On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:43:39 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> assumed
>> 
>> There's that word again. <shaking head>
> 
> Well, you know what? There's a limit to how much one person can
> independently verify as fact. Particularly when it comes to assessing
> what is "popular" and what isn't. Who's word do you take?

Not the word of people who say "it's impossible" or "it's difficult", 
generally speaking.  If people say it's difficult, I assume they haven't 
spent a lot of time and find out for myself.  If people say it's easy, 
I'm willing to give it a try and see if it's easy for me.

But "ease of use" isn't something that's rooted in fact one way or the 
other - it's something that depends highly on the skill level of the 
person using the system.

Jim

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/16/debian_lenny_review/
>
> Apparently Debian is "well known" for being difficult to use.
>
> Damn. I had assumed that that's just how Linux always is... Time to
> re-evaluate my position.

Debian is geared, as Slackware, to *nix-seasoned people.  Even though it's not
half as tough as it used to be before Gnome and KDE desktops, solely on the
command-line.

Novell Suse and Ubuntu are 2 well regarded, layman-geared Linux distros.  Ubuntu
is a Debian-derivative.

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I'm currently using Ubuntu on my laptop. It's a really dull shade of
> brown. (There's probably a way to change that.)

Yes, it's hidden well beneath one of those well known folkloric, cryptic *nix
file paths like System -> Preferences -> Appearance.  I heard the command is
Customize.

> I find it slightly odd
> that each version has a silly name. I'm currently using Hardy Heron. I'm
> about to try Intrepid Ibex. (Although I must say, I'm never really sure
> what the actual *difference* is between releases of Linux distros -
> apart from the artwork usually being slightly different.)

I'm looking forward for Mickey Mouse a few iterations ahead. :D

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On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:55:53 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>> Then, as stated before, try openSUSE or Ubuntu.
> 
> Tried OpenSUSE. (My dad is still using it, in fact.) I quite like YaST
> (especially the way you can run it without needing X). The latest
> version seems to have done away with the "minimal text-mode install".
> (Or at least, it's not very "minimal" any more!)

It's still there.  I've run that install myself a few times - it might be 
under the "custom" options where the DE selection is made.

> I'm currently using Ubuntu on my laptop. It's a really dull shade of
> brown. (There's probably a way to change that.) I find it slightly odd
> that each version has a silly name. I'm currently using Hardy Heron. I'm
> about to try Intrepid Ibex. (Although I must say, I'm never really sure
> what the actual *difference* is between releases of Linux distros -
> apart from the artwork usually being slightly different.)

That's what the changelogs are for - to tell you what's new.  And the 
readme files. ;-)

Jim

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On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:05:13 -0500, nemesis wrote:

> Novell Suse and Ubuntu are 2 well regarded, layman-geared Linux distros.
> Ubuntu is a Debian-derivative.

And technically - very technically - the SUSE distributions are Slackware 
derivatives - but with RPM for package management instead of Slack's tgz-
based package management (unless that's changed, I've not followed Slack 
in a while).

Jim

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>> Tried OpenSUSE. (My dad is still using it, in fact.) I quite like YaST
>> (especially the way you can run it without needing X). The latest
>> version seems to have done away with the "minimal text-mode install".
>> (Or at least, it's not very "minimal" any more!)
> 
> It's still there.  I've run that install myself a few times - it might be 
> under the "custom" options where the DE selection is made.

I used it to set up an old brick laptop and run it as a print server 
once. (Basically I had a printer that can only be connected via USB. 
Plugged it into a laptop, plugged the laptop into the network, operate 
the laptop by SSH. Works great!) And since YaST can be operated in 
text-mode, I was able to control it using simple SSH. (I.e., I didn't 
have to figure out how to tunnel VNC over SSH or anything weird.)

As I recall, the "minimal text mode" install gave you the barest minimum 
to have a working system. It seems now there's a "text mode server" 
option, but it still installs a whole crapload of stuff. I was trying to 
set up a VM and I wanted the install that would take the least amount of 
time. It didn't work too well...

>> (Although I must say, I'm never really sure
>> what the actual *difference* is between releases of Linux distros -
>> apart from the artwork usually being slightly different.)
> 
> That's what the changelogs are for - to tell you what's new.  And the 
> readme files. ;-)

Where do you *find* that stuff though??

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>>> Well, you know what? There's a limit to how much one person can 
>>> independently verify as fact. Particularly when it comes to assessing 
>>> what is "popular" and what isn't. Who's word do you take?
>>
>> http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity

Hmm. Now is that how much people "like" a given distro? Or is it the 
number of downloads? Number of installed machines? Number of page hits 
from people wanting to read about it? What?

> Also have look at this:
> http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

Mmm, interesting...

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nemesis wrote:

> Debian is geared, as Slackware, to *nix-seasoned people.  Even though it's not
> half as tough as it used to be before Gnome and KDE desktops, solely on the
> command-line.
> 
> Novell Suse and Ubuntu are 2 well regarded, layman-geared Linux distros.  Ubuntu
> is a Debian-derivative.

Well, I started out with RedHat. But that was waaaay back in the days 
where to run Linux, you needed to know what chipset your motherboard had 
and how to manually program IRQ numbers and stuff.

I quickly grew tired of that, and eventually gave up on the whole Linux 
trip.

A while later, I used Debian. (Potato, IIRC.) It really was a pain to 
set up. (dselect is a horrid, horrid monstrosity!) Package management 
was always a nightmare; you'd think it would be "easy" to tell the 
installer "hey, I've got the 5 standard CDs here; please use all the 
repositories they contain". But no...

While we're on the subject, I also tried running Debian on my Amiga 
1200. JESUS that was slow! >_< So much for "Linux is faster". :-P

I used openSUSE for a while. (Indeed, my dad *bought* a boxed set of 
disks, with a manual and stuff...) I quite liked it.

Most recently, I have Ubuntu set up on my laptop. It's not very pretty 
to look at, but it seems to work just fine.

Then again, I judge a Linux distro by how pretty it looks, how easy it 
is to make the installer do what you want it to do, and how easily I can 
make it install the software I want. (And also the quality or otherwise 
of the Mahjong game is comes with.)

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Invisible wrote:
...
>>> http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity
> 
> Hmm. Now is that how much people "like" a given distro? Or is it the 
> number of downloads? Number of installed machines? Number of page hits 
> from people wanting to read about it? What?

"Page Hit Ranking statistics",
"Only one hit per IP address per day is counted."

-- 
Tor Olav
http://subcube.com

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Tor Olav Kristensen wrote:

> Also have look at this:
> http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

"The Gentoo documentation was repeatedly labelled as the best online 
documentation of any distribution."

Wuh? o_O

Looks like I'll have to recheck their website. Last time I looked, it 
consisted only of a few dozen scrappy little wiki pages where it takes 
an age to clean anything useful. (All the pages assume you already know 
almost everything.)

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