Featured Comments: Week of 2011 February 6

There were only a couple of posts that garnered a few comments this past week, so I'll post all of those.

Review: Debian 6 "Squeeze"

An anonymous reader signed as Eddie Wilson had this to say: "I agree with your assessment of Debian 6.0. However I do believe that the Debian team will offer Gnome 3 when it becomes stable. I'm not sure if they will offer Unity or not. That is a wait and see item. The classic Gnome will not be developed anymore after Gnome 3 takes hold so who knows. The Debian team did adopt KDE 4.x so I'm sure they will go forward with the latest Gnome when it's stable. Good review and thank you."

Another anonymous commenter said, " I use Debian exclusively for my servers at work. I prefer Debian over Red Hat and other alternatives. I had previously used Ubuntu with extensive problems (constant rebooting for no apparent reason) which were all solved when I switched to Debian. I really like Debian's rock solid stability compared to Ubuntu for use as a server. I don't install X-Windows or a GUI, so most of this article didn't apply to me. I have not yet booted up a sandbox with Squeeze on it but I am looking forward to upgrading. I don't understand why Debian wouldn't be considered relevant. I see its purpose as a stable alternative to Ubuntu, rather than switching to something else like Red Hat."

Revisited: KDE 4.6

Reader Dustin Casler said, "Thanks for the review. I've been wanting to try out 4.6 and also been wanting to try Arch but never find myself with the time. I would have never thought of this. I have a few questions though. Were there any complications getting proprietary drivers/codecs/flash going? Also Would you mind posting or emailing me the commands you used to set it up automatically start KDE?", later adding, "Your Welcome. I saw this article at pretty much the perfect time. I've got Archbang installed, updated, and KDE added. Now i'm just having issues getting into that initrc file to change it to KDE. When I rebooted it doesn't show KDE in the session options. Going hunting in the forums now. Everything seems find with my Nvidia card, but I haven't tried using any desktop effects or playing any videos yet."


Thanks to all those who commented this week. I don't have anything really planned for this week as of yet; I am still waiting on Free Techie to accept and publish an article comparing ArchBang 2011.01 "Symbiosis" to CTKArchLive 0.6, both Arch-based Openbox distributions. Hopefully that'll happen soon, at which point I'll post a teaser and a link to the full article here. At some point (but by no means necessarily this week), I'm thinking of maybe reviewing #! 10 "Statler" R20110207 Xfce and ArchBang 2011.02 [no code names anymore] along with (when those distributions' newest versions get released) a comparison test whose participants I won't name...yet. Remember, if you like what I write here, please continue subscribing and commenting!

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Review: Debian 6 "Squeeze"

After a wait of 2 years, Debian 6 "Squeeze" has finally been released! Yay! It's now officially termed "stable".
Some highlights include changes in supported architectures (e.g. ARMEL instead of ARM), choice in using either the Linux kernel or FreeBSD kernel under the Debian GNU tools, a Linux kernel that is now made completely of free software, GNOME 2.30 with some updates from 2.32, KDE 4.4.5, Xfce 4.6, LXDE 0.50, IceWeasel 3.5, OpenOffice.org 3.2, more packages available, an improved installer, and more "pure blends" for different users.

Main Screen + Main Menu

With this release came a couple articles and a bit of back-and-forth discussion online about the continuing relevance of Debian. The original article posited that Debian is becoming irrelevant because its most famous derivative Ubuntu has it beat on the user-friendly desktop side and Red Hat and SUSE are also much more popular on the server end. A different article argued that Debian, far from becoming irrelevant, is essential for the ongoing survival of derivatives like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, MEPIS, and #!. The original article's author then responded by saying that if need be, although it would be a royal pain to do so, the developers of these derivative distributions could probably continue developing packages for their systems if Debian suddenly disappeared.
I take issue with that, because distributions like Linux Mint, MEPIS, and #! have smaller developer bases, so their time is already taken up by developing the smaller add-on packages to make their distributions unique; they have neither the [wo]manpower nor the funding to possibly continue developing core packages without the help of the Debian developers upstream. Plus, Linux Mint, although currently a primarily Ubuntu-based distribution, is also continually maintaining a rolling-release Debian-based distribution, so it needs the work of the good Debian developers even more in that sense, especially considering that the Ubuntu-based version of Linux Mint will diverge a bit more from Ubuntu in not adopting either Unity or GNOME 3 and not using Wayland for a while.
That said, I did read an interesting comment in one particular release announcement of Debian 6 "Squeeze", and that says that almost all the features present in the current stable Debian release were present in the most recent Ubuntu LTS release (10.04 "Lucid Lynx"), which came out just under a year ago. I would also add to that the fact that Debian stable releases are not supported any longer than Ubuntu LTS releases, which are supported for 3 years after release. Therefore, unless unbeatable stability or low resource usage is paramount, I would say for now that there's no compelling reason to use Debian 6 "Squeeze" over Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx". Of course, that case might become more compelling when Ubuntu uses Unity in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "P[...] P[...]", as Debian will likely stick to a more traditional GNOME setup and will probably appeal to more users disenchanted with the current direction of Ubuntu.

