Libranet On The Rocks 152
An anonymous reader writes "Following the death of his father Jon, it looks as though Tal is going to finally throw in the towel with regards the running of Libranet. Given his age and his personal circumstances who can blame in? But on a purely selfish level, is there anyone out there who can help save my favourite distribution?"
Re:I'm sorry, but who? (Score:5, Informative)
LibraNet is really "only" a Debian that's been smoothly polished...but that only covers a lot of usability. (I prefer using my system to tinkering with it. I may be a programmer, but I prefer to work at a considerable remove from the hardware.)
one man wonder distros (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm sorry, but who? (Score:3, Informative)
Libranet is one of few (Score:5, Informative)
Re:one man wonder distros (Score:3, Informative)
Libranet doesn't seem to have attracted the same kind of following unfortunately.
Adminmenu (Score:3, Informative)
While kernel compiling and other more advanced functions may not be necessary for novice users, it allows people interested in learning more about GNU/Linux a springboard to access its deeper features and perhaps become more proficient with the OS & software.
IMHO, Linux could benefit from more tools such as this, not to hold the hands of people who have no business tweaking such features, but to allow users to "break the ice" with advanced Linux ditro features.
I hope that Adminmenu or YAST could be easily integrated into other distros, as long as these tools don't cry when users want to start tweaking settings from the commandline (then again YAST has a complete curses implementation, which allows you to use the same tool for remote administration as local administration through GUI, neat).
Re:one man wonder distros (Score:1, Informative)
By the way, I will admit that while Shuttleworth does raise a few good points about binary compatibility, I would rather have a distribution that is compatible down to the very last bit with its "parent" – that way, if a package is available for the one system but not the other, one can simply download and install the package that's already available.
For example (correct me if I'm wrong), let's have a package pika which is in Debian but not Ubuntu or Libranet. If Libranet is indeed binary-compatible with Debian like I've heard, I could just download pika from Debian and install it on Libranet. Ubuntu, on the other hand, I'd have to either Google it, or if no one else had the package, build it from source, which can be a mess – especially with my favorite example of wireless drivers, which involve a lot of low-level stuff that can fail pretty easily if done by someone with little experience.
The same thing holds true with Ultima/Slackware, by the way – may as well just put in a quick shameless plug here while I'm at it. Let's say that someone wants FVWM2 on Ultima Linux, which doesn't have it in the default install [because I don't use it much, and Ultima's based mostly on what I use]. Rather than being forced to build it from source or Google it, the user could go to Slackware's site and download the package from there, because FVWM2 is included in Slackware proper. Because I try to develop Ultima to be as close to Slackware as possible, including using the same compiler and glibc versions and all that fun junk, it should work without a hitch.
OK, now to try and get back on topic, the point I'm trying to make is that if I were to choose a Debian derivative, Ubuntu or Libranet, I'd go for Libra. Really is too bad that they're closing...
Re:Libranet is one of few (Score:5, Informative)
My highest compliments regarding Libranet after Adminmenu is the community. The community is very knowledgeable and helpful and generally polite. I set my parents up with Libranet for that very reason, I knew they could ask questions in the forum and get answers without getting flamed and never wanting to try that again.
Since Jon's death, this was kind of expected. Nonetheless it is very sad news for a great distro.
Re:one man wonder distros (Score:1, Informative)
Well, as the saying goes, nothing gold can stay, eh? Although then again, the same could easily be said about Bill Gates & Micro$oft, or Steve Jobs & Apple... I have yet to see any of them dead yet, so who knows? Besides, even if I were the only user (not currently the case, I've gotten more e-mails from people using it than I know what to do with now
"Ubuntu now has a very clean looking package management, and also synaptic. And AFAIK it does wireless pretty well when it supports your adapter."
Just out of curiosity, have you ever used it? Because if you haven't, I see no reason to listen to you. In my own experience, though, it didn't support any of the adapters I own. Even though none of them had a problem with Slackware, Ultima, or even Damn Small.
"If this post wasn't a blatant advertisement, then I dont know what is."
I congratulate you on your ability to discern acute details. I would have never known. But seriously, yes, it was technically an advertisement, I'll admit, but advertising aside,
#!
if ( "one man job" == "unreliable and poorly built" ):
print "Well, maybe you're right."
else:
print "I told you so!"
And for the record, I actually do try other distros, and am open to suggestions and stuff. How else do you think I come up with new ideas?
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)