Migration from Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy) to Trisquel 6.0 (Toutatis)

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kesavan
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Iscritto: 12/16/2013

I'm going to migrate from Ubuntu 13.10(Saucy) to Trisquel 6.0(Toutatis) without reinstalling using instructions at http://trisquel.info/en/wiki/migrate-ubuntu-trisquel-without-reinstalling

It is mentioned that never attempt to run that script from a Ubuntu edition with no Trisquel counterpart!

So let me anyone confirm that Trisquel 6.0(Toutatis) is counterpart to Ubuntu 13.10(Saucy). Did anyone tried this from Ubuntu 13.10 to Trisquel 6.0 ?

Thanks,
Kesavan Muthuvel

dudeski

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Iscritto: 07/03/2013

Trisquel 6 is based on Ubuntu 12.04, so you can't do that.

lembas
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Iscritto: 05/13/2010

Tris 6 is based on Ubu 12.04 "PP". Expect problems if you go ahead. Usually programs tend to have rather poor backwards compatibility.

I would suggest you do a clean install next to or replacing that 13.10. And I never heard of a guy who made backups of his data regretting it yet.

Welcome to freedom.

ADFENO
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Iscritto: 12/31/2012

As far as I know, by counterpart we mean the version of GNU+Linux Ubuntu used as base to a GNU+Linux Trisquel version.

The base for GNU+Linux Trisquel 6.0 (Toutatis) is GNU+Linux Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin).

Best regards, ADFENO.
Have a nice day.

kesavan
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Iscritto: 12/16/2013

Thanks for your replies. I've almost 400GB of data in /dev/sda6 mounted in /media/DATA & some 100GB of personal data(like .thunderbird/* , other Docs,Downloads and other misc).

Is that possible to have a clean install replacing Ubuntu 13.10 without affecting my above data?

Or the clean installation overwrites/wipes all my data?

!!! Freedom matters !!!

Thanks,
Kesavan Muthuvel
kesavan.info

onpon4
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Iscritto: 05/30/2012

That depends. Do you have have your /home in a separate partition? If so, you can write Trisquel on / and use your current Ubuntu /home partition; some program settings might break, but all you have to do to fix that is delete the relevant config directory (usually something like "~/.program-name").

If not, you'll have to back up your data on another medium, like an external hard drive, and then put it back on your system after you've installed Trisquel.

Backing up important data is a good idea regardless.

kesavan
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Iscritto: 12/16/2013

Yeah! It's better to have backing up important data. Let me try this weekend.

!!! Freedom matters !!!

Thanks,
Kesavan Muthuvel
kesavan.info

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

You can keep intact the partitions you want. Just choose "Something else" at the following step of the install process: http://trisquel.info/files/trisquel1.png

You can then choose what partition will be erased and where it is going to be mounted (what you can decide as well after the install: just add the relevant lines to /etc/fstab).

The only compulsory requirement is a partition where / will be mounted. However, it is nice to have a separate partition where to mount /home. In this way you can later overwrite / and keep /home instact.

FYI, Trisquel's default filesystem for / is ext4. For /home, it is XFS. You want at least 12 GB for / (so that you have space to install many applications). Go for 16 GB if you plan to install heavy games.

onpon4
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Iscritto: 05/30/2012

Isn't 12 GB Trisquel's default? Trisquel's default is way too small. You run out of space very quickly with that amount. 16 GB is more like what you need if you don't install many things.

Honestly, if you like installing a bunch of stuff, I think 24 or even 32 GB is a good idea. I recently was meeting my 16 GB limit and deleted some stuff so that I wouldn't be short on space.

lembas
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Iscritto: 05/13/2010

I would think the default is calculated based on disk size, not sure however.

I currently have 5 GB root and it's getting full after several years of use. I'd say 10-ish should be fine. Of course, it depends on usage, for example, kernels are 150 megs a pop and old ones are not automatically removed and new ones keep pouring in (unless you remove the linux-image metapackage which I did because I use a custom kernel anyways).

kesavan
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Iscritto: 12/16/2013

@onpon4 , @Magic Banana : Installed Trisquel along with Ubuntu for now.Lets see how things fit for me.

!!! Freedom matters !!!

Thanks,
Kesavan Muthuvel
kesavan.info

Screenshot from 2014-01-19 05:58:30.png
dadix
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Iscritto: 07/01/2013

Hi kesavan. I saw your site. Is clean and nice. But in your Linux-intro.pdf you have a mistake: you saied Disto (is write with red and is big ). I think is Distro. :)

,and welcome.

