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1 • Colored tabs (by Al on 2015-02-23 01:26:40 GMT from North America)
You mention that Vivaldi is the first browser you've seen with tabs that can have different colors. Firefox has an extension ColorfulTabs that provides this functionality.
I like it and think it's pretty neat.
2 • Icon sizes and other things (by cykodrone on 2015-02-23 03:21:09 GMT from North America)
Netrunner is a decent distro, I used it a while back, but I do have one question, are the icons in the sample pics that size by default? They're insanely huge, icons are only a graphical representation of something, they're not meant to take up so much screen real estate. Speaking of icons, I'm very sick of the oxygen set, I want to stab my screen every time I see them, lol, I curse the day they were ported to gtk. I decided my GUI needs to be more visually stimulating (as opposed to drab and depressing) so I installed the Go-Touch GUI theme, malys-revolt2 WM theme and the Humanity icon set. On the flip-side, I'm using a very boring CGI workstation-ish wallpaper to reduce distraction, I've gotta get things done and not fall asleep in the process.
Maybe the new Debian Project Leader can bring back 'choice', I'm not going to hold my breath and I've already moved on to a different distro, even Linux From Scratch offers choice.
It's nice to see corporations spending money on Linux code, I just hope it's not for the wrong reasons. Are they finally turning their backs on MS? We live in interesting times indeed.
I don't do multiple monitors anymore but the panel thing was a major thorn in my rhubarb, kudos to Mint and the Cinnamon team.
My Fedora decoder ring says X11 is on life support, I know, I know, it's not time to call the coroner yet, just sayin'.
Vivaldi looks like an interesting project, more browser choices is a good thing. I dumped Goggle Chreep ages ago, I wouldn't even touch it with somebody elses' ten foot pole.
3 • Vivaldi (by Left Click on 2015-02-23 08:07:51 GMT from North America)
I look forward to this browser bringing back everything that made Opera great. I'm still thrown that the Opera devs thought bookmarks were unnecessary. I very actively use mine.
4 • RE: Vivaldi (by Pat on 2015-02-23 08:50:05 GMT from Oceania)
They what?!? Opera thought bookmarks were unnecessary? What a ridiculous idea! I guess I stopped using Opera at a good time (pre-engine switch). Although it seems I may need to switch browsers yet against with the upcoming changes Mozilla's add-ons policy.
5 • The future of Debian (by Ex-Debian on 2015-02-23 08:55:15 GMT from Europe)
I have been a Linux user for over 12 years. For over one half of that time I was a Debian user. To name but the distros I actually used for working during at least 2 years, my evolution was:
Mandrake -> RetHat -> Ubuntu -> Debian -> Lubuntu
DE-wise:
KDE3 -> Gnome2 -> Xfce/Mate -> LXDE/LXQt
I have finished the migration of my third computer from Debian Jessie to Lubuntu 14.04 LTS. Just one more to go.
Lubuntu LTS is just a transition operating system. I will stick to it until it is deprecated just to have the time to observe how the Linux ecosystem evolves. I am rediscovering Ubuntu and realise how superior it is to Debian in so many ways... The reason for abandoning it in favour of Debian so many years ago was the poor quality control inherent to Ubuntu's release system (and which resulted in my file system being corrupted after an upgrade). However, experienced users claim that the an LTS release should be rock solid after the second of third revision (and we are already at .02 so I hope this is actually the case).
This far I have found only a couple of annoying features:
1.- Excessive dependencies. This is an extremely annoying "feature" inherited from Debian. There are certain applications that pull the entire Gnome or KDE desktops ("entire" is obviously an exaggeration). This does not happen in Arch or Gentoo, and therefore I guess that the Debian/Ubuntu packagers and not the developers are to blame. The reverse issue is also a pain, for instance, I wanted to remove Guvcview because it does not work with kernel 3.16, however, this would also remove the package lubuntu-desktop. Ridiculous...
2.- Locales handling. During installation, I chose en_US-UTF-8 as my default locale. However, the installer configured the rest of the locales according to the auto-detected location. As a result, my bash scripts using decimal numbers would not work. It took me a while to figure out what the problem was (with the new locales they expected a comma rather than a point as the decimal separator) and to find a solution (changing the value of the variable LC_NUMERIC).
Other than that Lubuntu is one of the best OS I have tried this far.
6 • Midori (by Barnabyh on 2015-02-23 10:16:08 GMT from North America)
Midori does coloured tabs if the in-built extension is enabled. It's the first browser where I saw this and it comes in quite handy in visually distinguishing and trying to find something between different open tabs.
