Well, I had to see what all the fuss was about. The award-winning, super-easy KDE interface for Linux is indeed beautiful, versatile, and powerful. Major eye candy! It has some way-cool applications which have become my favorites for the job they do, replacing their Gnome equivalents. But KDE is, at least on my ‘puter, a resource hog. I know I said “lightweight is over-rated,” but there are limits to how heavy I’m willing to go. KDE is great for newbies, but I’ve learned enough to make even the most spartan of Desktops “newbie-friendly.” So it’s back to Xfce for this kid.

I wanted to install unix on Jamie’s new laptop for him. It is a wireless enabled notebook from Novatech with an AMD x64 processor.

I kept notes as I went along, unfortunately the windows box I was putting the notes on restarted, so the following is from memory.

The distros I tried were as follows:-

• freebsd 7.2 and 8 RC2,
• opensolaris 09 06
• centos 5.4,
• debian 5.03
• fedora 11
• gentoo 20091029
• knopix v6
• openSUSE 11.2 RC2
• PC-BSD 7.1.1
• Ubuntu 9.04 and 9.10

The quick summary is that only a few of the distro’s installed at all, and almost all were unable to deal with the network card.  This is because the card driver is only available in the linux 9.   There is some info on the hardware and a how to at http://forum.novatech.co.uk/showthread.php?t=15068, but if it is your only machine you need to get networking set up before you can browse and find things.

The really bad

• Centos – install crashed can not remember why now
• Fedora – install crashed can not remember why now
• PC-BSD – install got to the point after configuring disks and the could not mount the CD, that it had used to boot off

Installed, but did not have network card driver

• Freebsd 7.2 – I was able to get an IP address that I could ping from another machine so probably me, could not get dhcp to work or to get it to look out at the world to download files
• opensolaris
• debian
• gentoo
• knopix
• openSUSE
• Ubuntu 9.04

Fully worked from install

• Free BSD 8 RC2
• Ubuntu 9.10

So the quick review of the various distros, starting with what worked and going downwards.

Working Distros

Ubuntu 9.10

This is definitely the easiest to install and use and just worked straight off, with a quick painless install.  There was a quick download of the wireless drive and make; make install, reboot and both wired and wireless networking were working perfectly.

This is what Jamie’s laptop is using.

Free BSD 8 RC2

Personally, I like the ugly text based BSD installs, because they work.  However they are a very long way behind Ubuntu if you are not a complete techi.

FreeBSD installed fine, DHCP worked with the wired network, and I was able to install everything from ports, apart from Open Office, which I downloaded.

Issues

• I love ports, but compiling and installing X11, Gnome2, etc takes a long time.
• Open office installed fine using the compiled version
• Java is a real pain – because of sun licencing

Java on Free BSD

I installed wget, because the Gnome2 browser was a bit iffy about where it tried to save files.  Which was a problem for the various things that wanted me to accept licence terms around “very evil SUN” java.  I had to download somethings onto the windows box and scp them over.

I also needed to edit the make files and filelist since things had changed since the port was created, and I was not able to find the tzupdate file that was in the port.

By this time I had found the Novatech howto for the wireless side of things, and decided that Ubuntu would be much, much easier for Jamie.

Did not Support network card

Free bsd 7.2, Gentoo, Debian

Card was required to work for rest of install so did not get much further, all fairly similar text based working installers

Knopix, Open Suse, Ubuntu 9.04

Nice graphical working installers, and OS installed fine.  Just did not have network support built into kernal.

OpenSolaris

First time I have tried openSolaris, and it was really good.  It has a nice set of hardware diagnostics, that worked.  Unfortunately it did not support the hardware, and I did not try compiling the drivers.

Network Manager issues

Goes mad if network card not supported same issue across all linux distros that did not support the card in the kernel.

Summary

Ubuntu, has a more up to date kernel at the point when the laptop was updated, and this made it the only distro to install out of the box.  Free BSD also had kernal support for the system, however there was significantly more work to make it work and it was not appropriate as a starting form of Unix.

