T2 Linux 24.6 Goes Desktop with Integrated Windows Binary Support

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.

Re:

[hey!]

Yeah, a project leader ginning up interest in his distro. It's positively despicable.

Re:How is this newsworthy?

[ReneR]

So for 20 years we did no PR and just code. Now that we do a little PR like everyone else it is not newsworthy? Although it is the Linux distribution with the most cpu architecture and hw support? T2 is also not Gentoo based, ... but with its ROCK Linux linage one of the original Linux distributions from the 90s.

Re:

[93 Escort Wagon]

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?

[bn-7bc]

The newsworthy thing is: now its easier for newbies to run windows binaries on linux, out of the box, which is wary useful to newbies that still might find configuration not done by install wizards (you know the way they are used to from windows/macos) a bit scary. Is it perfect? no nothing is but this at least might get that one app they need/want that dioes not have an equivalent on linux run without having to deal with configurations. I don't se the problem calling it newsworthu

Shock, horror

[Schoenlepel]

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.

[serviscope_minor]

This is good. Nerdy shit for nerds. I'm never going to use it but I'm glad it exists.

Re:

[Schoenlepel]

This peaked my interest.

However, my system has trouble handling source based distributions (only 8GB of RAM).

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI: It piqued your interest.

Re:

[sodul]

On the other hand my interest in it -peaked- just before I found out it was a sourced based distribution.

Re:

[ReneR]

I run T2 on as little as 256MB PS3 ;-) My Sgi O2 and Octane also only have 786MB of RAM and my G4 Cube only 1.5GB, ...

Interesting

[dynamo]

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:

[Schoenlepel]

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

[Schoenlepel]

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:

[Schoenlepel]

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:

[test321]

Have you actually used the "Linux" replacement of Windows applications?

Yes, and KDE is orders of magnitude better than the Windows desktop.

Re:

[nicubunu]

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:

[Ol Olsoc]

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

[wgoodman]

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:

[nicubunu]

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:

[bn-7bc]

If said app is a .net app you don't even need wine, just pass the app.dll to .net an away you go( unless ofc the developer has made stupid assumptions as in but not limited to using \ as path separator.

OS-exclusive apps make Windows important.

[couchslug]

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:

[GoRK]

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

[FudRucker]

because many times in the past i would install & use debian or ubuntu just to run windows apps with wine and some windows apps that were said to run with wine would either not install or install but not run, wine has always been a crapshoot for me, and i been bit and disappointed too many times to trust T2's claims i will keep an eye on this distro and people's reviews in the near future

T2

[93 Escort Wagon]

There is no fate but what we make.

Re:

[maudlins11]

Ahull be baack!

Sponsored Advertisement

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did this article not come with a Sponsored Advertisement warning?

Why not state Wine?

[jjaa]

Or is the compatibility done some other way?

T2 on a RPi5/8GB ?

[sammyF70]

Could T2 be installed on an RPi5 and take advantage of the hardware? I have one here just doing menial LLM "work" using the standard rpi distro, but sadly no extra SD to swap in, so I'm considering the scrapping the current OS to try

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"

[nawcom]

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

[JThundley]

God damn, it's been years since I've seen the word "crypto" used correctly like it was in the summary.