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It sounds like you're looking for Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntu.com/

something you wouldn't want your sysad to say... "where's the GUI on this thing?"

To which one would ideally say: "let's apt-get install one". There's no reason one can't make or use a tool under *Linux or *BSD that performs a similar function to MMC under Windows if it helps an admin set up a one-off server or the master image for a workstation farm, server farm, or cloud. I'm not the only one to have thought of this.

http://start.ubuntu.com/10.10/Google/

No clue how it works, but the search results seem to be skewed towards Ubuntu. I try not to use it for that exact reason: not understanding the mechanism of altering.

I'm sure the hardware behind this site is much less complex than the google operation and yet fights malware better. Just another example of the huge costs that Windows shitty security is putting on the rest of computing world. Why won't that joke of an OS die already?

Ever seen this? https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD
There is no need to spend time with packages you won't use.

They've already repeated one letter: "Hoary Hedgehog" and "Hardy Heron" each began with the letter "H"!

I don't know if it's all that related, but swap slowdown is an appalling issue as well. If a single program spikes in RAM usage, I often have to reboot the whole system as it hangs indefinitely. As I work with Octave a lot, often a script will gobble up a few hundred megs of memory and push the system into swap. Once that happens, it's often too late to do anything about it as programs simply will not respond.

I'm surprised you're seeing this with a process taking up a few hundred Mb -- that suggests to me that you have very little RAM in your system. But if it really is the kernel's fault for being more swappy than it should be, doing something like

echo 10 > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

(as root) should fix your problems fine. (Swappiness can be a value between 0 and 100; 0 means never swap out, 100 means swap out all the time; 60 is generally the default value). See Ubuntu's swap FAQ for lots more info.

Of course, if you simply don't have enough memory in your system to support the RAM-intensive process and basic system functions, buying more memory might be the best solution ... :)

looks to me like the emphasis is on moving ideas and features 'Back to the Mac', and not the other way round.

The emphasis for Lion might be that, but there's obviously not much Lion can do about moving ideas and features from the Mac to iOS machines - if that happens, it would obviously have to be done in iOS 5.0 or whatever.

If you look at the Mac App Store guidelines, you'll see that Apple are moving very definitely in the direction of iOS in terms of control over binaries on their platform and guiding developers to use just one tool-chain. There are a lot of clauses in there (including the exclusion of Java) which are very unusual for a desktop OS.

The App Store isn't a desktop OS, it's an online store for applications. Having a vendor-provided app store is unusual for a desktop OS, but not unheard of (to be fair, that page says that "In version 3, we plan to offer commercial software for sale, ..., and allow ratings and reviews of software." - are they up to version 3 yet?).

"Time will tell" whether Mac OS X ever gets to the point of supporting only apps from the App Store. It might be that most app vendors will choose to sell their apps through the App Store; whether the App Store will be so popular that it becomes effectively impossible to sell software for the Mac in any other fashion is another matter.

Looks like the iPhone is indeed supported reasonably well through libimobiledevice which ships with Ubuntu. Check the video on the libimobiledevice site. You can't go wrong with iPhone really: a lot of people have one which will ensure developer interest, it's on a relatively slow release cycle so the OSS people aren't continually outdated and is generally pretty good about keeping compatibility between versions.

If the system is completely up to date it's already patched in Ubuntu. Details on the kernel package needed for each currently supported release is here: http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-1000-1 [ubuntu.com]

If the system is completely up to date it's already patched in Ubuntu. Details on the kernel package needed for each currently supported release is here: http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-1000-1

Ahem haste makes waste...

http://www.ubuntu.com/
http://www.mandrivalinux.com/

Actually I had no intention of being condescending. I recognize that there are different users with different goals, personalities, and abilities and was attempting--perhaps poorly--to communicate that.

