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Announcements Debian Linux Business Software Linux

Ubuntu Linux Preview Released 271

Posted by timothy from the now-has-a-name dept.
psykelus writes "Ubuntu Linux, a Debian-based distro (formerly flying the flag of 'no-name-yet.com') annouced a preview of their first release (Warty Warthog) earlier today. Ubuntu is the most shiny Debian-based distrobution ever, sporting Gnome 2.8 and an extremely streamlined, mostly automatic installation & configuration process." For a limited time, they're also sending out free disks on request.
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Ubuntu Linux Preview Released More

Ubuntu Linux Preview Released

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  • How many CDs is this one. Mandrake alone is 3 and it's not that great. I wish I could get a Distro without asking a friend, Satalite internet is horrid.

  • Hakuna Matada (Score:5, Funny)

    by grunt107 ( 739510 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @04:57PM (#10260548)
    I want the 'Merry Muircat' edition. It would be faster and lighter than the warthog.

  • Sounds awesome. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @04:58PM (#10260554) Homepage
    But there's been ... like ... nine Debian derivative distributions to come out in the last year.

    How do I know which of these will follow through, which of them will continue to be active in a year, and which ones will have maybe two more minor releases then just sort of peter out? How do I know what will happen to this one, in the long run? How do I justify not just taking the safe route and installing vanilla Debian?

    I'd love to have a "user friendly" Debian distro to recommend to people so that they aren't stuck using Mandrake, but when three projects aspiring to that title crop up a year... can I consider them safe to recommend? I just don't know what to do.

    • Re:Sounds awesome. (Score:5, Informative)

      by ricotest ( 807136 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @05:01PM (#10260583)
      Unfortunately the server was slashdotted with 0 comments. Try the Coral link [nyud.net] but that is also very slow.

    • Re:Sounds awesome. (Score:5, Informative)

      by damiam ( 409504 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @05:10PM (#10260672)
      If the distro vanishes, you can always switch to mainline Debian, the packages should be fairly compatible.

    • Re:Sounds awesome. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bogie ( 31020 )
      Your telling me. I was plently willing to stick with Stormix long term.

      "I'd love to have a "user friendly" Debian distro to recommend to people so that they aren't stuck using Mandrake,"

      Hello, Fedora, Suse. Anyway, while I'm no fan of proprietary Linux if your set on using a Debian based distro that's user friendly why aren't you pointing them at Xandros or Lindows? Really easy to use, newbie friendly versions of Debian are in short supply.

    • Re:Sounds awesome. (Score:5, Informative)

      by ThogScully ( 589935 ) <neilsd@neilschelly.com> on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @05:19PM (#10260732) Homepage
      Well, you can install it, and should they stop development on it, you can put the APT sources for Debian in your sources.list and magically, you'll be running Debian.

      The improvements most of these distros make on Debian it seems is that they make it easier to install and configure. But once that's done, one Debian system is just like any other for the most part. It just runs, or at least it should.
      -N
    • How do I justify not just taking the safe route and installing vanilla Debian?

      www.gentoo.org. Seriously. And ignore the trolls who don't understand what it's all about.

      • Why gentoo?

        And yes I am serious. I have been debating Debian or Gentoo for a few weeks and I have yet to make up my mind.

        • Re:Sounds awesome. (Score:3, Interesting)

          by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

          Gentoo, regardless of what stage you start from, will teach you more about Linux (and by extension Unix) than debian will, assuming you are not using the GRP. Just doing the install teaches you a bit about setting up a system. In fact I recently had someone tell me that gentoo was the thing that finally led them to building their own Linux-based system from scratch - not a solution I advocate for much of anyone, except when building embedded solutions... but still interesting.

          Debian's only advantage is

          • Gentoo, regardless of what stage you start from, will teach you more about Linux (and by extension Unix) than debian will

            I think that translates as "Gentoo is more difficult to install", but I could be wrong. I haven't tried it yet. It is the next on my list if I ever decide I've had enough of Debian.

            • Gentoo is more difficult to install, although I once tried to use that installer-builder for debian and COULD NOT GET IT TO WORK. It took me ages to figure out what I should have been doing, and then I couldn't find a mirror that would deal with me - I'd get a few files from this mirror, a few from that one, with missing files all over the place. It might have just been me, but I've never had that kind of problem with just getting install media together with any other Linux, and I've been using Linux for so

            • Re:Sounds awesome. (Score:2, Informative)

              by Bachus9000 ( 765935 )
              I wouldn't say Gentoo is "hard" to install. The guide on the Gentoo site is excellent, and even a Linux newbie like me can follow it and get a working system. :) It does take a long time, though...

