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1 • Devuan dis-freedom (by PC Inquirer on 2015-01-12 02:24:23 GMT from Australia)
The non-systemd Devuan distro eulogises the philosophy of openness and freedom. It's main advocate on distrowatch is "cykodrone". He posted a list of links to the project and stated that he is on their mailing list - in order to convince us that the project is legitimate - and that we should use the distro to enjoy its freedom attributes. So a query was sent to the mailing list as to who cykodrone was. There was no reply.
Most people use their own names when they advocate items for the public to use. In computing this helps to establish what projects they have worked on, what languages they code in, if they've been involved in previous disputes, etc. But the Devuan team have deemed that the public is not allowed to have freedom of information when it comes to their own advocates. What has the Devuan team got to hide? Double standards anyone??
2 • First Impressions of Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon Edition (by Georgia on 2015-01-12 02:32:17 GMT from Canada)
I don't want to have learn an operating system, because I've got work to do. Mint gets out of my way, and let's me get things done - that's why it's my daily driver. Congrats to Clem and team for their hard work. Their polished result really shines.
:-)
3 • FYI - basic torrent client (by Somewhat Reticent on 2015-01-12 02:24:33 GMT from United States)
Transmission-Qt 'plays well with others', especially at SourceForge.
A recent (2014JAN08) "experimental" 64-bit version 2.84+ is available.
4 • on #2 (by Rajesh Ganesan on 2015-01-12 03:06:45 GMT from India)
+1
Fully agree with Georgia! :)
5 • @1 - Don't let it get under your skin (by Milo on 2015-01-12 04:27:19 GMT from Poland)
I hope this message is received in the spirit it was intended, that of friendship.
Set the standard for better behaviour, even if it isn't repaid in kind. Adding a disruptive message to the Devuan mailing list is no better than the disruptive messages that have been added to the Debian mailing lists over the last several months.
Just leave it be. It's a waste of your time.
6 • Set Sail For TAILS (Linux) Fail! (by whit nee hew stone on 2015-01-12 04:32:05 GMT from Austria)
Hell, IMO if TAILS were serious they would roll a hardened Gentoo distro (or OpenBSD) without so many packages and without so many odd additions, including:
1) The 'Whisperback' package
2) Not shipping with 'autotest_remote_shell.py' and 'do_not_ever_run_me' in /usr/local/sbin and removing all traces of debugging scripts - go ahead and read both files on TAILS and question why a distro such as TAILS needs these.
Don't suggest liberte linux, development has stalled since it's first version a long time ago. Don't suggest the OpenBSD Anonymous Tor CD, it's outdated and won't connect to the Tor network.
7 • Mint 17.1 KDE (by rich52 on 2015-01-12 05:25:18 GMT from United States)
Gave the newest Mint 17.1 KDE a run for the money. Works well. Runs smoother than Kubuntu which has been a big time favorite of mine. I'm now using Manjaro (both KDE and Gnome). None-the-less I like to distro hop to see how different distro's are shaping up. Mint has smoothed out a lot of the rough edges that I have seen in some of the others. Installation has never been easier and this is a plus for newbies to Linux. Keep up the good work.
Rich :)
8 • Load average (by Manish Jhawar on 2015-01-12 05:52:55 GMT from Qatar)
As answered, the "load average" is an indicator of the "process load" on the kernel and is loosely related to the "CPU load", especially in cases of throttled I/O. To demonstrate this, I often use the following shell command line which will cause your "load average" to shoot up by 100 while having minimal overall performance impact:
for i in `seq 0 99`; do echo $i; (nice dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null bs=1 &); done
After executing the above command, wait for the full output from 0 to 99 which may take some time. While waiting, you may want to run top in another terminal and watch the load average go up.
To end the experiment and remove these extra processes, just kill them with (make sure no other dd processes are running that you want to keep):
killall dd
I have gone uo tp 1000+ "load average" frequently on my modest desktop for days on end without noticing any performance delays. Do write to let me know how you felt or have other comments to share.
9 • On bluetooth... (by Vakkotaur on 2015-01-12 06:00:31 GMT from United States)
The one issue I've had with recent distributions is that bluetooth will only appear to try to work with a headset, but won't really work until "sudo pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover" is invoked.
Supposedly there was an issue where either bluetooth (Blueman?) and/or PulseAudio didn't play nice together and the 'solution' was to have one disable part of the other. The original reason has gone away, but the 'solution' lingers on, causing problems. When I last looked at it, it was acknowledged, but it would be nice to know when the correction propagates so one can have a Linux install that works as well as a telephone does.
I left Xubuntu 12.04 for something more recent, but lost bluetooth working correctly in the process. This has been across *buntu 13.10, 14.04, Mint 17, and PCLOS.
10 • Not Just Mint (by ForkYourSelf on 2015-01-12 06:00:52 GMT from Indonesia)
There are many other distros that 'get out of the way', and are just as or even more polished.
My beef with Linux Mint is its developers' insistence on applying filtering on updates rather than improvements or fixes, which makes the distribution practically less credible. I just hope they change the practice rather than try to justify it.
11 • red herring (by Milo on 2015-01-12 06:32:06 GMT from Poland)
Out of curiosity, and hoping to avoid further rancour, I looked into this. If the described communication from #1 mentioned cykodrone by name, I'm not certain it exists. At least, I was unable to find it- https://lists.dyne.org/lurker/search/20161201.000000.00000000@ml:dng,cykodrone.html. Expanding the search to all dyne.org mailing lists also yielded no results. https://lists.dyne.org/lurker/search/20161201.060000.00000000@cykodrone.html.
I have no reason to believe it was deleted, as there are plenty of colourful messages which haven't been. It's possible the name was misspelt, but this appears to be a nonissue. Clearly it's best to move on.
