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Debian Desktop Subproject Launched
MrOutlander writes "The Debian Project is now officially addressing its usability on the desktop with the launch of the Debian Desktop subproject. Great to see usability being recognized as a very important part of debian. Other than the sometimes daunting install process, Debian is one of the best linux distributions."
In other news:
-Lemonade is one of the best beverages
-Pink is the best color
-Pi is the best number
Aqua Human Interface Guidelines and Mac OS 8 Human Interface Guidelines. Don't reinvent the wheel, perfect it.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
The Gnome Usability Report:
t /participant_mix.html
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/ut1_repor
I read this about a year ago. It does an *excellent* job of pointing out many of the inconsistencies and gotchas in any given linux desktop situation.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Debian's installer isn't any more difficult than any other distribution, IMHO. Why do people freeze up as soon as they see a text-based installer?
We will try to ensure that software is configured for the most common desktop use. For instance, the regular user account added by default during installation should have permission to play audio and video, print, and manage the system through sudo.
I think giving the root privileges to the user using sudo is a security risk. It will be very easy to wreak a havoc on the system, once you break into the user account.
It's fantastic that there is so much happening in the Linux desktop area at the moment. But a plea to you guys -- can we have some co-ordination and co-operation please? Everyone seems to be doing their own thing in many areas. Remember, your competitioin is Microsoft, they have 95% of the desktop market (or there abouts). You should be teaming together to fight them, not amongst each other.
The OSS community can make a desktop that is better than XP. In fact, all of the bits of the puzzle are already there, it's just that they are in different distributions! (Xandros, SUSE, RedHat, Lindows, Debian...)
When Linux has a reasonable foothold in the desktop market, then go ahead, fight away. But until that day, please share and co-operate. For motivation, imagine Bill Gates giggling to himself and muttering "what a bunch of losers". Works for me.
No, it's because you said "yes" when it asked if it should replace it, or you used some --always-say-yes flag or "yes | apt-get upgrade" or something like that...
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
a processor architecture update would be good too. Currently, all Debian packages are compiled for use on a 386. I can't think of ANYONE who still uses a 386 for ANYTHING. So why do we need to continue supporting it?
At the least, I'd like to see the Debian compiles updated to i586. (That's the equivalent of a Pentium 1, in non-geek speak.) There are still quite a few of those in use.
Updating the targetted processor architecture would give a significant performance boost to Debian. I mean seriously, nobody is going to run KDE or Gnome on a 386 -- it'd take DAYS just to start a program.
It might also be possible to support multiple processor architectures; eg during installation you get a list of i386, i486, i586, and i686 (386, 486, Pentium 1, More Recent Stuff). Then apt would fetch the appropriate package flavor. Of course, this would require non-trivial amounts of storage space, not to mention all the time needed to re-compile everything.
This is exactly what is missing if Linux is going to make it to the mainstream desktop.
As soon as Linux is recognized as a userfriendly, easy-to-use desktop with lots of free (as in beer) software by the average user Windows will get into real problems. Such an opening would generate a *huge* increase in the number of users and thus in the interest in supporting Linux from different companies.
Two points to avoid flaming: 1) I know that Linux is only the kernel, simply sed 's/Linux/Gnu\\Linux/' and be happy, 2) "as in beer" is how the average user will see it, my mother don't care for open source, she wants to use it as a tool!
When it comes to Debian it is not just a choice of distro, it is a choice of distro built on good principles as well as on good architecture.
The truth is however that each distro exist to offer you even more customizibilty. You have distros like Slack/Gentoo that many like because they don't include many unnecessary packages and the distro offers you much configurability. Many don't like these distros however because they don't have the time to compile(Gentoo)/configure/install everything the good-old-way or that they just want a distro that is a tad more user-friendly. For those you RedHat/Suse and Mandrake that are distros that are based on a binary package system (Gentoo has ports which downloads the source and compiles it). Each of these have their own "touch" as well.
Mandrake offers many patches/programs to make life easier, so Mandrake is a very popular choice for people that are new to Linux.
RedHat doesn't offer as much as Mandrake in the newbie area, and are a bit more strict on what goes into their kernel and distro. So imo RedHat isn't quite as user-friendly as Mandrake.
