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Elementary OS "Luna" released
The "Luna" release of the elementary
OS distribution is now available; see this blog entry
for more information on this release. LWN looked at elementary OS in 2011.
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Elementary OS "Luna" released Posted Aug 12, 2013 15:43 UTC (Mon) by tetley80 (guest, #88691) [Link]
Joking aside, isn't it time we stopped calling Linux-based operating systems as distributions? We've already stopped pretending that a random binary on one Linux-based OS will run on another, partly due to the myriad of quasi-compatible library versions and different dependencies. These "distributions" are diverging further and further away from each other, to the point that they're unrecognizable.
Elementary OS "Luna" released Posted Aug 12, 2013 17:16 UTC (Mon) by maxiaojun (subscriber, #91482) [Link]
> We've already stopped pretending that a random binary on one Linux-based OS will run on another, partly due to the myriad of quasi-compatible library versions and different dependencies.
Exactly. Sometime I thought that Linux deserve the state of being poorly supported by third-party software, GPUs, etc.
> These "distributions" are diverging further and further away from each other, to the point that they're unrecognizable.
Most new small distributions are based on popular distributions: Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, etc. So they do not create much binary compatibility problem. However, no community distributions can provide any guarantee when promised things fail. Bugs are many (I have bugzilla account for many FOSS projects; the overall experience is quite disappointing.). Small distributions that features unique stuff are even more unreliable; the developers behind may not have enough skill, time and interest for fixing bugs. Moreover, small distribution may die at any time; examples are many.
Elementary OS "Luna" released Posted Aug 12, 2013 18:24 UTC (Mon) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] If you find a way to fix library incompatibilities and make a distribution (or OS if you want) based on that solution, it would be a greater contribution to free software than the elementary OS.
Elementary OS "Luna" released Posted Aug 13, 2013 1:35 UTC (Tue) by tetley80 (guest, #88691) [Link]
Sadly there is no real solution that will solve this properly, perhaps apart from one Linux-based platform becoming dominant, and thereby forcing the others to be binary compatible.
The problem is endemic to the open-source culture: everybody is free to fork, start similar projects, no agreement on the overall architecture (ie. the overall stack, not just the kernel), and not many projects have the will for strict API/ABI backwards compatibility. Other problems exist, such as various "distributions" having non-overlapping sets of libraries.
There is a currently one workable quasi-solution to this mess: static linking. Practised by Google Chrome and Firefox in varying degrees.
There are also companies which are in effect benefiting from the current status quo: Red Hat and Suse. While it would be a long stretch to assign malice to them, they make money by providing a stable platform, and hence it would be in their interest to have the remainder of the Linux ecosystem in a messy and unstable state (whether by design or by-product of "innovation"). Otherwise their products (e.g. RHEL) would have no value.
Elementary OS "Luna" released Posted Aug 13, 2013 16:42 UTC (Tue) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link]
It really depends on the application, and how far up the stack you need it to go. I work on systems applications and we have absolutely no problems creating binaries that run across all the major distributions, at various different levels. That's because of the great work of the GLIBC folks in maintaining backward compatibility.
Our biggest problem in this space is the openssl libraries (libssl and libcrypto), whose developers are NOT making much effort at all to be good citizens in this respect. I recommend that people caring about this kind of portability not use openssl and choose one of the alternatives.
I also do not recommend (myself) using static libraries. My concern is not size but rather security: if you link shared then you can tell your customer that when they install the security update for their system, our product takes advantage of it. If you link statically then you're on the hook for providing a new version every time a security patch is issued for any library you use. That's a lot of overhead, for my money.
Elementary OS "Luna" released Posted Aug 13, 2013 17:04 UTC (Tue) by maxiaojun (subscriber, #91482) [Link]
> they make money by providing a stable platform
So-called Enterprise Linux is stale rather stable. Wanna install latest Firefox? Have fun:
Elementary OS "Luna" released Posted Aug 12, 2013 16:06 UTC (Mon) by zyga (subscriber, #81533) [Link]
I've been using Luna for a few months and I found it to be very usable and stable. Since it's pretty much Ubuntu 12.04 with a PPA it works very well with all kinds of software that exists in Ubuntu already (both free and proprietary).
I wonder if elementary OS should eventually become an official flavor of Ubuntu (but given their track record so far they seem to do non-time-based releases so that might clash with what Ubuntu flavors are).
I think the bigger value of elementary is not the "OS" but a non-fork of gnome2-world that still offers a different desktop experience as compared to both Unity and Gnome3.
Elementary OS "Luna" released Posted Aug 12, 2013 16:36 UTC (Mon) by sciurus (subscriber, #58832) [Link]
"a non-fork of gnome2-world"
I'm not sure what you mean when you says this. Are you stating that they are a "non-fork" because they are still using GNOME 2? Or they are a "non-fork" because they aren't based on GNOME at all? I think the latter is more true; they ssem to have their own desktop shell and a basic apps.
Elementary OS "Luna" released Posted Aug 13, 2013 10:37 UTC (Tue) by zyga (subscriber, #81533) [Link]
I meant to say that unlike forking gnome-panel and the rest of the stuff they actually went and created something by themselves. I think it has potential and does not represent the "keep what we had last year" approach that cinnamon/mate seem to represent (AFAIK).
Elementary OS "Luna" released Posted Aug 12, 2013 16:38 UTC (Mon) by sciurus (subscriber, #58832) [Link] There was a discussion of the release that many Elementary developers participated in at Hacker News.
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