Featured Comments: Week of 2013 April 21

There was one post that got a handful of comments this past week, so I'll repost most of those.

Review: Fuduntu 2013.2

Reader Tran Mere asked, "Was there ever really big community behind Fuduntu or was it mostly just one man show?"
Commenter Andrew Wyatt, who created Fuduntu and is soon to retire from the project, replied, "There is a team of 20 people working on Fuduntu from developers to support to marketing, and we estimated having close to 150K users until we announced the project being EOL in September."
An anonymous reader clarified, "New name to Fuduntu will be FuSE linux, based on openSUSE. We'll see, but openSUSE is a great base, better than Fedora IMO".

Thanks to all those who commented on that post. This coming week, I don't have anything particularly planned because I anticipate this week will be quite busy. After all, the semester is drawing to a close rather quickly. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

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Review: Fuduntu 2013.2

I haven't checked out Fuduntu in over a year. I wasn't particularly planning to do so either, because I wasn't exactly expecting huge changes. But then I saw some news that changed my mind.

Welcome Screen + Main Menu

Fuduntu, as regular readers know, is an independent distribution that maintains GNOME 2 essentially as-is and uses the RPM package format, so it can sometimes use third-party packages developed for Fedora. Recently, though, there was a discussion among Fuduntu developers that culminated in the developers announcing a feature freeze for Fuduntu along with support ending by this September, along with the lead developer Andrew Wyatt (also known as FEWT) announcing his official resignation (though he may still unofficially consult with the project from time to time) from the project after support ends. The main reasons for this were that maintaining GNOME 2, keeping Fuduntu independent from Fedora while maintaining support for RPM, and having Andrew Wyatt work way too hard on this were all unsustainable; the remaining developers may decide to turn Fuduntu into something else entirely, in which case it would be once again based on another distribution (a likely candidate is openSUSE, which is interesting because I am not aware of any major distributions based on openSUSE at all), and it would probably need a new DE (perhaps the Consort DE from SolusOS, though that is purely speculation on my part). In any case, I am reviewing Fuduntu because this will certainly be the last such review I can do of Fuduntu in its current incarnation, and may be my last review of it ever.

For this final review, I tested Fuduntu using a live USB made with MultiSystem. Follow the jump to see what it's like and how it will be remembered.

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Featured Comments: Week of 2012 April 1

There was one post that got a few comments, so I will repost all of those.

Revisited: Linux Mint (KDE), Chakra, Fuduntu

Reader Andrew Wyatt, who is also the creator of Fuduntu, had this suggestion (which unfortunately did not work) for my Skype issues: "Try going to Preferences > Sound, then selecting the Hardware tab and then set the Profile to "Analog Stereo Duplex". Next, select the Input tab and then Click the radio button for Internal Analog Stereo (you'll probably find that it is not selected). Now set the Mic volume to whatever you want. Do a test call in Skype to see if your Mic works."
Commenter tracyanne said, " I've already moved to KDE on my Linux Mint 12 desktop. I was running LM 9 with GNOME 2 + Compiz, but an update broke something, basically Compiz stopped working, I could change the settings but they had no affect. So I upgraded to LM 12 and installed KDE then upgraded KDE 4.7.4 to 4.8.1 with the PPA."
Reader Randy had this suggestion: "Here is something for you to try! If you like gnome-do, gnome 2.3, compiz, then you should try Mint 12 LXDE and change the window manager from openbox-LXDE to Compiz! It's lighter than KDE and you can customize it to feel like Gnome 2.3. Best of all you will still have gnome-do available."
Commenter claudecat said, "Mint 12 KDE is a fine choice, and let's face it - gnome 2 is going to be gone forever at some point, and I have my doubts about MATE's longterm prognosis. For an even lighter KDE, you might try Arch or the dreaded Gentoo (230k ram use at idle with the full KDE installed - akonadi and nepomuk disabled). Not sure how or if your apps of choice would work with those however."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I hope to have two follow-up posts to some previous articles I wrote, and maybe something else (or maybe not). Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

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Revisited: Linux Mint (KDE), Chakra, Fuduntu

I had tried out all these distributions again last week (during spring break) and this week, but I didn't think that each of them warranted their own posts (and this is also why there were no posts last week), so I have decided to combine them all into a short summary of my experiences. I'm doing this because I'm seriously trying to figure out what I should start using after Linux Mint 9 LTS "Isadora" GNOME. I tested the 64-bit (because my computer has 64-bit hardware) live USB sessions of all of these using MultiSystem. Follow the jump to see what each is like.

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Featured Comments: Week of 2012 January 15

There was one post this past week that got a whole bunch of comments, so I'll repost a few of them.