SuSe I don't know much about, I know that tthey have a configuration utility that has gotten a lot of positive feedback (YaST isn't it?).
So the choice of distro is just a part of the customization. Part of running Linux is choosing the distro that is right for you.
Shouldn't Debian focus on trying to stay up to date on core components instead? We all know that some critical packages are way out of date:
-XFree, 4.2 just appeared in unstable
-KDE 3
-Mozilla 1.1
And it's even worse for people using woody without 'proposed-updates' package repository!
The 'testing' distribution is a step in the right direction, but there's a lot more to do that just to focus on Desktop, IMHO.
have you been defaced today?
Because they all target a different audience. It is impossible to have 1 distro that fits all.
Let's look at the following targets: server, corporate desktop, home desktop and embedded.
Server: customizability and security is a Good Thing(tm). You don't need GUI tools, they only make the server less stable. You need to have server software installed.
Corporate desktop: you need GUIs. You don't want server software, but office software. Security is important.
This target conflicts with the server target.
Home desktop: *customizability and security* are not important. The home user simply doesn't care and is lazy. He doesn't want to customize everything, and doesn't want to enter a password to install software.
This conflicts with both server and corporate desktop.
Embedded: you want to have as less stuff as possible because disk space and memory are limited. This conflicts with all of the above.
You see? Totally different targets with totally different needs. And this is just an example, the real world is much, MUCH more complicated. Add a graphical installer and you'll piss off the old school power users or users with old hardware. Don't add a graphical installer and you'll piss of the home user. Add an option and you'll confuse the hell out of newbies. Etc. etc.
You can't have one single distro that fits them all, the situations are too different.
http://usability.kde.org/
Slightly off-topic, but bear with me: they mention using Ximian Setup Tools, but all mention of this project appears to have dissappeared from Ximian's website. Does anyone know what's happened to it? Are the tools orphaned, abandoned, or just moved (and hidden somewhere)? They were looking very promising, and in terms of achieving what this Debian desktop project is trying to, they seem to fit the bill very well...
Anyone...?
backup your /etc
Check out any recent post from Branden Robinson on debian-devel, most of them cover this, this one for example.
Michael
One thing I hope that they will do is have better integrated menus for GNOME and KDE programs. I ran KDE in Debian and always hated that by default, there was a "Debian" submenu for non-KDE programs. Ditto under GNOME. Programs ought to be grouped by task, not by desktop.
:Peter
The article says "there are only two classes of users: the novice, and the expert"
How about all those novices who think they're experts?
However, we dont need all distros to reach there. Thats the beauty of OSS, chose what you like. So currently we have mandrake, redhat approaching the novice user, we have debian for the masters. But requiring some aptitude is actually a good thing. It gives a real novice a great kick to graduate to slightly expirience. The proof is in haloween docs, where the M$ guy says "It was fun, even addictive" . Making ppp work by giving a noauth option may seem rudimentry to a slashdot crowd, but to someone totally unaware of unix world fixing such a problem will provide a great ego kick. That I did it feeling.
So IMHO, the desktops should require some expertise, albeit little, but lots of documentation. Think this way, what would a novice choose, some illegal exception at blah blah blah and then crash, or neat messages telling exactly what went wrong.Look in the automobile world, nowdays cars require expertise with so many gadgets, but the current generation goes for it, coz it kind of gives them with geekiness. Dont forget that a person who can program his HI-FI audio has an aptitude for *tinkering*. Its just the presentation. Give the user the power, make his/her learning curve an enlightling experience.
Believe me, it will work, its the right mantra
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
In any case, the "gnome" metapackage only suggests "gnome-office", it does not depend on it.
Debian will not even suggest you install gnome-office if you just install sawfish.
Get your terminology straight.
I totally agree, but only to a point. I think there should be a standard on what a Linux core system is. And that "core" system should be part of every Linux distro. So what's the "core", I'd make it as simple as possible. It should be a simple filesystem structure, standard set of drivers, and the very minimal set of system commands (something less then 20 commands and perferribly NOT anything from FSF). The "core" probably wouldn't be anything more that say 5Mb. Then everything else, like the GNU utilities, GCC, XFree, ... would all be addons. This would be very analogous to the UNIX days with the BSD distro addon. When you think about it, isn't that what Linux is today? And besides, then we could end that whole dumbass Linux vs Linux/GNU naming scheme that RMS and his FSF buddies cry about. Linux would then be LINUX and GNU will then be what is really is....just a bunch of addon utilities. That to me is the cleanist approach to standardising Linux.
