 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 643, 11 January 2016 |
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Welcome to this year's 2nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The landscape of open source software is always in flux. New projects and editions arrive on the scene and new versions are constantly coming out to replace their predecessors. This week we begin with a review of Solus, a Linux distribution which just hit its 1.0 milestone. Read on to learn how Solus 1.0 performs. In our News section we discuss Linux Mint providing an upgrade path to Linux Mint 17.3 and steps the Fedora developers are taking to add stability to the Fedora distribution. Plus, we talk about Oracle's live kernel patching and share some statistics from the LibreOffice project concerning downloads and development. This week we provide a few mini-reviews of FreeBSD running on a Raspberry Pi computer and the LXQt desktop running on the ROSA distribution. Then we share a list of the distributions released last week and provide a list of the torrents we are seeding. In our Opinion Poll we ask if any of our readers have created their own distribution or re-spin. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (32MB) and MP3 (25MB) formats
• Music credit: Clouds Fly With Me by Matti Paalanen
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Investigating Solus 1.0
Around the end of December, the Solus project released Solus 1.0. The distribution's website mentions a few interesting features, including the Budgie desktop environment and the eopkg package manager:
Solus is a Linux-based operating system built from scratch for the modern desktop and targeting the x86_64 architecture. The Solus Project develops a GTK-based desktop environment referred to as Budgie.
The Budgie desktop is then described as follows:
Budgie is the flagship desktop of the Solus operating system, and is part of the Solus project. Designed with the modern user in mind, it focuses on simplicity and elegance. A huge advantage for the Budgie desktop is that it is not a fork of another project, but rather one written from scratch with integration in mind. The Budgie desktop tightly integrates with the GNOME stack, employing underlying technologies to offer an alternative desktop experience. In the spirit of open source, the project is compatible with and available for other Linux distributions. Also note that Budgie can now emulate the look and feel of the GNOME 2 desktop, optionally, via a setting in the panel preferences.
Solus is available for the 64-bit x86 architecture exclusively and I downloaded the project's 819MB installation media. Booting from the Solus media brings up the Budgie desktop environment. Budgie looks and feels very much like GNOME Classic, with the application menu (represented by a circle) in the upper-left corner of the display. A blue down-arrow sits next to the circle and will launch the distribution's system installer. Over in the upper-right corner we find Budgie's system tray. Clicking any of the icons in the system tray brings up a panel with two tabs. In one tab we find notifications and messages. The second tab holds widgets, such as the desktop's calendar and volume control. Audio output is muted by default. When we open new programs from the application menu, the application's icon is added to the task switcher panel that runs across the top of the display.
Solus uses a graphical installer which I think is unique to the project. The installer begins by asking which hard drive it should use for the installation. We are then shown a screen that lists available partitions on our hard disk and we can assign mount points to these partitions. There is a button on the partitioning screen which will launch the GParted partition manager in case we need to create or destroy partitions prior to assigning mount points. Once we have set up mount points, the next screen of the installer asks if we would like to install a boot loader and, if so, where it should be installed. We are then shown a confirmation screen where we are told which partitions will be used for the root mount point and swap space. Once we confirm these settings, the installer copies its files to our hard drive. When the installer has finished copying its files, we are returned to the Budgie desktop where we can continue to explore the live environment. When we are ready, we can reboot to begin running our new copy of Solus.
The first time Solus boots, the distribution launches a graphical configuration wizard which collects some information. We are asked to select our preferred language from a list, select our keyboard's layout and we are asked if the desktop should enable location services. We are then asked to select our time zone from a map of the world. The next screen invites us to link our local account to on-line accounts from providers such as Google, Facebook and ownCloud. The following screen asks us to set up our account with a password. I found Solus to be unusually picky about the style of password we can use. It requires a long, complex password and we cannot complete the account creation process without providing a password that meets the distribution's requirements. With these configuration steps completed, we are brought to a graphical login screen.
I tried running Solus in two test environments, a physical desktop computer and a VirtualBox virtual machine. Solus worked fairly well inside the VirtualBox environment, though it did not integrate with VirtualBox and I could not access my display's full resolution. As VirtualBox's guest modules were not available in Solus's software repositories, I downloaded the official guest modules from Oracle and installed those. After a reboot, I was able to run my Solus guest with full screen resolution. Unfortunately, the Budgie desktop was still sluggish to respond. I tried experimenting with and without 3-D effects enabled and Budgie was always slow to respond and programs were slow to open. The operating system used approximately 270MB of memory when logged into the Budgie desktop.
Solus 1.0 -- Settings panel
(full image size: 903kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
When I tried to run Solus on the desktop computer, the installation media failed to boot. Actually, Solus failed to boot in a unique way. Usually, when an operating system fails to boot, it is because of a problem with a driver (often a video driver) or something does not initialize properly. Solus repeatedly failed to boot and would display an error message saying the media I was booting from was already mounted. Then Solus would cleanly shut down, with the text console clearly showing devices being unmounted, processes being terminated and the system halting. I found this very interesting because, typically, when an operating system fails to boot it locks up, unable to proceed or shut down. Solus encounters a problem (apparently panicking when it discovers its installation media is already mounted) and performs a clean and orderly halt of the operating system.
Solus ships with a fairly standard set of programs. Looking through the application menu we find the Firefox web browser, the Thunderbird e-mail application, the Transmission bittorrent software and the HexChat IRC client. The Rhythmbox audio player and VLC multimedia player are included. I found Solus ships with media codecs and was able to play multimedia files out of the box. Flash support is not included in the distribution, but Adobe's Flash plug-in is available in the project's software repositories. Solus also provides users with a file manager, calculator, text editor and an archive manager. There is a document viewer and the GParted partition manager. There is a process manager and a program called Tweak Tool for making adjustments to the look and feel of the desktop. The distribution does not ship with a productivity suite, compiler or Java, though these can be installed from the project's repositories. I found Solus shipped with systemd 218 and version 4.3 of the Linux kernel. There is a menu item for launching a printer manager application, but this launcher did not work. I went into the distribution's control panel, which is mostly used to adjust the look of the desktop, and found a printer management module. Trying to open the Printers module brought up an error message saying the printing service was not available.
Solus 1.0 -- Budgie's application menu
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
One aspect of the distribution's application menu I found unusual (and a bit unpleasant) was the way the application menu continuously reorganized itself. The Solus menu appears to sort its contents based on which items are used most, or perhaps accessed most recently. Ideally, this feature would place the items we access most often near the top of the menu's categories, making them easy to find. However, in practice, since I use a wide variety of applications during a day, it meant every time I accessed the menu, the entries I was looking for had moved. I do not think I had noticed before how much I rely on memory to find things, but Solus made me stop and relocate items every time I opened its menu and made my reliance on consistency painfully obvious.
I believe package management deserves some special attention. The release announcement for Solus 1.0 mentions a package manager called "eopkg" and I was curious to see how it would work. I started from the command line and tried running eopkg. I soon noticed that eopkg is just a symbolic link to a copy of the Pisi package manager. I did a little exploring on the Solus website and found eopkg is a fork of the Pisi command line package manager. At the moment, it appears as though eopkg is virtually identical to Pisi and not much has changed in this fork. The developer has hinted that future versions of eopkg will diverge from Pisi, resulting in an incompatible package manager. At any rate, eopkg tended to work for me on the command line and I shifted my attention to the graphical software manager that ships with Solus.
Solus 1.0 -- Managing software packages
(full image size: 932kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The Solus graphical package manager is divided into two tabs. The first tab (labelled Software) lists categories of available software. At the time of writing, there are just five categories from which to choose. Clicking on a category brings up a list of sub-categories we can then browse. I find this multiple layer approach to categories (which appears to be becoming more popular) a bit tedious as it means there are more levels to navigate to find what we want. I also suspect some of the sub-category names will be confusing to inexperienced Linux users. For instance, a new user might not know the difference between "GNOME Desktop" and "GNOME Desktop Core System" or "System Base" and "System Utilities". Luckily, if we know the name of the software we want to install, we can do a search for keywords to find the item we want. To install an item we can click a button next to the package to queue its installation. The software manager's second tab is for managing package updates. The Updates tab shows a list of new software waiting in the distribution's repositories and we can then mark which items we want to download. I was pleased to find the software manager would allow me to continue browsing the pool of available items while installations happened in the background.
I ran into a few glitches while managing software on Solus. One minor issue was I would sometimes be shown multiple copies of what appeared to be the same entry. For example, two identical copies of Firefox. Other times, trying to install an item would make it disappear from the software manager. For instance, when I installed the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), the GIMP entry disappeared from the graphical software manager and searches for the package returned no results. The command line Pisi package manager could still locate the GIMP package and reported the software had been installed, though no menu item for GIMP appeared in the distribution's application menu. I later found that while no menu entry had been created, GIMP could be launched from the command line. In other instances, packages I had queued for installation were dropped from the queue without being installed, forcing me to relaunch the software manager and attempt the installation a second time.
Solus 1.0 -- The GIMP package missing from searches in the software manager
(full image size: 685kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Conclusions
On a non-technical note, I think one of the things that disappointed me while using Solus 1.0 was that the project's website had me excited for a new experience with a new desktop environment and new package manager, yet I do not feel as though Solus offers unique experiences in either case. The eopkg package manager, at the moment at least, appears to just be a renamed Pisi package manager. The Budgie desktop, apart from the system tray widget, looks and behaves exactly like GNOME Classic, even down to the configuration steps and sluggish performance. While Budgie and eopkg work, I feel they are (for the moment) better described as familiar technologies under new brands rather than new inventions.
I ran into a number of minor annoyances during my time with Solus, and I suspect a lot of those experiences are a reflection of the project's "1.0" status. We can't expect perfection out of the gate. While several little things bothered me -- like Solus panicking and shutting itself down on my desktop machine, or the package manager's flaky behaviour or the desktop environment's sometimes sluggish performance -- most of the problems I encountered were not show-stoppers. Most of us who have been in the Linux community for over a year have worked around a failed package install or tweaked a desktop environment and it's not a big deal. In short, I would say Solus 1.0 represents a decent start and I hope the project spends as much time polishing the existing features as it does exploring new ones.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Linux Mint provides upgrade path to 17.3, Fedora developers working on stability, Oracle offers live kernel patching and the stats behind LibreOffice
Last month, the Linux Mint team reported in a blog post that it was possible to live upgrade official Cinnamon and MATE editions of the Linux Mint 17 series (17, 17.1 and 17.2) to the latest release, Linux Mint 17.3. "You might want to upgrade to 17.3 because some bug that annoys you is fixed or because you want to get some of the new features. In any case, you should know why you're upgrading. As excited as we are about 17.3, upgrading blindly for the sake of running the latest version does not make much sense, especially if you're already happy and everything is working perfectly. Make sure to read the release notes and to know the new features so you have all the information you need before deciding whether you want to upgrade." The Mint team reported last week that it is now possible to upgrade community editions of the distribution to Linux Mint 17.3 as well: "The upgrade path from Linux Mint 17, 17.1 and 17.2 to Linux Mint 17.3 is now open for all editions (Cinnamon, MATE, KDE and Xfce)." Instructions for performing the upgrade can be found in this post.
