Let’s take a look a look at why I’m not all over Ubuntu as a Linux Blog.

Perception is as Perception Does

When I say I don’t blog about Ubuntu…it’s not to say that it was always that way.  I did blog about Ubuntu a bit when it was the 5.04 version.  I put it into the rotation for an experiment I was doing.  See, back then, my wife and I had only been married a short while.  She didn’t know Linux from any other operating system…but the important part is she was willing to give it a try.  So we picked out a bunch of desktop driven distributions like Mandrake (now Mandriva), MEPIS, Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS and Fedora Core (now Fedora) and had her test drive each and every one…AND give valuable feedback on what she felt didn’t make the cut for each distro.  I had a set of criteria that I created and I didn’t tell her how to find things on the web…I didn’t hold her hand after installation.  We installed it and turned her loose.  She found Ubuntu to be a very bad experience.  The community, instead of saying “hey, there is a new Linux convert now!  We all win!” thrashed her for all sorts of things.  They didn’t pull any punches…they actually posted so many hateful things, I had to respond to the comments.  The Ubuntu supporters that commented on that post made me ASHAMED of using Linux because of their horrible and hateful words.  The community should be above that…other distributions that I and my wife reviewed were above that.  The Ubuntu community was not.

During that experiment, I was a die hard MEPIS fan.  I think if I hadn’t been using MEPIS before Ubuntu, I would have probably liked it quite a bit. At the time, MEPIS was new and exciting and did TONS for desktop users out of the gate. Handy tools, great installer, debian base. I saw what desktop linux should be in MEPIS and found Ubuntu to be lacking at that time…so I didn’t change what I was using.

Fast forward to the present. Ubuntu is now synonymous with the word Linux.  Articles like “Install 100 fonts on Ubuntu” and “10 Media Players for Ubuntu” are posted to digg.com every hour.  People adore it. The community loves it. Analysts love it. Journalists can’t stop talking about it. Zealots bite your head off about it.  The problem is that if you substitute the word “Linux” for the word Ubuntu in each of those blog posts and articles…it wouldn’t matter.  Ubuntu has become THE Linux and with all other distribtuions being held up to a certain expectation, it can cause confusion.

Refugee Expectations

When a previous Ubuntu user jumps into say…using Slackware Linux…some of the first questions they’ll ask are “Why doesn’t sudo work?” or “I can’t apt-get anything!”.  These things present in Ubuntu are assumed to be present in all of Linux.  Ubuntu has become the face of Linux and with that, holds all other Linux distros up to refugee expectations.  In some instances, this causes those distros to rise above and implement changes for the better (example, Linux Mint).  But in other cases, it just plain confuses both end users and developers.

Keeping this in mind, I’ve found there are more things than just software, packaging systems, and authentication methods being confused and mismatched…

Some People who Blog about Ubuntu Confuse and Muddle Linux as a Whole

Take for example, this article.  It’s a DVD player for Ubuntu. So a new user surfs in and sees that this DVD player is for Ubuntu. Since they are new to the Linux world…they see each distribution as separate.  So they think “Oh hey, that’s only available for Ubuntu”.  Call them properly confused.  A couple of new users I converted to Mandriva didn’t install Banshee because they thought it was for Ubuntu only (after reading a blog post on it).  They also didn’t install fonts from a blog post because they thought it was “for Ubuntu”.

It is my opinion that these authors aren’t thinking much about what they’re posting.  They’re just posting things with exclusivity because they think “if I throw Ubuntu on the name, it’s going to be a wildly popular post and get me more clicks and/or attention/comments“.  I’ve blogged about this before, It’s a foolproof way to garner more clicks and that’s evident by how many Ubuntu articles hit the front page of digg each week.  It’s also misleading.

Now some of you are going to say “well if those users can’t figure this simple thing out…that things are installable on more than just Ubuntu, we don’t need them because they’re stupid” or something similar.  I’d have to disagree with you there because Linux is not exclusionary.  It does not say you must have this much IQ to use.  Open source software means that no matter who you are…you have the opportunity to look at the source and use it how you see fit.  If anyone can look at it and use it how they see fit, should not anyone be allowed to use it no matter their IQ or computer savvy abilities?  I’m of the opinion that no matter where you come from, how much education you have, or who you know…you should have choice to use open source and Linux or not to use it.

