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Education Software Linux

CollegeLinux Released to the Public 281

Posted by timothy from the best-folks-to-whom-to-release dept.
YOU ARE SO FIRED! writes "It seems that the Swiss Robert Kennedy College (with the aptly named website) has released CollegeLinux, a Linux distribution based off of Slackware, to the public. If only my employees could've used this in school - I wouldn't have to fire them so much! See the interview with the dean of the school for more information."
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CollegeLinux Released to the Public More

CollegeLinux Released to the Public

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  • Will it ever stop? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mschoolbus ( 627182 ) <{travisriley} {at} {gmail.com}> on Sunday March 02, 2003 @01:07AM (#5417018)
    Linux is great and all but I feel half the reason it isn't doing as well as it could is because there are just so many distros in general. I know the nature of Linux is about choice and open software but this hurts Linux in itself. Why don't hardware companies put out Linux drivers as much as they do Mac drivers? Because they expect certain things within the Mac OS, not everything is different from system to system, which makes it easier and more attractive to companies to write Linux code and drivers...
    • Erm, pretty much all driver code should be in the kernel anyways...

      (That aside, all the distro waste was one of the reasons I switched to FreeBSD)
      • "Erm, pretty much all driver code should be in the kernel anyways..."

        Perhaps, but there needs to be an easy way to install them too. What's the guarantee that a given distro's not going to break something?

        Question: Is there a driver installation standard that includes how to do it within KDE/Gnome? If there's not, then there's a nasty weakness there that'll pretty much guarantee most companies won't support it. If it is there, how often does it change? Does it change?

        *Note: In case it's not obvious, I'm not knowledgable about Linux. From what little I've used it, the thought of installing a driver makes me go ewwwww. I'm spoiled by my 'Setup.exe, [Ok], [Ok], [Ok] *bam* you're up and running' expectation I've developed from using Windows 2000.

        • Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:4, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02, 2003 @02:47AM (#5417357)
          sorry but I have to comment. First time ever and I have lurked for like 5 years, but you are ASKING for it!
          more like
          Setup.exe, [PRAY], [PRAY], [PRAY] *bam* you're screen is blue
          and you get no information about what is really going on to troubleshoot!
          I fucking hate the little blue bar that slowly fills as you install crap. Tell me what is really going on. I don't speak microsoft blue bar language!

          • Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:3, Interesting)

            by jemnery ( 562697 )
            Sorry, I'm not an MS apologist, but this is unfair. Sure, Windows has a *terrible* history (I've been a user since before v3.1), and MS is a pretty horrible company, but your comment simply is not true any more. Windows 2000 is very solid, and the system for installing drivers is quick and painless. "Computer Management" through MMC and auto-detection of new hardware are both impressive bits of coding, IMO.

            "and you get no information about what is really going on to troubleshoot!"
            Now this I totally agree with. I want to know what's going on too, but 99% of computer users don't want, and shouldn't need, to know.
            An example. A new graphics adaptor is a piece of consumer electronics these days, with a nice shiny box and everything. Would I prefer to perhaps recompile my f**cking OS kernel to get it working, or pop in a CD and wait? Hmmm... (And both methods require rebooting and nervous anticipation, BTW, Windows does not have the monopoly on that).

            --
            I like Linux AND Windows. Shoot me.
            • I have a Radeon 7500. I recently installed win2k. I install the latest drivers from ATI. Part way through the install process, the program crashes. Fsck, I restart back into Linux and download the latest drivers again, hoping that it was just a corrupted download but not really expecting that to be the case. I also search around to see if anyone else has this issue. All I see is that the AGP interface gets disabled, great.

              So I reboot and try again. Same thing. But I notice that the drivers are not uncompressed so maybe I can just install through the add new hard ware wizard. Yeah it is possible but takes forever, and several reboots, and much cursing, and a dive or two into safe mode.

              So a few days later ATI comes out a new driver, that correct their screw up with the last one. Ok, I go download and install. Hmm, why is the screen flickering and why are my fps's so slow? Yank out the driver and reinstall after much cursing and frustration and now everything works.

              I lay the blame at both ATI and MS.

        • Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by RTPMatt ( 468649 )
          Linux is great...as long as you have VMware
          • "Linux is great...as long as you have VMware "

            Flamebait? He's got a respectable point. Most Windows users (including myself) are afraid of what we lose when moving to Linux. Having VM-Ware (at least initially) would make the transition much more bearable. If VM-Ware came with a distro of Linux for a reasonable price (I think VM-Ware is around $300, if memory serves) then I probably would attempt a switch because I'd have something to fallback on.

            Honestly, I wish moderators wouldn't just assume one-liners are automatically insulting. I've gotten burned a couple of times like that over the last few days.
            • Having VM-Ware (at least initially) would make the transition much more bearable.

              Count me in on that sentiment. My job'd like me to run Linux but there's still stuff that has to get done. I don't have a lot of fiddlin time. Nothing against Linux, but my good productivity has been rewarded with increased expectactions. It's like I have a well established cache!

        • I'm spoiled by my 'Setup.exe, [Ok], [Ok], [Ok] *bam* you're up and running' expectation I've developed from using Windows 2000.

