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Linuxberg opens 64

Posted by sengan from the Windows-packaging-makes-nice-flames dept.
Linuxberg from the people who make TUCOWS has opened, and is offering a copy of WordPerfect 8 to win. The website seems to me much more geared towards newbies than Freshmeat, providing a somewhat different service. It also appears less comprehensive than SAL. Interestingly, this Ext2 interview of the president of TUCOWS shows his company's been using Linux for quite some time.
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Linuxberg opens More

Linuxberg opens

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  • Zach Baker wrote:

    P.S. You know, it wouldn't be a bad idea for them to add under their copyright that Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

    Probably, but I don't think the ® is the appropriate symbol for the Linux trademark, that is for Register marks. I think it's supposed to be TM.

    For an example, look at Sun's Logo page [sun.com]. Sun's corporate logo gets an ®. The words "Sun", "Solaris" and "Java" get TM's, as does the Solaris and Java logos (the TM in the Java logo is only 2 pixels high, it's under the right edge of the saucer).

    Since "Linux" is not a registered corporation, it would get a TM, not an ®.

  • Awww (Score:1)

    by Jordy ( 440 )
    Lookit the little fwozen tux... all cozy in his earmuffs and coat... it's so cute.

    But I digress. I wish they had publically votable ratings.

    What's really nice is they are mirroring all this software :)
  • First of all, Linuxberg is much more friendly to new Linux users. It may even draw some Linux converts if they link to it from their main Windows TUCOWS archive. Plus, it's from a company well-know in the Windows (read:mainstream) software world, so an archive like this dispels some of the "there's no software for Linux" arguments. Finally, they're mirroring all this software on their tons of servers, so you can actually get software when the main ftp sites are slashdotted.
  • I always thought it interesting that TUCOWS [tucows.com] was owned (and operated?) by a Canadian company, Internet Direct [idirect.com]. (Well, actually Computerlink Online, but Internet Direct is more fun to say.)

    (Back when I was into MUDs, I also liked boasting that Realms of Despair [game.org], a very popular MUD, is owned and operated by the same Canadian company.)

  • Look, I think that scoop should have had a thicker skin myself, but I can't say I've been in anything like scoop's shoes. I don't maintain a web site, and I don't have to deal with 1000s of flames trashing my hard work. For all I know, I might have done the same thing if I were in his place--and so might have you.

  • Posted by mbernstein:

    First off, Tux looks seriously awesome in the pictures they created. Second of all, I think this whole thing is great for the normal user. Most people can't understand freshmeat because it tends to be aimed more towards the technical people. This is made by a site that cators to the windows people,,.,if we want people to switch over, much of the "style" of the windows world has to be emulated in one way or another in the linux world. A huge site like tucows(where i get anything for win32 i need) supporting linux is amazing. Hopefully one day I can go and buy any hardware and have it instantly work under linux. (i.e. graphics cards)

  • Posted by Christopher B. Browne:

    It is quite unfortunate that the Tucows folks have chosen to set up Yet Another Duplicative Manual Registry.

    We have lots of them already. We don't really need to have yet another place where developers (or other interested people) have to maintain release information.

    I don't disagree that there is a need for more "metadata" about software, and that it is valuable to have reviews that can assist people in selecting from (say) the large number of word processors, spreadsheets, or databases.

    The LinuxBerg effort is nonetheless duplicative of information being maintained elsewhere.

    Anyone who has worked on database systems should remember the notion of normalization. If a database is suitably normalized, data will be distributed out to various tables, and will be addressable using a multiplicity of views.

    Thus, Freshmeat [freshmeat.net] has a nice listing of software releases, and some critical URLs thereof. That information is nicely exported on an hourly basis in a single database file. SAL doesn't seem to have a single export of the data that they have collected, but certainly have similar data in some form of database. rpm2html provides utilities to take sets of RPM [rpm.org] files and generate XML RDF that provides a crosslinked database of packages, dependencies, and their sources.

    The world doesn't very badly need Yet Another Manual Archive of what amounts to the same data. We need something like an XML DTD for the interchange of this data so that the various sites can import/export data from other sites, thus diminishing the need for human effort in creating each of these databases.

  • Posted by OGL:

    This is great...I hear about it nary two weeks ago and then suddenly they have advertisments all over slashdot. I'm glad that people haven't taken to flaming them just because they're a "windows company." If there's one thing I could complain about it's that they don't have a very large selection yet but I'm sure that will change. One thing that might help would be to let users suggest software to be included, although this might have disadvantages as well (tons of duplicate entries, etc.).

