 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 827, 12 August 2019 |
Welcome to this year's 32nd issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Sometimes it can seem like every software developer is adding more features, more options and more bloat to their creations. However, there are some projects which strive to keep their systems lean and compatible with older hardware. We begin this week with a look at Q4OS, a lightweight Debian distribution which offers users the choice of modern software like KDE Plasma 5, while also providing the option to run the classic Trinity desktop. Read on to learn more about this snappy, Debian-based distribution in our Feature Story. Then, in our Tips and Tricks column, we explore a few methods for finding files from the command line. We would like to know what is the best method you have for locating files on your hard drive and welcome feedback in our Opinion Poll. Last week Ubuntu developers talked about improving ZFS support and the Haiku team worked on performance bottlenecks. We have more details on these stories in our News section along with a sad report that OSDisc, a service that shipped Linux install media around the world, is shutting down. Plus we share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Q4OS 3.8
- News: Ubuntu works toward ZFS on root, Haiku team improves performance, OSDisc shuts down
- Tips and tricks: How to find files
- Released last week: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.7, Ubuntu 18.04.3, Voyager Live 10
- Torrent corner: AUSTRUMI, BeeFree, Endless, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, KDE neon, OSMC, PCLinuxOS, Raspberry Slideshow, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu MATE, Voyager, Xubuntu, Zeroshell
- Upcoming releases: Rebellin Linux 4
- Opinion poll: Methods for finding files
- New distributions: CryptoCurrency OS
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (14MB) and MP3 (10MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Q4OS 3.8
Q4OS is a curious project which has done a few things that set it apart from most other Linux distributions. The first thing which stands out about Q4OS is it runs the Trinity desktop. Trinity is the continuation of KDE 3, a flexible desktop environment that was replaced by KDE Plasma on most Linux distributions. Q4OS is one of just two projects in the DistroWatch database still using Trinity as a first tier desktop.
The other feature which immediately stands out is Q4OS is designed to look like classic versions of Microsoft Windows. The Trinity desktop has been themed to have a distinctly Windows XP appearance, complete with desktop icons and a two-pane application menu.
Q4OS 3.8 is based on Debian 10 and is available in 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x86_64) builds. The project ships two editions. The first edition now uses KDE Plasma by default, but still ships with Trinity as a secondary desktop on the install media. The second edition ships with Trinity only. The KDE Plasma media is 869MB in size while the pure Trinity edition is a 638MB download. I decided to download the combined Plasma and Trinity edition.
The disc boots to a graphical environment. A pop-up appears and asks us to select our language from a drop-down list. When wireless networks are detected we are also given the chance to connect over wi-fi. The Plasma desktop (version 5.14.5) then loads. The desktop features a single icon for launching the distribution's installer. A panel at the bottom of the display holds the application menu, task switcher and system tray. A welcome window then appears and offers us six buttons that launch configuration modules or tools to help us install packages. I will come back to the welcome window later as it is not particularly useful when running from the live media.
Q4OS 3.8 -- Trinity using the Classic menu
(full image size: 162kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
I feel it is worth noting that we can sign out of the Plasma desktop and sign into the Trinity desktop while running from the live media. There probably isn't a good reason to do this if we downloaded the main edition of Q4OS (if we wanted to run Trinity we could have downloaded the smaller edition). However, I wanted to see if Trinity would work on the live media and it does.
Installing
Q4OS uses the Calamares system installer, a cross-distro, graphical tool that makes installing Linux distributions straight forward. With a few clicks we can pick our preferred language, time zone and keyboard layout. We are then asked to either manually partition the hard drive or let Calamares set up partitions for us. Calamares suggests a two-partition layout using ext4 for the root filesystem alongside a swap partition. We then make up a username and password for ourselves and the installer copies its packages to the disk. Calamares is, in my opinion, a very friendly installer and its whole process is both quick and easy to navigate.
Early impressions
Q4OS boots to a graphical login screen where we can sign into either Trinity or Plasma. When we first sign in a window pops up and asks which of three bundles of software we want to install. We can install the Full bundle which includes several commonly used applications; the Basic desktop bundle which includes just a few applications; or we can leave things as they are, relatively bare bones. Not many details are given as to the specifics of what each bundle includes. I went with the Full option, which is recommended for new users. We are then shown progress information as several new packages are downloaded and installed. The packages mostly appear to come from Debian repositories, but the information scrolled by too quickly for me to see exactly which applications were being installed. Once the download is complete we are asked to reboot the computer.
Q4OS 3.8 -- The welcome window
(full image size: 129kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The next time we sign into our account the welcome window appears with its six options. One button launches the desktop profiler, which turns out to be the program that installs Full or Basic bundles of software. Another button gives us the option of turning on visual desktop effects. A third button lets us switch application menu styles between Classic (a tree-style menu), Kickoff (the Plasma default), and Bourbon which appears to be the Trinity two-pane style menu that resembles the Windows XP menu.
The welcome window also includes a button to enable automatic logins, a button for installing third-party media codecs, and one for launching a custom software centre. The software centre lists 19 popular applications (including Chrome, Firefox, LibreOffice, WINE, and Skype). We can select one application to install at a time. There is no indication of which packages have already been installed which I believe may confuse people. When we select an application to install, a Windows-style wizard appears and guides us through installing the package. In the background APT is still doing the work, but the user experience resembles the Windows approach of clicking Next, Next, Done when installing new software.
Q4OS 3.8 -- Installing popular applications
(full image size: 138kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The Plasma and Trinity desktops are set up with similar layouts and styles. One of the few significant differences I noticed was Trinity displays icons on the desktop for launching popular applications. There are icons for opening the Chrome browser, VLC, Thunderbird, and LibreOffice. Plasma does not display icons on the desktop by default. Another minor difference is Trinity's screensaver turns on after six minutes while Plasma's is set to launch after five. The default Trinity application menu contains many sub-categories of software, and some of those contain their own sub-categories. A few launchers are as deep as five layers down. Plasma's menu offers fewer levels of categories making its menu slightly faster to navigate.
Hardware
Memory usage is another area where Trinity and Plasma differ. Running the KDE Plasma desktop on Q4OS requires 420MB of memory when logged in while Trinity uses a mere 245MB. Both desktops are responsive and worked quickly during my trial, though Trinity is noticeably snappier. Menus open quicker and Trinity has an overall lighter feel to it. Q4OS, with the Full bundle of applications installed, takes up about 5.6GB of disk space. This is a little leaner than the average mainstream distribution running just one desktop environment.
I tried running Q4OS on a laptop computer and in a VirtualBox machine. In both test environments Q4OS worked well. The operating system booted quickly, ran smoothly, and detected all of my hardware. When run in a virtual machine, Q4OS integrated with VirtualBox and was able to use my host computer's maximum screen resolution.
Applications
With the Full software bundle installed, Q4OS ships with the Chrome and Konqueror web browsers, LibreOffice, and the Thunderbird e-mail client. The distribution also features the Okular document viewer, the K3b and Brasero disc burners, and the VLC multimedia player. Media codecs can be downloaded through the welcome window and work as expected. The Krusader and Dolphin file managers are installed and Network Manager is present to help us connect to networks. Java is present on the system. Like its parent distribution, Q4OS uses the systemd init software and ships with version 4.19 of the Linux kernel.
Q4OS 3.8 -- Running the Chrome web browser
(full image size: 251kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The software included with Q4OS was all stable and worked properly. The default selection of applications is likely to supply the functionality most people need. I would have appreciated a dedicated music player, but those are easy enough to install as needed.
Software management
Q4OS provided me with two software managers: Discover and Synaptic. Synaptic is a classic, graphical package manager, suitable for working with low-level packages. Synaptic offers users many package filters, quick search results and it processes install, upgrade and removal actions in batches.
Q4OS 3.8 -- The Synaptic package manager
(full image size: 86kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Discover has a more modern look and focuses on desktop applications. Discover can also install, remove and upgrade packages. It processes actions immediately instead of in batches and its interface is noticeably slower. Discover, I was sorry to find, tended to crash frequently. In fact, almost any time a search for a package name was performed, Discover would terminate.
Q4OS pulls in many of its packages from Debian's servers, but the project also maintains some of its own package repositories. Plus we are connected with Google's Chrome repository in order to get browser updates.
During my time running Q4OS's Trinity desktop I did not notice any notifications of new software updates, though I tended to use Trinity more frequently than Plasma. When I did run Plasma, an icon in the system tray would let me know when new software updates were available. Clicking the icon would offer me the option of launching Discover to review and install new updates. There were not many updates, probably less than a dozen, totaling less than 100MB during my week with the distribution.
Though Q4OS does not appear to advertise portable package support, the distribution ships with both the Snap and Flatpak frameworks installed. Both of these are integrated with the Discover software manager. I wasn't able to successfully search for and install portable packages through Discover as it would crash before completing its actions, but the command line Snap and Flatpak tools worked.
Settings
Each desktop environment ships with its own settings panel. The KDE Plasma panel uses the newer, two-pane layout. There are many groups of settings and many sub-groups within them. Luckily there is a search feature to help users find the settings they want to adjust. Trinity's settings panel features far fewer modules and is presented more like a file manager showing folders. Both settings panels worked well for me.
Q4OS 3.8 -- The Trinity settings panel
(full image size: 160kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Other observations
I made a few other observations while playing with Q4OS. For instance, the distribution ships with sudo, allowing the first user to perform administrative tasks.
More importantly, this may be the first distribution I have used that ran Trinity and Plasma (effectively KDE 3 and KDE 5) side-by-side. The experience is seamless and I encountered no problems as a result of having these two desktops installed together. Each appears to be entirely isolated from the other, with their own settings and features.
Q4OS 3.8 -- Plasma desktop settings
(full image size: 172kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Conclusions
Q4OS is one of the better performing distributions I have used this year. The performance, especially when running the Trinity desktop, is top-notch and the resource footprint is small.
I had wondered going into this trial if Trinity would be available on the Plasma install media and, if so, if Trinity would offer a usable experience. Trinity was created as a continuation of KDE 3 about eleven years ago, after KDE 4.0 was launched, and I did not expect a particularly modern or polished experience. However, Trinity worked well and, with a little adjustment, looked quite good in my opinion. In a few places, like the settings panel, it shows its age, but Trinity provided a solid performance and I found I enjoyed it better than Plasma.
For the most part, Q4OS works well. I like its installer, I like that it offers five years of support (thanks to its Debian base), and the distribution is particularly light and fast. I think newcomers to Linux will appreciate the Windows-like theme Trinity offers, especially if they recently used Windows XP, Vista, or 7.
