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Porting Debian to... Windows
mike_sucks writes: "The first step to porting Debian to the Win32 platform has been made - dpkg is compiling under Cygwin. Check out the post on debian-devel and the Debian GNU/w32 port's site." Some of the posters on the debian-devel list aren't too pleased with the idea.
I thought this was an odd idea.
Why would anyone want to port an OS to another OS (don't start with "Windows is not an OS, please!")?
Then I saw what this all meant.
If people can get used to using Debian tools and programs on Windows, then they won't be nearly as nervous about using them in a GNU/Linux environment.
Bravo! I can't wait to see how that turns out.
I have 3656.9 Bogomips. How many Bogomips do you have?
After this I recommend they work on getting the Linux kernel to work, then maybe a Windowing system, XFree might do the trick, then the various utilities that Debian is known for.
Wait a minute, that's not Windows at all...
If Debian is successfully ported to Windows(tm) to the point where a non-computer savy users could set it up, does anyone think this would bring about a new batch of Linux users?
Jesus, will those guys just suck it up? If someone feels that this project is worth their time, quit complaining and let them do it! If it's cool and useful, people will use and enjoy it! If it's not, it'll be a lesson for the author. (If they even care if anyone uses it... They might just be doing it for fun)
this seems like another HUGE waste of time and effort on the part of the Linux community. Why is it that so much code has to be wasted on these "we're doing it because WE CAN" projects? If you want to use Debian tools, USE DEBIAN!! Not Debian on Win32; not Debian on OSX, just DEBIAN. Does that make TOO MUCH sense or something?
Shouldn't you have used this icon instead?
___
Cognitive Overflow
more than yo
sometimes I'm sick of the Linux kernel... 2.4 feels really good, rich of features etc., but in some situations I've learned to hate this kernel.. the one thing that keeps me with Linux is Debian's packet management.
Isnt this backward? Should we be porting software from Windows to Linux(e.g., WINE) instead of from Linux to Windows? Come on, Windows has enough good software already. Why spend time porting the useful stuff from Linux into the busted Windows environment?
This makes it easier for people to stay in Windows. I'm gonna do some research because I suspect Bill G. must be behind this.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Because you have an overdeveloped sense of irony maybe?
(I wonder if RMS would consider relaxing his restraints so as to allow the packaging of Windows with the otherwise "all free, all the time" Debian...)
(hell, it's funny just to think of bundling it with the non-free packages)
I can only think that it might lead to the porting of other Debian tools to Windows, which might allow people to try them under Windows first, and be more comfortable with using them for a potential switch-over sometime down the road...
libertarianswag.com
This port is meant to run on any win32 implementation. Some win32
implementations are free (wine, reactos), others are not (microsoft).
free implementations are of course recommended and cygwin is proven
to work fine on wine.
Let's see... Install Linux, configure WINE and then....
Install Linux!
Should have ported Mandrake first!!!
VmWare...
Why go through the hassle of porting it, when you can just run it on any OS you like using VmWare...???
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Why not GNU/Windows?
No. Why would a user move when everything is being brought to them. Seems to me this makes it easier to stay in Windows.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
but they should have no problem if they find themselves in a Linux environment as opposed to Windows.
I still think it will take more for them to be attracted to any GNU/Linux implementation.
I have 3656.9 Bogomips. How many Bogomips do you have?
Wow, this seems almost as useful as running Linux on an Xbox!!!! It is bigger than IT!!! Surely, this will change the world and prevent MS from dominating the Linux community any further.
What's the point of the project? Are they porting specific tools that aren't already available with Cygwin, or are they reinventing the wheel? If I've got Cygwin running on my Win2K box, what extra benefits do I get from using Debian?
I remember when this was first discussed on debianplanet, and a lot of people started flipping out. There's simply some places (such as the work office), where one is forced to use a Win32 OS, and cannot dual-boot. Besides, dual-booting is a PITA. If I can "dpkg -i" a package under cygwin, and get to using the gimp VS photoshop, I'll do it in a heartbeat.
:)
At best, one can say that this will deter people from linux. But then again, everyone loves linux because of all the OSS available for it. And if the whole goal is to promote OSS, why neglect the largest user base? Then when people get sick of Windows, they can convert to FreeBSD or Linux or whatever without there being a huge learning curve involved.
I don't think I really agree with the port being called w32 though. win32 is not a moniker that promotes Windows as a winner, it's just the first syllable of the word, just like a lot of nicknames are formed. I wish RMS would spend more time coding than trying to be a politician
If there was a "-1 Not Funny", that'd be my most used mod.
One of the great advantages of the *nix platform that Windows has never really been able to match has been it's remote access capabilities.
I run Windows on my desktop at home, but I also run a Debian GNU/Linux server, for the sole reason so that when I'm away from home, I can telnet into it and read my mail, use IRC, etc.
I even have a Nokia 9210, and using it I can telnet to my Debian box and then use IRC from anywhere in Europe, Asia, or indeed anywhere with a GSM 900/1800 signal. (Basically, anywhere except USA. Suck. :)
Being able to do "apt-get install telnetd irc" on a Windows box would be very nice indeed!
Be careful, emulating Windows inside of Linux on Windows is what killed the dinosaurs...
Don't we ever learn?
No man is an island, but Gary is a city in Indiana.
is when people start griping for commercial software as easy and smart as their free stuff.
;)
;)
Yes, this already goes on sometimes (in server rooms, say), but it's still funny and as much a contrarian in-joke in many cases as it is a genuine sentiment. When it stops being funny -- well, that *will* be funny
I'd like to see Red Hat & c. (IBM is doing this a bit) play up the HUGE upgrade free software means when it comes to complexity, ongoing costs, etc.
Ongoing costs for software rental / licensure (and remember, companies don't *buy* most software, esp. from Microsoft -- they purchase quite restrictive licenses) are like holes in your money bag. From a business standpoint, they'd better be doing a lot of "making your memos more productive" to make up for it.
The more software that can be apt-get installed, the flatter the (overstated) learning curve becomes. Someone will probably make sure that Windows has a cute apt-get wizard too
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
The folks here who *have* to run windows, don't really, they *have* to run certain windows apps, because they are a defacto standard in the relevant application domain and the linux apps aren't quite up to par yet and WINE isn't quite ready for that app.
They'll never willingly quit Windows cold-turkey, but if they can start to run debian/gnu/linux (pick one) apps on Windows, eventually the linux apps will overtake the quality of the windows apps and the people will then be using them and have no reason not to switch (cost, cost, cost).
I used to think that linux on the desktop wasn't a goal worth persuing at the moment - then I realized every Windows/Office purchase is money for Microsoft to use on its quest to eliminate linux.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
As an experienced (~10 year) developer who has spent most of his time in the Win32 world and a little bit in the *nix court, this is good news for me.
