Why Top Linux Distros Are For Different Users 496
Lucas123 writes "Fedora, openSUSE and Ubuntu Linux desktops may look alike, but they've got some important distinctions, like the fact that Fedora and Ubuntu use GNOME 2.28 (the latest version) for their default desktop, while openSUSE uses KDE 4.3.1. And, Fedora's designers have assumed that its users are wiser than the general run of users. 'For example, in earlier versions, ordinary (non-admin) users could install software on Fedora without access to the root password. As of this version, however, local users will need to enter the root password before they can install software (as they do on almost all other Linux distributions).'"
What a load of crap (Score:5, Insightful)
And, Fedora's designers have assumed that its users are wiser than the general run of users. 'For example, in earlier versions, ordinary (non-admin) users could install software on Fedora without access to the root password.
So according to this "logic", Microsoft assumes that its users are wiser than the general run of users too? Nice way to spin Fedora finally addressing this security issue, dude.
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't even make sense. Changing your app install behavior to work the same way as other distros is assuming your users are wiser than average?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What I find funny is that I've been using Debian-based distros for many years, and I basically never enter the "root password" to install software or perform other maintenance tasks... I enter my own user password. Not that there's much difference between "access to the root password" and "being allowed to run anything in the sudoers file". Installing software is still a privileged operation.
I take it they must mean without entering any password at all, as in unprivileged?
Seems kinda dumb.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, it's just plain broken. I tried to fix it, but they now enforce the character limit even including html, and I'm too lazy to actually come up with a different one. Oh wells.
Re: (Score:2)
And, Fedora's designers have assumed that its users are wiser than the general run of users. 'For example, in earlier versions, ordinary (non-admin) users could install software on Fedora without access to the root password.
So according to this "logic", Microsoft assumes that its users are wiser than the general run of users too? Nice way to spin Fedora finally addressing this security issue, dude.
In a manner of speaking, yes. If they assumed that 50% of their users are below average, and that a significant enough percentage of them will click anything you stick in front of them, then they probably would have designed windows to be much more secure. Sure, they would have solved the problem in some cutesy way, like changing the "administrator" to "grown up", and popping up error messages saying things like "You need a grown up to install this application", but they would have fixed it.
Microsoft's down
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So according to this "logic", Microsoft assumes that its users are wiser than the general run of users too?
While I don't know whether Microsoft actually designed their operating systems with that rationale in mind, C is a clear case of it: most bugs in C programs come from the language being designed expecting people to really know what they're doing. and therefore allowing all sorts of strange stuff.
Re:What a load of crap (Score:4, Insightful)
Installing pre-approved software without root access would be a great step forward both for usability and security. Imagine if we can get to the point where a normal user can use a laptop computer for a year without running with sufficient privileges to install untrusted software.
Sure, there are challenges, first and foremost how to revoke approval of a particular package. That doesn't mean we have to stick with the old trusted root paradigm forever. For the vast majority of Linux laptops/desktops, the user IS the administrator, and we can't expect to educate all computer users to be competent Unix administrators.
Re:What a load of crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering the LFS user is most likely to have an attitude like yours, I'd prefer not to hear a single condescending word from him.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Especially since their expertise is most likely just being able to copy and paste commands from the LFS manual.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Linux doesn't have 'the wheel'. Ubuntu, at least, has a group called admin. Some linux distributions have a wheel group but I've never seen it actually used for anything by default, I think it was just there so that programs expecting it would not choke.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
wheel, admin, whatever. The function of the group is independent of it's name. What we are talking about is the way sudo and gksu work.
This Vaughan-Nichols guy gets published as a Linux expert in every rag printed - but mis-explains sudo in such a way that exposes his radical ignorance of the sensitivity of root accounts and their passwords.
In the same article he later waxes on about SuSe being the first distro from which he can now upgrade entire versions over the Internet!
I did it with RH 5.x in antiqui
Re:What a load of crap (Score:4, Insightful)
No user should ever be more skilled than any other users, and all distributions should cater to the newbie crowd.
Except the GP made no such point at all. He was saying he didn't want to have some condescending ass try to come and fix his system.
When all computing grinds to a halt because no one knows how to fix or maintain them anymore, at least you'll have the comfort of knowing that no advanced users are going to make a tongue-in-cheek post on Slashdot that stimulates your inferiority complex.
