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Debian

Libranet 2.7 Released 224

Posted by michael from the power-of-pure-penguins dept.
Jon wrote in with news that Libranet 2.7 has been released. I've never tried Libranet, but Debian 3.0 is a fine, up-to-date OS with the usual Debian installation (harder than necessary), so if Libranet offers that Debian goodness with a better installer it should be an excellent choice for both experienced and newbie users.
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Libranet 2.7 Released More

Libranet 2.7 Released

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  • Anyone remember Progeny Debian? I grew somewhat fond of that distro, too bad nothing became of it.

    Storm, another promising Debian based distro that I was sad to see fade away.
    • I still use my last burned copy of Progeny to do initial installs when I want a Debian system, then follow the conversion instructions [progeny.com] to upgrade to the latest Debian, restoring from my own apt-cache archives when possible to avoid unnecessary use of bandwidth. The Progeny installer has just given me less hassles on a broad range of hardware, from old to new, although this may change with the next Debian 3.x update. Never did give Libranet a try, but it looks like that'll have to change.
    • hmmm... I am not quite sure what to think of this (and other distros based on other ones).
      On the one hand: sure if they have some good idea to improve and want to make money out of it, why not.
      On the other Hand: the improvement has to be real worth it!! Otherwise people (like me, too) will stick to the original.
  • I tried the beta in an effort to find a distribution that I would be comfortable with. The install goes rather well, and the distribution uses the awesome apt-get package management system. The only reason I didn't keep it around is because I was trying other distros. Libranet is pretty clean compared to some of the others I have tried, and I'm a complete newbie... Go figure.

  • Libranet rocks (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've been using the Libranet 2.0 Essentials free .iso download for about a month now. Libranet is great!
    It features scripts for recompiling the kernel (works) and installing NVidia drivers (almost worked, but was easy to fix and has since been updated).
    It's much faster than SuSE 7.2 was on the same machine, even making KDE fun to use. And that was before the kernel recompile.
    Oh, and did I mention hardware autodetection?
    Their "XAdminmenu" is worth having, too, and I understand 2.7 has improvements.

    Seriously, go get this!

  • Hmmm (Score:4, Interesting)

    by term0r ( 471206 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @05:22PM (#4209374)
    Considering this is basically Debain 3.0 along with KDE 3, Gnome 2 and OpenOffice, then isn't this just a Woody CD along with an extra's CD, with a better installer?

    Talking of which, when I last installed Woody, it took about 5 - 10 minutes, and was the simplest installer I have used to install a linux distro for a while. I dont know what all the gripe is about Debians installer. As long as you can handle selecting what packages you want, and install a module for your network card (and if you can't do this, why are you running linux?) then I do not believe the Debian installer is a very hard installer to use.

    All of this is coming from a Slackware user from way back.
    • What the...?! The installer for Libranet is FINE! Jeez... how could you ever say that?! ;)
    • Why not say.....

      hey if you can't write your own drivers, why are you running linux?

      or

      if you can't write your own shell scripts, why are you running linux?

      Another bit of "silly user, linux is for real men", thinking.

      It's not that Debain is extremely hard, it's not. It's just an attempt to make it more accessable to pepole who aren't as advanced as others.
    • But it obviously is difficult to use for most people, especially in comparsion to most of the other distros out there. Why do debian users continue insist that this is the opposite? I've used Corel, Stormix, Progeny, and Libranet and they all managed to put out good easy to use installers years ago. Why are Debian users so against adopting something so common for modern OS's? It could could only help their user base. And yes I do know about the efforts going on now, but considering Debian 4.0 or whatever the next big release won't be out for a long long time Debian is just shooting itself in the foot by not making this their biggest priority.

      • Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Informative)

        by blakestah ( 91866 ) <blakestah@gmail.com> on Friday September 06, 2002 @07:18PM (#4210014) Homepage
        Why are Debian users so against adopting something so common for modern OS's? It could could only help their user base.

        Debian users are not. If someone wanted to write and maintain a killer installer, I am quite sure Debian would embrace it.

        However, Debian's installer, from potato on, has been quite easy to use. I usually install it across the network using a single floppy in about 20 minutes, and then install packages overnight via the network.

        The 'slink' installer sucked rocks, and has given Debian installers a bad name.

