Submitted by A review of RR64 Linux, a distribution based on Gentoo with Xgl included. “While I will probably never move completely away from the Debian system, I think I have found a winner in RR64. I get along quite nicely with the Gentoo portage system, and I have found the Gentoo community extremely helpful and the documentation both on the DVD and online to be extensive and answer all questions I have had very clearly and concisely.”
Very nice.. lots of distros starting to come out with Xgl The Kororaa Live cd ver. 0.2 wich will be also coming out today or tommorow.
Xgl works very good, its stable, functional and really add something to the term “desktop usability”.
Edited 2006-04-04 18:16
I learned about this distro after doing some research into different AMD64 versions of Linux that I wanted to try out – after all, I really should be trying to leverage the power of my 64 bit processor and I wasn’t getting that from Libranet Linux. It turns out that the only ones I could find that were made for the AMD64 processor that were based on the KDE environment were RR64 (Gentoo based), Kubuntu Linux (Debian based), and SUSE 10 (RPM based).
Also Frugalware (Slackware based) has AMD64 version (binary packages optimized for x86-64) and it supports Xgl & Compiz for GNOME and XFCE, but not yet for KDE. Frugalware uses the pacman package manager from Arch Linux for installing packages and resolving dependencies. There are also some GUI frontends available for pacman.
RR64 sounds like a very cool distro. Too bad I find compiling packages from source way too slow. 🙁
too slow? whhhhat?
I rebuilt my computer this weekenend from scratch(30 meg boot cd)
and built it from the ground up (amd64 gentoo)
It only took 3 hours to get to boot the kernel to where I could emerge into the right environment!
After that
emerge gnome && emerge mozilla-firefox
and I slept woke up (6 hours later)
and it was still compiling, but then 4 more hours and it was done!
Ok maybe I’m being a tad sarcastic. but it was much faster than the last computer I was asked to install gentoo onto.
4 weeks of compiling for a old imac 200mhz from stage 1
My favorite part is, that you can browse the internet on a different console using links while it compiles
One of the nice things about RR64 is that it has a ton of packages already compiled and working. So you really shouldn’t have to do much compiling – just the really uncommon stuff. And of course the updates.
And of course the updates.
Exactly.
You can still use your computer while the updates are compiling. Compiling from source isn’t as painful as it may seem.
By the way, I have limited experience with Ubuntu, but it seemed like only security updates are backported to older releases. Getting new stuff seems to require using 3rd-party repositories or installing the new release. Is this really the case?
I don’t have much experience with Ubuntu either, but I found this in the /etc/apt/sources.list file. I assume it has what you want.
## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the ‘backports’
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features.
## Also, please not that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
I’m glad to see someone advocating for Frugalware. I’ve yet to try it.
I’m curious, how does it differ from Arch?
Differences between Frugalware and Arch?
Frugalware is based on Slackware, Arch on Crux.
Frugalware is made in Hungary, Arch in Canada.
Frugalware has 2 installation CDs (or 1 DVD), Arch has 1 installation CD.
Both distros advocate the Keep It Simple ideal but Frugalware is, IMO, a bit easier to install & set up. If you install all the packages in Frugalware installation CDs (or DVD), you should be able to boot into a fully working desktop Linux system.
!!!
Right!
You can also try “Underground Desktop” ( http://www.ludos.org/ ) is a GNU/Linux distro targeted at the desktop user, based on Arch Linux. It is easy to install, and the kernel is i686 optimised for modern processors. It is also quite cute and the default desktop is KDE. A “Desktop ready” version of Arch Linux, more or less…
As for RR4/RR64, which is the topic here, I first tried it about half a year ago, and I found it really terrific.
It is also a distro made in Italy, as “Underground Linux”. An instalable LiveDVD that is also “Desktop ready” and very cute, with a nice background in each new edition.
Now it’s ‘niche’ has got more competition, with “Kororaa” ( http://www.kororaa.org/ ), and “Gentoo 2006 LiveCD” ( http://www.gentoo.org ) itself, which are both instlable liveCDs.
But I think RR4/RR64 is still ahead!
!!!Questi spaghetti sono diaboli. Magnifico laboro ragazzi!!!
The surprises never finish though… there is a cute and also quite ‘Desktop Ready’ Distro based on RR4/RR64, but is i686 optimised for modern processors, with GNOME and Reiser4-enabled. It is called “Phaeronix” ( http://phaeronix.net/ ). And guess where it comes from…? Egypt. But you can use it in Englis h ansd Arab.
Last, but not least: there is a very good distro based on Gentoo and others aswell, with Gnome and “only GPL -free as freedom- software”. It comes in Spanish and English, and it is optimised for 486, 686, Amd64, AthlonMP, Duron-Athlon, Intel64, Pentium3, and Pentium4 CPUs.
There is an ISO image for each one of the versions and also a LiveCD and a VivoCD.
And guess what…??? Apparently is de Distro that uses and recomend Mr. Richard Stallman himself!!!
The “Official Release date” will be the 11th of April, and it looks that with the with the pressence of Mr Stallman…
The last version has just been released and it is called “UTUTO-XS 2006” ( https://www.ututo.org/ )
” El cono Sur avanza, boludos
”
What means all that? that the quick and ‘difficult’ distros Slackware and Gentoo are getting really “Desktop Ready”, cute, with nice graphics (XGL), easy, and still quick…
Any of those distros could be used for anyone as a Desktop PC OS. They are cute, quick, useful, ergonomic and easy. For a newbie in computers it would be easier to learn and master one of these than starting from cero to learn Windows…
Who says tha Linux is not Desktop ready???
!!!
Edited 2006-04-05 15:34
Interesting comment about moving certain windows. I know what he means and I’m not sure why exactly that was like that but at any rate, I just updated to the newest CVS package (at least on the Shadowhand repo for Arch Linux) and this seems to be fixed. So, for anyone else suffering from the same effect, try updating to the newest CVS release of XGL.
Oh also, you can hold Alt+Click/Drag a window if upgrading is not an option. It’s a little annoying, but it was a temporary solution. Seems to be resolved, though.