 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 675, 22 August 2016 |
Welcome to this year's 34th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
We often showcase the more user friendly distributions and utilities here on DistroWatch, but this week we are going to celebrate some of the more technical, flexible and powerful tools available in the Linux community. We begin with a look at Gentoo's live DVD edition. Gentoo is a source-based meta distribution which offers a great deal of flexibility and chances for optimization. The live DVD helps show off Gentoo's abilities and Joshua Allen Holm takes the live disc for a spin. In our News section we talk about Ubuntu improving the virtual terminal to work better across multiple platforms along with FreeBSD's improving video driver support and we announce the MATE desktop has come to OpenIndiana. In our Tips and Tricks column we discuss a special collection of command line programs called moreutils. Plus we share the open source operating systems released last week and provide a list of the torrents we are seeding. Our Opinion Poll explores why some of our readers have not yet made the leap into Linux and we welcome Remix OS to our database. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Reviews: Gentoo Linux live DVD "Choice Edition"
- News: Ubuntu improves terminal convergence, OpenIndiana packages MATE, FreeBSD improves video card support
- Tips and Tricks: More utilities via moreutils
- Torrent corner: OpenIndiana, OpenMandriva, SystemRescueCd
- Released last week: MidnightBSD 0.8, ReactOS 0.4.2, SparkyLinux 4.4
- Opinion poll: What is holding you back from Linux?
- Upcoming releases: Fedora 25 Alpha, Ubuntu 16.10 Beta 1, FreeBSD 11.0-RC3, Black Lab Linux 8 Beta 2
- New additions: Remix OS
- New distributions: DidJiX, Refracta, DuoCore
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (25MB) and MP3 (36MB) formats
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| Feature Story (by Joshua Allen Holm) |
Gentoo Linux live DVD "Choice Edition"
One of the wonderful things about Linux is the diversity of the distributions available. Some distributions are very beginner friendly with installers that offer only a few basic options. Others are more complex, requiring knowledge of Linux and skills with the command line to install.
Gentoo falls into the more complex category. There is no installer per se, the user just needs to follow instructions to perform several steps leading to a fully installed and configured system. This process is certainly harder than using Ubuntu's Ubiquity installer, but it is not that hard. The instructions are clear and do require previous experience with Linux, or the tenacity to keep going (or start over) when things go wrong when Gentoo is used in a "dive in head first" learning experience.
Below, I take a look at the latest Gentoo Linux live DVD, the "Choice Edition," and briefly explore how Gentoo gets installed on a system by using a step by step set of instructions instead of an installer that takes care of most of the steps automatically.
The live DVD
There are two download options for the latest Gentoo live DVD. One is a multilib image and the other is a hybrid disc with separate 32-bit and 64-bit environments. I opted for the multilib image, downloading the 3GB ISO. However, I quickly ran into problems when I tried using the ISO in Windows 10. VirtualBox failed to work with the disc at all, even though the hash for my download verified. I could not even get Windows itself to mount the image as a virtual drive. However, I could copy the ISO to a USB flash drive using a variety of tools without problem and the USB drive booted Gentoo with no problems. While I could reproduce this experience with the other Windows computer I have access to, I had zero issues with the ISO in Fedora and Ubuntu. Both live DVD options seem to be affected by this issue, but the minimal install media works just fine. Unfortunately, this issue makes it harder for Windows users who just want to try out the Gentoo live DVD in a virtual environment.
Gentoo Linux 20160514 - running the live desktop environment
(full image size: 1.5MB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Aside from an obnoxiously loud beep from the PC speaker, the Gentoo multilib live DVD booted without other difficulties. For the most part, the boot process was quick, but once the graphical environment started there was a long delay while I stared at a black screen with nothing but a mouse pointer. After a minute of waiting, the KDE Plasma 5 desktop environment loaded and the system was ready to go. On the desktop, there are shortcuts to all the various ways to get more information about Gentoo, converse with developers and other users, and submit bug reports. The Documentation folder on the desktop contains a local copy of the Gentoo wiki's installation instructions and a PDF copy of a book titled Linux Sea, which is a introduction to the ins and outs of Linux using Gentoo as an example. Once up and running, the desktop environment was very responsive and used, with no applications running, approximately 300MB of RAM.
Gentoo Linux 20160514 - reading Linux Sea in Okular
(full image size: 200kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
At 3GB, the live DVD contains far more software than the typical live image. Instead of curating the selection of software included to use the "best" programs or to create a consistent user experience, the Gentoo live DVD includes multiple programs to do just about everything. For web browsing there is Aurora, Chromium, Links, and Otter Browser. For email, the options are Claws Mail, EarlyBird, Evolution, and Slypheed. For editing documents and spreadsheets, LibreOffice is installed, but so are AbiWord and Gnumeric. Other software is featured and this is just a partial list: Blender, Bluefish, GIMP, Inkscape, and VLC media player. If you are looking for a live DVD that has all the major Linux applications, Gentoo's live DVD is it. Having a copy of this disc on hand is a great way to showcase a wide variety of open source applications to users who may not be familiar with the wide variety of open source software that is out there.
As nice as the Gentoo Linux live DVD is, there were a few issues related to the particular hardware I was using, i.e., the Lenovo EasyCamera webcam does not work right, but that is not Gentoo specific, and the wireless card does not work, which actually is Gentoo specific; Gentoo's kernel does not include the drivers for the Realtek RTL8723BE wireless card, even though the card is supported in Fedora just fine. Older distributions do not work with the wireless card, but Fedora 24 and the Gentoo Linux live DVD both use version 4.5 of the Linux kernel, so the lack of enabled support for the BE variant of RTL8723 wireless cards is specific to Gentoo's kernel. Enabling the driver by compiling a custom kernel is an option for a normal install, but for a live DVD it really is not, so the lack of wireless networking was an inconvenience when I was testing the live DVD.
Installing Gentoo
Gentoo Linux 20160514 - the Gentoo Handbook
(full image size: 197kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The Gentoo install documentation breaks the process down into ten main steps, though the process is broken down into many smaller pieces, so there really is more than ten things to do. Beginning with a working Linux environment, such as the Gentoo install image or the live DVD, users work through all the steps by hand instead of having an installer do it for them. Users have to partition a hard drive, install the base Gentoo software, and configure almost everything themselves, from the boot loader and kernel to the specific software packages they want installed beyond the Gentoo core packages. Suffice it to say this process takes a lot more time than using Ubuntu's Ubiquity or Red Hat's Anaconda installer.
Gentoo Linux 20160514 - managing software with Porthole
(full image size: 128kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Once the base of the system is installed, installing software on Gentoo is handled by Portage. Using the command line, users can install a program using the emerge command. For users who prefer to work in a GUI, once they have one set up, there is Porthole, a graphical front-end for Portage. Porthole behaves a lot like other graphic package managers in that it provides a categorized list of software available and software can be installed or removed by selecting it from the list.
Gentoo provides plenty of choice when it comes to desktop environments and software packages, so users should be happy tweaking their system to their liking. There are packages available for KDE, GNOME, Xfce, MATE, and Cinnamon, plus several other options. Part of Gentoo's appeal is the ability to tweak things for a specific system using a variety of setting flags to configure things and other advanced options. Users who want to try Gentoo should read the documentation about Portage to develop a thorough understanding of how Gentoo's packaging system works and how to make Gentoo run best on their particular hardware.
Final Thoughts
Gentoo is a great choice for users wanting a little more personal control over their system and a more hands on experience. Installing Gentoo is certainly more complex and more time consuming than, for example, Debian, Ubuntu, or the legion of Ubuntu derivatives, but it is not that hard. The documentation is thorough and well written. All one has to do is read and follow the instructions. If something does go wrong, there are plenty of answers in the Gentoo forums.
Any user wanting to dig a little deeper into Linux should consider trying out Gentoo. Going through the steps of installing Gentoo is a great way to learn. While the distribution might not be for everyone, it certainly has a place in the Linux ecosystem as a learning tool and as a wonderful, functional, distribution that offers users plenty of choices and options.
As for the live DVD, like I stated above, it contains such a wealth of software that is very helpful to have on hand to use to demonstrate open source software to people. However, the time it takes to load to a functional desktop is much longer than the alternatives, so I am not sure about using it on a regular or occasional basis for real work. The live DVD is a great, and positive, introduction to Gentoo, but Gentoo truly shines once it has been installed and tweaked for a particular set of hardware.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a Lenovo Ideapad 100-15IBD laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: 2.2GHz Intel Core i3-5020U CPU
- Storage: Seagate 500GB 5400 RPM hard drive
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8723BE 802.11n Wireless Network Adapter
- Display: Intel HD Graphics 5500
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Ubuntu improves terminal convergence, OpenIndiana packages MATE, FreeBSD improves video card support
Canonical has been working toward the idea of convergence for several years now and much of their work on Ubuntu has been to get the interface to work smoothly across multiple devices. The Canonical team is currently trying to make the terminal work better on small devices, such as smart phones. "We have been looking at ways of making the Terminal app more pleasing, in terms of the user experience, as well as the visuals. I would like to share the work so far, invite users of the app to comment on the new designs, and share ideas on what other new features would be desirable. On the visual side, we have brought the app in line with our Suru visual language. We have also adopted the very nice Solarized palette as the default palette - though this will of course be completely customizable by the user." Some of the new features being proposed include customized keyboard shortcuts, split screen view, custom colours and unlimited history/scrollback. The designers are also looking at making tabs work well across both large screens and small, mobile devices. Mock-ups and a list of proposed features are featured on the Canonical Design blog.
* * * * *
OpenIndiana is an open source community project which is based on Illumos. OpenIndiana has traditionally used GNOME 2 as the default desktop environment, but that is now changing with the operating system adopting the MATE desktop. "We are pleased to announce that MATE 1.14 is available in OI now. To facilitate installing, we've created pkg:/mate_install meta-package. Unfortunately, when you have both GNOME 2 and MATE installed, both of them try to use the same applications, so you'll have interesting time removing GNOME 2 applications from MATE and vice versa." The announcement has further details.
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Matthew Macy announced some important work going into the FreeBSD operating system which should improve graphics support for a variety of video cards. "As of this moment sys/dev/drm in the drm-next tree is sync with https://github.com/torvalds/linux drivers/gpu/drm (albeit only for the subset of drivers that FreeBSD supports - i915, radeon, and amdgpu). I feel this is a bit of a milestone as it means that it is possible that in the future graphics support on FreeBSD could proceed in lockstep with Linux." Video drivers tend to get introduced into Linux before the BSDs, so this move should help FreeBSD users to gain similar graphics support.
* * * * *
These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Tips and Tricks (by Jesse Smith) |
More utilities via moreutils
Most of us are probably familiar with core utilities (coreutils). This is a collection of programs which almost every implementation of Linux, BSD and Unix includes. The core utilities feature such programs as ls, date, cat, cp and rm, among many others. If you pick up any Unix or Linux reference guide or handbook, chances are there will be at least one chapter covering these command line utilities.
Most of the coreutils programs have been around so long we just think of them as part of Linux. They're built in, constant and we may forget that the collection can be expanded, grown to provide additional functionality and solve more problems. The moreutils package builds on the concept of coreutils and extends the power of the command line further. As the project's website states: "moreutils is a growing collection of the Unix tools that nobody thought to write long ago when Unix was young."
The moreutils package includes 15 new commands which I will summarize below. The package is available on most Linux distributions and FreeBSD. On Debian, the entire moreutils package is just 58kB in size, but it provides valuable tools for anyone who spends a lot of time on the command line. What follows is a list of the 15 programs included in moreutils with usage examples.
chronic: Runs a command quietly unless it fails.
The chronic command is useful for running cron jobs or other scripts where, if everything works, we want no output, but if things go wrong we want a lot of output. For example this backup job will happen quietly, unless something goes wrong and then we will get to see which files did not copy successfully.
chronic rsync -av ~/Documents/ ~/Backup
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combine: Combine the lines in two files using boolean operations.
Combine uses logic operators to find and display lines in one or both text files. This allows us to find lines unique to one file, or lines which appear in both files. For example, if I have file1 with the lines
Jesse
Bob
and file2 which contains the following lines
Jesse
Susan
then the command below will display "Jesse".
combine file1 and file2
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errno: Look up errno names and descriptions.