Ubuntu uses Gnome. Most of the “cool things” about Ubuntu is just Gnome.

I used Foresight Linux at my last job.  It’s absolute cutting edge for Gnome.  It is where the Gnome developers kit is made…that means SVN builds daily of the best of what Gnome has to offer.  I found it quite usable.  Gnome has great integration and lots of little nice things that work for it.

Don’t get me wrong, Ubuntu does a lot of good stuff for desktops…its detection is right up there with all other distros (you zealots would say it is superior…but that’s hardly true.  All distros are pretty close to equal nowadays…thanks Linus and team kernel!).  I just don’t find it “the best” distribution for new Windows converts.  It just doesn’t fit the bill.  Gnome is too far away from the way Windows looks and feels.  I know some of you will be saying “Bullcrap.  It totally fits the bill.  When I transferred from Windows, I was fine”.  I’m sure  you were.  But a majority of the people that I know that have no idea what Linux is or does are immediately attracted to KDE because of its familiarity and they shy away from Gnome.  These people are ones that don’t delve into customizing and tweaking their operating system.  These are the people that just use a computer to read webmail and hit facebook or myspace up from time to time.  What they’re looking for is a no frills experience with any computing they do.  That means familiarity and things ‘just working’.  I’ve found a good implementation of KDE (like Mandriva or OpenSuse) to fit the bill for most new Linux users.

It is my opinion that the best parts of Ubuntu are Gnome.  And it is also my opinion that Gnome isn’t what I feel is best for new Windows-to-Linux converts.

For Those About to Flame Me

For those of you about ready to flame me after this post, remember one thing:  I believe if one distribution of Linux wins, we all win.  I admire Texstar, the creator of PCLinuxOS, for his take on this;  He was approached in IRC some time ago with some hateful comments of someone who said “I switched to distro X and it kicks PCLinuxOS all over the place” but with explicatives laced inside.  How did Texstar respond?  He said “Congratulations on choosing Linux ”  It’s attitudes like this one that Linux needs to adopt.  If you choose one distribution to use, you win.  You’re in control of your computing.  Therefore, if you are an Ubuntu user and find my post hateful or here to start a flame war, understand that this post isn’t meant to harm but to show how a few voices from a community can change user perception for a lifetime and to show how misconceptions can alter experience.  My wife still despises Ubuntu because of the comments made on her experiment review of Ubuntu.  They made her an enemy for life.

Activism and Promotion

I’ve spoken on this topic before, and I’d like to sum up this post by speaking about it again.  We need the Linux community to understand that everyone does not have to share your opinion on one topic or another…they don’t have to be all about the philosophy behind FOSS and FLOSS.  If they use Linux, that should be good enough…they shouldn’t be ostracized for not picking your favorite.

Keep in mind that there is confusion out there.  It may be caused by your distribution that you use and it may not.  If it does, have patience with new Linux users or distro refugees.  Take the time to explain the how and why of things.  Remember that perception is as perception does and that a new user will remember their initial experiences for many years to come.

It’s a big Linux world and there is plenty room for everyone to thrive.  Let’s all continue to use Linux for the win

A Little About Ubuntu originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on May 4, 2009.

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PCLinuxOS 2009 Not Diggworthy originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on March 16, 2009.

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The thing that boggles my mind is that everyone says Gnome is better for a Windows convert taking his/her Linux steps for the first time.  I have to disagree based on the experience I’ve had with conversions of new users from Windows.  I think KDE gives the best experience for a new Windows user…it’s familiar or at least feels familiar…things are in similar places to Windows.

I’d say that 80-90% of the users I convert across to using Linux prefer KDE to Gnome.  I always wonder why people think Gnome is so new user friendly.  Since I’ve always wondered, perhaps some Gnome users can tell me, what usability reasons do you have for using Gnome vs. KDE?  I’ve often heard that Gnome has integration and simplicity as the main reason…but could I not argue the same for KDE?  I’m looking for usability issues here and not specific bugs that cause you to drop one on its head.  Bugs can be fixed.  I’m talking about hard features that lack from one environment to the other.  What makes you use it in Ubuntu versus KDE?  Remember, not bugs…features!  Please let me know which desktop you prefer below and don’t forget to let me know the reason in the comments section below.

