Slashdot Mirror
Corel Linux to be Based on Debian & KDE!
Martin
Bialasinski wrote in to send us a
press release
from Corel which says that future
their Linux upcoming Distribution will be based on
Debian (Yay!) and
KDE.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
This is *too* cool. Caldera is like the newbie version of Red Hat and Corel is like the newbie version of Debian.
I personally can't wait to get my hands on both! (though I am partial to Debian and partial to Caldera's 100% GUI and KDE Wizard install)
I don't see any GUI better than the Win95 GUI out there, do you? It's certainly better than Motif although I like the feel of Motif scroll bars better.
With Qt becoming part of Debian (because it is DFSG free) the problem simply dissappears: Qt will fall under the system clause and the GPL is happy.
The Qt library has become a core component on OpenLinux and this will likely be the case on Corel's Linux. Simple!
You're kidding right? Win95's GUI doesn't even work across a network.
Also, if you use it at 640x480 resolution, the menus run right off the screen
Curious, but how do Linux GUIs tend to stand up to Winx GUIs? From my understanding, Linux is currently looking to undercut WinNT's server market, but I wonder, can they can catch the PC market with KDE or Gnome? It seems to be an issue with the spread of Linux through the software industry. Which is generally faster?
The default look of the Amiga Workbench (v3.x) isn't as pretty, but the functionality is far superior to Win9x/NT. A few quick downloads and you can replace the default icons with ones that are much more pleasing.
Uhh... no. I'm no expert, but if I recall correctly, KDE uses QT, which I believe is a proprietary WM. KDE and Gnome are NOT compatible, though I think something is currently in the works to rectify that situation. Dunno the details.
:)
Gnome is better anyway. I've tried both. KDE is just too limited for my taste. I hear Gnome w/ WindowMaker (?) is pretty stable, but I still prefer Gnome w/ E. Sure it cores half the time I exit X, but DAMN it's smooth, and it doesn't screw up when I'm using it.
The amiga is better, provided you install a load of commodities and patches from the aminet - such as MagicMenu, for the best menus, newicons 4 +glowicons for a nice iconset, Magic User Interface, for the coolest GUI API there is, etc.
I you want to see what the average Amiga "Power User" desktop looks like, check out the link below,and go to screenshots (Yes, this guy works at SGI. Yes he uses an Amiga. The Amiga still rocks for 2D pixel-editing)
http://reality.sgi.com/mchaput_aw/inde x.html
Unfortunately, a vanilla Amiga OS 3.1 installation
is not so nice. 3.5 might fix that, it's due out in the summer.
Of course, the full 3.1 installation fits on 5 floppies, so it's unsurprising it's not flashy by today's standards.
I strongly recommend that KDE be in the name too.
It's office suite, for one, has the best GUI of any office suite in the industry. It's graphics apps ain't bad either.
Definitely cooler than Win95. Want to change the icon for
an item? Open up "properties", and drag the desired icon
onto it. Or click "edit" and you're in the icon editor. Want a
different background for a particular folder? Just drag the
background file's icon onto the folder.
And when you click on a "Help" button in a dialog, you
actually get useful information. Can't say the same about
Win95.
IBM just couldn't out-market Microsoft, so they capitulated.
That's why I'm using Linux now.
Since Linux is growing and growing, and since Troll Tech will own the Linux desktop, this looks like a great area in which to invest.
Corel (I recommend) adding "2000" to that...
Only because of the baggage that goes along with the 'Windows' name.
MS took a lot of the interface from the other stuff which was available at the time.
At any rate I'm sure new users would tend to think this is a good thing. I installed KDE for one of my labmates so that he could use my Linux box to get web access etc. when the other (HPUX/Win) computers are busy.
He was like a deer in the headlights sitting down to it until I mentioned the magic phrase 'it's just like windows'. No more questions ect. from him - with the menus he just fiddled around until it did what he wanted. Now he goes out of his way to use it so he can play 'snake race'.
Personally I don't really like desktop environments, but for new users who want to fiddle with the latest phenom, but don't want to make a serious time investment up front, - KDE is great for them.
And as KDE grows and becomes more configurable I may start to use it.
| RH: simpler install (largely because you don't
:)
| need to figure out dselect, and there are far
| fewer packages to choose from)
There! Right there! If there's one thing I hope that Corel's done with their based-on-Debian install, it's that dselect gor relegated to the special level of hell that only it deserves.
Rant over.
Rip out KDE and you have Debian. Don't kid yourself, KDE will play a very central role in the new distribution. Just look at OpenLinux.
The only similarity is that they use RPMS. Period.
really? who are these people? do they install windows from floppies in a dark room naked, while being chased by a rabid dog?
Debian is cool, but the install is a hell of a lot harder than the windows (wizard) install.
does anyone know where to get new gnome packages for debian? also, how does one kill lilo's control over boot-up from the win32 side? "fdisk /mbr" does it for the redhat version of lilo, but this did not prevent the debian lilo from booting linux (i'm using debain 2.1)
I believe he's talking layout, not functionality.
I think windows 95 is setup rather nicely.. just add a few changes. Of course it's unstable.. and not network transparent... but a window manager that strongly resembled windows would work rather well, and would help get people to start using Linux.
One of the reasons people give for sticking with windows is because they don't want to relearn everything they know. With KDE resembling windows, people should be able to figure out what's going on.
Then eventually they can move onto a better window manager/Desktop Enviroment.
http://developer.kde.org/ shows that KDE is definitely a framework, a very good one I might add, too.
Personally, I would encourage any Corel distribution to include the word VEGEMITE - Then it would be called Corel GNU/Vegemite/Linux - that would really clear matters up...
Add this to you /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://www.debian.org/~jules/gnome-stage-2 unstable main
also, how does one kill lilo's control over boot-up from the win32 side? "fdisk /mbr" does it for the redhat version of lilo, but this did not prevent the debian lilo from booting linux (i'm using debain 2.1)
It should work the same. lilo doesn't change between distributions.
Of cause you can also use lilo -u. See man lilo.
Ciao, Martin
... BUT the window manager issue is nonsense.
You can use any WM with KDE as well, without any disadvantages in contrast to Gnome.
The difference is that KWM is much better integrated to KDE than Enlightenment (the only WM that can be called "Gnome compliant") is to Gnome.
There is partial support for both Desktop Environments in some WMs.
Examples:
KDE compliance: Afterstep, Window Maker, Blackbox, flwm
Gnome compliance: Icewm, Window Maker, flwm
(Both lists are not complete)
That's why I love Linux, you can always find something that suits you better. I'm thinking Debian might be it (and finally, I can get a version of calc that I can use on my Linux box... I love calc, or whatever the debian version is called! It rawks!)
IMHO, Corel doesn't "get it". They used to make okay stuff; but now it's buggy bloatware. I've used their photopaint stuff. It was great for simple stuff but if you try and do complex stuff with it crashes. I updated and it was very expensive and their on-line ordering thing crashed on me. The update needs re-installation every once and a while because "software entropy" sets in and it crashes the machine. Their was very little new functionality but they did fix a couple of bugs (which I shouldn't have been charged for in the first place). I'm rooting for Red Hat; personally. Red Hat "gets it".
What are you complaining about?
I you are not a newbie anymore (as you imply), you'll certainly be able to customize it just as you like it.
Installing a theme is a matter of running a shell script (1.1.1 will hopefully come with the GUI installer).
Or use another KDE compliant WM like Window Maker or lightweight Blackbox if you don't like KWM.
People always ask me what I'm running on my Linux box, and won't believe that it is simply a stock KDE, just themed
Sure, the standard KWM look is pretty mediocre. The point is: It's supposed to be like this. It's simply the least common denominator.
Don't complain about the meal if you refuse to choose from the menu.
Debian uses the Debian Package format (deb, which was developed prior to rpm).
There is no advantage by using rpm. Ever tried to install a Suse RPM on Redhat?
$ grep Package: /var/lib/dpkg/available | wc --lines
3240
You see a cool package not available for Debian? Mail debian-devel@lists.debian.org and ask if someone could package it.
Ciao, Martin
Then eventually they can move onto a better window manager/Desktop Enviroment.
Why badmouthing KDE? There are lots of other WM that are KDE compliant (Window Maker, Afterstep, Blackbox,...). And even KWM with themes is *really* neat.
It's fair to say there is no better Desktop Environment than KDE, from the quality point of view.
So there is no reason people should have a bad conscience about using it.
Gnome is still a very good choice for the more individualistic users.
In addition to the other post: for unstable, you add this to /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://www.debian.org/~jules/gnome-stage-2 unstable main
Ciao, Martin
Listen, Mr listen: Caldera may have a certain non-free attitude, but SuSE is surely one of the most "Linuxish" distros (in the sense that it follows the spirit of the Linux community).
Examples:RedHat spreads FUD about competitors and competing projects while SuSE always remains fair.
SuSE does a *very* good job in packaging the sw, while the last 3 RedHat releases were definitely broken (I'd call them Beta for Linux standards)
Linux is about not fooling the users/customers with marketing hype, but proving honest information and mature products. RedHat DID fool users and the press with the premature release of GNOME, and especially by implying it was the only available desktop for Linux.
Linux is about choice: SuSE provides it, RedHat doesn't.
Like Linus, SuSE also rejects software for technical reasons, which can also be a restrictive license that prevents proper packaging like in qmails case.
But it doesn't abuse some ideology/philosophy to promote its own business...
Oh, yeah, the os/2 WPS blows the doors off w95's GUI, then the OS drives over the rest of the bits. os/2 crashes seldom. My uptime is in months, running on a heterogeneous network. It's a file and comm server as well as my principal desktop. The SIQ is where most of the problems seem to come from.
It's true that some os/2 apps are not as slick as some wXX apps. Many are equivalent, though, and some are superior.
I've tried KDE and while it's better than the w95 interface, it is not up to snuff w.r.t. the os/2 WPS. However, the XF86 3.3.3 VGA server (I think - 'swhat came with SuSE 6.0) really grabs hold of my video hardware, much better than the Matrox os/2 drivers.
Both Red Hat and Caldera are privately held so who
do you buy to ride the [apparent] linux band wagon?
Will you guys shut up now!
Sorry for the outburst, but this QT issue is utter nonsense.
"Old" QT license: This is in no way different to Motif on other systems (at least in Corel's, Caldera's, SuSE's case).
It was the FSF's fault that they didn't critizise GPL'd progs based on Motif and other shareware libs (some of them -lyx, xmysql- very popular).
Like it or not: Either you accept both, or you refuse both!
"New" QT license QPL: This is both Open Source and FREE Software, blessed even by RMS.
"Very New" QPL 1.0: This is practically GPL compliant. Even RMS is pretty happy now after some discussion.
The only remaining problem he saw was that TrollTech wants the right to see your (In-House) code to prevent abuse.
This isn't required by the GPL, but on the other side you can't restrict IMHO distribution of the GPL anyway.
So it comes down to either:
You can restrict distribution of your GPL code => serious loophole in the GPL
or
GPL code can be freely distributed under all circumstances, so keeping it secret to everybody else is not possible, and RMS' objection is unfounded.
So guys, convinced?
A.
Right on! The anti GUI/KDE types are mostly dumbass fanatics who piss around with computers: not people who actually USE them.
Pardon me, but which GNU tools does an average user really use, and how often.
And then, what will he do without his friendly GUI?
Get the facts straight: The GNU System, as RMS calls it, consists mostly of developer tools.
Some of them are very good/important, but only to developers.
Your average home/corporate user can do very well without the compiler, Emacs, and thousand shell utilities.
What will he/she do without KDE (or the like).
Even more advanced power users will likely use Perl/Python instead of awk and guile.
X and Apache aren't GNU anyway.
Just accept it, for 'traditional' users and developers it may be GNU/Linux.
For the Desktop, it's KDE/Linux.
A.
