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1 • immutable OS vulnerabilites and show stopping bugs? (by shep on 2022-08-29 01:12:06 GMT from United States)
The immutable OS concept has been implemented by Android with project Treble. The underlying vendor (core) interface does change with the exception of bug/security fixes.:
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/05/here-comes-treble-modular-base-for.html
You can change the Generic System (Android 11 to Android 12) and the apps you're running.
The article does not address a big question? What happens when a security vulnerability or show stopping bug is in the immutable part.? Andoid would update.
2 • Debian and non-free firmware (by JeffC on 2022-08-29 01:17:36 GMT from United States)
Does Debian intend to exist as a distro to be installed, or only as a provider of parts for others to build a distro with?
A few weeks ago I watched a YouTube video in which an experienced Linux user went through installing Debian and after the trouble he had finding the ISO that worked with his hardware he wondered if the Debian developers actually intended for people to install it.
No doubt someone will try the lame excuse that you should pick hardware that is compatible with the distro, but some of us do not have access to a time machine.
3 • Arch grub issue (by Gifted Hater on 2022-08-29 01:20:24 GMT from United States)
Strange how such a widespread, boot breaking upstream issue that requires intervention hasn't been addressed on the main Arch site yet. EndeavourOS has posted about it, but the instructions aren't thought out very well, as the guide for those who hadn't updated yet doesn't consider how there was also a kernel upgrade the day before, and the instructions still lead to an unbootable system if you do them simultaneously. And sure enough there was a kernel update exactly 1 day before the bad grub update.
I saw it before I updated so I thought I was in the clear, but I still had to chroot in to fix it in the end. It was a frustrating weekend.
4 • @2, and Qubes (by Andy Prough on 2022-08-29 01:41:09 GMT from United States)
@2 said:
>"No doubt someone will try the lame excuse that you should pick hardware that is compatible with the distro, but some of us do not have access to a time machine."
Well, it's not exactly a "lame excuse" given that anyone who has ever installed any OS has had the responsibility to ensure that they had compatible hardware. You certainly can't install MacOS or Windows on incompatible hardware - the same is true of any GNU/Linux distro or any of the BSD's. This has always been the case. The person who made the Youtube video should have done their homework ahead of time.
Qubes OS - it's a real shame to read about the disastrous installation fails by Qubes. I was hoping to try it at some point this year, because the security concepts are very intriguing. But the fact that it is based on Fedora and uses Anaconda are complete deal killers for me. I've never had a good experience with either, and it doesn't sound like things have improved.
5 • EndeavorOS (by anomie on 2022-08-29 03:21:37 GMT from United States)
Was hit with my EndeavorOS system not booting this week. Had happily been using the system for at least a year. For me, this kills my interest in the project indefinitely. But I hope they recover soon.
6 • Grub Issue (by R Hoagland on 2022-08-29 03:34:13 GMT from United States)
@5 It's not just EndeavourOS, it's other Arch systems as well. It happened on my Arch desktop and my laptop running EOS.
7 • Metis Linux (by Simon Plaistowe on 2022-08-29 04:20:54 GMT from New Zealand)
Metis Linux looks interesting, might give it a try, perhaps I can keep some more of that old junk out of the landfill for a while longer.
8 • MicroOS (by Charlie on 2022-08-29 05:04:15 GMT from Hong Kong)
MicroOS has a desktop version, but it's based on Tumbleweed and currently only GNOME reaches the RC stage:
https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:MicroOS/Desktop
9 • immutable OS (by user on 2022-08-29 05:15:55 GMT from Bulgaria)
I do not run and will not run, I've already ditched the distro enforcing me into immutable OS.
10 • Immutable OSes and what's this about Debian? (by Kinoite user on 2022-08-29 06:50:51 GMT from United States)
Have been using Silverblue since last December and am quite happy with it. Actually, a couple months ago I switched to Kinoite, which is the KDE Plasma version (Silverblue is Gnome). It's working out great.
Hardest part was getting used to the new way of doing things, but it turns out to be very flexible. You install software in containers using "toolbx" (included) or distrobox (separately installed). They are essentially docker containers but made a lot simpler. Software can also be installed via Flatpak or layered on top of the image (in practice, mostlysimilar to installing packages on a traditional distro). Updates are frequent.
