36 ms·

Kiss – A Linux distribution with a focus on “less is more”

168 points by chacha2 7y ago

charlesdaniels 7y ago
Looks interesting. Shell can be a good tool for this type of thing, as long as rigorous care is taken to maintain good quality. I view it kind of like PHP, Perl, or JavaScript... you can definitely write good code in these languages, but it requires more discipline than in other languages. Shell offers a number of benefits too, namely it's ubiquitous, most people that would be interested in this distro will know it already, and it makes it easy to drive around other tools and processes. One concern I would have though is that it seems their package manager does not currently have any way to include patches to packages (or if it does, it's not mentioned in the documentation). This can make it hard to port things if they require even minor tweaks to build properly.
- johnisgood 7y ago
  > One concern I would have though is that it seems their package manager does not currently have any way to include patches to packages https://getkiss.org/pages/package-system/ https://getkiss.org/pages/package-system/ mentions patches. There is a section on patches alone with an example.
  - dyanaraps 7y ago
    We have quite a few patches in use too. https://github.com/kisslinux/repo/search?l=Diff https://github.com/kisslinux/repo/search?l=Diff
peterwwillis 7y ago
First off, I love the philosophy, and the package format is nice. I'm not a language hipster, I don't care what language you write something in as long as it fits the purpose well, and shell can certainly do that here. However, some uses of shell in the package manager are non-obvious, and that will make it more difficult for people to troubleshoot or maintain this code. @OP: I imagine you've examined Slackware's pkgtools? (https://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware-12.1/source/a/pkgtools/scripts/ https://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware-12.1/source/a/pkgtool...) They're written in shell too, and have been in use since 1994. I wish they would get a bit more updated to do things like read metadata (especially for Slackbuilds) and handle build dependencies, but I always found them pretty easy to understand and modify to my needs. Later I threw together some scripts to automate the most common configure/make/make install/packaging steps (https://github.com/psypete/public-bin/tree/public-bin/src/slacktools https://github.com/psypete/public-bin/tree/public-bin/src/sl...). My scripting experience was, let's say... "limited". :) I ended up making a couple thousand packages from tarballs. What that taught me was that actually managing build dependencies, and the complications of layering different software into the same file tree, was a lot more weird than it seemed. So depending on people's intentions with this distro, it may end up being a lot more complicated for them to manage than they think.
antpls 7y ago
What i am looking for is a distro where the only UI is through webpages. I had idea about installing a local Prometheus agent, cockpit and other modern administration tools, but it could'nt match all the features of Gnome 3. Especially, I couldn't find a webtool to manage hardware, such as Wifi, keyboard configuration, display, mouse, etc. Also, a very good, fast, and stable web terminal isnt easy to find
- mappu 7y ago
  This isn't a particularly practical suggestion, but you might be interested in the Nintendo ES operating system. EDIT: Maybe XPenology can run the DSM web interface on a desktop OS? EDIT 2: Most of KDE Plasma (well, the QML parts at least) will probably run through the WebGL streaming QPA. Likewise using Broadway for Gnome GTK3 apps.
  - antpls 7y ago
    Thank you for the pointers! If at some point we can run classical Gnome apps in the Browser, I guess it could be a solution. I would prefer to have only one "way" of presenting information, based on web standards.
- ktpsns 7y ago
  Have you thought about using tools like http://www.webmin.com/ http://www.webmin.com/ or https://cockpit-project.org/ https://cockpit-project.org/ ? They are thought for managing servers, but they might also work for desktops. Also I wouldn't be surprised if tools like http://yast.opensuse.org/ http://yast.opensuse.org/ offered a web GUI. Furthermore, for a web based terminal, thanks to https://xtermjs.org/ https://xtermjs.org/, terminal.js and friends, there are plenty of products available nowadays. Maybe this helps for starting a web search.
  - antpls 7y ago
    I tried cockpit and liked the UI. It's modern, simple and clean. However the features were limited (disk space, CPU graphs, but no management for wifi). I aslo tried ajenti.org but same issue, I couldn't even manage wifi with it. I will maybe make something myself. Maybe something that can take any linux tools in input and make a primitive web interface for it as output automatically.
jaytaylor 7y ago
Also see "The Pure Bash Bible" posted today, and created by the same person; HN username "dyanaraps": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21013150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21013150
shrumm 7y ago
potential successor to Alpine for lightweight docker images?
- Quekid5 7y ago
  Is it, though? (That's a bit of a meme, sorry.) No, seriously. Why would I choose this over Alpine? Or, given the failure modes of Alpine as a container image, why would I even choose Alpine? Everything in this space is absolute shite.
  - no_wizard 7y ago
    What’s the problem with alpine?
    - techntoke 7y ago
      One issue is that they do not keep an archive of packages, and often you'll end up finding it really difficult to downgrade or use a different version that once existed.
    - smitty1e 7y ago
      According to Itamar Turner-Trauring on Podcast.__init__[1] the issue with Alpine (at least in a Python context) is that the use of musl[2] instead of glibc (and I paraphrase) is an increased technical risk where corner cases that may not be as thoroughly tested are in view. ITT counseled in favor of using containers based on ubuntu or centos. I haven't done huge amounts of container work, but my light outings with Alpine have been fine. Maybe load and internationalization expose more personality in musl, or these concerns pertain to issues that have been fixed. It's something to keep in mind when assessing risk. [1] https://www.pythonpodcast.com/docker-python-production-episode-222/ https://www.pythonpodcast.com/docker-python-production-episo... [2] https://www.musl-libc.org/ https://www.musl-libc.org/
      - 0xcde4c3db 7y ago
        I think of it as being like the "dash as /bin/sh" thing in Debian-derived distros. Software that's carefully done "by the book" or intended to be highly portable is unlikely to have a problem. But a lot of things depend on bash/glibc without anyone particularly intending or realizing it, simply because their sheer market share means that such dependencies will "just work" for the vast majority of users.
toyg 7y ago
Isn’t that a bit of a sexist logo...?
- nikolay 7y ago
  I don't think so.
- scoot 7y ago
  Yes, unfortunately
- klyrs 7y ago
  Only if staring at boobs and failing to make eye contact with women is sexist Edit: that's a yes. Because apparently that isn't obvious to some folks around here
  - RandomBacon 7y ago
    I think that's just "sexual", not "sexist."
    - klyrs 7y ago
      Nope. The framing, cropping the face and focusing on the chest, is distinctly objectifying.
      - RandomBacon 7y ago
        objectifying ≠ sexist I think there is a strong arguement for objectifying, but still think it's more "sexual" than "objectifying", and definitely those two way more than it's "sexist". Sexism is discrimination based on sex. Discrimination is different treatment based on a characteristic.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    Of course it's not going to be obvious to everyone. Some people honestly don't see the difference between criticizing that behavior and saying to people "you should smile more"[1]. Good luck explaining it. [1]https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/all/2016/10/the-sexism-of-telling-women-to-smile-your-stories/503309/ https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/all/2016/10/the-sexism-of-...
thrower123 7y ago
What is the standard pick these days for a no-frills, stripped back, but still usable Linux distribution? One that doesn't start with much, but isn't boiling the ocean like Arch or Slack if you want to add more? I used to like Xubuntu, but this was like a decade ago at this point.
- vivekd 7y ago
  I think puppy linux and tinycore are the lightest ones Ive heard of. Haven't tried either yet, I find mainstream distros like debian are still light enough for most old computers.
- oneplane 7y ago
  I still go for a minimal Debian install, or even CentOS. Both still usable because you can add a basic DE if you like, and have something like FireFox if needed.
- xelxebar 7y ago
  I've been using Void Linux[0] for a few years now. It's philosophically aimed at being a minimal distro for power users. Design choices: * Rolling release * Custom package manager: XBPS with binary package repository. It's pretty darn good IMHO. * Minimal init process: runit * LibreSSL (vs OpenSSL) * User can choose standard library: Glibc or musl * Prefer dash over bash in system scripts You get the drift. The biggest change to a user is probably the use of XBPS as a package manager. The repository of pre-compiled binaries is pretty extensive, and the package definition scripts are dead simple. The entire collection of package definitions is in a repo on GitHub, so sharing your package definitions is also quite painless. Their IRC channel on freenode (#voidlinux) is also pretty active with lots of knowledgeable and helpful people. [0]:https://voidlinux.org/ https://voidlinux.org/
