 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 477, 8 October 2012 |
Welcome to this year's 41st issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Taking a break from the usual distro reviews, this week's feature story is a hardware adventure that explores the ARM-based ODROID-X development platform. Robert Storey has spent a few weeks turning a complex-looking device into a useful computer system and is happy to share his experiences. With the growing number of ARM-based boards available for purchase on the Internet, this is an area where any Linux geek will be only too happy to explore for fun and profit. In the news section, Ubuntu's Amazon controversy continues despite the project's new option to turn off the Amazon search feature, OpenBSD takes a stab at Linux for having a damaging effect on the POSIX standards system, and openSUSE's new board chairman Vincent Untz defends GNOME 3 from the continued criticism in the media. Also in this issue, an article about installing Debian GNU/Linux on Raspberry Pi, a story of Tiny Core Linux serving as a single-purpose virtual appliance, and an opinion piece calling for the creation of a "Linux operating system" with a common base shared across the many distributions. Happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (100MB) and MP3 (27MB) formats
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| Feature Story (by Robert Storey) |
ODROID-X - a call to ARMs
Man does not live by breadboards alone.
* * * * *
I've been waiting an awfully long time for an ARM-based computer. Not that I couldn't have had one earlier - the Acorn Archimedes - released in 1987 - boasted an ARM microprocessor. However, that machine didn't exactly take the world by storm - it was very much a UK thing, and I've never lived in the UK. Indeed, I've never seen an Acorn computer, though from everything I've heard they were quite capable and ahead of their time. Although the company gained a respectable reputation as "Britain's Apple," the cut-throat competition proved to be too much. Acorn broke up in the 1990s, but pieces of the company live on, notably ARM Holdings plc, which licenses its technology to numerous manufacturers of ARM chips.
Of course, many of you reading this already own an ARM-based computer - sort of. The ARM chip, in its various iterations, powers nearly all the world's cell phones. Whether or not a phone should be considered a "computer" has become a point of debate, but I can say without hesitation that my stupid phone (as opposed to a smart phone) doesn't make the grade. Aside from talking, my phone has a few endearing applications - calculator, alarm clock and a nifty built-in flashlight - but I can safely say that NASA won't be using it for calculating the flight path of their next Martian rover.
So for definition's sake, my idea of a "computer" has to be something with a usable screen and keyboard, connects to the Internet, has a zillion applications to suit my every whim, gives me root access and basically lets me get all my geek work done. Until very recently, if you wanted all of the above you were pretty much restricted to something from the Intel world, or a compatible counterpart from AMD. A few other microprocessors have come and gone - DEC Alpha, PowerPC, MIPS and others. Yes, I know some of these are still around, but don't expect to find them in your local computer shop. If you're looking to leave the i386/AMD64 world behind, the only serious player is ARM.
Development Boards
The ARM instruction set has evolved over time, gaining speed and other capabilities. We are currently at version 7, a 32-bit implementation, usually incorporated into a "system on a chip" (SoC). The ARM Cortex-A15 is the most advanced ARM architecture out there, but these chips seem to be thin on the ground. Most boards that you can buy today use the still very respectable ARM Cortex-A9 design. ARM version 8 is promised for the future and will deliver 64-bit instructions, but they don't exist yet in the real world.
Geeks have been salivating over the prospect of owning an ARM board, but until a couple of years ago you pretty much had to break out a breadboard and soldering iron and roll your own. Then some manufacturers started offering more or less complete "development boards." The first ones were rather lame, but they have improved and suddenly demand has skyrocketed. Probably the best-known one is the Raspberry Pi - it has proven to be so popular that there is a long waiting list to get one. There are several other notable ARM boards from various other manufacturers trying to milk this market, including the BeagleBoard, PandaBoard, VIA APC. A variation on the theme is the cstick Cotton Candy which looks like a USB stick.
When I first decided to jump on the ARM bandwagon, I wanted to purchase a Raspberry Pi because I was impressed by its popularity and low price (US$35). So I went ahead and ordered one, and have been waiting... and waiting, seemingly forever. Due to raging demand, the device has yet to ship. Being an impatient lot, I went looking for an alternative, and finally settled on purchasing the ODROID-X. At US$129, it's more than three times the price of the RasPi, but it's also considerably more powerful. The processor is a Samsung quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 running at a respectable 1.4GHz, with 1GB of RAM (not upgradable) included. These specs should be capable of delivering performance roughly equivalent to a recent model Intel Atom processor, and possibly exceeding it - a tantalizing prospect considering that I do most of my work on an ASUS Eee PC which runs on an Intel Atom. Thus, I was hooked on the ODROID-X before I could even get my credit card out of my wallet.
ODROID-X - an open mobile development platform based on Exynos4412 ARM Cortex-A9 Quad Core processor
If you want one of these boards, you won't find it in your local computer store. The manufacturer is located in South Korea and you order directly from their website. The money gets processed via PayPal, which caused me some difficulty as PayPal rejected my credit card for no apparent reason. I eventually was able to place an order using a friend's credit card. In addition to the board itself, there are a few rather essential "options" you'll have to order to make the thing work, the most important being the 5-volt AC/DC power adaptor. Another essential item is an adaptor to make video output work - sadly there is no VGA/DVI port. You have a choice between using HDMI (requires an HDMI Type A to Micro-size Type D cable which costs US$9) or a proprietary 14-inch LCD module kit (US$79) which connects to the card's 50-pin connector. Like most users, I went for the HDMI cable, though I'm a little disappointed that the manufacturer didn't opt of a full-sized HDMI port.
Of course, if you go with the HDMI adaptor cable, that poses the additional requirement of having an HDMI monitor to connect it to. The good news is that most larger (22-inch and up) monitors now include an HDMI port. The bad news is that smaller monitors do not. Furthermore, you may already possess a perfectly good old monitor. So what to do? Probably the most cost effective solution is to purchase an HDMI-to-DVI adaptor cable, such as this one which I bought on Amazon for US$6 (note that this supports DVI but not VGA). I am mildly perturbed that ODROID doesn't sell these cables - I do understand their desire to reduce costs and save space on the board by not including VGA/DVI, but it would be nice if they could provide us with one-stop shopping and not make users scramble around looking to solve the basic problem of getting workable video output. Another suggestion for them - why not include an HDMI port on the 14-inch monitors they sell?
Once I placed my order, service was fast - I had the board in my hot little hands less than two weeks later. Where I live there were no import duties, but do be aware that some countries will slam you with this and it is the customer's responsibility - not ODROID's - to pay the ransom.
Setting up the hardware was simplicity itself. The most complicated issue that presented itself was that I needed an adaptor to plug-in the AC/DC power brick since it uses two round prongs and I live in a flat-pronged country. Such adaptors are readily available in electronic stores, even airport shops. The ODROID-X boasts six USB ports (sadly only USB 2.0, not 3.0) making it easy to hook up a keyboard and mouse. There are standard analog audio and microphone ports, and of course an Ethernet port. There are three buttons on the board - the crucial on/off one is the button next to the DC power input jack.
The board lacks a case, a major oversight in my opinion. Most people just live without one, but if you're handy you could consider constructing one from plywood or acrylic plastic. Most people would prefer acrylic, but note that it takes special glue and tools - check out this video if you want to tackle such a project. There are reports of people building cases out of LEGO.
 The final hardware issue is the boot device. Like most of these development boards, the ODROID-X lacks a SATA port. The operating system is booted off an SD card, and if you're going to buy one you need to pay close attention to a few details. Compared to hard drives and SSD (solid-state drives), SD cards have slow input/output but it varies a great deal according to the card's "class" rating. The slowest SDHC cards are class 2, fastest are class 10 which indicates a write speed of at least 10MB/sec. Look carefully at the card and you should see the class number enclosed inside the letter "C". Even faster than class 10 is UHS, indicated on the card with the symbol "U" enclosing a number (currently no higher than UHS-1). However, I'm not sure that the ODROID-X SD port yet supports UHS as it's a relatively new standard.
In addition to the card's speed rating, capacity is also important. You need 8 GB minimum, but I'd recommend at least 16 GB. This is not only to give yourself extra storage space for your data, but also because SD cards have file fragmentation issues but a larger card has less problem with this.
Software
One of the nice things about purchasing an ARM development board is that there's no "Microsoft tax" which is one of the reasons why they're so cheap. I've lost count of the number of times I was forced to purchase a mandatory Windows license, only to immediately erase the "free" installed operating system and install Linux. Blessedly, when you first boot the ODROID-X you will not be greeted with pages of legal jargon followed by an "I agree" button and mandatory online "product registration."
The big question, of course, is "boot with what?" As it turns out, you've got a couple of options. For an extra US$13, ODROID will throw in an 8 GB SD card (class 10) with Android 4.0.x pre-installed. If you've already got a blank SD card that you'd like to use, you can download an image file and write it to the card on a Linux computer with the user-friendly usb-imagewriter utility, or the user-hostile dd command (usb-imagewriter is actually just a front-end for dd). The only tricky part involved is making sure you've downloaded an image that works with ODROID-X. I'm sorry to say that ARM SoCs suffer from a lack of standards, so you can't just grab any Android image file on the Internet and expect it to work - you must get a version specifically compiled for the ODROID-X.
The good news is that everything you need can be found on the ODROID download mirror. The ODROID forum had details of what is available - a specific announcement about Android can be found here. It's probably worth mentioning that there is a "standard" version and another that will give you root access, a prized possession for devout Android geeks. Also recognize that these Android downloads are all alpha releases, though from what I hear they work reasonably well.
"From what I hear?" Yes, I confess, I didn't even try Android. As I already admitted, I don't own a smartphone, and while I'm sure Android has its charms, I'm just not terribly interested. My passion is Linux, which offers everything one needs in life, and fortunately there is a version of Ubuntu 12.04 compiled for ODROID-X - again, find it on the download mirror. If you peek at the mirror, you'll see that there are separate downloads depending on whether you are using an HDMI monitor or ODROID's proprietary LCD. You may also notice that the image files are compressed with gzip, so you'll need to use the Linux gunzip command before burning the image with usb-imagewriter or dd.
The image file will only create an 8 GB partition on your SD card even if you've got 16 GB or more available. So as to not let all that valuable digital real estate go to waste, on any Linux computer you can (as root) create an additional partition in the unused space using the cfdisk command (the SD card must be unmounted when you do this). You can then format the newly created partition with the ext4 file system.
Starting up requires holding down the minuscule power button for about a second or two. Upon first boot, we can see that this is a customized version of Ubuntu's Unity desktop, specially made by the Linaro Foundation, a not-for-profit engineering organization that develops software for the ARM architecture. At boot time, you will be automatically logged in (without a password) as privileged user linaro. The password (needed for updating and installing packages) is (no points for guessing) "linaro." The root password is not set, but it's convenient to add one with the command: "sudo passwd root".
The Linaro Ubuntu desktop
(full image size: 335kB, screen resolution 1920x1080 pixels)
Trick or Tweak
As any experienced Debian/Ubuntu user should know, the very first thing to do with a new installation is to run the "apt-get update" command followed by "apt-get dist-upgrade." You may see some intimidating error messages, such as this one: W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ precise-updates/universe armhf Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/ports.ubuntu.com_ubuntu-ports_dists_precise-updates_universe_binary-armhf_Packages). However, the error appears to be harmless, and the system updates as required. More than likely a new kernel will be installed, which means a reboot is called for. At that point you'll discover a little bug - the reboot/shutdown button doesn't work. The developers are aware of this and a fix is in the works, but if that hasn't occurred by the time you're reading this, the best solution for an orderly shutdown is to open a terminal and (as root) type either "reboot" or "halt." Another old Linux trick that still works (but requires considerable manual dexterity) is to simultaneously hold down the Alt-Shift-SysRq keys and type REISUB (for reboot) or REISUO (for shutdown). You may find that rebooting doesn't always work, necessitating that you cut the power (easy if you plug the AC/DC power adaptor into a switched power strip) and then pressing the power button again.
Now with our fully updated and rebooted system, we can at last begin installing software. The Linaro software repository isn't as totally awesome as the mainstream Ubuntu ones, but it comes pretty close. One of the first things you'll notice that is missing is the package ubuntu-restricted-extras, and that's a rather important one since it includes the all-important Adobe Flash that allows us to watch online videos. This grievous oversight is not the fault of Linaro or Ubuntu, but rather due to the fact that Flash is closed-source and Adobe has shown no interest in supporting a version for ARMed Linux. Luckily, there is a solution for this lamentable situation, though a somewhat imperfect one. The open source community has spent some time trying to reverse engineer Flash, and though it's still a work-in-progress, these efforts have paid off. First, install Firefox (even if you don't use it), along with any other browser you like (Midori, Chromium, etc). Then open a terminal and as root:
apt-get install gnash browser-plugin-gnash lightspark browser-plugin-lightspark
cp /usr/lib/gnash/libgnashplugin.so /usr/lib/firefox/plugins
A reboot will make the new settings take effect. I found that YouTube videos played reasonably well, though a bit sluggish. Full-screen video doesn't seem to work at all, even a downloaded video played with MPlayer. That situation might get fixed when the Mali X11 driver for Ubuntu is released - there have been vague rumblings indicating that this could happen as early as the end of October. Currently, the lack of video acceleration is something of a bottleneck for Ubuntu's performance on ARM.
Google Earth is another nice application which I use, but like Adobe Flash, it's closed source and it may be awhile (if ever) before we see a version that can run on ARM processors (except perhaps under Android). I went looking for an open source equivalent, and the best I could find was Marble. It works in conjunction with OpenStreetMaps, which is quite good for some regions but clearly is still very far behind GoogleMaps in providing details. The satellite photos in Marble are almost useless, a reflection of the fact that this data has been privatized and is not in the public domain. Commercial satellite companies don't normally sell their images, but rather require a license for access. Google pays untold millions for the images in Google Earth, but Marble has to make do with whatever crumbs that NASA, ESA and others toss out for free. Marble is easily installed: apt-get install marble. It's reasonably point-and-click friendly, and you shouldn't have much trouble learning how to use it.
You may have noticed by now that I've been using the phrase "apt-get install" quite a bit. Aside from the fact that geeks like showing off their command-line prowess, the fact is that this version of Ubuntu doesn't come with the pretty point-and-click Synaptic package manager by default, but you can install it. Even command-line gurus might want to install Synaptic anyway, since it has several endearing features (like the ability to remove broken packages that were accidentally installed).
