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Debian

Ian Murdock On 'Pure' Vs. 'Commercial' Debian 56

Posted by Hemos from the sparks-for-the-tindet dept.
Netsnipe writes: "Shortly after the release of Progeny Debian Beta 1, I wrote an article on DebianPlanet called "Blurring the Line Between Pure Debian and its Commercial Variants" questioning the standing of commercial variants of Debian among the many purists to Debian's non-commercial principles who would find it hard-pressed to stray from mainstream Debian. The article's accompanying poll illustrated that an overwhelming 58% of respondents would not use a commercial variant of Debian as opposed to 32% who would. Ian Murdock, a former founding member of Debian GNU/Linux and now the founder and CEO of Progeny Linux Systems has written an interesting reply to my article where he defends Progeny despite its commercial leanings and explains how he feels it stands within the Debian scene. "
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Ian Murdock On "Pure" Vs" Commercial Debian More

Ian Murdock On "Pure" Vs" Commercial Debian

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  • As an example of what frequently occurs try setting up an internet connection. Once you get something wrong, or press Enter by mistake, you can't recover until after installation is done.

    Debian install apparently uses a lot of chained scripts that don't link backwards well.

    As far as the MBR thing, it always is installed when I try the Debian thing on my laptop. Now I have Win98 as hda1, /home as hda2, extended partition as hda3, swap as hda5 and / as hda6. Perhaps MBR is installed only when / is not a primary partition. But for me it is installed and has such friendly commands as "to get to your windows installation press Shift key during boot, then once the friendly '25A' prompt is shown press 'A'. Then when '12345' is shown press '1', and windows is now booted". Bah!

  • Arhhhh arhhhh!!!! mea culpa! :-/////

    Sorry about that, I had a look at the sourceforge website and the version therere was 0.07 the very same version I had on my computer... and downloaded ages ago. (still, patato makes version 0.04 available)

    Once again, sorry if I wasn't looking in the right place!

    ---

  • Hell, there's not even a correct way to pronounce Linux; what's the problem? ;-)
  • There are (to my knowledge) two commercial Debian-based distros: Corel and Storm Linux. Both suck in a way, because their improvements are not free, and are not folded back into plain old Debian. This is what Ian is working to address with his venture.

    As for your sound card blues, if you're not into manually configuring stuff, I suggest you apt-get sndconfig, courtesy from the fine folks at RedHat and use it like you used to do when you were wearing that old Hat.
    --

  • Daniel, I didn't mean to dismiss aptitude in any way, I just pointed out the fact that it is a text-based app as a caveat emptor, for many people tend to associate ease of use with graphical interfaces, and are put off by text-based apps.

    Mind you, I use aptitude myself and I think it is great! I just wished it went on to replace dselect as soon as possible...
    --

  • Ditto, plus you can use KDE2 with woody.


    You can also use KDE2 with potato.

    deb http://kde.tdyc.com potato kde2
  • As it stands, making a commercial venture out of Debian souds like a good idea and I certainly wish Mr. Murdock every success in his venture. As a recent convert from Redhat/Mandrake and Slackware, to Debian Potato. My question is what is the added value in using Progeny over using the standard Debian? Would it be technical support? (this would be hard to compete on), More frequest releases?

  • Hmm.... Odd... I have no clue whatsoever what that MBR thing could be... Maybe its just a Debian change to LILO to notify you that its loading from the MBR or something?

    Yeah, the post-file-copy stage was a bit tricky for me too, I'll admit that. Especially since some packages wanted to configure themselves based on my "set it now and fix it later" install decisions. And several prompted for things that they didn't seem to need to... But I didn't have most of the specific problems that you'd had, as I said in my prior comment. And the install was generally good, and I haven't had any problems with subsequent installs.


    -RickHunter
  • Stormix is working on folding their improvements back into Debian. It's a slow process, though, mostly because most of their employees didn't start out as official Debian developers until AFTER they started at Stormix. Also, there has been some maintainer resistance here and there to any of these efforts, but this really isn't an issue overall. A good example of their changes starting to make their way into Debian poper is that stormpkg is now in the woody tree.
  • 58% is an overwhelming majority? I suppose compared to this years election it would seem so but in reality that's hardly overwhelming.

  • Whoa.

    I am not trying to throw hay on what appears to be flamebait, but I would like to see them redo the test with a couple other OS that are in the same "weight class" as Windows 2000

    Solaris
    HP-UX
    AIX
    Linux
    FreeBSD
    OpenBSD
    IRIX

    I think Windows 98 SE should be put into this "weight class"

    BeOS
    MacOS


  • You compares two differents things.
    If you apt-get a new release every week, you're probably on the unstable branch that means that you're using a *development* version.

    If you want to compare Debian to Windows 2000, you must use Debian 2.2 since it is THE latest stable release (and you won't apt-get anything for a while)

    Perhaps Win2K is the best product from Microsoft, but it is not fair to compare it with a development version !!