The one weak point in the experience for me was Discover. The software manager offers several features and I like that it can integrate with both Flatpak and Snap, but trying to do almost anything with Discover (apart from installing updates) caused the centre to crash.
Otherwise, I greatly enjoyed Q4OS. I like the small, yet capable collection of default software. The welcome screen is easy to navigate, and I did not encounter any serious problems with the distribution as a whole. I also like that Q4OS is targeting lower-spec hardware and should run equally well on 32-bit or 64-bit machines. In short: it's friendly, fast, and offers all the packages available on Debian which I think makes it an attractive desktop distribution.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a de-branded HP laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: Intel i3 2.5GHz CPU
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 700GB hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Wired network device: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast
- Wireless network device: Realtek RTL8188EE Wireless network card
* * * * *
Visitor supplied rating
Q4OS has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.6/10 from 147 review(s).
Have you used Q4OS? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Ubuntu works toward ZFS on root, Haiku team improves performance, OSDisc shuts down
The Ubuntu team has been gradually adding more support for the advanced filesystem called ZFS. ZFS is able to create vast storage pools across multiple disks and supports creating filesystem snapshots, deduplicating files, and compression. Making it possible to run ZFS as the root filesystem is an experimental feature planned for Ubuntu 19.10. "So, what's new for Ubuntu 19.10 (Eoan Ermine)? As has already been reported, spotted in our weekly team report on Ubuntu discourse, we are going to enhance ZFS on root support in the coming cycles. Ubuntu 19.10 is a first round towards that goal. We want to support ZFS on root as an experimental installer option, initially for desktop, but keeping the layout extensible for server later on. The desktop will be the first beneficiary in Ubuntu 19.10. Note the use of the term 'experimental' though! As we want to have the dataset layout right and we know a file system is very crucial as it's responsible for all your data, we don't want to encourage people to use it on production systems yet, or at least, not without regular backups." Further details are available in this Ubuntu blog post.
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The Haiku developers have been polishing their lightweight operating system, which continues the design and work started by BeOS. The Haiku developers have made a lot of progress recently in improving the performance of their already snappy operating system. In particular, writes to disks are getting faster: "I noticed that it had a hard-coded 2-second timeout in-between write-backs, to avoid disk congestion (and to avoid writing back blocks that were likely to be modified again). This meant it could fill up and then applications would be stuck waiting for it to write out the dirtied blocks (which was the cause of the long-standing 'Tracker stops and starts while emptying Trash'), among other slownesses. (Probably when this code was first written over a decade ago it was not as much of a bottleneck.) Now we instead compute a dynamic timeout based on how long the last block writes took, which can be a 10x performance difference (on HDDs) or even a 100-200x performance improvement (on SSDs)." Other improvements are mentioned in the Haiku monthly newsletter.
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We received word on August 5th that OSDisc is shutting down operations. For over 16 years OSDisc has been shipping Linux install media to people around the world, providing physical media to people who wanted to try distributions that did not provide any off-line methods for acquiring install discs. OSDisc has faced issues with rising shipping costs while wide-spread high-speed Internet has reduced the need for physical install media. "After over 16 years, OSDisc.com is ending service. The website has stopped accepting orders, but it will stay live for a while to handle returns, support questions, and warranty issues for our customers. Why? I started OSDisc to spread Linux and help new users get started. But DVDs just aren't relevant anymore, and have a little effect on the spread of Linux. I regularly see very small distros that provide tens of thousands of downloads, but sell one or two DVDs, if any. The vast majority of Linux users are downloading the software themselves. And that's a great thing to see." The notice from OSDisc reports that, over the past decade and a half, over 200,000 discs were shipped to Linux and BSD customers.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Tips and Tricks (by Jesse Smith) |
How to find files
Modern operating systems hold a lot of files. It's not uncommon for an operating system with just one user to store over 100,000 files on its disk. (At the time of writing my laptop is home to 1,268,988 files.) Which means virtually every computer's disk has become a haystack and any file we did not store in an organized way (that we still remember) becomes the proverbial needle.
Luckily there are several tools which will help us find files on our computer. The right tool for the job will depend on what sort of file we want to find and what parameters we can supply to help the system find our data.
In instances where we know the name of a program, such as ls, grep, or systemctl, but do not know the directory it is in, we can use the which command to find it. The which program takes the name of a command and tells us its full pathname, as shown below:
which grep
/bin/grep
In cases where we know part of a filename, but not its full location, or perhaps even its full name, most distributions can use the locate command to find files with similar names. Let's say I want to find any document with the term "tax" in the name. I can locate any matching files using locate as follows:
locate tax
The above command will return files with names like the following:
/usr/share/yelp-xsl/js/jquery.syntax.js
/usr/include/netax25
/home/jesse/Documents/income-tax.ods
Chances are the only file in the above list we really wanted was the last one. So if we are getting dozens or hundreds of matches we can use the grep command to filter down the results. For instance, the following command also looks for files with the term "tax" in the name, but then filters down the results to only show results in my home directory:
locate tax | grep /home/jesse
In this next example, I want to find all songs on my computer with the word "love" in the title. The "love" keyword will show up in many system files, so I modify the locate command to only show items it finds in my Music folder:
locate love | grep Music
In this case I was missing some entries that I thought should appear and it turned out that, since Linux filenames are case-sensitive, that locate was not finding songs with "Love" or "LOVE" in the title, only "love". To fix this, we can use the "-i" parameter to tell locate to ignore case-sensitivity.
locate -i love | grep Music
The locate command has the advantage of being very fast. It returns results quickly because it is not examining the available files on the disk when it is run, it is looking through a database of filenames that are updated periodically. This means locate is ideal at finding information that is a day or more older, and it is good at finding matching filenames, but it is not useful for finding brand new files or files with specific characteristics. For special cases like these we will want to use the find command.
The find command accepts a location where it will look for files, followed by flags that tell it how to narrow its search. To find a file with a specific series of characters in the name we can use the "-iname" parameter. For instance, here I look for any files with the ".html" extension in my Documents directory. The "*" matches any characters, so this example finds any files with names that end with ".html":
find ~/Documents -iname "*.html"
We can also search for files based on when they were last modified. This is useful when looking for new files we want to add to a backup. For instance, this find command looks for all files in our home directory that have been created or modified in the past seven days:
find ~/ -mtime -7
The "-7" in this case means we want to see files changed less than seven days ago. We can reverse the logic and look for files more than a week old by using "+7":
find ~/ -mtime +7
The find command can also locate files based on which permissions they have. Permissions are passed to find the same way they are passed to chmod. Programs that retain root permissions when they are run are especially powerful and we might want to know if any of them are on the system. Special executables, such as sudo and firejail, will show up when we look for programs with the set user identity (setuid) permission. Here we can search for setuid programs:
find /usr -perm -4000
Searching the entirety of the /usr directory is likely to take a long time. We can narrow our search to using just our user's path (the locations where the system will look for programs) by performing the following search:
find $(echo $PATH | tr ':' ' ') -perm -4000
The above command filters out the separating colon characters from our user's PATH variable and uses the locations included in the path to narrow our search for powerful setuid programs that may be used to elevate permissions.
The find command allows for multiple parameters to be used. For instance, we can combine looking for specific strings of characters and modification times. This example looks through my Documents directory for new text (txt) files that are less than a week old:
find ~/Documents -mtime -7 -iname "*.txt"
The above command is especially useful if we know we created a file recently, but completely forgot what it was named.
The find program is very flexible and offers several more options for filtering files in searches. Its manual page lists all of the recognized filters and we have common invocations of the find command in our simplified manual page.
* * * * *
Additional tips can be found in our Tips and Tricks archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.7
Red Hat has announced a new update to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7. The new release, 7.7, is expected to be the final feature update to Red Hat's 7.x series as the platform is now shifting into its maintenance phase. "Beyond new capabilities, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.7 also marks the transition of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 to Maintenance Phase I within the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10-year lifecycle. Maintenance Phase I emphasizes maintaining infrastructure stability for production environments and enhancing the reliability of the operating system. Future minor releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 will now focus solely on retaining and improving this stability rather than net-new features. Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscribers are able to migrate across platform versions as support and feature needs dictate. To help with the process, Red Hat offers tools, including in-place upgrades, which helps to streamline and simplify migrating from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8." Further details can be found in the press release and in the release notes.
Ubuntu 18.04.3
Adam Conrad has announced the release of new install media for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. The new media carries to the version number 18.04.3 and contains minor updates and package fixes. Ubuntu community editions, including Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu MATE, and Ubuntu Kylin have also published updated media. "Like previous LTS series, 18.04.3 includes hardware enablement stacks for use on newer hardware. This support is offered on all architectures and is installed by default when using one of the desktop images. Ubuntu Server defaults to installing the GA kernel; however you may select the HWE kernel from the installer bootloader. As usual, this point release includes many updates, and updated installation media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded after installation." Further details can be found in the release notes.
Voyager Live 10
Rodolphe Bachelart has announced the release of Voyager Live 10, a major update of the project's desktop Linux distribution branch based on Debian 10 and featuring a customised GNOME desktop: "Voyager Live 10 is based on Debian 10 'Buster', with 3 edition. A unique, free and open-source, 64-bit GNOME for the purists and two non-free variants with GNOME (amd64 and i386) with all firmware installed for those who have problems with hardware compatibility using the free edition. All editions are built around the new GNOME 3.30 and the Linux kernel 4.19. Warning: Voyager 10 is only a variant of Debian Buster. All the internal structure of Debian 10 is left by default to avoid problems with security and packages and all updates come from official Debian repositories. It is also an international version, with all languages and translations preserved. Among the new Debian Buster features, security is in the spotlight with support for Secure Boot; this means that users will no longer have to disable support for Secure Boot in the firmware configuration. There is also the activation of AppArmor on new installations, the choice of Wayland as the default GNOME display server for the Linux kernel 4.19." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information and screenshots.
Voyager Live 10 -- The default Voyager Live desktop
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not 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 in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 1,548
- Total data uploaded: 27.1TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Methods for finding files
In this week's Tips and Tricks column we covered various ways to locate files from the command line. We would like to hear how you find files on your computer. Do you use the file manager's search tool, run locate, find files with find?
