your distribution's security updates. A modern operating system is a complex and large collection of software. People are constantly finding problems with existing software and issuing fixes to correct these problems. Most distributions release software updates every week. I recommend setting a reminder for yourself to check for updates every day at a certain time (or at least once a week). Checking for software updates just takes a minute out of your day and can correct a lot of problems before the bad guys come knocking. Some distributions will automatically let you know when security updates are available and will even download updates for you, so check the settings of your distribution's package manager to see if you can automate the process.
Another thing you can do, which relates to security updates, is to make sure you are using a distribution which is still supported. Some distributions have short life cycles and might no longer receive support without warning. Check with your distribution's website to find out if the version of your operating system is still being supported.
Try to avoid downloading software that is not part of a trusted software repository. Linux distributions supply most of the software you are likely to need in their software repositories. Steps are typically taken to make sure the applications in these repositories do what they claim to do and nothing else. This means installing applications through your distribution's package manager is usually safe. Where a lot of malware comes from is third-party websites, or websites which imitate trusted third-party vendors. Try to avoid downloading software from websites and stick with the software your distribution provides.
Likewise, avoid running packages e-mailed to you or opening attachments from people if you were not expecting them to send you something. Every day my inbox receives as least one e-mail with a malicious attachment, ignoring them is a good way to protect your computer and your identity.
Most modern web browsers support extensions which make you safer on-line. Install extensions such as NoScript in your browser. This allows you to filter out scripts from all but the websites you trust. Installing extensions like HTTPS Everywhere is also a good way to protect your login credentials when you visit websites and forums.
To sum up, try to avoid running software and services you don't need. Make sure the software you do run is up to date and supported. Don't open or install files from unknown or untrusted sources, stick to official software repositories. And, finally, install security extensions in your web browser. These steps won't make you immune to security threats, but they will protect against many common attacks.
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Released Last Week |
antiX 14.2 "MX"
A bug-fix release of antiX 14 "MX" edition, a variant of antiX developed in collaboration with the MEPIS Community and featuring the Xfce desktop, has been released: "MX-14.2 'Symbiosis' bug-fix upgrade release available. Upgraded bug-fix versions (PAE and non-PAE) of MX-14 are now available. This version has fixed some bugs found in MX-14.1.1 and Debian upstream. LibreOffice updated to the 4.2.5 version; Google search engine bug fixed; toned down faulty hard drive error when installing; image files open with mirage; wl modules for Broadcom wireless now on the CD image; updated documentation." Visit the project's home page to read the brief release announcement.
Zentyal 3.5
José Antonio Calvo has announced the release of Zentyal 3.5, a major new version of the project's server distribution - now based on Ubuntu 14.04: "The Zentyal development team is proud to announce the release of Zentyal 3.5, a new Zentyal Server Community edition. Zentyal Server is the open-source alternative to Windows Small Business Server, including native replacements to Microsoft Active Directory and Microsoft Exchange Server. Among all the changes Zentyal 3.5 introduces, we would like to put the focus on: new base distribution: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 'Trusty'; removal of synchronization with OpenLDAP; support for Microsoft Outlook 2010 and inbox refresh improved; removal of some modules (L7 Filter, FTP, Zarafa, User Corner, Captive Portal and Bandwidth Monitor) to focus on the rest." Read the release announcement for upgrade instructions and see the detailed changelog for a long list of improvements.
Clonezilla Live 2.2.3-25
Steven Shiau has released a new stable version of Clonezilla Live, a Debian-based specialist live CD for disk imaging and cloning tasks: "This release of Clonezilla live (2.2.3-25) includes major enhancements and bug fixes. Enhancements and changes: the underlying GNU/Linux operating system has been upgraded, this release is based on the Debian 'Sid' repository as of 2014-07-01; Linux kernel has been updated to 3.14.7; the drbl package has been updated to 2.9.9 and Clonezilla has been updated to 3.10.26; syslinux has been updated to 6.03-pre17; the makeboot.sh script has been patched to support XFS, UFS and FFS; the ca_ES, de_DE, es_ES, fr_FR, it_IT, ja_JP.UTF-8 and sk_SK language files have been updated; a testing program 'ocs-img-2-vdk' has been added, it can be used to convert Clonezilla image as virtual disk file (qcow2 and vmdk) via KVM...." Read the release announcement for a full list of changes and enhancements.
Calculate Linux 13.19
Alexander Tratsevskiy has announced the release of Calculate Linux 13.19, an updated version of the Gentoo-based distribution with separate flavours for desktops (with KDE or Xfce), servers and media centres: "We are happy to announce that Calculate Linux 13.19, the last of the 13th, has been released. CL 14 is coming soon after, with many new features, such as totally rewritten assemble & compilation utilities, GUI and command-line updater, automatic update check, new approach to profiles. Major changes: software update: Linux kernel 3.14.9, KDE 4.13.2, LibreOffice 4.2.5, Chromium 35; a configuration tool for Shorewall has been added to CLD, CLDX, CDS and CMC; exFAT is now supported in CLD, CLDX and CMC; CLD and CLDX have PulseAudio support...." Read the rest of the release announcement for a full list of changes.
Ultimate Edition 4.2
TheeMahn has announced the release of Ultimate Edition 4.2, an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the MATE 1.8 desktop environment: "Ultimate Edition 4.2 was built from the ground up debootstrapped from the Ubuntu 14.04 'Trusty Thar' tree using Tmosb (TheeMahn's Operating System Builder) which is also included in this release. This release is a long-term support (LTS) release, supported until the year 2019. This release is most certainly worthy of the Ultimate Edition title. What makes this operating system different then any other operating system on the entire planet? The entire Mate 1.8 repository was first repo-stormed by a world-changing application I am developing. I have told the world it was coming. I have included many, many tools I am constructing that reside under the hood of virtually all Ultimate Edition releases." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details.
Deepin 2014
Chen Xiang Bang has announced the release of Deepin 2014, a new stable version of the Ubuntu-based community distribution with a custom desktop environment that bears the same name: "Deepin 2014 release - hold your dream and move forward. Deepin is a Linux distribution that aims to provide an elegant, user-friendly, safe and stable operating system for global users. Based on HTML5 technologies, Deepin team has developed a series of new special software applications, such as Deepin Desktop Environment, Deepin Music Player, DPlayer and Deepin Software Center. Deepin 2014 brings a brand-new Deepin Desktop Environment 2.0, with a specially designed Deepin theme, which makes the overall style and appearance of Deepin 2014 unified, neat and tidy. It also adds convenient features, such as user guide, starter Chinese phonetic search and intuitive hot zone settings." See the release announcement for a full list of improvements and plenty of screenshots.
Deepin 2014 - an Ubuntu-based distribution developed in China (full image size: 844kB, screen resolution 1440x900 pixels)
4MLinux 9.0
Zbigniew Konojacki has announced the release of 4MLinux 9.0, a minimalist and lightweight desktop Linux distribution with JWM as the preferred window manager: "The status of the 4MLinux 9.0 series has been changed to stable. The final release has all the features included in 4MLinux 9.0 Rescue edition, 4MLinux 9.0 Media edition, 4MLinux 9.0 Server edition, and 4MLinux 9.0 Game edition. I do not use code names in 4MLinux, but if I did this would be 'nerdy' for the 9.0 series. You can install development packages just in one click. Some of the packages (e.g. full versions of Python and Perl) can be used by both programmers and webmasters. An option to download and install the vanilla version of Clang with LLVM has also been added." Visit the project's news page on Blogspot to read the brief release announcement and to see a screenshot of the desktop.
4MLinux 9.0 - a minimalist distribution with JWM (full image size: 365kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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DistroWatch.com News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
DistroWatch.com domain name status
As many of you noticed, the distrowatch.com domain name was suspended by the domain's registrar, Doteasy, last Sunday. I don't want to go into details about what exactly happened as it's a long and boring story. Suffice to say that I feel grossly aggrieved by the series of greedy and even malicious actions taken by Doteasy and as soon as I get this sorted out, I will be looking into transferring the distrowatch.com domain name to another registrar. If any of you have a recommendation for a good registrar (preferably with customer support personnel that is competent), please let me know in the comments section below or send me an email.
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June 2014 DistroWatch.com donation: SME Server
We are pleased to announce that the recipient of the June 2014 DistroWatch.com donation is SME Server, a specialist CentOS-based Linux distribution for servers. The project receives US$350.00 in cash.
