Slax 6.1.2 (Review by Y!Tech)

Slax is a popular Slackware-based Linux distro which excels as Live OS to carry around on a pen drive or bootable disc. Its a "Pocket Operating System".



Slax has an extremely modular design which makes it incredibly easy to install applications, even before the OS is installed! The Slax website offers an online interface for customizing your distro before downloading it and burning it to a disc / putting it on a pen drive. Through the online interface you can customize your distro adding and removing software packages to get exactly the combination you want. Once you are done customizing, your custom build can be downloaded as a tar file or an iso file.



Thanks to this brilliant feature Slax does not suffer from the problem many live distros face, where you end up downloading a 700MB distribution which might not have the applications you are looking for while including many that you don't use. 

Applications and libraries are available as lzm files which include all the files needed by the application inside a compressed image. When you "install" an application, Slax simply mounts the applications image over that of the OS. You can compare this to the concept of layers in an image-editing application such as Adobe Photoshop. Your background layer is your core Slax OS, and on top of that you have other application layers, one for your X server, one for KDE, one for Firefox etc. This way layer by layer your system of Slax is built.



What this also means is that Slax has no traditional package manager. Instead you can download Slax packages and simply double click them to active the application. Slax can even automatically manage the downloading and installation of modules using its custom "slik://" protocol which tells Slax to install the linked module. As such you can directly install modules from the Slax website by clicking on the activate link for the module. If you want any modules to be automatically loaded on startup, you can place them in the modules directory of your Slax installation.

Slax is also a stateless system. Due to its layered nature, any changes that you make while running Slax, even those which modify core files do not affect the actual core system. Instead all your changes are captured in a separate file. Because of this, you can choose to start a fresh Slax instance at any point of time without affecting your saved changes. While booting from the pen drive or CD, you can choose between multiple modes; the default option will use a persistent image so that your changes to the system are retained at every boot, the "Slax Alays Fresh" option on the other hand will load Slax without reading any changes you have made to it, ensuring that your Slax is always bootable no matter what.

Recent versions of Slax include a new feature called Slax Drive. This is a cloud storage service by the creator of Slax. The service offers 1GB of online storage space for free — with more available for a price — and integrates with Slax. This is quite a useful feature for a distro like Slax were while booting from a CD / DVD your changes isn’t going to be saved by default. This makes it possible for one to do actual work on a live Slax disc and simply store it online to access it from elsewhere. The developer of Slax has even made a version available for Windows which will mount your Slax drive to a Windows drive letter.

To ensure that your changes are persistent on Slax, you need to run it from a writable media such as a flash drive or hard disc drive. If Slax detects it is running from a writable drive, it will store any changes you make on it. With Slax it is possible to have persistent storage of your settings even if you are booting from the CD! However this facility does not come out of the box, and needs some configuration on your part after which you will be able to store persistent changes on your hard drive or a flash drive while booting from a CD / DVD.



If you are booting Slax off a CD / DVD disc, you can really improve the usability and speed of the distro by using the "Slax Copy to RAM" option which will load the contents of the disc onto the RAM thus removing the performance bottleneck of loading files off a disc.



By default Slax comes with KDE 3.5.10, not the latest KDE 4 and there is no official KDE4 module available. However there this doesn't prevent you from doing much. While the interface is a couple of years old, and not as graphically rich as some of the newer distros, the OS is, as a result, fast and light on resources. Slax will run appreciably even on system over 5 years old with as little as 256MB RAM. With even 512B RAM you should be able to run Slax directly from RAM. 

The package selection of the default Slax is minimal, but has enough applications to let you do basic work. Slax includes Firefox or Konqueror for web browsing, Kopete for IM, KPlayer for multimedia playback, Juk for audio playback, K3b for burning discs, and KOffice for working with document, spreadsheets and presentations. Slax includes Samba, so it should work well with Windows networks.



Slax comes with full support for popular proprietary multimedia formats, and includes Flash Player (albeit an older version) by default. So websites such as YouTube and Vimeo will work as expected, and you will be able to download / stream music and listen to it. You can install VLC or some other media player on it though. By installing codec packs available as modules you can further expand it's multimedia capabilities.



Thanks to its minimal package selection, the whole distribution is a mere 200MB, which leaves you with nearly half a GB of additional storage capacity on a CD to add packages of your choice, and much more if you plan to use it off a pen drive.



Slax is meant to be used as a live OS, and it is for this reason that it supports no mechanism of installation to your hard drive. While it is certainly possible to do so using tools such as UNetbootin, there is no official support for such a scenario.

