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Comment PCLinuxOS is the answer (Score 1) 622

by Clopnixus (#36697134) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Easiest Linux Distro For a Newbie
I would urge anyone new to Linux coming from a windows background to try PCLinuxOS. It took me a while to discover as it seems to be the best kept secret of Linux. I've gone through Debian, Arch, Mandriva, Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint, Slackware, Mepis, Puppy but always come back to PCLinuxOS. It's easy to install, easy to maintain and has excellent hardware recognition. Add a welcoming community that is happy to answer all the newbie questions without insulting people and you have the recipe for the 'Distro hopper stopper'. The PCLinuxOS version of KDE4 is also the best set up of all that I've tried.
Linux

Submission + - Egyptian FLOSS protecting the revolution (spirulasystems.com)

Submitted by ezabi
ezabi writes: Old school FLOSS advocates had their behind the scenes role protecting the Egyptian revolution for freedom since its early days, an open source solution provider based in Alexandria-Egypt had an active role securing pro-democracy websites since their beginnings pre January 25th, [their press release|http://www.spirulasystems.com/news/egypt-spirula-and-electronic-war]

Comment Gnewsense (Score 1) 221

by Clopnixus (#32764094) Attached to: Unusual, Obscure, and Useful Linux Distros
No mention of Gnewsense? Unusual - Sure is. very few distros take software freedom this seriously. Obscure - Sadly again true. Very few Linux users take software freedom this seriously. Useful - If you want to know if your hardware doesn't require non-free binary blobs then this is a good way to check.

Comment Re:The abbreviated list (Score 5, Informative) 221

by Clopnixus (#32753870) Attached to: Unusual, Obscure, and Useful Linux Distros
Can't get to the site but if your list is complete I'm surprised there's no mention of Scientific Linux. The distro created by the Fermi National Accelerator laboratory and CERN has to be high on the list of unusual and interesting Linux distributions. Actually, works pretty well as a standard desktop too...

Comment Re:GIMP's stupid name (Score 1) 900

by Clopnixus (#30163610) Attached to: GIMP Dropped From Ubuntu 10.04
These odd naming conventions and 'complete lack of marketing savvy' are one of the reasons I love Linux. The Gimp is a slap in the face for all the 'Image over content' people. Its like the whole nonsense of branding. I choose a product because it does what I want, not because it has a cool name and makes me feel better about myself. Its not Linux naming conventions that need to grow up, but the rest of the world. If they changed the name of Photoshop to Plop would it change the underlying software? Nope... Would people stop buying it in droves? Yep... I'll continue to use Gimp because it does what I need...
Operating Systems

Submission + - SPAM: Europe Funds Secure Operating System Research

Submitted by
narramissic
narramissic writes: "A Dutch university has received a 2.5 million (US$3.3 million) grant from the European Research Council to fund 5 more years of work on a Unix-type operating system, called Minix, that aims to be more reliable and secure than Linux or Windows. The latest grant will enable the three researchers and two programmers on the project to further their research into a making Minix capable of fixing itself when a bug is detected, said Andrew S. Tanenbaum, a computer science professor at Vrije Universiteit. 'It irritates me to no end when software doesn't work,' Tanenbaum said. 'Having to reboot your computer is just a pain. The question is 'Can you make a system that actually works very well?''"
Link to Original Source
Links

Submission + - Gnash Raising Funds for OpenStreetMap Support (linuxfund.org)

Submitted by
LFI
LFI writes: "Gnash Developers and Linux Fund Raise Funds for OpenStreetMap Bounties Linux Fund has expanded its partnership with the Gnash media player team to bring OpenStreetMap editing support to the open source Flash® player, Gnash. This work will also improve YouTube compatibility and joins Linux Fund's existing effort to bring the Real Time Messaging Protocol support to Gnash. OpenStreetMap. the free wiki world map, is an editable map of the whole world built by community contributions. To contribute and donate towards the Gnash OSM support see the Linux Fund website.

In addition to contributing directly towards the OSM bounty, community members can contribute to all Linux Fund support projects by applying for a Linux Fund credit card. Linux Fund card holders contribute to funding and development of open-source software projects with each credit card transaction. To apply for a card see the Linux Fund website today.

Linux Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides financial and supervisory support to the free and open software community. Linux Fund raises funds with its line of rewards credit cards and direct donations, and has given over half a million dollars to open source projects since its founding in 1999."
Media

Submission + - Full Circle Magazine - Issue 24 - The two year ann (fullcirclemagazine.org) 1

Submitted by mrmonday1
mrmonday1 writes: Full Circle Magazine — the independent magazine for the Ubuntu community — is proud to announce the release of its two year anniversary, issue 24. And to celebrate their second birthday, issue 24 boats a more colourful layout and more pages. The 43 page PDF has articles on cron, programming in C, installing and configuring MAME and a new series of articles on Inkscape. You could also win one of three copies of Ubuntu Unleashed!
Software

Submission + - Google funds Wine to improve Photoshop use

Submitted by Justin-the-computer-goon
Justin-the-computer-goon writes: FROM Tectonic.co.za In an email to the Wine mailing list late last week, Google software engineer Dan Kegel described how Google has been contracting the CodeWeavers Wine team to improve support for PhotoshopCS on Linux and how Google employees are using their free time to fix Wine bugs. Kegel writes: "Google uses Wine primarily as the basis for the Linux port of our photo management software, Picasa. In fact, the Linux version is exactly the Windows build of Picasa, bundled with a lightly patched version of Wine. Most of the work in that port was to improve Wine so it could handle Picasa, and that work is still going on. Codeweavers did the initial port, and Googlers Lei Zhang, Nigel Liang, and Michael Moss are improving Wine further for Picasa 2.7." In a survey a year ago Photoshop was the application voted to be the most important application to port to Linux. Wine is an emulation application tat allows users to run Windows software on Linux. "Google also sponsored some work by Codeweavers to improve support for Photoshop ('cause so many people want it) and for Dragon Naturally Speaking ('cause even Linux users get RSI). While not yet perfect, those apps are a lot more usable now as a result. In particular, Photoshop CS and CS2 are quite usable indeed. (See http://wiki.winehq.org/AdobePhotoshop for details.)," Kegel writes. Kegel also points out that he and other Google employees are using their 20% time to work on and fix Wine bugs. Google famously allows its employees to use 20 percent of their time to work on projects of their own interest. More details on Google's work on Wine can be found here.

Comment Re:Secure? Sure. (Score 1) 175

by Clopnixus (#26782431) Attached to: Kaspersky Customer Database Exposed
I've had much better experiences installing Linux than with Windows. And I started out with dos 3.3. The most significant advantage is that these days usually all the drivers for your hardware are included in the kernel. Installing Windows is easy enough. Its the hours of tracking down drivers and applications after installing that is a pain in the backside.

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