Of course the easier, and not mention not requiring a gun, way is to just, throw a CD at his feet when he's walking and for a brief moment he will be "on a CD".
Duh...
Have you ever used or even looked at programs like
Wordperfect or Corel Draw.
You realize that these are not operated from the commnd line don't you ?
For the onion distribution add to /etc/apt/sources,
deb http://www.gnome.org/~john/gnome-stage-3 notstable contrib
Then type apt-get dist-upgrade.
Libs are LGPL anyway -> no problem
Apps written for KDE under GPL -> "implicit consent by author", is not seen as a problem either (i.e. author would change license any time if necessary, as app was written directly for that)
GPL code taken from other authors -> KDE people claim that there is *very* little of that, at least in core (like a few lines from Linus in kfloppy). For such small chunks of code I don't see a problem.
In other cases software will usually be removed or not released (like Kgimp), if the authors object.
In any case, it remains to be seen if the most recent QPL is GPL compatible anyway (at least it's very,very close), so these problems should disappear.
APLX is the only Linux play I can find. They make an office suite for Linux. There are other companies that use Linux extensively so they can cut their computing costs and thus make bigger profits (and thus have higher stock prices or pay bigger dividends to their investors). Most Linux companies are privately held now. The IPOs are going to go to the roof.
No. While the QPL (the license under which Qt 2 will be brought out), is a free license, it is not compatible with the GPL.
This isn't clear. While RMS was sceptical about the QPL at first, he now seems pretty positive towards it.
The only remaining point to clarify is that TrollTech wants to prevent abuse of the free license in In-House development. Therefor it's not allowed to keep the programme secret from the Trolls.
But I guess this can be sorted out, as the GPL is not for secret code either...
To fix your mouse problems:
start gpm with -R
In XF86Config:
Section "Pointer"
Protocol "MouseSystems"
Device "/dev/gpmdata"
BaudRate 1200
Resolution 100
Buttons 3
EndSection
Of course, change the number of buttons to however many gpm reads, and use Emulate3Buttons if you only have 2.
You can use it in dselect or from the shell. It makes installation of a package (and the needed dependencies) as easy as apt-get install foobar.
Upgrade your current system? apt-get update; apt-get upgrade
Upgrade from 2.1 to 2.2 will be as easy as apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade
In unstable, there is unfinished version of gnome-apt, a gtk/gnome frontend to apt-get. It is quite useable already.
Ciao, Martin
The KOM/OP Corba object model is quite nice and has existed before Gnome even was founded. It just was not used in the 1.x series since it was 1.x is supposed to be stable. Gnome has had no restrictions. Also, the kio model is very cool too :)
At least TT does not prerelease buggy versions of their software like RH does with Gnome (which they *do* own), or spread FUD and marketing crap.
Actually, it might be.
Will Corel's software be able to run without KDE installed and running? Can I use it under GNOME without KDE installed? Etc.
This is the problem. And it's a big one.
| i don't know why people bash dselect so hard.
| dpkg isn't even THAT bad - at least not for
| small stuff. 'dpkg -i foo' is almost a
| reflex for me now...
dpkg is easy. dselect is just annoyingly cryptic. And, to be perfectly honest, dselect is one of the major reasons I even investigated RH in the first place.
Corel's major work making a Debian-based distribution was probably making this aspect of Debian easier to deal with.
Not that distribution matters that much anyhow - it's all Linux under the hood!
I can't invest in RedHat, they're privately held and I'm not INTEL. TT has a good product. If you want to invest in technology, isn't it best to invest in those companies whose products are known to be good.
Um, no.
Macintosh has a reasonably similar interface for all its programs, because it's mandated. Windows programs have about 5 functions that are the same (Open, Save, etc). Just because Windows looks the same dosen't mean its easier to use. It can be, and is, quite confusing.
Sure it does. Click on Start to start shutting down the computer. Makes sense to me.
yup!
i wouldn't say slackware--->RH is an easy move tho.
I was a slackware user, til the day came that i couldn't find my Slackware CDs. There was a SuSE cheapbyte CD laying around, so i installed SuSE instead. that's how
I converted to SuSE.
hehe.
Hey, I remember in the early days of word processing, lots
of people (generally the PHB's) claimed that "insert mode"
was a bad thing, because secretaries, who were used to
typewriters, wouldn't understand it.
I think it's often a case of the bosses not wanting to believe
that the people who work for them might be smarter than they
are.
I had OS/2 Warp 3 on my system for a long time. it got blown away to make room for another Linux partition. I really just stopped using it because Linux did everything I wanted. I tried to re-install it once I got a bigger harddrive, but one of the disks went bad :(
I remember OS/2 did DOS better than DOS. The virtual DOS sessions ruled, 640K all the time and virtual memory to boot. If my games (they were DOS based then) didn't run under DOS due to low memeory, then I could get them running under OS/2. And actually, games like Dark Forces seem to run better under OS/2 than DOS.
Period.
On the other hand, RH is a pain upgrading through FTP (I'm not talking about initial installation).
IBM were too slow bringing a feasible version of OS/2 to market. OS/2 existed before Windows 3.0 did and parts of it were written by Microsoft. Back then, it used a GUI called Presentation Manager, which looks disturbingly like Windows 3.0.
IBM got Warp right only 2 months before Win95 dropped - and don't forget Win95 was late!
By then, it was too late. Microsofts marketing machine was in high gear and IBM couldn't compete.
Just deserts for them. They had OS/2 since at least 1993/4 possibly before. I believe they were talking about it back in 1990. Survival of the fattest - and Microsoft are fatter than IBM when it comes down to marketing.
They're a very small company. About 10 employees, I think. But of course, that might change with the success of QT and the very nice install Lizzard which they also wrote and licensed to caldera.
Yeah, you tell them Bro! Kick it to 'em!!
Gimme a K
Gimme a D
Gimme a E
Yes indeedy...
sheesh!
Noticed that little omission - Who cares really, KDE is steaming ahead and the relgious fanatics are being left further behind. With all the big guys OK with KDE, that discontented little band of KDE slammers are sounding shriller by the minute.
Just what we need ANOTHER Linux Distrobution! Well I guess Linux is doomed to the same failure that the commercial Unix's had - FRAGEMNTATION!. Isn't there enough distrobutions already!? If someone wants to use Debian - fine, if they want to use SuSe - Great, if they want to use Red Hat - that's ok too, if they want to use Slackware - fantastic. But do we really need ANOTHER one? I guess maybe, just maybe if we fragment Linux enough Billgatous of Borg will win out over us yet! Don't start celbrating this announcement yet. It will just hurt us! If corel just said "we are going to distrubute our products WITH Debian and KDE. I wouldn't have a heartache over it. But saying they are starting their own distrobution BASED on Debian and KDE - that scares me. That more sounds like they are going to mutate Debian into whatever distrobution they want to release. Do we really want this? I would say people should write them and tell them just to relase their products WITH Debian and KDE and not start another distrobution. (I know I already have.)
Richard Knechtel
Consultant
Corel Draw/PP have really great interfaces. Corel has always allowed you to customize and tweak their defaults far beyond any other program I have used. In Draw/PP 8 every menu, toolbar, and shortcut key can be defined as you wish, or linked to macros. Ok, it isn't open source, but its very much like 'open source' interface. Remarkably little parinoia at Corel with concepts like 'the user knows what s/he wants'. I think they will do really well with the interface, and I suspect they will make it really easy set things up your way. You find a lot of their interface ideas creeping into other products...
Robin Debreuil
debreuil.com
You don't sound like you have tried SuSE very much. SuSE is an excellent distribution no worse than RedHat and not a cheap copy either with IMHO a much better install routine.
This surely doesn't sound like (L)GPL to me. At least RedHat (L)GPLs all the
software they make.
Furthermore, RedHat != GNOME; Yes, they actually pay
developers to help coding it, and plan to use it as their primary desktop,
but they are not the ones controlling its releases. They correctly rejected
KDE as a choice in earlier releases because it was not compatible with the
GPL. Now that it seems that that issue is going to be resolved, they do plan
on including it as a choice.
ATTENTION: GPL`d software != GNU tool
Much that is released under the GPL (e.g. the Linux kernel) isn`t GNU software.
And then, you imply that "average desktop users" regularly use the console.
They don't!
Not without reason does Caldera emphasize that "you'll never have to touch the command line".
Just accept it: The GNU system is NOT for the dektop.
Debian is the future?
Although I like debian to a certain point, I can't accept the time it takes them to get new distributions out. We're talking a 6 month old glibc based distro here!
And for the unbiased part, this is bulls**t. They seem to think that QT has a license problem, but choose to include pine, acroread... I don't personally care much for licenses, I just don't want to miss out on great software because of religious fanaticism (moronism).
If debian want's a bigger install base, they should at least speed of development time. And this probably shows why the commercial distros have the advantage. Maybe corel can help on this part, if their packages can be used on regular debian as well. And I hope they did a decent installer because dselect is unusable to anyone who likes user friendly interfaces.
I do think that debian is a good distribution, but I can't sit idly by and let someone accept it's shortcomings as 'the choice of the future'.
Sorry for the ac post.
Bo Thorsen (gobo@imada.sdu.dk)
They are a bit slow, yes. (OTOH: the releases are often well-tested and stable; at least that's my impression.)
We're talking a 6 month old glibc based distro here!
I probably misinterpret you here, but Debian 2.1 was released on 9 March 1999.
They seem to think that QT has a license problem, but choose to include pine, acroread...
QT currently has a licence problem -- it's non-free (as per the DFSG) -- which makes it unsuitable for the main distribution. The same thing applies to pine and acroread; they are not included! No contradictions here, my friend. They are included (yes, QT too) in the non-free distribution, but that's separate from the main distribution and it isn't included in the official CDROMs, etc.
Each major distribution, and most of the less common ones, have advantages and disadvantages. For business purposes, technical support and reliability will be first-priority; for OSS developers, adherence to open source standards and ideals may be more important.
Let people choose their distributions/desktops/operating systems on their merits. Those with different priorities may make a different choice than you do. This is GOOD! If you think that everyone in the world should be running (insert Linux distribution here), then you have missed an important point.
I am posting this reply from my home powerpc clone machine. Currently I am running Linux/PPC (with a RedHat-based distribution), but I use BeOS just as often, and occasionally boot into MacOS. I don't dislike MS Windows because it's uncool or because it's not open-source (though I understand why this is important to some people). I dislike it because it is slow and bloated, and will not run on older hardware or on non-intel architectures. It doesn't meet my technical requirements for an operating system.
Please, allow each user to choose the system that fits their needs. The reason for the American antitrust case against microsoft is to preserve freedom of choice. Let's not fight against each other in holy wars. Instead, fight for choice!
Matt Brubeck (mgb)
The KDE experiment on Corba (KOffice) has passed with flying colours. KDE has a very mature object model (KOM/OpenParts) and is using the constantly improving mico. The KDE 2.0 team are now working full-force on moving over to Corba.
:)
Gnome doesn't really do much with Corba right now, there's only the panel applets which wmaker has had for a long time without corba. The best use should occur at the application level, but this hasn't happened yet on either side (except for the alpha office applications on both sides)
But progress is being made both ways!
Here's how I do a Debian install; it works pretty well (and roughly mirrors what you like to do). This works well either installing via FTP or from a CD-ROM. In fact, I think that by doing this the only tricky thing is selecting which modules to include during the modconf portion of the installer... as for that, usually selecting serial, lp, psaux (if using a PS/2 mouse), and vfat (if accessing FAT drives with long file names) is enough to get up and running.
Anyway, after the first part of the installer reboots into the second part (where you select the root password), say NO to the option to select one of the many possible system configurations; enter dselect directly instead. Select the Access method (either apt for FTP or cdrom), then Update, then Select. In the Select screen immediately return to the menu (with RETURN); this selects a good set of base packages: gcc, emacs, etc (but no X). Install and configure these. (The configuration only requires configuring gpm, ibritish, exim, and maybe something else). Then exit dselect. Admittedly the exim configuration can be trying for newbies, however (I'm one too, really).