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

And most of the times "Linux" is written, "GNU/Linux" is meant: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html

dudeski

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Iscritto: 07/03/2013

That's a matter of opinion u'know.

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

It is a matter of giving credit where credit is due. And, yes, that matters: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html

quantumgravity
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Iscritto: 04/22/2013

This name discussion is driving me crazy.... if this goes on like this, I will finish the hurd myself!

dudeski

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Iscritto: 07/03/2013

Credit schmedit. If that's what it's about, how about GNU/Linux/X11/Abrowser/blahblahuserlandblah.

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

As long as you mention GNU, the most important contribution whatever the (sensible) metrics you choose.

kesavan
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Iscritto: 12/16/2013

@dadix: site updated with GNU-Linux.pdf. Gives better terminology & comes with brief history.

kesavan
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Iscritto: 12/16/2013

@dadix You're right! It's a typo error. I'll update soon. Thanks for notifying me.

ssdclickofdeath
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Iscritto: 05/18/2013

Quit trolling, dudeski.

dudeski

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Iscritto: 07/03/2013

Quit clickin', people constantly trying to dictate nomenclature is just so damn annoying.

axgb
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Iscritto: 09/22/2013

The name issue is very simple - in 1983, a man called Richard Stallman decided to develop an operating system and to call it GNU. Then, a few years later, someone else developed a kernel. The two got put together, and for some reason everyone decided to call it Linux, instead of The GNU operating system

ADFENO
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Iscritto: 12/31/2012

I agree with axgb.

Very simple, and yet so many people ignore it.

Without the GNU project, the GNU+Linux operating systems wouldn't be as functional and famous as they are today. Just think about GNU Nano, GNU Readline, GNU Bash, GNU Coreutils (arch, base64, cat, chgrp, chmod, chown, chroot, cp, cut, date, dd, df, du, echo, false, head, id, ln, ls, md5sum, mkdir, mv, nice, nohup, paste, pwd, rm, rmdir, sha*sum, shred, sleep, sort, split, tac, tail, test
, touch, tr, true, uname, wc, who, whoami, yes etc.).

Best regards, ADFENO.
Have a nice day.

dudeski

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Iscritto: 07/03/2013

You mean a few years later someone developed his own operating system to replace Minix, and then eventually a bunch of useful gnu packages got added to it. And it was called Linux.
Regardless of history, considering the gnu tools are just a small part of the userland today, it makes sense to name the system after it's central and most important component, which is after all the Linux kernel.

onpon4
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Iscritto: 05/30/2012

[citation needed]

I want you to take a look at your package manager, dudeski. I don't care what GNU/Linux operating system you're using, it's the same. Look for a package called "libc6", or "libc", or "glibc". This is the GNU C Library (glibc). There's a history behind the name: once upon a time, the Linux developers used glibc, but then they decided it wasn't good enough, so the Linux developers made a fork of glibc called "Linux libc". Later, glibc 2.0 was released, and it was better than Linux libc, so development of Linux libc stopped, and operating systems that were using Linux libc renamed glibc to libc.so.6 to line up with Linux libc's versioning.

In short, all GNU/Linux systems have used either glibc or a variant of glibc, and today they all use glibc. So what does this mean? It means that they're binary-compatible. If you replaced glibc with an entirely different C library, all of those binaries which are claimed to be "Linux" binaries would stop working. They aren't just "Linux" binaries; they're GNU/Linux binaries. They only work on GNU/Linux systems. They aren't going to work on Android any more than they are going to work on GNU/Hurd systems.

Next, I want you to look for a package called "coreutils". This is the GNU Core Utilities. It provides all basic commands including (among others) cat, chmod, chown, cp, dd, echo, ls, ln, mkdir, mv, rm, rmdir, and uname. Unlike glibc, this one can theoretically be replaced, but it isn't; this is where you're getting all the basic utilities. You can't use the system without these basic utilities. Even if you never use the command line, other programs make use of these utilities for you.

Next, I want you to look for a package called "bash". This is the GNU Bourne Again SHell. This is the interpreter that allows you to use the command line and run shell scripts. Like coreutils, this can be theoretically replaced, but it isn't. Also like coreutils, you can't just remove Bash and expect your system to work. Nothing will work with out a shell script interpreter.

