[Dragora-users] Dragora 3.0-beta2 released

[Matías Fonzo]

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I am pleased to announce the release of dragora 3.0-beta2.

Dragora is an independent GNU/Linux distribution project which was
created from scratch with the intention of providing a reliable
operating system with maximum respect for the user by including
entirely free software.  Dragora is based on the concepts of
simplicity and elegance, it offers a user-friendly Unix-like
environment with emphasis on stability and security for long-term
durability.

   It has been a long time since there was an announcement about
a version of Dragora, and it is that work continues on it, as who
says "better late than never!".

   It is worth mentioning that Dragora series 3 is a new development
that started back in 2012 to give rise to new research and to try to
improve the quality taking into account the previous experience in the
achieved series.  This series offers a fully automated build process,
made from scratch to achieve a distribution without any contamination 
from
the host system, in order to obtain a controlled and pure system.

   The current technical scheme consists of the C Musl library, SysV 
init,
Perp for reliable monitoring of services (or critical system daemons), 
own
text-menu based tools (for configuring the keyboard map, console mouse, 
and an
interactive installer), plus a local package manager called Qi to 
complement a
powerful tool called Graft for local package management under a single 
directory
hierarchy; packages are installed in the /usr/pkg hierarchy where it is 
possible
to enable/disable, or change package versions via graft.

   In terms of security, Dragora offers the security that can be found 
in
commercial distribution projects.  This is by using LibreSSL, the 
security
features provided by the C library plus the security options provided by 
the
GNU C compiler (GCC).  Added to the good practices that are intended to 
be put
in Dragora.

   We are not mentioning the ethical part here, since Dragora is the 
first
distribution to fully adopt the Linux kernel of our preferred flavor,
Linux-libre!.  Being a controlled build process, it is assumed that the
distribution remains 100% libre (or free as in freedom).  If it is not,
please report it immediately for correction.  Note: this also helps
security in the sense that we don't have problems with cumbersome or
un-auditable code in an honest way.

Changes in this version:

Many, many things have happened since the release of dragora-3.0-beta1.
The bad news is that it is still not complete as we would like it to be,
the good news is that it has been completing as follows.

    * The performance has been greatly improved compared to -beta1.

    * The hybrid live ISO creation has been enhanced.  Now the ISO image
      includes all software packages to date, the initial screen where 
you
      can choose to run the current (full) version of the live system, 
or
      where you can install it on hard disk.  The packages are located 
inside
      the /var/cache/qi/packages directory.  It is worth mentioning that 
the
      password requirement has been removed.

    * All Dragora tools have been improved, including better messaging
      and bug fixes in the code.  Thanks to all who contributed to this.

    * Dragora now features the Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE).
      Thanks to the developers of TDE for the feedback!.

    * The LLVM compiler (v15.0.7) has been added to this beta, along 
with
      the Rust programming language (v1.64.0).

    * As part of version control systems, this beta now includes:
      fossil-2.20, mercurial-6.4.2, cvs-1.12.13, rcs-5.10.1.

    * The shipped kernel is linux-libre-6.1.23 with a new generic
      configuration.  Also we ship linux-libre-firmware-1.4.

    * GNU Wget2 has been added, version 2.0.1.

    * The Python 2 support has been removed, we provide Python 3.9.16 
instead.

    * Meson 1.1.0 and Ninja 1.11.1 have been added to Dragora.

    * The Lua programming language and luarocks have been added to 
Dragora.

    * We offer xorg-server-21.1.8 along with an upgraded stock; i.e, 
drivers,
      libraries, applications.

    * On this occasion, Connman, IW, and IWD have been added to 
complement the
      networking support on user-space.

It would take too long to mention the rest of the changes here, and it's 
not
meant to be boring; rather communicate that the project continues to 
improve,
respectively the website plus the ongoing documentation.  We appreciate 
your
interest in trying Dragora, as well as any help you can provide.  Thank 
you!

The homepage is at https://www.dragora.org

Dragora can be downloaded from an available mirror, please check
  https://dragora.org/en/mirrors.html

The SHA256 sum is:

c40f4a1a8755cde20cd69289e1c595524d69862a1d178ce8697334684f828014  
dragora-3.0-amd64-beta2-dvd.iso

Please test and send suggestions to <dragora-users@nongnu.org>.

Best regards,
Matias Fonzo, Dragora author and maintainer.

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