Well there are a lot of experts who use Windows. So what makes you think it's hard/impossible?
How about ATFM* or FABR**?
(* Ask The Fine Mailing-list)
(** Fill A Bug Report)
For the people saying "There's only one Windows"...
Linux "server" distro: Win 2K Enterprise Server
Linux "corporate" distro: Win 2K Workstation or XP Professional
Linux "home" distro: Win 98/ME or XP Home
Linux "embedded": Win CE
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
In other news, it turns out that there already IS a successful Debian desktop project, code named Lindows.
So what's the "core", I'd make it as simple as possible. It should be a simple filesystem structure, standard set of drivers, and the very minimal set of system commands (something less then 20 commands and perferribly NOT anything from FSF).
I assume you would want things like "ls" to be part of the core. The "ls" on my Linux box is (c) FSF. Are you saying someone should re-write "ls" just so we don't have FSF stuff in this "core" Linux? There's a saying about cutting off your nose to spite your face that seems appropriate here.
Besides, who is going to develop this "core"? It can't be Linus, he's busy enough with the kernel. I suppose we could use the BSD versions of all the basic commands, but if you wanted to run BSD, why didn't you just run BSD?
I agree that the basis of the system should be standardized (that's what LSB is for), but saying it shouldn't be GNU just so you don't have to hear Stallman ranting about GNU/Linux is a bit silly.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
I just successfully installed Debian on my notebook about a week ago. For the most part, my installation experience was uneventful, but one of the first things I was surprised by is the lack of a graphical installer. ( I flashed back to installing Minix on my A500 and my first install of Slackware back in 1995! :)
:S
SO WHAT!?! It installed fine.
Some of my minor complaints include:
Ease of install of Xwindows
X installation has always been a bitch for me irregardless of the distribution Linux or BSD. It seems that it's something that always needs tinkering. I did get this going fairly quick after some help from my BSD admin guru--thank the Gods for buddies!
Ease of install of sound
I still don't have sound working, but I haven't given it the one two punch!
Ease of install of APM support
I probably haven't looked in the right place or good documentation doesn't exist. And I'm lazy?
Up to date install documentation
Let's face it, I think that once most people get their configuration working they don't think about giving back to the community. Something that should definately be reconsidered.
Package Manager selection at end of install
Aggravating. I don't want to sit and select then download and install 200M of software after I get it installed, but I DO want an easy way to get back to package management once I hastily exit out if it. I want my cake and I want to eat it too.
Overall though, my Debian install was a pleasant experience.
If I didn't have ~10 years of XP working with *NIX as a user and ~20 years of XP working with computers I certainly wouldn't know where to begin. That's why I think better documentation is certainly in order.
OVERALL, Debian is everything that I would expect it to be for what I consider to be a non-commercial distribution of Linux.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt. (When catapults are outlawed, only outlaws will
backup your /etc
/etc in case you (or the system) ever screw things up in there.
Since it's likely that no one will mod up the AC stating the near-obvious, I'll second his comment. You should have a regular cron job backing up your
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
I don't claim Apple to be the gods of UI, but don't you think the mistake was putting the scroll bar on the right? Being right handed would only matter if we had to use our hand to scroll. The mouse pointer doesn't get in the way when you're scrolling, and the text IS already on the left. Why not put the scroll bar over there next to it?
I want to wear "mouse gloves" and move windows around my walls that are covered in LCD screens. That's new and exciting.
Too bad you'll have to wait two years after mouse gloves are on the market before there's a Linux driver for them stable enough for the Debian developers to deem it worthy of inclusion into their distro.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
This is exactly what is missing if Linux is going to make it to the mainstream desktop.
As soon as Linux is recognized as a userfriendly, easy-to-use desktop with lots of free (as in beer) software by the average user Windows will get into real problems. Such an opening would generate a *huge* increase in the number of users and thus in the interest in supporting Linux from different companies.
