Linux fabriqué en France
Contents
1. BY PATRICIA JUNG t s only the name of Red Hat Profes sional on the box looking inside reveals CDs that belong to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 3 edi tion an installation guide and two A5 size sheets Take care not to throw away the white sheet with the manufac turers congratulations on buying the product The registration number is on the back and you will need it to register online Without this number you cannot update the product via the Red Hat Net work and you have no support The Web form for online support issued the following highly intuitive error message character string buffer File Edit View Go Bookmarks Help too small ORA 06512 at APPS IBU_ REQ_ PKG line 541 ORA 06512 at line 1 and rejected the support case if the description contained less than about 2000 characters Online support did actually process all our test queries although the response was not exactly immediate and not always to our liking There was a delay of about 3 or 4 days before the answer to our question about getting the Canon Powershot A60 working finally arrived we were told to install a new gtkam package from Fedora 4 Sadly Red Hat support declined to investigate our test with two references to How Tos and by pointing out the terms of the Service Level Agreement does not envisage configuration support for multiboot systems The Service Level Agreements themselves and the Red H2. Exit instal Help Total size 1155 5256 MB Figure 1 Mandrake organizes software packages in functional groups www linux magazine com Network Computer server x Gnome Workstation _ Other Graphical Desktops _ Individual package selection selections at this point you can choose a minimal installation in the next menu This installation does not use a GUI and is practical for older machines and servers Mandrake places the major configuration menu at the end of the installation just before the restart The menu provides an overview of your settings allowing you to check and change as needed This allows experi enced Linux users to work around minor issues that can occur during a standard installation For example when we attempted to install Mandrake on the test laptop where we had previously in stalled Windows and Red Hat the installer froze while attempting to write the Lilo boot loader to disk After a few unsuccessful attempts we managed to work around this problem by leaving this step out and selecting Grub as an alter native boot loader in the configuration menu After completing the configuration menu the Mandrake installer offers to download and install current updates off the Internet But this did not work no matter whether the Internet connection was up or down at the time and led to error messages in both cases Once you have Mandrake running you can use the Control Center to perfo
3. 2 2 Bluecurve OpenOffice 1 0 2 Sendmail 8 12 10 default Postfix 2 2 0 11 OpenSSH 3 6 1p2 3 0 0 Apache 2 0 46 redhat config securitylevel 1 2 1 3 2 3 5 8 IBM Java2 1 4 1 1 double DVD B Side sources 6 CDs binaries only of which 1 SOL Anywhere Studio 2 manuals 1 sticker 2 4 21 4 3 0 1 3 1 4 2 2 2 OpenOffice 1 1 1 0 1 0 98 1 1 8 5 3 1 4 1 4 7 11 banner version 1 4 4 1 2 5 and 1 3 20 devel 0 6 15 1 2 8 8 0 3 465 5 08 0 98alpha1q with DVD 0 99 rcoa 3 88 0 6 1 0 61 Sendmail 8 12 10 Exim 4 22 Postfix 2 0 14 default OpenSSH 3 7 1p2 2 2 8a Apache 1 3 28 and 2 0 47 Zope 2 6 1 Susefirewall 2 3 1 1 2 2 3 3 1 5 8 1 Sun Java2 JRE 1 4 2 1CD Deluxe 2 CDs 1manual 2 4 22 4 3 0 4 3 1 4 OpenOffice 1 1 0 1 2 8 9 0 5 05 0 9 21 notes on playing encrypted DVDs in Xine FAQ supplied 0 61 Exim 3 36 OpenSSH 3 6 1p2 3 0 0 Apache 1 3 27 Control Center 3 CDs 2 4 22 4 3 0 3 1 4 Bluecurve 2 4 0 Bluecurve OpenOffice 1 1 0 0 98 5 1 8 7 3 1 4 1 4 1 1 4 5 1 2 5 1 2 8 without MP3 plugin 0 98a14 3 88 0 61 Sendmail 8 12 10 OpenSSH 3 6 1p2 3 0 0 Apache 2 0 47 redhat config System Administration securitylevel tui Services 3 0 3 2 3 3 5 8 0 Sun Java2 JRE 1 4 2 79 99 Amazon 67 99 59 99 Amazon 45 79 Standard 35 25 Deluxe 81 08 Not specified Support and updates
4. KDE Ver mF loppy da Removable Disk basic tools needed for a GUI desktop But assuming your This Computer sion 3 1 4 desktop and displays the kdm login manager with a modified design Xandros Desktop is com pletely different from the standard KDE desktop the individual packages are hardly recognizable The Switch User item in the Launch aka Start menu allows you to log multiple users on to a single KDE desktop without closing the original user s session and thus the applications running in that session To switch back you simply select that user s session in the Switch User Fedora Core 1 without any complaints dialog box The developers have added hardware recognition and configuration facilities to the KDE Control Center No sooner had we hitched up the printer than the printer icon appeared see Figure 8 The File Manager has icons for net work filesystems whether they are NFS or Samba based allowing you to click on Mount this share It also handles USB New team In September 2003 Red Hat announced that it would be discontinuing the pro duction of boxed desktop systems The free Community project Fedora was to fill the gap left by the Red Hat Linux Project Although Red Hat does have a boxed end user product the Fedora project continues to exist BY CARSTEN SCHNOBER he developers released the first ver sion of Fedora known as Core 1 in early
5. November 2003 The Red Hat team is involved in Fedora development and controls both the scope of the offi cial releases and the homepage content It hopes that the Community will con tinue to contribute enhancements that will benefit Red Hat s range of products Installing Fedora on a hard disk with an existing Windows system looked quite simple at first glance Fedora can resize FAT partitions if required although it cannot handle NTFS In fact Fedora cannot read NTFS at all The partitioning software which comes from Red Hat Linux may have trouble with larger disks If the boot par tition is not within the first 1024 cylinders of the disk the program cannot read the partition table and suggests re initializing that is deleting the whole www linux magazine com Figure 8 The Xandros File Manager adds newly attached hardware Internet connection is quick enough you can launch the Xan dros Networks packet manager to access the Xandros archive and its store of programs specially adapted for Xandros or unmodified Debian packages This makes Xandros well worth a try for anyone with fast Internet access or for those of you who do not need a great deal of application software Finally the distribution is perfect for users interested in moving to Debian without having to navigate the obstacles E fedora disk You can work around this issue by using a different program to partition your disk