To recap: glibc, coreutils, and Bash are ESSENTIAL to making your system work. glibc can't even theoretically be replaced with something else; that would give you a completely different POSIX system, not binary-compatible with GNU/Linux systems. coreutils and Bash could theoretically be replaced with another collection of core POSIX utilities and another shell script interpreter, but everyone uses these because they're the best.

But that's not even all there is to it. Search these packages: ed, nano, gimp, gnuchess, gnupg (or gpg), gzip, parted, and tar. Chances are, many of these non-essential programs exist on your GNU/Linux system. ed and nano are basic command-line editors. The GIMP is a very popular image editing program. gnuchess is used as a backend for many chess games. GPG is a commonly-used implementation of PGP. gzip is not only the program most commonly used to compress in and uncompress from the Gzip (.gz) format, but it is where that format comes from. tar, or a replacement, is needed to extract and archive Tar files. parted is the backend to GParted (which itself is part of the GNU project, by being part of GNOME).

So a final recap: not only is GNU essential to all GNU/Linux systems, not completely replaceable even if someone is interested in doing all the unnecessary work required to replace it, there are also a bunch of very popular GNU programs in use in just about every GNU/Linux system.

Saying "gnu tools are just a small part of the userland today" is preposterous. GNU is important, at least as important as if not more important than Linux.

quantumgravity
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Iscritto: 04/22/2013

Nevertheless, it is completely ridiculous to keep this name-war alive since we _cannot win_.
People call it Linux, and they will do so for ever and ever and it is extremly unlikely that this will change.
It may be unjust but this is how it is!
We cannot force the whole world to call it "Gnu/linux", and if we keep on trying, all we gain is confusion and misunderstanding.
And after all, it's only a name.
Now, hold back with the old "name convey ideas" story. This is true, but actually we do harm to the original idea. Instead of pointing out why freedom matters we try to change a word and give credit to someone who is not around to appreciate it.
It was a mistake of the gnu developers not to finish their own kernel. This lead to the collective misunderstanding of the name of the operating system and I think *they* should do something for their credit.
If they want it so badly, then they have to finish hurd and make their own OS.
I will not waste my time any longer throwing stones into the grand canyon.

onpon4
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Iscritto: 05/30/2012

What matters most isn't the name. What matters most is that people actually believe that the whole system they're thinking of is Linux and that it was started by Torvalds in 1991.

In reality, what happened is a lot more complex than that, and Torvalds gets undue credit. Richard Stallman started a system called GNU in 1983; that was never released. Then, Torvalds decided he wanted to make a small clone of Unix inspired by MINIX, for which he chose the name "Linux". But Torvalds never finished his project, either.

The reason neither GNU nor Linux, the operating system were ever finished is because GNU already fulfilled the job of the userland, core utilities, etc, and the Linux kernel already fulfilled the job of being a kernel. So rather than the FSF finishing GNU or Torvalds finishing Linux, what actually happened was some other parties combined GNU and Linux together. I don't know what the very first such combination was, but the first that still is maintained today was Slackware.

But these people who combined GNU and Linux to make a new operating system didn't recognize it as such. They overestimated the value of Linux and underestimated the value of GNU. As a result, they called such systems "Linux systems", and Torvalds supported this; he saw the combination of the incomplete GNU system and the incomplete Linux system as Linux, when it is just as much GNU as it is Linux (i.e. it is neither). Torvalds has actually talked in a manner that clearly suggests that he is responsible for starting this thing that he calls "Linux".

Yes, the name doesn't matter on its own. But what matters is the very wrong impressions people get when they hear Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, Trisquel, and other systems being described as "Linux" systems. The impression that they get is that Torvalds is more important than he actually is, that Android is a similar system, and that GNU is irrelevant.

The thing is, "Linux" is very clearly associated with Torvalds, partly because it contains his name, and this isn't going to change any time soon. So in order to crush the fallacy that Torvalds is entirely responsible for GNU/Linux systems, we need to either reject calling them "Linux systems", or explain very clearly every single time we mention "Linux" that it is actually a system that combines GNU and Linux. Just saying "GNU/Linux" is a lot easier.

