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ekkoBSD Officially Dead
sniperu writes "The EkkoBSD team leader announced the project's premature death , only 12 days after their latest release . No clue is given about the causes of such an unespected end other than saying "It's been a stressful fun trip" . You can still get the last release from the downloads page . Get it while you can ."
to those in the know, what the hell was ekkoBSD?
Don't worry - its just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
This is the trolling equivalent of pouring blood in shark-infested waters. *shudder*
I tried ekkobsd and for my tastes, it was indistinguishable from regular openbsd. From the get-go it seemed as though there was no real compelling reason for this distribution to exist (aside from itch scratching, of course).
However, I do wish the ekko project members success in their future endevours.
ekkoBSD was the idea of a guy named Rick Collette... now if you spend a little time googling that name you'll see that this guy has had his named attached to a few failed linux distributions. And on the ekkobsd.org webpage he even says: "Rick Collette - I actually only provided the Intel hardware, colo, marketing, path to completion, etc. I didn't do any coding at all - so my involvement was strictly in starting and attempting to guide the project. " the Operative word here is "didn't do any coding at all" This guy is a about as close to human hot air balloon as it gets. He starts up some project, makes a lot of noise, doesn't do a damn thing except get other people to do the work for him. This is just another failed attempt for this guy. Perhaps he'll learn to stop trying to make poor ripoff's of existing operating systems and wasting peoples time.
p ://lwn.net/2000/0323/a/deeplinux.html
Some choice urls:
http://linuxpr.com/releases/1319.html
htt
Ever heard of SPIROlinux? DeepLinux? Same guy, same story.
Remember, if it's worth re-doing, it's worth re-doing stupidly!
Then it morphed into some kind of "astral multiplatform nanokernel for multiple OS transmogrification of everything forever," churned and burned the confused efforts of many for three years, and died. But never officially. That would involve admitting maybe it wasn't a good idea in the first place.
I can't seem to find a really good account of the Freedows debacle anywhere. I'm sure it would make good reading. Hint, hint.
Check out the Apostrophe open-source CMS: http://www.apostrophenow.com/
Totally devoid of any knowledge which might help me validate the truth of anything in this flame, I can distill a claim from this piece which has universal value: egotism is a problem. Actually, I do remember JKH commenting on the FreeBSD experience in an interview that followed him taking the Apple job. He said that much of his energy in his most recent FreeBSD memory was spent refereeing egotistical contributors.
The real lesson to be drawn from this is that the FreeBSD code base effectively, systematically, inflates the egos of some programmers. This is a real and biting criticism of the FreeBSD project, and I say this as an ardent fan of FreeBSD. The system, specifically the development methodology, entertains and maybe promotes problems between collaborators. Free software is inherently a social phenomenon, and the social aspect is actually centrally important. The technology is only the subject and product of the society that creates it.
So, while the parent post appears to be just another BSD troll, I thought it probably deserved some credence and discussion for the light it shines on the social order of FreeBSD. I like it because ultimately it ask a good question: What is going on with the social aspect of FreeBSD?
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
The EkkoBSD team leader announced the project's premature death
Did somebody get a confirmation from Netcraft about this?
bash$
So, EekkoBSD really is dying, eh?
C'mon, guys, you're just giving it right to the trolls...
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
So, EekkoBSD really is dying, eh?
I really need to learn to spellcheck my posts. It's EkkoBSD (or ekkoBSD?), not EekkoBSD.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
You got modded down as "Troll", but your words are the best description of my experiences of interaction with the BSD community.
Somehow, "I told you so" doesn't quite say it!
That's because it's a cut and paste from an old and outdated (Feb 2003) post (non-troll, or at least, non-anonymous) on freebsd-chat -- search the archives.
Some FreeBSD people are jerks, but that's true everywhere. And some people believe that FreeBSD-5 went in an over-complicated and ultimately unmaintainable direction, and I don't disagree that the delay in making it stable is alarming. (But people had the same worries about linux during the 2.3.x and early 2.4.x days.) And that doesn't mean FreeBSD-5 work is junk: things regularly get merged in from FreeBSD-5 to DragonFly.
Isn't ekkoBSD based on OpenBSD ?
What is more, people have been saying that alot about FreeBSD 3.x as well.
How interesting.. not a single comment that actually has any information value at all.. I knew the standard was somewhat low here, but this low?
