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1 • TrueCrypt? (by chemicalfan on 2014-08-04 11:20:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
TrueCrypt has been discontinued, and the project has been all but abandoned (even the developers recommend seeking alternatives). Is it still a relevant measure of a distro?
2 • The future of openSUSE Tumbleweed (by :wq on 2014-08-04 16:07:04 GMT from United States)
One of the comments for the Factory announcement highlighted a message I had missed by Greg Kroah-Hartman regarding the future of Tumbleweed.
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2014-07/msg00098.html
3 • openSUSE Factory (by AnklefaceWrouhtlandmire on 2014-08-04 16:24:18 GMT from Ecuador)
Wow, what an exciting move by openSUSE!
This begs for comparison with Arch, which is currently what many would consider to be the most successfully executed rolling release. What level of stability and/or breakage can we expect from openSUSE Factory compared to Arch? And what about frequency of updates?
Has any thought been given to delta updates for Factory? That would be WONDERFUL for users who have slower or bandwidth-limited internet.
What will happen to Factory users running proprietary Radeon Catalyst or proprietary Nvidia drivers as the kernel and xorg stack get frequently updated?
4 • Neptune (by Barnabyh on 2014-08-04 18:17:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
Seems nice. The best thing is that it does not look like KDE at all, or only slightly so if you know what the icons in the tray in look like. Calm and soothing, not flash.
5 • openSuse (by linuxista on 2014-08-04 18:31:20 GMT from United States)
Suddenly openSuse is a lot more attractive. Delta updates would be an advantage over Arch. Is this contemplated?
6 • openSuse FACTORY (by Garon on 2014-08-04 18:49:24 GMT from United States)
@2, From what I read, Tumbleweed will be no more and I'll miss it.
I also believe that openSuse, the main distribution, will be separate from openSuse Factory. Only openSuse Factory will be a rolling release. It's just my opinion but I just don't believe that you can get a stable system with a rolling release and openSuse Factory seems to be the testbed for openSuse's regular release cycles. I've never seen a rolling release distribution that you didn't have to baby every day for it to remain stable. Even the Arch people will tell you that. I really believe that the plans that the developers of openSuse have will work out well. I wish them great success.
7 • Arch people (by linuxista on 2014-08-04 19:19:51 GMT from United States)
I'm an "Arch people," and I'll tell you the opposite: I've had the same Arch intall running for 5 years, it's extremely stable and I don't have to baby it every day. More FUD against rollers.
8 • Server4What (by dicktater on 2014-08-04 19:38:08 GMT from United States)
I don't get it. How do you recommend a server when you've been given no clue what it is to be used for? Whatever. At least with Superb Mini Server, you can test it with the live CD.
9 • Jessie (by Mohammed on 2014-08-04 19:39:39 GMT from India)
Can't wait for Debian Jessie..hope it's out soon. I've tried amny distros, but keep coming back to Debian stable.
10 • TrueCrypt (by Jesse on 2014-08-04 19:43:53 GMT from Canada)
>> "TrueCrypt has been discontinued"
By the original developers, yes. But TrueCrypt is open source and has been adopted by another team. Plus it has been audited by a third-party. The TrueCrypt software is alive and well.
>> " Is it still a relevant measure of a distro?"
This thought does not make much sense. If TrueCrypt really was discontinued and not suitable for use (as your post suggests) then the distribution should not include the software at all. Having TrueCrypt installed by default would be a bad sign of lacking security. However, since TrueCrypt is actively maintained and the distro does include it, the distro developers should make sure it works.
If a distribution includes software then that software should work, whether the software in question is in beta, actively developed or abanndoned. The upstream status of an application is not relevant to the end-user experience.
11 • TrueCrypt (by Sid on 2014-08-04 19:44:46 GMT from United States)
With a kernel update months ago I ran into the same issue with another debian based distro. The solution was to run "modprobe loop" as root before launching truecrypt. Personally I modified the launcher for the truecrypt UI to run the command before launching truecrypt.
12 • openSUSE Factory (by AnklefaceWroughtlandmire on 2014-08-04 19:47:30 GMT from Ecuador)
Wow, what an exciting move by openSUSE!
This begs for comparison with Arch, which is currently what many would consider to be the most successfully executed rolling release. What level of stability and/or breakage can we expect from openSUSE Factory compared to Arch? And what about frequency of updates?
Has any thought been given to delta updates for Factory? That would be WONDERFUL for users who have slower or bandwidth-limited internet.