Also, I consider "GNU/Linux system" to be a part of the description. I reject the idea of calling a system "Foobar GNU/Linux"; I call the system "Foobar", and *describe* it as "a GNU/Linux system" (among other things). The only exception might be if there are variants that are different kinds of systems, like the distinction between Debian GNU/Linux, Debian GNU/Hurd, and Debian GNU/kFreeBSD (I would be fine with shortening these to "Linux Debian", "Hurd Debian", and "kFreeBSD Debian" as well, since they're all GNU systems).

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

Do you have any reference about Linus Torvalds wanting to build a whole operating system by himself? As far as I know the Linux project has always been about developing a kernel. Only a kernel.

Of course GNU only is a part of the operating system we use today. The most significant part (do not forget that GNOME is a GNU subproject, and so is GCC). More significant than Linux. Whatever the metrics you choose: the number of lines of code, the number of executed lines of code (most of Linux is drivers and you only execute a few), the number of contributors, the number of components (one vs. many), ... and, of course, the historical role.

It simply is unfair to mention Linux without mentioning GNU. And because GNU supports a ethical/social/political project, this injustice really is detrimental: many users of GNU/Linux think Linus Torvalds created the whole system and they never end up on http://gnu.org to read about the ethical/social/political project.

onpon4
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Iscritto: 05/30/2012

It's what this early statement from him suggests:

"I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones." - http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&selm=1991Aug25.205708.9541%40klaava.Helsinki.FI

He claimed that his work is "just a hobby" and not "big and professional", but he nonetheless explicitly compared it to GNU. It looks to me like he was going to make a whole operating system, but probably not from scratch; he probably intended from the start for the operating system to be a GNU/Linux system. If GNU didn't exist, he might have instead used MINIX software or something.

Then again, when he released something, he *did* say that Linux is a kernel.

islander
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Iscritto: 05/27/2013

Neither the name nor the penguin mascot were choices made by Linus. He wanted to call the system "Freax" by combining free, freak, and the letter X - a polite hat-tip to the system lineage. Just think, you could be begging to be called "gnu freaks" today. Oh wait, we already are! :-)

Ari Lemmke, administrator of the FTP server where everyone was working together on code, disliked the name Freax so he changed the folder name to Linux without bothering to tell Linus. The name stuck, but since people were pronouncing it wrong Linus recorded this audio message and sent it with the code: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Linus-linux.ogg
----------------------------
... RP on the GNU/Linux name controversy ...
"Someone wrote, 'It isn’t called GNU/Linux'.
I call it that. So you’re wrong.
Google finds 16 million hits for GNU/Linux. That’s a lot of mentioning. There are 484 million hits for Linux, but that’s OK, 30:1. People love abbreviations, acronyms, parables, etc. It’s the same with that other OS. There are 2 billion hits for "windows" and 91 million for "Microsoft Windows", a ratio of 200:1."
source: mrpogson.com
----------------------------
Product name helps with market acceptance by the masses. Let's build a computer called Freedom that runs an OS called Freedom, so we can make freedom popular. It's just a thought... Happy New Year.
Do good things!

t3g
t3g
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Iscritto: 05/15/2011

Its like saying something is "free software" vs "open source" where the majority of the time they are the same. Apache is both. The GPL/LGPL licenses are both. BSD and MIT are both. Its about choosing a side and a religion to argue about the same things.

But in the business world, it is "open source" much like GNU/Linux is straight up "Linux" no matter how much you want to fight it. People get confused when you say free software and think its about price. Use open source instead.

quiliro@congresolibre.org
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Iscritto: 10/28/2010

El dom 19 ene 2014 20:49:49 ECT, name at domain escribió:
> Its like saying something is "free software" vs "open source" where
> the majority of the time they are the same. Apache is both. The
> GPL/LGPL licenses are both. BSD and MIT are both. Its about choosing a
> side and a religion to argue about the same things.
>
> But in the business world, it is "open source" much like GNU/Linux is
> straight up "Linux" no matter how much you want to fight it. People
> get confused when you say free software and think its about price. Use
> open source instead.

Please don't do that. The open source people promote the use of free
software for economic and functionality reasons. They ignore the
freedom issue. It doesn't matter wether it is bussiness or personal:
freedom matters or it doesn't. Ignoring the question of freedom makes
our objetive useless. Thinking about price is like thinking that we can
eat $100 bills. It is objectives that matters, not money. Money is just
a tool just like any other.

Tegskywalker, why are you promoting notions that are against the
objective of this group? If you disagree it is fine. But fighting to do
everything against our goals is nothing but trolling. If you do not
agree, why do you stay here? Do you want to troll?