Those of you who were frequenting this website in its early days might remember the name e-smith (here is a review of e-smith by Linux Journal from 2001), a well-regarded distribution for which we received much praise at the time. It was a commercial offering, but the company behind it did not last and eventually it was the community of users and developers at contribs.org who took it under their wings, renaming the distro in the process. Wikipedia's SME Server page describes the product as follows: "SME Server (formerly known as e-smith) is a Linux distribution based on CentOS offering an operating system for computers used as web, file, email and database servers. It employs a comprehensive UI for all management-related tasks and is extensible through templates. The letters SME stand for Small to Medium Enterprise, as that is the target market of the software. One of the most notable features of this distribution is its template system." See also the project's About page for a description of the product's main features.
Launched in 2004, this monthly donations programme is a DistroWatch initiative to support free and open-source software projects and operating systems with cash contributions. Readers are welcome to nominate their favourite project for future donations. Those readers who wish to contribute towards these donations, please use our advertising page to make a payment (PayPal, credit cards, Yandex Money and Bitcoins are accepted). Here is the list of the projects that have received a DistroWatch donation since the launch of the programme (figures in US dollars):
- 2004: GnuCash ($250), Quanta Plus ($200), PCLinuxOS ($300), The GIMP ($300), Vidalinux ($200), Fluxbox ($200), K3b ($350), Arch Linux ($300), Kile KDE LaTeX Editor ($100) and UNICEF - Tsunami Relief Operation ($340)
- 2005: Vim ($250), AbiWord ($220), BitTorrent ($300), NDISwrapper ($250), Audacity ($250), Debian GNU/Linux ($420), GNOME ($425), Enlightenment ($250), MPlayer ($400), Amarok ($300), KANOTIX ($250) and Cacti ($375)
- 2006: Gambas ($250), Krusader ($250), FreeBSD Foundation ($450), GParted ($360), Doxygen ($260), LilyPond ($250), Lua ($250), Gentoo Linux ($500), Blender ($500), Puppy Linux ($350), Inkscape ($350), Cape Linux Users Group ($130), Mandriva Linux ($405, a Powerpack competition), Digikam ($408) and Sabayon Linux ($450)
- 2007: GQview ($250), Kaffeine ($250), sidux ($350), CentOS ($400), LyX ($350), VectorLinux ($350), KTorrent ($400), FreeNAS ($350), lighttpd ($400), Damn Small Linux ($350), NimbleX ($450), MEPIS Linux ($300), Zenwalk Linux ($300)
- 2008: VLC ($350), Frugalware Linux ($340), cURL ($300), GSPCA ($400), FileZilla ($400), MythDora ($500), Linux Mint ($400), Parsix GNU/Linux ($300), Miro ($300), GoblinX ($250), Dillo ($150), LXDE ($250)
- 2009: Openbox ($250), Wolvix GNU/Linux ($200), smxi ($200), Python ($300), SliTaz GNU/Linux ($200), LiVES ($300), Osmo ($300), LMMS ($250), KompoZer ($360), OpenSSH ($350), Parted Magic ($350) and Krita ($285)
- 2010: Qimo 4 Kids ($250), Squid ($250), Libre Graphics Meeting ($300), Bacula ($250), FileZilla ($300), GCompris ($352), Xiph.org ($250), Clonezilla ($250), Debian Multimedia ($280), Geany ($300), Mageia ($470), gtkpod ($300)
- 2011: CGSecurity ($300), OpenShot ($300), Imagination ($250), Calibre ($300), RIPLinuX ($300), Midori ($310), vsftpd ($300), OpenShot ($350), Trinity Desktop Environment ($300), LibreCAD ($300), LiVES ($300), Transmission ($250)
- 2012: GnuPG ($350), ImageMagick ($350), GNU ddrescue ($350), Slackware Linux ($500), MATE ($250), LibreCAD ($250), BleachBit ($350), cherrytree ($260), Zim ($335), nginx ($250), LFTP ($250), Remastersys ($300)
- 2013: MariaDB ($300), Linux From Scratch ($350), GhostBSD ($340), DHCP ($300), DOSBox ($250), awesome ($300), DVDStyler ($280), Tor ($350), Tiny Tiny RSS ($350), FreeType ($300), GNU Octave ($300), Linux Voice ($510)
- 2014: QupZilla ($250), Pitivi ($370), MediaGoblin ($350), TrueCrypt ($300), Krita ($340), SME Server ($350)
Since the launch of the Donations Program in March 2004, DistroWatch has donated a total of US$40,125 to various open-source software projects.
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New distributions added to database
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Ubuntu MATE Remix. Ubuntu MATE Remix is an Ubuntu-based operating system which features the MATE desktop environment.
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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, 14 July 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 • Online again (by libernux on 2014-07-07 10:15:04 GMT from Netherlands)
Good to have you back online. Please continue this great achievement.
2 • Details please (by Leo on 2014-07-07 10:37:22 GMT from United States)
I'm going to guess your problem is that you use too many resources for a discount hosting company.
I currently use tigertech.net for hosting. For a discount hosting company they are very responsive and helpful. In fact they're more helpful than some full-price companies.
However, I suspect distrowatch has grown to the point that it needs a real hosting company. I unfortunately don't have a recommendation for that.
3 • Good to have you back, extremists! :P (by kneekoo on 2014-07-07 11:17:35 GMT from Romania)
There's also this host: distrowatch.gdsw.at
What's up with that? Is it some out-of-sync mirror or what? What can we consider safe for browsing DistroWatch? I mean safe enough not to fall into the hands of other extremists, of course. :))
4 • The true extremists (by Raphaël on 2014-07-07 11:42:16 GMT from Switzerland)
The true extremists are NSA and other surveillance agencies, as they do not respect human right, which includes the right to privacy.
5 • @4 (by Frank on 2014-07-07 12:39:57 GMT from Germany)
in their eyes you (that is the PERSON = LEGAL FICTION = STRAW MAN that represents you) are not even human so obv you have no human rights in the so called western "democracies"
they made companies of almost all of our countries and public authorities !
search for : freeman of the land movement, straw man, birth certificate, black's law dictionary, DUNS number of ALL "states" and public authorities , legalese , ... for more infos!
And NO it is not a conspiracy theory !
Sovereign human being in court :
... Case dismissed with cause and prejudice, NOTE THE JUDGE BOWING before he abandoned the court. ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMwSrZQa7BI
NOTE THE JUDGE BOWING before he abandoned the court NOTE THE JUDGE BOWING before he abandoned the court NOTE THE JUDGE BOWING before he abandoned the court
6 • Now for something completely different (by Huge Mess on 2014-07-07 13:25:20 GMT from Mexico)
I guess the distrowatchers would like to read something not related to the .com shutdown so... er... ehm... If I had to choose between LXLE or Lubuntu, which one should I choose and why? (Just kidding, my old PC is in love with LM13, LM17 acts a bit funny in ti so...)
7 • hosts (by Juancho on 2014-07-07 13:26:24 GMT from Argentina)
Hi,
yeah my guess was also about exeeded traffic... anyway Hostcentric.com has been quite quick and collaborative the couple of times I had any issues.
It is US based though...
I would use an EU registrar and DNS, have the .org hosted there and maybe the .com hosted in the US to offer a lower latency to the bigger trafic source (IF it is the US)
Hope you sort it out soon. Regards
8 • Welcome Back (by Mikko on 2014-07-07 14:20:23 GMT from Guernsey)
Glad to have found "my favourite" site once again. Well done to the team for all your work and and my thanks for all the information you publish on Distrowatch. Greatly valued. Mikko.
9 • Distrowatch.com problem (by AnklefaceWrouhtlandmire on 2014-07-07 14:39:56 GMT from Ecuador)
Guys/gals, the problem isn't with Distrowatch's web host, which is why you are currently reading this page. The problem is that the domain name REGISTRAR for the distrowatch.com domain name is being a scumbag as most registrars are.
10 • Domain (by Ramsey Brenner on 2014-07-07 14:52:11 GMT from United States)
Sorry to hear about the domain name. We use name.com.. I've talked to them a few times, and they seem knowledgeable. I've also heard good things about NameCheap and Gandi (I've probably heard more good reviews about these two than name.com). All 3 opposed SOPA.
11 • WTF domain registrar, it's not the first week on a new month, you incompentent! (by RJA on 2014-07-07 15:01:56 GMT from United States)
The registrar is being a scum and possibly a lying scum, too!
12 • Domain (by Ed on 2014-07-07 15:34:53 GMT from United States)
I have used mydomain.com for years and never had any trouble. Still using them today.