6. and computer specific data such as var home opt and usr local on partitions of their own Distribution comparison test COVER STORY Before launching Xandros asks you to supply a root pass word and allows you to define unprivileged users A pleasant surprise follows the reboot the boot manager automatically adds all the other operating sys tems on the computer to the boot menu Xandros even located a Debian system we installed later Printers Xandros File Manager Administrator File Edit View Go Bookmarks Window Tools Help based keychain storage devices Address iSprinters Xandros was not thrown by the 5 Ham ss 2 2 2 HPofficejet71 Laserprinter2 Laserprinter2i 00 All File Sy Printers LaserprinterL NM i i SsLaserprinter2 teri i be Laserprinter2ll H fLaserprinterLNM i 4 Seprinterl i h Windows Network i gyLinuxland i adjagttm i 4 Workgroup h NFS Network i bashir linux magazin de i cato ntm gmbh de t enterprise linux magazin de i midas ntm gmbh de i nostradamus ntm gmbh de i CD Writer Windows modem in our test lap top offering a choice of two drivers Xandros has its own cdrecord interface which is integrated with the file manager You can drag amp drop files to the CD Writer folder and then click on Write files to disc The distribution provides the Usability Matters Peano Xandros relies on the
7. available n a available for installation for installation later later Supports creatingof Mandatoryforsome Mandatoryforsome Possible can be Can be disabled Mandatory Optional Optional at least one security profiles security profiles disabled explicitly by ignoring warnings non privileged user optional for default optional for default problems with non profile profile standard characters in first family name Root password required Mandatory for some Mandatory forsome Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes security profiles security profiles optional for default optional for default profile profile Navigate back and Possible in part Possible in part Yes Retains settings Yes Loses Yes Retains Yes Retains Yes Retains forward in all e g Package selection e g Package selection except for manual some settings settings settings somesettings installation dialogs partitioning scheme Number of CDs 3 CDs 3 CDs 4 CDs 4 CDs yep 3CDs n a required to install a KDE desktop with programming tools Minimum RAM 64 MB Text Mode 64 MB Text Mode 256MB 64 MB 64 MB 192 MB Text Mode Not specified requirement 32MB 32MB 64 MB February 2004 COVER STORY CD DVD Boot floppy Additional items Kernel X11 KDE GNOME StarOffice OpenOffice Scribus GNOMEMeeting GnuCash Quanta Mozilla Opera Evolution Gimp Sketch Xmms Realplayer Acrobat Reader XCDRoast Xine Xawtv MusE Tux Racer Mail server Sshd Samba Webserver Person
8. for individual packages user unfriendly and wildly in accurate dependency management see Figure 5 entirely unintuitive behavior to keep a long story short completely unusable use the commandline based rpm tool instead The asking price of this distribution left us in two minds It would seem that it is only worthwhile for multimedia haters incapable of downloading and burning the Fedora images themselves and entirely reliant on external support Although this description might fit one or two small businesses home users will typically prefer other alternatives E debian lation sequence to locate the partition editor cfdisk and perform manual par titioning to avoid this pitfall Manual Attention Required Another thing that you may not expect is the fact that Debian will not automati cally install an X server unless you check Desktop Environment in the soft ware group selection provided by the tasksel tool see Figure 6 As it is conceivable that you might want to launch these programs remotely rather than locally you have to either wade your way through the abysmal interface provided by the dselect package management front end or allow the front end to terminate and then enter the following command apt get install xserver xfree86 February 2004 Dialog Readline a Back _ bres X Cancel Figure 7 The Debconf package configuration tool s interface can be reconfigured by typing d
9. not an elegant performer The installation order does not attempt to match the distribution of the packages across the CDs and this leads to users being prompted to switch CDs multiple times The package manager also fails to provide a sorely needed search function to help you find specific programs Conclus inux users are still spoilt for choice Suse has its popularity going for it and it has found a safe harbor in Novell Mandrake has a genuine fan fol lowing and Xandros has a lot of major and minor features that put the fun factor back into Linux computing As regards hardware today s commercial Linux dis tributors cannot expect their users to RTFM and progress continues to be made on the usability front However this still left us wishing that the major distributors would put more effort into quality con trol And at times one cannot avoid the sneaking suspicion that end user distribu tions are designed to beta test the more expensive enterprise versions User support is particularly in need of attention Complaints about Suse s sup port are on the increase Red Hat s Support Web interface is poor and sup port at Mandrake a farce this would seem to indicate that distributors still February 2004 Distribution comparison test Devices The Red printer configura tion tool recognized our HP OfficeJet immediately and suggested the correct driver so that printing worked fine Despite using t
