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1 • Backups (by Brad on 2015-07-27 01:41:22 GMT from North America)
I regularly backup to two external HD - on one, I backup the contents of /home using Grsync. Next, I boot my laptop into Windows 8.1, and perform a File History backup and a system image backup to an NTFS partition on the first external HD. Finally, I boot my laptop with Clonezilla, and clone all 11 partitions (several Linux distros and Windows) to a separate external HD.
Two reasons for all the backups - my laptop has an SSD HD, and I want to be sure to be able to recover from failure. Secondly, I cut my sysadmin "teeth" on VMS. I was taught early on to use the "belt and suspenders" approach. In general, it's worked well for me.
2 • Neptune OS (by Bob Carroll on 2015-07-27 01:53:13 GMT from North America)
Based on positive past reviews, I was looking forward to evaluating NeptuneOS 4.4 for possible inclusion in a new 64-bit Gooplusplus USB Multiboot collection to be released in August.
Unfortunately, Neptune 4.4 was one of those rare Linux distros that simply refused to work when using YUMI Multiboot software no matter how I tried to mess with boot parameters, etc.
64-bit distros that will be included: Linux Mint 17.2, SolydX 201506, Ubuntu Mate 15.04, Zorin 10 Core, Fatdog64 7.01, KXStudio 14.04.02, Porteus 3.1 KDE, Slitaz 5.0 RC3, TweakOS 1.1, TinyCore 6.3, OpenElec XBMC, and a few utilty and rescue distros.
3 • Backups (by Dr_CR on 2015-07-27 02:07:36 GMT from North America)
I would imagine anyone with a NAS would also be backing that up e.g. to an external hard drive, so I wonder how many "A combination of the above" are backing up to their own server or to the cloud.
As a side note, if your looking into backup options, I'll put in a plug for rsnapshot.
4 • Backups (by wrkerr on 2015-07-27 02:26:16 GMT from North America)
Currently I use cloud storage for backing up all important data, though I'm in the process of investigating setting up my own server to store everything. I'm favoring the idea of buying a spacious internal drive and setting up an OwnCloud server on my main system, so I can easily access all my files from any computer or Android device.
5 • Backup (by bison on 2015-07-27 02:38:14 GMT from North America)
Other: USB flash drives. These are external, but I think it would be a stretch calling them "hard drives."
6 • re; backups (by tom joad on 2015-07-27 03:11:23 GMT from Europe)
The most important and needed files go to the cloud. I duplicate that back up on an internal hard drive. And I use a mix of CD's and zip drives too for back up. Zip drives have gotten to be very affordable as well as relatively large. I like the concept of redundancy for back ups too.
I do a case by case for backups too. I don't do the grand system wide scheduled backup. Nevertheless, I do back up on a frequent basis the stuff I need. CYA I always say.
7 • Backups (by Andy Figueroa on 2015-07-27 04:07:34 GMT from North America)
Although I "voted" External Hard Drive, the truth is that I use a combination of secondary internal hard drive & external hard drive, using scripts run by crontab nighly to create TAR gzipped archives in different rotating locations daily and weekly.
Mission critical files at the school I support are also backed up over both the internal network (NFS) and Internet to redundant locations.
8 • Re: Backups (by hobbitland on 2015-07-27 05:07:29 GMT from Europe)
I also backup to two external HDD but they have a single 256bit AES encrypted ext4 partition.
I use my own written Python3 "mirror.py" to backup. It only copies only changed files. There is no rebooting in my backup procedure. Backing up OS is waste of time, backup your data and not using complex backup software make sit easy to recover data using any OS or a live USB stick.
I also use my own written "index.py" to index files with md5sum, size and time (integer). Backup is no good if you cannot verify the data.
9 • Backups (by Ken on 2015-07-27 05:08:22 GMT from Oceania)
A combination. You really need a multi-choice widget. I have RAID to cover disk failure for a while, daily backup to NAS, weekly backup to external HDDs and weekly backup of personal files to a DVD-RW. I also give an encrypted DVD to offsite storage now and then. Backup to cloud would take too much upload quota, but I sometimes store encrypted copies of key files in the cloud when travelling.
10 • Backups (by Sondar on 2015-07-27 06:52:03 GMT from Europe)
Clonzilla onto an identical hard drive, caddy system and spare PC alongside. Problem means a delay of seconds at most. Don't forget to re-clone the replacement drive.
11 • Windows Prediction Proven False (by Scott James on 2015-07-27 07:58:33 GMT from Planet Mars)
I am the guy who left Windows for Linux, then went back to Windows. My third
laptop had WIndows 10 Beta on it, but that's expired, so I put Ubuntu back on it. That is why I thought about you guys.
A note: I thought Linux would be a lot more popular by now. But, SmartPhone and Android OS' are getting more attention now, placing Linux's priority for developers under them.
I predicted years ago that Linux would one day be as popular as Windows. I was wrong. Windows keeps getting better and better, and other OS'' are getting more popular. While Linux is getting its niche, its going to be a long time before it is recognized as a major competitor to Windows and other OS'.
If I had to make a new prediction today, it would be that Linux is going to be going through many changes in order to accommodate the needs of the many.
I really want to put Windows on my third laptop. Linux will do for now, I guess.
12 • Backup to floppy + @11 Windows Prediction Proven False (by far2fish on 2015-07-27 08:42:53 GMT from Europe)
I was amazed to see a few people still use floppy disks to do backup. Frankly I doubt I have seen a computer with a floppy drive since the last century.
@11 Windows Prediction Proven False
> I predicted years ago that Linux would one day be as popular as Windows. I was wrong. Windows keeps getting better and better, and other OS'' are getting more popular. While Linux is getting its niche, its going to be a long time before it is recognized as a major competitor to Windows and other OS'.
I understand you mean on the desktop, because on the server side Linux is just as popular as Windows.
