WELCOME REMARKS ON THE LINUX "DISTROS"

I WOULD TO INVITE YOU TO READ THE THIRD PART OF OUR BLOGGING SPREE ON OPEN-GNU SOFTWARES. NOW THAT I'VE DISCUSSED THE BASIC LINUX FEATURES, THE LINUX DESKTOPS AND THE PROS AND CONS OF THE SAID OS. NOW ITS THE TIME TO SHOWCASE THE FOLLOWING DISTRIBUTIONS THAT LINUX HAS TO OFFER.

DEBIAN- DEBIAN IS AN OPEN-SOURCE DEVELOPER THAT EMPHASIZES ON FREE SOFTWARE. DEBIAN AND THE DISTROS ON DEBIAN USE .deb as suffix for the package format and .dpkg for the pagkage managers.

ASIDE FROM DEBIAN, DEBIAN HAS ALSO TO OFFER THE FOLLOWING:

KNOPPIX BASED AND UBUNTU BASED

GENTOO- THIS IS A DESIGN IN WHICH IS HIGHLY OPTIMIZED AND ALWAYS UPDATING SOFTWARE. DISTRIBUTIONS USING THE GENTOO, USES PORTAGE AS ITS PACKAGE MANAGER AND COMBINED WITH EMERGE.

RPM- WHEN YOU SAY RPM BASKED, THE DISTROS INCLUDED ARE RED HAT AND SUSE LINUX. RED HAT HAS SPONSORED THE FEDORA, ANOTHER DISTRO.

REDHAT ENTERPRISE AND SUSE LINUX


SLACKWARE-BASED

THIS IS KNOWN FOR ITS HIGHLY CUSTOMIZE DISTRIBUTION THAT STRESSES THE EASE OF MAINTENANCE AND RELIABILITY OVER THE CUTTING EDGE SOFTWARE. ITS CONSIDERED DISTRIBUTION FOR ADVANCE USERS. ITS OFTEN SUGGESTED TO READ AND STUDY THE KERNEL OF THE LINUX KERNEL.

Linux Desktops: (XFCE)

XFCE is the last installment in the of the Series: Linux desktops blog portion of the Revolution of OS has Arrived: LINUX

XFCE- is a free desktop software developed for Linux, Unix and Solaris-like OS. XFCE's aims to build a desktop that is fast and lightweight, while still being as appealing and easy to use.

OLIVIER FOURDAN STARTED THIS PROJECT, XFCE. THE MEANING OF XFCE IS XFORMS COMMON ENVIRONMENT. SINCE IT HAVE REWRITTEN TWICE, THIS DOESN'T INCLUDE TOOLKITS 

THE VERSIONS OF THE XFCE DESKTOP ENVIRONMENT

FIRST VERSION OF XFCE

WELL, XFCE IS JUST ONLY A CLONE OF CDE OF LINUX. THE PROGRAM, A SIMPLE TASKBAR, RELEASED BY FOURDAN TO IBIBLIO, AND THE COMMUNITY SHOWS A GREAT EXPANSION OF THIS SOFTWARE.

VERSION 2

FOURDAN CONTINUED ON MODIFYING HIS XFCE ENVIRONMENT. IN HIS RELEASE OF THE VERSION 2 OF THE XFCE HE INCLUDED XFCM, THE WINDOWS MANAGER. IN ADDITION TO THIS HE ALSO WANTED IT TO BE INCLUDED IN THE RED HAT LINUX PROJECT BUT WAS REFUSED DUE TO THE XFORMS OF THE PROJECT. ONLY DEBIAN USES THIS MOD OF THE XFCE.

VERSION 3

XForms, the proprietary library that Xfce was based on, was limiting the progress of the project. The popularity of the GTK+ toolkit was increasing, and Fourdan saw it as a fitting replacement. In March 1999, he scrapped the old XFce and began a complete rewrite of the project based on GTK+. The result was Xfce 3.0, which was licensed under the GNU GPL. Along with being based completely on open-source software, the project gained many benefits from using the GTK+ libraries, including drag-and-drop support, native language support, and improved configurability. Xfce was uploaded to SourceForge.net in February 2001, starting with version 3.8.1.

VERSION 4

Xfce made a major jump in version 4.0.0 - it was upgraded to use the GTK+ 2 libraries. There were many other major changes made in this series as well, including a compositing manager for Xfwm in 4.2.0 which added built-in support for transparency and drop shadows, as well as a new default SVG icon set.^[5] In January 2007, Xfce 4.4.0 was released. A notable feature of this release was the inclusion of the Thunar file manager, a replacement for the aging Xffm. Support for desktop icons was added. Also, various improvements were made to the panel to prevent buggy plugins from crashing the whole panel.

The Linux Desktop (GNOME)

THE GNOME LINUX DESKTOP ENVIRONMENT.

THE GNOME IS A FREE DESKTOP FOR LINUX. THE MOST FAMOUS "UBUNTU" A LINUX DISTRO USES THE GNOME DESKTOP.

AIMS OF THIS GNU PROJECT.

• FREEDOM- THE ABILITY OF THE GNU SOFTWARE TO REUSE THE CODE FOR FREE SOFTWARE.
• ACCESSIBLILITY- ENSUING THE DESKTOP TO BE USED BY ALL PEOPLE. WHETHER TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES ETC.
• INTERNATIONALIZATION AND LOCALIZATION- ASIDE FROM ITS ACCESSIBILITY, GNOME ALSO OFFER DIFFERENT LANGUAGES FOR ITS USERS.
• DEVELOPER FRIENDLINESS- ANOTHER FACTOR OF THIS IS THAT ALLOWS A DEVLOPER TO CREATE HIS OWN DESKTOP THROUGH HIS FIELD OF PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE.
• ORGANIZED- GNOME REGULARLY RELEASES UPDATES FOR ITS USERS. 
• SUPPORT- ENSUES THE USER IS BACKED UP BY THE GNOME COMMUNITY.

ASIDE FROM THIS PROJECT, THE GNOME COMMUNITY HAS ALSO SUBPROJECTS.

1. Bonobo- a compound document software
2. GVFS- Virtual File System
3. GConf- Configurations
4. GNOME KEY RING- program for storing and encrypting keys.
5. Gnome Translation tools- Document translator
6. Human Interface Guidlines- Research and Documentation tool kits
7. LibXML- a library of XML commands
8. GTK+ - A collection of widgets
9. Orbit- COBRA Orbit software componentry

THE LOOKS AND OUTPUT.

GNOME IS DESIGN AS LIKE AS A TRADITIONAL DESKTOP METAPHOR. IN HANDLING WINDOWS, GNOME DOES THE SAME AS THE CONTEMPORARY OS'S LIKE WINDOWS AND MAC.  DEFAULT CONFIGURATION CONTAINS THE LAUNCHER, LIST OF PROGRAMS THAT CAN BE ACCESSED THROUGH THE TOOLBAR. 

GNOME USES METACITY, AS ITS DEFAULT WINDOWS MANAGER.  USERS CAN CHANGE DIFFERENT FORMS OF DESKTOP THROUGH SET OF THEMES THAT GNOME HAS. THESE SETS INCLUDE ITEM SET, WINDOWS BORDERS AND GKT+ THEME ENGINE PARAMETERS. 

IT PUTS EMPHASIS ON SIMPLICITY AND EASY FOR EVERYONE TO USE THE SAID DEKSTOP.