This Other Ubuntu Linux ISO Is Going Away

[@xazzzi]

When i was like 15 canonical sent me a free physical cd with ubuntu (full os, can’t exactly remember what version). You could just ask for a cd on the website. That’s what they did to promote the system at the time, though i was impressed they did send it worldwide free of charge. I still have it somewhere.

[@pittstonjoma]

I had a whole bunch of those and ended up giving them out to my friends. We all tried out Ubuntu. One of them convinced my college to start using it too.

[@Sitwayen]

As do I, I collected them from 7.10 to 10.10 then started working during holidays to pay for my internet.

[@brickviking667]

No doubt it's been said by someone else, but I'll reiterate it. There's one use case I can think of for the source ISOs - building offline. For those who want to rebuild their system from a "known point" but who know they'll be offline for a while when they do it, grab these images before that point, then you're going to have fewer issues than if you wanted to reach for individual source tarballs as you go (which would require online access). Yes, you have the obvious disadvantage of missing patches since the ISO build, but there's not much you can do about that fact if you're offline.

[@softwarelivre2389]

You can build them upfront and compare hashsums. If they match, they match. Then you just carry the binary ISO as the "offline known point" and everything's done.

[@genstian]

Practically noone used them, and like noone mirrored them.

[@thegoldenatlas753]

I mean with the effort it took just to find them its no wonder no one mirrored them.

[@millsjonah]

Gotta love when the comments on Brodie's videos have the same number of typos as the video titles

[@genstian]

@@thegoldenatlas753 I did fail to think of any good reason for them existing, they where broken, they where not GPL compliant, they wheren't mirrorered, and noone complained.

[@IlluminatiBG]

I think those has always been out of date even the binary version on official download page. That's why the first thing to run after installing is apt update/upgrade. Adding the deb-src will also give you the latest patched. Essentially the cdimage is "do minimal install to start working", although I can see how this is useful for machines meant for intranet only.

[@tranthien3932]

Video: Brodie talks about OOBUNTOO Outro: Brodie deletes OOBUNTOO

[@BrodieRobertson]

That's me deleting all the source ISOs

[@electricindigoball1244]

While the physical distribution of Linux OSes is probably almost completely non-existent in wealthy countries with good Internet I can see this continuing to exist in countries where the average Internet connection isn't good enough to download a large file like a Ubuntu ISO.

[@evilgremlin]

They have much better systems that CDs. Kuban "packet" never used CDs i think. I bet they use APTonCD though.

[@veryCreativeName0001-zv1ir]

"developing" with slow internet but i7/i9 and a good chunk of ram

[@alexanderdelguidice4660]

I have used the source images for ubuntu once and that was because I needed a really old program and the binary on the archive site didn't work on the system I had in a vm even though I was using the correct version of ubuntu. I ended up making an appimage for it since it is a pain to load a vm every time I have to use it.

[@SapioiT]

Why don't they have a publicly available git repository from where people can download the source code? That would be the logical thing to do, in this case.

[@BrodieRobertson]

Old systems often have weird design restrants

[@Finkelfunk]

Ubuntu legit saw what Microsoft does and thought: "... lowkey kinda want that"

[@BozesanVlad]

Open Source is good to breaking itself by fragmentation of compliance with own licences that made them so good.. * as a note for "Arch master race": ubuntu at start was installed from sources and you needed to compile it from source distributed ISO - that solved the ubuntu sources problem nicely, if you could install it :)

[@Damjes]

There is that dude Brodie Robertson, who made a video "Linus Was Right, Never Break Userspace" and i think he may have different opinion on this.

[@ShadowKestrel]

if i wanted a distro that's all source code, id get gentoo lol, or (more likely) bootstrap arch into only source packages. surprised the source isos even kept being a thing that long. also kinda surprised you haven't covered the ongoing sourcehut ddos yet

[@psiah9889]

Honestly if you really wanted to do ubuntu from source you're probably an advanced enough user that you could make your own iso for it anyways, if it's so important to use it for an offline install. Like... Your lower skill users aren't even going to attempt doing anything with source. "Source Code" is a scary word for non-technical people.

[@dashcharger24]

That's not true. I've checked package sources before, even when I was using Arch, but needed to check why it didn't build or what patches they added. Sources are really useful, ISO's are not.

