Slashdot Mirror

How do I ship a binary? So many distros, versions, CPUs, etc.

Am I supposed to have every single distro/version in house and compile on all of them?

Do I limit myself to the major distros? I'm sure I'll get lots of hatemail for doing that.

PS: I'm pretty sure item 2.5 is wrong.

What, like Skype, World of Goo, Opera, Maya, Shake..? If you don't want to roll a package for each and really feel that you absolutely don't want to open your source for other people to package, then statically link. Refer to the Linux Standard Base - it's really not all that hard to have a binary that will run on almost all modern distributions. Numerous software shops do this.. The LSB even provides an Application Checker to make sure that your app conforms before shipping to $DISTRIBUTION.

(don't buy a new ipod, before buying a printer check here or call me, etc.)

Sounds like it's ready for regular desktop usage to me!

Yeap, just the same as Windows.

Falcon

(don't buy a new ipod, before buying a printer check here or call me, etc.)

Sounds like it's ready for regular desktop usage to me!

I realize that's Apple and printer manufacturers' fault, but users don't care *why* something doesn't work.

I often wonder how easy a time people who are new to computing can have with Linux.

i sell ubuntu systems to regular users. as part of a purchase, if they're local i offer to install it in their house and give an hour of time to answer questions for free. after a brief orientation (don't buy a new ipod, before buying a printer check here or call me, etc.), i spend the time showing them how to find and install software using synaptic, where update alerts appear and what to do, how to use firefox instead of ie, and a few other tips. i leave with them knowing they can call or email me anytime they have a question and i'll do my best to answer it.

i've been doing this for several years now. i always install the latest LTS version of ubuntu, and i offer to do software upgrades for $60. most customers are happy they no longer have to deal w/ virus, malware and spyware, even though there's a bit of a learning curve. i've had a few who installed xp because they just couldn't "get it," and out of them at least 4 of them come back with, you guessed it, malware and virus infected boxes. i've also had 2 customers who brought the computer back and asked me to set it up for dual-boot w/ xp. i found out later they boot to windows only to use itunes (being unable to get it working correctly in linux) and generally use the ubuntu side for everything else.

for the most part, i've found that spending just that initial hour is enough to put the customer at ease. additionally, knowing i'm just a phone call away helps too.

for customers who aren't local, i prepare a pdf document that basically contains what i go over w/ the locals in that orientation hour.

i've had just a couple of customers who were "new users," who basically had never used a computer before. since they don't know the difference (that there's other o/s's that aren't linux), they take to it a little more quickly.

Oracle sales reps claim that they have more linux devs than RedHat and that they feed lots of code back.

RedHat contributes over 8X as many changes to the Linux kernel as Oracle.

I hope you've learned a little lesson here about trusting sales reps.

Novell did it. Novell is just one of the several corporations that profits from Linux, and it isn't "Linux".

I don't care WHO did it. That is a very nice video.

As for Novell, they may not be ALL of Linux, but it looks to me as if they're a darn good chunk of Linux.

The winners were announced on April 8th: http://video.linuxfoundation.org/contest/winners

• Winner: "Linux AD"
• 2nd: "The Origin"
• 3rd: "Linux pub"

• Winner: "Linux AD"
• 2nd: "The Origin"
• 3rd: "Linux pub"

• Winner: "Linux AD"
• 2nd: "The Origin"
• 3rd: "Linux pub"

http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1134

The Origin...

http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1262

This one creeped me out. At first it was saying that Linux is like a virulent microbe. Then at various stages I was reminded of the Borg, and Kerrigan, Queen of the Zerg. The "it's everywhere" part reminded me of the red scare.

I love using Linux, but this has me ready to install Win95 over it and hide in my house with the shades drawn and the lights off.

