Re: [gNewSense-users] Re: Make MIPS gNewSense from Debian packages?

[Danny Clark]

Graziano Sorbaioli wrote:
> Danny Clark wrote:
>> Richard M Stallman wrote:
>>> Robert Millan is arguing that it is ok to make the MIPS version of
>>> gNewSense from Debian packages, even while continuing to make the x86
>>> version of gNewSense from Ubuntu packages.  He argues that they are
>>> sufficiently similar that users won't find the difference surprising
>>> or annoying.
>>>
>>> What do you think?
>> I think we should have gNewSense/d(ebian) and gNewSense/u(buntu) (or
>> some other naming scheme, haven't thought about that one a lot), and let
>> people choose if they want to use a 100% free variant of Debian or Ubuntu.
> 
>> If we do base the MIPS port on Debian, I see no reason other than
>> possible lack of manpower why we wouldn't want to have all of the below
>> (although it's mostly scriptable, so once the coding is done it wouldn't
>> take a whole lot more man-hours):
> 
>> * gNewSense/d for mipsel (possibly with some additional
>> optimized-for-loongson 2f packages)
>> * gNewSense/d for x86_32 (i386)
>> * gNewSense/d for x86_64 (amd64)
>> * gNewSense/u for x86_32 (i386)
>> * gNewSense/u for x86_64 (amd64)
> 
> Is there some reason we should duplicate x86_32 and x86_64 architectures?
> 
> Why don't we have only the debian ones?
> 
> Most people I know of feel more comfortable with debian than with ubuntu.
> 
> And as someone already said, from a beginner point of view there are not
> so many differences imho.
> Newbie users watch to the desktop enviroment and gui (gnome for both
> debian and ubuntu).
> 
> What do you think?

I think making the choice for people is a bad idea if we can allow the
user to have the choice without that much more effort on our part.

It's pretty obvious that some people strongly prefer Debian and some
people strongly prefer Ubuntu; making a change like Ubuntu -> Debian
will pretty obviously make some people happy and some people sad, and I
would rather just make everyone happy on this point which is largely
personal preference which it is useless to debate about, esp. as they
are in the end choosing freedom and the unfortunate annoyances that that
often entails at this moment in time (largely due to hardware manufactures.)

And if we do the work to do a Debian/mipsel gNewSense, we would pretty
much get Debian/i386 gNewSense and Debian/amd64 gNewSense "for free".

-- 
Daniel JB Clark   | Sys Admin, Free Software Foundation
pobox.com/~dclark | http://www.fsf.org/about/staff#danny

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