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My "To Do" List

Sun, 07/01/2007 - 13:18 — Aubrey

 I thought I'd start this Blog with a list of the things I am thinking about adding to Distropedia. This is an evolving list and I would certainly welcome any comments or advice from other contributors - including letting me know if there are significant overlaps with work you plan to do! I figure that this way I will keep my own contributions flowing and hopefully won't be venturing into areas where others have more experience or expertise.

Distros I will start writing up (soonish).

Apart from a couple of off-beat Live CDs I have tried (dyne:bolic, puppy and grafpup), I'm more familiar with Debian derivatives and will probably concentrate on those to begin with, including:

  • PCLinuxOS (ok, its a Mandrak/Mandriva fork, not Debian)

  • Knoppix
  • Musix (a Knoppix derivative)  (that was painful!)
  • Morphix (although I am yet to try it!) - <edit> I've done Dream Linux and DSL instead </edit>
  •  Ubuntu derivatives
    • Linux Mint
    • Elbuntu/Ebuntu (if it arrives!)
    • Ubuntu Ultimate
    • Uberyl (now Comfusion)
    • Pioneer Linux
    • added later Fluxbuntu

I could also have a go at writing up the Linux Rescue CD, although it might be better categorised under a "Useful Tools" [age with things like the Grub Super Disk.

Other Possible Pages on My Mind

These might be more appropriate as formal multi-author projects

  • Choosing a Linux Distro - <edit>(started, will post draft soon - did the Ubuntu derivatives article instead.  May get back to the choosing article later)</edit>
  • Package Managers
  • Language support in Linux Distros (maybe just a table of what language support comes with each distro?)
  • <edit>Desktop and Windows Managers
  • Linux Lexicon - simple explanation/definition of common terms (being somewhere to link to from other pages that use these terms</edit>

Things I have thought about but have no idea where I would start

  • Linux on Virtual Machines
  • Making Your Own Distros (Rav Tux?)

 

Aubrey
Canberra
Australia

Second Thoughts

No, not a retraction, just a second Blog Post !

Here's a list of Distrowatch's current Top 30 Distros by webpage hits.  I suggest that we try to have at least these covered within a reasonable timeframe (say, by the end of July 07).  That would provide a solid "core" of static pages and allow cross linking for comparisons etc.  If others agree, I'll come back and edit this list to mark those that have been completed and indicate those that someone has underway or commited.

1      Ubuntu   

2     PCLinuxOS

3     openSUSE

4     Fedora    

5     MEPIS

6     Debian

7     Sabayon

8     Mandriva

9     Mint

10     Damn Small

11     KNOPPIX

12     Gentoo

13     Slackware

14     Zenwalk

15     CentOS

16     Kubuntu

17     Dreamlinux

18     Puppy

19     Vector

20     FreeBSD

21     Arch

22     Freespire

23     Ubuntu CE

24     SLAX

25     Xubuntu

26     Red Hat

27     sidux

28     Elive

29     Xandros

30     Foresight

 

Aubrey
Canberra

Australia

 

 

Comments

Thu, 08/09/2007 - 03:20 — ravtux

Aubrey, if you could let me

Aubrey, if you could let me do the Foresight/rPath article....?

ravtux

Mon, 07/02/2007 - 01:06 — Aubrey

More things to do...

init1 and RAV TAX - excellent to see your plans too.

RAV TUX - I will leave Morphix to you. I really know very little about it. Will you cover reconstructor (http://reconstructor.aperantis.com/ )?

Another "info" page could be:

. Desktop Environments and Window Managers

Hopefully we'll get some Red Hat/Fedora/Gentoo people actively making content soon.

Aubrey - (Usually an Ubuntu User but I'm not 100% loyal)

Mon, 07/02/2007 - 23:08 — ravtux

I honestly know very little

I honestly know very little about reconstructor....

I like your idea about focusing on primary distros...

except I will not be able to do much work on it during the July 4th Holiday here in the USA.

