“The folks at Libranet were kind enough to provide me with a copy of their 2.8.1 release for a review. After downloading the latest and greatest from their ftp site a few nights ago, burning the cd’s this morning, making an emergency trip to the vet during the second cd burn and eating a late breakfast, I was finally ready for the install.” Read the review by Frank Merenda.
Libranet 2.8.1 – One Of The Best Linux Distributions Ever
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
OSNews is a great site, but every once in a while your link to something is a dud. Here I get a permission denied response when I try to read the review. If linkees are going to be tetchy about it, I wish you’d give us some advance warning.
The link works perfectly for me.
The title of the review says it all. I wholeheartedly agree.
Yep, I’ve tried Red Hat and Mandrake before and always wanted to try Debian but never got to it because of the default Debian installer.
Libranet is indeed the best distro and I will be using it for a long time. I’m happy with, apt-get rules and the Adminmenu makes stuff easy. I’ve upgraded to Debian unstable and Gnome 2.4 and compiled kernel 2.4.22, so there’s not much left from the original Libranet packages (only the Adminmenu).
I am always wary of reviewers who install Linux on a laptop. The main market which Linux is being focused at is the desktop market, and it is a very hard barometre to use as to how successful a certain distro can be.
Maybe next time the person/reviewer shoudl emphasise the fact that he/she is testing the distribution and its suitability for running on a laptop.
>The main market which Linux is being focused at is the desktop market
Hmm? I thought that this was the server market…
The Kernel OLD,,KDE OLD ,Most of that OLD ,OK its work for him/her – and may be that suited already but keep update how far of Distb now
You can get Slackware more update (2.4.22,KDE 3.14 ..) and more stronger position,
First I though you going to intro a new/best -the Header sound like great but not atall,
I know many of us want to say somes but what they say need to be more check around yourself befor say The Best Linux Distributions Ever (One of)
If just One of then you can’t fully say The Best Linux Disb Ever
I think this make more care of your words and make more value review here.
Is a laptop a computing appliance, computer workstation, a computer server, a plain old computer, or an unidentified computing device {UCD}?
No nedd to answer, just being sarcastic.
Knoppix 3.3 HD install > Libranet 2.8.1
Yeah this included software may be a little old, but i must say that Debian has prided it’s self on haveing stable and overall outstanding releases of software. This is usually a trade off with bleeding edge software and slightly older yet much more labored over software that is more stable. Becasue of this philosophy i would take this software package any day over slackware.
I will also say that personally i don’t wish to pay for software. I use Debian Testing, and i love it. The only software i’ve paid for is Opera, becuase i have been using Opera for the last 6 years, but have used Linux of different flavors off and on for only 4 years. Maybe in a couple of years i’ll consider buying a linux distro … oh well..
-=gabe2=- I use Debian, What do you use?
i use libranet 2.8.1, and have very easily upgraded to kde 3.1.4 as well as downloaded the 2.4.22 kernel from kernel.org, used the simple instructions for adding the new kernel from the libranet website using xadminmenu and whalla! over and done with. so chai jing yi, what’s your point? your slackware has NOTHING over libranet and most certainly NOT the installer or package management system, to be sure.
I’ve tryed Libranet 2.7 and well you can work with it but is a far from great what on earth is making then 2.8.1 so great?! Was there a quantum leap between 2.7 and 2.8.1???
Aah, toche’t
Anyway, it will be an interesting time once GNOME 2.6 is released and Mono will be feature complete 😉 hopefully Evolution 2.0 will be released by then as well.
Thats the beauty of Debian, imho, I for example have several instances of debian on vairous computers around the house, from a 2.2 potato box running a firewall to my desktop, complete with 2.6.0-test4 kernel, kde 3.2 alpha, etc…
Outdated? yes, but only when it needs to be
(Back on topic 😉 libranet looks nice & I’ll probaby buy 2.8.1 if the 2.7 thats downloading now turns out ok
Anyone is using Libranet ad a server installation ???
Adminmenu looks great for setup a server, but…
1) can I mantain Libranet upgraded automagically without broke anything ??? remember I need a server, not a desktop
2) when we’ll have Libranet 2.9, 3.0, etc my 2.8.1 ‘ll be again upgradable ???
3) there are in Libranet custom made packages, or are all original debian packages (I’m not speaking of AdminMenu 😉
I always laugh when I see these things, most GUI admin tools seem (aka Yast and Adminmenu) are going to be deprecated by KDE or GNOME configuration methods… Debian is free, will include all the software you could ever need always just a command away..
