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Review of Yoper Linux v2.1 330

Posted by timothy from the what-you-want-it-to-be dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "An interesting review of Yoper Linux has just been posted posted at linuxforums.org. Yoper Linux really does look like it could be the first serious competition Gentoo has had in a long time."
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Review of Yoper Linux v2.1 More

Review of Yoper Linux v2.1

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  • Competion for what? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by I_Love_Pocky! ( 751171 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:05PM (#10240497)
    The first serious competion for what? The coolest new distro? That statement seems to imply that Gentoo is clearly the best around right now. I really like Gentoo, but I don't think I could dismiss all the other distros that easily.

    • I don't see gentoo as being "just another distro".
      Sure you can make it into a distribution, but portage is more like a collection of recipes for making distributions.
      It could be universal to all distributions.. gnu/linux, bsd, hurd, or whatever.

      I suppose the init scripts might make it a distribution.

      -metric

  • Not as good (Score:4, Funny)

    by shfted! ( 600189 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:06PM (#10240504) Journal
    Obviously this is not as good as Gentoo. If they were running Gentoo, they would have spent 14 hours messing with USE tags so the poor server could keep up with a slashdotting ;)

  • Oooo! Talk about stuff no one cares about (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ridgelift ( 228977 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:08PM (#10240541)
    Yoper Linux really does look like it could be the first serious competition Gentoo has had in a long time.

    In other obscure news about competition that no one cares about, Bob's Fatburger is launching a new ham & swiss sandwich that may prove to be stiff competition against Arby's in the war of the cold cut sandwich arena.
    • Do you mean this [fatburger.net] Fatburger, my favorite burger place? ;-) Of course some people say that In-n-Out is better, but I totally disagree! And Fatburger would NEVER offer ham & swiss sandwich, do not troll us, true believers! ;-)

      Paul B.

      P.S. Yes, I do think that there is place in this world for many burger joints, even obscure ones; as well as for many "experimental" distros. From this article someone will learn about that "prelinking" thing and it might make his day. It's /., after all!

  • if their webserver is any indication.. then no.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by joeldg ( 518249 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:08PM (#10240543) Homepage
    I am gonna say "no" ..

    but then, the article is slashdotted..

  • Full Text (Score:2, Informative)

    by nuclear305 ( 674185 ) *
    Introduction
    Ok, this is my first review and the kickoff to Linuxforums.org's Editorial Content Section, so lets get started. Yoper Linux is built around the idea of light, compact and wicked fast distro that is available to the average Linux user. Its 100% GPL compliant and the full ISO is free to anyone with an Internet connection. Yoper's popularity has absolutely skyrocketed with the release of v2.1 and is currently sitting at #18 on the distrowatch.com Page Hit Ranking.

    Yoper's claim to fame is the spee

    • Re:Full Text (Score:3, Interesting)

      by lytenyn ( 812870 )
      Several performance enhancing patches to the kernel
      All packages compiled specifically for the i686 against the latest and greatest of the gcc
      All the binaries were 'stripped' (ie. all the debug symbols and other nonessential data are removed.) in order to create an even faster base system.
      Prelinking

      So I wonder - I've done all that on my gentoo-box .. then why should yoper be noticeably faster?

      .. Besides the fact that I love Gentoo for various other reasons (no need to upgrade the whole system once

    • Re:Full Text (Score:2, Interesting)

      by smurf975 ( 632127 )
      Installation
      After downloading the single ISO and burning it, I booted into a BASH prompt. This might sound intimidating to those newer to Linux, but wherever a user is required to type something in there are directions included. In this instance it indicated 'type Yoper to begin setup'. A little fiddling reviled that the prompt had a few basic commands such as mount and access to Vim. Ready to begin the install, I typed Yoper, pressed enter and was greeted by the installer. Overall the feel of the install w

  • different purpose (Score:5, Interesting)

    by updog ( 608318 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:10PM (#10240568) Homepage
    It looks like Yoper has been created primarily for maximum performance on x86 machines. Although Gentoo is indeed fast as well, the main differentiating factor with Gentoo is that you build most of your system from source, which has other benefits (disadvantages) than simply execution speed.