Here are the relevant links from the real source.
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/blogs/browse/2009/04/announcing-%E2%80%9Cwe%E2%80%99re-linux%E2%80%9D-video-contest-finalists

The five finalists are:

The Future is Open
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1271

The Origin...
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1262

Linux AD - What does it mean to be free?
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1106

Challenges At The Office
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1261

Linux pub (one video without subtitles, one with)
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1057
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1154

Here are the relevant links from the real source.
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/blogs/browse/2009/04/announcing-%E2%80%9Cwe%E2%80%99re-linux%E2%80%9D-video-contest-finalists

The five finalists are:

The Future is Open
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1271

The Origin...
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1262

Linux AD - What does it mean to be free?
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1106

Challenges At The Office
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1261

Linux pub (one video without subtitles, one with)
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1057
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1154

Here are the relevant links from the real source.
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/blogs/browse/2009/04/announcing-%E2%80%9Cwe%E2%80%99re-linux%E2%80%9D-video-contest-finalists

The five finalists are:

The Future is Open
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1271

The Origin...
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1262

Linux AD - What does it mean to be free?
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1106

Challenges At The Office
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1261

Linux pub (one video without subtitles, one with)
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1057
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1154

Here are the relevant links from the real source.
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/blogs/browse/2009/04/announcing-%E2%80%9Cwe%E2%80%99re-linux%E2%80%9D-video-contest-finalists

The five finalists are:

The Future is Open
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1271

The Origin...
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1262

Linux AD - What does it mean to be free?
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1106

Challenges At The Office
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1261

Linux pub (one video without subtitles, one with)
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1057
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1154

Here are the relevant links from the real source.
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/blogs/browse/2009/04/announcing-%E2%80%9Cwe%E2%80%99re-linux%E2%80%9D-video-contest-finalists

The five finalists are:

The Future is Open
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1271

The Origin...
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1262

Linux AD - What does it mean to be free?
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1106

Challenges At The Office
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1261

Linux pub (one video without subtitles, one with)
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1057
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1154

Here are the relevant links from the real source.
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/blogs/browse/2009/04/announcing-%E2%80%9Cwe%E2%80%99re-linux%E2%80%9D-video-contest-finalists

The five finalists are:

The Future is Open
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1271

The Origin...
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1262

Linux AD - What does it mean to be free?
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1106

Challenges At The Office
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1261

Linux pub (one video without subtitles, one with)
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1057
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1154

Here are the relevant links from the real source.
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/blogs/browse/2009/04/announcing-%E2%80%9Cwe%E2%80%99re-linux%E2%80%9D-video-contest-finalists

The five finalists are:

The Future is Open
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1271

The Origin...
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1262

Linux AD - What does it mean to be free?
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1106

Challenges At The Office
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1261

Linux pub (one video without subtitles, one with)
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1057
http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1154

Actually, Red Hat is the company working most actively on the Linux kernel. Source (scroll down to the "Who is Sponsoring the Work" paragraph).

As long as you followed step #0. Check printer compatibility here and scanner compatibility here. Unless they got a Tux logo or something, because there are still devices that don't have Linux drivers. I agree, when it works it works much better on Windows and most things work, but a two minute googling may still save you a lot of grief. Plus, there's nothing wrong with supporting manufacturers that really have first-class Linux drivers.

I can certainly understand the desire to let the OS "not handle" stuff, because there are plenty of OS's that do a bad job... "handling" stuff, to be sure.

But that's its job. It multiplexes your CPU to handle hundreds of threads at the same time, making each one think it has the entire CPU to itself. That's a pretty big job, and we trust the OS to handle it. Sure, there is a need for a good interface, a good point for what has to be abstracted and handled by the disk, what has to be handled by the OS - but SSDs seem different enough that exposing the black box a little more to the operating system could have advantages.

Here is what Theodore Tso, big-time kernel developer thinks about the issue. He links to a good discussion and counterpoint from Linus.

1. 13.9% - None, meaning they claim to work for no company
2. 12.9% - Do not say what company they work for.
3. 11.2% - Red Hat
4. 8.9% - Novell
5. 8.3% - IBM
6. 4.1% - Intel

I got this information from the Linux Foundation at http://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/linuxkerneldevelopment.php/

http://video.linuxfoundation.org/index.html

Aarrg, the Slashdot effect... be back in a bit

how did this entry not make the slashdot post? its dam good: http://video.linuxfoundation.org/video/1235

This one is by far the best ads in that contest: Around The World

Sounds kinda like Linux Standard Base. Its an interesting project although I haven't found it too useful as just a plain ol' desktop user. My Linux need are all met by Damn Small Linux at the moment. Hopefully no rush to centralize will sweep my favorite little distro away!

