Two Non-buntu Alternatives for your Netbook - Part 2: ArchOne

Yesterday we looked at Fluxflux-sl for a Slax based solution on your netbook that is using both modules and Slackware packages.
Today however it is the turn of ArchOne, as the name says a customization of Arch Linux specifically aimed at use on netbooks, in live mode from USB or installed. It is intended for people who "want to try or install Arch Linux" on netbooks "without wasting time with post configuration" and comes with an optimized netbook kernel.
Read more here >>

Read More

Two Non-buntu Alternatives for your Netbook - Part 1: Fluxflux-sl

Chances are several of you, or somebody close to you, got a new netbook over the festive period, and now you are faced with the agonising question what to put on it to make it usable. Chances are the version of Windows that it came with does not really do it for you.

I've dug out two lesser known distributions that are for once not based on Ubuntu or using its repositories, and have nothing to do with Nokia, Intel or Google either. Independent is
Read more here >>

Read More

Salix OS 13.1.2 "LXDE" Introduces Tool to Easily Install from Source

A few days ago I mentioned Salix OS, a Slackware-based distribution, as one of my top five distributions of 2010. Even at the end of the year they are still keeping up the momentum and have released the last remaining version of 13.1.2, this time with the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment (LXDE).

Read more here >>

Read More

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Yes, for almost three months already the shops have been filled with Christmassy stuff and now it is here. Finally, no more teasing, the real deal. And the people who find it all too much have hopefully managed to escape to the Highlands or some other remote area or somewhere in the world where they don't celebrate it, at least not so much, ideally somewhere south.

It's been another interesting year, in life and in the world of linux and open source. Whatever your thoughts, development is bound to continue at break neck speed.
Read more here >>

Read More

A Tinkerers Top 5 Distributions of 2010

In the last few days we've had several posts about personal top 5 favorite distributions of 2010. Everybody has their own favorites, but, for what it's worth, here's my list.
Read more here >>

Read More

Article re. Slax is out on Distrowatch.com

My article about the Slax community remix is out as this week's feature story on Distrowatch. I've been wanting to write about Slax and where it's headed for quite some time, and the recent release of Slax Remix v09 as it is known seemed a good opportunity.

So Slax is far from dead, even though its original creator is not working on it at the
Read more here >>

Read More

New ArchBang Live CD "Symbiosis" in January 2011

Another newly found favorite, ArchBang, is going to release a new version in January 2011. Here's a screenshot. Not that I needed a new release because it is just Arch Linux under the hood and that's been updating perfectly here for the last two months without any stability problems or other issues. I am now running the latest 2.6.36 kernel etc. with wireless still working.

A new release will be good though for if you're just running from disc or USB to get a fresh image.
Read more here >>

Read More

Scientific Linux 6 Alpha 2 Out

Just as promised in the last announcement the Scientific Linux team have released Alpha 2 exactly a week later. At this rate we'll soon have a free Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 clone, which is just as well because the CentOS project seem to be needing more time.
The download links from my previous post are still valid, the previous ISO's have been replaced.
You can also find short release notes here, this time separate for every architecture but nevertheless identical for i386 or for x86_64, particularly interesting for what's been added and changed.
I'm not going to try and turn into Distrowatch and announce every release, but it's quite exciting to see something moving on this front and have a free clone hopefully rather sooner than later. Also, the SL guys are always making some small additions to RHEL that I appreciate.

Read More

New Scientific Linux 6 Alpha is Out

Whatever the one I downloaded and installed dated 15th October 2010 was, apparently Alpha 1 was just released to the SL servers a few days ago on 03 December. Here's a link to a short README for release notes. It also says that an improved SL 6 Alpha 2 is to be expected exactly a week later on Friday 10 December.

There are now two DVD's and a boot ISO which can be downloaded at

http://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/6rolling/i386/iso/
http://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/6rolling/x86_64/iso/

for those who would like to help out with testing or are just curious. I should say that the usual caveats about running test releases apply, i.e. do not run in pruduction environment or on anything mission critical which is self-evident.
Read more here >>

Read More

RHEL 6.0 on the Desktop - thoughts and screenshots

Ever since trying the Alpha of Scientific Linux 6 I've been wanting to check out the finished upstream product. Good thing Red Hat offers 30 day evaluations and a few days ago, although confessing that I'm planning to stay with 5.x for a considerable time to come, registered to download an evaluation copy of Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server, the only one available for testing. However, you can turn this into anything you like.

