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1 • Cloning mbr with clonezilla (by rufovillosum on 2016-06-13 00:41:41 GMT from North America)
I don't believe you were correct when you stated that the only way to clone the mbr was with a full-disk clone.
Clonezilla makes an mbr image with every partition clone and saves it in that image's directory as (e.g.) sda-mbr.
When restoring a partition, in the expert mode, the very first option (-g) is to reinstall grub in the mbr.
So you need only restore one partition to restore the mbr. And if you wanted to be really slick, you could format a small dummy partition for this purpose.
2 • IPv6 Poll (by WTY on 2016-06-13 01:02:22 GMT from Oceania)
As far as I know, my ISP only provides IPv4. I'm in Australia, whose Internet infrastructure seems to be viewed as quite 'backwards' in the world, particularly from those in the US.
3 • Clonezilla (by Angel on 2016-06-13 03:44:35 GMT from Asia)
A small note: We do a bit of disk imaging for customers, and we've found Clonezilla balks when the originating disk/partition has any bad sectors. In those cases, a Windows PE live-CD suck as Aomei Backupper has been successful.
4 • My previous comment; Clonezilla (by Angel on 2016-06-13 03:50:41 GMT from Asia)
The use of the word "suck" was a typo (such) and not meant as an opinion on either Backupper or Clonezilla. :-)
5 • Grub (by Grubbyskeptic on 2016-06-13 04:34:22 GMT from Europe)
Grub may be the best available Linux bootloader, but it bedevils me almost every time. An installation will go along well, until "Installing Grub", at the very end, often after a lot of time on an ancient machine. Many times it somehow fails to install, or, upon restart, the dreaded black screen, "No bootloader installed >", even if it "installed". This bootloading issue seems to be a weak link common to all Linux distros, especially when it comes to getting along with dual Windows installations, UEFI, "install to MBR or partition" confusion (less so nowadays), and no simple way to boot if Grub installs incorrectly, even in the install is "there". Someone could make a bundle writing a solid, newb-proof bootloader, with a GTK, simple as it may be, that the average newb can deal with. Third-party "rescue" distros such as RescueTux work occasionally and are welcome, but Grub itself, it seems, needs a good kick in the pants. Linux distros as a whole could be in more widespread use if this Grub/bootloader clusterf*** could be made easier and more reliable.
6 • IPv4 or IPv6, We are at the mercy of Browser and ISP :( (by BeGo on 2016-06-13 05:01:01 GMT from Asia)
Correct me if I am wrong,
Which IP system we use to contact internet is dictated by the network, common user have no control over it. :)
7 • MBR dump / restore (by Alexandru on 2016-06-13 06:19:28 GMT from Europe)
I didn't try clonezilla, so I cant say anything about its ability to work with MBR. However, the MBR size is only 512 bytes and if it is all you need to copy / restore, there is no need to make an image of whole disk.
A simple unix command can do it better:
dd if=/dev/sdX of=MBR.img count=512b
where "sdX" stands for real disk name, e.g. sda, sdb etc with no digit at the end. This command will dump MBR from that disk into MBR.img file. To restore it, you can use the command:
dd if=MBR.img of=/dev/sdX count=512b
I think grub executable also has some options to save / restore MBR.
8 • IPv6 (by Richard on 2016-06-13 06:49:57 GMT from Europe)
@2: the big ISP's in the UK tend to only offer IPv4 as well; you need the little "boutique" ones before you get IPv6 as standard.
@6: this is true. I tried turning off IPv4 on my router, and found myself unable to access any IPv4 website. Having turned it back on, I now connect to IPv4 websites with IPv4, and 6 enabled websites with 6. I believe you can get around this with tunnelling services which will route your IPv6 traffic onto IPv4 web and vice-versa, but I've never tried one.
9 • IPv6 and IPv4; Weekly review (by Andy Mender on 2016-06-13 07:57:55 GMT from Europe)
@6, @8,
Both of you are right. IPv4 is still more common. So common that via either PF (BSDs) or iptables (GNU/Linux) one can block all IPv6 traffic without drawbacks.
IPv6-to-IPv4 tunneling is handled by the Linux kernel so that additional features may need to be enabled.
I have to somewhat disagree with Jesse on BunsenLabs Linux. I feel the grey-on-grey theme is more of a tip to older computer users and legacy interfaces. It makes for an overall cleaner look, too. Finally, it's not easier to get Debian + Openbox from scratch as compared to installing BunsenLabs. Many things would have to be configured by hand, which BL lets you avoid :). I tried doing so and the difference is rather significant. Tastes vary, though. Thanks for the review anyway! :)
10 • IPv4 and IPv6 (by Mahmoud Slamah on 2016-06-13 08:43:57 GMT from Europe)
ISP in KSA still use IPv4 , and as i know most CPE (Customer-premises equipment) not support both IPv6 and IPv4 .
11 • Grub, @5 (by Paraquat on 2016-06-13 09:23:13 GMT from Asia)
I agree with @5, Grubbyskeptic. My experiences with Grub2 - especially when booting UEFI, is that you've got no more than a 50% chance of it working at all. Even if it works initially, next time you boot, you're back to 50% odds.
After suffering this for awhile, I decided to go back to Grub1 (offically now called Grub-legacy) using MBR partitions. Since I "downgraded," I have not experienced a single failure to boot. Of course, you've got to get it configured right, and if you're not familiar with the old Grub, that might take you awhile, but the learning curve is way smaller than Grub2.
Please note that I am NOT a Luddite, I'd gladly use UEFI and Grub2 if it worked at least as reliably as the old dispensation, but my experience on several machines suggests otherwise. I am considering experimenting with syslinux or close cousin extlinux as boot loaders, but since Grub1 is doing such a good job, I have to think of a good reason to change. I did try rEFInd, and that had some good features, but it does try to force you into using UEFI, and with that I suffered the same reliability problems I had with Grub2.
