If I Had My Own Distro...

Gentu writes "Adam Scheinberg writes an interesting editorial explaining what he would do if he was a developer and he had a Linux distribution. His suggestions are pretty radical, and in places resembles of what Apple had done to MacOSX with the help of BSD as the underlying technology. But if this is what it takes to get Linux into the next level, it might worth the consideration."

Comments

Prediction:

[Anonymous Coward]

Prediction: Linux From Stratch mentioned in first 50 posts.

if i had a distro....

[loknor]

I would call it "AssHat" and make it look like Windows but covered in tinfoil.

"If I had my own distro..."

[Jerk City Troll]

Wait a minute here, I am confused. How could you not have your own distro, I mean, it seems that everyone else does.

Re:"If I had my own distro..."

[theLOUDroom]

Actually, I belive this would be the better link on this topic.

Re:"If I had my own distro..."

[rifter]

Apple indeed quit working on Linux, but it did at one time distribute a linux system called mklinux. It was based on RedHat and had a mach kernel rather than the normal Linux kernel. Whether that makes it not Linux anymore is certainly an interesting academic question. Of course, Darwin ended up taking away a lot of the development that used to happen on mkLinux. Apparently work has gone slowly, as in the 5 years or more I have been looking at this project off and on there still has not been a "release" though it appears the site is being updated and release candidates being released.

"What Linux Needs," my reiteration.

[jfisherwa]

(I've posted this before, but it is 100% relevant to this article and something I want people to think long and hard about.)

Forget copying the Windows UI, that's absurd.

Someone is going to get on that machine, go to Start -> Programs looking for "Microsoft Excel" and feel like an idiot or be completely frustrated because they couldn't find it.

NO ONE has complained that people stay away from OS X "because it doesn't look like Windows." WHY are we trying to pretend that's the reason people don't try Linux?

If you want Windows people to use Linux, we need distributions to do a few things:

Ditch 3 of the 4 programs that do the same thing. Seriously. Why do I need 4 CD-R burning programs? Just give me the one that works the best, that's *all I care about* - and make sure it's labeled "CD Burner" so I don't have to decipher "gkdesbUISO." Contrary to what people here may think, we do NOT need to include every single Web Browser available. Don't put every alternative in the "Programs" menu - you hide the extra versions, and it only comes out when someone says they are an "advanced" user. Or perhaps a help option that says, "Software Doesn't Do What You Want? Try These:"

Distro installers should have a "I have never used Linux before, but I have been using Windows for 5 years" option. This will offer extra help in the form of, "If you are looking for this, you will now use this instead."

Make sure "regular" users *only* need the first CD. In the case of a 3 CD distro like Mandrake, make the additional CDs required only for developers and/or international users.

When you setup the desktop, be it either Gnome or KDE, you need to include a few "What do I do now?" icons on the desktop. I'm not talking about your "Welcome," because most of these people are illiterate or too lazy to read them, I'm talking about a few icons such as "Games," "Mozilla Web Browser," and "OpenOffice Applications." Do NOT just call the web icon "Mozilla," because these people have no idea what Mozilla even is.

I don't know if one exists yet, but we need yet-another new standard Linux portal. One that can be branded with Mandrake, RedHat, etc, but has software reviews, HOWTOs, special tips, best applications in each category, downloads, news, a forum, etc. And when you click to download a file, it is either a .RPM or .DEB, in which case it is already figured out for you (Mandrake-branded site will default to .RPM, etc).

Apple has the portal down to an art--take heed as it will go a long way to making them feel like they are both a part of something, and that they've just entered a Brave New World as opposed to being made to feel like an idiot because they can't find anything or get anything done.

The thing that most mainstream distros seem to be doing well, is that as soon as they are installed, 99% of the applications you will ever need are already installed and setup. With Windows, you're stuck with installing all of your software off of CD again, downloading everything again, etc, etc.

Prove me wrong now.

Jason Fisher

Re:"What Linux Needs," my reiteration.

[Mitchell Mebane]

Forget copying the Windows UI, that's absurd.

Someone is going to get on that machine, go to Start -> Programs looking for "Microsoft Excel" and feel like an idiot or be completely frustrated because they couldn't find it.

NO ONE has complained that people stay away from OS X "because it doesn't look like Windows." WHY are we trying to pretend that's the reason people don't try Linux?

I fully agree with you. The Windows UI might be nice, but if you don't offer full Windows functionality it can get confusing. In fact, one of the first things I get after installing KDE was change everything around until I found a style that suits me, which happens to be a hybrid of OS X and Windows, with a little bit of BeOS thrown in, and some of my own special magic.


Ditch 3 of the 4 programs that do the same thing. Seriously. Why do I need 4 CD-R burning programs? Just give me the one that works the best, that's *all I care about* - and make sure it's labeled "CD Burner" so I don't have to decipher "gkdesbUISO." Contrary to what people here may think, we do NOT need to include every single Web Browser available. Don't put every alternative in the "Programs" menu - you hide the extra versions, and it only comes out when someone says they are an "advanced" user.

Except for the fact that Gentoo is really only for "advanced users", it fits the bill pretty well. By forcing you to manually install everything you want, it cuts WAY down on bloat.

Re:"What Linux Needs," my reiteration.

[The Vulture]

I have to agree and disagree with you on this.

First of all, I would like to say that I have no objections on multiple pieces of software that do the same thing, after all, variety is good. Whether they should be included in a distro, well, that's up to the distro.