  - sprash 7y ago
    You forgot to mention they have a very sane package hirachy that always draws as few dependencies as possible. Many self proclaimed "minimalist" distros will immediately become bloated as soon as you install one package not in the base system.
reificator 7y ago
That logo makes it a non-starter in any organization I've seen in the last decade.
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  That and the package manager is a bash script.
  - pnako 7y ago
    ... which relies on many battle-tested Unix utilities. Why is that such a bad thing? I'm not generally a big fan of shell scripts but this one looks particularly readable and documented: https://github.com/kisslinux/kiss/blob/master/kiss https://github.com/kisslinux/kiss/blob/master/kiss
- flukus 7y ago
  How many of those organisations feature smiling attractive women in their product advertising? It's funny how many companies are happy to use sex to sell products but god forbid someone see a silhouette of a bikini.
  - trickstra 7y ago
    Blaming each other who is sexist for wearing certain clothes or saying certain word is a distraction skillfully used to make people busy and not pay attention to what the leaders are doing.
  - reificator 7y ago
    > How many of those organisations feature smiling attractive women in their product advertising? I don't know, but I also don't know if this woman is smiling because they cut off her head to get more breast in frame.
- userbinator 7y ago
  Rorschach test? There's another comment here saying it's sexist, but after staring at it for a few minutes all I can see is some sort of odd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_of_the_horns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_of_the_horns in the middle; which might be because the name made me think of the band.
anigbrowl 7y ago
Looks cool but WTF is that logo? I'm an artist and I can't figure out what it's supposed to be even after staring at it for 5 minutes ¯\(°_o)/¯
- lowercased 7y ago
  i think it's a woman leaning over - we're seeing some cleavage there. but... it may just be a rorschach logo...
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    Yeah I thought so too but then other parts it stop making sense. Vastly ahead of its time or just bad? Either way, it's kind of a millstone around the neck of the project.
- geowwy 7y ago
  Stereotypical pinup girl leaning forward to kiss you, I assume.
- mrtweetyhack 7y ago
  I looked at it for 1 sec and figured it out.
mycoborea 7y ago
Been following you for a long time Dylan. Keep up the good work and screw the inevitable BS that will come from these SV nutjobs
- dyanaraps 7y ago
  Thanks :)
  - ekc 7y ago
    KISS is great. Been using it for two months. No complaints.
    - dyanaraps 7y ago
      That's awesome. Glad you're enjoying it.
thiccly 7y ago
New logo needed. The chopped off head is bad luck in parts of Asia.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Where is a chopped off head good luck?
  - iguessthislldo 7y ago
    France?
    - wiz21c 7y ago
      Humour de guillotine ! superb !
  - rataata_jr 7y ago
    Saudi
- artemisart 7y ago
  The chopped off head may not be the best, but it's clearly not the worst part of this logo...
- Nr7 7y ago
  I've been staring at the logo for a few minutes now and I cannot make head or tails of it. It just looks like a random squiggle to me.
  - jamiek88 7y ago
    It’s a woman with the top of head cropped
    - tom_mellior 7y ago
      A woman who is not fully clothed, because We Are Tech Bros.
RandomBacon 7y ago
Ominous's screenshot looks amazing. Does anyone know what (software/gui/manager/idk) is? Even though I've been using Linux (Ubuntu) as my daily driver for the past several years, I really son't know too much about it such as how to ask the right question about desktop manager(?). The install instructions look detailed enough that I could probably figure it out. I will bookmark this, because I want to buy a laptop, amd it might be interesting to try to build/install this as an experiment first.
- pnako 7y ago
  It says it in the screenshot :) catwm
  - RandomBacon 7y ago
    Thank you, I see it after "WM", and that jogs my memory a little. "Windows Manager" - that's the term I was looking for!
    - pnako 7y ago
      There are plenty of minimalist ones, if you're looking for a mainstream tiling window manager you should check out i3.
- nodefourtytwo 7y ago
  If you like that, you should visit https://reddit.com/r/unixporn https://reddit.com/r/unixporn
AlexDragusin 7y ago
Last time I've checked, kissing involves the mouth, at the least, so if the logo was some sort of play on the KISS, it fails anatomically. On top of that, there is no connection between the logo and the product which is what probably sets people off more than the content. If it's by some ways a Rorschach case (doubt it), then it fails again as a logo, which should be clear and concise and aligned with the product. If no such alignment can be done graphically, then a text oriented logo would be far better. I've been doing branding for a big part of my life, consider taking the suggestions from the other commentators as well in revising the logo if this is to be a serious endeavor; think of the various cultures and settings this would be seen.
- gdevenyi 7y ago
  Keep it simple, stupid
jmull3n 7y ago
Awesome project, nice work.
- dyanaraps 7y ago
  Thanks :)
JoshMcguigan 7y ago
Is there a docker image available? I'd like to experiment with the package manager, but I'd rather not setup a VM.
- dyanaraps 7y ago
  You can download the installation tarball, extract it to a directory and use 'chroot' to start tinkering with it. The installation tarball doubles as a working 'chroot' image. :) https://github.com/kisslinux/repo/releases/tag/1.1.3 https://github.com/kisslinux/repo/releases/tag/1.1.3
Multicomp 7y ago
Not to be dumb, but for a newcomer such as myself who read the blurbs about it being simple to use and develop for, not being able to have a single ISO to download and install is from this point in my Linux Journey, not simple. I'm not making a value judgment as to whether or not I should know how to compile source code and running this on top of another Linux and so fort, but I can intuit my way through installing Debian or Manjaro or Arch Linux or knoppix or any other distro that provides a binary ISO. It seems like this is simple in terms of 'lightweight for linux pros', not simple as in 'intuitive for users to use'. I'm not sure that's a bad thing, just pointing out that I am unable to try this with my current skill level
- asdfk-12 7y ago
  The author includes a pithy and terse installation guide that will be valuable to those unfamiliar with assembling a Linux distro. This seems to me to be a welcome change to new users since they’ll be able to see more of the process and understand the components better.
- usr1106 7y ago
  This is mentioned early on the page: > A user without prior knowledge may see this distribution as the exact opposite. It's simple in the terms of that an experienced person can easily understand how it works in many details. Not that an unexperienced person could use it easily. It's like a Ford T. Simple to build and repair for an old school mechanic. Probably not user friendly for the average driver today.
- josteink 7y ago
  > It seems like this is simple in terms of 'lightweight for linux pros', not simple as in 'intuitive for users to use'. That's a common problem with declaring things "simple", and not only for Linux distros. What's simple in implementation (lightweight and straight to the point) may not be simple for an uninitiated user.
  - Crinus 7y ago
    Basically simple does not necessarily mean "easy to use". The main "easy" element about most simple stuff is "easy to understand" and that is often what is sought after when it comes to simplicity.
jamsodonnell 7y ago
A new(ish) Linux distribution is reported on -- and the comments are mostly about the logo? (checks calendar) Oh, I see... "Mais, où sont les neiges d'antan?"
knocte 7y ago
Keep making the biggest problem of Linux bigger, please... Yeah, this problem is "fragmentation", and it is not solved with "simplicity".
- meuk 7y ago
  I think that distributions patching software is especially problematic -- whether you consider it a symptom or a cause of fragmentation.
  - asymptotically2 7y ago
    Distributions exist to provide software that all fits and works together (e.g. providing the correct versions of dependencies). Sometimes patching is necessary to make things work.
  - thiccly 7y ago
    You're missing the point of free software. You own it and can change it how you like. It's not problematic this is how it was made to be. Here's two examples of how distros patching software has been helpful for me. 1) SquirrelMail (abandoned) patched to work with PHP 7.3 thanks to FreeBSD contribs 2) Abiword patch builds in the AUR that fix a broken default install.
    - meuk 7y ago
      Is the point of free software to create as much variations of a program as possible? I'd rather see that useful changes are merged upstream, or projects are forked. If this had happened, you wouldn't even need to patch, and this would save an enormous amount of manpower that is wasted on trivialities.
- diffeomorphism 7y ago
  How is fragmentation a "big problem"? There are like what, four distros? - Debian and *buntu - Red Hat - Fedora - Suse All of them use systemd. All use X11 or wayland. All package gnome. All DEs, WMs etc. are available on all these distros. Smaller distros can reuse whatever is available for that distros, see for example chrome or skype.
