“It seems as if a new Linux-based operating system is born every day, with each facing the challenge of justifying its existence in a field that’s already rather crowded with mature Linux distributions boasting active user bases and organized bodies to back them. But one relatively young Linux distribution worth keeping an eye on is Foresight Linux, a desktop-oriented distribution that hit its 1.0 release milestone at the end of January. What sets Foresight apart from the rest of the fledgling distro pack is the software management framework on which its built.”
Nothing special, according to the eWeek article. Who’s next?
The article could have been structured in a better way. I ended up scanning through to end, asking myself, “So, what’s the distinctive feature of this dist?”
* Two CDs for no reason. The initial installation could do perfectly fine without some packages like, for example, Tetex.
* The longest Linux installation I encountered in my life. (Yes, I have dealt with Anaconda back when I played with Red Hat Linux, and it wasn’t so painful.) Wildly inaccurate time estimate compared with other installers.
* The dreaded Network Manager cannot cope with static IP (as was the case for me with Feisty Herd 3 development release). The network setup applet does not change anything though the required info is entered there. I don’t know how to configure network manually (well, I do in case of Ubuntu, but this seems to have a different system.)
* Super nice looks out of the box. I wish Ubuntu were looking that way.
* Reasonably fast, subjectively feels a tad slower than Feisty Herd 3.
* Can I manage packages graphically? Haven’t figured it out yet. The app that does “maintenance and updates” does not seem to display a package list or anything like this.
“Can I manage packages graphically? Haven’t figured it out yet. The app that does “maintenance and updates” does not seem to display a package list or anything like this.”
Can anyone confirm this?
I believe that the package management systems graphical interface is handled through a web interface. I have not used Foresight so I can not confirm but that is the idea I got from reading an artical over at Distrowatch.
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20070129
+1 for the looks. Everything including fonts in this screenshot looks better than on default ubuntu desktop.
http://distrowatch.com/images/screenshots/foresight-1.0.png
I wish Ubuntu people took time to make their fonts pretty out of the box
I wish Ubuntu people took time to make their fonts pretty out of the box
All you have to do to get fonts like these is to open the Font settings dialog and remove hinting (while keeping anti-aliasing on).
I do agree with you, though, this should be the default setting. I also much prefer fonts like this…IMO that makes them on par with OSX fonts.
You know, I tried everything to make fonts look good, even installed hacked freetype libraries, but with no luck. Fonts always get extra bold and some characters mix with others. Cannot even touch OSX quality
Well, if you install stock Ubuntu and do the trick I’ve indicated, you’ll have OSX-quality rendering…of course, it helps if you also install Mac fonts (such as Lucida Mac)! Check these out:
http://www.osx-e.com/downloads/misc/macfonts.html
Wow, thanks a lot! Definitely gonna check this out!
Note: as is the case on OSX, you get better results with higher resolutions (at 1024×768 or less, the fonts look a bit too fuzzy for me, but above that they have very pleasing shapes – the best being at 1600×1200).
Yeah you can manage the packages graphically.. even over the internet!
It has a web based interface for configuration, package management and log viewing.
Theres a screenshot in the distrowatch review: http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20070129#review
The problem is, when I launch this utility, I have only one section on the left which is “Local User Management”, and nothing like “Package Search” etc.
This may be a side effect of the failure of the Network Manager to configure the system corectly with a static IP address.
Can you get out to the network at all?
How far?
If the system can’t make a connection over the web to an external site that has the catalog that may be why you only get local user management.
If all else fails:
ifconfig eth0 nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn (your fixed IP number)
route add default gw rrr.rrr.rrr.rrr (Your router’s IP number)
Sorry, no pictures. (;
Don’t tell me you didn’t see it coming?
Browser: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows CE; PPC; 240×320)
“A distro a day keeps adoption away”.
No. Not really. ISV’s never going to target anything but the most popular distros. Really, the only desktops they would consider targeting are SLED and RHEL’s desktop offerings, and *maybe* Ubuntu LTS and Debian.