After this you can then build the system pretty much any way you want. To install X I just run dselect again, search for xf86setup, select it (which has many depends which are automatically selected), select my X server and a few fonts. I then run XF86Setup as root.
For Netscape, a similar process. dselect, search for communicator-smotif-45, select it (and its depends), and go.
BTW, I'm working on a docbook-formatted doc right now on all of this. If you or others think this would be helpful I can make a rough draft available... just email me @ crunge@mindspring.com
Thanks,
Chris
Well well, Debian, the finest Linux distro, and KDE, the currently reigning desktop champ.
Personally, I like neither KDE nor GNOME, because I do everything in XEmacs under WindowMaker, but I can plainly see at this point that KDE is the most mature technology at this point, and my favorite desktop environment that is actually an entire application programming framework, GNUStep, is sadly the least mature.
I'm not sure what percentage of Slashdot's readership does GUI programming, but GTK+ really sucks for a lot of applications. It's about as OO in C as you're gonna get, but still not real OO (no inheritance for starters). Every application just ends up being a box in a box in a box....
Qt, GNUStep, Java/Swing, Common Lisp/CLIM or Garnet, are all so much nicer than GTK+. GTK+ is also unbearably ugly without the themes support.
And I know the old argument about GTK+ being better because it doesn't tie you to C because it has other language bindings. This is because GTK is based on C which is the lowest-level common denominator, and language support for more expressive languages with more features is far more trivial. How the hell do are you supposed to do QT object programming in C? Its features don't map to that language. Ditto for GNUStep.
Anyways, Gnome could take more interesting directions in the future so I won't write it off just yet.
KDE is about to relase 1.1.1 with 2.0 already looking very promising. All releases of KDE have been very stable and easy to install.
Once again in the comments above we see some of the FUD surrounding KDE rear its ugly head. For the record:
- You can use any Window Manager you like with KDE. See the screenshots page on their web site to see KDE running with other window managers.
- KDEs use of CORBA is far more advanced than Gnomes. As one poster says Gnomes use of CORBA in the panel achieves little more than WindowMaker has been doing without CORBA for years.
- KDE does not have to look like Windows and contrary to the first posters comment that Corel chose KDE because it does look like it, Corel merely say that it may be configured to look like Windows.
- I agree that KDE may not be as themeable as many people, inlcuding me, would like. KDE 2.0 will be based on Qt 2.0 (you know, that free toolkit) which should be properly themeable.
The KDE developers have worked tirelessly to produce this environment and deserve every bit of recognition for it. KDE deserves to be the face of Corel Linux. If Gnome ever reaches this stage, I'll be the first to reconsider my feelings, although I do not see Gnome catching up in the near future.To see just how advanced KDEs use of CORBA is check out KOM/OpenParts. KDE 2.0 will integrate the KOM technology throughout all of its applications. For those among you who like to see working code and not just talk, check out KOffice. This technology is very real and here today!
So join in CmdrTaco and applaud the KDE team for their work in putting a friendly face on Linux.
Thats the problem! They cant just switch licenses like that, they didnt write all the code themselves. Some of that is from authors who released their work under the GPL and dont want the license changed. They will have to rewrite those parts themselves.
Good one, windows update only updates software that comes directly from microsoft. and it runs like shit also. apt-get upgrades every single piece of software on your machine. No other operating system in the world can do this becuase as far as I know debian is the only one that tries to include *everything*.
Are you retarded? QT is not compatible with the GPL, even the new license. Therefore they violate copyrights when they take other people's GPLed code and link it with QT. The cant even add an exception clause because it is not their copyright to change.
Please get a clue before posting crap like this.
Ray Dassen wrote:
... the incompatibility between the GPL and Qt's license ... persists with a QPL-licensed Qt.
Although there will soon be a DFSG-free Qt
Last I checked, KDE was addressing that by switching the license of most of their core stuff to Artistic (which works fine with the QPL). I don't know how far along they've gotten with this.
----
Open mind, insert foot.
rpm=yuck, deb=good!
Putting everything in it's own dedicated directory almost starts to sound like one of those Microsoft schemes ... it's very different for sure ... but I like my binaries being installed in /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin and all those other places :-)
Citing their purpose, they want a GUI "compatible with present-day Windows offerings." Their goal is to convert Windows people by providing an environment that they will feel comfortable in right from the start. KDE does that reasonably well. Minimizing the learning curve is what PHBs will like to hear, as often time they're too cheap to send someone to a class to learn Linux. Yet there is still all the freedom we all have to install another distribution or applications and customize to your heart's content, as a certain portion of these users will want to delve deeper and learn more. Some will just live life using Wordperfect all day and nothing else. That's fine too.
This will get people to give Linux a chance, and they'll give improvements to Wine/KDE back to the community so it's good. You are not forced to use their distribution to run Wordperfect. Ultimately, Linux is Linux.
No, 2001. That way it's greater than Windows' number, so therefore better. Well, I guess it should be like 2,000,000 by that reasoning, since Linux is at least 1000 times better than windows...
I don't see the push for the GUI tools in RH, myself. I've mucked with config files manually for years, before even finding out about control-panel. I came from Slackware for a few years before that, and had no problem even adding users manually without adduser. I was just adding ifconfig's and routes to rc.local for the longest time too. :)
/etc was different then my system before. And it wasn't all that difficult to find the config files and start vi'ing on them. One thing I will give the RedHat gui tools is printtool. It's certainly much easier to have that automatically set up all the ghostscript filters than how I used to do it manually. And it's worked well for the dozens of deskjets I've used it on.
The first time I installed RedHat, somewhere around 3.x, the first things I started looking at was how
Their books and documentation you get with the $30 probably detail how to use the GUI tools, but by no means are you stuck there. It's a good start for those without the experience, but by no means limiting to those of us with plenty of it.
If there was a concrete standard, what "commonly accdeted standards" are you referring to?
/etc, /home, /usr, /tmp...
The folks (RH included) at Comdex basically swore to follow the LSB once it's release (6-12 months). So that argument is moot. But anyway, what's so different with the file structure? There's
Besides, variety is good. I don't want just one package format on the planet (either RPM or Debian), or one GUI, or one Web Browser.
*Better package management - dependencies that work!
I've never had trouble with RPM's dependencies. If it says it needs XYZ package first, ok, download and install it. But it's good to have different packagers, choice is your friend.
*apt - Upgrades your system from debians ftp site whenever you like, with next to no user interaction
Isn't that one of the beefs with RedHat so many have, taking users away from the nitty-gritty? You put your trust again, in one organization that all the packages are compatible, aren't trojaned, etc. Do they have any testing or reviewing board before a package is listed on the ftp server?
*alternatives - have emacs & xemacs, multiple vi... dont just blindly use whatever Red Hat could be bothered to compile
*loads more packages - apt-get will normally get and install the packages.
So, there's 500 million programs out there that Debian doesn't compile for you. So that's bad? The wide array of packages is good and all still. But every distribution has their target audience (though users tend to want to impose them on everyone). RedHat strips theirs down a bit to make it manageable for those that don't know what everything is. There are still bazillions of RPMS around for everything else. And many, many anti-Redhat people talk how not learning to compile things is so evil, though I certainly find there's a market that doesn't want to compile things. But, these generalizations can be used against Debian just the same.
*accountability - if you find a bug, bug the package maintainer
You can just as well with any program in the world, if you know who wrote it. This isn't a Debian-specific plus. It's a feature certainly encouraged in the Open Source world. People provide the sources so they can be reviewed and critiqued by the public, and get feedback, both good and bad. Show those developers you love their program, not just when there's problems.
*integrated menu system - consistent across window managers
That's just a matter of config files. RedHat I believe just leaves many things in their default states. Which is suitable for me.
*consistency - tries to obey standards more.
Which standards does Debian or doesn't RedHat follow? FTP is a standard, yet the Debian install doesn't give you that choice (one feature I liked in RH's install for CDROM-less stations).
Certainly we need more structured organization, papers that say, "these sort of files go here," or "this protocol is how you drag/drop". Groups like LSB are starting that. Are there many other existing standards like this that one either does/does not follow? Basically, that's a vague statement without a little more specifics.
*sections - non-free and non-us are kept separately from DFSG free stuff.
That's nice. I'll give Debian that.
I'm getting tired. Anyway every distribution has their market. We don't need to sit and bicker over everything. A simple-man's distribution will have fewer packages to keep the new users confusion level down, and easier installation. A hard-core hacker's distribution will have tons of choices for those of us that like it. A PHB's distribution will have names like Corel, Sybase, whatever that they know and trust.
Use whichever is right for you. No one thing is right for everyone in every situation (even Linux).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying "Don't use Debian, use RedHat, dammit!!", but in the spirit of everyone at Comdex, to say, "Can't we all just get along?" :)
All the distributions have their own good/bad points. And there isn't one king of the distributions that everyone should use. All too often, when someone starts up another (or tweaks an existing) distribution, everybody jumps up and yell, "We've already got 1500 distributions (or one particular dist), go home!!" Each have their targetted audience (newbie, hacker, corporate, etc) and we should respect that. If one wants to target newbies and use KDE, great, more converts from that other OS. Rather, so many jump around, wave their hands, yelling, "Use GNOME!" or "GUIs suck, go text mode!" And where do we end up? Non-Linux people (PHBs for instance), just see us as rabid flamers that can't make up our minds.
My points in the post weren't to say everything Debian is worthless at all, but many of the points the original poster made can be applied to many distributions. The packaging system certainly seems very nicely organized for the best performance. I don't know everything about it, so I asked questions. I'm more than willing to be educated on anything. What happens? "Shut up." Yeah, real good PR those sort of comments can generate. We all need to be better advocates concentrating on the pluses of programs, less on the negatives ("XYZ sucks"). Oh, and provide concrete examples for arguments to say, "XYZ should be able to do feature ABC. It should do it like this," and provide code to back it up if you can (even pseudo-algorithms help for the non-programmers).
About the RPM problem, I've heard many people having it over the years. But I myself have never ran into it. I've installed, made my own, etc thousands of RPMs. I don't claim that the problem doesn't exist, just that I haven't had any problems with the system.
What I meant about FTP installing, was during the initial install. RedHat, for instance, has the choices for FTP, NFS, SMB installation instead of just the usual hard disk or cdrom. Heck, add more options to these, you never know what someone out there may need to get Linux installed. That is our goal here, to get more people to at least give us a try. These are a few things that every distribution could greatly benefit from. I had run into trouble with this when installing Debian on a spare PC without a CDROM. Sure doing an FTP install over a 28k modem is not practical, but I have other Linux boxes on my 100bT home LAN with CDROMs that served up very nicely in the RedHat based distributions I was toying with.
In conclusion, use what's right for you and for the job, not necessarily forcing anything down others' throats. This isn't Redmond, nothing works for every situation. And be a positive advocate for Linux and Open Source, it goes a long way.
There are certain kinds of people that hate learning thing too new/different on their computers. Where I work, they tend to be older, and just want to live through the day so they can retire soon.
Certainly it's possible to learn, just that many people in corporations are stubborn about it. Every effort to make them that much more comfortable during a transition is appreciated.
All official Debian packages are PGP signed, I believe. Thus, there should be a way of setting up the system so that it installs packages only after authenticating them.
---
The last time I talked with a KDE developer about this issue, he said they're sure that all the mess will be fixed with the release of KDE 2.0 (maybe before 2000). But that would be too far away.
It seems that QT2.0 will be released RSN, so that's another step in the good direction.
I wouldn't say Debian is a difficult distribution. I think people think it's difficult because of the lack of a general Control Panel Deluxe. They have to edit config files theirselfs, when there is no xxxconfig script available and the post-installation script happens not to suffice...