10. COVER STORY Distribution comparison test Mandrake Linux 9 2 PowerPack and ProSuiteLinux Linux fabriqu en France Mandrake Linux has a reputation for being extremely user friendly And once you actually have Mandrake running it does fulfill those expecta tions Choosing a version is a different matter however BY OLIVER FROMMEL he French distributor has no less than three different versions of its new FiveStar desktop system on offer the extremely basic Discovery ver sion PowerPack and ProSuite for serious Linux work On closer inspection there is very little difference between the latter two pack ages While the PowerPack comprises seven CDs the ProSuite has additional CDs with Java programs and an evalua tion version of IBM s DB 2 database Mandrake refers to the installation CDs of the ProSuite as Server Installations but they actually contain the same pack ages as the PowerPack version The additional DVD provided with the Pro Suite version simply mirrors the content of the CDs Extended Docu in Prosuite Apart from the additional CDs the Pro Suite box contains two different manuals that provide slightly more information than the short guide supplied with the PowerPack Theoretically free online support is available for both packages although the PowerPack has a restricted support period Unfortunately we were unable to contact Mandrake s Online Support 1 before this issue went to pre
11. FE SuSE Name v Size OB Directory 0 B Directory 0 B Directory 0 B Directory 0 B Directory i DesktopFolderDB 0 B Directory E documentation 0 B Directory He events 0 B Directory t 0 B Directory i Ge 0 B Directory E H E 0 B Directory 0 B Directory File Type Modified is lnm w a 2 a 30 Items One File 38 0 KB Total 29 Directories Figure 2 Accessing Windows shares on Suse Linux 9 0 although it has no effect on operations with the exception of one or two mail programs that read the originator s first and family name from the system s user database You can avoid this quite sim ply by not using non standard characters during the installation process and cor recting any entries that need this in the YaST user management section at a later date No Sound Sound support for Intel chipsets caused Suse no end of trouble Suse uses the ALSA snd intel8xO module which was unable to make any of the machines with Intel chipsets in our test talk Although Suse does provide a functional kernel module called i810_audio you cannot enable the module in the YaST configuration tool not even in expert mode This leaves you with no alternative but to change the kernel module manually in the etc modules conf file Search for Permissions Owner T Xr Xr x r Xr Xr x T Xr xr x r Xr Xr x thus disables KDE sounds and the volume control Fortunately you can use the aumix command lin
12. Good No English en_GB Yes RPM Drake rpm Mandrake Control Center XFDrake via Control Center selection of updates to be performed possible In theory yes but did not work in test 367 pages DIN A5 Approx gpt English Beginners Telephone amp Email support Web resources Scope and cost of telephone support Cost Period of free Email support No phone support 60 days web support Not specified KDE or GNOME CUPS Selectable at login Good No English en_GB Yes RPM Drake rpm Mandrake Control Center XFDrake via Control Center selection of updates to be performed possible In theory yes but did not work in test 572 pages DIN AS Approx npt English Beginners and experts Theoretically five calls within 60 days we were unable to locate a support number go days Support and updates restricted to one Yes Yes Console English X localized Yes redhat config packages rpm Start here control center on desktop redhat contig xfree86 Via Red Hat Network selection possible 113 pages DIN A5 Small English Beginners 30 days toll free 0800 30 days via www redhat com support www redhat com Unlimited KDE CUPS Selectable at login Good Yes Depends on installation language Yes YaST 2 rpm Central tool YaST2 SaX 2 YOU YaST Online Update selection possible can be per formed automatically
13. S JFS VFAT XFS JFS VFAT FAT XFS JFS ReiserFS Installation Profiles None selection of None selection of GNOME desktop with Minimal minimal None Personal desktop none functional functional groups functional groups Web server and Samba graphical default workstation server groups selectable possible possible selection by functional user defined in tasksel groups also possible Packet Search No No No Yes Yes No in dselect Feature Search Security Profiles Default high higher Default high higher Firewall yes no permit No No Disable firewall No paranoid paranoid HTTP SSH FTP Telnet HTTP FTP SSH SMTP and specific ports Telnet SMTP enable other port enable by device GUI based login Default can be disabled Default can be disabled Default Default Default Automatic setup X not at end of installation atend of installation automatically procedure Installation procedure Installation configured if without X possiblein without X possible in configured yes Expert Mode Expert Mode Boot Manager Lilo or Grub Lilo or Grub Lilo or Grub Grub Lilo Grub Lilo Network dialup Yes Yes Only network adapters Yes Only network adapters Ethernet Dialup Ethernet installation included with Express Installation if correct Kernel with install any in Custom Mode module is se lected Modem ISP Providerdatabase No No No Yes No Modem ISDN No Printer configuration Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No included with install Printer database Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes n a
14. The second hit should look to two Any new 5 Briec Pugns Tools Setings Heip something like Listing 1 In the second software you in a SSS line replace snd intel8xO with 1810__ stall immediately T Sbe i Beaune una ie audio and save the file appears inthe GUI SEE is ac ee The next time you launch the system menu without z the sound chip will work although KDE requiring a restart caso noo can no longer locate the soundcard and Unfortunately the spenotin ero eee a De taut pregap __ 1508 Frames Faulty sound configuration on Suse Siewna C eean ae J W60f 9c1SAu7GW31 82801CA CAM AC 97 Audio Controller Video Poa Glas esi Card esiide tl Milele 8 Notifications ima a alias Sound service 0 ll siGd seq oss O alias Sound service 0 3 esiGd pem oss 2 cles SOUMC SerwiGe W is SiiCl Seq s J Utena 2 cance Sound service Q 11 snd mixer oss sound service Q 12 snd pcm oss alias E Figure 3 Suse Linux 9 0 provides a K3B version that can burn DVDs a peek under the hood reveals growisofs February 2004 www linux magazine com COVER STORY Distribution comparison test Red Hat Professional Workstation The Standard Red Hat does not want to entirely do without a boxed product despite having launched Fedora You can still purchase Red Hat Professional Work station online from resellers such as from Amazon 6 or Linux Emporium 7 but not directly from Red Hat