    I would not jump to the conclusion that it's competition for Gentoo just because it's also fast.

    • Re:different purpose (Score:5, Interesting)

      by TeknoHog ( 164938 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:31PM (#10240798) Homepage Journal
      Although Gentoo is indeed fast as well, the main differentiating factor with Gentoo is that you build most of your system from source, which has other benefits (disadvantages) than simply execution speed.

      This is very true, and I'd like to clarify the reasons. The main one IMHO is that a lot of software options are compile-time. For example I don't use Gnome or KDE, thus I don't want any of the relevant dependencies/bindings compiled into the software I use. Many desktop oriented distros choose nearly every possible binding like this, 'just in case' it is needed. Even when the relevant code is not really used, bigger code is always slower.

      The fact that Yoper is compiled for i686 should not make much difference; there are tons of compiler options that go beyond simple i686 capabilities. In fact many compile-time optimizations are due to compiler-independent options as I mentioned above.

      It seems Yoper is fast because of prelinking. Gentoo with prelinking should be even faster. But again Gentoo's main point is not that it's fast; it's the ability to control almost every detail of software installation, while avoiding the complications from manual ./configure; make; make install.

      • Finally someone who gets it entirely and gets modded up for it. I am so damn sick and tired of people making all kinds of comments about Gentoo without understand what it's purpose even is.

        I salute you, Mr. Gentoo Using Guy Who Actually Gets It.

  • Link to yoper (Score:5, Informative)

    by jsprat ( 442568 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:11PM (#10240574)
    Since the submitter didn't provide a direct link to Yoper Linux [yoper.com], I will.


    Does anyone else think it's strange that a story about yoper has no link to their home page, but does have a link to gentoo?

    • Re:Link to yoper (Score:3, Informative)

      by ttldkns ( 737309 )
      the Yoper website is slashdotted pretty bad too now, heres a link to their torrent though, so we can all download a copy, its practically empty at the moment!! http://apt.yoper.com/torrent/yoper.torrent

  • Gentoo Competition? (Score:3, Funny)

    by TheLastUser ( 550621 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:12PM (#10240593)
    Yoper Linux really does look like it could be the first serious competition Gentoo has had in a long time.

    For what? "The worst installer of all time", or "The most time consuming distro ever".
    • Clearly you joke.

      Gentoo users pride themselves upon the fact that there is no installer for gentoo.

      But they will insist that the documentation is very nice.

      That is --- when they're not compiling. A decent installation (comprable to a stripped-down Fedora/Debian/Knoppix) took about a week to compile on a Duron 800 I used for the experiement.

      I think that was what made me convinced that PC users truly are insane and got a mac.

  • competition (Score:5, Funny)

    by nocomment ( 239368 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:12PM (#10240598) Homepage Journal
    Yoper Linux really does look like it could be the first serious competition Gentoo has had in a long time.


    uhhhh have you heard of Red Hat, Mandrake, Suse, Debian, Turbo, etc...? First real competition...phht! Gimme a break.

  • Beating Gentoo? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:13PM (#10240610)
    As someone who runs Gentoo on his home machine, I have to agree with some of the sentiment expressed around here: beat Gentoo at what?

    I think Gentoo is a great desktop distribution for someone who has a lot of time on their hands and is capable of doing things manually. However, I wouldn't recommend Gentoo for use on an important sever, nor would I recommend Gentoo to use for someone who doesn't have a lot of time or who is incapable of doing some complex things by hand.

    I think Gentoo right now is one of the better hobby/tweaking distributions, but I really don't think that's the usershare Yoper is going after.
    • Personally, I learned a lot about Linux from Gentoo. I had installed and used Mandrake for a few months before trying Gentoo, so I wasn't a complete Linux newbie, but I didn't really know much about it.

