[CLUE-Tech] Arch Linux: Thumbs Up!

[Nate Duehr]

Matt Gushee wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 02, 2004 at 04:09:51AM -0600, Nate Duehr wrote:
> 
> 
>>>Secondly, I know about Debian's packaging system; it was one of the
>>>major reasons I switched from RedHat to Debian 3 years ago. And it's one
>>>of the major reasons I've gotten tired of Debian. See, I couldn't use
>>>apt-get anymore, because every time I tried it would propose to remove
>>>91 packages. It wouldn't tell me which ones or why, and there didn't
>>>seem to be any way to prevent the packages from being
>>>deleted--positively Kafkaesque.
>>
>>If you were running "stable" this is damn near impossible.  So you have to 
>>preface the story by stating that you were CHOOSING to run the unstable 
>>branch,
> 
> 
> You're shouting, and your assumption is incorrect. I thought I said at
> some point I was using Woody, AKA Stable. If not, well, I was.
> However, I also used some packages from outside of Woody: in a few cases
> I overrode dependencies, in most I built source packages--mostly from
> Testing, a few from Unstable. So probably that was what caused the issue
> with apt. But you know what? I don't care, because I've chosen another
> path. Isn't that one of the great things about Linux--that we *can* make
> those choices? May the best distributions win.

I missed that, but relating a package management tool you were misusing 
and abusing because you didn't understand it to Kafka seemed a bit over 
the top, and thus my rather long and maybe overly-emotional reply.

> You also appear to incorrectly assume that I'm not inclined to take the
> time to learn or to contribute to the community (if I'm misreading your
> argument, I apologize). I won't belabor the point, but I have
> contributed in my way: I've posted various tips on the Web, developed a
> few small applications, and spent significant time on mailing lists
> trying to help out new users--and I have spent *a lot* of time reading
> documentation.  Could I do more? Sure, almost any of us could. But I
> don't want my whole life to be about Linux. Does that mean I'm not
> allowed to use Linux, or have opinions about it? Should I switch to
> MacOS/X?

Defintely misreading my argument, just a little bit.  I was saying that 
the Debian distro also carries with it a huge amount of pre-built 
tradition and systems already in place to help people get where they 
want to go, but there's a very steep learning curve and still a few 
potholes in it that they could use some help mending -- but they don't 
see the potholes if the person gives up and goes away without reporting 
them.

But most importantly, you and I agree on the basic fundamental reason 
we're all here... choice.  You definitely can and should use whatever 
filesystem structure and documented or undocumented process of creating 
an operating system you like.  Some people call the end result a Linux 
distribution.  Others just call it having fun.  It's all good.

> Anyway, I decided that Debian was no longer right for me. I was *not*
> trying to say "You should not use Debian"--I'll let RMS handle the
> You-should-nots. My main point was, hey, here's an alternative; here's
> why I like it; maybe some of you will also find it worthwhile.

Fair enough.  I tend to believe that various distros are really good at 
different things, and happen (with that first rule in mind) to really 
like Debian when I want a rock solid system for a server or farm of them 
where I need to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a definitive 
process was followed to arrive at the resulting mixture of software we 
all call an Operating System.

> Isn't it self-evident that as a system (any system, including a Linux
> distribution) becomes more complex, the effort required to use it
> effectively (and by extension, the effort required to contribute to its
> improvement) and the potential for failures both increase? That doesn't
> mean Debian (or any other distribution) is objectively *bad*, just that
> there's a tradeoff--and I decided that many of Debian's features weren't
> very important to me, but its complexity was getting in the way of my
> using the system in the way that I wanted to. That's not an issue of
> this bug or that bug, it's a matter of design, and the suitability of
> the design for a particular user.

The funny thing is that I see almost zero resistance built in to the 
Debian system for individual effort towards fixes and bug reports to the 
  end user.  No extra "effort" at all, other than a little up-front 
reading.  I see very little "complexity" in an ar archive file with some 
rules behind it.  I see filesystem standards as taking *away* 
complexity... everything's always in the expected location for that type 
of file or program.  And that's exactly what true design is about.

So as you can see, looking at the same nouns you did: effort, 
complexity, design... we both looked at the same thing and decided 
completely different things about it.  Kinda neat really.

I also, like you, see no "bad" or "good" in this, but I find the 
opposite perspective that Debian's systems are somehow "hard to use" as 
highly fascinating, because I never have seen them that way.  I was 
delighted to find a system with some structure behind it and enforcement 
of that structure.

> I'm not going to say any more on this topic on this list. I think you
> have raised some important points about the relationship between open
> source software and its users/developers, points that I've been thinking
> about a great deal. But it's getting off-topic, and my thoughts are (a)
> not fully-formed, and (b) not very comfortable in an e-mail format. If I
> can overcome my writer's block, I'm going to make it an essay.

Now I'm very curious about what you mean and I'm looking forward to the 
essay, for sure!

Hopefully nothing I said was taken as a personal insult in any way at 
all, none of it was intended that way, for sure.  I try not to ever do 
that, but I'm not always careful about my use of third-person-personal 
vs. third-person-plural pronouns when writing informally in e-mail about 
topics that interest me.

One of the topics that has interested me for years is why so many people 
are turned off by Debian's structure, even while that structure cranks 
out the arguably most stable Linux distribution and has outlasted much 
larger and much better funded organizations, and all on an almost zero 
budget.

Sorry if I let my enthusiasm for being prodding and inquisitive get away 
with me.

Nate