Not much testing recently

When I do more testing on the job, I do less testing in my free time. I have been working since November 2; I moved from a home I had owned to an apartment on November 7, and the next thing I need to do is schedule a Cataract Surgery appointment; I have a consultation in January unless I can get it moved up sooner.

During the course of gradually moving things from my home to my apartment, apparently I did not secure the deadlock bolt between the house and the garage. Someone opened the fence to the back yard, peered in and saw some computer stuff, came in, found a suitcase, took it and used it (with handle and wheels) to carry off some moderate sized computer equipment - mini desktop, monitor, external USB drive, and printer. That also affects my testing; the USB drive had lots of ISO images, which I could test with Virtualbox OSE. Until I can replace it I will do without and test less.

Using Debian Squeeze

Last Friday I downloaded a daily build of Debian Squeeze and I have been using it since that time. I was not very happy with the default graphical installer; it got into a loop when I attempted to start it in the default settings. I did not attempt to figure out what was happening; I used the text based installation instead. I was not very happy with it either. When I tried to reuse an existing partition to load Squeeze, the partition handling routine failed. I had to remove the data on that partition, delete the partition, then create a new partition in the same spot, then it worked.

That had other undesirable side effects, because it renumbered the partitions after the partition that was recreated. This caused me other problems and even temporarily caused one of my existing systems to have a kernel failure, probably due to its initrd file no longer reflecting the correct disk identification, so more work is needed to get things back in order. I have copied the contents of that system that I want to retain to an external USB disk, so that when I reinstall that system or reconfigure it, I will not lose all of the information that I had saved.

Once past these annoying issues, Debian Squeeze has proven to be a solid system, and I have not encountered a single problem with the installed system, and in fact, I have been using it ever since.

There have been a modest number of changes since Friday to Debian Squeeze, so it has not been quite as volatile as the Debian Sid based systems that I usually use.

I'm not happy with the state of the Debian Squeeze installer, but to be fair to the Debian project, it is not final, and in fact, this was only a daily build that I installed, so I expect the final version not to have the issues that I experienced. I will check it out again later, and also see if others have encountered the issues I faced, and if not, report them as installation related defects.

Keeping technically astute

I am working hard at reading and studying about technology, while at the same time, spending time each day researching companies and looking for a job.

I most recently worked in project management, so that is my first preference, but in most of the project management work, there were still close ties with quality assurance, and I rolled up my sleeves a number of times to help testing efforts, so both my QA and Project Management skills are fresh, and I am working VERY HARD at keeping it that way.

I have had two other times during the course of my career where I went through long lapses between assignments in the software industry. Both times I worked very hard to remain as current as possible on the technology.

The most recent time I was extremely successful at it, and even was able to demonstrate capabilities beyond what I had originally been hired to do, leading quickly to a move to a position with additional responsibilities. I want to make certain that I can do the same thing as I continue to look for work.

Karsten and I are doing our Blogs again today

Karsten has a few entries on his blog at http://karsten-masinick.blogspot.com/

I am helping him to get a few pictures there, which I took for him on my LG enV "SmartPhone".

Karsten and I are doing our Blogs

My son Karsten loves computers and he is an avid SimplyMEPIS Linux fan. He is using it right now on a Dell Latitude D600 laptop while I use sidux on a Gateway PA6A 17" portable.

Karsten desperately wants to get his blog working. I will be helping him out so he learns how to do it appropriately.

Slackware 13.0 and Jibbed 5.0.1 Live CD

Yesterday I downloaded the new Slackware 13.0 32 bit DVD (there is also a 64 bit implementation). I have not installed it yet, but I plan to do that some time during the next week.

Slackware was the very first distribution of GNU/Linux software that I ever used. It was quite familiar to me because I was an active UNIX system user prior to that, and I would frequently download and use various GNU utilities - tar, gzip, and GNU Emacs in particular, on my UNIX systems.

