TechieMoe.com

Introduction:

gNewSense and I have an interesting history. Taking that into account, allow me to explain that I do understand the purpose of this distribution.

I understand the forces that drive "bbrazil" and "ompaul" to take a perfectly functional operating system and gut it. However, understanding does not imply agreement.

That being said, I also am genuinely curious to see what they can accomplish. In theory, I like the idea of a totally open-source operating system. I'm just not so sure I agree with the gNewSense implementation of that idea.

I approached this rant a little differently than ones in the past. I've already determined due to a lack of OSS drivers for the important hardware on my computers (3D cards, wireless internet) that gNewSense will not work for me as an everyday desktop.

Therefore rather than lambasting it for not being what I want, I'll simply point out what it has and what it doesn't, with a minimum of my usual vitriol.

Wait... you're still reading? Well gee, perhaps I do have some fans that aren't here just to watch me swear at things.

Install:

gNewSense takes Ubuntu as its base and strips out the parts it doesn't like. Because of that, the LiveCD looks pretty much like you would think: a slightly-modified Ubuntu.

I double-clicked on the Install icon and it immediately asked me for a password. That's kind of odd. I didn't remember seeing a reference to a default root password anywhere. I tried just clicking "OK". The install window popped up. Apparently it was just a bug.

The rest of the install was word-for-word the same as Ubuntu Hardy Heron, so I won't get into too much detail. For some reason my keyboard was detected as "English UK" instead of "English US".

A gNewSense developer has emailed me about this one. Apparently the keyboard layout isn't being detected at all. English UK just happens to be the layout of the folks who spun the LiveCD, so that setting carried over.

Reboot brought me to a pleasant login screen. It's apparent that since the last release gNewSense has employed the help of some graphic artists. I like the look. Now if they could just work on the bootsplash.

GCC is installed by default on gNewSense, which I appreciated. I immediately decided to try and taint my pure-OSS environment by installing the commercial Nvidia drivers. It errored out saying that it couldn't find the kernel headers.

I checked Synaptic and although the "build-essential" package was installed, apparently the gNewSense version of this package doesn't include kernel headers.

I find that odd, since I don't see anything in the Free Software Foundation's bylaws that prohibits building kernel modules.

Like regular Ubuntu, MP3 support wasn't included. The main difference is that unlike Ubuntu, gNewSense won't offer to help you fix that.

Software Selection:

GIMP, Pidgin, and OpenOffice are installed. Firefox is not (it's MPL, not GPL-licensed). If you either don't know the difference between the two or don't care, I understand. Epiphany is the default web browser.

I also got an email (same developer as above) for this one. The reason Firefox wasn't included was the same reason it's not included in Debian: trademark issues.

To call something "Firefox" you apparently have to agree to pass all your code changes through Mozilla, which is something gNewSense (and Debian) can't realistically do.

Aside from a few additions to the lineup (Emacs, GCC and the text-based BSD games package) pretty much everything else is the same default program setup as Ubuntu.

I noticed a few holdovers in the Add/Remove programs menu that I was surprised by. There was a check box for NDISWrapper and the Nvidia drivers.

Obviously I couldn't download them (no internet connection), but I find it surprising that the maintainers would allow the option. They made it a point to remove any and all reference to the "non-free" or "restricted" repositories in Software Sources.

I was unable to use the CDROM as a source for Add/Remove. It did not register as a valid repository and I could find no folders with DEB files in them on the disc itself.

I've read recently that there are rumblings in the Ubuntu and gNewSense camps about splitting off from the Ubuntu base entirely. This would certainly be a bold move. I can't say a necessarily smart one, but definitely bold.

The developer I talked to told me that actually, the article above is dealing with the fate of Gobuntu, not gNewSense. Shuttleworth is essentially asking whether Gobuntu is necessary or should like-minded developers just focus on gNewSense instead. My mistake.

Conclusion:

As I mentioned in the beginning, gNewSense is not for me. I am not their target audience, nor is the majority of the world, in my opinion. However, the distribution is an interesting experiment if nothing else.

If you're zealous about "Free" software (according to the Free Software Foundation's definition) and want a low-calorie quick and easy install of a Debian-like distribution, here's your sign... er... distro. (You didn't actually expect me to go through a whole rant without one jab, did you?)