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The Fedora distribution walks a tightrope between cutting edge software and stability. The developers would ideally like to offer both, but it can be hard to find and quickly fix all the bugs in new software before it is pushed out to the user community. Christian Schaller recently blogged about some of the steps Fedora has taken to offer a more reliable experience while still rolling out new features. "From the start we wanted to bury the old idea of Fedora being only for people who didn't mind risking a lot of instability in return for being on the so called bleeding edge. We also wanted to bury the related idea that by using Fedora you where basically alpha testing highly unstable and unfinished software for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Yet at the same time we did want to preserve and build upon the idea that Fedora is a great operating system if you want to experience a lot of the latest and greatest new developments as they are happening. At first glance those two goals might seem a bit contradictory, but we decided that we should be able to do both by both adjusting our policies a bit and also by relying more on the Fedora retrace server as our bug fixing prioritisation tool." The blog post talks more about the steps the Fedora developers have taken and their work with the retrace server.
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Oracle, the company which produces Oracle Linux, has announced some important updates to their distribution's Linux kernel, called the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK). The new Oracle kernel is based on Linux 4.1 and offers a number of performance and security enhancements. Oracle's kernel includes memory address randomization and real-time kernel features. Perhaps the biggest item on the new feature list is live kernel updates, a feature which allows the operating system's kernel to be updated without requiring a reboot. The live kernel updates are performed using a mechanism called Ksplice. Further information on Oracle's latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel can be found in the company's announcement.
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LibreOffice is a popular, open source productivity suite that has been widely adopted in the Linux and BSD communities. But just how popular is the LibreOffice suite? The Document Foundation, the organisation which backs the development of LibreOffice, has released some numbers to answer that question: "Downloads since September 2010 are close to 120 million, with a rather steady increase of weekly numbers. In 2013 there have been visible spikes after the launch of LibreOffice 4.0 and 4.1, as these versions were representing a significant growth in term of features over previous releases. Unique IPs pinging for updates are around 150 million since 2012 (when we have started counting them). Combined, the two charts provide a flavour of the growth of the installed base." Several graphs with comments regarding the number of developers, downloads and source code commits can be found in The Document Foundation's blog post.
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| Rapid Reviews (by Jesse Smith) |
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Short holiday experiments
I was on holiday during the last week of December and, along with providing me with a chance to visit family and friends, the break gave me an opportunity to quickly explore a few open source projects. Quite often I like to download a piece of software and run it briefly, just to see what it looks like or to confirm it works or to see if an awaited feature has been added. There were two projects I was especially curious about in December: FreeBSD running on a Raspberry Pi computer and the LXQt desktop environment.
FreeBSD on a Raspberry Pi
The FreeBSD developers have been working on getting their operating system working on ARM educational and hobbyist devices such as the Raspberry Pi. The project has been making progress over the past year. Back in June, I briefly experimented with FreeBSD's development branch (-Current) on a Raspberry Pi 2. At the time, FreeBSD worked well. Most features were in place, but there were no binary packages available for ARM devices at the time and third-party software had to be installed via FreeBSD's ports collection. I also found that ZFS was not yet working smoothly at that time.
At the end of December, I downloaded the latest FreeBSD 11 (-Current) image for Raspberry Pi 2 computers. The compressed image file is 164MB in size and, when it has been decompressed, takes up 1GB of space. This decompressed image can be written to a microSD card.
Unfortunately, while I have read that Raspberry Pi support has been merged into the main FreeBSD source tree and some people have been working on providing binary software packages, I was not able to get the latest image to boot on my Raspberry Pi. The operating system begins to boot and then hangs, seemingly while trying to detect the available hardware. The operating system does not respond to keyboard input and does not activate the available network connection.
I explored the FreeBSD forums a bit and found others were reporting the same issue. This regression is not really surprising given that FreeBSD's -Current branch is in constant flux and not intended to be run by end users. It is, after all, pre-beta software.
It would appear that this month, the FreeBSD development branch does not work on the Raspberry Pi, but that will likely change in the coming weeks. For now, I am happy to see that people are working on getting FreeBSD working on ARM devices and putting packages and documentation in place.
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ROSA R6 "Desktop Fresh LXQt"
Last month I wanted to give the LXQt desktop a test drive. LXQt is an implementation of the low-resource LXDE desktop that has been developed using the Qt software libraries. The LXQt website describes the project as follows:
LXQt is the Qt port and the upcoming version of LXDE, the Lightweight Desktop Environment. It is the product of the merge between the LXDE-Qt and the Razor-qt projects: A lightweight, modular, blazing-fast and user-friendly desktop environment.
One of the more recent distributions to ship with the LXQt desktop environment was ROSA R6 "Desktop Fresh LXQt" which was released in mid-December. The LXQt edition of ROSA is available as a 1.2GB download. Booting from the distribution's media brings up a menu where we can choose to explore the LXQt live desktop environment or launch the project's system installer.
ROSA R6 "Desktop Fresh LXQt" -- LXQt's application menu
(full image size: 254kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
I quickly walked through the graphical installer, selecting my preferred language, my keyboard's layout and my time zone. The installer guides us through partitioning the hard drive and then copies its files to our local disk. On computers where ROSA will be the only operating system we can get through the installer by clicking the "Next" button six times. After ROSA's installer copies its files to our drive we are asked to create a password for the root account and create a regular user account for ourselves. Then we can reboot and start experimenting with the distribution and its implementation of LXQt.
ROSA boots to a graphical login screen where we can sign into either a very minimal Openbox window manager session or a LXQt session. While both sessions work, I was really only interested in how LXQt behaved.
ROSA R6 "Desktop Fresh LXQt" -- The settings panel and Help documentation
(full image size: 134kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
ROSA sets up LXQt with the application menu, task switcher and system tray at the bottom of the screen. The desktop is uncluttered and decorated with a pleasant blue background. As one might expect, my initial impression of LXQt was that it looks and feels almost exactly like LXDE. It has the same context menu, a similar application menu and the same general feel. This is good as it means transitioning from the old LXDE desktop to the Qt-based version should happen seamlessly.
The ROSA distribution ships with one central control centre for managing both the LXQt desktop environment and the underlying operating system. The desktop settings are grouped together so that we do not get them mixed up with ROSA's core settings. The control centre provides modules for changing the look and feel of the desktop along with keyboard and mouse behaviour.
LXQt, or at least the implementation that ships with ROSA, offers us some additional configuration options I quite like. For example, we can start/stop components of the desktop. Through the configuration panel we can shut off (or re-start) such items as the desktop's panel, PolicyKit, the power management utility and the notification service. This does two things for us: It allows us to disable features we do not need and it also makes it easy to restart services that misbehave. Through the configuration panel we can also select which programs will automatically start when we login.
ROSA R6 "Desktop Fresh LXQt" -- Enabling LXQt services
(full image size: 171kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
One feature I was curious to try was the option to change which window manager runs when we sign into LXQt. By default, ROSA pairs LXQt with the Openbox window manager, but we can use alternative window managers. I downloaded Fluxbox from ROSA's repositories and switched out Openbox for Fluxbox. Switching window managers requires us to logout and sign into a fresh LXQt session for the change to take effect. LXQt worked with Fluxbox and I am happy to report the window manager switching feature works and gives LXQt an added sense of flexibility.
The ROSA distribution ships with a service which automatically checks for software updates. Five minutes after signing into LXQt, a notification let me know 162 new software updates were available. Clicking the appropriate icon in LXQt's system tray brought up the update manager application, which successfully downloaded and installed the waiting updates.
I had tried LXQt some time ago, but I think it has been over a year since I last experimented with the minimal desktop environment. The last time I played with LXQt, the desktop environment was usable, but perhaps not yet polished. Having played with LXQt for a day, I can happily say that LXQt has matured. The desktop is very quick to respond and I encountered no crashes or glitches. The desktop behaved as I hoped it would. In fact, on the surface, the behaviour and menus are virtually identical to LXDE.
ROSA R6 "Desktop Fresh LXQt" -- Configuring notifications
(full image size: 258kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Some might debate whether Qt components or GTK components provide a nicer end-user experience, and I think that is mostly a matter of taste. However, one objective benefit I think LXQt brings to the community is the existence of a lightweight, Qt-based desktop. For people who like working with Qt-based widgets, there have been relatively few desktop environments from which to choose (ie KDE) while GTK fans have been able to select from LXDE, GNOME, Cinnamon, Xfce and MATE. The arrival of LXQt (and Lumina) has provided lower-resource alternatives to KDE. I think LXQt now provides an attractive, and more resource friendly, alternative to KDE for fans of Qt-based software.
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
Bittorrent is a great way to transfer large files, particularly open source operating system images, from one place to another. Most bittorrent clients recover from dropped connections automatically, check the integrity of files and can re-download corrupted bits of data without starting a download over from scratch. These characteristics make bittorrent well suited for distributing open source operating systems, particularly to regions where Internet connections are slow or unstable.
Many Linux and BSD projects offer bittorrent as a download option, partly for the reasons listed above and partly because bittorrent's peer-to-peer nature takes some of the strain off the project's servers. However, some projects do not offer bittorrent as a download option. There can be several reasons for excluding bittorrent as an option. Some projects do not have enough time or volunteers, some may be restricted by their web host provider's terms of service. Whatever the reason, the lack of a bittorrent option puts more strain on a distribution's bandwidth and may prevent some people from downloading their preferred open source operating system.
With this in mind, DistroWatch plans to give back to the open source community by hosting and seeding bittorrent files. For now, we are hosting a small number of distribution torrents, listed below. The list of torrents offered will be updated each week and we invite readers to e-mail us with suggestions as to which distributions we should be hosting. When you message us, please place the word "Torrent" in the subject line, make sure to include a link to the ISO file you want us to seed. To help us maintain and grow this free service, please consider making a donation.
