Ladislav Bodnar writes “Libranet GNU/Linux, a commercial Linux distribution based on Debian, has been given increasingly positive coverage in Linux media. Its recipe for success is simple – it attempts to remedy some of the often cited shortcomings of Debian proper, by providing a simple installer, user-friendly system configuration tools and up-to-date selection of software packages. Combine that with a friendly user community and you have a winner. Let us investigate what Libranet is about and why you should give it a serious thought when choosing your Linux distribution.” Read the rest of the review at Distrowatch.
Distrowatch: Libranet 2.7 – Debian Made Easy
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Adam Scheinberg
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download libranet 2.0 (free) and install it, and update it to sid!!!
and u have an cutting edge desktop distor for free..
I’ve used libranet for a long time. Best linux distro I’ve used and I experiment all the time.
‘download libranet 2.0 (free) and install it, and update it to sid!!! ‘
–what is ‘sid’? thx
Libranet often gets overlooked but it shouldn’t. It is easy to install, detects hardware better and more reliably than Xandros and contains far more applications while costing far less. Technical support from John and Tal is friendly and quick. Above all, this distro is stable. I would strongly recommend it to anyone.
sid is Debians Unstable branch used to integrate new packages into the debian system. even though sid is called unstable, there is extensive tessing in the experimental branch and by the time you get to sid you have a distrobution that is as stable as any other distro out there….you just don’t have the “DEBIAN Stable” which is more ROCK than ROCK.
I don’t understand why Libranet, Xandros or Lycoris always wants you to buy the CD? Why not also a (paid) downloadable version?
I understand that for “Dial up” users, downloading is not an option. But for “high speed” internet users, it is very tempting to order on line and get it in the next two hours to try. I know that ordering online, wait ten days, maybe in addition have to go to the post office to get it, is not very appealing to me.
In addition to that, download would probably be cheaper for these companies.
Also Xandros, Lycoris or Libranet are not available through “main” retail store (“Compusa”, “BestBuy”…) and it is understandable (these retail store would probably charge for that). So their visiblity is pretty weak.
In other word, all these companies might provide a good technical product, but I seriously doubt about the marketing strategy.
The problem with grabbing Libranet Essentials (2.0) and updating to Sid is that (a) being the “unstable” branch of Debian, many times that is a very accurate description of Sid…stuff breaks… (b) you don’t get the latest-and-greatest (x)adminmenu.
While for long-time *N?X users and administrators, (x)adminmenu isn’t a neccessity as they know the CLI tools to do the job, it’s nice to have (most) all those tools already bundled together in one little toolkit right at your fingertips…
…plus, if everyone just grabs Libranet Essentials and updates to Sarge or Sid, then Tal and Jon don’t get paid for the awesome work they’re doing and later evolutions of the magnificent distro that is Libra won’t happen…
…I happily paid for my copy of 2.7…and have every intention of paying for my copy of every successive version of Libra that comes out…
Actually, Libranet does offer a downloadable paid version.
You just have to look for it…if you go to their page and click on download, then “Order the 2.7 Download Here,” you are e-mailed with a login, password, and registration number which work for 1 download of the ISOs of both disks.
https://libranet.com/cgi-bin/down_order.cgi“>Order
I bought my copy of Libranet 2.7 as a download. Just so you know, there is no price reduction for buying the download, and they don’t officially support the purchased download.
It’s still by far the best distro I’ve ever used, though.
I beg to differ, MikeT.
It clearly states on the down_order page that the paid download version of 2.7 includes the 1 year of support (yeah, non-Libra users…you read that right…365 days of support for $60…and a great distro on top of that…)
In addition, I purchased the ISO 2.7 as I didn’t want to wait for CDs to be shipped to me…registered my copy, and have submitted support requests that are recieved and get timely, informative, and polite responses…
…not like my boxed copy of RedHat 7.3 that I spent 3 hours on the phone with 4 of their techs and they still couldn’t figure out my issues…
http://libranet.com/support.html
On this page it says there is no support for the download version. Of course, now I realize that they are probably referring to 2.0, not 2.7. They should clarify that.
Thanks for pointing that out!
“being the “unstable” branch of Debian, many times that is a very accurate description of Sid…stuff breaks…”
I would echo Deb-Man’s comment – Debian “unstable” is plenty stable enough for a geek’s desktop. I’ve used Sid exclusively on two machines for several months, and only once has anything been broken out of maybe100 apt-get upgrades (although it wasn’t trivial – a typo in a symlink to a library stopped *all* C++ code from working. There was a fix on the mailing list the same day).
I think Debian “unstable” has at least as much QA as most other distros’ final releases. It certainly whups ass on my Windows98 partition for stability.
SID does not seem mactn unstable exactly. Seems SID has development packages as well. When I installed Woody and then changed my sources to Unstable, and did a dist-upgrade I had KDE 2.2.2.
Where do I the URL for the sources for SID?
How ‘pure’ are Libranet’s Gnome and KDE implementations? Is it like generic Gnome and KDE, or has it been screwed with like some other distros do?
Also, how much of a pain in the ass will it be to update Libranet to KDE 3.1 once it is released ?
Darius: WRT KDE and GNOME, they are just like the stuff you download from CVS.