7 • Vivaldi is alpha (by Teresa e Junior on 2015-02-23 10:36:51 GMT from Planet Mars)
You forgot to mention that Vivaldi is still in Alpha stage, meaning this is just preview build. I have hope they will implement the things I found most useful in Opera, since Vivaldi's CEO is Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner. Yes, the guy who tried swimming from Norway to the US!
8 • The Future Of Debian GNU/Linux (by Robert Pogson on 2015-02-23 11:03:02 GMT from North America)
The past year has indeed been trying. For me the big thing was migration to systemd. Whatever the merits of systemd, the shift to include it in the distro was botched. Besides the bugs actually in systemd and the snooty attitude of the systemd upstream, Debian did not get the conversion from sysvinit to systemd right. On my desktop PC, on which I run a bunch of services, for instance, boot-times doubled... The reason was that the implementation of systemd started X after all my services were up and running. The old behaviour was that things started in parallel. After much frustration, I found that I could get back the old behaviour by setting the sysvinit scripts to not start my services and then tell systemd to start them after X was up. How many consumers will run some database to support an application they use occasionally and not figure out how to do that? It's really bizarre that Debian prevents users from tweaking systemd when it needs tweaking by having it auto-configure incorrectly and reject tweaks that are in the documentation.
Besides that weirdness with systemd, I find it odd that Debian would make systemd the default init when systemd is clearly beta software. Debian Jessie is supposed to be a release, not a perpetual beta system. They should not have made systemd the default. Now all kinds of packages are building in dependencies on systemd and folks are being forced to use systemd. That's not the Debian way. That's inconsistent with the Debian Social Contract: "We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. We will support the needs of our users for operation in many different kinds of computing environments." Instead users are fleeing or trying to avoid Debian's default as best they can. It makes no sense.
Trying to put all this together will be a challenge for any leader. Too much "blood" has been shed. For instance, some maintainers have stated they will not pay any attention to bug reports now... "all those bugs, whichever severity they have, are quite useless to me. There's just too much noise in them to make sound decisions, so I'll just ignore
them. I could as well close them wontfix for now, but I actually just wait until they're preventing something to migrate to testing.
In the meantime, I'm trying to have a clear view of the whole picture in unstable, but I've abandoned the idea to have it provided by actual users on the BTS."
see https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?archive=no&bug=754850#98
9 • Netrunner sw q's - IM and Grub (by Bill on 2015-02-23 11:34:23 GMT from North America)
2 apps described in the review were not identified by name - the grub editor and the system tray im client. Are these Netrunner specific, KDE apps or other?
10 • @8 The Future Of Debian (by greg on 2015-02-23 13:23:28 GMT from Europe)
You mentioned boot times.... Remember when ubuntu showcased boot times of 12 seconds with Ubutnu 10.04. no systemd needed. whatever happened to that idea?
i bet they could pull somehting similar off if they put their mind to it.
systemd wasn't all about boot times, but it was it's biggest "selling point".
11 • @10 upstart init system (by Frederic Bezies on 2015-02-23 13:31:30 GMT from Europe)
I think - and correct me if I'm wrong - Canonical is using upstart (a sysvinit replacement) for Ubuntu since Ubuntu Edgy Eft (6.10)
http://upstart.ubuntu.com/
Fedora used it between Fedora 9 (may 2008) and Fedora 14 (november 2010). Fedora 15 (may 2011) was the first using systemd.
12 • @11 upstart (by kc1di on 2015-02-23 14:19:42 GMT from North America)
Yes ubuntu has used upstart and so does mint. but Ubuntu has said they will go with systemd for future releases.
Netrunner is a nice distro. but I can't seem to get use to using it for some reason. Like Mint KDE Better Just my personal opinion.
13 • Semplice / Debian SID (by Carlos on 2015-02-23 16:11:24 GMT from Europe)
@5:
"The reverse issue is also a pain, for instance, I wanted to remove Guvcview because it does not work with kernel 3.16, however, this would also remove the package lubuntu-desktop. Ridiculous..."
That happened to me years ago with Semplice (based on Debian SID).
It did happen from time to time, not necessarily when removing a package, but sometimes even when updating some package.
It wanted to remove "semplice-something" because of incompatibility with a new library version. That was the whole Blackbox WM and the distro's customization.
I gave up.