The table below provides a list of torrents we currently host. If you do not currently have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found here. All torrents we make available here are also listed on the very useful Linux Tracker website. Thanks to Linux Tracker we are able to share the following torrent statistics.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 150
- Total data uploaded: 24.9TB
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| Released Last Week |
Parted Magic 2016_01_06
Patrick Verner has announced the release of Parted Magic 2016_01_06, a new stable version of the project's commercial distribution designed primarily for disk management and data rescue tasks: "Parted Magic 2016_01_06. This version of Parted Magic updates some packages and adds some new ones. You'll also notice our delivery service has changed from E-Junkie to DPD. Not only does it look better, but download performance is more reliable. The 1-year subscriptions no longer have to be mailed out every release. You can keep your original email to get your updated Parted Magic files. We'll send out a simple email to let you know about stable releases. The Network manager stack was upgraded to 1.0.8. fstransform was added, this command-line program converts one file system type to another, for example XFS to ext4. isdct was added, this is a command-line tool for managing and secure erasing newer Intel SSD and NVMe devices. Updated programs: Google Chrome 47.0.2526.106, Mozilla Firefox 43.0.3, TigerVNC 1.6.0, MESA 11.0.7...." Visit the distribution's news page to read the full release announcement.
Linux Mint 17.3 "KDE", "Xfce"
The Linux Mint team has announced the availability of two new community releases. The new editions, "KDE" and "Xfce", are community spins of Linux Mint 17.3 and feature the same enhancements to the distribution's update manager and driver manager. The new community editions are based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and will continue to receive security updates through to 2019. "Linux Mint 17.3 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2019. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use." Linux Mint 17.3 supports booting on computers with UEFI enabled, but does not support SecureBoot, the project recommends disabling SecureBoot prior to attempting to install Linux Mint. Further information can be found in the project's release announcements for the KDE and Xfce editions.
Linux Mint 17.3 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 345kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
Have you ever created your own distribution/spin?
It is relatively easy for users of free and open source software to modify their operating systems. New spins of existing distributions pop up almost every week and new, independent distributions are created to fit just about every niche. Some people have even joked that the number of Linux distributions is even greater than the number of Linux users.
This week we would like to know if you have ever created your own distribution or spin. Please leave us a comment and let us know if you created your distro for fun, for the educational experience or to accomplish a task.
You can see the results of our previous poll on frequency of software updates here. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Have you ever created your own distribution/spin?
| I created my own spin: | 176 (11%) |
| I created a distro based on an existing one: | 165 (10%) |
| I created a distro from scratch: | 77 (5%) |
| I have not created my own distro/spin: | 1213 (74%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 18 January 2016. To contact the authors please send email to:
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| Extended Lifecycle Support by TuxCare |
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • LXQt for Manjaro OpenRC (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2016-01-11 00:33:32 GMT from North America)
The main dev on Manjaro OpenRC, artoo, makes LXQt desktop on that platform. There's also a new Lumina desktop from the BSD folks, available in some Linux repos. Lumina for now uses Fluxbox but plans its own window manager. It's even more alpha than LXQt so not for the faint of heart.
PS For Kragle #59 last week. Casually dismissive hardly. I used Debian for years. Did you google me as suggested. I would say in partial agreement with you that incremental regular updates (typical of Arch) are more stable than mass updates (typical of Debian). The guy was on Ubuntu. Google my statements on Ubuntu.
FUD on updates is not about updates but packaging methodologies and development workflows. Distros don't want to admit design problems so they blame updating itself as something inherently risky, a ridiculous proposition, as most updates are bug fixes by orders of magnitude. Unstable updates indicate poor distro design.
2 • Survey (by GuntherT on 2016-01-11 00:45:42 GMT from North America)
Although I have never created my own spin/distro/lfs OS, I must admit I've thought about it.
The comment about there being more distros than users was funny.
3 • Creating my own distro (by Crystal the Glaceon on 2016-01-11 01:46:17 GMT from North America)
I actually did start an Arch-Based distro, but it never got very far. I was aiming for a user-friendly Arch-Based distro, but I found Manjaro and ended up ending my project.
4 • Survey (by Sam on 2016-01-11 02:54:10 GMT from South America)
I created multiple SuseStudio appliances ("spins") based on openSUSE Leap 42.1, and I called it GeckoLinux. I did this to offer the sort of out-of-the-box experience that I personally require, and which I have found to be best for the many new Linux users that I support. My spin focuses on things like complete, un-crippled multimedia support out of the box, much better font rendering, sane package selections with minimal user of patterns so that software doesn't get re-installed if the user removes it, no glut of automatically installed packages during the first use of the package manager after the installation, and a separate spin optimized for each one of the major desktop environments. I currently have live installable ISO images for Cinnamon, XFCE, Plasma 5, Gnome, Mate, Budgie, and LXQt, in addition to a "barebones" edition for customizers. The best part of the whole thing is that it continues to be 100% openSUSE (with Packman third party packages), so even if I get hit by a bus, users who have installed my spin won't miss a beat.
5 • LXQt / Qt lightweight? (by Will B on 2016-01-11 03:44:55 GMT from North America)
I have to say my opinion differs about Qt-based desktop environments being 'lightweight'. I am a developer who uses, and for the most part, enjoys the Qt toolkit, but it's certainly not lighter weight than, say, Gtk2 or FLTK.
I have written a standalone application menu with both Gtk2/3 as well as Qt, and the Qt app *always* uses more resources. I am now working on the same standalone menu using the FLTK toolkit, so that ought to be very lightweight compared to Gtk and Qt. All menu and other projects can be viewed at my blog by clicking my name above.
I did a comparison once of a program that just pops up a simple, blank window in the top toolkits, and it was something like this (from memory, might differ from your experience):
• Pure X11 - 3 MB
• FLTK - 5 MB
• Gtk2 - 12 MB
• Gtk3 - 24 MB
• Qt 5 - 50 MB
• Java - 72 MB (I know, not so much a toolkit)
6 • Secure Comm - Get Packaging, Distros (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2016-01-11 06:02:35 GMT from North America)
Web pages not linked widely enough, so for general distribution:
http://youbroketheinternet.org/secure-email
http://secushare.org/comparison
https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard
7 • Respins (by hobbitland on 2016-01-11 06:17:16 GMT from Europe)
I used to respin Ubuntu but now I create respins of Debian.
The reason to recreate respins to to fix bugs and annoyances and missing stuff. Having it all on a live USB stick is nice. Less work when installing on multiple machines.
8 • Issues. (by IkeyDoherty on 2016-01-11 07:58:30 GMT from Europe)
I find it interesting you link to articles about our future, yet failed to read them to see how to resolve the boot issues.
As for eopkg it is already incompatible with pisi and has been for the longest time. It's optimised for the _developer_ experience: https://github.com/solus-project/package-management
As for sluggish, well, you're running it in a VM :) Budgie uses libmutter which requires GPU acceleration. In reality yes we could potentially do some optimisation for virtualisation here, but at the expense of watering down the experience for users on real machines. So I opted for the lesser of two evils.
I can see just by looking at your screenshots you've not performed any updates, a number of issues have already been resolved, please do so :) (GIMP has already been addressed, for example.)
I fail to see why you got excited about a package manager from our website, we've repeatedly stressed in all of our communications that the package manager is the single most unimportant factor. All package managers just deal entirely with glorified tarballs.
We make a point in *not* going on about the package manager, because its only relevant to the developer experience.
As for the other issues, please report them on the bug tracker so that they may be resolved and benefit everyone, it's hard for us to pick up on issues if they're only on blogs and such :)
9 • Rosa sister worked good for me (by dbrion on 2016-01-11 08:54:14 GMT from Europe)
Mageia5 was -and keeps being- very satisfactory with LXDe, at least for me. I chose LXDE for three reasons:
(a) my "net" "books" are old (1 G RAM)
(b) I do not like new, "phone" like (or W10 like) DEs
(c) it is RPis DE
The only trouble I found with playing with Mageia5 (I discovered opencv, played with microcontrollers) was with qtextserial I cannot compile and link simple programs using this library, and the fact that their Arduino packaging is broken -cannot cross compile (Fedora's is not, neither is rapsbian). This can be fixed by downloading the official Arduino's tar.gz ....
10 • DIstrowatch Weekly (by Andy Bear on 2016-01-11 09:30:59 GMT from Europe)
@Arch Watcher
Completely agreed! I also see small incremental updates to individual packages as being more stable than batch updates. That's just the nature of things - more variables interconnected = higher probability to break something. For instance, it pains me sometimes how Ubuntu breaks config files between releases.
# dbrion
If you have 1GB of RAM, Mageia 5 is not a very good choice. Try Lubuntu, Arch Linux or something similarly lightweight if you don't like tablet/smartphone interfaces :).
Jesse, why did you run FreeBSD-CURRENT on a Pi and then complained it doesn't work 100% well? As you yourself admitted, it's a developer version, not meant for end-user testing at all (and I mean it...). I would recommend giving -STABLE a try. I'm using it on a desktop and it hardly has issues :).
11 • My own spin (by Mark B on 2016-01-11 10:13:19 GMT from Europe)
I had the idea of making a custom version of Linux Mint especially for writers of all kinds. I spent a long time getting it just so and I was proud of it. The idea was to make it easy for writers to carry their writing environment around with them on a DVD or, better still a USB stick. It worked a treat and I really believed in it. I would have given it away to anyone who could have found it useful. I sounded out a couple of tech journalists in the UK and US, and they were very supportive of the concept as potential users.
I hit a snag when I talked to people on the Mint forums who explained I needed to remove the Mint artwork for copyright reasons. Although I do understand that, to some degree, it does seem at odds with the spirit of free software. I looked at other Ubuntu/Debian-based distros but had similar issues. I simply don't know enough about the guts of Linux to be able to strip out the artwork and replace it with some original stuff. So, rather than save other writers tons of time and pain I am the sole user of my creation. I am really disappointed it panned out that way. I'd love some help to turn out a well-polished distro' but I cannot really be a distro' maintainer. Pity really, I think it would be enormously useful to people.
12 • @Andy Bear (by dbrion on 2016-01-11 10:21:08 GMT from Europe)
" Try Lubuntu, Arch Linux "
I had tried Lubuntu on other PCs -very old- , and their internal disk formatting was slow, the status of the installation was kept hidden.