Review: Fuduntu 2012.1

Reader Fewt, who is the main Fuduntu developer, clarified reason for the issue that I was having: "There is a problem with our LibreOffice package (my fault) that causes it to use a lot more space than normally necessary (over 1GB). I'm working on a fix, but you probably saw your system run out of memory and oom killer ate some of your running processes. Sorry about that."
Commenter enrico said, "[I]nstall software in a live environment is a nightmare, in every distro you can try there are some errors, or at least glitch that cause every error you can imagine... A good review is made when software is installed in a real or virtual machine, live cd are a good thing, but some software and the stability of the distro is only a matter of luck... even sabayon has a live dvdfull of software, really good, but if you try to installa anything in live session,there are always crashes... in a virtual setup, there are no such things.. the same occur using a opensuse live cd...and the setups of this distros are stable as debian is."
An anonymous reader had this to say: "Perhaps this should have been named a "live" environment review because basing it totally off of that experience only covers a small portion of a distro's capabilities and character. Thanks for the effort of writing one up though. Hopefully you can try Fuduntu in the future and give it a fair chance."
Another anonymous commenter had these bits of advice: "Not related to fuduntu, but I want to share. I remember reading a live cd review where the author recommended installing distro x. i asked about package manager and he didn´t know. He said he never bothered because he just uses the vanilla distro and doesn´t install anything new. Yet I think it´s kind of unfair not mentioning and not looking at methods of installing new software. Yet a fuller review, where one installs and uses the distro for about a week as his main system and really tries everything he/she normally does, is rare. Understandable. Because Linux still sucks that much. It´s great but it sucks that much that You have to face these hickups.  I installed Kubuntu on my laptop and thought it was great. Updated to latest KDE SC...ah. And then my girlfriend was unable to set up wireless. And she was right. The issue is now fixed but I can not blaim her. Sometimes You really need another PC to google Your problem. So, it´s easy to say: write a full review. An I agree that some reviews are really, really shallow, often barely more than a summary of the release notes and screenshots (not PV´s though). This is all free. Open a blog, download the distro and start writing."

Thanks to all those who commented on that post this past week. This coming week, I intend to have another review out at least. In any case, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

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Review: Fuduntu 2012.1

I'm back! Thankfully it looks like too many people know about how bad the SOPA and PIPA bills are to not take action, and it looks like sponsors of those bills are dropping like European honeybees. Now let's get back to the main post.

I've reviewed Fuduntu a couple times before. There's a new release out, so I'm reviewing it now.

Fuduntu used to be based on Fedora, but then several months ago the lead developer announced that it would fork and maintain an independent codebase. This would serve two purposes: one would be to provide stable rolling releases, and the other would be to maintain GNOME 2 as long as possible. Indeed, Fuduntu uses not MATE, but good old GNOME 2.32.

I tested the live session using a live USB made with MultiSystem. I tested the installation in VirtualBox inside a Xubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" MultiSystem-made live USB host with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 September 11

There was one post this past week that got a couple of comments, so I'll repost all of those.

Revisited: Fuduntu 14.10.1

An anonymous reader had this tip on how the web applications are created with Google Chrome/Chromium: "Windows user here. Google Chrome, Menu, Tools and here the first entry enables me to make a "Das U-Blog" App. Suppose it works the same with various Distros. Have a nice day."
Commenter FEWT, who is also the creator and lead developer of Fuduntu, said, "Firefox 6, LibreOffice, Thunderbird 6, and lots more apps are available in the repository. Take a look at System > Preferences > Customize your Installation. :D", later adding in response to my request for further clarification, "We are rolling everything we can, that includes non-default apps. :D Take a look at our development forum to follow some of the recent releases. http://www.fuduntu.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=22".

Thanks to those who commented on that post. This week, I will have a double review (though not a comparison test) out, but I don't anticipate being able to write about anything else. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing & commenting!

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Revisited: Fuduntu 14.10.1

Main Screen + GNOME Main Menu

It has been almost exactly 6 months since I looked at Fuduntu. Since then, it has had one new minor release (version 14.9 became version 14.10) and an update to that release (version 14.10 became version 14.10.1). You would think that not much would have changed between then and now, so what's making me test this?
Before that, I apologize for the recent dearth of posts here (aside from the very recent one). First, I've been busy, second, I've been sick, and third, I haven't really thought of anything to write about. That's part of the reason why I'm writing this. Also, I can promise you that there will be a new review soon after this, and it will actually be two reviews in one (but not a comparison per se). With that, let's get on with answering that question.

So aside from the fact that I wanted to write about something here, I'm testing this because the Fuduntu lead developer made a pretty big two-in-one announcement yesterday: (1) Fuduntu is becoming a rolling-release distribution, meaning that users don't have to reinstall the latest version of Fuduntu every six months just to stay up-to-date, and (2) Fuduntu will stick with GNOME 2.X for as long as possible. These two really piqued my curiosity, so I gave it a spin.

I tested the live session using a live USB made with UnetBootin. I did not test the installation procedure because I did that before, and I haven't read about any major changes to Anaconda since then. Finally, I don't usually mention details like this, but do note that the ISO file has decreased in size from about 1.1 GB to a bit less than 950 MB; the consequences of this will become evident later. Follow the jump to see what's the same, what's different, and whether I still like Fuduntu as much as I did 6 months ago (and I will make frequent reference to that review).