Oooo000oo, shiny!! It’s pretty and flashy and has impressive eye candy. Look, the desktop spins around and wobbles and stuff “beams” in and out like Star Trek! How cool! Impress your friends with it! That brings people.

But what keeps them? Stability. A system that is rock-stable, even if it has older software (I don’t mean ancient, just “not the latest and newest version instantly available so you can be the first to get it make all your pals jealous). I must admit, I really like the shiny stuff. Because it’s shiny and pretty and sparkly and kewl! I love sparkles!

But not enough to keep wrestling with annoying little bugs and application crashes. Cutting edge eye candy and the latest stuff is fun, but I always end up in search of what works reliably and remains trouble-free.  Ubuntu Linux is built on Debian Unstable (and it’s called unstable for a reason!), except for their long-term-support releases, which are built on Debian Testing (not stable by Debian standards).

I have experimented a little bit with non-Debian based Linux, but hardware functionality, at least on my computers – seems to always be an issue. But everything Debian “just works” with little or no fuss. So Debian is where I think I’ll stay – which narrows my search quite a bit. Narrowing it further to Debian Stable brings it down to two! Debian “Lenny,” the just-released current Stable release, and the much more newbie-friendly Mepis, which is built on “Lenny” and uses the highly prized KDE desktop. It ain’t the latest thing. But it’s stable (because it’s Debian Stable) and it’ll prob’ly “just work” on my ‘puter.

EDIT: Right in the middle of writing this rant about stability (using the newest and shiniest Xubuntu, by the way), crrrrasssssh! It’s as if Xubuntu agrees with me!

I’m not even sure “yuppie” is still a legitimate title. And no, this isn’t a post about environmentalism. It’s about that good old pioneering American spirit, about embracing the wisdom that comes with age, but mostly it’s about thumbing my nose at Bill Gates and defecting to the open source movement!

As a 54-year-old grandmother, I delight in not really feeling 54. That’s due, in part, to something in my character that makes me love change. In more primitive terms: boredom, bad – change, good. I haven’t lived in one small town my entire life, or even one state. I haven’t worked at one job or even in just one field. It’s true, I tend not to stay with anything for very long, and while that can be an unfortunate thing, it can also keep the mind young and flexible.

As a former secretary, I’ve worked with computers for coming up on 26 years. I’ve seen the floppy disk replaced by the cd-rom, and now even microdrives are coming into their own. I don’t have a degree in computer science, I’m no expert by any means, but I love computers and technology. I’ve owned a personal computer since 1993, and like nearly everyone else I know, I’ve struggled as sugar plum fairies dancing through the dreams of techies have been forced out by nightmares of viruses, worms, trojans, and spyware. I, too, once believed that Bill Gates was some sort of geeky savior, providing not only the greatest operating system in the world, but making sure we stayed innoculated against gremlins, hackers, lions, tigers, and bears — oh my!

With the coming of Windows Vista, I began to question whether or not Windows was near to becoming the greatest scam in the history of technology. Why did we need a new OS, when everyone seemed to be completely happy with Windows XP? It seemed every year or so, we needed a new and improved Windows, which incidentally meant shelling out more money, and making Mr. Gates all the richer. Security patches became so numerous, they turned into entire service packs. And still it was never enough. Files locked, viruses ruined systems, spyware held us captive, and computers became more and more unstable. It was only this year that going green began to look really good to me.

I flirted with open source systems like Red Hat, Fedora, Ubuntu, Mepis, and OpenSuSe. I really liked what I heard, was enamored with the idea of an OS that just worked, that didn’t fear the virus, and with some semblance techno-simplicity. Open sourcing promised all these and more, including the chance to try different systems straight from a live cd without so much as an install. I was hooked, so try them I did.

