Interview With Lead Yoper Linux Developer

Oh well by Surye · 2004-09-21 12:11 · Score: 4, Interesting

I was excited about this for my old 350mhz celeron laptop. Unfortunately, on completely default install settings, it crashed and burned on the first boot. Back to gentoo + distcc.

Re:Oh well by GreyPoopon · 2004-09-21 12:19 · Score: 2, Informative

I was excited about this for my old 350mhz celeron laptop.
Were the old 350Mhz celerons considered i686 or only i586? I can't remember, but I think they were all i686. But in the unlikely event they were i586-based, that is why it crashed and burned for you. Too bad. I was hoping to get some impression of how it would run on my old 200 MHz Pentium Pro. Anybody else try on a slower machine like that?

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Re:Oh well by FlipmodePlaya · 2004-09-21 12:28 · Score: 3, Interesting

In the interview he stated that a LiveCD version is planned, so we will all have an easy way to see if it is appropriate for our systems.
Re:Oh well by Surye · 2004-09-21 12:48 · Score: 1

It is a i686, I thought of that too. I may try it on an extra desktop, but that was the only machine I had a reason not to use gentoo on. I'll just put Debian Cid on there again, it worked like a charm before.
Re:Oh well by Surye · 2004-09-21 12:54 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Shit. I stand corrected. Fuck. *ashamed* I hate you Celeron.
Re:Oh well by sparcnut · 2004-09-21 12:54 · Score: 5, Informative

Were the old 350Mhz celerons considered i686 or only i586? I can't remember, but I think they were all i686. But in the unlikely event they were i586-based, that is why it crashed and burned for you. Too bad. I was hoping to get some impression of how it would run on my old 200 MHz Pentium Pro. Anybody else try on a slower machine like that?

Celerons are all i686 class as are Pentium Pros and Pentium IIs. Pentiums and Pentium-MMXs are i586.

I had Slackware 9.0 running on a P2-233 with 64M RAM a couple years ago and it was reasonably fast, even running Mozilla 1.4. Expect a PPro-200 to be the same or slightly better because the PPro's L2 cache is clocked twice as fast as on the P2. Slack 9.0 is mostly optimized from i386 to i586 depending on the packages, so expect Yoper to be _much_ faster.

I'd say it would be manageable for email, web browsing, and that kind of thing but not much more. It'd make a real nice X terminal if you have some bigger boxes on a 100mbit network.

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Re:Oh well by koali · 2004-09-21 22:43 · Score: 2, Funny

OT: You just made my day. There is a plethora of Linux 'redistros' in Spain, a lot of them based on Debian.

Someone needs to invent Debian El Cid Campeador; bleeding edge Debian for Spaniards.

(El Cid is a popular folk hero in Spain)

Thought Police. by starphish · 2004-09-21 12:13 · Score: 5, Funny

"Right now I am with IBM, and in my spare time I work on Yoper."

Watch out. IBM might own your thoughts. Make sure you don't think about Yoper at work.

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Re:Thought Police. by DriedClexler · 2004-09-21 12:23 · Score: 3, Interesting

They actually might start doing that. If you tangibly support such a project that goes contrary to IBM's interest, they could fire or even sue you. Happened to a friend of mine (not at IBM). Tread lightly.

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Re:Thought Police. by zaxios · 2004-09-21 12:39 · Score: 4, Informative

Watch out. IBM might own your thoughts. Make sure you don't think about Yoper at work.

Just to be safe, don't think at work at all. If you didn't catch the parent's comment, it was a reference to this travesty. In this case, offtopic + insightful = funny.
Re:Thought Police. by lakeland · 2004-09-21 12:42 · Score: 1

Did you check which country he was from? Not all countries have stupid IP laws you know...
Re:Thought Police. by AchilleTalon · 2004-09-21 12:54 · Score: 1

No matter which country he is from, we are just talking about the contract he signed with IBM the day he was hired. Since I worked for IBM in the past, I think I can told you this contract is much restrictive in this specific field and I was told (ok, ok, being told is not really authoritative) the contracts are now even more restrictive. We I was hired a long time ago by IBM, there were so much less opportunities to write code and think about IT business off-hours, in fact, it was just expensive to enter the business wrt of today.
Bottom line, I would not be surprised at all his work is actually owned by IBM.