Anyone who has done some programming has run into error numbers (errno) and had to look up what the error code or abbreviation meant. The errno command does this instantly. We pass the program either a number or the code abbreviation and it gives us the error number's description. Running the following command returns: "EINTR 4 Interrupted system call"
errno eintr
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ifdata: Get network interface information without parsing ifconfig output.
Chances are if you have configured a network interface using the command line you have run the ifconfig command and browsed through its output, looking for specific values. Perhaps you were looking for an IP address or the amount of data flowing in or out of the network. The ifconfig output is usually taken as a whole or parsed, but when running scripts it is better to be able to get just one specific piece of network data. The ifdata (interface data) command looks up and displays just the information we specify. For example, the following command prints our computer's IP address:
ifdata -pa eth0
* * * * *
ifne: Run a program if the standard input is not empty.
The ifne (if not empty) command is useful if we only want to run a second command if the first command did output something. For example, the following command will search the current directory for files modified within the past week. If matching files are found the ifne program tells the user, otherwise it stays quiet.
find . -mtime -7 | ifne echo Found something
* * * * *
isutf8: Check if a file or standard input is UTF-8.
The isutf8 command simply checks the encoding of a text file (or standard input). The command returns the value of true (zero) when the text it checks is UTF-8 encoded. Otherwise a value of false is returned. The following example checks a text file and reports "Yes, it is UTF8" if the file uses UTF-8 encoding:
isutf8 my-text-file.txt && echo Yes, it is UTF8
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lckdo: Execute a program with a lock held.
The lckdo program blocks a command from running while another program has a lock in place. Alternatively, lckdo can be made to wait for another program to finish. This is useful if we want to run commands at about the same time, but they might conflict with each other.
The lckdo command creates a lock file and, while the lock file exists, other commands checking for that lock file cannot proceed. By default, when the lock file already exists, lckdo will simply quit. In the following example, the do-something script never runs because a lock file blocks it.
lckdo mylock sleep 60 &
lckdo mylock do-something
In this next example, we launch a backup script in the background. The second lckdo command waits (due to the -w flag) until the backup is finished and then prints "Done backup" to the screen.
lckdo mylock backup-script &
lckdo -w mylock echo Done backup
* * * * *
mispipe: Pipe two commands, returning the exit status of the first.
Usually, when we pipe two commands together, the shell retains the exit status of the last command to run. This is typically what we want, but the mispipe command allows us to get the exit status of the first command in a series of pipes. In this first example, using the shell's default behaviour, the exit status of the whole line is false (or 1).
echo hi | false
echo $?
Now, using the mispipe command, we can pipe the same two commands and get the exit status of echo which will be true (0).
mispipe "echo hi" "false"
echo $?
* * * * *
parallel: Run multiple jobs at once.
The parallel command operates a lot like running a series of commands in the background in parallel using the & symbol. The nice thing about the parallel program is we can specify options and limit the number of jobs to run at one time. This allows us to run, for example, twenty jobs in the background, but limit the processing to four at a time to avoid overloading the system. I will not go into all the many options and ways we can pass arguments to commands. Instead, here is a very simple command which will print the numbers "one", "two" and "three" in an unknown order. (In my case the output was "two one three".
parallel -- "echo one" "echo two" "echo three"
* * * * *
pee: tee standard input to pipes.
The tee command is used to copy output from a command into two places. This allows us to both print output to the screen and pass it through a pipe to another command. The pee command does something similar with input. This allows us to pipe the same input to multiple commands, as many as we like. The following is a crude example where, if we type various words into standard input, the grep command will search for the text "hello" and, if it is found, print the word on our screen.
pee "grep hello"
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sponge: Soak up standard input and write to a file.
The sponge command may be my favourite of the moreutils programs. Using sponge we can collect output from another command and write it to a file. This allows us to nicely side-step the common problem of redirecting output back to the file it came from.
Let us look at a common task which goes horribly wrong because it accidentally wipes out the myfile.txt file, leaving us with a blank and useless file:
sort myfile.txt > myfile.txt
The problem arises because the > symbol causes the shell to begin by creating an empty file called myfile.txt. This wipes out the file we want to sort before we get to sort it. With sponge we sort the file, soak up all the sorted data and then open a new, empty file with the same name. The following example is the correct way to do what we wanted to do above:
sort myfile.txt | sponge myfile.txt
Technically, the sort command can write to an output file if we wish, but many commands do not provide this convenience.
* * * * *
ts: Timestamp standard input.
The ts command prefixes input lines with the current time. This feature can be useful if we are piping logs and want to add timestamps. As an example, the following command constantly checks mylog for new entries. When a new entry is found, the new line is timestamped and written to the timestamped-log.txt file.
tail -f /var/log/mylog | ts > timestamped-log.txt
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vidir: Edit a directory in your text editor.
This is another tool that I was thrilled to find. The vidir command opens a given directory in your shell's default text editor. Each file and directory is placed on its own line in the editor. We can then delete or change lines to rename and delete files. When combined with a powerful text editor like vim this allows us to do complex pattern matching to rename or remove files.
* * * * *
vipe: Insert a text editor into a pipe.
A scenario I run into fairly often is I have created a bunch of output from one command and I want to pass it to another. But first I need to filter out or change a few lines. This means I either need to get creative with sed or awk, or I need to save the output to a text file, edit the file and then pass the edited file to the next command. This introduces a bunch of extra steps and slows down the process, plus I need to clean up my temporary files afterwards. The vipe program accepts standard input as a file to edit, then when we close the editor, it sends the text we changed to the next pipe.
In this example we sort a file, then make changes to it in a text editor. When we quit the editor, the head command displays the first ten lines of the edited text.
sort myfile.txt | vipe | head
* * * * *
zrun: Automatically uncompress arguments to command.
Sometimes we have a compressed file and we want to unpack it and then open it with another command. Usually this is a three step process: uncompress the file, launch the program that needs the file, remove or re-compress the file. The zrun program decompressed the file and passes it to another command. When the command completes, the decompressed data is removed, leaving us with just the compressed copy of the file. There is nothing for us to clean up.
In some ways zrun is similar to zcat in that it gives us access to decompressed data. However, zcat prints the contents of a file to standard output while zrun treats the decompressed data like a file to be passed as a parameter to another command.
In the following example we access the contents of a compressed text file and pass it to the sort utility. The sorted data is displayed on the terminal.
zrun mytext.txt.gz sort
* * * * *
One aspect of the moreutils project I greatly appreciate is the manual pages for each command are fairly short and contain examples. These commands rarely have more than a few options apiece and how to use these options is explained clearly.
The moreutils project is gradually growing and adding more useful commands. Further information on the project and its commands can be found on the moreutils website.
* * * * *
For more command line tricks and tutorials, visit our Tricks and Tips 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: 226
- Total data uploaded: 42.2TB
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| Released Last Week |
MidnightBSD 0.8
Lucas Holt has announced the release of MidnightBSD 0.8, a new stable build of the project's FreeBSD-derived operating system developed with desktop users in mind: "MidnightBSD 0.8 released. MidnightBSD 0.8 includes several enhancements to the system. We switched system compilers from GCC 4.2 to LLVM/Clang 3.3 with plans to update to newer versions. We're making use of libdispatch in our package manager. Several long-standing bugs with the mports framework have been fixed." The release comes with several interesting mports (MidnightBSD's packages), but also a warning: "Notable mports to try: mlogind - the new MidnightBSD login manager; mport manager - a graphical front-end to MidnightBSD's package manager; Lumina desktop environment (there is no package for this yet); Xfce 4.12; Gnome 3.16.2. Note: this release is a little weak on packages and that will be corrected over time. Many ports actually work if you build from source, including Ruby, and GNOME 3. We also made progress on the OpenJDK 6 port." Read the full release announcement for further details.
ReactOS 0.4.2
The ReactOS project is an open source operating system which attempts to be binary compatible with Microsoft Windows. The ReactOS project has released a new version, ReactOS 0.4.2. The new release improves compatibility with Windows applications via WINE and includes the ability to read and write with several Unix/Linux/BSD file systems, including ext, ReiserFS and UFS. "Beyond the usual updates to external dependencies such as Wine and UniATA, much work has gone into refining the experience of using ReactOS, especially with respect to the graphical shell and the file explorer. Perhaps the most user visible change however is the ability now to read from and write to several Unix file systems, namely ext family, ReiserFS, and UFS. Native built-in support for these file systems should make for considerably easier interoperability than the current out-of-box experience provided by Windows, and there is more to come in the future." Additional information can be found in the release announcement.
BlackArch Linux 2016.08.19
Gaurov Soni has announced the release of BlackArch Linux 2016.08.19, an Arch-based live distribution with a large collection of tools designed for penetration testing and security research: "Today we released new BlackArch Linux ISO image. The new ISO image include over 1,500 tools. Here's the changeLog: include Linux kernel 4.7.1; updated BlackArch Linux installer; added more than 100 new tools; updated all BlackArch tools; updated all system packages; updated menu entries for window managers (Awesome, Fluxbox, Openbox). The following newest tools have been added: anti-xss - an XSS vulnerability scanner; shelling - an offensive approach to the anatomy of improperly written OS command injection sanitisers; pathzuzu - checks for path substitution vulnerabilities and logs the commands executed by the vulnerable executables; gef - multi-architecture GDB enhanced features for exploiters and reverse engineers...." Visit the project's blog to read the brief release announcement and to learn more about the recent addition to the distribution's toolkit.
SparkyLinux 4.4
The SparkyLinux distribution is based on Debian's Testing branch and is available in several editions. The project's latest release, SparkyLinux 4.4, is available in five different desktop flavours. The new version offers updated packages for the kernel and Firefox. The ability to easily install additional desktops, including PekWM, Trinity and Lumina, through the APTus utility has been added. "New, updated live/install ISO images of SparkyLinux 4.4 "Tyche" are available to download now. As before, Sparky "Home" editions provide fully featured operating system based on Debian Testing, with desktops of your choice: LXDE, LXQt, KDE, MATE and Xfce. Changes between versions 4.3 and 4.4: full system upgrade as of August 15, 2016; Linux kernel 4.6.4 (4.7.1-sparky is available in Sparky repos, see how-to); Firefox 45.3.0.ESR (Firefox 48 is available in Sparky repos); Calamares is available (but not default yet) in our repos; new default theme called Numix-SX; added new desktops to Minimal ISO and APTus: Lumina, Trinity and PekWM..." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
SparkyLinux 4.4 -- The live desktop and application menu
(full image size: 2.2MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
What is holding you back from Linux?
We know from the e-mails we receive that many of our readers are interested in Linux, but have not yet made the leap and installed a Linux distribution on their computer.
Some people may not have found useful alternatives to their existing applications, others might be struggling with how different Linux is from their current operating systems, others might be running hardware which does not play well with Linux. This week we would like to know, for those of you who have yet to take the plunge, what is holding you back from becoming a member of the Linux community?
You can see the results of our previous poll on the status of Devuan here. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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What is holding you back from Linux
| Hardware/driver support: | 387 (10%) |
| Missing applications: | 434 (12%) |
| Learning different ways of doing things: | 51 (1%) |
| Not sure which one to choose: | 106 (3%) |
| One or more specific bugs I have encountered: | 76 (2%) |
| No need to switch from my current OS: | 68 (2%) |
| Politics or philosophy conflicts: | 27 (1%) |
| Other: | 84 (2%) |
| I am already running Linux: | 2476 (67%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to database
Remix OS
Remix OS is an operating system based on Android-x86. Remix OS merges the Android operating system with a PC/desktop style interface with a traditional desktop application menu.
Remix OS -- The default desktop
(full image size: 1.2MB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
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Distributions added to waiting list
- DidJiX. DidJiX is the free and open source digital DJ software Mixxx powered by the simple and lightweight Linux distribution ArchLinux on a usb live system!
- Refracta. Refracta is a Devuan-based operating system which includes several tools to help create CD/USB images of the live system.
