The Debian Installer Beta 4 is working fine for 10 architectures at the moment and can be used to install a clean testing ("Sarge") or unstable ("Sid") system.
Apparently this is true now. This was not the case last time I checked - debian-installer used an older kernel then.
I'm posting this from konqueror from a newly installed Sarge:-).
no complaints. why do you seem to think it's not a viable option?
I used an old 7.x version back in the day, and it left me with the feeling that many things were broken in various ways. Mandrake remains very cutting edge, so I have been kinda assuming that the brokenness persists.
I might be wrong, am going to read a few reviews and if they deem it stable enough I'm giving it a go. In principle I like Mandrake-the-company, and their attitude. We'll see how the distro fares.
The Linux distro scene is in a rather bad state ATM:
1) Debian sarge release was pushed further on - and you have to go via knoppix to install Debian on a modern SATA machine, leaving the system in a messy state. Obviously the Debian (non-)release is a standing joke, but Sarge will be so late, it's not even funny anymore
2) FC2 was released, and it has several showstopper bugs (it keeps on crashing for me, it eats partition tables for dinner, keyboard layouts don't work, etc, etc). I'm sticking with FC1. FC1, OTOH, seriously rocks, once you beef it up with KDE 3.2 and kernel 2.6. FC1 is the best Linux I've ever used, and I was hoping it wouldn't stay that way after FC2:-(.
3) Suse is still non-free-beer. Come on Novell, letting hobbyists dabble with it at home isn't going to hurt anyone.
So what's left, then? Mandrake, Gentoo? Warez version of RHEL? WBEL?
And on the topic of JDS: they are always thrashed in reviews, but the media keeps hyping how "integrated" the system is, and finally Linux is of commercial quality. Go figure.
The BSD kernel used on top is not really a kernel in the truest sense. Instead, it's another microkernel server that provides an interface from the programs to the other servers.
So effectively Mac OS X is running BSD on a virtual machine? If we assume for a moment that compatibility w/ OS9 was not a concern, wouldn't it have been leaner and more elegant to run the monolithic BSD kernel directly in the first place? The "microkernel" approach here brings no benefits to the monolithic BSD kernel, which is the main thing modern applications actually run on...
ISTR that Mac OS X isn't really all that much of a microkernel - it's a monolithic BSD based system that mostly uses Mach (which *is* a microkernel) mostly for device abstraction.
at $5 a month, it dosent seem too much cheeper then the upgrade windows ever 3 years option in the long run.
In the long run, you are free to swap distros any time you want. It's not 'quite' as easy with Windows.
As any extra OS/Freeware programs you put on it woudl probly have an equvelnet MS compatable version, i dont see too much of a saving hear as support is still extra..
And the equivalent MS compatible version would be free too?
Haven't tracked down the detailed specs of this realease, but what can possibly make that true for Red Hat Desktop, but not for any previous Linux distro?
Linux desktop is much more mature now than it was, say, 6 months ago. I don't think the sentence refers to rh desktop in particular, but the overall status of linux-on-desktop at the moment. I don't know the exact packages in the release, but if it has KDE 3.2 I can understand their sentiment.
The stack that Microsoft is creating will not only empower more people to create more sophisticated applications, but will increase the productivity of application programmers by at least 30% over todays Unix/Linux development stacks!!!
Not really. We already have Python in our development stack, which is 341% more productive than C#. I only see the productivity improvement over C++, and to lesser extent Java.
Why not partner with the people who have the tiger by the tail? Seems like developers in the linux community are standing by while one of the best M$ competitors is gasping for air. Who's side are you on?
I don't think Java as a specification is any more open than.NET. At least Mono has some corporate backing (Novell) unlike open Java implementations and it can be legally shipped with Linux distros. I wouldn't want to see the requirement of having to download all of Java just to use a Linux desktop..NET is supposedly also technically better than Java.
And I don't really think Sun is a serious competitor for MSFT anymore, now that they seem to be "buddies" (i.e. MSFT quietly waits while Sun leaves them alone, and dies of asphyxiation).
Why throw a way a nice specification just because you hate the creator of it?
I don't think hatred is the correct word - people avoid Mono mostly because of the *fear* of MSFT. Building on the ground that MSFT can collapse on a seconds whim scares the shit out of many.
Also, beware of IBM bearing gifts. They are supporting OSS right now because they see the strategic value. But if their opinions change, watch them change their mind.
Of course, and IBM are in the lucky position of having the "right thing" as a strategy. Microsoft and Sun are not in that position.
It's like Oracle: they support linux as a way to keep OS costs down, but are against OSS database solutions. If (when) an OSS database gets to the point that it threatens Oracle or DB2, I could imagine both companies changing their stories about the value of OSS.
Asking companies to support OSS even if it conflicts with their proprietary interests is not realistic. It all boils down to having the right proprietary interests. E.g. selling stuff higher up on the software stack, which is what Oracle is doing.
On the down side, there was coverage of the announced layoffs, as well as the MSFT case being won.
I don't really think they "won" anything. MSFT is now on the clear regarding their.NET IP (most of which probably overlaps Sun). They are now forming IP alliances, so that they can sue pretty much everybody. Killing of Sun is a piece of cake to MSFT, once they deem the time is appropriate.
The axis of evil has been formed (MSFT-SCOX-SUNW), and they are out to suffocate the free world w/ IP law. Luckily we have some hefty backers (IBM, Novell).
You know what companies to boycott, people. Boycotting MSFT is not easy/practical, boycotting Sun should be much easier...
Double-middle-click (or double-right-click, I'm not sure) on a directory closes the current window and pops the new one. This de-annoyifies Nautilus quite a bit.:)
Sounds reasonable if you are using a mouse. I like to navigate w/ keyboard - what's the tactic there?
You can set explorer to open each folder in the same window? Is that it? I am confused. Everytime you reinstall windows? Huh?
I apologize the confusing wording I used. I meant that Windows explorer/file manager opens new windows by default, and you have to turn off that feature every time you reinstall windows.
Everybody I know turns it off, and I wonder why Microsoft chose the wrong behaviour as the default.
It's not the same thing. I don't want to see the details, I want to see lots of items in a small space.
Zooming out doesn't do the trick either, because then the file names are under the icons, not right of the icons like in KDE column list mode. If the icon is just left of the file name, you can cram more objects in the same space.
Incidentally, I'm testing it out as we speak. The Spatial Nautilus is very very annoying - it's much like the default Windows behaviour of popping up zillions of windows that you always have to turn off every time you reinstall Windows.
Yes, I'm going to go back to kde 3.2.1 Not because of the spatial nautilus that I can disable, but because of the missing "column list" viewing mode in Nautilus. I'm the kind of guy that wants to see as much stuff as possible w/ one glance, without needing to focus my eyes too much.
It included some stuff that wasn't in RH9, including a very pretty graphical boot.
And even better, official yum/apt repos.
If Fedora continues on the path that it is on now, it could become a worthy competitor with SuSE and Mandrake on the home user front.
Huh? It already is a worthy competitor for both of those distros. The quality seems to be pretty good, and I have to admit that FC1 was *the* distro that killed most of my dual booting needs.
The community projects like Fedora and Debian tend to innovate more than distros that are managed by companies because they can get away with the "if it breaks, you keep both pieces" warantee.
Actually, Fedora is still more of a RH product than a community product. Paid developers that can go on a limb and live on the bleeding edge seem to be able to pull this off pretty well.
Are you going to say the same thing if/when Sarge is released?
It's not yet another distro, it's a new version of Fedora. You know, the one that comes after Fedora Core, get this, ONE.
And BTW, Fedora is a great thing to run while waiting for that Sarge. These Red Hat people (and contributors) seem the have a special knack at getting things done *on time*.
Slashdot Mirror
The Debian Installer Beta 4 is working fine for 10 architectures at the moment and can be used to install a clean testing ("Sarge") or unstable ("Sid") system.
:-).
Apparently this is true now. This was not the case last time I checked - debian-installer used an older kernel then.
I'm posting this from konqueror from a newly installed Sarge
no complaints. why do you seem to think it's not a viable option?
I used an old 7.x version back in the day, and it left me with the feeling that many things were broken in various ways. Mandrake remains very cutting edge, so I have been kinda assuming that the brokenness persists.
I might be wrong, am going to read a few reviews and if they deem it stable enough I'm giving it a go. In principle I like Mandrake-the-company, and their attitude. We'll see how the distro fares.
