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Is dbus required?
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Dan Higgenbottom
Oct 8, 2015, 1:38:23 AM10/8/15
to
Is dbus required? I killed it and when firefox starts dbus gets started
again. I don't understand what dbus is or whether it is required. I don't
use kde or gnome desktop although I did install the gnome libs because not
much runs without them.
TIA for any advice.
Dan
again. I don't understand what dbus is or whether it is required. I don't
use kde or gnome desktop although I did install the gnome libs because not
much runs without them.
TIA for any advice.
Dan
Aragorn
Oct 8, 2015, 1:50:41 AM10/8/15
to
On Thursday 08 Oct 2015 07:38, Dan Higgenbottom conveyed the following
to alt.os.linux.slackware...
> Is dbus required?
Hmm... Yes and no. Technically, it would be possible to _set up_ a
system without dbus, but you might as well jump through burning hoops.
It would be just as pleasant. :p
Let's just say that if you run KDE, GNOME or XFCE as desktop
environments, then you definitely need it. If you use another desktop
environment or window manager, then it depends on what userland software
you intend to use on that machine.
> I killed it and when firefox starts dbus gets started again. I don't
> understand what dbus is or whether it is required.
dbus is an interprocess communication (IPC) bus. And if Kay Sievers,
Lennart Poettering & friends have it their way, then kdbus will soon be
a fact as well.
kdbus runs ─ you guessed it ─ in the kernel, whereas the standard dbus
runs in userspace. And any GNU/Linux system currently using systemd
needs dbus, and will in the future come to depend upon kdbus as well.
You can thank freedesktop.org ─ and thus RedHat ─ for that. They
developed dbus in the first place, and they're also the ones pushing
systemd and kdbus.
> I don't use kde or gnome desktop although I did install the
> gnome libs because not much runs without them.
The same is unfortunately true for dbus itself.
--
= Aragorn =
http://www.linuxcounter.net - registrant #223157
to alt.os.linux.slackware...
> Is dbus required?
Hmm... Yes and no. Technically, it would be possible to _set up_ a
system without dbus, but you might as well jump through burning hoops.
It would be just as pleasant. :p
Let's just say that if you run KDE, GNOME or XFCE as desktop
environments, then you definitely need it. If you use another desktop
environment or window manager, then it depends on what userland software
you intend to use on that machine.
> I killed it and when firefox starts dbus gets started again. I don't
> understand what dbus is or whether it is required.
Lennart Poettering & friends have it their way, then kdbus will soon be
a fact as well.
kdbus runs ─ you guessed it ─ in the kernel, whereas the standard dbus
runs in userspace. And any GNU/Linux system currently using systemd
needs dbus, and will in the future come to depend upon kdbus as well.
You can thank freedesktop.org ─ and thus RedHat ─ for that. They
developed dbus in the first place, and they're also the ones pushing
systemd and kdbus.
> I don't use kde or gnome desktop although I did install the
> gnome libs because not much runs without them.
--
= Aragorn =
http://www.linuxcounter.net - registrant #223157
Aragorn
Oct 8, 2015, 1:52:32 AM10/8/15
to
On Thursday 08 Oct 2015 07:50, Aragorn conveyed the following to
I forgot to add the Wonkypedia link... ;)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Bus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Bus
Sarcastic Fringehead
Oct 8, 2015, 10:09:17 AM10/8/15
to
On Thu, 08 Oct 2015 07:52:31 +0200, Aragorn wrote:
> I forgot to add the Wonkypedia link... ;)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Bus
When you click on that link in your newsreader, dbus gets it and
> I forgot to add the Wonkypedia link... ;)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Bus
decides the link needs to be sent to your browser. So it isn't
needed in a server.
Then there's udev, a user-space device manager. When you plug in
a thumbdrive or similar, things happen, like mount, or run
your filemanager (pointed to the correct directory). That's due
to udev. SystemD is incorporating it into the kernel. That is
why devuan.org is having to rewrite it.
So it looks like a race for Devuan developers to fix things
faster than Poettering can break them.
Rich
Oct 8, 2015, 12:24:48 PM10/8/15
to
Sarcastic Fringehead <no...@none.none> wrote:
> On Thu, 08 Oct 2015 07:52:31 +0200, Aragorn wrote:
> > I forgot to add the Wonkypedia link... ;)
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Bus
> When you click on that link in your newsreader, dbus gets it and
> decides the link needs to be sent to your browser.
Which just goes to show the hubris of Pottering and his microsoft
> On Thu, 08 Oct 2015 07:52:31 +0200, Aragorn wrote:
> > I forgot to add the Wonkypedia link... ;)
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Bus
> When you click on that link in your newsreader, dbus gets it and
> decides the link needs to be sent to your browser.
viewpoint of the world.
The hubris and 'microsoft viewpoint' is the assumption that one is
sitting at the console of the very computer upon which the newsreader
is running.
In my case right now, I am sitting about ten miles away from the
machine running this newsreader, and I'm sshing into that machine, and
running the newsreader from inside a screen session running on that
computer.
> ...
> So it looks like a race for Devuan developers to fix things
> faster than Poettering can break them.
Dan Higgenbottom
Oct 8, 2015, 2:22:28 PM10/8/15
to
On 2015-10-08, Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be.invalid> wrote:
> On Thursday 08 Oct 2015 07:38, Dan Higgenbottom conveyed the following
> to alt.os.linux.slackware...
>
>> Is dbus required?
>
> Hmm... Yes and no. Technically, it would be possible to _set up_ a
> system without dbus, but you might as well jump through burning hoops.
> It would be just as pleasant. :p
That's what I was afraid of. I removed the dbus packages and firefox and
> On Thursday 08 Oct 2015 07:38, Dan Higgenbottom conveyed the following
> to alt.os.linux.slackware...
>
>> Is dbus required?
>
> Hmm... Yes and no. Technically, it would be possible to _set up_ a
> system without dbus, but you might as well jump through burning hoops.
> It would be just as pleasant. :p
seamonkey wouldn't start. Claws-mail wouldn't start. So pretty much game
over.
>> I killed it and when firefox starts dbus gets started again. I don't
>> understand what dbus is or whether it is required.
>
> dbus is an interprocess communication (IPC) bus. And if Kay Sievers,
> Lennart Poettering & friends have it their way, then kdbus will soon be
> a fact as well.
Slackware's cleanliness and lack of bullshit has kept me using it.
Unfortunately the alternatives are not jumping out from every corner.
> You can thank freedesktop.org ??? and thus RedHat ??? for that. They
> developed dbus in the first place, and they're also the ones pushing
> systemd and kdbus.
Complete shitheads.
> systemd and kdbus.
>
>> I don't use kde or gnome desktop although I did install the
>> gnome libs because not much runs without them.
>
> The same is unfortunately true for dbus itself.
Dan
>
Aragorn
Oct 8, 2015, 6:37:44 PM10/8/15
to
On Thursday 08 Oct 2015 16:09, Sarcastic Fringehead conveyed the
following to alt.os.linux.slackware...
> On Thu, 08 Oct 2015 07:52:31 +0200, Aragorn wrote:
>
>> I forgot to add the Wonkypedia link... ;)
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Bus
>
> When you click on that link in your newsreader, dbus gets it and
> decides the link needs to be sent to your browser. So it isn't
> needed in a server.
Correct. It seems to be primarily a desktop thing.
> Then there's udev, a user-space device manager. When you plug in
> a thumbdrive or similar, things happen, like mount, or run
> your filemanager (pointed to the correct directory). That's due
> to udev. SystemD is incorporating it into the kernel. That is
> why devuan.org is having to rewrite it.
Hmm... I didn't think that the Devuan guys were trying to rewrite
systemd, but rather that they were trying to create a Debian clone which
doesn't _use_ systemd.