- DuoCore. DuoCore is a Linux distribution based on openSUSE.
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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, 29 August 2016. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
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1 • Poll (by Jordan on 2016-08-22 00:17:07 GMT from North America)
Running linux 90% of the time. The Windows 10 laptop does get updated about once per week, along with a few hours of browsing or work.
But the work and main machine is and has been since 1998 linux of some distro or other. Every time I buy a new laptop, about every three years, I have to replace the Windows os with linux.. no biggie. But I do keep a Windows machine around.
2 • Opinion Poll (by HummingBurd on 2016-08-22 00:25:27 GMT from Europe)
What is holding you back from Linux=Hardware/driver support. Linux Debian, he no boot to live environment, only continually restarting.
3 • Opinion Poll ? (by bigsky on 2016-08-22 00:50:02 GMT from Europe)
@2 unplug the power cord and reboot. That usually works. Have a great day.
4 • @2 & @3 bigsky (by JackStephen on 2016-08-22 01:02:13 GMT from Europe)
@2 I too am having similar problem.
@3 bigsky Is that suggestion for real? If the power cord is unplugged, how can you reboot? You have a great day.
5 • Linux (by Pivoron@gmail.com on 2016-08-22 01:16:08 GMT from North America)
I run Linux 100% myself, but have not succeded in convincing wife and daughter to switch - they prefer to struggle and bitch😅
6 • Poll (by Pat on 2016-08-22 01:18:38 GMT from North America)
On my desktop I've been running linux for about 12 years. I was running it on my old laptop/notebook as well, but recently was forced to upgrade. The new machine is running the default Win 10 for the foreseeable future since linux power management on Skylake is atrocious and my Atheros wireless card, which theoretically has a driver in the stock kernel, won't work without extensive tweaking and firmware of unknown provenance. Once upon a time (like back in 2005 when I was using a Dell Inspiron 500M with single-core Pentium M and 512MB of RAM) I would have been willing to spend a day or two buried in command line tools to get my wireless working. But I've grown accustomed to my hardware actually "just working" in linux in the interceding decade and I don't want to hassle with it. I'm not at all nostalgic for those days with the Inspiron 500M where I had to use NDISwrapper and try out over a dozen Windows INF files before I found a driver that would work. I understand the reasons why new hardware is not well supported in linux, but it's definitely disappointing and a gigantic impediment to getting anything other than hobbyists and power users on board.
7 • Poll (by BobbiesYouAunt on 2016-08-22 01:20:48 GMT from Europe)
What is holding you back from Linux? Does Linux spy on people, by default or can get spyware installed similar to windows?
8 • Opinion Poll (by Danny on 2016-08-22 01:29:20 GMT from North America)
I simply need a lot of programs for my schooling that just won't work (or only sometimes have sort-of working counterparts) on linux. I've been using linux for the past ten odd years, but because my schooling requires a lot of visual studio for C#, and a couple programs for remote accessing desktops on their own proprietary software, which has no linux alternative, along with a couple others, i sadly just can't make the switch, even though i REALLY want to. The hatred i have for Windows 10 goes VERY deep, and it frustrates me to no end that I can't make the switch forever yet. But by end of next year, I will have ;).
9 • Gentoo the easy way (by dhinds on 2016-08-22 02:05:43 GMT from North America)
I am using Calculate Linux Desktop Xfce on this main desktop Computer, which is no harder to install than any other GNU/Linux distro.
Calculate is an overlay built on Gentoo that uses both the Gentoo and Calculate Repositories. In fact, I use the Gentoo forums (as well as the Calculate Forum), when needed.
It is Gentoo but easier to install and the Desktop versions include KDE and Mate, as well as Xfce.
Server and built your own editions are also offered.
No other distro has allowed me to run both Open Office and Libre Office and I find it more responsive than others at present. (I also use openSUSE, Manjaro, Sparky and Fedora as well as a number of Slackware derivatives).
They are all excellent distros and each has it's own advantages.
10 • Opinion Poll (by Timothy L. Miller on 2016-08-22 02:32:20 GMT from North America)
Been using Linux as my primary OS for 10+ years. Debian, Arch, Fedora, OpenSuse, Mageia, etc. Have a few Windows installs for games that I play, but other than that, everything I do is in Linux, and it's actually harder for me to work in Windows when I need to do things as I'm so much more comfortable in Linux now.
11 • Re; interesting poll question... (by tom joad on 2016-08-22 02:33:47 GMT from Africa)
I am 100% linux with the exception of one hard drive with a very out of date and unpatch copy of XP. I keep that for games, messing around and a reminder of the 'good ol' days' I guess. I have been completely Linux since '06. But I had versions up and running earlier and concurrently with windows.
I have moved the wife and my son to linux too. That was easy for me and for them. As long as the wife has a gui she is happy. I manage the computer so she doesn't have to do that.
My son moved to linux which he took to like a duck to water. He is techie competent. I answer his questions and stuff and he does the rest.
Both of them have to endure the hardship of windows where they work. And from the stories I hear, I do mean endure.
Me thinks the way MS is going now, by the time Windows 15 is released we, here, will be flooded with new users desperate to escape the maniacal grasp of Redmond. Linux folks don't have to do a thing other than refine the line and wait for the future onslaught. That whole windows thing will just collapse under its own weight. You can see it coming plain as day. And maybe sooner too.
12 • Points (by Billy Larlad on 2016-08-22 02:39:04 GMT from North America)
I don't mean to sound pedantic but it's worth noting that the BSDs don't come with the GNU 'coreutils' as part of the base operating system. The BSDs have each their own implementations of what we might consider the standard Unix tools.
The BSD tools are generally "simpler" than their GNU equivalents. For instance, on OpenBSD ls has about 30 options, whereas the coreutils version seems to have about 60. Also, there's some differences in what they consider to be 'core utilities.' That is why there is a 'bsdutils' and 'bsdmainutils' package in Debian. Between these two are contained programs such as banner, calendar, look, and script. That's also why the BSDs package the GNU coreutils as a third party application.
Good writeup, though! moreutils seems pretty neat.
13 • Windows (by Billy Larlad on 2016-08-22 02:43:11 GMT from North America)
I use Windows exclusively for games.
It is just too poorly designed to use for anything remotely important. The filesystem layout is terrible beyond belief, Explorer has the worst UI of any commonly used file manager, the updater rarely works, and now Windows 10 is full of crapware and spyware that comes directly from Microsoft. (I can only imagine how bad the situation is with cheap Wal-Mart laptops.)
14 • Refracta (by zephyr on 2016-08-22 03:21:28 GMT from North America)
Excellent to see Refracta added to DistroWatch. Particularly enjoy Refracta's xfce Devuan release, found it to be very stable and fast distribution without the bloat of systemd.
Refracta compliments also with some unique tools which are worthwhile exploring and using.
Have used Refracta for several years now and resides on one of my drives with Devuan replacing the Debian install. Have high praise for this unique and quite stable distribution and the devs at Refracta.
Special thanks especially to fsmithred, nadir, dzz, golinux, last but not least meandean for the continued and relentless support of Devuan.
Thanks folks!
15 • Poll (by Linux on 2016-08-22 03:50:10 GMT from Europe)
Hardware, Drivers, Applications will gonna be the great holding back parcel.
Though a little aged today, at the time I made the leap my hardware was very current yet all worked in Linux. I understand that, e.g., a xpto keyboard, head set, webcam.... may loose driver functionality with Linux. But most plain, standard hw will just work. Regarding software, at days when many despise a PC because Android does their thingies, being it Linux based, Linux should be ok for most.
In resume: would be interesting if those with the above mentioned issues, would be kind to write a comment here, elaborating on them.
16 • Poll (by argent on 2016-08-22 04:53:05 GMT from North America)
Came to Linux Debian about 5 years ago, other than printer support found it very accepting of my hardware and frankly it was not an up to date desktop computer, which I had pieced together. Now, running a board from Gigabyte that runs a 8 core processor, and supports 6 sata drives, ATI Radeon 7770 video card without proprietary software. Couldn't ask for a better machine.
Printer issues ended a few years back and blame it on myself not being more knowledgeable and abilities to configure the software.
Windows XP was the last OS by windows and don't miss any aspect of it, never have seen windows 10 but here it is a nightmare, along with much misery.
Decided to try Devuan, excellent lightning fast, thanks to both Star and Zephyr Linux based on Devuan. Like and enjoy window manger only desktops.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/linnix/?source=directory
https://sourceforge.net/projects/zephyrlinux/
Downloaded Refracta and found it to be an excellent xfce DE, lot of very nice progress in the Devuan world.
Thanks Jessie and DW
17 • @15 Linux (by EternityAwaits on 2016-08-22 05:30:10 GMT from Europe)
"at days when many despise a PC" For me the only despising I am hearing about PCs, is in regards to the Windows OS and the occasional person that cannot get Linux to "work" on their rig.
"In resume: would be interesting if those with the above mentioned issues, would be kind to write a comment here, elaborating on them." I cannot and will not speak for the others, but I am having a similar issue to posters numbers 2 and 4.
Here is what is happening in my case, when I try a Debian based distro, I get a computer restart when I hit enter on "Live DVD environment". More recently I tried Debian Jessie 8.5 ( 6 different DE) only three booted to live environment (I don't remember which 3 right now.) The one I really wanted was KDE, but it only restarted (loop) my computer. The 3 DE that did go to Live DVD, did not detect my wireless (showstopper).
My computer is not a bleeding edge, brand new, hot off the shelf, far from it. My computer is almost 6 years old. I am using AMD CPU and AMD GPU. Helpful info is appreciated, thanks. :)
18 • Poll contradiction (by Thom on 2016-08-22 05:31:01 GMT from Europe)
Am I the only one who find it contradictory that a poll aimed at "readers [who] have not yet made the leap and installed a Linux distribution on their computer" contains an answer option "I am already running Linux"?
Just saying... :-)
19 • Poll (by Vargr on 2016-08-22 05:34:32 GMT from North America)
I am already running Linux on some machines but I voted "hardware/driver support" because this is what gets to me every time I buy a new machine. For example, most (non-Ubuntu) distributions have not yet implemented RTL8812AU driver support (found in the Alfa AWUS036AC wireles adapter, among others). In Ubuntu-based distributions it is offered through the rtl8812au-dkms package. Further, I am unsure to what degree the brand new AMD RX 480 graphics card is supported either by open-source or proprietary drivers.
On brand new machines I usually just stick to Windows for a while until I am certain that the drivers I need are supported in Linux. I'm done wasting time searching and searching for drivers that don't exist yet. Linux for me is a hobby, not a chore.
20 • Poll (by Leo on 2016-08-22 05:41:21 GMT from North America)
(Arch) Linux is my main driver. The only 2 things keeping me tied to Windows are:
1 the fact that I am a gamer and there are some in my collection that don't run well in Linux, and
2 the fact that I need Adobe Photoshop and Dreamweaver for college.
21 • @18 Poll contradiction by Thom (by JoshU on 2016-08-22 05:45:16 GMT from North America)
I agree.
It does sound funny. Question: What is holding you back from Linux? (Possible) Answer: I am already running Linux. Apparently these people are NOT being held back from Linux!?
22 • addendum (by Leo on 2016-08-22 05:45:25 GMT from North America)
BTW, my Windows 10 install is free from my college. And right now I can't do very much with it because it's constantly freezing due to the SSD/HDD problem with its Anniversary Update.
23 • Opinion Poll (by Rich52 on 2016-08-22 05:57:13 GMT from North America)
Been using Linux since the advent of Windows ME. Haven't looked back since the switch.
. I presently run 3 Desktop computers, 1 laptop and 1 Acer netbook with Linux and have tried all of the top distros. Presently Manjaro and Antergos are my favorites. They have shown great progress in my opinion over the past couple years. Linux just works. It's taken some time but now I feel it's coming around to a lot of people as a matter of choice and principal. Purchasing any proprietary software is just plain stupid and an never ending game software developers play to keep you on the hook to purchase newer 'improved' versions of the same crap.. which is loaded with spyware. . . license registrations etc. etc. etc. I'm sick of the manipulation when it comes to my money and what my computers will operate on and what software I will use. The choice to me is plain and simple.
