Fedora (Linux) is Destroying it self

Michael Nielsen mike at thetroubleshooters.dk
Tue May 12 09:37:06 UTC 2009


Yaakov Nemoy wrote:
> This is trolling, not starting debates.
>
> 2009/5/11 Michael Nielsen <mike at thetroubleshooters.dk>:
>   
>> 1. Removal of features - the user interfaces are being dumbed down, like
>> recently I've searched for the ability to remove the "Raise on Click"
>> feature that is default for Gnome MetaCity, there does not appear to be any
>> such feature anymore / argument being to simplify how it works.. Fine,
>> create a simple view and an advanced view for the configuration tools, so
>> that people who are clueless about any other way than the official Redmond
>> way, can avoid being confronted with an alternative.
>>     
>
> This is upstream and has to do with Gnome. Fedora stays as close to
> upstream as possible, which means if the Gnome developers think this
> is a good idea, then this is (possibly) a good idea. If you don't like
> it, get a clue and install a different window manager. Try Openbox.
>
>   
No need to get personal.

I've been setting up my own window managers for years, and I tend to do 
so, however, it would be really nice
if one was able to use the work that others had done, such as the menu 
system, etc that gnome, and
KDE uses, however, I do not like the default click-to-front, that I used 
to be able to simply disable,
however this feature is no longer trivial to find,  initially I could 
still load a useful windowmanager,
and thereby replace the underlying window manager in Gnome, nor KDE for 
that matter.   
I prefer other window managers, such as enlightenment, fwm, etc, I've 
used quite a lot of
different ones in my time.

However, it is getting rather annoying having to manually update the 
custom desktop environment
to follow a moving target, thus it would be preferable to be able to 
follow one of the maintained
ones, however, as I pointed out, their features are being eroded, and 
basic functions are being
removed.

>> 2. The network interfaces are being bound to the user interface, such that
>> if your X fails for some reason, or you are running on a text console, you
>> are unable to open the wireless configuration, at least it's not obvious how
>> you do it, without X running. The configuration for the network interfaces
>> are so tightly bound to the user interface, such that if there is no user
>> interface there are no network interfaces.
>>     
>
> This is the artifact of working in a desktop environment. If you need
> more functionality then you are a power user. There is a very advanced
> interface for configuring the network, we like to call it the command
> line.
>
> Not to be picky, but in your previous post, you commented you want a
> simple and advanced view. Think of the desktop as a simple view, and
> the command line as your advanced view.
>
>   
I have worked with UNIX since the time where X terminals were unknown, and
text terminals was the normal way of working.

I know how to do it, however, the problem is the default installation of 
Fedora  installs
a lot of things which conflicts, and prevents command line 
configuration, as the GUI
seems to try to override my "advanced" configurations, I have eventually 
figured out to
remove the NetworkManager, and disable the GUI networking.  That works, 
however,
I find it frustrating to see that Linux is forking at this level, because
it means that someone who is not a Power user (or command line freak 
which I'm often
catagorised as), will have more difficulty in setting up a simple web 
server, because the
network configuration is personal if you use the applet approach.,  Thus 
the person will discover that
once they log off, their system is no longer online, and their webserver 
doesn't work.

What I'm asking why not make sure, that no matter which tool you use to 
set up
anything, that it does it fundamentally the same way, so that the tool 
in the GUI
will change the relevant configuration file (under privileged control 
ofc), and the
system will be able to take things down properly...

I beg to differ, it is not an artifact of working in a desktop 
environment, but more an
artifact of fundamentally choosing another approach, where everything 
even system
configuration is focued in the GUI, rather than in the Operating System.

For-instance Gnome there is the administration Network configuration, 
which appears to do what
I'm asking, and there is the network applet configuration, which does 
not update
the configuration files - at least I've been unable to detect the 
changes.   So you
have two views, that in principle does the exact same thing, and yet, 
one is a system
wide configuration, the other is a local user related change.  This 
bound to be
confusing to people.

>> 3. Mounts are also embedded into the user interface, rather than in the unix
>> mount system, which means that the shares are not accessible for non-gui
>> programs, for instance, I like to script most thing I do often, however,
>> there is no way for scripts to get a hold of a drive that is mounted through
>> the gui mount system (kde and gnome).
>>     
>
> You're right, they could potentially do a bit better. Except that they
> do, most of your mounts should be available in /media.
>
> If you have a specific complaint, please file a bug report on Gnome or KDE.
>
>   
Personally I just don't use those features, what I'm trying to do here 
is to get people to
think about what is happening, because, I can see a lot of feature 
forking in the system,
which will make the system extremely confusing for people to start using 
Linux.