Making Linux easier to install, use, and maintain would be a huge leap forward. However, the VAST majority of end-users do NOT install operating systems. Realize: they can't even install Windows XP, which continues to make installation on x86 easier than previous versions of Windows. How can you expect them to install Linux?
End-users buy computers with OSes pre-installed. That's the key.
"And like that
Doesn't your question give the answer?
Linux isn't actually Linux at all, it's the Linux kernel AND a whole host of tool, utilities, applications. A distribution is a blend of these OS "parts". There isn't actually any real "magic" about a distribution either - if you want you can gather up your own set of these "parts" even add your own custom built ones and create your own unique "Linux". If it turns out well you might even start distributing it (that's why Linux distributions are call that and not versions).
The configuration you talk about is the Kernel itself, it's what's called a Monolithic Kernel (almost all of the Kernels in general use are Monolithic) but in the case of Linux you can build a Kernel that supports only the features you want or need (before you even get into reworking the Kernel - this is just changing the "make"). Linux's Kernel makes some good pragmatic choices in it's design - it doesn't try and be leading edge, it was designed to be a good conventional Kernel, and later effort was put in to make it portable (it owes much to the wide availability of gcc for it's portability).
Of course people use Linux for a wide range of reasons, and different aspects are important to these groups, this means that they blend their distributions together differently. Mostly this works well, and software is highly portable between different distributions. There are areas that are quite different (package handlng is one example) but mostly there are lots of design choices that are pretty standard. Again, just because you've got a Linux distribution from one group or vender doesn't mean you are forced to accept it as is, you can alter it. The is the very good thing about the GPL - no one can deny you the right to change what you have. You can even rebuild the kernel if you want (in the early days you needed to do this, but not the NEED isn't so common - but it can still improve the system by only building in support for what you have and intend to use)
Of course much of these "rights" might be outside the skill set of those new to Linux, and might not seem important - but it does mean that people will be working away with Linux trying to better solve any problem you can think of. It is that explains how Linux has come so far without huge funding. Lots of poeple see the number of different distributions as a weakness, where as it is actually a demonstration that Linux can be what ever you want it to be: the OS of some monster server or the OS that powers a little PDA or set-top box or anything else.
That's also why Linux users are SO passionate about it - Linux can be whatever you make it. Especially if there's enough of you!
Bravo! Aside from wading through 5 million packages to decide which to install, this has been the worst part of installing Debian for me (which I've done on a number of computers because I LOVE how easy it is to keep my system up to date using dselect). In fact, all the prompts may be even worse.
Here are a few ideas for reducing prompts without causing problems:
1) Make a log of all the prompts that WOULD have been shown so that those who want to can go back and see what else they might have customized.
2) Another reason to make a log of the prompts is in case you accidentally okay one of them and then realize you wish you'd read it more carefully. And it would save you the trouble of writing down anything that it suggests you might want to do later.
3) Give people the option of seeing more or less prompts. Some people may want to see them all. Others may want to only see prompts for things that could make their computer stop working if configured wrong. Others may want more than that, but not every grizzly little detail about configuration files they've never looked at and never will look at.
4) If you really want to get zealous, you could add the ability to make a list of packages that you want to see all prompts for (you'd build it over time) so that you can run on minimal prompts for most things, but for packages that seem to get messed up every time you upgrade them because the default isn't right for you, you get all the prompts.
Convert RSS to HTML - integrate webfeeds into your website
The multiple "Desktop" distros are all coming from different mindsets. Lycoris wants to emulate Windows. Lindows.com wants to kind of emulate Windows, but add features from other OSes as well as some new ideas. RedHat is trying to set a standard across environments that seems to piss people off more than help. Suse is pretty original and seems to be the closest to making a "Joe User" Linux distro but they have no market share outside of Europe yet.
It's actually a case of "too many chefs". No one can agree on what a "great" desktop actually is, since a desktop is so many different things to so many people. The amount of flames I usually receive from people on Slashdot about how feature "X" in environment "X" (or even Windows XP) is stupid and pointless illustrates that well. To one person, it's performance that makes for a great desktop. To another, it's applications. Yet another, eye candy. So far, here's a breakdown of what I've seen:
There are the guys who like to run light with TWM and just use X as a way of having multiple terminals visible at once. I'll bet if there was an option to do this without the overhead of X, they would. As I ocassionally would, myself.
