Ubuntu Linux Preview Released

psykelus writes "Ubuntu Linux, a Debian-based distro (formerly flying the flag of 'no-name-yet.com') annouced a preview of their first release (Warty Warthog) earlier today. Ubuntu is the most shiny Debian-based distrobution ever, sporting Gnome 2.8 and an extremely streamlined, mostly automatic installation & configuration process." For a limited time, they're also sending out free disks on request.

Comments

How many CDs

[aklix]

How many CDs is this one. Mandrake alone is 3 and it's not that great. I wish I could get a Distro without asking a friend, Satalite internet is horrid.

Re:How many CDs

[markshuttle]

Single install CD with a full desktop and core server packages, anything else is available off the online archive.

Re:How many CDs

[aklix]

Then again, you wonder how much it comes with. I don't know I guess I have to chose between less programs and waiting.

Re:How many CDs

[rppp01]

Well, Knoppix is on one, and Suse 9.1 has a 'desktop' version that fits on one disk.

You can add packages to both after install, if you need something. No lockdown.

Give it a try!

Re:How many CDs

[Anonymous Coward]

Mark Shuttleworth?

And I thought you were afraid of Plone :)

Re:How many CDs

[BohKnower]

A single CD is really a achievement, but is too much to ask for screenshots???

Hakuna Matada

[grunt107]

I want the 'Merry Muircat' edition. It would be faster and lighter than the warthog.

Re:Hakuna Matada

[Lalo Martins]

http://wiki.ubuntulinux.org/PossibleReleaseNames

Re:Hakuna Matada

[CvD]

It's spelled 'hakuna matata' which means 'no problem' in Swahili.

Re:Hakuna Matada

[1u3hr]

I want the 'Merry Muircat' edition.

It's "Meerkat".

Re:Hakuna Matada

[stratjakt]

It doesn't mean anything, it's just a nonsense word from a Disney cartoon, like Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious.

Chump. Do you believe everything you see in cartoons?

Re:Hakuna Matada

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakuna_matata

Sounds awesome.

[mcc]

But there's been ... like ... nine Debian derivative distributions to come out in the last year.

How do I know which of these will follow through, which of them will continue to be active in a year, and which ones will have maybe two more minor releases then just sort of peter out? How do I know what will happen to this one, in the long run? How do I justify not just taking the safe route and installing vanilla Debian?

I'd love to have a "user friendly" Debian distro to recommend to people so that they aren't stuck using Mandrake, but when three projects aspiring to that title crop up a year... can I consider them safe to recommend? I just don't know what to do.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[ricotest]

Unfortunately the server was slashdotted with 0 comments. Try the Coral link but that is also very slow.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[damiam]

If the distro vanishes, you can always switch to mainline Debian, the packages should be fairly compatible.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[LiquidCoooled]

This is the single biggest problem with open source.

Too much frikkin choice.

Its like standing in a sweet shop staring at the gazillions of jars and having to choose just one.

People are wise to stay close to the trunk versions of software. By all means, fork a project and expand on the features. But always try to consider how to re-merge the fork at a later date. Lets have the BEST of everything in one core repository.

We need to build on what others have done, expand a masterpiece, but lets keep it consistent.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[bogie]

Your telling me. I was plently willing to stick with Stormix long term.

"I'd love to have a "user friendly" Debian distro to recommend to people so that they aren't stuck using Mandrake,"

Hello, Fedora, Suse. Anyway, while I'm no fan of proprietary Linux if your set on using a Debian based distro that's user friendly why aren't you pointing them at Xandros or Lindows? Really easy to use, newbie friendly versions of Debian are in short supply.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[ThogScully]

Well, you can install it, and should they stop development on it, you can put the APT sources for Debian in your sources.list and magically, you'll be running Debian.

The improvements most of these distros make on Debian it seems is that they make it easier to install and configure. But once that's done, one Debian system is just like any other for the most part. It just runs, or at least it should.
-N

Re:Sounds awesome.

[caluml]

How do I justify not just taking the safe route and installing vanilla Debian?

www.gentoo.org. Seriously. And ignore the trolls who don't understand what it's all about.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[bman08]

server works for me. slow but works. downloading the isos as i write this.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Beatbyte]

your "BEST of everything" != my "BEST of everything"

that's the problem. it's a flaw (if you see it as a flaw) that's fundamental to the system.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[The_K4]

Why gentoo?

And yes I am serious. I have been debating Debian or Gentoo for a few weeks and I have yet to make up my mind.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[dzelenka]

Here is the debian list of the debian-based distros:

* Adamantix
* BenHur
* Corel Linux
* Debian JP
* DemoLinux
* Demudi, http://www.demudi.org/, a multimedia distribution.
* Embedded Debian, http://www.emdebian.org/
* ESware Linux
* Euronode, http://euronode.org/
* Floppix, http://floppix.ccai.com/
* Gibraltar
* Impi Linux
* KNOPPIX, http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/
* Libranet, http://www.libranet.com/
* Linspire, http://www.linspire.com/
* Linex
* Linuxin
* Linux-YeS, http://eugene.mplik.ru/doc/lys/
* Linux Router Project, http://www.linuxrouter.org/
* MEPIS, http://www.mepis.org/
* M.N.I.S. Linux, http://www.mnis.fr/
* Morphix
* PingOO, http://www.linuxedu.org/
* Progeny Linux, http://www.progeny.com/
* Prosa, http://www.prosa.it/
* Stonegate
* Stormix Technologies' Storm Linux.
* TelemetryBox, http://telemetrybox.org/
* Xandros. ...and this list doesn't include Ubuntu or UserLinux yet.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[drinkypoo]

Gentoo, regardless of what stage you start from, will teach you more about Linux (and by extension Unix) than debian will, assuming you are not using the GRP. Just doing the install teaches you a bit about setting up a system. In fact I recently had someone tell me that gentoo was the thing that finally led them to building their own Linux-based system from scratch - not a solution I advocate for much of anyone, except when building embedded solutions... but still interesting.

Debian's only advantage is that you can reasonably run your system on binary packages. However, gentoo is always up to date, has nice tools for mangling builds... er I mean managing, I think. And everything is built with your chosen options and support for exactly what you want, with your choice of libraries where applicable. It comes at a penalty in compiling time. You can install very rapidly by using the stage 3 build but if you decide to update to the latest you will be recompiling most of the system anyway, so I don't think there's much point to doing it that way unless you're in a big hurry. If you nice your upgrades then you can be doing other stuff while they build.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[gl4ss]

you'll just revert back to vanilla if they get screwed....

(and some would say that knoppix is as easy as a distro gets)

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Curunir_wolf]

Because maybe you have a modern ATI graphics card? Since you have to recompile and customize your kernel, agp modules, X modules, etc. to get working anyway, you might as well go with Gentoo, which actually is a little easier.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[makohill]

There are a number of distros out there. If you're curious, download an image and try it out.

If you like what you see and you think Ubuntu is promising, join the lists and file bugs when things annoy you and help make sure it stays attractive and gets better.

Downloading the CD is free. Getting the CDs shipped to your door is even free in this case. You'll never know which of the Debian-derivatives is the one you want until you try them. :)

Re:Sounds awesome.

[sp0rk173]

I honestly don't think there is a good reason. Probably the main difference is that debian might be a bit more difficult to tweak to use the latest packages, whereas Gentoo stays pretty up to date, even when you don't have it keyworded (read: stable). For example, I'm expecting Gnome 2.8 to be in portage within a couple days. Infact, packages are getting merged in slowly. The downside to that, of course, is that an early adopter (again, a keyworded, "unstable" portage) might have an unstable system. I've always used keywords and have noticed very little, if any, instability. With gentoo, you just learn more. That's the reason i use it. I like things to play with to expand my knowledge on a subject. Gentoo does that. Gentoo also has a very intelligent system for handling rc scripts, that seems to just work. rc-update is just awesome. The downside to Gentoo (and it's a highly over exagerated downside), is it's compile time. To put things into perspective, I emerge sync (update the portage tree) daily. For the past week i've had maybe one or two small programs that needed to be updated, and the total compilation time was less than 10 minutes each time. Even with the compile time, the system is perfectly usable while the compile is taking place. Now, if you wait a month between each emerge sync && emerge -u world, you're going to be compiling for a LONNGG time. Your key to using Gentoo successfully is keeping it up to date.

What it comes down to isn't whether or not Gentoo or Debian is intrinsically better than the other, rather which of the two suits you better. I've used debian, and I didn't like it. I come from a mainly BSD background, so i appreciated portage, i appreciated a more simplistic rc script setup, and i appreciated the merits of a source-based distro. Gentoo just fits me. I suggest you try both, and come to a conclusion on your own. Otherwise, you'll be tainted by dogmatic views from both sides, trolls, and flames.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its like standing in a sweet shop staring at the gazillions of jars and having to choose just one.

