What do people do these days when they are bored? One of the latest additions to the list of answers seems to be Build a Linux Distribution. Have you checked on Distrowatch lately? They have upwards of 100 distributions listed there. I used to be happy that I had a lot of choices but now I am beginning to get intimidated by the sheer volume of choices. You could play charades with only Linux Distro Names.
My Linux experience started back in the days of Red Hat 5.2. The first time I saw it I was instantly in love. I could have so much control over my operating system! I could write a whole page of text without the computer crashing on me and without having to save the document every two minutes lest all my hard work be nullified. I could stay totally oblivious to the new viruses popping up everyday and infecting systems all around me and I would never have to get caught up in the “Hardware software upgrade cycle” that all my other friends were forced into. There was Red Hat and there was Slackware and there was Debian and then came Mandrake and then came This Drake and That Drake and Yellow Hat and Blue Hat and then I stopped checking them out and decided to stick Red Hat and Mandrake.
About a year ago, I realized that they were getting too bulky for my taste. They were increasingly expecting me to know where to click rather than what to type. There were libraries I had never heard of before. Programs started crashing occasionally. I like my desktop Operating System to be Low Fat. Really Low Fat. What I mean is, I don’t have a printer, so I don’t want CUPS. I don’t have a scanner so I don’t want sane. I never connect my digital camera to my desktop nor do I intend to so I don’t need all those digital camera and USB libraries and support. Most importantly, I don’t want all other software compiled against those libraries.
Thus started my search for a new operating system for my desktop, which would be used primarily for internet / e-mail, word processing, image editing, programming in C/C++ and Perl and a little bit of music and videos. I tried out a few of the new “LIVE” distributions out there like Knoppix and its children, ThisKnoppix and ThatKnoppix and MyKnoppix and YourKnippix and so on and so forth. One is even called STD Knoppix or something like that. My wife wouldn’t let me try out that one. There is also DamnSmall, SLAX and a few others. They really come in handy when your friends call you asking to fix their commercial operating system that won’t boot up. You can load em up, burn all their important files to CD-Rs and let them do the re-installation. While k3b or konqueror is loading, you have more than enough time to explain to them that usually Linux is not this slow, its just because right now you are running from the CD Drive. Don’t worry, they’ll understand. You will be doing them a favor after all.
I didn’t really try out the server oriented distributions or the “based on
Are you thinking “Gentoo”? You are thinking wrong. Sorry. Instead my search came to an end when I found CRUX Linux. I started using it primarily soon after I installed it. It took a little bit of getting used to, commands, package management and all that but once I got comfortable with that in about 2 days, I realized that my search had to come to an end. I still try out a lot of other source based distributions now and then. Gentoo was the most impressive of them all as I learned from reading the manual but it was a little too complicated for me as I also learned from reading the manual. If you feel a bit confused about what I am saying, go Read The F(un) manual and you will get it. Crux is similar to gentoo, as all source-based distros are, just much simpler.
Crux and other source based distributions like Gentoo, SourceMage (and family), Onebase all work in the same fundamental way. You download scripts from the net that specify the location of the packages sources and commands to compile that package. You run the script and the script downloads the source(s), compiles and installs the package for you, making an entry in the package database for package management. You can modify these scripts in anyway you want and include any dependencies you want or don’t want. You can set optimization flags as you wish. It’s all very simple for an experienced Linux user. For Newbies it might take a little while to understand things still it’s worth a try. You can jump in the lake without knowing how to swim and learn soon enough or you will run out grasping for breath. If you do learn though, you will learn it better than the closed roof, air conditioned swimming pool people with paid instructors will.
Crux is simple to use, non-user-friendly-at-all, but simple. Just the way I like it. I use xfce4 window manager, firefox, gimp2, xpdf, nedit, openoffice, gqview, gaim, thunderbird, xmms, gxine and a few other gtk/gtk2 apps. These programs and a handful of their dependencies are all I compiled and installed, with my optimized architecture and optimization flags of course. Sadly nothing breaks. Nothing crashes. I love to tinker with my system but there is no need. That is why I keep a partition empty to try out the new ones.
Crux is a fine example of source-based distribution for experienced users. It is relatively unknown because its target audience is not the general masses but only those who want complete control over all aspects of their system, who like to keep things simple and who don’t mind getting their hands dirty. Compiling packages hardly ever fails and new releases make it to the official package list in a matter of days if not hours. It comes with some nifty tools for package management and informative manuals to go along. The people on the (very active) mailing list are more than happy to help you. The other night after gtk 2.4.0 was released, I modified the gtk scripts, and issued a couple of commands to upgrade my gtk2 libraries with the latest ones and recompile ALL application depending on gtk2. In the morning it was all done, and everything looked exactly the same as before. It felt great. Crux is more than a good desktop operating system for me; it’s a great feeling. Crux is like a good looking, really good looking, gorgeous, hot girl without any cheap perfume or makeup, waiting for you to customize her in any way you see fit. On top of that, she is free, permanent and wont make absurd and disturbing demands.
