New Linux Distro!

[sfulham]

Hey all,

I'm currently working on creating a new Linux Distro!

It's going to be relatively simple to use, so that even Linus could use it, but highly customizable, for all the more advanced Linux users!

 

It won't be based on another distro.

I'm currently looking for maintainers to help with managing the entire project and with maintaining individual projects such as the package manager.

 

I'm also currently trying to find a name, so if you have any suggestions, feel free to tell me.

 

It will use OpenRC, but will have an option for systemd for those who want it.

Zsh will be the default shell.

There will be a store application that will be easy to use, so downloading games or apps won't be a problem.

 

If you are interested, just shoot me a message on Discord: sfulham#2956. There will be a Gitlab instance and most likely Mattermost instance, once we pick a name and I get a domain.

 

Thanks!

[10leej]

I'm curious what you define as... "easy" but if you ever get a release I'll buy you a drink.

[18358414]

Name suggestion:

 

"Normal Linux": Linux for normal people.  Or call it 'Norma' so that the full name is 'Norma Linux'.

 

While I feel like some of your goals are a bit lofty for a free project, it's certainly a nice idea. Beware of burnout (I've done that on many a project)

 

edit: "norma" might be taken... what about "Norme" (pronounced nor-me)?

[riklaunim]

On 3/5/2022 at 1:12 AM, sfulham said:

I'm currently looking for maintainers to help with managing the entire project and with maintaining individual projects such as the package manager.

 

....

 

It will use OpenRC, but will have an option for systemd for those who want it.

Zsh will be the default shell.

There will be a store application that will be easy to use, so downloading games or apps won't be a problem.

So you don't have funding, you don't have staff, you aren't leveraging any existing distro and yet you want to make it highly non-standard... Sorry but it won't work. Era of "after hours" codding is long gone. Not to mention security aspect of a distro made by no-name entity.

[whm1974]

You don't seem to understand how work you have cut out for you.

[jde3]

What is customizable to you?

Can I boot ZFS on root?
Can I recompile applications to change the build options?

Can I mix binary and source packages?

Can I change system services like cron and logger options?

Can I change the compiler or libc?
What if I don't like the GNU Userland?

 

FreeBSD, Gentoo and Alpine provide some if not all of the above so.. what makes you stand out?

The thing in your post I like most that you said is OpenRC, the thing I like the least is the "Store Application".

[10leej]

How do you plan to implement gnome and pipewire since they come with coded systemd dependencies?

 

Do you plan on having a software store that you can enable flatpak, appimage, and snap repositories on? Or are you planning on packaging everything yourself? (Debian has something like 60k packages, and your one guy).

 

How do you plan to deploy file systems? Are you default to ext4, btrfs with subvolume snapshots, or using open zfs on root (which the maintainers say not to do).

 

What packaging format do you plan to use? rpm, deb, tar.pk, and such?

 

Rolling release, snapshot release, or static release?

 

How are you planning to host repositories? Github would ask you to pay a fortune.

[jde3]

2 hours ago, 10leej said:

How do you plan to implement gnome and pipewire since they come with coded systemd dependencies?

 

Do you plan on having a software store that you can enable flatpak, appimage, and snap repositories on? Or are you planning on packaging everything yourself? (Debian has something like 60k packages, and your one guy).

 

How do you plan to deploy file systems? Are you default to ext4, btrfs with subvolume snapshots, or using open zfs on root (which the maintainers say not to do).

 

What packaging format do you plan to use? rpm, deb, tar.pk, and such?

 

Rolling release, snapshot release, or static release?

 

How are you planning to host repositories? Github would ask you to pay a fortune.

What a troll.

Many OS's can use ZFS as root, Linux is no different.

 

Clear example tho.. for 10leej I'd prob want NOTHING he's asking about there. How do you satisfy such a difference of opinion on what the system should be?

[10leej]

9 hours ago, jde3 said:

Many OS's can use ZFS as root, Linux is no different.

Yes, but that doesn't mean you should. Afterall zfs on Linux isn't exactly legal.

[jde3]

11 hours ago, 10leej said:

Yes, but that doesn't mean you should. Afterall zfs on Linux isn't exactly legal.

Yes, it does mean that and yes it is. Unfortunately you are the victim of FUD.

FSF was incorrect about the license where as Ubuntu's legal analysis in 2016 was correct. We know this because they have stood opposed to the most sue happy corporation in the world since then and nothing at all has happened. The CDDL is a more free license than the GPL, It's based on the MPL and it not only grants and allows the code to be mixed with other free licenses but it also grants the software patent. GPL provides no patent protection what so ever.

The incorrect assessment comes from the virus like nature of the GPL that bizarre condition of it that describes a collection of software as works. However ZFS is not a collective work of Linux, it is out of tree and this is a benefit to it because it allows it to support many OS's, Solaris, FreeBSD, MacOS, Windows and Linux. Submitting it to be in tree could cause a challenge but that will never happen now because it's been reorganized to be one code base for 5 different OS's. The CDDL also applies to files, not "works" and that has been shown to be a much more sane definition. "Works" is subjective where as files are not.

 

Lastly the spirit of the licenses are the same. One can comply with all the terms of both without causing any harm to either. If you can't show harm you don't have a case, there is no standing to bring a suit.

 

And... NONE of that applies to you in a legal sense because you are not distributing it.. neither impose conditions on usage. So yes, you really should embrace good technology and use the most advanced and trustworthy filesystem Linux has access to like many other distros have done now. To not do so for reasons like this is just foolish. Support for good technology (free and open source technology to boot) like this does not harm Linux, that is just rubbish and FUD spread by people who want to own the storage industry.

