Ubuntu 11.04, Slackware 13.37

Approximately one billion Slashdot readers wrote in to tell us today that one of two distributions had releases: the new Ubuntu sports the Unity interface, marking a 'radical departure' from its UI of old. Now the more ancient and bearded amongst you might be interested in Patrick announcing the latest Slackware release which clearly has the most 1337 version number to date.

Comments

It's Linsux

[Anonymous Coward]

No one cares

Re:It's Linsux

[L-four]

No one cares

Geeks do, Linux is awesome source.

Re:It's Linsux

[marcello_dl]

While you're at it, ask the guy what is he doing on a linux powered website, inside a linux story thread, if nobody cares.

Re:It's Linsux

[c6gunner]

I care, but mostly because the new unity interface is goddamn retarded. I installed the beta a couple weeks back. Gave it a couple hours to try and get used to it, and just couldn't. I could see it working well for a tablet, but for my laptop it's completely useless.

The only good thing is that they give you the option to switch back to gnome, but metacity seems to be completely broken for me, and hardware acceleration no longer works. As far as I'm concerned, Ubuntu 11.04 is a step backwards. Now I'm looking at either switching to XFCE for the interface, or maybe ditching Ubuntu entirely and going with a different flavor.

Re:It's Linsux

[danieltdp]

A can answer that. He is trolling

Re:It's Linsux

[pmontra]

I'll wait a little and see if there are some major bugs then update. I'll also apt-get install xubuntu-desktop and get a GUI that works the way I want and not the other way around.

Re:It's Linsux

[ruemere]

There were _some_ improvements. In general, Unity is stable, fast and adjustable, but it lacks polish. Its size, inability to provide decent management for absolute paths (I have more favored applications than allowed by Unity default space, and I like them in groups, just fine) make for quite bad user experience, even with improved System Settings menu.
I wish I could access my little app park the same way I can do that with System Settings...

Anyway, there are fallback options, without Unity. They work fine and provide missing functionality.

In general, system feels a little faster than 10.10.

Regards,
Ruemere

Re:It's Linsux

[Ginger Unicorn]

I know a fresh install has unity by default, but if you upgrade an existing installation, does it leave your desktop as regular gnome?

Re:It's Linsux

[c6gunner]

No, after you reboot it defaults to unity. But it leaves gnome installed so it's an easy switch - you just select gnome on your login screen.

first post

[Anonymous Coward]

yay!

Re:first post

[amn108]

Only if you suck at arithmetic.

Both?

[mescobal]

Doesn't both news deserve a separate note?

Re:Both?

[Random2]

It's easier to condense them into one post than trying to weed out the best individual topic. Check the firehose, it's littered with submissions.

Re:Both?

[Anonymous Coward]

They both did get such; I suspect you mean that each desrves a separate note.

You are correct.

Re:Both?

[mescobal]

They both did get such; I suspect you mean that each desrves a separate note.

You are correct.

Yes, sorry, my fault, my lame English.... My wife is an English teacher and I'm a Psychiatrist... Yes... your conclusion (whatever it is) is probably right... :-)

Re:Both?

[Missing.Matter]

Then there would be no room on the homepage for important announcements like an iPhone color change!

Re:Both?

[Qubit]

MOD PARENT UP

Re:Both?

[obergfellja]

mod up parent.

Re:Both?

[jo_ham]

I'm amazed there was any space left on the front page after all those troll articles about the "tracking" "scandal", some even dupes from 2010 trying to pass off old information as new news. Anything to keep the FUD machine going.

Re:Both?

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife is an English teacher and I'm a Psychiatrist

How does that make you feel? What do you remember of your mother?

Re:Both?

[kvvbassboy]

The problem with this is inevitable flame wars. You are going to see Ubuntu guys point out their position on Distrowatch, and Slackware sneering at the Ubuntu guys.

Re:Both?

[x*yy*x]

.. and that is the problem. Instead of that bullshit flame wars between distros, why not just concentrate on making the whole system better for user. Imagine how childish it would be if Microsoft and Apple did that.

Re:Both?

[higuita]

No problem at all, both are clearly for totally different user targets, each side will mostly ignore the other... of course there will be always some black sheep's, but those will troll both storied, no matter if nested or isolated...
and everyone knows that slackware is the best! ;)

Re:Both?

[volkerdi]

.. and that is the problem. Instead of that bullshit flame wars between distros, why not just concentrate on making the whole system better for user. Imagine how childish it would be if Microsoft and Apple did that.

Don't you mean bullshit flame wars between _users_?

Congrats on the new release, Ubuntu!

Re:Both?

[unperson]

Normally, I'd dog on the editors for this too, but I just noticed the, the "OMG wyte ifone" submission has almost twice the comments as this announcment...it'll be interesting to check back on the comment count in a few hours to see what /.'ers really care about these days!

Re:Both?

[underqualified]

good call. slackware has the friendliest community forum that i've used. and i assume, coz i've never really tried it, that ubuntu has a friendly community forum as well. i find the juxtaposition interesting. slackware tends to be stuck in the past (yeah, yeah, stability and stuff. i use slackware too. go away.) and ubuntu seems to go against accepted "practices"(remember wayland?).

Re:Both?

[moronoxyd]

Damn. Yesterday I had mod points, and didn't use them. :(

Re:Both?

[Compaqt]

I don't think there's any animosity between Slackware and Ubuntu users. Or even Gentoo or Arch for that matter.

There's probably a rivalry between Ubuntu and Fedora users, though.

Re:Both?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that and the endless US bashing, eh?

Re:Both?

[Anonymous Coward]

Psychiatrist is: "You're bipolar/depressed/anxiety disorder... here are some pills."

Re:Both?

[ThatsNotPudding]

Doesn't both news deserve a separate note?

Gaahh! Ever more forking!

Re:Both?

[maxwell demon]

Yeah, that and the endless US bashing, eh?

Could be worse: Imagine US tcshing! :-)

Re:Both?

[Anonymous Coward]

Real Slackware users discuss it on Usenet.

Re:Both?

[Risen888]

That's a feature.

Re:Both?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bipolar? If anything I'm bi-winning!

Re:Both?

[Risen888]

Imagine how childish it would be if Microsoft and Apple did that.

The irony's thick in here today.

Re:Both?

[CatsupBoy]

I'm not sure whats cooler, Patrick commenting on /. or the fact that he's browsing at 1.

Congrats on the new release Patrick, and all the slackware crew!

Re:Both?

[hairyfeet]

Could be MUCH worse: Imagine a US Goatse'ing? Personally I'm waiting for some hacker group to hit the Yahoo portal (which if you don't know is #1 by a long shot with the normal folks) and replace the page with a giant Goatse with an arrow pointing at the...erm...affected area with a "reach in here to check your email" caption. Bonus points if they have the appropriately gross sound effects when they mouse towards it and an actual email button in the center.

As for TFA, I'll probably get shit for daring to ask but fuck it, I got karma to burn: When the fuck is the Linux guys gonna stand up and stop taking shit sandwiches? Oh I don't mean the Slax guys, I think they have their own timetable. I'm talking about the 6 month upgrade deathmarch pushed by Canonical. does ANYONE think really decent, or hell, even half ass QA can be done in that amount of time? And look at how many open bugs are over a year old! If Apple or MSFT tried that shit they would be hung out to dry, but with Linux you get "here its free, shut up and take it" which I still say is a shit sandwich approach. I don't care if your shit sandwich is free or not I'm still not taking a bite!

So I'd say if you want to gain some real numbers (as opposed to simply being able to say "we're not dead yet!") then serious bug fixing and QA needs to be going on and the deathmarch really needs to DIAF for that to happen. I mean when Dell, one of the largest manufacturers in the world, can't even allow the repos to run because it will bork the machine and cause the whole thing to fall around the user's ears? I'm sorry but that's just fucked up and if even Dell can't get decent QA on the tiny subset of Ubuntu boxes they sell what chance does a little shop owner like me have of setting up a machine and not having it shit itself on the customer if he updates it?

Re:Both?

[Haeleth]

Instead of that bullshit flame wars between distros, why not just concentrate on making the whole system better for user

That's what the multiple distro approach does. It's called "competition" in a "free market". I realise this kind of concept is difficult for people to grasp when their minds have been poisoned by the Microsoft/Apple dictatorial/hegemonic approach, but Linux is about freedom and choice, not about being told what OS to use by a single all-powerful organisation that wants to control every aspect of your computing.

Re:Both?

[slackzilly]

Imagine a flameware between Windows users and GNU/Linux users:
Windows users would poing out the market share and general popularity, while Linux users would sneer that them because they know better..

Now replace Windows with Ubuntu and GNU/Linux with Slackware.....

Re:Both?

[matthew_t_west]

Hell yeah!!! Thanks Patrick, you rule!!! You taught me linux from a young age... I use that knowledge to this day!

M

Re:Both?

[meatron]

Very nice one! Congrats to both and all the best to Patrick! - Slackware user since 2003

I was online at midnight CDT

[omnichad]

I was ready to install last night. Officially, it was April 28, and not only was it not available for download - they didn't give the hour.

I'm done complaining now. I use OS X as my main OS, Windows 7 as my secondary, but I'm excited to see Unity. It's about time they start innovating past Windows/Mac instead of mostly cloning.

Re:I was online at midnight CDT

[CynicTheHedgehog]

Um, Unity is just another move toward cloning the Mac interface:

1. Global menu? Mac has had that forever
2. Monochrome notifications on the top right? Check
3. Dock? Check (except its on the *side*!)

The only differences I see so far are annoying ones:

1. The global menu is not always active, so it is non obvious how to access it
2. On mouseover the global menu obscures the window title
3. The maximize behavior with the close/minimize/restore buttons in the panel is just ugly and unweidly
4. The dock hides and appears in a nonsensical, semi-random fashion. It should be always on or auto-hide -- "dodge windows" is just weird
5. It has the dash, which is completely useless once you get the apps you use pinned to the dock
6. It crashed like crazy when testing in VirtualBox ... not sure I want to attempt it on my main system

I got an upgrade notice this morning and for the first time in 3 years I declined.

Re:I was online at midnight CDT

[perryizgr8]

i've been saying the same thing since forever but no one seems to notice! unity is just a step further in ubuntu's attempt to clone osx. from the abrupt change of the titlebar buttons to the new and shiny dock, everything is just parodying osx.

