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DistributionsNews and Editorials Blending DebianLast week we introduced Debian Pure Blends, and now this week we'd like to look a bit deeper into the concept, the white paper and how this idea compares to similar ideas.To begin with, the Pure Debian Blend is not a new idea. It's a new name for an existing concept that goes back to early 2004. Discussions probably started earlier, but April 2004 is when a mailing list was opened for this topic. At DebConf5, held in Helsinki, Finland in July of 2005, there were talks about Debian Derivatives and Custom Debian Distributions. Custom Debian Distributions (CDD) was the previous name for Debian Pure Blends and the derivatives are now forks. A white paper, available in PDF or HTML, was originally written in 2004 to describe the the CDD concept. It has been recently modified for the new name of Debian Pure Blends. There are a few places in the white paper where its age shows. These are mostly references to distributions other than Debian. You'll find some mention of Mandrake, for example. The combined Mandrakesoft and Conectiva forming the new entity Mandriva was finalized later in 2004. Debian 3.0 (Woody) appears to have been the stable version when the document was new. Since then Debian has released 3.1 (Sarge) and 4.0 (etch), and is nearing the 5.0 release (Lenny). While the dates are old, the whole stands as a definition of what is a Pure Blend and what is a fork. The Pure Blend is based on Debian stable (currently etch). It contains only packages found in the stable repository. A Pure Blend must retain 100% compatibility with the stable repository. A system administrator using a pure blend could easily install additional packages from Debian's sizeable repository. It is not uncommon for one or more developers of a Pure Blend to also be Debian Developers who are able to maintain the packages needed by the Blend within the Debian archive. The document is also a valuable resource for anyone who wishes to create their own Pure Blend. The list of forks in section 5.1.1 could use some attention, although this is not really important to the overall topic. Currently listed are Linspire, Xandros and Libranet. Libranet died in 2006 following the death of it's founder Jon Danzig. Linspire was acquired by Xandros earlier this year and what was Linspire is now part of Xandros. The free version of Linspire, called Freespire, is still around. Roughly speaking, Freespire is to Xandros as Fedora is to Red Hat. A community project to test drive new technologies which may find their way into the enterprise distribution. Whether Freespire is a fork or something more pure remains to be seen. Freespire 5.0 is not finalized yet. It appears that Freespire will wait for the official Debian 5.0 (Lenny) release before its final 5.0 stable release. Another fork that might be mentioned here is Ubuntu. This popular distribution didn't exist when this document was originally created. The first Ubuntu release was 4.10 preview (Warty Warthog), dated September 2004. Ubuntu is clearly a fork though, based on Debian's unstable branch, known as sid. Packages from Debian's stable repository might work on Ubuntu, but that is by no means a sure thing. So how does this compare to other distributions? At this time Debian remains the most popular base, whether the spinoff is Pure or a fork. This is largely due to the size of Debian's repository. There are simply more packages to chose from. Fedora's repository has about half the number of packages, but it continues to grow. Fedora would like to become more widely used as a base. The project is still working on a draft of trademark guidelines, where a "Spin" is much like a Pure Blend and a "Remix" is more of a fork. Spin maintainers are welcome to become Fedora contributors and package the free software needed by the Spin. Red Hat addressed this issue some years ago, when Red Hat Enterprise spinoffs flourished following the demise of the old Red Hat Linux distribution. Red Hat made separate packages with its logos and trademark so that spinoffs could more easily take the free software, without the commercial baggage. At first separating the logos from the free software was a difficult process. Debian has an official logo and an unofficial logo, for other projects to use. Fedora is coming up with its own rules, with the draft trademark guidelines. The terminology for spinoffs varies as well. A Fedora Spin is mostly equivalent to a Debian Pure Blend. A Fedora Remix is more of a fork. Regardless of what they are called, these spinoff distributions make the free software landscape a richer and more diverse place.
New Releases Debian Installer lenny RC 1The first release candidate for the Debian lenny (v5.0) installer is available for testing. So take the installer for a test drive by installing Lenny. Then take Lenny for a test drive. Please report your bugs.
debxo 0.4 releaseDebXO is a Debian based system for the XO laptop. The 0.4 release is out. "This release looks much much nicer, thanks to a new Xorg driver. There's also a jffs2 fix which should make bootup from NAND quite a bit faster." Click below for more information.
Development Release: openSUSE 11.1 Beta 5 Now AvailableThe fifth beta of openSUSE 11.1 is available for testing. "We all want openSUSE 11.1 to be the best release yet, and we need your help to get there. This release is ready for widespread testing, and we're encouraging everyone to download and test the beta releases." Beta 5.1 is available for PowerPC.
Fixstars launches Yellow Dog Linux 6.1Fixstars has announced the release of Yellow Dog Linux 6.1 for the Apple G4/G5, Sony PLAYSTATION3, PowerStation, and IBM Power Systems platforms. "Built upon the CentOS foundation, a derivative of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, YDL v6.1 offers several end-user and development tool improvements over the previous v6.0. "This marks the final release of Yellow Dog Linux by Terra Soft and the first by Fixstars," states Owen Stampflee, Fixstars Solutions' Director of Engineering, "In the past five years we have made incremental improvements with each release, always pressing for a higher quality end user experience."