        Debian is a distro in which 99% of all the work is done by volunteers, and no one thinks writing installers is fun. That is why the Debian installer, while being easy to use and highly functional, is not pretty and flashy and come with the option of using the 'redneck' locale for installation prompts.
    • No, you're incorrect. This isn't just Debian 3.0 with an easier installer. It includes a heck of a lot of improvements over Debian 3.0.

    • Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)

      by GoatPigSheep ( 525460 )
      As long as you can handle selecting what packages you want, and install a module for your network card (and if you can't do this, why are you running linux?)

      And people wounder why linux is not catching on quickly on the desktop...

    • Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ImaLamer ( 260199 )
      Oh shut up.

      Why does it bother you that someone has re-written debian's installer (or replaced it)?

      You obviously aren't going to use it, and I'm guessing you also are against anyone using on the dreaded "desktop".

      and if you can't do this, why are you running linux?

      Because it's about not having some fuck-head telling me what to run.

    • It appears to be woody with the finishing touch users have been screaming for. It is beyond me why debian developers were unable to do so themselves.

      The problem with debian's setup is that it leaves you with a system that requires a lot of manual configuration. If you've done it a couple of times it becomes routine but if you're encountering debian for the first time the installer is not very helpful (to not say very hostile).

      It has no hardware detection, the default settings for X are inadequate in almost any case, you need to update all sorts of packages to more recent versions (which are not in stable) and most likely you also need to update the kernel. Not only is the network card not detected but you also need to manually configure other plug & play stuff such as sound cards, printers, scanners etc. Doing so is not easy in a bare bones linux installation and requires manually editing dozens of text based configuration files and running several non trivial commands (for plug and play devices that other linux distros configure automatically).

      For some people that is the charm of debian. It gives you the feeling that you are in control and that you are a skilled sysadmin if you manage to get it all working.
  • sounds like a research paper database. better check the IP and copyrights...... nah, i'll just sue them now.

  • Love it! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Myuu ( 529245 )
    I have the feeling that there is going to be a lot of anti-libranet commentary on this, but I have to say that I love it greatly.

    I have been running it for 3 weeks without any problem.

    The Pros:
    -Great Control Panel, itll even recompile your kernel for you. I tried it, does a good job
    -Install sets up your CD burner!
    -A heck of a lot of packages on one cd
    -even at 2.0 (what, did they skip a couple numbers =P) it came with really current packages

    Cons:
    -Old KDE and Gnome

    Libranet has the ease of SUSE with the power of debian.
    I have gotten 3 people on linux using libra.
    I'm definitely staying with it (and I've tried out SuSe, RH, Mandrake, Slack, and Debian)

    • Re:Love it! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ilias ( 409618 )
      Old KDE and Gnome? I believe Libranet 2.7 ships with KDE 3.0 and Gnome 2.0. These are not old.
      • I meant the older version. sorry
        • you included in your post that you were talking about version 2.0. if other people are idiots and want to start flaming, then hey, that's there problem.

          what's really concerning is that you are obviously a user and advocate of the OS, and their own developers are flaming you, when all they had to say was, "Version 2.7 comes with KDE xxx and Gnome xxx". But no, they decide to go the "stupid moron, what do you mean old" route.
    • It comes with GNOME 2.0.1 and KDE 3.0.3, that's hardly old.
      • get a clue before you attack an obviously happy (and recommending) user of your OS. there were SEVERAL in his post.

        Clue #1 he has been running it for 3 weeks
        Clue #2 he specifically mentions it being version 2.0
    • Actually, 2.0 came with the older KDE and Gnome (they were current at the time 2.0 was released). 2.7 included the new KDE and Gnome and a lot of other great window managers (fluxbox, XFce, Icewm, blackbox, Window Maker, etc.). And no, they didn't skip a couple of mumbers. Libranet has been around 2 or 3 years (maybe longer).

  • Installation not so hard -- and not so important (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Publicus ( 415536 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @05:26PM (#4209416) Homepage

    I've said this before. The Debian installation just isn't that hard. I'd like to hear some specific points about what makes it difficult other than that it isn't X based, but rather console based.

    What I don't think is stressed often enough is that you only need to install Debian ONCE. I'm running it on several machines (home/business) and I haven't even had to reboot to upgrade.

    apt-get dist-upgrade

    Love it, love it, love it.

