If you do not want to use software written by Red Hat, you have to stop using Linux. Quite frankly also much of the GNU suite such as Glibc and GCC. You would absolutely have to stop using either Xorg or Wayland. Systemd is just an example of something Red Hat created but they are massive contributors to a lot of other surf too.
I you want to avoid software written by profit motivated companies, you are down to about 15% of the open source ecosystem.
Correct.
There is also iFuse and iMobileDevice
Very impressive. The M1 Macs at least seem to be quite functional at this point and everything either has been or is in the process of hitting the mainline.
Lots of work to do of course but many would have bet against getting this far. But there is a big difference between “could be better” and “stuff doesn’t work”. Getting the Rust based GPU driver into the kernel is a major achievement on its own and may do a lot to silence the “Rust isn’t used for anything real in the kernel” crowd as well.
With all the recent drama, I think some assumed the project was on the ropes. But the updates on the M2 and the reduced support burden of their past work leave me pretty hopeful that good progress will continue.
That works.
To my ear though, “Linux based” leans too much towards the kernel. It makes me want to ask “what do you mean”.
I prefer “Linux distribution” or just Linux distro. If I was asked what that meant, I would simply have to say that Linux is available from different groups each of which curates slightly different collections of software which they “distribute”. Nobody needs to knew what a kernel is to understand that explanation.
I mean, I just say Linux. But when I do feel the need to distinguish, Linux distro and Linux kernel works for me.
If just saying Linux confuses you, just say Linux distro and / or Linux kernel explicitly.
To me, Linux means Linux distro unless further clarification or comedy is given. If you mean the kernel, you should always say so—the Linux kernel.
Non-technical users have no idea what the kernel is and you are not going to talk to them about it. So, when you say Linux they think Linux distro. It is not confusing unless we make it that way.
With Liberty Linux and OpenELA, a key SuSE strategy is supporting customers that are using competing Linux distros.
Moving to more standard tooling like Ansible and Cockpit positions them to support these mixed environments better. It also makes it easier to turn a RHEL customer that adopts Liberty Linux for support into a pure SLE customer later on.
Overall, it seems like a reasonable strategy. I know YaST has fans but it does not seem like many people were ditching other distros for the chance to use it. The engineering resources spent on YaST may be more productively used elsewhere.
Moved my mother a few days ago (LMDE). Printer too. Took about an hour.
Most of it was getting apps setup, moving pictures over, and making sure she was already logged into things like Facebook so she did not have to remember the passwords after I left.
Her biggest complaint has been that her friends email addresses do mot automatically pop-up in Thunderbird. They will once she has sent or received email from them. So this will pass.
I know this is all just in fun but a mail server is one thing I would certainly want a supported kernel on. Security and email are not friends.
I just learned that Tiny Core Linux still supports 486 out of the box in their latest release (Tiny Core 16 with kernel 6.12).
Also, Arch 32 still supports 486 as well though I think only non-GUI packages.
There are a significant number of Windows users that lack technical skills and rely on others for support. Many will also have hardware that does not support Windows 11.
They have 4 choices:
Many, probably most, of these users will be happy continuing to use an unsupported version of Windows. However not all of their support advisors will be happy with this. That includes me. I do not want to take responsibility for these users on an unsupported operating system.
For the same reasons, I am not going to recommend running Windows 11 without support.
So, the choice is buy new hardware or try Linux.
These people that are perfectly happy with their computers the way they are, why do they want to go buy new computers? This is not a very attractive option. I think it is the least attractive option.
Given the other choices, trying Linux, especially as a trial to see if new hardware purchases can be avoided, sounds attractive.
If you are relying on others for support, moving to Windows 11 or moving to Linux is the same amount of work. It is no more difficult and probably no less scary if somebody is helping you.
People would rather stay with what they have. Microsoft will not let them.
You “need” that?
In the absolute, you are wrong. Some will. Some have. I have migrated a few myself.
The end of support is a problem for Windows users and therefore an opportunity for Linux supporters.
Will a large fraction of Windows users migrate to Linux? Probably not. That said, more will move if we educate them and offer our assistance. Even a small migration of Windows users would be a significant increase in Linux Desktop users. If 5 percent of Windows users migrated, it would double the number of Linux users. So, moving even a small percentage of Windows users would be a major success.
Why does that bother you?
Just moved my mother from Windows 10 to LMDE.
To be fair, not every Linux distro works the same. It has been a while since I setup Apache but there used to be quite a difference in configuration between Fedora derived distros and Debian derived distros for example.
I won’t repeat the whole message but
https://www.cip-project.org/about/linux-kernel-core-packages
There will be a Linux Foundation supported kernel that can be built for 486 until at least 2035. After that, you might have to backport security fixes yourself.
I think you are good on your mail server for a while.
Linux kernel 6.15 will still boot on a 486. You can pair that with MUSL 1.25 (current) and the latest Busybox to create a perfectly viable Linux system.
Debian Trixie is going to be released in a couple months with kernel 6.12 LTS.
As somebody pointed out in a different post, the Linux Foundation will provide support for kernel 6.12 for 10 years after Debian Trixie is released.
https://www.cip-project.org/about/linux-kernel-core-packages
So, there will be a supported kernel that can be compiled for the 486 until mid 2035 at least.
You can kind of still buy them:
Got it. I was not familiar with this Linux Foundation initiative. Very cool.
It looks like they support the LTS kernels as an extension of Debian. So, kernel 6.12 will get 10 years of support after Debian Trixie launches with it this summer.
That means 486 will be fully supported until at least mid 2035. Amazing.
Even those distros are only possible if you arbitrarily decide the firmware is not software. If you want to be more honest about having free software all way down, you have to avoid AMD and Intel CPUs at the very least and most GPUs too. And, if you are not going to do that, why fuss about the BIOS?
Unless you are using a totally Free Software stack on on Open Source CPU with an Open Source ISA, it is just a question of where you draw the line between convenience and “principles”.
There are truly Open Source RISC-V CPUs. It could be done. That is not what those “libre” distros are doing.
Since none of us are using a 100% free stack, I think distros like Debian strike the right balance between “free” and “useful”.