What will happen to Factory users running proprietary Radeon Catalyst or proprietary Nvidia drivers as the kernel and xorg stack get frequently updated?
13 • Server distribution (by Jesse on 2014-08-04 20:15:31 GMT from Canada)
>> "I don't get it. How do you recommend a server when you've been given no clue what it is to be used for?"
The original e-mail went into a great deal of detail concerning what the server distribution would be used for, where it would be deployed and by whom. Some of these details were removed from the Q&A article to protect the privacy of the person who asked the question. The important details about which services would be deployed and what clients needed to be supported were kept in.
14 • Re 9: I also switched to Debian stable (by hobbitland on 2014-08-04 20:26:17 GMT from United Kingdom)
Hi, I also switched to Debian stable. After trying Ubuntu 14.04 have completely replaced all Ubuntu 12.04 desktops and laptops with Wheezy. But have to enabled backports for some packages.
Ubuntu is just too buggy and getting worse since 10.04. 14.04 was the last straw which made me abandon Ubuntu for good.
I am not interested in rolling releases as need to maintain multiple desktops, laptops and VMs. Debian stable with some packages from backport is best.
15 • Debian Jessie (by Will B on 2014-08-04 22:42:05 GMT from United States)
Yay! Can't wait for Jessie to come out. Debian has always been a favorite of mine, especially on servers. Looking forward to it! :-D
16 • openSUSE already rolls (by dhinds on 2014-08-05 01:25:21 GMT from Mexico)
I updated v. 11.3 to 12.1 using zypper dub w/ no problems.
This is from Sparky Ultra Openbox, built on Debian Testing (it rolls, even though that flavor was discontinued.
On other machines Manjaro is the main OS. So why reinstall? The rolling OS's are here to stay. (Things make occasionally break but are rapidly repaired) and frankly, it's been a lonmg time since I've had any problems.
17 • rolling (by Reuben on 2014-08-05 03:54:33 GMT from United States)
I've used various rolling releases at times, like arch and siduction. Definitely don't have to baby them. The distro that has caused me the most trouble seems to be Fedora. Things tend to go smoothy from alpha until release. A few months after release and something makes its way into the updates repo and breaks something.
18 • Dillo (by Billy Larlad on 2014-08-05 06:11:57 GMT from United States)
Hi Distrowatch mantainers! I just wanted to tell you that your site works wonderfully with the Dillo web-browser. Most don't these days. You may already know this, but I just thought I'd let you know. It's really nice to come across a site doesn't require flash and javascript and a load of other garbage just for basic functionality. (I don't actually need to use Dillo, nor do I use it often, but it's still cool that your site works with it.)
And yeah, OpenSUSE factory is kind of exciting. Maybe I'll switch to it while Debian testing is in its agonizing, seemingly-endless bi-annual freeze.
19 • Another rolling option (by BIlly Larlad on 2014-08-05 06:17:20 GMT from United States)
OpenBSD's current- branch is another interesting option for people who want a rolling OS. I know, I know, it's not Linux. (In fact, that's a plus in some eyes). In my experience, running it on my laptop for the last year, it marries _really_ bleeding-edge software (GNOME 3.12 was packaged for OpenBSD as quickly as it was for Arch) with excellent stability. Plus, as long as you're comfortable using vi a couple of times to get things set-up, it's actually really simple in every conceivable way. Give it a try, people -- maybe you'll come to find that you can get on with free OSes other than Linux!
20 • Rolling Release Distributions (by SaleemKhanMarwat on 2014-08-05 08:32:55 GMT from Pakistan)
Anyone wishing to try a true pure rollling release distribution other than arch linux and willing to spend time some basic linux knowledge should give a try to http://www.voidlinux.eu/ . It is not mentioned on DW but it is already a mature project and quite an interesting project with the fact that there are no GUIs installers or forks as available for arch linux nowadays.
21 • @19 - OpenBSD laptop (by Anonymous Coward on 2014-08-05 13:03:08 GMT from United States)
How's OpenBSD on your laptop? What kind of laptop is it? Does Suspend/Resume work reliably?
22 • Deepin Experience after last weeks review. (by Robbobak on 2014-08-05 13:24:30 GMT from United States)
I haven't departed much from Linux Mint for the last few years but after last weeks review of Deepin, I gave it a try. I really liked the Control center and its ease of use and accessibility. I am a KDE user and I really liked this customized Gnome/Unity interface enough to go ahead and install it. Unfortunately I am back to Linux Mint. Deepin was nice but the update service was terrible. I switched to the fastest mirror and performed a system update because I could not install vlc or firefox without doing so. (Deepin Seems to confuse upgrade and update as they seem to use the two terms interchangeably) After update I no longer could access the control panel and the system launcher. I was hopeful for Deepin and I think it will only get better and will try it again in the future.