    • Re:Installation not so hard -- and not so importan (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      > I've said this before. The Debian installation just isn't that hard. I'd like to hear some specific points about what makes it difficult other than that it isn't X based, but rather console based.

      It asks the user for specific hardware modules to be used; most people don't know their NIC/audio/video chipsets offhand, and don't really want to. Modern Linux installers don't ask for such details, they figure it out for themselves and do the right things. Console/GUI is less important than the "what hardware module should I use? You tell me!" questions.

      > What I don't think is stressed often enough is that you only need to install Debian ONCE. I'm running it on several machines (home/business) and I haven't even had to reboot to upgrade.

      What's also not stressed often enough is that *any* OS install is a new-to-the-OS user's first impression. If that first impression goes well, there is a larger tolerance for whatever minor quirks occur later on - a larger well of goodwill available when problems crop up. If the install was a strain, then later problems may well cause a newbie to just give up, as they won't want to keep on having to be Such An Expert just to use a frickin' computer. Modern OSs also understand this.
      • Your points are good ones. Why should I remember the chipset in my video card when the OS can do it for me?

        Debian *had* a good installer with Progeny. I don't know why it got canned, but I thought they (Debian) were going to use the Progeny installer?

        I don't follow Debian closely, so someone correct me if I am wrong.
    • The default Debian install, since it's designed to handle all sorts of uses of the OS, just installs the base. Your average user wants other stuff -- X11 for example -- that it doesn't install by default. Not sure if this has changed, but when I installed Debian I had to manually install X11 by using dselect after the base install finished. And dselect is not the most user-friendly tool. It also took me a long time to get fonts to look decent (by carefully perusing the Linux Font Deuglification HOWTO), but that may be more a Linux/X problem than a Debian one. Setting up my CD burner was also a bit annoying -- I had to mess with modconf to load the ide-scsi module and pass ignore=hdc to the ide-cd module. Not too hard when reading the HOWTOs, but not something I'd want to explain to a non-computer type person how to do.

      The upgrading is definitely nice though.
      • Not sure if this has changed, but when I installed Debian I had to manually install X11 by using dselect after the base install finished. And dselect is not the most user-friendly tool.

        Debian has had tasksel since before potato. You don't run dselect, you check the little box next to the X option, and you're done. I haven't run dselect during an install (or at all) in three years. Similarly there are little check boxes for Gnome, KDE, C/C++ development, DNS server, Apache, DHCP server, database stuff and lots more. Basically what you'd get with any distribution. Just say 'yes' when it asks if you want to run tasksel, and no when it asks you if you want to run dselect and you're set.

        As for fonts, it used to be as simple as 'apt-get install msttcorefonts'. Now you need to actually have the font package [spineless.org] already on your system and unzipped before running the previously mentioned command.

    • I tried to install Woody on my old laptop. A few things are really lacking with the installer. First, I wanted to keep one of the partitions where I had my /home. The problem was, all partitions are identified only with /dev/hdaX - with no size indication or other information, it was a hit.and-miss affair to remember which partition had been mounted where. Also, there is a bug with the installer that precludes a net install over pcmcia hardware with a fixed IP adress. There are plenty of other UI disasters, but those two sort of stood out.

      Second, the initial package selection systems are _really_ lacking. The simplified task-centered selection seemed like a good idea, but did not work in practice. As it is an old machine, I did not want X or any X applications on it, so I deselected that task. On the other hand, I did want developer stuff, so I selected that. Unfortunately, that resulted in it pulling down X and a lot of related stuff anyway. If there is supposed to be such a task division, it needs to be done well, or not at all. I then ended up in the app for individual package selection. I started to browse it - but hit Enter by mistake, and was dumped out of the program, without a warning and without a chance to undo the action. Not good.

      So now I had a bare Woody install - really bare, like in "I need to apt-get less" bare. This was fine with me. For some reason, however, I had a 2.2 kernel. This both annoyed and surprised me, as Woody is supposed to use the 2.4 kernel. No problem - I just pull down a newer kernel package. Unfortunately, the newer kernel packages all had a pcmcia module package that was incompatible with the kernel itself.

