Either learn Puppet (as mentioned many times before) or purchase a Kbox and training. The Kbox is a very powerful appliance (see the linked propoganda), plus its underlying OS is FreeBSD! We use it to push out patches and configs to our mixed-platform shop (ubuntu/fedora/XP/Solaris), as well as providing a web-based software repository where users can request software, a licence is assigned from a pool, and the install kicks off...
Note: I am not affiliated with Kace beyond running one of their sys management appliances, which I'm quite happy with.
>What I don't understand is the duplication of effort. PC-BSD and DesktopBSD are both KDE and FreeBSD based desktop environments.
*ahem* PC-BSD is FreeBSD + KDE + Their own customisations eg/Programs and.pbi's. DesktopBSD is FreeBSD + KDE + Their own tools eg a front end for PORTS, drive mounters et al.
I won't go too much into the philosophical differences. You can install the DBSD tools on PC-BSD and FreeBSD, you can install FreeBSD, X and any WM you like and still install the DBSD tools from PORTS and run them. And where PC-BSD appears to be more of a fork (not full-blown, so let's call it a spork;)) than a pre-packaged 'proper' FreeBSD as DBSD is, both have work that gets submitted back into FreeBSD core thus benefiting one another. It's not, therefore, a duplication of effort; they have different ideals and goals and manage to co-exist happily in a healthy duopoly. I for one like it better than the hundreds of disparate Linux distributions, though Ubuntu is making some great strides in merging the cream of the crop back into a concise set of distros.
The true problem here, though, is GPL-zealots bleating on about the BSD licence because it's not the sacred GPL and it's keeping RMS awake at night. This kind of attitude in FOSS is why things aren't going forward as fast as they should - there's too much infighting, too much preaching, too much focus on defining what seperates us. There aren't enough people pointing out what makes us the same - we're tired of MS, we're tired of DRM, we're tired of viruses and malware, we're tired of having EULA's rammed into every orifice, we're tired of not being able to get under the hood and fix problems ourselves, and we're tired of emptying our wallets for the supposed pleasure. We, collectively and regardless of licence, kernel and distribution choice, are a community. The sooner we collectively realise that, the sooner we can focus on kicking some arse!
In my opinion: Linux takes care of the innovation and the bleeding edge BSD takes care of the polish and the code maturity Neither should concern themselves with religious preaching
>At least my project is original, albeit unpopular.
What makes you think that it's unpopular?
>The fundamental reason many of us think free desktops will prevail is still there. Think of BSD systems as a backup in case Linux fails in the desktop market. Even if we all fail, we may force Microsoft and Apple to innovate to stay ahead of us.
With big companies focusing again on network delivered software under the current 2.0 guise "Software as a Service" or "SaaS", the base OS should become increasingly transparent. So there should be some focusing on getting the likes of NX or SGD along with a roaming profile (either web-stored or portable-stored, or both) Imagine plugging a USB stick into any PC and instantly you have your Desktop and documents available to you - any changes you make are saved to the USB stick and then DFS/rsync'd back to your web storage. When the USB stick dies - get a new one and sync it back up with your web based copy. For security, logging into the desktop is "something you know", the USB stick itself or a token on it is "something you have" and with some biometrics eg fingerprint scanner you've got "something you are" - Sandisk are doing such fingerprint enabled sticks now.
Again, this is not an issue of Linux vs BSD, or BSD vs GPL, this is an issue of Open Source vs Close Source and there should be an effort to ensure that the best parts of Open Source are ready for any push towards SaaS. I personally think that with the current state of the internet it will flop, but it should spark some great development, and this is where lightweight distributions can shine - bundle in an ICA client, an RDP client, an NX client etc and you're set.
On any Mediawiki site, you can simply go to the page Special:Version and you'll see the licence, the version and any extensions that have been installed
Slashdot Mirror
Either learn Puppet (as mentioned many times before) or purchase a Kbox and training. The Kbox is a very powerful appliance (see the linked propoganda), plus its underlying OS is FreeBSD! We use it to push out patches and configs to our mixed-platform shop (ubuntu/fedora/XP/Solaris), as well as providing a web-based software repository where users can request software, a licence is assigned from a pool, and the install kicks off...