          That's funny, this is an experience I've *never* had with windows 2000. Software yes, drivers no. maybe now, 3 years after the initial relase of the new hardware abstraction layer, maybe NOW companies are finally getting it right, but not back when I actually used that stupid OS.

          Aside from that, the Linux kernel scans the hardware at boot time and loads whatever modules it needs. It's got some conf files in etc to configure the modules with. So all the hardware vendors have to do is give us a 2.2.x and a 2.4.x module with some basic instructions on installing it. It's just not that hard to do, especially comparing it to making Windows drivers.

          For windows, sure you can click your setup.exe and it's up and running, but did you bother to consider that your installer had to see if it was win95/95, winMe, win2k, nt4, or winXP before it installed a driver? That's FIVE (count'em) different HALs they provide for! With Linux, there's only 3 relevant stable kernels at the moment. Lots of subversions of them, certainly, but only 3 when it comes down to it. Write for the LCD of each of them and make a driver for 2.0.x, 2.2.x, and 2.4.x.

          BETTER YET. Get your driver programmers to submit the drivers directly to LKML and see if they're accepted. I imagine they would be if there wasn't a better one already available. They might rewrite it, they will almost certainly audit it. If you are serious about supporting Linux, you'll check with the kernel developers.

          • win95/95, winMe, win2k, nt4, or winXP before it installed a driver? That's FIVE (count'em) different HALs

            Actually, it's more like 2.5. Win95/98 use the same driver model. NT4 had its own driver model. Win2k and WinXP both use WDM, but a lot of NT4 drivers can be made to work in the NT5 series with minor config file changes. WinME supprots WDM and Win9x drivers, so with minor changes to the .inf file it will use whatever you already had. Most new hardware just needs to have a WDM driver written to support ME, 2K and XP. 9x and NT 4 are still in use, so you should probably support them too, but this still only adds up to 3, 2 of which are remarkably similar. Oh, and did I mention that MSDN provides you with tutorials, and a comprehensive help reference as part of the Driver Development kit (free download), as well as simple examples which can be extended easily for your particular hardware? Want to write a DirectX 9 video driver? Just take the reference renderer and replace the bits you can do in hardware with your own code.

            Get your driver programmers to submit the drivers directly to LKML and see if they're accepted.

            So I create a modem, which is basically just a DSP, and put all of the controller code into the driver. Or maybe I make sound cards with 5.1 speaker output and implement the AC-3 decoder in the driver (a la Creative Labs' SBLive! series). I should just GPL this software, and give it away? Right, so now every 5.1 channel sound card supported by linux has an AC-3 software decoder, and it's even been ported back to windows. Great, I've just lost one of my major selling points and my competitor, who didn't have to pay for the development, is undercutting me. Oh, and those nice people from Dolby have just sent some lawyers around. It seems that AC-3 decoding is patented, and I'm a licensed distributer of this technology. They want $0.25 for everyone running Linux with code derived from my driver now...

      • Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by bigberk ( 547360 )
        all driver code should be in the kernel anyways
        And it works beautifully, through loadable kernel modules. In this respect I think linux is superior to Windows. I spent hours this weekend trying to reinstall a Windows system that insisted on guessing and providing "the best" driver for my hardware. With linux I can use modprobe to load the exact appropriate driver I need, and these drivers are standard across all distros (kernel version specific however).

    • Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Not writing drivers because of the number of Linux distributions would make a crappy excuse. The Linux kernel doesn't vary that much between distro's (and in the ways it does, it shouldn't matter much). The userland varies a small amount (just enough to be annoying for some low level tasks :P), but that doesn't affect the majority of drivers.
    • Yep, you'll probably get slammed with "-1" for saying it, but you're absolutely right.

      Having so much effort wasted on many different distributions is stupid. Can you imagine what type of improvements could have been made to Linux in general with the programming time invested in maintaining many different distributions?

      I mean absolutely no offense to the developers working on College Linux. But would you trade College Linux for a working way to change resolution on the fly, reliable working sound interfaces, simple dual monitor setup, and other enhancements that users have come to expect from other operating systems? I would.

      • Absolutely wrong (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gorjusborg ( 603799 ) on Sunday March 02, 2003 @02:06AM (#5417252) Journal
        Having so much effort wasted on many different distributions is stupid. Can you imagine what type of improvements could have been made to Linux in general with the programming time invested in maintaining many different distributions?

        You mean you would already have a free clone of YOUR favorite OS NOW if everyone would just team up and agree that your favorite GUI and OS's philosophy is the best?

        The problem is, there are people who actually work on projects, and those who criticize other's projects. The reason that there are so many projects is that people disagree on what the 'correct' way of doing things is. If you want a windows clone, use windows. Otherwise, choose the distribution that fits your computing style the best.

        Oh, and by the way, ctl-alt-+ and ctl-alt-- changes your resolutions in X on-the-fly, if you compile your quality sound driver and insert it into the kernel, you'll have reliable sound, and xfreee86 +xinerama works great for MULTI-monitor setups, not just dual-monitor setups.

        Furthermore, the developers that work on making different distributions have totally different skill sets than driver developers and applications developers. In other words, you can't assume that if these people weren't developing their distribution they would be fixing problems with sound, video, etc.. In fact, if they weren't developing their distribution, they would probably be posting nonsense on slashdot, and complaining about how all the current distributions are crap.