12 • Load average on Linux (by M. Edward (Ed) Borasky on 2015-01-12 06:53:49 GMT from United States)
A little-known fact about the load average on Linux is that I/O bound processes also contribute to the total. The load average is a weighted average of the number of processes in either the "R" state *or* the "D" state! Processes in the "D" state are usually waiting for a read operation to complete.
13 • Great Issue (by Nicholai on 2015-01-12 08:05:25 GMT from United States)
I'm glad I found out today that DistroWatch has a weekly publication. I enjoyed reading it. Kudos.
14 • Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon - USB Image Writer (by WhoDat on 2015-01-12 09:29:58 GMT from United States)
Anyone used the USB Image Writer, on an installed version of Linux MInt 17.1? When I use this tool (USB Image Writer), its locks up the desktop, but does write an image to USB. Crtl+Alt+Backspace, to unlock and go to login screen. Anyone else?
15 • Mint 17.1 KDE (by kc1di on 2015-01-12 12:08:07 GMT from United States)
Just downloaded and installed the newest version of Mint 17.1 KDE and must say it's very simple and impressive- had it up and running and doing work with it in less that 30 mins. It's just smooth here.
Keep up the good reviews Jesse and Thanks :)
16 • Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon-USB Image Writer (by Dave on 2015-01-12 12:11:46 GMT from United States)
Right after release there were a few bugs here and there -- the image writer lock up being one of them,I even experienced some random freezes that required a hard reboot.Clem and crew seem to have them sorted now and every thing seems smooth to me.I used the upgrade method from Mint 17 and thought that might have been the problem but after digging a bit I discovered it was a Cinnamon thing as some Ubuntu users were experiencing the same freezes. Bug reports https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/1321623 but the Mint crew pushed a load of updates on 12/13/2014 and I haven't had a problem since
17 • Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon (by Marc Visscher on 2015-01-12 12:29:46 GMT from Netherlands)
@10: Could you name one or two distros which are "just as" or "even more" polished than Linux Mint? I tried a lot of distros, but I haven't seen a distro as polished as Mint yet. But please name a few if you like...
18 • AliyaLinux (by Aliya on 2015-01-12 12:30:24 GMT from Poland)
The distribution is called AliyaLinux, where Aliya is Elephant in Sinhalese language. The link is; https://sourceforge.net/projects/aliyalinux/
19 • Mint Cinnamon Excellen\; Package Manager Poseurs (by joncr on 2015-01-12 12:48:57 GMT from United States)
1. Mint 17.1 Cinnamon is an excellent piece of work I'd happily recommend to anyone who wants a non-Windows machine with minimal fuss. For someone who thinks Linux is supposed to be all about endless configuration and noodling around, not so much.
2. Go hang out in the newbies section at Ubuntuforums before telling Gnome and Fedora how their package managers should work. If you assume -- decided to limit -- your target audience to people who want to use console apps and who know that adding a KDE application to an XFCE desktop can easily bring in hundreds of megabytes of dependencies, then you can make a case for exposing those things in the package managers GUI front end.
But, if you also want to attract an audience from among users who don't want to use console apps, who don't know how dependency resolution works, and who think of an "application" as a single unitary blob, then you just might want to take a different approach with the GUI front end to your package manager.
Taking the approach that Linux is supposed to be about using console apps and getting diwn in the weeds is perfectly legitimate. But, that decision has costs and repercussions that should be recognized.
"Most people use their own names when they advocate items for the public to use."
So I guess your real name is "PC Inquirer."
Gosh, it must have been tough growing up with a name like that. I bet you never forgave your parents.
20 • @1 RE: Devuan dis-freedom (by PC Inquirer) (by Paraquat on 2015-01-12 14:30:09 GMT from Taiwan)
"Most people use their own names when they advocate items for the public to use."
So I guess your real name is "PC Inquirer."
Gosh, it must have been tough growing up with a name like that. I bet you never forgave your parents.
21 • Gnome Software and editing environment variables (by vw72 on 2015-01-12 14:34:15 GMT from United States)
Yes, a user shouldn't have to edit environment variables so Gnome Software will see applications specific to other desktops. That is the job of the distro developers.
The problem with Gnome Software, is not not Gnome, per say, but that Fedora tends to ship as close to vanilla packages as possible. Yes, Gnome developers could make their software manager look for other desktops, but is called Gnome Software.
If Fedora, or any other distro using Gnome Software, wants to make it easier for their users, all they need to do is default the environment variable to be all inclusive. Not everything is the responsibility of upstream.
22 • a (by a on 2015-01-12 15:05:23 GMT from France)
"If you are a person sitting at home and you only look through your logs rarely and do so manually, then binary logs are probably fine for you."
On the contrary, people who rarely need to read logs (like most desktop users) will have to read the documentation every time to remember what are the required commands to get access to the information…
23 • Mint updates (by M.Z. on 2015-01-12 19:13:10 GMT from )
@10
I think most Mint users consider more control over the update process to be a good feature. I've had updates do bad things to my system on multiple Distros including Mint, but for Mint it was an issue I created by enabling level 4 & 5 updates. I don't do that anymore, but I do force all security updates. I get the updates I want & need, & I have both increased stability & complete control of my system. Other Distros may lead you off a cliff, but Mint is better & it is one of the reasons I use & enjoy the distro. Unless you can think of a reason why blind updates to packages that cause system instability & don't affect security is a good thing, I'm going to say you need to rethink your position.
@5/11
Agreed. I don't remember anyone coming onto disrowatch claiming to be the Clem/Texstar of Devuan, so why bother people about some random person who supports their project?