    -W.W.
  • Posted by Christopher B. Browne:

    I didn't say anything about what my favorite database was. I named some possible sources of information.

    Frankly, I don't think there should be a favorite source; all of them should be used, if possible.

  • Posted by Christopher B. Browne:

    I didn't say anything about what my favorite database was. I named some possible sources of information.

    Frankly, I don't think there should be a favorite source; all of them should be used, if possible.

  • Posted by Christopher B. Browne:

    Exactly.

    The "bonus" is that if this is done carefully, an update to Freshmeat ultimately propagates to SAL and to Linuxberg. And vice versa. And to the summary page in Linux Weekly News. And to all sorts of other places.

    Indeed, it may even be that all that need happen is for someone to drop off a new .RPM file at the Rawhide site; that could push out updates to "everywhere else." Ditto for someone checking in a new Debian package. Or a BSD Ports update.

    The net result is that people can keep track of "what's new" in whichever fashion they prefer without anyone needing to jump around updating a bunch of web pages manually.

    Obviously, it takes some effort to update reviews. (The LinuxBerg "thing.") But if they can get a more comprehensive list of applications without needing to do research by hand, that's a "win."

  • Posted by NicoT:

    I'm going to launch the new linux site linuxinside.org [linuxinside.org] in some weeks. It's already online for testing and most of the features have to be implemented (vendors catalog, search, and much more). Hardware and software catalog are still empty and many categories are missing. Please help ;-)
  • This site seems setup for newbies true enough, but do most newbies know how to compile source?

    I notice all the links are to the tar.gz's.

    No DEB's,RPM's or binary tgz's to be found.

    You would think a site for newbies would include these.
  • Remember, TUCOWS deals with Windows Shareware mostly. They *HAVE* to overrate/overhype these packages in order to get people to download them and pay the various shareware fees. CNET and the various other windows archive sites do pretty much the same thing. Maybe the people in charge of the linux software archive will look around at the rest of the linux archives and notice that this kind of thing really isn't done for linux software and will cut back on it as a result.
  • If only these kids could spell powerful right, we'd dispell the reputation of bad grammer.
  • Linux, the iceberg for bgates's titanic!

    Well, hopefully not, I don't want Linux to melt sooner or later after the collision with Windows. Then the Linuxberg would be lost yet Bill Gates's Titanic might be remembered as a great legend. James Cameron could even make a movie about Microsoft.

    NT - No Thanks!! ;-)
  • I noticed the BitchX thing too, but I don't think it's a horrible mistake.

    I think that the people behind those servers have little or no experience with linux itself, and that is a shame...
    Evidently TUCOWS has been using linux for quite some time now according to that interview.

    While they are doing a similar service as freshmeat, it can't hurt linux to have someone else doing it as well. If it's advertised from their main windows site, It will catch the eyes of windows users, dispell some myths about linux, and could bring new users to our community. How is that bad? I don't understand your cynical view of this.
    --
  • Nice.

    Now lets see if all those OEM pridictions come true.
  • Hey I think this new site and Freshmeat work great together. For instance, the next time some flames shut down Freshmeat you can always head over to Tucows ;-)
    --
    Aaron Gaudio
    "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
  • The original poster's point was that Linuxberg and the other sites like Freshmeat should share a single database of package information and meta-data and such. Just from looking at it, I like Linuxberg (I like Freshmeat too, but that's better for cutting-edge stuff, IMO), but I agree that if these sites shared data, everything would sync up easier, and it would be easier for package maintainers. For instance, I could submit a program to Freshmeat and TUCOWS could automatically receive the program too (in the form of a link and metadata, for example).
    --
    Aaron Gaudio
    "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
  • I agree, even for non-newbies who don't feel like compiling, it'd be nice if they included (or linked to an external site which did) some binary versions in the major distribution formats (deb, rpm, cpio...anything else?) when available.
    --
    Aaron Gaudio
    "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
  • I don't know about Apple, but for Microsoft this isn't really true. It's just that vendors have gotten so used to shipping their products along with the required DLLs, e.g. MFC40.DLL. This, of course, bloats the download.

    In Linux the philosophy is "don't touch my core libraries unless I tell you to", rather than "replace my core libraries unless I tell you not to." Most software for Linux, even commercial software, adheres to this philosophy, in fact I don't know one that doesn't.