24 • What was holding me back from Linux (by far2fish on 2016-08-22 06:20:15 GMT from Europe)
- Until late 2011, the major thing preventing me from migrating 100% to Linux, was I spent significant time playing games on Windows.
- From early 2012 I was 100% on LInux, but needed to have a virtual instance running WinXP available to cater for firmware updates to my HR running watches, and syncing trainging sessions for the same. Similar issue with compact camera and other gadgets.
- Since early 2015 I have not needed the virtual session either since my new HR watch can sync via wifi,
25 • Calculate linux (by bill on 2016-08-22 06:40:03 GMT from Oceania)
@9: Plus one for Calculate Linux, I have been using it for several months as an easy introduction to Gentoo. As far as I can tell it is 100% Gentoo underneath the Calculate layer. Easy to install (but not quite as easy as *buntu), access to all Gentoo packages through portage, the Gentoo wiki is applicable and the very knowledgeable Gentoo community for backup. Awesome!
26 • Opinion Poll (by Kurt on 2016-08-22 07:05:08 GMT from Oceania)
Yet another poor schmuck who is held back by hardware problems.
In my case it's that my 2* 5TB HDD in RAID 1 main data storage (Intel X99 chipset) isn't visible to the distros I've tried.
27 • Poll: Because language support was nonsense (by Tomas on 2016-08-22 07:08:38 GMT from North America)
I've tried switching strictly to Linux for years, but trying to get multiple language input working properly has always been complete garbage. Some languages work, others don't; some applications work, others don't. I've spent entire weekends failing at getting iBus and other programs working, only to give up and go to OSX where I could just check some boxes and have all the languages I wanted.
Recently things are better, and most of the time I can get all the languages I use running in iBus, but some distros still don't work properly with all languages.
28 • Poll (by John on 2016-08-22 07:18:47 GMT from Europe)
I voted: No need to switch. Because I'm running FreeBSD. And I will till I die.
29 • Re: Poll (by Andy Mender on 2016-08-22 07:41:20 GMT from Europe)
Don't mean to sound pedantic, but should the question not read "What's holding you back from UNIX?" ?
For several months now I've been running FreeBSD on all of my personal PCs and I am very happy with it. It's simpler than GNU/Linux and oftentimes actually easier to configure. The only rules that really apply are "Don't be afraid of the command-line" and "Don't be afraid of reading". Everything else is in theory just a breeze ;).
30 • Missing applications - aka Games (by Stan on 2016-08-22 09:20:12 GMT from Europe)
@Home: I'm running Linux, but I still dual boot because of certain games...
@Work: Smooth the Active Directory integration in general, Fedora is amazing and so simple to setup. Still some missing apps (free or paid) for some niche tasks, there are some cloud web based solution but native apps are ideal. Nothing that some Linux support from the existing software vendors could not fix.
31 • Re: Poll (by Greg on 2016-08-22 09:34:47 GMT from Oceania)
I always seem to have two systems, a Linux system that has been variously Debian or LinuxMint since Mint7 or 8 and a Macbook. The Macbook travels with me for work and the Linux systems acts as a server in my office. I guess since my Solaris days and before that with VMS I never really went for the Windows option.
32 • Linux adoption barriers (by Mr B on 2016-08-22 09:42:28 GMT from Europe)
I could have honestly ticked most of the selections for barriers to Linux adoption. We have four desktop PCs and two laptops ALL of which run some form of Linux. All but one of those machines – NAS running OMV - also dual boots Windows and on my desktops the two OSes are on different HDDs. I did that on purpose. My daily workhorse runs Linux Mint Rosa and my wife uses Ubuntu 14.04. I am mostly very happy with it; I use it for writing, email, web browsing etc. I can do basic audio editing with Audacity too. Ripper X is pretty decent for extracting music CDs to MP3 format.
In terms of applications, I realised some time ago that I am happiest using the best quality cross-platform software – Firefox, Audacity, LibreOffice, VLC, GIMP, Filezilla, Thunderbird to name but several. I have a Windows 10 setup, which I quite like but rarely use. I just want to keep up-to-date with technology. My favourite version of Windows is XP and always will be. I will always have a disk with it on as long as I possibly can. My XP box is not connected online for security’s sake.
I have tried to do video editing using several Linux programs and failed in every case – some don’t even work. Despite the hard work of the dedicated coders the software is nowhere near as good as Vegas Studio or Power Director. All the best music production software runs on Windows or OSX.
Similarly, I have never found a database program that serves my needs as well as Approach from Lotus Smartsuite. I still use Quicken 2000 on XP. I don’t care that it’s old because it works perfectly. GNUCash is too complicated for my needs and Linux versions of Homebank are behind the Windows versions. Other than the cross-platform software mentioned above much of the open-source software I’ve tried isn’t suitable for my needs. Yes, there may be 40,000 programs in the repositories but I don’t want to use them. GUIs are often crude and clunky compared to Windows equivalents. It annoys me when people preach about all this software being great because, in many cases, I truly feel they are deluding themselves simply to justify their stance on open-source. The issue of software is a thorny one. I think large software companies won’t port their stuff to Linux because a) they know the market share is quite small and b) they are smart enough to realise that avid open-source fans won’t be too keen on paying for software when there is so much free stuff.
I would love to switch to Linux completely but it’s unlikely I will ever do that. I think Linux is ideal for very specialised uses – servers, supercomputers, embedded devices, Raspberry Pi etc; and very general uses – email, word-processing, web browsing etc. To me, there is a great chasm that exists between those two extremes and until that is addressed Linux will remain the poor relation on the desktop. Despite my concerns, I am still a big fan of open-source – both software and philosophy – and I will carry on using it for everything I CAN do with it.
33 • Gentoo Linux live DVD "Choice Edition" (by btree on 2016-08-22 09:54:47 GMT from Europe)
I enjoy DistroWatch Weekly - but this weeks Feature Story is weak.
It is "nice" to tell, how you installed it and / or what worked - but not 30% of the writeup.
Why is Gentoo special, what makes it different then other Distros?
"Part of Gentoo's appeal is the ability to tweak things for a specific system using a variety of setting flags to configure things and other advanced options."
I'm sorry, but you you really think that does Gentoo any justice?
34 • Gentoo review (by bill on 2016-08-22 10:07:26 GMT from Oceania)
@33: Yes, I was wondering how to put that nicely. I also usually enjoy reading DW reviews but this review of Gentoo does not even scratch the surface of what this distro is about and the reasons why so many people use it.
35 • "The documentation is thorough and well written." (by a on 2016-08-22 10:34:44 GMT from Europe)
My experience was that Gentoo’s installation instructions and documentation in general is terribly written: way too verbose and often not giving clear instructions, in the wrong order.
36 • Gentoo (by a on 2016-08-22 10:36:44 GMT from Europe)
PS: I do use and like Gentoo, but the first installation was an horrible pain.
I also think the review was a bit strange. Based on the writing at the end it looks like Jesse didn’t actually install Gentoo.
37 • BlackArch (by lamproite on 2016-08-22 10:45:35 GMT from North America)
Perhaps, BlackArch could have been made a bit smaller. The iso can't be burned to a normal DVD, at its current size.
38 • Poll object (by P.K. on 2016-08-22 10:46:38 GMT from Europe)
I would have voted for: "I am still evaluating which distro to choose (due to the humongous variety)"
39 • @32 (by Jose on 2016-08-22 11:21:57 GMT from North America)
I used to use Quicken as well until I discovered MoneyDance. MoneyDance works on Linux, MACs and Windows. It resembles Quicken and the coder is open to suggestions.
It isn't Open Source software, but then again, neither is Quicken.
40 • #36 (by jadecat09 on 2016-08-22 11:28:42 GMT from Europe)
That is because Jesse did not do the review.
41 • @40 (by a on 2016-08-22 11:37:47 GMT from Europe)
Right, thanks for the correction. I was fooled by the introduction that looked like Jesse’s writing.
42 • @ Joshua on Gentoo (by Alexi on 2016-08-22 12:01:35 GMT from Europe)
>>I opted for the multilib image, downloading the 3GB ISO. However, I quickly ran into problems when I tried using the ISO in Windows 10. VirtualBox failed to work with the disc at all, even though the hash for my download verified. I could not even get Windows itself to mount the image as a virtual drive.<<
Windows 10?!!
Aren't we in the wrong place to discuss how Windows 10 works with Virtualbox or whatever?
>>However, I could copy the ISO to a USB flash drive using a variety of tools without problem and the USB drive booted Gentoo with no problems. While I could reproduce this experience with the other Windows computer I have access to, I had zero issues with the ISO in Fedora and Ubuntu. <<
Exactly! We are talking about Linux and BSD here, not Windows.
>>Unfortunately, this issue makes it harder for Windows users who just want to try out the Gentoo live DVD in a virtual environment.<<
Nuts!
Its even hard for "normal" Linux users, let alone for click-and-shoot Windows users.
It'd be nice, if the reviews be pointed to "normal" users than complaining how hard it is for Windows 10 users.
43 • Poll (by Zork on 2016-08-22 12:15:13 GMT from Oceania)
100% Linux except for a work laptop with Win 10 which I use with the documents I originally created on my Linux desktop...
Started my Wife, who was almost totally computer illiterate, using lubuntu 12.04 and moved her up to using Ubuntu 14.04 LTS... Recently got her a Laptop running Win 10... Now she understands why I complain so much about Windows and wants Linux on it...
A lot of the resistance to using Linux could be that people go with what they first learn to use and schools ( at least in Australia ) are using Windows due to Government contracts...
This also flows back to when Business was asked what skill-set they'd like students to have probably replied "Able to use Windows and Microsoft Office"...
44 • Is Joshua a newbe to Linux? (by Lenni on 2016-08-22 12:23:50 GMT from Europe)
"The Gentoo install documentation breaks the process down into ten main steps, though the process is broken down into many smaller pieces, so there really is more than ten things to do. Beginning with a working Linux environment, such as the Gentoo install image or the live DVD, users work through all the steps by hand instead of having an installer do it for them. Users have to partition a hard drive, install the base Gentoo software, and configure almost everything themselves, from the boot loader and kernel to the specific software packages they want installed beyond the Gentoo core packages. Suffice it to say this process takes a lot more time than using Ubuntu's Ubiquity or Red Hat's Anaconda installer."
Then goes on to say, "Once the base of the system is installed, installing software on Gentoo is handled by Portage. Using the command line, users can install a program using the emerge command."
I am 100% sure Joshua Holm didn't install Gentoo, or even tried to so. Comparing the Gentoo installation method to Ubiquity or Anaconda tells that he had never done that.
45 • Linux Poll (by Rick on 2016-08-22 12:28:02 GMT from North America)
I have been running Linux off and on since 2006 (Ubuntu 5.04 - Hoary Hedgehog) and full-time since late 2011. There is no compare to its efficiency and mostly trouble-free performance. I am now running Linux Mint MATE 17.3 and Ubuntu MATE 14.04 on my 4 Lenovo Thinkpads. I recently purchased the 4th Thinkpad from eBay which had Windows 7 Pro on it. Despite spending many hours trying to tweak it for efficiency, it still ran sluggishly and was a memory hog. So I blew it away and installed Linux. Most of the devices in the entire world run on some form of Linux. Let's face it: Microsoft's glory days are numbered. They're still trying to sell Windows based on a philosophy that no longer works and they are failing miserably. Long live Linux!
46 • From P/T linux user in '99 to full time since 2007 (by BRaD on 2016-08-22 12:32:18 GMT from North America)
Started w/ Suse, mandrake, Redhat... then Lindows, Ubuntu 5.x if I recall correctly.. then PcLinuxOs.. then Gentoo for a day, Slackware for a few days..(but I did get both installed) Then Archlinux and haven't looked back. I tell people... it's totally up to them.. I don't deal w/ viruses, flash issues, browser issues, bat file issues, registry issues, constant defraggin, virus scans, malware scans, freezes that make you restart the computer, and so much more.. it's freedom from working to get your computer working instead I do work with my computer. I say use what you can understand, install or can afford..