Why do you have to choose just one?

Re:Sounds awesome.

[flossie]

Gentoo, regardless of what stage you start from, will teach you more about Linux (and by extension Unix) than debian will

I think that translates as "Gentoo is more difficult to install", but I could be wrong. I haven't tried it yet. It is the next on my list if I ever decide I've had enough of Debian.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[drinkypoo]

Gentoo is more difficult to install, although I once tried to use that installer-builder for debian and COULD NOT GET IT TO WORK. It took me ages to figure out what I should have been doing, and then I couldn't find a mirror that would deal with me - I'd get a few files from this mirror, a few from that one, with missing files all over the place. It might have just been me, but I've never had that kind of problem with just getting install media together with any other Linux, and I've been using Linux for some time now.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[LiquidCoooled]

Ok.

If I need a (for instance) hammer, I might go to the store, and there will be a few different manufacturers hammers available.

They might individually have small additional bits and creature comforts, but they all do the same job. Any of the hammers will hit any nail into the wood.

However with Linux and open source in general, there are many distributions and projects, each trying to do the job, but each being different enough to be incompatible.

I am not against customisation and fitting software to your specific needs, for an excellent example of this in motion, the plugins for Firefox are perfect. All the developers are working towards a common goal.
We both get what we want without overwhelming normal users with unnecessary parts.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[LiquidCoooled]

Because I don't believe in rebooting a computer to run a specific program.

That blows, its like going back to ZX Spectrums with tapes.

I want to run what I need to run on the box I am on.
I expect it to take a matter of clicking and almost instantly having the software up.

I dont ever want to have to "reboot into windows to play a game". Fuck that! I haven't paid thousands of pounds for computer hardware over the years to regress.

[/rant] Ahhh, I feel better now :)

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Bachus9000]

I wouldn't say Gentoo is "hard" to install. The guide on the Gentoo site is excellent, and even a Linux newbie like me can follow it and get a working system. :) It does take a long time, though...

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just don't know what to do.

The cost of picking the wrong Debian-derivative is minimal. Changing from one kind of Debian to another is easy.

Just download the /etc/apt/sources.list from your new preferred distribution, run "apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade", and bingo- you're changed over.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[AvantLegion]

Reasons I use Gentoo:

1) Gentoo's documentation and forums are second to none. I often look up answers to questions at the Gentoo forums even when using a non-Gentoo Linux distro. Gentoo's install is very involved, but detailed documentation accompanies every step-by-step part of the process.

2) USE flags give me a ton of control on what support is compiled into each package. If I want Freetype to use the patented bytecode that makes AA so purty (to my eyes), I just add a flag to my USE flags and it shall be compiled as so.

3) I've had less dependency problems with Gentoo/Portage than Debian/APT. The last time I used Debian, I had a dependency issue that I could not find help for quickly on Google or mailing lists. I've yet to have an ebuild problem in Gentoo that wasn't quickly explained/fixed by searching the Gentoo forums.

4) Debian makes me feel guilty if I want to use any reasonably up-to-date software. :) I have to use SUPER-UNSTABLE-OMFG-ITS-GONNA-BREAK distro. So many posts around insist "don't use Sid, it'll break! OMFG!!11 use Sarge!". I have to admit that it makes me a bit gun-shy. With Gentoo, if I get a funky "too new" package that's breakable, I can just roll that one back to an older version. Gentoo stable is very up-to-date but not exceedingly so.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you have to recompile and customize your kernel, agp modules, X modules,

So because there are 3 things that you need to recompile, we just may as well rebuild all 9000 other packages on the system while you're at it.

Gentoo would make sense if you got most boring, unimportant packages as binary, and only recompiled those ones where compatibility or speed-bottlenecks demanded it.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Suse, yes.. but Fedora? Redhat can do their own damn beta testing.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a minute! With MicroSloth, we've all complained for years that there was no choice. Now you're whining there's way too many choices of Linux?

You just can't make everyone happy unless you put a beer in their mouths.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[noda132]

4) Debian makes me feel guilty if I want to use any reasonably up-to-date software. :) I have to use SUPER-UNSTABLE-OMFG-ITS-GONNA-BREAK distro. So many posts around insist "don't use Sid, it'll break! OMFG!!11 use Sarge!".

Yes, "stable" in Debian is exactly what you'd expect. It's solid as a rock, but it's as exciting as one, too.

In my experience, Gentoo's "stable" is about on par with Debian's "unstable" branch in terms of stability (i.e., upgrades breaking things, etc). That's not to say that Gentoo is unstable -- simply that Debian "unstable" isn't anything to be afraid of. In the past 6 months I've had one bug appear from a dist-upgrade (the "alt-tab" bug, I think Gentoo had it too).

Re:Sounds awesome.

[BrokenHalo]

Or you could always try Slackware. It's a no-brainer to install, but the whole distribution is geared towards maintainability, so you get to learn at least as much as any Gentoo user, but without so many headaches.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[monomakh]

Libranet kicks major buttocks and is as reliable as any such project can be.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[True Grit]

And ignore the trolls who don't understand what it's all about.

This is a story about a Debian variant, so why have you shown up trying to change the subject? Who is really the troll here? For Pete's sake, this distro isn't even trying to court the same user group that might be interested in Gentoo, so why are you here? Seriously.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Short Circuit]

I don't have an Internet connection at home...I have a system-local Debian archive built from packages copied from jigdo-built CDs.

Is there a Gentoo option for me?

Re:Sounds awesome.

[DarkSarin]

Yes there is::its slower, and not as bleeding edge, but it does work.

The GRP packages are meant for a situation like yours. You just need to pull down GRP snapshots when they become available.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[ahdeoz]

I've seen compiler output long before gentoo existed. Seeing more of it won't teach me anything new. Likewise, I've used symlinks before LFS, so using that won't teach me anything new either.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[FlutterVertigo(gmail]

"Download for a free trial."

Free is free.

What happens after the "free trial"?
(you don't have a vested interest in this critter, do you?)


______________________________________
My Trunk Monkey can beat up your Trunk Monkey.
http://www.suburbanautogroup.com/ford/trunkmonkey. html

Re:Sounds awesome.

[smash]

Unfortunately, you're missing the point.

This is supposed to be an "easy to use" and "works out of the box" distribution.

The people this is aimed at really couldn't give a shit about C flags, proprietry AA font support, or starting from scratch to get a few percent speed increase by stripping out libraries they don't need, etc. They don't want to spend 2 days waiting for everything they need to compile. They just want to print a letter.

Part of this audience is the type of person who rings you up with "i can't print", and you tell them to change their paper size from letter to a4 so their printer doesn't barf (I'm in australia, we use a4...).

The other part of the audience, is people like myself (been messing with Linux since '96), who went through the stage of playing with compiling software, wanking around getting the latest packages to work, etc - and have decided that they just want something to do work on, rather than play with. CPU speed is cheap. If you need every last drop of speed for research projects, etc - you're not in the target audience - feel free to go use Gentoo, Slackware, LFS or whatever...

The O/S is a means to an end - its not the purpose of using a computer, for most people. Most people have tasks they wish to perform (browse the net, print a letter, etc) that do not entail wanking around with compiler flags.

Don't get me wrong, I think Gentoo has a niche, for those who like to play and learn how Linux works. They're not who this distro is aimed at.

smash.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[metamatic]

Try the vanilla Debian beta CD installer. It pretty much solves the "hard to install" problem.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[fazookus]

Um, you forgot SCO. Oh, wait, they're not real Linux, are they?

Faz

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Minna Kirai]

Yes, "stable" in Debian is exactly what you'd expect. It's solid as a rock,

Actually no. I have 6 pieces of hardware that work fine in Fedora, Knoppix, or most kinds of Linux, but that Debian stable can't cope with at all. (Not all bleeding edge stuff, either). And I don't mean simply doesn't recognize- but recognizes, and operates wrongly.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

I realize this was probably supposed to be a joke, but SCO Linux should be forgotten from this list becasue it wasn't based on Debian. At least, I assume it wasn't, because it used RPM for it's packages.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Ruach]

I appreciate your reasons for wanting to use gentoo, but I have been running Debian "Unstable" for the past three years on my desktop PC and have found it much more stable, system wise, than redhat (started on 5.1--talk about unstable! more like unusable) or mandrake. Admittedly, I have not used RH or MK for several years, but it was rough back then.

I can only think of one or two times "Unstable" has actually been borked after an apt-get upgrade YMMV.

That being said, I would never use "unstable" on a server, but I would not use gentoo on a server either!

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Red Alastor]

Fedora isn't a beta-test. Red Hat Enterprise is just... mature (yeah, that's the polite word). Not as much as Woody of course but...