There is however another initiative ─ but I'm not sure on its name
anymore ─ to rewrite systemd into something less bloated, and the Gentoo
guys have themselves also created a fork of udev (called eudev) which
doesn't use systemd.
Gentoo has an additional motivation for trying to avoid systemd: their
openrc init system and their Portage package management also have to
remain compatible with FreeBSD, while systemd is specific to GNU/Linux.
So they do support systemd ─ and there are several systemd fanboys among
their developers ─ but the default is still openrc, and that will never
go away for as long as they keep on supporting FreeBSD.
Meanwhile, there's also a fork of Arch which uses Gentoo's eudev,
probably in combination with the BSD-style init ─ similar to how it's
configured in Slackware ─ which Arch itself was using before they went
all systemd. (Arch proper was the first non-RedHat-derived distro to
adopt systemd.)
> So it looks like a race for Devuan developers to fix things
> faster than Poettering can break them.
Which is quite a challenge, for that matter. Poettering has help from
Kay Sievers, who is equally apt at breaking things and not fixing them,
often requiring the kernel developers to work around his mess.
He's so bad at it that Linus himself told Sievers that he was not
admitting a single line of code from Sievers into the kernel anymore
until Sievers started cleaning up his act. ;)
following to alt.os.linux.slackware...
> On Thu, 08 Oct 2015 07:52:31 +0200, Aragorn wrote:
>
>> I forgot to add the Wonkypedia link... ;)
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Bus
>
> When you click on that link in your newsreader, dbus gets it and
> decides the link needs to be sent to your browser. So it isn't
> needed in a server.
> Then there's udev, a user-space device manager. When you plug in
> a thumbdrive or similar, things happen, like mount, or run
> your filemanager (pointed to the correct directory). That's due
> to udev. SystemD is incorporating it into the kernel. That is
> why devuan.org is having to rewrite it.
systemd, but rather that they were trying to create a Debian clone which
doesn't _use_ systemd.
There is however another initiative ─ but I'm not sure on its name
anymore ─ to rewrite systemd into something less bloated, and the Gentoo
guys have themselves also created a fork of udev (called eudev) which
doesn't use systemd.
Gentoo has an additional motivation for trying to avoid systemd: their
openrc init system and their Portage package management also have to
remain compatible with FreeBSD, while systemd is specific to GNU/Linux.
So they do support systemd ─ and there are several systemd fanboys among
their developers ─ but the default is still openrc, and that will never
go away for as long as they keep on supporting FreeBSD.
Meanwhile, there's also a fork of Arch which uses Gentoo's eudev,
probably in combination with the BSD-style init ─ similar to how it's
configured in Slackware ─ which Arch itself was using before they went
all systemd. (Arch proper was the first non-RedHat-derived distro to
adopt systemd.)
> So it looks like a race for Devuan developers to fix things
> faster than Poettering can break them.
Kay Sievers, who is equally apt at breaking things and not fixing them,
often requiring the kernel developers to work around his mess.
He's so bad at it that Linus himself told Sievers that he was not
admitting a single line of code from Sievers into the kernel anymore
until Sievers started cleaning up his act. ;)
Aragorn
Oct 8, 2015, 6:54:07 PM10/8/15
to
On Thursday 08 Oct 2015 18:22, Rich conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.slackware...
> Which just goes to show the hubris of Pottering and his microsoft
> viewpoint of the world.
Microsoft and Apple. Both of those are significant influences in the
design of GNOME, and therefore, in the freedesktop.org specification.
> The hubris and 'microsoft viewpoint' is the assumption that one is
> sitting at the console of the very computer upon which the newsreader
> is running.
Yes, it all seems very much "back to single-user desktop machines" to
me.
> In my case right now, I am sitting about ten miles away from the
> machine running this newsreader, and I'm sshing into that machine, and
> running the newsreader from inside a screen session running on that
> computer.
That's exactly the sort of thing that UNIX (and by consequence,
GNU/Linux, *BSD, OpenIndiana, et al) has always been designed for, and
that it has always been good at.
Unfortunately, RedHat is a commercial corporation, and they are usurping
and perverting the whole GNU/Linux landscape to serve their corporate
needs.
Everyone ─ well, everyone even remotely involved with IT ─ knows that
Android is based off a forked Linux kernel. But Android is not
GNU/Linux. It's an entirely different system. Well, if RedHat has it
their way, then RedHat-derived GNU/Linux distributions will soon only
have very little in common with the original UNIX anymore. It'd end up
being something along the lines of OS X.
One of the things that irks me about freedesktop.org, for instance, is
their insistence on a "Places" menu in file managers ─ it was also
already part of the GNOME 2 user interface. It's a volume-oriented
approach to storage media ─ just as in Windows, and just as in (any
version of) Mac OS, and it is _not_ "the UNIX way".
Furthermore, a volume-oriented approach to storage might appear tidy on
a machine where the whole system is installed in a single partition, but
on something like my machines, with a very elaborate partitioning ─ see
below ─ it's an absolute nightmare to navigate. So I always disable the
"Places" menu.
This is my partitioning layout (plus 2 tmpfs filesystems).
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs 445M 352M 94M 80% /
/dev 2.0G 364K 1.9G 1% /dev
none 2.0G 656K 2.0G 1% /dev/shm
none 2.0G 4.0K 2.0G 1% /tmp
/dev/sda1 295M 48M 247M 17% /boot
/dev/sda3 25G 6.1G 19G 25% /usr
/dev/sda5 744M 212K 744M 1% /usr/local
/dev/sda6 1.5G 160K 1.5G 1% /opt
/dev/sda7 5.9G 423M 5.5G 8% /var
/dev/sda8 489G 5.0G 484G 2% /home
/dev/sda9 40G 3.8G 36G 10% /srv
/dev/sda12 127G 52G 75G 42% /srv/mmedia/video
GNU/Linux distributions should stop catering to (ex-)Windows users.
It's a UNIX-style system, for people who _want to use_ a UNIX-style
system.
Hmm... I never thought I'd be one to say "Get off my lawn." :p
alt.os.linux.slackware...
> Which just goes to show the hubris of Pottering and his microsoft
> viewpoint of the world.
design of GNOME, and therefore, in the freedesktop.org specification.
> The hubris and 'microsoft viewpoint' is the assumption that one is
> sitting at the console of the very computer upon which the newsreader
> is running.
me.
> In my case right now, I am sitting about ten miles away from the
> machine running this newsreader, and I'm sshing into that machine, and
> running the newsreader from inside a screen session running on that
> computer.
GNU/Linux, *BSD, OpenIndiana, et al) has always been designed for, and
that it has always been good at.
Unfortunately, RedHat is a commercial corporation, and they are usurping
and perverting the whole GNU/Linux landscape to serve their corporate
needs.
Everyone ─ well, everyone even remotely involved with IT ─ knows that
Android is based off a forked Linux kernel. But Android is not
GNU/Linux. It's an entirely different system. Well, if RedHat has it
their way, then RedHat-derived GNU/Linux distributions will soon only
have very little in common with the original UNIX anymore. It'd end up
being something along the lines of OS X.
One of the things that irks me about freedesktop.org, for instance, is
their insistence on a "Places" menu in file managers ─ it was also
already part of the GNOME 2 user interface. It's a volume-oriented
approach to storage media ─ just as in Windows, and just as in (any
version of) Mac OS, and it is _not_ "the UNIX way".
Furthermore, a volume-oriented approach to storage might appear tidy on
a machine where the whole system is installed in a single partition, but
on something like my machines, with a very elaborate partitioning ─ see
below ─ it's an absolute nightmare to navigate. So I always disable the
"Places" menu.
This is my partitioning layout (plus 2 tmpfs filesystems).
