OpenGEU's future and Ubuntu vs Debian

2010-01-28 09:39:14 by thedarkmaster

OpenGEU is publishing a poll, a very important one, from which the future of the distro will be decided. Please take your time to read the contents of the poll and vote, your vote will make the difference, literally, because we care about our users and we want to know which is your opinion! So, please, spend a second of your life voting :) For this release we had to work a lot, really a lot, on the iso, because of problems with Ubuntu Karmic. Ubuntu is going in a strange direction: it not only uses experimental features like XSplash, but often they choose to patch entire pieces of code just to make it work, specially when building the iso. To customize it we really had an hard time for Quarto di Luna, believe me, it never seemed to reach an end. In the future we'll have bigger problems too: reconstructor is dead, well, not really, but it's gone online with an unusable payment method for every upload / download you make. Try and see for yourself! If we had to build a future release using reconstructor we'd have to pay a lot of money, keep in mind that this iso has been built for something like 30 times before we reached an usable point!! In Debian there are some really good things to consider if we'll use Debian as we imagine: very updated software, more than Ubuntu actually, fresh and stable system, not fully patched and slowed down like Ubuntu... and no workarounds. What does it mean for you? Please read this BEFORE VOTING:

• Ubuntu packages for OpenGEU will always be maintained and distributed, so Ubuntu users will have no problems at all.
• Only the iso will switch to Debian, meaning various things:
• We'll have more freedom handling releases: this doesn't mean that releases will happen once every century, it means that we won't waste time making an iso for 9.04 and then having to start all over with 9.10 loosing double the time, as it happened with this release.
• Debian has an automated tool to customize the distro, faster and better than reconstructor: we'd be able to release isos faster.
• We're not going to drop any tools we use right now: we'll develop new tools so that, even if based on Debian, OpenGEU will still be as easy as Ubuntu, switching to Debian doesn't mean having an harder time configuring things.
• We'll be able to fully use some nice modules like Exalt, the E network manager: we cannot use it in Ubuntu, it conflicts with Network Manager, which sucks in reality...
• The whole development cycle is different: your distro, after installation, will be fully supported for a very long time! A new iso will be released every once in a while with updates and all, specially based on progress from Enlightenment. My idea would be that of releasing a new iso with every E snapshot if possible.
• As I already said, Ubuntu packages will always be created and compatibility with Ubuntu will be granted anyway, so if u prefer Ubuntu u can download it and install OpenGEU from packages... though, honestly, since we promise you that you won't notice any difference in usability, I'd stick with the main release (Debian) if I where in you
• Did I already say that OpenGEU will become cleaner, faster, harder, stronger (cit.) and that it will always be very edgy with the latest packages and updates from Debian?

So, basically, since we do what people wants, the question is.... is it ok for you if we make the mainstream OpenGEU version based on Debian since now on? Enlightenment is not being officially released anytime soon.. and we won't become an official Ubuntu variant in any case due to this problem, for now. I already tell you, I'll vote for Debian This migration will, in any case, take some time if we decide to do it. Maybe it will not be in time for the next Ubuntu, we'll have to create some tools from scratch to make you feel at home or convert Ubuntu tools to make them work with Debian (like Ubiquity for example)... Make your choice please! Any comment is appreciated