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Conectiva Linux 7.0 is Out
rsd writes: "Conectiva Linux 7.0 is out. Here is the original announcement. And here is the babelfish translation. They are already shipping Portuguese box and will start the english soon. However the CDs (iso for what matter) are available in english already. Their main ftp server is overcrowded. Hoever, Rik VanRiel provided us with a really
fast server. I will not describe every feature on it but the main change is the
Synaptic tool, which in my opinion is the best APT frontend ever written."
Well, it's always nice to see an alternative to over-used under-developed tools. Synaptic seems stable and reliable, although I've only used it for about 10 minutes, but it looks vary solid. Well done gentlemen! (developers)
This distro is new to me. Does anyone have usage/popularity numbers for it?
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
I've been using Conectiva since release 5.0, and I think it's a quite good distro. I installed 7.0 a week ago, kernel 2.4, and it recognizes all my hardware (voodoo3, generic modem,...). This distro addresses some language questions without user support(I don't need to configure lots of stuff manually, for example tex, to support portuguese). Most translations from English to portuguese aren't very nice, but you still can install man pages in English, or even install all the system in english - as easy as point-and-click in the installation process. I haven't tryed, but it has also support for Spanish. The Brazilian market is huge and growing, and we don't have money to expend in Win-dos licenses. There is also a political movement against proprietary sw here, to stop expending public money when good stuff is free, like Linux, StarOffice et all.
I wasn't denying that Brazil is going to be bigger than any of those other economies, but you stated an incorrect fact. If you weren't sure and were just trying to make a point about the future Brazilian economy, you should have actually said that.
may be a crappy fs, but haveing a linux boot disk which auto mounts the NTFS partion and opens the sam file to clear the Admin password is a big help, especially when the person with your job before you never told anyone what his admin password was. (Turned out that L0fat password cracker got it in 3 seconds, it was 'Fred.' Of course I thought the cracker didnt work, because nobody would use a 4 letter, their own first name for an admin password right?:--)
---
The end result will be less than satisfactory for some of course but you can't force people to learn valuable skills. Their fates are already sealed.
Thanks.
D.S.
Which mod was the mistake?
I *though* I'd heard something about konquerer having the ability to render via gecko or khtml, but I couldn't find any such option in my preferences. How does one do this?
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
And BeOS doesn't have vast well organized set of Spanish and Portuguese documentation.
At the present time comparing the usefulness of Conectiva Linux and BeOS to Latin American consumers is like comparing the usefulness of a desktop/server computer with a rock that someone has thrown into a lake and that has sunk to the bottom and disappeared under a thick layer of mud.
Conectiva also has a Spanish version that targets ALL the other countries in Latin America which speak spanish. THAT is a market option.
Don't be stupid. You don't think they ported the OS to portugese just for kicks do you? They are *targetting the Brazilian market*. You'd expect better responses from a Microsoft admin, c'mon.
Well, Conectiva linux can be instaled with only 5 mouse clicks, and restart on graphical interface after reboot...
And then I messed up the HTML tags ... :-(
debrpm should read: deb<->rpm.
Shame on me for not using preview
morcego
I remember the first time I installed Linux. It ate me over and over again. This was back in the days of Red Hat 4.1. But I had to install Linux on the server it was going on, so I had no choice. I had to learn it, and had to make it work correctly.
:-)
To me it sounds like you don't "need" Linux running on your mahcine. I may be wrong, so I apologize if I am. However, the learning curve is steep, yes, but it is steep because the OS is not designed for being "user-friendly," rather, something designed for reliability and performance.
I assure you, the day you NEED a Linux box, it will come to you...
AFAIK it has since it always (well almost) has had. It's unlikely they would strip it out now.
Indeed. I meant the packaging format - LSB covers the format, not the application version. RPM 3.05 and 4.0 use the same package format (and a different back end database).
So yeah, RPM4 is good, and so is Connectiva.
I guess people do not like to read now days. I just got linux, and is not hard to use. To compile all I do is. configure then make then make install. easy. I really like the gimp.
just made a mod screw-up so I'll post to undue it
Why does everything get up to 7.0 this fast? What are we? Microsoft?
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
Well, there is something pretty common here in Brazil... brazilian software developers and system administrators tend to see national software as being of low/bad quality and to rely more on international products and distributions than to give credit to local products. I have heard someone made incredibly good comments on the Window Maker, and going wide eyed by being told Window Maker is a Brazilian Software. And never again doing any comment about it, but replacing it by Enlightenment on their desktops. And also, more than once I have heard comments from many admins saying they wouldn't use Conectiva simply because it was a Brazilian distribution, preferring Slackware or RedHat instead. But Conectiva is managing to break that down. I am working with one guy related to the Conectiva project, and they are really doing much development locally, instead of just picking the best software around and bundling it in "yet one more distribution". And also, Conectiva is a commercial distribution, with a great deal of worry from Conectiva ( the company ) on supporting and training their users. So, I think it's time to give Conectiva a try, at least, before putting Debian back on my notebook. I can keep You all updated on what goes on, but I believe Conectiva grained a self identity, no longer being simply a RedHat 5.2 with some patches over it, like Conectiva 4.0 was. kisses, Jessica
err, what does BeOS have to do with installing and using GNU/Linux?