SuSE is free-as-in-beer, but you don't get an ISO install. Got to use the FTP installer, which is a pain but works.
For 9.1?
Novell also opened up YAST, the only bit of special sauce that had another license recently.
The graphics & stuff still have a different license, right? I suspect the ISOs still aren't fair game for copying...
The Linux distro scene is in a rather bad state ATM:
:-(.
1) Debian sarge release was pushed further on - and you have to go via knoppix to install Debian on a modern SATA machine, leaving the system in a messy state. Obviously the Debian (non-)release is a standing joke, but Sarge will be so late, it's not even funny anymore
2) FC2 was released, and it has several showstopper bugs (it keeps on crashing for me, it eats partition tables for dinner, keyboard layouts don't work, etc, etc). I'm sticking with FC1. FC1, OTOH, seriously rocks, once you beef it up with KDE 3.2 and kernel 2.6. FC1 is the best Linux I've ever used, and I was hoping it wouldn't stay that way after FC2
3) Suse is still non-free-beer. Come on Novell, letting hobbyists dabble with it at home isn't going to hurt anyone.
So what's left, then? Mandrake, Gentoo? Warez version of RHEL? WBEL?
And on the topic of JDS: they are always thrashed in reviews, but the media keeps hyping how "integrated" the system is, and finally Linux is of commercial quality. Go figure.
The BSD kernel used on top is not really a kernel in the truest sense. Instead, it's another microkernel server that provides an interface from the programs to the other servers.
So effectively Mac OS X is running BSD on a virtual machine? If we assume for a moment that compatibility w/ OS9 was not a concern, wouldn't it have been leaner and more elegant to run the monolithic BSD kernel directly in the first place? The "microkernel" approach here brings no benefits to the monolithic BSD kernel, which is the main thing modern applications actually run on...
Microkernels seem to work pretty well for Apple.
ISTR that Mac OS X isn't really all that much of a microkernel - it's a monolithic BSD based system that mostly uses Mach (which *is* a microkernel) mostly for device abstraction.
at $5 a month, it dosent seem too much cheeper then the upgrade windows ever 3 years option in the long run.
In the long run, you are free to swap distros any time you want. It's not 'quite' as easy with Windows.
As any extra OS/Freeware programs you put on it
woudl probly have an equvelnet MS compatable version, i dont see too much of a saving hear as support is still extra..
And the equivalent MS compatible version would be free too?
Haven't tracked down the detailed specs of this realease, but what can possibly make that true for Red Hat Desktop, but not for any previous Linux distro?
Linux desktop is much more mature now than it was, say, 6 months ago. I don't think the sentence refers to rh desktop in particular, but the overall status of linux-on-desktop at the moment. I don't know the exact packages in the release, but if it has KDE 3.2 I can understand their sentiment.
I've never understood why you use a for loop for something like that and not a "while (1)". Can someone clue me in?
Some compilers give a warning for not having a conditional expression as the clause. for (;;) never does.
The stack that Microsoft is creating will not only empower more people to create more sophisticated applications, but will increase the productivity of application programmers by at least 30% over todays Unix/Linux development stacks!!!
Not really. We already have Python in our development stack, which is 341% more productive than C#. I only see the productivity improvement over C++, and to lesser extent Java.
Why not partner with the people who have the tiger by the tail? Seems like developers in the linux community are standing by while one of the best M$ competitors is gasping for air. Who's side are you on?
.NET. At least Mono has some corporate backing (Novell) unlike open Java implementations and it can be legally shipped with Linux distros. I wouldn't want to see the requirement of having to download all of Java just to use a Linux desktop. .NET is supposedly also technically better than Java.
I don't think Java as a specification is any more open than
And I don't really think Sun is a serious competitor for MSFT anymore, now that they seem to be "buddies" (i.e. MSFT quietly waits while Sun leaves them alone, and dies of asphyxiation).
Why throw a way a nice specification just because you hate the creator of it?
I don't think hatred is the correct word - people avoid Mono mostly because of the *fear* of MSFT. Building on the ground that MSFT can collapse on a seconds whim scares the shit out of many.
Also, beware of IBM bearing gifts. They are supporting OSS right now because they see the strategic value. But if their opinions change, watch them change their mind.
