Libranet, one of the first “easy Debian” distros has released its long-awaited 3.0 edition featuring a 2.6 kernel, graphical install, and revamped Adminmenu. ISOs can be downloaded here from the Libranet site for $89.95 for new users and $64.95 for students and existing users.
Libranet Releases v3.0
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Eugenia Loli
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Where is the free GPL download ?
I would like to see how does this compare to for example Ubuntu or even plain vanilla Debian. Adminmenu ? Is that all ?
For that kind of price – I could just by Xandros 3.0 Deluxe which I know I like. Its an easy to use Debian Base too. Any one else use both for some kind of comparison?
I was a beta tester and I have to say this distro really rocks. I also use Ubuntu, and having adminmenu makes a huge difference. This thing will automatically detect and configure nvidia and ati drivers. You can do tons of stuff with adminmenu — there is even a gui to configure ndiswrapper and your wifi cards. There is a gui to compile your kernel and it will automagically update grub for you with your new kernel. It’s sort of like yast or other distro admin tools like MCC, but much, much better, IMHO. It’s fully 100% debian compatible so you can use regular debian repositories to your heart’s content.
In short, it is really sweet.
Libra don’t release their current version as a free download. With their last edition they kept the old version as a free download, and offered the current release to paying customers. That’s how they pay the people who develop it.
I’ve tried Mandrake, pure Debian, Xandros, Knoppix, Mepis, SuSE, and Libranet. Libranet is the best one I’ve found so far. The others all have good and bad things about them, but what did it for me is the Adminmenu. It’s so much easier to deal w/ core features, like kernel compiles and networking, by using the menu vs. trying to hack it all out via console.
You have the option to apt-get via Synaptic or you can use the Libranet archive (similar to how YaST works). And the built-in accelerated video drivers are nice; not every distro I’ve tried has them.
I’ve been absent from the linux scene for a while, but it seems like this was more in the $40-50 range the last I checked. This seems ridiculously overpriced now. I don’t care if it does autoconfig nvidia and ati drivers. It just seems like plain jane debian or ubuntu would be a much better and cost effective solution.
I recently tried out the live cd of Hoary, and I must say I was extremely impressed. I hadn’t messed around with linux in probably year before that and I must say that the Ubuntu folks have made HUGE strides in the right direction. I was amazed at the amount of things that “just worked” that in the past I had spent hours configuring when running other versions of linux.
With that said, I am going to continue running XP, but it was fun to play with Ubuntu for a few hours.
With that said, I am going to continue running XP
Blasphemer!!!
😉
“Where is the free GPL download ?”
Here is a good starting point : http://www.distrowatch.com
There you will find links to dozens of free distros. As for Libranet,well, you’ll have to cough up the dough, bro’.
Libranet is under no obligation to distribute their software for free, only to distribute the full source with the binary product to their paying customers. Of course their customers are free to redistribute the source however they wish.
“Of course their customers are free to redistribute the source however they wish.”
Err . . . I don’t believe so. Not all of thier source is released under the GPL afaik (adminmenu).
“Of course their customers are free to redistribute the source however they wish.”
Err . . . I don’t believe so. Not all of thier source is released under the GPL afaik (adminmenu).
Libranet does allow you to install the same copy on multiple computers
Yes, he’ll burn in hell!
Um, I’ll save my money. Hoary is good enough for me.
Err . . . I don’t believe so. Not all of thier source is released under the GPL afaik (adminmenu).
In this case, what is to stop a company like AOL from building ‘AOL Linux’ with everything proprietary but the kernel?
For that kind of price – I could just by Xandros 3.0 Deluxe which I know I like. Its an easy to use Debian Base too. Any one else use both for some kind of comparison?
I’ve reviewed both Xandros and Libranet in the past so I’ll throw my 2 cents out and you can do whatever you want with it.
I found Xandros to be a polished distribution, but very confining. It is a KDE desktop based on Debian, but not very compatible with it. I found I could easily break Xandros by installing and upgrading from the regular debian archives.
On the other hand, Libranet wasn’t quite as polished, but it was very open and maintained a good functional relationship with the Debian archives. Every now and then Debian archives would break something in Libranet, which is why they made their own servers, I think. Adminmenu is a great tool and something sorely missing from Xandros (and other distributions), In my opinion.
Overall, I liked Libranet better than Xandros. With this new release (I haven’t used it, just viewed some screenshots) Libranet seems to have put on a lot of polish. If they still have the open flexibility of their previous releases in addition to the polished look, then I think people should consider paying the money and giving them a try. The worst that could happen is that you are out $80.00, miss a few mortgage payments and the bank forcloses on your house. (We have to take risks in life or we never really experience it right?)
I have suggested Libranet to new Linux users for several years. Everyone I know who tried Libranet were quite impressed by it. You may be too.
