this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
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submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/linux
 
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[–] [email protected] 77 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Discord?

Eh! If this is the only community place, then thanks no.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 4 months ago

Your couldn't throw us a bone by including a link? 😉

That's okay, I got you covered.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

~~As always, if you upload an image as post content, then at least link to the project in the post body: https://vanillaos.org Not because its hard to type, its just good practice in my opinion. Gets more true the more complicated the links get, BTW. /rant over~~

In short, this distribution is based on Distrobox, which is a manager to install applications from various other distributions. So it comes with a package manager, that is actually managing Distrobox. The cool thing about Distrobox is, that you can install packages from Arch or Ubuntu and they are all sandboxed in their environment. But you can "export" those apps, so that it integrates into your actual host system. BTW its not emulation, its sandboxed like Flatpak is in example.

I'm curious about this OS for a very long time. But to me it complicates stuff a bit over a regular OS. I'm not ready for Distrobox, but love the concept it has. If I was on Debian, then this would be a whole lot more interesting to me. But when I think about, its probably not bad for developers too. Maybe I'll get into it someday.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ok. So why are we having what looks like a plumaria flower to represent a vanilla OS?

Do you need a picture of a vanilla flower?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Vanilla flowers can look similar to their logo.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

No they dont.

Not even close.

The flower in the logo is a radially symmetrical five petaled flower, with overlapping petals in a whorl. A vanilla flower is a bilaterally symmetrical three petaled flower with a fused labellum/ and column. They look nothing alike.

The Vanilla flower picture I posted is from April and is literally growing on a Plumaria (which the logo obviously is). I'm going to walk outside and edit this response and add a picture from that Plumaria.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I agree that it’s not the same flower, but it’s not always as radically different as the one you showed. The color and size of the petals can be similar. But yes, the structure of the flower is different.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

The orchid you showed is not a vanilla. That is a staged shot with some other random orchid. The one I showed is from one of the many many Vanilla vines that I grow. They are not remotely the same.

The flower in the logo is very clearly a Plumaria.

Look if you dont know fuck about shit when it comes to flowers and plants, thats fine. But maybe don't have an opinion then. However if you name your OS after a plant, and then proceed to butcher its presentation, you should be prepared for push back.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

They named their OS after a genus of plants, not a single species. And there are some species that have wide, colored petals like that.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vanilla_aphylla_from_Southern_Thailand.jpg

But yeah, the logo is not a vanilla flower, but it’s not so drastically different I’d fault them for it.

Edit 1: One thing to note is that they named their OS “Vanilla” because of the common description of a software product, meaning unaltered from its original release. They named it this because they don’t change any settings or add any extensions to the Gnome desktop. They provide a “vanilla” installation. I don’t actually know if they were trying to do a vanilla flower as their logo, or just a flower.

Edit 2: They definitely were.

The name "Vanilla OS" evokes the purity and simplicity we aim to offer our users, while the vanilla flower, featured in our logo, represents the sweetness and elegance of our operating system.

(From their FAQ page.)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Who shat in your garden? Geez man, it's just a logo.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Representation matters. Being correct matters.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Damn bro, why does the firefox logo look like a Finnish spitz

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Orchid is also a medical term for testicle

Vanilla Ball

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Vanilla is a genus of orchids.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So… immutable fork of Ubuntu 21?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Vanilla OS is the Ubuntu derivative, Vanilla OS 2 Orchid will be the Debian derivative

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

TY, when scrolling through the site, I didn't find a single time mentioning it Ubuntu, but Debian compatibility. However the beta release notification is enlightening:

The system consists of a hybrid base of Debian packages and Vib modules. The major change in Orchid is the switch from Ubuntu to Debian, providing more flexibility and control over the system and update distribution.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

what's the immutability / atomic mechanism for this? not ostree or btrfs like fedora and opensuse's offerings? All I see is A/B partitioning listed? something more akin to android?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Read this for the most complete and comprehensive answer on the matter.

TL;DR: Like Fedora Atomic, it utilizes OCI images for its immutability. However, while Fedora Atomic combines this with libostree/OSTree for git-like management of your system, Vanilla OS (instead) keeps it relatively simple with just A/B partioning; which indeed is somewhat reminiscent to what's found on Android.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

This looks interesting but so different from what I’m used to that I’ll stick to my BTRFS snapshot-based system until I understand it better. Perhaps I’ll try it in a VM.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Yay!!! Vanilla is an awesome OS. I tried the first version and loved it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use it because it was missing FDE, but this new version added that. :D

LFG!!!!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

How are they handling things that need low level access and don't work well in distrobox like pen tablet drivers, CoreCtrl/undervolting software, printer drivers, etc...?