Last night my Chromebook’s ChromeOS automatically updated to version 122.0.6261.137. After it rebooted, I then was informed I could update my Linux container from Debian 11 to Debian 12. It did this for me automatically and with complete success. This is the first time it’s actually worked completely without issues for me. Everything seems to be working. I’m quite happy to have Debian 12 running, as I’ve been running with it since it was officially released and Debian 12 has been solid the entire time. Not that I had problems with Debian 11, but Debian 12 updates g++ and other tools that come with the OS.
I also ran lscpu in the terminal and checked the bogomips/CPU value. On this Chromebook, that value is 5,990. On my Raspberry Pi 5, for comparison’s sake, the value is 108. Yes, you read that right, 108. What makes the comparison worse is that the container bogomips value is within a virtual machine, while the Raspberry Pi value is running on bare silicon. I’m not saying the Raspberry Pi 5 is bad, but it does help to keep me grounded in reality to make these kinds of comparisons from time to time. Besides, it’s kinda fun.
It’s also nice to note that contemporary Chromebooks, such as this Lenovo IP Flex 5 13ITL6 Chromebook with an Intel 11th Generation i3, are an inexpensive way to purchase a decent Linux development system. I purchased this Lenovo Chromebook in 2022 for about $US400; over the last two years it has proven to be a great value for all-around computing. As Google has enhanced and evolved ChromeOS on this machine, its value to me has only grown over time.
CentOS Stream will now be the sole repository for public RHEL-related source code releases. … Before CentOS Stream, Red Hat pushed public sources for RHEL to git.centos.org. When the CentOS Project shifted to center on CentOS Stream, we maintained these repositories even though CentOS Linux was no longer being built downstream of RHEL. The engagement around CentOS Stream, the engineering levels of investment, and the new priorities we’re addressing for customers and partners now make maintaining separate, redundant, repositories inefficient. The latest source code will still be available via CentOS Stream.
Red Hat customers and partners can access RHEL sources via the customer and partner portals, in accordance with their subscription agreement.
In other words, the source code to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) will no longer be posted for download and rebuilding unless you have a commercial agreement with Red Hat. I’ve read Red Hat’s reasons for this, and rather than quote any more, I will simply say that I agree with Red Hat’s reasons.
If you want Red Hat, then you should purchase Red Hat, or else use a Red Hat provided free ISO for personal use. But CentOS, and later Alma and Rocky Linux, took the RHEL sources, removed all the Red Hat branding, added their branding back in, built it, and then put the binaries out for free download. I didn’t particularly care for CentOS (I still remember all the CentOS drama before Red Hat purchased CentOS in 2014), Alma nor Rocky because simply recompiling the released source added no value. The only RHEL cloner that added any value is (it pains me to say) Oracle, with its Oracle Linux. They added some key features, the most important being Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, which used up-to-date kernel sources (far more up-to-date than provided by Red Hat) and additional enterprise hardware support unavailable with standard RHEL. Oracle, in my limited testing, was a better RHEL than RHEL.
I’m in full support of Red Hat protecting its business. I just don’t care for how Red Hat has behaved with regards to CentOS. Red Hat has become (along with Canonical and Ubuntu) an unreliable partner. I’m in full agreement with why Red Hat did what they did. I just don’t care for how Red Hat did what they did.
Which brings me to another realization: corporate Linux (Red Hat and Canonical in particular) has become untrustworthy for my uses. Rather than going all emotional and dramatic, I’m simply moving over to Debian, or if Debian derived, as far from Canonical derived as possible. When I take stock of all the Linux computers around my home all but one is running Debian; there’s Debian itself, Linux Mint (downstream from Ubuntu), Raspberry Pi OS (downstream from Debian) and LMDE 5 (Linux Mint Debian Edition, downstream from Debian). The one machine that doesn’t run Debian, runs Fedora.
What makes the Debian ecosystem of operating systems palatable to me are the flatpaks of major applications such as LibreOffice. Base Debian is more than adequate for my needs and application flatpaks are up-to-date releases not coupled with a distribution’s release. My needs are software development with a side of image processing and word processing. Between the power and stability of Debian, combined with flatpaks (and even AppImages), I have all I really need to continue on with Linux.
And this is the last time I intend to write about this particular contretemps.
Radarwitch
You must be logged in to post a comment.