 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 657, 18 April 2016 |
Welcome to this year's 16th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
One of the more exciting aspects of the open source community is that there are always people trying something new. There is always a new design on the horizon, waiting to be tested and either adopted or discarded. This week we focus on new technologies that are currently available or will soon be ready to download. We begin with a look at Redox, a UNIX-like operating system written in Rust that includes some interesting design choices. In our News section we cover improvements to Linux Mint's update manager and changes planned for the next release of Fedora. Plus FreeNAS has decided to upgrade older versions of Samba following the Badlock bug and we discuss Canonical's plan to support Snappy packages in Ubuntu 16.04. In our Questions and Answers column we talk about menus and short-cuts in various desktop environments. Then we share the torrents we are seeding and explore last week's releases. In our Opinion Poll we raise the idea of voting for distributions on our waiting list. Plus we share a new resource where readers can find hardware that works with open source operating systems. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (22MB) and MP3 (30MB) formats
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
An introduction to Redox
Back in March, a young operating system project attracted attention in the open source community. The project is called Redox and its developers are working on a Unix-like operating system written in the Rust language. The Redox operating system features a microkernel design (like MINIX), the permissive MIT license and some interesting design ideas.
While I read a lot of opinions in March about the developers and their design goals, I encountered very little commentary on what it was like to use the young operating system itself. This led me to become curious and download the project's small installation ISO which is just 26MB in size.
Before getting into my experiences with Redox, I want to talk briefly about some of the design decisions the developers have made. They seem to feel that Unix (or related operating systems like Linux distributions) has a generally good design, but with some key flaws or hangovers from past decades. For example, the project's documentation suggests that Unix's "Everything is a file" concept is dated and their modern design declares "Everything is a URL". In a way, this makes sense. On Linux, our hard drive is treated like a file under the /dev directory, so we can end up in some strange conceptual territory when we realize we are working in a directory on a device that is located in another directory. Redox's "Everything is a URL" philosophy works around such issues by giving users a way to access devices which are not part of the file system. Personally, I think the developers are trading one set of problems for another by using URLs, but I acknowledge they have highlighted an issue and provided a workaround.
The Redox project also takes the stance that the C programming language may produce fast running applications, but quite often security and stability issues can be traced back to quirks of the C language or common mistakes made by C programmers. Rust strives to be more secure and offers some protection against common implementation problems. By using Rust instead of the traditional C language in development the Redox programmers hope to make a more stable and more secure operating system.
Design aside, let's look at what happens when we boot from Redox's installation media. Booting from the Redox media takes about three seconds and brings us to a text console. We are presented with a message suggesting we run "redox-installer" to set up the operating system. A quick examination of the command line interface reveals that we are running a minimal shell and we have root access. Exploring a little further I found that the installation media actually runs a minimal Linux distribution. The usual /etc, /bin and /proc directories exist along with the BusyBox collection of Unix utilities. We have access to the vi editor and commands to browse directories, monitor system processes and read manual pages (though no documentation files exist on the system). In the background the installation media runs version 4.4.3 of the Linux kernel. The whole live environment uses approximately 10MB of memory, making it a surprisingly compact Linux implementation.
Of course I did not download the Redox ISO in order to play with Linux, I wanted to experience something new. I looked at the redox-installer file and discovered it is a simple, 12 line shell script. The script presents us with a list of local hard drives and asks on which one we wish to install Redox. The script then confirms our choice and, without further customization or prompts, uncompresses a file containing the Redox operating system and writes it to our hard drive using the dd command. Hopefully nothing of importance was on that hard drive.
I tried working with Redox in a VirtualBox virtual machine and on a physical desktop computer. In both instances, the Linux-based installation media booted, but the installed Redox operating system did not. For the time being, it seems Redox is not yet at a point where I can run it in any practical sense, though I have heard from another user who was able to get Redox installed in a virtual machine.
For those lucky folks who are able to get Redox running, the operating system is not yet at a point where development of Redox can be performed on Redox. Put another way, there are not yet enough tools and development utilities in place to work on Redox from within Redox. The operating system exists in more of a proof-of-concept stage than as a practical platform at this point.
Conclusions
When Redox first started getting attention on various open source forums, there were many negative voices criticizing the project. And, to a point, that is to be expected. If someone mentions on-line that they are enjoying a salad for lunch, by supper someone will have drawn a parallel to Hitler being a vegetarian. But sifting through the reactions to Redox I found that most of the critics seemed to be engaged in shooting the messenger.
From what I have read of their design plans, the Redox developers have correctly identified some problems with Unix, GNU/Linux and the BSDs. Some of their opinions on operating design I may not agree with, but I do believe they raise points worth considering and, in some cases, are correct in pointing out issues with existing operating systems which could be fixed. The Redox developers point out the C language, which is typically used for kernel development, has weaknesses when it comes to protecting memory and using variable types. Hardly a day goes by when I do not read a bug report that traces back to these same weaknesses, making it difficult to argue with the Redox developers. Rust, the Redox team claims, would avoid these common problems and they may be right. I do not think we are likely to see anyone try re-write the Linux kernel in Rust, but doing more to mitigate the dangers of using C to develop Linux should be considered.
Likewise, the Redox team points out that having a smaller kernel with drivers running outside of the core kernel makes the system safer and possibly more stable. I tend to agree and some projects, like MINIX, have done some remarkable things to help systems recover from faulty modules or to upgrade drivers in place without requiring a reboot.
My point is that the Redox team has come along and pointed out various issues with how our favourite operating systems are designed and developed. This makes some people defensive and leads to people lashing out against the new ideas presented. And I feel that reaction is not helpful. GNU/Linux and BSD systems are practical and widely used, but that does not make them perfect. Our established operating systems tend to carry with them a good deal of legacy concepts and potential weaknesses that come from being around for multiple decades. I am not saying we should throw them away and start over, that wouldn't be at all practical. But I am suggesting we consider if there are ways we might improve our existing systems.
Redox may never be a practical replacement for GNU/Linux distributions, but it might serve as a testing platform for ideas that could be adopted by other operating systems. The uutils project, for example, seeks to recreate the GNU core utilities in Rust to make them more portable and less prone to memory issues. While uutils may never replace the GNU programs, they might offer advantages or design ideas we can all benefit from. Let's not write off projects like Redox or uutils because they are different or trying to accomplish a task that has been done before. Their developers are testing ideas which we might all benefit from one day.
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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) |
New features coming to Linux Mint, highlights of Fedora 24, FreeNAS bumps Samba version and Ubuntu 16.04 to support Snappy packages
In their monthly newsletter, the Linux Mint team discussed some of the new improvements coming to the Linux Mint distribution. One of the new key features offers better handling of kernels in the update manager. The update manager will also provide more information about software updates and how they relate to stability and regressions, allowing the user to select an update policy. "The Update Manager was already configurable, but it wasn't clear how to configure it, and why. In particular, the concepts of regressions, stability and security weren't clearly explained and users had to acquire these online. To raise awareness around these concepts and show more information, a new screen welcomes users to their update manager and asks them to select an update policy." Touchpad support has also been improved in the MATE and Cinnamon desktop environments.
