DistroWatch Weekly |
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 529, 14 October 2013 |
Welcome to this year's 41st issue of DistroWatch Weekly! The Ubuntu distribution is well known for its experimental (and sometimes controversial) nature. The developers behind this popular operating system often push into new territory, trying new approaches to package management, user interfaces and system internals. However, with the approach of Ubuntu's next long term support release (scheduled for April 2014), the developers are planning a more conservative path. Read on as Jesse Smith discusses Mir, Ubuntu's new display server, and the community's reaction to its delay. We also talk about Ubuntu's plans for the distribution's GNOME and GTK packages which will likely be used by various community spins. In this issue of DistroWatch Weekly we talk about openSUSE's participation in this year's Summer of Code and the interesting results which grew out of their involvement. We also bring news of developments in the FreeBSD community where new file system and stack protection software are being introduced. Plus we offer tips on rescuing deleted files and discovering attached storage devices in our Questions and Answers section. As usual, we bring you news of recent distribution releases and look forward to new releases around the corner. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (14MB) and MP3 (26MB) formats
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Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Thoughts on Mir and the community
I realized this week I needed a break from sampling distributions. I love technology, especially when it involves open source software, but this past week I realized I'd had too much of a good thing. As I scrolled through the list of distributions released over the previous two weeks and combed my inbox for suggestions I realized few of the distributions jumped out at me. My reaction to reading descriptions such as "The last distribution you will ever try" or "Just works" was skepticism. Most of the releases announced over these past two weeks have been niche players and beta releases anyway, so this seemed like a good time to take a break, to take a week off from installing open source operating systems, to have a week off from taking notes on the Linux community's latest and greatest. This week I would like to turn my focus (and yours, if you will indulge me) on Canonical's new display server, Mir.
Mir, for those of you who are not familiar, is a display server designed to replace the X graphics software common to most Linux (and UNIX) operating systems. The Mir software is designed to work on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. If all goes as planned, Mir will provide better performance and use less energy than X. The name Mir is a Russian term meaning community or the world (as well as "peace") and fits the naming pattern of other Canonical projects which include Ubuntu and Unity.
Right from the start Mir generated some controversy. Originally Canonical (and several other open source contributors) had been putting their development efforts into a new display server technology called Wayland. Wayland was also supposed to be a faster, lighter, less cumbersome display technology that would someday replace X on most devices. However, development on Wayland was slow and not going in quite the direction Canonical had hoped and thus Mir was born. Right away many people expressed concern that Canonical was dividing the Linux ecosystem by introducing a new display server, a technology which would use different drivers than Wayland and, therefore, possibly divide development efforts. There were also questions as to why Canonical needed to make their own display server rather than influencing Wayland's development, questions Canonical kindly answered.
For a while all seemed quiet, but then, during the month of September, Intel (a Wayland contributor) rejected software patches provided by Canonical which would allow Intel's drivers to work with Mir. This was a reversal of Intel's earlier apparent support for Canonical's new display server. The reasoning was not clear, but it seemed as though Intel was unwilling to continue support for Mir, either in an effort to avoid cluttering up their own driver code or because Intel's focus was on Wayland. Either way, it meant more work for the Canonical developers who will need to maintain the driver code themselves. Then, at the start of October, Canonical announced Mir would not ship by default in the upcoming release of Ubuntu 13.10. The developers had decided there were still bugs to work through, features to complete, and it was decided Mir would be delayed for a release cycle.
Given Mir's status this seemed like a reasonable move, at least to me. In the past Canonical has released buggy code into its products (PulseAudio and the Unity desktop spring to mind) and it seemed as though the company was taking a more conservative approach, protecting its users from experimental code, trying to insure a better user experience. Yet, for some reason, people's reactions have been mostly negative. Mir's temporary delay seems to be blood in the water for critics of the display server. Commentators are taking the opportunity to claim the project was poorly planned, that the technology is under-supported, that it won't be able to complete with Wayland, which has recently been gaining momentum.
As someone who does not have a horse in this race, as someone who does not care if his desktop is running Mir, Wayland or X, it has been a puzzling few weeks. It seems as though the community at large, not just a vocal minority of idle commentators, but active developers, are betting against Mir before the software gets a trial run. Intel's move, for example, of not only refusing to assist in driver development, but actively blocking support, is troublesome. Former Red Hat employee, Matthew Garrett, taking shots at Mir also strikes me as a poor use of time and energy. Critics claiming Ubuntu being the only distribution to currently adopt Mir is a sign Mir won't be successful seems to me to be an odd and unrealistic viewpoint. Wayland has yet to be included as the default display server in any mainstream distributions and critics are not complaining about its delay.
Most of us see the open source world as a place where anybody can scratch an itch, develop a new idea and release it into the wild. It doesn't need to have mass appeal, it does not need to sell a certain number of units, developers are able to create their visions and share them freely. At least it seems as though developers can do this as long as they do not work for commercial companies. The more feedback I hear about Mir (especially negative feedback) the more I get the impression critics are opposed to Mir not on the technology's merits, but because Canonical is behind its development. Ubuntu is a widely used and popular distribution and, when one is king of the hill, everyone wants to push you. The development of Mir isn't hurting anyone, it isn't being forced on other distributions (even Ubuntu community distributions can use Mir or ignore it as they like), and Mir is open source. Mir represents a fresh solution to a long-standing concern -- the imperfections in X -- and Canonical has shown a willingness to develop and even maintain drivers to prevent diluting efforts from third-party coders. Canonical has basically said they want to try something new, do not expect any help or cooperation and will not push their technology out to the public before it is ready. Despite their best efforts many people in the open source community appear to want them to fail.
Earlier I mentioned that my review options were limited this week as many recent distribution releases have been beta tests rather than full releases. My point of view is that developers should be given the time to get their projects to a stable release before the software is judged. When I review a distribution I try to focus on stable releases and I attempt to avoid reading other reviews of the same project and anything about the developers' personal lives. I want to evaluate a project based on its strengths and problems, as free as possible from the taint of public opinion or past releases. It's not always possible, I am human and flawed, prone to being subjective. Still, I feel the community at large should take the same approach when it comes to Mir. Perhaps the technology will always be buggy or maybe it will be stellar. In either case no one is forcing Mir onto the open source community as a whole, it is Canonical's pet project, and I think the community should be cheering them on for trying something new. Canonical, as with any other open source developer, is free to dedicate its resources to scratching its own itch and seeing what comes about as a result. I, for one, am looking forward to comparing Wayland, Mir and X over the coming year to see which one best serves my needs. When we have options we all win.
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Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
openSUSE reports on Summer of Code results, Ubuntu considers approach to GNOME, new features come to FreeBSD
The Google Summer of Code projects hosted by the openSUSE team have drawn to a close with some exciting results. Among the projects that were successfully completed are several useful tools and some fun applications. Some of the projects which stand out are tools for AppAmour security profiling, an application for automatically resizing LVM volumes as more space is required and a program for playing music stored on ownCloud servers. There were also interesting projects which included logging, a code repository review system and a campaign mission for the game Hedgewars. Congratulations to all of the students and mentors who took part in the Google Summer of Code experience!
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The Ubuntu distribution is known for its experimental nature. The project is often trying new things: a new sound system, new desktop environment, new widgets and search functionality. However, the first Ubuntu release of 2014 is likely to be more conservative with regards to its GNOME and GTK packages. Sebastien Bacher posted a message on the Ubuntu Desktop mailing list suggesting that Ubuntu 14.04 (a long term support release) ship with an older version of GNOME (and its supporting) packages. At the time Ubuntu 14.04 will be released GNOME will have reached version 3.10 or 3.12 and Bacher is recommending Ubuntu stick with GNOME 3.8. Some of the reasons Bacher suggests for using the older version of GNOME are that GTK 3.10 "deprecates several options", the Ubuntu long term support releases should avoid cutting-edge software, and Red Hat's next Enterprise Linux release will use GNOME 3.8 so it makes sense to stick with a version where maintenance work can be shared by both distributions.
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The BSD Now talk show is a podcast hosted by Allan Jude and Kris Moore which covers important updates and developments in the BSD communities. In their latest episode the hosts discuss the brand-new FreeBSD 9.2 with its ZFS TRIM support, driver improvements and dtrace administration functionality. The duo also cover NetBSD's recent flurry of releases, work being done on DragonflyBSD's advanced HAMMER file system and stack protection support for FreeBSD ports. They also discuss how to reduce compile times using RAM disks to cut down on bottlenecks that are typically encountered when reading from (and writing to) a hard disk. A lot of interesting file system work is being in the BSDs these days and it's worth a listen to find out what new features are available.
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Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Quick tips and tricks
Learning-your-name asks: When I plug in a device like a thumb drive, how can I know what name Linux assigns the device? Like when I plug in an external drive how do I know if it is called /dev/sdb or /dev/sbc?
DistroWatch answers: There are a couple of ways to get the name of a device which has just been plugged into your computer. One way is to run the dmesg command. The last dozen lines of the output from dmesg should contain the name of the newly attached device. The name will not be displayed in the full "/dev/sdc" format, but will be abbreviated as "sdc" or "sdd". To see the last ten lines of the output from dmesg you can run:
dmesg | tail
Another method would be to run the lsscsi command. This command displays a list of all disks attached to the computer. Each row of output represents one device and each line lets us know the type of device (such as a hard disk or DVD drive); the label or brand associated with the device; and its name. In the case of lsscsi we do get to see the full name of the device, such as "/dev/sdb". If the lsscsi command is not available on your system it is probably available in your distribution's software repositories.
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On a regular basis I receive questions from people asking about the restoration of deleted files. I have covered this question in the past here and here, but I'd like to briefly go over a few tips I have found to be helpful. The first thing to do when a file has been accidentally deleted is to stop using the drive where the file was stored. Continuing to use the drive that held the lost file risks over-writing the data. The next step is to get two tools, a live CD or thumb drive featuring a copy of any mainstream distribution and a spare hard drive. I generally recommend having a large external hard drive that can be used to store recovered files.
Boot the live distribution from your CD or thumb drive and download a copy of the TestDisk suite from your distribution's repository. Next, run the photorec program which is a part of the TestDisk suite. The photorec recovery program can be run by passing the name of a partition to the application. For example, if the file we wish to recover is on the /dev/sda1 partition we can run photorec as follows:
photorec /dev/sda1
The recovery utility will then walk us through a series of screens asking us questions about the partition where the data was stored and about the type of file (or files) we wish to recover. The utility will then search for deleted files and save them under the current working directory. Any restored files can then be copied back to the drive where they were originally or saved on the external disk. I personally recommend saving recovered files in both locations so there are multiple copies of the data. The TestDisk website has an excellent step-by-step guide for recovering files and covers available options in detail.
