Re: Is there such a distro?
On Thu 03 Jun 2010 16:03:38 NZST +1200, Nick Rout wrote: physical access means root access! Only if you can boot from CD/USB stick (which any lab admin has disabled), or if you manage to disassemble the computer while the lab admin looks at you holding his baseball bat. Good luck. On the list of reasons why you couldn't possibly afford a root password on a lab computer is pretty darn silly, which haven't been mentioned: * The admin might have a very good reason to need or want it. * If your root password can be brute-forced during a lab class, you sure didn't deserve any better anyway. * It's a research institution, so playing with the security system where the potential damage is marginal is part of the game. I know admins who just shrug their shoulders for this very reason, as long as no actual damage takes place. * Did someone go there to get a degree, or to be kicked off campus by the acceptable use policy? But the most annoying thing about sudo is the crowd of Buntunistas(TM) who think everyone absolutely has to use it everytime everywhere just because it's the default for their favourite distro, when benefits are at best arguable and at worst a security problem. It's a tool. It gets used when and if it gives a useful return. Just like with any other tool. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Thu 03 Jun 2010 10:04:25 NZST +1200, aidal...@no8wireless.co.nz wrote: By the way, it's only five extra keystrokes to prefix a command with sudo . And exactly why do you think commands are called mv, rm, and ls? ;-) Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Solor Vox solor...@gmail.com wrote: On 2 June 2010 10:31, Jim Cheetham j...@gonzul.net wrote: If you are the owner of the computer in question and you are competant, there is no reason at all not to use root all the time. Just set your uid to 0 and be done with it. I'm as serious with that comment as I am with writing passwords down, i.e. very serious. This is both horrible and dangerous advice. First, we are human and I Not really. It's an extreme position and I put the word competent in quotes. Personally, I don't run as UID 0 (although on my main workstation only I do permit sudo with no password for my user). I'm not going to bother with a point-by-point discussion of your comments, they're all sufficiently correct. I just don't agree that they are situations you need to guard against too strongly on a workstation where you should be able to rebuild from an ISO with minimal impact at short notice. That sounds a little bit like moving the goalposts for the discussion, but it's part of the definition of competent ... :-) However, if you are *not* the owner (i.e. in any business context) then sudo provides a very valuable audit log experience. You have 5 Sure, sudo helps with logs if the admins use it. Well, don't give them the choice. I'm talking about production systems in a professional services model (ITIL etc), not just a bunch of guys logging on to a webserver somewhere to hack on their blogs. In these environments, audit is far more important than giving the admin a pleasant work environment .. -jim
Re: Is there such a distro?
Peter Glassenbury (CSSE) wrote: Sorry not even at a university lab... If someone wants to brute force our root account, they obviously have not enough work to do. Our logging should find the attempts... Like Volker, I have yet to be convinced of the point of typing sudo in front of all the commands I want to run as root. When it becomes reflex, you are going to make the same mistakes as if you login as root. True, because the attack would have to be carried out manually, so you could just pull out the crow bar and stand outside the lab when it happens, not to mention that it would take forever to reach, say, 100 attempts, which would hardly make a dent (so to speak). There are pros and cons of either choice. For me, it's pointless to have a root password, because I can never remember what it is, and I usually only want to execute one command as root at a time, anyway. But that's just my preference. I can imagine that Pete boots the lab machines into single-user mode, for which he needs the root password, to diagnose problems. Even if that was disabled, there could still only be one password for admins: the BIOS password (for booting from a CD, for example). By the way, it's only five extra keystrokes to prefix a command with sudo . --Aidan signature.asc Description: PGP signature Part 3 Description: micalg/pgp-sha1
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 10:04 AM, aidal...@no8wireless.co.nz wrote: Peter Glassenbury (CSSE) wrote: Sorry not even at a university lab... If someone wants to brute force our root account, they obviously have not enough work to do. Our logging should find the attempts... Like Volker, I have yet to be convinced of the point of typing sudo in front of all the commands I want to run as root. When it becomes reflex, you are going to make the same mistakes as if you login as root. True, because the attack would have to be carried out manually, so you could just pull out the crow bar and stand outside the lab when it happens, not to mention that it would take forever to reach, say, 100 attempts, which would hardly make a dent (so to speak). There are pros and cons of either choice. For me, it's pointless to have a root password, because I can never remember what it is, and I usually only want to execute one command as root at a time, anyway. But that's just my preference. I can imagine that Pete boots the lab machines into single-user mode, for which he needs the root password, to diagnose problems. Even if that was disabled, there could still only be one password for admins: the BIOS password (for booting from a CD, for example). physical access means root access!
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Tue 01 Jun 2010 12:39:09 NZST +1200, Hadley Rich wrote: Even more useful is sudo sux sux sux: Command not found. sux was deprecated some while ago. It's now integrated in su, and runs xauth somehow via pam. A ~/.xauth... is created. It Just Works(TM). which gives root the ability to open gui tools. I always take that for granted. (Assuming local user login, not ssh.) `gksu gedit` gksu gksu: Command not found. Ok so can you make do without a root password, but I still don't see why I have to and remain not to be interested. Each to their own. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Mon, 31 May 2010 12:27:38 you wrote: On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 12:10 PM, Ryan McCoskrie ryan.mccosk...@gmail.com wrote: Okay there have been a few misunderstandings about what I meant in my original post on this thread. After some thinking I believe that I can clarify myself properly On Sat, 29 May 2010 13:02:30 you wrote: Are there any desktop centered distros whose primary aim is to have as few surprises as possible for people who are already accustomed to Linux? By accustomed to Linux I mean that this user is more comfortable with Linux than any other system but not necessarily a power user. I just want a very generic distro. By generic I don't just mean desktop centered with no paradigm shifting technologies. I mean a system that aims to have as few original contributions as possible what do you mean as few original contributions as possible - do you mean you want a distro without any special tools that are designed just for that distro, by the distro maker? AFAIK that is near impossible without simply repackaging something else (such as the case with CentOS and Redhat). But yeah as few non-universal features as possible and absolutely nothing set up in a unique or near unique way. I suppose the real reason I want a system like what I am trying to describe is so that we can point and say Well there is no standard Linux but that one works exactly how any junior admin would expect. If so, ubuntu won't do you as they innovate quite a bit, as does fedora, as does suse. That comes of having a bunch of paid developers[1] sitting there developing, innovating and differentiating their distros. And at times their developments get taken up by other distros. eg REDHAT package manager is used by a lot of distros besides Redhat, upstart was developed by Canonical but is now also used by Fedora and others. If you want a very generic system with no distro centered addons then you perhaps don't want a distro at all, because they all try to differentiate themselves in some way with some new 'feature'. If I still misunderstood what you are after then please explain again. and have a complete out-of-the-box set of programs (GUI and CLI) that one would expect out of a Linux based system. P.S: I know that you can set a root password on Ubuntu but I seam to remember other things being dropped because they're of no use to granny. You don't need a root password. Ubuntu proves that. You do if you have a neurotic need to configure every detail but lack the time and bandwidth for Gentoo/Slackware/LFS. P.P.S: We're lucky here but there is still need for DVD based systems for those without broadband. I was running Fedora without internet any connection at all from mid 2006 to the start of 2008. [1] OK so fedora's paid developers really work for redhat.
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 8:14 PM, Ryan McCoskrie ryan.mccosk...@gmail.com wrote: You do if you have a neurotic need to configure every detail but lack the time and bandwidth for Gentoo/Slackware/LFS. well give it a root password then. What the hell has bandwidth to do with configuration?
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Tue, 01 Jun 2010 20:27:07 you wrote: On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 8:14 PM, Ryan McCoskrie ryan.mccosk...@gmail.com wrote: You do if you have a neurotic need to configure every detail but lack the time and bandwidth for Gentoo/Slackware/LFS. well give it a root password then. What the hell has bandwidth to do with configuration? Those are the ones most famously in need of heavy configuration to make them usable on a day to day basis and LFS and Gentoo both need to be downloaded bit by bit while they are installed as opposed to acquired from a computer magazine.
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 8:47 PM, Ryan McCoskrie ryan.mccosk...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, 01 Jun 2010 20:27:07 you wrote: On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 8:14 PM, Ryan McCoskrie ryan.mccosk...@gmail.com wrote: You do if you have a neurotic need to configure every detail but lack the time and bandwidth for Gentoo/Slackware/LFS. well give it a root password then. What the hell has bandwidth to do with configuration? Those are the ones most famously in need of heavy configuration to make them usable on a day to day basis and LFS and Gentoo both need to be downloaded bit by bit while they are installed as opposed to acquired from a computer magazine. The Edgeware Community Centre has a machine with many linux distros on it, you can write a cd. But like any operating system you will constantly upgrading. Things are fixed. They require updating. Security updates. Program improvements. Even a week after release of any new distro version there will be updates.