Distro’s with 6 month release cycles, no matter how many or how few, are really beyond the ken of most commercial ISVs.
Other distros and their users will simply have to fend for themselves. The software will work on them. But those users cannot expect to be catered to.
That’s another factor encouraging distros not to stray *too* far from everyone else.
From the standpoint of adoption, the only thing that is really important are the very most popular distros. Beyond that, it doesn’t really matter if there are 10 other distros, a hundred, or a thousand.
The existence of Lynx, Links, Elinks, and Dillo, don’t seem to have hurt Firefox adoption because “nobody” knows or cares about them. (Alternative browser lovers, please note the quotes.)
Foresight Linux uses GNOME exclusively, doesn’t it?
That’s one distro I won’t be watching, for precisely that reason.
(No flames intended – I wouldn’t expect GNOME lovers to be hot on KDE distros either.)
I prefer KDE as well but focusing on a single DE might work in the distribution’s favor.
I prefer KDE as well but focusing on a single DE might work in the distribution’s favor.
Or it may not! 😉 That’s the great thing about Linux, and gives the lie to the “too many distributions” argument – you can pick one that’s most suitable for YOUR needs, whether that means using KDE, or GNOME, or both, or something else, not the one that the “Linux Corporation” thinks you want.
So you like KDE and you won’t be using this distro for that reason.
Why did you feel it necessary to tell us? Whose life, precisely, is enhanced by the knowledge that some dude called twenex uses KDE? Why not do something more productive with your time? Or at least write a comment that contributes to the general human good in _some_ infinitesimal way?
Why not do something more productive with your time? Or at least write a comment that contributes to the general human good in _some_ infinitesimal way?
You could do the same yourself.
As much as I try to enjoy Linux, it’s very hard to get with and stick with it… Always new “flavors” coming out that are in some way not compatible with something else another distro did… it gets very old. I wish there could be less “desktop” attempts, and more unification to create a single complete distro. (K/X/Edu/U)buntu comes the closest from my perspective because there is so much online help, both in user wiki’s and in real-time application through IRC or whatever. But how long is this going to last? I remember years ago when I was more into Linux then I am now that you could almost set your watch to who had the best desktop experience (SuSE / Mandrake), yet on the surface it was all canned KDE or something older.
Why is it honestly so hard for Linux to get their “default system” going. It doesn’t have to fill everyones needs, but it needs to be complete from the get-go. I don’t mind having to install drivers, but at-least give me something better then newsgroups and mailing lists to configure stuff.
One major thing I like about Windows based systems is that whether I like how it is or isn’t, at-least it is there and working the first time I boot, and drivers are always installed in the same manner, either an setup file that doesn’t require the command line, or you can use device manager to add the files by hand.
I guess what I’m getting at is I should be able to learn and grow with my O/S, not HAVE TO GROW to use it..
Edited 2007-02-06 01:54
“drivers are always installed in the same manner, either…or…”
you fail the internal logical consistency test.
“As much as I try to enjoy Linux, it’s very hard to get with and stick with it… Always new “flavors” coming out that are in some way not compatible with something else another distro did…”
As much as I like music it is very hard to get to stick to it, always new bands with new records coming out that doesn’t sound the same as other bands. I really wish we could just create one type of music that will be made by one band that could just be liked by everyone.
Edited 2007-02-06 02:29
You are talking about a product that is designed from anothers perspective that you may or may not like, great, but it non-interactive and only short term.
Your example is much like asking your city to “pimp” the city buses just because a few people might get a zing out of it. It wouldn’t benefit the riders at all. It also doesn’t benefit the riders at all to know how the buses engine works. I also don’t think the rider should be expected to create their own bus stop, or build their own seat just to ride.
Again, this all revolves around being able to use it out of the box, while being able to change it later. When I have to configure a development system I don’t have time to compile things by hand when another system works out of the box. I’m still standing by my ‘grow with the OS, not to use it’.