24 • @10, Re Mint (by Rev_Don on 2015-01-12 21:10:42 GMT from United States)
Personally, I appreciate the filtering that they do on the updates. It isn't that difficult to work with and helps a newer user gauge whether they want to apply a specific update or not. Too bad more distros don't do the same, especially rolling releases.
I'll agree that there are other distros that are just as polished and get out of your way. I've yet to find one that is more polished though, but that can come down to personal preferences. It's one of the reasons I use Point Linux 2.3.1 as my main Linux distro. It's polished enough for my needs and gets out of my way when I want it to.
25 • re: everyone (by brad on 2015-01-12 23:25:27 GMT from United States)
I've used Suse, Mandriva, Slackware, Ubuntu, Mint, Pclinuxos, Manjaro, Sabayon, Gentoo...
Not all were success stories: Mint makes Ubuntu easy, Sabayon makes Gentoo easy, Manjaro makes Arch easy, PcLinuxos makes mandriva easy, etc etc etc.
Most of us that distrohop, base our future using said distro on that one install, working or not. I think that Linux "should" be for the masses! Mint, Manjaro, Sabayon, Ubuntu, PcLinuxos all have their niches, their places.. on our computers, in our minds, and most of all they have our time. The less time configuring, tweaking, figuring stuff out, we can all enjoy the positives Linux provides over windows and the freedom to enjoy your computer not spend endless time researching how to fix the registry, hosts file, bat files, antivirus, antimalware, antispyware, deframentors etc. etc..
EVERY single "easy" distro still has CLI for every single use, I for the life of me have no idea why hardcore users of many distros bash, belittle, harass, condemn users that use distros that are "based" on a more "hardcore" distro.. why cant people just celebrate Linux being used by just one more person at a time..
Why can't we all just get along.. that's all I'm saying. sorry for the semi-run on sentencing etc.. I'm at work.
That's my .02 now I'm broke!
26 • What's an app? (by cykodrone on 2015-01-12 23:41:32 GMT from Canada)
IMO, any code that allows a user to accomplish a particular task or tasks through keyboard mouse or touchscreen initialization and manipulation, regardless of its working interface.
Redhat, aka Fedora is slowly creeping towards being the W*ndows of the Linux world, you can call me tinfoil hat all you like, the writing is in the terminal window, or not, especially in this case. ;D
27 • Linux Mint Cinnamon 17.1 (by brad on 2015-01-12 23:45:52 GMT from United States)
Re: "Cinnamon's code has been cleaned up to offer faster performance and less memory usage." Although this is touted as a "small improvement[s]", in my mind this is the killer improvement! Cinnamon no longer chews up memory. If only browser and email apps could follow suit...
28 • Freedom of Information vs. Security of Persons (by Fairly Reticent on 2015-01-13 00:59:50 GMT from United States)
The right to privacy is necessary to freedom for all, thus hated by trolls and paparazzi.
29 • @16 Dave & @27 Brad (by WhoDat on 2015-01-13 05:43:01 GMT from United States)
@16 Dave, thanks for the response and the link, much appreciated. I am glad you are problem free, since the updates. :)
@27 Brad, I agree. Less memory usage is a major plus, no wasting of resources is great.
Have a great week. :D
30 • Re: What's an app? (by far2fish on 2015-01-13 06:03:42 GMT from Denmark)
@26
"Redhat, aka Fedora is slowly creeping towards being the W*ndows of the Linux world, you can call me tinfoil hat all you like, the writing is in the terminal window, or not, especially in this case. ;D"
Funny you should say that in relation to the Gnome Software controversy.
The Software application is pretty unusable in Fedora 21, and frankly since Fedora is not targeted for a beginner audience, I would guess most people are/were using command line yum anyway for software installs.
Even though Fedora contributes a lot to Gnome, it does not sound fair to blame every "bad design" decision on Fedora and Red Hat.
31 • Re @17 (by Frank on 2015-01-13 11:53:27 GMT from United States)
@17 for me linux mint did not work as good as Pinguy or Makulo
32 • Mint 17.1 Cinnamon (by Jordan on 2015-01-13 14:32:39 GMT from United States)
It only took a few days of trying the Fedora latest release to regret taking my Mint hard drive out just for that little experiment.
Are those people serious? Mint is solid, simple and "just works." Fedora is not and does not.
It's not a complicated machine: HP Pavilion M7.. blah.
33 • Mebel Jepara (by Gebyok Jati on 2015-01-13 15:30:57 GMT from Indonesia)
Thank you very much for writing such an interesting article on this topic. This has really made me think and I hope to read more.
34 • Re: Mint 17.1 Cinnamon (by far2fish on 2015-01-13 18:48:29 GMT from Denmark)
@32
Fedora works fine for me, and have mostly done so for the last 10 years.
Mint is targeting regular users, while Fedora targets developers. At the end of the day developers are regular users too, so to some degree I have to agree with you. In particular as I grow older and begins to appreciate LTS vs leading edge. Fedora requires some work after install to be usable as a home distro. At a minimum add rpmfusion repositories so you can install codecs to play video and music. Possibly install Chrome to get easy flash support and so on.
Frankly I have begun considering abandoning ship as well, and are looking for a more user friendly distro. I am not so fond of Mint with Cinnamon, but the KDE build could be an option. But so far I think Manjaro stands out as the best alternative as it is both user friendly as more leading edge than most distros...though way more conservative and careful than Arch :)
35 • Windows what? (by Garon on 2015-01-13 19:58:41 GMT from United States)
#26 said, "Redhat, aka Fedora is slowly creeping towards being the W*ndows of the Linux world, you can call me tinfoil hat all you like, the writing is in the terminal window, or not, especially in this case."
What does that even mean? Is it because, that they are making money? That it's a commercial enterprise? That it confuses Unix loving types and they can't understand what is going on? That comment is just as about as useless as mine but I couldn't let such stupidity slide. Time to grow up a little bit people.