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Achille Talon
Hop!
Re:Thought Police. by lakeland · 2004-09-21 13:11 · Score: 2, Informative

No. US contract law is very different to contract law in other countries. Outside the land of the free we have these things called 'inalienable rights', and no contract may interfere with them. For instance, no contract can say 'you may not have children while employed here', or 'you may not work for a compeditor after you leave', or 'we own what you produce in your free time'.

Any contract stupid enough to interfere with his free time would be thrown out of court within minutes, and IBM forced to pay all of his costs, as well as damages. I believe you don't have laws allowing the judge to do that in America either.
Re:Thought Police. by strider44 · 2004-09-21 13:31 · Score: 1

Isn't he a New Zealander? If that's the case then yes, IBM would have absolutely no rights to what he does in his spare time.
Re:Thought Police. by Pig+Hogger · 2004-09-21 13:37 · Score: 1

Did you check which country he was from? Not all countries have stupid IP laws you know...
Not for long, thanks to The New American Century...
Re:Thought Police. by AchilleTalon · 2004-09-21 14:06 · Score: 1

I was not talking about the US contract, my fault I should have specified it in the first place it was a contract signed in Canada.
So, that's nice to hear somewhere else there is better laws to protect employees than here. I was a little bit mixed up by your comment since you were talking about IP laws.
So, what would happen in a case where the employee will got an idea for a super-gizmo because he was working at IBM (or any other company) and decided to develop the super-gizmo on his spare time, but wasn't he an employee at this company he never ever had the idea? And what if it's not an employee, but an employee of a sub-contractor?
I am asking because these are real-life situations were I actually saw and in some cases signed contracts to cover these situations. Would the contract clauses be invalidated by a competent court?

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Achille Talon
Hop!
Re:Thought Police. by gl4ss · 2004-09-21 14:34 · Score: 1

in some countries there's rights you can't sign away even if you tried.

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Re:Thought Police. by lakeland · 2004-09-21 14:41 · Score: 2, Informative

If you ever do any of your idea on company time, e.g. chat about it to colleagues in lunch time, then the company owns a share of it. My limited experience is they own a fairly big share of it.

As an employee of a sub-contractor, I _believe_ the contract you're currently working on would be irrelevant, i.e. did you develop it while working on the sub-contractor's time.

If you are actually working as a contractor then you're not an employee and so contracts can be more severe -- unless your work is treated as an employee (in which case you are treated as an employee by the court).
Re:Thought Police. by AchilleTalon · 2004-09-21 15:05 · Score: 1

Well, thanks for these explainations. I was wondering if there was publicized trials on these issues that clarified some gray zones.
Well, when I mean contractor, sub-contractor, I am talking about the employee. For example, as a contractor, I am also an employee. Who is liable? The company or the employee? And since the law restrict the rights of the company, what will happen in such a case? I guess the rights in a contract should also be restricted, since it will be a little bit insane to render a company liable for something his/her employee is not to it. But, who knows, sometimes the law is insane until changed.

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Achille Talon
Hop!
Re:Thought Police. by thermopylae300 · 2004-09-21 15:08 · Score: 1

I can't find anything unreasonable on there site pertaining to intellectual property.
http://www.google.com/search?q=site:http://www.new americancentury.org+property/
Can you provide a quote?

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Re:Thought Police. by Ed+Avis · 2004-09-21 23:32 · Score: 1

There was a time when IBM's corporate motto was 'THINK!'.

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Re:Thought Police. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-22 16:58 · Score: 0

"For instance, no contract can say 'you may not have children while employed here', or 'you may not work for a compeditor after you leave', or 'we own what you produce in your free time'."

The first two are totally unenforcable in the US, and the third is very difficult to enforce (and totally unenforcable in many states).

"I believe you don't have laws allowing the judge to do that in America either."

Of course we do. Well, damages are unlikely unless IBM (or whoever) did something egregious, but court fees are generally included.

Why are you writing so with such an authoritative tone, since you obviously have little idea what you're talking about? It's fine that you hate the US for whatever reasons, but please don't spread misinformation.
Re:Thought Police. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-22 17:00 · Score: 0

Like the United States of America, for example.

This guy is an idiot by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 12:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

Mod me flamebait or troll if you must but his ego is way out there.