“Your example is much like asking your city to “pimp” the city buses”
No its not. City buses are a public service, a linux distro is product provided by a private citizen(s) or company.
The city has a responsibility to cater for it’s residents, a linux distro has no such responsibilities.
You don’t get to tell the company how to design their product, you have the option to buy it if it suits your needs.
If you don’t like it, pick something else.
“Again, this all revolves around being able to use it out of the box, while being able to change it later.”
Your failure to pick a distro that works for you is no one’s fault but your own.
If you like the Windows works, you should probably continue using it. I’m very sorry if you feel pressure to use Linux even though you’re not ready. Some of us just get a little excited because it makes so much sense to us.
The other day, I went to a different supermarket then I normally go to. It’s an alternative supermarket catering to people who just can’t find what they want in the mainstream stores. But it’s huge and there are a lot of choices and everything was in a different place than what I’m used to. I was a bit intimidated, and it took me a lot longer than usual to do my shopping. But the ribeye was the best I’ve ever had. I think I’ll start shopping there more often. But I digress…
The desktop is not a completely solved problem. While you are comfortable and familiar with Windows, it’s obvious that there are some things you wish were easier or more reliable. That’s what people value in a desktop: ease and reliability. Anyone who tries Linux isn’t fully satisfied by Windows, but that doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily like Linux any better.
One of the reasons why the desktop isn’t solved is because it’s a rather personal thing. It’s easy for a desktop to try to do too much and get in the way of what you want to do. And it’s just as easy to do too little and leave you to guess how to do things. Every user has a different personality, which leads to a blue desktop being boring and a brown desktop being strange. That’s why it’s hard to set good defaults. Defaults are the single hardest part of designing a desktop. Harder than automatic hardware detection, software delivery, and configuration management combined.
We have lots of Linux desktops, and while many share the same repositories, package manager, and desktop environment, none of them have the same defaults. We can’t agree on which defaults are best, partly because most of us don’t like the defaults on any of them!
But we do have many things to offer. For example, although you don’t mind installing drivers, we do, and that’s why we have a framework that automatically detects your hardware and loads the appropriate drivers at runtime. Although you enjoy downloading software off the web and running its installer, we don’t, and that’s why we have one-click package management frontends and auto-update utilities. While you are satisfied by the capabilities of the default Windows install, we think that operating systems should come with a comprehensive suite of applications from the very start. And while you don’t care for relying on the experience of other users when you need help, we think that operating systems are just too complex and varied to cost-effectively support in any other way.
Maybe we’re too demanding, or maybe you’re not demanding enough. Probably both. But when you’re ready, the community will be here, and we’ll be happy to help set you up with the state-of-the-art in free software desktops. It’ll do pretty much whatever you want, but we can’t promise you’ll like the defaults!
OK I think you went overboard with what I said and lumped me into some generic windows user pot… I used to use Linux exclusively back before I started having to work for a living, and then time and budgets got in the way. I have no problem what-so-ever doing things myself, but my point is that I shouldn’t have to just to get a system running completely… Little things start adding up, some are trivial like on the last 20 systems I’ve tried various distro’s on, hardly any of them have more then the default screen resolution available. Sure I can edit the X.org configuration in a text editor and restart the x session to get them, but I don’t want to have to do it.. The time I have to dedicate to tweaks I’d rather dedication to stuff that benefit or amuse me, not “just getting it up and running”. Linux has come a HUGE way and I’m very impressed with many of the things it has, especially the Feisty Herd 3 system I’m playing with, but it’s still not as up and ready as windows.
Yes having the uber pre-detection in linux is very cool, however I still have to install my own 3d enabled drivers, I mean come on… how odd is that? I’m not saying linux has to get better for ‘me’ to use it.. I’m already using it on the side trying to get caught up with the years I’ve missed, but I work and am finishing a degree full-time while trying to manage my family, I don’t have time to keep doing things myself each and every time. You mentioned package management being “your prefered method”. I love synaptic and think it’s the coolest thing I’ve seen for software in a long time, but when I can’t use stuff that isn’t in the repo’s because their version is incompatible with a plug-in I want, it’s a hassle to find everything by hand anyways, assuming I can find it and don’t have to compile my own.