15. Xandros took over the development and recently released a second ver sion called Xandros Desktop 2 0 on December 16 BY CARSTEN SCHNOBER s we did not have the release ver sion of Xandros Desktop 2 0 in time for the Linux labs test our test is based on the release candidate 2 Unfortunately we did not have any man uals for RC2 There are two incarnations of the new version the Standard Edition which is comparable to the pre release version we tested and the 50 US Dollar Deluxe Edi tion with a longer support period and a second CD with Crossover Office 2 1 to run standard Windows applications a resizer for NTFS partitions and a few additional programs 28 February 2004 The GUl based installation program is exactly what Linux newbies need that is it does not ask a lot of questions If you select Express Install all it wants to know from you is what to do with the existing operating system if any The installation routine looks for a DHCP server and if it finds one uses the server to configure the network environment if not it asks you about alternative Inter net access If you opt for a Custom Install you can specify the installation scope the partitioning and the network settings yourself including dial up con nections to the Internet www linux magazine com COVER STORY Distribution comparison test xll package which is required to print Cyrillic characters but removing it at least meant th
16. al Firewall GUI tool for packet filter configuration GnuPG Gcc Perl Java Runtime Environment Price Number of installations permitted February 2004 7 CDs 2 of which with sources 1 additional tools 1 commercial applications 1Getting started manual 2 4 22 4 3 0 3 1 3 2 4 OpenOffice 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 98 5 1 8 6 3 1 1 4 13 7 11 banner version 1 4 4 1 2 0 6 16 127 8 0 3 421 5 0 0 98alpha14 with DVD 0 9 22 3 88 0 6 1 0 61 Postfix 2 0 13 default Sendmail 8 12 9 OpenSSH 3 6 1p2 3 0 0 2 2 8a Apache 1 3 28 2 0 47 DrakFirewall 1 2 3 3 3 1 5 8 1 Sun JRE 1 4 2 59 99 Amazon 49 99 199 Amazon 179 99 Not specified Distribution comparison test Distribution Comparison Components 9 CDs 1 of which with DB 2 2 sources 1 addi tional 1 commercial applications 1Java 1Workstation DVD 1Reference manual 1 Getting started manual 2 4 22 4 3 0 3 1 3 2 4 OpenOffice 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 98 5 1 8 6 3 1 1 4 13 7 11 banner version 1 4 4 1 2 0 6 16 1 2 7 8 0 3 421 5 0 0 98alpha14 with DVD 0 9 22 3 88 0 6 1 0 61 Postfix 2 0 13 default Sendmail 8 12 9 OpenSSH 3 6 1p2 3 0 0 2 2 8a Apache 1 3 28 2 0 47 DrakFirewall 1 2 3 3 3 1 5 8 1 SUN JRE 1 4 2 Not specified www linux magazine com 9 CDs 3 of which source 1 docs 1Java support 1Installation guide 2 4 21 4 3 0 3 1 3 Bluecurve 2
17. at support pages in general did not refer to Red Hat Professional Workstation but still to Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation inci dentally we fixed the Suse boot problem by booting from Suse s CD 1 again Forget Multimedia Professional Workstation is designed as a workhorse for enterprise desktop envi ronments and this severely impacts the leisure value of the system as regards games and multimedia software This is one reason why the installation proce dure only offers to connect your machine up to your LAN The distribution does provide the internet druid to handle modem ISDN xDSL and WLAN config urations however you have to look through the GUI based start menu to find these facilities They are not components of the Start here system settings facil ity see Figure 4 which is basically an abstraction level based on Nautilus KDE users will have to get used to the fact that you can only view the source code of any Web pages you access even though it may seem that you have a fully fledged file and Web browser The problem with a pre installed Suse 8 1 distribution on our lab computer no we had not overwritten it user interface GNOME Desktop Environment 33 33 Details we GNOME isa powerful graphical user interface which t includes a panel desktop system icons and a graphical file manager C KDE Desktop Environment Add or Remove Packages syy KDE is a powerful graph
18. at the Web site worked It looks like this may be a bug in Qt After installing Magicfilter we did man age to convince the multifunctional HP printer to print a few color hardcopies using the dj690c best filter printer filter for HP Deskjets but the pixely poorly mixed print out hardly reflected the device s true capabilities Sound output was more promising after selecting the correct driver module for our soundcard in the install routine all we had to do was modify the permis sions for dev audio to allow access by non privileged users If multiple users log on to your system it makes sense to add these users to the audio group Experienced users should be capable of navigating most of these obstacles them selves but if you lack this experience you should possibly think twice about using a Debian only system Both Knoppix and Xandros are useful Debian trainers adding a much needed user friendly layer to the powerful Debian core E While partitioning a disk you will probably find the option to mount pre formatted partitions and check their contents a big help It makes sense to do this before you decide which filesystems to overwrite There is one slight draw back the system supports the principle of putting everything that belongs to the core distribution on a single partition Thus the wizard will not allow you to put the usr directory on any partition apart from the root Of course you can place user
19. by cronjob later Not possible at later stage encryption possible for new file system or crypto files Loopback 990 pages DIN A5 Approx npt English Beginners and experts Installation support local call cost 0845 Other 46 Euros per incident go days KDE CUPS Not available Good Yes Depends on installation language Yes Xandros Networks RPM and Debian packages No central tools some functionality via control center Control Center Display Yes selection possible No manual with pre release version n a n a n a Standard 30 days Deluxe 60 days www xandros com Unlimited GNOME CUPS Yes Tidy menu structure on GNOME GNOME menus and desktop also on KDE Yes Configurable on installation Yes redhat config packages rpm redhat config available via menu in part redhat config xfree86 Yes with Up2Date selection possible 14 pages Unlimited GNOME Ipr lpd No Different menu items in GNOME and KDE task orientation not major criterion No Configurable on installation Yes if required APT dpkg debconf dpkg reconfigure xserver xfree86 apt get upgrade explicit selection possible A5 Spiral bound Approx pt English Medium to experts URL of portal page www mandrakesoft com portal suse com PM page supportRequest pm fedora redhat com www debian org software workstation February 2004 www linux magazine c