Actualy, Conectiva Linux 7.0 uses RPM 4.
But apt is even more integrated with it then it was with RPM 3.
morcego
Well, yes, it does. I use it for a while (been upgrading with apt) and it's great. In the installation process you choose which language to use (english, portuguese or spanish).
Patola (Claudio Sampaio)
Unix System Administrator
The users out there who like their AOL etc. don't have a clue what a hard drive is, never mind Sync/refresh rates, and what is actually inside there computer. They just want it to work.
When was the last time an AOL user installed any program, let alone an OS? Installation and setup complaints with regard to any linux distribution is moot. There's nothing difficult about using linux.
Desire is not an occupation.
I can't think of a good reasons to avoid Conectiva Linux, but OTOH I see not a single one to use it. Among the arguments one generally hears in Brazil about why to use CL:
Translation - Their translations to Portuguese are light-years away from professional grade (as unfortunately seems to be the norm with Linux material in Portuguese over the net.) As long as one can functionally read English (which I believe to be the case of people who are into UNIX administration), what one gets from an original English text makes more sense than most translations. If you are a vanilla user who can't read English, well, I do not know how well-translated other distros are, but beating CL in that field isn't hard at all.
90-day support - Now *that* is a joke! I phoned them 3 times with the following questions when I first installed Linux:
Well, to be 100% honest, this was back in 1999, but from my point of view these were all legitimate installation questions to which I had to dig for the answers myself, without Internet access at home at the time.How do I display more than 25 lines in a terminal screen? The answer was to add a line like "vga=788" (?) in lilo.conf, but the answer I got was: "This is not covered by basic support, sir. You need to upgrade."
How do I get things compiled after I install gcc and GNU tools?? Answer: install the "development" libraries too, you insignificant beginer! The answer I got: "This is not covered by basic support, sir. You need to upgrade."
How do I access my DOS partition from Linux? Answer: You either edit fstab or use linuxconf to create a mounting point for the filesystem and configure it to mount automatically upon startup. But I got the same standard answer.
Hardware support - Conectiva claims to support lots of cheap hardware commonly found in old PC's. I don't think this is not true for some other distros too. And this is becoming less important by the day.
Security - OK, they make patches available over their website really quick, but the default installation of CL 4.0, as I later concluded, left a lot of unnecessary services open. I don't know about CL 6.0 wich I'm using now in my DT machine, for I chose the packages myself.
Easy installation - CL 6.0 defaults to a graphic install, which failed to recognise the video card in my notebook, making it impossible to use. I installed SuSE 6.0, a breeze, but I was too much used to CL's (RH's) way of doing things. Then I installed Mandrake, even easier and recognised everything except, obviously, the WinModem.
There are other things about Conectiva that I don't like, but in this post I'll stick to mention why the arguments they use are not important for many people. If one can't read English at all, I'd say "go CL", despite the rough translation. Otherwise, yes, CL is pretty much just another distro, maybe among the best as a server distro, probably not as a desktop.
What I'd really like to see is people try to abstract the functionality from the UI. Take Mozilla. If you want a good Gnome interface, use Galeon. Presumably, someone could also make a KDE interface to keep consistency there. I hope we see a lot more toolkit-specific front ends with toolkit-independent back ends in the future.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Anybody ever heard the Gnome guy (forgot his name) talk about how much more expensive MS is for Mexicans (schools, small business...) and therefore how much more important it is for them to have a real alternative? I guess the same goes for Brazil. This make this distro somewhat more important to me than "just another" English one.
Conectiva Linux 7,0 is outside. It pulls announcement here. And here babelfish translation. Those already the frame and England give very quick * start to Portugal. However (perhaps you obtain, it was) already, there is a OIN material with ds English. Common document transmission word of the agreement server due to stacking too much. The Hoever and the Rik VanRiel offer the fast server one not to lie to us. I above-mentioned predicate do not do the side of each unit, but, as for general correction following to the adaptation of conclusion of the eastfront whose point of view of the foundation of the mine is rather good. Help of the nerve, you write, is.
Indeed.
http://www.themeparks.ie
They made a portuguese version because conectiva is from Brazil, not because it was a good market option.
I have no sig and I want to scream
Indeed it does. Since the Conectiva people are probably reading this Slashdot item, I figure it's an excellent place for me to apologise to one of the coders of the Synaptic utility, who argued this point with me on IDG's sadly discontinued forum.linuxworld.com newsgroups: He had cited Corel Linux as an example of a supposedly Debian-compatible distribution that did not smoothly upgrade to Debian-stable, because of Corel's severely broken, incompatible KDE 1.1 packages. I had replied, quite honestly based on my recollection, that I'd upgraded Corel Linux to Debian-stable (2.2/potato, KDE2) without major problems.
He'd then called me a liar, and things went downhill from there. He was correct: I just didn't remember that it's necessary to yank Corel's mutant KDE 1.1 packages (the "kde-corel" one, and anything tied to it) before one could successfully proceed. And then Debian's KDE2 "task-kde" goes in beautifully.
I hope this helps you (or someone) out.
Meanwhile, I happen to be installing Conectiva 7.0 (in English) on a spare machine, and must say it is quite slick.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
The product substitutes version 6.0 launched at the end of 2000, and will be presented in two editions: Conectiva Linux 7.0 and Conectiva Linux 7.0 Professional Server.