I think the focus is more on attacking my statements because I’m finding fault with a system, rather then addressing the issue that once again it’s being tauted that Linux is hitting the desktop! woo yeah! I’m very unhappy with Windows, and I know alot of people that are very unhappy as well, however, the product has to be usable for a vanilla crowd if they want desktop support.
What I really think linux needs is a simple clean cut lightweight vanilla system that works out of the box with some nice UI for complete system configuration and administration that anyone can figure out. Then you will get people porting over, and then games will start being ported, and then more people and so on..
People that don’t like Linux aren’t necessarily stupid or unable to “get it”, many just don’t have desire or time to screw with things to get their wanted tasks done. Especially when the thing is “dual boot till you are comfy”… that doesn’t work because when I need to get something going or finished now and linux needs “attention” what happens? people reboot into windows.
So much more could come of the Linux OS if people would get together and get it right for a standard platform (Portland Project?), then by all means go out and branch or fork all the distro’s you want. Don’t end up having distro X with a great config application but crappy repo interfaces, while the other has crappy config tools but great repos, while the other does neither of those well but is fast as hell.
I have no problem what-so-ever doing things myself, but my point is that I shouldn’t have to just to get a system running completely… Little things start adding up, some are trivial like on the last 20 systems I’ve tried various distro’s on, hardly any of them have more then the default screen resolution available. Sure I can edit the X.org configuration in a text editor and restart the x session to get them, but I don’t want to have to do it..
I think the problem is that it’s been too long since you’ve tried a distro. You should give the last version of Ubuntu a spin (and, btw, Ubuntu *is* the closest any Linux distro has come to being the fabled *mainstream* distro). Stuff like X not finding default resolutions is increasingly rare. I’ve been using Linux for, what, six years now, and the improvements I’ve seen are nothing short of extraordinary.
So, no, you’re not being attacked because you’re criticizing Linux, you’re being criticized because most of the faults you’re addressing have been solved – except the unsolvable, but ultimately innocuous issue of having lots of distros. This one will *not* go away, because anyone can put their own distro together and post it on their web site. However, that’s not a real issue – it’s actually one of the core principles (and advantages) of Linux.
Don’t worry, for those who don’t want to shop around there’s always Ubuntu. 🙂
I work and am finishing a degree full-time while trying to manage my family, I don’t have time to keep doing things myself each and every time.
Fortunately, you don’t have to do that anymore (especially if you make sure you have supported hardware, like you would for, say, a Mac).
I love synaptic and think it’s the coolest thing I’ve seen for software in a long time, but when I can’t use stuff that isn’t in the repo’s because their version is incompatible with a plug-in I want, it’s a hassle to find everything by hand anyways, assuming I can find it and don’t have to compile my own.
Do you have any recent examples of such a thing occuring?
OK, that was pretty good. I think I’m getting better. Linux advocacy is impossible, so it’s a fun challenge. Don’t worry, I wasn’t calling you stupid, lumping you into a category, or even responding to you in particular. I was merely responding to your totally legitimate complaints as if anything I say could change your mind. The irony is that most of my points were about how you can’t please everybody, or even anybody completely. I could have picked on anybody, but your comments were pretty good.
Linux desktops are, truthfully, pretty far from being completely tinker-free. Even at the blistering rate of progress, the out-of-the-box experience won’t satisfy the most impatient Windows users for a good 5 more years. Part of the reason is that the whole free software ecosystem is designed around rapid progress rather than creating a stable, usable product for mass consumption. For example, the Linux kernel could have a stable in-kernel API, but that would make it way harder to make aggressive improvements.
