Slashdot Mirror

And this is a problem because? Gnome 1.4 has been around for quite some time and has been hashed over in so many reviews, why bother to cover it again? Meanwhile, KDE is at a new version 3.0 and is on the tips of everyone's lips at the moment. I am all for equal representation of a desktop environment, but could you blame the reviewer for wanting to cover something new? Sheesh....

As for desktops, I have recently discovered Sorcery Linux. This has been a blast, and the best part is I only get those programs I want. There. My own mini-review of a Linux distro. Check it out, you won't be sorry.

It used to be a great distro, but it turned into the greatest (and saddest) web-soap ever.

I hope Kyle gets back to coding so he can start building the killer distro Sorcerer could be.

I highly encourage everyone to give Sorcerer a shot (for a veteran Linux user it is extremely easy to get the hang of - and not too tough for someone with relatively little experience, and the installation has menus and whatnot to make it fairly simple). However, if you're weary about making the plunge without adequate documentation, you can probably expect to see a story on Slashdot a few weeks from now once all the kinks have been worked out (it has only been a few weeks since Sorcerer's creator quit and tried to bring his project down with him, so we're still scrambling to get everything perfect).

While what you say about Sorcerer is for the most part true, it should be noted that the "post-split" Sorcerer community, of which I am a (very small) part, has actually stabilized significantly, and is probably now at a point where it is more dependable longterm than it was under its original leadership. Specifically, there was one person, Kyle Sallee, in control before, who did an admirable job given the vast amount of work required for him. However, he often refused to be flexible in his ideals, so when people made suggestions, instead of considering them, he would get angered and insulted by them. Anyway, to make a long story short, it is now run in a much more democratic fashion, and the people in charge are constantly putting safeguards in place to make sure that they won't screw everything up if they suddenly decide to "abort" the project in a way similar to what Kyle did a month ago.

The new Sorcerer is growing quickly, and it's definitely something worth taking a look at (and the same can be said about Gentoo). While both distributions clearly have a lot of the same benefits, one thing that I must say is nice about Sorcerer is the built-in mnemonic it has for its commands. While some find the commands corny, they are definitely easy to remember and it makes installing programs pretty fun. Just type "cast name-of-program" and Sorcerer takes care of the rest. Typing "sorcery update" will update the "grimoire" (database of "spells" or programs) and then automatically update any programs that are dated (after asking you to confirm, of course). For those concerned about stability, I think a new version of Sorcerer supporting separate "stable/test/devel" grimoires is in the work (like Debian, though the stable version would still be far more up-to-date). Another nice feature of Sorcerer is its fairly straightforward, guided installation (though of course this is still not as newbie-friendly to set up, as, say, Mandrake, I found it very usable after only a few months experience with Linux and I definitely learned a lot by using it). Finally, it's really nice and easy to create new spells; if you want a program added to the grimoire, it's generally just a matter of copying one or two files from another spell and modifying a few fields to reflect different download urls/filenames.

Hopefully I've sold a few of you on Sorcerer - I encourage you to give it a shot (as well as Gentoo, which from what I hear is also great). The web site is sorcerylinux.org, oh and while the documentation isn't yet that comprehensive, the mailing lists are very helpful for finding out stuff, so feel free to ask there (see the web site for info about the mailing lists).

yeah, but the iso for Sorcerer Linux weighs in at just under 80MB, and have a MUCH easier install than Gentoo...

But once you get Gentoo running its nice... just make sure to print out the instructions first ;-) ... makes it easier in the long run.

jdW

From lookin at the changes to 1.0, I still like Sorcerer GNU Linux better ... Its just cleaner and easier to use in my opinion.

But don't get me wrong, a source based distro is a great thing, and I really hope that one day in the near future (rather than trying to maintain this binary package management hell) all the major distros will wake up and realize that source management is *much* cleaner and nicer to the user. I'm really hoping for the death of RPM, but I'm sure I'm not so lucky...

jdW

That is why you should go with a source-based distro such as Sorcerer GNU/Linux. Absolutely nothing will be "thrown on" your system without you knowing about it (as long as you're l33t enough to look), and you'll get better performance, also.

As an active user of Sorcerer GNU/Linux, I would like to point out that no one went out of their way to antagonize Kyle Sallee, the original creator of Sorcerer. Following the two Slashdot articles about Sorcerer, interest in the distro skyrocketed, and suddenly Kyle found that there was far more work than he could handle alone. Several people offered to help him manage the project, notably Ryan (whose last name I don't know) who later founded sorcerylinux.org.

Kyle refused help, and eventually (for reasons that are unclear) dropped the project. He announced it was all over, pointed sorcerer.wox.org to a fork called lunar-penguin which had already been established, and disclaimed any further interest. Later, he added a link to the sorcerylinux.org project. Then, inexplicably, those were taken down and replaced with a long diatribe ( mirrored here) dissing both projects, followed a few days later by an apparent attempt to revoke the GPL license Sorcerer was released under. (That article is still up at sorcerer.wox.org, as reported in the parent comment, at the time of this writing.)

