[sf-lug] SF-LUG Sunday March 3, 2019 meeting notice

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):

> EasyOS as easy-1.0.8-amd64.img.gz which is a USB image.
> This is not a standard Linux install but creates a single folder
> on disk.  But not only that it can run everything in Easy Containers.

Developer Barry Kauler of Puppy Linux fame had a few interesting ideas,
but there are a couple of things that caught my eye on
https://easyos.org/about/how-and-why-easyos-is-different.html :

   EasyOS is designed from scratch to support containers.  Any app can
   run in a container, in fact an entire desktop can run in a container.
   Container management is by a simple GUI, no messing around on the
   commandline.  The container mechanism is named Easy Containers, and is
   designed from scratch (Docker, LXC, etc are not used).

Container software is not something you can expect to safely or 
reliably do as a one-off, hobbyist basis, especially if you expect the 
(limited) security isolation that is one of the main reason people
deploy containers.

  Run as root:  This is controversial, however, it is just a different
  philosophy....

It's controversial because it's what we call a really bad idea and a
disservice to users to promote doing so, not a 'different philosophy'.

Kauler describes this distro as 'experimental', which is fair enough,
but then all but very experienced users, who would be clear on what 
they're getting into, should IMO stay far away -- which is greatly in
conflict with the message Kauler is promoting in his literature, with
easy-this, simple-that, and all-GUI-the-other.

But hey, as the Hawaiian cannibal chieftan said to his heir, 'One man's
meat is another man's poi, son.'



> debian-9.8.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso  which has been check-summed.
> and likely will be on a disk by the time I get to the meeting
> next Sunday.

In my opinion, you should in preference offer 
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/9.8.0+nonfree/amd64/iso-dvd/firmware-9.8.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso

(Description and related files are at
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/
)

...which is the exact _same_ ISO of Debian 9 'stretch' point-release
9.8 for amd64, except with non-free firmware files merged in.  People
using debian-9.8.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso will often find that drivers for
their hardware, particularly wireless chips, will not work during
installation or thereafter until they retrofit the non-free firmware
required to activate the hardware components in question.

Please note that the above images install and make default the GNOME3
desktop environment.  I'm personally a bit perplexed at the notion 
of people installing Debian in order to run GNOME3.  If you're going to
run monstrous, dumb desktop environments, why Debian?

Far more interesting for users interested in Debian, in my opinion,
would be, e.g., the 'debian-live-testing-amd64-lxqt+nonfree.iso' file
here:

https://cdimage.debian.org/images/unofficial/non-free/images-including-firmware/weekly-live-builds/amd64/iso-hybrid/