Better Free Software Alternative to Linux, really FREE ?

patrick295767 · 02-25-2017, 02:18 AM

Hello,

Being myself part of the old generation of Linux users, I like the original idea of Linux.

Quote:

The combination of GNU software and the Linux kernel is commonly known as Linux (or less frequently GNU/Linux.

Originally I remember GNU/Linux, at early Slackware time, where I had to compile the kernel, most of package myself, and even sometimes making small drivers. That was actually fun. Today it is much easier. Linux Kernel is great.

However, I don't need anything shinning, flashing, 3D 4D GL rotating,...

I basically need only this:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...RD_Live_CD.png

Most of my applications are on Subversion, compiled once gcc, ncurses, xmotif and x11 works, and it runs. I need a browser with graphics and that's almost most of it.

Today, it is no longer free software, since most of GNU Linux applications are no longer like before. You cannot compile from source so easily since the dependencies are heavy and it is likely that after some time it won't work. Well, re-code again your programm?

Of course not, as said Stallman, there are many things to do in life.
You cannot always worry about lib versions, and so on.

I would be very pleased if there were an universal system that will allow to have long time GNU/LINUX, that will work in some time. Not 1-2 years, but that will have reliability.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...RD_Live_CD.png

Certainly not with QT3,4,5,... GTK2,3,4... but something reliable.
Certainly not something that will be changed and make you bound to things such as SystemD, Wayland, Pulseaudio,... Most distro are not that much free as you believe.

Such a distro does not exist, maybe, old generation of Linux users, involved in free software, GNU, might have interest in non following the speed of light of commercial Linux.

FreeBsd? well, might a Linux version be free, simple and reliable?

business_kid · 02-25-2017, 04:50 AM

In the 'Good Old Days', there were more hardware (and software) limitations.
1. Disks were tiny.
2. Ram was tight.
3. Buses & I/O were dead slow, and bottlenecks existed
4. CPUs were single core, slow and limited
5. Video was a jumped up version of a vt100 or cp/m terminal.
6. You had to configure every detail yourself.

All of those limitations are gone, (except 6, which is mainly gone)but we have acquired others
1. If you don't 'install everything,' there can be dependency hell.
2. Consoles are for old fogies - the younger generation lives in a gui.
3. Popular projects can be written in a variety of languages (scripts in perl, python, shell scripts, java, etc), pollute a number of diverse areas with files and nobody has a clue what's calling what so they're difficult to sort out. Examples are NetworkManager, pulseaudio, cups, alsa, and the like. Firefox is going to have some exotic programming language soon.

All considered, the new experience is different but better in that it has made linux available to non-gurus. Personally, I like consoles, and am not so fond of xterms. But after listening to Richard Stallman talk about Hurd, I'm not going to try it on a 21st century machine any time soon. Limitation 2 (Ram) is gone - we all have Gigs of it waiting for something to do. There is nothing wrong with a monolithic kernel, and Hurd has being playing catch-up for over a decade. Meanwhile, companies hire unix programmers to have them work on support for their hardware in the monolithic kernel - who hires somebody to support hurd? It's past time to kill that off, except as a piece of history. It still hasn't even made version 1.0 in 16 years.

patrick295767 · 02-25-2017, 05:33 AM

you can change the font size on the console, which is important for readability.

Code:

    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    if ( argc == 2)
     if  ( strcmp( argv[1] , "font" ) ==  0 )
     {
          system( " patfont  /flydisk/share/ttyfonts/Lat15-TerminusBold32x16.psf.gz    " );
          return 0;
     }

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

In the 'Good Old Days', there were more hardware (and software) limitations.
1. Disks were tiny.
2. Ram was tight.
3. Buses & I/O were dead slow, and bottlenecks existed
4. CPUs were single core, slow and limited
5. Video was a jumped up version of a vt100 or cp/m terminal.
6. You had to configure every detail yourself.

All of those limitations are gone, (except 6, which is mainly gone)but we have acquired others
1. If you don't 'install everything,' there can be dependency hell.
2. Consoles are for old fogies - the younger generation lives in a gui.
3. Popular projects can be written in a variety of languages (scripts in perl, python, shell scripts, java, etc), pollute a number of diverse areas with files and nobody has a clue what's calling what so they're difficult to sort out. Examples are NetworkManager, pulseaudio, cups, alsa, and the like. Firefox is going to have some exotic programming language soon.