      I was about to get the kernel source and compile it for myself, but when rebooting to the 2.2 kernel (for the fifth or sixth time that day) I got a kernel panic when trying to boot the machine. As i had been at this for the better part of six hours, I gave up, got the Redhat boot disks, and got a functional, configured, X-less installation done with minimal fuss in two hours.

      /Janne

      • I did not want X or any X applications on it, so I deselected that task. On the other hand, I did want developer stuff, so I selected that. Unfortunately, that resulted in it pulling down X and a lot of related stuff anyway. If there is supposed to be such a task division, it needs to be done well, or not at all.

        I'm not sure how much better this could be done. A developers task that does not include a GUI library seems lacking; and GUI library will logically depend on X stuff.
        • There could be several things. Split the choice of developer tools into a 'basic' and 'X-related' part; make the 'X server' choice active whenever you choose devel tools; remove the 'X' part altogether; bake the 'devel' option into the other options, so they would 'know' which devel packages to install.

          Presenting a choice that in fact is not doable is not the way to do it, however.

          /Janne

        • I'm not sure how much better this could be done. A developers task that does not include a GUI library seems lacking; and GUI library will logically depend on X stuff.

          I'm not sure I agree about the `no GUI library == lacking', but ...

          It would be nice if there could be automatically-derived tasks, e.g., `install x-developer if the developer and x tasks are both selected'.
      • all partitions are identified only with /dev/hdaX - with no size indication or other information

        If you choose the "Partition your hard disk" option, it will show you the filesystem type and size of existing partitions when it runs cfdisk. I consider the lack of partition lables a design flaw in the msdos partition table format. If you're using other patrition table types it will correctly show you the labels too.

        Also, there is a bug with the installer that precludes a net install over pcmcia hardware with a fixed IP adress.

        I just did this today and it worked fine. You must have experienced user error.

        So now I had a bare Woody install - really bare, like in "I need to apt-get less" bare.

        This is not an ideal solution, but it sounds like what you wanted was a bare system, plus the "build-essential" meta package. It will install all of the stuff you wanted (libc-dev, less, gcc, make, etc...) without X. If you want other non standard development libraries you'll still have to load them yourself, but it's a mere 'apt-get' away. The build-essential package is great for when you want a minimalist development environment without all the typing.
    • It comes from anecdodal evidence. Plop a newbie right in front of a Debian installer, and they probably won't be able to do it.

      I've heard the "I tried installing Debian as my first distro because I heard it's good, but I could install it, gave up, and installed Redhat/Mandrake/SuSE.. then after a year when I became more experienced, I switched back to Debian" story quite a lot.
    • >I've said this before. The Debian installation just isn't that hard. I'd like to hear some specific points about what makes it difficult other than that it isn't X based, but rather console based.

      You have to know exactly which kernel modules to use for you ethernet card. Redhat autodetects. Debian doesn't autodetect or suggest any hardware.
    • Similar example. I installed Debian and it provided a number of network card modules. I had no idea what network card was in the machine. Why should I?

      So I installed with a guess, and it was wrong, so the install was screwed and I had to do lots to fix it. Not at all pleasant.

      In addition, today disk space is so cheap that, if you are installing from CD, you should just install everything that doesn't conflict and let people remove later. Don't give them a lot of questions to answer. Even an experienced user (now hitting my 25th year of use of Unix or something like it) gets tired of having to answer a lot of questions that in the end just don't matter.

      And the inexperienced user is even more blessed if they don't have to answer those questions. If you can undo, if you can fix it later if you need to, then DON'T ASK. Or ask once if you the user wants to answer more detailed questions or wants a simple install.

      Now since Debian network installs, I can see how you want to limit the load on servers, that is a point.

      Plug and play is the way to go. If you can ever make it so the user can just plug it in, and it works, do it. Even if it's a bit slower. Does the user want DHCP or static IP? Don't ask the user, ask the DHCP server! Let them undo it later to static IP if they need it.

      Host name, time zone, user name and partition style. That's about all that needs to be asked at install time.
    • I've always found the online intructions confusing, and I run Gentoo on my two machines so count out any fear of dirty hands.

  • More info (Score:3, Informative)

    by term0r ( 471206 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @05:26PM (#4209419)
    Also for a good bit of information of what Libranet has check out this [distrowatch.com]
  • From their web site:

    We built it for our own use and used Debian Hamm ... to do so.