Enough of good feelings, lets try something different. One of the latest source based distributions I tried was Onebase 2004.2. I tried this distribution a good number of months ago, when it was at version 1.0 or 1.1 and the CD did not boot. The website had a note saying it was a known problem and the next version would definitely boot. I waited a while after that not wanting to waste bandwidth, time and a blank CD and decided to try out after they came up with version 2004.2. They went from 1.0 to 1.1, 1.2, 2.0 and finally 2004.2. Hoping it to have matured in all these months after all these releases, I burned me a copy and popped it in and restarted. This time the computer booted. I was happy. Then the Knoppix harware detection started up. I thought it would be a Knoppix clone with the base software and a BSD Ports/Potrage/Sorcery like system on top of it. It was not. It was instead something very similar to Linux From Scratch version 4.1. The commands that were executed, the way optimizations were unset before compilation of glibc, gcc and other packages as mentioned on the Linux From Scratch website and the choice of base packages all matched so I concluded that it was heavily inspired by LFS 4.1 if not based on it. I didn’t stick to it long enough to check the features the author takes pride in. At the end of the installation, I couldn’t install lilo on the MBR, and Grub was not present. A look at lilo.conf told me the problem and I was good to go after manually editing it.
Then I couldn’t install my HCF PCI Modem drivers because cpio did not come as part of a base package. I got past that and tried out the package management they offer. There are far too little software scripts available. A lot of them don’t work (e.g. Gnome) and the whole thing looks a bit lacking in professionalism. OLM (the package management system) does not categorize the different scripts on the hard-drive. They are all dumped in one single folder and all source files downloaded are also dumped in the same folder. The folder is called sourcebox, instead of potpourri. The word “choice” is spelled wrong consistently as “choise”. I wonder who provides feedback to them. Onebase uses Knoppix for hardware detection, which is a smart choice since it is the best around. Still, to be a hundred percent sure, the author decided to make the default kernel have almost ALL options built in to the kernel and a few as modules making the base kernel size upwards of 2Mb. Add the ATI or Nvidia drivers and the other modules you load up and you can proudly say that your kernel is the biggest and the baddest kernel out there. A lot of bzImage’s out there may un bzip themselves and still not beat your size. You will never have any problems with hardware detection there. Thats a guarantee. The most entertaining part about Onebase is this thread on their message board where the author and an ex-user are having an argument where the ex-user is blaming the author for taking un-due credit for a few scripts he wrote and the author is trying to defend himself. It’s a fun read.
As I said before, I like to play around but only with a product that is well made and worth tinkering with. Reboot worked in Onebase and I re-booted. Back into Crux. People on the mailing list are discussing what to include in the next version, glibc+nptl, Kernel 2.6, udev. This is fun!
About the Author:
I am a final year student in Electrical Engineering at the University of Maine and currently doing an internship at General Electric. I’ve been using good and bad Linux distributions since 1998.
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
The key to making a decision is first identifying your needs, and wants. Now find what matches the closest. Have at it.
To difficult? bah!
How did gentoo even make it into the title?! Just because the word “gentoo” got typed once or twice in it?
there are too many businesses, too much competition, etc.
I thought competition was a good thing, for us consumers anyway. Where’s your competitive spirit?
We can’t expect the Microsofts of the world to get it right the first time. Well, maybe we could, if they were interested in anything other than the money.
But when I think about OSX I feel like they might be right. Its very quickly reaching for perfection. Very difficult to compete again. If only I could afford $130 every few months…
hmmm!
Some people should just use the real thing, FreeBSD accept no imitations.
He seems like like source based, no crack distros – why not a no crack OS, with the mother of all source based package management system, Ports. It’s my understanding from the Crux website that it’s basically FreeBSD with the Linux kernel instead and all the nice documentation work missing.
there are too many businesses, too much competition, etc.
I thought competition was a good thing, for us consumers anyway. Where’s your competitive spirit?
———————————————
With information technology, the importance of standards can not be over-emphasized. A “standard” product will usually win over a better product every time – in total slam-dunk no-contest kind of way.
As it is, Linux commands less than 2% of the desktop. Thus, software developers like intuit don’t want to develop for linux. Hardware support is just as bad. Now take that already tiny 2% and split it up another 200 ways.
Desktop linux also becomes impractical to support. Few end-users want to bother with a cli. So, if you provide tech support and a linux user calls, how do walk that customer through the call? Do they use gnome, kde, icewm, fxce, winmaker, something else? Do they use yast, adminmenu, . . . ? Which distro? Which version? It’s all different.
With windows, the way to install a printer with the gui, has been about the same for ten years, with all version of windows. Linux? I don’t even know how many ways.
And how many ways to need to install an application? One dozen? Two dozen? More? How many ways are there now? Spells, emerge, apt-get, rpm, urpmi, dpkg, slapt-get, swaret, pakman . . .
No wonder companies like comcast want nothing to do with supporting desktop linux.
Without wanting to be a FreeBSD troll here, that *was* actually the first thing that came to my mind while reading the article… “he’s looking for FreeBSD”. Well, who knows, maybe he’ll give it a try some day
This DIY attitute is both the joy and the curse of F/OSS.
While keeping the software fragmented, we prolong the hegemony of the Major Suspects.
Your point is basically correct but it’s taken a bit too far. That is to say, it’s true of the home desktop but not of the enterprise desktop or server.