jimnotgym 7y ago
Just what we need, another Linux distribution. Spread the effort even more thinly. No thanks
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  Much of the work that goes into the open source software ecosystem goes into projects that benefit more than one particular platform be they user facing apps or system components. A minority goes into distributions. Distributions mainly require infrastructure, packaging, and distro specific software like package management. Many distros are quite derivative and represent largely Linux set up as the author desires. You see a lot of these because they are easy to make they also suck near zero resources from the broader pool of resources because they are stuck packaging their own software and the skills needed to make them wouldn't translate directly into improving system components anyway. More complex efforts which are the minority are the way people explore possible paths forward. Many are already increasingly converging on common patterns that make it easier to focus on the things that are truly important to that project. Complaining about a diversity of options seems poorly thought out when discussing a platform that exists only because others desired more options. Hell if we all standardized on redhat we might well be trading 10% more progress for 99% fewer options.
- alpaca128 7y ago
  "Fewer distros mean more active developers per distro" is just as much a fallacy as "Less music piracy means higher profits". Many distros exist exactly because their devs don't want to touch something like Ubuntu.
p2t2p 7y ago
In which world replacing removing Wayland in favour of X is considered KISS? We seem to have very different understanding of KISS with those folks.
- reacweb 7y ago
  X is widly used since 30 years. Its configuration (and security model) is well documented (xorg.conf). It is as simple as launching the X server using a simple command line and being able to connect any client (even remote) thanks to a single environment variable (DISPLAY). How do you launch a wayland server and how do you forward "display" (ssh -X or -Y) to launch a remote application ?
  - vectorEQ 7y ago
    agree, even though some features of X are a bit crappy built, it's very well known, documented and used for so long basically any issue you run into someone else will have solved already somehow. perhaps one day wayland will be nice ,but not yet imho.
  - nirv 7y ago
    As for display forwarding via SSH, you may be interested in this summer's GSoC project Waypipe[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20848334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20848334
    - reacweb 7y ago
      Thank you very much. The work seems very complex. At the moment, I am at work on a windows PC. I have exceed and xming started and I have a toolbar with around 70 putty shortcuts with X11 forward. I am using them all the day long. At my previous job (using HP servers), it was a similar setup (with only 5 shortcuts).
  - MayeulC 7y ago
    Well, by that logic we should probably use COBOL everywhere. I am lacking a proper analogy here, but it isn't because something is old, and most people are accustomed to its quirks, that it is simple... Maybe Apache, PHP, or even IPv6 would be a better comparison? IPv6 is likely a very good analogy here. Now, Xorg's "security" model is well understood, just like its security issues. xorg.conf itself is a configuration nightmare. You might be able to launch the X server with a simple command line, but that's just hiding complexity behind a command. I can do the same with sway. Wayland is quite modular itself. You can probably use namespaces to restrict one app's access to the clipboard, if that's not a feature the compositor supports, for instance. For network "transparency" under wayland, which is an argument X proponents often cling to (it has its merits, but was counterproductive for most apps), it is a matter of serializing the protocol+image data (that's normally sent trough shared memory), and deserializing it at the other end. That's basically what waypipe [0] is doing, trough Unix sockets. So Wayland can be used remotely over anything that supports Unix sockets, thanks to waypipe, that plays the role of a compositor proxy. A lot more things are possible due to Wayland being properly specified. The first and most important being multiple, interoperable implementations. Just like the TCP or HTTP stack. That is a Good Thing™ in my opinion. Zero-copy is also simpler to achieve, as another example. I am sorry if I sound condescending about network transparency for instance. But that was pointed out for so long, and it is even written in Wayland's FAQ. The only reason it was that slow to materialize is Wayland's slow adoption. Which might be in part due to people complaining about stuff like network transparency without understanding it, and making themselves impervious to reasoning, while actually undermining efforts to bootstrap the ecosystem. > How do you launch a wayland server A compositor that displays stuff that applications send it? Well, you just execute it. Then that compositor decides to merge that stuff together, or pick some of it, and displays it where it wants: waypipe sends it to a socket, traditional wayland compositors can render on a connected screen trough the DRI kernel interface, others such as sway can even pass the rendered data to an X server or wayland compositor. > thanks to a single environment variable (DISPLAY) Use WAYLAND_DISPLAY to specify a Unix socket, if supported[1]. I'll admit that I am a bit in a learning phase, so I don't yet understand everything about the various subtleties (I couldn't use that to start an app from one TTY on another). So, this distro sounds interesting on paper, but I can't really justify this choice of their, and I am probably not going to use it unless their revise their position. Wayland really needs a bit of forced adoption, like IPv6, if we want to have nice things. [0]: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mstoeckl/waypipe https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mstoeckl/waypipe [1]: https://wayland.freedesktop.org/docs/html/ch04.html#sect-Protocol-Wire-Format https://wayland.freedesktop.org/docs/html/ch04.html#sect-Pro...
meuk 7y ago
I'm always a proponent of simplicity. Some criticism about the site: What a horrible layout. I zoomed out to 25% (the furthest you can go) and the text is still to big.
- amq 7y ago
  I like the layout.
holstvoogd 7y ago
ITT: People on _hacker news_ complaining about someone building their own linux distro... Go install windows and be happy in your mono culture world, but don't shit on other peoples creativity and effort.
- Crinus 7y ago
  While i agree with the first part, about the second part... Windows is hardly a monoculture, it contains a ton of technologies that overlap heavily each other. As an example, people used to make fun of the number of GUI toolkits available for Linux and their messy looks, but nowadays your average Windows installation has way more different toolkits installed than your average Linux installation :-P.
- api 7y ago
  Some people call it "hater news" for the tendency of people here to be negative on new things, though in my experience it's not as bad as other sites.
- skc 7y ago
  HN heavily skews MacOS though.
Smithalicious 7y ago
Very curious, applying the "less is more* philosophy by making even more Linux distributions...
- maitredusoi 7y ago
  It is because they are using a mathematical path. A function that is tending to +infinite, next step is to tend to -infinite. Think of a path shaped as a circle, then of its cosinus variation, then you understand... ;)
- tom_mellior 7y ago
  Well, it's "less is more", not "fewer are more" :-)
reacweb 7y ago
Before deciding to try a new distribution, I want to know which important application it supports or not. I assume it supports usual stuff like ssh, vim, emacs, python, ruby, node, but does it support chrome, firefox, visual studio code, docker, virtual box ?
- ptato 7y ago
  It depends on what you mean by "support".
- Johnnynator 7y ago
  Half of your named programs are not supported (Chromium/Electron, Virtual Box, Docker, all non open source software that doesn't support musl libc (which is nearly all proprietary software)). Chromium and Electron are a pain on musl systems, Virtual Box also would require patching for musl.
antisemiotic 7y ago
I was looking for something like this actually, I thought I would finally have to warm up to BSD if I wanted an OS that I have some hope of understanding fully.
TheUndead96 7y ago
Just wanted to say this looks kickass. It is way easier to tear things down than to build them.
- dyanaraps 7y ago
  Thanks!
vectorEQ 7y ago
this looks kind of nice to be honest, and i hardly ever say that about some custom distro. only thing i'd like is to install it from USB instead of some chroot mumbo jumbo. that would require me to instal linux on a box firs before re-rolling into this. kind of annoying. perhaps something on the roadmap, didn't check. but definitely promising as far as i can see.
- dyanaraps 7y ago
  Thanks. :) You don't need to install another Linux distribution beforehand, you just need to boot another distribution's live-iso to partition disks and download/unpack KISS. This is simpler on my side as I don't have to compile and package a heavy kernel, generate an initramfs, build a squashfs and finally package it into an ISO image. On the user side this enables more flexibility too. You can use a live-iso offering a GUI for "easier" partitioning or an iso in which you _know_ includes the firmware you need for the installation process etc. The download for KISS is only a 45MB~ tarball and the installation is just unpacking it to your newly partitioned disk at `/`! This also allows for the same installation tarball to double as a working chroot in existing systems. In my eyes, this method is simpler all round.
