On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:43:39 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> assumed
>> 
>> There's that word again. <shaking head>
> 
> Well, you know what? There's a limit to how much one person can
> independently verify as fact. Particularly when it comes to assessing
> what is "popular" and what isn't. Who's word do you take?

Not the word of people who say "it's impossible" or "it's difficult", 
generally speaking.  If people say it's difficult, I assume they haven't 
spent a lot of time and find out for myself.  If people say it's easy, 
I'm willing to give it a try and see if it's easy for me.

But "ease of use" isn't something that's rooted in fact one way or the 
other - it's something that depends highly on the skill level of the 
person using the system.

Jim

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/16/debian_lenny_review/
>
> Apparently Debian is "well known" for being difficult to use.
>
> Damn. I had assumed that that's just how Linux always is... Time to
> re-evaluate my position.

Debian is geared, as Slackware, to *nix-seasoned people.  Even though it's not
half as tough as it used to be before Gnome and KDE desktops, solely on the
command-line.

Novell Suse and Ubuntu are 2 well regarded, layman-geared Linux distros.  Ubuntu
is a Debian-derivative.

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I'm currently using Ubuntu on my laptop. It's a really dull shade of
> brown. (There's probably a way to change that.)

Yes, it's hidden well beneath one of those well known folkloric, cryptic *nix
file paths like System -> Preferences -> Appearance.  I heard the command is
Customize.

> I find it slightly odd
> that each version has a silly name. I'm currently using Hardy Heron. I'm
> about to try Intrepid Ibex. (Although I must say, I'm never really sure
> what the actual *difference* is between releases of Linux distros -
> apart from the artwork usually being slightly different.)

I'm looking forward for Mickey Mouse a few iterations ahead. :D

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On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:55:53 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>> Then, as stated before, try openSUSE or Ubuntu.
> 
> Tried OpenSUSE. (My dad is still using it, in fact.) I quite like YaST
> (especially the way you can run it without needing X). The latest
> version seems to have done away with the "minimal text-mode install".
> (Or at least, it's not very "minimal" any more!)

It's still there.  I've run that install myself a few times - it might be 
under the "custom" options where the DE selection is made.

> I'm currently using Ubuntu on my laptop. It's a really dull shade of
> brown. (There's probably a way to change that.) I find it slightly odd
> that each version has a silly name. I'm currently using Hardy Heron. I'm
> about to try Intrepid Ibex. (Although I must say, I'm never really sure
> what the actual *difference* is between releases of Linux distros -
> apart from the artwork usually being slightly different.)

That's what the changelogs are for - to tell you what's new.  And the 
readme files. ;-)

Jim

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On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:05:13 -0500, nemesis wrote:

> Novell Suse and Ubuntu are 2 well regarded, layman-geared Linux distros.
> Ubuntu is a Debian-derivative.

And technically - very technically - the SUSE distributions are Slackware 
derivatives - but with RPM for package management instead of Slack's tgz-
based package management (unless that's changed, I've not followed Slack 
in a while).

Jim

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>> Tried OpenSUSE. (My dad is still using it, in fact.) I quite like YaST
>> (especially the way you can run it without needing X). The latest
>> version seems to have done away with the "minimal text-mode install".
>> (Or at least, it's not very "minimal" any more!)
> 
> It's still there.  I've run that install myself a few times - it might be 
> under the "custom" options where the DE selection is made.

I used it to set up an old brick laptop and run it as a print server 
once. (Basically I had a printer that can only be connected via USB. 
Plugged it into a laptop, plugged the laptop into the network, operate 
the laptop by SSH. Works great!) And since YaST can be operated in 
text-mode, I was able to control it using simple SSH. (I.e., I didn't 
have to figure out how to tunnel VNC over SSH or anything weird.)

As I recall, the "minimal text mode" install gave you the barest minimum 
to have a working system. It seems now there's a "text mode server" 
option, but it still installs a whole crapload of stuff. I was trying to 
set up a VM and I wanted the install that would take the least amount of 
time. It didn't work too well...

>> (Although I must say, I'm never really sure
>> what the actual *difference* is between releases of Linux distros -
>> apart from the artwork usually being slightly different.)
> 
> That's what the changelogs are for - to tell you what's new.  And the 
> readme files. ;-)

Where do you *find* that stuff though??

