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New Mozilla, Corel, and Napster Releases
Everybody and his sister seems to have submitted at least one of these links: First, Mozilla build M11 is out. Go for it! Check this Mozilla.org page for details. Second, there's a Linux port out for Napster. We already mentioned it earlier here, but apparently a lot of people missed the reference. Go get it already. And third, Corel Linux is now available - if you can handle a 311 MB. If you can't burn a CD, compile your kernel with loopback support and try 'mount -t iso9660 -o loop 6.1-i386.iso /mnt/cdrom'
This looks worrying. Of course, folks have already posted about local loopback devices for avoiding having to burn a CD, but what worries me is the end-user license agreement.
In particular, note these extracts:
1. Corel LINUX is a modular operating system made up of individual software components that were created by various individuals and entities ("Software Programs"). Many of the Software Programs included in Corel LINUX are distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License ("GPL") and other similar license agreements which permit You to copy, modify and redistribute the Software Programs
So that's the definition of a "Software Program". Now what about:
B. PROPRIETARY RIGHTS:
All right, title and interest in the Software Programs, including source code, documentation, appearance, structure and organization, are held by Corel Corporation, Corel Corporation Limited, and others and are protected by copyright and other laws.
Is that actually in keeping with the GPL?
On a totally separate thread, does anyone know what the equivalent mechanism to 'apt-get dist-upgrade' is going to be, in particular, how the currently-in-development distribution is going to be mirrored, etc? Or is it all going to be relatively "stuck" stationary like RedHat / SuSE etc? (I mean, 6.0, 6.1, 6.2 is very discrete. The above apt command isn't as discrete at all.)
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
I installed corel linux from the iso yesterday evening (european time).
The installation is quite good. It automatically detected all my hardware (ok I've got a simple machine : voodoo banshee, ne2000 pci clone ide hd). Then the graphical installer asked me for a user login name, good point. After that I had to choose between some premade configurations, like destop/server/custom). I choosed custom. With this option I had the possibility to choose to install any package of the distribution. I choosed almost all of them and went to the next step.
Now I had to choose on what partition I wanted to install, an ext2 one or a windows/dos partion. Good choice for beginners. Of course I installed on an ext2 one. The graphical fdisk is good and easy to use, but it seemed a little buggy for the free space calculation (eg it said 125 meg free but I could only create a 110 meg swap partition).
After that is the rather long and boring package installation. No problem with it except the mouse cursor was rather slow and jumpy during this process , not good for a first timer thinking linux is a true multitasking os (I know it is, it must be because the installation is using the framebuffer I think).
Then I was asked to reboot, no question asked about the boot loader or anything else, bad point here.
After the reboot, quite a shock, the OS loader is not LILO but a rather nice graphical (320x200) menu with an animated disk on the lower right corner. I can choose between corel linux and some expert/safe mode. I can also choose windows and dos. This is good for non linux users, but I have 4 different linux installs at home for testing and of course none were found so I had to reinstall lilo (I'm pretty sure I could have changed the configuration of the boot manager but I had no time for it).
The first time I choosed corel linux, and this was quite a shock : No boot messages ! The OS loader stays "on top" of the text and I did not find the way to get rid of it (of course choosing expert mode won't show this screen). This is very windowish and a rather bad point for any serious linux user. A rather strange thing is that the first time it booted, it fscked the partition so it took a loooong time and I had no idea what was happening (the loader writes some text like loading linux/check partitions and so on).
then kdm was launched. A rather standard kdm, ala NT. I was able to choose between root and the user I had created. I logged in as a normal user to get on a almost standard KDE screen, with some new icons.
There are of course some great novelties, like the file manager, windows share browsers and other great program but everything looks so muck like windows that it made me want to puke. I know KDE is really windows like, but with the corel extensions they took this idea to the extreme. You can even share a directoy by clicking on properties in the context menu, exactly like NT !
Of course it's rather impressive and nice for a former windows user but I think some originality would have been a good idea.
Here is the worst point : I did not find a way to configure my french keyboard "globally" for the console and X. The only way I found was to choose an international keyboard for each user I created. Really bad point here corel.
One other thing to note is that there is no translation in the things corel added to kde so it's one other bad point. It's really strange to get windows half in franch half in english. They should have killed all other langages so no one would have complained.
So even if corel did an incredible job developping some excellent tools and programs, I think the distribution is way too windows like and not for non english people. Too bad, hopefully this will be corrected in 1.1 !
In conclusion if you are already a linux user, this is not for you. But for a windows user this may be a good way to start using linux.
Btw a friend of mine was not even able to start the installation, it simply rebooted at the hardware check.
J-F Mammet
webmaster@softgallery.com
I've skimmed through the FAQ and release notes, but I can't find much info on Full Circle that is compiled into Mozilla. The release pages says "Full Circle Enabled builds allow transmission of crash data back to Netscape, improved crash analysis, and posting of crash related information to the netscape.public.mozilla.crash-data news group".
That is pretty cool, but is it safe? Also, does that mean when I find a bug, I don't need to report it? It is reported automatically?
Anyone have any more info, or pointers to info?
This sig is false.