A lot of people think Windows is inflexible because it does not have a layered windowing system ala X, but this is not an issue if someone wants to write a shell for the OS to replace Explorer (see http://www.geoshellx.com for a very basic implementation). It's not easy, but it's not forbidden or blocked by the OS architecture in any way. If someone wants to bring this type of good stuff to Windows, I think everyone will be more than happy.
I can't imagine he would be too happy with GPL licensed software being ported to a proprietary operating system developed by Microsoft. But then again, after Fink utilized GPL software for porting to Mac OS X (half free source/half proprietary), this is not too far fetched of an idea.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I think a lot of people who are already using Cygwin (for instance if they have no other choice at work than to work with windows) will be very pleased with this.
Apt-getting all your software in stead of compiling and recompiling and recompiling everything would be a huge improvement. Lots and lots more software will get availible for the cygwin users this way...
I will follow this with great interrest
Debian under w32 ... Look at the HURD and tell me what it is that you see.
Looking for a great online backup: Green Backup
Apart from the regular obligatory joke about running DPKG on Cygnus on WINE on Linux, one wonders how this thing uses the Windows registry.
Most windows apps still use the registry to store app specific info.
Will dpkg use the same?
I feel this has been done. There's already a bash-for-windows and a ksh-for-windows, both of which come with a number of common Unix tools. There's vmware itself. It strikes me that a lot of "Debian tools" are simply GNU tools, freeware, open source software, and Linux ports of historical Unix tools. I visited the sourceforge "homepage" for this, and it was a few paragraphs about getting windows users accustomed to using "Debian tools". I did not get the feeling this was anything new or unique, or that it was Debian-specific, except for maybe the apt-get system. That's about it. Am I missing something?
--
-j
-j
the "complexity" I referred to there is financial / logistical. Things like keeping physical track of license documentation, of paying for and accounting for upgrades, maintaining lists of unlocking keys, etc. I like not needing to enter serial numbers when I install Mandrake ;)
... there are stripped down, custom-embeddable versions of Windows which could be used to do the same thing, just not quite as simply.
Obviously (?), a company's software environment can be more *or* less complex with free software depending on implementation, what the company does, etc. City of Largo did a simpling-down move, all software on server, etc, but that's really orthogonal to whether it's free
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
By giving Windows developers access to the great development tools of Linux/Unix (Cygwin et all..) I think you make it easier to have developers stick with windows than switch.
I worked at a small software house that had a linux "mainframe" . Developers machines were dual boot Linux/NT. The NT had a Xserver and once Cygwin was installed on the NT side almost noonne booted into linux ever..WinCVS and SAMBA, TCL for windows, emacs, perl and Java, X made it super easy to do development on NT as opposed to using those tools in the native linux world. once compenets were build they could be loaded onto the linux machine and tested.
I think it may make some more open to using linux, but not as many as those who stick it out with windows longer because the tools are almost the same now.
How could they port something which is open source, onto a platform which is and always will be closed source.
I dont understand the logic in mixing the two.
Debian is the version of Linux for the open source supporter, follows the GPL strictly, if this is true, why choose to port it to Microsoft out of every possible OS, why not Apple? why not OS2? why not BeOS?
Whats the point in wasting the programming time and effort of providing a free service to the competition?
This time could have been used to improve debian for linux.
What a waste
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Head Mondoshawan: Time not important...only life important (Fifth Element)
If the Debian developers think that this is a cool idea you can help or not. But don't blame they for his effort.
-= If you fight Dragons long enough, you will become a Dragon =-
Honestly, why do programmers put effort into such a project?
First of all, most apps that are to be ported already exist in some form for Windows. The market for Win apps is already really flooded, and I don't think that these additional programs (no matter how much better) are really going to make any difference.
Second of all, aren't you guys all using Linux as an alternative for Windows? It's not the applications on the platform that affected you decision, but the platform itself. Windows won't be any better even with these ported apps.
Why don't the programmers working on this project do something a little more constuctive, like make the apps for Linux better and better. Moving them over to Windows seems like a step backwards.
Of course that just my opinion.
sin(6cos(r)+5A)
The biggest problem with ports of GUI apps to Windows is the requirement of an X server. If Xlib could be ported to Windows in such a way that it draws to Windows directly instead of using the X protocal, then other X toolkit and applications could be ported-over, and would seem more like native apps.
-Karl
Why not just use a BSD outright?
While building a Linux distribution with bsd rather than gnu utilities makes a certain amount of sense, I don't see anyone putting time into it for other than being truly annoyed by RMS. I'd be somewhat interested, as I've prefered the bsd to gnu the couple of times I've noticed differences, but I solved that by switching. Little sense as that makes, though, stripping the free software utilities integrated into the BSD's in favor of the GNU versions makes even less sense to me.
> the one thing that keeps me with Linux is Debian's packet
> management.
Debian's package management is better than bsd packages. It seems to take a back seat to bsd ports, however. It's all compiled right there on your machine, and it handles dependencies. portupgrade can search and upgrade/replace these, too. Give it a try. I've never missed debian since switching.
hawk
Its a waste of time, this time could be used for something important.
ITs not important to port this stuff to windows. If people in windows want linux they can use linux, we dont need to port it to them.
Its as stupid as Microsoft porting games from Xbox to Windows.
Why should Microsoft do it? why keep people from buying Xbox?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I was actually wondering the exact same thing.
:)
:)
Ah damn. I just made a "me-too" post.
Anyways, my first thought was that it was cool that they tried to do it just because. It would also be a nice test on how complete cygwin is, right? I mean, if you can run the OS it is supposed to emulate on it, it should be pretty well done.
Remember though, that most people that would be afraid of Linux stuff won't have Cygwin either, in most cases. If they are already using Cygwin, they should have little problem with the basics of Linux, and I think they know this. Cygwin is actually harder to get used to, and I tried Cygwin first, not the other way around...
To really break in the new-but-curious, you would almost need a complete installer, with cygwin and debian. Hopefully explaining a lot of the steps on the way, so the curious understands what this is about.
Well I think it is cool.
I hope it will bring good too.
If I can try out Linux tools, and wean myself and my wife to a system that can work all on Linux, we very well might switch. (assuming that I can find good games, and a word processor that fits my needs intelligent spellchecker.)
Trust me; if you can show me an OS that does everything that Windows does that I like, is more stable, AND is free / cheap, I'll switch. But the simple fact is that #1 hasn't been shown to me, and that's really the most important one.
(I have tried AbiWord and StarOffice 6--and they both had very real performance problems, like not counting em dashes as punctuation!)
However, Cygwin's default install method is that you have to download about 20 files from their site, extract them, then use a script to get everything installed right. Not impossible nor difficult to follow, but is mind-numbing. (The split of packages is similar to that for XFree in other distros; the engine, the fonts, the programs, the libraries, etc. Cygwin just tends to trim packages down to the floppy 1.44M level so some of the packages have multiple parts).