      Going through a complete Gentoo install from a stage 1 tarball taught me a lot, probably more than I could have picked up out of a book or two.

      I still mainly use Windows, but that's because I develop Windows apps for a living. I still enjoy messing around with Linux though.

  • That's great (Score:2, Insightful)

    by prisoner ( 133137 )
    there's plenty of competition in the linux sector. Now if we could just get someone to make a distro that actually competes with windows we'd be all set. If you want to flame me, please include an answer as to why in the world I would have to edit my yum.conf file to install a dvd player and compare that to the difficulties of installing the same software on windows. If you are stumped as to why I ask this, then employ your sage wisdom and explain why the average user would be excited about spending hou

    • Re:That's great (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Spyro VII ( 666885 )
      Oh, you mean this one [mandrake.org]? Of course, mandrake is not the only "desktop distro" out there right now, but it's the best windows replacement distro that I've found so far. I have set up a number of PCs for friends and family running mandrake and they haven't had any problems yet. Of course, some things can give you trouble (certain hardware combinations), but the fact of the matter is that people like you need to get out of their shells and realize that there are distros out there that are bridging the desktop

    • Re:That's great (Score:5, Insightful)

      by el-spectre ( 668104 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:29PM (#10240786) Journal
      I'm wondering myself why you'd edit yum.conf ... I'd just get the updated one from the Fedora Faq.

      We're still getting there. Right now, linux DOES compete with windows, in the 'good with computers' or better class of folks. 5 years ago you had to be much more advanced. Over time, the OS is getting better, but folks (especially linux savvy folks such as yourself) don't help things any by standing around and whining that it's not perfect RIGHT NOW.
      • I throw in occasional extra servers into yum.conf that aren't there because the ones that are listed in the Fedora Faq get hammered sometimes. It's useful to have some lesser-known, higher-bandwidth locations to use when major patches come out.

  • .torrent for latest version (Score:5, Informative)

    by chickenmonger ( 614989 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:16PM (#10240658) Journal
    http://apt.yoper.com/torrent/yoper.torrent [yoper.com]

    Help save their gracious FTP mirrors.

  • Office Speed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rjstanford ( 69735 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:17PM (#10240662) Homepage Journal
    Its funny - I haven't really tried open office at all lately, since I use Linux exclusively for server tasks (and we have full MSFT licenses), but this particular snippet caught my eye:

    Yoper's speed is evident mostly in everyday functions, such a opening a OpenOffice document. I have always found OpenOffice.org to open painfully slowly, but the start time in Yoper was impressive. In most systems it can take 15-20 seconds to start the massive OpenOffice, Yoper manages this in about 10 (on my machine, these are not official numbers from OpenOffice, just mine).

    His machine is a P4/1.8ghz/512mb box. Is it really noteworthy when an office suite opens in <sarcasm>about 10 seconds</sarcasm%gt; on a machine of that class? Really? Wow. That's ... pretty sad.

    Other than that, the experience looked promising. Does anyone know if it works as well with apt as Debian does? Or as poorly?
    • Not only that, but it's pretty simple to speed up OO's load time dramatically just by increasing the memory settings within OO. I'm puzzled as to why they're so low to start with to be honest.

      It is still a slug though - my work machine takes a good 15 seconds to load it up (P4 2.6ghz, FC2, 384MB, slowish 40GB HD); I use Gnumeric for spreadsheet work, since OO Calc takes so damned long to get going even once it's cached.
    • "I haven't tried open office at all lately" "Is it really noteworthy when an office suite opens in about 10 seconds"

      Unless its pre-loaded with the quick launcher in windows or you got some pretty fast shit, yeah its pretty great (when its open office!, ms office is a LOT faster to start up)...