As I was typing, I just received notification that my download of the Jibbed 5.0.1 Live CD is complete. Jibbed is a Live CD implementation of NetBSD, and it contains a pre-packaged XFCE desktop implementation. For those of you who have used NetBSD or OpenBSD before, you may know that the standard NetBSD and OpenBSD do not include any window managers or automatic setup for X, though there are procedures that do allow you (on your own) to install and configure a rich assortment of applications, including X and many window managers. I generally do not have the time available to spend configuring them, though I have done so in the past. But this pre-configured setup might be a quick and handy way to use NetBSD (possibly on the fly).

At the very least, I intend to test this out on my Virtualbox OSE setup.

Hope to be trying BSDAnywhere 4.5 soon

I previously downloaded a copy of BSDAnywhere, but this time I wanted to save the ISO image on my removable USB disk drive, where there is plenty of free space, so that I can reference the ISO image directly in Virtualbox OSE and run a virtual instance of BSDAnywhere 4.5.

I plan to do that today.

Canabix Linux distro starting up, checking it out

Canabix Linux distro starting up, checking it out
I recently found out about a new Linux distro that has not yet been released: Canabix. Like UNIX, this name seems to be a play on words, like “What have you been smoking”?

The people involved in the early activities for this upcoming distribution mostly come from the sidux community. Not long ago there were serious sparks flying between the existing developers and a developer who left the project entirely over disagreements concerning the use of administrative add on tools.

The Canabix project, at least at this juncture, seems to have none of those kinds of arguments. If anything, a lot of joking takes place.

I look forward to adding what I can to this new community.

Using Virtualbox OSE to test distributions

The speed at which I can evaluate and test out distributions has been greatly improved since I started using Virtualbox OSE. On one hand, you do not get quite the performance you get with a native implementation, but you do not have to either burn a CD, DVD, or USB stick to install, or go through the additional steps to boot an ISO image directly from the disk, so you can very quickly get at least an initial impression of a distribution just by running them in a Virtualbox OSE implementation.

Some of them work better than others. I can, for instance, get a true full screen implementation of sidux when I run it in a Virtualbox OSE instance, and the performance of sidux also is quite a bit better than many of the other distributions, one of the best that I have experienced since I started using Virtualbox OSE, in fact.

That is not a great surprise to me, since sidux always works well for me anyway, but what did surprise me is that at times I have seen a fresh sidux instance start up on initial boot faster than the smaller, lighter antiX that I also regard so highly. I have not quite figured out why that is, except to say that however sidux is set up, it is near optimal for use with Virtualbox OSE.

antiX M8.2 has been released and I recommend it!

The announcement for the release of antiX M8.2 can be found here on the antiX forum site, and as usual, I recommend it.

Those of you who like to pretty much concoct your own system might want to give antiX BASE a try. It is very close to the size of SLAX in image size, does not come with much pre-installed, so you can pretty much rip it apart and put in what you want, whether that's something light or heavy.

For those of you who want a complete, yet lightweight system likely to work on older Pentium III and IV hardware, this is a great one to try out in the full version. I have used both versions in the past and I have already downloaded, and I am about to try out, both the BASE and FULL versions in Virtualbox OSE, then install one or both of them on my systems in place of the current system.

Choosing a trilogy of distributions

I happen to choose a trilogy of distributions because I am looking for three different styles of systems:

1. Cutting edge
2. Lean and fast
3. Stable and relatively non volatile

For those, I personally picked:

1. sidux
2. antiX
3. SimplyMEPIS

Others may want to pick:

1. Arch Linux
2. SLAX
3. Debian Linux

Still others may choose:

1. Gentoo Linux
2. Tiny Me
3. Slackware

What's nice is that there are choices. Notice that my choices are Debian based. That's my preference, but clearly it does not have to be everyone's preference, nor would I attempt to muscle my own interests and preferences upon others. It is nice when someone shares a few common interests, but it is also nice when others investigate other options, too. It makes for nice interactions, sharing what we have found useful in the systems we choose.

At the end of the day, each person has their own needs and interests. Some people may not want to bother with a trilogy of systems at all; others may want to go well beyond that! (Actually, I do myself, it's just that my trilogy of systems are my core systems that I come back to more than anything else).

My categorizations and descriptions of the systems are simply an attempt to stimulate conversation and encourage others to do the same. If a few people want to try out the same software, that's fine, but it is just as well when people try other things, and I always encourage that.