Re:I was online at midnight CDT

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want innovation, I want a functional desktop I can get work done on.

OH BUT WAIT I guess they know what I need more than I do, I'm glad they took away my config options.

Re:I was online at midnight CDT

[cratermoon]

The dock was originally on the side, back when OS X was called NeXTSTEP

Re:I was online at midnight CDT

[poptones]

Unity is DEFAULT, not ONLY. You can turn unity off and on just by changing a couple settings and logging in again.

The global menu isn't going to work with everything right off because this ISN'T OSX we're dealing with - it's open source software written from a variety of apis and toolkits. The most important ones seem to work well, and firefox is being integrated which will solve the most glaring and annoying niggle.

Unity is intended to save screen real estate - which it does quite well. I use my pc in the living room, from the couch across the room. So my 1920x1080 resolution screen gets filled with larger than usualy icons and fonts because I'm an old fart and my eyes don't work so good anymore. And while I'm NOT using unity iteslf I do use some components of it - maximus, global menu, and a dockbar - and it works great.

I really dislike the displacement of nautilus in the new desktop. That's my one real problem with unity as it is. The preview icons don't work properly and I find it confusing because the settings do not migrate so the experience is VERY inconsistent. It will definitely need some work, but it's not all bad.

Re:I was online at midnight CDT

[Compaqt]

Yeah, I had wondered why they moved from the nice colored network icons to a monochrome set in 10.04.

Reason: their designers all use Macs. No kidding.

Re:I was online at midnight CDT

[Nyeerrmm]

I actually kind of appreciate having a not-too-hackish OS-X like interface, mostly because I use OSX as well as Ubuntu -- and first thing I do is move the dock to the side in OSX.

Unfortunately, this has one glaring problem for me. I expect applications to behave in a 'application-centric' way like OSX does now, rather than the 'window-centric' way. I keep closing my browser and having to restart it because I keep thinking it should keep running after I close the window. Since the beta was slow for me and my desktop is getting long in the tooth this got really annoying.

Re:I was online at midnight CDT

[Anonymous Coward]

But if they don't completely deny their own individual identity and instead act like they want to be someone else, then how will the users ever love them? :P

Re:I was online at midnight CDT

[CynicTheHedgehog]

I realize there is a classic mode, but that's being jettisoned in 11.10. I've tried classic mode, and all it does is add an extra click to get to everything.

And when I said "the global menu is not always active" I should have said "not always visible". Most apps I played with use the global menu, but unless you spasmodically throw your cursor around the screen and accidentally hover over the panel you would never know there is a global menu in the first place.

For the record, I like the global menu on the Mac. The active window title and menu are always visible. The window title is bold and the text is never cut off or obscured by the menu. The apple menu is always in the top-left and has all the system-related commands I need. The window title itself is always a menu that has the preferences for that app and any commands related to app window management. Intuitive and, most importantly, *consistent*.

If you want to save real estate and truly target mobile devices, you need to be revolutionary, not evolutionary. Consider:

1. Why do apps even need menus? Can we achieve the same level of functionality without cascading drop down menus? The mobile industry has shown that this is possible. We just need to re-think the application interfaces.

2. What good is that silly ubuntu icon in the top left? This seems to be a non-functional throwback to the concept of a "Start" menu. It's like the apple menu, but it doesn't actually do anything useful. I can get to the dash by clicking on the icons in the launcher, pushing the super key, or going to the top-left corner. It's a waste of space that could be used for displaying the active window title so it doesn't have to be cut off by the menu.

3. Why can't the launcher be some kind of overlay so it doesn't have to fight with the other windows for real estate, sliding in and out depending on state of the active windows? For that matter, does the panel need to always be visible? Can't that be part of the overlay?

Gnome 3 did a better job with these issues, I think. I'm hoping Unity will end up being a New Coke / Coke Classic kind of thing to make people ecstatic to switch to Gnome 3 in 11.10.

Re:I was online at midnight CDT

[riondluz]

Get Entrance via XDMCP and be enlightened17
For a setop or tablet try illume for realestate management.
my .02

Re:I was online at midnight CDT

[daver00]

The global menu is one of the worst aspects of the OSX user interface, I have no idea why Ubuntu would copy that.

A radical departure?

[drinkypoo]

Most of what it does is Compiz, it has a menu bar and a dock. You still log in through gdm and it still pops up on the wrong monitor when I have 'em both active.

On the other hand, it is awfully more mac-like, what with Unity stealing menu bars left and right, but not always.

Still the same theme from Maverick with the gadgets on the wrong side but now it makes sense because it makes sense for the gadgets to be on that side when they get snarfed into the top bar.

I'm just glad that they managed to get the dock pop-up/click behavior ironed out before the release, I noticed they finally fixed this in the last day or two. And the Applications place seems to actually have stuff in it every time I click it now. For a few days there I had to type to see anything the first time I used it.

All in all if you're not married to a particular interface it's not an unpleasant change, and it does look nice. Amusingly, to me it is reminiscent of the Zune Desktop Theme for Windows XP. That's nice for me because I'm a dual-boot user again, and that's my XP theme of choice :)

Re:A radical departure?

[lee1]

Business as usual: no reason to change from dwm.

Re:A radical departure?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for letting me know. I'll note that in my diary.

Re:A radical departure?

[men0s]

Because dwm is customized through editing its source code, it’s pointless to make binary packages of it. This keeps its userbase small and elitist. No novices asking stupid questions.

I guess you're one of the elitists, eh?

Re:A radical departure?

[lee1]

What, it wasn't obvious?

Re:A radical departure?

[gujo-odori]

Yes, it's a radical departure. If there has ever been a more fugly or less usable IU in the history of computing, I haven't encountered it. I used to use systems based on Motif, so when I say "fuglies" I'm not messing around. If the standard GNOME UI were not available from the GDM screen, my use of Ubuntu (which dates to their first public beta, when I moved over from Debian Sid) would have come to and end. The Unity interface is so awful that even my kids, who are in grade school, couldn't stand it, and they don't have the long history with "traditional" UIs that I have.

One odd thing I need to dig into is I installed from beta 1 onto a desktop machine a few weeks ago and it had the global menu applet working out of the box, even in Firefox and Thunderbird. The only place it didn't work is Synaptic. Today, I just installed beta 2 onto a MacBook Pro 2.2 (late 2006 vintage) and no global menu. Still updating packages, but that gives me something to dig into today. I want my global menus back.

Oh, and here's another body buried in 11.4: they removed the ability of Gnome Session Manager to save the session. The "logic" from a developer thread was that since it isn't perfect (where perfect = can perfectly restore the state of every app, every open document, etc.), it should be removed entirely. A classic case of the perfect being the enemy of the great and the good. I'm on a mission to replace the session manager with a non-crippled one.

Whoever the PM was who is responsible for the UI and session manager decisions should be fired. I hope Ubuntu takes a pasting over this and comes to their senses.

Why upgrade?

[Rik Sweeney]

I find Kubuntu Lucid LTS stable enough for me these days and cannot really see any reason to upgrade to Natty. I think I'm going to stick to the LTS releases from now on since the new features just aren't compelling enough. Anyone else feel the same?

Re:Why upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

I might play around with it... I only use Ubuntu on my laptop, which I basically use to watch YouTube videos at night before bed. It really doesn't have to do all that much to make me happy.

I do have a server that I'm keeping at LTS releases... and I really don't care about Unity for a headless server anyways.

Re:Why upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll keep my work desktop on 10.10. It's pretty stable right now, and my last two upgrade experiences with this machine have gone poorly. I'll probably upgrade my home machines sometime this weekend.

Re:Why upgrade?

[CFBMoo1]

Thats what VirtualBox is for, when you get that non-LTS itch. :)

Re:Why upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Anyone else feel the same?

I don't. KDE has made significant strides since Lucid.

Re:Why upgrade?

[MBGMorden]

While the OS itself might not change, usually app versions get frozen to a particular level per release and only get updated in the repositories (aside from security and major bugfixes) on the change of the OS version. You can get around this by using PPA's, but IMHO those often cause some issues.

All in all, for me it's worth upgrading just to get new versions of most of the applications. I might would stick to the LTS releases if I used my system for "real work", but in reality at work I'm stuck with Windows 7 and Ubuntu is just what I use at home where a stability is important, but not paramount.

Re:Why upgrade?

[obergfellja]

ever since 9.10 issue (with the usb), I have held off by a month atleast from release date, so you're not alone, buddy.

Re:Why upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

I basically use to watch YouTube videos at night before bed. It really doesn't have to do all that much to make me happy.

You meant YouPorn, right?

Re:Why upgrade?

[captainpanic]

Yep.
I stick to the LTS releases because I am too lazy to update (yes, even if it is just a click in the update manager, and a 10 minute wait). :-)

My 10.4 has all the functionality I need, and I can wait for the next LTS which, if I am not mistaken, is the next 11.10 in October. I'll probably update by January or March 2012.

I am one of those mainstream desktop users which comprise 90% of the desktop market, using only 10% of the functionality of the computer for 90% of the time.

Re:Why upgrade?

[mikechant]

My 10.4 has all the functionality I need, and I can wait for the next LTS which, if I am not mistaken, is the next 11.10 in October.

Next LTS is 12.4 as per the 2 yearly sequence 8.4, 10.4, 12.4, 14.4 etc.

Re:Why upgrade?

[tom17]

Yeah, except that "It appears your machine does not have the hardware needed to run unity." It just comes up with the classic gnome interface in my VirtualBox.

That was a waste of time.

Re:Why upgrade?

[RDW]

Unity 2D ('sudo apt-get install unity-2d') works under VirtualBox (if any version of Unity can be said to 'work'). Then you can have fun ticking off how many of these mistakes it makes:

http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/shame.htm

Re:Why upgrade?

[macinnisrr]

install guest additions

Re:Why upgrade?

[Rob the Bold]

I find Kubuntu Lucid LTS stable enough for me these days and cannot really see any reason to upgrade to Natty. I think I'm going to stick to the LTS releases from now on since the new features just aren't compelling enough. Anyone else feel the same?

