Debian World Domination Plan 547
An anonymous reader writes "Guillem Jover announced his plans to take over the non-Debian world and released a tool which converts in
runtime any distribution to Debian. It does not convert in the sense
of mapping all previous installed packages to the Debian counterparts,
but installs a base system or tarball and cleans traces from the
previous distribution."
Pathing the way (Score:3, Insightful)
Great timing (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds more like vandalism to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Debian's a fine distribution, but I doubt many people would take kindly to having this tool applied to a system that has been configured and running for any amount of time. If it's just going to install a base system, I'll just install a NEW system with Debian.
Show me a tool that converts portage or rpm data and creates a working Debian equivalent and I'll be impressed.
This doesnt accomplish anything more than wiping and starting over...
Debian Installer (Score:4, Insightful)
Oohhh... (Score:1, Insightful)
Just my useless 2 cents.
Hate this kind of atitude (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sounds more like vandalism to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
a) You wouldn't run this script unless you wanted it to. Your comment is like saying, of a crowbar, that "people who have been living in a house for so long wouldn't want this crowbar used to demolish their house"
b) Wiping and starting over, on a system that you've been running for a long time, doesn't help. Duh.
This script is useful if:
i) You have a running system, and don't want to change your system services setup (Apache config, for example), and
ii) You -want- to, for some reason, convert to using Debian packages and management tools on your system, without interrupting too many of your existing running services.
Yup, I can think of cases where I'd want to use this tool. I've got Server A which has stuff running on it, and I want to move to debians' pkg tools and libraries for managing the system... cool.
Good idea here ? (Score:1, Insightful)
My plan right now is to install Mandrake 10.0 which will be released in the next couple of days, and then wait until Debian has decent hardware autodetection during install to switch. See, I just HATE the download-old-Nvidia-drivers-on-w3m-and-somehow-pa
What I'd like to know is, would the debtakeover tool enable me to completely convert a Mandrake box into a Debian box while keeping my hardware settings intact ? If so, that'd be fantastic, even though this ought to be a buggy ride because the tool is still beta...
P.S. I'm somewhat of a Debian newbie and I know so, you don't have to confirm...
Re:How about a simple firewall instead (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Version 2.0... (Score:2, Insightful)
There is nothing that protects linux from adware/spyware and Kazaa except not having written versions for linux yet. It will be interesting to see what happens when the writers of "evil" software decide the time has come to move to linux...
Bias update time. (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, if Debian keeps improving that way, it may very well become a strong contender for the desktop, which would be a Really Good Thing. While we may be a much of geeks here on
(NB: Nope, I don't currently use Deb on my desktops, but if it keeps its current trend I may well switch eventually.)
Re:Stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sigh, when will people remember that it's Debian who does most of the major porting of XFree86 to other platforms other than x86. Personally last time I tried 4.3.0 I kept getting lockups that required a reboot when I played a file using mpg123 in a terminal. Also other odd but not as critical bugs.
If Debian doesn't support all of the archs that it does who will? Not everyone out there is running x86 and those that don't aren't second class citizens just because they're not running what a majority of other people are.
Re:Version 2.0... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah, your post explains why the script that prompted this story was written in the first place. Any system can be very easily converted to Debian/Redhat/Mandrake/whatever. It's the keeping the personal files without doing a backup that is new.
The reason for doing periodic backups is not so that you can migrate your system to a different distro/O.S. The reason for doing periodic backups is that you will not lose your files in the event of a hard disk failure (or accidental deletion, malware, etc).
Since this new software does not remove the need to do periodic backups and since this new software is not neccessary once you have done a backup. What is the point of it?
why? (Score:3, Insightful)
What is wrong with that? If I don't have any services listening, how are you going to connect to my machine to attack? Nope sorry, I don't use outlook express or IE on my gentoo box :)
Re:Stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, nor should it bother you (Score:5, Insightful)
Linus has been talking about world domination for 10 years.
[...]
So when its microsoft, people get antsy, but when its linux or debian, world domination is ok ?
Is that because
1) linux+debian are "inherently" good, and microsoft is inherently bad?
2) people are hypocritical and don't think more than about 8 inches infront of them
3) some other reason im missing..
1 and 3 are the correct answers.