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs 445M 352M 94M 80% /
/dev 2.0G 364K 1.9G 1% /dev
none 2.0G 656K 2.0G 1% /dev/shm
none 2.0G 4.0K 2.0G 1% /tmp
/dev/sda1 295M 48M 247M 17% /boot
/dev/sda3 25G 6.1G 19G 25% /usr
/dev/sda5 744M 212K 744M 1% /usr/local
/dev/sda6 1.5G 160K 1.5G 1% /opt
/dev/sda7 5.9G 423M 5.5G 8% /var
/dev/sda8 489G 5.0G 484G 2% /home
/dev/sda9 40G 3.8G 36G 10% /srv
/dev/sda12 127G 52G 75G 42% /srv/mmedia/video
GNU/Linux distributions should stop catering to (ex-)Windows users.
It's a UNIX-style system, for people who _want to use_ a UNIX-style
system.
Hmm... I never thought I'd be one to say "Get off my lawn." :p
Mike Spencer
Oct 8, 2015, 10:27:18 PM10/8/15
to
Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be.invalid> writes:
> GNU/Linux distributions should stop catering to (ex-)Windows users.
> It's a UNIX-style system, for people who _want to use_ a UNIX-style
> system.
Only I'm afraid that many of the hackers nowmaking, influencing and
maintaining GNU/Linux software, policies etc. are themselves
ex-Windoes users. They were imprinted while at a malleable age.
Mutter...mutter...
--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
Aragorn
Oct 8, 2015, 11:41:11 PM10/8/15
to
On Friday 09 Oct 2015 04:26, Mike Spencer conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.slackware...
>
That has indeed also already been my impression for many years now.
Now, I myself am of what you could call "an older generation", even
though I wouldn't call myself a developer. I only first came into
contact with "a computer" ─ a hard-diskless TurboDOS machine first, and
a hard-diskless IBM XT clone with PC-DOS 3.30 later ─ when I was already
27 years old. I quickly taught myself how to use the DOS command line,
and when I went back to college at the age of 28, we used Sperry OS/3
(Unix) there on a Unisys minicomputer ─ writing COBOL programs in vi ─
as well as MS-DOS 4.0 (without the pseudo-graphical shell and without
MS-Windows) on white-box machines with an Intel i386.
When I bought my first own computer ─ a Brother i386 ─ it came with DOS
5.0 and Windows 3.0, but after about six months, I installed OS/2 2.0 on
it, because that's what I thought was the best OS for a standalone PC at
the time, and I found it ridiculous to run DOS on anything more powerful
than an 80286.
I've used OS/2 for over five years, and then I needed a new computer and
I wanted UNIX, but proprietary UNIX was expensive, and GNU/Linux was
still more or less in its infancy, so I settled on using Windows NT 4.0
for two years, and then I discovered GNU/Linux, and I've never looked
back at anything else.
In the meantime however, Microsoft managed to gain the upper hand in the
x86 market ─ via the bundle sales of DOS and Windows 3.x first, then via
Windows 95, 98, and so on. So the newer generation of developers all
grew up in an educational environment where Microsoft was already king
of the hill, regardless of the fact that their software was junk. And
Apple was still somewhat of a niche over here at the time ─ it did very
well in DTP environments, but it wasn't being used for anything else,
really.
As an example, the town where I live has evening school courses for
adults. Among the offer is a course in "Information Technology". And
what do they teach you there? Right: Microsoft Windows, Microsoft
Access, Microsoft Excell, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft PowerPoint. So
if you graduate from that, you get a diploma that says that you're an IT
specialist, but all you really know is how to use MS-Crapware.
The reason I became interested in GNU/Linux was because it's a UNIX-
style operating system, not because I wanted a kitchen sink appliance.
I was interested in the system itself, and after two years of NT ─
which, on a standalone computer, not connected to anything else, isn't
all that bad _as a toy_ ─ I wanted something that I could tinker with
and customize to my liking. Something that was truly multiuser and
multitasking.
From the first moment on that I installed GNU/Linux, I was hooked on it,
but the fact that it was Free & Open Source Software made it even more
interesting, because I had not really been familiar with that
philosophy, having only used proprietary/corporate software before.
I reside in a great many GNU/Linux-specific Usenet newsgroups, but the
ungratefulness and ineptitude of many of the newbies in most of these
groups is extremely frustrating. They won't read man pages, they won't
use the command line, and they get lost even in the graphical user
interface, or the graphical installers.
Edsger Dijkstra used to say "Any student who's been exposed to BASIC is
brain-damaged beyond repair." I would daresay the same thing about any
developer who's ever been exposed to Microsoft Windows. They've got
Microsoft tattooed all over their genes and they can't think of anything
other than that anymore.
There's a reason why UNIX has survived for 45+ years, and that reason is
that it's A Damn Good Design™. And now we've got all these Win-droid
developers joining the community and perverting a fantastic design into
a kitchen sink household appliance for dummies.
A facepalm doesn't even begin covering it. <grin>
alt.os.linux.slackware...
>
Now, I myself am of what you could call "an older generation", even
though I wouldn't call myself a developer. I only first came into
contact with "a computer" ─ a hard-diskless TurboDOS machine first, and
a hard-diskless IBM XT clone with PC-DOS 3.30 later ─ when I was already
27 years old. I quickly taught myself how to use the DOS command line,
and when I went back to college at the age of 28, we used Sperry OS/3
(Unix) there on a Unisys minicomputer ─ writing COBOL programs in vi ─
as well as MS-DOS 4.0 (without the pseudo-graphical shell and without
MS-Windows) on white-box machines with an Intel i386.
When I bought my first own computer ─ a Brother i386 ─ it came with DOS
5.0 and Windows 3.0, but after about six months, I installed OS/2 2.0 on
it, because that's what I thought was the best OS for a standalone PC at
the time, and I found it ridiculous to run DOS on anything more powerful
than an 80286.
I've used OS/2 for over five years, and then I needed a new computer and
I wanted UNIX, but proprietary UNIX was expensive, and GNU/Linux was
still more or less in its infancy, so I settled on using Windows NT 4.0
for two years, and then I discovered GNU/Linux, and I've never looked
back at anything else.
In the meantime however, Microsoft managed to gain the upper hand in the
x86 market ─ via the bundle sales of DOS and Windows 3.x first, then via
Windows 95, 98, and so on. So the newer generation of developers all
grew up in an educational environment where Microsoft was already king
of the hill, regardless of the fact that their software was junk. And
Apple was still somewhat of a niche over here at the time ─ it did very
well in DTP environments, but it wasn't being used for anything else,
really.
As an example, the town where I live has evening school courses for
adults. Among the offer is a course in "Information Technology". And
what do they teach you there? Right: Microsoft Windows, Microsoft
Access, Microsoft Excell, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft PowerPoint. So
if you graduate from that, you get a diploma that says that you're an IT
specialist, but all you really know is how to use MS-Crapware.
The reason I became interested in GNU/Linux was because it's a UNIX-
style operating system, not because I wanted a kitchen sink appliance.
I was interested in the system itself, and after two years of NT ─
which, on a standalone computer, not connected to anything else, isn't
all that bad _as a toy_ ─ I wanted something that I could tinker with
and customize to my liking. Something that was truly multiuser and
multitasking.
From the first moment on that I installed GNU/Linux, I was hooked on it,
but the fact that it was Free & Open Source Software made it even more
interesting, because I had not really been familiar with that
philosophy, having only used proprietary/corporate software before.
I reside in a great many GNU/Linux-specific Usenet newsgroups, but the
ungratefulness and ineptitude of many of the newbies in most of these
groups is extremely frustrating. They won't read man pages, they won't
use the command line, and they get lost even in the graphical user
interface, or the graphical installers.