--
Saludos libres,
Quiliro Ordóñez
600 8579

t3g
t3g
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Iscritto: 05/15/2011

The terms are pretty much the same when using the popular licenses (and hence the catch-all term "FLOSS"), but if you are in a corporate environment working for one or trying to work at one, they know what open source is. THey think free software is some shareware program with malware you download for Windows.

quiliro@congresolibre.org
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Iscritto: 10/28/2010

El 20/01/14 19:44, name at domain escribió:
> The terms are pretty much the same when using the popular licenses
> (and hence the catch-all term "FLOSS"), but if you are in a corporate
> environment working for one or trying to work at one, they know what
> open source is. THey think free software is some shareware program
> with malware you download for Windows.
>

So what? If they don't know, we can explain. On the other hand, if we do
what you propose, we promote that people ignore freedom. Is that what
you want? Why don't you ever answer quetions?

--
Saludos libres,
Quiliro Ordóñez
600 8579

t3g
t3g
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Iscritto: 05/15/2011

When you speak of freedom, you are referring to the 4 freedoms as defined by the FSF right? Ok cool. The GPLs, the BSDs, MIT, Apache, CC0, and MPL respect those and are the most popular licenses.

These licenses respect those freedoms and can be called either free software or open source. Its more of a choice of wording and depends on your audience. The term free software tends to lend itself more to evangelism and open source is a more common business term.

quiliro@congresolibre.org
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Iscritto: 10/28/2010

El mié 22 ene 2014 14:40:23 ECT, name at domain escribió:
> When you speak of freedom, you are referring to the 4 freedoms as
> defined by the FSF right? Ok cool. The GPLs, the BSDs, MIT, Apache,
> CC0, and MPL respect those and are the most popular licenses.
>
> These licenses respect those freedoms and can be called either free
> software or open source. Its more of a choice of wording and depends
> on your audience. The term free software tends to lend itself more to
> evangelism and open source is a more common business term.

When they speak about open source, they convince you that you have to
opensource the fat and to capture the user with the rest of the code.
They talk about the software that is a differentiator. That is double
morality. It is not to bring free software to business. It is to make
business capture the free software movement and keep its monopolies.
You better listen to Bruce Perens arguments in favor of differentiators.

--
Saludos libres,
Quiliro Ordóñez
600 8579

kesavan
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Iscritto: 12/16/2013

And after they capture the open source movements , they try to re-brand , update their products in the markets screening the Original and try to make their business firm does the best for customers , not the original open source community which lies behind the screen at core.

!!! Freedom Matters !!!
--
Kesavan Muthuvel
kesavan.info

ZykoticK9
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Iscritto: 04/07/2011

"Use open source instead" < - absolutely NOT!!!

ssdclickofdeath
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Iscritto: 05/18/2013

Can you put this post under a free license?

onpon4
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Iscritto: 05/30/2012
dudeski

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Iscritto: 07/03/2013

I'm well aware what glibc is, and what gnu packages exist on my system, thank you very much.. xD

Now then, in no particular order.

Nonsense, glibc is surely the standard, but it's not somehow magically essential. There are many other C libraries, like libc from BSD, uClibc, even Microsoft has one for crying out loud. It could be replaced, and yes, your binaries would probably need some recompiling and essentially everything would break. ...Well, yeah? So would any Qt apps if you suddenly changed that library, or GTK2 apps, or whatever apps. What's your point? All these things are userland stuff that's perfectly replaceable.

Same argument for bash, coreutils, etc. Obviously there's no need or desire to change the current standards, but that doesn't mean you couldn't. As such they're not ESSENTIAL, as you say, just a standard that would be highly convenient for everyone involved to keep.

So far as I'm concerned Android is technically a Linux distro, but I don't go around calling it a Bionic/Linux distro, or a Google/Linux distro. That'd be silly.

And sure, the GNU userland is used in a very large subset of Linux distros, and if you wanna call those GNU/Linux, go ahead, I'll still consider it in the broader sense of a Linux system.

Hey, hey, hey! Nobody's saying the gnu packages aren't important, obviously. But then X11 is also important, for most people things like a browser, a java runtime environment, drivers, assorted productivity software, even games, all kinds of software really, is also very important. Have you seen the rather staggering amount of packages needed for all these things?
At the end of the day it makes sense to me to call a system by it's principal component, which is and will always be the kernel.