Perhaps on other hardware, I'd have better luck, but none of my equipment is very old (about 3 years for both the laptop and desktop). If someone could give me a good reason to go with UEFI and Grub2, I'm interested to hear it.
12 • Hardware (by brad on 2016-06-13 09:35:54 GMT from North America)
@11 - "Perhaps on other hardware, I'd have better luck, but none of my equipment is very old (about 3 years for both the laptop and desktop)."
From my experience with various hardware, (HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer) I've come to the conclusion that UEFI implementations are so diverse, that finding the right combination of manufacturer, UEFI, and distro, is a tough task. I've settled on a couple of distros that seem to behave well with my hardware, but it took a lot of trial and error to get there.
Fortunately, DW helps those who are "shopping" for the best distro for your hardware, and the reviews at other websites can help, as well. I find that UEFI allows for a lot of flexibility, when it works correctly. Good luck!
13 • Openbox and Mouse Wheel Scrolling (by joncr on 2016-06-13 09:45:09 GMT from North America)
Openbox seems to default to using the mouse wheel scroll to change virtual workspaces. If the cursor is over an empty space on the desktop, scrolling will change to the next/previous workspace. If the cursor is over a window, that window will scroll.
I depend on this capability, and create it in any interface if it isn't there by default. However, if someone is not accustomed to that kind of workflow, I can see that they might find its use as the default unexpected.
All things in Openbox are configurable via three text files, where this can be disabled.
BunselLabs exists because a band of Crunchbang fans created it when that distribution ended. The all-gray scheme mimics Crunchbang. (IMO, dark theming is very often a naive attempt at sprucing up appearance.) I don't think the BL folks think their product is for the mainstream.
14 • ipv6 (by SlaxFan on 2016-06-13 11:22:14 GMT from North America)
I blacklisted the ipv6 module years ago because my LTS version of Mint did not have a simple, intuitive firewall with ipv6 rules. When I know more about it, I may enable it.
15 • Dark themes, ipv6, grub/syslinux (by a on 2016-06-13 12:27:07 GMT from Europe)
@11, I’d still be using grub if grub2 hadn’t been forced on me one day and was almost impossible to understand. Since then I’ve been using syslinux which is easy to understand and configure. I’ve had the same experience with UEFI as with grub2 though, so I haven’t tried syslinux with UEFI (if it is even possible).
@13, there is no need to call decisions "naive" when you don’t understand them. If someone prefers dark themes then they prefer dark themes, that’s all. It may be for cosmetic reasons and it may be for usability reasons too…
@14, same here, well, I blacklisted ipv6 because it was said it could slow DNS requests down, IIRC. Haven’t seen the need for it since.
16 • BunsenLabs (by hhh on 2016-06-13 12:30:58 GMT from North America)
@Jessie Smith
Thank you very much for your review! A couple of quick points...
re: the grey installer theme making the buttons look disabled, I'll take a look at that next time I run it, I've never noticed! We think our grey installer theme is a vast improvement on eye-bleed pinkish-red on white. Also, our Live ISOs don't SYSTEM BEEP when they boot, are smaller than the Debian ISOs and include non-free firmware including support for legacy Broadcom wireless.
re; the default theme, this is, as commented above, a carry-over from CrunchBang, and a "feature" our users seem to love, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder! You didn't mention our forums however, which has many threads on theming and configuring your linux OS (as well as some of the nicest forum members in the Open Source world)...
https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewforum.php?id=8
re: backports
17 • BunsenLabs (by hhh on 2016-06-13 12:35:32 GMT from North America)
Gah, my hand slipped and it submitted! re: backports and the welcome script failing, er... not to sure what happened there, we haven't had many issues reported on the forums.
You've raised legitimate points about the welcome script that is sure to generate some forum discussion. We're a very active project and development has been consistent in the short year since the end of CrunchBang.
Again, many thanks for the review and for DistroWatch!
hhh (BunsenLabs ISO builder)
18 • Openbox and the mosue (by Jesse on 2016-06-13 13:27:39 GMT from North America)
>> "Openbox seems to default to using the mouse wheel scroll to change virtual workspaces. If the cursor is over an empty space on the desktop, scrolling will change to the next/previous workspace. If the cursor is over a window, that window will scroll."
I am aware that this is the expected behaviour. My issue was that using the scroll wheel would often cause the workspaces to switch when my mouse was hovering over an active window and not the workspace. So sometimes the contents of the window would scroll and sometimes my workspace would get swapped out. This is incredibly annoying and the reason for disabling extra workspaces during my trial.
19 • bunsenlabs (by dogma on 2016-06-13 13:55:31 GMT from North America)
When crunchbang was alive, it sounded like a lot of people liked it. I wonder what was appealing -- this bunsenlabs review doesn't make it sound really compelling.
20 • @19 (by Jake on 2016-06-13 14:50:17 GMT from North America)
You can read the 10.x Crunchbang review from DW:
https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20110411#feature
Near the end, the reviewer states, "it may seem odd that my biggest complaint when using CrunchBang was that I found myself disabling so many features," which is reminiscent of this review. The two seem very similar actually. It sounds like this is a niche desktop, and the people who love it really do, so we tend to hear about it.
21 • bunsenlabs (by rayburn on 2016-06-13 14:54:35 GMT from Europe)
Thank you Jesse for reviewing Bunsenlabs, it is definitely not a distro for the masses, however, there are some of us that prefer the simpleness and minimalism of Openbox, and use it not only on legacy hardware but on modern hardware too. When used on modern hardware, it makes for a very speedy interface without all the bells and whistles of KDE, Gnome, etc. Thanks again!