Then there are the folks (like me) who love the eye candy and use X with environments like Gnome or KDE, or just go with a window manager like Enlightenment. These people are the obsessive tweakers who constantly poke and prod and try to get their GUI to be as efficient, customized and sweet looking as possible. To them, the eye-candy/themes, easy customizability and responsiveness of the GUI are what make for a great desktop.
Then there are the utilitarians. They believe that a computer is just a tool. There are also subgroups within this group because some of them want to run light (TWM, FVWM, etc...) and others want an easy to use system that resembles Windows or Macintosh depending on their previous platform (KDE).
Those who use KDE tend to just do the trivial tasks like, browsing the web, working with e-mail, writing docs and balancing their checkbook. They are less concerned about looking cool and more interested in "just working". To them, KDE is the ideal desktop.
The FVWM and TWM crowd that go beyond using X for terms, usually have more specialized needs. They don't need a file manager since they tend to do that from the terminal. They don't need a launcher, since they tend to do that from the terminal too. But they want access to a basic GUI for the apps they run that need it: (GIMP, Mozilla, Netscape, etc...).
There are more groups, but I won't continue. The basic problem is that the desktop is something different for every person. I think the ideal would be an environment that can be as spare as TWM with only xterms/gnome-terms/konsoles, as feature filled as a normal GNOME or KDE environment, and as beautiful as Enlightnment. Upon installation of the environment, the user picks "Thin, Moderate, Full, Custom" and gets what they want. If KDE or GNOME could be made to do this easily and on-the-fly, that would be wonderful.
For instance, if a window manager like Sawfish or KWM could tell it was running with the gnome-panel or kicker, it would revert to a TWM mode. In this mode it would minimize apps to icons on the root window and place a simple right click menu (like TWM's) on the desktop to run a basic set of apps (terms specifically). I think the people who want the lightness of TWM, but maybe like more modern looking widgets and their accompanying functions would really appreciate this.
The ability to switch between Thin, Moderate, Full and Custom, on the fly would be great too. A laptop user could just toggle to Full mode when plugged in and toggle to Light (TWM-like) mode when on battery.
Suspendable X session would be nice too... You suspend the X session and go to runlevel 3 to do deep work that needs all the horsepower it can get. Or you suspend and get back to XDM/GDM/KDM and log in as a different user to do other tasks. (Great for a multiuser machine at home or work) Then you resume your X session with all apps running. This would be kind of interdependent on both the environment and X.
Whatever the case, I think the "Desktop Distro" that will win dominance would be the distro that addresses these issues and does it in a simple way for "Joe User" as well as more complex ways for "Joe Power User" and "J03 G33k G0d".
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I assume you would want things like "ls" to be part of the core. The "ls" on my Linux box is (c) FSF. Are you saying someone should re-write "ls" just so we don't have FSF stuff in this "core" Linux? There's a saying about cutting off your nose to spite your face that seems appropriate here.
No, he's just one of a plethora of ungrateful wretches that wishes to obfuscate and denigrate Richard Stallman's rather impressive contribution to the core Linux system (something like 95% of the code that comprises what is traditionally considered the core of a UNIX-like operating system is FSF code), probably because he has a personal dislike for the man, a dislike likely inherited not from personal contact, but from word of mouth and reading the tirades of RMS's detractors.
In other words, he wants to be able to say "see, I shouldn't call it GNU/Linux, since I've stripped out the 95% of the system that was FSF software and cobbled in less-feature-rich BSD versions instead, or did without!" Ignoring, of course, that doing so is, aside from being completely asinine for no real good reason, doesn't reflect the reality for the other 99.9% of the Linux, or if you prefer, GNU/Linux systems that have been deployed.
You are absolutely correct, "silly" is about the kindest way to characterize such nonsense.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
And I can sit on my Mandrake 7.2 box and develop a GTK+ app, and it will run on RedHat 8.0. If for some reason it doesn't run: recompile and viola, it works. Heck, it even compiles on other Unices!
Imagine this if you will.. several student labs, comprising about 80 machines running dualboot Debian/XP. Using Lilo to choose OS is bad. Students don't like a block 320x200 display. GRUB good! GRUB can support 640x480 backgrounds in vga16 mode.
