Source Based Linux Distributions and Global Warming.

Global warming is hot, and an old post on ZDNet, How Windows XP wasted $25 billion of energy – but will Vista be eco-friendly? reminded me of other power consuming hobbies: Source based Distro’ s.

Setting up and maintaining Gentoo Linux on an average pc takes many hours; on my AMD XP 2200+ with one gig ram it takes about 12 hours to set up Gentoo with a Gnome desktop,  for KDE a few hours more.

Maybe something to consider before deciding what Distro to use; besides being a distro, Gentoo is also a penguin living in the South Pole area, an area that might melt down due to global warming.

Tuxicity.

Gentoo Linux is used as an example for source based distro’s. Distrowatch.com has a list of source based distro’s. 

Review: Sabayon Linux

There is a newer distro in town, gaining traction. Sabayon Linux is an installable, Gentoo based live Cd/DVD. It has the stated goal of being 100% Gentoo compatible. A lot of attention has been paid to the Sabayon brand. Theming is consistent and striking. Sabayon is one of the best looking distros I have used. They use a yellow,orange and red theme that is fresh and unlike any other Linux distribution. Beryl is used by default. It is a KDE distro with the option to use Fluxbox as your Desktop Environment. Sabayon gets it’s name from an Italian desert, to quote the website and Wikipedia: “Sabayon is an Italian dessert made with egg yolks, sugar, a sweet liquor (usually Marsala wine), and sometimes cream or whole eggs. It is a very light custard, which has been whipped to incorporate a large amount of air.” Sabayon refers to its users as “Hens” which isn’t as off putting as you might think.
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Screenshots : Gentoo 2006.1

The Screenshots :

Distrowatch :
Gentoo Linux is a versatile and fast, completely free Linux distribution geared towards developers and network professionals. Unlike other distros, Gentoo Linux has an advanced package management system called Portage. Portage is a true ports system in the tradition of BSD ports, but is Python-based and sports a number of advanced features including dependencies, fine-grained package management, “fake” (OpenBSD-style) installs, safe unmerging, system profiles, virtual packages, config file management, and more.

What’s the best Linux for resellers?

I recently was contacted by a major Unix reseller. The company had a very simple question: with the writing on the wall for Unix growing bigger and bigger with every quarter, which Linux should they adopt?
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Why Gentoo Shouldn’t be on Your Server

Over the last year I have run a server using the Linux flavor Gentoo. While most of the servers I deal with these days run FreeBSD (WireLoad’s servers included), I was curious about what speed I could get out of old hardware with Gentoo………..
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Distribution Release: BinToo GNU/Linux 2007.1

DistroWatch.com:

BinToo GNU/Linux is a Gentoo-based Linux distribution designed for the desktop. A new version was released a few days ago, but we delayed the announcement until the installation DVD image starts showing up on download servers. From the release announcement: “I am pleased to announce the 3rd release of BinToo GNU/Linux – BinToo 2007.1 and the new installation method. In this release: new installation method contains 4 profiles for installation (full, basic desktop, minimal or server, and custom); kernel 2.6.18; glibc 2.5; GNOME 2.16.2; KDE 3.5.5; OpenOffice.org 2.0.4; Firefox 2.0….” Read the rest of the release announcement for further details, installation instructions and known issues. Download: bintoo-2007.1-dvd.iso (513MB, MD5), also available via BitTorrent.

BinToo GNU/Linux is a full-featured binary distribution based on Gentoo Linux.

Distribution Release: SystemRescueCd 0.3.2

A new bug-fix release of SystemRescueCd is now available: “Version 0.3.2 (stable) of the SystemRescueCd project has been released. Changes for version 0.3.2: updated TestDisk to 6.5; updated ntfs3g beta to 20070102; updated Ntfsresize to 1.13.1.1 (for Windows Vista); added option ‘doeject’ to eject the disc at boot time; added cryptsetup-luks; added CmosPwd (decrypts CMOS password); added magicrescue (find deleted files); added mbr (install-mbr); added Mrxvt (nice terminal for X.Org); added several administration tools (sysstat, hddtemp, ide-smart); added Oscar (French tool to backup computers); improved support for hardware; improved keymaps support (fr_CH and speakup).”

DistroWatch.com: More…

SystemRescueCd is a Linux system on a bootable CD-ROM for repairing your system and your data after a crash. It also aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the partitions of the hard disk. It contains many of system utilities (parted, partimage, fstools, …) and basic ones (editors, Midnight Commander, network tools). It aims to be very easy to use: just boot from the CD-ROM, and you can do everything. The kernel of the system supports most important file systems (ext2/ext3, ReiserFS, XFS, JFS, VFAT, NTFS, ISO9660), and network ones (Samba and NFS). SystemRescueCd is based on the Gentoo Live CD.

Gentoo on the PS3 – Full install instructions

Well if you like Gentoo, own a PS3, and have some time……. enjoy,

Gentoo Howto – PS3 Wiki

Distribution Release: SabayonLinux 3.26

A new version of SabayonLinux, with a number of bug fixes and feature updates, has been released. Some of the main changes include: “Linux kernel 2.6.19 with sata_promise driver now supports PATA connectors too; NdisWrapper updated to 1.34rc2; KVM now is detected and works out of the box on VT-enabled CPUs; KDE Print control panel now works; AbiWord updated to 2.4.6; Democracy Player updated to 0.9.2.1; Amarok now works; ALSA updated to 1.0.14rc1; Flash Player updated to 9.0.21.78; installer: multi-user configuration now works; highly improved boot time by triggering doslowusb only when really needed; OpenGL auto-configuration now takes half of the time to configure video card….”

DistroWatch.com: More..

Sabayon Linux is a live DVD designed to transform a computer into a powerful Gentoo Linux system in less than 5 minutes. Gentoo Linux is a Linux distribution powered by a software install manager engine called “Portage”. Besides functioning as a live DVD, Sabayon Linux can also be installed on a hard disk, acting effectively as an easy-to-use Gentoo installation disk. The live DVD includes a large range of desktop environments and open source software applications, such as KDE, GNOME, XFce, Fluxbox, KOffice, OpenOffice.org, FreeNX, amaroK, Kaffeine, etc.

License compliance issues could affect all BSD-derived distributions

The Gentoo/FreeBSD project, which combines the FreeBSD kernel with Gentoo Linux design principles, is in a fix. Its lead developer, Diego “Flameeyes” Pettenò, discovered licensing issues while working on the libkvm library and the start-stop-daemon — and Pettenò says that the problem might not be limited to his project, but could trap other BSD-derived projects as well.

“The licensing trouble began,” says Pettenò, “when I looked up the license under which libkvm was released, as I was going to link into a GPLv2 software (portage-utils, a Gentoo-specific utilities package), and I found it using the four-clause BSD license (the original one, basically). When I looked up what else was using it, I found we were already redistributing a binary handled under GPLv2 license that could cause us issues.” He immediately stopped public distribution of the project’s files.

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