As far as enterprise Linux goes, there are basically two distributions: Red Hat and SuSE. And that means there’s only one package tool: rpm.
For guis, the only two worth mentioning are Gnome and KDE. And Gnome is the only one with significant corporate support.
So for half of the Linux desktop market, there is standardization. Once you get on the home desktop, with Debian and Fedora and Lycoris and Lindows etc. etc, yeah there is more of a problem.
BTW: Comcast may not officially support Linux, but my SuSE and Debian boxes work just fine on it.
Yes, people confuse freedom of choice with standards. Freedesktop.org and LSB are working on it, but in the open source world you can’t force anybody to do anything. Because in reality, Linux is not an operating system – Redhat is an operating system, and Debian is an operating system, and Gentoo, and so on and so on…
Let’s look at a whatif. Now Miguel de Icaza was a minor contributor to KDE before he decided that the licensing issue on QT was a problem. What if Qt had changed it’s license before he decided to start Gnome. What if Gnome had never been started. Would someone else had started something like Gnome or would KDE be the dominant desktop today and you would have some little ankle-biters for the hobbyist that wants something lighter. What if we had 4 or 5 desktops and toolkits that had about equal marketshare. It would be even worse. What if the kernel had been forked early on and we had two or three or five incompatible kernels that had about equal market share. Would linux be as popular as it is today? Probably not. Good luck finding drivers for your particular flavor of the linux kernel.
Don’t get me wrong, choice is good, but with choice comes a cost. Having two desktops and many distros is good for choice, but has a cost in that commercial software has a hard time dealing with toolkits, libraries, installation routines, and the nightmare that is support.
There’s just so much duplication of effort that I don’t find linux really making inroads into the home market. Sure, it’ll work on the server and the corporate locked-down desktop and the hobbyist desktop, but until there is better cooperation via freedesktop.org, LSB, etc… linux is going to be a tough sell at home.
No wonder companies like comcast want nothing to do with supporting desktop linux.
————————————-
You only need a Mac or Windows box to activate your
Comcast account. The technician told me that the only
problem with using non-Windows OS is the encryption
support in the browser It may also be that the web site
you go to activate your account only allows Windows/Mac browsers.
And also you dont even need to install the software that
comes with it. All you have to do is connect to the
comcast proxy and access the site to activate. I forget the proxy information and the site address though.
All the frangmentation is what hurts Linux. Linux is far, far, from ever gaining any more than the embarrassing 1% it has on Google Zeitgeist (so much for Linux desktop usage overtaking Mac usage…remember that?).
“Crux is like a good looking, really good looking, gorgeous, hot girl without any cheap perfume or makeup, waiting for you to customize her in any way you see fit. On top of that, she is free, permanent and wont make absurd and disturbing demands.”
Geez, we got to marry this fine specimen off, and soon!
“Linux is far, far, from ever gaining any more than the embarrassing 1% it has on Google Zeitgeist (so much for Linux desktop usage overtaking Mac usage…remember that?).”
Linux is outpacing growth of mac desktops already. that doesnt necessarily mean right now there is more. it just means that it might be more after sometime
Crux is not BSD with linux kernel.. Crux is based on Slackware which is the most unix like linux distro.
“As it is, Linux commands less than 2% of the desktop.”
With the operative phrase being “as it is,” as in the present or here & now, in one country.
“Hardware support is just as bad.”
There are some signs of life, such as HP printers, Nvidia & ATI graphics cards, etc.
“Now take that already tiny 2%…”
Oh, I see, the only Linux usage statistics we should concern ourselves with is American Linux usage statistics. Just remember, the hardware & software companies sell world-wide and ARE paying attention to Linux statistics world-wide, not just in this country.
“…and split it up another 200 ways.”
I don’t believe the fact that 200 distros exist means any given company must provide support for all 200 distros. We will end up with 1-3 larger players in the corporate market. The big players will all be accused of being too “Windowish.” (Haven’t you read the articles already claiming Redhat is the next Microsoft, or trying to be?) Because these distros are so “Windowish,” they will all have Control Centers and such for central system administration. In the same way that Comcast now refuses to support Linux, down the road, as Linux uptake expands, other companies will refuse to support Crux, Gentoo, LFS, etc.
“No wonder companies like comcast want nothing to do with supporting desktop linux.”
But other corporations do, such as Oracle (corporations) and Opera (for desktops).
“Desktop linux also becomes impractical to support… .So, if you provide tech support and a linux user calls, how do walk that customer through the call?”
I imagine it would work like this:
Windows Support: For XP, press 1. For Windows 2000 press 2. For Windows 98 press 3.
Linux Support: For Redhat, press 1. For Suse, press 2. For Mandrake, press 3.
“Few end-users want to bother with a cli.”
Exactly so our hypothetical support call would proceed as follows: Redhat & Mandrake users open the Control Center. Suse users open Yast. How is that different from clicking on “My Computer” or “Internet Properties?”
“With windows, the way to install a printer with the gui, has been about the same for ten years, with all version of windows. Linux? I don’t even know how many ways.”
With the Linux distros going after the corporate desktop, there is only one way, which is point and click, just like Windows. Open Mandrake Control Center, click on printers.