13 • NSA Flags Tor & Tails as Extremists (by G. Savage on 2014-07-07 15:56:57 GMT from Canada)
I never felt compelled to try them... 'til now. :-)
14 • Registrar (by Zsolt on 2014-07-07 16:06:04 GMT from Hungary)
Move to Gandi. They are primary supporters of various FLOSS and other good projects, organizations.
15 • market share (by meanpt on 2014-07-07 16:10:35 GMT from Portugal)
finally the NSA will be the right entity and maybe the most diligent one to provide us with an acurate estimate of the linux market share ... :) ham ... in the end, they will have to keep a register of all the linux users and installations :) ... but I'm not shure if they will include their own linux instalations and usage :)
16 • distrowatch outage (by frodopogo on 2014-07-07 17:07:35 GMT from United States)
"distrowatch.com " is still not working for me. "distrowatch.org" is what I'm using to type this.
17 • Registrar (by Donald 'Schultz' Stewart on 2014-07-07 17:29:41 GMT from United Kingdom)
Mageia use Gandi and they seem to be very good, while I'm not in a position to give a recommendation from all of Mageia for Gandi, they do seem very reasonable and reliable.
18 • tor + tails (by anonymous on 2014-07-07 18:26:42 GMT from United States)
It's amazing the number of people that are willing to support the pedophiles, child pornographers, drug pushers, murderers, and trolls that use tor to attempt to remain anonymous.
19 • tor + tails (by wolf on 2014-07-07 18:53:58 GMT from Germany)
@18 Indeed the number of nitwits giving up privacy for no reason at all exceeds those 'supporters' you mention exponentially cause they are just like you uniformed spoiled little children that in my view wouldn't get access to computers or smartphones if I had something to say. But you can be a proud member of the majority and waste your data away.... let's see who gets the better deals with insurance companies or banks, maybe someday you want to get elected for some position... lets see how far you can control your Big Data like loans or political leanings. Be assured that even this statement might come up at the most inconvenient time in your life and bite you in your ass. But please don't start thinking now cause in your case I suppose thinking hurts.
20 • *.org (by Hagg Yatfleep Kolosheffenhyde on 2014-07-07 19:33:36 GMT from United States)
Thank goodness for dot org. ;)
21 • @18 (anonymous) (by kneekoo on 2014-07-07 19:37:35 GMT from Romania)
So you chose the name "anonymous" because you are some pedophile, child pornographer, drug pusher, murderer or troll?
22 • National Piracy Agency, etc (by :wq on 2014-07-07 19:46:08 GMT from United States)
"While it has been revealed before that _the NSA captures just about all Internet traffic_ for a short time, the Tagesschau story provides new details about how the NSA's XKEYSCORE program decides which traffic to keep indefinitely." Which makes the NSA the biggest pirate of all.
@7 "I would use an EU registrar and DNS, have the .org hosted there and maybe the .com hosted in the US to offer a lower latency to the bigger trafic source (IF it is the US)" http://distrowatch.org/awstats/awstats.DistroWatch.com.alldomains.html While those numbers don't tell the whole story of where DistroWatch visitors are in the world, even if you make allowances for location obfuscation, the US should still likely be the largest national source of traffic.
@18 "It's amazing the number of people that are willing to support the pedophiles, child pornographers, drug pushers, murderers, and trolls that use tor to attempt to remain anonymous." I hope that your "anonymous" comment was meant to be ironic. If not, I will say that no one I have encountered who supports Tor does so out of support of the aforementioned people. But all users of Tor shouldn't be lumped together. While obviously I don't know who does what with Tor (and I don't really care to), I imagine that users of Tor likely resemble a cross section of society / the world. "Pedophiles, child pornographers, drug pushers, murderers, and trolls" could use prepaid mobile phones to conduct their activities as well. Even binoculars could allow these kinds of people to prey from relatively anonymity. I'm not prepared to go on a wild-goose chase for a bogeyman around every corner. It just isn't an efficient use of resources. There are other ways to guard against bad people (and perhaps even prevent some of these people from taking wrong turns in life to start with) without treating everyone as guilty.
23 • @LXDE, Deepin, Ultimate Edition 4.2 lite, NSA (by NoHellsBelles on 2014-07-07 20:45:48 GMT from United States)
LXDE: Only a torrent download? What about sourceforge or copy.com for a free direct download? No UEFI support=deal breaker.
Deepin: IMHO looks nice, modern and light on resources 500MB at DE. Deepin has their "own" media apps+
Ultimate Edition 4.2 lite: This looks like A LOT of work into this release. A x86_64bit release...thus far. Fingers "crossed" for UEFI support.
NSA: Pffffftt. Demonic excuses, for them to spy on everyone. Don't be fooled...again.
24 • Distrowatch Web Problems (by Dummy Up on 2014-07-07 20:59:01 GMT from United States)
It continues to amaze me how a lot of the geeks have little to no idea how the internet actually works (as far as IPv4 goes, anyway). Distrowatch.COM (the TLD in this case being .com) seems to have some registration problems that are ultimately up to ICANN (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN). And ICANN may or may not be under some sort of duress with an entity like the NSA. But that's hardly even an issue since understanding how DNS works is the real key.
That said, it really boils down to someone else claiming rights to the name "distrowatch.com" and/or their ability to accept traffic. And since that other entity seems to be some company calling itself doteasy (sorry, I have never heard of this company) the problem really seems to exist with them -- not the actual content provider. Fortunately, the TLD ".org" was not registered the same way or is at least owned by someone else, probably as a backup. Otherwise, you wouldn't likely be reading this (as the distrowatch.com URL is still not correctly resolving at the time I am writing this).
You can blame reprehensible organizations like the NSA (a necessary evil, if you ask me) or you can blame whoever is actually at fault. Because the problem I was told was that some group of people have been DDOSing (distributed denial of service) the URL distrowatch.com and apparently causing problems for this doteasy company's servers. So in response, doteasy (probably under durress from their backbone/ISP) has apparently redirected the distrowatch.com URL which would seem to be a pretty weenie solution since it really boils down to the way they have their servers set up and how they are tied into the internet.
I can almost hear the arguments where doteasy is claiming the website owner has done something wrong and/or upset a large number of users to be attracting this DDOS attack. Though it's my guess that doteasy was never really set up to accept the enormous amount of traffic and/or is likely trying to shake down the web site content provider for more money because they are also being shaken down. Personally, I blame the ISP's for this kind of mentality which has now been green-lighted by the FCC and it's criminal-minded head, Tom Wheeler (who seem to be on a crusade to kill net neutrality). One only needs to look at what Netflix did with Comcast to see this kind of shake down coming for even more popular web sites.
25 • LXLE Review (by Ronnie Whisler on 2014-07-07 21:24:43 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the positive review Jesse, just wanted to let you know that security updates are downloaded and installed automatically by default, checking for updates is only necessary for regular programs. Perhaps I should made that more clear on the site. Thanks again, much appreciated.
26 • DistroWatch.com domain name status (by Statler Waldorf on 2014-07-07 21:44:54 GMT from United States)
FWIW, I've used Pair Networks ( pair.com / pairnic.com ) for years and have been extremely happy with them. Can't remember ever experiencing any downtime.
27 • Light Lini; The Minnow Tor his Tail(s) (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2014-07-07 21:51:48 GMT from United States)
For a Huge Mess, consider how some websites make a token show of concern for user privacy while mandating genuflecting to The Mighty Goog for access to participation. That said, one alternative may be more Lite than another - minimal versus efficient.
The price of freedom for all includes freedom for someone ... else ... or, in truth, none.
28 • @18 tor + tails (by anonymous) (by zk1234 on 2014-07-07 21:55:55 GMT from Poland)
From Wikipedia : "As of 2012, 80% of the Tor Project's $2M annual budget comes from the United States government". It looks that @18 wants to say that the United States government is a group of "pedophiles, child pornographers, drug pushers, murderers, and trolls that use tor to attempt to remain anonymous".
29 • LXDE and torrent (by Ben Myers on 2014-07-07 21:57:33 GMT from United States)
I complained at the LXDE web site re. its torrent-only download policy. I don't remember the response, but my complaint was not looked upon favorably. Torrent-only downloads are good way to scare away the less sophisticated and mostly unwashed potential users. I did do a torrent download and concluded that the desktop was not very slick.
30 • A better registrar (by David T on 2014-07-07 22:02:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
I used NameHog (namehog.net) for many years without any issue. I only moved from them when I stopped self-hosting to a hosted service as part of a new ISP contract. Very good support when needed, and all-round nice guys to deal with.