It would seem reasonable that one should conclude that given a distro--such as Debian--having such an impersonal feel and a list of bloody near every publicly distributed piece of Linux software that the assumption is that the person doing the installation should have some idea of what they're wanting/doing. If this is not true then Debian is not the distro for them. Why punish people that know what they want, what they're doing and more importantly appreciate that ability of choice by forcing them to hunt down the source and go build it themselves? Have you done that often? Even if you know what you're doing that's a tedious PITA. Even with the utilities provided in the distro I use, Gentoo, it can be challenging. It would be a disservice to such a user. Wouldn't it be better to leave the poweruser alone with their distro and provide the less knowledgeable user with something simpler? There was a reason why Ubuntu was created. Its installation is usually simpler than a typical Windows install and comes with a default selection of apps for common tasks. There's a guide that provides explanations and descriptions of everything should they wish to customize.

I understand the point of the linked blog article but at the same time, the Linux community has addressed this notion by providing simplified distros. Not everyone however wants a simplified, even dare I say, dumbed down system. This goes back to what I was talking about with regards to a distro for every range on the spectrum of users. Personally I think OS X is a great operating system, it's rock solid, and highly accessible. But I'd also never use it. It makes certain assumptions about its users that does not fit my personality. Specifically I can't stand things that assume I'm incapable of deciding for myself. Would I recommend it to a non-technical person? Absolutely. Likewise I certainly cannot imagine anyone advising a neophyte, and especially not a non-technical person to go try Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, Fedora, etc.. Frankly I can't imagine they'd direct a non-technical person to install an OS on their own regardless of what it was. Direct them as to what they should have someone else install sure, but certainly not on their own. In the case of a moderately knowledgeable though new to Linux person, they'd direct them to Ubuntu or some similar distro tailored for out of the box simplicity.

The short comings of Linux on the Desktop aren't in what the community has provided. It's the lack of computer OEMs offering a simplified Linux distro as the preinstalled OS. Most people don't know how or care to bother with installing an OS themselves. That's why Dell slaps Windows on every one of their boxes, and why Apple, OS X. They don't just toss a disc into the box and tell them to install it themselves. It doesn't matter how simple you make the process these folks aren't going to do it themselves.

I'm also not sure how purposefully lacking support for a given piece of software, thus forcing the user to go get source code and build it themselves isn't telling them to "get stuffed". In the open-source and more specifically *nix community, traditionally the author of a piece of software isn't also in the business of providing support for specific OS flavors. This responsibility falls on distro authors to take the source and create a package out of it that works for their distro. To do it any other way would be logistically impractical. Providing statically linked binaries has technical impracticalities and would be besieged with incompatibilities anyway.

Is 10.10 available?

Released on 10/10/10.

I use Ubuntu desktop LTS (10.04 I believe I'm on) and just download when something new is available

By default, LTS installations only update to newer LTS releases, which 10.10 isn't. You can change that in menu System > Administration > Software Sources, on the Updates tab. Read the release notes before upgrading, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MaverickMeerkat/ReleaseNotes

The design team has lead the way, developing a “touch language” which goes beyond the work that we’ve seen elsewhere. Rather than single, magic gestures, we’re making it possible for basic gestures to be chained, or composed, into more sophisticated “sentences”. The basic gestures, or primitives, are like individual verbs, and stringing them together allows for richer interactions. It’s not quite the difference between banging rocks together and conducting a symphony orchestra, but it feels like a good step in the right direction

(http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/455)

Also https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Multitouch

As soon as we get a free, stable, and useful free desktop OS...Windows is done. Ubuntu perhaps?
According to PCWorld, the Linux Desktop is dead(?)

There is a whole ecosystem of books, online material and courses created by Microsoft to facilitate people learning their product. No such infrastructure exists for open source products. It may not even be possible to create such an infrastructure.

I'd be amazed to find out it's impossible for Open Source folks to create an infrastructure with books, online material, and training.

well, maybe this should get fixed first: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/22974/

As you are into math: 49 / 30 = ?

So you want hard data.. Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx raw update list from 10.04 (April, 2010) to 10.04.1 (August, 2010) include more patches than I care to count. My estimate is 56 pages with 20 bug fixes per page, so well over 1000 bug fixes in 4 months.