13 • popularity contest @11& @12 (by greg on 2015-07-27 09:07:22 GMT from Europe)
yes he ment desktop. in other parts Linux kernel + a good UI have been sucessfull. but desktop... it's like there is no investment into it. GUI imporved a lot but there are often so many ridiculous errors that should never be in an OS. we can see here from reading the reviews (if you don't have time to try them out) how bizzare are the bugs and how often this should be resolved with normal use testing. but these are maybe more edge cases in distros. more stuff pops up even in mainstream options. suddenly you are dealing with things you would never deal with in Windows. and unless you know how to do it it involves plenty of learning... usualyl for problme in Windows there is some small program or something you would just run and it would make a fix. in Linux you often need to still write the program (or script).
in any case more desktop exposure is good as these ridiculous cases get fixed. and i do hope the share increases at least a bit as some solutions in Linux are just briliant.
14 • Linux testing (by Brad on 2015-07-27 09:45:02 GMT from North America)
@13 - I think the reason for some of the bugs is *because* Linux is such a niche OS on the desktop. There are very few "testers", and they tend to be followers of the distro being tested. Corner-cases and bizarre usage patterns only come to light when new users stumble on the distro, and bring their own, "new" perspective to the flavor.
JMHO
15 • Backup (by Platypus on 2015-07-27 10:31:57 GMT from Oceania)
I backup with Grsync to both an internal and portable external drive - the latter I hide securely.
How often do people back up? I usually backup weekly.
16 • Data backup (by cykodrone on 2015-07-27 11:19:47 GMT from North America)
I voted other because my OSes reside on SSDs and I back up files on 2 HDDs, I only 'edit' the first HDD and use luckyBackup to 'mirror' the first HDD to the second. Occasionally I get un-lazy and burn important stuff to optical disk. Can't never have too many backups, poop happens.
17 • Linux Testing (by dragonmouth on 2015-07-27 11:33:49 GMT from North America)
@Brad & Greg - since you guys seem to be accomplished linux users, have you ever thought of becoming official testers? With so few Linux testers around, an addition of even two more (you guys) would be of great help.
18 • Testing, testing...is this on??? (by Brad on 2015-07-27 12:12:54 GMT from North America)
I actually went as far as running down the release note "checklist" for LM 17.2 Cinnamon when it went RC (last month?). Everything worked "perfectly" for me, and I reported such to the developers.
However, I noticed a number of folks picking out rather arcane bugs; many of them related to NVidia graphics, and most reported by folks who looked to be new to the distro - hence, my earlier post. The LM devs got more useful info from those folks (including a test-bed with Nvidia graphics) than they got from me, an admitted LM fan for a number of years.
I'm willing to help, but my free time is very limited, and my skill-set may be lacking in a number of areas.
19 • Linux backup (by rebelxt on 2015-07-27 12:32:43 GMT from North America)
I use a combination of internal HDD, external harddrive, and cloud. Critical files go to the cloud when they change (SpiderOak). User file changes are backed up to internal HDD daily (rsync). Partitions are backed up to internal HDD monthly (dd). Comprehensive external harddrive backups are stored offsite semiannually.
20 • Are The Hurd and systemd compatible? (by Paraquat on 2015-07-27 12:45:14 GMT from Asia)
The Hurd has always interested me, but I've never installed it because it's never been ready for prime time. And from Jessie's review, it's still not ready, though I'm glad to hear that it's improving.
One thing I have to wonder about - How can Debian square The Hurd with systemd? After all, my understanding is that systemd is Linux specific - it can't work with another OS's kernel. Some I'm wondering how The Hurd's developers are working around that? Are they able to build some sort of systemd compatibility layer? Or are they using an older (pre-systemd) Debian as their base?
21 • Debian Hurd and systemd (by Jesse on 2015-07-27 12:55:37 GMT from North America)
@20: You are correct, systemd is a Linux-only technology. Debian ports, such as Hurd and kFreeBSD, use alternative init software. If systemd compatibility is required, they probably use the systemd-shim software to allow components to run.
22 • stop pretending it's 2005 (by Tim Dowd on 2015-07-27 14:13:45 GMT from Planet Mars)
@13 @14- comments like these are very tiresome for those of us who use desktop Linux. There are not "so many ridiculous errors" in any of the major desktop distributions. I use several Linuxes at home (Debian, Ubuntu MATE, and for the kid DouDou, which is a really cool niche distro for small children) and Windows 7 at work. Both Windows 7 and Debian/Ubuntu/Mint (and I would guess openSuse, which I used to love, and probably Arch and Fedora) just work the way they're supposed to. The difference is that the Linuxes are free and that they take an interest in having limited hardware run well, whereas Windows (like Android) gets its money from selling new hardware and is perfectly happy if your 5 year old computer stops working. In this house we have 10 year old computers getting real work done with no more errors than a Windows computer would have, and web browsers that don't take 5 minutes to open.
23 • Surprised at the lack of Tape Backups (by SilentSam on 2015-07-27 15:01:46 GMT from North America)
I was fairly certain most SysAdmins still back up using tape... I know I do. Tape is still the cheapest and most secure and reliable method to backup, when you need the ability to roll back to specific dates for files.
If you have a good tape rotation, then you can feel at ease.
I use a combination of Amanda Backup for this, and various tar / rsync scripts to back up to network storage as well.
24 • RE 22 even in 2005, linux desktops were not that bad (by dbrion on 2015-07-27 15:07:50 GMT from Europe)
and, if one did not work, one could choose another (ex : if one does not like gnome, one can choose between kde/LXDE/XFCE : it is very unlikely they are all broken/unpleasant at the same time)
There is another thing in your post which worries me : windows does not sell hardware (in contrast, Intel has hired linus t....) . Many hardware producers support GNUlinux (Atmel, Renesas http://www.timesys.com/supported/processors/renesas , Intel say) One can get 6 years old years windows computers -children prefer them, as it is like their friend's- : as far as they do not get viruses , why not? If they get viruses, I will install Mageia5+LXDE, which I find pleasant and not too resource consuming.
