Slashdot Mirror
Review of Corel Linux 1.1.2
With all of the recent hoopla over Corel Linux, it's going to be interesting to see the reviews of the download and retail versions of Corel Linux. And while we're on the subject of distributions, it should also be mentioned that Stormix has released Stormix Linux 2000. Note that both are based on Debian - what do people think about the new distros?
How has Stormix dumbed down Linux?
Debian's install sucked. Outdated and time consuming.
Stormix has put together a brilliant distro. It may be "the" distro to beat as of Jan2000.
Just try it!
heh...
Based on my experience with Corel Linux, it will do one of three things when looking for hardware:
1. It will find it, get it right, and it works
2. It will lock up when it sees something it does not know how to handle -- yet knows that it is there
3. It will not see some hardware altogether, thus it will install just fine and ignore the fact that you may have a network or sound card "in their someplace" (It never asks if you do)
This brings up an interesting dillema for new users -- If you can't get it to install, then you are basically screwed. If you can get it installed chances are you will have to load modules and set parameters in text files manually...(usually not top on the list when you are trying to convert the drones)....Or should I say -- catch 22....
Is it harder to ask the user what kinds of network or sound cards they have as part of the install? -- or is it harder for the user to add this hardware (by manually tweaking "confusing" text files after the fact???? Most distributions play it safe and ask the "tough" questions as part of the install -- and are criticized for being "hard" to install...But now the "easy" to install distributions require a higher level of know how on the back end.
I am by no means bashing Corel -- it just seems that many companies think that they can capitilize on the "myth" that the one downfall of Linux is the fact that it is hard to install...So they take a good distribution and add a few GUI install screens and some hardware detection and think they have just 1 upped the distribution they are "improving"....When in reality they introduce additional problems to the install that the other guys had already fixed. Most people would say that I am being to hard on a Version 1.0 release.....However, when you think about it -- if I bought a new 2000 Saturn Car...and switched the wheels and tinted the Windows -- would not one think or expect it would be value added to the original - rather than standing on its own as a new model of car -- thus subject to the same if not more criticism?
IMHO
Which one runs Linux better (I'll be buying Redhat 6.x), an AMD Athlon 750Mhz or a PIII 750mhz?
I too noticed the Pyramid o'Corel. While a satisfied RedHat customer, I was gratified to see more evidence of mainstreaming Linux. However. I had cause to be in CompUSA to return my Christmas HP Pavillion system because the ^@#$ WinModem was of course DOA for Linux. I proceeded to work with a tech-savvy salesperson (apparently they do exist) and we looked at EVERY SINGLE SYSTEM for sale in the store. This was not a small number of systems. NOT ONE of them had the combination of expansion slots/hardware modem/USB ports/sound and graphics cards/ports that would make for an off-the-shelf, modern Linux system. NOT ONE. Now of course I could buy a system, pitch the WinModem, and install the experimental PCI modem of my choice, set up the device driver, yaddayaddayadda. In fact, I'll probably end up doing that. The point is regardless of how easy it is to Install Corel, NOT ONE SYSTEM a newbie can buy will work correctly! (By which I mean graphics, sound and ISP connection.) Is the newbie going to blame hardware makers for this? Or "that Geeky Linux"?
I have to admit that my preception of Corel was tanted after hearing Michael Cowpland (CEO of Corel) speak at the Bazaar. All he could talk about was Corel's "marketshare which is second only to Microsoft". It had a "Coke vs. Pepsi" ring to it, and I left with the feeling that the open source community is being used only to give Corel a leg up on Microsoft.
They will use any means to generate more income and Linux and Open Source are the hot new buzz words. Their distro is in no way fully open source! Do yourself and the community a favor, get Debian not Corels repackaging.
Beware the suits!
NO!! Don't screw Debian up.
And of course, the fact that you couldnt buy a system without a winmodem IS MICROSOFTS FAULT!!!!
Read through the Corel review, I will give it a spin. Looks promising, especially the ability to cruise through Win disks on other boxes. I do the backups.
One note about WP. It reacts pretty much the same, no matter the OS. I use it on DOS (6.1), Unix, Win31, WinNT, and the freebie download for Linux (I get around). Learn it once, use it anywhere. It's niche is its gorgeous output, I do our annual report with it. Even printing the masters at 1200dpi gives quality indistinguishable from a commercial printer, most of which use Macs at that res, anyway.
Linux is really starting to shape up. I'll bet it zooms this year. And no blue screens.
There's a windows explorer clone for KDE called Kruiser. I has many great features, including samba browsing, and, oh yeah, it's GPL'd. Get it here .
I prefer the RH directory structure.
Hobbit pr0n stars!! Where???? I wanna see some of that fine frodo ass on my screen now
Where is this "review" of Corel Linux 1.1.2? I saw the review for Corel Linux 1.0. I am running Corel Linux right now (even though I love slackware, I just love Corel's LILO :) ) Someone help me out here!
I've have installed more distrobutions than I can count (thats higher than 5 ;-) ...thus far COREL is the ONLY one that would not recognize my SOUNDBLASTER PCI/128 (anyone else have this problem?). - - - /mnt directory (/mnt/zip for my zip drive) the file manager go's crazy (and slow). - - - I will still recomend OPEN LINUX 2.3 for beginners - - - and a lot off topic, if anyone has easy instructions for an idiot (me) to get my ACER (ATAPI) CD-ReWriter to work under Linux/XCDROAST please e-mail me - - (by default, xcdroast will not recognize it as a writer, only a reader) - - - tom6789@sprynet.com
I also CANNOT STAND their "enhancements" to the KDE file manager - - -for instance when I went to make a new folder (from the GUI) in the
The thing I didn't like about CorelLinux is that if you want to reinstall you have to destroy and redefine the partitions again during installation. Therefore, if you had a bunch of data in your /home directory and wanted to reinstall without losing that data, you're screwed. As far as I can tell you can't edit the partition's mount point without recreating the partition.
Actually I found the partition part of the corel installer to be troublesome aswell. I tried to put it on an old 514 meg hard drive however it kept mis-calculating the partition sizes when i was allocating the swap and linux partitions. It also didn't calculate the amount of space it required to install properly either (as far as I could tell anyway).
There's a whole bunch of development tools in a .deb package on the CD. Development stuff dosent install as default. Use the Corel Updater tool.
Yeah, just because they have their own Qt library doesn't mean you can't ALSO have the "real" Qt on your system. Just grab it from Troll and quit complaining.
And, of course, if you're sick of learing each clever new "this distribution only" kludge for installing 'packages' learn how to use tar and ./configure; make; make install . Get rid of all the cleverness and discover how Unix works.
Just make sure you have loopback enabled in your kernel and mount the file as if it were a device, on your second machine. Then share it using NFS and do an NFS install.
Oh, that's right. Newbie. Forget it....
the problem may be from non-standard video modes that they chose to use -- my laptop has similar trouble with Corel install screens -- similar to what I get when I play Quake 1 (dos) and choose a non-standard video mode - when these modes are used, it looks like someone is pressing real hard on the upper half of the LCD screen- I hope they someday use a normal video mode (or provide a boot disk with a normal video mode for setup
I know in Win98, the UDMA/66 controller on the Abit BE6 is recognized as if it were a SCSI controller. Perhaps there are some generic SCSI drivers for Linux out there that would work...?
you've gotta be goosing me..it didn't come with make? lame!
SuSE is currently 6 CDs. How many for Debian? It must be at least 7 to have more software.
I just bought a copy of Corel Linux. I've always wanted to run Linux on my home PC, but I never had the time to go through the trouble of installing. I'm really busy, and I'd never have the time to go scrounging around for drivers for my stuff and spend days tweaking the configuration files for XFree86...
I'm a Windows NT guy, but not by choice. I like C programming. I like having control of the machine. Unix's command-line is wonderful, DOS's is crap. I hate the fact that NT has no compiler built in to it. So, when I was told that Corel Linux installed "with two buttons" as a salesman put it, I immediately picked it up!
This would be cool! I'd be finally running Linux, like I always wanted...!
So, I started the installation. Corel Linux started detecting the hardware...then it ejected the installation CD and rebooted. I tried again, but the same thing happened. On Corel's Linux support website, they said there was no support for Ultra DMA66 hard drive controllers, the type in my machine.
I couldn't return my copy of Corel Linux, so I guess I'm stuck with it. There goes $120 down the drain. I suppose I can play with the free rubber Tux toy (which strangely enough, says "not a toy" on the bottom), but it makes no sense when I'm still running Windows...