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>>> Well, you know what? There's a limit to how much one person can 
>>> independently verify as fact. Particularly when it comes to assessing 
>>> what is "popular" and what isn't. Who's word do you take?
>>
>> http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity

Hmm. Now is that how much people "like" a given distro? Or is it the 
number of downloads? Number of installed machines? Number of page hits 
from people wanting to read about it? What?

> Also have look at this:
> http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

Mmm, interesting...

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nemesis wrote:

> Debian is geared, as Slackware, to *nix-seasoned people.  Even though it's not
> half as tough as it used to be before Gnome and KDE desktops, solely on the
> command-line.
> 
> Novell Suse and Ubuntu are 2 well regarded, layman-geared Linux distros.  Ubuntu
> is a Debian-derivative.

Well, I started out with RedHat. But that was waaaay back in the days 
where to run Linux, you needed to know what chipset your motherboard had 
and how to manually program IRQ numbers and stuff.

I quickly grew tired of that, and eventually gave up on the whole Linux 
trip.

A while later, I used Debian. (Potato, IIRC.) It really was a pain to 
set up. (dselect is a horrid, horrid monstrosity!) Package management 
was always a nightmare; you'd think it would be "easy" to tell the 
installer "hey, I've got the 5 standard CDs here; please use all the 
repositories they contain". But no...

While we're on the subject, I also tried running Debian on my Amiga 
1200. JESUS that was slow! >_< So much for "Linux is faster". :-P

I used openSUSE for a while. (Indeed, my dad *bought* a boxed set of 
disks, with a manual and stuff...) I quite liked it.

Most recently, I have Ubuntu set up on my laptop. It's not very pretty 
to look at, but it seems to work just fine.

Then again, I judge a Linux distro by how pretty it looks, how easy it 
is to make the installer do what you want it to do, and how easily I can 
make it install the software I want. (And also the quality or otherwise 
of the Mahjong game is comes with.)

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Invisible wrote:
...
>>> http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity
> 
> Hmm. Now is that how much people "like" a given distro? Or is it the 
> number of downloads? Number of installed machines? Number of page hits 
> from people wanting to read about it? What?

"Page Hit Ranking statistics",
"Only one hit per IP address per day is counted."

-- 
Tor Olav
http://subcube.com

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Tor Olav Kristensen wrote:

> Also have look at this:
> http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

"The Gentoo documentation was repeatedly labelled as the best online 
documentation of any distribution."

Wuh? o_O

Looks like I'll have to recheck their website. Last time I looked, it 
consisted only of a few dozen scrappy little wiki pages where it takes 
an age to clean anything useful. (All the pages assume you already know 
almost everything.)

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Tor Olav Kristensen wrote:
> 
>> Also have look at this:
>> http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major
> 
> "The Gentoo documentation was repeatedly labelled as the best online 
> documentation of any distribution."
> 
> Wuh? o_O
> 
> Looks like I'll have to recheck their website. Last time I looked, it 
> consisted only of a few dozen scrappy little wiki pages where it takes 
> an age to clean anything useful. (All the pages assume you already know 
> almost everything.)


When I started to use Gentoo (several years ago), I found the Gentoo
documentation very informative.

Have a look here:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/list.xml?desc=1

I recommend that you start with the Gentoo handbook.

-- 
Tor Olav
http://subcube.com

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Tried OpenSUSE. (My dad is still using it, in fact.) I quite like YaST 
> (especially the way you can run it without needing X).

  If one would have to choose one reason why to recommend OpenSUSE over
any other distro, that one reason would very definitely be YaST. It's the
one single application which more or less defines OpenSUSE as a linux distro
and separates it from other distros.

  I have to admit I have no experience on how system configuration and
software management is handles in other distros, but I don't remember ever
reading about tools similar to YaST in other distros. Usually all I have
read are about command-line tools like apt-get and rpm.

  I in no way fear the command-line (and in fact use it quite a lot, eg.
for software development), but there are some things which just are handier
to do with a GUI, when that GUI app has been properly designed. Yast would
be such an app.

  Not only can you configure almost any system setting (including things
like the apache server, firewall settings and almost anything you can
think of), but IMO the software/package manager in YaST has no equal.