I'm still running Slackware on my desktops, but truth be told Red Hat products, that includes Fedora for me, seem to work best on this laptop (although Arch does too, no complaints). Others did either not recognise the (wired) NIC, had problems setting up the sound card, or crashed unacceptably often.

Read more here >>

Read More

Quick Look at Scientific Linux 6.0 Alpha

I was meaning to write this yesterday and before you know, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0 final is out. But that doesn't mean we can't post a quick look at this one.
As most of you will know, Scientific Linux is a free clone of RHEL compiled from the original source rpm's, and with the upstream branding removed. As such it is almost identical to the Red Hat product, but in contrast to the CentOS project the SL team are adding and tweaking a few packages to make it better suit their needs.
Read more here >>

Read More

How to add Broadcom 43xx wireless to Scientific Linux 5.5

This one is a bit more involved than getting Broadcom wireless support in Fedora 14, but not that hard either. It should also be valid for CentOS 5.

First of all, if you haven't already done so, ugrade to the latest kernel, at present 2.6.18-194.17.4.el5 .

First you will have to add the EPEL repository because when getting the relevant broadcom packages they rely on this to be enabled for dependency resolution.
EPEL provides add-on packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.x and 4.x releases and compatible derivatives (and also for 6.x in view of the upcoming release). EPEL packages are in most cases built or derived from the equivalent ones in Fedora repository and maintained by the same people. You can read more about the whole project here to find out more about the quality of packages etc, or just skip ahead to add the repository.

Currently, what you want is this command:

su -c 'rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm'

Enter it into a terminal and hit enter. Yes, epel-release-5-4 is correct, there is no 5.5 yet.

Then in Yum Extender or whatever your package manager of choice in Scientific Linux you should already have the Atrpms repository listed. Enable it and the EPEL one and refresh the package listing. Make sure you're looking at available packages through the filter, not updates or installed. Search for broadcom and the correct packages available for your architecture should show up.

Choose broadcom-wl and one of the available kernel modules and install, chances are you want the first  

broadcom-wl-kmdl-2.6.18-194.17.4.el5 kernel modules for the Linux kernel package:

kernel-2.6.18-194.17.4.el5.x86_64.rpm

and not the centos.plus or xen ones.

Reboot, see your new interface detected, enter your credentials into the NetworkManager applet and be online wirelessly! The connection will probably be a bit slower than in Fedora 14.

I installed SL 5.5 a few weeks ago on this laptop to see how it would fare, but there seems to be no guide like this around, only half finished threads and recommendations to use ndiswrapper, which for some reason did not work for me. Setting this up in Fedora got me thinking and it wasn't more than a few minutes after that I had set it up in Scientific Linux as well.

Did others before figure this all out on their own? Going by some threads, not everybody did.

In SL/RHEL/CentOS 6 it shall be more straight forward, probably more like in recent Fedora releases (I hope).

Read More

How to add Broadcom 43xx wireless to Fedora 14

This one is easy, I've never had to do so little fiddling and searching:

Go to http://rpmfusion.org/ and add both the free and the non-free repositories unless the latter one is against your philosophical stance.

You can do this via graphical setup, installing a small rpm file that will set this up for you, or at the command line where you can basically just copy the commands into your terminal (you have to become root for this).

Update your repositories and install all updates prior to proceeding.

Search for broadcom-wl, install the package and reboot.

Voila, there you are. Enter network credentials into NetworkManager or Wicd if you prefer that and you're online. It's never been easier.

And here you can find the respective page on the fedora community website, with links to more wireless solutions.

