The future of Porteus

[brokenman]

One thing I've noticed when using pacman is that sometimes the link for the package is broken. I am forced to run pacman -Sy and then the link works again. If we use this snapshot feature would this still happen? In this scenario I can see happening exactly what aus9 explains above.

In the latest v3.5 release I placed pamac in the system tray to see what happens when users update packages. One of the updates I left untouched was mesa. A fairly fundamental package. Let's see what happens. You can get it from the server now. KDE desktop is also there.

[roadie]

@aus9,

I've run into that very thing just installing from the repo over a 2 week period. There is apparently no control over what a package builder specs for depends.

@brokenman,
Thanks for the new release...I'm not finished playing with the last one yet.
You do keep things interesting around here.

[TT4Foss]

Hello:

I'm going on a rant, it's been a long time coming.

First of all I've never contributed to the project, financially or otherwise, but yet feel that I have a divine-given right to complain about anything, including the weather.
Oh wait, you have heard that lame argument a zillion times before. OK, never mind.

Seriously though ...


Thanks to all who have contributed to Porteus in the past and hopefully in the future.

I think that too many people are getting bogged down in details regarding the future of Porteus.

Diversity in nature, people, culture, ideas and technology is worth maintaining.

I would love to see a Slackware-based Porteus, a Debian-based Porteus, an Arch-based Porteus, and perhaps a Fedora-based Porteus.
Fundamentally there are not many 'different' distributions, too many are based on ubuntu (and I still remember the Amazon thing).

One person does not have enough time to work on four different distributions. An army of volunteers is needed.

It might be helpful if the next official release of Porteus (or whatever you wish to call it) focused on helping other people build/customize their own distribution.
(Doesn't matter to me which base distribution is used, I will adapt. I remember swapping 3.5" floppies with Slackware pre-version 1.0 but it was still better than what I had at the time)
I've seen so many different distributions come/go that I don't get emotionally attached. I've had issues with every linux system I've ever used.

Porteus is built upon another platform. If that platform is suddenly no longer maintained then what happens to Porteus? A lack of platform diversity is a risk to any project.

My suggestion:
Just pick a base distribution and release a solid platform and then encourage/help others to build a platform using a different base distribution using the ideas of Porteus.
The ideas for the first two modules (000-kernel* & 001-base*) could easily be extended to other distributions.

You might get more volunteers who could share ideas and make better platforms for everyone.
People might be more willing to help if then can get a linux base distribution of their choice.
For example, the Arch team releases a platform then perhaps helps out the Slackware team with testing.
Or maybe the Slackware team has a great idea that gets picked up by the Arch team.


Puppy Linux has recent Slacko and Tahr releases (perhaps a zillion other not so well know puppies) and they all share common ideas/tools.
Last time I checked distrowatch, Puppy was more popular than Porteus (won't say better - which is very subjective anyway).

IMO, embracing diversity is a key to survival.

If Porteus becomes a platform of ideas then it might become more useful/popular than ever.
Porteus has so much to offer and I would hate to see it wither away.

Things I love about Porteus:
- small size, boots to memory, no disk required (lower-trace computing)
- modules (easier to customize)
- bash script system files are fairly straight-forward to follow/learn
(have a look at any Puppy Linux for comparison, not as clean, but different issues)


BTW recently I found a lower-trace-computing-style linux platform called DebianDog
at: github.com/DebianDog/Jessie
that might help get someone started with a Debian-based distribution. Looks really nice.
DebianDogJesse has a zillion boot options (half for systemd and half for sysvinit to keep everyone happy)

Porteus/Puppy/TinyCore - it's all good stuff.

When Redmound slams shut the Windoz-7 update channel then there may be a zillion Redmound refugees looking for a new platform.
Perhaps Porteus could be that platform?

Hopefully they will eventually realize that using Redmond or Coppertino products is just another way to help maintain someone's yacht.

Thanks for reading my rant. Looking forward to the future of Porteus.

[brokenman]

I remember swapping 3.5" floppies with Slackware pre-version 1.0 but it was still better than what I had at the time.

Could sure use some of that experience here so I sincerely hope you visit again once we release a stable base.

IMO, embracing diversity is a key to survival.

Never a truer word was spoken. The Han knew it. Darwin knew it. Apparently nature was the first to know about it became an intrinsic part of maintaing a species on planet earth. In the world of computing tha change is exponential. If you sit still you get left behind at an ever increasing pace.

[Jack]

Well said TT4Foss I agree with what you said. If I could and understand how to build I would help in a heart beat but I don't know how.

It like my radio in my car I like the oldies music and about every 2 year the FM radio stations changes it's format. Now on the FM band there is no oldies stations now, so now I went to the AM band so I can have the oldies. AM is ok but not the best. I know this is not what is going on here but what I'm trying to say is I don't want to have to look for another linux distro.