There are plenty of people who have skills that people could go to to fix their computers that don't act like condescending and pompous assholes like you and the rest of the "1337 h4x0r" LSF crowd.
Re:What a load of crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, some of us use Ubuntu and the 'easier;' distros because (a) we're tied of screwing around getting things to work like we did 6-7 years ago, and (b) to target the version of Linux that most people seem to be using.
When it comes to fixing inane issues in Linux, just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you constantly *want* to. Many people (myself included) have cut their teeth with Linux since the very beginning, and would like to use something that 'just works' most of the time, rather than performing constant low-level maintenance that is only necessary to elevate ones epeen rating.
Don't knock ease of use, or the influx of new users that will make Linux a force in the industry. It's called progress; maybe you should check it out sometime.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't knock ease of use, or the influx of new users that will make Linux a force in the industry. It's called progress; maybe you should check it out sometime.
I dunno. I enjoy the fact that many people are using Linux.. It helps for many things. But sometimes it's like a good fishing hole. If you have a great spot you might tell one person (or better yet, blindfold them as you drive them there). But once you start inviting people in, pretty soon you have a major interstate and boat ramps and a Don's Tac
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You should always feel in control of your package. ;-)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ya, just wait til you get married, and she takes it and makes a purse out of it. "We got married, so he didn't need that any more." And no, you don't get it back when you get divorced. :)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not like mainstream distros put you in handcuffs. There are plenty of us who customise our chosen distro quite extensively (for example, I've used Redhat/Fedora ever since I switched from Slackware ages ago, and I use WindowMaker instead of GNOME, disable SELinux, reclaim /media for storing my media files, tweak the categories of things the package manager will install from an rpm, replace a subset of the software with things I compile myself, etc). I have multiple terminals open all the time too, and
Re:What a load of crap (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd mention that MySpace uses a distributed file system running on Gentoo; but I think that might just prove your point.
Re:What a load of crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Many Gentoo users only use Gentoo for their personal computers. Those same users would recommend distributions like Debian to anyone who approached them and said "hey, I'm new to this Linux thing and I want to run a server, what would you suggest?" Gentoo is for users who a) know their way around Linux and b) love to tinker. It doesn't pretend to be for anyone else. I use Gentoo and very much enjoy it, but I would not recommend it to someone who's new to Linux and switching away from Windows. It's about what you like and believe to be appropriate for the job. It's not a religious cause.
Actually one of the reasons I got into Gentoo in the first place is that I wanted to know more about how a distribution is put together. As a learning tool its manual installation is one of the best. As a "I just want it to work, ASAP" tool it's one of the worst. Again it doesn't pretend to be otherwise. If Gentoo claimed to be the be-all and end-all, the Ultimate Linux Distribution, superior in every way to all others, then maybe I'd understand why it's so trendy to slam Gentoo whenever it comes up in a discussion. Or if I frequently visited the Gentoo Forums and saw the users talking about how lame binary distributions are, maybe then I'd understand it too, but they don't do this.
Since that isn't the case, this looks to me like another religious issue. Like when you have one sect of Christianity going to war against another sect of Christianity because they disagree on whether to drink wine or grape juice for Communion. Naturally the grape-juice drinkers think they have irreconcilable differences with the wine-drinkers and vice-versa. Each side thinks the other is composed of total idiots and assholes. Neither appreciates that what they're arguing over is a trivial matter of taste. Don't like a distro? Good, use something else. That should be the end of it, but it isn't, because it's not good enough that you use what you like, the other guy must also use what you like, right?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Since that isn't the case, this looks to me like another religious issue. Like when you have one sect of Christianity going to war against another sect of Christianity because they disagree on whether to drink wine or grape juice for Communion. Naturally the grape-juice drinkers think they have irreconcilable differences with the wine-drinkers and vice-versa. Each side thinks the other is composed of total idiots and assholes. Neither appreciates that what they're arguing over is a trivial matter of taste.
To be fair, the problem is that such groups think these are life and death matters and not trivial ones. You have be more spiritually matured to see that the matter is trivial.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yep. I use what I like, everybody else can use what everybody else likes.
My base home system is Gentoo, the current "install" is from around 2002, and has migrated over 4 or five different systems by now without having done a single complete re-install. Whenever I get a new system I just copy over the entire portage tree and sync/re-emerge everything after I have booted from the install disc and adjustments in the make/portage configuration. Sure, it might take a few hours or even days of chugging away in t
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Basically, don't knock it till you try it.