36 • Does anybody read the articles? (by cykodrone on 2015-01-14 02:16:27 GMT from Canada)
I do, that's what this comment section is for, commenting on the articles. W*ndows, for years, has went to great lengths to hide the CL in their OSes, that's the parallel I was drawing, nothing more, nothing less, so please, save your personal attacks. But yeah, I did mention RH and Fedora, the main architects behind systemd, if the init fits (svchost), lol, coupled with hiding the CL, their direction is looking pretty obvious. Just because Redhat is enterprise now, doesn't mean it can't go mainstream, XP was 2K under the hood, 2K was an enterprise OS. Do the math.
37 • Charlet OS (by Charlie Z on 2015-01-14 03:36:01 GMT from Puerto Rico)
The developer needs to base this distro on Linuxmint 17.1 14.04 LTS minus the kernel panic's of Linux Mint Rebecca and not Xubuntu is buggy as hell....
38 • Fedora targeting (by Jordan on 2015-01-14 17:11:07 GMT from United States)
Developers? Really? I'm asking honestly.
"Fedora Workstation is a polished, easy to use operating system for laptop and desktop computers, with a complete set of tools and helpers for developers and makers of all kinds."
The word "developers" is in there, in the context of tools being included for them. But I didn't now it was considered "targeting" developers.
Now I know why it's not useful to me (along with it not working well at all on my computers).
39 • Re: Fedora targeting (by far2fish on 2015-01-14 18:20:54 GMT from Denmark)
@38
Do a google search on "5tFTW: Five Fedora 21 FAQs". The top result should be a article by the Fedora Project Leader Matthew Miller where he tries to explain this. Scroll down to the heading saying "Does Fedora Workstation mean Fedora is abandoning regular users?"
Read his reply, and and interpret what he means.
40 • Fedora (by Milo on 2015-01-14 22:14:58 GMT from Poland)
I would really like to see fedoraproject.org/wiki/Statistics updated.
41 • LXLE, flash and older PCs (by libtim on 2015-01-14 22:19:44 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just downloading Mint. Expecting to enjoy it. I think people can be a bit harsh. the majority of distros, various Ubuntus, Debians, Fedoras and Suses etc work fine. they are free and fun. we can all dual boot.
I'm looking for a distro for a friends old PC and checked out LXLE, has it gone completely commercial?
About old PCs. Mint once run great on 512MB. I'm not clear why something as good still can't. I don't think nowadays there is anything full featured that just runs out of the box on ab old PC. MX14 is great but not quite as straightforward for a windows user as Mint then and now so struggling with what to offer friend,
And another worry is that I'm struggling to keep up with flash on any PC
42 • @40 - Alternative to Mint (by Uncle Slacky on 2015-01-14 23:16:53 GMT from France)
If you like MX-14, SolydX might be worth a look (it's derived from the old Mint Debian XFCE spin). Also Peppermint OS if you want something Ubuntu-based.
43 • #41 One For Older Pc's (by sasdthoh on 2015-01-15 02:38:16 GMT from United States)
I spend a lot of time making older systems usuable again and I have found, to my amazement, that Lubuntu 32-bit works really well.
Granted, a dual core processor and 2-gigs of ram is desirable but I just finished a setup on an older Dell desktop with 512-mb of ram and it runs really well. I think it was nine years old.
I think the majority of readers here will agree with me on this one. Its simple and fast with a modern Ubuntu base. It's a really great choice for someone that doesn't want to spend time with configuration issues.
44 • Users need compilation but no YouTube players? (by gregzeng on 2015-01-15 04:34:06 GMT from Australia)
Linux version of "enduser friendliness" includes GUI hostility; eg comments on real time monitoring of resources, which XFCE & KDE can easily do without CLI rubbish.
Comments in DW disregard user friendly distros, preferring USA-legal compliance, which means GNU-LINUX only; hence Debian, Redhat, Fedora & other bare-boned operating systems.
I prefer user friendly distros, like Netrunner (in Manjaro-KDE & Kubuntu bases), or Mint, based on Ubuntu, like most of the user-friendly distros. Mint offers easy installatiom of the widest selection of Desktop Environments (DE). Also praised in noob-friendly forums are Deepin & Zorin, but they suffer from a smaller coder base, and just one DE.
In the RPM-based distros, only PCLOS seems noob-friendly. However they lack the ability of Ubuntu-based distros, to immediately downgrade or upgrade any packages, almost instantly. Kernal, etc changes are days ahead of the clumsy distros like Arch, Manjaro, etc. IMHO.
45 • Patrick Verner has announced the release of Parted Magic 2015_01_13 (by Yo on 2015-01-15 05:30:57 GMT from United States)
Why are we advertising non-free software here? Has Verner tossed you a few bucks for server maintenance?
46 • Parted Magic (by Hoos on 2015-01-15 06:06:18 GMT from Singapore)
I'm happy for Distrowatch to continue to inform us of Parted Magic's releases. At least the developer's announcements are clear that payment is required. As I recall, there was a recent distro release announced here, where it was not made clear that a fee would be charged until you actually downloaded and tried to install it.
Nothing says people can't charge for open source software. It's up to us whether we want to pay for it or not.
Parted Magic is pretty useful as a nice toolbox distro that can run live from RAM alone.
Unfortunately I made a paypal donation to the developer just before he started charging for the later releases, so I'm not willing for now to pay more.
Maybe in due course I might pay for an updated release, or maybe I will just use other tools.
For instance MX14.3 runs very well from live USB and comes with some useful tools like a Grub repair application. Also, I think Puppy variants will run live (and as root) from RAM.