23 • FUD against Rollers? (by Garon on 2014-08-05 13:41:56 GMT from United States)
@7, That is so sweet. I don't really care what you've had in the past. I'm telling you what I've seen and what is told by the Arch users. If you don't continually update a rolling release then it will break. That is a fact. If you can't handle your own FUD that then that is your problem. I didn't say that rolling releases were bad, I didn't say daily maintenance was bad but it is not a install and forget distro like Archies make it out to be. Which is better? A LTS release or a rolling release? Well that's up for debate and I guess it depends on which side you are on. And please, no unproven claims. That's where you get your FUD.
24 • Ubuntu will support Debian's Jessie kernel? (by cykodrone on 2014-08-05 14:48:46 GMT from Canada)
My tinfoil hat is on fire, lol, is Ubuntu slowly but quietly swallowing Debian? When I read news like this, it skeers me. Please, say it aint so. ):
25 • FUD against rollers (by linuxista on 2014-08-05 15:19:52 GMT from United States)
I'm an Arch user and Manjaro user and I'm telling you. I don't continually update, I've had the same Arch install for 5 years, and it doesn't break. Up until the last few months I only updated once every few weeks, sometimes once a month or every two months. No problem. Think about it: often times the install iso, whether Arch, Manjaro, Archbang, Bridge, etc. is up to 6 months out of date. You install and update to get current with the repositories, no problem. Where are all the warnings about you can't do it if your install iso is more than a few days old otherwise everything will break!? Pure B.S. I'm not making any unproven claims like saying "everybody says;" I know first-hand.
26 • 23 FUD against Rollers? (by mandog on 2014-08-05 16:11:42 GMT from Peru)
I also run Arch I do update every day open terminal press the up arrow press enter enter password 5secs. get on with some work when its time for a break click enter in terminal 1sec carry on with my business that takes under 10 secs of my valuable time. On my laptop that I don't use often It can be months without updating. On my sons it was 12 months last time. Did they break no of course not, 12 months was pushing it mind you. Most people I know update weekly. I update daily for one reason on my main desktop its called 15kbs 200mb take 4-6hrs so best to do small daily updates.
27 • @27, @7 (by Ron on 2014-08-05 19:07:51 GMT from United States)
"Which is better? A LTS release or a rolling release?"
I can say from actual experience that my Arch broke - no, shattered after roll.
The pioneers get the arrows, the settlers get the land.
28 • LTS vs Rolling (by fernbap on 2014-08-05 19:40:29 GMT from Portugal)
First issue is obvious: noone in its right mind would chose a rolling release for production environments. It would just cxhange too much that would make maintenance a nightmare, specially for companies that are paying an external company for support. Also, changes in the basic gcc libs, for instance, would require an intense maintenance of the critical apps used by companies.
So, this issue can only be addressed regarding the consumer desktop.
Everything goes in the consumer desktop. Starting new trends, reinventing the wheel, experimenting with novel concepts.
That might work for the typical desktop user, who loves new stuff. But, at the same time he is uncapable of sorting out issues that may arise while rolling.
The LTS releases offer something noone else can offer: a stable environment that you can count on for doing serious work. A cicle of 5 years is huge in the consumer desktop: most computers don't last that long.
In spite of the Canonical policy of "release while not ready", Ubuntu LTS releases eventually evolve to a stable environment that you can rely on. That is the main reason why Ubuntu has so many distros based on it. A 2 year cicle LTS is way better than a 4 or 5 years cicle that you can expect from Debian Stable.
Anyway, looking at the current Linux universe, LTS is beating rolling in all fronts.
In any case, for the consumer desktop, anything goes.
Like the marketing os a motorcicle, for instalce. The commercial arguments are power, valves per cilider, tires, etc. but nothing will replace a test drive. The best ones don't care to make flashy panphlets, they just concentrate on the driver's experience.
29 • Re: 28 Debian is better than Ubuntu (by hobbitland on 2014-08-05 20:13:15 GMT from United Kingdom)
I am against rollers as have to maintain multiple desktops, laptops and VMs. I cannot afford to update a production system into an unstable system.