You can see the results of our previous poll on custom versus vanilla desktop environments in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Methods for finding files
| I use find: | 281 (21%) |
| I use locate: | 123 (9%) |
| I search with my text-based file manager: | 22 (2%) |
| I search with my GUI file manager: | 443 (33%) |
| I use a desktop indexing search tool: | 70 (5%) |
| I use a combination of the above: | 354 (26%) |
| I use none of the above: | 64 (5%) |
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
Distributions added to waiting list
- CryptoCurrency OS. CryptoCurrency OS is a distribution based on Linux Mint which ships with multiple cryptocurrency wallets pre-installed. Supported wallets include Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple, Ethereum, and EOS.
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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, 19 August 2019. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • OSDisc (by sarkar on 2019-08-12 01:08:35 GMT from United States)
I remember when I went 100% Linux user at home, I purchased Debian 3-DVD set from OSDisc. Sad to see OSDisc to go away but it was inevitable. People are comfortable with Linux ISO downloads now a days. And no matter how slow your internet connection is, getting a physical disc is still slower and time consuming.
2 • bad week in Linuxland (by Pete on 2019-08-12 01:13:45 GMT from New Zealand)
In the past week we lose OS DIsc and Linux Journal. Both excellent resources and will be missed, but such is the economics of our world.
3 • Finding files (by Guido on 2019-08-12 01:14:36 GMT from Philippines)
I can recommend the tools "Catfish" and "FSearch". Very comfortable and usable GUIs. But in the background they use again find, locate etc.
4 • OSDisc shutting down. (by R. Cain on 2019-08-12 01:23:07 GMT from United States)
I'm really surprised at this. I would have thought that, given the general flakiness of USB-burning programs (except for "dd"; but who uses the command line? Who knows *how* to use it, any more?), that selling thumb drives would have off-set the demise of the CD/DVD drive versions. Apparently not.
I wonder if this speaks to a broader problem--the interest, or lack thereof, in Linux distributions--both BRAND-new, and every NEW, bug-filled version from existing distributions, which absolutely MUST appear every six months.
Good to have known you OSDisc; you were an oasis of sanity in this big, lunacy-infested sandbox--one of the true "white hats". You'll be sorely missed.
5 • locate v. which v. whereis (by bigbenaugust on 2019-08-12 01:52:26 GMT from United States)
which was mentioned in the article but not the poll. I also often use whereis also.
6 • Catfish (by Mike on 2019-08-12 02:00:54 GMT from United States)
I use Catfish to locate files among my 700k. It is fast and works well. I could never get KDE's baloo to work for finding files. It always hung and gobbled up resources trying to make the initial index.
7 • community-pclinuxos-trinity-bigdaddy-2019.08 versus Q4OS (by Tran Older on 2019-08-12 02:41:17 GMT from Vietnam)
Q4OS is good but too minimalistic. For a Trinity distro with all the apps ready for daily use, we can try community-TDE-PCLinuxOS, downloadable at https://pclosusers.com/communityiso/Trinity/community-pclinuxos-trinity-bigdaddy-2019.08.iso.
8 • Q4OS (by Damodaran M V on 2019-08-12 04:26:49 GMT from India)
I have tried 3.6 and 3.7 versions in my old PC's with core2duo 7500E, 2GB RAM, Intel graphics (onboard). All of them worked very well and they are still running nicely. Then I have configured a LTSP server with Q4OS and about 5 thin clients are running without any complaints.(Core 2duo 8500 E with 4 G Ram) The up gradation from 3.6 to 3.7 version went smoothly. Thin/fat clients working very well with Trinity Desktop.
I have also tried it with Raspberry pi 3. The performance is not in par with the default Raspbian OS
From my experience Q4OS is a very good option for Old as well as new computers with low specs.I think it has significance in developing countries like INDIA. (Yes, I am from India)
9 • booting distros, and finding files (by mmphosis on 2019-08-12 05:24:05 GMT from Canada)
* Booting Distros
Sad to see OSDisc shutdown. I started with CD/DVD distros from our local Linux user group. Having an "easy" way to install the operating system is why I started with Ubuntu. I have moved on from Ubuntu, but installing distros is still not that easy. I have a lot more command line kung foo available than when I started. So, for a recent install, I downloaded the "live", extracted the distro to a hard drive partition, renamed the "live" folder to "live-hd" and added an entry (modified from the example) to the 40_custom GRUB menu, and crossed my fingers. It took a few restarts and grub-updates, and eventually I was able to boot a new distro. Easy, not.
* Finding Files
I don't like indexers thrashing the hard drive in the background. I turn off the mlocate cron job, and don't use locate. (On Mac OS X, I turn off Spotlight.) I do use find and which and grep, a lot.
I also created two new commands that I have been working on:
1. show how to ... -- an elaborate 'which' command
# show how to help
source showhowto [-l] [command] [alias] [function] [variable]
The showhowto bash shell script, with it's show and how functions, shows the path/link to commands and information or the source of scripts, aliases, functions, and variables.
2. newest -- shows the newest 24 newest files in the current directory.
# show newest
alias newest=find . -type f -exec stat -c '%Y %n' {} \; | sort -r | cut -b 14- | head -n 24
#alias newest="find . -type f -exec stat -f '%m %N' {} \; | sort -r | cut -b 14- | head -n 24" # darwin version
The alias is the simple version. There is also a newest function that uses a custom stat command written in C that can retrieve the results much faster.
function newest () { mstat $@ | sort -nr | cut -d ' ' -f 2- | head -n 24 ; }
10 • Q4OS & Recoll (by Microlinux on 2019-08-12 05:35:05 GMT from France)
I tried Q4OS a while back, and I really enjoyed the experience, though my main desktop is OpenSUSE Leap + KDE. I use Recoll for indexing and searching files, it works great and finds all your needles in the haystack. Catfish and the likes are just toys.
11 • OSDisc (by greenpossum on 2019-08-12 06:30:55 GMT from United States)
>the general flakiness of USB-burning programs
#notinmyexperience
Vale, OSDisc.
12 • Q4os (by Francesco on 2019-08-12 06:52:56 GMT from Italy)
Recently i have installed q4os 32 bit on a Pentium 4 HT 3.2 GHz with 2 GB of ram, that i was about to trash.
Now it works really fine, to the point that i've bought an ssd for it (a cheap one from Kingdian) and feels and in fact works better than many much newer computer. Boot takes only 29 seconds and overall usability is great.
Congratulations to q4os developers!
13 • The Haiku developers (by Sanjay Prasad on 2019-08-12 07:10:39 GMT from India)
Its great to see Haiku developers doing what needed for low end devices, I will try for my old emachine 732z, will also upgrade to 240GB SSD
14 • Q4OS (by Glenn Condrey on 2019-08-12 07:52:55 GMT from United States)
After Xandros died, I was surprised to see another Debian based distro that used a continuation of the old KDE 3.5 desktop in Trinity.
It feels polished...and is user friendly.
I feel very at home with Q4OS.
15 • Q4OS (by Jahl foss on 2019-08-12 08:38:25 GMT from Nigeria)
It's heart touching to see OSDISC go,I've tried Q4OS for some time and the experience was awesome.
16 • OSDisc, Linux Journal and so on... (by OstroL on 2019-08-12 08:56:05 GMT from Poland)
The closing of Linux related websites had become a standard these days. The well liked Webupd8 stopped publishing in the end of 2017, Noobslab stopped for a while and came back, but there appears to be anyone reading it, for there aren't an comments any more. They were source of new ppas, themes, icons etc. I won't be surprised, if many other still available Linux related web sites close down.
It maybe because of the inability of Linux distros to become the general desktop operating system. Since nearly 2 decades, I am with Linux, I always heard (saw) from all Linux distros that they are actually a substitute to the existing domineering OS platform, that it looked like that, it worked more or less like that, it even ran that OS's programs with a an emulator, which is "not-an-emulator" and so on. The feeling of the substitute, or the poor brother is wouldn't bring in success. The newer Linux kernel based OS, Android came in not trying to be anyone's substitute, without complexes, and became a success, and the domineering OS. And, the multitude of web sites related to it, and thriving.
I always hoped Linux distros would stop considering them as a substitute, but it appears that it won't happen in my lifetime. I hope Distrowatch would hold on, even with less and less new distros coming in to watch for.
17 • Today's subjetcts (by Jim on 2019-08-12 10:11:14 GMT from United States)
I bought one disk from OSDisc, Xandros back up in the dial up days, with high speed Internet I downloaded faster and had less problems with flaws in the hash.
I use Catfish of my file browser (Caja) search.
I tried Q4OS just for fun, and found it worked well and was interesting. Yet I tend not to like MS Windows clones that are to "Windows" like for newbies. Having a graphic box for installing software that looks like the MS .exe or . msi installation GUI could be very confusing to a :Linux newbie. They might think they can install any .exe or msi file without WINE and become discouraged when that does not work.
18 • Finding files (by Ista Zahn on 2019-08-12 10:35:08 GMT from United States)
There are some more recent command line alternatives to find and locate that I use a lot, including https://github.com/sharkdp/fd and https://github.com/junegunn/fzf
19 • cheer up (by Tim on 2019-08-12 11:02:44 GMT from United States)
Cheer up Ostro. Jesse just wrote a glowing review of a distro that wasn't even on my radar, and there's people chiming in from around the world about how it's helped them keep old computers going. Debian just released an incredibly rock-solid Buster which I think will be the base of many more such capable derivatives. Millions of kids around the world are using Linux in the form of ChromeOS. One of the most positive things I've seen for the Linux community in recent years has been the emergence of very active Facebook groups. With forums, a newbie had to figure out what problem they were having before they could even ask the question, but with these groups a large number of users see the question and can help without preconceived notions of what the problem is.
The doom and gloom is really only here in the comments thread. Lots of good stuff is happening in other places. The source of the angst that we don't have more marketshare always seems to have been that it would mean Linux would fizzle away. That's not happening.
20 • @16 Linux as substitute (by Randolf on 2019-08-12 11:19:58 GMT from United States)
Linux distros SHOULD consider themselves as substitute (or replacement) for other OS. If they dont, why should someone use them?
21 • Lighter distros and the future of Linux (by MikeOh Shark on 2019-08-12 11:53:06 GMT from Austria)
It seems to me that every time we see a review of a lighter weight, fast, stable distro we also see a lot of enthusiastic comments. Maybe light weight is a chink in Microsoft's armor.
It also surprises me that Linux is claimed to have small penetration in the market. Whenever people find out that I use Linux they get excited and tell me about their trials and efforts to get more into using it.
Linux needs to push it's killer apps. Isn't the ultimate "backup" a personal live distro? What could be better than having a CD/DVD/USB that boots your personalised Linux with your email settings and favorite apps all ready to go when you boot it?
Before all this UEFI mess, I used to be able to unplug my flash drive with it's Linux and take it to work, plug it into a different PC, and boot my exact same desktop at work. Try that with Windows!