22 • Bunsen Blabs (by crunchy on 2016-06-13 15:01:29 GMT from North America)
> It would be fair to say the first two or three hours with Bunsen were unpleasant for me. <
> ...that made me feel like going with plain Debian and installing Openbox might have been faster and easier. <
> a program called "About Bunsen Alternatives". Launching this program would open an empty window with no content. <
> I decided to simply remove Conky from the system and found there were multiple conky packages installed, removing these cleared up my visual environment. <
> adding the Backports software repository failed and the script abruptly terminated after having run for about forty minutes. <
Tells all about bunsenlabs. It is still ready and most probably will never be ready.
23 • CrunchBang Sequels (by dhinds on 2016-06-13 15:01:32 GMT from North America)
Other continuations of CrunchBang also exist. I have installed #!**
https://crunchbangplusplus.org/
which is (as I recall) install only and consists of scripts that insure a clean installation of the current Debian Stable with the traditional Crunchbang configurations.
Monara (on Sourceforge) is another (I haven't tried it).
And Sparky Linux's SparkyLinux 4.3 MinimalGUI edition from
http://sparkylinux.org/download/
will give you an excellent Debian Testing with Openbox that does not attempt to emulate CrunchBang but surpasses it, IMO.
24 • 23 CrunchBang Sequels by dhinds (by Plus Plus on 2016-06-13 15:12:26 GMT from Netherlands)
Crunchbang++ is really excellent. No such problems...
There are some more, and looking better. Search for NelumBang, Nelum OS etc.
25 • About Manjaro torrent (by CENTSOARER on 2016-06-13 16:12:45 GMT from North America)
I see you're planing on seeding Manjaro Linux 16.06. Can you update the iso you are torrenting to the 16.06.1 image?
26 • Cloning to larger disks and cloning bad sectors (by Oscar on 2016-06-13 16:45:15 GMT from Europe)
The Q&A answer is wrong: Clonezilla can clone to larger disks without wasting unusued space: In http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/doc/02_Restore_disk_image/advanced/09-advanced-param.php it is said: "If the target disk size is larger than the size of source disk of image "precise-2012-11-27-img", you can try to use option "-k1" which will create the partition table proportionally in the target disk and turn on option "-r" to resize the file file system in the partition automatically. This is useful to make use all of the target disk size."
On the other hand, answering to Angel (comment #3), this behaviour is caused by not forcing to Clonezilla to do a fsck before making the image. In newer Clonezillas there is a screen showing this option (you must answer "yes"!)
27 • Bunsenlabs review (by fox on 2016-06-13 17:38:00 GMT from North America)
Jesse's comment "I couldn't help but feel the experience felt very much like installing Debian and adding the Openbox window manager as a session option" is probably true if you are an intermediate to advanced user. But several years ago when I was relatively new to Linux, I tried just that. When I did, the Openbox menu I got was next to useless. I probably could have worked harder and learned how to modify it by editing its configuration file, and maybe if I persisted I might have even learned that there is such a thing as obmenu in the Debian repos, which does make it easy to modify the right-click menu. And of course I could have installed another desktop, window manager or utility that would allow me to have icons on a menubar like the Bunsenlabs version of tint2, but then I would be looking at something very different from Bunsenlabs Linux. What I'm getting at is that the devs of this distro have created something interesting and special; distinct from vanilla Debian, light on resources and very responsive. While the particular options chosen by the default installation of Bunsenlabs are not to everyone's taste, it has a strong following for good reasons. I should add that the forums are outstanding. Post a question there and you'll get a quick, helpful and courteous answer. Incidentally, like Jesse I don't care for the dark default theme, but it was easy to modify without any more resources than what was installed initially. (Except perhaps the extra wallpaper in the Bunsenlabs repo.)
Note that I am not a Bunsenlabs "regular"; I use Ubuntu as my working distro. But I am impressed enough with Bunsenlabs to keep it installed on my laptop, and I use it often.
28 • Review (by Oscar on 2016-06-13 19:22:08 GMT from South America)
So, only after changing to a more colourful theme you were able to determine that "The distribution's hardware and multimedia support were top notch, performance and the interface's responsiveness were excellent and the applications available all worked properly."?
Do these priorities coincide with those of the bulk of the readership?
Which wallpaper did you decide on by the way?
29 • BunsenLabs review (by notod on 2016-06-13 20:01:12 GMT from North America)
Enjoy and still run CrunchBang with sid, run flawlessly for many years now. Also have tried BunsenLabs and found it to be an excellent distro, with many extras and intriguing attributes regarding pipe menus and themeing, along with many possible conky configurations. BL is supported by a very benign collective of forum supporters who go the extra step to help anyone with a legitimate issue, possibly one of the best forums to introduce yourself to.
For one find BunsenLabs a high configurable distribution OTB. Definitely not a copy or clone of CrunchBang. Although it may have some similarities, BL is very much it's own distribution.
30 • Bunsenlabs (by Scrumtime on 2016-06-13 20:13:29 GMT from North America)
I used Crunchbang for a while and this is not that much different...I like it
I think too many people expect Openbox to be like XFCE ......yes it does take some config to get it how you like...
I used to use manjaro openbox but as they abondoned its users dropping it from an official distro to nothing....its not even mentioned on its new forum ..(which is terrible to find anything..)
I could change to Archbang which is also a great distro but i need something stable as i am almost constantly travelling and can do without sorting out updates daily
IPv6 I have yet to have found anywhere that it works...though i sort of gave up trying.....
31 • BunsenLabs (by Bill on 2016-06-13 20:16:20 GMT from Oceania)
A cynic could say that Crunchbang was always Debian with a nicely themed Openbox added, but it was a lot more than that. Phillip added a selection of applications that still influences what I install - Openbox itself, Geany, Thunar, etc. I also follow his lead by using Linode. And the small(ish), friendly and knowledgable community was worth a very great deal.
Then Phillip abruptly dropped us and told us not to use the name Crunchbang. I still struggle with the way he did this. What he should have done was organised a smooth transfer of the project to one or more of the senior members of the community instead of telling us all to get lost. I am glad to see that many of those senior members have continued the project.
