Libranet 2.7 Released

Jon wrote in with news that Libranet 2.7 has been released. I've never tried Libranet, but Debian 3.0 is a fine, up-to-date OS with the usual Debian installation (harder than necessary), so if Libranet offers that Debian goodness with a better installer it should be an excellent choice for both experienced and newbie users.

Re:Is this free?

[jonestor]

You can download it at the linuxiso [linuxiso.org] site.

http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=31 [linuxiso.org]

Re:Is this free?

[sevynd2]

Version 2.7 of libranet is not free , they will not offer it for free either. They say in the message boards that it si because not enough people buy it. They also say that they want 100,000 users in 3 months. Nice 5 million dollar income from a debian rip off Hopefully they will make a free version but until then you have to download version 2.0

More info

[term0r]

Also for a good bit of information of what Libranet has check out this [distrowatch.com]

Libranet

[crystal dragon]

I currently use both Debian and Libranet on my home systems. While I personally find Debian easy to install and configure, I think that Libranet has done an exemplarly job in making their install very easy. It has hardware autodetection, can set up a burner and zip drive and allows you to easily configure a network or dial up connection in a way that a novice will understand.

There are other benefits as well. They have a package called XAdminmenu that logically groups many administration tools together, a control panel of sort, that is easy to use and properly annotated so that a new user can configure their system. There is also an active user community that is very newbie-friendly. Plus the support provided by their staff is exceptional and often goes beyond the offerings of other software firms.

Naturally there are also the benefits of being a Debian-based distribution. While they base their current release on Woody, you can easily bump it up to Sid if you wish too. And for new users, once they master APT (or Synaptic or GNOME-APT) they will be introduced to Linux with out the hassle of dependency hell. That is worth something right there.

In short, you get a slightly more polished version of Woody, with current software, support, and a pleasent Linux experience for very little dollars. That in itself is a bonus to our community.

For those that bitched: download the 2.0 iso from their site and give it a whirl, then give me your opinion. Otherwise be happy and stick to your distro of choice.

It's not hard to install

[OrangeHairMan]

the usual Debian installation (harder than necessary)

I hate how everybody always hates on the Debian installer. Seriously, when I first installed Debian (second distro, I was a newbie), I had no problem giving it the six disks, then having it download the packages I wanted, and configuring windowmaker. If people actually bothered to read the installation manual, they'll figure out that the step-by-step installation isn't hard. And if you have to maintain the same distribution for many different platforms and kernels, you can't use a pretty X11 installer, and you have to have the installer be modular.

This is not intended to be a flame at all, and I appricate everybody's feedback. :)

Cheers, Orange

My Experiences...

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried Libranet for a while... It was a decent distro but..

1. I found their community to be very cold to newbies. (especially one certain user I don't care for but wont mention his name)

2. You have to pay every release for an upgrade...

3. They have no place where you can get a list of security advisories for their distrobution.

Re:Hmmm

[blakestah]

Why are Debian users so against adopting something so common for modern OS's? It could could only help their user base.

Debian users are not. If someone wanted to write and maintain a killer installer, I am quite sure Debian would embrace it.

However, Debian's installer, from potato on, has been quite easy to use. I usually install it across the network using a single floppy in about 20 minutes, and then install packages overnight via the network.

The 'slink' installer sucked rocks, and has given Debian installers a bad name.

Debian is a distro in which 99% of all the work is done by volunteers, and no one thinks writing installers is fun. That is why the Debian installer, while being easy to use and highly functional, is not pretty and flashy and come with the option of using the 'redneck' locale for installation prompts.

Re:No Free Download?

[uk_greg]

My guess is that someone will, eventually. Y ou can get older versions via download - reference

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/lib ranet

It may just be a matter of time.

Re:debian is not uptodate

[damiam]

Having different versions of X on different architectures would result in massive dependency problems which would defeat the whole point of having multiple architectures in one distro.