            • Re:Sounds awesome. (Score:2, Insightful)

              by BrokenHalo ( 565198 )
              Or you could always try Slackware. It's a no-brainer to install, but the whole distribution is geared towards maintainability, so you get to learn at least as much as any Gentoo user, but without so many headaches.
        • Because maybe you have a modern ATI graphics card? Since you have to recompile and customize your kernel, agp modules, X modules, etc. to get working anyway, you might as well go with Gentoo, which actually is a little easier.

        • Re:Sounds awesome. (Score:5, Interesting)

          by sp0rk173 ( 609022 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @06:26PM (#10261261)
          I honestly don't think there is a good reason. Probably the main difference is that debian might be a bit more difficult to tweak to use the latest packages, whereas Gentoo stays pretty up to date, even when you don't have it keyworded (read: stable). For example, I'm expecting Gnome 2.8 to be in portage within a couple days. Infact, packages are getting merged in slowly [gentoo.org]. The downside to that, of course, is that an early adopter (again, a keyworded, "unstable" portage) might have an unstable system. I've always used keywords and have noticed very little, if any, instability. With gentoo, you just learn more. That's the reason i use it. I like things to play with to expand my knowledge on a subject. Gentoo does that. Gentoo also has a very intelligent system for handling rc scripts, that seems to just work. rc-update is just awesome. The downside to Gentoo (and it's a highly over exagerated downside), is it's compile time. To put things into perspective, I emerge sync (update the portage tree) daily. For the past week i've had maybe one or two small programs that needed to be updated, and the total compilation time was less than 10 minutes each time. Even with the compile time, the system is perfectly usable while the compile is taking place. Now, if you wait a month between each emerge sync && emerge -u world, you're going to be compiling for a LONNGG time. Your key to using Gentoo successfully is keeping it up to date.

          What it comes down to isn't whether or not Gentoo or Debian is intrinsically better than the other, rather which of the two suits you better. I've used debian, and I didn't like it. I come from a mainly BSD background, so i appreciated portage, i appreciated a more simplistic rc script setup, and i appreciated the merits of a source-based distro. Gentoo just fits me. I suggest you try both, and come to a conclusion on your own. Otherwise, you'll be tainted by dogmatic views from both sides, trolls, and flames.

        • Re:Sounds awesome. (Score:5, Informative)

          by AvantLegion ( 595806 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @06:52PM (#10261472) Journal
          Reasons I use Gentoo:

          1) Gentoo's documentation and forums are second to none. I often look up answers to questions at the Gentoo forums even when using a non-Gentoo Linux distro. Gentoo's install is very involved, but detailed documentation accompanies every step-by-step part of the process.

          2) USE flags give me a ton of control on what support is compiled into each package. If I want Freetype to use the patented bytecode that makes AA so purty (to my eyes), I just add a flag to my USE flags and it shall be compiled as so.

          3) I've had less dependency problems with Gentoo/Portage than Debian/APT. The last time I used Debian, I had a dependency issue that I could not find help for quickly on Google or mailing lists. I've yet to have an ebuild problem in Gentoo that wasn't quickly explained/fixed by searching the Gentoo forums.

          4) Debian makes me feel guilty if I want to use any reasonably up-to-date software. :) I have to use SUPER-UNSTABLE-OMFG-ITS-GONNA-BREAK distro. So many posts around insist "don't use Sid, it'll break! OMFG!!11 use Sarge!". I have to admit that it makes me a bit gun-shy. With Gentoo, if I get a funky "too new" package that's breakable, I can just roll that one back to an older version. Gentoo stable is very up-to-date but not exceedingly so.

          • 4) Debian makes me feel guilty if I want to use any reasonably up-to-date software. :) I have to use SUPER-UNSTABLE-OMFG-ITS-GONNA-BREAK distro. So many posts around insist "don't use Sid, it'll break! OMFG!!11 use Sarge!".

            Yes, "stable" in Debian is exactly what you'd expect. It's solid as a rock, but it's as exciting as one, too.

            In my experience, Gentoo's "stable" is about on par with Debian's "unstable" branch in terms of stability (i.e., upgrades breaking things, etc). That's not to say that Gentoo i

          • Unfortunately, you're missing the point.

            This is supposed to be an "easy to use" and "works out of the box" distribution.

            The people this is aimed at really couldn't give a shit about C flags, proprietry AA font support, or starting from scratch to get a few percent speed increase by stripping out libraries they don't need, etc. They don't want to spend 2 days waiting for everything they need to compile. They just want to print a letter.

            Part of this audience is the type of person who rings you up with

            • Well said. (Score:3, Interesting)

              by bogie ( 31020 )
              Mucking around with your distro and editting config files isn't all its cracked up to be once you've been doing it for a while. I have to constantly hear this "but Gentoo lets you get into the nuts and bolts of the OS" B.S. I'm getting old, I have better things to do then tweak or screw around with my OS. Training to be an admin? Fine monkey around guilt free while your still learning. Want to use your OS for actually doing anything? Join the rest of the world.

              Think in 20 years anyone will still be obsesse

          • Re:Sounds awesome. (Score:4, Informative)

            by antiMStroll ( 664213 ) on Thursday September 16, 2004 @12:05AM (#10263308)
            I was a Gentoo user from the first release of 1.2 but after a long and arduous desktop install trashed by Reiserf and having no luck getting the latest release to see /dev/hda on my Nforce3 notebook, I looked around. FreeBSD won't boot due to a BIOS fault, Fedora works but it's still Fedora. Debian's Pure64 port has been a revelation. Fast (way faster than XP home on the alternate partition), stable and 14000+ packages in the Alioth Sid repository. I've always shied from Debian because of the incomprehensible install (for a Gentoo user!) but the lastest installer works great. I'm in no hurry to go back.

      • Re:Sounds awesome. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by True Grit ( 739797 ) * <edwcogburn AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @07:37PM (#10261782)
        And ignore the trolls who don't understand what it's all about.

        This is a story about a Debian variant, so why have you shown up trying to change the subject? Who is really the troll here? For Pete's sake, this distro isn't even trying to court the same user group that might be interested in Gentoo, so why are you here? Seriously.

    • knoppix (Score:2, Insightful)

      by zogger ( 617870 )
      knoppix is debian and it's one cd. There ya go! I think they will be around for a spell, too.....
    • If enough people do this, the most technologically impressive distro will succeed. As Gandhi said, you must be the change you want to see in the world.

      That's my definition of good philosophy, really...something that you can turn to in even the smallest decisions.

    • Re:Sounds awesome. (Score:3, Informative)

      by dzelenka ( 630044 )
      Here is the debian list of the debian-based distros:

      * Adamantix
      * BenHur
      * Corel Linux
      * Debian JP
      * DemoLinux
      * Demudi, http://www.demudi.org/, a multimedia distribution.
      * Embedded Debian, http://www.emdebian.org/
      * ESware Linux
      * Euronode, http://euronode.org/
      * Floppix, http://floppix.ccai.com/
      * Gibraltar
      * Impi Linux
      * KNOPPIX, http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/
      * Libranet, http://www.libranet.com/
      * Linspire, http://www.linspire.com/
      * Li
    • you'll just revert back to vanilla if they get screwed....

      (and some would say that knoppix is as easy as a distro gets)

    • Try the vanilla Debian beta CD installer. It pretty much solves the "hard to install" problem.

  • I was talking about this just the other day (Score:5, Funny)

    by JudgeFurious ( 455868 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @04:58PM (#10260557)
    I was telling my wife that the real problem with Linux is that there just aren't enough distributions out there. If some of these people, these so-called "open source programmers" would get off their asses and crank out a few more distributions THEN this stuff would really take off.

  • BitTorrent Link (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BenFranske ( 646563 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @05:00PM (#10260570) Homepage
    Since the site seems to be down, how about someone who has it putting up a BitTorrent link?

  • Ouch, spelling! (Score:5, Informative)

    by kavau ( 554682 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @05:02PM (#10260585) Homepage
    Ubuntu is the most shiny Debian-based distrobution ever

    This is getting painful. Would someone please teach the slashdot editors how to use a spellchecker? (Don't get me started on grammar...) Maybe I should write a HOWTO...?