Sadly I no longer use BL for a completely unrelated reason: as someone who believes that the original UNIX developers got it right I do not use any distro that installs systemd by default.
32 • XFCE is awesome (by Brad Inskip on 2016-06-13 20:39:34 GMT from North America)
I think xfce is quite incredible, stable and fast! I currently use Archlinux, I used to use crunchbang long ago.. When I get a new computer I want to go full Plasma desktop/NEON.. xfce is like the adage: "if it's not broken, don't fix it" just my .02 now I'm broke.
33 • GRUB2 woes (by mikef90000 on 2016-06-13 21:31:15 GMT from North America)
@5,@11, I've also had similar discouraging experiences with GRUB2 so I use GRUB4DOS in the MBR and chainload to partition boot records as needed. Despite being several years in production, GRUB2 *still* does not create a proper menuentry for my WinXP partition on a second drive; the entry looks like all of the countless examples but it Does Not Work! Also fortunately, the legacy BIOS mode on my current motherboard works fine.
For booting a system or VM with a broken GRUB install, the Super GRUB2 Disk image works for me. Visit http://www.supergrubdisk.org for details.
34 • How to Crunchbang (by Plus Plus on 2016-06-13 21:39:29 GMT from Europe)
If anyone wants to hold onto the now defunct Crunchbang, and if you still have that Crunchbang in your hard disk, then do the following.
1) In Terminal do sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade to bring your install up to date.
2) Then uninstall tint2 and pnmixer. (sudo apt-get purge tint2 pnmixer)
3) Disable crunchbang repos. Open thunar as root, go to /etc/apt/sources.list and delete the lines with crunchbang in it. (If you want to remember the repos just put a # in front of those lines.)
4) Do sudo sed -i 's/wheezy/jessie/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get upgrade
5) Then, reinstall tint2, and install whatever volume mixer you like from Debian repos.
You will be with Crunchbang till the end of Jessie, and/or move to Stretch, or to Sid.
Aha, if you want out from the terribly old fashioned "menu" you can install real menu such as obmenu-generator.
35 • @32 & #! (by leredditunixarmy on 2016-06-13 21:46:05 GMT from Europe)
Sorry to tell, Xfce will suck in a couple of years with its move to Gtk3, which probably means it will be somewhat like Cinnamon, i.e. not *that* fast (like when 4.6-4.8). I already moved from it (because of dbus) and advise others to. Openbox or LXDE seem to be good; while TDE is another solution for those who prefer full blown environments.
Speaking of #! and its clones (or whatever), I really can't understand all these endless Debian "forks", including Ubuntu. A five year old child can "apt install" a couple of programmes and create own iso. And these "dark themes" are like "look at me ama hacka!!!", once again, five year old child type of sh*te. I'd rather install minimal Debian and then tweak it as I need but since Debian stepped into that systemd poop (AIDS rather), I'd prefer cutting my own d*ck than to use it. Finally, what makes a distribution is its own package manager or ports system or a distinctive philosophy which means lack of thereof, and not "ama haka" themes and "look mom animations lunex is better than wingdowz".
36 • Grub2 problems (by Bobbie Sellers on 2016-06-13 21:53:50 GMT from North America)
I had a working triple boot system using Grub2 and for a month or so it worked
fine but then it ran into problems and now cannot be re-installed,
I am having to use Super Grub2 disk to get to my Mageia 5 and
PCLinux OS 2016.03 installations.
Grub2 needs to be modified perhaps to work on a single
Grub partition, imho.
bliss
37 • Dark Themes (by Jordan on 2016-06-13 22:09:20 GMT from North America)
I need them and it's about light intolerance, a disorder. Dimming the screen used to be my only option.
Now a choice of several darker XFCE themes and I'm very much more comfortable as I use my desktop and apps.
What's with the anti-choice herd in here amongst us linux users? Linux itself is about many many choices. And yeah, the "I'm a hacker" thing may help some feel better about those choices, be they Ubuntu messes or theme messes.
Leave us be and do your thing. We're doing ours. Thank you.
38 • IPv6 and MATE 1.14 DE (by M.Z. on 2016-06-13 22:34:22 GMT from North America)
As far as IPv6 goes, well my pfSense setup says that IPv6 is 100% connected & has no losses; however, it also shows all the logs for things being blocked by the pf firewall and snort are pretty much entirely traditional IPv4 addresses. I think everything is just using IPv4 by default & I haven't bothered to mess with it.
On the subject of the time it has been taking to get Mate 1.14 into a PPA, I'm wondering if this isn't related to the amount of time Mint 18 has taken to get into beta. Both Ubuntu Mate 16.04 & Mint 18 share a common base & Mint is trying to use the same Mate version described in the new article for one of their main desktops. Somehow I don't think it's a coincidence that the PPA was made available around the same time that Mint 18 hit beta.
39 • Marketing Linux distributions (from last week). Not just $$. (by Greg Zeng on 2016-06-14 01:16:00 GMT from Oceania)
We need a Linux marketing organization, similar to other trade associations. Many solitary groups and individuals are re-inventing the wheel. If new inventions exist, they are not noticed, and feedback on the success , failure, etc is missed.
We all know that Distrowatch, with its week-by-week-ONLY focus, cannot or will not operate as an industry agent, until it acquires the skills of using a proper BBS, with real-time links to Google, etc. But this week http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=elementary was launched.
Elementary's web sit has no way to download the freeware version. http://elementary.io/
Using Dw torrent, rather than the DW link, show us that this beta-only distribution (version 0.xxx) in both 32 and 64 bits. Here it is freeware, rather than commercial. The Linux marketing group (when it exists) would like to know if this method of funding a Linux distribution is successful, etc. Hiding the fact that both 32 & 64 bits exist - does this work for the iSheep? Avoiding the statements of 36-PAE is important - does this work, for both Dw and for the Distribution publisher?