“And how many ways to need to install an application? One dozen? Two dozen? More? How many ways are there now? Spells, emerge, apt-get, rpm, urpmi, dpkg, slapt-get, swaret, pakman . . .”
With the Linux distros going after the corporate desktop, there is only one way, which is point and click, just like Windows.
My argument is Linux will be taken up by large organizations first, such as corporations & governments. As people become more familiar with it at work, only then will it move onto home desktops in larger numbers. As worldwide demand grows, the hardware & software company will follow those dollars. Let’s not forget how many boxes Sun recently sold to China. Wasn’t it a million? You think ATI or Nvidia might want a piece of that?
But even in this country, with businesses, school systems, colleges and governments switching at least parts of their systems over, the demand for Linux hardware and software will rise.
Yeah, I noticed that description too.
Kinda got me confused as to wether he was talking about a girl or one of those blow up sex dolls :>.
For the hobbyist the huge number of distros (And the fun of rolling your own) is great. However, IMO, it’s not so great for the future. Apt-get and cousins work excellently when things are in the repository, or you can grab a deb/rpm/whatever for your distribution, but commercial software developers (Games are what I’m thinking of here) are going to want to distribute binaries in nice shiny boxes, not put their software in a repository. Without a greater level of standardisation, and consequently less real difference between distributions, makeing commercial Linux software seems like just too much of a pain in the neck at the moment.
Crux is not based on Slackware, RootLinux is.. sorry for my error.
“Crux is based on Slackware which is the most unix like linux distro.”
It’s all about attitude, really. Unix is about being serious and academic and no-nonsense while Linux is all about fun and making impossible things happen. ‘Nuff said.
“It’s all about attitude, really. Unix is about being serious and academic and no-nonsense while Linux is all about fun and making impossible things happen. ‘Nuff said.”
I’ve used versions of Unix and a lot of versions of Linux. After using both I must say, gnu utilities are beautiful.
CRUX is a great distro and is in my opinion one of the best GNU/Linux Distro’s available. It’s stable, fast, & to the point. It is also nice to see that other people out there are using it, besides me. — I don’t feel so alone anymore!
As one person said above, CRUX is BSD using the Linux Kernel!
I think that is a great way of looking at it, and is exactly how i see it. It is also one of the reasons I fell in love w/ CRUX. Being a BSD user my self, it is nice to be able to go into either FreeBSD or CRUX and get the same overall experience from both OS’s…
———————————————————–
DarkSpy: Sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but CRUX is not based on Slackware in anyway, shape, or form…
I think Crux is binary (i686) distribution not source … !
i found this in ( http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=4720 ):
CRUX Linux (simply CRUX for now on) is a source-based Linux distribution
so … its source!
He builds a Linux From Scratch system and then says that Gentoo is too complicated???
I can’t see any other reasonable explaination here except that hes outright lying. Rediculous!
Using CRUX myself, I have to agree with the author. Much the same setup. I found that Source-Mage got too erratic and Gentoo was putting too much stuff on my computer. I was using GNOME-GTk apps, had the settings right but still ended up with a lot of QT-KDE stuff. A failed update leading to a basically unuseable system made me look for something else.
Getting the dependencies right can be time consuming but once the system is built, very nice and easy to keep up to date
I’m curious to what you mean you had the settings right but you still ended up with a lot of qt-kde stuff. I’m assuming that you were using USE flags such -qt and -kde. I’ve noticed that in certain circumstances that the USE flags don’t seem to work properly. I too was just using Gnome and gtk+ apps, but for whatever reason some emerges wanted to pull in qt no matter what.
What exactly do you mean by a failed update? Were you unmasking unstable stuff? A lot of people that use gentoo like to dick with their settiings 24/7 and when something breaks will blame it on gentoo when in reality it’s their own fault. If you have ultra optimization compiler flags then things are going to break. But that’s not gentoos fault.
What do people do these days when they are bored?
They create new programming languages and write new operating systems. 🙂
When do people finally start to realize that all those Linux / *BSD distributions are just different flavours of the same thing?
IMNSHO, Linux advocates are so obsessed with Mandrake vs. Slackware vs. Fedora vs. SuSE vs. Gentoo vs. LFS vs. … that they simply fail to push the whole thing – Unix successor – ahead as much as it needs to. Laudable improvements have been made – Linux Standard Base, some agreement on the filesystem layout, concentration on just a handful of desktop environments – but at the end of the day, all that bickering and choice for the sake of choice doesn’t improve the platform.
Windows sucks (because of Microsoft), Linux / *BSD sucks (because they spend too much time in the trenches instead of the drawing board), MacOS sucks (because you have to find the big “X” on the map to find / afford the hardware), when will the user finally get an operating system that gets out of the way and allows productive work again?
He builds a Linux From Scratch system and then says that Gentoo is too complicated???