São Paulo, July 2001 - The new version of the open source operation system that is most used in all of the world, will be available starting at the next Fernsaoft (São Paulo computer show), which will be from the 30th of July to the 4th of August. The product substitutes version 6.0, launched at the end of 2000, and will be presented in two editions: Conectiva Linux 7.0 and Conectiva Linux 7.0 Professional Server.
The biggest new features of this version are the tools to facilitate the use of the RPM automatic upgrade utility, called APT. Thanks to resources which are exclusive to Conectiva, it is possible for each user to install only the packages which are suitable for them.
Another modification which Conectiva prepared for CL 7.0 was the extinction of the boot (startup) disks, seeings that practically all modern machines are able to accomplish this process directly from the CD-ROM. But, if necessary, the user can create their own boot disk with the utilities and images on the five CDs which are part of the product. They also bring a program to help in the creation of the diskette and facilitate the installation in machines with the Windows operating system.
According to the company's new strategy, which intends to show that Linux is now profession and has won a large part of the market, the design of the boxes has also changed. CL version 7.0 has a more simple appearance than the earlier versions, and maintains the predominance of the colour blue, whereas the Professional Server version also follows this 'clean' look, with an emphasis on the colour white.
Among the advantages of the new version, it is worth also mentioning the support and documentation, which is even more complete, and directed towards the user. Conectiva Linux version 7.0 documentation is composed of the "User's Guide" and "Quick Installation Guide", whereas the Professional Server version has the "Quick Installation Guide", the "Conectiva Linux Server Guide" and the new book "Understanding Conectiva Linux", which presents information about the operating system through pratical examples. In addition to the manuals, the package is composed of five CDs, one for installation (operating system and applications), one of extra applications, two with the source code of the first two CDs and one containing StarOffice for Linux in various languages.
To provide support, the user will have coupons in the packet which give the right to two hours of telephone support and three months via email. If the validity of the supports expires, Conectiva also offers extended support, in both versions, so that the user can adquire more time to resolve their questions.
Technical Characteristics
In this version, the automatic upgrade tool for RPM packages, the APT, has a system which is much more stable and better integrated with tools such as Synaptic. This, in turn, is a graphical interface created to simplify the remote installation and upgrading of programs through APT, without needing to resort to the command line. "To meet these objectives, various packages were rebuilt, being subdivided into smaller packages, for the purpose of economizing disk space and making them more flexible", explains Alfredo Kojima, creator of Synaptic and the WindowMaker graphical interface, and a member of the Conective development team.
In Conectiva Linux 7.0 it is worth mentioning as well the inclusion of the Kernel 2.4, which signficiantly improves the performance of the version, principally on servers which run large applications and multiprocessing systems. This performance also helps a lot in the utilitization of Linux in the corporate environment. In addition to the Kernel 2.4, you can also choose the 2.2.19 Kernel.
XFree86, a Linux graphical interface server, is now in edition 4.03, which has new drivers for SiS and S3 cards, both very popular in Brazil. This upgrade resolves stability and performance problems which previously existed. In addition, it has 3D image support and anti-aliasing, a resource which smooths-out fonts on the screen for easier reading.
The standard graphical interface for Conectiva Linux 7.0 is KDE 2.12, which now has various upgrades and improvements in terms of security. KDE has integrated a series of applications, such as the e-mail reader KMail, the dialer KPPP, the browser and file manager Konqueror and the office suite KOffice, as well as other small tools.
As always, another advantage of the Linux operating system, which is repeated in this new version, is the better utilization of the hardware, make available constant investments in upgrades. In Conectiva Linux 7.0 there are four installation profiles available: minimum, standard, complete and personalised, each with a package of pre-determined applications. The standard installation occupies an average of only 510 MB, which is little when compared to other Open Source distributions. Also it is worth saying that the whole installation process has interactive help available.
Conectiva Linux 7.0 will be available for sale at the Fenasoft (computer show), at suggested prices of R$ 88,00 (around US $36) (Conectiva Linux 7.0) and R$ 225,00 (around US $105) (Conectiva Linux 7.0 - Professional Server).
When will it ever stop? /. readers prefer getting their tools as up-to date source, so the packages that are included in a distribution shouldn't me sooo important.
I just say: Better develop new useful proggies that wasting time on building a distribution.
I think that there are already enough Linux distros? Nowadays, most distributions are derived for either RedHat (my personal favourite, SuSE or Debian. When we strip it of the admin and installation GUI, all are pretty much the same. Why a new one? I think that most of the
thanx
All your new distibutions are belong to us
".Sig Stealer" was here
Er, I meant, "Altavista" (pre-1999). I may as well explain my joke :p Altavista.com used to be some lame portal which you'd always end up at when you really wanted the search engine. It offered you a link to the REAL altavista search engine. Fortunately, Digital/Compaq snapped them up. ;-)
They basically have a whole pro-linux initiative, which mostly came from geeks at the govt's IT department. They are creating a press, to make linux docs available in portuguese, and are shifting as much as possible away from proprietary software to open-source software. Their rhetoric is very public service oriented, making claims of spending money upgrading proprietary licenses from previous adminstrations, money which could have been used to deliver public services. Furthermore, they see open source as a way of achieving development without "northern" control. Their state development bank has begun curtailing loans used for purchasing proprietary software when open source alternatives are available, and give pointers to such alternatives. Its a shame that it takes a dynamic left-wing government to take reasonable steps such as this and i hope more start doing the same.
to read it and complain?