(Please note that the authorship of the last two documents mentioned above is not 100% certain. The consenus on the Sorcerer mailing lists, however, is that Kyle did in fact write them.)

The leader pro tem of rhe current Sorcerer project wrote a rebuttal of the first article and when the new one came out another one.

The whole mess is puzzling, but one thing is clear: this was NOT a hostile takeover of the Sorcerer project. This was a group of people just trying to save a cool project after its creator dumped it and tried his best to kill it.
1) Nobody forced Kyle to drop it.
2) Nobody forced him to link to the two "child" projects, Sorcerylinux.org and lunar-penguin.org
3) Nobody forced him to put up the article attacking both projects, or to try and remove the GPL.

If Kyle has become alienated from the Sorcerer community, it is no one's fault but his own.

As an active user of Sorcerer GNU/Linux, I would like to point out that no one went out of their way to antagonize Kyle Sallee, the original creator of Sorcerer. Following the two Slashdot articles about Sorcerer, interest in the distro skyrocketed, and suddenly Kyle found that there was far more work than he could handle alone. Several people offered to help him manage the project, notably Ryan (whose last name I don't know) who later founded sorcerylinux.org.

Kyle refused help, and eventually (for reasons that are unclear) dropped the project. He announced it was all over, pointed sorcerer.wox.org to a fork called lunar-penguin which had already been established, and disclaimed any further interest. Later, he added a link to the sorcerylinux.org project. Then, inexplicably, those were taken down and replaced with a long diatribe ( mirrored here) dissing both projects, followed a few days later by an apparent attempt to revoke the GPL license Sorcerer was released under. (That article is still up at sorcerer.wox.org, as reported in the parent comment, at the time of this writing.)

(Please note that the authorship of the last two documents mentioned above is not 100% certain. The consenus on the Sorcerer mailing lists, however, is that Kyle did in fact write them.)

The leader pro tem of rhe current Sorcerer project wrote a rebuttal of the first article and when the new one came out another one.

The whole mess is puzzling, but one thing is clear: this was NOT a hostile takeover of the Sorcerer project. This was a group of people just trying to save a cool project after its creator dumped it and tried his best to kill it.
1) Nobody forced Kyle to drop it.
2) Nobody forced him to link to the two "child" projects, Sorcerylinux.org and lunar-penguin.org
3) Nobody forced him to put up the article attacking both projects, or to try and remove the GPL.

If Kyle has become alienated from the Sorcerer community, it is no one's fault but his own.

As an active user of Sorcerer GNU/Linux, I would like to point out that no one went out of their way to antagonize Kyle Sallee, the original creator of Sorcerer. Following the two Slashdot articles about Sorcerer, interest in the distro skyrocketed, and suddenly Kyle found that there was far more work than he could handle alone. Several people offered to help him manage the project, notably Ryan (whose last name I don't know) who later founded sorcerylinux.org.

Kyle refused help, and eventually (for reasons that are unclear) dropped the project. He announced it was all over, pointed sorcerer.wox.org to a fork called lunar-penguin which had already been established, and disclaimed any further interest. Later, he added a link to the sorcerylinux.org project. Then, inexplicably, those were taken down and replaced with a long diatribe ( mirrored here) dissing both projects, followed a few days later by an apparent attempt to revoke the GPL license Sorcerer was released under. (That article is still up at sorcerer.wox.org, as reported in the parent comment, at the time of this writing.)

(Please note that the authorship of the last two documents mentioned above is not 100% certain. The consenus on the Sorcerer mailing lists, however, is that Kyle did in fact write them.)

The leader pro tem of rhe current Sorcerer project wrote a rebuttal of the first article and when the new one came out another one.

The whole mess is puzzling, but one thing is clear: this was NOT a hostile takeover of the Sorcerer project. This was a group of people just trying to save a cool project after its creator dumped it and tried his best to kill it.
1) Nobody forced Kyle to drop it.
2) Nobody forced him to link to the two "child" projects, Sorcerylinux.org and lunar-penguin.org
3) Nobody forced him to put up the article attacking both projects, or to try and remove the GPL.

If Kyle has become alienated from the Sorcerer community, it is no one's fault but his own.

While the folks at Lunar did indeed fork, and take half of the SGL users along with them, Sorcerer Linux still lives on even without Kyle's leadership. Indeed, in the past week, it has undergone massive changes in management when Kyle tried to remove the distro all together, and many of us stepped up to the plate to keep the project going.

While we are still growing into the project, we have accomplished a great deal in a week, and are planning great things for Sorcerer. It is a great distro, and we are fighting to keep it as such.