47 • Free or Freed (by Somewhat Reticent on 2015-01-15 08:50:55 GMT from United States)
How quickly someone tries to conflate free-of-charge with Freedom-Licensed, or Open Software with open targets. we live in a challenging world.
I, too, donated to PartEd Magic just before the sole maintainer-developer realized leeches would never support the distro, but don't begrudge. Perhaps he's still trying to find the perfect business-model - recently I noticed forum access appears restricted to supporters.
48 • Feedback (by Milo on 2015-01-15 10:53:14 GMT from Poland)
The change doesn't bother me, but I prefer the "Latest News and Updates" on the home page without screenshot thumbnails; however, I would like any remaining screenshot-less database entries for active distros which do have a default DE/WM/Web interface to have screenshots added.
As long as the GUIs aren't customised (beyond whatever the distros do themselves), are reader screenshot submissions accepted?
49 • @44 : user friendliness or laws issues ? (by Frederic Bezies on 2015-01-15 11:06:30 GMT from France)
"Comments in DW disregard user friendly distros, preferring USA-legal compliance, which means GNU-LINUX only; hence Debian, Redhat, Fedora & other bare-boned operating systems. "
Correct me if I'm wrong, but RH and Debian are US native distributions. So they have to follow US laws. It is true too for Free Software Foundation.
"I prefer user friendly distros, like Netrunner (in Manjaro-KDE & Kubuntu bases), or Mint, based on Ubuntu, like most of the user-friendly distros. Mint offers easy installatiom of the widest selection of Desktop Environments (DE). Also praised in noob-friendly forums are Deepin & Zorin, but they suffer from a smaller coder base, and just one DE. "
Correct me again. But Netrunner is german, Kubuntu is Isle Of Man native, so no software patents for them.
Deepin ? Chinese. Zorin ? Irish. So no software patents for them too. So they can had patents crippled software without legal problems.
This is not a "user friendly issue", this is a law issue. Nothing less, nothing more.
And about youtube ? No need to use flash player to use youtube. You can use HTML5 video and audio within Mozilla Firefox (since version 32 or so) or with chromium. You just have to install all gstreamer plugins.
50 • Maybe Rpi package lists can give ideas for olds PCs (by dbrion on 2015-01-15 13:18:44 GMT from France)
As Rapsberry Pi (ARM processor) need 256-512 (depends on version RAM), desktop structures are CPU-agnostic and one can manage to have a desktop with everything one needs (at least I need) under Rapsbian (if one does not have a RPi, it can be qemulated from windows XP -special qemu port- and any flavor of GNUlinux : this is enough to know/choose what can be installed for desktop appilications -not HW related ones : qemu cannot do)
51 • Fedora/Gnome software (by Beejay on 2015-01-15 14:15:36 GMT from United States)
@34: Think about auditioning Debian, which I keep handy because it is stable and it does work. My pattern is to download the new stable and after 6 mos or so add the backport repos so that I can check newer versions of applications. I watch testing and when it seems solid I let it take over my major computing duties. I am on testing right now and I have been for some months, It is working extremely well for me. Hardware is a main-stream i5 laptop with integrated graphics from System76.
I agree as well with the Manjaro endorsement. It is a very nice system if you prefer it.
I also have Salix running and it is a very nice, easy way to get into Slackware if you want to try that route. I also have Slack 14.1/Xfce running. Darned good choice as well.
Want a darkhorse? Investigate antiX. It is terrific on light systems especially.
52 • @49 Confirming Red Hat is a US Company (by Ben Myers on 2015-01-15 15:50:10 GMT from United States)
Red Hat is a US company with HQ in Westford, Massachusetts, about 10 miles (16 km) from here. I drive by it often.
53 • @41 - LXLE, what you pay for and what you don't (by Ben Myers on 2015-01-15 15:56:21 GMT from United States)
LXLE is a free download, impeded slightly by the insistence that one must use a torrent client to download it. (Let's face it. The unwashed do not know much about torrent clients.) I was attracted to LXLE by the statement that one can easily(!) set up a Windows XP or 7 (maybe even 8 or Vista, heaven forbid) virtual machine. So I torrented it, installed it and quickly learn that one has to pay for a download of the VM component. I never did find out whether the VM download was torrent or not. Instead, I moved on... Ben Myers
54 • LXLE, Elive, Other scams? (by linuxista on 2015-01-15 16:19:36 GMT from United States)
I had no idea LXLE did that. Now we know 2 distros (LXLE and Elive) reel you in with a free download, then, after you have invested time and effort installing, hit you with a surprise demand for payment for certain productivity software.
Does anybody know any other distros that need to be added to this list?
55 • @53 LXLE (by linux user on 2015-01-15 17:01:16 GMT from United States)
For what it's worth, I'm in the process of a direct download (no torrent) of LXLE 64 bit 14.04.1 ...direct from Sourceforge.
Link on the LXLE download page, not real hard to find.
56 • far2fish post #39 Fedora (by Jordan on 2015-01-15 18:33:36 GMT from United States)
Naive I am about all this. I used to routinely install RedHat back when it and Mandrake were about it for people who wanted off the Windows crash wagon, with a few notable other linux distros of course.
But, yes the scheme has changed. I didn't keep up with all that. Years later here I am dismayed at it and I needn't be of course given the linux landscape outside the RedHat/Fedora atmosphere.
Looks like Debian/Ubuntu names are in a very high percentage of distro "based on" names. That's an interesting development (no pun intended). I remember when I thought Slackware would be there for us as the main speedy, light distro all forked from. Vector and a few others is about it, I guess.
Just thinking out loud. Thanks for the info and heads up.
57 • Windows VM (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2015-01-15 20:04:57 GMT from United States)
How many distros offer virtual machines customized for versions of Windows? Are any of these free-of-charge (does Microsoft require a fee for such things)?