:)
Guess you're a masochist!
timothy
Just my experience with CL 7.0:
... ... This let he finds all applications he needs in any place. Also qvwm is one of the fastest wm around, so a user who has a poor hardware configuration would enjoy it too ( I would prefer myself blackbox ;).
Now, what makes Linux difficult? First, there is partitioning your hard drive and installing file systems in preparation for the install.
Conectiva had work with Andrew Clausen, parted Author to make repartitioning and automatic repartitioning in the Installation really clean for the new user.
While I'm rambling on, let me tell you where I see *real* problems with Linux. The problem is with user interface consistency.
Some distributions try to force the user into one or too GUI (usually kde and gnome).
Conectiva has created the xscripts interface. A really simple interface that let any window manager (I did it for staroffice without a wm too) to be shown in the KDM login screen or be called from the console. So the user has a choice from KDE, gnome, enlightenment, windowmaker, blackbox, xfce, sawmill, qvwm,
But that as it was commented above, this might make the user feel lost. quite right. But Debian has developed a MENU system. This let all aplications in one interface see the same applications over the wms menu system across them all.
I have noted that the window user likes to start with qvwm before going to KDE, gnome,
Another great thing Conectiva is doing is in Linuxconf development. Conectiva has a full team of developers developing Linuxconf, creating modules, finding bugs and helping improving it. So, you can do almost anything from it.
Conectividade == Connectivity
eh, have you never looked at Linux Mandrake. It's probably easier to install than anything from M$, and has anything any Joe Average would want to use (Apache, MySQL...). No massive learning curve there ...
RPMDrake in Mandrake has both flat view and "arbitrary grouped functionality."
This is funny. In January, I got a new HD, soI decided to install a real distribution ( been upgrading an old Redhat distro for several years). I was realy upset when I put the CD in, answered some dumb questions, and had a fully operational system. No modelines, no tweeking scripts, no running around for drivers. I do not have exactly standard hardware either, being a mix of real old and very new. In addition I have an oddball monitor and only SCSI HDs. I missed having to dick around for two days getting everything working. I have some things against this SuSE, but they would only matter to someone like me who is constantly changing things ( in the name of "upgrading"). I found this installation less painfull then what I went through installing Macrohards raped version of VMS. Any MS lobotimized churl should feel right at home with SuSE, though they might miss that hard thing thrusting up their rearend.
I see THAT as a major plus, it doesn't only help you get into the linux world BUT it solves one of the biggest poblems with selling corporates a full-linux answer --> CERTIFIED PEOPLE.
Might not mean much in real life, but companies do feel more confident.
I mean, u get a regular linux dude: "I'm gonna b using this and that dists plus those packs plus a little sumthin' I got done last weekend" ... linux works like a dream, company saves money, dude leaves company.
Where do they get a guy that knows, and can prove it, all those bits?
Joe - MCSE+I, MCDBA, MCT, Profissional Certificado Conectiva
conectiva's translation conectiva has their own english translation....
here- I got this through the one built in to Mozilla.
This isn't in my opinion *the* most cutting edge distro available, but it is very good distro and is best what it aims to be: the distro for people who they target at, that is Latin American bussinesses and users.
The users at LA too need some sort of official tech support and special localization support. Trust me if they didn't do their job, no one else would. You really don't think that RedHat, SuSe or Mandrake are going to switch focus from their current mainstream makets to fill in the gaps in other not as rich markets, are you? People at LA are interested in having localization work done, in having competent tech support people who can speak their native language and having development targeted at people that might have different needs than the rest of the geeks in the rest of the world. How would you feel if you needed to call Germany and speak in german for every single tech support anyone in your country would ever need? Trust me i can do just fine without any tech support, as most geeks can, but bussinesses really can't be operated on this assumption.
They have also been very evangelists for Linux in LA. With their support many counties have passed laws in which the local governments are to use exclusively free/open software, unless that for the required function the software only exists in a non-free type of license. Not only that but they have been working also on a more stripped down distro to give more people access to computing and the internet. Personally I wouldn't really mind seeing another few million users being introduced into computing directly to linux. And anyone trying to get technology to those who need deserve some kudos!
--
Nothing like Free home-brewed Beer and Freedom and happiness to all that pursue it!
I have had the isos up for over a week now at http://24.93.54.40 have fun email me if you have trouble. tex@78704.com
I am relatively new to APT-GET as the only Debian box I have ever setup is a small P166 server sitting here by me at work. (A little off topic but Debian is quite an efficient distro!)
My main question is that Connectiva appears to use Apt-get as well, and from what I saw Synaptic presents a nice logical UI for all this functionality, but to where is it connecting?
On debian I connect to the main debian servers for updates, back home on my Mandrake machine I connect to the Mandrake mirrors with Mandrake Update, but is Synaptic generic enough that I could replace Mandrake Update with it? Could I install Connectiva, and then try to get packages from Debian?
Obviously you could get packages from any distro manually, but the important thing is whether or not they would be able to satisfy dependencies and run, and I was wondering how much Synaptic could help in that area.