I do not know whether Arch and LUBU can install -i.e : the package manager works, as if it was a rotating disk; not in the DVD emulation mode- on USB sticks (Mageia and Fedora do : one just has to remove swap partitiion ... and be patient). Other issue with Arch is that I am not familiar with their package manager (I am happy with rapsbian *debs, FC and Mageia *rpms and upstreams *tar.gz : I never was in a package_managers-hopping mode)
Maybe Mageia is not the best choice (but I need to read some pdf, (cross) compile, and that 's all) but I donot think memory ressources linked with DE depend on the distribution (do Arch /LUBU offer special patches/optimisation Mageia/Fedora do not offer for LXDE ? How much (1%, 10% 50%?) RAM can gained, if this is true?). Even if it is not optimal, it is satisfying **for me and for friends** -needed to watch/catch youtube video, and that was almost all- who had an old 2 G RAM laptop.
13 • @ 5 (by kc1di on 2016-01-11 10:54:34 GMT from North America)
Hi Wil B,
nice to see another Christian and Ham on here :)
I've been down the same road even lxde use more of my system resources than I'd Like. Try a couple of LXQT installs but found it not quite up to stuff yet , may have to give it another try.
I used Fluxbox for quite awhile. but haven't seen much about it lately.
in any event 73, from another ham.
14 • The case for a LXDE version of Linux`Mint (by Nemrut on 2016-01-11 11:32:30 GMT from North America)
I truly love Linux Mint. I hope devs would consider releasing a LXDE variant of it. I have, over the years, installed Mint's Xfce version on countless machines for friends and neighbors and i myself use it too.
Most of those folks (myself included) never need to use majority of preloaded software (such as LibreOffice, Gimp, etc).
Therefore i think a bloatware-free, super lite LXDE version of Mint would attract thousands and thousands more folks to join Linux Mint's OS revolution led by daring Clam, the great and his equally great comrades-in-coding .....!
15 • custom spin (by sam on 2016-01-11 12:10:29 GMT from Europe)
I needed to teach some software, so I created an ubuntu live cd, with the software, documentation and worksheets pre-installed. Was able to get every machine in the lab booted into it, so that the session could get straight to teaching, and the students could take the software home with them.
16 • FreeBSD and the Raspberry Pi (by Jesse on 2016-01-11 12:40:54 GMT from North America)
>> "Jesse, why did you run FreeBSD-CURRENT on a Pi and then complained it doesn't work 100% well? As you yourself admitted, it's a developer version, not meant for end-user testing at all (and I mean it...). I would recommend giving -STABLE a try. I'm using it on a desktop and it hardly has issues :)."
Two reasons: 1. I ran FreeBSD -Current about six months ago on the RPi2 and it worked fairly well, with a few rough edges. I was checking in to see how the port was progressing. As it turned out, it was regressing. 2. There is no FreeBSD -Stable release for the Raspberry Pi 2, just the RPi1. So it would be impossible for me to test the -Stable release on my equipment.
Also, I wasn't complaining about the status of the port, I was observing. I'm not bitter about it, just curious.
17 • Solus Review (by Jesse on 2016-01-11 12:48:03 GMT from North America)
@8: There are a few assumptions you made in your comment which are not correct.
>> "I find it interesting you link to articles about our future, yet failed to read them to see how to resolve the boot issues."
I read them, Solus still doesn't boot on that test machine.
>> "As for sluggish, well, you're running it in a VM :) Budgie uses libmutter which requires GPU acceleration. "
I'd like to point out using VirtualBox 3-D acceleration works for GNOME Shell and Unity. Why doesn't it work for Budgie?
>> "I can see just by looking at your screenshots you've not performed any updates, a number of issues have already been resolved, please do so"
This is completely incorrect, I installed all available updates prior to writing the review.
>> "We make a point in *not* going on about the package manager, because its only relevant to the developer experience."
The package manager got its own section of the release announcement and it is a unique fork. It would be weird if I ignored it.
18 • Solus Review (by vaithy on 2016-01-11 14:05:31 GMT from Asia)
Same problem with my installation attempt.. But I don't understand how did You able to boot it in to Desktop?.. After two failed attempt I went on to download Deepin 15 and happy!
19 • Fedora stability and Plasma 5 (by Stan on 2016-01-11 14:23:33 GMT from Europe)
It is interesting to read the blog post about Fedora, I was a fan of Fedora since Fedora Core 4 but their rapid releases leave very much to say. I don't think that they even have the time to squash 50% of the bug as I can judge from the comments of that post that they ignore everything expect GNOME 3.
What shock me very much was some other blog entry linked within in the comments about the stability of Plasma 5:
https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2015/10/some-thoughts-on-the-quality-of-plasma-5/
I'll quote the most shocking part IMHO:
{" Another problem we noticed is that fixes we created doesn’t reach our users. This is mostly to how some distributions work with the exception of rolling release distributions. They create a “stable” and “feature frozen” product. If a major version number increases it’s not going to be updated. I just described the problem with outdated Qt, that’s part of the story. The update didn’t get into the distribution and thus fixes don’t reach our users.
Even more with frameworks we don’t provide bug fix releases and that creates “problems” for distributions. They don’t roll our the new frameworks, although they fix important issues. This is slowly improving, distributions need to get used to this process and also accept that their policy doesn’t apply. "}
This partially one of the reasons why I think Arch surpasses any other distro, I've seen myself ditching distros because they are practically stuck with bugs until next release.
20 • @17 (by IkeyDoherty on 2016-01-11 14:50:14 GMT from Europe)
> I read them, Solus still doesn't boot on that test machine.
We have IRC and forum support, would've been happy to help :) In fact you have my email address too, could've really streamlined it for you.
> I'd like to point out using VirtualBox 3-D acceleration works for GNOME Shell and Unity. Why doesn't it work for Budgie?
As I've said, we make a point in *not* optimising for virtualisation. Of all people you well know that virtualisation is not a true reflection of real hardware testing.
> This is completely incorrect, I installed all available updates prior to writing the review.
So this is the reason I actually replied again. Your screenshots clearly indicate you're using the older Budgie package. I know this because I maintain it in all repositories and write the code :) (The giveaway is actually your menu icon, I changed it in the 10.2.1 release.
> The package manager got its own section of the release announcement and it is a unique fork. It would be weird if I ignored it.
It's called being transparent. :)
21 • No own spin and other (by JoeA on 2016-01-11 14:50:59 GMT from North America)
I've never made my own spin, but have tried many distros with Xfce and customized them all to fit my liking.
My favorite parts of Distrowatch are Distrowatch Weekly and the Latest Reviews section. It seems like the Latest Reviews section is getting smaller. I like the internal reviews and those from other sources, even if they are from a grumpy old man! (smiley face)
22 • Solus review (by Jesse on 2016-01-11 14:55:43 GMT from North America)
>> "So this is the reason I actually replied again. Your screenshots clearly indicate you're using the older Budgie package. "
Yes, but I took the screen shot on the first day of my trial. I write the review at the _end_ of the week. The screen shot was taken before the updates were installed. Most of my trial took place after all updates were applied.
23 • @20 (by a on 2016-01-11 15:10:21 GMT from Europe)
"As I've said, we make a point in *not* optimising for virtualisation. Of all people you well know that virtualisation is not a true reflection of real hardware testing."
People try distros with VirtualBox and if they don’t work properly they will never install them on real hardware or recommend them.
24 • Opinion poll: I created a distro based on an existing one (by Alessandro di Roma on 2016-01-11 15:16:49 GMT from Europe)
I created a distro based on an existing one, namely I created modified versions of Xubuntu thru good old remastersys, and I distributed it to PCs in my house, and to some friend. I wonder if this can be called a distro. Today Xubuntu 15.10 is so polished I don't need to modify it anymore.
25 • @8; Ikey Doherty: (by dragonmouth on 2016-01-11 15:25:17 GMT from North America)
"All package managers just deal entirely with glorified tarballs."
That is a very cavalier, user-unfriendly attitude that is giving Linux a bad name. It is HOW those package managers deal with the tarballs that is important to the end user. Not everybody has the expertise to be so dismissive of package managers. A newbie Linux user who is getting his feet wet with Ubuntu or Mint cannot be expected to maintain his system using 'dpkg' or even 'apt'. He needs to use Ubuntu Software Center, or better yet, Synaptic. So, despite your arrogant disregard for the end users, package managers DO matter.
26 • @25 (by IkeyDoherty on 2016-01-11 15:43:42 GMT from Europe)
What you term arrogance, I call experience.
I never took away from the user experience for one moment. Take a read through https://plus.google.com/u/0/+Solus-Project/posts/6FPLh4WJCkf for greater understanding on what I mean.
You'll notice Solus 2 will completely do away with the package manager for users, and it won't be unfriendly. It'll be a complete separation of OS and Apps, which is what users actually will *benefit* from. They can leave the nitty gritty details of the package manager to folks like me who are building the OS, where it's supposed to be used, as a build tool. Right now it's also a deployment tool, but 2.0 will change that.
I also won't be checking back here for responses, too much of a pain with the way the IDs alter based on the moderation queue, makes it difficult to track. So if you want to follow it up, by all means, please send an email and I'll get back to you after work.
27 • @14 - Mint LXDE (by Uncle Slacky on 2016-01-11 16:39:31 GMT from Europe)
Mazny years ago there was an LXDE spin for Mint. Nowadays your best bet is Peppermint OS, which uses LXDE but incorporates many Mint features. You might also like to try LXLE.
28 • My own Distro (by Nick on 2016-01-11 16:45:03 GMT from North America)
I have tried building my own distro by modding Linux From Scratch to meet my needs, but when I found Gentoo it did everything I wanted - the project ended at that point.
29 • Fedora Stability (by cannibal on 2016-01-11 16:59:28 GMT from North America)
I have used Fedora since F11 and have not had any problems with stability.
I use XFCE.
The only problem I can remember, is that a couple of releases ago, the "Places" menu plugin wouldn't work. A dnf update followed by a logout fixed that.
Fedora is the upstream for just about everything Linux-related; it is the Linux used by Linus, so yeah, it's probably going to have bugs sometime. It's also the quickest to roll out fixes. That's just the way it is.
30 • My own spin for January : Ubuntu Mutter :) (by Tran Older on 2016-01-11 17:49:02 GMT from Asia)
1. Install Ubuntu Mate 14.04 LTS
2. Install Mutter window manager to replace Marco window manager.
3. Install Nemo to replace Caja
4. Install Vivaldi to replace Firefox
5. Use Mate-Tweak to carry out all the replacements
6. Install Mbuntu themes and icons from www.noobslab.com. Install Vibrancy Colors- a bold, modern & beautiful "vibrant" icon theme also from noobslab.com
7. Install Plank.
8. Build the new ISO using PinguyBuilder. (The new ISO is 999MB to be exact :))
The final product is a great contender to Solus 1.0.
31 • LXDE version of Mint (by frodopogo on 2016-01-11 17:54:01 GMT from North America)
@11,
Mark,
I ran across a Czech writer's Linux once that was based on Lubuntu. It's a great idea.