Because we installed Linaro Ubuntu by copying an image file (as opposed to running an installation program), the time zone was never set, so you should do that. This can be done from either the Preferences-Time_and_Date menu, or with command-line lingo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata. It would also be very worthwhile to install the package ntpdate which allows your computer to use NTP servers to set the time and date from the Internet. Ntpdate will automatically run while booting your system (Ubuntu stores the script at /etc/network/if-up.d/ntpdate). However, I found that on occasion the script either did not run or got the wrong time - this may be due to a bug or a defect on my board. If that happens to you and your clock is wrong, you can run this command:
sudo ntpdate pool.ntp.org
I soon grew tired of being user linaro who always gets logged in by default, without a password, and decided I would nuke him. To do that, I first added user robert at the command line (as root) by typing "adduser robert". It was critically important to make sure that robert had the same privileges as linaro before sending linaro to the bit bucket. To do this, as root, I edited file /etc/group after first making a backup copy of it (cp /etc/group /etc/group.original). Then edit /etc/group, adding robert after linaro separated by a comma (no space). Of course, no need to add robert to group linaro since it will be purged. After doing this, the relevant parts of /etc/group looked like this:
adm:x:4:linaro,robert
dialout:x:20:linaro,robert
cdrom:x:24:linaro,robert
audio:x:29:pulse,linaro,robert
dip:x:30:linaro,robert
video:x:44:linaro,robert
plugdev:x:46:linaro,robert
linaro:x:1000:
admin:x:1001:linaro,robert
Then all I had to do was reboot, again got automatically logged in as linaro, then logged out, logged in as robert, opened a terminal, used su to become root, and issued the command:
deluser linaro
On all subsequent reboots, linaro was never heard from again, having been sent to digital oblivion.
I've never been a fan of Ubuntu's Unity, and doubly so on the ODROID since graphics performance is less than optimal. I decided to switch to Lubuntu by installing package lubuntu-desktop, but ran into an odd problem in that the default display manager, LightDM, did not display the Lubuntu option. I fixed this, sort of, by installing package lxdm. After a reboot, LXDM showed its pretty face but the Lubuntu option was still absent. However, LXDM did give me LXDE as an option, something that LightDM did not. Fortunately, LXDE works brilliantly on the ODROID, so I will no longer have to suffer the indignity of Unity.
I installed package "ufw", the Ubuntu firewall, but I wasn't able to enable it. When, as root, I typed "ufw enable" I would see this message: "ERROR: Could not load logging rules". Fortunately I have a hardware router, so the firewall would have been redundant anyway. However, for those who connect to the Internet directly without a router, this could be an issue. No doubt the problem is solvable, and there are other firewalls besides ufw, but it was disconcerting that it didn't work out of the box.
I encountered a significant issue when attempting to download a (perfectly legal) file via BitTorrent. On my Intel-based computer I generally like to use KTorrent. However, after installing and starting KTorrent on the ODROID-X, graphics performance absolutely collapsed - the machine was so slow and unresponsive that I had to pull the plug. I nuked KTorrent and installed Transmission-gtk which performed somewhat better, but still unacceptably slow. Note that by "slow" I don't mean that the torrents downloaded slowly - in fact, download speed was amazingly fast. It's just that everything else was a slow as molasses. Even trying to edit a file in text-mode Emacs was a painful experience.
The solution proved to be using a text-mode torrent program. The best of the bunch seems to be rTorrent. If you've never used it before, you may find that configuring rTorrent is a bit more hassle than point-and-click bliss, but I won't digress in this already too-long article to give a detailed explanation. However, I may delve into the intricacies of rTorrent in a future report. Anyway, I can safely say that on the ODROID-X, it blows away the competition. One extra tip - turn off the screensaver, as it can steal processor cycles from rTorrent when you're making a long unattended download.
Linaro Ubuntu uses PulseAudio for sound, and it works well. Sound quality is excellent, provided that another app isn't hogging CPU resources which can cause the music to stutter. I found that the lightweight music player Aqualung did a fine job.
Conclusions
For years I've been hearing about how the super-efficient ARM processor was destined to eventually revolutionize portable (if not desktop and server) computing. The idea of an energy-saving board that requires no fan (thus quiet, and gathers no dust) is very appealing. Another attraction was the promise of being able to buy a computer without having to pay for a Windows or iEverything license. Unfortunately, until very recently it was all talk, but no products one could actually buy.
I'm happy to see that this is changing. Over the past couple of years there has been a trickle, lately turning into a flood, of ARM development boards. The lack of standards has been a real drawback, but this too may be changing as the latest Linux 3.7 kernel can now handle multiple ARM platforms.
At present, the ODROID-X appears to be the most powerful of the ARM development boards on the market. Despite a few hiccups, I find it quite useful for everyday use. It fulfills about 80% of my computing needs. The major weak spot is multimedia, but that will hopefully be addressed with the new much anticipated Mali driver.
I do have a few suggestion for the ODROID developers if they are reading this: update the SD card slot to support UHS-1 (if you haven't done so yet), put at least one USB 3.0 port on the board, consider a full-sized HDMI slot and start selling a good-quality HDMI-to-DVI adaptor cable plus a plastic case as accessories. If you need to cut costs, I wouldn't mind if you tossed out the 50-pin slot, though I realize that some might not agree. And finally, if you can find a way to bypass PayPal so that I can use my credit card, I'd be grateful.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
Debian on Raspberry Pi, more on Ubuntu and Amazon, OpenBSD's new anti-Linux song, interview with openSUSE's Vincent Untz, Tiny Core Linux as virtual appliance
 To expand on this week's feature story, let's start the news section by linking to another review of a small ARM-based computer - the popular Raspberry Pi. William Shotts shares the adventure of installing Debian GNU/Linux "Wheezy" on the mini device: "I had been hearing a lot about the Raspberry Pi computer which appeared to be very similar to the BeagleBoard but only costs US$35. That price, being clearly in impulse-buy territory, appealed to my computer buying impulses. I ordered mine from Allied Electronics and waited about 12 weeks for delivery. For US$35 all you get is a bare board, nothing else, not even documentation. That's available on-line. I ordered a case, power supply, and cables from Adafruit Industries which offers an extensive array of Raspberry Pi accessories. You'll also need a 4 GB (or larger) SD card to act as its boot disk." After the successful installation the author concluded: "The Raspberry Pi, along with my BeagleBoard, has replaced two old desktop machines that acted as servers on my home network. My office is now eerily quiet (and much cooler!)."
* * * * *
 In the meantime, Ubuntu's upcoming release, currently in final stages of development, continues to be marred not only by the integration of Amazon search into its desktop, but also by the way the controversy has been handled by the distribution's leadership. In an article entitled "Ubuntu has a bigger problem than its Amazon blunder" author Paul Venezia explains his reasons for no longer wanting to have Ubuntu installed on his computers: "The biggest problem I have with the Amazon debacle is another comment by Shuttleworth: 'Don't trust us? Erm, we have root. You do trust us with your data already.' That level of hubris from the founder of Ubuntu, in the face of what is clearly a bad idea badly implemented, should leave everyone with a bad taste in their mouth. If this idea can make it to the next Ubuntu release, then what other bad ideas are floating around? What's next? Why should we maintain that trust? So fine, Mr. Shuttleworth. You have root. But not on my box. Not any more."
* * * * *
 Last weekend OpenBSD's Bob Beck announced the upcoming release of version 5.2, accompanied by a new OpenBSD tune. However, this time the lyrics of the song, entitled Aquarela do Linux! and written by Bob Beck himself, are bound to create controversy since they criticise the most widely-used open-source operating system for having unacceptable influence on the POSIX standards body. POSIX was originally designed to help maintain compatibility between operating systems, but the growing "Linuxism" (as OpenBSD calls it) in the standards body is having negative effects on other UNIX-derived systems. From the lyrics page: Just as the original song professed its love for Brazil, 'World, you'll love my Linux' is the passionate call of an idealistic dreamer who can't bear the thought of software that will only run under Windows, and yet loves the situation with software that will only run under particular Linux distributions. This problem has proliferated itself into the standards bodies, with POSIX adopting 'Linuxisms' ahead of any other variant of UNIX. POSIX and UNIX have made it where you can write reasonably portable software and have it compile and run across a multitude of platforms. Now this seems to be changing as the love for Linux drives the standards bodies into accepting everything Linux, good and bad." On a more technical note, the release notes for OpenBSD 5.2 can be found here.
* * * * *
  A Frenchman at the helm of a German open-source software outfit? Unlikely as it sounds, this notion became reality when the openSUSE project announced the appointment of Vincent Untz as openSUSE Board Chairman last month. The new project leader, who is also a GNOME developer and the GNOME release manager, has been recently interviewed by Muktware. Apart from talking about his new role, Vincent also took his time to answer the criticism directed at GNOME 3: For GNOME 3, the complaints we receive are generally about the change in the user experience. People were really fond of what we achieved with GNOME 2, and some didn't want any real change. As a community, though, we wanted GNOME to move in a new direction, towards a new vision. We believe this vision is better than the GNOME 2 one, and we're working hard to satisfy our users. We are definitely listening, and working on addressing the issues people see with GNOME 3, while still standing true to our vision. Our iterative process of releasing GNOME 3 enabled us to deliver a steady flow of improvements in the GNOME 3 experience since April 2011. This is why we've seen in the last few months more and more people starting to speak up about how they really like GNOME 3."
* * * * *
 Finally, a link to an article about the world's smallest graphical Linux distribution Tiny Core Linux. Entitled "Thinking Small With Tiny Core Linux, the article by Jon Buys describes the experience of building a small, single-purpose virtual appliance: I recently had the need to build a virtual appliance, a small Linux server that did one thing, and required no interaction. And by small, I mean really small, tiny. After considering the options and searching around a bit, I found the Tiny Core Linux, and when they say tiny, they mean it. The Tiny Core download is only 12 MB. Tiny Core Linux is meant to be a minimalist desktop operating system. The main download includes a window manager, a text editor, and that's about it. ... It was a fair bit of work to get my virtual appliance working the way I wanted, but it was also an interesting look at an alternative concept for building a Linux system. I now have a downloadable virtual appliance that weighs in at right around 27 MB, zipped. I am also considering using this system for other servers, at least for testing. It might be interesting to see what kind of load the appliance can take, especially running something like nginx."
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| Opinions (by Jesse Smith) |
What Linux needs is an operating system
Anyone who has spent any significant amount of time in the Linux community has heard the questions raised: "Why are there so many distributions? Why can't the various projects get together and make one unified distribution?" Of course this is never going to happen, nor should it. One of the greatest benefits of open source software is that it gives people the ability to use their computers the way they wish to and modify their systems to work they way they want. This has given the Linux community a great degree of flexibility, letting it run anywhere, from extremely low-resource systems to super computers, from stable servers to cutting-edge desktops to niche administration tools like Clonezilla and KNOPPIX. The ideal of one unified distribution sounds nice to newcomers overwhelmed by choice and to third-party developers, but it won't fly in a community where freedom, empowerment and flexibility are priorities. One might as well ask why the human race has so many languages when having one would seem so much more simple.
Another phrase that comes up frequently on technical forums is "Linux is a kernel, not an operating system," and this is true. Linux, on its own, is a kernel. That kernel gets combined with various other pieces of software, usually the GNU userland tools, a package manager and a desktop environment in order to make a Linux (or GNU/Linux) distribution. And herein lies the real issue for newcomers to the Linux scene and for developers: each Linux distribution is, in effect, a separate operating system. Software built and packaged for one distribution often will not run on another, even if the two projects are closely related. This leads us to some ridiculous situations where not only will software packaged for Ubuntu not necessarily work on Fedora, but software built for Linux Mint's main edition may not work properly on Linux Mint Debian edition. It can be increasingly frustrating for developers and packagers because sometimes software which builds and runs fine on a handful of the major distributions will not even compile on another due to library incompatibilities. So, what is the solution?
A number of ideas have been put forward over the years. Merging distributions, which as already mentioned, isn't practical (or perhaps even desirable). In days past lip service was given to standards by which all major distributions might be guided. However, if we look at the list of certified distributions conforming to the Linux Standards Base we find that very few distributions follow it and those which do often aren't up to speed -- either they are on an older version of the standard or only older versions of the distribution were certified. Why didn't the Linux Standards Base catch on? I think it comes down to one simple fact: the Linux community follows working examples, not abstract designs. A person can put forward a design for the most robust video stack or the most flexible sound system or the most elegant packaging system, but the Linux community is interested in working examples, what is mostly functioning, now.
So now we're faced with the question of what might be a unifying solution if abstract standards aren't the answer and neither is trimming down the number of distributions? I think the Linux community might find its answer in the FreeBSD ecosystem. Looking at the FreeBSD project we find that, unlike Linux, FreeBSD is a complete, functioning operating system featuring a kernel, userland tools and package management. FreeBSD is a small OS on its own, but it can be expanded using a huge collection of packages, packages which are configured in such as way that they should work across multiple versions of the FreeBSD operating system. One practical way in which this separates FreeBSD from the various Linux distributions is projects based on FreeBSD share a lowest common denominator.
There are a number of derivative projects based on FreeBSD, including PC-BSD, GhostBSD, FreeNAS and DesktopBSD. What is interesting about these derivative projects is that, in sharing the FreeBSD base, they are mostly compatible. A program compiled and packaged for FreeBSD will work on GhostBSD. A program built on GhostBSD should likewise work on PC-BSD. This is because, despite their many differences, including separate installers, different desktop environments and different package management front-ends, they share a common foundation. Compare this scenario with FreeBSD to the situation we face with, say, Debian in the Linux community. A package built for Debian's latest Stable release isn't necessarily going to work on Ubuntu. A package designed to run on Ubuntu may or may not work on aptosid, despite the fact both Ubuntu and aptosid are derived from the Debian project.
The Linux community could greatly benefit from a common operating system. Not achieved by a merging of distributions, but rather by pulling a common base into each separate distribution. Right now most Linux distributions build and package their own version of the kernel, their own version of the compiler and of the GNU utilities and they are supplying their own low-level package manager. Having one central, minimal base with these key components would be of huge benefit to the Linux community. It would reduce duplication of effort, allowing each distribution to use the same base, it would reduce the need for building packages in multiple formats, it would help to insure software compiled on one distribution could be installed and run on another and it would provide a standard lowest common denominator without relying on an abstract third-party to write the standard. Furthermore, this approach does not limit the creativity and diversity of the Linux ecosystem as most distributions are, almost exclusively, using similar GNU/Linux bases, just with slightly different versions of software and configurations.
Each week I install a different GNU/Linux operating system and, while each one is different, most of them are using the same version of the Linux kernel, most of them are packaging similar versions of the GNU Compiler Collection and similar versions of the C library. Yet these distributions are rarely compatible in a practical sense. Meanwhile, when I venture into the FreeBSD community, I find they are using a common foundation of software and users are therefore able to trade software packages, scripts and configurations with a reasonable level of assurance their software will work on the various derivative projects. I hope we someday have that level of "interconnectedness" with Linux distributions. The flexibility we enjoy is empowering and wonderful, but to date it has come with the heavy price of fragmentation. The FreeBSD community is currently enjoying an expansion by way of new designs and is discovering more corners into which to grow without the same level of fragmentation and I think we, in the Linux community, should pay attention to what the FreeBSD community is doing right.