31 • (•ิ_•ิ)? (by :wq on 2014-07-07 22:08:25 GMT from United States)
@24 "You can blame reprehensible organizations like the NSA (a necessary evil, if you ask me) or you can blame whoever is actually at fault." Who is blaming the NSA for the Doteasy mess?
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20140707#news http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20140707#sitenews
32 • Domain Registrar (by dhinds on 2014-07-07 22:53:50 GMT from Mexico)
I've used mydomain.com with no problems to date.
33 • a better registrar (by Steve L on 2014-07-07 23:14:09 GMT from United States)
definitely recommend http://register4less.com/
34 • Domain Registrar (by Sebastien Gagnon on 2014-07-07 23:39:01 GMT from Canada)
10 years at Godaddy.com with seven domains names and I receive a very good service and zero problems !!
35 • LXLE (by (-o.O-) on 2014-07-08 00:18:55 GMT from United States)
"It is designed to be a drop-in and go OS, primarily for ageing computers." "The latest release of LXLE supports one architecture, 64-bit x86..." Ummm, what?? I mean absolutely no disrespect to the developers, but what niche is this lovely distro hoping to inhabit?
36 • LXLE torrent only downloads, UEFI (by Ronnie Whisler on 2014-07-08 00:26:54 GMT from United States)
Crunchbang does the same thing with torrent only downloads, LXLE is a big iso and torrents are faster than direct downloads, its also to support decentralization. Chances are if you can't manage a torrent download, you won't be successful using Linux. Installing lxle on UEFI machines can be done using elan. I'm not a supporter of uefi at all and feel its nothing more than an MS attempt of being paid for Linux installs. Hope this helps explain and solve a few questions posted here. Cheers
37 • 64bit only? (by Ronnie Whisler on 2014-07-08 00:33:04 GMT from United States)
I followed Bodhi Linux's lead and provided an updated version of 12.04.4 for 32bit machines to better support aging hardware. It's essentially all the updates of 14.04 wrap in 12.04.4 kernel/modules/drivers. All the software and features have been updated to be identical to the 14.04 release that is 64bit only. This is addressed in the release notes. The updated 12.04.4 is titled 12.04.4 Revisited, and is available for download. Particularly for 32bit machines, graphics cards and the like are better supported under that release. I try to make sure our roadmap is backed up by other well known distributions and their ideas and viewpoints. Hope this helps clear up the confusion.
38 • Don't panic, next time go here... (by cykodrone on 2014-07-08 01:22:34 GMT from Canada)
http://distrowatch.org/ or here... http://distrowatch.gds.tuwien.ac.at/ The latter is a bit slower to sync to the main site.
39 • Project for DW readers (by davnel on 2014-07-08 01:35:31 GMT from United States)
WE are now well into the XP fiasco. The world needs a distro of Linux that looks and acts like Windows so the XP folks can get off of it. What distro do you think works best? Enquiring minds want to know.
40 • Moving to a new domain registrar (by ladislav on 2014-07-08 01:44:05 GMT from Taiwan)
Many thanks to all who have taken the time to write in and suggest a new domain name registrar for distrowatch.com. As you can imagine there have been many suggestions, but the one that came up most frequently was gandi.net, a Paris-based registrar. Apparently, this company is also very Linux-friendly and has an excellent customer support. I've initiated the transfer already and hope there won't be any disruption to the service. As such, we can close this topic.
I'd like to dispel some of the speculations that appeared here and elsewhere - there was never a problem with the bandwidth or the hosting of the website. Our hosting company (EasySpeedy, based in Denmark) is a separate entity from the domain registrar (Doteasy, based in Canada). It was simply a matter of the domain registrar unilaterally imposing a charge on a service that I had never asked for, don't need and won't use. When I refused to pay, they simply disabled the domain, even though the issue had been sorted out (or so I thought) with a support technician. Of course, Doteasy doesn't do technical support on weekends, but they are quite happy to disable your website on a Saturday night! As they say, fool me once and... well, you know the rest.
One good thing that came up from all of this was all the great support and many worried posts on Linux/IT websites around the world - from major ones like ZDNet to smaller blogs in Canada, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Iran and other countries, everybody seemed worried. That's nice to know :-) So thanks everybody for support; rest assured that DistroWatch is not going anywhere (at least not intentionally).
41 • OpenBSD SimpleDE Desktop (by Gilbert Sanford on 2014-07-08 01:52:54 GMT from United States)
OpenBSD user for 7 years . . .OpenBSD is simply *ready* out of the box: cwm (or twm or fvwm,) xterm, vi (nvi,) lynx, sshd, smtpd, nginx, and so many more :) So I need only to add firefox (30.0, no less,) chrome (35.0.1916.155,) php (5.5.14,) and mysql-server (5.1.73,) and we're getting work done. Occasionally, I need the Gimp (2.8.4,) Libreoffice (4.1.6.2v0,) and epdfview.
One of the easiest systems to install and maintain. Did you notice the version numbers on the mainstream software? (with the exception of mysql-server, but, hey, mariadb 10.0.12 is in ports!) Benefits of running -current. Oh yes, I forgot, my desktop background looks great with `xsetroot -solid black` and, well, you just ought to see the green on black in xterm using the inconsolata font.
Don't suppose I'll be looking for some other desktop any time soon. As I've mentioned in the past, I hope you enjoy your computing system as much as I enjoy mine :) OpenBSD is definitely one of the great OS's in this modern age. Try it sometime.
Gilbert
"A computer never lies. Never trust a computer."
42 • @36 Ronnie Whisler (by Ass-umptionsFlyswithHoney on 2014-07-08 01:56:56 GMT from United States)
"Chances are if you can't manage a torrent download, you won't be successful using Linux."
Nice comment. What if is just a comfort level. Bittorrent, actually is simple to do.
"I'm not a supporter of uefi at all and feel its nothing more than an MS attempt of being paid for Linux installs."
Nice and friendly!!! So much for the new MS Windows converts.
43 • @40 This can't be good for Doteasy's reputation (by cykodrone on 2014-07-08 02:09:17 GMT from Canada)
I'm not surprised at the attempted 'extortion', seems to be a trend among 'services' these days (I too have been a 'victim'). This is bad press for your former registrar, half the world's nerds and IT people come here, lol, dumb move on their part.
44 • @36 UEFI (by Rev_Don on 2014-07-08 02:28:10 GMT from United States)
You said: "I'm not a supporter of uefi at all and feel its nothing more than an MS attempt of being paid for Linux installs."
I think you are confusing UEFI and Secure Boot. UEFI is a much needed update for the outdated BIOS and is long overdue.There is NO problem with UEFI period. Microsoft doesn't get anything from the use of UEFI.
The problem is with Secure Boot as that is the proprietary technology that Microsoft charges licenses for. My computers have UEFI and I have absolutely NO problem installing any Linux distro made in the last 5 or 6 years on them. They don't have Secure Boot though which is why there isn't a problem.
45 • Gandi +1 (by :wq on 2014-07-08 02:36:31 GMT from United States)
Unless I'm mistaken, in addition to Mageia.Org, Gandi SAS is the registrar of choice for the Linux Kernel Organization, the GNU Project, the FSF, the Debian Project, the FreeBSD project, the GNOME Project, and the LDP, amongst others, so I'm pretty sure the transition will be a painless one (at least on Gandi's end).
46 • The world needs a distro of Linux that looks and acts like Windows (by Carling on 2014-07-08 02:49:06 GMT from United States)
@ 39 davnel
Try Zorin 8 it will let you have Xp, W7 and Mac desktops at the click of the mouse button
http://Zorin-os.com
47 • @23 LXDE torrent only (by KeepItReal on 2014-07-08 02:52:05 GMT from United States)
"What about sourceforge or copy.com for a free direct download?" Yep for real, and there are many other free hosting sites.
Ummmm....wait a minute. http://sourceforge.net/projects/lxle/ There is a Beta download. WTH??? I smell funk there.
48 • LXLE (by PhantomTramp on 2014-07-08 02:56:11 GMT from United States)
I think LXLE is also a fine distribution for both ageing users and new Linux computers.
The Tramp
49 • @29 LXDE torrent (by BeamInEye on 2014-07-08 02:57:05 GMT from United States)
"I complained at the LXDE web site re. its torrent-only download policy. I don't remember the response, but my complaint was not looked upon favorably. Torrent-only downloads are good way to scare away the less sophisticated and mostly unwashed potential users."
