Dragora 3.0 Beta 2 OS Released: 10+ Years In Development, FSF Backed & Using SysV Init

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Dragora 3.0 Beta 2 OS Released: 10+ Years In Development, FSF Backed & Using SysV Init

Dragora remains one of the few Linux distributions endorsed by the Free Software Foundation and is a from-scratch distribution focused on providing only free software... The last stable release of the Linux distribution was Dragora 2.2 back in 2012 while out today is Dragora 3.0 Beta 2, which itself is coming three and a half years since the prior beta...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Dragora-3.0-Beta-2

[blackiwid]

I don't get the "remains" in the text, were there more on the list that got removed?
Back in 2009 the first entry in the waybackmachine shows only 7 entries now it's 8.

https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html

I see some times with 9 some times with 6 listed it fluctuates a bit but it's never much more and often even less, I think 9 was the maximum and I would argue that has a better mix then in the past, PureOS is here to stay a while and very unique not one of the 500 Distros on distrowatch, so is guix a very modern distribution a functional one that is much more than that a universal package manager for all / most linux distributions a home configuration system (guix home).

So mentioning this distribution with a very exotic makeup and saying one of the (few) remaining systems sounds like it's slowly fading into irrelevance. Also if you count the 2 "small Distros" they list even 10 back then they had 7.

And for some you don't even need so strange hardware it's possible in some if not all of them to use vanilla kernels, as example in guix there is nonguix repository that makes it possible to install it on machines that don't run with linux-libre.

[kpedersen]

Dragora uses TDE which is quite cool.

The GNU list of distros often seems quite lethargic. One I did play with recently was GUIX. This one seems more tightly bound to GNU itself which is interesting. Much of it is hosted on Savannah and .gnu.org. It uses the GNU Shepard init system which is also fairly unique.

I installed it and then shoved a random Debian kernel in it because the Linux-libre kernel is great for virtual machines but even my boring Thinkpad struggled with it.

[andyprough]

LibreSSL and musl? I haven't seen that combo in a Linux distro since Void gave up on LibreSSL some years back. Might have to try this one out.

[stormcrow]

LibreSSL and musl? I haven't seen that combo in a Linux distro since Void gave up on LibreSSL some years back. Might have to try this one out.

HardenedBSD gave up on LibreSSL too. Too divergent in compatibility and OpenSSL basically just "caught up" after HeartBleed prompted them out of their lethargy. I don't see a point in LibreSSL. If you're going to reimplement a crypto library as fundamental as OpenSSL, but you're basically going to use the same antiquated tools to do it, you're still going to end up making the same kinds of mistakes as the original project. It's inevitable. It's impossible to write completely memory safe C even with modern C tooling. It's impossible to not make logic errors if you're not following strict formal methods in verifying your assumptions before and during code creation. LibreSSL is doing neither of these things. Simply pulling out obsolete code paths aren't enough.

[andyprough]

HardenedBSD gave up on LibreSSL too.

Yes well, call me when OpenBSD gives up on LibreSSL.

[QwertyChouskie]

The irony is the OpenSSL has a GPLv3-compatible license, while LibreSSL does not. This is because OpenSSL finally re-licensed under the Apache v2 license, while LibreSSL is still tied up under the old SSLeay terms. It's very strange that an FSF-backed distro specifically chose a non-GPLv3 compatible library rather than the GPLv3-compatible one.

Also, linux-libre means that this won't work on most hardware out there, limiting it to pretty much a thing to tinker with in VMs, rather than a distro to actually use on real hardware.

[andyprough]

Also, linux-libre means that this won't work on most hardware out there, limiting it to pretty much a thing to tinker with in VMs, rather than a distro to actually use on real hardware.

Works fine for me on everything I throw it at. I've bought a couple of Atheros wifi USB dongles to get wifi, but otherwise I can't think of any hardware it hasn't worked with. Works fine with SSDs, Nvme drives, USB C docks and devices, USB 3.1/3.2/whatever, HDMI, etc. Probably won't load proprietary Nvidia modules, but then again I've never used Nvidia and have no interest in it.