My "condescension" stems from my experience. Gentoo was my second Linux distro, and my first "real" Linux distro (before that I've used Mandrake, but I didn't really do much with it). I used it for almost two years exclusively (of any other Linux distro) as a primary desktop OS, and genuinely held the same opinions that you did - that it's somehow "closer to the metal" than all alternatives, and "teaches me more about Linux".
It was much to my surprise when I found, later on, that Debian requires essentially
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It's not just users. Applications still aren't being written to work properly with non-administrator accounts. I just installed SimplyAccounting 2010 on Windows XP and started getting weird errors poking around in it using a Limited Account, but switching to an Administrator account, no more errors.
Re:What a load of crap (Score:5, Informative)
I agree, the problem with Windows is not so much the OS itself but poorly written applications.
One of the largest examples is World of Warcraft. After five years, it still insists on storing all of its data in its program directory. I actually had to install it outside of Program Files to get it to work on Vista, even with UAC turned off and logged in as Administrator (the account, not an account in that group).
I think more software developers need to look at Firefox, a good example. Data, including plugins, are kept in the user's home. Different users can have different plugins and data, and everything just works even on a properly-secured system.
Blizzard can even download the source code to figure out basic stuff like "where to put files" because after all these years of writing Windows games, they still lack that basic knowledge.
Re:What a load of crap (Score:5, Informative)
I actually like WoW's way of doing things: want to backup/restore WoW, or put it on antoher PC ? just copy WoW's dir. No dependencies. No DLL Hell. No registry hacks. Want to wipe it ? Delete the directory.
I wish all programs worked that way and were that easy to manage.
BTW, Data and program files are segregated in separate subdirs. User data, too.
Works the same in WINE (Score:3, Interesting)
I actually like WoW's way of doing things: want to backup/restore WoW, or put it on antoher PC ? just copy WoW's dir. No dependencies. No DLL Hell. No registry hacks. Want to wipe it ? Delete the directory.
I wish all programs worked that way and were that easy to manage.
BTW, Data and program files are segregated in separate subdirs. User data, too.
By the same token, one only has to launch the WoW executable to run it in Linux using WINE.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I put WoW in its own directory in the root of my Apps drive
That's not what we are talking about. The discussion is about why applications should not store data C:\Program Files, on the system drive. What you have done is totally customized, and solves the problem that WOW introduces. I would probably do the same thing you are doing.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You can call a virus a poorly written 3rd party application all you want. I'll still insist that the OS shouldn't let viruses walk all over the system even when ran as an underprivileged user.
How is it still possible to write past the end of a buffer and over the top of executable code? These poorly written applications should crash because the OS tells them no. The NX bit is going on what now? 10 years?
I'm so
Installation to removable media (Score:3, Insightful)
I had to add specific functionality for Windows users to save into the app folder. [...] some people still can't see any other way of saving their personal data.
I'd bet that a lot of these "some people" use multiple desktop computers and carry their apps and data with them on a USB mass storage device. There's even a name for apps that support this use case: portable apps [wikipedia.org] (not to be confused with multi-platform or mobile apps). The solution I used for one of my own apps was as follows:
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, unfortunately, Vista/7's folder virtualization has made it so apps can continue to be stupid and not fail, so many developers developing on those systems don't notice when they do this. It's only on XP or 2000 when this beocomes noticable because they don't have folder virtualization.
Re: (Score:2)
There was a brief (read days) interval very recently when the Fedora development group was thinking about allowing installation of packages without root access. They decided against it. On F11, which I am running now, an attempt to install a package from the repository responds with "You need to be root to perform this command." To my recollection, it has always been thus.
It went a bit further than just thinking about it. Less than a month ago it was reported here on Slashdot that Fedora 12 allowed local users to install software without root privileges. [slashdot.org] The uproar this caused led to a very quick update to revert back to the usual policy. The article for today's story is rather confused about this, though, unless you consider earlier patchlevels of the current release to be "earlier versions." As far as I know, the change never affected Fedora 11.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying that it's got no place -- clearly if you have a multiple user system, then you only want to right people installing software. But when you don't... it's just one more hurdle on the road to usability.
It doesn't matter at all (Score:5, Interesting)
Does the distro work with your printer without any complicated installation procedures?
Does the distro work with your audio hardware without any complicated installation procedures?