I don't have high-speed Internet access, so don't tell me to do download a different distribution instead. I'm still down $120, anyway. I tried installing a copy of the Mandrake distribution I got on a CD with a magazine, but I still had problems. The Mandrake installer said I had no hard drives in my computer!
Although I could put the hard drive inside a different machine without an Ultra DMA66 controller to install Linux, I may need special drivers to use Linux on my computer with the Ultra DMA66 controller, since it has two IDE buses that use the same interrupt, so there might be problems with the machine freezing or crashing due to mismanaged IRQs. The Windows drivers I got with the controller needed to be updated to alleviate a few problems, so having no drivers at all might be worse...
I could also try moving the hard drive to one of the two Ultra DMA33 buses in my computer, but the hardware detection in the installer might expect to always find the hard drive there. I prefer having my hard drive on the Ultra DMA66 controller, because it's an Ultra DMA66 hard drive.
Right after I realized that I wouldn't be able to install Corel Linux, I thought to myself... "It must be a Microsoft conspiracy! Why are there only drivers for Windows? Is Microsoft paying off the hardware companies? Is this an attempt to keep Linux behind by giving it no support for new peripherals and technology?" To all Windows-only hardware companies: Linux isn't just for 486s, you know!
And to anyone who could help: my Ultra DMA66 controller is the High-Point Technologies HPT366 onboard controller on an ABit BE6 motherboard. (The controller is built-in to the motherboard.) I believe the main part of the problem is that the installers expect the computer to have only two IDE buses (unlike mine, which has four) and they don't see the hard drive. The two Ultra DMA33 buses are seen as the two "traditional" IDE buses, so the installers can see the CD-ROM and other peripherals on them, but they can't see the Ultra DMA66 buses, where the hard drive is.
If you can't overcome dselect you shouldn't be using Debian. If you understand dselect you understand how debian works. There isn't anything special about "learning" dselect. It has a help system, and there is at least one dselect doc that I saw on debian site.
They're making their own distro because they want to jump on it. Simply porting their products to Linux is not enough. Have you tried the Linux version of Wordperfect? It's terrible - I find it almost unusable. To be successful this way, their products would have to actually be good, and people would actually have to use/buy them. People will pay money to buy a Linux distribution, because it's convenient to have all the software you need in one package. But as far as separate commercial software goes, businesses certainly are unlikely to buy Linux versions of Corel's stuff any time soon (you don't need them on servers, and on the desktop they're all still using Windows), and most home users aren't going to start shelling out money for that stuff when they can simply keep Windows on their HD and dual boot, or use free software. It's really a desparation move on Corel's part.
Secondly, and I'll probably get moderated down for this, I think Corel is a pretty clueless company. Cowpland really doesn't know what he's doing. Just recently their CFO (I think) quit, and they hired his LIMO DRIVER. True story. Overall they're a very poorly managed company which is in a lot of turmoil. They're just trying to stay afloat these days. I have friends who've worked there who don't have too many good things to say about the company.
Not just retardedly off-topic, but plagiarism(sp?). You're cool.
It does *not* blow the other partitions. I had Windows 98 on a partition, and it is still there. It does not refuse to install on a preformatted partition either, it think it might force a re-format though. I deleted my old Red Hat partition on a box, left the Win98 partition, and let Corel Linux install where RH used to be. A beaut. Too bad you say what you did.
Fist Prost regrets not being there to prevent the dreaded "dopplefurshtenposten" that occured here, by apologetic-boy and 3r33t-d00d.
To be a little more On-Topic, I recently saw the corel box at a computer shop, and was a little dismayed at the high price. I noticed that although the box was heavy and pleasently blue, it did not seem to contain anything that the neighboring distros such as Deluxe-Linux 6.5 didn't, other than the Debian name. Pity too, as I have been looking to get ahold of a boxed Debian distro and they don't seem to carry it there.
Fist Prost
The friendly first poster
Well, for some of us, the use of Corel and Linux in the same sentence (let alone as the entire name of a product) has us worried.
Corel is a b-grade company, that buys failed product lines from other b-grade companies. Linux needs to fend these sorts of companies off vigorously.
Ftp://Sunsite.UNC.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/CD-Writ ing-HOWTO
WOW!!! When I read Slashdot I decided to borrow Corel Linux CD from my friend. I thought this would be like Caldera with graphical install program and KDE but was I wrong. This installation program IS the easiest I have seen. WOW!!!!. And if you have to change something you can just go to the the "Control Center" WOW!!!! OK. This probably will not be a distrubution for people used to Linux but this will definetly be the Linux distrubution I will hand out to my friends who dont want to use Linux because It is to hard to install ;)
any chance somebody from /. could coordinate some mirrors of these sites before breaking the story so we could read them after the server becomes completely overloaded with /. demand?
The problem I have with LinNeighborhood and certain other GUI's for browsing samba are that they cannot correctly recognize special characters in computer/share names, at least not all the time. This may be due to shortcomings in 'smbmount'. I've tried fixing this in the source of LinNeighborhood, but my fix only came out less efficient since I'm no experienced programmer. Corel Explorer has been the best so far working "out of the box", but it still has some issues, i.e. still doesn't show all the computers in my workgroup. You might also try Kruiser (a kde file manager with SMB integration) or the shareware version of Sharity. Sharity is nice because it has a browser module which dynamically mounts shares in your filesystem... i.e. you can browse your workgroup from an xterm.
it hangs on my smp machine, but works ok if one processor is disabled...I call that crap
You bought the Deluxe version, right? The freely distributable CD is in there because the install CD contains WordPerfect, which is not freely distributable software (you get one liscense to it for each copy of Corel Linux Deluxe you buy).
At least this is what I'm guessing - I haven't bought a copy of Corel Linux Deluxe yet, though I plan on buying one in the near future.
I agree about the device problems. That can be a pain, but is a generic problem to all Linux distributions I have used. All in all though, it was the smoothest install I have preformed using the "default" settings. I have also installed a "custom" installation, and found that awkward (too little control). However, the statement that gcc is not included is not entirely accurate. I used the ISO posted at linux.corel.com. Although the "default" installation does not install gcc, it is available on the CD as is g++ and all the standard compilers. The one thing that kind of annoyed me was the omission of LaTeX in the distribution. This would not be a problem on a fast connection because it could be easily download, but I am on a 28.8k line (on another non-networked machine) so... I am also not a big fan of KDE (I prefer gnome), but I understand the choice (it seems closer to a windows interface to me). Ben Zeckel bzeckelNO@SPAM.hmc.edu
I have been playing with Corel Linux (Deluxe) since Christmas holiday and really like it. Granted it has many flaws but it also represents the best chance (if not the only chance) that we can fight Microsoft monoply. Personally, I have tried Red Hat (since 5.0), Suse, Mandrake, Caldera, TurboLinux, Laser5, and none of them stayed in my harddisk very long. In contrast, I still have Corel Linux, and am seriously taking steps to make it as my everyday desktop. However, there are still some Windows programs that I can't do without. Has anyone ever tried VMWare on Corel Linux? Thanks.
to use tar and ./configure; make; make install . Get rid o
./configure/make defeats dselect/dpkg you don' know hat you're talking about.
I have graduated from that many years ago. If you really think your
Stormix, Corel, Mandrake, RedHat, Slackware, Debian, SuSE etc., etc. there is like 30 of them.
And except maybe couple all of them are crap. Fix existing ones before making new ones. Make it so that if newbie wants to install new IRC program he can just click on the icon, and it's installed. Make it EASY. Out of 2 million newbies that installed linux this year maybe 10000-20000 will stick with it. The rest will go back to Windows because they are easier to use.
So, fix up one or two distros, and then make new ones. Clowns. Oh well, nobody reads this anyways. so I can go on...
Yes, I too prefer SuSE. And yes, the YaST2 installer is awful. Who wants to do an install and not be able to select packages. Also, I did the default install and YaST2 didn't even install the kernel source. Lame. But I was able to fix it all with YaST 1.03. The Corel Linux does not have all types of video support it should. I did get it working on my Toshiba 2060CDS laptop, but I still haven't gotten the sound card working. Plus, some of the things it does by default are not very good. If there is one big lesson that the windows install should teach all Linux distros doing gui installs, it is that the expert mode for install needs to be VERY customizable. Yeah, if you want a *recommended* default install, that's fine for newbies and people who don't care. But I want to be able to configure an install so that I don't have to go back and spend half a day fixing what the install did wrong or undoing the stuff I don't want. I was also unhappy that the Word Perfect 8 for Linux would not install correctly on the Corel distro. I know that the full Corel includes WP8, but I should be able to do the install from the WP8 cd I have regardless. Let's hope that Corel can get their act together, because I think they can be a hugely positive force in the future.