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The next version of Fedora is expected to launch in June of this year and the Red Hat-sponsored distribution has a number of important changes planned. The Marksei blog has a summary of important changes arriving with Fedora 24. Key features include all packages being built with the new GNU Compiler Collection (version 6), the Fedora Server edition will be 64-bit only and an Astronomy spin will be available. The blog reports systemd will be split into multiple packages and Fedora will ship with version 4.5 of the Linux kernel, with 4.6 available as an optional update. One of the bigger changes for developers will be the availability of Docker images: "Starting with version 24 a new service to build Docker Images will be available. This will enable to produce more than one base image to provide additional layered software (like Cockpit) and enable contributors to modify Dockerfiles from which Docker Images will be built. More can be found here."
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Last week there was a lot of hype surrounding the Badlock vulnerability in Samba. Though some of the concern over the vulnerability was unwarranted, open source projects have been quick to update their Samba packages and push out updates. The FreeNAS project, when faced with backporting a complex fix, decided to take this opportunity to upgrade older installations of the Samba file sharing software. Jordan Hubbard commented, "Because of the complexity of the fixes to Samba and the difficulty in back-porting them to Samba 4.1, we also decided to upgrade all TrueNAS/FreeNAS 9.3 users to Samba 4.3.6 - a newer and more capable version of Samba that is already in use by FreeNAS 9.10 - at the same time. FreeNAS 9.10 users will only see a fix for Badlock, not a Samba upgrade as well."
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Snappy packages, which were introduced as an experimental technology for Ubuntu last year, will be available to Ubuntu 16.04 users later this month. The new Snappy packages can be installed alongside traditional Deb packages on Ubuntu 16.04, allowing users to install more up to date software on their long term support release. "Snap packages enable developers to bring much newer versions of apps to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. Newer versions of KDE, GNOME, browser or other desktop environment apps will usually build easily on older LTS releases, but the complexities of packaging and providing updates have prevented us from delivering them in the past. The security mechanisms in snap packages allow us to open up the platform for much faster iteration across all of our flavours as snap applications are isolated from the rest of the system. Users can install a snap without having to worry whether it will have an impact on their other apps or their system. Similarly, developers have a much better handle on the update cycle as they can decide to bundle specific versions of a library with their app. Transactional updates make deployments of snap packages more robust and reliable." Further details on Snappy packages and Ubuntu's Desktop edition can be found in this Insights post. A cheat sheet of Snappy package manager commands can be found on our Package Management page.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Menus, short-cuts and accessibility
Hoping-for-a-more-accessible-desktop asks: Using my desktop computer, I often want to use the keyboard to cycle the focus (using Tab or Shift+Tab) and navigate menus (using Alt+[underlined letter in each menu item]). In their default configuration, many distros make this difficult. I'm not visually impaired, yet low contrast (or none at all) and one pixel thin rectangles (or none at all) make it hard to distinguish between focused and unfocused elements to see where the focus is. As far as I recall, even a high contrast theme failed to address this particular problem. Alt key short-cuts are sometimes missing, and sometimes not readily apparent.
I guess I can improve focus contrast by adjusting the values for border thickness and colour, but which lines exactly, in which file?
As for the Alt key neglecting problem, I do not know which software layer (i.e. individual application, window manager, desktop environment, distro etc.) is responsible for this, so I don't know which part I'd have to replace. Also, I wouldn't know which alternative is more supportive of menu navigation by Alt key. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
DistroWatch answers: This is one of those questions that I thought I would spend about five minutes researching, find out what toggles the visibility of Alt key short-cuts and spend another five minutes writing out the solution. As it turned out, exploring this problem took a lot longer than I expected and the more I looked at it, the deeper the rabbit hole became.
In the desktop environments I tend to use most (Lumina and KDE), Alt short-cuts, window borders and selected GUI elements are all recognizable and easily accessible. This made me wonder just which systems were using lower contrast elements and not displaying Alt key short-cuts. So I grabbed a computer, installed the major desktop environments (Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE, Lumina, LXDE, MATE and Xfce) on it and tested each environment to see how each one presented its menus and selected elements.
At first it seemed as though menu Alt key short-cuts and highlighting contrast were a function of the desktop environment. Specifically, Qt-based desktops such as KDE and Lumina would show me high contrast GUI elements and display menu Alt key short-cuts. Meanwhile, the GTK-based desktops like Cinnamon and GNOME did not show these short-cuts and featured lower contrast elements. However, my initial hypothesis was proven false when I realized applications in Xfce and LXDE (both GTK-based environments) did display Alt short-cuts and made seeing selected items easy. I modified my working theory to suggest GTK2 and Qt desktops would, by default, draw the Alt short-cuts and display high contrast items while GTK3-based desktops would not.
Closer inspection revealed my premise to be wrong when I started to run GTK3-based software in Qt-based desktop environments. If I ran a GTK3 application in Qt-based desktop environments such as Lumina or KDE, then the application's menu items and Alt short-cuts would be displayed. And if I ran a Qt-based application in a modern GTK3 desktop, its elements would also be displayed in high contrast and its Alt short-cuts would be displayed. In fact, if I ran a GTK3 application in a GTK2 desktop environment, like Xfce or LXDE, then elements and short-cuts were also more accessible.
What this led me to is the idea that Alt keyboard short-cuts and low-contrast GUI elements appear to result from a combination of GTK3-based applications running in GTK3-based desktop environments. Running Qt-based (or GTK2-based) applications in any desktop environment usually (not always, but usually) caused the Alt short-cuts to be displayed and resulted in graphical elements that were easier to see and interact with.
Which raised the question of how to make Alt short-cuts, borders and highlighted elements more visible when working in pure GTK3 environments. One thing I noticed was when working with GTK3 applications, if I used the mouse to click on an application's menu, Alt short-cut keys were not displayed. However, if I held down the Alt key then the short-cuts became visible. This is not ideal as it requires we hold down the Alt key, but it works. I also found suggestions on various forums that said using either of the two following commands would make Alt key short-cuts permanently visible in GTK environments:
dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/interface/automatic-mnemonics false
And, for older versions of the GNOME desktop:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface automatic-mnemonics false
While some people reported success using the above commands, they did not work for me in my test environments.
I also found that the accessing menus of some modern GTK3 programs using my keyboard did not work as there appeared to be no short-cut key (at least none I could find) to open some of the menus. Some modern applications divide up their menus into separate, isolated entities just represented by icons. Some menus have Alt short-cuts while others, apparently, do not. I found this inconsistency quite frustrating and I was happy to leave such applications for better alternatives. So far as I have been able to find, there is no solution for this type of bad design.
In the end, I found there really is not much consistency in the design and behaviour of Linux desktop applications and there is a variety of behaviour depending on which desktop environment is in use. This makes finding a single solution, whether it is a theme or setting or configuration option, difficult. Some applications, especially those developed for GNOME Shell, appear to be very focused on mouse and touch interfaces, but largely ignore or hide short-cuts when accessed via a keyboard.