Don’t get me wrong, I have been around the repostories for Sid a few times, and I have seen that most non Debian projects put on Debian-based distro’s end up in Debian at some point. For this reason, I say more power to them. It all benifits Debian in more ways then it does the project in question…
I thing that always astonishes me is that almost all Linux reviews spend most of their words on how installation worked. And if everything goes alright, then the distro gets a 10/10.
I know Windows and OSX aren’t perfect either, but putting so much emphasis on something so basic that should happen without any glitches or too much user intervention anyway shows how far Linux is from being a “consumer” OS.
Philotech
My 2c worth, really Libranet is a very NEAT debian install, but the package selection it loads when you follow the idiot defaults are a bit much
Whats more the installer achieves its wonderfull functionality and usablity without resorting to X!
My experience with 2.7 has been very positive, however I might add that the font rendering is a bit ordinary and I have not yet been able to get the nVidia driver to work properly. Small things in the grand scheme i suppose.
d
I’m awaiting mdk9.2 but libranet will soon be my pilot distro. I want a debian based distro (but not the debian hassle, thank you very much) and this one seems to stand head and shoulder above the competition
I really like Libranet, I have it installed next to eComStation, NetBSD and Slackware.
>>I know Windows and OSX aren’t perfect either, but putting so much emphasis on something so basic that should happen without any glitches or too much user intervention anyway shows how far Linux is from being a “consumer” OS. <<
Once upon a time a GNU/Linux install would take blood, tears and sweat and could only be done by the toughest of the tough, those who went through hell and came back to do it again! Just for kicks! Yes, that were the days…
No, seriously, i think that this focus on installation is a remnant of the past. If you want a taste of this, try LFS. OTOH, it is among the few individual features any distro can present. KDE, Gnome and whatnot are pretty similiar on most distributions and most times simply work.
Therefore most GNU/Linux distros are ready for showtime and the obligatory walk through the installation is a salute to the past and the inevitable focus on one of the singular traits of the distribution.
I always laugh when I see these things, most GUI admin tools seem (aka Yast and Adminmenu) are going to be deprecated by KDE or GNOME configuration methods… Debian is free, will include all the software you could ever need always just a command away..
I agree, however, these configuration tools that are included with KDE and GNOME are too Linux centric. What I would like to see is an abstraction method, like what was mentioned previously, which all configuration tools and desktop parts hook into so that rather than having to port the desktop to a particular platform, there is an Software Abstraction Layer (SAL) to that the only thing needed to be ported if another platform is going to be targeted.
This would then allow the desktop side to concerntrate explicitly on the desktop rather than the operating system it is going to run on because in the future, as people see Linux as an alternative, people will also choose to give FreeBSD or Solaris x86 ago. The above method would allow a consistant desktop environment to be available over all *BSD’s and *NIX’s.
Sure
>>The main market which Linux is being focused at is the desktop market
>Hmm? I thought that this was the server market…
Don’t hurry, it’s not so easy to define! Linus’ primary approuch to it is — as his personal desktop and he has stated numerous times that desktop market is much more interesting to him than that of server. RMS doesn’t state it plainly, but he sure doesn’t counter it’s adoption as a desktop. And it can be safely said that workstation is what concerns him the most and what he preaches all the time. And these two are the most important persons in GNU/Linux.
Sorry for bad English, I hope you can understand.
Philotech wrote:
“I thing that always astonishes me is that almost all Linux reviews spend most of their words on how installation worked.”
Reviews of linux are like a mechanic describing how is pride and joy Ford Mustang works to future mechanics. Of course, the reviewers will say their review is to possible new linux users. If this is so, then why list version numbers of programs but not explain what the program does. “Hey newbie, I have Mozilla 1.4. Are you impressed?” Unless the newbie used Microsoft Windows, got pissed off using Internet Explorer, and switch to Mozilla, newbie will not know that Mozilla is a web browser.
This review was definitely geared for someone that has already had some linux experience. The reviewer choosing the advance partitioning option proves that. Which leads us to why concentrate on the installation process? Do linux users enjoy the install process? Since many of the reviews of linux concentrate on the installation process, I suppose one can say linux users enjoy the install process.
Until linux becomes just another operating system, we will have to get used to the geekiness of linux.
I would guess that the answer to that question is YES. That’s why all review of Linux is 60% installation and 40% on the rest. Hey, you got new distro or new version of distro out almost each month (including beta and RC)!!!