[@KiraSlith]

Back when my friends were using Ubuntu I was hoarding the source ISOs just because I figured it'd be helpful if they partially borked their install or got stranded without internet as despite cable internet being available and cheap, they all had really flakey DSL. I never ended up using them by the time the Unity incident happened, and my friends abandoned Ubuntu for newer PCs with Windows.

[@immoloism]

I never installed Linux from floppy discs, maybe I should try just so I can leave a comment about how many it took.

[@JamesColeman]

I agree, moving to git is the way to go. Makes things way easier from my standpoint, and includes version archives. CentOS does this, and I have used it to go back and build old packages myself.

[@WilReid]

They should update their processes and host a single Blu-Ray source ISO instead.

[@Chalisque]

Something I wonder about is the making source available and a kind of statute of limitations. Suppose I installed Ubuntu 11.04 (non LTS) way back when. Suppose I want the source for a package in that distro today. What kind of obligation does Canonical have to supply me with it?

[@chie5747]

As far as GPL, I think they are only required to provide it upon request. I don't think GPL requires perpetual download links - download links are just more practical for current software.

[@Chalisque]

@@chie5747But that's the problem: that means that they need to retain code for all versions. For Canonical this is feasible. But for a small developer, not so. Then, and I'm not clear on this, if I receive a binary from Canonical, and I distribute that binary to somebody else, maybe years later, who is obligated to provide the source? What if somebody hasn't retained source for a binary they distributed years ago?

[@KETHERCORTEX]

@@Chalisque It sounds like a problem already solved by Git. Get the repository state corresponding to the requested release and send those files.

[@orbatos]

To begin with, it is necessary to provide the sources it a bulk distribution *of some kind*. And as you pointed out, Canonical really hasn't been doing that at least since snap was implemented. Personally i think it should be a source repo with maintenance so that building and verification is something that can reasonably be done. This would also help with the many legal/security compliance requirements that there can be for such processes *and ensure Canonical knows what is in their own system*, they often don't seem to. Be careful talking about getting rid of it as is though, we don't want this to get any closer to the way Android is dumped, or how Chinese companies leave a dusty tgz of tangled code in a pretence of gpl compliance.

[@lukas_ls]

That's something new: Ubuntu does something (possibly negative) and the whole Linux community doesn't hate on this.

[@rogerthomas7040]

LOL, their are ISO source images out there somewhere, how quaint. The last time I used such images would have been in the late 90's, even then they were downloaded and burn locally. If it can not be accessed/managed by git I'm not sure how many people would even understand the process of working with a naked source code directory tree nowadays. All reminds me of the days of NetWare 2.15 where you had to insert vast numbers of 5.25" floppies to 'build' a deployment.

[@dashcharger24]

I always thought backports and Ubuntu were the same thing.

[@Knirin]

I wish Ubuntu had these as jigdo files. I tended to keep copies around to rebuild my local mirror from if I lost it. With jigdo the main data the source debs are pulled from the primary mirror. Jigdo only needs a template file and that mirror to make a working iso. The templates aren’t that large either.

[@kxuydhj]

for some reason, microsoft distributed a windows 8 installation medium on floppies. 1713 floppies to be more precise. installing ubuntu from 6 dvds doesn't sound too horrible really...

[@macrograms]

This is a great example of letting random programmers decide on legal, IP, and copyright issues regarding source. It's your legal team's decision. Ububntu has one. I'm sure Bobby McRandom Coderman will get a memo.

[@FireStormOOO_]

I hope that was just the source iso images not being mirrored widely, not source overall? Somewhat concerning if the existing mirrors basically don't cover source in any form.

[@dashcharger24]

No, these are basically a copy of the packages repo. That's the reason why most mirrors didn't sync it anyway.

[@palmberry5576]

@@dashcharger24yeah, I feel like the build process would have to be pretty horrible for distributing the entire source images to be the best solution.

[@tato-chip7612]

you can just add deb-src or just mirror the repos and source repos locally.

[@dashcharger24]

But this will require disk space? I believe it will download the full sources of almost everything.

[@tato-chip7612]

@@dashcharger24 Yes, debian actually says 111GB for just the source code. Compiled binaries takes a lot more space apparently

[@evilgremlin]

no

[@skeleton_craftGaming]

I'm surprised they still use ISOs for their buid versions.

[@Duncan_Campbell]

Its a container everyone knows how to use.

[@skeleton_craftGaming]

@@Duncan_CampbellSo is a flash drive..