Re: Is there such a distro?
Volker Kuhlmann wrote: Ok so can you make do without a root password, but I still don't see why I have to and remain not to be interested. Each to their own. I think you really want to disable root login (entirely) for, say, a university computer-lab. Anyone could switch to a virtual console and anonymously brute-force the root account. For personal systems, as you said, each to their own. Any system administrators care to start a cool-flame war[1]? ;-) --Aidan 1 A flame war without third-degree burns. signature.asc Description: PGP signature signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Tue, 2010-06-01 at 20:47 +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: [snip] You know Ryan, I still haven't got a clue what you're actually wanting! TBH, any linux, freebsd, Solaris, HP-UX, etc, etc, etc - they all provide a platform for you to run your applications upon. They all talk to each other in the same manner and are built on the same philosophy. Sure I'm generalising, but the differences are trivial. It's a part of the learning process to either embrace them or to learn to use a subset of them that work exactly the same on most platforms. The only real differences are the sysadmin toolkits, and if you're that way inclined, then you need to know those trivialities. Cheers, Steve. smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Tue, 2010-06-01 at 21:20 +1200, Aidan Gauland wrote: Volker Kuhlmann wrote: Ok so can you make do without a root password, but I still don't see why I have to and remain not to be interested. Each to their own. I think you really want to disable root login (entirely) for, say, a university computer-lab. Anyone could switch to a virtual console and anonymously brute-force the root account. For personal systems, as you said, each to their own. Any system administrators care to start a cool-flame war[1]? ;-) --Aidan 1 A flame war without third-degree burns. I'd go further: read-only systems, bring your own usb stick/nfs mounts. Run it like a kiosk. Log out, reset. Steve. smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
Re: Is there such a distro?
On 01/06/10 21:20, Aidan Gauland wrote: Volker Kuhlmann wrote: Ok so can you make do without a root password, but I still don't see why I have to and remain not to be interested. Each to their own. I think you really want to disable root login (entirely) for, say, a university computer-lab. Anyone could switch to a virtual console and anonymously brute-force the root account. Sorry not even at a university lab... If someone wants to brute force our root account, they obviously have not enough work to do. Our logging should find the attempts... Like Volker, I have yet to be convinced of the point of typing sudo in front of all the commands I want to run as root. When it becomes reflex, you are going to make the same mistakes as if you login as root. Pete -- --- Peter Glassenbury Computer Science department p...@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz University of Canterbury +64 3 3642987 ext 7762 New Zealand
Re: Is there such a distro?
Like Volker, I have yet to be convinced of the point of typing sudo in front of all the commands I want to run as root. When it becomes reflex, you are going to make the same mistakes as if you login as root. True true. Still, I like not having a root password. Means I don't have to change it after someone has had a one-off need for admin rights. Yes, I know I should be changing it frequently anyway. sudo su gives me root when I have lots to do.
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 7:57 AM, Peter Glassenbury (CSSE) peter.glassenb...@canterbury.ac.nz wrote: Like Volker, I have yet to be convinced of the point of typing sudo in front of all the commands I want to run as root. When it becomes reflex, you are going to make the same mistakes as if you login as root. If you are the owner of the computer in question and you are competant, there is no reason at all not to use root all the time. Just set your uid to 0 and be done with it. I'm as serious with that comment as I am with writing passwords down, i.e. very serious. However, if you are *not* the owner (i.e. in any business context) then sudo provides a very valuable audit log experience. You have 5 admins -- which one was it that logged on as root and broke your production system? With sudo, it is much easier to track back on problems. You can use sudo to get a root shell, rather than restrict it to individual commands, if you want the flexibility. -jim
Re: Is there such a distro?
On 2 June 2010 10:31, Jim Cheetham j...@gonzul.net wrote: If you are the owner of the computer in question and you are competant, there is no reason at all not to use root all the time. Just set your uid to 0 and be done with it. I'm as serious with that comment as I am with writing passwords down, i.e. very serious. This is both horrible and dangerous advice. First, we are human and I don't care how competent you are, people make mistakes. Running as a normal user the impact of mistakes are much less. Running as root, a mistake could mean re-install from backups. Second, even if you are on top of what you do, a run away process becomes much more dangerous to the system. The reserve free space (usually 5%) that is there in case of a too full disk doesn't work. Many applications are buggy and depend on user level access to protect the system. (wireshark/and the like) Do you really trust flash/firefox not to do bad things as root? Running as root also has direct access to memory and can kill/modify memory of other processes. However, if you are *not* the owner (i.e. in any business context) then sudo provides a very valuable audit log experience. You have 5 admins -- which one was it that logged on as root and broke your production system? With sudo, it is much easier to track back on problems. You can use sudo to get a root shell, rather than restrict it to individual commands, if you want the flexibility. -jim Sure, sudo helps with logs if the admins use it. I use a configuration management systems to ensure things are kept in check. Typically I find that my admins would use it when doing simple things. (vim/restarting services) But if they need to do a lot of work, sudo su - is used. With a remote root user login it could be any one of the admins. With sudo, the admin user logs in with their account and then runs sudo. So you get some ideas. =) Sudo also allows you to give fine-grained acess controls intead of full root. Allowing junor admins to do x,y,z only is a good thing. (tm) sV
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Wed, 2010-06-02 at 08:31 +1000, Jim Cheetham wrote: On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 7:57 AM, Peter Glassenbury (CSSE) peter.glassenb...@canterbury.ac.nz wrote: Like Volker, I have yet to be convinced of the point of typing sudo in front of all the commands I want to run as root. When it becomes reflex, you are going to make the same mistakes as if you login as root. If you are the owner of the computer in question and you are competant, there is no reason at all not to use root all the time. Just set your uid to 0 and be done with it. I'm as serious with that comment as I am with writing passwords down, i.e. very serious. However, if you are *not* the owner (i.e. in any business context) then sudo provides a very valuable audit log experience. You have 5 admins -- which one was it that logged on as root and broke your production system? With sudo, it is much easier to track back on problems. You can use sudo to get a root shell, rather than restrict it to individual commands, if you want the flexibility. -jim I am in absolute agreement with both of these statements (although I expect you're waiting for the flame war as well Jim), until it comes to directly accessing remote systems as root - even if it is your server. Having to guess which user account to ssh into ( there are plenty of account name popularity lists around to suggest the ones *not* to use ), as well as the password massively increases security. Add a fail2ban / denyhosts and it'll take a pretty serious distributed attack to succeed. Personally, I add a vpn to the mix as well, and only use raw ssh in an emergency from specific IP addresses. That way they have to find my treehouse in Borneo before going for my servers. ( Oh what a giveaway! ) But in a shared admin environment, the sudo's audit trail gets rid of all those sloping shoulders... and we all make mistakes after all! My $0.02, Steve -- Steve Holdoway st...@greengecko.co.nz http://www.greengecko.co.nz MSN: st...@greengecko.co.nz Skype: sholdowa smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 12:10 PM, Ryan McCoskrie ryan.mccosk...@gmail.com wrote: By generic I don't just mean desktop centered with no paradigm shifting technologies. I mean a system that aims to have as few original contributions as possible and have a complete out-of-the-box set of programs (GUI and CLI) that one would expect out of a Linux based system. I think you're really looking for the most old-fashioned distro :-) For example, you probably want init scripts in /etc/rc* ... which as many distros as possible are leaving behind ... Debian is the best-managed old-fashioned system, but they have package guidelines that mean the installed packages often do not match the upstream author's original intentions; but you didn't explicitly say you wanted to be upstream-compliant. You might enjoy Gobo -- I'm really not sure about the out-of-the-box experience, but the ability to bring in anything upstream and run it with the original author's intended environment is pretty much unparalleled -- there has to be a single kernel, but you can use different libc for different programs if you want, easily. -jim
Re: Is there such a distro?
On 31 May 2010 18:54, Jim Cheetham j...@gonzul.net wrote: I think you're really looking for the most old-fashioned distro :-) The other day I discovered that I still have a Yggdrasil Fall '95 CD. I was going to chuck it out but a powerful sense of premonition and the desire to keep a keepsake stopped me . I'm pretty sure I can still lay my hand on it. I believe it was the first ever LiveCD for linux. You may have it if your want it. -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Mon 31 May 2010 12:27:38 NZST +1200, Nick Rout wrote: You don't need a root password. Ubuntu proves that. No it doesn't. It only proves that granny doesn't need to do root operation. And it's the very first thing I always fix on those systems, as I refuse to be forced to prefix everything I do with sudo. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Mon, 2010-05-31 at 20:31 +1200, Volker Kuhlmann wrote: And it's the very first thing I always fix on those systems, as I refuse to be forced to prefix everything I do with sudo. People that don't understand sudo often say these sorts of things. `man sudo` shows that you can use `sudo -i` or `sudo -s` hads -- http://nicegear.co.nz New Zealand's Open Source Hardware Supplier
Re: Is there such a distro?
