The amount of money some organizations are willing to spend on free software is quite large. They're stuck in the 20th century and just want to have a vendor to hold accountable. In my experience it doesn't really add any value. We spent a metric boatload of money on RH's "storage server" product so we could use GlusterFS in a vendor-supported way. It drove our cost up so high that the storage people went with another vendor, and RH's people didn't really add much to the value of the product over what we could do with the open source bits ourselves.
It's nice to be able to throw a bone to whoever funded the development. But at this point ... it's IBM. All they're going to do is pink slip everyone on this side of the pond.
The silver lining of IBM Hat's decline is that it is already encouraging the adoption of other Linuxes. Our support people were only willing to deal with RH/CentOS and Ubuntu, but now they're willing to look at Debian as well just to have another option. I've got no problem with Ubuntu but I like Debian for infrastructure roles.
The silver lining of IBM Hat's decline is that it is already
encouraging the adoption of other Linuxes. Our support people were
only willing to deal with RH/CentOS and Ubuntu, but now they're
willing to look at Debian as well just to have another option. I've
got no problem with Ubuntu but I like Debian for infrastructure
roles.
Yup, I was reading in Linux Magazine some stats about distro adoption, and Debian it seems to me that the Debian style is going to turn into the factual Linux standard. It is certainly easier to find *.deb packages for commercial programs than it used to be (when everything was packaged as an *.rpm).
As far as i'm concerned Debian is the standard for penguin and has been for a LONG time for me. IT was the closest to real UNIX of the choices available, and tried to avoid commercial entanglements as much as possible. i'm still pissed they went with down the pottering infection path. ( yes there is a way out of it currently with some effort, but as apps start requiring his crap, its going to be harder and harder to avoid it in the future )
Ubuntu, is just evil. "Apple of the OSS world, standing on the backs of others and working to lock you into their ecosystem". If Debian would crumble they would be lost. At least RH did their own work.
Personal, extremely biased opinions i do agree, and YMMV.
Fri Mar 19 2021 10:02:57 EDT from darknetuserThe silver lining of IBM Hat's decline is that it is already
encouraging the adoption of other Linuxes. Our support people were
only willing to deal with RH/CentOS and Ubuntu, but now they're
willing to look at Debian as well just to have another option. I've
got no problem with Ubuntu but I like Debian for infrastructure
roles.
Yup, I was reading in Linux Magazine some stats about distro adoption, and Debian it seems to me that the Debian style is going to turn into the factual Linux standard. It is certainly easier to find *.deb packages for commercial programs than it used to be (when everything was packaged as an *.rpm).
I'm not sure that's accurate. Ubuntu devs often have dual roles as Debian maintainers. So they're giving back to the community, and I don't see where the alleged lock-in is.
I'm not a OSS die-hard, I'm a pragmatist, and I'm fine with a non-free package here and there. I run nvidia hardware, for example...
What is "pottering"?
Not heard them giving anything back,if so ill soften my tone a little. but their lock-in and manipulation of things is still wrong.
I'm a it more die-hard, and avoid proprietary any time i can. There are a couple of cases i'm screwed, like with my Jetson boards, ( as without their stuff, there is little point in having one ) but everything else pretty much is open. I'm wiling to take a small performance hit out of principle.
Pottering : Red hat person that is moving Linux away from 'UNIX philosophy' into 'Microsoft philosophy' , adding complexity, instability and more vendor lock-in. Others may disagree. REF : SystemD and PulseAudio ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennart_Poettering )
Fri Mar 19 2021 10:42:34 EDT from LoanShark
I'm not sure that's accurate. Ubuntu devs often have dual roles as Debian maintainers. So they're giving back to the community, and I don't see where the alleged lock-in is.
I'm not a OSS die-hard, I'm a pragmatist, and I'm fine with a non-free package here and there. I run nvidia hardware, for example...
What is "pottering"?
