linuxgeek: Re: [LINUX_Newbies] Re: LINUX_NEWBIES or TECHNICAL JARGON?

Friday, October 30, 2009

Re: [LINUX_Newbies] Re: LINUX_NEWBIES or TECHNICAL JARGON?

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 09:56:38AM -0400, J wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 07:30, Robert C Wittig
> <wittig.robert@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > The GUI tools are a good thing for the future of Linux, for sure,
> > because they will permit End Users to access functionality that would
> > otherwise be beyond their reach.
>
>
> And sadly, the increased dependence on the GUI means that the people
> like us who are knowledgeable about the CLI are going to become fewer
> and fewer. Eventually, Linux will be written and compiled in MS
> Visual Basic. ;-)

Ok, Jeff, that was my laugh of the morning.
I agree--I'm sure you already see it happening if you use Fedora. Text
base install no longer permits choosing of packages, and does some
limitations with disk partitioning as well. NetworkMangler is the
default way to manage networks, etc.

One peripheral effect is the lessening of use of email clients like
mutt--which results in things like xbuffy and gbuffy being discontinued.
(Two programs which will watch your mailboxes as things come in, useful
for a text based email client while X is running.)

I have yet to find something that does it as well--in part, I'm sure,
because there's less need for it. Although, on the FreeBSD mailing
list, mutt still seems to be the client of choice.
>
>
> > Yep... the joys of carefully measuring my monitor screen with a
> > ruler... made extra hard, because the old monitors were curved, not
> > flat, and then frantically sniffing for smoke on the reboot, while
> > waiting for the GUI to come up, or for the monitor to start frying
> > (never actually happened, but the anticipation and paranoia were real
> > fun).
>
> HAHAHA! I too remember doing that... I never blew a monitor up
> either, but I did manage to destroy a couple hard disks with hdparm...

And, of course, the fact that the hsync and vsync were on a tiny metal
plate at the back of the monitor, meaning you had to get back there,
which usually meant moving everything else.
>

--
Scott Robbins
PGP keyID EB3467D6
( 1B48 077D 66F6 9DB0 FDC2 A409 FA54 EB34 67D6 )
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys EB3467D6

Giles: You never train with me anymore. He's gonna kick your ass.