    BTW, your benchmark only compares Windows to other Windows, you should find something that compares Win2K / Linux / Solaris / (flavor of the day)BSD. It's a lot more meaningful.
  • I think he was using a *old* version of Debian. I have heard these complaints in the past turned out (with that person) to be a pre 2.1 version. Yes this was perhaps true in the past but as you have pointed out it very much is not the case now. Apt is there anything it can't do?
  • Have you edited lilo.conf by default (unlike RH or Mandrake) lilo.conf is not set up to dual boot with windows by default. Try to edit it and then run lilo it should then prompt you and let you choose it.
  • If its that important to you. Here is a link to clearify how you pronounce Debian.

    "Since many people have asked, Debian is pronounced 'deb ee n'. It comes from the names of the creator of Debian, Ian Murdock, and his wife, Debra.

    About debian [debian.org]
  • apt-getting a new kernel every week is not a fun task IMHO

    You are lying.

    Different kernel versions in Debian are *different packages*-- apt-get upgrade won't upgrade you to a newer kernel release automatically.

    There are different versions of the kernel *sources* package *for the same version kernel* that do get upgraded automatically. But you actually need to manually build a kernel package to get a newer kernel (of course, unless you write your own scripts to automate it).

    There is an exception, though, which is if you run a stock kernel, this could be automatically upgraded. But if you don't know how to compile a custom kernel, Debian's not for you.

  • Debian is an Open Source movement, not a specifically Free Software movement.

    "Debian is a free, or Open Source, operating system (OS) for your computer." (http://www.debian.org/intro/about [debian.org]) Debian takes no position. But they call their distro "Debian GNU/Linux, and are developing a Hurd distro.

    There are plenty of packages in Debian that are non-GPL.

    There are plenty of packages adopted by the FSF for GNU which are non-GPL. (http :// www.gnu.org/software/software.html#DescriptionsOfO therNonGPLSoftware [gnu.org]. So? The FSF may prefer that software be copylefted, but they happily use any free software.

    But *all* of them must conform to Debian's guidelines, which basically coincide with the Open Source definition.

    Now you make it sound as if the DFSG were based in the OSD. But it is the other way around-- the OSD was based on the DFSG. The DFSG was around long before the term Open Source or the OSF existed.

    I would say that Debian, as a whole, shares more ideology with ESR than with RMS.

    I already uncovered the huge distortion of the matter present here. ESR took the definition of Open Source from Debian, and woefully misapplied it (used it as a guide for corporations to write new licenses, instead of what it was meant for-- a guide for the Debian project to evaluate existing licenses.

    In fact, Debian works a lot with the FSF, and SPI (Debian's parent nonprofit) had a legal fight with the OSF over the ownership of the now-defunct "Open Source" trademark.

  • This will be my most content-free post ever, but it just needs to be said: Aptitude rules.

    Is it too large to fit on the boot diskettes? (maybe a "light" compile option?) For all I care, dselect can go already.

  • I would not go for one of the variants not because someone somewhere is making money off of them. That does not bother me. But simply because none of them to date really offers anything to me or I think most Debian users.

    I believe they do offer such a thing.

    If you look at their goals, they plan their distro to be a tested collection of packages more up to date than Debian stable. This is one of the biggest complaints about Debian-- how you are left with the unpleasant choice of running well tested, but older software (stable) or be in the bleeding edge (unstable), with no intermediate choice. I am very seriously considering Progeny just because of this-- I really don't have the time or inclination anymore to keep up to date with unstable (and deal with the occassional breakage), but still would like something more up to date than stable.

  • Why is this stupid? These people have done more for Debian than most (including starting Debian in the first place). It's their hobby and they love doing it - why shouldn't they try to turn it into their career too?

    HH
  • So's it deb-EYE-en or DEB-ee-en? I always said the latter, until I was correct by a Debian fanatic friend of mine.
  • Dear Mr. Open Source Sloth,

    Thank you for your concern and taking the time to express your feelings and thoughts about me. Words cannot express how much you have touched me, you have brought me to the point where I feel that I really need to take some time off and do some deep introspective thinking. Thank you again.

    I would like to point out just a few places where you are in error though, maybe that will help you to better understand my plight, and my mission here at slashdot.

    1) I never posted anything yesterday that said it was my final post, in fact my account was disabled yesterday due to some misunderstanding with the slashdot administrators.

    2) I have never posted under another nick, if someone posted as me then they were quite frankly an imposter. I'm hurt that you would not give me the benefit of the doubt.

    3) I have never misrepresented myself in any posts nor have I ever tried to. I sincerely apologize if you feel that way.

    4)The webiste links were an honost mistake, I thought they were updated but they were not. In fact you can go to this page [geocities.com] now to see an open apology to the slashdot community for my behaviour

    5) I have greatly misunderstood what this posting at slashdot is all about, you see I am from Balzania and I am just now learnign about the usa and weblogs and culture, yes I have made many mistakes but they were all honest mistakes. I will try to continue to learn so I don't offend you any more.

