Porteus

Nemesis of Porteus

I. Remarks & Request for Additional Information
Well, it looks like those who helped with Nemesis have hastened the demise of Porteus as we know it.

francois wrote:- user empowerment
- we do not take enough care of our developpers

Don't forget, us mods took a load off their shoulders as well.

francois wrote:Nobody with coding expertise has offered to take fanthom's place even to maintain some porteus slackware version., even some minimal version with only one desktop or even without xorg and no desktop. So here we need some volunteers with coding and linux expertise. Everyone want the work done, but no one wants to do the job.

Be realistic, francois. No matter how experienced one is, one cannot volunteer for the job if one does not know what it entails. Unless of course one has experience of putting out a distro. How can one volunteer to do a job or a task, when said task is only now being specified by your good self? If the task/situation is not advertised it can't be taken up!

Point of Confusion

This Time Round

brokenman wrote:Mostly these reasons would be assistance from the community to actively develop. Over the years people have come and gone. Finding people with ability to develop and ability to stay is not so easy.

brokenman wrote:

For example it is not good when the distribuition depends only on one Man.

Hey, feel free to help out any time. It would be much appreciated.

With Nemesis, I presume?

Last Time Around

Post of 15 Jan 2015

brokenman wrote:Skills needed
Programming skills
We will take whatever you can give.
Programming languages
We will take whatever you can give. PHP, gtkdialog, C++

I for one offered publicly in the hope that this would induce others to come forward. dunno if anyone else did, but the offer was never taken up. So francois, one is being given to think devs are being choosy, saying prepared to accept one thing, but actually wanting more.


Not very forthcoming answers in some instances at a time when there is a need for us to be better informed.

brokenman wrote:Will Porteus Kiosk still be Slackware based?
Still? It isn't slackware based now.

If not a commercial secret, just what is Kiosk based upon?


Non-English Speaking User Base.

IMHO this whole swathe of users should not be excluded from the discussion. Do not know about others, but perusal of Russian section leads me to suspect a sizable user base. With Blaze firmly in the Arch camp, perhaps someone like Paulby could sound them out for offers of help to keep the status quo, in keeping with what tome has already stated to the effect better the devil we know ...
(Also come across one very adept Porteus user here, with several years understanding of the system.)


Cold hard look

Post of 12 Oct 2015:

brokenman wrote:

wread wrote:i don't quite understand the use of nemesis. Only because of systemd? or because of pcman?

It is an attempt at having a system for people to help develop the OS. A community developed OS. It uses systemd which is a good chance to get to know how it works if that's your end goal.
So far many people are reporting bugs which is great. Until today nobody has registered a bitbucket account to actually help with development. Writing code. This is what I am hoping will happen

Could this whole topic/discussion be seen as an attempt to force the issue?

Further on in same Post:

brokenman wrote:Nemesis intends to offer a fully finished desktop environment. Of course, this can only be realized if we get more people actually helping develop. If it is just me coding then things will grind to a screeching halt very soon. I simply don't have the time to devote to running it by myself. If it remains only me then I will release the final 002 stage and then leave it available but not maintained.

My priority is the standard Porteus, and my time could better be used there.

So far not heard a screeching halt. So who are the other coders?


Wish people would refrain from discussing procedural matters as if the outcome of the discussion was a foregone conclusion, even if it is. After only two days over a weekend, apart from all those who are not back at their desk tops till Monday, one is being given to feel shut out of a discussion, before it has really begun, or being given a chance to voice a considered opinion, The week end as it happens has been particularly hectic. haven't had a spare moment to jot down all my thoughts, and you guys are already wrapping everything up. Don't like this kind of pressure. This is to say the very least infuriating! (Spare a thought for all the others with real life commitments over the weekend)

@brokenman

You've said that Porteus as on Slackware is your priority and that you're fine with continuing to keep it under Slackware. My question is what would Porteus look like if it goes on as is? Of course it won't have 8 desktops and anyone who expects it to is selfish.

Would it be a core release with 2 or ? desktops and users are on their own to get anything different? Would the community build modules and upload as in the Slax days?

You know better than anyone what is possible, and I'm projecting it as a one man operation....I have no clue as to what help you have now.

Kiosk is based on gentoo:
viewtopic.php?f=53&t=4586

I am very new to porteus, so just my 2 cent:

I like this special porteus features:

• very small size due to iso-customization
• very easy installation on USB key / pen drive
  (copy two folders to FAT32 partition)
• very easy bootloader installation
  (start a program in windows or shell)
• loadable "modules" for easy 'customizing'; first encountered this concept with "Linux Router Project" distribution 15 years ago and missing it in other distros.
• very good selection of software
• running two or three different 'installations' from one USB pen drive
• very useable as a 'nomadic' / 'portable' linux

As far as I understand, "porteus" and "porteus kiosk" go different ways: "porteus kiosk" has already switched to gentoo as base and you are thinking of switching to arch as a base for "porteus".

I do not now if you have already look at or know antiX / MX-Linux
http://antix.mepis.org/
http://www.mepiscommunity.org/

antiX is a debian based distro for 'low' hardware with icewm & jwm as windowmanager and MX-Linux is using xfce for medium hardware. Both seem to share a common base.

antiX / MX-Linux is also a rather small distro, but e.g. lacking the module feature of Porteus.

MX-Linux is a joint work from antix & mepis-community -- perhaps it is an option to "merge" porteus with this or to use antix / MX-Linux as a base for porteus nextgen.