Does the distro switch between all the resolutions supported by your video hardware?
Does the distro have a reasonably good package installation mechanism?
Does the distro support your applications without special package installation requirements?
If the answer is affirmative to all of the above, then you've got yourself a winner. It's very cool how Ubuntu has essentially forced every other distro to get up to speed on these seemingly basic features. Otherwise, the distros are just flavored differently. It's all the same under the hood.
Re:It doesn't matter at all (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It doesn't matter at all (Score:5, Insightful)
And these are the reasons Windows still has marketshare. The last 2 are not covered by Windows but because its already got the marketshare then the apps are easy to find. Not trying to troll but that is why it does "just work", even with bugs and holes aplenty.
I don't want to troll, either, but this really isn't the case; I tried to reinstall Windows on one of my machines for dual-boot (fresh setup on a new drive) using a generic, non-customized XP disk, and it is amazing how much work it was -- hunting drivers down, having to download extra drivers to a USB key so I could get online, and so on.
You could say Microsoft does a lot of work with its partners to ship customized Windows distros, but out of the box, Windows is pretty bad; we all just either don't have to deal with it or take it for granted.
(Or don't deal with it at all.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you will have precisely the same problems with an 8 year old Linux distro as well. SATA won't be supported, newer NIC that don't have an emulation mode won't be supported. Newer video cards won't be supported by X, etc... Now, granted, once you get the basics working you should be able to update but you will still have most of those same issues.
Re:It doesn't matter at all (Score:4, Interesting)
And these are the reasons Windows still has marketshare.
Nah. Main reason is most of the driver and install issues are figured out by the vendors at the factory. Once it comes out of the box the users are willing to take lots of punishment when it comes to Windows. Things dont work. Crapware installed by vendor keeps nagging them to upgrade and get the "new and exciting features". Security holes. Forced to buy anti virus products. Vendor lock. Upgrade treadmill....
Through it all the people suffer stoically. But when you suggest switching to Linux they balk. The first thing that does not work, they bitch to high heaven and run back to their captors. One would think the typical PC user is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.
There are many reasons why Windows has its market share. "It just works" is not one of them.
All Linux apps, or just those not in the repo? (Score:3, Informative)
Installing/uninstalling applications is still much different and more confusing in Linux.
Are you talking about applications in general or only those that aren't in the distribution's repository? Synaptic makes it fairly easy to install and uninstall software on Ubuntu; it puts the Add back in Add/Remove Programs.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And these are the reasons Windows still has marketshare.
What is this? Proof by counterexample? Let's try those criteria against my wife's HP laptop:
Does the distro work with your printer without any complicated installation procedures?
"Where'd I put the driver CD for the HP printer that Linux, FreeBSD, and OS X supports out of the box?"
Does the distro work with your audio hardware without any complicated installation procedures?
Ask a Creative owner.
Does the distro switch between all the resolutions supported by your video hardware?
"Oh look! 640x400 until I find the right driver on nvidia.com, except that now it's telling me to use the special drivers packaged by my laptop vendor and not the "generic" ones directly from Nvidia."
Does the distro have a reasonably good package installation mechanism?
On Windows? LOL. Even billg agrees that "Add/Remove Programs" is a stupid name for an app that d
Re: (Score:2)
I was going to reply with pretty much the same thing, but you about covered it.
I switched to Ubuntu about 3 years ago, and haven't used windows on my desktop system since.
If I were to install Windows XP on my system now, I would spend hours trying to track down the right drivers for my system.
If I were to install Windows Vista on my system now, It would be unstable and slow, and I would have to track down drivers for my hardware.
I tried to install Windows 7 on my system to try it out. I never did get the so
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well it is my experience. I just put Win 7 on all my machines at home, including the couple which were running Ubuntu Desktop. The UI is better (no really, it is), the install was easier (again, really) and laptop battery life was better in at least one case. I still have Ubuntu on my server because the very idea of a Windows server makes me feel a little ill, but for the desktop Win 7 does everything I need easily and cleanly. Of course I'm not everyone, and I'm glad there are options.
Out of interest, whic
Re: (Score:2)
Does the distro work with your printer without any complicated installation procedures?
Does the distro work with your audio hardware without any complicated installation procedures?
Does the distro switch between all the resolutions supported by your video hardware?
Does the distro have a reasonably good package installation mechanism?
Does the distro support your applications without special package installation requirements?