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Released Last Week |
PC-BSD 9.2
Dru Lavigne has announced the release of PC-BSD 9.2, an updated version of the project's desktop operating system based on FreeBSD: "The PC-BSD 9.2-RELEASE images are now available for download. Highlights: Based on FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE; bootable ZFS boot environments - using GRUB2, any new ZFS boot environments created via the 'beadm' command will be added to the bootloader and available at boot time; te-written Life-Preserver utility, it allows you to instantly create ZFS snapshots, restore files, and replicate data to a remote system or mirror to an additional local disk drive; updated installer allows restoring the entire system from a replicated ZFS backup; new boot manager GUI, it allows managing ZFS boot environments and GRUB menus in a single location; switched over to CDN for downloads...." Read the rest of the release announcement for a complete list of changes and upgrade instructions.
Korora 19.1
Chris Smart has announced the release of Korora 19.1, an updated build of the project's Fedora-based distribution with a choice of GNOME and KDE desktops - and now also available in MATE and Cinnamon flavours: "Today we released Korora 19.1 which is a 3-month update to the original 19 release. Anyone already running Korora doesn't need this; however, if you are planning do any more installs we highly recommend downloading this new release as it includes all updates, a few tweaks and fixes a number of bugs. This release also includes versions of the MATE and Cinnamon desktops which we've created to gauge community interest. The 19.1 release features: all updates at time of release, including KDE 4.11, Linux kernel 3.11.2 and Firefox 24; introduces support for MATE and Cinnamon desktops; replaces RawTherapee raw image editor with darktable...." Here is the brief release announcement with screenshots.
Korora 19.1 - the MATE desktop (full image size: 2,484kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
SparkyLinux 3.1 "E17", "MATE", "Razor-qt"
Paweł Pijanowski has announced the release of SparkyLinux 3.1 "E17", "MATE" and "Razor-qt" editions, a set of Debian-based distributions and live CDs featuring three popular lightweight desktop user interfaces: "SparkyLinux 3.1 'Annagerman' E17, MATE and Razor-qt editions are out. The new ISO images of SparkyLinux provide a few changes and system improvements, similar to last week's release of SparkyLinux 3.1 LXDE, Ultra and CLI: Linux kernel 3.10.11; all packages have been updated from Debian's testing repositories as of 2013-10-05; Sparky Backup System - one more bug fixed, updated up to 0.1.5; Enlightenment 17 desktop is available as a separated ISO image now and it has been updated to version 0.17.3 from Debian's unstable repository; added Teamviewer client, Sparky APTus, Minitube, Gnote, Osmo, Radiotray and Xfburn. New forum for English speakers is also available." Here is the brief release announcement.
ZevenOS 3.3 "Neptune"
Leszek Lesner has announced the release of ZevenOS 3.3 "Neptune" edition, an updated release of the project's Debian-based distribution featuring the KDE 4.11.2 desktop and many popular applications in their latest versions: "The Neptune team is proud to announce the release of Neptune 3.3. This release features Linux kernel 3.10.12 and is exclusively meant to run on 64-bit CPUs. The KDE Plasma Desktop ships with version 4.11.2. Chromium was updated to version 29, VLC to 2.1 and LibreOffice to version 4.1.2. We ship with the latest and greatest multimedia codecs pre-installed, as well as the Flash player. For wireless diagnosis we ship Wireshark, Aircrack-ng and kismon. We made a lot effort in cleaning up the system and removed Eclipse as well as the Muon software center and qapt-deb-installer. We removed pavucontrol which is no longer used as we don't ship PulseAudio. Linux kernel 3.10.12 comes with patched zram to prevent freezes. We also added a renewed quick installation manual." See the release announcement for a list of new features and other details.
wattOS R7.5
Ron Ropp has announced the release of wattOS R7.5, a set of minimalist Ubuntu-based distributions with a choice of LXDE, MATE or pekwm desktop user interfaces: "I am pleased to announce the immediate release wattOS Release 7.5. wattOS R7.5 is a remastered build of Ubuntu 13.04 and is fully compatible with Ubuntu repositories. There are several new exciting things with release 7.5 as there are now three core flavors for you to try: 32-bit and 64-bit LXDE desktop editions; 32-bit Microwatt - lightweight and running customized pekwm; 32-bit and 64-bit MATE-desktop edition. The philosophy is to be minimal but functional and to let you choose what you want to install but to give you a good basic OS with a foundation to customize how you like. Things like printing, user management, multi-monitor support, power management and software management is all installed and ready to be used." Read the rest of the release announcement for more details.
wattOS R7.5 - the "Microwatt" edition featuring the pekwm window manager (full image size: 1,541kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)
PCLinuxOS 2013.10
Bill Reynolds has announced the release of PCLinuxOS 2013.10, the latest round of maintenance updates for the project's "KDE", "MiniMe" and "LXDE" editions: "PCLinuxOS KDE 2013.10 (32/64-bit) is now available for download. With respect to the previous KDE editions these ISO images have the following changes/additions: Linux kernel 3.4.64. KDE 2013.10 has all the additions from MiniME and was built to provide a general-purpose KDE desktop computing environment. The DVD includes popular tools for office, audio, video, graphics, and Internet applications (LibreOffice 4.1.2, GIMP, Skype, Dropbox, VirtualBox, etc.) as well as additional drivers and tools to set up your hardware (graphic card, network, printer, scanner, etc.)." Read the release announcement (the "LXDE" edition was announced in a separate post) for more information and screenshots.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Summary of expected upcoming releases
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DistroWatch.com News (by Ladislav Bodnar) |
September 2013 DistroWatch.com donation: Tiny Tiny RSS
We are happy to announce that the recipient of the September 2013 DistroWatch.com donation is the Tiny Tiny RSS project, an open source, web-based news feed (RSS/Atom) reader and aggregator. It receives €250.00 in cash.
Ever since the untimely death of Google Reader, many users of the popular online feed aggregator have been searching for an alternative. Although there has been an explosion of Reader replacements in recent months, the old adage of "once burnt, twice shy" might have prompted many to consider one of the open-source self-hosting RSS readers that would shield us from the whims of commercial companies or third-party services. Enter Tiny Tiny RSS. As its name suggests, it's a rather small program which you install either on a remote server or a home computer and which works in the background, fetching items of subscribed feeds at pre-determined intervals. It's an excellent piece of software is easy to set up and which offers a simple and intuitive user interface. Developed by Andrew Dolgov, Tiny Tiny RSS is a "a server-side AJAX-powered application licensed under GNU GPLv3. It is self-hosted - control your own data and protect your privacy instead of depending on a cloud service which may be discontinued at any moment." Please visit the project's Wiki pages for a full list of features, setup instructions and download links.
Launched in 2004, this monthly donations programme is a DistroWatch initiative to support free and open-source software projects and operating systems with cash contributions. Readers are welcome to nominate their favourite project for future donations. Those readers who wish to contribute towards these donations, please use our advertising page to make a payment (PayPal, credit cards and Bitcoins are accepted). Here is the list of the projects that have received a DistroWatch donation since the launch of the programme (figures in US dollars):
- 2004: GnuCash ($250), Quanta Plus ($200), PCLinuxOS ($300), The GIMP ($300), Vidalinux ($200), Fluxbox ($200), K3b ($350), Arch Linux ($300), Kile KDE LaTeX Editor ($100) and UNICEF - Tsunami Relief Operation ($340)
- 2005: Vim ($250), AbiWord ($220), BitTorrent ($300), NDISwrapper ($250), Audacity ($250), Debian GNU/Linux ($420), GNOME ($425), Enlightenment ($250), MPlayer ($400), Amarok ($300), KANOTIX ($250) and Cacti ($375)
- 2006: Gambas ($250), Krusader ($250), FreeBSD Foundation ($450), GParted ($360), Doxygen ($260), LilyPond ($250), Lua ($250), Gentoo Linux ($500), Blender ($500), Puppy Linux ($350), Inkscape ($350), Cape Linux Users Group ($130), Mandriva Linux ($405, a Powerpack competition), Digikam ($408) and Sabayon Linux ($450)
- 2007: GQview ($250), Kaffeine ($250), sidux ($350), CentOS ($400), LyX ($350), VectorLinux ($350), KTorrent ($400), FreeNAS ($350), lighttpd ($400), Damn Small Linux ($350), NimbleX ($450), MEPIS Linux ($300), Zenwalk Linux ($300)
- 2008: VLC ($350), Frugalware Linux ($340), cURL ($300), GSPCA ($400), FileZilla ($400), MythDora ($500), Linux Mint ($400), Parsix GNU/Linux ($300), Miro ($300), GoblinX ($250), Dillo ($150), LXDE ($250)
- 2009: Openbox ($250), Wolvix GNU/Linux ($200), smxi ($200), Python ($300), SliTaz GNU/Linux ($200), LiVES ($300), Osmo ($300), LMMS ($250), KompoZer ($360), OpenSSH ($350), Parted Magic ($350) and Krita ($285)
- 2010: Qimo 4 Kids ($250), Squid ($250), Libre Graphics Meeting ($300), Bacula ($250), FileZilla ($300), GCompris ($352), Xiph.org ($250), Clonezilla ($250), Debian Multimedia ($280), Geany ($300), Mageia ($470), gtkpod ($300)
- 2011: CGSecurity ($300), OpenShot ($300), Imagination ($250), Calibre ($300), RIPLinuX ($300), Midori ($310), vsftpd ($300), OpenShot ($350), Trinity Desktop Environment ($300), LibreCAD ($300), LiVES ($300), Transmission ($250)
- 2012: GnuPG ($350), ImageMagick ($350), GNU ddrescue ($350), Slackware Linux ($500), MATE ($250), LibreCAD ($250), BleachBit ($350), cherrytree ($260), Zim ($335), nginx ($250), LFTP ($250), Remastersys ($300)
- 2013: MariaDB ($300), Linux From Scratch ($350), GhostBSD ($340), DHCP ($300), DOSBox ($250), awesome ($300), DVDStyler ($280), Tor ($350), Tiny Tiny RSS ($350)
Since the launch of the Donations Program in March 2004, DistroWatch has donated a total of US$36,805 to various open-source software projects.