14 • Torrent Files Download-XFCE Vs KDE (by Muthu on 2015-02-23 16:52:09 GMT from Asia)
Icon size may be very large. But Netrunner's looks are gorgeous like windows 8.I Download lot of stuff(Large size files) using torrents. I have found out that the torrent files download rate is initially fast and after some time torrent files download rate is slow in all KDE based Distros. But torrent files download are steady and fast in XFCE and Cinnamon DE based Distros. I am not sure may be this 'Download rate slow problem' due to my low hardware Specifications of my Desktop PC(Gigabyte Mother Board-Dual Core 1.5 GHZ/4 GB Ram).
15 • @5 (by albinard on 2015-02-23 17:08:13 GMT from North America)
On your Point 1, that removing Guvcview removes the lubuntu-desktop: it actually doesn't remove it at all. It's the same with removing things like Abiword, it removes only the degree of integration that the desktop has with the application.
I always remove Abiword from Lubuntu (prefer LibO), and it leaves the desktop unaltered.
16 • Removal of Packages-Dependencies (by Muthu on 2015-02-23 18:04:56 GMT from Asia)
Arch is Simple and the 'Regular Update' or 'Update After Distro Install' size is very small(example 400 or 500 MB). But after installation of Debian SID the Updates ready for the Distro is 2 GB. This might be due to the more Dependencies during Install, removal or Updates of Packages, I guess.
17 • Debian's focus, Linux kernel development (SUSE), Vivaldi, @8 (by Milo on 2015-02-23 18:36:17 GMT from Europe)
Debian
I was glad to see the GR on limiting the term of the technical committee members, though I'm not perfectly content with the chosen solution, but it's better than nothing. I would also like to see formulated policies regarding conflicts of interests (identifying, mitigating, etc).
I would like to see more focus on long-term support. Currently Debian LTS is not handled by the Debian security team, but by a separate group of volunteers and companies. Freexian's monthly LTS status updates can be read at raphaelhertzog.com/tag/lts/.
While I am preferential towards FreeBSD (but not to the exclusion of Linux) and think the OS ecosystem is more enriched than diluted by a diversity of operating systems, I question if the value added by the amalgam Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is really worth it (technically Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is no longer an official port anyway due to issues regarding its quality). wiki.debian.org/Debian_GNU/kFreeBSD_why rings hollow for me. I would rather see attention focused on FreeBSD and Debian GNU/Linux (or even Hurd) respectively across various architectures, than focused on Debian GNU/kFreeBSD. But people are free to invest their energies as they choose; whether that should be housed under the Debian Project umbrella and resourced by the Debian Project's infrastructure is the question. While deep, Debian has never been "the universal operating system". That verges on hyperbolic marketing speak, which even non-profits are guilty of sometimes.
SUSE
While its contributions have dipped somewhat since the first of the Linux Foundation kernel development reports was issued (during SUSE's Novell days), I'm glad to see SUSE continuing to be a noteworthy contributor to kernel development despite a couple of changes in its ownership during that time.
Vivaldi
I do not think of the Vivaldi browser as a serious contender to become a highly used browser, nor do I expect that is what Vivaldi Technologies is realistically trying to achieve. It is an Opera replacement. Just as Vivaldi.net became a replacement for the My Opera community which was closed down by the current Opera Software executives, I see the Vivaldi browser as trying to revive the browser culture of the old Opera (centred around innovation, and upstart cheekiness- in addition to the publicity stunt mentioned in the #7 comment above, does anyone remember the old Opera's "Bork" edition nose-thumbing at Microsoft?). I believe there is even some talk of integrating a lightweight email client. Obviously Vivaldi Technologies doesn't own the rights to the Presto layout engine (or any other Opera Software technologies), so that wasn't an option to adopt. Also, I had no issue using the Pepper Flash Player plugin (package is pepperflashplugin-nonfree for Debian) with Vivaldi (Vivaldi 1.0.94.2 w/ PPAPI Flash Player 16.0.0.305 tested on Debian Jessie). I'm not surprised Vivaldi is closed-source, as that was the nature of Opera before it (technically Opera is still alive as a browser, though it's not really recognisable in spirit). Steam is also closed-source. Though many of us disagree with that approach, some companies see some perceived advantage (licensing, control, etc) to closed-source software. Whether you're willing to run closed-source software (Steam, Flash Player, Skype, etc) is an individual decision. I'm not sure how one defines "relatively successful" with regard to Otter Browser. It's a healthy project, but I would venture to guess that there are already more users of the early Vivaldi tech preview than there are Otter Browser users. Though there was no explicit acknowledgement, Vivaldi Technologies does appear to have floated an employment offer to Emdek (Otter Browser developer) (github.com/OtterBrowser/otter-browser/issues/673#issuecomment-71933162 & www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?113083-Vivaldi-A-New-Chromium-Powered-Multi-Platform-Browser&p=467186#post467186). Judging Vivaldi Technologies as a competitor to Google or the Mozilla Foundation, I don't think it will be successful; however, as a competitor to Opera Software, I think it will be. Regarding "As a former fan of Opera . . . 