My suggestion is to experiment with different desktop environments and applications. For instance, use KDE or LXQt instead of GNOME if keyboard input and Alt short-cuts are important to you. Look into using VLC instead of Totem for playing video files if you like to keep your hands on the keyboard. Rather than trying to alter the behaviour of specific applications or desktops, the best solution is probably to find the tools designed with your preferences in mind.
As for things like contrast and the size of window and element borders, these can usually be adjusted by using different themes. Distributions typically offer multiple themes for each desktop environment and experimenting with the alternative desktop themes will probably fix the remaining issues, such as element contrast and borders.
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Past Questions and Answers columns can be found in our Q&A Archive.
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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: 184
- Total data uploaded: 34.5TB
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| Released Last Week |
pfSense 2.3
Chris Buechler has announced the availability of pfSense 2.3. The new release of this FreeBSD-based firewall operating system includes a number of new changes to its web interface and fixes several bugs from previous releases. "We are happy to announce the release of pfSense® software version 2.3! The most significant changes in this release are a rewrite of the webGUI utilizing Bootstrap, and the underlying system, including the base system and kernel, being converted entirely to FreeBSD pkg. The pkg conversion enables us to update pieces of the system individually going forward, rather than the monolithic updates of the past. The webGUI rewrite brings a new responsive look and feel to pfSense requiring a minimum of resizing or scrolling on a wide range of devices from desktop to mobile phones. For the highlights, check out the Features and Highlights video. Past blog posts have covered some of the changes, such as the performance improvements from tryforward, and the webGUI update." Further information can be found on the project's Features and Changes page.
IPFire 2.19 Core 100
The IPFire project has released the 100th update to the project's 2.19 branch. The new version, IPFire 2.19 Core 100, introduces a 64-bit build along with an updated Linux kernel. "It is a great moment to us and we are very proud to release the 100th Core Update today. This update will bring you IPFire 2.19 which we release for 64-bit on Intel (x86_64) for the first time. This release was delayed by the various security vulnerabilities in OpenSSL and glibc, but is packed with many improvements under the hood and various bug fixes." A number of fixes have been backported to the project's Linux kernel: "As with all major releases, this one comes with an updated Linux kernel to fix bugs and improve hardware compatibility. Linux 3.14.65 with many backported drivers from Linux 4.2 is also hardened stronger against common attacks like stack buffer overflows. Many firmware blobs for wireless cards and other components have been updated just as the hardware database." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement. Download (SHA1): ipfire-2.19.x86_64-full-core100.iso (159MB, torrent, pkglist)
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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 |
Voting for distros on the waiting list?
We received a lot of distribution submissions with multiple new projects appearing in our inbox every month. While we try to evaluate each new distribution and move quality projects from our waiting list to the DistroWatch database in a timely manner, sometimes promising projects fall through the cracks. Other times a project might take time to mature, but then be forgotten and remain stuck on our waiting list.
Sometimes people will e-mails us to bring an up and coming distribution to our attention, other times we catch word of exciting distributions on forums. Unfortunately, there are times when projects slip by and remain in waiting list limbo.
This week we are putting forward the idea of allowing our readers to vote for distributions on our waiting list in order to bring promising projects to our attention. Do you think voting projects from the waiting list into our database would be a good way to get quality projects the attention they deserve? Or would a voting process be more likely to promote projects that have a vocal user base rather than quality features to share?
You can see the results of our previous poll on upstream vs downstream distributions here. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Voting for distros on the waiting list?
| I support voting for distros on the waiting list: | 492 (38%) |
| I prefer the current vetting process: | 398 (31%) |
| Either approach is fine: | 354 (28%) |
| I have an alternative idea to be shared in the comments: | 34 (3%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Locating compatible hardware
One of the more frequent questions we get asked is where a person can purchase computers that are known to work with Linux or BSD. There is a demand for laptops and desktop computers that are completely compatible with open source operating systems.
To aid people in their search for compatible computers and hardware components, we have created a page dedicated to providing links to companies which sell computers that are either compatible with Linux or which sell computers with Linux or BSD pre-installed. This page also links to hardware compatibility databases and resources where people can find hardware certified to work with Linux and BSD.
The organizations on our new Hardware Resources page are not affiliated with DistroWatch and we are not endorsing their products. The Hardware Resources page is intended to provide a starting point for people looking to purchase hardware that is compatible with free and open source operating systems.
The new Hardware Resources page can be located through our sitemap.
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Distributions added to waiting list
- Debtailor. Debtailor is a distribution based Debian and Ubuntu which provides live images and runs without any network services enabled by default.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 25 April 2016. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Linux Foundation Training |
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Waiting List Process (by Sherman Jerrold on 2016-04-18 01:02:53 GMT from North America)
You provide such a vital service and do a good job of providing a huge amount of Linux info. I know your resources are limited. I think your current process is good, but slow. So, I think voting might help you prioritize your evaluation process. Also, it is our responsibility, as readers, to look into them and let you know if a waiting list distro has become defunct.
2 • waiting list vote... (by jay cee on 2016-04-18 01:20:48 GMT from North America)
on the 1 hand I can see that many ppl might want their own input on what distro moves up on the watchlist... agree that present system is - perforce - bit slow... however -- voted against change -- wait list is what it is -- & changing the system might (MIGHT! okay?) become voting a popularity list... changing this site's cred into some sort of lcd reality show does NOT help the linux community... -jc
3 • Regarding the poll (by Anonymous person on 2016-04-18 01:52:23 GMT from Europe)
I would like some kind of wiki system. Anyone can add distributions to the system but until reviewed by the admins a "pending" warning will appear. Pending pages are freely editable, and updated for those pending pages may freely be added, but final ones cannot be edited of updated.
4 • waiting list comment clarification (by Sherman Jerrold on 2016-04-18 03:17:02 GMT from North America)
I agree with Jay Cee in that I tried to communicate that I consider any voting to be only adjunct to your review system and would not want it to become a popularity contest.
5 • waiting list (by supusr on 2016-04-18 04:17:37 GMT from North America)
The waiting list is too long. Distrowatch should speed up its review process. Some distros still on the waiting list, like bunsenlabs linux and pacbang, are already more popular than some others not on the waiting list.
6 • Menus, short-cuts and accessibility (this week's Dw) (by Greg Zeng on 2016-04-18 04:38:25 GMT from Oceania)
op: "Rather than trying to alter the behaviour of specific applications or desktops, the best solution is probably to find the tools designed with your preferences in mind."
Thank you for the hours of intense work, with apps, DEs, GTK3, QT, etc. Windows & Linux is famous for user hostility, compared to Apple's operating systems. All good operating systems have published guidelines to layout and design. Within Linux, KDE, GNOME, etc have guidelines with varying degrees of completeness.