Yes, Ubuntu LTS are always released before they are ready. It takes at least a year to become truly stable. Ubuntu 12.04 and 14.04 were very buggy releases but Ubuntu 12.04 got better with updates. Ubuntu also has habit of releasing beta and pre-release packages as well.
Ubuntu 12.04 was based on Debian 7 testing with all the bugs. Debian 7 stable is like Ubuntu 12.04 without the bugs. It is not true that Debian 7 is old. You can enable some selected packages from backports. This makes Debian 7 newer than Ubuntu 14.04. I am running Debian 7 with Linux 3.14 Longterm kernel from backports. Ubuntu 14.04 comes with the no longer supported 3.13 kernel. That is terrible for a LTS release!
The only downside to Debian is installation is difficult. But I managed to work out how to remaster Debian Live 7.6 with all the customization and packages I need. Previously I've remastering Ubuntu but bye bye Ubuntu now.
30 • @19 (by Billy Larlad on 2014-08-05 20:23:34 GMT from United States)
It's a Thinkpad X220. The last Thinkpad X to have a nice keyboard, I believe. It might be worth looking one up on eBay.
Yes, suspend/resume works very well. I would say it is as good or better than suspend/resume in Linux, especially in terms of speed. That said, there was a slight regression a week or two ago that showed up in a few day's worth of snapshots. It prevented suspend in some cases. One of the benefits of using an OS that as developed as an integrated whole, which further is also used by its developers, is that breakages are quickly detected and there is a motivation to fix them. (In this case, it looks like the regression affected only the Thinkpad X220. The problem was fixed in a few days.)
Anyway, the other hardware "just works" too. I had trouble with a 3G chip that I didn't even know was installed until I noticed the system was crashing due to it. The stupid fingerprint reader doesn't work either, but I couldn't care less.
Let me know if there's any other questions I can try to answer!
31 • @29 - Debian Installer (by Billy Larlad on 2014-08-05 20:27:08 GMT from United States)
How is Debian installation difficult? That's a serious question, not sarcasm. My experience is that the Debian installer is not as "pretty" as other installers, and asks more questions, but is really quite straightforward and foolproof.
32 • Debian outdated? (by RichJack on 2014-08-05 20:41:29 GMT from Isle of Man)
Well XFCE is stuck at 4.6 in wheezy with nothing in backports. Jessie has 4.10 which is the current stable release of XFCE and was released back in 2012. As comparison, xubuntu 14.04 LTS shipped with 4.11 and current builds of core apps ported to GTK3 are already available in the Ubuntu utopic repositories.
Make of it what you will but XFCE is now the default desktop in Debian so the big question is will Debian 8 ship with XFCE 4.12 if it is released in time?
33 • (by Alex on 2014-08-05 21:05:17 GMT from United States)
Agree with #23. I had Arch installed on an infrequently used laptop. It broke eventually on a pacman -Syu upgrade. No, I didn't upgrade it everyday like it is recommended. Regardless, I do raise an eyebrow when I see people proclaim with certainty that Arch is super easy to maintain and super stable inherently.
It's like any other OS. If you have the time and the skills to maintain it, I'm sure it's a fantastic computing environment to use. It's no magic bullet however.
34 • @ Billy Larlad (OpenBSD) (by Anonymous Coward on 2014-08-05 22:11:47 GMT from United States)
Hmmm, it's definitely tempting. I have a Thinkpad T530. I like it, the only thing that has been disappointing is the wireless card. It a Realtek, RTL8192ce is the driver used in Linux, and it's basically a piece of shit.
From what I gather, OpenBSD doesn't even support it. But I can easily get a USB dongle to handle that. I was mainly concerned about everything else like screen resolution (mine is 1600x900 and I can't suffer with VESA), suspend/resume, etc.
I'm sick of so many things in Linux, and if I'm going to use a BSD it'll have to be OpenBSD.
Thanks for the info.
35 • @32 Outdated Debian Xfce (by cykodrone on 2014-08-05 22:34:14 GMT from Canada)
Umm, it's 4.8 in Wheezy, I should know, I use Wheezy. As far as releasing whatever version of Xfce, it's not that simple, the DE GUI has to be compatible with over 35,000 packages. The only way we'll know is on November 5 when the Jessie freeze kicks in. Xfce is becoming (it's still up in the air) their "default" desktop only because the other DEs are too bloated now to fit on a single CD, Debian tries to keep their single CD to a bare minimum on purpose so they don't alienate less fortunate people, those with low/slow bandwidth or no DVD/BD burners, etc (I was chewed out extensively about this a while back asking why CDs are still supported). Gnome and KDE, among others are still very well supported, nobody is stopping anybody from downloading or installing any of the other numerous available DEs supported by Debian, in most of the numerous archs.