'Fool me once . . . Fool me twice…'", I wouldn't necessarily compare Vivaldi Technologies to the current Opera Software, which I think that comment kind of implies. The head of Vivaldi Technologies left Opera Software due to not sharing "the same opinions on how to keep evolving Opera" held by Opera Software's board and management (this was in 2011, before Opera's shift to the Blink layout engine and its adopting of a GNOME-ish mentality regarding feature removal), and due to feeling that the board was more quarterly focused (he had already stepped down as CEO of Opera Software the year before, and had remained in an advisory capacity). Like pretty much any company, there is a possibility that Vivaldi Technologies could go bust at some point down the road, but I don't think it will repeat the Jekyll-Hyde culture switch of Opera Software, as rejection of Opera Software's cultural transmutation seems to have facilitated Vivaldi Technologies creation in the first place. While I don't think I will ever seriously use the Vivaldi browser (but I'll keep an open mind, particularly if it ever opens up), and I disagree with its closed-source nature (though I do expect that Vivaldi Technologies will make some contributions to open source via making code contributions to Vivaldi's underlying open source technologies such as Blink and the V8 JavaScript engine, as it is in Vivaldi's best interest to do so), I don't think Vivaldi Technologies should be tarred with the same brush as the current Opera Software.
@8
"…the shift to include it [systemd] in the distro [Debian] was botched."
^ This. I don't think it has been handled as badly as Ubuntu's initial rollout at PulseAudio, but systemd and Debian's implementation of systemd shouldn't necessarily be considered one and the same. However, I don't think #4 of the Debian Social Contract should be taken to mean that Debian will support every possible system configuration, or support older system configurations indefinitely. What one user perceives as being in her/his best interest may be the opposite of what another user perceives. Some very vocal users (and I believe this presently constitutes a minority) have switched from or have announced an intent to switch from Debian, but I see no current evidence that users are switching from Debian in droves. IF Debian's systemd rollout is horribly botched (i.e. for users moving from the previous stable release to the new stable release), users may indeed begin to leave in droves, or users may choose to stick with Debian through the storm until calmer waters are reached. I'm not claiming that there has never been contentiousness, but the Debian Project as a whole tries to do best by users as a whole; perhaps that best isn't good enough, but I don't think it is a betrayal of the Debian Social Contract.
18 • Removal of Lubuntu-Desktop (by denflen on 2015-02-23 19:08:19 GMT from North America)
I can confirm albinard on this question. From a Lubuntu user, here is the Synaptic description of Lubuntu-Desktop:
Lubuntu Desktop environment
This metapackage package depends on all components of Lubuntu Desktop system.
It is also used to help ensure proper upgrades, but it can be safely removed
if you want to remove some applications installed by default.
I no longer have Lubuntu-Desktop installed and am happily running Lubuntu 14.04
19 • lubuntu wrong language/pulse garbage (by imnotrich on 2015-02-24 01:25:52 GMT from North America)
Ubuntu and derivatives not respecting the locale selection made by the user at install isn't a new issue. This bug has been known for years.
My IP address is in Mexico so Libre Office kept trying to get me to download Spanish language spellcheck, Orage shows the wrong language and date format, Firefox keeps changing the default spellcheck from English to Spanish, Armory timestamped a transfer using a Spanish calendar which screwed up my wallet.
To fix these issues I had to get my fingers dirty and change a bunch of config files, delete dictionaries I wasn't using and it was a major headache for weeks. Linux is all about choice, right? Well I chose ENGLISH but Linux ignored my choice.
More annoying though is Pulse as implemented by UBUNTU STUDIO. For heaven's sake this OS is intended for people doing audio and video production, but they can't have a working audio system? Really? And the only VOIP sofware that works well in 14.10 is...wait for it...SKYPE. SFLphone is ok, but forget Ekiga until Ekiga is actually compatible with Pulse.
Never thought I'd say it but Skype currently is the most reliable,stable, and with the best audio quality of any VOIP software for Linux currently. Microsoft has won, for now. Developers need to get cracking because I really want to uninstall everything Microsoft...but only if I can get work done with the open source alternative.
