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Debian

Corel Linux to be Based on Debian & KDE! 237

Posted by CmdrTaco from the ain't-that-swell dept.
Martin Bialasinski wrote in to send us a press release from Corel which says that future their Linux upcoming Distribution will be based on Debian (Yay!) and KDE.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Corel Linux to be Based on Debian & KDE! More

Corel Linux to be Based on Debian & KDE!

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  • KDE Corba (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The KDE experiment on Corba (KOffice) has passed with flying colours. KDE has a very mature object model (KOM/OpenParts) and is using the constantly improving mico. The KDE 2.0 team are now working full-force on moving over to Corba.

    Gnome doesn't really do much with Corba right now, there's only the panel applets which wmaker has had for a long time without corba. The best use should occur at the application level, but this hasn't happened yet on either side (except for the alpha office applications on both sides)

    But progress is being made both ways! :)

  • Pros and Cons (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Here's how I do a Debian install; it works pretty well (and roughly mirrors what you like to do). This works well either installing via FTP or from a CD-ROM. In fact, I think that by doing this the only tricky thing is selecting which modules to include during the modconf portion of the installer... as for that, usually selecting serial, lp, psaux (if using a PS/2 mouse), and vfat (if accessing FAT drives with long file names) is enough to get up and running.

    Anyway, after the first part of the installer reboots into the second part (where you select the root password), say NO to the option to select one of the many possible system configurations; enter dselect directly instead. Select the Access method (either apt for FTP or cdrom), then Update, then Select. In the Select screen immediately return to the menu (with RETURN); this selects a good set of base packages: gcc, emacs, etc (but no X). Install and configure these. (The configuration only requires configuring gpm, ibritish, exim, and maybe something else). Then exit dselect. Admittedly the exim configuration can be trying for newbies, however (I'm one too, really).

    After this you can then build the system pretty much any way you want. To install X I just run dselect again, search for xf86setup, select it (which has many depends which are automatically selected), select my X server and a few fonts. I then run XF86Setup as root.

    For Netscape, a similar process. dselect, search for communicator-smotif-45, select it (and its depends), and go.

    BTW, I'm working on a docbook-formatted doc right now on all of this. If you or others think this would be helpful I can make a rough draft available... just email me @ crunge@mindspring.com

    Thanks,
    Chris

  • Corel using the best of the best (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Well well, Debian, the finest Linux distro, and KDE, the currently reigning desktop champ.

    Personally, I like neither KDE nor GNOME, because I do everything in XEmacs under WindowMaker, but I can plainly see at this point that KDE is the most mature technology at this point, and my favorite desktop environment that is actually an entire application programming framework, GNUStep, is sadly the least mature.

    I'm not sure what percentage of Slashdot's readership does GUI programming, but GTK+ really sucks for a lot of applications. It's about as OO in C as you're gonna get, but still not real OO (no inheritance for starters). Every application just ends up being a box in a box in a box....

    Qt, GNUStep, Java/Swing, Common Lisp/CLIM or Garnet, are all so much nicer than GTK+. GTK+ is also unbearably ugly without the themes support.

    And I know the old argument about GTK+ being better because it doesn't tie you to C because it has other language bindings. This is because GTK is based on C which is the lowest-level common denominator, and language support for more expressive languages with more features is far more trivial. How the hell do are you supposed to do QT object programming in C? Its features don't map to that language. Ditto for GNUStep.

    Anyways, Gnome could take more interesting directions in the future so I won't write it off just yet.

  • Why not Yay for KDE CmdrTaco? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Like it or loath it, it cannot be denied that KDE represents state of the art when it comes to desktop environments under Linux. Gnome 1.0 is buggy and was released to early. The huge number of RPMs that are required for Gnome is simply ridiculous.

    KDE is about to relase 1.1.1 with 2.0 already looking very promising. All releases of KDE have been very stable and easy to install.

    Once again in the comments above we see some of the FUD surrounding KDE rear its ugly head. For the record:

    • You can use any Window Manager you like with KDE. See the screenshots [kde.org] page on their web site to see KDE running with other window managers.

    • KDEs use of CORBA is far more advanced than Gnomes. As one poster says Gnomes use of CORBA in the panel achieves little more than WindowMaker has been doing without CORBA for years.

      To see just how advanced KDEs use of CORBA is check out KOM/OpenParts [kde.org]. KDE 2.0 will integrate the KOM technology throughout all of its applications. For those among you who like to see working code and not just talk, check out KOffice [kde.org]. This technology is very real and here today!

    • KDE does not have to look like Windows and contrary to the first posters comment that Corel chose KDE because it does look like it, Corel merely say that it may be configured to look like Windows.

    • I agree that KDE may not be as themeable as many people, inlcuding me, would like. KDE 2.0 will be based on Qt 2.0 (you know, that free toolkit) which should be properly themeable.

    The KDE developers have worked tirelessly to produce this environment and deserve every bit of recognition for it. KDE deserves to be the face of Corel Linux. If Gnome ever reaches this stage, I'll be the first to reconsider my feelings, although I do not see Gnome catching up in the near future.

    So join in CmdrTaco and applaud the KDE team for their work in putting a friendly face on Linux.

  • Thats the problem! They cant just switch licenses like that, they didnt write all the code themselves. Some of that is from authors who released their work under the GPL and dont want the license changed. They will have to rewrite those parts themselves.
  • Good one, windows update only updates software that comes directly from microsoft. and it runs like shit also. apt-get upgrades every single piece of software on your machine. No other operating system in the world can do this becuase as far as I know debian is the only one that tries to include *everything*.
  • Are you retarded? QT is not compatible with the GPL, even the new license. Therefore they violate copyrights when they take other people's GPLed code and link it with QT. The cant even add an exception clause because it is not their copyright to change.

    Please get a clue before posting crap like this.
  • Ray Dassen wrote:

    Although there will soon be a DFSG-free Qt ... the incompatibility between the GPL and Qt's license ... persists with a QPL-licensed Qt.

    Last I checked, KDE was addressing that by switching the license of most of their core stuff to Artistic (which works fine with the QPL). I don't know how far along they've gotten with this.
  • Well, they have long expertise in graphic design, through Corel Draw. They definately know their graphics at Corel. Furthermore, they don't need to "build a GUI". By using Debian and KDE, they are piggybacking on the work of others. I am sure that the GUI will be XFree86, with KWM and KDE running on top of it. While my personal preference is GNOME, a preinstalled KDE system should make for a very pleasant introduction to Linux.
  • I have used Debian on every server I have built for over 2 years. It is without a doubt the best. It was very painful for me when people would say, "Debian? I've never heard of that! Does anyone use it???" ... yes I use it and so do thousands of others. Corel is here to prove to the world that it is the best ... it just takes someone with an advertising budget and then Debian will rule the world ;-)

    rpm=yuck, deb=good!