Distrowatch might be aware that the reason for so many versions of Linux is because very few coders are taking notice of the published guidelines. Most coders are so young and healthy, they happily ignore user friendliness. Mint etc loves having whitish fonts on a whitish background. "Rebel" coders have dark fonts on a blackish background. "Reviewers" of operating systems rarely notice the ergonomics of screen layout. Not even Microsoft's User-tests showed that Windows-8 would be a disaster, like Canonical's Unity.
The International Standards Organization probably has guidelines to optimal screen presentations. In my past involvement with one of the ISO's consultative groups, I know that out ergonomic guides very rarely have legal nor widespread credibility. Hardware manufacturing and maintenance - ok. Software? The guidelines have been researched, published, but are ignored and mainly unknown.
BTW: "Lumina" which you mentioned in your research on this topic, is not mentioned in my searches in Distrowatch; as a DE or available distributions. Google mentions it in relation to BSD, which is not a Linux operating system afaik.
7 • Locating compatible hardware (by build a pc on 2016-04-18 04:46:57 GMT from Europe)
With laptops you pay 2-3 times more to have same performance compared to a self made pc. When building a pc, all components do work with linux. Laptops are also expensive to service. If you still want buy a laptop for linux, test it with a linux live usb memory stick.
8 • Re: Redox (by Andy Mender on 2016-04-18 07:16:52 GMT from Europe)
I think it's important to have projects, such as MINIX or Redox in existence. GNU/Linux is becoming more and more complex as the level of user-friendliness increases. I'm not exactly fond of that, but a trend is a trend and I have to live with it or 'get lost' :).
When GNU/Linux becomes too mainstream, it might be necessary to do a clean slate re-roll with something like Redox.
9 • @1, @2, @4 a mix of all those (by Stan on 2016-04-18 07:32:12 GMT from Europe)
Voting has it's flaws and bias, a good idea is to integrate the voting system in the current process.
Don't rely only on voting and don't give it a high score (e.g. high amount of votes = 30% chance to be accepted) , just use it as a option to speed up the process and maybe prioritize.
10 • UbuntuBSD (by Paraquat on 2016-04-18 07:43:50 GMT from Asia)
Upcoming Release Ubuntu 16.04...
I used to be so enthused about upcoming releases of Ubuntu, but now that it's systemd contaminated, I can't get too excited.
I am, however, very interested in UbuntuBSD, which recently got it's own website:
http://www.ubuntubsd.org/
With a FreeBSD kernel, it will be systemd-free by design.
At the moment, the download that's available is still a pre-release version. It probably won't win many hearts and minds until this summer, when FreeBSD-11 is released, and thus UbuntuBSD gets the latest kernel. I would need that, since FreeBSD-10 doesn't support my graphics card, but 11-current does.
I have high expectations for UbuntuBSD. I hope that I'm not disappointed.
11 • Re. 7 (by Sondar on 2016-04-18 10:28:49 GMT from Europe)
How good is this piece of advice! Laptops are an utter waste of time and money. Everybody can have a tin box under the desk if they choose; they are ubiquitous. So incredibly cheap & easy to assemble and update, always have a CD/DVD drive at hand, choose a board with legacy BIOS option (even a few still around with the last IDE port, ATA133 is just as fast in practice as SATA and will run cheap legacy hard discs). Laptops get damaged easily, screens cost a fortune to replace, tabs break when you open the case, memory compatibility issues, etc. As for portability, sync. & slave your Android mobile to the box - job done.
12 • @11 only if you don't actually work yourself (by notamanager on 2016-04-18 11:10:58 GMT from Europe)
Good luck producing meaningful text or illustrations on that phone. Obviously, your "solution" only works if you get others to produce the relevant documents for you. And don't get me started on the rubbish that voice (or scrawl) recognition software can produce - or on the generally low quality of the input to such software in the first place.
If you want to produce good text and graphics, you need a decent sized screen, a good keyboard and a pointing device that is more precise than fat fingers. If portability is required, that only leaves a laptop with external mouse (or similar).
13 • Voting (by jymm on 2016-04-18 11:12:15 GMT from North America)
My concern is human nature what it is, fan boys will keep voting for their favorite distro over and over again, limiting reviews.
14 • Redox (by Wine Curmudgeon on 2016-04-18 11:32:33 GMT from North America)
This is not only sadly all too true, but a nice piece of writing: "If someone mentions on-line that they are enjoying a salad for lunch, by supper someone will have drawn a parallel to Hitler being a vegetarian."
15 • Waiting list and some others subjects. (by Frederic Bezies on 2016-04-18 12:21:23 GMT from Europe)
It is clear that waiting list is far too big. How many distributions in it are already dead? 10%? 20%? 259 waiting distributions ? Far too much.
A good sweeping is really needed. Something like : no new versions listed for more than one year or 18 months ? Remove it from waiting list. I think some entries like Mozillux (not updated for nearly 3 years) or ArcoSVN (last update on main site was in may 2012) could be removed.
Last but not least, only 10 comments, and systemd trolling starts again... Well... UbuntuBSD ? It is more a bad joke than something really usable on a daily basis.
You want to spent time with a BSD? Just install FreeBSD !
16 • Laptops (by bonky on 2016-04-18 12:36:59 GMT from North America)
@11.....You must live in a World very different to me
I use my Laptops more than the desktops, as I am always travelling I have rarely had any compatability issues, I have never broken a screen, The only issue I have had in many years of world travel is early on I used to get MBs die if staying in Humid countries too long...that was quite a while back ..and i had the same issues with Desktops....
I see no reason on this earth to have a tablet and how anyone can work effectively with them is beyond me.. horrendous things to type on..Phones are even worse..I have very big fingers and having to mess about with sim cards or getting huge bills for not. most of the software on tablets and phone are substandard unless you pay a good lot....Id rather carry on with my laptops with Gentoo / arch / slackware....
17 • Linux compatible hardware (by K.U. on 2016-04-18 12:47:22 GMT from Finland)
This is a very useful list with plenty of choice (dev boards, tablets etc):
http://linux-sunxi.org/Buying_guide
However, it is limited to Allwinner based devices. I would be interested to see similar lists also for other low power ARM devices.
18 • Waiting list (by Jesse on 2016-04-18 12:59:49 GMT from North America)
I'd like to add a few clarifying remarks about the waiting list:
1. I do try to clean out old projects from time to time. If a project doesn't put out a release after three or four years, it gets removed. That may seem like a long time, but some projects move slowly, following Debian, Slackware or CentOS in style and I like to make considerations for such projects.
2. If we do add voting to the waiting list, having the most votes will not guaruntee a spot in the database. It'll be more like a strong suggestion. So if fans of a project try to game the system, but the project clearly is not ready, it won't get added. Voting will offer suggestions of what people would like to see us cover.
3. Some people have asked why we haven't added some popular projects yet. It's probably because they have not been on our list for a year yet. A lot of projects put out one or two releases quickly and then become inactive. Waiting a year allows us to avoid the one-and-done projects. I looked at five projects yesterday that all looked promising and had been on our list a year, but none of them had put out a release or news item since we added them to the waiting list. So they stay on the waiting list until they show additional signs of life.
