New releases, various distributions.

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exploder
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New releases, various distributions.

Post by exploder »

I have been looking at various distributions to get a feel for who is doing what right. I have been using a DVD-RW and just testing from various Live CDs.

OpenSuse 11.2 KDE milestone 8 is looking pretty decent. OpenSuse managed to fit a very complete system onto a Live CD this time around! The Live CD booted quick, much quicker than OpenSuse has ever booted for me before from the Live CD. The first thing you notice is the new artwork. I was not crazy about the new usplash but the desktop looked great. Everything I tried seemed to work with the exception of the update management. I did see a work around mentioned at it appeared to resolve the problem. The main thing I was looking for was a solid solution to Intel graphics issues and OpenSuse delivered in that respect.

CHAKRA alpha 3, this is still an alpha but being based on Arch and a rolling release, it was definitely woth the time to check out! CHAKRA currently has no type of splash screen at boot but I read that it was in the works and at least I could see that there were no errors when booting. This release was purely KDE, no gnome apps of any kind included by default. Aurora is the default web browser, it seemed to do a decent job and flash was installed and working. There is a problem with the sources list and there are instructions for updating it are listed on the main page. Again, the Intel issue was not present in this release and for being an alpha it ran pretty well. CHAKRA is well worth keeping an eye on because it is based on Arch.

Sabyon 5 KDE, this was the worst of the bunch. Sabyon still has issues with Intel graphics and could not even get my resolution right! Sabyon has always disappointed me as far as getting my resolution right but even after correcting it, graphics were totally unusable. I did not bother to look at this release after the graphics problems. For a final release Sabyon was one of the most disappointing release I looked at.

What have you checked out lately?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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khsbenny

Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by khsbenny »

I would love to try new and different linux distros. Is there a website that has them all? or is the best one distrowatch?

Thanks,

Ben.
exploder
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Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by exploder »

I just try the ones that interest me on DistroWatch.
badmotor

Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by badmotor »

Exploder - thankyou for your thoughts on these. I too have been testing a few distros lately and was wondering about Chakra and Sabayon, so thanks for your opinions. I thought Chakra looked like a nice distribution.
nitehawk

Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by nitehawk »

I have the newest Puppy 4.3. Wouldn't be too fair to make any kind of review about it here,..('cause I'm actually quite a Puppy fan, and have been for a long time). I tried out PC-Bsd recently, but couldn't get it to connect my dinky little dialup.
exploder
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Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by exploder »

badmotor, OpenSuse is the best working out of the distros I mentioned. OpenSuse is nearly bug free on my system. (Had to give myself a break from the Ubuntu 9.10 breakage...) The only thing that bugs me in OpenSuse is that web pages load kind of slow. I am getting tired of distributions that do not have the Intel issue fixed. Ubuntu 9.10 is having issues with Intel again after yesterdays 150 or so updates, it looses desktop effects at random and the system slows to a crawl when it occurs. I added to a bug report about the problem but the priority of it is medium.... Funny, the Karmic beta was half way decent before all the updates, now the list of bugs is huge!

I wanted to master OpenSuse's package manager and this seemed like as good a time as any to get it figured out. I hope the Ubuntu developers fix the Intel issues so we have a better base than we did the last round. It would be nice to have Intel graphics working out of the box. I will probably take another crack at Karmic in a few days when some of the bugs are hopefully fixed. :)
badmotor

Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by badmotor »

True. It is interesting times - there is alot going on at the moment. I'm posting from Chakra right now, this thing is blowing me away... fast and simple - I have been a Gnome user forever, but a few distros are making me think about switching to KDE. Of course, the other one is OpenSUSE. I like how all the multimedia stuff worked out of the box on the live CD (much like Mint!) on Chakra - I would like to see someone do a decent review of this distro. Very interesting.

Time for me to revisit OpenSUSE as well, to see how that is going (Tried Milestone 7 I think?). I agree on the Intel thing - am SO sick of it.
vrkalak

Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by vrkalak »

I installed the new Ubuntu 9.10, Alpha 6 . . . it seems to go well. Grub2 finally recognized my other OS (LinuxMInt) and my Wireless 3G network worked 'out of the box.'
But as someone said, when I updated the distro to the newer Beta version, there were like 187 updates. It took hours.
But Ubuntu 9.10, Beta is very pretty and a little faster than 9.04 to boot. I love the new Ubuntu colour theme and backgrounds, as well as the new splash.
I look forward to the final release of 9.10 . . . and wait to see what the Mint Team will do with it, in developing Helena?

