New "RPM"-based fully free system distribution

14 risposte [Ultimo contenuto]
janith
Offline
Iscritto: 03/09/2013
dadix
Offline
Iscritto: 07/01/2013

It's rpm better than deb?
It's Fedora better than Debian?
Hard to answer to these questions, so:

Why don't join the Trisquel team? They are open to accept new developers in the team.

The "Linux" world is divided in hundreds of distribution.
Let's do Gnu/Linux better and united !

Ututo project based on Gentoo is dead , but now we have Gdnewhat.

trisq

I am a member!

Offline
Iscritto: 09/03/2013

Seems like they want to focus on an enterprise system.

"We will change current "Fedora Remix" base system for enterprise linux system like CentOS(or other clones) in next GdNewHat release in order to become more stable fully free system distribution."

onpon4
Offline
Iscritto: 05/30/2012

It looks like they've been doing it for a few months, maybe they should e-mail the FSF and ask them to endorse it?

jxself
Offline
Iscritto: 09/13/2010

It appears that they want to wait until they're rebased on CentOS before doing that.

ssdclickofdeath
Offline
Iscritto: 05/18/2013

What's better about CentOS? As far as I know, the only difference is that CentOS is rebranded, has RHEL's proprietary software removed, and you can get gratis binaries.

onpon4
Offline
Iscritto: 05/30/2012

It's based on Fedora right now, which gets frequent updates and reaches end-of-life quickly, and they want a more stable system.

__martin__
Offline
Iscritto: 12/25/2012

Very interesting indeed!

Finally, Japanese folks haven't fell asleep; and stupid me nearly lost all hope in their nation and software freedom aspect on path of their future development.

I am really happy to see such an effort showing up apart from quite known VineLinux [0].

Don't bash them for not cooperating and uniting, yet. Please. (=

0.| http://www.vinelinux.org/

spikeb
Offline
Iscritto: 12/10/2013

I just found this distro the other day. i think it's very interesting, especially if they're going to be putting out a RHEL clone that's fully free.

trisq

I am a member!

Offline
Iscritto: 09/03/2013

Tried it in a VM and it seems to work pretty well.

Updated the software using their tools. All worked. Uses 3.11 Libre kernel now.

Very slick interface, gnome 3 out of the box neat and clean. It is very interesting as others have said.

axgb
Offline
Iscritto: 09/22/2013

How different are debian and redhat based distros of GNU OS?

ivaylo
Offline
Iscritto: 07/26/2010

В 15:24 +0100 на 19.12.2013 (чт), name at domain написа:
> http://gdnewhat.org/

Hi list,

I've noticed that there are questions in this thread what is the
difference between RPM-based and Debian-based distributions, which is
better etc. etc. I decided to share my observations on the *technical*
side of RPM distributions, although they might be considered too
negative.

The following is my opinion for RPM based systems and might or might not
be true and objective. I've done my best to be objective. Don't start an
argument with me unless what you have to say has some use for the others
on the mailing list. I'll try to keep it quiet.

RPM based systems are damn awkward, to put it mildly. I've used the
following distributions for a desktop in the past, so I think I have
some objective judgement:

* Red Hat 6x - few months (absolute max 1 year)
* Slackware - 1-2 years
* Gentoo - around 2 years+
* Debian - around 4 years+ (still at work)
* Trisquel - since 2010 till now

Currently I work for a startup cloud provider based on OpenStack (Apache
2 licensed free software), [1] so I've seen a lot of things on different
distributions with real life problems.

*Technically* there is nothing better than Debian(-based) system:

* number of available packages
* supported architectures
* long term support
* ease of setup and administration
* package dependencies
* consistency
* upgradable to newer versions
...

Ubuntu as an exception has its quirks, but that is a totally different
story.

RPM based systems are awful. Last year and a half I had to administer
CentOS distributions at work and it was just a nightmare. Finally they
were migrated to a real operating system.