There's different Linux distributions out there that have different purposes. RedHat seems to be going after the office market, Mandrake, the home user, Debian, the person who wants complete freedom (as in speech), Slackware, the tinkerer, etc.

I've actually had visions of making my own distro, similar to the article author - I've gotten so far as to building my own program (on Freshmeat) that parses the Linux From Scratch XML file, to generate scripts to do an (fairly) automated build. From there, I would then decide on which packages I'd like to standardize on (KDE probably), and build them, make a nice installer, and there's my homebrew Linux.

Personally, I don't care if Linux ever gets complete mainstream acceptance, and I get the feeling that many of the core developers of the kernel and other bug projects feel the same way. However, I would love to see a good distro that:
1. Does not use RPM for package management (I've had RPM screw up way too many times in the past).
2. Has a decent GUI installer
3. Can configure all of my hardware without me tewaking it (I'll understand for some of the latest/greatest hardware, like my AIW 9700 Pro, but for instance, getting wireless setup on my laptop with both RedHat 8.0 and Slackware 9.0-pre was a pain)
4. Very configurable

The biggest obstacle to a lot of this is that writing programs (or frontends) that are easy to use is a pain. It takes a lot of work to design a GUI, and a lot of programming, and sanity checking, and for most of these developers who are working for free, it's just not worth the time (unless the program absolutely requires a GUI).

Until then, I keep dreaming of my magical Linux distro... What keeps me from doing it is my full-time job as a programmer, which gives me little incentive to code at night.

-- Joe

Re:"What Linux Needs," my reiteration.

[ScoLgo]

Distro installers should have a "I have never used Linux before, but I have been using Windows for 5 years" option. This will offer extra help in the form of, "If you are looking for this, you will now use this instead."

This is an excellent point. Microsoft did this very thing with Office. In the Word Help menu, there is a 'WordPerfect Help..." option and in Excel you'll find "Lotus 1-2-3 Help...". While most people that are willing to try Linux are (usually) capable of figuring things out for themselves, there's nothing wrong with making it easier up front.

Re:"What Linux Needs," my reiteration.

[RealAlaskan]

However, I would love to see a good distro that:
1. Does not use RPM for package management (I've had RPM screw up way too many times in the past).
2. Has a decent GUI installer
3. Can configure all of my hardware without me tewaking it (I'll understand for some of the latest/greatest hardware, like my AIW 9700 Pro, but for instance, getting wireless setup on my laptop with both RedHat 8.0 and Slackware 9.0-pre was a pain)
4. Very configurable

Knoppix?

Seriously, Knoppix seems to have everything but a ``push me to repartition the hard drive and install automagically'' button. That link makes it look as if getting that magic button wouldn't take much effort.

Re:"What Linux Needs," my reiteration.

[iabervon]

Debian is also good for the user who doesn't want to deal with installers. My experience with Debian has been that "sudo apt-get install " will reliably install just about all of the programs I've tried (the main exception being valgrind on stable). RPM is a nice idea, but you have to actually find RPMs, which is a pain.

It could really use a nice index (not a list; an index, where you could look up "Web Browsers, m-something") of available packages. It could also use a nice index of the packages you have installed.

For that matter, it would be nice to be able to type "apt-get install some clock" and get a nice clock. Not a particular clock, since the user obviously doesn't care, but one that some maintainer likes. And it should appear in menus as "clock", not as whatever the clock package is actually called, because the user doesn't want to know. If somebody wants "xclock", that's available to, as "xclock".

When an application wants a web browser, it should run "web-browser [url]". That's a symlink in ~/bin to the user's current favorite web browser, or a symlink in /usr/bin to the system's favorite (or only) web browser. Maybe it should be possible to configure the application to do something different, but people probably wouldn't. We've had $PAGER for ages, and symlinks are even cooler than environment variables. My editor of choice is $EDITOR filename (actually a small shell script which does this).

MY DISTRO!!

[Bearded Pear Shaped]

OKAY
it would have AVRIL LAVIGNE
AND ICE CREAM
AND A SODA PUMP WITH UNLIMITED REFILLS
And UT2K on a BIG SCREEN

Also I wouldn't have to write shit in perl just to make it do stuff it should already do out of the box.

It would also be nice if I didn't have to go that scary admin with a huge UC Berkely Beard for advice (he smells like chlorine and fish).

P.S. ICE CREAM

Prediction:

[raehl]

Prediction: Reply to parent will state that parent is a self-fullfilling prophecy.

Re:Just Buy OS X and get it over with.

[MoonBuggy]

Just Buy OS X and get it over with.

I would love to do so, I really would, but until someone can make it run on the dual Athlon i've just shelled out for I'm sticking with Mandrake. I think that OS X looks amazing, and is in all respects the perfect OS, but I refuse to pay £2000 for less power than I have now on a machine that cost half that.

I know people say that Apple need the (overpriced) hardware market to stay alive, but I'm sure that they could feasably take on Windows, and succeed if they just ported it to x86 architecture.

(MHS) Modern Hierarchy Standard

[Anonymous Coward]

The goal of the MHS project is to define a Modern Hierarchy Standard for UNIX-like operating systems which will further enable them to evolve, innovate, grow, and compete with Windows and other modern OSes.
Specifically, MHS technology will provide the following benefits:
100% Application Directory Oriented
Internationalization of Directory Names
More Intuitive Directory Names
Fewer Root Directories
Support for Case-Insensitive File Systems
Full Coexistence with Legacy FHS
Increased System Flexibility
A new hierarchy will be a big enough change to make distributions switch to application directories.
Set of environmental variables pointing the location of major system directories.
Applications would no longer need to hard code directory names.
System level directories grouped together under a common directory. (/System)

Currently, the directories are expected to be moved to the following locations: /bin => /System/Commands /sbin => /System/Commands /boot => /System/Boot /dev => /System/Devices /etc => /System/Config /lib => /System/Libraries /proc => /System/Process /mnt => /Mount /opt => /Apps /tmp => /Temp /home => /Users /usr/bin => /System/Executables /usr => mostly placed under /System /var => mostly placed under /System

All paths will be lower-case on a case-sensitive file system. As shown otherwise.

Application developers and distribution makers will need to use the /Apps directory rather than cramming everything into /usr.

The autoconf family of tools will be patched to support the new hierarchy which will make most applications translate easily.

Although it can still be done, MHS will not support the same level of shareability (i.e. mounted over a network) as the legacy FHS standard.

FHS can be emulated via symlinks and MHS can be emulated on existing FHS systems. A kernel/file system hack of some kind may be done to have the legacy directories disappear in directory scans, to help improve user friendliness.

In addition to the standard, the project is developing a set of scripts that will setup the new hierarchy on existing FHS compatible systems.

The standard will not be finalized until a Linux distribution ships based upon it.

Re:(MHS) Modern Hierarchy Standard

[MobyTurbo]

Currently, the directories are expected to be moved to the following locations: /bin = /System/Commands /sbin = /System/Commands /boot = /System/Boot /dev = /System/Devices /etc = /System/Config /lib = /System/Libraries /proc = /System/Process /mnt = /Mount /opt = /Apps /tmp = /Temp /home = /Users /usr/bin = /System/Executables /usr = mostly placed under /System /var = mostly placed under /System

Whoever moderated this post to "5" is on crack. ;-) Making directory names longer, fewer, and with more capitals isn't going to help. The type of user that has problems with using directories and the command line has problems using *any* directories, no matter what user friendly name they are named, at least that's been my experience with supporting users running Windows 9x. Microsoft is junking the normal file system for their upcoming OS and have a database that loads files based on each application because of this. Personally I think this is a good idea for their users; but it's one that we don't need to copy...

One of the things I like about Unix is that it helps power users and programmers get done what they need to get done, simply making everything more verbose and harder to type won't be of help to anyone, expert or novice, IMHO, anymore than COBOL is more friendly to programmers than C.

Re:(MHS) Modern Hierarchy Standard

[Crispy Critters]

Sigh. Whoever wrote this apparently has never read or thought about why the *nix filesystem is arranged as it is, or at least what the strengths are of the current setup.

Example: "/var => mostly placed under /System" The /var directory exists to collect the stuff that programs have to have write access to, like logs, spools, locks. There is some advantage to mounting e.g. /usr/bin read-only on production systems while mounting /var read-write.

Example: "/bin => /System/Commands.../usr/bin => /System/Executables" The stuff in /bin (and /sbin) consists of programs you need to rescue a system that has gone nuts, e.g. ps belongs in /bin and pstree goes in /usr/bin. It makes no sense to call one of these a "Command" and one an "Executable".

Example: "/opt => /Apps" What is the difference between a "Command", an "Executable", and an "App"? Is mozilla an executable or an application? This is very like metaphor shear. These three different names seem to mean three different things, but really they are essentially synonymous, so all this will do is create confusion as people try to understand the difference when the categorization is in fact utterly arbitrary.

The goals: "100% Application Directory Oriented" which means what? "Internationalization of Directory Names" has nothing to do with moving around /bin etc. "More Intuitive Directory Names" Demonstrably false--see above. "Fewer Root Directories" so what? What value is there in have fewer root directories, when all you are doing is creating more subdirectories? "Increased System Flexibility" how is flexibility increased? "Applications would no longer need to hard code directory names." Any hardcoded directory compiled into an app is probably a bug (unless it is easily over-ridden with an environment variable). "Set of environmental variables pointing the location of major system directories." What is the difference between hardcoding a directory name like /tmp and hardcoding an environment variable like $TEMP? NOTHING. (As I said, a decent program will do something like use $TEMP if it exists and fall back on /tmp.)

This is the best: "The standard will not be finalized until a Linux distribution ships based upon it." I have a good idea when that will happen.

Drag + Drop installs

[1010011010]

One of the things I love most about the Mac is its drag+drop installations. You won't have to worry about system dependancies (as much) if you just make the drag+drop installer include all the libraries that the application in question needs, in the application's folder. Mozilla can have its own private version of GTK. Rhythmbox can have its own version of gstreamer, etc.

--
Yes, I posted this on OSnews.

Re:Drag + Drop installs

[dh003i]

The problem with that is that you get lots of wasted hard-drive space if many applications use the same libraries and reproduce them all in their own directories.

It is superior to have differnet applications calling on the same library, as this reduces bloat on the HD, reduces RAM-usage, and creates a single point from which stability and performance issues can be addressed accross different applications.

The problem is managing these things well so that you don't get into . hell. Gentoo does a pretty damn good job; RedHat does a pretty damn bad job.

Why should every application have it's own private version of said library (say GTK)? This just means that lots of space is wasted on the HD, and the user has to spend more time downloading stuff. Furthermore, if the user wants any performance improvments to be gained from libraries that multiple applications use, (s)he will have to do this for every single application individually.

While We're At It...

[dbretton]

My distro will also:
observe my web surfing habits, and automatically download buttloads of pr0n based upon my preferences
telecommute and perform all my tasks for me
make coffee for me in the morning
take care of 'morning wood' for me
b*tch out telemarketers who call
do my laundry
fix Wine so all Windows games work on it
and spam Microsoft when its idle

Hell if you're gonna fantasize, fantasize BIG!

Choice == Good, Too Much Choice == Bad

[DeepEyes78]

The article illustrates one of the problems I see with the various distros out there. There's just SO much availible, I just don't know where to start. It's rather intimidating. Also, why should I have to learn the ins and outs of 2 or more DEs (KDE, Gnome and maybe others) to get all the functionality that should be availible in one. I think this is one of the reasons why people put up with Windows despite Microsofts draconian EULAs: there's a consistant look and feel there that just isn't availible on linux (yet).

And on a similar note, I definitly agree with the authors idea of changing default directory names to be more user friendly (it wasn't up until 2 years ago that I found out that /usr didn't mean USER but rather Unix System Resources. WTF?)

How about somebody else's distro?

[raehl]

Where can I get a CD that I put in my computer, click the appropriate "Yes/Ok" buttons a few times, and have Linux on my computer, with a web browser and a word processor, that all my hardware automatically works with, including my internet connection through my router to my cable modem, as well as my video and sound cards, that automagically downloads any updates I need, and works with anything I happen to plug into the USB port?

Where would I get something like that?

The very fact that I don't know whether something like that exists, much less where to get it, is exactly why people use windows.

A couple more. . .

[Bastian]

He covers a lot of overlooked stuff. A lot of the people working on having a desktop-ready linux seem to think that you can just throw on some clone of LinuxConf or YaST that you made yourself and call it a day.

Not true.

The math and CS departments at my school have started maintaining machines running Red Hat in any computer lab they can exercise any control over. Naturally, students who aren't familiar with linux try them out. Seeing as how I work the helpdesk and I'm the one everybody seems to come to for help with installing linux anyway, I end up helping them out a lot, and I've noticed a few things.

The author's comments on the filesystem are dead-on, but don't go far enough. I've helped users who are trying to save files on the desktop, and they expect the desktop to be an option in file pickers. I would like it to be there, too - having to go to "/home/uname/Desktop" is not intuitive, and it's a pain in the ass. This should be something that is global to all file handling dialogs. KDE does it in a half-assed way (I don't know about Gnome 2), and it doesn't really help much anyway since all applications seem to want to write their own dialogs from scratch, anyway.

KDE and Gnome need to come to an agreement on some common dialogs, work on a design for these dialogs and how they will work, and then implement them using a shared library that both will access. I don't care how it is implemented - the dialogs can be written in straight X11 so it looks the same on both, or the library can check for what environment is being used and pop up a dialog that is written using GTK+ or QT. As long as they look and work the same, I'm happy.

Another one is networking. We've tried finding a good way to help students who aren't good with Linux to access our campus network resources. LinNeighborhood is the best we've come up with so far, and that doesn't even get to the configuration issues that pop up for people trying to get their own linux boxen connected to the network. Come on, people. Most everyone using Samba is connecting to Windows networks. Windows networks usually have pretty much the same configuration. Why the heck can't we have distros that set up Samba by default, have Samba's default configuration be for a standard Windows network, and give users a decent system? On top of it, there is no good network browser. Apple gives me splat-K and pops shares up on my desktop. Windows gives me Network Neighborhood and acts as if all shares on a network are already in my filesystem. LinNeighborhood makes me mount everything, then forces me to go into the filesystem again and find where I mounted the share, and it asks me for my username and password every step of the way. In this case, I like the Apple model best. Give me a "connect to server" option in my start menu, and when I connect to a server, pop up an icon on my desktop.

While we're on the subject of things just popping up without any hassle, if your distro isn't using DevFS yet, get it switched the heck over. If the driver you're writing isn't DevFS compatible, get it working that way.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but the point is, there are a whole lot of details involved in a good desktop OS. Linux is a great desktop OS for me, but I am comfortable enough with Linux to handle the hassle, and I've made it over the 2-year learning curve. Anyone who thinks that drag'n'drop and a somewhat working office suite makes a complete desktop OS for the general public needs to get a clue.

Mac OS X

[Swift Guru]

There's not a single thing he mentioned that Mac OS X doesn't have. Not one single thing. If he hadn't mentioned it once in his article I would guess that he had either never heard of it, or was making a thinly veiled jab at the OS community for not achieving anything that comes close to the usability of Mac OS X.

With apologies to the BareNaked Ladies

[Verteiron]

If I had a Linux distro (If I had a Linux distro)
I'd wanna support your mouse (I would really support your mouse)
If I had a Linux distro (If I had a Linux distro)
I'd load a GUI for your mouse (Maybe KDE 3 or Gnome)
And if I had a Linux distro (If I had a Linux distro)
Well, I'd autoprobe your hardware (Hey, that's a nice NVidia card!)
If I had a Linux distro I'd fill your drive...