On a different topic, a few people have sent us additional Linux-friendly computer retailers and I am adding them to our Hardware page. Please continue to send me more Linux-focused sellers.
19 • @11 Laptops (by far2fish on 2016-04-18 13:01:53 GMT from Europe)
Depends on the use I guess.
When I played a lot of PC games, it made sense to build my own rig with selected parts. Both better and cheaper than buying a capable rig.
My previous laptop was an MacBook Pro 2008 model......so I happily used that for 6 years before I sold it.
However for the ad hoc browsing, office use or development, you can get a pretty decent laptop for a low price. My now 2y old Lenovo ThinkPad laptop got an Intel-i3 processor, 16GB RAM, 128GB SSD disk and costed me less than if I wanted to build a similar desktop PC and buy a monitor, mouse and keyboard. It cost roughly half the price of that MacBook Pro.I would be very suprised if that laptop won't last at least 6 years too.
Not to forget the low run cost (power usage) on a laptop compared to a desktop PC.
20 • What are you guys smoking... (by Donald 'Schultz' Stewart on 2016-04-18 13:54:56 GMT from Europe)
I have no idea how you can say that a phone is enough and that laptops are pointless.
I wish I could justify owning a desktop as I really want to build one, but my laptop covers everything I need and I can take it in to lectures and labs without any issue. That cannot be done with a desktop.
The only use of a phone for productivity beyond communication is looking at pdfs of lecture notes or taking some very basic notes down, you cannot write proper work on one...
As for the comment about serviceability or screen price, I've serviced my own laptops for 10 odd years now with no issues, and replaced a fair few screens along the way, their prices have always compared to desktop monitors and its never really been a huge job to do.
21 • Waiting List (by Joe on 2016-04-18 14:06:08 GMT from North America)
Some of the distros on the waiting list are so old that they appear to be no longer active. I propose that any distro that has been on the list for more than a year be deleted. At that time the developer would have the option to resubmit the distro if it is still active. My vote "Either approach is fine:" It is already possible to drop an E-mail saying that you are interested in one of the distros on the list.
22 • Re: Laptops vs Desktops (by Andy Mender on 2016-04-18 14:59:36 GMT from Europe)
I agree with Donald, though I have some reservations. I noticed laptop screens often cost more than regular monitors when considering new, unused products. Also, when something breaks in a desktop, it can be very easily replaced. Laptop breakage can be fatal.
~Andy
23 • applications, not distros (by Tim Dowd on 2016-04-18 15:51:15 GMT from North America)
I like the current version of distrowatch, and I think it it stayed exactly the same, it would be fine. Ultimately, I think the people doing all the work's preference should be what decides it!
If it were up to me, I'd like to see more reviews of applications, like the recent one about firejail. I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact that the distros are all really similar and we waste time getting in fights over which is "the best." I don't think any review is going to convince an Arch user that they should use Debian, but there might be some application that is newly available that could increase productivity of everybody.
Ultimately I think what would be cool would be a multi-tiered distrowatch homepage that has a page for each OS family (Debian, Arch, Slack, Gentoo, Fedora, SUSE, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD etc) and each distro gets a sub page to explain what's unique about that flavor of the family. The same could be done for desktop environments. Then the distrowatch weekly could focus on multiplatform applications.
It's not that the current system isn't useful- I just think reviews on a distro level forget that the day to day experience using these systems has a lot more in common than differences.
24 • Detecting active distros (by a on 2016-04-18 15:57:49 GMT from Europe)
How about storing the RSS feed for all the distros and deleting those without a news item during the past year? You could also sort them by number of news to help detect those that are worthy of inclusion.
And if there is no RSS feed it’s not a distro worth using.
25 • Snappy Packages (by Justin on 2016-04-18 16:03:01 GMT from North America)
Snappy packages sound like Windows installers or "stand-alone" installations. Whatever resources are needed are just included. I used to prefer this before I came to Linux. Windows dependencies used to be huge (e.g., .NET, redistribution packages) and didn't get updated properly, so you just gave everything the same bugs. Sometimes a developer would know better and just include some local files, but this was rare. Most of the time, I avoided 100s MBs installs for 100k applications that "needed" external dependencies.
In contrast, Linux has a much better centralized repository, and I've come to love it. I like that library developers update their applications and the "professionals" fix their code. It removes responsibilities from developers to provide bug fixes and especially security fixes. Instead, they come for free. In my Windows experience, I could have several applications that have buggy versions of some DLL, and unless the developer did anything, I was stuck. I just had little timebombs sitting around. Many times, I didn't even know a library was vulnerable or out-of-date (no centralized software repository). While I agree that Snappy packages make installation "easier" for developers and is a solution to compatibility (allow individual library code freezes, regardless of the consequences). However, it comes with the cost of leaving users potentially vulnerable to a wide range of bugs. Coders are also lazy people (in a good way usually), which is why libraries exist. I'm afraid we'll get into a world where applications won't update for fear of "breaking stuff." I've worked with people who take "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" to the point of paranoia--they don't know why their stuff works, so they never touch it for years. I guess they are right--usually it was indeed broken (or very fragile), but I see having to deal with library updates and compatibility as a way of weeding out bad designs/implementations that should die.
What do others think?
26 • @25: It's for phones (by joncr on 2016-04-18 16:25:27 GMT from North America)
Snappy installs are really for phones, and is more akin to OS X installs than the haphazard archives often found in Windows. Debs, shared libraries and dependency reolvers aren't going away.
27 • Laptops, phones and desktops. (by Bobbie Sellers on 2016-04-18 16:30:20 GMT from North America)
I use a notebook and have used several over the past few years.
Great Buy with 2.4 GiHz Pentium and XP which was my first
dual-boot machine. Destroyed by repair shop.
A lot easier to take to a LUG meeting than a Desktop or tower.
Next was a Dell Inspiron 4000 which lasted until it was loaned to a
friend who had no idea of the care of that machine required.
I ran Mandriva 2009 on its 750 MegHz Coppermine Pentium as
well as XP. I jacked the memory up a bit to 384 Megabytes.
A Compaq with dual core AMD running PCLOS before it overheated
and wiped out its SATA interface.
Presently the Pavilion notebook with a a quad-core AMD and 12 GiB
of ram. Came with Windows 8.1 but that falls over like a cheap suit.
Running Mageia 5 and PCLOS 2016.03 which will likely be my next
OS unless Mageia 6 gets better a lot faster.
Desktops started with an Amiga 2000b siting at my left hand down for
quite a while now. A Dell 2400 that the LUG loaned to me burned out
after a few months. Had another recently with a Dual Core Pentium
running at 3 Gigahertz could not afford the parts I needed to turn it
into a TV recorder.
Phones: I have a land line for my DSL and a wireless phone to move
about (to replace the 25 foot cords I used to drag thru my small apartment).