    • Why, what's the problem? You have the real word, distrobution, distri for short.

      Ubuntu is the most shiny Debian-based distrobution ever.. hey, I need to beat the rush and download this distri's ISOs.

    • I should write a HOWTO...?

      I'll save you the trouble:

      HOWTO: Use spellcheck
      1. Click the spellcheck button.
      2. Follow onscreen instructions.

      Copyright (c) 2004 Ahab.
      Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is inclu
    • I don't get it.

      We refer to Linux distributions as "distro's" so why not "distrobutions"? Its only logical...

      :)
    • Sorry, guys. The original poster is actually upset that it's not spelled "evar".

  • The question is ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by timothy ( 36799 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @05:04PM (#10260607) Journal
    Who can type faster:

    Bruce Perens? Or Mark Shuttleworth? :)

    Interesting contrast; when a new release of Windows comes out, I don't see Bill Gates answering questions from all and sundry in public forums like this. (Of course, I don't follow Windows closely, so maybe I'm wrong on that.)

    timothy

  • Out of Business (Score:4, Funny)

    by josefcub ( 212738 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @05:04PM (#10260609) Journal
    You know, if we end up slashdotting their free CD order system and they try to even partially fulfill the free CD offer to us, we might end up putting the distro out of business before they can even go out of preview release mode. ;)

  • Since the site is running way slow already (Score:3, Informative)

    by FunkyRat ( 36011 ) * <funkyrat@gmailGI ... minus herbivore> on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @05:04PM (#10260610) Journal

    Here's a coralized link:
    Ubuntu Linux [nyud.net]

  • distro:user-ratio restored (Score:5, Funny)

    by Harald Paulsen ( 621759 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @05:06PM (#10260630) Homepage
    It's good to see that the ratio between number of linux-distributions and linux-users are once more restored as the total number of distributions now passed the total number of linux users. :-)

  • Free CD Link (Score:5, Informative)

    by makohill ( 683440 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @05:14PM (#10260703)

    To get those free CDs shipped to you, you can go directly to this link:

    http://shipit.ubuntulinux.org [ubuntulinux.org]

  • What's "Ubuntu"? (Score:5, Informative)

    by StrawberryFrog ( 67065 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @05:14PM (#10260710) Homepage Journal
    In short, "humanity towards others".

    Two defintions:
    Ubuntu on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
    And a shameless plug for my writeup on E2 [everything2.com]

  • Note to Slashdot Populace: (Score:4, Informative)

    by IllogicalStudent ( 561279 ) <jsmythe79 AT hotmail DOT com> on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @05:18PM (#10260731)

    For a limited time, they're also sending out free disks on request.

    Please don't bankrupt these poor chaps -- CDRs may be cheap, but they ain't free; nor is shipping.

    • Thats what "for a limited time" means.. They will continue supplying these cd's till the money runs out..

      At a guess that was about 20 seconds after the public post on /.
    • No joke..good point. From what I read they are stamped CD's also..not CD-R. Whoa!

      Get it in 15 minutes or less from the torrent:

      amd64
      http://ftp3.linux.it/pub/mirrors/warty/wart y-amd64 .iso.torrent
      i386
      http://ftp3.linux.it/pub/mirro rs/warty/warty-i386. iso.torrent
      powerpc
      http://ftp3.linux.it/pub/mir rors/warty/warty-power pc.iso.torrent
  • Oh the humanity of it all :-P

    Yeah thats right keep on /dotting them.. show them the LOVE!

  • As Long As... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by suss ( 158993 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @05:22PM (#10260764)
    As long as its IRC client doesn't join #Debian on freenode by default, like Knoppix, Kurumin and all those others do or there will be hell to pay.

    People can't seem to get it into their heads that #Debian is for Debian and not derivatives and they should ask for support from where they got it.

  • hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)

    by cswiii ( 11061 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @05:26PM (#10260789)
    Dear Sir,

    My name is Ikembe Otobamo. Until recently I was employed by the large software firm Microsoft. During this time, I earned many stock options and sold them at a great profit. During my time at Microsoft, I also began developing a linux distribution called 'Ubuntu'.

    When Microsoft discovered I was using Linux, I was quickly dismissed from the firm. Unfortunately, that also meant I had no work authorisation and had to flee the United States.

