Should just be a repository and pinning rule
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| swbrown Nov 22, 2006 4:48 AM EDT |
The concept here is solid, however, from what I understand, this is being done as its own distribution which will limit the number of people using it, as many want to stay truly Free but also want to use an established distribution like Debian/Ubuntu for the benefit that brings. So instead of doing it like that, why not do it as a "gNewSense apt repository and pinning rule" for the various Debian-based distributions that would allow them to override /specific/ packages with Freedom issues with either their modified version (if that was possible, ala binary firmware), or a dummy empty package with a debconf popup explanation if it wasn't possible to free or hasn't been yet? It'd be a lot easier for those that want to follow along with this, as it would then just take adding two lines to sources.list and two to preferences and they'd be on board rather than having to change out an entire system. It'd also likely be much easier on the gNewSense team as they wouldn't have to deal with all the mundane stuff. |
| rijelkentaurus Nov 22, 2006 5:19 AM EDT |
>It'd be a lot easier for those that want to follow along with this, as it would then just take adding two lines to sources.list and two to preferences and they'd be on board rather than having to change out an entire system. It'd also likely be much easier on the gNewSense team as they wouldn't have to deal with all the mundane stuff. I think part of it is that they want to make it as easy to setup as possible, and having to install Ubuntu (and possibly non-free items by default) isn't the way to do that. Perhaps they could make the changes on a default Ubuntu install and then remaster the CD? It would probably be easier that way and still make installing a Free distro easier. |
| tuxchick Nov 22, 2006 7:04 AM EDT |
Debian already has free and non-free packages in separate repositories. Easy peasey. |
| rijelkentaurus Nov 22, 2006 7:07 AM EDT |
>Debian already has free and non-free packages in separate repositories. Easy peasey. Yes, and Debian is quite nice. |
| tuxchick Nov 22, 2006 7:09 AM EDT |
Oh, and Fedora core is free packages only as well. gNewSense seems unnecessary and redundant. |
| swbrown Nov 22, 2006 8:13 AM EDT |
"Debian already has free and non-free packages in separate repositories. Easy peasey." It's not that easy - Debian's not yet removed binary firmware from the kernel that of course ships in their 'free' repositories - they've voted to do it several times, but keep missing their targets so are postponing it until after a release yet again. This is one of the key changes gNewSense makes. There are likely other such 'unfinished business' kinda things the gNewSense people take issue with. It'd be nice to be able to let them override package selection of such things to their cleaned versions without having to replace the entire distro. |
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