Edsger Dijkstra used to say "Any student who's been exposed to BASIC is
brain-damaged beyond repair." I would daresay the same thing about any
developer who's ever been exposed to Microsoft Windows. They've got
Microsoft tattooed all over their genes and they can't think of anything
other than that anymore.
There's a reason why UNIX has survived for 45+ years, and that reason is
that it's A Damn Good Design™. And now we've got all these Win-droid
developers joining the community and perverting a fantastic design into
a kitchen sink household appliance for dummies.
A facepalm doesn't even begin covering it. <grin>
Keith Keller
Oct 9, 2015, 12:20:07 AM10/9/15
to
On 2015-10-08, Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be.invalid> wrote:
>
>
> Unfortunately, RedHat is a commercial corporation, and they are usurping
> and perverting the whole GNU/Linux landscape to serve their corporate
> needs.
Well, they are trying, anyway. If they were truly succeeding, then
> and perverting the whole GNU/Linux landscape to serve their corporate
> needs.
initiatives like Devuan would never even get started.
> Everyone ??? well, everyone even remotely involved with IT ??? knows that
> Android is based off a forked Linux kernel. But Android is not
> GNU/Linux. It's an entirely different system. Well, if RedHat has it
> their way, then RedHat-derived GNU/Linux distributions will soon only
> have very little in common with the original UNIX anymore. It'd end up
> being something along the lines of OS X.
I'm not sure this really matters. Back when Slackware started linux was
> GNU/Linux. It's an entirely different system. Well, if RedHat has it
> their way, then RedHat-derived GNU/Linux distributions will soon only
> have very little in common with the original UNIX anymore. It'd end up
> being something along the lines of OS X.
in barely any shops. If RedHat somehow ends up dominating the linux
market, Slackware will continue to be in barely any shops. But it'll
still be in *some*.
And that is the whole point of open source: you don't like what RedHat's
doing? Fork the code and do it your way. So even if RedHat screws up
linux it's still preferable to have RH be popular than, say, Windows.
> GNU/Linux distributions should stop catering to (ex-)Windows users.
UNIX-style people. Why should distros *stop* catering to (ex-)Windows
users? There's plenty of space for everybody.
--keith
--
kkeller...@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
(try just my userid to email me)
AOLSFAQ=http://www.therockgarden.ca/aolsfaq.txt
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Aragorn
Oct 9, 2015, 2:16:58 AM10/9/15
to
On Friday 09 Oct 2015 06:19, Keith Keller conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.slackware...
> On 2015-10-08, Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> Unfortunately, RedHat is a commercial corporation, and they are
>> usurping and perverting the whole GNU/Linux landscape to serve their
>> corporate needs.
>
> Well, they are trying, anyway. If they were truly succeeding, then
> initiatives like Devuan would never even get started.
True. But they do make things harder by introducing something new like
systemd and then having other things depend on it. So for instance, if
you're using GNOME ─ or more specifically, GDM ─ then you *must* have
systemd as the init system, because GDM is now hard-coded against it.
(Yes, Poettering is on the GDM team as well...)
>> Everyone ??? well, everyone even remotely involved with IT ??? knows
>> that Android is based off a forked Linux kernel. But Android is not
>> GNU/Linux. It's an entirely different system. Well, if RedHat has
>> it their way, then RedHat-derived GNU/Linux distributions will soon
>> only have very little in common with the original UNIX anymore. It'd
>> end up being something along the lines of OS X.
>
> I'm not sure this really matters. Back when Slackware started linux
> was in barely any shops. If RedHat somehow ends up dominating the
> linux market, Slackware will continue to be in barely any shops. But
> it'll still be in *some*.
>
> And that is the whole point of open source: you don't like what
> RedHat's doing? Fork the code and do it your way. So even if RedHat
> screws up linux it's still preferable to have RH be popular than, say,
> Windows.
True.
>> GNU/Linux distributions should stop catering to (ex-)Windows users.
>
> Or, perhaps, people should make more linux distributions which cater
> to UNIX-style people. Why should distros *stop* catering to
> (ex-)Windows users? There's plenty of space for everybody.
Well, yes, I guess you're right. But the fact that so many of them seem
to specifically target (ex-)Windows users is turning things into a
nightmare for those of us who reside in Usenet newsgroups in order to
help newbies.
It's like the average IQ is dropping rapidly. And that's a trend I
don't like. Soon, there won't be anyone left to communicate with
anymore, because they simply don't understand what you're saying, and it
would take an eternity to try and convey to them why they're wrong about
everything they think they know.
alt.os.linux.slackware...
> On 2015-10-08, Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> Unfortunately, RedHat is a commercial corporation, and they are
>> usurping and perverting the whole GNU/Linux landscape to serve their
>> corporate needs.
>
> Well, they are trying, anyway. If they were truly succeeding, then
> initiatives like Devuan would never even get started.
systemd and then having other things depend on it. So for instance, if
you're using GNOME ─ or more specifically, GDM ─ then you *must* have
systemd as the init system, because GDM is now hard-coded against it.
(Yes, Poettering is on the GDM team as well...)
>> Everyone ??? well, everyone even remotely involved with IT ??? knows
>> that Android is based off a forked Linux kernel. But Android is not
>> GNU/Linux. It's an entirely different system. Well, if RedHat has
>> it their way, then RedHat-derived GNU/Linux distributions will soon
>> only have very little in common with the original UNIX anymore. It'd
>> end up being something along the lines of OS X.
>
> I'm not sure this really matters. Back when Slackware started linux
> was in barely any shops. If RedHat somehow ends up dominating the
> linux market, Slackware will continue to be in barely any shops. But
> it'll still be in *some*.
>
> And that is the whole point of open source: you don't like what
> RedHat's doing? Fork the code and do it your way. So even if RedHat
> screws up linux it's still preferable to have RH be popular than, say,
> Windows.
>> GNU/Linux distributions should stop catering to (ex-)Windows users.
>
> Or, perhaps, people should make more linux distributions which cater
> to UNIX-style people. Why should distros *stop* catering to
> (ex-)Windows users? There's plenty of space for everybody.
to specifically target (ex-)Windows users is turning things into a
nightmare for those of us who reside in Usenet newsgroups in order to
help newbies.
It's like the average IQ is dropping rapidly. And that's a trend I
don't like. Soon, there won't be anyone left to communicate with
anymore, because they simply don't understand what you're saying, and it
would take an eternity to try and convey to them why they're wrong about
everything they think they know.
Henrik Carlqvist
Oct 9, 2015, 2:24:09 AM10/9/15
to
On Thu, 08 Oct 2015 18:22:22 +0000, Dan Higgenbottom wrote:
> I removed the dbus packages and firefox and seamonkey wouldn't start.
> Claws-mail wouldn't start.
So you have firefox, seamonkey and claws. In your first post you also
> I removed the dbus packages and firefox and seamonkey wouldn't start.
> Claws-mail wouldn't start.
wrote that you have gnome libs installed because not much runs without
them.
To me this seems like a desktop installation more than a server
installation. Why not simply keep dbus installed and enjoy the
functionality it provides?
> Only Slackware's cleanliness and lack of bullshit has kept me using it.
to your installation except removing some default packages?
regards Henrik
--
The address in the header is only to prevent spam. My real address is:
hc351(at)poolhem.se Examples of addresses which go to spammers:
root@localhost postmaster@localhost
Dan Higgenbottom
Oct 9, 2015, 3:39:46 AM10/9/15
to
On 2015-10-09, Henrik Carlqvist <Henrik.C...@deadspam.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 08 Oct 2015 18:22:22 +0000, Dan Higgenbottom wrote:
>> I removed the dbus packages and firefox and seamonkey wouldn't start.
>> Claws-mail wouldn't start.
>
> So you have firefox, seamonkey and claws. In your first post you also
> wrote that you have gnome libs installed because not much runs without
> them.
>
> To me this seems like a desktop installation more than a server
> installation.
