Libranet 2.8 Review

TheMadPenguin writes "When I heard about Libranet 2.8 containing KDE 3.1 and kernel 2.4.20 in our forums, I just about fell out of the chair I was sitting in. As you all probably already know, Libranet is a Debian-based distro aimed toward the desktop user. Until now, I had never heard of a Debian release with all the newest goodies, but my world was about to get turned upside down. Read the full review with screenshots at MadPenguin.org."

Comments

JPEGs for font rendering examples?

[PhilHibbs]

They're using JPEGs to show font rendering! LOL!

Re:JPEGs for font rendering examples?

[FyRE666]

Not only that, but the Anti-aliasing examples look a bit suspicious to me.

I recently installed KDE 3.1 onto my Gentoo machine (it's usually a headless box, but I was curious to see the improvements in KDE). The sans-serif fonts were all very nice, but bring up Slashdot with the "Times" font and it looked horrific! I'm not saying that /. is the last word in beautiful Web design, but the anti-aliasing actually made it look worse. I might try throwing some Windows fonts onto the box to see if it's better at some point...

Can we stop this Debian myth now please..

[Anonymous Coward]

If you wan't the latest and greatest (!) then you'd simply use the Sid branch of Debian. Sure probably lots of things don't work but oh you'd have the latest.

If you are more sane then you can simply track the Unstable branch. This is a good tradeoff for people who don't like the relatively old packages found in Stable.

In other words you have a choice. You can also use numerous unoffical apt-get sources for such stuff.

Stop thsi Debian myth now.

Re:Can we stop this Debian myth now please..

[rembo]

Well, talking about stopping myths...

SID is the same as unstable, the developement branch.

Testing which I think you confused with unstable is now sarge. It will be the next stable when it is finnished. Packages from unstable flow to testing when there are no dependency problems and critical bugs

Current stable is woody. Woody only gets security updates from debian. This is to ensure that a running system will not break because of an upgrade of software. But there are many backports available of newer software on www.apt-get.org

Re:I wish I knew where I could find the MS fonts

[mickwd]

http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/

Knoppix

[Effugas]

While LibraNet is certainly impressive, I must mention that Knoppix provides the "cutting edge" traits mentioned -- KDE 3.1, Linux-2.4.20-xfs, etc. -- with the bonus of the most mature automatic hardware detection algorithms in the x86 space.

And once you run knx-hdinstall, apt-get is more than happy to function normally.

Knoppix is very fun to see spread through schools; it's exponential growth at its finest :-)

Yours Truly,

Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com

Re:At last, an up to date Debian

[Munra]

Debian does not force you to take this approach; you choose to.

If you wan't bleeding edge, use unstable/testing.

Yes -- Debian stable has programs that are (in some cases) slightly out of date, and do not have the features of newest releases. The clue is in the name, though; they have been rigourously tested for stability. If you want to sacrifice stability (aimed more at servers) for features (aimed more at desktops), use unstable/testing. You don't even have to have all programs as unstable/testing -- you can choose which ones to pin where.

When will people stop criticising Debian for being conservative when it isn't; Debian does have bleeding edge versions of most of the packages available, in the unstable/testing repositories. You *just* have to tell it to use them.

Now I'll have my coffee and moan less ;)

Manta

Re:What good is this distro?

[Looke]

It didn't fail because of 533 MHz and 128 MB RAM, it failed because of some incompatible hardware. Thats's a big difference, and claiming that Libranet draws too much resources is simply ridiculous.

Be careful with your quoting as well. Your mix of article quotes and personal comments is really misleading.

Re:Just wondering....

[mattrix2k]

No, there is NO obligation under the GPL for a distro maker to host ISOs at their expensive for the benefit of freeloaders like yourself. "Free software rulez yeah! Gimme the source! What, I have to pay for it? I'll stick to my pirate copy of Wind0ze thanks."

Re:Domain name?

[FrostedWheat]

The Linux community aren't exactly top of the pops in the corporate world, much in fact due to their rather immature birdlike mascot.

Immature? Rubbish. It reflects what the linux developers are doing perfectly. Not trying to be corporate, not trying to be 'top of the pops'. Simply making cool stuff because they enjoy doing it. It's upto the various distros to present that processional 'corporate' face. And they are doing it just fine thank you very much. :)

Considering this, and the recent problems Linux have had with corporate penetration, I can't see why domain names like Mad Penguin are chosen.

Maybe because the owner of the domain liked the name? *shrug*

The only effect is to drive away potential serious customers.

Again, this is a distro specific thing. Redhat and Debian both are very well presented. Presentation is not the problem, not by a long shot.

Re:Domain name?

[LMCBoy]

You seem to be suffering from the misconception that Linux is some kind of business "product" which must be "marketed" to "customers". Please disabuse yourself of this notion. Linus chose the fat penguin logo because it was cute and funny. He doesn't give a dang if it makes the project seem less "professional", and neither do most of the rest of us penguinistas.

If some company (redhat, lindows, libranet, suse) wants to package and sell the work of the community to their customers, then the marketing of Linux is their problem; don't try to foist it off on us, because we could not care less.

In short, Linux is not a business! So don't expect us to behave like businesspeople.