 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 716, 12 June 2017 |
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Welcome to this year's 24th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
A lot of software development time is spent polishing the edges of an idea, fixing the corner cases and squashing the last few bugs. This week we talk about a number of cases where already good open source technology is being improved. In our News section we discuss GNOME and Ubuntu working together to bring HiDPI support to the GNOME desktop environment and Ubuntu developers backporting live kernel patching to older versions of their operating system. We also touch upon openSUSE's rolling development model leading up to openSUSE 42.3 and feren OS shifting to a rolling release cycle. In our Feature Story, Joshua Allen Holm takes the Slackel distribution for a spin and reports on how it compares to its Slackware and Salix roots. Then, in our Questions and Answers section, we explore the topic of kernel blobs and why some projects remove non-free blobs from the Linux kernel. Running kernels without blobs is also the topic of our Opinion Poll and we would like to know which, if any, distributions our readers run that do not feature non-free kernel blobs. We are pleased to bring you the releases of the past week and share the torrents we are currently seeding. Plus we are happy to report we are making it easier to find distributions using a specific init implementation through our Search page. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Slackel 7.0 "Live Openbox"
- News: Ubuntu works with GNOME on HiDPI and backports live kernel patches, openSUSE 42.3 using rolling development model, feren OS becoming a rolling release distro
- Questions and answers: Kernel blobs and getting rid of them
- Released last week: KaOS 2017.06, ROSA R9 "LXQt", MX 16.1
- Torrent corner: Bluestar, KaOS, KXStudiom MX, Robolinux, ROSA, Tanglu
- Upcoming releases: Debian 9, Black Lab Linux 9, Tails 3.0
- Opinion poll: The Linux-libre kernel
- DistroWatch.com news: Improving search for init software
- New additions: SwagArch GNU/Linux
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (62MB) and MP3 (47MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Joshua Allen Holm) |
Slackel 7.0 "Live Openbox"
Based on Slackware and Salix, Slackel calls itself a "Hellenic Linux distribution." Befitting its Greek origin, the distribution comes with a number of Greek localization packages pre-installed. In addition, it provides more software pre-installed than the latest Openbox release of Salix and provides newer packages by including software from Slackware's -current development branch.
According to the Slackel website, the distribution is available in three editions (KDE, Openbox, and Fluxbox), but the images for KDE and Fluxbox are older. Only the Openbox image has a new release, so images based on the other desktops currently ship with older packages. For this review, I downloaded the 1.3 GB Slackel 7.0 64-bit Live Openbox image and gave it a test drive.
Installing Slackel
I will be completely honest, my initial attempts to get the image I downloaded copied to a flash drive were problematic. I first tried using the shell script included on the ISO, but every attempt gave me an error message about copying efi.img to the flash drive because there was not enough free space left. The partitions on the flash drive are created by the script, so it should have been able to create a partition large enough to hold all the files it needed to copy. I then booted the image in a virtual machine with a USB drive passed through and tried to create a live USB drive using the graphical installer, but I could not get the "Copy live system to USB" button to become active no matter what I tried. Clicking on the "Copy live system to USB" button caused the installer to crash. After testing the distribution out in a virtual machine to be safe, I eventually used the GNOME Disks application to copy the ISO to a flash drive, which was completed without problems.
Slackel 7.0 -- The system installer
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Once I got a usable USB flash drive created, I booted Slackel and found the experience to be pretty typical. However, I did notice a difference between booting using the legacy/BIOS boot option, which is what I was using in a virtual machine, verses booting using EFI. On the GRUB screen for BIOS boot, pressing F2 on the screen after language selection provides more details than the EFI equivalent. Normally, this would be a minor issue, but the extra information missing from the EFI boot method includes the default passwords for the root and user accounts. In order to run the installer the user has to enter the password for the user account (both the username and password are "one"), so that information needs to be as discoverable as possible. The information is included in the release announcement in the Slackel forums, but it is possible to download the disc image without ever running across that information.
Slackel 7.0 -- The Openbox environment
(full image size: 1.5MB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Slackel's desktop and included software
The Slackel's Openbox desktop environment is a standard Linux desktop experience. The panel at the bottom of the screen has the application menu, quick launch icons, task bar, virtual desktops, and various panel applets, including a clock. Nothing extraordinary. The included software is much the same as other distributions: Firefox 45 ESR, Thunderbird 52, LibreOffice 5.2, and many of the other typical programs come installed by default. Though lightweight alternatives are also included: Midori for web-browsing, Sylpheed for e-mail, AbiWord and Gnumeric for word processing and spreadsheets. All this runs on a Linux 4.4 kernel, with Linux 4.9 already available as an update, so there should be few hardware-compatibility issues for most users.
Installing additional software
If the included software is not enough, there are plenty of ways to add additional software. In additional to the traditional Slackware command-line utilities (e.g., installpkg), Slackel provides Gslapt and Sourcery as graphic tools to find, install, and upgrade packages. Gslapt provides an APT style experience and Sourcery is a graphic interface for SlackBuild. When using Gslapt there are packages from Slackware, Salix, and Slackel repositories. The sources for the SlackBuilds are Salix repositories. I found Gslapt an excellent way to install packages and keep the system updated, but did not really use Sourcery that much. There is one major drawback to using Gslapt, not with the program itself, but the Slackel repositories are super slow. When I installed a package from a Salix repository, the download was much quicker than the Slackel repositories hosted in Greece.
Slackel 7.0 -- The Gslapt package manager
(full image size: 124kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
In addition to the standard software installers, there is a specialized installer for installing patent encumbered media codecs. This application is from Salix, but it works equally well on Slackel. This installer provides a way to install all the required media packages with just a few clicks, instead of having to hunt for all of them in Gslapt. The installer even provides a helpful warning about the patent issues, so that users are notified about the issues and people in regions where that is a problem can proceed or cancel at their own peril.
Slackel 7.0 -- The media codec installer
(full image size: 1.1MB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The Slackel community
Software is one thing, but distributions are nothing without a community to support them. In Slackel's case this is an area that could be improved. The forums have very few posts and the mailing list has even less activity. While Slackel does benefit from the Slackware and Salix communities, having a few more highly engaged Slackel users might prove beneficial. I certainly do not expect every small distribution to have communities that are as large as those of Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc., but having someone to engage with beyond the developer and a small handful of posters would make for a better experience for new users. In addition, it might help the developer identify and solve some of the various annoyances I have mentioned in my review. So, if you are a Slackware enthusiast looking to donate some of your time, Slackel could benefit from having a few more people engaging with the developer and users.
Slackel 7.0 -- Running the Firefox web browser
(full image size: 319kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Final thoughts
Slackel is a nice distribution, not perfect, but nice. It adds enough to its Slackware/Salix lineage to provide some benefits over those distributions, mostly in the form of newer software being included on the disc and more packages than Salix includes on its disc. It is especially useful for Greek speakers who want to have Greek localization packages included on a live image. However, there are issues that really need to be cleaned up. If some of the things I mentioned above get cleaned up, Slackel 7.1 could be great, but for now, Slackel 7.0 has a few headache inducing problems.
Working on this review by running Slackel for a few weeks and briefly testing out the latest releases of Salix and Slackware was an interesting and nostalgic experience. I ran Slackware on one of my main computers about a decade ago, so it was interesting to see how much Slackware has -- and has not -- changed over the years. While the Slackware family of distributions are not my mainstays anymore, I applaud anyone working on Slackware and Slackware-based distributions. Slackel and the rest of the Slackware derivatives are interesting and welcome members of the large family of Linux distributions. I just hope that others, especially those with Slackware skills and experience, feel the same way and donate their time to make Slackel's community a little more vibrant and active.
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Hardware used in this review:
My physical test equipment for this review was a Lenovo Ideapad 100-15IBD laptop with the following specifications:
- Processor: 2.2GHz Intel Core i3-5020U CPU
- Storage: Seagate 500GB 5400 RPM hard drive
- Memory: 4GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8723BE 802.11n Wireless Network Adapter
- Display: Intel HD Graphics 5500
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Visitor supplied rating
Slackel has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8/10 from 2 review(s).
Have you used Slackel? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Ubuntu works with GNOME on HiDPI and backports live kernel patches, openSUSE 42.3 using rolling development model, feren OS becoming a rolling release distro
The next version of Ubuntu is expected to ship with the GNOME Shell desktop environment. In an effort to make the GNOME desktop scale well across a wide range of devices, Canonical will be hosting a conference for developers to work on GNOME's HiDPI support. The OMG Ubuntu site shares: "Canonical is playing host to a 'fractional scaling hackfest' in its Taipei offices this week. Both GNOME developers and Ubuntu developers are in attendance. The aim: improve GNOME HiDPI support. Ubuntu's Unity desktop (I'm told, anyhow) plays fairly nice with high DPI monitors because the shell supports fractional scaling (though most apps, I believe, do not). Furthermore, users can tweak some high DPI settings to better suit their display(s). GNOME Shell also supports HiDPI monitors, but has, until now, been a little less flexible about it." Additional information on HiDPI support can be found in this blog post by Matthias Classen.
The Ubuntu developers have been working on making live kernel patching available to older versions of their operating system. Live kernel patching allows security flaws to be fixed in the Linux kernel without rebooting the operating system. This allows for systems to be left running longer while still keeping them up to date. "We are pleased to announce that we have extended our Canonical Kernel Livepatch Service to users running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS! The Canonical Kernel Livepatch Service enables runtime correction of critical security vulnerabilities in the kernel without the need to reboot. It is the best way to ensure that machines are safe at the kernel level, while guaranteeing uptime, especially for container hosts where a single machine may be running thousands of different workloads." A post on the Ubuntu Insights page explains how to enable live kernel patching.
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The upcoming release of openSUSE 42.3 Leap is expected to be launched at the end of July 2017. The openSUSE team is not releasing official alpha, beta or release candidate snapshots for 42.3 and is instead using a rolling development model. This essentially means there will be regular updates and new installation media snapshots, but no official milestones published during the 42.3 testing phase. A news post on the openSUSE website shares more information: "Some Linux users might find a rolling development process for a Linux release to be less appealing for testing, but testing is certainly necessary before the actual release of Leap 42.3 at the end of July. The next minor version of Leap 42.3 is mostly a refresh and hardware enablement release that will have more than 10,000 packages. While the development version of Leap 42.3 it is still considerably stable because it is extremely hardened and shares sources from SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) 12, the release could still use more testing and people willing to promote openSUSE's next minor 42 series version." Development snapshots can be acquired from the openSUSE Downloads page.
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The feren OS distribution, which is based on Linux Mint, will be adopting a rolling release model in the near future. The project intends to regularly update packages on the system using personal package archives (PPAs). "Prepare for the first rolling release Linux Mint[-based] distribution, starting 2017.1, or should I say, 2017.0X (Where X is the month it's released)." The announcement can be found on the feren OS blog.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
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Kernel blobs and getting rid of them
Exploring-the-kernel asks: What does it mean to deblob the kernel and what does that do for the user?
DistroWatch answers: One of the kernel's jobs, perhaps its most important job, is to communicate with the computer's hardware. The kernel needs to know how to talk with your keyboard, video card, network interface and so on. Most of the time, when a hardware device's specifications are known, kernel developers can write open source code to communicate with the device. However, some companies do not wish to provide specifications or open source drivers for their hardware. In these cases a company may provide a proprietary piece of code that is available in binary form only (the source code is not available). The kernel can load these binary-only modules and use them to manage the hardware.
The use of a piece of proprietary code, also known as a binary blob, is not ideal. It is very difficult to audit a binary blob to find out what it does and, if a driver proves to be unstable, kernel developers are unable to fix the blob as they do not have the code which created the blob. Philosophically, binary blobs also raise a problem. As users are unable to read or edit the code of a binary blob, the user is unable to completely control or modify a system which includes these blobs.
