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1 • Soldyxk install process (by Socmunky on 2017-03-13 00:52:41 GMT from United States)
Does the SolidXK installer have a built in section now for setting up Full disk (luks) encryption? I was a big fan but this is a bit of a show stopper.
2 • SOLYDXK (by bigsky on 2017-03-13 00:58:22 GMT from Canada)
Hardware used for this review:
ASUS GL551VW-DS71
Intel Core i7-6700HQ Mobile Processor (4x 2.6GHz/6MB L3 Cache)
256GB SanDisk X400 SSD - Read: 540MB/s, Write: 340MB/s
Integrated Intel HD Graphics 530
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M - 4GB
16GB [8GB x 2] 2133MHz DDR4 SO-DIMM Laptop Memory . Holy smokes.
Stopped distro hopping a while ago but this got my interest and am going to try SOLYD X on my Intel NUC Celeron N3050 8 GB memory ( strange little box this is ? ) Tried Solyd X years ago and liked it but Solyd K might be a bit much for this NUC. Thanks
3 • Cloud Server (by btroy on 2017-03-13 01:02:23 GMT from United States)
Google Compute Engine - tinycore CentOs 7
4 • Home server (by Pongo Pan on 2017-03-13 01:33:55 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu server. Used as NAS and music source (via pulse audio) for other machines.
5 • SolydK uses KDE 4 because it's based on Debian Stable (by eco2geek on 2017-03-13 01:41:35 GMT from United States)
Quoth the reviewer:
> This version of SolydXK was released in January 2017, so I'm
> confused as to why it is using KDE 4.
...and...
>The KDE version is old, and this was a disappointment too. I was
> hoping to see KDE Plasma 5, but I did not. I think that SolydXK is
> keeping KDE back for a reason, and that is to maintain some
> simplicity.
The SolydXK web site states:
> SolydXK is based on Debian Stable to provide the most stable and
> secure operating system available.
Guess what version of KDE Debian Stable (aka Debian Jessie, aka Debian 8) installs? KDE 4. There's your answer as to why SolydK also uses KDE 4; it's because it's based on Debian Stable.
Debian has a reputation for taking a long time between issuing stable releases. I just read today on Slashdot that Debian Testing (aka Stretch, aka Debian 9) has just been frozen, and they're focusing on squashing bugs. So hopefully we'll see a new version of Debian Stable released this year, and it will come with KDE 5.
There are distros out there based on Debian Testing and Debian Unstable that come with KDE 5.
6 • of servers and other vagaries... (by tom joad on 2017-03-13 01:59:16 GMT from Switzerland)
I would like to operate a tor bridge or relay which is nothing like a real server I am sure. But that is as far as I am ready to go at this point and maybe never.
From the poll responses, even at this point, I wonder at the actual value of operating a real, physical server at home or in the office. Cloud storage is so cheap and dependable now days. Sure a server can do other stuff and yes it is likely very local too like at home. But to set one up, a server that is, just for 'grins' or bragging seems like a bit much too me.
That said maybe Jesse or someone could give us quick down and dirty instructions on setting a server up. If such instruction is possible.
On another note; I have been watching the right "hit list" of the various listed distros on the right column of the home page. Ubuntu is now forth. Perhaps Unity or whatever it is called is growing out of favor. Gosh, that is sad...NOT!
Cheers and Salud!
7 • SolydK-KDE 4? (by SundayMarkDeceived on 2017-03-13 02:06:45 GMT from United States)
A good and fair review, thanks for sharing. I had tried SolydK sometime back, and I could not get past the live boot screen, it went into a reboot loop. I checked the forums, saw others had a similar issue, but no answer why it happens, or a fix for it. For me on my desktop, Debian is a lot of hit or miss, 50-50 if it goes into a reboot loop or not.
Anyway, My understanding is KDE 4 stopped being supported more than a year ago. No updates and no fixes. What if there is a security issue, too bad?
8 • Re Cloudready ? (by bigsky on 2017-03-13 02:09:07 GMT from Canada)
How is this even possible that the image file for a web only OS can have a 5,428 MB image file when the original install for Windows 95 required only 245 MB for a complete install. Huuuum and many Linux OS,s do it with 500MB no problem ? Weird eh.
9 • Server and KDE4 (by oldtechaa on 2017-03-13 03:06:39 GMT from United States)
@6, I do not run a server at home. However, should our ISP change its terms of service or we have an alternative provider, I would be willing to do so. The problem with the cloud is security and privacy. A service may be very secure, but what about private? What are Microsoft's, Google's, Apple's, etc. privacy policies? A home server set up right can provide both security and privacy.
@7, In Debian, security fixes are backported when necessary and if not possible, the package will be upgraded. Think "prefer a lot of backporting to upgrades and associated breakage."
10 • OBRevenge 2017.03 & @9 (by Glowinthepark on 2017-03-13 04:36:50 GMT from Canada)
Thanks to the team that does OBRevenge OS, for making Arch more new user friendly and the control panel tools. I had already downloaded OBRevenge 2017.03 the md5sum and sha1sum match the download website, but checking against the sha256sum on this page, it DOES NOT match. If you would, please make a signature file that can be checked against a checksum file to validate, before checking the sums. Thanks.
@9 This is good to know that Debian, will do security fixes, even for an older DE. Thank you.
11 • Feature Story (by bigsky on 2017-03-13 04:52:49 GMT from Canada)
Welcome Ivan D. Sanders to the coolest Linux web site ever and hope for the best sir and there will be ups and downs but thats what makes it so great. It can get ugly but hang in there and stand your ground. Thanks and good luck.
12 • Home Server (by ptyerman on 2017-03-13 06:54:46 GMT from United Kingdom)
I run a dual purpose CCTV, server fitted with a LSI MegaRAID SAS RAID card, currently running Windows 7 x86.
It used to run Xubuntu hosting the ZoneMinder CCTV package but the DVR card in it died and the replacement I fitted is not supported in Linux, so for the near future it will continue with Win 7.
It's used mainly as a file/media server at the moment but I have plans to add a proxy server to it.
I will not use Cloud Storage in any form because of privacy issues etc.
13 • Home Server (by OughtaKnowBetter on 2017-03-13 07:23:30 GMT from United States)
I know DistroWatch is about Linux, but... you did ask the question, Jesse, so:
I've run a Windows Domain/Active Directory network in my home since about 1997. I started with an older(!) computer running Windows NT Server 4.0 with two client computers on the network. The server was a PDC and internet gateway. I upgraded(?) to Windows Small Business Server 2003 and got some experience (not all of it good) with an all-in-one server. This software eventually proved to be too much for the poor old computer it was running on, so I built a new server with upgraded hardware, and upgraded to Windows Server 2008 x64 (NOT R2). The handoff from SBS 2003 to Server 2008 was anything but smooth - I don't ever want to have to do that again.
Eventually, The new server was overwhelmed and melted down, but I was able to build a new server with upgraded hardware once again and install Windows Server 2008 on it before disaster struck. This conversion went much more smoothly. I have since added a second server running Windows Server 2008 x64, and use it to backup images and music, and as a media server . It is my backup DC and DNS server as well.
The original network was wired only, but over time I have added WiFi to it. There are only about 6 user and 10 computer accounts in the Active Directory. There are multiple shares available to users, including music, pictures, videos, downloaded (and vetted) software, and printers. There are multiple redundant backups of all media performed automatically - I learned that lesson after losing years of digital images to a hard drive crash. Both servers are backed up each day. I am in the process of adding additional external drives to backup everything else that is not already being backed up.
