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Mad Penguin basically said the same thing in this article, and it's true.

Here's a small clip from the article:
"The simple fact is that not enough people really know about Firefox, and this advertising campaign is one of the best ideas I've seen come out of the Open Source community in quite some time. We all know that no matter how compelling our software may be, the majority of the world's population doesn't even know it exists. It's not from lack of effort on our behalf, either. We spend much of our time promoting free software, as I'm sure most of you reading this do, but the one thing we lack is real visibility. We can eat, sleep, and sweat Firefox, but in reality, we are up against a large company with tons of money being dumped into their image... a very difficult proposition wouldn't you say? If you look at it for what it is, you'll see it for what it is. When a company can produce software which crashes constantly, allows strangers to steal personal information with little to no real effort, and then to top it off with the 'we'll patch it when we get around to it' attitude and it still controls 95+% of the market, anything less than a miracle is going to crumble from the weight. It's an odd thing isn't it? The fact is that Internet Explorer is harmful to the people who use it. But the truth is, people don't really pay attention to the facts. If they did, that 95+% of the world would all be running OS X right now wouldn't they?"

To the contrary... our review of this release from the 25th describes how *difficult* it was to get the network working properly. Not good at all...

Mad Penguin holds that honor. They published back on the 25th. Better review IHMO.

Mad Penguin holds that honor. They published back on the 25th. Better review IHMO.

Nothing more:
http://www.madpenguin.org/cms/index.php?m=show&id= 1182

Sure, they follow some tried and true recipes, but at least they have some meat to them... unlike the ones found at OS News. Their review section is here. This site has some excellent writeups if you ask me.

Gentoo is built from source code. This means it can take an entire weekend (Friday night included) to get a system built... Yeah, no kidding. I was a bit suspicious about build times because often when someone jokes "this days days to compile" they mean "it took a long time" which could mean anything. Here's a real stat for newbies: I had a P2/450/384mb RAM, took a little over 8 hours (including reading manual, fixing mistakes, and so on) for a base install. Okay, it took me several days on two machines. The last (5th attempt) only took 5 hours to compile because I went from Stage 1 to Stage 3 to save lots of time. The stage 1 attempts I ran at work, went home, came back the next day, and it was done compiling in about 22 hours on a P2/Dual450/512mb RAM. KDE 3.2.1 took 44 hours to install, not including xfree86. Mozilla took 5 hours.

If you don't have a handle on the situation, it might require outside help and research to solve the problem. Which I used. Luckily, Gentoo-loving people seemingly are both educated and friendly. I had a "Gentoo buddy," and he was very helpful with good cheer once he heard I was having problems. "Oh, I know what the problem is! Nano sucks! Do this, emerge vim..."

Problems come up on their own. Since programs are compiled and linked against each other and many libraries, when versions change, problems can arise in certain setups, especially new ones. This also includes just installing the base system. I had a problem when a package was labeled missing from the ftp mirrors (due to a misspelling. But again, Gentoo forums came to the rescue

You will be using the command line for most administration.The first thing I launch in a GUI is an xterm or something, so this wasn't a problem. What was a problem was nano saved my files only half the time, and it took an emerge vim to get an editor that worked and got my fstab fixed (actually, I used vim from a Slack-LiveCD first to get Gentoo bootable). For a hard core distro like Gentoo, I was a bit surprised vi was not part of the LiveCD, but nano was. I don't mind nano, I was used to pico because I use pine, but the random "not saving" part was irrirtating.

Community is there. Almost any problem can be found in the Gentoo Forums, and most all of them have solutions. A-men! Thank god for those comprehensive, flame-resistant forums. I got my Stage 1 attempt fixed in less than an hour.

Gentoo's install guide is very detailed and geared towards novices. I'd change that to "step-by-step commands for people who know what 90% of these commands mean." So when they go wrong, you can go, "Ah... all I have to do is repeat step 15a."

Because of the way you install Gentoo, you become much more familiar with the way Linux works under the hood. Ater my hassle, I may not use Gentoo. I just don't have the time for all those compiles. But you are so right on your point, and that's why I considered my install process with Gentoo, hassles and all, to be well worth my time simply because even though I knew a lot of this stuff already, I still learned a whole lot. Very educational, very forward, and support's there when you need it.

Some points I'd like to add from a newbie's POV:

• Once all the fixing was done, my 2.6.5-r1 kernel on this box ran very fast. KDE was as fast as Windows 98 was on this box. Not to rag on Linux, but the GUIs are awfully slow and overhead-intensive. I am not sure if it was Gentoo or the 2.6, but KDE "feels" faster on this old box than my P4/3.0ghz with 1GB RAM does on Fedora Core 1.
• As step-by step as this install was, it left out some things, l

will it compile with gcc3? :)

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3 million strong can't be wrong
www.MadPenguin.org

Yeah, that looks nice, especially when compared to the Windows MMC. However, when you are talking about enduser usability, having a flashy GUI for your DHCP server is pretty low on the list.