Correct. I never said it was a server.
> On Thu, 08 Oct 2015 18:22:22 +0000, Dan Higgenbottom wrote:
>> I removed the dbus packages and firefox and seamonkey wouldn't start.
>> Claws-mail wouldn't start.
>
> So you have firefox, seamonkey and claws. In your first post you also
> wrote that you have gnome libs installed because not much runs without
> them.
>
> To me this seems like a desktop installation more than a server
> installation.
> Why not simply keep dbus installed and enjoy the functionality it
> provides?
claws to run then it's just another layer of bullshit nobody wants. All this
stuff ran perfectly fine before dbus. There is no functionality from the
user's point of view. It's bloatware and possibly spyware. It's another
place for security exploits. It's wrong. It's needless, it's an example of
how nobody can leave well enough alone.
>> Only Slackware's cleanliness and lack of bullshit has kept me using it.
>
> Which version(s) of Slackware do you use? Did you do any customizations
> to your installation except removing some default packages?
I select all the packages I want and then compile everything else I want
from source. Before I used Slackware I was a NetBSD user for 5 years.
I would go back to BSD now but a few apps that I want only run on Linux. If
Linux gets too annoying I'll live without those or just keep a secondary
Linux around to run those few things on.
Dan
>
> regards Henrik
Keith Keller
Oct 9, 2015, 11:20:07 AM10/9/15
to
On 2015-10-09, Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be.invalid> wrote:
>
> True. But they do make things harder by introducing something new like
> systemd and then having other things depend on it. So for instance, if
> you're using GNOME ??? or more specifically, GDM ??? then you *must* have
>
> True. But they do make things harder by introducing something new like
> systemd and then having other things depend on it. So for instance, if
> systemd as the init system, because GDM is now hard-coded against it.
> (Yes, Poettering is on the GDM team as well...)
That seems like a good reason to simply avoid GNOME altogether. IIRC
> (Yes, Poettering is on the GDM team as well...)
KDE has its own window manager login daemon, kdm. And there are always
other login managers; I imagine Devuan has an interest in making sure
there's at least one login manager that doesn't require systemd.
> It's like the average IQ is dropping rapidly. And that's a trend I
> don't like. Soon, there won't be anyone left to communicate with
> anymore, because they simply don't understand what you're saying, and it
> would take an eternity to try and convey to them why they're wrong about
> everything they think they know.
seek help elsewhere, and/or people offering help on those distros will
come here. In the meantime, you have no moral obligation to help; you
can either not respond, or if you feel a need to do so, can simply say
"Sorry, that's a systemd distro, which is new and shiny, so you need
someone who knows systemd to help you."
I also wonder if the perception of the average IQ dropping is partly a
function of more people adopting linux. Twenty years ago those people
would never have even dreamed of trying linux; now they can.
Henrik Carlqvist
Oct 9, 2015, 3:35:14 PM10/9/15
to
On Fri, 09 Oct 2015 07:39:42 +0000, Dan Higgenbottom wrote:
>> Why not simply keep dbus installed and enjoy the functionality it
>> provides?
> If the "functionality" it provides is allowing firefox and seamonkey and
> claws to run then it's just another layer of bullshit nobody wants.
> All this stuff ran perfectly fine before dbus. There is no functionality
> from the user's point of view. It's bloatware and possibly spyware.
A long time ago firefox was called netscape. Those days it had most of
>> Why not simply keep dbus installed and enjoy the functionality it
>> provides?
> If the "functionality" it provides is allowing firefox and seamonkey and
> claws to run then it's just another layer of bullshit nobody wants.
> All this stuff ran perfectly fine before dbus. There is no functionality
> from the user's point of view. It's bloatware and possibly spyware.
the functionality it has today. If you clicked on a mailto link netscape
would open a window where you could write your mail. But back then the
mail program was built into netscape. Mozilla still provides their mail
program, but today it is called thunderbird and it is a standalone
program. Firefox is able to open mailto links in thunderbird, but it is
also able to open mailto links in claws and other mail clients which
really has no connection at all to mozilla except that they are both
using the same standard to communicate between programs.
This kind of standard inter process communication allowing programs from
different vendors to communicate is wanted by some people. I really
prefer this kind of standards instead of having big program suites being
able to communicate only with the other programs from the same vendor
with proprietary protocols. Those big program suites containing anything
from a mail reader to a database is what I would call bloatware.
> I have been using Slackware since 10.0 and I never do a default
> installation. I select all the packages I want and then compile
> everything else I want from source. Before I used Slackware I was a
> NetBSD user for 5 years.
libraries? Did you install dbus or gnome libraries yourself on that
Slackware version?
Slackware is a distribution usable for many different people and
different people might have different preferences. Some people prefer to
use Slackware for a server. Some people, like you, prefer to use
Slackware as a desktop. Some desktop people want lightweight desktop
installations like xfce or even fvwm, other desktop people want complete
desktop environments like KDE or Gnome. I am trying to understand your
point of view when it comes to preferences. On one hand it seems as if
you have installed Gnome on a desktop machine, on the other hand it seems
as if you want a lightweight desktop.
Chick Tower
Oct 9, 2015, 10:21:08 PM10/9/15
to
On 2015-10-08, Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be.invalid> wrote:
> There is however another initiative ??? but I'm not sure on its name
> anymore ??? to rewrite systemd into something less bloated, ....
uselessd?
--
Chick Tower
For e-mail: aols2 DOT sent DOT towerboy AT xoxy DOT net
Aragorn
Oct 9, 2015, 11:22:49 PM10/9/15
to
On Friday 09 Oct 2015 17:15, Keith Keller conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.slackware...
> On 2015-10-09, Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> True. But they do make things harder by introducing something new
>> like systemd and then having other things depend on it. So for
>> instance, if you're using GNOME ??? or more specifically, GDM ???
>> then you *must* have systemd as the init system, because GDM is now
>> hard-coded against it. (Yes, Poettering is on the GDM team as
>> well...)
>
> That seems like a good reason to simply avoid GNOME altogether.
Oh, I definitely don't use GNOME. I've never liked it. I've checked
out all the window managers and desktop environments available when I
started using GNU/Linux now 16 years ago, and I chose KDE because I
liked that best. And I still do. ;)
> IIRC KDE has its own window manager login daemon, kdm.
Yes, but I'm not using a graphical login screen (aka display manager).
I boot up to console mode, and after logging in, I simply issue
"startx".
There are many reasons as to why this is preferable (for someone who
knows what they are doing), because when X runs (with KDE or whatever on
top), then a whole lot of files are in use. And when something goes
awry, you can always shut down X and continue from the command line to
do maintenance, which means that all of those files will have been
closed again. And you don't have to drop to runlevel 1 to do it either.
> And there are always other login managers; I imagine Devuan has an
> interest in making sure there's at least one login manager that
> doesn't require systemd.
Well, yes, but Devuan is a Debian fork, and Debian has always had an
intimate relationship with GNOME and its derivatives ─ even though GNOME
and GTK are developed at RedHat these days.
GNOME is the default desktop environment in Debian, so if Devuan wants
to be as close as possible to Debian but without systemd, then they're
going to have to pick something else. My guess would be that it would
probably be MATE, which is a fork of GNOME2, like Trinity Desktop is a
fork of KDE3.
Either way, last time I checked ─ which was about two months ago ─
Devuan had still not gotten off the ground yet.
>> It's like the average IQ is dropping rapidly. And that's a trend I
>> don't like. Soon, there won't be anyone left to communicate with
>> anymore, because they simply don't understand what you're saying, and
>> it would take an eternity to try and convey to them why they're wrong
>> about everything they think they know.