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New distributions added to waiting list
- GdNewHat GNU/Linux-libre. GdNewHat GNU/Linux-libre is a "Fedora Remix" with an aim to be a fully free operating system without proprietary software and binary blobs.
- Javalix. Javalix is a Linux-based distribution with a focus on Java software development.
- Raspberry Picture Frame. Raspberry Picture Frame is an operating system for the Raspberry Pi computer which displays images in a slide show format using files stored on a thumb drive.
- SchalamzaarOS. SchalamzaarOS is an openSUSE-based operating system for the micronation of Schalamzaar.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 21 October 2013. To contact the authors please send email to:
- 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 • Canonical and Mir (by john on 2013-10-14 09:17:29 GMT from Portugal)
Well said Jesse. Even though I think Canonical has a lot of issues to address in their communication and vision strategies they made a choice to push a new technology out. Even if Mir doesn't become succesful, indirectly it pushed Wayland. I think it's a win-win situation for all the users!
2 • Mir (by Mirix on 2013-10-14 09:59:52 GMT from Belgium)
Hardware producers often ignore Linux. They often do not produce Linux drivers, or do not open their code, or, if they do offer Linux drivers these often are of lesser quality and less full featured than the drivers for proprietary operating systems.
This is particularly true for graphics cards and those who have been around in the Linux world for long enough, know who painful this used to be (and still is to a lesser extent).
Under the light of these precedents, does anyone really believe that Nivida, Intel, ATI, etc are going to produce drivers for three different display servers? Really? If we are lucky, they will chose one.
So the whole Mir thing is another desperate attempt from Canonical to make Ubuntu and Linux synonyms (as Bill Gates did with Windows and PC). They want to make Ubuntu the default Linux so that everyone that develops software for Linux will do it only with Ubuntu in mind. If they succeed, they should then be able to impose to the whole community the strategies that are more in line with their commercial interests (as they have always tried to do).
Canonical is losing ground very quickly and this, while they are still the number 1 (thanks to Mint), may be their last chance to impose their hegemony in the Linux landscape. Luckily, it seems that, once more, they are late...
3 • MIR/conical (by kc1di on 2013-10-14 10:31:29 GMT from United States)
Well Written Jesse!
I tend to agree with you I'm not a big fan of Conical , but can't deny they've been a big player in the Linux and open source community over the years. Just look at the number of spins and Distro that are based on their efforts. And as you said when your at or near the top people can's seem to stop being critical. Conical it's self after all is a business and needs to turn a profit at some point. They supported the free giving away of their CD's for many years and introduced many to Linux.
I Think some of the business choices have been poorly timed and some in open source community seem to be trying to make Ubuntu and Conical into the next M.S. but in fact they are simply pushing the tech to new limits. and it might fail for them. But as you said I do think MIR should be given a fair shake.
I'm not sure why Intel made the choices they did , but seems it may be business related more that software related :(
anyway thanks for making us think I'm sure you'll get many comments pro and con. Hope you have thick skin ;)
4 • Canonical and Mir (by Wine Curmudgeon on 2013-10-14 10:42:47 GMT from United States)
Once again, jesse, you have written an excellent piece -- thoughtful, balanced, and logical. And, sadly, as kc1di wrote, you'll need a thick skin. That's the shortcoming here, not what Canonical is doing with Mir.
5 • OpenSuse's RC (by Bob on 2013-10-14 10:45:54 GMT from Austria)
Tried the OpenSuse RC in the KDE 64b flavor - worked like a charm. This is a pleasant surprise, since I sometimes had to skip OpenSuse releases because of reliability concerns. Therefore it looks like it is going to be the Linux of choice for all my hardware once the final version is available - and still working.
6 • About Mir (by Danmery on 2013-10-14 10:52:18 GMT from United States)
Guys, Linux world means 'Freedom' then Mir has the right to be developped by the Ubuntu Community. Only the Linux Community will judge if Mir is good or not. Remember: When we have options we all win.
7 • Tips reply (by Ben furstenwerth on 2013-10-14 11:12:14 GMT from United States)
I usually just use sudo blkid or sudo /sbin/blkid depending on system. Tells you dev location uuid, cs type and label. Usually all I need to identify. On every device I have if I can format it i label it so its real easy, usually the last plugged in item is the last /dev/xxx
8 • Of Mir and stuff (by kneekoo on 2013-10-14 11:21:41 GMT from Romania)
Quite a mature way to look at things (Mir, distros etc). This is the main reason I come back to DistroWatch. I value other people's opinions based on how much of their own thoughts are in it, rather than how much they repeat what others say.
Unless we financially support the long term work of the developers I don't believe we even have the right to judge what they come up with, but we always have the choice to use or ignore whatever open source software out there. I guess in the end it boils down to personal comfort. If someone likes a distro as it is and the distro maker changes something significant (to the user), the user might be unhappy with it. So for our own convenience we tend to brag a lot.
With all the good and bad Canonical published in previous Ubuntu releases, there's one thing I just love about them: they keep going and improve their work. Canonical's Achile's heel is the fixed release dates. But I still can't find a perfect distro/operating system, so I won't expect that from anyone. Let's face it, people would use a single desktop environment if only one was available, but that doesn't mean everyone would be happy with it. So options make much more people happier - let's keep that in mind. Being open-source, packaged and distributed with install instructions and online communites that we can use to have a free and functional operating system is a lot more valuable than selfish/mindless rants.
I wonder what would these people (the critics) would reply to these simple questions: - With your own time, knowledge and money would you agree to let anyone dictate you what to develop just to release it open source? And now for the tricky part: - Which people would you listen to and work for? (all having so many different opinions and requests)
9 • Mir did not provide peace and Unity not unity it seems. (by greg on 2013-10-14 11:28:04 GMT from Slovenia)
As long as we have choices, right? Who cares about having standards for certain things... Each person it's own OS and no compatibility between them. but at least they would have choices. some manufacturers supporting this choice others other choice... they could all chose to install only modules they need if they read a thick book on how to do it. it's all about choices. not about using the OS or programmes, not about having safe, smart OS that can work on nearly any device you thrown it on.
10 • Thank you, Jesse ... (by Raphael on 2013-10-14 11:36:31 GMT from Switzerland)
... for your thoughts on Mir. I hope that more people will focus on the positive aspects of Mir than on their pessimism.
11 • On the Intel/Mir controversy (by carlo on 2013-10-14 12:02:41 GMT from Italy)
It's very simple actually: Intel doesn't want to mantain non-mainstream code. Everyone who is actively involved in the developement of an at least medium-sized project can understand why the clutterness of code and badly mantained parts of it can affect the whole in a bad way.
So, as per their won words, they want to focus on Wayland for now. Why are you Jesse and others accusing them of sabotaging Mir? The fact is that Wayland has been in active developement for years (and it can't be denied also that the recent momentum is of course due to Mir announcement) is the main reason Intel wants to mantain only Wayland-related code in its tree alongside X-related code. They didn't state anything against Mir, they just want it to reach a more mature state before inserting Mir-related code in the tree. It's THAT simple.
Until Mir is more developed it's up to Ubuntu guys to track its own patches to the Intel driver. What's the big deal? They already track literally thousands of personalized patches on upstream packets!!! When also Fedora, Mint, Debian are going to integrate Mir with their own patches, probably Intel will save their efforts and switch to integrate the Mir section of the driver tree. That's it.
Open source in my mind doesn't mean that I must do your job even if I don't need it.
Regarding Matthew Garrett, he just described why Mir integration on Ubuntu Desktop is problematic. Has he trolled someone? I don't think so.
12 • OpenSUSE's RC (by Rajesh Ganesan on 2013-10-14 12:06:34 GMT from India)
#5 +1 I agree with Bob. I too tried it - still using it. Very stable and pleasant. Great work by openSUSE developers :)
13 • Mir (by Mirix on 2013-10-14 12:25:30 GMT from Belgium)
I think people are missing the whole point. The community will not choose which display server is better. Hardware producers will. No one will choose a display server which is not well supported by his GPU drivers.
Hardware producers will choose to support one of them or none of them, but not two of them or the three of them (that would be ridiculously anti-economic).
Apart from technical considerations, the decision will mostly be based on power balance... Will the professional player, RedHat, support Canonical on this one? Are Intel or Nvidia willing to give Canonical the monopoly of the Linux display server?
Maybe yes or maybe not... But it is not up to us, it is up to them. It is their freedom, not our freedom. We will just have to adapt to whatever they decide. That is why Mir is not neutral and it is definitively not about technology. It is about a small non-profitable company desperately trying to gain control over a critical piece of the Linux ecosystem in order to become profitable and survive.
14 • @11: Carlo (by dragonmouth on 2013-10-14 12:51:50 GMT from United States)
"Why are you Jesse and others accusing them of sabotaging Mir? " That is a very good question. Just as easily one could question why is Canonical trying to sabotage Wayland by developing a competing product.
For someone with no horse in the race, Jesse sure seems intent on pushing Canonical/Mir.
15 • Mir and Canonical... (by sherman on 2013-10-14 13:02:10 GMT from United States)
It's Linux...if you don't like it don't use it (support it, donate to it, code for it, etc). Use Debian or something/anything else.
As far as resources and display drivers and such from the likes of Nvidia, Intel, AMD...they *never* had any intention of playing fair. They always have picked and will pick whatever is in the best interest of their long term business model.
Canonical *is* making its decisions based on what is best for itself in order for it to survive/prosper/whatever...which it is perfectly allowed to do.
As far as fracturing or monopolizing the harmonious Linux community/ecosystem...I'd actually have to see one in the first place to admit that is even possible.
16 • OpenSuSE (by Dave Postles on 2013-10-14 13:04:16 GMT from United Kingdom)
I started my conversion to Linux with OpenSuSE, but I dropped it when Novell went into collaboration with MS. Is OpenSuSE supported just by Attachmate now?