Would you argue that it is more or less fair to be counting the number of bug fixes instead of the number of distinct patch packages released? Because right now what you have been doing is count the number of patch packages released while ignoring the total number of bugs that needed to be fixed, all the while ALSO wanting Windows to take the stain of application packages also released via Windows Update (ex: count Internet Explorer patches on windows, but don't count Firefox patches on linux)

Neither you nor me seem to have links to hard data handy, but at least one of us manages to stay nice :)

Hows this for not nice?

I run both Windows and Linux boxes. I have not tried to demean Linux in any way, and have only pointed out that it is Security through Obscurity. Meanwhile you have tried several times to demean Windows with unfair comparisons and logical fallacies. This proves that you wish to paint a specific picture decided upon priori, and are willing to do so shamelessly.

You are a Linux zealot and are thus completely irrational. I'm being nice on this one.

"Science Daily Headlines reports that a new tool has been developed (funded by the National Science Foundation, US Army Research Office and US Office of Naval Research) to prevent 'drive-by downloads' whereby simply visiting a website"

Run Ubuntu off a USB device .. link

Still nothing on the front page yet, but the cd/dvd-images are available here.

Also, the realtime kernel options seems to be dropped in 10.10, see e.g. this post on the mailinglist. The maintainer has dropped support and nobody else has stepped up to take over his work...

Still nothing on the front page yet, but the cd/dvd-images are available here.

Also, the realtime kernel options seems to be dropped in 10.10, see e.g. this post on the mailinglist. The maintainer has dropped support and nobody else has stepped up to take over his work...

Release Notes: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MaverickMeerkat/ReleaseNotes

I haven't used it yet but just looking at the Known Issues in the release notes doesn't give me much confidence. I don't recall seeing this many issues with the previous final releases - is this amount of bugs normal?

It seems that at least from my location in Northern Europe the ISOs are not downloadable due to the server having been already Slashdotted. But luckily the files are also avaialble as official .Torrents. Download speed currently 3MB/s, or the absolute maximum my DSL can handle.

http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/upgrade

Another thing I note is that Australian colleges prefer their internal users to use their internal mirrors as the colleges are charged for external downloads. Bittorrent may end up downloading from external sources, so they actually prefer the current situation.

When a new OS version comes out its around $160 for 5 licenses.

Try this or this - both are $0 for as many instances as your corporately locked-in mind can imagine.

You could stick with LTS.

This can easily be done following this guide. The automatic method using pysdm worked perfectly for me: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AutomaticallyMountPartitions

Having said that, I agree that this process should be made much easier (and in the default instalation, like under a properties menu for that partition). As everything in Ubuntu, I'm sure that will get taken care of, eventually.

The patched was announced by Canonical (Ubuntu) the same day that Ben Hawkes announced the exploit and published a proof of concept code.

The required kernel update is "2.6.32-24.43" or higher. That kernel was automatically updated on my 64bit Kubuntu 10.04 system with:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 757586 2010-09-17 10:04 /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-headers-2.6.32-24-generic_2.6.32-24.43_amd64.deb
and, 11 hour later, again:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 770132 2010-09-17 21:05 /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-headers-2.6.32-25-generic_2.6.32-25.44_amd64.deb

the same day that Hawkes announced it. Most 64bit Linux desktops are single user, and not susceptible if the owner did not hand out local accounts to his or her kids (and even then?), and most corporate Linux users would not advertize that their servers or workstations were exploited, so claims that Linux systems are being "compromised left and right" are spacious, to say the least, or FUD or outright lying at worst.

For 32 bit Flash 10.1, if you use Ubuntu 9.04 (or later) Flash is distributed via the partner repository. If you use Fedora/RHEL (or a distro that uses yum) you can add a yum repo from the Adobe website. The last link also has RPM and deb packages too. SUSE package Flash directly in their repositories too.

I think for a preview release the need to use package management for a single binary could be considered overkill. Further it's really the repositories that are useful in this case so you are automatically to newer versions when issues are fixed and Adobe are only have devote resources for "official" releases.

