Bodhi Linux no1 on distro watch

if you see last 7 days hit on distro watch bodhi linux is No 1 on it

i love to see if Mrk review again this distro

 

hmm... seems a first tablet distro to me.

Expect more n more such distros to come in the nexy 2 years.

 

I wonder if the repositories are still unsigned? Anyway, Ubuntu 11.04 and Unity are playing nice with me so I'll just stay with what works for me and consolidate for a while.

 

http://www.bodhilinux.com/forums/index.php?/topic/2330-120-gets-there/

http://jeffhoogland.blogspot.com/2011/09/bodhi-linux-powered-tabletnetbook-give.html

the last Enlightenment Desktop was macpup or operapup so far i remember

but this one really look good to try on virtual box

 

I like it, except when losing gadgets after changing screen resolution from default 800x600.

 

I messed around with Bodhi for a few days. I sort of liked it but it has its warts. If you have an Nvidia card then you're ~ Snipped as per TOS ~ out of luck. There's no headers for the kernel (3.0.0.9) so you can't build the module which leaves you with nouveau. In order to get your Nvidia going you have to step down to kernel 2.6.35 (which has all the necessary build files). Also, there's a serious bug in the profile switcher (E17 kept crashing on me) but after a reboot Bodhi worked fine. Jeff, the lead developer, is from the US living on central time. I'm a registered member of the Bodhi forum. E17 is quite simple to use once you get the hang of it. I use to love an E17 distro named Oz a few years ago. It was nice.

Later...

 

yes i agree i does contain few bugs not a smooth ride as i was accepting although lots of eye candy and kinda fresh look feel worth spending some time in vbox

 

First off, thanks for the interest in Bodhi

I took the time to register here to set two things straight.

First - the headers for 3.0 kernel Bodhi 1.2.0 ships with are in our repo. It is a bug with the closed source nvidia drivers that prevent the module from working properly with some cards and the 3.0 kernel. For instance my 260m GTX works fine, but my 330M GT just gets a black screen unless I use the older kernel.

Not much we can do about this without the driver source code.

As for the profile switcher - I know E crashes every once and a while when leaving the "tablet" profile. But all of the rest of the profiles change without issue. If you are having an issue with them I recommend checking your download md5 sum and make sure your burned disc was AOK. If you still have crashes beyond this I hope you file a bug report or two

Cheers,
~Jeff Hoogland

 

I just set up Bodhi on my old laptop. I have to say I wasn't expecting much, but... Wow. It's good. Even with the occasional E17 crash.

The points I like:

- It doesn't start with a full bloaty desktop. You get E17, file and archive managers, a minimal browser, a terminal, and a few other things... And that's basically it. IMO there's a sweet spot somewhere between "Build your own system" and "Full-fledged desktop distribution", and Bodhi hits that spot dead-on.

- It's fast, ludicrously so compared to standard Ubuntu. And it looks pretty. I don't know what the developers have been putting in E17's code, but it must be something amazing; it can do real transparency without compositing, without any lagginess. I personally prefer speed and functionality to eyecandy, but when there's both I'm not going to argue.

The things I think are a bit odd, or not so great:

- There's some funny stuff in rc.local that I don't think is strictly necessary.

- Likewise the kernel has a default boot parameter that looks like it's specific to a certain machine.

- There are two applications for setting the wallpaper, "Wallpaper" and "Wallpaper2." This is a bit confusing.

- In the default laptop configuration, the top bar is too thick; as is the launcher at the bottom, which shows pixels and jaggedness on some icons due to their size.

That's really it though. The default themes are great, the speed and responsiveness are great, the looks are great in general, and the time from boot to desktop is about half that of the full Ubuntu desktop (and much less compared to Ubuntu with Unity 3D). And the E17 desktop is fairly stable, I only got one (recoverable) crash from the window manager so far.