Note: I am not affiliated with Kace beyond running one of their sys management appliances, which I'm quite happy with.
>What I don't understand is the duplication of effort. PC-BSD and DesktopBSD are both KDE and FreeBSD based desktop environments.
/Programs and .pbi's.
;)) than a pre-packaged 'proper' FreeBSD as DBSD is, both have work that gets submitted back into FreeBSD core thus benefiting one another. It's not, therefore, a duplication of effort; they have different ideals and goals and manage to co-exist happily in a healthy duopoly. I for one like it better than the hundreds of disparate Linux distributions, though Ubuntu is making some great strides in merging the cream of the crop back into a concise set of distros.
*ahem*
PC-BSD is FreeBSD + KDE + Their own customisations eg
DesktopBSD is FreeBSD + KDE + Their own tools eg a front end for PORTS, drive mounters et al.
I won't go too much into the philosophical differences. You can install the DBSD tools on PC-BSD and FreeBSD, you can install FreeBSD, X and any WM you like and still install the DBSD tools from PORTS and run them. And where PC-BSD appears to be more of a fork (not full-blown, so let's call it a spork
The true problem here, though, is GPL-zealots bleating on about the BSD licence because it's not the sacred GPL and it's keeping RMS awake at night. This kind of attitude in FOSS is why things aren't going forward as fast as they should - there's too much infighting, too much preaching, too much focus on defining what seperates us. There aren't enough people pointing out what makes us the same - we're tired of MS, we're tired of DRM, we're tired of viruses and malware, we're tired of having EULA's rammed into every orifice, we're tired of not being able to get under the hood and fix problems ourselves, and we're tired of emptying our wallets for the supposed pleasure. We, collectively and regardless of licence, kernel and distribution choice, are a community. The sooner we collectively realise that, the sooner we can focus on kicking some arse!
In my opinion:
Linux takes care of the innovation and the bleeding edge
BSD takes care of the polish and the code maturity
Neither should concern themselves with religious preaching
>At least my project is original, albeit unpopular.
What makes you think that it's unpopular?
>The fundamental reason many of us think free desktops will prevail is still there. Think of BSD systems as a backup in case Linux fails in the desktop market. Even if we all fail, we may force Microsoft and Apple to innovate to stay ahead of us.
With big companies focusing again on network delivered software under the current 2.0 guise "Software as a Service" or "SaaS", the base OS should become increasingly transparent. So there should be some focusing on getting the likes of NX or SGD along with a roaming profile (either web-stored or portable-stored, or both) Imagine plugging a USB stick into any PC and instantly you have your Desktop and documents available to you - any changes you make are saved to the USB stick and then DFS/rsync'd back to your web storage. When the USB stick dies - get a new one and sync it back up with your web based copy. For security, logging into the desktop is "something you know", the USB stick itself or a token on it is "something you have" and with some biometrics eg fingerprint scanner you've got "something you are" - Sandisk are doing such fingerprint enabled sticks now.
Again, this is not an issue of Linux vs BSD, or BSD vs GPL, this is an issue of Open Source vs Close Source and there should be an effort to ensure that the best parts of Open Source are ready for any push towards SaaS. I personally think that with the current state of the internet it will flop, but it should spark some great development, and this is where lightweight distributions can shine - bundle in an ICA client, an RDP client, an NX client etc and you're set.
On any Mediawiki site, you can simply go to the page Special:Version and you'll see the licence, the version and any extensions that have been installed
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Special:Version Doesn't seem to be promising, so you can then check the code of the page to see if there's some kind of tag that they're using, alas, in this case it seems that they've disabled the standard TOC with a __NOTOC__ and manually built this one: http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php?title=OLPC_Human_ Interface_Guidelines&action=edit
I do agree though, the horizontal TOC representation looks like a better use of whitespace