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 March 13

There were a couple of posts that garnered quite a few comments. Anyway, I'll try to repost most of them.

Review: GhostBSD 2.0

An anonymous reader had this tip regarding changing the root password: "You could of course use "sudo passwd root" to change the root password..."
Commenter kelvin said, "Instead of writing all this crap you should of reinstalled it correctly as I did then you would find the package manager works correctly searches, updates, and installs as it says on the box. it is limited to 1 package at a time. The major let down for me was it does not mount flash-drives correctly only if inserted at boot time and does not unmount it mounts ntfs drives but not jfs. does not auto mount CDs which is a total bummer that is with 64bt The polish and start up times are pretty fast for bsd. pcbsd is testing gnome in the next version 9 so there should be good competition"
Regarding my issue with the aforementioned comment, another anonymous reader came to the rescue: "I think what he meant was that you should've installed it correctly, to hard drive. Doing all your reviews in VB without a good reason, like it did not install anywhere else, does not count. You said yourself you have not been able to test auto mounting because of that. It's a drawback and does not make for a proper review."
Yet another anonymous commenter had this support for the developers: "I have GhostBSD 2 installing after about 5 minutes on the live DVD and can't believe how easy it was. The live DVD is about as fast as any I have used and I know that some people like a graphical installer, but this is BSD after all. Anyone who remembers DesktopBSD knows the weaknesses of PC-BSD, great though that project is and GhostBSD seems to me to be following in DesktopBSD's footsteps. Keep it simple, close to FreeBSD itself but now with Gnome. Thanks to the GhostBSD developers"
Reader John said, "Thanks for the review of GhostBSD 2.0. it was a great read and I would honestly install it to a hard drive to feel the real speed of the OS. the install process in a VM is slower, this I have done my self when testing the release before we released it to the public. I have tested the install process across several single core and dual core computers and the time to install is right around 10 minutes(plus a minutes here and there depending upon the ram of the system). Us at the developing team have found that the lighter the system runs faster and if people would like the heaver software they can install it. I know bxpkg you can only install one piece of software at a time, this is done for the reason that where it could not cause problems on there desktop. bxpkg is new software and is also early in there stages. We have teamed up with them through our process and they will grow with GhostBSD. There is only one problem that I see you have no links going back to our site."
Following up on the last part, commenter jai ho had this to say, among other things: "as John said in above comment, it is really annoying that after reading a good review and we will decide to try it out and then there is no link to the site or download page from your site.. it may be a matter of searching in google but it is really annoying not to have the direct link from your site to the distro's site.. so if you can include a link to the distro's site in your future reviews it would really be helpful..thanks..."

Comparison Test: Fuduntu 14.9 vs. Fusion 14 "Thorium"

Fuduntu creator FEWT had this to say: "Thank you for the review! FYI, Fuduntu secured distribution licenses for our shipped codecs so we are completely legal in this regard. :D", later adding (partly in response to my question about what the comment would have been like had Fusion won), "@PV - I would have congratulated them, and taken action items of things to improve. We don't license libdvdcss, but we don't ship with it either fortunately. :D"

Reader Barnaby had this support: "Very interesting! Thanks!"
An anonymous commenter asked, "Could you please specify the source of your statement, 'Well, a judge ruled a couple months ago that things like libdvdcss2 are legal for personal viewing (but not a whole lot else).' TNX" (It has been done, worry not.)

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This week I have spring break, so I'll be able to post more freely, but ironically, aside from a review I'm planning to write as a guest post for another site, I don't have much planned. Anyway, if you like what I write, please keep subscribing and commenting! (Subscribing can be done easily on the right using any one of the multitude of widgets. Commenting can be done at the end of a post.)

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Comparison Test: Fuduntu 14.9 vs. Fusion 14 "Thorium"

Fuduntu Main Screen

Oh boy. I've been wanting and waiting to do this comparison test for quite a while now, and now I can finally do it! The problem was that Fusion 14 "Thorium" was just released a few days ago, and before that I didn't want to compare a stable release of Fuduntu to a pre-release of Fusion.

So let's look at the contenders. Fuduntu is, despite its name, not based on Ubuntu. It is based on Fedora (version 14.9 being based on Fedora 14 "Laughlin") and it is designed to be user-friendly like Ubuntu as well as optimal for laptops, netbooks, and other portable computers.

Fusion Main Screen + Mint Menu

Fusion is also based on Fedora (version 14 "Thorium" also being based on Fedora 14 "Laughlin"), and it aims to provide a complete and very user-friendly desktop experience with a slight emphasis on multimedia applications.

I made a multiboot live USB of these two distributions using MultiSystem. I did not install either one; I just tested the live sessions. Follow the jump to see what each one is like. Please note that this post is full of images, so now you know what may be causing the page to lag a bit if that happens.

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