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Gone But Not Forgotten: Five Great Linux Distributions That Did Not Survive (DistroWatch Weekkly #311)
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Comments (28)
I remember Caldera Linux
I remember Ransom Love working the booth at LinuxWorld in NYC, handing out CDs and chatting with the hoi polloi. It was a different world.
@tuxchick -- I thought Caldera Linux was based on .rpm not .deb ? I could be wrong, its been a long time since those dusty boxes on my shelf were touched.
softwarejanitor, I think I'm remembering wrong. According to Wikipedia it seems it was not a direct derivative of any existing Linux distribution, but a mix of Linux, Unix, and some Windows interoperability tools:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldera_OpenLinux
BTW, nice work as always, Caitlyn.
TC -
OpenLinux was definitely RPM based.
OpenLinux was definitely RPM based.
@all - caldera actually started out as a redhat-based distro. They basically took a redhat install and ran a utility called "calderize" to convert it to caldera. Of course it diverged widely from that redhat base, resembling suse more than anything else.
Caldera came with some extras not found in other distros - for instance netware connectivity tools, netscape server and other some innovative admin utilities. I used caldera in 1996 while working at TRW and the netware tools came in very handy.
Caldera will probably be remembered best for their cool installer that let you play tetris while the OS install finished.
Caldera came with some extras not found in other distros - for instance netware connectivity tools, netscape server and other some innovative admin utilities. I used caldera in 1996 while working at TRW and the netware tools came in very handy.
Caldera will probably be remembered best for their cool installer that let you play tetris while the OS install finished.
@tuxchick: Thanks for the kind words. Caldera 1.x was definitely based on Red Hat. By the late '90s Caldera was about as much Red Hat as SUSE was Slackware. Those may have been the origins of the respective distros but they were doing their own thing and writing their own code. Caldera was particularly innovative at the time with the first GUI installer, the first comprehensive GUI admin tool, etc...
That mix of things you refer to, essentially a Linux distro with a SCO UNIXWare kernel side by side with a Linux kernel, came much later, after the SCO acquisition. It was actually one of those last gasp things from SCO/Caldera as management was preparing to flush the distro down the drain.
The first Debian for the masses distro was definitely Storm Linux (the second one covered in my article) and it was making waves in 1999-2000, the same time Caldera was peaking in popularity. I think maybe you've mixed and matched bits from two very good distros of the time in your memory.
Ransom Love did a lot of good things while running Caldera but he never completely got out of the Novell proprietary software company mindset. Most of the Caldera extensions and unique code was proprietary rather than FOSS. Per-seat licensing for COL was also introduced on Ransom Love's watch. OK, compared to Darl McBride and company the guy seems positively angelic but he made some really bad decisions while running Caldera which opened the door to disaster.
Ransom Love probably finally had the right answer with the United Linux partnership. By the time it was released McBride was firmly in charge and had zero interest in continuing the Linux business.
@herzeleid: Caldera came with a ton of stuff not found in other distros. Much (or perhaps most) of it was proprietary. They really didn't care about licensing much. When Red Hat and others were eschewing KDE because of TrollTech's licensing of QT the folks at Caldera embraced it with open arms.
In 1998 the result was a polished distro that couldn't be achieved with FOSS alone. If Caldera management (including Ransom Love) had a serious clue they would have gone this way only as an interim step. Bits and pieces like COAS and Lizard would have had FOSS licenses as well.
@all: Caldera was way ahead of its time technically. It achieved a lot of what Ubuntu is still trying to achieve more than 10 years ago. Caldera created a user friendly, highly functional, stable, secure, reliable OS without a lot of significant bugs. They were plagued by management problems most of the way and that only became more serious as time went on.
The truly sad thing is that some of their business models (consultancy, proprietary extensions) could have worked if given ample tiime and focus. They did a lot of what Red Hat has done successfully before Red Hat did it. The problem was that nothing was given ample time and they lurched from one attempt to monetize the distro to another. Without adequate time to build focus and market their ideas everythiing was doomed to failure. Would-be investors recognized this. Caldera's failed IPO was in part because they came to the party too late (as in as the dot com bubble was already bursting) and in part because they failed to communicate a clear business model.
Caldera could have recovered from all of this. The huge financial windfall from the Microsoft settlement could have been a boon to FOSS if used to build viable company. Instead a get rich quick mentality consumed the company and they were off to play litigation roulette.
