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."
You will serve us! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You will serve us! (Score:4, Funny)
Version 2.0... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Version 2.0... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure why this is funny...
Unfortunately, I see a lot of perfectly good PCs get tossed because the owner has hosed Windows with some sort of adware/spyware/Kazaa. Most of these PCs have WinME or 98 on them. As long as they have 128 megs of RAM (256 better) and a ~500Mhz processor, they are good machines. Unfortuately, WinME an 98 are unacceptable operating systems and XP is prohibitive in cost when you can buy a new PC for $350. Why bother?
If someone made a distro to displace ME and 98, then there would be a huge market out there. And I'm not talking about some bootable thing. We need a distro that will back up the current hard drive, install Linux and then bring down some of the known backup (like Favorites, My Docs, etc).
I'm thinking of starting a PC recycling business because most trashed PCs these days are still acceptable performers. I'll take all these PCs, install Linux and then donate them to churches and schools. Brilliant!
Re:Version 2.0... (Score:4, Funny)
2. Spend time installing Linux on them
3. Donate them to charity
4. ???
5. Profit!!! ?
Re:Version 2.0... (Score:3, Interesting)
2. Spend time (re)installing Linux on them
3. Donate them to charity
4. Take tax deduction on your 1040
5. Profit!!! ?
If I ever retire my old computer (that's a big if) that is exactly what I plan to do with it. Saves me a disposal problem, let's me add more to my tax refund, and it's socially responsible.
Re:Version 2.0... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm thinking of starting a PC recycling business because most trashed PCs these days are still acceptable performers.
Free Geek [freegeek.org] in Portland Oregon does this as a non-profit. One of the keys to their success is lots of trainable volunteers, because they reward volunteer hours with a refurbished computer. Another key is that businesses and individuals who donate old computer systems get receipts for their charitable donation (but it is up to the donor to determine the value of the donation). When some area business upgrades, they rent a U-Haul truck to bring the old computers to Free Geek. It's an interesting thing to see.
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 da
Re:Version 2.0... (Score:4, Interesting)
Though even aside from that, given that coders make up a significant or even a majority of Linux users, I don't think any bothersome program which nonetheless provided a useful service would last long without having a clone of it put together by someone out there. So, while I agree that there's no technical reason that spyware couldn't exist in Linux, I think the social factors will keep it out untill Linux reachs a state where it has a similar market share to Windows - which frankly I don't have much hope of ever happening.
Re:Version 2.0... (Score:3, Interesting)
ld-linux.so (Score:3, Insightful)
Try this sometime:
Re:Hosed? (Score:3, Funny)
I wonder what would happen... (Score:4, Funny)
Nothing! (Score:5, Informative)
[...]
if [ -e
then
if [ "$DISTRO" = unknown ]; then
error 1 "You already have a Debian system"
[...]
Re:I wonder what would happen... (Score:2, Informative)
If you read the script, you'll notice that it will detect that and will bail out with an error message:
I think he just said... (Score:2)
Send a CD to SCO (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Send a CD to SCO (Score:2)
Configuration? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Configuration? (Score:2)
Re:Configuration? (Score:2)
intended for non-debian providers (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Configuration? (Score:2)
For a local system doing the clean install is fairly straightforward. The place I see this having the most value (for me at least) is converting the ubiquitous RedHat virtual host to Debian. It can be done without a tool like this (see here [sourceforge.net]), but it's a PITA (particularly if there's only two partitions - setting up the Debian migration install in the swap partition is a hassle).
Re:Configuration? (Score:4, Interesting)
I did something manually like this recently, compiling debootstrap from source and installing while chrooted to a new partition I wanted debian in. The reason was that while I preferred debian, I could not install it on this system because the harddrive was not on the main controller card. Or something like that; whatever it is, debian couldn't detect it while RedHat didn't even flinch. My harddrive actually shows up as /dev/hde. The document I referred to at the time made the joke, "Sometimes I'm asked if non-Debian distributions are good for anything. I answer, 'Yes, actually some of them make very good Debian installers.'" Of course, it's kind of pitiful that the Debian installer is that bad, but I expect that to improve.
So in my case, I couldn't install Debian "from scratch."
Re:Configuration? (Score:2)
Re:Configuration? (Score:2)
Re:Configuration? (Score:2)
Wait a second... (Score:2)
Re:Wait a second... (Score:2)
Now all we need is the Xbox version (Score:2, Funny)
Pathing the way (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pathing the way (Score:2)
I now run Debian already for five years (2.0 -> 2.2 -> 3.0), but last year I finally had the money to buy a midrange server (dual Athlon MP, 2 Gb RAM, Promise SX-6000 RAID card). The trouble is : Red Hat has the only kernel which makes it possible to use my Promise RAID card out of the box. So, I am stuck with Red Hat 9 for the moment.