Fedora is more bleeding edge. In theory, it have more bugs but in practice, it is rock solid. Give it a try, works great.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[CoolHnd30]

Why is every Debian thread getting hijacked by Gentoo users ??? Are you jealous ?? I'm getting sick of it..... SICK I SAY....... :)

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

How could you leave out

* Lesbian GNU/Linux

Re:Sounds awesome.

[CAIMLAS]

It doesn't matter which ones stick around, really. They're based off of debian. It will be trivial (provided they don't deviate too much from the Debian Way of doing things, that is) to simply switch over to an official testing or unstable source and keep on functioning.

Or just reinstall with something else; you made a seperate /home partition, right?

Re:Sounds awesome.

[antiMStroll]

I was a Gentoo user from the first release of 1.2 but after a long and arduous desktop install trashed by Reiserf and having no luck getting the latest release to see /dev/hda on my Nforce3 notebook, I looked around. FreeBSD won't boot due to a BIOS fault, Fedora works but it's still Fedora. Debian's Pure64 port has been a revelation. Fast (way faster than XP home on the alternate partition), stable and 14000+ packages in the Alioth Sid repository. I've always shied from Debian because of the incomprehensible install (for a Gentoo user!) but the lastest installer works great. I'm in no hurry to go back.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Roark Meets Dent]

Can you elaborate on why you you feel newbies are "stuck" with Mandrake? That's what I've been using to get acclimatized to Linux and am wondering what you feel I'm missing by not running something Debian-based.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Walles]

Maybe this doesn't agree with what other people think "stable" means, but my impression is that running stable means that once you've got something working it won't break because of package updates.

IMO "Stable" doesn't attempt to guarantee anything beyond that.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[mpiktas]

Fedora and Knoppix are more than 3 years younger than Debian stable. So it is not surprising that some hardware will not work on Debian stable. Actually hardware problems are more related to the version of kernel the distribution is using. Debian stable by default uses kernel 2.4.18, fedora and knoppix uses either 2.6.x or latest from 2.4.x series. With every new kernel version you get new drivers and more hardware is supported. So if you use old kernel it would try to use the exact driver for your hardware, or the nearest equivalent. Sometimes it will work, sometimes it won't. The kind of distribution you use will be irrelevant in this case.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[wellard1981]

Im making the move from Gentoo to Debian, and have found it refreshing. Not having to compile every damn package, I can now get a Desktop OS running in 30 mins.

Admitadly, I do run Gentoo as a web server, to TBH, i've found it easier to lockdown and secure than other dists and it's pretty stable as a server OS.

I did find Gentoo to be okay on the desktop, but it was a nightmare compiling stuff. An average desktop from a stage 1 tarball up took nearly 3 days to complete, even then I found missing components which made the system unstable.

I've been testing Debian out on another machine and it's pretty good, as both a server and desktop machine, so sometime soon once I've figured out how to get my TV card to work in Debian (it kinda works! ;)), i'm switching.

My £0.02p.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[mcubed]

Cool -- I didn't know there was a "Debian list" of Debian derivatives. I've checked out only a small portion of those. My problem with those I have is that they don't maintain 100% compatibility with Debian -- software installed from Debian archives that would work on a vanilla Debian install won't necessarily work on installations of some of these derivatives. Xandros, while a lovely distro in & of itself, was a disappointment in that regard. What I'm hoping to find, at least until Sarge becomes stable, is an "easy install" Debian derivative that does retain compatibility. Libranet seems to be working for me so far, but I've only been trying it out for about a week. It's impressive, and so far I haven't hit any compatibility roadblocks. Ubuntu, from what I can gather, seems to share that aim of 100% compatibility, which is great news to me.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Jesus_666]

Except, of course, for the fact that Slackware ships pre-broken and you have to dig through half of your config files to get it running.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[grokster]

If the distro vanishes, you can always switch to mainline Debian, the packages should be fairly compatible.

Ubuntu Linux will vanish when Mark Shuttleworth runs out of money...

... since he's backing it.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

I once tried to use that installer-builder for debian...

Jigdo? Big mistake. It's a piece of shit that nobody uses. Go for the net release instead - you just download a minimal install CD and it grabs the packages you want to install from the net as and when you need them.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[monomakh]

which part of "This is the full edition of Libranet 2.8.1. Feel free to use it as long as you like on as many machines as you wish." is confusing to you, exactly? and no, I have no vested interest other than that I am a happy user of such.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[drinkypoo]

Well, that was what I thought, but I couldn't find an ISO to install from, minimal or no. This was before knoppix, or at least before I knew of knoppix.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Schreckgestalt]

It's true. Okay, I have to admit I know one or two things about Linux, but the installation walkthrough should be walkthroughable by everyone. Still, I think that there should be something like the Debian Installer for Gentoo... Not everyone has the time to go through the whole thing over and over again (I mean multiple systems, not multiple installations on one computer).

Re:Sounds awesome.

[sp0rk173]

Then use whatever distro you use now, and be happy.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[sp0rk173]

You could use GRP, but it's fairly immature. Stick with debian. In your case, there's no reason to move to Gentoo. The Cost far excedes the Benefit. Unless you really want to mess with stuff just for the sake of messing with stuff, or want to figure out a way to make GRP more useful for more people. But if you just want to use Gentoo, and not try and improve it...it's probably not worth it.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[sp0rk173]

Battling the FUD from Debian users!! The truely jealous ones! After all...they started it.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[sp0rk173]

I agree, but at the same time going through the process of installing gentoo several times has given me pretty valuable troubleshooting skills now. If something ever does break on any linux system, Gentoo's live CD (and probably any of the other linux live CD's out there) can be a life saver...if you know how to use it properly. Gentoo taught me how to use a live cd efficiently to troubleshoot and resolve problems. That's a pretty valuable skill these days.

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Minna Kirai]

Fedora and Knoppix are more than 3 years younger than Debian stable.

But my hardware is 3-9 years older than Debian stable. And the testing/unstable distributions can't deal with it either.

It's not a matter of old vs new; it's that the kernel configuration choices Debian has made are not compatible with everything. (They've just announced a freeze on their "sarge" installer- I checked, it has the same failures)

Re:Sounds awesome.

[Domini]

The point was a choice between CD distros.

Thus Knoppix (eugh!), Mandrake Move and now Ubuntu...

I agree, Xandros is not a bad distro for your mother-in-law... ;)

I was talking about this just the other day

[JudgeFurious]

I was telling my wife that the real problem with Linux is that there just aren't enough distributions out there. If some of these people, these so-called "open source programmers" would get off their asses and crank out a few more distributions THEN this stuff would really take off.

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[Coneasfast]

we really need to scrap 90% of the distributions out there, there are way too many, and out of the mainstream ones, we only need a few (less than a dozen, if not even less)

i'm not trying to flame, but people waste their time creating a distro, most of them with nothing special/different to offer, it's like reinventing the wheel over and over again.

slackware, debian, gentoo, fedora, suse, mandrake, and maybe a few others that offer something good, that's all we really need.

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[0racle]

Then only use slackware, debian, gentoo, fedora, suse or mandrake its not like you have to actually have to run every single one that exists. People make another distro because they want to, and they probably either learned a lot in the process, or enjoyed themselves. Like any open source project people have worked on, they were even kind enough to let others benefit from their hard work if they wanted to. They did it because they wanted to, or they felt that they had something to contribute so I doubt that they feel they wasted their time, and since it was there time to begin with what are you complaining about.

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[MikeMacK]

No, we need all the distributions we can get, more choice means more people are inspired to create software. True, some distros come and go, but that's also the way the free market works. Shaving Linux distros down to only a few would be like saying OK, we only need WAL-MART, K-Mart and Target - all those other stores are just a waste. If some people like shopping at those little stores, let them.

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[Kindaian]

The beauty of Linux is that anyone can make a distribution...

Don't remove that liberty from the people please!...

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[TheDarkener]

we really need to scrap 90% of the distributions out there, there are way too many, and out of the mainstream ones, we only need a few (less than a dozen, if not even less)

Why? Just because another distro comes out, do you expect the whole world to fall apart, and to have to get used to another new distro? Stick to the one you like. Nobody is forcing you to change, and nobody is forcing newbies to have any specific distro either. The beauty is choice. Test the new ones out if you want. The ones that have been around for a long time have proven their worth in the OSS community, and thus have better status with the masses. If you want stability, use one of those. If you're curious, use some of the newer ones. But don't ask things like "Will it be around in a few years?" or "Should I switch?" If you want those kinds of answers, go to a palm reader.

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[bman08]

Who are we and how are we going to stop these sons of bitches from creating distros. The first step, I think, is to form a comittee. We'll call it the Distro Police. We'll flame every slashdot post about new distros. How dare people be allowed to take software that they're allowed to do whatever they want with and do whatever they want with it.

I don't think the Ubuntu guys and gals are doing this because they think they're going to put redhat and suse out of business. They're doing it because they want to. If you get an itch, I promise I won't complain if you scratch it.