On 31 May 2010 20:31, Volker Kuhlmann list0...@paradise.net.nz wrote: And it's the very first thing I always fix on those systems, as I refuse to be forced to prefix everything I do with sudo. $ sudo su - # =) sV
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Mon 31 May 2010 20:56:00 NZST +1200, Hadley Rich wrote: `man sudo` shows that you can use `sudo -i` or `sudo -s` Yes, useful - thanks! Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Mon, 2010-05-31 at 20:58 +1200, Solor Vox wrote: On 31 May 2010 20:31, Volker Kuhlmann list0...@paradise.net.nz wrote: And it's the very first thing I always fix on those systems, as I refuse to be forced to prefix everything I do with sudo. $ sudo su - # =) sV Even though you lose the accountability of the sudo log, it still does add extra protection of not being to remotely log in as root, and there's no password, no certificate to enable it if/when you get there. Yes, I know there are other ways of doing it. All have their pros and cons... and I suppose sudo hasn't been tested by the hackers yet. After all, DNS was secure as until that happened (: I consider remote access available only as joe.bloggs, followed by sudo to be far safer than being able to ssh in as root. But then risk is a very subjective thing. Steve smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
Re: Is there such a distro?
Steve Holdoway wrote: Even though you lose the accountability of the sudo log, it still does add extra protection of not being to remotely log in as root, and there's no password, no certificate to enable it if/when you get there. Yes, I know there are other ways of doing it. All have their pros and cons... and I suppose sudo hasn't been tested by the hackers yet. After all, DNS was secure as until that happened (: I consider remote access available only as joe.bloggs, followed by sudo to be far safer than being able to ssh in as root. But then risk is a very subjective thing. Don't forget user toor! OK, this is really a BSD thing. :P --Aidan signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Mon, 2010-05-31 at 22:05 +1200, Aidan Gauland wrote: Steve Holdoway wrote: Don't forget user toor! OK, this is really a BSD thing. :P Ah, the ugly viking, as an Irish cow-orker of mine used to call him (: Steve smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
Re: Is there such a distro?
On 31 May 2010 21:44, Steve Holdoway st...@greengecko.co.nz wrote: Even though you lose the accountability of the sudo log, it still does add extra protection of not being to remotely log in as root, and there's no password, no certificate to enable it if/when you get there. If all you're looking to do is prevent root login, sshd_config can do that. Having a locked or password scrambled also adds some protection on a local level. Yes, I know there are other ways of doing it. All have their pros and cons... and I suppose sudo hasn't been tested by the hackers yet. After all, DNS was secure as until that happened (: Sudo has flaws and has been attacked by hackers. One of the easiest is exploiting bad/lazy admins who don't set full paths of restricted commands. Example: jdoe ALL = mount jdoe ALL = shutdown jdoe ALL = /usr/bin/rsync One might think that this limits jdoe to run mount, shutdown, and rsync. But there is nothing from stopping them from creating a script or copying bash to a local mount and then running that. So you should include full paths, and if possible, arguments. jdoe ALL= /bin/mount /mnt/foo Even though the rsync has a full path, rsync can be used to copy files, so it can be used to copy/delete files as root. There are also some local process escalation tricks involving SMP and threads that allow you to keep root permissions. I think sudo is a great tool, but it's just one of many in my toolbox. sV
Re: Is there such a distro?
Solor Vox wrote: $ sudo su - # Even more useful is sudo sux which gives root the ability to open gui tools. Derek -- Derek J Smithies Ph.D. Christchurch, New Zealand -- How did you make it work?? the usual, got everything right
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Tue, 2010-06-01 at 12:23 +1200, Derek Smithies wrote: Even more useful is sudo sux which gives root the ability to open gui tools. Be careful with using sudo in this mannor. You run the risk of creating problems for yourself. The same goes for running graphical programs with sudo like so; `sudo gedit` If you need to run a graphical program then you should run it with gksu like so; `gksu gedit` The reason for this is that sudo (unless invoked with the -i switch) will run as the user root but with the users environment. This may (or may not) cause files in your home directory to be created or overwritten owned by root. This in turn may effect the ability to run the program as your normal user in the future. hads -- http://nicegear.co.nz New Zealand's Open Source Hardware Supplier
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 12:39 PM, Hadley Rich h...@nice.net.nz wrote: On Tue, 2010-06-01 at 12:23 +1200, Derek Smithies wrote: Even more useful is sudo sux which gives root the ability to open gui tools. Be careful with using sudo in this mannor. You run the risk of creating problems for yourself. The same goes for running graphical programs with sudo like so; `sudo gedit` If you need to run a graphical program then you should run it with gksu like so; `gksu gedit` The reason for this is that sudo (unless invoked with the -i switch) will run as the user root but with the users environment. This may (or may not) cause files in your home directory to be created or overwritten owned by root. This in turn may effect the ability to run the program as your normal user in the future. I had a similar problem with ~/.bash_history being owned by root. Probably for that reason.
Re: Is there such a distro?
Okay there have been a few misunderstandings about what I meant in my original post on this thread. After some thinking I believe that I can clarify myself properly On Sat, 29 May 2010 13:02:30 you wrote: Are there any desktop centered distros whose primary aim is to have as few surprises as possible for people who are already accustomed to Linux? By accustomed to Linux I mean that this user is more comfortable with Linux than any other system but not necessarily a power user. I just want a very generic distro. By generic I don't just mean desktop centered with no paradigm shifting technologies. I mean a system that aims to have as few original contributions as possible and have a complete out-of-the-box set of programs (GUI and CLI) that one would expect out of a Linux based system. P.S: I know that you can set a root password on Ubuntu but I seam to remember other things being dropped because they're of no use to granny. P.P.S: We're lucky here but there is still need for DVD based systems for those without broadband. I was running Fedora without internet any connection at all from mid 2006 to the start of 2008.
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 12:10 PM, Ryan McCoskrie ryan.mccosk...@gmail.com wrote: Okay there have been a few misunderstandings about what I meant in my original post on this thread. After some thinking I believe that I can clarify myself properly On Sat, 29 May 2010 13:02:30 you wrote: Are there any desktop centered distros whose primary aim is to have as few surprises as possible for people who are already accustomed to Linux? By accustomed to Linux I mean that this user is more comfortable with Linux than any other system but not necessarily a power user. I just want a very generic distro. By generic I don't just mean desktop centered with no paradigm shifting technologies. I mean a system that aims to have as few original contributions as possible what do you mean as few original contributions as possible - do you mean you want a distro without any special tools that are designed just for that distro, by the distro maker? If so, ubuntu won't do you as they innovate quite a bit, as does fedora, as does suse. That comes of having a bunch of paid developers[1] sitting there developing, innovating and differentiating their distros. And at times their developments get taken up by other distros. eg REDHAT package manager is used by a lot of distros besides Redhat, upstart was developed by Canonical but is now also used by Fedora and others. If you want a very generic system with no distro centered addons then you perhaps don't want a distro at all, because they all try to differentiate themselves in some way with some new 'feature'. If I still misunderstood what you are after then please explain again. and have a complete out-of-the-box set of programs (GUI and CLI) that one would expect out of a Linux based system. P.S: I know that you can set a root password on Ubuntu but I seam to remember other things being dropped because they're of no use to granny. You don't need a root password. Ubuntu proves that. P.P.S: We're lucky here but there is still need for DVD based systems for those without broadband. I was running Fedora without internet any connection at all from mid 2006 to the start of 2008. [1] OK so fedora's paid developers really work for redhat.
Re: Is there such a distro?
Okay there have been a few misunderstandings about what I meant in my original post on this thread. After some thinking I believe that I can clarify myself properly On Sat, 29 May 2010 13:02:30 you wrote: Are there any desktop centered distros whose primary aim is to have as few surprises as possible for people who are already accustomed to Linux? By accustomed to Linux I mean that this user is more comfortable with Linux than any other system but not necessarily a power user. I just want a very generic distro. By generic I don't just mean desktop centered with no paradigm shifting technologies. I mean a system that aims to have as few original contributions as possible and have a complete out-of-the-box set of programs (GUI and CLI) that one would expect out of a Linux based system. I too am still not sure what you are after. I have done a fair bit of distro hopping and playing with VM's. If you want to get exactly what you want I would suggest Gentoo or ArchLinux. All of the others are customised by their creators as they think is the best to suit their target user groups. If you do not like them try another. Rob
Re: Is there such a distro?