But oh, not the Debian GRUB. The Debian GRUB package is maintained by the same guy who maintains the GNU GRUB distribution.. and he's not porting RedHat/Connectiva's patches to provide the 640x480 background and high res text into the current release, preferring to wait until GRUB 1.0 to include them.
GRUB is at version 0.91, and was first released in.. 1995.
Forgive me for not holding my breath.
Myabe I'm just to too cynical, but X-Windows? Really? I don't care how well the Frame-Buffers work, what they programmed in to bypass all the network layers, X-Windows is never going to cut it in the desktop world.
Why don't these software companies do what their supposed to do and actually program something. If all they are going to do is take a bunch of packages, slap them together, put in a few utilities to make configuring these mammoths easier and put their logo on a cardboard box, Linux will never make it to the desktop.
Come on people, the Linux community has to stop thinking like Sun, W3C and all these other monstrousities that crank out new ideas less frequently than LucasFilm does. They need a revolution of thought that makes customers proud to stand behind their product.
Brian Pontarelli
CEO and founder of Inversoft.com : Invert Your Mind
My terminology is fine. I want to try out the KDE window manager, I dont want to try the rest which makes up the environment. That mean I want the whole desktop environment?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
And how hyprocritical for you to think a rewrite of basic commands to avoid GNU is a bad thing.
I didn't say it would be a bad thing, just that it would be a pointless waste of effort. I'll agree that it was almost as pointless for FSF to rewrite the BSD stuff - but at least they did add in a few features along the way.
I wouldn't doubt it if by the time HURD ever does get developed, the FSF will drop support for Linux like a cheap whore. You don't think that'll happen?....we'll see...
Well, that would require HURD to be finished, and let's just say I'm not holding my breath for that. Keep in mind that the FSF could "drop support" for Linux, but their own license means they can't do jack to stop Linux developers from continuing to run, update, and improve their software.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
In Debian, there is kdebase. It only installs the essentials for KDE. I think it's reasonable to assume that if someone asks for kde, they'd want most of the stuff kde.org offers.
Actually, since I started using Debian again, I've been fairly impressed by the work that goes into just pulling in what you actually need.
Are binaries from 98 or 2K compatible with Windows CE (assuming CE is running on x86 architecture)?
Then again, most embedded Linux solutions, even if they're running on x86, don't use GNU libc because it's too bloated, so they become binary-incompatible with desktop distros. Probably WinCE has a similar incompatibility.
As far as the desktop goes, pretty much any distro will be binary compatible, just like Win 98 to Win XP. The few things that might not be compatible would probably be system utilities that depend on a particular kernel version or such. Most likely utilities on Windows with similar functionality would need upgrading for newer versions as well, since they tie more tightly to the innards of the kernel.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Then read `apt-cache show kdebase`.
One one hand, we have those who want unix. For them, most current linux distributions are okay... the less graphical and messy, the better.
Those are the ones who like stability and control.
Now, those who want an integrated desktop the likes of Windows... the sacrifices required to make that system easy to use for the target audience are the same sacrifices that make us think of windows as unstable and unreliable; standard users with too many rights, automated configuration tools that hide things from us, and possibly break if we tweak what's under the hood too much.
"If you look at the kernel, there is a great deal of uniformity between distributions basically because there is a single, widely accepted head-penguin who is doing an excellent job (Linus). I'm sure that there are very few people who would argue that it would be great if we had dozens of incompatible kern[e]ls. The desktop space however doesn't have a head-penguin and it really shows."
your point, while thought-provoking, proceeds from a false premise: that the various window managers and desktop environments are made only for linux. you imply that there's only one kernel, and many GUIs.
in fact, most of the free unix GUIs generally work in any of several base environments: linux, of course, but also free/open/netBSD, solaris, etc., each of which has a "head penguin" of its own.
with this in mind, it becomes apparent that the more accurate model is that of many kernels and many GUIs, a sort of "choose one from column A and one from column B" paradigm. the user gets to mix-and-match to suit his own tastes and needs, and that, to my mind, is REAL freedom.
if i'm a grammar nazi, you're an illiteracy nazi.
You sound an awful lot like you're trolling, but I'll answer anyway.
