Links: New Distributions and Selecting a Distribution
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-02-19 13:44:32 UTC
- Modified: 2014-02-19 13:44:32 UTC
Summary: Coverage of SliTaz GNU/Linux 5.0, Evolve OS, Distro Astro 2.0, NeuroDebian, Netrunner 13.12, m23 rock 14.1, SparkyLinux 3.2.1, Pinguy OS 13.10, Manjaro Linux 0.8.9, Tiny Core 5.2 and several other distributions which are compared and classified
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After two years of hard work, the development team behind SliTaz, an open source and minimalistic Linux distribution built from scratch, has announced that a new development (cooking) release is now ready for testing.
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Evolve OS is a new upcoming Linux distribution based on openSUSE and sporting a new desktop environment based on the Gnome 3 stack. You may immediately be thinking, is this yet another 'Ubuntu Killer' promising a lot and ultimately delivering little? But Evolve OS has a different philosophy and some interesting ideas. Read on to find out more.
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Distro Astro 2.0 is an excellent Linux OS to learn about the basics of a simple desktop environment as well as explore the marvels of the universe. It is also an excellent all-in-one Linux platform for astronomy enthusiasts and professional astronomers alike with some of the best celestial-studying software included. Distro Astro is an impressive and solidly performing Linux distro.
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In past articles, I have looked at distributions that were built with some scientific discipline in mind. In this article, I take a look at yet another one. In this case, I cover what is provided by NeuroDebian.
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The Netrunner distribution is a project based upon the Ubuntu operating system. Netrunner strives to be an easy to use desktop operating system that completes most tasks with free software while offering convenient add-ons and web-based solutions to round out the user experience. Netrunner ships with the KDE desktop to provide a mix of flexibility (for power users) and familiarity (for newcomers). The latest release of Netrunner, version 13.12, is based upon Ubuntu 13.10. The distribution comes with several appealing features, including multimedia support, Windows application compatibility via WINE and the Steam gaming portal software. Netrunner is available in just one edition and can be downloaded in 32-bit or 64-bit x86 builds. The project's installation media is approximately 1.6 GB in size.
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The latest m23 release focuses on two main new features: For one, on support for Apache CloudStack€® and on the other hand on the extended options to clone machines.
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The SparkyLinux development team has announced earlier today, January 31, the immediate availability for download of a new edition of their popular Linux operating system, this time based on the lightweight Xfce desktop environment.
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The desktop is mostly the same as before, so I won't dwell on that for too much. The Axe Menu, which essentially brought the Linux Mint Menu to GNOME 3/Shell, is sadly gone, replaced by the slightly less nice GnoMenu. There is a Conky system monitor sitting on the top-right of the desktop background that also displays the date and time. Docky gives a dock on the bottom that has been expanded to full width, but for some reason it shows an opaque background until the desktop background changes (after which point the Docky background becomes fully transparent). On the whole, the desktop works decently well.
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Arch Linux is highly respected throughout the Linux community as a cutting edge, well designed, rolling-release Linux distro with superb documentation. But at the same time, it is also discarded as a non-option by many Linux users, including experienced ones, for being time consuming to install and configure.
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Tiny Core 5.2 was released yesterday as the latest version of the ultra light weight Linux distribution. The bare-bone version of this Linux distribution with the flwm window manager comes in at just an 8.9MB ISO while the "Core Plus" version with extra GUI functionality is still a mere 72MB.
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Change log:
* rebuildfstab: do not replace fstab entries for a device that does not have "Added by TC" on the line (thanks to Gerald Clark)
* init: increase the default inode count
* ondemand: don't list extensions under subdirs in onboot maintenance
* ldd: add wildcard to support both x86 and x86_64
* busybox updated to 1.21.1 plus wget patches and split suid/nosuid for better security
* ldd: Added quotes for binaries with spaces in their names
* /etc/services: modified to suit rpcbind rather than portmap
* tc-functions: Removed the getpasswd stars to allow backspace to work
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What is a Bleeding Edge Linux Distribution ? Bleeding Edge Distribution is a distribution developed by technologies incorporating those so new that they could have a high risk of being unreliable. No matter how much we want to use these distributions, they will always have stability issues. Well, we are here to prove that wrong. Even if it sound impossible, I will give you 5 distributions that are bleeding edge as well as stable enough for daily use.
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Q. I want to install Linux on an old PC to get a few more years out of it, but I don’t know which version to use. What is the difference between Ubuntu and Mint for a new user and are there any free guides to using either?
A. Linux, an alternative computer operating system to Windows and Mac OS X, comes in many versions, or so-called distributions. Some Linux distributions are easier to use than others and each one has its ardent followers, but Linux Mint and Ubuntu have emerged as two of the easiest options for those new to the system.
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Users are confused when they first come to Linux about which distribution they should be using and I have heard people say “I was thinking of Ubuntu or Arch” or “I was thinking about Gentoo and how hard is it to use Linux From Scratch”.
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This article lists the top 10 distributions according to Distrowatch for 2013 and gives a brief outline of the purpose of those distributions and whether they are the sort of operating systems a new user or average computer user should be using as their first port of call.
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