Internetling

OK guys, here’s another fun list! Go easy on me, since I’m sure some of you knew it already.

UPDATE: this story became popular! If you like it, digg it here!

1. ) Most of the things that are listed as ‘features’ in the new Hardy Heron release, are really just upstream development, they’re basically just updated version of the packaged software, according to this.

2.) Canonical is preparing an Ubuntu release for mobile and other devices which could use an embedded version of the Ubuntu Linux OS.

3.) At this year’s CanSecWest conference cracking competition, the only machine that was left untouched was running Ubuntu. Both Vista and Mac OS X got pwned.

4.) Michael Dell and Sam Ruby use Ubuntu too. Fact!

5.) Due to its popularity, Ubuntu now has very specific derivatives, such as a Christian Edition, GnewSense and others.

I guess this explains it:

Source.

If you’re in a dilemma, just use this post which quickly describes some of the most popular (though not all) desktop environments and window managers. The desktop environments and WMs listed here can easily be downloaded from your distribution’s respective package management system (type “apt-get fluxbox” in your terminal to get fluxbox with apt, for instance).

GNOME

Simple and polished, a bit slower than you’d expect, fairly customizable. GTK!

KDE 3

More windows-like, lower learning curve, lacks cool themeing. Extremenly customizable. Qt.
KDE 4

“Awesome” factor, lacks cool themeing although the default one looks very nice, a bit unstable, faster than you’d expect.

XFCE

GNOME-like, much faster, good GTK integration, nice themeing, simplistic

Enlightenment

Low system requirements, dock, a bit strange (higher learning curve).

IceWM

Very low system requirements, Windows-like, simple, fast, soe me nice themes out there

Openbox

The “geeky” Blackbox-inspiredWM. Right click, menu. Extreme keybinding support. XML configuration files.

Fluxbox

Blackbox fork (thanks guys). More themes!

Links

1. http://xwinman.org/
2. http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/639/

Recently I listened to a Linux Action show! Podcast where a listener sent an email in which he states that even though Adobe’s “dipping their toes” into open source waters, they are never going to be a part of the community.

I agree with Chris and Brian when they say spitting at Adobe for trying to open-source a part of their software (I believe it’s FLEX) is too harsh. We should welcome major firms to open source. As both show hosts commented, not every major firm can make money from open source, and even though it’s possible, it ain’t easy to find a successful business model.

What do you think? 

I am the maintainer of a few public computers in a school library. I didn’t really check, but if I remember correctly, the computers are pretty old 900 MHz Pentiums with 90-128 mb RAM.

Now these computers had XP on them before, but I removed this horrible operating system in order to install Linux. Of course, there is a huge number of distros to choose from, even in the low-end computer niche.

All I needed was a word processor like Abiword, multiple user support with login manager, a basic file manager like PCman, Flash support, a home directory for the user ‘student’, a WM, a desktop with a background, and a panel with FOUR icons – Abiword, Net browser, Home and shutdown. Also, I wanted to restrict the user ‘student’ not to change the system’s theme, background and configuration files.

The KDE Kiosk Tool is great, though I think you know how fast KDE on 92 mb of RAM runs (if it runs, that is).

The default install of TinyME, a PCFLuxboxOS- based mini distribution using Openbox

You cannot imagine how difficult it was for me to find something even close to this.

Sadly, some of these mini distros have huge flaws which need to be fixed. Others, on the other hand, aren’t really mini distributions.

So, if you have an old computer and you’re looking for a low-requirement Linux distro, don’t choose:

- Xubuntu – too damn slow, changing the desktop environment or the WM actually won’t make Opera or Abiword load much faster. I think it’s the lower levels that cause the lag.

- Fluxbuntu – see Xubuntu

- Vector Linux – not easy to configure, slow installation

If you have an old computer in a public place, don’t choose

- Puppy Linux (no multiuser, isn’t too pretty)

- DSL (constant X server problems)

In reality, the only distro from the aforementioned that I dislike is Fluxbuntu. Puppy and DSL are doing a great job for users with old computers, the only problem is they lack key features for public computers. And they don’t look nice, which I can understand isn’t a priority, but it would certainly be nice.

I’m checking out TinyMe at the moment, a small PCLinuxOS derivative , and it looks promising… by changing the Openbox configuration and a few other things, I think I’ll be able to generate a stripped-down LiveCD for those school computers. It looks alright, too.

SOem of you would probably suggest Debian.  Non-base Debian is slow. I love Debian, but it’s way too slow and I’m too lazy to install it from scratch. If I’ll be forced to do this, I’ll rather play with Arch.

What do you think? Do you have any recommendations for a web kiosk computer with low specs? What do you think of TinyME? What is your favourite low-end window manager? I NEED INFORMATION GUYS!