Re: [dev] [9buntu] first attempt -bashing needed

On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 02:47:45PM -0400, Donald Allen wrote:
>> I never said ‘weaker’ meant simpler.
>
>That's true and I didn't say you did. You said it was 'weaker' and I
>said it's 'simpler' (but not *too* simple).

You certainly implied that I was arguing against simplicity,
which I very clearly wasn't.

>I was as skeptical as you are, until I finally (in desperation,
>because I couldn't find a simple, unbloated distribution that was
>reliable) gave it a try. In actual use, it's a simple system to
>administer. If dwm (WHAT?? No config files? I have to edit C code? Mon
>dieu!) were a Linux distribution, it could easily look like Slackware.

I've used Slackware in the past, and the lack of dependency
resolution did indeed cause problems (as it did on similar
systems). On most Unices these days (even the loathesome
RPM-based systems), just about anything may be installed with
one command, or two if you have to search first. You don't even
need to think about the dependencies, and you certainly don't
have to visit a website. It's especially irritating if, like me,
you tend to keep your system clear of Gnome, but occasionally
need a Gnome-based program installed, along with its battalion
of dependencies, and need to purge the lot afterwards.

And, as for dwm, you won't win any points from me on that score.
I still think that that's a bad design decision.

>Most do not have those "tricks up their sleeve" and they get screwed.
>The only reason I can see for using Arch is if you make a conscious
>risk-benefit decision that always having the latest and (presumably)
>greatest easily available to you is worth the risk of occasionally
>having to glue your system back together or restore it from a backup.

Don't care about most people, frankly. That being said, I've
never my Arch system wedged in the past three years or so,
though I have had some more minor yet annoying problems relating
to their rolling packaging.

> But I do often wish that Linuxes would provide
>> something akin to FreeBSD's statically linked /rescue.
>
>I will avoid wasting network bandwidth by going on a FreeBSD rant.
>Suffice to say that I've tried 7.* and 8.* and I don't think that
>system is fit for the desktop. Its reputation for solidity was made on
>servers and I'm sure it's fine there. But, for example, the usb layer
>was totally broken in 7.*, they re-wrote it for 8.* and it still
>doesn't work correctly. There were other problems, too.

FreeBSD has gone down hill over the years, no doubt. I used
4-STABLE for nearly 10 years, and only ever upgraded to 5-STABLE
when 4 wouldn't run on my laptop. My firewall ran 4-STABLE for
some years after that, and my desktop eventually got 6-STABLE
when it was released. But after that, I didn't bother to install
it on my new laptop, because things were clearly not moving in
the right direction.

>OpenBSD is a different story. It is a very high quality system. But --
>it's noticeably slower than Linux, it doesn't have real SMP support
>(just one Giant Lock around the kernel), it doesn't have unified
>buffer cache support, and its hardware-support repertoire is not
>nearly as big as that of Linux. But it's perfectly usable as a desktop
>system, if it supports your hardware (and you don't care about Flash,
>which many do not), very secure, very well documented and very
>bug-free. It's also simple to administer, because the config setup is
>sensible and everything is clearly documented. The big down-side, for
>me, is that the developer community has taken on Theo de Raadt's
>personality. A friend of mine said to me recently "the only reason for
>running OpenBSD is if you like being insulted". Perhaps an
>over-statement, but there's some truth to it. I just don't like the
>way they treat people and so I won't use their stuff (because I like
>to give financial support to people who donate their time to making
>software that I use, and I just didn't want to send these guys any
>more money). Too bad, because in the right setting, it's a great piece
>of work.

I don't believe that OpenBSD is noticably slower than Linux, at
least not for servers. It consistently performs well on
benchmarks compared to Linux and the other BSDs, and I know that
the OpenBSD devs brag about their network device support
compared to bothe Linux and the BSDs. They focus on server
support, and they do that well. And, well, Theo is an asshole,
but I rather like him. He's a rather welcome antidote to Ulrich
Drepper at any rate. It's odd, though, that OpenBSD being so
focused on security and stability, that DJB of all people
ditched it for FreeBSD because of its lack of the latter...

-- 
Kris Maglione
One does well to put on gloves when reading the New Testament.  The
proximity of so much uncleanliness almost forces one to do this.
	--Friedrich Nietzsche