Saturday, October 23, 2010

[LINUX_Newbies] Re: top five mistakes of newbies

 



--- In LINUX_Newbies@yahoogroups.com, "dbneeley" <dbneeley@...> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > I believe today Debian is the premier choice for any true Linux aficionado that has the experience to deal with it. I'm sure many would disagree with me, but they're all wrong :)
> >
> > Paul
> >
>
> I believe a similar case could be made for *many* distributions.

I don't.

>
> Slackware, for example.

Nope. Been there, ran that, probably for longer than you've been using Linux. Though I did stop slacking long ago and I hear they've made some improvements. Still, if they were doing that well I think I'd have heard about it.

>
> Or how about LFS--"Linux from scratch"--in which you actually create your own distribution?

How about even Gentoo would have been a better call. But still isn't a realistic distribution for daily use. And still comes no where near Debian.

>
> I could go on, but you get the idea.

You've no idea.

>
> If you are such an aficionado, then you might contemplate doing what I have not bothered with for five or six years now--and compile your own kernel, removing all the cruft that is there for exotic machines and optimizing it for your own processor in the process. In some cases, that can greatly speed things up while reducing the memory footprint considerably. It's also a great learning experience.
>

Do you have any proof of this? You do realize that if your system does not have this exotic hardware your kernel will not load up the drivers don't you? If you do not believe me lsmod should be black and white proof. Also module systems are post build configurable. If some module your kernel is loading is really killing you you can always blacklist it from loading, delete it, whatever.

I just got done building a custom RTAI patched kernel on a machine here and I didn't see anything like what you are on about. With modules and initrd I don't see what you're saying being the case anymore.

> Personally, I am not such a purist. Debian has always been popular with certain groups of people, including those who follow (and care about) the positions of Richard Stallman--whom I find something of a nut, although a frequently entertaining and occasionally quite useful one today. (Obviously, we all owe him a huge debt for having created Gnu and the many tools we use today often without much thought. However, I don't go so far as to refer to "Gnu Linux" nor have I quite departed my senses enough to embrace EMACS in all its arcane glory!)
>

Nothing I can say here will improve matters any. I think you've said more than enough yourself. May St. iGNUcius find it in his heart to forgive you!

> I use Linux for several reasons--it works, it gives me incredible flexibility, and I am always able to learn new things to keep the gray cells exercised. It also keeps me from the anger I feel when I am forced into a model of computing in which choices are made for me--as with either Windows or the Mac.
>
> That said, I think in a very few years we will hardly recognize the operating system landscape. The OS is, essentially, slowly dying other than as a platform for online resources. Soon enough, computers seem to be marching toward a future in which they are little more than extremely smart terminals.
>
> If the Google Chrome OS is successful, that will be a rather large step in that direction--even though it is based on Linux.
>
> David
>

Uh huh. Oh sorry did I just fall asleep there? Dreams and fantasies have that effect on me. I'm trying to be nice but I don't know, no respect!

Paul <--- GNU/Linux user 24/7 for 15 years now and counting ...

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