As far as antiX goes, what I like about it is that it is fairly light, yet it contains enough software to consider it a complete system. Other alternatives are even smaller, but for me, antiX is a great compromise between small size and flexibility. Having two versions, a BASE version, which does not contain a complete system, just a framework from which you can create your own idea of a complete system, and FULL, which offers a IceWM and Fluxbox (window manager) base with moderate sized applications, makes it ideal for me as a framework for setting up systems that I can either use at home or on the go. When on the go, such as in an Internet Cafe, antiX leaps to the top of my list. In thirty seconds, I can have a desktop up and running, and in two minutes or less, I can be computing in an Internet Cafe.

SimplyMEPIS and Debian Lenny are two of the most stable systems around. SimplyMEPIS just gets you there a bit faster because it has a nice choice of applications and some "non-free" drivers, codecs, and plug-ins to get you up and running quicker. Otherwise, they are more common than different, because they are based on 95% of the identical software.

Slackware is right in there with Debian as a fantastic, stable system, and it is a great learning environment too. The convenience factor is somewhat less with Slackware than with Debian, but there are several Slackware derivatives that get you around that, if it is an issue for you in time or in understanding. Vector Linux, Zenwalk Linux, and Absolute Linux are three good Slackware based derivatives.

Lots of guys here are gung ho on Arch. It is the premier binary distribution for those who want to tailor things exactly the way they want them. It can take longer to set up - without help - but with our setup checklists, which Dave Crouse originated, and Tim Miller and I discussed and tweaked, you can get an Arch Linux system going in twenty to thirty minutes that is just what you want.

Jester and a few others are big fans of Gentoo Linux, and you have to give the crown for the most complete source based infrastructure to the Gentoo team. Sabayan Linux, also source based, is a good alternative, as is Funtoo, but each of these are actually based on Gentoo, so credit should go to the Gentoo effort.

Linux from Scratch is the ultimate, you build it from whatever you want kind of source based system. You do not hear about this one all that often. You truly pick every component, every aspect of the system from where you want and how you want to do it. Linux from Scratch is based on a book series, which is regularly updated. I follow it from time to time, but it is not for me. I know how to do enough of the stuff, and if ever pushed to do it, I could, but I have nothing to prove there, and talk about a time sink, that is the ultimate. Great for hermits who have bleached white skin! Smile

Corporate systems like Red Hat Enterprise Linux are very good, and the test versions of that are Fedora based, and the free version is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux source code, called CentOS - not related to Red Hat - just uses Red Hat source code.

Ubuntu and its derivatives are for those who want a regular release instead of a release when ready version like Debian, upon which it is based. Mint is a more stable (and to some, more visually appealing) derivative of Ubuntu. They both have many of the attributes of a Debian system, but their main attraction is that they are easier to set up and they are widely available, so it is easy to find information about them. Mint makes things easier because it includes more non-free stuff, similar to the value add that MEPIS provides to core Debian code.

That's a quick wrap. Of course, there are numerous other systems. I have not even touched upon Mandriva or any of its derivatives or on SUSE or its derivatives. Clearly they are very viable as well, as are many other distributions. What they all share in common are the core kernel and the primary GNU utilities. They vary in which precise versions of code are used and in which devices and configurations are applied by default.

sidux 2009.02, waiting for antiX M8.2

I was going to wait for both sidux 2009.02 and antiX M8.2 to come out, since there were test versions of both out earlier this month. antiX has been in public testing longer, but anticapitalista wants to get a few things just right before releasing. Meanwhile, the public test versions, including the Pre Final 1 for antiX M8.2 look very good.

There was some sad news on the sidux front, because there were unfortunate conflicts within the development ranks that caused quite a stir, and I was accidentally involved in some of it. I hope that the fences have been mended, and peace is being restored in the community, because for the past two years, sidux has been my favorite distribution. It is cutting edge, fast, and it has done a good job of "taming" Debian Sid. The test team for sidux does a great job looking for defects and packaging mismatches, and they advise on which packages to put on hold.