If you are looking specifically for a distro to use as a live OS, look no further. Slax is the perfect OS to carry around in your pocket. Despite its small size, it packs quite a punch and even the default installation should be sufficient for surfing the internet, playing back media, and working on documents. It's modularity and design make it secure from damage by the user, despite running on the root account, and make it possible for you to download a customized version of the distro straight from the website. It has one of the simplest mechanisms for installing removing applications. We would highly recommend Slax as a live disto for all users. If you can get over the dated interface, this distros will impress you with its stability and power.

Linux kernel had bug for years

Questions are being raised in the Linux community about how a bug in the kernel was allowed to exist for seven years after a fix was first mooted.The flaw, found by Rafal Wojtczuk, is a problem in the memory management area of Linux which allows attackers to execute code at root level. It is caused by overlaps between the memory areas of the stack and shared memory segments.Insecurity expert Joanna Rutkowska says that the vulnerability has been present in the kernel for years,since version 2.6, which was released in December 2003.

While in security terms the existence of the flaw fits into the "s*** happens" category, the question remains why the hole was never patched until now. Particularly as SuSE maintainer Andrea Arcangeli provided a fix for the problem in September 2004.Open sauce security depends, not only on users finding holes and patching them, but the great hierarchies that watch over the release of updates actually using them. For some reason someone dropped the ball on this and as yet no one has put their hand up to admit it.SuSE had the fix and SuSE Linux Enterprise 9, 10 and 11 and openSuSE 11.1 through 11.3 do not have the problem.The fix for the flaw is to use a guaranteed minimum of one memory page between the stack and other memory areas.Ironically this has been set up in kernel versions 2.6.32.19, 2.6.34.4 and 2.6.35.2, but without the problem being pointed out and may not even be related. Another update is being prepared for inclusion in 2.6.27.52.It is a moot point how dangerous the problem is. The vulnerability seems to harm older systems rather than the new ones and requires that an X Server is running on the system.If you wanted to take over a Linux box you would have to exploit another hole to inject code and execute it on the system. The attacker would then use the flaw to gain root privileges.However, kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman warned that all users must upgrade just to be sure. 

Ubuntu 10 to Get Multitouch

Linux isn't going to be left out of the multitouch game: Ubuntu 10.0 will feature a multitouch framework aimed at desktop and notebook applications.

Multitouch capabilities might be all the rage on portable devices, and Windows 7 had made much of the gesture and touch capabilities built into the operating system, but for now desktop Linux users have largely been left out in the cold. However, Canonical—the company behind the Ubuntu desktop Linux distribution—has announced thatmultitouch support will be included in Ubuntu 10.0 (codenamed Maverick Meerkat). The technology will add multitouch support and gesture interaction with applications, and although many applications will have to receive substantial interface makeovers to be multitouch-friendly, Canonical is working on folding multitouch into Unity, it’s lightweight netbook environment.

“The world’s expectations of software experience are being raised by advances in mobile computing. We are bringing that revolution to the Linux desktop: for window management and applications,” Canonical wrote in a blog post. “Though our work at the application level has only just started, we are certain that multi-touch and gestures will be central to the way we use Linux applications in future.”

Canonical is distributing GPL-licensed libraries so applications can develop multitouch interfaces, and has also posted a set of guidelines for building consistent multitouch interfaces.

For now, the multitouch effort is concentrating on high-end convertible tablet PCs; however, broader hardware support is expected, including support for 3M and N-Trig hardware, and eventually touchpads and input devices like Apple’s new Magic Trackpad.

Google releases statement about Java suit, disappointed and ready to defend

Following up on a story we posted this morning, Google has released a statement in response to the lawsuit filed by Oracle over the search giant’s implementation of Java in Android. The statement looks like this:We are disappointed Oracle has chosen to attack both Google and the open-source Java community with this baseless lawsuit. The open-source Java community goes beyond any one corporation and works every day to make the web a better place. We will strongly defend open-source standards and will continue to work with the industry to develop the Android platform.

As reported by USA Today, Oracle is, “seeking an injunction and unspecified damages,” although the suit is most likely “part of a larger negotiating effort by Oracle to land a sizable licensing fee.” Oracle has yet to release an official statement defending the merits of the suit.

openSUSE 11.3 [Review]

 OpenSUSE is one of those few Linux distributions that gives you a choice of desktop environment while you are installing it, and doesn’t treat KDE or Gnome as a primary option. Both environments have equal support from openSUSE and are equally customized. Until a previous version (openSUSE 11.1) the installation would not even have a default desktop environment selected, and you would need to select one of KDE or Gnome before installing. Even now all that has changed is that the option of KDE comes selected by default, to ease the choice for new users. Besides Gnome and KDE, the openSUSE DVD version even offers XFCE, LXDE as an option along with a minimal X Windows environment, or text-mode for servers; all on the same DVD.