I'm not trying to dictate what anyone else calls it, that's their choice, but frankly I'm annoyed with people going "Call it GNU/Linux or GNU+Linux" or whatever else along those lines.
The world too seems to have decided on Linux as a name, that's the standard nomenclature, might as well go with it.

quantumgravity
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Iscritto: 04/22/2013

"So far as I'm concerned Android is technically a Linux distro, but I don't go around calling it a Bionic/Linux distro, or a Google/Linux distro."

You got a point there.

"I'm not trying to dictate what anyone else calls it, that's their choice, but frankly I'm annoyed with people going "Call it GNU/Linux or GNU+Linux" or whatever else along those lines."

+1

I hate this posts like "don't use this term. Use that one instead. $link to gnu page right which tells you not to use it here$.
That's really the most annoying and counterproductive attitude ever.

onpon4
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Iscritto: 05/30/2012

dudeski said:
> Nonsense, glibc is surely the standard, but it's not somehow magically
> essential. There are many other C libraries, like libc from BSD, uClibc, even
> Microsoft has one for crying out loud. It could be replaced, and yes, your
> binaries would probably need some recompiling and essentially everything would
> break. ...Well, yeah? So would any Qt apps if you suddenly changed that
> library, or GTK2 apps, or whatever apps. What's your point? All these things
> are userland stuff that's perfectly replaceable.

This nonsense argument applies to Linux too, you know. Linux can easily be replaced with the GNU Hurd and can with difficulty be replaced with one of the BSD kernels (that's what Debian GNU/kFreeBSD does). But it's a different system, the same way a hypothetical BSD/Linux system is a completely different from GNU/Linux systems.

In the same sense, replacing glibc would give you a completely different POSIX system.

dudeski said:
> So far as I'm concerned Android is technically a Linux distro, but I don't
> go around calling it a Bionic/Linux distro, or a Google/Linux distro. That'd
> be silly.

Of course that would be silly. Android is a single operating system, and it has a name: Android. You don't go around calling it "Linux", either.

Android is not a "Linux distro", the way most people use that term. Most people use "Linux distro" (or "Linux distribution") to mean "an operating system project that is based on a combination of GNU and Linux". All "Linux distros", by this implicit definition, are binary-compatible; that it is the definition meant by most people when they say "Linux" is evident by the many binaries marked as "Linux" binaries. Android is not binary-compatible with these systems. Android is a completely different system that happens to use the same kernel as all these other systems.

Let me put this another way: if it's right to call Android a "Linux distro", that would mean that it's also right to call Debian GNU/kFreeBSD a "BSD project". Both of these statements are nonsense. Having the same kernel does not make two systems necessarily all that similar. If two systems can't even run the same binaries, they're different systems.

dudeski said:
> Hey, hey, hey! Nobody's saying the gnu packages aren't important, obviously.
> But then X11 is also important, for most people things like a browser, a
> java runtime environment, drivers, assorted productivity software, even
> games, all kinds of software really, is also very important. Have you seen
> the rather staggering amount of packages needed for all these things?

Every program you mentioned can be replaced by something else or even removed, and it would still be a usable POSIX system. You mentioned X; there are currently *two* free software projects to replace X because apparently X is awful: Wayland, and Mir.

Drivers, by the way, are directly tied to the kernel. Why are you listing them here?

dudeski said:
> At the end of the day it makes sense to me to call a system by it's
> principal component, which is and will always be the kernel.

By what standard is the kernel the "principle component" of every operating system? The kernel is essential, I'll give you that. It's the part responsible for talking to the hardware. But the components provided by the GNU project are essential, too. At the end of the day, what matters when deciding how to describe a system that combines GNU components with Linux components is what is accurate, and since it would be a completely different system without both of these components, the only description that makes sense is some variant of "an operating system which combines components from GNU and Linux".

Note, I said "describe". "GNU/Linux" is not a good /name/ for systems that combine components of GNU with Linux. Neither is "Linux". A good name for these systems is some other name the developer of these OS projects chooses: names like "Debian", "Ubuntu", "Trisquel", "Fedora", and "Arch". These projects were not started and are not maintained by Linus Torvalds, and they weren't started and are not maintained by the GNU Project. They were started and are maintained by separate entities, such as Canonical and Ruben. There will never be a single operating system called "Linux", and if there is a single operating system called "GNU", it will use the GNU Hurd, making it a completely different system (the same way a Android is a completely different system from GNU/Linux systems).

kesavan
Offline
Iscritto: 12/16/2013

GNU is all about freedom ; Over time, calling the system “GNU/Linux” spreads awareness of the ideals of freedom for which we developed the GNU system

Linux is something related to commercial and/ore inviting non-free software salesman to-do business with.It must to be understand LINUX DO NOTHING WITHOUT GNU.