I wish I could afford a phablet (phone in tablet size) but living on Social
Security I am constantly running up against limits, I do save money
for my next machine.
I was dumb enough a couple of years back to buy an Asus
Transformer Pad 300, 10 inch tablet then was unhappy
to learn that it could not work fast enough to decode my videos.
Worse the keyboard fails to balance the system adequately.
It needs a bigger battery or a hard drive in the keyboard to off
set the weight of the system in the tablet backing and replacing
Android with Linux is very difficult. I may hire a tech to do that
for me. The display at 1900 x 1200 is very good, It sits there
charging as its value declines. I load it with the .pdfs I will need to
reference as I do work on other machines, but 99% of
all the work I do is done on my Pavilion notebook.
bliss
28 • @26 (by Justin on 2016-04-18 17:22:13 GMT from North America)
Perhaps... but they show up in 16.04 desktop and are Ubuntu's long-term goal (replace debs).
29 • best of both (by DavidEsktorp on 2016-04-18 18:26:49 GMT from North America)
Basic point: Bestow 'Official DistroWatch Stamp of Approval' to open wiki entries instead of vetting closed submissions.
If you added a wiki (I recommend DokuWiki, but MediaWiki is more familiar to people) you could simply add a tag to distinguish which entries have approved by distrowatch. Maybe another tag for 'featured' entries; those which have been reviewed and/or listed on the main page.
Obviously, an open or semi-open wiki would still have to be patrolled for the usual bot/spam/villainy but it would give smaller projects a better foot in the door and make it way easier for the wider audience to find niche-use systems.
I'm sure it could be done with other software, but I guarantee DokuWiki could pull off the iconic Distrowatch style/theme.
30 • wiki (by Jesse on 2016-04-18 18:44:06 GMT from North America)
I do not want to go the wiki route, mostly because it would likely mean I'd end up spending most of my time patrolling the wiki rather than getting things done. As it is, I frequently get e-mails from people trying to sneak false information into the distribution tables. I would rather spend my time creating new resources or manually adding new distributions instead of policing wiki wars.
31 • Waiting List (by jmbo on 2016-04-18 18:52:03 GMT from North America)
Being a developer of a distro that was on the waiting list a long time I feel qualified to over my opinion on this.
For our distro, by the time we came off the waiting list, things were already changing and some of the team were moving on to new projects. About six months coming off the list we stopped development on the distro.
This happens to many fledgling distros. Often the reason they are created is to fix some shortcoming with a parent distro or to support some specific technology that is being underserved by the big distros.
As such, I think wallowing on the wait list is actually a good thing. If a distro survives the wait and more importantly is still growing, then it is probably going to be worth promoting. In this way, the waiting list becomes a vehicle for separating the wheat from the chaff.
32 • @11, @20 @22 (by imnotrich on 2016-04-18 20:10:24 GMT from North America)
Anyone who believes serious work can be done on a phone or even a tablet is delusional, what bet they were one of those Unity or Windows 8 developers?
For most folks, a desktop is the only option. If you need portability, go laptop. I like Apple but no optical drive and limited software (vs Windows) options is a problem for me. Depends on what type of "work" you're doing.
Smart phones and tablets at present are mostly toys. If you have small hands and excellent vision to see what's on those small screens smartphones can also be useful tools but they will never replace actual laptops or desktop computers for most tasks.
Running Stockfish I can beat my iPhone at Chess regularly. Not so my desktop or laptop. Processing power, # of cores, RAM and other specs will always be superior with larger devices. Basic math.
33 • Waiting list voting (by Ken Frank on 2016-04-18 21:48:28 GMT from North America)
Since voting for which project goes from the waiting list to the distribution list can lead to a popularity contest (a point you made), let the voting direct you as to which project will receive your attention when it comes to evaluation priority. You, however, will still make the final call for who goes on the distribution list.
34 • DWW Suggestion (by win2linconvert on 2016-04-18 23:14:49 GMT from North America)
As a long time DWW reader, I would like to suggest for your consideration, an addition to the DWW, consisting of interviews with the founders/creators and developers of once popular, but now defunct or struggling distros and/or applications to get their perspective on what caused or is causing the demise of their distro or application. Also, interviews with the founders/creators and or lead developers of distros on the waiting list, whether or not the distro itself is currently being considered for advancement or removal from the waiting list. These three different subject matters could be alternated through out the month so as to not get monotonous for the readers or the interviewer(s). Thanks for your consideration of these ideas. Keep up the good work, you're doing a great job.
35 • Interviews (by Jesse on 2016-04-18 23:19:57 GMT from North America)
@34: I like your idea and, in fact, I used to try to do just that. However, I have found that very few developers will respond to requests for interviews. A few will and I was very thankful for them, but it was rare enough that it became too time consuming to try to hunt down the ones willing to chat.
Any developers out there who want to share some thoughts, I am very happy to chat with them (drop me an e-mail). But I don't have time to go seeking developers to interview.
36 • @10 distros with systemd "contaminated" (by Jordan on 2016-04-19 02:23:26 GMT from North America)
Ubuntu and all its distro spawn are "contaminated" with systemd.
I see that Fedora is splitting systemd packaging.
I still wonder about the real impact in the real world of systemd from THE USER STANDPOINT, not from the standpoint of which portions of the linux philosophy systemd violates in some people's minds. I honestly don't know.
Using the phrase, "systemd contaminated" sounds serious, but for the user? What is it all about for the home user of a systemd init distro?
37 • Phones and Tablets.... (by Smelly on 2016-04-19 02:26:20 GMT from Asia)
are still media consumers and crap for getting work done. If all you do is reply to emails all day (which a lot of jobs seem to entail nowadays) than they could work as Laptop/desktop replacements, but that would become cumbersome as well.
38 • @35 (by win2linconvert on 2016-04-19 04:11:39 GMT from North America)
I didn't think about how time consuming it might be to track down the interviewees or that they might be on the reluctant side of giving interviews. Oh well, thanks anyway. I really enjoy the site and appreciate the great job you and the Distrowatch team are doing.
39 • @Jessie (by erik on 2016-04-19 05:22:03 GMT from North America)
I know this is a random question, but is this your full-time job? I can't possibly imagine this is only a side hobby of yours, seems like it would be very time consuming!
40 • Waiting list (by Viv on 2016-04-19 06:30:29 GMT from Asia)
Many new distros seem not to have any plans for new releases. Which's perfectly fine, since they usually want it for some special use or for testing for response. It'd be better to insist on a couple of prior releases before submission to the waiting list. Less work for everybody.
41 • Does one vote one likes or not or should vote be more detailed? (by dbrion0606 on 2016-04-19 08:07:33 GMT from Europe)
Or should votes be more accurate (is a waiting distribution reliable? is it original (even if it is not yet maintained, perhaps it would be useful to keep it, to trace good (?) ideas? Does it offer nice application support? Does it offer "rare" ahrdware support : a HW industrial made a special GNUlinux distribution to show one of its circuits was wonderfull? are there texts inside, which are interesting and do not need support?ex a computer science and microelectronics teacher made a life Cd Debian respin for his students: lessons, exercises and cross compilers were avalaible with little efforts)
42 • CUPS update running out of printer compatibility (by Gerhard Goetzhaber on 2016-04-19 08:56:34 GMT from Europe)
Testing new distribututions and software is very important. Sometimes, however, it may be fatal to a systems' or, at least, certain devices' useability. Friends of trying out just the hottest stuff should always keep it in mind!