This might not mean much for newcomers to the Linux world; however this does show that openSUSE is all about choice, as much is reflected in this major choice of desktop environments. Additionally the openSUSE website offers many choices for obtaining the linux distro as well, you can choose between two kinds of live CDs, KDE-based or Gnome-based, or you can go for a DVD version without the live OS. Each of these if further available in 32-bit or 64-bit versions and can be downloaded via bittorrent or direct download. For those who want a full selection, the DVD version contains all the desktop environments mentioned above, and a offers a humongous collection of software. There is also a network install version which contains only the openSUSE installer, which downloads packages from the internet and installs them this way you have the latest packages and won’t need to update your system right after install; you can also save bandwidth by only downloading the packages you need instead of a full DVD worth.

What we tested was the 64-bit DVD version. The DVD version is a full 4.7GB and if you buy openSUSE DVDs from Novell, you get a dual-layer DVD which still doesn’t contain all the software that exists in the repositories! Even so openSUSE includes a broad selection of software in the DVD, and you won’t be heading to the repository to download software anytime soon. You may be tempted to install each and every software you think you might want, however remember that this will impact the installation time a lot, a full install of each and everything (which is pointless because you most certainly won’t need it all) could take hours! It is better instead to install a few applications, and install any others you want after the system is set up, so that you can use it while more applications install. The basic selection that openSUSE installs for KDE or Gnome is sufficient for most purposes as it includes a full range of internet software (browser, email client, chatting application, download manager), desktop manager, office suite, and other commonly used applications that you might need.

Since openSUSE is a fully open source distro it doesn’t contain any non-open source applications or libraries in the repository. This means limited media playback, and no Flash Player installed by default. All of these are easy to find in repositories though, so you won’t be deprived of media for long. openSUSE does configure a non-OSS repository so you can immediately install any such software right after you are done with the installation. You can also choose to download the add-on non-OSS disc image which contains popular applications. Even so you will need to add a third-party repository such as Packman in order to install the codecs you need to play back your media.

The version of openSUSE we tested was fresh out of the oven, having released just on 15th July 2010. Unlike many other distributions, the developers of openSUSE try to keep a cycle of 8 months per distribution instead of the usual 6 months. This ensures that each release gets enough time and brings enough new features. However this also means that many cutting edge features which come out after the release of openSUSE won’t make it in the latest version. For example, this version of openSUSE (11.3) comes with KDE 4.4.4 while KDE 4.5 will come out in August. Fortunately openSUSE users will still be able to install KDE 4.5 by configuring the KDE repositories.

One of the central features of openSUSE is the YAST (Yet Another Setup Tool) a set of graphical tools for configuring your system. This collection of tools can be used to configure both software and hardware. YAST is modular, and only contains configuration wizards / panels for the applications and services you have installed. Another sign of openSUSE's equal treatment of KDE and Gnome is visible in YAST, which comes with both a KDE (Qt) and Gnome (GTK+) interface which respects the paradigm of the environment it runs in.

Configuring and installing applications and repositories in openSUSE is possibly the simplest of all distros. Thanks to the openSUSE build service, there is a larger amount of software available for openSUSE then there is for many other distros. Such software can be found via a web interface at http://software.opensuse.org and often include simple install links which install the required packages, its dependencies and associated repositories to your computer in just a few clicks. Or you can use the webpin application to search for applications online and install them; unlike the package management system this searches online in other non-configured repositories as well. Adding community repositories is also incredibly simple; a wizard interface guides you through the different kinds of repositories, and even offers an option to download a list of popular community repositories which you can add with ease.

Gnome in openSUSE comes with a customized interface, which is different from the usual Gnome interface with the menu at a top panel, and task manager at a bottom panel. openSUSE's setup is similar to that of Linux Mint, in that there is only one panel at the bottom which contains both the task manager, system tray, and a menu interface. Unlike traditional menu-based interfaces though, the openSUSE Gnome menu does not contain all your application shortcuts for launching installing software, instead it lists your favourite applications, and launches a separate panel which lists all other installed applications, neatly categorized, and with a search option. This interface is such that either you'll hate it, or you'll love it, fortunately for you this is still Gnome on Linux and you can configure the panels to mimic the kind of interface you like. I for instance liked the interface, but would have preferred it if there was a way to launch applications without closing the panel – like you have Shift+Click in Windows.