If I had a Linux distro
I'd load every package under the sun
If I had Linux distro
C'mon, you know it'd be lots of fun
If I had Linux distro
Maybe we could put like a little tiny package manager in there
You know, we could just like, run the package manager
Like, look at all the names and stuff
There would already be a huge list and everything
Like little packaged apps and everthing

They have packaged apps but they don't have packaged distros
Well, can you blame 'em
Uh, yeah

If I had a Linux distro (If I had a Linux distro)
Well I'd compile everything from scratch (Except Mozilla, that's just cruel)
And if I had a Linux distro (If I had a Linux distro)
Well I'd include O'Reilly books (Yep, with the llamas and the emus)
And if I had a Linux distro (If I had a a Linux distro)
Well I'd install millions of games (Ooh, all them crazy Minesweeper clones!)
And If I had a Linux distro I'd fill your drive...

If I had a Linux distro
You'd have every GUI under the sun
If I had a Linux distro
Well you know you can't use just one
If I had a Linux distro
We wouldn't have to eat Kraft Dinner
But we would eat Kraft Dinner
Of course we would, we'd just eat less
'Cause we wouldn't be making a dime off this thing
That's right, we'd probably have to eat Ramen, actually
Mmmmmm, noodles

If I had a Linux distro (If I had a Linux distro)
Well I'd update it every night (Just 'cause bleeding edge is cool)
And if I had a Linux distro (If I had a Linux distro)
Well, I'd bloat the kernel to death (Video4Linux and throw in ALSA!)
If I had a Linux distro (If I had a Linux distro)
Well I'd include a monkey (Haven't you always wanted a monkey?)

If I had a Linux distro
I'd fill your driiiive...

If I had a Linux distro, If I had a Linux distro
If I had a Linux distro, If I had a Linux distro
If I had a Linux distro
I'd be killed.

--

Sorry, but as soon as I saw the title of this story this had to be written.

Re:Drop X

[oconnorcjo]

I think Linux could benefit from scrapping X and developing a new, fast GUI system like Windows or MacOS. X is too dependent on networking protocols and is just pretty goddamn slow all-around.

(sarcasm)
Yes lets just start over from scratch and abandon 15 years of gui development. I am sure in ten years the new system will be much better than the old system.
(/sarcasm)

BTW it is GNOME and KDE that are dog slow but that is the new "modern" stuff while "old" X and fvwm still runs fast and light (and looks better too).

It amazes me how quickly some people are willing to just abandon something because it has flaws. Almost all software of any real complexity has flaws but developers should not be so quick to abandon what works.

Example:
The OSS community decided to abandon the source to Netscape and it took them 3 years to provide a high quality browser worthy of replacing 4.7. Just think what could have been accomplished if Netscape's components had been replaced piece by piece instead of killing the project in one fell swoop. Today the Roadmap on Mozilla.org discusses the design flaws of the current Mozilla browser (and Apple thought Mozilla's gecko was too messy so they went with Khtml for thier "Safari" browser).

To the credit of the Mozilla developers, they did eventually provide a very good browser but when they started over, they nievely thought they would have a solid product by the end of one year! Mozilla is very simple in comparison to all the infrastructure and design used with and by X.

The lesson of "Easier said than done" seems to be ignored all too often. It is not fast or easy to replace a sophisticated working system. Many projects have been started to replace X but none of them have ever made it all that far because amazingly X works better and supports more software. If you want to use something else, go ahead. Nobody is stopping you.

nutz

[cdn-programmer]

I think the artical speaks for itself... if he made that distro available I would not touch it and I doubt many others would either.

1) I am quite happy with the present directory structure. I do not want a bunch of symlinks - they are confusing and utterly unnecessary.

2) His idea of what apps to include probably will not coincide with mine. For instance - is he planning on including emacs? How about gcc and g77?

I'm sure he thought about gcc but I'll bet he forgot about g77.

3) He never mentioned the most important aspect of a distro - that is its upgradeability. This is the reason I switched to Debian... Debian can be painlessly upgraded.

I have an old machine with RedHat 6.1 in it. I bought a copy of Mandrake 8.0 Mandrake is NOT installed (does anybody want it?). The reason is the question of doing an upgrade. I _KNOW_ that the moment I try to upgrade that redhat box that it will break all over the place. If I wipe the drive I lose 3 years of work. In fact - if I were to take it out from behind the firewall - it would be hacked within the hour!

For me it was cheaper to go buy ANOTHER computer and leave the old one as it was.

4) He made no mention of security.

5) He has missed the most important areas where Linux needs work. I'd like to offer My Humbol Opinion. The work needs to be in the area of the functionality of a loopback mount. We need to be able to stuff a directory tree into a single file and have the OS mount it automatically - similar to the loopback but with the following difference.

When you do a loopback mount - the whole file system sees it. I want a mount where ONLY a single process tree sees it. This allows one to EASILY create a chroot jail for a user.

Several years ago I tried with Kurt Seifried to create a true chroot jail in linux - we failed.

This automatic mount to a single application could be say bash mounting into a given file or it could be a daemon mounting into a file or it could be an application mounting into a given file. This would make it possible to stuff a complete app into a single file which can be unzipped and pointed too. By doing this, different versions of an app could be simultaneously present in the machine and a user could switch back and forth with a simple pointer change. The pointer could be a symlink.

We are already partway there with the loopback and chroot. Where the problem is stems from the apps that are NOT chrooted. As an admin when I install say something like wxWindows - I would prefer to see only one file. As a user I prefer to see all the files in the package.

This is one step away from a true Virtual Machine for Linux - which we also need. Probably it can be done using User Mode Linux. But I think it should be supported right in the distro.

IMHO - the present filesystem was designed to be lightweight. When disks were 40MB it probably made sense. Now that disks are past 40GB I don't think it makes sense. When they pass the TB mark in a couple years - well - IMHO they are almost unmanagable now.