20. conformity to standards Red Hat s Fedora is on a completely different tack It attempts to guide users step by step through the installation and configuration using only free tools The rough edges do tend to dash ones hopes of finding a Linux dis tribution for newcomers without having to opt for a commercial version It remains to be seen if future versions of the free distributions will be able to close the gap on proprietary installers work www linux magazine com Figure 9 The Fedora package manager in our version refused to copyright issues Red Hat seems to be the only distributor afraid of legal retri butions just for playing MP3 format files It remains to be seen whether the Community will live up to Red Hat s expectations and add value to Fedora The current version shows obvious signs teething trouble and cannot hope to compete with other distributions whether they be boxed products or downloadable projects E Until they do Debian will remain the domain of experienced Linux users and Fedora will continue to be hampered by teething trouble so that both represent insurmountable obstacles to any new comers no matter where they look for a free distribution choice E 1 Mandrake Online Support http www mandrakeexpert com 2 Mandrake Club http www mandrakeclub com 3 libdvdcss http developers videolan org libdvdcss Fedora http download fedora redhat com pub fedora linux core 1
21. e tool or the GUI based 08 12 2003 17 03 rwxr xr x 08 12 2003 17 03 rwxr xr x 08 12 2003 17 03 rwxr xr x 08 12 2003 17 03 rwxr xr x 08 12 2003 17 03 rwxr xr x 08 12 2003 17 03 rwxr xr x 08 12 2003 16 09 rwxr xr x 08 12 2003 17 03 rwxr xr x xmix program to control the vol ume level and programs such as tuxracer or even mplayer will work without any com plaints suse90 suse90 suse90 suse90 suse90 suse90 suse90 suse90 New Features In a mixed Windows Linux environ ment Suse Linux 9 0 is far more connectivity friendly than earlier ver sions The YaST Control Center now provides modules for configuring the Samba client and server That makes it a lot easier to share files with MS Win dows machines or mount MS Windows shares The client can only set the work group name YaST searches the network for existing groups and offers a selection for you to choose from You can then use the KDE Konqueror see Figure 2 to access any MS Windows shares Typing smb as a URL tells the Konqueror to display a list of shares or alternatively you can click on the icon for the local network A lot of changes have gone into the GUIs In addition to new versions of KDE 3 1 4 and GNOME 2 2 2 Suse has simplified the start menu thus reducing the number of menu levels required to locate a program COVER STORY Distribution comparison test Administration was one of the victims of the new uncluttered look Whereas the men
22. eb Server setting D en rari i 1 selecting alrea nstalled package fan selecting already installed package xinet selecting already installed packa a e top printing u i sfy timidity The file mnt cdron Redlat RPNS Kdemaltinedia 3 1 4 1 1966 rpe cannot be opened Ihis is duc to a missing file a bad package or bad media Press lt return gt ta t ry again The GIMP Wicschroderocalnost homeycscher 4 B uuan Package Managemert camera worked without any complaint using gtkam in contrast to this we had to install the USB based keychain storage device manually as the hard ware browser failed to recognize it All in all Core 1 had a kind of unfin ished feel to it The distribution does not offer a large number of packages the configuration tools courtesy of Red Hat do not work properly the package man ager being the major culprit We were also surprised to note that the Xmms sys tem does not play MP3 files to avoid regard contact to end users as an expen sive liability rather than a self evident responsibility for a given product Expe rienced users with cheap broadband Internet access can still save the asking price of the box and opt for a download able version or a free distribution but newbies often do not have these options The free distributions we tested obvi ously have different goals in mind While Debian tends to sacrifice user friendli ness in favor of stability and
23. ed simplicity of the Web update facility has gained the Debian a lot of friends So many in fact that third parties have started to update the current stable but long in the tooth 3 0 woody version and distribute the results as a product of their own BY PATRICIA JUNG AND JOHN SOUTHERN of course you can easily download the complete Debian distro However for the test we ve chosen to pick a retail version from Debian Shop 8 their DVD manual bundle from December I you re on a broadband connection Figure 6 After installing the basic Debian system and rebooting you can go on to complete the process which involves selecting package groups as shown here The biggest obstacle to using Debian is unfortunately its prehistoric installation routine If you do not know the correct drivers for your Ethernet and sound cards and are inexperienced in com mand line use you are completely up the creek Fortunately the next generation of Debian codename Sarge promi ses to fix this hinderance by the inclusion of a new installer The fact that the cur rent installer thoughtlessly offers to format any Linux partitions it finds on the hard disk catches out even experienced Debian users sometimes You have to leave the suggested instal www linux magazine com Distribution comparison test COVER STORY Hat s own package management tool redhat config packages no search facil ity no descriptions
