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Lycoris Desktop/LX Review
JigSaw writes: "Lycoris Desktop/LX (formerly known as 'Redmond Linux') is viewed by many as the new big distribution in the "Linux on the Desktop" arena. OSNews features an extensive review of the latest Lycoris and outlines the good and the bad things of the distro. In short, Lycoris seems to suffer from the general GNU/Linux situation to not be ready to power a true desktop-oriented, easy to use distribution yet."
much better
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source [...]
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, [...]
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code [...]
So, you don't need to distribute the source with the binary, but you do need to make it available.
I'm not sure if I read it correctly, but did it read that the basic LX install did NOT include the source code? So are they shipping a version that violates the GPL?
They don't have to ship the sources with the binaries; they're only violating the GPL if they refuse to provide the source code to a customer that requests it. They can even charge a fee for providing the source, and still not be in violation of the GPL. You can read the GPL here".
Check it out.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
>Am I out of the loop or does linux support swap files (as opposed to partitions) now?
Of course and Linux supports swap in a file instead of a partition. What do you think the mkswap command can do?
>I don't know what's wrong with the mounting issue, but what kind of faster algorithm is he talking about here?
The FAT32 mounting is PAINFULLY slow for me too. Other distros do not have the particular problem. Therefore, it has to be something wrong with their code.
I know I'll probably come off as a pro-Linux zealot for this.. but..
I am a first year compsci student. Before this year, all of my attempts to try to use Linux failed horribly.. but in January this year, I installed Redhat, and immediately fell in love. I've slowly been learning how to take advantage of all of Linux's more advanced features, and I've lately been able to fix problems based on intuition, rather than long searches on Google.
Whenever any of my friends come over, they see my computer, and they gasp. They love the way KDE looks, they love the Liquid theme, they love transparent menu's, they love the functionality of the command prompt, they ENVY the fact I can leave it on for days.. even weeks without having to so much as log out. (probably not the safest thing to be doing.. but it makes me feel big, lol)
The only things which prevent people from installing Linux on their own computers are the following
1. Lack of MSN messenger (Kmerlin) built in. They would not know where to look, if they were going to find it.. and it seems to be the most popular messenger at my university.
2. Once and awhile the Xserver bombs, and deletes the 'fixed fonts'.. which requires some knowledge to fix.
3. Decent CD burning software
4. A file sharing program which does not bomb all the time.
5. Better media support - Built in Divx support... easy to install quicktime support.. easy to find realplayer (it takes awhile to find realplayer if you don't know where to look)
The last thing it needs is to be pre-installed on a few computers.. but this article shows why that isn't likely to happen.
In preparation for Ballmer meeting with a Dell executive to talk about the computer maker's support of Linux, a confidential Microsoft briefing e-mail notes as a talking point that "it's untenable for a 'premier partner' of Windows 2000 to be doing aggressive marketing development for another operating system."
"This little drama ends" later that year, Kuney said, with Dell abandoning its Linux efforts with the head of the program being reassigned.
Overall, I think Linux is pretty much ready for the desktop. Everyone here is always bitching about stuff like document support.. which for the desktop, IMO, is pretty irrelevant. The majority of people out there transfer documents by copying and pasting to emails.
I could be completely off my rocker here but wasn't it ALWAYS possible to use swap files instead of partitions?
... /swap
/etc/fstab like:
/swap
Now I don't necessarily mean swap files directly supported by the kernel, but if you _really_ wanted to use a swap file instead couldn't you create a file, format it as a linux swap and then mount it as a loopback device?
Something like:
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/swap
# mkswap
Then put an entry in
/swapfile swap swap defaults,loop 0 0
And finally:
# swapon
I just tried this on slackware 8.0 with kernel 2.4.18 and it works. I don't know if this is a "new feature" or anything but I'm pretty sure that as long as your kernel supports loopback devices then this would work.
Maybe someone with better kernel knowledge could provide some better insight.
P.S I still don't see why you would want to do this. Espcially considering that in any good install program geared towards end-users they would not have to worry about partitioning (and even if they did it seems to me like paritioning would still be easier than doing what I described above). At least I know that I would still prefer a swap partition as opposed to a file anyway...
--
Garett
I downloaded the .iso and installed Lycocis on two machines the other day. One was a pretty dismal failure, the other was a pretty fair success.
Lycoris did NOT like my dual-processor, no-IDE hard drive main system. While it DID install, it couldn't recognize my LS-120 drive as a floppy drive to make a rescue disk. Red Hat 7.2 does. Lycoris botched the LILO install on my main SCSI drive leaving me with LI and no boot disk. It made no mention of recognizing the second processor and the box has 1 Gb of RAM, which requires a kernel toggle -- I have no idea if it actually did. It also defaults to NOT installing the necessary Xine plugin to play CSS-encrypted DVDs. You've gotta track that down yourself.
However, on the single-processor Athlon, w/768 Mb of RAM and an IDE HD and a normal floppy, it worked fine. Install went smoothe and everything was recognized. It was very similar to Windows, which is the point -- keep the mental transition to a minimum.
Personally, I don't like the wallpaper. I found it to be too garish and distracting. However, that is easily enough fixed. I also don't like the theme that fakes transparency (liquid?), as it chews up too much CPU time and seems to make the machine a little sluggish. Again, easy enough to fix.
Recommendations: Kit, while functional, is a bit spartan for most Windows people's IM. A nice Jabber client or the actual Netscape AIM client would be much better. Install DeCSS by default and the plugin for Xine to play encrypted DVDs. It played everything else, though -- DivX, MPEG, OGG, MP3, etc.
KOffice is nice, if you don't need major compatibility with MS Office. Since they left out Konqueror and used Mozilla, I'd suggest replacing KOffice with OpenOffice.
Finally, work a deal with the Crossover people and include the Crossover plugin installed and a wizard to install Quicktime and Shockwave.
It is actually a real good distro for people who know little to nothing about PCs. For power users, it is something to avoid.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I use IceWM, but it depends way too much on config files to be user-friendly. The different config tools that you can get for IceWM look nice (I guess, havn't used them) but it would be really nice if I could just right-click on things to get at settings... or at least if IceWM had a GNOME/KDE control-panel settings applet.
Also, icewm's menu has the same problem that most root menus have: too much crap in weird places, partly because of GNOME or KDE menus being integrated in there. I guess somebody making a distribution would be able to streamline it better than I could.
'Course none of this really bothers *me*, but I wouldn't put it in front of anybody who was used to Windows.
P.S I still don't see why you would want to do this.
Here's a case in point: whilst working in a physics laboratory, I set up machines with 128 MB RAM with two 128 MB swap partitions--this was the standard I'd been taught, and it had never failed me. One of the computers kept hanging whenever a user ran one of his simulation programs. It quickly became obvious that he needed far more memory & swap space. Rather than reformatting (since I was out of partition space), I created a new 512 MB swap file, and that solved his problem (course, buying extra RAM later on also helped, but in a university setting a swapfile is much easier to create than RAM is to buy).
And it's even conveniently right there in the GNOME "System" menu! Just click and you get a new login screen.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.