47 • Thank you! torrent corner (by Marcos Mora on 2016-08-22 12:58:27 GMT from South America)
Many thanks for seeding the SystemRescueCd 4.8.1 ISO torrent. You really listen to your reader's emails. I'm downloading right now and the CD will be put to good use on my client's pcs. Many will benefit.
I need to ask, is there any reason the "kaspersky rescue disk 10" is not part of the distrowatch database? are there any other linux distros that focus on live malware removal? are there other rescue disks that are kept current like SystemRescueCd? (I looked it up and all i found are outdated).
Keep the good work!
48 • Poll (by John T on 2016-08-22 13:02:01 GMT from North America)
I had to choose "missing applications", although like many more than one choice could have been made. In my case it's Quicken, which I've not had much success with under Wine, and I've no interest in any alternative which will not directly import my more than 20 years of data WITHOUT me having to mess around with things afterwards. And I'll agree with #32 that the older Quicken versions are big improvements over the newer. :-) I'll look (thank you, #39) at MoneyDance, though I think I have in the past already. But, also, like #8, I've coursework which requires Windows-based software.
49 • Remix OS - new distros added to the data base (by Alex on 2016-08-22 13:10:33 GMT from North America)
Maybe, its because of the Windows talk today that Remix OS was "added to the data base."
Distrowatch should try to install a distro, before adding it and data base. Distrowatch should tell us how to install Remix OS on a Linux/BSD computer, now that it had added it here.
Of course, there are ways to install RemixOS in Linux, but the its read me tells, "NOTE: Currently, installation tool only supports Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10, with a minimum capacity of 8GB. Other system users, please install on USB flash drive."
Only, you need a Windows computer do do so.
50 • poll "contradiction" lol (by Jordan on 2016-08-22 13:11:48 GMT from North America)
I have a friend at work who routinely checks in DW to look at linux features and to see which ones are moving up and down the page hit rankings.
I thought for sure she had linux on a machine at home but says it's all mac.
Must be others like her. I wonder how many look in here and have no linux at all.
51 • Gentoo's place in the GNU/Linux ecosystem (by Andy Mender on 2016-08-22 13:12:05 GMT from Europe)
It's nice to see an official Gentoo liveCD/DVD was produced once more. With it, many people can at least have a taste of this great operating system. However, I think it should be very clearly stated early on in the review - Gentoo is NOT for everyone. It's not a "Friday, checking out my new Linux distro with my BFF" thing. For non-UNIX and non-computer people it will pose tremendous difficulties, especially if one wants to make the best of it.
I tried Gentoo several times, finally to stick around with it for longer. It's a great GNU/Linux distro, especially if one wants to do some serious software development for UNIX. However, I moved on to FreeBSD as it was genuinely easier to set up anew and I get things going :).
52 • Poll Question (by cykodrone on 2016-08-22 13:22:34 GMT from North America)
I was a part-time Linux user from the middle 2000s up until 2010, then I went completely MS free. Sure, I had to make a few tiny sacrifices, like a couple of minor apps that would only run in Windows, but I learned to live without them or found equivalent apps in Linux. I decided that if I could spend countless hours constantly fixing, maintaining, finding drivers and bolstering security in Windows, I could do it for Linux. The difference is, once I got Linux setup and tweaked to my liking (for an example, I have a full set of system sounds in Devuan Xfce), that was it, the fixing and tweaking ended, I could just use my computer without the white knuckles (the virus paranoia was especially fun, lol). This is my second high-end home-built PC running ONLY Linux, the first one was an Intel based, this one is AMD based (no Nvidia either), I've used Raids on both PCs, my printer, webcam, etc, without issue.
I was so appreciative of my new found freedom, I made a few donations to some distros and app developers, when my financial situation allowed it, they have to eat and keep the lights on too.
Ironically, Linux was the 'cure' for my computing "cancer" (Steve Ballmer), not the other way around, sorry Steve.
This is why I'm so vehemently anti systemd, it reeks of predatory corporate behaviour, those who are lulled in to using this kernel/system smothering octopus will live to regret it (since when does an 'init' need networking capabilities? ask yourself who or what is it 'talking' to). I'm going to whiz my pants laughing when RH pulls the GPL. It's never good to get 'addicted' to anything in life, on or off your computer. More and more standalone apps are requiring systemd as a 'dependency', the day my favourite apps (LibreOffice, Clementine, VLC, DeVeDe, etc) refuse to work without systemd, that's the day I stop using Linux, I'll go buy Mac laptop or something, f*** it.
53 • Gentoo (by scrumtime on 2016-08-22 13:51:32 GMT from North America)
totally agree with #9,25 regarding Gentoo and Calculate...
I like this live distro from gentoo gives me some time to play with some different apps etc.. always found Gentoo live distros run as good as good as installed....I have had a few other distros that really dont.
wish it was around when i first spent a long weekend trying to install Gentoo a few years back ..it ended up being the best OS i have ever used .. sadly the comp died due to Humidity issues where i lived..
I use Calculate now due to laziness in wanting from trying to install Gentoo again ...
Re Poll, I fi remember what slowed me taking up Linux...it was due to applications though I am 99% linux I do have a windows 7 inmy office as i have special apps designed for us which i cant get made for Linux..
54 • @39 Moneydance (by Mr B on 2016-08-22 13:56:33 GMT from Europe)
Jose,
Thanks for letting us know about Moneydance - it looks really good and is a great illustration of what I would like to see more of in the software arena. Great-looking website with clear information and easy links to download the program in all popular forms across the main OS platforms. Furthermore, one licence is valid for all personal computers in your home irrespective of operating system. That is great value. This is the approach taken by the creator of Jutoh (ebook creation software) too. Coincidentally, both companies are based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
55 • Poll (by Chris on 2016-08-22 14:30:35 GMT from North America)
Of course there's an answer for "I'm already running Linux." Many people who are on this site are running it and have nothing holding them back. I run Linux every day, I don't run Windows at all at home. I only use it at work when I have to, but my job doesn't have me on the computer a lot. I have no dual boots and really don't miss much in the way of software. (I run nothing in WINE, it's Linux native or bust) I've found Linux native programs for everything I do with my computers, including games. I've got lots of Linux native games thanks to Steam and GOG. I run Nvidia graphics, so no issues with hardware support. So, I'm all set up and Linux gives me everything I need.
56 • Linux (by BILL S. on 2016-08-22 14:54:11 GMT from North America)
I use Linux exclusively since Ubuntu 9.10 which is what came with the book I bought on learning Linux. I taught my wife and kids to use it and they do with one exception; the wife still needs Windows 7 to run SIMS II & III.
I bought a new Laptop recently and deleted the windows 10 partition on it. But I confess I have 5 distros on it just to play.
57 • @26 Raid 1 problem (by cykodrone on 2016-08-22 16:04:14 GMT from North America)
Try something that loads the Raid storage driver during the initramfs part of the boot process. Something Debian or Ubuntu based, like Mint for example, boot it live, if it 'sees' it live, you're good to go for an install.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initramfs
If you try something like Devuan, you will have to do an 'Expert' install and manually tell the installer to load/use the driver.
The X99 chipset appears to be well supported in Linux.
This may also be a no UUID (or use of it) issue, when I ran Debian Wheezy on a 'hardware' Raid (aka fakeraid), I had to shut UUID usage off to boot, tricky but it worked.
58 • Apps (by Fred on 2016-08-22 19:31:30 GMT from North America)
For me it has always been apps. In 2006 I started moving to Firefox, VLC, Star Office, etc., to slowly wean myself off. By 2014, I made the switch (I really liked XP). I miss my Notepad++ but use Geany instead. Found something to replace WinMerge. I have two programs I do use Wine for: one small proprietary one that no one will make for Linux (special niche). The other was Winamp because I just didn't like the other players available (I have 200+ playlists, so suffice it to say, most programs want to "organize my library" or become unwieldy because they want all playlists in their own tabs all the time). I recently discovered qmmp, which I think will be the replacement (it will be easier to firejail than Wine...).
For any temp stuff (e.g., tax software), I load up a VM, install Win7, do my stuff, then delete the machine. Actually, being able to download Win7 installation media from Microsoft was really the tipping point where I knew I could make the move since, unfortunately, I still need to have it available for a few special tasks (of course, I used to use Linux for that purpose before).
59 • Replace Win10 --> ?? (by Alex on 2016-08-22 19:39:55 GMT from North America)
Hey, great comments this week! I just bought a Dell laptop from Best Buy during their sale over the weekend. Want to put Linux on it instead of leaving Win10.
What are some good distributions to try? This is a low-end model, so my biggest concern is raw performance. I'm thinking Openbox with something, but I don't know what. Debian Jesse is just slow to boot compared to Wheezy (I think it's everyone's favorite init), but I don't really want something that isn't really supported with updates since I do want to be as recent as I can (mainly for browser security).
This is an experimental machine that I want to be able to safely break and not care. However, my time is limited, so I don't want to spend weeks making stuff work (or watching it compile) either.
60 • Windows - poll (by Alexi on 2016-08-22 19:40:01 GMT from Europe)
In the XP days, we had a nice time hacking it, with IceXp and miniXps, MicroXps etc. When Win7 came by, I moved completely to Linux. Few months ago, together with the new laptop, I got Win 8.1, which I liked. Then upgraded to Win10, that too I liked. Now, it is the anniversary upgrade of Win10; liking it and trying to hack it. Years of only Linux, taught quite a bit of hacking, creating live isos etc. Now is the time to play with that with Windows.
Oh, I don't care, if Windows is proprietary. I bought the laptop, but didn't sign any EULA or anything. I own laptop and and what's inside it. I like what I see in Win10, so the want to look inside to see how it breathes. In time, I'm going to install the OS that came with the laptop in another laptop, using Linux methods.
61 • Some further thoughts (by Mr B on 2016-08-22 20:16:05 GMT from Europe)
@58 - I like Notepad++ too but I think SCiTE is great and always stuck with it. It's not too difficult to install on Linux so I've got it on Windows & Linux.
@59 - Yes, lot's of great comments giving me ideas. Rather than just dump Windows 10 why not take an image of the laptop with Clonezilla and keep it safe? You've paid for a licence after all. If you sell the machine you can restore it to 'as new' condition. As for distros I'm a long-term Mint user but I like Linux Lite and Xubuntu too. I'd recommend them in the order I listed them.
@60 - I understand what you're saying and I'm sorry if I seem pedantic but you agreed to the EULA by using the software and technically you don't own it. That said, you should be able to use it any way you like, shouldn't you?
62 • Why Not Use Linux (by Matthew Eckelman on 2016-08-22 20:38:24 GMT from North America)
What is holding you back from Linux? This question is a bit paradoxical being on this website like asking, "Whoever is not here please raise your hand." anyway, I've confronted many who don't use Linux. Their reasons are:
1. "If its free then it can't be any good."
2. Some are heavily invested in a particular application like Photoshop. Some have Excel spreadsheet macros so convoluted that they will only run on Excel.
3. Yet others have spent thousands on MS certifications and see moving to Linux as flushing that all down the drain.
63 • Openbox distros (by Bill on 2016-08-22 20:46:10 GMT from Oceania)
@59: Two very nice Openbox distros are BunsenLabs Linux (a continuation of CrunchBang Linux and based on Debian with systemd unfortunately) and Salix Openbox (based on Slackware so no systemd).
64 • @61, @63 (by Alex on 2016-08-22 21:37:40 GMT from North America)
@61: Yeah, definitely going to clone it! :) I haven't even activated or booted to Win10 yet, just went straight to Clonezilla to run memtest. I use Mint, too, which I think I'll use as a benchmark. I'll take a look at your suggestions. :)
@63: I'll take a look at these two as well. I may try some distrohopping once I have something to benchmark against. I come from the Debian "tree," and this is a good opportunity to try something that's not it and see (people who use Slackware seem to love it if they stick with it).
65 • @64 (by Bill on 2016-08-22 22:18:51 GMT from Oceania)
"Once you slack you never go back"! Although I do dabble with Gentoo, Calculate, Void and some other interesting distros. My daily driver was Slackware 14 and 14.1 for years with plain vanilla XFCE. Slackware is absolutely rock-solid and stable, much easier to use than its reputation suggests and such a wonderful and helpful community.