Maybe we could just create a standard and get everyone to agree to it. We could call it the Linux Standard Base!

The Linux Foundation seems to be moving in this direction. http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Main_Page

When he contemplated the idea of using Linux in his home office, the main concern I couldn't answer satisfactorily was whether or not it would work with his multifunction fax machine/copier.

Whether a printer or its non-printing features work under Linux is rarely a difficult question. If you know the model number, you can probably find it on OpenPrinting (apparently the new name of linuxprinting.org). When I have looked up multifunctions in the past, I have found helpful information on how to get the scanner working.

It appears in http://video.linuxfoundation.org/terms that all content on the site is under the CC Attribution license (use for any purpose, just give credit), which is great. Hopefully we'll see lots of sharing and remixing!

Do you, by any chance, mean the in-house developers ar SUN that created the original StarOffice?
Or the people at RedHat, Novell, IBM and Intel who, together, supplied 20% of the Linux kernel?
Keep in mind that a lot of opensource developers are professionals, some of whom get paid to do opensource programming.

The better question for Red Hat might be "How many developers can continue to work for free in the present economic climate?

A better question would start with some research to understand who the Fedora developers are and who pays them if they are paid. Basing a question on the same tired falsehood that open source developers are unpaid geeks living in their parent's basements is rather tired and dated.

If the linux kernel contributions are any clue only 15% of contributors are unpaid. And I'm sure they have their reasons for contributing which go beyond simply making a buck.
linuxkerneldevelopment

Because Gecko is developed by Mozilla for use in their browsers. Thus Gecko is "theirs". The Linux kernel however, is developed and "owned" by the Linux Foundation with contributions from companies like Red Hat.

They also write 8.9% of all kernel code, which makes them the second largest kernel contributor after RedHat.

Um, one of them would appear to be in possession of such,

Or you can run VNC, though I believe its performance will be less than RDP.

Using TightVNC (high compression) and the DFMirage driver helps a lot, as does forcing your VNC viewer into 256-color mode (something I also do for RDP). I don't know about constrained network bandwidth, but on a LAN these things make VNC just as fast as RDP IMHO.

Tip for using 800x600 -- if you set the Taskbar to auto-hide, you will still have just enough room to click OK/Cancel on tall dialogs.

Back to the submitter -- seriously, Telnet/SSH command line is really going to be your main option. I really doubt you're going to be able to do anything useful over a 9.6Kbps GUI. You should grab a Linux box with two bridged NICs and set up NetEm to do some bench testing and see how slow you can go before you blow a blood vessel in your head.

Thanks, however the only once I know working on this is the Burgdorf Packaging API which is a low-level solution being sponsored by the LSB, and higher level solutions like Zero Install and Klik. Klik is very self-contained by using program "images" so it has sandboxing, and several other features. Zero Install uses "feeds" or URLs so it can get automatic program updates right from the source, and has various other features as well and will have sandboxing too eventually. Both systems are completely cross-distro and completely avoid dependency conflicts (something that should never ever happen if the package format was made well). Awww, you have two versions of libraryX you want to install but they dun wanna be both installed? It's called name one libraryX1.0 and one libraryX1.1 or something, sheesh. =P And tell the library maintainers to use a more stable API so that both aren't required! ^^

Any way, yeah, everyone, both developers and users alike, would radically benefit from having actually accessible Linux software, you could actually share the damn stuff for one thing with your friends no matter what "distro" they are running. One problem I think there is is that a distro would be more of a collection of software is all, and maybe a certain way the package manager was configured or the directory structure was configured or whatnot (something that should be easily changeable), but there would no longer be such segregation/proprietization of software. You like the network applet program Ubuntu uses and want it in Fedora? OK, well since it's all open source and it's all Linux, it should be easy to install it, if there were cross-distro binary packages, otherwise good luck compiling with all those dependencies, and if you're a "normal" user you're screwed and your choice is whether or not to switch to Ubuntu, and I think that's what Canonical and other companies want, and that shouldn't be the way things are, that problem should not exist when it's all open source software.

Linux use will increase much faster after this happens, and it will happen eventually.