Distribution News Debian GNU/Linux Tracking GCC 4.4 related build errorsMartin Michlmayr has been building the Debian archive with GCC 4.4 to look for bugs and report build errors. "I've completed the archive build now and reported about 220 bugs (the majority with patches). There are roughly 30 build failures left that I haven't analyzed yet. There are also about 35 packages that fail because the boost headers don't work with GCC 4.4. I'll try to build them when the boost headers get fixed."
screenshots.debian.netscreenshots.debian.net is a new web site with screenshots of some of the many packages available for Debian users. "a picture is worth a thousand words. And thanks to screenshots.debian.net[0] this finally comes true for Debian packages. Several people have proposed a service to provide screenshots for them. So after getting other developers' opinions and suggestions I sat down and crafted a web application that allows to upload and provide screenshots."
Fedora Fedora Board RecapThe Fedora Advisory Board met on November 11, 2008. Click below for a recap of the meeting. Topics include Personal Trademark Usage and Extending Updates for EOL Releases.
FESCo Meeting SummaryClick below for a summary of the Fedora Engineering Steering Commitee meeting of November 12, 2008. Topics include FESCo approved policy changes and the upcoming FESCo election.
Ubuntu family Canonical announces Ubuntu for the ARM platformCanonical has announced a plan to put Ubuntu onto the ARM architecture. "ARM and Canonical Ltd, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, today announced that they will bring the full Ubuntu® Desktop operating system to the ARMv7 processor architecture to address demand from device manufacturers. The addition of the new operating system will enable new netbooks and hybrid computers, targeting energy-efficient ARM® technology-based SoCs, to deliver a rich, always-connected, mobile computing experience, without compromising battery life."
Other distributions New Tracker for isos.rocklinux.orgRock Linux, one of the early source based distributions, has a new tracker.
Ulteo unveils first corporate Open Source virtual desktop infrastructure systemUlteo has unveiled its virtual desktop. "The Ulteo Open Virtual Desktop is a great solution for corporations who want to reduce the Total Costs of Ownership of the end user desktop, a cost that cripples IT budgets. Moreover, the Ulteo open source business model remove the typical upfront licence fee and replace it with a much more affordable subscription support plan instead. "With Ulteo businesses save money even in the first year of virtual desktops deployment and that counts in the current economic environment" says Thierry Koehrlen, CEO and co-founder of the company."
Distribution Newsletters DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 278The DistroWatch Weekly for November 17, 2008 will be the last of the regular weeklies. "DistroWatch Weekly was first published in June 2003 as a publication summarising the happenings in the distribution world on a weekly basis. Now, 5 1/2 years and 278 issues later, an era is about to end. The publication that has been growing in stature and influence, needs a new editor, a person (or two) with fresh ideas, eager for new challenges, ready to report about the latest technologies in an unbiased manner. If you think you can fulfil the criteria, please read below for the official "position vacant" notice. In the meantime, please accept our apologies for missing an issue last week. We hope to bring you more quality articles, authoritative news summaries, and all the usual goodies you've come to expect from your DistroWatch Weekly in the future. Happy reading and thank you all for your continued support!"
Fedora Weekly News 152This week's issue features extensive coverage of a Server SIG formation in the Developments beat, along with clarifications from the Fedora Engineering leadership on feature freeze policies. In announcements, reminders of this Tuesday's public Fedora Board meeting on #fedora-board-meeting at irc.freenode.net. The Translation beat features various Fedora 10 milestones and an introduction of three new members to the translation team. In Artwork, some history on the genesis of the Fedora infinity bubble is saved, and more feedback on Fedora 10 themes. Virtualization includes updates of dom0 support in the upstream kernel, and a RFC on including greater detail in domain events. Finally, Fedora 9 and 8 updates for the week in Security Advisories. These are but a few highlights in this week's Fedora Weekly News.
openSUSE Weekly News, Issue 46This issue of the openSUSE Weekly News covers: openSUSE 11.1 Beta 5 Released, Updated Build Service Roadmap, KDE's Compositing in openSUSE 11.1, SLES Now Easy for Users of RHEL and CentOS, YaST Preview and more. Click below for links to several translations.
Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #117The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for November 15, 2008 covers: New Theme for help.ubuntu.com, Dell Mini 9 testing, Ubuntu Community Interview: Nathan Grubb, Jaunty Alpha 1 freeze ahead, Tamil Team Release Party, Ubuntu Peru gives Ubuntu presentation, Launchpad plugin for Eclipse, Launchpod: Episode #12, Launchpad offline Movember 19th, 2 new Launchpad interviews, Ubuntu Tweak 0.4.2 released, Ubuntero gets inked: Ubuntu Style, LoCo Council Meeting, Edubuntu Meeting, Server Team Meeting, and much more.
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol |
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