  • Acutally it's http://encap.cso.uiuc.edu/ ... interesting but I don't think I see a big advantage over .deb format!? The whole point in a packaging format is so that you can easily track what files belong to which package ... "dpkg -L bash" for example.

    Putting everything in it's own dedicated directory almost starts to sound like one of those Microsoft schemes ... it's very different for sure ... but I like my binaries being installed in /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin and all those other places :-)

  • Citing their purpose, they want a GUI "compatible with present-day Windows offerings." Their goal is to convert Windows people by providing an environment that they will feel comfortable in right from the start. KDE does that reasonably well. Minimizing the learning curve is what PHBs will like to hear, as often time they're too cheap to send someone to a class to learn Linux. Yet there is still all the freedom we all have to install another distribution or applications and customize to your heart's content, as a certain portion of these users will want to delve deeper and learn more. Some will just live life using Wordperfect all day and nothing else. That's fine too.

    This will get people to give Linux a chance, and they'll give improvements to Wine/KDE back to the community so it's good. You are not forced to use their distribution to run Wordperfect. Ultimately, Linux is Linux.
  • No, 2001. That way it's greater than Windows' number, so therefore better. Well, I guess it should be like 2,000,000 by that reasoning, since Linux is at least 1000 times better than windows...
  • I don't see the push for the GUI tools in RH, myself. I've mucked with config files manually for years, before even finding out about control-panel. I came from Slackware for a few years before that, and had no problem even adding users manually without adduser. I was just adding ifconfig's and routes to rc.local for the longest time too. :)

    The first time I installed RedHat, somewhere around 3.x, the first things I started looking at was how /etc was different then my system before. And it wasn't all that difficult to find the config files and start vi'ing on them. One thing I will give the RedHat gui tools is printtool. It's certainly much easier to have that automatically set up all the ghostscript filters than how I used to do it manually. And it's worked well for the dozens of deskjets I've used it on.

    Their books and documentation you get with the $30 probably detail how to use the GUI tools, but by no means are you stuck there. It's a good start for those without the experience, but by no means limiting to those of us with plenty of it.
  • If there was a concrete standard, what "commonly accdeted standards" are you referring to?

    The folks (RH included) at Comdex basically swore to follow the LSB once it's release (6-12 months). So that argument is moot. But anyway, what's so different with the file structure? There's /etc, /home, /usr, /tmp...

    Besides, variety is good. I don't want just one package format on the planet (either RPM or Debian), or one GUI, or one Web Browser.

  • Debian! (Score:1)

    by whoop ( 194 )
    *Better package management - dependencies that work!
    I've never had trouble with RPM's dependencies. If it says it needs XYZ package first, ok, download and install it. But it's good to have different packagers, choice is your friend.

    *apt - Upgrades your system from debians ftp site whenever you like, with next to no user interaction
    Isn't that one of the beefs with RedHat so many have, taking users away from the nitty-gritty? You put your trust again, in one organization that all the packages are compatible, aren't trojaned, etc. Do they have any testing or reviewing board before a package is listed on the ftp server?

    *alternatives - have emacs & xemacs, multiple vi... dont just blindly use whatever Red Hat could be bothered to compile
    *loads more packages - apt-get will normally get and install the packages.
    So, there's 500 million programs out there that Debian doesn't compile for you. So that's bad? The wide array of packages is good and all still. But every distribution has their target audience (though users tend to want to impose them on everyone). RedHat strips theirs down a bit to make it manageable for those that don't know what everything is. There are still bazillions of RPMS around for everything else. And many, many anti-Redhat people talk how not learning to compile things is so evil, though I certainly find there's a market that doesn't want to compile things. But, these generalizations can be used against Debian just the same.

    *accountability - if you find a bug, bug the package maintainer
    You can just as well with any program in the world, if you know who wrote it. This isn't a Debian-specific plus. It's a feature certainly encouraged in the Open Source world. People provide the sources so they can be reviewed and critiqued by the public, and get feedback, both good and bad. Show those developers you love their program, not just when there's problems.

    *integrated menu system - consistent across window managers
    That's just a matter of config files. RedHat I believe just leaves many things in their default states. Which is suitable for me.

    *consistency - tries to obey standards more.
    Which standards does Debian or doesn't RedHat follow? FTP is a standard, yet the Debian install doesn't give you that choice (one feature I liked in RH's install for CDROM-less stations).

    Certainly we need more structured organization, papers that say, "these sort of files go here," or "this protocol is how you drag/drop". Groups like LSB are starting that. Are there many other existing standards like this that one either does/does not follow? Basically, that's a vague statement without a little more specifics.

    *sections - non-free and non-us are kept separately from DFSG free stuff.
    That's nice. I'll give Debian that.

    I'm getting tired. Anyway every distribution has their market. We don't need to sit and bicker over everything. A simple-man's distribution will have fewer packages to keep the new users confusion level down, and easier installation. A hard-core hacker's distribution will have tons of choices for those of us that like it. A PHB's distribution will have names like Corel, Sybase, whatever that they know and trust.

    Use whichever is right for you. No one thing is right for everyone in every situation (even Linux).
  • Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying "Don't use Debian, use RedHat, dammit!!", but in the spirit of everyone at Comdex, to say, "Can't we all just get along?" :)

    All the distributions have their own good/bad points. And there isn't one king of the distributions that everyone should use. All too often, when someone starts up another (or tweaks an existing) distribution, everybody jumps up and yell, "We've already got 1500 distributions (or one particular dist), go home!!" Each have their targetted audience (newbie, hacker, corporate, etc) and we should respect that. If one wants to target newbies and use KDE, great, more converts from that other OS. Rather, so many jump around, wave their hands, yelling, "Use GNOME!" or "GUIs suck, go text mode!" And where do we end up? Non-Linux people (PHBs for instance), just see us as rabid flamers that can't make up our minds.

    My points in the post weren't to say everything Debian is worthless at all, but many of the points the original poster made can be applied to many distributions. The packaging system certainly seems very nicely organized for the best performance. I don't know everything about it, so I asked questions. I'm more than willing to be educated on anything. What happens? "Shut up." Yeah, real good PR those sort of comments can generate. We all need to be better advocates concentrating on the pluses of programs, less on the negatives ("XYZ sucks"). Oh, and provide concrete examples for arguments to say, "XYZ should be able to do feature ABC. It should do it like this," and provide code to back it up if you can (even pseudo-algorithms help for the non-programmers).

    About the RPM problem, I've heard many people having it over the years. But I myself have never ran into it. I've installed, made my own, etc thousands of RPMs. I don't claim that the problem doesn't exist, just that I haven't had any problems with the system.

