Ubuntu Forums has been hacked. Can't see what the draw is of hacking a community of volunteers, but hey the internet is full of asshats innit? Luckily I use a random password generator and the password I have on the site is unique to that one only, but still it could be problematic. I've not had any spam yet, but I suppose there's time. Canonical say the passwords were not stored in plain text.

That's worrying.

Selling all the email addresses on with associated names and other information so they can be potentially phished in future. They didn't know the passwords were salted and hashed, if they weren't then they could be sold on too.

1.82 million logins is worth ££

Still down. Not great but what can you do? Some idiots have been trying to say Ubuntu isn't secure because of this. It's nothing to do with the Ubuntu OS! I admit it reflects badly.

This week I ar mosely bin using openSUSE 12.3 KDE. Stunning system. Sad that many people think only Ubuntu can deliver a solid Linux OS. I admit it isn't as friendly from the outset, and you have to learn how to add repositories in their setup tool, but it's not hard and well worth it. The missus is still using it on her laptop and says it's the best operating system she's ever used. In the past I've installed Mint, Ubuntu, Mandriva among others for her, so it's high praise indeed!

And that's the news.

Are you originally from the West Country?

I've got openSUSE (Gnome shell version), and it annoys me that the settings are split between 'Settings' and 'Yast', and it's not immediately obvious which one you should use for what.

I only today got an email from Ubuntu about their forum issue, so the hackers have had at least three days to do their work before the majority of users would know about it, supposing they hadn't visited the forums in that time.

Must admit I'd been lax in using the same password in different places, so I've had to go and change my Facebook password and one of my email accounts.
Hope I was in time before any info was gleaned.

/Fast Show

I haven't had any contact from the forums at all. The password I use for them is unique to their forums so I'm not worried about that, but I am concerned that the criminals now have my email address. I use KeePassX for random password generation and safe storage, and I thoroughly recommend it.

OpenSUSE Gnome Shell does have it's fair share of options available, but it's not that hard to grasp really. The KDE version's the same really. Actually since singing its praises it's had an update to KDE 4.10.5, and it has been considerably less plain sailing. For some reason now the sound system takes an age to initiate at boot, meaning there's a considerable wait before the desktop welcome sound appears. Very annoying, and it only happens intermittently, so one boot is fine and fast, and the next you're left waiting for the sound system.

So baaack to Ubuntu... Good old dual boot.

In openSUSE if you go into System Settings and click on Network Settings it tells you something like
"This setting is not compatible with this version of the operating system".
So why hasn't it been tidied up?

You've actually got to go into Yast to set up your wifi, and then there's no network icon on the taskbar.
It's not a Gnome shell fault, because I've got Ubuntu Gnome on another machine and that does have a network icon on the taskbar.

Mind you I've got so many different partitions and OSs (approx 13), spread around my various machines, that I find myself booting into something just because I haven't been there for a few weeks and there's bound to be updates to install.
Really should have a clear-out, but I like to keep up to date.

TBH as long as I can listen to my music and surf the web on anything I'm in, that's all I need really.
I do have one machine that has all my business stuff on it.

Same as me, love or hate them, i cant get away from Ubuntu.

Tried several other Distros, liked them, but just not quite there, as Ubuntu is.

Im still hanging in with
http://manjaro.org/ on a second drive.
But main drive is still booting to Xubuntu
http://xubuntu.org/ it just works, got it setup how i like it, eg programs + looks etc cant fault it

If youre bored, you could always fill this in and vote for youre favourites.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/...013-nomination


or some light reading on the man himself
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/Li...ode-78536.html

Must admit it seems to be something i have done less of this year. In fact only tried a few, but returned quicklt to my fave os.

Seems like others are sticking as well.

http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/Un...ion-78584.html

Used to be a time i would try every Distro that appeared on
http://distrowatch.com/
But not any more

Interesting article. I myself have hopped about a lot in recent times, but I'm looking to do this less and less. I just want it to work. I'm pretty much settled on Ubuntu at the moment, but if it pisses me off one way or another, I'll hop. However, right now Ubuntu 13.04 is really bloody good. Pity it's only got 9 months of support. OpenSUSE as my secondary Linux is excellent too.

I always keep an eye on Mint as I love what they do. To me they are active proof that community works, from the developer to the sponsor to the user. It's a great thing they've got going, and much nicer than Ubuntu's more corporate image these days. I've no doubt I'll be back on it for Mint 16 in November.

I really like Elementary OS - with it's Pantheon desktop enviroment.

But before that I was distro hoping like mad, trying to find a replacement for Ubuntu. Because I didn't like Unity.

That looks quite nice.
Like Gnome-shell, but all on the one page.

Does anyone know what the best small Linux OS is, less than 3gb after install? One that has the latest Shockwave Flash installed as well, for watching BBC iPlayer and playing Facebook games.

Try LXLE http://www.lxle.net/ Lubuntu based distro.

However once installed you will then need to use the Synaptic package manager or the Software centre on the system to install the following

Adobe Flash Player plugin installer

Puppy Linux is very small, very fast and can be run or installed in a variety of ways. It has Flash Player included and the community on the forum is very helpful and friendly.

http://www.puppylinux.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightwe...x_distribution

Whilst download size is important, Ram usage also very much hints at their size

Hell of a lot of work gone into this just for a bit of fun

Sometimes you get bored of working on Linux command line, now watch STAR WARS on command line itself.

All you need to do is :

$ telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

Taken from
Amazing Linux command line tricks
http://mylinuxbook.com/5-really-cool...d-line-tricks/

It all went rather slowly and with plenty of problems.

I won't bore you with the details except to say I'm a bit suspicious about that blue caviar HDD. It started making clunking sounds on boot up second week in.

I ended up putting Win 7 & Ubuntu 13.04 on the SSD drive. While Ubuntu was still very fast on the HDD I just couldn't stand it being that bit slower than Windows. Also despite trying everything I couldn't get the dual boot to work properly across two drives. I even tried the Windows option and easybcd but even had it worked I'd have missed the purple Grub screen...

Windows 7 and Ubuntu 13.04 both doing remarkably well with near instant responses and only one freeze (Win 7) in the last 2 weeks..

In early 2014.

What will happen to that 33% + of PCs running XP?
2014 could be a very good year for Linux.,

Well there's always Windows 8.






Oh.

Thanks. Quite a few to look into there. Although, the puppy one seems like it could do the job OK.

Also, for my main computer I'm still using Vista, so thought I might upgrade it to Linux instead of buying Windows 7 or 8. I was thinking of either Ubuntu or Mint. Which do people think is the best and easiest for a newcomer and what's the difference between Cinnamon, Mate, xfce etc? Thanks.

For a newcomer the choice of which distro to use can be very difficult. I would recommend that you try 2. Ubuntu and Linux Mint Xfce.

Download the latest stable versions of each (Ubuntu 13.04 and Mint Xfce 15) create Live CDs (or preferably USB keys) and try them both out.

Ubuntu has the Unity desktop which you will either like or not. Mint Xfce is much more like Win XP.

Differences between distros you list are largely in the presentation of the desktop. It really comes down to personal taste.

I would say Mint Cinnamon rather than Xfce.

It all comes down to personal preference obviously, but Cinnamon is the one that Mint will continue to work on and improve themselves, whereas Xfce is a separate project.

Xfce is a bit more lightweight in terms of resources though, but a Vista computer should be able to handle all the latest DEs