17 • Mir and STANDARDS? (by LinuxMan on 2013-10-14 13:06:47 GMT from United States)
Standards? Since when have we had certain standards in the open source world? People complaining about Mir are way out of line. They are giving their opinion on something they know nothing about. It still has bugs that need to be worked out and it's still under development and hasn't been released. But we still have these ones that say, IT'S NO GOOD AND IT WILL FAIL. I wonder what psychic hotline they heard that on. It seems that we have a lot of that in the linux and open source environment. It will fail because it's different. Mir may fail, but I doubt it, and if it does, so what? Nothing has been wasted and Canonical is will to take the lost if that is the case. Some good always comes out of being progressive. That is why most linux distros are safe and will work on nearly any device it's thrown on. That is a victory in itself. It seems that among nerds it's cool to hate Canonical and Ubuntu because they do things different and are always trying to develop new solutions for old problems. I've also heard for the last 10 years how Canonical will be the new MS. That's ridiculous. Stop waiting for something to happen that isn't going to happen. Linux is more popular now then it ever has been. It's a great thing and a lot of credit goes to Canonical and (do I dare say it?) Google, and for the ones who say that Android is not linux, you are wrong. People need to remember what open source is all about. It's seems, with a lot of the whining and complaining, that some have forgotten, and just want things to be done the same way, their way. Maybe for those people Apple or even MS would be a better fit. Think about it.
18 • Mir Only Needs To Work for Canonical (by jonc on 2013-10-14 13:15:34 GMT from United States)
To be successful, Mir only needs to work for Canonical, to meet the requirements it has set for its products.
Perhaps Canonical would be pleased if Mir was more widely adapted. Or, perhaps not, given the support burden.
At any rate, I'm always astounded at the entrenched conservatism in the developer community (the only FOSS community that counts). The apparent need to compel everyone to use a single solution for every problem might make life simpler for those who dominate that community. That, though, puts the emphasis on maintaining enforced community harmony rather than on providing improved products for users.
Competition is good. Linux is Linux. I can do on one distro what I can do on another. So, I will wait and see which display manager I like best.
19 • Canonical/Mir (by Jon Wright on 2013-10-14 13:16:38 GMT from Vietnam)
Not sure what Jesse is up to this week - this comes just a few weeks after the Misc News section was abandoned in favour of an Unbuntu Edge advertorial. Canonical are well-known for their lack of participation - as measured by their lack commits to the Kernel, for example. The main reason given here for Ubuntu not contributing to Wayland was the slow pace of development but then we learn that Mir is also experiencing serious slowness, having not made 13.10.
Not sure about the attack on Matthew Garrett. That paragraph didn't flow well at all so no point passing comment.
20 • Mir (by corneliu on 2013-10-14 13:19:13 GMT from Canada)
While I agree with all of Jesse's comments, I think the criticism stems in the fact that Ubuntu's contributions to common Linux projects such as the kernel are so tiny. If Ubuntu has been a top contributor to the Linux kernel, I guess they wouldn't have faced so much criticism. The point is, in a resource limited world, every minute spent for developing Mir is a minute not spent for developing Wayland or X. Of course, Ubuntu is free to do whatever they want, it is just a pity they don't contribute to a common project. And the graphic cards makers will do only what makes sense for them from an economic point of view. So I think in the end the whole issue will fix itself naturally.
21 • re 16 OpenSuse (by corneliu on 2013-10-14 13:31:33 GMT from Canada)
Yes, I think the OpenSuse project is managed by Attachmate. If I remember correctly, Attachmate extended Novell's original deal with Microsoft which is a shame because in my opinion OpenSuse offers the best KDE integration at the moment and is really a quality distro.
22 • Way off base, here! (by DavidEF on 2013-10-14 13:53:51 GMT from United States)
Well, where should I start. Okay, how about we start with greg from Slovenia (post #9)?
greg, you seem to be confused. You need to know that for a large amount of people using linux and free software, it really IS all about having choices. No, really! And there is nothing wrong with that! If you disagree, that's okay, but that doesn't mean that others are wrong.
On the matter of hardware vendors (yes I'm talkin' to you, Mirix from Belgium), once again, there seems to be some confusion about what free software developers are capable of. From the very beginning of free software, there has always been a severe lack of help from hardware vendors."Hackers" were proud of their ability to get linux and free software working just about anywhere, without any help from the manufacturers. Yes, it would be nice to have their help. But, if I want to write code (as if I could) for an "unsupported" piece of hardware, why should you care? If I (okay, someone else, maybe Canonical) did all the hard work of making it happen, instead of getting help from the manufacturer of the device, why would that be a problem for you?
@14 dragonmouth,
Since when is "developing a competing product" an act of sabotage? I don't suppose you remember that at one time, Canonical had hopes of using Wayland in Ubuntu. Now, they've decided that it doesn't fit the plans they have for Ubuntu to be device agnostic, so they created Mir for themselves. As far as I know, they aren't even asking anyone else to adopt it, so it really isn't even a competing product! So, why are YOU spreading FUD?
@Jesse,
Thanks for a wonderful piece about Mir. I agree with your conclusions, and I am also anticipating the outcome of development on both Wayland and Mir. I do also appreciate Canonical NOT pushing an unfinished Mir on us, like Pulseaudio was pushed on us years ago, by seemingly everyone.
23 • Mir vs Wayland (by Tonny on 2013-10-14 13:58:30 GMT from Indonesia)
Hm.. When someone get your code, fork it and then claiming that that was they hard work while badmouthing your code. What will you do? And what about libhybris dev vs canonical case? I wanna know your opinion about that, Jesse.
#8: -1. If I have enough money, I'll do what google do now, pay people to fix buggy code in apps; rather than to fork the code and create one more fork because I can do it. e.g. google paid dev to patch/fix libssl or the like rather than paid one to fork that. -2. Wayland, in this case, have timeline, and what TODO. Must one 'fork/steal' their code and start a new? Can one not just contribute to it? With their abundant resource?
24 • RE: Thoughts on Mir and the community (by -W- on 2013-10-14 14:00:29 GMT from United States)
I can easily see why a lot of critics tend to dislike Canonical.
Not that long ago, Canonical introduced us to the Unity desktop which was met with many angry users for dropping GNOME (or at least giving it a back seat). Canonical was then caught with it's hand in the cookie jar (depends on who you ask) over data mining and the Amazon search fiasco. Maybe you remember it. So with thinking like that - like Microsoft, Apple or even Google - it's no wonder that most people in the Linux/BSD community now look at Canonical with a bit more skepticism.
And yes, all 3 companies (Micrappoogle) and even quite a few others mine data in order to make money. But the thing that's so amazing is why almost no one objects when Google does it. I mean, you can hardly even turn an Android device on without Google being involved. Yet, Canonical can't do it with Ubuntu? But I digress...
Now Canonical wants to fundamentally change the display server that has pretty much been the only common tie between all Linux distros. I can't say if this is good or bad but it does seem long over due. And given Canonical's shall we say arrogant history? It's only natural to have a little more tendency to resist major players like that.
The thing that confuses me is why Intel is now resisting Canonical's Mir project too. After all, large corporations like Intel don't often shy away from anything thing that could make them more money. That is, unless someone even bigger is doing some major arm twisting. So I'm sort of on the fence about Mir. Clearly Canonical is proposing something that is not making Intel happy. And I'm just not sure who is going to be better off when all the dust settles -- "them" or us.
25 • Lack of Kernel commits? (by DavidEF on 2013-10-14 14:03:12 GMT from United States)
You guys are unreal. Yes, it has been said for years that Canonical don't commit much to the kernel. Tell me why that makes them evil, or untrustworthy, or whatever.
26 • RE: 19 Canonical/Mir (by ladislav on 2013-10-14 14:11:55 GMT from Taiwan)
Advertorial? It would have been an advertorial if we got paid for it. But we did not. I thought the crowdfunding of an Linux-based mobile phone developed by Canonical was a rather newsworthy event and I duly reported about it. That's all there is to it, so please stop spreading any more FUD.
27 • Mir and Waylanf vs X (by Alessandro di Roma on 2013-10-14 14:31:52 GMT from Italy)
I use remmina (client side) and tightvncserver (server side) in order to obtain a graphic remote control of my machines. This works thanks to the client-server architecture of X, will it work with Mir or Wayland? I'm afraid no... I leaved Ubuntu because Unity and Xubuntu because my non-PAE CPUs, now I live happy on Debian with XFCE, and Mir and Wayland confirm to me I'll never go back.
28 • Advertorial (by Jon Wright on 2013-10-14 14:35:13 GMT from Vietnam)
The links in the news section were affiliate links and the ads in the sidebar had identical links - hence advert met editorial.
29 • re 25 Ubuntu is just selfish (by corneliu on 2013-10-14 14:50:07 GMT from Canada)
Ubuntu is not evil, or untrustworthy it is just selfish. And selfish is not necessarily a bad thing. Companies tend to be selfish, which is OK since their goal is to make profit. But in a community that values sharing, being selfish is kind of bad. Jesse tried to argue that the reason people bash Ubuntu is because Ubuntu is the king of the hill, and envy drives people to pull Ubuntu down. That is mostly false. The real reason is that Ubuntu does not contribute to common Linux projects as much as their financial resources allow them to do. I remember the time when Mandriva was on the brink of bankruptcy and still contributed more to Linux kernel than Ubuntu.
30 • Selfish (by Jon Wright on 2013-10-14 15:05:54 GMT from Vietnam)
And being selfish when you've co-opted a whole section of the community's goodwill - in the shape of Launchpad, for example - is kind of bad.
31 • device names, Mir (by octathlon on 2013-10-14 15:06:56 GMT from United States)
Device names: I usually use df -h to see them, and space remaining.
Mir: I agree completely with Jesse and have the same attitude. I also understand the point that with Ubuntu being the dominant distro and having more influence on what hardware vendors may choose to support, Mir may be a more divisive project than the other things Canonical is doing. But they can do what they want with their own distro. Something has given new impetus to the Wayland project--was it Mir? Competition can be good in that respect.
I am much more troubled by Unity sending your Dash search strings to outside servers by default--IMO this really goes against the spirit of Linux and destroys the trust in Linux that end users have come to rely on.
32 • Mir (@DavidEF) (by Mirix on 2013-10-14 15:12:43 GMT from Belgium)
The following statement may be a bit shocking for some: The world is not divided into Good and Evil, that only happens in Marvel comics and Tolkien novels. A community is a conflict of interest and defending your own interests is not necessarily being "evil".
However, it is important to analyse each one's interests in order to design a reasonable strategy to protect yours.
Some of us are just trying to analyse the facts and the possible scenarios from a logical and rational point of view. There is no place for love, hatred, good and evil in that.
That said, I am also looking forward for the second part from The Hobbit this Xmas...
