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.

Comments

Yes please

[Mwongozi]

If they're doing what I think they're doing, this would be a very nice thing.

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!

Sometimes the OS doesn't matter

[bill_mcgonigle]

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.

I don't think this is good..

[acomj]

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.

The GNU meme must flow...

[noser]

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".

The OS Hardly Ever Matters....

[Carnage4Life]

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.

Re:At first

[Daniel]

Are there any private projects to provide an alternate isntaller for Debian?

I'm not sure what you mean by "private", but Joey Hess (joeyh) is working on a complete replacement for the current installer, which hopefully will be used for the release after woody. (at which point the current installer will be taken out back and shot, and everyone will breathe a sigh of relief)

See Adam di Carlo's recent interview for more information on the installation system.

Daniel

Re:Will this attract new users?

[ncc74656]

Having had cygwin installed on two boxes for the past six months, I find it to be more useless than a five-assed monkey and porting more stuff to it will not add any measure of usefulness.

That's odd...I've found sox and id3ed more useful than any equivalent native Win32 apps, and bash does more than cmd.exe (more powerful scripting, longer command lines for controlling stuff like vcdimager, etc.). OpenSSH under Cygwin is also useful for tunnelling through firewalls so you can use VNC to control Win32 boxen on remote networks...it works better here than pcAnywhere.