    Alot of this stuff is source, so it doesn't matter anyways. As for dependancies, if they had the rpms, debs, etc. available too, those problems could be avoided.
    --
    Aaron Gaudio
    "The fool finds ignorance all around him.

  • The Linuxberg logo is ugly. I do like the "Five Tuxes" and Tux at a campfire though.

    Too many clicks to get to the software. IMHO a link to any of the mirrors should go to the software page by default.

    Maybe "command-line" or "shell" would be better than "console", especially since "console" has a special meaning in X.

    I see no sense in offending people with the boilerplate above the description for Lynx. Paraphrase: "Since we are out of the Stone Age, almost everyone uses a graphical browser."

    A rating system can be helpful.

    Rather than separate everything for the different distros, I don't see why it would be so difficult to put different file formats (if available) of the same software program together on one page, next to the description. E.g., seyon with links to a tarball, an RPM, one in Debian's format (sorry, it's late and I can't think of the extension), etc.

  • Perfect for end users (such as myself). Other sites like it I've seen either tend to be either too technical or too shallow and stagnant. Should also be perfect to show to anybody that says there's not good apps & games for Linux. Since it's affiliated with TUCOWS, it hopefully will be updated frequently. And the Graphics are sooo CUTE!
  • Yeah, this is real nice :) 1999 would be the year of big linux sites, big linux based support companies, big linux inspired cpu's.. and not to mention.. a big new 2.3 branch..
    --
  • It's almsot like they're watching these threads
    ... as soon as problems are mentioned, they get
    fixed :-)

    Emacs is now rated 5 stars, and the 5-star Pico
    now has qualifications ("sentimental reasons"),
    with a "If you want an acutal rating, I would
    say 3" caveat attached.

    For me, it's not the ratings (I already know
    what I want to download by the time I decide to
    do it), it's the mirroring ... a much larger
    and easier-to-access distribution network than
    I'd seen before for Linux coupled with fast
    download speeds ... If I can convince somebody
    local to be an affiliate, it'll be just about
    perfect for situations like when Corel released
    WP8 and I got it .... eventually :-)
  • I am shocked... not even a fifty comments and someone has to knock the new site in town.

    Be glad they decided to join, and just because they don't use *your* favorite database of information is no way detracts from their site.

    Information is provided on the internet in many forms. It is up to the consumer to determine which method of delivery they prefer.

    As they always say, if you don't like it, go elsewhere.

    Welcome Linuxberg!
  • Listen, if I want cutting edge stuff, I got to FreshMeat. Still, their overall index of apps is still not as complete as www.linuxapps.com. If I am looking for something very specific I go there. If I want to find something quick I might have another option with this TUCOWS based site. Still, another software site is no big deal.

    If you are a converted Windows freak this site might be one of the first ones you hit since you already know TUCOWS. That is not necessarily a bad thing. They will make mistakes too. However, educate them don't damn them.
  • database . . . normalization . . . We need something like an XML DTD for the interchange of this data

    this is a very cool idea.

    of course, after the flamewars about defining the DTD died down, there would be a question of getting somebody to maintain it, and then there would be endless flamewars about KDE coming after GNOME in the alphabet, whose entry didn't get updated, the insidious and unnatural influence of [insert Villain of the Day here] over the maintainers, blah blah blah. this doesn't mean it's a bad idea . . . just that there are some linux people who value their freedom of expression to a sometimes pathological degree:

    1st clo: I'm going to the bathroom now.
    2nd clo: YOU SOCIALIST! THAT'S JUST WHAT BILL GATES WOULD DO!


    The world doesn't very badly need Yet Another Manual Archive of what amounts to the same data.

    here, i disagree. it may be the same data, but it's presented in a newbie-friendly fashion. freshmeat is not friendly to most windows users, who need to be welcomed in a very gentle/warm-and-fuzzy way. here, the medium is the message. the credibility linux gains as a mainstream end-user platform is worth a little redundancy, and maybe even a little mild nausea over the barneyfication of free software distribution.


    The LinuxBerg effort is nonetheless duplicative of information being maintained elsewhere.

    so it's redundant. so's life. people will do this anyway. you can't stop it, but i do think that you've suggested a very good place to start towards coping with it.

    the bottom line is that free software has suddenly woken up and found itself on the back of a tiger. it's running like hell, and instead of grabbing an ear and hanging on, we're all bickering about what kind of tiger it is, whether it's endangered or not, whether it's a boy or a girl tiger, what to name it, how "cute" it is, whether or not the lion architecture is technically superior to that of tigers, how tigers suck and we used to ride this really cool ocelot back in the good old usenet days, etc. ad infinitum.