I think this is one of the things Corel is going to address: I guess they'll provide the newbie-user with some nice point-and-click configuration panel or something like that. Or maybe even a graphical installation thing based on the vga16 framebuffer thing that comes with the latest kernels... wouldn't that be nice? :)
Yes they do. People have to become a Debian Developer before they can put packages in the distribution (==on the ftpsite). They have to give up their anonymous net-identity (at least, for their project related work). Every package they upload has to be signed with their pgp key, otherwise it won't be approved. This way 'mortal people' cannot put anything into the distro w/o getting trust from Debian prior to their contribution. I'm not talking about bugreports/-fixes etc. of course! But a maintainer has to agree with the contribution in that case before it is put on the ftp-site. This doesn't guarantee that no package is troyaned, however.
Anyway, people of course may use any distribution they like. Some like Redhat, some like Debian, others like XYZ. But that's no reason no to try to convince people who like something other than you do that they should use ZYX :)
Citing its similarity to Windows as a primary reason for choosing KDE is damning with faint praise.
http://www.g4uol.demon.co.uk/cat.htm
Posted by realtrauma:
Are there any rumors or anything about a linux player offering an IPO?
>I don't see any GUI better than the Win95 GUI out there, do you?
Good god! Of course... do some research, and you'll find the many many flaws in the Win95 GUI, mainly that is it a *badly* done knockoff of the MacOS. And as stated, Be and NeXT are also pretty good...
...end of transmission...
OpenLinux isn't based on Red Hat; you're confusing it with an earlier Caldera product, I think.
TedC
Red Hat, SuSE, Caldera, Slack and the others are all *cool*. But Debian represents the best future for all operating systems development. A vast, collective, unbiased effort to build an operating system foundation. This foundation then becomes the optimum starting point for a company or other entity to build a custom solution upon. Debian is the one distribution which most closely mirrors the development model of the Linux kernel itself.
Either Debian, or an effort like it, will eclipse Red Hat, not to mention Microsoft, and become the great fuel source for the network computing fire. Look for NCs, server appliances, and other 'preconfigured' solutions built upon it. Not to mention plenty of packaged software. And look for other kernels than Linux as well.
It definitely seems to me that if you want to be able to radically shape or reshape a distribution, you start off with Debian.
-- Mike Greaves
Debian 2.1 includes apt now, you can use apt with dselect or apt by itself. I personally do not understand why people do not like dselect. Once you read the instruction page for the command keys it is very easy to use. However, you can select a generic system type before you run dselect during install. This allows you to just pick the install option inside dselect and not look anything else in dselect.
Not quite. Both GNOME and KDE are desktop environments, which, AFAIK, means that they control things like drag&drop and cut&paste and generally how applications talk to each other.
KDE comes with its own Window Manager called KWM, but you can use any WM you like. GNOME doesn't have one of its own and you can use any one you like. Obviously WMs which are GNOME or KDE aware are best for the respective environments.
dylan_-
--
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
The Amiga and OS/2 died of starvation because their bigots drove everyone else away. Don't do the same to Linux.
Hmm...I doubt it. The vast majority of users on any platform don't read or follow any particular newsgroup/forum/whatever. Slashdot, for instance, has, maybe, 60,000 readers? That's a tiny proportion of Linux users. We see the flames and all, but most people don't and choose their OS/platform/WM on merit or by what they're given by default...
dylan_-
--
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
Umm..there are official Debian Gnome packages, check out http://www.debian.org/~jim/debian-gtk-gnome.
The packages are obviously still provisional, but they Work For Me[tm]..I finally dropped CVS builds last week for debs. No problems to report (except for gdm, which insists on starting the X server twice after I log out..) .
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Hasn't this been hashed out hundreds of times on these pages already?
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Ok, I should mention ahead of time that I am a Debian user and that I personally am of the opinion that Debian is potentially the most user-friendly distribution. Bias aside:
... [ I won't bore you with a complete list ] Packages Work[tm] when you install them, 95% of the time at least, and install any necessary extra configuration. If they don't it's a bug.
..umm..that's it..the first one in particular, though, is a rather large topic; most of the more annoying aspects of installing programs and integrating them into the system are handled for you.
:-) It's on freshmeat though. The intrepid may be able to find it that way. It's basically a sane way to create installation/configuration scripts that can work in any environment. I call it a dialog replacement but it aims for quite a bit more. The second problem is being addressed by apt.
User-friendliness pros:
- almost everything is automated. Package upgrading, documentation, menu systems, cronjobs, init scripts, MIME type handlers,
- cool bug-tracking system which lets you get directly to the maintainer of the package. It's nice knowing that someone is actually listening when you find a problem.
Cons:
- install process. The problem is not that it's ugly, the problem is that when it installs packages, it doesn't tell them that they're being installed as part of a new Debian installation. The result is that a lot of software (which the user might not even remember installing--what's 'gom'?? ) asks questions--not many, just one or two (like "should I start this on bootup") which the user may not have enough information to answer. This is perfectly OK when installing a program or two on a running system, but I've seen experienced Linux users beaten into submission after the 300th program asked them to configure a minor detail of its operation.
- dselect. Too easy for someone to screw their system up with a typo (I've seen people--again, experienced Linux users--fight with dselect. It works, sorta, once you're used to it, but most of the nastiness is gratuitous)
I have a possible solution to the first one..but it's not finished yet and I don't want to post the URL here lest my computer die a horrible death.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
1. in dselect, option 0 [Access] mounts the CDROM. then, when you go on to option 1 [Update], it
wants to mount the CDROM elsewhere, and fails, because it is already mounted. This is Debian
2.1 by the way. It doesn't happen after the initial install process, but it does happen the first time
dselect comes up when installing.
Yeah, that's a bug.
2. dselect has more than once skipped over packages I told it to install.
*boggle*
What install method were you using? Did it give you error messages?
Apt will ignore attempts to install things that would leave the system in a broken state (I think there may be a forcing option..I never have a reason to use it)
3. I don't recall telling Debian to make X start automatically and unkillable on bootup, but it
decided to do it anyways.
You mean that you installed xdm? Have you tried '/etc/init.d/xdm stop' or 'dpkg --remove xdm'? [ hmm, perhaps this *should* be a question in dbootstrap somewhere.. ]
I think that the problem is not in general that there are so many packages available, but that so many of them require user input during install. Too many decisions to make on too little data (often it's not even obvious what the program that's prompting you *is*)
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
I really shouldn't say anything about the GTK+ cheap shots. BUT--
:-) The only real problem with GTK+, perhaps, is that it gives an OO system to people (C programmers) who often don't seem to know what to do with it. Some of the code I've seen would make you cringe...
GTK+ has inheritence. However, it's almost never necessary to use it. The object system itself has a number of features that other such systems don't necessarily have (like the ability to store arbitrarily keyed data on any object, or the ability to override the member functions for a single instance, essentially creating a one-member class) It's not a C++ object system but C++ isn't really the be-all and end-all of languages (although it's pretty good a lot of the time). [ it's also worth noting that in, eg, Python, using Python's inheritence mechanisms works perfectly with GTK+ objects--maybe a bad example though, since a lot of GTK+'s object mechanisms seem to be similar to Pythons to start with ]
I haven't found anything yet that GTK+ was particularly bad for. Now, I've seen poorly written (albeit working) GTK+ programs [gnomeicu comes to mind] but I can go write a bad Qt app too.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Ummm, Debian lets you do installs from just about anything you can mount or from FTP/HTTP (in fact just about every system I installed has been via FTP) In fact, the network installs have been improved at the expense of more 'traditional' methods (especially CD-ROM installs, see another thread on this topic for more on that).
:-) My main impression is from hanging out on gnome-list and hearing both myriad complaints from people who broke their systems in ways that Debian would at least not encourage (apparently enough RPMs are broken that --force --no-deps is usually required) or are requesting features that have been in Debian forever, (such as menu integration--this is really a huge convenience, especially if you're like me and install/uninstall stuff on a continual basis--or a program to automatically find, download, install, and upgrade programs for you) I think that there are RedHat programs that provide some of those features some of the time, but they don't seem to be nearly as well advertised or supported as the Debian equivalents..and (eg) a menu generator that doesn't get to generate menus is kinda useless.
That said, I agree that the previous comment was overly inflammatory. I haven't personally installed RedHat, so I probably should keep my mouth shut about it.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Corel has a vested interest in HCC and still appears to be actively involved in the NetWinder line.
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
An installer is a very fundamental part of the OS.
You can not use the OS without one!
Then, I never said Caldera was the linux operating system. Caldera's OpenLinux is "the caldera OpenLinux Operating System", and I would love to see a reason why it isn't (specially if Debian is "the Debian GNU/Linux system", as the FSF says)
Also, are you a lawyer? Claiming to know what the result of a court decision would be and not making a disclaimer about it is a crime in the US (really)
Finally: tightening the license means dropping the GPL. If people is going to drop the GPL, why argue about wether the QPL is GPL compatible?
Running a system without a compiler is trivial.
How do you think compilers get ported?
Therefore, what you say is not the litmus test Qt should pass, either.
It is essential in OpenLinux 2.2, since you can't install the system without it. How much more essential can you get?
I will just quote two parts of your post and show why you are incoherent:
"essential core components mean those parts without which you cannot reasonably expect any application to run on the operating system. "
"It means the compiler"
Sorry, but it's perfectly possible to run an operating system without it even having a compiler. I can run Linux without gcc just fine and dandy. I can't run Linux without installing it, though.
It's the first time I see someone claim crtbegin.o is part of the compiler.
If it is, since egcs is licensed under the GPL, all linux binaries are GPL.
I agree you can't run linux without some copies of crtbegin.o, but crtbegin.o is not the compiler.
...a hardware store and walk out with a Linux Distro CD, that's world domination.
BTW, the local MicroCenter(Comp USA semi-clone) has boxes of SuSe 6 up front and out in the open. Surprised the fsck out of me.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
While I generally think that the distribution provider gets to pick the distribution name, given that Corel's distribution will be based on Debian/GNU Linux, I would STRONGLY encourage Corel to name this distribution Corel GNU/Linux.
The justification for the GNU moniker comes from (a) RMS's reasoning that the operating system is clearly distinct from the kernel, (b) the plethora of GNU O/S software common to all distributions, and (c) being based on a distribution that has chosen to include GNU in it's name.
I've been generally reluctant to call ANY Linux distribution GNU/Linux (unless that is what the distributer calls it, or it was produced under the auspiscies of the GNU Project), though I do think that RMS's technical arguments for doing so are sound. Furthermore, the GNU Project's championship of free software should get a bit more exposure in all this Linux hysteria.
So, while I think that Corel does not have to call its distribution Corel GNU/Linux, I would very much like if they did.
In Liberty, Rene
Why?
Rip out the window manager and you have a fully functioning O/S.
Rip out the GNU code, and it all pretty much falls apart.
Of course, I would prefer that the GNU Project actually put together a distribution that could be called GNU/Linux (Debian's is close to this), with little justification for challenging that name. However, if they did, it would effectively be the common base for all other distros in that you could layer them over that base code. This happens now, in a virtual sense, hence the argument to call any distribution GNU/Linux.
I don't particularly think that argument is very strong, without a tangible GNU/Linux base, but I do think that if Corel is to build on an existing distribution that uses the GNU/Linux monkier, it should be retained.
In Liberty, Rene
Its not that simple: layering KDE on top of a Debian distribution requires identifying HOW to effect such layering: where to put stuff, etc.
While KDE is not free, the information that makes the layering seamless can be.
Corel's distribution necessarily must be more than just Debian GNU/Linux + KDE. If not, then you could just get Debian GNU/Linux AND KDE from Debian themselves.
KDE is like the tail on the cat, helping it jump and keep its balance, whereas GNU is the legs, and Linux the heart. Chop a cat's legs off and it ain't going anywhere, no matter how fancy a tail it has. Chop it's tail off and its just clumsy.
