I have recently downloaded two Linux distros and begun playing with them, Libranet Linux and Crux Linux.

Libranet Linux is a commercial distro that seems to be trying to position itself alongside SuSe, Mandriva, RedHat and the like. Unlike some of the others, though, its still freely available for download, and it’s the downloaded version that I have. Its latest version uses the v2.6 kernel.

Frankly, I’m pretty impressed. It has a very simple installation process and it comes with an amazing variety of software, including a big handful of windows managers. KDE and GNOME are represented, of course, but so are Enlightenment, Window Maker, Fluxbox, Blackbox, Openbox, Sawfish, Metacity, IceWM, twm, fvwm, qvwm and others. Nearly every Linux word-processor and text editor I’ve heard of is included, with the same being true for browsers and email clients. Over 100 games are tucked in nicely, too, and sundry other software to the point of frank overkill. If nothing else, it’s giving me the chance to play with software that, for one reason or another, I’d never gotten around to trying.

Despite having that distinct polished edge that most commercial distros have, Libranet does its business in quite a lively fashion. In fact, it’s farily peppy, more so than MEPIS or Ubuntu, much more so than that bloated pig, Linspire. Overall, I was quite pleased.

The fly in the ointment: That was on computer #1 in my stable. When I attempted to load it onto computer #2, it refused to recognize the keyboard at the very beginning of the installation process, bringing things to a crashing stop. That the motherboard in that computer’s not especially Linux-friendly certainly has some bearing on the issue, but it’s disconcerting nonetheless. I’ll be diddling with this more, to see if there may be a solution.

Crux Linux is an expert’s distro and is billed as such. It is a standalone distro; that is, unrelated to any other distro. It’s a smallish installation CD, about 220 meg, and nearly all of that is related to the OS itself, with only a very small number of applications included (Firefox, xchat, emacs, pico…) This is definitely not a distro for the new user, nor especially faint of heart, as it requires that you configure and compile the kernel for your hardware and needs. It only comes with one window manager, Window Maker, and that must be manually installed as well. In terms of installation ease, I place it right alongside a stage 3 Gentoo install, and it’s about as lengthy. While I’m still in the process of getting it set up, I do have it running at the bash prompt and my initial impression is favorable. It seems pretty zippy and is definitely worthy of further consideration. I’ll write more as I go along.

Conclusions: of the commercial and “commercial wannabe” distros that I’ve tried to date, Libranet is most impressive…to me. It’s not as simple to install as MEPIS, not as idiot proof as Ubuntu, but it offers a huge software package, is fast and stable. It’s a good example of how a distro can have a large software stable, with lots of options, yet remain light on its feet.

Crux is a power-user’s minimalistic system that will never be a top hit, but will very likely remain in my stable, if only for the geek factor. This is a good learning distro for those who wish to delve further into Linux’s inner workings.

As a wild guess, I’d say that fewer than 10% of the computing populace regularly uses a command line interface (DOS prompt for Windows folk). It’s now possible to do basically everything needed in normal day-to-day ops, using Linux, without ever once firing up the console.

For migratory Windows birds, this is a good thing. However, for people who are wanting just a bit more out of their computer, and are willing to learn a few simple commands, it’s actually easier to use the CLI in several instances than it is to use the GUI equivalent. I’ll give three easy examples:

1. Adding or deleting a new user.
   In KDE, this requires that you fire up the KDE User Manager, enter the root password (assuming you’re not in root…and if you are, why?) then start pointing and clicking.
   Using the console, you simply type “sudo adduser [username]” and enter, then re-enter their password at the prompt. You’re also given the option of filling in personal info such as name, etc., or can bypass those by hitting enter a few times. Deleting a user via KDE’s User Manager is similar to adding one, and the same’s true with the CLI: type “sudo deluser [username]” and you’re done.
2. Restarting an interrupted download.
   It never fails…you find the program (or distro) of your dreams, hit the old download button and 2k from the end, you get knocked offline, the power goes out, or something else happens to disrupt the download. This is why download managers were invented…but you don’t need a fancy d-load manager with Linux. Open the console, type “wget [url path to file]” and off you go (this assumes you’re online). If your download should be interrupted for any reason, simply type “wget -c [url path to file]” and wget will pick up where it left off. While this isn’t as much an issue (probably) to broadband users, us folk who live in the boonies and can only get dialup find this a godsend.
3. Kicking Nero’s butt
   Everywhere I go, Windows types sing the praises of Nero, a CD burner for Windows. K3b and others have dedicated followings in Linux, and I was initially one of them, until I discovered the CLI command “cdrecord.” I use it exclusively for burning isos now. Instead of all the pointing and clicking required in the various GUI roasters, simply type “cdrecord -scanbus” and note which bus your CDRW drive is on. Usually, it’ll be bus 0,0,0.
   Then type “cdrecord dev=0,0,0 [path to directory containing the file(s) you want to burn to cd]” and hit enter. You can modify the cd burn in various fashions–setting the speed, etc., via other command options (available via “cdrecord –help”), but with a 48 or 52x burner, these are usually not necessary. That’s it.

Regardless of how polished a GUI is, there is always a good reason for a CLI, and good reason to learn a few CLI commands. These are just three more-or-less random examples.

Late last week, DamnSmallLinux finally made the plunge from beta to full release, with v1.0.1 hitting the servers. I’d been using v0.9.3 for some time, and wasn’t really expecting a great deal of difference, but had decided to make the move as soon as it came out of v1.0rc(x) status. For those unfamiliar, rc(x) is short for release candidate number (x), and indicates that the version is nearly ready for primetime release, just needs a few edges smoothed.

Though I’m running up-to-date hardware, have vast untouched plains of disk space and plenty of RAM for any realistic application, I usually find myself using DSL, though I have remasted the CD (more on that in a moment) and installed it to hard drive.

This is despite the fact that I have top draw distros like SimplyMEPIS, Ubuntu, Mandrake 10.1 to name a few. Of that lot, I only have MEPIS installed on my main box, though my second box has Ubuntu alongside DSL. Why?

First of all is that DSL offers 90% of what I need from a distro, and does it in a trim, no-bloat fashion. My window manager of choice for day-to-day operations is FluxBox–which DSL uses–I spend a fair bit of time using the Dillo and links browsers, and I’m positively addicted to Sylpheed as a mail client, having switched to it 100% for all email accounts.

The main additions I made in remastering were AbiWord, as I prefer a word-processor with a bit more oomph, a couple of games, gnu-utils, xchat and the like.

With v1.0.1 came a menu selection, Apps>>Tools>>Make myDSL CD remaster, which allows you to add to the base DSL distro via apt-get, Synaptic (Apps>>Tools>>Synaptic) or the MyDSL icon on the desktop which shows packages that have been optimized for use with DSL. Simply select the remaster menu item, follow a couple of simple instructions, pop a blank CD in your CDRW drive and voila’! Instant custom LiveCD distro.

For all that I really, REALLY like DSL, I cannot in good conscience recommend it to everyone. It’s not really a beginner’s distro, unless that beginner is either computer-savvy or stubborn enough to overcome the (admittedly small, but significant) learning curve that FluxBox will present a Windows-weary warrior. For people who have little computer background, or extremely low frustration levels, Ubuntu/Kubuntu still strike me as the best option.

Though I do have plans to move on to bigger–not necessarily better–distros, DSL’s probably always going to have a home on my boxes. In fact, the only reason I have either MEPIS or Ubuntu on either box at this time is because DSL is based on the Linux kernel v2.4.26, and I’m in the early-middle stages of installing Linux From Scratch (http://linuxfromscratch.org), which requires kernel v2.6.2 or later, and also requires gcc 3.0+, a feature also missing in DSL, in the interest of saving space.