All considered, the new experience is different but better in that it has made linux available to non-gurus. Personally, I like consoles, and am not so fond of xterms. But after listening to Richard Stallman talk about Hurd, I'm not going to try it on a 21st century machine any time soon. Limitation 2 (Ram) is gone - we all have Gigs of it waiting for something to do. There is nothing wrong with a monolithic kernel, and Hurd has being playing catch-up for over a decade. Meanwhile, companies hire unix programmers to have them work on support for their hardware in the monolithic kernel - who hires somebody to support hurd? It's past time to kill that off, except as a piece of history. It still hasn't even made version 1.0 in 16 years.

Good. We still are two in this GUI world. I use only X11 for firefox and xpdf. Nothing else.
Init, a well compiled kernel and modules, GCC and SVN/Subversion is the most important.
Retrieve, make , make install, and your system is deployed in less than 5 minutes.

Besides, this is being free, no? It can even work on Windows

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <dirent.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <ctype.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <dirent.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
// evtl: #include <ncurses.h>

business_kid · 02-25-2017, 06:40 AM

I have had many kicks in the butt from my gui-happy kids who are internet savvy from childhood, addicted to GUIs and fiercely productive and impatient. Anyone typing long commands or setting up text config files is for the birds, in their not so humble opinion. One is even a contract coder, with IOS apps, and many projects to his credit. Even sysvinit makes them impatient, once they saw systemd & init-ng, which I had running at various times.

Turbocapitalist · 02-25-2017, 07:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by patrick295767

FreeBsd? well, might a Linux version be free, simple and reliable?

The Linux distros have been heading into more complexity, less user efficiency for a while. One of the main directions some of them seem to be going is into a single-purpose, static, compiled blob somewhat like a giant version of Busybox. Change a configuraiton? recompile the blob. Add a package? recompile the blob. Remove a package? recompile the blob. systemd, most 'containers', and especially unikernels are giant leaps in that direction. systemd alone is enormous and convoluted and is like that.

FreeBSD is not entirely immune to chasing the latest trends. If you want simplicity and clarity, the remaining option is OpenBSD.

patrick295767 · 02-25-2017, 07:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

I have had many kicks in the butt from my gui-happy kids who are internet savvy from childhood, addicted to GUIs and fiercely productive and impatient. Anyone typing long commands or setting up text config files is for the birds, in their not so humble opinion. One is even a contract coder, with IOS apps, and many projects to his credit. Even sysvinit makes them impatient, once they saw systemd & init-ng, which I had running at various times.

The first thing that I did is to teach my kids to use the console. They know how to use the console to get X11, whenever they want for Net or Gaming. They can also make an helloword.c in C.

It's fun the console with gcc. It's completely free... You don't need much to type something or make a app, which will not run on C# or Java.

The wonder is this thing, I don't know what mean

Code:

https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.de.html
 Trisquel GNU/Linux
	Trisquel ist ein freies Derivat der GNU/Linux-Distribution Ubuntu, ausgerichtet auf kleine Unternehmen, Privathaushalte und Bildungseinrichtungen.

It is like having a facebook account and watching proprietary youtube.

The idea of GNU is no longer well respected. Young generation think that Linux is an OS that cost nothing, so it's free. You can use proprietary programs, and do not care about it, since Linux has become no longer free/libre, but free as free beer (gratuit).

business_kid · 02-25-2017, 11:38 AM

I'm not a free software purist, because programmers need to eat and you condemn yourself to medriocrity (as in Hurd) when you demand that they give their work for free. Even worse, they often host websites for their free software. Companies hiring coders accounts for the variety of drivers for the Linus' kernel.

I taught my kids the console too but when they saw windows, & X they leaped for them and taught themselves and their respective computer classes. The bit you don't understand translates

Quote:

Trisquel is a free derivative of the GNU / Linux distribution Ubuntu, focused on small businesses, private households and educational institutions.

courtesy of translate.google.com.

The patience & attention span required for learning consoles is gone. Even Universities encourage 'knowledge bulimia;' Learn it for the test, and forget it afterwards. We may not like it, but that's the modern world. If you had questions on all four years of a course in the final exam, there'd be very few degrees handed out.