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| Released Last Week |
Fuduntu 2012.4
Andrew Wyatt announced the release of Fuduntu 2012.4, an updated version of the project's rolling-release distribution forked from Fedora: "The Fuduntu team is proud to announce the immediate availability of Fuduntu 2012.4. This is the fourth quarterly release for 2012. Like all previous Fuduntu releases, this release follows our tradition of making small incremental distribution improvements that don't sacrifice the stability of our Linux distribution. Existing Fuduntu users have already rolled up to 2012.4, as all of the updates available are released to our stable repository. This release comes with several changes, new features, and improvements. There have been changes to the way TMPFS works. With this update, the management of TMPFS mount points has been optimized. Several mount points have been mounted under /run to reduce disk I/O, increasing speed and battery life." Here is the full release announcement with details about the new features.
Fuduntu 2012.4 - the latest of the regular quarterly updates
(full image size: 1,770kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
OS4 13 "OpenDesktop"
Roberto Dohnert has announced the release of OS4 13 "OpenDesktop" edition, an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the Xfce desktop: "Today we are pleased to announce the arrival of the next generation of desktop operating systems, OS4 OpenDesktop 13. With this release we bring a lot of new functionality and bug fixes to the OS4 family. OS4 OpenDesktop 13 is the most capable Linux desktop featuring an easy-to-use interface and including a vast array of hardware support, WiFi support, along with all the multimedia codecs, Blu-Ray and DVD playback. OS4 OpenDesktop 13 is the premier Linux distribution for the home or business user. Our unprecedented commitment to cloud computing and Internet technologies makes OS4 OpenDesktop 13 the best platform for consumption of cloud services." Read the full release announcement for further details.
Absolute Linux 14.0
Paul Sherman has announced the release of Absolute Linux 14.0, a major new version of the project's lightweight desktop distribution based on Slackware Linux and featuring the IceWM window manager: "Absolute Linux 14.0 released. Coincides with the Slackware 14.0 release, keeping in step with libraries, toolchain and basic applications. Absolute has moved away from udisks to use the lighter SpaceFM file manager, which takes advantage of native kernel polling. So as always, Absolute will run fast on modest hardware. NetworkManager is taking care of Internet connections by default. Java and multimedia add-ons need to be installed (via system tools, as root) post-installation. Chrome browser is now the default (taking the place of chromium and/or Firefox). I distribute the browser with several plugins and the Chrome browser comes with a more up-to-date Flash release than what is available as a generic plugin for Linux machines." Visit the distribution's home page to read the release announcement.
CAINE 3.0
Nanni Bassetti has announced the release of CAINE 3.0, an Ubuntu-based live DVD offering a complete digital forensic environment in a friendly graphical interface: "CAINE 3.0 is out! CAINE (Computer Aided INvestigative Environment) is an Italian GNU/Linux live distribution created as a project of digital forensics. Changelog: Linux kernel 3.2; MATE desktop 1.4; rbfstab - a utility that writes read-only entries to /etc/fstab so devices are safely mounted for forensic imaging/examination; mounter - a GUI mounting tool that sits in the system tray, left clicking the system tray drive icon activates a window where the user can select devices to mount or un-mount; scripts that are activated within the Caja web browser designed to make examination of allocated files simple; root file system spoofing patch...." Visit the project's home page to read the release announcement and to see a few screenshots of the new release.
Cinnarch 2012.10.01
Alex Filgueira announced the release of Cinnarch 2012.10.01 earlier this week. As the name suggests, Cinnarch is an Arch-based Linux distribution featuring the user-friendly Cinnamon (a fork of GNOME Shell) as the graphical desktop; it is also a live CD image with a simple text-mode installation program. From the release announcement: "Cinnarch 2012.10.01 released. Changelog: systemd as a system and service manager, no initscripts, the boot process is now faster with the parallelization capabilities; Welcn, the new welcome screen for Cinnarch is present, but the graphical installer button is de-activated; quiet boot; CLI installer - other operating systems added to GRUB, fixed Intel drivers in Lenovo laptops; cinnarch-wallpapers now contains some wallpapers from deviantART; changed the default wallpaper; packages - Linux kernel 3.5.4, Cinnamon 1.6.1, LightDM 1.3.3, Xnoise 0.2.11, Pantheon-files 0.1, Hotot 0.9.8.8, Chromium 22."
AriOS 4.0
Mahdi Fattahi has announced the release of AriOS 4.0, an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution with a highly customised and enhanced GNOME Shell: "I'm happy to announce that AriOS 4.0 final has been released. Built upon the solid base of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, AriOS comes with GNOME Shell as the default desktop, carefully modified and enhanced using a number of extensions to offer a better and more familiar user experience. AriOS is not a yet-another Ubuntu remaster. It comes with a slew of features, some of them unique. A beautiful, productivity-oriented desktop session using Avant Window Navigator + Compiz/Metacity; a script to auto-detect NVIDIA Optimus chips and install Bumblebee software; a GUI to turn on/off auto-mounting of partitions at boot; a handpicked selection of multimedia, graphics and office software." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information and screenshots.
Arch Linux 2012.10.06
Pierre Schmitz has announced the release of Arch Linux 2012.10.06, the latest release of the project's installation CD image - now with systemd as the service manager: "The October release of the Arch Linux install medium is available for download and can be used for new installs or as a rescue system. It contains a set of updated packages and the following notable changes: systemd is used to boot up the live system; initscripts are no longer available on the live system but are still installed by default on the target system - this is likely to change in the near future; EFI boot and setup has been simplified; Gummiboot is used to display a menu on EFI systems; the following new packages are available on the live system: ethtool, FSArchiver, Gummiboot, Midnight Commander, Partclone, Partimage, rEFInd, rfkill, sudo, TestDisk, wget, xl2tpd." Here is the brief release announcement.
* * * * *
Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| DistroWatch.com News |
New distributions added to database
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New distributions added to waiting list
- Linux Lite. Linux Lite is an Ubuntu-based desktop Linux distribution featuring the Xfce desktop and some of some commonly used open-source applications and utilities, such as Firefox, LibreOffice, VLC, GIMP, Thunderbird and others.
* * * * *
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 15 October 2012. To contact the authors please send email to:
- Robert Storey (feedback on this week's review of ODROID-X)
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, suggestions and corrections: news, donations, distribution submissions, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (feedback and suggestions: podcast edition)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • DWW (by Smig on 2012-10-08 09:58:52 GMT from United Kingdom)
Just about the best edition, ever - thanks guys!
Things have moved on a lot concerning ARM devices even since Robert penned his excellent script. The RPi project is now assembling in GB and CPC.co.uk is leading as distributor. No P&P in GB, most important accessories available. As for a suitable OS, probably the most suitable under development is Puppy Linux since this is already a compact distro with a full suite of apps: other OSes also available.
2 • Linux needs an operating system (by skin27 on 2012-10-08 11:31:44 GMT from Netherlands)
Very nice weekly. Couldn't agree more with Jesse on this one. No one complains that there is no competing on the kernel level, so why not create a common base on a slightly higher level?
I think that LSB is not the way, because there first is a standard and than you ask a distribution to conform to it (for example the choice for RPM). At the end this may be the goal to choose or merge technologies (like package format and init systems), but first things has to be settled between the distributions self. Where do we agree on and what is the next step in creating a common base operation system where we all (distributions and users) benefit from.
This would be small steps, but giant leaps in bringing Linux forwards. Even if this is just been done in the Debian ecolandscape I would be very happy. I'm curious to hear on peoples opinions where to start such an endeavour? What and who should be part of this?
3 • PACKAGING != COMPILING (by oz on 2012-10-08 11:55:05 GMT from France)
Hi,
I seriously have doubts what we need is FreeBSD solution, and that is despite my own usage of FreeBSD.
if you compile software on one Linux distro accepting all the defaults and STATICALLY link your compiled software will work on many distros.
The problem begins when people package stuff which is dynamically linked. So, if your binary expects to find some libs0 under /usr/lib/ in Distro A, and it is located in /var/lib/ in Distro B, it will not work.
But that is exactly why we have LSB! For historical reasons Debian and of course it's derivatives do not support LSB completely.
Another problem is that glibc can break things from version to version or developers of other libraries break stuff removing old functions and ABIs. That is why for example some C code compiled on RHEL4 will not work on RHEL5 even though it is the same distro !
If you install old GTK programs in BSD, with non supported ABIs in a later GTK version, the ports system will end up installing gtk 2.2 and gtk 2.28 for example. Most Linux distros give you dynamically linked code, and *assume* you will not need such crazy setup.
What Linux needs, is good documentation, and developers with alot of time to statically compile every linux application out there or developers to compile and PACKAGE (remember package is not just compiling, rather also different configurations) . But this is impossible ...
One example for statically compiled version which works cross distro is the non FOSS skype. The supply users with Debs or Statically compiled large package, which works on most Linux's out there.
This is the solution PC-BSD and Desktop-BSD offer in the form of PBIs, simillar also how every Windows and every Mac Software is installed.
IMHO, this solution is good, but like I said, possible if all the developers out there would compile and provide statically linked binaries to their packages. But then again, how would you then collect these binaries to a huge repository? how do you then verify there is no malicious code in there?
That is why, each distro, takes just the code, and packages it according to it's own policy! Be it security review, or documentation review (e.g. in Debian, there is no executable allowed without a short man page, unlike Red Hat).
Hope my long reply, helps clarifying a little bit.
Cheers,
Oz
4 • Linux Operating System (by dragonmouth on 2012-10-08 12:17:10 GMT from United States)
The biggest obstacle to a Linux O/S is not technical, but ideological. The biggest obstacle is the culture of individuality fostered for so long by the Linux community. It is a point of pride and honor for distro developers to individualize their distros by making them just a little bit different than all the others, even if that difference is only cosmetic. As long as every Tom, Dick or Harry can develop a distro not because it is needed but because they can develop it, the idea of a "Linux O/S" is going to be a pipe dream.
As far as "one, unified distribution" goes, I agree that should never happen. Most of the time that suggestion is made by Windows and OS/X disciples. However, the number of distros can and should be reduced. Looking at the Distrowatch database shows that there are more dead, dormant, abandoned and discontinued distros than there live ones. Many of the inactive distros have never gotten past an introductory version. Others are different only in their cosmetics. None of them brought anything new to the table. All they brought was a fleeting name recognition to their erstwhile developers.
Jesse says of a unified distro "Of course this is never going to happen, nor should it. One of the greatest benefits of open source software is that it gives people the ability to use their computers the way they wish to and modify their systems to work they way they want. " Until developers focus less on their own 5 minutes of glory and more on cooperating, Linux will remain balkanized and Linux O/S will remain pie in the sky.
5 • @3 Bill Jobs (by DavidEF on 2012-10-08 12:19:09 GMT from United States)
I don't agree with your assertion, or its implications. I do agree, however, with the opinion article by Jesse above. I think it would take either one of two things to happen, though. Either the kernel maintainers would have to expand to maintaining a "Core Linux OS" or the biggest major linux vendors would have to seriously work together to build the core that will work best for all of them.
Although actually getting it done would probably be trivial, getting any of these groups to step up to it would be a feat in itself. First, you'd have to really convince them that they need it, or it will help them immensely in some way.
6 • Ubuntu Amazon (by jdkchem on 2012-10-08 12:30:33 GMT from United States)
What a naive position for Paul Venezia to take. Every major distribution has root. It's a little late to be arguing privacy and trust when that boat has already sailed. You've already put your trust and privacy in the hands of developers complaining because Shuttleworth pointed out a discomforting truth is foolish.
Ubuntu's error in all of this was pandering to a pack of whiners who ignorantly believe their freedom has been compromised.
7 • What Linux needs ... (by PCBSDuser on 2012-10-08 13:09:28 GMT from Canada)
I agree with Jesse's article. Something beyond an abstract standard, beyond a "base", yes more of a "foundation". I called it a "reference standard" in a writing from several years ago. Rather long, but comes to the same sort of conclusion:
http://web.ncf.ca/di874/computers/writings/freesoftware.html
But I also think that the time is past, the opportunity is gone, and we will have more of the same as OSes fade ever more into the background.
8 • Robert Storey (by PePa on 2012-10-08 13:27:12 GMT from Netherlands)
It might be a personal thing, but I REALLY enjoy Robert Storey's articles and writing style. A few comments though:
- I don't think 'dd' is user-unfriendly at all. It's options might not be totally standard, but it's been around long, and I think there's a reason people keep using it over other alternatives.
- An Ubuntu derivative like Linaro has a fully functional sudo set up. So why set up a password for a known and supremely powerful user?? It's simply less secure when the only thing left to guess is a password.
9 • LinuxOS (by Jesse on 2012-10-08 13:48:29 GMT from Canada)
Though I didn't make any suggestions as to who might create a true Linux operating system as a base project for distributions, I think the GNU team would be the obvious choice. They already have the userland tools, the compiler, etc. It's been often pointed out that GNU had everything an open source operating system needed, besides the kernel. Really, all GNU would have to do is adopt a kernel release and bundle it with their existing tools to form a true GNU/Linux OS that everyone else could import.
Someone above suggested everyone should offer staticly compiled packages, but the bloat and security issues don't make that an attractive solution. Every time a flaw was found in a low-level library you would end up upgrading every single executable on your computer (requiring people to download hundreds of MB of data), or you'd find a lot of your software wasn't updated upstream and therefore was vulnerable.
10 • "Minimal base" Linux (by PePa on 2012-10-08 13:50:07 GMT from Netherlands)
It would be great if all major distributions would have an official "minimal base" that all their offerings are based off. This could serve as a first step towards a more unified "minimal base".
11 • re10: Minimal Base (by Arkanabar on 2012-10-08 14:20:38 GMT from United States)
Somebody DID try to create a minimal, base distro, with the stated intention that others would build their own from it. It is called "Unity" and as of this moment, it's in the DWW Top 100. I suspect they would have had more success if they'd started from an ubuntu base, rather than rolling their own fork of Mandriva. The Suse Studio also has this sort of end-result.
12 • New OpenSuse Chairman (by kilgoretrout on 2012-10-08 14:23:52 GMT from United States)
The article on OpenSuse's new chairman expressed surprise that a Frenchman wound up at the helm of German based Suse. What I find even more surprising is that a Gnome developer wound up as new chairman of the historically KDE-centric Suse. Just take a look at Suse's Yast - it's enough to make any user option hating Gnome developer puke. This will not end well for OpenSuse.
13 • Big Brother MS Apple or Ubuntu (by RayRay on 2012-10-08 14:40:04 GMT from United States)
I don't think that it is such a big deal whether you use the Amazon search or turn it off. I think the UEFI deal is a bigger show stopper. If their collaborating with MS didn't set off any alarms, well the Amazon thing might. What is next, will they cooperate with US or British Intelligence maybe Interpol (or are they already doing that)?
I'm kidding, Ubuntu is trying to figure out a way to make the desktop profitable. They will probably never please people that like Linux and can easily change their OS.
I've gone back to Debian with KDE4 because I really have no use for Unity and I'm not a gamer. In the past I've used other OSs and always come back to Debian, for web browsing, emailing, and watching videos it works well. I have a Stable version and a Testing version and keep a separate Home partition which I sync with my Laptop. I test other OSs but why change to an Operating System that is changing every 6 months, at least I know when Debian changes something it is well thought out.