Say What? With a comment/attitude like that, why bother? Sounds like a lost soul and other issues.
50 • domain (by Josh Gunderson on 2014-07-08 03:28:19 GMT from United States)
I've used 1&1 for years for hosting and included domain name. Granted, I get approximately zero traffic as I just have it for tinkering. ;)
51 • domain registrar (by jeferson on 2014-07-08 03:36:31 GMT from United States)
Well, its not much, but if you are having problems try HOSTGATOR, it's the domain register for the site www.vivaolinux.com.br.
52 • TOR, TAILS and the NSA (by Peter Besenbruch on 2014-07-08 03:42:52 GMT from Netherlands)
I have subscribed to Linux Journal, and used TOR and Tails. I basically do all my browsing via TOR. If more people used TOR, the NSA would have more work to do, so would all the companies that love tracking people. Just remember, wherever Distrowatch says I am from is likely not true. ;)
53 • best distro for XP refugees (by frodopogo on 2014-07-08 03:47:39 GMT from United States)
@davnel, I migrated from XP to Linux Mint some years ago. I'm trying the different desktops for the latest version and am leaning towards the MATE desktop. I read a review of SOMETHING that said that the KDE desktop is best for ex-Windows users... BUT.... I don't have much RAM. Generally xfce and MATE desktops are better for older hardware and less RAM, KDE needs newer hardware and more RAM. Linux Mint 17 comes in a KDE version.
One of the problems with Linux coming from Windows is that in some things you have a bewildering amount of choices... like which distro, and then sometimes you have four or more choices of "desktops" for a distro!!! But then, when it comes to programs to run on your Linux distro, there may not be as many choices. One answer is that the best Windows-refugee friendly distro to have is the one that your local friendly Linux guru has! If they use it themselves, it's going to be easier for them to help you through any problems you have.
Another answer: Whichever one works best on your computer. Bugs are unpredictable as far as how they interact with a particular combination of computer hardware. A particular distro may work great for most people, but a few will have problems. Chances are another distro will work fine. This is one place where the variety of distros and desktops is actually an advantage.
Another paradox- Ubuntu itself is a very BAD choice for Windows refugees, since they seem to be into coming up with some hybrid of Mac and smartphone approaches. BUT.... it's good to have an Ubuntu BASED distro (like Mint) because it benefits from many programmers who write their programs to be compatible with Ubuntu. Windows users are used to having a LOT of software choices, so it makes sense to go with a distro that offers the biggest number of software choices.
54 • @36 & 44 (by 2BeeClear on 2014-07-08 04:32:10 GMT from United States)
Just to be clear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface#Secure_boot Interesting point: "Secure boot is supported by Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, and a number of Linux distributions including Fedora, OpenSuse, and Ubuntu."
FYI: For those who are interested http://planet.linuxdeepin.com/archives/7508 You can page, about half way down for Deepin Project's description of how they are handling: Deepin 2014 has perfectly supported BIOS and UEFI boot.
55 • @44 @42 @47 (by Ronnie Whisler on 2014-07-08 04:41:25 GMT from United States)
@44 I understand that technically UEFI and Secureboot are supposedly different however consider the following. Linus Torvalds quote“… the problem with EFI is that it actually superficially looks much better than the BIOS, but in practice it ends up being one of those things where it has few real advantages, and often just a lot of extra complexity because of the ‘new and improved’ interfaces that were largely defined by a committee.” Microsoft will be requiring that all Windows 8 devices have the hardened boot, which means a certificate-signed operating system is the only thing that will run on such a system. You can’t replace the UEFI system on the device with other, unencrypted, firmware. If all parts of the chain need to have a CA signature, then swapping out a machine’s signed EFI layer with, say, an unsigned BIOS or EFI would not work.
So to me, for the most part anyway, they are one in the same at least as far as supporting it is concerned since most PCs are still built with Windows in mind.
LXLE does install just fine on UEFI machines using elan so its very doable.
@42 There is nothing wrong or inherently bad about using torrents vs direct downloads, plenty of questionable software is served from a hosts, torrents received a bad rap because many choose to use it for piracy, that's not the fault of the protocol that's the fault of users in general. Crunchbang has been offering torrents only forever, and never, do I read a peep about their decision to do so.
@47 direct download from sourceforge are much more fit for ever changing beta testing, which is why sourceforge is used for direct downloads of the beta. I'm also just trying to support an idea of decentralization by using torrents.
I'm not going to explain myself anymore over something I do in my spare time and is offered for free along with support. I'm sorry if some of the decisions don't meet everyone's ideals, I thought perhaps a distro would be fun and interesting to do, however that is not turning out to be the case considering unwarranted backlashes over relatively superficial things. It's actually a fairly sad reality.
56 • @55 Ronnie Whisler (by River on 2014-07-08 07:29:37 GMT from United States)
LXLE seems to me, to be a fine distro, robust and yet lite on resources. IMO, I would not let the other people's comments, bother you. No worries, mate. Some, still have not learned why there are so many Linux distros/spins. Similar to software or tools, especially in Open Source, someone has an itch and makes their own and/or solves a problem. I am sure there are multitude of others that make a distribution, for their own personal use and share it with others or not.
I thank you kindly, for making your distro available to others. That is very generous of you. Much appreciated. :)
So you see, all these choices are good and if none meet your needs, you are free to make your own and share it how you like. It's all good. Take care.
57 • TOR & stuff (by M.Z. on 2014-07-08 08:00:33 GMT from United States)
@28 That reminded my of the story I heard on NPR about the US military funding the TOR thing initially. Does anyone else find a certain delicious irony in the fact that the US government started the thing that is an apparent thorn in the side of the NSA? What do the different branches of an organization do when one hand considers the other to be a terror threat?
@39 Give them Mint Cinnamon with the following theme installed:
http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/themes/view/287
There is also a Windows style menu applet:
http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/applets/view/168
Of course if just acting enough like windows for the average person to get along is all you want then any disto that targets ease of use & has either Cinnamon or KDE will fit perfectly. My mom asks a lot of annoying questions about using her computer because she doesn't feel comfortable on it, but she was doing just as well on KDE as Windows within a couple of minutes. I suspect the results would be much the same for Cinnamon.
58 • Replacement for XP (by Somewhat Reticent on 2014-07-08 08:20:29 GMT from United States)
No, it isn't "look-and-feel" the "world needs". It's access to functionality without high-learning-curve obscurities. That typically means, at minimum, basic and advanced GUI levels.
Microsoft didn't become a de-facto monopoly because their OS was better; far from it. But it was willing to do business - on both sides of every fence. It provided a robust (enough) platform. Trainable. Accessible. Standard.
It succeeded all too well. With luck (and effort) it may become as enduring as, say, the Volkswagen Beetle ...
59 • @37 - LXLE 12.04.4 Revisited (by Hoos on 2014-07-08 09:48:03 GMT from Singapore)
@Ronnie, I have a question:
When you say Revisited has "...all the updates of 14.04 wrap in 12.04.4 kernel/modules/drivers. All the software and features have been updated to be identical to the 14.04 release that is 64bit only. ", do you mean it's actually on the 14.04 repositories, save that you're using the 3.2+ kernel from 12.04 ?
Does that mean the installation will be recognised as 14.04 instead of 12.04?
60 • @59 (by Ronnie Whisler on 2014-07-08 10:08:54 GMT from United States)
No, its still 12.04.4, it has to be in order to take advantage of all the available modules and drivers that are in the repositories of that particular release, in other words, there are lets say nvidia drivers and the like that aren't even available in the 14.04 repositories anymore and or aren't compatible with 14.04 that many 32bit machines and its hardware might need for full performance and or support. 12.04.4 is supported for another three years which is exactly the same amount of time that Lubuntu & LXLE 14.04 is supported for, making it next to no difference between the release gap. I would suggest from here on out asking questions about LXLE be posted in the forums. This is a distrowatch comments page, not an LXLE support area. Lets try to respect that. Hope this clears things up.
61 • home network security (by corcaigher on 2014-07-08 10:34:02 GMT from United States)
When I checked my laptop for network services...I received the following output:
nmap localhost
Starting Nmap 6.40 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2014-07-08 06:27 EDT Nmap scan report for localhost (127.0.0.1) Host is up (0.00047s latency). Not shown: 995 closed ports PORT STATE SERVICE 139/tcp open netbios-ssn 445/tcp open microsoft-ds 631/tcp open ipp 3306/tcp open mysql 10000/tcp open snet-sensor-mgmt
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.09 seconds
...other than mysql, I have no idea why the other services are open. Are these necessary? How does one disable these services?