How much you want to bet, in just months (if not sooner) it will be available through update repositories for Linux users? libdvdcss2 is readily available, despite any legal questions. It comes with a disclaimer, making you, the user, responsible for it's use, but it's available. Please also note that packages from multiverse are restricted by copyright or legal issues in some countries. See http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/licensing for more information. The repository components are: * Main - Officially supported software. * Restricted - Supported software that is not available under a completely free license. * Universe - Community maintained software, i.e. not officially supported software. * Multiverse - Software that is not free.

I use a 64-bit Kubuntu Linux computer at home, but am not a professional computer person. But despite being concerned, I doubt that I am being rooted as I type this (at least I hope not).

Several security and other updates have been downloaded and installed during the last several days. One of them seems to have been an updated version of the kernel. When I type "cat /proc/version," it says that I am using is the 2.6.32-24-generic kernel. It was one of those rare updates where I was actually asked to reboot my computer.

A security notice at Ubuntu.com said that with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, said that the linux-image-2.6.32-24-generic was on the list of packages which would correct the problem. So, it appears that the vulnerability on my computer had already been patched about a day or so ago.

I am the only user on my system and am not running a server. With my firewall, I always keep all the inbound ports closed and in stealth. In the outbound direction I have only a few ports open. I also have SSH blocked, in both directions. I have both the firewall on computer and the firewall in my DSL modem configured that way. I do not have wireless at home, just a CAT5 cable to my DSL modem.

I use both the NoScript and Adblock Plus add-ons for Firefox. I only allow the use of scripts on websites which I use regularly and trust, or on certain websites where enabling scripts seems to be necessary.

Ubuntu Security Notice USN-988-1 September 17, 2010

If you're going to spend money why don't you just buy a damn SBS and use AD?

The GP did use AD. Re-read this quote from the GP, my friend:

This meant it had to be AD.

If that doesn't convince you, read this quote, then read up up on the description for the likewise-open package.

The first thing I tried was likewise-open which I had a number of problems with.

If the GP wasn't using AD, then what the heck were they doing using a tool that provides "authentication services for Active Directory domains"?

What options does Linux have for the above case where we need to fine tune network and computer policies on thousands of PCs?

If the hardware is the same then it's easy to set up one PC the way all the others are going to be then cloning the disk. The same used to be doable for Windows as well, Norton Ghost cloned disks, but now that MS has gotten strict with activation and spyware I don't know if people can do it now. A quick google for linux remote administration tools show that remote admin can be done.

Not a sarcastic question as I am not very Linux savvy.

Neither am I, that's why I find Google helpful. I'm about to install Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid, on my MacBook Pro and I've been using Google to map out a strategy to make it a smooth process. Sure, as some say Ubuntu is easy to install however I will be dualbooting and will use the same user files and datastores in both OSes. I'll need to calibrate my monitors, I'll have two of them. I also want to use KDE in Ubuntu and switch between Gnome and KDE.

Falcon

I've had issues getting the wifi to work on Macbook 5.1, 5.3, 6.1 and iMacs

I've got a MacBook Pro 3,1 and am about to install Lucid on it. The only thing I see that may not work is Apple Remote Control though there are remarks for Keyboard functions (Brightness,volume,...).

Now before I install Lucid on my internal drive I'll go ahead and install it on an external drive and test drive it. I still use Leopard but will install Snow Leopard on an external drive first too.

Falcon

I run Ubuntu 10.04, how does it rate a 7 on drivers and compatibility when Ubuntu admits there are problems with it?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro5-3/Lucid
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook6-1/Lucid
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportMachinesDesktopsApple

I've had issues getting the wifi to work on Macbook 5.1, 5.3, 6.1 and iMacs

If wifi and other features, like video out, isn't working with an install of Ubuntu but will with OS X, how does it tie in usability, performance and drivers?

I run Ubuntu 10.04, how does it rate a 7 on drivers and compatibility when Ubuntu admits there are problems with it?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro5-3/Lucid
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook6-1/Lucid
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportMachinesDesktopsApple

I've had issues getting the wifi to work on Macbook 5.1, 5.3, 6.1 and iMacs

If wifi and other features, like video out, isn't working with an install of Ubuntu but will with OS X, how does it tie in usability, performance and drivers?