People who wish to run entirely pure free software operating systems, for either technical or philosophical reasons, want the kernel to only use code that can be audited and modified. To achieve this, any binary blobs must be removed from the kernel. Stripping the binary only pieces from the kernel is called deblobbing the kernel. A deblobbed kernel is one which has had the proprietary drivers and firmware removed. This means the user is running an entirely open source kernel. More information on these blob-free kernels can be found on the GNU Linux-libre website.
A deblobbed Linux kernel will not be able to work with as many different types of hardware. Because of this limitation most Linux distributions ship with kernel binary blobs included in the default installation. For most users it is more practical to run a kernel with binary blobs as it will support the most hardware. However, for people who wish to run a completely free software operating system, a deblobbed (or libre) kernel is preferred. For people interested in running a Linux distribution which includes only free and open source software with no proprietary blobs, we have a list of libre Linux distributions on our Search page.
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More answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
KaOS 2017.06
KaOS 2017.06 has been released. This desktop distribution is one of the first that ship with the recently-released Plasma Desktop 5.10.0 and Qt toolkit 5.9.0: "KaOS is pleased to announce the 2017.06 release. Just days after Qt 5.9.0 and Plasma 5.10.0 were announced, you can already have both in this new release. Highlights of Plasma 5.10.0 include: Task Manager gaining options for new middle mouse clicks, such as grouping and ungrouping applications; media controls and virtual keyboard on lock screen; revamped password dialog for network authentication; performance optimizations in Pager and Task Manager; the security of the lock screen architecture was reworked and simplified; file copying notifications have a context menu on previews. Plasma developers are working on two new Music Players and both are now included in the KaOS repositories. Babe has become the default player on this release, while Elisa is available as an option. Other recent additions include git GUI applications QGit and QDirStat and a graphical application to show where your disk space has gone." Read the rest of the release announcement for further information and screenshots.
ROSA R9 "LXQt"
Vladimir Potapov has announced the release of ROSA R9 "LXQt" edition, a desktop-focused Linux distribution featuring the lightweight LXQt 0.11 desktop: "LXQt is the most lightweight and ascetic ROSA R9 edition. It is designed for machines which are not rich in resources (e.g. netbooks) and for users who like immediate reaction for any action. This ROSA will feel good even if you only have 512 MB of RAM. Specifics of LXQt in ROSA R9: all LXQt components are based on the freshest 0.11 branch with simplified ROSA theme, without compositing and desktop effects; we use NewMoon (PaleMoon) web browser - although compatible with Firefox ESR (which is used as a basis), it consumes significantly fewer resources; default installation includes some additional components for Internet users - Pidgin, qBitTorrent, Trojitá; the nomacs image viewer is installed by default, it also provides basic image manipulation facilities; Rosa Media Player and Audacious are included." See the release announcement (in Russian, includes screenshot) and release notes (in English) for more information.
MX Linux 16.1
The MX Linux team has announced the release of a new version of their Debian-based distribution. The new release, MX Linux 16.1, now supports home directory encryption, offers the Adobe Flash plug-in on the installation media and features LibreOffice 5.2.6. "So what's new in MX-16? 1. Installer improvements: The installer now supports home folder encryption. This is an experimental feature. An issue with partition boot flags that affected certain makes of PC (Dell) has been corrected. Auto-install now works for UEFI systems. 2. We now have new official Adobe Flash included on the ISO, thanks to recently received permission from Adobe. MX-Flash is not on the ISO and is now deprecated. Install/uninstall option via the regular package managers, including MX-Packageinstaller on the 'Popular Apps' tab. Note our Adobe Flash package will work with both Firefox and Chromium (includes original classic NPAPI and the PPAPI plugins ie: pepperflash). 3. Tweaks to default user interface, including a new default theme and new MX-Linux wallpapers..." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement.
MX Linux 16.1 -- Default desktop environment
(full image size: 1.4MB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Robolinux 8.8.1
Robolinux is a Debian-based desktop Linux distribution. The project has announced the release of a new version, Robolinux 8.8.1, which is built on Debian 8 "Jessie" and features up to date versions of Firefox and Thunderbird, along with improvements to the MATE and Xfce desktop environments: "This is another major Robolinux upgrade entailing several months of hard work finding every way possible to improve the speed and functionality of our 8 Raptor versions. All Robolinux Raptor 8.8.1 versions including our recent release of MATE 3D and Xfce 3D are based on 100% rock solid current Debian 8 Stable source code running the newest Debian 3.16 Linux kernel plus over 200 important upstream security and Application updates, Firefox 53.0 and Thunderbird 45.6.0 As usual all four of the epic new 32- and 64-bit Robolinux Raptor Version 8.8.1 editions come with over 120 custom built wifi, video and printer drivers and can run Windows XP, 7 and 10 virus free inside. Every version is loaded with many popular one click installer applications such as the Tor browser, i2P, several very popular multimedia apps, Google Chrome, Google Earth, Skype and VirtualBox plus 12 incredibly powerful security and privacy apps to keep our users safe!" The release announcement has further details. Robolinux is available in four editions: Xfce, LXDE, MATE and Cinnamon.
KXStudio 14.04.5
KXStudio is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution with a KDE 4 desktop and a large collection of applications and plugins designed for professional audio production. An updated build, version 14.04.5, was released yesterday: "It's time for another KXStudio release. KXStudio 14.04.5 is here. Lots have changed in the applications and plugins for Linux audio (even in KXStudio itself), so it was about time to see those ISO images updated. Behind the scenes, from what the user can see, it might appear as nothing has truly changed. After all, this is an updated image still based on Ubuntu 14.04, like those from 2 years ago. But we had a really big amount of releases for our beloved software, enough to deserve this small ISO update. There is no list of changes this time, sorry. The main thing worth mentioning is that base system is exactly the same, with only applications and plugins updated. You know the saying - if it ain't broken, don't fix it. Before you ask... no, there won't be a 16.04-based ISO release." Here is the full release announcement as published on the project's News page.
Tanglu 4.0
Matthias Klumpp has announced the release of Tanglu 4.0 which carries the code name "Dasyatis". The Debian-based distribution was in development for longer than expected which Klumpp addresses in the release announcement: "Tanglu 4 comes - due to being frozen for far too long - without the latest and greatest packages, but still with some notable changes. The KDE Plasma version is at 5.8, while the GNOME desktop is available in version 3.20 with some pieces from GNOME 3.22. The KDE Plasma design was updated with some suggestions from KDE designers at Akademy last year. Tanglu is a fully usrmerged system by default now, with no option to switch back to split-/usr or opt-in option (like in previous releases). Additionally, we support installing on UEFI systems without legacy mode now, which was a much requested feature and took quite a while to make it work reliably with the Calamares installer. We do not, however, support secure boot on EFI systems yet." Tanglu 4.0 is available in three editions: Core, KDE and GNOME.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. Thanks to Linux Tracker we are able to share the following torrent statistics.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 439
- Total data uploaded: 66.4TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
The Linux-libre kernel
In this week's Questions and Answers column we discussed what kernel binary blobs are and mentioned some projects remove them. Some distributions take a philosophical stance against non-free kernel blobs while others see these blobs as a potential security risk.
We would like to find out how many of our readers are running a kernel with the binary blobs removed. If you are running a Linux distribution with a Linux-libre kernel, please let us know which one it is in the comments section.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using the Devuan GNU+Linux distribution in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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The Linux-libre kernel
| I run an OS with binary kernel blobs: | 1004 (69%) |
| I run an OS without binary kernel blobs: | 150 (10%) |
| Unsure: | 296 (20%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Improving search for init software
This past week we rolled out a new search filter on our Search page. The new filter, named Init Software makes it easier to find distributions which ship with a specific init implementation. Though still being worked on, the new init software filter should make it easier to find distributions using a specific init implementation.
In recent months we have been receiving more requests to provide a way to locate distributions which do not feature the systemd init software. While we had a method for this in place, the old search method could become confused when a distribution had systemd in its repositories, but not installed by default. The new search filter focuses on which init software is used by default, ignoring other options in a distribution's repositories. This should make searches for non-systemd distributions more accurate.
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New projects added to database
SwagArch GNU/Linux
SwagArch is a GNU/Linux desktop distribution based on Arch Linux. The SwagArch distribution features a live DVD that runs the Xfce desktop and uses the Calamares graphical system installer. SwagArch offers popular FOSS applications pre-installed, including Firefox and the VLC multimedia player.
SwagArch GNU/Linux 2017.06 -- Running the Xfce desktop
(full image size: 921kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
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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, 19 June 2017. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • sweet! (by tim on 2017-06-12 00:27:14 GMT from United States)
kudos to MX Linux team! MX16.1 installed flawlessly & I'm finding all sorts of nifty custom tools are pre-installed.
2 • Just a general comment. (by bigsky on 2017-06-12 01:10:15 GMT from Canada)
Love the Slackware and enjoyed the revue and as a Linux abuser for a long long time it's a tough sell for the uninitiated. I guess that's what we are here for ? Any how I have to say that MX 16.1 has captured my SSD with a vengeance and is a superb example of what a newcomer to Linux should embrace. Thanks Joshua for bringing back a conversation about Slackware.
3 • Init Search Feature (by Tony Agudo on 2017-06-12 01:28:07 GMT from United States)
Glad to see this feature, not just for the ability to find non-systemd distros but also to highlight init systems other than SysV, Upstart and systemd. The last thing the Linux ecosystem needs is vendor lock-in at such a critical point eas bootup(example: try to install "runit-init" on Ubuntu and see what happens).
4 • Init search feature & binary blobs (by Brenton Horne on 2017-06-12 03:29:30 GMT from Australia)
It is an interesting and welcomed development and it's certainly taught me somethings I've found interesting. Didn't know Linux Mint had a SysV init system edition available. Guessing it refers to the oldest, yet still supported Linux Mint 17.3 (based on Ubuntu 14.04 which used Upstart as its init system, guessing Linux Mint didn't like Upstart). Neither did I know that Manjaro had an OpenRC edition available (although I have found a SourceForge project that, to me, seems unofficial, not connected with the Manjaro project, that has OpenRC as the init system https://sourceforge.net/projects/manjaro-openrc/).
Must admit I was quite surprised at how many people at least said they used a Linux system without binary blobs, I would have thought it'd be more like ~1% or less. After all "free" distros like Trisquel are very unpopular according to hit rankings (I know they are not a foolproof, or even an all that accurate way of measuring distro popularity). Would have thought only those using a purely free system would care about binary blobs and their licensing enough to do without them.
5 • Blobs (by oldtechaa on 2017-06-12 03:30:35 GMT from United States)
I use Xubuntu and since I try to stick with standard setups, I obviously haven't installed a deblobbed kernel. I don't like that state of affairs for security, interoperability, and philosophical reasons, but binary firmware is somewhat acceptable and in most cases for wireless and modern graphics a necessary evil. Where I draw the line is at proprietary drivers. Except in the case of our Raspberry Pi (where until VC4 gets more complete proprietary drivers are a necessary evil) I HATE using hardware that requires proprietary drivers.
6 • init search feature & Slackware (by Brenton Horne on 2017-06-12 03:31:47 GMT from Australia)
One last comment, doesn't Slackware use a distinct BSD-style init system? Didn't think it'd be classed under SysV init http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=slackware.
7 • using kxstudio repos w/out kxstudio distro (by david esktorp on 2017-06-12 04:20:51 GMT from United States)
For whatever reason, I've never had good luck using the kxstudio ISO, however, the repository is a cherished treasure. I have used the kxstudio repos on several debians, ubuntus and I have them on this devuan install right now. Filipe Coelho is one of our linux audio champions. If I had millions of dollars, I would give a fat stack of it to him.
8 • Binary Blobs means No-Freedom ... ? (by Greg Zeng on 2017-06-12 05:05:13 GMT from Australia)
Followed the "Opinion Poll" in detail. The six (6) "free" Linux operating systems are based on Ubuntu (Trisquel & Uruk), Arch (Parabola), Slackware (ConnochaetOS), Debian (gNewSense) & "Independent" (GuixSD).
