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FSF-Approved gNewSense 2.0 Released

Posted by timothy on from the this-one-is-really-not-unix dept.

An anonymous reader writes "gNewSense DeltaH (2.0), a second major release of a GNU/Linux distribution with focus on freedom, has just been released. It is based on Ubuntu 8.04 which was released less than week ago. gNewSense is one of the few GNU/Linux distributions listed as free by the GNU Project."

4 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. And why do we need another Distro? by Alpha232 · · Score: 5, Funny

    From http://www.gnewsense.org/Main/Features

    emacs, bsdgames, nethack and build-essential part of the default install And now we know...
    1. Re:And why do we need another Distro? by libervisco · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's much more than that. You'd be surprised at how careful they are not to ship with a single bit that is not Free Software.

      It may seem ludicrous to some at first, but think about the benefit. Even if you wont use it as your main system you can use it to test just how much of your hardware is 100% Free Software compliant, or you can use it to see what hardware you should buy that is 100% compliant.

      And Free Software compliant hardware equals best possible experience - since it will all then work out of the box, with bugs fixed and improvements steadily coming, because you don't need to depend on some third party for everything.

      gNewSense plays a crucial role.

      You can read a bit more about that here http://www.nuxified.org/blog/gnewsense_2_0_a_premier_freedomware_platform_based_on_ubuntu_8_04_lts_released


      Cheers
    2. Re:And why do we need another Distro? by MightyYar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You are right, but there is one point that I don't think you considered: paying someone to fix a bug or add a feature.

      If you have 20 PCs in your office and they all have "free" drivers for their video cards, then you can always pay someone to fix any bugs that come up - and it might even be worth the money depending on how many computers you have with the same card.

      Good luck trying to pay nvidia to fix their driver.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  2. naming by Speare · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The first thing that came to my mind, and another AC at -1 noted it, is that "gNewSense" must be pronounced "gee, nuisance" or just "nuisance." I can't decide if GIMP or Nuisance wins the prize for most useless name. I'm not saying go through a formal focus group process, but if it's a project worth spending a little time on, isn't it worth a name that doesn't have unsavory connotations? Just ask four friends (vocally) whether a name just sounds vaguely nonsensical or might be misunderstood as something else.

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