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New Linux Vision That Involves btrfs

posted by LaminatorX on Monday September 01 2014, @09:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the puttering-about dept.

boteeka writes:

Phoronix has an article up about some interesting ideas of Lennart Poettering about what could be a possible future for Linux:

Lennart Poettering of systemd and PulseAudio fame has published a lengthy blog post that shares his vision for how he wishes to change how Linux software systems are put together to address a wide variety of issues. The Btrfs file-system and systemd play big roles with his new vision. Long story short, Lennart is trying to tackle how Linux distributions and software systems themselves are assembled to improve security, deal with the challenges of upstream software vendors integrating into many different distributions, and "the classic Linux distribution scheme is frequently not what end users want."

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday September 02 2014, @09:24PM

    by Marand (1081) on Tuesday September 02 2014, @09:24PM (#88651) Journal

    The problem I see with the GNOME OS goal is that it's like trying to kill a mouse with a nuke: it might get the job done but you're destroying everything else in the process. Simplifying cross-distro installing for third-party packages is something that's been done before, multiple times, and never required destroying distros and handing the keys to the kingdom over to Redhat. 0install [0install.net] is one example that worked pretty well (especially coupled with rox-filer [sourceforge.net]) but didn't catch on; we've also got Docker [docker.com], which is the current golden child of this sort of movement; and even Steam shows that it can be done without obliterating the underlying system. Games have been packaging static-linked binaries to circumvent package management for years, and some even provide deb or rpm files. Then you've got things like Debian's checkinstall command, which lets you take a non-Debian installer and automagically make a .deb out of it for safe, clean removal later.

    It's a great argument to make, citing ease of third party distribution and getting proprietary software companies on board, but it can (and has) been done without going the "GNOME OS" route, and should really remain that way.

    You want my ยข2? They should have looked back to what the Unix greats were doing with Plan 9's 9p: make every bloody thing a file. That would solve a lot of issues relating to interprocess communication, messaging, video, audio, networking, etc. Instead of reinventing the wheel over and over they should have thought "Hey, how do we break these problems down to a common denominator?" That common denominator being how things communicate which is what all these goofy protocols and daemons are trying to solve. The sad part is the problem was solved 20+ years ago when the Unix developers saw the limits of how things were and are to this day, done.

    The really sad part is, Linux was moving steadily toward that route for a long time, including things like adding the /sys/ mount, and then something happened. I don't know if we got an influx of a new breed of Linux user, or ex-Microsoft employees, or what, and they brought with them a desire to tear all that down and make everything binary logs, registries, blobs, hidden functionality, single-user systems, etc.

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