  AFAIK you can do the same things with apt-get or rpm as you can do
with YaST's package manager, but it just is so much easier when you can
browse search results in a graphical user interface, select what you want
to install, uninstall or update by clicking on checkboxes, read package
descriptions while browsing, etc. etc.

  Of course not everything is perfect (for example the System Backup app
in YaST is quite ascetic, lacks basic features and is a real pain to use
eg. if you want to restore one single file or a few files), but for the
most part it's one of the best OS apps ever.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> And technically - very technically - the SUSE distributions are Slackware 
> derivatives - but with RPM for package management instead of Slack's tgz-
> based package management (unless that's changed, I've not followed Slack 
> in a while).

  SUSE was derived from Slackware something like 17 years ago, and has
gone through 11 major versions (some of them quite drastic), so I would
say that it's pretty safe to say that there's almost nothing left of
Slackware in OpenSUSE by now...

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> most part it's one of the best OS apps ever.

It also has the advantage over many others that it doesn't screw up your 
hand-built configurations when you use it.  If you manually add routes to 
your routing files, then use YaST to edit them, it neither discards them nor 
chokes, but rather makes the changes right in the same file you made your 
changes. This is a big win,when you need to ask someone else to help out or 
if you have some changes YaST can't handle. And that's true of everything 
YaST configures, as far as I can tell. It doesn't have a separate list of 
init.d scripts (for example) that it clobbers yours with when you change 
something after manually adding init.d scripts.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Then again, I judge a Linux distro by how pretty it looks, how easy it
> is to make the installer do what you want it to do, and how easily I can
> make it install the software I want.

You don't sound like a geek at all.  We're supposed to love tinkering with
stuff. :P

> of the Mahjong game is comes with.)

Yeah, gotta love Mahjong.  I wish Gnome games were networked.  It's so much more
fun! :D

For instance, once upon a time I was playing chess online (a java applet on
Yahoo!Games) with some american dude.  We could talk, but hardly did so and
concentrated on the game instead.  Then, in a given moment he was getting far
too much time in his turn.  I asked "What happened?"  He did not reply.  Some
minutes later, he comes up with this:  "Sorry, I had to take a shit." :P

Sadly, I lost to a guy just had had a shit.

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On Wed, 04 Mar 2009 09:14:02 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>> Tried OpenSUSE. (My dad is still using it, in fact.) I quite like YaST
>>> (especially the way you can run it without needing X). The latest
>>> version seems to have done away with the "minimal text-mode install".
>>> (Or at least, it's not very "minimal" any more!)
>> 
>> It's still there.  I've run that install myself a few times - it might
>> be under the "custom" options where the DE selection is made.
> 
> I used it to set up an old brick laptop and run it as a print server
> once. (Basically I had a printer that can only be connected via USB.
> Plugged it into a laptop, plugged the laptop into the network, operate
> the laptop by SSH. Works great!) And since YaST can be operated in
> text-mode, I was able to control it using simple SSH. (I.e., I didn't
> have to figure out how to tunnel VNC over SSH or anything weird.)

I have a Compaq Evo that I set up as a print server here using text mode; 
I ultimately did add X to it (not to run locally but so I could use X 
apps via SSH.

> As I recall, the "minimal text mode" install gave you the barest minimum
> to have a working system. It seems now there's a "text mode server"
> option, but it still installs a whole crapload of stuff. I was trying to
> set up a VM and I wanted the install that would take the least amount of
> time. It didn't work too well...

That's what individual package selection is for.  I tend to start with 
the text mode server and remove the stuff I don't need.

>>> (Although I must say, I'm never really sure what the actual
>>> *difference* is between releases of Linux distros - apart from the
>>> artwork usually being slightly different.)
>> 
>> That's what the changelogs are for - to tell you what's new.  And the
>> readme files. ;-)
> 
> Where do you *find* that stuff though??

On the DVD, via Google.....On the website for the distribution.

Jim

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On Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:56:27 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> And technically - very technically - the SUSE distributions are
>> Slackware derivatives - but with RPM for package management instead of
>> Slack's tgz- based package management (unless that's changed, I've not
>> followed Slack in a while).
> 
>   SUSE was derived from Slackware something like 17 years ago, and has
> gone through 11 major versions (some of them quite drastic), so I would
> say that it's pretty safe to say that there's almost nothing left of
> Slackware in OpenSUSE by now...