"Immutable" is not the best marketing term, but there are more than just theoretical advantages. Traditional Linux distributions tend to creep towards chaos overtime, with packages being installed and uninstalled, and bits of no longer relevant configuration lying all over the place. Outside of your home directory, that doesn't really happen on an immutable OS.
Speaking of traditional Linux distributions, what is this about Debian? Have they taken up GUIX's policy of not including even the most basic necessities in the official release (e.g. AMD graphics being unusable), or is this just the same old problem that's always existed with newer wireless cards? GUIX only includes the "Linux-libre" kernel, but I didn't think Debian every went that far.
11 • Debian Issues (by Hank on 2022-08-29 06:58:31 GMT from Netherlands)
Hopefully Debian will change its stance
Installing Debian has sadly become a very disturbing experience, most more modern hardware including my 12 year old device needs closed source additions to boot and function as designed. Being a long term user I was loathe to change to another distro but at present using a derivative called antiX and loving the experience.
Breakage of NVIDIA drivers is also seemingly becoming a regular occurrence, experienced quite often within a group of users. One recent case, a bug was fixed and calmly reintroduced a few weeks later in unstable sid and backports. Debian was famous for unstoppable reliability, seems only to be for base system these days. QA ?.
I was told I should change to Radeon graphics, nice advice, GPU is soldered to the board in laptops.
12 • Debian non-free (by Fabio on 2022-08-29 07:02:20 GMT from Italy)
I am an expert debian user on servers and laptops. Also if i know that a usb
stick with non-free firmware should be ready when installing debian i often
forget this (i have no usb in my pocket or no network connection, etc) and in
many cases I have lost a lot of time during debian installation for this reason.
The old decision of Debian to put non-free firmware out of the installation
files was against the users and against debian itself. Many people yet believe
that their hardware (with almost the same kernel version) runs with ubuntu or other distro but not with debian just for missing firmware files.
Thus I am happy the debian decided to change this policy.
13 • Possible Qubes install workaround (by GPZ on 2022-08-29 07:38:20 GMT from South Africa)
I recently watched a Qubes review on YouTube in which the presenter also mentioned having issues with the installation. Can't say for sure if it was the same issue, but in that case the presenter reportedly first booted with another OS, deleted all partitions so the entire disk was "free space" and was then able to successfully install Qubes.
I fully agree that inaccurate error messages are really bad. The issue might be actually be really easy to resolve if provided with enough accurate information.
14 • Immutable OS (by Kazlu on 2022-08-29 08:43:05 GMT from France)
Unless I am mistaken about the definition, there is a family of well-known distros that are immutable OSes and have not been told here: the Puppy Linux family and derivatives. The core OS is indeed read-only and only whatever the user adds will change from one installation to another.
In fact, I am not so sure of that, but don't you get a de facto immutable OS whenever you install your OS via frugal install?
15 • "Immutable" is a bit misleading term here (by deleatur on 2022-08-29 09:00:46 GMT from Argentina)
Puppy Linux, Fatdog64, Porteus, Dog Linux... are some metadistros based on that approach. And yet, you can modify your system any way you want.
Moreover, besides security (believe it or not), one collateral advantage is the simplicity to make working backups of your system (by good old-fashioned "copy-paste").
16 • Re 14 Puppy as immutable OS (by Kinoite user on 2022-08-29 09:04:31 GMT from United States)
That's an interesting observation. Of course, they're different in both implementation and purpose. The "immutable os" is intended to be installed, not run as a live cd. And it's updated in place. In reality, it's not very immutable at all. It's only the distribution-managed part which is immutable, but even it is not immutable in the absolute sense.
Puppy Linux, DSL, Dynaebolic, and similar, were actually more "immutable" than what's being called immutable now... They were ahead of their time.
(I miss Dynaebolic especially.)
17 • Grub issue and Qubes OS (by Brad on 2022-08-29 09:10:33 GMT from United States)
Hmm...I've not encountered the issue on Manjaro, but perhaps in the name of safety, I'll decline any updates for now, until the problem seems to have been fixed.
Sorry to hear about the installation issues with Qubes - like others here, I was willing to try it out when I had some free time, but it looks like this too, will have to be postponed...