You know what really makes me sick? SCO, the litigation company, always finds more financing before it fails. Companies like Stormix, which really came up with the Ubuntu concept years before Shuttleworth, couldn't find funding even though they really did have something special to offer.
That mix of things you refer to, essentially a Linux distro with a SCO UNIXWare kernel side by side with a Linux kernel, came much later, after the SCO acquisition. It was actually one of those last gasp things from SCO/Caldera as management was preparing to flush the distro down the drain.
The first Debian for the masses distro was definitely Storm Linux (the second one covered in my article) and it was making waves in 1999-2000, the same time Caldera was peaking in popularity. I think maybe you've mixed and matched bits from two very good distros of the time in your memory.
Ransom Love did a lot of good things while running Caldera but he never completely got out of the Novell proprietary software company mindset. Most of the Caldera extensions and unique code was proprietary rather than FOSS. Per-seat licensing for COL was also introduced on Ransom Love's watch. OK, compared to Darl McBride and company the guy seems positively angelic but he made some really bad decisions while running Caldera which opened the door to disaster.
Ransom Love probably finally had the right answer with the United Linux partnership. By the time it was released McBride was firmly in charge and had zero interest in continuing the Linux business.
@herzeleid: Caldera came with a ton of stuff not found in other distros. Much (or perhaps most) of it was proprietary. They really didn't care about licensing much. When Red Hat and others were eschewing KDE because of TrollTech's licensing of QT the folks at Caldera embraced it with open arms.
In 1998 the result was a polished distro that couldn't be achieved with FOSS alone. If Caldera management (including Ransom Love) had a serious clue they would have gone this way only as an interim step. Bits and pieces like COAS and Lizard would have had FOSS licenses as well.
@all: Caldera was way ahead of its time technically. It achieved a lot of what Ubuntu is still trying to achieve more than 10 years ago. Caldera created a user friendly, highly functional, stable, secure, reliable OS without a lot of significant bugs. They were plagued by management problems most of the way and that only became more serious as time went on.
The truly sad thing is that some of their business models (consultancy, proprietary extensions) could have worked if given ample tiime and focus. They did a lot of what Red Hat has done successfully before Red Hat did it. The problem was that nothing was given ample time and they lurched from one attempt to monetize the distro to another. Without adequate time to build focus and market their ideas everythiing was doomed to failure. Would-be investors recognized this. Caldera's failed IPO was in part because they came to the party too late (as in as the dot com bubble was already bursting) and in part because they failed to communicate a clear business model.
Caldera could have recovered from all of this. The huge financial windfall from the Microsoft settlement could have been a boon to FOSS if used to build viable company. Instead a get rich quick mentality consumed the company and they were off to play litigation roulette.
You know what really makes me sick? SCO, the litigation company, always finds more financing before it fails. Companies like Stormix, which really came up with the Ubuntu concept years before Shuttleworth, couldn't find funding even though they really did have something special to offer.
@caitlyn I agree with most of what you have said about Caldera and Stormix's failures. Its sad that so much potential was lost due to bad management and lack of capital. If one or more of those companies had been able to build the kind of momentum 10 years ago that Ubuntu has today the OS landscape might have been a bit different than it is now.
> If one or more of those companies had been able to build the kind of momentum 10 years ago that Ubuntu has today the OS landscape might have been a bit different than it is now.
Possibly, but the apps weren't really ready yet. Mozilla had not yet forked to Firefox. No OpenOffice yet, just StarOffice. I don't believe Wine could run Notes yet, and there was no native Notes client. Gnumeric hadn't reached 1.0 yet. And the list goes on from there. It takes time to develop free apps to compete with their proprietary counterparts, and mosf of them weren't there yet.
Possibly, but the apps weren't really ready yet. Mozilla had not yet forked to Firefox. No OpenOffice yet, just StarOffice. I don't believe Wine could run Notes yet, and there was no native Notes client. Gnumeric hadn't reached 1.0 yet. And the list goes on from there. It takes time to develop free apps to compete with their proprietary counterparts, and mosf of them weren't there yet.
Corel Linux!!!