Finally, what is the role of a Linux marketing group? AFAIK, it should highlight good examples of Linux techniques at all levels: alpha, beta, releases, and expired products; collaborators, competitors and industry patterns, etc. Many Linux serial publications such as Linux Format Uk, Linux User & Developer Uk, & Linux Journal (USA), try to inform their limited $$-purchasers. There also exist some poorly marketed, amateur BBS areas devoted to Linux. All of these are struggling and competing with each other for the very limited marketing $. So none have an interest in promoting others in the battle for $$.
Canonical, Redhat, Debian etc for some reason like staying in the losing one-per-cent group of the marketplace for general individual persons. Big business with its server farms and thousands of terminals, seem to be their main interest, rather than the poorly served open markets of Apple and Microsoft. Google and Linux are the main competitors for the iSheep markets imho.
Personally, my poor medical health means that I shall not be giving birth to another organizational baby, as my vocational achievements show. But some person or group might like to invigorate any existing or past Linux marketing groups?
40 • Not just a fashion (by Somewhat Reticent on 2016-06-14 02:05:08 GMT from North America)
Dark-background lighter-text theming goes to better readability and lower stress during dark/night hours, improving over merely using redshift/f.lux (good for normals; not just 'light-sensitive')
.
I consider Try-Before-You-Buy critical (it's elementary), but how long before large downloads become pay-only?
.
mikef90000 - forum.MyDigitalLife.com is a good resource for obedience-training XP, if you _must_ put it where it doesn't want to go
.
(If not for DW, where would trolls-in-training build their skills?)
41 • MATE (by Dan on 2016-06-14 02:36:52 GMT from North America)
Ubuntu MATE is not updating the MATE program. The MATE guys just made a PPA for it. I want to try it, but I'm very concerned that future Ubuntu updates would break it, as Ubuntu will not be testing against the newest MATE.
42 • @39 elementary funding (by far2fish on 2016-06-14 12:30:37 GMT from Europe)
To download elementary without paying for it, it looks like you still have the option of choosing "$ custom" and then type 0.
43 • IPv6 (by Tim on 2016-06-14 13:03:08 GMT from North America)
I currently use IPv4, exclusively. However, when I was on a different ISP, I used IPv6 and liked it. I changed ISPs in order to get 20X better speed. My current ISP only supports IPv6 through a dinky 6rd tunnel setup, and I don't care to do the work try to convince my router to use it. On my previous ISP, it was a simple matter to use IPv6 by my own Hurricane Electric tunnel, which provided many more features.
44 • @42, @35 (by Cág on 2016-06-14 14:51:01 GMT from Europe)
You can, but the way it was presented drove many people away from eOS.
A snip from later edited blog post:
"We want users to understand that they’re pretty much cheating the system when they choose not to pay for software. We didn’t exclude a $0 button to deceive you; we believe our software really is worth something."
45 • @35 (by Cág on 2016-06-14 14:58:57 GMT from Europe)
Ouch, clicked Entre.
I agree with Xfce, but I don't think the complete move will end in a couple of years. They have a relatively long release cycle. I sometimes use dark themes and even like some of them. On Debian forks, Crunchbang represented an entirely different community. Their forums were helpful, people there were kind and smart. I don't really associate them with Debian. Too bad #! is gone in its original form. Hopefully, some of its children will show themselves in a good way in the future. Certainly, there are tons of "forks", where the creator added a couple of programmes, but we usually don't hear about them every now and then. #! was different. Community knows what to use and what to not.
46 • @44 and others (by lintux on 2016-06-14 16:30:47 GMT from North America)
This is the fine line, isn't it? It costs them to develop something, and they have a right to charge for it if they would like. It looks great, but I'd be really hesitant to pay for it. How do I know if it works? How do I know I will like it?
Windows has had a break for years here: people get the OS for "free" because it comes pre-installed on new hardware. That is powerful.
It's too bad more distributions can't sell pre-installed or that the pre-installed units are so expensive. I've gone through the websites here on DW for Linux hardware. Stuff is just so expensive. I suppose if I were in the market for $$$$ laptops, I might give these a try, but they aren't that competitive. I don't know how they can be with a small marketshare in a niche market. Android wins because they give it away for free, it costs nothing to develop with, and Google makes its money off of its services (selling you).
Cost-effective hardware and then selling licenses to makers for pre-installing your distro may make a good play. Look at what Raspberry Pi's did when you had cheap, capable hardware. I'd love to see an elementary OS computer, find its a great deal for a netbook, because then I might buy it. I'd pay for their software, try it out, and then be in a better position to recommend it to others.
And, of course, if I didn't like it, I'd just install something else. No big deal, but it's a market play Windows has had for years.
47 • @ 44 eOS (by noeos on 2016-06-14 16:32:53 GMT from North America)
Its not worth the time wasted on downloading it, even for the hidden 0$. No one ever use it.
48 • eOS know-all guys (by Jacky on 2016-06-14 16:48:00 GMT from North America)
> but the stance going forward is that software should come from vetted, secure sources or in sandboxed package formats.<
Another group of know-all guys like those (or the solitary guy) at Mint. They are going to "vet" apps that don't belong to them and don't even know how to create.
49 • mouse madness (by Tim on 2016-06-14 17:24:21 GMT from North America)
The unnerving scroll wheel behavior Jesse describes in the review, I'm guessing that's due to a "feature" of the window manager. The described behavior occurs if the window manager is configured such that "sloppy mouse focus=true" or "mouse focus follows cursor=enabled".
50 • @44 and eOS (by Cág on 2016-06-14 17:28:14 GMT from Europe)
I (we actually, I believe) don't want to be forced to pay for FOSS and be told that I "cheat" by not paying. I will donate if I like it. I myself write some open source software but never charged and am not going to. This has been the accepted policy for the whole time. People write open source software for fun, for education or as a resumé. Or three, as in my case. Most of us receive our pay at work for writing non-FOSS and we don't see FOSS as the main source of money.