If the users of five of these date try Linux kernels not compiled by the authors of the distributions, they will probably be using binary blobs injected by the Linux Foundation and others.
https://www.fsfla.org/ikiwiki/selibre/linux-libre/ shows that it deblobbing specific brands & models of hardware items. Are there other items not mentioned by the small team of deblobbers?
Benchtests & user reviews generally show that open-source replacements for binary blobs lack the speed & features of the proprietary code. Is this the cost of freedom: old hardware & poor, inefficient performance? If I was employed by the communist or religious zealots, I can understand the secrecy involved in my privacy. More secrecy means more freedom, at the cost of everything else, perhaps.
9 • the ongoing status quo of "half-hearted zealotry" (by tim on 2017-06-12 05:53:01 GMT from United States)
The "Other sources of binaries" section within the page Greg linked to, same as many (savannah and) other FSF sites/pages, contains quite a few bit-rotted links. I've learned to steer clear of these "half-hearted zealotry" sites b/c they usually deliver a series of tail-chasing (3--6 clicks later, wind up back where you started) or outright broken links.
10 • @4 manjaro openrc (by Steanne on 2017-06-12 06:08:18 GMT from United States)
the openrc edition isn't official, but it does get support from the manjaro team. philm is the head of manjaro and a contributor to the openrc isos
https://github.com/aadityabagga/iso-profiles/graphs/contributors
11 • Slackel (by Hoos on 2017-06-12 07:12:33 GMT from Singapore)
Looks-wise it's true that Slackel's desktop is nothing extraordinary. But there are things that distinguish it from Slackware and other Slackware-based distros:
1. it has a nice GUI installer that works pretty well and plays nice with other distros, which is important for people with multiple distros like me. For instance, it gives you the option not to format a swap partition, which would mess with fstab and booting of your other distros. In contrast, the Slackware ncurses installer makes it hard to avoid that step -- you can't choose not to have a swap partition at all. Slackel's installer also has more multibooter-friendly options in respect of bootloader.
2. it has the user-friendliness of Salix and uses its repositories and Gslapt, but also uses Slackware Current packages, so it is a rolling distro - just install once and that's it. Despite its rolling nature, updates have been pretty smooth sailing.
3. it actually comes with a live iso from which you can both try and subsequently install the distro. AFAIK, Salix's live iso are still just for testing the distro; you have to download and install from a separate installation iso.
12 • Linux-Libre (by Semiarticulate on 2017-06-12 08:13:05 GMT from United States)
I must say that I was pleasantly surprised to see how many people are running linux-libre kernels. I run FreeSlack on one desktop and one laptop.
@11 I'm not certain if you know this, but Alien Bob provides a few Slackware Live ISO's based on slackware-current, and is now mentioned on Slackware's homepage. Oh, and you can install from the live system. This weekend I tried the latest ISO featuring the Plasma 5 DE. Very nice indeed.
13 • Binary (blob or not) @ Jesse (by OstroL on 2017-06-12 10:19:25 GMT from Poland)
We have binaries in our Linux installs (/bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin) and they cannot be read (code) or modified by the user. The kernel is also compiled into a binary. So, we don't really have fully configurable files, do we? Actually,, do these binaries have to be compiled, or can they be given as user readable code? I don't know, whether we users can read (and understand) all that "code."
14 • Using a deblobbed kernel (by Kazlu on 2017-06-12 10:26:31 GMT from France)
Alas, I would like to use Linux-libre, but quite frankly it's not that easy.
First reason: the distros that provide it. With Trisquel it's not that hard but in inherits from the Ubuntu bugs that made me leave Ubuntu in the first place. gNewSense is not easier to use than Debian (quite good but still requires more work than I can invest in my daily OS) and don't get me started on an arch-based distro. I considered using ConnochaetOS for a while, but it lacks some software I would like to have. But I could have dealt with it.
Second reason: balance with another priority. I got second hand equipment (notably printer + scanner) that I did not get to choose. It works, but requires proprietary blobs. I won't throw away equipment that works fine just because the driver is not open source. For ecological reasons, I will keep them until they stop working. That priority is superior to the necessity to have open source drivers in my opinion.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Debian uses a deblobed kernel by default; if one does not use the nonfree repo, no nonfree blob will be used.
15 • Slackel (by The wonderer on 2017-06-12 10:45:06 GMT from Norway)
Why do the Slackel project say it is an Openbox desktop when it is in fact LXDE? I see LXpanel at the bottom of the screen and they obviously also have Leafpad, another LXDE package installed since it is a shortcut in the panel.
LXDE does not have its own window manager, but uses Openbox, which means that if you run Openbox plus LXDE packages like LXpanel, Leafpad, PCManFM, LXAppearance etc, you are in fact using the LXDE desktop, even if you started out with just Openbox.
I also wonder why Raspbian does not state that they in fact use LXDE as the default desktop environment, but instead call it something else. Changing a wallpaper, adding an icon theme and a widget theme and changing what is in the menu or on the panel does not make it into another desktop environment. It's still LXDE.
There is also an Arch-based "Openbox-based" distro/installer that I have forgotten the name of now that is in fact LXDE by default, but if you change some settings, you get Tint2 or XFCE as the panel instead.
It seems like LXDE often does not get the credit it deserves, and I find that strange, as it is an excellent lightweight desktop that is more CPU efficient and less RAM hungry than any other DE, while being more full-featured than any of the WMs. (Except Enlightenmnt). At the same time it is also tweakable and can look really nice if you give it some love with a nice icon and widget theme. (Have a look at LXLE if you do not believe me.)
16 • And Then There's s6 Init (by Arch Watcher 402563 on 2017-06-12 10:45:40 GMT from United States)
Fantastic new search feature. No s6? It's only used by Obarun atm, but skarnet works closely with Alpine, so it will make its way there next. It's already in Void repos, too, though not the default init. I don't know about Gentoo or Slackware repos, but it's likely floating around in them.
17 • @13 and @15 (by denethor on 2017-06-12 11:10:26 GMT from Serbia)
@13 There is difference between using binaries whose source code you can read and binaries whose source code is proprietary and such you cannot ever see. By the way, binaries are the only type of code that the processor can "read", 1 being electricity and 0 being it's absence.
@15 +1 for LXDE!
18 • @15 - Slackel panel (by Hoos on 2017-06-12 11:21:33 GMT from Singapore)
I don't know about the current release, but my installation is from v. 6.0.3, which used fbpanel, not LXpanel.
In any case, many distros with openbox WM do come with a panel by default, so the developers choose which panel to use. Not all of them choose tint2.
19 • Linux Mint Init (by Jesse on 2017-06-12 12:26:31 GMT from Canada)
@4: " Didn't know Linux Mint had a SysV init system edition available. Guessing it refers to the oldest, yet still supported Linux Mint 17.3"
Linux Mint Debian Edition uses Sys V as the default init software.
20 • libre kernel (by anticapitalista on 2017-06-12 12:59:09 GMT from Greece)
Running antiX with its libre kernel on the desktop.
System: Host: antix1 Kernel: 4.10.1-gnu-antix.1-amd64-smp x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: herbstluftwm 0.7.0
Distro: antiX-15-beta1-V_x64-full Killah P 23 March 2015
Init: SysVinit runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 6.3.0
21 • slackel+de's (by nano-me on 2017-06-12 13:02:07 GMT from United Kingdom)
@15 I use Openbox Window Manager, Obmenu, Obconf, Tint2 panel, Lxterminal, Lxtask, Leafpad [which is "independent" of LXDE] all ontop of Devuan or Void Linux. The fact that Obmenu is used to create custom menus, probably allows me to call this an Openbox DE, even though it uses separate LXDE components [which thankfully don't drag the rest of LXDE with them]. However, I could have chosen a different menu program.
If a distro allows a Window Manager to be mated with disparate desktop applications, some latitude should be allowed in how it decides what it is called. Cohesive DEs tend to use their own "tame" WMs.
22 • intrid.img Symlink (by Winchester on 2017-06-12 13:54:38 GMT from United States)
Looking for an answer to a question.
This is probably not the "proper" place to ask but,anyway :
How do you go about having symbolic links intrid.img and vmlinuz automatically generated (linking automatically to the most current intrid and vmlinuz respectively) ??
Some distributions are set-up to automatically have this happen and others do not create the links by default.
The reason I ask is because I am working on a computer,set-up with the option to boot into 3 different distributions,that I intend to give to someone else. They probably will not be adjusting the GRUB bootloader too much,if at all,to point it to the most up-to-date kernels etc. . I would like GRUB to be pointed to symbolic links which link to the most current intrid and vmlinuz.
I hope that makes sense the way that I explained the situation.
23 • Slackel (by Bonky Ozmond on 2017-06-12 14:25:06 GMT from Nicaragua)
I am really pleased to see Slackel get a Review I have both it and Salix on one of my comps, can't remember why i did it but maybe a comparison thing.. I have Slackware on another comp
I installed Slackel as i didnt really have time to do a full Slackware system at one time and have been impressed with it, can't really think of a time i have had any real issues with it seemed a stable as Slackware has always been
I have openbox though it has PCmanFM and MC but little else from LXDE...I dont have any issues with LXDE its a great trouble free desktop. but i try to build my comps with only stuff I actually use.
Jessie commentated about the Community support I have never found myself waiting for a reply on the forum and it has always been friendly and helpful. unlike some very popular distros where you get treated like some hated neighbour for asking any question.....or get the RTFM reply.
Slackel and Salix deserve to get more support both are very stable light easy to use distros
24 • Blobs (by Donnie on 2017-06-12 15:09:56 GMT from United States)
I like the philosophy of "free" software, and I'd like to be able to use nothing but free software all the time. But, that just isn't possible. For example, if you want to use a GPU to do either scientific computing or cryptocurrency mining, you must use the binary, proprietary drivers that come from either nVidia or AMD. The free, open-source video drivers won't work in either case.
25 • Kernel Blobs (by Voncloft on 2017-06-12 16:15:33 GMT from United States)
I run Gentoo (4.9 kernel) and I had to install a blob for my tv tuner card
Hauppauge hvr-2255.
Before 4.2 I had to use a patch to even get the option to build the kernel module but around 4.8 the options were finally added into the make menuconfig automatically and i just had to set it to * .....for the kernels; but I had to add (in both kernel versions) the blob firmware for the hvr-2255.
Now I can use it as a mythbackend and watch tv via kaffeine.
A price to pay to watch OTA TV with my antenna.
26 • @24 Free software (by OstroL on 2017-06-12 16:20:37 GMT from Poland)
The creator of the software has to eat, live and feed the family. So, giving what you do away won't get him or his family bread and butter, would it? If companies fund, sponsor, even pay talented people to create software and then give it away without getting anything back, those companies would collapse.
There is no such thing as free software, for what you (or I) get free are being paid by someone, some business entity. We are just cheating ourselves that we are getting free software, which are created in someone else's free time, and that person is a philanthropist and even doesn't have to pay for food. One way or other, the creator of software has to be paid, or he(she) can't live only on free air, right?
All libre distros use bases created by some other people, who had been paid in some way. I don't think a distro can live only off "donations," there must be other ways to get paid. That people pay for what they buy or use had been known and accepted. You pay for your computer, but you don't want to pay for software. Strange, isn't it?
27 • binary kernel blobs - detect (by some random user on 2017-06-12 16:48:31 GMT from United States)
How does one know if one has binary kernel blobs on their computer?
What command(s) do I need to use to find out?
As well as do I need to run that with God Like powers?
For example in http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20170529&mode=67
As need be [b]sudo ethtool eth0 | grep Wake[/b] not just [b]ethtool eth0 | grep Wake[/b]
Thank you
28 • Live kernel patching older version - other distros based upon Ubuntu (by some random user on 2017-06-12 16:52:49 GMT from United States)
While Ubuntu offers Live kernel patching, do others based upon it - like Lubuntu offer it too?
As well as, what about Linux Mint?