Of course, and IBM are in the lucky position of having the "right thing" as a strategy. Microsoft and Sun are not in that position.
It's like Oracle: they support linux as a way to keep OS costs down, but are against OSS database solutions. If (when) an OSS database gets to the point that it threatens Oracle or DB2, I could imagine both companies changing their stories about the value of OSS.
Asking companies to support OSS even if it conflicts with their proprietary interests is not realistic. It all boils down to having the right proprietary interests. E.g. selling stuff higher up on the software stack, which is what Oracle is doing.
On the down side, there was coverage of the announced layoffs, as well as the MSFT case being won.
.NET IP (most of which probably overlaps Sun). They are now forming IP alliances, so that they can sue pretty much everybody. Killing of Sun is a piece of cake to MSFT, once they deem the time is appropriate.
I don't really think they "won" anything. MSFT is now on the clear regarding their
The axis of evil has been formed (MSFT-SCOX-SUNW), and they are out to suffocate the free world w/ IP law. Luckily we have some hefty backers (IBM, Novell).
You know what companies to boycott, people. Boycotting MSFT is not easy/practical, boycotting Sun should be much easier...
Observe yet another masterpiece of FUD by Daniel Lyons @ Forbes.
Sounds reasonable if you are using a mouse. I like to navigate w/ keyboard - what's the tactic there?
Whoops, apparently there is C-S-w to do this. Not the easiest possible combo.
Too bad it only seems to kill parent folders, not all the folders.
Double-middle-click (or double-right-click, I'm not sure) on a directory closes the current window and pops the new one. This de-annoyifies Nautilus quite a bit. :)
Sounds reasonable if you are using a mouse. I like to navigate w/ keyboard - what's the tactic there?
Oh...for that you go to the "File Management" preferences and set "Text Beside Icons".
:-). Another view mode would have been more intuitive, but what the heck.
You could also turn on "Compact Layout", but that's pretty ugly.
Thanks for the tip, I feel much more at home already
Now, I might even be giving that spatial thing another shot...
You can set explorer to open each folder in the same window? Is that it? I am confused. Everytime you reinstall windows? Huh?
I apologize the confusing wording I used. I meant that Windows explorer/file manager opens new windows by default, and you have to turn off that feature every time you reinstall windows.
Everybody I know turns it off, and I wonder why Microsoft chose the wrong behaviour as the default.
Oh, look, it's a detailed columnized view.
It's not the same thing. I don't want to see the details, I want to see lots of items in a small space.
Zooming out doesn't do the trick either, because then the file names are under the icons, not right of the icons like in KDE column list mode. If the icon is just left of the file name, you can cram more objects in the same space.
Incidentally, I'm testing it out as we speak. The Spatial Nautilus is very very annoying - it's much like the default Windows behaviour of popping up zillions of windows that you always have to turn off every time you reinstall Windows.
Yes, I'm going to go back to kde 3.2.1 Not because of the spatial nautilus that I can disable, but because of the missing "column list" viewing mode in Nautilus. I'm the kind of guy that wants to see as much stuff as possible w/ one glance, without needing to focus my eyes too much.
Somehow I don't think I will be taking Bill's word for it...
Why not? 640k ought to be enough for everybody...
It included some stuff that wasn't in RH9, including a very pretty graphical boot.
And even better, official yum/apt repos.
If Fedora continues on the path that it is on now, it could become a worthy competitor with SuSE and Mandrake on the home user front.
Huh? It already is a worthy competitor for both of those distros. The quality seems to be pretty good, and I have to admit that FC1 was *the* distro that killed most of my dual booting needs.
The community projects like Fedora and Debian tend to innovate more than distros that are managed by companies because they can get away with the "if it breaks, you keep both pieces" warantee.
Actually, Fedora is still more of a RH product than a community product. Paid developers that can go on a limb and live on the bleeding edge seem to be able to pull this off pretty well.
But do we really need Yet Another Linux Distro?
Are you going to say the same thing if/when Sarge is released?
It's not yet another distro, it's a new version of Fedora. You know, the one that comes after Fedora Core, get this, ONE.
And BTW, Fedora is a great thing to run while waiting for that Sarge. These Red Hat people (and contributors) seem the have a special knack at getting things done *on time*.
Don't recall the name of it,
No, it's Rekall, with k. It seems quite promising.