  • It's too bad www.linux.org has been taken hostage,

    taken hostage? i seem to have missed a lot of plot exposition in the first chapter. whazza deal?

  • Sorry, couldn't resist...

    Two kernels and several releases ago, Linus brought forth, upon this world-network, a new Operating System, conceived in Open Source, and
    dedicated to the proposition that all software should be created stable, not to mention free, reliable and fast . Now we are engaged in a great
    software war, testing whether that Operating System, or any software so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure, with or without official tech support. We are met here on the World Wide Web, one of the great battlefields of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a monument to those who have gave their time, CPU's and source code so that Open Source Software might live. It is altogether fitting that we should do this. But in a larger sense we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow this webpage. The brave hackers and programmers, who have struggled here, on the web, have consecrated it far above our poor power to to add or detract. Search engines will little note nor long remember, what we type here, but can never forget what they did here, just look at their indices. It is for us, rather to be dedicated to the unfinished code, which they have thus far so nobly debugged. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored hackers we take increased devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these hackers shall not have coded in vain; that this industry shall have a new birth of Open Source, which means Freedom; and that this code of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from cyberspace.
  • I am a novice to Linux.
    Just to let you know, LinuxBerg is what convinced me to convert.
    It all started a week ago when I first installed RedHat 5.2 to see what all the hype was about. After the smooth 24min installation my manager made a comment like "Why are you installing that? there are only 2 applications you can run...blah blah blah" My coworker and I now had a goal to see if we could prove him wrong and do the same job we currently perform without anything from Microsoft.
    After sifting through various Over Technical websites, I started to get discouraged. I went home for the weekend, somewhat disappointed that I would not meet my goal, or the learning curve was too great to get it done in time. I continued my search Saturday night, absorbing any useful information I could understand. The thought I wish Tucows offered Linux based software kept coming to mind, this is such a royal pain in the...

    The following Monday (the 11th) I came in to work and was ready to put my NT drive back in my PC when my co-worker came in and told me the great news about LinuxBerg. From there we were able to have our PCs up and running and fully functional for what our jobs required.

    Now, if only Tucows would start to compile a 'quick install steps guide' with very simple instructions geared toward newbies.
    The install instructions that come with most software assume I am a UNIX guru and leave out a lot of useful information for us newbies.
    C'mon, why should I spend 10 minutes poking around README and INSTALL files to end up typing:
    ./configure
    make
    make install

    I am glad I installed Linux, I love it, plan to convert my home PCs, and I am happy LinuxBerg is here. Maybe you gurus don't need it but I really do and I'm sure there are many others.

    RedHat and software from LinuxBerg installed without a glitch. I can't say the same for NT.

    I am learning that there really is an alternative to the buggy blue-screen-o-death spewing OSs.
  • I went roaming the site, admittedly, quite nice, I will be a frequent visitor I'm sure. But a couple things disturbed me. In its kernel area, under source, it has the full Stable 2.0.36 and all it has under devel is 2.2.0pre-6ac1 It only has the ac patch, nothing else.

    Also, I think the maintainer doesn't understand the difference between stable and dev in a lot of areas. Under GTK for instance, it only lists one. "Stable:1.1.12" .. Someone needs to slap the maintainer with some fresh trout. Do they want stuff like this brought to their attention? I mean right now it looks to me if that doesn't change a lot of newbies are going to be picking up more and more dev stuff, then coming to #linux or #linuxhelp and bugging everyone in there why things are breaking ;) And everyone I'm sure agrees that's a bad thing. Although I must admit I learned linux very quickly by constantly breaking and being forced to gruelingly fix things.. So... But then I am more independant, most people break things, freak, panic, run around screaming, and then beg for help..

    Seron,
  • It looks to me that they are rating solely on Ease of Use. Or close to it anyway. I mean, when pico gets 5 penguins, and emacs gets 4? Come on now...

    Seron,
  • That's what i'm trying to do with my web page. It's in french (i'm a french canadian) but it will be release in english soon. I need people more experienced than me in Linux, if you are interested or know someone let me know.
    Peruse my site at: http://pages.infinit.net/linus99

  • loop (Score:1)

    by hedin ( 230961 )
    And know linuxberg has noticed that slashdot has noticed them :-)

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