    What I meant about FTP installing, was during the initial install. RedHat, for instance, has the choices for FTP, NFS, SMB installation instead of just the usual hard disk or cdrom. Heck, add more options to these, you never know what someone out there may need to get Linux installed. That is our goal here, to get more people to at least give us a try. These are a few things that every distribution could greatly benefit from. I had run into trouble with this when installing Debian on a spare PC without a CDROM. Sure doing an FTP install over a 28k modem is not practical, but I have other Linux boxes on my 100bT home LAN with CDROMs that served up very nicely in the RedHat based distributions I was toying with.

    In conclusion, use what's right for you and for the job, not necessarily forcing anything down others' throats. This isn't Redmond, nothing works for every situation. And be a positive advocate for Linux and Open Source, it goes a long way.
  • There are certain kinds of people that hate learning thing too new/different on their computers. Where I work, they tend to be older, and just want to live through the day so they can retire soon.

    Certainly it's possible to learn, just that many people in corporations are stubborn about it. Every effort to make them that much more comfortable during a transition is appreciated.
  • Question: in apt-get a security hole? How does it guarantee it's not fetching evil packages? Is it only because you implicitly trust the servers you set in your conf file? I've wondered this for a while...

    All official Debian packages are PGP signed, I believe. Thus, there should be a way of setting up the system so that it installs packages only after authenticating them.

    ---

  • Ray Dassen wrote:
    Hopefully, this will be an incentive for KDE to work towards resolving the licensing issue so that the regular Debian distribution can offer KDE.

    The last time I talked with a KDE developer about this issue, he said they're sure that all the mess will be fixed with the release of KDE 2.0 (maybe before 2000). But that would be too far away.

    It seems that QT2.0 will be released RSN, so that's another step in the good direction.

  • abh wrote:
    So Corel is going to take this distribution and shrink wrap it? Somehow I don't think that shrink-wrapping an admittedly complicated and difficult distribution is going to further the Linux cause.

    I wouldn't say Debian is a difficult distribution. I think people think it's difficult because of the lack of a general Control Panel Deluxe. They have to edit config files theirselfs, when there is no xxxconfig script available and the post-installation script happens not to suffice...

    I think this is one of the things Corel is going to address: I guess they'll provide the newbie-user with some nice point-and-click configuration panel or something like that. Or maybe even a graphical installation thing based on the vga16 framebuffer thing that comes with the latest kernels... wouldn't that be nice? :)

  • whoop wrote:
    Do they have any testing or reviewing board before a package is listed on the ftp server?

    Yes they do. People have to become a Debian Developer before they can put packages in the distribution (==on the ftpsite). They have to give up their anonymous net-identity (at least, for their project related work). Every package they upload has to be signed with their pgp key, otherwise it won't be approved. This way 'mortal people' cannot put anything into the distro w/o getting trust from Debian prior to their contribution. I'm not talking about bugreports/-fixes etc. of course! But a maintainer has to agree with the contribution in that case before it is put on the ftp-site. This doesn't guarantee that no package is troyaned, however.

    Anyway, people of course may use any distribution they like. Some like Redhat, some like Debian, others like XYZ. But that's no reason no to try to convince people who like something other than you do that they should use ZYX :)

  • Citing its similarity to Windows as a primary reason for choosing KDE is damning with faint praise.
  • Manx cats *don't* have tails :P.
    http://www.g4uol.demon.co.uk/cat.htm [demon.co.uk]

  • Posted by realtrauma:

    Are there any rumors or anything about a linux player offering an IPO?
  • >I don't see any GUI better than the Win95 GUI out there, do you?

    Good god! Of course... do some research, and you'll find the many many flaws in the Win95 GUI, mainly that is it a *badly* done knockoff of the MacOS. And as stated, Be and NeXT are also pretty good...

  • No! (Score:1)

    by TedC ( 967 )
    Caldera is like the newbie version of Red Hat and Corel is like the newbie version of Debian.

    OpenLinux isn't based on Red Hat; you're confusing it with an earlier Caldera product, I think.

    TedC

  • What are the differences? Why should I choose D over RH? (this is not a flame war ignighter just for my education)
    Chicks will dig you if you use Debian! Running redhat is like going to the beach to scope out the action while wearing your water wings.
  • Red Hat, SuSE, Caldera, Slack and the others are all *cool*. But Debian represents the best future for all operating systems development. A vast, collective, unbiased effort to build an operating system foundation. This foundation then becomes the optimum starting point for a company or other entity to build a custom solution upon. Debian is the one distribution which most closely mirrors the development model of the Linux kernel itself.

    Either Debian, or an effort like it, will eclipse Red Hat, not to mention Microsoft, and become the great fuel source for the network computing fire. Look for NCs, server appliances, and other 'preconfigured' solutions built upon it. Not to mention plenty of packaged software. And look for other kernels than Linux as well.

    It definitely seems to me that if you want to be able to radically shape or reshape a distribution, you start off with Debian.
  • Debian 2.1 includes apt now, you can use apt with dselect or apt by itself. I personally do not understand why people do not like dselect. Once you read the instruction page for the command keys it is very easy to use. However, you can select a generic system type before you run dselect during install. This allows you to just pick the install option inside dselect and not look anything else in dselect.

  • Not quite. Both GNOME and KDE are desktop environments, which, AFAIK, means that they control things like drag&drop and cut&paste and generally how applications talk to each other.

    KDE comes with its own Window Manager called KWM, but you can use any WM you like. GNOME doesn't have one of its own and you can use any one you like. Obviously WMs which are GNOME or KDE aware are best for the respective environments.

    dylan_-


    --


  • The Amiga and OS/2 died of starvation because their bigots drove everyone else away. Don't do the same to Linux.

    Hmm...I doubt it. The vast majority of users on any platform don't read or follow any particular newsgroup/forum/whatever. Slashdot, for instance, has, maybe, 60,000 readers? That's a tiny proportion of Linux users. We see the flames and all, but most people don't and choose their OS/platform/WM on merit or by what they're given by default...

    dylan_-


    --

  • Umm..there are official Debian Gnome packages, check out http://www.debian.org/~jim/debian-gtk-gnome.

    The packages are obviously still provisional, but they Work For Me[tm]..I finally dropped CVS builds last week for debs. No problems to report (except for gdm, which insists on starting the X server twice after I log out..) .

    Daniel
  • Hasn't this been hashed out hundreds of times on these pages already?

    Daniel
  • Ok, I should mention ahead of time that I am a Debian user and that I personally am of the opinion that Debian is potentially the most user-friendly distribution. Bias aside:

    User-friendliness pros:

    - almost everything is automated. Package upgrading, documentation, menu systems, cronjobs, init scripts, MIME type handlers, ... [ I won't bore you with a complete list ] Packages Work[tm] when you install them, 95% of the time at least, and install any necessary extra configuration. If they don't it's a bug.