62 • @39 Davnel - Migrating from an other, older and unsopported operating system (by LMDE user on 2014-07-08 11:33:23 GMT from Canada)
I tried many flavours of Linux in the 2.5+ years that I've been experimenting with Linux after using another company's OSes basically since they started - certainly I'm no Linux Expert.
I like LinuxMint for various reasons. I like their Debian Edition because it's based on one of the oldest, most stable, mature, and secure Linux offerings (debian), and also because it's a 'rolling distribution,' meaning that as updates are made available, they can be applied to keep the system current (similar to the way the other brand's update worked, except their is no 'support ends on X date.')
I like the MATE desktop because it's light on resources, responds quickly, and looks good (to me at least).
My answer to your question is LinuxMint Debian Edition (LMDE) MATE. It doesn't look or work exactly the same as the other brand's, but a friend who used the other brand's OS and really doesn't know computers at all transitioned to LMDE MATE and has not had one problem adjusting.
Their are too many variables to say this will or will not work for you or anyone else.
63 • Good registrar (by Nesousx on 2014-07-08 12:12:01 GMT from France)
Hi,
Sorry to hear about your problems with your current registrar. I can highly and warmly advise you to go at https://www.gandi.net/.
They have good tech, and have a great philosophy: they love open source, and contribute to it, they also help local projects they like, etc.
I have been using them as registrar for years (and some hosting too here an then), both personally and professionally.
64 • @39 • Project for DW readers (by G Savage on 2014-07-08 12:46:44 GMT from Canada)
I second Zorin. They've worked really hard to make it look and feel like XP.
Be sure to back-up all your files, favorites as an html file, and address book as a .csv file.
Also, be sure to use the right version for your machine. If its a single core, 32 bit machine, probably Zorin 8 Lite is the safest bet.
Good luck - just go slow and you'll be fine.
65 • registrar (by Jason on 2014-07-08 13:45:56 GMT from United States)
after working for five years with most of the main domain registrars, transferring, updating, customer service issues, I've had the most consistant and best customer service experiences with enom. http://www.enomcentral.com/
66 • tor + tails and the NSA does not play well together. (by Garon on 2014-07-08 14:46:28 GMT from United States)
I'm surprised that people are still shocked at what the NSA tries to do. I guess that you could call me an extremist because what about incognito mode in a browser? When I use that does that make me an evil person? This is getting ridiculous. It seems that :wq has the most realistic take on the matter. The thing we cannot do is cave in to fear tactics. The NSA is not God or even Godlike but they do have a power play problem. They want to be the Almighty but for the life of them they can't figure out how. So sad.
67 • @63 gandi's slogan... (by cykodrone on 2014-07-08 16:41:56 GMT from Canada)
...motto: "No b*llsh*t", too funny. Now excuse while I wipe the coffee that came out my nose from laughing. :D
68 • Hosting Company (by John Wolfe on 2014-07-08 16:48:16 GMT from United States)
I've had a lot of good service with ICDsoft.com . I was hosted at their Hong Kong servers before the built their US ones. Support was fast and good.
69 • Gandi (by anonymous on 2014-07-08 17:51:56 GMT from United States)
W3C uses Gandi. Enough said.
70 • It's Unanimous! (by anonymous on 2014-07-08 17:56:53 GMT from United States)
EFF uses Gandi, too!
71 • I miss Groklaw (by Thom on 2014-07-08 18:50:00 GMT from Sweden)
In the days of yore this wouldn't have been spared PJ's sharp pen: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140701/07252927743/dangerous-ruling-judge-lets-microsoft-seize-redirect-no-ip-domains-without-notice.shtml and http://www.techtimes.com/articles/9633/20140703/microsoft-returns-confiscated-no-ip-domains-critics-lambast-move-of-tech-titan.htm or search "microsoft seizes No-IPs domains" (maybe avoid Bing!... :)
72 • Domain name registrar: DomainDiscover (by Jason Hsu on 2014-07-08 19:53:09 GMT from United States)
DomainDiscover/TierraNet is my current domain registrar and was also my first. I left for cheaper prices elsewhere, but I have concluded that the savings aren't worth it. (Plus, $12-$15/year won't break the bank.) I have had problems elsewhere but never at DomainDiscover.
DomainDiscover/TierraNet is ICANN-accredited and NOT a reseller. One reseller I previously used TWICE had problems with my domain renewal. The reseller had to contact the registrar. I still don't know whether the reseller or the registrar messed up. I'd rather deal with the registrar directly, because that means less red tape in the way.
Although DomainDiscover/TierraNet has a fairly respectable size, you can't find any complaints about it. Entering "DomainDiscover sucks" or "TierraNet sucks" into Google shows that nobody has publicly complained about the service. In contrast, entering "GoDaddy sucks" or "Enom sucks" yields thousands of hits.
73 • Replacement for XP (by frodopogo on 2014-07-08 22:47:07 GMT from United States)
@Somewhat Reticent:
Well put- "Access to functionality without high learning-curve obscurities" IS what is needed. A basic learning-curve obscurity in Linux is the use of the terminal.
For Linux geeks, the terminal is a powerful tool. For Windows refugees, ANY use of the terminal, even to make a piece of hardware work is a "high learning-curve obscurity" It means that the user interface is broken, and the Terminal is a KLUDGE to get around the broken part. Getting the average Windows user to use the terminal is like getting the man on the street to learn Latin, or Greek, or Esperanto. It's NOT gonna happen! I've been watching other distros closely, and reading the reviews, but so far, there always seems to be something that makes things harder than they ought to be. Often that thing is the installation process, or the installation process for additional software. Linux Mint in contrast often has reviews that the reviewer will call "boring"... because everything works as it should.
Conversely, people don't necessarily use Microsoft Windows because they like the look-and-feel- they HAVE to put up with the look-and-feel to get the functionality. I tend to find Microsoft's esthetics garish and ugly (and they REALLY outdid themselves on Windows 8!!!!) To the degree that Zorin imitates Window's esthetic, I find it UGLY. But that's trivial compared to the functionality. Superior esthetics only tips the balance when the functionality is equal. One telling detail.... what Linux distros come preinstalled on new computers? Until a Linux distro makes it there, it's pretty marginal.
74 • Refugees - burned once, ... (by Somewhat Reticent on 2014-07-09 00:31:32 GMT from United States)
Most seekers for Windows NT/2k/XP/Vista/7 replacement I've met handle basic scripts (batch files) with ease. The absence of The Full Manual, On-The-Other-Hand ... many nerds hide behind secret incantations, obfuscation by vocabulary, a pernicious practice that dates back at least to the (Ivory?) Tower of Babble. How many distro developers denounce Microsoft or Apple for monopolistic behavior, yet behave the same way themselves? Are victims of one abuser likely to be blind to more of the same from others?
If original aesthetics matter most, why is there a market for themes and styles?
When considering new hardware, I prefer to first ask which will run my choice of software. Software sells Silicon.
75 • Thanks (by davnel on 2014-07-09 01:06:23 GMT from United States)
Thanks to all for your responses. I'm currently playing with Linux Mint 17-64 Cinnamon, and like it.
@frodopogo - superb response, and exactly right. Thank you.
@29 - you are essentially right. Hollyweird and their lawyers have taught us that Bittorrent is BAD and that no one has any excuse to use it. They're wrong, of course, but that's what the general public has been taught. Too bad. .
76 • @13, @23 and @25 (by Twodogs on 2014-07-09 02:07:37 GMT from United States)
@13, Right?! Looks very interesting.
@23, It's LXLE, not LXDE. Just sayin'.
@25, Very nice distro!
Very nice Distrowatch edition. Glad you are back online. I was having the 'Distrowatch d.t.'s' ;)
77 • Domain (by kc1di on 2014-07-09 11:32:07 GMT from United States)
Good to see everything back up an working. ;)
78 • a good replacement for XP (by TH on 2014-07-09 13:43:47 GMT from United States)
@39 looking for a good replacement for Windows XP: I'll cast my vote for Point Linux. It's uncluttered, easy to use, easy to find your way in the menus.