Speaking of eOS (which their arrogant developer insist to write elementary OS and no other way), they don't do something special. Just a GNOME3 based environment on top of Ubuntu. Last time I've tried it, customising was painful to me (Jaysus, comparing to modifying dwm code, which is something special and turns out to be super easy). Yes, many like it. Probably for the dock, which is not even their invention. But at the end of the day, they could simply kindly ask for a donation on their page; galore, I believe, would donate. Being arrogant and rude to the community is worst way to do things.
It is just my two cents worth opinion.
51 • BL Review; Some Comments (by hhh on 2016-06-14 21:43:00 GMT from North America)
BunsenLabs Review, some other points...
>After confirming the distribution was running smoothly, I looked around for a system installer, but did not find one. I rebooted and took the graphical installer option from the live media's boot menu.
debian-installer-launcher only works with the 64 bit kernel, so it seemed stupid to include something that would be broken on two-thirds of our ISOs. Plus, our Openbox config doesn't support desktop icons OOTB, so we'd have to include a menu entry, but then that would be still preent after installation... bleh.
>While Debian's version of the installer uses a red, white and grey theme, Bunsen uses a grey-on-grey theme which makes all of the buttons and elements on the screen look as though they have been disabled.
This is, frankly, a cheap shot at best and a highly jaded comment at worst. The buttons function and appear exactly the same as the d-i only they're grey instead of white. Mouse hover changes their color, tabbing adds a dotted outline inside of the button.
>After the first half hour, I found myself wishing the script had asked all of its questions up front and then performed its actions in one big batch.
This is very valid criticism. As I predicted, their is now a forum thread discussing options (we're looking at Salt, especially).
Mouse scroll for desktops in Openbox rubs me the wrong way too. You have to disable it in ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml
http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=18365
re: conky, why didn't you disable it from Openbox's autostart? It would have been a great way to highlight some of the Openbox menu items we've added to make configuration easier.
Depressing theme, as has been noted, is highly suggestive. If you have hay fever, you might find a lovely dandelion wallpaper depressing.
http://science-all.com/images/wallpapers/dandelion-images/dandelion-images-10.jpg
I wish you had compared us more directly with the jesie Live ISO for LXDE, but c'est la vie. I'm really gald to hear that everything, more or less, worked on your metal install, that's the important thing. We hope to provide one of the better ways for a novice-to-intermediate linux user to install a functional debian stable OS. Time will tell how we're doing!
Thanks for letting me post my thoughts, and thanks again for DW, a great resource!
52 • Distrohopping Stick Trick and Underdog DE (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2016-06-14 21:54:34 GMT from North America)
GRUB:
This trick from Arch is very good for distrohopping.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Multiboot_USB_drive
The problem isn't GRUB but varying boot commands for the ISO image files. Distros differ. Apparently a loopback.cfg method is easy for distros to include. At minimum I wish distros would publish the proper GRUB invocation, and/or GRUB allow chainloading ISOLINUX in some easy fashion.
MINOR SPIN NEWS:
Manjaro XFCE OpenRC 16.06 has shipped.
https://forum.manjaro.org/t/manjaro-openrc-16-06-xfce-net/3679
Obarun.org has released an ISO using s6 init: "This is a STABLE release, can be used for production."
http://obarun.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=129
DEs:
XFCE is a good desktop. GTK3? Who knows. I bet XFCE folks won't let anything out that doesn't "just work."
The underdog to watch is Lumina absent RedTeamBlackHat cruftcode. It's not ready for prime time, but available in Void, Arch, Gentoo, BSD, and others. I hope more devs join up.
http://lumina-desktop.org
"It has been written from scratch in C++/Qt5 and is not based on any existing desktop's code-base. It also does not use any of the Linux-based desktop frameworks (ConsoleKit, PolicyKit, D-Bus, systemd, etc..), instead using a simple built-in interface layer for communicating directly with the operating system (which is the only class specific to the operating system - making it simple to port/customize). This allows it to obtain system information in a fast and efficient manner while ensuring desktop stability and reliability."
53 • Chrome allows me to use HULU in Linux. (by MATE made me a distrohopper. on 2016-06-15 01:37:12 GMT from North America)
And I was doing so well in my recovery. LOL But no one ever told me it had Chrome. I had to find it out on my own. My faith in Linux has been restored. I was lured in by the old GNOME and then to find a beautiful operating system. WOW! The SMLR podcast was right on cue. I never thought I would leave Lubuntu but I am still with Ubuntu, technically. LOL
54 • The whole shebang ? (by erinis on 2016-06-15 03:04:37 GMT from North America)
Humm there are some interesting comments here. It appears the free as in free beer has lost it's charm. Not surprised in the least though. No respect. Sadly. Thanks Jesse from an old timer.
55 • @50 elementary OS - 2 separate points of contention (by Hoos on 2016-06-15 05:23:09 GMT from Asia)
1) Tactless comments:
The developers made a mistake in tactlessly using the phrase "cheating the system" in their post, and then quietly removing the phrase as if they never said it at all and not apologising for those words.
However, that was one release ago, namely Freya. It's now Loki beta. Continuing to harp about those words shows the holding of a long grudge. Just don't use their distro at all if you feel so strongly about it.
2) Seeking payment before download:
I note that actual payment and quantum is still purely voluntary. You can put a zero if you choose.
In principle I don't see anything wrong with seeking payment, apart from their initial rude words. Open source does not mean you can't charge for it; it's only a matter of whether people are willing to pay for it or not. For instance, I don't begrudge Parted Magic charging for their releases, although that means I might not buy a new release for the next few years. Others will say it's not worth the price because many of the tools (e.g. Clonzilla) were not made by the Parted Magic developer and they can get the said tools from other sources without fee. Different people will place different value on it.
So people are still free not to use elementary, or to input a zero before downloading to "try before you buy". If the user subsequently decides they are happy with the distro and wants to contribute, they can do so using that payment option in the download links.