[@BrodieRobertson]

An ISO is a convenient bundle to put on a flash drive

[@skeleton_craftGaming]

@@BrodieRobertson yeah I guess, but you still have to use an external program to install it on to that hard drive.

[@skeleton_craftGaming]

To be clear, I understand why they still package as an ISO. I'm just surprised they have a EXE installer that basically makes a restore "disk" out of a disk image... I mean it would be a little bit different because it would be the live installer rather than an actual operating system...

[@fontenbleau]

Ubuntu is very popular in Ai development, which is huge money. But i use PikaOS clone of it which is faster than original source.

[@blinking_dodo]

Wait, there were source ISO's? 😂 I would get rid of those and have a git repo instead.

[@dashcharger24]

SVN baby!

[@blinking_dodo]

@@dashcharger24 For my school project we actually used MS onedrive... The development software we had to use refused to properly work with GIT. Something to do with binary files containing important state information. Copies of major versions was the easiest method in that case.

[@hackbinary]

Your can download the source deb field. Why on search do you want isos imagess with the source debs on them?

[@Karvanensetä]

so, trere is to as meny nerds in Canonical, as there is in debian. Are they/them the same?

[@jimw7916]

man those arms are getting LONGER!

[@Tsaukpaetra]

I think it would be more prudent to write up a tool to scrape the sources from packages and build the images yourself if needed

[@act.13.41]

Imagine my shock.

[@christophercarillo4784]

I use source images, I include them at the end of every presentation to provide my citations. No one looks at them though 😂

[@jspinnow]

I see one use and only 1 use and that is lack of internet access and the need to modify code. Such a use is rare. Most of us aren't on mars or in some deep jungle. That and even if that were the case most likely the binaries are good enough. I suppose mars you might need modify source for unforseen issues, but meh. Access to source on cd's might have been great thing in dialup days or fringe areas, still binaries are usally good enough.I have in dark ages when I was at University bring binary packages home to update by dumping the /var/cache/apt/archives on to a DAT tape to bring home because I had only 28k modem at the time. Physical media is great for crappy internet. Now that I have fiber the need for phyiscal media is mute. Far away servers feel next door. We aren't getting cut off from the source code, we are just not given a ready made offline capable image. Short of me moving to mars or another solar system I see no reason to have a need for source isos.

[@W1ldTangent]

Far as GPL compliance goes, as long as there's still a way to get or request source, they're good. Anybody that needs an offline mirror can still package up the source themselves if they're so inclined. They are only proposing taking away the ready-made solution that apparently few people availed themselves of anyway.

[@PixPMusic]

The mirrors should??? mirror cdimages

[@BrodieRobertson]

That would make sense

[@ibn.mubarak]

one of the things that confuse me about ubuntu their over 4 Gb binary iso size. For what reason ubuntu binary iso become over 4 Gb comparing to fedora and debian for example which I can write them on 4 Gb media?.

[@alex2143]

It's especially weird considering the fact that Ubuntu used to be 1.4 gb when it was 16.04, and now 24.04 is 5.7 gb. I feel like snaps probably have something to do with it, but not entirely sure.

[@LinuxPlayer9]

source isos are nonsense, the build pipeline makes more sense to share

[@blender_wiki]

Any way useless most of their code is not GPL compilant and if it is is usually pushed to the basic debian

[@Ultrajamz]

Isn’t it sort of a security issue that these at least be available to verify that the binary version comes from the source everybody expects?

[@unicodefox]

It's just the source packed into an ISO. You'll stillbe able to grab the source

[@vendetta.02]

no because they didnt even do that job correctly to begin with, the source images were broken

[@harpingon]

You'd need reproducible builds for that, even if the source was complete.

[@ManuFortis]