Tl;DR, Any legality issues that might have existed here are now a solved problem.

[10leej]

11 hours ago, jde3 said:

Yes, it does mean that and yes it is. Unfortunately you are the victim of FUD.

FSF was incorrect about the license where as Ubuntu's legal analysis in 2016 was correct. We know this because they have stood opposed to the most sue happy corporation in the world since then and nothing at all has happened. The CDDL is a more free license than the GPL, It's based on the MPL and it not only grants and allows the code to be mixed with other free licenses but it also grants the software patent. GPL provides no patent protection what so ever.

The incorrect assessment comes from the virus like nature of the GPL that bizarre condition of it that describes a collection of software as works. However ZFS is not a collective work of Linux, it is out of tree and this is a benefit to it because it allows it to support many OS's, Solaris, FreeBSD, MacOS, Windows and Linux. Submitting it to be in tree could cause a challenge but that will never happen now because it's been reorganized to be one code base for 5 different OS's. The CDDL also applies to files, not "works" and that has been shown to be a much more sane definition. "Works" is subjective where as files are not.

 

Lastly the spirit of the licenses are the same. One can comply with all the terms of both without causing any harm to either. If you can't show harm you don't have a case, there is no standing to bring a suit.

 

And... NONE of that applies to you in a legal sense because you are not distributing it.. neither impose conditions on usage. So yes, you really should embrace good technology and use the most advanced and trustworthy filesystem Linux has access to like many other distros have done now. To not do so for reasons like this is just foolish. Support for good technology (free and open source technology to boot) like this does not harm Linux, that is just rubbish and FUD spread by people who want to own the storage industry.

Tl;DR, Any legality issues that might have existed here are now a solved problem.

So then why is OpenZFS not built into the Linux Kernel and instead it's installed typically as a third party kernel.

 

Plus I'm also kinda just anti monoculture and prefer btrfs which does pretty much all I'd ask ZFS to do more efficiently.

[jde3]

7 hours ago, 10leej said:

So then why is OpenZFS not built into the Linux Kernel and instead it's installed typically as a third party kernel.

 

Plus I'm also kinda just anti monoculture and prefer btrfs which does pretty much all I'd ask ZFS to do more efficiently.

Originally because of a potential license issue but that turned out to be a blessing because due to lots of work from the OpenZFS community they reformed the code base from being 4 separate trees into one (they had to take it out tree with FreeBSD and FreeBSD did a lot of lift to help it be cross platform). Now due to the multi-platform support nobody even wants to put it in the Linux kernel. (You got to think, we will never have the source or be able to merge into MacOS or Windows, so why merge it into anything else?)

-- Sort of side tangent here but due to the fact it supports 5 different OS's one can use ZFS as a cross platform replacement for Fat32. Fun fact. It's also good for unreliable USB sticks.

Btrfs had a great idea to use copy on write with btrees and ZFS would have used that if they knew it was possible, the algorithms did not exist at the time... however btrfs wrote too much code to quickly and they were too concerned with obtaining feature parity with ZFS before the design was fully completed. They are now trying to evolve they way to stability and so far no filesystem has ever done so in history. Alternatively ZFS was designed by Sun engineers with no evolving state and it was stable on release 17 years ago and shipped with Solaris 10 in a finished state. Ready for enterprise 17 years ago. The only changes they make on it now are performance and extending features to it not stability and certainly NOT on disk format changes like in btrfs in 2021. On disk changes show they had to change the design and that isn't good.

 

Maybe they will get it right.. maybe not.. Until they do, my advice is to use ZFS, XFS or Ext4.. tho it's your computer, use what you like. There are also new designs coming out that may trump both.. filesystems are tricky and history is littered with lots of bad ones.. Microsoft has failed to replace the 30 year old NTFS 3 times now.

[10leej]

I've been running btrfs for years now in production and honestly as long as your not using raid 5/6 and sticking to 0, 1, ir 10 it's perfectly fine. Really 5/6 are just getting fancy with what RAID is intended to be anyways.

[betalars]

I will happily contribute a Logo and some styling if you need to. Hit me up, when you are at a stage, where this could be useful.

 

(Also: enjoy these two Logos, I've recently created)

[whm1974]

11 hours ago, betalars said:

I will happily contribute a Logo and some styling if you need to. Hit me up, when you are at a stage, where this could be useful.

 

(Also: enjoy these two Logos, I've recently created)

Are these the names of the Provider you will be starting? Laserbeam Productions sounds like a "Film" Company", and DiVOC I'm not sure about.

[betalars]

9 hours ago, whm1974 said:

Are these the names of the Provider you will be starting?

Do you know, what effort it takes to come up with these Logos? ^^I wouldn't just randomly throw 2 Designs at a LTT thread.

That's just examples of things I did recently. ^^

 

And yes, laserbeam productions is an independent film maker, that hired me (happy you understood the reference) and DiVOC is a FOSS/maker conference by the German based chaos computer community.

[whm1974]

7 hours ago, betalars said:

Do you know, what effort it takes to come up with these Logos? ^^I wouldn't just randomly throw 2 Designs at a LTT thread.

That's just examples of things I did recently. ^^

 

And yes, laserbeam productions is an independent film maker, that hired me (happy you understood the reference) and DiVOC is a FOSS/maker conference by the German based chaos computer community.

"Something" Productions does sound like a Film Maker anyway...