[Bogomips]

If I could and understand how to build I would help in a heart beat but I don't know how.

A step by step HOWTO or wiki would help a lot in getting it off the ground.

[Blaze]

IMHO, Arch base on Manjaro Linux without systemd is better way than Ubuntu LST. My vote for Arch.

[fullmoonremix]

Salutations...

IMHO... Porteus already has the .tgz... .txz... user base so with .deb and .rpm added it would become the default "live" OS for ALL systemd refugees.
It's better they switch to Porteus than BSD. (It also seems to appear the "Slackonly" repo resolved a good deal of the package availability concerns).

Best Regards...

[TT4Foss]

@Brokenman

I've never used Arch so I probably wouldn't be much help with building a new system right now.

However after the next stable release is out, perhaps I could share some ideas for an updated slackware release, delivered by new volunteers (very ambitious goal).

In the mean time ...

A good learning task for new volunteers might to see if Slack.Porteus v3.1 could be recreated. Are there any script files used for that release (say perhaps in GitHub or some other fine repo)?

If enough people could pick up the skills to recreate Slack.Porteus v3.1 then an updated release should be much easier. There might be enough interest in Slack.Porteus for volunteers to start learning. It might be a painful process but the skills learned might prove to be invaluable down the road.

I was just thinking that interested people could start learning about building slack while the Arch release is being prepared (and perhaps don't ask you slack related questions until after Arch released).
There probably isn't much documentation about building Porteus so people will have to learn and document at the same time but if there were enough volunteers who could find their way around a system, they could all help each other.

Not sure if there would be enough interest in such a group effort. If there is enough interest then perhaps start a new topic.

I've never built a system before so I'm guessing as to what skills would be required.
Some knowledge of bash would be required as would knowledge of how to build/install programs from source (including being able to read configure & make files) and a good overview of the boot process specific to the Linux base distribution (they are all a bit different).
These are skills that a good Jedi-wanna-be-and-whatever-else Linux guru should know.

Myself, I'm leaning towards a Debian-Porteus idea, but I'm getting too far ahead of myself.

Thanks again

[brokenman]

I will see what I can do about giving you some scripts and a package list to work from. I built slackware-current porteus last week and it is running fine. Just need to tie up some loose ends. I can give you the 000,001,002 modules that you can unpack to a partition, then chroot into the partition to start building. It would be great to see people start building and learning. I could use the help.

[francois]

I agree with brokenman, the main problem with porteus has been the availability of software. This has an impact on the forum help effort which has to be spent on new members. No distribution could beat Ubuntu-debian in terms of availability of software. Ubuntu is said to be more desktop oriented.

An Ubuntu base might draw a greater number of newcomers, just because they would like to try another flavor of Ubuntu, as an example EOS has attracted a good crowd of new members. From the crowd some number of contributors critically missing could be attracted.

Debian dog partly based on porteus has bren made according to the puppy's way. Porteus has its own personnality: a modular, cleaner, simpler structure. Resolve the larger package pasture issue of porteus with Ubuntu you get the perfect hybrid in terms of small weight distribution.

However, it seems to me that porteus-archlinux-manjaro is not that far. Though with use, AUR package coverage and managenent, added to the rolling release feature might still present potential package management issues. Do we want to get rid completely off the package management issues? Could there be package management issues related to an Ubuntu base? What are the advantages of arch linux as a base compared to ubuntu?

[sean]

@brokenman,

Have you considered announcing Nemesis to DistroWatch?

Sean

[brokenman]

@brokenman,

Have you considered announcing Nemesis to DistroWatch?

Sean

No. I'd prefer to keep the testing ground just here for now. We will announce to distrowatch when the next official version is released.

[francois]

There might be fun with a base distro that offers some challenges like arch or manjaro, and according to stifiling arch is more tight in terms of response than the debian variants. However, I would appreciate that he would provide personally on the question. The manjaro fans might appreciate a porteus version.

The point of view of ncmprhnsbl who has a good knowledge of arch linux and archbang could be interesting too.

[wread]

@brokenman
I read you are working on 000, 001 and 002 of Porteus Slackware-current. As a matter of fact I am using 003-kde5 right now (64 bits), with 001 and 002 current. 000 is still 3.17 I think, my Toshiba Satellite does ok with it.
Some pieces of software are still reluctant (i.e. GE 7.1.4) to the new environment. My kde5 is still not bundled, and if you are interested, I could send you a tarball of it, so you can trim it 'a la fanthom' and release it.

KDE and Slackware current have introduced many changes and I had spent hours searching for the right place of archives that now are in different place.

This year may bring you happiness and good health and wealth...

Regards