I think that eventually the stack will reach maturity, which will then allow for stability. It’s starting to happen, but very slowly. There’s still a lot of whiz-bang features to implement, and there’s still a lot of required functionality that’s missing for various reasons in and out of the control of the community. There’s numerous legal obstacles, lack of cooperation from hardware of software vendors, and not enough investment from parties that are literally making a killing off FOSS and Linux (yeah, that’s right, I’m talking about you, Google).
It used to be really hard to get Linux working properly in a Windows environment. Now it’s much easier, but as long as MS keeps a tight grip on the Exchange APIs, it will never be smooth sailing. There’s many thousands of crappy Windows applications that businesses and even engineers rely on, from the software that runs a dentist’s office to the software that programs an FPGA. Easily trillions of dollars have been invested in the Windows platform, and even if the same technology can be implemented on Linux for mere billions, that’s still a lot of money.
I just got off the phone with my sister, trying in vain to help her download a Word document she needs for school. The setup program that came with her new wireless router installed Norton Antivirus, and now her system is all fscked up. Word hangs trying to open the document, everything is much slower than it was before, and the Norton uninstaller crashed. Meanwhile she has strange (to her) system tray messages warning of a possible virus outbreak. She ended up using the MS Office for Mac 30-day trial on her friend’s iBook.
I don’t know how 90% of the world puts up with this. At least with Linux I know that there’s certain dark corners that just aren’t supported, or are a royal pain to get working. But the stuff that’s supposed to work and is set-up properly works like a charm, without fail. On Windows, just about everything is supposed to work, through a massive amount of stubborn patience and capital investment on the part of the IT industry and users around the world. However, sometimes it just doesn’t, and when that happens, it’s anyone’s guess as to why. I just can’t stand that. I get the sense you feel the same way. You’re a smart person. Isn’t it worth a tiny bit of tinkering to be able to use your computer and get on with your life?
I’ve been fooling around with Ubuntu since 6.06 and I’ve currently got Feisty installed on a 6 month old system and previously a P3 notebook… One of the features I’m talking about that caused me lots of trouble was wireless in general, but I had supported hardware so we can skip configuration for the most part, I just had had problems with wireless security (WPA). Wasn’t supported by the OS.. Anyways, that obviously working very well now out of the box, but just months ago when I had 6.06 it wasn’t. I still can’t figure out why no distro I’ve tried on this system has the x config setup right. They all display my native 1680×1050, yet no options for other resolutions and the x config doesn’t have the current resolution even listed.. how odd? I’ve got a pile of liveCD’s I’ve been playing with from the last few months, as I’ve said, most have become VERY polished. When 6.06 came out you can bet I was on the compiz irc channels getting that stuff going for fun.
Feisty is really impressing me though, but it’s still unstable when running Beryl for me (only gnome, not KDE?) New gnome control panel is nice, but it’s not finished… Synaptic is way cooler then any “insert CD” or download from website X.
An example of a recent problem I’ve had with synaptic repo incompatibility was using Pydev with the version of eclipse in the repo. Couple other plugins were fussy too. I ‘was’ able to get around it.. but it took hours of fiddling around just to get back to work. I’m not going to say I’ve not had this sort of problem in Windows, but it is something to note when people ‘come to depend on the repo’s’. Un-updating is something I’m still having a hard time grasping, mostly through the help in IRC rooms.. but again.. I honestly don’t have time for this..
I hope for Linux sake that it never unifies to the point that there isn’t a flavor for everyone, but I think a nice place to get people over is to get something everyone can easy get going out of the box. I think some level of ubergeek pride has kept things “raw” for a long time because the people enhancing the product are geeky enough to not understand the simple side of things, nor do they find it “time consuming” when things have to be done by hand because they have it all memorized.
The simplest example of how necessary this turn key solution is for the desktop users… For almost 10 years I was repairing computers and installing networks.. I kid you not that I’ve had clients (supposedly very smart doctors) that I could set my watch to that would call because they couldn’t understand that on Friday the printers got turned off, and if they needed to print something before the secretaries rolled through getting the entire place up again they had to turn it on.. I think I went to one clinic to turn on their printers for 3 months straight, $85 a pop because they didn’t want to learn or didn’t have the time to learn something as simple as flipping a switch.