18 • Grub issue (by Marco on 2022-08-29 11:24:17 GMT from United States)
@17 This is an example of a benefit of Manjaro holding back updates. Also, the grub issue seems to only affect EFI installations, and maybe not even all of them.
19 • Arch and GRUB (by jesuiswiizzz on 2022-08-29 11:32:31 GMT from France)
No problem with the GRUB version currently under investigation. My three Arch- and Plasma-based computers (desktop with UEFI, laptop with BIOS, laptop with BIOS and Endeavour) restarted flawlessly. Am I an exception?
20 • Immutable OS (by Mehdi on 2022-08-29 11:47:34 GMT from Algeria)
I am surprised that most of the poll participants chose `I do not run any immutable systems`, don't they use phones?
If I am not mistaken, If you are using an Android phone then you are using an immutable OS.
21 • Installing a native Debian system ... (by Gerhard Goetzhaber on 2022-08-29 12:09:53 GMT from Austria)
... is real horror to any user and most time infeasible for newcomers! This isn't just because of missing network devices' support but as well the effect of early (during post) failing the boot process of the freshly installed system if just having a common mid-range graphics card (evenly a "historical" model) as part of one's machine:
As a workaround, you may either change the Grub boot line by adding a simple digit "3" to force the system to boot in text mode only and then install the necessary package in terminal mode, or choose chrooting into your new Debian from another system (for example from a USB stick) and continue as proposed before.
Honestly however, who of you guys has knowledge mastery over Grub boot lines' manipulating or even chrooting? Which newby has??
Debian will do very well by performing a big change!
22 • Arch and special grub (by vmc on 2022-08-29 12:29:04 GMT from United States)
@19 no your not. I have 3 EndeavorOS installed along side Windows and Ubuntu. I do have a special grub.cfg in place. None of my OS's fail to run properly.
23 • grub and arch based distros (by Otis on 2022-08-29 12:31:19 GMT from United States)
@19 Talk about your hardware. Doing that may help others. Especially if
enough users of Arch based distros do that.
My Manjaro on a one year old Acer (intel) has shown no issues.
24 • Endless OS (by Christian on 2022-08-29 13:58:11 GMT from Canada)
How about Endless OS? Anyone using it? Seems to be tailored for the desktop and non-technical users.
25 • Debian (by Mitchell on 2022-08-29 14:06:48 GMT from United States)
@2 With Debian, I also found it difficult to locate an .iso: it was much easier to find out 'how difficult it was' than to actually locate any given .iso. I do wonder if a bit of hubris sets in due to familiarity for some of these projects. The concept of bringing in someone from the outside to look over the project's online setup makes so sense to me. It's hard to step away from it in your mind when one is so familiar with it. Ask yourself, "Can a child or Grand Mum navigate our site and find a downloadable .iso or .img file?" Keep it simple in order to serve the needs of others, not the indulgent side of self. Not to be blinded by one's own importance is a character trait well worth having. KISS
26 • Debian as desktop OS (by Terryn Serge on 2022-08-29 14:34:51 GMT from Belgium)
The original Debian site is indeed not the best way to look for an iso. I always use https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ to get my iso's.
27 • CUBES and immutablity (by Bobbie Sellers on 2022-08-29 14:48:38 GMT from United States)
Well back before Covid-19 hit I ran CUBES on my old Dell laptop. It worked then. Maybe the Team lost members before this release and cannot do the necessary work. That was only an
experimental install and I never got used to it. But it worked however the tools I wanted to use were awkward on a 15 inch screen with multiple tools open.
Immutable I have Android on an old tablet and I hate ti.
I run PCLinuxOS which is a Rolling Release and suits me much better at this
older stage of hardware accessibility.
bliss
28 • I like Debian's installer (by Matt on 2022-08-29 15:34:58 GMT from United States)
Compared to some of the Debian children (Ubuntu, Mint, etc.), Debian is hard to install as a desktop OS for a new user. However, compared to "enthusiast" distributions (Arch, Void, Gentoo, etc.), Debian is easy to install.
My main desktop has an SSD drive for root and two identical SATA drives in mirrored RAID configuration for home. My laptop has an encrypted NVME drive for root and an encrypted SATA SSD drive for home. Try setting up either one of those, or any machine with an atypical partitioning scheme and you will see how Debian's installer is very flexible and saves time.
