LINUX---Discussions in General

[bob p]

I think that those counters at distrowatch refer to the number of times each day that each distribution's info page is served-up by the distrowatch servers. To my knowledge, the number only counts how many page hits each distribution gets every day at the distrowatch site. It doesn't reflect how many times the distribution is actually downloaded. Either way, I think that information still gives a decent measure of a distribution's popularity.

I tried using Mint recently just out of curiosity. My personal opinion is that it was a nice setup for crossover users who don't mind bloated software installations, and are looking something that installs with almost everything (codec installs, etc) already done for you. I had some major compatibility problems, where the stuff was just broken on install, so I just wiped the install and installed something else that actually worked.

If you're looking for a "crossover" distribution then I think that Ubuntu and Mint should be on your short list of things to try out. As with most distributions you're more likely to run into driver problems if you're using really new hardware.

[big_teee]

I've yet to find any machine that ubuntu, or mint won't load on.
I went right on my wife's old IDE Laptop, I had to find a driver for the Wifi adapter.
The only way Linux will ever really take a foot hold and get to be accepted by the real public, is if it gets easier to use.
One of the main problems with it for the last 10 years, is that the Linux Hack, didn't want it to be easy or really accepted.
Another good Distro that is really gaining ground, is Open Suse.
It has a pretty good version of Gnome.
I also like the Caixa Magica, it is a real polished distro.
It has all the Codecs pre loaded also.
You have to be careful with it, or you'll load the wrong language.
It comes in a bunch of them.
Years ago, I ran Mandrake, then it became Mandriva, it went commercial like Redhat, and now they have the Mageia Open Source version.
I don't like the Urpmi Package manager they use.
Fedora uses Yum, I like it OK, but I didn't like the Fedora Install and Partition Program.
Distro Watch didn't like the fedora install either, they gave it a bad review on the last Fedora Distro Issue.
The main thing, whatever works the best for you.
All of it IMO Beats The Hell out of WINDOZ.
T

[bob p]

I'm what you'd call an "early adopter."

I used to publish my own linux distribution (a renegade derivative of Gentoo), which I built from source code. It was a lot of fun, but very time consuming.

Years before that I had started off trying Mandrake, as it really was tailored for n00bs and I was... well... a total n00b. With Mandrake it just wasn't possible to get the i810 video to work. This was back in the era when the Mandrake video drivers weren't friendly with the i810 on-board video cards in Dell boxes and the system would always do video lockups. SuSE had video drivers that worked, so for a while I just ran SuSE kernels on Mandrake boxes to circumvent Mandrake's poor driver support. Eventually it was easier to just move over to SuSE. This was long before SuSE was taken private. Then I went to Ubuntu and stayed there for many years. I grew very tired of what I thought was poorly organized development, where there wasn't enough top-down oversight of what people were doing. Eventually I found my way to Gentoo, which is a largely overlooked distribution. It had the best package manager available, and provided superior granularity for package version control. I stayed with Gentoo for many years ... and I ended up writing white papers on methods for building linux from scratch, which completely changed the way that Gentoo came to be built & distributed. I stayed there for a long time ... eventually becoming one of the distribution's elder advocates. Eventually I just got fed up with always having an entire distributed compiling farm runing in my house 24/7/365. Having a dozen computers performing distributed compiling consumed a boatload of electricity and generated an awful lot of heat. I eventually migrated to Fedora once it became evident to me that almost every linux distirbution's development staff just copied the majority of Fedora's development work. From a development standpoint, Fedora has always been the leader. All of the other linux distributions, from Gentoo to SuSE, to Ubuntu ended up copying more of their code from Fedora than their developers wrote on their own. No quesiton about it, Fedora is shaping the evolution of the linux standard more than anyone else. Everyone else is just re-packaging. There are an awful lot of "me too" distributions in linux today.

