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Progeny Releases Beta 1 of Progeny Debian 2.0
Jeff Licquia writes "We just released the first beta of Progeny Debian 2.0, Developer Edition. This is intended to be a showcase of our Componentized Linux project for building customized Linux distributions, something that's been talked about here before. We'd really like people to give this a whirl and report any problems they have. For more information, Progeny's Platform site has the details."
There don't seem to be any torrents or mirrors for this stuff, alas.
Some useful information from the site regarding what this Componentized Linux is:
http://platform.progeny.com/archives/000011.html
Toward a new kind of "Linux distribution"
There's no denying that "Linux distributions" have played a central role--arguably the central role--in the evolution of Linux from hobby project to mainstream technology.
However, even as Slackware, Red Hat, and other distributions became "Linux" to millions of users, one inescapable fact remained: that unlike their proprietary OS cousins, which contain technologies developed (or licensed) by a single organization to fit into a single, integrated product, Linux distributions are merely convenient packaging around a loosely knit collection of thousands of independently developed technologies.
Even today, Linux distributions continue to be developed from the top down as monolithic wholes, as opposed to bottom up as collections of piece-parts, a model that would be a much better fit with the nature of every distribution's (common!) constituent elements. Even newer distributions built by seasoned veterans have tended to follow the top-down model (and, I would argue, to their detriment)--I'm thinking here of Red Hat's Fedora (which, although called "Fedora Core", hardly seems a "core" at all, weighing in at 3 CDs) and Bruce Perens' UserLinux (which appears mired in endless discussions about which technologies should be included and which shouldn't, with predictable results).
For the commercial Linux-as-product distributors, it is a sensible strategy to portray their distributions as monolithic wholes, as this allows them to position the distributions as platforms unto themselves and, thus, pursue traditional OS business models based on locking users in to a platform (I've argued before this will be a losing strategy in the long run, but that's another topic).
However, for those who view Linux not as a product but as a platform on which to build their own products, the monolithic nature of the typical distribution is a particularly bad fit. The typical Linux-as-product distribution optimizes for breadth--because it is "one-size-fits-all", it needs to include a huge assortment of features and technologies to satisfy the widest possible audience, only a few of which may be important to any given project (and the few that are important will always vary). Ideally, for Linux-as-platform users, a distribution should optimize for depth, i.e., to excel in those few features and technologies important to the project at hand.
To allow optimization for depth, a new kind of distribution is needed--a componentized distribution from which users may build platforms from the bottom up, including only the features and technologies their products require. Progeny is building such a distribution, which we call (cleverly enough) componentized Linux. Furthermore, we are building it in the open as a community project in the hopes that others will be intrigued with the concept, collaborate with us on the component infrastructure and underlying open-source technologies (Anaconda, APT, etc.) and ultimately build their own components too.
If this sounds a lot like Debian, that's because it is in many ways: the end result is more of a collection of software than a distribution, and we hope the open development process ends up fostering the same kind of inextricable developer community that has sprung up around Debian. Importantly, the componentized Linux is a layer above an existing distribution--or, more properly, above an existing collection of packages. Our components are currently based on Debian sarge, and we are planning to support Fedora-based components as well in time. Our LSB 1.3-certified core runtime is available today. More components and a component-aware, Anaconda-based installation mechanism will be added in the coming weeks.
Posted by Ian Murdock | Permalink | 2004-01-26 16:10:00
And the release
This flies in the face of science.
Whoever gets this downloaded should set up a torrent and submit it to suprnova.org
M$ Lawyer: But `gcc
To allow optimization for depth, a new kind of distribution is needed--a componentized distribution from which users may build platforms from the bottom up, including only the features and technologies their products require.
But isnt this one of the key ideas behind Gentoo? Either way I think I'll have to check this out more. Good to see more of this over the "just bundle everything with an i386 build" approach.
StrategyTalk.com, PC Game Forums
Haven't gotten through the article yet, but does this concept of modularized linux distro's include the notion of doing it across any kernel-supported arch?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Someone mentioned that there is no torrent or download link. A very cursory examination of their website reveals an HTTP download location:
8 6/ 20040710/
http://archive.progeny.com/progeny/linux/iso-i3
Come one people, RTFA.
Ads? What ads?
*ahem* Cue forty rabid /.ers claiming that this is redundant in a world that contains Gentoo ...
(stupid generic keyboards)
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
"Fedora Core 3 Test 1 Released" goes in the developers section, but "Progeny Releases Beta 1 of Progeny Debian" a "developers edition" doesn't show up there. I really have to stop trying to understand /.
Actually there are only 39 rabid ones now. We had to shoot one this morning after he develeloped an inclination to use the -02 flag instead of -03.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
"Componentized"??? - IMHO that's an anglobstipation excessively gratuitous even for you transatlanticated verbalizators. '-)
yes:
http://platform.progeny.com/apt/index.html
There is also Rocklinux.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Well, come get me next, because I use -O2. It's necessary on both MIPS and Athlon, O3 is known to cause errors on both architectures with GCC (MIPS more than Athlon.) I don't know if this applies to x86-64 or not.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Now if only there's a straightforward way to share your customized distro with other people; as in, I make a distro that runs on some embedded processor, say a 486 clone, that a ton of people use. Is there an easy way for me to simply share my configuration with other people in the same community?
It seems like if this is done right, you could create automagically updating distrubtions easily enough that 'customer bases' even in the 100s or 1000s can simply support themselves.
----------------
Freedom or Evil: www.freevil.net
GWB says, "You decide!"
OTOH, here's an article from 4 years ago about Progeny. It looks like the vision was the same then, but they haven't gotten very far.
This could be useful for Universities or companies wanting to manage their own customized distributions. I know my lab would certainly appreciate the ability to customize our linux installations heavily and make those customizations manageable across several machines.
This could also be handy for groups wanting to build custom hardware solutions.
How do the Progeny components differ from the standard Debian metapackages?
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
By the way, is it just me, or are the anti-gentoo trolls getting to be quite annoying and abundant?
:-P
They're not half as annoying as the pro-Gentoo trolls.