Interesting, but of course Linux has the main oomph behind it right now, and luckily many features are being shared, between all kernels and OSes out there right now. I believe this problem can be solved easily within Linux, without having to switch to P9 or Minix or anything else, but those are certainly life savers should anything completely fragment Linux.....more than it is now. =P

The Burgdorf Packaging API is one solution that will help solve the Linux package standardization issue, as well as more top-level solutions like Klik and Zero Install.

The sheer number of people involved changes what is possible.

This is impressive indeed. I'm curious to know how many people are actively involved.

This article quotes "nearly 1000 developers". Does anyone have a better answer?

Neither rpm nor deb are anything like "proprietary solutions." They're fully documented and mostly compatible. rpm --> deb can be accomplished trivially. As for the reverse, I think you can set up Red Hat based distros to use apt. Not my area of expertise, though.

But they aren't, so if it was trivial, you'd think things like that would be done so that users could install any package formats, but they aren't.

Regarding your idea about package manager compatibility, that's not something that's possible on the lowest level. apt will probably never be compatible with rpm packages, and rpm will never be compatible with debs. What you're looking for is much more likely to be accomplished by a frontend, like this one.

From the website, "The primary design goal is to unify all the software graphical tools used in different distributions.".

It is not a unification of package formats, it's a unification of package manager front-ends. It will not allow cross-distro packaging. The only things available right now are binary installers that don't at all integrate with the package manager, or Zero Install which is what I just said except it at least tries to integrate a little bit. Other than that, the only solution presented that I've ever seen is the Burgdorf Packaging API.

Finally, as for "why don't they seem to care?" well, proponents of each believe their solution to be the technically superior one, of course. That's Linux, man, that's choice. Free software is about choice, even at the expense of growth, and that's a Good Thing, it's what got us this far and it'll carry us to the future.

No matter which office program you choose to write documents in, you usually have a choice to save them in the ODF format. Standards give you more choice. I can save all my documents, and then easily switch to another office program if I so choose to do so, without having to worry about accessibility. They need to make package managers compatible with the major formats out there so that users can have access to software. You said yourself it was possible, so it needs to be done then! That's my argument! Programmers would still be free to choose RPM or DEB, it would not take away that choice or freedom, I want there to be more choice and freedom, I want there to be more packaging formats, and as long as they make package management systems intelligent enough to be able to deal with different formats, that's completely possible.

Linux users make a big stink about wanting standards like ODF and making office software read and write ODF, I'm saying they should make a big stink about having compatibility with at LEAST ONE goddamn packaging format. It's not technically impossible, at all, you just admitted it, so where is it. I'm not talking about getting on the command line and typing in "alien blahblahblah" I'm talking about integration with managers so users can point and click, because that is what will get Linux adoption and that's what I want to see. Making the argument that adding features to a system to improve it's use is a bad thing is ludicrous. Linux will ALWAYS have choice, and I will choose the Linux software that gives me more choice.

I just don't find the whole deb/rpm debate to be as much of an issue as you're making it out to be.

Fucking christ. I'm not arguing about DEB vs. RPM, I never was, and I don't care, those are just two formats that any developer should be ABLE to choose while still being able to get their software to any and all Linux users. What I am arguing, again, is that DEB packages should be installable on RPM managers, and RPM packages should be installable on DEB managers. If this can't be done because one package format lacks some metadata, it needs to be upgraded to include it, so that the API actually is useful . That way

... actually this is not a bad idea so long as it is used to support open source rather than to stifle it.

However, the idea of Open Source As Prior Art being used to help just such a patent or use of such a process as this article is about. It shouldn't supprise anyone that IBM is a contributor to this OSAPA.... And IBM being a huge software patent holder.... uh errr FLOSS supporter...

Apparently if you try to help improve the patent system and you support software not being patentable, you then risk screwing yourself.

Stallman was right. The best thing to do is to ignore the patent system as it applies to software. OR Support "End Software Patents", Or better yet help prove Software is not of Patentable nature!

This way mapping open source software for reuse becomes a clear benefit rather than a risk.

I too was on the OSAPA list and contributed in support of open source.... as non-patentable Abstraction Physics.

The dock isn't a menu. And not all UNIX window managers even HAVE an application menu, let alone automatically add them.

I am not aware of currently popular window managers/desktop environments that do that. I am aware of unpopular and ones which are like that however.

And that has nothing to do with an installer or the lack of an installer, it has to do with Apple's design decisions in the Dock and Finder.

