Slashdot Mirror
UserLinux Releases First Beta
MohammedSameer writes "According to DesktopLinux, UserLinux has released their 1st beta CD, based on Debian. The project, led by the long-time open source advocate Bruce Perens, aims to provide businesses with freely available, high quality Linux operating systems accompanied by certifications, service, and support options intended to encourage productivity and security while reducing overall costs."
So, if it's oriented to Businesses and support-conscious people, why is it called *User* Linux? Wouldn't BusinessLinux be more appropriate?
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Do we need torrent for 4.5 megabytes iso image?o
http://userlinux.com/installer/netboot.is
Personally instead of seeing 100's of distros I'd like to see some serious work poured into maybe a handful of popular ones to make them more serious desktop contenders. There is a thin line between "choice" and "fragmentation".
I honestly don't think that the cost will have much of an effect on the success of this project. I mean, IT managers willingly pay $xxx to M$ for so much, anything remotely less than that is always a good deal. And then again, most people are apprehensive to the word free. Normally associating it with lower quality, hidden costs, etc. Honestly they could have charged $50 a licesnse, and it would probably increase its use. People like to pay for things they rely on, its just wierd.
je suis parce que j'aime
I am impressed.
not Bruce
Bruce Perens, now that you are around, what's your take on the Canonical project? On the surface, it would appear to be along the lines of what UserLinux is supposed to do... not forgetting that neither is "final" yet, of course ;-).
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
> he project, led by the long-time open source advocate Bruce
> Perens, aims to provide businesses with freely available, high
> quality Linux operating systems accompanied by
> certifications, service, and support options intended to
> encourage productivity and security while reducing overall
> costs."
Did I hear "buzzword compliant" ?
---eludom
Userlinux is an answer to a question no one was asking.
freely available, high quality Linux operating systems accompanied by certifications, service, and support options intended
Best of luck to you and show them that it is quite possible to make money off of supporting open source softwares.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
You got a problem with your wife renting out hoagie space in her ass?
A whore is a whore. Simply put, one who trades their morals for money is a whore.
...freely available, high quality Linux operating systems accompanied by certifications, service, and support options
Why a distro based on Debian? Why not just certify, service and support Debian itself?
I know there has to be a seperate distro for every ego in the OSS world, but from a technical point of view, why is a new distro needed?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Yes.
censorship is a form of noise, which actively seeks to drown out content with silence - Crash Culligan
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
From a FAQ on UserLinux
Q: What will be the advantages of UserLinux?
A: [Brock Frazier] Key UserLinux distribution advantages:
1. Streamlined: UserLinux is a streamlined distribution with one key application in mind for a given piece of functionality. One web browser, one word processor, one mail client, one web server. This reduces support overhead both for users and for maintaining security.
2. Standards compliant: UserLinux encourages cooperation with other open source organizations, and values compliance with open standards.
3. Designed for business: The UserLinux distribution is specially tailored towards the needs of business.
4. Professional Services: The third party network of UserLinux affiliated commercial Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) allow for choice in professional services and custom application design options. The separation between the UserLinux organization and the ISVs is a win-win proposition allowing both the support advantages of a service provider network and the neutrality advantages of an operating system not tied to a single company.
5. Flexible: While each UserLinux configuration is designed to support common functionality as shipped, the systems are also open for expansion beyond the standard UserLinux set.
6. Disclosure: As a not-for-profit organization working with software developed in the open, the UserLinux organization as well as the development process for the UserLinux distribution are in the open. Critical system updates are clearly and promptly announced so systems remain properly secured.
7. Lack of lock-in: There are no licensing fees for the UserLinux distribution or related development tools. Service is available from your choice of service providers, but is never mandatory.
8. Free to obtain: ISO images and the source code are freely available.
9. Inexpensive to maintain: The streamlined nature of the UserLinux distribution assures less software to update. There are no per seat charges or OS licenses to be tracked and audited.
10. Secure: Leveraging from the power of open source, the code used in the UserLinux distribution not only has thousands of hours of development but thousands of hours of peer review.
11. Certifications: Hardware, software, support and professional certifications will be available.
fifteen jugglers, five believers
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
It has been reported the Pruce Berens, from the KickMeInTheGooliesILikePainLinux fame, is attempting to bring slashdot down by furiously typing at his keyboard to reply to every single slashdot post creating a human DDOS attack. Luckily slashdot has survived this onslaught and he's on his way to achieving a world record for the most number of posts on slashdot for a single article, as long as his smoking keyboard withstands the punishment.
But that's ok. Riding on the work of others is done by everyone. Do you know Ohm's Law? If you do, did you develop it yourself? How about Calculus or, computers. Did you invent the microproccesor? If you are using these tools to make a living, then you are also riding on the effort of others. This is why humans form societies. It makes life easier for each individual and for the whole collective.
