Re: [Trisquel-users] Migration from Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy) to Trisquel 6.0 (Toutatis)
I'm well aware what glibc is, and what gnu packages exist on my system, thank you very much.. xD Now then, in no particular order. Nonsense, glibc is surely the standard, but it's not somehow magically essential. There are many other C libraries, like libc from BSD, uClibc, even Microsoft has one for crying out loud. It could be replaced, and yes, your binaries would probably need some recompiling and essentially everything would break. ...Well, yeah? So would any Qt apps if you suddenly changed that library, or GTK2 apps, or whatever apps. What's your point? All these things are userland stuff that's perfectly replaceable. Same argument for bash, coreutils, etc. Obviously there's no need or desire to change the current standards, but that doesn't mean you couldn't. As such they're not ESSENTIAL, as you say, just a standard that would be highly convenient for everyone involved to keep. So far as I'm concerned Android is technically a Linux distro, but I don't go around calling it a Bionic/Linux distro, or a Google/Linux distro. That'd be silly. And sure, the GNU userland is used in a very large subset of Linux distros, and if you wanna call those GNU/Linux, go ahead, I'll still consider it in the broader sense of a Linux system. Hey, hey, hey! Nobody's saying the gnu packages aren't important, obviously. But then X11 is also important, for most people things like a browser, a java runtime environment, drivers, assorted productivity software, even games, all kinds of software really, is also very important. Have you seen the rather staggering amount of packages needed for all these things? At the end of the day it makes sense to me to call a system by it's principal component, which is and will always be the kernel. I'm not trying to dictate what anyone else calls it, that's their choice, but frankly I'm annoyed with people going "Call it GNU/Linux or GNU+Linux" or whatever else along those lines. The world too seems to have decided on Linux as a name, that's the standard nomenclature, might as well go with it.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Concern about GNU/Linux becoming more proprietary
Well, if you wanna redefine words in the english langauge, go ahead. I frankly couldn't care less what they mean in your particular alternate universe. The point is OEMs should have the freedom to bundle whatever they want. And the last thing anyone needs is bullshit government legislation about software. Get a grip on reality, that line of thinking never ends well. That's a purely theoretical control, nobody inspects all their source code, and very few compile their systems from source. Not to mention there's no control over the hardware layer anyway, so this is already moot. No, that's the GPL requirement, if you're dealing with GPL code you have to abide by it's restrictions, obviously. Copyleft is perfectly fine if that's what you wanna do, but pretending that a restrictive license is somehow more "free" or has more "freedom" for anyone than a permissive one is just silly. Restrictions are restrictions. That's all there is to that. Obviously they're not all equal, nor did I ever claim they were. What the OEM thing above is essentially saying is that people are too damn stupid to know what they want or what's good for them, and as such we must make all things that doesn't conform with one entirely subjective view of the world illegal and abolished. This amounts to taking away freedom of choice. And I think we all know that if the FSF had their way it'd be illegal to write propriatary software or sell non-open hardware. That's no different from any other tyranny, what you're advocating does indeed amount to forcing "freedom" on people. "the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action" Indeed, that does sound like freedom, and even someone as horrid as a hardware store or a programmer should have it. If they wanna write propriatary software, that's their right. If you don't wanna use it, that's yours. In regards to your post, yes, of course the GPL doesn't force anything on anyone, as it's up to them whether or not to use GPL code in the first place. Very much like it's up to us whether we buy a computer from Lenovo or use a system with propriatary components. Nobody's forcing you to use a computer at all, certainly nobody's forcing you to use Windowns. My objection is simply to the general notion that software should be somehow regulated or that OEMs shouldn't be able to put whatever they want on the hardware they sell.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Proprietary software as result of psychological problems
..Wow, I thought the DSM V was full of bullshit conditions, but this thread really takes the cake.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Migration from Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy) to Trisquel 6.0 (Toutatis)
You mean a few years later someone developed his own operating system to replace Minix, and then eventually a bunch of useful gnu packages got added to it. And it was called Linux. Regardless of history, considering the gnu tools are just a small part of the userland today, it makes sense to name the system after it's central and most important component, which is after all the Linux kernel.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Gnome shell privacy issue : Auto answering voice and video calls
We DO have Gnome2, it's just called MATE now. What's wrong with getting it via a ppa?