Now I have to admit, I’m pretty proud of diving into such an endeavor at my age! When some 54-year-olds are still trying to overcome a phobia of any sort of technology, or are just thrilled to be able to check email, I have to pat myself on the back for braving the wilderness. And it was not without reward: I discovered Linux Mint “Gloria”. I loved the way Mint was pictured graphically, and green being my favorite color didn’t hurt either. But I’m not that superficial, and it was in Linux Mint that all the promises of freedom, simplicity, security, and stability really took shape. First I worked from the live cd, but it wasn’t long before I set my system up to double-boot Vista and Mint. After about three weeks, I took the plunge and removed Vista completely from my laptop. I’m now a full-time defector from a Windows nation, vowing never to return. I’m enjoying the peace of using my computer without being anxious about viruses, spyware, or the incessant upkeep of my system, i.e. disk cleanup, defragging, etc. I would never presume to imply here that Linux Mint is perfect. There are bugs. The are new things to learn, substitutions to be made. Old familiars like Windows Media Player and Windows Live Photo Gallery are out. But there have been equals and compensations. Is it worth it? I shout as resounding “yes”!

The moral in all this for me is, change shouldn’t be feared, and when something isn’t working for us, we should never be afraid to strike out on our own in search of something better. As a 54-year-old woman, I don’t need the media telling me what I “need”. It’s okay not to follow the crowd because sometimes the winds of change only serve to blow off cobwebs! And we can all use a breath of fresh air every now and then.

Not that this site has the content of Guardian Unlimited, but there will be a drop in the amount of posts being uploaded over the next couple of weeks.Now before you start panicking and wonder what to do in order to fill this unforeseen vacuum in your life, I would like to explain myself.

You see, I am slowly and hesitatingly shifting my computer use away from Microsoft and over to Linux.  Unfortunately this can, and has proved to be, a fairly tortuous process.

It would be easy to provide links to articles that are critical of Microsoft Windows, some of which might have some worth.  Do a search in Google and see what I mean.  But for me, the main reason to change is free myself from a position that I feel is beholden to a faceless, extremely powerful monopoly.

Most Linux systems are free.  They perform as well if not better than Vista (or even XP which I grudgingly admit worked well for me).  Linux distributions come packaged with free software that performs as well as, and in the case of Open Office, better than the Microsoft equivalent.  Better still, they are free.  Note all  the ‘betters’ in that last paragraph.

If I am being honest, most of the programs that I use within Windows are ‘free’, in that I have downloaded them from torrent sites.  But it would be nice to use a system without resorting to such stealthy tactics.  Furthermore, packages such as Open Office are freely available on Windows.  In that sense it is solely down to the discomfort I feel at being part of Bill Gates obese world vision, rather than an economic imperative that drives my move away.

The world of Linux is far more community based. Often, and if you are so inclined, you can access the source code.  In some cases you are actively encouraged to do so.  This allows for easier repair of bugs and tweaks to the software.  Compare this with the closed source world of Microsoft.

Of course, such a move is not going to be easy.  First and foremost, I do not want to spend ages messing around tweaking the system to run on my laptop. I appreciate that a small amount of configuration is necessary but this must be kept to a minimum.  To that end, I have browsed many reviews and even downloaded a couple of distributions:  Ubuntu and the rather yummy looking Linux Mint.

Linux Ubuntu and…

… Linux Mint

Unfortunately in both cases they failed to pick up my graphics card – this is not very helpful. I ended up staring at a blank screen.  No doubt there are workarounds, but I am lazy and looking for an easy(ish) transfer.  A quick bit of research revealed that my computer came installed with an SiS Mirage Graphics chip.  I then trundled across to the Ubuntu Forums which offered up the following advice:

http://rapidshare.com/files/11814076…4.tar.bz2.html

Dear all,

Here is our 2d driver for Ubuntu 8.04, you can try it first.
Please move sis_drv.* to /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/
And modify your Xorg.conf
Add Driver “sis” in Section “Device”

Needless to say, I beat a hasty retreat.  I am convinced – probably incorrectly – that if I start chopping and changing such fundamental aspects of the system, that I would end up with nothing.

Fortuntately, a friend has come to my rescue and pointed me in the direction of another distribution known as Mepis.

It seems that this version is known for its ease of use and I understand that it comes with a clutch of drivers including that needed for my graphics chip.  We shall see as I will be running a test version from CD later this week.