As for helping people, by merely helping linux grow in popularity in businesses willing to spend money on Linux, he is helping the linux community grow. Let's face it, while Linux can do just fine on it's own, it can do even better wth money. If I didn't have to worry about money, I would contribute a lot of time to Linux. So, if I can make money while helping Linux, both I and Linux win. By helping Linux in this way, the demand for Linux and Linux apps grows. The more this demand grows, the better the product will get due to more development. He IS helping the community and like everyone else, he is riding on the effort and work of others but still contributing to that effort and work.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Obviously that's a huge jump and the right distro is important. I've been strongly considering Gentoo mosty for keeping the systems up to date and secure (leave everyone in the stable tree, and cron a nightly GLSA to patch all known security holes, and emerge -uD world)
As "administration free" as it seems right now in thought, I am a bit concerned of the nightmare it could become if things get unorderly.
With Red Hat abandoning the business desktop a dedicated business desktop with the open source community behind it is exactly what I am looking for. I admire Sun's Java desktop and Xandros' Business desktop, but I guess I'm just too spoiled by the Debian and Gentoo forums. Both are very active with loads of people helping out. For me I'd much rather get my help that way as apposed to waiting on hold to talk to the next know nothing tech support person.
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
I love Debian on servers, that's the one place where packages not changing often is a good thing.
One big frustration I have with debian-stable is that the kernel gets so far out of date, that it doesn't support newer hardware properly. Will UserLinux try to keep more up-to-date with kernel versions. I don't need bleeding edge, but 2.4.18 is two and half years old!
Don't tell me to use debian-testing, I've tried it and it replaces too many packages too often for a production machine.
Simply because they are the only linux distros with HBA drivers
A lot of corporations don't even *use* SANs. Not every corporation needs em. Just because other distros lack a certain feature X doesn't mean that they're useless for corporations. That's just narrow minded thinking.
BTW, at my corporation, we use Gentoo because we know what we're doing and don't need or want the hand holding that RH and Suse provide. It's amazing! We're a corporation and we're successfully using a distro other than red hat and suse!
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
Bruce, one major thing you haven't talked about on your wiki is how you are going to give back to us developers who work on Debian, which is the core distro. So far, no of the distro vendors have been willing to support us monetarily (unless they hire us into their corporations). What is the plan on redistributing some of that consulting/support income back to us?
Redhat and SuSE's upgrade cycle seems much more disruptive than Debian's. Our main frustration with them is that each of them seem to want to do a complete re-install when doing a major upgrade.
And the first person who gets a serious distro using that name will do VERY well. It's a name that makes sense and we know that everything is in the name... or at least the people who make decisions think so.
Here's my wish/hope list for a business [client] oriented distribution:
Network Login Service Support for:
* Novell NDS, Microsoft Domains and of course your NIS and all that.
* A nice email + swiss army software thingy (like Evolution with support on the server)
* MS Office compatible office suite and/or an ass-kickin' wine configuration that REALLY works especially for brain-dead admins who expect to double-click on SETUP.EXE.
Of course there will be other apps that will need to complete anything beyond the basics listed above, but once those basics are done, it's 90% there.
And when I mean MS Office compatible, I mean REALLY stinking compatible for importing and exporting MS Word docs and stuff. So far, nothing's been perfect yet though it keeps getting better.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce,
Forgive me if this is answered somewhere on the UL website, but do you include or plan to include support out of the box for MP3's and any other technology that Red Hat may refuse to include?
Additionally, if the amount and breadth of your own patches and packages makes it such that UL and Debian are relatives only in spirit, will you go your own way or continue to try to keep ties with it?
TIA
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
When will we support PowerPC? Hopefully soon. If someone wants to pay, even faster.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I am told that I am #2 stockholder in Ian's company, although I am not currently part of its management.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Has anyone made a UserLinux LiveCD yet or is that my next challenge (armed with Fabian's new remastering tool and perhaps I'll even try rolling in some automation of the lazy umount method of removing the cd, I don't need much of an excuse but I suspect I might have to do some fixing up so if anyone has already started ... :-)
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Personally, I think Linux already has strong support from those influencers of buying decisions. It's the other people who influence the buying decisions that need the handholding -- the risk management groups who want support -- the legal department with intellectual property concerns -- the marketing people who want to go to their users and brag about the infrastructure ("our product is built on .NET").
The guys behind the computer are already on your side for picking Debian as a core. The thing they'll appreciate you most for are if you help them sell Debian up in their organization.