For me, I'd rather wait for the almost certain hardware problems to be discovered and fixed by someone else before I make the switch. I've got an Nvidia card and a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse that always seem to break with each new Ubuntu. I've already dug through my closet enough times getting out an old keyboard and coping with VGA for a few weeks to have learned my lesson. And don't get me started on sound.

Call me selfish, but I don't want to wade through support forums in 640x480 looking for just the right configuration patch merely to get back where I started.

Perhaps if I feel adventurous, I might take CFBMoo1's advice and virtualize, although I'm not entirely certain this would uncover a hardware problem.

Re:Why upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

While the OS itself might not change, usually app versions get frozen to a particular level per release and only get updated in the repositories (aside from security and major bugfixes) on the change of the OS version.

Mod up, pls. It's amazing how many Ubuntu users don't understand this.

Here's a slower explanation: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=10037618#post10037618

LTS is really not about Stable as in Crashes Less, it's about Stable as in Long Term Support of the repository. People who missed the bad old days of Dependency Hell upgrades don't quite grok what the repository system is doing for them.

Re:Why upgrade?

[gujo-odori]

For any computer that is important (my desktop at work, for example, and any server) I use only LTS releases.

Natty is pretty good, with a couple of exceptions (that fugly Unity interface and the crippling of Gnome session manager), but if you're happy with Lucid or Maverick, then no, it offers no compelling reason to upgrade. I did it on a machine that needed a reinstall due to a hardware failure, and another that was just sitting around doing nothing (old MacBook Pro from 2006) and I'll keep it, but I don't plan to put it on any machine that is fine running Lucid or Maverick.

Re:Why upgrade?

[tom17]

I did that but it didn't help.

Re:Why upgrade?

[macinnisrr]

Are you using Virtualbox 4.0? It was just released recently and you need it. Get it from Oracle's site, install, and make sure that the checkbox for "3d acceleration" is checked on your VM setup. Then it should work (provided you have the guest additions up to date. As a caveat, you have to be able to do 3d acceleration on your host machine for this to work. Enjoy!

Re:Why upgrade?

[Bucky24]

Ten minutes? You must be joking. I've been waiting four hours already and it's just finished downloading packages. Though I guess this being the first day, everyone else is hitting the server too, trying to update.

Re:Why upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

So far LTS releases were 2 years apart. 6.06, 8.04, 10.04. Unless something's changed and I missed the announcement, the next one will be 12.04.

Re:Why upgrade?

[atari2600]

Been on LTS releases since 6.06 for my work desktops. Run Debian on my test/server boxes though. I try out the non-LTS releases on my laptop but not too often. Even then with LTS, I have to use PPA repos since Ubuntu repos take forever to update :\

Re:Why upgrade?

[tom17]

Ah. :)

Re:Why upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

The distro doesn't change that much but you get stuck with old version of most of the applications you run. (at least if you use the repos but then again what's the point of using Ubuntu if you don't rely heavily on repos...)
Plus running the newest version of some applications in an old Ubuntu framework can lead to very unstable behavior.

So yeah there's that.

GPT Support

[hedwards]

Do either of these support installing to a GPT partition? I've been looking around for a Linux distro that actually allows me to install to a GPT disk without much fuss and haven't had any luck so far. It would be nice since my main reason for wanting GPT is Linux obsession with using up all my primary partitions.

Now if only Win XP could be made to boot from a GPT partition without sacrificing all the extra partitions I could have with GPT.

Re:GPT Support

[0123456]

Do either of these support installing to a GPT partition?

Yes, but you need a BIOS that will boot from it. I have my Ubuntu 10.04 MythTV server installed with a GPT partition table, but I have to boot it from the other disk which has a DOS partition table because the BIOS can't find the GPT boot partition.

Re:GPT Support

[0100010001010011]

Um. Debian has for... a while now. So has Ubuntu. I've not had any problem with either. Just remember to leave a 1MB chunk at the bottom and set the bios_grub flag so grub has somewhere to install to.

Re:GPT Support

[timeOday]

I don't know anything about GPT, but every linux distro I've used will happily install to a single partition. IMHO there's no very strong reason to have separate swap and boot partitions and so on.

Re:GPT Support

[kelemvor4]

More specifically, you need a system that uses uEFI firmware in place of BIOS.

Re:GPT Support

[0123456]

IMHO there's no very strong reason to have separate swap and boot partitions and so on.

There's at least one good reason to have separate / and /home partitions: Linux really, really hates bad blocks on the / partition, so if you use the entire disk for / then one bad block can stop you booting until you manually perform a long fsck to fix it.

Re:GPT Support

[just_another_sean]

Not to mention that, although it's not needed often, it's great when you can wipe out all the system partitions but leave /home intact during a reinstall.

I learned a long time ago how helpful it could be to move My Documents on a Windows machine to a separate partition from the Windows and Program Files folders. Reinstalling is much easier without having to back up personal stuff first. Even though I use it a lot less in Linux old habits die hard and I always try to keep personal files separate from system files, no matter what OS I am using.

Off to fire up Virtual Box and try 'em both!

Re:GPT Support

[Nutria]

IMHO there's no very strong reason to have separate swap and boot partitions and so on.

And when you wipe that partition, or "something" accidentally wipes it, there goes /home (which should *always* go on it own partition).

Re:GPT Support

[nschubach]

Unless they accidentally wipe your home partition...

Re:GPT Support

[timeOday]

You need a backup of home regardless of partitioning strategy, so there's no advantage there.

If anything, it's having to futz with partitions in the first place that leads to mistakes involving them. And there's less futzing if you keep it simple. (An example would be resizing partitions because you need more on /var and have empty space on /home).

Re:GPT Support

[Nutria]

In which case you still have all the apps in / to to restore /home from backup.

Re:GPT Support

[cp.tar]

However, one recent version of Kubuntu managed to mess up my father’s /home nonetheless. Separate partition, don’t touch anything, but most of his picture and document folders were simply gone. I managed to recover quite a bit, but the filenames and organization were lost.

Still, it’s generally a good thing.

Re:GPT Support

[Nutria]

You need a backup of home regardless of partitioning strategy, so there's no advantage there.

Of course there is: "safety backup" is a hell of a lot faster than "mandatory backup + restore".

(An example would be resizing partitions because you need more on /var and have empty space on /home).

I know I don't run a server, but it's been a decade since /var caused me any real problems.

Re:GPT Support

[Rysc]

I'm so glad you don't have exactly the same needs, wants and desires as everyone else in the universe. It's more fun when life is diverse. Can you accept that someone, such as the OP, probably has some good reason why he wants GPT and can't be convinced that "You don't need it because I can live without it" is an acceptable alternative?

Re:GPT Support

[WuphonsReach]

I don't know anything about GPT, but every linux distro I've used will happily install to a single partition. IMHO there's no very strong reason to have separate swap and boot partitions and so on.

One of the key strengths of Linux/Unix is that you can put any part of the tree onto a partition with a file system that makes sense for that part of the directory tree. Or where you need the system to not barf completely if one file system encounters severe errors or runs out of space. Even better, the process is nearly seamless to any applications running on the machine, making it easy to separate user data from operating system files.

By putting /boot in a separate partition, you can dismount it or make it read-only during normal operations. So a process that corrupts some part of the file system will not also corrupt /boot (because it is dismounted or read-only).

You can choose to use a different system for something like a media folder where you need better support for large files (ext3 tends to choke when deleting large files).

You can move portions of /var/log to their own file system, so if the log files get blown out, the machine still runs.

Putting /home on a separate partition makes it easier to upgrade the operating system (or even replace it entirely) without impacting user data.

Now, if none of that matters to your use case, then feel free to put everything on a single partition. But you're really limiting yourself.

Re:GPT Support

[WuphonsReach]

Keeping it simple means making use of LVM and leaving a bit of extra space on the drive rather then reserving it all during the initial install.

One of the file systems needs more space? Unmount the file system, resize the logical volume, resize the file system (a separate tool like resize2fs), then remount the file system and you magically have more space without having to do a huge backup/restore.

Re:GPT Support

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI it's not commonly known, but you can choose a fresh install and Ubuntu will not overwrite /home (or /usr/local) if you make sure you choose *not* to format the partition before installing. The installer will just delete everything else and then copy cd system image over, leaving /home intact.

Re:GPT Support

[just_another_sean]

That is interesting, I always assumed if you didn't reformat the system partitions (or the single if that's how it's setup) then you'd get a crazy mix of old system/program files and new...

Re:GPT Support

[Hatta]

You can't boot from an encrypted partition, so there's a good reason to have a boot partition. A swap file can get fragmented, so there's a good reason to have a swap partition. As for "and so on..."

Filling up root can cause all sorts of undesired behavior, so it's best to keep the subdirectories that are most likely to grow on their own partition. That tends to be /usr, /var, and /home. You want to keep /home on another partition anyway, in case you need to reinstall the system without touching /home.

Re:GPT Support

[Anonymous Coward]

If I'm understanding you correctly, when you have one partition for your entire operating system and have bad blocks, then you are fsck'd.

Re:GPT Support

[Anonymous Coward]

IMHO there's no very strong reason to have separate swap and boot partitions and so on.

There's at least one good reason to have separate / and /home partitions: Linux really, really hates bad blocks on the / partition, so if you use the entire disk for / then one bad block can stop you booting until you manually perform a long fsck to fix it.

Are you saying that Linux won't boot if there is a bad block on its root partition? If NTFS detects a bad block on the disk, it will mark it bad and move on. If there is data on it, then it will recover it using CRC data and mark the block bad.

Linux is such dog shit, I don't understand why you people use it.

Re:GPT Support

[Anonymous Coward]

files being zero'd out when the filesystem is full is a compelling reason to split it partitions...not sure if this still happens.

Also, setting specific mounting options such as nosuid for /home (as a simple example)...There are many reasons why having all files mounted on the same partition is a bad idea.

Re:GPT Support

[hedwards]

I've tried that in the past, and my only saving grace was that the partitions didn't last long enough for me to create my own files. Literally for a while I was reinstalling the OS every single time I needed to reboot because of filesystem corruption. Granted that was a while ago, and IIRC ext3fs, but still, it's not a good practice to be in.

Re:GPT Support

[hedwards]

This is precisely why I do that. Filesystems like /boot and /root which don't change very often but are critical shouldn't be affected by filesystems like /var and /tmp which change frequently and are relatively unimportant or easily recreated, and I definitely don't want to lose the information in /home because of one of the other filesystems barfing.