The underlying reason that this author cannot un-install the apps is because the apps are allowed to spew files all over the system. Most sysadmins don't even know where the files go and they simply trust the developers came up with a reasonable organization. If we go to a filesystem that allows us to force an app to live within a single file - then we can easily remove any old app - we simply delete the file it lives in. People can easily deal with a single file - where the problems come from is when we have 1000's of files and the make clean doesn't work right.

IBM had this concept fully developed years ago under VM/TSO. It was called a Partition DataSet back then.

If we had this concept in linux then for instance X-Windows might live in a file called XFree86_4.1.0.1.PDS and we might use something like ln -s XFree86_4.1.0.1.PDS startx

If so - then when startx is run - the PDS is mounted and the

Two Things

[Tony]

Point one:
X is too dependent on networking protocols and is just pretty goddamn slow all-around.

X is hardly dependent on networking protocols. Local client access to the server happens over Unix Sockets, a very low-latency, architecture-independent solution. Nor is X that slow. X ran jes' fine on my old 386 with 8 MB of RAM and 256K CL graphics card. Let's see the "fast GUI system like Windows or MacOS X" do that. ...without all the bloat of the gtk+ and QT toolkits.

I think this is the core problem, not X.

Point 2:
Instead of developing Window Manager # 123480, people need to collaborate and make a common, consistent, and standard layout that all programs can use...

If Linux were a business, I'd agree with you. However, Linux is not a business; it's essentially a hobby. Linux' success is based not on the application of business practices, but by a bunch of people having fun writing software.

Sure, there's a lot of businesses interested in Linux, and contributing to Linux for their own needs. But this is after-the-fact; businesses have already accepted Linux. Now they are customising it to fit their own needs, or supporting it out of the understanding that what is good for Linux is good for business.

Anyway, this is all a lot of armchair quarterbacking. Linux is Linux is Linux. Telling a bunch of volunteer developers what they *should* be working on (instead of providing positive and useful feedback on they projects they *are* working on) shows both ingratitude and lack of understanding of the entire Free/Open Source culture.

Problems from the start

[drsmithy]

(This is mostly the reply I posted on OSNews, so some of the wording might appear a bit weird)

This article has some (really) good ideas, but there's some pretty bad ones that would cause problems right from the word go. For example:

My developers are going to meet and agree on ONE desktop environment. Yes, we'll include the libs for the other major one we leave out.

Already you've fallen into the trap of pandering to the existing Linux crowd. Why ? Most of the other things you're doing are already going to drive away these people. Pick (or create) a GUI. Stick to it, customise it, tweak it "just so". Don't waste any developmental effort on another - let others do that if they _really_ want to. Every minute spent on including or developing stuff for the "other GUI" is time you could have spent making yours better.

[...] graphical, heavy on eye candy, with few visible options but lots of "Advanced" buttons.

Bad idea. "Advanced" buttons just allow for more mistakes to be made by newbies. If you *really* want to give the option for users to perform an "advanced" install (in which case you should really sit down and ask yourself *WHY*), then make it a well documeted *boot-time* option that can't be stumbled on accidentally. SImilarly with things like filesystems - pick on and stick to it.

I'm already stripping out a number of apps, so what I'm not going to worry about are libraries and system files. Even the minimal install will include every common system tool my develops can think of.

This is another bad idea. It's this sort of reasoning that *causes* library versioning problems. Include _only_ the libs necessary to support your included software and development on your "default" platform. Again, if other people really want to get app XYZ that requires libs ABC and HIJ to get working, they will. The only time this might be an issue for you is when your users are asking for a service your existing software doesn't provide.

On the whole, the ideas here are pretty good. It's obvious your objective (dream ?) is to create an OS X equivalent on x86, which is an admirable (and achievable IMHO) goal. However, you're also trying to pander to existing userbase by including options for this, options for that, etc. Don't - it's one of the biggest reasons Linux distros are difficult to approach for people who don't have the knowledge to make the necessary decisions between all those options. If you _really_ want to make "something new" then you have to make choices and stick by them. Certainly don't go out of your way to hinder people trying to port/develop for the new platform, but by the same token don't waste any of your development time and money re-implementing features (note: *features*, not specific bits of software) that already exist on your platform, just because a handful of users prefer a slightly different version.

What about no install program at all?

[Wayne Gramlich]

The whole concept of distribution installation is getting a little frayed around the edges. Installing a distribution made sense when everybody had CD drives and few people broadband connections. It is making less sense now. It will make even less sense 5 years from now. Why not do something new for a change? How about a distribution that is only available on the net? How about using a P2P caching file system?

Think in terms of something that is a cross between NFS (20 years old) and BitTorrent. For example, when I access:

/global/redhat.com/rh10.2/usr/bin/{some_program}

it goes off and downloads and locally caches the binary. If it needs any librarys, it downloads and caches them as well. The bottom line is that the user only downloads those files that they actually use and they do not have to decide beforehand what they want. Just use it! If it isn't cached on your disk, the system fetches it. If you want to upgrade, just change your path from:

/global/redhat.com/rh10.2/usr/bin

to:

/global/redhat.com/rh11.0/usr/bin

No install program needed, just start using the new bits. When a cached file hasn't been used in a year or so, it just gets deleted by the underlying system.

Please note, the Open Source community does not have to figure out how to charge for files downloaded, unlike some big commercial software companies out there. Thus, the Open Source community can make it easier to install and upgrade than the commercial counterparts.

