Debian 8 Progress, Nine Best Distros, and Mageia 5 Beta 1
Many headlines today featured news that Microsoft will open source .NET and Swapnil Bhartiya discusses what this means for Linux. Bruce Byfield helps folks decide which of the nine best Linux distributions is for them and Debian 8 seems to be rolling right along. And finally today is a couple of reviews.
The Internet is all abuzz with the news that Microsoft is open sourcing .NET and Mono. Miguel de Icaza says .NET will be released under a "very permissive" MIT license. He's all excited for what this means for Mono, his latest pet project. But Swapnil Bhartiya said at Linux.com:
Microsoft can’t tell enterprise customers 'my way or the highway' the way they could back in the 90s. Today it's either the 'Linux' way or the highway. They have no option but to embrace what customers use - Linux and open source.
To better serve their customers, Microsoft needs to work with leading Linux providers. The company has signed deals with two major Linux players: Canonical and SUSE/Novell.
It's quite obvious that it's more about Microsoft needs Linux vs. Microsoft loves Linux.
Jonathan Wiltshire today posted on the progress of Debian 8 since being frozen on November 5. He says that today there are five more bugs than when frozen, but that's progress because 100 bug reports came in just hours after the freeze. Developers now have 315 release critical bugs to squash before release will be approved. Many already have fixes in unstable waiting to migrated. Lucas Nussbaum said the other day that freezes are becoming shorter and shorter each release and that perhaps Debian 8 could be released by FOSDEM in 12 weeks. Wiltshire also posted a few days ago that the codenames of Debians 9 and 10 will be "Stretch" and "Buster," respectively.
Bruce Byfield today published a round-up of the nine best Linux distributions with descriptions "to help you find one that’s best for you." In the number 9 spot is Bodhi about which Byfield said, "The login speed and Enlightenment's array of customization choices make Bodhi a distro whose appeal is not just in nostalgia." Debian came in at number 8 and Fedora number 6. Mageia made the list at number 4 because it "is an outstanding general purpose Linux distribution." openSUSE was number 2 and Ubuntu is number 1.
Speaking of Mageia, Rémi Verschelde today posted of the release of Mageia 5 Beta 1, nearly a month and a half behind schedule. Verschelde said it was because "some stuff went wrong and other things got broken." Actually, it was reported earlier that the new RPM was causing issues and required rebuilding everything. But things seem to be back on track now, so see the full announcement for download locations and other important information.
In other news:
* OpenSUSE 13.2 supercharged with smoother setup, system snapshots, Btrfs, and more
* Lubuntu 14.10 Review: Much improved over the LTS version