Plus, wanting to dual boot with at least 2 other OSes, I would prefer not to have to mount my entire install just in case something goes wrong during the process.

Re:GPT Support

[countertrolling]

:-) Nice try... but Linux will actually run the file check automatically if there's a problem, just like Windows chkdsk, or after a set number of remounts, a minor inconvenience that forces me to take a break and have a smoke... such a horrible life...

Re:GPT Support

[hedwards]

That's good to know, I've been googling this for a few days now, and finding out which Linux distros really support it and which ones can be made to support it by following a series of arcane and ill defined steps has proven to be quite challenging. I've found utilities that will do it, but in general not all of the distros include GTP fdisk on their installer and going manually like I had to for FreeBSD isn't possible for me at this stage without actual instructions which cover the entire process. At present the process with FreeBSD isn't any easier, I just had a much easier time finding clear directions as to how to accomplish the task. As it stands now, the development release of Slackware seems to be the first one I've found which includes the capability in the install disc without a lot of extra steps.

But, I'm sure that'll change and I'm sure that somewhere out there the steps to do it exist.

Re:GPT Support

[Anonymous Coward]

For general desktop use, there may not be, but there certainly are a LOT of good reasons to have different partitions on a server. Here are a few: /home - quotas can only be done on mount points, plus the comments others have made about the /home partition being easier to back up, keep during upgrades, etc. Also, you can mount it with the noexec option, so users can't put their own binaries on the system w/o the admin knowing about it. /tmp - anyone and everyone can write to /tmp, so making it its own partition prevents it from being an easy place to fill up the drive and crash the system. Also, you can use a different filesystem on /tmp, such as ext2 and save the (minimal) overhead of journaling with ext3, etc. noexec is a good mount option here too. /var - a runaway process could fill up your log files, and having it as its own partition helps prevent problems like I mentioned with /tmp. Also, if you have a proxy, e-mail, or any other system that stores a lot of data here you may want different quotas than on /home, so again, you need a different partition. noexec is a good mount option here as well /boot doesn't have to be its own partition strictly speaking, but there are a number of advantages to it being one. First, the kernel cannot be installed on a LVM or software RAID array (except software RAID 1). If you want to use these technologies, /boot still has to be a standard partition. Also, older mobo's couldn't read above sector 1024 on the HDD, so having /boot as the first primary partition ensures the kernel is on a sector below 1024. /usr can be its own partition for security reasons too. After installing and configuring your system, you can mount it with some options to increase security. I know one person who used to leave /usr mounted as read only, and then only re-mounted it as read-write when doing updates. As soon as updates were done, it was back to read only.

Swap space can be a file or a partition, but performance will be much better if it is its own partition. Swap space on an LVM allows you to resize it on the fly too.

Re:GPT Support

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll still get a tired stale mushy filesystem.

Better start with a clean slate.

Re:GPT Support

[timeOday]

He already said why he wanted GPT: "It would be nice since my main reason for wanting GPT is Linux obsession with using up all my primary partitions."

So, it seems obvious to point out that Linux doesn't need to use up all those partitions if that's not how he wants it.

Re:GPT Support

[Lost Race]

I always try to install onto a relatively small system partition (in all operating systems, not just Linux) in order to speed up system boot and application startup. Keeping all the executables, libraries, and config files together in contiguous cylinders comprising less than 25% of the drive can significantly reduce average seek time when many such files are accessed in rapid succession.

Obviously this only applies to high-capacity mechanical HDDs.

Re:GPT Support

[Anonymous Coward]

I second the Vote! That's why my laptop workstation is still 8.04 and my newer ITX's 10.04
and will stay up2date there for some time to come.
My HVM servers are C5, content and refreshingly stable. Upgrading to latest-n-greatest just makes it harder to keep data integrity intact. Whether its TB-sized storage in volumes on iscsi, or shuffling 20GB SSD partitions/volumes around,
To the GP poster who believes in easy:
  i wish it were that simple - how about var/www, fonts and shares, all development code installed as packages, all the etc customizations.

I realize the difference between using a PC for its applications and using a workstation as a development/processing platform; and all thats entailed in rapidly increasing and changing data/files that stem from programming,wires-n-iron.

Prob best to have a gfs/iscsi/nfs/smb centralized raided dataBank, but i'm mostly just rsyncing my important areas around my subnet to increase warmfuzzy self of instantiated disposability; like the servers themselves. Crash away, just not at once. Next time my sys hangs, i should prob just clone the drive and keep it in sync like religion.

Re:GPT Support

[dragonturtle69]

The best reason for separate partitions is that the file-systems can be different, matching your expected usage (user files may be very different from system files), and ease of re-installs or migrations.

I kept the same /home for a couple versions of Mandrake, through a couple more Suse. Just set up the user the same with each new installation and start over, like nothing ever happened.

Slackware 13 has to be the distribution with the least amount of effort I have used. Yes, you need to think a little to install it and setup users. man/info is your friend. If you're looking for an "install by clicks then forget about administration, let someone else do it", Slackware may not be your distribution. If you want something stable (like that proprietary video driver, hate recompiling every month due to a kernel update, just for one example), and that will show you what other distributions have behind GUIs, then enjoy.

Re:GPT Support

[dragonturtle69]

Good points about /boot and /var, never really gave them much thought.

which one on top?

[hviezda14]

the main reason for merging was, the slashdot could not decide if Slacware should be on top, or Ubuntu.

Re:which one on top?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu should be on top. Twice to be sure.

I'm sure all the bottoms who use Slackware will disagree.

Re:which one on top?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's easy. Ubuntu is clearly a bottom.

Re:which one on top?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it definitely smells like one.

Re:which one on top?

[Anonymous Coward]

Their both very versatile, so go with whatever fits and feels best for ya at the time. Add a third distribution and be top and bottom at once if ya can handle it.
The story of two releasing in one day can be quite a mouthful. That doesn't happen every day. Enjoy!

Who else is waiting for the "got yah" of Unity?

[upuv]

I'm waiting for the overly keen to discover the pain for me and report it faithfully to /.

Just getting to old to beat my head into the keyboard any more. Well in this case touch screen.

Re:Who else is waiting for the "got yah" of Unity?

[TaoPhoenix]

(Inserting from elsewhere AC said: I'll keep my work desktop on 10.10. It's pretty stable right now, and my last two upgrade experiences with this machine have gone poorly. I'll probably upgrade my home machines sometime this weekend.)

You said "I'm waiting for the overly keen to discover the pain for me and report it faithfully to /.

Just getting to old to beat my head into the keyboard any more. Well in this case touch screen."

See, this is what troubles me. What should be the absolute heart of slashdot, two new releases of Linux, sporting different styles, is getting some 30 posts for BOTH distros combined, and you're the fourth to say "I'm beat, the exhausting tweaking is no longer for me".

Re:Who else is waiting for the "got yah" of Unity?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is part of growing up. Eventually you do not care about what your background looks like. You have other things to spend your time on. One of those is not tweaking every last setting. It is why Apple is doing decently. They pick a style and you dont change it much.

Eventually you get lazy and dont care. A year or two it will all change again and you really do not feel like tweaking 2000 settings to 'make it how you like it'. It is nice that they are there. But I gave up years ago. It is part of the reason I switched to Ubuntu from slackware. May go back though. Ubuntu is getting to be a pain to maintain (at least for me).

Honestly though the new interface is a pain in the ass. I have been using it for about year on a netbook. When it works (which is not often) you never can find anything and end up searching for it anyway. Then the search is slow too.

These days when I install a fresh OS I put my 5 or so apps I use on it and go about my business. I do not really bother with the settings anymore. They will change in a year or two anyway. Its not worth keeping up with...

Re:Who else is waiting for the "got yah" of Unity?

[Anonymous Coward]

and you're the fourth to say "I'm beat, the exhausting tweaking is no longer for me".

Because most people have graduated from college and don't have hours and hours of spare time to dick around with a ton of settings just to get something set up properly? This is the reason why Linux will never win the desktop and the only reason why it is doing well on phones via Android is that Google knows that most people don't want to dick around with all sorts of configuration. Hence why Android has rather sane defaults on vanilla and the phone makers run their own tweaks and most people are fine.

Re:Who else is waiting for the "got yah" of Unity?

[MrEricSir]

Nobody is forcing you to use Unity. Sure it's the default, but the "classic" Gnome 2 desktop is still there.

Re:Who else is waiting for the "got yah" of Unity?

[asvravi]

What should be the absolute heart of slashdot, two new releases of Linux, sporting different styles, is getting some 30 posts for BOTH distros combined,

Everybody else is busy writing up the story to submit.

Re:Who else is waiting for the "got yah" of Unity?

[Anonymous Coward]

This shouldn't trouble you.

People eventually stop giving a fuck about the latest-ultimate-shiny version of any piece of technology...and start using their stable OS to actually get some REAL WORK done is what they want, instead of the work required to a) adapt to new stuff, and b) get stuff adapted to YOU (and this is what matters actually). At that point they probably set up extra partitions or VMs whenever they feel a need to play with new stuff.

For me, it's just a sign that FOSS and its users are maturing. Which is good.

PS: my desktop beats the shit out of Gnome3/Unity ANYTIME :-)

One billion Slashdot readers

[Anonymous Coward]

Another news story:

Slashdot has become the world's most popular new source, eclipsing FoxNew, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, and Al Jazeera.

Re:One billion Slashdot readers

[digitalsushi]

oh haaaaa you interpreted hyperbole literally ohaaaaaa i just died laughing oh man thats the funniest thing i will ever read in a million years

Re:One billion Slashdot readers

[Ultra64]

" thats the funniest thing i will ever read in a million years"

Well, yeah. You certainly won't live to be a million.

Re:One billion Slashdot readers

[tom17]

I told you a million times Vivyan, do not exaggerate!

Xubuntu for me

[danbuter]

I really don't care for either Gnome Shell or Unity, so I'm going to give xfce a whirl for the next 6 months.

Re:Xubuntu for me

[MBGMorden]

I was playing with it myself about a week ago. I can honestly say that though it takes a bit of configuring, you can get XFCE looking much like the Gnome2 UI. My only show stopper issue for the time being was the XFCE's compositor just wasn't as good as Compiz (it caused some issues playing videos), and my dock-bar of choice (Docky) won't work without one. I can enable Compiz naturally, but it was trying to take over control of the desktop icons and such.