Ryan McCoskrie wrote: Okay there have been a few misunderstandings about what I meant in my original post on this thread. After some thinking I believe that I can clarify myself properly On Sat, 29 May 2010 13:02:30 you wrote: Are there any desktop centered distros whose primary aim is to have as few surprises as possible for people who are already accustomed to Linux? By accustomed to Linux I mean that this user is more comfortable with Linux than any other system but not necessarily a power user. I just want a very generic distro. By generic I don't just mean desktop centered with no paradigm shifting technologies. I mean a system that aims to have as few original contributions as possible and have a complete out-of-the-box set of programs (GUI and CLI) that one would expect out of a Linux based system. OK, just throwing out a crazy idea here: install DSL or Puppy (or something similar) and put off upgrading for as long as you can stay sane with your system. I don't use either of these regularly -- I use Debian testing -- I'm just throwing out an idea. --Aidan signature.asc Description: PGP signature Part 3 Description: micalg/pgp-sha1
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Sat, 2010-05-29 at 17:19 +1200, Nick Rout wrote: On Sat, May 29, 2010 at 4:56 PM, Christopher Sawtell csawt...@gmail.com wrote: On 29 May 2010 16:41, Nick Rout nick.r...@gmail.com wrote: snip Only in the context of LinHES, but I have been following the forums and so forth and thinking about giving it a go on my laptop. If you do, would appreciate an email on how it works, issues etc. Pretty near had Ubuntu Cheers Chris T
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Sat, 2010-05-29 at 14:38 +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: On Sat, 29 May 2010 13:44:11 you wrote: On Sat, 2010-05-29 at 13:02 +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: I just want a very generic distro. Whay do you mean? I'd've called most of those you mentioned 'generic', as opposed to - say - myth, voyage, etc. A distro aiming at as few surprises as possible. Most of what I have mentioned are relatively generic but all have some surprises. Fedora has become particularly annoying to upgrade and Ubuntu tries to prevent serious tinkering etc, etc. What surprises? debian, CentOS, ubuntu are all generic things. Can't comment on how bleeding edge Fed is these days. set a root password on Ubuntu and it's more like an up-to-date debian... which is good! The problem I have with what you're asking is that there are different versions of a distro for a reason. eg Ubuntu... LTS for servers, standard for desktops, xubuntu for older machines, netbook remix for... and so on. Are you after minimal, like a vanilla debian net install? No, full desktop from a disk. You'll really need a dvd for that then... Cheers, Steve smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
Re: Is there such a distro?
Do you use Arch yourself? And if so, for how long? Long time listener, etc... I've used it for at least a year on my eee 701. I run minimal install with no window manager. Openbox with manual 'startx', and all programs on keybinds, with feh to set background, conky and htop/ntop for stats. Uptime shows ~18s with everything going, and boots into ~45meg of ram. It takes a good day to install if you haven't used /etc/rc.* files before, and weeks of occasional tinkering, but the customise is worth the effort. Arch makes no assumptions. It forces you to custom build for your environment, and it pays off. My 900mhz (underclocked to 630mhz by factory default), boots fast, performs fast (considered package selection helps also (ie. abiword/gnumeric over openoffice, or kazehakase/midori/some chromium variant over firefox). It does whatever you build it to do, and gives incredible satisfaction from that. Pacman (package management) is a tar.gz package manager written in C. It's fast, and a very shallow learning curve away from apt-get for the average ubuntu user. The rolling release model is a trade-off for stability (I use debian lenny on my server), but not installing fresh or having to deal with an apt-get dist-upgrade is nice (perhaps it has improved since I've used it, but a system upgrade will always be messy). It's made command line fun for me. And being able to use vi, at least a little bit, definitely helps on a foreign system, or when you don't have a display or a mouse... -- Chris Darby
Re: Is there such a distro?
On 29 May 2010 13:02, Ryan McCoskrie ryan.mccosk...@gmail.com wrote: Are there any desktop centered distros whose primary aim is to have as few surprises as possible for people who are already accustomed to Linux? So far all of the distros I have seen (old Knoppix, Red Hat, Linspire, Ubuntu, Fedora, Kubuntu, Slackware, Mandriva, Open Suse, Gentoo, Debian and a few others that I have tried for an afternoon or so) have had some other primary goal. I just want a very generic distro. I have found Sabayon pretty good. The CoreCD version would probably do what you want pretty well. http://forum.sabayon.org/viewtopic.php?f=60t=20421 There is also a distro called 'Caclculate-Linux' which is similar, and quite possibly somewhat better. http://www.calculate-linux.org/en I have played with the Live CD and was pretty impressed. I have not installed it because - after a bunch of upgrades - Sabayon became rough enough for my simple needs. P.S: If anyone with the resources wants to start up such a distro I'm willing to help. Sorry no, there are umpteen thousand Linux distros available already, and I am now strictly in 'user mode' as far as computing is concerned. i.e. I don't need or want the stress. -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Sat, 2010-05-29 at 13:02 +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: I just want a very generic distro. Whay do you mean? I'd've called most of those you mentioned 'generic', as opposed to - say - myth, voyage, etc. Are you after minimal, like a vanilla debian net install? Cheers, Steve -- Steve Holdoway st...@greengecko.co.nz http://www.greengecko.co.nz MSN: st...@greengecko.co.nz Skype: sholdowa smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Sat, 29 May 2010 13:44:11 you wrote: On Sat, 2010-05-29 at 13:02 +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: I just want a very generic distro. Whay do you mean? I'd've called most of those you mentioned 'generic', as opposed to - say - myth, voyage, etc. A distro aiming at as few surprises as possible. Most of what I have mentioned are relatively generic but all have some surprises. Fedora has become particularly annoying to upgrade and Ubuntu tries to prevent serious tinkering etc, etc. Are you after minimal, like a vanilla debian net install? No, full desktop from a disk.
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Sat, 2010-05-29 at 13:02 +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: Are there any desktop centered distros whose primary aim is to have as few surprises as possible for people who are already accustomed to Linux? So far all of the distros I have seen (old Knoppix, Red Hat, Linspire, Ubuntu, Fedora, Kubuntu, Slackware, Mandriva, Open Suse, Gentoo, Debian and a few others that I have tried for an afternoon or so) have had some other primary goal. I just want a very generic distro. P.S: If anyone with the resources wants to start up such a distro I'm willing to help. Debian stable, or PC linux os, or run a google for roll your own Linux. Sorry can not remember the url Cheeers the kiwi
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Sat, 2010-05-29 at 14:38 +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: On Sat, 29 May 2010 13:44:11 you wrote: On Sat, 2010-05-29 at 13:02 +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: I just want a very generic distro. Whay do you mean? I'd've called most of those you mentioned 'generic', as opposed to - say - myth, voyage, etc. A distro aiming at as few surprises as possible. Most of what I have mentioned are relatively generic but all have some surprises. Fedora has become particularly annoying to upgrade and Ubuntu tries to prevent serious tinkering etc, etc. Amen cheers Chris T
Re: Is there such a distro?
On 29 May 2010 15:03 chris che...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, 2010-05-29 at 14:38 +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: On Sat, 29 May 2010 13:44:11 you wrote: On Sat, 2010-05-29 at 13:02 +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: I just want a very generic distro. Whay do you mean? I'd've called most of those you mentioned 'generic', as opposed to - say - myth, voyage, etc. A distro aiming at as few surprises as possible. Most of what I have mentioned are relatively generic but all have some surprises. Fedora has become particularly annoying to upgrade and Ubuntu tries to prevent serious tinkering etc, etc. Amen cheers Chris T In that case I reckon you need one of the DIY distros. e.g. Linux from Scratch. http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ Source Mage. http://sourcemage.org/ Gentoo http://www.gentoo.org/ is also a possibility, but you mention that as being undesirable. I'm sure some of us would be prepared to set up our machines as hosts in a compiler farm for you. Volunteers CLUGgers? -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Sat, May 29, 2010 at 3:47 PM, Christopher Sawtell csawt...@gmail.com wrote: On 29 May 2010 15:03 chris che...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, 2010-05-29 at 14:38 +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: On Sat, 29 May 2010 13:44:11 you wrote: On Sat, 2010-05-29 at 13:02 +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: I just want a very generic distro. Whay do you mean? I'd've called most of those you mentioned 'generic', as opposed to - say - myth, voyage, etc. A distro aiming at as few surprises as possible. Most of what I have mentioned are relatively generic but all have some surprises. Fedora has become particularly annoying to upgrade and Ubuntu tries to prevent serious tinkering etc, etc. Amen cheers Chris T In that case I reckon you need one of the DIY distros. e.g. Linux from Scratch. http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ Source Mage. http://sourcemage.org/ Gentoo http://www.gentoo.org/ is also a possibility, but you mention that as being undesirable. I'm sure some of us would be prepared to set up our machines as hosts in a compiler farm for you. Volunteers CLUGgers? Been there done that! Anyway you already mentioned Sabayon which is gentoo anyway. I suggest Arch Linux, has a rolling release and good packaging system, good docos, good community. Many people swear by it. You'll get your hands dirty but not as much as for LFS or gentoo.