Windows is going the way of phlogiston...
Hemos: Better change your password!
I really like the Corel Dist. I've installed it myself. The only thing Im not too wild about is the Corel "Bugfixes" of the QT Library that is shipped with it. This results in standard QT/KDE Apps that wont start. Why release a separate version of QT: a Corelish KDE? Looks like a Microsoft favorite: embrace and extend.
I wanted to try it out of morbid curiosity. Alas, booting the CD on my relatively new Sony Vaio (desktop) resulted in a spontaneous reboot when it seemed like it was going to initialize the X server. Guess it doesn't like the ATI Rage 128 card. Is this fixed? I also had no luck on my older machine with a SB16 scsi card (aha152x chipset) with a sony 4x scsi cdrom.. simply didn't detect it. So... I was all gung-ho for trying it and I just gave up on it in disgust. The only machine I could seem to get it to work on was my Dell Optiplex GX1p at work and I'm not about to wipe out my nicely functioning Mandrake install just to play with Corel.
Out of the box(?) its a pretty decent drop in replacement for Windows. But thats just it. Nothing more really.
Some of my co-workers loved that fact, but I don't see corporations buying it.
Interesting marketing strategy though with including an ICQ client (haven't tried it, but I might buy it just to give it a whirl) and some games. It really seems to try and give you value for your dollar.
I just home Corel expands their field of vision.
I had trouble with the pre-patches, but there is a ide-patch for 2.2.13, so you don't have to use the pre-patches.
Thus, any distro that provides these services for me is a great distro. I particularly like Mandrake because they recompile everything for Pentium, something I'd otherwise want to do but just don't have the time to do for every package in the system. They also package stuff up more quickly than RedHat. I believe Mandrake shipped a distro based on kernel 2.2.13 before RedHat shipped a distro based on 2.2.10! Not that there's anything wrong with RedHat's speed, I'm sure they spend more time making sure everything works well together than Mandrake does, which is why they're always behind on version numbers. But not everyone cares that much, if you're running a server this is wonderful (although why aren't you using Debian in that case?), but for a Pentium desktop machine used by a developer who wants to stay on the bleeding edge, Mandrake performs a great service by being a more up-to-date and optimized RedHat. I don't need anything NEW from them, I just need my RedHat updated more frequently and compiled with Pentium optimizations. Mandrake fills this niche wonderfully.
There aren't too many "based on" distros. Frankly, considering the variety of different users with different needs out there, there probably aren't enough.
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
corel installed without doing anything really. thats all good and dandy, but lots of devices didn't work and i had to set them up by hand (not that i'm not used to that), but i don't see the point of making the install so user friendly if a windows user is just gonna choke once they try to use it, i'm sure these problems will be addressed in later versions (no other distro really has any good device setup either). and the kernel they shipped with was unstable and locked up when i tried to use their corel update software so i couldn't download recent kernel source easily/compilers (no it doesn't ship with gcc), had to compile it on my other debian box and transfer it over. but overall it was pleasant, i changed the apt sources and upgraded it to potato :)
Debian currently comes on 4CDs (2 binary, 2 source), although if you add in non-US and non-free (neither of which are part of the official distribution) you get an extra CD. Given the rate at which the number of packages increases I can see there being more CDs than this next time around.
I'm not surprised SuSE comes on more disks - it includes a large selection of non-free software (some of which is quite large), which Debian obviously won't include. That's possibly worth a CD by itself, and then there's KDE and all the other QT stuff which isn't included yet.
I suspect that when people say "Debian includes more stuff" they're either doing a comparison on the number of packages or looking at some particular set of obscure software that isn't included by other distributions (what other distribution has not one, but two INTERCAL compilers?).
> and any idiot can install it.
Actually it's more like an idiot install
considering that it blows the other partitions
and refuses to install on a preformated partition.
It prefers to screw up the hard disk instead.
Unzip is not missing because of a mistake they did not put it in because they are gearing users to X only. I also found other useful command line apps missing. I find that silly since X and the command line is joined at the hip. I know if you want it you can still get it yourself, but a good distribution IMHO will balance command line and X since command line is integral to Linux/Unix admistration.
Pete Lypkie
"The value of a man resides in what he gives,
and not in what he is capable of receiving."
"The value of a man resides in what he gives,
and not in what he is capable of receiving."
--Albert Einstein
I think that it is good that there are companies making distributions on debian. I hope that they help create a better interface to dselect so that it is much friendlier. If that obstacle were overcome, I think more woudl switch to debian. A debian distribution has more packages per dollar than any other distribution. You can get the debian distribution for a few dollars at cheapbytes and get more software than a Redhat or SuSE distro. Since I never use the manuals anyway this is a better thing for me.
send flames > /dev/null
Only 'flamers' flame!
The second distro would be Enoch.
I've installed Corel Linux on my Desktop PC several weeks ago and made several experiences:
The install is okay. I'm not religious about a graphical install, and, well, maybe people are used to that from Microsoft, but it adds some extra complexity to the installer. For example, you must have a supported graphics card.
The packages are mostly from Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 (aka slink), so you can get all those nice little programs, which are not on the CD, through the internet from your favourite Debian mirror. slink has been released some time ago, so some packages are not the newest version. Well, that's fine for me, because I like a stable system. But I know, most people prefer brand new software over stable and Corel has updated the kernel to 2.2.
Corel added some software to the desktop. The file manager has been stated before, another example is Corel Update, a KDE frontend for dpkg and apt-get. This is a very nice piece of software. Maybe I should try to extract the source and make a tarball for other distributions. (I think, Corel used a licence derieved from the MPL, so redistributing the source should be legal)
A major disadvantage is the packaging of KDE. Corel put everything in one huge package with lots of dependancies. Also, there a some bugs, which are not severe, but disturbing.
The hardware support out of the box - not only graphics, but also SCSI or sound cards - seems to be not that broads as with other distributions. But if you have good standard Linux hardware (like me, I had no problems here), Corel Linx is worth a look.
cu
Waldmeister
It has an option at boot for expert boot, which boots the normal way instead of hiding it with graphics. I do wish they let you push esc to clear the graphics and let you see normal boot messages like windoze does. As for contribution, they have a nice easy graphical install for debian, Corel Explorer (the best windoze explorer clone I've ever seen), and Corel Update (a nice graphical interface to the debian package system). Unfortunately they lump all the corel stuff into one big deb package, or I'd install corel update and corel explorer on my debian machine.
Um, pico is a dinky little editor that is only good for email! It's also part of the pine distribution, which is under an icky license that doesn't allow distributing modified versions of the source, only original source + patches. I think it also disallows binary distribution, so debian requires you to compile it after install. (Incidentally, pine is the email program I use, and I love pine 4.x which even supports reading all that icky HTML email. I think PICO is very good for its intended purpose of editing email) Try out "ae" it's a wordstar clonish text editor that's good for about the level of ease of use of pico. I'd believe they also include vi, but I can't remember for sure. They don't include emacs though (probably due to size). However, go into corel update, click the checkboxes to enable the debian distribution sites (or better yet, go to the debian website and add the nearest mirror), and then you can install all that stuff through Corel Update.Overall, my review of the download version of Corel Linux 1.0 is that it looks like a very good start to an easy to install and use variant of debian, with some nice new features like corel explorer and corel update. It's also quite clearly feels like a 1.0 release however, with many kinks to work out, ranging from bad handling of taking over an entire drive on multiple drive systems (it went straight to asking if you want to erase everything without asking which drive!) to not being able to disable PAP authentication via the GUI KPPP interface (even when it says it is disabled!), because the PAP option was in the global options file in /etc/ppp/. Of course, the fact that I'm familiar with and really like debian probably helped. ;)
BTW, about the redhat init system with everything in /etc/rc.d/init.d and /etc/rc.d/rc#.d/ vs. debian with it in /etc/init.d and /etc/rc#.d/, I like the debian variant (which is identical to the IRIX layout I admin at work) much better... the redhat version requires more typing, for a not very useful rearrangement of the directories.
--LeBleu
If you're reading this you're part of the mass hallucination that is Kevin the Blue.
an /etc/rc/ init structure is not sysv. and red hat is not a sysv unix, it's linux.
However, it's locked into a GUI install which bombs out if it encounters anything (such as a video card) that it doesn't know how to support.
