Slashdot Mirror
If I Had My Own Distro...
Gentu writes "Adam Scheinberg writes an interesting editorial explaining what he would do if he was a developer and he had a Linux distribution. His suggestions are pretty radical, and in places resembles of what Apple had done to MacOSX with the help of BSD as the underlying technology. But if this is what it takes to get Linux into the next level, it might worth the consideration."
I'd read it, but I refuse to give any ad impressions or click-throughs to OSNews.com. That website just lets one person (Eugenia) have too much power and be way to rude to their forum posters.
Let's see. He suggests some sugar-coating -- change /home into /users, /var into /log -- why is "users" a better name than "home"? He reinvents a few things, like default applications of various types (I know debian already does this; I imagine others do too.) And, of course, it's far too confusing to make the user choose a desktop environment upon installation -- we have to make sure that others aren't possible to use. He suggests drag-and-drop package installation ... I have a hard time that nobody's done that before (how hard could it possibly be?) but maybe he's right there.
/var into /log was dumb, as /var/log is there, and /var/spool is for mail and such.... /var is a decent name, and newbie users shouldn't be mucking in it with the expectation it's only log files.
...
His symlinking ideas just cracked me up. I almost stopped reading at that point, but I forced myself to continue. I then found that this guy is just an idiot. He doesn't actually know how a Unix or Linux system is laid out, and what goes into making a comprehensive operating system. His, "Install MP3 Support" menu option was idiotic, as it prompts you for the option to install MP3 support in the freaking install.
Mapping
Most of the ideas aren't really bad
Just horribly misinformed and ignorant.
and the truth is, he probably could have implemented virtually all his suggestions in not much more time than it took to write his article. Why doesn't he do it, and then let us know how it turned out?
Because, he would have used Mandrake or RedHat and just changed the name and a few menu options and declared success. I also doubt he has the knowledge to do any of it, anyway...
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Why don't we just get rid of every language but C? They all do the same thing right? You can do OO in C, it may not be pretty but it can be done. Same with strings.
Variety is good
No. What we need is a unified standard for double-clickable software installation from third party packages. And people wonder why there's not more commercial development on Linux.
Yet another asshole telling everyone else what Linux needs, complaining like a spoiled brat because it isn't a perfect clone of Windows.
Guess what, boy? 'We' don't need a unified standard; *you* need a unified standard. And you have it: it's called Windows.
So load that puppy up and forget Linux altogether. You'll be much happier with your shiny new OS and so will the rest of us, who won't have to listen to your mindless complaining anymore.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
I follower your advice and I got this major bad error message trying to install OSX on my computer. I talked to Apple and they said I have to buy a computer from them in order to get OSX to work at all. I paid for the software and they have this illegal product bundling that prevents me from using it. Maybe next time, before you run your goddamn mouth off, you'll be more specific about HOW to follow your instructions- it turns out I can't just GET MAC OS X. I have to buy this 2500 dollar computer that is SLOWER than the Athlon I paid only 500 bucks for. No thanks.
You have been SO trolled.
Everybody knows the parent post is a joke. Only a complete fool would post a point-by-point rebuttal.