whalabi 7y ago
That logo was a terrible idea.
- Crinus 7y ago
  Mainly because it is the easiest (or simplest :-P) part of the entire page to criticize so people do that. FWIW, personally i like it (though i'd put a frame around it to emphasize the pinup poster girl style) and find it more artistic than most meaningless abstract shapes other projects use.
  - whalabi 7y ago
    Well no I was criticising it because women I know thought it was disrespectful to women. A pair of tits isn't "artistic".
- seebye 7y ago
  I like it.
- nirv 7y ago
  That logo is the cutest part of the ordinary linux distro page that sparked my interest.
FrozenVoid 7y ago
What are advantages of KISS vs Alpine Linux(also musl/busybox based)?
- de_watcher 7y ago
  KISS doesn't have different packages that Alpine doesn't have. KISS has a more recent "yet another package manager" that sill looks pristine.
yura 7y ago
Isn't there a distro that's already based on the KISS principle? (Arch Linux) Is there something that the Kiss distro achieves that Arch doesn't?
- rejschaap 7y ago
  This distro is much simpler than Arch. It reminds me more of something like Static Linux: https://sta.li/ https://sta.li/
  - claudiawerner 7y ago
    It reminds me much more of Crux or even Gentoo (with the Bash ebuilds as package management).
- mruts 7y ago
  Arch unfortunately has gotten more and more complicated over the years. Their decision to adopt systemd was really disappointing, imo.
  - Grimm665 7y ago
    Of the major distros I feel Arch has one of the best KISS implementations of systemd. For my use cases and system admin style, I'm really glad they made that decision.
- _emacsomancer_ 7y ago
  Arch is based on the KISS'DD principle (KISS for the distro developers).
nabdab 7y ago
Seems like an extremely specific minutia to build an entirely new distribution for. Also if less is more, how do you call less? I always preferred it because it is faster. /jk
equalunique 7y ago
Looks simple enough to get working. I'll try it out. Am curious to see what the disctro architecture is rather than isn't.
rob74 7y ago
"This distribution has no default desktop or window manager environment." - goes to prove that "simple" doesn't mean "easy to use"...
- Crestwave 7y ago
  The website does mention this: > A distribution being “simple” has many different interpretations. It may mean simple to use, simple to develop or simple in its implementation. Further, the phrase “simple to use” may differ from person to person. > > Users with prior knowledge of Linux and basic programming skills will find this distribution simple in all three examples given above. A user without prior knowledge may see this distribution as the exact opposite.
arch-ninja 7y ago
I'm surprised at the closed-mindedness of the comments here: usually browsing HN I read wonderful insights on tech how "you can't assume X, technology Y has a place and that place is Z". Here commenters appear unable to accept that this tech has a place because it doesn't include "app/feature X" or it doesn't abide by "rule Y". I'm more interested in the ripple effects seen here than the original article.
- thiccly 7y ago
  Normies galore after that RMS Twitter drama
megous 7y ago
Kudos for not using any pointless HTML tags on the website. I like how you skip head and body. :)
- dyanaraps 7y ago
  Yeah, I spent a lot of time ensuring the website would load quickly and I do away with a lot of "optional" cruft. There's no Javascript full stop, no stylesheets (all CSS is embedded in each page) and every page load is a single web request (with the exception of the screenshots page). Even the SVG logo is embedded in the pages! Writing it this way also causes each page to be self contained, a download of the HTML page includes all of the CSS, logo and information so it can easily be saved and viewed locally. :)
  - badsectoracula 7y ago
    My main issue with the site is that in my browser i get the mobile version instead of the desktop since i do not use my browser maximized (i have a 1366x768 monitor). Isn't there any other way to figure out if i use a mobile phone instead of using the horizontal resolution?
    - dyanaraps 7y ago
      I'll fix this, thanks for letting me know.
norswap 7y ago
I love this! The only part I find questionable is the use of tools written in shell. Shell is a very difficult language to understand and use correctly. To the credit of the author, he is aware of this and the code is linted using shellcheck. Still, I wonder if it wouldn't have been a better idea to write the utilities using Python or Lua or even (gasp) C! (Or Rust, or Go or ... Just pick one that isn't completely esoteric and isn't Perl, then stick to it.)
- moviuro 7y ago
  shell is the only portable language. It works on all Linuces, BSDs, and even on WSL. Anyone with a tiny bit of sysadmin experience knows sh. Python is far too much overhead for something as simple as firing shell (!!) commands and dumping new files in a tar archive. And also, shell is extensible in the most simple way: you just write a program name, and boom, it runs. Shell is simple, stable (remember the debacle of Python 2->3?), safe (no pointers, etc.), readable (compiling can even introduce issues), and dangerous only if you do it seriously wrong[0]. The only remark I have regarding code quality is that the word splitting warning is disabled for the entirety of kiss: I would have disabled it on a per-occurence basis. [0] https://github.com/valvesoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/3671 https://github.com/valvesoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/3671 PS: the most secure open-source OS out there has a package manager written in perl, with priv-sep (https://github.com/openbsd/src/tree/master/usr.sbin/pkg_add https://github.com/openbsd/src/tree/master/usr.sbin/pkg_add).
  - LinuxBender 7y ago
    I agree with this. I would just add that you can get great linting / syntax checking with ShellCheck [1] [2] [1] - https://github.com/koalaman/shellcheck https://github.com/koalaman/shellcheck [2] - https://www.shellcheck.net/ https://www.shellcheck.net/ ShellCheck is in many of the distro package repositories already.
  - dyanaraps 7y ago
    > The only remark I have regarding code quality is that the word splitting warning is disabled for the entirety of kiss: I would have disabled it on a per-occurence basis. There are 8 occurrences of word splitting in the source, each and every one is intentional. I also enable all lint errors when working on the package manager itself (to catch any unintentional word splitting which may slip through my fingers). The ideal goal is to reduce the word splitting count to zero though! :) (I'll go ahead and make the change you're suggesting until I do remove all word splitting).
janvdberg 7y ago
This reminds me of: https://arewesimpleyet.org/ https://arewesimpleyet.org/
api 7y ago
I absolutely love the overall objectives here! Unfortunately I can't see a reason to use this over Alpine Linux, which is also quite simple and minimal and has been around for a while and works fantastically well.
aequitas 7y ago
A simple solution is often worthless if the underlying problem is complex. It's nice this project foregoes on complex things like pam, systemd, gettext, etc. But these things are often created to solve problems. Problems this 'simple' solution needs to account for as well (if not now, in the near future when use X needs feature Y). And then new functionality is introduced in the solution making it complex again (and often non-standard).
- dyanaraps 7y ago
  Nothing stops a user from packaging and installing these things in KISS, they just aren't included by default. I envision KISS as a minimal base in which you extend to suit your needs and not something you need to cut to size. As I state in the Philosophy; "it's easier to add things to a system than it is to remove them". A user has actually gone ahead and done this! \[1\] They run KISS with systemd, pam, dbus, pulseaudio, glibc, chrome etc etc. \[1\] https://github.com/fanboimsft/kissD https://github.com/fanboimsft/kissD
  - de_watcher 7y ago
    The Philosophy is "it's easier to do things that were already done before". So the project is an arbitrary reduction of scope and then writing the implementation just for that scope.
  - aequitas 7y ago
    But for me that beats the purpose. You still end up with the complexity. Only now you have to add and manage it yourself in some other way, probably being worse off then when you would have started with all that complexity but integrated in one standardised package (distro). Imho, the issue is not that the solutions are complex but the problems we (assume we) need to solve are. Just making simple solutions that ignore the bigger problems underneath do not really help in the end.
    - badsectoracula 7y ago
      The purpose can be to make a simple system, not an easy to use one. A simple system can maintain its simplicity by avoiding tackling complex problems - however if you want to tackle those problems yourself then, sure, you'll also need to handle that inherent complexity that the original system decided to avoid. But that is complexity you invite in, not something that the original system had. That doesn't make the original system any simpler or more complex.