14 • one distro to rule them all (by ix on 2012-10-08 14:45:21 GMT from Romania)
I've seen this argument over and over again, Linux is too fragmented, with hundreds of distributions. This is an effect of FREEDOM. I've jokingly described this type of argument as: "one distro to rule them all, one distro to find them, one distro to bring them all and in the darkness bind them".
In a way, we already have a kind of unity (LOL) and it is indeed Ubuntu. Most Linux users use Ubuntu, this is no secret, this is why Steam is coming to Ubuntu. Ubuntu was wise to listen to your advice even before you uttered it and it has based itself on Debian, which spared Ubuntu a lot of work.
Your argument made me laugh at the part with compatibility, because by your argument, distros are not compatible with themselves, like a package from Debian Wheezy might not work on Squeeze, likewise from Ubuntu 12.10 to 12.04. In my experience, Debian based distros are compatible with one another, but you must know how, for example, Ubuntu 10.04 is mostly compatible with Debian Squeeze and Ubuntu 12.04 is mostly compatible with Debian Wheezy. The reason is obvious, so I will not spell it out.
Shuttleworth has tried to unify development by trying to establish the same release schedule for all distros, which would basically ensure that they all have the same versions of software and they could use each others bug fixes. Anyway, something like this did work, the 2.6.32 kernel was used in almost all the distros at that time, especially LTS ones, like Debian 6, Ubuntu 10.04, RedHat 6, SUSE 11 SP1. So, the conspiracy worked: http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/2.6.32-stable.html
15 • @11 Minimal Base (by skin27 on 2012-10-08 14:48:47 GMT from Netherlands)
Unity created a minimal base distribution from Mandriva, there is nothing standardized or agreed on across distributors.
It's goal is much more modest to provide just a base to build new distributions on (not existing). The approach would otherwise be similar to that of LSB. You can't create something and then expect everybody will use it. The creation must be done together, agreed on (goals and technology) and the member must be committed to follow that.
A few commitments from the top ten distros would get the ball rolling. I think that the organization that host and develop this would be a distribution independent organization (for example consisting of Linux foundation, gnu and some main distributors). If you then see that there is some competitive edge by joining then soon others will join too.
16 • re:12 (kilgoretrout) (by RayRay on 2012-10-08 15:05:33 GMT from United States)
I think that a Gnome guy can help a KDEcentric OS, he might fix some of the Yast problems.
Now talking getting a different slant on a project I think Gnome 3 could use a KDE guy on their team.
I usually add Docky or AWN to make Gnome3 more usable. It is pretty but lags way behind Gnome 2.
Please don't disparage all the great work done by the people at openSuse saying that something can make you puke because you don't like it.
Unless you can do it better.
17 • re: 16 left out a word (by RayRay on 2012-10-08 15:08:07 GMT from United States)
I think that a Gnome guy can help a KDEcentric OS, he might fix some of the Yast problems.
Now talking ABOUT getting a different slant on a project I think Gnome 3 could use a KDE guy on their team.
I usually add Docky or AWN to make Gnome3 more usable. It is pretty but lags way behind Gnome 2.
Please don't disparage all the great work done by the people at openSuse saying that something can make you puke because you don't like it.
Unless you can do it better.
18 • LinuxOS (by tonny on 2012-10-08 15:12:31 GMT from Indonesia)
can't agree more with Jesse. I too, am tired of distro hooping. I wish I can install one, and go to different route anytime, without having me installing others distro :)
19 • ARM computers (by K.U. on 2012-10-08 15:30:43 GMT from Finland)
Try the following searches in webshops like Ebay or Dealextreme:
* "Linux media player"
* "Android TV"
* "Android laptop"
* "Android VGA"
You'll find interesting results!
20 • Distro Hopping (by uz64 on 2012-10-08 15:40:34 GMT from United States)
Just a comment on the idea of having one base OS shared among major distributions. It would kill distro hopping.
If openSUSE comes out with Linux 3.5.5 and three weeks later Mageia is released with the same exact version of the kernel when 3.6.4 is already out, for example, then what would be the point in giving the new Mageia a try? The various parts of the "base" system are all constantly updated, bringing new features and functionality. Making them all the same would eliminate anyone's reason to switch based on, for example, new hardware driver support or the latest stable Btrfs (when it's done, of course), or whatever else might happen.
I think the way it is now gives a person more incentive to try switching from one distro to another, and any of the major distros would have to be stupid to get rid of their potential selling/distinguishing points. Besides--with every distro having a completely different development/release schedule anyway, this just wouldn't work. Almost everything is bound to have new, stable, up-to-date versions within a few weeks or a couple of months. Further, if no distribution customized their kernel and other parts, same thing: why bother trying another variant?
If you want that, go use BSD. It's a good OS. But Linux is not BSD, it was just a kernel to make your own custom system since before version 1, and as someone who plays around with all the latest distros and versions of everything I wouldn't want to see this happen. The major thing I would want to see in Linux as far is compatibility goes is an nVidia driver that doesn't completely die and break the X server after a kernel upgrade.
21 • Linux (by K.U. on 2012-10-08 16:00:43 GMT from Finland)
Due to Jesse’s writing I just remembered the lightweight approach to static linking used in the distribution sta.li.
http://sta.li/faq
22 • Unified base (by Jesse on 2012-10-08 16:24:06 GMT from Canada)
>> "If openSUSE comes out with Linux 3.5.5 and three weeks later Mageia is released with the same exact version of the kernel when 3.6.4 is already out, for example, then what would be the point in giving the new Mageia a try?"
The same reasons most people try other distributions now. People rarely jump on a new Magie release or openSUSE or Ubuntu because of a new kernel or GNU userland tools. They typically switch because of the new, distro-specific features. Things like the Control Centre, YaST, upgrades to the package manager front-end. They want to try the latest desktop and features. Very few people care about the underlying operating system components.
>> "Besides--with every distro having a completely different development/release schedule anyway, this just wouldn't work."
Most of the big Linux distributions are on fairly similar release schedules already, which is part of the reason I think a unified base system would work. Debian, and Ubuntu typically release a stable release once every two years. I think SUSE is close to around that time frame, or around 18 months. Red Hat is in the ball park of 2-3 years, typically. Mint follows the same schedule as Ubuntu. These big distributions often ship with the same Linux kernel already. Look at RHEL 6, Debian 6 and Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, they all shipped with version 2.6.32 of the Linux kernel. They shipped with mostly similar versions of the GNU userland tools. Yet the distributions are not compatible with each other. Doesn't that seem a bit like a wasted opportunity?
23 • POSIX is still alive? (by Bob Ushka on 2012-10-08 16:26:18 GMT from United States)
I read the paragraph and had the same feeling I get when some classic actor I haven't heard of in years makes a sitcom cameo. For architectural, as well as trademark, issues, Linux ain't UNIX. GNU's been pushing that for architectural, as well as trademark, issues, since before SunOS became Solaris. Now, I suppose that since Microsoft bought Interix, someone might claim that Windows is UNIX, so Microsoft should be given a hand on the POSIX steering wheel. But if they are, then why are the unices still bothering?
24 • Distro hoping.. er, I mean hopping... (by Jordan on 2012-10-08 16:34:24 GMT from United States)
Mild disagreement with Jesse et al on the perceived reasons for distro changes over time. Speaking for myself and perhaps another user or three, I move on because of annoyances within my current distro, disfunctionalities and even just because I can't live with the name of the thing ("fuduntu?" "damn small?" etc).
I want something substantial, something better than Windows and Mac not just in security by also in robust, working, functional to the "T" and configurable and with ongoing support, etc.
Some of the biggies that fit that for a while just peter out after a bit or just get as I said, annoying (any Gentoo based distro, SuSe, etc). People suggest others, but those or on their computers, not mine. I can't even get the flamin' printer to work in SuSe 12.2. ... etc.. ;)
25 • @20 Distro hop for a new kernel? (by DavidEF on 2012-10-08 16:36:05 GMT from United States)
uz64,
I don't think there are very many people distro hopping to get a newer kernel. Also, I'm not sure you understood completely the concept Jesse was presenting in his article. If the newer kernel came out just after openSUSE (in your example), it would be openSUSE's decision to update to the new kernel or not. And it wouldn't likely be the kernel only, it would be potentially a whole new OS base.
Most probably, the distros that standardized on this base would end up releasing in cadence with each other, following the cadence of the OS base release schedule. Their developers would actually be freed up to differentiate in more meaningful ways, instead of just competing with each other on how quickly they can integrate upstream changes. That would be worth distro hopping for! But, more importantly, it would be a quicker path to NOT distro hopping! Once you found a distro that had the features you need/want you would not have to move away just to get a new kernel. I call that a good thing.
Distro hopping can be fun, but once I learned how to get what I want out of my computer without distro hopping, I began to prefer the familiarity of a single distro, tweaked to my own specification.
26 • What Linux needs... (by Michael Muldoon on 2012-10-08 16:36:55 GMT from United States)
As a user and not a developer I know what I look for. I use Windows at work most of the time because Linux software is not available for much of what I do. I use Windows at home because most of the games I play are not available on Linux. When I use Linux I tend to use the distro that runs best on the hardware. That is, on one machine with not so great specs I use ubuntu, on my screaming laptop I use Mint, on my netbook I use Puppy.
The point is that the program I use are the ones available across all platforms that I use. In other words Firefox, Thunderbird, Libre Office, etc. If a unified base makes it easier for developers to write for all platforms by writing just once, then more quality software can be written instead of spending time rewriting for this platform then rewriting again for that one, and oh what the heck. This is too much work. I'll just give up writing for Linux.
Everyone that I have gotten to convert to Linux has because they browse the web, write email, type a letter every now and then, and I can give them the same software (those mentioned above) that I had them using in Windows. I could convert more if there was Photoshop and othe like available. And maybe they would write those programs for Linux if they only had to do it once for the entire spectrum, not for each and every little distro to get them to run right.
Just my 2 cents for what it's worth.
27 • "..Gentoo based.." (by Jordan on 2012-10-08 16:37:11 GMT from United States)
Just to clarify, as I re-read my post 24, I didn't mean to imply I thought 12.2 is Gentoo based, just included it as one of the "biggies" that ends up annoying me, along with Sabayon, etc.
28 • is it true (by linux on 2012-10-08 16:38:57 GMT from India)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
29 • Availability of the Raspberry Pi? (by Scott Dowdle on 2012-10-08 16:53:56 GMT from United States)
I'm in the United States and from what I've heard, everyone who ordered a Raspberry Pi on day one were all shipped in June. I know I've had mine for a few months now. Since June the Raspberry Pi foundation has announced that they are all caught up and have been producing 4,000 units a day and have removed the one-per-order/customer rule. There is even now a manufacturing facility in the UK. To the best of knowledge, there has not been a shortage of Raspberry Pi for some time now. A friend told me that they ordered 3 of them and got them in two weeks.
If Robert Story still hasn't gotten a Raspberry Pi he ordered back in the Spring, I think there is a problem somewhere that he might want to investigate.
30 • A common Linux base for distributions to build upon (by Scott Dowdle on 2012-10-08 17:09:47 GMT from United States)
While I appreciate Jesse Smith's comments this week calling for a common Linux base that some/all Linux distributions might build upon... there is much more blocking that than just the technical aspects... and the major one that stands out in my mind is that distribution makers don't appear to be much interested in doing that. If and when that changes, perhaps the notion will have a chance.
The other difference between Linux and FreeBSD, which I'm sure Jesse Smith is aware of, is that the FreeBSD developers don't just develop/build a kernel... they also develop/build the core of the system. Unless the Linux kernel developers greatly expand their development efforts to include several core packages, chances for a common underlying base-distro are unlikely... and I really do not see the Linux kernel developers expanding in that direction. Perhaps a new group could serve that purpose but as of yet, no such group exists.
Just for the record, there already has been at least one effort to create a core-distro for other distros to build upon and it failed. That was called United Linux (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Linux). See the wikipedia link provided for more info. Perhaps another try at it might be worthwhile... but given how much Red Hat contributes to the development of many of the underlying pieces including the kernel, glibc, etc... I think any such renewed effort that doesn't include them is doomed to failure.
31 • Minimal Base (by Charles A. Burge on 2012-10-08 17:41:32 GMT from United States)
@10 If you haven't tried Arch Linux I think you'll find it to be exactly what you're looking for. The base installation is about as minimal as you could possibly get, and then you can add only the pieces you want.
32 • Ubuntu (by Mike on 2012-10-08 17:54:31 GMT from United States)
There's a saying that the devil you know beats the devil you don't know. At least, with Ubuntu, we actually know what they're doing. If you think there's something suspicious going on, you can investigate it. Good luck doing that with Microsoft or Apple products.
33 • What Linux needs ... (by anticapitalista on 2012-10-08 18:02:52 GMT from Greece)
... is less articles about what linux supposedly needs. Linux is just fine as it is.
34 • Don't be fooled by SPeed Ratings (by Brian on 2012-10-08 18:08:55 GMT from United States)
The SD card speed rating is determined by the card's sequential read and write speeds. That's good information for figuring out how fast your camera can save a picture, but it doesn't reflect how fast running an OS ont he card will feel. Random i/o performance is much more important for that. Unfortunately, manufacturers don't publish these numbers. Counterintuitively, cards with high speed rating often have worse random write performance. Take a look at the charts at http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/microsdhc-memory-card-performance,3011-12.html for proof.
35 • This issue (by Ismail Arslangiray on 2012-10-08 18:14:10 GMT from United States)
I think this issue is the one of the best with the editorials. Thanks to all of you guys including the commentators.
36 • Linux OS (by Joseph on 2012-10-08 18:28:39 GMT from United States)
Generally every distro creates its own packages, so this "problem" isn't really a problem except for obscure software. OpenSUSE provides the Open Build Service to help create and distribute packages for multiple distros, but no one pays attention to something that doesn't have "buntu" in the name so most other distros don't make use of it.
The best - and seemingly obvious - solution is to use software to solve the problem. I'm thinking of a utility that can catalog a distro's library names and package details (this may need to be submitted by the distro rather than generated completely automatically) and then another piece of software is able to take the software specification and generate packages for every distro. It's an idea similar to the Gallium3D graphics driver idea. There, graphics vendors provide a driver that translates between the intermediate Gallium3D shader language and their chips. Then if someone creates a DirectX Gallium3D implementation or an OpenGL Gallium3d implementation all graphics cards will work with it without any extra coding. In this case a package is designed in an intermediate high-level language/description and based on the data provided/generated from the distros a program can create packages for multiple distros, formats and package managers. Distros don't need to lose their identity, and it would enable small distros to gain access to huge package libraries without needing full-time package maintainers. Heck, the generated packages could all be stored on the Open Build Service (or a distro could host its own OBS since the back end is open source) and that would handle distribution too.
37 • Re. 25 (by uz64 on 2012-10-08 18:40:59 GMT from United States)
"I don't think there are very many people distro hopping to get a newer kernel."
It was an example. And what I was really hinting at was the features and performance improvements such updates provided. Yes, the kernel was my example, it's the same with most of the other programs that be part of such a "base" OS.