    - cool bug-tracking system which lets you get directly to the maintainer of the package. It's nice knowing that someone is actually listening when you find a problem.

    ..umm..that's it..the first one in particular, though, is a rather large topic; most of the more annoying aspects of installing programs and integrating them into the system are handled for you.

    Cons:

    - install process. The problem is not that it's ugly, the problem is that when it installs packages, it doesn't tell them that they're being installed as part of a new Debian installation. The result is that a lot of software (which the user might not even remember installing--what's 'gom'?? ) asks questions--not many, just one or two (like "should I start this on bootup") which the user may not have enough information to answer. This is perfectly OK when installing a program or two on a running system, but I've seen experienced Linux users beaten into submission after the 300th program asked them to configure a minor detail of its operation.

    - dselect. Too easy for someone to screw their system up with a typo (I've seen people--again, experienced Linux users--fight with dselect. It works, sorta, once you're used to it, but most of the nastiness is gratuitous)

    I have a possible solution to the first one..but it's not finished yet and I don't want to post the URL here lest my computer die a horrible death. :-) It's on freshmeat though. The intrepid may be able to find it that way. It's basically a sane way to create installation/configuration scripts that can work in any environment. I call it a dialog replacement but it aims for quite a bit more. The second problem is being addressed by apt.

    Daniel
  • 1. in dselect, option 0 [Access] mounts the CDROM. then, when you go on to option 1 [Update], it
    wants to mount the CDROM elsewhere, and fails, because it is already mounted. This is Debian
    2.1 by the way. It doesn't happen after the initial install process, but it does happen the first time
    dselect comes up when installing.

    Yeah, that's a bug.



    2. dselect has more than once skipped over packages I told it to install.
    *boggle*

    What install method were you using? Did it give you error messages?
    Apt will ignore attempts to install things that would leave the system in a broken state (I think there may be a forcing option..I never have a reason to use it)



    3. I don't recall telling Debian to make X start automatically and unkillable on bootup, but it
    decided to do it anyways.

    You mean that you installed xdm? Have you tried '/etc/init.d/xdm stop' or 'dpkg --remove xdm'? [ hmm, perhaps this *should* be a question in dbootstrap somewhere.. ]

    I think that the problem is not in general that there are so many packages available, but that so many of them require user input during install. Too many decisions to make on too little data (often it's not even obvious what the program that's prompting you *is*)

    Daniel
  • I really shouldn't say anything about the GTK+ cheap shots. BUT--

    GTK+ has inheritence. However, it's almost never necessary to use it. The object system itself has a number of features that other such systems don't necessarily have (like the ability to store arbitrarily keyed data on any object, or the ability to override the member functions for a single instance, essentially creating a one-member class) It's not a C++ object system but C++ isn't really the be-all and end-all of languages (although it's pretty good a lot of the time). [ it's also worth noting that in, eg, Python, using Python's inheritence mechanisms works perfectly with GTK+ objects--maybe a bad example though, since a lot of GTK+'s object mechanisms seem to be similar to Pythons to start with ]

    I haven't found anything yet that GTK+ was particularly bad for. Now, I've seen poorly written (albeit working) GTK+ programs [gnomeicu comes to mind] but I can go write a bad Qt app too. :-) The only real problem with GTK+, perhaps, is that it gives an OO system to people (C programmers) who often don't seem to know what to do with it. Some of the code I've seen would make you cringe...

    Daniel
  • Ummm, Debian lets you do installs from just about anything you can mount or from FTP/HTTP (in fact just about every system I installed has been via FTP) In fact, the network installs have been improved at the expense of more 'traditional' methods (especially CD-ROM installs, see another thread on this topic for more on that).

    That said, I agree that the previous comment was overly inflammatory. I haven't personally installed RedHat, so I probably should keep my mouth shut about it. :-) My main impression is from hanging out on gnome-list and hearing both myriad complaints from people who broke their systems in ways that Debian would at least not encourage (apparently enough RPMs are broken that --force --no-deps is usually required) or are requesting features that have been in Debian forever, (such as menu integration--this is really a huge convenience, especially if you're like me and install/uninstall stuff on a continual basis--or a program to automatically find, download, install, and upgrade programs for you) I think that there are RedHat programs that provide some of those features some of the time, but they don't seem to be nearly as well advertised or supported as the Debian equivalents..and (eg) a menu generator that doesn't get to generate menus is kinda useless.

    Daniel
  • With luck this'll be available for the NetWinder [netwinder.org] as the long anticipated but never delivered NetWinder LC software package.

    Corel [corelcomputer.com] has a vested interest in HCC [www.hcc.ca] and still appears to be actively involved in the NetWinder line.

  • Running a system without a compiler is trivial.
    How do you think compilers get ported?
    Therefore, what you say is not the litmus test Qt should pass, either.
  • It is essential in OpenLinux 2.2, since you can't install the system without it. How much more essential can you get?

  • I will just quote two parts of your post and show why you are incoherent:

    "essential core components mean those parts without which you cannot reasonably expect any application to run on the operating system. "

    "It means the compiler"

    Sorry, but it's perfectly possible to run an operating system without it even having a compiler. I can run Linux without gcc just fine and dandy. I can't run Linux without installing it, though.
  • It's the first time I see someone claim crtbegin.o is part of the compiler.

    If it is, since egcs is licensed under the GPL, all linux binaries are GPL.

    I agree you can't run linux without some copies of crtbegin.o, but crtbegin.o is not the compiler.
  • ...a hardware store and walk out with a Linux Distro CD, that's world domination.

    BTW, the local MicroCenter(Comp USA semi-clone) has boxes of SuSe 6 up front and out in the open. Surprised the fsck out of me.

  • While I generally think that the distribution provider gets to pick the distribution name, given that Corel's distribution will be based on Debian/GNU Linux, I would STRONGLY encourage Corel to name this distribution Corel GNU/Linux.

    The justification for the GNU moniker comes from (a) RMS's reasoning that the operating system is clearly distinct from the kernel, (b) the plethora of GNU O/S software common to all distributions, and (c) being based on a distribution that has chosen to include GNU in it's name.

    I've been generally reluctant to call ANY Linux distribution GNU/Linux (unless that is what the distributer calls it, or it was produced under the auspiscies of the GNU Project), though I do think that RMS's technical arguments for doing so are sound. Furthermore, the GNU Project's championship of free software should get a bit more exposure in all this Linux hysteria.

    So, while I think that Corel does not have to call its distribution Corel GNU/Linux, I would very much like if they did.
  • Why?

