Re: [gNewSense-users] Why not make a version of Debian GNU/Linux

[Tim Retout]

On Wed, Jan 10, 2007 at 08:53:52PM +0000, Paul O'Malley wrote:
> Max Moritz Sievers wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I wonder myself why gNewSense isn't directly derived from Debian GNU/Linux. 
> > I 
> > don't see an advantage using Ubuntu Linux as the base. But there would be 
> > advantages if gNewSense was a version of Debian GNU/Linux with only main 
> > and 
> > the Firmware removed from Linux:
> > - not derived from a »Linux«
> I don't understand, my take on it is that all are derived from kernel.org.

The quotes around "Linux" suggest that the GNU/Linux vs. Linux naming
point is being made here.

> > - does not ship Firefox
> Being worked on here.

I'm still curious as to whether or not there are plans to adopt Debian's
'xulrunner' or 'libxul0d' packages as a build dependency, rather than using
'firefox' (or iceweasel).

If the name of the firefox package is being changed in any case, then
the build dependencies of other packages will have to be altered as
well. It should (hopefully?) be straightforward to build them against
the library package at the same time.

This would avoid the situation where the Epiphany web browser depends upon
Firefox in Ubuntu:

http://packages.ubuntu.com/edgy/gnome/epiphany-browser
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/epiphany-browser

Arguably, this process would be easier if gNS chose to use the Debian
packages as the upstream source; at least in these cases. At the same
time, Ubuntu has brought much of value to Debian GNU/Linux, which it
would be a shame to lose.

-- 
Tim Retout <address@hidden>

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