Also, maybe this Ubunto thing is it. Gentoo was nothing just a couple of years ago. Same with Lycoris and Linspire.

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of 90 generic distros get specialized ones for specific uses. For instance, SOHO server, office workstation, power user, web server... Oh and don't forget, a distro for pr0n browsing

Just my 2 cents...

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm not trying to flame, but people waste their time creating a distro, most of them with nothing special/different to offer

Yes you are trying to flame.

The reason people "waste" their time on creating a distro is because there was an unmet need _not_ met by the existing distros. If even a few other people have the same unmet need, it's wonderful that the first guys to address the need shared the fruits of their labor.

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[TENTH SHOW JAM]

Erm, I'd say it's important to have a few distros floating around. Each one with a speciality, and another to compete in that niche. I am probably going to be accused of trolling here, but what the hey.

Redhat/SuSE: have a lovely enterprise distro. Handy for big organisations and stuff.

Mandrake/Fedora: A very nice small business/home distro.

Debian: An ethical distribution. More interested in producing something that is free as in speech. This is not nessecarily a bad thing, but it does limit what I can get with apt.

gentoo/yoper: Bleeding edge always has a place amongst enthusiasts so they can reccomend latest functionality to more conservitive users.

Any amount of specialist distros that do one job well. I regularly use Ghost4Linux and memtest86 in my place of employ (an all windows shop) and they serve me well for what they do. I also use and reccomend smoothwall as a firewall.

I'd say there is probably a space in the market for a SOHO distro based on debian, and if it can be expanded to an Enterprise product and be profitable, there are definitely things to be said for having your business running on totally "Free" software. If you can get phone/email/consultant support with that in one place, even better. I wish them all the luck in the world. I think I shall download their ISO tonight to see if I can reccommend their services to friends. (astro turfing? possibly)

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[flossie]

we really need to scrap 90% of the distributions out there, there are way too many, and out of the mainstream ones, we only need a few (less than a dozen, if not even less)

Why? And who is "we"? What on Earth makes you think that you have any right whatsoever to prevent people from doing what they wish with the code? Has the whole concept of "FREE" completely passed you by?

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[kjamez]

on the other side of that, i really like small livecd distro's that boot from the cdrom and play videos and the like.

i want a distro less than 420 megs sometimes, for specific, short-lived reasons.

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[Anonymous Coward]

you're missing the point. these people can use their time to do something else more productive.

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[noda132]

slackware, debian, gentoo, fedora, suse, mandrake, and maybe a few others that offer something good, that's all we really need.

From my understanding, Ubunto is exactly like Debian except it's (1) end-user centered and (2) released in a timely manner.

These two things are exactly what I want! Seems to me like the perfect blend of GNOME and Debian ideals. Thus, if I get up the courage to try it out and Ubunto delivers, I will likely be a convert.

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[theantix]

Exactly. I have been wanting something like this for a long time now, but the hypercommercialized debian-based distros like Lindows and Xandros dropped the soap big time -- just didn't fit what I wanted. So I'm stuck as a sort-of-happy fedora user, and then all of a sudden two interesting projects pop in out of the blue, aimed at people who want the best of Debian and Gnome.

I've tried both UserLinux and Ubuntu, and so far Ubuntu seems a bit more promising to me. The Gnome 2.8 is darn purdy, and they've done some nice customizations to it also.

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[FlutterVertigo(gmail]

Melinda's just using Bill for sex.

Of course she is. She was the Product Manager for Microsoft Bob. Once it failed, she had to find something else to do....

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[bman08]

You're missing the point. You're not in charge of their time. They can spend/waste it however they want to.

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[Surye]

i'm not trying to flame, but people waste their time creating a distro, most of them with nothing special/different to offer i'm not trying to flame, but people waste their time posting these comments to slashdot, most of them with nothing special/different to offer

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[DashEvil]

C'mon. Get to work! This ain't no union shop!

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[pyros]

Mandrake/Fedora: A very nice small business/home distro.

Debian: An ethical distribution. More interested in producing something that is free as in speech. This is not nessecarily a bad thing, but it does limit what I can get with apt.

I've actually found Fedora to be far more devoted to free as in speech than debian. With debian, I can just enable the contrib and/or non-US repos (installation options) and I get all the stuff the is left out of Fedora dues to patent restrictions or licenses which don't allow for redistribution or whatnot. With Fedora, you have to hunt down repositories yourself, or even worse, find the packages and their dependencies manually.

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[wild_berry]

I've had difficulty with my Palm reader since moving from kernel 2.4.23 to 2.6.8.

(I said yesterday that punning is a serious crime. I accept low karma for that attempt at humour.)

take care.
love ken.

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[afd8856]

http://lesbian.mine.nu/, link from above in this thread.

Re:I was talking about this just the other day

[Anonymous Coward]

And the poster can criticise them if s/he wants to.

BitTorrent Link

[BenFranske]

Since the site seems to be down, how about someone who has it putting up a BitTorrent link?

Re:BitTorrent Link

[SplunkDotNet]

I think one person tried to download it and crashed the site...sorry to say there is no Bit torrent then

Re:BitTorrent Link

[ircubic]

It's not /down/, it's just slow to get a connection to. :P
At least, that's the case for me, the site downloads quickly, but it takes some time to make the connection... (That is the case NOW, I fear for it later :P)

Re:BitTorrent Link

[AhabTheArab]

From the site: http://ftp.cs.umn.edu/pub/ubuntu-cdimage/releases/ warty/preview/warty-i386.iso.torrent

Re:BitTorrent Link

[Anonymous Coward]

amd64
http://ftp3.linux.it/pub/mirrors/warty/wart y-amd64 .iso.torrent
i386
http://ftp3.linux.it/pub/mirro rs/warty/warty-i386. iso.torrent
powerpc
http://ftp3.linux.it/pub/mir rors/warty/warty-power pc.iso.torrent

Re:BitTorrent Link

[DevilJeff]

From the site: http://ftp.cs.umn.edu/pub/ubuntu-cdimage/releases/ warty/preview/warty-i386.iso.torrent

Amazing what a little patience can get you, isn't it?

Re:BitTorrent Link

[kimballKinnison]

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/warty/preview/

Torrents and ISOs from there.

Re:BitTorrent Link

[happyzathy]

Copy of torrent file

http://thwackety.com/warty-i386.iso.torrent

PLEASE MIRROR THIS FILE AND POST LOCATION!

Re:BitTorrent Link

[HansF]

Download mirrors are still doing fine :
Italy
US
UK

Re:BitTorrent Link

[AhabTheArab]

Who will win the race for mod points?
Will it be Ahab who was first and linked?
Will it be AC who included all three torrents?
Or will it be the Devil himself who added a smartass comment?

Re:BitTorrent Link

[gorre]

UK Mirror
US Mirror
Italy Mirror

You will find torrents at each of these mirrors. The ones on the US mirror are:
AMD64 torrent
i386 torrent
powerpc torrent

Re:BitTorrent Link

[networkBoy]

but that's not the real Devil. The real Devil's name is Jerry.

Note to mods: try not wasting mod points on a karma bonus eh?
-nB

Re:BitTorrent Link

[HazE_nMe]

The i386 torrent is going pretty good on my end. It started up at 250KB/s and is steady.

Ouch, spelling!

[kavau]

Ubuntu is the most shiny Debian-based distrobution ever

This is getting painful. Would someone please teach the slashdot editors how to use a spellchecker? (Don't get me started on grammar...) Maybe I should write a HOWTO...?

Re:Ouch, spelling!

[wahgnube]

Why, what's the problem? You have the real word, distrobution, distri for short.

Ubuntu is the most shiny Debian-based distrobution ever.. hey, I need to beat the rush and download this distri's ISOs.

Re:Ouch, spelling!

[psykelus]

I chopped off a finger as punishment, don't worry.

Re:Ouch, spelling!

[AhabTheArab]

I should write a HOWTO...?

I'll save you the trouble:

HOWTO: Use spellcheck
1. Click the spellcheck button.
2. Follow onscreen instructions.

Copyright (c) 2004 Ahab.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

Re:Ouch, spelling!

[myowntrueself]

I don't get it.

We refer to Linux distributions as "distro's" so why not "distrobutions"? Its only logical...

:)

Re:Ouch, spelling!

[gardyloo]

Sorry, guys. The original poster is actually upset that it's not spelled "evar".

Re:Ouch, spelling!

[kavau]

Would be more logical to call them "distris" then!

;-)

Re:Ouch, spelling!

[Ycros]

Because we speak English; it doesn't have to be logical. :P

Check the Spellit

[thatshortkid]

Distribution.

I think we should all chip in and get some OED's (or at least a spellchecker) for the editors.

Uh, guys...

[rincebrain]

You guys forgot the Coral cache already?

ubuntulinux.org.nyud.net:8090 works for me! =D

The question is ...