Thanks in advance for anyone who has experience here and can clarify!
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Conectiva Linux comes with aptitude too (since 6.0, even).
Thank you! I was going to mention that... I just installed 7.1 on a vaio notebook dual-booting with ME it took less time to install and update RH than it did to run the windows updates (not to mention 10 reboots for windows, 0 for RH). I haven't worked with BeOS so I can't comment on it...
Have you read the Moderator Guidelines yet?
From the release:
"O Conectiva Linux 7.0 estará disponível para comercialização já na Fenasoft, aos preços sugeridos de R$ 88,00 (Conectiva Linux 7.0) e R$ 225,00 (Conectiva Linux 7.0 - Servidor Profissional)."
At current conversion rates, that's $35.50 for the standard and $90.77 for the Professional version.
Not much of a better price than Red Hat is it and still to high to be the basis of any real "popular movement" for Linux.
- Kevin
I'm a brazilian and we have other national linux distributions: Techlinux (www.techlinux.com.br) and Console (www.console.com.br). However, they are much smaller than Conectiva.
I use Conectiva because it is superior to Red Hat and it has inovations like apt-get.
Slashdot really sucks with this Anonymous Coward thing. It is manipulative and communist. Well my friend, as for you... you don't really know what Linux is. Linux is work. Once installed, you have to have work. No matter what distribution, will require at least 10 IQ level to operate some basic command lines or to even compile a kernel.
I think Conectiva owes even their panties to RedHat. RPM's system have the RedHat mark very distinguished and immutable. It's just the shell with some differences... But the core, it is just another RedHat...
WOW. That's REALLY up-to-date, isn't it?
C'mon, do you actually think you got any comparison parameters? Version 2.0 and 3.0 of Conectiva Linux were still called "Conectiva RedHat Linux". The current Conectiva Linux is VERY different from that, looks very much like Debian, and has many customizations of its own.
Having said that, using something like a Distribution for less than one week doesn't give you the feelings of its insides, also. No matter what these distribution analysis from http://www.linuxsomething.com make you think.
and I can say they're using Linux's name to earn money.
Oh, they're BAD! Linus should be processing them for using its brand-name Linux, alongside RedHat, Caldera, Slackware, SuSE, ... (name your distro here). Or not?
Actually they where never professionals with their work and I don't like the way they "promote" linux here. For example, releasing Slackware in their magazine (linux magazine, or Revista do linux) saying that Slackware uses a real old packaging format and should be used only by power users.
Well, they aren't amateurs for sure. It's method of quality assurance is really efficient (btw, do you know what is it? have you ever checked?) and its final product is a very good one. Check http://distro.conectiva.com.br for details.
"Revista do Linux" is a magazine owned by Conectiva, but it doesn't express its views. All the Revista do Linux staff have independent opinion from Conectiva. They distribute many other distributions in the magazine CD. If some reviews seem to much conectiva-oriented, that is because Conectiva has a very strong legion of fans in Brazil, and that translates to such wide public acceptance. The market likes Conectiva Linux, it is a fact. So, many reviews rate it very positively. I rate it very positively, I am satisfied with it. Does they pay me to say that? Absolutely not, it's an opinion. You may not agree with me or with others, but you shouldn't say they have this opinion because they are paid for that. It's not a very sympathetic accusation.
Oh, BTW, I have almost the same opinion about slackware. I disagree because I think power users shouldn't use it :)
We all know that's not true. The same holds for Debian...
Conectiva did almost nothing to the community despite the almost-inexistent "open source mind" they brought to Brazil.
Almost nothing? Lemme see: synaptic; apt-rpm; MI (modular installer); ALL of them are GPL'ed. They have even started a brazilian GNU/Linux Magazine (as you pointed out) and have funded many open-source projects. Oh, and they have brought the 'open source mind' to Brazil, thanks for recalling ;)
What should they do to be accepted in your^H^H^H^Hthe GNU/Linux community? Really, do you think what they accomplished is meaningless?
Even without conectiva, companies would use linux because they can afford people who knows. Instead of that, Conectiva has a weird, for idiots-like Examination and their not so well recognised "certification".
I've seen a "Certified Conectiva Professional" trying to make a syncronous frame-relay leased line work with pppd (just to mention, kppp). I think that's not the way. Maybe it's time to make a survey just to know how many of the people who paid R$ 88,00 (US$ 35, but it's know cheap here) for their black box are really using the software conectiva is credited to be the "owner" ("where can I find that software conectiva has created?" are common questions. - and THAT software hasn't a finger from conectiva)
Conectiva had a somewhat lame certification program, yes. But now you can't complain. Their current certification is really the LPI Certification. Yes, if you are Conectiva Certified now you are LPI Certified. It's the same thing now. Stop complaining.
About 'the software conectiva is credited to be the "owner"': I didn't see the point there. Could you please elaborate and give examples?
Patola (Claudio Sampaio)
Unix System Administrator
Can someone tell me if it is possible to use synaptic on a Progeny-based box?
Now, what makes Linux difficult? First, there is partitioning your hard drive and installing file systems in preparation for the install. This makes many users really nervous. But here's the reality. If you started with a blank hard drive and installed Windows from scratch, you'd still have to set up the file system on the hard drive during the install. You might not have to *partition* the drive, but you don't have to do that with some of the Linux distributions if you are running them without a dual-boot situation. Don't want to go through the trouble of installing it yourself? Do what most people do with Windows -- buy a machine with the OS preinstalled. While rare, you can find machines with Linux preinstalled.