So, there it is, the long, sad story. What's my next step? Since I hang out here quite a bit, you can probably guess that Linux is under consideration. I'm looking for advice. Whatever flavor of Linux I convert to will have to satisfy several requirements:
1. It must be completely compatible with my current Windows Active Directory network.
2. It must be able to serve all clients, Windows, MacOS, Linux, etc.
3. My current list of user and computer accounts must be able to be imported without change and without major effort, and all current network shares must be imported transparently.
4. I find that a GUI does make many network management tasks much easier/quicker, so there must be a GUI.
5. I am not a stranger to the command line, and enjoy an occasional foray to that strange land, but there should be a minimum of tasks that must be performed there.
6. I am NOT a fan of "subscriptionware", so that is not an option. However, I am willing to pay a reasonable fee to purchase an appropriate server package. I'm more OK with inexpensive, but I like free best of all.
7. I don't want to have to do a massive hardware upgrade - the hardware I have now should be more than adequate for Linux. Having said that, I recognize the potential need to build a new machine to facilitate the crossover from Windows to Linux. I just don't want to have to pay an arm and a leg to do so.
Looking back, that seems like a lot to ask, but I am getting tired of Microsoft so I can't just sit still. Anybody have any suggestions for Linux server distributions that meet my requirements?
Thanks in advance to any of you who take the time to reply.
14 • Home Server (by ptyerman on 2017-03-13 07:34:39 GMT from United Kingdom)
@13.
I'm not sure on "all" your requirements, you would have to look, but take a look at CentOS which is based on Red Hat Linux.
For a server you want long term support so a server based OS is the way to go.
There is a few free server based Linux OS's besides CentOS so you may just find what your looking for. Use the search function at the top of this page to give you a list of suitable distributions to look at.
15 • How Solyd? (by Someguy on 2017-03-13 08:12:12 GMT from United Kingdom)
Probably, SolydK was the wrong choice - should've been SolydX? Didn't care for the review, but then, don't like laptops, either - nothing but trouble in my considerable experience (broken screens, broken lids, touchpad troubles, dead batteries, and on & on).
Speaking of gripes, don't do servers (what's wrong with an installed email client for email?!) - too much hardware overkill for home user. And, don't do the 'Cloud', either - your data on someone else's server? Not for me. All that talk of data harvesting, hacking & co., some folks will never learn...
Sorry the above is so negative, but here's the good news: SolydX-ARM for RPi-3 works well, if a bit big and slow to start. Worth a look.
16 • Ads taking huge amount of cpu (by Reader on 2017-03-13 08:58:45 GMT from Finland)
For several weeks now, the ads on DW have taken a massive amount of CPU via javascript. As a result, I'm disabling JS on DW. This will affect what ads get shown to me, likely dropping your ad income.
17 • Desktops need rolling release model. (by morgan on 2017-03-13 09:23:28 GMT from United Kingdom)
Your review of SolydXK really shows why Debian Stable should not be used for a desktop/laptop system - the packages are too old to be useful.
Really you want rolling release for desktops, otherwise the new laptop/GPU/CPU you just bought will not work (easily if at all)
18 • SolydK works for me... and my friends (by eselma on 2017-03-13 09:30:37 GMT from Spain)
I am a happy user of SolydK (stable) from the first days (about 29014). Last week I did an install of the same version on a friend's desktop. As usual, all worked sleek and fine (including nVidia card and wireless). But this is not the only installation I did, besides mine. My wife, two of my nephews, my sister in law, another two friends are now using SolydK. Of course, including my two laptops (including two Asus) and the desktop I use at work. A mix of video cards (including nVidia and AMD/Radeon, besides than intel), touchpads and wifi/network chips. All them worked at first instance, so the reviewer seems a case of badluck. But, as you signalled, the repo for 'backports' can be activated, and I know the Debian backports are a safe option. At the moment I am using the kernel 4.9.0, and found that the graphic Radeon card flies with such kernel, compared to original 3.16.
On the other hand, as most of the users who 'suffered' the transition from KDE 3.x to KDE 4.0 8and even 4.2), the first versions of KDE desktops are a real nightmare. Now I have a test install using Plasma 5.8 (named as 'LTS') and really, in spite of the flat look, I still prefer the 4.x versions. One reason: some applets and programs are missing in version 5.0, as of today.
Anyway, thanks for the honest review.
19 • Typo correction (by eselma on 2017-03-13 09:37:25 GMT from Spain)
Of course, year 29014 is still to come, and many of us are not going to see it, if any. ;-)
I am user of SolydK 8and SolydX on a netbook) from 2013, only. Apologies for the typos.
20 • About moving Windows AD to linux (by LiuYan on 2017-03-13 09:40:58 GMT from United States)
@13
Although I'm using Fedora & CentOS, but I will recommend to have a look at Debian.
1. Debian has samba-4.x in it's repository (currently 4.2.x in stable, 4.5.x in unstable), and samba-4.x is compatible with Windows AD. It's not completely compatible, but something like Authentication & DNS & LDAP & File Share should be okay.
For Fedora and CentOS, you must compile & install samba from source to get the "AD DC" function to work, I hate compiling, that's why I didn't recommend it.
2. If you mean samba file server or web server or ftp server, then no problem.
3. The first step is setup the samba-ad-dc server, `samba-tool domain join __YOUR-WINDOWS-DOMAIN__ DC -Uadministrator` will let samba join your windows domain as an Active Directory Domain Controller. After that, your AD should work on linux now. Next step is copy files to linux and add network shares in samba.
4. About GUI, if you want to manage your AD, I would suggest use the AD and computer management software in Windows Server 2008 to manage samba-ad-dc in linux. For other network management task, you may search the internet to get help.
5. okay
6. Debian and plenty of other distributions are not such "subscriptionware", and it had large community.
7. Since you had a sad story of data loss and now you have redundant backup of your files, I would suggest to use Software RAID to strengthen storage stability -- a single disk failure will not cause data loss. but since RAID is not for backup, I would suggest build secondary backup server (also use RAID, and better in another place to avoid flood or fire disaster).
21 • Servers (by Mark B on 2017-03-13 09:42:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
@13
I would echo what 'ptyerman' about CentOS-based distros. I suggest having a look at the excellent Nethserver 7.3 which is based on CentOS 7 and seems to do much of what you require.
Alternatively, the Debian-based Univention Corporate Server can also be an AD domain controller. Both distros are managed via a web UI from another computer and Univention has the option to install the KDE desktop during setup.
Both have decent documentation. The Nethserver community is lively and really helpful.
There are others too, of course, but these look like the closest match to me.
I hope that helps.
22 • Home Server (by Romane on 2017-03-13 09:54:22 GMT from Australia)
Primarily for back-ups at this time, but expanding to further use soon. Debian Stable.
23 • Desktop (by Fred R. on 2017-03-13 10:22:41 GMT from France)
I dropped Debian Stable because it is not enough fresh for the Desktop (rolling every 2 years...).
After spending some time with Debian Testing (which failed during a broken upgrade when Gnome 3.21.99 appears) and Debian Unstable which fails also during an upgrade, I tried Archlinux.
Archlinux is interesting, but as everything is updated (base Os and Software), I finally got an unstable OS that I have not been able to sort out.
I finally landed on Fedora: Base is stable, upgrades work perfectly, software are rolling, on a 6-month base upgrade. I don't use the latest version of Fedora when launched, but wait 3-6 months (which is not an issue, as software are the same version on F24 and F25 !).
I won't say it would be perfect for everyone, but it perfectly suits my needs.