openSUSE includes default themes for both KDE and Gnome, however KDE has not gone through the kind of customization for the menu that Gnome has. Although, considering that Novell, the creator of openSUSE is one of the biggest contributors for KDE, you can say that openSUSE is the definitive KDE experience. openSUSE's default KDE theme is similar to the KDE Oxygen theme, and for Gnome, the default theme is Sonar, a dark look with a green tint. One of the annoying things about openSUSE, especially for those who switch between KDE and Gnome is that not only is the interface for YAST different – that much is understandable, and appreciated considering the different environments – but the feature sets are different too. In my experience the Qt version used in KDE comes out as the more powerful in software management at least, while the Gnome interface seems simpler. Of course it is possible to install and use the Qt version in Gnome using the correct command-line parameters, but feature parity would have been better.

Following the footsteps of Ubuntu, openSUSE now includes an application called SpiderOak – which is currently not open source, and hence only available through the repository – for backing up your data online. The application has a simple user friendly interface, and has clients available for Windows, Mac OS, and other versions of Linux, making it easy to maintain sync. The SpiderOak service is free for storage of up to 2GB, and higher price tiers can be purchased. Overall openSUSE is a good distribution for those computer users who are adept at Windows and want to make a jump to Linux. Newbies might find the abundance of choice a little daunting, but the ease and simplicity of managing (installing / uninstalling / updating) applications, and configuring their system hardware and software will make it a good choice even for them. openSUSE is a good choice for the Linux initiated, or expert as well, as it is a good distro to delve into Linux.

PCLinuxOS 2010 [Review]

The PCLinuxOS distro comes in a number of flavours. It offers Gnome, KDE, and OpenBox desktop enviromnents amongst others. It also comes in a variant known as 'Enlightenment Desktop' which includes a window manager of the same name. We went ahead with the KDE version. The installation process was pretty straightforward. It gave the standard boot options given by some other distros such as failsafe, slowboot, live CD etc.

During installation the PC Linux bull logo goes darker as the live CD loads and the system boots - a nice touch. This raised the bar for further eye candy on the actual desktop. The installation process was not using a wizard but rather like an application. In fact once in an attempt to close a new dialog box the entire setup shut down by accident. At the end, after partitioning and selecting root partition etc, it comes up with a rather silly message - "Please halt your computer, remove your Live CD media and restart your computer." Confusing isn't it? Are you supposed to click finish first? Restart the comp? Or eject the Live CD in which case the desktop would crash. Turns out the correct order was Click Finish > Restart > Remove Live CD.

Coming to the actual usage - the desktop environment is quite nice to use. They've nailed the Areo Snap effect ala Win7 quite well. When you drag a window to the top margin it expands into full screen mode. Similarly move a window to either of the side edges and it quickly snaps itself to the edge and occupies half the screen. In terms of changing the appearance the Emrald Theme manager does a good job - there are a few themes bundled - even a Ubuntu clone. But perhaps the best enhancement to the UI was Plasma Desktop that allows widgets to be pulled on to the desktop. It had a good collection of Widgets like a RSS feed reader, calendars, different clocks and performance meters.

One of the biggest differentiators for operating systems in terms of appearance is the font face. Linux renders fonts quite horribly while windows does it a little better, but nothing compared to the smoothing enhanced beauty of the Mac OS. While PCLinuxOS didn't render fonts too badly, Mint does a slightly better job.

Except for office applications we couldn't complain about the packages that came with the OS. For instance in the internet and communications domain PC Linux came with a browser (Firefox), a twitter client (Choqok), an IM client (Pidgin), mail client (Thunderbird), torrent and even Dropbox ! There was no office suite bundled and the text editor (KWrite) was pathetic. At least AbiWord would've raised the score a little above the zero that we gave it on this criteria. The main menu was well categorised but a Mepis or Mint-like search would've been better. Although a nice addition was the displaying of recently used applications. Kwallet - the default password keeper integrates into all programs that require logins. We checked randomly for codec support and found that SM Player could handle all of the different encoded video files we threw at it. The default music player was Amarok which does what it's supposed to quite well. For file managers there was a choice between Dolphin and Conqueror - nothing spectacular.

For system configuration and settings the "PCLinuxOS Control Center" was quite good. All necessary administrative requirements such as setting up of web server, network devices, adding hardware etc was made available at one place. Similarly a tool in the task bar called "Configure Your Desktop" took care of all things relating to appearance, look and feel, and user account setup. The bottomline - PCLinuxOS is an intuitive desktop distro that you will stick to for a long time before trying something new.