As both an openSUSE user and a Novell employee, I can't disagree with 
anything you said there.  That's why I said "technically" it's a 
derivation, IIRC the original intent was to provide a German translation 
of Slack.

Probably some of the filesystem structure is about all that would be 
left, and much of that was probably taken from Slack (and other distros) 
and put into the file system standard that's common.

There are a few differences in the filesystem from RedHat (for example) - 
the init.d structure is a little different (or it was when I switched 
from RH9 to SUSE Pro 9.1).

Jim

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Tor Olav Kristensen <tor### [at] toberemovedgmailcom> wrote:
> http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

  That was actually an interesting read. With so many distros it's very
hard to follow what their differences and design principles are. That's
a superb summary of them.

  It also clarified for me where some of the common misconceptions about
Linux are coming from. For example:

  "In Linux when you want to configure anything you have to edit obscure
files in obscure system directories using a text editor."

  That's quite clearly based on the design philosophy of Slackware, which
aims to provide a basic vanilla Unix system without the overhead and
inherent instability of the bells, whistles and eyecandy of most other
distros. Of course this philosophy, while more popular 15 years ago, is
nowadays almost exclusive to Slackware (and a few less known distros based
on it or on the same principle).

  "When you want to install new software, you have to always compile it
from sources."

  This is obviously based on the design of Gentoo, where indeed the entire
software management (and the even the installation of the OS itself) is
based on source code packages which are compiled for the computer in
question (the basic idea being that when the software is compiled for
that computer, it's more optimized specifically for it).
  Also this is nowadays a design feature almost exclusive to Gentoo, and
quickly losing popularity (because the advantage of a per-computer based
optimized compilation gives nowadays less and less speed benefits over
more generic binary distributions).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:

>   If one would have to choose one reason why to recommend OpenSUSE over
> any other distro, that one reason would very definitely be YaST.

Seems reasonable.

>   I have to admit I have no experience on how system configuration and
> software management is handles in other distros, but I don't remember ever
> reading about tools similar to YaST in other distros. Usually all I have
> read are about command-line tools like apt-get and rpm.

>   AFAIK you can do the same things with apt-get or rpm as you can do
> with YaST's package manager, but it just is so much easier when you can
> browse search results in a graphical user interface, select what you want
> to install, uninstall or update by clicking on checkboxes, read package
> descriptions while browsing, etc. etc.

There are tools like Aptitude and Synaptic that let you do package 
management with a pretty GUI on other distros. But I haven't come across 
anything quite like YaST - it's not just a package manager, it's a 
complete system configuration tool. It configures (almost) everything.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Warp wrote:

>   That was actually an interesting read. With so many distros it's very
> hard to follow what their differences and design principles are. That's
> a superb summary of them.

Indeed. And, more importantly, which ones are worth researching and 
which ones aren't. (There seem to be millions of tiny one-man distros 
these days.)

>   It also clarified for me where some of the common misconceptions about
> Linux are coming from. For example:
> 
>   "In Linux when you want to configure anything you have to edit obscure
> files in obscure system directories using a text editor."
> 
>   That's quite clearly based on the design philosophy of Slackware.

Well... it's kind of the "Unix philosophy". Everything is configured by 
text files. That means that you can run tools like sed and grep over 
them... and, yes, build GUIs to do the work for you.

The Amiga, by constrast, used binary files for almost everything. But 
even so, overwriting a config file instantly changed the way the OS 
acts. E.g., copying a prefs file from disk to the prefs folder would 
instantly change all your screen colours.

And Windows, by constrast again, uses "the registry".

All valid solutions, just all different.

>   "When you want to install new software, you have to always compile it
> from sources."
> 
>   This is obviously based on the design of Gentoo, where indeed the entire
> software management (and the even the installation of the OS itself) is
> based on source code packages which are compiled for the computer in
> question (the basic idea being that when the software is compiled for
> that computer, it's more optimized specifically for it).
>   Also this is nowadays a design feature almost exclusive to Gentoo, and
> quickly losing popularity (because the advantage of a per-computer based
> optimized compilation gives nowadays less and less speed benefits over
> more generic binary distributions).

Setting up Gentoo and watching it compile stuff was interesting. After a 
while, I began to delude myself that I was "learning" about how large 
software works and what the build process is.

Having just recompiled GHC, I think I'm secumbing to the same delusion...

PS. What the hell is it with Linux and "commands" that fill three 
screenfulls of a terminal console?! What's that about?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:35:54 -0500, Warp wrote:

>   "In Linux when you want to configure anything you have to edit obscure
> files in obscure system directories using a text editor."
[...]
> nowadays almost exclusive to Slackware (and a few less known distros
> based on it or on the same principle).

Yes.  It also was common in RedHat when I was using it (5.2 - 9, pre-
Fedora).  The historical context is more important - Andy points this 
out, actually, by repeating many statements that used to be correct about 
Linux in general 10-15 years ago but are seldom correct today for the 
vast majority of distributions.

>   "When you want to install new software, you have to always compile it
> from sources."

I would say that this latter comes from a combination of very early Slack 
and LFS rather than Gentoo.  Gentoo is the most popular distro that uses 
that as a package management system today, but the history of "build from 
source" goes back farther than Gentoo.

Jim

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> PS. What the hell is it with Linux and "commands" that fill three
> screenfulls of a terminal console?! What's that about?

Run make with -s next time.

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On Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:14:17 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> PS. What the hell is it with Linux and "commands" that fill three
> screenfulls of a terminal console?! What's that about?

If there's a problem, you can look back and see what the error was and 
fix it.

I suppose it's the theory that too much information is better than too 
little.

BTW, only three screens full of info?  That's a pretty small program, 
relatively speaking.  Compiling Rockbox for my iPod fills more than that 
easily.  :-)

Jim

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>> As I recall, the "minimal text mode" install gave you the barest minimum
>> to have a working system. It seems now there's a "text mode server"
>> option, but it still installs a whole crapload of stuff. I was trying to
>> set up a VM and I wanted the install that would take the least amount of
>> time. It didn't work too well...
> 
> That's what individual package selection is for.  I tend to start with 
> the text mode server and remove the stuff I don't need.

My plan was to start with the minimal text install and *add* the stuff I 
needed. Except it isn't "minimal" any more - much to my irritation.

There's probably some way to select exactly what packages you want 
before you boot the intall disk, but I haven't figured that out yet.

Post a reply to this message

>> PS. What the hell is it with Linux and "commands" that fill three
>> screenfulls of a terminal console?! What's that about?
> 
> If there's a problem, you can look back and see what the error was and 
> fix it.
> 
> I suppose it's the theory that too much information is better than too 
> little.

No, I mean... why would you need commands that freaking long in the 
first place??

> BTW, only three screens full of info?  That's a pretty small program, 
> relatively speaking.  Compiling Rockbox for my iPod fills more than that 
> easily.  :-)

Well, when you're in text-mode, it's not easy to measure how many 
screenfulls are scrolling past faster than the refresh rate of your 
monitor. :-P

Post a reply to this message

>>   "When you want to install new software, you have to always compile it
>> from sources."
> 
> I would say that this latter comes from a combination of very early Slack 
> and LFS rather than Gentoo.  Gentoo is the most popular distro that uses 
> that as a package management system today, but the history of "build from 
> source" goes back farther than Gentoo.

Again, this is The Unix Way(tm). That's why every Unix always comes with 
a C compiler (not to mention autoconf). It's because every Unix is 
slightly different, so while you can usually write a program that works 
on every Unix, you're going to have to recompile it for each one...

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Again, this is The Unix Way(tm). That's why every Unix always comes with 
> a C compiler (not to mention autoconf).

  Actually, as far as I remember, a default OpenSUSE installation does not
install gcc (you have to specify it during installation if you want it, or
install it later). The same is probably true for many other "user-friendly"
distros.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

>> Again, this is The Unix Way(tm). That's why every Unix always comes with 
>> a C compiler (not to mention autoconf).
> 
>   Actually, as far as I remember, a default OpenSUSE installation does not
> install gcc (you have to specify it during installation if you want it, or
> install it later). The same is probably true for many other "user-friendly"
> distros.

Sure. Today most things arrive as binary packages, and there's really 
not much need for a compiler unless you happen to be a developer yourself.

Even so, the whole Unix mentallity seems a lot more set-up for this kind 
of thing. On Windows, there isn't even a standard place for header files 
to live...

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Even so, the whole Unix mentallity seems a lot more set-up for this kind 
> of thing. On Windows, there isn't even a standard place for header files 
> to live...

That's because Windows doesn't assume you'll only have one compiler. :-)

It's really quite a recent thing (approximately since Red Hat) that UNIX 
software came as executable binaries.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

Post a reply to this message

>> Even so, the whole Unix mentallity seems a lot more set-up for this 
>> kind of thing. On Windows, there isn't even a standard place for 
>> header files to live...
> 
> That's because Windows doesn't assume you'll only have one compiler. :-)
> 
> It's really quite a recent thing (approximately since Red Hat) that UNIX 
> software came as executable binaries.

Then again, how many machine architectures does Unix target?

How many machine architectures does Windows target?

I rest my case.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
>>> Even so, the whole Unix mentallity seems a lot more set-up for this 
>>> kind of thing. On Windows, there isn't even a standard place for 
>>> header files to live...
>>
>> That's because Windows doesn't assume you'll only have one compiler. :-)
>>
>> It's really quite a recent thing (approximately since Red Hat) that 
>> UNIX software came as executable binaries.
> 
> Then again, how many machine architectures does Unix target?

I didn't say it was a good thing or a bad thing. I said it's a recent thing.

> How many machine architectures does Windows target?

Probably more than you think it does. :)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

Post a reply to this message

>> Then again, how many machine architectures does Unix target?
> 
> I didn't say it was a good thing or a bad thing. I said it's a recent 
> thing.
> 
>> How many machine architectures does Windows target?
> 
> Probably more than you think it does. :)

They dropped Alpha now, right?

But they have IA-32, AMD64 and IA64, AFAIK...

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:

> They dropped Alpha now, right?
> 
> But they have IA-32, AMD64 and IA64, AFAIK...

If you count Windows CE, at least ARM ..

-- 
~Mike

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Invisible wrote:
> "The Gentoo documentation was repeatedly labelled as the best online
> documentation of any distribution."
> 
> Wuh? o_O
> 
> Looks like I'll have to recheck their website. Last time I looked, it
> consisted only of a few dozen scrappy little wiki pages where it takes
> an age to clean anything useful. (All the pages assume you already know
> almost everything.)

	Wiki? Are you sure you didn't go to gentoo-wiki.com?

	Gentoo had the best documentation around (I say "had" simply because I
haven't looked at others' recently). I've often had people who use other
distros tell me that they've found the solution to their problems in
Gentoo's online docs.

-- 
Isn't it counterproductive to have incandescent bulbs in a fridge?


                    /\  /\               /\  /
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                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Warp wrote:
>   This is obviously based on the design of Gentoo, where indeed the entire
> software management (and the even the installation of the OS itself) is
> based on source code packages which are compiled for the computer in
> question (the basic idea being that when the software is compiled for
> that computer, it's more optimized specifically for it).
>   Also this is nowadays a design feature almost exclusive to Gentoo, and
> quickly losing popularity (because the advantage of a per-computer based
> optimized compilation gives nowadays less and less speed benefits over
> more generic binary distributions).

	That used to be what attracted people to Gentoo. The actual Gentoo
users stopped advocating this "benefit" more or less years ago (perhaps
that's why its popularity dropped?).

	I installed Gentoo in 2003. Gentoo was not even 2 years old. And even
then people were seriously questioning the speedup due to optimization.

	The real benefits of Gentoo are/were:

1) Awesome package management (for its time - the best source based one
even now).

2) Because you did everything from scratch, it somewhat was good for
people who wanted some minimalism. When I installed Mandrake, the
default install put more stuff that I needed, and I wasn't knowledgeable
enough to know what to get rid of. With Gentoo, since everything was
built up from nothing, I (more or less) only had what I needed.

3) The process of step 2 teaches you a lot about Linux. Not as much as
LFS, but still a lot. I'm sure I could have used some other friendlier
distro all this time and never learned those things.

4) Great customizability - this is part of point 1. Whenever you install
a package, you can specify precisely what features you want installed.
This can reduce quite a lot of dependencies, and a lot of clutter.

5) Awesome docs (for its time).

	None of these has much to do with optimization, and I'm sure all of
these are the reasons people stick to Gentoo.

	Of course, I can list quite a lot of downsides. Gentoo today is simply
not as good as the Gentoo of 2003. Their repositories used to be
bleeding edge. Now they lack lots of good, stable software that's been
out for years.

-- 
Isn't it counterproductive to have incandescent bulbs in a fridge?


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> assumed
>>
>> There's that word again. <shaking head>
> 
> Well, you know what? There's a limit to how much one person can
> independently verify as fact. Particularly when it comes to assessing

	There are no facts. Don't delude yourself.


-- 
Isn't it counterproductive to have incandescent bulbs in a fridge?


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:22:39 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>> As I recall, the "minimal text mode" install gave you the barest
>>> minimum to have a working system. It seems now there's a "text mode
>>> server" option, but it still installs a whole crapload of stuff. I was
>>> trying to set up a VM and I wanted the install that would take the
>>> least amount of time. It didn't work too well...
>> 
>> That's what individual package selection is for.  I tend to start with
>> the text mode server and remove the stuff I don't need.
> 
> My plan was to start with the minimal text install and *add* the stuff I
> needed. Except it isn't "minimal" any more - much to my irritation.

It's not that hard to deselect everything.  However, with that said, 
there are some dependencies I've run into that didn't make sense to me.

> There's probably some way to select exactly what packages you want
> before you boot the intall disk, but I haven't figured that out yet.

Autoyast probably.

Jim

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On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:23:59 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>> PS. What the hell is it with Linux and "commands" that fill three
>>> screenfulls of a terminal console?! What's that about?
>> 
>> If there's a problem, you can look back and see what the error was and
>> fix it.
>> 
>> I suppose it's the theory that too much information is better than too
>> little.
> 
> No, I mean... why would you need commands that freaking long in the
> first place??

Flexibility.

>> BTW, only three screens full of info?  That's a pretty small program,
>> relatively speaking.  Compiling Rockbox for my iPod fills more than
>> that easily.  :-)
> 
> Well, when you're in text-mode, it's not easy to measure how many
> screenfulls are scrolling past faster than the refresh rate of your
> monitor. :-P

tee or pipe through less, generally. :-)

Jim

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On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:25:18 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>>   "When you want to install new software, you have to always compile
>>>   it
>>> from sources."
>> 
>> I would say that this latter comes from a combination of very early
>> Slack and LFS rather than Gentoo.  Gentoo is the most popular distro
>> that uses that as a package management system today, but the history of
>> "build from source" goes back farther than Gentoo.
> 
> Again, this is The Unix Way(tm). That's why every Unix always comes with
> a C compiler (not to mention autoconf). It's because every Unix is
> slightly different, so while you can usually write a program that works
> on every Unix, you're going to have to recompile it for each one...

Simply not true.  Even in college back in the early 90's, most of the 
software that was installed on our Sun systems was precompiled binaries, 
not built from source.

Jim

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Invisible wrote:
> They dropped Alpha now, right?

Probably. Hard to say if they still support it internally and just aren't 
selling it.

> But they have IA-32, AMD64 and IA64, AFAIK...

Don't forget all the "Windows CE" if you're going to count all of MS's 
operating systems they call "Windows." :-)  And someone got Win98 running on 
a Nokia phone, altho I don't know what chip it is. 
http://wintechblog.com/nokia-n95-uzerinde-windows-98-calistirildi/


-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> Simply not true.  Even in college back in the early 90's, most of the 
> software that was installed on our Sun systems was precompiled binaries, 
> not built from source.

  Especially true since Unix and Unix software started as proprietary,
closed-source commercial systems. The open source mentality didn't prevail
until well into the 90's.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:24:18 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> Simply not true.  Even in college back in the early 90's, most of the
>> software that was installed on our Sun systems was precompiled
>> binaries, not built from source.
> 
>   Especially true since Unix and Unix software started as proprietary,
> closed-source commercial systems. The open source mentality didn't
> prevail until well into the 90's.

Yes, generally right after the BSD court cases completed IIRC.

Jim

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>> "The Gentoo documentation was repeatedly labelled as the best online
>> documentation of any distribution."
>>
>> Wuh? o_O
>>
>> Looks like I'll have to recheck their website. Last time I looked, it
>> consisted only of a few dozen scrappy little wiki pages where it takes
>> an age to clean anything useful. (All the pages assume you already know
>> almost everything.)
> 
> 	Wiki? Are you sure you didn't go to gentoo-wiki.com?