24 • love for KDE? (by curious on 2017-03-13 10:56:52 GMT from Germany)
I love KDE 3.5 (now Trinity). I don't love KDE 4 (too fiddly/gimmicky/complicated). And I love KDE 5 even less - it does nothing that KDE 4 didn't do, needs stronger hardware for the same tasks, some applications or features are missing or don't work well (e.g. software manager, screenshot tool), and the new themes (especially breeze) are horribly flat and ugly.
So it is probably a good thing that SolydK uses KDE 4.
25 • Home Server (by DaveT on 2017-03-13 12:06:04 GMT from United Kingdom)
I use Nas4Free on a small server that holds all the audio files for my Sonos hifi system. The audio files are about 90% FLAC the rest being mp3. 1GB of RAM, and a 4GB microSD are quite sufficient for the task. The 256GB SD drive holds the audio files. It is getting a bit full now, a larger drive may well go in there this year.
The file server for docs etc is an old pc running debian wheezy. It does everything I need it to do.
26 • SolydK (by Bob Hayden on 2017-03-13 12:06:10 GMT from United States)
This review is a bit like reviewing a flatbed truck and concluding that it is big and heavy and does not handle like a sports car. Debian is designed for stability which means it uses older but more fully tested components. SolydK is one in a line of attempts to fit Debian Stable to desktop rather than server use. Previous members of that line that have been my main OS are Mepis and Kwheezy. If you want all the latest stuff, or are using a computer for entertainment rather than work, you should not be looking at Debian Stable or any of its derivatives. But that does not mean they are lacking for their intended purpose.
27 • Linux server replacement (by John on 2017-03-13 12:07:19 GMT from Canada)
@13 - check out Zentyal server. It's a drop in replacement for Windows AD servers :-)
28 • Desktop (by DaveT on 2017-03-13 12:10:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
debian unstable on my laptop - very rarely rarely breaks. The change from IceWeasel to Firefox last week didn't go smoothly, but it only took 10miniutes to fix it.
devaun beta on my old iMac. No problems, and no systemd!
29 • Home server (by S on 2017-03-13 12:33:18 GMT from France)
I'm using a Raspberry Pi with Arch Linux at home, with a Synology NAS. It's running transmission with its web interface, lighttpd to retrieve downloaded files and to proxy towards transmission's web interface, dnsmasq as a cache + a few A records, and mrtg for stats.
Since lighttpd seems to have some issues with digest files on some browsers, I'm planning on switching to apache2 ; and there's going to be a cron'ed backup script somewhere too, to keep an archived /etc for example.
Getting a Raspberry Pi has been an amazing training for me, and that's the advice I give every time I meet someone who's interested in learning how to use a Linux server. I wouldn't recommend Arch Linux as a server, though, since (as Fred R. pointed out) it can break, but it forces me to learn and that's part of what I'm looking for.
30 • Home "servers" (by ivanhoe1024 on 2017-03-13 12:37:37 GMT from Italy)
I do not know if a couple of raspberry PI sharing drives etc in my home count as servers, but these are the "servers" I'm currently running. With ArchlinuxARM powering both of them, at the moment... No big problems, just some freezes to be solved after some upgrades, nothing irresolvable... considering raspbian as a more solid (and maybe more boring) alternative...
31 • KDE and review of SolydXK (by Dem on 2017-03-13 12:50:43 GMT from United States)
If you love KDE, Ivan, why not try KDE Neon? The other matter is, SolydXK uses some internal scripts (adjustments, etc), which for some makes the distro safer, and for some makes the distro older. You don't update or upgrade from the Debian repos, but from SolydXK repos. Just like the Mint dev, SolydXK dev thinks that they are filtering the apps, before giving them to the users.
I'm glad that a person, who knows Linux distros just about 2 years had done the review. A fresh look. But, Ivan, how about installing Debian stable an installing KDE5 onto it? That way, you'd have a pure system.
32 • not enough choices poll (by dmacleo on 2017-03-13 13:00:15 GMT from United States)
poll really should have had an all of the above option.
run server 2012r2 domain here, exchange 2013 here, server 2012r2 essentials remotely.
also run centos web servers (dedicated) remotely as well as centos based vps remotely.
33 • OBRevenge torrent (by Jesse on 2017-03-13 13:17:39 GMT from Canada)
@10: Thanks for pointing out this problem. The torrent on Linux Tracker appears to have an older (or corrupted) version of OBRevenge 2017.03. I have uploaded a new torrent for OBRevenge which produces the correct checksums and the torrent table now features the good torrent.
34 • Server (by Martin on 2017-03-13 13:43:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
Running a Raspberry Pi with Nextcloud, and a separate RAID server for back up running AntiX.
Agree that there should have been more options in this poll.
35 • Home Server (by John on 2017-03-13 14:12:26 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu Linux 14.04, Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E4400 @ 2.00GHz, 2 cores, 2 GB ram, used for files, photos backup of phones and laptops. Old but stable and fairly low power consumption.
36 • home (by greg on 2017-03-13 14:13:24 GMT from Slovenia)
Ubuntu server at home for backup and some file sharing.
@13
based on your requirements investigate: Zentyal (Ubuntu), Openmediavault (Debian), ClearOS, Nethserver (both CentOS/RedHat), FreeNAS (BSD)
37 • SolydXK - stable vs testing (by Arjen Balfoort on 2017-03-13 14:42:23 GMT from Netherlands)
As some here already noted: SolydXK is based on Debian stable and therefor is limited to use the available kernel and DE versions. That said, since we moved from Debian testing to Debian stable on November 25 2014, our community started the Enthusiast's Editions: SolydXK based on Debian testing. For all the adventurous among you, you can download those ISOs from our main site: https://solydxk.com/downloads/community-editions/ New versions are on their way.
Currently, I'm working on the next stable ISOs, based on Debian Stretch. I have uploaded the alpha releases here if you're interested: https://forums.solydxk.com/viewtopic.php?f=78&t=6781
@31 SolydXK points directly to the Debian servers. Only SolydXK specific packages or packages that are needed by SolydXK and not found in the Debian repositories are added to the SolydXK repository.
38 • Home Server (by K4RS on 2017-03-13 15:02:25 GMT from United States)
I am running Mint 17.3 on a Lenovo ThinkStation (Xeon quad core, 8 GB RAM) for my home server. I use MythTV for live / DVR viewing of OTA television and Plex to stream video files ripped from our DVD collection. Most of this is accessed from the local lan, but I can share over the Internet limited by my low upstream bandwidth. On the client side, Kodi is the preferred software.
39 • Review of SolydXK (by Ilu on 2017-03-13 15:12:13 GMT from Germany)
SolydK8 is a preconfigured version of Debian stable, of course it comes with KDE4 and the stock Debian kernel. SolydXK9 will be ready as soon as Debian changes from jessie to stretch.
If the reviewer had done his work thoroughly, he would have seen that there is also a SolydK version based on Debian testing with KDE5.
The stable version of SoldXK and the forum support focus on helping "new users make the transition from Windows to Linux easier" and does that very well. My friends and family use the SolydX version, elderly people manage well with it. You can use it for gaming but that's not what the distro was made for, and it's unfair to judge it that way.
And contrary to what someone said in the comments all SolydXK distros upgrade directly from Debian's repositories. It's just the distro-specific adjustments that come from SolydXKs repos.
40 • server (by wolsonjr on 2017-03-13 15:46:58 GMT from United States)
Run a 2TB adjunct drive to my main Debian box as network server for the other home systems.