LFS certainly is much simpler than Gentoo WRT compiling packages. Just compare LFS build instructions or CRUX Pkgfiles with those horrid Gentoo ebuild files. Those ebuild files are the nastiest looking things I’ve ever seen, and so full of possibilities, only a single user is only going to use one of those possibilities.
yes, had the use flags set -qt -kde, still got these at times as you said. Kept my optimisations to a minimum, -02, arch = athlon. IIRC. Not interested in getting adventurous. No unmasking, strictly as-released stable. Failed update when a dependency would not compile causing emerge to stop. This left me with a desktop that I could not use. I use this machine as my daily work computer. If I had spent some time trying to find what went wrong maybe I could have fixed it. With getting stuff I didn’t want, having a simple update crap out like that was just the end. Obviously Gentoo works for most, but the emerges didn’t give me the control I wanted. I check every dependecy for the packages I want and install only what is actually neede or that is suitable for what I run.
“but commercial software developers (Games are what I’m thinking of here) are going to want to distribute binaries in nice shiny boxes, not put their software in a repository.”
I got both ET and Nvidia drivers running here on my crux box. I somehow fail to see your point.
Coke or Pepsi? (Nevermind that both are nutritional poison.) Lets keep things simple. MacDonalds or Burger King? We don’t need more than two restuarants anything more is inefficent. Ford or Chevrolet…. etc.
LFS is indeed somewhat simpler than Gentoo. the Gentoo’s USE flag is said to be very powerful, but also very unpredictable and hard to keep unwanted things out. The only way is in the default put minus everything, and then only use export USE during compile time. And that’s very complicated and tedious.
this review is almost a copy of the OLM vs gentoo review that was posted 8 months ago (or more?) on distrowatch.org. It is really nothing new and doesn’t give us more insight than the fact that the writer should not be writing reviews at all.
I agree that this is not a review in generic sense.
Still I think this is a good text since it attracts newbies’
attention to anything but windiotish fedora.
Besides this, I am sure that a text like this stimulates
the developers of _really_ good things like Crux.
Finally, if you want to get to know smth new RTFine Crux
Manual and install it 😉
He takes the view that limiting what libraries are installed is important. I can even agree to that. although it´s a minor thing (what does it hurt you to have a few extra dozen libraries installed?)
But think about the examples he uses: CUPS and USB support libraries (for cameras and such).
Well, if you don´t have the support for USB storage (what every camera uses nowadays), you can´t use flash drives, card readers, external USB disks, and yes, cameras.
And by using a source-based distro, and taking this path (the USES stuff in gentoo, for example) of leaving this basic stuff out, you guarantee that when the time comes when you want to use any of that, you are going to be looking at rebuilding half your system for it to work.
Almost the same can be said about CUPS. You have no printer. Big deal. CUPS can also provide you faxing, or PDF generation, or a dozen other things.
And whenever you will need one of them, you are SOL.
And what for? So you have no libraries you don´t know installed.
I wonder if the author has ever heard of flexibility? One comment here says that you have to figure out your needs, see what fits and use it.
That´s WRONG. You have to figure out not what you need, but what you are *going to need* in the future.
That´s a lot harder. Being flexible, and supporting stuff you don´t seem to need at the time, as long as it has no undue cost, is the only way.
“what does it hurt you to have a few extra dozen libraries installed?”
That’s not your decision to make. I and a lot of other people is VERY tired of the “everything and the kitchen sink” mentality. You can keep your on size fits all thinking to your self.
“Well, if you don´t have the support for USB storage (what every camera uses nowadays), you can´t use flash drives, card readers, external USB disks, and yes, cameras.”
Surprise, surprise, not all people have those devices, and neither should they have to deal with a shitload of libs they’ll never use.
“leaving this basic stuff out, you guarantee that when the time comes when you want to use any of that, you are going to be looking at rebuilding half your system for it to work.”
The average crux user is, I belive, quite capable of sorting out eventual problems. Without patronizing attitudes. Rebuild half your system? That sounds awful.. if you have the equvalent of a fullblown fedora installed. You do not seem to grasp that most users have quite minimal setups. They also mostly know what they are doing. Yet again you question the wisdom of the owner of the system and consider yourself superior in wisdom because you think everything and the f****** sink should be there.
“CUPS can also provide you faxing, or PDF generation, or a dozen other things.”
Well, so can a lot of other programs. What if I prefer those? Should I be burdend with cups anyway?
“And whenever you will need one of them, you are SOL.”
No, I use the port system, or make a port myself.
“I wonder if the author has ever heard of flexibility?”
I wonder if you ever heard of it? Beeing stuck with a lot of stuff just because somone some day MIGHT need it, is not my definition of flexibility. It’s beeing able to add stuff if you need it, and easily dispose it when you don’t, that counts as flexibility.
“That´s WRONG. You have to figure out not what you need, but what you are *going to need* in the future.”
Bullshit. If you need to add something later you add it from the ports-system, and before you do that you have to backtrack eventual dependencies. That would be a daunting task on fedora, but on a minimal system that only has the software installed you actullay USE, it’s not that hard. On my system I have 165 packages in total, and VERY few of them is related to CUPS.
“is the only way.”
There is NO ONLY way. If you are a newbi, or want everything made ready for you, with none or littel control over your system and can’t have enough of bloat, keep hugging fedora, or whatever your favorite dist is. Crux is for experienced users, who know what they do.
You should drop this now. You only look ignorant and inflexible, and you are SO wrong.
crux is a 207MB iso download, even fetchable on dial up. You do that with fedora.