20 • @19 wrong language (by Bonky Ozmond on 2015-02-24 02:46:30 GMT from North America)
I too have had many issues with setting Language etc in linux...as it seems I am not allowed to speak English while living in a Spanish speaking country using a Swedish keyboard.... and similarly i have also issues with Libre office spellcheck... which never wants to stay on GB English (the only real English) it will stick at times to US English or default to Spanish..
i had s to set the Browsers to google.com/ NCR as I was only getting Spanish google...then i have to change it again to get GB English .... as it only defaults to the US pages.
21 • Haiku (by dude on 2015-02-24 05:05:54 GMT from Europe)
So far, Haiku boots and runs faster in Virtualbox than any other distro. Haiku boots twice as fast as Vector Linux for example. Why is that?
22 • Vivaldi disappointment, closed-source (by Thomas Mueller on 2015-02-24 07:46:00 GMT from North America)
When I started reading the article on Vivaldi, it looked interesting, but when it was revealed to be closed-source, my interest dropped to zero. It was the first I ever heard about Vivaldi web browser. Making it closed source is a dishonor to the musical artist of that name.
There is an open-source browser, Otter, trying to take the place vacated by Opera, and included in FreeBSD ports but not NetBSD pkgsrc. My guess is that it's at an early stage, so I wouldn't expect much at this time.
On spell checkers supporting the wrong language, I wish they didn't exist. I have to overrule the spell checker many times. Seamonkey's spell checker doesn't even recognize USB, PCI, or Seamonkey. More comical entertainment than help. Spell checker also flags FreeBSD, NetBSD and pkgsrc.
23 • Haiku (by bobzr on 2015-02-24 08:30:53 GMT from Europe)
Is the Haiku project dead? From its blog page "There is currently not enough money in Haiku's treasure chest to safely continue it"
24 • (by beige on 2015-02-24 13:23:19 GMT from Europe)
@dude Haiku boots faster than most Linux distros because it is not Linux. This is caused by closer integration of OS components and probably also still by missing functionality (what does not exist cannot slow it down).
@bobzr Haiku is not dead, on the contrary, someone has been paid to work on it recently. Unfortunately there’s not enough money to continue paying for that so it’s back to volunteer development only.
25 • @ 19 20 Language (by mandog on 2015-02-24 15:46:12 GMT from South America)
Very strange you have language problems, I live in Peru speak GB English use a Spanish keyboard, never have a problem so what is going wrong for you I do not know? or maybe its because I use Arch and it does not assume where live just lets me get on with life.
26 • SRWARE Iron Browser VS Google Chrome (by Muthu on 2015-02-24 16:18:29 GMT from Asia)
All you are talking about the New browser Vivaldi.I have found a new Browser named SRWARE Iron Browser for Linux,Which is a true replacement for the Fast Google Chrome Browser.Try it and see it for yourself.
27 • SRWARE problems (by Jens on 2015-02-24 18:00:58 GMT from Europe)
@26 except that SRWARE has some massive issues, amongst them being Closed Source (even though it claims it's open source it still hasn't dropped and shown some source code). It has caught flack for just making stuff up about Chrome/Chromium and then claiming to fix it and finally many have pointed out that it offers nothing new beyond Chromium with some tweaked security settings.
28 • @17 (by Eagle on 2015-02-24 22:35:43 GMT from North America)
What do you think about Otter (http://otter-browser.org/). It is open source...
29 • @ 28 (by kc1di on 2015-02-25 12:47:08 GMT from North America)
Otter seems to work ok on Mint.
but don't see it adds anything more than FF.
30 • Which distros will run on Nvidia Tegra K1 ? (by Barnabyh on 2015-02-25 22:51:14 GMT from Europe)
Recently bought my first Chrome book with an Nvidia Tegra K1 cpu. I'm having a bit of a hard time finding out what sort of arm chip it is, i.e. armhf, arm proper etc. due to not having access to a terminal in Chrome OS to run some handy commands. Internet search did not help much either.
Apparently it's armv8. I suppose that means Bodhi for Chrome book will run on it, but will Risc OS or Raspbian? I also heard about Crouton which sets up a chroot environment with buntu but would rather replace the functionally limited install completely.
31 • Barry Kauler Announces Release of Quirky 7.0 (by Georgia on 2015-02-26 19:14:15 GMT from North America)
Barry Kauler routinely achieves great feats of distro strength. I don't know he does it; I can't even keep up with my job, home maintenance and family finances, let alone grind through a huge project like that.
Barry and the Puppy community Puplets never cease to amaze me. Bravo.
:-)
32 • @29 (by Jordan on 2015-02-26 20:24:57 GMT from North America)
So it's the otter opera, not opera itself.