41 • SolydXK review (by Jordan on 2017-03-13 16:08:02 GMT from United States)
I agree with Ivan's conclusions about SolydX, and would add that it does extremely well on modern higher end machines. We have eleven of them deployed in a class environment, and that distro was either #1 or #2 on the list of favorites by a stream of students last Fall. The other choices were Mint, Fedora, and OpenSuse. I didn't offer them Korora because we were covering the three "main" disto types as best we could and Fedora was already there.
Korora is my only home distro and is on two laptops. If Korora did not exist, I'd likely had ended up keeping SolydX.
42 • Home server (by Sam Graf on 2017-03-13 16:26:14 GMT from United States)
I use the Untangle NGFW home subscription and openmediavault.
43 • SolydK is Robust (by Muthu on 2017-03-13 16:52:33 GMT from India)
I have also used Solydk Sometime back. It was a Robust and a very Solid Linux OS. I have no Doubt about it. The looks were too Old But the KDE version was very Light compared to other Distros.
44 • Review of SolydXK (by David on 2017-03-13 16:54:19 GMT from United Kingdom)
I tend to stop reading reviews when they tell me that one desktop is "glamorous" and another "looks like 2014". How much time does the reviewer spend looking at his desktop? It's just there to manage the computer, after all. Still, as Marion Bradley used to say, it's a good job we don't all like the same things, or there'd be a terrible shortage of haggis.
45 • Solyd & Home Server (by cykodrone on 2017-03-13 17:34:15 GMT from Canada)
I used Solyd back in the day before they went systemd, decent distro, nice people.
I don't run a home server but I have a dedicated torrent drive, I know it's not a server but it's busy most of the time. I voted no home server. I often thought about running one, but personal ISPs are a little p*ssy about that sort of thing and utilize traffic throttling (especially if they find out you're running a server, their servers have snoop algorithms). My pay-as-you-go ISP (I had to buy the DSL 'modem' up front) buys traffic in bulk from the huge corporate players, they don't throttle me. My ISP might not be blazing fast but it's unlimited usage at a very reasonable price, I have time and patience so it's no biggy. I hacked the 'modem', I disabled the third party snoop access, it's my 'modem', I can do whatever I want with it, if they don't like it, too bad for them.
46 • Home server (by Charles on 2017-03-13 18:23:54 GMT from United States)
I'm from the generation from when everyone had a personal web page, and I've been maintaining mine since 1997. Currently it's running on a LAMP server on my Raspberry Pi.
47 • Home Server (by Steve on 2017-03-13 18:40:43 GMT from United States)
Raspberry Pi running FreeBSD ...because that's more than enough power to handle the load at home.
...if I wanted something with systemd I'd just skip to the end of the story and run windows ('cause that where that's going)... and windows has always been a crappy server choice and, these days (with win10), an equally terrible desktop choice.
48 • Home Servers (by decuser on 2017-03-13 18:58:33 GMT from United States)
FreeBSD, Qubes with Debian, Raspberry Pi Raspian.
49 • KDE Plasma 4 (by Bobbie Sellers on 2017-03-13 19:01:44 GMT from United States)
Someone complains of its use.
Plasma 4 is still ahead of Plasma 5.
In items as small as copy-capable digital clock
and important as the inability to insert files in
Kate and KWrite, which is the principal reason
I am still using PCLinux OS64 2016.03 on this
production machine.
Plasma 5 incorporates some interesting changes
to the Clipboard but still falls short. IMO.
bliss "running fast and light" on PCLinuxOS64-2016.03
GNU&Linux 4.9.13-pclos1 #1 SMP Mon Feb 27
50 • * I run a VPS or cloud server (by b_d on 2017-03-13 20:16:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
> please leave us a comment to let us know which operating system is installed...
CentOS 6.8, probably soon to be 6.9. No plans to upgrade to the dreaded CentOS 7 and systemd, at least until I have to in November 2020. Even then, I'll probably switch to Arch anyhow. I have invested too much in Iptables, to contemplate Firewalld...
You asked!
:/
51 • home server (by a on 2017-03-13 22:35:10 GMT from France)
My "home server" is running Gentoo because it’s what I use on my main computer, and all the other distros suck more.
52 • Home Server (by bbfuller on 2017-03-13 23:10:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
ClearOS as a gateway, dhcp, local email, file, database and soon to be media server.
53 • home server (by jackstraw on 2017-03-13 23:29:28 GMT from United States)
Physical server runs Lubuntu with VirtualBox to host VMs running [a] freebsd and [b] ubuntu [owncloud appliance].
54 • Home server (by Thomas Mueller on 2017-03-14 02:12:47 GMT from United States)
I have a 2-bay Seagate Business Storage NAS with two 4 TB SATA hard drives. Operating system is their setup, a version of Linux using ext4fs. Not sure how to count it for voting in the poll, but I called it a physical server at home.
55 • KDEConnect (by HkMarkp on 2017-03-14 04:17:16 GMT from Taiwan)
I know it is a small thing, but why on earth use the Ubuntu logo for KDEConnect. Weird.
56 • Debian testing (by debianxfce on 2017-03-14 08:46:51 GMT from Finland)
to #5, Debian testing is a rolling release distribution. Use the netinstaller to install it. Change repository from stretch to testing to receive updates forever.
https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
57 • Home server (by Davide on 2017-03-14 10:59:44 GMT from Italy)
@13 nethserver is the perfect replacement for your needs
58 • KDE (by Pat Menendez on 2017-03-14 11:19:48 GMT from Canada)
I have tried and used SolydK successfully. It is not my daily use distro though. I can not understand the glowing reports for Plasma 5. I can not understand the rabid drive to imitate ms Windows. KDE 4 works. It is the most capable desktop I have tried. Plasma 5 lost functionality, it lost usability. It replaced logical understandable icons with cryptic Windows like icons. If I want HUGE blocky bland icons I'll use Unity or Gnome. In this age of 4K Ultra high definition color it seems a little odd that a "modern" desktop would go to the extreme opposite end to using enormous black and white icons and taskbar and launcher. I don't get why simply because that is what ms does Linux has to follow. KDE had the most advanced customizable desktop available to Linux. Look at your tablet or smart phone. Do they have nondescript black and white icons? NO! They are bright and colorful! They are lively! All this "new" black and white and grey is manic depressive! When I see people selling their their HD color TVs and buying black and white TVs again I will concede this point. Rather than update it they decided to try to reinvent the wheel. Just like ms, Ubuntu, Gnome, etc. they decided to ignore their users and do what they wanted to do. Linux users didn't agree with Gnome and brought us Mate. I hope that Linux users will do that with the abandoned KDE4! Good for Debian NOT moving to the beta Plasma 5 till KDE gives back the usability and function it intentionally took away! We were originally told that Plasma 5 was a move to QT5. Plasma 5 is a whole new from scratch Windows 10 Linux desktop. Microsoft stripped a lot of OS bits making Windows 10 the most featureless dumbed down version of Windows. Yes, under the hood there are some technical improvements like there are with Plasma 5. But with both the user interface suffered loss. To their credit, KDE screwed up big time on a number of issues and had the smarts to undo their mistake and give back what they intentionally destroyed. Users complained loudly enough and KDE did give back the colorful Oxygen theme as well. For form and function Plasma 5 fixed what wasn't broke and took two steps back for each step they took forward. Debian is a big player and I hope that their holding back on Plasma 5 puts pressure on KDE to give back what it intentionally took away from KDE 4!
59 • Home servers (by Becky on 2017-03-14 11:36:02 GMT from New Zealand)
People forget that home servers don't need to be state of the art - they just have to be simple straightforward computers with basic facilities - even a netbook with a big HDD will do - and as far as the O/S goes... a desktop linux with the right applications installed will more than meet the spec!