[timothy]

Who can type faster:

Bruce Perens? Or Mark Shuttleworth? :)

Interesting contrast; when a new release of Windows comes out, I don't see Bill Gates answering questions from all and sundry in public forums like this. (Of course, I don't follow Windows closely, so maybe I'm wrong on that.)

timothy

Re:The question is ...

[Bruce Perens]

If Mark is typing while in orbit, he is obviously going much faster than me :-)

Re:The question is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

technocrat is down with 504s
also the comment count hasn't been updated for yonks

Re:The question is ...

[Kethinov]

Do you do searches for mentioning of your name on Slashdot or something? =p

Out of Business

[josefcub]

You know, if we end up slashdotting their free CD order system and they try to even partially fulfill the free CD offer to us, we might end up putting the distro out of business before they can even go out of preview release mode. ;)

Since the site is running way slow already

[FunkyRat]

Here's a coralized link:
Ubuntu Linux

Out of Nowhere?

[jpmoney]

Am I the only one to see this slick-looking thing come out of nowhere with a "preview" that is on their website only and be skeptical?

Someone could easily put some spy-bot zombie code into their default kernel code, hi-jack another distro, and put out some press on their own website.

Of course this is all about the tin-foil hat that I have on, but there is something about this post/distro that is unsettling.

Otherwise its just another distro that will fail.

Ho Hum...

Re:Out of Nowhere?

[psykelus]

It's not out of nowhere, in fact I think slashdot reported on this project already.

This is Canonical software, far as I can tell, and there has already been discussion about it on the Debian lists -- since Canonical employed a swath of regular Debian developers.

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/07/msg 01 659.html

Re:Out of Nowhere?

[jpmoney]

Thanks for the linkage. I'm not usually under a rock or anything, but it must have flown under my radar.

I'm somewhere in the middle =).

Re:Out of Nowhere?

[Pretzalzz]

Matt Zimmerman, who announced this preview on debian-devel, is a prominent debian developer and member of Debian's Security team, and I understand that other prominent Debian developers are also involved. There have also been other postings relating to Canonical and this distribution on the debian mailing lists over the last couple of months so it is not exactly out of the blue.

Re:Out of Nowhere?

[Martin Blank]

Is this perhaps an attempt to get something more user-friendly out in front of people without the Debian name on it, in order to get feedback without getting flamed by the crowd that so dearly loves the traditional Debian installer?

Re:Out of Nowhere?

[i_should_be_working]

it's a distro planned and financed by a very rich and somewhat famous man who is doing alot to promote open source in South Africa. It will probably have, if it doesn't already, the prominant local languages embedded in it.

so it may not be very well known here, but it will have an impact there. imagine one of America's most rich and famous men (besides gates) starting a distro with as much money behind it as they cared to spend, which in Shuttlesworth's case, is alot. so i wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be better than most community distros

Re:Out of Nowhere?

[theantix]

It's more "been kept really quiet" rather than "come out of nowhere". They annouced that *something* was going to be coming, and we had a rough idea of who was doing it for quite some time now. They've just held back the details from the masses until they had this preview.

It's quite a nice distro already, with a lot of promise. I'm going to be using it for my primary system to give it a fair shot.

might try this as well

[bendsley]

http://ubuntulinux.org.nyud.net:8090/

Site can't handle the traffic

[juggy]

I's really like to check out their site, but it's basically unusable due to excessive traffic, it seems. Using http://www.freecache.org/http://ubuntulinux.org (sorry, can't get the link working in the preview) it seems to work so :-)
Btw, what's it lately with wordings like the most shiny ...? I just don't feel this should be in the description...

Torrents

[makohill]

We've got torrents online. They are here:

• http://archive.ubuntulinux.org/cdimage/releases/wa rty/preview/warty-i386.iso.torrent
• http://archive.ubuntulinux.org/cdimage/releases/wa rty/preview/warty-amd64.iso.torrent
• http://archive.ubuntulinux.org/cdimage/releases/wa rty/preview/warty-powerpc.iso.torrent

Re:Torrents

[Em Adespoton]

The non-slashdotted torrents are here:

warty-amd64.iso.torrent

warty-i386.iso.torrent

warty-powerpc.iso.torrent

distro:user-ratio restored

[Harald Paulsen]

It's good to see that the ratio between number of linux-distributions and linux-users are once more restored as the total number of distributions now passed the total number of linux users. :-)

Free CDs

[Bin_jammin]

Well, I ordered the free cd's. My line of thinking is that every other disto I've ever downloaded, I've managed to completely chow up the disks on my desk or cd wallet or wherever. The more backups I have the better off I'll be. After all, if I'm going to have a couple hundred extra cd's kicking around, better linux than AOL.Who knows, maybe I'll even like the distro. What's it called again?

So what's their angle?

[Hatta]

What's special about this debian based distro? Going for funniest name?

Re:So what's their angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been testing for a while, here's the skinny:

* Even sleeker installer than Sarge. Still curses, but it doesn't ask you nearly as many questions, and sarge doesn't ask that many to begin with

* Project Utopia out of the box

* GNOME 2.8

* A good percentages of packages available that are available in sid.

* Time based releases every 6 months coinciding with GNOME releases.

* Check the list, it's a who's who of debian and gnome guys working together on a desktop distro.

* Matching live CD (Not this release though)

I believe...

[Anonymous Coward]

... it was Phineas Taylor (P.T.) Barnum that said "A sucker is born every minute" (or something along those lines, I forget).

The question is, will I be stupid enough to download and try yet another Linux distro, in the hopes that it'll be The One? I just spent about 6 months with Yoper ans SuSe and, after being forced to return to Windows XP, told myself that was definitely the last time with Linux for at least two years. Now, I'm here, actually considering using this new Debian derivative. I'm such an idiot.

Re:I believe...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Wake me up when Desktop Linux grows-up (if the way moderators on this site are modding critical comments is any indication, it may take a least a generation or two for that to happen...).

Free disks on request

[logic hack]

For a limited time, they're also sending out free disks on request.

In a few moments, their going to be sending out free timeout errors upon request. ubuntulinux.org.nyud.net:8090 help these guys out and try to use the nyud mirron instead; you might get lucky like me and be able to get in an order of disks before the server totally rolls over.

Free CD Link

[makohill]

To get those free CDs shipped to you, you can go directly to this link:

http://shipit.ubuntulinux.org

What's "Ubuntu"?

[StrawberryFrog]

In short, "humanity towards others".

Two defintions:
Ubuntu on Wikipedia
And a shameless plug for my writeup on E2

Re:What's "Ubuntu"?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's "Ubuntu"?

A distro I will probably not verbally recommend to anyone, even if I absolutely love it.

Re:What's "Ubuntu"?

[ZaMoose]

You sure it isn't ancient African for "Help! You melted our server!" ?

Re:What's "Ubuntu"?

[Anonymous Coward]

"You are who you are through other people"

The dark side of it (no pun intended) is that for example if you apply for a job (especially in government) it makes no difference wether or not you can do the work. What matters is who you know.

Or if you apply for governement contracts - the price, quality, ability to get the job done is irrelevant - whats important is your connections.

Also, it is illegal (or shortly will be) for Mr Shuttleworth to call himself an African - at least in South Africa since he is 'white'. Section 2.5 of the ICT Charter http://www.ictcharter.org.za/draft.htm states: ""Black people", "black persons" or "blacks" are generic terms which
mean Africans, Coloureds and Indians who are citizens of South Africa".

Re:What's "Ubuntu"?

[StrawberryFrog]

A distro I will probably not verbally recommend to anyone

Just say "Ooh boen too" (stress on the middle sylable).

As Bantu words go, this one is easy. Try saying "Rolihlahla" (Nelson Mandela's middle name), Mbaqanga (a style of music) or "Hluhluwe" (a place near Umfolozi)

Re:What's "Ubuntu"?

[thelexx]

Cthulhu should be big there.

Re:Out of Nowhere? [Argh]

[psykelus]

I'm pretty awesome at this slashdot thing, huh? This link works better

Note to Slashdot Populace:

[IllogicalStudent]

For a limited time, they're also sending out free disks on request.

Please don't bankrupt these poor chaps -- CDRs may be cheap, but they ain't free; nor is shipping.

Re:Note to Slashdot Populace:

[marcushnk]

Thats what "for a limited time" means.. They will continue supplying these cd's till the money runs out..

At a guess that was about 20 seconds after the public post on /.

Re:Note to Slashdot Populace:

[jwilcox154]

Are you sure they are sending use the distro on cd? All it said is "To order a pressed CD: Fill in your basic shipping data in our CD distribution database. We won't give or sell your information to anyone or use it for anything other than sending you these CDs.".

Maybe what they're sending us is the AOL cds that was donated by No More AOL CDs. ;)

Re:Note to Slashdot Populace:

[prisen]

No joke..good point. From what I read they are stamped CD's also..not CD-R. Whoa!