That was Debian-based, that is. Easy to install, perty graphics, and they tried to make some clever use of WINE to run Corel PhotoPaint, some games, some nice play-nice-with- Windows tools, and Word Perfect. As I recall the WINE apps weren't quite there, but the Linux-y bits were pretty good. I used to be a huge CorelDraw fan, so getting PhotoPaint on Linux was exciting. They had USB support before Windoze, hahaha. Then you'll never guess what happened. Come on, guess.
?
You're right, you smart penguins you! Microsoft bought into Corel, and then in an amazing coincidence, which I am sure had nothing to do with anything, Corel Linux slowly vanished. No drama, no announcements, it just quietly went away. There was the usual grumbling and accusations, but nothing ever came of it.
Wikipedia has links to some news stories on the MS deal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corel_Linux
This quote from a Joe Barr interview is priceless. Shades of Mono:
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/10/16/corel.linu...
What's the saying, MS doesn't have partners, it has victims.
Anyway I am happy I remembered Corel Linux!
That was Debian-based, that is. Easy to install, perty graphics, and they tried to make some clever use of WINE to run Corel PhotoPaint, some games, some nice play-nice-with- Windows tools, and Word Perfect. As I recall the WINE apps weren't quite there, but the Linux-y bits were pretty good. I used to be a huge CorelDraw fan, so getting PhotoPaint on Linux was exciting. They had USB support before Windoze, hahaha. Then you'll never guess what happened. Come on, guess.
?
You're right, you smart penguins you! Microsoft bought into Corel, and then in an amazing coincidence, which I am sure had nothing to do with anything, Corel Linux slowly vanished. No drama, no announcements, it just quietly went away. There was the usual grumbling and accusations, but nothing ever came of it.
Wikipedia has links to some news stories on the MS deal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corel_Linux
This quote from a Joe Barr interview is priceless. Shades of Mono:
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/10/16/corel.linu...
Quoting: LinuxWorld: With the recent investment by Microsoft, many people in the Linux community are concerned about your various Linux projects getting derailed. What effect will there be on your Linux ambitions?
Rene Schmidt: Essentially, with Linux, we are very committed to it. And the agreement, or partnership, or alliance, whatever you want to call it, with Microsoft is not anti-Linux or anything. It is really about .Net.
What's the saying, MS doesn't have partners, it has victims.
Anyway I am happy I remembered Corel Linux!
@caitlyn:
Take a gander at SCO's latest "interested party":
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090711015440158
Take a gander at SCO's latest "interested party":
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090711015440158
Oy! Thanks for the link, gus3. I guess the SCO nightmare never ends.
@tuxchick: In the end Corel Linux was purchased by and rolled into Xandros. I wouldn't call it a dead distro any more than I would Connectiva, Mandrake and Lycoris, which all merged and became Mandriva.
HI I have a book called QUE " EASY LINUX " by Lisa Lee, bought off ebay i thought
that it may have covered a later version of a linux like ubuntu or suse or ???
I understand after reading ( I Remember Caldera Linux ) that this is no more
So is anyone interested in this book ?
If so please email me pljob@hotmail.com
I understand after reading ( I Remember Caldera Linux ) that this is no more
So is anyone interested in this book ?
If so please email me pljob@hotmail.com
> Caldera came with a ton of stuff not found in other distros. Much (or perhaps most) of it was proprietary....
Which meant it all went the way of the Dodo when Caldera became the current SCO.
That's also why you can't still find Caldera iso's around. Since they had so many proprietary components, they couldn't be mirrored by the usual mirror sites. :(
Which meant it all went the way of the Dodo when Caldera became the current SCO.
That's also why you can't still find Caldera iso's around. Since they had so many proprietary components, they couldn't be mirrored by the usual mirror sites. :(
Quoting:Caldera came with a ton of stuff not found in other distros. Much (or perhaps most) of it was proprietary....
Which meant it all went the way of the Dodo when Caldera became the current SCO.
Exactly. The DistroWatch comments section this week has turned into a Libranet love-fest. Libranet also was closed, pay-as-you-play, and anything they developed was proprietary. People who loved their admin tool couldn't continue it because the source code was never released.
That's also why you can't still find Caldera iso's around. Since they had so many proprietary components, they couldn't be mirrored by the usual mirror sites. :(
If you look hard enough you can find some early ones (i.e.: 1.x). The really good releases (2.x and 3.1.1) are impossible to find, which is a pity. I wouldn't run them anyway as they would be security nightmares, but I do have some nostalgic feelings towards them.