Yes, I'm glossing over a bunch of very important issues (security, multiple platforms, configuration files, load distribution, etc.), but it is time for people to start thinking about doing things in new ways rather than the way we were doing them for the past 10-30 years. I'm suggesting that we actually innovate for a change.

-Wayne

Re:My distro would have...

[cdn-programmer]

I dont' agree with you at all on a number of your points.

1) Yes we DO need to have every little command line utility. While you may not directly use them - the underlying scripts very well might. Besides they are small... and some of us actually DO use them.

2) Yes we DO need to see those 50,000,000,000 kernel messages on startup. I would NEVER have been able to get my soundcard working without them. I don't like being stuffed in a closet and treated like a Mushroom the way M$ does it.

Suppose your boot hangs. Where would you be then?

3) Linux will NEVER pick one thing and stick with it. No operating system ever did. Look at M$. NT contains the OS/2 character mode libraries. That means I can run the OS/2 version of Breif. It has since been removed from w2k or XP thus - I will NEVER upgrade.

NT, w2k and XP still contain DOS and win16. Talk about crap eh? But people need it.

The thing is - were we to ask 100 people in a room what they needed - we'd get close to 100 different answers.

4) I agree with the man comments. Man needs to be re-written. We maybe need to look at a wikiman.

5) so how would you elimiate the 30 programming languages? Would you discard the perl stuff? how about bash or csh? Maybe discard tcl or gtk eh? What about python?

Each of these languages is there for a reason. Each is doing a job and removing any one of them would leave a rather big hole.

I do agree mind you that the learning curve is rather horendous. We can do a much better job of documentation I think. That would really help matters.

DOS was the cut down version of linux that only did some things one way. So if you suggest going in that direction - then the question comes down to what parts you'd like to throw away.

Maybe you should look at OpenBSD. For servers it is lean mean and clean. I love OpenBSD on my servers. But on my desktop - I like Linux.

freedom of choice

[Phoenix Dreamscape]

"I'm going to remove a lot of choice from the user, because, to many, it's more a gamble than a choice."

I agree whole-heartedly with that. When your basic desktop user is switching from Microsoft to Windows, all of those choices are guaranteed to blow his mind. Postfix? Sendmail? Qmail? Procmail, mailx, mailutils, maildrop, mailbase, getmail, fetchmail, mutt, elm, squirrelmail, kmail, sylpheed, evolution!? I don't know, I just want to check my mail! Why are there so many choices in the "mail" section!?

What ALL distros lack is sufficient documentation on what all of these packages are and why you would need them. Gentoo's description of fluxbox: "Window manager based on Blackbox -- has tabs." Yeah, that about sums it up. Now I know exactly what it is... uh huh. To anybody who needs a description of fluxbox, that's not enough. Imagine the user coming from Windows and reading that description. What's a window manager? What's blackbox? What are tabs? Do I need this?

The way to fix this isn't to just force the user to take a certain window manager. It's to give real documentation. A page, or two, or three. Better yet: screenshots. A picture is worth a thousand words, right? Each window manager could have 5 or 6 screenshots viewable from the installer, or maybe a little automated tour.. a slideshow or video that demonstrates its features. Every program should be well documented. Those that can't be described completely yet simply should include some sort of a graphical demonstration. Documentation should include who it's targeted at, what it does, and why you would need it. This could include a list of common tasks it is used for.

Similarly, a well-documented installer should have an index where users can search for specific actions like "reading mail" or "web browsing". Under each topic should be a list of available programs to do that task. Current installers allow you to choose pre-defined setups like "workstation" or "server". There should be more than just a few pre-defined choices, and they should explain in great detail what they install and why. Obviously, there are some people who just want to click "install" and have everything setup for them. But those who are really trying to get into Linux won't just want to have a box pre-configured for them. It's MUCH more valuable to have each choice explained. "This is fluxbox. Fluxbox is a window manager. A window manager is... Fluxbox was chosen because you selected the 'fast and lightweight' setup. Fluxbox's competition is:... Fluxbox was chosen instead of its competition because..." Sure, it would take forever. I know I would have preferred to have taken a long time but known exactly what was going on rather than installing in 10 minutes and taking two years to learn what all of my software is for.

Maybe a distro intended solely for introducing linux is in order. Not like Lindows and Lycoris which "introduce" you to linux by isolating you from it, but something that is more of an interactive tutorial.

Re:Uhm...

[intermodal]

well, thanks for the cut and paste, but that relates to basically nothing I said in parent. Because your post was so amusingly idiotic, i will of course respond.

NetBSD rules! Anyway, Gentoo Linux is an interesting new distribution with some great features. Unfortunately, it has attracted a large number of clueless wannabes who absolutely MUST advocate Gentoo at every opportunity. Let's look at the language of these zealots, and find out what it really means...

NetBSD is not my preference, Gentoo is simply an easier way of going about a linux from scratch source-approach than the actual LFS system is, and has a thriving community willing to help the less knowledgeable.

"Although I can't use the box at the moment because it's compiling something, as it will be for the next five days, it gives me more time to check out the latest USE flags and potentially unstable optimisation settings."

I rarely update my system. I do it whenever I either have some downtime, or will be away from my computer for a significant amount of time, like if I have a busy weekend coming up. (yes, I do actually do things other than use my computer.)

"Apart from Hello World in Pascal at school, I've never written a single program in my life or contributed to an open source project, yet staring at endless streams of GCC output whizzing by somehow helps me contribute to international freedom."