22 • @20 Randolf: (by dragonmouth on 2019-08-12 13:00:10 GMT from United States)
I prefer to think of Windows and OS/X as straitjacketed substitutes for Linux.
23 • @7 Tran Older: (by dragonmouth on 2019-08-12 13:08:26 GMT from United States)
Minimalism, just like most things, is relative. Not everyone needs/wants a Full Monty distro. :-)
I currently use PCLOS TDE but I'd like something lighter, so I'll be switching to Q4OS Trinity.
24 • search files (by former on 2019-08-12 13:11:43 GMT from United States)
Check out drill, I have it's appimage. It searches differently, horizontally (first level folders, then second level folders...) it is very fast. GUI search, if you double click on found result it opens default file manager that opens of course with location where is file you were looking for - I just love it, try it out
25 • OSDisc = Excellent Service (by Geo.Savage on 2019-08-12 13:16:03 GMT from Canada)
OSDisc:
Shipped over 300,000 discs and USB drives
Helped over 110,000 users get started with Linux
Answered over 25,000 tech support tickets
Given back over $200,000 to the open source community
- Ramsey Brenner - OSDisc.com Founder
I found their service excellent and wish them well in their next adventure. I have a CD bin stuffed with their discs. Being a kinesthetic guy, I still marvel that I can hold generations of work, and a world of exploration in my hand. Thank you for helping me find Mepis (MXLinux) and discover that Linux didn't have to be hard.
:-)
26 • @19 Cheering up... (by akoy on 2019-08-12 13:21:38 GMT from United Kingdom)
"Millions of kids around the world are using Linux in the form of ChromeOS."
Sure, but none of those kids know anything about the Linux part of it, and that knowledge is pretty much not advertised. Chrome OS got its popularity to not trying to be a substitute to any other OS, but by standing alone and proving that it is the best out there. The attitude is different, not being the substitute or the poor brother, but the winner. It is a one-OS, not a fragmented society, no infighting.
Anyway, Chrome OS popularity is mostly in the US. There are European countries, where one can't even find a Chromebook in any of the computer shops.
27 • OSDisc (by Bob on 2019-08-12 14:19:06 GMT from United States)
No surprise about OSDisc. Last laptop I bought with a DVD drive was in 2011. These things are becoming as rare as 3.5" floppies.
@MikeOh Shark
"Linux needs to push its killer apps..." <- Linux's killer app is being a solid server platform and the push has been pretty comprehensive. Being able to hijack random hardware with a USB drive sounds more like a bug than a feature to me.
28 • Plugging in USB drive to work computer (by Jediknight on 2019-08-12 18:37:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
Quote:
"I used to be able to unplug my flash drive with it's Linux and take it to work,"
I once tried to run a script on my work computer (Windows) which randomised some parameters and emailed the result to a designated mailbox on the local mailserver.
Result was the IT department turning up at my desk in a tantrum. (I hope Brendan reads Distrowatch)
I would have loved to see what fuss installing a whole OS on my work computer would have generated.
29 • Searching files (by Roger on 2019-08-12 19:03:54 GMT from Belgium)
I don't use anything because all is in folders on my cloud, no need for finding a file, I know where they are.
30 • Q4OS (by Barnabyh on 2019-08-12 20:02:29 GMT from United States)
There probably isn't a music player installed by default beacuse, if I understand them correctly, Q4OS is primarily targeted at business desktops.
Nice to have Synaptic putting the entire Debian repo in your hands.
31 • portable Linux (by MikeOh Shark on 2019-08-12 21:13:47 GMT from Austria)
@Bob and @JediKnight
I didn't mention it but when I brought my Linux to work on USB, I was the sysadmin and needed to clean malware off of other's PCs. The big Kahunas told me to just reimage the computers and leave the users to set up everything but my local boss (who did my performance review) told me to clean in place and not reimage.
I usually unplugged the ethernet cable when I needed to use something on my flash drive Linux. It was more to demonstrate the value of Linux to others.
Regarding booting from flash, I consider the attempts by manufacturers to limit me to their OS or to have to authenticate with them to be worse.
32 • TDE - dangerous/obsolete networking stack? (by Uncle Slacky on 2019-08-12 21:48:52 GMT from France)
I'm a big fan of TDE generally, I currently prefer EXE to Q4OS as it doesn't use systemd. It's ideal for old netbooks like my eeePC 701 4G and Acer Aspire One ZG5. I've heard various unsubstantiated rumours that the TDE networking stack is risky as it hasn't been updated since the KDE 3 days, though I think Q4OS and EXE both use network-manager instead of tde-network-manager(?). Anyone know anything about this?
33 • USB writing programs... Linux success (by Bobbie Sellers on 2019-08-13 02:15:30 GMT from United States)
I haven't had problems with writing simple USB booting Flash Drives
in years. I generally use with PCLinuxOS64, the excellent "ddcopy"
which is a Python script with a minimal GUI.
Writing a boot USB Flash Driver with a Persistent partition for which
we have a special tool is a bit harder except on Knoppix where
it always seems to work very well. I have been doing Knoppix USB
drives for years and in the last year have begun to switch from
DVD/CDs to Flash Drives to show off and demonstrate new
distributions. I have my Dell E6520 setup to boot from Flash
Drives due to the quicker boot and load seen with these tools.
Linux is a great success where either a computer hobbyist or
a very well trained and paid person is at hand for advice.
Mostly the paid people will be maintaining servers.
To use Linux on the desktop requires a good deal of knowledge
or a Linux Users Group where experts may be available to
consult and/or the good sense to join online forums for your chosen
distribution. That is why I became associated with the SF-LUG
here in San Francisco. It helped me a lot in the early days.
The reason I think that Linux is not doing so well in the consumer
field is due to the wide-spread use of tablets, phablets and smart
phones as in the beginning we had to have laptops or desktops
and it is simple to install Linux on most of these. Linux tablets
and phones may arrive soon but the consumer will likely stick
to the Android and iOS. My purchase of a high-end tablet
was a washout as the OS was not able to load Linux with
a law to enforce that nonsensical concept.
bliss
34 • @33 USB writing programs (by Charles Hale on 2019-08-13 04:07:12 GMT from Philippines)
AGREE, AGREE, AGREE !!!! Even Gnome-Disks App, which is on about every distro, has a 'Restore Disk Image' function that works just fine. So where is anyone's problem with image to USB??
35 • Locate command (by Alexandru on 2019-08-13 06:20:16 GMT from Moldova, Republic of)
"This means locate is ideal at finding information that is a day or more older, ... but it is not useful for finding brand new files"
In order to be able to run locate for brand new files, you can run before it the command:
updatedb
It will take some time to actualize the database, but then locate will bring new files into search result.
36 • @33 (by OstroL on 2019-08-13 07:35:37 GMT from Poland)
"Linux is a great success where either a computer hobbyist or a very well trained and paid person is at hand for advice."
More or less true. Linux had stayed o the hobbyist level for too long. The older guys, like me, are still there, and some younger guys comes into have a look. Stays for a while and move on. I've been looking at DWW comments page in 2010 and before. Out of which only few are around these days. Those, who were here in 2015 are also gone.
37 • Long time readers (by Barnabyh on 2019-08-13 10:22:48 GMT from Germany)
Hi OstroL, I've also been reading DWW since at least 2005. But just because people are not posting does not mean they are not reading, or not using a Linux distribution any more. Maybe they're just busy and using their machines without reading comments every week, some got tired of recurring debates that to them do not add value any more once you have been through these discussions a few times.
38 • chrome, supercomputers, and desktop linux (by Tim on 2019-08-13 11:58:11 GMT from United States)
I just think the doom and gloom stuff is inappropriate, because it always excludes the places where Linux is excelling.
If you don't want to count ChromeOS as Linux that's fine... but it is Linux. The average user of Chrome doesn't want to go beyond the browser based interface, but thanks to Crouton it's pretty easy to do so. Jesse would point out its closed source and that's a true knock on it (one can't compile kernel modules, for example, so no Virtualbox) but other than that it's a capable Linux OS that happily runs my XFCE chroot.
For embedded systems, supercomputers, and servers, Linux is dominating.
I could see the concern for the desktop if there was any evidence that desktop linux was shriveling up and dying, but it isn't. There's a lot of good offerings right now, and this week's Distrowatch was about one of them apparently.
39 • @27 Bug or Feature (by Dr. E.S. Ktorp on 2019-08-13 12:08:43 GMT from United States)
"Being able to hijack random hardware with a USB drive sounds more like a bug than a feature to me."
Have you ever used a computer prior to 1995? You might be surprised to learn that the personal computer Hard Disk Drive is a relatively new invention, in the grand scheme of all things computer-related. Before that, there was only removable media; diskettes. Functionally not much different from a USB flash drive of today. To even use a computer, one had to first load software from a removable disk. If you were going from one lab to another, with similar computer systems, you could take your disks with you and continue your work elsewhere. This is the same kind of persistent, partially system-agnostic method of operation you are referring to as 'more of a bug than a feature'.
Your use of the word 'hijack' demonstrates the agenda you are pushing, as well as your lack of familiarity with computers.
40 • @ 38 Chrome OS & Linux (by OstroL on 2019-08-13 12:46:16 GMT from Poland)
"If you don't want to count ChromeOS as Linux that's fine... but it is Linux. The average user of Chrome doesn't want to go beyond the browser based interface, but thanks to Crouton it's pretty easy to do so."
Few of us know that Chrome OS is based on the Linux kernel, and that the OS build around it is not GNU OS. The guys, who created it, maintains it don't really want the "standard" users to know that. They want those users, the millions of kids in the US etc, to know it as Chrome OS, even better as the Chromebook. Doesn't matter what it is based on, but it is the (THE) best, and that it is a device you buy, not an OS. That's all about it.
A device, just like an iPad, Macbook, but better and cheaper.
Chrome OS, as an OS is not available to be installed in our devices that run GNU/Linux (and Windows) and it is even discouraged.
41 • Declining interest in Linux (by R. Cain on 2019-08-13 13:04:01 GMT from United States)
""...I wonder if this speaks to a broader problem--the interest, or lack thereof, in Linux distributions--both BRAND-new, and every NEW, bug-filled version from existing distributions, which absolutely MUST appear every six months..."
There is probably no one more qualified to comment on whether or not interest i Linux is declining than Jesse Smith, and the people he works with / for.
Their comments on this aspect of the 'Linux-verse'--as well as perceived reasons--would be deeply appreciated by all, and extremely enlightening.