It shouldn’t be much of a problem to update to 3.1 since it uses apt. Just find a deb source file somewhere on the net and put it in your /etc/apt/sources.conf then you can pick it out in the Synaptic package manager or install it from the command line.
No matter what distribution I try, I always end up pulling out the Libranet 2.0 CD and going back to it. Then I do a few updates and I’m good to go. The 2.0 cd is perfect for a minimal Linux install as well.
“SID does not seem mactn unstable exactly. Seems SID has development packages as well. When I installed Woody and then changed my sources to Unstable, and did a dist-upgrade I had KDE 2.2.2.”
No, Sid and unstable really are two names for the same thing, which still doesn’t have KDE 3, although that supposedly is going to change after one of the packagers finishes exams or something. They were originally going to wait until the gcc 2.95 to 3.2 transition was done, but I think they changed their mind. There unofficial apt sources that have KDE 3, but not in Sid.
Many people here probably know this, but the Debian releases are named after characters from Toy Story.
Currently:
Stable = Woody
Testing = Sarge (the green plastic army man)
Unstable = Sid (the bad kid next door who tortures toys).
When Sarge becomes Stable, they will need a new name for the next release, but Unstable is permanently called Sid
Thanks for the clarification. The transition to 3.2 seems to be taking a long time. This also probably explains why Xandros etc still use KDE 2.2.2.
The transition to 3.2 seems to be taking a long time.
Indeed it does, but that is probably because all software has to compile and run with it on all the platforms that debian support. The way i see it, this multi platform attitude is both their greatest strength, and greatest weakness.
This also probably explains why Xandros etc still use KDE 2.2.2
No, KDE 3.x works just fine with gcc 2.95. The only benefit gcc 3.2 has regarding KDE is speed improvements. But in my experience KDE 3.x is much faster than 2.2.2, even when compiled with gcc 2.95.
I think Xandros using kde 2.2 is a serious mistake as it is (almost) unsupported, and KDE 3.x is supposed to have a long life span. And all releases with the same major number is supposed to be both source and binary backwards compatible.
Very Nice Review. Very well written but then the author is
a proffesional writer.
A couple of nits though.
” Following fast on the heels of Woody, there were milestone releases of new Debian-based distros – Lindows 3.0, Xandros 1.0, Knoppix 3.1, and Libranet 2.7.”
both Knoppix and Libranet predate Sarge’s release, so they are not new Debian-based distros that suddenly
appeared with it’s release. Lindows and Xandros yes.
” you can switch the display to a number of other installed window managers including WindowMaker, Enlightenment, Fluxbox, Blackbox, Sawfish, FVWM2, QVWM, XFce, KDE 3.0.3 or Gnome 2.0.1.”
Gnome, Kde,Xfce are Desktop Environments, and not just
Window Managers, which is why they chew up more resources.
I really like Libranet’s Pricing. Xandros should clone it
if they were smart.
Thanks for great review. Libranet deserves more exposure.
oops,forget to put my moniker on last post praising
the review.
…..
Just a brief note that the last remaining bug before the
transition to gcc 3.2 could begin has apparently been fixed. There is still a huge undertaking ahead but at least nothing is holding back starting it.
This is a good thing for anyone using Debian or Debian based distros.
Debian realy need this kind of distribution, but …
look at their gui
http://www.distrowatch.com/images/screenshots/libranet-amnetworking…
Is it possible to download the packages using apt-get without installing them? If so, how do I go aboout doing it? I want to download them and burn to a CD so they can be installed on PC with no internet access.
Can someone point me in the right direction?
Thanks
if you are upgrading from libranet 2.0 and you want to go to Sid, you can change to unstable in /etc/apt/sources.lst and type:
apt-get -d dist-upgrade
This will download the packages and not install them. They will be located in the standard area that your distro uses (debian uses /var/cache/apt/archives).
make an iso of those and burn it…you’re good to go.
From the apt-get help:
Commands:
update – Retrieve new lists of packages
upgrade – Perform an upgrade
install – Install new packages (pkg is libc6 not libc6.deb)
remove – Remove packages
source – Download source archives
build-dep – Configure build-dependencies for source packages
dist-upgrade – Distribution upgrade, see apt-get(8)
dselect-upgrade – Follow dselect selections
clean – Erase downloaded archive files
autoclean – Erase old downloaded archive files
check – Verify that there are no broken dependencies
Options:
-h This help text.
-q Loggable output – no progress indicator
-qq No output except for errors
-d Download only – do NOT install or unpack archives
-s No-act. Perform ordering simulation
-y Assume Yes to all queries and do not prompt
-f Attempt to continue if the integrity check fails
-m Attempt to continue if archives are unlocatable
-u Show a list of upgraded packages as well
-b Build the source package after fetching it
-c=? Read this configuration file
-o=? Set an arbitary configuration option, eg -o dir::cache=/tmp
See the apt-get(8), sources.list(5) and apt.conf(5) manual
pages for more information and options.
This APT has Super Cow Powers.
Thanks for the tips.
I actually did a minimal install from Debian Woody, then using apt-get to the latest KDE 3.0.5 among other things. I am still learning as I am new to Linux.