
Linux Distribution for Programmers and Web Developers - msaif
http://www.semicodeos.com
======
hd4
Maybe this needs a separate thread but for a long time now, there have only
really been 5 (or 6 depending on who you ask) upstream distros, Debian,
Fedora/RH, Gentoo, Opensuse, Slackware, Ubuntu.

I get the reason for offshoot distros to exist but I can't help thinking that
a lot of the time it would just make more sense to publish a script to add
packages/modify the default configuration, rather than Just-Another-New-And-
Soon-To-Be-Discontinued Distro, it would probably be easier to maintain in the
long run.

~~~
pttrsmrt
This so much. The only time i see it making sense to release a full-blown
distro is for marketing reasons or making a more unified aesthetic experience
like for example Elementary (which certainly has its own issues, but that is
another story) or for a very specific purpose like Kali or Tails. There are,
however, a jungle of different software and solutions out there so sometimes I
appreaciate a "curated" list of de facto software to test. Having to install a
whole distro for that, virtually or otherwise, might be the definition of
overkill.

As always the problem is in the possibilities: The different systems (both
distros and user installs) are so differently configured, that a script most
certainly will mess it all up.

The best solution I can see (at least for my use) is to expand the dotfile-
approach to encompass applications and more advanced settings too. But I guess
it has certain security a related issues?

~~~
hd4
Even a distro-specific script would do the job in many cases.

Elementary is a good example of where some kind of advanced script/package
setup could possibly replicate what the developers have done.

What you mention regarding extending the idea of dotfiles to encompass
applications/settings is exactly what I'm hoping will start happening rather
than this saturation of distros that don't necessarily bring a lot to the
table. As for security issues, yes that's always going to be a concern when
you add new packages, but no reason why there couldn't be some improved
process in place to let users know when they are straying off the path.

------
g_brown
Can we please stop giving personal assistants female names/traits? It does not
create a positive message for equality and diversity in tech. It's quite
frustrating and uncomfortable to see the phrase "just command her to do tasks
for you" on a promotion for a Linux distro.

SemiCode OS takes this way too far. Just look at this incoherent dump of
objectification from the website: "Sarah is Your New Girl Friend She will take
care of you , helps you in your work ,just open terminal from any where and
call her . and she will be there for you"

Really? _It 's a tool. It doesn't need a gender and it certainly doesn't need
to be personified as a submissive woman_

~~~
scaryspooky
> In a 2011 paper, they reported that both women and men said female voices
> came across as warmer. In practice, women even showed a subconscious
> preference for responding to females; men remained subconsciously neutral.
> “Men will say they prefer female speech, and women really do prefer it,”
> MacDorman says. [1]

Some of the wording for SemiCode may be overly sexist, but there are good
reasons Alexa, Siri, Cortana use female voices by default in most cases, even
if SemiCode's tool does not use text-to-speech itself. [2] I think your
outrage is a bit over the top, to be honest.

[1] [https://www.wired.com/2015/10/why-siri-cortana-voice-
interfa...](https://www.wired.com/2015/10/why-siri-cortana-voice-interfaces-
sound-female-sexism/)

[2] [http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/21/tech/innovation/female-
compute...](http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/21/tech/innovation/female-computer-
voices/)

~~~
g_brown
Both of these articles phrase very nicely the reasons for my dislike of
female-gendered assistants.

"The late Stanford communications professor Clifford Nass, who coauthored the
field’s seminal book, Wired for Speech, wrote that people tend to perceive
female voices as helping us solve our problems by ourselves, while they view
male voices as authority figures who tell us the answers to our problems. We
want our technology to help us, but we want to be the bosses of it, so we are
more likely to opt for a female interface." [1]

"According to some sources, the use of female voices in navigation devices
dates back to World War II, when women's voices were employed in airplane
cockpits because they stood out among the male pilots. And telephone operators
have traditionally been female, making people accustomed to getting assistance
from a disembodied woman's voice." [2]

The predominance of female voices is based (at least partially, the biological
argument is certainly interesting) on history and societal norms that place
women beneath men in competence and authority. Thus my dislike comes from a
desire to get rid of these _subtly ingrained_ social ideas of male/female
authority/submissiveness. The tech world has a far-reaching influence, so I
think it needs to be conscious of the implications of choices like the
"gender" of an assistant.

My personal preference is for a completely gender neutral interface, because I
want to treat my computer like the tool that it is and not like another human.
I think the best course of action is to give the option and let the user
choose which they prefer.

The reason I called out this instance is because it goes too far. Yes, I can
rationalize that people have a preference for female personalities for a
variety of reasons, but the author of "Sarah" has blatantly sexualized a
programming tool. This makes no sense to me. Especially as a publicly
available distro. (The quality is definitely wonky for other reasons, but that
is not an excuse). This extreme case reflects on the less egregious things I
dislike about gendered computers in general.

~~~
234dd57d2c8db
Well my preference is to be helped by helpful women. Go build your own distro
if you want to be helped by a faceless robot. I'll take Sarah, Siri, and
Cortana, thanks.

If you don't like it, build a better product that competes with these devices.
No one likes a whiner, especially one who thinks they are the centre of the
universe and their personal preferences should dictate the course of the "tech
world", as you put it. Your ideas are absurd and do not match the biological
reality of humans, sorry.