Don't have/need a printer
Don't need audio
Only need 1 decent resolution
A Live CD!
The applications I need are -practically- built into the distro
Hooray for using Linux Distros as Servers, Routers, and other @ home network enhancements!
Re: (Score:2)
It's very cool how Ubuntu has essentially forced every other distro to get up to speed on these seemingly basic features.
I would just point out that everything in your list was available before Ubuntu in distributions such as Mandrake. I'm not going to say you're wrong, though, since Ubuntu did bring something important to the table which apparently did provide a boost: a rich guy who wanted to spend a lot of it.
Re: (Score:2)
My experience with Mandrake, pre-Ubuntu is that it was buggy as hell. For whatever reason, I would say that Ubuntu has raided the bar for Linux distros.
Re: (Score:2)
My experience with Mandrake, pre-Ubuntu is that it was buggy as hell. For whatever reason, I would say that Ubuntu has raided the bar for Linux distros.
Maybe. I have no experience with Mandrake or "Mandriva" for that matter; I have only heard several times that Mandrake excelled at the types of things the OP listed. However, I do personally know of at least one pre-Ubuntu distro with all the "necessities" listed: YDL. Though Ubuntu is not my every-day distro, I have nothing at all against it; as distros go it is definitely a good choice for all kinds of users (not just "n00bs" as is often assumed). A lot of people I know think of Ubuntu as Linux itself
Re:It doesn't matter at all (Score:5, Insightful)
Ubuntu also brought something else to the table: The Debian package manager.
RPM was clearly inferior. Debian despite of it's other tradeoffs always had
a packager that was just the bees knees. I even defected from Mandrake to
Debian myself over this.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ubuntu also brought something else to the table: The Debian package manager.
So the most notable contribution of Ubuntu for you is a package manager which existed before Ubuntu... Yeah, I'm pretty sure that is actually in support of the point I made.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So why do people still say this Debian is so much better than RPM?
Because apt-hell isn't the popular term. Even when I'm in apt-hell on a weird Ubuntu variant, I call it rpm-hell because that's what people understand. It's like Kleenex or Coke, a package management problem Brand so popular that it's a generic term for all package management problems. Even gentoo users don't say portage-hell, they call it portage.
Re: (Score:2)
What nonsense! (Score:2)
Huh?
All of the things you are talking about are "solved problems" in just about every modern Linux distribution.
Your rant sounds like it was written circa 2002.
Perhaps you are talking about Fedora? Fedora is the "home distribution" for many of the projects that you mention.
Maybe you forget that Ubuntu cribbed almost all of that stuff from RedHat/Fedora?
Video resolution? Huh? Really who runs their monitor at less than the max? I'm running at 1920x1200 and there is NO reason to use anything else.
"without sp
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Video resolution? Huh? Really who runs their monitor at less than the max? I'm running at 1920x1200 and there is NO reason to use anything else.
Ever tried using a 15" laptop with 1600x1200 resolution? The text is impossible to read. Most people run these at much lower resolutions than the hardware is capable of running at. The same is true of people with poor eyesight.
You're a classic example of why Linux has problems, claiming there is "NO reason" for something shows a lack of foresight or even imaginat
Re:What nonsense! (Score:4, Insightful)
You're a classic example of why Linux has problems, claiming there is "NO reason" for something shows a lack of foresight or even imagination. Too many Linux developers feel the same. Because they don't have a problem with something, they firmly believe nobody should have a problem with something, and refuses to support it.
+1 Right On
There's a lot of "If I don't need it, no one needs it" arrogance in the OS community. Part of it comes from "it works for me, I don't care about you" (which is just fundamental human nature); part of it is the longstanding "RTFM" tradition (i.e., the root geek community that Free Software sprung from put a high premium on self-help. The extreme manifestation, and also the practical reason for full source code disclosure in FOSS, is "Read the Fucking Source" as the rejoinder for someone asking for help.)
It's a cultural weakness now that FOSS has spread into the general public. Unless you're paying for support, no one is obligated to help you, so if you're not technically savvy and have enough time and effort to chase it down, you're stuck.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ever tried using a 15" laptop with 1600x1200 resolution? The text is impossible to read. Most people run these at much lower resolutions than the hardware is capable of running at. The same is true of people with poor eyesight.
It's called increasing the font DPI. I do that on my 15" laptop which has a screen resolution of 1920x1200, and my eyesight is terrible. If you aren't using bitmap fonts, it should work just fine.