Nothing at all, if they wanted to go to the trouble of rewriting proprietary versions of, well, everything else, starting with glibc and working up from there. Why exactly would they, though? Who would use it?
“In this case, what is to stop a company like AOL from building ‘AOL Linux’ with everything proprietary but the kernel?”
Absolutely nothing, so long as they release the changes they’ve made to the kernel, if any.
If I wanted to (and had the resources to pull it off), I could release a Linux distribution that uses the Linux kernel, but with a proprietary GUI that includes all proprietary apps, and charge $100 a user for it. Not a darn thing anybody could do about it, except make sure I give the paying users a copy of the kernel source. Of course, it probably wouldn’t be very popular with all the ranting and raving from the Linux fanbois that would result, but, it is possible.
What got me about this distro was that after I had paid for version 2.8.1, they turned around and released it free to the public. I wasted my money.
Grrrrrrrrr!!
Quote: “What got me about this distro was that after I had paid for version 2.8.1, they turned around and released it free to the public. I wasted my money.”
That’s just bad timing, stop making it sound like it was personal. Apple Australia has done the same to Apple users for years. It’s part of business unfortunately. I also paid for 2.8.1, do you seem me having a dummy spit cos some others got it for nothing? Nope.
For all of those complaining about the cost of Libranet, you don’t have to buy it! If you don’t like the cost then don’t buy it! Go elsewhere, try Ubuntu or whatever. If it suits you, grand, if it doesn’t, sorry no can help.
This “it isn’t free rant” is really starting to piss me off. The GPL doesn’t say Linux has to be free (as in cost), but has to be free, as in speech. I see a lot of freeloaders using Linux, who want to take, take, take and take some more, but don’t want to give back to the community. It’s the one drawback of the GPL imho.
What do I know? Well i’ve used enough operating systems in my time to have some ideas of what i’m talking about. I’m also a current 2.8.1 Libranet user. I spend a reasonably high amount of time helping other Libranet users on the forums. I’m also one of the many Libranet 3 beta testers that have been very hard at work testing for many months now. Do I bitch about it? Nope. Do I complain about the time i’ve spent testing the Libranet 3 betas? Nope. Do I get freebies – nope. And nor do I expect to get freebies.
What a lot of new Linux users aren’t understanding is that the thing that makes Linux so great is the community. They want to take, take, take, expect someone to hold their hand and help them when they fuck up or get stuck, but don’t want to spend time helping others. That’s not a community spirit.
Do I think it’s worth the money? Yes. Will I be buying a copy (even though i’m adept enough not to really need to buy it, since my system is pretty cutting edge anyways) – yes.
I’ve played with Kubuntu, and of course I know Libranet 2.8.1 pretty damn well, as well as Libranet 3 of course – and I can honestly say that Libranet 3 blows the crap out of Ubuntu/Kubuntu as a Linux distribution. For some, the very limited featureset of Ubuntu/Kubuntu is great, they don’t want choice. For others, like me, Ubuntu/Kubuntu is so barren as not to be worth the effort.
I’ll ask those that are whinging about the price stop and think for a moment – go and ask Apple or Microsoft if they’ll lower the prices of their offerings. Go on. And expect to get a ‘piss off’ response. They’re more expensive than Libranet 3, and offer a LOT less in comparison. The funny thing is, I don’t see people bitching about having to pay for Apple’s OS X or Windows XP. Of course, there’s a lot of piracy in these systems 😉
Dave
I feel for ya. That would get me as well. The only other distro I’ve paid that much for was Mandrake and Linspire. I usually purchase the personal version of SUSE.
I used Libranet a while back and loved it. I may have to pull out my ID card and purchase the student version. Libranet does an excellent job.
I am curious – how easy is it to just take 2.8 and do an upgrade with Debian Sid repositories?
Quote: “I am curious – how easy is it to just take 2.8 and do an upgrade with Debian Sid repositories?”
Well i’m doing it 😉 Well I was running a mixed system up until a few days ago, some woody (very little actually), some base Libranet 2.8.1, some stuff from the Libranet safe update archive, some from testing, some from unstable, and some 3rd party reps. Didn’t have any *real* issues. You will get the odd dependency problem, but hey, that’s Debian. It could be a lot easier if I just pinned to unstable and used that only. I like a bit of choice, so I have to make some effort to get packages working sometimes, it’s not hard, just means I have to play with apt etc to get it to do what I want.