    ...

    We are located in the Vancouver area of British Columbia, Canada.

    Hmm...sounds like they started by trying to make some Canadian backbacon, eh?

    Couldn't find any beer on their website, though...

    :-)

  • Maybe I've installed Debian so many times now that it's just second nature for me... with three computers running it, it's not that hard to do it a lot. :-)

    All I use is the first .iso image, edit apt sources by hand (uncommenting the first three), add in my network card's module, make sure I choose "advanced" instead of "simple" install, and I quit dselect as soon as I'm dumped into it (worthless, in my opinion). Every question is straightforward (cfdisk is easy, hostname, IP, gateway, dns, hit the enter key a bunch of times to install everything from the cd, enter root password, create user and then get to installing software)...

    Of course, this leaves me with a ~60 to ~80meg OS, and I immediately apt up to sid and install anything I need. I like this method because I know there's little to nothing installed that I don't need.

  • First tell me what you're talking about. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @05:46PM (#4209528) Homepage Journal
    Both the Slashdot story and the Libranet main web page lack any indication of WTF Libranet is!!!!! Had to dig around before I found out that it was a distro. Come on people! I realize that writing goodful is not anybody's priority -- but "animal, vegetable or mineral" is the first part of any description.
    • I also noticed that.
      But it was easly solved with the "About Libranet" button on their main page..

      (If I just copy/paste'd this about page [libranet.com] I would certainly get an "Informative" moderation point.. :)
      • If there's a Slashdot story about FooBar1244 being released, and you're not familiar with it, this means one of N things
        • You should try to look at the web page for FooBar1244. If it's Not Slashdotted, this means that the product isn't interesting enough for very many people to care about, so unless you're one of the few people for whom this would actually be useful that didn't already know about it, you've wasted your time by reading the web page.
        • The web page is Slashdotted, because FooBar1244 is really cool, and the reason you don't know what it is is because you're not really cool. You've wasted your time, because all the cool people will be downloading the latest release for the next three days. That's actually OK, because what the web page said was that they've fixed three minor bugs and added Dynamic Animated Skin Authoring to a product you'd never heard of, so you'd have had to have waded half a dozen links down into the menu system to find out what the product actually did.
        • The product is lame, but it's Slashdotted because it's running on a really lame webserver, so you can't actually tell. You've wasted your time on this fork also (but just because the product is lame doesn't make you cool for not knowing about it, so don't go feeling superior here either.)
        • The web page is Slashdotted, but some nice person has posted a copy to Slashdot that lets you know what it is. Unfortunately, the posting is modded down to -1 for redundancy, because anybody who doesn't know what FooBar1244 is must be totally lame and out of the loop. So you don't see it either, because you're not a moderator today so you're not reading at -1. So you've wasted your time looking for it anyway.
    • You've got to be kidding

      Jon wrote in with news that Libranet 2.7 has been released. I've never tried Libranet, but Debian 3.0 is a fine, up-to-date OS with the usual Debian installation (harder than necessary), so if Libranet offers that Debian goodness with a better installer it should be an excellent choice for both experienced and newbie users.

      If you can't figure out from the context that Libranet is a Debian based distro from this description- and then you went to the Libranet home page and couldn't figure it out- then you leave me w/questions as well. Questions like "How does someone this stupid figure out how to start a browser and get on the web?"

      • That Debian Goodness (Score:3, Insightful)

        by fm6 ( 162816 )
        I can see how these phrases might equate to "A nice Debian-derived distro" -- to a Debian user. To this non-Debian user, they implied some kind of software associated with Debian.

  • Prices (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SomeOtherGuy ( 179082 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @05:51PM (#4209545) Journal
    I see that they charge for upgrades from one version to the next. (I.E. --> Existing Libranet user $39.95) Does that not kind of make apt-get dist-upgrade a bit useless?

    Either way -- if I were going to purchase a new Linux distro, I would give this one a shot. With Debian "Clones" (storm, corel, etal) it has always been a bit of a catch-22, because you have all the power of apt-get, but apt-get is only as good as the updates (and frequency of said updates) waiting on the other end.
    • Well, my experience with Libranet is that they do a good job at shipping a stable system with newer packages than Debian Stable (e.g. XFree86, KDE and GNOME).

