A Review of Ubuntu Warty Release

JL writes "Recent news about Ubuntu had peaked my interest. Debian based, good development team, the Ubuntu philosophy and an active community. I lurked about on Freenode's #ubuntu channel and got a feel for the community. I found them to be helpful and a valuable asset to Ubuntu. I decided to give it a go on my laptop. "

Comments

KDE Debian Distributions

[RAMMS EIN]

I think you have a good point. I have sampled both KDE and GNOME over time, and consistently found KDE the better integrated, more consistent, and more complete environment. IMO, GNOME is catching on (if only because it's hard for KDE to get much better), and 2.8 is really nice.

Also, I have had such bad experiences with RPM that I wouldn't recommend any distribution based on it. I am sure RPM has gotten better, but what made package management work for me was dpkg and apt-get.

So, what I have been recommending to people is Debian for a distro and KDE for a desktop environment (unless they are like me and would rather save the resources and do without a DE). However, these don't come nicely integrated as a single, easy to install package.

Now, there are various options. Libranet provides a KDE and Debian based distro, but the freely available version is quite outdated. Linspire and Xandros are Windows imitations, and if I'm going to recommend a Linux distro, it's not going to be a Windows clone.

Something like Ubuntu, but using KDE, would be ideal. I think it would not be too hard to roll such a distro (a matter of putting the right packages on a CD and tweaking the installer). However, I am not that much of a fan of Linux that I would actually maintain a distro, so I'll leave it up to someone else.

105 distributions based on Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Distrowatch, there are 105 distributions based on Debian: Distrowatch independence.
What makes it so different from others to be quoted so often in Slashdot?

Re:105 distributions based on Debian

[bogie]

I think its because who is involved with the project. Because of that alone it has already gained enormous street cred. If this turns out as planned and lives up to the hype it's going to be a very good thing for linux in general. An up to date version of Debian which actually focuses on ease of use but remains Free long term is something that's been needed for a long time. Plus based on who is involved this project actually does have a chance of being around in 2 years. This isn't just 2 users coming together to fork Debian and "hoping" they'll be around to grow the project.

But as to what your alluding to, yes the hype machine is in full effect and I completely understand why people uninterested in Debian have had enough of Ubuntu "reviews" right now. Personally I'm still a fan of Fedora and Red Hat but I'm definitely giving Ubuntu a spin once it's stable.

For the rest of you don't forget, A)choice can be a good thing and B)OSS devs aren't cattle to be herded to whatever OSS project you think they should be working on.

sudo .vs. root

[Macka]

Something that caught my attention in the review was the statement that root is disabled by default, with all management tasks being performed by sudo, and graphical tools that make use of it. Sounds like they've taken a leaf out of Apple's books.

Is this the first Linux distro to do this?

My personal experience of using Mac OS X now for the last 2+ years is that this works really well. If I really need to do anything that needs the root UID for any length of time, then "sudo -s" sorts me out and off I go. I've never needed to enable the root account once.

So is an active root account a thing of the past? I'm curious to know what you (the reader) think about that.

Re:sudo .vs. root

[Macka]

That's what "sudo -s" is for ... it gives you a temporary "root" shell without having to know the root password. Assuming your rights in /etc/sudoers allow that.

Re:sudo .vs. root

[burns210]

I think it is a secure, and smart move for Linux(and Mac OS X, which I use more often). It has been a long standing mottoe "Don't login as root unless you absolutely need to, and even then, login just for the task at hand at then logout"... Well, why even have a root account then? sudo makes more sense, use sudo and run the command you need, and get rid of the logout - login as root - do task - logout.

Isn't this also a feature of SELinux?

Re:I've been using Ubuntu...

[damiam]

There isn't one. If you're happy with what you've got, don't switch. But I wouldn't recommend Gentoo to someone looking to try out Linux; I'd recommend Ubuntu. It's easier to install and gives you a clean, functional desktop without three days of installing, compiling, and manual configuration.