I think that it would be untruthful of me not to admit to some trepidation.  I am worried that my WiFi will not be picked up.  I am concerned that my Vista installation will be corrupted (I hope to have a dual booting system in case of a need to fall back onto Windows – sometimes it is a case of better the Devil…).  But, I think that if I can get this system operating on my laptop I will start to reap the benefits of being allied with a group of people that don’t solely have profit margins (and world domination) as their raison d’etre.

Seguimos descubriendo más versiones de desarrollo, esta vez de una distro muy buena, Mepis. AntiX Mepis, es la versión “ligera” de Mepis para PCs antiguas, aunque me gusta más Mepis, he decidido probar un poco con esta versión.

Hace ya mucho tiempo probé Mepis Linux, fue una de las pocas distros que reconoció mi tarjeta WI-FI, y la configuró automáticamente con Ndiswrapper. Aunque en su última versión hayan decidido permanecer con KDE 3.5, igual que PC Linux OS, es una distro muy estable, y buena para seguir descubriendo nuevas alternativas.

ScreenShots:

Escritorio

Menú

Mirando imágenes

IceWeasel 3.0.11

Centro de Control AntiX

Jugando un poco

Principales características:

• X.org 1.6
• Kernel Mepis 2.6.27-25-686
• IceWeasel 3.0.11 (Firefox para Debian)
• Abiword 2.6.8-5
• Pidgin 2.5
• 10 idiomas totalmento soportados OOTB
• Localización mejorada
• Tiempo de Boot mejorado: debe ser más rápido, si se escoge “Faster Option” en el menú de arranque.
• Hay un cambio de diseño en el centro de control de AntiX
• System-config-printer remplazado por gtkl-meta-installer: que permite la instalación de KDE 4
• Y algo que otra cosa más…

Datos importantes:

Al inciar el LiveCD de AntiX Mepis, deberá elegir el idioma, ya que si no lo elige, se instalará en Inglés (idioma predeterminado). Deberá pulsar F2 para elegir idioma, luego podrá iniciar AntiX Mepis, y después puede instalarlo.

Los requisitos mínimos para usar AntiX Mepis son:

• 64 MBs de RAM, aunque es recomendable 128 MBs de RAM
• Pentium II o un equivalente de AMD
• K5/K6 no son soportados

Puedes descargarlo en:

Nota: esta versión es inestable, lo que significa que aún no esta lista para ser usada, sólo sirve para probarla, no para ser usada como SO principal.

mirror.cs.vt.edu

Fuente | distrowatch.com

El remastersys es una aplicación para crear iso’s customizados, se pueden usar en las distribuciones linuxeras: debian, mepis y ubuntu (esta en la carpeta que dice Remastersys).

En Ubuntu instale el programa con el package installer. Esta apliación hace solo los pasos para instalar los programas .deb. Solo hace falta dar doble click sobre el programa para que salte el instalador. Si detecta que faltan algunas cosas nos lo indica, una vez las instale con el synaptic y la otra deje que lo hiciera la aplicación; de las dos formas me funciono bien.

http://novatillaenapuros.wordpress.com/2008/02/24/un-livecd-de-mi-ubuntu/
http://www.guia-ubuntu.org/index.php?title=Remastersys
http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/
http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/ubuntu.html
http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/repository/ Lugar donde se encuentran los repositorios del programa
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remastersys

[This is a reprint from the Larry the Free Software Guy blog on the same topic.]

A lot has been written so far about what to expect next year — some valid, some not.

But has that ever stopped me from joining the year-end pile-on? Perish the thought.

So here are 10 things to expect in 2009.

Or not.

Remember, objects may be closer than they appear, and your mileage may vary.

1. 2009 will be the year of Linux. But so will 2010, as well as 2011 and 2012. In fact, by 2013, the last pair of eyes on the planet will finally glaze over when a Linux writer proclaims the following year to be the year of Linux, and the more thoughtful pundits will just know that it’s now understood that the next year will be our year, for whatever reason, and they’ll write about something a tad more significant.