Having dpkg available, with cygwin as the sources, will allows them to distribute the XFree files as a single task, making the job of installing them that much easier as well as keeping them up-to-date. Two commands (update and upgrade), and one can be set!
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
My first exposure to the GNU project was through programs like GNU chess ported to Windows, and the djgpp C compiler for DOS. I think that as people are given the opportunity to see that GNU software solves their problems, they will become more interested, leading to more interest in Linux and GNU software in general. This could be a great way for more of the public to "stick their toes in the water".
What would be the point of switching? you could have everything you want right in front of you (windows apps, linux apps). If anything, It might bring Linux users back to windows. And with win2k the stablity thing isn't so much of a factor anymore.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
He says he doesn't care what OS they port it to.
He's still not taking a bath.
.. getting a stable release out so I can explain to the suits that unstable really isn't unstable and having to revert to the actual stable which is old as hell if I want to install linux...
This is why you see debian most used on home servers and not a large scale network like the one I have here at work. I ended up using redhat and it's not even so much a support issue with the suits it's the UNSTABLE marking on debian that makes them leary even though I explain time and time again it's really not more unstable as redhat, it's probably more stable.
Debian needs a release bad for my types.
I use native win32 ports of gnu tools daily. Why? Because they are small and just work. The application is king. I don't really care where I run it. quixotal
Some of the posters on the debian-devel list aren't too pleased with the idea.
The whole idea of open source software is that people can extend it to do the things they want to do. In other words, it allows them to get the job done in the way they want to do it.
Why do people get upset when others extend the capabilites of a system in a way that they find useful? If you don't like losing control over a piece of software - don't release the source.
...and who cares what RMS thinks about "win32" or "w32." Jeez.
While I personally would do little more than "play" with such a port to determine it stability and flexibility, I believe this would quite possibly allow for further adoption of the operating system outside the typical confines of the Linux community. Which, IMHO, is a good thing...
/.), we severely limit the potential user base for our wonderful operating system. As such, we miss out on a huge market share, if you will, of potential Linux users and supporters. Ports such as these that allow for an easier transition from win32 to Linux could tantalize John Q. Public into trying something new and eventually delve in the more complicated distros...
Too often, I believe that through our own arrogance and unwillingness to simplify the use and installation of Linux distros for the common user (not the ultra-geeks of
Just my $0.02USD, but I think the more people on Linux - the better. The only way we will ever stand a chance at overcoming the Evil Empire of M$ is through pure numbers and widespread support!!!
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. -- Benjamin Franklin
Written English, besides a tag, needs some other things, like underlining phrases to be parsed at once ;)
By using the word "upgrade," though, I qualified for a dose of abuse and revilement.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I think what the above poster wanted would be a mechanism where, if he didn't like a kernel, he'd be able to completely swap it out and replace it with a totally different one with out any significant problems.
Having different kernels with the exact same user space could be pretty convenient. Why deal with more complexity then you have to?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
..is that they recommend to do all this "...with free implementations of win32 (Wine)...".
... the idea is just beyond my mind!
This is plainly hilarious.
I know that cygwin will compile under Wine. But using it under Wine to run dpkg
Let me quote the whole parragraph:
This port is meant to run on any win32 implementation. Some win32
implementations are free (wine, reactos), others are not (microsoft).
free implementations are of course recommended and cygwin is proven
to work fine on wine.
Who had the idea in the first place? Terry Gillian? Pratchet? Benny Hill? Jay Leno? Chiquito de la Calzada?
How can using Free Software on NT ( or any other non-GNU system ) be bad? I just think its great that there are tools that make a mixed development enviroment work smoothly. I fail to see how this is bad..
Linux isnt the answer to all the questions out there and its really nice to use familiar tools no mather what platform your on.
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Except for some people who think choosing an operating system of importance equivalent to choosing a religion most of us don't care what OS we use. Instead most people care about what apps they can run on a given OS. My favorite apps/tools are Emacs, Perl, Internet Explorer, WinAmp, ICQ, ssh, bash, grep and Word. Windows runs all of them with the least amount of hassle and that's why I use it. This is true for most of the computer users in the world, the OS that the app happens to run on is incidental.
I used to think that linux on the desktop wasn't a goal worth persuing at the moment - then I realized every Windows/Office purchase is money for Microsoft to use on its quest to eliminate linux.
Short of acquiring a genie and using their three wishes to wish away Linux, Open Source, and college classes on operating systems there's no way that anyone can eliminate Linux. Most reasonable people realize this (including Linus) and rightfully don't see Linux vs. Microsoft as some sort of war that should be won at all costs.
I know RMS is the God of GNU, but he is NOT the deciding factor on a damned thing when it comes to peoples ports. If it's in compliance with the GPL (source code is re-released) then there is no reason why you can't make a Windows 32 port of debian.
Looks too me like all that's been accomplished thus far is a ./configure, make to Debian Base inside Cygwin, no big deal, but you HAVE to have some place to get your feet wet.
Then we hear the rants about how sourceforge is the devil? Since when? I would love to see another FREE (as in someone else gets stuck with the bill) For LOTS of bandwidth and lots of server space. Not to mention free web-hosting, Free CVS, Free advertising, and a whole lot more ... so what if they're owned by VA ... so's /. ...
So where do I stand in my views of Debian ... Like GNU I will not let the views of a few define how I feel about a project as a whole, but it pisses me off and makes me want to kill the whole thing and go to slackware (ohh yeah ... BTW, a little FYI ... apt-sucks ... no one is allowed to make fun of redhat any more ...) And the only reason people from slack like to compile from source ... SIMPLE ... you _can_ compile from source on slack ... try outta the box compiling on RH or Mandrake ...
This Victory Strengthens The Soul
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Should we be porting software from Windows to Linux(e.g., WINE) instead of from Linux to Windows?
Really, who do you mean by 'we'? This may be a shock to you, but there are some people who actually *ghasp* like windows, myself included. The fact of the matter is, for me, A lot of things are just easier for me to deal with in windows then in Linux, even setting up and running Apache, because I'm more used to it. I have a little Linux box for playing around with, but for the most part I like windows.
I mean, the driving force of Open source software is people doing stuff because they feel like doing it. people doing stuff because they want to. You can't just say "we should work on WINE for accomplishing our political objectives" and then have Everybody magically want to spend their time reimplementing Microsoft skank-nasty APIs
This may bother you, but everything on Debian is Open Source. And that means that you can take it and do whatever you want to with it, including porting it to windows.
If this is a success, there's a good chance I'll be running it.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Ok I could be wrong but has anyone noticed on those posts ANYTHING from Branden Robinson that didnt have some uber hacker wannabe slang in it? just a little curious as to the intellectual integrity of some of the people involved in the distro ;D
Why is it that people even care. I wonder, what is it going to bother people if anything is ported. I dont think its quite made for them to use now is it? If you dont want to use something DONT! Maybe someone NEEDS windows for something. Like i believe it was an earlier slashdot article about spell checkers and linux. Editing atm is superior on windows, why use windows the way it is if you can use apps you like. Just like wine, some people want the stability of linux but like some windows apps. Why are we being so close minded. I dont want to hear any "oh its M$ cra..." Think beyond the box, realise that not everyones needs are the same as yours. This does not show my personal opinion. I personaly think its a waste of time and everything should all be on some type of unix varient =] but its just no rational to think this will happen. We need to learn to deal with this, and bringing linux to windows in more ways than one is a step in the right direction.
every dark cloud has a silver lining, but lightning kills hundreds of people every year trying to find it.
I suppose that it really is about the apps, but the one I'm thinking of is the Novell Client logon application. I understand that it was working back in Linux 2.0, but it's been broken as long as I've been using Linux. This means that I can use Linux at home, but not at the office. No printer, not network server, etc. (TCP/IP gets through though). So periodically I try out a new distribution at work, and then I go back to using Win95.
... I wonder: Can I generate stand-alone applications that I can share with others using Debian in a CygWin environment? I can with CygWin (when it doesn't get confused ... SmallEiffel has been giving me problems recently).
As for Debian
P.S.: That Win95 part means that X Window doesn't work. There may be commercial ones that do, but the CygWin port doesn't work on my computer. So Debian would be just the text window install.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
...is when the team announce the latest Unstable release, Windows users will feel right at home :)
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
maybe it's too hard for OEM's to preinstall RedHat or Debian (insert your fav here), but once they are allowed to 'modify' the default windows desktop (after the court case) then I wonder how many OEM's could be convinced to preinstall cygwin or debian? The results would be a generation of kids growing up on gcc, bash, etc. That would be cool.
VNC If your nokia has a web browser, you can control your windows desktop from anywhere.
:(
Actually, windows 2000 has a telnet server if you choose to enable it. The problem is that all files are basically a+rwx in windows and you have to setup ACLs on file access for the whole system if you have any other people with log-on rights to the system if you want to have any kind of security. I'm not talking about share security, if any users telnets in they can "DIR" their way anywhere on the system and do whatever they want with the files. If you don't have anyone else using the machine it's not a problem though.
The other problem, of course, is that you just can't really do that many on windows with just the command line
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
*sigh*
Focus on making software on and for Linux and *nix compatibles like BSD only. Do what MS does to try and lock people into their OS. Although you can't exactly lock someone into Linux since you have many distro's and it's free and open; then there is BSD and all the other *nix's. Still, the focus should be on making Linux and GNU software better and keep it away from proprietary areas. Make open software that's compatible with the proprietary versions, port software for the MS OS's to Linux. As the Linux OS and it's software base evolves, then MS software users will find a good reason to switch, and it will be ever harder for MS to lock users in. If we port great Linux software to the MS OS's, we only help MS in locking users in.
The only software that I see that would benefit porting to Window's, etc. is development software; compilers and such. This would help developers make an easier transition to developing on Linux.
Question everything.
I'm dying to see WINE ported to Win32! :-)
MOD THE CHILD UP!
The site that the above links to contains many links to nasty goat related sites...
Most, if not all, system utilities work through a gui
The Start menu still doesn't take you to the important system configuration tools regedit or winipcfg. You have to use Start > Run... which is essentially the commandline.
that is, in normal use, stable
Microsoft sells no operating system that satisfies these three constraints: 1. home priced, 2. stable, and 3. respectful of privacy (as opposed to an authentication system that reveals your telephone number to Microsoft).
Will I retire or break 10K?
the GNU system ran for half a decade on commercial UNIXs. It was designed on commercial UNIXs, this is really nothing new, other then the fact that its got a different interface
Of course, who knows how Stallman would actually feel. He opposed GNU work on the original Macintosh, and he clearly isn't the most rational man...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Banned! I can't fucking believe how easy it is to get banned from this shithole.
Bite my yammer.
If you want to use Debian tools, USE DEBIAN!! Not Debian on Win32
With Win32, you get all the Win32 drivers. For instance, Debian GNU/Linux doesn't support my laptop's internal modem. With Debian on Win32, on the other hand, I could alt-tab out to Mozilla and dial the Internet.
Will I retire or break 10K?
My heart goes out to anyone who actually has to apply ACLs to a machine operating in a multiuser environment. This is something that *nux has long since, uh. You mean you have to set things up there too?
See also: multiple users.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
I have enough issues with getting the tricky things like my Nvidia chip and my DVD player to work right without introducing an entirely new software grenade to the mix.
But I suppose that's just my opinion, YMMV.
Ben Pfaff wrote: > Last I heard, RMS really hates the moniker "win32" because it has > the string "win" in it, implying that there's something winning > about Windows. I suspect he'd like w32 better than win32 for > what that's worth. During Emacs 20 development, rms insisted on changing all the elisp win32-* variables to w32-* for precisely that reason, so it seems he's happy with w32. Craig Jesus Christ. Somebody needs to get a life.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
You seem to be very ignorant of two things:
- Everything to do with people and their different motivations, desires, and beliefs, invariably ends up being political. All RMS wants is for software to be free, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In expressing his views and taking action to promote Free Software, he cannot, however, avoid political issues no matter how he tried.
- You also fail to realize how much coding the man has done. Probably more than you would even see in your lifetime.
[I apologize for being a bit bitter. Your post was quite fine but the part about RMS stung. I just see too many people being very willing to take a stab at RMS, and ignore all the contributions he has made to ensure that our world is not controlled by a few conglomerate monopolies, and that by making code available to the public, civil liberties can be somewhat protected and advancements more readily made.]I am a newbie using debian, and slashdot is the only geek community I know.
I think I can make symlinks in the RC directories, I just need a clean debian directory to mimic!!
Please Help. (I am to embarrassed to give my name
A lot of people are saying "why port Free stuff to windows?" or "why would you want to do this?"
.dll and one or two apps) and it is GREAT. A real shell, nano (my favorite editor), grep, sed, less, tail, uniq, which, etc. It is all packages in a nice installer (afaik it is just called "setup.exe") which reminds me of the BSD ports system.
Well, some of us still "have" to run windows sometimes. That's just how it is.
I've been using cygwin (in the larger sense, not just the
The point is, when you are "stuck" with windows the more "real man's" tools available the better!
OTOH, it bugs me a little that this seems to be under the name Debian, which stands (in my mind anyway) for 100% free, no fillers or meat by-products.
-Peter
Ooops that should be rm /etc/rc*.d/S*
PLEASE HELP!!
...you Linux proponents should be *ecstatic* over this! Seriously! I want to mess around with Linux and such, but I'm not going to go through the hassle of dual booting- but seeing something like this- I'm like hmmm, well maybe I'll give it a shot, so...
...next thing you know I might just be using various Linux apps, now I'm getting use to all of this Linux stuff, say this is pretty cool...hmmm maybe I don't need Windows after all...
