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DistributionsNews and Editorials Live CDs Part II: Desktop Replacements [Editor's note: this is the second in a four-part series; the next installment will appear in the next week or two.]If you read Part I of this series, you know all about what a live CD is and why you would want one for your own. This week, it's time to look at examples of live CDs that implement complete replacements for your desktop. Remember that the goal isn't to compare these examples but rather to help you learn to differentiate the options available. The ratings for each review are intended to show how well each option might fit a particular need rather than comparing the CDs against one another. A number of live CD's offer complete desktop environments based on existing desktop distributions or on hybrid or home grown distributions. I chose three live CDs for this category: KNOPPIX as a representative of the hybrid desktop replacement category, the GNOME live CD to see what new features I might find in upcoming desktop distributions and Berry Linux, for a taste of a language customized version. Desktop live CDs use "cheatcodes", or command line options to the kernel to deal with special situations. Be sure to check out the web sites for information on how to make best use of these.
KNOPPIXKNOPPIX may be the grandfather of all live CDs, or at least a distant relative. Developed originally by Klaus Knopper, this highly popular and very complete distribution packs in 2GB worth of data into an ordinary 700MB CD. The shear weight of applications should make this distribution bog down on the low memory test system, but it doesn't. Still, the Debian based distribution manages to use up 214MB of an available 229MB running just the KDE desktop.Unlike more modern live CDs, KNOPPIX appears to use the cloop driver to use compressed filesystem images from the CD. The alternative would be to use the SquashFS filesystem or other compressed filesystem image drivers. Despite using an older driver, KNOPPIX doesn't appear to be suffering performance issues and certainly isn't hobbled by lack of space on the CD. The CD was slow to boot but correctly identified the hardware except for the mouse. KNOPPIX configured a generic PS/2 wheel mouse while the test system had a simple 2 button mouse without a wheel. The system boots directly into an X session for the "knoppix" user (not root). While a relatively recent 2.6.12 kernel is used, KNOPPIX is using XFree86 4.3 instead of the newer X.org releases and defaults to the VESA X driver. The display does come up in 1024x768 @ 24bit color depth, which makes best use of the test system hardware. The desktop runs KDE 3.4.1, which runs surprisingly fast on the test hardware. This is probably due to the way KNOPPIX leaves many read-only files on the CD instead of pushing them into the ramdisks. The menu systems is a bit cluttered, however. There are multiple menu entries for doing configuration tasks, for example. And there are to many entries in the main menu, making the menu a bit overwhelming to a newbie. Applications abound with this live CD. Office files are handled with OpenOffice, KDE PIM tools and Scribus. Xmms and Xine highlight the multimedia support. Along with the usual KDE tools like KMail and Konqueror, network applications include Firefox, Thunderbird, XChat and GAIM. Add to this a large number of graphics and game applications along with plenty of variety in text editors and you've got a full featured desktop. As with most desktop replacement live CDs, KNOPPIX comes with it's own cheatcodes, which are actually just a bunch of kernel options that you can use at boot time to deal with old or unusual hardware. Extending KNOPPIX requires copying the contents of the CD to a local directory, then doing a chroot into that directory. From here you can use "apt" to update packages and add your own packages just as you would on any running Debian system. After updates are complete, you remake the compressed filesystem image used by the cloop driver and then remake the ISO image. The runtime system can also be updated using the KPackage utility found under the Utilities menu.
The GNOME Live CDThe GNOME Live CD isn't really a desktop replacement system but more of a technology preview. The CD uses the popular Ubuntu distribution as a base Linux operating system and adds all the bells and whistles of the latest (in this case, version 2.12) GNOME desktop release. While it isn't intended to function like a KNOPPIX distribution, it does contain everything you might need on a desktop.When the Ubuntu distribution boots you'll get a GNOME splash screen. For some reason I had to hit ENTER at this point otherwise the boot wouldn't continue (this happens on the official Ubuntu live CD as well). The boot takes a long time to do it's hardware detection, partially using text based screens and partially using Bootsplash screens. Eventually, the system boots directly into the "ubuntu" user's desktop. Hardware detection by the Ubuntu distribution correctly recognized the Via CastleRock graphics support on the EPIA M10000 test system and the CD loaded the "via" X driver. This is different than most of the other live CDs I've tested which default to using the generic VESA driver. It is nice to have the "via" driver for video playing but other than that using the basic VESA driver works just as well on this hardware. As with KNOPPIX, this GNOME desktop system is heavy on memory use, using 219MB out of 224MB available according to "top". This is expected behavior for this class of live CDs so be certain to have plenty of memory. Applications include OpenOffice for office documents, Evolution and Firefox for email and the web, the Totem movie player and Rhythmbox music player for multimedia files. The desktop also includes GNOME Meeting, an H.232 compliant VoIP and telephone application that should work with NetMeeting. Overall the desktop appearance is cleaner than KNOPPIX's. This is probably because KNOPPIX tries to provide every application it can while GNOME is demonstrating GNOME specific features. Again, I'm not trying to compare the two against each other, but rather pointing out how similar live CDs can target different problem spaces. The GNOME live CD isn't meant as a general purpose solution and as such does not provide tools or methods for extending the ISO image. The desktop does provide the Synaptic package manager which allowed me to install a 3D chess application with ease.