It's probably something that could be worked around given enough time though - I just couldn't find the solution in the hour or two I was experimenting with it. I can say with a certainty though that I prefer even the default/stock XFCE setup more than Unity, Gnome 3 Shell, or KDE, so at a minimum I'll be on XFCE if/when the legacy Gnome UI gets pulled - probably before just to be preemptive.

I had actually thought about switching back to Windows due to the Unity/Gnome Shell issue actually. I gave that a shot though and was unpleasantly reminded about spyware - a concept I had nearly completely forgotten about since switching to Ubuntu circa 9.04 (at least full time - I've been dual-booting Linux since 1998 or so).

Re:Xubuntu for me

[Anonymous Coward]

You can run Compiz in XFCE. I've been doing it for years at home, and it works quite nicely. I forget the details, but you basically just have to add a "Startup Application" of something like emerald --replace

Re:Xubuntu for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Well. You can still log in as Gnome Classic in regular ubuntu.
It is supported as usual.

At least in early betas it used the "unity decorator" for "classic" gnome.
Watch out for that. Has ugly shadows that were a pain on my intel card. I replaced that in gconf with the gtk window decorator (compiz one is fine too).

Maybe they fixed that now, I can't exactly tell now since I changed it.

I've been trying both. Unity has some nice points... What I hate about it is it lack of configurability of top bar. No applets that I love, no easy removal of things I'm uninterested in. I wish they'd gone for more incremental changes to gnome instead.

Re:Xubuntu for me

[scragz]

I made the switch after the latest Ubuntu a few months ago would barely even run on my relatively recent box (2007 AMD something). XFCE actually runs at the speed I believe this hardware should run. More importantly, everything seems so reasonable instead of forcing all these new paradigms on everyone when we mostly all just want a desktop that works and stays out of the way. It really has come so far since I last gave it a serious whirl in ~2004. Bonus: all the good stuff out of GNOME, like the GUI admin tools, still integrate fine.

Re:Xubuntu for me

[TangoMargarine]

I'm thinking of trying Linux Mint Debian XFCE. It's a rolling release but still pretty new so I'm sure there'll be some crippling Achilles' Heel in it.

(yes, as opposed to an Achilles' Heel that doesn't cripple you when it's cut)

Re:Xubuntu for me

[TangoMargarine]

Except the whole problem was that he didn't want his default XFCE styles replaced...

Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[fishthegeek]

I tried using Unity while Natty was in beta and it caused me to jump to Fedora 15. Unity has always struck me as a train wreck of usability. Global menus that are always present... unless they're not, because it depends on the application. A dock that is always there on the left, unless it isn't in order to get out of the way. It's a little too busy, a little to buggy, and a little too inconsistent with itself. I know I'm in a minority right now but I think Gnome-Shell is a better approach. I'm not starting a flame war here, I know GS isn't readily configurable, has issues with network manager, and has countless other things that need to mature. I can't help but think Canonicals reach has exceeded their grasp.

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[synapse7]

If the taskbar in gnome shell showed more than the current active window I may have loaded fedora on my netbook for fun. If somebody knows how to configure the task bar to show all open windows, please let me know. Jason

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[0123456]

I've found both of them rather crappy, to be honest. Hopefully by the time Ubuntu stop supporting Gnome 2 one or the other will actually be usable or I'll have to switch to Redhat.

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[Missing.Matter]

Since you're using Fedora 15 maybe you could explain something to me that I don't quite get about Gnome 3.

I played around with a Gnome 3 live CD based on suse, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to put items on desktop. It seemed like there was no right clicking on the desktop to create a file. Putting files in ~/Desktop didn't show up where I thought they should. Is the Gnome 3 desktop just for displaying wallpaper now? Or is there some new paradigm I'm completely missing?

I mean, I can kind of understand the whole no minimizing thing, and I can probably learn to get behind it, but my workflow is completely centered around files on my desktop. I can't get past that.

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[DrXym]

I assume the global menu require the cooperation of the application's widget set, i.e. when the app launches, the menu widget sees the global menu proxy and coordinates to show its menus through that instead of rendering it's own. Of course apps which fake a menu or use some weird widget set may not behave as they are meant to behave.

What I find particularly annoying about the single menu there is no way to change the behaviour in the UI. I appreciate that in a small netbook with a touchpad that a single menu is probably a good thing since it saves vertical space on all app windows and minimizes clutter. However on large displays it is counter productive - it increases the amount of mouse travel required to do simple multitasking e.g. if I have app in the background and I want to access it's menus I first have to locate one of its windows or icon, click it and then travel to the top of the window and click on the menu and possibly travel back down to the window again. Whereas with menus on windows I can just click straight on the menu, bring the app to the foreground at the same time.

At the very least it should be a configuration setting even if it requires a logout to take effect. It would also be nice to see the Unity shell be configurable too so that users can choose the hide / show behaviour, the position & scale of the dock and all the other things that would be taken for granted on any other modern desktop UI.

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[GauteL]

" Is the Gnome 3 desktop just for displaying wallpaper now?"

Bingo. The new paradigm is that windows will always obstruct the wallpaper and so icons on the desktop are pointless. I personally agree with that notion, but it may not suit everyone.

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[fishthegeek]

You can't actually put anything on the desktop by default. You can install the "gnome-tweak-tool" and have Nautilus draw your desktop. After selecting that you can then put icons on the desktop.

http://osdir.com/ml/general/2011-03/msg20339.html

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[Missing.Matter]

Ah! Thanks for that!

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[Americium]

Ubuntu was crashing more than Windows 7 before made Compiz mandatory, I can't see how this helps stability. But at least they realized after a 5 years of widescreen monitors that a dock on the side of the screen may be useful, so this was a necessity to stay relevant in my opinion.

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[cp.tar]

So, Gnome is rediscovering Enlightenment?

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[fishthegeek]

You're very welcome.

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, why? If you think gnome-shell is crap then switching to fedora isn't going to make the experience any better. By the next release Ubuntu will have support for Gnome3 and gkt3 so if you still don't like the crappy Unity you can run the crappy gnome-shell on Ubuntu instead.

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[Compaqt]

Supposedly, they're making all these changes to make it easier for noobs who have never touch a computer before.

But, ironically, the easiest thing you can do for noobs is to put their programs on the desktop. 10x10 matrix, 100 programs. They like stuff all right in front instead of in menus, regardless of whether they're called Applications or "Activities".

Not to mention the utter stupidity of having newbs search for programs that they don't even know exist instead of a nice menu organized by category.

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[0123456]

Um, why? If you think gnome-shell is crap then switching to fedora isn't going to make the experience any better.

RH6 will be supporting Gnome 2.x for... ooh.. about the next decade, because it's vastly superior to either Unity or Gnome 3 for anyone who actually wants to use their computer to do productive things rather than Facebook. By then maybe there'll be a usable alternative.

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[macinnisrr]

the show/hide behavior and scale of the dock can be adjusted. You need compizconfig-settings-manager, though.

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[Anonymous Coward]

You're funny. Gnome-panel, gkt2 is dead man. Most of Gnome core and gtk are coded from Redhat developers (as they're so fond of reminding everyone) and they've moved on to Gnome3 and gtk3. There'll be some maintenance, gnome2 is gone, baby, gone. Besides if the OP wants to run old shit, then what was he doing running frequently updated distro like Ubuntu anyways? He's much better off running Debian Stable than the RHEL crap.

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[Laurence0]

I know this is a workaround, rather than an in place fix, but I'm using a prog called Talika for my task bar. It shows icons instead of icons-and-program-names, which is actually the reason I started using it. It also can be (trivially) configured to show all open programs. I've got it grouping multiple windows of the same program together, I'm not sure if that's fixed or an option.

Works pretty nicely. :-)

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[marcosdumay]

I don't get that. If somebody never sees the icons on his desktop, having them does no harm, but if somebody does see those icons, hiding them will do harm. So, instead of the safe choice, they are going for the risky one with no benefit. And, by the way, my anedont (by the people I see using a computer) is that people do see those icons quite a lot.

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[tenchikaibyaku]

Not to mention the utter stupidity of having newbs search for programs that they don't even know exist instead of a nice menu organized by category.

I am not sure if you are aware or not, but gnome-shell does have a menu organized by category. Activities->Applications.

I find myself actually liking gnome-shell once I got over the initial "shock". :-) I'm also using Unity (Ubuntu 11.04) on my laptop and, while perhaps looking a bit sleeker, something doesn't feel quite right.

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[Anonymous Coward]

damn linux people and their flawless OS. And every one of them bitching on here about how you can't even get a proper interface. My god

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[Compaqt]

Thanks for the info. I guess they've changed it since the way I remember it last from an old beta.

For noobs, children and old folks, again, another level of menu.

Re:Unity vs. Gnome-Shell

[Compaqt]

You've just summed up the entire new Gno/buntu attitude: a select few Central Committee members will make decisions for everybody, regardless of of whether anybody likes it or not. Also: dumb everything down to the lowest possible denominator.

Beards

[Vyse of Arcadia]

I do have a beard, dammit. Stop stereotyping me!

Re:Beards

[Anonymous Coward]

Bearded guys are badass man.

Just switched

[inode_buddha]

Just switched to Slack last week. First time I've used it since slackware 3.0
I'm happy. It's got a nice clean feel without all the layers and obfuscation - it just stays out of the way and lets me do whatever I'm doing. Nice and simple. And that's the way I like it.

Re:Just switched

[fwarren]

It must be nice being Pat right now. Since he no longer bundles Gnome, non of this mess is a problem for him.

Someone else can bundle Gnome 2 and Unity, or bundle Gnome 3 with the Gnome Shell.

Either way, Pat does not have to worry about it.

Re:Just switched

[slackzilly]

That is because Pat is a genius.

Re:Just switched

[Anonymous Coward]

That is because Pat is a subgenius.

FTFY.

Re:Just switched

[matthew_t_west]

Pat's awesome. I owe him big time for learning true linux.

M

zomg torrent plz

[Anonymous Coward]

For the bearded folk:
Slackware Torrents

and for the rest of you:
Ubuntu Torrents

Re:zomg torrent plz

[0100010001010011]

For the bearded folk

I'm gay and I just asked my wife what this meant.
We still don't know.