The smxi project, which provides a tool that works with these package holds, was once an integral part of the unofficial, yet very common extended software that was often added onto sidux. Unfortunately, that has been an area that has become increasingly contentious, and, as it turns out, completely unknown to me, that was the major, and probably primary, source of the fireworks that recently touched off on sidux irc channels and in the sidux forums.

The unfortunate fact is that sometimes these things have to happen as the directions of projects and individuals take on differing priorities. At one time, Harold Hope, also known to many as h2 on sidux forums and as Tech Admin over at Tech Patterns, was considered a "developer" at sidux.com, something that the sidux team recently denied. Harold has been finding himself at odds with the objectives of the sidux project for some time now, but it recently came to a head.

Things were said and done that I hope can one day be mended, but suffice it to say that sidux and smxi have absolutely no ties any more, and the sidux community and h2 have parted ways.

We've seen an awful lot of this kind of thing happen this year - sparks flying at Puppy Linux, where a project manager resigned after leading only one release, a number of developers leaving the PCLinuxOS project after poor communication during the absence of the founder, Texstar, then the sidux conflict, and it seems I am forgetting one or two others.

h2, I wish you well in what you do; you know how fond I am of smxi. sidux developers, know that I am also fond of the work that you do. May each project find new energy and direction as you take different paths.

Distro upgrading today

Over the past few weeks, since there are not that many new distributions coming out right now - at least not the ones that I care to test and review - I have instead been testing Web browsers, pretty much on a constant basis, because I have been using the nightly trunk builds for both Firefox and Seamonkey - the Seamonkey nightly builds are what I use primarily for both Email and Web browsing, and I've been using nightly Shiretoko (Release 3.5) and Minefield (called 3.6 at the moment, but it is actually the future 4.0). All of them have been working fine.

I've been testing the Webkit browsers, but there have not been too many changes over the past week or two that I've spotted, so the pace of testing those has slowed as well.

Today, though, I am updating several distributions that are already existing on my systems. I am holding fast at the moment on my Gateway, using it in stable mode with sidux on the desk while I upgrade on my Lenovo laptop. I did sidux first, then Debian Lenny, then MEPIS LXDE respin, and I've just started upgrading the Mandriva Cooker - that can take a while because there are often a HUGE number of changes.

As expected, when I started the Cooker upgrade, it wanted permission to remove an existing package; this often happens because early package versions are not always what they will be when they are finalized, or even what they will be later in the testing.

I use the command sudo urpmi --auto-update the majority of time when I do the upgrades, and I typically use a desktop or window manager that does not have a large number of changes, such as IceWM, XFCE, or LXDE. IF those do change, I can switch to another DE or WM (Desktop Environment or Window Manager), but over the past year, using IceWM has worked out well. I happen to be using XFCE on the Cooker today, though.

There are 239 packages that will be changed in the initial Cooker update, and for all I know, there could be more afterward, so I will go on to other things - and that is why I have the Cooker on my test box - it can tie up things for a while.

Before I go, though, I want to give my congratulations to the Cooker team for their work. I have been using this particular Cooker since before Mandriva 2009.0 came out - probably installed it at a late Beta or early RC for 2009.0, then updated the repos and kept going. I've seen a few bad packages that I have had to remove, then later reinstall, but for the most part, this has been an excellent testing sandbox. It's more volatile than most, so I am not quite at the point where I'd trust it as my every day desktop, though with a better backup strategy, I probably could. I am really keen to see how far the Mandriva 2010.0 KDE 4.3 implementation has come along! Also, Mandriva has some of the best art work and default screen savers of any distribution - only Fedora gives it a run, but Mandriva beats it. Mandriva also runs circles around Fedora on the desktop, so playing with Mandriva Cooker as an experimental system is a no brainer - I do it at least monthly, but often more frequently than that.

Using sidux with Midori

I am here using sidux, my number one favorite Linux distribution, and I have been experimenting with Webkit based Web browsers over the past few weeks. I am getting to the point where I have some preferences, and this is it: Midori seems like it has the potential to evolve into one really fast, handy browser, especially if you want to create a light, fast desktop or window manager based system.

I have placed a comment in a reply to one of the sidux forum posts that Midori be considered for inclusion on the next sidux XFCE CD, either as the default XFCE browser or at least as an alternative that can be installed from the CD.