168 points by chacha2 7y ago

Looks interesting. Shell can be a good tool for this type of thing, as long as rigorous care is taken to maintain good quality. I view it kind of like PHP, Perl, or JavaScript... you can definitely write good code in these languages, but it requires more discipline than in other languages. Shell offers a number of benefits too, namely it's ubiquitous, most people that would be interested in this distro will know it already, and it makes it easy to drive around other tools and processes. One concern I would have though is that it seems their package manager does not currently have any way to include patches to packages (or if it does, it's not mentioned in the documentation). This can make it hard to port things if they require even minor tweaks to build properly.

johnisgood 7y ago
> One concern I would have though is that it seems their package manager does not currently have any way to include patches to packages https://getkiss.org/pages/package-system/ https://getkiss.org/pages/package-system/ mentions patches. There is a section on patches alone with an example.
- dyanaraps 7y ago
  We have quite a few patches in use too. https://github.com/kisslinux/repo/search?l=Diff https://github.com/kisslinux/repo/search?l=Diff

peterwwillis 7y ago

First off, I love the philosophy, and the package format is nice. I'm not a language hipster, I don't care what language you write something in as long as it fits the purpose well, and shell can certainly do that here. However, some uses of shell in the package manager are non-obvious, and that will make it more difficult for people to troubleshoot or maintain this code. @OP: I imagine you've examined Slackware's pkgtools? (https://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware-12.1/source/a/pkgtools/scripts/ https://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware-12.1/source/a/pkgtool...) They're written in shell too, and have been in use since 1994. I wish they would get a bit more updated to do things like read metadata (especially for Slackbuilds) and handle build dependencies, but I always found them pretty easy to understand and modify to my needs. Later I threw together some scripts to automate the most common configure/make/make install/packaging steps (https://github.com/psypete/public-bin/tree/public-bin/src/slacktools https://github.com/psypete/public-bin/tree/public-bin/src/sl...). My scripting experience was, let's say... "limited". :) I ended up making a couple thousand packages from tarballs. What that taught me was that actually managing build dependencies, and the complications of layering different software into the same file tree, was a lot more weird than it seemed. So depending on people's intentions with this distro, it may end up being a lot more complicated for them to manage than they think.

antpls 7y ago

What i am looking for is a distro where the only UI is through webpages. I had idea about installing a local Prometheus agent, cockpit and other modern administration tools, but it could'nt match all the features of Gnome 3. Especially, I couldn't find a webtool to manage hardware, such as Wifi, keyboard configuration, display, mouse, etc. Also, a very good, fast, and stable web terminal isnt easy to find

mappu 7y ago
This isn't a particularly practical suggestion, but you might be interested in the Nintendo ES operating system. EDIT: Maybe XPenology can run the DSM web interface on a desktop OS? EDIT 2: Most of KDE Plasma (well, the QML parts at least) will probably run through the WebGL streaming QPA. Likewise using Broadway for Gnome GTK3 apps.
- antpls 7y ago
  Thank you for the pointers! If at some point we can run classical Gnome apps in the Browser, I guess it could be a solution. I would prefer to have only one "way" of presenting information, based on web standards.
ktpsns 7y ago
Have you thought about using tools like http://www.webmin.com/ http://www.webmin.com/ or https://cockpit-project.org/ https://cockpit-project.org/ ? They are thought for managing servers, but they might also work for desktops. Also I wouldn't be surprised if tools like http://yast.opensuse.org/ http://yast.opensuse.org/ offered a web GUI. Furthermore, for a web based terminal, thanks to https://xtermjs.org/ https://xtermjs.org/, terminal.js and friends, there are plenty of products available nowadays. Maybe this helps for starting a web search.
- antpls 7y ago
  I tried cockpit and liked the UI. It's modern, simple and clean. However the features were limited (disk space, CPU graphs, but no management for wifi). I aslo tried ajenti.org but same issue, I couldn't even manage wifi with it. I will maybe make something myself. Maybe something that can take any linux tools in input and make a primitive web interface for it as output automatically.

jaytaylor 7y ago

Also see "The Pure Bash Bible" posted today, and created by the same person; HN username "dyanaraps": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21013150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21013150

shrumm 7y ago

potential successor to Alpine for lightweight docker images?

Quekid5 7y ago
Is it, though? (That's a bit of a meme, sorry.) No, seriously. Why would I choose this over Alpine? Or, given the failure modes of Alpine as a container image, why would I even choose Alpine? Everything in this space is absolute shite.
- no_wizard 7y ago
  What’s the problem with alpine?
  - techntoke 7y ago
    One issue is that they do not keep an archive of packages, and often you'll end up finding it really difficult to downgrade or use a different version that once existed.
  - smitty1e 7y ago
    According to Itamar Turner-Trauring on Podcast.__init__[1] the issue with Alpine (at least in a Python context) is that the use of musl[2] instead of glibc (and I paraphrase) is an increased technical risk where corner cases that may not be as thoroughly tested are in view. ITT counseled in favor of using containers based on ubuntu or centos. I haven't done huge amounts of container work, but my light outings with Alpine have been fine. Maybe load and internationalization expose more personality in musl, or these concerns pertain to issues that have been fixed. It's something to keep in mind when assessing risk. [1] https://www.pythonpodcast.com/docker-python-production-episode-222/ https://www.pythonpodcast.com/docker-python-production-episo... [2] https://www.musl-libc.org/ https://www.musl-libc.org/
    - 0xcde4c3db 7y ago
      I think of it as being like the "dash as /bin/sh" thing in Debian-derived distros. Software that's carefully done "by the book" or intended to be highly portable is unlikely to have a problem. But a lot of things depend on bash/glibc without anyone particularly intending or realizing it, simply because their sheer market share means that such dependencies will "just work" for the vast majority of users.

toyg 7y ago

Isn’t that a bit of a sexist logo...?

nikolay 7y ago
I don't think so.
scoot 7y ago
Yes, unfortunately
klyrs 7y ago
Only if staring at boobs and failing to make eye contact with women is sexist Edit: that's a yes. Because apparently that isn't obvious to some folks around here
- RandomBacon 7y ago
  I think that's just "sexual", not "sexist."
  - klyrs 7y ago
    Nope. The framing, cropping the face and focusing on the chest, is distinctly objectifying.
    - RandomBacon 7y ago
      objectifying ≠ sexist I think there is a strong arguement for objectifying, but still think it's more "sexual" than "objectifying", and definitely those two way more than it's "sexist". Sexism is discrimination based on sex. Discrimination is different treatment based on a characteristic.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Of course it's not going to be obvious to everyone. Some people honestly don't see the difference between criticizing that behavior and saying to people "you should smile more"[1]. Good luck explaining it. [1]https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/all/2016/10/the-sexism-of-telling-women-to-smile-your-stories/503309/ https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/all/2016/10/the-sexism-of-...

thrower123 7y ago

What is the standard pick these days for a no-frills, stripped back, but still usable Linux distribution? One that doesn't start with much, but isn't boiling the ocean like Arch or Slack if you want to add more? I used to like Xubuntu, but this was like a decade ago at this point.

vivekd 7y ago
I think puppy linux and tinycore are the lightest ones Ive heard of. Haven't tried either yet, I find mainstream distros like debian are still light enough for most old computers.
oneplane 7y ago
I still go for a minimal Debian install, or even CentOS. Both still usable because you can add a basic DE if you like, and have something like FireFox if needed.
xelxebar 7y ago
I've been using Void Linux[0] for a few years now. It's philosophically aimed at being a minimal distro for power users. Design choices: * Rolling release * Custom package manager: XBPS with binary package repository. It's pretty darn good IMHO. * Minimal init process: runit * LibreSSL (vs OpenSSL) * User can choose standard library: Glibc or musl * Prefer dash over bash in system scripts You get the drift. The biggest change to a user is probably the use of XBPS as a package manager. The repository of pre-compiled binaries is pretty extensive, and the package definition scripts are dead simple. The entire collection of package definitions is in a repo on GitHub, so sharing your package definitions is also quite painless. Their IRC channel on freenode (#voidlinux) is also pretty active with lots of knowledgeable and helpful people. [0]:https://voidlinux.org/ https://voidlinux.org/
- sprash 7y ago
  You forgot to mention they have a very sane package hirachy that always draws as few dependencies as possible. Many self proclaimed "minimalist" distros will immediately become bloated as soon as you install one package not in the base system.

