LWN: Comments on "The return of the Mer project"

The return of the Mer project

BlueLightning — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:11:20 +0000

sadly, OE(read Yocto/Intel) is also rpm-by-default nowadays.

I'm sorry but this is untrue. OpenEmbedded-Core (the new basis for OE) is still configured for ipk packaging by default. The Yocto Project uses rpm by default but can be easily configured to use ipk. Whilst you may not understand it there is high demand for rpm amongst commercial embedded build system users and we have to cater for that.

That said, just because we support rpm, it does not mean that ipk is deprecated or that it will suffer. We treat any issue with ipk packaging as seriously as we would treat an equivalent issue with rpm. FWIW, for many of my development build setups I usually use ipk myself.

Maemo was based on .deb and GTK+

debacle — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 08:04:21 +0000

That's what we do with Debian: We use upstart instead of sysvinit, removed some stuff we don't need on an embedded device, and we tweaked the system here and there. But it's still Debian (Squeeze). We're using a script that calls debootstrap and does some "cleanup" to create our installation image.

Maemo was based on .deb and GTK+

HBM — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 06:47:03 +0000

Well having the possibility to exactly reproduce the image is worth having
an own embedded distribution. Besides of that you might wan't to tweak your init stuff and you might be size constrained where the /var/lib/dpkg stuff hurts. I am using ptxdist where can choose between init,upstart or systemd.

The return of the Mer project

k8to — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 04:20:26 +0000

It can get a bit silly, but some of the details can sort of matter.

As for the deb/rpm case, I'd say the formats and related tools have done some learning from each other, at least, which is useful.

But yeah the froth is probably eternal.

The return of the Mer project

vonbrand — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:35:38 +0000

The alternative you aren't acustomed to use to the point that the fingers know how to do common tasks will seem a lot less congenial. Nothing very surprising there.

The return of the Mer project

vonbrand — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:33:11 +0000

At the root of all geek religious wars, be it vi vs emacs, BSD vs Linux, RPM vs deb, is that the alternatives fought over are different in details, but almost exactly the same in terms of functionality.

Maemo was based on .deb and GTK+

debacle — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:49:26 +0000

while Mer seems to base on .rpm and Qt, right? It's probably only a matter of taste, but I enjoyed my N770 and N800 back then.

Still, I wonder, whether there is still any need for a dedicated "embedded Linux distribution"? E.g. in my company we are producing an embedded device using standard Debian (not Emdebian), the "universal operating system". We looked at embedded distributions, such as Ångstrøm(?), but there is a huge advantage in using the same OS on our servers, some desktops, and the embedded device.

The return of the Mer project

mpr22 — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:41:53 +0000

Briefly. I've got a machine with OpenSUSE installed, but I don't actually use it. I seem to remember finding it significantly less congenial than aptitude or dselect.

The return of the Mer project

niner — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:30:44 +0000

I wonder what you mean by "default tools for interactive RPM selection"? Have you ever tried YaST?

The return of the Mer project

mpr22 — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:04:38 +0000

The formats are probably much of a muchness, but the default tools for interactive RPM selection sent me reaching for the titanium sporks. (Whereas I always found dselect quite congenial, and its successor aptitude likewise.)

Is there a deb-based distro release using systemd as its default PID 1 yet?

The return of the Mer project

sebas — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 09:30:49 +0000

I think primarily, it's a religion, not an archiving / packaging format ;-)

That seems to be the root cause for the neverending deb vs. rpm debate (which totally misses the point, IMO).

The return of the Mer project

aleXXX — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:30:24 +0000

What's the issue with rpm ?
It's basically an archiving file format, with more or less the same capabilities as deb, isn't it ?

Alex

The return of the Mer project

pabs — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 06:24:26 +0000

Correct. For those who would prefer deb there is always Debian:

http://losca.blogspot.com/2011/10/from-meego-to-tizen-deb...

The return of the Mer project

xxiao — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 21:07:01 +0000

really? rpm is floated for embedded devices to say the least.
sadly, OE(read Yocto/Intel) is also rpm-by-default nowadays. Intel is ruining things badly wherever it has anything to do with non-PC devices.

The return of the Mer project

jospoortvliet — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 21:02:24 +0000

Mer is not an UI - those are Plasma Active or the MeeGo touch thing. Mer is meant to be a distro, like Debian, but specifically tailored to embedded devices.

The return of the Mer project

alogghe — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 20:17:54 +0000

Mer still seems to have libxml2 in it's core (I haven't found a recent package list)?

What's the value in maintaining a full distro?

Having watched it fail repeatedly in openmoko, maemo, and now meego I personally have little interest in any project that does this.

It's far more preferable as a user and a developer to simply login to a debian or ubuntu box and select "mer" as a ui flavor.

The return of the Mer project

oak — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:20:39 +0000

So the new "MeeGo" Mer is rpm (OBS etc) based whereas the old "Maemo" Mer was deb based?

The return of the Mer project

tajyrink — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:01:12 +0000

See also Jos Poortvliet's invitation to openSUSE and my invitation to Debian (and elsewhere) and overview. The main reason why these are needed is that MeeGo has many newcomers to the FOSS world, and we felt important that they are let known that in addition to Tizen, there are also other things one can do with the same people as during MeeGo. Especially since understandably, given how communication was (not) handled, all of the community aren't yet actually rejoicing about Tizen.

Mer may now be the obvious choice if we get it going, and of course Tizen itself as well when it becomes more tangible and the trust hopefully builds again. But as all of these are more or less intertwined, it doesn't make sense to get fixated on exactly one thing. The first information I've had on Tizen sounds like the reference distribution implementation there will be of lesser importance than the MeeGo reference implementation. Maybe one can actually make for example Debian flavor that is Tizen compliant? Or a tizen meta-package. At least that's what I'd hope for.