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Author: Neo Futur
Date:  
To: Devuan project
Subject: Re: [Dng] John Goerzen asks, "Has modern Linux lost its way?"
links added on my systemd vault in the philosophy and architecture section :

http://neofutur.net/systemd-vault

I keep adding interesting and related links ( and dependency graphs ),
please all feel free to ping me on irc #debianfork or #rootslinux when
you find somehting that should be added on this "Everything you need
to fully understand the systemd problem" page


On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 12:33 AM, Martijn Dekkers
<devuan-list1@???> wrote:
> Nice post, thanks!
>
> My €0.02 - About the time that MS introduced "Software Assurance" (2002 or
> so?) I headed up a team to develop an "Enterprise Linux Desktop", and we had
> great success. Although we didn't manage to fully execute on our mission
> (deploy to 10.000 workstations for organization I was working for) our Proof
> of Concept was sufficiently slick, workable, and manageable that a bunch of
> demo's to the MS commercial team that were playing hardball with us resulted
> in increasingly worried faces in the room, and eventually, deep, long term
> discounts. This was repeated a few times during the following years for
> different organizations.
>
> Linux worked, was actually easier to make work on a large scale over MS
> software, and customizing, deploying and managing desktop systems was a
> _breeze_
>
> It goes without saying that Linux (KDE) was the only desktop environment I
> used on all machines under my control.
>
> About 5 to 6 years ago, I came to a point where I found that I was spending
> more time making things work then actually using them, and a while later,
> reluctantly, I switched my main desktop environment to Windows. I manage a
> good number of servers, with the vast majority of them running Linux, but
> desktops? Windows all the way. Gnome developed exactly along the path I
> suspected it would which is why I avoided it - Miguel de Icaza being an
> early incarnation of Lennart. (although I am very happy with the Midnight
> Commander...), and although KDE is a lot more agreeable to my tastes, there
> is simply too much tweaking and day to day little hassles - I have a job to
> do, and my PC is the tool I need to do this job - it needs to Just Work(tm)
>
> Whilst I am still utterly amazed with how awesome Linux servers are, I don't
> think we will ever get there with desktops.
>
> On 11 February 2015 at 18:25, Nate Bargmann <n0nb@???> wrote:
>>
>> John is a long-time Debian developer who opines on the complexity he
>> faces in Jessie:
>>
>>
>> http://changelog.complete.org/archives/9299-has-modern-linux-lost-its-way-some-thoughts-on-jessie
>>
>> John clearly states that he believes the problems are distinct from
>> systemd. While many here may not necessarily agree, I do agree that
>> various aspects of the system have become, if not complex, at least more
>> opaque than in the past. I overlooked a lot of this as it gained me
>> some shiny desktop features (I do like easily mounting of removable
>> media and selecting a WiFi AP from my desktop GUI) but I see that left
>> unchecked we now have an ever growing level of complexity.
>>
>> Like John, I don't wish to spark a systemd flame war as that has been
>> done to death. Instead, I think it would be wise for Devuan to lead the
>> way, after Jessie most likely, toward engineering a distribution that is
>> coherent and approachable by cherry-picking packages that maintain
>> current functionality along with reasonable configuration and
>> documentation. Jude et. al. seem to be working in such a direction for
>> device configuration. I'm also pleased with the decision to have Xfce
>> as the default DE. Kudos!
>>
>> Perhaps, I'm not expressing myself as well as I would like. Perhaps
>> this is more an issue of poor documentation from upstreams. Yet I also
>> see what seems to be needless complexity in configuration. Plus there
>> is complexity in dependencies between packages and then complexity in
>> IPC (dbus?).
>>
>> I think what has bothered me the most over the past few years is the
>> churn and what sometimes seems to be adoption and then replacement of a
>> technology without explanation (consolekit to polkit, for example, devfs
>> to udev for another). Some of this is explained away as needed support
>> for desktop environments which are moving quickly. Okay, but when did
>> the community abandon some level of desire for stability?
>>
>> Yes, I'm rambling because, as I posted to John's blog post, I feel
>> helpless and lost with a lot of this. I realize that convenience comes
>> at a price. For example, Network Manager makes a lot of things quite
>> handy, but at the cost of being able to dig through a lot of what it
>> does when something doesn't go quite right. Yes, I know that Slackware
>> is out there (I started with Slackware in 1996), but I am so spoiled by
>> apt that I don't wish to abandon it just yet. I'm also loathe to throw
>> away my 18+ years of Linux and GNU experience for *BSD at this time.
>>
>> - Nate
>>
>> --
>>
>> "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
>> possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true."
>>
>> Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://www.n0nb.us
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>
>
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