79 • XP (by Mac on 2014-07-09 15:18:28 GMT from United States)
I have found that kubuntu works better for XP users here. Kill all the efects and every thing is in the right place. you can ever have a red x to close the windows, dmz cursor as default. Windows can cover task bar. Have a couple of old xp users that barely know how to turn on the pc using it. Have fun Mack
80 • Old Machine (by pfb on 2014-07-09 15:42:29 GMT from United States)
Linux seems to be passing me by. My old machine has an AMD Athlon64 3200+ processor with an 80 Gb hard drive and 1.0 G of RAM. Video is GEForce 6200. I am running OpenSuse 13.1 on it and it is beginning to slow down. I also have Fedora 20 on it, which works fine. I thought to replace Suse with a different distro. So when CentOS 7 came out, I tried both Gnome and KDE live DVDs. Kde worked marginally, Gnome would not function at all.
Sometimes I am not too thick in the head, and I eventually learn. In the past, I have discarded Mint and Mageia and Debian as being no good. I now believe my computer is becoming inadeqaute to run modern Linux. Fedora 20(KDE) and Ubuntu work fine. Of course, so does Slacko.
And all distros work fine on my Toshiba laptop (dual core Intel).
I read so much here about this and that distro/DE being a memory hog, that I was surprised to find which ones are no longer suitable for my old computer. Fedora is the last one I would have expected to make the cut. As for Ubuntu, I have to admit, I am not an Ubuntu person. I prefer my not-that-slow OpenSuse. But Mint, Mageia and CentOS were surprises. I would have thought them all leaner that Fedora.
81 • @80 Old Machine (by mandog on 2014-07-09 20:12:09 GMT from Peru)
Any thing XFCE should run OK lxde is very light Open box as well visit https://forum.manjaro.org/ they have a good selection of really light respins there should be one for your need Manjaro is arch made easy with all the tools you need.
82 • @80 (by :wq on 2014-07-09 23:54:48 GMT from United States)
Unless you're beholden to GNOME or KDE, you might want to give CentOS 7 another look when EPEL 7 (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL) comes out of beta, as Xfce 4.10 and MATE 1.8 should be available from it. You can add EPEL as an additional repository (https://i.imgur.com/mDpw6BP.jpg) and forgo installing GNOME or KDE, and install Xfce or MATE instead (https://i.imgur.com/XmcfP7V.jpg). Wait until EPEL 7 is out of beta though, if you do decide to give CentOS 7 a second look.
I am a little surprised about your experiences with Debian and Mageia. Did you encounter the same issues with them, or was it something else that made them "no good"? If you haven't already, you might want to try any of the various alternative (i.e. not GNOME or KDE) DEs or window managers (Openbox, pekwm, etc) that are available.
Have you tried anything based on Slackware, such as Salix, VectorLinux, Absolute Linux, etc?
83 • Domain Registrar (by KenWeiLL on 2014-07-09 23:56:08 GMT from Philippines)
Definitely recommend https://www.namecheap.com/
84 • @82 XFCE Old Machine (by pfb on 2014-07-10 00:37:23 GMT from United States)
To be fair, I suppose, I should try Xfce. I tried it with Fedora and it is quite impressive. It has improved quite a bit since I last tried it.
Mageia KDE was pretty much the same experience I had with CentOS 7 Gnome. I could not get it to work.
Debian, as I recall, was similar to PCLOS. Neither liked my dual monitors and refused to recognize my Acer monitor. Even xrandr couldn't find it. I assume there is an alternate way to get xrandr to turn the Acer on, but I couldn't tind it (easily). My days of fighting to get mice and monitors working are over. When these things do not work out-of-the-box, I quit.
85 • Springdale Linux 7.0 - first 32-bit EL (by Caitlyn Martin on 2014-07-10 01:07:16 GMT from United States)
I've just installed the alpha(?) build of the 32-bit Springdale Linux 7.0 on a laptop that is more than up to the task of running it. It has some known bugs but it's already very usable. I have a customer that is having me do a RHEL 7.0 deployment on some new servers so living in the new environment and getting used to it is helpful to me, even on older equipment. The boot image is at: http://springdale.princeton.edu/data/puias/7.0/i386/os/images/ in case anyone else is interested.
Oh, and for any of you who have used Stella, the nux-desktop repository for 7.0 is nicely populated now. It's compatible with EPEL and should work OK with Springdale for those who want to use it as a desktop. I'll be trying it out shortly.
86 • @81 (by jaws222 on 2014-07-10 01:08:16 GMT from United States)
"Any thing XFCE should run OK lxde is very light Open box as well "
Exactly right Mate is not that bad either.
87 • Registrars, hosts, the NSA... (by Caitlyn Martin on 2014-07-10 01:13:29 GMT from United States)
I recently had really poor experiences with Network Solutions, who were offering very cheap domain name registration. Never again. I will check out Ladislav's recommendation for gandi.net.
For hosting companies I use two: Linode, who basically rent you a bare VM which you load with the Linux distro of your choice and build any way you want; and NetSonic, the former host for DistroWatch. I've had very good experiences with both. While both are American companies Linode does offer hosting in other places, i.e.: Japan, for those who have a problem with the U.S.
Speaking of the U.S., for those of you attacking the NSA, you might consider the fact that almost every other Western democracy does the same things. However, in some countries they have things like the Official Secrets Act that prevents the press from reporting on it. However, there have been articles on some of the same things being done in Europe and in Australia. If you really think the NSA is so evil you may want to look at what your own government is doing before throwing stones. Oh, and no, this is not a defense of the NSA, but rather me pointing out the reality of the situation.
88 • @84 Korora (by cykodrone on 2014-07-10 02:16:50 GMT from Canada)
Korora Xfce=Fedora Xfce but with waaaaaay more multimedia and preconfig OOTB (Fedora has strict adherence to FOSS 'law', lol), Korora Xfce is prettier than Fedora Xfce OOTB. If you still want to use Fedora Xfce, install the 'easylife' rpm (enables non-free and multimedia, among others, be VERY choosy, stay away from 'rawhide'), you'll have to download and manual install the easylife rpm, which was not too much trouble from what I remember (as simple as a right-click on the package icon I believe). The deal breaker for me was, I have a dual SSD Raid 0, Fedora insisted on using the 2 drives in an LVM config, I can get Debian Xfce to use them the way they're intended.
89 • @80 and 84: Old Machine (by Hoos on 2014-07-10 05:24:42 GMT from Singapore)
I cannot fully comment on your hardware, but 1 GB RAM is usually an OK amount of RAM for normal tasks, and I think your CPU is similar to a Pentium4, which is again not the weakest processor I've read of that is still running Linux.
It is not so much that Debian, or Fedora, or Mint or Magaia etc, are "no good" for your machine; it is more a matter of what desktop environment the distro you tried came with.
DEs like the newer versions of KDE (comes with Mageia), Unity (comes with Ubuntu), Cinnamon (comes with one version of Mint) and Gnome (comes with Fedora) are quite resource heavy with lots of eye candy and bells and whistles that old CPUs and graphics cards may not be able to handle.
So what you need to do is look for versions of distros that come with lighter DEs like XFCE, LXDE, MATE or Openbox.
So: Mint can also be found in XFCE and MATE versions; Instead of Ubuntu, go for Lubuntu or LXLE (Ubuntu derivative with LXDE); Debian - try Debian-based distros that come with LXDE or Openbox DE, like WattOS, crunchbang.
Also, distros based on a "parent" (e.g. crunchbang instead of Debian) sometimes have more out of the box functionality and drivers than the parent. That might help you in that the distro may be able to configure your monitor/graphics easier than in Debian itself.
90 • @80 Loading down old hardware with puffy distros (by cykodrone on 2014-07-10 06:46:23 GMT from Canada)
Anything old will struggle with an Ubuntu based distro, they're inherently 'fat'.
@80's CPU... http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-Athlon%2064%203200+%20-%20ADA3200DAA4BP%20%28ADA3200BPBOX%29.html
Now that I actually read your specs, you might want to give wattOS a look, I have an old (32-bit) P4 that runs their newest releases (R8) based on Debian quite well. The 64-bit comes in only two flavours I believe, LXDE and MATE, LXDE would be the lighter DE of the pair. It's specifically designed to squeeze remaining life from old hardware. Being Debian based, it will be a rolling install once deal, Ubuntu based only get fatter with each release.
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=wattos
91 • LXLE (by Bernard Victor on 2014-07-10 13:22:03 GMT from United Kingdom)
I wanted to try LXLE But though I tried burning the iso to a memory stick both using Unetbootin and Mint's USB burner, in neither case would it boot. It just went straight to grub . I tried the 64bit version and though this loaded OK it will not run on my rather old Dell machine.