I now rate Midori as one of the fastest browsers. I found a few rendering issues, but they are minor, and I'd rate it better than Konqueror at accurately rendering most pages, including this blog. It is without question faster and more accurate than Konqueror, and sidux includes Konqueror as their default browser in the KDE edition, so I am lobbying to make Midori the new default Web browser in the next sidux XFCE edition; it deserves it.

antiX-M8.2 Test 3 is now available for testing.

Anticapitalista announces that antiX-M8.2 Test 3 is now available for testing.

antiX M8.2 Test 2

I have been using antiX M8.2 Test 2 for a week or two, on and off, and it has performed perfectly for me throughout that period of time. Being very intent on producing the very best effort, improving and extending as many features as possible, while keeping the core small, flexible, and tight, there are still a number of improvements the team is working on, especially in the areas of localization, remastering, and customizing. That work is coming along very well, and a release should be forthcoming in the not too distant future.

If you like fast, flexible systems that are still solid, even with relatively current software, or you have an aging computer that you still want to use, antiX is a great distribution to try out!

In between the time

Right now, sidux is coasting along in a very good 2009.01 release. Since the release, they have helped to smooth the transition in the Debian Sid repositories from KDE 3.5.10 to KDE 4.2.2 on the desktop, and have since moved from KDE 4.2.2 to 4.2.4, all before releasing a Version 2009.02. In addition, the 2009 release streams have supported clean migrations to a new version of X.org in the 1.6 tree, a new release of the XFCE 4.6 desktop, and a number of changes in Open Office. sidux has done all of them very well.

I've been looking forward to a new release, but frankly, the release that is already in place has been doing a superb job. On my main system, I will probably just upgrade and possibly bring in the new art work, but I will probably grab the ISO image and load the new one, when it does come out. Meanwhile, all is very well in sidux land!

antiX M8.2 Test 1 now available and looking GREAT!

Here with antiX M8.2 Test 1, running live. Let me tell you why I like antiX so much as a Live CD.

1. Loads, even to RAM, in under two minutes, faster than that to run straight from CD.

2. Recognizes, even on CD, just about any wireless network card you can throw at it.

3. Has a good selection of software, and given that you can run it live, from USB, or install it to disk from the CD, it is easy to install or just use as is (as I am doing right now.

4. It's fast, and I think it is a blend of being easy enough, yet fast enough. You can get smaller Live CDs, but they take more tinkering and they don't have as many good apps. You can get larger live CDs, but they don't boot or run as fast as antiX.

I consider this the #1 top Live CD overall and one of the best systems around. You can run it either as a stable system or you can also customize and build your own system from it. What other system can do all of these things well? Some can do certain tasks better, perhaps, but on the balance this is the best live CD you can get!

The appearance of this version is better than ever - the nicest boot splash screen I've seen yet, thanks to the great artists in the antiX community!

Comparing KDE 3.5.10 and KDE 4.2.2 memory usage

Recently I have been checking out the memory usage of various window managers and desktop environments, concluding with a study of KDE. That led me to wonder how well KDE would work on my oldest working system, the Dell Dimension 4100 desktop. I often used KDE 3.5 on that system, and I had a KDE 3.5.9 and 3.5.10 system already installed, so last night I updated my PCLinuxOS partition on the 4100 to bring it up to date, used it for a while, then upgraded my sidux partition on the same system, bringing it up to KDE 4.2.2.

I found that both versions of KDE did swap, to a certain extent, on both PCLinuxOS (KDE 3.5.10) and sidux (KDE 4.2.2), but the memory management was excellent on each system, not too aggressive, nor too inactive, allowing swap where needed, keeping at least a modest amount of free memory at all times, and trimming swap usage when memory requirements were relieved. The result was acceptable performance, even on a system that is nearly a decade old, and contains a Pentium 3 processor with about a 1 GHz CPU and 256 MB of memory.