So installing Linux seem to be the only fun thing Linux user do with their PC. Wow…
Then again, Windows is not better. Mabe you can last longer on the same release but you have to install Service Pack and Hotfix and windows update, ….
Mac OS X has new release each year, with a 129$ tag each time…
Nothing is perfect, it’s a question of choice and preference.
The reason such emphasis is placed on installation is because that’s the largest area that varies completely from distro to distro. They may tweak a GNOME or KDE desktop, but the installation is 100& distro-specific.
I have put Libranet on four computers over the past year.
This has involved both versions 2.7 and 2.8.1. Here are
some comments in no particular order:
INSTALLATION
Libranet installs a 486 kernel. I tend to use Adminmenu’s
kernel recompile tool to change to the actual CPU used in
the machine. I don’t really notice any speed boost, but
having done a few manual recompiles, I can say
Adminmenu’s feature is a godsend.
Libranet 2.7 was based on the newly released Debian Woody
of the fall of 2002. 2.8.1 is based on Sarge. Sarge has
considerably more software available to it, most of it is
far older than Debian’s Sid. My laptop used a 2.7 install
initially, since upgraded to Sid. Installing any KDE 3.1
application removed Adminmenu. 2.8.1 fixed the problem,
and offers Adminmenu upgrades.
PACKAGE MAINTENANCE
Sid is very nice, except when it breaks something.
Lately, they have been breaking parts of KDE with
disturbing frequency. KDE multimedia still has unmet
dependencies, making it impossible to install KDE from
Debian’s Sid for the last couple of months.
Recently, kdelibs-data refused to install because of
problems with K3B and one other application. This left
KDE unable to start on all four machines. The problem was
fixed the next day, but the laptop still wouldn’t run
KDE, even with the fix. Even with the system restored to
a point prior to the failed update, the fixed update
resulted in KDE not running on the laptop. I can see why
Libranet won’t use Sid. The laptop is sticking with
Sarge, too.
Fonts look awful on Libranet 2.7. Fonts look good on
2.8.1, a sign of where Linux has come in the past year.
Not all packages on Libranet come from Woody or Sarge.
Mozilla is listed as 1.0 in both. Libranet supplies
1.4-2. Thus, Mozilla is effectively frozen at this level
until… whenever. Sid contains 1.4-6. Ironically, Sid’s
version of Mozilla is a bit more stable than Libranet’s.
Libranet runs KDE 3.1.3. Sarge remains at 2.2.2-14 (Woody
is a -12). KDE has fixed some security flaws and released
3.1.4. These reside in Sid, but like I said earlier, you
upgrade at your own risk. Users of Libranet might want to
consider going to KDE’s Debian repository for updates.
OpenOffice is another example. Sid has 1.1. Libranet has
1.0.3. So does Sarge. Woody doesn’t have it. Users of
OpenOffice, may want to look elsewhere for OpenOffice, if
using Libranet. I understand OpenOffice has its
own installer. Version 1.1 is enough improved to make
this worthwhile, but again, going outside the Sarge
repository opens you to potential problems.
I play around with many Linux distributions, the most
recent is Red Hat 9. Libranet and Debian offer a broader
selection of software, a better install, and despite the
problems, a better maintenance system. Libranet is not
“bleeding edge,” and in general I like it that way.
Note that Windows is also painful when it comes to installation. Not only does it not install on an extended partition, I had to reboot a zillion times before the install stopped hanging on me. Windows (XP Pro at least) has a text installer! Something like this would get a score worse than Debian.
It has a text installer available, but defaults to a graphical one when booting of the CD, or running setup from the CD. The only way to get the text installer is to write a floppy image and then boot off of that floppy.
And to continue with Windows:
– It has lots of cluttered control panels. Why would you turn Opaque Move/Resize or Anti-Aliasing off?
– If the Registry isn’t broken you end up in the DLL hell.
– The start menu isn’t even organised by category!
– The central installation system (MSI) isn’t widely used.
– It’s driver support is lacking and not PnP: after reinstall you need to install tens of drivers by hand. If you have the luck to have a CD, otherwise you will need to search through all kinds of driver sites requiring registration so they can spam you 😉
Then I believe Libranet can only be lots better than that!
“It has a text installer available, but defaults to a graphical one when booting of the CD, or running setup from the CD. The only way to get the text installer is to write a floppy image and then boot off of that floppy.”