reificator 7y ago

That logo makes it a non-starter in any organization I've seen in the last decade.

quickthrower2 7y ago
That and the package manager is a bash script.
- pnako 7y ago
  ... which relies on many battle-tested Unix utilities. Why is that such a bad thing? I'm not generally a big fan of shell scripts but this one looks particularly readable and documented: https://github.com/kisslinux/kiss/blob/master/kiss https://github.com/kisslinux/kiss/blob/master/kiss
flukus 7y ago
How many of those organisations feature smiling attractive women in their product advertising? It's funny how many companies are happy to use sex to sell products but god forbid someone see a silhouette of a bikini.
- trickstra 7y ago
  Blaming each other who is sexist for wearing certain clothes or saying certain word is a distraction skillfully used to make people busy and not pay attention to what the leaders are doing.
- reificator 7y ago
  > How many of those organisations feature smiling attractive women in their product advertising? I don't know, but I also don't know if this woman is smiling because they cut off her head to get more breast in frame.
userbinator 7y ago
Rorschach test? There's another comment here saying it's sexist, but after staring at it for a few minutes all I can see is some sort of odd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_of_the_horns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_of_the_horns in the middle; which might be because the name made me think of the band.

anigbrowl 7y ago

Looks cool but WTF is that logo? I'm an artist and I can't figure out what it's supposed to be even after staring at it for 5 minutes ¯\(°_o)/¯

lowercased 7y ago
i think it's a woman leaning over - we're seeing some cleavage there. but... it may just be a rorschach logo...
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  Yeah I thought so too but then other parts it stop making sense. Vastly ahead of its time or just bad? Either way, it's kind of a millstone around the neck of the project.
geowwy 7y ago
Stereotypical pinup girl leaning forward to kiss you, I assume.
mrtweetyhack 7y ago
I looked at it for 1 sec and figured it out.

mycoborea 7y ago

Been following you for a long time Dylan. Keep up the good work and screw the inevitable BS that will come from these SV nutjobs

dyanaraps 7y ago
Thanks :)
- ekc 7y ago
  KISS is great. Been using it for two months. No complaints.
  - dyanaraps 7y ago
    That's awesome. Glad you're enjoying it.

thiccly 7y ago

New logo needed. The chopped off head is bad luck in parts of Asia.

perl4ever 7y ago
Where is a chopped off head good luck?
- iguessthislldo 7y ago
  France?
  - wiz21c 7y ago
    Humour de guillotine ! superb !
- rataata_jr 7y ago
  Saudi
artemisart 7y ago
The chopped off head may not be the best, but it's clearly not the worst part of this logo...
Nr7 7y ago
I've been staring at the logo for a few minutes now and I cannot make head or tails of it. It just looks like a random squiggle to me.
- jamiek88 7y ago
  It’s a woman with the top of head cropped
  - tom_mellior 7y ago
    A woman who is not fully clothed, because We Are Tech Bros.

RandomBacon 7y ago

Ominous's screenshot looks amazing. Does anyone know what (software/gui/manager/idk) is? Even though I've been using Linux (Ubuntu) as my daily driver for the past several years, I really son't know too much about it such as how to ask the right question about desktop manager(?). The install instructions look detailed enough that I could probably figure it out. I will bookmark this, because I want to buy a laptop, amd it might be interesting to try to build/install this as an experiment first.

pnako 7y ago
It says it in the screenshot :) catwm
- RandomBacon 7y ago
  Thank you, I see it after "WM", and that jogs my memory a little. "Windows Manager" - that's the term I was looking for!
  - pnako 7y ago
    There are plenty of minimalist ones, if you're looking for a mainstream tiling window manager you should check out i3.
nodefourtytwo 7y ago
If you like that, you should visit https://reddit.com/r/unixporn https://reddit.com/r/unixporn

AlexDragusin 7y ago

Last time I've checked, kissing involves the mouth, at the least, so if the logo was some sort of play on the KISS, it fails anatomically. On top of that, there is no connection between the logo and the product which is what probably sets people off more than the content. If it's by some ways a Rorschach case (doubt it), then it fails again as a logo, which should be clear and concise and aligned with the product. If no such alignment can be done graphically, then a text oriented logo would be far better. I've been doing branding for a big part of my life, consider taking the suggestions from the other commentators as well in revising the logo if this is to be a serious endeavor; think of the various cultures and settings this would be seen.

gdevenyi 7y ago
Keep it simple, stupid

jmull3n 7y ago

Awesome project, nice work.

dyanaraps 7y ago
Thanks :)

JoshMcguigan 7y ago

Is there a docker image available? I'd like to experiment with the package manager, but I'd rather not setup a VM.

dyanaraps 7y ago
You can download the installation tarball, extract it to a directory and use 'chroot' to start tinkering with it. The installation tarball doubles as a working 'chroot' image. :) https://github.com/kisslinux/repo/releases/tag/1.1.3 https://github.com/kisslinux/repo/releases/tag/1.1.3

Multicomp 7y ago

Not to be dumb, but for a newcomer such as myself who read the blurbs about it being simple to use and develop for, not being able to have a single ISO to download and install is from this point in my Linux Journey, not simple. I'm not making a value judgment as to whether or not I should know how to compile source code and running this on top of another Linux and so fort, but I can intuit my way through installing Debian or Manjaro or Arch Linux or knoppix or any other distro that provides a binary ISO. It seems like this is simple in terms of 'lightweight for linux pros', not simple as in 'intuitive for users to use'. I'm not sure that's a bad thing, just pointing out that I am unable to try this with my current skill level

asdfk-12 7y ago
The author includes a pithy and terse installation guide that will be valuable to those unfamiliar with assembling a Linux distro. This seems to me to be a welcome change to new users since they’ll be able to see more of the process and understand the components better.
usr1106 7y ago
This is mentioned early on the page: > A user without prior knowledge may see this distribution as the exact opposite. It's simple in the terms of that an experienced person can easily understand how it works in many details. Not that an unexperienced person could use it easily. It's like a Ford T. Simple to build and repair for an old school mechanic. Probably not user friendly for the average driver today.
josteink 7y ago
> It seems like this is simple in terms of 'lightweight for linux pros', not simple as in 'intuitive for users to use'. That's a common problem with declaring things "simple", and not only for Linux distros. What's simple in implementation (lightweight and straight to the point) may not be simple for an uninitiated user.
- Crinus 7y ago
  Basically simple does not necessarily mean "easy to use". The main "easy" element about most simple stuff is "easy to understand" and that is often what is sought after when it comes to simplicity.

jamsodonnell 7y ago

A new(ish) Linux distribution is reported on -- and the comments are mostly about the logo? (checks calendar) Oh, I see... "Mais, où sont les neiges d'antan?"

knocte 7y ago

Keep making the biggest problem of Linux bigger, please... Yeah, this problem is "fragmentation", and it is not solved with "simplicity".

meuk 7y ago
I think that distributions patching software is especially problematic -- whether you consider it a symptom or a cause of fragmentation.
- asymptotically2 7y ago
  Distributions exist to provide software that all fits and works together (e.g. providing the correct versions of dependencies). Sometimes patching is necessary to make things work.
- thiccly 7y ago
  You're missing the point of free software. You own it and can change it how you like. It's not problematic this is how it was made to be. Here's two examples of how distros patching software has been helpful for me. 1) SquirrelMail (abandoned) patched to work with PHP 7.3 thanks to FreeBSD contribs 2) Abiword patch builds in the AUR that fix a broken default install.
  - meuk 7y ago
    Is the point of free software to create as much variations of a program as possible? I'd rather see that useful changes are merged upstream, or projects are forked. If this had happened, you wouldn't even need to patch, and this would save an enormous amount of manpower that is wasted on trivialities.
diffeomorphism 7y ago
How is fragmentation a "big problem"? There are like what, four distros? - Debian and *buntu - Red Hat - Fedora - Suse All of them use systemd. All use X11 or wayland. All package gnome. All DEs, WMs etc. are available on all these distros. Smaller distros can reuse whatever is available for that distros, see for example chrome or skype.