Look, there's a far simpler way of installing Linux without bothering with partitions or any of that UMSDOS crap; I was feeling REALLY bored a while back and I stumbled upon a fascinating HOWTO. You know the BeOS trick of making a virtual 'partition' out of a 400MB file on your Windows drive? Linux can do that. The HOWTO is here but here's the gist of it - you boot linux with root=/dev/loop0, and supply it with an initrd. The linuxrc on this initrd mounts the Windows partition and then calls losetup to tie /dev/loop0 to the 400MB 'partition' (typically it would also set up loop1 as a swap but one could always just use a swap file). Linuxrc then terminates and the kernel mounts /dev/loop0 as root, and moves the initrd onto /initrd. Provided you defragment your DOS partition beforehand this is probably going to be roughly as efficient as a partition and a heck of a lot less dangerous. The HOWTO is dated 1999, how come no-one's put this into a distro? Perhaps I should add it to Debian or something... ;)
Does it matter who else likes it? Its Linux, it does what you want it to do just like the rest. If you like it, use it. That's really the point of Free Software my friend.
If you just want something popular, use Red Hat or Windows.
Linux doesn't necessarily need the learning curve that many people attribute to it. Sure, back in the Slackware-only days, installing, configure and using Linux required some knowledge and effort. But today, it really depends on what you want to do. If you just want to run a few office apps like most people do with windows, you never need to touch source code, or bother with the tricky stuff. Just buy a good distribution (like Mandrake or Redhat or [insert favorite here]), and install it.
Now, what makes Linux difficult? First, there is partitioning your hard drive and installing file systems in preparation for the install. This makes many users really nervous. But here's the reality. If you started with a blank hard drive and installed Windows from scratch, you'd still have to set up the file system on the hard drive during the install. You might not have to *partition* the drive, but you don't have to do that with some of the Linux distributions if you are running them without a dual-boot situation. Don't want to go through the trouble of installing it yourself? Do what most people do with Windows -- buy a machine with the OS preinstalled. While rare, you can find machines with Linux preinstalled.
The second difficult thing about installing Linux is the reported problems with recognizing hardware. Note that this is getting better and better, but you'll find that there are problems with devices designed specifically for Windows (WinModems and Windows Printers), and there are also problems with proprietary hardware in which the manufacturer has not opened the specs to Open Source developers. Want to avoid this problem? Make sure your hardware is fully supported by the Linux distribution BEFORE you install. Think consumers wouldn't go for this? Surprise! They did a few years ago when Microsoft released Windows NT 4.0. It was funny how all of those machines my former employer bought from Compaq weren't certified to run Windows NT, and when we had installation and reliability problems, we were outta luck. And these were high-end machines at the time.
While I'm rambling on, let me tell you where I see *real* problems with Linux. The problem is with user interface consistency. You see, one of the great Linux strengths is also a weakness. There are lots of choices for your desktop, and each has a set of applications tailored to it. Great! Nobody is going to tell me what desktop environment I have to use. But if my favorite applications require various environments, I have a slight problem. Yes, I can run all of them under my favorite desktop environment, but they look, feel and interact differently. In many cases, you almost have to know which libraries the application was written with to fully understand how to use it. This can be very confusing for the average user -- it's bad enough that they have to learn something different from Windows, but try explaining that they have to learn two or three different styles of user interface. It can be frustrating. I hope to see this improve. Perhaps authors of good applications tailored for one environment will port them to another. For example, if your favorite web browser is Konqueror under KDE, but your favorite desktop is GNOME with Enlightenment, wouldn't it be nifty to see a port that interfaces really well with GNOME? Maybe we'll see these kinds of things in the future.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
I wonder why people bother posting babelfish translations. They are practically useless. :^) Interestingly enough, this one consistently misspells "launch" (as "launchn"). Somebody should send e-mail to Altavisa (pre-1999) er I mean to Digital, er, I mean Compaq, er I mean Altavista about this. :-)
Do you mean another version of a hoe?
You're not right. If you don't like to compile, download the binaries. As for being "content with a default binary"(as if default binaries are somehow shoddy), that is your ONLY option on other well known, but charge-you-up-the-arse-for-your-ignorance platforms.
The only times I've been unable to obtain binaries is for software that is still in the development stage. If you can't understand why software in the development stage isn't packaged yet, then most definetly, Linux, or anything else that requires logical thought, will be useless to you.
If you do understand, then you'll also take note that virtually every major desktop application that the "average"(your apparent defintion, not mine) user would want, is most definetly available in a binary format.
Show me an effect without cause and then I'll believe in chaos.
To set in motion the bed, the user will count on added coupons to the package, that give to right the two hours of telephonic attendance and three months saw email. If the validity of the bed to die, the Connective also offers the extendido bed, in the two versions, so that the user can acquire more time to take off its doubts.
Conectiva 7.0 was released to ftp servers on 30 July 2001 - this is a bit of an old news, really. Anyway, check out the features at distrowatch.
... and choose KDE as your default desktop during the install. I had a 10 year old install it on one of my notebooks with no problems. He was doing his homework on it about half an hour after booting it for the first time. If you can't figure it out, maybe you should seek help from a local 3rd grader.
