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Menhir, the distribution of four free operating systems, is started

Posted by chambersofunix on · 9 comments
code.google.com/p/menhir; By Gueven Bay 		Mail this story
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If you look at the Free Software scene you see that most if not all projects - at the operating system level and at the application level - and magazines, blogs and newspapers concentrate on GNU/Linux. Also you can note that most people start with a Linux distribution and then lock himself in the GNU/Linux world. This is very unfortunate as the other free Unix-like operating systems bring with them great development and usage culture. The one missing bit at their side is popularity. So Menhir is going to reach the above vision by building a strong, open and helpful community to cultivate and distribute the knowledge about all four, free operating systems.

Menhir was started to grow the publicity of FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenSolaris side by side with Slackware. And to widen the skills of the users to all four operating systems.

If you look at the Free Software scene you see that most if not all projects - at the operating system level and at the application level - and magazines, blogs and newspapers concentrate on GNU/Linux. Also you can note that most people start with a Linux distribution and then lock himself in the GNU/Linux world. This is very unfortunate as the other free Unix-like operating systems bring with them great development and usage culture. The one missing bit at their side is popularity.

So Menhir is going to reach the above vision by building a strong, open and helpful community to cultivate and distribute the knowledge about all four, free operating systems. Because in the free software scene the popularity of projects grow by "propaganda". And "propaganda" is spread by experienced users and developers who will be fully satisfied by the operating systems because of their successes basing on their experience.

To build the knowledge following development projects are started in the Menhir project: A document based on "BSD Associate Exam Objectives" will be written which guides every user in the use and administration of FreeBSD, NetBSD, Slackware and OpenSolaris. A document based on "Advanced Linux Programming" will be written which teaches the advanced development on the four platforms. The base systems of Slackware, FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenSolaris are ported to the pkgsrc format. After finishing this project everyone will be able to install the operating systems with their userland using the pkgsrc tools. A collection of kernel configuration files for desktops, laptops and servers. You get insight in the structure and building of the kernel if you configure and compile your own for your hardware. So at the website of Menhir we will collect configuration files for the hardware of the big hardware vendors. A structured manual for the engineer-like construction and installation of an infrastructure basing on the four operating systems. With all four operating systems you can perfectly build networks for home and professional use. This manual called "Free Software Systems Engineering" will guide you in the effort to build efficient and secure networks.

What we will get in the end is a great collaboration of the developers and users of all todays communities of the four operating systems for a distribution with the priciples: Strength, Dynamics, Knowledge and Freedom.

You, dear reader, are invited to join the newsgroup for all your questions, comments and contributions of all sorts.

The website of Menhir is : http://code.google.com/p/menhir

The newsgroup of Menhir is: http://groups.google.com/group/menhir-discuss

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Comments (9)

incinerator ·
OpenBSD is the second most popular of the free *BSDs, what a pity it's missing in that project's list.
chambersofunix Story submitter ·
Hi incinerator,

I know that I didn't include OpenBSD. But this was not from ignorance. The only one reason is: I am at the moment the only one person who works on Menhir.

If there is a hero who tells me he would do the writing (the docs I mentioned in my story) , do the teaching (on the newsgroup) and the testing (of OpenBSD with pkgsrc and with the OpenBSD as host for the other OSes FBSD,NSBSD,Slackware and OpSol) then this person - it could also be a group, of course - is more then welcome.

I would love to integrate OpenBSD in Menhir. Sure.
r_a_trip ·
The general idea is a good one. The only reservation I have is the sheer technospeak in the announcement and the narrow focus on the BSD-like Slackware. If you want to promote the other free *Nixes, and reach a broad audience, the last thing you want to do is scare the common user away with overly technical aspects.

I don't think any project will gain popularity soon by talking about "base systems...ported to the pkgsrc format", a manual called "Free Software Systems Engineering" based on books guiding the user in "the use and administration" and "the advanced development on the four platforms", "kernel configuration files for desktops, laptops and servers", "insight in the structure and building of the kernel", "at the website...collect configuration files for the hardware of the big hardware vendors", "structured manual for the engineer-like construction and installation of an infrastructure basing on the four operating systems", and "build *efficient and secure* networks for home and professional use".

With the current slant, I don't see it reaching its vision of "Menhir was started to grow the publicity of FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenSolaris side by side with Slackware. And to widen the skills of the users to all four operating systems." The best I see happening is the Slackware minded people playing with this.
chambersofunix Story submitter ·
@r_a_trip:

You are just right. Yes, everythink you say is plain and simple right.

