Libranet has been one of my favorite Linux based distribution for several years. Since 2003, I have used it over ninety percent of the time. Between 2001 and 2002, I split time running Libranet with Mandrake, and in 2002 until mid 2003, I ran predominantly Lycoris because I was employed by Lycoris at the time. Since then, I have used a number of Linux distros and have particularly enjoyed testing Live CDs. I have however, repeatedly come back and used Libranet as my every day system.

It comes as a major disappointment, then, to find that the future of Libranet is in doubt.

Quite a few months ago now, the founder of Libra Systems LTD., Jon Danzig, passed away at age 57 after an unpleasant illness. Jon had run the business with the help of his son Tal. The release they had been working on did get released in 2005 before Jon's untimely death, but Tal had been the primary contributer to the release.

Shortly after hearing this news, the community received another report that Tal would be taking an extended leave of absence to do some traveling and that there would be no official sales or support of Libranet until his return.

Tal has written the community a few times. He has not completely closed the door on the possibility of resurrecting Libranet, but if he does so, he will need the help of people with business experience and a solid roadmap of where to go with Libranet.

Personally, I think that Libranet should continue to carve a niche similar to what it already has enjoyed - an easy to use system with decidedly better system administration tools than that offered by most other Debian based vendors. That niche is fairly small, but it was enough to keep Jon and Tal going.

If you know of anyone who has solid business experience and can construct a business plan - and is interested in a Linux business, look for Tal Danzig.

I don't want to see Jon's ideas changed too much, just modernized to fit with the ever changing software landscape. I would love to see Tal succeed and do what he does best - write and support great software.

Didn't I read somewhere that they had a reorg 'cause the death of their founder?
Or something like that?

I also wish they would sort it out.
In December I went back to Libranet 2.8.1 in combination with Sarge
after having tried some others (Suse, Mandriva, 'pure' debian, ubuntu..)
It's still just the best.

Libranet is still the best around, even though it is dormant. I was introduced to Libranet back in the release 1.9.1 days. Back then, I had trouble installing an old version of Debian 2.1 stable because it did not support my graphics hardware (the release was too old). Then I tried an early version of Progeny and had no luck. It seems like I tried one other, too.

I was just about to conquer the Debian stable, getting a handle on working around the issues (which I can easily do today) when I had a friend give me a copy of Libranet 1.9.1, then put me in touch with the late Jon Danzig, who sent me a beta test copy of Libranet 2.0.

I really got into it, and hacked the heck out of it. I later bought Libranet 2.7 from Jon, and got a personal note back from him, thanking me for purchasing it, but I continued to use my hacked up version of 2.0, because I had a ton of Sid stuff in it.

Finally, when Libranet 2.8.1 came around, I put it on my system and retired my 2 year old version of modified Libranet 2.0. I then used Libranet 2.8.1 for nearly as long, but then became part of the Libranet 3.0 beta test team.

There was one ugly bug in the Adminmenu tool that we reported but never really got fixed, but other than that, we had a great experience.

What Libranet offers over the other distros are:

1. More packages than any other Debian distro except for the full Debian CD set and maybe Knoppix, which comes close.

2. Better and more complete admin tools than any Debian distro, and better than most, if not all mainstream distros. It has all the usual add a user, change the time tools that the others have, but it has an easy package updating tool, and something that really sets it apart for the enthusiast, an easy kernel building tool.

The one tool I really appreciate is the tool to set or update the time. First of all, I like to maintain local clock time on my system rather than UTC time. But some distros set UTC time automatically and make it difficult to change it to anything else (unless you happen to know and remember all of the manual commands, which I tend to forget and have to look up). Libranet takes care of all of that stuff for you. So when I go distro testing, get my hardware clock time messed up, I come back into Libranet, tell it to go out to the time server, and it quickly and effortlessly sets my time right again. Sure, I can do the same thing elsewhere, but Libranet makes it easy. Another management tool done better in Libranet.

Libranet is jammed full of packages and comes with many alternative window managers and desktop managers, a huge assortment of text editors and Web browsers, and many applications of various types. Few distributions offer as many packages, and few offer clean integration with the underlying packaging infrastructures. With Libranet, you can play Debian style or you can play Libranet style and not have a lot of conflicts.