I remember a distro that offered such things - for a fee, of course - at first, then offered them for several other popular base distros as well. (I had to filter out the hype back then.)
(LXLE has 'em? News to me. Didn't see any indication on their main website - is it buried somewhere in the forum?)
58 • @55 LXLE - A recent change (by Ben Myers on 2015-01-15 21:17:06 GMT from United States)
The direct download of LXLE is a recent change, made after I torrented it.
59 • RE #41 small distros for older PC. (by More Gee on 2015-01-15 21:23:30 GMT from United States)
I agree that there are very few Linux distributions that are light on resources that don't double install (one time from the CD and the other from the web leaving no room for updates), have broken package managers or networking issues. The only ones I would add to the list is Elementary and a recent Puppy pup that I suddenly can not remember the name of, it had everything I could want right out of the box and took only about 2gb of disk space with no drama. MX 14 took almost 5gb to get everything I wanted installed, it is pretty basic when you install it.
60 • elive (by AleCon on 2015-01-15 23:56:26 GMT from Italy)
Can someone update on the "elive" policy? After some complains elive page on Distrowatch was completed with info regarding an "installation fee" of 15$. The beta version is however presented as free, does this refer to download only? would it be possible to install it?
61 • @53 Ben Myers, LXLE misinformation (by Angel on 2015-01-16 04:05:19 GMT from Philippines)
I believe you must be confusing LXLE with Robolinux. Robolijnux is the one advertising a VM and itself as a cure-all snake oil for all PC ills.
LXLE has direct download and torrent, and there's no such thing as a pay beforehand VM whatchamacallit. I re-purpose quite a few old PCs here in the Philippines, and LXLE has been one of my favorite distros for that purpose. It has been excellent, but since they decided not to release an Ubuntu 14.04 based 32 bit version, I have moved on to others like Quelitu, Zorin Lite, Lubuntu, et al.
Angel
62 • @49,52. USA; most advanced, loved nation on the planet! (by gregzeng on 2015-01-16 05:38:06 GMT from Australia)
Thank you. I'll soon upload my study-tour, completed last week, of USA, etc. DW is legally based in the USA, but Burger King is moving out. Financially & legally, many smart corporations have also left. Australia (where I live) is moving closer to the financially unstable, innovation-hostile USA, with its crazy patent & copyright restrictions.
As you suggest, other operating systems should move to Canada, Ireland, etc - but not to Australia, where we have ex-patroit Britishers systematically "punishing" this renegade British colony.
63 • @60 elive (by Angel on 2015-01-16 05:48:14 GMT from Philippines)
Last time I tried it, about 3 months ago, the download was free and it would run live on DVD or USB, but when I tried to install, that's when the payment demand came.
64 • Vintage, version, vinci (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2015-01-16 05:53:35 GMT from United States)
From LXLE:
"32bit machines will receive an updated 12.04 shortly, this is due to the understanding that most 32bit machines are better supported under 12.04 kernel/drivers/modules." ...
"To better support 32bit hardware we updated 12.04.4 to be virtually identical to LXLE 14.04 64bit release including features, updated software and system components."
Matching software to hardware begins with kernel and (device) drivers - vintage reigns supreme, version bigtime; all else is rolling (hardware-vendor-loaded) dice ... in the dark. Many distro ISOs are light-weight - most of them are also minimal, as in minimum function.
Just sayin'.
(For good respect of user freedom, also consider the (French?) distro Voyager)
65 • Patrick Verner has announced the release of Parted Magic 2015_01_13 (by YO on 2015-01-16 07:17:11 GMT from United States)
@46 47 Free as in freedom, free as in gratis, it's all the same to me broseph. I'm sure you'd be better able to justify the leech aspersions if we were talking about a tool that offered unique useful tools, like an Encryption tool that isn't backdoored and also actually secure for example, not a bare-bone distro that follows the slackware tool-chain, and contains a bunch of unchanged free-software programs written by somebody else being sold as a utility. Just mah two cents.
Also just picked up a copy of 2015_01_13 from The Pirate Bay for giggles. I've donated to the FSF etc, but credit where credit is due folks.
#6 Donate to the Mempo project, those folks are doing things right.
66 • @49 software patents (by Kazlu on 2015-01-16 10:34:08 GMT from France)
It's not the country of origin that counts, but the country of destination. So whatever country the distro is native from, if the distro is to be used in the USA, it has to respect USA's laws. That's why every edition of Linux Mint, a distribution born in Ireland, is declined in a "main" version including multimedia codecs and a "no-codecs" version that is legally usable in USA (and Japan, and maybe other countries). Besides, Debian now includes multimedia codecs by default, considering (after having recieved legal advice) that they *should* not be sued for this.
67 • LXLE, and @59 "light on resources" (by Hoos on 2015-01-16 10:36:46 GMT from Singapore)
LXLE - I don't think the direct download thing is that new a thing. I'm sure I downloaded the original 12.04 version (not the updated one) quite some time ago as a direct download.
There was no request for payment at any time.
@59 - surely "light on resources" doesn't refer to how much space a distro takes up on your storage media after you've installed all the packages and programs you want to use. I think it refers to the amount of RAM it uses while the system is running, the burden on the CPU, etc.
Due to my experience with both MX and Elementary (which are still both installed on my computer), I'm also puzzled by your statement that: "...only ones I would add to the list is Elementary ..... [removed reference to Puppy, which is certainly lightweight] , it had everything I could want right out of the box and took only about 2gb of disk space with no drama. MX 14 took almost 5gb to get everything I wanted installed, it is pretty basic when you install it."