        Sorry if I come off as harsh, but I hate this type of thinking. Some people are so lazy, but expect the world of others. Parasites.
        • Oh, and by the way, ctl-alt-+ and ctl-alt-- changes your resolutions in X on-the-fly,

          As much as I love Linux/X11, I find the method you mentioned as less than desirable. Yes, it changes the resolution. It also leaves me with a virtual desktop size of the default resolution. Thus, to see all of the desktop at once is not possible, requiring me to mouse to the edges and have the "view" scroll around.

          if you compile your quality sound driver and insert it into the kernel, you'll have reliable sound,

          Oh, I agree completely that a quality sound driver in the kernel is reliable. The sound daemons for the X11 desktops aren't so great (arts for kde comes to mind). Of course, joe user compiling a sound driver for the kernel is an interesting thought (READ: not going to happen).

          xfreee86 +xinerama works great for MULTI-monitor setups, not just dual-monitor setups.

          I have tried both using xinerama and not using xinerama for my Matrox card. Xinerama gave better overall results, but liked to crash under certain applications. Without Xinerama, the crashes didn't occur, but I didn't get what I wanted across multiple screens. All this was done on Red Hat though. On Mandrake, it was setup for me by the installer, and it worked a lot nicer. I didn't check to see if it was using Xinerama or not.

          Sorry if I come off as harsh

          You did.

          but I hate this type of thinking.

          You hate thinking along the lines of "easy to use"? Remember, easy to use for an adept and a common user are tottally different things (and a lot of people have better things to do, the computer is just a tool to them).

          Some people are so lazy, but expect the world of others. Parasites.

          "Some people" as you put it, also cannot program. Like myself. You don't want me contributing to (insert project here), because the code would suck (which is why I left the comp sci program and went into admin instead). Obviously, "normal users" need a computer to do certain tasks (productivity apps, etc..), but cannot contribute. By your definition that makes them parasites, but they cannot do anything about that.

          Yes, I can read man pages. Yes, I can use vi to edit the X config file. Yes, I edit apache's config in the same way. But I am in the field. The average office worker isn't. And at home, there is no help desk other than emails and newsgroups -- non-instantaneous help. (Users like instant help).
      • Having so much effort wasted on many different distributions is stupid. Can you imagine what type of improvements could have been made to Linux in general with the programming time invested in maintaining many different distributions?

        What makes you think programmer time is fungible? It's not. More to the point -- what makes you think that anyone would have bothered with Linux in the first place, including Linus himself, if it didn't come with the freedom to do your own thing?

        It is an error to assume that if the people who worked on this project had not worked on it, that their time and knowledge would have been spent on some other Linux-related project. If the Linux community had been afraid of "wasted effort" -- better known as diversity -- as you seem to be, perhaps they never would have bothered at all. They'd be using Windows, or maybe Solaris, and keeping their ideas to themselves.

        Remember, this whole Linux thing started when Linus said the existing free Unix distributions (Minix and BSD) weren't quite what he was looking for, and went off to do his own thing. Or, alternately, when RMS said the existing software systems didn't quite offer the freedoms he wanted, and went off to make one that would. If Linus and RMS had stopped to worry about whether they were duplicating someone else's efforts, where would we be? Nowhere.

        The choice is not whether people work on different projects or on the same project. The choice is whether people work on projects of their own choosing, or work on no project at all. To cut into people for exercising freedom is not advancing Linux; it is attacking the very wellspring of exuberance that birthed Linux and keeps it advancing.

        See also my journal entry [slashdot.org], second section, on "wasted effort" Stalinism.

        • If Linus and RMS had stopped to worry about whether they were duplicating someone else's efforts, where would we be? Nowhere.

          I disagree with your answer. :) We'd be in handcuffs along with the rest of the Windows lusers....

          Pardon my elitist attitude. :)

    • Maybe many distros aren't the problem... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cubal ( 601223 ) <matt&problemattic,net> on Sunday March 02, 2003 @01:21AM (#5417089) Homepage
      but how they are perceived. For instance, there are a whoooole lot of distros based off other distros - based on RH, Slack, Debian etc.

      This is all well and good, but maybe we need some other terminology than "distro". A term which implied sort of half-fledged distro-ness [sic], for instance for a distro *based on* something, but focussed in a certain area, would be very useful.

      If this were the case, you would have your general distros (Redhat, Slack, Debian), and then, in sub-groups or similar, you would have Redhat-based College Distro, or Debian-based Medical Records distro or whatever....
      • It's a good idea in principal, but focusing on the the (current) major distros perhaps isn't a great solution. Sure, most distros out there today were based on RedHat, SlackWare, Debian, SCO, or some other *nix (like BSD) when they started, but those names mean nothing to those outside the community.

        I think a functional labelling would be more appropriate, such as distros targetted towards "servers", "desktops", "new-to-linux", and/or "complete customization" (PC term for "hardcore geek").