42 • Linux decline (by Johhny on 2019-08-13 13:10:32 GMT from United States)
If Linux is declining, then why would Windows be adding it to their system.
43 • OSDisc (by Chris on 2019-08-13 13:18:28 GMT from United States)
It's a shame about OSDisc. They were really useful for people who have slow or unreliable internet, or have bandwidth caps. I used them a few times back when I still had really slow internet, they helped me get into Linux. (Ubuntu 9.10) Their prices were fair and getting a disc from them was better than waiting hours upon hours for a download. It's a shame that that resource won't be available for people who still need it.
44 • # 42 -- Linux decline (by R. Cain on 2019-08-13 13:51:18 GMT from United States)
@ 42 --
Very good point.
The only problem is: is this a rhetorical question, i.e., are you offering this as a suggestion for Jesse Smith, et al, to consider when (if) he (they) provide us with his / their "take' on this situation?
Or, rather, are you offering this as an objection to what you perceive is a position which was *not* taken, but merely 'posited'?-- ("...I wonder if this speaks to a broader problem--the INTEREST, or LACK THEREOF, in Linux distributions--both BRAND-new, and every NEW, bug-filled version from existing distributions, which absolutely MUST appear every six months...")
I will take partial responsibility for this, by stating that the title of Post #41 SHOULD have been, "POSSIBLE declining interest...". Notice that I quite specifically said elsewhere, :...the interest, or lack thereof...", and "...one more qualified to comment on WHETHER or NOT interest i[n] Linux is declining...".
Clarification of what you mean by your Post #42 is still desired, however.
45 • Chromebooks and access control (by Tim on 2019-08-13 14:22:02 GMT from United States)
@39
It isn't 1995, and most of the working world uses computers managed under extremely tight control by our employers. Trying to circumvent those controls by loading a different OS that considered us the administrator would lead to some uncomfortable talks with Human Resources. Hence @27's point.
@40
The reason the Chromebook is great for the school environment isn't marketing or any false pretenses that it's the best (in fact it's not the best, and the kids are well aware of that.) It's very specifically tailored to a school environment. A school can buy 2000 of the things, and they're all functionally identical. As a teacher I probably loaned "my" Chromebook to 3 kids a day who forgot theirs. Since everything is saved to the cloud, it doesn't matter what device you're on. From the school's perspective it's like a piece of furniture- entirely interchangeable.
That makes it much more like the versions of Linux tailored to kiosks, or maybe OpenElec than a general purpose Linux distribution. But that doesn't mean it's not Linux. Provided you own the Chromebook, it's trivial to make it into a nice Linux laptop using chroots and crouton. Google doesn't hide that. (The millions of kids using school issued ones can't do this for the same reason @39's point doesn't hold. They would love to use the Linux part of their Chromebook if they could use it to get around the access controls we put in.)
46 • Decline (by Tim on 2019-08-13 14:37:29 GMT from United States)
R Cain
Can you provide a citation or link to where Jesse said the thing you are saying he said? I would like to see what context he said it in.
47 • @ 45 (by OstroL on 2019-08-13 14:40:35 GMT from Poland)
Where does it say anything about Linux here, https://www.google.com/chromebook/? Or here, https://www.google.com/chromebook/chrome-os/?
48 • Marketing (by Tim on 2019-08-13 15:01:23 GMT from United States)
@47
They're openly marketing Chromebooks as being Linux compatible at this point.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/run-linux-apps-any-chromebook/amp
49 • @45 (by Dr. E.S. Ktorp on 2019-08-13 15:37:05 GMT from United States)
Today's culture of corporate and academic computer paranoia existed well before 1995, so none of that validates the jagged point of referring to a perfectly normal and valuable feature as a hijacking or a bug, simply because Bob wants to poo-poo on something. In the real working world, most bosses don't give a crap how you get the work done, so long as it looks the way they want upon completion. What you're talking about (IT freaking out to HR about out about someone livebooting their Linux desktop on a work computer) is generally confined to large office heirarchy and the perpetual paranoid nightmare of academia.
Meanwhile people are here discussing whether to deride or extoll Chromebooks / ChromeOS; an iteration of the old-fashioned principle of remote / terminal computing. Nearly the same topic, but I don't see Bob smearing his very valuable opinion on anyone's Chromebook.
It's not much different from plugging a system-on-a-chip in to different displays.. same basic principle of taking your computer system with you and using the doodads at work to access it. How is that different from someone bringing their own laptop to work? Happens every day.
All of this reminds of the time a classmate of mine 'got in trouble' for bringing games from home, to play on the Apple IIe computers at school. He didn't exploit a bug, or hijack a computer. He simply broke an unspoken, unwritten rule, about how NOT to use the computers. Really, the teacher just wanted to make an example out of him because she was a petty individual. Instead of getting in trouble for not paying attention in class, like a sane person would have instituted, he got in trouble for 'hacking school computers' at a time when such a thing was practically unheard of (especially at an elementary school); the stuff of silly movies and as absurd of a description of the event, back then, as it is now.
50 • alternate boot from USB (by MikeOh Shark on 2019-08-13 16:29:16 GMT from United States)
@45, @49
Having the ability to boot an alternate OS from USB is not about booting our employer's computer. Most of us are way too busy at work to do that and it's not about escaping from their control. It's about using our own hardware the way we want.
In these days where corporations install snoopware without our knowledge and consent, monitor our DNS or SNI, and refuse network neutrality, we need to have the right to use our hardware and not consider it a temporary license to use only as the seller wants. It's one way to give some power back to the individual. My PC is not intended to be a portal to an online service that wants to turn me into a constant revenue stream.
We also need the power to keep corporations from using firmware updates to revoke capabilities or features we already have.
Linux and open source are for the people.
51 • No one is against USB drives booting (by Tim on 2019-08-13 17:17:35 GMT from United States)
@50
This discussion started with @21 saying they could bring their OS to work. No one is saying they're against booting from flash drives in general. We're all saying that the vast majority of corporate IT environments would consider this a major security risk and it would not be allowed.
@49
The distinction between booting a live desktop and bringing your own device should be pretty obvious. Everywhere I've worked with BYOD, you've gotten network access through a dedicated network, with limited access to network resources. Desktops had much more access. Also, if the desktop is a multiuser windows system and you boot it with your flashdrive, now you have access to all users' data. Any employer that allows this has either taken steps to mitigate the security risk or is entirely unaware of it.
52 • @49, false accusations and Q4 (by RJA on 2019-08-13 17:47:16 GMT from United States)
Back over at the Vermont Achievement Center school in Rutland, Vermont, (fall, 1988, IIRC, to July 5, 1994) which had mostly Apple IIs, (the school had Apple IIes as well) I likely would get away with bringing games over to play on Apple IIs. ;) But I was a computer dummy, I only knew how to insert a floppy and hit that switch on an Apple II, and occasionally an Apple III there, IIRC and wait.
The Vermont Achievement Center is in the city, and the better school, was ironically in the boonies, LOL.
Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center, over in Greenfield, New Hampshire,(July 5, 1994 to November 11, 2002) is in the boonies, but I got a better experience, albeit was falsely accused in hacking in the later-1990s, but was allowed back on their PCs by the very-late-1990s, haha.
I was falsely accused of hacking by people who think they know a lot about computers, but definitely didn't! I was falsely accused of hacking, because I was a Windows rookie and accidentally deleted Novell Netware support stuff on just one PC, IIRC. But there was an obviously false rumor of me causing their network to go down! I of course said that I was sorry, but they didn't want to believe me! It was only the group home PC of the one I lived in. This was DOS and Windows 3.1, folks! (Probably MS-DOS 6x)
Glad to see talk about Q4, because of the Trinity desktop, I was afraid that there wouldn't be a Trinity anymore. Thumbs up from me, for the low, Windows XP x64 Edition-like 200-something MB-of-RAM at the desktop.
---RJA
53 • @ 48 Fragmentation (by akoy on 2019-08-13 18:41:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
The problem is not with Chromebook or Chrome OS, or their developers. They are doing well, because they are delivering a device(s) with a compatible OS to run it. The kernel is not the main point there, but the OS surrounding it. That OS is created to run on specially produced devices, using a different processor than the GNU OS on Linux kernel.
There aren't dedicated devices created to run the GNU/Linux. That's the problem. We run these distros on devices that are created to run the Windows OS. No computer manufacturer would spend resources to make devices for an OS platform that is utterly fragmented. That's the problem.
People buy devices, not an OS. They buy devices that run applications they need, or would need. Ready to go, at any time. So, came Android, and Chrome OS/book. The developers didn't run around advertising a kernel. Windows has a kernel, but very few geeky people only knows its name. The normal users don't need to know, or care. The same with iOS, Mac OS. They both have kernels, but how many iPhone, iPad, Macbook users know about that? How many cares?
The fragmentation wouldn't allow the "Linux" distros to become the desktop operating system of the masses. It stays at the hobbyist level. The "Linux" community is quite volatile, they go against each other, wasting energy. It is easy to create for a unified OS -- Windows, iOS, MacOS, Android, Chrome OS. We have debs, rpms and whatnot. And now, flatpaks, snaps and whatnot. Even that is fragmented. No unity, no success!
54 • Chrome OS (by Angel on 2019-08-13 23:19:23 GMT from Philippines)
There seem to be some misconceptions about Chrome OS.
Don't know how success would be measured, but as of now it is mainly a North American phenomenon with negligible numbers elsewhere. Almost nonexistent in Asia: .06%.
While Chromebooks are locked down by default to run only a Google approved OS, they have no special hardware, just Intel or Arm CPUs.
Chrome OS is quite limited, useful mostly online with the Chrome browser.
It's been quite possible for a while now to run Linux on Chromebooks using Crouton. Linux can also be installed in other ways such as:
https://wiki.galliumos.org/Installing
It is possible to download and install Chromium OS on many laptops. There is even a VMware OVA ready for download.
https://www.neverware.com/#intro
Google is certainly aware of the OS limitation and is making it possible to run Android apss, and although it's beta as of now, also Linux apps. https://www.zdnet.com/article/all-chromebooks-will-also-be-linux-laptops-going-forward/
55 • No success? (by Tim on 2019-08-14 01:39:11 GMT from United States)
@54
Your summary is quite accurate. The reason for the US success I think is that there's been a major push here to find a silver bullet to "fix" education and one on one tech is one fixation policy makers have. Chromebooks work better than anything else for large scale deployments.
I'd point out one thing about Crouton... you're not installing Linux but rather a Debian, Ubuntu, or Kali environment to run in a chroot. So it becomes a Chrome OS/ GNU Linux hybrid.