If you’re just doing to do a straight update from Libranet to sid, no problems. You might find the excellent help by joepotter a good read:
http://forum.libranet.com/viewtopic.php?t=7705
Dave
now, i don’t know if i’m going to purchase a copy but back when i first started playing around with linux, when i was an utter newb, libranet was after half a dozen distro’s the first one to install and work out of the box, ALSA worked, printer worked, duel booted fine and away I went. i suspect that if it wasn’t for libranet actually working i probably would never have actually gotten into linux. plus yeah admin menu is really nice. i keep a copy around for when i mess up an install of something else and pooch my MBR, hasn’t failed me yet. for that matter it’s still my favorite installer.
so while i don’t know if i can recommend it to the gentoo/arch set it is to me probably the most hassle free distro
I’ve tried all the distros since RedHat 5.1. I downloaded a free version of Libranet and liked it so much that I brought a version. I’ve upgraded several times and just paid my money to go from 2.8.1 (which is now free) to version 3.0. I wanted to use a Debian system and found Libranet to be free of runs, drips and errors. Well worth the price of admission!
“In this case, what is to stop a company like AOL from building ‘AOL Linux’ with everything proprietary but the kernel?”
There is nothing to stop that, and in fact many companies do just that. TiVo for example does exactly what you suggest, and that is part of what makes the GPL a perfect license for the kernel. TiVo benefits by using the existing kernel, and many Linux companies and users benefit from the contributions that TiVo is forced to give back. Hunting in packs…
I am a happy libranet user and will buy this, it is worth it. Glad to give someone some money for hard work that benefits me.
Which kde, gnome, openoffice, kino versions does this come with ? Anyone know? Their site is not very verbose.
Libranet is, I believe, based on the to-be-released….soon (cross my fingers) Sarge. So it stands to reason that it has almost the same set of packages as Sarge with a few exceptions, two of which I can think of: Adminmenu and it uses Xorg instead of the Sarge’s X flavor. KDE 3.3.2, GNOME 2.8.x among others.
No, I don’t have the new version. Just what I gathered from various post in their forum.
Yeah, but come on Dave, you know you are a Libranet zealot. It is cool that you found what you like, but on the Libranet forums you nearly always say everything else sucks or has this or that wrong with it. The truth is that any modern Linux distro is just as newbie friendly for someone who is interested. Where I work as an admin, most of the people cannot use Win XP efficiently. Everyday I get insanely basic requests from people who do not even understand copy/paste operations. Those people are never going to use Libranet because they will not ever hear about it. Anyone with a little interest can figure out how to install an nvidia driver or configure a wifi card (most distros do this brainlessly). To charge $90 for this is ridiculous. I agree, they are allowed to do so…but they are dooming themselves to obscurity. $45 and I would consider it…I don’t want to lie about being disabled and pay $69.00. In the end Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Yoper, Peanut Linux, Fedora, and the free download Mandrake or Xandros are all just as good and just as newbie freindly.
z1xg wrote:
“In the end Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Yoper, Peanut Linux, Fedora, and the free download Mandrake or Xandros are all just as good and just as newbie freindly.”
It’s amazing that you can say that without even having tried Libranet 3.0.
There’s a big difference between “the zealot” Dave and you. He actually HAVE used Ubuntu and other’s, you have NOT used Libranet 3.0….
And furthermore. I have worked with Ubuntu, SuSE, Xandros (I have bought both Xandros and Linspire), and nothing comes close to Libranet 3 in my book. The new installer is wonderful, adminmenu is the best admintool I’ve seen. Only Yast can compete as I see it.
You’ll get 3d drivers for both nVidia & ATI. You get Flash, Java, RealPlayer and more.
Don’t diss LN as a product just because you are pissed about the price. Diss the price if you want, but be fair…
I know you from IRC and you have NEVER talked about LN like this before…. I think it’s tragical..
— Vecc
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=324&slide=1
_I’ve played with Kubuntu, and of course I know Libranet 2.8.1 pretty damn well, as well as Libranet 3 of course – and I can honestly say that Libranet 3 blows the crap out of Ubuntu/Kubuntu as a Linux distribution. For some, the very limited featureset of Ubuntu/Kubuntu is great, they don’t want choice. For others, like me, Ubuntu/Kubuntu is so barren as not to be worth the effort._
Dave, what specifically do you mean by limited featureset in Ubuntu/Kubuntu?
I’ve been using Debian and Debian derivatives since about ’99 or 2000 (Libranet –> Testing –> Unstable –> Mepis –> Unstable –> Kubuntu) and I haven’t found Ubuntu to be “limited” in any significant sense when compared to Debian. It’s true, as someone else here pointed out to me the other day, that Ubuntu’s installer and kernel doesn’t support all of the filesystems which plain-jane Debian does out of the box, but narrower support for achitectures and filesystems is one of the tradeoffs which allows for the time based release schedules and 18 month support commitment. It’s not all things to all people, but its marketed as a desktop distro and the vast majority of desktop users have no reason to care what file system is being used.
Are there any limitations in userspace relative to Debian proper?
>>In this case, what is to stop a company like AOL from building ‘AOL Linux’ with everything proprietary but the kernel?
Nothing, that’s why people have joked for years that one day MSFT will ship a version of windows that’s Linux based.