29 • @26 Debian design (by Tad Strange on 2022-08-29 17:29:53 GMT from Canada)
That page isn't much better, honestly, especially once you start browsing the 1990's throwback ftp-ish folder trees.
The single biggest roadblock to using Debian has always been their utterly rubbishy and disorganised web presence.
I'm surprised to not find a hit counter and a "proudly created in vi" button somewhere in there.
I'm with #2 - they really don't want the bother of appealing to the average user.
30 • Imutable OS (by Werner Claassen on 2022-08-29 19:50:01 GMT from South Africa)
I run Endless OS Basic as my only daily driver on my laptop. It is all that modern Linux needs to be. Secure, Fast, Easy and Unbreakable!!! Awesome work developers of Endless OS
31 • Anaconda installer (by Scott Dowdle on 2022-08-29 19:58:36 GMT from United States)
The fine article said, "this experience really highlights just how bad the notorious Anaconda installer is". Being on the Fedora Respin SIG, I do a ton of installs... mostly in KVM VMs... but also in the real world on physical hardware. I generally do not have any issues with Anaconda and believe your characterization of it with the quoted words above... well... I guess your milage varied. :) Anaconda is my preferred distro installer.
One occasion I've seen a user have issues, although it was a few years ago... was someone who does lots of distro installs and they had a partition table that was very non-standard with out-of-order partitions. Whether that was in any way related to your issue, I have no idea.
32 • Immutable... (by Tech in San Diego on 2022-08-29 21:42:02 GMT from United States)
Many thanks to the author of this weeks "Questions and Answers". Over the past few months
I have switched 20 of our Lab instruments from Windows to openSUSE MicroOS (KDE). The
research and development department absolutely agrees with my position that this is the best
approach in keeping our equipment within compliance with federal regulations. The fact that the
underlying O/S can not be modified and that all desktops attached to the test equipment are
identical will ensure that the technicians performing the tests will have a high confidence that
their test results are accurate.
33 • Debian firmware stance (by Ted on 2022-08-29 22:32:42 GMT from Luxembourg)
Why do people who don't care much about software freedom try to install official Debian images on incompatible hardware? Is it so hard to read the release notes?
I hope Debian developers vote against the proposed changes. Otherwise it'll be an absurd situation: no official GNU documentation in official images (because it's non-free according to Debian Free Software Guidelines) but tons of non-free executable firmware instead.
34 • Debian firmware (by JeffC on 2022-08-30 00:08:08 GMT from United States)
@4
When you buy a computer most of them come with Windows pre-installed, there is no need to check if it is compatible.
The same is true with MacOS, they sell their hardware with the OS on it.
In neither case is there any research needed.
Or for that matter need to install an OS themselves.
What do you want to do? Keep people from repurposing hardware? Tell them to throw it away and buy an new expensive computer to run Linux on?
The harder Linux is to install a working distro the fewer users there will be.
The fewer users there are the less attention the hardware makers need to give.
35 • Firmware (by Ted on 2022-08-30 01:08:00 GMT from Iceland)
@34
The number of people who give up to install GNU/Linux after trying to install Debian from official media is neglible, certainly irrelevant to influence decisions or practices of hardware vendors. People (especially novices) usually use Ubuntu or its derivatives for desktops and laptops. Debian users know what they are doing and can click the right download link.
36 • Qubes, Debian, Immutable OS's (by eganonoa on 2022-08-30 01:17:57 GMT from United States)
Qubes has a VERY limited hardware compatibility list: https://www.qubes-os.org/hcl/. I wonder whether that was the underlying issue that Jessie faced (the hardware used wasn't listed). Agree entirely on Anaconda, which is just horrible. And generally agree on Fedora. Having to update your various fedora VMs so frequently is, at a minimum, annoying.
Am a bit surprised about all the discussion on Debian. I think it is great that there is commitment to free sotfware in such an important distro, especially when there are plenty of other distros that use Debian as a base that add in the non-free stuff. I think this is exactly what we should be looking for with linux. Debian focuses on what it does, perfecting the base. Ubuntu and others can come in on top on things like broader hardware compatibility, etc. Don't see a problem with the current position.