@53
This idea that Linux will never be successful unless we unify keeps recirculating week after week here and I don't get it. Linux is plenty successful. It's everywhere on everything except the desktop. I wish more people would discover how great it is on the desktop, but the only way it would be skin off my back that they don't is if the Linux desktop started to fade. Based on the extremely high quality of recent releases I don't see that happening. I certainly don't think forcing the diverse community using GNU/Linux to pick one way of doing things is the solution.
By the way, there are plenty of GNU/Linux only devices. The Raspberry Pi for example.
56 • Success? (by OstroL on 2019-08-14 07:32:03 GMT from Poland)
@54 Chromebooks
Not available in the shops here. At the beginning, some of them were here, but not any more. There are secondhand ones in some portals, but they are quite old ones. Can buy, but what the use? Too old. Not many people care to import even, for everything that comes with it can be found in a web browser, even in Windows.
@55 Linux desktops/laptops etc
No one in my area appears to have one, except some I installed a distro in their Windows laptop. But, even they are not using it. But, nearly everyone is using an Android device, mostly smartphones. You can buy them damn cheap, even brand new. (I bought a newest Samsung at 62% its shop price in an unpacked box a month ago.) There are many Android smartphones in homes here, at least one per person, even very young children. But, none of them know about the kernel the OS is based on, or even about an OS. All they know, and interested in is the UI and the apps, mostly social apps.
Practically, every household has a laptop, even where the older people live. Some still have desktops, and even still with XP!
Maybe, some young chap would care to play with a Raspberry Pi, but they are expensive than a tablet. Even though tablets are going out of fashion, they are still useful and those Samsungs with DEX are quite interesting. Actually, I have one, bought cheap just like the phone. Lovely thing with four speakers. I can get everything done with a Chromebook and more with it. For one week, I could get my work done with it, without using my Linux box.
57 • Market (by Tim on 2019-08-14 10:33:16 GMT from United States)
I've lived a couple of different places in the US, and the mix here isn't much different. iOS is a bit more common than Android. Mostly that seems to be because Apple supports older phones for much longer. In my 10+ years in the classroom I can think of 3 kids who wanted to talk to me about Linux. For about half my career there have been two Linux computers in the room to run the open source physics program Tracker, so every kid was using the MATE desktop on either Debian or Ubuntu. The rest had no trouble at all, it's just as @53 said, most people don't think of operating systems, they think of devices.
Where I differ from others here is that I don't think there's any doom and gloom to this. With Linux powering so many non-desktop computers, it's not going away, so low market share doesn't really affect me. I don't understand why more people don't use it. It blows my mind when a Windows 10 user says MATE or XFCE looks "dated." What's modern, having advertising in your start menu? But we're not going to get more people to use Linux by saying it's fading away. Especially when what's on offer is high quality, diverse, and free.
My only point in bringing up the Chromebook was that there's now been two major operating systems that have seen enormous success and at least one is binary compatible with Linux. Linux for the masses might not look like the Linux you or I or someone else enjoy using. But it's still a strength of Linux that I can use the kind I like and you can use the kind you like and no one is forcing us to do anything.
58 • @ 57 (by OstroL on 2019-08-14 11:05:04 GMT from Poland)
It is true that MATE or XFCE looks dated. Even Plasma with all the blink looks Windows 7ish, so would look dated to a Windows 10 user. I've been using XFCE for ages, so I am used to it's look, but but for newcomers...
Red Hat sold itself, after so long in the business. That says something. Cannonical placing its interest on IoT devices, leaving the desktop to some still keen mostly community developers. Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Mate, Lubuntu etc are just one-man projects now. The former niche distro #! developer first went to Windows 10, and then left to iOS, MacOS, staying away from the Linux world. The creator of Budgie DE suddenly left, leaving his product and Solus. All this tells something.
Linux is just a kernel. The operating systems are built around it. The GNU OS appears to losing the interest of the developers as a desktop operating system. Also one needs to have a repo for the app packages to be stored, and that costs a lot. Only profitable companies, or well supported financially communities can do that. The financial support comes, only if there's return, a monetary profit. The desktop users, the free ones, won't bring in that money. The psychological profit isn't enough.
59 • @57 OstroL: (by dragonmouth on 2019-08-14 11:47:28 GMT from United States)
What does "modern" mean? Does bling, glitz and eye candy make the computer more secure? Do they make the computer run faster? On the contrary, eye candy slows the computer down without providing any additional functionality. All bling, glitz and eye candy do is make the display look like something designed for a 4 year old. It is definitely form over function.
60 • Which command (by far2fish on 2019-08-14 11:50:50 GMT from Norway)
To my knowledge, the which command is only suitable of finding files on Linux if the file you are looking for is in PATH
If you got two files with the same name, and both are in the PATH, the which will report the first one as far as I am aware.
61 • fd > find (by Teresa e Junior on 2019-08-14 12:13:06 GMT from Brazil)
fd is a lot better than find (faster, supports color, easier CLI option). I also use fzf for completing file names!
62 • @59 (by OstroL on 2019-08-14 13:42:21 GMT from Poland)
One can, of course, stay without all kinds of bling, but the world likes bling and eye candy. Just ask any woman to go without a makeup and see. Or, to wear some old fashioned worn out clothes.
Back to topic The kernel can be top of the class, but there should be an OS to run apps people want on a device that is "nice and modern." The GNU OS doesn't have such devices. Hand helds, desktops, laptops, tablets etc. The Android or Chrome OS has quite a lot of such devices. All 3 OSs run on top of the Linux kernel.
When we say Linux distros, we think only about the GNU OS, not about the other 2. We consider the other 2 as alien. Only, those 2 didn't go around shouting Linux, Linux, but went on developing in such a way, so the device manufacturers compete at creating more and more devices. Those 2 OSs are successful, but the GNU OS on desktops, on devices. That's the problem.
63 • @51: Live Desktops and User Data (by Marco on 2019-08-14 16:31:10 GMT from United States)
@ 51
> @49
> The distinction between booting a live desktop and bringing your own device should
> be pretty obvious. Everywhere I've worked with BYOD, you've gotten network access
> through a dedicated network, with limited access to network resources. Desktops had
> much more access. Also, if the desktop is a multiuser windows system and you boot
> it with your flashdrive, now you have access to all users' data. Any employer that
> allows this has either taken steps to mitigate the security risk or is entirely unaware of it.
It has been many years since I have seen a business desktop or laptop without an encrypted hard drive. When I used a live USB on my work machine, I was able to boot to live desktop, and I could see the drive itself, but I could not read the drive because it was encrypted with Symantec with some kind of pre-boot hook. Today, it seems the default choice for IT is now BitLocker instead, but I assume that secure boot, and locked-down BIOS/UEFI make user data even harder to read via a live USB than it was then.
64 • @60 which (by greenpossum on 2019-08-15 00:25:19 GMT from Australia)
>If you got two files with the same name, and both are in the PATH, the which will report the first one as far as I am aware.
Which is why you use which -a when you want to see all the hits.
65 • Reason(s) for GNU/{kernel} "failure" (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2019-08-15 02:06:45 GMT from United States)
Much of the GNU/{kernel} operating system is licensed in a way that prevents contributors from being compensated for their contribution over the useful life thereof, as contrasted with proprietary licensing that encourages monopoly and discourages development the longer it serves.
A robust marketplace will never result from either extreme.
Standards or "unity" won't change this.
-----
Freedom isn't free, even in Open-Source software. Or hardware.
For that matter, the Internet was never free - it was "ad-supported".
People don't buy operating systems or software or "devices", they buy tools and services so they can more effectively perform tasks and enjoy services.
66 • GNU failure...? (by akoy on 2019-08-15 07:39:09 GMT from United Kingdom)
This a quote from a games developer.
>> Of all my users, the amount of people using Linux is not even a rounding error. If i had to lift an extra finger to support linux, well, financially it would not be worth it. That is the sad reality.
Supporting linux is not as easy as you might think. Sure, you flip a switch in unity or unreal and it spits out a linux binary. But then what? How do you distribute the software? There is no app store. How do you let users know when there is an update? How do you charge for in app purchases? How do you authenticate users? Im sure you can find solutions to these, but can you find ones that work across distros? Do users have to download other stuff such as steam client? Do you need to integrate 3rd party API with your game? Distribution is really painful.
Of all my users, the amount of people using Linux is not even a rounding error. If i had to lift an extra finger to support linux, well, financially it would not be worth it. That is the sad reality.
Every linux specific bug (and believe me, there are many) will have a disproportionately low ROI. So many studios will just dismiss linux support as “not worth it".<<
That tells something, doesn't it?
But, thousands of developers are creating apps for other OSs based on the Linux kernel.
Maybe time to say GNU OS distros, rather than Linux distros?! The other Linux kernel based OSs are much more successful than the GNU ones.
67 • Gnu, desktop failure? (by Angel on 2019-08-15 11:06:26 GMT from Philippines)
This horse is long dead. Why continue flogging? If you define success by market share, Gnu/Linux is a failure. There is no money in desktop Linux.
On the other hand, there are millions around the world using and enjoying Gnu/Linux, myself included. There are many thousands creating and releasing distros and applications for our use and enjoyment. Several desktops provide functionality and looks equal to or superior to the mainline OSes. Yes, we don't have all the apps, games, etc. We never will, as it stands, due to licensing, among other things. So what? If the McDonald's brothers had opted, as they wanted to just run a few fast food stands, and if some of those were still being run by their heirs, would they be a failure? Instead, they sold out to Ray Kroc, so today, if McDonald's doesn't open new franchises and increase sales enough, their shares will tank. If their sales decrease enough, they may just fail, never mind how may billion hamburgers sold.
Google found a way to monetize.the Linux kernel. Unlike Apple, Google's products are not the OSes, or the devices that run them. Google's product is the user, which product they then sell to advertisers. Googles makes money, developers make money, advertisers make money. Android, by numbers, is a huge success. Chrome OS not so much. Other than from a top-down push in American schools, Chrome Os's numbers, regardless of the cheap devices, lag behind Gnu/Linux. In a commercial venture where success is predicated on numbers, that is a failure. Which is why Google is adding Android and Linux apps and capabilities.
Here's to diversity and Gnu/Linux success, and screw the numbers.
68 • @67 (by Pierre on 2019-08-15 11:54:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
"If you define success by market share, Gnu/Linux is a failure. There is no money in desktop Linux. "
Yes. Even the developers know that. They slowly but surely move to other areas to get the paycheck.