3: Humor is a difficult concept I know, but try to follow along. Linus has been talking about "world domination" as a joke, not as a serious agenda. Any reading of his comments, in context, should make this abundantly clear (as should the historical context in which those of us using Linux in the early days circa 1993 never expected it to have the success it has had today).
which leads us to
1: Microsoft really is about world domination, and has a tremendously long track record of anti-competative behavior as a convicted monopolist to drive that point home. Microsoft really is about denying people choice, and has every intention of eradicating any viable alternative to their monopoly. Linux (even an arrogant distribution like Debian) has always been about choice, and Debian's occasional arrogance aside, this script's description as a "world domination utility" is almost certainly tongue in cheeck (c.f. "humor") and not meant seriously. In other words, yes, Microsoft (as defined by their own behavior) is Evil, and Linux (as defined by the behavior of its community) is generally Good.
And I say that as one who uses Gentoo and will never go back to Debian (ie. one who should "feel offended" if in fact I took this seriously, which I do not). It is a clever tool with a funny name based on an old, old joke, made all the funnier for having become a possibility (GNU/Linux really could "dominate" the world
If MS released the "Linux Upgrade Kit" that put whatever SKU of windows you wanted on the box, people would be furious.
They have (or haven't you been following their press releases), and while people are annoyed, no one seems to be particularly "furious." The reaction is more one of "rolling our eyes." A migration kit from Linux to Windows will get about as much use as a football bat...but it is fun to watch the behomeoth flounder and flail around.
Re:Stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
IMHO Debian needs to cut back on the number of supported architectures
If you were one of the people who ran Linux on one of those "other" architectures, you wouldn't feel this way. There are already a hundred gazillion distributions that focus on just a few architectures, and very few that try to be platform-agnostic. Why, exactly, do we need to take one of the very few latter, and convert it to yet another one of the former?
Re:Stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
In a lot of ways simply using debian is easier than not. It seems to be the only one immune to some of the political/software changes that break usability of other distros. That's why many new "distros" like Knoppix simply use Debian as the base of their systems. The fact that they toe a hardline and are a bit slow makes them stable and predictible...which is what you really need in OS software!
Stable is for Servers, Testing for workstations (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why it's called unstable, because it really is. Things change, sometimes substantially.
Every objection you have is valid, with the caviat that Debian is not difficult for someone who has done it more than once. Installing Debian doesn't take me multiple hours or days, it takes little for the base install and the pre-designed task-based "standard" packages. Just because I choose to select packages through dselect one at a time doesn't mean you have to.
Knoppix is indeed astounding, and the hardware detection system Knopper uses is being fed back into the main distribution. When I installed on the laptop I'm using right now, a Vaio PCG-GRT170, I used Knoppix as the install medium.
I would not recomend this method unless Knoppix does everything you want it to do already, or you like installing software by hand. The dependencies and unique packages built into Knoppix make bringing it into the mainstream Debian update system a serious effort.
If you want to install Debian, get the minimalist 30MB CD image. This puts a small base system in place to be built into whatever you want it to be.
Bob-
Re:How about a simple firewall instead (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you saying that a default install comes with no services running ala OpenBSD?
Are you saying that someone new to Debian, or a non-tech can run Debian without a mail server running? I put this question to a couple of regular users of Debian (they run desktops, a web server, and several other servers), and who also happen to teach linux classes in various sub-specialties, and who couldn't tell me whether the setup would work if I de-installed the mail server and ran with no mail server to eliminate that listening port...
There were over a half dozen other listening ports running in a minimal debian install I performed.
Your response fails to address the question, and confirms the tunnel vision. There is a fundamental problem with a lack of a firewall. Your response reinforces the defensiveness of a lacking critical piece of the distribution.
There are a myriad number of examples of installations of both windows and linux who were hacked in minutes of completing their installations once connected or while connected to the 'net, before patches could be downloaded.
You also conveniently skipped the part about the debian server security problems. I am still seeing messages about when will such and such server be up again.
Are you saying that there was no delay, none, in providing security patches during the security breach?
If I'm running a server, and the only port I open up to the net is port 80, I can have other services running without being an absolute expert on them, while learning, and still be able to serve web pages through Apache, which I was doing successfully through another distro for several years.
Why use debian then, why not go back to the distro I was using? That doesn't answer the original question. Why is debian missing a simple firewall? Tunnel vision. And your attitude displayed here today.
Insightful? Your post shows a definite lack of insight. And tunnel vision. And too many mod points floating around with nothing to do.