Is Usability Really Simplicity? originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on December 10, 2008.

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Is this wrong? Not at all. Each day, many non-commercial distro makes wake up and check various distributions for updated security fixes. They pull source rpms, updated tar.gz’s, and debs into their distro, make minor adjustments, and drop it into their repository. Distros share with one another…they take and hopefully give back. If not monetarily, at least by the number of users that they have that may report bugs or provide fixes.

So what’s the beef that some Distrowatch Weekly commenter’s seem to have with PCLinuxOS? During the past 3 weeks of comments on the DW, some have been hounding PCLinuxOS with accusations saying that the developers hide things from their community and that PCLinuxOS eradicates changelogs and/or lights small dogs on fire while chopping kittens to bits in blenders, etc.

Myth #1: PCLinuxOS Hides the Fact it is Mandriva based (False)

PCLinuxOS.com has always had an “About” link on every single webpage it has ever had. Let’s look at what information has been conveyed there:

“PCLinuxOS was originally based on another distribution under the name of Mandriva
and shares many features of Mandriva such as the Control Center and the
Draklive Installer. Texstar and team would like to thank the
developers, contributors and others associated with Mandriva who may
have indirectly contributed to the PCLinuxOS distribution.”

Let’s look at some other distro front pages to see how they compare. Sabayon Linux has their footer at the bottom with Gentoo in it…but no mention on the front page as to what they’re based on. No real ‘about’ link there either. Move on to Ubuntu. No mention of Debian on the front page. You have to visit the Community >> The Ubuntu Story link in order to find that it is based on Debian. Once again, no ‘about’ link on the front page.

Let’s take a look at the PCLinuxOS Page on Distrowatch shall we? This has been utterly unchanged in 4 years:

“PCLinuxOS is an English only live CD initially based on Mandrake Linux
that runs entirely from a bootable CD. Data on the CD is uncompressed
on the fly, allowing up to 2GB of programs on one CD including a
complete X server, KDE desktop, OpenOffice.org and many more
applications all ready to use. In addition to the live CD, you can also
install PCLinuxOS to your hard drive with an easy-to-use
livecd-installer. Additional applications can be added or removed from
your hard drive using a friendly apt-get front end via Synaptic.”

If that paragraph is an attempt to hide things, I’m Miles Davis.

Considering these two points, I’d say PCLinuxOS hasn’t been ‘hiding’ the fact that it is Mandriva based. I’d say they’re doing quite well with where they have this information. I welcome any comments with information otherwise. If you have specific examples, please make sure they’re from a developer and not a general user…because if general users are where we’re getting our information from, every distro is in trouble.

Laying to Rest the Mandriva/PCLOS Debate originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on July 30, 2007.

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To get maximum exposure in the past, you had to use keywords. Now is no different. The keyword we’ll focus the most on is one that can get you thousands of hits in a few minutes if submitted to the right news outlet. That keyword is Ubuntu. Add this keyword to EVERY post you make. Name your blog with Ubuntu in the title to make sure that it is vaulted up the rankings. Just remember, you must use the word Ubuntu in everything you post.

For your first post, announce that you’re going to stop using Windows XP and use Ubuntu instead. Do a lousy job of documenting your installation procedure and make sure you don’t talk about anything of worth to someone who might be making the same change…just talk about how cool it is to be running Ubuntu and go over all the pluses. Don’t focus on anything negative…afterall, you don’t want any of the fanbois to come in and flame you now do you? Best to avoid confrontation…you know that someone else will fix that nasty problem you ran across during install right? Why should you report it? You’re just a blogger trying to amass hits and/or a journalist trying to become hip right?

Ok, so now that you’ve announced to the world that you’re switching and you’ve blogged about installing and setting things up…you have to follow it up with a “this is the best thing since sliced bread” post. Make sure you talk about how Ubuntu has completely replaced everything you’ve ever done…talk ferverently about how it does your laundry, makes you breakfast, and changes the linen on your bed.

Make sure that you make claims about how Ubuntu is THE best Linux available despite not trying another distribution of Linux or having anything other than Windows XP to compare it to. Remember, always use the word Ubuntu!! When you go to install and compile a program that can install and compile on ANY DISTRIBUTION, make sure that you title it “Installing SoftwareX on Ubuntu” so that everyone will know that you are cool and hip by using Ubuntu…plus, it’s good to confuse people into thinking that SoftwareX can only be installed on Ubuntu and no other distributions out there.

Finally, always speak as though you are a complete subject matter expert on Ubuntu. Don’t worry! You won’t have to be. Countless people will flock to your aid in comments on your blog. You won’t have to defend yourself at all…even when people bring up actual problems or maybe discuss the shortcomings of Ubuntu there will be many people that will completely thwart these idiotic attempts to actually improve Ubuntu. And how dare people even think they can improve Ubuntu! They don’t work for Canonical and everyone knows that the best distros out there are from companies and people who get paid to develop for said company.

Follow this how-to and you’ll be raking in the readers! Plus you’ll be considered one of the coolest and hippest bloggers/journalists around! You don’t need talent…you don’t need knowledge…you don’t even need experience…you just need to remember the magic word Say it with me now…Ubuntu!

This blog post has been brought to you by the letter U and our word of the year Ubuntu. Remember, Ubuntu is not a four letter word…it has 6 letters in it. Claims of this bloultg about Ubuntu doing laundry may not work for you as results may vary.  If you start to believe that this post is from someone who is ignorant and that it is a serious blog post, hit yourself on the head numerous times with a tack hammer and point into the sky shouting “airpane!! airpane!!”.  Someone will get you the help you need

How to Become a Cool Blogger and/or Hip Journalist originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on May 7, 2007.

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However, I question whether this was the logical decision to be made…was it the smartest for the end user? Allow me to ellaborate:

Readers of this blog know that I use Ubuntu at work for servers. I also love Kubuntu (I’m not a gnome fan). So my problem isn’t with (K)Ubuntu itself…it works for me. My problem is that Gnome in general may not work for the consumer. If you’re not convinced, do a comparison on adding a printer in Gnome and KDE. Record the number of steps and note any confusing dialogue that pops up…then compare at the end. Still not convinced? I can’t help you understand where I’m coming from then.

Sure, there are those of us out there that are pretty Linux savvy and we can hum along quite easily with Ubuntu…but what of the person who’s looking to try Linux? What will happen when they power up their new Dell Laptop and can’t find a control panel? What happens when an error message just spits out random characters of data as many gnome error messages do?

If there is one thing in all usability studies or guides that is uniform it’s this…that people will resist change. Now, how much change Gnome is from what they are used to is up for debate and I’m not about to debate it here. My feelings are that Gnome isn’t the right choice for new users…and that’s a personal opinion only…and it’s one I’ve found to be true when converting family members to Linux.

So, I ask the question…is Ubuntu and the Gnome desktop the most logical decision for Dell? In my opinion, it isn’t. What do you think?

Dell and Ubuntu – The most Logical Decision? originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on May 2, 2007.

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This week, Distrowatch Weekly has redone their top 10 distributions and included PCLinuxOS inside of that top ten for the first time ever. In fact, when I began using PCLinuxOS, it was around 15th on the distrowatch charts. If you look at 2005 vs. 2006 charts, you’ll see that out of the top 15 distros tracked, PCLinuxOS was the largest gainer over the course of that year. I like to think that mypclinuxos (started Mar 27, 2006) had a lot to do with that…and I don’t ask for any recognition at all…but take great satisfaction in helping what I believe to be the premiere Linux distribution for new users gain ground.

As stated, Distrowatch Weekly named PCLinuxOS as one of the “Top Ten” distributions and I was very happy about this. What was less than stellar was some of the negative feedback that resulted from this announcement. I realize that much of the feedback is based on false assumptions, ignorance, and fanboism…but just the same, I found a couple of comments I’d like to respond to so that the correct information is available for everyone to see.