That is obvious, but in my opinion, that is a flawed design. For a operating system that concentrates so much on being user friendly and 'intuitive' to the user's wishes, it doesn't seem to fulfill that role there.

So they bundle all the libraries they depend on? Or they don't depend on libraries?

Depends, might be dependent on LSB, or they come with all the necessary libraries, static builds etc.

And what do you do if you have an application that has a hook in to Open Office and to Gimp?

Your question is vague and I'm not sure I understood you correctly. I have done some hooks into Open Office, I have done it with the extensions support. Gimp on the other hand.. I can only think of the Gimp Toolkit that can is useful outside of Gimp (unless you mean a script-fu script?). In which case the LSB certainly provides that - although static builds of the gimp toolkit is a definite possibility too. One can also install runtimes for certain things such as Java application, .net applications (with runtimes, the site usually tells you to do so) etc.

On Windows, that kind of thing is handled by god knows what.

Active X, plugin support, extensions, runtimes?

Under the UNIX package systems I'm used to, that's handled by dependencies. Or do you simply not do that?

I generally just follow the LSB for most things.

Try it with two versions of Firefox 2, or two versions of Firefox 3.

That would require a redirect install (using dpkg), but entirely possible. Although if ran under the same user, it would modify the same ~/.configuration path, as it would under OS X - not very desirable.

I don't remember whether it was called Netscape or Firefox at the time, but I do remember having to rebuild it with a different $PREFIX to get it to work.

In the past I had to do this with Wine, but not anymore.

I also had to go through insane hoops to install two different JVMs and two different versions of Apache libraries to get two versions of Tomcat working using RPMs under RHEL 4.

Redhat, Fedora, CentOS - the only popular distributions I have never used and have no interest in doing so. What I can say is that I have run JVM 1.2.x, 1.5.x at the same time with Tomcat under SuSE Linux Enterprise Server. It did require some fiddling (I think I spent 30 minutes total?), but it would of been a lot more manual if I had to do it on OS X server or Windows 2003 Server.

I'd have set up separate chroot environments, but I didn't have the disk space for two sets of all the support THOSE beggers would have needed in a chroot environment.

Why wouldn't "mount -o bind /orig-path /new-path" of worked?

Even if that's all *you* can see in it... what the hell is wrong with that?

I have brought up the 'issues' I see with it in my previous posts already. Using that system over a centrally software managed system takes away too many advantages for something that doesn't really provide that many benefits.

I don't think I've ever seen that and I've been using FreeBSD since it was a set of patchkits for 386BSD (I did patchkit 23, an

And that's one of the biggest problems right now with Linux is packaging, and the LSB is aware of it, and they're trying to do something about it. Whether this is the best solution, I don't know, but any solution right now is better than nothing. I'm just appalled that ODF has such a march behind it, yet having at least one intelligent (upgradeable, removable, integrated with package manager) package format work across distros (all or most all existing managers made compatible with the format) gets completely neglected.

It's ironic, because ultimately access to software so you can get done want you want to get done is the basis for the open source movement. Everyone gets all up in arms about "proprietary software", yet no one cares about proprietary distros and those issues with software lock-in. Why should I have to upgrade or change my LINUX OS just so I can use some LINUX software? Of course no one should. Or changing to a newer distro version just to have access to some drivers? That's total crap. The kernel was designed to have modules to allow it to be more modular, but obviously it's not modular enough yet, and/or because of the packaging mess, you just don't see driver packages shared out and such like you should.

Linux won't be as successful until users start being able to have easier and more flexible access to software they want, so I wish the LSB luck in bringing order to that chaos since no other groups have really stepped up to address interoperability issues like they have that I know of besides the Freedesktop.org group.

It's for rpm based commercial distros. Debian doesn't fit, and the "alien" program doesn't work on everything.

I note that Debian Etch is listed as planning to become LSB compliant on this page: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/LSB_Distribution_Status Ubuntu is already LSB-compliant. Neither of these appear to be "RPM-based commercial distros". Once Debian is LSB compliant, the alien program will work on any LSB-certified application.

Since I use Debian on servers and Debian-derived on desktop, I don't care about the LSB, I care more about the standards of the Debian project.