    Rip out the window manager and you have a fully functioning O/S.

    Rip out the GNU code, and it all pretty much falls apart.

    Of course, I would prefer that the GNU Project actually put together a distribution that could be called GNU/Linux (Debian's is close to this), with little justification for challenging that name. However, if they did, it would effectively be the common base for all other distros in that you could layer them over that base code. This happens now, in a virtual sense, hence the argument to call any distribution GNU/Linux.

    I don't particularly think that argument is very strong, without a tangible GNU/Linux base, but I do think that if Corel is to build on an existing distribution that uses the GNU/Linux monkier, it should be retained.
  • Its not that simple: layering KDE on top of a Debian distribution requires identifying HOW to effect such layering: where to put stuff, etc.

    While KDE is not free, the information that makes the layering seamless can be.

    Corel's distribution necessarily must be more than just Debian GNU/Linux + KDE. If not, then you could just get Debian GNU/Linux AND KDE from Debian themselves.

    KDE is like the tail on the cat, helping it jump and keep its balance, whereas GNU is the legs, and Linux the heart. Chop a cat's legs off and it ain't going anywhere, no matter how fancy a tail it has. Chop it's tail off and its just clumsy.
  • Your point about the Qt license is well made, but Corel can avoid trouble by making KDE a seamless, albeit non-free (in the GPL sense) add-on.

    Even Debian offers non-free code, they just keep it separate from GNU/Linux.

    As for the O/S being tightly bound to the kernel, this is simply not true (and the biggest reaason to separate the names of the two): the core GNU O/S code runs on either a Linux or HURD kernel. Furthermore, you could replace the GNU O/S code with equivalent BSD code and have a BSD/Linux system. From a technical point of view, there is a good deal of sense to such nomenclature.

    We've just become accustomed to thinking that the distribtion bundler has done more "work" and thus deserves greater "credit" than the source of much of the code common to all distributions.

    Finally, its the Free Software Foundation and not the free software federation. They do not fight internally: ESR (and open source) are quite distinct from RMS (and free software). The GNU Project releases code when it's damn good and ready, and of extremely high quality, I might add. The HURD is very much a worthwhile, and difficult, project, though I suppose only a hacker would appreciate the inherent beauty of it.

    RMS's views are strong, and I don't agree with all of them (in particular that any distribution carry a GNU/Linux moniker), but they serve a very useful function of setting the standard by which all compromise must be measured. And yes, this necessarily means that they might not always be practical or convenient.
  • One take I've seen on this is that with Corel (and arguably with Debian in general), Qt can be considered "system software", and therefore GPL kosher. With Debian in general it's a little questionable, but depending on how Corel does their distro, I could see it considered as such.
    --
    Kevin Doherty
    kdoherty+slashdot@jurai.net
  • Good that they chose the Right Distribution[tm].
    Well, could've been better if they had used GNOME, but maybe they didn't think
    it was mature enough.

  • Let's not get too carried away! Remember, Linux is about freedom, and one of the important parts of OS freedom is the freedom to throw out Linux altogether and replace it with something better when it comes along.

  • Thus, there should be a way of setting up the system so that it installs packages only after authenticating them



    It is done by default. If you want to install a package without authentication verification, you'll have to state so explicitly.
  • Deb is way better than RPM

    Actually, RPMs are in some ways superior to DEBs, in other ways inferior. A couple of things missing from the .DEB format:

    • The ability to have multiple versions of the same package installed at the same time. For instance, emacs_19.34 and emacs_20.3. (Currently, the way to get around it is to name the packages differently: emacs19_19.34 and emacs20_20.3).
    • Source dependencies. Though strictly not in the .DEB format, but rather the .DSC file that is one of the three components in a debian source archive.
    • SRPM equivalent.

    What makes the Debian package management stand out is that it utilizes its features a lot more than, say, RedHat. For instance:

    • Menu entries for all installed Window managers (should an application want to have one)
    • Diversions (e.g. /bin/su can be replaced by the 'secure-su' package, and this is all kept track of for installation/uninstallation purposes)
    • The 'dselect' frontend (although the interface could be improved), combined with e.g. the 'apt' backend, makes upgrading and maintentance really, really slick.
    • The habit of asking basic questions and automatically configure complex packages like sendmail/smail/exim during install. This interactivity can be a curse for automated installs, however - there is some discussion on automating the answers.
  • Try to remove everything that says (C) Free Software Foundation and try to boot.
  • KDE is a complete, integrated user environment. It comes with its own window manager, KFM. I believe Window Maker, another window manager, is at least partly KDE "compliant", meaning it can be used instead of KFM. KDE also has a nice file manager and all the little apps that GUI users rely upon. KDE uses the Qt widget set.

    GNOME is a more decentralized, but still complete, user environment. You have to choose which window manager you want, and there are several which have been made GNOME compliant, meaning they work trasparently with GNOME's desktop management features. GNOME also has a nice file manager as well, plus a bunch of nice apps. GNOME uses the Gtk+ widget set.

    So you can see, these 2 desktop environments compete directly with each other.
  • I'm one of the lucky few with both a CompUSA & a MicroCenter within 5 minutes of home (yay northern VA!). I've used both extensively.

    MicroCenter is still pretty expensive (compared to the prices I usually pay for stuff) but it still kicks CompUSA's butt when it comes to Linux, and intelligence of sales staff.

    I've walked into a CompUSA which has only an outdated RedHat box w/manual (pricy) and found that the employees know nothing:
    Q-"Hi, I'm looking for Linux, but without the manual. Just CD's in jewel cases"
    A-"You want CD jewel cases? Over there", indicating empty jewel cases for sale.

    Then I went to MicroCenter.
    Q-"I'm looking for Linux"
    A-"Aisle 5"
    They had (last time I checked) RedHat, SuSE, the WalnutCreek BigOldDistro 4 CD set (yay!), TurboLinux and Caldera. I don't remember if they had a Debian CD from WalnutCreek or wherever, I think they did. I was very pleased :)

  • Hm. (Score:3)

    by aheitner ( 3273 ) on Wednesday April 21, 1999 @11:29AM (#1922827)
    I use both. Just my opinion tho...

    RH: simpler install (largely because you don't need to figure out dselect, and there are far fewer packages to choose from). Overall a good distro, but you're pushed to use their graphical configuration tools -- which aren't bad per se, but can be annoying to those used to hacking config files. But the graphical network configuration, system configuration, services, etc. tools can be a real timesaver to someone not familiar w/the /etc directory and unwilling to learn. It's possible to screw over redhat by messing up your rpm's badly, tho it's never happened to me -- you have to try pretty hard.