92 • Tails (by Sam on 2014-07-10 17:36:02 GMT from United States)
I know someone who knows someone who is a developer on the Tails distribution. Apparently returning to the United States from a Linux Conference in Germany can become a multi-hour affair at our nation's fine airports.
Maybe the NSA staff are too busy taking cues from this season's 24, where the Wikileaks guy was supposed to be as bad as the Muslim terrorists...
93 • @Ultimate Edition 4.2 lite & Deepin 2014 - Follow up (by NoHellsBelles on 2014-07-11 02:35:57 GMT from United States)
Ultimate Edition 4.2 lite: This is another distro/spin, that unfortunately does not currently support UEFI secure boot out of the box, showstopper at live boot menu. Save your bandwidth if you have one of these type of puters. Oh, maybe next release.
Deepin 2014: Does support UEFI secure boot out of the box. Option to boot to Live DE, went smooth. Wireless (broadcom) works and audio works too. A very slick version of GNOME3/Shell. Deepin has their "own" media players. IMHO very nice distro. Worth a try, if you want a Ubuntu base.
That's all.
94 • Ubuntu - A misperception with its own popularity (by Ben Myers on 2014-07-11 15:00:36 GMT from United States)
Look at the numbers. Mint is more popular than Ubuntu, according to the numbers every day on DistroWatch. Look again. The Mint numbers include all the major Mint desktop variants, whereas Ubuntu's number is for the most basic Ubuntu with Unity. Then scan down the list and you see Lubuntu with LXDE, Xubuntu with XFCE, Ubuntu GNOME, Kubuntu KDE and, finally, Ubuntu Studio. Add up the numbers and you get 4784 page hits for Ubuntu versus Mint at 3393, as of 10:55 EDT on July 11.
I am not saying that one is better than the other. And I cannot figure out whose problem of perception this is, Ubuntu's or DistroWatch's. But the aggregate numbers are something to consider before one uses them to make claims about distro propularity... Ben Myers
95 • @39 and @75 davnel (by Kazlu on 2014-07-11 15:37:22 GMT from France)
Hi,
Well I come a bit late here and you already got some very good answers. I strongly support frodopogo's response in #73. Even for the DE: MATE is lighter on ressources and will run faster than Cinnamon on computers that used to run Windows XP, which should not be very young. But if Cinnamon is fine for you, that's good :)
I just want to draw your attention to a point of Linux Mint: they have a paticular way of upgrading from a release to aonther, compared to what has become a habit in other mainstream distributions. Basically, you need to use a Mint tool to backup your data and list of installed software, then install the new version, then restore your data and have the system reinstall your software based on the previous list. The others often go click, download, wait and reboot. You can get more explanations from the Mint website here: http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2. In a word, the Mint way is safer, you have much less chance that anything goes wrong. But it may be more complicated to do. If this suits you, then by all means KEEP Linux Mint, it is a very good choice and in my opinion one of the best replacements for Windows XP. If this is a problem for you, I suggest you take a look at Xubuntu of maybe Linux Lite, two Ubuntu-based Xfce distros that should go well with most computers that used tu run Windows XP.
96 • @80 & @82 Old machine (by Kazlu on 2014-07-11 15:37:42 GMT from France)
Hi,
I will second #89 Hoos: You may try any distro you want, the results will be the same. It's not that your computer is inadequate to run modern Linux, but it is if you want to run some DEs, that Hoos mentionned.
As you considered it yourself in #82, I suggest you give Xfce a try. Good news is, it is a very commun DE and many distros have an Xfce variant. And it is not harder to use than KDE, I even think it is easier to get around, but this is a very personnal taste. So My advice is the following: stay with your distro of choice, and when the time for upgrade or reinstallation comes, with a new version, get the Xfce edition instead. You say you like OpenSUSE, well their installation DVD contains Xfce so you may install it the same way as other DEs. I did it once with LXDE, if I remember correctly when you are presented with the choice of a desktop environment, you need to select "other environments" to see Xfce, but that was for 12.3, maybe that changed...
For the record, I installed Xubuntu 14.04 on an old Dell with a Pentium IV @2.4GHz and 1GB of RAM. That seems similar to your computer, maybe a bit inferior. It works very well. Since it is a single core, if you open multiple applications it will hang more than a multi-core processor of course, but I was happy to see that it was very quick if I do not launch too many operations at a time.
97 • @96 Comparing distros & machines (by cykodrone on 2014-07-11 22:59:57 GMT from Canada)
80/82's CPU (see link in post 90) is 64-bit, you are comparing your 32-bit P4 Xubuntu to a 64-bit Athlon, 32-bit is not as taxing on hardware, are suggesting he/she runs 32-bit? Ubuntu and its derivatives weren't even born yet when his/her processor was built, suggesting bloat (I won't even blab on about the Amazon spyware in Ubuntu) when there are perfectly good Debian based alternatives available makes no sense, sorry, and the added bonus of a Debian based being a 'rolling' install. Ubuntu peaked at 12.04, now it's just a buggy, bloated mess, spyware included. Corporations are NSA friendly and have no problem 'co-operating', not saying any Linux vendors/producers have yet, be we all know other corporations have already, Canonical is a corporation, nuff said.
98 • @61 home network security (by Vance on 2014-07-12 09:37:50 GMT from United States)
You can list what services are running using the command "netstat -lvpnut" (as root). You'll get something like the following: Active Internet connections (only servers) Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program name tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:111 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 2388/portmap tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:6000 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 2663/X tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:48533 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 2168/python tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:631 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 2518/cupsd tcp 0 0 :::6000 :::* LISTEN 2663/X tcp 0 0 :::631 :::* LISTEN 2518/cupsd udp 0 0 0.0.0.0:111 0.0.0.0:* 2388/portmap udp 0 0 0.0.0.0:631 0.0.0.0:* 2518/cupsd
The last column shows the process ID number and name of the program. You can figure out from this what the service is; how to disable it depends on what distribution you are running.
The local address tells you where the process is listening - those with 0.0.0.0:### (IPv4) or :::### (IPv6) will accept connections from anywhere on port ###, while ones listening to 127.0.0.1:### or ::1:### can only be reached over the loopback interface from the local host.
Note that the above doesn't take into account any firewall rules; those are a layer of protection that sits on top of what you're seeing here. For example, although the X server is shown as listening to the world, I have a firewall rule preventing outsiders from connecting to it.
99 • DotEasy (by Wil Barath on 2014-07-13 00:20:05 GMT from Canada)
Omg, just for the sheer horror story of it, I bid you to Wikipedia's DotEasy article... read the linked customer testimonials :-O
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doteasy Cite 3-9
Wow.
100 • DotEasy (by Alan J. Meunier on 2014-07-13 03:11:46 GMT from United States)
I too have used GoDaddy for over a decade without ever a hitch nor hiccup...just my dimes worth!
101 • DotEasy (by Bill on 2014-07-13 17:48:31 GMT from United States)
Another satisfied GoDaddy client here. (Though I cannot find the pretty girls). lol
102 • Please read the fine print (by American Citizen on 2014-07-14 01:54:45 GMT from United States)
Does anybody ever bother to read the terms of service of domain registrars? I've read many of them. Gandi is the best in the world. The only US-based domain registrar that actually tries to accommodate their customers is tiny NameSilo. Marketing doesn't mean anything. Somebody's experience doesn't mean anything. The only thing that matters is the contractual agreement between parties. That's what's enforceable in court. All US-based domain registrars except the one mentioned above can terminate any customer's domain, at any time, for any reason or no reason at all; or they can hijack your sub-domains and host advertising on them; or they will insert pop-under ads in your redirects. READ YOUR CONTRACT!
Number of Comments: 102
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• Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
• Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
• Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
• Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
• Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
• Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
• Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
• Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
• Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
• Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
• Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
• Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
• Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
• Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
• Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
• Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
• Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
• Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
• Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
• Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
• Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
• Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
• Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
• Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
• Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
• Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
• Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
• Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
• Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
• Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
• Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
• Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
• Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
• Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
• Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
• Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
• Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
• Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
• Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
• Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
• Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
• Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
• Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
• Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
• Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
• Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
• Issue 1044 (2023-11-06): Porteus 5.01, disabling IPv6, applications unique to a Linux distro, Linux merges bcachefs, OpenELA makes source packages available |
• Issue 1043 (2023-10-30): Murena Two with privacy switches, where old files go when packages are updated, UBports on Volla phones, Mint testing Cinnamon on Wayland, Peppermint releases ARM build |
• Issue 1042 (2023-10-23): Ubuntu Cinnamon compared with Linux Mint, extending battery life on Linux, Debian resumes /usr merge, Canonical publishes fixed install media |
• Full list of all issues |
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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!
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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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