9. Fedora 11 will outshine Fedora 10. As hard as it may be to believe — and after a month I still can’t find a flaw with Fedora 10 — Fedora 11 will be an encore performance of what can best be described as a rock-solid distro, even for machines that go back a few years (in my case, a Dell 5000 Inspiron laptop and a Dell Optiplex desktop). Sadly, people will continue to be under the mistaken impression that Fedora is too “cutting edge” for anyone other than the most experienced superuser who might be too lazy to negotiate the Gentoo labyrinth (yes, that’s a gauntlet thrown at the feet of my Fedora colleagues to work next year on dispelling that stupid myth . . . ).

8. The UFC pits Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman against each other in a feature bout. What happens though is not one of those ridiculous near-death experiences for some poor troglodyte who normally gets suckered into the ring, but an epiphany for the entire FOSS community: Stallman and Torvalds meet at mid-ring and circle each other warily. Stallman opens the bout by saying maybe he was a little hasty in demanding GNU be stuck on the front of Linux, but Torvalds comes back with openly welcoming the option of joining the two names. Barriers between open source and free software dissolve. GNOME and KDE advocates embrace in a worldwide “kumbaya.” Planets align. Then I wake up.

7. Zenwalk increases the pace of its development. It becomes Zenrun, and in finding that they can add and release improvements to an already above-average distro at an even faster pace, they rename it Zenfly in 2010.

6. Lindependence comes to Redmond, Wash. The hall is rented, the fliers posted, and the riot police stand at the ready, but they remain wary since they don’t want to repeat the WTO fiasco in Seattle a decade ago. Nevertheless, yours truly — in a tribute to another overweight bald guy in the digital industry — opens the event with an insane onstage monkey dance that also brings him to within inches of a heart attack while Ken Starks unsuccessfully diverts the press’ attention. The Digital Tipping Point’s Christian Einfeldt, however, gets it all on video. Meanwhile, Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu reps — along with others who choose to join Lindependence in 2009 — hand out live CDs and demonstrate their distros. Yes, that’s Red Hat’s “Truth Happens” video (click here for Quick Time fans) looping in the background all the while.

5. Mandriva gets in touch with its feminine side. This distro renames itself Womandriva and becomes a more reasonable, nurturing distro, finally dropping the adolescent Mandrake zeitgeist from its early days. The distro’s leadership also realizes what a huge mistake it was to let Adam Williamson go and rectifies that situation, adding a huge bonus to his salary.

4. The Madagascar Penguins join Tux as the Linux mascots. Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and the Private make Tux one of their own in their commando unit. Incidentally — this is true (you can look it up) — on the Madagascar DVD, the penguins provide their own commentary on their scenes. When Private is struggling to operate a computer while taking over the ship, Skipper comments, “What are you doing up there, playing Tetris? You told me you knew Linux, Private!” Just smile and wave, boys, smile and wave.

3. Windows 7 will be worse than Vista, as hard as that may be to believe. This development will result in yet another $30 million Microsoft ad campaign diverting attention from this latest offering. Realizing they picked the wrong Seinfeld character in their first campaign, the ad agency casts Jason Alexander with Bill Gates, making Gates look like the “cool one” in comparison.

2. Everyone joins the Ubuntu family. In an effort not to confuse brand new GNU/Linux users with the daunting tasks of trying to wrap their minds around 350 different distributions, distros give themselves new names: Fedbuntu, Debuntu, openBUNTU, Sabayuntu, Damn Small Buntu, CentBuntu, Dreambuntu, Slackbuntu, Pupbuntu, Mepbuntu, gNewBuntu, among others. Solbuntis and OpenSolbuntis also join the ranks.

1. Linux Foundation’s “I’m Linux” video contest’s winning entry grabs an Oscar. After Apple’s “I’m a Mac” ad campaign, and Microsoft following with a painfully original “I’m a PC” theme, the Linux Foundation garners thousands of entries in its “I’m Linux” video contest. The Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences nominates the winner, which ends up awing those judging and the statuette for Best Short Film goes to the winner.

There are other developments, like the conflicts that the new OpenBSD Christian Edition causes, which may be addressed in a later blog.