24. he package manager to install Xsane and the rec ommended driver we were unable to use the scanning capabilities After manually entering the model name our test 9 l 4 Editors Updating system Installing individual packages kdermukimea 3 2 41 lv KDE Desktop Environment graphical userinterfaca Eje Edt View Temnad Go Help syy KDE ts a powerful Sah a panel Gesktop system icons and a gaj manage a network server references package pxe whic as Applications setting Turkish Support to not installed htdig 0 3 2 0 19 20030601 2386 not installed in group KDE Desktop Enviroament i h installed a Sometimes called text edtoms these are p a s Total instal size i setting Ukrainian Support to not installed i A SSCSES 48 oik Package Management 35 39 Details i Error installing packages There was an error Installing packages 139 42 Details Exiting cschnober localhost homejcschnober 2x setting Estonian Support to not installed aj ich doesn t exist setting Author Publis to not in setting Serdian Support to not installed setting Finni Support to not installed setting KDE to not installed setting Polish Support ta nat installed itallan support references package aspell it which doesn t exist setting Italian Support to not installed setting Su ted Packages to not installed httpa 0 2 0 47 10 13686 not installed in group W
25. higher level of support provided with the ProSuite is a purely theoretical benefit as online support is poor and telephone support non existent as far as we could tell Mandrake PowerPack is a modern Linux system that integrates both major desktops and is easily managed using the Mandrake Control Center E access to the external home directory and can arbitrarily modify or delete the data it contains A full Suse installation with KDE and or GNOME as the desktop environ ment plus major applications like the Mozilla browser OpenOffice and multi media software requires between 1 and 4 GBytes of free hard disk space A mini mal non GUI system requires 180 MBytes and a minimal system with GUI support Minimal graphical system installation profile takes up about 500 MBytes of hard disk space You can mod ify the package selection that Suse configures for these profiles by either adding package groups or searching for and adding individual packages There is a minor bug in the user con figuration during the installation process Suse uses the UTF 8 character set rather than ISO 8859 1 or ISO 8859 15 when writing non standard characters in the user s first or family name to etc passwd This in turn leads to strange looking output on the KDE screen February 2004 f smb MIDAS Konqueror 5 UtTET Location Edit View Go muna Tools Settings Window Help QA LA ee ALAN E gt Location E smb MIDAS ik j
26. i386 0s Fedora RPMS gtkam 0o 1 7 6 1 i1386 rpm Red Hat package manager http people redhat com katzj redhat config packages 1 2 7 redhat config packages 1 2 7 1 noarch rpm 6 Amazon http www amazon co uk 7 Linux Emporium http www linuxemporium co uk 8 Debianshop http www debianshop com Distribution comparison test COVER STORY Distribution Comparison Installation Language en fr it es de en fr it es de en en fr it es de English French Italian Spanish Polish German en fr it es pl de ro en fr it es pl de ro en fr it es pl de www linux magazine com Romanian Comprehensiveness Extremely readable Extremely readable Online help for all items Online help for all Readable online Online help forall Incomplete and Scope of online help for all items online help for all items rudimentary items help for all items items online help Installation Help rudimentary installation rudimentary installation installation manual chapter in manual chapter in manual Automatic and Optional Optional Optional point and Optional Optional Yes No manual partitioning click deletion of all existing or all existing Linux partitions possible Resizing of FAT32 Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes only with Yes No No No and NTFS partitions Deluxe Version Filesystems supported Ext2 Ext3 ReiserFS Ext2 Ext3 ReiserFS Ext2 Ext3 VFAT Ext2 Ext3 ReiserFS ReiserFS Ext3 Ext2 Ext3 XF
27. ical user interface which includes ia v 3 gt v A Q D A Ww a panel desktop system icons and a graphical file ac orwar p Stop e7 me Location system settings o A B a A tae Packages Not Found Q j E The following packages could not be found on your system More System Settings Server Settings Add Remove Authentication Date amp Time Installation cannot continue until they are installed Applications Unlocatable package Required by Tej d g libartsc so 0 gstreamer plugins 0 6 0 14 libartsc so 0 libao 0 8 3 3 Display Keyboard Language Login Screen Mouse libartsc s0 0 xmms 1 2 7 22 1 p Es rl j libartsflow so 1 kdelibs 3 1 3 6 2 ey libartsflow so 1 gstreamer plugins 0 6 0 14 Network Printing Root Password Security Level Soundcard Detection libartsflow_idl so 1 kdelibs 3 1 3 6 2 Jiharntsflow_idi so 1 nstreamer niunins 0 A 0 14 Users and Groups Figure 5 To discover what KDE packages Red Hat offers check the KDE Desktop Environment checkbox The package manager automatically decides to install 14 of the 15 packages The package manager contin Figure 4 The Control Center of the Bluecurve Desktops on a Red Hat Profes ues to complain about unresolved dependencies when you uncheck sional Workstation the checkbox 26 February 2004 www linux magazine com idiosyncratic Start here label fo
28. manually however Another quirk becomes apparent if you have other Linux systems installed Fedora will create a swap partition of its own instead of using the existing parti tion and this simply wastes disk space The list of available languages is extensive But Fedora demonstrated a creative approach to language support where translation work is incomplete When we selected Dutch for example applications where translation work has been completed spoke the language whereas others used an arbitrary mixture of several languages When you first boot from disk the Gnome Display Manager pops up to say hello and launches into the default GNOME 2 4 0 in Red Hat s Bluecurve design February 2004 COVER STORY Package Management We run into a major problem when we attempted to add some programs after completing the basic installation The developers obviously forgot to adapt version 1 2 6 of the Red Hat package manager which is supplied with Core 1 to the structure of the Fedora CD The instal lation terminates ungracefully but without telling the user why see Figure 9 We discovered the reason after launching redhat config packages via the command line the program looks for packages in the RedHat subdirectory on the CD but they are stored below Fedora We solved the problem by manually updating to version 1 2 7 from 5 rpm Uvh _ redhat config packages 1 noarch rpm The updated redhat config packages version is