Oh, OK. PulseAudio is pretty wacky if you've ever taken a deep dive into configuring its plugin/module system. Yes. But that said, /dev/dsp was a little too simple. I feel like an ideal system is inevitably going to look a little more modular, like PulseAudio, but they could have executed more cleanly on it, because it's just messy to configure. Any attempt to touch the config files is kind of a developers-only exercise in deep voodoo.
(I was trying to beat my surround sound codecs into a submission a while back, because I have a TV that can't accept uncompressed Linear-PCM 5.1 channel audio over HDMI, it insists on Dolby AC3. This can be done in Linux, even legally now that the patent has expired, but there aren't any distributions that enable it by default and you have to be an ALSA wizard to figure out how. If I remember correctly, it's fairly easy to get this working over optical S/PDIF, but I mostly gave up on the HDMI route. It doesn't really matter, anyway; I don't have much need to run the TV in 4K mode from Linux, so I can just plug HDMI directly to my receive and use L-PCM.)
Systemd, on the other hand... yeah, opinions differ.
Count on it. Especially if ESR is correct and the speed of Windows/Linux convergence increases.
I'm pretty happy with Ubuntu for my desktop because it's easy-peasy to maintain on a desktop, but I can change it any time if I want to, no big deal. On my server VMs it's nearly always Debian, with one modification: I change all of the banners to say "Debian Linux/Linux" because "GNU/Linux" is propaganda.
Call me a n00b if you want to, but as someone who has been on the *ix side for about 35 years, I *like* systemd and I like PulseAudio as well. Lennart Poettering doesn't bother me. Init scripts were great in the 1980s but we totally needed to move on if we really want things to be cohesive. Likewise for PulseAudio -- it's nice to actually select and adjust audio settings from within an application instead of having to edit a bunch of configuration files.
If you use *ix just because you enjoy it being difficult, there's always OpenBSD <snicker>
Ubuntu, is just evil. "Apple of the OSS world, standing on the backs
of others and working to lock you into their ecosystem". If
Debian would crumble they would be lost. At least RH did their own
work.
I don't consider them "evil" but for me they have never been "The Real Thing."
I tend not to use derivative distributions unless they have a good reason for existence, such as being tailored to specific purposes. This is, a derivative of Debian that is adapted to be a rescue system, or a NAS system, those are fait game. Specifically if the tailoring their do is not trivial.
I suspect Debian itself will end up crumbling under the weight of its own political overload. I ceased using Debian as my primary go-to solution after I discovered their quality control procedures weren't working for me, but from then on I noticed they were becoming political and vicious about the opposition of established devs.
That leadme to try Slackware (back then, Devuan was not a thing). Slackware is amazing for a geek's personal use but it is not the sort of thing you use for enterprise deployments.
Today I use Slackware for personal and small deployments, and then a mix of Devuan and BSDs for production service. I don't operate somethign as fancy as people here seems to be running, therefore I need no fancy solutions.
What is "pottering"?
Adopting solutions designed by Mr. Pottering and shoehorning them into critical places of the system stack, such as system initialitation and audio controlling.
If you use *ix just because you enjoy it being difficult, there's
always OpenBSD <snicker>
Here I am!
Ok, no.
I think the only thing that makes OpenBSD difficult rather than just different is that the ammount of packagesin the repository is not astronomical, so if you intend to use something not in it, you are going to have to do the job yourself and port the software. Throw in the mix that OpenBSD does not use Glibc, but their own implementation, and it turns out you need more coding knowledge for running a _really_ productive OpenBSD than a really productive mainstream OS.
Also, I happen to like init scripts, so I like BSD Init and runit (and SysV style init, to a lesser exent). SystemD I can use, but I am not a fan. It is a full system controller, not an init system.
Pulseaudio sucks to get working, but something it has going for it is proper echo cancellation.
I thought this was going to happen once and talks were happening, but somehow got derailed. Perhaps due to their roots in Debian, which they cant control.
Could be wrong on that, its an old memory.
Sat Mar 20 2021 12:37:54 EDT from IGnatius T FoobarUbuntu is going to be acquired by one of the Big Tech giants, probably Microsoft.
Plan9 for the win.
Sat Mar 20 2021 12:37:54 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar
If you use *ix just because you enjoy it being difficult, there's always OpenBSD <snicker>
That may well happen. Once they started making decisions on political and not technical reasons, they may have set themselves on that path. I do agree its not your father's Debian ( so to speak )
Until they collapse, ill stick with them as my Linux preference, even went kicking and screaming with them into systemD ( tho. Devuan is pretty tempting at this point ). But i'm ready to move back to *bsd for everything if need be. At least for home.. For the 'office', there are still a couple of windows apps i'm required to use. Another nice thing about coming retirement in under a decade, no more freaking Microsoft in my life.
Sun Mar 21 2021 06:32:29 EDT from darknetuserI suspect Debian itself will end up crumbling under the weight of its own political overload. I ceased using Debian as my primary go-to solution after I discovered their quality control procedures weren't working for me, but from then on I noticed they were becoming political
2021-03-21 11:22 from Nurb432
Plan9 for the win.
Why is Plan9 for the win?
The name keeps popping up but I never got to use it. Or get close to a machine running it for that matter.
Its more of a joke than anything else. It will never be more than it is now, a rather esoteric project kept alive by a handful of nutcases, like with the 9Front team. ( the project i happen to follow )
Plan 9 was supposed to be UNIXv2, in effect. Taking all the good stuff learned from UNIX, tossing out all the bad, and not really worrying about remaining compatible. A fresh start. It was a project from within Bell Labs, with all the people who were responsible for UNIX.
Problem was they were sort of in a vacuum at the labs and were not paying attention while the WWW whizzed past them and changed everything, forever. That and the breakup happened which killed the project totally as everyone was dispersed into the industry.
Sun Mar 21 2021 18:04:29 EDT from darknetuser2021-03-21 11:22 from Nurb432
Plan9 for the win.
Why is Plan9 for the win?
The name keeps popping up but I never got to use it. Or get close to a machine running it for that matter.
2021-03-21 19:02 from Nurb432
Its more of a joke than anything else. It will never be more than it
is now, a rather esoteric project kept alive by a handful of
nutcases, like with the 9Front team. ( the project i happen to follow
)
Plan 9 was supposed to be UNIXv2, in effect. Taking all the good
stuff learned from UNIX, tossing out all the bad, and not really
worrying about remaining compatible. A fresh start. It was a
project from within Bell Labs, with all the people who were
responsible for UNIX.
Problem was they were sort of in a vacuum at the labs and were not
paying attention while the WWW whizzed past them and changed
everything, forever. That and the breakup happened which killed the
project totally as everyone was dispersedinto the industry.
Thnks for the info.
I like there are nutcases keeping this stuff alive.
However, I have the feeling UNIX before v5 was too limited in general. I think the earliest UNIX I have booted that felt somehow complete was V5. And then, BSD2+ really felt more complete.
I am sure I am the youngest dude here but now I feel like a dinosaur XD
If you like that sort of thing: http://9front.org/
Their humor, is somewhat off too.
Early in the manual:
Plan 9 was supposed to be UNIXv2, in effect. Taking all the good
stuff learned from UNIX, tossing out all the bad, and not really
worrying about remaining compatible. A fresh start.
Because that worked out so well for OS/2 ! :)
I suspect Debian itself will end up crumbling under the weight of its
own political overload.
It's got a lot of political overload these days, and I'm concerned about it too. Then again, there are way too many open source projects that have a "code of conduct" bullied into them by some talentless hack like Corey Ehmke because Silicon Valley still exists even though it needs to be burned to the ground.
Nevertheless, at this point you still can't get much more "base Linux" than Debian unless you get into hack-it-yourself distributions.
I blame Microsoft on that one.
I still think they tainted the project, stole what they wanted and "poof" we have this thing called windows NT.
Tue Mar 23 2021 17:44:22 EDT from IGnatius T FoobarPlan 9 was supposed to be UNIXv2, in effect. Taking all the good
stuff learned from UNIX, tossing out all the bad, and not really
worrying about remaining compatible. A fresh start.
Because that worked out so well for OS/2 ! :)