See the notes from Linus himself:

"Sadly, a kernel by itself gets you nowhere. To get a working system you need a shell, compilers, a library etc. These are separate parts and may be under a stricter (or even looser) copyright. Most of the tools used with linux are GNU software and are under the GNU copyleft. These tools aren't in the distribution - ask me (or GNU) for more info.

Without any programs to run, though, the kernel cannot do anything."

Notes for linux release 0.01 - Linus Torvalds

Better call it as GNU/Linux as GNU must reach everyone and Kernel next.When GNU done with #HURD , we can all go ahead with GNU system and no more Linux!
I don't want to call it as GNU/Hurd (once done) but simply GNU System

!!! Freedom matters !!!

Thanks,
Kesavan Muthuvel
kesavan.info

Tony_S
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Iscritto: 12/30/2013

Yes, Freedom DOES Matter. No disrepect to Richard but if he had consulted someone about the name (GNU) we might have avoided this conversation altogether. (Shrug)

onpon4
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Iscritto: 05/30/2012

Maybe he should have called it "Stallmanix". Despite the accusations that Stallman has an ego to feed, they seem to have no problem with Torvalds doing it blatantly as long as they like the way the name sounds. :P

In all seriousness, I don't think that would have prevented the incident. It's more the timing that caused Torvalds to get undue credit, than the name.

HuangLao
Offline
Iscritto: 01/19/2014

Any thoughts on migrating from Xubuntu 13.10 to Trisquel 6.0, or is the response the same as other non 12.04 derivatives of Ubuntu?

Actually started with Ubuntu 12.04 then around 13.04 migrated to Xubuntu, using a similar method of adding and deleting packages and DE's etc... Very pleased with Xubuntu, then discovered GNU and FSF which led me to Trisquel. I have since also removed non free packages listed from VRMS and unchecked the non free repositories in update manager, however, this does leave the problem of the non free areas of the kernel etc...

Trisquel in Virtualbox is running well so it should be fine as far as hardware and drivers....just would prefer a migration rather than a clean install....

Regards!

lembas
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Iscritto: 05/13/2010

I'm afraid there's no way but to do a clean install. Of course you can copy your home folder in order to get your various settings but some of those might give you trouble since most software isn't designed with forward compatibility in mind.

I'm not sure if you can trust real hardware to work if Virtualbox works. In any case you can easily try a Trisquel live media to find out.

Welcome to freedom!

kesavan
Offline
Iscritto: 12/16/2013

@huanglao:I suggest you to install Trisquel 6.0 from USB device in your Xubnutu box 13.10 and by default it won't erase any of your Xubnutu stuff.

Here's more similar steps for your case from my experience:
===========================================================
1) When it asks about which partition to install , make it install along with Xubuntu.

2) Resize the partition of either your Xubnutu /home or / for Trisquel 6.0

3) Trisquel 6.0 won't delete/overwrite Xubuntu's files. But it's always better to take important files. I did for mine ~500GB!

4) Once installation done , you can loaded with Dual boot (Trisquel 6.0 / Xubuntu 13.10)

5) You can go into Trisquel 6.0 and copy/access all your stuff inside mounted Xubuntu partition

6) Anytime , you can go to your Xubuntu 13.10 from boot-loader.(You can keep this for your historical reference and/or alternate choice)

7) Once you satisfied with the Trisquel 6.0 setup and files, you can go-ahead remove the Xubuntu's partition.

Refer the attached screen-shot for how I able to access my Ubuntu 13.10 files from Trisquel 6.0 .

Attachment #1 : Showing my Ubuntu's 89GB of /home and 21GB of / .
Attachment #2 : Showing my Disk utility report.

Once again , it's always better to take important files.Good luck.

!!! Freedom matters !!!

Thanks,
Kesavan Muthuvel
kesavan.info

Screenshot from 2014-01-20 02:59:20.png Screenshot from 2014-01-20 03:05:58.png