A couple years ago I tried Silverblue. Spent quite a whole getting the system how I liked it and needed to rely on overlays more than I would have liked. But eventually I got it there. Found the experience frustrating. But strangely enough, it is the one system I've stuck with. Once it was set up, it has been utterly rock solid. I love that not matter what I do, I can't break it. Roll it back or update. Simple.
37 • @35 (by Ted on 2022-08-30 01:17:57 GMT from Iceland)
I meant "give up installing" and "negligible".
38 • @33 (re Debian and non-free components) (by Simon on 2022-08-30 03:45:11 GMT from New Zealand)
Exactly. People who complain about the absence of non-free components in an explicitly free software project are... confused, to say the least... especially when there are so many Debian derivatives (Ubuntu and all its derivatives, for example) that already layer on the non-free components they're so upset about not finding in a *free* OS. If the Debian developers give in to all the whining and abandon their founding principles, they're morons. Just use Ubuntu if you're upset that you have to use (gasp) an installer other than the default installer to install Debian with non-free components: to expect a project that explicitly exists to avoid what you're wanting, to do what you want regardless when there are countless projects already doing that, is almost unbelievably entitled... it's like going to a baseball game and whining that they're not playing football because you like that better. Maybe go to a football game, then...?
39 • Alchg Ouch!, And let's beat up on Debian (by Dr. Hu on 2022-08-30 06:46:47 GMT from Philippines)
"Alchg!" How do they come up with these names? My fingers recoil from typing it and my spellchecker thinks I've gone rogue. Maybe it means something in Japanese, like: "I stubbed my toe, Alchg!!" But seriously, why Vivaldi on a supposedly very light distro? Especially so if it's to be used live. Is one going to configure Vivaldi at every boot? The Japanese web-page thing, as long as you are quick enough with "2" and "enter," can be solved in Vivaldi's settings, but then you'd be doing that also at every boot. To be fair, they also bill themselves as an Arch install CD. Don't know how well that would go.
By comparison, I've got a copy of Star, based on Devuan, which after install idles around 240 MB, and It includes the XFCE desktop on an ISO about half the size of Alchg's. And everything seems to work, in English no less. It can also be used live and boot to RAM. From the same page at Sourceforge, one can download versions with Openbox or i3.
About Debian: I'm running it right now. I installed from a SpiralLinux ISO, just to try it. Easy as pie. SpiralLinux is not really a separate distro, it's just ISOs all set up to install Debian just about any way you want, with no fuss. Years back I kept copies of several drivers which were needed to install just about any distro. Today I keep one, for WiFi, and I use it whenever I install from the Debian installer. No big deal.
I care less than little whether the software I use is proprietary or not, but free software is supposed to be Debian's raison d'être. So why pick on them when their repos, software and all else is available to anyone? And when there is an excess of derivatives with so many ways to install? Try telling the people at Arch that you want granny or the kids to be able to install their OS, and that they should adapt it. They'd probably laugh. There might even be obscene gestures involved. If I were Debian, that would be my reaction too.
40 • Debian iso... (by Ron on 2022-08-30 07:29:39 GMT from United States)
I remember about 3 or 4 yrs. ago downloading an ISO from Debian which was a live ISO that
had the wireless pre-installed so that all I had to do was install it all and it was up and running when I signed in. It was a real pleasure. I have PureOS (Debian based) on a laptop and it was a real pain having to download the Debian package and install it with the ethernet cable. I can
see them not wanting to include other stuff, but something like wireless which just about
everyone uses is necessary in my opinion. Debian seems like a cranky old person set in their
ways that refuse to change. I guess it is the Grandparent of Linux...Despite it all, I still like
Debian and wish them well...Oh, I still hate Anaconda after all these years, although it seems
to have gotten easier to use over the years. I remember my 1st time trying to install Fedora
with Anaconda, and it was a nightmare...
41 • @40 PureOS (by Dr.Hu on 2022-08-30 09:13:15 GMT from Philippines)
"PureOS uses free and open source software exclusively and is endorsed by the Free Software Foundation" I fail to understand why you'd expect it to include proprietary software exclusively for you. To save future misunderstandings, why not bookmark this web-page, since none of these will include your WiFi firmware:
https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.en.html
"Debian seems like a cranky old person" Not all these "free" distros are based on Debian. As for cranky old persons, one word: mirror.