I tested the new Parsix 3.0 (testing) . . . based off of Debian Squeeze (testing)
Again, a pretty Gnome desktop but had problems recognizing my 'other' OS and I never did manage to get the Network Manager bug-free. On again -- off again.
They used the newer Linux Kernel 2.6.30 and Gnome 2.28 and Grub2 . . . but, something didn't seem right for me?
In the Parsix forums, the devs were helpful but they were the only ones that knew anything about the OS.

In a #!Crunchbang 9.04 LiveCD I got free in a Linux Magazine . . . I couldn't get network up and running. Could have been, due to the fact, that it is the Lite version of Crunchbang?? And, I didn't play around with it long enough and wasn't able to add new or update Apps for it.
Again, an Xubuntu 9.04 off-shoot. So, almost everything out of the package is Ubuntu; Xfce with Gnome overtones.
I want to try a pure Xfce with no Gnome apps or panels running.

I downloaded and updated my version of PuppyLinux from 4.1.2 to 4.3 I have always like Puppy and have tried several of its various take-off versions.
I like this new version, as everything worked on my old laptop. Even things that the old original XP had forgotten it was supposed to do.
Like connect to the internet via WiFi . . . yup, Puppy did 'out of the box' And I like that 4.3 is Xfce. It's fun to play with Puppy.

I ordered a Debian 5.0 DVD ... it just arrived yesterday.
From this original and stable distro, I should be able to make a true and pure Xfce desktop and Window Manager with no Gnome. Yes?
I would like to work on making this MY version of Mint Debian. I hope it's not too hard ... or too heavy a task for me and my limited Terminal and CLI experience?

I, also, have Sabayon 5 downloading via Torrent. It's a rather large ISO, over 1.7 Gb . . . it's taking a couple of days to download.
piratesmack

Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by piratesmack »

exploder wrote: What have you checked out lately?
Slackware 13.
Very stable, even with KDE 4.

I haven't had any problems with my Intel graphics, but the devs offer alternate drivers for those having problems
http://slackware.mirrors.tds.net/pub/sl ... alternate/
Last edited by piratesmack on Mon Oct 05, 2009 6:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
exploder
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Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by exploder »

Still playing with OpenSuse milestone 8 KDE and after a little bit of configuration I am very impressed. I had thought that the browser was slow, all it took was a trip to Yast to disable IPV6 and the browser is nice and quick now. I also had to turn off smooth scrolling in Firefox. I had to add the packman repo to get multimedia working but it was not very difficult. The tools are much better than they were 5 years ago and package management is much faster than I thought it would be using rpms.

OpenSuse seems to have no issues at all with Intel graphics and much to my surprise start up and shut down is quick. I noticed that I did not see a flurry of bugs being reported in the OpenSuse forum. I also noticed that the Developer's were pretty strait forward with what bugs still exist. OpenSuse 11.2 final is scheduled for release on November 15th and I am interested to see if there are any regressions between now and then. I find the milestone release practice and the 8 month development time to be an interesting approach to quality.

Something else worth mentioning, ext4 seems to be problem free in OpenSuse and the installer on the Live CD did not take very much time to get the system loaded. Karmic is still in a flurry of bug reports so I will wait a while before I check out our new base again. For now I just want a break from the Intel issues and to enjoy some movies on Fancast. :D
vrkalak

Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by vrkalak »

As I mentioned before, I think ... I installed Debian Squeeze 6.0 (testing) because I want to have a 'true' Xfce without the Ubuntu bloat.

I opened and am now comfiguring the Debian Squeeze /Xfce to my liking.

Debian is an awesome OS by itself! I love the speed and simplicity of it.
I can use some of my experience and knowledge from using LinuxMint and Ubuntu in getting around Debian.
And learning about the basic/core essentials of Xfce is interesting.

After all, these OS's are Debian children.

I am learning to compile a bit and remember . . . "terminal is your friend" :lol:
exploder
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Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by exploder »

I gave Debian testing a try a couple of weeks ago in Virtualbox. I went with KDE 4.3.1, it was kind of buggy but still a lot of fun getting it set up and going. If the Debian installer matures we can have some fun rolling our own custom versions of Debian. :) It is interesting to compare the state of Debian testing to Ubuntu, the bugs are nearly identical. Xfce should work pretty nice because it is developed more conservatively. I would be interested in how you make out with your Debian Squeeze Xfce project. Maybe you could post a screen shot of your desktop when you get it finished?
vrkalak

Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by vrkalak »

exploder: I would love to.

I'm calling it: Debian-X

Perhaps, after I get it finished, I will be competent enough with compiling the Building Essentials of an Xfce desktop, that I could help with future versions of LinuxMint Xfce, in some small way?
waldo
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Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by waldo »

exploder wrote:Still playing with OpenSuse milestone 8 KDE and after a little bit of configuration I am very impressed. I had thought that the browser was slow, all it took was a trip to Yast to disable IPV6 and the browser is nice and quick now. I also had to turn off smooth scrolling in Firefox. I had to add the packman repo to get multimedia working but it was not very difficult. The tools are much better than they were 5 years ago and package management is much faster than I thought it would be using rpms.