Tue, 07/03/2007 - 01:16 — Aubrey

Happy 4th of July!

I'd forgotten about the 4th of July. Happy Independence Day to all US Distropedians!

I have made a start on a "Choosing a Distro" page which I will post as a shell for inputs from others. In drafting it I realise that we should also have a lexicon page for commonly used terms - like "kernel", "window manager", "compile", "CLI", "GUI" etc and even "memory", "peripheral", "Live CD" - just a brief definition of each and a link to either a distropedia page explaining a key concept in more detail or perhaps to a Wikipedia entry for the more generic stuff.

Just a thought.

Aubrey - Ubuntu User, Dream Linux tester.

Sun, 07/01/2007 - 17:53 — init1

Good

That's a good list. I would love to write the article on linux on virtual machines.

Sun, 07/01/2007 - 17:26 — ravtux

Awesome Idea AubreyA short

Awesome Idea Aubrey

A short to do list for me:

update and maintain the interactive map of distros by country of origin

Distros:

1. rPath/Foresight
2. Oz Enterprise/Oz Rx/Oz Live(GNOME)/Oz Live(KDE)
3. Linux Nirvana
4. Haiku
5. Zenwalk (and other Slackware/SLAX derivatives)
6. Slackware

also Scientific focused distros:
1. Scientific Linux
2. Fermi Linux
3. Quantian
4. Xplora
5. Bioknoppix

also I would like to start a list of distro focused on the disabled, impaired & physically challenged(including but not limited to the Blind and seeing disabled):

1. Adrian Knoppix
2. linaccess
3. Oralux

Aubrey I could work on a howto or at least a list on systems that can be used to build a Linux Distro:
using:
1. Morphix
2. rBuilder
3. MySlax Creator
4. Linux from Scratch
(any other systems specifically made to build your own distro and maintain it)

Wed, 07/04/2007 - 12:49 — Aubrey

Two questions for members

1. What do we regard as an "active" distro?

I was testing out Dreamlinux tonight and started to track back to Morphix (http://www.morphix.org/). There is very little activity at that site or on the Morphix forums and even some of the links from the Homepage are dead (eg the wiki). The last release was November last year (Live Kiosk v.03) and some of the variants don't seem to have been touched since 2004. I assume (and hope) it hasn't died, but this low level of activity seems to suggest an illness of some sort. A number of distros I have checked out seem to be in a similar condition - not dead, but perhaps suffering from chronic fatigue.

Do you think that the level of activity is something we should routinely comment on in (what I have been calling) the User Review section of the static page. It certainly seems like a relevant piece of info about a distro. Neither "active" nor "inactive" cover this state of torpor.

2. How should the derivation of a distro be reported?

Again wrt Dreamlinux, I note that Morphix is the "base" but that the bloodline of Morphix is Debian. And Morphix credits its direct parentage to Knoppix. So the lineage is Dreamlinux out of Morphix out of Knoppix out of Debian (same as Elive for that matter). So should the Distropedia static page table show it as based on "Debian via Morphix/Knoppix" (or something like that) rather than just Debian? Or am I being picky? (This maybe a remnant of my early training in plant taxonomy which sometimes surfaces as pedantry about relationships between things)

Aubrey - Ubuntu (which is based on Debian!) User

Sat, 09/01/2007 - 18:15 — ravtux

on Morphix

The very nature of Morphix breeds inactivity, it is meant as a instrument to build upon. The resulting distros built from Morphix is where activity is important.

elive for instance is very active and has evolved very far from the Morphix base, but one of my favorite Morphix derivatives is Aquamorph unfortunately I have yet to see much action there.

It should be noted that Morphix is more of a tool as opposed to a distro in the true sense, and yes the Morphix bloodline would be Morphix>KNOPPIX>Debian

Morphix would be an awesome tool if it was up dated perhaps with a Ubuntu base or atleast a Ubuntu/KNOPPIX/Debian base.