      Let it be said I have a fast a64 with a lot of fast ram and serial ata hdd, and open office still loads pretty friggin slowly. Yet it does load fast in yoper (the distro i've been using since i discovered it las

    • Re:Office Speed (Score:4, Informative)

      by EvanED ( 569694 ) <evaned@NOspAM.gmail.com> on Monday September 13, 2004 @07:24PM (#10241349)
      Start up times under Windows:

      MS Word - 10 sec
      OO Writer - 12 sec

      Sad? Yes. But specific to OO.org? No.

      • Re:Office Speed (Score:3, Insightful)

        by adiposity ( 684943 )
        P3 700, Win2k SP4:

        Word 2000: 2 seconds (first time)
        Word 2000: 0 seconds (second time) It literally just pops up...something OpenOffice has never done for me.

        OpenOffice 1.1.2: 16 seconds (first time)
        OpenOffice 1.1.2: 3 seconds (second time)

        I include the second time to see how much caching helps, but this has been typical for me since the first OpenOffice. It takes a bloody long time to start.

        I don't know what the latest OpenOffice is; perhaps it has sped up quite a bit. But I'm using Word 2000, and I
    • Doesn't make sense.

      On my VIA Nehemia 1GHz (which is about equivalent to a Pentium III at 500MHz) with Mandrake 10.0, MS Word on CxOffice starts up in 7 seconds and OpenOfice.org Writer starts up in 8 seconds.

      So, on a P4 at 1.8GHz, either word processor should start in about 3 seconds.

  • not gpl compliant (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BlueLines ( 24753 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMdivisionbyzero.com> on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:20PM (#10240688) Homepage
    how can yoper claim to be "100% gpl compliant" when it includes nvidia's drivers?

  • I like it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sometwo ( 53041 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:21PM (#10240701)
    I've been using Mandrake for over 1 year. But am happy I've changed completely to Yoper. It's much faster; no more 15 seconds waiting for an app to fire. Also being part of a constantly evolving new distro makes it all more personal and significant. Sure there are packages missing. So we always can learn to build our own and add it to Yoper's repository. Rather than just sit back and complain. It's a very friendly and welcoming community there, no power battles or l33t t4lk - pretty cool methinks.
    • I don't get it. My miniITX VIA Nehemiah 1GHz with Mandrake 10.0 starts OpenOffice Writer in 8 seconds. A VIA 1GHz is about equivalent to a 500MHz Pentium.

      Nothing ever takes 15 seconds to load, unless there is something wrong, in which case it won't start at all.

      I do have 512MB RAM in this little machine, maybe that makes the difference?

  • Not too intimidating... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mod_parent_down ( 692943 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:25PM (#10240744)
    After downloading the single ISO and burning it, I booted into a BASH prompt. This might sound intimidating to those newer to Linux... A little fiddling reviled that the prompt had a few basic commands such as mount and access to Vim.

    Oh yeah. If you're intimidated by a Bash prompt, you're gonna LOVE vim.

    Ok, Lemme just type--

    BEEP!

    What the...

    BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

    Ah! I just want to edit the--

    BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!

    AHHHHHHHHH!!!!

    • I have no idea how to use vim... if i hafta type something out when i'm not in x i use joe, its simple and behaves like a text editor should (i'm a long time windows user!).....

      but the point is that you can use the yoper install cd as a rescue disc very very easily (i have, when grub didn't work right, i just booted it up and ran lilo)

  • Remembering the Yoper Jerk (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:26PM (#10240756)
    Does anyone remember the jerk from Yoper who was badmouthing the /. crowd? Yoper wanted $99 for their distro, and they bragged heavily. People started to call BS, and the Yoper jerk went berserk. That was the first time I ever heard of Yoper and the last time I cared. At least they learned what bad PR can do for business (Yoper is free now--ha!).

    • Re:Remembering the Yoper Jerk (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      He's quoted here [slashdot.org] in an old /. article from when the flamewar was going on in the Yoper forums.
    • Yeah, I've been trying to find the slashdot story on that. I remember reading yoper's own web pages, where the developer/developers were basically trashing their [potential] users. Like you said: thanks, but no thanks.