Re:zomg torrent plz

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez, are sure you're gay? I thought one of the prerequisites to membership was being hip to all known gay subculture linguistic signifiers. Of course, there's so fucking many of them now, I guess it's hard to keep up.

Re:zomg torrent plz

[Anonymous Coward]

OP here... Why the hell is a reference to being a bearded linux user (as I'm sure plenty of us old hats are) all of a sudden a reference to homosexuality? What the fuck people? And just when I was gaining a little faith in humanity...

Re:zomg torrent plz

[Anonymous Coward]

Go back to England, homophobe.

It looks like Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

[Technician]

The release looks very much like the desktop on the Ubuntu Netbook Remix distribution.

Re:It looks like Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

[pmontra]

Yes, and UNR is very good on small screens. I've got a derivative distro (eeebuntu NBR) installed on my 9" netbook and it's great. However it looks very silly on my 15" notebook. I won't use it there.

Congrats to Pat but ...

[Viol8]

... I hope 13.37 is better than 13.1. I upgraded to the latter from 13.0 on my laptop and stuff just stopped working properly so I had to revert back to 13.0.

Fingers crossed for 13.37 and kudos to Pat and the guys for still doing Slackware in the face of all the corporate competition (no I don't mean MS or Apple, I mean Novell, RedHat AND Canonical).

Re:Congrats to Pat but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

On my Arrandale laptop, Slackware 13.1, out of the box :
-did not provide good 3D (resolved by compiling and downgrading mesa from 7.8.2 to 7.7.1)
-did have bugs in the X.org driver (out-of-sync LVDS at non-native resolutions and awful Qt3 font rendering, resolved by downgrading xf86-video-intel from 2.11 to 2.9.1)
-did make Kwin 3D effect crash the system at random moments

but with Slackware 13.37, everything works out of the box :)

Re:Congrats to Pat but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just wish I wouldn't have to compile everything out side the man distro I need by hand. Not many package comes in tgz these days.

Re:Congrats to Pat but ...

[Noryungi]

... I hope 13.37 is better than 13.1. I upgraded to the latter from 13.0 on my laptop and stuff just stopped working properly so I had to revert back to 13.0.

Weird, I am using both 13.0 and 13.1 here, and I have never had any problem with 13.1.

Fingers crossed for 13.37 and kudos to Pat and the guys for still doing Slackware in the face of all the corporate competition (no I don't mean MS or Apple, I mean Novell, RedHat AND Canonical).

Yup: Pat, if you are reading this, you rule. I'll upgrade both my machines to 13.37, just for the heck of it (and I am going to order the DVD and the CD set right away).

Where are they going?

[chargersfan420]

Step 1: Change default background picture from ugly orange/brown to even uglier pinky purple.
Step 2: Move window controls to the left.
Step 3: Design a new interface that steals window menu bars and moves them to the top of the screen, only for the active window.
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Change their name to FreeMac

Seriously, though... Are they trying to copy OSX?

I used Unity for about 15 minutes before I decided I'm never going to like it. Returning to Gnome 2.x was pretty easy though, but for some reason Emerald is totally broken. I also gave Gnome 3 a spin and while it has some nice features, I prefer the classic "Applications | Places | System" menu that has become so familiar. If this mess keeps up, I'll have to give KDE another spin.

Re:Where are they going?

[Anonymous Coward]

All of that is why I'm bailing to LinuxMint.

Re:Where are they going?

[Beelzebud]

I tried Gnome 3 for less than a day before completely removing Gnome from my system and putting Xfce4 on there. It seems to be the only sane desktop environment left.
With Gnome, you have a perfectly working desktop with version 2, which they are now completely throwing away for their UI that looks like it was made for a tablet, and with KDE you have 100,000 settings to tweak, which all seem to conflict with each other, and it still can't do something simple like auto-mount a network share on the fly.

Re:Where are they going?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used Unity for about 15 minutes before I decided I'm never going to like it.

That is a privilege reserved for old, worn out people or people with a degree in interface-usability.

For you to decry the usefulness of an interface, at least put your ass into it and switch completely to the given interface for an extended period. When you no longer draw upon the paradigms of your former UI to utilize the new, THEN you can judge without bias whether something is better or worse.

Of course, using said approach, one will never get to post their criticism on /. as the story would be old and stale.

Re:Where are they going?

[Anonymous Coward]

I could only wish they were trying to copy OS X.

OS X has the nicest GUI and, instead of copying Windows or creating poorly-designed interfaces (GNOME 3), there really needs to be a project to completely clone the OS X interface for the free desktop (especially now that Apple has started to do some crazy things WRT the next version of OS X).

Re:Where are they going?

[pmontra]

We should recognize that there is no "One True Way" to use a computer. Due to my habits OSX has the worst interface I ever used. I never liked the Mac GUI, not even in the '80s, but I concede that the global menu was a good choice on the tiny screen of the first Macs.

But it's OK that what's good for me is not good for you. That's why I'll probably switch my Ubuntu desktop to xfce and you'll use a Mac or a Mac-like Ubuntu desktop and we'll both be happy.

Re:Where are they going?

[TheCouchPotatoFamine]

i'm going to have to go ahead and agree here. All hail the HIG. It's very important to let psychologists develop interfaces and NOT developers although I am a developer (and so I tweak my environment a LOT ) and that *still* doesn't mean i'm the average case!

Developers would be wise to lose some of the ego. If car makers (here comes the car analogy!) required you to install your choice of stick shift mechanism after you purchased your call, a lot of people (including developers!) would just stay in 1st gear.

Thankfully they do not ask this of the public as you the developer probably thought first "that'd be cool!" -- and in actuality you should have thought "that'd be really, really unsafe for most people!" Consider.

Re:Where are they going?

[Risen888]

Fuck that. I looked at some screenshots and said "Oh boy, it's a computer that thinks it's a phone." God damn am I glad not to be a Gnome user anymore. Y'all are just fucked.

Re:Where are they going?

[Risen888]

OS X has the nicest GUI

You misspelled KDE.

No Offense to Slackware

[Anonymous Coward]

I do appreciate the good work by Pat and Slackware community for such a long time. But I think is time for Slackware to join forces with like minded linux distribution(s). This is the only way for Slackware to remain relevant in 2011 onwards. Matching rpms and debian(YUM/APT) packages is not easy unless there is a substantial epackage/repository management effort but non corporate sources.
I am sorry but the fact of the matter is user(non geek) don't want to run make clean install in 2011

Re:No Offense to Slackware

[Viol8]

"This is the only way for Slackware to remain relevant in 2011 onwards"

Slackware is still relevant. Plenty of people still use it. If you don't like the way its done then pick a different distro. I use it precisely because it doesn't use rpms or yum with all the attendent dependency hell. I can use slackpkg if I want but I'm perfectly happy with tar and administering my system manually thanks.

"I am sorry but the fact of the matter is user(non geek) don't want to run make clean install in 2011"

A non geek user would choose slackware in the first place. Slackware is FOR geeks and thats the way it should stay.

Re:No Offense to Slackware

[Beelzebud]

And yet Slackware is still relevant regardless of what you just declared. The fact of the matter is that Slackware isn't for you non-geek users, so just be happy with Ubuntu.

Re:No Offense to Slackware

[kvvbassboy]

I don't mind running make clean install, even though it's 2011. But, isn't it a pain to keep track of bug fixes and security updates?

Re:No Offense to Slackware

[Beelzebud]

No because slackpkg takes care of it.

slackpkg update - refreshes your mirror
slackpkg install-new - installs any packages officially added to the core
slackpkg upgrade-all - updates packages with updates (bug fixes and security updates)

Re:No Offense to Slackware

[Risen888]

This is the only way for Slackware to remain relevant in 2011 onwards.

Slackware is completely relevant. Even disregarding Slack's own userbase, its design philosophy is a major influence on similarly power-user oriented distros, such as Gentoo and Arch.

rpms and debian(YUM/APT) packages

Yep, I remember the days of running sudo apt-get install gimp and finding 200 packages and a kitchen sink in the dependency list. I miss that not at all.

I am sorry but the fact of the matter is user(non geek) don't want to run make clean install in 2011

Non geeks should not use Slackware. Use Debian if you want. But don't come bitching about your 20GB /usr partition.

Re:No Offense to Slackware

[Anonymous Coward]

i just wished slackpkg could be automated, as it is now
you still have to accept the upgrades manually with a dialog window

Re:No Offense to Slackware

[Beelzebud]

If you can't be bothered to see what updates you're getting, just stick with Ubuntu.

Re:No Offense to Slackware

[Anonymous Coward]

It would have been nice to have that ability to have it in a cronjob running overnight.
Instead of having to remember to do it on every machine you own or administer.
Also you seem to not know that slackpkg only takes care of the core anyway why wouldn't you want
to be able to automate that and have cron send a mail if there were updates and which
so you can reload the updated servers !

And don't tell me i need to stick to ubuntu i hated it back when i tried it when it was at version 4.04 and
i hate it now more than ever.

Have been on slackware since version 9.0, before that danced with suse 6.x which I hated as well !

Stereotype FAIL

[SigmundFloyd]

Despite not being ancient or bearded, I'll take Slackware any day, thankyouverymuch.

Re:Stereotype FAIL

[shutdown -p now]

Don't worry, the beard grows real quick once you make the right choice. ~

Says more about slashdot than anything else

[Anonymous Coward]

ie the only people who still read slashdot are old timers who can't be arsed to find a better site.

Unity

[Arancaytar]

Almost makes me want to give Slackware a go.

Re:Unity

[Anonymous Coward]

You should.
It's easy to install and to configure provided you can live with KDE or XFCE before installing gnome 3 (gnomeslackbuild.org) or anything else...

Plus, it's 1337.

Enjoy.

Re:Unity

[Skapare]

Do it. You know you want to.

Re:Unity

[Anonymous Coward]

Give it a go! Once you become a Slacker you will always be a slacker! And once you feel the raw power of Linux done as basic as it gets - you'll never go back to those sissy .rpm and .deb based distros!

Re:Unity

[turgid]

It's easy to install and to configure provided you can live with KDE or XFCE before installing gnome 3 (gnomeslackbuild.org) or anything else...

Bah! You kids... What's wrong with Window Maker?