      The Libranet team provides good support and they are very nice people (hi Tal and Jon!). Also, the Libranet user community is very nice and friendly as well.

      On the other hand, in this sort of economic climate, the upgrade price is a bit steep (USD $39.95 for the CDs). But you can also download the ISO for USD $10 less (USD $29.95). I don't think this is such a bad deal.

      Personally, I'll probably wait a bit before I upgrade. I'm very happy with my Libranet 2.0 system at the moment and I don't really need KDE 3.0 and GNOME 2.0.

  • Libranet (Score:5, Informative)

    by crystal dragon ( 69701 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @05:56PM (#4209566)
    I currently use both Debian and Libranet on my home systems. While I personally find Debian easy to install and configure, I think that Libranet has done an exemplarly job in making their install very easy. It has hardware autodetection, can set up a burner and zip drive and allows you to easily configure a network or dial up connection in a way that a novice will understand.

    There are other benefits as well. They have a package called XAdminmenu that logically groups many administration tools together, a control panel of sort, that is easy to use and properly annotated so that a new user can configure their system. There is also an active user community that is very newbie-friendly. Plus the support provided by their staff is exceptional and often goes beyond the offerings of other software firms.

    Naturally there are also the benefits of being a Debian-based distribution. While they base their current release on Woody, you can easily bump it up to Sid if you wish too. And for new users, once they master APT (or Synaptic or GNOME-APT) they will be introduced to Linux with out the hassle of dependency hell. That is worth something right there.

    In short, you get a slightly more polished version of Woody, with current software, support, and a pleasent Linux experience for very little dollars. That in itself is a bonus to our community.

    For those that bitched: download the 2.0 iso from their site and give it a whirl, then give me your opinion. Otherwise be happy and stick to your distro of choice.
  • the usual Debian installation (harder than necessary)

    I hate how everybody always hates on the Debian installer. Seriously, when I first installed Debian (second distro, I was a newbie), I had no problem giving it the six disks, then having it download the packages I wanted, and configuring windowmaker. If people actually bothered to read the installation manual, they'll figure out that the step-by-step installation isn't hard. And if you have to maintain the same distribution for many different platforms and kernels, you can't use a pretty X11 installer, and you have to have the installer be modular.

    This is not intended to be a flame at all, and I appricate everybody's feedback. :)

    Cheers, Orange
    • I've successfully installed Debian 3 times, and given up in disgust part way through twice. Not because I couldn't do it, but because I didn't see why it should take so much effort. I've installed most Red Hat versions since 6.0, and a few before that. I've installed a bunch of Mandrake. Debian was the first install of Linux I did, and I did it successfully. I've never exactly failed at a Debian install.

      But I've given up in disgust more than once.
      Progeny was easy (even if it did misconfigure ppp). LibraNet was easy (the a prior version). Only Debian has been such a PITA. They leave out monitor definitons. In 1999(?) I got a set of Debian disks (beta), and they had left out the definition for a Monitor that they'd defined in a prior set of disks. A ViewSonic G77(?) (not exactly a rare choice). They didn't have any ViewSonic Monitors listed, and when I looked at the update list, the most recent update to the monitors file was years earlier. My guess... someone who hadn't needed to configure his system in years burned the CDs. But they said Debian on the disks in big black letters....

      Perhaps the problem is that there are no official Debian CDs. You buy CDs that someone has built. But since I need to get Debian that way, Debian gets the black eye. (I don't have a fast modem, and one of my computers doesn't have any working modem at all [it usually doesn't have a phone line, so a modem card seems an extravagance], so it's CDs for me.)

      LibraNet solves this problem, among others. But even when the disks contain all the necessary files, I don't see why the Debian installer is so clunky. (Perhaps Progeny has/will have fixed this. Last time I installed Debian, I used the Progeny disks as a cheat [on a system that had a LAN connection rather than ppp... that doesn't work from Progeny], and the install, even with a broken system [the Progeny site is basically defunct] was a *lot* easier.)

    • I disagree. Debian was also my second dist (comming from Redhat), and if it hadn't been for a friend of mine I never would have gotten it installed. Who would have know that my Linksys Ethernet adapter module would be called ne2k? Not a newbie. Not that I have a bit more knowledge, I'm able to install it much more easily (and recently was suprised at how much better the Debian 3.0 install was than all the 2.4 series).

