Post AX9OUjPAxfrUhKvJ6e by joao@social.librem.one
(DIR) More posts by joao@social.librem.one
(DIR) Post #AX5WBgPTtYMuuLedge by alatiera@mastodon.social
2023-06-26T15:43:26Z
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Niche Laptop OEM not make another distro challenge:
(DIR) Post #AX5WBiKwjNvgsrY2tc by alatiera@mastodon.social
2023-06-26T15:44:42Z
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I promise you, even if you base it on ubuntu you still don’t have the resources required.And people don’t want more reskins that do the same thing but worse, like on android
(DIR) Post #AX5WD1rhbvGBjuUqhM by joao@social.librem.one
2023-06-26T15:56:34Z
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@alatiera ok... Why do you think laptop manufacturers make their own downstream spins of debian/ubuntu/fedora etc?
(DIR) Post #AX5cup8istJ0jriwka by ebassi@mastodon.social
2023-06-26T17:11:41Z
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@joao @alatiera In lots of cases, we used to call it "differentiation via finger painting"
(DIR) Post #AX5e8x4gHOc7MA8Mka by joao@social.librem.one
2023-06-26T17:25:28Z
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@ebassi Since you did not said: "in all cases", can I assume that for you there can be cases in which there are valid reasons for a laptop manufacturer to make a spin of a distro?If that is the case, what would be valid reasons for that?@alatiera
(DIR) Post #AX5gKUkNcrsusrGosK by ebassi@mastodon.social
2023-06-26T17:49:57Z
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@joao @alatiera I was being generous; in pretty much all the cases in which I was involved, OEMs tended to either adopt an existing distro (likely backed by a commercial entity rather than a community-driven one); or they went for their own OS, with its own points of differentiation—applications, UX, update mechanisms, etc.Just re-skinning Ubuntu or Fedora isn't really a sustainable proposition: it's a lot of work for very little gain.
(DIR) Post #AX5kbLQHwfsshnA8rg by craftyguy@freeradical.zone
2023-06-26T18:37:49Z
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@alatiera by "owning" the distro, OEMs (in theory, at least) can be less reliant on 3rd parties. Upstream distro won't accept a patch to add or fix some thing you want in our product? Not a problem if you are the upstream!(Note that I didn't say I agree with it, but I have seen this be useful at times in my experience)
(DIR) Post #AX9OUhviRihc7g8GY4 by zachdecook@social.librem.one
2023-06-26T20:45:01Z
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@ebassi @joao @alatiera I assume 'being able to test kernel updates before shipping them to your customers' is a big starting point.
(DIR) Post #AX9OUihZZmz2W6WU8u by ebassi@mastodon.social
2023-06-26T21:45:17Z
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@zachdecook @joao @alatiera that isn’t really what I would classify as “a spin”, though…
(DIR) Post #AX9OUjPAxfrUhKvJ6e by joao@social.librem.one
2023-06-28T12:48:56Z
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@ebassi There are cases where hardware enablement or work with a specific framework is still necessary, for a reason or another before it can run an upstream distro out of the box. And in such cases having a spin, can be necessary to do that work before upstreaming.Linux on mobile for the past 6 years comes to mind. (One Plus 6, Librem 5, pinephone, Volla phone)But I am not sure if that falls into your category of a "spin".@zachdecook @alatiera
(DIR) Post #AX9PkBtLQnG5LTyCoa by ebassi@mastodon.social
2023-06-28T13:02:58Z
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@joao @zachdecook @alatiera Yeah, I wouldn't count a custom kernel package as "a spin"; hardware enablement should happen prior to release, in any case.I classify as "a spin" something like: "taking Ubuntu and replacing the default desktop with something else"; or: "repackage upstream to have a different branding and visual identity through custom patches".