Linux Mint on a Sony super netbook did sterling service for quite a few years and I even ran for a while with OpenSuse.... and it ran file services, vpn, a web server and MySQL.
As far as I can see - the server versions of some popular Linux distros just seem to be an excuse in who clangs loudest on the command line! Sure - the command line is very useful....... but I don't have anything to prove and a good GUI is just as good and far easier to get along with....
60 • Home server (by Joerg Kraushaar on 2017-03-14 11:37:02 GMT from Germany)
I run a raspberry pi 2 with Lubuntu 16.04 permanently.
It serves 2 purposes. It is a wifi hotspot,it stores the bitcoin blockchange and it is a sftp file server to store my files on a 1TB Pi Drive.
For convenience it is stored in a Nectcloudbox Case.
Works since 4 month without any downtime. (exept for upgrades).
61 • Plasma 5 KDE on Debian Stable ( NetRunner 16.09 ) (by Winchester on 2017-03-14 13:34:15 GMT from United States)
NetRunner 16.09 on SourceForge.
Their repositories for this distribution seem to be dormant but,if you want a stable KDE Plasma 5 desktop running on Debian Stable ,this should be the way to go.
After installation on a partition,I just edited the /etc/apt/sources.list file (with elevated privileges) to include the following :
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ jessie main
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ jessie main
deb http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main
# Debian-Jessie-Updates , previously known as 'volatile' :
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian jessie contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian jessie contrib non-free
Maybe I could clean that up a little bit but,it has been working.
Then,just update the software packages and install the updates and you should be good to go with Plasma on Debian 8.7 stable.
62 • Home Server (by John M on 2017-03-14 14:35:40 GMT from United Kingdom)
Not sure if they count but I've had a Buffalo running for a lot of years with no problems. Well, just one, if the mains blows, I have to remember to restart the Buffalo (some version of windows).
Bought a Synology DS215 (2 drives) and tried using it's load of goodies. Gave up as most were just too messy for very little. Now just use it as file backup for my three main machines (1 Debian linux/Maui, Win7 desktop and Win7 Fizzbook). It holds my films, music and photos just as files together with 'cloud' backups for my machines.
I also have a couple of old 32bit desktops and a Dell 64 bit laying around. I used to use these a lot when my granddaughter was using my main machine.
63 • Solus OS - - Solves User Issues with Dual-Graphics Systems (by G.Geoffrey on 2017-03-14 15:42:41 GMT from United States)
Looks like Solus has tackled the vexing issue of support for PC's with dual Intel and Nvidia graphics . . . this post in response to question posed by Ivan Sanders in his feature article on SolydXK. Support for these systems is hit/miss with bumblebee package as users incorrectly configure systems . . .
Ivan . . please see: https://solus-project.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=4828
64 • the upside to a lousy review (by mud on 2017-03-14 16:25:28 GMT from United States)
first off, Jessie, thanks for your great reviews! you do such a good job of testing (even when you fail) and telling us about your trip... you also use sensible hardware AND a virtual install for comparison... very nice work, specially for the short sound bites!
this week's review served me well, but not because it did a good job... no, because it did a VERY bad job.
often i chuckle when i see an unflattering review and the distro's people come in and defend... I usually think the users are just biased.
this week's uneducated review of my daily driver distro showed me that the devs and users who come to defend their distro of choice my often have some very valid points!
i have used Solyd since they did the rolling release thing and have always found it to be a fully functional daily driver for my needs... several installs on personal equipment and a LOT of laptops... including a nice Asus with a touchscreen... everything always has worked fine for me out of the box... probably because i am old school and know what the HCL is and USE IT before i buy anything.
i have also given many friends machines with Solyd (X or K) to get them off the Microsoft or Apple addiction. (zero fails!)
is it the best distro ever? probably not... but it sure does great at doing its jobs and i like it.
the SolydXK staff and users did not deserve this treatment.
and frankly, while Jessie may deserve a vacation, Distrowatch does not deserve its reputation to be sullied by a total NOOB speaking for them. not to say NOOBs shouldnt write reviews... but I am saying they should write at their level and not say stupid things about kernels and software versions when they have no understanding of how to use a search engine, let alone the realities of Linux and WHY NVidea or Asus drivers might be problematic.
please oh please, stop worrying about your design here and get back on the content being quality.
develop some standards for your "guest" reviewers to follow so you can provide the service you are trying to, even when you want a week off.
please take all that work you are doing on the nav bar and just delete it so you can do your intended job here.
maybe get current on the backlog of distros?
we want the meat, not the sizzle... specially since the "meat" here is starting to be a lot of gristle. what you have been doing for the last several months is making this site less and less useful or important to me, and i would guess others.
but hey, this week's bad review showed that maybe i should try more distros that have gotten a bad review in the future.
Ivan, I hope that you realize that you have a BUNCH of learning ahead of you before you can properly judge a distro for anyone's use other than your own and that you actually partake in that learning! maybe next time, take the point of view that you are a NOOB and write accordingly. there is nothing wrong with being a NOOB and saying uneducated things... until you try and say them authoritatively.
what you stated as faults with the OS are actually its strong points and to change them would break things rather than fix them. if you dont agree, then you just need to run the bleeding edge stuff instead of the stable stuff. Siduction is very nice!
its YOUR fault your touchpad does not work with Linux: you bought the wrong gear. now i think you need to go learn how to hack in a new kernel and tell us about it.
65 • KDE 5 (by M.Z. on 2017-03-14 18:28:18 GMT from United States)
@49
I've been doing much the same sitting on my copy of PCLinuxOS & upgrading to the latest kernel. I hope KDE 5 gets mostly sorted out before I feel the need to switch to the new version. That being said I'm very happy with PCLinuxOS as it's the only distro that seems to work with the old on board nvidia graphics on my desktop. My attempts to get the correct drivers working on openSUSE 42.2, Fedora 25, Mint 18.1, & Mageia 6-sta2 have all failed, but it just goes on PCLinuxOS.
@58
As a KDE 4 & general Linux user that dislikes all the flat & freaking ugly/fugly themes being created now & can empathize with some of your point of view. That being said, theme-ability was always a strong suit of KDE & from what little I've used KDE 5 it still seems fairly solid in that department. There do seem to be too many fugly flat themes floating around in KDE, Cinnamon & elsewhere & far too few with the sort of mild touch of gloss & sheen that I think makes for a far more attractive desktop; however, that purely aesthetic & is far from being some kind of massive inherent design flaw in KDE 5.
On the subject of holding out on KDE 4 & wanting features back, well I think all the major distros that ship KDE 4 will do so with KDE 5 on their next major versions. On Debian this means the upcoming version 9 which should be out this year, as it is with Mageia 6. That is one of those things the reviewer probably should have looked into a bit more, but KDE 5.8 is already in the upcoming version of Debian & should be supported for the entire length time Debian 9 is, as it was with the version in Debian 8.
On the feature thing, I seem to recall talk of there being regressions in the major version bump from KDE 4 to 5. It seems like it's generally far from intentional & the KDE team is trying to restore nearly everything. The exception I know of is having different widgets & wallpapers on each desktop, which is being replaced with the slightly different activities feature. That's more a change than a loss, but I'll have to try playing with it in KDE 5 to decide which way of doing things is better.
At any rate I don't think things are nearly as bad as you make them out to be, at least not in Linux land.