Re: [Trisquel-users] Gnome shell privacy issue : Auto answering voice and video calls
I meant if they wanted to make Gnome Shell the default desktop in the future.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Concern about GNU/Linux becoming more proprietary
Right, so let me just check if I got your logic right. 1) OEMs should somehow be restricted in what they can and cannot bundle, I would assume by government. Government legislation and restrictions for everybody = freedom. Sure, that makes plenty sense, I'm sure nine out of ten tyrants would agree. So far as I'm concerned that'd just be one more nasty overreach, much like the GPLv3 is overreaching into things it should have no business with. 2) So what you have against them is that compared to the GPL they have substantially less restrictions and give substantially more freedom. At least in the traditional sense of the word. Of course, if we're operating under the redefining of words from part 1, namely that restriction = freedom, this might be different. Replacing one nonsensical example with another one then. It wouldn't make a lick of difference, case and point, numerous propriatary drivers already exist, and companies like Nvidia doesn't seem to have any problems churning them out. Let's also not forget that distros doesn't seem to have any trouble including these drivers. How exactly would a permissive license make any of this easier? Hell, if anything there are more propriatary drivers under Linux than, say, the BSD's, although that is at least partly due to most of them not being compatible anyway. I'm unsure what "glue" you're talking about. Neither does the GPL. It just encourages more badly written, less secure and generally more troublesome propriatary software. Whether you consider that a good thing is of course another topic.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Concern about GNU/Linux becoming more proprietary
Steam existed before SteamOS, nobody's died yet, I don't see this being a problem. As for drivers, yeah, of course they use the official Nvidia drivers, performance is substantially better and newer cards aren't supported by nouveau yet. Well, if an OEM wanna add crapware that's their right. Much like it's your right to blast that crapware to hell and install another OS or just not buy that computer to begin with. What do you have against the BSD-style licences? So far as I'm concerned they're far more "free" than the restrictive and copyleft GPL, not to mention a helluvalot easier to read and less open to legalese and interpretation. And they don't attempt any nonsense like the anti-"tivoization" thing. And absolutely, yes, some project are running away from GPL software. FreeBSD has replaced GCC with clang, OpenBSD has a policy of avoiding GPL code if at all possible and never relying on it, GhostBSD is going Apache OpenOffice, Android doesn't have a GNU userland at all, etc. But so far as I can see that has nothing to do with wanting to bundle propriatary software, but rather just that a) the alternatives are better as in the case with Android, or b) because they'd rather use the permissive style license and obviously keep their code under those licenses and not fall victim to any GPL violations, as in the case of OpenBSD and FreeBSD. I'm unsure what you mean, how would replacing glibc make it easier to run propriatary software?
Re: [Trisquel-users] Migration from Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy) to Trisquel 6.0 (Toutatis)
Quit clickin', people constantly trying to dictate nomenclature is just so damn annoying.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Migration from Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy) to Trisquel 6.0 (Toutatis)
Credit schmedit. If that's what it's about, how about GNU/Linux/X11/Abrowser/blahblahuserlandblah.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Migration from Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy) to Trisquel 6.0 (Toutatis)
That's a matter of opinion u'know.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Migration from Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy) to Trisquel 6.0 (Toutatis)
Trisquel 6 is based on Ubuntu 12.04, so you can't do that.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Gnome shell privacy issue : Auto answering voice and video calls
Based on what I knew at the time of writing that comment I'll stand by it being a feature that a user would has to implicitly ask for by installing Gnome Shell and Epiphany, and explicitly by setting them with an IM account. Much like asking for a bullet by pointing a gun at your head and pulling the trigger. An analogy I find highly relevant to the subject at hand, which is after all Gnome Shell. =x 1) Well yes, it's obviously not a particularly sane default, I agree. And yeah, if the Trisquel devs wanna shoot people in the foot with the bullshit that is Gnome Shell, that's their right of course. At least in later versions it's not quite as ridiciously hungry for RAM as, say, KDE's silly widget desktop monstrosity was last I tried it.. xD 2) You don't have to let gnome / epiphany / whatever handle your IM accounts. It's an opt-in by definition. It's not like Gnome Shell goes into your pidgin settings, takes the information, and then sets up it's own system with them. 3) Yeah, not a sane default, but that doesn't mean it's a bug. I see no reason to, as I have no desire to use Gnome Shell, nor would it run particularly well on a netbook, which is currently the only place I still run Trisquel. This is not a "serious privacy issue", it's a poorly implemented feature, nothing more. Even if there's no option to disable this behaviour, that's not a bug either, just a missing feature. So call the subject of this thread what it is, a feature request, not a critical bug. For the record, I completely agree with adding a toggle for this behaviour and disabling it by default.
Re: [Trisquel-users] malware
Oh avoiding malware is easy, no need for any AV stuff.. Just follow the three step mantra. Don't own a computer, don't turn it on, and whatever you do, don't connect it to the internet.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Software that interactively lies to people
Oooh.. That is rather clever. =o Man, I'm so looking forward to sexually harassing my customer service representa-I mean robot. Remember, it's all perfectly legal if it doesn't pass the turing test. =o
Re: [Trisquel-users] SteamOS based on Debian a good thing for Ubuntu/Trisquel?