OpenSuse seems to have no issues at all with Intel graphics and much to my surprise start up and shut down is quick. I noticed that I did not see a flurry of bugs being reported in the OpenSuse forum. I also noticed that the Developer's were pretty strait forward with what bugs still exist. OpenSuse 11.2 final is scheduled for release on November 15th and I am interested to see if there are any regressions between now and then. I find the milestone release practice and the 8 month development time to be an interesting approach to quality.

Something else worth mentioning, ext4 seems to be problem free in OpenSuse and the installer on the Live CD did not take very much time to get the system loaded. Karmic is still in a flurry of bug reports so I will wait a while before I check out our new base again. For now I just want a break from the Intel issues and to enjoy some movies on Fancast. :D
Because of your comments, I d/l'd OpenSuse M8 KDE, and I agree with your praise. This little lizzard is looking good. It's polished and professional, and works well. I did have some password trouble getting the live CD on the wireless, but a real installation works fine. KDE 4 has been tamed, and is actually a pleasure to use.
khsbenny

Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by khsbenny »

I've tried PCLinuxOS, which seems very good. I like the KDE desktop, its more graphically pleasing.

I also downloaded Slackware but as a newbie found it a princess to install onto a virtualbox.
exploder
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Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by exploder »

I tried Mandriva 2010 RC 2 KDE today. I was not very thrilled with it. That server app (whatever it is called) came up every time the system started. Pulse Audio worked like crap in Mandriva too. Mandriva seemed primitive after OpenSuse 11.2 milestone 8, even with the newer version of KDE Mandrive did not run near as well. OpenSuse does not bring up kwallet every time I use Kmail. Kwallet came up once I closed it and a dialog came up asking if I wanted the application to remember the password. Now for the first time Kmail seems pretty decent and I don't have to put in a password to use it.
I also downloaded Slackware but as a newbie found it a princess to install onto a virtualbox.
I agree! We are spoiled by modern installers! :)
dawgdoc

Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by dawgdoc »

vrkalak wrote:I ...Again, an Xubuntu 9.04 off-shoot. So, almost everything out of the package is Ubuntu; Xfce with Gnome overtones.
I want to try a pure Xfce with no Gnome apps or panels running.
piratesmack wrote:
exploder wrote: What have you checked out lately?
Slackware 13.
Very stable, even with KDE 4./
VectorLinux is a Slackware derivative with an XFCE desktop. I used it on an old machine.
nitehawk

Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by nitehawk »

VectorLinux is a Slackware derivative with an XFCE desktop. I used it on an old machine.
Yes,..I have VectorLinux 6 "Standard" on my older Dell P3 tower. It recognized and set-up my old Nvidia card OOTB,..and it came with most all the apps I really use (only downloaded Wine). Very solid and fast. Also,...I have been using Debian Lenny (LXDE) on my main P4 for some time now (both Vector and Debian are rock solid). I would really like to use Wolvix also,...but there are only about 2 developers,...and it's veeeery slow in development because of that (but, like Vector,..it's based on Slackware and very solid, stable, and fast).
I have tried Dreamlinux 3.5,..and found it to be a very attractive "Mac-ish" Debian Lenny-based distro. But since I just use Debian Lenny, anyhow,.....I didn't see any point in keeping it on my hard drive.
exploder
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Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by exploder »

I had tried Vector Linux some time ago on an old PII 350 system and as I remember, it optimized the OS for that machine on first boot. I remember that Vector was the only distro that ran well on that machine and the person I gave it too was real happy with it. I think that Vector ran a script that removed everything that I did not need, it took a while but the end result was a very fast old computer.
nitehawk

Re: New releases, various distributions.

Post by nitehawk »

The only problem I had with Vector 6 (that is now "fixed") is that the "Chestnut-Dialer" for my little dialup,...has to have a little more configuration to work,...but nothing too hard to do. And for some reason my Firefox browser can't install any of the "add-ons" from the Mozilla site. No one else on their forum seems to have that problem,...so just must have been my own copy of the install CD. No serious problems, though. Like Linux Mint "just works" for a main desktop,...Vector "just works" for somewhat older systems (some use it for their main distro, though)....
When the next Linux Mint comes out, I'm going to be changing my install of Debian Lenny (on my main computer) for it. Isn't it great to have choices?

EDIT: I just installed Gloria (keeping my "home" partition from Debian intact). I added the LXDE desktop. I think I like it this way,...(seems even more "snappy" than vanilla Debian Lenny).
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