It's really still up to you, isn't it?
Me: I contributed to Luna because I liked it. When they initiated the pay on download scheme for Freya, I chose to enter zero. I was disappointed by Freya and didn't contribute subsequently. I may not bother trying Loki at all. I have made repeat contributions to the distros I like and use.
56 • elementary OS and payment (by Bill on 2016-06-15 06:46:40 GMT from Oceania)
55: You are spot on Hoos, I also have no problem with developers requesting financial support. I regularly purchase OpenBSD and Slackware disks, for example.
The usually polite but sometimes clumsy (perhaps non-English speaking background?) requests for support by various open source projects are very different to the demands made by the developers of proprietary software.
57 • 51 Some Comments by hhh (by Crunchy on 2016-06-15 09:12:54 GMT from Europe)
> debian-installer-launcher only works with the 64 bit kernel, so it seemed stupid to include something that would be broken on two-thirds of our ISOs. Plus, our Openbox config doesn't support desktop icons OOTB, so we'd have to include a menu entry, but then that would be still preent after installation... bleh. <
Aren't we arrogant!
Lack of knowledge mixed with arrogance is a terrible problem; debian-installer-launcher is universal, and work with the 32 bit kernel too. https://packages.debian.org/jessie/debian-installer-launcher.
Openbox is a window manager, not a desktop environment, so it'd never show desktop icons.
58 • @55 elementary funding (by far2fish on 2016-06-15 10:32:54 GMT from Europe)
I agree with your comments Hoos.
However I feel all projects, in particular the "one man show" ones, should add some text explaining why they need funding, and how much they. For people working in IT it is pretty clear, but for the regular users it can be an eye opener. For instance something like: "Project X is created in the developer(s) spare time, and the yearly cost is $$$ because we need build servers, web server hosting and $this and $that"
And below the donate buttons add a "No thanks, take me directly to the download page" link.
That would be a more friendly approach, which I think would result in more donations.
59 • Fund raising for coders ... Please ... (by Greg Zeng on 2016-06-16 05:18:55 GMT from Oceania)
Coders by definition, are lacking fundraising and marketing skills. These necessary extras are needed to be supplied by proven experts, who by definition, lack specializations in other areas, such as coding, product creation & support, etc. Perhaps there might exist some aged multi-skilled people like myself, who have had enough decades of multiple work-life-ventures to know what is really needed. Academia imho, is an escape from real-life, and penalizes the human brain into antique alpha-numerics.
One-per-centers in the Linux world could learn from the larger, richer worlds of Microsoft, or even Apple. M$ 3rd party software uses obvious methods not widely known to coders. Majorgeeks categories these as Open-Source, or Freeware, Shareware, or Ad-supported. Paid is another category used by Softpedia.
Freeware often disguises Nagware or Crippleware (terms used by the Nonags url). Many Linux distributions are claimed to be free, or open-source. Closer examination shows they disguise the ad-supports, nagware & crippleware. There are ways that coders can use these very sophisticated fund-raising methods, without offending new-comers nor old-timers.
Neither Dw nor http://forums.mydigitallife.info/ seem suitable for Linux industry discussions, such as software support, etc. Finally Dw is open to crawlers from Google, but to the extent over the life-history of Dw is unknown and possibly changing. We software people need an ongoing forum space, not a week-only chat area.
Most internet forums are dominated by the one solitary boss, not by a "committee" or "advisory board". These ego-driven web-sites will not and cannot expand beyond the limited skill-set and interest-set of its one owner. Larger organizations like IBM, Ubuntu, Canonical, Microsoft, etc are run by low-skilled beta-males who don't trust any kind of high-flyer, nor CEO-type of person. Generally these organizations reflect the sexism, racism, etc of their parent cultures, so form into factions that plot to destroy any crowd effectiveness, or outlyer enterprises. Beta-persons do not understand blue-sky testing nor learning from past mistakes, to avoid future mistakes. Just scape-goating and destruction of the nominated scape-goats.
There are some individual review and web sites which are created and run by talented, creative individuals. But these sites are limited by the interests-duration of the one person, who needs to try to outlast the Tall-Poppy-Destruction, until it destroys the individual person, imho.
60 • Marketing excellence, perhaps: Robolinux (by Greg Zeng on 2016-06-17 03:55:26 GMT from Oceania)
Not even Ubuntu nor Mint seem to reach this level of professionalism, it seems.
GOODS:
1) https://sourceforge.net/projects/robolinux/?source=typ_redirect is a detailed home page, with needed download urls, YouTube demo with interesting young-he-man's graphics, good urls. It offers four VM Support Packages as well. This is very rare (unique?) in marketing Linux or any operating system.
2) https://www.robolinux.org/ is the best home page for any operating ystem, afaik. It reinforces the image as a geeks-only distribution, with some detailed geek-only information.
3) Latest press release explains funding in a way that encourages us to fund them, instead of running away from them.
BADS:
1) http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=09438 shows only four, not the full five (5) versions of this distro to download, and no mentions of any reviews of this distribution
2) http://linuxtracker.org/?page=torrents&search=robolinux&category=0&active=0 does not show the latest version (ver.8.5)
3) http://topnewreview.com/robolinux-8-4-review/ refers to the old version, not the newest version.
4) Of the marketing information provided, comparison information is missing, everywhere, though, which reflects poor marketing, or trying to hide the flaws in a product.
5) No reference to any press kits are listed. This kit would have copy-ready histories, personalities, user stories &stats, flaws overcome, wannabe's, graphics, etc.
6) Typical of all Linux distributions, there are no reasons (verbal, nor graphical) why this distribution is better than others.
7) No url pointing the ways to quickly, cheaping create an installation medium (a fast USB3 flash stick, Unetbootin or YUMI).