So here’s how I’ll address things…I won’t point out individuals in the comments of this week’s Distrowatch Weekly; instead, I’ll just print the comments here and address them. If you want to see where they come from, check out DW Comments section. And now for the first comment:

• “Also PCLOS/MEPIS don’t even offer the choice to install in another language than english, and one has to tweak hard to install another language for the system.”

This is true to a degree. One always has the default KDE AZERTY keyboard settings for localization. One can also say that Ubuntu localized packages should work on MEPIS and Mandriva localized packages should work on PCLinuxOS. This may not be the case in and in this instance, the poster would be correct. The nice part about PCLinuxOS is that we, the community, recognized this as a shortfall and have begun translating to various languages. An international DVD version will be out ASAP after PCLinuxOS 2007 Final is released.

• [referring to DW saying it was hard to overlook PCLOS and MEPIS since they've been gaining hits in the past few years] It’s easy to overlook, since the fanbois are artificially boosting them. Remember Yoper a couple years ago? Putting PCLOS in the top ten only adds to the abundant confusion.

This saddens me. I’d love to see some proof to backup this accusation. If there were proof I’d totally agree because artificially inflating popularity as tracked by Distrowatch is pretty low and frowned upon. Should proof be available, I’d be really interested in seeing it.

Usually, this happens when someone isn’t too happy about how well a distro is doing so they dump on said distro because they feel the distro they use should be up there getting all the attention. What these people forget is that it doesn’t matter which distro anyone uses…THEY’RE USING LINUX! That’s good enough in my book…they choose Linux and in making that choice they are just like me…using Linux. I wish more people could see things this way.

• The problem with these two distros is the “one man at the top” philosophy, rather than having an active development group.

Well, that’s half right. Tex is lead developer but he has many others that assist him. I also know that Warren Woodford has a small team of people that help him. I look at both Texstar and Warren as being “distro architects” in that they are the overall designers and creators of the distro but others chip in to help build the overall framework of the distro.

It’s evident by the beautification project over at mypclinuxos.com which gave PCLinuxOS 2007 Test Releases their awesome themed look and slick appearance that Texstar is open to anyone helping develope his distro.

• The biggest drawback of pclinux is that it is only available in English. I don’t understand why, as their mandriva base have a lot of languages.

This is probably because Mandriva isn’t their base Mandriva offers many of the packages and much of the framework for PCLinuxOS, but PCLinuxOS is it’s own distribution. Earlier last year, Texstar expressed via the developers mailing list his concern about the way Mandriva does its packaging and how it rolls its distro and he wanted to distance himself further from that. this has become apparent in 2007 TR3.

Also, something to note is that PCLinuxOS pulls from MANY distros…Yoper, Red Hat/Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSuse and perhaps even a few I don’t know. The bottom line is…the most visible parts used are from Mandriva…but that doesn’t make PCLinuxOS Mandriva re-wrapped.

PCLinuxOS maintains its own kernel. PCLinuxOS maintains it’s own repository. PCLinuxOS also has a policy of not installing software outside of the repository (if you do, you’re on your own) and yes that means even Mandriva rpms. So honestly, PCLinuxOS looked at in this light stands alone. If Mandriva went belly up tomorrow, PCLinuxOS would continue on quite easily by absorbing the “best of” tools available in Linux just like it always has done.

• I would like to find among the “cons” of Mepis and PCLinuxOS, the total ignorance of the Free Software Philosophy. Technical advantages are secondary.

Really? Last I checked both MEPIS and PCLinuxOS were available for free. Now if you’re speaking of Libre Software (that is, software free of proprietary components) I’ll agree with you…those items aren’t high on the priority list for these distributions.

Instead, higher on the priority list is usability and less confusion for new users. Asking new users to become immediately supportive of a license and philosophy they know nothing about is asking a bit too much. After all, most of these new users haven’t even read the EULA for Windows…what’s going to be incentive for them to read the GPL? What incentive for them to think they should only use FLOSS? There is no incentive. It’s a personal choice and one that should be left up to the individual.