The installer for Fedora used to be quite good. but it was old enough that the code was obsolete and difficult to maintain. With F18 they decided to do a complete rewrite, so the installer is now a totally new software project, and it's going through some growing pains as they go through the rewrite. To avoid problems with the installer, I just don't use it. My own preference is to just perform an absolute minimal command line linux installation over VNC and once I have a command line interface, I emerge only the packages that I want. Having built linux from scratch literally thousands of times, doing this is a no-brainer for me, so I don't even consider using the bloated "crossover" distributions. I prefer to build stuff the way I want it, and for me that means nothing unnecesary being installed on the system. I hate bloat.

[big_teee]

Today I downloaded the latest issue of UberStudent Linux.
I haven't loaded it on anything yet.
Thought I would try it, and see if it may be something my Grand-daughter would like.
Development Release: UberStudent 2.10 (DistroWatch.com News)
I'll let you know how it works out.

[big_teee]

I loaded it on a USB Flash drive.
It loaded, and I had sound and no video.
So the 2.6gb file I downloaded was a waste of time, and was a no go!
T

[big_teee]

I downloaded and installed the new Linux Mint Debian Distribution, 201303.
It is based on Debian, no Ubuntu.
It is supposed to be more of a true linux, than the Ubuntu, that is also based on Debian.
It seems to be faster, but looks very similar to Mint 14.
Here's the release Announcement.
The Linux Mint Blog » Blog Archive » Linux Mint Debian 201303 released!

IMO both Current Linux Mints (Linux Mint 14, and Linux Mint Debian LMDE) are the best, and in a league of there own.

[big_teee]

Downloaded the new Fedora 19 Alpha 1 Beta release.
It ran OK in Live Mode.
So I tried to install it using the Fedora Installer.
Never did figure out how to partition the Drive using their Installation tool.
So I gave up.
Fedora can't seem to get their software down to normal Layman Users.
I thought the installer was bad on 18, so far it's worse on 19.
So unless you like Frustration, or your an Engineer, you may want to wait til they get the bugs out of 19.
Good Luck,
T

[big_teee]

Ubuntu 13.04 Official has been released.
There is the regular Ubuntu and all the Variations out this week.
Ubuntu
Edubuntu
Kubuntu---KDE
Xubuntu
Lubuntu
ubuntustudio
UbuntuKylin
Ubuntu Gnome 3.63 Desktop
I downloaded the Ubuntu Gnome version with the Gnome 3.63 Desktop.
Distribution Release: Ubuntu GNOME 13.04 (DistroWatch.com News)
It runs great!
Give one a try!
T

[bob p]

Downloaded the new Fedora 19 Alpha 1 Beta release.

Fedora is a rapidly moving target. Upgrading means that you're going to have to deal with configuration changes, so it's always a PITA.

choosing an Alpha release is even worse -- not only do you subject yourself to the latest configuration changes, but you're also subjecting yourself to alpha-testing of software in development that is expected to be broken.

my personal preference is to avoid the Alpha and Beta Fedora releases unless you're interested in assisting with software development, or unless you've got brand new hardware that forces your hand because it just won't run on anything else. My experience is that the Alpha and Beta releases of Fedora are guaranteed headaches.

[big_teee]

IMHO all the Fedoras I've tried are way behind all the other Distros!
I realize that Bob and I greatly disagree on this.
He is an Engineer, I am a avid Intermediate Linux user.
All the versions I've used in the past 6 months are way behind most of them.
Most of the Debian Products are designed more for us users.
The Installer on the Fedora 18 Stable was trash also.
They just need to get an installer that the normal user can use.
I loaded the Ubuntu Gnome version real quick, in one stab.
18 took a long time for me to figure the partition tool out.
I never did get it to work on 19.
After I loaded 18, I didn't care for it and wiped it out and moved on!
So if you like Fedora, by all means go for it.
I don't!
I like all the Debian based stuff with the Apt-get commands.
Great stuff!
T

[bob p]

IMHO all the Fedoras I've tried are way behind all the other Distros!
I realize that Bob and I greatly disagree on this.
He is an Engineer, I am a avid Intermediate Linux user.

I think we're more in agreement than you think.