This is hilarious for me, because NOW you all are going to finally start to see the things I saw in how Canonical operates, and why I don't like them. Brodie. @2:37 you've just gone through the rigamarole of trying to find something they claim to make available (because they have to as 'open source') but don't actually provide properly and obfuscate it to the ends of the earth as much as possible; just to make it so they don't actually have to share the source with you. Of course you can still find it, if you are determined enough; and so they can call it open source. But they really aren't. They are what I refer to as pseudo-source. As in, they claim open source, they mostly act like open source; but you really aren't actually wanted to be looking at that source... cause they aren't actually open source. Canonical wants to be the Microsoft of the Linux userspace. Has been trying to do this for years now; and I abhor them for it. They are capitalizing on work that is not theirs, in whatever way they can manage. That's theft. If it were proper open source without all the confusion and obfuscation, I wouldn't be so abrupt about the theft part, since that's using the GPL license fair and square. But pseudo-source as I call it, is not playing by those license rules fair and square. So it's theft in their case. Note, not all pseudo-source as I call it is theft. Depends on the clear intent via the actions taken, even if they try to lie and say something otherwise. For instance, if you release a program, call it open-source, but obfuscate it for security reasons; I'd call that pseudo-source as well. Reason being that it's ultimately the same result, but for differing reasons which may or may not be more or less moral than the other given the circumstance. I care not for anyone elses opinion on this, because frankly; you've all been misled by them for years. Like fools willing to believe the wolf in sheeps clothing because the wolf learned how to make its howl sound like a ba-aa-a. So no offense to anyone angry at me saying all of this, but get a grip and use something better, like sans Canonical Debian or Arch, or Gentoo, or BSD. I.E. Nothing involving canonical directly or indirectly included in it. Shut them out, entirely. OH, and if someone at Canonical is possibly reading this, and not liking my opinion on all of it; there is a very simple way to fix this. Stop obfuscating everything to beyond reasonable limitations. Put a F'ing hyperlink directly to the original source for each release; easy to find no less. Doing that one thing, undoes almost, but not quite, all of my argument against you. But I've brought this up with you all before in the past. You did nothing. And so my opinion had no reason to change, and right now has more reason to double down.

[@dashcharger24]

No one likes Canonical, it's nothing new.

[@nomadhgnis9425]

The gpl license can be confusing at times. Here is an example. If I were to use the debian live build to make a spinoff of debian (no source code change) then would I have to distribute source code that is basically the same thing as debian. The only difference would be configurations and added images for wallpapers and stuff. I am no lawyer and it always bothered me.

[@anlumo1]

The reason is that the GPL was written before the Internet existed outside academia, and the update that was supposed to fix that (version 3) became a huge political issue due to adding a bunch of other restrictions nobody asked for.

[@nomadhgnis9425]

@@anlumo1 freebsd has the best license. you just have to include a copyright notice. you do not have to share any source code and stuff. too bad linux cannot see the benefits of the bsd license. gpl is too crazy and confusing.

[@pv2b]

If anyone really wants the source to any specific package, they can just get that from the mirrors. Having a whole iso with all the source makes no sense, and if someone really wants that, I guess they could just download the source themselves from the mirrors and pack it however they'd like?

[@dashcharger24]

I can only think of countries having a low speed internet connection. I know in some China regions this is still a problem, but even they could use better alternatives or sync using git or something.

[@pv2b]

@@dashcharger24 if you have a low speed internet connection, are you really going to download hundreds of gigabytes of ISO files of all possible source code ever or will you download a few megabytes of what you actually care about?

[@mskiptr]

10:05 edgy ubuntu

[@canlelola]

Ubuntu get a better file management scheme...

[@vG4u]

Nice

[@CRYPTiCEXiLE]

oooo BOON TOOO eh

[@ОлегСаперенко]

Would be interesting to see if someone ever downloaded those cd images in last few years

[@tactical7601]

Yikes!

[@dmiracle74]

This is how Debian hides their ISO files. 😂 It works for them. 😉

[@BrodieRobertson]

Works is a very loose term

[@francesay8478]

After going on Lunduke's show, I've lost all respect for you.

[@dashcharger24]

Who? And a little bit of context please

[@tablettablete186]

What happend?

[@BrodieRobertson]

I talked to somebody they don't like, therefore I must agree with all of Lunduke's opinions

[@dashcharger24]

@@BrodieRobertson Is he someone we should know? Is he important in the Linux world?

[@BrodieRobertson]

If you know about the recent "leaked" Red Hat documents which I'm still fairly sceptical on myself, Lunduke is the one who was covering those. Also you may recall a series from a long time ago called Linux Sucks which discussed Linux being used in terrible ways. Nowadays he doesn't get much attention but he's been around for a long time.

[@gregf9160]

See, this is random nonsense -- at least BSD is based on solid (if slow, gradual) _actual engineering_ decisions. BSD at least allows you to _bring in_ GNU libs and binaries, if you need them, which most of us appreciate, but why this is _still a thing_ in this day and age, I cannot get my head around.

[@puknut]

Developing software on Ubuntu server is TERRIBLE.