Some apps break at high DPI (Score:3, Informative)
It's called increasing the font DPI.
Then you have to deal with
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And if you lower the screen resolution, you have to deal with blurriness on LCDs (non-native resolutions) that may make it even harder to look at.
I know I get headaches if I'm using anything more than a VGA console at a non-native resolution on LCDs.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ask the average WinDOS user how they change the resolution on their machine.
Chances are that they can't tell you because they have never done it in their life.
Most Windows users have never bothered and most Linux users have never bothered. So both groups of users would likely not be able to tell you off the top of their heads what the shiny happy easy tool is in their respective operating systems for doing this.
That doesn't mean that it isn't there.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If your text is too small to read, it's because your text is too small. You don't need fewer pixels per screen; you need more pixels per character. Fix your fonts, and it'll be easier to read than switching to a lower res.
I'm not arguing people shouldn't be able to change resolutions, but damn that's a dumb example.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"Ever tried using a 15" laptop with 1600x1200 resolution? The text is impossible to read"
Make the text bigger. If you can't then there is a problem with the software.
Re: (Score:2)
It's very cool how Ubuntu has essentially forced every other distro to get up to speed on these seemingly basic features.
The "works out of the box" mindset has been around for a while in many distros before Ubuntu. What Ubuntu has done, is gotten itself packaged with netbooks, thus gaining sufficient market share to convince hardware makers to support Linux more rigorously. Furthermore, Ubuntu sacrifices out-of-the-box usability for open-source idealism (not that I have any complaint with that) so people should take that into consideration; although non-free software is easily installable from repositories.
The one thing that
Ubuntu sucks for development (Score:2, Informative)
I went back to fedora because it was easier and much quicker than fixing Ubuntu's mistakes.
Re: (Score:2)
Does the distro work with your printer without any complicated installation procedures?
Does the distro work with your audio hardware without any complicated installation procedures?
Does the distro switch between all the resolutions supported by your video hardware?
Does the distro have a reasonably good package installation mechanism?
Does the distro support your applications without special package installation requirements?
It's questions like this that scare Joe Sixpack away from Linux. If all the major distributions were sold at BestBuy and Joe Sixpack walked in and wanted to buy Linux, he'd have no idea which one to get. KDE vs GNOME? If he wants to buy a Logitech Keyboard and mouse, I doubt he'll see SuSE/Ubuntu/Fedora on the back of the box for the Logitech Compact Keyboard Pro [logitech.com], which btw is a pretty generic $29 USB keyboard. It might work, but atleast Joe Sixpack that it'll work with winXP/Vista/7 because it'll say it
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If all the major distributions were sold at BestBuy and Joe Sixpack walked in and wanted to buy Linux, he'd have no idea which one to get.
If I walk into Best Buy and want to buy Windows 7, I'd have no idea which one to get.
openSuse (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice to see good results for openSuse. The reviewer didn't fall for the immature "Novell is evil!" absurdity.
Re:openSuse (Score:5, Informative)
Although, it would be worthwhile to point out that openSuSE doesn't favor KDE over Gnome. It has fully integrated the SuSE environment into both. As I understand it, the decision to set the default selection to KDE is quite arbitrary at this point.
I'll add that it's a fantastic distro for reasonably modern computers. Yast is a great tool, but the whole thing is a bit too heavyweight for netbooks or old PCs.
Of course (Score:3, Interesting)
If Linux Distro's were targetted for the same users, there wouldn't be anything to distinguish them amongst each other, ultimately defeating the point of having a seperate distro.
I should write an article about "Why People like different foods" and see if it makes the front page Foodnetwork.com
In all seriousness though, its a decent breakdown of the Distro's, but I've always kind of been on the impression that anyone who has seriously considered using Linux already knows what distro they expect to be using.
Re: (Score:2)
The only problem with that is that I've never encountered someone jumping to Linux without having prior usage of it.
I know only 1 other Linux user in my group of socialites, and we both used it for the first time in post secondary. After learning the ins and outs of it, we were able to branch out and look at other distros to see what works best for us.
Thats just my personal experience though, and its an incredibly small sample group, so I'm not saying thats what happens all the time, its just what I've come
Two things are important in the end (Score:2, Informative)
Package management and an active online support/BBS/community. With those things you can do whatever you want with a little patience and research.