:)
I would debate that. This past weekend I visited a friend, and as part of that visit he installed the downloaded version of Corel Linux. The particular computer he installed it into had, among other things, a PCI modem and an SB64 Gold card. Corel Linux went through the installation without any problems, despite not being able to support the PCI modem and not setting up the support for the SB64 card (no sounds issued forth from the computer after reboot).
I would, however, agree with your assessment tht it's targeted towards newer users who want to migrate from Windows rather than the hardcore Linux guru. For those, we have Slackware and Debian.
Careful. There are two versions of Corel Linux being sold - Deluxe and Standard. I was looking in the Woodbury, MN CompUSA yesterday and happened to notice that the Deluxe version (which, among other things, includes Civ:CTP) was put in big cardboard display holders at the front of the store, whereas the Standard version was mixed in with the rest of the Linux stuff on the shelves.
You probably saw the Deluxe version. I wasn't able to find a price on the Standard, but I'm assuming it was something closer to $40 or $50. What it lacks from the Deluxe version, beyond the plastic Tux and a limited edition of Civilization, also escapes me.
You probably saw the Deluxe version.
Ahhh, yes, I believe you are right. As I read on in this topic, I saw others talking about pricing and this is almost certainly the case.
PS, I meant to mention this in my original post... it looked as though people had been pawing through the Corel Linux display. So maybe they sold a few at that location already. (I hope so...)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Much like a newborn puppy...
True, but for those that have multiple dos/windows partitions this is a bit tricky on not having an extended partition.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" -- Albert Einstein
Storm's installer has a problem in it.. if you have any extended partion on the hard drive it would not recognize that hard drive. For those with only one hard drive and multiple OS's that sucks..
They have assured me that they know of the problem and that the new ISO should be on the ftp at anytime...
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" -- Albert Einstein
Well, it depends what audience it is targeted at - if, as it seems the newer distros are going for the traditional desktop market then I think that RedHat is going to be the loser there. I should qualify this opinion with the admission that I have only experienced RedHat 5.2, 6.0, 6.1 and Corel.
On the basis of this I would have to express a qualified disagreement. RedHat6.1 is an appalling choice for a first-time installer. Their documentation is way out of date and very confusing. RH6.0 was much easier. They have done some very funky things with removing the rescue.img and sending out boot floppies that have the root device default set to SCSI devices with no obvious way to change this.
So, if (as seems to be the case) the new distros are chasing fresh market, then I think Corel are probably on the right track.
I tried both, I can confirm that the install for Corel is very easy IF it can work with your videocard / monitor. Otherwise you will have problems. But after installation I liked it. The way they put together the desktop, it just feels solid. The menu items are arranged in a logical way, it's not just some afterthought, they created the desktop layout, buttons, etc very well. Stromix - I really hated it. When you bootup the system, it plays some fucking wave file on the pc speaker, it is totally unneccessary and annoying. But I blew my top when I found out that I can't mount a FAT filesystem, and I cannot recompile to enable it.
Cleaned the hard disk, installed windows just so I could take a look at the new install "wizard" from a newbie perspective. Windows bit worked wizard worked, made boot floppy rebooted spiffy graphical restart, X came up like a dream installer Progress meter got to 25% and X locked solid. console dead as the proverbial dodo. Had no way of kicking X so I tried again. Four times it booted from the floppy and locked. I got bored at this point and put Suse 6.1 on it.
Mind you BeOS froze installing on the same hardware the same day a couple of times so I'm not ruling out flaky hardware. But the Suse CD worked
-- Oh Well
Why does it deserve a 0?
In addition to X 4 and KDE 2, don't forget ReiserFS (to be used in the next version of SuSE, IIRC).
Is Stormix available in any other format that ISO images?
To the uninitated an ISO image is meaningless, and it doesn't stand to reason why (other than to make the distro inaccessible) one would pick ISO images as the primary format.
Nor does it appear as though they've put enough time or effort into attempting to explain how to burn a CD using this imagine, assuming the user has a CD burner...
Promotional space (ends of aisles, front door displays) is usually .sold. to the distributors, not just apportioned by the whim of the store.
.much. more readily than comp-screw-us-eh getting a clue.
In other words, Corel likely paid for the better placement--something I would believe
----
It is often easer to gain forgiveness than permission
----
It is often easer to gain forgiveness than permission
I installed Storm Linux a few days ago on a spare PC. All I can say is *DAMN* nice install, although there are some notable bugs:
:)
For example, I had to decline the license agreement to install. Also, for some reason only about half of what I selected was actually installed.
On the up side, it did a great job of detecting hardware and you won't have your ATI cards (Rage128) lockup on you, since the installer uses the vesa framebuffer driver.
Check it out just to see the installer...
I think I *am* the target Corel user. I'm a regular computer user, literate, but not a Unix Guy. I've played with Linux on and off for over five years (since Yggdrasil) but it's not my home OS. (We have to use Windoze at work, and I moved to it at home when OS/2 finally became useless.) So I eagerly awaited Corel Linux and went through the serious effort to download it and burn a CDROM. (I didn't have enough hard disk space left to make it easy.)
/usr/X11R6/bin but a normal user can't, and there's no documentation on adding to the start menu. So lots of stuff just doesn't show up. Worst of all, on my system, logging out of KDE hangs the system hard. And those are just a few beefs.
Corel's installer has nice eye candy, but it gets the GUI concept wrong -- a typical decent Windows install wizard (even Win98 itself) has lots of defaults but lets you change things. Corel has not enough control. It then wiped out my MBR, deciding, without asking, that LILO belongs there. And of course it *requires* you to repartition and then format a new partition during an EXT2 install, which is dumb (I already had one; I was replacing Mandrake 6.0.)
Yes, the new file manager is cute, but when I log in as a user (not root), it hides "system" and only shows me my accounts. The KDE menus leave out most KDE apps; root can go to
So yesterday I plugged in a new Mandrake 6.1 disk. Yes, install took a long time, because I went through the RedHat "custom" package selection and there were a zillion or so packages to choose from. Once I finished the kid-in-a-candy-shop routine, it went right in. Oh, it would have been a bit hard without previous RedHat and Mandrake experience, and it's ugly (a VGA16 installer would help a lot on the eye candy side), and it still forgets to do sndconfig, but I ended up with a nice working system. AND the Mandrake 6.1 installer puts everything onto the Start menu. With a menu editor -- but I can't see how to delete entries I don't want. (KDE Bug: IF there are more entries than fit vertically on screen, they get lost off the bottom. Windows gets that right.)
So Mandrake wins my thanks as a nice easy system to get running and one that works the way I'd expect it to. Corel 1.0 is just a bad joke, demoware that looks good on a properly-packaged system, and maybe right for some particular hardware/user taste combinations, but it needs lots of work.
I like corel linux a lot, but it feels unfinished.
also, the download version doesn't have all important applications installed by default, e.g. unzip is missing! ;
normally this isn't a big problem, you could allways unzip in windows. (it's for newbie's so they probably have windows installed) but unzipping a file who contains 2 files with the same name but other capitalisation is a bit of a problem on windows.
---
those making the switch from rpm based distros to Debian, should check out ALIEN at freshmeat.net it takes RPMs and will repackage them as .deb
Papa Smurf Says "When You Live In A Mushroom Everyone Looks Blue"
The Corel File manager looks cool, but is it open sourced? If I install *regular* debian, is there any way to install the Corel file manager on that?
/.ed. Mirrors?
Oh, and the review seems to be
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
I haven't read it and I don't know if it is useful in this situation. But it seems that there is support for Ultra DMA 66 under Linux.
About the comment that Stormix has "dumbed down" Linux:
1.) Stormix does provide defaults and GUIs for new users. However, the company's philosophy is to provide flexibility for the users who want it. You don't have to accept the defaults, or use the GUIs.
2.) GUIs on any operating system are useful for about 80% of what 80% of users do.
3.) In the Stormix manual, the shell is introduced with the comment that learning to use it is like learning to touch type: it takes longer to learn than any other method, but, once you do learn it, it is more efficient and convenient.
- Bruce Byfield, Product Manager
Stormix Technologies
Stormix gave me the same icky feel as Turbo Linux a year ago, and Caldera when it was still in the 1.x versioning series. However, that says nothing about Storm Linux 2000.
Corel's Linux distribution is getting closer. They're marketing it as a desktop only distro, which simplifies it greatly, leaving lots of time for desktop improvements. However, the desktop is still just a themed KDE with a few extras. Thumbs up though for including Civ with the commercial version. Including games with a distro really hits the desktop market nicely, especially for the low price.
Although right now, RedHat seems to be the best of both the server and desktop.