Thank you
29 • Live kernel patching - 32 bit too? (by some random user on 2017-06-12 17:06:56 GMT from United States)
While that is great that on 64 bit that Live kernel patching is offered, what about 32bit too?
Thank you
30 • Libre kernel, Binary blobs (by scuttlebuck on 2017-06-12 18:34:21 GMT from Nicaragua)
I have in the past tried to use one of the Free Distros "gNewSense" i installed it and i guess it ran OK untill i needed to do a lot of things i need the PC for and I couldnt..
I admit it seems apart from running Antix on some old machines my success with Debian has been a failure and maybe i could have found a work around
I have tried building my own "Free Kernel" on other distros again with limited success there always seems something that I cant get to work
I Dont have time or patience to keep trying sadly..
31 • Blobs. (by Jessica F on 2017-06-12 19:10:19 GMT from United States)
i would like to use a Libre kernel, but all of them are X86 only so they mute there verry existence!
32 • Free software @26 and others (by lenn on 2017-06-12 19:40:52 GMT from United States)
>> The freedom to run the program means the freedom for any kind of person or organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of overall job and purpose, without being required to communicate about it with the developer or any other specific entity. In this freedom, it is the user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose; you as a user are free to run the program for your purposes, and if you distribute it to someone else, she is then free to run it for her purposes, but you are not entitled to impose your purposes on her.<<
The above is from https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
It says "In this freedom, it is the user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose..."
Is a developer was not around, and he/she didn't have the idea, and from that idea and with lot of hard work, the idea grew to a useful application, the user would not have ever got the application at all. The developer must come first, not the user. There maybe millions of users, but only ONE developer. And, all those millions of users didn't have the idea, and the knowledge and the ability to create the application.
User most times don't have any ability except the ability to click and shoot. The developer must come first and be highly respected and paid. The free software "philosophy" looks dangerously communist.
33 • New init system search (by a on 2017-06-12 19:51:37 GMT from France)
Thanks for the new search for systemd-free distros, this is great (I haven’t tested it yet though.)
34 • Free as in Speech Software (by M.Z. on 2017-06-12 20:46:04 GMT from United States)
@26
"There is no such thing as free software, for what you (or I) get free are being paid by someone..."
You do understand that software developed under the GPL license was originally intended to fit the motto "free as in speech" don't you? Such 'Free Software' can be picked apart & modified at the discretion of any user with the proper skills, much like new & different ideas for reforms to governments & economic systems can be picked apart & modified in societies with strong free speech rights & open discussions.
What you seem to be confusing this 'Free as in Speech Software' with is software that is 'Free as in Beer', wherein you are given some executable code to use at you discretion like a beer someone gave you at a party. That kind of software is simply 'as is' & be used or not, but not reformulated & modified like 'Free as in Speech Software'.
The shortcut around this discussion is of course to use the term 'Open Source', which is more precise at less prone to ambiguity & confusion. Of course the original GPL authors prefer their term 'Free Software', & now we have terms lie 'Libre' thrown in too; however, it all has the same basic intent & hands users far more power over the code.
At any rate, when most Linux users say 'Free Software' they mean it they way that Richard M. Stallman & the Free Software Foundation mean it. That definition means that the code very often can be & is created by paid developers from places like Red Hat, Intel, Canonical, Google & many other companies. The assumption that "Free as in Speech" software would have a cost equivalent to "Free as in Beer" is wholly incorrect & is a complete misinterpretation of the term. The fact that GPL source code must be given away to users means that it will almost inevitably end up in something like Debian that is generally given away at no cost; however, "Free as in Speech" software was always intended by RMS & others to be something that could be made for a reasonable profit. The way the GPL was designed profit is perfectly acceptable, but the license is also designed to protect the users rights & prevents profit seeking companies from having any true control of the software after it is released.
35 • The free software "philosophy" (by dick on 2017-06-12 20:49:05 GMT from Canada)
" The free software "philosophy" looks dangerously communist."
Suspect... "humanitarian" may be
impetus for... libre philosophy.
36 • Free software (by lenn on 2017-06-12 21:00:34 GMT from United States)
>>We campaign for these freedoms because everyone deserves them. With these freedoms, the users (both individually and collectively) control the program and what it does for them. When users don't control the program, we call it a “nonfree” or “proprietary” program. The nonfree program controls the users, and the developer controls the program; this makes the program an instrument of unjust power.<<
Utter baloney!
Users controlling the programs? Why the he..ll, users then update and upgrade? Are we, the users control the program? Do we even know how to do that? Did we got the idea first, or the developer? You can fork it of course, if you know how to code, but how many of us millions know how to code? Even, if some of us know how to code, do we think the same way as the developer of the program? An idea happens in one person's mind, not collectively in everyone's minds.
37 • @34 Free whatever... (by OstroL on 2017-06-12 21:20:18 GMT from Poland)
Say you have "free software" MZ, you cannot use it on a table, on a bed or chair, but in a computer. But, that computer is not free. Even, if you get it free from someone, its contents were not free. You cannot tinker with the processor or most things inside. Without the software, you can't use the computer. Someone has to think and create the software. Why should that developer needs you to tinker with his product? If you take someone's book and copy it, its plagiat. If you copy someone's song, its plagiat. But, you want the creator of a computer program give it to you with the right to copy and recreate it anyway you like? How come a creator of computer program mustn't have the same rights as an author or songwriter or a singer or any other creator?
38 • origins of copyright law (by david esktorp on 2017-06-12 22:19:49 GMT from United States)
Most of the people who want to bicker about the low-hanging, spoiled fruits of copyright laws will NEVER discuss their origin. Copyright law and everything resembling it is a plague upon civilization that must be extinguished. Intellectual property does not exist. US law doesn't have the power to alter observable reality.. or does it?
39 • Software & Freedom (by M.Z. on 2017-06-12 23:06:07 GMT from United States)
@37
"Say you have "free software" MZ, you cannot use it on a table, on a bed or chair, but in a computer. But, that computer is not free."
So? Does that really mean anything? I think not. I live in a free society, yet there are taxes & I can't yell 'fire' in a move theater. Does that mean I'm not 'free', or am I still better off because my taxes pay to keep ISIS, neo-Nazis/white supremacists, 'peoples liberation' armies & other authoritarians who would rule with an iron fist away? Am I also not more free because others who might incite panic that would have me trampled at a theater face consequences just as I would? I live in the real wold & that wishy washy nonsense doesn't mean anything because free software is still relatively free & does what it was meant to do.
"If you take someone's book and copy it, its plagiat. If you copy someone's song, its plagiat."
Assuming you meant plagiarized, that's not really true at all. Ever hear a song that was out of copyright? How about reading a book that was hundreds of years old? I don't think Tom Paine got one cent for the copy of his work I own, but then he's dead so it doesn't really matter does it? Why do you want to pretend that all software authors want their work released under a closed source model? You do understand that they could apply to work for Microsoft or Red Hat right?
"The developer must come first and be highly respected and paid. The free software "philosophy" looks dangerously communist."
Red Hat made $2.4 Billion (US $s) last year in total revenue, how could that possibly be construed as 'Communist' I wonder? Also do you have any evidence that the developers at Red Hat are paid any less than the ones who work for Microsoft? I seriously doubt they earn any less real income, though you may have to account for the relative cost of living in Raleigh vs Redmond/Seattle if you found the income of both. Personally I think companies like Red Hat may be a small piece of a more ethical & humane form of capitalism than old time monopolies like Microsoft, but if you have _Credible_ evidence they did anything wrong I'd like to hear it.
It's also worth noting the effect caused by the fact that 'Free as in Speech' software is free to be modified by anyone with the skills. You end up with something far different & more suitable to the tastes of those of us care about freedom of choice than generic gruel from old time communist countries. The dizzying choice in distros reminds me far more of the giant grocery stores here in the US than of the things I know about poorly stocked food stores in the old USSR.
The generation of a fair profit ($200 Million at Red Hat in 2016) & good choices for end users speaks for its self in debunking your "...dangerously communist." talk.
Sources for all figures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat
40 • Freed Open-Source Stuff - Why? (by FOSSilizing Dinosaur on 2017-06-13 00:41:45 GMT from United States)
( @37 from OstroL)
"… because everyone deserves them." No. (Children don't deserve gifts, either, but that's tangential.)
Products that are Freed Open-Source allow a community to build a robust base. It's that simple.
Otherwise we're a motley mess of balkanized fiefdoms. It's that profound.
It's not necessarily socialist - big businesses work together for mutual interest just as much - it's practicality.
Licensing extremism sabotages such efforts. It would be much better if producers were better supported by consumers (perhaps someday someone will combine number theory and sociology for a better solution); the crowd-funding of bounties is but a paltry start in a better direction.
41 • @35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 FREEDOM (by Greg Zeng on 2017-06-13 03:34:39 GMT from Australia)
Internet & Linux were invented by tax-payer "volunteers", (excluding Donald Trump et al).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet
" ... originated in several computer science laboratories in the United States, United Kingdom, and France ... ".
Not a communist, religious nor capitalist stuff. All funded by honest, law-abiding tax payers. Some capitalist corporations & individuals do support "The Linux Foundation" with financial & non-financial resources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Foundation
All Linux, BSD, ... operating systems depend on these accumulated skills, finances & resources. As children, we can bicker about the small details. But we owe own existence to our many parents & grand-parents, imho. In the long term, ownership from a historical view, can look so petty.
42 • free to create licence (by copy right, left, & wrong on 2017-06-13 04:01:08 GMT from Australia)
For the "everything should be free" ppl:
Everyone is free to create their own licence. That's what RMS did in creating the GPL, That's what Berkeley did for BSD, that's what software & hardware companies do for their own stuff.. If you want creative ppl's work to be free to take and use - then you can create such a licence yourself, and get creative ppl to support it and attach it to their work.
Copyright law is a basic right provided by government. So if you want to overthrow copyright law, then you need to take your new "free use licence" to parliament and try to get legislation to support it.
Even the big man in the sky recognized basic ownership (& copyright) law when he said "thou shalt not steal".
43 • @ 39, 40, 41, 42 Free software (by OstroL on 2017-06-13 06:43:21 GMT from Poland)
None of you know about communism (or something that was) to comment on how it was. Neither RMS knows how it was. Most of you guys in the "free" world think you know, and some have "romantic" views on it. In that system, the creator of anything didn't have rights.
I read the views here https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html few times in the past too. They are dangerously communist. The line "it is the user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose" says all.
The user happens, if there was a developer of the software. Its first and foremost the idea of the developer. If the developer gives you the right to copy and tinker with it, you can do that, if you have the knowledge, but the original is always the developer's idea. And his/her hard work.
Take for example, Linux Mint. The original is Ubuntu. What's Mint here are some scripts, a desktop environment, some wallpapers. What really works underneath is Ubuntu. The rest is just wrappers on it.
Now take another example, Ubuntu Gnome Remix. It always said, its Ubuntu + Gnome, and it went to become an official derivative of Ubuntu and finally Ubuntu embraced the idea fully.
Do you find the word Ubuntu in the home page https://www.linuxmint.com? Go to the bottom and read the small letters. Its not there!
(Someone might argue that Ubuntu was originally from Debian. Of course, it is. And, that's mentioned in every Ubuntu distro - from Debian Stretch/Sid.)
(Plagiat is the Polish word for Plagiarism. The word is derived from Latin.)
(In the example) Ubuntu Gnome Remix was more ethical in its recreating a new distro, while MInt is not. Mint's idea is to push Ubuntu down -- ideas such as Ubuntu security is not good, you mustn't upgrade fully and so on. Why not base its distro on Gentoo, or Arch or Fedora or anything else that's not Ubuntu, if that's the case?
If you don't respect the purpose of the developer, the rights of the developer, you don't respect he program you use.
44 • @37 and 43 - the rights are as set out in the licence terms... (by Hoos on 2017-06-13 08:23:52 GMT from Singapore)
@37 said: "...Someone has to think and create the software. Why should that developer needs you to tinker with his product? If you take someone's book and copy it, its plagiat. If you copy someone's song, its plagiat. But, you want the creator of a computer program give it to you with the right to copy and recreate it anyway you like? How come a creator of computer program mustn't have the same rights as an author or songwriter or a singer or any other creator..."
