Re: [gNewSense-users] how can our community best support gNewSense?

[Kevin Dean]

I think you made my point for me. :D Hacks are wall and good, but when
you rely on them, they're only second rate.

You said it was "Ringo's Hack". This means it wasn't intuitive to you,
and certainly won't be intuitive to the guy I'm IMing at  the moment
who has run Windows servers for the past decade, but all of a sudden
needed an "easy" Linux [sic] to deploy a specific application.

He certainly wouldn't have the ability to hack his way to a gNewSense
system, which means one less person using the Freedom distro.

> As fo the server aspect - are we really trying to compete with
Debian-Sarge or BSD?

Yes and no. We're not trying to be the most secure, the most stable or
the easiest to manage. But the goal of gNS is to deliver a system
built on only Free Software. Some people criticise Debian's
"fanatical" or "purist" stance on license, but they still ship
non-Free software. In that regard, I seriously think that gNS has no
competition to speak of.

> I used Mandrake from 7.2 to 10.1 and I used Debian starting with Sarge and I find 
> no fault in >gNewSense.

You had to use a work around to install a server system. I consider
that a pretty basic function of a GNU/Linux system, truthfully.

We've repackaged Mozilla Firefox to remove the non-Free Mozilla marks.
But people apt-get install thunderbird because we haven't yet had time
to rebrand Thunderbird to remove the non-free marks in that package.

-Kevin





On 3/8/07, andrei raevsky <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi guys!
>
> On 3/8/07, Kevin Dean <address@hidden> wrote:
> > I admire your passion.
> >
> > There's one huge problem that I see with gNewSense right now, and I've
> > spoken with Paul about how I might be able to help fix this.
> >
> > Simply, gNewSense isn't yet ready to be the showcase that we all want it
> to be.
> >
> > There are things that still remain to be done before gNewSense is
> > fully functional, let alone exceptional. For instance, we don't have a
> > Server install CD, and doing a "Lightweight" install on a laptop of
> > older machine is not yet possible at this moment.
>
> maybe I am misunderstanding you here, but with Ringo's hack I got gNewSense
> installed on my 450MHZ 128MB RAM laptop with no problems, it was a breeze.
> Here is his hack:
>
> I know that gnewsense doesn't yet have a "alternate" or minimum
> install for computers with low ram/graphics/cpu or that don't have the
> right drivers. I had to do the alternate for my computer so here's how
> you can do it do.
> 1. Boot the live cd, hit the red button in the top right, select logout
> 2. Go to icon in bottom left, select the "Gnome Failsafe Terminal" session
> 3. Login as username deltad (or root), no password
> 4. type cd /home/deltad/Desktop in the terminal
> 5. type cat ubiq* in the terminal
> 6. You should see a line near the bottom that starts with gksudo
> 7. Copy that line verbatim and hit enter
> 8. The install will start.
> 9. If for some reason it doesn't restart properly, wait 30 seconds
>  (for hd buffers+cache to clear), and then type halt OR go to the power
> button on the top right and hit restart. You can also just pull the
> plug (at least on my HP laptop)
> After that I did 'apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade' and I got a brand
> new perfectly functionning laptop.  Judging by how smooth the install was I
> bet you this is doable on even less Proc and RAM power.  How low should we
> go?
>
> Hardware wise everything worked out of the box, except wifi which I fixed
> with a wrapper.
>
> As fo the server aspect - are we really trying to compete with Debian-Sarge
> or BSD?  My sense is that our advocacy 'hunting ground' should be the small
> office home user not the server world.  But that is just my 2cts.
>
> > Documentation is one thing that gNewSense lacks now, and anyone
> > willing to help write some would do a lot.
>
> ok. Does anyone here want me to write an 'intro for first-time gNewSense
> users'?
>
> > Before we can run we need to walk, and while gNS is a great distro,
> > it's nowhere near showcase material, too many serious, but not so
> > flashy thing, still need to be done.
>
> I used Mandrake from 7.2 to 10.1 and I used Debian starting with Sarge and I
> find no fault in gNewSense.  And why should there be any? Its Ubuntu/Debian
> based so that is pretty much as good a base as can be.  gNewSense is
> definitely less buggy than Kanotix which I used for many years and way
> faster than Mepis (which still has proprietary scripts even though Warren
> denies that).
>
> In terms of a free distro, I really do not see who can compete with
> gNewSense out there.
>
> But I might have been lucky (although I installed gNewSense on five machines
> already and all work perfectly).
>
> Could you list what you see as the list of stuff to fix?
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Andrei