Should a distro be chastised for choosing NOT to be completely proprietary software free? Nope. Because it fills a niche for those users who want THAT DISTRO. Just like they have a choice to choose FLOSS, they also have a choice to not choose it. Distros shouldn’t be chastised for their philosophies on either end of the spectrum.

• I still believe that PCLinuxOS and MEPIS are just re-mastered editions of Mandriva and Ubuntu without offering anything new.

Then try it and see what you think after trying it. By trying these distros it becomes apparent that they are not “re-mastered editions” of Mandriva and Ubuntu. Both MEPIS and PCLinuxOS are independently developed distributions that would be able to stand alone without Mandriva/Ubuntu. They develop all their own kernels and maintain their own independent package pools. Both of them install software using apt-get and both of them are new user friendly. Both of them have one or two click installations of graphics drivers. Both of them have good support for playing video and both of them have flash out of the box.

I challenge you to put your money where your mouth is and try it. If you still think that both of these distros are just repackaged copies of Ubuntu/Mandriva…bring your proof and I’ll publish it here in large, bold headlines.

• In fact, these two projects [MEPIS & PCLinuxOS] ONLY deserve credit for beeing able to deliver a customised version of another project. They are nothing whitout giants like Red Hat, Novell, Mandrakesoft or Canonical. Even if they add a small number of useful feature, they don’t have the community needed to be able to maintain a whole operating system.

These are complete lies on the part of MEPIS and PCLinuxOS. MEPIS maintained itself in the same way Ubuntu is doing since 2003. It only changed to an Ubuntu base within the past year. That means It HAS operated and maintained a whole operating system on its own without Red Hat, Novell, Mandriva, and Canonical. So using your logic, MEPIS deserves credit.

In the same vein, PCLinuxOS has deviated from Mandrake 9.2 continually (which was when it forked) and now doesn’t use Mandriva for it’s primary code base. It also maintains all of its own packages, rolls its own kernel, and has it’s own developers. Also, I’m quite familiar with it’s community since I operate a community website with over 2k members for it. I have to tell you that if tomorrow Mandriva dried up…PCLinuxOS would be just fine.

Stating that the efforts of Texstar and Warren do not deserve credit is completely ludicrous. This person needs to extract his/her head from their backside. Both PCLinuxOS and MEPIS have the community to maintain their own distribution because both of them ARE maintaining their own distribution.

• I am not saying that they are not good (MEPIS and PCLinuxOS). I used them both in the past (and still do occasionally) and they are great Live CD distros, but when security patches are not getting released on the timely base it stops being fun. I would never suggest them for any serious work. MEPIS at least has commercial support, where PCLinuxOS has ???

I assume here that the poster is speaking of the code freeze on .93a base when they speak of security patches not being released. This is a first in the PCLinuxOS community and last as well. The reason .93a version has been frozen is because all developer attention has been focused on 2007 version. There are major changes (shifting many packages away from Mandriva, new GCC/Glibc requiring completely rebuilt repository) that require too much time for volunteers to work at it.

PCLinuxOS 2007, for the first time since PCLinuxOS’s inception, will need to be a ‘from scratch’ install. Previously, you could install .71 and apt-get up to current. Since there is a new GCC version, all packages needed recompiled which means a complete re-installation must take place. To prepare, all effort has been placed on getting 2007 accomplished and .93a has been removed from most download sites. There are those of us out there that still have boxen running .93a but we do so at our own risk as PCLinuxOS is BETA software and says so before you install it.

Remember, Ubuntu and Debian developers often get paid to work on their distribution…by many different companies (not just Canonical). SuSe developers are paid. Xandros developers are paid. MEPIS pays itself through its commercial wing.

PCLinuxOS is volunteer based. Where is its commercial support? There is none…because it’s put together by a group of like minded individuals who want to make software better than what is available. Will there ever be commercial offerings for PCLinuxOS? Who knows? Maybe? But for now, I don’t think examining whether or not a distro has commercial support should be criteria for an enthusiast website to determine what is one of the top ten visited distributions.

• yeay! People continously praise pclinuxos for their inclusion of proprietary stuff etc. without being aware of these things violates licenses, patents, is strictly illegal and what not, nice..