Have a happy and prosperous new year.

(Fedora ambassador Larry Cafiero runs HeliOS Solutions West/Felton Linuxworks in Felton, California, and is an associate member of the Free Software Foundation.)

A lot has been written so far about what to expect next year — some valid, some not.

But has that ever stopped me from joining the year-end pile-on? Perish the thought.

So here are 10 things to expect in 2009.

Or not.

Remember, objects may be closer than they appear, and your mileage may vary.

10. 2009 will be the year of Linux. But so will 2010, as well as 2011 and 2012. In fact, by 2013, the last pair of eyes on the planet will finally glaze over when a Linux writer proclaims the following year to be the year of Linux, and the more thoughtful pundits will just know that it’s now understood that the next year will be our year, for whatever reason, and they’ll write about something a tad more significant.

9. Fedora 11 will outshine Fedora 10. As hard as it may be to believe — and after a month I still can’t find a flaw with Fedora 10 — Fedora 11 will be an encore performance of what can best be described as a rock-solid distro, even for machines that go back a few years (in my case, a Dell 5000 Inspiron laptop and a Dell Optiplex desktop). Sadly, people will continue to be under the mistaken impression that Fedora is too “cutting edge” for anyone other than the most experienced superuser who might be too lazy to negotiate the Gentoo labyrinth (yes, that’s a gauntlet thrown at the feet of my Fedora colleagues to work next year on dispelling that stupid myth . . . ).

8. The UFC pits Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman against each other in a feature bout. What happens though is not one of those ridiculous near-death experiences for some poor troglodyte who normally gets suckered into the ring, but an epiphany for the entire FOSS community: Stallman and Torvalds meet at mid-ring and circle each other warily. Stallman opens the bout by saying maybe he was a little hasty in demanding GNU be stuck on the front of Linux, but Torvalds comes back with openly welcoming the option of joining the two names. Barriers between open source and free software dissolve. GNOME and KDE advocates embrace in a worldwide “kumbaya.” Planets align. Then I wake up.

7. Zenwalk increases the pace of its development. It becomes Zenrun, and in finding that they can add and release improvements to an already above-average distro at an even faster pace, they rename it Zenfly in 2010.

6. Lindependence comes to Redmond, Wash. The hall is rented, the fliers posted, and the riot police stand at the ready, but they remain wary since they don’t want to repeat the WTO fiasco in Seattle a decade ago. Nevertheless, yours truly — in a tribute to another overweight bald guy in the digital industry — opens the event with an insane onstage monkey dance that also brings him to within inches of a heart attack while Ken Starks unsuccessfully diverts the press’ attention. The Digital Tipping Point’s Christian Einfeldt, however, gets it all on video. Meanwhile, Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu reps — along with others who choose to join Lindependence in 2009 — hand out live CDs and demonstrate their distros. Yes, that’s Red Hat’s “Truth Happens” video (click here for Quick Time fans) looping in the background all the while.

5. Mandriva gets in touch with its feminine side. This distro renames itself Womandriva and becomes a more reasonable, nurturing distro, finally dropping the adolescent Mandrake zeitgeist from its early days. The distro’s leadership also realizes what a huge mistake it was to let Adam Williamson go and rectifies that situation, adding a huge bonus to his salary.

4. The Madagascar Penguins join Tux as the Linux mascots. Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and the Private make Tux one of their own in their commando unit. Incidentally — this is true (you can look it up) — on the Madagascar DVD, the penguins provide their own commentary on their scenes. When Private is struggling to operate a computer while taking over the ship, Skipper comments, “What are you doing up there, playing Tetris? You told me you knew Linux, Private!” Just smile and wave, boys, smile and wave.

3. Windows 7 will be worse than Vista, as hard as that may be to believe. This development will result in yet another $30 million Microsoft ad campaign diverting attention from this latest offering. Realizing they picked the wrong Seinfeld character in their first campaign, the ad agency casts Jason Alexander with Bill Gates, making Gates look like the “cool one” in comparison.