Get it in 15 minutes or less from the torrent:

amd64
http://ftp3.linux.it/pub/mirrors/warty/wart y-amd64 .iso.torrent
i386
http://ftp3.linux.it/pub/mirro rs/warty/warty-i386. iso.torrent
powerpc
http://ftp3.linux.it/pub/mir rors/warty/warty-power pc.iso.torrent

Re:Note to Slashdot Populace:

[paran0rmal]

errrmm... agreed... but then again, Mark Shuttleworth did pay for his own trip into space so i don't think a couple of thousand CDR's will hurt the old bank balance too much

Ubuntu go "boonta"

[marcushnk]

Oh the humanity of it all :-P

Yeah thats right keep on /dotting them.. show them the LOVE!

As Long As...

[suss]

As long as its IRC client doesn't join #Debian on freenode by default, like Knoppix, Kurumin and all those others do or there will be hell to pay.

People can't seem to get it into their heads that #Debian is for Debian and not derivatives and they should ask for support from where they got it.

Re:As Long As...

[dracvl]

Ubuntu has their own channel, #ubuntu on Freenode. I believe the IRC client defaults to that.

Sounds terrible.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm talking about the "Ubuntu" part of it.

hmmmm

[cswiii]

Dear Sir,

My name is Ikembe Otobamo. Until recently I was employed by the large software firm Microsoft. During this time, I earned many stock options and sold them at a great profit. During my time at Microsoft, I also began developing a linux distribution called 'Ubuntu'.

When Microsoft discovered I was using Linux, I was quickly dismissed from the firm. Unfortunately, that also meant I had no work authorisation and had to flee the United States.

Meanwhile, I have accumulated over $16 million USD due to stock sales, and I thus need s bank account in the United States to hold this money for safekeeping. If you would be so willing to help me, I offer you 10% of this money and interest incurred. I will also supply you with unlimited copies of my "Ubuntu Linux" distribution for your own perusal. This distribution also contains our specialised "Mozilatobe" browser suite and our "Gnombolo" X11 interface.

Please consider my offer; your assistance will be most appreciated.

Sincerely,
Ikembe Otobamo (Nigeria)

Re:hmmmm

[Omega1045]

That is the funniest fucking post of have seen on /. for a while!

Re:hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, tons of people at Microsoft use Linux and talk about Linux. And not just because it is a threat to them. Check out Microsoft Blogs for some interesting reading.

Re:hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell? Nigeria? This is obviously fake. We all know microsoft doesn't hire Nigers. :)

Re:hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Ikeme Otobamo,

Your story has touched my heart, and I am willing to help you get into possession of your so deserved stock sales. In the past I have been successfully helping persons that were in a similar position as yours, you can find a reference here.

My only condition is that you accept to add the Kdentu X11 interface to your Linux distribution as an option to Gnombolo.

I have provided a picture of my passport, as I appreciate you want to know who you are dealing with.

My friend, I expect to be hearing from you.

Sincerely,
JT Kirk

Re:hmmmm

[Kethinov]

Whoever modded the parent overrated is on crack. That post is a redress of the typical Nigerian scam spam and it's a damn good one at that. Mod parent up.

Re:hmmmm

[CovertPenguins]

LOL

Re:Just what the world needs...

[networkBoy]

many

Ond good thing about the /. effect...

[Dayze!Confused]

while I'm downloading with the torrent I'm get around 200KB/s and still going up. Now I've hit the 300KB/s mark.

Re:Ond good thing about the /. effect...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's 7:17 on optonline and I am getting 602kb/sec

WHO HOO! Do THAT DSL!

Re:Ond good thing about the /. effect...

[Anonymous Coward]

ubuntu.jpg

Re:Rare

[the arbiter]

"defrag ext2" "lack of Token Ring support" Brilliant AND hilarious. Nice troll. I applaud you, sir.

Re:Rare

[Em Adespoton]

Just out of curiosity, why was the troll modded up? No IP Lawyer would ever come to that mixture of true and false conclusions -- and no massive rollout for a large company would happen without first reading the license attached to the software they are using... would they?

Re:Rare

[SuperficialRhyme]

This might appear credible to me if I weren't more familiar with linux. Either it's a joke, or it's astroturfing. It's just about far enough over the top to have me think it's a joke. It's just about serious enough to have me think astroturfing. I can't figure out whether to laugh or point out the flaws in the arguement.

knoppix

[zogger]

knoppix is debian and it's one cd. There ya go! I think they will be around for a spell, too.....

Re:Rare

[rincebrain]

Your lawyer is either more intelligent than the GNU foundation, or didn't read the GPL FAQ.
[quote]
Can I use GPL-covered editors such as GNU Emacs to develop non-free programs? Can I use GPL-covered tools such as GCC to compile them?
Yes, because the copyright on the editors and tools does not cover the code you write. Using them does not place any restrictions, legally, on the license you use for your code.

Some programs copy parts of themselves into the output for technical reasons--for example, Bison copies a standard parser program into its output file. In such cases, the copied text in the output is covered by the same license that covers it in the source code. Meanwhile, the part of the output which is derived from the program's input inherits the copyright status of the input.

As it happens, Bison can also be used to develop non-free programs. This is because we decided to explicitly permit the use of the Bison standard parser program in Bison output files without restriction. We made the decision because there were other tools comparable to Bison which already permitted use for non-free programs.
[end quote]

[source: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html]
I'm not going to argue about your modifications to the kernel; I don't know enough about kernel code to competently do that. I can argue that you can use GCC to compile things and not release the source. That's just a blatant piece of FUD, unless I'm mistaken.

HTH.

Re:Rare

[Anonymous Coward]

It's your fault if you used GPL libraries!

Sorry man

Re:Rare

[rincebrain]

This is Slashdot. As David Craig Simpson once drew: "Both of those views have been expressed with a straight face; therefore, I must treat them both as equally valid!" [idrewthis.org]

But yeah. It's moderately flawed. Nevertheless, it sent me into a quick Google-powered refresher of licenses, so it can't be entirely bad. =P

choose based on merit

[IshanCaspian]

If enough people do this, the most technologically impressive distro will succeed. As Gandhi said, you must be the change you want to see in the world.

That's my definition of good philosophy, really...something that you can turn to in even the smallest decisions.

Re:choose based on merit

[R.Caley]

If enough people do this, the most technologically impressive distro will succeed.

Can I get that on Betamax?

Re:choose based on merit

[IshanCaspian]

Read the first five words in that sentence again.

Re:choose based on merit

[R.Caley]

I was pointing out that `merit' and `technologically impressive' rarely coincide in the real world.

Why is this necessary?

[Anonymous Coward]

What problem does this solve that other Linux distributions don't? So Debian is aiming for a 100% Free Software GNU implementation, Mandrake is aiming at the desktop users, Red Hat is aiming at the corporate desktop, Slackware is aiming at the traditional UNIX users, Gentoo is aiming at the power users... where does this new one fit in?

Re:Why is this necessary?

[makohill]

I think you're oversimplifying each of the projects out there. I know from my work with Debian that Debian itself means a lot to many people. Debian has a lot of things people like -- tons of packages and a great package management system for example -- but that's not enough for everyone (or even anyone).

For many, Ubuntu may be little more than Debian with frequent time-based releases and a more polished desktop -- which alone is a benefit over other distros and even windows

For others, it will be the emphasis on translation and internationalization that seals the deal.

Since many of the developers on Ubuntu are Debian developers, we're going to start by making a distro that has all of the things we like about Debian and puts them in a easier, more managable package that fixes some of the most frequently heard problems and annoyances with Debian that are tough to fix within Debian for a variety of reasons.

Re:Why is this necessary?

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently downloaded and installed UserLinux. Aside from a minor glitch during installation choosing my correct monitor type, it seemed like a pretty standard Gnome distribution. I really want to like Gnome, but each time I try a Gnome distribution, I end up feeling like I am going around in circles. I'll traverse one path, and I end up in a place I didn't really want to be. Then I traverse another path, and get to the same (not-wanted) place. I never end up finding what I want.

Then I downloaded Ubuntu. I didn't know Gnome could be so clean and straight-forward. This reminds my of Xandros. The default desktop has nothing on it -- that's right, not a single icon. There's an Applications menu in the top left, with a set of simple, clear menus. To the right of the Applications is the Computer menu. The first section in the Computer menu are navigation "favorites" like Home, Desktop, Disks, Network, etc. What an clean and obvious organization. The rest of the Computer menu is system administrationish type things: Desktop Preferences, System Configuration, Lock Screen, Log Out, etc.

Next on the top menu bar are a blue globe icon for firefox, yellowish icon for Evolution, and a life preserver icon for help. That's it. Firefox and Evolution both look good with very nice fonts.