Looks like everybody dislikes Gentoo. But there is a lot of people happy with their Gentoo systems. If you dont believe me, read the Gentoo forums.
I have never had a Qt app installed, in my GTK/GTK2 based system. I have never had my system broken after an update. An I don’t think spending 10 minutes thinking about what USE flags you like is suc a problem.
If you add an USE flag the number of packages to rebuild will be minimal (well not if you want to wipe Gnome and switch to KDE
If you dislike Gentoo, just don’t use it, but I think there is a lot of people talking about what they have never tryed.
First, about gentoo and qt. I had a similar problem with ’emerge orpheus’ wanted qt to be installed. I had -qt -kde in my make.conf, but the problem was that orpheus depended on arts, wich on turn depended on qt. A USE=”-arts” solved this easily.
I have to say that crux looks very interesting, could be my coup of tea. I just burned the iso, and I’m rebooting soon (bye gentoo). Btw, Gentoo have not satisfied my needs for a desktop oriented distro, but it runns great as a SAMBA/NFS storage server. Lets hope Crux will be more enjoyable on the desktop =)
Great article, and totally truth.
CRUX is the best Linux-distribution i ever tryed. I agree with the author in all points. I came to CRUX the same way. (same experience with Gentoo and same trouble with Onebase)
btw. Crux comes as binary-distribution, but everything you want to install you have to compile using the port-system. Of course you can also recomile the base-ports. – So calling CRUX a source based distribution is not so wrong.
Flexibility in a a system is being capable to react to changing circusnstances.
Being able to manually configure a system to be rigid in a thousand different ways means *you* are flexible, not the system.
Also, notice how I give reasons why having those libraries installed is good. What reasons do you give?
a) It’s not my choice to make. Yes it is, on my system. It is not on the reviewer’s system. However, it is my choice to have an opinion about it.
b) “Yet again you question the wisdom of the owner of the system and consider yourself superior in wisdom because you think everything and the f****** sink should be there.”
Well, yeah, I know what I’m talking about, since I have been successfully making a living by configuring and using linux for almost ten years. Pardon me if I don’t bow to others.
c) Should I be burdend with cups anyway? [when I can choose other ways]
No, you shouldn’t. However, it is my opinion that having CUPS installed doesn’t cost you anything, so the idea of you being “burdend” by it is wrong in itself. Feel free to disagree, but if you do, it would be nice if you could tell me how exactly CUPS burdens you.
And so on. I am saying, sure, it uses a little more HD space. What is 1GB worth nowadays? 60 cents? Is that a problem, really?
I mean, in some specific systems, sure, it is. I even wrote a guide about how to get a graphical Linux system on a Libretto ct50, for that very reason. On a regular workstation? Get real.
And yes, the only way to handle unexpected requirements in the future is to be generous in your current installation.
If you want to use CUPS with KDE or GNOME apps, and really take advantage of it (like choosing ink profiles or paper types in a inkjet printer), you need to integrate it into the DE libs.
If you don’t, you have awful, unflexible printing.
If you want your desktop to be able to recognize a USB storage device when it’s plugged, without having to mount it manually (and having to become root to do that, as well), libusb is handy.
It cracks me up that people here call me a newbie. I was compiling kernels when most of the readership was playing with GI Joe dolls. I passed that. I am on the other side of that.
Took me about 30 min, from start to finish. Only thing I had trouble with was mapping /dev/sdb to /dev/sda in lilo (only used grub before) so that windows would boot easily from a non-primary drive.
I was impressed with the fast install, and coming from gentoo, it was easy in comparison. The documentation was a bit light, so if I didden’t have the experience of intalling gentoo (using it’s excellent handbook) I could easily have failed.
And one last thing, imo lynx should be available in the base iso. I had to ssh into my server to browse.
“That’s not your decision to make. I and a lot of other people is VERY tired of the “everything and the kitchen sink” mentality. You can keep your on size fits all thinking to your self.”
Ever heard of this really neat thing called free speech?
Read here on OSNews about it, thought i would try it out. Installed it last night on my dual 1Ghz HP workstation, Call me weird but it felt like gaining control of my linux box again. I personally like using fdisk to lay out my file systems. Crux also makes it so easy to recompile the linux kernel to optimize it for the system.
I only have one problem, eth0 is missing in action…could be kernel drivers..not sure gonna hack at it tonight. Anyway i think i have finally found a linux distro worth its salt in Crux and i recommend it to anyone who is tired of the major distro bloat.
Lindows(Linspire) is the Mac OSX of the linux world and is great for the desktop user. Keep it simple. And the “L” as in “i” in OSX.
I like it, but doesn’t use it my self because I’m a windows addict, it does what I need and it does it good.
before you call me a winidiot I would like to say that I have tried “alternatives” GNU/Linux: SuSE(Love it), Redhat/Fedora(it’s okay), Mandrake(Don’t like it), Gentoo(cool and very good for learning), Lindows(Love it). Mac OSX(Love it). FreeBSD(Well..). and BeOS(well..).
But none of them can do what I need them to do.
I’m going to give SuSE 9.1 a go since I need something alternative to windows when I feel like exploring
“Flexibility in a a system is being capable to react to changing circusnstances.”