  Also very nice is how most of their packages are just rebranded mandriva packages (rebuilt with their own release suffix and changelog removed) and they don’t even provide sources for the packages they modify..

Here is your sources for PCLinuxOS [1][2]. Evidently you’re a bit too lazy to google it. As for inclusion of proprietary stuff, we’ve already went over that previously…I’m not going to beat a dead horse. I’m also not going over the ‘re-branded packages’ statement as we’ve already addressed that as well.

If you have questions about PCLinuxOS, I’ll do my best to answer and if I can’t, I’ll find someone who can…even if the answer isn’t one I want to give. It’s my aim to be honest which is why I have such problems with comments like those above.

Hopefully, this clears a few things up for people.

Debunking Confusion in PCLinuxOS originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on April 3, 2007.

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To replace this loud server I bought the E521-n series so Microsoft didn’t get any of my money. For those of you who don’t know, the N series desktops from Dell come with no operating system. Dell also claims that these computers are ‘ready for Linux’…but there are some problems associated with them. I was able to get ClarkConnect back on my server and pop in the IDE Controller PCI card (E521’s are completely SATA) after solving a couple of problems.

First and foremost, you have to make sure your E521 is running BIOS version 1.1.4 (Released January 2007). If you don’t, you’ll have USB problems all over the place. Second, when booting Linux, add the boot parameter acpi=noirq. If you can’t pass this parameter to your kernel you may need to completely turn off acpi using the ‘noacpi‘ parameter. The only downside to this is that your fan will run continuously and cause a bit more noise than it should.

When installing ClarkConnect 4.0, there is a routine for adding parameters to the kernel before GRUB writes to the MBR. I used this to pass the acpi=noirq parameter and after booting everything worked. Without passing this parameter, I received Kernel panics.

It’s also been reported that some kernels cannot find the broadcom module for the onboard LAN device. With ClarkConnect, this wasn’t a problem. I’ve heard that the Fedora Xen kernel has problems with this.

I’m going to list some links here for your reference that helped me in my quest:

ClarkConnect
Dell E521 and Linux Wiki Page
Yet Another Linux Blog and the USB Problem
Hardware Support for E521 N Series @ Ubuntu Forums

Hope this information helps someone with their problems! For those of you running Ubuntu, you’ll have to add ‘noapic irqpoll pci=routeirq’ to your boot parameters to get things rocking.

Dell Dimension E521 with Linux originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on February 23, 2007.

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Now users will be able to install both commercial and non-commercial software as well as proprietary multimedia codecs through the Click and Run Repositories with a single click of the mouse.

From a business perspective, It makes perfect sense for Linspire to do this…it’s a winning situation for them…they get to ride the popularity coat tails of Ubuntu and they get a standardized update schedule (which signifies stability in Business). With Ubuntu announcing previously that it would begin shipping with proprietary binaries installed, you can also see how Canonical set themselves up for this as well…when you open the door a crack (for binaries), you may just as well open it up all the way right?

I’m not sure what to think of this.

It also makes me wonder what will happen when something goes wrong in this “partnership” (as the announcement states it is).

Will one company buy out the other? Will one become the bitter and scorned outsider when a separation occurs? Will none of this happen at all? Did I leave the iron on? (sorry, last one is my wandering mind).

Who’s going to be the official support for these installed applications (Canonical or Linspire)? Will there be any official support? Normally, there is official support when you buy software…I wonder what will happen here…

What do you think of this? Drop me a comment below and let me know.

UPDATE: An official FAQ has been released.

Linspire to Become “LinBuntu”, CNR goes into Fiesty originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on February 8, 2007.

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Debian:

Install Debian in Windows

Ubuntu:

Install Ubuntu in Windows

Follow the instructions and enjoy Linux safely and securely without nuking Windows. It’s like a crutch for those of you reluctant to put the full weight on that one foot. If you are confused about what this Linux thing might be…visit this flash presentation to get an idea and welcome to the world of Linux! We’re glad you came aboard! Hopefully, you’ll make the choice many have already made to run Linux exclusively on our PCs

Installing Linux INSIDE of Microsoft originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on January 30, 2007.

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