Robin 'Roblimo' Miller wrote:
> There's no real need for SLUG people to make a Live CD setup for
> Xandros. Don't forget, this is a *commercial* software company that is
> *not* releasing most of their work under GPL. Besides, Warren Woodford
> has already done everything they want with Mepis. Come to think of it,
> he's done just about everything Bruce Perens wants to see UserLinux do,
> except Warren has used KDE as his base. (And for commercial resale work,
> yes, he has a QT development license.)
Hear hear.
> I have introduced Warren and Xandros Chairman Rick Berenstein to each
> other. It's possible that they can work together.
>
> Warren is an old-school "crazy genius" programmer. IMO, he and Klaus
> Knopper are the two smartest people working on Linux distro packaging
> today. He's created Mepis from scratch -- and has written his own
> installer -- in less than a year, working alone, while Xandros (and
> before Xandros, Corel) has had more than 25 programmers working for over
> 3 years to get where they are now.
>
> Warren has a great "Live CD" distro going, with a super-easy install
> procedure once you get it running from CD. And while Mepis lacks some of
> the visual polish Xandros has, I find it superior in some ways, notably
> speed and stability.
>
> Mepis is also much closer to open source ideals than Xandros. It updates
> directly from debian apt servers, not from private ones, and KDE apps
> are not renamed or refaced with the original authors' credit removed.
Now I need to give Mepis a try. :)
> I've wanted to do a "Point and Click Linux" book/video combination for
> quite a while. This was originally going to be a SUSE-sponsored project,
> and they're still willing to sponsor it, but I'm a little worried about
> putting a lot of heart into something involving SUSE now that it's
> becoming part of Novell. SUSE/Novell probably will -- and should --
> concentrate on mid-to-large-sized businesses rather than end users,
> small businesses, or hooking up with small/medium-sized computer
> vendors. I will happily make user-level Linux training material for
> SUSE's target customer base, and there's more money in doing that than
> in making/selling retail books/videos, but not everything in life is
> about money.
Exactly! While money is a great enabler, fostering community efforts is
a far more noble and rewarding goal.
SUSE is arguably the best RPM based distro, I can't argue that.
Unfortunately, like the other big distros, it is tied closely with its
commercial success. Just look what commercial success has done to RedHat.
> I'd prefer to do this project with either Xandros or Mepis as the base.
> For one thing, apt-get is simply the easiest *mature* Linux application
> packaging and distribution system there is. Xandros has added a little
> Windows-style "stuff moving from one place to another" download/install
> progress graphic that makes it look just as cute as Windows
> InstallShield. Warren has simply modified KDE's package manager and
> hasn't built in as much cuteness (because he's left the text messages
> rather than made graphics), but his setup is actually a bit easier to
> use, and tells the user what's happening more effectively.
From your descriptions, Mepis or straight Debian would be your best
bet, IMHO. Ease of use and stability are the primary reasons people are
moving toward Linux. The "cute" redmond frills wear thin after a while,
though the eye candy does seem to attract attention. Being old-school
myself, it's difficult watching troubleshooting nicities wrapped back
into GUI text boxes in the name of "improved user experience".
Some would argue that Fedora is where you should spend your energies.
I'm really not in that circle right now to fully understand the
development cycle and culture that is being fostered in that effort.
> Forget Lindows. Xandros is what Lindows promised to be but never became
> except in Michael's dreams (and hype). And Mepis lacks only CodeWeavers
> CrossOver Office and Plugin to have the same functionality as Xandros.
> I've introduced Warren to Jeremy White of CodeWeavers, and he will be a
> CodeWeavers reseller soon. He'll also hook up with Win4Lin and
> Transgaming shortly, and he's hired an artist to help him make the
> screens look cuter.
Transgaming merged with Crossover Office integrated into a commercial
bundle add-on to a seemless distro really is appealing.
> Xandros will autodetect some hardware better than Mepis. Mepis will
> autodetect some hardware better than Xandros. SUSE and Red Hat/Fedora
> will detect other hardware better than either one, but is not as good
> with some hardware as Xandros or Mepis, especially laptops. Ian Murdock
> -- Debian founder, Progeny CEO -- would like to see a single,
> open-to-everyone cross-distro hardware database, since right now distro
> preference is often a case of hardware roulette more than anything else.
This really should be a central Linux OpenSource project - not just for
x86. It really would be nice to have a cross architecture hardware
driver base - using a USB printer on ANY Linux box should really be
transparently plug-and-play.
I've recently broken down and bought a Mac. While Mac is usually good
about this, I'm finding that OS/X is slowly loosing their ideals of a
seemless environment. The ability to plug a device in and have it simply
"work" really is a wonderous thing. Unfortunately, with Darwin's latest
kernel instabilities and general lack of builtin drivers for oddball
hardware (various printers, cellphones, and wireless cards for example),
have left me to download drivers from vendors that only seem to blow up
after the next minor Mac OS/X release.
Imagine if every Linux distro had seemless device pluggability. Who
needs a Mac? ;)
> I agree with Ian that this is silly. But SUSE, Xandros, and Lindows are
> keeping much of their hardware detection routines proprietary so they
> won't be able to be part of this unless they change some corporate
> attitude, which they might. IMO, hardware detection scripts ought to be
> part of the LSB and/or managed by OSDL rather than "secret sauce" for
> each distro publisher.
