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.

The title isn’t what is sounds like, this is a non-dirty website I’m running here. What I’m referring to is a new, excellent post by Sam over at the Fedora Core Blog.

Sam discusses the way that any computer user who cares about making his/her system work well given their particular needs is bound to modify things, destabilize things, maybe even compromise general system integrity from time to time. Despite that, it’s worth it.

A lot of things are broken on my system. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. I use Linux because I love technology and want to play with all the latest stuff. Linux for me isn’t about having a low-cost stable system; it is about having a technology testbed. I want to be the one filing the bugs and crashing my system.

I couldn’t have said it better Sam.

The Consumer Linux Blog asks whether a group of programmers can be trusted to sell Linux well. The temptation is for those who understand things like command line interfaces and compiling to accept those as fundamental parts of a Linux user’s experience. It seems like this kind of thinking could keep Linux as a minority OS forever.

For Linux to grow it’ll need to become approachable and friendly. Luckily, it’s well on it’s way.

Part of creating this website meant that I needed to understand more about writing, specifically writing on websites. A tool that I’ve been using daily since I discovered it is Akregator.

RSS feeds are useful for checking Slashdot, your friend’s personal website, Gmail, and now a host of news services. While some new browsers (like Firefox) are beginning to offer RSS support, it can be handy to use a tool that understands how to organize and combine all your feeds into one.

Akregator is an aggregator for Linux. It’s specifically designed for KDE (it’s part of the kde package as of 3.4.0) but it’ll run in any desktop environment (as long as the required KDE dependencies are installed). It’s not perfect yet but it’s a great tool for reading your favorite syndication feeds - like the one here at Distro Jockey.

If you want to get started with RSS or Akregator, hook yourself up to the Distro Jockey RSS Feed.

I’ve been writing on this website for two months now and I’ve had a ball. I’ve had the chance to start getting serious about using Linux and writing about the stuff I run into. I’m becoming a better writer and I’m learning to enjoy the research much quicker than I imagined.

I started out this website with the single idea that Linux is Hard and not many websites were willing to acknowledge that fact. I figured I’d stand out from the crowd because of some radical new perspective. Well, I was silly to imagine that I was the first to talk about how difficult Linux is (everyone knows it’s hard). Also, after two months I’m showing up well under the terms Gentoo, Xauthority, and Suse 9.3 - but the phrase (even in quotes) “Linux is Hard” shows me nowhere to be seen.

So this website is now “Distro Jockey”. Nothing has changed except the name is now much more indicative of the website content. This site is all about trying new things with GNU/Linux and having lots of fun with it. The fact is that many thousands of people have worked hard to create a lot of software and nobody has tried it all yet.

So as I change my tune I invite you all, once again, to get your hands dirty and install some new OS. Yes, Linux is hard, but there’s nothing to lose.

In case you haven’t heard there’s a new Firefox for Linux released. This is, like the last two, largely a security patch that applies to Firefox and Mozilla (especially the parts of Mozilla that were introduced from Firefox).

You can find it at GetFirefox if you’re currently using a Linux browser, otherwise you can find it here:
All Platforms Firefox Release

I just stumbled across this torrent that appears to be for Suse 9.3. It must be a sign of many Suse lovers getting anxious that there’s already buzz about this version and it hasn’t even been released yet.

I haven’t actually downloaded the torrent that’s linked above but it appears to be the 9.2.1 ‘pre’ release of 9.3 even though it claims to be the actual Suse 9.3 professional. I don’t know what licensing the folks at Novell plan to have for their 9.3 release but it should be worthwhile no matter what.

If you’re interested there’s a complete rundown of the specs for Suse 9.3 for you to check out. I’m personally most looking forward to the Xen Hypervisor being included. I like to fancy myself a distro-jockey (I spend more time installing GNU/Linux OSes than using them) and Xen is an emulator that should help me do just that.

Just south of me in Orego Stuart McKim attended a game night were everybody used Linux. They used LiveCDs that have gaming as their primary focus. He writes:

I tried out three different iso’s: LLGP, GamesKnoppix, and a Morphix games disk, but found that LLGP, which is short for Linux Live Gaming Project, was the only reliable one.

This is an awesome idea. Because LiveCDs don’t affect the computer and don’t require installation, you can host a LAN party and nobody has to think about installations or viruses. I’ve got some 500MHz machines sitting around that I might use to this end. Stuard wrote that they played a lot of Armegatron (and awesome tron-based game) and I think a LAN party could have a lot of fun with that.

