MrReplikant wrote:

since Power ISA got open-sourced, there's an initiative to bring that back

Unfortunately POWER10 brought in a requirement for non-free firmware in the memory controller chips:

https://www.devever.net/~hl/omi

Not that it really matters because any POWER9 machine (or any of the "open" platforms you list) will need a hard drive and that drive will have a controller running proprietary code below ring 0. The battle is already lost.

MrReplikant wrote:

the recent release of the Alibaba Roma RISC-V laptop

RISC-V is nice but the specification does allow for non-free extensions and I'm sure most, if not all, manufacturers will take advantage of that. To presume otherwise is naive.

MrReplikant wrote:

My conclusion is, if we can work to keep our old (or simply pre-lockdown) hardware working long enough, say maybe another 10 years (depending on the device), we can wait this out long enough for those devices to become a bit more accessible to the common folk.

It seems to be getting worse rather than better but whatever.

I am not saying any of those options are perfect, and notice that I never claimed such. But what we are left with is either that, or hardware that is fully locked-in and monopolized. Which would you prefer? All I'm saying is that in time, *hopefully*, these devices will become less expensive/more accessible.

In the meantime, to stave this issue off, we need to look at how to make Devuan more efficient and/or find more workable alternatives to programs that are becoming increasingly bloated.

Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe it's futile. But i'll die screaming and go down fighting before I let Apple or Microsoft claim victory over us or the Linux Community. After all, isn't that stubbornness what got us this far in the first place, in a way?

since Power ISA got open-sourced, there's an initiative to bring that back

Unfortunately POWER10 brought in a requirement for non-free firmware in the memory controller chips:

https://www.devever.net/~hl/omi

Not that it really matters because any POWER9 machine (or any of the "open" platforms you list) will need a hard drive and that drive will have a controller running proprietary code below ring 0. The battle is already lost.

RISC-V is nice but the specification does allow for non-free extensions and I'm sure most, if not all, manufacturers will take advantage of that. To presume otherwise is naive.

It seems to be getting worse rather than better but whatever.

I haven't looked yet but likely will be "interesting" reading. So please add that info into this discussion

I never did care for KDE anything, and I've actually tried over the years - those folks seem to think on a very different wavelength than me. TBH, I never cared much for XFCE either - I've been using MATE for years. It is probably too 'heavy' for some, though not that much more than XFCE. It is a full DE - it is the fork of Gnome 2.

It seems to me that a simple WM-based option at install time would be welcome for those with older/resource-limited HW. A nicely set up IceWM or something like that, or one of the *box wm's? I mean, you can install just about anything on Devuan after the fact, but setting it up to be decent looking and reasonably functional sometimes seems a bit fiddly. A nicely setup WM at installation would be a useful offering it seems.

Always been a  MATE man myself, though XFCE 4.18 will soon make it a damn-close second, since it will finally add in recursive search in thunar and fuller date-time functionality. Still, I agree wholeheartedly, we need to look into a dedicated WM task, and I think more research is definitely warranted.

I, personally, don't like AntiX's implementation, solely on the fact that working with files is...not particularly user-friendly, especially for people like me who are used to the "windows" file management style of things. But, hey, I'll give them credit where it's due: they DID manage to make the icewm/jwm menu much more friendly. Props to them for that.

I think maybe we would be better suited looking at the Bunsenlabs or Puppy Linux Implementations

It seems to me that a simple WM-based option at install time would be welcome for those with older/resource-limited HW. A nicely set up IceWM or something like that, or one of the *box wm's? I mean, you can install just about anything on Devuan after the fact, but setting it up to be decent looking and reasonably functional sometimes seems a bit fiddly. A nicely setup WM at installation would be a useful offering it seems.

I always thought it was a good idea but these days Plasma is very nearly as light as openbox/tint2 and is *much* prettier and more user friendly (IMO).

This is what I keep hearing, but how the heck does it accomplish this? I have done a fair bit of fooling with plasma and I still can't figure that out for the life of me. Perhaps you can enlighten me?

And at any rate I don't think kernel & initramfs hacking should be within Devuan's remit. Sounds like overstretch to me.

Perhaps it's time for a task-icewm-desktop or task-jwm-desktop package? who knows.

This has been on my mind for some time and discussed off and on. Xfce has been a wonderful ride but then Gnome2 was also. Things are constantly changing and rarely for the better. Always more complexity, more bloat and more restrictions.

Happy to have you here. 

This, dear friends, is why I also feel it is imperative that we try to find more ways to keep Devuan Desktop running as resource-efficiently as possible, so we can keep it working on older hardware as long as we can. Hell, just yesterday I tested my calamares image on a 16-year-old 32-bit Toshiba Satellite, and it still runs smoothly. But for how long? The gradual bloat of the desktops will see to this, too, eventually bogging down. Perhaps it's time for a task-icewm-desktop or task-jwm-desktop package? who knows.

But, i know this: If we have managed to make it this far, I KNOW we can figure it out, I have faith in our team. We can do this!