2. Everyone joins the Ubuntu family. In an effort not to confuse brand new GNU/Linux users with the daunting tasks of trying to wrap their minds around 350 different distributions, distros give themselves new names: Fedbuntu, Debuntu, openBUNTU, Sabayuntu, Damn Small Buntu, CentBuntu, Dreambuntu, Slackbuntu, Pupbuntu, Mepbuntu, gNewBuntu, among others. Solbuntis and OpenSolbuntis also join the ranks.

1. Linux Foundation’s “I’m Linux” video contest’s winning entry grabs an Oscar. After Apple’s “I’m a Mac” ad campaign, and Microsoft following with a painfully original “I’m a PC” theme, the Linux Foundation garners thousands of entries in its “I’m Linux” video contest. The Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences nominates the winner, which ends up awing those judging and the statuette for Best Short Film goes to the winner.

There are other developments, like the conflicts that the new OpenBSD Christian Edition causes, which may be addressed in a later blog.

Have a happy and prosperous new year.

(Fedora ambassador Larry Cafiero runs HeliOS Solutions West in Felton, California, and is an associate member of the Free Software Foundation.)

My father-in-law is staying with us for a while. He decided to buy a laptop. After looking around he went for a Toshiba P300. A good big 17 inch laptop. It came with Vista, but he wanted XP on it. Why? Two reasons, firstly because he was going to run some heavy software and didn’t want Vista getting in the way, and secondly, familiarity. He knows XP and is happy with it.

One day, he might see the light and move over to Linux! The Mac didn’t have a look-in for several reasons. Its expensive for what it is. The Mac ties you into its brand, more so than Microsoft. And its unfamiliar. And the same with Linux for him is that it is unknown territory.

One thing that amazed me was when starting the machine (the P300) and booting into Vista, it had to reboot 8 times before we reached the usable desktop. Overall it took four and a half hours to back up Vista and then install XP and the extra standard applications like Firefox, Thunderbird, Openoffice3, AVG antivirus and Zonealarm firewall.

For me it is a different story. I came across Linux a few years back with a tripple cd pack on a magazine of Red Hat 7.3 and haven’t looked back. I can even run Linux in a window on XP from a USB stick. I now have a Lenovo R61 laptop. I do have XP on it but only because I am doing some studying and some of the software provided only runs on MS XP. I also have Linux on it. It is running Debian Lenny, which was so easy to install and get going. I had a full system up and running with the hour. Try that with XP or even Vista. I also have SimplyMepis8, which again was a dream to set up, and soon I’m going to try Puppy Linux. This is one I tried a while ago and just couldn’t get to grips with but now I feel it would be the best to get to know before I move on to LFS sometime next year. Why Linux? And why Debian Linux? I have tried a multitude of different distros (versions or flavours of Linux), Mandrake (now Mandriva), Fedora, Suse, Gentoo, Ubuntu (based on Debian) Slackware to name a few. There are a number that are based on one of the above like zenwalk and stax based on slackware and ubuntu and mepis based on debian which I have tried. I have come to enjoy using debian and mepis because they are stable as a rock and easy to install and straight forward to understand, and Mepis you can try without even installing. I haven’t had one crash. But obviously, where I have been tinkering with the system, normally on a test install, it has crashed a few times, but it is difficult to get it to crash. It is also secure. It runs smoother than windows, it runs quicker, it is more responsive, it is more configurable, and I can do everything that I want and need to do using it. One other thing I like about Linux is that it is free, and so is the software that you can use on it. And contrary to the MS advertising bandwagon, linux is easy to install and use. I think what holds people back is the unfamilularity with it, but if people would just give it a go, they would be so surprised as it is far more intuitive than MS. I am happy with my laptop running Deian Linux and confident in its ability to do what I want it to do, and that is to just work to allow me to do my work

لینوکس ها طعم های مختلفی دارند. برای بعضی از ماها فقط اوبونتو و سوسه و دبین یعنی لینوکس، ولی برای اونایی که یکم پا رو فراتر می زارن و طعم ای مختلف لینوکس رو می چشن دنیا تازه براشون شیرین تر می شه. من با اینکه خودم یک مایکروسافتی افراطی هستم ولی به هر حال از دیدن و لذت بردن از انواع نسخه های لینوکس هرگز بی بهره نمی مونم. برای ما هم حتما پیشنهاد می کنم برید دنبال انواع لینوکس و از انواع نسخه هاش لذت ببرید. من در زیر 5 تا از نسخه های متفاوت ولی ناشنیده لینوکس رو براتون معرفی می کنم. امیدوارم مثمرثمر وافع بشه.