        Now, before I'm be flamed to death for trying to put certain distros under any of those labels, I completely realize ANY distro can be used for ANY purpose (as other posters have pointed out, they're ALL just the same kernel, and a whole bunch of the same utilities and patches, but with some extra "glue", packaging, and support systems). That's the real beauty of Linux, but it takes a while for a newbie to realize this.

        The whole reason there are so many distros is because certain people didn't like how other distros were "focused".

        Examples:

        • Mandrake and RedHat typically appeal to desktop users and newbies alike, since their ease-of-installation, configuration, and hardware compatibilites are top-notch (Yes, they both offer server-focused packages, but that's my point - they realize they have to market those differently than their stock packages).
        • Debian is targetted towards server installations and/or those who value pure stablity over having the latest and greatest front-end features (and those who actually realize there's typically a trade-off with "new vs. stable")
        • Slackware, Gentoo (my current favorite), Sorcerer, Lunar, Linux-From-Scratch et al are focused towards the hard-core linux guys who want to be able to control absolutely everything about their system, be it for desktops OR servers, but these are obviously not targetted towards newbies.
        I began my Linux introduction with Slackware myself back when there were very few distros to choose from, but I'm from a CS background working on SunOS, IRIX, and AIX machines. The level of complexity wasn't a consideration of mine.

        But for newbies (and remember, everyone is a newbie at one point), I feel it's best to start with the pre-packaged, easy-to-use (trade-off: harder to customize) version of any softare, and work your way up.

      • "Maybe we need some other terminology than "distro". A term which implied sort of half-fledged distro-ness [sic], for instance for a distro *based on* something"

        What you need is a family-tree. Maybe one at distrowatch or something.

        For example, I'd quite like to produce a distro which is *exactly* like Mandrake, but without the need to agree to an End User License Agreement. Counts as a distro? Nope. But it would need a different name, hence more confusion among users.

    • Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Sunday March 02, 2003 @01:45AM (#5417192) Journal
      Why not more distro's ?

      If you want to follow the herd install redhat or suse. Linux is about choice. I think Microsoft has bullied the industry so long that people have trouble with more then one way to think or have more then one way to do something. They want consistency and familiarity. The people I see complaining most about both gnome and kde for example are newbies and Windows users who are afraid to switch. People who use Linux/Unix understand that having more then one desktop environment is not bad.

      How does this hurt Linux? You mean commercial support? They all target Suse, Redhat, and Debian. Companies like Oracle for example are specifically targeting RedHat advanced server since it changes the least. Also if you go to nvidia's website you will see drivers for quite alot of distro's.

      Their are not numerous Linux versions, just distributions. They only look different because of different scripts and WindowManager themes running. Some of the package versions may differ but they are %95 the same from other distro's that are out at the same time. Mandrake 9, Redhat 8, Suse 8.1 all have the same versions of gcc, perl,kde, and apache for example. Its not like they are totally different beasts. Its easy to port.

      Also I do not understand about your rat with hardware manufactures supporting mac users over linux ones. I find the situation opposite since Linux has more users and they use different kinds of hardware. Only ATI is behind and they are already at work with a unified driver model for Linux and Windows to compete against nvidia. Isn't competition great?

      Companies and certain users want only one way of thinking are already in Microsoft's camp and will not change. A one and only one version of Linux will not convince them to switch. They are the ones already in .NET development, which once it's in is impossible to get out. They know it and do not care since an all Microsoft solution in their minds will lower support costs and its what everyone else is doing so they must stay with ms. They will stick with Windows as long as companies like PeopleSoft make Windows only products and mcse's are a dime a dozen and plentifull.

      • Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by vvikram ( 260064 )

        huh....How does this hurt ? Of course it does. This is not economics, this is human society. When you want to provide an alternative to Microsoft then it is imperative to provide a unified face.

        Actually its ironical that the most intelligent people in one dimension are so brainless [sorry for the harsh term] in another dimension. I have been like that when I was shouting up and down about linux. Let me give you an example: linux in itself came about due to a "critical mass" of organized people saying "hey lets get something out of this malleable chunk of cool code. There WAS before that the *BSD's and unix variants, what was definitely lacking was a concerted effort bounded together by the GPL and also the timing of the internet boom. But linux success HAS been in "rolling out" standard server based software - quickly roll out apache, php, mysql and get running....its SIMPLE isnt it ? its repeatable and its easy to do. quickly do a configure,make, make install - it works across MOST if NOT ALL of the software. WHY ? because the authors want to provide a uniform way of doing things. Extending this to a slightly larger scale doesnt seem to cross the minds of the ners?

        While choice might be good for innovation and anti-monopolistic checks too much of choice does hurt. So a EE person asks me what is linux ? I say its an OS with a bunch of utilities. They ask "where can i download it"? and I say "huh....its like soap. you can get many flavours. The most popular is RedHat but you know this driver is supported better in the other distro but you know the security is best in Bastille but you know debian is the best in stability so you have to decide what you want to do" and the people go "huh-uh. thanks for the info.....later". This is for the end user side and believe me it does present a confused picture. For the developer side, thats us, it fractures a LOT of the effort. KDE reinvents the wheel,GNOME cannot *gasp* do what KDE has
        done and so reinvents it in a slightly different form and so on and on. Imagine the number of install work, the number of packages, the number of hacks, the effort going into each of these distros - if they were to be combined into a select few then I can bet those distros will be awesome.