It is absurd that I can't enable something as simple as a zonealarm equivalent in Debian. And absurd that I have to go out and buy a router appliance with a firewall so I can simply block everything from the net, and open ports as I need them. I should be able to do this without buying the appliance.
I've been running various linux distros with both a router appliance performing nat with an additional firewall, and with individual firewalls on non-debian distros. And I've never been hacked to the best of my knowledge, including never been hacked on several desktop boxes running linux without a firewall, thanks to the router appliance. These are on internal lans, not outward facing servers. For me to have to go out and purchase and use another router appliance to run a web server on one of my public ip addresses is absurd. All thanks to the tunnel vision of the debian developers for not providing a simple, default firewall for every install.
Don't take my word for it. Go look at the subject pop up every few days for the last couple of years on debian-user, debian-firewall, debian-security...
Re:why? (Score:1, Insightful)
Why couldn't several people that teach linux classes and use debian as their distro and run debian servers, why couldn't they answer me on whether I could deinstall Exim, have no mail servers, and still run the web server (how will you get logs? how will root get messages?)
Why can't I run some services that I'm not too familiar with, and while getting used to them, not get hacked thanks to the firewall, instead of getting hacked by a mis-configuration? Or a lack of a security update while there are problems with the debian servers because of a security breach?
Why do other users need to conform to your and the debian style of simply not running services, when I may have a reason to run a service, I just don't want that service accessible to the internet?
Why does someone need to explain every conceivable install to find out what is so difficult about what other distributions already do?
Why ask why?
Reports of compromised boxes within minutes of connection to the 'net, prior to getting a chance to patch abound.
Isn't that reason enough?
ld-linux.so (Score:3, Insightful)
Try this sometime:
Re:Version 2.0... (Score:3, Insightful)
I have often wondered why Linux did not do some of the things which are needed here. Some of these things are just starting to become possible now, e.g. there is a lot of attention to the Windoze driver issue. Here is roughly what I think you would need to be able to do, reliably:
1. Read the old .ini files, registry etc, to see what hardware is there, including non plug and play devices for which there is no auto-detection.
2. Round up all the user's data and put it somewhere safe.
3. Read screen resolution, background image settings, etc and save it all somewhere. Calculate equivalent settings for X. (Interesting problem, going from Windoze settings to Modelines, I have never found out how to do that or where Windoze stores the settings.)Get all the icon positions for shortcuts etc, the new Linux apps will go in the same places. The icing on the cake, but why not...
4. Identify all Windoze hardware drivers, if there is not an equivalent Linux driver, put a wrapper round the Windoze driver to make it look as Linux expects. (Hint to Linus & friends - could this be done in the kernel, i.e. built in a Windoze driver subsystem?) If the driver can not support preemptive multitasking, it might get a bit difficult......
5. Automatically run as many Windoze applications as possible, one last time, and get them to save all their files in acceptable formats.
6. Boot up into a minimal Linux, and test the drivers one at a time, then together, to make sure there are no conflicts.
7. Politely ask the user to disappear for several hours while the new distro installs, migrates all settings and data, and blows away every last trace of the existence of Bill Gates.
It would have to be absolutely bomb-proof at every stage, with the option to backtrack until everything had been tested. Can it be done, I wonder? An intermediate stage of development would be to read the hardware details and submit them to a central site (absolutely no personal information of course, only the necessary info), where it could be looked up in a database, and things that had not been configured before could be automatically added. For instance, the software to disassemble a Windoze driver, do some analysis, and build a new Linux driver, might be kept centrally to avoid exposing anything proprietary.
IMHO it is the way the industry should be heading, it is all very well building fancy new kernels which support 32 CPUs (it should be done, and some people really need that) (of course it can't be done without exotic resources and extra-special people according to McBride, so all the more reason to do it, just as people climb mountains because they are supposed to be unclimable), but the real challenge and the place where the battle will be won (or lost, in the sad case of Fedora, a distro which needs to be put out of its misery by sending it to /dev/null) will be in installation and desktop configuration.
I wonder if a merger, or at least an increased convergence between Gnome and KDE would help, but maybe not, because we don't want a monopoly. Or do we need a new desktop with OLE2, SOAP, ActiveX and all the other M$ junk built in? I hope not.
Re:Pfft (Score:1, Insightful)
Stable: Old software (gnome 1.3 etc)
Testing: No security updates
Unstable: Less stability