Re: Is there such a distro?
On 29 May 2010 16:41, Nick Rout nick.r...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, May 29, 2010 at 3:47 PM, Christopher Sawtell csawt...@gmail.com wrote: On 29 May 2010 15:03 chris che...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, 2010-05-29 at 14:38 +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: On Sat, 29 May 2010 13:44:11 you wrote: On Sat, 2010-05-29 at 13:02 +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: I just want a very generic distro. Whay do you mean? I'd've called most of those you mentioned 'generic', as opposed to - say - myth, voyage, etc. A distro aiming at as few surprises as possible. Most of what I have mentioned are relatively generic but all have some surprises. Fedora has become particularly annoying to upgrade and Ubuntu tries to prevent serious tinkering etc, etc. Amen cheers Chris T In that case I reckon you need one of the DIY distros. e.g. Linux from Scratch. http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ Source Mage. http://sourcemage.org/ Gentoo http://www.gentoo.org/ is also a possibility, but you mention that as being undesirable. I'm sure some of us would be prepared to set up our machines as hosts in a compiler farm for you. Volunteers CLUGgers? Been there done that! Anyway you already mentioned Sabayon which is gentoo anyway. Not entirely. There is another very necessary layer of QA and it shows. It's sensibly pre-compiled with appropriately sensible use flags. They have obviously expended a considerable amount of energy setting up the packages to both look nice and run properly. KDE-4.4.3 is a dream. Last but not least it has a completely new and different package management system which actually seems to work really well. I suggest Arch Linux, has a rolling release and good packaging system, good docos, good community. Many people swear by it. You'll get your hands dirty but not as much as for LFS or gentoo. Do you use Arch yourself? And if so, for how long? -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell
Re: Is there such a distro?
On Sat, May 29, 2010 at 4:56 PM, Christopher Sawtell csawt...@gmail.com wrote: On 29 May 2010 16:41, Nick Rout nick.r...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, May 29, 2010 at 3:47 PM, Christopher Sawtell csawt...@gmail.com wrote: On 29 May 2010 15:03 chris che...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, 2010-05-29 at 14:38 +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: On Sat, 29 May 2010 13:44:11 you wrote: On Sat, 2010-05-29 at 13:02 +1200, Ryan McCoskrie wrote: I just want a very generic distro. Whay do you mean? I'd've called most of those you mentioned 'generic', as opposed to - say - myth, voyage, etc. A distro aiming at as few surprises as possible. Most of what I have mentioned are relatively generic but all have some surprises. Fedora has become particularly annoying to upgrade and Ubuntu tries to prevent serious tinkering etc, etc. Amen cheers Chris T In that case I reckon you need one of the DIY distros. e.g. Linux from Scratch. http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ Source Mage. http://sourcemage.org/ Gentoo http://www.gentoo.org/ is also a possibility, but you mention that as being undesirable. I'm sure some of us would be prepared to set up our machines as hosts in a compiler farm for you. Volunteers CLUGgers? Been there done that! Anyway you already mentioned Sabayon which is gentoo anyway. Not entirely. There is another very necessary layer of QA and it shows. It's sensibly pre-compiled with appropriately sensible use flags. They have obviously expended a considerable amount of energy setting up the packages to both look nice and run properly. KDE-4.4.3 is a dream. Last but not least it has a completely new and different package management system which actually seems to work really well. I suggest Arch Linux, has a rolling release and good packaging system, good docos, good community. Many people swear by it. You'll get your hands dirty but not as much as for LFS or gentoo. Do you use Arch yourself? And if so, for how long? Only in the context of LinHES, but I have been following the forums and so forth and thinking about giving it a go on my laptop.
Re: Attachment The Linux/Unix Distro Archive Additions.
Christopher Sawtell wrote: Many, many thanks to the generous person ( Roger? ) for the Knoppix DVD which arrived in my letter box yesterday. Yep - I'm fortunate at work to have a plan where if I download more than 2GB in a day, the next day throttles back to 64kbps, so starting something large on a Friday afternoon and checking the following Monday is seldom going to be a problem. Are there any more distros that you would like to add to the archive? Roger
Re: Attachment The Linux/Unix Distro Archive Additions.
Not that I can think of just off the top of my head, but I will most definitely keep your generous offer in mind. There are bound to be new releases which we should put into the archive. Thanks again. On 12/20/07, Roger Searle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Christopher Sawtell wrote: Many, many thanks to the generous person ( Roger? ) for the Knoppix DVD which arrived in my letter box yesterday. Yep - I'm fortunate at work to have a plan where if I download more than 2GB in a day, the next day throttles back to 64kbps, so starting something large on a Friday afternoon and checking the following Monday is seldom going to be a problem. Are there any more distros that you would like to add to the archive? Roger -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell
Re: Attachment The Linux/Unix Distro Archive Additions.
Many, many thanks to the generous person ( Roger? ) for the Knoppix DVD which arrived in my letter box yesterday. Re: the USB-2 card. I'd very much like to get this set up before the February meeting, which is something of an 'Outreach Occasion'. I'd like us to be able to send new members home with an .iso file if they want one, instead of a CD. On 12/10/07, Roger Searle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a DVD burnt - md5sum of the downloaded file checked - I'll endeavour to deliver to St. Albans just as soon as an opportunity presents itself. I'm uncertain if I can attend the quiz night tomorrow. Cheers Roger Roger Searle wrote: ok - perhaps i can offer to get the knoppix dvd - unless anyone else already has it i can start that tonight? Roger Steve Holdoway wrote: I need the 32/64 bit CentOS 5.1 isos, so I'll get them downloaded over the weekend. Steve On Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:35:33 +1300 Christopher Sawtell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Today, I have added:- 49524736 ipcop-1.4.18-install-cd.i386.iso 4530497536 SabayonLinux-x86-3.4f.iso To the archive on the machine called 'caledonean' at the St. Albans Neighbourhood Centre. We also have most of the Ubuntu-7.10 distros. See the listing URL below for full details. We would be very grateful for a Knoppix-5.1.1 DVD and the set of CentOS-5.1 iso files. If anybody is awash in surplus traffic volume a donation of the above would be very much appreciated. The listing of the complete archive is available at:- http://berty.dyndns.org/linux_Archive.ls.txt Suggestions for updates and additions would be appreciated. The cost is $2.00 per hour or part thereof - bring your own media. The centre sells writable CDs for a dollar each, but you need to supply your own DVDs. The archive is running on a Linux machine now, the writing software is K3B. Almost all these files are LiveCD/DVDs so take care to write all of these files direct to disk, otherwise they won't boot. Linux knowledgeble help is available on Tuesdays and Saturday afternoons. Finally this is a valuable resource which should be being used more than it is currently. So LET YOUR FRIENDS KNOW about it. The centre is closed from Christmas until the end of January so don't miss out. -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell
Re: Attachment The Linux/Unix Distro Archive Additions.
I have a DVD burnt - md5sum of the downloaded file checked - I'll endeavour to deliver to St. Albans just as soon as an opportunity presents itself. I'm uncertain if I can attend the quiz night tomorrow. Cheers Roger Roger Searle wrote: ok - perhaps i can offer to get the knoppix dvd - unless anyone else already has it i can start that tonight? Roger Steve Holdoway wrote: I need the 32/64 bit CentOS 5.1 isos, so I'll get them downloaded over the weekend. Steve On Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:35:33 +1300 Christopher Sawtell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Today, I have added:- 49524736 ipcop-1.4.18-install-cd.i386.iso 4530497536 SabayonLinux-x86-3.4f.iso To the archive on the machine called 'caledonean' at the St. Albans Neighbourhood Centre. We also have most of the Ubuntu-7.10 distros. See the listing URL below for full details. We would be very grateful for a Knoppix-5.1.1 DVD and the set of CentOS-5.1 iso files. If anybody is awash in surplus traffic volume a donation of the above would be very much appreciated. The listing of the complete archive is available at:- http://berty.dyndns.org/linux_Archive.ls.txt Suggestions for updates and additions would be appreciated. The cost is $2.00 per hour or part thereof - bring your own media. The centre sells writable CDs for a dollar each, but you need to supply your own DVDs. The archive is running on a Linux machine now, the writing software is K3B. Almost all these files are LiveCD/DVDs so take care to write all of these files direct to disk, otherwise they won't boot. Linux knowledgeble help is available on Tuesdays and Saturday afternoons. Finally this is a valuable resource which should be being used more than it is currently. So LET YOUR FRIENDS KNOW about it. The centre is closed from Christmas until the end of January so don't miss out. -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell
Re: Attachment The Linux/Unix Distro Archive Additions.