Thanks to Butters for clarifying his side of things so I don’t feel quite as estranged in my thoughts on Linux. To everyone else, learn to take constructive criticism, it’s not a personal attack when people say “this is what it needs”, it’s people showing the interest you want, and trying to tell you how to seal the deal.
FWIW, I have had trouble with X configuration in Ubuntu too. The last time I installed Ubuntu (and probaby the last time I will, too), I got the farthest I have ever gotten.
As I wrote in my blog, I just don’t understand why Ubuntu is so popular. The problem I have had with X configuration is the same one I had in Debian four years ago.
However, I must take issue with your assertions that “Windows just works” or that driver installation is a cinch. Neither is the case. Windows “just works” now than it used to, but by no means is that guaranteed.
silly question but are you using the same monitor?
and if so, how old is it?
reason im asking is because monitors, keyboards and mice are the stuff thats replaced least when it comes to attachments.
and some of the really old screen do not have any plug&play data to go on, and the company that made them may have never released any info on them as they are old products that is long forgotten.
all in all, if those are the conditions, its no surprise that x.org and similar fails to detect it correctly. its better to fall back to a safe default then risk killing an old monitor because you think you have the right data…
Yeah, it’s the same monitor, graphics card. They work fine in Gentoo if I haven’t mentioned that already.
This is getting really off topic, but basically every monitor I’ve tried in the last year or so X will use the correct default LCD resolution out of the box, even when there are no options for that resolution in the x.org file. While the resolutions that are covered in the x.org file won’t be options if I wish to change resolution. This has happened on 3 notebooks dating several years old to latest and greatest, two home LCD’s, and who knows how many LCD’s I’ve gone through at work in my lab area from a previous position I had.
I’ve never had to compile my own driver, or try to figure out clever alternate devices drivers that will work. Again, that being said it’s gotten much better on both platforms, but Windows is still ahead.
I’ve never had to compile my own driver, or try to figure out clever alternate devices drivers that will work.
On Windows, neither have I; but then I have probably spent the time I would wait getting a driver to compile on Linux, figuring out why this stupid driver program won’t bleeping work on Windows. And of course since it’s not open source, I can’t fix the thing even if I weren’t a hopeless C programmer.
Swings and roundabouts.
To everyone else, learn to take constructive criticism, it’s not a personal attack when people say “this is what it needs”, it’s people showing the interest you want, and trying to tell you how to seal the deal.
Ah, you hit the hail on the head! As I said, Linux advocacy is impossible, but the best way I’ve found to sell the idea of Linux is to stop lecturing and start asking questions. What are your favorite applications? That’s the best question. People will usually tell you exactly what they want out of their computer and what they wish could be be simpler. Then you can talk about Linux on their terms, using the talking points they fed to you.
But more important is realizing when it’s not going to work for them. “Oh, so you like first-person shooters and use VPN to check your Outlook inbox from home… Don’t you wish your company ditched Outlook? It’s awful!” You can’t sell Linux to this guy, but you can get him to realize how much he doesn’t enjoy the MS lock-in.
agree to disagree
in my opinion linux is more stable than windows
are you one crack
why don’t you crawl into a whole and die, otherwise i will get some of my ***boys to cap your ass
“Linux has come a HUGE way and I’m very impressed with many of the things it has, especially the Feisty Herd 3 system I’m playing with, but it’s still not as up and ready as windows. ”
Only one thing I could point out here is There are a ton of Linux distros, so many software management methods (RPM/DEB/TGZ/rPath/Tar.ball) but none of them have a perfect integration in OS. All users who use MS products everyday just like to insert CD/DVD and install soft by “Next” click, they do not care about RPM/DEB or whatsoever. If Linux OS have such a integration, It will boost the Linux’s market up sharply. No MOre Linux Distro’s BIrthday! Let focus on the way they integrate together
the autoplay feature is a security hole like no other. its like the 200x version of forgetting a floppy in the drive when rebooting…
thanks but no thanks.