Yes.
I see the ranting comes from both sides...I agree I have my dislikes for irrogant cusses like RMS, but that's not to say I don't appreciate his work...and what's with the spamming of BSD?
... you've clearly never done any serious server work with FreeBSD, Solaris, or Linux. Or if you have, and you leave X running on those servers, you should be severely bitchslapped for incompetence.
This must be a troll, and I probably shouldn't answer.
First, please look up waht the word SPAM means (not the meat, the verb and its related noun form). I certainly have never 'spammed' BSD (how can you possibly spam an operating system?), nor have I ever denigrated it in any way. Quite the contrary, the OS is one I quite like.
The fact that the BSD file and system utilities, of which 'ls' is but one, are generally less feature rich than their GNU equivelents is a matter of public record, trivially verifiable by either running both commands and comparing them yourself, reading the man pages for both commands and comparing them, or googling the plethora of archival messages detailing the specifics for you.
This is not necessarilly a bad thing: some people prefer the stripped down ('less bloated') versions of tar, ls, and the like.
As for defining what GNU is, the FSF has already done precisely that. It is rather trivial for you to browse their web page and satisfy your curiosity in that regard yourself, rather than resorting to intellectual laziness and spouting demands on slashdot that have already been met.
As for Linus torvalds defining what 'Linux' means, you'll have to take that up with Linus.
As for 'my' standard, it isn't. It is a matter of public record as to what generally comprises the core of a UNIX-like operating system, and trivial to examine what portion of said tools that have historically comprised a Linux (or GNU/Linux) distribution are products of the GNU project and what percentage were not, as well as to make the exact same comparison today.
Based on that, it has been documented by numerous people, both within and unrelated to the Free Software Foundation, that around 95% of the code for said core system came from the GNU project. As it so happens, nearly 100% of the code is GPLed.
As for GNU/Linux being useless without X
There, that should be enough morsels to sate the troll.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Most of the difference in the flavers above is just in pricing structure and what is enabled or disabled.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Other than the sometimes daunting install process, Debian is one of the best linux distributions.
Excuse me? Debian's install process is the best I've used. I figured it out the *first* time I tried it out, and it installed beautifully, using the network to download only what packages it needed instead of making me download a whole 700 MB's worth of packages most of which I won't use.
Some of you I've heard complaining about how complicated debian is to install and/or use. Maybe you missed this, but debian is not for newbies. It's a great operating system and does just what I want it to, but if I knew nothing about linux, and didn't *want* to dive in and learn, I'd look at a more newbie-friendly distribution.
--
grep "xercist"
Actually, the Debian menu is one of the cool features of Debian.
You can use a menu editor and rearrange your menus as much as you like. But the Debian menu will always be there, and will always have the same things in the same places.
The Debian menu is nice if you misplaced a launcher, or if you are using someone else's highly customized Debian desktop, because you know you can always find things in the same places under the Debian menu.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
LILO can do that too asshat. I'll send you my lilo.conf file for debian that does a 640x480 logo and nice colors and stuff if you don't believe me. STFU and stop spreading FUD.
Neural Nets in Python
often, ok always, it is said that debian is hard to use but the package management is solid as ft knox.
well, I'd rather have a solid package management (PM) tool than a simple gui for everything. but now that I've got the solid PM sure go for the solid gui or solid config tools.
I think debian has it right in hitting the important bits first and getting it right before moving on to somthing else. they don't do it half assed.
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but if they're going to be jumping on this 'desktop usability' fad then maybe I'll just stick with my stripped down RH 8.0 laptop install.
Remember Lexington Green!
It's perfectly logical, as long as your favorite language isn't semetic. In English and most languages, you write from top to bottom and from left to right. Thus in general, for any random window full of content, most of the stuff will be towards the upper left. So your mouse is normally going to be in that area, and controls will be easier to access if they're above or to the left of the window. That's why we have menus and toolbars on top of windows, and why its argued that scrollbars should be to the left.
Force of history has moved scrollbars to the right side, though, because other motivations trumped speed of access. Maybe because having more space between scrollbars and content looks less cluttered. Maybe because menus & buttons already owned the top/left edges of the window, so scrollbars got pushed to the bottom/right. Whatever the reason, it was a mistake. Vertical scrolling is important enough that it should be on the more accessible left.