"Google found a way to monetize.the Linux kernel."
Sure, it is still being used. But, Google developing their own kernel Zircon. If not that, it'd be another one, their own, and open source.
"Google's products are not the OSes, or the devices that run them. Google's product is the user, which product they then sell to advertisers."
The baker's products are not bread, buns and so on, but the users. If they are not there, he'd have to eat all his "products." The humans are always the product.
Attacking Google doesn't help. Even DWW needs Google to stay alive.
GNU OS actually wanted to use another kernel, a microkernel Hurd, and still does. Only the lack of money is holding its development. Hope one day GNU/Hurd would come through. GNU/Linux as a desktop is slowly dying.
69 • @68, slow death (by Angel on 2019-08-15 12:37:15 GMT from Philippines)
"Attacking Google doesn't help." Who's attacking Google? I use Google daily and find it incredibly useful. Matter of fact, I am right now using Chrome browser. But the baker makes money from the bread and buns, he does not give them at no charge so you will go to his store to talk to people who want to sell you something else. Google does not make money from the OSes or devices or the browser. They make money from selling advertisers access to your information. It's not a judgment. It's a fact.
"They slowly but surely move to other areas to get the paycheck." I expect that most developers don't have to move somewhere to get a paycheck. They already were getting a paycheck somewhere. Average annual salary for Linux developers in the US: $110,000
"Google developing their own kernel Zircon." And that is relevant because?
"GNU/Linux as a desktop is slowly dying." Linux worldwide desktop market share July 2009: .76, July 2014: 1.37, July 2019: 1.65
By the way, all his information can be found by using Google.
70 • @ 68 (by OstroL on 2019-08-15 14:11:50 GMT from Poland)
>> "Google developing their own kernel Zircon." And that is relevant because?
Because, we might see another operating system based on a different kernel than what we have today. Right now, there are many devices that run Android (based on Linux) made by umpteen amount of manufacturers. That OS became a success within 10 years, pushing out a giant in the OS industry. Samsung has DeX, which gives a desktop experience, using Android. All these manufacturers never speak about the kernel, but about the latest device(s) that runs the latest Android.
With Zircon, Fuchsia would come, and we'd have another device/OS revolution. Maybe, it'd come for desktops too, and if Google do that, that OS giant might have a real problem.
Btw, I don't mind ads, and I don't care, even if the ads are "matched to my needs." I don't mind Google earning money, lots of it, if it knows how to do that. I am not envious.
71 • What will replace GNU/Linux in time? (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2019-08-15 14:38:18 GMT from United States)
Android/Linux is not GNU/{kernel}.
Monolithic from the start (to cope with hardware speed issues), the Linux kernel has always needed the discipline imposed by Linus. Once that discipline was eroded and undermined, the exponential increase of proprietary influence strangled what little Freedom remained.
Android/Linux only allows "freedom" at the whim of Google - how long will that last?
Are academic projects like ReactOS and Haiku likely to reach Production in time?
…
Imagine a robust secure real-time-capable GNU/{µkernel} operating system Freed to the community (by, say, Huawei?) … maybe under something like GPLv2?
72 • @71 (by OstroL on 2019-08-15 15:21:32 GMT from Poland)
I have a Nexus 6 that runs Colt OS, made by community developers. Runs Android Pie. If I want I can do without Play Store. But, I install Gapps, for I like and use Gmail, Google, Maps etc. Nexus 6 was made by Motorola for Google, but is now aftermarket device. This excellent Colt OS was made from Google's AOSP. The nice developers would keep that device alive for quite a while, maybe even moving to Android 10. Maybe some day, when Fuchsia would come in, they might even make a Fuchsia based OS for it. I do hope that Fuchsia would come in next few years, sooner the better.
73 • More death of Linux, relevance (by Angel on 2019-08-15 15:28:01 GMT from Philippines)
@71-"the Linux kernel has always needed the discipline imposed by Linus" Linus doesn't care. See it from the source:
.https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/a62cqq/linus_torvalds_speaks_about_chrome_os_potentially/
"Imagine a robust secure real-time-capable GNU/{µkernel} operating system Freed to the community (by, say, Huawei?)" -Whatever turns you on.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/huawei-technicians-helped-african-governments-spy-on-political-opponents-11565793017?mod=e2tw
@70 -(Relevant) "Because, we might see another operating system based on a different kernel than what we have today." We might see a lot of things we haven't seen, which still has no relevance as to whether desktop Linux is a success or a failure, or Android or Chrome OS, for that matter.
74 • Monetizing Linux. It's not a morality sermon. (by Angel on 2019-08-15 16:10:11 GMT from Philippines)
"I don't mind Google earning money, lots of it, if it knows how to do that." Neither do I. The point is that Google found a way to make money from Linux by giving it away and profiting from selling user info to advertisers. I don't know why saying that is taken as an attack. It's what Google does. Other people have found ways to monetize the kernel, in gadgets, the cloud, IoT, etc., even supercomputers, by selling said gadgets, or services.
Making money from the Gnu/Linux desktop is another matter. Remember when Canonical tried feeding search results from the web on the desktop and gathering information from users. Trying to make money, the horror! Shuttleworth became the devil incarnate. Someone tried charging a fee for a rescue disk, and got crucified in all the comments sections. So Gnu/Linux remains fragmented, and used in a small percentage of desktops, mostly given away free, and developed mostly by people who have day jobs. Maybe that is its place in the world, and it's useless wish-mongering wanting it to be something else.
75 • @ 75 (by OstroL on 2019-08-15 16:42:06 GMT from Poland)
Leave how Google makes money out of this, for it doesn't create any GNU/Linux distros/OSs. But, it makes an OS based on Linux kernel (yet), and that is the OS that is successful. Practically everyone around us carries device that runs it. But, it is not considered as a Linux device, or the OS in it as a Linux distro, but an Android.
That is the Linux "distro" that had become successful. I can run many "desktop" apps in it, not needing a desktop computer as such, as an "ordinary" user. That device is a hand held computer anyway.
But, what we usually call as Linux distro has another OS around the kernel, and the kernel is only Linux in it. That OS is losing ground, the GNU OS. I've been using this "Linux" for nearly 2 decades, so I know how it grew, and/or how it is losing.
One needs a specialised computer, if one needs specialised apps to run, AutoCad, ArchiCad and such like. But for day to day needs of a normal user, a hand held computer is quite enough. Word editing, image editing even video editing is available in the net, so an installed app is not needed. Systems like Samsung DeX brings the "desktop" to the hand held device. One can even use one's massive TV as the desktop screen. The world is changing.
So, Zircon should arrive, Fuchsia too.
76 • Red Hat and "Monetizing Linux" (by cykodrone on 2019-08-15 17:00:57 GMT from Canada)
I wonder how things are going at Red Hat since the IBM buyout?
In FOSS, the 'F' stands for free, but if you feel something has been helpful to you, or good, you can always make a donation to the app developer or distro like I have. But no, I don't agree with sneaky underhanded ways of making money from it. Android is so toxic right now, I wouldn't touch it with your 10' pole.
Any news on the PCLOS leader?
77 • @ 77 (by akoy on 2019-08-15 17:13:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
"Android is so toxic right now, I wouldn't touch it with your 10' pole."
So, you are an iPhone user?
78 • @77 (by future free on 2019-08-15 17:51:23 GMT from United Kingdom)
"Android is so toxic right now, I wouldn't touch it with your 10' pole."
I'm sure 10% of computing-units users are with you. 90% not.
Future of computing:
- Something like "DeX brings the "desktop" to the hand held device" since millions already own hand held devices.
- Some hand held device given to everybody for free. (The 90% don't care what kernel or OS is on their device, as long as can do what they want.
I even wander if IOS and Gnu/Linux developers and/or hardcore fanboys really care for their preferred OS to become mainstream, since then they'll be a special elite/elitist group no more...
79 • Fair Profit & Open Source (by M.Z. on 2019-08-15 22:47:02 GMT from United States)
The topic of open source & fair profit is an important topic to me because I think there should be room for both software freedom/openness and fair profit. In fact it seems to me the Linux ecosystem would die if it weren't for a revenue stream that was more reliable than donations.
---------------
@74
"Remember when Canonical tried feeding search results from the web on the desktop and gathering information from users."
Yes, because they did it in a very unethical way, namely they weren't entirely upfront with users on how they were trying to make a profit & were instead saying something about 'it's free because it's open source' on their website. They had the option of simply stating their revenue stream during install or setup & presenting the off switch they built in, but they instead decided to rely on a combination of indifference, gullibility, & good will toward open source. I agree with the GPL creator RMS that it was indeed spyware because some users were surly unaware of what was going on. I disagree with him that there was no room for the feature whatsoever, because I think the reality of their revenue stream could have been presented to all users on the system in something akin to the first run greeter used by several distros. They did it the wrong way & there is no good defense for how they handled it, including the ethical sewer that is Google & their profit stream.
---------------
If you want to see advertising done right using open source tech I'd point you too DuckDuckGo, who has a no tracking policy, runs everything on BSD, & seems to be giving back to the open source community. I believe they have some sort of revenue deal with Mint & some other projects, and they state that they give to projects they use like FreeBSD.
Another more direct Linux example, although more controversial, is probably Red Hat who generate & give away open code while providing Linux & related services as a subscription to a huge number of major companies around the world. The attacks against them seem truly unjustified to me & amount to either 'I don't trust corporations making profit' or 'I don't trust code from [insert offending project] they gave away as GPL', and while those are weak arguments the other charges amount to silly paranoia. I do think some of the projects Red Hat supports have issues, but on the whole I think they have been very good for Linux & I hope that continues now that they are under IBM.
At any rate I for one believe that there is room for fair profit in open source software & I don't think we need to apologize for saying for that unethical behavior deserves to be called out or for the fact that it has been on occasion within the opens source community. No amount of 'what-about-isms' justify bad behavior (i.e. see someone get stabbed for a wallet before you picked a pocket doesn't make you a better person), so what Google is doing to track users justifies nothing. What we need much more than excuses is open projects looking for batter ways to generate a fair profit while giving back to open source.
80 • What? (by Tim on 2019-08-16 01:53:00 GMT from United States)
I have to ask... What is it all y'all want?
Most GNU/Linux distributions ship primarily free speech software and completely free beer software. Because of this, people have freedom.
Are you looking for the Linux police to come and tell everyone to do something one way? According to the GPL there are no Linux police. The diversity in Linux isn't "fragmentation," it's everyone doing what they want to do.
