T2 Linux 24.6 Goes Desktop with Integrated Windows Binary Support (t2sde.org) 35
T2's open development process and the collection of exotic, vintage and retro hardware can be followed live on YouTube and Twitch.
Now Slashdot reader ReneR writes: Embedded T2 Linux is known for its sophisticated cross compile features as well as supporting all CPU architectures, including: Alpha, Arc, ARM(64), Avr32, HPPA(64), IA64, M68k, MIPS(64), Nios2, PowerPC(64)(le), RISCV(64), s390x, SPARC(64), SuperH, x86(64). But now it's going Desktop!
24.6 comes as a major convenience update, with out-of-the-box Windows application compatibility as well as LibreOffice and Thunderbird cross-compiled and in the default base ISO for the most popular CPU architectures.
Continuing to keep Intel IA-64 Itanium alive, a major, up-to-3x performance improvement was found for OpenSSL, doubling crypto performance for many popular algorithms and SSH.
The project's CI unit testing was further expanded to now cover the whole installation in two variants. The graphical desktop defaults were also polished -- and a T2 branded wallpaper was added! ;-) The release contains 606 changesets, including approximately 750 package updates, 67 issues fixed, 80 packages or features added, 21 removed and 9 other improvements.
Now Slashdot reader ReneR writes: Embedded T2 Linux is known for its sophisticated cross compile features as well as supporting all CPU architectures, including: Alpha, Arc, ARM(64), Avr32, HPPA(64), IA64, M68k, MIPS(64), Nios2, PowerPC(64)(le), RISCV(64), s390x, SPARC(64), SuperH, x86(64). But now it's going Desktop!
24.6 comes as a major convenience update, with out-of-the-box Windows application compatibility as well as LibreOffice and Thunderbird cross-compiled and in the default base ISO for the most popular CPU architectures.
Continuing to keep Intel IA-64 Itanium alive, a major, up-to-3x performance improvement was found for OpenSSL, doubling crypto performance for many popular algorithms and SSH.
The project's CI unit testing was further expanded to now cover the whole installation in two variants. The graphical desktop defaults were also polished -- and a T2 branded wallpaper was added! ;-) The release contains 606 changesets, including approximately 750 package updates, 67 issues fixed, 80 packages or features added, 21 removed and 9 other improvements.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, a project leader ginning up interest in his distro. It's positively despicable.
Re:How is this newsworthy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Welcome to the new Slashdot. Maybe the GP doesn't think anything's newsworthy unless you work in a reference to Blockchains and NFTs.
It seems like a good, old-school Slashdot story to me though.
Re:How is this newsworthy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Shock, horror (Score:2)
I guess you don't want maintainers to *gasp* actually tell the world their project exists?
I mean, how *dare* the maintainer be proud of this project! Maintainers ought to be *ashamed* of their achievements and hide.
Good. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is good. Nerdy shit for nerds. I'm never going to use it but I'm glad it exists.
Re: (Score:2)
This peaked my interest.
However, my system has trouble handling source based distributions (only 8GB of RAM).
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
FYI: It piqued your interest.
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand my interest in it -peaked- just before I found out it was a sourced based distribution.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to see out of the box by default Windows App compatibility in some more distros - or at least being able to check an extremely easily findable box to add it in during install, if it's not there by default. I'd much rather run windows apps on linux than on windows, if it works.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I would much rather not.
The avalanche of "bug" reports this is going to cause will distract maintainers from actual issue solving.
Besides, this would also take attention away from the FOSS intended to do the same task of proprietary software which does not support Linux, because all of a sudden people will think their Linux distribution will run their proprietary software - and they will think it will function just as well as in Linux all the time, no matter which application.
Finally, this takes away incent
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Informative)
Oh yes, I use NovelWriter - a FOSS application intended for *drumroll* writers. It works perfectly and is nicely point'n click.
I use LibreOffice Writer; quite a nice application. It does its job quite well.
LaTeX is quite interesting and easier to use than you think. Yes, you need to actually _learn_ something to be able to use it. 15 minutes spent reading ought to be enough to get the basics down.
Gcc and cmake are quite nice; feature complete and well designed.
Vim is instantly there when launched, and can be tweaked to be whatever you need it to be, including a full word processor with grammar and spell checking.
OpenTTD is a fantastic game, there's nothing quite like it out there.
Re: (Score:2)
There's a FOSS alternatives to Solidworks: FreeCAD.
There's also a FOSS alternatives to Sibelius: Musescore.
Look, before you start typing blatantly incorrect stuff here, I think it's better you do some actual research. I'm starting to think you do not know what you're talking about... Anonymous Coward.
Re: (Score:3)
Have you actually used the "Linux" replacement of Windows applications?
Yes, and KDE is orders of magnitude better than the Windows desktop.
Re: (Score:2)
I actually used LibreOffice on both Linux and Windows and it works decently on both OSes. The same for a bunch of other apps.
Re: (Score:2)
I actually used LibreOffice on both Linux and Windows and it works decently on both OSes. The same for a bunch of other apps.
Works on MacOS also.
I had to come up with a compatible office suite for Windows/MacOS/Linux, and Libre is a perfect solution. It'll even read and save .docx files, so the poor folk that have to use Office365 can join in on the fun.
Pity is, at least it changed recently, Microsoft Office suites are not terribly compatible even between MacOS and Windows.
Re: Interesting (Score:2)
Yes, but the people who are most likely to use it are /not/ experienced Linux admins. It's like throwing a baby off the dock and being pissed that they can't swim already.
Re: (Score:2)
Windows App compatibility = wine
You can use one of the Linux distros that came with Wine preinstalled, for the others just use their package management GUI and to easily add it (or simply "apt install wine" / "dnf install wine").
Re: (Score:2)
OS-exclusive apps make Windows important. (Score:3)
People don't avoid Linux because they love Windows, they avoid Linux because Windows apps best serve their use cases and they will tolerate Windows to use those apps. They need or want precisely what those often industry standard apps do.
When Linux can run everything Windows runs, it can compete anywhere Windows is used.
Re: (Score:2)
On debian/ubuntu install the wine-binfmt package.
I'm sure other distros have something similar.
As you might imagine, the out of box experience of this kind of thing is fairly rough. A lot of software (especially anything that is NOT a game) under wine requires some amount of tweaks, compatibility switches, specific versions of libraries, etc. Often two separate applications will be conflicted enough they cannot "share" the same simulated windows environment. So while binfmt-misc has made it possible to clic
the proof is in the pudding (Score:4, Insightful)
T2 (Score:3)
There is no fate but what we make.
Re: (Score:1)
Sponsored Advertisement (Score:1)
Why not state Wine? (Score:2)
T2 on a RPi5/8GB ? (Score:2)
btw, THAT kind of posts is also why I read Slashdot. If I commented on every post I'm not interested in with "how is this newsworthy?" I wouldn't have any time to do anything else.
"out-of-the-box Windows application compatibility" (Score:2)
I actually RTFA. "out-of-the-box Windows application compatibility" = it has wine pre-installed. It makes no claims bigger than that. I quote, "ships LibreOffice, Wine and Thunderbird by default [t2sde.org]". It links Wine to https://t2sde.org/packages/win... [t2sde.org] which doesn't describe as anything special apart from it only supporting x86-based and arm-based archs. If you're not a fan of tweaking wine, well, don't think this is anything special having a Linux distro come with wine pre-installed.
Crypto (Score:2)
God damn, it's been years since I've seen the word "crypto" used correctly like it was in the summary.