    6) I hope this clears things up Mr. OS Sloth, I am going troll free and I look foward to some great discussions!!!!!!
  • OK Bob. Another pack of lies. You did in fact post yesterday that you had made your final post as Mr. Abooey. The fact that you can't remember you did it just re-confirms my theory of your multiple personality disorder (with weak memory protection between personalities, perhaps your brain needs an upgrade?).

    Oh well, enjoy your meal troll.


    Slow moving marsupials and the women that love them
  • Bob, I don't normally do this, but in your case I'm willing to make an exception.

    Why the hell don't you just do what you say you are going to do. First, I see you say that you are giving up trolling. Then you start trolling using some of the most blatantly false crap and garbage ever (claiming to program for IBM or claiming to run some company or another or whatever) and linking to your ego-page. Then, a couple of days ago I see a new guy come along that is emulating you so perfectly that it can only be you with a new user ID. Then, low and behold, yesterday you make the announcement that "This is Bob Abooey's last post ever."

    Now, not to be an asshole, but how many goddamned personalities are you holding in that puny little brain of yours? It seems like you don't even know how to remember what you are saying. At first I thought I understood. You said you wanted to dive below -100 karma and then come back up to the +2 bonus level. That seemed stupid, but at least understandable. But everything you do is just utterly ridiculous. It seems that you are trying to karma whore, but you just aren't quite smart enough to know how to pull it off. And the fact that you can generate page hits from your pathetic slashdot posts actually depresses me more than the fact that moderation sucks and people as obviously stupid as you exist.

    Are you a troll? Are you a really, really dumb karma whore? (We're talking the kind of whore that is so stupid she leaves money on the night stand for you in the morning, that seems about like you.) Or are you just some kind of psycho-freak with a mutliple-personality disorder that is weak enough to let each personality seep into eachother? My god, if you are going to do something, do it. Otherwise, methinks your time would be better spent surfing for porn and trying to molest yourself (if you can take your arms away from your keyboard long enough, it seems that is your current form of masturbation).

    I realize I will kill some karma with this post, but your non-sense is just too goddamned much to take. At least the trolls and karma whores make sense. You don't seem to know what the fuck you are doing, or have any idea how to accomplish whatever it is you think your goal is. Jesus dude, get a grip, take a vacation, get some help, and then come back and apologize to all of us for forcing us to read your non-sense and drivel.


    Slow moving marsupials and the women that love them
  • those of us who are stupid, lazy or both, yet would like to try out other computing alternatives appreciate anything that would make linux easier to learn w/o crippling it
  • Actually, looking at the state of aptitude, people may do just fine with dselect and apt-get... that's why it hasn't been upgraded (I guess) in a lonnng time As I am the maintainer of aptitude, I can tell you that that isn't the case; the last version was released a few weeks ago. In addition, once I get the pre-Thanksgiving work crunch out of the way, I'll be putting out the first prerelease to a new stable series, which features a near-complete overhaul of the UI code. The Sourceforge page hasn't been updated because I became a Debian maintainer and started distributing aptitude from the Debian FTP archives instead of an unofficial site. Daniel
  • 1) Because of the procrustean Debian install. It does walk you through each thing, which is nice. But you can't go back once you discovered you misunderstood something. And you can't go back if you fumble with your fingers. You must be perfect.


    The install program lets you back up if you make a mistake.
    debconf, which is used for configuring some parts of the system, was introduced in the latest Debian release. Because of this, what you are seeing is a first iteration; backup support has since been implemented (file bugs against packages that should support it and don't!)

    (I agree that the install is not perfect)


    2) Because of the X configuration module. It is an X application, which is nice. It doesn't suffer fools gladly, which is bad. If you get something wrong, you are out of luck. Maybe you can run it again after the install has completed in a broken manner.


    Branden has written a supposedly automatic X 4.0 configurator. I hacked an XF86Config-4 together with spit and bailing wire before it was fully functional, and so I can't vouch for it, but I assume it'll be improved as we progress towards woody release.


    3) Because Debian comes with the lousy MBR program that sits on top of LILO. My laptop is intended to dual boot between Win98 (I get $$$ from some clients for consulting there :) and Linux. Let's just call MBR 'unfriendly' and not call names.


    Bah, the real problem is the gross hack that is LILO. Hopefully we'll be Grub-based in woody or woody+1.

    I don't understand how you could see the problem you report, though. The Debian MBR should be totally transparent unless you choose to use its ability to boot a different partition than the usual one.

    4) Because Debian uses xdm for X-based logins (assuming you didn't screw up the install!). Not nice like gdm like Storm does.

    Er, gdm is in both the distribution and Helix. If you install xdm, yes, xdm will be used.

    5) Because Storm comes with reasonable versions of KDE and Gnome, already configured within gdm.

    Define "reasonable versions". Would you prefer that Debian rush releases out to coincide with arbitrarily selected sets of other projects? (we really don't have as long a release cycle as claimed; the appearence is because we don't try to score marketing bullet points by rushing something half-broken out the door as soon as FOO 1.2.0 is released)

    6) Because Storm comes with Storm Package Manager, a friendlier version of dselect capability. With dselect I've managed to screw up things, or not be able to prevent an installation of what I didn't want. Call it user error, but I don't make those errors or have those problems with SPM.

    stormpkg is in woody.
    There are several other package frontends in Debian as well, based on apt.