33 • Canonical and MIR (by igor on 2013-10-14 15:18:59 GMT from United States)
It might be a good idea for a writer to have a passing acquaintance with computer programming before writing an entire article about how the open source community should be more receptive to MIR.
34 • @27 Horse-drawn carriages vs cars (by DavidEF on 2013-10-14 15:25:36 GMT from United States)
If you're saying you prefer VNC, and you don't think you'll ever have a reason to upgrade to something else in the future, then I agree with at least some of your logic concerning Wayland and Mir, although I don't know whether VNC will work on Wayland or Mir.
If you only need the functionality, and have no certain preference for VNC, there are already alternatives, and probably will be even better alternatives in the future. You might try looking into xpra. The wikipedia article for xpra says that it differs from VNC in that it is rootless. The applications from the remote host appear as local windows. It also is designed to perform better over slower networks compared to standard X.
So, if you were trying to say that Wayland and Mir are regressive compared to X, then you might compare that to saying cars are regressive compared to carriages, because they don't include a place to hitch up a horse. In other words, you probably don't need the network-transparency of standard X to do what you're doing, because there are better ways of getting it done now.
35 • @32 Agreed, sorta (by DavidEF on 2013-10-14 15:39:42 GMT from United States)
I really like this statement, and wish more people would keep it in mind always:
>>>>A community is a conflict of interest and defending your own interests is not necessarily being "evil". <<<<
I do believe that good and evil are part of everything in this world, to some degree. People are not robots. We do sometimes make decisions with "love, hatred, good and evil" rather than always from a logical standpoint. But, it would be better if we tried more often to be less emotional and instead "...analyse each one's interests in order to design a reasonable strategy..."
I'm also looking forward to seeing the second Hobbit movie. Is it really coming out this Christmas? I haven't been paying attention.
36 • Mir (by Rev_Don on 2013-10-14 16:08:22 GMT from United States)
My only problem with MIR is that while it does give more "choice" to users, it fractures the community even more than it already is, and to me that is one of the biggest problems with Linux as a whole. It's too divided with all too many people feeling the need for more choice. The divisiveness and fracturing leads to less and less stability which in turns holds Linux back. How many times does an update to one program cause another to stop functioning. What Linux needs is LESS fracturing and a few standards in key places to provide a SOLID and STABLE platform from which to build. Three display servers (X, Mir, and Wayland) is simply too many in a key position. At least that's how I see, but I'm from the I just want Linux to work so I can use it to do something constructive, not just to play around with.
The other problem I see with MIR at the present time is this is the last Interim release prior to the next LTS release. No one in their right mind could possibly think that including a completely untested display server into an LTS release would be a good idea. Canonical may be a lot of things, but I can't see them being that stupid/foolish, although they have done some pretty stupic and foolish things in the past. So that would mean pushing MIR back to 14.10 a year from now with the earliest implementation in an LTS release on 16.04, or 2 1/2 years from now. Neither option seems particularly good to me, and I doubt either is what they would want.
At least that is how I see it. Your mileage may differ.
37 • RE 31 device names (by dbrion on 2013-10-14 16:52:25 GMT from France)
" I usually use df -h to see them, and space remaining. " Well, youi bet they have been (auto)-mounted. Jesse Smith 's solution does not make this assumption (I use both commands, dmesg if I plug in a USB _device_ -arduino, serial USB adapter, not meant for _storage_ -, df -{k,h} for already mountd _disks_ , and sudo fdisk -l # for _disks_ which might want to be mounted).
38 • Mir and the importance of context (by Onuca Victore Doefil on 2013-10-14 16:55:13 GMT from Mexico)
Hello Jesse.
I think your approach in all the Mir controversy is a little displaced. Maybe to evaluate a new distro is a good idea to keep everything else out, but the bigger problems around Mir are not software-realated or userview-related.
I've been following this situation from an anthropologic curiosity viewpoint and I must say the main problem with Mir is not Mir itself but the way Canonical introduced Mir to the world. When Mir was introduced for the first time, it was not as kindly as you write. Canonical claimed Wayland was under a slow development pase and it was impossible for it to do things already was doing. This was really unwelcomed by the Wayland community for various reasons including false and dismissing statements and critics for developing an alternative software by months before making it public (this evolved in a now-really-kind list of reasons to not using Wayland).
Long story short, the context in this case is really important because it was Canonical who started the flames, they might have tried to be polite, but didn't manage to. After that, came critics about CLA assimetry, divided efforts and hard-set schedule, etc. Until now, Mir is not doing anything Wayland can't do, but maybe because the convergence strategy. I hoped Ubuntu Edge success, and I hope Mir success, nevertheless. I just criticize the way Canonical intrduced Mir.
39 • Is Unity starting to be usable? (by fernbap on 2013-10-14 17:00:25 GMT from Portugal)
Recently, i decided to take a look at Unity and Gnome 3. Installed Ubuntu beta and Ubuntu Gnome and upgraded it to Gnome 3.8 to take a look at eventual new features.
Ubuntu beta worked well from the start on my hardware. As i decided to give Unity a second chance, I "played" with it for a few days, after, of course, getting rid of that silly scroll-overlay.
I have to admit the result was mostly positive. The major flaws i found on it are basically its gnome 3 inheritance, the largest of them all being the dumbed down Nautilus. I continue to find preposterous a file manager that doesn't display the space available, requiring me to start another app ion order to know wether there is space to copy a file to a certain device or partition.
Ubuntu gnome had a few hickups at the start, probably due to the upgrade to 3.8. I can say that it is reasonably stable. I still don't like gnome 3 the same way i did when it came out, even i installed a system menu.
As a counterpart, I installed Mint 15 Cinnamon. Lem, of course, forked Nautilus and presents on Mint a file manager that gives the user what he needs.
Mint, obviously, won on all accounts, but i must say that all 3 were equally sluggish on my hardware, because they all work on top of Gnome 3.
What surprised me is that Unity went a long way. Very polished, as everything coming from Canonical, and once you use it for a while it starts being usable.
I could work with Unity, i still would never work with Gnome 3. Gnome 3 continues in the bottom of the pile.
40 • Ubuntu /mir (by Jon on 2013-10-14 17:43:14 GMT from United States)
I was wondering if the complaint of mir in the Linux community and the refusal by Intel to help maintain coding is a sign that Ubuntu is on its way to being the next windows
41 • Wayland 1.3 (by MZ on 2013-10-14 18:23:59 GMT from United States)
Wayland 1.3 is out and it has improved touch support and improved support for some Android devices:
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/wayland-devel/2013-October/011419.html
I'm still fairly skeptical about Mir, and from what little I can tell Wayland might have as much potential on smart phones as Mir. Wayland is also more compatible with other operating systems like BSD due to using MIT license. I keep hoping to see better hardware support in PC-BSD, but if the open Unix community keeps getting divided this may be less likely to happen.
@27 Wayland can do anything X can because it can run X. This was an intentional design choice by the developers who wanted backward compatibility.
42 • Why? (by LinuxMan on 2013-10-14 18:34:58 GMT from United States)
#33 said, "It might be a good idea for a writer to have a passing acquaintance with computer programming before writing an entire article about how the open source community should be more receptive to MIR."
Why? It has nothing to do with computer programming. He was just stating that the hostility directed toward Canonical over MIR was unfounded. He is correct. He is not asking the open source community to be receptive to MIR, he's just wondering why some of the community, not all, is so hostile to anything that Canonical does. Not all of Canonical's efforts have been successful, with the community that is. The Amazon search is one of the items I don't like, but I will not judge MIR until I've tried the final version.
43 • @5 (by jaws222 on 2013-10-14 19:05:26 GMT from United States)
I hear you with OpenSuse. The 11 series was a nightmare for me. I had issues with Network manager and on two ocassions updates hosed my installs so I gave up. Then when OpenSuse 12 (12.2 to be specific) rolled out I gave it another shot and it has been nothing but reliable. I run the Gnome desktop on it and it works like a charm. I have not yet tried the 13 RC but will wait for 13 to become official and give it a go.
44 • @25 (by Jeff on 2013-10-14 19:08:33 GMT from United States)
The main thing about it is that Ubuntu/Canonical is seen as a bunch of freeloaders for taking and not giving anything in return. This is seen as selfish as well as greedy and therefore evil.
45 • @15 (by jaws222 on 2013-10-14 19:09:48 GMT from United States)
"It's Linux...if you don't like it don't use it (support it, donate to it, code for it, etc). Use Debian or something/anything else."
Debian. Yes, that's the ticket:)
46 • 36, 37 (by octathlon on 2013-10-14 19:12:03 GMT from United States)
@36 I hope they don't try to introduce Mir in the LTS 14.04. I like Ubuntu (underneath -- I prefer to use an alternate DE) and I hope to be able to upgrade to 14.04 with no issues. They can go ahead and use Mir for the "phone", but take the time to make sure it's right before putting it on the desktop. Though by that time others may already be moving to Wayland.
@37 Good point, you are right of course. I also use fdisk -l if the volume has not been mounted.
47 • The right to not choose Mir (by KimTjik on 2013-10-14 19:17:14 GMT from Sweden)
While I can respect the viewpoint of Jess I think it ignores a just as justified freedom. The freedom to not choose to use or support. Why should Intel or any other part with interest in Linux have to support Mir? It's not like Intel is refusing support for Linux.
48 • Fragmentation (by t on 2013-10-14 19:40:15 GMT from United States)
As someone opposed to Mir, my major problem with it is simply that it is going to create more work for developers trying to get things working on GNU/Linux. It's not inherently bad, and I think if it came at another time, it would be great. But both projects are just starting to get going. I would be a lot less opposed it they, say, forked Wayland and chose to go a different direction while maintaining driver compatibility with the main Wayland branch.
49 • @44 (by fernbap on 2013-10-14 20:14:58 GMT from Portugal)
"The main thing about it is that Ubuntu/Canonical is seen as a bunch of freeloaders for taking and not giving anything in return."
Jeff, i don't know wether that is your opinion or you are just quoting, but in any case that is just wrong. Linux us not just the kernel, and most distros contribute nothi9ng to kernel development.
Canonical doesn't give back? really? Besides being probably at least the second company that most invested in Linux, Canonical gave us Ubuntu, the base for most of the distros advertized in here. Is that not giving back? Or do you think that Ubuntu is just a Debian respin?