66 • Remix os (by Steve on 2016-08-23 00:19:08 GMT from Europe)
Downloaded and burned Remix OS to dvd, thought i'd give it a go, Yes it does say windows or use a usb, Not everyone can afford to chuck USBs at every operating system out there, in the UK they are either a, low and crap or high and HOW MUCH!!! i'll stick to 100 dvds for a third of the price, thank you! Anyway, back on track, I burned said remix and went to boot up, it worked, until the Remix logo continued to flash on my monitor for half an hour without doing anything else, I gave up!
Yes i have the computer requirements recommended by the Remix homepage, Now back on Xubuntu 14.04 lts as i think 16.4 is terrible especially for watching movies, have they no idea that full screen does not mean leave a video player menu bar across the top of the screen???
67 • Poll Contradiction (by Mike on 2016-08-23 00:22:54 GMT from Oceania)
@18 @21. "making the Leap" may mean ditching windows altogether. "Already running Linux" may mean you are dipping your toes in the water and are still undecided. It's all harmless fun
68 • Poll results: Eighty percent (80%) happy with Linux (by Greg Zeng on 2016-08-23 06:42:37 GMT from Oceania)
Poll of Distrowatch regulars are less than two per cent (2%) of all desktop users. Linux exists mainly on aa server, cloud and IOT computer operating systems. On Desktop systems, it is barely used.
Most of the reasons for refusal to use Linux are based on the lack of acceptance in to Desktop world; poor games and hardware drivers, etc
“Lack of applications” (11%) of us, refuse to use Linux as our main operating system. The Linux know-it-alls do not know that that this can relatively easily be fixed.
1)Make WINE better.
Generally Linux handles the screen display font sizes better now. Slightly better than Windows. WINE is appalling, e.g. “q-dir” (freeware), or “Servant Salamander”, my two best file managers, that outdo everything Linux has ever offered.
2)Write more or better Linux script files.
Luckybackup sort-of-works, being based afaik, on script files. But it cannot match Windows “Fastcopy” (freeware) for speed, versatility, & flexibility.
FileFind should be GUI, drag-drop friendly, flexible and fast, usable on all NTFS-compressed partitions. Then it would replace Windows “Locate_x64” (freeware).
3)Improve Synaptic Package Manager.
Many (not all) “derived” Linux distributions know that the raw application package is bad. Linux distributions in general try to re-invent the application wheels, by forking or re-writing. No need. Just methodically re-write the desciptions to the applications, re-arrange the columns, add ergonomic colorings, and it is nearly complete.
4)Recognize that Android is Linux.
There are Android emulators for Windows. None for Linux, unless you use WINE. Canonical is using Debian-code to try to overcomeAndroid’s Limited powers (poor multi-processing, which Linux also seems to have afaik). Will RedHat, Fedora also respond to this Canonical challenge? Google for some reason has, be creating an Android -replacement, Fuchsia, which may or may not be BSD, Linux or Unix-based.
69 • @60 (by Thom on 2016-08-23 06:48:21 GMT from Europe)
"I bought the laptop, but didn't sign any EULA or anything. I own laptop and and what's inside it."
I don't think you quite understand how the concept of ownership in connection with a PC may not be what you expect it to be.
In essense, what you bought is a license to use your laptop. The software is owned by Microsoft and your only right is to use it as descibed in the EULA I strongly suspect you didn't bother to read and which you agreed to when you ckicked the 'accept' button on first startup. No signature needed.
In regard to ownership of the hardware, yes, the manufacturer can't prevent you from doing what you want, but you may want to educate yourself on concepts like SecureBoot or the DMCA, which specifically makes' circumventing an access control' a crime. So no, the hardware may not be yours in the sense that you may think. Welcome to the digital economy.
70 • Diving_in_and_staying_under_with_Linux-based_operating_system (by k on 2016-08-23 06:53:51 GMT from Europe)
Many fine and thought-provoking comments so far.
Relating to hardware environment, and adaptation/evolution of distros,
might live distro(s) that allow STABLE nstallation and live use off nanoSIM
cards for mobile devices including an iPhone as well as older mobile and
desktop devices make it most accessible to most users?
Are such live distros currently possible, and available?
71 • (by Dansemann on 2016-08-23 07:55:17 GMT from Europe)
I used Manjaro for about a year up until last week, when the latest update introduced a whole slew of issues that made me throw up my hands and give up, finally. Graphics drivers broke for good this time. GVFS forgot how to do networking. Libvpx update killed my browser.
Back on Windows, I'm treated to the luxury of proper drivers. It's not perfect, and vendor stuff like the Lenovo software suite is pretty ugly to use unless you cherry-pick. ICC profile took some work. But generally once it's set up, I can expect it to function.
I miss i3 a whole lot, though.
72 • Poll options (by lorb on 2016-08-23 09:46:06 GMT from Europe)
The poll lacks a "social" option:
"All my friends use Windows"
"The guy I always ask for Computer Help uses Windows"
"Everyone in my office uses Windows"
and so on.
73 • @71 (by Andy Mender on 2016-08-23 10:48:37 GMT from Europe)
Unless you need very specific, proprietary software, I highly recommend FreeBSD's -RELEASE branch and the quarterly ports tree together with it (enabled by default). I also did have major problems with updates on GNU/Linux operating systems, especially when using flaky stuff like the proprietary Broadcom drivers.
FreeBSD releases are incredibly stable and not a single one ever broke on me. How about giving it a try yourself? :)
74 • 69 Windows and stuff @ Thom (by Alexi on 2016-08-23 10:56:24 GMT from Europe)
"In essense, what you bought is a license to use your laptop. The software is owned by Microsoft and your only right is to use it as descibed in the EULA I strongly suspect you didn't bother to read and which you agreed to when you ckicked the 'accept' button on first startup. No signature needed."
I never signed anything or clicked a box. Anyway, I own the laptop and all inside it. I do what I want with it. If it gets broken on the way, its my problem. And, if I delete some files and folders, and still get the operating system to work, that's a plus. If Windows dies on the way, it is also not a big deal. I can live without Windows. All I am doing is, playing with it, not games, but with the files. We did that in the XP days, why not now?
Windows try hard to keep the files being copied, but its so simple with any live Linux iso. The laptop is hibernating, but a live iso would open the windows partition.
If Clonzilla can make a clone the windows install, then it can be copied to another computer and booted, I believe.
75 • The_reality_of_Linux_global_use (by k on 2016-08-23 11:35:21 GMT from Europe)
@ 72 Poll options by lorb on 2016-08-23
Not quite sure what you meant by "social" option, but according to information
my daughter shared from an article published by a reliable source about upcoming
25th anniversary of first Linux kernel release, those options you stated are
fairly pointless, except to dissect users' Politics or philosophy conflicts, since:
"Because of the dominance of Android on smartphones, Linux has the largest
installed base of all general-purpose operating systems."
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
76 • FreeBSD (by Bill on 2016-08-23 11:45:13 GMT from Oceania)
@73 Interesting, it has been a few years since I used FreeBSD, I might re-visit. Can you run Linux or Win in a VM OK? For the "very specific, proprietary software"?
77 • 73 FreeBSD @ Andy Mender (by Litvi on 2016-08-23 12:21:17 GMT from Europe)
Are there web browsers other than chrome, chromium and firefox for FreeBSD?
78 • Gentoo (by Tim on 2016-08-23 13:52:29 GMT from North America)
I love Gentoo, and I wish I was smart enough to use it as a main system. Installation is only part of the story, though. I have installed Gentoo, successfully, at least three times. My problems always arise when I'm trying to maintain the system.
Almost every time I try to install a new package, I have to add to the USE_FLAG configuration. It can be difficult to determine exactly which USE_FLAG(s) need to be added. I also seem to remember USE_FLAG requirement conflicts among various packages.
After dealing with the confusion for a while, I just go back to Arch Linux.
79 • Holding me back from Linux (by Ben Myers on 2016-08-23 14:21:35 GMT from North America)
Time and again on other on-line forums, I see a glib comment like "Well, just go to Linux if you don't like Windows." It's not that easy, and it may never be easy. Even if there were fully compatible Linux applications for every Windows program that one uses, there is the time-consuming planning and the grunt work of moving all of ones data from the world of Windows to exactly the right place in a Linux environment. There are no slick software tools to do this, and I doubt there will ever be. The Microsoft monopoly has succeeded in locking in most of the business world into its way of doing things with Windows-compatible application software. This is the reality, unfortunately. Let's all get used to it. ... or maybe come up with some magical Windows-to-Linux migration wizard software? Probably not in my lifetime.
80 • Gentoo (by curious on 2016-08-23 14:26:45 GMT from Europe)
Isn't Gentoo the distro which solves the problem of inefficient computer use (the CPUs spend most of their time doing nothing, waiting for user input) by ensuring that more time is spent compiling applications than actually using them?
As a result of the local optimization possible with such a system, the Gentoo-babysitter - NOT user ("In soviet russia, Gentoo uses you!") - saves a few micro- or millliseconds each time he or she actually gets around to using an application ...
81 • @58 (by Vukota on 2016-08-23 14:37:19 GMT from Europe)
I use Notepad++ in wine when I feel I need it. It works great when alternatives gives me hard time (are not configured to my liking or are missing particular feature which exists in another tool, but not the one I am using at the hand).
82 • @ 79 • Holding me back from Linux - Ben Myers (by Alexi on 2016-08-23 14:45:41 GMT from Europe)
Windows is a monolithic business entity, while Linux is just a kernel and those, who create Linux kernel based OSs are fighting each other, claiming their package system or package manager is the best and so on. Only one Linux OS developer appears to be earning real money, and that too by not giving that OS free, and that's Red Hat. Oh, don't say about the "community" creations of that OS.
83 • Gentoo based (by OhioJoe on 2016-08-23 14:51:24 GMT from North America)
No one has mentioned Sabayon? Gentoo based, easy to install and easy to use.
84 • Learing Unix... (by OstroL on 2016-08-23 15:06:37 GMT from Europe)
If you guys are really interested in Unix, you should try to find out "Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Ed., with source code," the most suppressed book.
85 • 59 • ?? (by Alex from North America) (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2016-08-23 18:44:38 GMT from North America)
You paid for hardware before verifying your preferred software will run on it!?
86 • @85 (by Alex on 2016-08-23 19:12:36 GMT from North America)
Yeah, I know what you're thinking because I had the same thought. I did some research before, and it's kind of a chicken and egg problem: unless someone has your exact model, you basically need to try it to know (which means you've already bought it). However, it was half price, and I can return it if I can't get things like wifi to work (no ethernet cable).
My bigger problem now is not having time to work on it. I got it cloned last night, which I hope worked (the machine powered off, which I believe is normal with no failures and that option). I've got some OS suggestions, so I just need to put on a baseline OS, check stuff (and boot times), then try a few of the suggestions.
87 • Holding me back from Linux (by slick on 2016-08-23 19:15:13 GMT from North America)
@ 82 Alexi: Would guess earning money is a good thing when it comes to developement of any operating system, distribution, etc. Good for Microsoft Windows, Red Hat , and eventually Fedora.
Really what it is all about is harvesting personal information and selling it to the highest bidder, real reason Windows 10 is free!
If Red Hat wants to have it coming in from both sides, greed is what it is!
88 • 87 • Holding me back from Linux @ slick (by Alexi on 2016-08-23 19:42:15 GMT from Europe)
Exactly! Earning money is good, and because the profit is there to work for, Windows and Red Hat thrives. If not for a millionaire to create Ubuntu, Linux wouldn't have come this far. Then came Google, gave something free got a lot back.
The Linux world is not monolithic. None wants to help the other. Look at Mint, it takes the Ubuntu base and a lot from Ubuntu, and then say it is the best. Give nothing back. So, the divided Linux world stays so small.
One guy say, I didn't find it good enough for me, so I went to create Arch, then the next guy says, he went to create Gentoo. Now, both guys are not with their created OSs/Distros. Another guy created Apt, and Debian, his name and his wife's name together, then went ahead tto divorce from his wife and Debian. Sabayon creator laughs at Debian and Ubuntu. Arch cult thinks all others are bad, except them, and it goes on and on.