@43: "If you don't respect the purpose of the developer, the rights of the developer, you don't respect he program you use."
A lot depends on the licence and rights that the developer asserts over his/her creation. If a developer creates software and CHOOSES to release it under the GPL, or Apache licence, one of the various Creative Commons licences, or an even more liberal licence (say, BSD), then their intention is to allow copying and at times even modification, subject to the conditions set out in the licence.
It won't be plagiarism if such software is copied and modified, because the creator intended it.
Surely if the terms of the licence have been fully complied with, the rights of the developer have been respected.
45 • communism bullshit (by curious on 2017-06-13 08:30:08 GMT from Germany)
Stop this rubbish already.
Who do you think DECIDED to release free software under a free license? The developers, of course - and they could have chosen a proprietary license if they had wanted to.
So, respect for the original developers demands that you respect that they WANTED their software to be free - they WANTED their users to have the freedoms that the GPL (or whatever free license they CHOSE) guarantees.
This has NOTHING to do with communism - or anti-communism. And it is not dangerous - except for companies that might want to create a software monopoly.
And the rant about Mint "pushing Ubuntu down" is completely absurd. Ubuntu is published as free software - partly because a lot of it (Kernel, GNU utilities, a lot of bundled software) already has a free license (GPL) that the Ubuntu developers must respect, and partly because THEY DECIDED that their contribution (i.e. specific Ubuntu software, and creating the distro) should be free too. But that means that ANYBODY is free to take Ubuntu and create their own distro (or anything else) from it. Only the better ones survive for a while or might even become popular. And that isn't "pushing down", that is using free software as intended, whether you like it personally or not.
46 • @45 (by OstroL on 2017-06-13 09:09:49 GMT from Poland)
Which one? about communism? Or "it is the user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose"? Or no developer, no user? Or that every developer dreams of having money coming directly to him/her?
47 • @44 (by lenn on 2017-06-13 09:20:39 GMT from United States)
>>A lot depends on the licence and rights that the developer asserts over his/her creation. If a developer creates software and CHOOSES to release it under the GPL, or Apache licence, one of the various Creative Commons licences, or an even more liberal licence (say, BSD), then their intention is to allow copying and at times even modification, subject to the conditions set out in the licence.<<
I have a feeling that the developer doesn't really choose, but being forced to choose, so he'd look nice in the "free" software world. In the "non-free" software world, there are lot of applications created and given out free, while the software is compiled and source code is not available. Interesting matter is that the software developers can create apps for the non-free OSs.
Android is sort of non-free, but millions of apps are made (with no available source code) and given out free. Everyone using a smartphone, tablet uses these "non-free" software and don't care two hoots about that.
48 • Reasons that lead to release software under a free licence (by Kazlu on 2017-06-13 09:56:37 GMT from France)
There are several reasons which leads developpers to release their software as free (as in free speech) software. I don't think that "so they would look nice in the "free" software world" is one of them, but I have no proof of that. Another reason is simply that a large part of the free software is (or was originally) small one-person projects developped on free time. Those projects do one particular thing, that has not much sense by itself. But when the piece of software of developper A is combined with piece of software of developper B, maybe by developper C who had an idea A and B did not, it starts being something capable of more things. That means more people interested in the whole thing, more users and potentially more ideas to implement for A and B as well as more bug reports. And that's much, mush easier when you have free access to the source code.
in #43, OstroL sait Linux Mint originated from Ubuntu and in turn Ubuntu originated from Debian. True. But where do you think Debian comes from? The Debian devs did not code the whole OS by themselves! They took pieces of software here and there (Linux kernel, GNU utilities, a desktop environment, a web browser, etc.) and put them together to make a complete OS. They used the software provided by others and modified it a bit so that the pieces fit together. This is not possible without free software (again, free as in free speech).
Alone, the devs of the small original projects would not have accomplished much. Together, with additional ideas of people that said "Hey, the idea of A is great, the one of B too, let's put them together! That's my idea!", they accomplish much greater things, more functional, more usable, which in return also help improve the original software. How is that dangerous?
49 • @48 (by OstroL on 2017-06-13 11:46:14 GMT from Poland)
"Alone, the devs of the small original projects would not have accomplished much. Together, with additional ideas of people that said "Hey, the idea of A is great, the one of B too, let's put them together! That's my idea!", they accomplish much greater things, more functional, more usable, which in return also help improve the original software."
Agreed to the above.
How is that dangerous?
The line "it is the user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose" says all.
Someone thought and then developed mobile phone, and everyone uses it. The same with the computer, cars, airplanes and everything around us. But, (should be BUT) the software must be free, otherwise its not ethical. People, who created very useful software--which we all use one way or other--but had not given away the code freely are not ethical. How come?
They too worked hard to create the software, a useful application. They might even give away the software for you to use, but won't give the code away. Are they not ethical? This is dividing people as bad or good.
50 • Free License (by jymm on 2017-06-13 11:47:11 GMT from United States)
We would not have Mint without Ubuntu, and we would not have Ubuntu without Debian. Also we would not have Debian without Linux. We might even include Unix, BSD and Minix as separate branches of this tree, and we probably wouldn't have any of these without free software licenses.
If you love proprietary there is always Windows and Apple to make you happy.
51 • @46 @47 Circular Arguments (by Matt on 2017-06-13 11:49:00 GMT from Singapore)
@OstroL
I think the communism you know is the one corrupted by Joseph Stalin and not the utopian vision dreamed by Karl Marx.
Your "no developer, no user" is a chicken and egg problem.
If there is no developer, there is no program for the users to use.
If there is no user, the developer had wasted his time on a program nobody will use.
@lenn
Please stop moving your goalposts.There are many developers choose not to open up their program's source code.
Many of Mircosoft's software are propriety. Example: Windows, Office, Exchage, etc.
Oracle stopped developing OpenSolaris and convert its open source license back to propriety despite the public backlash. It is still earning millions from its business customers.
Apple's MacOS is based on Freebsd yet there are parts of OS that are not open source. Likewise for Google's Android.
For every free as in beer apps in Apple's and Google's store, there are just as many paid and propriety apps.
@OstroL and lenn
It is the developers' choice to share their source code with their users and OTHER developers so that everyone can contribute in developing the software used by many.
It is their freedom to choose to participate in a community to develop software and to share it with others in the hope they do contribute back.
If you do not agree with this idea, you are also free to walk away and get your software from other developers.
52 • @51 and others (by OstroL on 2017-06-13 12:25:14 GMT from Poland)
"I think the communism you know is the one corrupted by Joseph Stalin and not the utopian vision dreamed by Karl Marx." There you are!
I read about RMS and his vision. He's lucky wasn't born in a communist country to have such "idealistic" ideas. I'm glad that Debian (and all other known mainstream distros) dropped most of his ideas and created pretty good going forward distros. If everyone kept to his "free" visions, we'd not have a single Linux distro user today. We'd have only mule-driven-cart like distros, if any would come out at all.
Off topic: He was happy of Steve Jobs death, and that too tells all.
"As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone."
— Richard Stallman
53 • @49 (by Kazlu on 2017-06-13 13:24:52 GMT from France)
"Someone thought and then developed mobile phone, and everyone uses it. The same with the computer, cars, airplanes and everything around us. But, (should be BUT) the software must be free, otherwise its not ethical. People, who created very useful software--which we all use one way or other--but had not given away the code freely are not ethical. How come?"
If you take the example of the cars, the equivalent of free software would be to provide the plans of the car when you sell it. Is it done? No. Is it unethical? Yes! Because that means it's harder to repair yourself or to have it repaired by a third party. More and more today, car manufacturers build very complex cars with notably a bunch of electronics where dismantling is not enough any longer to understand how it works. As a result, you are FORCED to have your car repaired by the manufacturer itself, which gladly charges you a LOT for the slightest repair. Hell, I've seen cars where you cannot even change a light bulb yourself! Is that ethical?
However, I understand the reasons, and probably giving away the plans of a modern car for free under the GPL is not a good idea: a company rich enough could take them, produce mode cars than the inventor and get more money out of it. That is not ethical either.
Where do you draw the line? It's the developper's choice. Take Mozilla for example: Firefox is published under the MPL licence, written by Mozilla itself. In essence, it says the licence is free, you can have the source code, modify it and recompile it, but you are not entitled to call the result "Firefox", you have to change the name. Hence, the logo and name are copyright protected. It's an interesting in-between position. It does not protect against counterfeiting, but it has a lot of advantages.
Another idea that could be inspiring: songs are copyright protected until decades after the author's death. That's ridiculous. Why the hell should the children and grandchildren of the author hold the rights for something they did not create? As opposed to that, medicines are protected for, IIRC, something like 10-20 years after being made public. That gives enough time for the authors to take credit and profit from their discovery, and after some years the protection if lifted, the formula is open and everyone can use it. This model, although ethically not perfect, combines securing the authors' profit and assuring everyone can make use of it in the end. It could be used for some specific software where research is expensive and has to be backed up financially with some protection against counterfeiting.
A lot of solutions exist today. But keeping an operating system's licence closed when everyone here knows there are relevant free alternatives, or keeping drivers source codes closed eternally, that is not ethical and shows no good will. At least, the hardware manufacturers could release the source code of their drivers when they wish to stop supporting it (say, when their attention is focused on newer models). That way, the open source community can take over the support if there are still enough users (and some developpers among them).
54 • Linux-libre (by davidnotcoulthard on 2017-06-13 14:59:15 GMT from Indonesia)
I run Linux-libre (actual linux-libre, not just deblobbed Linux, not that it matters much but anyway)......................and Windows 10 as a gaming VM so make of that what you'd like.
@52 How did Debian drop most of his ideas? It dropped some of his ideas but Debian is an example of a distro that hasn't done that much of it and agrees on many of the FSF's stances.
55 • @53 (by Ostrol on 2017-06-13 15:11:42 GMT from Poland)
"A lot of solutions exist today. But keeping an operating system's licence closed when everyone here knows there are relevant free alternatives, or keeping drivers source codes closed eternally, that is not ethical and shows no good will. At least, the hardware manufacturers could release the source code of their drivers when they wish to stop supporting it (say, when their attention is focused on newer models). That way, the open source community can take over the support if there are still enough users (and some developpers among them)."
Here in the Linux world, the closed operating system is not a problem, nor relevant. That's a problem of the users of those operating systems, that is, if they consider that as a problem. I rarely hear uses of those OSs complaining about closed systems.
We in the Linux world have free OSs, and practically all programs are free, but we are the loudest shouters about free software. What we have to learn is, we cannot push the makers of processors, chips, computers, printers etc, etc to make things for our special liking. Freeing the software (drivers etc) won't bring them the money. They are in the business to make money. And, they have to protect their knowledge that brings in the money. We say, no that's not ethical.
Do we say that to the bread maker? We don't. We just buy the bread, if that bread is good and tasty. We go to the bakery and buy it. We need the bread, so we buy it.
Now, that there are so many computers, and the internet, we like to buy computers and use them. Here, we say, this laptop must work with free software, or otherwise...
Anyway, Kazlu, we can go on arguing, and there is no end. I simply didn't like the saying "it is the user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose." It smelt of commie stuff.
56 • @ 54 maybe you like this stance too? (by lenn on 2017-06-13 15:15:37 GMT from United States)
Here's one;
>>Please don't pay to use a pay toilet.
2016-12-16
Pay toilets are nasty, and ought to be illegal. Those of us who are not poor can afford the price, if we accept the practice; poor people can't. To deny people access to a toilet when they need one is nasty and degrading.
I have concluded that the least we can do, to eliminate pay toilets, is to avoid giving them money. Instead of paying them, I go to great lengths to find some other toilet.