Read More

Salix OS have released 13.1.2 KDE & KDE Live

On 30/10/2010 the Salix team announced the release of a KDE spin of their latest 13.1.2 offering. This is a boon for everybody whose favorite desktop environment is KDE 4, and from reading the announcement this a standard KDE SC with all the apps that normally gives you, so not much to say about that. It also includes Koffice and perhaps most interestingly has added the Kaffeine media player and the Clementine audio player, a successor to Amarok.
Read more here >>

Read More

The Chakra Project - Innovating on KDE and Arch Linux

The Chakra project started out releasing a live CD based on Arch Linux with KDE 4 for the desktop, initially to make it easier and quicker to install an Arch system with their favorite environment, while also providing an unofficial Arch live CD to test drive the distribution. It is in their own words for anyone who likes the KISS principle of Arch and the elegance of KDE and the Plasma desktop. The project is providing images for both the i686 and x86_64 architectures.

They currently have new betas of their upcoming release 0.3 'Ashoc' out. For anybody who would like to test themselves, they can find the images here for download.

Read more here >>

Read More

What's the matter with Firefox these days?

Not long ago I was still defending Firefox as a good browser that never, or only very rarely like every few months, crashed on me. That may in retrospect have had something to do with hosts file and all sorts of nasties blockers, because once I disabled these for a while for a little test it suddenly kept crashing, like in abnormally exiting, at least once a day.

Read more here >>

Read More

KDE 4: The KDE SC in Kubuntu and Fedora

Although not one of my main desktop environments any longer, I have been keeping track of KDE development now and then and feel it has improved a great deal. Ever since the 4.4 releases it actually seems stable and light enough to use and while not all features and functions present in KDE 3.5 may have been replicated (at least Kwikdisk and Kdiskfree are back), the 4.4 series has marked the point where KDE has finally become usable again. I have to admit, it looks good too. I actually enjoy booting into the new KDE.

Read more here >>

Read More

Experiencing Arch Linux with the ArchBang Live CD

So I got my new laptop ready for some hardcore multi-boot action, and one of the distributions I’ve always wanted to test is ArchBang. I’ve tried Arch before and installed it a couple of times just for fun, both in a virtual environment and on disk, but haven’t been serious about it. It was just to practice the installation and play around.

A couple of months back ArchBang caught my eye, when it was first announced on Distrowatch.com. ArchBang is a live CD distribution of Arch Linux that is light on resources. Arch is known to apply no to, and only if absolutely necessary, minimal patching to upstream software, which usually results in a high degree of stability and an experience as intended by the developers.

Read more here >>

Read More

Wanted: Acer Aspire 5551 seeks distro

It took a while but last weekend I finally got a replacement for the long dead Thinkpad. This must be a common scenario. A predominantly Linux user goes out to get a new laptop and has no idea if some of the new hardware will work with his preferred choice of distros. Fortunately, I had already checked the point most likely to be problematic, the wireless chip. In a previous model it was Atheros. Unfortunately, I assumed this was the case for the entire line-up and found out to my dismay that the Aspire 5551 actually comes with a Broadcom chip. This meant trouble going by everything I'd read.
Read more here >>

Read More

Halo Reach video on BBC 'Click'

The BBC has quite a good technology program in my opinion, and it´s called 'Click'. I watch it every Sunday if I can. There´s a cool video on the site for Halo Reach. Just a shame it´s not made to run native in Linux, once again. I like First Person Shooters anyway, and enjoyed watching it, even though I´m not even really a Halo fan.

More of the Thief universe and the DarkMod, a modification for DooM 3 that allows to build Thief-style fan missions. More on that later. It will still be a while until Thief4 is out, or whatever it will be called then. Just hope they're going to take the time to make it a decent one, not a rush job like Thief 3 Deadly Shadows was and in a sense Thief 2 The Metal Age as well, although infinitely better. It begs the question though whether the industry can still come up with decent game play and an innovative story in this day and age, or if ever more realistic look and eye candy take up too many resources, together with the fact that most are now done for consoles and the PC at the same time, forcing a common denominator. Perhaps the golden age of gaming is behind us. I loved Fallout 3 and this year's version of Alien vs Predator, but at least the last one was a rehash with better graphics, and while being a great game with some improvements on the 1999 one, the older one also felt better in some ways, particularly faster.

So I'm expecting a mixed picture for the future, with most games not worth it for the oldtimer, and some gems.
It's better for the kids, they will not have the feeling, yet, that they've played it all before, only in a different setting and a couple new weapons and features.