    Daniel
  • Actually, SPM doesn't buy you much compared to other modern frontends like aptitude (great, but text-based)

    Could you explain the "but", please? >=)
    Feature. !=. Bug.

    Daniel (aptitude maintainer)
  • Actually, he's THE founding member. Debian is named after he and his wife... Deb and Ian.
  • From what I could gather of the discussion so far, Progeny is working to address all the little things like installation and automatic setup that are better in RedHat (and other commercial distros) than in Debian, at least IMHO. The catch is, most Debian users (although I can speak only for myself) will not use it if:
    1. it is not a standard part of Debian (i.e., fully apt-get-upgradeable);
    2. it is not free software (in the good old fashioned Debian sense of the word);

    Ian is vouching to keep it in accordance with these two guidelines, so I can only see it as a very good thing.
    --

  • Oh, BTW, Conectiva [conectiva.com.br], a commercial Linux distro from Brazil, is working on a port of apt that uses RPM instead of dpkg as a backend. Check it out, the guy working on it is a friend of mine ;-)
    --

  • 1) Because of the procrustean Debian install. It does walk you through each thing, which is nice. But you can't go back once you discovered you misunderstood something. And you can't go back if you fumble with your fingers. You must be perfect.


    Er, which part of the Debian install are you talking about? During the boot disk part you can always go back to previous sections.


    3) Because Debian comes with the lousy MBR program that sits on top of LILO. My laptop is intended to dual boot between Win98 (I get $$$ from some clients for consulting there :) and Linux. Let's just call MBR 'unfriendly' and not call names.


    I'm not sure what you're talking about... I never noticed such a thing and I never had a problem dual booting with the default installation of lilo. (Of course, now I used grub)

  • If you want something stable, why are you using the unstable Debian distro? Think a little next time...
  • As an example of what frequently occurs try setting up an internet connection. Once you get something wrong, or press Enter by mistake, you can't recover until after installation is done.

    I still don't see what you mean. By the internet connection, do you mean the general network connection? I just did an install and it did that part before the first reboot and I was free to go back and change it.
  • Hi, I think we're generally in agreement - we both want access to better tools, and I don't think there's even that much difference between us about how this can be achieved.


    I think it's important that people who spend a lot of time doing something that improves all of our lives gets some kind of reward for that -whether it's free pizza, a pat on the back or enough money to buy themselves a brand new powerboat. People that wish to be marters to the FSF cause are most welcome to, but I think they deserve more than that. If a company can afford to support their effort - by paying for a bit of the OS they're using, for example, then that is surely a good thing. It seems that your main point is the route taken by the money - how does it get from me/my employer to John Doe the FSF genius?

    Personally I don't care that much as long as:

    • It doesn't stifle the production of good tools to make you and me happier.
    • It gets to the developers, who decide whether to fund their pizza lust, or their future software developing habit. My guess is that most FSF contributers will concentrate on the latter, but it's up to them. The worst thing that can happen is that someone somewhere does bugger all work and ends with a packet by exploiting other people's efforts. Most Distributions recognise this, I think, because they realise how important it is not to alienate the community that they rely on.

    I realise this is straying away from the general Debian issue, but I'm interested in your views about whether it would be possible to build a profit-sharing cooperative to generate code in a way that rewards developers with a little more than a pat on the back ,fame, and a 'thanks!'.

    With regards to the statistics, I agree with you that the original poll was extremely loaded. I also agree with your analogy... At least the form wasn't laid out so that it was really easy to click on the wrong checkbox ;-).

    However, I think my point was the opposite of how you interpreted it - the fact is that 32% said they were willing to pay for something if it was good enough (given the nature of the questions, as you pointed out). This is quite an incentive for a commercial distro to work out how to make 'something good enough'. I think a more serious floor in my argument is that it assumes people always put their money where their mouth is.

    Another point you hinted at was the way you perceive the attitude of non-Debian-aware users. The view that an MS solution is the only affordable one for the desktop is starting to be challenged in communities other than the Linux/geek chatrooms, and if things keep moving the way they are, the openeness to new ideas can only increase. Fingers crossed - lets just hope the associated cash finds a good home...
  • I like that one tank warfare game that comes free with the Force Feedback joystick.
  • Of course a majority of Debian users are the sort of people who would oppose any kind of commercial involvement in their distribution, because they're all hardcore Stallmanists who believe that communism onlt failed because of the oppression of evil American capitalism. But, luckily enough, all of these people earn enough $$$ to be able to spout such rhetoric from the comfort of their luxury homes.

    I think you are either alienated by Debian fanatics or smoking crack.

    I view the most wonderful thing about Debian as its attention to even very small packaging details. These are the sort of things that really add up in the long run, and get forgotten about in the push to get a new commercial distribution out the door.