DavidMcCann · 02-25-2017, 11:51 AM

As one who remembers CP/M and version 1 of MSDOS, I do not look back with nostalgia! I suppose it's the difference between a worker and a tinkerer. Linus himself said he wanted a distro that just worked, so that he could get on with his job. I can remember having to write a printer-driver in assembly language. That wasn't fun, it was a bore. I can remember using a word-processor that wasn't WYSIWYG: that was a nightmare.

patrick295767 · 02-25-2017, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidMcCann

As one who remembers CP/M

Do you maybe still have some floppies? There was a game where there was a cursor moving and there was some stars, which I could be interested.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidMcCann

Linus himself said he wanted a distro that just worked, so

So to work, sometimes, the smallest number of lines should be sufficient. Clean.

Usually young programmers are those that fancy Java, C#,... That makes so slow the things going.

Sometimes, I believe that computers are so slow considered the today's power.
Maybe we should return to ASM?

TB0ne · 02-25-2017, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by patrick295767

Do you maybe still have some floppies? There was a game where there was a cursor moving and there was some stars, which I could be interested.

So to work, sometimes, the smallest number of lines should be sufficient. Clean. Usually young programmers are those that fancy Java, C#,... That makes so slow the things going. Sometimes, I believe that computers are so slow considered the today's power. Maybe we should return to ASM?

Why, since you seem to think that Windows is the greatest thing ever? Why aren't you just running that instead?
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post5673790
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post5673554
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...8/#post5608359
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ux-4175588028/
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...es-4175590057/

...along with many others, claiming how great Windows/Microsoft is, and how much is (somehow) 'missing' in Linux. Or is this just another troll/flame post?

patrick295767 · 02-25-2017, 03:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TB0ne

Why, since you seem to think that Windows is the greatest thing ever? Why aren't you just running that instead?

Windows is of course a great Operating System. I like of course Windows. I have multiboots.
Is having Microsoft Windows as well an issue on Linux boards?

Have you ever used Windows?

TB0ne · 02-25-2017, 04:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by patrick295767

Windows is of course a great Operating System. I like of course Windows. I have multiboots.
Is having Microsoft Windows as well an issue on Linux boards?

Nope, but you do very much come across like a troll/flame-bait poster, coming onto a Linux forum, and posting how great Windows is, and whining about how Linux is lacking x/y/z, and how it's not 'free' anymore.

Seems like you can save yourself a lot of headaches, and use Windows, since you claim it supports more hardware (it doesn't), runs better (it doesn't), is more secure (it isn't), and has better applications (it doesn't). So use it, and be done with all your Linux problems. Seems simple to me, in your case.

Quote:

Have you ever used Windows?

Not in well over 20 years, because it's garbage. I use it when I'm forced to for a client, and have moved MANY over to Linux over the years, with zero complaints.

patrick295767 · 02-25-2017, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TB0ne

Nope, but you do very much come across like a troll/flame-bait poster, coming onto a Linux forum, and posting how great Windows is, and whining about how Linux is lacking x/y/z, and how it's not 'free' anymore.

It is lack of tolerance if someone does not accept that another people like something else, including Linux but also including Microsoft Windows.

Well, Linux has clear divergences and opinion about softwares. You may check here, for instance, if you'd like: http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

TB0ne · 02-25-2017, 04:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by patrick295767

It is lack of tolerance if someone does not accept that another people like something else, including Linux but also including Microsoft Windows.

You can like whatever you choose to, and no one cares. But when you come to a LINUX FORUM and spout off about how flawless and great Windows is, and how much Linux is lacking, why are you unable to see how people would think you're trolling/flame-baiting the forum??? This very thread is a great example...you complain how it's not 'free' anymore, and post many threads about how great Windows is. So, go use Windows, if you think its so great, and stop using Linux, since you CLAIM:

It's not 'free' enough for you
It lacks features
It lacks software
It lacks hardware support

...and Windows doesn't.

Otherwise, start working on alternatives; write code, adopt a project, develop. DO SOMETHING, rather than complain about it.

Quote:

Well, Linux has clear divergences and opinion about softwares. You may check here, for instance, if you'd like:

No need to look at your link, since pretty much everyone here who uses Linux is well aware of the forks, and reasons/philosophies behind them.

ondoho · 02-25-2017, 04:52 PM

redacted.
a.k.a. self-censorship...