25 • Huh? (by Jordan on 2015-07-27 15:34:37 GMT from North America)
http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0
So all this talk and analysis in here is about 1.6 percent of the OS market share?
I had no idea we were still that small. Haven't grown at all, it appears.
26 • MATE and Gnome 2 (by jaslar on 2015-07-27 16:06:54 GMT from North America)
I have a question perhaps you experts can help me with. I know that there are lots of underlying changes that have gone into Gnome 3. Do I understand correctly that MATE requires Gnome 2, whereas Cinnamon is based on Gnome 3? If we Linux users choose a Gnome 2-based distro, what's the downside? Are we shunting ourselves out of the development of the latest LibreOffice, browsers, etc.?
27 • Mate (by David on 2015-07-27 17:04:31 GMT from Europe)
Mate was developed from Gnome 2, but it is now completely independent. There are now downsides, as applications like browsers and office suites will run on any desktop. Using Mate is no more a problem than using Xfce or KDE.
28 • Backups (by Bill S on 2015-07-27 17:54:13 GMT from North America)
I have 5 external Hard Drives which I use to backup several systems while I am booting up 8 different OS's. But for my main system with 4 partitions, I back it up to
1) an external HD I can grab in case of emergency, and 2) I have a Hard Drive Networked for the whole house to use 4 computers and a laptop. The software I use and highly recommend is TeraByte Image for Linux. I've used it for years and completely rely on it. I've used it when I had HD failure from these Wester Digitals and it saved my bacon. Also, I can make a backup of the system I am currently running from inside the system. TeraByte it's great. I chose a Combination of the above.
29 • windows is dependent on new hardware sales (by Tim Dowd on 2015-07-27 18:10:46 GMT from Planet Mars)
@ 24- Microsoft isn't a hardware company (although now it is, with the admittedly pretty cool Surface) but they're the number one OEM operating system installed on computers. Given that most people don't see a reason to upgrade past Windows 7 (and unless they had forced a huge number of users to upgrade past XP they wouldn't have) selling new computers is certainly part of their business model.
I'm not really even blaming Microsoft- they're not nearly the worst at obsoleting old hardware. In fact, they provide support for machines that are quite long in the tooth. My 8 year old Dell with a Core Duo inside it was running Windows 7 great until IT decided it was too old and replaced it without asking me if I wanted that. But I'm running Pentium 4s and a Centrino Duo at home that work great with Ubuntu MATE- there's no incentive for Microsoft to support such machines.
Far and away the worst obsoleters on the market today are the Android hardware manufacturers. NPR was reporting today that there's a security hole where a texted video can entirely take control of your handset. Clearly that's a huge deal. Google's made the patch, but they're admitting that 50% of phones might not get an update because the manufacturers and network providers just want you to buy a new phone and thus don't support 2 or 3 year old devices. That's simply outrageous.
@25
I have no explanation on why desktop Linux marketshare is so low, other than that people don't know about it and don't see any reason to not keep their computer in its default state. But that's why I think comments like 13 need to be addressed quickly, because it's just not true that it's hard to use or makes your life more difficult. The only luck I've had getting people to try Linux are people that are angry at a computer they feel like should still be working, and they're usually pretty happy once they've got Linux on there. That's why I think odd distributions like Dou Dou that fit a niche market might be really important- there's really not a better way to convince the average person that Linux isn't hard when there's a distro aimed at a 2 year old that they can try by just putting it in the DVD drive and rebooting.
30 • Backups (by a on 2015-07-27 19:32:36 GMT from Europe)
I backup regularly to an internal HDD. Occasionally to an external HDD, and rarely to a distant server for the most important files. Not happy with it but setting up a proper backup system is annoying.
31 • Huh? 1.6%? (by Robert Pogson on 2015-07-27 19:38:37 GMT from North America)
Jordan wrote about 1.6%.
That's a strange number if you look at the distribution of that usage. According to StatCounter, on Sunday:
Uruguay 11.95%
Haiti 10.08%
Reunion 9.6%
Venezuela 6.91%
Bahrain 6.22%
Malta 4.97%
Italy 3.03%
Finland 2.82%
So, while GNU/Linux is in the doldrums on average these days there are many bright spots. In India, the level is higher weekdays at ~2% because governments and schools use it. Much of Europe was over 3% in Q1. GNU/Linux has made huge progress on the desktop and it continues.
32 • Backup options (by mikef90000 on 2015-07-27 21:54:24 GMT from North America)
In the day of 1TB+ hard drives, I find it astounding that anyone can consider floppy disks, obsolete ZIP media or even CDs for backup.
I use several external hard drives in different locations, one is a 2.5 inch HDD that mostly lives in my safe deposit box. Some special data will make it onto DVD, just in case.
Most home computers have Windows as they are preinstalled with it, and of course some people have a strict application compatibility need. So many people aren't even interested in free training that would make them more productive and not fear making trivial changes to the default settings.
OTOH saying Windows is 'better' is extremely subjective; I have come to hate the ever more cluttered, inflexible desktop interface compared to XFCE and the like. The few Windows apps I need run in a Windows virtual machine just fine.
33 • Backup (by stefan on 2015-07-27 22:09:59 GMT from Europe)
There are two things to backup: system and data. To get both, i clone my system, on other hardware, and the clone clones the data. Except for one: while the production-system holds the backup of the clone-config as data, the clone holds the backup of the production-config as data. The difference comes in through changing the system. i change the clone to test, if it fails, i can get the backup from production. In case of success, i backp the change on production, implement it there, and if it fails, i can restore from the clone. If it works, i backup on clone, and both are the same again.
34 • Win vs Linux war is over (by GrzegorzW on 2015-07-28 00:33:06 GMT from Europe)
I totally agree with @22. I use Linux for my personal computing since 2007 and also on 3 other computers used by my family - all diferent Ubuntu flavors, all did not saw frexh installs since 12.04 when I set them up, and all did not experince any seroius failures. I also use Win 7 at work - which is also very stable. My opinion is that let people use Windows if they are heppy with it - it is not bad system. I will not push anybody to use Linux only beacause I like it, it gives more freedom or has some features I care - it is not enough. If you are not particularly interested in cmputer technologies - there are better things to do than changing/learning new OS.
