Aurox Linux 10.0.1 Beta Reviewed 26
sarumont writes "Here's another lesser-known distro trying to make a splash on the big scene. Aurox Linux is a Fedora-based distro mainly developed in Poland. Even in its tenth release cycle, it is still a young distro and as such: small. Could it be the next big thing? Even gentoo was small and "lesser-known" once. Check out this review, hot off the presses at LinuxForumsDOTorg."
slashdot effect. (Score:2, Funny)
You know... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You know... (Score:4, Insightful)
In case you haven't noticed, most of these distros aren't aimed at the desktop.
You think Gentoo is thinking about grandmothers?
They're not.
Red Hat? Nope! Debian? No way. Slackware? No.
The desktop isn't the holy grail. There's no need to launch a crusade to obtain it. If we can put out a few fires like the DMCA and keep up the pressure for people to use open standards, it won't matter.
LK
Re:You know... (Score:2)
that's why they do it.. they improve the existing stuff to make something that suits for the use they got in mind better.
too many (Score:4, Insightful)
1) It is based on an existing major distribution, contains little useful innovation, and as such does nothing but add pointless name clutter and minor incompatibilities.
2) It is sufficiently different enough from the current major distributions to be considered innovative, but that innovation would (in the majority of cases) be better spent imporoving existing distros, particularly in the areas of package management, modularity, convenient installation, and general ease-of-use.
Now I understand that having the "right to fork" is an essential part of OSS and I would defend that right to the death (ok so maybe I'm exagerating a wee bit, but less than you would think). Choice is awesome, I like choice. But who has time to try 100's of distros? It is of some consolation that their are review sites to give us the scoop, but reading them is tedious too, and not guaranteed to be helpful or relevant.
Bottom line: New distros have their place, but we need fewer of them. Far fewer. Development time (or should I say "repackaging time"?) would be better spent improving existing deployment tools, e.g. Portage and Catalyst.
Re:too many (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with what you say and admit you have quite an insight into the matter. For instance, I thought the amount of debian-based distro's were reaching critical mass. Ubuntu Linux came out and I installed it on my tiny 450MHz laptop, gnome 2.8 and all. I was so damned impressed. I've use dozens and dozens of distros (Gentoo, debian, suse, knoppix, xandros, fedora, redhat the list goes on...) but this one still managed to blow me away, and fit my needs perfectly, more so than debian which is what it's based on.
If you've heard the saying "Jack of all trades, Master of none" I think you'll start to understand _why_ we have so many distro's. We need different distro's that fit different purposes.
I need an up to date yet stable distro for my slow laptop -> Ubuntu
I need a very stable and secure distro for my server -> Debian
I need a flexable hobby distro for my desktop -> Gentoo
I need a distro that will be familiar to a windows user -> Xandros/SUSE
I need a distro that is suited for workstations -> SUSE/Red Hat
I need a server distro with GUI administration for an ex-windows user -> SUSE Enterprise
I think we get the point... Why should we have to try to ram a distro into every situation, each problem is different so each solution needs to be.
IMHO, that is part of where MS went wrong with windows. Suddenly everyone who's used windows on the desktop thinks that they can run a server for their work (Hey, why hire an IT guy!) so we end up with hundreds of open spam relays, rooted boxes and DDoS zombies. Of course, there are advantages for having a common platform between desktops and servers but the problems can outweigh the benifits.
So after all that, you can basically boil my post down to: Use the right tool for the right job.
Yes, perhaps the 100s of distro's need to be cut down some, but IMO not as much as your suggesting.
Cheers,
Chris.
Re:too many (Score:2)
Cutting down the 100s that already exist isn't my main concern, though do I think we could make do with less than half the current number. But we can let time deal with that, as the lesser ones fail and become abandoned.
What I am more concerned about is the number of NEW ones. I think we should give priority to making the current tools better and more flexible.
I am not saying there should be no NEW
Blah... (Score:2)
Con: Some very outdated packages
These two are quite possibly the reason Andy claims Aurox is as fast on his PII as an OS running on the latest AMD offering.
Con: In some places it seems a bit too similar to Fedora Core
I'm still yet to see a problem with this, unless Andy can provide a specific example of the "Fedora" way being not ideal.
English is my first language, and I like to run up2date software packages, so I will stick with Fedora.
Although the multimedia capabilities do sound temptin
Re:Blah... (Score:1)
aurox comes with up2date and just like on fedora it works like shit
Speed first (Score:2, Insightful)
-Strong Multimedia Foundation
-Runs very smoothly
-Great Package Selection
-Very Fast
So, looks like what we have here is a Fedora with lower minimum requirements. Good! GNU/linux destros desperately need a speed boost.
Vector, Yoper and now Aurox. Seems there is a lot of interest in a fast desktop. I wonder when mandrake or fedora will notice.
Re:Speed first (Score:2)
1) Disable the many unused services that come turned on by default. Same story as Window$.
2) Use the Xfce 4 desktop (comes with FC2 and hopefully later versions)
Other optional points:
3) Compile your own kernel (I was always scared of the idea until I tried it)
4) Tune the hard disks with hdparm
I have done steps 1-3 on a P3 450MHz and on a P4 inside a VMware VM... the speed gains are noticeable and the desktop is very responsive.
Fedora Fork - bad... (Score:1)
Other aspect of Aurox existence is fa
Re:Fedora Fork - bad... (Score:2)
It might not be a bad thing, though. Do you want to explain to a new user how to change the distribution from English to Polish, or should you just give them a disk which already assumes this? I imagine new users would be happier to know it isn't "that American OS with polish translation", but is "a Polish OS".
I don't think that forking Fedora is bad if it helps spu
Re:Fedora Fork - bad... (Score:1)
PLD is completely different system (yes it is based on RH - but it is based on RH in the same way Mandrake is based on RH). It has some advantages and I know people using it and liking it (mostly its developers). It has its own (very good) package manager and strong community
Re:Fedora Fork - bad... (Score:2)
> me forking of entire distro just to add some
> translated strings (really, Aurox is not much more
> than some translation) is not making any sense...
But surely PLD started this way? Regardless of what translations might be available for PLD, it is still a Polish distribution. It used to be called Polish(ed) Linux Distribution and the webpage lists support for only English and Polish as a goal.
(http://web.archive.org/web/20000520003244 / http:/
Re:Fedora Fork - bad... (Score:1)
PLD started as a fork from RHL. PLD founder (now not in PLD project due to some developer rants) Tomasz Kloczko was dissappointed with RH closed developement model and decidet to fork of to make a better distro. And PLD is different from RHL right now - it has different ideas, different philosophy, different implementations and so on... PLD is maintained mostly by system administrators and developers.
Now Aurox is basically *nothing* (despite of few translated strings a
Re:Fedora Fork - bad... (Score:1)
Clueless choice for a name (Score:4, Informative)
And no I am not raining on their parade. The quality of the distro is unknown to me. I wish them the best of luck.
Small? (Score:1)
Re:Small? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Small? (Score:2)
Cool name (Score:2)
The Auroch is the now extinct ancestor of domestic cattle. They disappeared from England in 2500BCE, but the last Auroch died in a Polish zoon in the 17th C.