        I cant believe I typed so much. Very sorry for the length. I just really dont agree that too much choice is great. There is a balance just like in real life for most things.

        And, by the way, my univ has a linux distro too : SULinux [stanford.edu]

        Thanks for reading.
        vv
        • Bastille is not a distro

        • Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by fucksl4shd0t ( 630000 ) on Sunday March 02, 2003 @07:57AM (#5417987) Homepage Journal

          huh....its like soap. you can get many flavours. The most popular is RedHat but you know this driver is supported better in the other distro but you know the security is best in Bastille but you know debian is the best in stability so you have to decide what you want to do

          Looks to me like you failed to provide a unified front. People ask me about Linux and I say "It's a free OS, you can download several for free." Then they say "Where?". I just tell them "Well, you should check out Mandrake first. It's the one I use, so I definitely recommend it. There's a lot of choice in distributions, but they're all built on the same stuff, so they interoperate well. Mandrake's a great one to start with, and you may never need another one. The beauty of choice, though, is that if you like Linux but you're dissatisfied with Mandrake, you can check out the others."

          It's every bit in how you present it. Just make sure you're telling them the truth, and you're doing everything you can to help them (and charging an appropriate fee if you prefer).

          From a university's standpoint, say they want their students to use Linux, but they don't want to support a few different distributions? Fine, roll their own and tell the kids "use this one or find someone else to support it. You're tuition covers this one." Anything unreasonable about that? They can give their kids something that installs out of the box and works on their network. Can they do that with Windows? Nope. They can achieve a close approximation, but not the real deal. Linux is the way...

      • a lot of the problem is more in naming schemes rather than real an exampple is ymessenger, will no work in SuSE unless you make a link from what SuSE called libcrypt to what RedHat called libcrypt and bingo now it works.

        The real biggest differense between distro's to me is that slackware uses the BSD style init scripts and everybody else uses system4 style init scripts.
      • Really. All this time I thought that you had to use Debian for The Hurd.
    • It will be unified to some extent, but it will take a bit more time.

      There are already unified driver support projects, and there's a huge project at http://www.linuxbase.org/ [linuxbase.org] in which the goal is "to develop and promote a set of standards that will increase compatability among Linux distributions and enable software applications to run on any compliant system."

      We will do it, just give us a couple more years. Windows was written over several decades, and Linux is very new still!

    • Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Elbereth ( 58257 ) on Sunday March 02, 2003 @02:05AM (#5417250) Journal
      I'm not sure you've actually used a Mac. There is an extremely limited amount of MacOS supported hardware. Let's compare:

      Video Cards that are supported under MacOS X:
      Nvidia GeForce4 MX, Ti
      ATI Rage, Rage Pro, Rage Pro Turbo
      ATI Radeon 7xxx, 8xxx, 9xxx (I'll be generous and give MacOS X the 9700, but I don't think ATI supports the 9700 under MacOS X yet)

      Video Cards that are supported under Linux:
      Nvidia Riva 128, TNT, TNT2
      Nvidia GeForce2, GeForce2 MX
      Nvidia GeForce3, GeForce3 Ti
      Nvidia GeForce4 MX, GeForce4 Ti
      ATI Mach64
      ATI Rage, Rage Pro, Rage Pro Turbo
      ATI Radeon 7xxx, 8xxx, 9xxx (some cards better supported than others)
      Matrox Millennium, Millennium 2, Mystique
      Matrix G100, G200, G400, G450, G550
      Matrix Parhelion
      Intel i810, i820, i845, i850G, etc
      All SiS video cards
      Most S3/Via video cards
      A few other oddball chipsets

      Let's try SCSI controllers.

      SCSI Controllers supported under MacOS X
      Atto U3D (Ultra 160)
      Adaptec PowerDomain Ultra160 series
      Adaptec PowerDomain Ultra Narrow series
      QLogic (?? not sure which ones)

      SCSI Controllers supported under Linux
      All Adaptec SCSI controllers
      All DPT SCSI controllers
      All AMI SCSI controllers
      All LSILogic/NEC SCSI controllers
      All QLogic SCSI controllers
      All Atto SCSI controllers
      Dozens of oddball SCSI controllers

      How about serial ATA controllers, sound cards, or combo Firewire/USB2.0 cards?

      Nah. I think I've basically proven my point.

      The only manufacturers who are dragging their feet on Linux support are ATI (uuggghhh... ATI sucks), Logitech (still no webcam drivers for Linux... I chucked my Logitech webcam a long time ago), AMD, and a few extremely minor companies who produce crappy USB/Firewire peripherals. Yes, MacOS does have much better support wrt USB/Firewire peripherals. I have trouble making my USB compact flash reader work with Linux. It's supported under XP and MacOS, though.

      Seriously, this is not a troll. I feel that it's silly to go around saying that MacOS X has more drivers than Linux. It's a ridiculous claim that is easily proven false.

      I own a Blue & White PowerMac (450 MHz G3) that's got an ATI video card and Adaptec SCSI controller. For a while, I had delusions of upgrading my PowerMac, like you can upgrade a PC. Not so. My choices are limited to an ATI Radeon 7000 PCI video card (no AGP slot on older PowerMacs) or an overpriced Adaptec Ultra160 SCSI controller. Good luck finding Atto or Qlogic SCSI controllers.

