hey everyone, thanks for all the comments! Karsten made it very clear, but just to make it even more clear... I'll add my 2 cents. Also because what I'm going to say is one of these obvious thing you don't necesseraly see unless you experience them. (at least it was the case for me ;)
Ubuntu as it is installed by default is what we consider bloat because it comes with all kind of things and thingies that we don't see as necessary. These issues are related to what the Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu dev think is a good desktop experience, which means enabling all kind of services and use whatever desktop/panel/manager with an army of helpers. This is not how *we* use Ubuntu when we say we use it as a base for Puredyne. We only use what we think is relevant for our scope of usage, just like we did with Debian and dyne:II. As said in a previous mail, from a user POV, it's almost impossible to make a difference between our debian based c&c alpha and the ubuntu based equivalent we've been playing with so far. If you google a bit you'll see that Ubuntu as a base system is used by wide amount of distributions (not necesseraly ending with "buntu") and they all provide a different user experience and different default software selection, philosophy, etc. (for example gNewSense, Linux Mint, crunchbang...) If you want to control what is installed on your machine get a ubuntu net install and choose the advanced installer. You'll end up with a minimal system (without even acpi support or an MTA) on which you can build up and install only things you need, such a controlled system is likely to last years without the need to reinstall the machine from scratch, because it will be easier to stay in control and monitor manually changes from an update to another. OTOH, if you use the Ubuntu default installer you'll end up with the same system as every other standard Ubuntu users, force fed with tons of binaries that will make your machine not always happy because of complex interactions between them. That's a user choice. At any time you are free to choose the advanced installer and pick what you really want and need. It is more work and needs more understanding of GNU/Linux, but more control always comes with a price. But it is worth, always. Now, each distro has its own niche, so to speak. Our goal has always been to make a live distribution that is the "swiss army knife" for creative media, and that you can install fully if you need to. We focus also on stability and performance as primary goal, not on desktop experience. We *need* Puredyne to run flawlessly for workshops, live performances, recording sessions, art installations, etc. So rotating 3D desktop is not ... a priority ;) and we try to test things as much as possible. Our alpha/dev version are always available for download and any feedback is always helpful. Our packages for Puredyne, and our selection process did not change. Our live scripts are still the Debian ones and not the Ubuntu one, and our ISO generator the same. We are just using Ubuntu packages because it's more fresh, and the release cycle fits more with how we works in Puredyne. As Karsten said, we seriously looked at backporting and further pinning but this was a dead end. Backporting is nice but we're not enough in the team to do that for more than a couple of packages. and seriously that's not very exciting to do, we'd prefer focusing on the live distro features and update more often the package we are already maintaining. Regarding pinning this is not reliable on the long term, to be able to support, maintain, document and build something you need a solid ground. Also, using the, now liberated, launchpad platform brings back fun into packaging .deb :) and will help gather more developers to join our effort. https://launchpad.net/~puredyne-team https://launchpad.net/~puredyne-community Finally, the differences between packages from Debian to Ubuntu exist, that's true, but they are in most cases sane for a desktop/workstation use, so this fits Puredyne. GOTO10 would not replace for anything in the world our servers with Ubuntu, but for workstations, there are minor differences that makes perfectly sense, such as the quicker integration of things like Policykit or pulseaudio, etc. The echanges between Debian and Ubuntu and the existence of projects such as utnubu means it's not all black and white. I guess we're all learning something new every now and then, get more experienced, and try to adapt our thinking and approach accordingly. Puredyne is no difference. a. PS: About LXDE, yes we're trying it at the moment, nothing decided yet. --- [email protected] irc.goto10.org #puredyne