Fedora 13 [Review]

Fedora is one of the most well known and used distributions, and has maintained that mantle for long. It comes from the line of an even better known distribution Red Hat Linux (new Red Hat Enterprise Linux). While Red Hat is now a distribution targeted towards enterprises, and comes with official support at a price. Fedora is a constantly evolving bleeding edge distribution which integrates some of the latest applications when it is released. It forms the base for the more stability oriented Red Hat. It is the source for many of the newest updates which eventually reach other distros.

We downloaded and tested Fedora 13 64-bit DVD-edition, to get the full breadth of software available for the distribution. Fedora uses the Anaconda installer system which provides a powerful, and configurable installation experience, but makes the choices simple and easy to understand. A new user might be overwhelmed by the number of options available but the explanatory text allows one to make informed decisions. This is quite visible when one comes to the partitioning step. This is where many new Linux users can get lost, confused and possibly scared due to either the lack of options or their abundance. Especially as the implications of picking the wrong option can be quite dire. Fedora covers most of the scenarios that a new user might face, and allows users to take over the entire hard disk, replace the currently installed Linux partitions, shrink current partitions to make space, use free space, or create a custom layout. Whichever option you choose you have the option of reviewing and modifying the layout later on. You also have the option to encrypt you system if you are security conscious. By default Fedora creates separate /boot, root and /home ext4 partitions and uses LVM (Logical Volume Management) which will make for a more extensible hard disk configuration. The installer warns you once more before modifying your hard disk layout, so you still have an opportunity to back out.

The DVD version comes with a large selection of popular software, and both KDE (4.4) and Gnome (2.30) are included. However Gnome is the default desktop environment and you need to manually customize your software selection and select KDE if you want to install it. The software installation process lets you select from a list of configurations for your installation. Depending on your intended purpose you can select from “Graphical Desktop”, “Software Development”, “Web Server”, or “Minimal”. You can also select from the repositories to install with your new system. You can also choose to customize the software installed, or do it later on. The software selection customization interface is also quite simplified, oversimplified perhaps. The selection sets are very broad, and don’t allow for too much customization. You can choose to install broad categories of applications such as “Authoring and Publishing” software or “Engineering and Scientific” software, and the installer will automatically select applications from that category to install, you can them select additional optional packages or remove the packages selected by default.

Unfortunately, Fedora does not automatically install the DVD as a repository, so if you need to install any software later on, you need to download them – even if they are present on the DVD. It is possible to add back the DVD as a software repository, however the process if not clearly illustrated. Furthermore, after this step, clicking Next will simply start the installation process without warning, so if you need to change any settings, you need to go back right now. The installation itself doesn’t take too much time, we had default “Graphical Desktop” system up and running in under 20 minutes.

Since we picked the default graphical desktop, we were greeted with a Gnome desktop which looked pretty much standard. Fedora developers push changes and updates to the applications themselves instead of maintaining a separate version for their distro, so you can expect most applications to be unmodified and look like their authentic selves.

Overall the desktops looks very neat, and the icons and theme are refreshing. Fedora 13 ships with the open source Nauveau driver for NVIDIA cards, so if you have one of those, it will be supported out of the box.

Unlike many other distributions which include F-Spot for photo management in Gnome, Fedora has gone for the lesser known Shotwell. Shotwell is a decent photo management applications and a watered down version is also available or Windows for those who want to try it out. It supports all the features you’d expect, importing photos from digital cameras, basic editing (crop, resize, red-eye remove, etc), and can upload your photos to Picasa, Flickr, Facebook etc. Shotwell uses tags, and “Events” to organize photos and has an intuitive workflow for new users.

Fedora 13 has few new features over Fedora 12; considering that it has a 6-month release cycle this is not too unexpected, while 12 to 13 may seem like a big jump; consider this, when Windows Vista came out in November of 2006, Fedora was called Fedora Core, and it was on version 6, and two versions have come out since Windows 7. Even so, Fedora’s UI has not changed much since then. This might come as a blessing for some, and an annoyance for others.

Fedora is, and is meant to a  bleeding edge distro, yet manages to be very stable. While it may have a simple and easy install process and interface, it doesn’t offer too much to the Linux newbie. It feels less like an integrated distribution and more like a generic Linux installation, which it might well be; there are few customizations which are unique to Fedora, although this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

For those who have worked on Linux for a while, Fedora is a nice way to come back to the basics, but those who are still new to the world of Linux might find themselves fighting with basic operations such as adding repositories – which come easily to other distributions. On the other hand its performs remarkably well.  If you do opt for Fedora be prepared to spend some time on the CLI.