But I'm not here to argue if Debian is relevant or not. I'm here to try it out. I tried out the standard GNOME and KDE live systems through a live USB made with MultiSystem, and installed the KDE version in VirtualBox with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS. Plus, there's a little bonus at the end (which I won't reveal right now), so follow the jump to see how it all goes.

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Fresh OS, Rolling Releases, and Debian as of 2011 January 5

It's been quite a while since I've done one of these massive combined posts, but I feel like it's necessary today.
I mentioned in a post a couple days ago that, along with releasing an update to UberBang, I would continue working on a new build of Fresh OS. Well, those plans (regarding Fresh OS) have hit a snag (actually, a couple of snags). For everyone's information, I've been starting with Linux Mint "Debian" and using Hadret's Debian PPA for all the requisite Elementary-fication. The thing is, there are two separate Hadret repositories ("unstable" and "experimental"), and some packages from "unstable" have been moved to "experimental" (for reasons that I still don't get); these include pretty important ones like Nautilus Elementary (a modification of Nautilus that makes it a lot less cluttered and a lot easier to work with). What this means is that these packages, as I found out the hard way, are more likely to break certain things in the system (though I would think that Nautilus Elementary would be essentially unchanged). Anyway, installing Nautilus Elementary caused the desktop wallpaper to be replaced by a plain blue background, though the wallpaper switcher claims that the wallpaper I selected is still in effect. This is combined with Gloobus Preview and CoverGloobus breaking some other packages and preventing updates from running smoothly.
I looked for solutions to this in the Linux Mint forums and found that it probably is because of Hadret's repository not playing nicely with Linux Mint "Debian" and its rolling-release model. I also saw another interesting tidbit about Jupiter OS, a similar project to Fresh OS, being abandoned due to the developer having difficulties with porting over the applications and other things as well as feeling competition with Pinguy OS. While I don't feel any competition with Pinguy OS (hey, we're all in this together), I can certainly see where the difficulties come in (as it seems like the Jupiter OS developer also used Hadret's repositories).
That brings me to my general beefs with Linux Mint "Debian". I've said most of them already, but just to sum it up, it seems like Linux Mint "Debian" is having a lot more trouble with stability and working packages than standard Linux Mint. Granted, the developers themselves warned of this, but for supposedly keeping very close to the standard edition, it certainly is unstable. Maybe I just need to give it a few more months for it to work out problems with stability associated with a rolling-release model.
Finally, though this is somewhat unrelated, Debian 6 "Squeeze" should be coming out within this month! I say this only because some developers have said that the current number of known bugs is about the same as in version 5 "Lenny" when it was released. Also, there's been a bit of complaint over the new artwork. I too am not a fan of it, but it comes from the codename, which comes from the Squeeze alien toys from the Toy Story series.
Given the issues I've been having with Fresh OS based on Linux Mint "Debian", I'm going to try to do it now with plain Debian 6 "Squeeze". I'll try that and write more later about how that goes.

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Introducing Oxidized Trinity 6 "Squeeze"

This is something that I have wanted to do for the last week and a half or so, but I haven't been able to do it because I've been really busy.
I said in my review of Debian 6 "Squeeze" Standard that I wanted to customize that installation with Trinity 3.5.12. Well, now it has finally happened: please welcome the newest member of the Oxidized Trinity family, Oxidized Trinity 6 "Squeeze"!
There are a couple differences between this and the original (Kubuntu-based) Oxidized Trinity 10.04, the most significant being that the only way to install Oxidized Trinity 6 is to use the Remastersys installer, and that's not guaranteed to work. Also, Trinity 3.5.12 packs a whole lot more stuff for Debian than for Ubuntu; I didn't even want half the stuff included, but I was too lazy to remove all of it. (This is also why Synaptic Package Manager isn't included (it would consume even more space).) Thankfully, despite that, the Oxidized Trinity 6 ISO file is actually smaller than the Oxidized Trinity 10.04 ISO file. I guess that goes to show just how lightweight and versatile Debian really is. Finally, on that note, I have uploaded this to the Oxidized Trinity SourceForge page; also, here is the direct download link. Please do try this out and let me know what I can improve. Thanks! (Also, stay tuned for a brand-new respin!)