    The Debian packagers are NOT packaging for commercial reasons. In fact, the vast vast majority of them are packaging primarily for themselves, and because they benefit from others doing the same. Because of their motivation, the packages come out later, cleaner, and in general make administering linux boxes easier on the admin. That is what I appreciate about Debian, and I view it as a direct result of the lack of commercial push. In the end, I use Debian because my boxes run better, nothing more, and nothing less.

    Communism is collective ownership and labor organization to the benefit of all. If that makes Debian communism, so be it. It is fairly obvious to me that aspects of commercial packaging work against the packaging being clean. It focuses more on feature completeness (a big selling point) and timely releases (another big selling point).

    At least Dabian makes my boxes run more smoothly. It is going to take any commercial packager that is not Debian based at least two years to catch up to their thoroughness and care in packaging. And if that is the case I would be happy to use some other distribution. But for now I find Debian cleaner and more thorough than at least Mandrake and Redhat (and probably more than that too).

  • 1) Because of the procrustean Debian install. It does walk you through each thing, which is nice. But you can't go back once you discovered you misunderstood something. And you can't go back if you fumble with your fingers. You must be perfect.

    What version of Debian did you use? I've done three Potato (2.2) installs in the past month. I seem to remember that, after each step, you're presented with a menu of steps. There, you can choose to proceed to the next step, skip the next step, or any of the previous steps. (And perhaps future ones too, but I never tried)

    2) Because of the X configuration module. It is an X application, which is nice. It doesn't suffer fools gladly, which is bad. If you get something wrong, you are out of luck. Maybe you can run it again after the install has completed in a broken manner.

    Ahh... Again, what version of Debian? Potato installed XF86Setup, which is a graphical X configuration tool. It can be run after the install has completed, and it also lets you do things in any order you like. I had some problems with it and my mouse, but that's because I've got a very wierd mouse.

    3) Because Debian comes with the lousy MBR program that sits on top of LILO. My laptop is intended to dual boot between Win98 (I get $$$ from some clients for consulting there :) and Linux. Let's just call MBR 'unfriendly' and not call names.

    Strange... As far as I can determine, this install of Debian includes nothing but LILO, and doesn't write to the MBR unless you tell it to. And my root partition is hda8, with LILO installed on hda4... No problems.

    6) Because Storm comes with Storm Package Manager, a friendlier version of dselect capability. With dselect I've managed to screw up things, or not be able to prevent an installation of what I didn't want. Call it user error, but I don't make those errors or have those problems with SPM.

    I'll admit that dselect isn't exactly the flashiest program in the world. Or the simplest. But after taking five minutes or so to read the help, I didn't have any problems with it. Sometimes the dependency stuff can be a bit brain-dead, but shift-q tells it to ignore dependencies and do what you say. And those situations are very rare.

    Please note that I only have experience with Debian Potato (V2.2). If the one you're talking about is a different version, could you please say which one it is?


    -RickHunter

  • Actually, I think there's an option you've got to set to get the prompt... Otherwise, you have to hit shift (left-shift, but could be right-shift too) to get it to prompt you instead of just doing the default boot.


    -RickHunter
  • But like most, it's false. 58% of Debian users not being interested in any other than pure Debian is very different from 58% of Britany Spears fans not being interested in any other music.

    I'd be disturbed, and your overall optimism would be false, if the statistics were not so poor. Slaving away in an MS only shop, I'd be jumping for joy if any Free distro made it in, backed and supported by people with a clue. (It would be especially gratifying if those folks were contributing to the FSF codebase, though especially bitter if they started to close things off.) Who would not be happy about something like this? About 213 people, it seems, who answered some very leading questions:

    Would you use a commercial variant of Debian GNU/Linux?

    No, because it against my ideals.
    No, because I support Debian only.
    Yes, because it has better features.
    Yes, but only a few apt-gettable packages.
    I don't care.

    Note the very negative first statement. You might as well have asked these 377 people if they would wear pant XYZ, and put as the first response, "No because they cause infertility." (cool, my own analogy) Note also the very small sample size. This can not represent a large portion of the Debian user community, can it? As it is, I don't think this poll reflects the willingness of the Debian community to adopt commercial Debian, and how big that base can become because of it.

    Your company pay idea is right in line. It's not just individual systems that you should be thinking about for a comercial distro. A well organized company could make a killing off consulting services like this, without ever making a single non free application. Would'nt that just represent an enlargement of the developer base, funded by consulting fees? As an individual, I'm not willing to spend cash on Free software, just the media thanks. A good book, even donations to FSF are a different matter. So's company money. I would not hesitate to recomend the deployment of a comerical variant where I work, so long as it can be backed by training, service duplication or betterment and complete data recovery. Train the administrators, have packages set up to migrate servers and desktops and get it all done in a week. There's more than one company with MS money flowing down the drain that would jump at that.

  • the debian organization is just FINE the way it is. there isn't a single reason why debian cannot sell their distribution and distribute the profits among the developers.

    Debian is essentially a non-profit syndicalist organization (whether their members know it or not). There isn't a single good reason why they should be non-profit.

    Building a for-profit organization along the lines of a typical american heirarchical corporation isn't going to do anything for debian. No CEO's are needed.