It has gone through my mind to suggest that we should buy a USB-2.x one. I bought one for myself from DSE a few seeks ago, it cost me $39.98. $25 at tastech.co.nz, $2.50 (I think) shipping or pickup I'll donate one if one isn't found otherwise. For any practical purpose involving storage USB 1 is useless. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
Re: Attachment The Linux/Unix Distro Archive Additions.
$15 iirc from CDL, but I've gone a perfectly good on here. I'll try and sort it out over the weekend :) Cheers Don Volker Kuhlmann wrote: It has gone through my mind to suggest that we should buy a USB-2.x one. I bought one for myself from DSE a few seeks ago, it cost me $39.98. $25 at tastech.co.nz, $2.50 (I think) shipping or pickup I'll donate one if one isn't found otherwise. For any practical purpose involving storage USB 1 is useless. Volker -- Don Gould 2/59 Peverel Street, Riccarton, Christchurch, New Zealand Phone: +64 3 348 7235 - Mobile: +64 21 114 0699 www.thinkdesignprint.co.nz
Re: Attachment The Linux/Unix Distro Archive Additions.
Am happy to get the CentOS ISOs over the next week or so, I should be able to deliver them to the Centre Tuesday next week. Is there the facility to bring down an external hard drive and hook up to a USB port? Cheers, Roger Christopher Sawtell wrote: Today, I have added:- 49524736 ipcop-1.4.18-install-cd.i386.iso 4530497536 SabayonLinux-x86-3.4f.iso To the archive on the machine called 'caledonean' at the St. Albans Neighbourhood Centre. We also have most of the Ubuntu-7.10 distros. See the listing URL below for full details. We would be very grateful for a Knoppix-5.1.1 DVD and the set of CentOS-5.1 iso files. If anybody is awash in surplus traffic volume a donation of the above would be very much appreciated. The listing of the complete archive is available at:- http://berty.dyndns.org/linux_Archive.ls.txt Suggestions for updates and additions would be appreciated. The cost is $2.00 per hour or part thereof - bring your own media. The centre sells writable CDs for a dollar each, but you need to supply your own DVDs. The archive is running on a Linux machine now, the writing software is K3B. Almost all these files are LiveCD/DVDs so take care to write all of these files direct to disk, otherwise they won't boot. Linux knowledgeble help is available on Tuesdays and Saturday afternoons. Finally this is a valuable resource which should be being used more than it is currently. So LET YOUR FRIENDS KNOW about it. The centre is closed from Christmas until the end of January so don't miss out.
Re: Attachment The Linux/Unix Distro Archive Additions.
I need the 32/64 bit CentOS 5.1 isos, so I'll get them downloaded over the weekend. Steve On Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:35:33 +1300 Christopher Sawtell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Today, I have added:- 49524736 ipcop-1.4.18-install-cd.i386.iso 4530497536 SabayonLinux-x86-3.4f.iso To the archive on the machine called 'caledonean' at the St. Albans Neighbourhood Centre. We also have most of the Ubuntu-7.10 distros. See the listing URL below for full details. We would be very grateful for a Knoppix-5.1.1 DVD and the set of CentOS-5.1 iso files. If anybody is awash in surplus traffic volume a donation of the above would be very much appreciated. The listing of the complete archive is available at:- http://berty.dyndns.org/linux_Archive.ls.txt Suggestions for updates and additions would be appreciated. The cost is $2.00 per hour or part thereof - bring your own media. The centre sells writable CDs for a dollar each, but you need to supply your own DVDs. The archive is running on a Linux machine now, the writing software is K3B. Almost all these files are LiveCD/DVDs so take care to write all of these files direct to disk, otherwise they won't boot. Linux knowledgeble help is available on Tuesdays and Saturday afternoons. Finally this is a valuable resource which should be being used more than it is currently. So LET YOUR FRIENDS KNOW about it. The centre is closed from Christmas until the end of January so don't miss out. -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell -- Steve Holdoway [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Attachment The Linux/Unix Distro Archive Additions.
ok - perhaps i can offer to get the knoppix dvd - unless anyone else already has it i can start that tonight? Roger Steve Holdoway wrote: I need the 32/64 bit CentOS 5.1 isos, so I'll get them downloaded over the weekend. Steve On Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:35:33 +1300 Christopher Sawtell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Today, I have added:- 49524736 ipcop-1.4.18-install-cd.i386.iso 4530497536 SabayonLinux-x86-3.4f.iso To the archive on the machine called 'caledonean' at the St. Albans Neighbourhood Centre. We also have most of the Ubuntu-7.10 distros. See the listing URL below for full details. We would be very grateful for a Knoppix-5.1.1 DVD and the set of CentOS-5.1 iso files. If anybody is awash in surplus traffic volume a donation of the above would be very much appreciated. The listing of the complete archive is available at:- http://berty.dyndns.org/linux_Archive.ls.txt Suggestions for updates and additions would be appreciated. The cost is $2.00 per hour or part thereof - bring your own media. The centre sells writable CDs for a dollar each, but you need to supply your own DVDs. The archive is running on a Linux machine now, the writing software is K3B. Almost all these files are LiveCD/DVDs so take care to write all of these files direct to disk, otherwise they won't boot. Linux knowledgeble help is available on Tuesdays and Saturday afternoons. Finally this is a valuable resource which should be being used more than it is currently. So LET YOUR FRIENDS KNOW about it. The centre is closed from Christmas until the end of January so don't miss out. -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell
Re: Attachment The Linux/Unix Distro Archive Additions.
On 12/5/07, Roger Searle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am happy to get the CentOS ISOs over the next week or so, I should be able to deliver them to the Centre Tuesday next week. Thank you so much. Remember that there is no meeting in the Centre, because we are going to the pub to start off the silly season. Is there the facility to bring down an external hard drive and hook up to a USB port? It's only a slow USB-1.0 port. It's ok for small files, but not for 4 Gb. We could use my ThinkPad as an interface. It has gone through my mind to suggest that we should buy a USB-2.x one. I bought one for myself from DSE a few seeks ago, it cost me $39.98. I have been reminded that people who have wholesaler accounts can get things cheaper. Volunteer? -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell
Re: Attachment The Linux/Unix Distro Archive Additions.
I've certainly got a firewire card, and I *think* I've got an usb card lying around. Any use?? On Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:07:38 +1300 Christopher Sawtell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 12/5/07, Roger Searle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am happy to get the CentOS ISOs over the next week or so, I should be able to deliver them to the Centre Tuesday next week. Thank you so much. Remember that there is no meeting in the Centre, because we are going to the pub to start off the silly season. Is there the facility to bring down an external hard drive and hook up to a USB port? It's only a slow USB-1.0 port. It's ok for small files, but not for 4 Gb. We could use my ThinkPad as an interface. It has gone through my mind to suggest that we should buy a USB-2.x one. I bought one for myself from DSE a few seeks ago, it cost me $39.98. I have been reminded that people who have wholesaler accounts can get things cheaper. Volunteer? -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell pgpx2ZiQb1AIa.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Attachment The Linux/Unix Distro Archive Additions.
The USB one would be very useful. Many thanks. I dont think firewire is anything like as common as USB-2.x. So I'm not sure as to the usefullness of firewire. On 12/5/07, Steve Holdoway [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've certainly got a firewire card, and I *think* I've got an usb card lying around. Any use?? On Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:07:38 +1300 Christopher Sawtell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 12/5/07, Roger Searle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am happy to get the CentOS ISOs over the next week or so, I should be able to deliver them to the Centre Tuesday next week. Thank you so much. Remember that there is no meeting in the Centre, because we are going to the pub to start off the silly season. Is there the facility to bring down an external hard drive and hook up to a USB port? It's only a slow USB-1.0 port. It's ok for small files, but not for 4 Gb. We could use my ThinkPad as an interface. It has gone through my mind to suggest that we should buy a USB-2.x one. I bought one for myself from DSE a few seeks ago, it cost me $39.98. I have been reminded that people who have wholesaler accounts can get things cheaper. Volunteer? -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell
Re: Attachment The Linux/Unix Distro Archive Additions.
On Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:07, Christopher Sawtell wrote: It has gone through my mind to suggest that we should buy a USB-2.x one. I bought one for myself from DSE a few seeks ago, it cost me $39.98. I have been reminded that people who have wholesaler accounts can get things cheaper. Volunteer? There was a pci usb card in the clugs box of bits in the store cupboard. Not sure if it is usb2, but worth a check. Cheers Ross Drummond
Re: Attachment The Linux/Unix Distro Archive Additions.
On Wed, December 5, 2007 11:33 am, Christopher Sawtell wrote: The USB one would be very useful. Many thanks. I dont think firewire is anything like as common as USB-2.x. So I'm not sure as to the usefullness of firewire. Its way better for sustained throughput than USB2, but not as common on the enclosures. I suspect it will become even less common as eSata becomes more popular. -- Nick Rout
Re: Time for a new distro...
On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 17:54, Robert Himmelmann wrote: Yes, the color theme is a bit more pleasing. I thought about running one login-manager for every distribution on my computer. (That would be five) I somewhere heard that it is possible. Tried Xen? http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/ Unfortunately my ati-driver screws up when I switch to another session, so this would not be practicable. It would probably also cause some problems with the .Xauthorities and various other things. Yes. Current thinking is that Linux and ATI leave a nasty taste when mixed. -- CS
Re: Time for a new distro...
Christopher Sawtell wrote: On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 17:54, Robert Himmelmann wrote: Yes, the color theme is a bit more pleasing. I thought about running one login-manager for every distribution on my computer. (That would be five) I somewhere heard that it is possible. Tried Xen? http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/ Unfortunately my ati-driver screws up when I switch to another session, so this would not be practicable. It would probably also cause some problems with the .Xauthorities and various other things. Yes. Current thinking is that Linux and ATI leave a nasty taste when mixed. The available drivers for my 9700 mobile on the works laptop are stunning. You just need a bit of work to install them. Steve
Re: Time for a new distro...
Steve Holdoway wrote: Christopher Sawtell wrote: On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 17:54, Robert Himmelmann wrote: Yes, the color theme is a bit more pleasing. I thought about running one login-manager for every distribution on my computer. (That would be five) I somewhere heard that it is possible. Tried Xen? http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/ Unfortunately my ati-driver screws up when I switch to another session, so this would not be practicable. It would probably also cause some problems with the .Xauthorities and various other things. Yes. Current thinking is that Linux and ATI leave a nasty taste when mixed. The available drivers for my 9700 mobile on the works laptop are stunning. You just need a bit of work to install them. Steve The problem with the ATI linux drivers other than that they can prove dificult to install is that the performance is crap compared to the ATI Windows drivers. Trying to play UT2K4 with my Radeon 9800xt using the linux drivers is just painful. Adrian.
Re: Time for a new distro...
Adrian Robertson wrote: The problem with the ATI linux drivers other than that they can prove dificult to install is that the performance is crap compared to the ATI Windows drivers. Trying to play UT2K4 with my Radeon 9800xt using the linux drivers is just painful. With my 9600Mobility it works well under maximum settings. Might be the gig of RAM or the Athlon 64 3000+ though. I have not tried it with Windows. It was very painfull to install (Driver and UT). So far I got the driver only working under Gentoo. Happy Hacking, Robert Himmelmann
Re: Time for a new distro...
Do you prefer Gnome or KDE? If you mostly like Ubuntu - and KDE, Mepis is worth a look. Lance Jamie Dobbs wrote: This is not meant to cause a distro-war, I mearly want some opinions on the pros and cons of various Linux distributions. I have been a keen Gentoo user to this point but find that I am tiring if the time it takes to actually get software installed. The options I am considering for my new disro of choice are: Fedora Core 4 - From the quick look I have had at it looks pretty good, just not too sure of package availability for it or package mangement tools. SUSE 9.3 - I downloaded the net installer but don't seem to be able to get the install to work, cannot find a DVD image of this to try. Again my worries are package availability and mangement. Ubuntu - Have tried this in the past and found is pretty good but there was just something about it that but me off, I'm not sure what it was as package management is pretty good (apt-get) and sources appear to be pretty up to date. I think in all honesty it was just the default 'look' that put me off, brown is not the most interesting nor restful colour to look at on a computer screen. Main uses of the PC are: Web browsing (Firefox) Email (Thunderbird) Office app (OpenOffice or perhaps KOffice) FTP Client (open to recommendations of a good graphical FTP Client) MP3 playing (XMMS) CD ripping to MP3 (Still trying to find a good one here, GRIP is OK) DIVX Creation from DVD media that I own (DVDrip? Is there anything else) Media playback of the above other media such as MPG, WMV etc. (MPlayer + WinCodecs) A few games (RPG/Rogue style, MAME and puzzle type games) I would welcome peoples real experiences with these ditro's, my related concerns and the applications I want. I would still one day love to not have to boot back in to Windows to do things I cannot find equivalents of in Linux. Cheers Jamie
Re: Time for a new distro...
On 8/16/05, sirlancelot [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Do you prefer Gnome or KDE? If a search for what you want is what you're after I thought this was nifty: http://distrowatch.com/search.php If you scroll down a bit you can search by distrobution criteria. It may not always produce a result tho. Hours of fun awaits :P Also when I first made the big leap to linux it wasn't really gradual. It took windows not working, and staying that way for quite a while and leaving me with no other choice to actually get my A into G and get things working and set up. Not that I'm saying your as unmotivated as I am, but a good way to motivate you might be to install linux, remove windows, then set things up :P --Slosh
Re: Time for a new distro...
On Tue, 2005-08-16 at 13:42 +1200, Jamie Dobbs wrote: Fedora Core 4 - From the quick look I have had at it looks pretty good, just not too sure of package availability for it or package mangement tools. Package availability off the CDs is quite good as long as you do not want movie-playing! FreshRPMS provides good packages for additional stuff. I use Yum for package management, as follows. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~]# yum update Setting up Update Process Setting up repositories canterbury100% |=| 951 B 00:00 Reading repository metadata in from local files No Packages marked for Update/Obsoletion Well, today is a dull day for updates! Web browsing (Firefox) v 1.0.6 Email (Thunderbird) — Office app (OpenOffice or perhaps KOffice) OpenOffice.org 1.9.117 (OpenOffice 2.0) FTP Client (open to recommendations of a good graphical FTP Client) — MP3 playing (XMMS) Yes, but I use Rhythmbox (0.8.8) CD ripping to MP3 (Still trying to find a good one here, GRIP is OK) Sound Juicer (2.10.1) DIVX Creation from DVD media that I own (DVDrip? Is there anything else) — Media playback of the above other media such as MPG, WMV etc. (MPlayer + WinCodecs) Xine (from FreshRPMS) Fredora treats me well. It comes with good software that works together. The biggest improvements that I notice in each release are often to do with GNOME, but that is partly to do with what is in front of me! -- Michael JasonSmith http://www.ldots.org/
Re: Time for a new distro...
Jamie Dobbs wrote: Ubuntu - Have tried this in the past and found is pretty good but there was just something about it that but me off, I'm not sure what it was as package management is pretty good (apt-get) and sources appear to be pretty up to date. I think in all honesty it was just the default 'look' that put me off, brown is not the most interesting nor restful colour to look at on a computer screen. I sympathise with your views on the default colour scheme for Ubuntu! It is however relatively straightforward to eliminate the Ubuntu look (almost) completely: 1. Select different themes for the window borders, applications, and login manager 2. Choose a different splash-screen (gets rid of the lovies) 3. Choose your own background image. Voila - (almost) no sign of the Ubuntu look remaining. The only thing I haven't cracked yet is that I still get a brown background to the Gnome splash screen. It looks particularly hideous with a blue splash screen on top of it! Douglas. === This email, including any attachments, is only for the intended addressee. It is subject to copyright, is confidential and may be the subject of legal or other privilege, none of which is waived or lost by reason of this transmission. If the receiver is not the intended addressee, please accept our apologies, notify us by return, delete all copies and perform no other act on the email. Unfortunately, we cannot warrant that the email has not been altered or corrupted during transmission. ===
Re: Time for a new distro...
On Tue, August 16, 2005 2:02 pm, Michael JasonSmith said: [snip] Fredora treats me well. It comes with good software that works together. The biggest improvements that I notice in each release are often to do with GNOME, but that is partly to do with what is in front of me! -- Michael JasonSmith http://www.ldots.org/ Also my client distro of choice. good and bleeding edge. Watch out for incompatabilities between the betas of OO. Ouch. Not for servers tho' Steve -- Windows: Where do you want to go today? MacOS: Where do you want to be tomorrow? Linux: Are you coming or what?