Berry LinuxThis relative newcomer to the live CD scene offers a polished desktop environment. Originally designed as a Japanese language live CD based on Fedora Core 5 and KDE, Berry Linux now includes an English language version and a GRUB based boot that offers multiple configurations. This includes an Xgl (an OpenGL X server) version, Safe and Expert boot modes, and support for Vaio and Dynabook specific hardware.The English boot mode was fast through the hardware detection phase. Berry Linux makes use of KNOPPIX's "hwsetup" to configure hardware and it was successful in finding the VIA graphics hardware and configuring the X environment to use it. Unfortunately, it also configured a generic PS/2 wheel mouse, while the test system didn't have a wheel. Berry uses a modern 2.6 kernel and the Overlay Filesystem (translucency.o module) mixed with SquashFS and UnionFS for it's CD technology. Like most desktop replacement live CDs, this system doesn't boot into a root user but rather boots directly into the "berry" user. The root password is "root" (which you'll need for basic system management tasks) but you'll only know this if you read the web site. While hardware detection is fast, getting into the desktop is a bit slow. A very customized KDE offers up a clean desktop with lots of icons that include a small penguin image. Applications are abundant here, as you'd expect with this class of live CD. Media files are accessed with XMMS, MPlayer and Xine while office documents can be managed with OpenOffice. Thunderbird and Sylpheed provide email access while Firefox handles web browsing chores. As an added bonus, WINE is provided for support of Windows executables. Berry Linux is a full featured desktop, but a slimmed down version is also available that uses FluxBox as the desktop environment in place of KDE. Information on remastering the ISO is available but limited. No information on the format used for packages (RPMs or .deb files, for example) is provided, though a web page on the differences between Berry and KNOPPIX says RPMs were used.
In the next installment of this series I'll look at Small Footprint live CDs. These are the systems that should serve as the basis for embedded systems or for making use of older or less well supported hardware by making it easy to extend the feature set of the CD. Those live CDs under review will include Olive, Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux.
New Releases EnGarde Secure Linux 3.0.7 announced EnGarde Secure Linux version 3.0.7 has been announced. "Guardian Digital is happy to announce the release of EnGarde Secure Community 3.0.7 (Version 3.0, Release 7). This release includes several bug fixes and feature enhancements to the Guardian Digital WebTool and the SELinux policy, several updated packages, and several new packages available for installation. "
SUSE Linux 10.2 Alpha 1 released The first alpha release of SUSE Linux 10.2 is available. There is one little known problem, being that the graphical installer does not work. According to the announcement, the changes since 10.1 are "mainly in version updates in some areas (esp. the YaST package manager and KDE)."
BitRock Releases MonoStack distribution BitRock Incorporated has announced the release of their BitRock MonoStack distribution. "The easy to install distribution contains Apache, mod_mono and XSP, and hooks up to existing Mono installations to allow new users to quickly be up and running with a complete .NET environment on Linux. "MonoStack serves as a complement to the existing Mono installer, by providing the additional software necessary to run ASP.NET on Linux. By downloading and installing the Mono Runtime from the Mono project website and MonoStack from BitRock, users can have a complete Mono development environment in minutes," said Erica Brescia, VP of Business Development for BitRock. MonoStack is freely available for download and use under the terms of the Apache License 2.0 from www.bitrock.com."
Wyse Technology releases Wyse Linux 6.3 Wyse Technology has announced the availability of Wyse Linux 6.3, the latest release of the Wyse Linux V6 products. The product will be offered as a free software upgrade for current Wyse customers of the S50, V50, and 5150 SE thin clients.
Distribution News Bits from the Debian stable release team Martin Zobel-Helas reports on preparations for a third update of Debian stable (Sarge). "Expect Debian Sarge r3 to happen soon."