Read More

SalixOS 13.1 "Xfce Live" and "LXDE Live" released

Weyhey, if it looked like we´re fast asleep that´s not the case, just travelling moving, and in the process I´ve become less able to update this and test out more distributions. In due course I´ve also had the dubious pleasure to see just how ugly this site looks in IE6, which many internet cafe´s and plenty of employers are still using. But I hope by October everything will be back to normal.

A new live release of my favorite Slackware-based distro is out, bringing it in line with the rest of their traditional offerings. It´s also apparently exactly one year after their first release ever was published.

Read more here >>

Read More

How to get Ralink 2870 wireless USB adapter working in SalixOS/Slackware-13.1

This one has taken me quite a while to find out, with bits of information here and there. Two steps only:

Blacklist rt2800usb in your /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf, preferably with an explanatory comment to yourself why, or at least something like #My own blacklist starts here

blacklist rt2800usb

 Then at least one place recommends to add this line to the end of your /etc/rc.d/rc.local file

iwconfig wlan0 power off

I'm not really sure the second is required but had done it before blacklisting the module, and it works. Check for yourself if it works for you without the second entry.

That's it. Glad I finally finished a complete system upgrade without reinstalling. It's all 13.1 now and sound, video acceleration, wireless all work.

Take care. 

Read More

Iceweasel & Icecat - what's the difference?

Spurred on by looking at Kongoni GNU/Linux I found myself curious and decided to investigate what, if indeed there is any, the difference is between Iceweasel, which appears to have existed first, and IceCat, which until reviewing above distribution I'd never heard of. That's probably because I prefer to use the original software, or if I don't agree I use something completely different. I remember Debian which I was using in the day switching to Iceweasel because of branding and issues with patches, so what was the deal again? Enough people seem to stumble over this so hopefully we can clear up the confusion.

Read more here >>

Read More

A look at the development of Kongoni GNU/Linux

This is just a reposting of the 'A week or two with Kongoni GNU/Linux' article published on Tuxmachines 18/07/2010. I wanted to take the opportunity to showcase a few more screenshots to illustrate the hard drive installer, still fairly basic, and the Ports Installation Gui (PIG) most of all. There are two shots showing it updating the tree and then rebuilding it. Also to show off IceCat now as the default browser. Is it replacing Iceweasel as the FOSS alternative or do they exist in parallel?

Read more here >>

Read More

Linux light - PCLinuxOS 2010.7 Openbox

Why go lean when you can go leaner?

Ok, there are smaller, leaner distributions out there like Tiny Core or these two if you prefer a system that's in many ways similar, but PCLinuxOS Openbox is pretty good while still providing a full set of applications for the consumer desktop, incl. flash, multimedia codecs, wireless. More on that later. I thought of that line while deciding whether to go for the Openbox or the Lxde version. I've had a look at both, but Lxde (short for the light weight desktop environment) is always the same set of apps and the panel strikes me as not quite as elegant. I like the flexibility of modularity and in this case dropped for the Openbox version with the Tint2 panel. Apart from this both spins are almost identical, and for those that don't know, the Lxde desktop is also using Openbox for window management.
Read more here >>

Read More

How to install ATI graphics driver in SalixOS

I'm not planning to copy the entire SalixOS user documentation or FAQ's, only what's of practical interest as it comes up. It just so happened that after years of not needing the proprietary ATI driver I decided to play a demo of a new game which definitely requires it.

So now that for once I'ld need the proprietary driver I'm informed on their website that my product, an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, has moved to legacy support. The last driver 9.3 was released March 2009, and sure enough, my kernel is not supported anymore:

"Error: ./default_policy.sh does not support version"

Damn you AMD/ATI, six years ago I paid you £130,- and you want me to upgrade my perfectly good hardware?