KDE remains a viable desktop environment in both the older legacy form and the newer Plasma based technology. Though a lightweight window manager definitely reduces the amount of swap space used, KDE still gets the job done, and surprisingly well with both systems. There was always at least 4 KB of available memory at all times, and when that level was reached, the scheduler reallocated memory and grew the active swap space, and when the memory usage declined, the swap space was cleanly released. That speaks very well for the Linux kernels on both PCLinuxOS and sidux systems, and it also demonstrates that KDE remains a viable desktop alternative, even for hardware that is nearly a decade old.

Revisiting antiX and SimplyMEPIS

Revisiting antiX and SimplyMEPIS

The sidux, SimplyMEPIS, and antiX distributions are the trilogy of systems that I prefer to use the most, though I have, test, and use many more systems. Recently I have updated the most current software updates across each of my systems, but other than that, I have not been using much beside sidux. With sidux, I've spent several days using different desktop and window managers, including the relatively recent KDE 4.2.2, fvwm-crystal, and XFCE.

Yesterday I made it a point to spend some time with both antiX and SimplyMEPIS. There were no package updates in SimplyMEPIS at all; it is rock stable. There were only a few package updates to antiX, which is based on Debian Testing. Both of them ran very smoothly and cleanly. No wonder I keep them among my trilogy of systems!

What I enjoy about all three of my favorite systems is that they work so well; that is what is common about the three of them, along with the fact that each of them is based upon Debian packaging: sidux is based on Debian Sid, antiX is based on Debian Testing, and SimplyMEPIS is based on Debian Stable. By using all three of them, I can get a pretty good idea about what is going on in each of these Debian repositories. I also have an installed copy of Debian Lenny, which, like SimplyMEPIS, is quite solid and stable; I have it implemented with XFCE and it is also fast.

In addition to being able to track what is going on with Debian by using these distributions, I also get three very good systems that have three very different, distinctive attributes that I appreciate, attributes that are difficult to obtain in a single system. sidux is a cutting edge system, antiX is a light, fast, and flexible system, and SimplyMEPIS is a simple, stable system. All three of them are among the best, if not THE best, with those particular attributes, and I consider each of them to be at the top of their class for the kind of niche they fill. In addition to that, I happen to like each distribution, and the communities that represent them are very helpful.

Revisiting antiX and SimplyMEPIS

Revisiting antiX and SimplyMEPIS

The sidux, SimplyMEPIS, and antiX distributions are the trilogy of systems that I prefer to use the most, though I have, test, and use many more systems. Recently I have updated the most current software updates across each of my systems, but other than that, I have not been using much beside sidux. With sidux, I've spent several days using different desktop and window managers, including the relatively recent KDE 4.2.2, fvwm-crystal, and XFCE.

Yesterday I made it a point to spend some time with both antiX and SimplyMEPIS. There were no package updates in SimplyMEPIS at all; it is rock stable. There were only a few package updates to antiX, which is based on Debian Testing. Both of them ran very smoothly and cleanly. No wonder I keep them among my trilogy of systems!

What I enjoy about all three of my favorite systems is that they work so well; that is what is common about the three of them, along with the fact that each of them is based upon Debian packaging: sidux is based on Debian Sid, antiX is based on Debian Testing, and SimplyMEPIS is based on Debian Stable. By using all three of them, I can get a pretty good idea about what is going on in each of these Debian repositories. I also have an installed copy of Debian Lenny, which, like SimplyMEPIS, is quite solid and stable; I have it implemented with XFCE and it is also fast.

In addition to being able to track what is going on with Debian by using these distributions, I also get three very good systems that have three very different, distinctive attributes that I appreciate, attributes that are difficult to obtain in a single system. sidux is a cutting edge system, antiX is a light, fast, and flexible system, and SimplyMEPIS is a simple, stable system. All three of them are among the best, if not THE best, with those particular attributes, and I consider each of them to be at the top of their class for the kind of niche they fill. In addition to that, I happen to like each distribution, and the communities that represent them are very helpful.

Updating systems

I did a lot of software updating this past week, updating most of the distributions on three distinct systems I have at home, a Compaq/HP D530 desktop and two laptops, first a Lenovo 3000 Y410, then what I call a portable, a Gateway PA6A 17" system, which is what I typically use as my desktop.