The idea is that it will no longer matter what distro you use: if an LSB application works in Red Hat, you know it will also work in Debian. Why is that a bad thing?

Yes, it should be, and you shouldn't have to look for DEB packages if you're on a Linux distro using a deb-only package manager or a RPM if you're on one using a RPM-only manager. All package managers should be made compatible with at least one format(preferably more) so Linux software installation is simple, instead of Linux users having to hit website after website of software where the developers never bothered to release some kind of binary because of this mess, or they release a binary which isn't a normal package, and even if it does it doesn't contain the information inside it for a URL for automatic updates. Instead us Linux users often have to deal with out-of-date software because we're stuck waiting on our distro maintainer to specially package everything under the sun we could ever want, which is impossible, and which gives certain larger distros an unfair advantage. Or, we have to compile it, which limits the numbers of Linux users greatly because obviously normal users don't know how and most users don't want to bother with doing it even if they do know. So, yeah, I'd say it was a big problem.

Can read why Linux software installation sucks part one and two, and read about two projects hoping to make it better in the future.

It seems like several companies are still trying the tactic of software exclusivity, the same tactic the console companies are waging on one another. (In that arena, it's pretty unfortunate, too, as a lot of it just comes down to how much money you're willing to pay for exclusives, and Microsoft has the deepest pockets, or so their accountants claim.) This is something that cannot and should not occur in Linux as it hurts everyone. Part of software freedom is software accessibility, so when a new driver is created for example, it needs to be modular and easily pluggable into any Linux or Linux-like kernel, quickly and without hassle (the point of modules). Some companies are going to have to face the fact that they cannot get away with attracting everyone to their platform just because they have a certain software title, or just because they have large repositories.

Linux should be Linux, period. You should be able to use the entire Internet as your Linux repository. If package managers want to keep these so-called "third-party" packages separate from the ones they officially support for support contract reasons, so be it, but do not take away my freedom to install any piece of Linux software I want easily on any Linux distro. Cross-distro Linux packaging is more than possible and should become a reality soon.

So, without these "exclusive" distro-specific software packages, what remains to define a "distro"? Well, of course it's what it was from the start, a simple bundle of software for the convenience of being able to find all the basics, or simply the software you want, in one place. Linux distros should never be anything more than software bundles.

Help with Linux defragmentation. Support more standard APIs for desktop and general Linux interoperability to give everyone more choice and thus more freedom.

...to not rely on some stupid vendor to be the one to provide you with access to what is supposed to be free software. If access to software isn't easily possible and available, it's not very "free". All software should be easily installable from the original maintainers, and distros should not have to or need to maintain any of that software.

All of Sourceforge and the entire Internet should be my Linux software repository. Support cross-distro packaging standards wherever they might arise that will help address the Linux packaging mess.

Fast, fast as shit and the video quality in the expanded mode was fantastic.

I saw Obama's speech tonight, on a coworker's laptop. And yes, fast, and decent quality -- like I might expect from Vimeo.

Except unlike Vimeo, it frequently sputtered and outright stopped.

I also noticed another thing -- it wasn't Silverlight. It required Silverlight for the controls, but the player itself was something else -- ironically, written in Java. So I still don't know what actual Silverlight-powered HD would look like.

Make the damn Linux install base standard.

Well, we have.

No one even bothers to, say, support the largest one out there (Ubuntu).

How about every distro uses the same GCC? That would be sweet

Why?

You should never be locked in to using only software provided by a distributor, software shouldn't be provided by them except to provide the convenience of the base installation bundle. Free Software has to mean freedom of accessibility, too. If no one can use some free software program due to it's proprietary nature and neglect of standards, that software isn't truly free. All of Sourceforge should be my Linux repository, and tools and standard APIs to easily search or add that software to my computer should be a concern on every developer's mind. It needs to be done easily so that Linux can actually reach the masses by allowing software to be more easily shared. Fragmentation and becoming proprietary and locked down hurts Linux and thus hurts everyone.

Help untangle the Linux software installation catastrophe by supporting proposed solutions like the Burgdorf Packaging API and cross-distro packaging formats like Klik and Zero Install. Once every Linux user has the ability to easily access the software which exists out there, instead of waiting on the whims of their distro's private software repository maintainers who have better things they could be doing, software will be much more "free".