Maybe, only Distrowatch won, for it is showing 100 distros in the front page hit ranking and 279 of them in the other page. We show division, not unity, the same way the politicians live.
89 • Openindiana Download?? (by Ken on 2016-08-23 20:19:50 GMT from North America)
Have tried several times to download Openindiana to no avail. Fastest download speed I've seen is about like dialup and it says it's going to take 3+ days to complete??
Why isn't this hosted on an FTP server somewhere? I don't do torrents because I don't want someone snooping around in my puter and FTP will restart disconnects and such as good as anything out there.
Just saying.................................
90 • @89 (by Bill on 2016-08-23 20:27:37 GMT from Oceania)
Use wget, it will resume if the connection is broken. So, for OpenIndiana Hipster 2016.04 Live DVD (32/64-bit x86):
wget http://dlc.openindiana.org/isos/hipster/OI-hipster-gui-20160421.iso
91 • Hold me back? (by Poet Nohit on 2016-08-23 20:41:21 GMT from North America)
Windows always has the best hacker software and warez. Linux gets a rep for being hacker-friendly, but good luck finding serious scenerware on it. That was the thing that held me back about fifteen years ago. Thankfully, I woke up and fled that mess like a burning building and haven't looked back.
92 • Deepin Linux (by Jeffrey Needle on 2016-08-24 01:54:42 GMT from North America)
Just booted the Deepin DVD. It's well known that Deepin removed their live boot -- it goes directly to the install screen. I noticed a second option -- boot failsafe -- and decided to try it. Voila! The live desktop! I don't know why this isn't better documented. I thought some might be interested.
93 • What's holding me back from Linux? (by some guy on 2016-08-24 04:16:13 GMT from Europe)
Nothing's holding me back. I've been using Linux for well over ten years.
But Gnome gets on my Gnerves. Every time I try to use Gnome 3, it has me screaming in pain within minutes. A Linux desktop should be straightforward and simple, like Xfce.
And without Gnome, who needs systemd? Let's lose them both!
94 • @77 Web browsers for FreeBSD (by Thomas Mueller on 2016-08-24 07:05:07 GMT from North America)
"Are there web browsers other than chrome, chromium and firefox for FreeBSD?"
Sure there are. Besides the text-mode Lynx and w3m, there are the graphic qupzilla, Midori, Netsurf, Xombrero. There is Seamonkey if you want the full Mozilla suite rather than just the browser Firefox.
95 • Re: FreeBSD stuff (by Andy Mender on 2016-08-24 11:23:49 GMT from Europe)
@76,
Yes, you can run Windows and GNU/Linux images via VirtualBox (well-documented, easy setup) or the native virtualization environment (well-documented, harder setup).
@77,
The main supported web browsers are Firefox and Chromium, ,yes. I, however, use Netsurf and w3m on my Dell Latitude E5500 with a single-core Intel Celeron M. Netsurf is especially worth looking into ("'surf" from ports or "surf-browser" from packages) as it is extremely lightweight yet handles most content rendering properly. I could even do Codecademy courses through it, without any problems.
@80,
Using Gentoo is not merely about that. I think it should be of paramount importance to be able to tailor software to one's actual needs. Unused, yet compiled-in features are not only "bloating" the software, but are also a potential source of vulnerabilities. A watchtower that is not watched by the watchmen may be taken by surprise.
96 • 88 • 87 • Holding me back from Linux (by Greg Zeng on 2016-08-24 12:00:56 GMT from Oceania)
"None wants to help the other. Look at Mint, it takes the Ubuntu base and a lot from Ubuntu, and then say it is the best. Give nothing back." ...
Mint , a child of Ubuntu, popularized many techs: MATE, Nemo, etc. It had to separate from Ubuntu instead team co-develop, to explore risky, new techs.
"So, the divided Linux world stays so small." Senior business people know that market share is hard to gain, easy to lose. Linux might claim to attract competent business people, but Linux has yet to find any marketing tricks that outdo the current leaders.
Marketing ergonomics is needed, such better definition of operating system users, their "religious" practices-beliefs, ... which then allows growth, etc to bigger markets. Witness the many releases from other producers: Google, Samsung, Dell, HP, Microsoft, and even tiny Ubuntu.
"Maybe, only Distrowatch won, ... We show division, not unity, the same way the politicians live."
Distrowatch is an accurate reflection imho, of its traditional origins. Greater management wisdom is lacking in all traditional followers, who usually discount the expertise beyond traditional areas.
The computer "middleware" of Distrowatch is not just tight, legally-locked categories (open-source, etc). Birth, growth, aging & death of middleware is NOT totally controlled by legalities. Google's next operating system (Fuchsia) might be able to overcome the limits of both BSD-derivatives and Linux, with old Unix-based architecture, and poor multi-processing that cannot handle today's hardware possibilities, it seems. Whether Google will allow a more open-license is probably still being discussed internally.
97 • How to install Remix OS in Linux distro (by OstroL on 2016-08-24 13:56:42 GMT from Europe)
There is question of how to install Remix OS on a Linux computer. This "distro" had been added to the Distrowatch’s “data base,” but without telling the users, whether it can be installed in a Linux distro/computer. Anyone, who comes here thinks that it is a new Linux based distro to try, but can’t.
Okay, here’s a howto. I used a Ubuntu based distro to do this.
1) Download RemixOS from the link given in Distrowatch page. (http://www.jide.com/remixos-for-pc)
2) Extract the iso off it. Out of what you get, you need only initrd.img, kernel, ramdisk.img, system.img. You can't find the system.img, but you have system.sfs
3) Check, if you have squashfs-tools installed, and if not install it. Then do "unsquashfs system.sfs" You'd get a folder named squashfs-root, and inside that you'd find system.img. Now, you have initrd.img, kernel, ramdisk.img and system.img.
4) If you don't have a free partition, create one. I created a 20GB ext4 partition. (/dev/sda6)
5) As root, create a folder named remix in this sda6 partition and move (or copy) initrd.img, kernel, ramdisk.img, system.img in it.
6) Create also a folder named "data" in that remix folder. (without " ").
7) Check the UIID of that sda6 partition. Mine is e9dfbda1-fd4c-5eff-94ab-60ca4d80ae42
8) In terminal do "sudo nano /etc/grub.d/40_custom" and add
menuentry 'Remix OS' --class android-x86 {
insmod part_gpt
set root='hd0,gpt6'
search --file --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root e9dfbda1-fd4c-5eff-94ab-60ca4d80ae42
linux /remix/kernel root=/dev/ram0 androidboot.hardware=remix_x86_64 androidboot.selinux=permissive CMDLINE
initrd /remix/initrd.img
}
9) Do "sudo update-grub" and reboot.
10) Click on Remix OS and wait till it configures itself. Fill in the questions and you are in!
Now, you guys can check this Remix OS and if you want, comment about it.
98 • What a difference a decade makes (by Will Senn on 2016-08-24 14:02:50 GMT from North America)
"Installing Gentoo is certainly more complex and more time consuming than, for example, Debian, Ubuntu, or the legion of Ubuntu derivatives, but it is not that hard. "
Who remembers the day when Debian was a huge pain to install and the Debian folks were split into "if you're too stupid to get it installed, you don't need to use it anyway" and the "somebody outside of Debian can build eye candy installers if they wanna, but if ours is good enough for Ian its good enough for us" camps? Thankfully, somebody came to their senses and made everyone's lives better.
99 • @93 Gnome 3 (by linuxista on 2016-08-24 14:56:40 GMT from North America)
I've tried almost every desktop available on linux, from KDE to Awesome to dwm. For me Gnome3 is the clear winner. To each his own.
100 • What is holding you back from Linux? (by G Savage on 2016-08-24 16:39:38 GMT from North America)
Loved AntiX until I tried to get the audio to work. That was the deal breaker.
Went back to Mint XFCE I just don't have time for searching forums for exactly the correct line command. It has to work out of the box. Period. Very disappointed because I found it otherwise superior for my machine.
101 • @100 - MX-15? (by Uncle Slacky on 2016-08-24 19:25:40 GMT from Europe)
If you liked AntiX, you might also like its "big brother" MX-15, but I'm not sure if it handles audio differently.
102 • Linux@99 (by bigsky on 2016-08-24 19:42:15 GMT from North America)
I'm with you on that. To each his own. It's a work in progress but I downloaded MAUI LINUX and installed recently and can safely say everyday is a surprise. Have fun with linux folks and don't get to serious. Thanks
103 • Poll - (by slick on 2016-08-24 20:22:16 GMT from North America)
Left Windows for much the same reason everyone has, not a gamer so the transition a lot less painful.
Early on , actually first few attempts to get a Linux distribution installed was not an issue, had read enough about partitioning to adequately install my first Linux distro. Trial and error and I was up and running. Distro hopping started immediately and ended up with Debian. That was 5 years ago.
Now using Devuan, and Openrc only because systemd(eath) has Debian behaving as if it is running on a couple of misfiring cylinders. Debian which I still have installed on a multiple drive PC runs 30% above in memory useage at reboot, log-in idle. Poor performance over all, lacks that quick and smart behavior it once had with wheezy. Actually behaves much like I'm still running an old "slot A" processor with Debian with a few applications open.
Totally not against sysemd, just think they have had plenty of time to fix what ails it, from where I sit it has basically failed miserably and time to move on, or the Linux user will.
Linux to me is about choice, FOSS and KISS. Someone can argue that is all dead now and unity is the way to a unified Linux. That is the last thing Linux needs!
Fork, and fork some more until it all comes together, but it can't be forced with something like systemd.
104 • @101 • @100 - MX-15? (by G Savage on 2016-08-25 00:46:30 GMT from North America)
Yes, thank you that is an excellent suggestion. Mepis was my first successful distro. AntiX blew my mind with how fast, quiet and cool it ran; but I had to get the machine up and running in a hurry, so it will have to wait for experimentation on the next one. Cheers.
105 • AntiX and MX-15 (by Andy Mender on 2016-08-25 06:46:26 GMT from Europe)
@100, @101,
I tested both AnitX and MX-15 in the past and I have to say both are simply great! When running MX-15 I felt like back to Windows 98. Times of prosperity and efficient software design. Not long gone are those times as we have AntiX, MX-15, a couple of other sanely lightweight GNU/Linux distros and BSDs. KISS and the UNIX way all the way :).
106 • poll (by Dan on 2016-08-25 12:03:34 GMT from North America)
I am already running Linux, but I really do miss some of the games I used to play. If gaming companies released their stuff for all platforms, I'd be incredibly happy.
107 • @106 (by Andy Mender on 2016-08-25 12:15:21 GMT from Europe)
Have you tried WINE and/or Play on Linux? It's not always 1:1 with Windows, but I noticed many applications run fine and sometimes even better than on Windows :).
108 • @98 (by Stan on 2016-08-25 15:16:35 GMT from Europe)
It seems like the past mentality was that any automation or user friendly interface is not Unix-Like. Is almost like a typical Linux user simply hates pre-built LEGO toys.
I still see this non-sense systemd hate around, I wonder why nobody complaint before when SysVinit was there by default and people didn't even bother to request for an alternative because that was the only choice at that time.
I notice that for example Gnome 3 has systemd as a dependency and maybe some other packages, but who is really at fault here? systemd or the project that is creating the hard dependency, I think I should just assume from now on that any systemd complaint is just simply a troll comment and move on.
109 • @ 106 & 107 Wine etc... (by Alexi on 2016-08-25 15:24:19 GMT from Europe)
There is a "paid to use" app called Crossover. Don't know, if it works better than Wine, but it can be made to work free, even if the Crossover guys hide that fact.
110 • @108 (by Andy Mender on 2016-08-25 17:06:21 GMT from Europe)
In general, it is true that past understanding of the UNIX way would involve heavy use of Shell scripts and I/O pipes. However, neither of those were in the way of user-friendly interfaces of any kind. Quite the contrary, simple, efficient interfaces were a crucial part of said I/O pipes. Also, GUIs were and still are good when they provide convenient abstraction, not when they obstruct the behind-the-scenes working of a program/system/etc.