IMHO Debian's biggest failing in the corporate world is in naming. While we use Debian Stable, with specific packages from Unstable, no marketing person in their right mind will go "buy our product because it's build on Debian Unstable technology".
On the other hand, I have had an experience where the California Highway Patrol was looking at a Windows product that I was selling, and was extremely interested to hear that it
Had I told them I would have been a huge fan with the developers but got nowhere with the other, sometimes more important decision influencers.Bruce
Bruce Perens.
UserLinux _is_ a subset of Debian. The team has chosen a streamlined set of applications to include in each of the various packages (soho desktop, enterprise desktop, and server). You are free however, to install any of the Debian packages, not included in the UL release using standard Debian tools.
Agreed. The name is more descriptive. I'm sure we've all had a well-meaning relative send us a forward of a fictional Abbott and Costello routine about the names of Microsoft products. Somehow "Windows" means "Operating System" and "Office" means "Word Processor, Presentation App, Spreadsheet, Low-End Desktop Publishing, and Database Frontend"
*shrug*
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Not true at all. UserLinux takes Debian and molds it into an easier to manage subset for buisness. Unlike RedHat and SuSE, support comes from a network who compete with eachother giving the user/company better prices and more choices. Since UserLinux had Debian roots, it is 100% compatable and offers all the packages Debian provides if the administrator so chooses to install them.
Your relevance problem would be solved by installing KDE using apt-get. Nothing is preventing you from doing so.
Well, actually that was "my" booth, I am still executive director of the Desktop Linux Consortium. Everybody had the same sort of cube. Yes, the sign was cheap. And how much audience did you expect for a system that hadn't released its first beta? That was sort of a "show the flag" exercise.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
It may suprise you, but something as simple as a name can make a world of difference to business people, you know, the types that you want to purchase "UserLinux?"
Plenty of people have said the same thing to me about "Slackware" over the years (at nearly every trade show), and at this point I'd have to concede that it hasn't made it any easier to sell it to the PHBs. They'd all feel much more comfortable running "Trustix" on the company servers. However, sysadmin types don't usually have any problem with "Slackware".
Name matters, and you have to think about who the name is going to appeal to. If your focus is business, it should appeal to the executives, the tech department, or both. I'm not sure the name "UserLinux" will accomplish this.
Dont forget the *bsd series is just as huge, if the number of ports is truly that much of an advantage ..
Though its somewhat debateable how many text editors one really needs...( for example ). I feel quality of the ports is more important then the sheer numbers..
BSD is also much older and mature.. and if you pick NetBSD, it beats 11 platforms in its sleep..
Not bashing debian at all, just reminding people its not the only fish out there.. with out leaving that GPL aftertaste..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You rationalize the choice and then immediatly dismiss it without rationalization. The switch of te button order was made because of the results of a usibility study. The study was pretty simple. When a user pops open a dialog box, their eyes gravitate to 4 places: the corners of the dialog. Naturlaly then, you want the prefered operation to be immediatly reachable at the exact same offset of every dialog. Yes is the bottom right of every window where Yes is the prefered choice. Then, when the user decides to move away from teh prefered choice, he simple moves his eyes left to the next prefered choice. This *IS* much easier on users: the usiblity study proves this. That's what they're for. It is however different from most traditional Unix programs and Windows. In the former case, there was never any standard. People just put the buttons there because it's how they'd always done it, because they never think about it. In the Windows choice, MS says to put them that way. MS did not have a usibility study for this, they simply chose it because it's what they always did. What it does however, is put the default prefered choice, usually OK, at an undetermined location. If the window is 400 pixels wide, it might be here, if it's 300 pixels wide, it might be there. There is no natural tracking. Gnome took a gamble by following the "better" way of things. They certainly recognized that it would be inconsistant with Windows, and with KDE too, and most other Unix programs. But they took that chance. They said "we can do it better", and IMO, they did. If you only use Gnome applications, which is of course the goal of the Gnome project, this works out. ;)
I realize it's just an early Beta, but can we please always impose security first and insist on md5sum's? TIA from a big fan.
I keep seeing Bruce talk about how easy its going to be for outsiders to influence UserLinux which he says doesn't happen with Fedora. He may have a point that Fedora's direction is very much controlled by Red Hat but watch what happens in a few years once UserLinux becomes established. Mature projects are very difficult to bend to your whim or take in a new direction. Thus the many debian forks.
I also don't see how going negative on other distros is going to help your cause when commenting in public. Prove why your better with code, not somewhat negative marketing against Red Hat. You seem to be a bit Red Hat obessed and constantly mention them in the UnitedLinux white paper. I'd rather see why its better than Windows, Solaris, or OS X, not fellow OSS distros. Yes I know your trying to appeal to linux users first but great features sell themselves better than a negative comment anyday. And realize that future UserLinux users will pick up on your tone and intent. A year from now I don't think we all want to a bunch of UserLinux users Trolling against Red Hat and other distros constantly here and elsewhere.