Right. You want to accomplish that by turning crux into another Fedora, I by using the tools given in the system.
“Being able to manually configure a system to be rigid in a thousand different ways means *you* are flexible,”
No, it’s the system that is flexible because I can turn it into whatever I want/need, without having to “clean” first.
“Also, notice how I give reasons why having those libraries installed is good. What reasons do you give?
a) It’s not my choice to make. Yes it is, on my system.”
Yes, that’s why I suggest you use your favorite distro, and never stray. You seem to have difficulties handling that there are people who “Think different”. It’s also your choice to have an opinion on a system you *obviously* never have used, and also *obviously* do NOT understand the philosophy behind. All in all a good time to chose to be quiet. But no, all you seem to understand is that “It does not do things Robertos way, therefore it’s WRONG”. Inflexible and stupid thinking.
Make a note of that I have NOT said that your points are wrong or invalid. What I say is if you want that, crux is not for you, and that there ARE other ways. You really should stick to what you use instead of argue that all distros should turn into some bloated POS. BTW, to have an opinion is one thing. Claiming to be the Messiah who knows the true path to enlighenment is another.
“Well, yeah, I know what I’m talking about,”
Well so do I. I have been using crux and nothing else for three years (I’ve been using Linux much longer), and I have NEVER percived any of your points as a problem.
“Pardon me if I don’t bow to others.”
You don’t have to. But I’d never complain about i.e Fedora without actually having any experience with it. I would also never complain about another distros philosophy. It could turn me away, but who am I to disagree with their opinions? I have no right to whine about i.e debians fanatical free software philosophy, but I can chose another distro.
“However, it is my opinion that having CUPS installed doesn’t cost you anything”
Yes it does. It takes time to download (you have not adressed the fact that crux is a 200 MB iso, vs Fedoras 4 cd’s..) and as it’s absolutely f****** useless to me, it takes time to remove. Furthermore if you have been satisfied and a lot of stuff breaks if I remove cups, that means even more work. FStupid if you ask me.
“so the idea of you being “burdend” by it is wrong in itself.”
No it’s not. Your reasoning is the sort that leads to bloated multi cd monster distros like fedora. Besides, it would be your system and not mine, since you are the one who decides what I must have on my system. That’s bloody M$-think!
“What is 1GB worth nowadays? 60 cents? Is that a problem, really?”
See above.
“workstation? Get real.”
I’m real. And I have decided to use a distribution that gives me total freedom to to whatever I want with it, with a minimum of trouble. You don’t like that. Well, thats fine, but do us all a favor and keep using what you use and don’t whine at those who don’t do things your way. And above all don’t say they are wrong, just because the disagree with you.
“unexpected requirements in the future”
Is beeing adressed then.
“If you want to use CUPS with KDE or GNOME apps,”
Get out of your box! Yes, it’s possible to install KDE or Gnome or even both on crux. But I doubt that the majority of the users have done that. Most use just a windowmanager and are happy with that.
“If you don’t, you have awful, unflexible printing.”
So you say. As long as I get the right stuff on the white sheet, wich I do, I’m happy. I have no idea what more I could ask for.. Those who want more are free to add that.
“If you want your desktop to be able to recognize a USB storage device when it’s plugged, without having to mount it manually (and having to become root to do that, as well), libusb is handy.”
Dear friend: The mounting of “CDROMS” are manual. Crux users are NOT afraid of manual work. And again, there is a splendid port system wich holds the solution to most desires (in software :-)), and if not… Making a port of your own is really piece of cake.
“with GI Joe dolls.”
Sounds to me like you’re closing in on picking up that habbit again..
Ever heard about “hubris”?
Great, when I’m finished with this life maybe I’ll have time in the next one to geek around incessantly with Crux.
I mean, come ON!
Is’nt the “I have no life so you should’nt too” think finally being put to rest in Linux?
Sheesh!
Ever heard about “hubris”?
Yes, but I don’t see how that has anything to do with this. All I’m saying is that if Roberto thinks that inclusing all the libraries you might need is the best way, than that’s his opinion. Saying he should keep his thinking for himself is uncalled for.
If saying “I’m right, you are wrong” in what’s largely a philosophical discussion isn’t hubris I do not know what is.
If whining and complaining about something you’ve never tried, and do not understand isn’t hubris I do not know what is.
In other words the philosopy is something like “small and simple is beautiful”. Anyone is free to disagree with that. But noone is in a position to say it’s wrong, because right or wrong depends on what your goal is. Also, the distro is mainly for those who use a windowmanager and a bunch of gtk apps and are happy with that. Ergo: There IS no NEED to include every damned library you can think of. If an user finds that he/she want something more, they are usually more than capable of adjusting their system. Remember, this stuff is NOT for newbis.
I think the author had a bad experience with onebase that infuenced his valuations.
Everyone that can understand the feature of this distro can’t compare it with crux
http://www.ibiblio.org/onebase/onebaselinux.org/About/aboutol.html
(Parallel and concurrency support, source and binary support…)
It lacks of developers since it’s new, but it doesn’t lack of professionalism and good original ideas.
Thinking a bit about it, the word I want is probably not as much “Hubris” as “Arrogance”.