>
> I think this is also self-regulating. People using those distros will
> seek help elsewhere, and/or people offering help on those distros will
> come here. In the meantime, you have no moral obligation to help; you
> can either not respond, or if you feel a need to do so, can simply say
> "Sorry, that's a systemd distro, which is new and shiny, so you need
> someone who knows systemd to help you."
Of course.
> I also wonder if the perception of the average IQ dropping is partly a
> function of more people adopting linux. Twenty years ago those people
> would never have even dreamed of trying linux; now they can.
In part, yes, that is true. But the decline of IQs appears to be a
global phenomenon, and it also exists beyond the information technology
sector. In Dutch, we even have a word for it, for which there is no
English alternative (to my knowledge), but it boils down to something
like "the toddlerization of society".
People can't think for themselves anymore. Whatever the TV says is the
gospel, and is taken for dogmatic truth ─ including the commercials.
Also, shockingly, more and more people of my generation and younger
appear unable to properly spell or write anymore ─ and nobody seems to
have heard of a spell checker, while they all have smartphones with such
a tool built-in.
Anyway, I better quit now, before I really start ranting. :p
alt.os.linux.slackware...
> On 2015-10-09, Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> True. But they do make things harder by introducing something new
>> like systemd and then having other things depend on it. So for
>> instance, if you're using GNOME ??? or more specifically, GDM ???
>> then you *must* have systemd as the init system, because GDM is now
>> hard-coded against it. (Yes, Poettering is on the GDM team as
>> well...)
>
> That seems like a good reason to simply avoid GNOME altogether.
out all the window managers and desktop environments available when I
started using GNU/Linux now 16 years ago, and I chose KDE because I
liked that best. And I still do. ;)
> IIRC KDE has its own window manager login daemon, kdm.
I boot up to console mode, and after logging in, I simply issue
"startx".
There are many reasons as to why this is preferable (for someone who
knows what they are doing), because when X runs (with KDE or whatever on
top), then a whole lot of files are in use. And when something goes
awry, you can always shut down X and continue from the command line to
do maintenance, which means that all of those files will have been
closed again. And you don't have to drop to runlevel 1 to do it either.
> And there are always other login managers; I imagine Devuan has an
> interest in making sure there's at least one login manager that
> doesn't require systemd.
intimate relationship with GNOME and its derivatives ─ even though GNOME
and GTK are developed at RedHat these days.
GNOME is the default desktop environment in Debian, so if Devuan wants
to be as close as possible to Debian but without systemd, then they're
going to have to pick something else. My guess would be that it would
probably be MATE, which is a fork of GNOME2, like Trinity Desktop is a
fork of KDE3.
Either way, last time I checked ─ which was about two months ago ─
Devuan had still not gotten off the ground yet.
>> It's like the average IQ is dropping rapidly. And that's a trend I
>> don't like. Soon, there won't be anyone left to communicate with
>> anymore, because they simply don't understand what you're saying, and
>> it would take an eternity to try and convey to them why they're wrong
>> about everything they think they know.
>
> I think this is also self-regulating. People using those distros will
> seek help elsewhere, and/or people offering help on those distros will
> come here. In the meantime, you have no moral obligation to help; you
> can either not respond, or if you feel a need to do so, can simply say
> "Sorry, that's a systemd distro, which is new and shiny, so you need
> someone who knows systemd to help you."
> I also wonder if the perception of the average IQ dropping is partly a
> function of more people adopting linux. Twenty years ago those people
> would never have even dreamed of trying linux; now they can.
global phenomenon, and it also exists beyond the information technology
sector. In Dutch, we even have a word for it, for which there is no
English alternative (to my knowledge), but it boils down to something
like "the toddlerization of society".
People can't think for themselves anymore. Whatever the TV says is the
gospel, and is taken for dogmatic truth ─ including the commercials.
Also, shockingly, more and more people of my generation and younger
appear unable to properly spell or write anymore ─ and nobody seems to
have heard of a spell checker, while they all have smartphones with such
a tool built-in.
Anyway, I better quit now, before I really start ranting. :p
Aragorn
Oct 9, 2015, 11:25:15 PM10/9/15
to
On Saturday 10 Oct 2015 04:19, Chick Tower conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.slackware...
> On 2015-10-08, Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be.invalid> wrote:
>
>> There is however another initiative ??? but I'm not sure on its name
>> anymore ??? to rewrite systemd into something less bloated, ....
>
> uselessd?
Yes, that's the one, thanks. I couldn't remember its name anymore. ;)
alt.os.linux.slackware...
> On 2015-10-08, Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be.invalid> wrote:
>
>> There is however another initiative ??? but I'm not sure on its name
>> anymore ??? to rewrite systemd into something less bloated, ....
>
> uselessd?
Mike Spencer
Oct 9, 2015, 11:44:29 PM10/9/15
to
Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be.invalid> writes:
> On Friday 09 Oct 2015 04:26, Mike Spencer conveyed the following to
> alt.os.linux.slackware...
>
>> Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be.invalid> writes:
>>
>>> GNU/Linux distributions should stop catering to (ex-)Windows users.
>>> It's a UNIX-style system, for people who _want to use_ a UNIX-style
>>> system.
>>
>> Hear, hear!
>>
>> Only I'm afraid that many of the hackers nowmaking, influencing and
>> maintaining GNU/Linux software, policies etc. are themselves
>> ex-Windoes users. They were imprinted while at a malleable age.
>> Mutter...mutter...
>
> That has indeed also already been my impression for many years now.
>
> Now, I myself am of what you could call "an older generation", even
> though I wouldn't call myself a developer. I only first came into
> and a hard-diskless IBM XT clone with PC-DOS 3.30 later -- when I
> was already 27 years old.
Ha! Excluding brief encounters with a mainframe in '64 and with an
Apple ][ in '80, I made my first real foray into computing with CP/M
when I was 45. Added, by happenstance, some accounts on Unix/X a
couple of years later and knew I was home. With Linux in its infancy,
when I finally upgraded from CP/M at home in '94, I spent 5 years with
DOS 5 and Win 3.1 with Unix still accessible periodically or by
dialup. Moved to Slackware Linux in '99, lost the Unix accounts
shortly thereafter and haven't looked back. Learned C and assembler
on CP/M where it wasn't so impossibly hairy to get into as it has
become on modern systems.
> [snip history account]
> From the first moment on that I installed GNU/Linux, I was hooked on it,
> but the fact that it was Free & Open Source Software made it even more
> interesting, because I had not really been familiar with that
> philosophy, having only used proprietary/corporate software before.
system/kernel hackers (see "Unix account", supra), what *I* imprinted
on was that it's just natural to take your system apart and put it
back to gether again, jigger *anything* to suit yourself.
> Edsger Dijkstra used to say "Any student who's been exposed to BASIC is
> brain-damaged beyond repair." I would daresay the same thing about any
> developer who's ever been exposed to Microsoft Windows. They've got
> Microsoft tattooed all over their genes and they can't think of anything
> other than that anymore.
term for it: Baby Duck Syndrome.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120419150252/http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-cranky50/index.html
> There's a reason why UNIX has survived for 45+ years, and that reason is
> developers joining the community and perverting a fantastic design into
> a kitchen sink household appliance for dummies.
>
> A facepalm doesn't even begin covering it. <grin>
Agreed.
> a kitchen sink household appliance for dummies.
>
> A facepalm doesn't even begin covering it. <grin>
Aragorn
Oct 10, 2015, 12:47:10 AM10/10/15
to
On Saturday 10 Oct 2015 05:43, Mike Spencer conveyed the following to
> Added, by happenstance, some accounts on Unix/X a couple of years
> later and knew I was home. With Linux in its infancy, when I finally
> upgraded from CP/M at home in '94, I spent 5 years with DOS 5 and Win
> 3.1 with Unix still accessible periodically or by dialup. Moved to
> Slackware Linux in '99, lost the Unix accounts shortly thereafter and
> haven't looked back. Learned C and assembler on CP/M where it wasn't
> so impossibly hairy to get into as it has become on modern systems.