Hmm. I seem to recall Value making some contributions to the Intel drivers during L4D2 development, so who knows.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Gnome shell privacy issue : Auto answering voice and video calls
It's just a ppa, I see no problem with that. But if you're worried about such things, there are other good DE's too, XFCE, LXDE, or even just a simple WM like openbox or ratpoison. So far as I'm concerned they're all better than Gnome Shell. ..Although in fairness, the new Gnome 3.8 classic mode is kinda neat. =x
Re: [Trisquel-users] Free Trisquel Wallpepers
And how sad that must be for you, 'cause they're nice wallpapers, with a color for every occation.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Gnome shell privacy issue : Auto answering voice and video calls
That's your opinion. I'm sure there are plenty of people who wants auto-reply, what right have you to dictate what is and isn't a feature?
Re: [Trisquel-users] Gnome shell privacy issue : Auto answering voice and video calls
..How is that a bug? It's a feature, which I presume you asked for by installing gnome shell and empathy and not setting them up properly. I got a solution for ye. Use a proper desktop and a proper IM client. Like MATE and Pidgin. It'll be good.
Re: [Trisquel-users] how to choose server hardware?
Well, just a mailserver should be able to run on basically everything. Now making it keep up with spam is of course another matter entirely. =p GPU doesn't matter at all for a server, normally you'd want it headless and just manage via SSH or something. (Unless there was some kind of server application that could utilize OpenCL or whatever.. But somehow I doubt that's relevant for an email server.) I use an older laptop to do SSH and a Minecraft server, it seems to work just fine really. In terms of power consumption I'd recommend enabling the CPU frequency scaling and whatever other power saving you can. 90% of the time a home server isn't doing much, might as well keep it cool. =p
Re: [Trisquel-users] freedom friendly netbook
Shame they don't make them like the 1000H anymore.. So easy, one big panel with two screws that got you straight to WiFi card, harddisk and RAM. Even got a modded bios on it to enable AHCI for the SSD. Just in general though, if you want a bit more snappiness, should look into an Arch-based distro, like Parabola or whatever. As I understand it the 3.2 kernels that Trisquel uses by default doesn't even support the Cederview chips used in the X101CH.
Re: [Trisquel-users] New Indian and Telugu libre gnu/linux distribution?
And what's the difference? It's probably just a shell script deleting files anyway. The kernel doesn't suggest anything, the installer does.
Re: [Trisquel-users] freedom friendly netbook
Let's all remember that by the time Debian hits stable it's already severely out of date. Lack of acceleration is still the case, Xorg dropped support for the releveant type of extensions ages ago I believe. It's just a basic unaccelerated driver. For a truly ancient SM712 chip with 4MB of video memory. Yeah 4MB. I believe Parabola actually had some semi-unstable partially accelerated driver but.. Yeah. Good luck. Yeah, lack of power is a problem, especially if (like in OpenBSD) many packages needs to be compiled from the ports tree. Then again, a minimalistic install with cwm, dillo and other lightweight stuff works pretty well. gNewSense also runs pretty zippy on it.. Not that you'd wanna use it for, say, internet browsing or anything. If nothing else because the firefox 3.5 codebase isn't exactly getting bugfixes anymore...
Re: [Trisquel-users] freedom friendly netbook
This might also be of interest. http://trisquel.info/en/forum/gluglug-thinkpad-x60-w-coreboot-mini-review
Re: [Trisquel-users] freedom friendly netbook
Certainly not a scam, although at this stage the only two OS's actually running on the thing is gNewSense, which has packages older than either of us, and OpenBSD, which has a fairly sparse selection of at least recent packages. As I understand it Parabola has more or less dropped support and it's halfway impossible to install it now because the base is so old, and you just get nasty dependency locks.
Re: [Trisquel-users] New Indian and Telugu libre gnu/linux distribution?
In other words a libre kernel.