    There isn't any good reason why a for-profit organization cannot be democratically organized the way debian is - it's called a COOPERATIVE. The model they use has proven to be the best; they are the best linux distribution. Why not extend that into the economic realm? It works, and everyone involved is happier.

    --
  • Ian Murdock, a former founding member of Debian GNU/Linux

    Actually, he is still a founding member. For the time being, anyway.

    --

  • "...from what I've seen, Win2K is one of the best products released by Microsoft.

    I disagree. Motocross Madness 2 [microsoft.com] is the best product released by Microsoft. Anything else released by them I will only use if I'm forced to, but MM2 just plain rocks.

  • Hey,

    I've given up trolling for good BTW. Anyways, I think that Debian rocks hard and I hope they stick to their guns, I respect them for beeing the one true free release. And yes, I'm talking about Gnu/Linux, I have traded emails with RMS (for real, he's actually very pleasant in email, try it sometime) and RMS has swayed me to believe we should call it Gnu/Linux.

    I wrote a little perl-to-PHP conversion utility that I would love to see in the next Debian release include it but not any of the commercial releases. In fact I am going to set up the download so it checks the version of Debian you are using before allowing you to download or install it. Dirty pool, maybe, but when I told RMS I was going to do it he gave me his blessing ( in so many words anyways )

    I put the emails from RMS on my (now troll free) website [geocities.com] if anyone is interested.

    Cheers
  • I wholeheartedly concur. This whole "free is better, at any cost" philosophy doesn't stand up under scrutiny. I think a good analogy for your argument is those Communist Party members in the former USSR who spouted the most anti-capitalist rhetoric and forced the practices of "pure communism" on the populace, all the while raking in profits via bribery and the black market.

    The neo-hippies are all technofetishists. Free love, free speech, free software! Never mind the Malaysian who assembled their PalmPilot*, or stitched their trendy but uniquely individual, overpriced clothing can't afford a chicken nugget, much less a PC to run this free software on. It's ideology without substance.

    --
    *I know, PalmPilots are assembled in the US. If you can think of a better example of a technofetish device, insert it here.

  • Why do I use Storm instead of vanilla Debian?... (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09, 2000 @06:02AM (#636171)
    1) Because of the procrustean Debian install. It does walk you through each thing, which is nice. But you can't go back once you discovered you misunderstood something. And you can't go back if you fumble with your fingers. You must be perfect.

    The Storm install holds your hand, which is a good thing for mere mortals.

    2) Because of the X configuration module. It is an X application, which is nice. It doesn't suffer fools gladly, which is bad. If you get something wrong, you are out of luck. Maybe you can run it again after the install has completed in a broken manner.

    The Storm X configuration lets you try, try again until you figure things out.

    3) Because Debian comes with the lousy MBR program that sits on top of LILO. My laptop is intended to dual boot between Win98 (I get $$$ from some clients for consulting there :) and Linux. Let's just call MBR 'unfriendly' and not call names.

    Storm uses LILO straight, except for a graphical options selector ("Linux or Windows"). I don't understand why Debian complains so much about trying to set my root as hda6 (it uses MBR and hda3) and Storm thinks it to be just fine.

    4) Because Debian uses xdm for X-based logins (assuming you didn't screw up the install!). Not nice like gdm like Storm does.

    5) Because Storm comes with reasonable versions of KDE and Gnome, already configured within gdm.

    6) Because Storm comes with Storm Package Manager, a friendlier version of dselect capability. With dselect I've managed to screw up things, or not be able to prevent an installation of what I didn't want. Call it user error, but I don't make those errors or have those problems with SPM.

    All that being said, one of the first things I do with the Storm distro is to install the Debian 2.2.17 kernel from potato because the 2.2.16 Storm kernel doesn't support APM (grr...).

  • Re:I trust Debian... (Score:3)

    by Eg0r ( 704 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @05:02AM (#636172)
    Uhh hhmmmm... I'll bite :-)

    First, my rant about windows (hehe, this is bound to get me some carma ;-)
    What's your best thing to test and compare operating systems? mine, as stupid as it may sound is to put it on a laptop and check what happens:

    The more the system is processor hungry, the shorter the battery life and/or the warmer the power suply.
    Agree with me or not, this is my opinion. I don't have all the figures, but bear with me.

    Win 2000 on a tecra 8100 (tosh) is a dooggggggggg. I thought the power supply was going to melt! Deleted it straight away to install win98 on it and it was much better. If you change in your system.ini the shell to read:

    shell=PROGMAN.EXE
    it's slightly better. YMMV.

    Compare win to linux (Y-A silly comparison, and still on my laptop) The computer requirements are always low, unless you are hammering the computer with a specific task (running vim won't, starting solving some equation systems will).
    Also, be careful what widgetset you're using... like, try pressing on something in xv and keep pressing: mhhh... where did this 100% CPU coming from?