Do keep in mind though the difference between open source and GNU. I believe if something is even made using GNU software such as gcc and such then the product too must be free and open source.
So to be all proprietary but the kernel I think they’d have to build their own ide, compiler, and so on.
This of course is from my limited understanding.
“Do keep in mind though the difference between open source and GNU. I believe if something is even made using GNU software such as gcc and such then the product too must be free and open source. So to be all proprietary but the kernel I think they’d have to build their own ide, compiler, and so on.
“This of course is from my limited understanding.”
It definitely is from your limited understanding. Software compiled with gcc does not have to be GPLed or open-sourced, only if it uses libraries that are open-source.
…uses libraries that are open source, whose license requires that such code be released. This does not include LGPL or BSD libraries.
Libranet was the distro that got me started with linux. It was easy to install, and one of the few that I’d tried that would work correctly with my video card. Of course, it was only 29.99 then (I think).
Will we see Libranet for Mac ??
I would love to try it!
I doubt it, we’ve had a few people ask, but in reality I don’t think the demand is there. And then there’s having the ability to test a release as well. With Mac ownership at 3-4%, whilst PC ownership is obviously much larger, it’s difficult to test a release.
Dave
I remember trying out Libranet a couple years ago and thinking it was a godsend. The installer was fantastic, it was probably the only distro I had tried besides SUSE that could actually set up video automatically and correctly. It was ridiculously easy to set up printing and cameras, everything worked…as long as you didn’t stray outside the boundaries.
I eventually bought a newer machine that Libranet and it’s older kernel didn’t like very much. Ubuntu does pretty much everything just as well, but if I had to set up a bunch of client machines I’d probably just stick with something I know would be rock-solid, even if it is a little surprisingly pricey…
Quote: “Everyday I get insanely basic requests from people who do not even understand copy/paste operations. Those people are never going to use Libranet because they will not ever hear about it.”
Yes. And they won’t be the target audience for any Linux distribution I might add. So don’t target out Libranet thanks.
I firmly believe that Libranet is the best, for a variety of reasons. You could say i’m a zealot, or you could say that i’m very happy with my choice of Linux distribution. I’ve tested Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Libranet 2.8.1, Debian Woody, Libranet 3 betas and I know which one is the most complete and best. Call me biaised if you want.
There are many areas where Debian woody is extremely weak now. Whilst Debian fart asses around with Sarge, other Debian based Linux distributions are moving on. Ubuntu/Kubuntu is weak in many areas in my eyes, but to many it’s the darling of Linux. I guess each to their own!
People just don’t understand what ‘free’ means in the GPL, and they expect a free ride. I’m well and truly sick of people like you bitching about the price of software. Others work hard to make a polished distro and then you kick them in the teeth and bitch and carry about the price.
People will happily pay for Windows XP, which has fuck all software that comes with it, but balk at paying for a quality Linux distro. I’m really sick of hearing this shit about “it must be free”, or “it’s too pricey”. No ones making you buy it, if you don’t see any value in Libranet then don’t buy it! I think it’s worth the money, so do others.
Dave
I’d gladly try out the new Libranet 3.0; problem is that I
a) don’t have a credit card (rather old-fashined, I know), and
b) am living in Europe, so it’s not available to buy it in a store.
2.81 sadly will not work for me, ’cause I need kernel 2.6 for the hardware.
Tried (K)Ubuntu 5.04 – it does break the compatibility with Debian, which is not a very wise move in my eyes, and so, after having seen its merits (and glitches) finally I ended up with Debian Sarge … where I have to google around for hours to find out at last for example that the reason the sound doesn’t work with the new kernel is that the Alsa-Packages simply had not been installed … (and that’s quite an achievement for a definitely non-geek person) …
So I can appreciate the lot of work which goes into making a distribution, and frankly think that discussion about the price is a non-issue, in this case at least. Especially as we have so many alternatives in every respect, with and without cost, so everyone can go with his preferences.
Ned – I’m in the same boat. No credit card, and I live in Australia. Thankfully, some very kind fellow Libranet users and friends have offered to order my copy on my behalf when they order theirs! Is that not cool or what?
Not having a credit card isn’t old fashioned btw, it’s telling the banks where to stick it.
I would email Jon & Tal – [email protected]. Explain your situation. They’re very reasonable guys. I feel very confident that they’d be able to work something out for you. You could always do a money order and post it to them by snail mail. I reckon that’d work!
Dave
Thank you for your suggestion – hadn’t thought of that.
If I lose my fight with Sarge (which looks promising at the moment, but cost me about 2 weeks of my life up to now) I’ll email libranet.
> Not having a credit card isn’t old fashioned btw, it’s telling the banks where to stick it.
Have to agree – sad state of affairs that it has come to that …
Greetings to the opposite side of the world (I live in Austria)
Alles beste!
Dave