(btw, both kde and gnome have copied the “what you want to do” window that xp trows up when you insert a cd and similar)
people have a “problem” with linux distros because they (the distros) are children of the net.
one is used to microsoft only providing the os and maybe the office package, the rest is third party to be found all over the place.
with linux distros you will find most anything in a single spot. os its a kind of cultural collision.
the classical question from any linux newbie is this:
“where do i find program x for linux?”
this is because they are so used to thinking program = feature = task they want to do.
thats why people copy photoshop even if the only thing they want to do is remove the red eyes on the photos of their children.
and this is a “brainwash” thats damned hard to undo.
a human do not like to change their habits. thats why you see stuff like religion still have strength. because parents pass on their habits to their children, and social habits often include some kind of religion.
like the saying goes: get them while their young.
thats why microsoft and other companies are freaking out over the OLPC project. it goes after the children, hitting them before they have learned to equal computer with windows and its satellite programs.
but what we really need to do is to forgo the “program = featureset/taskset x” thinking. and to do that one will have to rethink the os from the ground up, uncluding trowing out every bit of software thats out there.
think about it. the “task manager” of today is really a program manager. and the programs are whats managing your tasks.
what we need is to break down the programs into tasks, and make said tasks available anywhere, at any time.
this again by breaking things down into files/objects. a mail should not need a dedicated program. you should just browse to a (virtual) folder that contains all your mails, and open one of them. this should open a window like any other that happens to load any tasks/features installed to manage mail.
the user or any admin should be able to show or hide any part of these features. and one should be able to install only those fatures that one need (with the ability to later on install more features as one need them).
you should be thinking about what files your working on, and what tasks you need to perform, not about what programs you think you need to work on said files.
Spot-on, spot-on. I could not have said it better myself, butters.
Another poster (butters, I think) said something I wish I’d read before fiddling about w/ Ubuntu last weekend: Once you’ve found a distro you’re comfortable w/, stick by it through thick and thin and don’t bother trying to acclimate yourself to other distros (especially if they’re as different as, say Slackware and SLED). I would add: ” unless and until your distro vendor goes down the tubes.”
http://shots.linuxquestions.org/?linux_distribution_sm=Foresight~*~…
This is what I would wish very much: Linux, which can be configured entirely using Web-UI. No terminal windows, no conf-file editing, no gnome/kde tools, just good and complete Web-UI. Writing CGI application could be even simpler, comparing with gnome/kde programming, so why nobody tried that?
Err there have been. It’s called Plesk/CPanel/Ensim and it absolutely sucks balls on a server. What makes you think that this would be a grand idea for a desktop/workstation?
This distro has web-based configuration…
There’s also Red Hat Network, Novell ZenWorks, and perhaps others. They aren’t free (gratis), but they’re pretty good at deploying, configuring, and updating Linux systems over a network.
Writing CGI or other less icky forms of web apps might be a little easier than using native toolkits, but not by very much (Qt Designer is getting pretty sweet). Also, most of the complexity of developing a configuration utility is in the backend. The best configuration utility for *nix I’ve ever used is SMIT (smitty) on AIX, which gained a nice web-based veneer a few years ago. There’s a Linux port they made to support HACMP for Linux, but it’s very much proprietary.
In the long run, I would like to see most system and application configuration files for Linux gradually replaced by XML files that can be parsed and edited in a standard way. Like a registry, but based on text files, the UNIX way (like gconf). Configurations are theoretically nothing more than a hierarchical arrangement of key/value pairs. User friendly configurations might be better represented by key/type/value triplets, where type specifies the kind of setting it is (boolean, integer, string, list of strings, finite options, etc.). You get the idea. Now somebody get started!