Now get off my lawn...

Re:Unity

[matthew_t_west]

DO IT! I learned linux from Slackware back in '99. One of the best experiences I ever had. Learned how to install linux, recompile the kernel to fit my system the best, deal with learning the command prompt... So many great things... Learn how XWindows interacts with the many subsystems in linux. Disk mounting, manual install of software... The list goes on and on... Man pages, grep, ps, netstats, top, etc. I learned so much of this and now use it day-to-day at my job.

Good Luck and GO FOR IT!

M

Re:Unity

[Anonymous Coward]

it *SUCKS*....can't find anything...can't make anything work. HATEZ IT!

STUPID!

11.04 NVidia Warning

[MonsterTrimble]

Just as a heads up, if you are running an NVidia card that is not handled by either Nouveau or the nvidia-current, do not upgrade. There is a major bug where the wrong dependancies are called. I imagine now that Natty is out it will get fixed fairly quickly but just an FYI.

Re:11.04 NVidia Warning

[Zurd3]

An url with more information would be greatly appreciated. Like with a list of supported and non-supported card. Mine is a GeForce 6600 GT, thanks.

Re:11.04 NVidia Warning

[Anonymous Coward]

_Thank you_. May your coffee stay warm.

Re:11.04 NVidia Warning

[MonsterTrimble]

Well, I don't quite have a list of cards that will or won't work, and they might have it fixed by now - I'm at work and the Ubuntu servers will be nuclear until Monday or so. BUT, here's what I dug out:

From Launchpad:

Package has broken dependencies that cannot be met.
xorg-video-abi-8.0
xserver-xorg-core (>= 2:1.8.99.905-1ubuntu3)
Steps to reproduce:
1. Install Natty beta & do sudo apt-get upgrade and dist-upgrade
2. Try sudo apt-get install nvidia-96 to get the error. (confirmed to still occur in beta 1).

Re:11.04 NVidia Warning

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an old bug report for the beta cycle. You're only going to have a problem now if you have old cards that require the 96.xx.xx and older legacy drivers since Nvidia hasn't released new versions that support Xserver 1.10 yet. But then, that's true for any distribution that uses the new xserver. Nvidia just recently released the 173.xx.xx with support for Xserver 1.10 and its in the repos, so if you got an old GeForce FX card, they should work. In any event, the nouveau driver should work for most Nvidia cards, though not for accelerated 3D. This is a non-event.

Re:11.04 NVidia Warning

[Moondevil]

Thanks for the heads up. I guess I'll keep 10.10 around then.

Re:11.04 NVidia Warning

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are running an NVidia card that is not handled by either Nouveau or the nvidia-current, do not upgrade to any Linux distribution this year and wait for Nouveau support. There are borderline cases (some GeForce FX cards), and almost all of those have Nouveau support, but that's the general advice. GeForce 4 and older: buy another computer. Sad reality.

No, the purpose is to argue about which is better

[bigsexyjoe]

Silly.

Late to the party

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about time they start innovating past Windows/Mac instead of mostly cloning.

You haven't been around linux much, have you? Linux window managers and desktop environments have been doing their own thing since the very beginning. There are a slew of unique and innovative solutions to choose from today, just as there were 5 years ago, and just as there were 10 years ago. I remember trying out Enlightenment back in the late 90's. That was quite a shock compared to windows 98. It seemed like something out of the future, the impossible being made possible. Today that innovation continues in the form of KDE 4, GNOME shell, and Ubuntu with the Unity interface, among many smaller projects that are every bit as unique.

But now I'm part of the camp that DOESN'T want the innovation -- I found my desktop preference in the simple, efficient GUI with basic capabilities that doesn't get in your way (like XFCE). Hell, if anything, there is TOO MUCH innovation in the linux desktop market, and I'd prefer to see a movement towards simplicity and it's counterpart, stability.

Re:Late to the party

[gumpish]

Roger that.

For me GNOME jumped the shark with this new "feature" intended to help newbies who don't know about alt-dragging windows.

If you alt-drag a window's title bar off the top of the screen (I guess they must anticipate this can happen WITHOUT alt-dragging in some other scenario, otherwise it's clear the user knows how to do it) then attempt to resize the window using one of the edges or the bottom left corner, you instead get the window's menu.

And of course, the arrogant GNOME devs knew that this improvement was beyond reproach, they elected not to add a preference for it such that the original behavior could be restored.

And now with Unity's wackiness... I just want a predictable GUI that does the normal things a GUI should, I don't want innovation. (Just like Microsoft removing the "Up" button in Windows Explorer... and no, breadcrumbs aren't the same, because the up button was always in the same place, but you have to aim for a breadcrumb each time...)

Thankfully there is no shortage of choices for window managers in Linux, though I will miss the GNOME menus, as they provided the most sane way I've seen of discovering what software is installed.

Wayland?

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

Does Ubuntu 11.04 now use Wayland instead of X?

Re:Wayland?

[kvvbassboy]

no. that might be 11.10.

Re:Wayland?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but Wayland is installable in 11.04 though it really rough and should only be installed if you plan on being a tester. Shuttleworth predicted that there will be a usable version that will appear in 12.04 though. I think that's a bit optimistic myself.

one billion Slashdot readers?

[doperative]

> Approximately one billion Slashdot readers wrote in to tell us today that one of two distributions had releases:

You have a million million or 10^12 readers ?

Re:one billion Slashdot readers?

[Dynetrekk]

In the US, I believe a billion is only 10^9. This is clearly reasonable, as this is about the population of Europe and the US combined.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

looks like. . .

[jafac]

a little bit like. . . OpenStep? eh?

Ubuntu - Debian

[Compaqt]

Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Why go to Fedora when you go to Debian?

I've gotten rather used to the Debian way of doing things, not to mention the repositories are much better.

The latest Debian has the same easy installer as Ubuntu.

train wreck

[luther349]

unity is the worst ui ever. i played it way back in alpha and even the beta and relly nothing has changed from the crashy alpha.its also a usablty nightmare. if you dont take my word for it go give it a try yourself. your better off useing kde its gotten good or xfce or lxde.

Re:train wreck

[Outtascope]

I don't know, to each his or her own I suppose. I prefer KDE, but Unity is pretty nifty for my netbook and a kiosk-type terminal I have setup. My biggest gripe with it is that I could not for the life of me figure out how to get a custom launcher into the damn side bar. If it's a pre-installed app you just launch it and add it when it is running (a fairly idiotic workflow imho, but at least it works). But trying to create an entry for a custom java app got me oooh so close to doing one of those moronic pound-the-crap-out-of-the-keyboard fits that I always regret several minutes later (which would have been worse in this case since it was on a laptop). One of the focus points as I understood it was usability with a touchscreen, a task for which this is a modest improvement. I'll keep it on the netbook, but I think I want to wait for it to mature a bit before putting it on anything that I use for more than reading Slashdot (with the fear that the "improvements" will only consist of quotes from "usability experts" about how I'm doing it wrong).

Lack of origional UI ideas...

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember the 'redmond' theme, lindows, vixta... all blatent copies of elements of windows UI design.

ubuntu unity.. looks like a xerox of the MAC.

Re:Lack of origional UI ideas...

[MrEricSir]

looks like a xerox of the MAC.

I see what you did there...

Ubuntu minimal CD

[Per Wigren]

The best way to install Ubuntu for advanced users: mini.iso. A 22 MB netinstall CD image that installs nothing but the bare minimum. After install, just run "apt-get install ubuntu-desktop" if you want the standard desktop, "apt-get install xubuntu-desktop" if you want xubuntu, etc. If you don't want a desktop that's fine too.

Re:Ubuntu minimal CD

[kvvbassboy]

I like how writing one line of command is considered as advanced these days. Not trying to be elitist or anything, just musing.

Re:Ubuntu minimal CD

[Per Wigren]

My point was rather that you get to cherry pick the packages you want yourself instead of automatically getting the full blown desktop distribution. Personally I use a very minimal Ubuntu install on my HTPC. BTW, with the new minimal CD image from 11.04 you can choose "Ubuntu Desktop (Full)", "KUbuntu Desktop (Full)" etc directly from the installer. :)

Re:Ubuntu minimal CD

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure it has its advantages but "best" is subjective, what if you want an image that will double as a live CD/USB, or install on a computer without a network connection or just a slow connection? The standard install doesn't really install so much that I care about stripping it down to save space.

Re:Ubuntu minimal CD

[Per Wigren]

There are many reasons for a stripped down Ubuntu desktop install. No need to install thousands of extra packages if you only want to run a real minimalist desktop (with a tiling WM or something classic like FVWM2 or WindowMaker) or a full screen graphical program like XBMC or MythTV on a HTPC. If it's a dedicated server there is always the server distribution but the server kernel is optimized for throughput, not latency. Especially if you're installing on a virtual machine, a minimal install can be desired. But yes, "best" is indeed subjective. Sorry for that.

Ubuntu Natty not release quality

[Anonymous Coward]

external monitor support is completely broken in gnome (gnome-settings-daemon).

Connect a monitor to your laptop. Disable the laptop monitor from preferences monitor. What happens ?

I recommend waiting another month.

This is the most unstable Ubuntu release yet.

Next step:

[Lwerewolf]

Slackware 313.37 How's the ETA on that ^_^

Re:Next step:

[slackzilly]

Considering that slackware releases comes about every 10-12 months the world has probably ended many times before 313.37 comes out.

Another answer would be "when it's ready".

Re:Next step:

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that we have 18 months left to the next end of the world, we have nearly a hundred world endings before Slack 31337

Oh, and I was going to send a message to Taco

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to just send a short note to the Commander of Tacos, (Actually the Supreme Commander of all Taco-dem, and overlord of Burritos), that (ahem) Ubuntu 11.04 is in the wild! Ubuntu 11.04 is in the wild! I started my Linux adventures with Slackware version 3.0, sporting the Linux 1.2.13 kernel in 1995. I was 4 years late to the party, but 10.37 versions ahead of what is out now. I think all Linux distributions should have at least one version 13.37, but it has to be a good one.

Slashdot? Geeks?

[Anonymous Coward]

150 comments so far and only 4 about Slackware, all others talking about Ubuntu. And this place used to be a hive of geeks and nerds? Of course, for an average person on this planet even Ubuntu is very "geeky" stuff, but Slashdot always seemed to be a different world to me :).