Please join me in rejecting pay toilets firmly.<<
I can imagine, going "great lengths" to find a "free" toilet! With his legs crossed tight together! So, he can stop paying for the cleaning people. He wants others to pay for the cleaning people. Imagine a unmaintained "free" toilet.
I think you guys should start reading https://stallman.org. I am now advertising it. I've book marked it. I'm becoming a fan of the guy.
57 • @56 (by Jake on 2017-06-13 16:42:55 GMT from United States)
That's a good analogy. I avoided pay toilets in Europe for that very reason--it just feels wrong to charge me because you're too cheap to keep the toilets clean (that's where paying comes from). The same is true for water at restaurants here in the US--it's just a basic "right" we have. The idea that "if you can't afford the water you should go somewhere else" is symbolic of what's really wrong with the world. People, go out there and make your money. Just don't be greedy and try to profit from other people's misery (either by causing it or taking advantage of someone suffering).
As for free software, apply the same idea. I have no problem with Red Hat making a ton of money off support or whatever else they want to do. Just don't deliberately put me or others in a position where I'm forced to pay you. And here is where a lot of the gray area lies--at what point is it my fault for not knowing enough (or being skilled enough) versus what complexity is being added that might bring benefit but then ultimately puts me in a position where I have to be dependent on them.
(This is not a slight against Red Hat; I hold this stance for any company).
58 • linux-libre (by davidnotcoulthard on 2017-06-13 19:26:43 GMT from Indonesia)
@56 I'm don't even try that hard to keep my system free (I pass through a 390 to a Windows guest FFS) but linux-libre does work with everything on my host so why not.
Also, you (and perhaps @57) apparently think that free slaves provide free service to their owners.
59 • Communist BS (by M.Z. on 2017-06-13 19:34:34 GMT from United States)
@51 & @52
'..."I think the communism you know is the one corrupted by Joseph Stalin and not the utopian vision dreamed by Karl Marx." There you are! ‘
Yes, some guy named Marx once had a Utopian vision for the wold free of private capital & profit, because of course he believed that money & private capital were the root of all evil. Funny thing about his so called solution in the Communist Manifesto, he advocated for an _Armed Revolution_ & a _Dictatorship_ of the so called ‘proletariat’, because of course these nice oppressed people would herald a new age free of corruption & evil.
Now the question is what really happens when you have an armed revolution & a dictatorship? Why corrupt & evil people are drawn in like moths to a flame of course! Then everyone who isn’t in power gets burned even worse than they did under the old system & capitalism may be gone but the connection between power & corruption remains. Such problems seem like an almost inevitable core evil under a Marxist system & are not present at all under a system of ‘Free as in Speech’ software.
There is absolutely no point of a gun forcing anyone to release code under the GPL, just a legally binding contract that preserves the rights spelled out in the GPL. You can release under the GPL or not, that’s a decision up to developers & companies releasing software. Under a similar vein developers have strong rights to do whatever they want with GPL software including making a profit. Which is of course evil under most forms of communism.
The reality is that there is no real connection between communism & Free & Open Source Software. If anything the two concepts are diametrically opposed, because under FOSS development models there is no central power & everyone has an equal right to do whatever they want. Red Hat has a right to make a profit from their work & Debian has the right to give theirs away for free. They can do whatever they want so long as their code stays under the same license & allow others the same rights over software that they have. The universal right to whatever you want is in so many ways totally against everything ‘dictatorships of the proletariat’ ever tried to achieve in the real world. The effect even eliminates the centralized power that such dictatorships seek to maintain. Similarly in communist countries that existed anywhere but on paper there are strong restrictions on the freedoms of speech that inspired FOSS.
It’s also worth noting that under most any form of communism that actually existed in the real word both the profits of Red Hat & the big servers powered by their distro are a threat because they are a form of private capital that are a means of producing consumerism on the internet. Also, real dictatorships of the proletariat know that the spread of information via channels like the internet are a threat to the state.
Of course, if you want to talk about Anarchism rather than Communism as a political philosophy that relates to FOSS, you may actually have something of a point. There are still of course the kind of power structures that Anarchists hate which exist in FOSS caused by companies like Red Hat, but going into that would be even farther off in the off topic weeds.
‘...I read about RMS and his vision. He's lucky wasn't born in a communist country to have such "idealistic" ideas. …'
No, he was born in a country with free speech rights & wanted to expand the rights of people into the realm of software. I find it very ironic that you recognize the potentially threatening nature of his ideas as applied to a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, yet are still so foolishly insistent that his ideas are communist.
@58
“Do you pay for toilets in the US?”
I don’t think such an evil as a pay toilet has ever been forced upon the US public, or at very least I’ve never seen it here. There are laws in many places requiring commercial establishments to have a certain number of restroom facilities based on how many customers they have, but we almost seem to preclude the creation of pay toilets. I suppose there are a few places where toilets are only for paying customers, but even those are fairly few & far between. I think they are mostly gas stations in bad neighborhoods where there are problems with frustrated people wreaking the facilities.
60 • @28: OstroL: (by dragonmouth on 2017-06-13 23:22:00 GMT from United States)
" You pay for your computer, but you don't want to pay for software. Strange, isn't it?"
Depends on how you look at it. I CANNOT build my own computer/hardware from scratch so I have to pay someone. However, I CAN write my own software and do, so I don't want/have to pay others.
61 • commies? (by Wunjo on 2017-06-13 23:43:23 GMT from Netherlands)
-"it is the user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose." It smelt of commie stuff.-
To me it looks like a derivate from an old merchand trick "The customer is King", while it's just the opposite. True, its all about divide and rule
62 • MX-16 (by Jordan on 2017-06-13 23:51:29 GMT from United States)
@1 Tim, yes it's a fine distro. I'm running it now after a quick slick install. So far I've noticed that it runs faster yet cooler than some other distros, comparing it directly to PCLinuxOS, which runs hot on every machine I've tried it on. The forums aren't much help, so I looked at the other distros on the "non-systemd" list and landed on MX-16.
I just may stick with it on this HP laptop.
63 • @OstroL: (by dragonmouth on 2017-06-14 00:04:09 GMT from United States)
Post #60 should have been addressed to #26. Finger check!
I was born and raised under communism. When it comes to software, OstroL, you do not know what you are talking about. You sound like Steve Balmer, ex-CEO of Microsoft. "Linux is communist!"
USERS are the ones who drive software development, developers develop what they are told to or asked to. In all my years as a software developer, we always developed what the users told us they needed. We, as developers, DID NOT develop a piece of software or a software system and TELL the users what they WILL USE. We always responded to the requests from the users. Although quite a few times what the users wanted was not what they needed. The we had to convince them.
Linux Torvalds was a user before he was a developer. Bill Gates was a user before he was a developer. They were using software that they felt was inadequate so they, as users had an idea for something better, which they then went on to develop. the same goes for all the other developers. One cannot develop anything that one has not used and has become familiar with. You cannot develop Python apps or improve on Python itself unless you have used it and become very familiar with it.
64 • more not quite free (by freeu freeme on 2017-06-14 02:57:31 GMT from Australia)
* Pay or free toilets - it doesn't matter you pay either way - a company cleaner for pay toilets or a gov cleaner for public toilets (via your taxes).
* even RMS doesn't create software for free - he is paid by the government to work on software projects. His views are just academic idealism, and have proven not totally practical in the real world.
* Most developers of free software expect to earn a reward in some other way: to get a programming job (students); via advertising (Google); via support (Red Hat); via security services (Qubes, Parrot); via international conferences (Torvalds) etc.
65 • Just a general comment. (by bigsky on 2017-06-14 03:16:54 GMT from Canada)
I can't believe and find it hard to comprehend after all this hard work the conversation has come to this ? TOILETS ? Really TOILETS . Merci and good by Mon cowboy.
66 • Markets: innovate, demand, supply, decay ... is evolving. (by Greg Zeng on 2017-06-14 03:42:31 GMT from Australia)
Distrowatch specializes atm in open-source type of computer operating systems. The earliest digital systems were pure binary, later to move to assembler, then later generation languages. Each generation of computer language is super-set of the previous English-only languages. Some historians claim (via "cluster analaysis, etc) that there is an integral progression of language evolution. Realists here that it is all analog (or "unreal", mathematically), with ownership ///7 tribution being extremely unclear, uncertain & disputable.
Paralleling the (value-free) numerical-computing systems up to now, the next biggest evolution of computer-based operating systems is even much more mathematical, and controlling (threatenening?) our human-value systems.
This very fastest computing system was launched by Bitcoin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin This currently has spawned 753 computer operating systems http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/views/all/ It is widely known that the pioneering innovator (Bitcoin & Assembly languages) have known faults & limits. Just as Apple & Linux are now using mathematically designed foundations (Unix), The 752 competitors to Bitcoin are trying to be better.
Most of these operating systems are open-source (like Linux). Each of the 752 claims to be "better" than the original, in some way. Each has innovators, demand, supply & decay. Just as digital systems is replacing hard-copy recordings of reality, the super-digital computer systems are threatening (atm) to replace all other value-systems, human or not. My second link here has both industry & user valuations of the worth of these 753 computerized value-systems.
67 • @65 toilet space (by freeu freeme on 2017-06-14 06:02:22 GMT from Australia)
Sorry, dude, when it comes to toilets free software and smart technology have already got there via the following:
* The toilet tool that displays large text out of smaller text.
* A range of toilet fonts out of which toilet text is created.
* The toilet add-on that displays toilet text in your browser.
* The Linux toilet Icon (Oh, but its copyright protected!).
* The fflush command that flushes user-space buffers.
* The Linux-operated and net-connected toilet, which sends tweets every time you flush in order to prompt ppl to save water. (even Donald Trump would pay for that one!)
* The Japanese bluetooth-enabled toilet, that hackers have already broken into - to annoy users by operating the flush mechanism at inopportune times (which gives you an idea of where some hackers minds are at).
So toilets are here to stay, and are already becoming an integral part of the Internet of Things. It's all thanks to the free software movement - get yourself a bowl full!
68 • @ 63 (by OstroL on 2017-06-14 06:15:07 GMT from Poland)
"I was born and raised under communism. When it comes to software, OstroL, you do not know what you are talking about. You sound like Steve Balmer, ex-CEO of Microsoft."
Well, I am still here, and this country kicked off the commies first for others to follow.
I am not interested in talking about Microsoft or Apple, or their proprietary software. That's the problem of users of those systems, if there is one.
My only problem was the line "it is the user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose." That's dividing people, and you should know what I mean, if you were raised in a former commie country.
69 • @63 (by OstroL on 2017-06-14 06:19:30 GMT from Poland)
"Linux Torvalds was a user before he was a developer. Bill Gates was a user before he was a developer. They were using software that they felt was inadequate so they, as users had an idea for something better, which they then went on to develop. the same goes for all the other developers. One cannot develop anything that one has not used and has become familiar with. You cannot develop Python apps or improve on Python itself unless you have used it and become very familiar with it."
Well, I am a user of bread, but I can't make it. I don't even know how to "upgrade" its taste.
70 • @65, 67, et al (by Mr. Clean on 2017-06-14 15:57:45 GMT from United States)
I'll say this: at least a conversation about toilets bring variety to the devolution of discussions here. Sometimes I think we talk about controversial topic X because it gets our attention (no, I'm not going to mention which ones given this week's topic).
It's also amusing in a strange sort of way. I liked the use of fflush. The Internet being a series of pipes also works. Kernel-level people like working on plumbing. I like the simple, almost rustic UI (although maybe that will change when touchscreens catch on).
71 • Let's not bring the "other" OSs into our discussions here (by tricky on 2017-06-14 17:52:26 GMT from United States)
Most of you guys bring in Windows and Apple, when you want to argue some matter concerning Linux or BSD here. Can't you bring good arguments, without mentioning them and their closed or open source packages, applications or whatever? What for?
Let's discuss Linux or BSD here. If we have to discuss any matter pertaining Linux and BSD, let it be without any mention of those "other" OSs. Also, to the developers of distros; when you create distros, stop mentioning those "other" distros. You don't have to pull their users here: they'd come voluntarily.