All that is really needed is to mount things properly, and logically.  
eg /home/mike/mnt1
instead of /home/mike/.gvfs/blablah..  which is a hidden file.

What I'm trying to do here is to point out problems with the Fedora 
distribution, yes
some things are specific to other subsystems, but the reflect back on 
Fedora as a
distribution.

>> 4. Everything is thrown in huge collective directories, such as /usr/bin,
>> /usr/lib etc, and it is a huge mess, just like windows with it's system32
>> directory, which is also a huge mess. really the /usr/bin,/bin/sbin, /lib
>> etc, has very specific purposes, and should represent a core operating
>> system, that is capable of being used as repair, with no major applications
>> present. However even Open office is stored in these directories.
>>     
>
> This is by design. Complaining about the design isn't going to start a
> debate unfortunately.
>
> If the design really does bother you, try Gobo.
>
> http://www.gobolinux.org/
>   
I'm not complaining I'm pointing out a problem in the system, the 
current "design"
(as you call it), prevents the management of multiple versions of an 
application,
as they will conflict in the package manager, I have become used to 
manually installing
all applications that I use regularly, and thus overcoming the system 
limitations.  
The annoying part is that the limitations only arise because everything 
is thrown
into one directory - for instance 32 bit and 64 bit packages often 
conflict because
their documentation files conflict - and unfortunately it is often 
necessary to have 32
bit compatibility installed.
>   
>> 5. More and more services are bound up in the userinterface, such as the
>> pulse audio, which is started by the GUI, this means if you use 2 user
>> environments, which I often do for testing, where I have X:0 and X:1
>> running, the GUIs will conflict, because you cannot run two instances of
>> pulseaudio. In addition pulse audio is crap, I have yet to see any
>> installation actually work without crackling, and chopping like crazy. I
>> like the concept that is the basis of pulse audio, but it just does not
>> work.
>>     
>
> Read the answer to #2. Also, if you have a specific complaint, file a
> bug on Pulseaudio and Alsa.
>   
Why, the problem is related to the fact that Fedora default uses Pulse 
Audio, however,
I've yet to see a system where it works well on, though, with 
work-arounds it is possible
to get it to work, basically there is some configuration issue on Fedora 
systems, where
a lot of applications become impossible for non-advanced users to install.

For-instance Skype, is choppy as hell, using the default configuration 
that Fedora 9-10
uses, it turns out you need to explicit change the input device to be 
hardware, not default
and not pulse.

Most ordinary users would give up on running Skype on Linux, and perhaps 
even
give up on Linux, because the configuration per-default does not work.

The problems have arisen since Pulse Audio was chosen as a standard for 
Fedora,
pre Pulse-Audio, everything worked nicely, thus as I see it, it is a 
distribution choice
that is causing the problem, PulseAudio isn't quite ready for mainstream 
yet, and yet
it is not trivial to remove, nor to configure - makes it hostile to less 
experienced users,
so it is a consideration for the distribution managers, not for PulseAudio.

>> 6. NetworkManager which appears to be installed default, does not work with
>> shared drives, because, the NetworkManager is shut down before the network
>> drives are detached, and you need to modify the NetworkManager to start
>> properly, before you mount the network drives. I've gotten used to explicit
>> uninstalling the NetworkManager, because it just doesn't work properly.
>>     
>
> Again, you're a power user. Reorder your shutdown sequence.
>   
Again, Yes I can, and I do, but what about less experienced users ?   
Are we not
trying to get Linux to be mainstream ?

It is not encouraging for people that things do not work properly out of 
the box!