It has kernel 2.6.8.1. XFree86 4.3.0.1. It is base primary on Debian Unstable. apt-get works as expected and I have already some of my "standard" software. Easy as pie.

Wow! For the first time I feel very at home with Gnome. I definitely recommend trying it out.

Re:Rare

[Icyfire0573]

at the sacrivfice of modifying for this post i must say, as long as you aren't distributing the whole code you aren't obligated by the gpl to distriubte the source code and it is a major flaw in leagal to have blieved that

x.org

[sewagemaster]

would anyone know if it contains x.org packages? it would be nice to try for us to try out on a debian/debian-based distro without the need of compiling anything or risking breaking the system :)

Re:x.org

[HenrikOxUK]

It's still Xfree86, but will switch to X.org at the next release in April.

Re:x.org

[makohill]

It's XFree86 at the moment but the packages will be going into our development branch as soon as it opens. :)

THANKS FOR THE UPDATE JACKASS

[Anonymous Coward]

be sure to keep us informed. not.

We have that already

[DrSkwid]

Lets have the BEST of everything in one core repository.

like This one?

Re:We have that already

[Anonymous Coward]

i need mod points so I can mod this troll and funny

Re:We have that already

[Flower]

You most certainly must mean this one?

You're such a kidder :)

Re:We have that already

[Stevyn]

Dude, what the shit! Learn how to use hyperlinks!

http://packages.gentoo.org/

everything you'll need is right there.

Re:We have that already

[CondeZer0]

> > Lets have the BEST of everything in one core repository.

> like This[www.freebsd.org] one?

Sorry, I'm sure you made a small mistake...

The one you were thinking of is This one.

Or maybe This one.

Re:We have that already

[DrSkwid]

hehe sure mate, I was under the impression you thought it was here ?

I'm still fucking banned btw.
Luckily for me I have a proxy I can use & Firefox's SwitchProxy Exetension makes it painless to swap about

Re:Rare

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you.

I hope my message can serve as a warning to all companies not to fall for the false promises of the OpenSource Community.

While it is indeed tempting to have royalty-free service providers for server and desktop IT, it very soon becomes a bottomless pit in terms of maintenance and help-desk costs.

I do not disrespect the achievements of some OpenSource Community activists; for example, Quake 3 is a very innovative OpenSource game. But judging from an overall risk-management point-of-view, it is not worth the efforts (yet?).

Debian perfect for this...

[Chuck Bucket]

with debian's background it's the perfect linux distro to support things like this. Just use anaconda (open from red hat) for the installer, then apt for updates, have it point to a mirror for the new distro to support newer (yes, less stable) apps for install, and you'll have a great OS, with the structure of Debian, but w/o the upkeep (which I happen to like, but I digress...)

THis lin-distro has 'wow' factor in my book.

CB()^&*$&^)!

so thats the truth

[brisgeek]

how to get a free t-shirt: My bank is happy to help you... just send me $25 to permit you as an administrator to my account ..

You want standards

[nsadhal]

I really think you just want standards. The problem isn't the number of distros. It's "well if I take the time to learn all the ins and outs of RedHat, will I be able to carry that with me to Debian?" If you have some common standards (and there are already a lot in place) then the answer to the question starts to get closer to "absolutely!"
The danger in lots of distros going in different direction is that they are percieved and treated as completely different operating systems.

I'm not saying that we actually need some kind of standards body to apply bogus certifications to linux distributions, but it would seem like a partial solution to the "there's to many distros, what do i do?" problem.

Old debian-devel announcement

[Mr.Ned]

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/07/msg01 659.html

From a few months back, talks about what and why.

Re:Old debian-devel announcement

[ozric99]

Annoying slashdot URL munging. Here's a proper link

Finally linux taken seriously

[jaysones]

I bet this is the release that will push linux on the desktop to the forefront. I can hear the CEO of a fortune 500 company saying in a financial conference call, "we're going with the proven stability of Warty Warthog from no-name-yet.com."
Seriously, what's with these names?

Re:Rare

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Balmer, is that you? Welcome to Slashdot.

Re:Rare

[Anonymous Coward]

that's not the bad part, the bad part is the troll was modded down as overrated, I personally think that Rob should get rid of the Overrated and Underrated Mods, they can't be meta moderated and it's the equivalent of saying "I'm Modding you down/up, just because"

LiveCD

[gonaddespammed.com]

Do these double as LiveCDs? There is mention of a LiveCD in the support documentation, but I don't see them for download

Re:LiveCD

[cjwatson]

No, they're install CDs only. We will be offering a live CD with the final release, but it didn't quite make the preview.

How about that!

[KZigurs]

Wise, really wise. Post a link on /. frontpage to order free stuff.

I just wonder - is it for password harvesting, cd's will be shipped COD or this is AOL in disguise.

Well, at least a few cd pressing plants will be quite busy now for a year. That's for sure. (unless they plan to burn those discs using a beofulf cluster of cd writers)

Why you should care

[steveha]

Who cares about Yet Another Distro? What's different about this one?

It's Debian, in a friendly wrapper, free and for free.

You can get Debian in a friendly wrapper by buying Xandros, or Linspire. They include nonfree software, and Linspire hooks you in to a software distribution scheme that costs a minimum of $50 per year.

You can get Debian free if you are a Linux expert. Get a Debian installer and have fun. However, Debian has 10,000 packages, and you need to know enough to pick and choose which ones you want. Ubuntu has 1,000 packages, and they have made default choices for you. (Want something Ubuntu doesn't offer? Grab it from the main Debian distribution; it will work.)

Also, Debian comes in three major branches: stable, unstable, and testing. Stable is really stable, but only updates every two years or so. Unstable updates daily but can be unstable. Testing updates automatically from unstable when the packages appear stable (a week goes by without major bugs posted against the unstable package, IIRC). Ubuntu on the other hand is promising a six-month release cycle; if you use Ubuntu, you should have a nice stable system, but you will get new packages much more often than if you use Debian Stable.

Ubuntu will occupy a similar niche to Fedora, but Red Hat makes all the decisions for Fedora while Ubuntu will have a community process.

The closest distro to Ubuntu is probably Bruce Perens's UserLinux project. But UserLinux is focused squarely upon business, whilst Ubuntu seems to be more focused on individual users.

Ubuntu should preserve all the things I like best about Debian, while being more friendly to newbies and offering a much fresher stable release. There isn't another distro quite like it.

I'm downloading it now and I look forward to trying it out.

steveha

Re:Why you should care

[Anonymous Coward]

The closest distro to Ubuntu is probably Bruce Perens's UserLinux project. But UserLinux is focused squarely upon business, whilst Ubuntu seems to be more focused on individual users.

That's really funny. True. But really funny.

Re:Why you should care

[drinkypoo]

To me the big deal is that I'm getting some CDs in the mail that I can give away to people that I don't have to burn. These CDs could potentially get them to switch to linux. I don't think I'll likely be giving them to anyone who isn't at least a little geeky already, because I don't want to have to hold someone's hand while they cry about losing all their data because they decided to reformat their entire hard drive, but nonetheless, it's something I can hand out.

Re:Why you should care

[Jungle guy]

It looks to me that Debian is cracking under it's own weight. Computer programs escalate, but to manage hundreds of developers that are not receiving a paycheck, you have to be a political master. Debian seems to have too many packages, too many developers, and the political infighting seems to be dragging the release date of stable versions beyond acceptable.

The creation of Debian-based distributions like User Linux and Ubantu, in my opinion, are sincere efforts made by people 100% committed do Debian, that are trying to help it. They are basically saying: "Hey, we can have a Debian stalbe release with a 2.6 kernel and 2.6 Gnome now! We don't have to wait any longer!"

In my opinion, that might make Debian work. A normal user can assume that current free software under Debian will always be under unstable, that stable means "outdated" and that developers use the "pure" Debian unstable. If you don't want to mess with it, go get a meta-distribution, like Progeny, Linspire, User Linux or Ubantu.

Re:Why you should care

[steveha]

It looks to me that Debian is cracking under it's own weight.

I don't agree. Debian works about the same as it always has. The people, like me, who use Debian are all as happy as we have always been.

My point was that Ubuntu is a great complement to the Debian project. Nothing is perfect for everyone; Debian isn't perfect for everyone. Ubuntu will be better for many people.

Debian seems to have too many packages, too many developers

These go together. Most of the Debian developers have a very small number of packages to manage, which is why they are willing to do it for free.

In my opinion, that might make Debian work.

I wouldn't put it this way, since Debian works quite well for me. But we agree that Ubuntu will be a good thing for many people.

steveha

Re:Why you should care

[steveha]

To me the big deal is that I'm getting some CDs in the mail that I can give away to people that I don't have to burn.

That's not a big deal to me, because my CD burner works well and I buy 100-packs of CDs. I can burn as many CDs as my friends will ever need.