29. me for this Although Mandrake installs players such as Xine or mplayer on request it does not install the libdvd css library needed to handle the Content Scrambling Systems due to the still unclear legal situation Having said that the description of the vlc video player package does point out Web sites 3 where you can easily download the library Mandrake s package manager makes installing software packages child s play However the fact that there are different front ends for installing and de installing software does make things more awk ward for the user The De Installer only lists packages that have been installed previously while the Installer only dis plays packages that have not been previously installed The search func All inclusive As in previous versions Suse s latest Professional Edition is accompanied again by extensive reading material a User Manual with 421 pages and an Adminis tration Guide with some 569 pages Sources are supplied only if you have a DVD drive as they they are available on side two of the DVD BY MIRKO DOLLE HANS GEORG EBER use s installation tool YaST 2 Yet another Setup Tool also well known from previous versions is a comfortable GUI tool with useful hard ware recognition capabilities that covers the installation options in a few steps and makes useful suggestions with regard to partitioning and other impor tant tasks Suse Linux Version 9 0 is the firs
30. om Distribution comparison test COVER STORY Distribution Comparison Support amp Documentation Hardware tests Telephone amp Email support Web resources cont d URL of patch page www mandrakesecure net en advisories https rhn redhat com www suse de en private www xandros com fedora redhat com www debian org www mandrakelinux com en errata php3 Registration required download updates downloads html htmldownload security one machine permitted updates User forum www mandrakeclub com go Day free www suse de en www xandros com www redhat com __ lists debian org mailing lists http www mandrakeexpert com support online_help _forums html mailman listinfo mailinglists fedora list Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook S601 Laptop Sound chip supported Yes No out of the box issue remedied later Suspend and Yes Yes resume supported Multifunctional OfficeJet HP 7140xi Print Yes Not configurable Poor quality after using distribution manual configu specific printer tool ration generic support via CUPS Web interface Scan Yes No Canon Powershot A60 digital camera Automatically Yes No recognized USB storage device Automatically Yes but not mounted Yes but not mounted No but accessible via recognized command line EASY TO BUY EASY TO SET UP e EASY TO SEE EasyVserver solutions Debian or RedHat O S True root access 4 6 or 8GB raid space 1IP address Highly secure p p p pick
31. pkg reconfigure debconf Dialog is the recommended setting for the command line The GNOME variant is shown here Thanks to Debian Shop this command installs XFree86 4 1 0 1 And assuming that you have your video card and moni tor data handy you can tell Debconf to take care of configuring the GUI by entering dpkg reconfigure xserver xfree86 Your alternative is to use XFree s own graphical configuration tool xf86cfg If the X server refuses to launch when you enter startx on the grounds that the Xandros Desktop 2 0 fixed font is missing you need to also install the xfonts base package He this is just one example of many indicative of the Es headaches that unre solved dependencies in the basic system can cause Make sure you re solve this dependency before you reboot to avoid an blank screen as Debian automatically enables the GNOME login manager gdm when you install the X server no matter whether you have actu ally got X working Having come this far our next step was to install KDE The Debian Shop version includes KDE 2 2 2 This installed without a problem first attempt However we did run into a few glitches when attempting to print Web pages such as www pravda ru from Kon queror The PostScript code this attempt generated was faulty The miscreant turned out to be the scalable cyrfonts Easy starter Who remembers the much lauded Corel Linux OS In May 2001 a company called
32. r an otherwise extremely useful control cen ter only makes sense immediately after installing and is just one of the puzzles that the Bluecurve desktop continually poses And that is a great pity as Red Hat really seems to have put some thought into the usability aspects while collating KDE and GNOME to create its own desk top design much in contrast to other distributions The desktop layout reflects the KISS principle of Keep it simple stu pid Menu labels typically refer to the functionality they provide and are thus very easy to understand and follow This helps you avoid searching for hours for the right menu just because you do not know the names of the particular bina ries This puts the typical Red Hat restric tion to one tool for one job such as the use of xfig for vector graphics and the dvdrecord command line tool for DVD burning in a more positive light The downside is that users who are used to KDE and opt to install the KDE desktop will not find anything where they expect it Incidentally you might be interested to know that you can still use the KDE environment even if you opt for a stan dard installation without KDE although this will not install any programs outside the kdebase package The promising trend towards usability seems to have completely passed by Red Debian GNU Linux 3 0 Release 2 Once you know Its well maintained and abundant collection of software and the unachiev
33. restricted to one www lindengrove net 1 1 2 2 3 3 2 5 8 1 Download Unlimited 1 double sided DVD Update 3 0r2 CD 1manual 1 PC Badge 1 Security quick reference card 2 2 20 A100 DDA 1 4 0 6 0 6 0 12 2 1 6 6 2 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 5 1 2 3 0 6 13 127 0 98alpha 0 9 8 3 72 0 5 2 0 61 Exim 3 35 default Postfix 1 1 11 Sendmail 8 12 3 Zmailer 2 99 55 OpenSSH 3 4p1 2 2 3a Apache 1 3 26 Zope 2 5 1 Not provided for by distribution possible with Webmin 0 94 or Firestarter 0 8 2 1 0 6 2 95 4 and 3 0 4 5 6 1 Installer for IBM JDK 1 1 manual download of tgz Files required 30 Debian Shop Unlimited COVER STORY Distribution comparison test Distribution Comparison Preconfiguration Configuration Support amp Documentation Number of installations permitted Automatically add Windows installations to boot menu Access FAT NTFS partitions without manual mounting Standard desktop Standard print system Switch from GNOME to KDE provided for Menu Desktop appearance Euro symbol in standard X terminal Default language for system messages Shadow password Default Package Manager Integration of configuration tools Default X server tool Auto Update Encrypted filesystem support Manual Total number of pages in documentation Format Point size Language Target group Not specified KDE or GNOME CUPS Selectable at login