Sosumi. just kidding. DONT!
Corel Linux has been out for some time and I'm still bothered that a company like Corel wants to take their programmers off other projects and reinvent a *better* Debian distro.
I've looked at Corel as being a company who supports the whole linux movement by porting their existing software to linux. By writing their own Debian distro I'm really questioning Corel's involvement in linux altogether.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
First of all, isn't there a post link anywhere? I couldn't find one. I had to use the reply button just to post! Great layout guys...
I love linux as much as anyone. Actually, I convinced the company I work at to do a linux port which I am now heading, but I have a bone to pick - Modem installation!
I installed redhat at home and tried to setup my modem and it was a nightmare. A really bad one. And I'm an experienced programmer, I can't even imagine some newbie trying to setup a modem. I had to buy and return three different modems, read the books we have at work (running, nutshell, the wrox book, etc.) over and over, read many many web pages about installing modems, the modem howto, the serial howto, and the pnp howto, and eventually spend over a week to be able to use my modem in linux.
If linux is ever going to be mainstream, people need to be able to easily setup the most important peripheral they're ever going to have. The only one that _everyone_ is going to use _everyday_ ! Maybe someone can do a modemconfig that's as easy to use as sndconfig? I'm willing to work on it with anyone in the know about the krenel details involved.
hyperpoem.net
...and when Win2000 is sold at that same CompUSA, it'll be equivalent to aliens giving the entire population a rectal probe in the night!
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
I installed each of Stormix 2000 and Corel 1.0 on my P200MMX DSTN laptop. I only had problems which I believe were specific to my laptop display, so I won't whine about them here. Overall, I was impressed with the ease of installation of both products, which [on my laptop at least] went quicker than NT4 and both were easier to configure than NT4.
I would recommend Stormix above Corel overall.
Very well put together distros, and kudos to both teams.
Well first of all let me establish the fact that I have yet to try Corel Linux. My understanding of Corel's goals sound like I will not benefit from their distro but perhaps someday my parents will. From everything I heard, Corel is targeting a stupid end user (what my CS teachers are so fond of just calling "the user"). Targeting the real end user is not a stupid idea and some one was bound to do it sooner or later.
Well I was not happy to see that Corel embraced KDE like they did, but that is just because my personal dislike of KDE. I realize that Corel does not use pure KDE because they have their own file manager (their own KDE splinter perhaps?). It will be interesting to see what Corel does with KDE in the future.
Though I doubt to ever seriosly have benefit from the distro it seems that a lot of people will could benefit from some of Corel's work. I read in a Linuxworld article awhile back that Corel does not want to port their office apps to linux but instead use wine. The reasoning was that they would only have to maintain one code base instead of two. I only ever read the one code base idea in linuxworld but Corel is very much in love with wine for whatever reason. Corel has been one of the few companies to contract out people to do work on wine. A lot of people could benefit from a good wine.
LinNeighbourhood and another program which I can't recall have been browsing SMB networks for quite some time now.
I haven't seen Corel's explorer, but a screenshot and other people's comments seem to indicate it's good.
I have to admit, I kinda like the windows explorer. It does what I need, and it does it "fairly" well.
--
Tarald - The Lord of Smeg
Tarald - The Lord of Smeg
You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on
Um, could someone please verify or deny this one? I mean, a distro without make... I can't remember the last time I installed an app that didn't require me to use make; how in the hell???
Deosyne
-m
99 little bugs in the code,
99 bugs in the code,
fix one bug, compile it again...
Voting Moo Anyway!
Early post!! I just picked up corel (from CompUSA, no less!). It's all GUI!! Even the (nearly flawless) installation is clicky-click all the way. It was kind of frightening at first, but i like it. They have done good things with K, and i must say that i like their dual-purpose (internet browser, file manager) "manager" (read: explorer). However, it comes on three cds: First, the source. Cool. Second, the "open circulation" cd. "Give this one away!" they say. Third, the "standard install" cd. NOT FOR SHARING!! INSTALL ONLY ONCE!! I don't like this at all. Overall, however, i like this distro. Keep up the good work!
Where are my GPFs? I WANT MY GPFS!!
I second that emotion!
illegitimii non ingravare
As I understood it, Corel Explorer has features that Konqueror will have in KDE 2. I'm not entirely sure, but I think I read on KDE's site that Konqueror (the new file manager oand web browser in KDE 2) will have the ability to browse SMB shares. In addition, I sure hope that the KDE control center will have the same Windows-like interface for changing screen resolution that the Corel Control Center has.
The retail versions come with a little commercial/licensed software, including some Bitstream/Type1 fonts, BRU, Corel Wordperfect, Civ:CTP, OSS sound drivers, etc. For that reason, they the download and purchaseable versions are somewhat different. The differences between the downloadable and standard editions are minor at worst, and for the most part you can download all those components elsewhere for free anyway. The deluxe version has some commercial software that cannot be downloaded, such as BRU and the full version of Corel Wordperfect.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
It actually depends on what your aim is... Quite often it's difficult or impossible to make money off those ""Naive" home users" or developer-types you speak of, as the support costs are often high enough to seriously cut into profits, or there's very little profit to speak of. They really only serve as a way to get your name out. Corporate sales is usually where the money is because they're usually willing to spend more for better support, and if their end impression is positive, willing to buy more things from you.
I somehow get the feeling that once Corel gets the bugs worked out of the GUI tools, they might start selling "server" versions of Corel Linux, perhaps packed with a SSL HTTPd, and the other technologies that can't be free right now (NDS, perhaps). Their NT-like "event viewer" (log viewer) is nice, and the user manager is okay (although I much perfer Netware's user management tool to the NT-style one in Corel Linux -- a tree based system is the way to go, IMO. It makes managing a hundred or more users easier, especially when there's a high number of transient employees who work for only 1-2 months, and then never return, or switch departments many times.)
I think Corel is on the road to trying at getting the Corporate market, and I can't really blame them. In fact, I think they'd be crazy not to do it. If they get "user-friendly" admin tools, they can pitch it to management types as "Look! It's as easy to admin as NT, and much more stable!", and sysadmin, who have to do all the real work, can stick with the CLI tools they know and love. It's sorta like a best-of-both-worlds type scene. Especially if they can pull it off (more so if they can pull it off without the serious bugs their Windows software tends to suffer from).
They're a Canadian-based company, so I guess I should cheer for them! =P
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
You can get the source code for the Corel Explorer from Corels FTP site at ftp:// ftp.corel.com/pub/linux/CorelLinux/source/corellin ux-1.0/corel/source/[It's part of the kde-corel-source tarball]. Good luck getting to build on anything but Debian with the rest of the Corel QT/KDE packages, though. I seriously doubt it's distribution-independant. It might even require the patches to the XF86 servers Corel has up there.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
I was suprised that Corel opted for Debian as the base for their distro. I have ever only used Red Hat and derivatives (Mandrake 6.1 right now and its great). I would very much like to hear from the Debian crowd about why they like Debian better and what it means to Debian that Corel and others are using it as a base for distros targeted at the new Linux user. I really like the fact that there are many distros out there, but it seems RH and Debian are pulling away in terms of popularity. Any comments?
If they are crippling the free/downloadable version, that would be a Bad Thing.
It's not being crippled, everything else from the web for free (except Civ:CTP which is understandable). They're just facing up to the fact that most people don't enjoy 650 meg ISO downloads, and would much rather have a ISO image of just under 300 megs.
I had a very similar problem with my PPro 200.
Finally got it to install but it tried putting the video mode into >640x480 which is all my poor little monitor will support. Took a bit of tweaking but finally got there.
Overall not too bad for their first try. But they need to do some serious bug checking of there installer before the next version.
Things I think it needs:
- Ability to choose the resolution you want the desktop to be in before it starts X.
- some fine tuning of their fdisk utility. (I ended up having to delete partitions just to give them a mount point)
- the choice for a non-graphical install (or at least have the ability to flick to a term during the install)
- If it detects an ethernet card it should let me set up the networking for it during the install.
- How about a choice of computer name instead of CorelLinux
- entering passwords during the install (especially root!)
I'm sure there will be more that I'll find when I've played with it a bit more.
In a version or two I think it should be quite suitable for newbie/desktop use.
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GCS d+(!)s+:a--C++(++++)UL++(++++)$
P>+++L+++>+++++!EW++N++o?K?w---O-
M-(+)VPS+()PE+(++)Y+(++)PGPt5X-R+
!tvb+(++)DI++!DGe>++h!(*)r@--y+(**)
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
End dual-measurement, let's finish going metric!
http://gometric.us
This is slightly off topic response. I've not even looked at Corel Linux... but...