Nope. I typed "www.gentoo.org" and followed the links for 
"documentation". (Don't bother looking today - it's probably long since 
changed. I tried it a few years back.)

The documentation seemed like a brain-dump from a person who knew what 
they were talking about but writing too fast. Maybe it's improved since 
then...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> They dropped Alpha now, right?
> 
> Probably. Hard to say if they still support it internally and just 
> aren't selling it.

I know they supported it for Windows NT, but I thought it was never that 
popular?

>> But they have IA-32, AMD64 and IA64, AFAIK...
> 
> Don't forget all the "Windows CE" if you're going to count all of MS's 
> operating systems they call "Windows." :-)  And someone got Win98 
> running on a Nokia phone, altho I don't know what chip it is. 

Is Windows CE even remotely related to the other Windows editions?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > Don't forget all the "Windows CE" if you're going to count all of MS's 
> > operating systems they call "Windows." :-)  And someone got Win98 
> > running on a Nokia phone, altho I don't know what chip it is. 

> Is Windows CE even remotely related to the other Windows editions?

  It's Windows in name only. It probably doesn't share any code (at least
at kernel level) with the regular Windows.

  This is in contrast with eg. the Linux or NetBSD kernels, which are
designed to be compiled as-is to different architectures (including
many embedded ones).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   It's Windows in name only. It probably doesn't share any code (at least
> at kernel level) with the regular Windows.

It supports many of the same APIs, tho. Basically, your knowlege of how 
things work is supposed to be portable. The actual code itself? Probably 
much less so.

>   This is in contrast with eg. the Linux or NetBSD kernels, which are
> designed to be compiled as-is to different architectures (including
> many embedded ones).

Yeah. I wonder if Vista et al is as portable as NT used to be, like whether 
they managed/bothered to maintain that for the most part or not.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Yeah. I wonder if Vista et al is as portable as NT used to be, like whether 
> they managed/bothered to maintain that for the most part or not.

  Keeping portability to diverse architectures costs time and money.
Having portability is not a great commercial asset in the case of Windows.
I wouldn't be surprised if they had made the decision of forgetting
portability a long time ago. It's simply not cost-efficient in this case.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Yeah. I wonder if Vista et al is as portable as NT used to be, like whether 
>> they managed/bothered to maintain that for the most part or not.
> 
>   Keeping portability to diverse architectures costs time and money.
> Having portability is not a great commercial asset in the case of Windows.
> I wouldn't be surprised if they had made the decision of forgetting
> portability a long time ago. It's simply not cost-efficient in this case.

Yeah, that's what I wondered. On the other hand, once it's done, it's not 
*that* hard to maintain, or at least make it easy. The hard part is 
separating out the non-portable parts (into the HAL for example) and then 
not making machine assumptions at the application level (like endian-ness or 
word size). I just wondered if there was some mandate in Microsoft that the 
OS and such are supposed to be kept portable, in case the x86 architecture 
ever gets a serious competitor again.

I.e., they already support x86 and x64, which are sufficiently different 
that you can't really make a lot of assumptions about the machine from the 
two. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the software MS has could be ported 
to other architectures with relative ease, given that not too long ago it 
was designed to run on something with a different architecture and it runs 
on at least two architectures now.

I wouldn't expect it to be simply a recompile, but I'd be surprised if it 
was a *lot* more work than porting the same amount of Linux-based code. 
Especially given their push towards .NET and all that, that's completely 
machine independent.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Nope. I typed "www.gentoo.org" and followed the links for
> "documentation". (Don't bother looking today - it's probably long since
> changed. I tried it a few years back.)
> 
> The documentation seemed like a brain-dump from a person who knew what
> they were talking about but writing too fast. Maybe it's improved since
> then...

	It must have been pre-March 2003. The Gentoo Web site design (as in
navigation, etc) has not changed since then. And the docs were damn good
back then.

-- 
Ground yourself, THEN hug your motherboard!


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Mueen Nawaz wrote:
> 
> 	It must have been pre-March 2003. The Gentoo Web site design (as in
> navigation, etc) has not changed since then. And the docs were damn good
> back then.
> 

Yep. Already back in 2003 the installation guide was so good that you
could give to someone who has no idea of Linux (but knows English;) and
(s)he could install Gentoo with it pretty easily. Note that back then
there wasn't an installer available and the official way was with stage1
-install (build everything).

-Aero

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