    Debian: Approximately equivalent package-wise to RH with the rufus rpm repository also in the distro :). Many many many choices. While in RH install it's a good idea to go in detail and choose each individual package you want, in Debian it's a good idea to choose one of the preconfigured options. 3500 odd packages is it? Deb is way better than RPM, and can upgrade your system automatically, fixing all dependencies etc. as it goes. It's beautiful. Debian has no nice graphical config tools built in, but many of us prefer it that way.

    Question: in apt-get a security hole? How does it guarantee it's not fetching evil packages? Is it only because you implicitly trust the servers you set in your conf file? I've wondered this for a while...
  • Hopefully, this will be an incentive for KDE to work towards resolving the licensing issue so that the regular Debian distribution can offer KDE. Although there will soon be a DFSG [debian.org]-free Qt (under the QPL [troll.no]), the incompatibility between the GPL and Qt's license (see Debian's analysis [debian.org]) persists with a QPL-licensed Qt.
  • Pardon me if I am ignorant on this issue, I though it was resolved because troll-tech was going to release a free version of Qt?

    No. While the QPL (the license under which Qt 2 will be brought out), is a free license, it is not compatible with the GPL.

    http://www.kde.org/kdeqtfoundation.html

    This would only come into play if e.g. Troll Tech went bankrupt. Qt would then be released under the BSD license, which would resolve the issue.

  • A few weeks ago there was a link here on slashdot to a long essay about how newbies should avoid Debian, and how the Debian community should be for advanced users who, if I remember correctly, have "mastered Slackware".

    Please note that Clueless Users Are Bad For Debian" [slashdot.org] was written by a Debian user, not a Debian developer.

    Debian has always focussed on doing the right thing in technical manners. Many of its developers are long-time UN*X and Linux users, who go for flexibility and power, and are less likely to suffer from user unfriendliness. This doesn't make Debian inherently user-unfriendly. Debian is about open development [debian.org]. If you care about user friendliness in Debian, you're more than welcom to help out.

  • Red Hat or Debian? (Score:3)

    by Ray Dassen ( 3291 ) on Wednesday April 21, 1999 @11:49AM (#1922831) Homepage
    There are many differences, many of which are difficult to classify in a better/worse way.

    • Development model. Red Hat is produced by a fairly small group of developers working for a company. Debian is produced by several hundreds of volunteers.
    • Support model. Red Hat offers commercial support. Debian does not offer commercial support (only high-quality free support [debian.org]; commercial support is available from consultants [debian.org]
    • "contrib". Debian has no equivalent to Red Hat's "contrib" section (i.e. user-contributed binaries). People who want to contribute to Debian simply become developers [debian.org].
    • Packaging format. Debian has .deb; Red Hat has RPM. Joey Hess, the author of the alien [kitenet.net] package converter, has a technical comparison [kitenet.net] between various packaging formats.

    There's also a Reasons to Choose Debian [debian.org] document on the Debian website.

  • While the QPL (the license under which Qt 2 will be brought out), is a free license, it is not compatible
    with the GPL.


    The plan is for KDE to change its license. That involves contacting many other free software developers who are not affiliated with KDE, though. Many KDE apps are based on other GPLed code, so the original authors must give permission for KDE to use their code under a different license. It's happening now, and the license should be resolved. Debian intends to include KDE with their main distribution when that happens, and they will include Qt 2.0 (the first QPL release).


    noah

  • KDE and GNOME are independant attempts to create a full featured desktop environment. This goes way beyond the functionality of a window manager. KDE does include its own window manager, but GNOME does not.

    Each environment has its own widget set (KDE is based on the C++ Qt library, GNOME is based on the C GTK library). There is no reason you can't have apps from both environments on your screen at once, but the point of each is to create a unified and consistant look & feel. You defeat this if you use both together.

    By unified, consistant look & feel, I mean the same widget sets, but also communication between running apps. For example, if you're running KDE, and you use the control panel to modify the color settings of the environment, those changes will affect the entire environment, including apps that are currently on screen. But the changes wouldn't affect non-KDE apps. The opposite is true as well; GNOME changes to affect non-GNOME apps.

    I think the big reason for the flamewars surrounding these environments is that having a unified environment makes it look like you're trying to eliminate apps that are not part of that environment. When you've got an all-KDE desktop, and then you introduce any non-KDE app, it's not gonna look right. It won't take on all of KDE's settings and things. So people feel like KDE is trying to claim exclusive rights to your desktop or something. I think the flamewars were really pointless and non-constructive. But the developers of both projects are attempting to resolve the issues so that KDE and GNOME can interoperate happily, and Troll Tech (the company that makes Qt) has modified its license to be more compatible with free software, so the flamewars should really be over at this point.

    noah

  • Exactly (Score:1)

    by Scola ( 4708 )
    >rpm=yuck, deb=good!

    Both are pretty icky. I use the encap system of package management myself: www.encap.cso.uiuc.edu for more info.
  • But that's the point. From the end user perspective they are all in /usr/local/bin because simlinks are made from /usr/local/* to /usr/local/encap/packagename/* to list all your files you simply look at the packagename dir in /usr/local/encap, aka ls /usr/local/encap/bash-2.02

    Ass for it sounding like a MS-type scheme, quite the contrary. It started out in many ways from the /opt directory structure under SunOS, which was intellegent in that packages were seperated, but dumb in the need for an uber path variable. With 197 encapped packages now on my system, I don't want to even think about what kind of path varriable I would have without the simlinking inherrent in encap.

  • Yes! (Score:1)

    by akharon ( 4824 )
    you know, i find it rather sad that you call linus' home distribution a "sucky binary shareware crap version[s] of Red Hat". This is not to say that SuSE is the best. It isn't. But a lot of others out there aren't, and what i'd really like to know is why you feel that you should pick everyone else's dist. Isn't linux about freedom? Last time i checked, that included choice. If I may go so far, It also means that you can use *BSD. Why must people feel the need to pick the world's os, wm, and dist?

  • Very cool (Score:1)

    by jht ( 5006 )
    Though I was very leery of YALD (Yet Another Linux Distribution) Corel is at least building on existing systems and a solid GUI (I know GNOME is cool, but it's really not as far along at this point as KDE). This, IMHO, is a Good Thing. It'll be interesting to see what Corel does to customize/ease-of-useify their distro. Debian is great, but it could use a little easier install, I think. Hopefully some of Corel's work will filter back into Debian.
  • I run the Weitek P9000 server, and have had this problem for years. Just don't move the mouse when switching from console to X, and actually wait a second or two before moving it, and everything will be fine. It doesn't have anything to do with KDE.
    --
    Kyle R. Rose, MIT LCS
  • These are both far superior to Win95. So is BeOS for that matter. And I've heard (but not verified) that Amiga is better.
  • are you crazy or maybe you actually think it makes sense to click on start to shut down the computer?
  • or those tiny scrollbar knobs you get when looking at long documents. or the nonsense in the startup bar. or the horizontal scrolling in file dialogs (don't even get me started on Windows Explorer) or the whole uninstallation shtick. or the fact that you don't have control over certain icons on the desktop
  • and find AOL for ant linux distro -- THAT's world domination!
  • RH adhears to the FSSTND, they aren't dictating anything.