In Liberty, Rene
Your point about the Qt license is well made, but Corel can avoid trouble by making KDE a seamless, albeit non-free (in the GPL sense) add-on.
Even Debian offers non-free code, they just keep it separate from GNU/Linux.
As for the O/S being tightly bound to the kernel, this is simply not true (and the biggest reaason to separate the names of the two): the core GNU O/S code runs on either a Linux or HURD kernel. Furthermore, you could replace the GNU O/S code with equivalent BSD code and have a BSD/Linux system. From a technical point of view, there is a good deal of sense to such nomenclature.
We've just become accustomed to thinking that the distribtion bundler has done more "work" and thus deserves greater "credit" than the source of much of the code common to all distributions.
Finally, its the Free Software Foundation and not the free software federation. They do not fight internally: ESR (and open source) are quite distinct from RMS (and free software). The GNU Project releases code when it's damn good and ready, and of extremely high quality, I might add. The HURD is very much a worthwhile, and difficult, project, though I suppose only a hacker would appreciate the inherent beauty of it.
RMS's views are strong, and I don't agree with all of them (in particular that any distribution carry a GNU/Linux moniker), but they serve a very useful function of setting the standard by which all compromise must be measured. And yes, this necessarily means that they might not always be practical or convenient.
In Liberty, Rene
One take I've seen on this is that with Corel (and arguably with Debian in general), Qt can be considered "system software", and therefore GPL kosher. With Debian in general it's a little questionable, but depending on how Corel does their distro, I could see it considered as such.
--
Kevin Doherty
kdoherty+slashdot@jurai.net
Kevin Doherty
kdoherty+slashdot@jurai.net
Well, could've been better if they had used GNOME, but maybe they didn't think
it was mature enough.
Let's not get too carried away! Remember, Linux is about freedom, and one of the important parts of OS freedom is the freedom to throw out Linux altogether and replace it with something better when it comes along.
--
Jake
Just continuing the trend.
Thus, there should be a way of setting up the system so that it installs packages only after authenticating them
It is done by default. If you want to install a package without authentication verification, you'll have to state so explicitly.
Actually, RPMs are in some ways superior to DEBs, in other ways inferior. A couple of things missing from the .DEB format:
What makes the Debian package management stand out is that it utilizes its features a lot more than, say, RedHat. For instance:
Try to remove everything that says (C) Free Software Foundation and try to boot.
x
KDE is a complete, integrated user environment. It comes with its own window manager, KFM. I believe Window Maker, another window manager, is at least partly KDE "compliant", meaning it can be used instead of KFM. KDE also has a nice file manager and all the little apps that GUI users rely upon. KDE uses the Qt widget set.
GNOME is a more decentralized, but still complete, user environment. You have to choose which window manager you want, and there are several which have been made GNOME compliant, meaning they work trasparently with GNOME's desktop management features. GNOME also has a nice file manager as well, plus a bunch of nice apps. GNOME uses the Gtk+ widget set.
So you can see, these 2 desktop environments compete directly with each other.
I'm one of the lucky few with both a CompUSA & a MicroCenter within 5 minutes of home (yay northern VA!). I've used both extensively.
:)
MicroCenter is still pretty expensive (compared to the prices I usually pay for stuff) but it still kicks CompUSA's butt when it comes to Linux, and intelligence of sales staff.
I've walked into a CompUSA which has only an outdated RedHat box w/manual (pricy) and found that the employees know nothing:
Q-"Hi, I'm looking for Linux, but without the manual. Just CD's in jewel cases"
A-"You want CD jewel cases? Over there", indicating empty jewel cases for sale.
Then I went to MicroCenter.
Q-"I'm looking for Linux"
A-"Aisle 5"
They had (last time I checked) RedHat, SuSE, the WalnutCreek BigOldDistro 4 CD set (yay!), TurboLinux and Caldera. I don't remember if they had a Debian CD from WalnutCreek or wherever, I think they did. I was very pleased
I use both. Just my opinion tho...
/etc directory and unwilling to learn. It's possible to screw over redhat by messing up your rpm's badly, tho it's never happened to me -- you have to try pretty hard.
:). Many many many choices. While in RH install it's a good idea to go in detail and choose each individual package you want, in Debian it's a good idea to choose one of the preconfigured options. 3500 odd packages is it? Deb is way better than RPM, and can upgrade your system automatically, fixing all dependencies etc. as it goes. It's beautiful. Debian has no nice graphical config tools built in, but many of us prefer it that way.
RH: simpler install (largely because you don't need to figure out dselect, and there are far fewer packages to choose from). Overall a good distro, but you're pushed to use their graphical configuration tools -- which aren't bad per se, but can be annoying to those used to hacking config files. But the graphical network configuration, system configuration, services, etc. tools can be a real timesaver to someone not familiar w/the
Debian: Approximately equivalent package-wise to RH with the rufus rpm repository also in the distro
Question: in apt-get a security hole? How does it guarantee it's not fetching evil packages? Is it only because you implicitly trust the servers you set in your conf file? I've wondered this for a while...
Hopefully, this will be an incentive for KDE to work towards resolving the licensing issue so that the regular Debian distribution can offer KDE. Although there will soon be a DFSG-free Qt (under the QPL), the incompatibility between the GPL and Qt's license (see Debian's analysis) persists with a QPL-licensed Qt.
No. While the QPL (the license under which Qt 2 will be brought out), is a free license, it is not compatible with the GPL.
http://www.kde.org/kdeqtfoundation.html
This would only come into play if e.g. Troll Tech went bankrupt. Qt would then be released under the BSD license, which would resolve the issue.
Please note that Clueless Users Are Bad For Debian" was written by a Debian user, not a Debian developer.
Debian has always focussed on doing the right thing in technical manners. Many of its developers are long-time UN*X and Linux users, who go for flexibility and power, and are less likely to suffer from user unfriendliness. This doesn't make Debian inherently user-unfriendly. Debian is about open development. If you care about user friendliness in Debian, you're more than welcom to help out.
There's also a Reasons to Choose Debian document on the Debian website.
with the GPL.
The plan is for KDE to change its license. That involves contacting many other free software developers who are not affiliated with KDE, though. Many KDE apps are based on other GPLed code, so the original authors must give permission for KDE to use their code under a different license. It's happening now, and the license should be resolved. Debian intends to include KDE with their main distribution when that happens, and they will include Qt 2.0 (the first QPL release).
noah
Each environment has its own widget set (KDE is based on the C++ Qt library, GNOME is based on the C GTK library). There is no reason you can't have apps from both environments on your screen at once, but the point of each is to create a unified and consistant look & feel. You defeat this if you use both together.
By unified, consistant look & feel, I mean the same widget sets, but also communication between running apps. For example, if you're running KDE, and you use the control panel to modify the color settings of the environment, those changes will affect the entire environment, including apps that are currently on screen. But the changes wouldn't affect non-KDE apps. The opposite is true as well; GNOME changes to affect non-GNOME apps.
I think the big reason for the flamewars surrounding these environments is that having a unified environment makes it look like you're trying to eliminate apps that are not part of that environment. When you've got an all-KDE desktop, and then you introduce any non-KDE app, it's not gonna look right. It won't take on all of KDE's settings and things. So people feel like KDE is trying to claim exclusive rights to your desktop or something. I think the flamewars were really pointless and non-constructive. But the developers of both projects are attempting to resolve the issues so that KDE and GNOME can interoperate happily, and Troll Tech (the company that makes Qt) has modified its license to be more compatible with free software, so the flamewars should really be over at this point.
noah
>rpm=yuck, deb=good!
Both are pretty icky. I use the encap system of package management myself: www.encap.cso.uiuc.edu for more info.
But that's the point. From the end user perspective they are all in /usr/local/bin because simlinks are made from /usr/local/* to /usr/local/encap/packagename/* to list all your files you simply look at the packagename dir in /usr/local/encap, aka ls /usr/local/encap/bash-2.02
/opt directory structure under SunOS, which was intellegent in that packages were seperated, but dumb in the need for an uber path variable. With 197 encapped packages now on my system, I don't want to even think about what kind of path varriable I would have without the simlinking inherrent in encap.
Ass for it sounding like a MS-type scheme, quite the contrary. It started out in many ways from the
you know, i find it rather sad that you call linus' home distribution a "sucky binary shareware crap version[s] of Red Hat". This is not to say that SuSE is the best. It isn't. But a lot of others out there aren't, and what i'd really like to know is why you feel that you should pick everyone else's dist. Isn't linux about freedom? Last time i checked, that included choice. If I may go so far, It also means that you can use *BSD. Why must people feel the need to pick the world's os, wm, and dist?
Though I was very leery of YALD (Yet Another Linux Distribution) Corel is at least building on existing systems and a solid GUI (I know GNOME is cool, but it's really not as far along at this point as KDE). This, IMHO, is a Good Thing. It'll be interesting to see what Corel does to customize/ease-of-useify their distro. Debian is great, but it could use a little easier install, I think. Hopefully some of Corel's work will filter back into Debian.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I run the Weitek P9000 server, and have had this problem for years. Just don't move the mouse when switching from console to X, and actually wait a second or two before moving it, and everything will be fine. It doesn't have anything to do with KDE.
--
Kyle R. Rose, MIT LCS
[ home ]
These are both far superior to Win95. So is BeOS for that matter. And I've heard (but not verified) that Amiga is better.
are you crazy or maybe you actually think it makes sense to click on start to shut down the computer?
---
or those tiny scrollbar knobs you get when looking at long documents. or the nonsense in the startup bar. or the horizontal scrolling in file dialogs (don't even get me started on Windows Explorer) or the whole uninstallation shtick. or the fact that you don't have control over certain icons on the desktop
---
and find AOL for ant linux distro -- THAT's world domination!
---
Red Hat pays people to develop GPL code and to work on the kernel full time. Evil, pure evil. Sheesh.
--
--
This signature left intentionally blank.
Linux is completely open, no secret hooks, no proprietary APIs or formats. It may become dominant, but it can't dominate. Other OSes will always be free to compete, especially if they provide their users with freedom.
--
--
This signature left intentionally blank.
(IMHO, Emacs is also a "standard" part of most Un*x systems, and apparently lots of people get lost if their system doesn't include make, gcc, and libc header files. So even those "developer tools" should probably be a standard part of Corel KDE/GNU/Debian Linux (TM).)
And pre-release software is supposed to be buggy anyway. The decision to release 1.0 was made by Miguel who has nothing to do with Redhat and he has since admitted that it was premature.
--
enterfornone - logging in for a change
I'm not a Debian developer, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I'm sure anyone who knows better will...uhm...correct me :)
I'm pretty sure there is some security mechanism built in _somewhere_, as MD5 digests of all of the packages are built. These are likely used as some sort of digital signature.
"UNIX" is never having to say you're sorry.
Oh my god...you two guys couldn't be further from the truth. Sorry if that sounded like a flame; mostly I hold the participants of the KDE/GNOME flamewar responsible for making an utter mess of the situation, which results in the confusion we have here.
Ok, Rayban...KDE is not a GNOME-compliant window manager. KDE is a desktop environment all unto itself, providing a windowmanager (KWM), a file manager/web browser (KFM), and a slew of other programs, all unified under a common API. The idea is to provide a "Desktop Enviroment" (through providing a "Development Environment") that's conducive to interapplication communication and unification. If that sounds like marketing speak, think "embedding a spreadsheet into a word document". GNOME is not a widget standard; it's goals basically parallel those of KDE. The main differences are that GNOME doesn't supply a window manager...it tries to be fully compatible with several established window managers...and also GNOME is younger and thus basically has less finished. As I am not a developer, I cannot comment on the technical superiority of one or the other, so I respectfully won't even try. I'll let the KDE/GNOME flame-warrers take care of that.