What other IP to they really have? This is what has always amazed me
about commercial Linux distributions. The installer is where 90% of
their support calls come from. The more "secret sauce" they pour into
the installer, the fewer support calls they will tend to get. Distro
producers make their money on selling a supported package - if an
OpenSource project came along that would remove most of the need for
their valuable support, what differentiates them from their competitors?
I also agree with Ian. Moreover, I think that any effort toward this end
will displace commercial distros with truely community supported distros
without the all-encompassing commercial ties.
> I've been using Xandros and Mepis back and forth for several weeks on
> two machines, one desktop and one laptop. I'm settling on Mepis as my
> "daily driver" for a number of reasons -- mostly the speed and stability
> I already mentioned. (Xandros may be very proud of their custom -
> proprietary - file manager, but I've had it crash a number of times,
> while Warren's plain-jane Konqueror does not, and I actually find it a
> little easier to use.)
You've talked me into giving Mepis a try.
> Now comes the BIG difference between the two distros: Xandros has a
> large staff and high overhead -- 25 developers on staff, plus a CEO and
> other top people who live in high-cost NYC and NY suburbs -- and must
> take in major amounts of money to survive. Warren is one guy working
> alone in Morgantown, WVA, so if he gets 100 or 200 registrations per
> month (and his registration is voluntary) he makes money, no problem.
> And he's *getting* those registrations without really trying.
Lean and hungry. That's the way to run a startup ;)
I'd like to know how Warren is handling support issues.. it would be a
shame if his time and talents with distribution building were being lost
on meager 1st/2nd/3rd level tech-support issues. This is the biggest
pain when building your own distro.
> Mepis development is much faster than Xandros'. When you look at the two
> side-by-side, and remember that you're looking at the work of one person
> for one year compared to the work of 25+ people for three years, the
> difference is scary.
> The disadvantage of dealing with a one-man shop, of course, is, "What if
> 55-year-old Warren gets sick?" Warren is aware of this, and has hooked
> up with his local University (WVA), which is now supplying him with grad
> student helpers, plus he has some other volunteers around the world
> he'll soon be able to pay at least a little to work with him. He's not
> broke, just cautious. And Warren's two main business advisors -- Johns
> Hopkins professor Milad Doueihi and me -- are both big advocates of
> conservative "pay as you go" company-building, rather than venture
> capital and burn rates and the rest of that nonsense.
Good! I'm glad to hear he does have volunteer helpers on the front
lines. Grow as you can afford to - the days of artificial market funded
startups are well past us now.
> Plus, since Warren's work is all open source, if something happens to
> him or his little company, Mepis carries on.
This is the best part. I'm fond of Debian for the very same reason. If
you're going to become an expert at something, thing about the duration
of the thing you're becoming an expert on.
Microsoft people just don't seem to "get it".
> Also FYI: Warren spent many years successfully developing large-scale
> financial applications. Ernst & Young uses his work to this day, and
> many of their corporate clients know Warren favorably. To show you how
> powerful a programmer and development team leader Warren is, note that
> he and a couple of people working for him were turning out accounting
> utilities as good as (some say better than) the hundreds of people
> working for Arthur Anderson in Sarasota before Anderson came apart.
>
> What I would *like* to see happen in my role as Linux advocate and user
> is for Xandros and/or their parent Linux Global Partners (LGP) to fund
> Warren as -- possibly -- the Xandros equivalent of Fedora; as the open
> source, community-based, end user, development distro, with Xandros
> concentrating on corporate sales and service.
> LGP is flush right now. Rick Berenstein and his partner Willy Roseman
> originally funded Ximian (then known as Helix), which Novell bought
> earlier this year with cash -- $40 million in cash. Rick and Willy are
> not hurting for money (nor are Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman or the
> rest of the Ximian crew).
>
> Or perhaps it's better for Warren and Mepis to stay independent. He and
> I have talked about jointly publishing a "Point and Click Linux Kit"
> complete with a Mepis demo CD that can be installed directly from the
> demo with a few clicks, either alone or alongside other operating
> systems, a DVD instructional video, and a heavily-illustrated
> instruction manual, with Warren offering (optional) Mepis subscriptions
> at a reasonable price ($30/year seems about right) that would include
> access to private servers carrying Debian unstable programs certified to
> work smoothly with the rest of the Mepis package, plus some commercial
> software (Crossover, StarOffice, Win4Lin, Transgaming etc.) at heavily
> discounted prices to sweeten the pot, plus another "spiff" or two we
> haven't thought up yet.
>
> This pattern ought to make a decent amount of money while allowing basic
> Mepis to remain free/free without compromising quality.
>
> Does anyone have any thoughts about any of this? If so, I'd love to hear
> them.
This sounds great. Keeping Mepis separate from Xandros is probably a
better idea for a community driven effort - unless Xandros is simply
willing to give a no-strings-attached grant to Warren for his continued
work toward that end. My guess is that this is unlikely.
Now I *really* need to give Mepis a try.
Firing up a virtual machine now :)
-- - Ian C. Blenke - Director of Service Delivery <icblenke@nks.net> (This message bound by the following: http://www.nks.net/email_disclaimer.html)----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Fri Aug 01 2014 - 19:56:46 EDT