Show me an effect without cause and then I'll believe in chaos.
...isnt there readwrite support for NTFS now? last I checked it was marked Dangerous but that was 2.4.4 and I'm sure its changed by .8 or .7 or whatever. It shouldnt be dangerous anyways because the file's blocks are all preallocated so the fs metadata shouldnt change (ok, maybe checksums & whatnot but no allocation or anything) so its probably safe. Was this the problem?
Actually this bring backs some fond memories when the Slashdot community tried to bring our server down back in '99. The server took the load fine (running good old FreeBSD of course), however our single T1 line pretty much maxed out. Makes me wonder, what kind of ftp server some of these companies and individuals run. I have yet to have a properly configured Unix server, web or otherwise crash from a heavy load. Can't say the same for NT and Win2k of course, they collapse under anything over about 30% load unfortunately.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
I really think Linux should take a look at the ease of which BeOS installs and configures itself. That is what the average user wants - transparancy.
I wonder if the Synaptic tool allows me to access the Synapse servers? Look out Gary Winston!
A|\|c| THe w0r|_d ya|/\|/vS
-- unix is for people without a social life - Patrick van Eijk
Here are your recent submissions to Slashdot, and their status within the system:
2001-08-02 23:36:02 Conectiva releases new version (articles,linux) (rejected)
Now that's old news for about a week.
Sigh.
"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds !"
A GUI that uses a flat file rather than digging through layers of arbitrarily grouped
"functionality"
//taxman
Unfortunately, I didn't write the problems up. Of the RPM distributions, I liked Mandrake best, except that I had to install it about 5 times because some programs simply wouldn't work. After a few hours I found out that the system didn't work properly because of the Finnish language setting given in the first screen of the installation. Well, got that fixed, but after failing to install newest version of KDE properly, I kicked Mandrake out. I think it had some other critical problems too, but can't remember what anymore.
I installed SuSe Linux on my employer's two notebooks. It was hell, because SuSe didn't have a rescue CD. I was frustrated like hell and just couldn't believe this. Yeah, it had 3,5" rescue disk, but the notebooks didn't have such drives. Finally I managed to get it installed by using the Mandrake installation CD's rescue mode... Why did I need a rescue disk? I had accidentally written the LILO to wrong partition (not MBR), and I didn't want to go through the package selection again. Also setting up the network was hell, and fought with it for hours. I was unable to setup my audio card (SB AWE32) on my home machine, even with hours of fighting. The "YAST2" setup tool is sh*t, and slow as hell (and has annoyingly stupid name - why not just call it "System Installation Tool" or something???). In the second installation I didn't select ALL packages during the initial installation. Thus, I was forced to select 600 packages one-by-one using a notebook nanny because the package manager didn't support keyboard properly. It took about half an hour to select them all. On the plus side, SuSe has the prettiest boot screen I've ever seen. ;-)
Corel Linux (based on Debian) had definitely the easiest installation! Everything went smooth, as it detected my AWE32 sound card and got even my exotic i740 video card and rare Viewpoint monitor working straight properly! Unfortunately, the support from Corel was non-existant, and there weren't any updates. I wanted to install new KDE 2.x, so I added some regular Debian sites to the update program. It went hell, as the Debian packages broke the system entirely.
I installed Debian on my home server/router/firewall. It was also hell, because I don't have a 3,5" disk drive, just CD, and Debian didn't have a bootable installation CD. It also didn't have a way to install it from RedHat. It took about two days to install it from RedHat, using chroot tweaks to run the installation scripts, etc. But that's nothing, then I had to fight with the package installations. I have to say that dselect has the most horrible user interface that I've ever seen in any program. Come on guys! Why can't you use "Esc" key for returning, but "Shift-Q"????? Aaaarghhh. Anyhow, using dselect and configuring the apt-get sources.list was horribly difficult, and I've been using Linux (RH) for 6 years and computers for 18 years. I can't even imagine how difficult it would be for a beginner. Choosing between the "stable" and "unstable" packages is also a hell to configure, and I still don't know how to do that in the source.list file, after using Debian for a few months. For some time the "unstable" worked, but then I started getting weird errors such as:
Sorry, but the following packages have unmet dependencies:
apache: Depends: libdb2 (>= 2:2.7.7-4) but 2:2.7.7-8 is to be installed
E: Sorry, broken packages
Then I switched back to the stable - which means having outdated packages all the time. Configuring the APT system is really confusing and non-intuitive for even an experienced Linux (RH) user (and I'm not really a computer beginner after 18 years). Everything requires reading huge amounts of documentation and help files. That's just NOT the way modern software should be done. All programs should be tested on beginners. But Debian developers clearly have some tendency to make the system so complex that they can feel superior. That's just idiotic.