I'm the proud owner of a Canon's I-SENSYS LBP7100Cn colour laser printer up to recently having had worked best together with all Debian and RedHat derived distros using the UFR2 driver packages of Canon (consisting of cndrvcups-common and cndrvcups-ufr2) - till Debian testing, followed by dependent Sparky and Ubuntus 16.04, updated CUPS to version 2.1.3! Since that event, the printer has always pricipally been recognized by the OS, but never more produced any single dot on paper. Despite crunching my brain continously left unable to solve the problem myself I had to change back to prior OS versions.
So, please: Be CUPS developers recognizing this bug to correct it as fast as possible, and shall Debian's maintainers think over meantime possibly having the issued version of CUPS better fall back ...
43 • Hobby (by Jesse on 2016-04-19 10:40:28 GMT from North America)
>> "I know this is a random question, but is this your full-time job? I can't possibly imagine this is only a side hobby of yours."
I count myself among the lucky who are able to blur the line between their work and hobbies. DistroWatch is not my only project, but it is one of the more interesting to me. I also do tech support, set up and maintain websites and e-mail servers, consult a bit and I'm trying to get a DistroWatch-like website (called FreshFOSS) for upstream packages up and running.
44 • redox (by ubibemban on 2016-04-19 14:46:01 GMT from Asia)
I'm able to get Redox booted and running in Virtualbox with GUI interface but the mouse is not working..
45 • Linux Mint (by penguinx64 on 2016-04-19 19:38:13 GMT from Europe)
I just made another donation to Linux Mint.
Thanks Clem!
46 • @45 linux mint (by erinis on 2016-04-19 22:43:26 GMT from North America)
@penguinx so did I. A small token but keeping the faith. Merci
47 • Unsolicited FreshFOSS idea (by DavidEsktorp on 2016-04-19 22:46:03 GMT from North America)
Simply because FreshFOSS and talk about 'upstream' makes me think, "FreshFISH"
http://i.imgur.com/tG76Gqc.png
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Salmon_fish_swimming_upstream.jpg
;)
48 • Voting for distros (by argent on 2016-04-19 23:01:00 GMT from North America)
Have to agree with many comments made, personally I would add the variable of voting to the already vetting process. Believe the margin of error of what is actually preferred is not truly reflected.
DW is a great place to discover, keep up with package releases, Linux news, and changes throughout the Linux world. Have made purchases through their advertisement. DW is a great website for many reasons.
Page hit ranking means little or nothing to me considering out of 10 distros on my desktop PC, non of them are listed with DW. Probably won't ever be, not all really good distros are found here on DW.
The waiting list needs to be purged, many of those are not even installable by any means and/or deprecated. Understand that would be a task. However, email them and ask them to update their distribution release or be dropped. Some are quite old, undoubtedly requiring attention. Give them 10 days or bye-bye.
49 • @48 voting for distros (by erinis on 2016-04-19 23:43:54 GMT from North America)
@ 48 Give them 10 day's or bye -bye ? Welcome to the other side. If you need help with linux just ask. Wow just wow. I regress.
50 • laptop history (by to27 on 2016-04-20 00:55:54 GMT from Europe)
I did buy my first laptop in 1987, in warranty time the lcd backlight went broken and laptop was 5 weeks in the service. I did sold the laptop after 2 years of use and decided no laptops with my own money ever. In 2015 we had to buy laptop for our kid for school. A used dualcore 15 inch Fujitsu Siemens laptop did cost 50 euros, of which I did pay 50%. All in our family have their own miditower atx case pcs, made by me. In every pc we use Debian testing Xfce.
51 • Voting for distros (by argent on 2016-04-20 01:17:46 GMT from North America)
@49 erinis: Greetings. Meant not to offend, simply those that are abandoned and/or no longer maintained. Would be logical and courteous for any developer to communicate that their distribution is null and void.
By the way, the other side is where I speak from and when the day comes I will notify those sources pertinent of my intentions to discontinue development or collaboration.
Appreciate the offer of help, that is what Linux,KISS, and FOSS is all about!
52 • RSS Feed? (by Luke on 2016-04-20 12:48:58 GMT from North America)
I just noticed that my DWW RSS Feed hasn't updated since February, so I have a lot to catch up on. :(
I tried updating it manually, removing it and re-adding it, but nothing seems to work! It just says, "problem connecting to the server." Is it working for anybody else?
53 • systemd (by M.Z. on 2016-04-20 18:07:22 GMT from North America)
@36
I run Mageia, which is a systemd distro, in addition to PCLinuxOS & Mint which have both avoided systemd up till now (though that might change with Mint 18). I really don't notice much if any difference 99+% of the time. Frankly I think it's a non-issue from the standpoint of the vast majority of end users. I suppose some things might be poorly packaged by some distros & may pull in a bunch of unnecessary systemd junk if you install the wrong software from your Linux repos, but that's probably the worst that could happen to an anti-systemd user. I have noticed a couple of times with Mageia that there is some annoying periodic system check that wants to run during a startup & my system gets far less responsive after bootup; however, that is extremely infrequent & after another reboot everything is fine. When I say infrequent I mean I think is has happened more than twice in the past 10 months or so that I've had Mageia on my laptop & I do boot to it nearly every day. I think a copy of Fedora I had in a VM did something similar on a more frequent basis, though I used that VM very little & it's been awhile so I'm not really sure.
At any rate my personal impression of systemd is that there are very few annoyances & if you distro is doing it right you may never really notice the difference. I count myself as fairly neutral on the whole systemd issue & I plan to keep using PCLinuxOS, Mint & Magiea regardless of whether each of them maintain their current stances on some barley noticeable init thing (& they span the gamut from very anti-systemd to pro systemd). I think there are some good reasons to either like or dislike systemd & I think the fact that there is a choice is a good thing, but frankly the whole thing seems a bit overblown.
54 • @53 (by Jordan on 2016-04-20 19:56:37 GMT from North America)
Thanks for that write-up referring to my query about systemd. Very neutral, I like that.
I'm running Manjaro on my HP laptop hard drive. Several other distros sit on thumb drives which get updated from time to time.
Manjaro offers a non-systemd version now, and thus my wondering about it. I see in their forums that there is a lot of gratitude for that openrc version. But, as I say, I don't get it. I have searched around and can't find a true solid real world critisism of systemd, just a lot of "against the linux philosophy" etc stuff.
Thanks again.
