New Community-Run RPM-based Distribution

KainX writes "As an alternative to the Red Hat-controlled Fedora project, the community-led cAos Foundation decided to create a fully community-built, community-controlled, RPM-based distribution whose foundation would be a self-hosting, self-sufficient core with a 3-5 year support lifetime. The first stable, production-worthy core has now been officially released! Download an ISO from a mirror and try it out."

Comments

3-5 year lifecycle?

[mlynx]

What does the lifecycle determine? It sounds like the distro is built to be constantly maintained, similar to Gentoo. Or does it mean that in 3-5 years it will be so outdated, that you'll be thrilled to upgrade?

And the point of this is?

[m50d]

No problem if they're trying to scratch their itch, but seriously, why is this needed? There are plenty of alternatives to redhat and more than enough community-based distributions - debian and most of its derivatives for starters. Why would they choose to go with rpm?

Re:And the point of this is?

[m50d]

It won because a few big distros stacked the standards comittee. And LSB distros only need to provide a way to install RPMs, not use it as the primary package managment for the actual system. (RTFFootnote on the link you give)

Crap!

[MoogMan]

Its stupid. I'm all for diversity, but all we hear about is "XYZ Linux has been released. It is based on ABC, which is in turn based on foobarfish." Its absolute crap. I'm sorry, but It's got to the point where the diversity is leading to a smattering of good developers being on each distribution, rather than have 5 or 6 *really good* distributions, with a load of awesome developers helping it get better.

Sort it out!

Re:Crap!

[tacocat]

Mod this up.

These distros are the fragmentation of Linux that mirrors the fragmentation of Unix in the 1900's.

Sure, variety is good. It's essential. But resources can get spread pretty thin too. It's a trade off that we have to manage.

OMG, get a new name

[bill_mcgonigle]

Yeah, it's neat and Hacker-cool, but don't make me write a proposal recommending the installation of a distro pronounced "Chaos". Even if I really wanted to use it, I just couldn't.

Does it suck that middle managers make decisions around these things without strong rationale? Yes.

Is that the way things work? Yes.

I'm pretty amazed...

[wolf31o2]

They're claiming that they're going to support a 3-5 year support lifecycle. That is unheard of for a community-based distribution! I would love to see these guys do well, and hope they really can stick to their support lifecycle.

I always enjoy hearing about new community-based distributions. It will be a bit strange having an RPM-based distribution out there, but now we have YUM that provides the required functionality that RPM lacks, such as automatic dependency resolution, ala portage or apt.

Re:I'm pretty amazed...

[tacocat]

It will be a bit strange having an RPM-based distribution out there, but now we have YUM that provides the required functionality that RPM lacks, such as automatic dependency resolution, ala portage or apt.

I think you are missing the point.

The question a lot of the initial posts are centered on is, "Why would you start yet another distro based on an already proven sub-standard packaging system?". It doesn't make any sense unless you plan on using the Chewbakka Defense.

I would be a heck of a lot more thrilled if someone backed up a square and developed a new and improved packaging system that tries to account for the shortcomings of all the others.

Re:I'm pretty amazed...

[ComputerSlicer23]

What precisely is RPM sub-standard at? I've seen people talk about the beauty of .deb packages. It's my understanding that .deb is fairly isomorphic to RPM. Name something specific, or link to something specific that an RPM can't accomplish that some other packaging file format does so much better. Don't talk about dependency resolution, that's a function of apt-get, yum, or some other program.

As a general rule the strength or weakness of the distributions packages has less to do with the package file format, and more to do with the tender loving care devoted to each package in terms of specifing all of it'd dependencies, what it obsoletes, what functionality it provides.

There are some packages that are a pain in the ass in RPM format (RedHat's BIND/named packages jump to mind). Not having used a .deb based distro I long term, I don't know of any historically badly packaged applications from Debian.

As a general rule, I haven't had any serious problems with RPM's in years. They work just as well as any others. I use almost exclusively from RedHat (I do use a handful from freshrpms and Dag). They work just fine. Especially since I started using yum, it's generally a command line to update my system. So stop using the "Chewbakka Offense", and actually be specific. I've seen you make several posts that just assume that it's mathematically proven that RPM's are incapable of caputing the esscense of package management. I'm unaware of it's deficiencies.

Kirby

Re:Yet Another RPM Distro

[golgotha007]

Why do you think there are so many DEB based distros out there today? Because Debian is free? So is Fedora, isn't it? Maybe it's the packaging is better than RPM.

Why do you think there are so many RPM based distros out there today? Because Fedora is free? So is Debian, isn't it? Maybe it's(sic) the packaging is better than DEB.

Why are all the RPM based distros shipping with their own cobbled version of apt-get?
How is RPM based apt-get cobbled? Please explain.

Why didn't Gentoo use RPM?
Gentoo didn't use DEB, either. Your point?

Slackware still isn't RPM based and they are doing well enough thank you.
Slackware was around long before RPM. Again, your point?

Re:Yet Another RPM Distro

[slashkitty]

The reason is simple, because that's where the developers are. Look at some of the most active open source APPS and you'll see that they release their product in 2 or 3 forms... RPM, GZ source and maybe a binary. I'm all for a better package manager... but I think that developers have decided that RPM is better... at least easier to distribute their apps in.

Why RPM Based?

[ZephyrXero]

I'd like to see a source based distro that relied on Autopackage for it's application myself... You'd let your libraries, the kernel, userland, X, Gnome/KDE, and low level OS type software be custom compiled ala Gentoo, and then for all your software like Firefox, Gimp, Mplayer, etc you would use Autopackages. It would be quite a challenge to create, but it would be well worth it...Here are a few further thoughts I've had on it.