Austrumi

[Lobster]

Nice shot of the chess prog and Puppy desktop Mouldy,

- I think we are about due for our thrird page of wiki screenshots - tried to add yours but I got distracted . . .

(It was a fish)

One of the things that I feel Austrumi does well is the icon set (it is also using FvWM95) and I am also going to start a vigorous campaign to get inkscape as a dotpup - gosh I think it is about 18 meg though . . .


I was gonna start using Austrumi for a few days - to get a fair feel of it - then I realised I would have to put in my settings each time. Nah - too lazy for that . . . Return to Pup (which saves settings on the HD)

Eventually after trying out loads of distros we settle on one or two - so for example Barry uses Puppy (good choice and Mandriva for compiling.

Well my early attempts at compiling were based on Mandrake (and I toasted a lot of disks and wasted a friends time with a faster download before giving up and actually learning how to burn an ISO - ahem - should have started there . . .)

Now I have settled on Ubuntu and Kanotix. In many ways I feel Ubuntu is the ideal Puppy big brother - it is free - they will send out CD disks for free (philanthrophy is still around). They are both Debian based.

I am waiting for Barry to work out which Mandriva/Mandrake is best for Puppy compiling and may then consider downloading again.

oh and do you know why Puppy is different to all these other distros . . .
maybe another post . . .

enough ranting and ramblin' from me . . .

[BarryK]

I ordered an Ubuntu CD about 4 weeks ago, it hasn't arrived.

So, haven't been able to evaluate Ubuntu as a possible compile environment for Puppy.

Anybody got the latest CD?

[Lobster]

Ubuntu took about 6 to 8 weeks to deliver - I think they do this in batches from Europe. So hopefully will arrive soon. They have introduced an updater, as in Puppy so once you have the disk you can upgrade from on line.

They also use synaptic, so you are able to download the specialised compilers you need. Ubuntu is very boring (I think this is a good thing) It means it is stable and just works. They have a good attitude and are now more popular than Fedora and Mandriva - deservedly so.

Very sensibly they are also encouraging people to set up service based commercial undertakings based around Ubuntu - so the software is free - Hooray.

However if you have a specialised or business need or training you can go the free or commercial route. I will be very interested in your impressions once your disks arrive.

[JohnMurga]

Hey

I have their lastest DVD (from some US mag)

It runs well on my Lappy ... And is Debian ... So it gets my vote

Seriously though, the way that Debian manages dependencies and how you can use tools like Synaptic to manage the process it makes much easier to find out what's required to make a package work... And this info can be used to make things work on Puppy.

Just my 2 cents

Cheers
JohnM

[BarryK]

Is Ubuntu using the 2.6 kernel?

[GuestToo]

Ubantu is based on Debian, but standard programs are being modified, and some Ubantu packages will not work in other Debian distros, and some standard Debian debs won't work in Unbantu

Mandrake and RedHat also tend to modify sources and programs, so they are no longer standard

Slack, on the other hand, tends to keep the source as it was originally written

a package manager can make it easier to keep up with updates ... for example, "SystemRescueCd is based on the Gentoo LiveCd, because Gentoo provides an easy way to keep all packages up to date." http://www.sysresccd.org/

[Lobster]

New Latvian Linux guys. Well done to Andrejs
Good.

Anyone who has a look please provide a screenshot

It uses the 2.6 kernel and feels 40%- 60% faster than Puppy (when we were running 2.6 it was faster too)

Connecting to the Internet was in a strange place (System and something) and I seemed destined to use a flux based interface once I click on the English flag to change from Latvian. Are they saving the best for the locals?

The radio stations work nicely (if you like Latvian music - trust me you probably do not) But hey that was fun (really) one click radio stations - like it - we can learn from that.

I am using it now and am stuck in a specially XUL adapted Firefox+ that I can not resize . . .

OK I am getting Puppy withdrawl systems - looks nicer than Puppy too (hey wait till we get KDE Puppy - can hardly wait. . .)

The Latvians did good - check it out if you have a fast connection.
Otherwise stick with the best (clue it goes woof woof).

Have fun. Liked this a lot.

[Riverwide]

Hello all.

In answer to Lobster's suggestion that someone might post a screen shot of Austrumi, here it is.

Perhaps a short and very brief review might be in order.
Downloading via broadband was quick. Burning up the iso via Burncddc posed no problems.
The test machine is an old 300 mHz 'Bitza' with a 4 Gig hard drive, 8z4x32 Cd burner, and a Yamaha soundcard. In fact about average for 'getting well past it' computers.

The Austrumi 097 Cd booted rapidly. One thing that was a surprise was at the end of the boot sequence it auto-ejected the CD.

The desktop was clear, with a good array of well-defined icons. Finding the English language changeover wasn't hard - although perhaps national flags icons would have made it even easier.
I did find the menu text to be slightly small - difficult to read after a prolonged session. A choice of larger fonts would help. Perhaps something to consider for the future?

Mounting the hard drive was easy enough. As was getting onto the internet. Sound proved illusive. I could not get a peep from the soundcard. A normal CD could be accessed, but would not play. Neither would an mp3 from the hard drive. A pity, because MPplayer looked nice.

As I say, this is just a brief skim through of some features. Looking through the resume, there's a lot more, which also includes a bunch of programming tools and utilities.

Finally, as it has been mentioned in the forum, the chess game. It has a clear interface - and it's quick! The wretched thing beat me in under eight moves! Enclosed is a screenshot.

Do I like Austrumi? Yes, I do, But not as well as Puppy. The program does offer a nice interface. But, for my machine, it still has a few drawbacks. Overall, the programmer, Andrejs Meinerts, has done an excellent job. I look forward to future implementations with interest.

[BarryK]

I also downloaded Austrumi 0.9.7, wanted to see the latest effort from Andrejs.

Unfortunately the video doesn't work on my PC. I do get video but its just a mess -- I think that it's because I'm currently using an old 15 inch monitor, taken off an old computer that was bought for $5.

I'm studying his startup scripts ...looking for ideas, as always! ... he uses a program called "hwinfo" to probe the monitor, but as my monitor is not plug-and-play, it returns nothing. Maybe the startup script is setting the scan rate too high.
I tried ctrl-alt-+ to cycle through the modes, but all modes are scrambled.

I'll try it on another pc soon.

[BarryK]

...heh, heh, and our "old friend" is very busy posting on the Austrumi forum.