    Red Hat pays people to develop GPL code and to work on the kernel full time. Evil, pure evil. Sheesh.

    --

  • World domination is a joke. Some people don't get the joke and are offended. Others don't get the joke and truly want Linux to dominate. But it's a joke, meant to poke fun at certain software companies and at ourselves as well.

    Linux is completely open, no secret hooks, no proprietary APIs or formats. It may become dominant, but it can't dominate. Other OSes will always be free to compete, especially if they provide their users with freedom.

    --

  • Your average home/corporate user won't do very well at all without bash, cp, ls, df, cat, rm, or any of the other GNU tools that live in /bin. And lots of the things that regularly appear in /usr/bin aren't "developer tools", either, but things an even slightly clueful user would expect to have. Even things like libc are GNU software these days. If you take out everything that's GNU software, your Linux system is entirely crippled.

    (IMHO, Emacs is also a "standard" part of most Un*x systems, and apparently lots of people get lost if their system doesn't include make, gcc, and libc header files. So even those "developer tools" should probably be a standard part of Corel KDE/GNU/Debian Linux (TM).)

  • And pre-release software is supposed to be buggy anyway. The decision to release 1.0 was made by Miguel who has nothing to do with Redhat and he has since admitted that it was premature.
  • I'm not a Debian developer, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I'm sure anyone who knows better will...uhm...correct me :)

    I'm pretty sure there is some security mechanism built in _somewhere_, as MD5 digests of all of the packages are built. These are likely used as some sort of digital signature.
  • Oh my god...you two guys couldn't be further from the truth. Sorry if that sounded like a flame; mostly I hold the participants of the KDE/GNOME flamewar responsible for making an utter mess of the situation, which results in the confusion we have here.

    Ok, Rayban...KDE is not a GNOME-compliant window manager. KDE is a desktop environment all unto itself, providing a windowmanager (KWM), a file manager/web browser (KFM), and a slew of other programs, all unified under a common API. The idea is to provide a "Desktop Enviroment" (through providing a "Development Environment") that's conducive to interapplication communication and unification. If that sounds like marketing speak, think "embedding a spreadsheet into a word document". GNOME is not a widget standard; it's goals basically parallel those of KDE. The main differences are that GNOME doesn't supply a window manager...it tries to be fully compatible with several established window managers...and also GNOME is younger and thus basically has less finished. As I am not a developer, I cannot comment on the technical superiority of one or the other, so I respectfully won't even try. I'll let the KDE/GNOME flame-warrers take care of that.

    AC: QT is a proprietary widget set (windows, buttons, menu objects, etc), and not a window manager. Also, saying that KDE and GNOME are NOT compatible is a pretty bold statement. One can certainly have both KDE and GNOME installed on the same system. One can even run GNOME apps at the same time as KDE apps. The only thing that's missing right now is communication between the two types of applications. And the developers of both systems keep repeating the mantra that they are "striving for compatibility". So eventually, it'll happen.

  • {FLAME ON}
    First, it's not an "admittedly complicated and difficult distribution"...it's not like www.debian.org has on it's front banner "The complicated and difficult distribution for hardcore linuxers". That was just some guy's opinion.
    {FLAME OFF}

    Debian's install is maybe one step behind RH, Caldera, and SuSE (ok maybe a step and a half behind Caldera's new install...haven't seen it yet). And there aren't many GUI tools for system configuration.

    Anyway, shrink-wrapping such a distribution with a pretty install and some GUI tools is probably exactly what Corel wants to do...and will very much further the Linux cause.

  • This isn't my site, but it does a pretty good explanation:

    A Redhat User's Introduction to Debian [xoom.com]

    Of course, as I type this members.xoom.com is down, so I can't guarantee that the link is still active. Basically, Debian's DEB package format is technically superior to the Redhat RPM format. Because of that, the Debian "apt" package-managing tool rocks.

    Also, because Debian is completely non-commercial, they don't have the "support obligations" that Redhat has. So, Debian is blessed with the largest number of packages of any distribution out there. Let me clarify that...I'd wager that there are more RPMs on the whole than there are DEBs, but the majority of those RPMs are built by third-parties...people like you and me. Because packaging in general is a little tricky, and because there's no central point of coordination between the packagers, packages that _should_ work together sometimes don't.

    Debian's different in that respect, that since they don't have to provide commerical support, they can basically include anything they want in their stock distribution. However, they make absolutely certain that every DEB package they maintain works perfectly with every other component in the system. Of course, if you regularly download packages from their unstable distrobution, you'll run into bugs from time to time. But, since Debian also maintains an awesome bug database, those bugs are likely fixed up within a day. Such is life in the unstable tree.

    On the flip side, Debian probably requires a little more knowledge about your system than Redhat does...there aren't any GUI tools for handling things like your networking/printing/etc in Debian like there is in Redhat. Also, the install (while not insanely difficult) is not as "pretty" as the Redhat install.

    Personally, I feel that Debian has the most advantages for someone like me...college student, experienced with Linux, blessed with a T1 connection. It is so easy to remain on the bleeding edge with Debian it is almost sinful. Of course, it's appropriate for plenty of other Linux users at the same time.

  • I don't know what you're talking about... Debian has been keeping up with the latest gnome packages since 1.0 came out (and before)! The deb packages i downloaded from the debian site carry the same version as the source tarballs on gnome's site... something that certainly can't be said for rpm's!
  • I'm no expert, but if I recall correctly, KDE uses QT, which I believe is a proprietary
    Damn right your no expert. I have the full source code to QT Free Edition 2.0 (CVS version), and I don't work for TrollTech. You can get it too, from http://www.troll.no/dl/qtfree-cvs.cgi

    Like GPL'd software you aren't allowed to create (link) proprietary software with it. (Or more exactly than that you aren't allowed to distribute such proprietary software). In order to do that you must purchase the non-free version of QT which is distributed under a different license.

    Tell your friends, tell the world! Why can't people understand this?

    QT Free Edition (that KDE uses) is free software
  • Ok a went a tiny little bit to far.

    QT Free Edition 2.0 (that the developmental version of KDE, KDE 2.0 uses) will be free when officially released under the QPL, as promised by Troll Tech.

    See http://slashdot.org/articles/98/11/22/1029225.shtm l for RMS's statement that a QT released under the QPL will be free software.