AC: QT is a proprietary widget set (windows, buttons, menu objects, etc), and not a window manager. Also, saying that KDE and GNOME are NOT compatible is a pretty bold statement. One can certainly have both KDE and GNOME installed on the same system. One can even run GNOME apps at the same time as KDE apps. The only thing that's missing right now is communication between the two types of applications. And the developers of both systems keep repeating the mantra that they are "striving for compatibility". So eventually, it'll happen.
"UNIX" is never having to say you're sorry.
{FLAME ON}
First, it's not an "admittedly complicated and difficult distribution"...it's not like www.debian.org has on it's front banner "The complicated and difficult distribution for hardcore linuxers". That was just some guy's opinion.
{FLAME OFF}
Debian's install is maybe one step behind RH, Caldera, and SuSE (ok maybe a step and a half behind Caldera's new install...haven't seen it yet). And there aren't many GUI tools for system configuration.
Anyway, shrink-wrapping such a distribution with a pretty install and some GUI tools is probably exactly what Corel wants to do...and will very much further the Linux cause.
"UNIX" is never having to say you're sorry.
This isn't my site, but it does a pretty good explanation:
A Redhat User's Introduction to Debian
Of course, as I type this members.xoom.com is down, so I can't guarantee that the link is still active. Basically, Debian's DEB package format is technically superior to the Redhat RPM format. Because of that, the Debian "apt" package-managing tool rocks.
Also, because Debian is completely non-commercial, they don't have the "support obligations" that Redhat has. So, Debian is blessed with the largest number of packages of any distribution out there. Let me clarify that...I'd wager that there are more RPMs on the whole than there are DEBs, but the majority of those RPMs are built by third-parties...people like you and me. Because packaging in general is a little tricky, and because there's no central point of coordination between the packagers, packages that _should_ work together sometimes don't.
Debian's different in that respect, that since they don't have to provide commerical support, they can basically include anything they want in their stock distribution. However, they make absolutely certain that every DEB package they maintain works perfectly with every other component in the system. Of course, if you regularly download packages from their unstable distrobution, you'll run into bugs from time to time. But, since Debian also maintains an awesome bug database, those bugs are likely fixed up within a day. Such is life in the unstable tree.
On the flip side, Debian probably requires a little more knowledge about your system than Redhat does...there aren't any GUI tools for handling things like your networking/printing/etc in Debian like there is in Redhat. Also, the install (while not insanely difficult) is not as "pretty" as the Redhat install.
Personally, I feel that Debian has the most advantages for someone like me...college student, experienced with Linux, blessed with a T1 connection. It is so easy to remain on the bleeding edge with Debian it is almost sinful. Of course, it's appropriate for plenty of other Linux users at the same time.
"UNIX" is never having to say you're sorry.
I don't know what you're talking about... Debian has been keeping up with the latest gnome packages since 1.0 came out (and before)! The deb packages i downloaded from the debian site carry the same version as the source tarballs on gnome's site... something that certainly can't be said for rpm's!
I'm no expert, but if I recall correctly, KDE uses QT, which I believe is a proprietary
Damn right your no expert. I have the full source code to QT Free Edition 2.0 (CVS version), and I don't work for TrollTech. You can get it too, from http://www.troll.no/dl/qtfree-cvs.cgi
Like GPL'd software you aren't allowed to create (link) proprietary software with it. (Or more exactly than that you aren't allowed to distribute such proprietary software). In order to do that you must purchase the non-free version of QT which is distributed under a different license.
Tell your friends, tell the world! Why can't people understand this?
QT Free Edition (that KDE uses) is free software
Ok a went a tiny little bit to far.
m l for RMS's statement that a QT released under the QPL will be free software.
QT Free Edition 2.0 (that the developmental version of KDE, KDE 2.0 uses) will be free when officially released under the QPL, as promised by Troll Tech.
See http://slashdot.org/articles/98/11/22/1029225.sht
I guess most people aren't living on the edge like me and are in fact using the older version of QT which is proprietary.
I am using QT 2.0 from CVS, but I'm not certain that counts as an official release, and hence I'm not certain that it has been released under the QPL (yet).
Sorry found myself getting carried away for a second there.
Excellent post. Completely agree.
IIRC, add-on cards for Sun Sparc stations have the device driver stored onboard and are loaded at boot time via a FORTH interpreter in the OS. A open standard for hardware interfaces to the OS would allow this to happen on all OS's. Well, except the ones from Redmond cause they wouldn't support it. IMHO
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Debian adhears to commonly accepted standards for directory and file structure/placement. RH chooses to go their own way, thus creating a rift in the community that is resulting in incompatability issues between distributions. Debian wishes to cooperate with others in the community - RH wants to dictate.
Debian has SUPERIOR PACKAGE MANAGEMENT. Period.
Debian finds and fixes bugs faster.
Debian is not for profit.
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
I have had GNOME 1.x debs (2.1 and potato) since 2 days after the GNOME 1.0 release. Got them right from the the package maintainers dir on debian.org. Where have you been?
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
But it isn't! Corel's linux distro will be heavily based on the Qt libraries which are not GPL. The qt liscense in non-GPL compatible!
Debian is entirely free, without any commercial components at all. One could argue that Debian is really GNU/linux. (and they call themselves that) Corel is not Debian, they are making a new distro, with Debian's base.
As for GNU, reasoning that the operating system is seperate from the kernel is like reasoning that the processor is seperate from the computer. It's a part. just like your computer isnt a computer if it doesn't have a CPU, an OS is not an OS without a kernel. The free software federation is so busy fighting internally that it's a wonder they ever get around to releasing software. The way ESR and RMS are throwing invective around, now is not the time to point the spotlight at the FSF. Now is the time for the FSF to count ten, sit in the corner for the rest of class, and hopefully grow up a little. (and stop demanding that everything be called GNU/something.)
0 1 - just my two bits
... because Debian doesn't even *have* Gnome 1.0 yet.
I think this is because they don't want to put it in with broken dependencies and figuring out the dependencies of gnome is hard... but still, we're talking about the "unstable" distribution here.
I'm longing to be able to show off an appropriately-themed gnome/e setup to my co-workers (they were reasonably impressed with E.14's ugly defaults and gnome 0.99.3's broken setup from the latest unstable I tried, but themes wouldn't work and I couldn't change the gnome window manager from icewm.
It sucks, because that was something that would really have wowed people.
Stuart.
... and buy *several* Linux distros, THAT's world domination.
The reason the poster (who was deliberately stating an extreme point of view) suggested people master Slackware before trying Debian, was that then they'd realise how easy they have it with Debian.
... :)
Personally, for me, the switch from Debian to RH was an unpleasant shock ease-of-use-wise, and the switch from RH back to Debian was another unpleasant shock ease-of-installation-wise. For ease-of-use (once you get through the install), Debian *CANNOT* be beaten - since 1995 at least it has been able to automatically update itself to use the latest packages, something I've never seen in ANY other operating system, and it includes everything you can possibly think of.
I was recently working on my debian machine with a co-worker, trying to set up a program, and a suggested step was "run smbclient with these options".
smbclient: command not found
$ apt-get install smbclient
$ smbclient
My co-worker was dead impressed
I think debian is the ideal distribution to shrinkwrap - it provides the best underlying architecture I've ever seen, it just makes no attempt to hide the complexity of what you are doing. With Corel (hopefully) adding a nice installation interface specifically TO hide those complexities, we could finally get the perfect distro...
Stuart.
Actually, the panel applets were the thing that wowed me with GNOME. That and the control center, which also appears to use pluggable corba components in the main body pane.
Sure, most of it was always doable with plain X (I remember having xload swallowed in my fvwm panel thingy years and years ago) but the point is that this corba-based architecture is going on *everywhere* throughout GNOME. I prefer to think of GNOME as an application framework, not a desktop environment. The panel and control center are just tools written to that framework. That's why I personally prefer it over KDE - KDE is currently the better desktop environment, but GNOME is the better framework... and the desktop environment on top of it will come with time.
(but until it does, I'll use KDE)
Stuart.
Actually, the Presentation Manager came out in about 1989, so it took IBM six years to get it "right".
Unfortunately for OS/2, most people got their OS/2 lumps with version 2.x, where despite the "power" of PM it was nearly unusable out of the box. As crappy as the Windows 3.x GUI was, at least it had program icons people could find.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Newer Macs also support firmware drivers.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Red hat has a too long history of security bloopers. Debian has always been better here.
So I personally praise this choice. Can you imagine what kind of publicity will linux get if 10000000 boxes will get owned???
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
For a company that was many times thought of as doomed, they finally seem to have gotten a sense of direction. I think they can do great things from here...I can't wait to see what their next move is. They seem to have something planned.
-lx
i am a 'newbie' to linux.
i picked up RedHat 5something last year, and tried it out. i got lost. because of the installer, i couldn't figure out what was going on. i never could get back to that same style package manager, either.
i gave up on RedHat, and this past october, got Debian 2.0. I love it. I love dselect. I was warned about it - but why!?! it's fabulous! i love debs, and i love alien for making those ever popular rpms into debs (you know, when you really want some piece o' software, and they don't have it in a deb... and source gets messy when you just want to run it for yourself to see if you like it...)
i don't know why people bash dselect so hard. dpkg isn't even THAT bad - at least not for small stuff. 'dpkg -i foo' is almost a reflex for me now...
You should be able to trust packages which come from Debian servers, and their mirrors. However I guess some mirror somewhere might replace a package with a hacked version or something like that. Packages are pgp/gpg signed by their maintainer before they are excepted, so assuming you trust the Debian developer, you can trust the package.
Packages have their md5sum calculated and the total is stored in the Packages file as well as the deb. IIRC I believe they must match exactly.
Apt allows you to specify other sources for packages, and should definately be used at your own risk.
It is very true that RH is helping the free software/open source caused greatly. But they're are fears that RH is more interested in profit then in "the cause."
I rarely hear anything good about dselect, and your no exception. But with Debian, dselect is a necessary evil. It does have a steep learning curve, the keys make no sense, dependency errors come up with nearly every package. But it's not too bad.
Gnome-apt looks very nice, however it is sometimes not practical to install packages in X.
I've seen RH and Caldera on the catalogs that come with my daily newspaper here in Toronto(from Computer City, Future Shop and Compucentre).
Could someone explain the difference between KDE and pure GNOME? From what I can tell, KDE is a GNOME-compliant window manager (supporting GNOME widgets). Is this correct? Is GNOME simply a widget standard? I haven't been following this for the last little while, so I'm not totally sure what's going on in the X Window Management arena.
Please don't flame-- I just want to clear this up for myself.
æeee!
What I think is BY FAR the coolest thing that Debian offers to a newbie is the menu system. You see, most packages, when installed get magically added to the menu system of ALL the window managers currently installed on the system. There is nothing nicer than running....
apt-get install my_fav_app and then having it automatically appear in my desktop drop down menus (at least when using Window Maker). It is this kind of consistency across the board that makes Debian the only distribution I like using. Oh, and that apt-get command I showed above will go out to the main Debian mirrors, get a listing of all the current packages and installed the newest version (in deb format) of what you are requesting and will also install any of the libraries that you need (new or upgraded) as well! It is so very sweet. Chris (soon to be cdm@debian.org)
........ "The faster I go, the behinder I get" - Lewis Carroll
Sure. Just use apt-get to install the GNOME packages from any Debian mirror and wham you have Gnome. This is the joy of Debian.
........ "The faster I go, the behinder I get" - Lewis Carroll
whats programming with gtk got to do with an easy to use gui for an easy to use distribution.
I know I will be moderated down for this, but . . . Vincent
Have you used any other GUIs? GTK, for example is an excellent widget set far exceeding Win9x/NT in features. QT is also excellent.- ----
-----------------------------------------------
Jamin Philip Gray
jgray@writeme.com
http://students.cec.wustl.edu/~jpg2/
Celebrate the finer things in life
I think the idea here is that Corel will improve the newbie-unfriendly aspects of Debian.