    Finally, just to get back in the subject of debian

    I'm running debian and upgrading the kernel the debian way is as difficult as

    make menuconfig
    make-kpkg clean
    fakeroot make-kpkg --revision=custom.1.0 kernel_image
    dpkg -i ../kernel-image-X.XXX_1.0_.deb
    shutdown -r now
    (from somewhere in the debian docs)

    What Debian needs is not a prettier install (or maybe it does) it's an automatic one (... oh wait [uni-koeln.de]!)

    Also, we-need-a-better-dselect! (oh, wait again [sourceforge.net]!) Actually, looking at the state of aptitude, people may do just fine with dselect and apt-get... that's why it hasn't been upgraded (I guess) in a lonnng time

    I think debian is great, linux is cool especially on a laptop and that when it comes to windows, yeah YMMV! If you like it and can do anything you like/want in it, go for it... mmhhh uhhh and talking about 'doze in good terms on /. is bound to get you flamed anyway ;-)

    ---

  • I hate feeding trolls, but... (Score:3)

    by slothbait ( 2922 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @07:28AM (#636173)
    Your post is just flamebait. However, the blind RMS and open source bashing on Slashdot has gotten way out of hand, so I feel obligated to respond.

    > they're all hardcore Stallmanists

    Not true at all. Debian is an Open Source movement, not a specifically Free Software movement. There are plenty of packages in Debian that are non-GPL. But *all* of them must conform to Debian's guidelines, which basically coincide with the Open Source definition. I would say that Debian, as a whole, shares more ideology with ESR than with RMS. How does this make them "Stallmanists"?

    > who believe that communism onlt failed because of the oppression of evil American capitalism.

    Blatent troll here. I follow Debian, and I have never seen any discussion that smacks of Communism, just solid software design and openness. Sharing source code is not at all the same thing as sharing material items, let alone *enforced* sharing of material items. If you honestly believe the sharing nature of free software is fundamentally evil, then there is really nothing I can do to reason with you. If you don't want to share your software, don't contribute to open source projects like Debian. But don't deride them for having beliefs.

    > Unfortunately this is spoilt by its overeager adherents who are all too willing to bash other distributions for not being as "pure" (a term that brings to mind connotations of eugenics and ethnic cleansing) as they are.

    Who are you arguing with? I haven't seen any such comments around here. Debian wants to ensure that their distro is completely open. That does *not* mean that they are attacking anyone else. Does their mere existence threaten you?

    And the last point, RMS himself has no problem with businesses. His problem is with closed software. If a business (such as Red Hat) produces and uses Free Software, there is nothing for "Stallmanists" to get upset with. I am on Debian-devel, and I see plenty of support expressed for the Debian spin-offs. I have *yet* to see an attack on corporations basing their distros on Debian.

    --Lenny

  • Different types of users (Score:3)

    by Robbie ( 3736 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @05:47AM (#636174)
    I think you'll have to take different types of users into account to find an acceptable answer.

    The first type of user can be described as the purist. The poweruser who knows Linux inside out and has chosen Debian for exactly that reason. This type of user knows what he wants, and chooses his software for exactly that reason. He/she likes to tinker with it, and loves to spend hours and hours tweaking his system.

    For instance: among the readers of this reply there are many people who probably choose Window Maker 'cause they like the way it behaves, that you can configure it to behave in the way that YOU want, etc... there will be many others who choose Enlightenment because it's flashier, etc... We didn't have the window manager discussions for no reason.

    The other type of user is the corporate kind. The user here has lots and lots of work to do, and doesn't want to spend hours and hours on installing and then maintaining the OS of his choice. Even though the user might like this, and want to do this, his time is expensive and sparse.

    The last type of user is the kind who sees an OS as a tool, he wants to spend as little time on it as possible so he can get on with other tasks, that he finds more important. Take a gamer for instance, he doesn't want to spend hours on installing and tweaking, but wants to get down to playing his games... Or a video editor, who wants to fix up his latest video project. Or a coder...

    In conclusion, it is great to have a choice! If there are people who'll choose debian because there's a commercial version available that facilitates setup and management, why not? I think the people that'll choose Debian in stead of RH, because they HAVE the choice, they'll be better off.

  • Re:Why do I use Storm instead of vanilla Debian?.. (Score:3)

    by afc ( 12569 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @08:21AM (#636175) Homepage
    Not meaning to nitpick, but:

    4) Because Debian uses xdm for X-based logins (assuming you didn't screw up the install!). Not nice like gdm like Storm does.

    You might want try woody together with helix gnome, you will get the nice graphical login from gdm, and you get to apt-get upgrade your GNOME desktop!

    5) Because Storm comes with reasonable versions of KDE and Gnome, already configured within gdm.

    Ditto, plus you can use KDE2 with woody.

    6) Because Storm comes with Storm Package Manager, a friendlier version of dselect capability. With dselect I've managed to screw up things, or not be able to prevent an installation of what I didn't want. Call it user error, but I don't make those errors or have those problems with SPM.

    Actually, SPM doesn't buy you much compared to other modern frontends like aptitude (great, but text-based) or gnome-apt (needs some work, but is quite useful). I think many people here will agree with me when I advise you not to use dselect! It is evil, plain and simple.