I'm underwhelmed (by both).
33 • XFCE (by Bert on 2015-02-27 08:02:36 GMT from Europe)
Tomorrow (or the day after tommorow) XFCE 4.12 shall be released.
I sure would appreciate it that the first release of any distro with a XFCE 4.12 desktop would be reviewed.
34 • Barry Kauler / Puppy (by Carlos on 2015-02-27 09:43:07 GMT from Europe)
@31, Georgia
"Barry Kauler routinely achieves great feats of distro strength. I don't know he does it; I can't even keep up with my job, home maintenance and family finances, let alone grind through a huge project like that.
Barry and the Puppy community Puplets never cease to amaze me. Bravo."
+1000
I couldn't have said it better.
35 • Kubuntu Backpage has 1 out-of-date link (by Tom on 2015-02-27 11:45:55 GMT from Europe)
Hi :)
The link to their documentation;
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/Kubuntu
gets to a page that says something like "This has been moved to ..."
https://community.kde.org/Kubuntu
These sorts of things are inevitable. One of the many impressive things about DistroWatch is that it seems to be a lot more up-to-date than any other website that attempts to list distros.
Even though other sites only manage to list around 20 distros they still somehow manage to be a LOT less up-to-date than DW.
It would be really nice to see "The Linux Foundation" and "Free Sotware Foundation" (and others) supporting DW with mirrors and other resources such as space at trade-shows and even maybe a bit of funding to cover worker's wages, running costs, hardware, website costs and even a little for the prizes.
At the moment such places put such resources into pages that are perpetually embarrassingly out-dated and extremely limited in the breadth and depth of their coverage.
DistroWatch is a fantastic resource that deserves better support from the wider community imo.
Top marks all!!
Regards from
Tom :)
36 • Linux is least vulnerable (by gregzeng on 2015-02-27 14:03:24 GMT from Oceania)
http://www.gfi.com/blog/most-vulnerable-operating-systems-and-applications-in-2014/comment-page-1/#comments
Researched by:
NVD (U.S. government repository of standards based vulnerability management data)
OS X: 147 total vulnerabilities
IOS: 127 total vulnerabilities
Windows: 68 total vulnerabilities
Ubuntu: 39 total vulnerabilities
Red Hat Enterprise: 27 total vulnerabilities
openSUSE: 20 total vulnerabilities
Fedora: 15 total vulnerabilities
Android: 6 total vulnerabilities
The research company admitted that Linux listed above is inaccurate, because of the many Linux kernels used, and often updated. Vulnerabiities are rarely in the operating systems, compared to those caused by other factors.
37 • Vulnerabilities (by Carlos on 2015-02-27 16:50:05 GMT from Europe)
"Android: 6 total vulnerabilities"
LOL!
38 • @33 (by jaws222 on 2015-02-27 17:52:24 GMT from North America)
Manjaro has already included XFCE 4.12 in their latest update pack for Manjaro 0.8.12. I'll update and check it out tonight.
39 • Vulnerabilities (by Eddie on 2015-02-27 18:38:44 GMT from North America)
@37, Why the LOL! Carlos?
40 • Vulnerabilities (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2015-02-27 19:22:34 GMT from North America)
"X11 is impossible to secure"?
And applications? (Especially new releases)
Moving along to firmware ... not as many (yet) but may be the worst?
Should we look at the ratio of fixes to new bugs introduced?
41 • Vulnerabilities (by Carlos on 2015-02-27 19:49:06 GMT from Europe)
@39, Eddie:
Don't take me wrong but I would not take a vulnerabilities research seriously, made - or managed - by anything belonging to the U.S government.
All those numbers seem low and the Android numbers really low.
They are watching you, but I doubt that they call that a "vulnerability".
42 • Vulnerabilities (by M.Z. on 2015-02-27 20:02:32 GMT from Planet Mars)
The number of vulnerabilities is a complex topic, especially at the desktop level. There are issues related to how bad a particular bug is in terms of security, what the software versions looked at are, and when looking at the OS there are all question of what counts as part of the OS. In terms of browsers I took an interest a few years back & noticed that Firefox & Chrome were consistently the best with the fewest ongoing holes that weren't patched, while IE was consistently the worst. It seemed like vulnerabilities just keep piling up there, but IE always had the big problems patched before too long. At the OS level I've seen data acting as though Linux was the worst; however, it was very apples to oranges because Linux package handling gave the reviewers an excuse to treat every application as part of the OS, while in Windows apps were treated as separate non OS issues. If the two were treated equally Windows would be far more vulnerable because the apps are generally more targeted, and because the lack of central updating means inexperienced users are more likely to have unpatched programs. On the whole Linux is still likely to be the least vulnerable, but there are so many was to slice the issue it is hard to measure the magnitude of the difference.
