Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

finferflu · 2008-05-23 11:01:31

I just came across this new project, called Exherbo:

Exherbo is a distribution designed for people who know what they're doing with Linux. It is inspired in many places by Gentoo -- in particular, it supports flexible source-based installation with up-front configuration.
Exherbo is not a Gentoo fork in the conventional sense. Although it shares some code with Gentoo, and although many concepts are similar, and although many of the people involved were or are Gentoo developers, most Exherbo code is rewritten from scratch.

Design Goals
* Phrase all design goals in such a way that it is hard to use them as slogans to justify stupid changes.
* The target user has a good degree of familiarity with Linux.
* No interactivity requirement. Controllable, repeatable behaviour with up-front configuration and information.
* Flexibility where it makes sense to provide flexibility.
* No single set of defaults. Rather, a small collection of sets of defaults that are good for their target user base, and that between them cover most target user classes.

It is not available for end-users yet, though. It sounds quite KISS, even though I'm not sure what the actual result of some of the points highlighted will be when put into practice.

robmaloy · 2008-05-23 11:06:24

sounds really elitist IMHO...

Stefan Husmann · 2008-05-23 11:08:39

Sounds like Arch.

clarence · 2008-05-23 12:07:54

love that first design goal

Allan · 2008-05-23 13:36:01

I read about this a couple of days ago. They make some fun statements on their web page.

OK, I Want to Try Exherbo
No you don't.
Yes I Do
OK, maybe you do, but we don't particularly want you to try it because we don't want to deal with you whining when you find that absolutely nothing works.

and

But I'm a Developer, and I Want to Try Exherbo
Well, you know who to talk to if you need to be told where to find the shiny things.
And no, we don't want to use Exherbo to implement your pet project.
The above paragraph does not apply if your pet project is something we find interesting.
In Conclusion
It's not that we hate you (unless we do). It's just that we have nothing to offer you, and you have nothing to offer us.

Last edited by Allan (2008-05-23 13:36:38)

bender02 · 2008-05-23 14:41:34

Why do they have a website then? Just so that they can tell everyone to f**k off?

Misfit138 · 2008-05-23 15:07:11

bender02 wrote:

Why do they have a website then? Just so that they can tell everyone to f**k off?

Um, yes.

More power to them, I guess. Maybe in the long run, they will fix all the blunders which have alienated so many disgruntled Gentoo users over the past couple of years.
Many people still love Gentoo though. I mean, there's over 300 distributions, what's one more going to hurt?

sniffles · 2008-05-24 06:14:32

It was about time something like this would happen. Although I have absolutely no intention to try Exherbo before a release is actually made; I wish the developers much luck with it. Their ideas are good, IMHO.

I've seen accross the net a lot of comments criticizing the invention of "yet another distribution" which uses "yet another package manager" and "yet another init system". I can't but disagree. Sure, there are (as Misfit138 said) over 300 distributions out there, but what if Exherbo will turn out to be a Distrowatch `Top 10`, or something?

+ They, as developers, obviously have the right to put their work into anything they want; if they want to put this effort into something that floats Their boat, why shouldn't they? If building a `working` | `usable` custom distribution was a simple process, I'm sure many users would start their own distributions, simply because we all thrive to use something which suits Our needs.

Anyway, I hope Exherbo will grow up into a great distribution.

Last edited by sniffles (2008-05-24 06:17:08)

finferflu · 2008-05-24 10:18:34

One thing that is relevant is that this distro is not a derivative of some other distro. The problem I see with such a large amount of distros is that most of them are just a little variant of something that already exists (cfr. the Debian-based distros). How many distros exist that are built from scratch with an entirely new concept?

Sp4rkR4t · 2008-05-24 11:03:34

This will share code with Gentoo though and follows the same concept, it has only came into being because of internal differences between the Gentoo devs but I welcome it especially if it grows into something of it's own instead of just Gentoo but not.

iphitus · 2008-05-24 12:19:23

finferflu wrote:

One thing that is relevant is that this distro is not a derivative of some other distro. The problem I see with such a large amount of distros is that most of them are just a little variant of something that already exists (cfr. the Debian-based distros). How many distros exist that are built from scratch with an entirely new concept?

There's Arch. It's not built off anything. It's inspired in some aspects by others, but built off no other distro.

finferflu · 2008-05-24 12:24:24

Of course, Arch is original but how many other original distros can we count? Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Slackware, Puppy, Gobolinux (you can add more if you know others)... how many out of 300?

Misfit138 · 2008-05-24 12:52:12

finferflu wrote:

Of course, Arch is original but how many other original distros can we count? Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Slackware, Puppy, Gobolinux (you can add more if you know others)... how many out of 300?

This is a great point that I rant on often. LFS, CRUX and Rock come to mind...can't think of any others.

dhave · 2008-05-24 13:12:08

Allan wrote:

I read about this a couple of days ago. They make some fun statements on their web page.
OK, I Want to Try Exherbo
No you don't.
Yes I Do
OK, maybe you do, but we don't particularly want you to try it because we don't want to deal with you whining when you find that absolutely nothing works.
and
But I'm a Developer, and I Want to Try Exherbo
Well, you know who to talk to if you need to be told where to find the shiny things.
And no, we don't want to use Exherbo to implement your pet project.
The above paragraph does not apply if your pet project is something we find interesting.
In Conclusion
It's not that we hate you (unless we do). It's just that we have nothing to offer you, and you have nothing to offer us.