Perhaps you could just write instructions (the "recipe") for your version on a blog. You could have an uninstall script for Terminal for the things you'd want to uninstall, and an install script for the writer's tools you'd add. Then other writers could paste these into the Terminal of any distro using the Ubuntu software repository. Since they would be downloading the standard versions, you wouldn't need to worry about removing the branding.
@14,
Nemrut, your enthusiasm for Mint is commendable. I'm just a Mint user, but I read most of the official announcements. It's a relatively small project for the amount of software they put out. On the Main Edition, they already have FOUR desktop editions. On the LMDE edition (based directly on Debian), they HAD the same four, but for the sake of maintaining focus, already spun off the Xfce and KDE desktops into a separate project which is now SolydXK. Since they already cut down on the number of desktops for the LMDE edition, I highly doubt they will add an LXDE edition anytime soon- because Mint is led by the greatly overworked Clem with assistance from his equally greatly overworked comrades-in-coding. ;^D
However, there IS an unofficial Mint LXDE put out by some German Mint users. The live edition runs in German, but when you install it, you can change the language to English or whatever you want. Go to the Mint page here, and click on "Mint Germany" under related websites. And Lubuntu is a good project too, and should give you 97% of what you want in an official version. Trisquel also has a lightweight LXDE version that fits on a CD.
32 • Spins and tweaks and all that (by albinard on 2016-01-11 18:25:20 GMT from North America)
I suspect that everyone who has been a Linux user for a while begins to create something resembling her/his own “spin”, however little it may differ from the base system originally installed. I tried my own first quasi-spin from a mini Ubuntu ISO after a few months' experience at Linux; it worked, but most importantly it was a learning experience. Six years later I'm still learning.
33 • Distro Spins & Bug (by Justin on 2016-01-11 18:39:14 GMT from North America)
I've tried making my own distro several times usually because I wanted to make something custom or small. I've played with Puppy, Slitaz, TinyCore, Debian, and LFS. It's surprising how complicated (time consuming) the process can be unless parts of it are automated (and even then, it doesn't always work as you want or it still takes hours). I guess it depends what you're trying to achieve. That ignores the complications mentioned above about artwork and making the source code available (all that GPL software requires you to do stuff when distributing).
The LFS website has a good page about considerations when you make your own distributions. Don't let it all discourage you from trying, though! Take it more as a reminder of all the time/effort people are donating to our desktops and consider giving back.
@Jesse: I noticed a bug in DW's search. It's not possible to search of distributions based on TinyCore. Also, when you go to a distribution that is based on it like Nanolinux, clicking on "Based on" just brings up a list of all distributions.
34 • Spins (by Peter on 2016-01-11 20:34:03 GMT from Europe)
I've made a few spins for private use (family and friends) using Remastersys and now Systemback, after fiddling around the configs I most liked and installing/uninstalling programs untill it seemed a capable but light Surfing/Office/Multimedia/Backup desktop. Nothing fancy, and almost always resembling what most users know better (yes....WinX themes).
I make spins for spanish Windows users in despair and/or in need of light systems on "old" PC's. Rescovering faulty systems or giving new life to crappy PC's is one of the best ways Linux can be presented to Win users.
35 • LXQt (by New User on 2016-01-11 22:29:08 GMT from Europe)
Which distro currently offers the best out-of-the-box LXQt experience?
36 • Survey (by BlueJay on 2016-01-11 22:42:44 GMT from North America)
I've toyed with SUSE Studio before and made a spin of my own for personal testing purposes. I might try it again in the future.
37 • @19 Release strategies (by David on 2016-01-11 22:53:51 GMT from North America)
What Martin needs to realize is that it's not the distros or how they work that's the problem, it's how some upstream developers work that is the problem. If you want bugfixes to get to the users, have stable branches that are maintained for a long time and get backported bugfixes. If distros won't even update those, then you can complain. Otherwise, yes, while your new shiny versions may fix bugs, they may also introduce regressions, mandate configuration changes, change workflows, or affect other software in undesirable ways, which most distros try to protect their users from having to deal with except when upgrading. Many upstreams already do maintain stable branches. Get on board!
38 • Debian, Ubuntu with LXDE desktop (by maroman on 2016-01-11 23:39:12 GMT from Europe)
@11, 14, 31
it makes no sense to invent what has already been invented. I suggest to try wattOS based either on Debian (oldstable) or Ubuntu. to go further, there is semplice based on Debian stable with so-called vera desktop,based on openbox.
39 • Distro/Respin (by Marti on 2016-01-12 01:45:46 GMT from North America)
I am convinced that the Remastersys Linux, based on Ubuntu 12.04 with the EDE desktop, was the finest I will ever use. RIP.
I will never be brave enough to do this, but, oh!, how I'd like to try!
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/minimal
40 • I think you got these errors (by RJA on 2016-01-12 02:37:23 GMT from North America)
https://solus-project.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=911
Where it claims already mounted or busy.
41 • a few respins (by Demo Mateo on 2016-01-12 03:02:50 GMT from Oceania)
I have a custom spin of Fedora (several), CentOS6, CentOS7 and my current favourite Linux Mint. It's for personal use. I have been using Linux exclusively for work since 2001. My custom spins allow me to reinstall my machine with everything that I would need in under 30 minutes. My spin allows me to integrate with our Windows-centric environment without much issues at all.
42 • I think blankon linux offer more unique exp than solus (by wejick on 2016-01-12 04:50:28 GMT from Asia)
I discovered blankon linux offer more unique experience than solus in desktop Environtment point of view. It has tight integration with gnome ecosystem.
i took a peek here
https://github.com/BlankOn
They have rather ecosystem for desktop, from html5 api, and DE based on html5 on top gnome 3.
43 • Solus unable to connect via 3G modem (by gnomic on 2016-01-12 06:37:17 GMT from Oceania)
When I ran Solus in a live session I found it could not connect to the internet via a 3G modem and NetworkManager. It appears that the required usb_modeswitch software is not included. There may be other issues associated with this problem of a configuration nature but afaik the absence of usb_modeswitch means no connection with such a device.
The article linked below appears to provide a comprehensive summary of the requirements for a 3G modem connection.
http://www.draisberghof.de/usb_modeswitch/
44 • geckolinux downloads (by gnomic on 2016-01-12 07:33:33 GMT from Oceania)
It appears that in order to download these spins of SUSE one must login via such entities as Google or Novell or facebook, etc etc. Call me completely outdated but I don't use any of these. So it seems gecko is not for me. I did manage to d/l v2 of the initial release without any such requirements.
By the by a 3G modem connection didn't work with that release iirc. A brief look at the forum doesn't indicate that this problem has been resolved. Perhaps it has?
Other recent problems with 3G modems seen with Chapeau 23 version of Red Hat, and Sabayon. 3G access formerly worked with Sabayon I seem to recall. Common factor seems to be no usb_modeswitch. As to what is going on with Manjaro 15.09 KDE wrt 3G heaven only knows. But KDE networking has always seemed to exist in some alternate universe of its own.
45 • RE: The case for a Linux Mint's version with LXDE desktop manager (by Nemrut on 2016-01-12 08:29:24 GMT from North America)
@38 - maroman
I appreciate your response but to me it's rather your response that does not make sense.
The distros you had suggested (as an alternative to what i'm seeking) are not even remotely comparable to LinuxMint!
Also, i wonder as to how am wanting "to invent what has already been invented" simply by requesting a distro with an additional desktop manager?
I really wish you had taken your time to read and understood my comment before you had decided to respond
@14 - frodopogo
Thank you for your tips and info. Thank you friend.
You sound all fine, but the fact that there's a large community of Linux Mint's fans coding their own LXDE desktop for Mint; strongly proves my point that there are myriad number of people out there seeking a lighter, faster and better version of Mint??
@27 - Uncle Slacky
Thank you for the info.
46 • @45 (by dbrion on 2016-01-12 09:38:38 GMT from Europe)
" "to invent what has already been invented" simply by requesting a distro with an additional desktop manager?"
Mandriva,in 2009 offered the choice of at least (did not test beyond that) 4 desktop managers at install. I bet Rosa did: Mageia5 does it (at install, you may choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE and XFCE IIRC : I have LXDE)
Fedora does it, too -but it may be complicated to install they offer .6 DE : KDE, Gnome, Mate, Cinnamion, LXDE, XFCE see https://spins.fedoraproject.org/fr/ I haave LXDE on FC 23...
If you like UBUlinux -same PM as Mint- , lubuntu offers LXDE.
" the fact that there's a large community of Linux Mint's fans coding their own LXDE desktop for Mint; strongly proves ".... they are unsuccessful coders. Maybe a matter of skills (then it would not be that nice to claim they are numerous)....
One does not need a faster, lighter and better version of Mint .... one needs fast and light -if these adjectives can be defined - versions supporting some +++functionalities++ .... unless Mint is a deity, with trancendant properties -and betting for some extra DE does not indicate that.
47 • Distro from code... (by Zork on 2016-01-12 10:36:04 GMT from Oceania)
Many of us have working, older hardware sitting around that is just gathering dust...
Perfect for a Linux From Scratch machine...
Set a compile going... Go do something else... Repeat...
See how good a system you can build...
Really good for understanding the "nuts and bolts" of Linux but I still prefer a Mainstream Distro for my day-to-day computing...
48 • distro spins (by alex.theoto on 2016-01-12 10:50:32 GMT from Europe)
I just use ArchLinux and I build my system the way Iike.
Previously I used Debian stable netinstall.
49 • Creating your own distro (by slick on 2016-01-12 10:56:36 GMT from North America)
Debian live-build only way to go, which Debian is attempting to discard by haulting it's developement. Devuan forunately is pressing on with live-build and certainly the live-build devs will simply go the most progressive route.
Prefer the live-build for not only less complicated, but the fastest set of wheels to produce a distro, for the user too.
Just say "NO" to systemd, support Devuan and live-build.
My question is why so many dev's are bailing on Debian now and going elsewhere? No future with ubuntu either, never has been.
50 • Solus (by nightflier on 2016-01-12 12:00:32 GMT from North America)
I installed Solus on a couple computers and can confirm that testing in a virtual machine does not do it justice. On real hardware, it runs fast and looks good.
51 • @slick (by Andy Bear on 2016-01-12 12:39:07 GMT from Europe)
"My question is why so many dev's are bailing on Debian now and going elsewhere? No future with ubuntu either, never has been."
Because Debian devs decided to yield and put forth systemd starting from Debian 8 'Jessie'. One could argue systemd is against the UNIX philosophy, but Linux is not UNIX per se so the sanity of the decision is debatable :).
