Preach brother! I really like the idea of GOLD somehow being a stripped SteamOS. Thanks for explaining your view in detail. I definitely agree that distros are like cultures. I am starting to see this with Mastodon actually. Each instance is for a bubble of people who are really into something - usually. I'm interested in your project. Has it started? I'd like to contribute my skills to it.
----- Original Message ----- From: [email protected] To: "trisquel-users" <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2017 1:31:08 AM Subject: Re: [Trisquel-users] Proposed Project: GOLD - Gaming on Linux Distribution I definitely see GOLD being developed in a way that draws from and contributes back to the work of other libre distros, including Trisquel. I'm not looking to reinvent the wheel here, or create anything exclusive. Since every part of the GOLD distro will be free code, the Trisquel crew could include the GOLD gaming library app in their repos and make the accompanying game repos available to Trisquel users, if they wanted to. But I agree when Soon To Be Free says a distro is not just an OS, and the project infrastructure wrapped around maintaining and distributing that OS, but also a user community with it's own identity and group culture. Gaming is a niche interest within the wider software freedom movement, and software freedom is a niche interest within the gaming world. One of the big picture goals of GOLD would to increase that overlap, mainly by drawing more gamers into the software freedom movement by addressing their specific needs. But also by showing free software/ open source folks we can have a user-friendly console gaming experience without holding our noses and using proprietary consoles or Windows dual-boots, or trying to play games using interfaces optimized for work. My main reasons for envisioning GOLD as a separate distro is that form follows function. Trisquel is aimed at average desktop users doing a mix of work, communication, and entertainment. The default user interface for both Trisquel and Trisquel-mini is a standard desktop environment, designed with the assumption that the user is sitting in front of a desktop or laptop, interacting mainly with a keyboard and mouse. Although it copes fairly well with larger screens and multi-screen set-ups, the Trisquel interface is optimized for the medium-sized screens of desktops and laptops. GOLD will be aimed at gamers doing a mix of gaming, communication, and entertainment. The default user interface will be a game library or entertainment centre environment, designed with the assumption that the user is sitting in a couch or an armchair some distance from the computer and the screen, interacting mainly with a game controller of some kind. Although it will aim to support as many screen sizes as possible, the GOLD interface will be optimized for the larger screens typical of gaming and video watching uses. Because I envision GOLD as an entertainment console, I see no reason to include an office suite or any other work-orientated software in the default install, and maybe not even in the repos. Keeping the default install as light as possible in both size (MBs on disk) and resources used (processor, memory, graphics) is as important for a game OS as it is for a multimedia production OS. But also, since so much of both my work and my leisure time these days involves computers and the net, it's becoming very important to me to find ways to keep these use cases separate. I see GOLD as a way to provide a libre entertainment system that strongly discourages segueing into work. I envision it as something I'd have installed on a dedicated gaming box in the lounge, or dual-booted on a laptop with a work distro (eg Trisquel), which would be optimized as much as possible to discourage segueing into entertainment. Another more technical reason is that I'd rather base GOLD releases directly off Debian, like SteamOS does, rather than wait for new packages and updates to trickle down through Ubuntu (and maybe Trisquel) before we can use them. In fact, it may be possible to build GOLD as a fork of SteamOS, just as Trisquel is built as a fork of Ubuntu, starting with a SteamOS build, replace the kernel with linux-libre, replacing the Steam interface with the GOLD interface etc. BTW I thought of another set of words GOLD could stand for, which avoids the use of "Linux" without "GNU": Gaming Orientated Libre Distribution GOLD doesn't have to official stand for anything. It's a good shiny name in its own right. I'm not wedded to GOLD either, for now it's just a working title to hang the project on. Another name could be GLAM: GNU Linux Adventure Machine
