Slashdot Mirror
Lunar Linux 1.0 Released
Ivan writes "Lunar Linux 1.0 was released today. It's a source based distribution, with gcc 3.2 and the latest versions of packages such as Mozilla 1.1, OpenOffice.org 1.0.1 and GNOME 2 and KDE 3. From the about page on their website: 'In the beginning Lunar was a fork of Sorcerer GNU Linux (SGL). The fork occurred in late January to early February of 2002 and was originally made up of a small group of people who wanted to collaboratively develop and extend the Sorcerer technology.' Download the ISOs here."
These guys are even better than Red Hat. Their mirrors are kickin and their announcement isn't even Slashdotted, yet. ;^)
(Apologies to Jeff K.)
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
For those that didn't catch the link before it became slashdotted, here it is:
Name Last modified Size Description
Parent Directory 01-Oct-2002 09:19 -
ChangeLog.lunar 02-Oct-2002 20:01 1k
ChangeLog.moonbase 30-Sep-2002 22:50 13k
ChangeLog.theedge 02-Oct-2002 20:02 8k
ISO.Changelog 01-Oct-2002 09:37 8k
art/ 18-Aug-2002 20:05 -
distrowatch.txt 02-Oct-2002 19:32 2k
init/ 31-Mar-2002 19:14 -
lunar-20021001.iso.bz2 01-Oct-2002 09:30 89.3M
lunar-20021001.iso.md5 01-Oct-2002 09:19 1k
lunar.lsm 01-Sep-2002 20:57 1k
lunar.tar.bz2 02-Oct-2002 20:01 104k
lunar.tar.bz2.1 02-Oct-2002 19:01 104k
mirrors/ 26-Aug-2002 13:57 -
moonbase.tar.bz2 02-Oct-2002 20:02 552k
moonbase.tar.bz2.1 02-Oct-2002 19:02 552k
old/ 01-Oct-2002 06:52 -
testing/ 01-Oct-2002 09:30 -
theedge.tar.bz2 02-Oct-2002 20:02 106k
theedge.tar.bz2.1 02-Oct-2002 19:02 106k
Will Lunar Linux run on Sun hardware ?
This is desperately needed: YAFLD.
Now there are the source distro wars.
Anyway, I thought this was a humourous comment under the announcement on the Lunar site that indicates just how far out of the mainstream source distro geeks are:
Oh! I get it. First I burn the ISO and then boot and that gets to the MOTD. Then it points me to a man page which details lots of little command line programs that I use to install. That's gotta be the ultimate in user friendly!
Sorry, but it just made me laugh out loud when I read how easy [sic] it was. For what it's worth, I struggled through several Gentoo installs and, except at work where we have system administered by someone else, I use Gentoo and love it. Even "converted" one of my friends recently. I know what it's like to have to do obscure things, but sometimes it takes a comment like the above to realize just how "deep" I've fallen into the world of Linux geekdom.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
I'm glad to see some new innovation in Linux distibutions. Lunar Linux is completely unlike those other Linux distributions. It includes innovative new software that other Linux distributions do have, such as Mozilla, GNOME, KDE, gcc, and the Linux kernel.
cpeterso
I tend to disagree with your line of thinking. For a big company like Microsoft, or even a smaller one like RedHat, then some customers might expect this. But, you need to think about the smaller companies.
If I have a linux distrobution, and I want to have a decent webserver with great uptime, the cheapest solution is probably not to host my own servers. One can select between a myriad of online hosts that already have the generators, UPS, backup systems, redundancy, and a fat pipe. So, clearly, if they are not running their own distro to serve web pages, I don't think it's a good deal.
While it may be expected of large companies to 'prove themselves', in a situation like this it would likely just cost more and deter from actually improving the distro and paying the workers.
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
Old Command: rm -rf /
New Command: fakelunarlanding
Old Term: Kernel Panic
New Term: apollo13
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Does this mean that the guy from last week will now have 38 Operating Systems on 1 PC?
Since the lunar-linux site is probably bogged down at the moment, you can probably grab an ISO from:
DistroWatch
or
LinuxISO.org
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
Got burned by Sorcerer Linux before this offshoot started. Hope they improved on the system, but I'm a gentoo user now, and don't really see what could be missing...
If they are compiling in Ramfs still (Like Sorcerer used too), it is a horrible waste, the benefits are negligible compared to the pains in the ass it can cause and the limitations it must have to deal with under the circumstances. I thought RamFS would be cool, but there is not much of a difference on an operation the user rarely performs and one that isn't baby-sat. If you are already on the install-from-source mindset, you have given up the speed of, say, binary apt installs to gain what is needed in terms of speed at runtime (and customization).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Here's good stuff about source based distributions, and comparisons to binary based. Basicly, if you install your operating system "once" and use it for say atleast 12 months, the cycles used during setup are not "wasted" - the bonus you get from it during the lifetime of your setup is significant.
I have to disagree with you. I should preface this post by saying I am a Gentoo user.
:)
Here are two (of I'm sure many more reasons)
If you look at the ISOs that you get from Red Hat for example, they are for i386 arhcitectures. This is a least common denominator approach. It will run on any 386 or better processor. Those with a P4 will not get to utilize P4 specific enhancements.
The other reason I like a source based distro like Gentoo is that I can install only those apps that I want and configure and compile in the options I want. I don't have to rely on the makers of a bloated distribution to make those choices for me. They are shooting to please the majority of people with a single release.
The full distributions like Red Hat and Mandrake are quick and easy installs and great for probably the majority of users BUT if you want to try a fully and easily customizable and optimized distro, try a source based one.
Plus emerge rocks
Joe
My question though is why begrudge someone the pleasure of working with a tool that they enjoy? I tried gentoo and I liked it. I still use suse but using gentoo made me understand a lot more about my system.
The crux of your argument is that source distros don't realize enough speed benefit to make it worth your while. Be that as it may, people use them for reasons other than speed: increased understanding, sheer boredom, quite granular customization, and a desire to be closer to the internals of their operating system. You may not care about these things either, but why be upset that others do.
It harms you in no way that people use source distros. You should be happy that people are enjoying free software and possible learning a lot.
-A
"The plural of anecdote is not data." -- Roger Brinner
This is a good thing. Without so many different flavors of Linux, people wouldnt be able to choose a distro closer to their personal preference. This is what makes Linux stronger than Windows, that and stability, security, free applications, ect. So im sure an all source version will fill someones niche. And if their careful, they wont even have to call it GNU/Linux....
The latest rage is to say that compiling your stuff is pointless, because the binaries are not that much faster than generic binaries.
Well, I really don't know, but I'm running Gentoo anyways... why?
Perhaps is that I like tinkering, and perhaps it's that I have too much spare time (although only some packages are time consuming, namely Mozilla and OpenOffice), but I find some advantages to source based distros.
After all, it's much easier for developers to provide packages for them. No need to support a zillion architectures. No need to choose ./configure settings (Gentoo's USE works very well). You can also make cvs packages available (that fetch the latest cvs version and compile it).
Even though I still consider Debian's apt (and esp. the quality of packages) superior to Gentoo (just a personal oppinion), Gentoo usually provides more modern stuff (for the reasons outlined before), but I have chosen to give Gentoo some time.
Certainly, the state of Linux distros is getting pretty interesting. Debian and Gentoo have worked perfectly for me. I keep hearing good things about SuSE and Redhat's newest releases.
Perhaps some of the myths about Linux are beginning to fall?
Speaking as a Gentoo/PPC user, there is definite benefit in source based distributions.
The 'two major CPU manufacurers' are not the only ones that matter, for one. They hardly make a difference between each other. There is Sparc, Mips, PPC, Alpha, and other architectures. Mostly source based distributions who don't rely on paying to support what they allow can more easily adapt to many different platforms, not just 'AMD or Intel'.
Secondly, it isn't merely about getting things installed on your system or squeezing every last optimization in, it is about installing it the way you want it. Binary packages are compiled with certain #defines and linked against libraries of other packages which you may not care about. For example, mozilla compiled against gtk or gtk2. xchat with or without Gnome support, gaim with or without gnome support. Freetype with or without the patent infringing bytecode interpreter. With binary distributions, they are forced to make decisions about what the best way to proceed is, and most often the answer is to compile with support for everything and require everything as a prerequisite, even if the source only optionally supports another piece of software. With Gentoo, I define USE flags and emerge, and it figures out dependencies on the fly and passes the right options to configure and applies the right patches to get the featureset I want, with as little of the optional cruft as possible.
Related to the previous point, the performance boost is not as negligible as you would think. First off, the compiler optimizations and omitting debug code (useful for support and development, so often included) do help significantly on their own. Add to this that packages aren't carrying baggage from other unwanted and unused packages unnecessarily. This also saves on drive space and, more importantly, memory.
Sure, installing goes from being measured in minutes/hours to hours/days depending on what you need, but the process requires little intervention and once started, you can walk away and do other things. The time spent running these compiles is the price to pay for very good benefits.
Of course, your post has troll written all over it, but it in part reflects some real concerns people have about source based distributions, so I think it is worthy of a response..
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Mainly because Lunar Linux and Sorcerer GNU/Linux aren't quite as difficult as Gentoo. More of the installation chores are automated. For example, while Gentoo expects the user to manually chroot and copy the system over from the CD to the root partition, Lunar and Sorcerer do this automatically. Also, optimisation is broken down into a series of easy-to-grasp choices (the optimisation setting for really fucking fast code is labelled clearly) rather than expecting the user to muck around with CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS.
Best of all, IMHO, it's feasible (though almost time-consuming as installing software through FreeBSD's ports system) to install Lunar on a machine using a dialup. As far as difficulty is concerned, I'd class Lunar between Slackware and Gentoo. Hope this helps a bit.
--
St. Matthew, Patron Saint of Cheeky Programmers
With almost any binary based distributions (except debian maybe), you have to wait for the next release to get updated software. For example, to update gnome under redhat 7.0 to the latest version you need to compile the thing yourself, breaking several other software in the process. Not to mention breaking your package management, forcing you to use --nodeps and/or --force almost every time using RPM. Later, after it is done, you upgrade to redhat 8.0, suddenly everything is not working, forcing you to reinstall from scratch.
On the contrary, under gentoo you can have the latest and greatest software without waiting for the next version. Everything just works and handled by package management. The only time you need to compile things without emerge is when the software you want is not yet available in gentoo portage.
If you look at the ISOs that you get from Red Hat for example, they are for i386 arhcitectures. This is a least common denominator approach. It will run on any 386 or better processor. Those with a P4 will not get to utilize P4 specific enhancements.
;-)
I keep hearing about these enhancements, etc, from Gentoo people, but are there any NUMBERS to back this up? Are there any tools have shown a definite decrease in application latency (especially in X) ? Will my kernel compile faster? Will Vorbis encode noticably quicker? WHERE'S THE BEEF??!?
The Free desktop that Just Works
In case this wasn't posted yet, there are two major forks from Sorceror: Lunar (which I believe kept the main contributor of Sorceror), and SourceMage. SourceMage (who keep the nerdy witchcraft shtick happening) is approaching 1.0, which I believe is due for a Halloween release.
Link: http://www.sourcemage.org/
Sorceror was a cult-hit when it first hit the attention of Slashdot (late last year?). Many people raved about it, so I'm happy to see that both prongs on the fork are following the same tradition.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker