Bless you, oh Chick of the formal-wear birds.
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| dinotrac Jan 13, 2009 9:41 PM EDT |
For all that I might rant about Ubuntu -- and there be a lot of rant there -- the only thing I truly hate -- make that HATE -- is how hard it is to figure out how to do simple things under the hood. WWWHHHHYYYYYYYYEEEEEEE????!!!!!???!???????!?!?!?!?!?! |
| gus3 Jan 13, 2009 10:54 PM EDT |
It's simple. The consuming sheeple have demonstrated time and again that they are willing to give up their productive ability, in exchange for being unable to screw up anything. Nobody can fail; equally, none can shine. Equality in mediocrity. |
| jdixon Jan 13, 2009 10:57 PM EDT |
> The changes that bother me the most are the ones that make it harder to understand and control your own system by adding needless complexity and layers of obscurity. Sounds like TC needs to check out Slackware, doesn't it? |
| garymax Jan 13, 2009 11:23 PM EDT |
jdixon beat me to it! Another article some time ago spoke of what we can learn from Slackware. Seems like a trend is developing. And the inevitable march to Slackware is finally beginning... Onward! Upward! |
| tuxchick Jan 14, 2009 12:49 AM EDT |
I used Slackware back in the last millennium to build routers, firewalls, and file/print servers. Nice simple BSD-style init, nice clean configs. No clutter, no Byzantine configs invented by fiendish former INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) bureaucrats. Very nice it was. I should check it out again. Though I must say having to use my official work windows expee laptop puts it all in perspective. I had to leave earlier today and wanted to take the laptop with me. Symantec LiveUpdate had been going for a couple of hours, and I thought it had frozen or died or something. So I hit the Cancel button and tried to shutdown. Well the dratted slug in a ditch LiveUpdate canceled the shutdown because LiveUpdate needed more time to abort cleanly. I said some bad words and left. When I came back hours later it was still "cleaning up." New motto: Microsoft. We Make Everything Else Look Good. |
| dinotrac Jan 14, 2009 5:34 AM EDT |
gus3 -- Which sheeple are you talking about? Linux configuration evil is brought about by developers with no demand from users. It is idiot developers/distribution packagers aping Windows mentality for no good reason. |
| KernelShepard Jan 14, 2009 8:59 AM EDT |
To be fair, I think that today's networking scripts/programs are important in order for Joe the Plumber to be able to successfully use Linux. Forcing Joe the Plumber to edit his own /etc scripts and configuration files (which all had different syntaxes, remember) would have likely caused him to give up and go back to Windows. I agree that NetworkManager is imperfect and that you might have been able to get better results with the old ways of doing things, but it's also a lot simpler for Joe the Plumber to figure out how to use. FWIW, for those who are comfortable with the old ways of doing things (who I'm sure aren't afraid of the command-line or compiling things, becase, lets be real, "back in the day" we all had to constantly compile stuff ourselves anyway), you could always uninstall NetworkManager and install packages for the old system (if your distro still packages them) or compile/install them manually. I know it sucks to do, but it is possible. I think the last time I installed a distro, the installer allowed me to not install NetworkManager and to use the old system. |
| KernelShepard Jan 14, 2009 9:04 AM EDT |
FWIW, I fully understand TC's position as I was also frustrated for a while with it, but then I later took a step back and saw that it made most people's lives easier. I've also since given in to the new system and it mostly Just Works(tm). |
| jdixon Jan 14, 2009 10:02 AM EDT |
> I think that today's networking scripts/programs are important in order for Joe the Plumber to be able to successfully use Linux. It's not an either/or situation. Just because some wonderful new gui widget does great things for the newbie doesn't mean it has to break your old configuration methods. |
| montezuma Jan 14, 2009 10:57 AM EDT |