See what I mean? If I can have access to Linux software from my Windows computer then eventually I might just kick the Windows habit- at the very least I'm using more OSS and am more likely to support it in the future.
This could well be my gateway into the world of OSS!
Really.
And I need to notice that the pre tag is not supported. Sigh.
Ben Pfaff wrote:
> Last I heard, RMS really hates the moniker "win32" because it has
> the string "win" in it, implying that there's something winning
> about Windows. I suspect he'd like w32 better than win32 for
> what that's worth.
During Emacs 20 development, rms insisted on changing all the elisp
win32-* variables to w32-* for precisely that reason, so it seems he's
happy with w32.
Craig
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
This may shock you but you cannot "take it and do whatever you want to with it". I would receive a Richard Stallman rectal exam if I were to take any of the GPL components of Debian and utilized them in a commercial product without releasing the source. I have done some stupid, dumb things in my life like bungie jumping, walking in certain neighborhoods in New Orleans after midnight and running a NT webserver but there is one thing I would never dare to do. I would never do anything that caused Richard Stallman to come in contact with me. Now that's scary.
Respect the GPL or meet a fate worst than death!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
It's all about marketing...
http://www.club977.com/ - The 80's Channel!
Your source for commercial free 80's music!
No. Why would a user move when everything is being brought to them. Seems to me this makes it easier to stay in Windows.
This makes it easier for people to migrate away from windows. If the path from win32 to Linux is a literally that: a path and not a cliff, people will be more inclined to walk that path. Few people will jump off the cliff, even if what's below is much better.
Once this port is working, then all of our win32 joe-sixpack users will start being exposed to all sorts of software packages that they can use: games, productivity, etc. Gnumeric. Abiword. Xmms. Not demos, but free. Always free. Just download and run. They'll see GNU and OSS in license agreements. They's see it our emails. They'll join announcement mailing lists get immediate upgrades -- for free.
They'll come to expect free software all the time. Not as a political statement. Not as a anti-corporate philosophy. But because they are cheap bastards. No offense. (None taken)
Then, in a couple years, when ol' Bill rolls out his next Windows XS. Joe six-pack will think: "What? He expects me to pay?"
At that time, he say "I've got all this free software that people keep telling me will run on a free operating system." So instead of getting Windows XS, he will get RedHat 10.2.
And the transition will be complete.
One last note: The OSS community often complains about people taking from the community but not giving back. This phenomenon will increase as more joe-sixpack's start using free software. As oss gains more popular, the ratio of those who contribute to those who don't will continute to grow.
Most of these guys wouldn't even know how to contribute if they wanted. They sure aren't going to donate cash, because that's the overidding motivation for the growth of free software beyond your basic slashdot reader: free as in beer. Screw politics.
That's okay. Consider it this way: they're primary contribution to oss and your project is:
1) a big user base bestows legitimacy
2) they *aren't* supporting ms/aol/apple etc.
This will have to be enough. We can *not* spit on these people. We can't view them with contempt because they understand "The specs are open. Write your own device driver to that digital camera."
Software Wars
Some of the posters on the debian-devel list aren't too pleased with the idea.
It's interesting to note that, while porting anything TO Linux is acceptable, porting Linux to something else irritates some.
I think this is something positive. If you can give users of other platform a taste of your own cooking, chances are they'll come for a full meal at some point.
Or at the very least, make them taste something else and open up their minds.
I see this as a teaser, and a pretty good way to get some free software (like Gimp), other than the OS itself, a chance to open up to a new crowd.
This is microsoft marketing strategies... first, we give you a number of programs free ... with the added promise that you can get a lot more free programs if you just switch over to linux (because 10% packages will never work on windows, 90% will not be updated nearly as fast as their linux counterparts), and we show you that you can actually do a lot more (be more up-to-date etc) if you just use linux ...
sounds like a winner to me
Why would a user move when everything is being brought to them.
Because applications run natively will always be faster (even in theory), and less buggy (in application). Also, new driver support for old versions of Windows will eventually be dropped, so users will also switch because it's free.
If this allows users to stay on Windows 2000 (or XP or 98 or whatever they have) forever, and never have to upgrade, freedom has already won.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
What I'd like to see is a Debian distro on the BSD kernel. They've got a HURD distro, which is very cool. If they're trying to show how unbiased they are, wouldn't it make more sense to help heal the smaller divisions with the BSD community first? Not to mention that it would be extremely handy to be able to do apt-get updates on a BSD pf firewall...
NASA is porting its latest liquid hydrogen engines to the new segway...
[alk]
I think it is great that there will be a cygwin-w32 architecture available through the Debian packaging system. However, what I would really like to see are native ports of GNU & other freeware packages. I've used Emacs, Vim, and MiKTeX on windows, as well as many file-utils and devel-utils have been ported, partially listed here or here (compiled primarily the MinGW or DJGPP compilers), but they are not centrally available or managed. I would also argue that the Debian branch for cygwin programs should be called w32-cygwin, and the native programs be under w32.
Just some more thoughts to fuel the fire.
According to the Cygwin web site, Cygwin is "a UNIX environment for Windows...a UNIX emulation layer".
So I must raise a question of symantics: Is this technically "porting" or mearly something akin to "cross-compiling"? After all, it's not compiling under Windows but a Unix facade over top of Windows?
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
>If people can get used to using Debian tools
>and programs on Windows, then they won't be
>nearly as nervous about using them in a GNU/Linux
>environment.
I'm sorry, but I can't agree with your above assumption. I just can't see why this would really help Linux at all. If we're just porting apps, how does this help the OS known as Linux get a better rep? People will say "This is a great app, good thing it runs for windows so I don't have to switch to Linux". It sounds like the same thing I say for apps ported from Windows to Linux. Besides, I also have to admit that many apps for Windows are better. StarOffice sucks in comparison to Office and many apps that do show promise (Mozilla) are already available for Win32. We need great programs like Evolution to be available for Linux exclusively because it may help persuade people to go the other way. If when I first thought about switching to Linux, there was a software package available to help the stability of my Win98 so it's just as stable as Linux, I may have never switched because Linux seemed hard and Windows seemed easy.
I just don't think this is the right way to go. There's other things we should be doing to promote Linux.
-Shippy
Anyone know how to speed up filesystem access under cygwin? It's dog slow (reportedly 10 times slower than the native windows driver), and it shows. I shudder to think of how cygwin/dpkg is going to fare accessing /var/lib/dpkg/available/info with thousands of files in it....
Is this about doing good for the users, promoting their freedom to run software on whatever platform they happen to be using?
Or is this about confining users by forcing them to use proprietary software just because their OS is proprietary, in the name of the ongoing battle between free and proprietary software?
If so, this reeks of exactly the same thing as the DMCA, geek profiling, and dozens of other violations of our rights. You have to be very careful when fighting the enemy that you don't become the enemy.
Philosophically, this is the question of, "Does the end justify the means?" I don't have the space to get into that whole debate here, but the short answer is that before you squish a project like this, you better be damn sure it does.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
Not because it would bring scores of desktop users to Linux. But OTOH, I love being able to use Unix/Linux tools like grep, ls, more, vi on Windows (thanks cygwin). Also, it might be a good way to convert some more enlightened Windows admins to give Linux a shot if they can see how powerful a command line can be. And once they are, it is a small step to the first Samba server, a medium to a Linux network... .
Open source developers aren't simply trying to get Linux used everywhere 'because it's Linux,' they are actually trying to make the software world a little better, more functional.
You would think Slashdot readers would be pleased at a technological advancement.
I was just saying that it would make people less scared about moving to Linux.
I posted in response to someone below saying that it will take more to actually get people to move, but this is good for preparing anyone for a move from a life of Windows to Linux.
I have 3656.9 Bogomips. How many Bogomips do you have?
Joe Sixpack and Susie SockerMom CAN be an asset to Linux. For one thing, when he whines that feature X doesn't work right, he's exposing a bug. And, more important, if a lot of people start asking if that snazzy new digital camera works with Linux, the vendor will make sure that it does or he'll lose $$$.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
*ahem* Shouldn't the be called "GNU/Windows"?
Really, computers are tools to get things done. Most of us who write code for a living in the real world (and no, webdesign and little shell scripts is not coding. I'm talking real applications) couldn't care less about what OS and language is used, provided that it's the right tool for the job.
Windows I've found is the top platform for a number of things. Mainly anything dealing with non-technical users. Windows also has plenty of server benefits (especially if you're using java on the backend.. java + linux = nothing but trouble).. but of course, it depends on what you're trying to do.
Linux provides a nice development environment, and is grand for CS students. GCC is the top C compiler, hands down. I know it's been ported to win32, though i've never used that version.
In the end, the people who actually make a difference in the industry and their field are the ones who don't get caught up in the pseudo-religious muck that flies on slashdot.
*gets off soapbox*
-
A lot of people seem to think that the posters on debian-devel are trying to somehow suppress or forbid this port of software. Although some of us may be uneasy about it, I haven't seen anyone actually suggest that.
The question causing argument is whether this port should be officially recognized by the Debian Project, given that one of our foundational documents says "Debian will remain 100% free software", and that software which depends on non-free software to run is considered "not part of Debian".
The crux of the matter is this, from a post on the list by Stephen Langseck:
I recognize the advantages of a dpkg-based system for cygwin, and think
it's an interesting idea that will benefit many people who can't
necessarily choose the OS of their computer; but even so, I have
misgivings about using the Debian name on such a port. If the non-free
archive is not part of Debian, should a port built on a non-free kernel
be called 'Debian'? After all, unless all the compiling for this port
will be done using Wine and gcc, you effectively will have an entire
port with build-dependencies on non-free software.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Then you could make
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
apt-get install kernel-image-x.xx
good bye bill!!
There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't.
My closest brush with stuff like this was Exceed, the X port to Win32. It made me think X sucked, and I never learned a thing. Why? Because half of it was broken by the suck OS underneath and I had no reference to the way things were supposed to work. A year later I learned to program the Win95 API and understood how things had shifted around under the shiny binary.
Think about how crippled the ports will be. How on earth can you issue ssh user@host -X and expect it to work under M$? Even if the X GUI interface can talk to Windoze, what user is runing the local display? How can you keep malicious third parties from corrupting your display? How on earth will you be able to tunnel that unholy mess through a secure shell? The path issues alone are enough to make me gag, can they be passed to new shells in M$ land? Heck, I can't even find the much vaunted (and sorely incomplete) kshell on my NT cripled work box. The average M$ box lacks basic security features such as users, PIDs and embeded file permisions. How can you build anything on top of that stinking dung heap?
Good luck to the folks at Cygwin. They are taking on a endless, difficult and thankless task. Breaking everything on a windows platform is as easy as changing default fonts. Try running ispell under NT service pack six. Changing the functionality of dlls is a sure way to break stuff. In the end, M$ will only tollerate M$ on their Micros~ OS.
I'm sure win32 is a registered trademark. The name should follow the fine tradition of negation. GNU is not Unix, Lesstif acts like Motif, Loss32 would be a good name for Win32 TM.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
The zealots are afraid it will draw people away from their own choice of OS, rather than making one OS work with another one. Shameful and against all the 'open' philosophy, but zealots tend to ignore the parts of a philosophy they don't like.
-
Making system and application codes more portable is a good thing. That's why cygwin is a good project, and it's good that your code works both on UNIX and Windoze.
It's also good for users, so that they can use your code even if they are forced to use one common operating system.
--exa--
Ooooh! Microsoft will have my TELEPHONE NUMBER.
And it can combine that information with the rest of the .NET Passport stuff and (based on overlooked terms in the EULA) give your number to telemarketers, charge you more based on how much you make, etc.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You know, the question of "Why" shouldn't be asked.... "why not" is a better question.
People arn't getting paid to do this, like many projects it's a "what the hell, let's do it" type thing. But on the whole it's a good thing. The people are doing this are learning new things, whicch they can apply to other projects, which in the end will benifit everyone.
I don't see this as a way to take linux to the main stream, and I don't think anyone should either. It's just a way to play with things and push limits.
>They'll come to expect free software all the
>time. Not as a political statement. Not as a
>anti-corporate philosophy. But because they are
>cheap bastards. No offense. (None taken)
They already do. To Joe Sixpack, most of his software is already free (as in beer), he just downloads it from a warez site, or gets his buddy to burn him a copy.
Joe Sixpack isn't going to pick legal but harder-to-use software over illegal but easy-to-use software, I think. And trying to explain the virtues of `Free as in speech' is a waste of time (Joe Sixpack watches wrestling, not the History Channel. Joe Sixpack reads Maxim, not Nietzche (which I probably have spelled wrong)).
>Then, in a couple years, when ol' Bill rolls out
>his next Windows XS. Joe six-pack will think:
>"What? He expects me to pay?"
He already thinks that. Joe Sixpack is the type that will let his buddy installed a `hacked' version of XP, with the expiration code stripped out or whatever. Even though this is a risky move (in a technical sense, if not a legal one), he will do it anyway, then proceed to bash Microsoft (*) when the OS dies & takes all his data with it.
(*) Not that I'm making MS out to be the good guys here, but if you're going to bash MS, at least bash them for things that are actually their fault!
Yes, but when is that likely to happen? 2006 ???
I'm concerned that Debian, like Slack to some extent, will be another one of those excellent distributions that will become marginalised if it doesn't wake up.
In my experience both Slack and Debian are both configured to be both fast, robust and stable and hence ideally suited for business applications. I agree with the other poster that installing Slack is much easier than installing Debian and wrestling with dselect.
Unfortunately today's brain-dead sysadmins whose idea of IT prowess is being able to use a cordless infrared mouse are not exactly going to leap at the chance of a fiddly Debian installation, still less grapple with the esoterica of dselect and its ilk.
It's not as if I'm advocating compromising stability by asking for bleeding edge apps. All I'd like is a 2.2r4(b) release with an easy-to-use installation front end.
I know that the mantra is that "you only have to do the installation once", but for many that translates to "once bitten, twice shy" unfortunately.
intel licenses the x86 architecure to them
Amusingly, I use the same exact tools (except for WinAmp, where I use iTools and some cmd line stuff). Um. But I don't prefer Doze. So I have everything - I'm happy with MacOS X, I'm not helping MS, and I'm using/contributing to OSS.
DozeXP... 'Hey, have you tried the new version of doze?' SOunds good.
Microsoft have no right to collect your telephone number without asking.
"Either you let us read your telephone number off our unblockable 1-800 Caller ID, or we won't let you activate XP." Does that count as "asking"?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Well, sort of..
I was just thinking of reimplementing EDLIN as a VBA Word macro..
Why port Debian to Win32? Why not just develop Windows in EMACS and reach critical bit-mass and go back in time?
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
They don't like win32? How about lose32?
:)
... burning bridges is not something line managers like to do so if you can introduce linux apps into a windows environment without using an either/or constraint you have the thin edge of wedge in. It's also called a bridge-head and us PHB's will take that approach over an either/or proposition anyday. Ummmm, less licensing costs and more money to pay wages. I prefer to invest in people anyway, what about you?
- The PHB.
From the linked post: free implementations are of course recommended and cygwin is proven
to work fine on wine.
So I run Linux to run wine to run debian? Am I missing something here? What kind of computer pervert do you think I am?
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
I see this as a very interresting development of OSS worldwide. This can mean lots of things for the desktop market and it will shure help out the poor dorks that cant step up to their boss to tell him that IIS is imply not a good thing, so they end up stuck with w-servers.
.NET with respect to software distribution.
.NET framework (for distributing their applications) since its freely available and it may be really trivial to implement a windows-based client for it with all the bangs and sheebangs windows users are used to (like setup wizards).
The most interesting (though a bit sci-fi) thing I think could happen is that this could taint microsoft's market.
This is bringing core utilities that windows has never had so available. I mean, cygwin has allways been there, but make... wait 1 hour... make install... wait 5 minutes is a lot scaryer than apt-get install emacs.
This immediate availability, pushed by tools like the kde installer or the gnome-apt frontend could really mean windows users would finaly have somthing that actually DOES take care of those dependencies that end up borking your anyways-shitty system.
This may just be the thing to cracking some of microsoft plans. Their are so up into their clouds of software distribution by the net, which is exactly what debian does best. This could be the first hacked-together answer to
Some developers may choose apt/dpkg over the
This just may prove to be the thing....damn... I hope every nutcase out there thats screaming THIS LEVERAGES WINDOWS! can understand that windows is already there, its already a plataform and -therefore- a huge market where OSS can thrive.
I mean, before Linux, GNU ran on propietary UNIX kernels and, when GNU/Linux came about, it beat the hell out of UNIXes (it has beaten them....no doubts about it). Maybe its time to apply the same idea but with newer technology (RMS used to do this with tapes and stuff), namely, the most powerfull multiplatform/multilanguage (so java doesnt count) software distribution scheme ever created:
the dpkg suite.
Alex
NO SIG
I've put a lot of work into porting XFree86 to Cygwin:
:). When I visited there, back in 1996, I went to the library and found out what I could about the Athena system. I found out that it used the X Window System, so I pulled a book off the shelf about UNIX and the X Window System and started reading. I was determined to learn everything that I could about UNIX and X so that I would be ready when I got to MIT. Well, since I didn't get in, I started working with the X Window System just to show them that I could handle anything they created :) So, my first reason was to spite MIT :)
Cygwin/XFree86
I personally have three motivations for porting XFree86 to Cygwin. My first reason is that I wanted to go to MIT (short story: didn't get in
My second motivation was my intro CS course at Carnegie Mellon in 1997. We were using Emacs under X and I wanted a way for people with only Windows machines in their dorm rooms to be able to get an X session on the lab computers without having to shell out big bucks for a commercial X Server. It wasn't until 3 years later that I found the Cygwin/XFree86 project and finished it up by making it work on Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000, as opposed to just on Windows NT/2000. My second reason was derived from my shock at the rip-off prices being charged for X Servers on Windows.
My final motivation for porting XFree86 to Windows was that I wanted IS guys to be able to simply install Cygwin/XFree86 to allow Windows desktops to access new *free* applications running on remote Linux boxes (like GNUe, KOffice, etc.). I figured it was critical to the success of Linux in business to ease the transitionary path from Windows to Linux (by allowing coexistance). My third reason is thus a contribution to the free software movement that I had previously only benefitted from.
There you have it. Did I waste my time? Nope.
Now work is progessing on porting KDE, Gnome, and now Debian to Cygwin/XFree86. I couldn't be happier!
Harold
First of all, Debian isn't about Linux. Debian is about free software. You can run Debian on Linux and on Hurd for now, a BSD port has been requested repeatedly, as has a Windows port.
So Debian brings thousands of packages of free software to thouse that are stuck with Windows, for whatever reason that is. There are other ways to do it, cygwin being one (but not to userfriendly) and porting user mode linux to Windows the other (which hasn't been done yet). Debian w32 fills the gap.
Remember, Debian is about free software. Free as in free to be used where necessary, including Windows.
To me, it comes down to that simple question. I'm a once-linux-diehard who has come to realize that I have a lot more time for my life if I stop compiling utilities all day in linux and start just using IE and Outlook Express in Windows XP like Microsoft tells me to. I admit it, I've gone to the dark side :) And, so sue me, I feel really good about it.
Now, that being the case, I'm not about to give up the powers of perl, bash, wget, make, etc. And don't forget vi! I use these things about twice a week in Windows via cygwin. It's a major timesaver. And that's what computing is SUPPOSED to be about for the average joe..saving time so we can get back to our lives.
I say let's give people the opportunity to decide what for them is the the best way to do their work. I'm all about choice. I choose to use Windows and I choose to use cygwin just as freely as I could choose to use Linux and run win32 apps in WINE. Don't deny me these choices.
What did you eat today? http://www.atetoday.com/
It's the developers prerogative what the hell they want to code on. More power to them. More toys for us dual-booters to play with.
/. counter-frenzy) to push people into buying Office again. If one of the many emerging OS or Linux-friendly productivity suites makes it prime time, the transition from Linux to Windows is clear.
Now to the more interesting points:
I'm sort of surprised that noone has mentioned how this could throw free (speech & beer) office apps into the limelight. Last I checked, Microsoft derived 60% of its revenue from Office - hence its frenzy (with the usual
Having just installed XP, I have to say its pretty damn stable. But there's not much in this release that Linux couldn't do with a little config file work. And XP definitely has that "you must do things the way we intend" Windows feel. This Cygwin port could give people a chance to easily use tools that feel like Open Source software without getting totally frustrated by *nix's steep learning curve.