42 • debian install (by dony hendratmo on 2022-08-30 10:45:03 GMT from Indonesia)
contrary with popular opinion, debian free iso image works better for me.
i have bad experience using debian non-free iso image. it failed to boot.
whenever i use free iso image, it succeed to boot,
i hope debian team will be careful with their decision.
43 • Anaconda (by Otis on 2022-08-30 11:44:59 GMT from United States)
@40 (and others) I confess to wondering what the issues are, specifically,
with Anaconda. I remember as a complete noob to Linux and finding that
there was this thing called an "installer" and it had a name. It had step by
step directions and a "next" button. Then "finish." Then you restart the
computer and voila an installed alternative to Windows right there on my
screen. I recall having to struggle with other things in those early days, but
never the installer.... on pretty much any distro I tried. The "nightmare"
installers were the ones that I had no experience using and needed to
practice.
Hardware was the issue for me then. Even the keyboard after the reboot.
But never Anaconda. It just lead me through the process. Glad to see it's
still around.
44 • Debian install, non-free, user friendly etc (by zcatav on 2022-08-30 11:58:31 GMT from Turkey)
Please try SpiralLinux (https://spirallinux.github.io/). All goodness + Debian.
Thanks to builder and maintainer of SpiralLinux and GeckoLinux.
45 • Qubes (by Udo on 2022-08-30 12:20:20 GMT from Germany)
Qubes is actually my daily driver for several years now. Currently I am using a standard Intel NUC (Core i3 with 32GiB Ram) as the base hardware. Works like a charm - on a 4K screen :-)
In this very moment I am typing this comment into a Firefox inside my "untrusted" Domain. Neighbor Desktops run a "private", a "work" and a "company" (debian-) Domain. Each one has an isolated Firefox instance running. Copying the clipboard is trivial, data files are on a NAS.
That said: I have more than one computer reachable - some others are running plain Ubuntu with Wayland/Sway and sometimes Gnome. And several others are living pure virtually in my basement :-)
46 • Debian non-free (by Fabio on 2022-08-30 13:56:41 GMT from Italy)
@33 : non-free firmware are not "tons of non free executable". In a
server/desktop or in a laptop there are often just one or two particular components (often the wifi or a fiber optic ethernet card in servers) that need special firmware.
For example my laptop has an intel wifi card and could not run properly without the debian non-free "firmware-iwlwifi" package. The fact that this package is installed does not make me less "free" and indeed the package is in a official debian repository. In fact without it i should obliged to use windows10 in place of Linux if i want to work with my laptop.
Debian does not make available this file or other similar at installation (but easily after enabling the non-free packages) and so
people that is not expert, but want to try debian, is immediately deceived for lack of knowledge.
47 • Immutable OS (by Robert on 2022-08-30 18:19:03 GMT from United States)
I use an immutable OS on my fileserver (not a poll option). In the opens user installer there is an option for "transactional server" which mounts the root filesystem as read only. All updates and modifications are made in a snapshot which you then reboot into, while the running system is unchanged. I think this is the same tech as used in MicroOS, just not explicitly minimal and intended for containers.
I prefer this approach as it is more flexible and familiar compared to something like Silverblue. There aren'tmany, but there are things that are difficult or impossible to do on Silverblue.
48 • Firmware (by Ted on 2022-08-30 21:24:02 GMT from Austria)
@46: please just ask your laptop manufacturer to ship the required firmware on the EFI partition
Or just use the unofficial installer or buy a USB Wi-Fi dongle. And please don't confuse "confused" and "deceived".
49 • debian (by dave on 2022-08-31 01:09:21 GMT from United States)
Years ago, when I was still using Ubuntu (or Xubuntu) I had a nagging concern that perhaps one day, Canonical might close up shop and then Debian would be left holding the bag, so to speak. I used to imagine a situation in which Debian consumed Ubuntu's 'user friendly' developments and absorbed its userbase.
Later I became a Debian user and realized what an undesirable situation that would be.
Nowadays I have no fear of that ever transpiring, because even if Ubuntu went away, there would be some project like Mint to take the brunt of the blow to the audience.
Debian should always remain free by default. It shouldn't have to be 'user friendly' in the modern (non-free) sense of the term. As others have said-- that's a responsibility for the Ubuntus and Mints. If someone wishes to modify a Debian install, it's easy enough to do.. if you're not up to the task or don't want to do that amount of work, there are plenty of Debian-based distributions who provide excellent 'out of the box' solutions.