Who cares.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who cares.... (Score:5, Informative)
I have to agree. I get annoyed when I hear people describe Ubuntu as distro that's appropriate for Linux newbies. It's not that that's untrue, it's that it sells Ubuntu short. It makes it sound like it's dumbed down somehow, and that after using it for a while, you'd want want to move on to something more advanced. That's simply not the case. All the advanced features are there, waiting for you, as soon as you're interested in them.
Re:Who cares.... (Score:5, Interesting)
The point isn't that I learned quickly, its that, since I wanted to learn some of the more hardcore and advanced features of linux, it was easy for me to go out and do so once I got comfortable. The nicest thing about Ubuntu is that it doesn't scare the crap out of you the first time you use it. As a social experiment, I often take my non tech literate friends and sit them down at my central living room computer (hooked to my TV) which is running 9.04 and tell them to put on some music to listen to. None of these folk have ever used anything but Windows. None of them take more than 20 minutes and maybe 1 or 2 questions to figure it out.
Once someone gets comfortable with Ubuntu, if they want to start developing more advanced skills, they have a friendly place to ask which is easy to find (almost always google search result #1 with the word Ubuntu in it), the Ubuntu forums. When they do start asking about advanced topics, they are never dismissed as newbs or told something condescending. They are never attacked or outright flamed. Instead, if what they are asking about really is something of concern, they are told, in a rational and mature manner, about the risks they may or may not be taking. I couldn't be happier with the Ubuntu experience so far. I may decide to distro jump sometime in the future out of boredom or curiosity, but in terms of need, I really can't see a good reason to find something else.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ubuntu is not a toy - but it is a "desktop" distro, which means it does get in your way if you are used to managing a system the Unix way.
Which is fine - for a "desktop" user. But if you are actually interested in how the system works, you probably *will* want to move to Debian or Slackware eventually.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Need root to install software? (Score:2)
Why can't you just install to /usr/$username/bin? They disallow that these days?
Re: (Score:2)
Why can't you just install to /usr/$username/bin? They disallow that these days?
Maybe you mean /home/$USER/bin ... At least I've personally never used any *nix system where installing to user-specific directories in /usr was common; installing to your home directory is, however, very common in every UNIX flavor I've come across.
Ummm. Yeah. (Score:2)
I've been on a Mac for a couple years. Been a while since I've done "make configure, make, make install"
Re:Need root to install software? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've got to say, this is a huge feature that most package managers are missing. If I can download an archive, unpack it, and run it from ~, I should be able to install a package under ~ as well.
Re:Need root to install software? (Score:5, Insightful)
What about shared libraries? Should those be duplicated everywhere?
The user installed package should use the system library if available, otherwise install a copy under ~.
What about differing versions of the same package? Should user X have the old version and user Y have the new version?
Each user should use whatever version they want.
What if the user installs it and the admin installs it? Should the user's package have higher precedence (PATH, MANPATH, etc.) or the system-wide package?
It's up to the user to set up the PATH the way they want it.
These aren't particularly hard questions.
no root password? (Score:4, Informative)
huh?
I've used every version of Fedora linux and before that I've used Red Hat Linux from version 4.2 until Fedora Core 1. I don't recall ever having the ability to install software without providing the root password. In fact, when this type of insecure feature was implemented in Fedora 12 it caused a huge uproar and the insecure feature was removed in an update.
Senior Citizen Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In a couple of decades Shuttleworth, Torvalds, and Stallman will all be old enough to take on this project themselves.
root password?? (Score:2, Interesting)
As of this version, however, local users will need to enter the root password before they can install software (as they do on almost all other Linux distributions).'"
You don't need to enter the root password on Ubuntu or Debian; you enter your own password. And that works if you have administrator privileges, which is a choice while setting up accounts.
Tried Ubuntu, switched back to Fedora (Score:4, Interesting)
I installed Ubuntu 8 on my kids computer and they loved it... I played about with it as well and liked it enough that once it came time to rebuild my linux box I decided to install 9.04... I have to say, i'm not impressed with 9.0.4... I have had issues with using the software manager to install new applications.. I miss the popular column and thought that was great. Switching to a static IP address wasn't straight forward... It seems that if you are the type of user that will just download it, install defaults and use it, then its fine. But as soon as you want to make changes, it started to get painful.
So for now i'm switching back to Fedora.. Something i'm familiar with and just seems to work.