You've done some really awesome work on this, Jeff - especially seeing as it's a) based on Ubuntu, with lots of available software and b) could run on low-end machines. That latter is particularly important IMO, as I think much of the Linux community has lost sight of the needs of low-end desktop users, to the detriment of a lot of people.

Oh yeah, BTW - I noticed that you included the preload daemon, and that applications seem to launch a lot faster than on my (non-preload-equipped) netbook, which is of comparable speed to the laptop. Have you done any rough benchmarks on how effective preload is? Is the fast launching due to E17's fast rendering of window frames, or do you think preload plays a bigger role?

 

Whoa! Jeff decided to post here. That's cool. As for the headers for the 3.0.0.9 kernel...I looked for them. How come when I tried to install dkms synaptic wanted to install 2.6.32 headers? It should have chose the correct headers automatically. As for my nvidia card...it's a Geforce GS 9300 built into my HP Pavilion dv3510nr laptop. The checksum for the Bodhi 1.2.0 iso checked out as correct and NeroLinux 4.0.0.0b verified the burn was a success. Like I said, whenever I tried to change profiles (not just the tablet profile) I would get an E17 crash, but upon a reboot the profile I had chosen previously would load fine. I didn't mean to upset you, Jeff, but I did look for the headers but I didn't see them.

I will say that Bodhi is quite popular with a lot of folks...so congrats for your success.

Later...

# I'm downloading the Bodhi 1.2.0 iso as I type this. I'm going to install Bodhi one more time (among many) to check if the headers for the default kernel in 1.2.0 is truly there. Like I said, I checked, but, hey, you never know...I may be wrong on this one.

 

- There's some funny stuff in rc.local that I don't think is strictly necessary.

Triggering our automount script could be removed, but having it there sorted a good deal of confusion. This one is a personal choice.

The couple of lines there dealing with clearing out the nm-applet state fixes an issue present in nm-applet that occurs on around 50% of laptops that use suspend - so it is very much needed we feel

- Likewise the kernel has a default boot parameter that looks like it's specific to a certain machine.

Boot parameter is not specific to a certain machine. It is a general parameter that helps combat the recent kernel's massive power/heat issues - http://www.webupd8.org/2011/06/linux-kernel-power-issue-fix.html

- There are two applications for setting the wallpaper, "Wallpaper" and "Wallpaper2." This is a bit confusing.

One is more practical, one is more pretty.

Oh yeah, BTW - I noticed that you included the preload daemon, and that applications seem to launch a lot faster than on my (non-preload-equipped) netbook, which is of comparable speed to the laptop. Have you done any rough benchmarks on how effective preload is? Is the fast launching due to E17's fast rendering of window frames, or do you think preload plays a bigger role?

When you first start using the computer that is all E17. Pre-Load doesn't start giving the system an edge still it starts to see which applications you are using.

@Trespasser - Unlike Ubuntu and it's slew of other derivatives Bodhi does not force kernel updates onto it's users. Because of this DKMS can't predict which headers you need so it just picks one.

Our wiki has details on installing the nvidia driver properly should one choose to use it.

Not upset, just stating facts. I'd try your live disc on another system - if it has crashes on profile switches as well then something in indeed wrong with your disc. If not it is very possible E just doesn't like something in your hardware setup.

~Jeff

 

Ah, I get it re the NM thing. NetworkManager is pretty buggy. Shame that wicd is no longer maintained.

Didn't know about the kernel parameter, but then my machines seem to be mostly unaffected by kernel 3.0.x power issues. Maybe something about the Intel chipsets, not sure.

As for E17's speed... Wow. I know that slow window managers like Metacity can bog down a desktop, but I hadn't realized that the WM contributed that much to a desktop's snappiness.

(Is the speed in part because of its use of XCB? I know Awesome does that too, but Awesome never seemed that fast.)

 

Enlightenment only just recently started porting to XCB actually. That build Bodhi uses still relies on Xlib as the XCB port is still a work in progress.

E is just fast because it is built with speed as a goal - not an after thought.