Debian Python packages in sid Matthias Klose reports that Python 2.4 will soon be the default python version in sid. "With the upcoming releases of the last packages which didn't support 2.4 yet (Plone on the Zope application server) we may be able to drop support for 2.3 in sid and etch as well."Raphael Hertzog has more on the new Python policy. "As we want to do the python 2.4 transition now, we need to make sure the packages match the policy. This will limit the amount of broken packages when python2.4 will become the default and will smooth this transition."
Fedora news A read only mailing list has been created so anyone can follow as business is conducted by the Fedora board. "fedora-advisory-board is the list on which the Fedora Board conducts its business, and its membership is comprised of the Fedora Board members, and many of the folks on different Fedora Steering Committees, leaders within the community and within Red Hat."The Fedora project is looking for a few good people to help create and maintain infrastructure that will take Fedora to the next level. Max Spevack congratulates the team on the success of Fedora Core 5 and looks forward to FC6.
OpenPKG Demonstration Video The OpenPKG Project has released a demonstration video featuring OpenPKG 2.5 on FreeBSD 6, Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 and OpenSolaris 10 b34 in parallel. "The goal of this video is to illustrate OpenPKG's important cross-platform and multiple-instance capabilities in a more appealing and intuitive way than what is possible with the usual tutorial style step-by-step command lists or simple screenshots."
Regular language pack updates for stable Ubuntu Martin Pitt reports that the language packs of all stable Ubuntu releases will be updated on the first Monday of every month. "This predictable schedule should ease coordination for translators. As a special exception, there will be an additional update for the recently released Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake) on June, 14th, since a lot of last-minute updates did not make it into the final release."
Maintaining Packages in bzr for edgy Scott James Remnant looks at maintaining packages in bzr. "Edgy is all about new and exciting things, so we're likely to be doing a fair amount of development work in this time. So now is the time to begin maintaining packages in bzr!"
Daily kernel builds for edgy Automated daily builds of edgy's 2.6.17-based kernel are available for testing. Goals for testers include enabling better results from IBM's ABAT suite and enabling users to help identify more precise points of regressions during edgy development.
New Distributions The Bluewhite64 Linux Project The Bluewhite64 Linux Project is an unofficial port of Slackware Linux to AMD64 hardware. Bluewhite64-current v20060609 is available for testing.
Voltalinux Voltalinux is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Slackware GNU/linux and the pkgsrc package system from NetBSD. This project aims to deliver a prebuilt distribution with the clean design of Slackware and the availability of about 5400 ports (packages) ready to install. Version 1.0 was released June 9, 2006.
Distribution Newsletters Debian Weekly News The Debian Weekly News for June 13, 2006 covers Debian CGL registration, GNOME 1 packages in Debian may not be around much longer, a graphical Reportbug in progress, sailing with Debian, an interview with the DPL, and much more.
Fedora Weekly News Issue 50 This edition of the Fedora Weekly News covers Fedora Project Board Update (2006-06-06), Read-Only copy of fedora-advisory-board list, Fedora mentioned in Information Week, Puplet Icons Design in Progress, Fedora on Mactel Testing in Progress, Fedora Core 5 Review at Linux Magazine, Re-spin your Fedora Core monthly, Fedora Stuff at Red Hat Cool Stuff Store, and more.
Gentoo Weekly Newsletter The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for June 12, 2006 looks at the Portage 2.1 release, Gentoo/Alpha status report, Tetex changes, Gentoo Women and several other topics.
Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter - Issue #2 The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for June 10, 2006 covers Ubuntu Documentation on Paper, Screenshot Tours of Edubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu, Edgy Development Officially Started, Mark Shuttleworth Interviewed on ``Lug``Radio, Buy a Computer with Ubuntu Preinstalled, Feature Of The Week - Tomboy and much more.
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 155 The DistroWatch Weekly for June 12, 2006 is out. "With the recent new Linux distribution releases being digested and evaluated, it's no surprise that news was somewhat slow last week. The developers of Debian GNU/Linux have engaged in yet another major flame war - this time over the new Java licence, while the openSUSE project continued its hard work resolving the package management problems affecting many users of SUSE Linux 10.1. In the opinion section, we take a look at the three major distribution releases of the past two months and suggest the winner. Finally, the annual DistroWatch package database update will take place this week and we would appreciate your input!"