38 • Ubuntu <> Linux (by Joseph on 2012-10-08 18:58:03 GMT from United States)
@32 >There's a saying that the devil you know beats the devil you don't know. At
>least, with Ubuntu, we actually know what they're doing. If you think there's
>something suspicious going on, you can investigate it. Good luck doing that with
>Microsoft or Apple products.
Ubuntu is not Linux. The alternative to Ubuntu isn't OS X or Windows, it's Fedora, Debian, Arch, Gentoo, Sabayon, OpenSUSE, or anything else that isn't derived from Ubuntu. I've been pleading with talking heads of the Linux world for several weeks that we needed a debate on Ubuntu and the future of Linux since many of them have casually stated that "Ubuntu is the future of Linux on the desktop", a heavy pronouncement without democratic consent from the community. I felt we needed a discussion about consigning the future of Linux to a model that's "not a democracy", where they "don't care about the kernel", where upstream contributions are minimal, where developers are paid based on how many features they land in a release - which according to former developers encourages unfinished code to be merged, and many other perceived flaws with the Canonical model of development that the community really need to talk about before our luminaries advise all other desktop distros to close up shop.
It's already happening - Ubuntu doesn't use the word Linux and Torvalds states he has no problem with it. Lifehacker articles about "Customizing your Linux desktop" are actually solely about tweaking Unity. Other articles state "To install the software on Linux, use sudo apt-get foo" and talk about "PPAs" rather than "repositories". Things like Steam are coming to Ubuntu, not "to Linux". Canonical makes deals that solely benefit Canonical. Last night I went to the webpage of an interesting piece of software and it proudly declared it ran on "Windows, OS X and Ubuntu!" I've seen Windows users dreading Win8 saying that their alternatives are "stick win Win7 or go to OS X or Ubuntu". Canonical's marketing has been detrimental to Linux the community because now fewer people than ever understand what Linux is or that other distros even exist. Non-Ubuntu users are now being marginalized in the Linux world the way Linux users are marginalized in the mainstream Windows world. And don't even get me started on Chris Fisher's mathemagical attempt to show that Ubuntu users are the vast majority of Linux users on the Linux Action Show, including citing that almost all of Bryan Lunduke's Linux software sales are to Ubuntu users, without mentioning that Lunduke sells his software IN THE UBUNTU SOFTWARE STORE. :-(
I got chewed out in many places for bringing up the marginalization of non-Ubuntu users and trying to get the Linux journalists to talk about this - somewhat expected, given that most of them are running Ubuntu or Mint. Even Matt Hartley's recent article "Three Top Ubuntu Alternatives - Sure, you like Ubuntu. But the Linux world offers more choices." were all Ubuntu-derived distros (!!!) and he's advertising himself as a consulting solution for Ubuntu problems on his website.
Now this happens with Canonical and Amazon and Shuttleworth's swagger but it was exactly the "not a democracy" issue I'd listed as one of the potentially most harmful drawbacks to Canonical as the Red Hat of the desktop that I thought the community needed to discuss before we embraced Ubuntu to the extent of all other desktop distros passing into irrelevance. I know the distros are all lovey-dovey and try to never speak ill of one another, but unless some prominent people bring some of these issues up and openly ask if this is what we want for Linux, we're going to get it by default. And if we accepted things by default, we would be using Windows, not Linux. :-)
Still, it feels like my quest to get any prominent Linux author to begin a debate (not an attack, just to openly ask the questions) about whether we really want Canonical to be the dominant desktop distro to the point people don't even realize other distros exist and whether its development model is good for Linux is like getting someone to declare the Emperor has no clothes. :-( We'll see. Maybe this latest blunder will finally get some people to start talking about whether all of Canonical's influences on desktop Linux are good. Of course it's possible to get rid of this Amazon tool. The bigger question I want people to talk about is whether they want to use a distro that declares it's "not a democracy" when so many other good ones are? How is this much different from Microsoft forcing Metro on its users? Is Canonical's model profit first, good distro second and do profits come before users?
39 • Such a sad truth...... (by Ray on 2012-10-08 19:15:59 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
40 • Ubuntu/Amazon... (by Edna Crabapple on 2012-10-08 19:34:27 GMT from United States)
I find this disturbing.
I don't want any commercial site "integrated" into my OS in any way, shape or form.
Is this going to effect the Ubuntu spin-off's like Xubuntu in any way, or is it just a Unity thing?
Maybe it's time to just switch to pure Debian... :-(
41 • @38 Ubuntu dominance (by skin27 on 2012-10-08 19:40:02 GMT from Netherlands)
Haven't you tracked the page hit ranking lately? Ubuntu stayed only number one in media hyping and miming Apple.
Btw: A common base doesn't make distro hopping superfluous, but easier. Also makes distros more competing on features, instead of things that hardly make a difference.
United Linux, yes I remember that. SCO (funded by MS) killed it, but we can learn a lot from this effort. The organization behind the base was weak and not independent. United Linux was most about letting Suse do the work.
And Linux is fine the way it is for what it used for and it's not fine for the way it is not used for...if you know what I mean.
42 • Arch?! Seriously?! (by Chris on 2012-10-08 19:45:16 GMT from Germany)
@31
Why do read so often that People recommend Arch? A Distro that has no one to Maintain the installer (I tried installing it on my Notebook with Luks and LVM. A Nightmare with the new scripts). KISS is a fine Concept. But does KISS mean that you need a second Device with an Internet Connection to make a Simple install (for reading a wiki)? I like Distros without any "Manual Intervention required" News on the Homepage.
What is the Point of a Distro that can get unusable after performing Updates?
I tried Arch Arch every 6 Month for about 5 years now. Every Single time there was a Major Showstopper for me.
But it seems that there are Plenty People out there that are willing to Spend time better spent elsewhere just to say that they got something Different. Hipsters ("I use Arch, you probably never heard of it")
And the new "Release Cycle" will most certainly Push Arch's Rating on DW up.
Sry if that reads Ranty.
PS: I dont mind Textbased Installers and Console work. But Arch is simply the most Painful of them all. Together with Gentoo. Why do People use such time vampires?
43 • Better support for ARM SOCs coming in Linux kernel 3.7 (by Vishnu Rao on 2012-10-08 19:45:34 GMT from United States)
I agree with your comment "I'm sorry to say that ARM SoCs suffer from a lack of standards," But it may change soon according to this article from phoronix: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTE5ODI
44 • Standards complaint Linux (by Caitlyn Martin on 2012-10-08 19:46:34 GMT from United States)
If you follow Jesse's link you will see that Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x is LSB 4.0 compliant. The only reason it isn't 4.1 complaint is because the latest revision of the standard came out after RHEL 6 did and major changes do not occur during the life cycle of a RHEL release. I expect RHEL 7 will be LSB 4.1 compliant.
Regarding a minimal build of RHEL, CentOS offers that. Scientific Linux offers minimal + X + IceWM. If you do a minimal build of CentOS and build up from there it should be possible to make a fully customized, LSB compliant distro to your taste.
Why aren't more distributors doing LSB compliant distros? Let's take packaging as an example. rpm and yum are LSB compliant. dpkg and apt are not. How many Debian or Ubuntu fans here are ready to move to Red Hat packaging? That's just one example.
45 • respectfully disagreeing with post 26 (by the Scarlet Pimpernel on 2012-10-08 19:55:10 GMT from United States)
I understand where Mr. Muldoon is coming from; today some of the best apps for Linux are cross-platform ones that run on Windows and Mac as well (Chrome, Skype, VLC). But for open source to really take off, it has to offer stuff that you can't get anywhere else. Otherwise there isn't enough incentive for the millions of existing Windows and Mac users to switch. If open source continues to be "Breathes Life into Ancient PCs!" or "More or Less What the Other Guys Got But Free!", it will continue to be on the margins when it comes to the desktop.
With that in mind, the best hope for inspiring tech jealousy among proprietary software users is Gnome 3 and perhaps even GnomeOS. It's forward looking (unlike Cinnamon, MATE, xfce and LXDE) and unique to open source (unlike anything written with Qt). An interface that breaks from the 30-year-old desktop metaphor may be the bane of older users, but it will seem more natural to a younger generation raised on tablets.
If the Gnome crowd can strike a careful balance between tablets and PCs in its interface and come up with some must-have, Internet-centric apps written in Gtk, it can be the hope of the open source world. That and Dell notebooks with Gnome preloaded.
46 • Linux-FreeBSD (by Marcelo on 2012-10-08 19:58:57 GMT from Dominican Republic)
Linux is only one Kernel! FreeBSD is one complete operating system! So simple are the difference.
What you do with the Linux kernel and his combination with another software is the distribution problem.
I have seen this problem 8 years before and swiched from Linux to FreeBSD and his derivative products.
47 • Great article on the ARM based options out there (by Vishnu Rao on 2012-10-08 20:16:40 GMT from United States)
Thanks for this excellent article.
I personally am going to hold out on these dev boards for the moment. I will bite when ARM SOCs like the one in the link below are out.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/10/samsung-exynos-5-dual-white-paper-specs
USB 3.0, SATA III etc are going to be big features for me. More over it would help if these came in some standard form factors like mini-ITX or some smaller standardized form factor. So I could buy an off the shelf computer case and put in the board and all the components in there. I guess in the next 1-2 years we should see that happening.
48 • @44 Standards complaint Linux (by skin27 on 2012-10-08 20:29:52 GMT from Netherlands)
It's easy to be compliant to your own technology. So let's change the package format in LSB and Red Hat will never be compliant anymore... It says nothing that one or two distributions are compliant.
Before a next step in standardization will be taken the standard base needs to be agreed on by significant members (for example red hat, suse, debian, ubuntu) and implemented step by step. Yes, one day we get to the hard to chew parts like package management, but maybe then it can be decided to have a new or merge format.
FreeBSD versus Linux. Somewhere in between we will meet :)
49 • Notes on Arch / having a core Linux setup like BSD (by DSMan195276 on 2012-10-08 20:55:13 GMT from United States)
I use Arch because I like the configuration that it offers (Unmatched by any distro that doesn't require compiling everything as far as I know) but for someone who doesn't care a ton about configuration, Arch is obviously a bad choice and will cause headaches. It's good for people who like it, and horrible for people who don't want the hassle. And on that note, back to the topic:
I personally think that instead of pushing for a Linux base system like BSD, push for more distributions to follow the standards already set and push for more standard to be made and followed. Of course there is a limit to how many standards are to many, but the more that can be standardised, the easier it will be to develop for Linux distributions.
50 • LPS linux, site unreachable? (by Jan on 2012-10-08 21:23:36 GMT from Netherlands)
The home page of LPS linux is unreachable.
Does anyone know what's going on?
51 • A common Linux base for distributions to build upon (by Scott Baeder on 2012-10-08 21:40:36 GMT from United States)
Clearly Jesse and other commenters haven't really understood the LSB effort. It is what is called a LAGGING standard. It basically serves to document what is already in the main distributions (and hence could be certified by them) rather than trying to be some sort of abstract "ideal" of what should be standardized.
It is about making sure that there is a common understanding of the API's and libraries that you can "count on" to be there if you are an application provider.
I urge anyone interested to go explore the LSB areas of the Linux Foundations web site. Not only is there a lot of good stuff there, it also has a lot of good documentation on the various APIs that are a part of the "standard".
52 • Linux Base (by Jarjar Binks on 2012-10-08 21:42:14 GMT from United States)
I personally thought Jesse's opinion was well put together and it made a lot of sense--as opinions go. Realistically I think he was simply suggesting that the Linux community take a good look at what FreeBSD is doing, not necessarily to implement it exactly. Even after the following garbage that I feel compelled to add, I still thinks it's a good post.
Discussions like these do nothing more than make a million and one bad cliches about people all come true.
Bottom line:
If you want more unity, go distro hopping with OS-X. Distro hopping with OSX you say? Yes that's what I said, and it will cost you a perpetual fortune. And it won't be perfect, as nothing in this world is. Apple breaks things all the time, they just don't utter a peep. You'll never know if they're actually working to fix the problem, or will just ask for another several hundred or thousand dollars for the next device with the fix. Somehow that approach keeps up appearances that they are indeed the perfect solution. Mostly lemmings involved there. But if you like that, then go for it. I understand completely. Money gets heavy from time to time, so a quick purge cures a ton of back problems.
If you want to play some wicked cool video games, and have every kind of software know to man available, go distro-hopping with MS. Once the desktop comes up, it's lightning fast, and even boot times are rivaling and even surpassing some of the quickest Linux distros right now. Of course, running updates is worlds beyond brutal--as always. Never figured that one out yet. And it ain't cheap either. Licenses, licenses, licenses! I just threw up in my mouth thinking about it.
If you want to freely distro hop to find something that works for you, but always leaves you wanting more, and comes with one site like this after another of commentary on "how it really is," then Linux is for you. I sincerely love Linux, but it comes at a cost. The statement that no OS is perfect applies here too. At the end of the day, we could power a small city for 10 years with the energy we put forth talking about the same old garbage. And in case you're wondering, there may be some confirmed probable scientific proof of that fact.
53 • @12, 42 and Jesse (by Pierre on 2012-10-08 21:45:36 GMT from Germany)
@12 New OpenSuse Chairman by kilgoretrout
I can't see any problem in having a french Gnome-developer as openSUSE-chairman. You point out that SUSE were KDE-centric and pointed your finger at YaST as an argument for your opinion.
But that is actually both wrong and proves you know nothing about the distro you are writing about:
1) openSUSE has some focus on KDE, but is not KDE-centric as it fully supports all 4 major DEs - e.g. KDE, Gnome, Xfce and LXDE.
2) YaST has both, a Qt- and a Gtk-GUI, the modules are even pure Gtk, so there is nothing based on KDE or otherwise restricted to any framework.
Another point is that openSUSE is a community of developers from many different projects and countries. So there is no problem with a Gnome-developer as openSUSE-chairman, no problem with his nationality or anything else and so there will nothing be wrong with how this will end up for the openSUSE project.
It's sad to see such narrow-minded articles and opinions full of prejudices while seing that open source and Linux are praised to be multi-national, flexible and knowing no borders.
@Jesse and his idea of a core-Linux-OS
Although I would appreciate such a core-Linux-OS as rendered by Jesse, I found that there are at least 2 fundamental problems in it.
1) The whole idea is based on the presumption that it would be possible to adress all basic philosophies of each distro out there and that it would be possible to gather all the distro-developers under one big central core-Linux-OS.
2) FreeBSD is only one BSD on which PC-BSD, GhostBSD and some others are based on. But NetBSD and OpenBSD are not (fully) based on FreeBSD and are therefore not as compatible to FreeBSD as it's own mentioned derivatives.
Yes, by design FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and the other BSDs are a little more compatible to each other than lets say Red Hat and Debian, but all Debian derivatives are to some extend compatible to each other, nearly the same as seen with FreeBSD and it's derivatives. So there is no such big difference as rendered by Jesse's nevertheless great article.
The idea is great and I appreciate that idea a lot and would like to see that coming, but Linux distros are in some points based on too different philosophies as it would really be possible to determine one single base.