72 • More commie BS (by M.Z. on 2017-06-14 19:53:51 GMT from United States)
@68
'My only problem was the line "it is the user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose."...'
Look, there is no dictatorship of anything under the GPL, just a right for everyone to have access to the code that runs their software. It's not even directly useful to most users, they just benefit because like minded people will give them options better suited to their tastes. The developers are still in the drivers seat; however, anyone with the expertise can work with others to change & reform their software/OS at the drop of a dime & become the developers. Encouraging users to peacefully take control of the software & reform it to their tastes while coexisting with the existing powers that be is completely against the nature of armed revolutions called for in the communist manifesto. You can keep repeating this commie BS if you want, bust as Linux user with a minor in political science it seems a lot like ignorant FUD to me.
73 • GPL is not (by nano-me on 2017-06-15 00:29:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
@72 etc. I don't want to get involved in the heated conversations that have gone before. I would only point out that when it comes to projects of the size of the Linux Kernel [15 million lines of code], Firefox etc, control rests with the paid developers and their masters who really alone stand any chance of understanding the code, let alone being able to maintain it. That the Kernel is GPL-licenced only means that organisations like Google or Redhat would have the resources to do anything meaningful with the code. Yes, I can tinker with the Kernel .config and build custom versions of Linux, but I am lost if anything goes wrong, which, of course, it seldom does.
74 • @72 (by OstroL on 2017-06-15 03:04:10 GMT from Poland)
"It is the user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose" equals to "its our purpose that matters, not the others purpose" and that type of thinking had brought wars in the history, and still does.
"Look, there is no dictatorship of anything under the GPL..." Sure. there isn't an apparent one, but the decisions are taken by a group of people, who consider their thinking is better than the other people's thinking, but not by all the people. It looks like a democracy, and in all democracies, decisions of one group of people are imposed on the majority of "others." Its always the (apparently) right thinking and the mass.
I'm sure there are developers of programs, who'd want to put a 'better for him' license, or put some blockade in the code, so you can't use it without paying upfront, or when you want to use his program, but when he does that, he'd look an outsider in this "free software" world.
All Linux distros are asking for donations, but the majority never pay a cent. And, lot of distros die away. There is one (maybe more) Linux distro here, which want let you install it, without getting the code from the developer. He says outright, he wants to get paid, for he worked hard to create it. But, that distro is not at all popular. But, the other distro, released with the same DE is popular, for it only asks for "donations." It too, once wanted to stop "developing" for lack of money, even though it didn't say that outright. The wording was there between the lines.
There was one "nifty" distro, loved by many, but the developer stopped "developing" it and went to work at a paid job. That distro can be copied, and had been copied a lot, but that's not the same. The former developer might not ever come back. Most or all of the people, who originally created the "mainstream" distros have gone long ago. All of them had to earn money to maintain their lives. (Most probably.) What they got from the distros, they created was infighting.
75 • 32 & 64 bit CPU operating systems (INTEL vs AMD). Explained. (by Greg Zeng on 2017-06-15 03:35:51 GMT from Australia)
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.11.5/ distinguishes very greatly between "i386" (Intel 32 bit) and "amd64" (AMD 64 bit) kernels. Noobs will be confused. Some applications also have different versions for Intel 64-bit & also at the same time AMD 64-bit.
The correct solution afaik, is with 64 bit CPU microcomputers, choose the AMD 64 bit. The "Intel 64 bit" may or may not be referring to the older & original "Intel 64 bit", which is incompatible with the much more popular later "Intel 64 bit". This later version is based on the AMD innovation; not the old Intel innovation.
Every week a new stable Linux kernel is released. So when a fake Linux distro this week claimed that it had the "lstest" Linux kernel, it was two versons out of date. https://extonlinux.wordpress.com/2017/06/07/run-your-ubuntudebian-64-bit-system-with-the-latest-stable-kernel-4-11-3/
Luckily Distrowatch is reputable enough to not list this Exton, with its own outdated version of the old Ubuntu-based kernel. This Ubuntu-derived distro claims to demand a 20 GB partition. This is extremely wrong & hungrier in its claims than any other Ubuntu-base distribution. I have run old versions of Exton in my 10GB partitions very easily.
It also claims that its custom-compiled Linux kernel is 64 bit. There are several versions of "64-bit". If it is "32-bit PAE", often the coders of applications & operating systems claim 64 bit (compatibility). This is not true 64-bit. If any coder has genuine product, please make sure you understand how to accurately describe it.
76 • MX16.x, and Robolinux (by Basil Fernie on 2017-06-15 07:14:20 GMT from South Africa)
Congratulations to the MX team for the recognition given by DistroWatch readers, I've been using MX16 (and now MX16.1) for about 6 months and it is well deserved. Being a belt-and-braces kind of guy, I've used it as a reboot alternative to my long-loved Lubuntu, which is now being relegated to a backstop kind of role. One of the MX developers' choices that I've found very useful is to make Thunar the default file-manager, with much easier handling of permissions In short, MX to the front line. Everything (well, nearly) just works. I distro-dabble quite a lot, and I highly recommend MX16.x for your average SOHO user.
But Robolinux? I've been trying for nearly three years to get Robolinux to boot. Download the .iso, create the DVD with xfburn as always, reboot... Bleeagh. Give it an hour, six hours, 24 hours - nada. Has anyone ever successfully booted the live DVD? If you have, please share your secret with me. Please?
77 • Creation of Bootable Media (by Winchester on 2017-06-15 13:52:56 GMT from United States)
It seems to depend on the specific boot iso or img file.
Under Linux,to copy the image to a USB drive,the most reliable method usually is to use "ROSA Image Writer". In addition to the Linux version,there are also Mac and Windows versions of the software program.
Also under Linux,for writing to USB drives or SD cards,there is a good program called "Etcher". It works well under Debian-based distributions.
Under OpenSUSE there is "SUSE Studio Image Writer" which works similarly to "ROSA Image Writer" but seems to be compatible with a fewer number of iso's than the ROSA software is.
For writing the image to a disc under a GNU/Linux system,there is also K3B but,it should be the same as XFburn in that regard.
As far as writing a Linux iso under Windows goes,Rufus is usually the best option for USB drives and Active@IsoBurner or IMGburn for burning the images to discs.
78 • Booting RoboLinux (by Somewhat Reticent on 2017-06-15 17:34:31 GMT from United States)
I recently added the Xfce x64 version to my multi-boot USB flash device (see Steve's excellent documentation on Easy2Boot and RMPrepUSB) and gave it a quick test run. Nicely loaded. Could use a better dark theme, for those who prefer such - a quibble, to be sure, and easily fixed.
…
Unfortunately, the configuration seemed seriously hobbled, as it claimed it was unable to access FAT, NTFS, or even Ext# file-systems: show-stopper.
79 • Distrowatch wanted for the next computer systems - please. (by Greg Zeng on 2017-06-16 05:11:07 GMT from Australia)
http://www.coindesk.com/charts-enthusiasm-ethereum-hit-time-high-q1/
> Seems to me that the discussion is about another computer operating system. Or JUST the top two operating systems, of the total of 754 crypto-currencies. In my previous computer worlds, similar fanboy insults are still flying.
> Each current operating system has faults: poor optimizations, poor security, poor privacy, poor operating costs, poor upgrading ability, poor up-scaling, etc - compared to some future, theoretical ideal operating system. That is why there are at least 754 teams of computer coders, trying to outdo and better the others in the field of claimed "competence".
> None of this in-fighting & scheming is secret. We can all see the effects of "popularity". As in the Linux world, some teams are proud or not - to be labelled "open-source". Most claim management & code secrecy is or is not an important differentiating factor.
> Perhaps we need another "DistroWatch", to database the 754 differences. Some creative persons have tried to publicly do this. Most of the 754 coding teams have already very-privately done this for each of their market segments.
> In my hospice life-style, you youngsters will be long tackling, battling each other, long after I move onto the "next planet". The forthcoming "Crypto DistroWatch" will describe each of the market segments, just like the Linux DistroWatch. Out-flyers, scams & crooks will come & go so fast, they would not appear on any official list. From my life in my bed, it is interesting however watching the "claimed" innovations of the newcomers. Which of these innovations will the big-boys buy-out, steal or imitate?
> BTW: the serious crypto-coders can be monitored on their podcasts. Use your podcast tools, & search for "crypto". Each serious crypto-coder is aware of their origins & parallels to earlier computer operating systems. So different to the childish fanboy squabbles here.
80 • @79 (by curious on 2017-06-16 08:23:23 GMT from Germany)
Try http://cryptocoin.cc/ (also linked from the Distrowatch header) if you want info or discussion of crypto-currency software.
As far as I can see, those are not operating systems.
81 • Copyright law (by dick on 2017-06-16 15:09:07 GMT from Canada)
@42
"Copyright law is a basic right provided by government.
So if you want to overthrow copyright law, then you need
to take your new "free use licence" to parliament and try
to get legislation to support it."
Or... just decree your-creation to be
in Public Domain... perpetually.
82 • Antix (by Hombre-guapo on 2017-06-16 16:39:37 GMT from Nicaragua)
Just downloaded and installed Antix and all is working as usual nice and smooth no issues great work !!!!!!
I Don't have much success with Debian never have in 10 yrs of Linux for some reason, Antix Has been the only one i think that has continually surprised me.
@76 Like you I have tried many times to get Robolinux to work I have not tried this version yet and maybe i wont,
I think i had it boot once or twice in the past only for it to crash or freeze up.
83 • Open Source Development (by M.Z. on 2017-06-16 19:17:01 GMT from United States)
@73
"....only means that organisations like Google or Redhat would have the resources to do anything meaningful with the code."
Well from everything I've ever heard on the subject there have always been individual contributions form individual developers from the very start of the Linux project till now. Last I heard it was like 20-25% of total kernel changes, which was more than any individual company. Like I hinted at in @59 , there are indeed power structures in open source development. That doesn't actually take away from the freedom of the code & given how little even the top corporate contributes to the kernel actually put in, they are also dependent on the work of others so that they can profitably _Help_ create an OS as versatile as Linux.
@73 & 74
To me the GPL development model looks a lot more like the social contract theory put forth by Hobbes & discussed at great lengths by the classical Liberals than it looks like like any of the commie garbage spouted by Marx, or commented on by others here. When you release under the GPL you sign a new sort of social & legal contract that lets you build on the work of a huge community so long as you give the code back to that community.
@74
"...that type of thinking had brought wars in the history, and still does."
So wars over software? That really sounds rational to you?
"...but the decisions are taken by a group of people, who consider their thinking is better than the other people's thinking, but not by all the people."
Ever hear of a fork? How about OpenOffice to LibreOffice? Seems like a peaceful resolution to a tense situation to me & everyone still had access to the code until Oracle decided to give their version the code to another group.
"All Linux distros are asking for donations, but the majority never pay a cent."
So? Red Hat makes lots of money & others do as well. Last I head most all businesses fail with in the first 5 years. The difference with the GPL is that everyone has a very low barrier of entry compared to building something like MS Windows & as a result there are a lot more people willing to try making something, for whatever purpose be it profit or the fun of it. If anything open source gave them the opportunity to do something & say 'at least I tried', even if they fail like people do in so many other types of endeavors. It sounds like your complaining about something for the sake of complaining.
'..."It is the user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose"... ...It looks like a democracy, and in all democracies, decisions of one group of people are imposed on the majority of "others."...'
So you complain about the community of users having too much power & about developers imposing their will on the community at the same time? That doesn't seem to add up to any kind of coherent rational point. No system is perfect, but GPL software seems pretty awesome to me. If you don't like it go use MS or Apple, & stop posting self contradictory rationalizations about why you don't like the GPL development model.
84 • crypto & linux (by cryptthings on 2017-06-17 05:37:21 GMT from Australia)
@79 There has been some crossing over of tech from cryptocurrency to Linux - some good, some bad.