Actually I even DON'T want Linux to became mainstream operating system used by computer novices, because with that there came all kinds of viruses, malwares. sywares etc. and last thing I want to do is to bloat my systems with antivirus programs.
BTW: Jesse - Backup to floppies - is that delayed April fool :)
35 • Debian kFreeBSD (by cykodrone on 2015-07-28 00:41:28 GMT from North America)
"Currently, Debian is only available for Linux and kFreeBSD"
Although the kFreeBSD version of Debian is still available, sadly it's not an official port of Debian anymore, just sayin'.
36 • Backups (by Thomas Mueller on 2015-07-28 02:13:26 GMT from North America)
USB sticks are a part of my backup media; one could even use SD cards. I also use external hard drive (USB 3.0; I would like to see more eSATA options) and plan to use NAS, have that partly set up. Software I use most often is rsync. I would not backup big downloads because when I would need it and not have it, I could redownload an updated version with http or ftp, cvs, svn, git or other as appropriate.
One can even backup an open-source OS installation including added software built from FreeBSD ports, NetBSD pkgsrc, or other package-management system.
37 • Hurd and Backups (by Will B on 2015-07-28 02:16:36 GMT from North America)
Jesse, thanks for the GNU/Hurd review! :-) I tried it recently and found it to be slow in pretty much the same way you did. I do hope they develop it at a faster pace, because like you, I like to see different options out there beyond just Linux and BSD.
Backups - I use an internal drive that I connect before backups, then disconnect afterward, so it's not 'online' all the time (and that's a little safer). My primary backup method, however, is rsync to my home server. It's FreeBSD 10.1 running ZFS mirrored on two 2TB drives. It works great for my needs, provided I don't do anything silly when I'm SSH'd in. ;-)
I think 'cloud' backups are good for some things, and I do a limited rsync with a server instance running with a 'cloud' provider, but I don't trust anyone else to treat my data properly. Maybe I'm paranoid, maybe I'm crazy, but that's my stance on it.
38 • Why Linux is not more popular (by RollMeAway on 2015-07-28 03:10:47 GMT from North America)
Main reason is consumers cannot readily buy a computer with linux installed and ready to use. Most places you can buy such are even more expensive than windows and require much searching to even find.
Most consumers would not have a clue on how to install windows.
Next reason is, what is linux. Is it PClinux running kde? is it Centos running gnome2? Is it Ubuntu running Unity? etc and so on. Linux does not have a single face. Any given windows version pretty much looks and works the same on all computers.
Another reason is maintenance. Upgrading in particular, requires some competence on most all flavors of linux. It is typically automated on windows with little or no user attention.
39 • Why Linux is not more popular (by LinuxuserNZ on 2015-07-28 06:00:02 GMT from Oceania)
@38. " Upgrading in particular, requires some competence on most all flavors of Linux."
Yep. back up your personal data or if a proactive user you have a separate /home partition. My Linux of choice lets me know there is an upgrade available. I click the icon, click "yes, upgrade now" and carry on using system. Depending on Internet connection, maybe 40 min later nearly all done. reboot required to initialise new kernel and desktop if required.
" It is typically automated on windows with little or no user attention. "
Dont know.
I usually have at least a spare 4 hours or so to install a new Windows from disk and drivers including reboots -thats if the new OS works with my hardware.
Then the really fun part, installing the required software and finding it wont work on the new OS.
40 • backup (by aqua on 2015-07-28 13:17:51 GMT from North America)
I use bitbucket + dropbox + bittorrent sync for my backup. I have a home server, so bittorrent sync always has a machine to sync with.
41 • why linux is not more popular (by lupus on 2015-07-28 18:55:00 GMT from Europe)
@38
My most recent update on a i5 machine with ssd took me about an hour to update windows. At first there was 6 required and 7 optional updates.
And directly after that there was another required update.
I had to reboot the machine twice in that process.
I hate it and if it wasn't for my brother in law with his startup firm I wouldn't undergo such an ordeal. All my other machines run different flavours of Linux and even the oldest one (core2duo, 2gig Ram, no ssd, UBUNTU) gets an update in under 20 Minutes, while you can reliably work with the machine and if there is no new kernel you even don't have to reboot.
To me it is an enigma why Linux isn't more popular. I'll recommend it to everyone and if they are general users they need their time to get used to it but after that they normally don't look back.
Bye Lupus
42 • Low linux usage (by Jordan on 2015-07-28 18:57:05 GMT from North America)
Hmm.. the "people don't know about it" and the "people can't readily buy a linux machine" both sound like Microsoft victories. Their scorched earth maarketing strategy is no longer in the news, and was only in a few trade pubs, as I recall. Could be mistaken about that.
Mac aside, there is a "Windows is computing" meme out there.
Sad. But if that hard nosed approach by Gates and crew had failed (remember the SuSE green boxes at Best Buy?), I have the feeling that Mac is computing would have been the result.
43 • Backups & DEs (by M.Z. on 2015-07-28 20:19:17 GMT from Planet Mars)
Much like # 5 my backup plans usually involve moving most of my important files to my USB drive, which usually transfers files between my main PC & laptop where I would most likely need them. I generally end up with at least 3 copies of my important stuff on my PC laptop & transfer device (either USB or mp3 player) & I don't worry too much about the rest. I do occasionally try to make a 4th copy on the /data partition of my old PC, though I don't do that as regularly as I probably should. I also don't worry too much because if anything goes wrong on most of my systems I can just nuke & pave over the OS partition & reconnect to the /data partition.
