thats very impressive indeed. it sounds very much like gentoo is still gentoo, not some wayward drifting, frankenstein redhat thing.

well i asked, but i included a url and im guessing that too has to be moderated, it hasnt hit the page yet:

https://lists.dyne.org/lurker/mindex/dn … 00.en.html

i would be very interested in hearing more. if and when you do, naturally.

the repos and the reliability of upgrades.

apt has its limitations, and im not a fan of those. but running apt is pretty reliable. when i do updates on void at any time, i know it can hose the entire system, and the commands are relatively esoteric. ive used lots of package managers. not happily, as im never looking at these just for me, but also for people i would recommend the distro to.

i dont update ANYTHING on void without a backup of Every Single File on the system, so that when it finally hoses basic utils like cp and cat and libraries that leafpad needs, i can at least boot live and copy that stuff back.

is there a better way? i dont doubt it. but its too complex for me to absorb myself into void linux culture, the documentation isnt terribly friendly either, i work with lots of distros. ultimately if the system is too complicated i just move on. nice of them to fix the system issues, but they added a bunch of others, imo. fine if youre a geek and love things like pacman and portage. im trying to prove that gnu/linux is friendly. i guess you need apt for that. maybe im being unfair, and just "dont like rolling releases." thats possible as well.

oh thats good to know.

i already do a lot of distro remixing, and the 32bit remixes work across more machines than the 64bit ones. i have no delusions about this catching on as a common solution, but it works pretty well for me.

either way, i need a 32bit version for my 32bit hardware. there are some pretty nifty netbooks that arent 64bit and the sheer portability makes them worth using as long as they work. there are also some 32bit servers that arent strictly useless.

no solution for 32 bit.

a lot of people want x86 to just die already for freedom reasons, for years my take on that is to support 32 bit, which works on both older 32 bit hardware and practically every piece of hardware-spying, more-compromised 64 bit x86 hardware.

i use 64 bit hardware of course, but not all of it 64 bit and none of it runs a 64 bit os. the "hard limitations" of 32 bit are a bit exaggerated, there are ways around many of them.

fsmithred used to care about 32 bit (he likely still does, i havent asked) and roy from techrights still uses it as well.

also the idea of using a browser from github is a bit creepy, i consider everything on github controlled by microsoft. that problem is going to get worse before it gets better.

at any rate, it take hours or more for my emails to end up "lurker" and im not sure theyre all going through at all. i sent one reply that seems to be missing, while other replies to the same thread have shown up, so ill just post it here:

then ill keep trying for now.

ill try not to take it personally.

one of the reasons i blather is that im usually trying to think of a way to do something impossible-- like get several distros running with zero work. sometimes there is just no substitute for rolling sleeves up but one of the key motivations for a geek is to find a better way. without that urge, computers and the internet wouldnt exist.

there is a plan of sorts. its an ongoing, do-a-little, check status, do-a-little more kind of thing. i wont outline it all (youre welcome) but if it wasnt already clear, im always happy to talk about it. it gets more refined (practical) that way.

none of this perfectly fits devuan because i am always looking for a holistic solution for every distro and every single user, including people who dont use it.

its not one-size-fits all, that doesnt exist and creates disasters like systemd.

devuan has many missions--

1. create a distro
2. support a distro
3. promote freedom
4. fix debian
5. beat systemd, which is a weapon (imo) designed to destroy posix (save posix)

the fifth freedom is about 3 / 4 / 5, because we are promoting freedom in the hope that will fix debian and beat systemd.

stallman is out of the fsf, as some of us predicted. he probably cant change the four freedoms now-- nor would he. for better or worse (typically better) hes very set in his ways. his authority wont assist this, it wont give us something we can point to and say "because stallman said."

before we throw out the idea, its good to look for what voices would count. for lots of reasons, jaromil liking the idea counts for a heck of a lot. he likes the idea, so theres that.

what we want is for enough people to like the idea, to care about the principle. for it to appeal to their philosophy.

this fifth freedom is just a step along the way, i think it can be very powerful. i LIKE init freedom, i think this can be represent init freedom and even bolster it considerably. its difficult for many to care about init, systemd isnt an init anymore, its a replacement os (steve litt said something to that effect, frankly so did poettering so its not a crazy thing for us to say about systemd.)

but the freedom says almost as much as "the freedom to change" but it still says more.

short version: we go find more people and what they think of it, we find as much approval for the idea as possible.

long version: there is more to it than that, but every journey starts with a single step.

i try to go where i can help. if i can help here, thats great. id like devuan to succeed. practically anybody and everybody fighting systemd, id like them to succeed.

“for Microsoft to win, the customer must lose.” https://antitrust.slated.org/halloween/halloween1.html

thats the attitude of the people we are up against. they need to defeat everybody else to win. we dont need to do that. we can all succeed, and they will still lose at destroying us. but we know thats their goal.

ours, i think, is to make that goal as clear to as many people as possible, i thought the pillars idea might help, only because i didnt think anybody could write a fifth freedom that really worked. i think we have one.

if i write too much, feel free to skim or skip to the end. dont go back unless its out of curiosity, or you want to.

the way i contribute to things is to take stock of what i have to offer and look around for opportunities to help using my actual talents. ive tried explaining what i have to offer before, but one or two people were more interested in shooting it down. ive come back to look again, but out comes the idea again that im not doing anything. ive been quite busy this week, actually.

whip cracks just dont do it for me-- thats not what im into. i prefer to think about what im doing, before each stage of acting. that way when im doing, i have some idea of what im doing. if other people already know, then good for them. if you can do good without knowing what youre doing, thats also great. i applaud it.

one of my favourite stories, from the tao of pooh, is about a general who could make use of anybodys talents. his strength was in figuring out exactly what tasks they were best for. im actually very good at finding things i can do, but not everybody is always interested. so be it, but that doesnt obligate me to do random tasks unrelated to the skills i have. not every coding task is easily transferable to another, for example.

anyway, the general was made aware of a master thief, whom he sent to steal a hairpin from a rival generals tent. the story goes on but the message sent was that the thief would eventually return for the generals head, and they were able to convince the general to leave them alone after that. now, you have a list of things youd like help with, but you dont seem interested in where my talents lay. no problem, as long as you dont ask me to do anything.

i come here to learn, i learn so i can do things, i learn many things by talking with people. by suggesting i stop talking to do some random chore you are interrupting my work. if thats the best use you can make use of my talents, to imply im not using them, i would simply say that you dont know me yet-- you might not ever. but thats not my problem, and i wont take the blame for it. i already know that no matter how much i do for devuan, youre not going to make anything easy. but youre really not helping me by making it harder-going.

trust me on this-- it was enough trouble i was going to already, and if its too much trouble ill find a work environment where i can get more done-- ive got several of those workplaces, because i do a lot.

too soon.