~Jeff

 

Well, the 3.0.0.9 headers were there. I even went as far as going to hxxp://packages.bodhilinux.com/bodhi and the headers were added the same day as the kernel (Aug 25th). Guess I was mistaken.

Since you're here, you might want to look into nm-connection-editor. You can't save your wireless connection settings unless you open it as root.

Later...

 

Thats an nm-applet permissions issue. Can't fix it without rewriting a pile of code or using a GTK desktop :-/

~Jeff

 

I've been checking Bodhi out since I heard about it, especially since it uses Enlightenment, since I love how Enlightenment looks. However, will it have a 64-bit version any time soon?

 

No 64bit till next summer.

Honestly though unless you are running a server, doing extremely heavy mathematical calculations, or studio level audio/video work your not going to see any real benefits from 64bit vs 32bit.

~Jeff

 

Even my netbook has 4GB RAM, no x64, no go, PAE is a workaround, not a concrete solution.

 

This is a very ignorant statement. PAE provides full access to up to 64GB worth of memory.

Only thing you will lack as I stated is your processor will encode things slower. For normal desktop usage this is a moot point though.

~Jeff

 

http://kerneltrap.org/node/2450

Do some more reading before you come to your broad based conclusion. In other words, while even basic netbook CPUs go x64, ignoring the need for a x64 distro is nothing but good old lassitude.

Check the Apache performance on a 4GB system with x32, PAE and x64 Kernel. http://www.phoronix.com/data/img/results/ubuntu_32_pae/2.png

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_32_pae&num=1

Every other benchmarks show significant advantage of the x64 kernel over the PAE. Now tell me, why would I wish to use PAE over a full blown x64 kernel on a system with 4GB RAM, btw, 4GB is norm today, 8 and 16 is the high end.

 

Ahh! I see! Most desktop users are running Apache that I know as well!

/sarcasm

I already stated above that there are advantages to running 64bit over 32bit - did you miss that?

I also said that For normal desktop usage this is a moot point though.

When we started Bodhi we had a small team that was only going to be able to support one architecture. Considering the fact that all 64bit machines are backwards compatible with 32bit and not vice versa we started there. 64bit support is planned, but not till our 2.0.0 release next summer.

I'd explain why this is, but you appear to like to respond to posts without actually reading them, so I'm not going to waste my time.

~Jeff

 

Normal desktop user here with 4GB netbook, 8GB laptop and 16GB desktop, keep ignoring users and make sure to add dollop of sarcasm, good luck with this kind of attitude, reminds me of sidux forum but then that distro had the justification, I don't see any here. One can understand the fact that the team is under staffed and unable to port to x64, to use old hackneyed PCLOS line that x64 is not relevant in desktop is nothing but good old EXCUSE.

Btw, did you even bother to look at the other tests, do you have any grasp of the relevance of those tests, some of those tests indicate the x64's advantage over regular PAE kernel. John the Ripper is one such tests, we all extract and compress, even us lowly desktop users. Graphics Magik is another of the tests that should have impact on lowly desktop users.

 

I never said that because it isn't true. Is it less relevant than 32bit?

Yep.

Is it true you reach more people by supporting only 32bit than you do be supporting only 64bit?

Yep.

Is it apparent we know the value of 64bit over all so much that we plan to support it in future versions?

Yep.

Of course for a processor intensive task you get more use out of your 64bit processor with a 64bit operating system. I've never once challenged this fact. I have however stated that most users won't know, some of the ones that do know don't care and the very few left that do care can wait till next summer for our 64bit release.

I made the important parts bold so they are harder to miss this time around. Don't put words into my mouth I didn't say. You know what happens when you assume.

~Jeff

 

Jeff,
I think you crossed the line with that last post. I'm surprised a Mod hasn't stepped in. You wouldn't allow such behavior in your own forum, dude. We can do without the veiled name-calling.

Later...

 

Sorry. Edited accordingly.

~Jeff