SysVinit didn't bother most, because it didn't try to solve a non-existent problem. Also, it didn't try to monopolize itself forcibly. See the difference? ;)
GNOME3 having a hard dependency in systemd is merely a choice. If it works best for the DE, so be it. I have nothing against it. What I do not like, however, is when people assume systemd is The Next Big Thing and everyone simply has to have it. Because without it process supervision is so inconsistent and difficult :P.
I personally use SysVinit and BSD-like init scripts. They work and they do what they were intended to do. No misunderstandings here.
111 • @103 Systemd on Debian (by linuxista on 2016-08-25 18:12:10 GMT from North America)
Sorry to hear that Debian seems to have done a poor job transitioning to and implementing systemd. I've been using it on Arch for years now without any issues.
112 • Systemd (by Bill on 2016-08-26 01:22:57 GMT from North America)
@103 Systemd on Debian xfce. My experience with Debian Jessie using systemd has been rewarding. I have had no issues whatsoever with it. Debian is even slightly faster than antergos (arch). I have had no issues with other linux os's using systemd either.
113 • @112 (by Bill on 2016-08-26 03:53:36 GMT from Oceania)
No, I have not gone mad, this systemd person is a different Bill.
I believe that the time-tested UNIX principles result in stable and secure operating systems, so I avoid systemd. I also believe that the way it has been pushed out is a horrible example of predatory corporate behaviour.
This is an interesting post: https://bsdmag.org/randy_w_3/
114 • Poll (by argent on 2016-08-26 04:52:05 GMT from North America)
@ 113 Bill: Thanks for the link, just added more to what I have already knew or suspected!
115 • Alpha, Beta releases disappearing? (by Greg Zeng on 2016-08-26 06:18:01 GMT from Oceania)
Earlier D-w comments will show my interest on the neologisms for alpha & beta releases. D-w now avoid the old words, with "Distribution Release" & "Development Release". Some old timers still use RC (release candidate), etc. Click-baiters use "Preview", "Sneak" & "Leaked", since emotions sell better than logic.
Perhaps the change started when "Alpha" became a high status trade name, instead of the insiders word of a very immature product. "Beta" stayed as a term of an almost checked "Final Release", especially after the collapse of the Sony Beta -cam trade names. These first two letters of the Greek alphabet are used in so many other trade and academic areas, such as chemistry, physics, etc. so now computer releases will avoid the terms: alpha, beta?
116 • @ 115 • Alpha, Beta releases disappearing? (by Greg Zeng) (by Alexi on 2016-08-26 11:25:28 GMT from Europe)
>>Perhaps the change started when "Alpha" became a high status trade name, instead of the insiders word of a very immature product. "Beta" stayed as a term of an almost checked "Final Release", especially after the collapse of the Sony Beta -cam trade names. ..... so now computer releases will avoid the terms: alpha, beta?<<
As soon as the product is released as stable, it moves to development, so all of them are actually are development releases. Otherwise, a website as Distrowatch won't have anything to do?
117 • Shades of Development: alpha, beta & dreamland. (by Greg Zeng on 2016-08-26 13:04:10 GMT from Oceania)
So much confusion on these words. Many "distribution products" are really development releases. Alpha releases have many innovative, experimental novelties. These novelties will be removed if they cannot be debugged in the time planned. Alphas are guaranteed to be deficient: have bugs, poor eye-candy, very plain & incomplete.
Betas are "FROZEN" alpha-structures, offered to some daring volunteers, to discover more limits & frailties. Eventually it becomes too expensive to repair the unusual bugs and slow-downs in the beta, so it becomes the "Distribution Release".
Because of the timing deadlines of mass media, some "journalists" are exposed to alpha and beta releases, as a marketing stunt. Generally the normal person otherwise should not know about the anything, except the final Distribution Release.
Version x.0 of any distribution is known to be buggy. After version x.01 soon arrives. If you follow the work of the Linux Foundation & its releases, the above process is shown very clearly.
Some people release bad products at a higher rating than deserved. Microsoft does this much more than Apple, Android & the Linux Foundation. Cowboy-coders (usually vanity writers) are in the Linux world, with poor alpha and beta testing stages. Some "Distribution Releases" are really alpha or beta releases. After detailed testing hundreds of Linux distributions, it is easy to name names now.
Many products are just dreamland. Every good manager has dreamland projects for pilot-testing, organizational development, etc. Many release distributions exist as annoying distractions for serious workers. Hopefully responsible publications like Distrowatch will continue to sort this mess.
118 • What is holding you back from Linux (by OstroL on 2016-08-26 15:29:13 GMT from Europe)
After so many years with only Linux, living with it, digging inside it, I am now fascinated with Windows 10. When certain iso creators had dropped their own distros to move to Windows 10, I was perplexed. One guy leaving Linux said there is nothing he can add to his distro, and then wrote in his blog that he finds the desktop experience in Windows 10 is much, much better. At that time, I argued with him, but later I got Windows 10 together with a laptop (without paying the MS ransom.)
Actually, I am finding it actually blo_dy easy to use. Damn fast booting, not a single crash. Every single app works, and apps galore! Sure, I have my own Linux distros, even an only Linux laptop, but last few weeks, rarely looked in them.
119 • @118 (by JJ on 2016-08-26 16:16:40 GMT from North America)
Windows is really good at making what it does very easy. They definitely have a place in the market, and I do not fault anyone for wanting to use it (I thought XP was just awesome).
The problem I've always had with Windows is that it does not allow me to do what I want to do. I either have to find third-party software (sometimes risky) or I do without. Or, I don't like being locked into something I can't change if I don't like it. I can live without the flash (though I do love it--everyone loves new and shiny even if they don't want to stick with it).
Choice is great, even if one chooses Windows. They aren't just sitting around doing nothing with all that money and market share. I wish many Linux desktops could get pieces of that pie so that we had better choices sometimes. I'd like to see more projects with KDE's original philosophy: they were tired of these crappy X "graphic" environments and made something looks good and can compete. Whether or not you want to use it, or if you prefer lighter alternatives, it's good to have stuff like that to meet everyone's needs.
120 • @Windows 10 (by Linux Apocalypsis on 2016-08-26 17:31:17 GMT from Europe)
I have also experimented with some Windows 10 that came pre-installed in a laptop. It looks kind of cool, but, usability-wise is horrible. First, it boots relatively fast, but not faster than some Linux distros. The problem is that it takes ages to become usable after booting. You try to open an application and nothing happens and, the more you try, the worse it gets. Then it seems kind of crispy at the beginning, but, after a few reboots it starts to feel incredibly bloated and slow. I do not know why. Maybe it is the amazing amount of spyware it comes loaded with. If your internet connection is limited, the thing will use all of your quota without you knowing what the hell is going on. You can use some of the tools to, allegedly, remove most of the spyware, but it will never be the same again. Finally, a friend of mine got a laptop with W10 preinstalled an both the wireless and wired networks keep disconnecting intermittently... He tried all kind of drivers, to no avail. Now he is trying to install W7 to see if he has better luck.
121 • @119 (by OstroL on 2016-08-26 18:09:57 GMT from Europe)
>>The problem I've always had with Windows is that it does not allow me to do what I want to do. I either have to find third-party software (sometimes risky) or I do without. Or, I don't like being locked into something I can't change if I don't like it.<<
Windows might want you to think that you can't do anything with Windows. With the knowledge gained from Linux, one might know how to go about digging and changing, if one wants to. Thousands of people (called devs) are cerating apps to be used in Windows, meaning there are ways to change something in the main parts of the OS (called also apps), if you can make something for it. I'm writing this using an app taken off the main OS (it comes with the OS as its part) pasted somewhere else in another ntfs partition. Some apps can e pulled out as stand-alone, some as folders.
Lot of Windows users always dig around and change stuff. That's how so-called pirated Windows came about. In the XP days, you had many microsXPs, MiniXPs or IceXPs etc. Instead of throwing away the OS that came with your laptop, how about looking inside it?
You are not worried about Windows dying on you, aren't you? More you dig inside and try to change it, more you'd bring down the hold MS has on the computing world. There is no Windows 11 coming out, is there? Btw, I know quite a lot of people, who use XP and even Vista, and are not interested in changing to any new MS product.
122 • Dangerous idiots avoid Grub-Customizer (by Greg Zeng on 2016-08-27 06:12:23 GMT from Oceania)
Windows and Apple are famous for their dll and Java-script malware holes. Malware dependency is unsafe, as the serious people here learn from hated experiences. So, in those times, Linux is needed. Hardware incompatibilities are also definite predictable "accidents". Debugging and repairing is best done with your standby operating systems, using the same hardware.
Here in D-w several weeks ago, I mentioned that my three-year-old Dell XPS-15 notebook has a Grub-Customizer menu system. At boot time, it offers about ten (10) Linux distributions, or three Windows-10 operating systems. Each Linux distribution may have further choices on which Linux kernel to choose. All operating systems, except one Windows-10 and two Linux's, run from the motherboard's SSD.
Fast-furious work is best done in Linux. Workload plodding is best done in multi-tasking Windows-10: backups, archiving, defragging, error-checking, torrenting, compilation, etc.
Any long term user of desktop computing knows that computers "break-down" at times of most need. That's why inbuilt UPS (uninterruptible power supply) is also essential, which handheld devices all have.
When any of my operating systems fail, it is just a few seconds away from immediate resumption, into the new (standby) operating system. Another Windows or Linux operating system. Inbuilt motherboard SSD is a standard part of my 2013 notebook, bought years ago, half-price as a factory-rebuild. Nursing home people like myself are not financially rich. If anyone can afford it, the best hardware desktop computer is something like a Dell Alienware, with dual-GPU, and one or two motherboard SSDs.
Poor people love living dangerously. Seems to me that only dangerous idiots avoid Grub-Customizer. Some of the newest Linux distributions automatically install Grub-Customizer, and its imitators. No else seems to notice this yet.
123 • Linux (by aliasmarlowe on 2016-08-27 19:59:21 GMT from Europe)
I've been running Linux part-time since 1998's Caldera Openlinux, full-time since 2004's Ubuntu Warty, and cut the cord with Windows in late 2005 or early 2006. There are two Xubuntu Xenial desktops, one Xubuntu Xenial laptop, and three Synology servers at home. My eldest daughter (at University) runs Arch Linux on her laptop and desktop. None of our kids use Windows, and nor do I.
124 • Thank You (by Dietz on 2016-08-27 20:56:22 GMT from North America)
I've been toying with Linux for years, but never seriously considered it as a stable OS. Recently, however, Microsoft has been messing with a good thing (Windows XP and 7) and totally ruining the OS. Window 8/8.1 and 10 have been slow and glitchy. There have been a lot of '(program) not responding' issues. Web browsers seem to freeze or really slow down. Up dates are intrusive and often create more issues.
It used to be that Linux didn't work right, but now it appears that Linux is the better, faster, more stable OS. So as of Sun. Aug. 7, /16, my wife and I finally made the switch. The wife was having trouble with her Windows 10 (slow, lagging, '(program) not responding', full screen 'Windows Update' page covering the entire screen with no way to remove it (other than using the Task Manager)). She was getting really frustrated. She had been using LinuxMint (Cinnamon) for a week, to try out, and loved it. I've been using Mint (KDE) for a while myself (same problems with Windows 10). Today she asked me to replace Windows with LinuxMint on her laptop. So why am I telling you this? It was your site that helped with the decision as to which distro to use. Thanks for all the info.
125 • Survey (by FOSSilizing Dinosaur on 2016-08-27 23:40:28 GMT from North America)
All of the above (sigh).
Sad so many blame distros for their own hardware issues. Of course, I remember the frustration of trying to get DebIan to work with inherited cheap hardware, just after MS agents convinced Ian to stop hacking Windows drivers. A free U'bubu 7 disc couldn't overcome hardware vendor pranks back then, though what it (and Kongoni) could do was rock-solid.
…
Many refuse to learn how to train their OS, whichever they try.
…
Kudos to distros for promoting Open-Source_Software that fed back to mainstream - cross-platform rox!
Number of Comments: 125
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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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