Serpent OS Hopes To Ship Pre-Alpha ISOs In The Coming Weeks

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Serpent OS Hopes To Ship Pre-Alpha ISOs In The Coming Weeks

Ikey Doherty's Serpent OS Linux distribution project is hoping to be able to ship their pre-Alpha ISOs in a matter of weeks as they continue bringing up the initial desktop experience and getting more of their operating system's build tools into good shape...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Serpent-OS-Pre-Alpha-Soon

[tildearrow]

Typo:

THe Serpent OS Boulder

[Michael]

Typo:

Whoops, thanks.

[ehansin]

Nice to hear they are keeping tabs on the Cosmic Dekstop enough to mention. I know I have stated here already, but I have been using it for a few weeks via the Fedora Copr and very happy with it. For me, it hits a nice sweet spot that I had been hoping to see come around. I'll add, fun to get the Copr updates and be using it as it keeps incrementally improving in its "pre-alpha" state!

[Theriverlethe]

Could you maybe give a brief write-up on the supposed purpose of yet another Linux distribution?

[NateHubbard]

Could you maybe give a brief write-up on the supposed purpose of yet another Linux distribution?

I was kind of expecting something like that too. They do have an about page on their website:

https://serpentos.com/about/

No, it doesn't tell you anything interesting.

There is this:

Most importantly, it is an attempt to provide a sane installation that cannot be "broken" by updates. It does this through a variety of recovery mechanisms, including on-disk offline rollbacks and system deduplication.

[skeevy420]

Could you maybe give a brief write-up on the supposed purpose of yet another Linux distribution?

Go to their website and scroll down. If you don't feel like doing that, the gist is all package management is atomic for safety and restoration, they write their tools in Rust, their stone.yml format is easy to figure out like PKGBUILD, and they prefer using newer and faster technologies.

Practically everything else on their site is buzzwords. This is basically their About page:

Serpent OS is building a pioneering Linux distribution, with a focus on cutting edge technologies to streamline performance and developer workflow. This enables users to get things done while reducing frictions for users to contribute. We make the same tools that we use available to you to ensure you get the best experience.

Goals

• Take control of your computer
• Get the most from your hardware
• Enjoy a reliable experience
• Improve your experience behind the scenes
• Develop and contribute fast and efficiently
• Be part of a thriving community
• Have fun while interacting with other users and contributors

That list can be copy/pasted to practically any OS.

I don't want to sound like a hater. The Linux Mint site is basically the same:

Linux Mint is an operating system for desktop and laptop computers. It is designed to work 'out of the box' and comes fully equipped with the apps most people need.

Purpose

The purpose of Linux Mint is to produce a modern, elegant and comfortable operating system which is both powerful and easy to use.

Some of the reasons for the success of Linux Mint are:

• It works out of the box, with full multimedia support and is extremely easy to use.
• It's both free of cost and open source.
• It's community-driven. Users are encouraged to send feedback to the project so that their ideas can be used to improve Linux Mint.
• Based on Debian and Ubuntu, it provides about 30,000 packages and one of the best software managers.
• It's safe and reliable—thanks to conservative software updates, a unique Update Manager, and its robust Linux architecture.
• Linux Mint requires very little maintenance (no regressions, no antivirus, no anti-spyware...etc).

Overall, Linux distributions suck with PR and branding. That applies to practically every single one of them nowadays. Everything claims to be simple, easy to use, with thriving, driven communities, and works out of the box to offer a reliable, safe, and lightweight experience for your desktop, servers, containers, and embedded machines. It sucks because it makes everything seem the same.

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

It's a little weird to me that their first DE priority wasn't Budgie since I thought Joshua Stroble was one of the main people involved with this in addition to Ikey.

[pabloski]

Goals[LIST][*]Take control of your computer[*]Get the most from your hardware[*]Enjoy a reliable experience[*]Improve your experience behind the scenes[*]Develop and contribute fast and efficiently[*]Be part of a thriving community[*]Have fun while interacting with other users and contributors

So the question is "what is the supposed purpose of yet another Linux distribution?"

Looks like Doherty likes to code, but he hasn't the faintest idea what he should adding to the landscape. The use of web marketing/cryptocurrency language doesn't help.

[Daktyl198]

I just can't trust Ikey not to straight up abandon this distro like he has the last 3 he was involved in. He left his last one leaderless for multiple years before people had to step up and practically create an entirely new infrastructure because they couldn't contact him to get the details to the existing one.

Also, Gnome is an interesting choice for "the most modern" of systems, given that it's the DE that's fallen behind the most in terms of implementing critical wayland protocol extensions.