Debian rather than Ubuntu

Hey there. I think it would be weird to have Ubuntu as the operating system that you spread, instead of Debian. Debian is true free software, instead of merely being based on free software, and supports a much broader variety of hardware, allowing many more to use the operating system. Please consider switching, or at least comment on why rather Ubuntu than Debian.

3 Likes

Interesting point. I don’t really know anything about Debian, but perhaps they chose Ubuntu because it’s more user-friendly?

Ubuntu was merely an example. Nothing related to content selection or even selection-process has been determined yet. And when we do start thinking more about that, we’ll be encouraging as many people as possible to help us design the recommendation/upvote system.

2 Likes

Great, I won’t worry about that then. Good luck!

1 Like

Ubuntu is true free software. It is freely available to all and is used all over the world by individuals and corporates alike for free. If people/organisations want their OS supported, then this can be done. Ubuntu should be the obvious choice and is already the fastest growing OS in the cloud.

1 Like

Not sure if this is still true about Ubuntu, but FWIW: Privacy in Ubuntu 12.10: Amazon Ads and Data Leaks

1 Like

I’m talking about free as in freedom, not free as in free beer.

1 Like

When the time comes, it will be left to the Outernet community (aka: the world) to determine which distro to broadcast. Hopefully there is enough capacity to periodically broadcast both.

1 Like

I’d like to put in my 2 cents here.

you could argue for a ‘strict’ free software policy, but that becomes prohibitive to working with proprietary people (okay that’s circular logic). Anyway, it’s important to note that not everything at this time is open source (you can’t live on gnusense off the bat), I can see a situation where someone wants to install free software but needs the proprietary drivers etc, and then they’re bricked. (not the best example).

It’s important to focus on outernet’s capacity – is the software bloated or duplicated? I would have proposed Linux Mint as one of the files being broadcast, but it’s a descendant of ubuntu, so i’m unsure if that ranks it down, simply because of size considerations/broadcasting better things. Then again, leaving them with a micro system kinda sucks all to itself…

I raised more questions then I ‘answered’, so maybe somebody can take it from here?

The Amazon thing is just an icon being on the desktop to access Amazon easier. It is not an ad. and them things can be turned off in the system settings.

It’s not just Amazon. It’s about the requirement to ship sources for everything that OS has, which means, the more bloat you have, the more source code you need to ship to be GPL-compliant, and burning more bandwidth for things people may actually not need or want.

1 Like
  1. People tend to forget that the gpl license on the operating system is only for the operating system. Not other software.

  2. There are plenty of people who do use them services, So adding them services onto the operating system was chosen by the Ubuntu team.

  3. Debian is not an operating system for the noobies. Therefore this is why Outernet has chosen to use Ubuntu.

Sure, it may take more bandwith to download. But every software grows in time. It is not just Ubuntu.

Plus, bandwith would not be a huge problem. Cause if you could download Ubuntu on either the internet or Outernet, It would actually relieve some bandwith on the internet since outernet would be another option.

So I cant see bandwith being an issue.

As a matter of fact, I think it would be nice to have both Debian and Ubuntu on Outernet’s network because both of them are highly used.

And both are free and open source.

Personally, I don’t have anything against either, but I think Puppy has a much better chance of making it into the Library until we have significantly more bandwidth. Let’s just say that daily bandwidth is currently smaller than a single CD.

Of course, nothing says we can’t ship stuff broken down into chunks. Ah, that reminds of the days when games came on 10 5.25" floppies. :smile:

1 Like

The internet was that way back in the 1.0 days. Outernet is pretty much like the web 1.0 days. I see something good coming as it advances. :smile:

As long as the outernet team keeps the hands of government and corporations off of Outernet, I think Outernet has good potential. We do not need rulers over Outernet the way they have taken over the internet. :smile:

Well, Outernet is also a corporation. Now what? :smile:

i mean corporations like internet service providers or microsoft or apple or even google from trying to get their hands on it. :smile: