Re: A GNU/Hurd Roadmap dream

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

On Sunday, 7. June 2009 13:16:04 Sergiu Ivanov wrote:
> I guess one of the most serious problems is about hardware
> support... Once Hurd is able to run not only on a very limited range
> of metal specifications, there will be more people willing to (at
> least) try it out.

I try to get at least a bit of that with the qemu image and the simple 
translator readme. It can at least show people that the Hurd works and what it 
can do. 

> > I mostly need an email-client, a console, a webbrowser and python for
> > most stuff :)
> > For many things dwm suffices as Window manager ;)
>
> Rather ascetic :-) I guess Hurd can do all this right now :-)

Since the new versions of qemu don't require gcc 3.x anymore, I can also use 
it again :) 

I just need to get x11 running... 

> I remember Duck (I'm awfully sorry for not remembering his real name
> :-( ) mentioning something about compiling kde4libs :-)

That would be great! 

But I would also go for first doing it in dwm. I'll just have to select 
another email client then - and set it up with GnuPG. 

And I know the problem about real names - as soon as my brain starts referring 
to people by their nick names, I need an address book to find the real names 
:) 

> Ah, great! :-) I love rolling releasing OSs :-) I suppose, this could
> be a bit of advantage for Gentoo GNU/Hurd, but, unfourtunately, I'm
> not really into these matters, so I can't tell...

At least it's quite easy to update important stuff that way. 

The only "disadvantage" is that you have no forced releases. You can release 
whenever you want, since every version of the tree is valid, and that's not 
quite perfect marketing (ask apple for how to do it perfectly :) - but 
perfectly unfree and as such not an option... ). 

> > -> more emotionally: http://draketo.de/english/songs/light/gentoo-for-me
> A very nice song :-) I liked the drums, too ;-)

I'm glad to hear that :) 

It took me days to get the rhythm right :) 

> This is true, but I wonder how much the somewhat reduced speed of the
> Hurd may influence the build times of portage packages... Given that
> the Hurd is often used in virtualized environments, this should be a
> matter of concern, since .debs will install faster.

As long as you use the same host architecture and USE-flags, you can just 
create binpackages on one machine and then let others use that machine as 
binhost (just install the binary packages), so it shouldn't matter too much (I 
hope :) ). 

> > PPS: Yes. I like Gentoo. Much :)
> > It only has one drawback: You get used to it, and that spoils you for
> > almost every other distro - My Kubuntu died beyond repair after half an
> > hour of playing (first try) and I ran back to Gentoo :-)
>
> I'd like to migrate to Gentoo soon :-) I've tried it some time in the
> past, but it didn't fit my needs then. Nevertheless, (having listened
> to your song ;-) ) I guess I'll be going into the World of Gentoo
> anyway :-)

And here we are again at the power of words ;) 

But that power only works, if the words are backed by a solid foundation, and 
I think Gentoo is that. You can only find out for yourself if I'm right, 
though ;-)

My first install took me three days, though, so you should plan some free 
time. And I wouldn't play too much - it's very easy to get carried away with 
all the options it offers ;-)

About a month ago I needed 2 days - one for the backup (the worst part - I 
double- and triplechecked it to avoid dataloss), 4 hours for deciding and 
doing exactly what I want, the rest of the day for letting my computer compile 
the system while I do something else :-) 

Best wishes, 
Arne

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 
   - singing a part of the history of free software -
              http://infinite-hands.draketo.de

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