I think you can just use Fedora or Mandrake or SUSE, or Microsoft Windows, if you want the flexibility of everything and anything and some more. the more flexibility the system has, the less stability and efficiency, you have to trade off something for other things. the most flexible system are all bloatwares.
Linux has a great many listed distros many of which are
variants of Debian (e.g. Knoppix) or another orginal distro.
The number of genuine rather than derivative distros is
actually quite small. The derivatives are usually concerned
with special purposes or contexts (languages etc).
FreeBSD and others tend to categorise derivatives as
variants which is a different form of accounting and, at
best, only partially comparable. To allege otherwise is
either ignorant or disingenuous.
Just a tuppeny thought.
The only printing system for Linux that provides even half-decent print quality is CUPS. You say, if it puts the right thing on the paper it’s ok: no other printing system does anything *close* to printing right.
If you don’t know that, you are clueless about printing. Sorry, that’s fact.
If you have never had a need to use USB storage of any kind, or print, well, you are a very limited, unflexible user.
Also, you say downloading CUPS takes time. CUPS is about 2MB or so (can’t check right now). Are you a dialup user or something?
Also noticed that you claim saying someone’s opinion is wrong is arrogance. That’s not only wrong, but stupid.
If someone’s opinion is not falsifiable (ie: possibly shown wrong) it’s not an opinion but a tautology, and worthless.
For example, you say my opinion is wrong. Is that arrogant?
You said also that on your system, rebuilding it to use CUPS takes little time because it’s minimal.
I suppose you don’t use any word processor, then? Lates Open Office can use CUPS. And you ain’t gonna tell me recompiling Open Office takes little time!
In other words, my friend, you think I am shooting down what you say because I am clueless. From my point of view, you are a user with very limited requirements on your computer, who is hardly a operation model worth discussing.
Just the subject.
LFS = simple, sh.
Gentoo = complicated, python, gentoosian?.
The wonderful thing about diversity in distros is it matches the diversity of user requirements and anyone with a couple of months of time to spare can create one in their own vision and compete on an even field with everyone else. LFS is the ultimate base for people to express their vision of what form a linux distro should take. To assume LSB is right or good in any way is to shoot the golden egg laying goose and eat it. We haven’t got it right yet, it’s anyone’s horse race and you too can be in the running. Keep those new distros coming kids.
“If you don’t know that, you are clueless about printing.”
Stung you I have? hmm. No – get a clue. People do things different ways, and those who do thing different from your way isn’t “wrong”.
“Also, you say downloading CUPS takes time. CUPS is about 2MB or so”
Actually it takes 4.1MB on disk, and it adds up. Add everything you think anyone ever will need and you’ll get fedora or 16cd’s of debian. Here I might add it’s you who are stupid since you actually don’t seem to mind spending money and resouces on things you neither want nor need. I’m never going to spend 1 single cent on something I don’t need or want. Oh, BTW, there are quite a number of users who are on dial-up – yes.
“If someone’s opinion is not falsifiable (ie: possibly shown wrong) it’s not an opinion”
Splendid thinking old boy. If you can’t prove those different from you wrong, their views are useless anyway..
Truth is it does not matter. I don’t personally belive in religion, but I don’t feel that I have to “Enlighten” those who do. Especially when I know nothing of their belifs. I don’t mean to compare crux to religion, the point is you know nothing of this distro and it’s goals, or they at least seem incomprehensible to you, yet you feel you have to “enlighten” those who use it that they are “wrong”.
For example, you say my opinion is wrong. Is that arrogant?”
No, that’s not what I say. I say you are wrong to try to impose your opinions and belifs on others and labeling those who think different as beeing “wrong”. Secondly I try to show you that there are people who think “everything-and-the-kitchen-sink” is a terrible idea. But that’s a waste of time since you don’t *want* to see. You’d probably be a fine inquisitor, but you do a terrible job at convincing me that I and all other users of crux are “wrong” and immediately should cease to use it and pick up fedora.
“I suppose you don’t use any word processor, then?”
No. Is that a requirement to be allowed to use linux in your world? LaTeX and VIM do a much better work.
“you think I am shooting down what you say”
You don’t shoot down shit, you probably couldn’t hit a barn even if you stood in it.
“you are a user with very limited requirements on your computer,”
That’s true. And when you think of it, most people really have limited needs. Cover mail, browsing, and word-/text-processing and you’ve probably covered what most people use their system for. Besides, you argue like it’s impossible to add things when you need them. Talk about beeing stupid. It can be a bit inconvinient, granted. But impossible? Just for the hell of it I installed your beloved CUPS. Guess what. I had to recompile ghostscript. “pkgrm ghostscript && prt-get install cups ghostscript”. Big deal.
“who is hardly a operation model worth discussing.”
Then neither is you, since there already are several distros suited for you.
Regarding second posting: If you have nothing better to argue about than nitpicking spelling, thats’s not a sign of the strenght of your arguments.
“Regarding second posting: If you have nothing better to argue about than nitpicking spelling, thats’s not a sign of the strenght of your arguments.”
Should read: Regarding second posting: If you have nothing better to argue about than nitpicking spelling, thats’s not a sign of strenght in your arguments.