(hopefully this post is not considered saying "jehova")

greets!

With Nemesis, I presume?
The offer has always been there for Porteus.
Firstly let me say that the moderators here have already given a TON of help which I really appreciate. Being able to leave the forum in your hands has already helped immensely. Very much appreciated and I consider this a VERY important part of the distro.

Not very forthcoming answers in some instances at a time when there is a need for us to be better informed.

This topic has nothing to do with Porteus Kiosk. A quick visit to the Porteus kiosk website will explain all you need to know about it.

If not a commercial secret, just what is Kiosk based upon?

It is gentoo based.

Could this whole topic/discussion be seen as an attempt to force the issue?

You can take it how you see it. Nothing was forced. i asked for help. As I stated, Nemesis was a testing ground for an arch based Porteus.

So far not heard a screeching halt. So who are the other coders?

Have you seen another Nemesis ISO? Nemesis is finished as promised. The next ISO released will be Porteus by name and graphics. The coder is ...me.

Wish people would refrain from discussing procedural matters as if the outcome of the discussion was a foregone conclusion

Thank you. As I stated, this is all up for conversation. No conclusion has been reached. I at least want to put out a test version so people can actually take it for a test run. I am still watching slackware closely for any sign of movement.

I will answer the other questions tonight. (at real life work now)

Hi guys! Look at this screenshot

It's x86 release history of Slackware.
2 years we are see only current
I vote now for brokenman and fanthom decision.
Cheers

My question is what would Porteus look like if it goes on as is?

It is difficult to say what it will look like under any base. For slackware, usually I am in the background installing current and testing a little right before stable is released. Then once slackware bumps versions there is a mad rush to push out the next Porteus version. As Blaze stated, we have been waiting a looong time for the next release of slackware. I understand being stable and conservative, but two years is a little strange no? In any case, this 'mad rush' will not happen. If slack bumps versions tomorrow it will take me a few weeks/months to catch up. I would do everything possible to release all desktops and have everything as it is now, but this would take some time.

Equally, under arch, there is a lot to be done. A full restructure. The difference is, with this restructure I could plan for a realistic maintainable future under a single developer. If more people come to the party in the future then excellent. From our (Fanthom and I) experience it is best to wait until we see a user working hard in the community and doing stuff in the development section first, and then approaching them to see if they would like to join the team. It is a complete waste of time (that we don't have) to teach someone all the ropes only to have them leave the next year. Even saying straight up 'We need developers. Apply within' just hasn't worked. Usually we will watch strong participants in the community that are developing something alone and see if they stay. Even then, the person has to understand what they are committing to.

Hey, feel free to help out any time. It would be much appreciated.

On the real Porteus i can try it.

@bogomips:
Some offer from brokenman for coding I presume:
viewtopic.php?f=137&t=5088
Anyone interested in helping develop and maintain (you must have the ability to investigate problems and offer solutions) should contact me.

I wasn't happy to use systemd when I had to switch over on my servers but I had to use it. Most recents software are using now.

That's like Windows Vista when we had to switch over from Windows XP... oh bad example...

Sorry, hamza, but that is not a valid answer!

We can conclude that you are not a systemd fan.

I am not sure that you have read all the writings of brokenman about systemd. But I will let the man speak for himself. 8)

This could please the anti systemd group: openrc for arch:
http://systemd-free.org/index.php

francois wrote:@bogomips:
Some offer from brokenman for coding I presume:
viewtopic.php?f=137&t=5088
Anyone interested in helping develop and maintain (you must have the ability to investigate problems and offer solutions) should contact me.

@francois
KnallKopf is interested. But link leads to Nemesis

Knallkopf seems to be giving a try to nemesis. Usually one is in a better position to criticize when he has the experience of with the thing.

Though I understand that one could refrain to do something based on values only. And here the fear of loosing diversity in terms of system availability seems an important one.

Most of us are against climatic changes but still use cars or planes.

What are the main issue here: loosing the maintainer and porteus, being a marginal distribution that will always have difficulty building a critic mass of users and collaborators. It might be worth having a try with arch Linux.

IMHO, if the project incorporates the systemd code it will go way of the dodo bird.
Yes time is a factor, and because of it and fanthom's going away to concentrate his effors in kiosk edition, the regular porteus will be left to rot For those that complain that slackware releases are not often, they(Slackware team, Patrick V, Eric H, Robby W, etc) don't release just for the sake of releasing, the distribution is tested, I run slackware-current, when testing goes well, they release an rc then all is well and working a new release is announced. They are not in the Ubuntu's, Arch's, Fedora, OpenSuse, ... other distros that just release and follow timelines. Packages are pristine like the original developer wanted. I have run many distros, but prefer Slackware and found out about it from using Slax. I then downloaded it and well here we are. Either way if systemd and changing base distro is coming, some users will just leave and not look back. It was great while it lasted. It would be nice that fanthom considers releasing his live cd scripts so that the project leave on and we the users can continue in some way But setup a nice one such that it is not cryptic like Tomas' live scripts which are not understood by mere mortals like us Just something that can be run with examples if possible. Thanks to all for the memories. Porteus has come a long way, but may die off and succumb so sad that it has to be this way. I am not encouraged by looking at Arch and other projects that have succumbed to that * well you know. Luckily we still have other distros like Slackel, Salix, and Austrumi which are Slackware based too. Although Porteus was/is a little bit nicer in many ways, but if we can't have our great distro that we have, then we have to look somewhere else. I apologize for writing this, but honesty is the best policy.