The following is a little (non-complete) list of the usual problems that
will be encountered with RPM based distributions:

* Network configuration is split into at least 3 files.
* Configuration files are mostly all capital - bad design; hard editing
* Configurations in general reside in a non-trivial place
(/etc/sysconfig/).
* As far as I remember /etc/hostname is at all missing or not used.
(Missing/incorrect hostname is a huge problem)
* Kernels in latest versions of CentOS are still 2.6.something.; Might
not be a problem with latest Linux-Libre.
* An additional repository (EPEL) provided by Fedora have to be added
manually for extra packages, which sometimes are essential.
* Switching to superuser does not provide the extra */sbin paths unless
a special extra option is provided.
* Limited text mode installer - (not limited to) no custom partitioning.
* Different init system
* missing rc.local in newer versions (RPM-based in general); yes yes,
who needs it, but sometimes it is essential for non-trivial stuff
* some system command line tools are different, but that is somewhat
normal - software installation, services startup setup, system users and
group names

These might seem as little things, but when they sum up, for daily usage
it just does not work.

Fedora is quite the opposite of CentOS - they are bleeding edge. My
experience with Fedora is limited compared to CentOS, but I've noticed
it has some(all?!) of the awkwardness of CentOS.

An RPM based system is your enemy, if you have to use the command line.
It doesn't help you, it gets in your way. I guess it won't differ much
for the desktop.

The Fedora community is doing great job in supporting and improving free
software, but RPM distributions... I don't know... I want something that
actually works, spoils me, acts (almost) the same way every time and is
dependable.

Regards,

[1] http://www.openstack.org/

Magic Banana

I am a member!

I am a translator!

Offline
Iscritto: 07/24/2010

Everything you list (the second list, not the first one) has *nothing* to do with the package manager (RPM) or its usual interface (yum). Those are choices made by Fedora that is the preview of Red Hat that is recompiled into CentOS (hence the huge similarities between the three distributions, especially between Red Hat and CentOS).

As far as I understand (from Lennart's talk at the DebConf), Fedora will use /etc/hostname (if that is not already the case in the latest version).

That said:

  • GdNewHat being based on Fedora, your observations apply;
  • I have no idea whether your observations also apply to other RPM-based distributions (Mageia and OpenSUSE come to mind).
ivaylo
Offline
Iscritto: 07/26/2010

В 18:54 +0100 на 28.12.2013 (сб), name at domain написа:
> Everything you list (the second list, not the first one) has *nothing* to do
> with the package manager (RPM) or its usual interface (yum). Those are
> choices made by Fedora that is the preview of Red Hat that is recompiled into
> CentOS (hence the huge similarities between the three distributions,
> especially between Red Hat and CentOS).

>
> That said:
>
> GdNewHat being based on Fedora, your observations apply;
> I have no idea whether your observations also apply to other RPM-based

>
> distributions (Mageia and OpenSUSE come to mind).

I've barely seen OpenSUSE and it has similar layout for configuration as
CentOS. Can't say anything else.

ivaylo
Offline
Iscritto: 07/26/2010

Sorry for the double post. I pressed a wrong key-combination and send
the last unfinished e-mail.

В 18:54 +0100 на 28.12.2013 (сб), name at domain написа:

> has *nothing* to do with the package manager (RPM) or its usual interface (yum). Those are
> choices made by Fedora that is the preview of Red Hat that is recompiled into
> CentOS

The package manager behaves as defined in the specification of a
distribution and its layout. I don't know why you point that out. As a
matter of fact the yum and rpm tools have good options, capabilities and
some quirks.

For a distribution to be RPM based or Deb(ian) based doesn't simply mean
that it uses the package format and the tools. At least in my
understanding. It simply can't because it would be a great effort to
change those things to behave differently than in the original - what
and where is extracted, what scripts to be run before/after etc. It
might be necessary to patch all packages to make the system behave
differently. Hence a distribution will inherit a lot more than the
package format and the tools. It will inherit the layout and the look
and feel.

> distributions (Mageia and OpenSUSE come to mind).

I've barely touched OpenSUSE. It has similar layout for configuration as
CentOS. Can't say anything else.