36 • re : Debian outdated? (by Peter Besenbruch on 2014-08-05 22:36:49 GMT from Czech Republic)
XFCE is at version 4.8 in Debian Wheezy. The differences between 4.8 and 4.10 are fairly minor.
37 • CD support (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2014-08-05 23:01:00 GMT from United States)
While there are still many who can "burn" plastic discs, and some use "RW" discs, there are also many who cannot, or prefer not to. What I do not understand is why so much resistance to multiboot, especially from flash.
On another track, it's not so much that an update may break something, it's that the sheer volume becomes numbing. 'Keep It Short ...' also applies to the cumulative list of update instructions - breakage warnings should not blend into the rest.
38 • @37 Re: CD Support (by Rev_Don on 2014-08-06 01:36:14 GMT from United States)
As was mentioned in the previous discussion about this, some systems simply can not be booted from a flash drive or a USB port. Some can't boot from a DVD drive either which leaves a CD as their only viable option.
It isn't just about preferring to burn a CD or CD-RW, for them it's a necessity.
Of course I firmly believe that people with computers that are that old would be better off replacing them with something newer and more energy efficient. Most would be able to save enough on electricity in one year to pay for it and have a much better computer and computing experience in the long run. But for some reason it seems that there is a hard core segment of the Linux community that delights in seeing how old of a computer they can run Linux on and how little ram they can get away with. They could care less that it takes them 10 times as long to actually do anything useful on their computer, they are running an old Intel 80486 with 32 megs of ram that they bought in 1989 with a 13 inch CRT monitor. I'd rather have something that is only 4 or 5 years old that can actually run applications that will accomplish something other than just bragging rights for having the oldest, slowest, smallest amount of ram, and uses the most amount of energy possible,
39 • Jessie (by Platypus on 2014-08-06 02:04:48 GMT from Australia)
Hey, how about a review of Jessie by Jesse when it comes out. It might be interesting to see how Jesse sees Jessie ;)
40 • @19,34 regarding OpenBSD (by Thomas Mueller on 2014-08-06 02:32:20 GMT from United States)
A serious deficiency in OpenBSD that makes it incompatible with my system is lack of support for GPT. Linux, FreeBSD and NetBSD can access my hard drives but OpenBSD, also FreeDOS and ReactOS, can't. My preferred BSD is FreeBSD, with NetBSD second. Linux may be stabler.
Don't forget Haiku (haiku-os.org) which has GPT support. I was pleasantly surprised by R1Alpha4 installed to 4 GB USB stick.
Posting a comment on this site does not work with Midori browser (through 0.5.8) but works with Mozilla Firefox or Seamonkey, and Haiku's Web Positive.
41 • @38 Re: CD Support (by Will B on 2014-08-06 02:48:12 GMT from United States)
> Of course I firmly believe that people with computers that are that old
> would be better off replacing them with something newer and more
> energy efficient.
Some folks just can't afford to run out and get a new computer every couple of years. Yeah, energy efficiency is great and all, but some folks are just scraping buy, just able to pay their rent, buy a little food or make their tithe. Some old hardware shouldn't be supported forever, but less fortunate people shouldn't be left out of the fun, you know? :-)
42 • @40 (by Anonymous Coward on 2014-08-06 03:15:29 GMT from United States)
Thank you for the suggestions. I'll start by saying there is no ill-will here, but I have to be honest.
There is no way in hell I'm even going to try Haiku, or any BSD with the exception of OpenBSD. All I have is a laptop, and OpenBSD focus on them more than anything else. In addition, as noted by Billy Larlad, the developers actually USE their operating system.
I'm driven to learn new things, but at this point I don't have the masochistic tendencies required to run FreeBSD or Haiku on my laptop. As far as GPT, my BIOS version can use either legacy or GPT, so it's not a requirement. One absolute deal-breaker in BSD is suspend/resume. And Haiku has too many deal-breakers to count. I just read their release notes, and it appears they're still struggling with things that should have been mastered in 1995.