Not really. The “main” part of the installation is graphical,
that’s true, but it’s also true that 60% of the info
that the installer asks from you (destination drive, creation
and deletion of partitions, accepting the EULA, selecting
whether you are doing an installation, repair job or upgrade)
comes during the “stage 1” of the installation, which is
in text mode.
It always amazes me that a normal user is supposed to read
the bottom line in that ugly blue text screen and follow
those instructions that have absolutely nothing in common
with “the windows way” of interacting with a PC.
“Press F8 to accept the EULA — F3 to exit — F1 for bluescreen — F2 for misterious total lockup”
The normal user is not supposed to install Windows, it comes pre-installed on most desktop PCs.
Not to mention accelerated hardware support for every video card you can buy at Best Buy or CompUSA. And you don’t search through “driver sites”, you go the manufacturer’s site. Since they support Windows, they have the drivers available. And don’t forget that you have a good chance of needing to recompile your kernel to support some new hardware. ACPI anyone?
And as far as registration and spam, use mailinator.com. Just like Linux, you can’t blame Windows for your own stupidity.
Hello all, I’m the author of the main article.
CooCooCaChoo, I installed Libranet on a laptop because that’s what I have for my test system. I only own one desktop, and that’s my backup and network server. Also, laptops are supported less in Linux than desktops. If you can get your laptop up and running smoothly, a desktop should be no problem.
Chai Jing Yi, I stated in my article that some of the packages were outdated, and specified that it was because 2.8.1 was released before those packages were updated. I also stated that you can easily update your system to the latest goodies with apt-get. So, uh, what’s the point of your rant?
Iges, Peter Besenbruch made a great post on what’s new with Libranet 2.8.1. Thanks Peter, great post!
Someone asked if you can use Libranet as a server. Yes, that’s easy. Libranet is based on Debian, so you can just install the packages you need in order to run your server. You can also change your sources.list file to keep your server up to date with a specific Debian version.
Most of the packages in Libranet are straight from the Debian archives. The notable exception is the Admin menu, of course. Libranet is 100% compatable with Debian.
Also, someone commented about the Xadmin menu being outdated eventually. That’s probably true, but right now that is one of the things that distinguish different distributions, how the system is managed. For example, I can’t easily get my USB storage device to automatically come up in RedHat, I have to manually go in and mount the device after loading the module. Libranet let me just clicky-clicky away and there it was. Hopefully Gnome/KDE/the others will outdate the specific distribution administration functions, but that hasn’t happened yet. Take Mandrake and RedHat’s administration tool for the X server. They are great! And I know gnome doesn’t have anything like that (I’m unsure about KDE since I don’t use it on a daily basis).
Also, I administer several servers over ssh, with no guis, so you can imagine that I’m a big fan of learning how to do things by hand. I should have mentioned that in the article. However, it’s nice to just recompile the kernel via some menus, and not have to go through all the steps by hand over and over. And administering machines is not my primary job, I’m a java developer.
That is the main viewpoint I have while doing my writeups, as a developer and end user, not as a system administrator.
Also, I chose to concentrate around the install process because that is another big thing that differs between different distributions. Also, the text based installer is enough to make some people not try Libranet, so I wanted to be certain that people knew that it really worked well. I also spent some time on the desktop, but didn’t have much to say about it besides what I put in the article, since it’s mostly the standard stuff.
Lastly, I invite everyone here to submit articles to uptime. We’re all volunteers and just do it to help people out and spread the word about different things Linux. Please email us at [email protected] if you’re interested.
Thanks for the feedback everyone, I really appreciate it.
Take care,
-Frank Merenda
“OSNews is a great site, but every once in a while your link to something is a dud. Here I get a permission denied response when I try to read the review.”
Well, we all already know the word “Slashdot’ed” for a long while. With the growing popularity of OSNeas, maybe it’s time to create a new word … “OSNews’ed”
🙂
Not to mention accelerated hardware support for every video card you can buy at Best Buy or CompUSA. And you don’t search through “driver sites”, you go the manufacturer’s site. Since they support Windows, they have the drivers available. And don’t forget that you have a good chance of needing to recompile your kernel to support some new hardware. ACPI anyone?
Okay. Maybe for some exotic hardware a recompile is needed (SuSE offers NVidia as a RPM). But are you going to tell me that it is easy to find the manufacturer site, find the driver download page, choose the right OS version, product version (how am I supposed to know a Readylink Express is in fact a Realtek 8139, for example?) download the driver, follow the wizard, find the driver you just downloaded and reboot?
It’s just that Windows is preinstalled on most computers, so that people don’t need to do this. But that doesn’t make installation easy. And why is “The normal user is not supposed to install Windows” a good reason for having “F8=continue” and “F3=quit” and “L=Remove partition”?
And as far as registration and spam, use mailinator.com. Just like Linux, you can’t blame Windows for your own stupidity.
Our laptop is from Compaq, you know. And Compaq doesn’t deliver a driver CD, you know. So I needed Driverguide.com, you know. And that requires registration, you know. Fact is that Windows didn’t support all hardware out of the box.
Our laptop is from Compaq, you know. And Compaq doesn’t deliver a driver CD, you know.
These drivers are cleverly hidden at Compaq.com. There is a link on the front page “Drivers & Support.”
Here is the link for my compaq laptop:
http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/any/na/cpq/softwareList.jhtml?reg=&cc=…
Check out the item at the bottom:
Notebook software/driver downloads CD.
And of course you can just download any of the drivers, or get the CD if you don’t have network connectivity (try the 1-800 number on the bottom of your laptop).
As for the Compex Readylink, I’m sure that it came with some documentation (unless you bought it used, and then of course it may not even work at all). So just look at your documentation for the manufacturer’s website, and go there and download the drivers.
But are you going to tell me that it is easy to find the manufacturer site, find the driver download page, choose the right OS version, product version
Yes, very easy. Particularly for a laptop, since they have a set of known components. Custom built PCs do have a little bit harder time tracking down the seperate components, which is why most people buy pre-built computers. If you buy a custom built computer, it’s your choice and you get all the hassles that come along with it.
The much-touted advangtage of Libranet is that it is easy to install Debian packages. Yes it is, but if you do a full distribution upgrade, it will both greatly mess up your menus and the installation.
I was drawn to it by the promise of an easy upgrade. I have so much as heard that debian folks just install once and just upgrade it every once in a while, never needed to do a reinstall. I have not found this to be true, if you really care for a stable system that doesn’t have all kinds of trash around.
In the past two months, as a part of a private piece of research into Linux usability, I tested about 15 distributions. Mandrake, Suse and Xandros remain by far the easiest distributions for most folks. Mandrake was additionaly the best suited to a server role of the above. It made it very easy for new admins to set up a web server, ftp server, nsf, samba etc, while providing all the power of CLI to the new user.
I think when people distort their claims to bolster a given distribution, they are failing to fight for the greater cause of Linux adoption. Once your credibility is damaged in the eyes of a new user, you will never get it back.
Is Libranet 2.8.1 decent? Sure and very useful. But the admin menu is not ergonomic. Is it the best? Hardly.
Shop around, download and make up your own mind.
Thanks for your honest feedback. You’re absoluetely correct, people should shop around and make up their own mind. I just published the article to help people who were looking for information on Libranet. I am sorry if it appeared that I distorted the view of the distribution, as that was not my intention at all when I wrote the article. As a side note, I still run RedHat on my main development laptop, as well as on all my the servers I administer. I was really impressed with Libranet (obviously), and wouldn’t hesitate to put that on any machine in the future.
If you’d like to post a small review summing up the differences between the different distributions that you reviewed at uptime, please email us and let us know. I think that would be really helpful for people looking for a new distribution. Our email address is [email protected].
Thanks again for the feedback, I really appreciate it. All feedback, both positive and negative, helps me to become a better writer for my future articles. If I mess up, I hope people would straighten me out quickly, so I don’t misinform people.
Take care,
-Frank Merenda (the author of the main article)
Here’s a good source of information that’ll help you to enjoy your Libranet to the full:
http://www.debian.org/doc/
See especially the section ‘user’s manuals’. 😉
A time honored technique for updating select elements of
Debian involves the editing of the apt sources.list. Change
the Debian and “Debian Non-US” entries from Sarge to Sid. Then
update the repositories with an “apt-get update,” followed by
an “apt-get install <specific program here>. As an example I
did this for OpenOffice, Mozilla, and KDE. Just be sure to
update K3B before you update KDE.
When finished, change your sources.list file back to pointing
at Sarge. The above technique isn’t foolproof, but it beats
going to KDE’s Web site for updates with Libranet 2.8.1. All
you will get is a removed KDE for your efforts.
Thanks Peter! That one is going in my ‘notes’ file for sure.
Great tip.
-Frank Merenda