This problem is particularly annoying if you're using one of the now-common tiled tree|details views, like found in Microsoft Explorer(tm), Microsoft VisualStudio(tm), or Konqueror (some modes).
In the case of VisualStudio, you'll have a list of files on the left, and the contents of the currently selected file on the right. But if you're browsing around, you often want to open up a file and start scrolling up and down within it. But to reach the rightside scroll bar, you have to pass all the way over the content before you can scroll. A leftside bar would be much more convenient (of course, people with mouse wheels can just use that instead- but if you're gonna do that, you may as well remove the whole scrollbar)
Honest, I'm looking for an answer to this question.
I have a good deal of experience in Linux and software engineering (especially C, C++, Java, and Python). The sentiment I hear on Slashdot is that among the Linux distributions, I should use Debian, Slackware, or some other similar distribution that's "very stable" and "developer friendly".
But I don't understand why. I've learned how to do just about everything I need in Linux regardless of distribution. I don't see why one distribution should be more "stable" than another; what matters is the stability of the software itself. If there's a buffer overflow in the kernel, all distributions are affected.
So what I look for in a distribution is ease of installation and a breadth of precompiled software. In the words of MrOutlander, "Other than the sometimes daunting install process, Debian is one of the best linux distributions." To me, this seems contradictory. If it's hard to install, what gives Debian the edge that earns it the label "one of the best"? Other distributions have all the same software, and often more recent versions.
Mandrake's rpmdrake (graphical) and urpmi (text mode) utilities beat everything I've seen, especially "apt-get". (The only hurdle is getting your urpmi.cfg right.) Because Mandrake is the only distribution I know of that supplies these utilities, I choose Mandrake.
So I'm asking, sincerely, in what way is Debian superior to Mandrake?
Of course there is no such thing as a "best distro" but this Desktop Debian will bring the best of both worlds. Sure, Debian's stable branch may be a bit outdated but it's stable, and that's one of the main things Linux should be advertised as an alternative to Windows. I'm sorry, but when programs in KDE start crashing, it makes Linux look bad. I know KDE crashing doesn't crash Linux but end users will still see this as instability in Linux.
Also Debian offers easy maintaining and upgrading, all was really lacking was ease-of-use for desktop users and newbies. If this "Desktop Debian" becomes a success I see it as a great step forward for Linux on the Desktop. Mandrake has made some great steps forward with things like universal menus, and easy configuration tools, we just need that and some stability without all the bloat. All in all, I still have faith that Linux will be a success on the desktop.
Our physics department runs three versions of windows. Our library runs two versions of windows. The intersection is null. So Without leaving my dorm room I can see two buildings that have 5 versions of windows in production use. Win 3.1, Win 98SE, NT4, W2K, XP.
Useless w/o XFree? Now you totally lose me. I did *all* of numerical analysis II from Screen running Emacs running Octave.
I can't imagine not having a compiler in my base system. I even run Emacs on my windows partion. What sort of app.s do you run? Have you ever tried MC for a file manager?
Part of the idea was that the whole free software community would use a single styleguide. At least, that was what it sounded like. Personally, I'd like more customization on keybinding.
On the other hand, whats with all the Mac people attacking this thread?
Interesting though that linus used GNU tools...then GPLed his kernel, don't you think?
Given about a year of off and on fighting and tinkering with Debian to provide a comfortable working environment for me. All I have to say is:
YES!
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
Free download, too!
Wicked! I was vexed that I couldn't try it for free a few months ago (when a local user group member told me it existed) and gave up right there.
If the demo version doesn't make me self sufficient I may end up buying it now.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
So when will this thing be ready?
One other huge complaint about Debian is it's lack of timeliness. Updating versions every couple of years is not novice-friendly.
And stow the complaints about the up-to-date-ness of testing and unstable. This initiative is supposed to simplify things.
So with these things in mind, I'm expecting to see this desktop Debian released in 2005, by which time noone will really care anymore.
I'd love to be proved wrong, but unless the people working on it release a schedule and try to stick with it, I don't have too much hope.
evanchik.net
By the sound of it, sarge (the next stable version) will have dselect as an optional alternative package and aptitude as the one you get on installation.