55 • Adventures in gaming on Linux (by Jesse on 2016-04-20 22:02:06 GMT from North America)
Earlier today a friend stopped by and introduced my partner and me to a game called Heroes of the Storm. Looks nice, sort of Leauge of Legends-ish. She said I probably couldn't play it since I'm one of those Linux user types. Well, I'm going to give it my best shot on my belaboured Debian box. Wish me luck! And, if you'd like, come watch the experiment live on Twitter. https://twitter.com/BlowingUpBits/status/722901795811385345
56 • Redox (by Will B on 2016-04-20 23:18:50 GMT from North America)
At first, when I learned of Redox, I tried it in a VM, which failed no matter what I tried. I then followed the instructions on their site and built Redox from git. I was able to get it running fairly well, and it worked well, for a proof-of-concept anyway.
Redox sounds exciting to me after I read through a lot of the introduction and documentation (although I don't care for the foul language in places). I will be keeping an eye on Redox and hope they don't give up their project. Except for the obscenities in the documentation, I would love to support this project somehow.
57 • distrowatch's own distro (by hackersclonersmaintainers on 2016-04-21 02:42:39 GMT from Oceania)
After all these years of distrowatch, it's a question as to why you haven't created your own linux distro - afterall you have the personelle on the forum to contribute and maintain it. This "distro-hopper-stopper-tester" could have all the tools necessary to aid people in testing distros: VMs, hash checkers, sandboxes, firejails, download managers, etc. Then people on the forum could test lots of distros and upload their results to be put into the distrowatch weekly for everyone to read. It would be like a weekly mass distro review.
All people need to do is agree on which parent linux to base the "distro-hopper-stopper-tester" on...oh wait; or which init system to boot it with...oh wait; or which desktop environment would be best for testing distros...oh wait.
Anyway, you could then submit your own (cludged-together) distro to the waiting list and watch it go through the same process as other distros. How fun would that be?
58 • distro database (by zykoda on 2016-04-21 06:38:51 GMT from Europe)
(1) Could add waiting as status in database in simple/advanced search
.....No doubt there are other ways of querying to the database already!
59 • Own distro (by Jesse on 2016-04-21 11:15:42 GMT from North America)
>> "After all these years of distrowatch, it's a question as to why you haven't created your own linux distro"
I have worked on a distribution before, way back when Mandrake Linux was shiny and new. It was a huge amount of work. While the process was educational, I do not think it is something I would want to do again. I much prefer lending a hand to other, existing projects.
60 • @59 own distro (by erinis on 2016-04-22 02:16:19 GMT from North America)
I have often wondered the same and now i know and understand. Give Vlad the team and yourself some grats and great job. Thanks
61 • Quirky 8 (by pfb on 2016-04-22 15:52:03 GMT from North America)
Quirky 8 looks really nice, but will not install. Quirky cannot find the USB drive for an install from the ISO. And Quirky 4install complains about a lack of syslinux 6. efi files.
Or is it just me?
62 • @54 (by mandog on 2016-04-22 22:22:01 GMT from South America)
Manjaro Editions are "official" Xfce & Kde , Community Releases are by start not official , are just side show supported desktop supported by the makers of the manjaro team community...
OpenRC is not officially supported its just a community spin
63 • CEO; 21 yr old autistic boy. Rise & Rise. (by Greg Zeng on 2016-04-23 00:58:46 GMT from North America)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CGbyz8UzCY
"Linus Torvalds TED Talk 2016 (HD): The mind behind Linux"
With photos. Very funny for geeks like myself.
64 • Mobile versus Desktop computing. (by Greg Zeng on 2016-04-23 01:53:25 GMT from North America)
http://www.overclockers.com.au/image.php?pic=images/newspics/22apr16/27.jpg
Very funny picture, just posted.
BTW: oldies do not like mobility, so prefer the past, ancient technologies, with enormous green-house gas generation and energy in-efficiencies.
I'm an oldie, without DDR4 memory on my three (3) year old ancient hardware. But like my Dell XPS-15, dual GPU, i7 CPU, two (2) terabyte drives (one HDD, the other SSD), 16 GB DDR3.
65 • @61 Quirky 8.0 (by linux user on 2016-04-23 06:15:04 GMT from North America)
For what it's worth I've installed Quirky 8.0 to a usb flash drive with Rufus and to a hdd partition from the live cd with no problems.
66 • voting on distros... (by jay cee on 2016-04-23 13:57:32 GMT from North America)
hmmm...
after reading other's comments still not feeling much difference on previous stand (opcit) but can see "reader input" might see some deserved distro moved "up the ranks" for considered listing...
so... here goes... can we see soon any review of finnish "sailfish" os?
understand those crowd-sourced turing robotics mobiles are rolling off the salo assembly line & am hoping to see a review of same by ars or some such tech site...
also...
any reader's advice on super-small os for making thin-client, single gig (dell) intel atom into something approaching stand-alone? -jc
67 • @64 • Mobile versus Desktop computing (by mandog on 2016-04-23 21:59:19 GMT from South America)
I'm an oldie, without DDR4 memory on my three (3) year old ancient hardware. But like my Dell XPS-15, dual GPU, i7 CPU, two (2) terabyte drives (one HDD, the other SSD), 16 GB DDR3.
Nothing wrong with many older set-ups, Intel is just playing with Gimmicks to sell there over priced CPU, I'm sorry people are very gulable and Intel marketing knows that to well. Many 10 year old duel core laptops are faster than the latest generation i5 i7 models that are so screwed down power wise they hardly work in the real world.
68 • Myth'bu (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2016-04-24 00:05:04 GMT from North America)
"This is a point release on our 14.04 LTS release. If you are already on 14.04, you can get these same updates via the normal update process. This is our third LTS release and will be supported until shortly after"
...
Clearly a copy-and-paste error.
69 • SystemD & Snappy (by lupus lunarum on 2016-04-24 07:27:50 GMT from Europe)
@36
IMO strictly from a users standpoint Systemd doesn't have to worry anybody.
From a standpoint of a systems administrator I'm not so sure. They have their workflow and know their ways and now have to adapt to a completly new way of managing their machines. This is cumbersome and so sure they hate it.
Also there is this philosophical standpoint that everything your machine does scriptwise has to be directly readable by humans. To my mind this is utter bullocks. If you have to use type or find or use an editor of some kind to read config files or kernel panic dumps etc. one can use a specialized program for managing systemd. should be no problem at all.
What worries me more is this snappy stuff. I many years ago turned to Linux because of many things it does better than windows.
e.g. when I want to update my machine there are many tools or even the CLI to perform that very task in a not very time consuming very secure way. I like it very much not having to hunt down the latest patches for every program I use. My machine knows where to look for it and does it without having to unistall and remove software by hand and most times and without having to reboot my machine, great!!!
Now this snappy comes along and everybody seems to like the new hot development.
I'm a little bit scared that this in fact is a big step backward. If this will affect me in the way I fear, the big continent of software being ripped apart in little small islands of semi functionality, I will get very angry. Let's hope this only affects the mobile market where this development can in fact be very useful, but I have my doubts.
Number of Comments: 69
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