If Debian ever has the resources to provide an official non-free variant, fine.. but the default should be free and free is where their priorities should lie; the project's founding principles shouldn't be betrayed.
Complaints about the way they organize the website etc are sort of a side issue. Confusion about how to download the version you need ultimately comes down to user ignorance. Their website has actually gotten sort of bloated with modern soydev design choices in recent years and I would support a move back to a simpler 'old school' layout.
50 • Debian (by dude on 2022-08-31 03:02:39 GMT from United States)
i really like Debian. But I don't use it, because it's incompatible with my laptops wifi adapter.
51 • @50 incompatible laptops wifi adapter (by zcatav on 2022-08-31 09:56:46 GMT from Turkey)
@50 • Debian (by dude
>"i really like Debian. But I don't use it, because it's incompatible with my laptops wifi adapter."
Did you try SpiralLinux or MxLinux as a live system?
52 • Qubes OS and the Anaconda Installer collab (by Scott Dowdle on 2022-08-31 21:19:11 GMT from United States)
@Jesse Smith - I've used QubesOS before just to try it out on a laptop, but it has been a while... so I talked to a co-worker who uses it regularly to have him review what you wrote. He said that QubesOS definitely requires LVM and that if you go with the default partitioning scheme, they have altered Anaconda so that it'll produce the partitioning scheme that is needed.
As you (hopefully) know QubesOS is not a general purpose distro and it has some strict requirements and should not be treated like a general purpose distro where you can partition things with the freedom you would have on other distros. QubesOS has not modified the Anaconda installer enough that it'll keep the user from making bad decisions with the partitioning tool... satisfying Anaconda but not QubesOS... which is in line with there not being any warning icons in the spokes but the distro still not being happy. I guess it could have tried to do the install with the given parameters and just failed... but in this case... it just provides a non-informative and invalid error message rather than proceeding. I'm not sure which is better but at least what you encountered took less time than going through with the install and failing at some point down the line.
So, if you want to read up a little bit more on QubesOS and the install process, I'm sure you can get through an install (assuming the hardware you are using meets the requirements) and give it a try... but it definitely ain't a typical desktop distro with a lot of install flexibility. QubesOS is really a complex Xen-based VM-as-application-appliance system with security at the forfront and advanced features like driver VMs that manage access to networking, etc. It is definitely worth all of the trouble if its use case is your thing.
53 • @52, Qubes OS and the Anaconda Installer collab (by Wally on 2022-09-01 11:29:33 GMT from Australia)
Conclusion: Anaconda sucks more on Qubes but that's on purpose.
54 • Wish they would invert it (by CS on 2022-09-01 21:29:28 GMT from United States)
Instead of a base distro that doesn't work, where downstream "usability" distros like Mint have to come along and shape it into a working distro I wish the base distro was usable and the fanatics could derive downstream non-working distros that only they would use.
This has been going on for 20+ years and it hasn't solved a thing. Broadcom and Nvidia are making money hand over fist, they have no incentive to change. Give your poor suffering users something that works better please.
55 • @54 (by Ted on 2022-09-02 00:07:27 GMT from United States)
"No incentive to change"? And yet Nvidia have recently open-sourced kernel modules for certain models of their GPUs.
"Poor suffering users"? Whining "for 20+ years" "hasn't solved a thing". Investment of time or money coupled with determination has.
56 • @54 • Wish they would invert it (by Wally on 2022-09-02 09:39:49 GMT from Australia)
"Give your poor suffering users something that works better please." Suffering with Debian here, but it's my cross to bear. And besides, I love pain and suffering.
Number of Comments: 56
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MIZI Linux was a Linux distribution which has been developed by Mizi Research since 1998. MIZI Linux 2.0 was our 4th release. Our goal was to develop a Linux distribution that can be used in every place from home, office, school, and even inside of space shuttle, we brightly expect, as the user-friendly Desktop OS. It should be an alternative of Microsoft Windows for people who want a powerful, flexible for a specific purpose, and stable computing environment. The MIZI Linux uses the KDE (K Desktop Environment) as the user interface and has many customized packages for the end user. It provides easier desktop environment than any other distribution on earth.
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