Carry on, boys and girls!
Cygwin is horribly slow. I once tried to compile OpenSSL in Windows98/Cygwin on a 450MHz P3 and I gave up after 3 hours. They should work with mingw32...
They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
I always wondered how to do this. Thanks for the help.
Its leeches not leeches.
And as a contributor, I think programming for purely selfish reasons which helps yourself but harms the entire open source movement, does not count as contributing.
Why not next, port the Linux kernel to Windows and next thing you know Linux is no longer needed just use Windows.
These guys are prolly Windows programmers who cant get Linux working so they want to bring Linux to Windows instead.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The parent comment is exactly right. Debian installs are so easy it is rediculous. If you don't understand some of the hard words like "partition" or "mount point" then you might want to print out the instructions.
It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that the Debian community is not "OS-neutral". While there are many pragmatists who believe in using "the right tool for the right job", Debian is founded on the principle that freedom is as important as software quality, and that any tool which results in a net loss of freedom for the individual (as is the case with MS Windows) is always the wrong tool even though it may sometimes be the only reasonable option.
Since freedom to recompile source code on the platform of your choice is among the cherished freedoms of Debian, no one among us would ever dare to stop someone who wanted to work on such a port. But that doesn't mean everyone believes porting Debian to cygwin is a net win for Free Software.
More than the tough install stands in the way of wider acceptance of Debian. The Stable release, in my experience, is just that: stable. But, perhaps, the Debian folks have erred in their conservatism. Key pieces of software that a non-techie user might expect to use aren't available in their current incarnation in Stable. Pulling them in from Testing or Unstable is probably beyond the ken of most members of the "What's Linux" community. Even users who have at least a piece of a clue might have better things to do than worry about mixing and matching from Stable, Unstable and Testing.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Open Source is tied to the Wonderful World of Unix more or less by historical accident. Stallman grew up in a pre-Windows world, and Linus wanted a better version of Andrew Tannenbaum's pedagogical mini-Unix, Minix . There are reasons that open Source and Unix-like OS's are now inextricably linked, but couldn't we imagine an open source movement that is OS-independent? Putting aside the reality of making a living,, what's standing in the way of Windows or Mac developers using Open Source tools to build more Open Source?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Because their goals for their new installer are different to the above distros. My understanding is that they want something as flexible and portable as possible, with ease of use an important but secondary consideration.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
OS's aren't products of nature, they are manufactured products and as such embody the desires and plans of the people operating the parent company. It's obvious that in Microsoft's case the strategy is to lock users into a proprietary solution. In the short term you may be correct, in the long term the consequence of an OS extends beyond the desktop and the ability to run IE or WinAmp.
Otherwise, I agree that it's a mistake for Linux development to focus on becoming an alternative Windows.
It might get windows users to use linux. If too many people start using this we'll have to show EVERYONE the secret handshake.
It could also encourage a marriage of the two most popular and powerfu platforms and...and...better software and functionality could result!
This is a twisted marriage. What will the logo look like?
I'm amazed: there's tons of comments, but no one seems to have explained what this is all about. First, regarding Cygwin:
1) It is mostly used by developers, IT people, and other techincally inclined folk. It's not going to be interesting to Joe Sixpack for quite some time.
2) It is just as much a Linux compatability thing: as a windows developer, if you work in Cygwin, it'll make porting to Linux that much easier. Kinda related, it lets windows developers work on software meant for Linux. Think of it this way: a windows programmer can add a feature to say, PostgreSQL, that you can then use in Linux.
3) There's a sh*tload more windows programmers out there. Making it easy for them to improve Linux is a win.
4) The official Cygwin distribution only comes with a handful of packages, campared to say, Debian. This number will stay small. Right now, as a Cygwin user, there are a lot of Linux apps that will compile OOTB, and a lot that don't. This is a pain.
Enter Deb/W32. The idea is for a group of people to collect together a bunch of packages that work on the target platform and make them easy to install. This saves the Cygwin user from hunting around for source only to find it doesn't compile.
About stealing Linux users: A significant portion of Cygwin users already use a *nix; they're just porting their software. This is where the Wine thing is important: by running Cygwin on top of Wine, you can make (and test, etc) a window's executable without ever touching non-free software. For the rest of them, imagine two or three years from now: Linux is still free, and Windows still isn't. BECAUSE THEY'VE BEEN USING CYGWIN, Linux now does what they need. It's a no brainer "upgrade." Really, this is a win for everybody.
Score:-1, Offtopic
Or vice versa - old hardware support dropped in new versions of Windows. Granted, most hardware is probably fine, but try using a 3Com 3C590 network card in Windows 2000. I couldn't find a driver for love or money. Had to swap in a Realtek or something.
[If it had been my choice, I would have swapped in Linux instead (with its venerable 3c59x driver covering over 30 card models from EISA to PCMCIA CardBus), but anyway.....]
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
http://security.microsoft.com/dists/unstable/updat es/main/kernel32
A choice of an OS is FAR more important than the choice of a religion to most people.
Nobody really has a daily interactive session with a god, but we all have a daily interactive sessions with our OS!
oOoH noooo ! what do you give a fuck about this ?
Just the other day, there was stg about gnome under cygwin. This seems to be completely ignored by the gnome/gtk community. There is no announce, no unofficial distro in cygwin package format, no nothing. Just a few lonely websites lost in japan, cygutils or geocity, or other small islands. I m just afraid that with the long bearded preacher in the ballgame of gnome, things can get only worse.
So please, just forget him, send him in a monastry somewhere in Hippy-bierland, but please, please, just let us be, let us port debian to cygwin, let us port gnome to cygwin, let us use our dearest apps on a platform that was chosen by a sysadmin. There is a real world out there, in which you do not get freedom by declaring it, a world in which you can "just use wine for those win32 apps you need". There is not one single win32 app I need, but this will not change the policy defined by the sysadm, and my machine we still be running NT, and I ll still get kilobucks worth of licences for apps I nether use. The way that this can change is that I can run the free apps, demonstrate them to others, that they get popularity, and then will the sysadm rethink his policy.
There s a real world out there where you get freedom be practising freedom, not by declaring it.
So Stallman disciple, please, please, go to some monastry, and let the others program and use program, keep your crusades. Yes, I agree, I am not "really" free, but pleaaaaase just let me be unreally free.
To me, RMS mean "root of mean square" and it s just fine. To me, being godless augments my freedom, and does not reduce it. I don t want you to agree, but just let me be.
WHY would anyone want to port 'Debian' to the Win32 platform anyways?
I could see Gnome, or some other replacement to the dull, drab, boring Windows GUI. I think a true 3D GUI would be awsome.
But porting an OS to...another OS?
Isn't that like driving your car...to your other car?
"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."...Tyler Durden