Well, I've learned a little bit of assembler on Sperry OS/3 while in
college, but I've never learned C. I did however learn some COBOL ─ as
per what I wrote earlier ─ but most of the programming I've done was for
the DOS environment, mostly in TurboPascal and dBASE IV. And of course,
on my dad's old XT clone, I wrote stuff in sequential BASIC (of the
Microsoft GWBASIC.EXE variety).
When I was running OS/2, I did do some stuff ─ albeit nothing GUI-
related ─ in ReXX, which came standard with OS/2. And ever since I've
been running GNU/Linux, I've been getting into shell scripting somewhat.
I do always write my scripts for a POSIX-compatible shell, though, so I
don't use any of the Bash'isms.
>> Edsger Dijkstra used to say "Any student who's been exposed to BASIC
>> is brain-damaged beyond repair." I would daresay the same thing
>> about any developer who's ever been exposed to Microsoft Windows.
>> They've got Microsoft tattooed all over their genes and they can't
>> think of anything other than that anymore.
>
> Yeah, exactly my impression. I just now discovered that there's a
> term for it: Baby Duck Syndrome.
>
>
https://web.archive.org/web/20120419150252/http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-
cranky50/index.html
That's an awesome article ─ thank you ─ and I'm going to be sharing this
link in another group. ;)
alt.os.linux.slackware...
> Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be.invalid> writes:
>
>> Now, I myself am of what you could call "an older generation", even
>> though I wouldn't call myself a developer. I only first came into
>> contact with "a computer" -- a hard-diskless TurboDOS machine first,
>> and a hard-diskless IBM XT clone with PC-DOS 3.30 later -- when I
>> was already 27 years old.
>
> Ha! Excluding brief encounters with a mainframe in '64 and with an
> Apple ][ in '80, I made my first real foray into computing with CP/M
> when I was 45.
Okay, you're older than I am. :p
> Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be.invalid> writes:
>
>> Now, I myself am of what you could call "an older generation", even
>> though I wouldn't call myself a developer. I only first came into
>> contact with "a computer" -- a hard-diskless TurboDOS machine first,
>> and a hard-diskless IBM XT clone with PC-DOS 3.30 later -- when I
>> was already 27 years old.
>
> Ha! Excluding brief encounters with a mainframe in '64 and with an
> Apple ][ in '80, I made my first real foray into computing with CP/M
> when I was 45.
> Added, by happenstance, some accounts on Unix/X a couple of years
> later and knew I was home. With Linux in its infancy, when I finally
> upgraded from CP/M at home in '94, I spent 5 years with DOS 5 and Win
> 3.1 with Unix still accessible periodically or by dialup. Moved to
> Slackware Linux in '99, lost the Unix accounts shortly thereafter and
> haven't looked back. Learned C and assembler on CP/M where it wasn't
> so impossibly hairy to get into as it has become on modern systems.
college, but I've never learned C. I did however learn some COBOL ─ as
per what I wrote earlier ─ but most of the programming I've done was for
the DOS environment, mostly in TurboPascal and dBASE IV. And of course,
on my dad's old XT clone, I wrote stuff in sequential BASIC (of the
Microsoft GWBASIC.EXE variety).
When I was running OS/2, I did do some stuff ─ albeit nothing GUI-
related ─ in ReXX, which came standard with OS/2. And ever since I've
been running GNU/Linux, I've been getting into shell scripting somewhat.
I do always write my scripts for a POSIX-compatible shell, though, so I
don't use any of the Bash'isms.
>> Edsger Dijkstra used to say "Any student who's been exposed to BASIC
>> is brain-damaged beyond repair." I would daresay the same thing
>> about any developer who's ever been exposed to Microsoft Windows.
>> They've got Microsoft tattooed all over their genes and they can't
>> think of anything other than that anymore.
>
> Yeah, exactly my impression. I just now discovered that there's a
> term for it: Baby Duck Syndrome.
>
>
https://web.archive.org/web/20120419150252/http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-
cranky50/index.html
link in another group. ;)
Keith Keller
Oct 10, 2015, 2:00:07 AM10/10/15
to
On 2015-10-10, Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be.invalid> wrote:
> On Friday 09 Oct 2015 17:15, Keith Keller conveyed the following to
> alt.os.linux.slackware...
>
> On Friday 09 Oct 2015 17:15, Keith Keller conveyed the following to
> alt.os.linux.slackware...
>
>> IIRC KDE has its own window manager login daemon, kdm.
>
> Yes, but I'm not using a graphical login screen (aka display manager).
> I boot up to console mode, and after logging in, I simply issue
> "startx".
You're the one who mentioned gdm. :)
>
> Yes, but I'm not using a graphical login screen (aka display manager).
> I boot up to console mode, and after logging in, I simply issue
> "startx".
> There are many reasons as to why this is preferable (for someone who
> knows what they are doing), because when X runs (with KDE or whatever on
> top), then a whole lot of files are in use. And when something goes
> awry, you can always shut down X and continue from the command line to
> do maintenance, which means that all of those files will have been
> closed again. And you don't have to drop to runlevel 1 to do it either.
login manager. Or, you can switch to a different text console, do your
maintenance, then kill X; it'll restart, but not before closing its
files, and anything that was unlinked during the maintenance will be
released by the filesystem.
> GNOME is the default desktop environment in Debian, so if Devuan wants
> to be as close as possible to Debian but without systemd, then they're
> going to have to pick something else. My guess would be that it would
> probably be MATE, which is a fork of GNOME2, like Trinity Desktop is a
> fork of KDE3.
willing to toss GNOME if it proved too difficult to disentangle it from
systemd.
> People can't think for themselves anymore. Whatever the TV says is the
> Also, shockingly, more and more people of my generation and younger
> appear unable to properly spell or write anymore ??? and nobody seems to
> have heard of a spell checker, while they all have smartphones with such
> a tool built-in.
My kids can spell and write. They don't really know about spell
> a tool built-in.
checkers, but that's mainly because they don't write on a computer or
tablet very often. But I also don't think these are signs of the
dumbing down of society; I think society has always been stupid, and
it's simply easier to hear of stupidity nowadays.
> Anyway, I better quit now, before I really start ranting. :p
Mike Spencer
Oct 10, 2015, 1:45:20 PM10/10/15
to
Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be.invalid> writes:
> On Saturday 10 Oct 2015 05:43, Mike Spencer conveyed the following to
> alt.os.linux.slackware...
>
>
> That's an awesome article -- thank you -- and I'm going to be sharing
> this link in another group. ;)
Yer welcome. Spread it around. I wanted to find also an on-line copy
of that photo of the famous scientist (whose name I forget) who did
the early research on imprinting being followed around by a string of
little waddling ducklings. But no luck without the name so I hadda
make do with just the article. :-)
John K. Herreshoff
Oct 10, 2015, 2:16:30 PM10/10/15
to
http://peace.saumag.edu/faculty/kardas/courses/GPWeiten/C1Intro/LorenzTinbergen.html
HTH.
John.
--
Using the Cubic at home
Clark Smith
Oct 10, 2015, 6:30:24 PM10/10/15
to
Red Hat and its derivatives, Ubuntu and its derivatives, and (to
a lesser extent) Debian and its derivatives have reached a point at which
they are philosophically closer to Windows than to Unix. If, for whatever
reason, Slackware is discontinued, where do we go? One of the *BSD, I
guess?
Aragorn
Oct 10, 2015, 10:25:35 PM10/10/15
to
On Sunday 11 Oct 2015 00:30, Clark Smith conveyed the following to
alt.os.linux.slackware...