@26 - DEs
As #27 states, there is no difference at all from a standpoint of application compatibility. All the different desktops on Linux & similar systems are all about changing the look & feel things that a user notices & providing different ways of interacting with your PC. The two main families of DEs are Qt based ones (KDE & LXQt) & Gtk based ones (Gnome, MATE & Cinnamon), & you should be able to run apps across all of them with minimal problems. The only real penalty you pay for running a Qt app on a Gtk DE or vice versa is a few extra MB of RAM used to load a few extra bits of software in the background. The only other potential issue is having some issues with ugly backup themes pop up. For me the theme issue has happened a few times with Gtk apps in Qt desktops, though it could potentially become an issue on old Gtk2 desktops like MATE eventually. Don't worry about software compatibility, just bear in mind the potential for minor theme problems based on you DE of choice. In my experience the problem is rare & doesn't affect functionality.
44 • Linux market share (by frodopogo on 2015-07-28 20:34:06 GMT from North America)
I'm a musician, and occasionally on the music forums I frequent, Windows users talk about anti-virus solutions. I always mention Linux, since it is immune to all the Windows viruses that are such a plague. And the silence in response is deafening. It's like it's something they are not willing to consider. Well, occasionally I get a single response from another Linux user, and we seldom use the same distro!
When I mentioned I used Linux, one local musician who specializes in snarky comments said: "Linux- that's so NINETIES!" Which means that his concept of Linux is something EXCLUSIVELY command-line oriented- right? (I wasn't using Linux back then, but that's the impression I've gotten.) All the development of Linux since then towards user-friendliness is as if it had never happened. And I don't think he's alone, in fact, I think if most people even think of Linux at all, they think of it as user UNfriendly software.
And if they have worked in a corporate situation, that might not help at all, because Linux is what those IT techs use, and therefore it seems out of reach.
I admit, I started using Linux because another musician started using Ubuntu, and he was no computer geek, and I recognized the name myself, so I thought maybe there was a Linux version that was user-friendly enough that I might be interested. So I did a search, and came here, but I didn't like the brown theme Ubuntu was using at the time, and I've got to have the panel across the bottom, so Mint it was.
But then.... I'm a bit of a maverick. I really tend to avoid following the crowd.
(But I've learned that with computers, you can't be TOO much of a maverick if you want support of some kind.)
Most people however have this thing about "name brands", whether musical instruments, or cars, or computers and their operating systems. It's not unusual for only a few names to dominate. Most people don't want to think too hard about making a purchase, and I guess they figure, if I recognize the brand name, it's been around a while, and it must be good.
One of the counter-intuitive things about open source software is that the names can change. Libre Office is essentially now what Open Office was. Mageia is essentially what Mandriva was. There is continuity, in a way more continuity than you'd get with a corporate product, but the name has changed, and that flies in the face of brand name psychology. That forces people to do a little research to find out where the continuity is, because the name won't tell you.
45 • Backups (by Ron on 2015-07-28 21:16:00 GMT from North America)
Backup to a USB hard drive installed in a dual outlet electrical box. Use a cable from computer to wall plate with USB drive installed behind the plate. Burglars foiled!
46 • Please drop the 'Beginners' tag (by Aqua Fyre on 2015-07-29 01:03:59 GMT from Oceania)
Why insist on labeling some distros as for 'Beginners' ?
Linux has moved on considerably since the early days where users had to set out partition tables etc by hand.
Perhaps a better label would be 'friendly'. But since almost all Linux developers are seeking to attract users : such a friendly interface and accessibility to services; is what all Linux users want. regardless of whether they are experienced or new to Linux.
The new generation of computer / tablet / device users are pretty savvy when it comes to operating systems : & they are the increasingly relevant part of the consumer market.
Quite frankly, if Linux doesn't want to end up in a cul-de-sac of increasing irrelevance : it needs to redefine itself. And that starts with labels.
Calling a distro suitable for 'beginners' is not only condescending, but completely out of touch with what most users want from Linux.
Proof : take a look at Mint, Elementary, ChaletOS etc. These are the distros that are moving ahead because they happily embrace both novices and experienced users of Linux.
Like I said : time to drop the 'Beginner's label as it comes across as condescending and irrelevant to most Linux users.
47 • Beginners Tag (by lashely on 2015-07-29 05:54:05 GMT from North America)
@46: Agree whole heartedly, "user friendly" would be a better term. While there are many distros which require a much more advanced user to even intsall the distro, Linux has plenty to offer. Debian has came a great distance in a short period, being a stable, robust distro and certainly easy to install and I consider it very user friendly. Also there is ubuntu, which is very easy and good for children. Linux has something for everybody, I highly recommend Debian, sophisticated but not difficult. It is my most recommened "user friendly" distro.
48 • @41 why linux is not more popular (by far2fish on 2015-07-29 08:53:15 GMT from Europe)
The author Neal Stephenson has written a quite amusing essay about the OS wars called "In the Beginning was the Command Line". Worth a read :)
One issue with switching from Windows/OS X to Linux full time, which I struggled with personally for several years. is the lack of support for a lot of gadgets that requires you to have a computer with the said two operating systems. For instance I had a smart phone who could not get updates OTA - only through a desktop application. Same issue with an older tablet. For some reason I could never get that to work through Windows in VirtualBox even with full USB passthrough. Before that I had a portable media which would not mount on Linux, and syncing did not work through VirtualBox. I also had a HR watch that needed to upload training data through a computer. Did not work. Later I bought a new HR watch that could upload data through USB passthrough in VirtualBox. Finally I had a digical camera that would not mount on Linux either. No problems through VirtualBox to Windows though.
Finally there is gaming. Several mainstream games are now available on Linux, but that was not the case a few years ago. Then add all the issues with getting stable drivers for non-Intel GPUs on Linux. And gaming through Wine was never as smooth as gaming on Windows using the same hardware.
No wonder so few people are able to switch 100% to Linux.
I have been using Linux on/off for over 10 years, but was not able to switch to it full time on the desktop more than a couple of years ago - after a modern smart phone is finally replacing all my old gadgets.