      After doing a lot of research, I discovered that my PCI slots are basically useless. I can't put in a sound card, TV card, GeForce4 MX video card (because you can't buy them... they are Apple OEM only!), DVD decoder card, or anything else that I put in my Linux PC.

      Macs are just not very upgradable. Once you buy a Mac, your upgrade options basically consist of an ATI video card or Adaptec SCSI controller. That's it. Once you buy both of them, you can add more hard drives. Whoop-de-doo.

      I should probably rewrite this post so that it doesn't read so much like flamebait or a troll, but I'm too lazy.

      • Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2, Informative)

        by SN74S181 ( 581549 )
        I own a Blue & White PowerMac... After doing a lot of research, I discovered that my PCI slots are basically useless. I can't put in a sound card,

        Ummm, I don't have a history of being a pro-Apple person, but even *I* know that the high end PCI sound cards generally plug into a Mac or a PC and with the right software do a hell of a good job of sound editing. I just downloaded and archived all the latest drivers for my Delta 66 sound card last week and MacOS is well supported.

        If you mean you can't go into CompUSA and buy commodity-crap sound cards and schlepp 'em into your Mac, that might be a different story.
      • I odont know about aou dude but my ATI radeo works fine under linux. You can even download linux drivers fro ATI websites... my logitech keyboard, mouse and yes my Logitech webcam work fine under linux as well. So welcome to the real world. That said I do believe that a lot more hardware is supported under linux than under Mac OS. But when u come to think of it, the only reason even windows supports more hardware than linux is because the manufacturers write drivers for windows but they dont do so for linux and there is a certain amount of truth in the fact that if only there was a single linux distro, it would be much easier for manufacturers to write drivers for linux, primarily because many manufacturers don't want to release their device specs or give any info to the world about internals of thier device which they have to do if they release the source code of their driver because surely they cant provide the driver for every linux distro out there.
      • Let's approach a computer like say, oh, 80% of the world of computer users do.

        They want it to work. They want to turn it on, they want to do stuff, and they want to turn it off. They want their kids to 'learn' on it and they want to do their checkbook on it. Maybe a bit more.

        They also want it to be inexpensive.

        They don't want 'choices' like this little penguin is painted red and this little penguin is painted blue. They don't want to know that this, they don't care and think that makes computers too complicated.

        See, I've polled my neighbors. Because when they come over, they see a 'a whole lot of computers' and are just shocked that I have that many. When they see my wife's iMac and are shocked that she has her own computer.

        Talking to them, a low end iMac would be perfect. It's easy to use, you just plug in your keyboard and go, and it'd manage photographs, video cameras, and everything. If they want to get that cable modem and plug it in, that'd work too.

        That $299 Lindows PC won't do that. Not that easily. It also won't come with any form of support that they could call that would help them out for the first fiew months of owning their new computer.

        Plus, it doesn't look as cool. That's the honest truth, asthetics matter. not the neon lighting clear side case kinda of asthetics, but the cool factor of a floating LCD on a base.

        Expandability? Who needs it. That machine will probably last them longer than their next car in some instances (3-5 years). Who cares if they don't have the next best feature, the latest version of whatsit, or anything else.

        That is what I think most linux advocates don't understand. They need it to just work, and just work well. The only people that need upgradability are the extreme gamers, the geeks, and the wannabes
        • If what you're saying is true, then why does 96% of the population buy Windows machines? They usually look ugly, work poorly, and aren't very upgradable. I think your argument falls flat on its face. People buy computers that are well-marketed (like that Dell dude), cheap (no, Macs aren't cheap), and win at the bigger-is-better numbers game (which Macs certainly don't). Aesthetics and usability are a concern only AFTER you bought a computer. And most of the people who dislike their new PC won't switch to Apple because they are not familiar with it and don't want to experiment. They would rather buy another Windows PC than a different computer.

          Linux has potential assuming that it will become more usable and somehow get marketed. Apple has potential if they sell a Mac with numbers (clock speed, megs of RAM, etc) identical to a $799 PC for $799. Few would buy a more expensive machine merely because it looks better.
    • if you have the source code, a recompile should be a rather trivial task. the problem is not with drivers, but with differeces in where libs and apps reside. thus the LSB [linuxbase.org].

    • The distros aren't really all that different from distro to distro. They are all based on the 2.4 kernel, /etc and /usr/{bin,lib,sbin} can be counted on. Docs in /usr/share/doc is a pretty safe bet. There's no need to buy expensive developer tools or get a driver signed. Make it GPL and you'll get free help debugging your driver. You might even have someone you don't have to pay take over entirely (cool! free driver support!).

      If all of that seems too much, they have the option to publically release the technical docs. If the hardware is at all popular, someone will write a Linux driver for it.

      IMHO, hardware manufacturors who are afraid to GPL drivers (or at least make a reasonable compromise) are either tinfoil hat paranoid, or it would reveal that most of those exciting marketing bullet points on the box are actually implemented (badly) in software or it would reveal that the hardware is buggy with many ugly hacks in the driver to make it go.