All updates went well, and we seem to be going through a time of relative quiet, at least for the stable distributions. The Mandriva Cooker, on the other hand, had 715 initial updates, then when I removed some old packages with old file dependencies, I added well over 400 new packages when I added the complete KDE4 metapackage (which I may disassemble at some point in the future). The Mandriva Cooker did well, particularly since it is really at an early Alpha stage for the Mandriva 2010.0 Fall release.

Ubuntu also released Alpha 1 this week; I have not gotten into that - I may wait until Alpha 2 or 3 to get involved in it.

Updating software on Linux systems

I spent a few hours today updating software packages on several of my Linux systems, including sidux, xubuntu, kubuntu, Debian Lenny, and gOS. All of the updates went well. The other day I also updated my SimplyMEPIS and PCLinuxOS systems, and those updates also went well.

I am going to double check antiX and make sure I update anti to the latest and greatest, too.

KDE 4.2.2 still has a few problems

I went through the first week or so without encountering any major issues with KDE 4.2.2 at all, but once I started using more than just Email and a Web browser, I started running into issues. I used Dolphin, the new file manager, to locate a Word 2007 document that someone had sent me and I opened it. Open Office 3.0.1 got about halfway through initialization, then froze the entire desktop. At first, I could not tell what was responsible for the issue, so I tried it again. I should note that when I say froze the entire desktop, in the past, I could issue a Ctrl-Alt-F1 ... F4 and start a non graphical interface. I was locked from doing that; no key sequences at all responded; holding the power button for five seconds is the only thing that worked.

Did it again, was able to open a few files, but coming back to the same file on the third or fourth try blew me right out of the desktop - but that's better, at least I did not have to reboot. Once I saw that, I blame Plasma for the issue, but also Open Office for erratic behavior. However, running with fvwm-crystal, I saw no symptoms of an issue with Open Office, despite opening several files repeatedly, therefore I believe this to actually be a KDE 4.2.2 and more specifically a Plasma issue. Have to follow up to verify this, then issue a bug report so that this can get fixed.

KDE 4.2.2 installed on sidux

KDE 4.2.2 installed on sidux

I have successfully install KDE 4.2.2 on two existing sidux systems, upgrading, using the smxi tool to the current system packages, removing select KDE 3.5 packages, and then upgrading to the latest KDE software, all under complete control of smxi. It all worked flawlessly, once more a great testimony of what sidux and smxi are capable of doing, providing the very latest in cutting edge software that works with reliability and great performance.

PCLinuxOS 2009.1 Mini review

Last time I was here I said that I would try to remember to comment on PCLinuxOS after I get a chance to install the final version. I have also previously tested at least two of the earlier test versions. The first test version would not load for me; I was disappointed; ALL previous PCLinuxOS versions, whether test or not, worked great. The second test version I tried, test 3, was better. Apps worked fine; wireless did not work.

The final version works a lot better. I installed it a few weeks ago on my Gateway PA6A laptop, then gave it to my son to use. I got wireless working fairly quickly on that one. This week I installed it on my Lenovo Y410 laptop and it was, if anything, even easier. I have not found any serious defects on either machine.

Just about everything you need for routine computing is on this system. The live CD boots in a reasonable amount of time, but if you load it completely into RAM then install from there, it is one of the fastest hard disk installations I know of. Only sidux is faster.

This is one of three really easy systems to use, and one of the few I would recommend to first time users. My two children use PCLinuxOS regularly when they spend time with daddy. On my GRUB bootloader menu, I put their names, followed by PCLinuxOS to make it easy to see in my multi-distro boot menu. They find it easily and have no problems using it. Is that enough of a testimonial to PCLinuxOS?

PCLinuxOS 2009.1 has been released this week

PCLinuxOS 2009.1 has been released this week

Another version of PCLinuxOS has been released. I have downloaded it but not yet installed it. The last FULL KDE based version was released in May 2007. A GNOME version was released in 2008, and an implementation called "MiniME" was also released in 2008, plus a number of community offshoots of the main project, mainly in the "Tiny" series, have been released, but the main version, from which the others drew their initial following, has not been updated, at least as far as a release goes, in quite some time.