49 • What is a beginner? can an undefined notion be condescending? (by dbrion1 on 2015-07-29 13:20:36 GMT from Europe)
When I have little time to install, I am glad to install (very easy) and use Mageia. If I have time, I prefer Fedora, which has better -or just existing- softwares oriented towards electronic hobbyism (but Mageia can be fixed). If an electronic card needs a cross-compiled linux kernel + applications+ bootloader (most are debian -oriented, now : no more need to cross compile....) , I am glad linux allows being cross build froms scratch. I have friends where father and mother are illiterate: their mother "broke" a W7 PC because she could not find/think of the stop button ... and I managed to put Lubuntu (the elder son asked W8, because all his friends did have, but I said : no). They have another PC under 7, and another under Xbuntu and they prefer... the Xubuntu one, though it is much older and has less RAM... -> I believe Windows is preferred because every one's friends already have windows, through affective reasons... but not objective ones...
50 • Linux Usage (by chipps on 2015-07-29 13:45:36 GMT from North America)
Some of the last few comments strike a familiarity chord with me. I've used Linux in various forms since all the way back to Slackware 3.0 in 1995, on a 386 box which was used as the internet server for our entire company at the time. No graphical interface, nothing... but the perfect tool for the task. It was an absolute rock until it finally got rootkitted by a disgruntled employee 3 years later. Updated to Slack 3.6, it then ran and never wavered until the company closed it's doors in 2003. On the same box.
Since then, I've tried at various times experimenting with it as a desktop OS, not because of any FOSS//Libre/Freedom fanaticism, but just because I found it interesting and fun to play with. But in 20 years, I have never been able to use it 24/7, because I always ran across something I wanted/needed to do that either flat out wasn't supported or could be done much faster / easier in the DOS/Windows ecosystem.
With that said, I started distrohopping again in early 2010, and was floored at how far things had come since last visit, especially with Mint 8 (the first distro I really liked as a desktop), and then later Mint 10. But after finding myself booting into Windows 7 more often than not, I gave it up again until this year. So I tried again... this time with Mint 17.1 Cinnamon 64 bit on my HP laptop. It's early, but thus far I've had no reason to boot to Windows other than to update it and play a few games that can't be played anywhere else.
What all this has to do with the price of oats in Taiwan, I have no idea. But there you have it. Cheers...
51 • Backups (by David Bentham on 2015-07-29 14:03:16 GMT from Planet Mars)
Had settled on Backuppc - Does everything I ask it to, de duplication, compression (an example: 1.2TB down to 250GB).
What I like about it is its web interface and multi host configuration.
Restoring files is a breeze (all done via the web interface) and the ability to archive hosts.
At first it seems complicated, but once you have got the little niggles resolved it is rock solid and easy to manage.
A simple put together AMD Am1 mini itx pc, with an extra pcie usb 3 card allows me to use multiple usb 3 1TB external drives then raid 1 using mdadm (software raid) running debian 8.0. Rsync is used to copy.
http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
52 • user friendly (by Tim Dowd on 2015-07-29 14:15:49 GMT from Planet Mars)
@ 46
I don't think people label distros as "for beginners." They label distros as "good for beginners." This is an important distinction, and it's getting at the other topic that's being discussed on this thread- why don't people switch to Linux?
I really think the "good for beginners" label is important, and is not trying to be condescending. It basically lets a new user know that they don't have to feel comfortable in a Unix shell to run this operating system. When I was a beginner, the CLI was a mystery to me. I'd been using nothing but GUI based operating systems since MS-DOS 5.0. So I needed an operating system that would let me work from the GUI. The "good for beginners" label helped me find openSUSE, and I was happy enough there and comfortable enough there that I never looked back to the Windows world.
"Good for beginners" doesn't imply "bad for experienced users." These days I try and start my friends on Ubuntu MATE. They can keep it safe and up to date from the GUI. But I use it on some computers too, because I like its large repos and its update cycle. Thus it's good for experienced users, too (except of course Unity, which is good for no one except Amazon.)
My suspicion is that having to learn a radically different interface (the CLI) is what keeps most people who know Linux exists (which is a minority of Windows and Mac users) away. And thus this term "good for beginners" is not condescending, it's really important. The term "friendly" has two problems: first, it's not zeroing in on the fears new users have about whether it looks anything like what they're used to, and second, it implies that other distros, and notably the base distros, aren't friendly. They are. They're just not for beginners, and that's ok. Once you know a little about Linux, they're great choices. Plus, if you've got a question about a piece of open source software that isn't working right, the answer is probably going to be in one of 3 places: the Ubuntu forums, of course, but also the Arch and Gentoo forums. Beginners end up there because that's where Google leads them when program foo spits out an error. It doesn't mean that Gentoo is the right choice for a long time Windows user who just wants to check their email and surf the web, but reading those threads is what turns beginners into not-beginners, and thus I have a hard time not calling them "friendly."
53 • os choices .. commitment (by Jordan on 2015-07-29 15:32:49 GMT from North America)
See that's the thing. It's amazing to read user experience about all this. Just thinking to the days when nearly everyone in the comments section here expressed commitment to Linux this or that distro or hoppers alike, they expressed "went to Linux and never looked back."
Here I am on Windows 8.1 .. and there's my Mint 17 laptop over there on the other side of the room. Why am I not on that laptop? I will be later on today, but premier, illustrator, after effects etc cause GIMP to .. well limp by comparison. GIMP's gotten robust in the past few years, but the Windows apps just have more creative culture, user friendliness behind them so to speak.
I still get a better feeling overall being on Linux as opposed to Windows. Not sure why but I'm glad it's there.
54 • There is a difference between easy to install, easy to maintain and easy to run (by dbrion1 on 2015-07-29 16:45:21 GMT from Europe)
Windows is not easy to install at all. For maintenance, I do not know, because I never had to keep windows. I doubt someone wanting a PC for text writing, browsing (perhaps electronic hobbies : 10 years ago, good softwares - cross compilers, say- were 90% windows, now, they are 70% Windows and 30% GNUlinux AFAIK) would see the difference (another one -a friend ,say- installs maintains).