People who make their money selling non-free software are not going to like this model. That's their right. But those of us who use GNU/Linux do like this model, and telling us we need to unify or become irrelevant is getting tiresome. My choice of software does not affect you. I can't tell you what to use. We both have choice, and that's how I like it. You'd have a point if there was some sort of decline in desktop GNU/Linux happening. I have no evidence that is the case.
I strongly suspect everyone suggesting we must unify really means "I want everyone use Linux the way I do." That's what the hatred of Chrome OS, or GNOME Shell, or Plasma , or even systemd really is. People are doing things different from me so therefore they're wrong. With that logic every commercially successful fork of Linux will be an abomination because it's not the way I do things.
It's really ok. Enjoy your free speech and free beer and stop worrying Linux is dying. It isn't. Even if the focus isn't the desktop, great desktops are still being packaged. We're going to be fine. At the very least Debian Buster LTS will get us to 2024, right?
81 • Fair profit and so on (by Pierre on 2019-08-16 08:22:15 GMT from France)
Nothing in this world is done for free, even though some say so. There is some profit some way, big or small. "Philanthropy" too is not free -- you get perks, for example, such as no tax.
Cannonical created Ubuntu spending the company money, or private money. It still have to make a profit. The freeloaders won't bring in money, even if they are in millions (once there were millions). Cannonical had to know, how many freeloaders are there, so the ping back. You just can't use something free, without giving back anything. People buy from Amazon, but the freeloaders get angry, when an Amazon app is there, and Cannonical earned some money out of it. Mint does it openly from Yahoo, but none of the Mint users disagree. But, oh no, Cannonical is stealing our data. They didn't, but the hullabaloo was so great, Cannonical stopped getting interested in the desktop. Lot of distributions, the main ones and the remixes, go that way, as there's no money in feeding the freeloader.
Oh, the ads are troubling the freeloader. But hey, everything troubles the freeloader. If you pay, you can complain, but when you get it free?
By the way, the freeloader doesn't get the computer free. He pays lot of money for the state of art laptop/computer, but don't want to pay for the fuel that runs it. RMS's ideas/thoughts dont match the real world, where you simply have to pay for the bread you eat. If you pay, you'd treat the product with respect. That's why millions of Windows users, Apple users, Android uers don't complain. (Some do, but there are always some...everywhere...) You can always ask help, and you get it, for your product is paid for. If Cannonical went that way, sometime later, created their own devices, and stayed with it, it would still be the most used device+OS today. Freeloaders don't keep anything going. They only take, and know only how to take.
Someone might say, I donate, but just donating doesn't help. Donaters just go away, after sometime. Those, who pay and buy stay on, or buy another. You pay, you respect. Freeloaders? Complain!
82 • Quick search with Dolphin and Advanced search with KFind (by Flavio on 2019-08-16 14:53:50 GMT from Brazil)
Even if sometimes I use Find, Locate, Whereis and other commands, mostly to search system files, it is not practical when you need to preview Photos, Screenshots, PDFs, TXTs and other filetypes.
CTRL+F within Dolphin is really useful, either to quickly find any file by names or by contents.
Note that it doesn't depend on KDE-PIM, nor Baloo_file. It just works.
And KFind finds any file by name, by date or range of dates, by owner, by properties or by any criteria mix.
83 • Developers Profit (by Freeloader on 2019-08-16 16:28:28 GMT from France)
"the freeloader doesn't get the computer free. He pays lot of money for the state of art laptop/computer"
Well, actually, I didn't pay a dime for my computers, and I'll never will. All are "salvaged" from trash and I run Linux because my machines are, obviously low specs.
Yeah, nothing in this world is for free, and no one will get hate gratuitously.
Google wants to track and show me adds? Okay, they are free to waist their resource on me, I don't mind that. What I mind is that they try to force me to use the language and other staff specific to the region I am at that time. Why would I want that? Actually why Google tries to -discriminate- people based on the region where they live on? I think that's cybernetic "racism". I'm not complaining, just pointing a fact.
The horrible truth is that Google is the best search engine out-there, non of the others are even close (I try all the time). Once a better search engine appear, I'll be gone... but I'm not holding my breath...
84 • Q4OS 3.8 - The Windows XP Clone (by Niyas C on 2019-08-16 17:08:13 GMT from Singapore)
I was always curious about Q4OS as it closely resembles Windows XP. After reading your review, I downloaded it and explored.
One of the unique thing in Q4OS is Windows like installation wizard for popular applications.
85 • @80 Tim: (by dragonmouth on 2019-08-16 17:14:54 GMT from United States)
"telling us we need to unify"
Not unify, just quit splintering. Out of the 288 active distros, how many are actually unique and how many are only different in cosmetics and some apps?
" The diversity in Linux isn't "fragmentation," it's everyone doing what they want to do."
One word for "everyone doing whatever they want to do" is "freedom" but another is "anarchy". Anarchy is frowned upon in all other areas of human endeavor but it is embraced, even worn as a badge of honor, in the Linux community.
"We both have choice"
You speak out of both sides of your mouth. Yes, we have a choice of any of the 288 active distros in the DW database. However, the choice of the init system we can use, for example, is being narrowed down by the day as more and more distros adopt systemd. Why allow fragmentation/anarchy/freedom in one area but enforce conformity in another? Isn't systemd an example of "I want everyone use Linux the way I do."?
Number of Comments: 85
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| • Issue 1100 (2024-12-09): Oreon 9.3, differences in speed, IPFire's new appliance, Fedora Asahi Remix gets new video drivers, openSUSE Leap Micro updated, Redox OS running Redox OS |
| • Issue 1099 (2024-12-02): AnduinOS 1.0.1, measuring RAM usage, SUSE continues rebranding efforts, UBports prepares for next major version, Murena offering non-NFC phone |
| • Issue 1098 (2024-11-25): Linux Lite 7.2, backing up specific folders, Murena and Fairphone partner in fair trade deal, Arch installer gets new text interface, Ubuntu security tool patched |
| • Issue 1097 (2024-11-18): Chimera Linux vs Chimera OS, choosing between AlmaLinux and Debian, Fedora elevates KDE spin to an edition, Fedora previews new installer, KDE testing its own distro, Qubes-style isolation coming to FreeBSD |
| • Issue 1096 (2024-11-11): Bazzite 40, Playtron OS Alpha 1, Tucana Linux 3.1, detecting Screen sessions, Redox imports COSMIC software centre, FreeBSD booting on the PinePhone Pro, LXQt supports Wayland window managers |
| • Issue 1095 (2024-11-04): Fedora 41 Kinoite, transferring applications between computers, openSUSE Tumbleweed receives multiple upgrades, Ubuntu testing compiler optimizations, Mint partners with Framework |
| • Issue 1094 (2024-10-28): DebLight OS 1, backing up crontab, AlmaLinux introduces Litten branch, openSUSE unveils refreshed look, Ubuntu turns 20
| | • Issue 1093 (2024-10-21): Kubuntu 24.10, atomic vs immutable distributions, Debian upgrading Perl packages, UBports adding VoLTE support, Android to gain native GNU/Linux application support |
| • Issue 1092 (2024-10-14): FunOS 24.04.1, a home directory inside a file, work starts of openSUSE Leap 16.0, improvements in Haiku, KDE neon upgrades its base |
| • Issue 1091 (2024-10-07): Redox OS 0.9.0, Unified package management vs universal package formats, Redox begins RISC-V port, Mint polishes interface, Qubes certifies new laptop |
| • Issue 1090 (2024-09-30): Rhino Linux 2024.2, commercial distros with alternative desktops, Valve seeks to improve Wayland performance, HardenedBSD parterns with Protectli, Tails merges with Tor Project, Quantum Leap partners with the FreeBSD Foundation |
| • Issue 1089 (2024-09-23): Expirion 6.0, openKylin 2.0, managing configuration files, the future of Linux development, fixing bugs in Haiku, Slackware packages dracut |
| • Issue 1088 (2024-09-16): PorteuX 1.6, migrating from Windows 10 to which Linux distro, making NetBSD immutable, AlmaLinux offers hardware certification, Mint updates old APT tools |
| • Issue 1087 (2024-09-09): COSMIC desktop, running cron jobs at variable times, UBports highlights new apps, HardenedBSD offers work around for FreeBSD change, Debian considers how to cull old packages, systemd ported to musl |
| • Issue 1086 (2024-09-02): Vanilla OS 2, command line tips for simple tasks, FreeBSD receives investment from STF, openSUSE Tumbleweed update can break network connections, Debian refreshes media |
| • Issue 1085 (2024-08-26): Nobara 40, OpenMandriva 24.07 "ROME", distros which include source code, FreeBSD publishes quarterly report, Microsoft updates breaks Linux in dual-boot environments |
| • Issue 1084 (2024-08-19): Liya 2.0, dual boot with encryption, Haiku introduces performance improvements, Gentoo dropping IA-64, Redcore merges major upgrade |
| • Issue 1083 (2024-08-12): TrueNAS 24.04.2 "SCALE", Linux distros for smartphones, Redox OS introduces web server, PipeWire exposes battery drain on Linux, Canonical updates kernel version policy |
| • Issue 1082 (2024-08-05): Linux Mint 22, taking snapshots of UFS on FreeBSD, openSUSE updates Tumbleweed and Aeon, Debian creates Tiny QA Tasks, Manjaro testing immutable images |
| • Issue 1081 (2024-07-29): SysLinuxOS 12.4, OpenBSD gain hardware acceleration, Slackware changes kernel naming, Mint publishes upgrade instructions |
| • Issue 1080 (2024-07-22): Running GNU/Linux on Android with Andronix, protecting network services, Solus dropping AppArmor and Snap, openSUSE Aeon Desktop gaining full disk encryption, SUSE asks openSUSE to change its branding |
| • Issue 1079 (2024-07-15): Ubuntu Core 24, hiding files on Linux, Fedora dropping X11 packages on Workstation, Red Hat phasing out GRUB, new OpenSSH vulnerability, FreeBSD speeds up release cycle, UBports testing new first-run wizard |
| • Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
| • Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
| • Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
| • Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
| • Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
| • Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
| • Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
| • Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
| • Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
| • Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
| • Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
| • Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
| • Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
| • Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
| • Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
| • Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
| • Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
| • Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
| • Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
| • Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
| • Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
| • Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
| • Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
| • Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
| • Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
| • Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
| • Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
| • Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
| • Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
| • Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
| • Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
| • Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
| • Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
| • Full list of all issues |
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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| Random Distribution | 
Ankur Bangla
Ankur Bangla was a desktop Linux distribution localised into Bengali. The project's earlier versions were based on Mandriva Linux, but later it switched to Ubuntu as its preferred base.
Status: Discontinued
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
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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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