The basic jist is that the distro is meant to be run on lab computers in CS departments and allow access to university resources.  These include things like Windows/CIFS shares, Zephyr/XMPP, and things like that.

Here are some of my current ideas

• Window Managers

e17

Great window manager, just currently unstable

KDE

Already built into the package manager I’m thinking of using, seems to be a dev favorite

GNOME

Stable and simple

• Programming Software

  • emacs/vim (both graphical and console versions)
  • Various programming language integration versions for above editors
  • GNU Compiler Collection (the whole thing, C, ADA, Java, etc)
  • Java JDK (depending on redistribution licensing but it shouldn’t be a problem)
  • Eclipse and Netbeans IDEs with various plugins
  • gdb/DDD
  • dtrace (depending on usability)
  • Various other compilers like GHC and SBCL
  • Developer tools for AIs and such (CommonLisp and PROLOG stuff)

• Usability Software

  • OpenOffice 3.1
  • Compression software (tar, unrar, 7zip, etc)
  • OpenSSH (obviously)
  • Firefox
  • Rhythmbox

• Math Software

  • Maxima
  • IT++
  • GNU libmatheval
  • Octave

• Documentation

  • Free Documentation and tutorials for programming languages and theory
  • Software to cache web pages locally so they can be pulled up without an internet connection

• Security Software

grsecurity/PAX

Help mitigate attacks against the system and also has the added benefit of forcing the CS Student to code properly and prevents them from doing stuff they shouldn’t be doing

SELinux

Again, helps mitigate attacks and prevents the user from doing things with code that he shouldn’t be doing

ClamAV/chkrootkit/rkhunter

Just in case

• Package Managers

Nix

I have a preference for Nix because its purely functional (id est, non-destructive) which will help mitigate issues with dependency hell, and also allow easy rollback to previously working software if testing new versions. My issue is that because its purely functional, it’ll use up a lot of drive space. Flash drives should be large enough where this isn’t an issue, but there would probably be the need for a cleanup script that’ll clean out older versions

Pacman

This one is good because its on a rolling release system and has lots of packages (pacman is Arch Linux’s package manager), it just doesn’t offer the flexibility of Nix

APT

There’s always Debian’s package manager. It could prove to be difficult, however, to run this on a rolling release system because of how its designed. Preferably stay away from this package manager and other staged release package managers

If you like where this is headed, you can help out or you can at least give me some ideas for the OS.  Included software, underlying systems, stuff like that.  Obviously I’d like to use as much F/OSS code as humanly possible.  I’m not opposed to stepping outside of the bounds of F/OSS, but due to licensing regarding redistribution, I figure it’ll be a heck of a lot less of a headache.

I wanted to slap e17 on my laptop which is running Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, and there exist scripts like easy_e17 to simplify the process but I found it just complicated and convoluted things. So, I just opted to do it manually.

The e17 User’s Guide is actually the best starting place.

From there its just compile and follow instructions. Also you’ll need to create a way to start e17 when your PC boots. I already had GDM installed and working so I just did the GDM Install (for Intrepid the path is /usr/share/xsessions). You’ll need the enlightenment.desktop file which, if you installed to the default location, is in /usr/local/share/xsessions. Just copy that file into the /usr/share/xsessions folder then log out. Hit the Sessions button at the login window and select Enlightenment. Should be good to go.

Needless to mention, after you run the autoconf script, you can change your CFLAGS in the Makefile. DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH USING GCC CFLAGS. If you are familiar, I also assume you know where to get your CFLAGS, if not, the usual sources have them.

Again, don’t edit your CFLAGS if you don’t know what this does or how to use it. e17 will not run or might have adverse effects on your system if you specify incorrect CFLAGS.

I take no reponsibility for your install.

e17 is lightening fast and it works great too. If you have 2-3 hours then I recommend this (you can probably do it a lot faster but this is a pretty good time to set aside, just for playing with it if nothing else).

Keep in mind that e17 is also technically experimental software, and that tons of work is always being done on it. You can repeat this build and install process however often you want.

First OSX.  Lets step through my issues with OSX step by step.  First is that OSX is based on BSD-UNIX (and the Mach kernel), namely FreeBSD, a operating system family emphasizing F/OSS, and while this in and of itself is not a problem, what Apple did with it, is.  OSX was turned spawned out of not only BSD-UNIX but also numerous other F/OSS projects that then formed a good portion of the basis for OSX.  Apple then essentially threw a pretty GUI on it, and made it so it will only run on their proprietary hardware.  I know there are other aspects of OSX, but I cannot get past this part because it totally circumvents the entire F/OSS model and philosophy.  Second, Apple’s OSX is horribly insecure.  Yeah, few virus’s exist for OSX but that’s because it’s more obscure than anything else.  Heck Vista was called more secure than OSX and you may be asking why this is.  Well, a lot of the open source codebase that comprises OSX hasn’t been updated in huge amounts of time.  Furthermore, OSX doesn’t do any modern sort of heap/stack/library protection or randomization.  It inherits a lot of UNIX’s security, but its legacy security.  It really needs to be brought up to date.  Finally, my last problem with OSX, is that Apple doesn’t contribute any F/OSS back to the F/OSS community.  I would be a hell of a lot less critical of Apple Computer if they simply contributed back to the F/OSS community.  It could be anything really, from simple tools to make life easier on UNIX, to open-sourcing their filesystem, to even making OSX/UNIX application interop easier, but none of this has ever come to fruition.  Plus, it seems like in general, Apple users have something crammed up where the sun doesn’t shine about F/OSS (example).  This isn’t always the case but seriously, loop-holing around BSD style licenses is one thing, but flat out ignoring the GPL is just not cool.

