Yet Another Linux Blog - Page 42 of 54

Experiment: Interview with Texstar of PCLinuxOS

Those of you who followed our experiment here at Yet Another Linux Blog followed my wife’s path as she test drove distros for their out of the box abilities. Those of you who stayed positive throughout this process also understood why some of the more popular distros did not rate well…simply because they do not have much done for you out of the box. The reason we chose rating out of the box is because most new users wont be able to install hardare and software easily without reading some documentation and those new users might become immediately frightened of the aspect of finding answers to ‘how to do this’. By having stuff done a user can gain confidence at the early and critical times of using a distro and then build on top of that. Therefore, we set out to find the best distro that came suited for a user like my wife. If you followed along, you also know that PCLinuxOS was rated the top distro. As promised, today we’ll chat with Texstar, the creator of PCLinuxOS.

Devnet: Please tell us a bit about how you got your start in Linux/Computers/Open Source…

Texstar: My first successful Linux install was Red Hat. I later found Mandrake which was nothing more than Red Hat with KDE at the time. I moved to Linux after watching Microsoft abuse their monopoly on the desktop. I formally provided unofficial 3rd party rpm updates to Mandrake users between releases until that function was taken over by Mandrakeclub.

Devnet: What type of person do you see yourself as?

Texstar: I’m kind of quiet, laid back, humerous and easy going person. I don’t take life too seriously. I look for the good in people. I enjoy chatting with fellow Linux users on our IRC channel (efnet #PCLinuxOS). What a great bunch of people…except for that Lewis guy. Just kidding Lewis! We love you, we really do 😀

Devnet: Why did you start PCLinuxOS?

Texstar: To provide an outlet for my crazy desire to package source code without having to deal with egos, arrogance and politics. I love to package. It is like a puzzle where all the pieces have to fit together or the code doesn’t work.
That is my favorite part of doing PCLOS. The other reason is I wanted something that worked out of the box, looked fabulous and didn’t require a technical degree from college to get it working.

Devnet: How did you come up with the name?

Texstar: It is Linux for your Personal Computer. I wanted something generic that people could easily relate to and the name matches our website.

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mv elitism /dev/null

In the beginning of things, open source was about open everything. I remember joining an irc channel # on efnet back in 1993 and chatting with people who could make things happen with computers…really make things happen. Coders, managers, hackers…they were all there and a tight nit core of about 6 of us stayed in touch for about 7 years until we went our separate ways and began to use irc less and less. The thing that I remember the most is the fact that when I joined their little group, I was a complete and total n00b. Not just a n00b to Open Source…but to computers altogether. I had a Texas Instruments computer back in 1985 but only messed with that for about a year. Mice were new to me…I didn’t know ANYTHING at all. In the short time that I began chatting on irc, I was shown how to do things. When I didn’t know how to do something, I could count on one of the guys or girls in the channel helping me to solve my problem within a matter of minutes. These people stepped down off of their level of operation long enough to educate me in the ways of the open source.

I look fondly back at this time and have spoken about it before…not because I don’t think something like this exists now…just that I think it is a rarity. There was a time when this “spirit of open source” was all about educating and furthering the program/app that you were working on. Now it seems that when a new user comes in to any channel on irc or forum, they are told off with a hearty RTFM (Read the ‘Friendly’ Manual).

Where did this Elitism come from? Where and when did Linux and open source become about the mentality “you must be this knowledgeable to ride?” It pains me to see people do this to new users…distancing themselves from potential advocates of open source…zealous ones at that. It’s a real testament to some of these new users STILL wanting to plug open source and Linux, despite being squashed by elitists in forums.

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More Printer Mayhem

Many of you may have read my last post on this subject regarding action that needed to be taken in the form of a petition for Linux and printer manufacturers and their lack of drivers. In a sense, they hem us in to a Windows environment by not allowing us the choice of operating system. I felt this was wrong and started an online petition. The host of the petition has actually seen large companies such as WebTV and CNN, respond to their petitions. I was hoping that our petition would garner enough interest to do so as well.

Many of you thought it was too agressive and felt that we should get them where it hurts by ‘talking with our money’. Some also felt that the correct action would be to write letters urging manufacturers to produce Linux drivers.

For those of you that were thinking along these lines: a reader emailed me recently and sent me scans of the official reply that Canon gave him after he pulled out of a $4000.00+ deal for his business with them. It seems that money doesn’t talk unless it is from a large corporation. It also seems that letters to your manufacturer don’t work out that great either. All private information from the individual providing these letters has been removed. If you’d like to get in touch with him or his business, please email me and I will forward it to him. I’d like to draw your attention to the underlined text on the letter itself. It’s rather funny that a company comes right out and lies about reasons for not developing drivers…everyone knows that they could release binary versions of drivers that could be compiled on ANY and EVERY version of Linux and that people would just snag them and adopt them. The real reason they don’t release them has yet to be devulged. Without further discussion, the letter and envelope:

Envelope

Letter

The simple fact is that Canon threw away 4 thousand dollars US worth of business at the drop of a hat. That’s because it is a drop in the proverbial bucket. Large corporations only listen when other large corporations tell them to…although there are exceptions…in this case, 4k isn’t anything…nor is the opinion of the man who sent a letter to them. In fact, if you’ll notice, they ask him to purchase products from them in the future! The audacity these companies have is flabbergasting. If you don’t feel like taking this lying down, go out and sign the Linux Printer Driver Online Petition and make your voice count by bringing it into harmony with over a thousand people who have signed it already. Thousands of voices together can be quite an influence. Let’s get these companies to take notice. A letter with a link to this petition might cause them to change their minds…but we need more people. Pass this on as much as possible. The more attention this thing gets, the better our chances are at having printer manufacturers take notice.