43 • RE: CD Support (by Rev_Don on 2014-08-06 03:16:17 GMT from United States)
>> Some folks just can't afford to run out and get a new computer every >> couple of years. Yeah, energy efficiency is great and all, but some
>> folks are just scraping buy, just able to pay their rent, buy a little food >> or make their tithe. Some old hardware shouldn't be supported forever, >> but less fortunate people shouldn't be left out of the fun, you know? :-)
Trying reading what I said again. I never said anything about buying a NEW computer, or buying one every couple of years. I said a NEWER computer. And it isn't that difficult to do it either. You can pickup a used Core2Duo system for $100 with some careful shopping and just about anyone can do that. One less soda, beer, pack of cigarettes, Starbucks coffee, donut, or carry out meal a week would easily cover that.
Sorry, but anyone who says they can't afford a newer computer isn't willing to try or in all reality can't afford to use that 20 year old dinosaur.
44 • Alex 33 (by linuxista on 2014-08-06 05:45:21 GMT from United States)
Nowhere in the Arch Wiki, including on advice for stability, is there any recommendation to upgrade packages everyday. This is one of those myths that won't die. As far as Arch being super stable, that's not the point. The point is to combat the other myth that won't die that if it rolls it's going to break. Absolutely not true, unless when something goes wrong you just say "it's broke." But this is true of any distro, rolling or otherwise. Personally, I'd rather take my chances rolling than do multiple release upgrades. I figure when one of those goes sour (it hasn't for me yet), I'll be looking at an irrecoverable mess.
45 • Re: Debian Xfce (by RichJack on 2014-08-06 06:36:24 GMT from Isle of Man)
Sorry for the typo, I did know it was 4.8 in Wheezy. There are other issues though like light-locker languishing in experimental...
46 • Re #10 if a distro includes software (by imageek5@lycos.com on 2014-08-06 06:45:31 GMT from Brazil)
"If a distribution includes software then that software should work, whether the software in question is in beta, actively developed or abanndoned. The upstream status of an application is not relevant to the end-user experience."
You're absolutely right, packages in the official repos should work. They don't always. Debian, Ubuntu, Puppy, Mint probably all distros have this issue. With Linux we have freedom. Freedom to spend hundreds of hours configuring and tinkering until most of our hardware and software works.
Also fun is when your distro updates a package that breaks something else, but doesn't tell you this is going to happen.
"just works" is a myth.
47 • @22 and whoever has problems with deepin broken after update (by Davide on 2014-08-06 08:10:44 GMT from Italy)
I've had your same problem and solved with apt-get dist-upgrade .. after this all is working smoothly.
Hope this helps
48 • @24 (by bigbenaugust on 2014-08-06 14:18:56 GMT from United States)
You aren't the only one.
49 • @6 - Rolling Releases' stability (by Ika on 2014-08-06 17:59:03 GMT from Spain)
!I've never seen a rolling release distribution that you didn't have to baby every day for it to remain stable."
Well, you could try PCLinuxOS. :)
The only reason I had to go with reinstallation was I had to reconfigure my HDDs.
50 • Security of Implications of Updating Frequency (by RW on 2014-08-06 18:20:58 GMT from Germany)
@ 25:
"Up until the last few months I only updated once every few weeks, sometimes once a month or every two months."
Even for security updates? If so, isn't that downright dangerous?
"No problem."
I'm not so sure. How certain can you be, for example, of not having acquired a rootkit or other difficult or even near-impossible nasty as a result of your running for extended periods with known vulns?
"I'm not making any unproven claims like saying "everybody says;" I know first-hand."
Aren't you extrapolating from your individual, personal experience and making sweeping generalizations? No matter how valid your experience may be, it's still that of /one/ person, isn't it?
51 • Security of Implica ... (by linuxista on 2014-08-06 18:32:44 GMT from United States)
Are you saying that regardless of whether you're using a rolling distro or a release update distro, it's downright dangerous not to update every day?
Let me extrapolate: I'm not running CERN off my laptop, and I've never had any issues.
Why saying Arch is not a powder keg and doesn't constant babying is so provocative I don't know. I'm going out on limb here, but that's just my experience.
52 • Re: Rollers vs. release (by Brandon Sniadajewski on 2014-08-07 02:30:30 GMT from United States)
I'd like to see more of a semi-rolling system where the real core parts (kernel, kernel libs, drivers, etc.) are updated every so often, say 6 mos. or a year and the applications are updated as a new "stable" version ie released. Ubuntu could do this by keep the Main and Reestricted repos as is and make the Universe and Multiverse "rolling", allowing Kubuntu and such to time it's "releases" to the DE used (KDE e.g.).
53 • @51 (by Ika on 2014-08-07 02:54:39 GMT from Spain)
"Are you saying that regardless of whether you're using a rolling distro or a release update distro, it's downright dangerous not to update every day?"