66 • Sabayon / Linux Mousepads (by Ev on 2017-03-14 19:42:30 GMT from United States)
Just a thought, I had a problem getting my new HP Envy 360's mousepad to work properly until I realized it was being handled by Synaptics. While using that, the cursor would jump around everywhere, especially to the lower-left corner for no reason. At first I thought it was my palm touching it that was causing this, but when I tried typing and using the mouse like a Daddy-Longlegs spider would, it still jumped around.
My solution was to switch to from "x11-drivers/xf86-input-synaptics" to "dev-libs/libinput". Once "libinput" was installed, but mousepad no longer jumped around or anything, but it did still need to be configured to my liking. I then noticed that I also needed "x11-apps/xinput" in order to further configure the mousepad, so with the commands "xinput list-props 11" followed by "xinput set-prop 11 XYZ TUV" I was able to get everything working perfectly fine.
(FYI -- I'm using Sabayon Gnome 17.01. I'm positive that this solution will work with several ,if not all, other distros experiencing problems with their mousepad.)
67 • SolydXK Mousepad (by Ev on 2017-03-14 19:45:34 GMT from United States)
Excuse me above, I meant to title it as this correction post. "Sabayon" should be "SolydXK", since that distro was the one reviewed and had problems with the mousepad. I'm so used to typing "Sabayon" my fingers typed without me even noticing I made that mistake until just after posting.
Sorry about that!
68 • Servers (by Chris on 2017-03-14 20:37:17 GMT from United States)
To date, I have only ever needed to run SSH and VNC servers. I sometimes (as necessary) SSH into my PC to administer the system, but I primarily run a tunneled VNC connection through SSH (security purposes) in order to access various documents and data via my smartphone (beats lugging a laptop around just to look something up, and I do not require extra storage and various viewing apps on my phone, only a VNC client capable of SSH tunnels). Also for security reasons, I have a custom SSH and VNC enable/disable script linked to my desktop so that I can activate and deactivate the servers quickly when I walk away/return from/to my PC; however, I have been meaning to try and find a way to have my screensaver automatically run my script when the screensaver is activated/deactivated. Any advice on such from the knowledgable DW community would be greatly appreciated.
I have also considered running my own secured and encrypted email server, but have not had the time to research such yet. Maybe a future DWW article may inspire me. :)
69 • Home server (by John on 2017-03-14 20:40:05 GMT from United States)
I'm running music player daemon on a headless raspberry pi3 with raspbian lite installed. A 128 gig usb thumb drive gives me lots of drive space for music tracks and room to add other junk. Connected to an external sound card and external bluetooth transmitter the faster rpi3 is ideal for streaming music to a bt speaker or streaming with icecast via ovpn remotely when on the road. I use samba to make access to the music library easier.
70 • @64 • the upside to a lousy review (by Greg Zeng on 2017-03-15 02:25:44 GMT from Australia)
The Linux world has yet to discover what is good technical journalism. Automotive and recently Android professional writers often now know to pack facts into a tight word count. Short sentences. Direct, action verbs. Brief emotions & relevant comparisons with similar products.
All Linux distros come from either the "old" (CLI-only) or the "new" (GUI) worlds. The first & popular survivor "family" in the GUI is Red Hat, with its strong commercial supports. This family has as its "children" & "grandchildren": Fedora, PCLOS, etc.
The second largest "family" is Debian, with the main "child" being Ubuntu. This Ubuntu-family then created the biggest Linux family by far: Mint, Lite, Vinux, BlackLab, Mate, Maui, Zorin, etc.
Within each "family" are "flavors". Generally these flavors are in all the large families: XFCE, LXDE, LXQt, Gnome, Mate, Cinnamon, KDE, Plasma, etc. Each of these "flavors" are another very specialized topic for comparison & discussion, elsewhere.
Every reviewer of any Linux distro needs to mention the category of the distro imho. This topic has been discussed also on Youube, in their media-limited way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_lgg5YmUhY "Does the Linux Community Need New Terminology?" by "Switched to Linux".
71 • Looks like out of all Arch-based distros, Chakra is the best for stability (by RJARPCGP on 2017-03-15 05:49:00 GMT from United States)
I believe the semi-rolling model sets Chakra apart from other Arch-based distros.
@9, I would dump the current ISP if you can! I know that Maine has a very good ISP...
72 • kde4/5 (by peer on 2017-03-15 06:30:50 GMT from Netherlands)
I now use linux neon with kde 5 (now 5.9.3) without any problems or hickups. It just works and is very stable. In my opion it looks better then kde4.
73 • @65 KDE 4/5 features (by curious on 2017-03-15 12:17:33 GMT from Germany)
You stated "having different widgets & wallpapers on each desktop, which is being replaced with the slightly different activities feature".
That isn't entirely accurate, since KDE 4 already HAD "activities". So, activities in KDE 5 replace activities in KDE 4, but the other feature of having multiple desktops that are different from each other has been taken away.
Anyway, I still haven't seen anything that KDE 5 does better than KDE 4 - except using up system resources.
74 • 70 • Clarity (by FOSSilizing Dinosaur on 2017-03-15 12:55:23 GMT from United States)
The spectacular failure of the Tower of Babel project underscored the pitfall of obfuscation through jargon.
Using the word "family" alone is certainly shorter than "package management format", but is it as clear? Should Alien be mentioned?
Should "flavor" be short for Window-Manager/Desktop-Environment? Perhaps - that's often how different ISOs on a release are described.
How could we distinguish server, desktop, etc? Life can be complicated, eh?
75 • FreePBX (by Mike M. on 2017-03-15 14:19:19 GMT from Canada)
Does DistroWatch know when the next stable version (14) of the FreePBX distro will be released?
Thanks!
76 • SolydK and other distros that use KDE4 (by Mike M. on 2017-03-15 15:45:56 GMT from Canada)
I'm looking for a distro that I can use to run a version of Kdenlive that supports import from Firewire video cameras.
I understand Firewire support was removed from Kdenlive when it was updated for KDE5.
Which other distros still use KDE4?
Thanks!
77 • More KDE 5 (by M.Z. on 2017-03-15 16:56:51 GMT from United States)
@73
Well the different desktops thing was neat for most of the time I used it, but the activities were a mess the few times I tried them in KDE 4. I don't know if the current implementation of activities is so good that the old different desktop widgets isn't needed, but I'm still reserving judgement.
On the weight thing, do you have any good data to back that up? I thought that the KDE team was actually trying to make version 5 faster, lighter, & more responsive. I've heard more complaints about the weight of KDE 4 than you can shake a stick at, but only ever noticed any slowness on an old 32 machine. There are obviously places for LXQT & other light weight DEs, but on any halyway modern hardware KDE 4 always seemed to fly in spite of what the critics claimed.
@76
"Which other distros still use KDE4?"
You mean aside from Debian 8 based ones? Obviously anything based on CentOS/RHEL 7.x. I also use KDE 4 on Mageia 5, though that's supposed to be replaced shortly & support will end 3 months after the replacement arrives. I also think anything based on the same version of Ubuntu LTS as the Mint 17.x series would be a good candidate to have KDE 4 for another couple of years. I did run Mint 17 KDE on my laptop quite happily for a couple of years. There is a 5 year support cycle for the base and there should be security & basic updates till 2019.
78 • @64 by mud (by deme on 2017-03-15 19:18:12 GMT from United States)
> i have also given many friends machines with Solyd (X or K) to get them off the Microsoft or Apple addiction.<
First of all, why should you worry about other people's addictions, even if they are just operating systems? How many Windows users had complained that they don't want to use Win Ten? Would SolydXK can run Sketchup, Autocad, Archicad etc?
