
EdgeBSD - justincormack
http://www.edgebsd.org
======
elktea
Finally got it to load. From the site, for those who can't:

EdgeBSD is a new member of the family of BSD-based Operating Systems, starting
development with the current NetBSD codebase with Git for Source Code
Management. Package management is based on pkgsrc.

Objectives

The primary goal of EdgeBSD is to provide an ambitious environment for working
as a bigger community together on the NetBSD Project. This will be achieved
thanks to a more modern development infrastructure, while taking a more
aggressive stance on integrating and enabling features.

Ultimately, EdgeBSD should be just as fun and attractive as a Research &
Development platform while delivering a modern, robust, and industrial-grade
system for all ranges of computer devices. First steps

The preliminary plan looks as follows:

* existing features will simply be enabled and used by default (SSP, ASLR, modular kernels and Xorg, full disk encryption, securelevel...);

* a release with these features will be delivered, based on the latest stable NetBSD branch.

Every meaningful contribution will be proposed back to the NetBSD Project.

Longer term

EdgeBSD should be as attractive a platform as possible, and use the advantages
of its existing codebase to experiment on being a modern, safe, and portable
Operating System. This vision currently includes:

* advanced facilities for developers (patch management, build environments...);

* re-organization of the base system (Git submodules, packages...);

* a graphical installer;

* modern package management (signed packages...);

* alternatives to Xorg and default desktop environment;

* ready-to-flash images for embedded devices;

* virtualization of most components with the RUMP anykernel.

Community

EdgeBSD users and developers can be found on the #EdgeBSD channel on the
freenode IRC network.

A web interface for the Git development trees can be found at git.edgebsd.org.

More services are being brought up and will be provided soon (mailing-lists,
wiki...). Hosting

EdgeBSD is primarily hosted in Germany, Europe.

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AlexanderDhoore
"EdgeBSD is primarily hosted in Germany, Europe."

I expect to see that a lot more in the future. It's pretty much saying
"EdgeBSD is not primarily hosted in the USA."

~~~
davidw
Yes, I think hosting open source projects outside the US is eminently
sensible; it would be terrible if organizations like the NSA were able to go
through every single commit on the project, see who did it, and what they
changed.

~~~
pekru
What's stopping NSA from scanning
[http://git.edgebsd.org](http://git.edgebsd.org) ?

~~~
rpsw
The GP was being sarcastic. The need for privacy would be small on a project
that is open by it's very nature.

~~~
laumars
True, but there's also the argument of patents (eg how DVD decoding libraries
cannot be shipped from US-based Linux distros)

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jacques_chester
The page source gives no hint of the source of the slowness, but curl -I
reports it's Apache running PHP. So I'm going to guess it's mod_php in
standard forking mode, fruitfully multiplying.

~~~
koralatov
That's maybe why I can't even load it. I thought perhaps it was my work proxy.

------
raimue
What I don't like about the approach is that they announce to prominently use
git as a modern DVCS, which is not BSD software. I would rather see
improvements in the existing BSD-licensed VCS. Currently, the only candidate
under active development would be [http://fossil-scm.org/](http://fossil-
scm.org/).

Or heck, maybe even start an initiative for a DVCS implementation under a BSD
license that is able to work with the git protocol. This could even use the
git disk format, so you can still use git in parallel until it's feature
complete.

~~~
davvid
Users don't want to learn yet another fossil scm; Git is ubiquitous. It seems
like a wasted effort to reimplement Git just because of its license.

libgit2 exists and has been making steady progress, and its license is
permissive enough.

~~~
bch
I can't speak for "users", but fossil is an absolute joy to use, easy to pick
up, and has features that I'm not aware of in any other SCM (hello, built-in
first-class tickets).

libgit2 has been "making progress" for a long time -- it's barely used in
github (it's one or two little features of libgit that are harnessed
internally, according to the githubber I talked to at a meetup), and, without
trying to insult the developers/development, I seems more accurate to say
libgit is "plodding along slowly". With "critical mass" as one of gits
features, this is sort of surprising. I suspect it speaks to the complexity of
git, but I'm not positive.

------
Nux
For a moment there my heart stopped in the hope this new project will bring
the one thing I've been missing the most: decent binary package management.

Alas, no.

~~~
elktea
How's FreeBSD's pkgng these days?

~~~
alcari
See [1] for an explanation of why pkgng isn't useful, especially the April
30th update: "...Port managers are currently working on introducing new-style
(as known as "pkgng") binary packages in the coming months, please check the
FreeBSD ports announcements list for further gradual status updates."

[1]:
[http://www.freebsd.org/news/2012-compromise.html](http://www.freebsd.org/news/2012-compromise.html)

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rwmj
Will it have a proper packaging system?

~~~
bch
It's using pkgsrc, which is excellent source-based package management (I
prefer it over FreeBSD ports myself; it feels less brittle).

The biggest changes over NetBSD for this NetBSD-derived OS are using git for
source control (versus CVS of NetBSD), and by default turning on options like
disk encryption. I had a brief discussion with the principle driver of this,
and it sounds to me like this is all based in technical pursuits, and not (as
mentioned above), hosted in Germany and enabling encryption as an NSA
reaction, or anything like that.

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nwh
Seems to be crippling under the load, here's a mirror —
[http://archive.is/yTdHm](http://archive.is/yTdHm)

------
fiorix
What a horrible web site!