Re: Time for a new distro...
On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 14:20, Douglas Royds wrote: Voila - (almost) no sign of the Ubuntu look remaining. The only thing I haven't cracked yet is that I still get a brown background to the Gnome splash screen. It looks particularly hideous with a blue splash screen on top of it! ewugh!!! Anybody used Kubuntu? -- CS
Re: Time for a new distro...
Heya, Voila - (almost) no sign of the Ubuntu look remaining. The only thing I haven't cracked yet is that I still get a brown background to the Gnome splash screen. It looks particularly hideous with a blue splash screen on top of it! Hrm, I can only guess that's a weird combination of the following GConf keys that you can play around with - /apps/nautilus/preferences/background_color /desktop/gnome/background/primary_color /desktop/gnome/background/secondary_color I suspect the latter 2 keys, but I haven't actually tested it. You'll know quick enough by figuring out the colors of those values. Glynn
Re: Time for a new distro...
On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:42:00 +1200 (NZST) Jamie Dobbs wrote: Main uses of the PC are: Web browsing (Firefox) Email (Thunderbird) Office app (OpenOffice or perhaps KOffice) FTP Client (open to recommendations of a good graphical FTP Client) MP3 playing (XMMS) CD ripping to MP3 (Still trying to find a good one here, GRIP is OK) DIVX Creation from DVD media that I own (DVDrip? Is there anything else) Media playback of the above other media such as MPG, WMV etc. (MPlayer + WinCodecs) IMHO this is what may keep you with gentoo. Most distros are scared to include mp3 and win32codecs and dvd cracking stuff for legal reasons. They do not want to distribute potentially illegal software, especially as the USA with its DMCA is one of the major markets. Gentoo doesn't distribute this stuff either, it merely distributes the instructions for compiling it. Yes there are unofficial repositories for the greyer media stuff in other distros, but its a lot of futzing about and takes you outside their core packages, which is a dodgy endeavour. You never know when a third party packager is going to throw in the towel. Look at the discussion yesterday about kde 3.4 on suse 9.1 - the posted suggestions were to go to an external repository, or upgrade to suse 9.3 . I say go for the 9.3, as you never know what incompatibilities the external repository will introduce, either now or down the road somewhat. My multimedia experience skyrocketed as a result of gentoo, and now I have no need to boot windows at home, as it now plays less media files than gentoo, and works with less of my hardware. A few games (RPG/Rogue style, MAME and puzzle type games) -- Nick Rout [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Time for a new distro...
Hey, This is not meant to cause a distro-war, I mearly want some opinions on the pros and cons of various Linux distributions. I have been a keen Gentoo user to this point but find that I am tiring if the time it takes to actually get software installed. I think you need to ask yourself a few questions o What software you use? o What desktop environment do you like using? [1] o How stable do you want your environment? o How bleeding edge do you want to be? o What hardware you have? From your main uses that you list, it looks like pretty much any distribution will be suitable for your needs - just depends on what level of tinkering you may need to do to get there. Glynn [1] I only ask because obviously different distributions prefer different desktops - and it's usually wise to choose a distribution that defaults to your desktop.
Re: Time for a new distro...
snip IMHO this is what may keep you with gentoo. Most distros are scared to include mp3 and win32codecs and dvd cracking stuff for legal reasons. They do not want to distribute potentially illegal software, especially as the USA with its DMCA is one of the major markets. Gentoo doesn't distribute this stuff either, it merely distributes the instructions for compiling it. Yes there are unofficial repositories for the greyer media stuff in other distros, but its a lot of futzing about and takes you outside their core packages, which is a dodgy endeavour. You never know when a third party packager is going to throw in the towel. Look at the discussion yesterday about kde 3.4 on suse 9.1 - the posted suggestions were to go to an external repository, or upgrade to suse 9.3 . I say go for the 9.3, as you never know what incompatibilities the external repository will introduce, either now or down the road somewhat. My multimedia experience skyrocketed as a result of gentoo, and now I have no need to boot windows at home, as it now plays less media files than gentoo, and works with less of my hardware. A few games (RPG/Rogue style, MAME and puzzle type games) -- Nick Rout [EMAIL PROTECTED] I think that this may indeed be the case Nick, I've just finished downloading the 2005.1 install ISO and will probably install this over the next few days. For some reason I do keep coming back to Gentoo and I think it is because of the selection of software, sure it takes longer to install but I consider it to be easier to maintain and add up to date software to.
Re: Time for a new distro...
On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:42, you wrote: snip Main uses of the PC are: Web browsing (Firefox) Email (Thunderbird) Office app (OpenOffice or perhaps KOffice) FTP Client (open to recommendations of a good graphical FTP Client) MP3 playing (XMMS) CD ripping to MP3 (Still trying to find a good one here, GRIP is OK) DIVX Creation from DVD media that I own (DVDrip? Is there anything else) Media playback of the above other media such as MPG, WMV etc. (MPlayer + WinCodecs) A few games (RPG/Rogue style, MAME and puzzle type games) Mepis does most of this out of the box. It's KDE based, which I like, and specifically for one of your points Konqueror is a great graphical ftp client. Mepis is really Debian underneath, so you can apt-get most other apps you might want. I have it running on an IBM ThinkPad 600e and I'm quite pleased with it. HTH, A
Re: Time for a new distro...
On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:42, Jamie Dobbs wrote: Main uses of the PC are: Web browsing (Firefox) Email (Thunderbird) Office app (OpenOffice or perhaps KOffice) FTP Client (open to recommendations of a good graphical FTP Client) MP3 playing (XMMS) CD ripping to MP3 (Still trying to find a good one here, GRIP is OK) DIVX Creation from DVD media that I own (DVDrip? Is there anything else) Media playback of the above other media such as MPG, WMV etc. (MPlayer + WinCodecs) A few games (RPG/Rogue style, MAME and puzzle type games) I would welcome peoples real experiences with these ditro's, my related concerns and the applications I want. I would still one day love to not have to boot back in to Windows to do things I cannot find equivalents of in Linux. I would recommend that you try the Debian based Mepis. It does everything you want and is very easy to install. -- Robert Fisher (aka - Rob, Bob, Robbie, Robbo, Fish) FishNet Computer Electrical Services www.fisher.net.nz Phone: 03 383 5807 Mobile: 027 477 3356
Re: Time for a new distro...
On Tue, 2005-08-16 at 16:21 +1200, Robert Fisher wrote: On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:42, Jamie Dobbs wrote: Main uses of the PC are: Web browsing (Firefox) Email (Thunderbird) Office app (OpenOffice or perhaps KOffice) FTP Client (open to recommendations of a good graphical FTP Client) MP3 playing (XMMS) CD ripping to MP3 (Still trying to find a good one here, GRIP is OK) DIVX Creation from DVD media that I own (DVDrip? Is there anything else) Media playback of the above other media such as MPG, WMV etc. (MPlayer + WinCodecs) A few games (RPG/Rogue style, MAME and puzzle type games) I would welcome peoples real experiences with these ditro's, my related concerns and the applications I want. I would still one day love to not have to boot back in to Windows to do things I cannot find equivalents of in Linux. I would recommend that you try the Debian based Mepis. It does everything you want and is very easy to install. plays all media files out of the box? wmv? aac audio? realaudio? mp3? encrypted dvd? -- Nick Rout [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Time for a new distro...
sirlancelot wrote: Do you prefer Gnome or KDE? If you mostly like Ubuntu - and KDE, Mepis is worth a look. You yould also try KUbuntu. Either download it directly or use (sudo) apt-get install kubuntu-desktop. Then you have good support for both, KDE and Gnome. Lance Happy Hacking, Robert Himmelmann
Re: Time for a new distro...
Christopher Sawtell wrote: On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 14:20, Douglas Royds wrote: Voila - (almost) no sign of the Ubuntu look remaining. The only thing I haven't cracked yet is that I still get a brown background to the Gnome splash screen. It looks particularly hideous with a blue splash screen on top of it! ewugh!!! Anybody used Kubuntu? Yes, the color theme is a bit more pleasing. I thought about running one login-manager for every distribution on my computer. (That would be five) I somewhere heard that it is possible. Unfortunately my ati-driver screws up when I switch to another session, so this would not be practicable. It would probably also cause some problems with the .Xauthorities and various other things. Happy Hacking, Robert Himmelmann
Re: News on the NZ distro yoper
and in case anyone missed it: http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2003-01-21-014-26-NW-DT-SWtbovrmode=1#talkback_area Nick Rout wrote: Sorry if this repeats another posting: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3097027thesection=technologythesubsection=general
