Arch Hurd LiveCD: i686-core-2010-08-25.iso
It's been two months and twenty days since the last Arch Hurd LiveCD, and an update is definitely needed. The old LiveCD had, much to my embarrassment, a flaw in the "Install System" section that would make it impossible to install without manual intervention, and even then be a bit hit-and-miss for multi-partition set ups. In this new LiveCD, all known bugs have been eradicated, packages have been updated, and the whole thing just works better.
Changelog
- Updated installation packages - the livecd now features packages current as of today, 2010-08-25, and so less needs to be updated after installing.
- Updated LiveCD packages - the packages on the livecd itself have been updated, and as a result has become much more stable. This is most likely due to the recent GNU Mach / Hurd / glibc updates by Matthias. melpo, you rock.
- Updated and new documentation - the installation guide has been updated a little over the past few months, and so the latest version of that is on the livecd. Additionally, the livecd now features an introduction to translators written by Arne Babenhauserheide.
- Updated /arch/setup - this fixes all known bugs with the old setup script, I've tested it with a variety of different set ups, and it seems to work pretty well.
- Updated initscripts - In addition to all the changes melpo has made to the initscripts in the past two months, there has been a small change from how the old livecd used to work. In the old livecd, there was a 32MB ext2 image which was mounted in RAM and used as a temporary filesystem. Now, a temporary ext2 filesystem is created on the fly at boot; this enables the ISO to be just a little bit smaller.
New Arch Hurd mirror in the UK
We now have another mirror hosted in the UK - that makes two servers in the UK and two in Germany. This mirror is (currently) only available through HTTP. Mirrors outside Europe would also be awesome, so don't be shy :)
Many thanks to Positive Internet (their website is currently being re-done to be much nicer than what it is now, I'm told) for this latest mirror, and to the other two mirror providers.
Additionally, as you may have noticed, I have taken down the livecd from the Arch Hurd server, as we're getting very close to the bandwidth limit for this month. The livecd will return next month, and hopefully our bandwidth usage will remain low.
New Arch Hurd Mirror in Germany
Well, we've got another mirror already, this time hosted by Karsten Heiken on disposed.de.
The server is located in Germany (as is the Narf Hosting one), and is accessible via FTP and HTTP.
Arch Hurd Mirrors
The Arch Hurd LiveCD has been surprisingly popular, and we have (at the time of writing) consumed 80% of our monthly bandwidth quota for this month. I plan to release the next version of the LiveCD next month, and there's a real chance we'd go over the limit without mirrors. Thus, I am happy to announce that there is now an Arch Hurd LiveCD mirror (which may also become a package mirror in the future), hosted by Narf Hosting.
The hosting was negotiated by gtklocker. Thanks to Narf Hosting and gtklocker! :)
Now, if you try to download the LiveCD through the direct HTTP download, you get redirected to a random mirror (so files.archhurd.org and archhurd.narfhosting.com currently), to cut down our bandwidth usage. One mirror should be more than enough for the forseeable future, but if you want to provide some bandwidth, please contact me. Currently we only have packages on the main server, so a package mirror would be great.
We use rsync for our mirror-able content, so as long as you have some spare bandwidth and the ability to run rsync through cron, you too can be an Arch Hurd mirror. A full list of mirrors, which will be updated automatically, can be found on the new mirrors page.
An Ideal World
The world is very much a proprietary system—governments and corporations make decisions behind closed doors, in meetings that don't include the general public who are involved. You could consider these like the typical magical black box of nonfree software: one thing goes in (funding, typically) and another thing comes out (laws, in the case of governments). Of course, these systems are not completely closed, governments have to answer to their people—to a limited extent—but they are not as open as they could, nay should, be.
What can be done about this? Not a lot, I am afraid, as the changes are too radical to implement at once. They must take place gradually, or not at all. Forcing the issue could result in dystopian chaos, whereas the desired end result is a utopia, an ideal world. My ideal world; let me tell you about it.
The Ideal World
I am, to quote Firefly, going to show you an ideal world—a world without sin. A world where nations are governed by meritocracies, where everyone is an educated, enlightened citizen who cares about others, where problems such as the environment are taken care of.
The People
For this to work, people have to become higher beings than what they are now. We must foster a culture of education and learning, allowing everyone to become an intellectual who lives life as they see fit; contributing what they can to society as they wish, and free to pursue any intellectual desires they may have. The working class would gradually be replaced by a robotic workforce (so, alas, we also need technological advancements for this to work).
Only with a people who are enlightened and understanding of each other can this ideal world function, as human greed and other negative emotions could destroy the balance that preserves it.
The Society
Society would be comprised of three classes:
- Robotic worker class: this would also include any people who wished to work. Remember, people here are free to follow their hearts' desires.
- Enlightened middle class: the majority of the population.
- Meritocratic-based governing class: There would be no elected officials, anybody would be able to participate in government, the entire thing being run as a meritocracy, to ensure fairness and equal opportunities for all.
The governing class would actually be composed of (human) members of the other two classes who wished to govern. All decisions would be reached by achieving 'reasonable consensus' (a large majority in a vote), and the more well-known contributors to government would naturally gather respect and followers, increasing their own personal power. However, this power would be entirely dependant on their peers, which is why an educated and enlightened society is required to prevent the destructive power of emotions.
Of course, in this society, sharing would be the norm, and perhaps even money would vanish: worker-drones would produce as much as possible, so no payment would be required there, and any inter-human transactions could use a meritocratic respect culture, similar to how the Free Software culture currently works.
The World
With people and society as I have outlined, the world would take care of itself. An enlightened people would see that the environment was suffering, and so simply stop doing whatever it was that caused the damage. Individuals may suffer for a while, but society as a whole would benefit. Of course, ideally, individuals wouldn't suffer at all. There really isn't much to say here.
Conclusion
Of course, the world I have outlined here is far from possible right now, but I consider it a certainty in the future. I think it is a natural outcome of the advancement of technology and so we will, one day, live in an ideal world.