    Notice that most of the perceived advantages of Storm comes from you're comparing it to potato. You might have a different opinion if you try woody.
    --

  • As a Debian user... (Score:3)

    by SquadBoy ( 167263 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @04:07AM (#636176) Homepage Journal
    I would not go for one of the variants not because someone somewhere is making money off of them. That does not bother me. But simply because none of them to date really offers anything to me or I think most Debian users. Most people these days come to Debian kind of how I did start out with something like RH gain some knowledge and skills get pissed off at something look at Debian see the answer (In my case the fact that if you don't buy the RH boxset up2date is broken and that apt is a dream) Now the other distros based on Debian Corel (shudder), Storm frankly I ,and I think most Debian users would agree with me, don't need the pretty install. As far as Ian's new venture goes if he is able to repackage Debian sell it and support and make money doing it more power to him. I will stick with regular Debian for myself but I can also see how this might get it into more server rooms. So to sum up it is not ,for me, about whether one has a person behind it who wants to make money or one is regular Debian it is about which one meets my needs the best and for now regular Debian does very well thanks.

  • commercial debian ... (Score:3)

    by heytal ( 173090 ) <hetal,rach&gmail,com> on Thursday November 09, 2000 @04:09AM (#636177) Homepage

    I personally think that it would bring debian to the masses...

    Linux users, who are using RedHat, just have a lot of trouble moving on to debian after they have worked on RedHat (ppl might differ on this) but i'm talking of not so geek linux user.

    So a commercial debian, which simplifies the installation a bit, and gives the same power of debian to the users would be more than acceptable, and would include one more distro available in the linux arena..

  • Why would commercial Debian be a bad thing? (Score:3)

    by dmihalik ( 241977 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @05:47AM (#636178)
    I really like debian. Apt-get is very cool. However, for me, finding support for debian was a bit more difficult than finding support for Redhat. For instance, for 2 days I attempted to get my 3dfx card working with debian linux. Every time I attempted to compile the driver, I would get a bunch of undefined symbol errors. At linux.3dfx.com, they have fancy rpm installations available for specific COMMERCIAL versions of Redhat. I switched to Redhat 6.1 and had the 3dfx card working in about a half hour. I also could not get my sound blaster live working under debian. Same problem as 3dfx, a bunch of undefined symbol errors when compiling. Under Redhat, it compiled and loaded right away. The point is, the more commercial a product gets, the more likely hardware vendors will support that product. I want apt-get for Redhat!

  • random thoughts (Score:4)

    by ebola-zaire ( 122422 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @04:26AM (#636179) Homepage
    i too have mixed feelings on the progeny debian beta. i am currently a debian user and considered trying progeny's distro, but decided there were not that many features that i would benifit from. i think though that progeny will probably be very sucessful because they will have the power of the debian community, vast amount of packaged software, and the far superior packaging system.

    i only fear that progeny has come into the game a little late. i will talk a little about some of the good things progeny will bring to debian. first and foremost they will remove some of the mystisism about using debian. many new linux user's don't use debian due to the more archaic installer, and also because the documentation is harder to come by. progeny will sport an easier install and better hardware detection, which will inturn attract more users. progeny will also provide the latest software from woody, but in a stable form. i imagine the selection of software will probably be similar to the current, but little known, testing version of debian. having the newer software that redhat, mandrake, and other distributions have released will increase interest from users of other distro's that previously would not use debian due to the thought that it is out of date.

    what interest me most about progeny though is their linux now (network of worskstations) project. linux now will be a highly scalable implemenation for managing distributed computing enviroments. it will be an out of the box solution for easier system administration. it does this by creating the appearance of a single computer which will actually consist of many. this gives a consist look and feel to both the end user and the administrators. it is supposed to be simple, and highly configurable. something one doesn't often find in the same piece of software... the neatest feature though will be the ability to use process migration to minimize lost cpu cycles, and provide more cpu power.

    i am not ready to make the switch to progeny yet, but i will definately keep my eyes open.

  • So? (Score:4)

    by Verteiron ( 224042 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @04:04AM (#636180) Homepage
    Not to be flamebait, but what's the big deal? One of the nice things about open-source operating systems is if you don't like one version, you can use a different one. No matter what happens, some people are going to use the commercial version, and some aren't; that's a given.

  • Overwhelming majority? (Score:5)

    by gattaca ( 27954 ) on Thursday November 09, 2000 @04:30AM (#636181)
    If I polled the CD buying community and asked how many would be prepared to buy the next Britney Spears Album and 32% said 'yes', I'd think she was doing pretty well. I think I might even buy stocks in her record company.

    If 32% of people, used to getting something for free, say they are prepared to spend cash on a commercial variant, then doesn't that sounds like good news for the companies involved?

    Whether that's good for Open Source, Unix etc.. is a different question, which, I think, might have been discussed sometime before on Slashdot. :-)

    As someone who spends an unhealthy amount of time infront of my computer, anybody who can help make that experience more enjoyable for me is going to be my friend - I might even ask my company to pay them for it....

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