What's a big deal to me is a distribution that will be good for newbies, but still 100% free software, so I'm allowed to give away CDs. Since I use Debian, I want a Debian-based distro that is both 100% free and newbie-friendly; it looks like this is it.

steveha

Re:Rare (-1 unoriginal)

[Anonymous Coward]

Y'know, I'm sure I've seen this exact post before, a year or two ago...

MEPIS is also damn easy and "shiny"

[westyvw]

A\

Mepis is nice and shniy debian too!

[westyvw]

Mepis is a great distro, runs off cd and has a very easy to use install. Many features built in, try it!

Re:Rare

[SillyNickName4me]

Heh, and now I wish I had mod points today.. you and the poster of the parent (if not the same) are just too funny.

Thwate!

[DogDude]

This guy started https://thawte.com! I've always wondered why I had to deal with South Africa for our SSL! You learn something new every day.

Yoper is also great.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just installed Yoper on my brothers computer, which can only run win98 or some version of Linux.
I previously had Suse 9.1 on there and it ran rather slow.

I installed Yoper yesterday and that computer seems to be running smoothly! I love it as it's easy to use, my brother is impressed as it runs quickly.
The forums at Yoper are quite helpful as well.
Configuration and installing programs isn't bad at all!

Re:Formatting Fix. Ugh.

[Surye]

i'm not trying to flame, but people waste their time creating a distro, most of them with nothing special/different to offer

i'm not trying to flame, but people waste their time posting these comments to slashdot, most of them with nothing special/different to offer

...Note to self, PREVIEW! >_<

Well said.

[bogie]

Mucking around with your distro and editting config files isn't all its cracked up to be once you've been doing it for a while. I have to constantly hear this "but Gentoo lets you get into the nuts and bolts of the OS" B.S. I'm getting old, I have better things to do then tweak or screw around with my OS. Training to be an admin? Fine monkey around guilt free while your still learning. Want to use your OS for actually doing anything? Join the rest of the world.

Think in 20 years anyone will still be obsessed with the commandline and knowing every detail about their OS? God I hope not.

Kirk : Scottie! Get that warp drive online!
Scottie : But captain I'm still busy customizing my USE flags!

Re:Well said.

[The_K4]

I'm getting old, I have better things to do then tweak or screw around with my OS.

So what do you run?

Re:Well said.

[joshmccormack]

Mucking around with your distro and editting config files isn't all its cracked up to be...

Awesome. That should show up when you boot up using Knoppix or something.

I tend to agree. Yes, you may learn a lot getting Gentoo to do anything, but that may not necessarily be what you need to do.

Sometimes you need something rock solid that you can depend on nearly 100% of the time. Making your living with that computer? You can't have it die. You need to be able to use it.

I also like being able to run a system on ancient hardware. I happen to like minimal eye candy and using the commandline. I want an install that's easy to forget about, not something I'll learn from. I want it to be easy to get things working, expect a regular cycle of development, and not have to worry about my OS suddenly disappearing or becoming commercial.

I know this sounds like an ad, building up to where I tell you what the distro you'll use if you're cool like me. Don't know what to tell you. I have to use Mac OS X, W2K and Linux servers daily. I've used Linux quite a bit (red hat, debian, gentoo) and now play around with OpenBSD, which I'll be using for a network appliance project. As a 'desktop' it seems to meet most of my needs (getting latest version of Java to run is the one thorn).

Re:Well said.

[sp0rk173]

Think in 20 years anyone will still be obsessed with the commandline and knowing every detail about their OS? God I hope not.

There will always be people who want to know how things work, thats kind of the base assumption of open source. Open Source thrives on the creativity and curiosity of people, and their drive to get into the nuts and bolts of their OS. If that's not your cup of tea, fine. Use fedora, suse, mandrake, windows, OS X, etc...

But for those of us who want to know how our system works, and want to get deep into it, there's distros like Gentoo, guides like LFS, and - by and large - open source software. Just because you might not have that same drive to figure out a system, doesn't mean it's an irrational drive, or even a silly one.

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be releasing my own Debian Based "Distrobution" - Called YADBD (pronounced yabbadabba)

Yet another debian based distribution.

It's going to include all the latest stuff ala gentoo with the ease of installation ala Knoppix, and the ease of administration ala Debian itself.

W00t!

Ubuntu

[Lalo Martins]

btw, it's "Ubuntu", not "Ubuntu Linux" or "Ubuntu GNU/Linux". Just "Ubuntu". Yes, the website is "ubuntulinux", but please ignore that ;-)

The official announcement: http://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2 004-September/000000.html

Yet Another Distribution

[Space_Soldier]

What's next, CANIBALLinux?

From the site:

[Kogase]

""Ubuntu" is an ancient African word" Uhhh. Any particular part of Africa? Does the entire continent speak one language or what?

Re:From the site:

[voyager42]

That was my reaction too, at first. I was very relieved that they do specify elsewhere that it is a Zulu word http://wiki.ubuntulinux.org/FrequentlyAskedQuestio ns/

Together with Impi, this makes two linux distros with Zulu names - impressive. Does anyone know whether South Africans are involved with Ubuntu?

Re:From the site:

[Scott James Remnant]

Mark Shuttleworth is South African.

Re:From the site:

[sibmad]

It is a Zulu word, and is seen as one of the best traits a person can have. My father always told me: "Son; if you ever find a girl with gooood Ubuntu, marry her on the spot!" Going by that, I guess this is my kind of distro...

Unfair moderation

[Compact Dick]

LiquidCoooled's three posts in this thread have been modded as troll and flamebait. Quite unfair when you actually read them and realise there's nothing inflammatory -- unless you're a close-minded zealot with rose glasses on.

I'm posting this with my karma bonus to show my disappointment. So there.

Re:Unfair moderation

[LiquidCoooled]

Hey, thanks :)

I think the phrase "mods on crack" applies in this situation.

wow that torrent rules

[4nd3r5]

its 10 times faster compared to getting porn of the torrent...

Six months? "Unique"?

[Trejkaz]

"Our release policy of releasing every six months is (at the time of writing :-) unique in the linux distribution world."

Yeah, because hey, Gentoo is releasing every three months. Therefore six is unique on a technicality.

DON'T post about Yoper anonymously...

[Anonymous Coward]

...because everyone will think you're the arrogant little prick who created it. He has a habit of posting in as many forums as he can, pretending to be a happy user and talking up how fast it is, how great the package system is and how friendly the support forums are.

Similar to what you just did in fact.

No worries, mate :-)

[Compact Dick]

Generally I don't whinge about moderation -- never with regard to my posts -- but the injustice meted out to yours was a bit too much.

Cheers,
CD

Not a fair assessment...

[geordie_loz]

LFS really does teach an awful lot about the structure and composition of a Linux box.. it's not just compiler output. (Gentoo I give you is very like a regular distro with slow install time and loads of compiler output)...

LFS is a real education.. maybe that you wouldn't want to build 100 systems that way, but once and you've learned a whole load about how a Linux system works.

Ok, so you don't learn about the construction of Unix based systems, files, sockets, signals etc.. but still more that a modern distro.

The thing I like about LFS, from a geek point of view, is knowing what's been installed and where (and why even), something you can lose in Gentoo, becuase it pulls stuff in, which you may not understand why.. the benefit is that maybe they know better.. but why not use a binary distro and trust they know better.

OT but please do NOT moderate :-)

[hummassa]

Bob did not fail... it begat Clippy !!!

Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, a linux distro for us blackfolk!

What's "geographically challenged" in African?

[firefarter]

Read from the site: "Ubuntu" is an African word, meaning "Humanity To Others"

Oh, yeah, right. And which one of the 1000 languages spoken there might it be?

I call shit, which means "shit" in European.

Re:What's "geographically challenged" in African?

[be-fan]

Um, even if it means that in one of 1000 languages, as long as they are African languages, it is an African word.

This is not a troll.

[drinkypoo]

Any moderator who marks it as such abuses moderation.

Of course, that's nothing new.

Kdentu?

[Sunnan]

I think it's great that the distribution focuses on only one DE.

Beavis_1.9.3-1.deb says:

[JessLeah]

"I need TP For my Ubuntu!"

Re:Beavis_1.9.3-1.deb says:

[firefly2442]

Sweet.

that's eh-able

[sp0rk173]

I went from Mandrake to Slackware, and I did indeed learn a lot from slackware (way more than mandrake...that was kinda "look ma, i'm running linux!! *point, click* and there's this thing...i think it's called a terminal...and you can do stuff!!! Uh...i dunno what yet...but stuff!!")...but where I really got my *nix education was FreeBSD and Gentoo. My friend was also a long-time slack user, then I showed him gentoo and that's all he uses now. Now, I'm not saying gentoo is intrinsically better than slack, they're both damn fine distros...but depending on the kind of learner you are, slackware might not be the best place to learn how *nix works. I do have a soft spot in my heart for slack, though. It was my first real distro and did teach me the basics.