And, of course, Canonical gave us, besides the best gnome 2 experience, Unity and will give us Mir.
Linux is about choice. Don't like it, don't use it. I have heard this phrase ad nauseum here.
Except when the choice is offered by Canonical, it seems...
Personally, i think this is just what it ever is: developpers feeling their ego bruised.
50 • @49 (by jaws222 on 2013-10-14 20:20:53 GMT from United States)
"And, of course, Canonical gave us, besides the best gnome 2 experience, Unity and will give us Mir."
You're really not comparing Unity to Gnome 2, are you? Unity, imo is usable but I'm sue if you ask people their favorite DE's Unity would rank near the bottom.
51 • @50 (by fernbap on 2013-10-14 20:22:08 GMT from Portugal)
You're really not comparing Unity to Gnome 2, are you?
Of course not. See my own post above.
52 • Slow Week (by Gee on 2013-10-14 21:13:36 GMT from United States)
Sparky Linux LXDE looks promising, have not finished testing a 64 bit install. Watt OS looks good too, I want to try Watt OS microwatt and see how it fares on low power non pae systems. I'm holding off on BSD to see if the dual booting, partition mounting and network sharing issues are resolved. I'm also having the same issue with the latest Archpup along with update dependency issues. It really needs a puppy package manager. The Raspberry Pi picture frame software sounds interesting, I wonder if it will run on a Chumby.
53 • RE: 28 Advertorial (by ladislav on 2013-10-14 23:44:13 GMT from Taiwan)
The links in the news section were affiliate links and the ads in the sidebar had identical links - hence advert met editorial.
Those "affiliate links" and "ads in the sidebar" provided absolutely no financial benefit to this website (and would have not provided any even if the crowdfunding succeeded). The "affiliate link" merely gave me access to statistics on clicks and contributions to the Ubuntu Edge campaign, that's all. The reason I placed the "ads" in the sidebar was that I liked the Ubuntu Edge idea and hoped it would succeed. (As a matter of fact, I had already purchased an Ubuntu Edge phone for myself at that time.) If anything, DistroWatch actually lost money on this because the Ubuntu Edge "ad" replaced a real income-generating ad.
Please do not look for evil where there is none. I periodically receive requests from companies that want us to write a product review in exchange for a payment, but I've always declined such requests. The Ubuntu Edge story was NOT an advertorial in any sense of the word and your repeated accusations won't change that fact.
54 • Mir vs Wayland vs UEFI (by denflen on 2013-10-15 03:25:31 GMT from United States)
I know, this weeks DistroWatch editorial stirred up the masses, and that was the plan. And I have enjoyed all the opinions, both positive and negative, about Canonical. But with absolute dismay, I can't believe the split in the Linux community is this deep while the UEFI situation has hardly created a stir. We (Open Sourcers) are from the same tree, and need to not fight over graphics drivers while in the mean time, the real problem to Linux's future is UEFI. Can't we all just get along and fight the real enemy?
55 • Re.: #54 - Mir and UEFI (by Anon on 2013-10-15 05:27:54 GMT from Norway)
Yes, I agree that UEFI is a worrisome menace, but there is little we linuxers can do about it except _trying_ to adapt. Mir is a different proposition altogether, coming from an unhelpful company which shuns being associated with Linux whenever possible. Enough said.
56 • Resenting Mir (by Arkanabar on 2013-10-15 06:06:14 GMT from United States)
I think corneliu (#20) has nailed it. People resent the development of Mir because they want those resources used for other projects. To them, I say:
Tough.
Canonical is spending their own time and money. They do it to benefit themselves and their investors. Anything we freeloading users (which would include Clem and the entire Mint community, including myself, and everyone else using any sort of Ubuntu spin and/or the Ubuntu repos) get out of it is a positive externality. They do not owe it to us to work on what we want. They only owe people those things which they are contractually or legally obliged to provide. They don't owe us X or Wayland development, or submission of their kernel patches upstream. Their users can do it, if those patches are of any use to Linus and his developers. If Mir can't do what Shuttleworth & co want, they'll have to drop it. If Wayland gets far enough ahead of Mir, they may (again) have to drop it.
57 • RE 56 (by dbrion on 2013-10-15 07:56:26 GMT from France)
"Canonical is spending their own time and money. " What about Intel? (I bet they do not rob banks) I suppose Intel benefits themselves , their investors and the outside freeloading world by (among other things) a) supporting the Linux kernel (what about ... Conical?) b) supporting X and Wayland (which, if it is backward compatible with X, would allow people not to port and loose time) (what about ... Conical?) c) giving to everyone who is interested OCV -open computer vision-, an OS (**and* hardware**) agnostic -shipped with Fedora, Debian, Rapsbian {BTW, RPi does not have Intel processors) AFAIK; is Windows ported- library for image processing and recognition -it is a popular topic-. What about ...Conical? Do they contribute to popular, working, interesting(I mean "not replacing something existing, which is at best redundant") pieces of software?
Maybe Intel keeps its shareholders and buyers happy by carefully choosing which projects they will help and which ones they wonot help.
58 • what? (by Ulf on 2013-10-15 08:12:30 GMT from Netherlands)
What is the problem here? Babbling about MIR, Wayland, Gnome (2/3), unity. Really? Do you yourself consider to be an real Linux user, or just a windows retard trying to use something else? Linux is about freedom of choice! Dont like Unity, wayland, mir ore what ever for that matter, dont use it. You can Always remove it from youre favorite distro and compille something that does the job for you. If you dont know howe to do it, or dont want to use another type of distro, Linux isnt for you. Than you clearly missed the message whats Linux is all about. The greatest about Linux is that you can pic a kernel of choice and build youre own distro arround it as you see fit. Orstart whit Linux from scratch/ slackware ore Debian and make it to youre liking ore needs. Stop being negative and pointing fingers, really get into Linux and do something about it yourself. Thats really freedom of choice. Dont like it please buy a copy of windows, and be happy about it. Regards Ulf.
Happy Compiling!
59 • Some history (by silent on 2013-10-15 08:31:37 GMT from France)
Around 1991 there were BSD, Minix and the Hurd in the open source world. Someone came up with an idea of a new operating system instead adding his resources to the development of one of the already existing three systems above. What a shame. Nevertheless, he received a warm welcome and lots of support from the Minix team, although he favored a monolithic kernel instead of a microkernel. Now, this is an old story. Does anyone know what happened to the guy and his operating system? Has he failed miserably? Was it just a commercial interest?
60 • Beggars are not choosers RE: (was) Mir (by Mirix on 2013-10-15 09:56:07 GMT from Belgium)
There is one thing that still seems not to be clear enough: We have free software but we do not have free hardware (ok, there is some, but little). This fact, together with the fact that the most relevant hardware production is essentially monopolistic/oligopolistic, implies that we are not free at all to choose. When it comes to hardware, we have to adapt and choices are rather narrow.
So again, which display server will survive will not depend on user's preferences but on corporate strategies. It does not matter which one is best. They will choose it and we will adapt, as usual. That is all our "freedom".
If Intel, AMD and Nvidia go for Wayland it will survive and Mir will fail (or vice-versa). It does not matter whether the other is technically superior or whether the "community" like it more. It is not for us to decide. That "freedom" is not ours.
In my opinion, Wayland is a better option for Intel, AMD and Nvidia because: 1.- It is "backwards" compatible with X; 2.- Some of them have already invested some time on it; and, more importantly, 3.- It is not directly controlled by an external company (it is, for the most, a community-driven project).
From the perspective of the corporations, backing Mir would imply empowering Canonical.The question is, do they really want giving that power to another company? Ok, right now it is not a direct competitor (and, most likely, it will never be), but what happens if in the future one of its rivals acquire Canonical?
From the perspective of the community, backing Mir would imply leaving one of the most crucial part of a modern operating system entirely in the hands of a private company. All right, in principle, they cannot close the source or anything like that, but what they can do and they will do is orientating the development in the way that best suits their own interests (not ours)...
61 • @60 Why are you having a problem understanding this? (by DavidEF on 2013-10-15 10:27:54 GMT from United States)
Hardware vendors DO NOT decide what software we develop or use. If you think they do, go back and read the linux/free software history. Yes, there are times when vendors will go out of their way to make their junk so proprietary that it could never work without their secret sauce. But that is their stupidity. They're adding extra work to themselves for no real benefit. And usually, we just move on and say "doorstop - do not use" or something like that. But if you really take the time to look around, those are the exceptions.
Yes, we have always had challenging hardware, and yes, we always will. But, we usually get through it and move on. And if it ever got to the point that the video chip manufacturers all got together and black-balled Mir, or Wayland, or standard X, then a determined maintainer could still get around that issue, because free software is insanely flexible. So, the hardware vendors will not dictate to us what software we want to use, although they may at times cut their own hardware sales by locking it up with some proprietary stupidity. Hardware vendors control hardware, not software. Remember that Mir and Wayland and X are not drivers, they are display protocols. They are not tied to any specific hardware.
62 • @57 dbrion (by DavidEF on 2013-10-15 10:34:13 GMT from United States)
What in the world are you talking about? Why should I care that Canonical don't contribute to the kernel? They scratch their own itch, and contribute in ways that help themselves AND US! You think that an entity has to contribute to the kernel in order to be a good "linux ecosystem" citizen? As it has already been said, that would cut a lot of others out too. What is really your specific problem with Canonical? Why do they get picked on and everyone else gets a free pass?
63 • Some more questions -in lower case- to 62 (by dbrion on 2013-10-15 11:03:53 GMT from France)
Well, there are many very useful entities such as my vegetables seller, my cloth manufacturer who do not contribute to the kernel (and they do not claim to be in the GNUlinux world) Conical does not claim to sell vegetables/manufacture shoes, does it? And I would really be glad to know what Conical did in their domain of -maybe- competency....
And Intel supplied a free (OS agnostic) , popular (for biometry, safety, embedded GNUlinux on cars- with cheap cams,help them to avoid obstacles - )computer vision library (has windows, installers, *.deb, *rpm). Why did you ********* forget ******** this question ? Because you thought I was a Conical hater? It was rather an intersting Intel contribution, hinting they can choose interesting technical projects?
I ask again the question: what about Conical?? Is there **one** interesting library they built and I can find in, say, my FC17/19? Which one? (I want facts about "ways that help themselves AND US!"