Maybe the issue is that the screenshots do a pretty poor job of demonstrating KDE and instead focus on the wonky/Win95ish features. This looks much nicer than the stuff in the article.

Per their usual tactics, the next thing would be a declaration of WMDs... and we all know THAT argument works well in the USA ;)

--
MadPenguin.org

Well, they do you know ;)

--
Mad Penguin

I am wondering if Red Hat might be on the way out in the enterprise? I know it is one of the most widely supported distros available today with a long standing reputation with enterprises, but taking a step back and looking at the Novell/SUSE/Ximian powerhouse that is most likely building.... anyone have any thoughts on that? I think we might be in for a change of tide (of sorts). This is of course personal opinion, but I am curious what others think on this topic?

--
3 million strong can't be wrong...
Mad Penguin Las Vegas

Maybe I spoke too soon... looks like this is not an MS product, but even still, how does this all tie in to the Windows OS? Or is it even a form of Windows OS? I am tired and confused ;)

"Fear the penguin"

What about MS licensing? what are the limitations of distributing something like this? Knowing Microsoft It can't be free..... can it?

"Fear the penguin"

... when visiting Mad Penguin.

If I didn't have my beloved Zaurus, I might try Lycoris... but only if you threatened me at gunpoint of course. Or maybe poked me with a sharp stick a few times :)

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http://www.madpenguin.org

Mad Penguin has released an awesome review of the newest Xandros desktop. I found it here

Mad Penguin has released an awesome review of the newest Xandros desktop. I found it here

this poor pengiun should have listened to Linus when he told him CDs aren't fish.

I saw this over at Mad Penguin earlier :) And to think I could have been the first to post it on Slashdot!!! Maybe next time I will get it...

GrokLaw is hurting (bad), so here is another link to help them out a bit:

http://madpenguin.org/modules.php?op=modload&name= News&file=article&sid=729

- Jj

Link to an article I found which pretty much tells it like it is:
http://madpenguin.org/modules.php?op=modload&name= News&file=article&sid=410

These guys really need to get a grip. The whole world is laughing at them, and it's time they come clean with the code they claim they have. Torvalds stated that he would personally REMOVE/REPLACE the offending code IF it was found.... so what's the issue? $$$$$

This article was right on track... we the consumers need this type of protection, though I think this looks like a rough draft and could use some more items. Reminds me of an article I read earier in the week called "End Users Have Rights Too" at Mad Penguin. There was another article also similar to this at News.com. It seems many people are getting tired of crap products pushed by monopolies who don't really give a rats ass about what damage their flaws do to their customers. In the case of Microsoft, this is global in scale...

The more huge outbreaks we see in viruses... may turn into big legal troubles for Microsoft.

Us too.

We wrote them a letter questioning them and have thus far been met with silence. Here's the letter... That sure tells alot about them, doesn't it.

This was the most amusing and amazing thing to me, as simple as it was:

"Got Unix in your Linux?"

Doesn't this seem a bit absurd for them to be parading around wearing slogans such as this? I mean, what exactly is the point of this convention? From an innocent bystander it appears to be a propaganda vehicle... which, as it appears, they were having trouble even getting people to accept free passes to ride.

Well, at least the head count was low. Not too many people looking like complete idiots.

My $0.02

MadPenguin out >:)

If you're getting the big 404, the link is here now:
http://madpenguin.org/modules.php?op=modload&name= News&file=article&sid=374

Reminder:Please remember to remove the following files from your PostNuke directory

install.php file

install directory

If you do not remove these files then users can obtain the password to your database!

FINISH CONFIGURING YOUR DAMN SERVER! OTHERWISE, SOMEBODY COULD EASILY HACK INTO YOUR SYSTEM!

This link the the article works

THIS MAN IS A KARMA WHORE!

PLEASE read the comments at the BOTTOM OF THE ARTICLE!!!!

Just in case ;)

http://www.madpenguin.org/slashdot/sld10.html

MD supports downloading transactions... there's a comment about that on MadPenguin's site.

I'm not sure if the program handles those 'send' transactions though - would have to download the free demo to find out I 'spose.

Unfortunately, I've been using Quicken so long, and have filed several years Tax returns using TurboTax (which imports directly from Quicken)... that I'm not sure MoneyDance is robust enough for me (or my degree of laziness) to be worth switching (even for $30). *shrug*

hydrogen bill?

Man...alternative fuel and a Mac? This guy is totally out to lunch. :)

this is totally off topic... but has anyone seen MadPenguin.org's logo? I about fell out of my chair when I saw it. Seems they have been endorsed by Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf LOL.

Thought I would share :)

nox

Found a screenshot of the fonts at MadPenguin.org.....

http://www.madpenguin.org/images/reviews/vera/vera .png

I for one am thinking they look pretty good ;-)

Found a screenshot of the fonts at MadPenguin.org.....

http://www.madpenguin.org/images/reviews/vera/vera .png

I for one am thinking they look pretty good ;-)

MadPenguin.org had this a few days ago... with ISO links. There are a couple that are unofficial, but they are pretty fast mirrors. Not swamped like the other mirrors. I got mine from there :)