I don't understand why some people are fearing updates or being so lazy to apply them... It should be as normal as eating or drinking water. Updates should be applied whenever there are available/released be it daily, weekly or twice a day. Personally I have set the update notifier to notify about available updates to 8 or 12 hours.
I saw people saying they don't have time to apply updates!!!... It's a B.S. OK, can't be interrupt a work... but what about doing it before starting it or afterwards? If updates are regularly applied (again, recommended is whenever are they available) then the process is very short.
Another thing: every time a major update (or upgrade) is applied the system should be rebooted (I'm doing it even twice, it's needed especially when a new kernel is installed; in that case the first one is a cold reboot). But again, there are some too lazy to do it... And then are coming the complaints: "The system broke!" Isn't it stupid?
54 • Update like drinking water (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2014-08-07 07:10:17 GMT from United States)
Fine print on a bottle of water: "Failure to follow instructions may result in discomfort, injury, or death. Each label's instructions may vary; please read carefully."
Of course, these labels rarely vary ... a habit may form ... changes in instructions may appear very similar to prior instructions ...
This is one way one tiny change can bring down an entire organization or community.
55 • @52 Rollers vs. release (by Kazlu on 2014-08-07 09:08:02 GMT from France)
That's what PCLinuxOS and Chakra do. I don't use either but I have heard only good from them. I don't know about the security policy of PCLinuxOS and I think they do not have a dedicated security updates channel, but I don't want to say undocumented bullshit here and since I can't find where I read that, if someone better informed than me could bring some intel it would be cool.
56 • Rolling Release (by Jose on 2014-08-07 16:31:26 GMT from United States)
I have used rolling distros and non-rolling distros. I perfer a rolling release for my HOME PC;'s and Laptop. I use PCLinuxOS and Arch. I update weekly (when I remember, I'm old and tend to forget).
However, if I was supporting the PCs at work, I would perfer something STABLE like Debian Stable or CENTOS or Red Hat. It would be a nightmare to support rolling releases at work. People do not treat work PC's anywhere near as nice as they would treat something THEY are responsible for.
I have been using Rolling Distros for several years and early on, Debian Testing had a couple of minor issues. Arch had an issue with the video that was eaisly handled. PCLinuxOS, well, I can't seem to remember any problems, but I am sure there had to be one or two there.
Is one better than the other? Maybe. I just happened to like Rolling Distros. But I would hate to support it in a Production environment!
Saying that, at home PCLinuxOS and Arch are happily running at home, with no issues at all this year. Fact is, it has been several years since I had issues.
Maybe i am just lucky...
57 • @56 (by Ika on 2014-08-07 18:28:12 GMT from Spain)
"Maybe i am just lucky..."
I don't think so... I'm "lucky" too with PCLinuxOS. :D
Didn't try Arch though... Don't like insults...
58 • Rolling Ubuntu (by Jesse on 2014-08-07 22:45:28 GMT from Canada)
>> "I'd like to see more of a semi-rolling system where the real core parts (kernel, kernel libs, drivers, etc.) are updated every so often, say 6 mos. or a year and the applications are updated as a new "stable" version ie released. Ubuntu could do this by keep the Main and Reestricted repos as is and make the Universe and Multiverse "rolling", allowing Kubuntu and such to time it's "releases" to the DE used"
Ubuntu does exactly this via its backports repositories. The main operating system remains stable, but end user applications are updated on a regular basis. This allows Ubuntu users to maintain a stable core like running new desktop software. For people who want to be even more on the bleeding edge, Ubuntu PPAs often offer new versions of applications the same day the upstream projects release new versions.
59 • RE: PCLOS (ALT Linux and Vine Linux too) (by :wq on 2014-08-08 06:32:45 GMT from United States)
Is APT-RPM even maintained? As of the date of this post, the latest stable version of Apt is 1.0.6, which was released 2014-07-14. As far as I can tell, the last stable version of APT-RPM was 0.5.15lorg3.2, which was released 2006-06-21. The latest development version of APT-RPM is 0.5.15lorg3.94a, which was released 2008-01-12. The story for Synaptic is much the same, despite it originally being a Conectiva project. Synaptic in Debian is at version 0.81.2, which was released 2014-05-16. Synaptic in the RPM world is at 0.57.2, which was released 2005-07-04 (ALT Linux carries a 0.58 version). Have there really been no bugs to fix or improvements to be made since then?