43 • @28 (by Milo on 2015-02-27 23:16:08 GMT from Europe)
Internet Explorer and Safari not included as they are limited to their respective platforms of ill repute, Chrome/Chromium and Firefox are the dominant browsers. The browser wars are over (and Chrome prevailed this time around), until they begin anew. All other browsers are currently also-rans. My confidence in the Mozilla Organisation waxes and wanes, over the course of time from Seamonkey Milestone 3 (1999) to the present. The pattern follows that just as I am about to write them off as being too astray, they do something that keeps me invested; that is, of course, until they begin losing their way again. As for Google, despite its mantra of "don't be evil", Google Inc isn't what I consider a pillar of upstanding conduct. I would feel better about Chrome if it weren't used as a platform to promote Google's services (search, etc).
Otter is further along in its development than Vivaldi, and has more of the old Opera's functionality-without-reliance-on-3rd-party-extensions implemented. I may be making an unwarranted assumption, but I think Vivaldi will add more functionality and configurability as it is further developed (to that end, Vivaldi Technologies are currently surveying what features people are most interested in at vivaldi.net/blogs/teamblog/item/10-feature-requests-poll-1). But what does the future hold for Otter? Just to seek to preserve what features Opera used to have? My hope for Vivaldi isn't just that it restores features and configurability of the old Opera, but that is returns to the trajectory of browser development Opera Software used to have (i.e. innovating NEW features). At the time Opera Software announced the switch to WebKit (later forked into Blink), the explanation given was that "the shift to WebKit [Blink] means more of our [Opera Software ASA's] resources can be dedicated to developing new features and the user-friendly solutions that can be expected from a company that invented so many of the features that are today being used by everyone in the browser industry". Opera Software as it exists today has failed to deliver on that promise. Maybe Vivaldi Technologies can deliver in Opera Software's stead. Maybe Vivaldi can be the little browser that could. Time will tell.
As for open-source browsers inspired by Opera, there is also the minimalist browser Fifth. Whereas Otter uses the Qt 5 toolkit, Fifth uses FLTK. Both use the WebKit layout engine, though Otter Browser probably will support Blink at some point in the future (github.com/OtterBrowser/otter-browser/issues/615). Otter is further along in development (ex. as of Fifth 0.2, cookie management has yet to be implemented), and, as previously mentioned, Fifth is a bit more minimalistic.
44 • Makulu Linux (by Joe McCarthy on 2015-02-28 05:52:33 GMT from North America)
Tried a few distributions while trying to rescue a Toshiba Satellite M45 laptop. Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Manjaro, Makulu KDE/Cinnamon/XFCE, PCLinuxOS, ZorinOS, Netrunner 14.1 (after reading Jesse's great article), and a few others. So far, it looks like Makulu Linux 7 XFCE is the best candidate for my use. It looks good, it's quick, has a good mix of applications already installed, and is easily modified/updated. So far I've installed Users and Groups, System Profiler, Chromium, Cheese (for use with a Logitech C110 webcam), and Clementine (not too keen on the installed app Rhythmbox). I'm going to use it exclusively for a couple of weeks to see how it goes.
45 • Browser war over? (by M.Z. on 2015-02-28 09:55:48 GMT from Planet Mars)
@43
The browser war is over? Excuse me, when did Chrome hit 97% market share? Things may not be as competitive as they once were, but I'd hardly call it over. I'd say it was sort of over when IE had the towering 95+% market share, but I doubt that that sort of thing will happen again with any browser. For the browser war to be over all opponents have to be vanquished & relegated to a passing point of interest for a few nerds who want something different. There will likely be room for competition in the browser space for a long time to come, which is a big win for everyone. Me, I'm sticking with Firefox, because despite of the dumb UI changes, silly new buttons, & annoying tendency to imitate Chrome, I still think it's the best & most flexible browser around. From the numbers I see Firefox is still healthy & bringing in money, & IE isn't exactly a nothing browser either. It does look like Chrome is the dominant contender by many measures, but us Firefox users are still fairly numerous, as are other non Chrome users. I would still like to try the Opera if it ever comes to one of the distros I use, but I still think Firefox is best overall.
46 • Makulu Linux (by ILoveLinux on 2015-02-28 12:56:40 GMT from Europe)
@44
Are you trying the latest edition of this XFCE spin (version 7.1), or the older 7.0 edition?