In fact, XML is sucks. It is not a human-readable format and it has overcomplicated standard, which does not allow making light-weight parser. Registry provides atomicity, and DB integrity but all unix tools should dance around text files to be sure that they are locked properly and syntactically correct.
I download it yesterday and tried to install it tonight. I selected the graphical install to try and it started up, got to a white screen and seemed to lock up my system. I had to press the power button for five seconds and power off to get out of it.
I tried playing with the text based installer a bit but got hung up on the partitioning. I have two SATA drives in the system with lots of free space on the second drive, but auto partitioning wouldn’t work. It wanted to replace the Suse installation on the first drive or the PCBSD installation on the second drive. Neither is an option I care to take.
I will probably do some more playing around before I give up on it, though. Much as I hate to admit it Suse actually looks pretty good. PCBSD is my main OS on this computer at the moment. I would like to get this thing up and running just to see what it looks like.
To be fair, I have had a number of other Distros freeze on the install, but not since I re[placed the ARI graphics card with an nVidia card
Just like other distros. It’s a Fedora with SuSE colors and Tango icons. It also features .NET applications and a new hard way to deal with packages.
Ah! Holy app folders…
I tried Foresight back when it was in 0.96, about 1.5 years ago, and experienced no problems whatsoever. Great distro, if a bit slow, but that was on a 900’er Duron, bit outdated. Only Zenwalk and Slackware would be faster on this, and SUSE10 was even slower.
Did not try to do anything special like install ATI drivers, but was happy with the allround look and default experience. This is one distro I’ll always keep in mind, together with Debian and Zenwalk. So congratulations and thanks to the team to their point release!
Only one thing, as people already pointed out before, the install takes ages and you really need patience but it’s worth it. Just go away and leave it alone for 2 hours. Maybe it didn’t hang, it just takes that long ‘protagonist’.
Updating is also no big deal from the command line, the syntax is on their homepage/wiki. The ones who like it, ENJOY.
& i didn’t find anything very special. It’s nice… & that’s all. Another distro, nothing more
Pyro9219: What You say is true
I don’t like Linux because the ideological thinking is more important than useful use (Kororaa for example & fight to not distribute drivers, that system needs to run nice 3D desktop, but ofcourse GPL is more important). Well many Linux folks say that software is most important. I say that software IS FOR people not for itself. The same is in small servers/routers market for me. I love OpenBSD because it’s clean & so easy to manage. Ofcourse when i ay that i hate Linux because the garbage, there are few thousands ppl that say that i can’t do it to be simple. Why the hell i have to make it to be simple by myself?! :S
Foresight is another Linux that show You, how many nice things You may get with Linux. To bad all of them are not simple & easy to give it to little John, so he will make it runs like he wants in 5 minuts
But well, that’s just Linux 
Edited 2007-02-06 11:09
I like its clean and fresh look and feel.
Nicer than Ubuntu.
http://shots.linuxquestions.org/?linux_distribution_sm=Foresight~*~…
Moderators jump to gun when someone posts message related to MS or critisizes linux in remote way. Mods claim the posting is not related to parent news/article.
How many posts above do you see are related to foresight linux distro? Very few. Most of those are taunting how their shiny new ubuntu is great or how my system works? It doesn’t advance or help small distro like Foresight. Put your efforts for better suggestions than self promotion of your desktop.
I installed Foresight on my Pentium D 3 GHz with 2 GB RAM and it felt slow. That’s sad. Also, some programs that I’ve gotten extremely used to (ntfs-3g, for example) aren’t available; so I had to install hundreds and hundreds of megs of development tools just to compile it (group-devel—as directed by a mod on their forum).
I went back to something simpler.
…and I’m a Distro-holic.
Hi, Tom!
I’ve been consuming distros for 10 years now. It started with my first dose of Slak. Later, I started downing Red Hats on the side. Next thing you know, I was doing *buntus and knoppies. Finally, I brewed up my own batch – Subuntivora. That’s when I realized I was beyond hope…
We’re here for you Tom!