      The point is; the install manual doesn't help that much (especially when you don't have a connection to the net as was my case) for most new users (this is the case with most Linux documentation IMO).
  • Is the new Libranet based on Debian 3.0? I can't seem to find anywhere that will say so.
  • does debian sid (unstable)even have xfree86 4.2.0 yet?
    • There are beta packages of XFree86 4.2, but no, it's not in unstable. It will make it into sid when it builds without any serious bugs on all 11+ architectures.

  • My Experiences... (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I tried Libranet for a while... It was a decent distro but..

    1. I found their community to be very cold to newbies. (especially one certain user I don't care for but wont mention his name)

    2. You have to pay every release for an upgrade...

    3. They have no place where you can get a list of security advisories for their distrobution.
    • Have you checked out Libranet, lately? They have a mailing list and a great forum. Check out the following links:

      http://libranet.com/support.html
      http://librane tlinux.com/forum/phpBB2/

      Please, give it another try. The forum and mailing list is VERY newbie friendly.

  • Easy Debian installation is a nice idea, but I think Stormix [archive.org] did a wonderful job when they existed. It was my first Debian installation experience -- they did everything right. It wasn't just (X) eye candy either, they actually added some neat features like auto-detection of Windows partitions and lilo configuration for such things. I had a dual boot system without even so much as glancing at /etc/lilo.conf. I can't imagine this distro is doing anything better (technically, at least) than Stormix, but I wish them luck.
  • I would jump on this distribution if it supported both my soundcard (ICE1712/Envy24) [very important] and my video (Radeon 8500) [X11
    AND console fb].

    Yes of course I could install Alsa for the sound support, and yes of course Radeons are supported in the XFree 4.2.0, but it would not be any more (or less) convenient with "Libranet" than with stock Debian.

    Before you criticize my choice of sound card, bear in mind that the Delta/Midiman cards are just about the ONLY serious choice for a pro card that works under linux. Perhaps there have been some 24/96 products released lately, but that would be big news to me.

    Alas, the 2.5.33 kernel is almost the only thing needed, but, the Radeon framebuffer stuff is broken now. Maybe next week?

  • debian (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RestiffBard ( 110729 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @08:45PM (#4210424) Homepage
    everyone complains about debian. too slow to release, too hard to install... etc, ad nauseum.

    folks. there are other distros. use them instead.

    I've come to believe that mandrake is the first distro you use, red hat is the second and then once you realize that you should be reading slashdot and other such sites and start hearing about debian and graducate to that. after debian you start thinking about trying linux from scratch. thats just the nature of the beast. I kind of like it that way.
  • Here's an example of a company who is scaring you into thinking that you are not smart enough to install Debian on your own, and making good money at it.

    I'm sure the Libranet folks have brewed up a mighty fine installer, but the fact is that Debian is not really very hard to install. Heck if you want to be safe about it, just add an extra hard drive to your system and have at it!

    Possibly what takes time about Debian is totally customizing it to make it l337 just like you are, but unfortunately you just can't buy that kind of thing.

    I'll tell you what, getting XFree86 up and running with 3.3.6 used to be a major hassle because the modelines were always wrong. XFree86 v 4.x is an incredible improvement in that it can autodetect your modes via a PnP monitor a lot of the times. Heck I have a GeForce2MX in my box and never made a single modeline! (And I get 125fps with QuakeForge!) The days of pain are over, I say!

    Don't be fooled, Debian is not for total gnubies, unless they be exceptionally perseverent, but anybody with a smidgeon of Linux or Unix savvy should have few troubles with it. You need to know your network parameters, and it helps a lot if you know how to edit an XF86Config-4 file, but it isn't totally neccessary anymore like it used to be.

  • Debian does not deal correctly with diacritical-accented characters. Most applications are just OK, but Mozilla & Galeon are not. Also, there's not a decent graphical email that can do all of local mail, POP, news and IMAP at once. Evolution, for example, crashes; Mozilla mail, besides being too big and slow is useless due to not handling accents.

    Moreover, the LANG environment variable doesn't always affect GDM, Gnome and several Gnome applications consistently. For example, Galeon always launches in English, but its second window opened will be localised.

    I wonder if Libranet or any other Debian derivative, or even unstable, is better?

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