> This thread is making me ponder the following:
>
> Red Hat and its derivatives, Ubuntu and its derivatives, and (to
> a lesser extent) Debian and its derivatives have reached a point at
> which they are philosophically closer to Windows than to Unix. If, for
> whatever reason, Slackware is discontinued, where do we go? One of the
> *BSD, I guess?
There's always Gentoo, Arch, and their derivatives.
Gentoo officially supports systemd, GNOME, et al, but the default init
system is their own openrc, which is written in C and serves as a
wrapper around sysvinit. It supports dependencies and parallel booting.
Some of the Gentoo developers have also forked udev (into what is now
called eudev) so as to remain free from the systemd dependency.
The Gentoo package management is called Portage and is based upon BSD
Ports. Essentially, it pulls in the source code and automatically
compiles, links and installs the software on the system with user-preset
optimization values, both in terms of C/C++ flags and in terms of USE
flags, which is a convenient system for determining what support any
particular software package should have built-in. So for instance, if
you're not going to be using GNOME, then you can specify "USE=-gnome",
and then the package will not be built with GNOME support, even though
its source code supports that.
There are several Gentoo forks, but one which remains fairly close to
Gentoo while using a similar-but-different package manager (called
Paludis) is Exherbo. Apart from the package manager, they stay very
true to the upstream Gentoo system.
Arch was the first non-RedHat-derived distribution to adopt systemd, but
there are forks of Arch which use Gentoo's openrc and eudev. Arch is a
very minimalist system ─ it does not install anything that you do not
explicitly tell it to ─ and uses very little patching, similar to
Slackware.
Ultimately, there is of course also such a thing as LFS ("Linux From
Scratch"), but I think you're probably going to be better off with
something like Gentoo or Exherbo then. ;)
alt.os.linux.slackware...
> This thread is making me ponder the following:
>
> Red Hat and its derivatives, Ubuntu and its derivatives, and (to
> a lesser extent) Debian and its derivatives have reached a point at
> which they are philosophically closer to Windows than to Unix. If, for
> whatever reason, Slackware is discontinued, where do we go? One of the
> *BSD, I guess?
Gentoo officially supports systemd, GNOME, et al, but the default init
system is their own openrc, which is written in C and serves as a
wrapper around sysvinit. It supports dependencies and parallel booting.
Some of the Gentoo developers have also forked udev (into what is now
called eudev) so as to remain free from the systemd dependency.
The Gentoo package management is called Portage and is based upon BSD
Ports. Essentially, it pulls in the source code and automatically
compiles, links and installs the software on the system with user-preset
optimization values, both in terms of C/C++ flags and in terms of USE
flags, which is a convenient system for determining what support any
particular software package should have built-in. So for instance, if
you're not going to be using GNOME, then you can specify "USE=-gnome",
and then the package will not be built with GNOME support, even though
its source code supports that.
There are several Gentoo forks, but one which remains fairly close to
Gentoo while using a similar-but-different package manager (called
Paludis) is Exherbo. Apart from the package manager, they stay very
true to the upstream Gentoo system.
Arch was the first non-RedHat-derived distribution to adopt systemd, but
there are forks of Arch which use Gentoo's openrc and eudev. Arch is a
very minimalist system ─ it does not install anything that you do not
explicitly tell it to ─ and uses very little patching, similar to
Slackware.
Ultimately, there is of course also such a thing as LFS ("Linux From
Scratch"), but I think you're probably going to be better off with
something like Gentoo or Exherbo then. ;)
Dan Higgenbottom
Oct 11, 2015, 5:57:40 AM10/11/15
to
On 2015-10-09, Henrik Carlqvist <Henrik.C...@deadspam.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 09 Oct 2015 07:39:42 +0000, Dan Higgenbottom wrote:
>>> Why not simply keep dbus installed and enjoy the functionality it
>>> provides?
>
>> If the "functionality" it provides is allowing firefox and seamonkey and
>> claws to run then it's just another layer of bullshit nobody wants.
>> All this stuff ran perfectly fine before dbus. There is no functionality
>> from the user's point of view. It's bloatware and possibly spyware.
>
> A long time ago firefox was called netscape. Those days it had most of
> the functionality it has today. If you clicked on a mailto link netscape
> would open a window where you could write your mail. But back then the
> mail program was built into netscape. Mozilla still provides their mail
> program, but today it is called thunderbird and it is a standalone
> program. Firefox is able to open mailto links in thunderbird, but it is
> also able to open mailto links in claws and other mail clients which
> really has no connection at all to mozilla except that they are both
> using the same standard to communicate between programs.
That's a lot of writing. Anyway dbus is not the only way to do it and anyway
>>> Why not simply keep dbus installed and enjoy the functionality it
>>> provides?
>
>> If the "functionality" it provides is allowing firefox and seamonkey and
>> claws to run then it's just another layer of bullshit nobody wants.
>> All this stuff ran perfectly fine before dbus. There is no functionality
>> from the user's point of view. It's bloatware and possibly spyware.
>
> A long time ago firefox was called netscape. Those days it had most of
> the functionality it has today. If you clicked on a mailto link netscape
> would open a window where you could write your mail. But back then the
> mail program was built into netscape. Mozilla still provides their mail
> program, but today it is called thunderbird and it is a standalone
> program. Firefox is able to open mailto links in thunderbird, but it is
> also able to open mailto links in claws and other mail clients which
> really has no connection at all to mozilla except that they are both
> using the same standard to communicate between programs.
it's functionality I don't need. I can cut and paste links like it's
1999. There are standard UNIX ways to start a new process with arguments
from a program and without dbus.
> This kind of standard inter process communication allowing programs from
> different vendors to communicate is wanted by some people. I really
> prefer this kind of standards instead of having big program suites being
> able to communicate only with the other programs from the same vendor
> with proprietary protocols. Those big program suites containing anything
> from a mail reader to a database is what I would call bloatware.
bloatware but I don't use those.
>> I have been using Slackware since 10.0 and I never do a default
>> installation. I select all the packages I want and then compile
>> everything else I want from source. Before I used Slackware I was a
>> NetBSD user for 5 years.
>
> Which version of Slackware are you running with both dbus and the gnome
> libraries? Did you install dbus or gnome libraries yourself on that
> Slackware version?
will not start, as I sad. gnome libraries are used for everything these days
whether you use gnome or not.
> Slackware is a distribution usable for many different people and
> different people might have different preferences. Some people prefer to
> use Slackware for a server. Some people, like you, prefer to use
> Slackware as a desktop.
> Some desktop people want lightweight desktop installations like xfce or
> even fvwm, other desktop people want complete desktop environments like
> KDE or Gnome. I am trying to understand your point of view when it comes
> to preferences.
functionality I want without extraneous layers of bullshit and
spyware. Linux is unfortunately well past this point. It won't be long until
I don't use it anymore.
On one hand it seems as if you have installed Gnome on a
> desktop machine, on the other hand it seems as if you want a lightweight
> desktop.
already lightweight. Only the apps are heavy ;-)
You're asking a lot of questions that have already been answered and there
is nothing we can do about this since many apps now depend on dbus except
find another desktop OS.
Dan
jeff g.
Oct 11, 2015, 12:04:46 PM10/11/15
to
On 10/11/2015 02:57 AM, Dan Higgenbottom wrote:
> there is nothing we can do about this since many apps now depend on dbus except
> find another desktop OS.
TINW, troll - good thing dbus doesn't inhibit by kill file.
> there is nothing we can do about this since many apps now depend on dbus except
> find another desktop OS.
Mike Spencer
Oct 11, 2015, 6:36:08 PM10/11/15
to
And here's the photo:
http://www.integratedsociopsychology.net/Attachment_Theories/imprintinginducks&geese-KonradLorenz1935.html
That's my visual image for Linux developers that pursue Make Me Just
As Nice As Windoes, ardently, determinedly pursuing the Wrong Thing.
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