I've been using Linux more than 10 years. I've even installed Funtoo. Lately, I find I can use Win Ten without any problems, and all my apps work without problems. I use LibreOffice, Gimp for day to day work.
Today, strangely, the free OS happens to be Win Ten. Every few days, the laptop, tablet prices go down. The last month's laptop is at least 30% cheap today. And, you can dual boot any Linux distro in them.
79 • @78 (by mud on 2017-03-15 20:07:58 GMT from United States)
because they asked. if Win 10 fits your needs, enjoy it! my SO is a happy Win8 user.
nice of you to ignore my point and attack me for the sake of attacking.
for the slow: my point was not that SolydXK is the One Distro for all... its just the review of it was bad and majorly flawed... the reason i claimed success stories was to point out that the distro has served a solution for more than one person using more than one type of hardware.
the distro does its advertised job of being solid and workable for a lot of users.
as for your specific examples, i have no idea for i do not have those needs... maybe Windows IS your best solution... and maybe you should use it protected in a virtual machine.
about my jab about addiction: its a Linux thing, we always want as many people away from CLOSED SOURCE code as possible.
now, kindly take your off topic Microsoft fanboyism up out of my face, thanks!
or pick on my typos and errors next, what ever suits you!
80 • Vultr VPS server (by Francesco Turco on 2017-03-15 20:13:35 GMT from Italy)
I just finished installing Gentoo Linux on my Vultr VPS server. It hosts my personal website, a public Shaarli instance for web bookmarks and a private Tiny Tiny RSS instance for web feeds.
81 • @78 (by bigsky on 2017-03-15 23:44:16 GMT from Canada)
The free OS happens to be Win Ten ?? I don't think so sparky. Today strangely that's what people assume in their warp speed minds. You would have had to pay and buy a computer with that privilege somewhere down the line eh. This advertisement was payed for and sponsored by Canonical. Thanks
82 • Your issues with new hardware on a 2014-vintage distro and the solution (by Steven Pusser on 2017-03-16 02:03:15 GMT from United States)
You have sixth generation Skylake hardware. Jessie's 3.16 kernel and Intel video driver have only crippled support for that combination--it only works well up to and including fourth-generation hardware. http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=131611
Debian has backported packages in the jessie-backports repository that solve all this problems. No doubt this could also fix the Optimus issue--run the nvidia-detect terminal program from backports to determine this, and then install Bumblebee per its entry in the Debian wiki to get it up and running.
I have a Skylake 520 Optimus laptop that requires these procedures, and it purrs like a kitten now.
83 • @78 (by Chris on 2017-03-16 02:17:15 GMT from United States)
"Today, strangely, the free OS happens to be Win Ten." deme
No, you are now the product due to Windows default and practically unremovable spyware. Microsoft bought you, but only you can determine if they got you free, cheap, or at a premium.
84 • @83 (by Chris on 2017-03-16 02:46:24 GMT from United States)
Regarding and in addition to my previous comment, @83:
To be fair, Linux, various FOSS software, my distro(s) of choice, and their many developers have bought me. They provide me with mostly high-quality FOSS and in exchange ask me to voluntarily "pay" by reporting bugs, reviewing code, submitting code (original or corrections), answering various questions on numberous fora, etc.
Unfortunately, due to my lack of knowledge, skills, and abilities, to date I have been only ably to "pay" a small portion of their voluntary request; therefore, I would have to say they bought me at a premium. For that I apologize.
See the difference?
85 • Server Details for poll (by B on 2017-03-16 03:20:04 GMT from United States)
Xen host (Ubuntu) physical running 8 guests (CentOS and Ubuntu mix): 3 Minecraft servers for the kids, Plex, file sharing, a jump server for access from the outside, a test rpm repository, and test server of the week. These sit behind another physical running FreeBSD/pfSense as firewall.
86 • #47 FreeBSD on Pi3 or 2? (by B on 2017-03-16 03:29:09 GMT from United States)
Please share link on getting FreeBSD running on Pi if it was version 3 I have had 0 luck and Google skills are just coming up with dead ends and fails. Really would like to get off Ubuntu on my Pi3. Thanks!
87 • @64 (by B on 2017-03-16 03:42:33 GMT from United States)
Dude, be nice. That kind of elitism is what kept me on Windows so long until I realized not everyone in the *nix world is a jerk. There are guru's and n00bs and everyone has to start somewhere and maybe you should take the constructive criticism approach to this and see it as a place where the documentation should be more clear as to what type of XP the target audience of the distro needs to have to run.
88 • @87 "documentation should be more clear" (by Greg Zeng on 2017-03-16 12:31:14 GMT from Australia)
Most computer users use GUI "documentation". The alpha-numeric codes are very unfriendly to most computer users. Te CURRENT readership of DW is ok with alha-numeric languages, eg CLI.
The FUTURE readership of DW might dare to try to include the 98% of computer desktop users who prefer the GUI "documentation". Well designed GUI "documentation" is a very advanced science. If Linux is ever to appeal to the ignored 98% of computer users, it should have its GUI side tidied first.
The largest desktop "families" in Linux are based on Red Hat & Debian atm. The "child-families" based on these foundations have firm demands of compliance before they are allowed to join these families. The mass market for Linux will come from these very large Linux families, with their GUI documentation..
89 • Other people's addictions (by Dave Postles on 2017-03-16 13:45:08 GMT from United Kingdom)
@78 Why would I worry about other people's addictions? Mostly because MS and Apple are alleged global tax avoiders on a significant scale and in the case of Apple there have been endless reports of abusive work practices in the subcontracting factories (e.g. FoxConn) in China. Apart from the technical benefits of OpenSource, there are, IMHO, ethical reasons for using it (and one of the laziest compliant sectors in this regard in is the educational sector which seems to have lost its entire moral compass).
90 • KDE 4 / KDE 5 (by Winchester on 2017-03-16 14:28:47 GMT from United States)
@76
The best KDE 4 which I have tried so far is ROSA Linux.
I have KDE 4 from the .iso and I installed Enlightenment 21 as an alternate session option.
The only real problem with its default set-up was that the poweroff commands did not work however,I was able to fix that by replacing /bin/poweroff , /bin/halt , and /bin/shutdown with a simple shell script :
#!/bin/sh
/bin/systemctl poweroff
Otherwise,just some cosmetic changes to some default icons,wallpapers,the log-in manager and added a few software programs.
It's not a rolling distribution and it is based from Russia but,aside from that,no complaints. Very slick,non-dated looking KDE 4.
For KDE 5 , the best options seem to be KaOS , Neon , Maui , and Netrunner (Netrunner 16.09 for Debian Stable and NetRunner 17.01.2 for Debian Testing).
As far as NetRunner goes,I decided to install KDM to replace the default log-in manager and in 16.09 , edited the /etc/apt/sources.list file as I noted earlier in post # 61.
91 • Minor clarifications (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2017-03-16 16:55:25 GMT from United States)
KDEconnect is not the only SMS bridge, but it's nice that someone resurrected that abandoned project
.
Documentation is not User Interface
.
Corporation-owned distributions do not own the community; some try to exert influence indirectly, through crack-the-whip development, obfuscated coding, needless inter-dependencies, marketing deception, etc - none have a monopoly thereon
.
92 • @79 (by deme on 2017-03-16 23:46:13 GMT from United States)
>about my jab about addiction: its a Linux thing, we always want as many people away from CLOSED SOURCE code as possible.<
We think that we know, what is closed source or open source code, but most of the users don't know or care. they only want the laptop or tablet to work. And, if the apps are working, who cares?