Saying ekkoBSD's death is a "crippling bombshell" to the entire BSD community is analogous to saying that the burger some McDonalds patron dropped while walking home is a "crippling bombshell" to McDonalds itself. Nonsense. FreeBSD 5-CURRENT is steadily approaching a good level of stability, after which it will be a Linux-killer for most desktop and some server applications. NetBSD has been and always will be the best operating system for portability, and the 2 branch is making admirable progress into modern standards and functionality while retaining amazing stability and cleanliness. OpenBSD had some scalability issues which are resolved, and now is making way into modern SMP and other useful applications. DragonFlyBSD is making astonishing progress given its currently small (but talented and enthusiasatic) developer base, and is already very close to being a viable alternative to FreeBSD for those who want something different. None of the BSDs are 'dead'. Their developer bases are largely comprised of people who focus on their Operating System (yes, technical note, all BSDs are entire Operating Systems, unlike Linux which is a toy kernel often accompanied by a user space tool chain you can run anywhere, and some hackish utilities for interfacing with the kernel), not on how many file systems they can add barely-working support for, how many undocumented kernel options they can hack on without anyone's understanding, and how many tshirts they can sell for market saturation. Linux developers lost their goal as well, what began as a valiant and successful (even if more via media coverage than technical merit, as benchmarks of even 2.4 will show) development effort of a kernel from scratch, has become an orgy of random features, some to directly oppose Windows development, some for performance [on one machine in the world, with all else being much worse off], some for 'l33t points' which amount to nothing in the real world... look at all the different patch sets for the different versions of the Linux kernel, and it's hard to respect the project at all. Some of these will get integrated if they get enough hype, some will die away, some will set your machine on fire (or in my case of trying 2.6.7-mm6, completely misuse your standard 3Com 905B network adapter, which works in any other kernel). Most of the negative slander BSD gets is the few Linux-using trolls on Slashdot who post the same terrifyingly misinformed crap, many as Anonymous Coward. "NetCraft confirms: BSD is dying", and yet NetCraft servers run FreeBSD? Do your homework people. BSD is not dying. Neither is Windows, since even that has some place in the world, believe it or not. Linux is not a magic bullet. It is and, by design, always will be a curious project to see what features can be hacked on to a bootable kernel. It is not an Operating System. It only survives from amazing marketting and corporate sponsorship, the two being mutually sustainant. The most interesting aspect of all of this is how most BSD-haters have never actually properly used and administered a BSD machine (may as well be FreeBSD since that is ahead in ease-of-use and Linux-killing power). Most BSD users won't bother slandering Linux, but for once I'd like to. I've used it lots, watched the transition from 2.4 to 2.6 and so on, and at no stage did I consider it a work of art. The transition to FreeBSD was an utter bliss of administrative elegance and system design, to the point I never looked back [except to test emerging Linux kernel versions against FreeBSD-CURRENT, with Linux never being impressive]. Say what you want about the brilliance of Gentoo's Portage (based on the design of FreeBSD Ports and NetBSD pkgsrc, lest you forget), it is not Linux itself. Type up lengthly propaganda involving Linux' amazing growth in corporate and governmental applications, it only provides more evidence of globalisation at work, even if of free software. Post the same "BSD is dead" article over and over on /. with the kind of blind propaganda that would make a preacher blush, a
Sam ty sig.
I did a review of EkkoBSD right after its latest release, and was a bit disappointed because their main project goal, "to make it easy to install," was completly not met... but I forgave it a little because it was a beta. But now that's moot.
Oh well...
Did any of Ekko make its way back to OpenBSD?
Good News Everyone!
Mike Smith now works for Apple, who's OS is based on BSD.
Check it out: www.lemis.com/~grog/msmr.html
and at: daemonnews, under "BSD at Apple"
He didn't like the direction that v5 was taking so he quit and starting writing BSD code for Apple.
Good News Everyone!
Turns out that *BSD is stronger than ever!
According to an Inernetnews article, Netcraft has confirmed that *BSD has "dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
There has been a steady increase in *BSD developers over the past decade.
There are currently 307 FreeBSD developers as of the 2004 core team election.
You can read more about FreeBSD here
If you would like to try out a BSD, you can download: FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, or DragonflyBSD
Enjoy!
They should have named it GeekoBSD, then it would have gotten some attention. Right now it looks just like a useless fork that some guy Ekko did just to boost his ego.
What is/was there to backport?
Well, thier stated goal was a more user-friendly spin-off of OpenBSD. Supposedly, they hacked up the install routine.
Nothing much, there was a few additions to the base system, unfinished installers that didn't even make it into CVS. There was a BSD licensed clone of dialog (which lives with MirOS now).
So every time a linux distro is discontinued can we claim linux is dying?
who's OS is based on BSD
"whose".
JKH was assassinated a long time ago. Whatchoo talkin bout?
I did find this on one of the developer's, Dave Steinberg, website:
Zef
What about MEEPT?!?!
I did get a copy of it at one point and tried the installer, but I didn't see anything that looked different then the old installers..
What happened to the 'nice gui' they were striving for? Did it ever materialize and could it be updated to the main *BSD projects?
For the newbie the installers of the BSD's can be rather intimidating. Providing an 'pretty/easy' option for them might help grow the community.
---- Booth was a patriot ----