Of Ubuntu Linux and NetBSD, Danger wrote: “I’m sad to report that neither one was of any use for playing songs and movies, but hopefully I’ll come across a LiveCD that can do that soon.”

Help is here, in the form of DyneBolic Linux (http://www.dynebolic.org). DyneBolic is a LiveCD-only distro that’s oriented toward audio-visual use. It comes with media players, editing software and netcasting software. Because it’s oriented toward A-V work, it’s light in other areas, e.g., it comes with AbiWord instead of OpenOffice, though it has a surprisingly robust games suite.

Using Window Maker as its default windows manager, DyneBolic is designed to be usable on older machines. It cannot (at the version I have) be installed to hard drive, but it offers an option called nesting, wherein part of it is copied to a “nest” on a pre-existing partition, thus allowing the user to boot from CD, then eject the CD, freeing it for other uses.

Cheers,
Gary

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

I’ve used KDE for the length of my Linux use. It’s been the most comfortable desktop environment for someone like me who needed to be weaned off of Windows but I’m now considering switching to Gnome. I may begin trying out Gnome in various distributions and posting about the benefits/compromises that I see in it.

One thing I’ve noticed already is that cursor focus seems to be much faster in Gnome than KDE. I’ve written about problems with Firefox response speed a couple of times and upon only cursory (heh) overview it seems as though the cursor and response time problems are greatly mitigated with the Gnome desktop environment.

James Robertson discusses the comparison between Unix and Linux.

It’s likely the case that Solaris (et. al.) can scale to higher levels than x86 Linux - based on how many CPU’s can be slammed into them, if nothing else. That advantage won’t hold up much longer.

James explores whether there’s a need anymore for Solaris boxes used as servers. It’s the case that Linux systems are much cheaper due to the popular nature of the x86 architechture - so it’s a wonder that any company would stick with Solaris or other commercial Unix frameworks if they could get better performance for less out of a Linux system.

Time will tell.

LinuxWorld has an article on the current state of Linux on laptops. It considers suspend/resume functionality, video and other device drivers, CPU throttling, and overall ease of use.

I thought it was time to revisit the question of whether any Linux distribution was really laptop-ready. My criteria were simple. To be considered a success, a distribution needed to install and all the laptop components needed to work without any software installs or changes to the kernel.

The author comes to the conclusion that things have improved a lot in the last year, but there’s a long way to go. I agree with him whole heartedly and I’m hoping more distributions follow in the path of Novell’s Suse which has been the only distribution to be fully effective on my Dell 600m (even Gentoo can’t get the wireless right just yet - but I’m working on it). I’m hoping the next release cycle of distributions sees the following features perfected:

• flawless suspend/resume
• fast hibernation (Windows can do it, why can’t the penguin?)
• full, native Centrino support
• full support of the recent releases from the ipw2200 project
• full support for specialized shock-resistant hard drives (like HP’s Active Protection)

I just read an article on CNN about Linus Torvald’s decision to discontinue Linux development. It appears he has been hired by Apple and he’s going to work exclusively on their newest improvement to their GUI that they seem to be calling Tiger++.

This is a sad day for the rest of us. I guess it’s time we all move to FreeBSD.

If you shop around for a new stereo or new computer speakers you’ll be surprised at the similarity between them. The main difference is that computer speakers (while often pushing just as much sound quality out of themselves) are usually much smaller for the same price.

What this means is that a small computer is now an affordable alternative to a conventional stereo system. Computers can run any file format you give it and hard drives can store your whole music collection.

So what’s the ideal music system?
There’s a great article on O’Reilly about setting up a music station with Knoppix. It goes through installing Knoppix on an old PC (the kind you thought you didn’t need anymore) and turning something old and slow into a fantastic sound system.

If you’re really interested in doing this, I recommend setting up a secure wireless LAN in your home to allow you to put the sound system anywhere and control it from anywhere else. It’s pretty nice to carry a notebook into your kitchen that will allow you to change the songs that are playing in another room.

I recently installed Gentoo on my Dell 600m notebook and I’ve loved it. Immediately after installation I had DVD::RIP installed and began processing the backlog of DVDs that I had to compress to put on my hard drive.

I loved Gentoo from the start because I could simply type ‘emerge’ followed by a package name and it would install for me. I used this so much, however, that I really fouled up transcode and then libdvdnav and then libdvdcss to the point where they’re all re-installed now but DVD::RIP no longer works.

So I guess this goes to show that no matter how good software gets, there will always be some of us who have to play rough with it and find ourselves breaking our systems.