I run Ubuntu 10.04, how does it rate a 7 on drivers and compatibility when Ubuntu admits there are problems with it?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro5-3/Lucid
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook6-1/Lucid
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportMachinesDesktopsApple

I've had issues getting the wifi to work on Macbook 5.1, 5.3, 6.1 and iMacs

If wifi and other features, like video out, isn't working with an install of Ubuntu but will with OS X, how does it tie in usability, performance and drivers?

Canonical hires software developers?

Yes, they do.

I mean, the complaint being aired is that Canonical contributes very little to any open source project. So, it goes to follow that, as a "software developer," your job at Canonical would be to either: 1. Develop Launchpad. 2. Repackage Debian packages.

I'm aware of the complaints being aired, thank you very much.

I don't think many people understand what makes a software distributor effective. Debian has about 30000 free software packages. Canonical has about 300 employees. So you can see the scale of the integration job. When Debian or Canonical members package my software, I don't expect them to come back to me and contribute. Quite the contrary. As a developer it is my job to make it as easy for them as possible. When people from Debian or Canonical need to contact me about my software, it usually means that I have screwed up as a developer.

It's not even that. We do a decent job getting patches upstream to both Debian and upstream. Bugs and patches submitted to Debian are "sort of" measured in the Ultimate Debian Database. I say sort of because not all maintainers use debtags (some fix it in Debian itself instead, because it's less work). Look at the list of all the new DMs and DDs from the past few years, you'll see a nice percentage of those coming from Ubuntu and then working on Debian. This is a good thing.

For general "patches from people on Launchpad" we are swamped with about 1400 some bugs. Some might be good, some might be crap, we need volunteers to help us go through these. If anyone wants to help get the patch queue down, you can help with Operation Cleansweep.

I think in general the critique isn't with "Ubuntu is hogging all these fixes", since it's all open code and we make a concerted effort to push the stuff. I don't think we do any better or worse than any other distro (and yes, contrary to popular belief, Fedora carries patches as well for things). The main critique is that Canonical isn't doing any pure upstream development, ie. working on GNOME, the kernel, Xorg, etc. directly.

From the page: http://www.ubuntu.com/project/about-ubuntu

Where did it all begin?

Linux was already established as an enterprise server platform in 2004. But free software was still not a part of everyday life for most computer users. That's why Mark Shuttleworth gathered a small team of developers from one of the most established Linux projects - Debian - and set out to create an easy-to-use Linux desktop, Ubuntu.

In the blog entry, Mark writes about "... a willingness to chase down the problems that stand between here and there." From my experience, problems are not chased down but rather the Ostrich algorithm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrich_algorithm is applied.

While running karmic (9.10), I noticed a bug with the network-manager pertaining static IP addresses and wireless connectivity, which made it unable to connect to certain configured wireless access points. Lets take a look at the network-manager released with 9.10: http://packages.ubuntu.com/karmic/net/network-manager , it is (0.8~a~git.20091013t193206.679d548-0ubuntu1).

Now lets look at the updates for karmic at http://packages.ubuntu.com/karmic-updates/net/ , there is not a single one (!) for network-manager. For the whole six months until the next release of 10.04, not a single update for it has been provided! They just took the git snapshot and left it in 9.10.

Just compare it to Fedora 12 and their updates on http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=172857 , karmic (9.10) was released at October 29th, and one can see the fixes and updates through Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan for F12.

I do not care about the marketing strategies and public image of Linux distributions, but rather about exactly what Mark said, about " ... a willingness to chase down the problems that stand between here and there."

For me, Ubuntu did not deliver that.

In the blog entry, Mark writes about "... a willingness to chase down the problems that stand between here and there." From my experience, problems are not chased down but rather the Ostrich algorithm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrich_algorithm is applied.

While running karmic (9.10), I noticed a bug with the network-manager pertaining static IP addresses and wireless connectivity, which made it unable to connect to certain configured wireless access points. Lets take a look at the network-manager released with 9.10: http://packages.ubuntu.com/karmic/net/network-manager , it is (0.8~a~git.20091013t193206.679d548-0ubuntu1).