Finally, I installed RedHat 7.1 to my personal workstation. Can't remember all the problems anymore, but they were plenty, as always with RedHat installations. Why on earth RH still doesn't have ReiserFS??? They say "it's not stable enough", but I switched from ext2 exactly because of non-fixable filesystem corruption. And I don't want to wait 30 minutes for the chkfs for the 60GB drive. The new "up2date" updater is a joke. On the first update, it tried to update the up2date itself, but ran into depency problems with Python (it's written with Python I guess). Yeah, this was the out-of-the-box installation. No, the updater didn't inform which package conflicted with which, but just that there was "a conflict" with SOME of the 20 packages it tried to install. Of course it didn't tell which package conflicted and how. I had to trace and update them manually with rpm, after a lot of trouble. After resolving that problem, I was able to make up2dates for a month, and now there's again a conflict. No, I'm not going to use up2date again before the GUI is fixed PROPERLY.
Linux definitely is not ready for desktop, or for beginners. I believe the main obstacle is the attitude of the developers, who require that users use huge amount of time studying the documentations.
Even as a heavy user, and as a software developer, I don't want to spend months of my time on studying useless things. Most people don't, and if Linux developers require them to do that, everybody loses.
Considering that Brazil is the largest market in the southern hemisphere (okay, Australia is there too...), making a Portugese port of Linux makes a lot of sense.
Of course, porting and selling Linux hasn't yet proved to be a sustainable business plan.
Dancin Santa
Slashdot: Free advertising space for Linux distros. Stuff that no one should care about.
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." - Tao of Programming
Heh, personally I thought the "selling Linux can't make a profit" comment was more trollish. :-)
"The Connective Linux 7.0"
;)
I guess the translator doesn't realize Connectiva as a brand name, or maybe if you speak english, it is called "Connective"
------
Random, useless fact: I type in startx entirely with my left hand.
Here in Brazil we doesn't have any linux distros, and even red hat doesn't have a good set of drivers and fonts for portuguese, so this distro was a very good thing for Brazilian people. Maybe you don't even know that our portuguese is not the same that is used in Portugal. Just one example: "bicha" in portugal means a queue and in brazil it means gay or fag. See, we needed a linux distro that could be used here without knowing english. And there are a lot of things that are so diferent that we needed Conectiva
And the guy that made WindowMaker is from Brazil, and works there, he made APT to work with rpms and also made the GUI.
I have no sig and I want to scream
It's called Aptitude. It's only included in Sid AFAIK, but it's nevertheless neat. First, that's a ncurses app: No stupid GUI bloat. Second, it's as simple as Mutt (which I happen to like, too ;-)) And third, the author is cool and listen to the users (which is a very good point). I use it daily to manage my overbloated distro and it does a great job. If you've got a Sid, you should definitely have a look at it...
Xenu brings order!
What makes this one different from other Linux distributions?
It combines the Linux Standard Base packaging system, RPM 3.05, with the most well known automatic software installation frontend, APT, a tight set of packaging guidelines, and a nice GUI for APT called Synaptic.
Also, most people don't live in North America or speak English, and internationalization for most general purpose distributions is quite poor.
Agreed on all points, especially the last one. Interface consistency is something that has frustrated even *me*, and I'm a died-in-the-wool UNIX old-timer. (Hell, I actually _like_ the way that Motif looks.)
That's why I find KDE so exciting. They are actually acheiving a level of consistency and quality in the interface that meets (or, in my opinion, exceeds) that of Microsoft, Apple, or really any other desktop I can think of.
What I'd really like to see is KLinux. A distro centered entirely around KDE, with no non-KDE apps available. At this point that might make the app selection just a little slim, particularly since KOffice is still not on-par with the functionality of something like StarOffice. But I think there are many users that would really appreciate the level of consistency that would be achieved by such a distribution, and the distro maintainers could focus on a 100% KDE-based system, hopefully producing a more integrated final OS.
I know that RedHat 7.1 has Spanish support, though RH7.1 assumes you are in Spain when installing in Spanish--a strange assumption to make, considering how big Latin America is. Note: RH7.1 doesn't support Portugese.
I would assume that Conectiva has Spanish support, but it would be nice to know this for a fact.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
new version of the operational system of used open code more in the whole world
Hey.. I don't want used code.. I want minty-fresh new code...! Otherwise what am I paying them for?
Polymorphism -- It's what you make of it.
If you're looking for Conectiva Linux 7.0 ISO images you can also find them in AU at
http://planetmirror.com/pub/conectiva/iso/
-jason
These guys at PROCERGS, the government IT company have developed a very good open source alternative for Outlook. The Direto (with means direct) software can be found here. Sorry guys, portuguese only :-(
I've used conectiva 2.0, 3.0 (for less than one week each version) and I can say they're using Linux's name to earn money. Actually they where never professionals with their work and I don't like the way they "promote" linux here. For example, releasing Slackware in their magazine (linux magazine, or Revista do linux) saying that Slackware uses a real old packaging format and should be used only by power users.
We all know that's not true. The same holds for Debian...
Conectiva did almost nothing to the community despite the almost-inexistent "open source mind" they brought to Brazil. Even without conectiva, companies would use linux because they can afford people who knows. Instead of that, Conectiva has a weird, for idiots-like Examination and their not so well recognised "certification".
I've seen a "Certified Conectiva Professional" trying to make a syncronous frame-relay leased line work with pppd (just to mention, kppp). I think that's not the way. Maybe it's time to make a survey just to know how many of the people who paid R$ 88,00 (US$ 35, but it's know cheap here) for their black box are really using the software conectiva is credited to be the "owner" ("where can I find that software conectiva has created?" are common questions. - and THAT software hasn't a finger from conectiva)