jimnotgym 7y ago

Just what we need, another Linux distribution. Spread the effort even more thinly. No thanks

michaelmrose 7y ago
Much of the work that goes into the open source software ecosystem goes into projects that benefit more than one particular platform be they user facing apps or system components. A minority goes into distributions. Distributions mainly require infrastructure, packaging, and distro specific software like package management. Many distros are quite derivative and represent largely Linux set up as the author desires. You see a lot of these because they are easy to make they also suck near zero resources from the broader pool of resources because they are stuck packaging their own software and the skills needed to make them wouldn't translate directly into improving system components anyway. More complex efforts which are the minority are the way people explore possible paths forward. Many are already increasingly converging on common patterns that make it easier to focus on the things that are truly important to that project. Complaining about a diversity of options seems poorly thought out when discussing a platform that exists only because others desired more options. Hell if we all standardized on redhat we might well be trading 10% more progress for 99% fewer options.
alpaca128 7y ago
"Fewer distros mean more active developers per distro" is just as much a fallacy as "Less music piracy means higher profits". Many distros exist exactly because their devs don't want to touch something like Ubuntu.

p2t2p 7y ago

In which world replacing removing Wayland in favour of X is considered KISS? We seem to have very different understanding of KISS with those folks.

reacweb 7y ago
X is widly used since 30 years. Its configuration (and security model) is well documented (xorg.conf). It is as simple as launching the X server using a simple command line and being able to connect any client (even remote) thanks to a single environment variable (DISPLAY). How do you launch a wayland server and how do you forward "display" (ssh -X or -Y) to launch a remote application ?
- vectorEQ 7y ago
  agree, even though some features of X are a bit crappy built, it's very well known, documented and used for so long basically any issue you run into someone else will have solved already somehow. perhaps one day wayland will be nice ,but not yet imho.
- nirv 7y ago
  As for display forwarding via SSH, you may be interested in this summer's GSoC project Waypipe[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20848334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20848334
  - reacweb 7y ago
    Thank you very much. The work seems very complex. At the moment, I am at work on a windows PC. I have exceed and xming started and I have a toolbar with around 70 putty shortcuts with X11 forward. I am using them all the day long. At my previous job (using HP servers), it was a similar setup (with only 5 shortcuts).
- MayeulC 7y ago
  Well, by that logic we should probably use COBOL everywhere. I am lacking a proper analogy here, but it isn't because something is old, and most people are accustomed to its quirks, that it is simple... Maybe Apache, PHP, or even IPv6 would be a better comparison? IPv6 is likely a very good analogy here. Now, Xorg's "security" model is well understood, just like its security issues. xorg.conf itself is a configuration nightmare. You might be able to launch the X server with a simple command line, but that's just hiding complexity behind a command. I can do the same with sway. Wayland is quite modular itself. You can probably use namespaces to restrict one app's access to the clipboard, if that's not a feature the compositor supports, for instance. For network "transparency" under wayland, which is an argument X proponents often cling to (it has its merits, but was counterproductive for most apps), it is a matter of serializing the protocol+image data (that's normally sent trough shared memory), and deserializing it at the other end. That's basically what waypipe [0] is doing, trough Unix sockets. So Wayland can be used remotely over anything that supports Unix sockets, thanks to waypipe, that plays the role of a compositor proxy. A lot more things are possible due to Wayland being properly specified. The first and most important being multiple, interoperable implementations. Just like the TCP or HTTP stack. That is a Good Thing™ in my opinion. Zero-copy is also simpler to achieve, as another example. I am sorry if I sound condescending about network transparency for instance. But that was pointed out for so long, and it is even written in Wayland's FAQ. The only reason it was that slow to materialize is Wayland's slow adoption. Which might be in part due to people complaining about stuff like network transparency without understanding it, and making themselves impervious to reasoning, while actually undermining efforts to bootstrap the ecosystem. > How do you launch a wayland server A compositor that displays stuff that applications send it? Well, you just execute it. Then that compositor decides to merge that stuff together, or pick some of it, and displays it where it wants: waypipe sends it to a socket, traditional wayland compositors can render on a connected screen trough the DRI kernel interface, others such as sway can even pass the rendered data to an X server or wayland compositor. > thanks to a single environment variable (DISPLAY) Use WAYLAND_DISPLAY to specify a Unix socket, if supported[1]. I'll admit that I am a bit in a learning phase, so I don't yet understand everything about the various subtleties (I couldn't use that to start an app from one TTY on another). So, this distro sounds interesting on paper, but I can't really justify this choice of their, and I am probably not going to use it unless their revise their position. Wayland really needs a bit of forced adoption, like IPv6, if we want to have nice things. [0]: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mstoeckl/waypipe https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mstoeckl/waypipe [1]: https://wayland.freedesktop.org/docs/html/ch04.html#sect-Protocol-Wire-Format https://wayland.freedesktop.org/docs/html/ch04.html#sect-Pro...

meuk 7y ago

I'm always a proponent of simplicity. Some criticism about the site: What a horrible layout. I zoomed out to 25% (the furthest you can go) and the text is still to big.

amq 7y ago
I like the layout.

holstvoogd 7y ago

ITT: People on _hacker news_ complaining about someone building their own linux distro... Go install windows and be happy in your mono culture world, but don't shit on other peoples creativity and effort.

Crinus 7y ago
While i agree with the first part, about the second part... Windows is hardly a monoculture, it contains a ton of technologies that overlap heavily each other. As an example, people used to make fun of the number of GUI toolkits available for Linux and their messy looks, but nowadays your average Windows installation has way more different toolkits installed than your average Linux installation :-P.
api 7y ago
Some people call it "hater news" for the tendency of people here to be negative on new things, though in my experience it's not as bad as other sites.
skc 7y ago
HN heavily skews MacOS though.

Smithalicious 7y ago

Very curious, applying the "less is more* philosophy by making even more Linux distributions...

maitredusoi 7y ago
It is because they are using a mathematical path. A function that is tending to +infinite, next step is to tend to -infinite. Think of a path shaped as a circle, then of its cosinus variation, then you understand... ;)
tom_mellior 7y ago
Well, it's "less is more", not "fewer are more" :-)

reacweb 7y ago

Before deciding to try a new distribution, I want to know which important application it supports or not. I assume it supports usual stuff like ssh, vim, emacs, python, ruby, node, but does it support chrome, firefox, visual studio code, docker, virtual box ?

ptato 7y ago
It depends on what you mean by "support".
Johnnynator 7y ago
Half of your named programs are not supported (Chromium/Electron, Virtual Box, Docker, all non open source software that doesn't support musl libc (which is nearly all proprietary software)). Chromium and Electron are a pain on musl systems, Virtual Box also would require patching for musl.

antisemiotic 7y ago

I was looking for something like this actually, I thought I would finally have to warm up to BSD if I wanted an OS that I have some hope of understanding fully.

TheUndead96 7y ago

Just wanted to say this looks kickass. It is way easier to tear things down than to build them.

dyanaraps 7y ago
Thanks!

vectorEQ 7y ago

this looks kind of nice to be honest, and i hardly ever say that about some custom distro. only thing i'd like is to install it from USB instead of some chroot mumbo jumbo. that would require me to instal linux on a box firs before re-rolling into this. kind of annoying. perhaps something on the roadmap, didn't check. but definitely promising as far as i can see.

dyanaraps 7y ago
Thanks. :) You don't need to install another Linux distribution beforehand, you just need to boot another distribution's live-iso to partition disks and download/unpack KISS. This is simpler on my side as I don't have to compile and package a heavy kernel, generate an initramfs, build a squashfs and finally package it into an ISO image. On the user side this enables more flexibility too. You can use a live-iso offering a GUI for "easier" partitioning or an iso in which you _know_ includes the firmware you need for the installation process etc. The download for KISS is only a 45MB~ tarball and the installation is just unpacking it to your newly partitioned disk at `/`! This also allows for the same installation tarball to double as a working chroot in existing systems. In my eyes, this method is simpler all round.

whalabi 7y ago

That logo was a terrible idea.