Idealism doesn't even enter into it. Yes, I program. No, I haven't contributed to any released opensource projects yet but I do have some things in the works. Nothing earth-shattering, as most of those are either in the works or I am not at that level of skill yet. I do not proclaim l33tness before the n00bs, nor do I consider myself to be particularly knowledgeable apart from areas I have worked on myself.

"Last month I tried to install FreeBSD on a well-supported machine, but the text-based installer scared me off. I've never used a BSD, but the guys on Slashdot say that it's l33t though, so surely I must be for using Gentoo."

Not a sentence of this applied to me. I have used Debian, Red Flag, Red Hat, Mandrake, Slackware, tinfoil hat, hal99 or whatever, and core linux. I found Gentoo to be a better fit for my needs, and also was better at handling dependency checks than the alternatives.

"I've spent hours recompiling Fetchmail, X-Chat, gEdit and thousands of other programs which spend 99% of their time waiting for user input. Even though only the kernel and glibc make a significant difference with optimisations, and RPMs and .debs can be rebuilt with a handful of commands (AND Red Hat supplies i686 kernel and glibc packages), my box MUST be faster. It's nothing to do with the fact that I've disabled all startup services and I'm running BlackBox instead of GNOME or KDE."

Perhaps my machine spends more time compiling, but I spend more time not having to deal with it compiling. Portage does it for me, when I am not at my computer anyhow. I don't see how this is a logical arguement at all. You must use Windows XP. And I do use FluxBox, but its a matter of preference.

"...my overclocked AMD eMachines box from PC World, and apart from the third-grade made-to-break components and dodgy fan..."

Actually I roll my own. hand picked parts, good fans, good quality power supplies and drives, and yes I run AMD but no it's not out of Intel hatred. Also, I don't overclock.

"I'm too stupid to understand that circular dependencies can be resolved by specifying BOTH .rpms together on the command line, and that problems hardly ever occur if one uses proper Red Hat packages instead of mixing SuSE, Mandrake and Joe's Linux packages together (which the system wasn't designed for)."

Not true. I successfully used Red Hat without such problems for about a year. I found its defaults wanting. The best part of Gentoo for me is customization from the start at low l

In summary: A friendly Debian

[Rysc]

I've scrolled halfway through the posts and haven't seen anyone say it, so I will: He's describing Debian.

Okay, not now Debian, but a friendly Debian. His /system/commands "idea" is a clunkly thought out version of /etc/alternatives. His "One bog site where you can download packages that are guaranteed to work with your distro" describes the official apt repository nicely. His description of dependancy hell sounds like the experience of a RPM user--I wont say that Debian never has pckage problems, but I will say that I've only ever seen them in Unstable--on my Debian system dependancies are never an issue.

I don't mean to sound like a Debian-loving zealot (though I probably am...) but 50% of what he wants Debian already does. Of the rest:

The revamped directory structure is a must. I've looked at it every way I can, but as far as I can see the old unix layout (while close to my heart) is not going to make desktop users happy. I've heard all tha counter arguments (and made most of them myself) so don't bother. I dissagree with his names, and I don't like the way MacOSX does it either, but something has to be done. Even if it isn't renaming (people can learn any names, after all) it should be depreciating certain practices and/or not allowing them. I know there are good reasons for /bin and /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin (and on Debian at least their uses are clearly defined) but one bin directory for users and one for root should be enough. (The argument is (of course) partitioning. Mount /usr ro! /bin is on / so that the system always boots and everything else can be remote! I don't have an answer; maybe the HURD and its fancy merging directory thing will be the solution.) Debian can dictate such a change, if it could be agreed upon.

Limiting choice. This is a Very Bad Idea. limited choice is never, ever good--this is my firm conviction. But that doesn't mean there can't be sensible defaults. Make everything work automatically and TOGETHER automatically, and have all of the choices there for those who go looking. Maybe limiting packages on the install CD is worthwhile... but the choice should always be there. Debian limits nothing, and its default setup does not work perfectly... but it has potential. I can see it pulling itself up by its bootstraps and becoming a system that works together with itself.

Graphical installers. I'll say it one more time, I've said it before: screen one of the installer should be DOS/curses style and say "Easy install or Advanced install?" This is not to say everything he said about having the graphical install have advanced buttons isn't true; that's necessary as well. What this means is that the idiots can pick "Easy" while I pick "Advanced" and I get my sure-to-work-on-this-VGA-piece-of-shit installer complete with cfdisk partitioning and all of the gory details. There should never be a total reliance on a fully GUI install. Debian's installer is awful and could use some kind of option like this.

Liscense. BSD-style is nice, but GPL is Free. Non-GPL is not an option.

Kernel. This is another point in favor of Debian. It's (at least potentially) kernel agnostic. Linux today, NetBSD tomorrow, the HURD on Friday. A truly Complete Debian would allow you to pick any (supported) kernel you wanted at install time... be it Linux, or *BSD, or whatever. Doesn't matter.

As far as source goes... the debian way seems good. apt-get source. You can't do it by mistake, and it's not like archive material so few would get it "because it's free". Bandwidth problem largely solved (or at least not seriously aggravated) and you don't piss off zealots like me.

I will close by saying it again: Don't reinvent what Debian already does. Build a debian-based distro (a script could repackage many applications to use any new dir layout you choose). What this guy wants is a Friendly Debian and a little bit of proprietary code.