Funny enough, I guess, but I don't see why they even bother to publicize their work at all if they just want to be left alone. The humor of it is lessened by an attitude of "We're playing all by ourselves in our own sandbox and you can't play." For people who are down on whiners, there's more than a bit of same coming from themselves.

Cerebral · 2008-05-24 13:46:32

dhave wrote:

Funny enough, I guess, but I don't see why they even bother to publicize their work at all if they just want to be left alone. The humor of it is lessened by an attitude of "We're playing all by ourselves in our own sandbox and you can't play." For people who are down on whiners, there's more than a bit of same coming from themselves.

Why can't they publicize their work, and explicitly say "Please leave us alone"? It seems they _eventually_ want other people to use their project, but for the moment they're not ready for that. Generating an early buzz isn't a bad idea.

I don't see what the big deal is. Just having a website about their project doesn't suddenly mean everyone gets the right to try it out. Let them work on it, generate some buzz, and when they're ready, they'll let people use it.

bender02 · 2008-05-24 14:36:58

Cerebral wrote:

Why can't they publicize their work, and explicitly say "Please leave us alone"? It seems they _eventually_ want other people to use their project, but for the moment they're not ready for that. Generating an early buzz isn't a bad idea.

I personally don't like when someone "generates a buzz" without actually having done anything. While I do think that these guys (being former gentoo devs) can actually do something [possibly pretty good] eventually, I still don't like generating a hype without any backing. With a slogan "we hate you"

Last edited by bender02 (2008-05-24 14:39:33)

Mikko777 · 2008-05-24 15:53:05

lol.

http://ciaranm.wordpress.com/2008/05/23 … g-exherbo/

Misfit138 · 2008-05-24 16:23:50

bender02 wrote:

Cerebral wrote:
Why can't they publicize their work, and explicitly say "Please leave us alone"? It seems they _eventually_ want other people to use their project, but for the moment they're not ready for that. Generating an early buzz isn't a bad idea.
I personally don't like when someone "generates a buzz" without actually having done anything. While I do think that these guys (being former gentoo devs) can actually do something [possibly pretty good] eventually, I still don't like generating a hype without any backing. With a slogan "we hate you"

I see your point, however, I think this guy (ferdi) has a pretty edgy sense of humor and most of this initial rambling is really tongue-in-cheek.

KyKo · 2008-05-24 17:24:53

Maybe it's reverse-psychology.

sniffles · 2008-05-24 19:45:04

KyKo wrote:

Maybe it's reverse-psychology.

And apparently, according to ciaranm's recent blog post [see Mikko777's post above], it's working.

Ruckus · 2008-05-24 21:54:28

finferflu wrote:

Of course, Arch is original but how many other original distros can we count? Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Slackware, Puppy, Gobolinux (you can add more if you know others)... how many out of 300?

I wonder how accurate that is.

bender02 · 2008-05-24 22:59:14

I thought Arch didn't start as a fork of Crux (some of y'oletimers correct me if I'm wrong).

EDIT: But looking now at the crux system layout, it looks reaally similar. Except, of course, they don't have pacman

Last edited by bender02 (2008-05-24 23:07:33)

INCSlayer · 2008-05-25 06:27:51

the story tells that judd got inspiration from crux when he was making arch but its not straight fork

Last edited by INCSlayer (2008-05-25 07:30:57)

tomk · 2008-05-25 07:22:52

http://distrowatch.com/interview-arch - answer to first question.

Surprisingly, this link only appears twice in this forum, including this post.

B-Con · 2008-05-25 09:19:36

tomk wrote:

http://distrowatch.com/interview-arch - answer to first question.
Surprisingly, this link only appears twice in this forum, including this post.

Hadn't seen it, good link.

Who decided to show Arch as a fork of Crux with a dotted line to Frugalware in that Linux tree?

Arch Linux

#1 2008-05-23 11:01:31

Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#2 2008-05-23 11:06:24

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#3 2008-05-23 11:08:39

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#4 2008-05-23 12:07:54

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#5 2008-05-23 13:36:01

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#6 2008-05-23 14:41:34

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#7 2008-05-23 15:07:11

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#8 2008-05-24 06:14:32

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#9 2008-05-24 10:18:34

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#10 2008-05-24 11:03:34

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#11 2008-05-24 12:19:23

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#12 2008-05-24 12:24:24

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#13 2008-05-24 12:52:12

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#14 2008-05-24 13:12:08

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#15 2008-05-24 13:46:32

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#16 2008-05-24 14:36:58

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#17 2008-05-24 15:53:05

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#18 2008-05-24 16:23:50

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#19 2008-05-24 17:24:53

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#20 2008-05-24 19:45:04

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#21 2008-05-24 21:54:28

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#22 2008-05-24 22:59:14

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#23 2008-05-25 06:27:51

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#24 2008-05-25 07:22:52

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

#25 2008-05-25 09:19:36

Re: Exherbo, a new distro from some Gentoo devs

Board footer