@Jessie
Thanks for the response, I wasn't aware. The FreeBSD website for Raspberry Pi mentions that there is an .iso image for -STABLE and -CURRENT, but maybe it's not true, I don't know. Sorry if you felt offended by my previous comment! :)
52 • Raspberry Pi (by Jesse on 2016-01-12 13:23:39 GMT from North America)
@52: I think the confusion here stems from the fact that the Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi 2 are different computers. FreeBSD 10 (Stable) runs on the original Raspberry Pi, but not on the Raspberry Pi 2. FreeBSD 11 (Current) does offer images for both the original RPi and the RPi2.
I was testing a RPi2 for which there are no FreeBSD Stable images. So the FreeBSD wiki is correct, they do have Stable images for the RPi, but that doesn't help those of us running RPi2 computers.
Here are the FreeBSD 10 images: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/arm/armv6/ISO-IMAGES/10.2/
And here are the 11 (Current) images: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/arm/armv6/ISO-IMAGES/11.0
53 • Create distro (by Scuttle on 2016-01-12 14:54:26 GMT from North America)
Over the years iv'e Knocked out a few Distros from base installs. (Usually due to wanting to change over 50% of many distro choices for me)..most never not ending up as the original plan... a bit like when you rebuild a Vehicle it never really gets finished.....
about 2 yrs back i started with Linux from scratch...which after an initial rush of blood to the head seems to have not furthered itself..and everytime i start on it i seem to have to change most things..
I have Gentoo and Arch running which are as good as i could ever hope for from any Distros and i have Manjaro which I had for 4yrs
I
54 • Raspberry Pi (by Andy Bear on 2016-01-12 16:32:48 GMT from Europe)
@Jessie
Many thanks, kind sir! I will download the 11-CURRENT FreeBSD image once I too become a proud owner of a RPi 2 :). Cheers!
55 • The case for a LXDE version of Linux Mint (by Nemrut on 2016-01-12 18:52:51 GMT from North America)
@46 - dbrion
I enjoyed reading your response. But it appears you have totally misunderstood my position.
You see, Frodopogo #31, had suggested i use a LinuxMint's LXDE version developed by some German fans of LinuxMint -- in response to my initial poster # 14.
And instead of accepting Frodopogo's offer, i used his piece of suggestion to further prove my point that there's, probably, a popular demand at large for a LXDE version of Mint that some folks (like those Mint's fans in Germany) are going at length to code their own Mint with a LXDE desktop, however "unsuccessful" or amateurish.
Moreover, I'm in total agreement with you regarding what you had stated in your #9 poster about LXDE.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
CORRECTION:
in my poster #45, i made a mistake.
I should have referred Frodopogo as poster #31.
I'd like to thank Jesse in advance if he can correct it when he gets a spare moment
56 • lxqt, pcmanfm-qt, libfm and gtk2 (by anonymous on 2016-01-12 20:47:30 GMT from North America)
Anyone seen anything on pcmanfm-qt finally replacing libfm? That's the one thing about that project I've always found odd. pcmanfm-qt depends on libfm which depends on gtk2. Kinda defeats the point of moving away from gtk2 when one of your main components still depends on it.
57 • Ubuntu spins (by John S on 2016-01-12 21:26:45 GMT from North America)
I've created many unique installs based on Ubuntu LTS, solely for learning and fun. My first build from scratch used RazorQt. The one I'm most proud of is my Ubuntu/Fluxbox/XFCE hybrid. Ironically I'm now using WattOS Microwatt with the i3 WM. I've modified it but it is still WattOS. Plus I'm typing this on the latest Bodhi Linux. So "other people's distros" are also satisfactory.
58 • Own spins (by Ostrolk on 2016-01-12 22:41:24 GMT from Europe)
I use my own spin, and have uploaded few Debian & Ubuntu based spins to sourceforge for others to use and enjoy.
59 • spins (by anticapitalista on 2016-01-12 23:00:18 GMT from Europe)
Nice to see so many posters saying they have created their own respin or at least have thought about it. Huge tick for open source and linux.
60 • distro selfies (by BSDjail New Year freedom on 2016-01-12 23:47:03 GMT from Oceania)
Tried creating distros with slax and susestudio. The big problem is hundreds of libraries and add-on packages thrown in with the apps. This makes it a pain to search for interesting apps to install. It shows Linux is still a development environment.
Phones have got it right with their app stores. All you get are the apps to search through and install. Easy!
61 • Lubuntu Gnome (by Roy Huddleston on 2016-01-13 01:03:48 GMT from North America)
I like using the alternate Debian installer. And the first thing I change about Lubuntu before updating is the LXDE to Gnome. This daily build of 16.04 I have been using since 11/05/2015 has been running good. It has been cool to run it pre-alpha. Not only do I get to enjoy Ubuntu tweak but Gnome tweak as well. At least I have stuck with a Distro.
62 • geckolinux openSUSE spins (by Somewhat Reticent on 2016-01-13 05:14:15 GMT from North America)
@44 Simply click on the image for each spin, instead of trying to take a "test drive".
63 • useless semantics (by dave on 2016-01-13 05:57:18 GMT from North America)
There really aren't any concrete definitions of when something is a 'spin' or a 'distribution' .. some people would say that if you reconfigure a distribution to use a different desktop by default, that you have made your own distribution. Others simply rearrange the default applications and call it a new distribution. Even worse, some people think that if they just change the theme and add a bunch of wallpapers, that's a new distribution. It's really kinda sad when you look at the actual 'differences' between a lot of the distributions listed on this very site. There often aren't many to be found.
What needs to stop is application developers using a 'distribution' simply as a means to push one or two of their pet projects. There is a tendency for linux distributions to be nothing more than efforts to stroke ones ego; pretentious efforts to push a piece of software, a desktop layout, or a preferred suite of programs. This is the fragmentation that continues to plague linux. If all you've done is rearranged some things, it's not a new distribution.
What constitutes a 'spin' ..? Do I have to make an iso, or is every one of my customized, frankenstein desktops technically a spin? Maybe they're unpublished distributions! (they're not.) I think a lot of people like to believe that they're better at this whole thing than they really are and the ease of reconfiguring an existing distribution to look or feel slightly different only reinforces this misconception.
I want to see more of these so-called 'distributions' or 'spins' merging their efforts to make something worthwhile, instead of something that will be gone in a few years. People should try joining an existing project before they go through this tired song and dance. And enough with the ridiculous project names already. The final straw for me was Tanglu. Ubuntu sounds ridiculous enough and it seems like there is a race to the bottom, to see who can come up with the most absurd name. Also the whole codename / release name bit is super duper annoying. Just go back to numbers. We've run out of food and animal names. Enough already. How many mango tango blah blah blahs do there really have to be out there? Cmon folks.
The way I see it is that the chosen method of package management is the only truly significant difference between distributions.
64 • @63 - Core distros (by Stan on 2016-01-13 08:57:23 GMT from Europe)
I had the same feeling about a year ago, and even blame the Linux ecosystem to suffer from "the paradox of choice".
I solved this personal controversy that I had by just focusing on independent distros (pure, not based on anything else)
http://distrowatch.com/search.php?basedon=Independent
And because the default package selection is the worst selection that any human been can ever prepare, I focused in DIY distros where Arch is the clear winner due to the amount of pre-compiled software packages + AUR.
In some way I do prepare and run my own personal spin :)
65 • @55 - yes to an LXDE edition of Mint! (by Oliver on 2016-01-13 10:34:04 GMT from North America)
I went through reading all your great posts and wish to second you about the need for a Mint LXDE edition.
Even the old, conservative Debian realized such a need, therefore maintains an LXDE edition too.
I hope Mint developers take Debian's example.
Cinnamon edition of Mint (in my opinion) is totally useless and wasting resources and should be replaced with LXDE.
66 • Mad King Linus (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2016-01-13 12:01:14 GMT from North America)
"it's not the distros [but] how some upstream developers work that is the problem.... If distros won't even update those, then you can complain."
Hello. I'm officially complaining. Study the endless version rot in the FreeBSD ports tree, or Ubuntu's current release versions of any security software you please. All your base are belong to us. I remember laughing out loud at the version of tor they were shipping for a long time, like ten versions behind upstream.
Most upstream projects have a stable and a testing branch. What they do not have is archaeology such as Debian and its retarded second cousin Ubuntu require.
"they may also introduce regressions, mandate configuration changes, change workflows, or affect other software in undesirable ways, which most distros try to protect their users"
Distros protect only one "workflow," their own, which is sloth on a stick for you to lick.
Now what distros do suffer in common is the Mad King Linus workflow, on which google my previous posts. It's a new 5-year-plan every 2 with Linus. Hey, let's overhaul the device manager! Wow, let's switch to binary logs and Windows INI files! Linus and Lennart remind me of Mad King Ludwig building castles. The reign of Mad Linus simply argues for a good selection of kernels, such as Manjaro offers.
The BSDs don't suffer Mad King Linus but their packagers are sloths. I don't know why. I would switch to BSD if they would just get their ports tree on a par with Arch Linux and Gentoo.
This idea of "protecting" users from upgrades is the most preposterous myth in distroland. No such myth haunts Mac OS X or Windows. Consumers get crayon-colored upgrade thingys to point-and-click. Microsoft labels patches with cryptic codes. Apple doesn't even give that much, just a progress bar.
Radio Hams: Here's a spin for you, albeit sadly Ubuntu-based IIRC.
http://www.skywavelinux.com
67 • switching to BSD (by Frosch on 2016-01-13 15:48:33 GMT from Europe)
@ Arch Watcher
«I would switch to BSD if they would just get their ports tree on a par with Arch Linux and Gentoo.»
FreeBSD's ports are quite up to date compared to many distributions, but the main problem with all BSDs is hardware support. I tried GhostBSD once. In a virtual machine, it looked really great, but once installed on the hard drive I had compatibility problems, and the performance was really sluggish compared to any Linux distribution I have tried.
68 • Slackware Beta (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2016-01-13 16:16:32 GMT from North America)
History Happens!
Wait, what's this about bluetooth audio-dependency-creep!?
(Did pulseaudio become popular because it provided technical improvement, or because it provided an effective GUI for sound, instead of a mess like ALSA or OSS? And then there's Jack…)
Are Desktop-Environments a symptom of a lack of Basic Linux Standards, giving rise to fiefdoms mimicking smart-device GUI churn?
Shouldn't everybody be able to generate their own 'spin'? How else can you make a backup copy of apps/programs with all your personal tweaks, or share your setup, or carry it with you to/on other hardware?