I'm wondering where you ran into problems installing a modem? Its always went easy for myself on all flavors of Linux. I think perhaps you might have bought a WinModem? Anyways. I've found USR's work generally without much of a problem.
Just some random intellectualality...
Kargh
first off corel does a few stupid things like change library names (they changed qt from libqt to libccqt) which is tricky to get some sources to compile if you didn't compile their version of qt and get the odd file names. but what really bothers me is i downloaded the kde package and tried to compile it and its missing several files, i proceeded to download the entire distro in source form and couldn't find them, i've emailed them several times and they won't respond. also if you take a look at their license you will see they actually have broken their own license by not providing the changelogs with work they've done. i've submitted this before but nobody saw it i guess, its odd cause slashdoters usually have a field day with a situation like this.
I think having the other distributions will be good for the entire community. Yes, Corel (and Stormix to some point) has "dumbed" down Linux but perhaps it will bring in more people to using Linux. Then those that come may learn and grow into mature users and move to Debian or some other distro. All this does is 1) Increase user base and 2)Bring in more business respect for Linux by making it viable for the desktop.
I haven't had many problems with the downloaded version; a bit light, but other than that it seems like a full linux distro. See:. htm
http://linux.corel.com/products/linux_os/inside
for a listing of the differences; most of the differences are seperately downloadable. (just like many distros and StarOffice; it comes in the box but not in the download version)
I am currently writing this on the Corel download that I got from one their tech guys. Installed without a hitch on a P150. But this starting the kwm immediately was a bad idea. Got rid of that script pronto. X is a memory hog, and unless you've got a couple hundred Meg onboard it can really slow down large compilies. X is great, but not always necessary. I will admit that it probably makes new users feel better to see a graphic logon box though. For me Corel is nice for newbies, but only for a short while. Better off to get Slackware or Debian and really learn how to use Linux, not just GUIs.
-
i havnt tried corel linux, so go ahead and complian that my statement is without basis, but imho, most 'Based on' distros suck.
mandrake, corel, stormix, and to a lesser extent turbo linux are 'Based on' redhat or debian, and really dont provide anything intuitivly NEW to the distro scene..
all they really seem to do is provide new install techniques, maybe packege with a different "user environment" [ie GNOME vs KDE, i await a distro that ships with XCFE as default *grin*], and perhaps some new apps or a different set of applications [again, GNOME apps vs KDE apps].
wheres the difference? what is so fundamentaly different between, for example, redhat and mandrake? NOT MUCH.
im not complaining about a lack of distros mind you, we seem to have plenty. nor am i complaining about lack of NEW distros [Rock linux, or the distros that can install from windows], i think there are just too many "Based on" distrobutions. unless they provide something really completly new, and just used another distro as footing.. theyre really the same thing...
imho, we need more NEW distros, ones that provide NEW ideas and approaches to things such as kernel managment and package installing [altho, i prefer source *grin*]. not ones that just copy pre existing ideas and so forth.....
I like it. The downloadable version doesn't have enough goodies for my liking, but the various things that are included with it are pretty much the necessities, without duplicating a lot.
;-)
What a great concept! A lot of distributions pride themselves on being 500-ubergigabytes in size, but that doesn't necessarily mean better. (Case in point: Windows 98 vs. 95)... the problem is that you get so many different pieces of software, that unless you already know what you're doing, you'll have no clue as to where you should start.
Corel's KDE layout is good; it doesn't overwhelm... kinda like Windows 95's default desktop. That's important for people who are new to Linux.
Downside? The thing is slow on the test P-166 system I installed on. Looking up a help page took 15 seconds, mainly because it had to go through Netscape, which is a greivous error; KDE -has- a web-browser that accomplishes this quite nicely already. The content of the documentation itself is pretty decent, though.
The graphical LILO is a nice touch, too... even offers Windows users a seamless way back to their original system. Good call.
For those commenting that the graphical install might preclude people from using Corel Liunx, well... duhh. If your card can't handle 640x480x256 VGA, you may want to consider spending $25 on one that does. Corel Linux is centered around KDE; pick another distribution if you don't want graphics.
Overall, Corel Linux is a very welcome addition to the Linux community; and it's good that a known corporation is putting their support behind it; after all, that's who the newcomes to Linux are going to listen to... not Slashdot geek-zealots.
Daltorak
Some of the problems I have found with the Corel Distro include:
1. The graphical installer. This should have been fixed in a day, by creating and posting a floppy boot disk image that uses VGA16 mode for the install.
2. The version of KDE that they have modified is missing many usefull apps, that are included with every other major distro.
3. Just try installing a few apps downloaded for anyone other than corel and see the nightmare they made by linking against static librarys.
IMHO Corel has lost every shred of credibility they ever had.
Not everyone deserves a 320i
I bought redhat 6.1 a month or so ago, and it was ok, except when I set up my other partitions on my HDD, it didnt create the directories to mount it to. Small, but annoying. Corel did it automagically. Nice.
=======
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
The big deal is to generate interest among a wider cross-section of computer types.
But, you are right. To most of us, there is nothing new in these releases. The next big thing for the real hardcore types is X4 or KDE2.
You click on "Reply to This" under the article. Just like replying to a comment.
---
Oper on the Nightstar
I'm using Coel at the moment, and find it to be great, EASY to install I might say, took about 10-min, X setup wasn't at all, it did everything, the only thing it lacks are some here and there utilities ("make" comes to mind, grrrrrr)
Everybody denies I am a genius--but nobody ever called me one!
Instead of basing every new linux version on debian, why not use debian. And maybe even make debian a bit easier to install? I am a Debian 2.1 user, and I must say that I still am a learner, but it's really cool that you have to "work" to get it installed. Why not make debian better and not making a commercial version of it???
-Miletic--
I Agree! That's why Debian should be debian and not used by all these commercial companies (like Corel) to make a commercial version of Linux.
I see a lot of posts about people complaining about there not being things like make in Corel. Well don't you see, Corel is really Debian with a pretty cover. Just install Corel, then run :) ). Thats all there is to it. Debian rocks as far as upgrading and maintaining your system is concerned. And Corel is debian!!!
apt-get install make
And voila you get make (Assuming your connected to the net of course
Don't forget about kernel 2.4, which should be coming out fairly soon, too. Some of the new features should be fairly significant, particularly for "real hardcore" types.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
I haven't used either Corel or Storm Linux, but have been a RedHat user for many years. Recently, I installed 6.1 and it all went very smoothly for me. The new graphical install was very nice and found all my hardware without error. Also, their new Update Agent worked very well for me when I went to upgrade to the latest RPM's. All in all, RedHat works very well for us, because we use it for both servers and workstations. That allows us to only need 1 distribution for everything. As for Word Perfect, I have been using Star Office for some time, and although it's a bit slow to load, I haven't had any trouble with it.
Well I installed the Deluxe Distribution and there are some things I like about it, but the distribution needs work:
Some of the problems I had were:
- It had trouble detecting some of my hardware -- it did not detect my Video Card (Matrox G200) or Sound Blaster AWE64.
- pppd's options had to be reconfigured for the dial-up program to work.
- I couldn't get "Add Printers" in the Control Center to add my printer.
Things I liked:
- The Corel Update program, a graphical frontend to dselect makes package configuration very easy
-The install is very straightforward and easy to use.
-The default set up is pretty nice.
I think the distribution is good for beginners, and I would probably use it if the problems were worked out. But for now I think I'm gonna go back to using standard Debian and try to install the Corel Update package on it.
For someone that doesn't know Linux. I downloaded it. Burnt the CD and dropped it in the drive and I was ready to go. It took me two route statements to get on the net and figure out the correct way to configure my permanent connection so that I didn't need any route statements. Top notch job in my humble opinion.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
The one thing I really like about the Corel distro is the Corel Explorer. Since I often live in a network of Window machines that do SMB sharing, it would be really nice to be able to do SMB browsing with it, and what not. In short: I like it.
IIRC, it's supposed to be open source but I have not been able to find the source or a package for it or anything else. I do remember finding a package of source that was supposed to contain it, but it wouldn't compile at ALL on a RedHat 6.1 box.
Does anyone know where to get it for other distros?
Agreed. I've been almost exclusively a RedHat user since they came out with 4.2, I really like their distributions, but their initscripts are poorly designed, inflexible, and hard to maintain. I haven't seen how Debian does it, but I can easily imagine someone doing much better on this regard.
----
----
Open mind, insert foot.
