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Cake day: July 16th, 2023

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  • EOS is about 24 additional packages on top of the 70,000 Arch already offers, many of which are already on the AUR ( like yay and paru ). EOS uses the real Arch kernel. Once installed, EOS is Arch in my view.

    There are not “two updates”. It is not an OS over an OS. EOS is awesome but it is a glorified Arch installer with opinionated defaults.







  • The only license that VirtualBox and the Guest Additions are even released under is GPL3. I do not even see a dual license.

    What remedy are they proposing when they come after you? I am not sure I would even take their call or respond to their letter. If I did, I would just send them the GPL text, announce that we are complying, and tell them to pound sand.

    I suppose it might be fun to tell them that I got it via IBM or Red Hat or something and to take it up with them. But I probably would not actually be dishonest about. As above, if I got a letter asking me to pay for their GPL software, I would just mutter “idiots” and throw it away. If they want to persist, it would only cost them money and I would continue to respond the same way.





  • Sounds like you want EndeavourOS.

    Installs in a few minutes to a fully configured and usable desktop environment of your choice. It is Arch ( uses the same packages, uses the same kernel, has access to the AUR ). A huge benefit of the Arch repos is the up-to-date package universe as well everything you are likely to want being in the repo or AUR.

    Don’t underestimate the maintenance and reliability benefits of not having to cobble stuff together from multiple sources.


  • While I agree with you, what is attractive about Manjaro that you want that EOS does not offer?

    I also tend to see EndoeavourOS as a great Manjaro replacement because what I want is a high-quality, opinionated, and easy to install no-nonsense distro that offers a massive repository of very up-to-date software in its repos.

    I used to think Manjaro looked better but I installed it recently and I did not like it as much as the default EOS look. Perhaps I am just conditioned.

    The only thing that stands out for me that people might prefer about Manjaro is the graphical package management. Of course, it is a one-time, one line command to install the very same package manager in EOS that Manjaro uses. Does that disqualify EOS as a Manjaro replacement?



  • BSD is well designed and cohesive but has many more missing bits and contraints than Linux. So, if you are in its sweet spot, it is awesome and maybe better than Linux. However, outside that it can be totally unusable.

    For me, the biggest issue is the lack of software. There is both a mountain of it as it is of course an POSIX compatible OS and at the same time it is trivial to need important software that is missing.

    As a desktop, it therefore feels very nice and also very limiting.

    I love that it is actually real UNIX with an unbroken history back to the beginning. I find that really compelling. At the same time, I always get “bored” using it because it inevitably does not support what I want to do.

    I am still hoping Chimera Linux finds a sweet spot that melds the two worlds in a nice way.



  • Totally agree.

    I think they had or have commercial aspirations. That along with the strong desire to curate the experience are likely what lead to the walled garden effect.

    The problem with walled gardens ( well, I hate them always ) is that they only work if you have the resources to pull off the full experience by yourself. Elementary really never had that and, before they could get there, they stumbled internally and killed their execution. It is going to be really hard to get it back.

    Whatever their original aspirations, salvaging what they have into a distro agnostic DE is probably their best hope for relevance and survival. With a curated Flatpak store, they may even be able to someday pull off their walled garden in a cross-distro way. If it ever became big enough, they could take another run at being a full distro.

    As it is, Elementary is on borrowed time. That would be the case even if the Wayland clock was not ticking but ticking it is.