Fedora is sort of a product development test version for RedHat. they make decisions on how to change things that will eventually become part of the industry standard. One side effect of doing that is that they tend to break things all the time. From an end-user's perspective that's one giant headache. I agree with you that Fedora, with it's 6-month lifecycle and continually changing configurations, is a really bad choice for most end-users.

If you're an end-user who wants something to work right out of the box, Ubuntu and it's derivatives are pretty good options. Debian? The stable branch is so outdated that it's lame.

[big_teee]

I think we're more in agreement than you think.

Fedora is sort of a product development test version for RedHat. they make decisions on how to change things that will eventually become part of the industry standard. One side effect of doing that is that they tend to break things all the time. From an end-user's perspective that's one giant headache. I agree with you that Fedora, with it's 6-month lifecycle and continually changing configurations, is a really bad choice for most end-users.

If you're an end-user who wants something to work right out of the box, Ubuntu and it's derivatives are pretty good options. Debian? The stable branch is so outdated that it's lame.

I agree with everything you just said.
On the Debian, I run the Mint Debian.
Mint has two versions.
Linux Mint 14 based on Ubuntu.
Linux Mint 201313 "Debian"
More of a raw Debian with the Mint refinements.
Distribution Release: Linux Mint 201303 "Debian" (DistroWatch.com News)
I run both of them, and both with the Mate Desktop.
I do admit I like the Mint 14 version best.
T
**Bob, if you have a extra flash drive, you might want to load and try the Debian version.
And, tell us what you think?

[big_teee]

Linux Mint 15 RC(Release Candidate) has been released.
It is still based on the Ubuntu Distribution.
I have it loaded on a flash drive in a live version.
Haven't installed it on a Hard drive yet.
It looks very classy.
It has a new version of Mate desktop, and other updated programs.
It Also has the new 4.0.2 version of LibreOffice, Libre took the place of the old Open office.
I will install it on a hard drive soon, and will report back.
T

http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=07863

[big_teee]

Linux Mint 15 RC(Release Candidate) has been released.
It is still based on the Ubuntu Distribution.
I have it loaded on a flash drive in a live version.
Haven't installed it on a Hard drive yet.
It looks very classy.
It has a new version of Mate desktop, and other updated programs.
It Also has the new 4.0.2 version of LibreOffice, Libre took the place of the old Open office.
I will install it on a hard drive soon, and will report back.
T

Development Release: Linux Mint 15 RC (DistroWatch.com News)

The best I've used so far.
It includes the Newer Linux Kernel 3.8.0.19-Generic
This version Has the New 1.6 Mate Desktop.
The Linux installer worked great.
It is currently a RC version, but as Polished as it, they should release the Stable version soon.
If you are looking for a Alternative to Windoz, that is Easy to run and use, and can be configured to look like Windows Classic desktop, this is it.
Did I mention it is Free!
Development Release: Linux Mint 15 RC (DistroWatch.com News)
IMHO for new Users that are Transitioning from Windows to Linux, Mint 14 & 15 puts all Other Linux Distributions to Shame.

[DrGonz78]

Yup Terry I finally did my install on a laptop with Linux Mint 15. Well I first thought to go with Mint 14 as it might have more solutions to any problems with hardware. So, I installed and found that Ndiswrapper has a big issue on that version at installation. So I did a bunch of command line problem solving uninstalled Ndiswrapper and reinstalled the latest version. Lots of fun Anyhow Ndiswrapper is a wrapper program to allow the OS to use proprietary hardware. In my case it was an intel wireless card built into the laptop. So, I kept at it but just could not get Ndiswrapper to work. So, I tried just Ubuntu and quickly ran away from that system as fast as I installed it! lol... I thought about and made a install disk for Mint 12 as I had reports from others that Ndiswrapper was working great on that version. I ended up not installing Mint 12...

Long story short... Too Late! I ended up just installing Mint 15 and Viola!!! It recognized my wireless card perfectly! So, to all that want to work with Linux or anyone who wants a developers type workstation, then this IS the way to go. Thank you Terry for being the one that turned me on to it!
~Jer