OpenLinux - Sigh.
So much promise.
I still remember that graphical installer -- the one that popped up a tetris game for you to play while it went about completing your installation.
Cute.
Oh well.
Cute.
Oh well.
And the weird little Wizard with the tiny legs and feet, and there was a famous typo in the setup wizard that they never fixed. I wish I could remember it now, or knew some packrat who still had a copy so I could look :)
I got a copy of a Linux book back in high school and it came with Redhat, Caldera, and some other distro... don't remember which, I think I may still have it somewhere. I'll have to go through my parents books and see if it is still there and then try it in a VM.
Hmm, I have a multi distro CD collection I got from Walnut Creek ages ago. I wonder if it has Caldera on it? I'll see if I can remember to check when I get home.
Libranet
> Libranet
Thanks, nubmer6x. I was trying to remember that name.
Thanks, nubmer6x. I was trying to remember that name.
Nope, no such luck. It looks like the only Walnut Creek disk I kept was the Slackware one. But I doubt Caldera was in there anyway, as they tried to kept their iso's locked down due to the proprietary components they contained.
Quoting:> Libranet Thanks, nubmer6x. I was trying to remember that nameFrom Libranet's distrowatch summary at http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=Libranet
Quoting:The Libranet Linux Desktop is a production of Libra Computer Systems Ltd. Libra has been providing UNIX systems and software development since 1984. We are located in the Vancouver area of British Columbia, Canada. We chose Debian as the base of Libranet. Debian GNU/Linux is solid and true to the spirit of GNU/Linux. We are a small team who see the future in GNU/Linux. We believe that Libranet is not only a solid replacement for Microsoft Windows, but surpasses it in almost all aspects. As GNU/Linux evolves and more and more hardware becomes supported, we find no need to run anything else. Libranet runs in our own office on both desktops and servers and fulfills all our business and personal computing needs. Our goal is to continue to produce a system to be proud of.For some, including this author, Libranet was certainly one of the "Great Linux Distributions That Did Not Survive". Too bad that Danzig decided to discontinue its development near the end of year 2005.. See the 2005-2006 LXer Newswire stories on this : - Tal Danzig's 'Libranet Shutting Down', http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/48659/ - Bruce Byfield's 'Libranet's Long Goodbye', http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/48787 (Note that the link to the original piece here should be http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/50184 ) - SJVN's 'Libranet's lesson: you can't keep a good open-source distro down', http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/49020/ - Bruce Byfield's 'Libranet's last goodbye', http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/62630 (Note that the link to the original piece here should be http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/54958 )
IIRC, Libranet was touted as a distro that did Debian even better than Debian itself. Libranet R.I.P.
One of Libranet's most popular features was its graphical system administration tool. This was a closed, proprietary utility, and unfortunately Tal never did agree to release it, even after he decided to shut Libranet down. (After Jon, Tal's father died, Tal discontinued the Libranet project.)
tuxchik hits the nail on the head, as usual. The DistroWatch comments section this week has turned into a Libranet love-fest. Libranet was closed, pay-as-you-play, and anything they developed was proprietary. People who loved their admin tool couldn't continue it because the source code was never released. It's one of the reasons I really, really, really want to stick with FOSS software wherever possible. Really good FOSS projects don't die very often. They change hands but they do continue.
I had this really twisted thought: create an RPM-based distro (say, based on CentOS) and create new COAS and Lizard look-alikes. Call it Volcanic Linux and watch SCO explode. Have a good lawyer ready to defend yourself when the lawsuits begin...
I had this really twisted thought: create an RPM-based distro (say, based on CentOS) and create new COAS and Lizard look-alikes. Call it Volcanic Linux and watch SCO explode. Have a good lawyer ready to defend yourself when the lawsuits begin...
@caitlyn That's funny...
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Ransom Love was the CEO of Caldera then, and a pretty nice guy. He seemed genuinely interested in Linux and FOSS, and the different mindset that FOSS required from the usual corporate silliness. Then Darl and his henchpeople swept in like a horde of invaders and took over. I never could get a straight answer on why Ransom and the old Caldera execs were purged, though it seems apparent that the plan, as Caitlyn said, was to become a litigation troll rather than a software company.