Jurgen
Re:Pathing the way (Score:2)
Great timing (Score:3, Insightful)
Moving to... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/company/press/pr?n=/p r
Anyway, it's certainly not a surprise: my feeling is that Mandrake is the Linux distribution the most close to Debian in its spirit. It's more friendly and offers more new features though.
Re:Great timing (Score:2)
It's an installer! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:It's an installer! (Score:5, Funny)
Tom
Re:It's an installer! (Score:2)
Re:It's an installer! (Score:2)
Oh and get yourself an account loser.
Tom
Debian Upgrade Any System.sh (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Debian Upgrade Any System.sh (Score:3, Funny)
Next Stage... (Score:2, Funny)
The next stage will be to engineer anti-microsoft nano machines (one could call them a vaccine) that will systematically convert all MS computers into Debian computers.
If the user gets upset over the change, he too will be converted into a Finnish Linux geek.
Re:Next Stage... (Score:2)
Would it be possible to use the 0x01 exploit in IE for this purpose?
That is, have IE display one address while downloading from a different url a virus with the debian conversion tools in the payload. Then trick the user into running the executable (or can the virus run itself?). Just a thought.
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...
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.
Can't detect and install apps? (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be fantasic to be able to hit a button, have something read the RPM database and automagically reinstall a APT based system (leaving
It's not fantasic to replace the kernel and leave you with a right royal mess of apps that can't be maintained, or worse still nuke everything so it doesn't work right.
This is a first step, which is cool, but it looks like it needs extending a bit to gain some practical application. Rather like the depenguinator (script to remove linux and install BSD) its a cool toy with little real application as of yet.
Re:Can't detect and install apps? (Score:3, Informative)
Try to find an ISP that provides Debian colo's. There aren't many.
LS
MS tool (Score:2, Funny)
Debian Installer (Score:4, Insightful)
Narc! (Score:2)
If you're using EFF as a curse word, you must have been sent by the *AA!!
Re:Debian Installer (Score:4, Informative)
Contrast this to KNOPPIX. It is a delight. And it's based on Debian.
Interesting, but not much to see (Score:5, Informative)
I would wait a couple releases before using it in a real environment though... hotswapping releases is a very tricky matter, and can screw up majorly your computer, expecially if it's done via a script.
Here it comes (Score:4, Funny)
Welcome to the OS Wars of '04. You never know what you'll boot. Debian? BSD? Windows 3.11?
Thank you god... (Score:2, Funny)
Any tips? Can this handle the glibc upgrade without breaking all of my programs?
Re:Thank you god... (Score:2)
If I understand correctly, it will remove all of your programs and start over. That's actually what I'd want (I'd prefer to apt-get them again as I use them and not install anything I'm not using any more), but probably not what you want.
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
New worm? (Score:2, Funny)
Pinky!
I, for one... (Score:3, Funny)
Guillem Jover's father (Score:2)
And the point of this is....? (Score:2)
This would be the only way this tool could be useful, but it's impossible.
[..] but installs a base system or tarball and cleans traces from the previous distribution."
I fail to see the difference between this and a fresh install (you have put your
However, I'll admit it's a nice practical joke
WARNING: Don't apply on production systems! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh well, let's just hope that I can make it through the day without anyone noticing. Then I'll be basking on the beach in So.Cal for a week. :)
BUD LIGHT PRESENTS: REAL AMERICAN HEROES (Score:5, Funny)
(Mister Production-Random-Shell-Script-Runneeeerrrrrr...
Your ineptitude with your daily systems administration tasks means that we have plenty of server downtime and lost data...
(OohoOOoho data all gooonneee...)
Don't take it personally, we all know that you'd be out on your ass in a minute, if you weren't the boss's son...
(WOOohooOhhoHh kickbacks from the big maaannnn...)
So crack open an ice-cold Bud Light, Mister Production-Random-Shell-Script-Runner...*ksschtt!
(Reeeeaall American heeerroooooessss...)
How about a simple firewall instead (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem with the server breakins amplifies this.
Either debian is strictly for techs, or its not.
If not, debian needs a simple firewall for all installation scenarios. Not including a firewall is malpractice. More than one firewall option is no excuse.
Adding a firewall application after an install is no good either. And it is too late.
A simple firewall front end needs to be included in every possible setup situation, from unstable to testing to stable, from plain vanilla, to knoppix, to damnsmalllinux.
Not providing firewall protection from the start shows that the debian project suffers from tunnel vision. They fail to see a problem, and fail to fix it because of this.
Re:How about a simple firewall instead (Score:5, Insightful)
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:How about a simple firewall instead (Score:3, Informative)
Hell, on a D
Sounds like 'instant BSD'. (Score:3, Informative)
Nice to see it extended beyond BSD to other systems.
