Corporate creep in Linux? (mini-rantette)
in [Slackware]
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From: dae3 on 10 Sep 2009 05:17 ~kurt <actinouranium(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > I believe pretty much every distro is "From Scratch". Most existing distros are based on some other distro. -- ~> cat /etc/*-{version,release}|head -n1 && uname -moprs|fold -sw72 Slackware 12.2.0 Linux 2.6.27.7-crrm i686 AMD Turion(tm) 64 Mobile Technology MK-36 GNU/Linux
From: Eef Hartman on 10 Sep 2009 05:21 dae3 wrote: > Most existing distros are based on some other distro. Even Slackware is originally based on another distribution <grin> (SLS - Softlanding Linux System, to be exact, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softlanding_Linux_System ). -- Eef Hartman, Delft University of Technology, dept. SSC/ICT
From: dae3 on 10 Sep 2009 05:29 Eef Hartman <E.J.M.Hartman(a)tudelft.nl> wrote: > Even Slackware is originally based on another distribution <grin> But LFS isn't... -- ~> cat /etc/*-{version,release}|head -n1 && uname -moprs|fold -sw72 Slackware 12.2.0 Linux 2.6.27.7-crrm i686 AMD Turion(tm) 64 Mobile Technology MK-36 GNU/Linux
From: invalid on 10 Sep 2009 07:16 On 2009-09-09, Mike Jones <Not(a)Arizona.Bay> wrote: > > Been reading a bit on people complaining about KDE's "features" and other > similar "What the hell is it doing NOW?" stuff, and I'm thinking that > there is a significant drift toward corporate convenience in Linux distro > development, including Slackware (audience gasps!). Disturbing but true. At least with Slackware you have the option of installing only what you want- you can't fault Pat for including builds of stuff like KDE because building it on your own if you do want it is out of the question for 99.9% of users. > For example, I spent way longer writing a usbmsd loading script than I > needed to because the HAL system kept getting in the way, and, because I > now don't have a range of devs to manually assign, I'm still expecting > resources to go missing as some automated process steals them before my > scripts can use them. This is a good example. HAL fscked the way the serial interface was working for my Palm and I haven't been able to use it for a couple of Slackware releases. I could easily live without stuff that does things I don't tell it. > In "the good old days" we got to write things as we wanted them and they > stayed that way. These days that is becoming a luxury as learning how to > use the software that controls your hardware is replaced by auto-this and > auto-that, which don't always do that brilliant a job, and can take > longer to fix when they barf that simply hacking a plain text config file > would have done doing things "the old way". This dumbing-down of technology has been going on for a very long time. It's only now that PCs have become such common appliances that people who don't write code for a living have seen the downward spiral. > Am I suffering from classic nostalgia here? Or is there a distinct > presence of corporate "just leave it to us" development replacing the > ingenuity of home-hackers we used to admire so much? Yes and no. Let's separate what is offered on the disk and what you choose. Nobody has to run KDE or GNOME. I'm a confirmed fluxboxer and I don't have any plans to change. Is HAL the way the kernel wants to work, or is it just an add-on? The Slackware doc seems to say if you want to disable HAL you're on your own and you'll probably break something. To me that is bad. I'd like to get rid of it and most of the other automatic junk. That's getting harder to do and I don't want to see setting up a basic workstation become an exercise in trimming. There should be a way to install it like that from the beginning. > Does everything need to look feel and work like Win-D'ohz to appeal? It does if you pander to stupid idiots (home and enterprise users) as opposed to coders and sysadmins. 99% of PC users just want an appliance. You can't blame them but it shouldn't affect the people who want Linux to write software on. There should be a way to accomodate both kinds of consumers. > Are we being slowly trained to expect "click-me" interfaces by default? Not really, don't install X and don't use GUI apps. That's the NIX experience. > Or am I just getting old(er)? If you live long enough, it happens.
From: Dan C on 10 Sep 2009 10:36
On Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:14:41 +0000, notbob wrote: > I'll certainly be looking at where it's coming from. KDE, I suspect. > I've always liked KDE, but this is just too much. I just may be able to > get by without that 3rd CD on the next rev. Anyone know a good alt for > Konsole? Xfce Terminal. ;) -- "Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". "Bother!" said Pooh, as he garotted another passing Liberal. Usenet Improvement Project: http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/ |