55 • Poll (by Ron on 2015-07-29 22:49:38 GMT from North America)
I chose "A combination of the above." I mainly use my own external hard drives for most of the data I need backed up. However I also use, or have used, a home server/NAS, Optical discs for some types of files and the only cloud storage I will use would be Spider Oak because of how they handle encryption and even that is only for a limited number of things as well. All the most important data is within easy reach on my external hard drives and encrypted.
56 • Backups (by Paul Bravery on 2015-07-30 02:41:30 GMT from Oceania)
I use Drobo & back that up to 'A' & 'B' alternating offsite external HDD's.
57 • Beginners....Response to Tim. (by Aqua Fyre on 2015-07-30 10:24:56 GMT from Oceania)
Quote from Tim.
From Post 52 in response to Post 46.
" and thus I have a hard time not calling them "friendly."
Hi Tim : I think you'll find : that 'friendly' is what I was suggesting would be a better tag. Even 'easy to use' is preferable to the 'beginners'.tag,
I have been around Linux forums for a very long time & unfortunately : many forums breed a sort of elitist top - down chatter : whereby beginners (also called tyros) are often dismissed or left to fend for themselves. In short : there is a pecking order and an expectation that those at the bottom should learn the ropes before daring to ask anything.
That's a tragedy for a system that wants to support the community values of learning, sharing and freedom of choice.
Thanks for reading...my original post :)
Aqua Fyre
58 • Beginners Tag (by lashley on 2015-07-30 21:31:01 GMT from North America)
@46: I support the notion of supporting the noob, or tyros. The distro may be excellent or just very good regardless of what Linux build it is from, the forum should carry some responcibility for adhereing to good practice and helping any new user to Linux. But, there are a few "know-it-alls" who seem to have an arogance about what they have learned and preceed to hound the newbie, and making their attempt to learn difficult. Thus, running off any new person to a forum, and this is rampant on many forums. I don't think it is any intention of the distro developer or moderators of the forum. I agree that a new user should surf the forum and read and read to see if their problem has already been addressed, issue has already been brought to attention and resolved, understanding all cases are not letter perfect to theirs. I say offering a bit of tolerance and help the struggle against the great evil of microhell and bring all who comes into the fold of Linux. By the way, I donate to all the distros I use, which is four, plus make donations to some software apps. These folks who run off new users is killing those donations. That shoud be understood and forum ediquette adhered to. Help out the noob, I started a few years ago, and now dev with a couple of my own Debian distros to maintain. Actually labeling a distro with some comment that it would be good for a new user would be appropriate. We all distro hop until we find something suitable as our skills and knowledge improves, and no matter who you are, you are still learning Linux.
59 • Beginners tag (by Thomas Mueller on 2015-07-31 03:27:18 GMT from North America)
Remember Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Language, better known as BASIC? Good for a beginner getting started, but BASIC has evolved: Microsoft BASIC Professional Development System, and later, Visual BASIC. There are also other proprietary and free BASICs including FreeBASIC, surely not intended as beginner-only.
60 • More Beginners, More Market Share (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2015-07-31 22:09:15 GMT from North America)
@48
"gadgets that requires...the said two operating systems"
Free, bootable Windows PE is meant for firmware updates. MFC apps mostly work.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Windows_PE
@59
I remember BASIC. Now show them Gambas.
http://gambas.sourceforge.net/en/main.html
@everyone
Steer beginners to distros offering up-to-date software and bugfixes. Debian is too slow on uptake, and Ubuntu lags even that -- a mind-boggling gorilla distro wrecking the beginner experience. Ubuntu is THE slowest distro for software versions save maybe Slackware I guess. Go watch Linux4UnMe on YouTube. The reviewer bangs his head on the table over Ubuntu. I had the same nightmares with it. And I'm an expert!
Send beginners to Manjaro OpenRC, or for older boxen, rolling SliTaz. PC-BSD is OK, but test the hardware support first. If everything checks, your beginner can be very happy.
I think systemd is STILL too buggy for any beginner distro. Just lately, a simple PS/2 mouse stopped working through several Arch Linux systemd updates. It's Twilight Zone weirdness. Yes I know PS/2 now requires module call-outs in Arch. I've had them from day one. Yes, I tested the same mouse on the same computer with a live CD on OpenRC. The hardware is all fine. Conclusion: MadHat just made an old-school PS/2 ball mouse break. This stupidity is why beginners often say, "Linux doesn't work." A PS/2 ball mouse should Just Work.
Linux is too fast to drop old hardware. People still use it, especially in hand-me-down lands of the third world. Linux for beginners should have ALL big OEM filesystems and MOST hardware modules needful for OLD hardware, compiled into the kernel.
You may question why ALL filesystems. Well, think of a beginner plugging in her device with a filesystem not yet in her kernel. Do you want to teach her lsmod and modprobe? "Give me back Windows XP."
So I call mandatory: FAT, exFAT, NTFS, hfsplus, FUSE and such, plus all the usual suspects, XFS, ext4, btrfs, etc.
If you want to streamline the kernel, drop all the RAID nonsense. That's for Phoronix groupies and hackers. Most people think RAID is a brand of bugspray. It just slows the boot when you don't use it. People on RAID know how to modprobe and don't need automatic detection at boot. Maybe a lot of readers here use RAID. I am talking about beginner distro spins. Your fave elite hacker distro should keep its RAID.
Friendly distros should ship WINE stock, paying special attention to menu and desktop entries for Windows apps.
As well, fold in open alternatives to popular apps like Skype, say with RetroShare. We spend too much time and effort making "their" stuff work on "our" stuff when we have better stuff.
And beginner distros should promote good crypto like LibreSSL and this little gem, which is likely simpler for newbies than dm-crypt.
http://www.dyne.org/software/tomb/
61 • backups and Linux on the desktop (by Mike S. on 2015-08-01 22:12:55 GMT from North America)
I use rsync with two hard drives that are always on and one external hard drive I only turn on and plug in once per month, plus SpiderOak.