In any event, I think most of the "newbie unfriendly" argument centers around dselect, which is a piece of crap but is definitely on the way out (see the apt project, particularly gnome-apt).
My Blog. Sela Ward can sell me long distanc
Many, but not all licenses... BSD for one has no obligation to share your changes.
And no OS license (that meets the OSD/DFSG) obligates you to free any software that you write and happen to bundle with OS software.
My Blog. Sela Ward can sell me long distanc
Debian uses its own package format, but you can use rpms via the rpm and alien packages. Why any sane person would want to do this is another question entirely...
My Blog. Sela Ward can sell me long distanc
The fix is to "sys" the C: drive from a win32 rescue floppy, and in linux change the first line of lilo.conf ("boot=/dev/hda1") to boot=/dev/hda. And if necessary add at the end: other=/dev/hda1 label=crap.
Qt is not a WM, Qt is framework for creating crossplatform applications. Checkout the Qt homepage
For the latest gnome and enlightenment for slink, add the following to /etc/apt/sources.list:
- stage-slink unstable main
- stage-2 unstable main
/MBR, make sure that your Windows C: drive is marked active in FDISK. You'll still boot Linux if your Debian partition is marked active instead.
deb http://www.debian.org/~jim/debian-gtk-gnome/gnome
The same thing for potato is accomplished with:
deb http://www.debian.org/~jim/debian-gtk-gnome/gnome
To get back to loading Windows: In addition to FDISK
- "Well?" "Deep Subject."
I'm soon going to set up my first linux box, and hope to use debian mostly because of the great things I'm hearing about apt. Does anyone know when this will be included in the stable tree and available as part of the install? I'm not entirely new to linux, but this will be my first time installing a new system. I guess my question is when is the next release of Debian due and will it include the improved install procedure?
-- jar
you walk out the hardware store & get out with no Linux distro, because Linux is in every device ROM and everywhere.
When you'll have no more kernel because kernel is totally integrated with hardware, then that's world domination, because noone can then kick it out...
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
people say "if you change GUI it's hard etc..." The fact is in 96 MS changed completely its GUI from win31 to win95. And later with the integration of IE it changed a bit. And before there was DOS...
In fact the idea of learning curve is stupid. Any incompetent or new user will adapt to a new GUI. MS did it, why not Linux ?
Moreover, at work we haven't finished to move win311 users to winNT4 (win95 interface). And people do not create problems with it.
In fact the problem is not GUI, it is the application itself. Give Word running under Linux to people used Word running under w95. It's ok. Give them another word processor and there are problems, and even give them word 97 and problems appear... Users do not modify their working space, or if they have the skill to do so, then they are good enough to cope with anything new.
The learning curve about new GUI is a false problem, of course if you give a one button mouse to a w95 user he may have problems... But I am sure even non skilled users can adapt even Motif & the like WMs.
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
Then I miss Win9x look.
I hate MS (because of their marketing behaviour and the lots of bugs they introduce), but I have to confess 2 things :
1/ they're the best at marketing
2/ their interface has a great look, even though it my be unstable (BTW when I switch from console mode with mouse to KDE it often kill X and everything that is working in it... ok the OS is not frozen but I lose everything...)
In fact I very much like w98 interface. Ok I did not try E or WindowMaker yet...
For me the difference between MS-win apps and linux apps is I feel MS-win have generally a more professionnal layout (with reasons...)
ok please do not flame. You geeks can only look at features etc, but that's Linux problem : people who use it are generally geeks looking mainly at features, and they focus less on the look. Ask yourself why IMAC sold so well ? Not because of its features, but because of its look.
And as far as I am concerned I prefer MS-win look.
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
You pretty much hit the nail on the head on this one... Debian seems pretty nice, but the install process is HORRENDOUS. Debian users always talk about how great it is that there are 3500 packages available on the distribution CDs, but this is a royal pain in the ass!!
I used Slackware for about 3 years, so I had my fill of tarballs and compiling, and hand-editing dot-files, so about 8 months ago I decided to try something different. I first installed Red Hat 5.1, and tried it out for a while. Then I thought I'd look at Debian to compare and contrast, and choose which I wanted to keep. The Debian install beat me into submission (as you put it), and add in the fact that apparently dselect didn't install some things I told it to, I gave up on Debian after the third failed attempt at installing.
Currently, I'm working on getting Debian up and running correctly on my secondary system, but it isn't going well. I have had a few mishaps, and this coming weekend I'm going to do a reinstall, overseen by a friend of mine who has been using Debian for a long time.
By the way, people tout Debian as extremely stable and bug free. Explain these occurences to me:
1. in dselect, option 0 [Access] mounts the CDROM. then, when you go on to option 1 [Update], it wants to mount the CDROM elsewhere, and fails, because it is already mounted. This is Debian 2.1 by the way. It doesn't happen after the initial install process, but it does happen the first time dselect comes up when installing.
2. dselect has more than once skipped over packages I told it to install.
3. I don't recall telling Debian to make X start automatically and unkillable on bootup, but it decided to do it anyways.
Really, if I want the other 3000 packages I'll go get them. When I install Linux, I have a few priorities:
1. install the absolute base system
2. install X windows and networking
3. install development tools (the BASICS)
4. get online
5. get X working
After those 5 steps are done, THEN I'll give a shit about going and finding everything else that might be nice on my sytem. When I have to go through 300 menus just to get past the install part, it is just too much to deal with. Also, don't just say "use one of the preconfigured installs". I don't trust them to install everything I would find necessary.
I guess what it comes down to is this: Red Hat's install is easier for me mainly because they kept the packages that are included limited to what is REALLY NECESSARY. If, once I have installed everything that I feel is necessary, I want everything else, I will get it myself. I just don't need to deal with going through 3500 packages attempting to figure out which are necessary and which shouldn't have been included in the install in the first place.
Debian developers should be focusing on two things: reducing the packages in the main install, and getting a replacement for dselect. Relegate the 3000 non-critical, not commonly used packages to another CD set, or just don't include them in the base install. Allow them to be available after install, but dammit, leave it for after the critical stuff.
-[Blaine]- "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."
It seems that we don't get much moderation on stories that garner a lot of interest. I say this because currently there are 215 comments, yet only 9 have been deemed above a "1" (and all 9 are only at "2"). I know there is some flaming going on, but still, there seem to be a good amount of relevant posts. I guess the moderation system DOES have its flaws... mainly that if there is too much interest, moderators would rather post than moderate. [IIRC, moderaters cannot post and moderate in the same story]
Just an observation.
-[Blaine]- "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."
A while back, I saw a blurb on /. for the UDI (universal driver initiative). It's supposedly being pioneered by a bunch of unix corps. Do a /. search for UDI and you'll hopefully find it.
Considering that the target market for YaLD (cap?) is the new Linux user, a segment who is probably used to the Windows interface, I see it as a good choice for them.
I, on the other hand, don't _want_ my UNIX to look like Windows. Therefore, I don't use KDE.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
I'm sure I'm showing my ignorance here, but could someone point out an example of Corel's expertise in building a GUI? I keep coming across that line, but so far it's left my stymied.
Thanks.
--
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
Oh. Okay. I've not seen Corel's office suite (WP8 for Linux didn't exactly blow me away), and my last exposure to Draw was v5 (Win 3.1...ack!).
I guess I also somehow got GUI = OS GUI stuck in my head, and didn't even consider all their apps. Silly me.
--
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
my above reply to the reply immediately following yours. ; )
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
Corel chose KDE because it can be *made* to look like windows. As a matter of fact, so can GNOME.
This is all pointless bickering by bigoted purists. Aren't there better things to argue over than which desktop is most dissimilar to Windows? Ask youself if this is the hill you want to die defending.
The Amiga and OS/2 died of starvation because their bigots drove everyone else away. Don't do the same to Linux.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
This would be just as bad as being forced to use GNOME!
You are not forced to use anything in ANY Linux distribution. This is not an issue. Get over it.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
You don't like RPM and that's ok with me. But it was put out there to be used by everyone. All the software that Red Hat produce is GPL-ed. They even pay to programmers involved in GNOME and KDE and not a single line of that code will be closed.
Corel OTOH develop only commercial software. They give WordPerfect free for personal use but they are yet to open the source of anything they produce. The fact they are the underdogs compared to M$ don't make them any fancier.
Umm... My local Albertsons currently stocks up in software at the moment.. I've seen some pretty scary things on their shelves...
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Driver in firmware.. Hmm.. Never thought of that.. Universal drivers.. Anyone working on that concept? If so, is there a webpage?
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Yeah you can get him on a cd.. But you have to find him and use a gun!
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
But what if you want a picture of it? That would be hard to do!
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
I read over one of the articals. Kinda of got confused thou about the whole OS war being involed.. If it's universial, then you don't have to worry about the os, beucase it would be a standard and we know that Linux would be the first to have the better support for it. The comments after story sucked, damned star wars 'nuts'....
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Hmm... it seems like we've known the KDE thing for ages, but it didn't seem like Corel discussed the extent to which they will lead to a splinter in KDE. Will there be a 100% code similarity between the two desktops? It seems really unlikely (i.e. they really want to integrate the office suite into the desktop, while that would seem ridiculous as a part of the main distro). Any thoughts on whether we'll now have two development tracks or just a separate kcorel pack that works smoothly with existing stuff? Of course I'm hoping for the latter, so Corel can contribute to everybody's desktop, but who really knows?
--JZ
Red Hat is like the newbie version of Red Hat.
Caldera and SuSE are like the sucky binary
shareware crap versions of Red Hat.
Debian will include any worthwhile changes
Corel makes if they are DFSG-free, anyway.
apt-get should be a great win for newbies...
Cool that they worked out how bad RPM is though.
*Better package management - dependencies that work!
*apt - Upgrades your system from debians ftp site whenever you like, with next to no user interaction
*alternatives - have emacs & xemacs, multiple vi , tkstep + tk , Xaw3d + nextAw installed, with configurable default version - dont just blindly use whatever Red Hat could be bothered to compile
*loads more packages - apt-get will normally get and install the packages. Good
for when you get bored of compiling stuff Redhat
doesn't want to
*accountability - if you find a bug, bug the package maintainer
*integrated menu system - consistent across window managers
*consistency - tries to obey standards more.
*sections - non-free and non-us are kept separately from DFSG free stuff.
*the unstable distribution (potato) is in my
experience is much more stable than RedHats releases.
More developers work on Debian than any other OS.
However -:
* It currently has a very slightly( not as much differnce as some would have you believe) harder install process - it's best if you have some knowledge of Unix first.
* It doesn't have a company behind it for
corporate monkeys who need one - enter Corel.
It sucks a lot more using them than not...
Is Corel going to _force_ us to use KDE, or will it be easy to use GNOME instead. Otherwise we end up with the Micros~1 situation. Sure you can _install_ netscape, but it's much harder than just using IE.
I know it's not a completely fair comparison, because it is probably easy to remove kde, but it's still an issue.
also, does debian use rpms or their own equivalent? It seems everything out there uses rpms, so it would suck to not be able to use them.
Without offending the Debian fans, I would question this choice of distributions. A few weeks ago there was a link here on slashdot to a long essay about how newbies should avoid Debian, and how the Debian community should be for advanced users who, if I remember correctly, have "mastered Slackware".
So Corel is going to take this distribution and shrink wrap it? Somehow I don't think that shrink-wrapping an admittedly complicated and difficult distribution is going to further the Linux cause.
i agree that installing of cd's isn't really that well thought out.. Back when 2.0 came out officialy, i DL the iso images and tried to set the system up from cdrom.. what a pain in the ass compared to a network install... The reason is propably that all the developers install it directly from the net.. so that works perfect.. while the install from the cds could need some work.