61 • DELUXE-super-TURBO-magnum-STEALTH-bolinux (by tim on 2016-06-17 15:36:29 GMT from North America)
The robobobo marketingspeak is way too cheezy. Now, for a limited time... Hey, kids, collect all six... Coming soon to a galaxy near you...
62 • Bunsen review (by Sam on 2016-06-17 16:58:41 GMT from South America)
> It took a while for me to get the interface looking the way I wanted it to and less like the inside of a mine shaft
:-D This made me laugh. Nice review, not exactly my cup of tea, but looks like a well thought-out distro, and I'm glad to see they're carrying the Crunchbang torch/flame. :)
63 • Video Streaming on Linux (by M.Z. on 2016-06-17 22:12:59 GMT from North America)
@53
I was streaming Hulu on Linux long before it ever worked in Chrome, thanks to Firefox. In fact Chrome was a source of trouble for Hulu until recently, though I don't know exactly when that changed. It never really bothered me very much as I prefer Firefox for both it's flexibility/customization & because it's a far more open & community oriented browser. I checked Chrome & Opera on Hulu after I saw your post because I hadn't bothered to try in some time & indeed they both work, though I really don't think I want Google tracking my viewing habits so I'll pass on Chrome.
The only thing Chrome ever did that made me particularly happy was when Netflix started to work with it on Linux, which is quite nice even if I don't like Google's tracking policies & would never log into any copy of Chrome with my Gmail account - or use Chrome for much of anything besides Netflix. I checked Opera on Netflix again & it says something about 'install Silverlight on your Mac' even though I'm on Linux. I don't know if the instructions would do anything useful on Linux, but I doubt it. I guess I'm still stuck with Chrome on Linux, but at least it works & is fairly trouble free.
---------------------
On a related note, why am I getting so much screen tearing on Mageia lately with Netflix/Chrome in full screen? It only started relatively recently & only affects Mageia 5 & not Mint 17.3 running a similar version of KDE on the exact same laptop. Did an update screw something up? There doesn't seem to be much on the forums & it's kinda annoying, even if booting to Mint is an easy workaround. I always had the problem in LMDE 2 w/Ciannamon, but Mageia 5 KDE started doing it too & now only 1 of the 3 distros on my laptop is any good for streaming video. I guess that's one reason why it's good to have multiple distros installed.
64 • YUMI: Better multiboot sticks (by Europe)
@52
"This trick from Arch is very good for distrohopping.
hxxps://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Multiboot_USB_drive"
That sounds like a lot of work.
You should use the free program "YUMI" which is the easiest way to throw together a multiboot stick:
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/
65 • Multiboot (cross-platform) (by Somewhat Reticent on 2016-06-18 21:36:50 GMT from North America)
@64 (by ? on 2016-06-17 23:17:02 from 37.187.129.* in Europe?)
@52
YUMI at PenDriveLinux demonstrates the KISS syslinux approach, just like the SourceForge project MultiBootUSB
.
But consider the tremendous effort behind Easy2Boot ... using the Gr-eater GrUB4dOS
Number of Comments: 65
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| • Issue 1128 (2025-06-30): AxOS 25.06, AlmaLinux OS 10.0, transferring Flaptak bundles to off-line computers, Ubuntu to boost Intel graphics performance, Fedora considers dropping i686 packages, SDesk switches from SELinux to AppArmor |
| • Issue 1127 (2025-06-23): LastOSLinux 2025-05-25, most unique Linux distro, Haiku stabilises, KDE publishes Plasma 6.4, Arch splits Plasma packages, Slackware infrastructure migrating |
| • Issue 1126 (2025-06-16): SDesk 2025.05.06, renewed interest in Ubuntu Touch, a BASIC device running NetBSD, Ubuntu dropping X11 GNOME session, GNOME increases dependency on systemd, Google holding back Pixel source code, Nitrux changing its desktop, EFF turns 35 |
| • Issue 1125 (2025-06-09): RHEL 10, distributions likely to survive a decade, Murena partners with more hardware makers, GNOME tests its own distro on real hardware, Redox ports GTK and X11, Mint provides fingerprint authentication |
| • Issue 1124 (2025-06-02): Picking up a Pico, tips for protecting privacy, Rhino tests Plasma desktop, Arch installer supports snapshots, new features from UBports, Ubuntu tests monthly snapshots |
| • Issue 1123 (2025-05-26): CRUX 3.8, preventing a laptop from sleeping, FreeBSD improves laptop support, Fedora confirms GNOME X11 session being dropped, HardenedBSD introduces Rust in userland build, KDE developing a virtual machine manager |
| • Issue 1122 (2025-05-19): GoboLinux 017.01, RHEL 10.0 and Debian 12 updates, openSUSE retires YaST, running X11 apps on Wayland |
| • Issue 1121 (2025-05-12): Bluefin 41, custom file manager actions, openSUSE joins End of 10 while dropping Deepin desktop, Fedora offers tips for building atomic distros, Ubuntu considers replacing sudo with sudo-rs |
| • Issue 1120 (2025-05-05): CachyOS 250330, what it means when a distro breaks, Kali updates repository key, Trinity receives an update, UBports tests directory encryption, Gentoo faces losing key infrastructure |
| • Issue 1119 (2025-04-28): Ubuntu MATE 25.04, what is missing from Linux, CachyOS ships OCCT, Debian enters soft freeze, Fedora discusses removing X11 session from GNOME, Murena plans business services, NetBSD on a Wii |
| • Issue 1118 (2025-04-21): Fedora 42, strange characters in Vim, Nitrux introduces new package tools, Fedora extends reproducibility efforts, PINE64 updates multiple devices running Debian |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
GParted Live
GParted Live is a live distribution with a single purpose - to provide tools for partitioning hard disks in an intuitive, graphical environment. The distribution uses X.Org, the light-weight Fluxbox window manager, and the latest 4.x Linux kernel. GParted Live runs on most x86 machines with a Pentium II or better.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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