The roadmap has been released:
- Tuesday 3rd June: Pardus 2008 Beta
- Monday 9th June: Pardus 2008 RC1
- Monday 16th June: Pardus 2008 RC2
- Monday 23rd June: Pardus 2008
I will try to write a review, you never know, someone might read it...
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
SliTaz to the rescue of the old T20
Two days ago, I mentioned below that I could not get a Linux distro which fitted my requirements - I now have!
Introducing SliTaz Cooking, the mini-est distro ever which works like a dream on the tiny IBM T20. Not only is is beautiful, it also took 4 minutes to install, comes with Openbox, has a pretty good mirror repo pick, is shipped with Firefox 3 (!) and is rock stable for a cooking release. What else do you need? So Puppy is out and SliTaz is in.
It is so stable that the SliTaz team is introducing this release at the Linux Days in Geneva this week. Don't get me wrong, it is never going to replace Pardus on my laptop, but when it comes to refurbishing old PCs for people wanting the internet, a word processor and to load photos from their digital camera, it will be my first choice.
Introducing SliTaz Cooking, the mini-est distro ever which works like a dream on the tiny IBM T20. Not only is is beautiful, it also took 4 minutes to install, comes with Openbox, has a pretty good mirror repo pick, is shipped with Firefox 3 (!) and is rock stable for a cooking release. What else do you need? So Puppy is out and SliTaz is in.
It is so stable that the SliTaz team is introducing this release at the Linux Days in Geneva this week. Don't get me wrong, it is never going to replace Pardus on my laptop, but when it comes to refurbishing old PCs for people wanting the internet, a word processor and to load photos from their digital camera, it will be my first choice.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Which Linux for an IBM T20?
I have managed to get hold of an old IBM T20 with a 256 ram with a 10 gig HDD which I want to give to a friend as a home laptop. This guy has only known MS and I want to make the experience a success. Allthemore that my friend lives in another country, and when I eventually give the laptop to him, I will not be there to sort any issue. Not that I could anyway, my skills are limited to installing the Linux distro and playing with the Grub config to make sure that the PC boots ok.
So I set my eyes on a light distro which will have a word processor, a browser, an ethernet easy to set up connection, Skype, a pleasing graphic environment and (very important) perfect stability.
Of all the distros I could find, Puppy Linux was the best, but TinyMe was the best looking (but the update just messed it up big time). So I started to look for a light distro which has the easy use of Puppy and the looks of TinyMe.
And you know what? There is no distro out there with an Openbox graphic environment as the desktop environment of choice. The closest I got to this was GrafPup but I could not manage to burn the iso image on a disk. And then, trying to decipher the forums of Puppy linux needs a PhD in computing, since the explanations are clearly not geared towards new users.
Shame though. A lot of time and patience is being used on showing off 3D desktops and useless graphical gimmicks, but when I look for a simple distro which looks good out of the box, no chance. I wonder why there can be no graphical desktop which looks great and still be light? Puppy Linux is nonetheless the ticket, I just hope that my friend will not be too taken aback by the 1996 look.
So I set my eyes on a light distro which will have a word processor, a browser, an ethernet easy to set up connection, Skype, a pleasing graphic environment and (very important) perfect stability.
Of all the distros I could find, Puppy Linux was the best, but TinyMe was the best looking (but the update just messed it up big time). So I started to look for a light distro which has the easy use of Puppy and the looks of TinyMe.
And you know what? There is no distro out there with an Openbox graphic environment as the desktop environment of choice. The closest I got to this was GrafPup but I could not manage to burn the iso image on a disk. And then, trying to decipher the forums of Puppy linux needs a PhD in computing, since the explanations are clearly not geared towards new users.
Shame though. A lot of time and patience is being used on showing off 3D desktops and useless graphical gimmicks, but when I look for a simple distro which looks good out of the box, no chance. I wonder why there can be no graphical desktop which looks great and still be light? Puppy Linux is nonetheless the ticket, I just hope that my friend will not be too taken aback by the 1996 look.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Top 5 ethical reasons why you should not use proprietary Operating Systems
1. If governments used free OS and softwares, the money spent buying softwares could be spent on other vital resources.
2. Don't use the argument that revenues from the software companies are taxed (therefore benefiting the community) because they avoid their social responsibility by paying as little tax as possible. Just have a look at Microsoft.
3. If you think Apple is any better, well it is not.
4. Microsoft has abused its dominant position time and times again and continues to do so.
5. Therefore, Bill and Melinda Gates's foundation is just a mountain of hypocrisy: "It has an endownment of USD 38.7 billion as of December 31st, 2007". Maybe if the company properly paid its taxes and did not abuse its position, maybe Bill could teach us a lesson. But there...
2. Don't use the argument that revenues from the software companies are taxed (therefore benefiting the community) because they avoid their social responsibility by paying as little tax as possible. Just have a look at Microsoft.
3. If you think Apple is any better, well it is not.
4. Microsoft has abused its dominant position time and times again and continues to do so.
5. Therefore, Bill and Melinda Gates's foundation is just a mountain of hypocrisy: "It has an endownment of USD 38.7 billion as of December 31st, 2007". Maybe if the company properly paid its taxes and did not abuse its position, maybe Bill could teach us a lesson. But there...
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Linux is so 2008
With the Eee PC and the OLPC initiative, Linux has been so far the star of 2008. The only issue with Linux is the number of distributions flying around the place. I have tried the main distros of http://distrowatch.com in the recent months and they all left me very disappointed.
Let me explain. I am coming from XP through Mac OS X. Although I want the freedom and the cool tux wallpaper, I also want everything to work out of the box. I am not a technie and I do not intend to be a techie. If linux cannot provide this, it has no chance of ever denting the MS dominance on home pc.
My top priorities are: -
1. Everything out of the box including wireless. I do not want to hear about ndiswrapper. Ever. I just want WLAN to work
2. Stable. Forget bleeding edge, I am an end user, not a developper
3. Support. I do not want some forum techie to go into serbo-croatian mode when I ask a newbie question
4. KDE. I guess this is personal choice.
I finally found a distribution which matched all this. No, it is not Kubuntu, PCLinuxOS or OpenSuse, it is Pardus.
Works great, looks good, friendly forum, I can't believe this distro is not higher on the top 100. Give it a spin, really, you won't regret it.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
First post
So I guess a quick presentation is the first thing to do.
French, living in London with my girlfriend with a black and white cat and a passion for toying hours and hours on computers to try out new things (mostly Linux).
On this blog, I will probably tell you (or myself mostly) what I think about different linux experiences I have and how I think Microsoft is awful and should be wiped out from the face of the earth this instant.
I may also share with you my views on justice and tax in an onshore/offshore world.
And some things about my cat and cats more generally.
But then again it does not matter because no one will probably ever read me, so it's fine.
French, living in London with my girlfriend with a black and white cat and a passion for toying hours and hours on computers to try out new things (mostly Linux).
On this blog, I will probably tell you (or myself mostly) what I think about different linux experiences I have and how I think Microsoft is awful and should be wiped out from the face of the earth this instant.
I may also share with you my views on justice and tax in an onshore/offshore world.
And some things about my cat and cats more generally.
But then again it does not matter because no one will probably ever read me, so it's fine.
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