There's a few Linux distros made for cryptocurrency activities.
There's Blackstock & Maelstrom browsers that use blockchain-inspired peer2peer surfing for anonymity & security.
And malware has been developed to rope in other computers to mine for cryptocurrency.
85 • Breaking Barriers (by Breaking Barriers on 2017-06-17 16:38:13 GMT from Canada)
Penguin is chain trapped and strapped with firm oligarchy's grip from RedHat, OpenSuse, IBM, Amazon and lots more to name...
Is there anyone here to break barriers in compilers, boot-loaders, kernel and other softwares?...
Is there anyone here to reverse engineer every single bit of codes?...
Is there anyone here to dare?...
Is there anyone here willing to grant the penguine absolute FREEDOM?...
-It's more than a marathon.
Are you ready? If so, Let's Do It...,
or pls, keep mouth shut and hands-cuffed.
86 • Technically Broken by Technology (by Technically Broke on 2017-06-17 17:07:46 GMT from Canada)
@#85
I like your inputs, but, giving up. SoRRY!
Technically I am completely broke by the technology. I have no cents nor pennies left for new technological toys.
I have dumped and flushed all in-house tech toys into the BiG Tech TOILET.
If technology reaching up far north-pole, I am sky rocketting towards south-pole.
I have resigned from Project Manager (Lead) and may start selling organic vegies.
if #85 and his team need organic veggies to keep brain from being corrupted by GMO food,
Aliens Grass Roots from the MARS is recent addition to our new products list. Let me know.
I hope, not to see any penguins nor any tech toys on south-pole.
87 • Free Software & Trust (by M.Z. on 2017-06-17 19:11:07 GMT from United States)
@85 & 86
So, you seem to have a bit of an issue with trust in large organizations. I'm not so cynical that I see every big tech company as a threat, & indeed there are big tech companies I generally see as both necessary & helpful members of the open source community. That being said, I can certainly understand the fear give how some big companies do the wrong thing or start sliding in the wrong direction.
In order to help alleviate concerns with trust in code that's compiled for our consumption, there are certain projects such as reproducible builds that are meant to show that the software we download from the repos is exactly what it is supposed to be. Two other very important pieces of of the trust puzzle are getting people that you trust to audit the open source code, and monitoring your OS with tools like Wireshark to ensure that no unexpected communications is going on. I believe the first of these was done recently in OpenBSD in order to disprove claims that something was slipped into the project surreptitiously, and the second was used to catch a 'smart' TV manufacturer spying on their clients viewing habits.
At any rate, people with a lot more tech savvy than myself, or most other DW readers for that matter, seem to be doing a good job assuring that our software does what we want it to do. To me things not only look fairly good for trustworthy free & open software, but projects like reproducible builds are moving them in an even better direction.
https://reproducible-builds.org/
https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds
88 • Free Softwares and Fair Trust (by Breaking Barriers on 2017-06-17 22:56:31 GMT from Canada)
@ #87 M.Z
-"So, you seem to have a bit of an issue with trust in large organizations."
--> And, you seem like large organizations - "Devil's Advocate".
Of course, I have not only a bit of issue, but have tons of Geopbytes of issues with large organization who tried to invade personal privacy by selling fear. I have issues for every single one for those who corrupted open-source model for personal or corporate profits, or for spying on people for Governments which controlled by these oligarchies.
-"I'm not so cynical that I see every big tech company as a threat, & indeed there are big tech companies I generally see as both necessary & helpful members of the open source community."
--> Guess that you are the one of giving-in type of personality. I guess you are from USA and certainly not a terrorist who engaged terrorizing USA - motherland. But, you certainly very comfortable with NSA tapping your every-single calls even to family members, further more, NSA knows where you eat and sh*t by means of GPS tracking. By giving-in I guess, you feel safe and comfortable.
I am sort of bit different when it comes to personal privacy. If you knock my door, you are most welcomed, I will offer you Brazilian Coffee or Hot Java with Swiss cookies. But, if any one ever tries even to sneak into windows will definitely get a lead right in the forehead. It just a matter of different beliefs.
-"In order to help alleviate concerns with trust in code that's compiled for our consumption, there are certain projects such as reproducible builds that are meant to show that the software we download from the repos is exactly what it is supposed to be."
Hope you must be full aware of how many unwanted strings are attached to compiled binaries and ELFs by recent compilers. Have you ever traces memory-foot-prints of a any boot-loader?
Have you ever find out how many unwanted strings are attached to a Linux kernel?
If so, we can talk more in the details in these regards.
-"I believe the first of these was done recently in OpenBSD in order to disprove claims that something was slipped into the project surreptitiously, and the second was used to catch a 'smart' TV manufacturer spying on their clients viewing habits."
Agreed, now a days there plethora which makes hard to find a drinkable clean water droplet in a muddy-stream.
-"our software does what we want it to do."
Just a bit of personal advice, try to trace or figure out what it calls and what it does in background as well.
-" To me things not only look fairly good for trustworthy free & open software."
OpenSource Software Community is being sucked to the extent of the last drop of their blood and remains unrewarded.
I have a absolutely different views for the things which look fairly good and trustworthy to you.
It is nothing but just differences in our opinions, nothing personal.
Personally I really do not care much these tech toys now a days, and this is the fact.
Good Luck!
89 • @ 87 (by OstroL on 2017-06-18 04:26:00 GMT from Poland)
The BIOS firmware comes pre-installed on a personal computer's system board, and it is the first software run when powered on. But, it is closed source. There are few open source alternatives to BIOS, but personally I haven't seen any laptops with open source alternative bios. EFI firmware is certainly not open source. We use our computers booting in on closed source software to work later on open source software. Even, in then there are binaries, which we are not 100% sure are compiled with "friendly" code.
"I'm not so cynical that I see every big tech company as a threat, & indeed there are big tech companies I generally see as both necessary & helpful members of the open source community."
Could be, but once they become big, they want to take charge and for you to follow.
"If you don't like it go use MS or Apple.." Its a usual argument of a person, who either has no real arguments, and/or ready to give in person. If you are 100% sure of what you say, you then try hard to prove that your thinking is correct, but you don't say go to some other shop, if you don't like the cookies here. Anyway, in our Linux world, we shouldn't divide people. This division is there, even though we say, we are monolithic free open source loving people. We are most times biters, rather than friendly ones.
90 • Debian 9 Stretch (by tricky on 2017-06-18 04:55:47 GMT from United States)
Glad that Debian 9 had finally come out, only the fresh Debian 9 is already old with older applications/packages. Gnome 3.24 was out there for a long time, but Debian 9 has 3.22, KDE plasma is now 5.10.2, but Debian 9 has only 5.8, Mate is 1.18, but in the fresh Debian 9, it is 1.16. And, the list goes on. Everything is old in the freshly released newest Debian.
91 • @90 Stretch is partly old... (by Frederic Bezies on 2017-06-18 07:25:24 GMT from France)
Plasma 5.8 is a LTS version of KDE. Gnome 3.24 ? It was released back in march 2017. Mate 1.18 ? Also in march 2017. Stretch was ultimately frozen in february 2017. Will you complain also about using linux kernel 4.9 ?
https://community.kde.org/Schedules/Plasma_5
https://www.gnome.org/news/2017/03/gnome-3-24-released/
http://mate-desktop.org/blog/2017-03-13-mate-1-18-released/
Yes, a freshly released Debian Stable is kinda old on some parts, but this one is not as old as old as the hills!
92 • @90 - Debian 9 "already old" (by eco2geek on 2017-06-18 08:19:41 GMT from United States)
@90 said:
> Glad that Debian 9 had finally come out, only the fresh Debian 9 is already old with older
> applications/packages.
You don't use Debian Stable for the newness of its packages. You use it because it's stable and gets frequent security updates for a long period of time.
If you want Debian on the bleeding edge, get Debian Sid/Unstable. (Or, better yet, a distro like Siduction that's based on Debian Sid but has people who can help with the rough patches that users of Debian Sid can run into.)
93 • debian won't install from USB (by vern on 2017-06-18 15:20:14 GMT from United States)
debian won't install. Complains about not seeing CDROM. Downloaded the live hybrid iso. Burned into dvd, same issue. ctrl+alt+f2 ... # mount shows usb device mounted as CDROM.
There are plenty of complaints on debian forums with same issue.
94 • Bad FUD (by M.Z. on 2017-06-18 17:12:16 GMT from United States)
@88
"Guess that you are the one of giving-in type of personality. ... But, you certainly very comfortable with NSA tapping your every-single calls even to family members...
...It is nothing but just differences in our opinions, nothing personal."
You understand the irony in that last part given the ugly & personal nature of the complete & utter BS above it don't you? That level of cognitive dissonance surly doesn't indicate anything positive about the rest of the FUD you seem intent on spreading. Sorry but you can't have it both ways, & when someone tries to show you the brighter side of the situation when you ask for just that & you proceed with personal attacks you can't pretend to be friendly, reasonable & rational. No, you're just not worth listening too or trying to console from the world of mindless FUD you live in.
@89
"...Its a usual argument of a person, who either has no real arguments, and/or ready to give in person. If you are 100% sure of what you say, you then try hard to prove that your thinking is correct..."
I find that ironic given the general state of your own commentary. I'd also point out that you failed to point your quote to the correct posting, & in so doing failed to give the full & proper context of the sentiment. What about the rational holes & self contradiction point i in the @83 comments? What of the weakness in the nature of you communist claims when when compare the GPL to Thomas Hobbes & social contract theory, rather than to Marx? You make a lot of vague, wishy washy, & altogether FUDy arguments; however, you do a reasonable job of point out a singular weak point which admittedly looks bad when removed from context. Kudos for that, though it's not much of an accomplishment give how little you actually responded to.
95 • @91 (by tricky on 2017-06-18 19:40:49 GMT from United States)
>>Yes, a freshly released Debian Stable is kinda old on some parts<<
Sure!
Like beautiful new car with an old engine.
96 • Its All Relative For Point Releases - Car Analogy (by M.Z. on 2017-06-18 23:48:58 GMT from United States)
@95 & @91
">>Yes, a freshly released Debian Stable is kinda old on some parts<<
Sure!
Like beautiful new car with an old engine."
It's all relative for point release distros like Debian. Everything in there is very new relative to the last point release, but nothing in the 'Stable' branch was ever meant to be particularly cutting edge. As a car metaphor I think rolling distros are a bit like Formula One, which features huge R&D budgets pumped into those tiny high revving Direct Injection/Turbo/Hybrid motors & Debian is a bit like Nascar by comparison, where every point release is just like the introduction of fuel injection in comparison to the bleeding edge distros.
In both cases the race cars end up with fairly similar power outputs & can break 200 MPH in a straight line, but F1 cars are carbon fiber & built for far better cornering, which are among the reasons they are an altogether different sort of race car that a big steel Nascar vehicle. Regardless, both provide lots of racing entertainment to fans & both Debain & rolling releases can be good operating systems if you understand the principles they were built around & accept them for what they are.
Under the rules of Nascar you ultimately tend end up with far more lead changes & closer finishes than you ever get in F1 & many fans of Nascar find it more consistently entertaining. In a similar fashion the consistency of Debian & distros like CentOS & RHEL are prized far above the bleeding edge tech in rolling distros in most corporate server environments & it also suites many desktop users just fine as well. You just have to understand the different nature of the beast you are getting with different distros. Personally I prefer both sports car racing & a nice mix of different distros, both of which split the difference between new technology & simple consistency.
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| • 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 |
| • Full list of all issues |
| 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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| Random Distribution | 
Porteus
Porteus is a fast, portable and modular live CD/USB medium based on Slackware Linux. The distribution started as a community remix of Slax, another Slackware-based live CD, with KDE 3 as the default desktop for the i486 edition and a stripped-down KDE 4 as the desktop environment for the x86_64 flavour. There are now several desktop flavours of the distribution, which include editions running Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE Plasma, LXQt, MATE, and Xfce.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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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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