Re: [Trisquel-users] One thing that bothers me about Richard Stallman
Oh of course not, such a holier-than-thou,you-no-freedom-suckers attitude would never occur anywhere near that man.. Cause it's not like he refers to anyone not fully onboard his particular freedom train as "worse than suckers" or anything. Slightly more OT though. This thread sounds scarily like a setup for debating the proper intepretations of scripture or something. Is it that important to anyone what Stallman does or doesn't do, or in what semi-douchy way he may or may not do it? xD And anyway, everybody likes the freedom to have a double standard here and there.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Simple guide to make happy a GNU user
"You are only free if you follow what we, the FSF, write in our website. If you attempt anything against our writings and opinions, you are not free. Now rejoice in the freedom we thrust upon you." Well. Yeah? The FSF tends to equate freedom of choice with convenience, what else is new? Which in fairness is totally reasonable, it is pretty damn convenient when grandma doesn't complain because her WiFi card doesn't work or whatever.. Point is, that's always been their thing, so doubt it needs sabotage. Don't get me wrong, they do a lot of important work, but then so does the salvation army, and I'd advise taking their philosophical underpinnings with a fair chunk of salt too.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Simple guide to make happy a GNU user
OpenOffice, Apache OpenOffice as it's called now, is being actively developed, with version 4 now out and stuff. And more to the point. LibreOffice has a crap logo and a greenish theme. OpenOffice is all pretty blue. Obviously that's what matters. =o Also should also root for the underdog. And so on.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Simple guide to make happy a GNU user
Well of course it doesn't help, but that all or nothing, holier than thou is kind of a theme with the FSF, so what can you do? And what's wrong with OpenOffice? It's still around and under active development, under a nice permissive license no less.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Simple guide to make happy a GNU user
Oh, well that's okay, I'm not the "free software movement". Just a guy stating his personal opinion about Debian being a perfectly fine OS to use. ..Possibly excepting how damn slow apt-get seems to be on it.. I'll take pacman any day... xD Yes, if you have some WiFi chip that needs firmware microcode or whatever.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Simple guide to make happy a GNU user
Nothing wrong with letting people decide for themselves. Debian simply gives you the choice.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Simple guide to make happy a GNU user
Hmm.. Cool, this must be one of them little forum bots I keep hearing about.. Just scanning through threads, looking for certain keywords, and then providing irrelevant links everybody's already seen a million times.. Well, that's the only explanation I can think of, seeing as the nonissue of FSF endorsement was already explicitly mentioned.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Big Brother has a name, and his name is P*OMIS (R instead of the *) software
You should never attribute to planning or malice what can readily be explained by chance and incompetense. And likewise there's no need to attribute to organized effort what can easily be explained by a bunch of douchebags all doing their own little thing. And in keeping with the theme of vague analogies, much like there's no need for a heavenly father to direct the process of life, there's no for some shadowy overlords to direct the economy or fuck up stuff. That happens just fine on it's own, and when it gets overly screwy it's usually mere plain old fashioned corruption. Mixed with a hearty dose of incompetence. And now I'm just gonna ramble on about some cases in no particular order, if only because that's still more fun than preparing for my exams. It's not like them three letter agencies give a shit about what any of us are up to, plain fact is that 99% of people are rather uninteresting, at least for most profitable purposes. The only point of these draconian spying programs that are running is for the blackmail and stock tips. Which is nice combo, 'cause that way your appointed officials will do as they're told, and there'll even be plenty of spare money to pay for it. It's win - win, assuming you're a crooked asshole. As for the economy, that's a cyclical thing. It goes up and it goes down. Only reason it gets really bad at the end of the cycles is that sentral banks and governments, more or less the same thing nowadays, keep propping it up to hold off collapse. By doing stuff like printing more money and lying their asses off about things like unemployment numbers. The higher they go, the harder they fall and all that jazz. As for the FEMA thing.. Pt, as if, there's no realistic need for any of that stuff. We have the DSM-V and plenty of groovy antipsychic drugs now. Putting people in FEMA camps costs money, while just giving them a cool diagnosis and shooting them up with even cooler drugs is a pure profit deal. Economics dictates my conspiracy theory is better. =x And regardless, it's not like the US has democracy now. Let's also not forget that they've been in a defacto state of emergency for the last 12 years or so. But now that I've wasted my hands banging on a tiny keyboard for a few paragraphs, let's just get one thing straight here. Really now. You're gonna bring fucking Alex Jones and infowars up as a source of information? Geez. Just get a memo of talking points from the state department why dontcha like everybody else.. You do know that guy is just a shill running around yelling and screaming to make all conspiracy theorists look like batshit crazy assholes, right?
Re: [Trisquel-users] GNU Guix: important free software project you've never heard of
So a package manager, huh. http://xkcd.com/927/
Re: [Trisquel-users] Big Brother has a name, and his name is P*OMIS (R instead of the *) software
Heh. If such a thing actually existed, and wasn't a complete piece of shit, I'd say we need some more competent shadowy overlords. Bad enough how poorly they're managing the world, but more to the point, why hasn't everyone reading this been droned and replaced by clever python scripts? This is no good.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Your Android Phone Is Secretly Recording Everything You Do
This is a two year old overhyped story. So the carriers know slightly more about your phone than they already did. That's what you get for buying a phone from them instead of just getting one unlocked. *Shrug* Just run a custom rom, which I'd assume most people here are doing anyway. Problem solved.
