Slashdot Mirror
Distros To Try: Slackware 9.0-rc1 And Yoper 1.0
FrosGate writes "Slackware 9.0-rc1 is now available for public consumption over at www.slackware.com. From the site: 'Some of the main components included are the 2.4.20 Linux kernel, KDE 3.1, GNOME 2.2, and XFree86 4.3.0, as well as gcc-3.2.2 and the latest development libraries. Enjoy!' Enjoy is right!" And Scorchen writes "YOPER has released Version 1.0 of their increasingly popular distro. This is the their first stable release." Here's the announcment. The website claims "With Yoper it is possible to import packages from all the other major distros including rpm's, deb's, and tgz packages."
What is with this problem people have with RedHat? The configuration management choices they made may seem unique, but after having managed quite a few systems with it, I really wish they would push harder for wider adoption of those idioms.
/etc/rc.d system. It ties in with pcmcia, networking and wlan-ng quite nicely. I almost wish their SysV style scripts and tools (chkconfig, svc, /etc/init.d/functions, ifcfg-[dev], etc.) were used by more distros. I guess I've been tainted by working with Solaris, but I enjoy that method. It makes adding and removing services easy and clean (no editing files for most stuff). And when I miss slackware (I used to run it) I can always add stuff to the /etc/rc.local and friends if necessary.
I'll admit it, I like RedHat's
I used to hate RPM, but I've come to appreciate it since most everything comes packaged as such, and the tool is rather powerful once you figure out how the hell to use it. Plus, those loonies at PLD give us i686 optimized software in RPM form of all the latest stuff that RedHat hasn't battle tested. This I cannot ignore!
I agree RPM tends to break on the kernel, but then I always install the latest kernel right after an install so I don't think about it. And a new stable kernel version later, a make oldconfig isn't too hard... I've never installed a kernel any other way, what's hard about doing it "manually"?
Don't know much about Debian, except that it has definitely moved on to 2.4 and Xfree 4.x
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Excuse the language, but I want people to notice this. On the "About" page, this is just two things I noticed on their "features" list:
Mozilla from Netscape Ltd.
OpenOffice from SUN.
I have sent them an email demanding that they change these -- Netscape is based on Mozilla and SUN has something called StarOffice, based on OpenOffice. My reason given for the demand was that slashdotters would obviously notice this and make the same demand, flooding their email.
So, come on, Slashdotters, start the email! At the very least we want:
Mozilla from Mozilla.org
OpenOffice from OpenOffice.org
or
Netscape from Netscape Ltd.
StarOffice from SUN.
Of course, considering the level of intelligence here, this appears to be a bunch of clever hackers without the cleverness.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I agree. People label gentoo as newbie-unfriendly because you don't just pop in a CD and stare at pretty pictures for 30 minutes, then reboot straight into X and start browsing the web. A lot of people seem to think that a newbie-friendly linux should be a MS Windows desktop replacement.
Gentoo definitely gives the power user as much control as they need, but it's not as if a newbie has to utilize all of this from the getgo.
Someone who is truly interested in learning a unix-like os but not exactly ready to start configuring and compiling sources is given a break with gentoo.
For anyone not familiar with any kind of ports tree... They've developed a software tree based on (i think it's based on it at least) the BSD ports system. They have a set of autobuild scripts that will download, configure, compile, and install the software for you, automatically, just by using the emerge tool. Ex:
#emerge vi
When it finishes you'll be able to run vi.
Anyhow, even if you are a newbie, give Gentoo a shot.
read more about it here:
http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml
This is my sig. The post is over.
(Sorry, I'm about to flame a Linux distro... Posting anonymously to dodge Karma burns ;) )
. ..
Ok everyone seems to agree that Yoper doesn't really have anything special. It's just slackware + alien... Also I guess I'm not the only one here finding the catchphrase "Your Operating System!" just super cheesy... Also, what's with their product page? A huge PNG image? Doesn't even look good...
I have no problem with people trying to make money selling Linux. But do they have to insist so much on the Yoper(TM) all over the place. The domain is of course a dot-com, the first link on their navigation menu is "Store"... Sorry but half of my BS alarm have already been tripped...
But I get specially annoyed when due credit isn't given. Where is the page that says that their YDesktop is just KDE with the nice "K" replaced by an ugly "Y"? But I'm sure you will easily find the page where you can order "YDesktop Pack 1.0 for only $98"... I mean, their pages hardly mention it's a linux distro. Let's play a game: try to count how many times the word "Linux" appears on their site...
We could go on about how their site should be nominated for www.webpagesthatsuck.com (check the "About" link at the top... that actually takes you to the FAQ... Hello? HTML formatting anyone?), how their "user community" seems to have a count of 3 (oh but wait, these 3 are actully just flaming the distro on its own boards...)...
Ok, so if we agree Yoper kinda sucks...
so the question is, how in h*ll did they make it to #1 on Distrowatch?
*cough*cheaters*cough*faking*chough*hits*cough*