Alpha Core Directions

Tue Dec 21 23:57:21 UTC 2004

Well to be honest with you, before we started to buy pentium based 
machines and use linux on it i was a bit lost with all the Unix flavors 
we had at work... some of them i really hate i can tell you (like 
HP-UX), and you're not far from true when you claimed that things should 
go in a direction of creating a standard for the dists, at least is what 
i think.

I can't agree with you when you say that some commands never give you 
some kind of feedback. If some error ocurrs you should be adviced, and 
as far as i know, with linux, you will.
I beleave OSX is great to use, i never had a Mac, they are very 
expensive in Portugal, but i' dlike to try yellow dog in one, you can 
get this as a tip for a X-mas present for me :-)

unfortunately i can't convince you that linux is the greatest thing on 
earth because i see lots of people  leaving it just for the same reasons 
you told... perhaps that's the price we have to pay if we want to use 
it. It's still cheap... i think.

regards,
nb

Nelson de Brito
http://www.fc.up.pt/pessoas/ntbrito

Jeff A. wrote:

>My point is, the systems are getting a little too far away from each other.
>There is "freedom" and then there is "mess because everyone is doing their
>own thing."  Someone else said it... why do we need 35 different text
>editors?  The same thing will have an entirely different name on another
>machine, and that's assuming you even found it to install in the first
>place.
>
>I'm sure some of you are familiar with this thing...
>
>http://bhami.com/rosetta.html
>
>Hooray for Unix.
>
>My point is, the customization of linux is great, but effed if someone like
>me could ever get to the point where I could customize my linux.  This Alpha
>and unix and linux stuff is hard to dig up proper how-tos on.  Even the SRM
>how-to that floats around the internet *does not answer my questions*.  It
>says, "Here is an example... don't ask why."  I can make the SRM console
>boot my linux install, but I don't really know what any of the other
>settings do.  The assumption is that I know ahead of time why I am setting
>certain paramaters.  I see a whole wack of commands and parms and nobody
>will tell me what they all mean.  When it comes to downloading linux stuff,
>it's assumed that if you're looking for linux, if you're looking for linux
>software, you must already know exactly what you're looking for.
>
>As far as compiling things goes, you can follow everyone's instructions
>perfectly, and something may still be missing.  Then you try to compile the
>missing piece and it won't compile.  Barely-technical people like myself
>won't know why.  For example, I tried to complile xine on Alpha.  Well, it
>said something was missing, go get it here.  So I did.  Then that bit
>wouldn't compile.  I think it was pkgconfig or something?
>
>You can install linux on *any* architecture, and something simply won't work
>from the moment it's done.  You click on a program in the launchbar thingy,
>it sits there for a while rumbling the hard drive, then nothing happens.  No
>reason, no warning, nothing.  NOTHING HAPPENS.  You run a command from the
>command line.  It sits there thinking for a while.  THEN NOTHING HAPPENS.
>What's going on?  How am I going to know?
>
>I know all about OSX.  It doesn't matter what OSX is *based* on... it's what
>they've turned the final product into.  What the final product is is a
>bloated mess of Apple.  If you've ever installed it, you know all about the
>barrage of "give us your personal info, your parents, a cookie and your
>first born child" screens.  You know the, "Hey!  You can't have the hardware
>support we promised you we would give you a long time ago!"  No, you can't
>use that video card with this update because we said so.  No, you can't use
>that network card, we don't want you to.  No, you can't install me on an old
>machine... that interferes with us owning your lifestyle.
>
>I don't doubt the usefulness of linux.  I'm serving up websites and FTP and
>backups on linux machines.  There's just too many people in too many
>exclusive clubs, with no time or patience for n00bs like me.  Linux keeps
>old hardware alive, and I'm a hardware enthusiast.  My Olivetti 2x133
>struggles along a lot more happily with Linux than Win2000.  I get by, and
>that's about it.
>
>Alphacore, reduced to a nice streamlined and fully capable OS is a great
>idea.  It's still going to be different from everything else though.  If it
>keeps us up to date with the rest of the world's capabilities though, then I
>guess that's all we can ask for.  Me, I can't demand anything from the
>AlphaLinux community.  I'm just a guy who is thankful that someone else is
>doing the gruntwork, that I can't comprehend, to keep my machine from
>obscurity.
>
>When it came to "Mandrake or Yellow Dog or something else?" with the Mac, I
>went with Yellow Dog because at least it was *close* to what I sort of knew
>from Red Hat on Alpha.  I stopped trying to use Mandrake on *anything* a
>long time ago, because their end-user configuration tools never worked...
>even when they were supposed to be there.
>
>See?  I don't know what I'm doing!  Mostly because I can't get the
>information I need.
>
>JA
>
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Nelson Brito" <ntbrito at fc.up.pt>
>To: "Linux and Red Hat on Alpha processors" <axp-list at redhat.com>
>Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2004 5:35 PM
>Subject: Re: Alpha Core Directions
>
>
>  
>
>>>I'm using PPC and Alpha machines as an excuse to finally learn linux, but
>>>when every release is different and nobody uses the same editors and
>>>      
>>>
>setups,
>  
>
>>>it's really, really stupid.  Mandrake does this, SuSE does that, and Red
>>>      
>>>
>Hat
>  
>
>>>does something else.   Then Yellow Dog does *almost* like Red Hat.  Then
>>>      
>>>
>I
>  
>
>>>      
>>>
>>that's the beauty of linux you can chose whatever tools you like the best.
>>there are even some famous discutions about which tool is the best for a
>>specific purpuse, and i don't beleave that someone is waiting to know
>>the answers ;-)
>>I am a sysadmin and i have several dist of linux in the machines i
>>manage, if you want to know what i use on my machine i tell you it's
>>win... upss, i mean Fedora3. My favorite dist was Suse for some years,
>>but i swapped to redhat because i needed it for some alphas i have at
>>work. as far as i know suse didn't have a dist for alphas at that time
>>(i only knew redhat and debian).
>>this is not stupid, is freedom. but linux has some stupid things, and no
>>one that uses it will deny that. I can tell you one thing i sometimes
>>find stupid: the fact of diferent dist have diferent organization of the
>>filesystem, lets say Mandrake puts named setup files under /var/named
>>and redhat under /var/lib/named - i don't know if this is true but it's
>>an example. In fact there's a file where you can define this for your
>>self, and you can use /my_name/named for some vanity. Do you still find
>>it stupid??
>>
>>the best of it is that you have this lists where you can learn from the
>>others.
>>
>>unfortunately i have to tell you that OSX is Linux... if you don't like
>>    
>>
>it!!
>  
>
>>nelson
>>
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>>    
>>
>
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