      I don't buy the line about valuable intellectual property since if it was that good (or even if it wasn't), they'd patent it.

  • great yet another distro.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stonebeat.org ( 562495 ) on Sunday March 02, 2003 @01:08AM (#5417021) Homepage
    Why cant we all just try to work towards United Linux?

    • Re:great yet another distro.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Sunday March 02, 2003 @02:21AM (#5417290)
      Because we are different people, with different needs, and were drawn to Linux in the first place because it allowed us to fill those needs and desires in ways the propriatary OS's didn't.

      Sorry, but a certain anarchy is *inherent* in the wee beastie, and rather the point of the GPL I'm afraid.

      If some sort of "United Linux" were released the very first thing that would happen is that someone would dick it around and release *that*, thus *pleasing* untold thousands who liked that version better.

      Sucks to be able to get what you want, don't it? Makes you go to a lot of trouble to figure out just what that is, which admitedly some people find an unpleasant experience, and then makes *you* responsible for the choice you made, again, an experience some people find rather unpleasant.

      I'm not among the crowd that shouts "RTFM," or claims that Linux *should* be hard to keep the unwashed masses away. Those people are antisocial dorks. But if people don't want the choices that Linux offers, well, there *are* other alternatives.

      If you can't guess, I'm not among the "Linux is the only true OS and shall dominate the world, or else you're scum" crowd either.

      Horses for courses.

      MS *is* evil though. That's a different subject.

      KFG

    • Because United Linux isn't Red Hat?
  • a dual diploma programme in both Linux and business management...

    DAMNIT. I was thinking: Where can I sign up? ^_^

  • Hey now... (Score:5, Funny)

    by cybermace5 ( 446439 ) <g.ryan@macetech.com> on Sunday March 02, 2003 @01:15AM (#5417066) Homepage Journal
    Did you ever go to college? I think Slackware is a perfect distribution for college students already.
    • Power distro's are nice but unfortunatly they take time away from things like uh studying. Gentoo and FreeBSD is fun to goof with but I can easily blow a weekend tinkering with these systems. If I were a full time student I would purposely not install slackware so I can get coursework done. Maybe during spring recess I could configure it and then be all set for the rest of the year.

      • Hey, I'm a student and I use Slackware happily. It's not as "hard" as everyone makes it out to be. It works quite nicely "out of the box".

  • 100MBIT MIRROR of college.ch (Score:5, Informative)

    by iosmart ( 624285 ) on Sunday March 02, 2003 @01:19AM (#5417082)
    http://www.pchopper.com/mirror/linux/ [pchopper.com]

  • Slackware again? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by farrellj ( 563 ) on Sunday March 02, 2003 @01:31AM (#5417137) Homepage Journal
    Why is it that it seems these days every new distro is based upon Slackware?!?!

    ttyl
    Farrell
    • Because it's got the best foundation of Linux code!

      I've used it for 8 years going on 9 and have no complaints. I know where everything is and don't have to root around (no pun intended ;-D) for this and that file. It's always in the same spot. I feel that Red Hat and other newer players in the Linux game move things around just a bit too much.

      I like Slackware. It's stable, free, and intuitive.

      But it's a matter of choice. Linux is Linux, and it's all good.
      • and probably the most so of the vast universe of linux distros. Does this make it better? Thats for you to decide, but to me consistency and building upon what was already a good foundation seems like a good thing.
    • Because they know a good thing when they see it. It really is as simple as that.

      KFG

    • Re:Slackware again? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ananke ( 8417 )
      slackware is a good starting point. it's clean, simple, and easy to build upon. that's what i use for our linux workstations [with the addition of systemimager].
    • Why is it that it seems these days every new distro is based upon Slackware?!?!
      I turn to slackware whenever I need to get a reliable system running in little time. I think slackware stands out because it has maintained a particularly clean and transparent configuration style. I see this as being the most flexible distro - and hence, a nice basis for other distros.
    • Why is it that it seems these days every new distro is based upon Slackware?!?!

      Maybe because Slackware is just that cool?

      I started playing around with Linux From Scratch. I realized that most of the things I wanted to customize to suit my tastes are exactly the things Slackware does, the difference being that with Slackware it's already done for me so I don't have to.

  • eh? (Score:2)

    by syle ( 638903 )
    Furthermore, I think that Slackware package system is much more reliable them 'rpm'.
    To find his reasoning or support for this statement, you'll have to take the course.

  • CMU has a linux distribution too (Score:5, Informative)

    by nstrom ( 152310 ) on Sunday March 02, 2003 @01:36AM (#5417166)
    Carnegie Mellon University [cmu.edu] has had its own Red Hat-based distro for at least 5 years now, called Andrew Linux [cmu.edu].

  • Wireless (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ShadowDrake ( 588020 ) on Sunday March 02, 2003 @01:44AM (#5417189)
    Colleges are ahead of the curve regarding wireless. GNU/Linux is nasty to prepare wireless on. This comes from experience. I had to pull the packets to my Thinkpad by hand!

    Really valuable for a college environment would be a completely idiot-proofed wireless network setup utility. This utility or package should:

    -Have all the driver modules compiled, and the configuration files kept up to date about different manufacturers' model identifications.