Click This Link to Sign the Linux Printer Driver Online Petition

Experiment: Final Head to Head

Linuxblog Introduction: We took an average windows user, gave her a handful of distributions of Linux, and forced her to use each distro for one week. We gave her alsaconf, email servers, and mounted her windows partition to the fresh install. Then, we faded away and quietly watched her in her new environment. You too can join us by reading on…

VS.

Editors Note: Tonight, we go head-to-head with the top distros as ranked previous by the experiment. Most of the readers know the premise behind the experiment and appreciate what we have set out to do. The top two new user distros as decided on by Mrs.Devnet, a new Linux user converting from Windows are PCLinuxOS .81a and SimplyMEPIS 3.3.1 (versions updated to current). We installed and test one last time each distro to allow Mrs.Devnet to experience each one before crowning a new user champion. In the following comparison, Mrs.Devnet will give advantage to one distro over the other or in the case of a tie, she will list both as winners. The distro with the most advantages will win. And now, Mrs. Devnet…

Look and Feel – This is one of the biggest determining factors for me. PC Linux OS looked and felt more comfortable and felt that way more so than any other distro we tried. The way it looked set me at ease right away and was easier to navigate because of this. MEPIS could really use some work on the user friendly icons and graphics. Making the distro ‘feel’ as easy as it is to use would make it a world better. Advantage – PCLinuxOS.

Performance – Both of these performed well. However, PCLinuxOS booted up in 5 seconds. Nothing in the entire experiment could top that. Fast, stable, and fun to use…despite being a beta version. Advantage – PCLinuxOS.

Hardware/Software – PCLinuxOS has a great selection of preinstalled applications that I can use for what I do with a computer. I didn’t have to go looking for anything at all. MEPIS includes a lot of stuff as well, but no nearly as much as PCLinuxOS. It also doesn’t have any filesharing applications. I’m told that installing stuff is a snap once you master a package program…however, that isn’t what we set out to do in the experiment so I have to go with default installs. Advantage – PCLinuxOS.

Upgradeability/Security – I am not qualified to compare anything on this criteria so I’ll make it a draw. Advantage – Both Distros.

Documentation – During the experiment I didn’t notice much difference between the two distributions. However, if you go to the home site for PCLinuxOS and the home site for SimplyMEPIS, you see a world of difference. It seems that PCLinuxOS has a much more active website. It was also great that PCLinuxOS gives you a chat icon to go right to a chat room to help you out (editors note: mrs.devnet is speaking about an IRC #pclinuxos icon on the default PCLinuxOS desktop that people can use for help). Advantage – PCLinuxOS.

Installation – While PCLinuxOS install is by no means difficult, SimplyMEPIS was easier and FASTER than anything else.. Nothing can touch SimplyMEPIS in this category. Advantage – SimplyMEPIS.

Now we talk about my Criteria…

Continue reading “Experiment: Final Head to Head”

Excellent Linux Article

We’re back and getting ready to publish the final head-to-head battle between MEPIS Linux and PCLinuxOS. However, to keep everyone occupied in the meantime, I’ve stumbled across a really fantastic article published in the MIT Technology Review. If you can stand to read all 6 pages…you’ll thank yourself. The author brings out some really nice points and touches on many things that have been echoed by a couple people at Lxer.com and even a few I haven’t heard yet. Take a gander at that article and let us know what you think.

We’ll have the final results to our experiment sometime this weekend. For those of you who haven’t voted on the badge/icon to give to the winning distro, head over to the forums and cast your vote. Thanks again for reading Linux-Blog. I should be able to get back up to speed by next week…moving really stinks. Actually, unpacking boxes after moving stinks :p

MEPIS Linux Loses Another Support Site

It seems that MEPIS is having trouble again. Some of you may recall a few bumps in the road in the past for MEPIS and the MEPIS community. Dotmepis.org, set out to fill a niche for the MEPIS community by providing community developed packages and kernels for advanced users. However, according to Josh, webmaster of dotmepis.org, “it has become increasingly clear that the Mepis development team, reasons that are still unexplained to me, is not a fan of what we have been doing.”

He went on to state, “I personally cannot say exactly why, or what specifically has caused this rift. What is obvious to me, and the rest of the admin team here at dotMepis, is that a true technical community, with our combined insight and experience does not fit within the current framework of Mepis. We have contributed untold amounts of time and effort in making debs to enhance Mepis, providing support for all types of issues, and building friendships among each other. For some reason, that has apparently angered some within Mepis to the point that they will no longer support our efforts. Rather than continuing on in a more censored fashion, and with no hope of any inputs into improving Mepis, we have decided it is simply time to move on.”

Therefore, dotmepis.org will be closing its doors on all 333 of its community members. How is it that a distrowatch #4 distro can have NO developer community? Your guess is as good as mine.

This announcement comes on the coat tails of a release of Professional Quality Sound Applications that were developed by dotmepis and its team. Even Debian proper didn’t have the applications that went into this release. Odd that you would feel a release such as this to be a hinderance to your community, but it is obvious by the announcement that this must have been what took place.

The question remains to be answered: Will MEPIS ever be a true Community driven open source flavor of Linux? It could have been what Ubuntu IS, had it allowed a community of developers in. I am confused about how a community of package developers (developing according to Debian package standards) and kernel hackers (developing kernels according to Debian kernel standards) could NOT BE CONSIDERED A WELCOME ASSET TO MEPIS? With the loss of this site, Warren Woodford, the creator of MEPIS, has a lot of explaining to do. He and his official community website, mepislovers.org, have now caused over 500 users and 2 major support websites go down without so much as a WORD. How many lost users will it take before a reply will come out of Morgantown, WV? Is the microphone on? Perhaps time will tell.