Re:Slashdot? Geeks?

[countertrolling]

150 comments so far and only 4 about Slackware, all others talking about Ubuntu.

Well, when something is perfect, what's left to say or discuss about it? I mean, other than the one or two missing libs?

Re:Slashdot? Geeks?

[slackzilly]

The slackers are just reading all the comments about how difficult it is to configure the new desktops then shaking their heads and smiling to themselves before they continue configuring xfce.

Ubuntu 11.04, Slackware 13.37

[Minwee]

Sounds like Slackware wins by 2.33.

How stable is it?

[ohnocitizen]

The last few Ubuntu upgrades have had stability issues. I would love to see a chart comparing the most popular linux distros, with metrics looking at the stability of the platform and benchmarks for common tasks.

Cannot resist t3h l33tne55

[ponos]

I was a Slackware user from the very low single digit versions until I decided I really wanted 64bit then never got back.
The 1337 version number is a clear sign. I am tempted to give it a go.

Unity is...

[wardomon]

quite possibly the worst interface I've ever seen. If I wanted a Mac, I'd get one. I totally hosed my PC this morning trying to remove it and revert to Gnome. I'm reinstalling 10.10 right now. This could be the end of the line for me with Ubuntu.

Re:Unity is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Use kubuntu. At least it can be configured to your heart's content.

Slackware Convert

[apharmdq]

I started using Slackware with the 13.1 release last year, and I've been hooked ever since. I love the amount of control I'm given as well as the simplicity of the design. Plus it's fast, stable, and secure. The releases tend to be pretty up to date, and the packages that use an older version I really don't mind all that much. Granted the initial setup takes a bit of work, but once that's done, I never really have to touch anything else. The package system is actually pretty flexible and reliable. The official packages are guaranteed to work, and using the Slackbuilds website, third party packages are relatively easy to acquire. If worst comes to worst, it's easy to wipe everything back to the default package setup, as well as the default configurations.

I've installed it on my home desktop, my ancient laptop (for testing stuff out), and my netbook, and they all run quite well. I definitely recommend Slackware for anyone who wants more control and a better understanding of their system, without sacrificing speed and stability.

Re:Slackware Convert

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been Slack'ing since 1995. Have tried RedHat, Ubuntu (plus that junk called Maemo running on Nokia's failure of a tablet called N800), and have given them all up within weeks because of the unbearable bloat. Pardon me, but I prefer to 'crontab -e' to clicking through 3 levels of submenus and in the end having no idea where the actual config file resides. Slackware has a steeper learning curve but once you get a grasp of it, it just works, no BS, no bloat. And it's always the same, no need to re-learn where stuff is from version to version. And, by the way, I don't have a beard.

Re:No, the purpose is to argue about which is bett

[Risen888]

That's easy. Arch is better.

Bad move for Ubuntu One Music

[droidsURlooking4]

The default music player in Ubuntu 11.04 is no longer Rhythmbox. Instead Banshee is now the default music player.

If they seriously wanted Ubuntu One Music to be relevant, it was already a bad idea to require linux/Rhythmbox, but now the default player wont even support One Music without installing a plugin.

what

[Anonymous Coward]

Slackware 13.37, the most elite release ever.

Is Slackware still relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

This article posits that it has lost its place as a learning/do it yourself tinkering distribution and is now trying to appeal to the same crowd as Ubuntu and Fedora, without doing so succusfully. Thoughts?

Re:Is Slackware still relevant?

[phek]

i didn't see anything you just said mentioned in the article.

while i'm hear though, i might as well add that the reason i finally switched away from slackware after 15 years of use was that I just didn't have the time any more for the package management on it. Slackware really needs to introduce some sort of dependency setup for the packages along with repositories.

Re:Is Slackware still relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

i always thought sbopkg should be edited to do this, then you would have:
(slackware's native ) pkgtools for the base and sbopkg for most of the rest.

if they could make it work like (mac|bsd)ports or pkgsrc iirc cfr:
with dependancy resolution for the sbo stuff, i would be very happy.

sbopkg already includes 2722 ports if i calculated them properly, and

I would like to lodge a complaint!

[TheJodster]

There are not enough "My distro can beat up your distro" comments here. I am disappoint.

Re:I would like to lodge a complaint!

[matthew_t_west]

Slackware will fucking own the puny Ubuntu distro!!! All y'all Ubuntu luzers are just a bunch of hipster, geek wanna-be's. Unity this, unity that. Fuck you. Go command prompt or go home!

M

PS - Hope that was good enough for you Jodster!

Natty

[Anonymous Coward]

LOVE IT - Ubuntu is now officially cooler than mac. Had to pin the launcher strip tho as it drove me nuts.

Bzzzzt!

[gbutler69]

Wrong-o! Gotta say, Unity/GnomeShell is a train wreck! Please, someone tell me how I can keep my beloved Spatial Nautilus/Compiz Fusion desktop I know and love!

my opinion from limite use

[peawormsworth]

I've been using 11.04 beta on my netbook for a couple of weeks. I have experienced a couple of lock ups. But again I was using the "beta".

I find the interface alright looking and fairly easy to understand after a couple hours of playing and a day of usage. But sometimes the overlay menu wont appear when I move the mouse to request it. And sometimes the overlay gets stuck on the page even when I am not wanting it and click on the application.

Now these issues may actual be some "feature" that I dont understand and cant control yet. However, I find the old Ubuntu interface was more intuitive. But then again... it was pretty much like windows.

Now, instead of using columns and words for the menus, all menu options appear as icons. In this way, I found the interface to appear more touch-screen compatible then Gnome. I suspect that these visual changes could make the Ubuntu interface more compatible with smart phones and pad touch controls. So in this way... I think it is a good move.

I have no first hand experience with Gnome Shell, so I am only comparing against 10.04/10 Gnome window manager with or without Compiz.

Sincere Thanks and Best Wishes Canonical, But...

[Astronomerguy]

Crap. Ok - played with the beta versions of 11.04 in virtualization. I really don't like the interface. I have been using 10.1 and I *like* the Gnome 2.x interface. It's simple, I can add useful things to the bottom app bar, and I like the simple menu structure. Alternatively Gnome 3 is just...just...ick. Really not designed for the PC or for me and the way that I work, so no option there. I also like having current versions of apps installed and their updates automagically done as part of the daily update cycle. No getting rid of Open Office and replacing it with Libre Office unless I do a bunch of things - free time is not something that I have a lot of. Setting up Libre Office in 10.1 is a manual thing initially, but that also goes for many other apps too, unless I bump up to the 11 series. As always with Ubuntu, the first ".01" release breaks a bunch of things - video is usually the big bug for me. So what to do? After trying a few (11 or so) distros in virtualization - Linux, BSD, open Solaris derivatives, I've settles on OpenSuse 11.4 with the KDE interface. I decided to give the "K" another try, and I find that I like it. I can customize it to my tastes, and that suits me just fine. This is the beauty of the Linux ecosystem: diversity = a healthy gene pool, and you can get the system that you want, not the system that's imposed from a centralized corporate self-interested behemoth. Sorry to part company with Ubuntu for now, but looking forward to a new thing. I'll be keeping an eye on what Canonical does and I'll be rooting for them. It's just that at the moment, what they're doing doesn't suit me.

Slackware my love

[kokoko1]

I started my Linux career with Slackware, back then I used to convert all servers to Slackware ;) these days I am using Fedora on my work laptop but still follow Slackware version and when get time play with Slackware under virtualization. Right now I am downloading 64bit off torrent of latest version and will give it a try under KVM and Virtualbox. Another reason of downloading is to share my bandwidth with all the Slackware users I'll try to keep seeding for one month with no limit on upload on my Internet facing server with fat ass pipe to the Internet ;)

Menu bar stealing

[DanielSmedegaardBuus]

One thing that's particularly funny about this relocation of apps' menu bars to the "unified" bar in Unity. Mac introduced it waaay back, presumably for the same reasons as Unity are using: To release more vertical pixel space for actual app content.

These days, on Macs, we have humongous screens, up to 2560*1600 on the iMacs, and never less than 1280x800 on the 11" Air. I.e., there's plenty of vertical pixels now.

Unity was with early netbooks in mind, i.e. vertical resolutions as low as 640 pixels. Made sense. Truth is, even netbooks these days match regular notebooks' resolution. Basically, the point for moving the menu bar to a global bar is already moot. All we get is buggy behavior, because it's not yet properly implemented.

Give it a couple of years, and when netbooks have full HD resolution, they'll probably have ironed out the quirks ;)

Note to self:

[slackzilly]

Must remember to click preview before submitting.

Slack Bitches!

[matthew_t_west]

So, I am partial to Slack, as it taught me linux by fire... I am disappointed everyone here is talking about Ubuntu. Don't get me wrong, Ubuntu is great in it's own ways, but this is fucking SLASHdot!!! Let's get some slack talk going here. I'll start by thanking Patrick V. He's the man and I strongly urge you to buy a DVD or CD set from the site to support this amazing distro.

Maybe others may benefit from my reflection of learning linux on Slack:

First, Penguins are pretty cool. So is the pipe smoking Bob Dobbs guy from the Church of Subgenius. Second, holy shit is this distro trial by fire, but I learned so, so much from the experience: installing linux by menu or command line, recompiling kernel to only include the libraries I need or that work, configuring XWindows and learning how it interacts with the linux subsystems, command line tools: grep, ps, fsck, top, etc., true networking tools, installing programs from scratch, hacking config files, etc.

So my advice if you haven't used Linux and want to give it a try: Nerds and geeks with time on your hands, go slack, otherwise go Ubuntu.

As well, if you want to resurrect an old box, go slack. It's old and supports lots of old hardware, like laptops and 486s with 8 megs of RAM and such.

YMMV a lot,

M

I fucked up my computer so many times learning partition tables, boot-loaders, kernel recompiles

Ubuntu -- Natty is Buggy, so Wait to Upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

I downgraded back to 10.10 after upgrading to Natty. The beta for Natty was as bad as most alphas, so I got the feeling this was going to be a buggy release.
The major error I got included being unable to upgrade using apt-get. There were a lot of minor errors, such as firestarter not being able to read System Logs, and an inability to create application shortcuts on the desktop using unity.