Slackware (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't do it with Slackware, it doesn't need doing.
:-)
...laura
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Why? (Score:2)
A certain lack of iron uniformity. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not trying to say that user choice and the variance of Linux distributions are bad, but I see some problems that make my life a headache. Especially on the RPM side of things.
For example.
The Four major Desktop distributions out there are:
Fedora
OpenSUSE
Mandriva
Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is Debian based, and not like the other three. So, I will set it aside just momentarily. I'd like to focus on the RPM based systems for the moment because that is what I have the most experience with.
The three RPM based systems have a whole lot of needless Dissimilarities. Even in the RPM system itself. has strange separations in the way it handle packaging. There really is no reason for these differences to exist. Other than making it more difficult to install and manage software, there is no reason for these differences to exist. They just confuse people.
Another thing that drives me berserk is how the RPM distributors tend to "tinker" with the default KDE and Gnome Installs configuration. For example, replacing the Kicker logo with their own Mandriva/Suse/Fedora logo. This really confuses people. It doesn't add to the user experience at all to change how applications are ordered at random, or change the Icon for the K and Gnome Menus. It just confuses people more.
You don't see this in the Debian world. They leave should leave the default configurations of KDE, Gnome, and the other Window managers. Also, a memorandum of understanding or treaty should be formed that says that they will have uniform RPM Macros, and Uniform Application categories.
I do alot of packaging for Mandriva.
Gentoo (Score:4, Funny)
Fedora has always required the root password (Score:3, Informative)
To my knowledge (I've been using Fedora since its inception), Fedora has always required root credentials, or the user be in the sudoers list to install software packages. Only in Fedora 12 was that not the default behavior, and there was a BIG uproar over that change (see the VERY lengthy discussion on this issue on the RedHat Bugzilla report - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=534047), which has since change the default behavior BACK to requiring root credentials to install software.
Take with a grain of salt. (Score:3, Interesting)
Speaking of easy, openSUSE is also the first of the major Linux distros that makes it simple to upgrade the system over the Internet. With most distros, you need to download an ISO image of the new release and then boot from it to upgrade your Linux distribution. However, I was able to do an in-place upgrade of openSUSE 11.1 to 11.2 on my ThinkPad over a Wi-Fi connection. This arrangement makes upgrading the entire operating system as simple as installing one really big program.
That's been a part of Ubuntu's Update Manager for...how many years now? And in Debian using stable rather than lenny in your /etc/apt/sources.list will achieve the same effect. Or you could just use testing and enjoy more-up-to-date-but-still-stable software that has rolling updates.
Re: (Score:2)
The way that I use my computer makes it so that the OS rarely matters anyway. I jsut use Linux because it doesn't annoy me, and Fedora works, so here I stay. There's no real reason past that.
Re:Wiser? WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
And THAT is an indication that the Fedora developers are NOT particularly wise.
Re:Wiser? WTF (Score:4, Informative)
Actually the Fedora assumption was the exact opposite: That we can't expect to pop up a dialog asking the user for the root password to approve the installation of software, and have the user make the right decision every time. It is better to make a list of safe software which can't compromise an installation, and allow the user to install that without prompts.
This is not without problems, but once it is done right, the system will be less dependent on users making the right choices.
Re: (Score:2)
Simply put: you can't be certain that they sysadmin is the only person using the box.
Even with a "simple Windows desktop" install you can't assume that sort of thing. After 20+
years, the use patterns of mundane desktop users have caught up to a server OS like Unix. One
would think that this would not be the time that Fedora would decide to backslide and start
revisting old Microsoft mistakes that even they seem to be trying to get away from.
The old Unix security design principles still hold. If anything they
Re: (Score:2)
While these are not included in the Fedora package repositories there is the rpmfusion repository which is easy to setup. And once the rpmfusion repositories are setup I can tell you from experience that totem will automatically search the repository for the necessary packages to play any media file you open, you will be asked to enter the root password to install the packages, and once installed totem will start to play the medi
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I've jumped from Archlinux (love it, but in the end... it's too much manual work) to Ubuntu 9.10 recently.
Funny, I stopped using Ubuntu on my notebook over a year ago and installed Arch Linux on it for the same reason :D
Linux, for the use. (Score:3, Interesting)
I doubt either Windows 7 or OSX could run on my computer (768 M of RAM). Ubuntu 9.10, no problem. Just toss in the Live version and get on the Net