It would be great if you could give us some feedback when you're done testing.
I'm presently trying the 7.1 edition, and I must say it's the best-looking Debian-based XFCE spin I've tried so far. Despite all the eyecandy, it's a lot more responsive than stock Xubuntu, too.
I'll definitely try and turn my present install of the community respin of PCLOS XFCE 2014.12 into something like Makulu XFCE 7.1.
Another very nice rolling-release distro with XFCE and openbox (and with OpenRC instead of systemd as init system) is a Manjaro-based community project (https://forum.manjaro.org/index.php?board=50.0)
47 • @45- clarification (by Milo on 2015-02-28 17:20:13 GMT from Europe)
I see the browser wars as cyclical (hence why I said "this time around" & "until they begin anew"). No offence intended, and no implication of monopoly intended. For example, I would say NCSA Mosaic was a previous winner of the browser wars, as was Netscape Navigator after it, and then later Internet Explorer. I regard the war generations slightly differently than the following Wikipedia article, but see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars for another example. If you prefer to see it as one big war, that's perfectly fine.
I excluded Internet Explorer and Safari in the first paragraph of my last post when talking about the current dominant browsers (Chrome/Chromium and Firefox), as Internet Explorer and Safari aren't currently (though they have been in the past to varying degrees) available outside of Microsoft's and Apple's respective platforms.
48 • @45- further clarification (by Milo on 2015-02-28 17:39:20 GMT from Europe)
Posted too soon. In case the wording was made unclear by the first parenthetical statement in #43, I was saying all browsers outside the dominant browsers are _currently_ also-rans, NOT all browsers besides Chrome. That doesn't mean these other browsers have nothing to offer the world (I use several), it's just an acknowledgement of their present usage share.
49 • That's about right (by M.Z. on 2015-02-28 21:22:09 GMT from Planet Mars)
@47/48
I did the same thing, Should have said I wanted to try the NEW Opera, if it ever comes to Linux Mint 17.x or PCLOS x32. I would agree that there are some fairly dominant players depending on the OS. In Linux it really is Firefox, Chrome, & a bunch of also-rans. I only use Chrome for Netflix & old Opera for Ars Technica, where they asked nicely not to use ad blockers & promised to behave. I wanted to help out Ars because of the quality of their science & tech articles & didn't want to disable all my anti tracking & ad blocking stuff on Firefox. I can definitely tell Opera Presto is getting to be an old browser though, it seems to cause some odd processor spikes on my laptop. At any rate I would like to see more first rate players in the browser space, it could use some more serious competition. Until I see the new Opera on one of my distros I'd agree that there really only are two big players in Linux browsers, & it's a bit of a shame.
50 • @14 Torrents download speeds - slows after time, etc (by gregzeng on 2015-03-01 01:29:43 GMT from Oceania)
This sometimes happens if you start another download in addition to the current torrent downloads. It matters not what distro, what hardware, IMO. I multiboot 2x Wn8.1 & now 10 different Linux distros.
On my SSD-based hardware (Dell XPS notebook, 16gb DDR3, Intel I7, dual GPU, etc), it's easier to reboot & start again.
51 • @2, 9, 14, KDE, Netrunner, etc .... not looking "right" etc. (by Greg Zeng on 2015-03-01 01:39:02 GMT from Oceania)
KDE probably the most flexible, adjustable Desktop Environment in any operating system. Every icon, font, etc ... can be adjusted in sizer, colors, AFAIK.
So much of our hardware differs from the coder's hardware, it is rare that any distro will be "perfect" in the eyes of the enduser. That is the beauty of both most Linux & Android operating systems.
52 • And now, for something completely different... (by dude on 2015-03-01 20:50:07 GMT from Europe)
I've been looking for a Fedora based distro that 'just works'. I gave Korora a try. Yep, my Wifi adapter works, Youtube works, Java works and Flash works (once I disabled Flashblock). I also like the fact Korora offers the Cinnamon desktop as an alternative to KDE, Gnome and Xfce. I was really hoping for MATE, but it's no longer available in Korora 21. That's ok. I still like Korora with Cinnamon. I like it so much, in fact, that I donated $5 to their cause. Thank you Korora!
53 • XFCE (by M.Z. on 2015-03-01 23:21:41 GMT from Planet Mars)
@33
Just saw the announcement on slashdot & read through the tour. XFCE 4.12 looks fairly impressive, with lots of nice little new additions & no jarring or crazy changes. It should be a good release. See here for the tour:
http://xfce.org/about/tour
Number of Comments: 53
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