Then, another problem that were another to come, just if we could make it that every project agrees to that core-Linux-OS: who is going to build and develop it?
The Linux Foundation rained by Linus Thorvalds? A commitee out of at least all major distros? Then: what would be a major distro and has to be part of that committee and which is not?
So as you see, it sounds great, but the possibility to see that happen is actually ranging from 0 to nothing.
But this does not disappoint me in any way because absolute flexibility is one of the core strengths of Linux and even a minimal core-Linux-OS like proposed by Jesse would mean to limit that, no matter how small these limits would be.
I am very happy with Linux and love to see so many different distros out there that suit so many tasts and needs.
42 Arch?! Seriously?! by Chris
I haven't had any problems with a plain Arch-install, but with flavors a lot (like Bridge Linux and such).
It is true, updated install isos are rare and if you want to update the installed system it is strictly recommended to check the Arch homepage beforehand to avoid bigger problems afterwards, but if one keeps it this way you are fine and able to have it running and running and running without the need of a reinstall.
Definitely it has it's pros and cons, but it is not worth arguing about that. It is a quite robust distro and if one wants to keep a system running without the need to reinstall every 6 month or every 1-2 years Arch could do the job.
I don't think that one who hates the way Arch works keeps it running just for the reason one could say: "I use Arch, you probably never heard of it!"Such another narrow-minded opinion here in the comments, if one asks me.
And to point it out, I used it only for some time, too, but it was not exactly what I wanted and kept hopping around. :)
54 • BSD is what you get when Unix guys port Unix to the PC, (by John Dudeck on 2012-10-08 21:46:56 GMT from France)
Linux is what you get when PC guys write Unix for the PC.
I like the observation that "the Linux community follows working examples, not abstract designs". This has been the rule of the Internet Engineering Task Force from the beginning of time. I once heard Vint Cerf get up and remind the IETF that some new proposal that was presented did not have working software. "Rough consensus and working code" is the rule. The crowd gave him resounding applause.
55 • The "linux operating system" (by cflow on 2012-10-08 21:49:00 GMT from United States)
I can see why making a single OS core around the Linux kernel could really benefit developers who make software for Linux distributions, but there's a major catch: who controls the upstream security updates and the timing of new features for this core, when red hat, canonical, debian, suse, etc. were controlling them before separately?
By how I see it, the reason for the incompatability of packages between distros is that the main distributors are competing businesses. They want to control a lot of these low-level aspects surrounding the kernel, as well as the timing and implementation of them. And of course, they have their own goals that will conflict against each other, as well as the way the kernel surroundings that "make" the operating system. I don't think Red Hat wants to switch to apt, nor Ubuntu would wish to switch to yum.
The solution? I'm not sure it would work... Coax _all_ the low level developers into scheduling all their drivers, libraries, compilers, packagers, etc. to be due _exactly_ at the same time the linux kernel is released. At first, the developers will be annoyed of some incompatabilies between the new work and the kernel, but afterwards there would have to be compromises between them somehow. That part I find rather hazy, though.
56 • @ 38 - future of Linux (by forlin on 2012-10-08 21:54:18 GMT from Portugal)
Does Canonical have a business plan? Yes, it has, as well as Red Hat and Suse. Canonical does not contribute to the kernel? Maybe that's because kernel requirements for home users are few, compared to the enterprise ones. Canonical is not democratic and Ubunto force software to the users? Ok, there's hundreds of other distros. I don't use Ubunto and I can't see why there's the danger of consigning to it the future of Linux.
57 • SATA on ARM! (by LMFan on 2012-10-08 22:38:20 GMT from United States)
Great review of ODROID, especially the conclusion 'wishlist'.
IMO ditch one of the USB headers to make room for a full size HDMI port and/or, better yet, some flavor of SATA chipset and header. The latter is desparately needed on one of these small ARM boards.
58 • Re. 40 (by uz64 on 2012-10-08 23:50:39 GMT from United States)
It's probably just a Unity thing, although I could be wrong. Still, I wouldn't trust Ubuntu if my life depended on it, so to be honest I wouldn't think twice about switching to Debian.
59 • "What Linux needs is an operating system" => We may need "FrankeLinux" (by Jeffersonian. on 2012-10-09 00:02:14 GMT from United States)
Jessie,
thanks for you interesting article, you are on the right track... somewhat.
Let me add here my 2c :
We already have pretty decent Linux based Operating Systems, and more than one !
My favourite (for Software development) are the Read Hat based variations, like RHL, CentOS, and Fedora for the leading edge.
For the "non Geek", distros emulating Apple/Mac or MS/Windows based OS are in no shortage, and the Debian/Ubuntu derivatives (like Mint) are pretty good.
I would like to take the best of each, in other words, what we really need is a "FrankenLinux", OPTIONALLY with the followings:
* the best Kernel+Device drivers+ Kernel-Services
* the best package manager (RPM in my opinion)
* the best Linux Desktop (I like none today, but Razor-Qt looks promising)
* the best applications (including kernel apps), with a common packaging scheme.
* Last but certainly not least the best Linux Installer (Perhaps Mandrake/Mandriva derivatives, Suse being unable to deliver what it promised).
This would certainly entail on top of the existing Linux standards, some API's and "connections" which may be missing, and a "FrankenLinux Builder" (Dr. FrankenLin of course !) , supporting both CLI, and later a fancy GUI....
I realize this is a big project, but in the spirit of Linux (Thanks Linus Torvald) defining such a second step could be a better time investment that endlessly reinventing the Linux wheel, with lots of sweat and nothing clearly better.
Universities, engineering schools (thanks to BERKELEY, CMU, INRIA, MIT, and many others, less famous but just as great... ) could not only define this project, but jump start it !
Hello FrankenLinux ? Shish?
AG/Jeffersonian
Note: I welcome your comments, even the usual silly rants, but rants could be productive too.
60 • Ubuntu/Amazon.. (by Edna Crabapple on 2012-10-09 00:34:31 GMT from United States)
Re: 58- No, I don't trust them after this. This just rubs me the wrong way.
I was planning on putting Xubuntu on my desktop. I'll wait for the smoke to clear a bit and see if this "feature" affects the other 'buntu's or just Unity.
Debian is a PITA to get all my hardware configured, maybe Mint Debian might be a better choice...
61 • @60, The amazon lens (by cflow on 2012-10-09 01:03:10 GMT from United States)
The "amazon feature" is but a lens in the unity dash which can easily removed like any other package out there. Thus, it only affects Ubuntu and other distros willing to include it in their ISOs. In fact, the official derivative Edubuntu, which does use the unity shell, will _not_ contain this lens in its default installation. Obviously, Xubuntu won't either - it uses Xfce, not Unity.
62 • @51 lagging standard / @59 "Franken" linux (by skin27 on 2012-10-09 07:44:15 GMT from Netherlands)
@51 Yes, it is kind of a lagging standard in the way that it follows distributions. It is however more than just description and it sure has prescriptive elements, otherwise there is no need for certification at all and you would have to same list as here on Distrowatch.
The point of Jesse's article that LSB is just a small part from what is needed and now brings not a lot. It's not about being being part of a standard, but that there is a standard technology base like the kernel that provides interoperability on a higher-level.
@59 What you describe sounds like a new distribution. This happens all the time. Take the best components and build a new distribution. There is however no agreement on what makes a component the best. So just call this a common base will not be enough.
Let's consider Esperanto. I may think that this is a good Franken language and everybody should use it. If no one in practice uses it then what's the point? Even if for example one country would decide to teach their citizens it will not be enough. If for example the European Union and its member would be committed to use it then it may happen (although in the end it needs to be adapted by real life usage, for example science articles, product descriptions, optional website language and so on).
Also, what makes you think that RPM should be preferred over Deb? What are your argument that some component needs to be chosen and be part of the base? For example I don't think that an installer should be part of the base as this is a component where distributions can compete on (providing different options and user experience). A desktop environment is another example.
A possibility to include for example an installer would be that or multiple installers are supported or multiple configurations. So the component must just be as modular and flexible as the kernel.
63 • Hey (by blaze on 2012-10-09 09:00:34 GMT from United States)
I don't know if you guys have noticed this but it is so painfully obvious to me that I think you should have. There *IS* a common base already. It's called Debian. Sometimes it's called other names like Gentoo.
What I'm saying is this: for every one of you distro hopping around, you should have noticed that probably all of the distributions you are playing with are based on a very, very limited number of common bases, The common root of the vast majority of distributions in existence and having a nontrivial general use user base can be counted on one hand, Debian being the most popular.
But these are already at irreducible component sytems; you can't for example try to merge Gentoo with Debian. It won't work. So besides having a broader fundamental system at these root levels you have the subcomponent level: kernel, userland programs etc, and I see no way whatsoever of making this more fundamental outside of the distruction or disappearance of the all but one of the fundamental roots.
In other words, the best way to reach a single popular fundamental base is to grow one so large that it drowns out the others such that only niche user bases exist outside of it. This is no doubt what Ubuntu wants to be some day; it wants to be that fundamental root (as do Fedora, OpenSUSE, etc). If it were up to me I'd make it Debian, but the point is that these bases simply can't - and won't - be broken down. In fact, they continue to be splintered (systemd etc). And it will always be that way:
You need to understand that the corporations running the corporate-backed distributions will only cooperate insofar as it benefits their corporate interests, and to ask that they search for a common base, you may as well ask Microsoft and Apple to have a common base for Windows and Mac. I mean, get real.
As you know by now, there is no longer any 'common interest' among the companies to get "Linux" adopted. It's being adopted. The common interest is getting 'Ubuntu' adopted. Or 'Fedora'. (etc).
So again, my advice to you people who want a better "Linux" environment is not to go to RedHat, Canonical, etc and beg that they work with their corporate competitors to get "Linux" adopted (something they ostensibly only care about tangentially), but to pick the common base YOU want to be 'the' common base, and commit and support it, and help grow it yourself, to make it dominant. That's how free-economy "standards" work. But more imporantly, you should do so in order to recognize the blatantly obvious: people (but mostly companies behind the people) are COMPETING with each other at this point.
64 • @63: (by dragonmouth on 2012-10-09 09:46:06 GMT from United States)
"This is no doubt what Ubuntu wants to be some day; it wants to be that fundamental root "
No, Mark Shuttleworth wants Ubuntu to be the Windows and Canonical to be the Microsoft of Linux world. He wants Ubuntu to be the ONE and ONLY. Too bad for him that he ain't no Bill Gates.
65 • Whose fault? (by ange on 2012-10-09 10:05:19 GMT from Hungary)
I can't build a kernel module on newest kernels. Too many changes, nobody patching old proprietary module sources or abandoned projects, like smartcam, cisco-vpn, conexant modem, etc.
The old conexant packages have been removed from Dell's support site.
If I downgrade to a kernel 2.6 based distro with longtime support, like Centos/Scientific/RHEL, I can't use modern apps anymore, like Xfce 4.8, Gimp 2.8, etc. Whose fault is it? Gimp can't run on old libc/kernel? Newer libs can't build on old kernel? Where is the bottleneck, where is the root of incompatibility? Brainless kernel development, changing constants, methods, apis from release to release? Nobody cares about backward compatibility? Five year of support is long in IT?
66 • Linux Base (by Jarjar Binks on 2012-10-09 10:29:33 GMT from United States)
@63
Well said. Believe it or not, my comment at 52 has a similar underlying message. Obviously not the same choice of words, but there are several fundamental reasons why Linux is the way it is today, and it's not likely to change much. I think Jesse has a good idea, and he did a nice job explaining it. But therein lies the issue--ideology. To make his idea come to life, he would have to throw himself into development, and maintain a system just the way he wants. But that would simply be yet another Linux distro--only marginally different from the choices we have now. The Linux community has been around too long, and has come too far to be ignoring some hugely apparent problem that's simple to fix, In other words, there ain't no elephant in the room folks. It is what it is--which boils down to my comment in 52. Make a choice. We have plenty, none of which are perfect.
@64 If I am taking your comment out of context, please accept my apology. But of course Shuttleworth wants all those things! Can we honestly blame him? Can we honestly blame Bill Gates? Can we honestly blame Steve Jobs? Nobody says you have to like it, but those men have carved out their own path of success--right or wrong, good or bad, like it or not. And they all are or have been relatively successful. Some might say Bill Gates has been absolutely successful if the numbers are all that matter.
Here's another bottom line:
Sounds like we need another distro, or we don't need one. Who cares? Spin up what works for you, and went it don't work no more, hop. And when you run out of hops, make another distro yourself, or save yourself the headache and buy a Mac, or PC, and get ready for the never ending purge of greenbacks. Really folks, what other options do we have?
67 • Hate Linux (by help on 2012-10-09 11:16:51 GMT from United States)
I hate Linux! I install one distro, then install all my windows software, and then update it with all my saved personal files, then find another distro and switch to it, instead over and over and over! I am thinking of going back to Windows! help
68 • Linux base (by skin27 on 2012-10-09 11:18:03 GMT from Netherlands)
The choices are:
1) Windows: Controlling the OS and parts of the data and ecolandscape
2) Apple: Controlling the OS, Hardware and ecolandscape (i.e. the appstore)
3) BSD (Lack of hardware support and high-level usability)
4) Cloud-based (Controlling the data)
So Linux already offers the best balance between freedom and support/usability. But within the Linux landscape there is to much fragmentation on false grounds. You can say that's because the Linux companies do everything in their own interest. But is it in their own interest? Companies don't always know (have no glass sphere) and make strategies that succeed or fail.
@63 You can't say that there is a common base and at the same time say there is is no common base. Yes, there are a few core distributions (mainly in the distrowatch top10), but that's exactly the problem. These core distributions are incompatible and even the distributions that are derived from these core are incompatible (is Ubuntu fully compatible with Debian, is Chakra compatible with Arch)? So there is continually fragmentation going on that will makes it harder (especially for new companies) to achieve business goals and succeed.
The way Linux Mint works is kind of between a distribution and its base. They compete on technologies as software centre, desktop environments and applications while keeping in sync with their base. That's why it's funny they use two bases (Debian and Ubuntu) which only leads to more works.
Debian as organization and technology could serve as a common base for more distributions, but that ain't going to happen. So there must be a shared initiative between the core distributions.
69 • @ Hate Linux (by skin27 on 2012-10-09 11:31:31 GMT from Netherlands)
Ah, most people here on the site like Linux because of distro hopping :) Still I understand what you mean, really migrating between distributions is not that easy.
There are enough (probably the majority of Linux users) who don't do this at all. A colleague for example tests a few popular desktop Linux variant in a VM and sticks to it for several years. After a few years he does it again. Another colleague uses LMDE which is a rolling release and he never installs another Linux, but has always up-to-date software.
My advice is to take a distribution as a base (don't need to reinvent the wheel) and turn this into your own 'OS'. This is a lot of fun and the only way to get the distro the way you want
70 • @ 69 by skin27 (by Pierre on 2012-10-09 11:36:51 GMT from Germany)
If one asks me, only a few people are satisfied by the distros in their each plain version. Everyone is personalizing their distros to fully fit their tasts and needs.