    Meanwhile, I have accumulated over $16 million USD due to stock sales, and I thus need s bank account in the United States to hold this money for safekeeping. If you would be so willing to help me, I offer you 10% of this money and interest incurred. I will also supply you with unlimited copies of my "Ubuntu Linux" distribution for your own perusal. This distribution also contains our specialised "Mozilatobe" browser suite and our "Gnombolo" X11 interface.

    Please consider my offer; your assistance will be most appreciated.

    Sincerely,
    Ikembe Otobamo (Nigeria)

  • x.org (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sewagemaster ( 466124 ) <sewagemaster AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @05:52PM (#10260973) Homepage
    would anyone know if it contains x.org packages? it would be nice to try for us to try out on a debian/debian-based distro without the need of compiling anything or risking breaking the system :)

  • Debian perfect for this... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Chuck Bucket ( 142633 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @06:01PM (#10261065) Homepage Journal
    with debian's background it's the perfect linux distro to support things like this. Just use anaconda (open from red hat) for the installer, then apt for updates, have it point to a mirror for the new distro to support newer (yes, less stable) apps for install, and you'll have a great OS, with the structure of Debian, but w/o the upkeep (which I happen to like, but I digress...)

    THis lin-distro has 'wow' factor in my book.

    CB()^&*$&^)!

  • Old debian-devel announcement (Score:3, Informative)

    by Mr.Ned ( 79679 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @06:50PM (#10261442)
    http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/07/msg01 659.html

    From a few months back, talks about what and why.

  • Finally linux taken seriously (Score:5, Funny)

    by jaysones ( 138378 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @07:05PM (#10261573)
    I bet this is the release that will push linux on the desktop to the forefront. I can hear the CEO of a fortune 500 company saying in a financial conference call, "we're going with the proven stability of Warty Warthog from no-name-yet.com."
    Seriously, what's with these names?

  • Why you should care (Score:5, Informative)

    by steveha ( 103154 ) on Wednesday September 15, 2004 @07:52PM (#10261865) Homepage
    Who cares about Yet Another Distro? What's different about this one?

    It's Debian, in a friendly wrapper, free and for free.

    You can get Debian in a friendly wrapper by buying Xandros, or Linspire. They include nonfree software, and Linspire hooks you in to a software distribution scheme that costs a minimum of $50 per year.

    You can get Debian free if you are a Linux expert. Get a Debian installer and have fun. However, Debian has 10,000 packages, and you need to know enough to pick and choose which ones you want. Ubuntu has 1,000 packages, and they have made default choices for you. (Want something Ubuntu doesn't offer? Grab it from the main Debian distribution; it will work.)

    Also, Debian comes in three major branches: stable, unstable, and testing. Stable is really stable, but only updates every two years or so. Unstable updates daily but can be unstable. Testing updates automatically from unstable when the packages appear stable (a week goes by without major bugs posted against the unstable package, IIRC). Ubuntu on the other hand is promising a six-month release cycle; if you use Ubuntu, you should have a nice stable system, but you will get new packages much more often than if you use Debian Stable.

    Ubuntu will occupy a similar niche to Fedora, but Red Hat makes all the decisions for Fedora while Ubuntu will have a community process.

    The closest distro to Ubuntu is probably Bruce Perens's UserLinux project. But UserLinux is focused squarely upon business, whilst Ubuntu seems to be more focused on individual users.

    Ubuntu should preserve all the things I like best about Debian, while being more friendly to newbies and offering a much fresher stable release. There isn't another distro quite like it.

    I'm downloading it now and I look forward to trying it out.

    steveha
    • It looks to me that Debian is cracking under it's own weight. Computer programs escalate, but to manage hundreds of developers that are not receiving a paycheck, you have to be a political master. Debian seems to have too many packages, too many developers, and the political infighting seems to be dragging the release date of stable versions beyond acceptable.

      The creation of Debian-based distributions like User Linux and Ubantu, in my opinion, are sincere efforts made by people 100% committed do Debian, th

  • Mepis is a great distro, runs off cd and has a very easy to use install. Many features built in, try it!

  • In other news... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'll be releasing my own Debian Based "Distrobution" - Called YADBD (pronounced yabbadabba)

    Yet another debian based distribution.

    It's going to include all the latest stuff ala gentoo with the ease of installation ala Knoppix, and the ease of administration ala Debian itself.

    W00t!

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