MX14 has a stated aim of trying to have as full-featured an installation image as possible that can still fit into a CD-ROM. And yet it still comes with Iceweasel, Libreoffice, its own suite of useful tools and a reasonable set of multimedia, office, network/internet and graphics programs. I think that's impressive.
RAM-usage - the blogspot review by mylinuxexplore compares MX to other XFCE distros and it does very well.
As far as I can recall, Elementary Luna's installation image is very bare bones, no Libreoffice off the bat, Midori as browser (not my favourite), certainly fewer utilities and range of programs unlike MX. I remember having to install LO, PCManFM, Leafpad, Iceweasel, and Chromium, and probably more. Wasn't keen on their own applications. Pantheon is a nice DE, though, and it is quite snappy. Better looking out of the box than MX14 certainly.
68 • LXLE @67 & 59 etc. (by kc1di on 2015-01-16 11:59:58 GMT from United States)
LXLE has always been free as far as I know. I've used it several time in the past and never had to pay for any software to use on it.
Virtual box is a freedownload - other virtual machines may charge a fee but that's not LXLE's fault they would have to pass on that fee if they allowed it to be down loaded via a software center or Such ,that's no different than Ubuntu or others.
LXLE is a very capable distro for old hardware.
69 • @55 (by jaws222 on 2015-01-16 14:55:38 GMT from United States)
"For what it's worth, I'm in the process of a direct download (no torrent) of LXLE 64 bit 14.04.1 ...direct from Sourceforge."
You won't be disappointed. LXLE is a really good distro. The only bug I've found is when trying to logoff or reboot/shutdown it is unresponsive so I do sudo poweroff or sudo reboot in the terminal.
70 • @61 (by jaws222 on 2015-01-16 14:58:13 GMT from United States)
but since they decided not to release an Ubuntu 14.04 based 32 bit version, I have moved on to others like Quelitu, Zorin Lite, Lubuntu, et al."
Have you tried Q4OS? Really lightweight and they have a Windows theme.
71 • @32 (by jaws222 on 2015-01-16 15:00:48 GMT from United States)
"Are those people serious? Mint is solid, simple and "just works." Fedora is not and does not"
True, Mint is easier and I believe much more solid. Fedora has always been a pain as far as Samba and sharing. However, F21 is a huge improvement over 17-20 IMO.
72 • PM (by Somewhat Reticent on 2015-01-16 20:35:34 GMT from United States)
"a bare-bone distro that follows the slackware tool-chain, and contains a bunch of unchanged free-software programs written by somebody else being sold as a utility" is about two-cents' worth of derogation, yes.
Quite a few find this toolset useful enough to support it, one way or another. I commend the producer's ongoing search for a viable support-system/business-model for Open Software work.
If it's so trivial, why are so many torrenters so eager for it? Why so little competition?
73 • 72 (by Yo on 2015-01-16 23:41:52 GMT from United States)
"If it's so trivial, why are so many torrenters so eager for it? Why so little competition?"
It's not exactly the most widely distributed utility on torrent sites. All the tools I use are available from most any Distro's PPA, with maybe the exception of the wiping tools, Dban; even those can’t wipe SSDs/SD Cards. Many Distros will even run from memory with the toram argument at boot.
74 • PM toolset (by Somewhat Reticent on 2015-01-17 02:06:07 GMT from United States)
Partitioning (MBR and GPT), Benchmarking, Cloning, Rescue, Erasure (including Secure Erase for SSD). Not for everyone, but there is a loyal following.
In a Free society, one may, of course, collect (and compile) Freed source-code, sometimes even a few packages, from many sources, and host the result. That takes work, distribution takes resources ... and then there's support.
Is all this really so trivial?
75 • Parted Magic, More than a Business Model Needed (by Ben Myers on 2015-01-17 02:13:27 GMT from United States)
So you have to pay $9.95 for the current Parted Magic, or more for an annual subscription. What comes along with commercialization is a demand that the software work correctly. Parted Magic still is not there yet, sadly. So its business model is one thing, but the need for thorough in-house testing or beta testing before release is evident. Twice now, I have anted up for the product, downloaded it, and immediately found warts that compelled me to stop using it, reverting back to the last free version. To his credit, Patrick issued refunds. The latest download goes beyond its original scope, adding other diagnostic features unrelated to hard drives. This adds some limited value to the product, but the added features duplicate what is found in other software that focuses on diagnostic and repair.
76 • @69 Direct Download of LXLE (by Ben Myers on 2015-01-17 02:16:43 GMT from United States)
Interesting that there is presently no link to the direct download of LXLE on its web site, only torrents. Equally interesting that the direct download of LXLE can be found with a simple search on SourceForge.
77 • @61 Q4OS (by Angel on 2015-01-17 02:36:05 GMT from Philippines)
I've tried many distros, including Q4OS. Windows looks are not a priority, and there would be others I prefer. For refurbished PCs I stick to lightweight distros based on Ubuntu LTS and I limit updates a la Linux Mint. If there were a lightweight enough Mint, I would happily use that and save a few steps. These PCs go to people who have few resources and the idea is that they'll be able to use them with access to software and updates for a few years, and without my continued involvement. I've found Ubuntu derivatives work best for me.
78 • @76 Ben Myers, yet more LXLE misinformation (by Angel on 2015-01-17 02:41:27 GMT from Philippines)
I don't know what you have against LXLE, but if you are going to keep spreading false information, at least make sure it can't be easily verified with a few clicks. Just went to the LXLE website. Links to direct downloads (sourceforge) are there just as before.
79 • LXLE (by Bi on 2015-01-17 03:30:53 GMT from )
I can verify that. I am downloading direct download from the LXLE website with no problem whatsoever. I am even using an accelerated download manager.