~~~
Apocryphon
[https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/building-
jarv...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/building-
jarvis/10154361492931634)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx7RCJvoCMc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx7RCJvoCMc)

------
binaryblitz
I feel like a distro with lots of extra things installed from the start is the
opposite of a distro for programmers, as is baking in some off-brand voice
tool. The perfect distro for me would be an OSX (not MacOS) clone running on a
debian backend without the walled garden that is Apple.

~~~
reachtarunhere
Elementary OS

~~~
pawadu
There are actually quite a few tutorials on youtube that show how you can get
a OSX-y UX by installing a few packages and themes on Ubuntu and Debian.

I don't really understand the rationale, but hey whatever floats your boat

------
evilnode
You might want to polish your presentation a little bit before making it
public. And by a little bit I mean a lot. Spend a few bucks and hire a
copywriter service.

~~~
theandrewbailey
The constant capitalizing is very distracting. (I Don't Know How Else One
Would Describe This Style.)

------
ohstopitu
I honestly can't see an appeal for this.

From the screenshots, it appears to be Ubuntu/Debian + Gnome 3 (most probably
not the latest version too) + a LOT of preinstalled packages.

My bets are, there are very very very few developers out there, that would
need all those packages installed.

So what was the rational behind this?

I mean, this could easily have been a script or a desktop app that let users
choose the packages they wanted and installed it on a distribution of their
choice.

Nothing against you or this particular project in general (I did like the
terminal based assistant but I doubt if I'd ever use that in general), but I
can't seem to see it's significance/use-case.

~~~
webmaven
I'm not sure, but I think the target user is a "coding bootcamp graduate", or
similar.

------
ehmuidifici
The landing page misses some very important points:

\- Is it a standalone distro?

\- What is the kernel version?

\- How about 3rd-party packages, drivers, etc?

And the most important

\- Why do I have to use it instead of another well-known distros like Ubuntu,
Debian, Fedora?

------
pawadu
This must have been created by someone who has never used Linux:

 _> Includes Most of Popular Programming Languages Compilers, top Editors and
best Integrated Development Environments._

so basically

    
    
        $ sudo apt install gcc npm python3 emacs24
    

but without the huge mindshare and all the support that comes with
Debian/Ubuntu?

~~~
photonwins
You forgot to include an editor. ;)

~~~
OhSoHumble
I don't get why he's installing an operating system within an operating
system. (I use Emacs).

------
jaeming
In SemiCode OS You Can Run Plenty of Apps _Simulatansly_

~~~
mixedCase
Oh boy, multitasking! That's something that's going to amaze programmers and
web developers.

------
OhSoHumble
The only distribution I've really enjoyed using for development is Antergos
(Arch derivative) because all my packages are up to date.

The only way another distribution would catch my eye is if it targeted a
specific hardware platform. Like, if a group of developers built a Linux
distribution around Dell's XPS laptop line so that hardware support was
perfect.

------
ravenstine
Yeah, I don't really get it. Then again, most distributions are pretty
redundant at this point. I mean, how hard is it really to install Debian and
type 'sudo apt-get install whatever'? Fancy distros, for the most part, are
just repackaged Debian/Ubuntu/Arch, and should be desktop environment
"flavors" that you install separately. There are some exceptions, but I find
that the most derivitive distros purposely remove crap from even the most
barebones Debian or they are very single-purpose. If I need a workstation OS,
I am going to tailor it to my exact needs. Makes no sense to me to use a
lesser-supported distro if I am just going to rip it apart anyway. I feel like
more programmers than not will end up doing that. Am I wrong there?

------
kchauhan
Why should I choose this instead of elementary os? For software only, I can
install it on elementary also. Look? I can have better on elementry.

------
mpalfrey
As a time served (11 years commercial, 20+ years hobbyist) developer, I'm out.

I'd rather use my own choice of Linux distro running what I need rather than a
baked together mix of stuff with a dodgy site that's been hacked together
quickly without QA!

------
aq3cn
Their digital assistant Sarah seems to be unique. I don't know any other OS
which has it.

[http://www.semicodeos.com/sarah/](http://www.semicodeos.com/sarah/)

~~~
nameless912
It looks like a wrapper around wolframalpha. It's not that fancy and it's not
very useful.

------
nsfyn55
Why does clicking blog take me to a "Hello World" application?

~~~
marcus_holmes
this made me distrust the whole thing. I mean if you can't get the blog page
zero right, why on earth would I trust you with an operating system?

------
kwhitefoot
Surely any of the mainstream distros are just as good or better for this
purpose and the tools can be simply installed in minutes with apt, Synaptic,
Yum, etc.

Is this some kind of high school project?

~~~
therein
> Made With Love in Khartoum , Sudan

------
cestith
There's one link I could find to "Compilers" and the page doesn't exist. So
much for being "for developers".

------
plusgut
Every distro has these features, they are even more advanced. But these are
single-purpose-programms, not one blown thing which suggests to do everything.

I don't see any use for this distribution, as a programmer I want to be taken
seriously and I know what tools i like to have installed. And I can do that by
myself and don't need an "assistent" do that for me. An package manager is
good enough.

Besides this sexist bullshit is going on my nerves.

------
geooooooooobox
Damn no love for arch in the comments!!!!!

------
therein
> Made With Love in Khartoum , Sudan

No download links to be found on the Downloads page with places left blank for
Dropbox and Mega links.