BTW you can give links to these _facts_ in normal case, that would not harm and make the distinction between a credo and objective , easy to verify -if they exist, it is not that complicated- facts)
NB: by "interesting" I mean 'really useful and innovative, not a third version of a wheel nobody wants -as it is not even backward compatible-"
64 • @62 (by Mirix on 2013-10-15 11:52:00 GMT from Belgium)
Last message: I try to describe what I see. I might one to switch to BSD, for instance, but I would be hampered by the fact that I could not do number crunching on GPUs, for instance (or maybe I could, but I having been able to find out how). So I have to stick to Linux. It is not my decision. Nvidia decides for me. This is just an example. In some computers I can choose to use Nouveau (which is one of the most remarkable free-software efforts that have happened lately), but I need the proprietary driver for work. With Windows, you can use a GeForce card for 3D display (which I use for work), with Linux you need a Quadro. Again, it is not my decision. I talk about the GPU because it is one of the greatest issues I have found with Linux (and very related to the Mir topic) but I could provide many other examples on how we cannot choose, we just adapt (in the best case scenario). Those are the facts.
65 • What? (by LinuxMan on 2013-10-15 13:05:29 GMT from United States)
@47, Read the comment #42 for correction.
@40, That makes no sense what so ever and people has been saying that for 10 years. lol
@55, Enough said? You didn't say anything helpful or anything with a grain of truth in it. All you did was make yourself look really bad.
@63, I believe that a little upper case is warranted. Your comments are very, well let's just say, strange. You need to clam down and stop babbling. And by the way, who is Conical? :)
As far as Intel, Amd, or Nvidia deciding anything for us, they don't and contrary to what some here say, they are not great friends to Linux except it seems to be changing for Amd. To say that MIR is bad because Intel said they won't support it is just illogical at best. When you stop or change development of open source projects because of what the hardware companies say then you have lost your freedom to really do anything and are just along for the ride.
66 • Mir (by Bernhard "bero" Rosenkränzer on 2013-10-15 13:33:11 GMT from Switzerland)
I dislike Ubuntu and its various spin-off distributions, and while I can't say I hate them, I surely distrust Canonical.
However, I think Mir could actually become something great.
Finally, someone dares to introduce C++ constructs into a core part of the OS instead of relying on obfuscated, easy to write bad code with, replacements that try to add object constructs on top of plain C (such as GObject) rather than just making use of some C++ constructs (I'm essentially thinking "C with classes and better type checking" here, I'm no fan of pushing the STL and crazy design ideas like "everything should be a template" to the core OS) that exist, are standard, easy to use, and not that easy to use incorrectly. (Chances are this is actually why Mir is received so negatively in parts of the community - some people are scared people will realize how useless GObject and friends are if you just stop doing things in a language not designed for it).
We will definitely investigate Mir as an option in OpenMandriva. (We will obviously also investigate Wayland and keep X as well).
67 • re @65 (by corneliu on 2013-10-15 13:51:23 GMT from Canada)
This is just a guess, but I think dbrion misspelled it. He meant Comical. On a second thought, maybe he was referring to pointy heads? Not sure.
And to answer a previous question about Ubuntu's areas of competence, there is one area where Canonical excels: advertising.
68 • @58 (by jaws222 on 2013-10-15 14:11:53 GMT from United States)
"Dont like Unity, wayland, mir ore what ever for that matter, dont use it."
Exactly! I started on Ubuntu/Mint but do not like the direction they are taking so I went to Debian. Debian just works better for me. The only Ubuntu-like distro that I really like is Bodhi (LXLE is okay too). I've recently discovered Manjaro and Arch and am liking that. Also, PCLinuxOS is pretty cool too. FREEDOM OF CHOICE!!!!!!
69 • Pointy heads? (by LinuxMan on 2013-10-15 14:21:39 GMT from United States)
@67, Okay, now I get it, Coneheads! :)
70 • That's Wise (by LinuxMan on 2013-10-15 14:34:06 GMT from United States)
@67, I forgot to mention that it's very important for any business to excel in advertising. A good advertising department can mean life or death to any type of business.
@68, Have you tried elementary OS? It's very good and I use it on one of my laptops.
71 • re 68 Freedom of choice (by corneliu on 2013-10-15 16:03:27 GMT from Canada)
Stop yelling with your caps locked and your six exclamation marks, no less. What are you, a six year old brat throwing a temper tantrum? I hear everywhere about freedom of choice. That's great. But what if your choice has an impact on your neighbor? Or your neighbor's choice has an impact on you? If the guy next to you decides to use a highly polluting car, does that affect you? The guy has freedom of choice after all. If you think that the answer is "yes" then you should be careful when you choose your technology, especially when you are part of a community.
72 • Thoughts on Mir --comment (by marc on 2013-10-15 16:03:59 GMT from United States)
Bravo! Very well written!
As a Linux "pro" for over 15 years, my thoughts exactly: "When we have choices we all win" as a community of open source developers, supporters, and users of open source software.
Our strength, as a community, is in our diversity AND the openness by which we encourage creativity, i.e., "scratching a new itch," whether in totally new directions, or incremental improvements --we all win AND the open source code-base wins, too.
I, too, support Canonical's development efforts / new approach to display server technology. As you said (paraphrased), perhaps it will win big, or provide code that will be the base for yet another display server approach.
The open source community, in my view, must be careful NOT to embrace the "one size fits all approach" of the closed source venders, who seek "vender lock-in" to drive "end user adoption," hence sales revenue for their product lines. That is one software development model that requires "monetizing the code-base". The open source community suffers from NONE of those pitfalls!
The rationale that we, the open source developer community, are fragmented by embracing creativity AND taking the time, energy to do so, suggests that we are a static, fixed resource, which is untrue. The open source development community is dynamic, with developers and projects entering, morphing, exiting development efforts, and forking new directions, etc., at any given time --We are as dynamic as human creativity is dynamic --not static, not fixed.
Let us not allow a closed-source mentality to creep into our community --the world has never seen the level of cross-border, cross-culture, cross-industry, cross-EVERYTHING shared cooperation that we, the open source community, have brought to software development. It's about the competition of IDEAS, not of people (personallies), nor of people as "resources". Let closed-source software development companies, with Human Resource departments, firmly entrenched in that development model (and the associated costs) view people as resourced to be "allocated" across project selected by cost-benefits analysis and projected revenue models..
New ideas in that environment will only get a development allocation IF they can project sales revenue greater than the cost of development AND will be under pressure for an early (buggy) release in order to "get the product into the market" to start generating a revenue stream, as soon as possible, in order to offset development carrying costs, i.e., NOT when the code is ready for prime time.
The open source development community does not function that way, nor, again, are we "static". "fixed" in a "resource allocation" sense, such that, the implication being, if more that one approach to a problem, new idea is underway, that resources are being wastefully allocated, and hence the community "output" worse off by some measure --that's a closed-source, fixed resource allocation model mindset (sorry for the buzz words there) that, in my view, the open source community must not fall into thinking.
Creativity, enthusiasm for new approaches, improvements upon existing approaches, forks in new directions, and because someone or a group of people just think it would be FUN, interesting to DO / code --we don't need a resource allocation projection, or for that matter, a sales revenue project to justify applying our time, energy, creativity, etc.!!
Anybody got a COOL idea?? Go for it!! and may we all, as the open source community of end users, supporters, developers support and encourage you in your efforts!! We may all learn something new in the process AS new peer reviewed code is presented openly (without digital rights management legislation!!) for our collective benefit!! And that's how human potential is leveraged in the present to improve a shared future!!
Glad you took the "week off from reviewing distros" to share you views! --marc :-)
PS Please pardon the lengthy reply :-)
73 • RE 65 (by dbrion on 2013-10-15 17:17:12 GMT from France)
"And by the way, who is Conical? :)" Well, I answered to @62, who is the natural receiver (and obviously understood : ask for translation if this was not a "rhetorical" question)
"To say that MIR is bad because Intel said they won't support it is just illogical at best " A better logical way would be ...to wait and see what becomes without Intel support (already supports X, Wayland : maybe they will become "great linux friends" if they support another 30{0}+ successors of X? I assume there are, in Linux manhoodland, standards - untold, of course - for being "great friends to Linux").
Is it logical to say that, because Co{n,m}ical decided to develop a new, redundant wheel, it would be better than the existing one(s) ? (the assumption new == good is too simple for me).
And I am still wondering which are Ubulinux area of competence (may be there are, but show them to me : I saw Ubu powered PCs at my friends', and they were not better than my FC17/19 PC). Intel contributed compilers, libraries - opencv is popular, - to users (on every OS). What about Conical?
74 • @71 (by jaws222 on 2013-10-15 17:57:50 GMT from United States)
???. I put 3 words in caps and am not throwing a temper tantrum Obama. I'm just reiterating the fact that there are other alternatives. I guess it would be wiser to take those alternatives away and sign up under the Affordable Linus Act.
75 • Choose and difference? (by Ulf on 2013-10-15 18:26:03 GMT from Netherlands)
what on earth are we talking about here?
Is there a diference between Mac osx, Linux, windows, bsd, dos, to name a few??? No there is no diference other than looks. No more no les. On every system i mentioned above, i can write a letter, fiew foto`s, make a film, burn dvd`s, make it suitable for a buisinness environment, or critical operations, like a nuclear powerplant, or spaceship. And above all, i and yourself can make it run on every piece of hardware you like or have laying arround. So i really dont nderstand the point here, about display managers and hardware vendors, and whom is giving the other party money to make or develop something. Look arround see something you like and use it, hardware or software,(better to have both LOL) and get the damn work done. In the end that is allthat matters, do on the machine what you must at an affordable price.
end of discussion.
76 • re 75 (by corneliu on 2013-10-15 21:11:48 GMT from Canada)
Dear Ulf,
I can't speak for the rest of us here, I can only speak for myself. I am sorry if I caused you any discomfort, but apparently this week's topic is "Thoughts on Mir and the community" and I tried to stay on topic. Now, I have never noticed your last line -> "end of discussion." otherwise I would have never submitted this comment.
77 • Thoughts on Mir and the community (by win2linconvert on 2013-10-16 08:55:35 GMT from United States)
The most calm, and sensical coverage of Mir and Canonical I've come across from anyone in quite some time. Good job, and thanks.