80 • Sorry for misinformation about LXLE (by Ben Myers on 2015-01-17 04:10:14 GMT from United States)
The LXLE website has changed over the last month or two, and I did not track the changes before posting earlier which I ought to have done. It did not used to be that you could do a direct download. I brought that to the attention of the team, and apparently they acted and now provide a direct download. Now that there is the direct download, I have no issues whatsoever with LXLE. My apologies.
81 • PartEd Magic FYI (by Somewhat Reticent on 2015-01-17 14:45:22 GMT from United States)
The recent pay-to-view restriction of forum access may have been joined by restriction of access to non-source auxiliary downloads (bundles and modules).
82 • LXLE (by linuxista on 2015-01-17 15:29:46 GMT from United States)
@53 So I torrented it, installed it and quickly learn that one has to pay for a download of the VM component.
@61 I believe you must be confusing LXLE with Robolinux. Robolijnux is the one advertising a VM and itself as a cure-all snake oil for all PC ills.
Can we confirm that LXLE is on the up and up, and leave it off the list of "gotcha" distros, now only Elive and Robolinux?
@60 Can someone update on the "elive" policy? After some complains elive page on Distrowatch was completed with info regarding an "installation fee" of 15$. The beta version is however presented as free, does this refer to download only? would it be possible to install it?
There have been numerous reports on these forums that Elive lets you install for free, then, after you've gone to the trouble, they demand payment to install productivity software like LibreOffice and a number of other bits of useful software. You can search comments to (late) last year's issues of DW for more details. I can't tell you b/c I won't go near Elive. I consider that very tricky, and I wouldn't want to depend on a project like that.
83 • @82, LXLE is fine, eLive not so fine (by Angel on 2015-01-17 18:08:13 GMT from Philippines)
LXLE is a community distro with no for sale VMs or any other tricky stuff. They do ask for donations, as do most others. I've used it in the past and have their latest ISO. Verifying by checking their website is as easy as asking here.
I like Enlightenment and run it in an older laptop. When Bodhi went out, I downloaded eLive to try in a VM. When I clicked on the installer, payment was demanded for an activation download. So instead I got BlueStar, based on Arch, and Quelitu, based on Lubuntu LTS. Both are good distros. I prefer Quelitu because it gives me a choice to also boot into LXDE if I feel like it.
84 • Elive clarification (by linuxista on 2015-01-18 07:37:01 GMT from United States)
Here's the comment about Elive last fall that was most disturbing:
61 • Elive @55 (by fernbap on 2014-09-20 13:47:26 GMT from Portugal)
GPL? Who said anything about GPL?
Elive asks you to pay for their distro. I have nothing against it, i was even curtous about it enough to pay for it and install it on my computer.
Then i found out that i had no package manager whatsoever. Selling a debian based distro that has no access to the debian repos? really? And the only way i could get it was to pay (again) for the "office disk" which included Open Office, apt and synaptic.
And all of that i learned only after i had installed a linux distro that i had payed for.
No, that is not a GPL breach. That is a conn job. People are intentionally fooled into having to pay again in order to have a funcional system. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice.... http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20140915&mode=67
85 • Elive (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2015-01-18 08:44:08 GMT from United States)
Full-Disclosure would include prominent up-front mention of pricing (a required payment means the transaction is a purchase, not a donation) for installation, office and/or package-management, and any other pay-to-play items. Clearly not following Best-Practice, and likely to alienate prospective buyers.
DW lists 23 distros with Enlightenment DE, 6 based on DebIan, thus 5 DebIan-based alternatives to Elive (including Bodhi, rumors of demise notwithstanding), 17 with other bases.
86 • 85 • Elive by Kragle von Schnitzelbank (by Alex on 2015-01-18 10:30:42 GMT from Poland)
The problem with Elive is that it doesn't have an installer for which the 'developer' is asking some money. There is few ways to put an installer to that 'live' iso, and I might try to attach to it. What stopped me trying this Elive is that I don't really like E DE. If I get it done, I'd post how to do it, or post a recreated iso.
87 • Elive (by Kragle on 2015-01-18 14:06:18 GMT from United States)
Perhaps the developer needs to improve the marketing/business-model. Any recommendations (other than depending solely on donations)?
Number of Comments: 87
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| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Issue 1117 (2025-04-14): Shebang 25.0, EndeavourOS 2025.03.19, running applications from other distros on the desktop, Debian gets APT upgrade, Mint introduces OEM options for LMDE, postmarketOS packages GNOME 48 and COSMIC, Redox testing USB support |
| • Issue 1116 (2025-04-07): The Sense HAT, Android and mobile operating systems, FreeBSD improves on laptops, openSUSE publishes many new updates, Fedora appoints new Project Leader, UBports testing VoLTE |
| • Issue 1115 (2025-03-31): GrapheneOS 2025, the rise of portable package formats, MidnightBSD and openSUSE experiment with new package management features, Plank dock reborn, key infrastructure projects lose funding, postmarketOS to focus on reliability |
| • Issue 1114 (2025-03-24): Bazzite 41, checking which processes are writing to disk, Rocky unveils new Hardened branch, GNOME 48 released, generating images for the Raspberry Pi |
| • Issue 1113 (2025-03-17): MocaccinoOS 1.8.1, how to contribute to open source, Murena extends on-line installer, Garuda tests COSMIC edition, Ubuntu to replace coreutils with Rust alternatives, Chimera Linux drops RISC-V builds |
| • Issue 1112 (2025-03-10): Solus 4.7, distros which work with Secure Boot, UBports publishes bug fix, postmarketOS considers a new name, Debian running on Android |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
LinuxConsole
LinuxConsole is an independently developed Linux live CD with different editions designed for desktops, servers, gaming consoles, and old computers. Its primary characteristics are easy installation, extensive choice of software in the form of modules, and excellent hardware detection.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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