    I guess most people aren't living on the edge like me and are in fact using the older version of QT which is proprietary.

    I am using QT 2.0 from CVS, but I'm not certain that counts as an official release, and hence I'm not certain that it has been released under the QPL (yet).
  • Sorry found myself getting carried away for a second there.

    Excellent post. Completely agree.
  • IIRC, add-on cards for Sun Sparc stations have the device driver stored onboard and are loaded at boot time via a FORTH interpreter in the OS. A open standard for hardware interfaces to the OS would allow this to happen on all OS's. Well, except the ones from Redmond cause they wouldn't support it. IMHO
  • I have had GNOME 1.x debs (2.1 and potato) since 2 days after the GNOME 1.0 release. Got them right from the the package maintainers dir on debian.org. Where have you been?
  • But it isn't! Corel's linux distro will be heavily based on the Qt libraries which are not GPL. The qt liscense in non-GPL compatible!
    Debian is entirely free, without any commercial components at all. One could argue that Debian is really GNU/linux. (and they call themselves that) Corel is not Debian, they are making a new distro, with Debian's base.

    As for GNU, reasoning that the operating system is seperate from the kernel is like reasoning that the processor is seperate from the computer. It's a part. just like your computer isnt a computer if it doesn't have a CPU, an OS is not an OS without a kernel. The free software federation is so busy fighting internally that it's a wonder they ever get around to releasing software. The way ESR and RMS are throwing invective around, now is not the time to point the spotlight at the FSF. Now is the time for the FSF to count ten, sit in the corner for the rest of class, and hopefully grow up a little. (and stop demanding that everything be called GNU/something.)
  • ... because Debian doesn't even *have* Gnome 1.0 yet.

    I think this is because they don't want to put it in with broken dependencies and figuring out the dependencies of gnome is hard... but still, we're talking about the "unstable" distribution here.

    I'm longing to be able to show off an appropriately-themed gnome/e setup to my co-workers (they were reasonably impressed with E.14's ugly defaults and gnome 0.99.3's broken setup from the latest unstable I tried, but themes wouldn't work and I couldn't change the gnome window manager from icewm.

    It sucks, because that was something that would really have wowed people.

    Stuart.
  • ... and buy *several* Linux distros, THAT's world domination.
  • The reason the poster (who was deliberately stating an extreme point of view) suggested people master Slackware before trying Debian, was that then they'd realise how easy they have it with Debian.

    Personally, for me, the switch from Debian to RH was an unpleasant shock ease-of-use-wise, and the switch from RH back to Debian was another unpleasant shock ease-of-installation-wise. For ease-of-use (once you get through the install), Debian *CANNOT* be beaten - since 1995 at least it has been able to automatically update itself to use the latest packages, something I've never seen in ANY other operating system, and it includes everything you can possibly think of.

    I was recently working on my debian machine with a co-worker, trying to set up a program, and a suggested step was "run smbclient with these options".
    smbclient: command not found
    $ apt-get install smbclient
    $ smbclient ...
    My co-worker was dead impressed :)

    I think debian is the ideal distribution to shrinkwrap - it provides the best underlying architecture I've ever seen, it just makes no attempt to hide the complexity of what you are doing. With Corel (hopefully) adding a nice installation interface specifically TO hide those complexities, we could finally get the perfect distro...

    Stuart.
  • Actually, the panel applets were the thing that wowed me with GNOME. That and the control center, which also appears to use pluggable corba components in the main body pane.

    Sure, most of it was always doable with plain X (I remember having xload swallowed in my fvwm panel thingy years and years ago) but the point is that this corba-based architecture is going on *everywhere* throughout GNOME. I prefer to think of GNOME as an application framework, not a desktop environment. The panel and control center are just tools written to that framework. That's why I personally prefer it over KDE - KDE is currently the better desktop environment, but GNOME is the better framework... and the desktop environment on top of it will come with time.

    (but until it does, I'll use KDE)

    Stuart.

  • Actually, the Presentation Manager came out in about 1989, so it took IBM six years to get it "right".

    Unfortunately for OS/2, most people got their OS/2 lumps with version 2.x, where despite the "power" of PM it was nearly unusable out of the box. As crappy as the Windows 3.x GUI was, at least it had program icons people could find.

    --

  • Newer Macs also support firmware drivers.

    --
  • Red hat has a too long history of security bloopers. Debian has always been better here.

    So I personally praise this choice. Can you imagine what kind of publicity will linux get if 10000000 boxes will get owned???
  • For a company that was many times thought of as doomed, they finally seem to have gotten a sense of direction. I think they can do great things from here...I can't wait to see what their next move is. They seem to have something planned.

    -lx
  • i am a 'newbie' to linux.

    i picked up RedHat 5something last year, and tried it out. i got lost. because of the installer, i couldn't figure out what was going on. i never could get back to that same style package manager, either.

    i gave up on RedHat, and this past october, got Debian 2.0. I love it. I love dselect. I was warned about it - but why!?! it's fabulous! i love debs, and i love alien for making those ever popular rpms into debs (you know, when you really want some piece o' software, and they don't have it in a deb... and source gets messy when you just want to run it for yourself to see if you like it...)

    i don't know why people bash dselect so hard. dpkg isn't even THAT bad - at least not for small stuff. 'dpkg -i foo' is almost a reflex for me now...

  • Let's take a quick break from the KDE vs. GNOME/Debian vs. Red Hat vs. Slackware festivities I know this article is going to generate.

    IMHO, Yet Another Linux Distribution is not just a Good Thing, it's a GREAT Thing. Why? Because it brings us one step closer to operating systems becoming a commodity. That means no more OS tax when you buy a computer. I imagine a future in which my children laugh at us and say, "You guys paid HOW MUCH for an OS? And you didn't even get the source code with it? And you couldn't customize it or fix it yourself? I guess you all smoked crack back then, huh?"

    So, bring 'em on! Let every company from Adobe to Zenith release Linux distros. Their development costs for this are minimal (probably quite a bit less than a writing a new product from scratch), so they have very little to lose.

    "What about standards?" I believe that distros which break standards will get killed in the marketplace. People won't buy a distro on which nothing runs. This is NOT the traditional model, remember? In fact, it's probably closer to a "free market" than anything we've seen in software.

    When I can walk into a grocery store and buy a Linux distro -- THAT's world domination!
  • it's funny, laugh:

    Yahoo News : Strategic Alliance Between Corel, KDE and Debian to Advance Development of a New Linus Distribution [yahoo.com]

    Yes! The new Linus will be 6'2, blonde hair, blue eyed and *ahem* Canadian!
  • What are the differences? Why should I choose D over RH? (this is not a flame war ignighter just for my education).

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