  • Yoper suspicious (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ashpool7 ( 18172 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:28PM (#10240782) Homepage Journal
    Does no-one remember back when Yoper went 1.0 and was on Slashdot? Seemed pretty suspicious [slashdot.org] if you ask me.

    Since the site is slashdotted, it's hard to see if anything has changed in a year.

    • Re:Yoper suspicious (Score:5, Interesting)

      by pnot ( 96038 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @07:09PM (#10241214)
      I looked into it when it made its debut a couple of years back. Several things made me uneasy. IIRC:

      1. It seemed to launch with huge fanfare and hype, and there was a bit of a backlash when it turned out to be just another "generic distro plus knoppix hardware detection" deal.

      2. Source wasn't originally available, so it was infringing on the GPL.

      3. They were very reticent about acknowledging the work they'd built on, and responded quite violently to any criticism.

      I had a poke about their website recently, the things that now make me uneasy are:

      1. Package availability -- according to this declaration [yoper.com], you can only install Yoper-packaged RPMs ("The ones for other distros have to probably be installed with rpm -Uvh --force --nodeps and might break apt.").

      2. Lack of decent documentation -- lots of important information seems to be squirreled away in the forums.

      3. Amateurish website ("Yoper is one of the most standardised Linuxes that you will find and hardware performancetries to be better better than that of any commercial OS." -- http://www.yoper.com/about.html )

      3. Responses to criticism still seem pretty belligerent, not to mention self-contradictory. A forum post from March 2003 says:

      We are not a one man distro. Currently we have hundreds of users and several people on the development team and also a new commercial team that does the commercial side here in NZ. ( original post [yoper.com] )

      Then, in October 2003:

      Some of you compile quite a few packages, which is great!!!! The base Yoper is done by ONE person and this person (ME) has a distro which is now fairly well known even though it is only version 1. Just think of this. Yoper is a one man distro and so many have an opinion on it. ( original post [yoper.com] )

      So, is it a one-man distro or not?

      Still, it seems they're no longer trying to flog it for 99 USD, which makes me think a little more kindly of it :-).
  • It's about time we had another souped up, optimized to the core, compiled from source, fear my USE flags distro to provide competition with Gentoo [funroll-loops.org].

    You know what they say... Monopoly is never a good thing ;)
  • what about SourceMage [sourcemage.org]? I use Gentoo, but I was considering SourceMage along the way, and it looks like a valid competitor.

  • I just have to say (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mr. Cancelled ( 572486 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @06:49PM (#10240990)
    The hype is justified!

    Yoper really is the next best thing to Gentoo for me, as far as Linux goes.
    • It's more optimized than its comptetion (all the other non-enterprise, modern, cutting-edge desktop distros... Ark, JAMD, PCLinuxOS, etc.))
    • It's using some of the best packages avail at the moment, in their latest incarnations
    • It's setup in such a way that it could immediately be used as an office PC (aka as a Windows replacement), it's equally able to handle more "power-user" type people straight out of the box, with additional software available via a point and click GUI (Synaptic)
    • While it's 'dumbed down' to the point that your average PC-based web surfer/emailer/im'er can start out right at home, it's just so fuckin' fast and optimized right out of the box that it'll impress even the most jaded Linux user.
    • It's picking up momentum fast, so more and more of the popular packages (and in my opinion some really obscure ones - There's a lotta stuff 'ported for it' that I'd never expect -or use) are being put out. I'm really just talking compile optimizations and such, but they're all setup for the Yoper structure
    • The hardware support is very nice. In fact, to me, the biggest "ooh!" about the most recent release is that it's the first Linux distribution that correctly identified and setup my Radeon 9600 card, with dual monitors. EVERY other distribution made me hand-edit the config files to make this work, and in some this cases never worked at all


    It really is a slick system, and very deserving of the accolades it's starting to receive. To me, it's the distribution to judge others by (With the obvious exception of Gentoo, and other source-based distros).

    If they can continue the momentum and build their software catalog (meaning compiled, optimized packages for Yoper), I can see Yoper easily winning the Desktop Linux race.