78 • @75 • Choose and difference? (by Ron on 2013-10-16 15:44:42 GMT from United States)
"On every system i mentioned above, i can write a letter, fiew foto`s, make a film, burn dvd`s, make it suitable for a buisinness environment, or critical operations, like a nuclear powerplant, or spaceship. And above all, i and yourself can make it run on every piece of hardware you like or have laying arround"
Some systems have at the very heart of themselves the idea of extracting every bit of money they can. Other systems try to be as useful as they can to as many users as they can. Today you might be able to do everything you mention above, but tomorrow or any second you could be surprised to suddenly find an unwelcomed change. Suddenly what once worked well, no longer works without $$$$. Purposeful antipathy towards cooperation and serendipity.
I leave it to your imagination as to which system one would prefer.
79 • affordable linus act? (by death panels on 2013-10-17 07:25:46 GMT from United States)
@71 Did mean old Linus make you redistribute your code under his nasty GPL? Any real freedom lover knows that true freedom means licensing under BSD, so you have the freedom to let Apple take your code & do whatever they want with it. Then you can rest secure knowing that then new & improved apple version of what you gave away won't see the light of day until it is loaded on a new macbook & shipped over from a Chinese sweatshop. Or am I injecting random nonsense into the conversation?
80 • freedom (by greg on 2013-10-17 08:50:50 GMT from Slovenia)
problem with BSD code is that you are not obliged to give away source code for the product where this code was used. then again that is what freedom is about :-)
81 • Extremes, Freedom" (by Fairly Reticent on 2013-10-17 14:03:30 GMT from United States)
BSD freedom to donate, potentially to proprietary, vs. GPL freedom to donate to the community, vs proprietary freedom to suppress & extort. These extremes certainly help to minimize production.
82 • @79,80 Haven't we been here before? (by DavidEF on 2013-10-17 14:04:04 GMT from United States)
Freedom certainly has as many definitions as there are people in the world. Let me say that what may mean freedom to one person may become oppression for the next. Thomas Paine once said "He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." What I take from that is that "true" freedom must always have boundaries. I cannot, and should not, have unbounded freedom, because that would mean that I could trample on yours. So, all that to say that the BSD license may speak freedom to the person who didn't write the code, yet wishes to lock it up as his own proprietary creation. Whereas, the GPL may speak freedom to the person who wishes for his code to always remain freely available for future generations to enjoy.
83 • @71@79@80@82 (by jaws222 on 2013-10-17 15:13:21 GMT from United States)
When I said freedom of choice I was referring to a previous post (@68) where he said "Dont like Unity, wayland, mir or what ever for that matter, dont use it." I chose to go another direction, Debian simply because I like it better. I wasn't trashing Ubuntu but rather embracing the fact that I did have a choice, whereas with Windows what you get is what you get.
84 • Mir and Ubuntu (by Ron Lankford on 2013-10-17 18:46:45 GMT from United States)
I thought your comments on Mir were well taken. It has been my opinion that Canonical has a lot of development pending that requires a replacement for X and perhaps they felt they couldn't wait on the Wayland development to proceed. There's nothing wrong with that. "Mir is open source" and can be used or not by whomever. Having a choice of possibly three display servers can only enhance open source software in the long run. Distrowatch lists almost 300 active distributions in its database. I don't feel that my distribution choices would be degraded if some used X or Wayland or Mir. Just the opposite.
For those who feel constrained by the possibility of display server proliferation I recommend they try the ever-wonderful INX distribution and decide if they really need a display server at all.
85 • @84 (by jaws222 on 2013-10-17 19:53:41 GMT from United States)
"For those who feel constrained by the possibility of display server proliferation I recommend they try the ever-wonderful INX distribution and decide if they really need a display server at all."
Now you're really making people work. :)
86 • A good week. (by LinuxMan on 2013-10-18 12:40:46 GMT from United States)
Well this week was a lot more lively than last week. Makes you wonder what's in store for next week. With the Ubuntu and friends releases I'm sure it will be interesting. :)
87 • EduBuntu (by Dave Postles on 2013-10-18 16:01:14 GMT from United Kingdom)
How about stripping out the Amazon icon/search?
88 • Read between the lines (by death panels on 2013-10-18 22:04:14 GMT from United States)
@ BSD comments
Or could the fact that I chose the name death panels indicate that I had some other kind of double meaning? I actually like the BSDs & use them for a few minor things, just not the desktop. It was meant to be random nonsense, but at least it was about software & not other random crap ;)
89 • Comment about Mir editorial. (by Finalzone on 2013-10-19 18:50:39 GMT from Canada)
I am afraid I see Jess Smith editorial nothing more than a PR for Mir. That display server has no reason to exist other than being controlled by Canonical who developed in secret for nearly nine month with is omitted in this essay. That move shows Canonical is desperate for profit since its creation back to 2004.
For those stating it is about choice, in the case of display, reaching a common ground without duplication is a better approach. Canonical haven't participated to Wayland development when they announced to use it. Without the hard works done by Wayland developers (essential X.org developers) during the five years of development, Mir would not exist. The editorial knows it.
Canonical started the battle by lying and misinforming the public about Wayland when they announced Mir leaving a much deeper scar that will take time to heal.
90 • Mir Wars: Ceasefire Unlikely (by kernelKurtz on 2013-10-19 20:51:17 GMT from United States)
https://plus.google.com/107555540696571114069/posts/76Nd9RSTZWp
I don't see "hush up and go code" being advice anyone will take, anytime soon. Also, it's essentially the Canonical party line: "Mark will continue to say any wild thing he likes; but the rest of you should be coding not commenting."
91 • re 90 Mir wars (by corneliu on 2013-10-20 12:25:47 GMT from Canada)
Very interesting. Thanks for the link.
Number of Comments: 91
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• Issue 1078 (2024-07-08): Changing init software, server machines running desktop environments, OpenSSH vulnerability patched, Peppermint launches new edition, HardenedBSD updates ports |
• Issue 1077 (2024-07-01): The Unity and Lomiri interfaces, different distros for different tasks, Ubuntu plans to run Wayland on NVIDIA cards, openSUSE updates Leap Micro, Debian releases refreshed media, UBports gaining contact synchronisation, FreeDOS celebrates its 30th anniversary |
• Issue 1076 (2024-06-24): openSUSE 15.6, what makes Linux unique, SUSE Liberty Linux to support CentOS Linux 7, SLE receives 19 years of support, openSUSE testing Leap Micro edition |
• Issue 1075 (2024-06-17): Redox OS, X11 and Wayland on the BSDs, AlmaLinux releases Pi build, Canonical announces RISC-V laptop with Ubuntu, key changes in systemd |
• Issue 1074 (2024-06-10): Endless OS 6.0.0, distros with init diversity, Mint to filter unverified Flatpaks, Debian adds systemd-boot options, Redox adopts COSMIC desktop, OpenSSH gains new security features |
• Issue 1073 (2024-06-03): LXQt 2.0.0, an overview of Linux desktop environments, Canonical partners with Milk-V, openSUSE introduces new features in Aeon Desktop, Fedora mirrors see rise in traffic, Wayland adds OpenBSD support |
• Issue 1072 (2024-05-27): Manjaro 24.0, comparing init software, OpenBSD ports Plasma 6, Arch community debates mirror requirements, ThinOS to upgrade its FreeBSD core |
• Issue 1071 (2024-05-20): Archcraft 2024.04.06, common command line mistakes, ReactOS imports WINE improvements, Haiku makes adjusting themes easier, NetBSD takes a stand against code generated by chatbots |
• Issue 1070 (2024-05-13): Damn Small Linux 2024, hiding kernel messages during boot, Red Hat offers AI edition, new web browser for UBports, Fedora Asahi Remix 40 released, Qubes extends support for version 4.1 |
• Issue 1069 (2024-05-06): Ubuntu 24.04, installing packages in alternative locations, systemd creates sudo alternative, Mint encourages XApps collaboration, FreeBSD publishes quarterly update |
• Issue 1068 (2024-04-29): Fedora 40, transforming one distro into another, Debian elects new Project Leader, Red Hat extends support cycle, Emmabuntus adds accessibility features, Canonical's new security features |
• Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
• Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
• Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
• Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
• Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
• Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
• Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
• Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
• Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
• Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
• Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
• Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
• Issue 1055 (2024-01-29): CNIX OS 231204, distributions patching packages the most, Gentoo team presents ongoing work, UBports introduces connectivity and battery improvements, interview with Haiku developer |
• Issue 1054 (2024-01-22): Solus 4.5, comparing dd and cp when writing ISO files, openSUSE plans new major Leap version, XeroLinux shutting down, HardenedBSD changes its build schedule |
• Issue 1053 (2024-01-15): Linux AI voice assistants, some distributions running hotter than others, UBports talks about coming changes, Qubes certifies StarBook laptops, Asahi Linux improves energy savings |
• Issue 1052 (2024-01-08): OpenMandriva Lx 5.0, keeping shell commands running when theterminal closes, Mint upgrades Edge kernel, Vanilla OS plans big changes, Canonical working to make Snap more cross-platform |
• Issue 1051 (2024-01-01): Favourite distros of 2023, reloading shell settings, Asahi Linux releases Fedora remix, Gentoo offers binary packages, openSUSE provides full disk encryption |
• Issue 1050 (2023-12-18): rlxos 2023.11, renaming files and opening terminal windows in specific directories, TrueNAS publishes ZFS fixes, Debian publishes delayed install media, Haiku polishes desktop experience |
• Issue 1049 (2023-12-11): Lernstick 12, alternatives to WINE, openSUSE updates its branding, Mint unveils new features, Lubuntu team plans for 24.04 |
• Issue 1048 (2023-12-04): openSUSE MicroOS, the transition from X11 to Wayland, Red Hat phasing out X11 packages, UBports making mobile development easier |
• Issue 1047 (2023-11-27): GhostBSD 23.10.1, Why Linux uses swap when memory is free, Ubuntu Budgie may benefit from Wayland work in Xfce, early issues with FreeBSD 14.0 |
• Issue 1046 (2023-11-20): Slackel 7.7 "Openbox", restricting CPU usage, Haiku improves font handling and software centre performance, Canonical launches MicroCloud |
• Issue 1045 (2023-11-13): Fedora 39, how to trust software packages, ReactOS booting with UEFI, elementary OS plans to default to Wayland, Mir gaining ability to split work across video cards |
• Full list of all issues |
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AliXe
AliXe was a SLAX-based, desktop-oriented live CD with the goal of promoting Linux among the French-speaking public of the Québec province in Canada.
Status: Discontinued
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Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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