(Ludwig II was visionary; Linus herds cats. XML need not be binary.)
69 • Tails and systemd (by Linux Apocalypsis on 2016-01-13 18:39:20 GMT from Europe)
Does the latest beta version of Tails use systemd?
70 • LXDE version of Mint (by frodopogo on 2016-01-13 21:15:10 GMT from North America)
Over the years of using Mint, and seeing Clement Lefebvre's response to various requests,
I've gotten a sense of his personality and philosophy.
1. He has a very strong vision of what Linux Mint is supposed to be.... and I haven't seen large changes since version 5 Elyssa, unless those changes were foisted on Mint by the upstream projects.
2. Mint has not experimented much with alternative desktops, except for Cinnamon. Now that they've added Cinnamon for a fourth desktop, there is even less willingness to experiment with other desktops.
3. Clem has a REALLY strong sense of discipline and focus, and is very aware of the danger of spreading resources too thin. If anything, the knowledge that there are other Linux projects with different approaches frees him to stay true to his focus and vision.
4. Mint has never been much about being lightweight, instead tends to take a middle of the road approach to resources. Most computers made in the last 10 years can run Mint comfortably.
5. Packaging popular programs like Firefox and LibreOffice pays dividends in reliability.
More popular = more people to report bugs!!!
6. Clem seems to fit the saying quite well "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!" I think this is partly because he is aware that new features mean new code which likely contains bugs which cause regressions.
7. Mint's formula seems to be working, so it's definitely not "broken", so there is little sense of a need for change. So the possibility of an LXDE spin seems very remote.
8. Xfce has always been Mint's lightweight alternative. For LXDE to have a shot, Xfce would have to go away. That wouldn't bother me personally, since I have a slight preference for LXDE, but given what I know about Mint, I'll be VERY surprised if that happens.
9. This may be the reason that Lubuntu is the most popular Ubuntu community distro- Xubuntu, Kubuntu, and Ubuntu MATE have to compete against Mint versions of those programs, Lubuntu doesn't.
71 • Solus (by hotdiggettydog on 2016-01-13 22:27:02 GMT from North America)
Nice to see Solus have a comeback. I used the original SolusOS way back when, and it was pretty sweet.
Sadly, there was a lot of drama around the project and the developer abandoned it.
72 • Argument for a Linux Mint LXDE edition (by H. Güzelaydın on 2016-01-14 06:59:28 GMT from North America)
I'm really delighted to see this issue being discussed here on the universal Linux central arena. Just like Nemrut (post #15) I, too, often install Linux Mint's Xfce edition on old hardware for friends and acquaintances. Accordingly, I too, am, appealing for an LXDE edition of Mint.
And yes I'm aware of all those distros out there offering LXDE editions. But I, unfortunately, found none of them as reliable or properly maintained as Linux Mint is.
According to frodopogo (post #70) "Xfce has always been Mint's lightweight alternative. For LXDE to have a shot, Xfce would have to go away" and adds ”that wouldn't bother me personally, since I have a preference for LXD.”
Well, nor it would bother me, or (i think it would) bother overwhelming majority of fans of light & speedy Linux distros for that matter. So, I'm strongly hopeful that Mint developers hopefully will find a way to come up come with an LXDE edition regardless of dropping Xfce (which would have been shadowed anyway if it were offered alongside LXDE) due to some (but not all) the qualities neatly summarized here by dbrion (post #9) who states that he has chosen LXDE for the following reasons:
(a) my "net" "books" are old (1 G RAM)
(b) I do not like new, "phone" like (or W10 like) DEs
(c) it is RPis DE
Also, while on the subject, I would like to scribe a few words about my recent experiment with an outstanding new distro https://www.bunsenlabs.org/ for the aforementioned purpose of keeping old hardware functioning for friends.
BunsenLabs Linux is based on the noble philosophy of the minimalist design. However, BunsenLabs developers have, by bundling their distro with LibreOffce - one of the most bloated Linux application - partially ruined such a, indeed, promising super light and speedy distro.
Otherwise, BunsenLabs Linux would have, probably, been the greatest and most reliable in this category of distros coded so far.
Despite this terrible blunder, i have installed BunsenLabs Linux on several antiquated machines and received lots of heartfelt "thank you(s)!" from grateful friends whom, I'm sure, would be even more thankful if Mint were to release an LXDE edition, and BunsenLabs were to, either, drop bloatware or, at least, release an edition without it.
73 • @69_Re:_Tails_and_Systemd (by k on 2016-01-14 10:27:58 GMT from Europe)
Re: your question: "Does the latest beta version of Tails use systemd?"
Tails is one of the most "transparent" ongoing Linux (Debian-based) works,
so one can always check and find changes at https://tails.boum.org/ , but
-- addressing your question -- one can also always check any distro's process
for startup/booting using terminal command, possibly needs also typing "sudo" before:
cat /proc/1/comm
provided by Robert Storey in his DW article Manjaro OpenRC 0.8.13 - reinventing
init without systemd, and typing return should produce response:
init
as for build 1.8.2 - 20160109
74 • Low fat Mints (by Ghost Sixtyseven on 2016-01-14 10:48:01 GMT from Europe)
@70 '8. Xfce has always been Mint's lightweight alternative.' ~ What about their wonderful Fluxbox releases in the past? Those are the ones I would love to see making a comeback in the 'Mint' pantheon. :)
75 • @72 and 55: Stop whining for Mint LXDE (by watching on 2016-01-14 11:04:02 GMT from Europe)
I'm sure even the lightweight Mint Xfce has a package manager. Why don't you just install LXDE and be happy?
And I really LOL'd at the "terrible blunder" of including LibreOffice - one of the "must have" apps for anyone who actually wants to use Linux for work. I'm sure that "blunder" could also be rectified with a package manager - or is BunsenLabs so nobly minimal that they don't even include something as useless as a package manager?
76 • @69 @73 Tails and systemd (by Linux Apocalypsis on 2016-01-14 11:40:35 GMT from Europe)
Finally, I managed to find the information:
https://git-tails.immerda.ch/tails/plain/debian/changelog?h=devel
Yes, Tails 2 will ship with Gnome Shell and systemd.
Forensic work is urgently needed before using that distro in any privacy-sensitive contexts.
77 • @75 - RE: Stop whining for Mint LXDE (by Nemrut on 2016-01-14 12:28:31 GMT from North America)
Yes -- however, most ordinary linux folks are newbies who do not have even those basic technical skills to carry out what you're recommending.
Moreover, most computer users (windows or linux alike) really don't want to be bothered with all those new learning curves and commands.They just wanna to plug 'n play.
That's it.
As for LibreOffice, it is, indeed, terribly coded and it's an undeniable huge bloatware: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/five-apps/the-five-most-bloated-linux-applications/
I acknowledge that, yet, LibreOffice is widely used by Linux users as they have no choice and are not aware of a better alternative office suite like, for example; http://www.freeoffice.com/en/
78 • @72 and 77 - "bloated" or full-featured? (by Hoos on 2016-01-14 13:33:01 GMT from Asia)
"...most computer users (windows or linux alike) really don't want to be bothered with all those new learning curves and commands.They just wanna to plug 'n play..."
That's the precise same argument I would use for why Libreoffice is included in Bunsenlabs and many other distros.
Maybe Bunsenlabs is meant to be a full-featured distro? Maybe they hope to target newbies as well as the experienced pro-minimalist-interface Linux users?
LO makes the iso file size bigger, but does that necessarily mean Bunsenlabs is no longer light and speedy?
79 • @76_Tails_2.0_and_systemd (by k on 2016-01-14 14:25:14 GMT from Europe)
Regarding your comment/conclusion: "Forensic work is urgently needed before using that distro in any privacy-sensitive contexts."
Not sure what you meant, but on Tails web page at https://tails.boum.org/news/test_2.0-rc1/index.en.html , under What's new in 2.0?, is included claim:
"that will make the Tails experience both safer, and more pleasant. For example, all custom system services are harder to exploit thanks to the use of Linux namespaces, set up by systemd."
Any additional comment(s) or insight(s) much appreciated.
80 • @79 (by Linux Apocalypsis on 2016-01-14 17:19:24 GMT from Europe)
How can a huge Trojan horse make things harder to exploit...? Contradictio in terminis.
81 • @77 - Bloat (by Ben Myers on 2016-01-14 17:54:04 GMT from North America)
LibreOffice may be bloated compared to many other Linux programs, but it is way less bloated than Microsoft Office, with which it strives to maintain 99+% compatibility at the document level. Many who use Libre Office need that Microsoft Office compatibility to interchange documents with others and they are willing to pay the price of some bloat.
GIMP has some bloat, too, due to its myriad of features also present in PhotoShop.
If one needs to use the features, one accepts the bloat.
82 • Linux Lite (by Bill on 2016-01-14 21:10:05 GMT from North America)
Just installed Linux Lite to see how well it faired with other top distros. I compared it with debian 8, manjaro, fedora, opensuse and mint,... all except opensuse were xfce versions.
Liked them all but was especially impressed with the performance and easy setup of linux lite. I also installed virtrtualbox on each distro and found linux lite to be an easy setup compared to fedora or manjaro.
My Favorite distro's in order are:
Debian 8, Debian Stretch
Linux Lite
Mint
Fedora
Manjaro
OpenSuse
ALL are great distros and worthy of consideration by anyone looking for a Linux Distro.
Bill
83 • Or Mint LXLE? (by Kragle on 2016-01-14 22:11:56 GMT from North America)
Now that would be both lean and productive - and not merely minimal.
Or replicating the functionality and robustness of Linux Mint (without a "DE" - maybe just FLTK/OpenBox?) on Qubes_OS/Aboriginal Linux, before XML and binary-blobs take over? There's a fine challenge!
84 • Misc Replies (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2016-01-15 07:30:08 GMT from North America)
@Frosch #67
Any software for servers is on a par in BSD. Graphical apps are behind, including security tools like Retroshare, a must to update properly. The BSD maintainer has left it stale half a year by now.
@Tails-interested
Yes Virginia, the systemdeath virus means you cannot trust Tails. Tails made the mistake of trusting Debian, which made the mistake of trusting RedHat, an NSA contractor. I have no doubt agents work there undercover, and others consult overtly.
I hope someone respins Tails away from Debian generally. Tails is unusable just for package staleness, never mind System D-. Look at the old, rotten version of LibreOffice that Tails ships.
@LibreOffice-interested
The alternatives are closed-source and not popular meaning bugs don't go as fast. LO is the only serious option. If you're going to mention goffice please look at the notice of vacancy on the goffice home page.