> FWIW, I fully understand TC's position as I was also frustrated for a while with it, but then I later took a step back and saw that it made most people's lives easier. I've also since given in to the new system and it mostly Just Works(tm). I don't agree with this approach. When something goes wrong (as it frequently does) you should be able to fall back on a well documented manual configuration. Several distros (the worst offender being Ubuntu) have ripped out all the old configs in order to make things seemless but they have failed to redocument properly their new system. The three worst offenders are imho xorg, hal and udev. Nice new systems that work 95% of the time but when they don't you are screwed. I suppose you could ring Canonical for paid support (barf). |
| dinotrac Jan 14, 2009 2:01 PM EDT |
monte - YYYYEEEEESSSSSS!!!!! The ability to do that is one of the great strengths of Linux over Windows -- even with configuration hell. You want GUIs? Fine. More power to you. Personally, I love GUIs. There are lots of things I don't do frequently enough to rapidly do via command line. But -- Don't turn the underlying configuration files into a freakin' untouchable mess. C'mon, it doesn't take rocket science, just a little courtesy. |
| Bob_Robertson Jan 14, 2009 2:43 PM EDT |
yes, udev has some strangeness. My Mom's laptop's ethernet port, for instance, is incremented each time she boots. It was up in the 200's, last I saw. "udev is renaming eth0 to eth387" |
| herzeleid Jan 14, 2009 3:07 PM EDT |
> "udev is renaming eth0 to eth387" Bob, it sounds like she has one of those onboard nvidia nics which presents a unique mac address every time it boots. There is a udev config tweak to fix that. |
| Bob_Robertson Jan 14, 2009 3:11 PM EDT |
"There is a udev config tweak to fix that." Thanks, I'll try to remember next time the machine is in my hands (maybe in a few years). |
| tuxchick Jan 14, 2009 3:12 PM EDT |
Quoting: There is a udev config tweak to fix that. But what's the good news? |
| azerthoth Jan 14, 2009 3:32 PM EDT |
It's only in the fourth level, 3rd branch config file, and only on line 667 instead of mucking with 8 seperate config files scattered all over the system somewhere. oh yeah, then recompile from a specific version of source code that was deprecated 2 years ago in an attempt to fix this very issue. Other wise, just live with it. |
| gus3 Jan 14, 2009 4:16 PM EDT |
@dino: Which sheeple? The ones that spend million$ on the execrable crap from Redmond and the slightly less execrable cr@p from Cupertino. The fact that they are willing to spend such exorbitant wads of cash on such poor quality tells me they are cowardly sheeple who will do whatever they're told. |
| ColonelPanik Jan 14, 2009 4:35 PM EDT |
So what should I do? |
| azerthoth Jan 14, 2009 4:42 PM EDT |
Gus, just using MS does not a sheeple make, listening to what any 'true believer' says without a modicum of credulity is a much better guage of what makes a sheeple. |
| Bob_Robertson Jan 14, 2009 5:00 PM EDT |
> sheeple .....must...not....reply....must.....stay.....on....topic.... |
| azerthoth Jan 14, 2009 5:04 PM EDT |
/me stirs Bob up to the frothing point "The liberals are coming, the liberals are coming" /me waits for Bob to explode |
| herzeleid Jan 14, 2009 6:23 PM EDT |
> But what's the good news? The fact that it all still just works - despite a corner case with a quirky ethernet card! |
| gus3 Jan 14, 2009 7:11 PM EDT |
@az: I didn't say anything about "using." I'm talking about actually spending (wasting) money on the stuff. |
| tuxchick Jan 14, 2009 7:16 PM EDT |
Quoting: "The liberals are coming, the liberals are coming" Too late, we're here! Hahaaa! |
| Bob_Robertson Jan 14, 2009 8:31 PM EDT |
> "The liberals are coming" I don't mind people who are liberal with their views, their ideas, their own money. If not for "liberal" people, we'd have no Linux. In fact, it's perfectly reasonable to call me a classical liberal. |
| dinotrac Jan 14, 2009 10:45 PM EDT |
gus3 -- But this thread is about LINUX not windows. The only sheeple to point at are FOSS developers. TC - Yeah, we've drawn you all out into the open now. Go ahead and get cocky, but sleep with one eye open... |
| gus3 Jan 14, 2009 10:59 PM EDT |
@dino: Which sells: (1) The power of life and death over one's own system, or (2) Giving that power to someone else? MS and Apple sales figures show, conclusively, it's the latter. Ubuntu is merely following suit. (pun convenient) |
| dinotrac Jan 14, 2009 11:24 PM EDT |
>Ubuntu is merely following suit. Needlessly, because the two are not at odds with each other. That's why it pisses me off so much, to surrender a significant strength for nothing. |
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