Read more here >>

Read More

Linux light - Absolute Linux 13.1

Light weight Slackware derivatives Part 2 - Absolute Linux

Welcome to Part 2 of my loose series of reviews on light distros based on good old Slackware. After the first roundup in DWW #343 several readers expressed disappointment that Absolute Linux was not included and requested a review. So here we are. At the time it was all about comparing Xfce4 based distros. While we are waiting for both Wolvix and Vector Linux for a stable new release which I will eventually cover to conclude this series (both were more than a year old by the end of February 2010) I am going to take a look at the exciting blend that Absolute Linux is offering in its present incarnation, version 13.1.2.
Read more here >>

Read More

Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" in Freeze

This site is not a news or link aggregator but today I'll make an exception as earlier today news broke that the upcoming Debian 6.0 is now in feature freeze. Although not my main operating system any longer Debian is always one to watch for stability and the number of architectures it supports.

In consequence this means that no more new features will be added and
all work will now be concentrated on polishing Debian “Squeeze” to
achieve the quality Debian stable releases are known for.
The upcoming release will use Linux 2.6.32 as its default kernel
in the installer and on all Linux architectures.

I just wished they'ld have used a newer kernel to get the performance improvements.

Read More

How to upgrade SalixOS 13.0 to 13.1

This is a short guide on how to upgrade your SalixOS to the latest version, 13.1. I'm mirroring the instructions here in case it gets lost in the mist of time and for my own perusal. Please note this was not written by me. All credits go to the SalixOS user documentation team.
Read more here >>

Read More

Chill-out games: Osmos and flOw

If you've had enough of First-person shooters, racing simulations and other high-octane gaming for a while and are looking for some peace and relaxation instead you might like this. I discovered Osmos thanks to this Debian guy's blog. As he says, it's not free software, but it's cross-platform and for only $10 you get the Mac, Windows and Linux versions. We'll probably never use the first two but hey. There's also a demo for each platform on the site.
Read more here >>

Read More

Sabayon 5.3 Xfce & LXDE - a few impressions

First of all let me say this is not intended to be a full review of Sabayon Linux. Sabayon is well known and had its fair share of reviews already, the most recent one I am aware of being very thorough and can be read here. This is more like a quick look and impressions of how the light weight desktop environments do on Sabayon SpinBase.
Read more here >>

Read More

Linux light - SalixOS 13.1 "LXDE"

After looking at SalixOS 13.0 in my comparison of light weight Slackware derivatives for the desktop I thought I should give 13.1 a full standalone review. This also, I'll admit from the start, because I'm very fond of it. Yes, I'm biased.
There's nothing better for me out there apart from Slackware proper, and SalixOS is the unaltered Slackware with a little custom art and a few helpful tools, like easy localization, setting the clock, for adding users, and truly one-click adding of multimedia codecs.
Read more here >>

Read More

Ads and Adblock Plus

Hi all,

This blog is now a little over two weeks old and I'm still experimenting with the layout. I've added a few ads to the site but if you're anything like me you won't notice, between a hosts file and an adblocker I rarely see anything I don't want to see. If you're not using any of this I hope it won't annoy you too much. I've stayed clear of anything flashy and rotating that could be seen as irritating. At least they're all on topic as far as I could tell.
Read more here >>

Read More

Remember the year of the Linux desktop?

It´s a long standing joke, but I think two or three years ago people stopped claiming next year will be the year of the Linux desktop.

Not sure why that is. Perhaps because it is so self-evident to Linuxers that the day has already come and gone without anybody really noticing. Perhaps most have accepted that the year of the Linux desktop does not really matter because what is known as Linux will never be able to beat Microsoft or Apple in this space, nor does it even really try or want to. To think otherwise would be a fundamental misconception.
Read more here >>

Read More

More reviews and areas of interest

Hello there,

both the reviews on Unity Linux and on Kongoni GNU/Linux were received quite well. Got a lot of reads and even the first comments here on this site. Thank you.

My interest is to look at the more obscure and lesser known distributions that don't get much airtime usually. So I'll slowly work myself through them over the next few years. In particular I am interested in distributions from the Slackware, Debian and Mandriva based corners of the Linux world. Also on innovative projects that are not based on anything, like Frugalware.
Read more here >>

Read More

First look at Unity Linux 2010.1 - Mini Review

Unity Linux had their first release on 09/07/2010 after around 1.5 years of development. The project was created in 2009 by former developers from the PClinuxOS (hereafter abbreviated PCLOS) community. [Some contentious and unneccessary stuff snipped ...] One of them was KDulcimer who at the time had his own project TinyMe based on PCLOS, which according to the website started in 2006. His distribution would in the future be based on Unity Linux. So much for how the two are intertwined.
Read more here >>

Read More

Wallpapers

Morning.