    -Have a convinent popup tool, ideally triggered at the card-insertion time, and iconifying shortly after, that provides helpful stats and diagnostics. How hard would it be to convert 700 lines of iwconfig, ifconfig, and driver messages to:

    "Discovered SSID "foo"."
    "No IP number available after 20 seconds. Respawning DHCPCD." (to make up for some setups that seem to make DHCP have a fit if you pop the card and suspend, then pick up later."
    "DHCP results: IP number is 127.0.0.43"
    "Current situation: Signal/noise = 54/40. 353 bad sends, 107 bad recieves"

    • Re:Wireless (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BigBir3d ( 454486 ) on Sunday March 02, 2003 @02:16AM (#5417281) Journal
      Odd. I installed Mandrake 9.0 the other day on my IBM ThinkPad, and it was as easy to connect as my girlfriends iBook 800 was. Only one thing was done manually. It found the Lucent wireless card fine, and installed the correct driver. I told it to use DHCP, and that was it. I can even take the card out of my laptop, and put it back in, and it still works. No turning it off and on like I had to with Windows. Now I really understand why hot-swapping is so nice.

  • Mirror online (Score:4, Informative)

    by KFK2 ( 23515 ) on Sunday March 02, 2003 @01:46AM (#5417194) Homepage
    here's a mirror.. Mirror [cedarville.edu]

    screen shots at
    ss1 [cedarville.edu]
    ss2 [cedarville.edu]
    ss3 [cedarville.edu]

  • Also be sure to check out the latest release of Dropline GNOME--it now works with CollegeLinux and adds a beautiful GNOME 2.2-based desktop and XFree86 4.3 to a great base system. Details and downloads can be found at www.dropline.net/gnome [dropline.net].

  • heres a bit on distrowatch 8) (Score:4, Informative)

    by urbieta ( 212354 ) on Sunday March 02, 2003 @01:56AM (#5417227) Homepage Journal
    http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution= college

  • Collegiate? (Score:2, Informative)

    by guero ( 135742 )
    I went to college, heck it was eight or ten of the best years of my life! (you degree collectors out there know what I'm talking about) I don't see anything particularly collegiate about this distribution... no more than any other distro. CollegeLinux seems to be to Slackware what Knoppix is to Debian. Nothing spectacular or collegiate.

    Go Penguins!

  • hehe (Score:4, Funny)

    by revmoo ( 652952 ) <slashdot&meep,ws> on Sunday March 02, 2003 @03:02AM (#5417398) Homepage Journal
    Collegelinux?

    So does it stay out late, drink a lot and not function well in the morning?

  • Slashdot jumped the shark on this one (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fartmaster ( 31343 ) on Sunday March 02, 2003 @03:23AM (#5417442)
    No other slashdot submission has pissed me off more then this one.

    YOU ARE SO FIRED! writes "It seems that the Swiss Robert Kennedy College (with the aptly named website) has released CollegeLinux, a Linux distribution based off of Slackware, to the public. If only my employees could've used this in school - I wouldn't have to fire them so much! See the interview with the dean of the school for more information."

    Let's recap it -
    YOU ARE SO FIRED!!. If only my employees could've used this in school.

    I can just say that this bullshit additude towards different people pisses me off. Don't fire them. Teach them. Just because someone learns something different does not mean that they can not learn something different. Don't be such a total fucking asshole towards people and slashdot should be higher then posting this crap.
  • I always wanted a computer that won't turn on till 2 in the afternoon.
  • This sounds familiar.. We've put together our own "distribution" based on Slackware here too.. We made a 160Mb ISO image, so any of our people can take any machine, and make a server out of it in 5 minutes.. I say 5 minutes, because that's the typical time it takes from when you plug the power cord in, to when you shut it off.

    It includes all the libraries, utilities, and server parts that we require for just about everything, with our own RC files and tweaks. It includes tight monolithic kernels for hardware platforms we use frequently (such as the Asus 1400r's).

    Installation is exactly this:

    1) Plug power cord in.
    2) Set BIOS up for normal server operation (change "Halt On Errors" to none, "AC Power Loss" to "On", and boot order to "Floppy, CD, HDA".
    3) Insert CD and boot.
    4) Log in, mount CD, and type "install.os". Instructions were on the boot screen.
    5) reboot.

    Step 4 needs fine tuning. This is the first ISO we've made from Linux, so it still has the Slackware root image. install.os is on the cd part..

    I've never really felt that something like this really needs to be redistributed though. Is there much of a demand for something like this?

    We started doing this years ago, because I was tired of installing, then taking 1/2 hour to make all our changes before we could use it.. Now we just install and put the machines in a pile. When they're delegated, we put them in at the colo, assign an IP, and they're done. The developer or site manager (usually me) can make whatever customizations they'd like.

    We used to include a web server, but since versions of Apache change frequently enough, and everyone wants something different, I stopped doing that now. We use no less than 4 varieties of web servers, depending on who's working on it and what they want done.

    I was thinking of putting this, along with some of our interesting custom tools (like BoT, our monitoring software) up on a site. I guess this is a good time to ask if there's interest in it.. :)

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