Linux Format forums

[pau1ie]

I know this gets raised most months, but I thought the errors this month were more glaringly obvious than usual (I dont normally notice them).

David Cartwrights column seems more an embarrassment to him. Doesn't he know that you only need the first few CDs to install Debian, and the rest are full of rarely used programs? Couldn't one of you have pointed it out to him? You seem to know as you have included a just less than 2 CD version with your mag, and the DVD version only has the first one. Since he has a lot of bandwidth he could download the boot floppy and install over the network, no need to burn any CDs. This promotes confusion rather than understanding of Linux. I chose Debian as my distro when I started using Linux precisely because it came on more CDs (7) than Redhat (2). It meant I would not be spending time downloading stuff to try out, which is important if you do not have broadband.

Second, your piece on cron gets the format wrong, it is minutes, hours, day of month, month of year, day of week, command. The examples are correct, and you do say look at the manual.

For some reason some of the Qs in the Q&A are not bolded, which makes an interesting effect.

The DVD listing had the list of games missing, it was replaced by a partial list of graphics programs. I had to grab the DVD case off my daughter and wipe the dribble off it to read the list!

I seem to remember somewhere else some words were missing from a sentence, I am sure someone else will spot this and point it out if I am right.

I know what your going to say, you are the best selling linux mag in the UK, and I subscribe so I must like it. I am just trying to keep you on your toes so I stay subscribed.

In case my hard earned cash is not enough of a reward for you, Ill let you know that I do enjoy reading the mag (I am only subscribed to two, and the other is your main competitor) I like the letters, reviews, roundup, hot picks, What on earth generally teaches me something, (Though last months I couldn't understand, maybe I am just thick) I was less inspired by the linuxpro section, though some of the success stories were interesting. This month it has been replaced by a variety of interesting looking bits. I didn't like the flame war, as I found it (Like a real flame war) rather polarised, and not too informative. The tutorials I never seem to get round to doing, but I always mean to. An index would be useful here, as when I want to learn something I have to hunt through the previous issues.

I hope this is constructive.

PaulH

[Nobber]

I was looking through the mag yesterday and thought the package version comparison between Debian 3.0 and Debian 3.1 looked a bit odd. Aren't the package versions listed under Debian 3.0 actually for Debian 2.2 instead?
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[nelz]

Those are the versions that were in the Debian 3.0 release on the cover DVD almost four years ago.
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Unix is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who it's friends are.

[Nobber]

But for KDE it says N/A and for GNOME it says 1.0. But Debian 3.0 had KDE 2.2 and GNOME 1.4. (I'm sure, because I used Debian 3.0 for a while!)
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[nelz]

The versions listed were what were on the original first three release CDs. I promise you, I didn't just make those numbers up.

[Nobber]

Hang on...four years ago it would have been some revision of Debian 2.2 on the cover DVD. Debian 3.0 was released in July 2002.

Look!
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[nelz]

I thought it was longer ago that that (maybe it just seems like it) but the ISOs i checked had 3.0 in the name.
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Unix is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who it's friends are.

[Nigel]

Debian 3.0 was on the LXF33 DVD (November 2002).
The mag doesn't say if it includes KDE or not, but Gnome 1.4 was on the LXF15 CD back in June 2001 so I would have thought that was a more likely candidate than 1.0...