34. rm an online update the difference being that this actually works Operations You can use the Mandrake Control Center to configure the system to reflect your preferences The Control Center allows you to config ure new hardware add new software or remove installed software set up Firewall Router DNS NIS Graphical Environment Next gt hard disks the screen the network adapter and any other type of hard ware attached to or built into your machine Unfortunately Mandrake does not offer a list of Internet service providers to help you configure your Internet connection The Mandrake Control Center does not offer any GNOME or KDE settings Instead both desktop environments have their own control centers Both desktops are easy to use You can select a desktop when you log in to display a menu with equivalent functions However we did note an alarming tendency for software installations to make entries in the Start menu disappear arbitrarily on both GNOME and KDE Fortunately the MenuDrake tool in the Control Center soon had the entries back where they belonged Mandrake s multimedia capabilities gave us no cause for complaint The system automatically recognized the soundcard and set up the configuration Suse Linux 9 0 Professional Distribution comparison test for the ALSA audio subsystem that Man drake uses Playing a DVD involves slightly more effort but Mandrake is not to bla
35. ss The five free support calls purport edly included in the price of the ProSuite turned out to be fictitious It was impos sible to find the phone number Installing Mandrake on a new com puter causes very little trouble as one 22 February 2004 would expect The distributor provides boot disk images on the CDs and includes tools that allow you to write the images to floppies under Windows After booting from either the CD or DVD you are first asked to choose a language and keyboard layout The Mandrake installer will partition your hard disk automati cally but experienced users can partition the disk manually if they prefer The installer created three partitions for our test installation two normal par titions for and home and a swap partition The partitioning tool is quite straight forward offering a full range of Linux filesystems and the capability to resize Windows partitions Mandrake defines functional groups to facilitate the choice of software to install see Figure 1 If you do not make any Mandrake Linux 9 2 Installation Package Group Selection Workstation Language x Office Workstation License Game station Security Multimedia station Partitioning Internet station Network Computer client x Configuration Scientific Workstation x Console Tools nstall system System configuration Root password Add a user Development nstall bootloader Documentation Summary LSB nstall updates
36. t version that can resize NTFS parti tions as used by Windows NT 2000 and XP without any loss This is an essential feature that Suse s competitor Mandrake has supported for some time now Suse Linux always adds entries for all the data partitions on a hard disk to etc fstab irrespective of their format Windows or Linux allowing any user to mount them simply by pointing and clicking There is no way to prevent this from happening if you do not specify a mountpoint when partitioning the disk Suse will simply mount the data parti tions on data0 datal and so on The partition view does not indicate this however Any user can if they so wish access all the data and home partitions belonging to other Linux installations on the system And if the User and or Group ID of the real owner happens to coincide with that of a user or group in the Suse installation the Suse user has www linux magazine com COVER STORY tions of both tools search the package names the files belonging to the package and the descriptions The differences between these two Mandrake packages are not as significant as the pricing would suggest Selecting the right packages with the PowerPack version gives you a Linux installation that is identical to the ProSuite The Pro Suite manuals are far more useful than the meager documentation provided with the PowerPack But you can save money by buying the PowerPack and a good Linux book The
37. u previously allowed admins to install software a manual approach is now required Typing yast2 i packagename launches YaST s package manager mode automat ically selects the required package resolves any dependencies automati cally and adds the required packages to the selection The fact that YaST displays a search dialog when launched is slightly irritating But you can switch to the installation overview to display the selected packages and accept the selec tion by clicking There is an important addition for users with DVD writers the KDE burning tool k3b see Figure 3 provided with Suse Linux 9 0 can now compile and burn data DVDs Suse uses growisofs from the dvd rw tools as the back end In contrast to the commercial cdrecord ProDVD growisofs is a GPL tool and compared to the dvdrecord tool it sup ports more or less any burning device and or format Although controlling growisofs on the command line is very different from using cdrecord ProDVD and dvdrecord the k3b front end means that users no longer need to worry about that aspect But all of these changes are not enough to warrant an update from Suse 8 2 The improved DVD support is inter esting for users who have recently invested in a DVD writer And the NTFS repartitioning feature is a useful addition for Windows users wanting to install Suse on their machines E X K3b The CDKreator M a snd intel8x0
38. up a dedicated linux server Make the most of Linux technology with the big name in Web registration and hosting packages Our flexible scalable secure EasyVserver solutions start at just 39 per month Back up by unrivalled support and know how If you want the best of Linux come along for the ride log on today at www easyspace com Easyspace your perfect partner for the web Established in 1997 with over 1 2 million customers Accredited ICANN registrar amp nominet member Prices exclude VAT
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