BUT: I have to say here that I am not a marketing guy. Many Free Software projects are started by geeks, nerds, technical people, call them what you want, and this project was also started by a developer.

Can you, please, make an example and by taking one point from my announcement write it in a manner that not technical people would "get" it?

In my opinion even your comment was a contribution to Menhir as it is going to let me think more about marketing, you see, and this kind of contributions of all people from the various communities are what Menhir is about.
jdixon ·
> ...and the narrow focus on the BSD-like Slackware.

Given the BSD orientation of the project, what Linux distribution would you expect him to use? Slackware is the closest in style to the BSD's, and therefore probably the easiest for him to integrate into the project.
incinerator ·
I agree with r_a_tip. The idea in general has quite some potential. BSDs and Slackware have a reputation of not being the most easy to install and maintain. Providing a make those operating systems easy to set up for the unexperienced user certainly is an attractive means to get more users to try them. However, ease-of-use is a matter of perception, as well. I found FreeBSD or OpenBSD quite easy to install and the documentation actually is of very high quality, compared to some GNU/Linux distros. To get new users to feel drawn to try those OSs might be very difficult. The technical infrastructure itself is not that important, as "newbie-friendly" frontends can be developed for almost any tool those systems use for e.g. installing packages. While I can see a certain benefit of using pkgsrc instead of the native package management tools provided natively by those operating systems, it would not be that important to me, either. There is a certain risk that migrating pkgsrc won't work that well and won't make things so much easier than they were before. Those operating system have evolved each in their own way for a certain reason. The fact that they are still in widespread use suggest people like them that way. Hower, the project's approach still sounds interesting. If successful, it could make using those system a wee bit easier and really attract more users. Good luck with that.
jdixon ·
> ...BSDs and Slackware have a reputation of not being the most easy to install and maintain.

Slackware is a piece of cake to install and maintain. The common complaints I've heard are:

1) It doesn't have a graphical installer. True, it uses an ncurses installer. 2) It doesn't partition your drive for you. True. 3) It doesn't have a package management system. False. 4) Its package management system doesn't handle dependencies. True. 5) It's hard to configure. Probably true for most new users.

Keeping Slackware up to date is simply a matter of installing the updates as they're released.

Now, once you step outside of the packages Slackware includes and want to start installing things like OpenOffice or VMware Server, things can get interesting. :) That's the most valid complaint people have about Slackware. Debian and Red Hat have a huge base of supported software. Slackware's is much smaller. Almost any software can be made to work, but it's not as easy as it is with the more "mainstream" distributions.

Speaking as LXer's resident Slackware user. :)
chambersofunix Story submitter ·
Okay, let me describe why I chose these operating systems: You should not forget that I want to teach with Menhir and I want to "unite" the users and developers of these operating systems - i.e. I want that they work together -. I have to quickly explain the last bit. I saw in my readings of forums and mailing lists and other media that there is something like hostility between the communities of the big projects (say, FreeBSD people don't like Gentoo, Gentoo people don't like Debian, Debian's gals and guys don't like ... and so on). One of the ideas now is to make some effort to get rid of this hostility like feelings. Because I think if we use and "support" (and support here means even helpful postings in forums) more then one distro then we gain something and the people out there also gain something - you know what I mean? -.

So I chose Slackware, because it is the "cleanest" of all the distros I know (say, Slackware has a package manager which is very near on the base tools, Slackware don't patch like hell, the packages are not divided in user and devel packages and so on), From the BSDs I chose only the two Free and Net because I also wanted to include the next big thing in the free software scene OpenSolaris (This operating system was unfortunately not welcomed very well. But I see the possibilities with it. Just make yourself clear that a real Unix was opened into the Free Software world.).

I my mind these operating systems cover a wide range of grown Unix and Free Software cultures. To teach the people the different "thinking" in every operating system will open many new ideas and possibilities.

I chose pkgsrc because i know that more or less it works on all given OSes. And with its portability to platforms and operating systems alike it is one of the most interesting pkg mgmt systems.

The projects I mentioned in my article are to get the people work together. To help and teach the others. So I had to unite the projects somewhat. So I came to the idea to make pkgsrc a "standard" for all Oses.

I hope now it is more clear what the ideas were behind Menhir.

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Aladdin_Sane ·
>>Many Free Software projects are started by geeks, nerds, technical people...

>>In my opinion even your comment was a contribution to Menhir as it is going to let me think more about marketing...

I think there is a continuum from "GeekSpeak" to "plain language" to "MarketingSpeak".

What I appreciate most is plain language, as neither of the extremes are really communicating with a broad range of interested people.

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