Past versions of PCLinuxOS have been extremely easy to install, and they contain virtually everything you may need, at least for routine desktop computing. My only criticisms of past releases have been that the package manager has been very slow - when there are updates, it can take orders of magnitude longer to download and install them than comparable distributions based on Debian, such as sidux, antiX, and SimplyMEPIS. The software is very good, but it is not kept up to date very often either.

If you mainly just use it, don't worry and don't bother. However, it was a broken Flash player that eventually took me away from PCLinuxOS 2007, much as I had liked it prior to that. I changed repositories to the PCLinuxOS testing repos in an attempt to get newer software and ended up ruining the sound system, and ultimately replaced it with MiniME.

I will try to remember to come back here with my thoughts and impressions after I install PCLinuxOS 2009.1.

Fast and Light AntiX 8.0 is Released!

Fast and Light AntiX 8.0 is Released!

The excellent family of easy to use desktop systems from MEPIS has a new product announcement today, and it is an exciting one. The Fast, Light, Flexible AntiX M8.0 has been released today. I wrote about it at http://usalug.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14090
There is an announcement about it at http://antix.freeforums.org/antix-m8-goes-final-t1411.html

I also wrote to DistroWatch to let them know about it, and wrote to their comments page.

Why do I like AntiX so much? Well, it is very easy to install. It uses the same installation program as SimplyMEPIS, which means that you can first try it out as a Live CD to see if it works for you. It is lighter than SimplyMEPIS, which means that it loads even faster than SimplyMEPIS, so it makes a great Live CD to carry around.

You can install it to a small USB device and carry it around with you. If you want, there are tools available to create your own custom, remastered version. There are the excellent smxi family of tools that originally come from the Kanotix and sidux projects. There are excellent tools from the SimplyMEPIS and Absolute Linux projects as well.

All of this is not just thrown together, it is crafted into a nicely integrated set of packages that complement one another very well. The art work is very good and comes from a community of very talented artists. The localization work comes directly from the AntiX community. This is truly a collaborative work. It functions amazingly well. It is smaller than the usual full, often bloated versions of software available elsewhere, and it works exceedingly well - fast and functional. I highly recommend it!

Still sticking with sidux in 2009!

The sidux site often shows reviews of their software, and I never mind it when they point to one of my blog entries, which often extol the virtues of using sidux. There has not been a new sidux release in Q1 2009 yet, but that does not stop me from continuing to use sidux every day and writing enthusiastic reviews about it. At the USALUG http://usalug.org/phpBB2/index.php where I hang around a lot, they know my opinions about Debian software in general and sidux in particular - that sidux is an awesome distribution that really tames the frequently out of control Debian Sid beast, turning it from a cutting edge, but sometimes bleeding distribution into a razor sharp, "smooth shave" that leaves your face feeling smooth and your system running equally smoothly.

The "Cool Yule" edition of sidux 2008-04 was simply the latest in the line of sidux releases, which come out on approximately a quarterly basis. There really is no need to constantly grab the ISO images - you can get one and stick with it for a couple of years. On one of my older, once stable laptop systems, I did just that, installing the 2007-04.5 "Christmas Edition" of sidux, and I simply updated it periodically, sometimes choosing to grab newer themes from the sidux repositories without having to go through the hassle of reinstalling and reconfiguring everything over and over again.

At the same time, I enjoy testing, so I also typically grab each new version and install it on at least one of my systems. The Gateway PA6A laptop that I am using now has the latest version, sidux 2008-04, and it is running so smoothly that it is easy to forget that this is quite a volatile, ever changing system. That fact never disturbs this system one bit. I can update daily, if I want, or I can go a week or a month without updating. I tend to prefer keeping things as current as I can. On most other systems, that can cause certain things to break, at least for a while, and in a few cases, it can break the system entirely. NEVER with sidux! I have been using sidux since the middle of 2007 on a regular basis, and I've been using sidux instances as my main desktop system since late 2007. While there is always the possibility of a problem emerging in any system, especially one that frequently changes, my personal experience has been perfect with sidux, despite constant change.

I can think of other systems (Debian based ones in particular) that offer me similar stability, but I have not encountered any other system of any type that offers me both the latest software coupled with an excellent working environment that I can count on, and that is why sidux continues to be my favorite cutting edge desktop system.