If Corel couldn't "win" against MSFT in providing word processing software to the Federal government, despite having their offices thousands of miles nearer to the Ottawan decision-makers than Bill Gates in Seattle, it's going to be tough to dominate in places other than "home territory..."
They have the "bulk" of corporate resources to perhaps outdo RHAT and SuSE; we'll see what happens!
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Corel is a b-grade company, that buys failed product lines from other b-grade companies.
An interesting point. I don't see them that way -- Wordperfect wasn't b-grade, merely late to support Windows. Corel Draw was excellent.
However, I certainly see your point -- whatever Corel's past products may have been, they certainly look like a bottomfeeder now. Perhaps that's because of their immense OEM distribution contracts, though.
Linux needs to fend these sorts of companies off vigorously.
I really have to disagree with that STRONGLY. Linux doesn't have to fend ANYONE off; Linux can't fend anyone off; and Linux shouldn't fend anyone off.
Linux doesn't have to fend them off because our reputation is in our coders and users.
Linux can't fend them off because Linux is free. They can use it if they want, and we'll even welcome them if they give back.
Linux shouldn't fend them off because they _are_ giving back.
-Billy
The distro is OK. My personal preference is Gnome, so right off the bat i'm non-plussed with 'look and feel'. But what was disappointing to me was that the X configure tool was not groking my video ram and wouldn't display above 800x600.. and this is on a pretty vanilla compaq proliant box with an ATI mach64 card that I use to test out different distros/OS's. I was able to manually edit my settings, but this is contrary to the much trumpeted user friendly-ness of it's install and configuration. Also, network configuration didn't happen during the installation which seems silly.
Other than that, though, a nice install, and a distro that shows promise.
Anyone else have any weird experiences with getting X how you like it?
I was ok with the fact that it did not find all of the linux supported hardware on the computer I used. I found corel's contribution to the linux community was rather superficial. It was just a typical Linux distribution with the system logs hidden from the users view. I believe when you hide information does more harm than good. I was hoping the corel bootup screen would have viewable bootup log.
When I had to configure options by hand I had to deal with alot of crap to recompile the kernel and getting things to work my way. The command line was also lacking in comparison to other major distributions. Just because some new users do not want to deal with command line options doesn't mean you should not put them in your distro. Pico was missing for heavens stake! Maybe this is good for newbie users but linux users who want to see how linux works and gain real experience linux should use something else like SuSE, debian, slack, etc.
I believe that new distributions should contribute to linux as a whole. Sure Corel is quick to install but there are many others that are quick to install. The lack of network install is also a large problem I notice. If you want to get linux workstations setup you need a CDROM to install. I would rather be able to download or install linux via ftp. Given Corel's background as a graphics company I expected more multimedia apps and a prettier presentation. If your a seasoned Linux user avoid this like the plague, and if you are a newbie who wants to learn linux avoid this because it will not help you learn it. If you are a user that needs a quick workstation and don't care about how your system works or the open source movement use Win NT if you have the money. I recommend SuSE instead which is easy to install, has tons of apps, and is more organised.
Note this is only my review for the FREE edition you can download as an ISO image.
I downloaded the ISO image for Corel's distribution and installed it on my laptop. Overall, things went very well and I didn't have any problems getting the system up and running.
I love the way Corel has configured SAMBA to allow their distro to immediately take part in Microsoft Networks. I work in an all NT shop, and I was happy to see that I was able to logon to our NT domain using my MS user id and password.
The only real problem I had with the distribution is my unfamiliarity with Debian. I am a Red Hat user, so most of my downloaded software is in the form of RPMs and of an incompatible GLIBC library. I had to go back to using Red Hat.
I would recommend Corel's distribution to Windows users looking at trying Linux. With it's streamlined installation, splash screen to "protect" users from all of those "unsightly" boot messages (I really missed them while running Corel) and the default KDE window manager (they did a great job customizing KDE for thier needs) it will make a good stepping stone into the world of Linux.
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
I'm wondering how Corel Linux will affect the sale and marketing of commercial applications for Linux. So far, I believe several commercial applications (Metrowerks Codewarrior is the only one I can think of right now) have come out as "Red Hat" releases rather than "Linux" releases. I'm hoping that if other commercial distros are successful, distribution-agnostic commercial software will displace distribution-specific.
Of course, as a Debian user, I also hope that if Corel is successful, more non-commercial software will be released in .DEB format in addition to .RPM's. From the little I've used each, I like the Debian package format better.
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
I'm missing something....
/etc/rc filesystem (debian) or a smart, logical /etc/rc.d/init.d (sysv, I think it's called?) redhat-style boot system.
Every new distro, for the last LONG while, and for the next fairly long while, has had the SAME set of servers, the SAME set of clients, and either KDE or Gnome. Most have had both.
Until X4 and KDE2, any "new" distro is a bullshit rehash.
The only real difference is either i386 or i5/686 optimization (and as far as I can see, Mandrake's the only one with those optimizations... which is why I choose it religiously) and either Corel's mods to KDE (which royally suck and make it more frustrating than hell), and either a stupid illogical
Other than those two things, what's the big difference between these distros? They're all hard to use at best, unless you've become a linux geek by struggling through them.
So far, only mandrake meets the needs of a combination of power and usability as far as I'm concerned.
(don't bother to flamespam me, I don't read it anyways)
mindslip.
Personally, I was rather disappointed with Corel linux. It seems to be pretty well put together, it's based on a good solid distribution, and there is quite a bit of value-add there. However, it's locked into a GUI install which bombs out if it encounters anything (such as a video card) that it doesn't know how to support.
I beta'd this thing for 'em, and enjoyed the experience... they've obviously put a lot of work into it and are trying to add value to the base distro. However, I don't run it on any of my machines because I can't get it to install. They did throw in a copy of the Loki port of Civ:CTP in the shipping version that they sent me, though, so it wasn't a total waste. Too bad it's just a limited (no multiplayer) edition though.
I think Corel could be a great distro, provided they iron out their support issues. It seems to be targeted towards more newbie users (with the nice pretty installer and all) and it's not going to win over any friends when it gets to the "probing hardware" part of the install, dies, spits the CD out and reboots the machine.
-- Gary F.
--snip--
Please remember, where I am is -not- "tech-land". This is the middle of nowhere,
I saw this at a CompUSA, too. The Natick, MA CompUSA location has a fairly large display of Corel Linux for sale located prominently right by the entrance. I was pleasantly surprised to see it there. Unlike the area where you are, I would describe Natick (Eastern MA about 1/2 way between 495 and 128 along I-90) as being in the middle of a technically competent area.
What was bad about it was the price: $80?! It's great it's easy enough to install that the average user can reasonably take it on, but at that price, I wonder how many casually interested people will bite? Still, I hope it catches on, and this exposure can't hurt.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Much like a newborn puppy...
I am a Debian old timer and yesterday I have tried stormix just for the heck of it (and also to test the new CD-R) I was impressed. The distribution seems not to have changed the Debian packages much, it is basically Debian. The good difference are that Storm Linux ships with kernel 2.2.13, _very_ cool X11 based and text based installation, GNOME, KDE. Also has a sysadmin utility which isn't bad (though does not configure printer afaik, only network nad users. I didn't like their packagemanager thingy, I prefer dselect. Just use plain apt, dselect. or dpkg. Basically it is a nice distro. Easy to get started with and has all the power of Debian underneath. I perefer plain Debian though...
Actually, I'd be worried if you're seeing large piles of boxes of Corel Linux. That likely means they aren't selling *any*. Given the nature of computer retail sales, most stores or chains are paid a stocking fee to actually put product on the shelves. A large endcap or standup ('pyramid') display could likely cost Corel several thousand dollars.
The fact that you are not in a tech -heavy centre may be even worse news. Comp USA may have been paid to place X number of displays, and so have shunted those displays to stores that are off the beaten path so that Corel Linux doesn't interfere with their regular volume business. If Corel was silly enough to not specify where those displays should go, this may well be the case.
Frankly, your report has me a little worried for the future state of Corel Linux.
--sugarman--
Little things are what have driven people away from Linux in the past. They don't care how great Linux is if they can't install it, so installation has often been a key topic, complete with screenshots, when discussing or reviewing a new distribution. It's not because you or I have a problem with the current installations of various distributions, but because we should recognize that this is an area which could stand some improvement to attract more users.
Sure, you and I may know that all installers do basically the same thing, but we should also know that there's a wide variety of features you can include, leave out, add, modify, to make the user more comfortable with the installation.