Package updates Fedora updates Updates for Fedora Core 5: mc (update from CVS), gdm (bug fixes), gnome-panel (updated, rebuilt), dovecot (sync with rawhide), evolution (bump EDS version requires), evolution-sharp (rebuild for new EDS), planner (rebuild for new EDS), evolution-connector (bump for new EDS), subversion (update to 1.3.2), squid (bug fix), ruby (patched), dovecot (sync with rawhide), autofs (bug fix), perl (bug fixes), coreutils (fixed Polish translation), tog-pegasus (upstream patches), policycoreutils (bug fixes), selinux-policy (bump for FC5), perl-DBD-MySQL (upgrade to upstream version 3.0004), xterm (upgrade to upstream version 213), perl-DBD-Pg (upgrade to upstream version 1.49), libsepol (bump for FC5), system-config-bind (bug fix), avahi (bug fixes), perl-XML-Simple (bug fixes), cups (bug fixes), scim (bug fix), dhcp (bug fixes), tcl (upgrade to Tcl 8.4.13), tk (upgrade to Tk 8.4.13), shadow-utils (bug fixes), rsync (bug fixes), python (added dist in the release), scim (update libtool tweak), gnome-screensaver (now use system-logos), gnome-session (now use system-logos), desktop-backgrounds (branded backgrounds moved to fedora-logos), xfig (bug fixes), gnome-themes (correct %post scripts), gnome-icon-theme (update to 2.14.2), fedora-logos (add the branded desktop background), gdm (require system-logos), rhgb (require system-logos).Updates for Fedora Core 4: tetex (bug fixes), ruby (backport from devel), autofs (bug fix), xterm (upgrade to upstream version 213), rsync (bug fixes).
rPath updates Updates for rPath Linux 1: libuser, nss_ldap (mark as initial contents files), booty, mkinitrd (Xen support), initscripts (work with live CD images), initscripts (enables more customizations in software appliances), ltrace (fix x86_64 segfault), bridge-utils (Xen domain 0 support), dovecot (add a logrotate config file), conary, conary-build, conary-policy (API changes, client changes, build changes, server changes, bug fixes, policy update)
Slackware updates This week the Slackware-current change log shows some rebuilt Python packages, upgrades to doxygen, amorak, dhcpcd, dnsmasq and slackpkg, and more.
Update for SUSE Linux 10.1 Package Management The Package Update System released with SUSE Linux 10.1 had some problems. Click below for instructions on how to get an update for your system.
Trustix update Trustix has updated dansguardian, kernel, nss_ldap and rsync for TSL 2.2 and 3.0.
Miscellaneous Articles Using Debconf to configure a system (Linux.com) Linux.com covers the Debconf configuration tool. "Stripped to its essentials, Debconf is a database of questions with a front end for users. It is not a registry of settings, and does not make changes to the operating system itself. Instead, Debconf is invoked by the config script in a Debian package, and stores the user's answers for the postinst (post-install) script in the package to use. The questions for each package are stored in a .templates file in the package, and the same templates, with their current answers, are available in /var/lib/dpkg/info. Common packages may share the same template file to simplify configuration. Questions are generally prefaced with an explanation of the choice being made, and, in some cases, a button is provided for users to move back in the list of questions to correct mistakes."
Libranet's last goodbye (NewsForge) NewsForge covers the discontinuation of Libranet. "Libranet was one of the oldest surviving Debian-derived distributions. First released in 1999, it developed a loyal following because of its easy installation and comprehensive set of packages. The distribution reached its peak in April 2005 with the release of version 3.0, but suffered a major setback when its founder, Jon Danzig, died of cancer a few weeks later. Tal Danzig, his son and partner, continued the distribution, but announced in November 2005 that the company was "restructuring" -- continuing support and keeping its forum open, but discontinuing development and sales while he considered what to do with the business and took a two-month trip to Israel."
Distribution reviews Ubuntu Dapper: Ready for the long haul (Linux.com) Linux.com reviews Ubuntu 6.06 LTS. "For this review, I've been testing Ubuntu Dapper, and its Kubuntu and Xubuntu variants, on several desktop systems. The first system is a Pentium 4 3.06GHz laptop with 1GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon R250 video card and Prism-based wireless card. I'm also running Ubuntu Dapper on my primary desktop, an AMD64 3000+ with 2GB of RAM, a 120GB SATA drive, and an Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT. Finally, I put Ubuntu on a ThinkPad T43 with a Pentium M 1.86GHz CPU, 512MB of RAM, and ATI Radeon Mobility M300."
My desktop OS: Zenwalk (NewsForge) NewsForge hears from a Zenwalk fan. "There are so many desktop distributions that I often find myself testing them like I'm looking for the Holy Grail and forgetting what I really want: An operating system for my daily tasks at home. I found my Grail in Zenwalk, a Slackware-based Linux distro that uses the lightweight Xfce desktop environment along with an up-to-date 2.6.16 kernel."
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol |
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