Linux From Scratch is not precisely a Linux distribution. Rather, it’s an ebook (available for free) that gives step-by-step instructions on how to construct a basic Linux OS from the vanilla source code. There are several reasons a person might wish to do this, all explained in the book’s introduction, but my main reason is as a learning vehicle. While I can claim some knowledge of various distros and a bit more knowledge of such things as window managers, my knowledge of Linux’s innards is sadly lacking, and I freely admit gaping holes in some areas (e.g., networking–a shortcoming that I’m addressing these days, now that we’re a mult-computer family). LFS seems at least as suitable for this sort of masochistic self-tutorial than a stage 1 Gentoo installation (which I shall also be assaying directly). LFS can be purchased, and comes with a CD of the source code needed to compile and construct a Linux OS, or the CD iso can be downloaded free of charge.

If you’re wanting to learn how Linux works, as well as gain knowledge in its commands, this is undoubtably a good way to go. Not necessarily easy, but thorough.

After a number of email correspondences between Danger and myself, he made the startlingly generous offer of a guest column on his website, to allow me to air my views without let or hindrance.

Truly, this is a kind gesture. I’d been contemplating starting my own website, but time and other issues left me of the belief that it wasn’t the best idea since it seemed likely I wouldn’t be able to update it regularly. A guest column allows me to write when and if the Muse strikes.

A few things need to be made clear at the outset:

1. Despite the nickname, Danger is really a very nice person.

2. I am not.

3. Because #1 and #2 are in stark contrast to one another, let it be known here and now that the opinions expressed in this column are my own. Danger is neither the author, nor is he responsible for any opinions aired here. If someone has a grip about what I say, a) don’t bother Danger about it, as it’s not his doing, b) feel free to respond to me, c) I may reply, d) I may not reply, e) if I don’t reply, and you were expecting one, get used to disappointment and goto (f)

f) tough.

I used to be a Windows user. I thought that this was going to be for life, but the nice man (Linus Torvalds) granted me a full pardon.

Let it be known that I am now a Linux user. The vast and serried ranks of ones and naughts on my hard drives are not tainted by any trace of MicroSoft code. In fact, I now have hard drives which have never been sullied by MicroSoft code, and I shall guard that status as assiduously as any father has ever guarded his daughter’s virginity.

It shames me to admit that there is still Windows usage going on in my household. My other half has a Windows partition on her drive. The only consolation that can be gained from this is that she, as is the norm with Windows users, is constantly dealing with a plethora of irritating problems. As the resident techno-geek whenever she has one of the all-too-common Windows ailments and pleads with me to “fix the damned computer,” I now have a Wilde-ean reply: “My dear, don’t you know that I don’t do Windows?”

Since this transformation has come about in only the last six months, there are some who might say, “Oh, he’s going through a phase,” or “He’s suffering from the fanaticism of a new recruit.”

In reality, I’m reverting to a prior state. I was originally a MacHead, having purchase one the year they came out (1984). Prior to that, I used a Commie 64, and from ‘83-95 I dabbled with MS-DOS, becoming fairly proficient with it, but never liking it.

In the ’90’s, events forced me from my Macintosh Elysium into the Orwellian world of Windows–a world of buggy software, slovenly customer service, frequent system crashes and lockups and virii galore. A world of arrogance it was, born of monopoly. It was there that I remained, fundamentally dissatisfied, until Linux began to come of age.

I’d heard of Linux by the early-mid ’90’s, not too long after Linus Torvalds released his first version. However, like most, I dismissed it as a novelty until the late ’90’s when I realized that a significant and growing percentage of the servers on the internet were running Linux.

A motherboard death, followed shortly by the gift of a new computer, complete with SimplyMEPIS Linux disc, granted me asylum from my own private Cleveland. I quickly segued from MEPIS to other distros and have finally settled on using DamnSmallLinux while I assay a stage 1 Gentoo installation. Further enhancements to my comptuer status have resulted in our household now having three computers, two AMD Semprons (mine) and the other half’s AMD K-6. All three have at least one Linux distro on them and once I get WINE running on her K-6, the other half assures me that I will be allowed to remove Windows from her drive. That will leave only one MicroSoft product in the household, an optical mouse…and it was a gift.

That’s the way it should be.

Cheers,
Gary