I know Fedora is defined as a "bleeding edge" distribution, which is all 
good and well
however, it scares a lot of people away from the distribution.
>   
>> It is a lengthy discussion to describe what i mean.
>>
>> However, if I take a sample application like firefox, it presents a
>> reasonable proxy for what I mean.
>>
>> currently default installation of firefox on my machine installs firefox in
>> these following places.
>>
>> /usr/lib64/firefox
>> /usr/lib64/firefox-3.0.7
>> /usr/lib/mozilla
>> /usr/lib64/mozilla
>> /usr/share/mozilla
>> /usr/bin/mozilla-plugin-config
>> /usr/bin/firefox
>>
>> etc.
>>
>> All of which are related to the firefox installation. If something goes
>> wrong, it's a real pain to clean it up, or even to detect what went wrong.
>> The original concept for unix was to install an application such as firefox
>> in either, /opt or /usr/local/. Such that the entire application was
>> contained within a single installation directory, and then to use the PATH
>> and LD_LIBRARY_PATH to allow the execution of the application.
>>
>> The standard approach with /opt or /usr/local installation also makes it
>> triviel to have multiple installations, and configurations operating in
>> paralellel, by simply creating.
>>
>> /opt/mozilla/firefox -> /opt/mozilla/firefox-3.0.7
>> /opt/mozilla/firefox-3.0.7
>> /opt/mozilla/firefox-2.0.9
>>
>> A user can then easily conifgure their account to use either version of the
>> application, without installation problems.
>>
>> Additionally using that installation method, also means that if someone
>> wants to use a newer version of an application, they can download the
>> source, and trivially install it in parallel to the package managed
>> application, by using the --prefix option, and the installation can easily
>> be removed, by simple rm -rf /opt/mozilla/firefox-3.0.7.
>>
>> With the current installation, it is nearly impossible, or at least very
>> difficult to find out if the package manager has cleaned up properly, or if
>> there is something left behind - something which is identicial to the
>> problem on windows.
>>     
>
> Wrong, see Gobo if this is a feature you want.
>
> Using this split up file system layout is by design, it's a standard
> of the Unix Way of Doing Things. Everything that ships in Fedora
> and/or a 3rd party repo that is designed to integrate with the core
> functionality will use this layout. /opt is for third party software
> that doesn't want to behave. /usr/local is for bits that are specific
> to your machine.
>
> If your installation fails it's because of two things. A) there is a
> bug in RPM/Yum that needs to be fixed. The design goal is for these
> bits to be rock solid reliable. They should never fail.
> 2) Your power went out. RPM and Yum really should recover and continue
> from where they left off. Handling such a use case is really a very
> difficult to solve problem. If you have any concrete ideas, let's hear
> them, but complaining about the file system layout is not going to
> solve the problem one bit.
>
> <snip>
>   
Oki,

I need Firefox-2.0 installed, and Firefox-3.0 installed, hmm, they 
conflict, in the package
manager.

So I install them manually, now I also need to manage the applications 
manually.

And so forth.

Most UNIX systems, do not install the development environment - eg 
eclipsse, the desktop
publishing (read open office) as a part of the system, but rather as 3rd 
part add ons.

The problem as I see it, is that Fedora has decided that everything is 
an integral part of the
operating system, which is creating the mess I'm trying to describe.

Relying on Yum and RPM to do all the work, will eventually cause the 
same "Sanding up" of
the operating system, that you can see on windows, in that not everyone 
cleans up properly,
and eventually junk is left all over the place, rather than isolated.

So basically you are saying that OpenOffice, Eclipse, Firefox, MySQL et. 
al. are integral parts of
the operating system, and therefore are not to be installed as 
independent applications. Yes that
is one view of the world, however,  it is a lazy argument, for doing 
something in
a bad way.
>   
>> I'm really curious as to the reasoning for moving everything from the
>> standard configuration mechanisms to the gui layer, breaking compatibility
>> with scripting, and other standard UNIX featuers..   I'm also curious as to
>> the reasoning for throwing everything in one huge mess in the /usr/bin,
>> /bin, /sbin, etc..   As all that is achieved is to make it hard to strip the
>> system back to a minimal setup.
>>     
>
> Is there anything concrete that breaks? Can you give us an example of
> shell code that doesn't work in Fedora 11 anymore?
>
> -Yaakov
>
>   
Automatic scripting  that operates on mounts created by users - sorry, 
user not logged, in
mount point not available.

Multiple ways of creating mounts, some are bound in the user interface, 
and has non-obvious
names hidden in .gvfs (I think).

Wireless configuration bound to the GUI, if you use the most obvious 
configuration tool,
and NTP does not function because it is run before the user logs in.

Network created by one user via the GUI, is taken down, before an 
NFS/CIFS created
by another user on the system, or by the operating system, thus causing 
the system to
hang on shutdown.  Reordering startup scripts won't solve this, because 
once the GUI goes
down and takes the network connection down, then the operating system 
will hang on
unmounting any manually mounted mounts.  Thus you can combine the manual 
mounting
with the GUI networking, however the system does not handle the take 
down properly.

and so forth - the list is very long.    The problem is that there is a 
tendency to not use
the normal operating system controls to take things up and down, and 
that results in
that you are forced to use one method or another.

Basically I'm pointing out that there is a consistency problem in Linux, 
which would
scare a lot of poential users away.

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