60 • In addtion to #58 (by :wq on 2014-08-08 07:20:14 GMT from United States)
The openSUSE Project's OBS achieves much the same convenience of PPAs for openSUSE (and occasionally packages are also built for other distros). If searching online at http://software.opensuse.org/find, some casual users might be thrown off by being warned that other versions of packages from unofficial repos are possibly "unstable" (if said users even take notice that other versions are available), but I haven't found the quality to be worse than what makes its way into typical PPAs. "One Click Install" is even available.
Hopefully the Fedora Project's Copr will be as utilized.
61 • rolling with PCLOS (by M.Z. on 2014-08-08 07:37:17 GMT from United States)
I've been running PCLOS for my main desktop since 2011, and the problems are fairly few & far between. I think I've had maybe 3 or so instances when I really had to baby the OS to get an upgrade to work right, & it is usually just removing certain held packages. Each time the forum described the problem & solution perfectly; however, there was some sweat involved when nvidia made some big naming changes to their Linux packages. Apparently my onboard driver rolled into the old legacy branch & I had to recover from the command line & switch to the new driver name. I'm not a command line guru so it made me worry a bit, but the forums came through & everything was fine in the end.
I think that my big problem was mainly an issue caused by the naming conventions over at nvidia; however, it is an indicator of some possible & perhaps inevitable stumbling blocks that you can have with a rolling system. This is the one reason why I think the release structure of something like Mint 17 might be better for the average user, but if you are not afraid of doing a little work looking through the forms every great once in a while then PCLOS is excellent & requires very little extra effort. It is probably no extra effort at all for the average user if you compare occasional troubleshooting time with a reinstall every 6 months like the have in Ubuntu.
@61
There were some concerns within the PCLOS team that the distro would have to change to YUM or some setup other than APT-RPM, but that has all been resolved. I believe that someone adopted the project & promised future updates, so there was no need to change PCLOS.
62 • PCLOS packaging (by Somewhat Reticent on 2014-08-08 17:17:01 GMT from United States)
already available:
aptitude: CLI ("heavily emasculated version of Debian software")
Synaptic: GUI (see above)
Smart Package Manager: GUI and CLI (smart? not very ...)
Apt-Get: CLI
RPM: CLI
+no enthusiasm in small group for adding obsolete very-complex tool ...
63 • Sometimes things get out of hand. (by Garon on 2014-08-08 17:46:35 GMT from United States)
On the subject of rolling releases vs. updating, there is not a lot of difference. I choose to replace an operating system on my #1 machine about every three to four years. It just depends on what I use a certain system for. Whoever said that the Arch documentation does not say that you have to update every day I would say that you are probably correct. Where I heard it was in the forums so I should have taken that with a grain of salt. I don't want to belittle any distribution that anyone uses or belittle the person for using that distribution. Sometimes people get a little over excited. I know that it's happened to me. On my main system I do use Ubuntu LTS releases and so far I've had good results just doing a distribution upgrade. If I want bleeding edge I use a PPA to get what I want. I DO NOT reinstall every 6 months except on my play time system and that's just for fun. I also love to download and play with other system just to see what people use. Soon I will be playing with openSuse Factory and I'm looking forward to it. So I do apologize to anyone that I've offended and I will work harder to respect other peoples opinions. (when they make sense) :)
64 • @52, 58, 60 (by Brandon Sniadajewski on 2014-08-10 03:17:46 GMT from United States)
My thinking was that when it comes time to upgrade the system to the new version (say 14.04 to 14.10, just for kicks), you're not waiting a few hours downloading all the, say, 800 packages that needs updating, but instead just the 100 some odd packages in the core of a system (if you're using Kubuntu instead of Ubuntu, where only the kernel, drivers, CLI tools and a few others like Firefox and LO would be found in main where KDE is in universe).
65 • Once you go Arch.. (by brad on 2014-08-11 02:57:59 GMT from United States)
it's hard to use anything else...I've distro hopped.. and still come back to arch/arch based every time.
Number of Comments: 65
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The Sentry Firewall CD-ROM was designed to be an easy to manage and configure CD-ROM based Linux operating system suitable for use in a firewall, IDS (Intrusion Detection System) or server environment. The system was designed to be immediately configurable for a variety of different operating environments via a configuration file located on a floppy disk, a local hard drive, and/or a network via HTTP(S), FTP, SFTP, or SCP. Currently, the system was based on a Slackware 9.0 installation. Various other packages and utilities have also been added to increase this system's functionality.
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