Now lets look at the updates for karmic at http://packages.ubuntu.com/karmic-updates/net/ , there is not a single one (!) for network-manager. For the whole six months until the next release of 10.04, not a single update for it has been provided! They just took the git snapshot and left it in 9.10.

Just compare it to Fedora 12 and their updates on http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=172857 , karmic (9.10) was released at October 29th, and one can see the fixes and updates through Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan for F12.

I do not care about the marketing strategies and public image of Linux distributions, but rather about exactly what Mark said, about " ... a willingness to chase down the problems that stand between here and there."

For me, Ubuntu did not deliver that.

Install Arch. That's the distro for you if you want to go 100% bare. When you install Gnome for example you get the bare minimum required. No yelp, no alacarte, no Evolution, IM client, epiphany/firefox/Chromium, nothing, just gnome and the panel and their dependencies.

Or you can install Ubuntu from this:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD

Which marginally does the same thing.

The thing is, Ubuntu server isn't trying to necessarily capture the marketshare of "serious" servers because those are already well-entrenched with contracts but rather competing with offerings like Windows Home Server.

Nuh uh. Ubuntu Server is certainly marketed towards enterprises, and not just very small ones. Canonical advertises its support for virtualization, cloud computing, and integration with enterprise authentication systems.
Let's look at the Ubuntu Server web page:

• "Ubuntu Server mixes effortlessly with Ubuntu, Windows or Mac OS environments. All clients can share authentication, swap files and access services, while Open LDAP, Likewise-Open and PAM authentication come as standard."

  Do home users care about LDAP or PAM?

• Virtualise your servers with Ubuntu Server and KVM. Use a secure, lean version of Ubuntu as a guest operating system for your application and create virtual machine images in minutes. KVM, Xen, VMWare and LXC are all supported.

  Do home users create applications using Ubuntu as a base to run on virtualized environments? Do home users runs servers with virtualization?

• Build flexible computing environments in your own infrastructure with Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) or deploy to Amazon EC2 using Ubuntu Server Edition images.

  Do home users create their own Enterprise Cloud or deploy applications to expensive commercial hosting systems?

Some home users on slashdot, maybe.

The thing is, Ubuntu server isn't trying to necessarily capture the marketshare of "serious" servers because those are already well-entrenched with contracts but rather competing with offerings like Windows Home Server.

Nuh uh. Ubuntu Server is certainly marketed towards enterprises, and not just very small ones. Canonical advertises its support for virtualization, cloud computing, and integration with enterprise authentication systems.
Let's look at the Ubuntu Server web page:

• "Ubuntu Server mixes effortlessly with Ubuntu, Windows or Mac OS environments. All clients can share authentication, swap files and access services, while Open LDAP, Likewise-Open and PAM authentication come as standard."

  Do home users care about LDAP or PAM?

• Virtualise your servers with Ubuntu Server and KVM. Use a secure, lean version of Ubuntu as a guest operating system for your application and create virtual machine images in minutes. KVM, Xen, VMWare and LXC are all supported.

  Do home users create applications using Ubuntu as a base to run on virtualized environments? Do home users runs servers with virtualization?

• Build flexible computing environments in your own infrastructure with Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) or deploy to Amazon EC2 using Ubuntu Server Edition images.

  Do home users create their own Enterprise Cloud or deploy applications to expensive commercial hosting systems?

I saw that with libimobiledevice, it's possible to control your iOS device with your Ubuntu desktop, including doing things like installing apps: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PortableDevices/iPhone

What I'm wondering is, would it now be possible to develop apps for the iPhone from your GNU/Linux desktop, using a free software stack? What I have in mind is something like this: you write the application in C (a strict subset of Objective C), compile it using GCC (targeting ARM architecture?), using headers obtained from the Apple SDK (I suppose GNUStep wouldn't do), and then use libimobiledevice to deploy it to your phone. I suppose this still lacks some important parts, such as a device emulator which can hook back into a debugger, but still I think it's interesting to think about.

Is anyone currently pursuing this kind of work?

GNOME .desktop files will execute even without the x bit set ...

I checked again, and it sounds like this has been addressed. Phew!

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/Policies#Execute-Permission%20Bit%20Required