I use two distros for my typical desktop, SimplyMEPIS and Libranet. When I have serious work to do or I am in a hacking mood, Libranet wins. I use Libranet probably 95% of the time, SimplyMEPIS not quite 5% of the time, and I test other distros the remainder of the time.

I hope somehow that the Libranet site reopens and the distro continues. I have been using Libranet 2.8.1 since last year on an old laptop of mine. I use it every day. Before, I hardly ever used it. Libranet is the first Linux distro that picked up and configured everything. And I just love IceWM experimental. I use it to work on.
I will continue to use it even if it is not supported. I wished someone could take over the site and reopen the possibility for downloads for the distro.

Does anybody know where can I download the Inter(R) 537EP modem drivers for Libranet Linux 2.8.1.?
Arjivar@yahoo.com

I would suggest poking around Inter hardware Web sites for information and doing Yahoo or Google searches for information on this hardware and the driver support for it.

There are a few Debian Help forums that might be other places to ask, too.

As far as Libranet itself goes, it is now May. Tal Danzig had planned to return home from a long trip earlier this spring and make some decisions about the future of Libranet. I have not heard any updates on the situation, but I have been going to Libranet forums from time to time to try to drum up ideas and support for future work, and appeal for ideas, and support in general for Tal to continue the work.

If all else fails and Tal decides to move on, I would like to preserve Libranet in some fashion. I am wondering if a group of investors would be willing to acquire the assets, should Tal choose not to go any further with Libranet himself.

Tal has posted at the Libranet forum that he will not continue the company. So it is offical, Libranet is dead. I am sad that it has come to this, but it would have happoned anyway.
When Ubuntu first came out, there was no comparission between it and Libranet. Ubuntu was just Debian sarge with a default X-Windows and Gnome install, as opposed to Debian making you install them with "apt-get install x-window-system gnome-desktop-environment". Libranet 3 was a fully graphical installer with acclerated video drivers with many other features to make administration of your computer easiy.
But then the next version of Ubuntu came out 6 months latter, and Libranet was in limbo after the death of Jon. Then 6 months latter Ubuntu released again, and Libranet was still in limbo. By now it has most of the features that Libranet has.
Even it Libranet development had continued, there is no way they could have kept up the 6 month cycle of Ubuntu. It would have kept a die-hard following, but growth would difficult with the increased compitition of other distros.
Perhaps Tal will GPL Adminmenu, but probibly not. It still has a lot of features that other distros do not have, and any distro that aquired it would benefit greatly.

It was good while it lasted, but it is no more. Rest in peace.

Are they ever going to let us download 3.0 for free or pay?

I don't understand why they will not give the tools they developed to the Debian community.

Because some developers like using other's work without giving back.

But in this case the alternative seems worse, a real pity:
this work, and the libranet contribution to linux is totally lost. Now the libranet forum is also down - including howtos and some great work by users there.

There is a lot more to the Libranet story than meets the eye. First of all, Jon Danzig passed away rather unexpectedly. He did have declining health for a while, but I did not even realize that. He was 58, I believe, not very old at all.

Jon's son, Tal, worked the business with his dad. The vast majority of Libranet was Debian based code. Like many distributions, only the installer and the installation tools were unique to Libranet. Some distributions, like Red Hat and Mandriva, provide some kind of open license, either the GPL or another open license, for all code, including installers. Other distributions retain a few private pieces to differentiate themselves, but still keep most of the software open.

Jon produced a private installer and a private sys admin tool called adminmenu. Tal is following what his father did. Now that his father is gone, for one thing, carrying on is a rough thing. Tal is young, plus the loss is great. You have to appreciate that. Tal says he does not have much business sense, so he did not have much thought into what to do with Libranet assets. Along the way, he met a woman and is now courting her, again, understandable.

Whether Tal eventually chooses to open up the software or not is his business. I wish he would, but again, it is his choice. He may be following his father's wishes, or he may simply be staying away from the business because of the memories associated with it. Either way, I think we owe him the right to share or not share. They did give us plenty in the system, and many people appreciated it for many years.