[Novalug] [Opinion] The age of "Guilt-By-Knowledge" and how the anti-system crowd has "won"

Peter Larsen peter@peterlarsen.org
Wed Apr 29 21:38:34 EDT 2015


On 04/29/2015 07:55 PM, John Franklin via Novalug wrote:
> Shit.  if I'm agreeing with JIM and JIM agrees with Will, something is wrong.
>
> - Grub2 is too damned complicated.  There is no earthly reason why it should take a 300+ line file to boot a computer.

grub2-install
What's complicated about that?
Grub solves a complex problem - how do you boot a system before you know
how to understand complex file systems?  Legacy grub lost community
support a looong time ago. It wasn't two solutions competing. It was a
decision to clean up a mess that legacy grub was that made it impossible
to add features like UEFI to it, that moved EVERYONE in the community
away from legacy. You couldn't even file bugs against legacy for a long
time even when grub2 was still rather unstable/incomplete. Well, you
could file them but nobody fixed them. Try to get help with legacy on
IRC in the grub channel - good luck. They'll laugh you out of the
channel and provide you with a few links to why grub2 was created.

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html#Changes-from-GRUB-Legacy

You still have lilo and you can still make your own if you don't like it.
But I don't get the complexity - what's so hard by typing
"grub2-install" instead of "grub-install"?? Or grub2-mkmenu ? For 99% of
all users, that's ALL they ever have to do. I meet very few who even
know how to use grub legacy's emergency prompt, how to write the
menu.lst file manually etc.

Grub2 gave me the ability to ditch the /boot partition and go straight
into an LVM/mdraid boot. I can boot modern laptops with UEFI enabled -
including in secure mode. And a ton of other options.  I even hear it
detects windows better for those that do dual boots.

> - SELinux -- I understand this one pretty well, and I still turn it off when it gets in the way.  Usually, I'm trying to get some service to start on a development VM where the benefits of SELinux don't apply.

You turn it off because you don't know what it is, and how to use it. 
This is like turning off the firewall because you don't know how to add
a firewall rule in iptables.  Or change permissions to your files to 777
because you can't figure out why the user can't access it. Learn how to
use it - it wills ave your butt one day.

http://stopdisablingselinux.com/


> - ip and ifconfig's deprecation I had heard about around the time the iPhone debuted, and I thought I saw a mention of that in the ifconfig man page, but I can't find it now.

So "man ifconfig" doesn't give you this:

NOTE
       This program is obsolete!  For replacement check ip addr and ip
link.  For statistics use ip -s link.

This explains why:
https://www.archlinux.org/news/deprecation-of-net-tools/
"This April marked the ten year anniversary of the last net-tools release."
10 years without any modifications, improvements etc. A DEAD project. 
The Open Source way is to try something new. And we did - 15 years ago.

> The objection we have with many of these technologies is that these new and improved technologies break the way the work with our machines.  You could call it "who moved my cheese,"  but the cheese isn't just on another shelf -- it's gone.  Or it's been electrified or put inside a Chinese puzzle box.

1) It's still there - it's 15 years post it's "best use by date". It's
there because we wanted to avoid a sudden change to a tool well used in
the community. But as you see, what happens is instead that people
ignore the change and don't migrate over. So at some point, the line is
going to be drawn and you'll have the complaint you raise. But tell me
how you can avoid it, when the premise of users seems to be to ignore
the deprecation notices? And how much time is enough?
> Example 1: Losing ifconfig is a big deal.  This is a command we have in our muscle memory.  Changing to use ip requires significant retraining, which I'm sure is why ifconfig and ip have co-existed in systems for years now.

Yup - but yet ignored by many. And when finally the deprecation notice
is executed (which is hasn't been) we get people streaming and
complaining because they want to be able to ignore deprecation notices/

> Example 2: Sometimes the changes are subtle.  
And sometimes they're not.

> Case in point, Apple Mail introduced a change in Lion or Mountain Lion.  Previously, deleting a message would move he cursor to the next message down.  Now, it moves the cursor to the next message in the direction you were previously heading, unless the message in one direction is new and the message in the other direction is not, in which case it'll select the new message and change the direction.  And there is no way to restore the old behavior.
>
> When I started using it, I was confused.  I hit delete twice because I could already tell that the next message can be deleted, too -- except it didn't delete the two I thought it would, it deleted a new message.  And now it's deleting up.  WHY IS MY MAIL CLIENT RANDOMLY SELECTING THE NEXT MESSAGE?!

May I suggest trying an Open Source alternative where you can change
this behavior??
> Example 3: Gnome 3.  Features we use regularly and expect to be there are gone, invisible, or buried.   Such as logging out.  Let's do an experiment.  Get 100 KDE users who have never used Gnome 3 before, tell them we're going to do some usability testing and that time will be a factor.    Step 1: Login.  Step 2: Logout.  I'll bet coffee and donuts for the LUG for a year over half of them take more than 2 minutes to figure it out and at least 25% restart the machine to accomplish the task.

You mean there's actually logic in clicking on a START button to pick
the SHUTDOWN or LOGOUT option?  If that's your only complaint, you can
add the logout as an application. I can turn the argument around - I'm
pretty lost on KDE these days - it's way too messy with nested wiggly
features, things move around if you just sneeze while moving the mouse,
panels all over - some of them hidden etc.  And I have a hard time
finding and selecting logout on KDE Plasma too. And my wife couldn't
even find it without me showing it to her (she came from Windows).

Maybe you're comparing things to what you're used to, and confusing
change with bad change? Not saying that the logout is optimal - but if
you can find the panel where you setup wireless networks, vpn etc. -
you've found the panel with the logout option.

So if you're ok with us taking two windows folks, and giving one KDE and
the other Gnome - let's see who figures out what first? And then who is
most effective once they learn how to use the DE?

> For every "upgrade" we put in quotes, there are many we're happy to have.  Bash completion, for example.  The ability to add some scripts so bash can auto-compete command parameters based on context is huge.  "cd b<tab>" won't suggest the file "bar", but will bring up the directory "bas" instead, because cd doesn't work on files.  "git push o<tab>"  returns "origin", even if you have a file or folder called "orangutan" in the current directory, because the new smarter bash-completion understands that git is looking for a remote repo name, not a local filename.

Tab complete is indeed a crazy good feature.  I think we all have our
favorite changes/features. I am not claiming you have to like all
changes done - but I am saying that before you dismiss them, you should
learn about them - be rational and not emotional in your criticism and
you'll be taken seriously.

> The difference between bash completion and Gnome 3?  Bash completion doesn't get in the way.  It doesn't become a puzzle we have to decode in order to complete a task.

What puzzle? I'm most faster on gnome3 than I was on gnome2. I can get
to tasks/programs much much faster by just a few keystrokes and without
searching menus or desktops of icons - and it will propose documents
that matches my typing too, so to work on a document called "Why linux
rocks" I hit META and type "why" and I'll see the file on my search list
and pick it either by mouse or arrow/enter keys.  I don't have to open
"my documents", search for what-ever folder I may remember the file was
in, or find the menu where my word processing is in, move down to select
"write" or anything. 5 keystrokes and I'm done - maybe 6 if I have too
many files named the same. Moving between dynamic desktops, getting a
quick overview of everything running is right there with a simple mouse
gesture.  Easy as pie - faster than ever.

Not everything about Gnome3 is great - but overall it's much better than
gnome2. Or let me ask this - how much input did you have on how gnome2
was made? If you didn't have any, why is the same situation with gnome3
a problem?

Anyway - you have lots of choices in DEs - it's Linux after all. So pick
your poison.

-- 
Regards
  Peter Larsen






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