For me this is openSUSE 12.2 with KDE at the moment, but I am fine with CrunchBang, Salix and others, too. The main thing is, that openSUSE simply feels like home for me, no matter if the others fit my needs completely, too. ;)
So, anyway, lots of fun for you all!
And greetings from Germany once again.
Pierre
71 • Linux Base (by Jarjar Binks on 2012-10-09 12:54:29 GMT from United States)
@67 Hate Linux
I must say that while many people do enjoy distro hopping (I actually like testing instead of hopping), I often have to ask myself why. Once you've found something that really works for you, albeit still not perfect, why the need to hop to something else? Windows ain't right out of the box either, and you will be quickly reminded of that should you go back. It is much better than it used to be, but still can be a huge headache. And despite popular belief, Apple users are not immune to headaches either, just take a look at iOS6 and network issues.
For me, I like the benefits of other distros, but they often lack something that I view as highly important. This is what drives me back to Linux Mint each and every time. Linux Mint is not perfect. There are little things that I find in other distros that I wish Mint had, but at the end of the day, Mint does it for me, and has since version 5. This is not to convince you to go with Mint, it's just a personal experience. I've done the hopping and/or testing, and Mint is where I land every time. Even with the Gnome3/Gnome Shell debacle, resulting in the invention of MATE and Cinnamon, I find either DE very usable, although different in very important ways.
For example, six months ago, I thought I would give Cinnamon a try after using MATE for several months. And this was purely to be used on a trial basis. Well 6 months have passed, and I'm still on Cinnamon, and I don't know where the time went. It simply works for crying out loud! But you know what, so does MATE! I find myself just as productive with one as I do the other. And when LM14 comes out, I have no compelling reason to upgrade. You can bet the farm I will test LM14, but it won't likely ever be my primary PC.
Don't get me wrong, I've been in your shoes many times with Linux, and the time will come again. That's just the way it is for some of us. But ask yourself: What is at the core of your frustration? Is it the feeling that you constantly have to go from one version to the next? Could it be that you don't really have to do that to have a highly functional system? Unless you have a critical piece of hardware that the kernel doesn't support, and you're just hoping that they next version will include a supportive kernel, why bother with upgrading, or hopping? Rolling releases like LMDE are getting better and better all the time, but what in the world is wrong with an LTS from Mint, or Ubuntu for that matter?
So many of us Mint fans where dying to have a solid LTS out of LM13, and as it turns out, we have it. What I don't understand is why it seems that so many are bugging the dickens out of Clem for LM14. What happened to the LTS you were just whining about 6 months ago?
Point being, sometimes people change just to change, yet they complain of the changes that their changing changes. Folks, out there in Linux land lies an imperfect distro that just might work quite well for you. Find it and stick with it. If it means some hopping, big deal. In the end, it you find what you're looking for, it's worth it. If in a few years, you feel your distro of choice is failing you, get back to hopping. Is it really that different than our expensive closed source alternatives?
72 • Linux OS (by Jesse on 2012-10-09 13:17:56 GMT from Canada)
>> " I think Jesse has a good idea, and he did a nice job explaining it. But therein lies the issue--ideology. To make his idea come to life, he would have to throw himself into development, and maintain a system just the way he wants. But that would simply be yet another Linux distro--only marginally different from the choices we have now. "
No, that's not what I had in mind. I don't envision starting up a new distribution, rather having a handful of existing distribution agreeing to use a common base. As others have pointed out, there are relatively few base distributions upon which other distributions build. If Debian (and Ubuntu), Redhat and openSUSE could agree to use one common base that would account for over half of the Linux installs in the world due to the tickle down to the derived projects. Really, the only two things that would have to happen to accomplish this would be for
A) A central project like GNU, which already maintains most of the base OS, boot loader and compiler, to also standardize on a specific Linux kernel and a package format.
B) Get the projects listed above to use it.
As I've pointed out above most of the big name distributions already use the same versions of the same packages and the same kernel, agreeing to a common base would be a relatively small step to take and would have a huge impact on the ecosystem, especially whee third party developers are concerned.
Sure there would be fringe distros which would prefer to roll their own (Tiny Core and Arch come to mind), but they make up a relatively small per cent of the Linux ecosystem.
73 • VIA-APC (by il2uapc on 2012-10-09 14:09:50 GMT from United States)
I have not heard of the ODROID-X but do own a APC board and love it. It is slower than the ODROID-X boardb but cheaper to set-up and use.
I paid $59.99 for it at newegg,com. It came with a power suppy, Android 2.3 OS and has a vga port that I am using at the time. I have not tried the hdmi port.
At the time I have less than $100 in my set-up. Board $ 59.99
Used Monitor 5.00
Used Mouse .50
Used Keyboard 3.00
Used Speakers 3.00
VGA Cable 8.00
--------------
Total $ 79.49
I am on the internet and do almost anything I want to with it.
74 • Linux Base (by Jarjar Binks on 2012-10-09 17:26:54 GMT from United States)
Jesse,
You're assuming that everyone will like the common base that is agreed upon. Forgive me, but I'm not sure exactly how high up the layers you intend to go before things start branching out, but are you talking about standardizing on whether the package base is .rpm, .deb., etc? That's just one thing that would have to be standardized. As you know, users are extremely divided on what they prefer in this regard. Maybe I'm way too far up the chain, but I might be misunderstanding you also. Either way, while it's a good idea for several reasons, I just don't see everybody agreeing on too many critical components before things start to either get ugly, or we just see yet more distros coming out. I suppose that's what I was trying to say.
Developers who decide to base their distro off of Ubuntu have gigantically standardize, but then again, many don't feel Ubuntu is actually Linux anymore. There are strong arguments on either side of that issue as well.
This is what I meant in my very first remark. It doesn't take long before we start going round and round in circles about these supposed issues, or better ways to do things.
75 • Ubuntu/Amazon (by Edna Crabapple on 2012-10-09 17:37:39 GMT from United States)
Re: 61- if XFCE/Xubuntu won't include this, that's the news I wanted to hear.
I currently use Xubuntu 12.04 on my laptop, and want to put it on my desktop to replace Ubuntu Lucid.
So if XFCE is free from Amazon- and will remain that way, I'm good to go. :-)
Thanks for the info.
76 • LinuxOS (by Irfan on 2012-10-09 18:21:32 GMT from Pakistan)
A layman like me needed an OS that just works (= ubuntu & derivates), and Desktop Environment that provides most functionality, usability, and maximum access to desktop environment and hardware settings (=GNOME, KDE).
Ubuntu has brought linux to the masses. And ubuntu is already the base of the best (= Mint, Zorin, etc.)
Ubuntu did what Red Hat, Mandriva, Debian, OpenSUSE never could!
K.I.S.S.
77 • Ubuntu doing what others can't (by Anonymous Coward on 2012-10-09 18:56:27 GMT from Spain)
Irfan wrote:
-----------------------------
Ubuntu did what Red Hat, Mandriva, Debian, OpenSUSE never could!
-----------------------------
That's right.
Ubuntu blowed my /boot partition because of a known bug, broke my backup archives and junked one DVD disk in the same 10 minutes. It never happened to me with Red Hat, Mandriva, Debian or OpenSUSE!
Sorry for the troll bait, but I could not resist it. It is a solid fact, anyway.
78 • linux common os (by beelzebub on 2012-10-09 19:16:55 GMT from United States)
if gnu's hurd kernel becomes usable, gnu has it's os, and it approximates bsd...
79 • distromess (by geirknappen on 2012-10-09 22:01:48 GMT from Norway)
I follow your distroweekly posts because I should get a replacement for ubuntu 10.04 before april. I must admit that I have the impression that every singe linuxdistro is a mess in some way. Nothing works out of the box. Always a driver issue of some sort. Always a requirement to do some manual fixes. A bunch of distros that does not work with unetbootin. I have the impression that debian is the least messy, but Im a noob when it comes to technical computerstuff, and I am considering to just keep using ubuntu 10.04 for a serious length of time after the ubuntu 10.04 EOL.
80 • @63, @72 (by Patrick on 2012-10-09 22:22:10 GMT from United States)
I was going to say something along the same lines as @63, and it is hard to say it any better! I'd like to add a couple of things:
Jesse, if you consider how many compatible derivatives for instance Debian has, then I fail to see your claim of FreeBSD being such a great, unifying base system, especially considering that there are incompatible OpenBSD and NetBSD too. It seems to me Debian makes a better base then FreeBSD in the eyes of many developers. And it's only a matter of time until one of those FreeBSD derivatives decide their vision needs to break free of restraints imposed by the FreeBSD base and strikes out on its own.
Then there is the huge issue of who should decide what the base should be. If you consider that, from proprietary consumer software developer's point of view, Ubuntu has become the "standard base", you get a preview of how well such a base would be received by Linux users. Every time a developer decides that Ubuntu makes a great base for their project, there's a storm of "not another 'buntu!" comments here. Or imagine that the standard base would decide to switch init systems from SysV to systemd, well we just recently saw how well that would be received.
The bottom line is that for there to be any chance of having a standard Linux base, the Linux USERS would need to be unified first. But since they tend to flock to Linux mostly because they can usually find something that works the way THEY want it, whether that is big, small, bleeding edge, rock stable, sparse, fancy, etc, there's just no chance this is going to happen. And that's not a bad thing. That's why there are many different bases such as Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, Gentoo, Puppy, openSUSE, etc. One base could never satisfy the different opinions that exist among Linux users.
81 • Arch install images (by Anon on 2012-10-09 22:43:39 GMT from Norway)
#53, Pierre, wrote about Arch: "... updated install isos are rare ..."
Well, yes, depending on one's notion of 'rare'. A while back, Arch started offering an updated install (snapshot iso image) medium every month:
http://www.archlinux.org/
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Arch-Linux-switches-to-systemd-1725090.html
In view of not having had to reinstall Arch since September 2008, I don't consider a new install medium every 30 days to be particularly rare, but, of course, YMMV ;-)
82 • Base OS (by Jesse on 2012-10-09 23:35:14 GMT from Canada)
>> "You're assuming that everyone will like the common base that is agreed upon. Forgive me, but I'm not sure exactly how high up the layers you intend to go before things start branching out, but are you talking about standardizing on whether the package base is .rpm, .deb., etc? "
I'm talking about standardizing the base system. Kernel, userland UNIX style tools (basically what GNU provides) and, yes, a package format. Despite the many flame wars over packing there really is zero practical difference between rpm and deb. I've used (and developed) both and what matters isn't the package format, but the tools used to manipulate them. If you use the APT package tools with rpm packages it's exactly like using APT with deb packages. Going the other way, YUM could probably be adapted to work with deb and, again, the package format becomes moot.
>> "Jesse, if you consider how many compatible derivatives for instance Debian has, then I fail to see your claim of FreeBSD being such a great, unifying base system,"
That would be fine, if everyone used Debian as a base, but they don't. The issue is users keep demanding developers port software to "Linux". But there is no one Linux operating system. This is why companies like Valve are porting to Ubuntu and Ubuntu only, because it (and its off-spring) have a lot of users. But those packages probably won't work on other distributions and need to be re-ported.
Yes, there are flavours of BSD which are not compatible with FreeBSD, but those are (properly) recognized as separate operating systems. People using OpenBSD do not expect software ported to FreeBSD to automatically work for them, like the way Linux users seem to demand software ported to Fedora to also work on Debian or Arch.
>> "Then there is the huge issue of who should decide what the base should be."
That seems pretty obvious. As I'm stated above, GNU is the ideal choice. They have been saying for years all they lack is a kernel. If they standardized on a specific Linux kernel every year and a package format we'd be set.
>> "The bottom line is that for there to be any chance of having a standard Linux base, the Linux USERS would need to be unified first."
Not at all. If the main Linux distributions standardized on a platform the users would fall in line. Sure, a few distributions would branch off and continue doing their own thing (much like DragonflyBSD in the BSD community), but as long as the few big players got on board, most people would automatically benefit from the base system. Only a few fringe would be left on independent platforms and that's fine. As long as they understand software developed for GNU/Linux OS wouldn't necessarily work for them, they're welcome to use whatever they feel best.
My ideal here isn't to force everyone onto a single base, but to have a single base for people to target. Right now that doesn't exist in the Linux community and it would be a huge benefit to the ecosystem as it would make porting easy and cheaper and result in more developers targeting Linux. Right now, for many companies, Linux isn't a viable cost/benefit target.
83 • Leaving Ubuntu (by Peter Besenbruch on 2012-10-09 23:35:26 GMT from United States)
I have always liked Ubuntu for it's simplicity of installation. There are a few things I don't like: It always seemed slower than the equivalent Debian install. Ubuntu began bundling in various services with Lucid (10.04). By 10.10 Ubuntu was advancing its own desktop environment. By 12.04 the extra services include Amazon searches. My greatest objection to these is that you have to opt out, not opt in. That's a major "no-no." The whole Amazon fiasco, and Canonical's reaction represented a tipping point for me.
I have changed to installing Debian on my machines, and on the machines of friends whose machines I support. I am not a distro hopper. I own a System 76 netbook that came with Lucid installed, and it still runs Lucid. It prompts me with every update to move to 12.04. I won't be doing that. I am currently backing up critical portions of the computer in preparation for installing Debian Wheezy. It's getting Wheezy, and not Squeeze, because I don't want to upgrade again in six months.
The irony is that I will be running a very similar system when I am finished: An XFCE 4.8 system, but it will be an XFCE system from an organization a respect and trust.
84 • @79 • distromess (by geirknappen (by Bill on 2012-10-10 02:56:53 GMT from United States)
I got off the Windows Vista train and hopped aboard Ubuntu 9.04 and thought I had found a permanent answer for my computing needs. Then came 9.10, 10.04 10.10 and that strange thing called Unity. I thought I would be using Xfce after that, but along came Nota Linux. It is just like Ubuntu 10.04 but it's built on a bare minimum Ubuntu 12.04 with MATE 1.4 as the DE. This allows me to have compiz and emerald themes working (just like in 10.04).
Now I have everything I had with Ubuntu 10.04 and I just love it. It feels like Gnome 2 and I am set for the next 5 years until 2017. Here's what it looks like:
https://backup.filesanywhere.com/FS/M.aspx?v=896c678e5897af76a966
I love Linux and the choices we have!
85 • #77 (by zykoda on 2012-10-10 13:08:44 GMT from United Kingdom)
OpenSUSE 12.2 will blow away the MBR if one tries to install its GRUB on its root partition just as Windows does when retrospectively installed. Mint 13 fails to install a boot loader at all on the same machine. I have treble checked both in utter disbelief.
Recovery is however simple with a live CD. Os_prober (GRUB2) does some weird things as well: fictitious entries in grub.cfg. Just have to edit them out, despite the "DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE" warnings! It seems that the logic unintentionally leaks!
86 • @85 about the boot/mbr issue (by Jordan on 2012-10-10 13:16:44 GMT from United States)
Maybe that's why I got "bootlogo too large" errors when attempting to run PCLinuxOS right after installing SuSe 12.2 a while back. I have up but did find that PCLOS was not alone in errors, but also that some did run fine. I wish I'd made a list of which was which, but remember only the PCLOS issue because it was the only one that elicited an actual error message, the rest of them just froze at some point during boot into live.