That being said, I’m also having some issues with the Linux license.  Story time kids, Sun Microsystems has pretty much Open Source’d everything in their software product line, with very few exceptions.  It was at this point that Sun Microsystems rocketed up to my list of favorite companies.  One of the rocking things that Sun also open sourced with everything else was their ZFS file system which, if you don’t already know about ZFS, you need to take some time to read right now.  Basically ZFS is a totally rocking, next-generation file system that has all the features and performance to please both end users and ultra-high-end SAN box admins.  However, the FSF considers the license under which ZFS was released (CDDL) to be incompatible with the GPL (under which the Linux kernel is licensed) because of some of the clauses the CDDL inherits from the MPL, which I think is a crying shame.  Because of this confliction, ZFS can never be ported to the Linux kernel as long as both pieces of software remain licensed the way they currently stand.  Now I know there exists a ZFS FUSE driver for Linux but I think by running the filesystem in userspace, a lot of the extensibility and performance of ZFS is going to be inhibited, not to mention that this completely misses the point that a programmer should be Free to put said ZFS code into the Linux kernel should he so choose (you know, the founding basis of the GPL movement).

Plus the Open Source Business Model, as its currently known, just isn’t working to the extent that it should be (though I wouldn’t say it’s totally broken).  Companies backing Open Source and GPL can be a very good thing, lest we forget about the invaluable contributions that Red Hat, Google, and Sun Microsystems has made to the F/OSS community.

Which brings me (finally) to my five points about operating systems.  This is a bulleted list of objectives that I would like to see an OS strive for as well as what I think the Free software movement should be striving for.

1. A commercial OS is ok, provided that, it has UNIX-like functionality, is polished and ready to meet the consumer end of the product (meaning keeping up with security patches, has a nice GUI, and stays innovative)
2. It needs to be kept up to date.  If it does use F/OSS software, keep it up to date.  Better yet, help the projects or at least some of them with security patches, bugfixes, and otherwise
3. It needs to be an open OS.  If you want to charge for binaries and installers, fine, but being able to acquire the source code for the OS, so the users of said OS can make changes to it as well as publish said changes, needs to be a priority.  It also needs to be free of strict licensing that could cause conflicts with other open source licenses and even some proprietary licenses as the case may be.  Also it needs to be able to run on non-vendor-specific hardware.  Don’t make an OS for one specific hardware platform.
4. The company publishing the OS should contribute back to the open source community.  It’s important that whatever is taken out of the Open Source community, needs to be put back in.  If you take significant amounts of code out of the F/OSS community, put back in significant amounts, whether they be code, bugfixes, innovative programs, useful programs, paradigm shifts, or otherwise.  Be a responsible company.
5. The OS should not be just a hotch potch compilation of F/OSS software.  It should strive for some sort of innovation and conform to some principle.  Whether this is meeting the needs of a niche market, or just making UNIX a more user friendly OS, its important to actually crack open an IDE and get some stuff done.  Also, it’s very important that, while maintaining a level of independence, that cross-platform compatibility be either maintained, or be made easy to maintain (such as open sourcing your package management system or better yet using a currently existing one)

These are my 5 points about operating systems as I would like to see them exist.  I doubt I’ll ever SEE this but one can dream, can he not?

I have high hopes for operating systems like OpenSolaris and Linux.  While these operating systems have their problems, they seem to be striving for these goals as listed above.  However they really lack polish and a few other things at this time, but I’m really excited to see their development moving forward.

Anyway, I hope you’ve found this article at least interesting and that you can take something from it.

So I have a confession, Java really isn’t that bad. On the contrary, it’s actually quite good in my opinion. What I meant by my statement is mostly because of my hatred of doing manual GUI’s in Java(I haven’t attempted them in C++). Ever since then I’ve found Visual Editor in Eclipse and the NetBeans GUI editor and both have been promising.

But as it were, more updates after I finish this->semester. This includes gaming stuffs, and more satire, projects, etc.

Also I hope I can ditch my full-time job for a part time at some point.

With C++, the experience is ultimately rewarding. Sure you want to beat your head in with a slice of lemon, wrapped around a large gold brick(even though that’s considered enjoyable for some people); but in the end, it makes you feel like a king of computers. You finally shake off that last compiler error and finalize the debugging and you feel like all 1337 having done so, ever the more confident until you sit down for another session with it.

Java, by contrast, makes you feel like you’ve just been halfway through brain surgery and the surgeon went for lunch, so no all you’re left with is the janitor and a pair of rats, who have found their way to your brain after trying to flee from the janitor attempting to smash them. Even once you DO finish with the compiler(which is stupidly annoying), and take care of the few odd bugs(you WON’T be able to fix them all lest you risk more compiler errors) you feel like a couple of Ewoks are using your once shiny helmet as a musical drum.

Even so, I guess it’s possible to accomplish a lot with Java, still, doesn’t stop it from being annoying.