In terms of Linux and the desktop, my experiences have not been totally positive. In no particular order:
1. In Ubuntu Unity occasionally the lock screen doesn't allow a password input and I need a remote restart of the display manager or a remote reboot to get back to the desktop. This happened to me from when I installed 13.10 to the 15.10 alpha when I gave up on Ubuntu in mid July (I genuinely like the Ubuntu Unity desktop, but this bug hit me at least once a week for literally two years). There are bugs in launchpad over it, I added a 'me too' comment to some, but whatever it is, they don't have a handle on it. I replaced the install with Elementary OS and so far it's rock solid stable, no bugs I've seen, and just gorgeous.
2. Every desktop available on Ubuntu or Fedora has a problem with my laptop with an Nvidia NVS 5200M and an external monitor, no matter whether I use the nouveau or proprietary drivers. All of them work sometimes, none of them can work for two days without a crash, or hang, or one of the two displays going blank until I restart the display manager. Unity, KDE 4, KDE 5, GNOME 3, Cinnamon, XFCE, LXDE, LXQt.
3. On my spare laptop with an old Core 2 Duo and Intel graphics, every desktop environment I've tried runs perfectly. The heavyweight ones are noticeably slower, though.
62 • backups (by imnotrich on 2015-08-02 07:13:56 GMT from North America)
My primary tower has a 500gb windows hard drive, a 32gb Mint SSD with a 1tb hard drive for my "home" partition. And currently, my laptop only running windows natively. By running my OS only on the SSD I avoid any fears about SSD failure-way easier to recover stuff from a dead or dying mechanical hard drive.
For cloud backup and to sync my important files across all three OS's I use Spideroak. It supports all major platforms (windows, linux, mac, droid) and files are encrypted before they leave home. Nobody at Spideroak has access to my files/encryption key, which I'm sure the NSA is going to shut down eventually just as they did lavabit but I digress. Spideroak is very space efficient too, with built in de-dup. Any files in folders that I've predesignated for back up are immediately uploaded, as are any modifications made and if they're in my sync folder it takes just seconds for them to be synced on all my machines. My only gripe with Spideroak is that files are not encrypted locally, so if your machine is stolen even if you immediately delete the machine from Spideroak, the current snapshot of your sync folder is still accessible to the thief.
I like the cloud option because I live in earthquake, wildfire, tsunami and burglary zone. But that's not my only backup. I also have some dvd's, old zips and floppies, and smaller hdd's removed from machines which have since gone to ewaste heaven. I don't use these obsolete media for daily backups mostly I'm just preserving them in case I need some file or family photo that's older than my kids and for some reason didn't make it into future backups.
And - I have a 3tb Seagate usb drive (which is failing after less than 18 months), and a 5tb Toshiba usb drive. I use the usb drives periodically to take a snapshot (not incremental) back up of everything I want to save. Uses more hdd space doing it that way, but guess what? When my Seagate drive started to bork some sectors it was still fairly easy to recover other copies of the files I needed from elsewhere on the hard drive.
I don't consider myself overly paranoid about backups. Some years ago I responded to a data recovery service call from a family that just lost their 4 year old to cancer and then their hard drive crashed taking all the kids photos with it. I was able to rescue all the photos, but it taught me a very important lesson. If you don't have multiple copies of something, its not important to you. Sure, I still have some working hard drives that were built in the late 1990's but...hard drives, and ssd's are like helicopter pilots. Some have crashed, others have not crashed yet.
63 • Korora 22 fails to install (by myself on 2015-08-02 13:47:14 GMT from Europe)
Korora 22 cannot be installed to VirtualBox 5.0.0 because important buttons in the installer are missing. Alt-d doesn't help.
64 • beginner distros (by M.Z. on 2015-08-02 20:43:28 GMT from Planet Mars)
@46
That whole argument about beginners is just getting bogged down in semantics. There are genuinely hard distros that should be avoided by average users at all costs, like Gentoo where everything is compiled & you need a computer science degree just to figure out how to install the OS (OK I'm exaggerating for effect, but you get the point). On the other end are distros like Mint, PCLinuxOS, Mageia, & Canonical's spyware distro where installs are generally fairly easy & media codecs are either included or a few clicks away. Making things quick & easy for average users provides a massive contrast to the more manually intensive distros & is synonymous with the 'for beginners' label. You can read whatever you want into anything, but it's silly to bogged down in your personal view on what a term means or implies. The vast majority of users who bother to research Linux understand what the concept means & are very unlikely to take the term as negatively as you seem to.
@60 - updates
I like the concept of a nice rolling distro that's easy for all, but most users simply want some an OS that is reliable & secure. There are certainly a few core apps that more users care about having a secure up to date version of like web browsers, but that is covered to some extent by all major desktop distros. I do think distros could be a little more clear about how updates work on Linux & how security up dates & bug fixes are backported to old software on fixed release distros like Debian, but those fixes happen continually for the life of the distro. I've installed huge numbers of updates on fixed release distros in the Debian family, so updates are there even if they are less likely to bump a software version number. I also don't get what your talking about in terms of file systems. When I plug a USB in it generally just works regardless of FAT or NTFS format, so I don't see the issue. Perhaps there could be some benefit in improving support for a few specific file systems, but on the whole it looks like Linux is better with far more file systems than any other OS. See here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems#OS_support
65 • "For Beginners" label (by Kragle on 2015-08-02 22:44:00 GMT from North America)
Perhaps distinctions should be made between degrees of deliberately-ignorant and eager-to-learn?
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| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Full list of all issues |
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Pisi Linux
Pisi Linux is a GNU/Linux distribution based on the old Pardus Linux with its unique PiSi package management system. It's an operating system for desktop computer with software for listening to music, browsing the Internet and creating documents. Pisi Linux is built from scratch on a stable base, but many core user applications, such as the Firefox web browser or the VLC media player, are kept constantly up to date. To increase the distribution's user friendliness, Flash player and many multimedia codecs are installed and pre-configured for immediate use.
Status: Active
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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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