I wish UserLinux the best of luck though and very much look forward to trying it out. It sounds like a great idea and is definitely needed. One more distro in the mix especially a Free one that caters to the business crowd specifically is fine by me.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
knoppix has done more to bring windows users to debian than apt-get.
I agree that it was a gamble. I simply believe they lost, that's all. The usability study open which this was based was quite flawed on a number of grounds, only one of which is that the "spatial logic" of where to place buttons only makes sense if the only reason the user is clicking the button is to make the dialog go away. In other words, annoying informational messages (usually single-button anyway) and annoying wizards. It pretty much went into the dialog discussion trying to answer the question "what's the fastest way to make this dialog go away?" instead of "what's the best way to communicate information to the user and get a response that reflects the intent of the user?"
There's a lot in the HIG to like. They say "label those buttons with meaningful labels, not just OK and Cancel" which is great to see (and arguably more necessary because if the buttons are all switched around, you need to label them more clearly). But the simple fact is that natural language order pre-dated Windows. It goes back to the very first graphical and linedrawing-based apps. It was settled, and no users complained that there was a problem (unlike when Windows moved the "close" button to the upper-right corner and users suddenly started accidentally closing apps they meant to resize). User complaints about button order just plain didn't exist. Apple commissioned a usability study, and while there are good things about usability studies, every now and then you find usability specialists changing things that are already fine in order to justify their commission. Case in point: Exactly how much easier are microwave ovens getting after all of the "usability" improvements?
When someone says "I just want to cook this for 30 seconds, does that mean I should hit "Reheat" or "Popcorn"?!?" I think to myself, "This is usability gone horribly wrong." The makers of this microwave would certainly say "But we did a study! People respond quicker to task-oriented buttons!"
The fact that there was a study, I guess my point is, is meaningless if the study is crap to begin with. I and many other Linux users would have no problem using Gnome if it weren't for the button-order problem. But as it stands, the Gnome HIG created two camps of Linux users that can never be reconciled--where previously there had only been one group in complete agreement. And for Linux users to agree about ANYTHING is amazing--but they did in fact all agree about button order once upon a time.
It's fine to disagree. Disagreement is good. But somehow this strikes me as more of a manufactured difference of opinion than one that would have naturally occurred if the Apple study had never occurred.
Bruce has already answered this many times here, but I'll reiterate: UserLinux is Debian.
The differences between UserLinux and Debian are slight: branding, configuration tweaking, and temporary fixes where necessary.
The value of UserLinux does not come from technical achievements - everything we have, Debian has (and vice-versa). UserLinux selects a supportable subset of Debian and provides it to the customer in a neat package which any number of ISVs around the world can support.
Maybe if everyone decided to work together, rather than all start their own distros, the Linux platform would be in better shape than it is on the desktop.
So, why will UserLinux not be just another one of the pack?
You just answered your own question. UserLinux is already in the "pack." Debian has been around for 10 years - working together is what we're trying to do.
Actually I installed UL before I knew what I've done. I was looking for network installation images of debian for one of the freshly arrived machines. The default debian installer didn't work for some reason - I don't remember if it was SATA harddrive or smth like that... I did more search - found this UL network installation files, put them up in dhcp and installed the beast... What I liked: besides standard basic questions which it had to ask (like keyboard, partitioning) it asked me just 1 question to choose from: workstation or workstation and server... I remember that I chose workstation... Since then it installed everything and didn't ask a question (or I was sleeping and I missed it), as opposed to debian installation where you need to configure many packages by answering some basic questions... What I didn't like - I didn't catch why workstation installation installed apache for me... So in two words: I installed debian wo knowledge that it wasn't debian and was surprised that it went too smoothly... Then splashscreen announced that it is userlinux... anyway I decided to upgrade to unstable so I moded sources.list and here we go - I had the desktop ready to be used in less then an hour without paying much attention on what it is doing there :-)
If he is successful in launching UserLinux, and it looks like he will be, I will definately be switching from Fedora to it in the future. When Redhat told us that we couldn't use their 'stable' distro anymore, I switched our few servers over to Debian. I've been waiting for the day when my clients can once again run the same OS as our servers, but that day just won't come with Debian's conservative release cycle. It's just much nicer to have to support one distro.
I suppose I could have switched to Suse or Mandrake or some other one, but how do I know things won't change for them? If the money is calling, they WILL change, but the same cannot be said of Debian, and that's why I like it - I don't want to be distro-hopping every 4 years when some company gets sold.
Why do I keep typing pythong?