All this talk of world domination is probably the single biggest factor that makes me a bit ashamed of some of (not most of or all of, some of) the Linux population. My views on Linux and indeed all of computing in general is CHOICE. Isn't that the ultimate goal we are all fighting for? The CHOICE to not having to pay for software. The CHOICE of being able to download whatever programs you want off of the internet. And, indeed, the CHOICE of being able to purchase a license to MS Windows or MacOS if you so choose.
I believe that what we are fighting for is the lack of any total world domination. If it is not, what exactly are we fighting for? Another monopoly? I believe very strongly that Microsoft should NOT be totally destroyed, just put in check. If people want to use windows, knowing it is not as stable or fast as alternative OS's, let them. I don't want Microsoft fans at my doorstep saying I can't use Linux, so the last thing I would do would be to tell those MS fans they can't use their OS of choice. Sobeit.
"Corel will also be releasing all its improvements and development on open source software to the Open Source community," said Mr.Burney. "The developers in that community are the strength of Linux, and with our recent work and contributions to the WINE project, Corel strongly supports their efforts."
Um, not exactly sure here, but don't most Open Source licenses REQUIRE you to share back with the community any fixes or changes you make?
Not that I'm ungrateful - even if Debian GNU/Linux-Kde-Corel turns out to be a Windows9x clone, this means much development of hardware support for linux. This makes me wish Linus hadn't made that concession for binary-only kernel modules.. But much work will be needed to outfit the kernel with an end-user oriented io system (ie, no one will buy it without support for usb etc, and friendlier device setup).
You obviously have not used Debian for longer than 3 hours, did you ?
You have not used Debian so please shut up.
1) I have used redhat for a while, rpm breaks all the time. rpm -Uvh for.rpm, rpm: Cannot install package foo because foo is installed, rpm -e foo, rpm: cannot uninstall foo because foo is not installed Does that sound familiar to you ? Also, Debian package tools solve dependencies on the fly. You say I want Window Maker and it automatically suggests all dependencies, selects them, downloads them and installs them. Try to do that on redhat!
2) apt based ftp installs/upgrades do work. There are no trojans, packages are pgp signed and you should download only from official mirrors. So instead of downloading 15 KDE-xxx.rpm files, I just say to apt-get install kDE-base, and it works. Of course they do extenssive testing. Don't forget that every release before being released is being used by lots of people for months. Every fifth debian user I know runs unstable because they like it. So the final releases are rock stable. If there is an update package, it goes to "proposed-updates" directory first, and everyone who wants to live dangerously installs that and if it works that updates makes it into main tree.
3) Most programs that could be packaged in deb format are being pacvkaged already. The exceptions are only those that are still under heavy development or those that JUST have been released.
4) Being able to contact a package maintaner DIRECTLY is always a plus.
5) I have used Linux for 2 years and I still think that the menu system is great. All your programs appear in menus and menus migrate accross the window managers...
6) FTP is a standard, yet the Debian install doesn't give you that choice.
What do you mean by this ? Debian is harder to install to a newbie than redhat but it is definitely more flexible. In fact you can install Debian the ways you can't do that on redhat (FTP install over a modem connection.. anyone?)
Well, my original comment was overly inflamatory and I am probably the one who has less clue. Any ways. Lets not flame each other... Debian rules BTW :_)
Debian *CANNOT* be beaten - since 1995 at least it has been able to automatically update itself to use the latest packages, something I've never seen in ANY other operating system, and it includes everything you can possibly think of.
.. :_)
Windows98 includes a similar feature, but you have to fire up IE to be able to update anything
Talk about obfuscated user interfaces vs. CLI
Pardon me if I am ignorant on this issue, I though it was resolved because troll-tech was going to release a free version of Qt?
http://www.kde.org/kdeqtfoundation.html
> That's why I'm using Linux now.
I hear that. I had Warp 4 installed on my Intel box (next to my Alpha) for a while but I ended up blowing away that partition for more space for Win95 so I could play games.
*sigh* OS/2 is too cool. Too bad it's getting left behind.
I don't see it. to me, atleast, GNOME looks more like Windows9x than kde. Just my opinion. KDE is a more "corporate"/impersonal desktop by default. While Gnome goes out of its way to look cool.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
Following all the debate about "is RedHat the new Microsoft" that has been going around, it can only be good that Corel have chosen a non-RH disto to use. :) .
Dont get me wrong I like RH (I use RH5.2) but a big name backing a different distro (even if its only so they can rip of the best bits for themselves) will mean that for people moving to linux there is now more then one choice of big name supplier (and Corel is a big name), and so nobody will be able to gain a monopoly position in the market. This can only help to keep everybody honest
Where you stand depends on where you sit...
Or does he come pre-installed?
Can I make copies of Linus and give him to my friends?
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
...and yet it happened anyway. :P
"Linux -- our OS is reliable, and our users are predictable." -- me
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Sorry -- I have my tongue in my cheek when I say, "world domination." Of course I agree that choice is what's really good (and "choice" doesn't mean "choice of Linux distributions").
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Let's take a quick break from the KDE vs. GNOME/Debian vs. Red Hat vs. Slackware festivities I know this article is going to generate.
IMHO, Yet Another Linux Distribution is not just a Good Thing, it's a GREAT Thing. Why? Because it brings us one step closer to operating systems becoming a commodity. That means no more OS tax when you buy a computer. I imagine a future in which my children laugh at us and say, "You guys paid HOW MUCH for an OS? And you didn't even get the source code with it? And you couldn't customize it or fix it yourself? I guess you all smoked crack back then, huh?"
So, bring 'em on! Let every company from Adobe to Zenith release Linux distros. Their development costs for this are minimal (probably quite a bit less than a writing a new product from scratch), so they have very little to lose.
"What about standards?" I believe that distros which break standards will get killed in the marketplace. People won't buy a distro on which nothing runs. This is NOT the traditional model, remember? In fact, it's probably closer to a "free market" than anything we've seen in software.
When I can walk into a grocery store and buy a Linux distro -- THAT's world domination!
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
it's funny, laugh:
Yahoo News : Strategic Alliance Between Corel, KDE and Debian to Advance Development of a New Linus Distribution
Yes! The new Linus will be 6'2, blonde hair, blue eyed and *ahem* Canadian!
No it doesnt. Shipping Qt with the system doesnt make it an essential system component. You can still run Linux without Qt. The system component clause refers to kernels, libc, compiler, etc, without which it would be difficult to run anything on a system.
I would personally persue any license violation in case any of my GPL code was linked with Qt without permission (I'd probably grant permission for Qt tho) because otherwise the GPL is worthless if anyone can throw a distribution together, ship it with a proprietary library and claim system component.
No it's not. It's not an essential system component just because some random distributor says so.
While an installer is hardly an essential system component either, Caldera is not 'The Linux Operating System'. Since I have seen few Qt based GPL applications saying 'this application is written to be run only on Caldera OpenLinux', it would be an obvious attempt at evading the GPL license of other peoples code.
In either case it's a useless point to argue, because you cannot gain anything from arguing it. You'll just get badwill from GPL developers because they will not trust your willingness to abide by the GPL license. It's doubtful any claim of system component would hold up should it ever get to court, because the court is likely to uphold the copyright holders interpretation over some pretty obvious evasion attempt. And you'll end up with a tightened license on any such code to avoid any misconceptions.
So, just ask the copyright holders for a separate license or refrain from using third party GPL code.
An installer may be necessary to install the operating system, but that doesnt qualify under the core component clause. Essetial core components mean those parts without which you cannot reasonably expect any application to run on the operating system.
That means libc, which most programs link against. It means the compiler since compiling an application usually results in possibly proprietary pieces of code generated by/included from the compiler being included in the resulting binary. It means the kernel since that also is pretty essential to running applications. Those are components that qualify as essential system components. Without those exceptions it wouldnt be possible to run GPL binaries on any proprietary OS or compile them with any proprietary compiler. Wether or not the OS in itself requires a non GPL installer is irrelevant.
As far as the operating system issue goes, there is some useful argument that the proprietary OS vendors can decide what is part of the OS. When it comes to Linux distributors it's not clear at all. Considering even Microsoft has problems to get anyone to accept that Internet Explorer is even a part of the operating system, much less an essential one, in my opinion no Linux distributor can claim 'system component' about anything that is not entirely clear.
Tightening the license may just mean clarifying the core component clause to prevent misunderstandings.
RMS does seem pretty positive about it, and the QPL qualifies as a 'free' license. However, that does not have any real bearing on the GPL compatibility problem, it just makes it easier for copyright holders to grant an exception to the GPL for those who want to link code to Qt.
And, of course, the in-house clause also causes the problem that it will not be legal to even combine GPL and QPL code in an internal/private application, since the QPL requires you to distribute your code to Troll Tech and the GPL forbids distribution of your code if you cannot fulfill the GPL. So any GPL code linking to a QPL Qt will automatically violate one or the other license.
No, you cannot run any applications without the compiler in this sense. That is because what is referred to as the compiler in the sense of essential system component are the parts included in the compiler that get linked into the binaries/are created by the compiler.
When you compile an application, the resulting binary will contain parts derived from the compiler. In the case of egcs you'll get objects like crtbegin.o, containing functions that come from the compiler. You cannot remove those functions and still have a working binary.
That is why the compiler is considered an essential system component exception; since proprietary compilers contain proprietary parts that get linked into the resulting binaries, compiling a GPL application with a proprietary compiler would otherwise result in an undistributable binary.
Yes, you can use the system without the compiler in itself, but you will still have parts in every binary originating from the compiler. While you may not see them because you dont have to explicitly link them (the compiler will always do that by default), they are there nonetheless, and just as much subject to licenses as anything else.
From egcs-1.1.2/gcc/crtstuff.c:
'This file is part of GNU CC.'
Follwed a bit later by:
/* As a special exception, if you link this library with files compiled with GCC to produce an executable, this does not cause the resulting executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License. This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License. */
So, yes, crtbegin.o originates with GCC/EGCS. However, while GCC/EGCS is under GPL, the parts that get included in binaries have special exceptions.
I hope you understand my reasoning a bit better now.
Wow, thanx for all the information! You guys are great! Looks like I got some more homework to do.
What are the differences? Why should I choose D over RH? (this is not a flame war ignighter just for my education).
You're kidding right? Win95's GUI doesn't even work across a network.
The concept of a "Graphical User Interface" has nothing to do with communicating over a network. It is about communicating with the user.
X does have nice networking features, but those are not GUI features.
The strength of a GUI is determined by how easy it is to use. Period.
The Win9X GUI is quite successful. Most people don't have a problem communicating with the computer. They understand the metaphores used, and can intuitively apply them to new situations. However, the Win9X GUI can get annoying for people who know what they want to do, and want to just do it. That is what GUI design is all about. Emmulating successfull GUIs is a good thing. It makes it easy for people to migrate between them.
Corel Linux Infinity.
When I was a kid, the ultimate solution to "one-up-manship" was to tack infinity on the end.
But that just led to "infinity + 1" and "infinity + 2" etc.
Hey, I never said I was smart as a kid.
Would it surprise anyone? Caldera started with Redhat, Slackware started with SLS, it only makes sense to start with an existing distribution. And KDE is very pretty, although I think GNOME has a better headstart on CORBA.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Which GUI:s best is of course something that's not easy to establish. Probably impossible.
The good thing about windows is that it, being the desktop environment, has a consistent look and feel for all (almost) programs. Otherwise, I dont think it has much to give.
The X-windows system has it's main point in being configurable, I reckon. You can get your windowmanager to look, AND FEEL, exactly like you want (take a look at my homepage for some screenshots of my FVWM2-setup). And I love being able to run programs over the network as effortlessly as you can do in Unix.
// Simon
> The only remaining point to clarify is that TrollTech wants to prevent abuse of the free license in In-House development. Therefor it's not allowed to keep the programme secret from the Trolls. But I guess this can be sorted out, as the GPL is not for secret code either...
Not so. The GPL may *encourage* code sharing, but definately does not *require* it for in-house development. The only time you must distribute your code is if you distribute the program.