Some of us like to design, and Autocad, Archicad or Sketchup and such like are needed. There are no such apps for Linux.
BTW, when you talk about Linux distros, how about not mentioning the "other" OSs? You can only compare one Linux distro another, not to those "other" OSs. Most of us here jump at the "other" OSs to prove a point, but there is no way to prove that "point."
93 • A foolish assumption (by FOSSilizing Dinosaur on 2017-03-17 03:24:03 GMT from United States)
"There are no such apps for Linux."
94 • Chakra GNU/Linux (by Ben Myers on 2017-03-17 04:50:56 GMT from United States)
The code name "Goedel" is a clever one. For which mathematical theorems is Kurt Gödel famous? Perhaps the code name should apply to every operating system?
95 • @74 - Better still... (by Ben Myers on 2017-03-17 04:55:30 GMT from United States)
Better still, discard the jargon and write clear and unambiguous prose. Throw away the meaningless cliches like the one I despise the most: "lightweight", and replace with quantitative descriptive information. The better people understand what is distro is all about the more likely they are to try it.
96 • server (by ChibaCity on 2017-03-17 07:40:14 GMT from United States)
At home, here's what I have: pfSense firewall. Ubuntu 16.04 hosting (kvm) a CentOS 6.8 vm with Postfix/Apache/Bind. Apf + iptables on the web/mail/DNS server. Host machines run Mint. I mostly just use sftp -- no great need for nfs or Samba, though I've had nfs up in the past. Use X2Go fairly often for the headless boxes -- given that I manage so few boxes at home, guis are nice. MythTV will probably come one day, along with FreeNAS to host movies. I always have at least three copies of any data, one of which is off site, one of which is offline, and one of which is deliberately kept stale. I just use rsync to backup data; again, no big need to manage large amounts of data and backups, nor is there an urgent need for timely restoration.
97 • Linux terminology (by Jordan on 2017-03-17 14:48:43 GMT from United States)
Linux seems to have a persona of its own that is fluid and dynamic. That is one of the non-tangible aspects of Linux that sets it apart from Windows and Mac OS. We see generalities, of course, but we know what they mean. Even if/when we don't know exactly what they mean ("family" = package management format, etc.. blah) we know what the context is and we know what we're talking about.
Maybe it'll become refined or perceived that way over more time, but why? There are Linux dictionaries out there, we can look things up. Want to make changes? Edit a wiki or two.
98 • response to nr 64, mud (by mud washer on 2017-03-17 15:00:45 GMT from United States)
Re your ad hominem blast of Ivan:
Ok, it wasn't your experience, but it was his, and that is what he reported.
He was nice enough to write a review. You owe him an apology for the brutalness of your vicious ad hominem attack!!
99 • FreePBX (by EmuDan on 2017-03-17 18:16:22 GMT from United States)
Nice to see FreePBX finally made it to the list. It really makes managing a phone system much, much easier. Even though I'm no longer in that line of work, I'm happy for the FreePBX team and all the current users.
100 • @92 CAD apps (by Thomas Mueller on 2017-03-18 09:49:11 GMT from United States)
I don't have Gentoo Portage tree but I have (NetBSD) pkgsrc tree and FreeBSD ports trees. Each of these has a category "cad", and there are CAD apps. I can't say how these open-source CAD apps compare to AutoCAD, not being a CAD user. But I remember back to 1990, retail price of AutoCAD, which was for DOS at that time, was $3000. But there were also less costly CAD packages such as EasyCAD by Evolution Computing. You can also find some basic information about CAD packages at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FastCAD .
101 • @97 Linux Terminology? (by Ben Myers on 2017-03-18 19:18:59 GMT from United States)
The fluid and dynamic Linux persona is fine, but a distro is described in vague generalities? Where is the good sense in that?
Okay, so what is the oft-abused term "lightweight"? Seems like 90% of the distros claim they are lightweight, whatever that is, and without any metrics to back it up.
The descriptive info provided by distros on their own web pages and to DistroWatch have simply gotta be better to entice people into trying them.
102 • A server (by Claus Futtrup on 2017-03-18 20:09:50 GMT from Norway)
I voted that I run a server here at home. It's a Synology NAS (file server, and more). AFAIK it uses Busybox (a Linux OS).
103 • 101 • @97 Linux Terminology? (by Greg Zeng on 2017-03-19 02:13:59 GMT from Australia)
Organizational people here know these "debates" are sickenly endless & political, But they are extremely important & necessary.
Every person, every department (coders, marketing, market-research, investment, stock-holders, etc) has contradictory opinions. These change. They create enemies, traitors, spies, job prospects, spin-offs, break-aways, etc.
In a healthy, expanding capitalist organization, they have enough wisdom to stay on ahead of the surfing wave, then jump onto the next surfing wave, before the wave dies. Microsoft's is refusing to follow Apple, by switching to the Unix wave. Canonical is trying to re-launch the Unix wave better than Apple. Linux is "ethical" and "honorable", because of the open-source integrity. The majority of the BSD coders think that Linux is not good enough. Google (Android & Chrome) is trying o popularize another type of open-source, similar to the biggest financial benefactors to the Linux Foundation.
Time & history will show how these marketing wars play out. Will Microsoft & Apple behave like the USA car industries, or Germany's photographic & chemical industries? Will the East Asians (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan & China) replace the Secondary & Tertiary industries pioneered by the "western" (white) world? Recent history seems to indicate this change, from the white to the Asiatic peoples (including India). Unfortunately? Is cooperative team-work better than the individualistic war? No: according to the current "legally elected boss of the free world".
104 • @86 (B) FreeBSD link (by Steve on 2017-03-19 16:16:36 GMT from United States)
B - I don't always check back but I came by today just to see if my belly aching about systemd generated a trolls... I was a little surprised it didn't but I'm glad I came back because I hate leaving someone hanging...
I'm running a Raspberry Pi 2B using the image provided at: http://www.raspbsd.org/raspberrypi.html
I've tried ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/ISO-IMAGES/ with less than stellar luck (video problems for me) but raspbsd.org works fine "out of the box" for me (ymmv). They have an image for Pi 3 as well but I don't have one to try it on.
I collected some other links (a couple of years ago now) that may or may not be useful (I forget which I found particularly useful but I did hang on to them):
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/index.html
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/README.md
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/freebsd-is-here/
https://www.maketecheasier.com/freebsd-on-raspberry-pi/
https://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/arm/Raspberry%20Pi
http://raspbsd.org/
I hope that helps... sorry for the delay responding -- Steve
105 • Server(s) (by Gabe on 2017-03-19 23:29:00 GMT from United States)
I use Freenas for backup and storage of video footage, then use Open Media Vault across network to different location for Dedup of important info (in case of fire, equip failure, ransomware, etc).
The nice thing is the OMV box also hosts the company docuwiki through the Ngnix plugin doing double duty.
Though Freenas encrypts the volumes built-in I had to multiple partition the OMV box for base os, WWW, and then a Luks encrypted partition all on the same hard-drive.
Number of Comments: 105
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Thiz Linux
With the vision of great demand of stable, affordable operating system for Internet access and document processing, ThizLinux Laboratory Limited was set up in Hong Kong in January 2000, aiming to provide PC user a cost-effective and user-friendly operating system. Among the variety of Linux projects, ThizLinux Laboratory concentrates its effort in three developments: Linux-based applications & ERP Projects, embedded Linux O/S and applications and Linux Diffusion and Education. ThizLinux Laboratory was proud to be the first Linux O/S developer in Hong Kong. We are dedicated to simplify the installation process and enrich the applications, allowing users to use ThizLinux products at ease.
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