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How-To: Remaster Debian 6 "Squeeze"

There are a couple of qualifications to "Debian". In fact, this isn't really a general guide for Debian itself, but it's more for Linux Mint "Debian". In any case, because Linux Mint "Debian" is pointed towards the Testing repositories by default, for standard Debian, the procedure will still be similar anyway.
I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know that the latest versions of Fresh OS are up on my SourceForge site. Yay! These are the download links (for Traditional, Elementary, and Light), and I am also going to link to the project wiki as well. I'm still working on the wiki, so please be patient. In any case, I strongly recommend that you try it out (and if you're especially bold, install it (though be warned that the installer is the Remastersys installer which isn't very consistent), and please let me know what you think either in this blog's comments or in a review on the project's SourceForge page. Thanks!
So this post is just going to be about how I did it. Follow the jump to read more (and to see screenshots of the finished product).
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Featured Comments: Week of 2010 October 3

The 2 posts that garnered comments this week were both my previews of Debian 6 "Squeeze" (which I had embarrassingly misspelled as "Sqeeze" in both article titles — eek!). As always, I won't be able to include every comment, but don't feel bad if yours isn't included.

Preview: Debian 6 "Squeeze" (Part 1: GNOME)

An anonymous reader pointed out a way to have both a stable Debian base combined with the newest versions of other applications. "I like a very stable system but newest desktop software (firefox, chromium, vlc, banshee, thunderbird...) that can be easily achieved in Debian by using apt pinning.
So, my system has all the new packages for desktop and all the stable packages for the bare system which makes it rock solid.
Who says you can't have it both? :)" S/he details how to do this in a later comment (which is too detailed to include here).
Another anonymous commenter reasons out the inclusion of Epiphany vs. Midori: "I'm a KDE fan myself, but as for Midori replacing Epiphany in Debian's default install, I don't see that happening. Epiphany is GNOME's default browser, and I doubt that will change any more than Rekonq replacing Konqueror as KDE's default browser (which is good, as I don't like Rekonq at all, no offense to its developer). Debian sticks to the default, hence Epiphany being included."
It was commenter Ivan who pointed out the spelling error: "Titulo mal escrito: squeeze no sqeeze". I tip my hat to him!
Reader Bob Robertson has this to say about Debian: "Debian Live is a great development. I hope that the "standard" Debian installation becomes the Debian Live for "desktop" systems, and the Bootable Business Card "network install" for those (like me) who like to do things interactively, building a system up from the bottom. Debian is as relevant now as it has ever been. Thank you, Debian Developers!"

Preview: Debian 6 "Squeeze" (Part 2: KDE)

Reader lefty.crupps had this to say about Debian and KDE: "It seems surprising that KPackage isn't installed by default, but AFAIK there isn't (yet??) an update-installer thing for KDE. While I love KDE, its too bad that distro people seem to figure we won't want Firefox (with Oxygen theme!) or won't want the OpenOffice.org to be themed to KDE. Debian with KDE is currently my favorite setup. It is fast and slick and KDE is rather default. However, for new users, yes I agree that Mepis is great and the next release will be even better."

Thank you all for commenting, and remember, if you enjoy this material, please do sign up for RSS, Atom, or email updates!

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Preview: Debian 6 "Squeeze" (Part 3: LXDE and Xfce)

LXDE Main Screen

Each review done individually would be rather short, so I'm combining reviews of these two DEs into one post. It shouldn't turn out to be too long. The other thing is that I didn't test the installation procedure in either because I suspect it's the exact same as in GNOME and KDE (and because this current virtual hard drive is messed up GRUB-wise).
LXDE seems to be the new hot thing; to cater to users who need a lightweight distribution either out of necessity (older hardware, need to allocate as much memory as possible to applications without giving up a usable DE) or out of preference, pretty much every major distribution has begun to offer an LXDE edition. It's user-friendly but light on resources; it's well-built yet very modular. It just seems like the place to be.

