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Debian 12 “Bookworm”
191–200 of 241 posts
Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Stallman for example would rather have poorer functionality than compromise his personal (extremist) ethical principles. Stallman is open to pragmatism now and again. For example, on this very topic: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-hardware-designs.en.html > We can envision a future in which our personal fabricators can make chips, and our robots can assemble and solder them together with transformers, switches…
Please note that in the paragraphs that you quoted Stallman is talking about hardware, not firmware. He tolerates firmware blobs only if they are loaded once to the device and never changed (yes, I know it's more complex than this, read the whole essay for more precise information).
I think this would be a better summary: it's okay for hardware to have code that's baked in at manufacture time and can never be changed thereafter. It's not okay if, after you buy hardware, the manufacturer can modify the code but you can't.
Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its baffling that RHEL-based distros still don't support in place upgrades.
Strange; I would have assumed that `dnf system-upgrade` would have made it from Fedora to RHEL by now. Actually searching turns up https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterp... , which... appears to use a totally different tool? I don't really know what's going on there, but it does looks like they have some sort of support for in-place upgrades now.
Its was treated as "avoid of possible", but it loojs like that changed:
> An in-place upgrade is the recommended and supported way to upgrade your system to the next major version of RHEL.
As for RHEL-clones, your only choice is to use ELEvate(1), by almalinux, which supports other distros too.
But overall the process isn't as simple as Debian/Ubuntu, and on clones other than alma, you need to resort to third party tools, with some clones like Rocky saying that in-place upgrades should be avoided.
Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Actually working Linux on real hardware is far more important than purity IMO. I agree, but I also think this depends heavily on who you ask. Stallman for example would rather have poorer functionality than compromise his personal (extremist) ethical principles. There are a lot of folks who use laptops without wifi because the blobs are non free, so they're using ancient ThinkPads plugged into Ethernet. Much depends…
> Stallman for example would rather have poorer functionality than compromise his personal (extremist) ethical principles. Stallman is open to pragmatism now and again. For example, on this very topic: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-hardware-designs.en.html > We can envision a future in which our personal fabricators can make chips, and our robots can assemble and solder them together with transformers, switches…
>Stallman is open to pragmatism now and again.
Not a single thing I've ever read about him has indicated this to be even remotely true. We're talking about the guy who used a Lemote Loongson-based laptop in text mode for years and isn't capable of uploading HTML to his own website (he has to rely on volunteers to do this for him, per his own website).
All that in the pursuit of ideological purity.
Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having used Ubuntu and then Pop!_OS, I have been thinking of going back to the roots and just sticking with Debian. But I also like to get the new stuff (not bleeding edge because I don't want things breaking all the time) and I have heard that stable is, well, old stuff (hence stable). Which makes me wonder how unstable is "unstable" in reality? I have a very strong preference for sticking to .deb packages due to th…
"Unstable" is actually unstable. What you want is "Testing," or if you're a little more conservative, you want Stable + backports: https://backports.debian.org/ > You are running Debian stable, because you prefer the Debian stable tree. It runs great, there is just one problem: the software is a little bit outdated compared to other distributions. This is where backports come in. > Backports are packages taken from t…
"Testing" has the problem where security patches also get delayed, so it ends up less secure than unstable or stable (!). Unstable isn't that bad IMHO, stable+backports also works.
Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#196[dead]
Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Winmodems had plenty of alternatives, for PCs the choice is usually limited to 'what you were given' or 'what you recycled from a dumpster'. Linux is typically not the first OS to be installed on any given piece of hardware (even if brand new plenty of people pay either the MS or the Apple tax). And because those are exactly the people that benefit from having a working PC I'm all for maximizing their chances. Choice…
> Linux is typically not the first OS to be installed on any given piece of hardware. And because those are exactly the people that benefit from having a working PC I'm all for maximizing their chances. Choice is a luxury. But they don't have to choose Debian. If Debian had maintained a strict "Free" stance, people could still use their troublesome hardware out-of-the-box simply by picking another distro that did inc…
> If Debian had maintained a strict "Free" stance, people could still use their troublesome hardware out-of-the-box simply by picking another distro that did include non-Free firmware in the installer.
This isn’t Debian’s niche though. Like many distros, Debian came with the free repos configured by default, but its had non-free packages available forever and they already had a non-free installation iso hidden away. The line had been crossed forever ago. Now it’s just a friendlier experience.
This is a good thing.
Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#198Testing this out in a VM. I want to move away from Ubuntu (honestly, from SNAPs)
I'm also considering this, but I'm a little afraid of being stuck in the slow lane when it comes to software updates. I'm aware of Backports, but I'm led to believe it has a somewhat limited selection. Perhaps this is a good opportunity to try a combination of Debian, for general system stability, and Nix, for specific tools where I need newer releases? Has anyone tried this combination before? If so, how did you fin…
What packages are you concerned about? Do you use flatpaks?
Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't answer the question. It's still 'unofficial' per https://wiki.debian.org/SupportedArchitectures If you want the maintain the status quo you support the hardware that has the most users, if you want to change it you also support the hardware you want them to use.
Who is the actor in this scenario who wants to change the status quo and therefore support the RISC-V platform in Debian? I.e. who are the people with the motivation to do that?
The Debian project has been historically a vocal proponent for open hardware/firmware/drivers etc. and here we are in 2023 having Debian somewhat controversially acknowledging that proprietary firmware may be required at least by some users, to some degree. So I am suggesting that if they really want to get there that they might need to help facilitate the change they would like to see.
Is RISC-V the be-all, end-all? No, but it could help them get a lot closer than they're likely to get with any of the proprietary ISAs.
Re: Debian 12 “Bookworm”
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who is the actor in this scenario who wants to change the status quo and therefore support the RISC-V platform in Debian? I.e. who are the people with the motivation to do that?
The Debian project has been historically a vocal proponent for open hardware/firmware/drivers etc. and here we are in 2023 having Debian somewhat controversially acknowledging that proprietary firmware may be required at least by some users, to some degree. So I am suggesting that if they really want to get there that they might need to help facilitate the change they would like to see. Is RISC-V the be-all, end-all?…
Debian is not a general advocacy organization. Debian produces the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, and that’s mostly it. The incentive to do the work necessary to add a new architecture to Debian must, in general, come from outside Debian itself. Debian will probably not, as a project, go around looking for new architectures to add. Debian depends on other people doing the work and presenting it to Debian, which will then distribute it if it is good enough. Debian will only have the motivation to work on including a new architecture if it is an obvious lacking feature of Debian – say, if every other Linux distributions supported an architecture, and it was widely used, but Debian did not support it, then the Debian project would have an incentive to work on it. But not before.
This is just like Debian generally does not write new useful software to put into Debian, and instead depend on outside, “upstream” authors to write software. Some other organizations, like FSF and its GNU project, will have advocacy roles, and do have the incentives to write new software and to help porting to new architectures. It is there that the motivations for this work must be found. Of course, individual people can be involved in more than one organization, and many Debian people happen to be enthusiastic advocates, and will in fact often do this work. But the reason for them doing this work is not, mostly, rooted in them being a part of Debian.
Therefore, and this is my point, if you want this work to be done, you can’t exhort Debian to do it. It will not work. Ask instead why someone else, whom you think should be motivated to do the work, does not do it.