An office suite is big by nature. LO has a good active dev team which has mostly stripped and streamlined old cruft legacy code. Too bad we can't say the same about openssl and glibc. Keep LO but switch your distro to libressl and musl-libc.
85 • @72 BunsenLabs (by Head_on_a_Stick on 2016-01-15 21:29:35 GMT from Europe)
Hello, I'm one of the BunsenLabs developers :)
We will be looking into different sized ISO images in the future and this may include slimmed down versions.
Just to note: the standard (rc1 at the moment) installation does *not* include LibreOffice, it has a menu entry which will install LibreOffice with a single click but it is not included by default.
86 • @85 bunsenlabs distro (by sojourner on 2016-01-15 22:18:03 GMT from North America)
Hi, i have just installed your distro on a really old (almost 10 yrs old) panasonic Toughbook and i'm totally awed and amazed how extremly my almost 10 yrs old laptop is now faster, even much, much faster than my brand new Acer laptop i just bought recently on boxing day!! And i sincerely wanna thank you for that. I'm surprized that such a great distro is not listed in distrowatch!
I diiscovered only because someone mentioned it here on this forum.
87 • LO 'bloat' & systemd (by M.Z. on 2016-01-15 22:18:51 GMT from North America)
@77/Nemrut - LO 'bloat'
Where exactly is LO compared to it main competitor MS office in terms of resource use? Also what gave you the nonsensical notion that LO was poorly coded? From what little I've heard the LO folks have tried to cut useless cruft from the old OpenOffice code base whenever they could & I see no good reason to think the coding is anything other than good.
Also as a general comment on LO, & as others have mentioned, we are a full featured office suite here. If you don't like the way most distros default to the best & most useful office suite around, feel free to try AbiWord or Calligra, or whatever else gets it done for you.
@84
Enough with the systemd FUD already. It's all nonsense. I use it in Mageia & find no issues whatsoever. There is no sane reason for the anti-Red Hat FUD, & if fact all users should be glad that reputable companies like Red Hat are around to do most of the hard work involved in making the Linux ecosystem so functional for so many users. They also support Gnome & the brain dead trash coming out of that project so Red Hat is far from perfect, but on net they do a lot of good.
Also given the degree of controversy surrounding systemd I would be surprised if the open source code coming from the project hadn't been heavily audited by technical minded folks suspicious of systemd. The only safe assumption on the security of systemd that users without an axe to grind or a tinfoil hat to wear could make is that systemd is a) more complicated, b) more actively developed, & c) likely more audited than the alternatives. On net there is no good reason to believe it is any less secure than any other init give that points b) and c) are likely to offset a).
88 • Created distro from scratch (by Mutua Kilonzo on 2016-01-15 22:20:18 GMT from Africa)
Just for fun and increase my linux knowledge, I created a distro from scratch and it worked! It's a great learning experience. I'm not trained in any computer course, but I managed to get it to work using the Linux from Scratch website and googling where I ran into a problem.
89 • @86 BunsenLabs (by Head_on_a_Stick on 2016-01-15 22:25:13 GMT from Europe)
Thank you for your kind words, glad you like it!
BunsenLabs is currently at rc1 status so a DistroWatch placement would be slightly premature ;)
90 • bunsenlabs @86 (by James F. Cape on 2016-01-16 05:06:53 GMT from North America)
That's a nice and encouraging user feedback. However, I think, the super speeds you report and credit bunsenlabs OS for it, may in part be due to super quality hardware your PANSONIC brand laptop posses. But regardless, what you report is truly impressive
91 • RE:Mint on LXDE, BunsenLabs distro and OpenOffice, the bloatware (by Nemrut on 2016-01-16 10:07:31 GMT from North America)
@84 -Archwatcher and @87-M.Z.
Windows has always been against (politically, economically, socially -- and codewise) what Linux stands for. Hence, I'm disappointed to see you folks matching up Linux with Windows - instead of comparing it to OSX which shares the same Unix foundational codes along with a few common goals.
@81 - Ben Myers
If one needs to use the features, one accepts the bloat
I do not code, but i'm educated enough about coding that i can disagree with you without hesitating.
Coding is really a form of art best compared to the art of literary writing.
Accordingly, a terribly bad writer with lousy writing skills can waste numerous pages, plus, confuse and bore readers by ratcheting up a`merely one-page-long story.
On the other hand, a good writer with creative writing skills can write to fit in - the exact same story - on a single page by ratcheting down, and captivate the readers to entertain them at the same time.
@83-Kragle
Your fascinating proposal definitely makes sense. Pity that Linux Mint developers are unlikely to get off their ivory towers to respond. So, instead, let's wish that this great creative developer, yet humble; Head on a Stick*, our new friend from BunsenLabs notice your proposal and turn it into reality for us all by incorporating it into his attractive still-in-progress distro.
* hope that's not his real nome :) LOL
92 • Holy Mint religion/ systemd (87) (by dbrion on 2016-01-16 16:11:35 GMT from Europe)
" The only safe assumption on the security of systemd that users without an axe to grind or a tinfoil hat to wear could make is that systemd is a) more complicated,"
Well, that make it unpleasant for limited resources (old ones, RPi) computers...
If an application can be told (what did "top" tell?) bloated, it is a good thing DE is not that bloated....
For LXDE : Mageia and Fedora support it quite well (so does Debian with rapsbian, maybe lubuntu for PCs -people I installed lubuntu did not complain : that was before I tested mageia5). Why should it aggregated with Mint ? Specifically Mint? A religious matter? (I use Fedora if their installer works; if it does not work, I keep old Fedoras or, if Mageia satisfies me -this occured with Mageia 5-), Mageia: what is the need of The Holy Mint?
93 • Spins (by gvnmcknz on 2016-01-16 19:47:31 GMT from Europe)
I use Pinguy Builder, (if what's produced is technically a Spin)?
I can have X/Lubuntu LTS set up just right.
Try another distro.
Revert back as needed, fuss free!!
94 • Spins & Netbooks (by gvnmcknz on 2016-01-16 20:06:07 GMT from Europe)
I also have a need to keep Netbooks running.
Downloading Bunsenlabs this minute!
Thanks
PS Manjaro is excellent as well as L/Xubuntu
Any other ideas?
95 • mammoth LibreOffice, Linuxmint LXDE edition & Bunsenlabs distro (by kimlik66 on 2016-01-16 20:55:28 GMT from North America)
I want to second post #77 about LibreOffice because it's really a pity that this once-a-promising Linux office suite is now nothing but a hopeless mammoth piece of bloatware.
Let's, instead, try FreeOffice: http://www.freeoffice.com/en/ and see that the difference is like day and night.
Similarly, I, too, agree with all those posts above; calling for an LXDE edition of Mint. Also, BunsenLabs distro, within this context (of a lean and speedy linux) is a promising project worth to try: https://www.bunsenlabs.org/
96 • LO & such (by M.Z. on 2016-01-16 22:57:48 GMT from North America)
@91/Nemrut & 95 - LO weight
Well Nemrut, the vast majority of possible users of any office suite would compare any other office suite to MS office. How does it not make since to target a good all purpose replacement for the 800 pound gorilla in the office suite room? The thing is LibreOffice is delivering on it's mission to be a general purpose office suite for the vast majority of users who tend to be familiar with MS office. Whatever else you preconceptions of what an office suite should be are, LO looks to me to be doing an outstanding job at it's main goal of a general purpose replacement for big name proprietary alternatives. Everything else about size/bloat is a value judgement based on personal preferences & I think you are more than welcome to use the package manager to install something else on the Distro of your choice, but the complaint isn't relevant given the mission of LO.
@92 - Mint vs Mageia & systemd
I like Mageia as well, though I like Mint slightly better overall. I think it's the best .deb based distro & the best distro overall for home PC users. I do prefer a few things in Mageia like how I don't need some PPA to use GRUB Customizer, but Mint tools more than make up for the loss.
On the systemd thing, I don't see how that affects much after the initial init is done, though I have no idea what the size of the stuff that stays in the background is. It might be fair to say systemd isn't a great choice for lightweight distros, though I'd like some hard numbers to justify that.
97 • Libre Office (by Scuttle on 2016-01-16 23:13:50 GMT from North America)
I have gived freeoffice , libre office and Calligra, even tried WPS...which i quite liked.....But for me Libre office wins at the moment...I rarely use Draw or Presentations...so it could have been a lot lighter...
Free Office seemed to have a few docX format issues..though it could have been resolved now...
Caligra was odd to use i think that had Formatting issues for DocX as well
My brief go with WPS wasn't too bad. and seemed ok on DocX...probably i would use it if Libre office Hadn't been with me for so long..and Open Office before....just hard to change now
There is 1 or 2 other suites about i will try one day But as I have to deal with 90% of people using windows DocX formatting needs to be good
If it wasnt for business i could make do with Abiword
98 • On Bloat vis a vis LibreOffice (by Ben Myers on 2016-01-17 02:54:52 GMT from North America)
So what is the metric one uses for measuring bloat? Anybody? Do tell.
LibreOffice is a download of about 200MB, and installs in about a minute. And the development team produces regular updates. Compare that with the DVD-sized, many minutes to download-and-install-and-activate and record specifics in the company-borg data base... Wait, a minute, nobody wants to see the name of the company that peddles the dominant office suite.
Do the various LibreOffice modules eat a lot of memory? I'm sure they do, but I learned long ago to max out the memory on whatever computer I use, because memory is very very cheap these days. But the software is free, and it allows me to interchange most documents with people who want to spend the money on that other office suite. So call me a happy camper with LibreOffice.
99 • @98 of bloat, cheap hardware and careless coding (by Nemrut on 2016-01-17 06:13:46 GMT from North America)
various LibreOffice modules eat a lot of memory ... but I learned long ago to max out the memory on whatever computer I use, because memory is very very cheap these days
Yes you're right as memory/RAM is, indeed, very affordable nowadays, therefore what you're suggesting makes sense -- but only practically speaking.
That's because i don't think it makes sense at all [from a techno-philosophical point of view] as i think (despite the availability of cheap hardware currently) we should rather continue to strive to code and design software in a way so that it gets reduced and doesn't get enlarged further.
Just like we do not -- and never would -- allow car makers to manufacture cars which pollute the environment badly -- simply because now highly effective air cleaning filters are available to us.
100 • @99 What is the metric for bloat? (by Ben Myers on 2016-01-17 15:38:00 GMT from North America)
And the metric for bloat is? Any numbers? Compared to? Join the LibreOffice team. Still worth the price, even with the alleged bloat.
Number of Comments: 100
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