Xfce Main Screen

On the other hand, Xfce, previously the DE of choice for lightweight DE enthusiasts, has been the source of these new LXDE users. What do I mean? While some people still do swear by Xfce, it's quickly losing more and more users, and distributions are shifting their development resources away from Xfce (and usually towards LXDE). Why is this? Unlike LXDE, which is consistently getting better with each release, Xfce hasn't really changed in quite a few releases — it has become a sort of static DE. Plus, it just doesn't look as fresh and cutting-edge as the other DEs. (Full disclosure: The only experience I've had with Xfce is with Linux Mint 7 "Gloria" Xfce, and as Ubuntu does to Xubuntu, Linux Mint makes the Xfce version behave a lot more like the GNOME version (as opposed to leaving it with the default Xfce look).) Even looking at DistroWatch statistics (which are alternatively called accurate and inaccurate), Lubuntu has overtaken Xubuntu and even Kubuntu in popularity.
Follow the jump to see how each DE fares, as implemented in Debian 6 "Squeeze".
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Preview: Debian 6 "Squeeze" (Part 2: KDE)

Main Screen

This is the second part in my series of previews of Debian 6 "Squeeze". The ISO image I used this time was again the daily build from 2010 October 3. I tested this in VirtualBox with 1 GB of RAM allocated to the guest OS and a 25 GB virtual hard drive available (the same one on which I installed the GNOME version).
Why am I covering KDE separately from GNOME? It may seem strange at first, considering that Debian doesn't make too many huge modifications to the DEs it uses. However, the fact that KDE 4 (at version 4.4) is included means that KDE 4 has finally reached a level of stability that is acceptable to the developers of stable versions of Debian. Previously, the only distribution based on stable Debian that used KDE 4 was SimplyMEPIS 8.5, based on Debian 5 "Lenny". Now it looks like that may have some competition (though I have heard some rumblings on the Internet that a new version of MEPIS is coming soon — I can't wait to get my hands on that!). Follow the jump to see what it's like.
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Preview: Debian 6 "Squeeze" (Part 1: GNOME)

Main Screen

Trying to forecast when the next version of Debian will be released is like trying to figure out whether or not it will snow the next day in Washington DC in winter; it's an exercise in futility. That said, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Debian 6 "Squeeze" will be released soon. Why? I'm testing the new Debian live images which were first released a week ago (and are daily builds — this one is the 2010 October 3 build); before that, the most recent live image available was of version 6 "Sqeeze" alpha 2. Now that they're doing daily builds, I figure that it's not too long until we see the official release.
So why I am I calling the review of the GNOME edition "Part 1"? Debian is one of two distributions (the other being RHEL/CentOS (and I suppose PCLinuxOS could be included to some extent, so I guess that makes 3)) renowned for its stability; the reason why there's a relatively long gap between releases and why new versions are released only when they're ready is so that as many bugs as possible can be ironed out. (A side effect of this is that large amounts of time are allotted specifically for the purpose of getting rid of bugs, in what is known in the Linux distribution development community as a "feature freeze"; a side effect of such a long feature freeze is that by the time a new version of Debian is released, its components are already 3 or 4 versions old, which is good in terms of stability but bad in terms of getting the latest and greatest features (and oftentimes, newer versions of software iron out the wrinkles of older versions, so sometimes the well-tested older version may still be buggy in some ways). Keep reading to find out whether or not this is true.) Anyway, the point of saying all this is that if an application or even larger component (e.g. a DE) makes it into a Debian release, that's basically a seal of approval in terms of stability. This is why I want to test the GNOME, KDE, LXDE, and Xfce versions of Debian to see if these versions live up to their promises of stable computing; LXDE is a relative newcomer to the DE scene, while KDE 4 suffered from stability problems up until a few months ago, so the fact that these have made it into the newest stable version of Debian must mean that they themselves are fairly stable.
Today, I'm starting with the GNOME version because this is typically the version of Debian that gets the most attention. It is often described as the most bare-bones and lightweight (on hardware resources) implementation of GNOME possible (Arch and Gentoo notwithstanding). Follow the jump to see if these things really are true. As this is a milestone in Linux distribution releases, I'll also be covering the installation procedure.
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