J_K9 @ Linux

Mandriva 2007 Metisse Edition

I’ve tried out Mandriva 2007 Metisse Edition and have discovered a few things which I would like to share:

• Metisse kicks ass, and there’s no doubt about it. The window-rolling copy and paste feature is beautiful in its simplicity and ease-of-use, and I just couldn’t stop playing with it
• It also offers transparency,
• smooth transitions between virtual desktops (there are nine of them by default in Mandriva 2007),
• and makes using Linux even more fun than it was before.

However, in my opinion, it’s still not ready for prime time: there are still a good number of bugs which need to be fixed. I encountered the following:

• A slight jitter of the whole screen when I dragged the bottom of the window beneath GNOME’s bottom toolbar;
• gnome-screenshot refused to work, which is why I have not included any screenshots in this post - first, it worked, but the screenshot ended up being a screenshot of the background alone (no windows or toolbars were included). I think this was because of Metisse running an X server over X, and so gnome-screenshot was taking a screenshot of the lower display rather than Metisse’s. However, all attempts to change the display used by gnome-screenshot were in vain. Then, gnome-screenshot stopped working altogether and kept exiting with a error.
• Not really a ‘bug’ per se, but the window folding is quite rough - it would be nice to have an option of setting the smoothness and thus the CPU-intensiveness of the folded edge.

The inclusion of proprietary drivers (and automatic recognition of your graphics card) makes this experience possible, but unfortunately brings with it its share of criticisms (and for valid reasons). While I do not condone the use of proprietary drivers, although I will freely admit that I use them on every one of my Linux installations, I highly recommend you give this live CD a spin, if only to waste make good use of your time by playing with Metisse’s features!

Ubuntu Edgy Eft 6.10 Released Today!

Have I been living under a rock for the past few weeks? I’ve only just found out, and that’s because I’ve done something that I rarely do - I’ve joined the Ubuntu IRC server (channel #ubuntu). They all started talking about Edgy, and I was just thinking to myself: eh? Edgy is even out yet!

How wrong I was… It came out today - yes, while I was busy sleeping under a rock

Now I’m going to get out from underneath that rock, download it, install it, and write a review! Ah, the joys of being a Linux addict

Click here to read the announcement.

Fedora Core 6 - A Cursory Glance (At What Looks Like A Great Distro)

I downloaded Fedora Core 6 yesterday, and had a good couple of hours today (I’m on holiday) to test it out - so here’s what I think of it

Continue reading Fedora Core 6 - A Cursory Glance (At What Looks Like A Great Distro)…

Introducing IceWeasel and IceDove

Ok, I’m a couple of days late, but I love the new IceWeasel icon, so I had to post about it!

I’m not going to say what I think of the saga If you don’t know about the Debian (and derivatives)/Mozilla fiasco, please read this.

There it is, in all its glory (see bottom-right).. It’s not the official IceWeasel icon yet, but I have a feeling it will be made it within the next few days/weeks.

And a quick summary of the article I linked to: there are trademark issues with Firefox and its icon. Firefox may not be distributed without its icon, but, because the icon is trademarked, Debian (and some derivatives, such as Ubuntu) use different icons.. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Firefox is being renamed IceWeasel, and Thunderbird will become IceDove in the world’s favourite Linux distribution (I’m talking about Ubuntu, not Debian, by the way ;)).

Bad split-up. Nice icon. Great job.

Fedora Core 6 Release Pushed Back?

At least, according to my calendar. I had written that Fedora Core 6 was going to be released on the 11^th October 2006, in bright red ink, so that I couldn’t miss it. I haven’t missed it, and I have visited the official Fedora Core website, but there is no news of the latest version.

So, where is it? Well, it looks like the release date has been pushed back to the 17^th of this month, rather than the 11^th - that is when it will be made available to the public, according to the schedule on their wiki.

Hmm.. They either pushed the release date back, or I misread the schedule - but there’s no news about a late release on OSNews, so I’m assuming that I just misread it

[edit] It’s the 24/10/2006, and Zod has finally been released! Get it at: http://fedoraproject.org/static-tmp/FedoraMirrors.html

And On That Note… Slackware 11 Is Out!

Great news! When I read Ray’s comment, I sped over to Slackware’s homepage and, sure enough, there was the Slackware 11 announcement!

A quick overview of the latest and (hopefully) greatest version of Slackware:

• 2.4.33.3 kernel;
• ReiserFS continues to be the default filesystem;
• KDE 3.5.4;
• Xfce 4.2.3.2;
• A possible upgrade to the supported 2.6.17.13 kernel in /extra (including a version of this kernel that supports multiple processors, multi-core CPUs, HyperThreading, and about every other optimization available), or the recently released 2.6.18 kernel in /testing;
• And much more!

This is an OS I will definitely try out this weekend - and I will post a review, of course If you have any opinions, hints, or tips, please drop them here!

Mandriva Shoot Themselves In The Foot

This is quite unbelievable… And, if you haven’t heard of it yet, you’re about to - two Mandriva developers have posted that Linux is not ready for the desktop. Just take a moment to think about that, as the logic behind it is flawless - and they even chose the night before the official release of Mandriva Linux 2007 to spread the word. Quite incredible.

I can only conclude that either the Marketing Manager was on drugs, or these two developers were. Why they would post something like this just before the release of their latest OS is beyond me… Maybe you can shed some light on the reasons behind this intelligent ploy ;)

Via DistroWatch’s newsletter.

Their foolish articles (which I disagree with anyway):

• Why I’ll never use Linux for my main desktop
• Linux ready for the desktop? Of course not!

I hope they get fired. Soon.

And congratulations to the Mandriva team, who released Mandriva Linux 2007 yesterday.

Slackware 11 - Coming Soon

Mon Sep 18 05:33:24 CDT 2006 Slackware 11.0 release candidate 5. This is the last one, scout’s honor.

I can’t wait! Slackware 11 is going to be the best distribution yet - just you wait And I couldn’t agree more with Sum Yung Gai’s comment:

I find Patrick’s willingness to use the Release Candidate system quite refreshing in a day when “quick release, quick release” seems to be the mantra. It’ll be ready when it’s ready, and not before. If you want it faster, then jump in and help the man.

Aye to that!

A few links:

• Slackware 11 RC5 on the Slackware Blog
• Slackware-current ChangeLog
• Download Slackware-current (Slackware 11 RC5, at time of writing)

My Slaxperience

I have been using Slackware 10.2 for a week now, and I have to say I love it. I have no regrets - every day I like Slackware more and more. Slackware, along with Gentoo and possibly Debian, is considered to be one of the most difficult distros out there, and is the ultimate target for every newbie. I have always thought: The day I use Slackware, I can consider myself adept at using Linux. That day has come.

Continue reading My Slaxperience…

(K)Ubuntu Dapper Flight CD 3

From the Ubuntu Announce Mailing List:

From: Colin Watson
To: ubuntu-announce-AT-lists.ubuntu.com
Subject: Flight CD 3
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 16:02:43 +0000

Hello world,

Flight CD 3 is ready. This is the third in a series of milestone CD
images that will be released throughout the Dapper development cycle, as
images that are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD-build or
installer bugs, while representing very current snapshots of Dapper. You
can download it here:

Europe:
http://ftp.acc.umu.se/mirror/cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/… (Ubuntu)
http://ftp.acc.umu.se/mirror/cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/r… (Kubuntu)

United Kingdom, and the rest of the world:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/dapper/flight-3/ (Ubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/dapper/flight-3/ (Kubuntu)

Continue reading (K)Ubuntu Dapper Flight CD 3…