What about partitioning? We should also know that there are loads of people out there who haven't installed Linux because they didn't want to screw around with partitioning their disk. Something that can be launched from Windows and take care of all that for you is a big plus to many potential users.
You're probably right that, one installed, this Linux is extremely similar to vanilla Debian. Not entirely of course... there are likely many changes that Corel has made to their distribution that they would like to see incorporated into Debian, and some of it might just make it. Heck, they might even end up rolling some stuff into the kernel one of these days.
And lo, before you've even noticed, the hour hand has moved ahead as you were staring at the minute hand.
Behold... macro-evolution.
RP
I hate to say it, but RH seems to be blowing it on what's supposed to be their forte: service & support. I was having some problems with a clean install from a Cheapbytes CD and didn't want to mess around, so I bought a boxed copy of 6.1. That barfed on three different machines -- fatal crash of the install reporting file corruption. I went back to the Cheapbytes CD, found out what the problem with it was, and continued.
So maybe anyone can have a bad CD sneak out. I tried to report the problem to RH (more as a courtesy than anything) and found out I needed to register to do that. (You'd think that they'd accept bug reports from anyone, but no.) Then, despite having a paid-for boxed copy I couldn't register. The web submission barfs.
Looks like Young needs to do a reality check if he wants to keep those billions.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the integration of samba browsing in the file manager yet. To me, that's one of the most important things Corel did in their distro. I don't know for sure if it's open source, but it's definitely a good thing.
In my office, we constantly use network neighborhood for file sharing. It's the easiest way to visualize the network, and actually have people remember where to go if they need a file again. I keep it secure, and they keep working.
Up till now, one drawback of Linux was the time I would have to put into setting up samba for people so they could get to certain files. I've never *really* understood why smbmount is so hard to use, but it is anyway. To me, Corel did something here that should've been done a *long* time ago. Being disconnected from the windows computers in the office just makes it harder for anyone to see the point. Now if it were only installable on other distros...
We bought a copy of the Deluxe edition here at work to play around with. It comes in a surprisingly heavy box. Printed manuals are a good thing, I was very glad to see the dead trees in the box. It also comes with a rubber toy Tux. Kinda cute.
We installed it on a Dell PIII 550. The installer went flawlessly and found all the hardware. It has been running nicely for a couple of days now.
Reading through the comments, I see something that worries me about the distro, though. Most of the people who have reported problems have been using the downloaded version. The retail box comes with the install CD, the source CD, and a freely distributable CD. It seems like some of the goodies are only included in the retail version. If they are crippling the free/downloadable version, that would be a Bad Thing. I have not read the license carefully, but the inclusion of the freely distributable CD makes me wonder if the retail version is licensed per machine?
This is mostly just aimless speculation on my part, has anyone looked into this to provide more factual information?
Redhat does not seem that concerned about the quality of their shipping product because they seem to think that is what errata is for. RH's new priority upgrade service seems to support the upgrade idea. In Redhat defense, they could never ship a product if they waited for the newest and greatest of all the software.
The remarks about GNOME in RH 6.0 are very valid. It is a well known fact that GNOME reached a stable 1.0 release a few months too early such a version resides on RH 6.0. The GNOME team realized that there stable version was not that stable and spent a great deal of effort debugging all aspects of GNOME. Those efforts resulted in a very stable release known as OCTOBER GNOME. It is unfortanate to report but RH 6.1 did not shp with OCTOBER GNOME. This new version of GNOME has never crashed on me.
I've never gotten the darn - its probably the downloaded version - of Corel Linux to install (got the 1 CD from my lug). The install proceeds through the first few screens and then the video goes all barfy. Seems to me that Corel is attempting to bring Linux to the Lame (er, Windows user). Which is NOT A Bad Thing At All. I prefer SuSE. Includes the kitchen sink and everything else, but their new YaST2 installer sucks the big one. Yeah, I realize that the trend to graphical installers is probably irreversible, but, for the time being, I hope the distributions maintain a text-based mode for installing distros when the graphical one might hang for a series of reasons in the install process. I prefer more control over my installs anyway, but how can I fairly evaluate a new distro if the darn thing won't install? Scott A. Carson
Scott A. Carson
Like all of Linux, you takes what you like and you leaves what you don't. Even though I bought the Deluxe version, I didn't bother to load it over the freely distributed version because I didn't want the non-free OSS junk. I like the WP and bitstream fonts which I loaded from the Deluxe version.. haven't tried the Civ game yet though.
The only probs I have had with CLOS have been very easy to fix and so I am very happy with the install. The installer works great for me and in fact I was shocked that it actually installed X perfectly. LOVE the Update tool because it is a good crutch for apt-get when you are trying to find stuff. I ditched KWM and use Window Maker, and I must say it rocks when you have all of this stuff arranged just right.
This brings me to a prediction (wish list).. I bet that in the future (this year) the Linux desktop stuff will get so organized that ready-made themed (a.k.a. themes.org) desktops could be options on the install. I don't just mean the wallpaper, colors, icons -- but rather the arrangement and collection of little helper applications. Sorta like GNOME/KDE but with all of the cooler stuff with custom skins. All of the stuff that you and I take all day to add once you do a fresh install. But don't limit it to just the install stage of course, make them Debian packages or better yet just a list of the required packages and a GNUstep tree or something. Basically I just want a way to make my machine look and act like one of the ones on themes.org, but without the hours of configuration -- see what I mean. That would be a nifty desktop.
Before Corel there was no distribution (as far as I know - I haven't tried all of them) that focused on desktop users. Narrowing the scope allowed them to serve this market better.
Since Corel software is aimed at the desktop, Corel would find it critically important that the desktop market is well served.
I think this is a great thing - especially since it's based on Debian. I'd like to see more virtical market distributions for specific applications. Perhaps aimed at the music industry, graphics, point-of-sale, whatever. Basing your specialized distro. on Debian gives the user ultimate flexibility. Limiting your scope allows you to serve a specific market really well. I don't see any down side.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
- "Naive" home users that aren't quite sure what a distribution is are the group that people tend to think of first.
- "Corporate" users that are trying to build centralized systems are probably the second group people think of.
- Developers/experienced Linux folk are usually not the ones thought of, except from the perspective of being curmudgeons that say, ``Here's a nickel - buy yourself a real OS.''
Everyone else will probably take the "Naive home user" perspective; I'll take the "experienced developer" perspective just to provide more perspective.I find it greatly interesting that these Debian-based distributions are now attaining wide-spread acceptance. And I suggest that the perspective I'm taking is relevant to this.
Debian has had the merit, over the RPM-based systems, of providing a full-fledged tool set directed at integrating together a distribution. It's not just the dpkg package manager; Debian's tool set sweeps much wider, including:
Yes, it's pretty klunky, and something newer and prettier would be nice. That's part of what Stormix provides...
These are the components that are even more important than the previous ones.
The many RPM-based distributions suffer, and suffer badly, from the fact that RPM itself can only go so far in validating that packages are well-constructed.
Distribution makers like RHAT, SUSE, Caldera, and TurboLinux should have some significant automated tools to help them maintain correctness, although that is not known for sure, and I am skeptical that this is actually the case.
The Debian Maintainer Tools provides considerable assistance to the developer doing package maintenance work. As do the Debian Developers Manuals.
And that is of critical value when you're trying to avoid the "Oh, it's a .0 release from Red Hat, so watch out for big problems! " situation. That has been a significant problem for Red Hat; I'm quite sure that the presence of things like lintian, debhelper, and others has helped Corel and Stormix substantially, much as it helps maintainers of "plain Debian" packages.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
This tells me a lot. It tells me that sales of Linux are doing well, or CompUSA wouldn't be bothering. There's plenty of money in other products. To be worth that kind of dramatic showing, Corel Linux, and Linux in general, must be making a significant impression.
Please remember, where I am is -not- "tech-land". This is the middle of nowhere, where the most advanced tech gurus use Access as the corporate intranet database, and the AS/400 is the only high-power machine ever seen. For Linux to be selling like hot-cakes around here is about equivalent to aliens giving the entire population a brain transplant in the night.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Over all, I think that Corel did a wonderful job.
On any modern machine, the install is quick, easy on the eyes, and any idiot can install it.
And since, its still Debian underneath, nothing is sacrificed to make things pretty. dpkg and apt are still there. I ditched kde and went back to using the Debian mirrors for upgrades, which worked fine.
I am going to start suggesting Corel for newbies in the local LUG. Its a nice gently way to introduce them to Linux. As they become more experienced, they can still enjoy the full power of Debian. Its about as close as anyone has gotten to the best of both worlds.