Now all we need is a win32 virus to initiate 'upgrading' to your choice of *nix flavor.
World domination? Fat chance ... (Score:3, Funny)
Free editions of RedHat Enterprise Linux (Score:4, Informative)
Tao Linux [taolinux.org]
White Box Linux [whiteboxlinux.org]
cAos [caosity.org]
We need a similar tool -- for Debian systems. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stupid. (Score:4, Informative)
-pug
Re:Stupid. (Score:2)
Re:Stupid. (Score:2, Interesting)
FWIW, I think most of that's over now - I think KDE's even in a releasable state. New people took over when the old maintainer gave up in disgust.
Re:Stupid. (Score:5, Interesting)
1) there installer, it simply requires far too much manual tweaking to get from a first install to a useable system, other distro are far better here. If Knoppix takes a minute to boot and be useable and Debian multiple hours up to days, something is seriously wrong.
2) there 'stable' concept, it just doesn't make sense to have all stuff crunched into one gigantic package and call it 'stable'. Stability isn't a gloabl issue, but very often a per package one, ie a new KDE or Gimp can often be way more stable than the stuff that you find in a Debian stable, but it will never get included in there, since stable dosn't get any updates at all beside security fixes. This often leads to having packages in stable that are far less stable than what you can get from unstable. 'stable' should mean having a stable system, not being stuck with the same programm versions for multiple years.
Re:Stupid. (Score:2, Informative)
Their, not there.
I for one like the Debian installer. My current testing/unstable system was installed from the first Woody CD - I just installed the base, no extra packages. Then I could just pick and choose whatever I liked from there. This is really useful if you just want to put together a small, clean server with nothing superfluous. I'd feel very uncomfor
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 D
Re:Stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
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:Stupid. (Score:3, Informative)
580
jadams@fuzball:~$
Hmmm.... looks like it's there to me. I don't really use it but it's there.
jadams@fuzball:~$ apt-cache policy kde
kde:
Installed: (none)
Candidate: 4:2.2.25
Version Table:
4:3.1.2 0
500 http://http.us.debian.org sid/main Packages
4:2.2.25 0
500 http://http.us.debian.org woody/main Packages
990 http://http.us.debian.org sarge/main Packages
jadams@fuzball:~$
Yeah even looks supported.
Re:Stupid. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Stupid. (Score:2)
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.)
Troll spanking time. (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly what in my post makes you assume I've never run the later Windows, and that I don't judge it based on the exact same standards I apply to Debian and whatever other distro I happen to be running right now?
As it happens, as far as closeness to the ideal "it should Just Work, the way *I* want it to" goes, even the latest Windows are behind on both counts -- partly because its idiosyncrasies are often hard to solve, when
Re:Stupid. (Score:2)
Re:Stupid. (Score:2)
Now go get yourself an 8 digit account number and post like the real playahs. Aight?
Tom
Re:Stupid. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Stupid. (Score:2)
got to count for at least 36 or so ports of BSD!!!
Re:Stupid. (Score:2, Informative)
Guess what? There's Debian/[GNU/]NetBSD! [debian.org]
Re:Stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
In a lot of ways simply using debian is easier than n
Hate this kind of atitude (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hate this kind of atitude (Score:2)
I call fascist. You're no longer welcomed here. I've informed the authorities and you will be detained for further questioning and possible sodomization.
Tom
Re:Debian... (Score:2)
Anon Coward... most likely "Anon Short Penis Coward"
Tom
Re:Pfft (Score:5, Informative)
They do have a stable, modern distribution. It's called "testing". The not-so modern "stable" distribution is a dream tho.. You could drive a 15 ton tank through it and it'd still stay up. I've been running it on server (in the wild) for more than 2 years now with nary a problem. It's easy to maintain and has everything I need no more than an apt-get away. No recompilation, no searching for dependencies.. unlike some other distributions I've used.
I wish everything was that easy.
Re:Pfft (Score:2)
Excellent! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Debian Virus (Score:2, Funny)
Re:comparing distros (Score:4, Informative)
I too, was a loyal Red Hat user until they started messing with KDE. So, I came on Slashdot and read a comment where someone was saying Mandrake was "Red Hat Lite". So, I gave Mandrake 9.0 a try, and I've since upgraded to 9.1 (will upgrade to 9.2 soon), and I've not looked back.
Knoppix is also an amazing distro, if you only ever need it for a system recovery disk then it's still worth the time and bandwidth to grab it.
I'd recommend starting with those two, and I will mention that here on slashdot Debian and Gentoo are also extremely popular, and SuSe and Slackware also have vocal fans.
But - check out http://www.linuxiso.org and see what all they have.
Hope this helps!
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.