به عنوان اولین گزینه می رم سراغ Mepis، لینوکس SimplyMepis ، علت اینکه این نسخه رو خیلی بیشتر از بقیه نسخه دوست دارم اینه که نسبت به بقیه واقعا کار می کنه. مهم نیست چقدر از لینوکس اطلاعات دارید، به محض اینکه مپیس رو اجرا می کنید همه چیز آسون و در دسترسه. حالا لابد می پرسید چرا اسم مپیس با این همه مزیت تا بحال به گوشتون نخورده. اصلی ترین علت گمونم این باشه که یک توسعه دهنده داره، وارن وودفورد، او به تنهایی نسخه ها رو تولید می کنه و از اونها پشتیبانی به عمل می آره. پس ممکنه گاهی به خاطر مشغله اش نتونه به مپیس برسه که اون موقع همه فراموشش می کنن. اما اخیرا تو سایتش خبر از توسعه مپیس 7 داده که بر اساس دبین داره تولید می شه. حتما می ارزه که برای یک بار هم که شده مپیس رو امتحان کنید

نسخه دیگری که تو لیستم دارم، گود او اس یا همون Good OS  هستش. این نسخه اوایل که منشتر شد خیلی محبوب شد، چون یک چیزی شبیه سیستم عامل گوگلی بود. از اونجایی که از این سیستم دسترسی به انواع امکانات گوگل فراهم شده بود. نسخه دومش کمی ناجور شد ولی از نسخه سوم باز محشر شد. این نسخه برای لب تاپ یک گزینه بسیار ایده آل می تونه باشه.

حالا! یکی از اساسی ترین مشکلات سیستم عامل های اوپن سورس پشتیبانی اونها از انواع کدک ها یا همون codecها می باشه. مینت یا Mint که از فرزندان اوبونتو هست این مشکل رو ظاهرا برطرف کرده. این نسخه هم مبتنی بر دبین برنامه نویسی شده و ارزش امتحانش رو داره. همچنین برنامه نویس اصلی مینت خودش یکی از کهنه کارای لینوکس هست که این تجربه او باعث شده خیلی چیزا از قلم نیافتاده باشند.

نسخه دیگه ای که می تونه در لیست مورد علاقه های خیلی از شما ها هم قرار بگیره gNewSense  نام داره. این نسخه طبق تعریف، خودش رو یک سیستم عامل و دور از جنجال های سیاسی برای همه افراد در همه جای جهان معرفی کرده، دارای محیط کاربری یا همون اینترفیس زیبا و ساده است و امکانات مختلفی رو برای امور دفتری یا همون Office ، چت، مدیریت ایمیل و مرورگر وب در اختیار کاربر قرار داده، همچنین برای توسعه دهندگان هم یک محیط GNU  با انواع کامپایلر و لوازم مورد نیاز تدارک دیده.

و نهایتا Mandriva لینوکس دیگری است که من خیلی دوستش دارم. از لحاظ کاربردی خیلی شبیه Mepis هست ولی محیط کاربری جالبش و همچنین طرفداران زیادی که داره و تناسب بالاش با انواع PC  از عمده مزیت هاش بشمار می ره. این نسخه رو هم حتما براتون پیشنهاد می کنم.

چیزی از قلم افتاده؟ اگه آره حتما خبرم کنید. من این نسخه ها رو خیلی دوست داشتم. با اینکه ممکنه نیازها و تعاریف شما متفاوت باشه ولی من قول می دم برای زمانی که وقف این لینوکس ها می کنید هرگز پشیمون نخواهید شد.