* Svante Signell <svante.sign...@gmail.com> [2019-11-13 17:01]: > On Wed, 2019-11-13 at 16:36 +0530, Jean Louis wrote: > > > > It is time to make fully free FSF endorsed GNU/Hurd > > distribution. > > As you might know, Guix is working on to also support GNU/Hurd. Maybe you can > make contributions there (in addition to Debian GNU/Hurd).
That is excellent and it is good for Western world users. Yet Guix operating system has higher requirements, it is not operating system for average user, especially not for people in third world countries. While global perception is that Internet is everywhere, it is not quite, and people in third world countries still use older computers, Internet is very expensive or difficult to reach. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Guix#Guix_System_Distribution Quote: At the cost of greater storage requirements, all upgrades in Guix are guaranteed to be both atomic and efficiently rolled back. This also enables multiple users to safely install software on the same system without administrator privileges. The extra storage requirements translates to greater bandwidth usage when binary substitutes are downloaded compared to distributions such as Debian. If the user chooses to build everything from source even larger storage space and bandwidth is required. That is my experience, for simple upgrade, I had to spend considerable amount of data, waiting time, and space on the hard disk. I think, but not know for sure, that system like Guix SD cannot be used straight from the DVD only, it requires Internet and downloading. Operating system shall be self-contained, usable only from the DVD. I hope I am wrong in case of Guix. My impression is that it depends on Internet and thus it is only for people with Internet connection. Majority of the world computing is still offline. This may sound surprising for many. But that is the case in Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Tanzania alone is like France and Germany together, there are Internet points where Internet can be used and there is Internet, but people are not connected. Majority of computers are not connected to Internet. It is possible to use mobile data, but that is very difficult with higher demands, and not reliable. I do hope to get better fully free system distribution that can be used straight from the DVD. Even Hyperbola GNU/Linux-libre that I am using now, cannot be installed only from the DVD, not that I know. It required Internet. By duplicating repositories or packages, I could spare Internet to duplicate system on other computers, yet it is very difficult. Jean