    Oh, and for the record, if you've heard of any problems with their support, or OSS issues, it appears that this is very much a thing of the past. I was there for the beta testing, and I was one of the those who didn't like what happened after the release of v 1.0, and I can safely say that it appears that Yopers seen the light, and has remedied any problems they may have had. The Yoper community is also very good.

    Check it out! You know you've installed dozens of Linux distributions already... What's one more going to hurt? It could change your usage of Linux.

  • I don't use gentoo for *speed*, but *flexibility* (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This new distro looks interesting (runs KDE fast .. though I have long since switched to Mac OS X).

    But I use gentoo on servers because of 1) the flexibility.. finally I can *remove* the crap dependencies like kerberos, etc, on package, and I can add the stuff I need (mbox vs. maildirs, etc).

    and 2).. it is SO EASY to make ebuilds, and they really do keep track of the files correctly because of the sandbox concept. On our servers we use custom ebuilds to keep versions stable, we deploy apps to remote sites

  • Quick convert (Score:2, Interesting)

    by HungSquirrel ( 790165 )
    I first tried Yoper two months ago and was an immediate and complete convert. You cannot possibly fathom how snappy this OS feels unless you've used Gentoo. I was absolutely blown away. It really breathes new life into my aging P3 500MHz laptop. Unlike Gentoo, you don't have to spend a week on the install to get a fast system.

    On top of that, the install is one rather vanilla disc, allowing you to pick and choose other packages you want after installing. Why waste the extra time downloading three or fo

  • yap yap (Score:3, Informative)

    by itzdandy ( 183397 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @07:11PM (#10241232) Homepage
    yap yap yap, try it b4 you critisize.

    so many people here are saying this is NOT that great but have not tried it. so here

    http://iso.linuxquestions.org/download/http/www.tl m-project.org/yos-i686-2.1.0-4.iso.torrent [linuxquestions.org]

    a nice torrent for you to play with

  • Just to recall that if one is looking for a source based distro, there are very good alternatives to Gentoo like Sourcemage (I'm using it with great pleasure everyday) or Lunar-linux (haven't really tried it).
  • All the binaries were 'stripped' (ie. all the debug symbols and other nonessential data are removed) in order to create an even faster base system.

    Stripping the binaries doesn't speed up anything, except possibly disk seek times because the smaller files take up fewer total cylinders.

  • Does this person know how to use Gentoo? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gipsy boy ( 796148 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @07:56PM (#10241656)
    "The boot time is a tricky one to measure, but if you clock the time taken to reach a login prompt, Gentoo wins but not buy much, about a 7 second difference in my test. But once you go to starting X, Yoper leaps ahead and can have me browsing the web, editing an office doc, and chatting in the IRC before Gentoo got me into a GUI."

    I'm not sure what this person is talking about here. Is he talking about KDE again? Well, I use fluxbox and it takes under 2 seconds to get into my X system after typing "xinit". (most of which goes to driving my nVidia card)

    I run Gentoo and I don't see where the 'competition' lies, exactly.. I'm sure you can make Gentoo's KDE as 'fast' as Yope's since it can do all those things Yope does with gcc, when you emerge the KDE package. I feel this article misinformed some people really, this distro looks pretty weak in my opinion.
  • ... One of the nicest things about Gentoo compared to other distros is that they're not zealots regarding non-GPL stuff like nvidia-kernel.. It reduces my agita by a mild but discernible amount, and for that I am happy.
  • Did it remind anyone else of the ummm, "band" Da Yoopers [dayoopers.com]?

    Singing hits like Grandpa Got Run Over By A Beer Truck [dayoopers.com] and Super Dooper Yooper Love Machine? [dayoopers.com]

    No? ummm.....

  • Next out, Yoder Linux... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nuclear Elephant ( 700938 ) on Monday September 13, 2004 @09:18PM (#10242314) Homepage
    ...Linux for the Amish.

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