After covering SuSe with Cinnarch the other day all was well.
87 • Linux Base (by Jarjar Binks on 2012-10-10 13:56:25 GMT from United States)
Jesse,
Again, I'm not doubting the validity and technical correctness of what you're proposing. And without the ability to conduct an enormous case study, I would say that your solution would probably benefit the Linux user base to an unstated degree. But at the risk of oversimplifying the discussion, I will ask: If this is such a no-brainer, why didn't it take hold long ago? On the other hand, maybe long ago would have been the time to implement it.
But all that aside, it is my OPINION, that if this could be implemented as simply, and trouble free as you imply, there are going to be a lot more users than you think that are somehow going to be left out in the cold. In other words, I highly doubt that the overall number of Linux users will change significantly. Rather, the typical user base profile may experience quite a change--those who were happy before are now ticked, and those unhappy before are now elated.
This is not to say that it wouldn't somehow bring the approval of the alienated users in the future, but that would be quite distant in my mind. It just sounds too much like reinventing the wheel.
88 • ODROID-X - a call to ARMs (by Dr..S.B.Asoka Dissanayke on 2012-10-10 14:43:20 GMT from Sri Lanka)
BIG THANK YOU to Robert Store and Distrowatch for this article.
I am a very old GUY but young at heart and would try all what Robert had done, in my retirement soon.
To me the factor that matter as pensioner with a paltry income is money and the TAX I have to pay.
I am a Linux fanatic and would like to divert my attention to ARM when it is freely available outside UK and USA
I have downloaded the Raspberry Pi and waiting to get one with the help of one of my friends in UK.
I am a Sri-Lankan who has given up watching cricket for Linux.
I guess the author is American and he should not feel shy to state that as an American use Linux.
Most of the visitors to my blog site are Americans (Parafox at Google blogspot)
89 • ARM (by Patrick on 2012-10-10 16:06:15 GMT from United States)
I also wanted to mention I really appreciate the article on the ODROID-X, Robert. Very well done!
I've been playing with Linux on ARM for quite a while now (see my old Sheevaplug article http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20091221 -- that thing is still happily chugging away BTW) and I am delighted that Linux on ARM seems to be getting much more mainstream. It was great to read about the ODROID-X system. It seems to be a very nice and efficient system. It pains me to think of all the energy that is wasted in the world by the billions of x86 processors that all are sitting there, translating their archaic CISC instructions into RISC micro-ops in real time, every cycle, every second that they run. Such a pointless waste!
I received two Raspberry Pi's in June and have been playing with them since then. They work great as embedded/headless/server systems, but limited CPU/RAM makes using them as desktop replacements not as great as the ODROID-X, I would expect. But $35 a pop is hard to beat and the GPIO header is great for someone who likes to tinker with electronics. :-)
Another project I am keenly interested in is the Parallella on Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adapteva/parallella-a-supercomputer-for-everyone . They're offering to open source their whole system if they get funded. Hopefully they will. :-)
90 • What about slackware as a base? (by Philippe on 2012-10-10 18:25:07 GMT from United States)
I'd like to start by saying that I also agree like many of you that a unified Linux operating system won't happen simply due to the nature of the FOSS ideologies. But if we're dreaming here of building such an OS, why not start with Slackware Linux. I've use it in the past and have move on to more newbish distributions (currently using Mageia), but I've always had a soft spot for Slackware. I feel it really represents and embodies the original spirit and capabilities of Linux; meaning that it's very fast even on modest hardware, and it's extremely stable, which something that many Linux distributions have lost imho. Now does Slackware have everything it needs to be a mainstream OS for the masses? I don't think so. But think about this. Combine Arch Linux extensive wiki documentation with slackware's rock solid foundations, and strap on the polished user experience of say Linux Mint, and there my friends, is an OS to reckon with.
91 • armboreds (by linuxarms on 2012-10-11 01:12:20 GMT from Germany)
being a taxfreeloving-near-pensioner myself i find these mini-board devices have a lot of potential. maybe a usb plugin variety could provide some sort of unique sandbox-firewall-security aspect to a running pc that would be better than the ordinary security softs.
92 • FreeBSD (by Landor on 2012-10-11 03:42:41 GMT from Canada)
FreeBSD as a base is a joke. It's like such an oligarchy that no one dares deviate from it, or make any changes that might ruffle the exalted FreeBSD's feathers.
Yes, that's exactly what this community needs to become like.......
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
93 • @90 slackware as a base? (by Peter Besenbruch on 2012-10-11 05:39:10 GMT from United States)
I rather like package management that resolves dependencies. As for speed and reliability, I would put Debian up against any distro out there. Hence, I think it should be THE base. All other distros based on something else should be made illegal. There will be one Linux to rule them all, one Linux to find them. One Linux to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them, in the land of APT, where dependencies die.
I'm sure the Debian team would be delighted if it came to this. ;)
94 • @ Arch Linux (by DrSaleemCeaanKhanMarwat on 2012-10-11 14:07:16 GMT from Pakistan)
I wonder why people complain about Arch Linux latest script Installer when it is much simpler than the previous menu installer . It took me hardly 30 minutes to install base system plus full MATE desktop and fully configured system up and running . If you follow the wiki and follow the steps for installation its more easier than ubuntu`s installation imho.
Regards,
95 • linux os (by forlin on 2012-10-11 19:09:28 GMT from Portugal)
Jesse's Linux o/s looks like a good idea, but the Linux ecosystem does't always move based on that. If the market was all and only about Linux, I imagine what some of the players would comment on that: Gentoobsd: we are a niche, so we don't need it. Slaktux: good idea, lets get together and start work. Redapple: right now we are busy making money but we may steal that idea, some day. Debianthevole: we are the bigest and the ones who put up the standards. Others may follow or get out of the game.
Now, not joking. So far, the only thing all distros have always shared, its the Kernel and due to the open source development nature, nothing else will ever be shared across all distros. Just my .2 cent.
96 • Which distro should be the base (by Dude-man on 2012-10-12 05:56:48 GMT from Czech Republic)
This thread is really interesting... just demonstrates the whole thing.
Its like herding cats, not going to happen, but could be really fun to try :)
But I love cats, and I love Linux just the way they are
If I want my cat to come to me, better to get him to catch me, than think I can chase him down. Get something that people need and people/cats/devs will come. Each distro just keep trying to make the best they can, as they have been doing.
97 • Standarizing Linux (by Anonymous Coward on 2012-10-12 09:55:06 GMT from Spain)
I suspect there are attempts to platform (GNU/)Linux in the shadows. If you listen carefully what some developers say, you may discover that some of them support the BSD model. One project to develop Kernel AND core userspace.
As of today, the most representative effort to make a standard userspace in my eyes is systemd. It is being aggressively deployed with some planned invasive dependencies in such a way it is hard to imagine other init manager in Linux in the future.
Technical points aside, many developers are ranting right now just because of the possibility of systemd enforcing itself and related components as a factual standard.
Try to impose a standard = Be hit and smashed by the developers.
98 • @93, 85, 81 (by Pierre on 2012-10-12 13:19:56 GMT from Germany)
@93
Well, sure they were delighted if Debian became the overall base, but although I really like and appreciate the OS and the work the team does, I don't think that it is going to happen that an existing distro would become such a general base system. Jesse is right that than the GNU is more likely to introduce, produce and develop such base system from scratch.
No one has to share that opinion, but I think that this would be better, APT is rock solid, no complaint on that, but a litte archaic if one can say so.
And, just to mention that: Slackware is developing a new packaging system which is planned to be able to resolve dependencies.
@85
I never had that problem, but I have to be honest, that I nearly always wanted openSUSE to install GRUB in the MBR...
@81
Well then, I am sorry for that failure, seems to be to long since I last checked for the installion media. Every month an updated iso is gut rhythm for a rolling release distro, so I apologize for my criticism on the point.
99 • @94 (by Pierre on 2012-10-12 13:27:53 GMT from Germany)
Well, I cannot say that it works so fast for me and I would not agree that the installation process is as easy for a user as the one of Ubuntu, openSUSE or such install systems. But it is nevertheless a robust and simply working process, well guided by the installer itself and the extremely precise and well maintained install guide in the Arch wiki.
Regarding that one has to install Arch only once and can keep on rolling there is - in my opinion - nothing wrong with such a little more difficult installation process as long as the installed system is perfectly configured afterwards. :)
100 • One Linux (many apps) (by zykoda on 2012-10-12 14:26:55 GMT from United Kingdom)
Making a uniform base creates a larger target for the exploitation of rogueware. It is an advantage for each OS/system to have differences so as to scatter the target. History should not be repeated.
101 • GNU Operating System (by Jason on 2012-10-12 17:57:23 GMT from United States)
Part of the problem was the Operating System could have been GNU, but the FSF didn't adopt the Linux Kernel, thus an ecosystem of people trying to put together a Linux based OS was born. The only way we could have a chance at a unified one is if Linus started it himself.
102 • @85 (by Mac on 2012-10-12 20:12:11 GMT from United States)
I have had the same problem with SUSE for abt. 2yrs now. And can't say for Mint. I use KDE no icandy, Kubuntu and mepis. Kubuntu desktop and mepis laptop. Personal choice for both. With third party loader which is not hard to put back but since I like apt-get and getting to old to learn. Not much of a mechanic now days just a user.
Have fun, Mack
103 • Parallella (by CredulousSkeptic on 2012-10-13 00:20:56 GMT from United States)
Almost all of their system could be open, except the CPU microcode, right?
Interesting they offer Ubuntu, but don't mention Rocks clusters.
104 • REF# 85 • #77 (by zykoda (by VernDog on 2012-10-13 02:49:31 GMT from United States)
You go my interest with the grub statement:
"...despite the "DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE" warnings! It seems that the logic unintentionally leaks!..."
I have a copy of my grub that I always copy back to the boot partition. And it has been edited. An example:
default=0
timeout=11
menu_color_normal=white/blue
menu_color_highlight=light-cyan/cyan
menuentry "Windows" --class windows --class os {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ntfs
set root='(hd0,msdos1)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 3464AFFC64AFBF4C
chainloader +1
}
menuentry 'Fedora' --class fedora --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='hd0,msdos6'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 41d31597-805c-48a3-bb89-1ab2972e2f67
#echo 'Loading Linux 3.5.4-1.fc17.x86_64 ...'
#linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.4-1.fc17.x86_64 root=UUID=41d31597-805c-48a3-bb89-1ab2972e2f67 ro rd.md=0 rd.lvm=0 rd.dm=0 SYSFONT=True KEYTABLE=us rd.luks=0 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 rhgb quiet
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.4-1.fc17.x86_64 root=UUID=41d31597-805c-48a3-bb89-1ab2972e2f67 quiet libahci.ignore_sss=1 raid=noautodetect selinux=0
#linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.4-1.fc17.x86_64 root=/dev/sda6 rootfstype=ext4 quiet libahci.ignore_sss=1 raid=noautodetect
#echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
initrd /boot/initramfs-3.5.4-1.fc17.x86_64.img
}
menuentry "kubuntu" --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,msdos7)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 73877b7e-2200-4a0a-8aaa-9daee0a23ae1
linux /vmlinuz root=UUID=73877b7e-2200-4a0a-8aaa-9daee0a23ae1 ro splash quiet
initrd /initrd.img
}
menuentry "ubuntu" --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,msdos8)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root f8730cda-696c-451a-93b1-8831b846d198
linux /vmlinuz root=UUID=f8730cda-696c-451a-93b1-8831b846d198 ro splash quiet
initrd /initrd.img
}
menuentry "Clonezilla" {
set root='(hd0,msdos9)'
linux /live-hd/vmlinuz vga=791 boot=live live-config noswap nolocales edd=on nomodeset ocs_live_run=\"ocs-live-general\" ocs_live_extra_param=\"\" ocs_live_keymap=\"NONE\" ocs_live_batch=\"no\" ocs_lang=\"en_US.UTF-8\" ip=frommedia nosplash live-media-path=/live-hd bootfrom=/dev/sda9 toram=filesystem.squashfs
initrd /live-hd/initrd.img
}
menuentry "PartedMagic" {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
gfxpayload=1024x768x16,1024x768
set root='(hd0,msdos9)'
linux /live-hd/pmagic/bzImage root=/dev/sda9 directory=live-hd edd=off load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 rw loglevel=9 max_loop=256
initrd /live-hd/pmagic/initrd.img
#APPEND /pmagic/bzImage initrd=/pmagic/initrd.img edd=off load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 rw vga=normal loglevel=9 max_loop=256 vmalloc=256MiB clonezilla
}
105 • grub2 (by greg on 2012-10-13 14:13:45 GMT from United States)
I edit the DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE in grub.cfg, often. The only drawback that I've found, is that if you update-grub, it will undo whatever you've done. Is there any other reason not to do this?
106 • FrankenLinux (by Jeffersonia on 2012-10-13 21:31:16 GMT from United States)
"@59 What you describe sounds like a new distribution. This happens all the time. Take the best components and build a new distribution. There is however no agreement on what makes a component the best. So just call this a common base will not be enough."
Well, not exactly. Today only Linux geeks (experts) can take components they like, and build a "yet better Linux"...
What I suggest is a distro where the installer is actually a "Linux distro builder" where the components are somewhat generic, and will work properly together.
It is my feeling that we already have most of the building blocks... but not the builder itself.
And the process to make this builder will reveal what we already know: some "connectors" (API mostly) are here and there incomplete towards this endavour.
On a different topic I do prefer RPM do Debian packages, because the tools are in my view better, and the extra modules too, like the delta (incremental) packages support, the automated search for the faster server etc....
107 • SATA on ARM! (by Sam on 2012-10-14 06:31:19 GMT from Qatar)
@ 57 there is a ARM board called cubieboard which has SATA port and only US$49 cost.
108 • REF #105 (by VernDog on 2012-10-14 15:01:20 GMT from United States)
NONE!
That's why i said I always keep a copy to overwrite anything that update-grub does.
109 • FrankenLinux (by skin27 on 2012-10-14 19:37:42 GMT from Netherlands)
Not are generic Linux OS builder, but Suse Studio is really nice and simple way to get a customized (SuSe based) distribution: http://susestudio.com/
110 • A week with OS4 (by Anthony Bragga on 2012-10-15 00:40:02 GMT from United States)
I just spent a week with OS4 13 OpenDesktop and I will say this, its a very good distribution. One of the major points I give it is while many Linux distributions try to mimic the Mac or they mimic Windows, OS4 is unique and different. It installed on all three of my machines with no issue and I got wireless working where even Linux Mint couldnt.
All the applications just work and I like the way they rename the applications and give them more user oriented names. Its definitely a mix between a home user desktop and a business oriented desktop. Its got Evolution vs Thunderbird and yet it has AbiWord vs LibreOffice. As a longtime Mint and DreamLinux user, Im happy with OS4 and I would recommend it to anyone
Number of Comments: 110
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