Re: [dev] Linux distros that don't suck too too much

From: hiro <23hiro_AT_gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 12 May 2016 10:35:41 +0200

>> 1. package system: packages having few, sane dependencies (early
>> tinycorelinux was excellent in this regard)
>
> directly contradicts

you can always have multiple packages, e.g. mpg123-oss, mpg123-alsa.
i dont see the problem.
call out flamewar or choose randomly to select a default one. don't
allow anything that isn't proven necessary.
old tinycore showed it works.


> The thing is, that once you want to install these "hip" programs,
> you end up pulling in tons of dependencies.

Yes, that's the compromise you have to make when running linux as a desktop.

> The stali approach is to say: Well, if we can't cut the suck out
> of the hip, we suck the hip out of the suck and run each application
> in sort of a "jail" (namespace, chroot, w/e).

It's interesting, but not worth the complexity to enforce it for all
programs (tinycore decided namespaces are too complex. i think it will
never work as well as on plan9: there's a reason they didnt build upon
unix).

> This allows uninstalling programs easily

I can do that just fine here. you can also keep lists and refcounts to
make it more robust for people with no clue.

> some limitations (dynamic libraries and stuff). Statically linking
> bloated applications is also a waste, but maybe a way to go.

The small base should be linked statically, for bloated shit it
doesn't make a difference. probably not worth it cause many things are
distributed without source anyway and others are just too hard to
compile statically.

> And as I've noticed, you can save a great deal of power not running
> bloated programs. A heuristic for this is the RAM usage (and of course
> idle CPU %). If you take up 50% of your RAM just browsing the web
> no wonder your battery is eaten up faster than chicken wings in Wing
> Bowl 2016.

No, RAM usage is high here, opera has many tabs open, but no CPU
usage. My power usage is as low as it can get really
We can microoptimize with powertop when the day comes, in the end for
real idle (i.e. chrome is closed) the frequency of wakeups becomes a
bigger issue than the plain computational efficiency of some program.

> Protip: Decrease display brightness, it's the most important factor.

Yes, my thinkpad has buttons for that. Also in Xorg the screen turns
off after a while.

> Even though nothing comes close to sndio.

I'd be curious how it would look like altogether on a bsd.

> I'm not too sure about this point. On some distributions, you can literally
> brick your hardware by writing to some /sys variable as root.

That's a bug. Also, just don't write into the file then.

> I don't feel comfortable running Chromium as root to be honest, it's
> like unprotected sex with a street hooker.

I agree, run adduser condom
Received on Thu May 12 2016 - 10:35:41 CEST