Crinus 7y ago
Mainly because it is the easiest (or simplest :-P) part of the entire page to criticize so people do that. FWIW, personally i like it (though i'd put a frame around it to emphasize the pinup poster girl style) and find it more artistic than most meaningless abstract shapes other projects use.
- whalabi 7y ago
  Well no I was criticising it because women I know thought it was disrespectful to women. A pair of tits isn't "artistic".
seebye 7y ago
I like it.
nirv 7y ago
That logo is the cutest part of the ordinary linux distro page that sparked my interest.

FrozenVoid 7y ago

What are advantages of KISS vs Alpine Linux(also musl/busybox based)?

de_watcher 7y ago
KISS doesn't have different packages that Alpine doesn't have. KISS has a more recent "yet another package manager" that sill looks pristine.

yura 7y ago

Isn't there a distro that's already based on the KISS principle? (Arch Linux) Is there something that the Kiss distro achieves that Arch doesn't?

rejschaap 7y ago
This distro is much simpler than Arch. It reminds me more of something like Static Linux: https://sta.li/ https://sta.li/
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  It reminds me much more of Crux or even Gentoo (with the Bash ebuilds as package management).
mruts 7y ago
Arch unfortunately has gotten more and more complicated over the years. Their decision to adopt systemd was really disappointing, imo.
- Grimm665 7y ago
  Of the major distros I feel Arch has one of the best KISS implementations of systemd. For my use cases and system admin style, I'm really glad they made that decision.
_emacsomancer_ 7y ago
Arch is based on the KISS'DD principle (KISS for the distro developers).

nabdab 7y ago

Seems like an extremely specific minutia to build an entirely new distribution for. Also if less is more, how do you call less? I always preferred it because it is faster. /jk

equalunique 7y ago

Looks simple enough to get working. I'll try it out. Am curious to see what the disctro architecture is rather than isn't.

rob74 7y ago

"This distribution has no default desktop or window manager environment." - goes to prove that "simple" doesn't mean "easy to use"...

Crestwave 7y ago
The website does mention this: > A distribution being “simple” has many different interpretations. It may mean simple to use, simple to develop or simple in its implementation. Further, the phrase “simple to use” may differ from person to person. > > Users with prior knowledge of Linux and basic programming skills will find this distribution simple in all three examples given above. A user without prior knowledge may see this distribution as the exact opposite.

arch-ninja 7y ago

I'm surprised at the closed-mindedness of the comments here: usually browsing HN I read wonderful insights on tech how "you can't assume X, technology Y has a place and that place is Z". Here commenters appear unable to accept that this tech has a place because it doesn't include "app/feature X" or it doesn't abide by "rule Y". I'm more interested in the ripple effects seen here than the original article.

thiccly 7y ago
Normies galore after that RMS Twitter drama

megous 7y ago

Kudos for not using any pointless HTML tags on the website. I like how you skip head and body. :)

dyanaraps 7y ago
Yeah, I spent a lot of time ensuring the website would load quickly and I do away with a lot of "optional" cruft. There's no Javascript full stop, no stylesheets (all CSS is embedded in each page) and every page load is a single web request (with the exception of the screenshots page). Even the SVG logo is embedded in the pages! Writing it this way also causes each page to be self contained, a download of the HTML page includes all of the CSS, logo and information so it can easily be saved and viewed locally. :)
- badsectoracula 7y ago
  My main issue with the site is that in my browser i get the mobile version instead of the desktop since i do not use my browser maximized (i have a 1366x768 monitor). Isn't there any other way to figure out if i use a mobile phone instead of using the horizontal resolution?
  - dyanaraps 7y ago
    I'll fix this, thanks for letting me know.

norswap 7y ago

I love this! The only part I find questionable is the use of tools written in shell. Shell is a very difficult language to understand and use correctly. To the credit of the author, he is aware of this and the code is linted using shellcheck. Still, I wonder if it wouldn't have been a better idea to write the utilities using Python or Lua or even (gasp) C! (Or Rust, or Go or ... Just pick one that isn't completely esoteric and isn't Perl, then stick to it.)

moviuro 7y ago
shell is the only portable language. It works on all Linuces, BSDs, and even on WSL. Anyone with a tiny bit of sysadmin experience knows sh. Python is far too much overhead for something as simple as firing shell (!!) commands and dumping new files in a tar archive. And also, shell is extensible in the most simple way: you just write a program name, and boom, it runs. Shell is simple, stable (remember the debacle of Python 2->3?), safe (no pointers, etc.), readable (compiling can even introduce issues), and dangerous only if you do it seriously wrong[0]. The only remark I have regarding code quality is that the word splitting warning is disabled for the entirety of kiss: I would have disabled it on a per-occurence basis. [0] https://github.com/valvesoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/3671 https://github.com/valvesoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/3671 PS: the most secure open-source OS out there has a package manager written in perl, with priv-sep (https://github.com/openbsd/src/tree/master/usr.sbin/pkg_add https://github.com/openbsd/src/tree/master/usr.sbin/pkg_add).
- LinuxBender 7y ago
  I agree with this. I would just add that you can get great linting / syntax checking with ShellCheck [1] [2] [1] - https://github.com/koalaman/shellcheck https://github.com/koalaman/shellcheck [2] - https://www.shellcheck.net/ https://www.shellcheck.net/ ShellCheck is in many of the distro package repositories already.
- dyanaraps 7y ago
  > The only remark I have regarding code quality is that the word splitting warning is disabled for the entirety of kiss: I would have disabled it on a per-occurence basis. There are 8 occurrences of word splitting in the source, each and every one is intentional. I also enable all lint errors when working on the package manager itself (to catch any unintentional word splitting which may slip through my fingers). The ideal goal is to reduce the word splitting count to zero though! :) (I'll go ahead and make the change you're suggesting until I do remove all word splitting).

janvdberg 7y ago

This reminds me of: https://arewesimpleyet.org/ https://arewesimpleyet.org/

api 7y ago

I absolutely love the overall objectives here! Unfortunately I can't see a reason to use this over Alpine Linux, which is also quite simple and minimal and has been around for a while and works fantastically well.

aequitas 7y ago

A simple solution is often worthless if the underlying problem is complex. It's nice this project foregoes on complex things like pam, systemd, gettext, etc. But these things are often created to solve problems. Problems this 'simple' solution needs to account for as well (if not now, in the near future when use X needs feature Y). And then new functionality is introduced in the solution making it complex again (and often non-standard).

dyanaraps 7y ago
Nothing stops a user from packaging and installing these things in KISS, they just aren't included by default. I envision KISS as a minimal base in which you extend to suit your needs and not something you need to cut to size. As I state in the Philosophy; "it's easier to add things to a system than it is to remove them". A user has actually gone ahead and done this! \[1\] They run KISS with systemd, pam, dbus, pulseaudio, glibc, chrome etc etc. \[1\] https://github.com/fanboimsft/kissD https://github.com/fanboimsft/kissD
- de_watcher 7y ago
  The Philosophy is "it's easier to do things that were already done before". So the project is an arbitrary reduction of scope and then writing the implementation just for that scope.
- aequitas 7y ago
  But for me that beats the purpose. You still end up with the complexity. Only now you have to add and manage it yourself in some other way, probably being worse off then when you would have started with all that complexity but integrated in one standardised package (distro). Imho, the issue is not that the solutions are complex but the problems we (assume we) need to solve are. Just making simple solutions that ignore the bigger problems underneath do not really help in the end.
  - badsectoracula 7y ago
    The purpose can be to make a simple system, not an easy to use one. A simple system can maintain its simplicity by avoiding tackling complex problems - however if you want to tackle those problems yourself then, sure, you'll also need to handle that inherent complexity that the original system decided to avoid. But that is complexity you invite in, not something that the original system had. That doesn't make the original system any simpler or more complex.