Couple of days ago when I was really bored, which doesn't happen that often, I sat down and created a few wallpapers from backgrounds in Chatzilla. Very simple ones, but they have the advantage of not distracting from the work at hand. Personally I can't stand wallpapers on my desktop that are too busy, when you can't even find your icons anymore. I mean I like nice wallpapers and pictures and even use some I've taken on my holidays, just not the too busy ones. Sometimes it's better to just get a picture frame.

Anyway, here's my background from the Slackware-channel.

1280x1024

Read More

Wallpapers

And here's the Chatzilla one for everybody who's nostalgic about the old Mozilla icon.

 

1280x1024

Read More

New Predators movie is out

Finally, another movie in the long-standing Predator franchise is out. This time wittily titled Predators. It looks good, and I'm a huge sucker for anything in the Aliens and Predator universe, so I'll be definitely going to watch this one soon.
Unfortunately this will probably also be just another excuse for a new box set, containing all the old movies plus this one, selling us the same old stuff over and over again, promising slightly different versions, Director's cuts etc., you know the drill. Me, I'm just going to buy this one on DVD and rather miss out on the promises of three minutes that will be different in the boxed set of the movies I already own.

Here are some cool wallpapers and images. And here the trailer on Youtube.

Read More

Goodday and Hello World!

Hello, this is my first post and largely for testing if all is well. I left it long before adding yet another blog to the webisphere, after all the cliche goes everybody and their dog has one, and that's probably true.
Well, I had some time last night not pouring over Nmap guides, not testing a distro or writing a review, nope, last night I rewrote the CV a bit and applied for jobs.
Afterwards in Gmail I got adventurous playing with links in the accounts settings and somehow managed to divert myself to Blogspot, so here we are. It all was a lot quicker and easier than I thought. Let's see if we can keep this Blog up.

After doing a few more tweaks today I ended up on the myspace site of an old fave of mine, back as a puberty haunted teenager and young wannabe punk in the eighties. Anti-Cimex, wow, what a hammer. Nice to see they're still around. Not many bands were better at what they did, with the possible exception of their successors of sorts, Wolfpack / Wolfbrigade.

The kings of chaos in Sweden. Ferocious speed thrash that continually displays that disorderly early Discharge attack, but is smashed forth much faster. Hardcore guitar soloing whines generate electric volts, as Anti Cimex spew out an intense onslaught of clamorous nitro-laced aggression. Jonsson´s vocals get rawer with each release. This is one of the most legendary Swedish kängcore bands. They started in 1981, inspired by bands like Discharge, Varukers, Germs, Black Sabbath, Disorder and others. The line-up was Johnsson (bass), Nillen (vocals), Charlie (drums), Jocke (guitar). The quickly released the EP "Anarkist Attack". In 1982 the linup changed, with Johnsson on vocals and Conrad on bass. They recorded the EP "Raped Ass", and in 1984 they released the classic EP "Victims Of A Bombraid", with yet another bassist.

I'm always pleasantly surprised to find anybody from that period is still alive, with all the touring, partying, sleeplessness, troubles with Skinheads and harassment from cops and border guards that was involved.
Most of us got older and eventually a bit mellower, and perhaps also a little bit more adjusted. This is not going to be a blog about hardcore punk, so I'm going to quit now after this inaugural posting.

I'm glad I left South Africa before the Vuvuzelas descended, but would love to be back now. There's got to be a way to make a living there without becoming one of the stranded European and American drifters and junkies that compete with the local beggars, coming up with some sob story how they been robbed of all their possessions on Table Mountain or something, and all he needs from you is $300,- until he can get his passport from the embassy and then he'll pay you back, honest.

Expect more stuff on Linux, Unix, BSD (mostly reviews, less tutorials), holidays and travelling, development cooperation and social injustice. And on English Ale, because Autumn is not far off now.

Until then, good night.

Read More