Re:This guy is an idiot by jr87 · 2004-09-21 13:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

[AG] It is not rocket science and if one has the know-how, one could tweak their Gentoo, LFS, or even Debian system to be like Yoper. You would probably spend weeks/months doing it, but after this long, possibly frustrating road, you would get something like Yoper. But instead of a week-long struggle, you can have Yoper ready within 10 to 15 minutes,which to many people is more important than a steep, frustrating learning curve. Some of the "secrets" of turning your distro into Your Operating System are:

yeah...this kinda did it for me. Weeks and months? has he ever tried prelinking..was pretty quick and painless for me. thanks to the nice guide
Re:This guy is an idiot by xsecrets · 2004-09-21 13:32 · Score: 3, Insightful

Well I guess you missed the part right before that where he listed like 5 other things than prelinking, and yes some of those other items can take quite some time.
Re:This guy is an idiot by GreyPoopon · 2004-09-21 14:16 · Score: 2, Informative

Weeks and months? has he ever tried prelinking..was pretty quick and painless for me. thanks to the nice guide [gentoo.org]
Not only has he tried prelinking, but he has tried (among other things) applying performance-related patches, stripping the binaries and ignoring what ./configure finds and instead only including objects upon which each package is truly dependant. I think that pretty much justifies the weeks to months timeframe listed.

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Re:This guy is an idiot by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 14:18 · Score: 1

I think your ego is way out there .... what is the problem with what he says. He sure deserves some credit for such a successful distro, doesn't he?
Re:This guy is an idiot by nyteroot · 2004-09-21 15:46 · Score: 1, Insightful

No, seriously, this guy is either an idiot, or has never really used gentoo. Let's look at his list here:

0.) Performance patches from Con Kolivas, i686 2.6.7 kernel, reiserfs
1.) All original sources, minimal patches.
2.) Compiled with i686 against latest gcc
3.) Stripping
4.) Prelinking
5.) Latest gcc and glibc and other sources
6.) Keep everything only dependent to what it really needs not what
the ./configure happens to find.
7.) Hdparm on install
0) Check. And the option of quite a few other patchsets including aa-sources, mm-sources, and gentoo's own gentoo-dev-sources.
1) Check. Gentoo does this.
2) Checked and beaten. Gentoo (with 5 seconds of configuration) compiles everything for your specific class of chip, e.g. athlon-xp or pentium4. And if you don't want to do the compilation, there are stage3 (i.e. complete systems) available for each class of chip.
3) Check. Gentoo does this.
4) Check. Not only is this 5 seconds in Gentoo, but the new version of portage does it automatically.
5) Check. Gentoo has this. Also, he doesn't mention Yoper's deal, but Gentoo has support for NPTL.
6) Check. Gentoo allows you to set what configure options are turned on and off with USE flags.
7) The single point on which Yoper has Gentoo beat. And seriously, man hdparm.

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Re:This guy is an idiot by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 17:53 · Score: 1, Informative

Is gentoo easy for first time Linux users? Nope!
Is Yoper? Of course along with SuSe and Mandrake, but they're bloated and so sloooww!

Ding ding We have a winner! Yoper!
Re:This guy is an idiot by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-22 01:25 · Score: 1, Insightful

I can use my computer the same day I build it. Yoper -check Gentoo -nope.
Re:This guy is an idiot by GreyPoopon · 2004-09-22 02:02 · Score: 2, Interesting

No, seriously, this guy is either an idiot, or has never really used gentoo. Let's look at his list here:
Thank you for providing a rather redundant (at least for me) list of all the options you have with Gentoo. Now, tell me how long it will take for you to determine what works best for each and every package on your system. What about all of the configuration options that you CAN'T control with the USE flags? Think about it for a minute. An expert with Gentoo could probably get through everything in a few days of dedicated time (don't forget compiling), but then comes all of the testing to make sure the configuration is optimal and that everything is stable. I would guess the whole process would take a couple weeks. A novice with Gentoo would probably take well over a month to accomplish the same thing. Don't get me wrong. I'm a Gentoo user. I believe it offers the most flexibility in obtaining the ultimate performance. But what this guy is doing is much of the experimenting and testing for the rest of the community. I wouldn't be too surprised to find that most people who are willing to give Linux a try are probably experimenting with older machines, and providing a system that has many of the optimizations already included makes that process much less painful. Gentoo is not really for beginners unless they are actually trying to learn how the system works.
If you still think he's an idiot, then I would challenge you to produce your own distribution based on Gentoo and targeted for the i686 platform that performs as well or better than YOPER in less than two weeks. Remember that you have to test everything for stability and be able to keep it up to date with periodic changes. Make sure you also check out all the packages included in YOPER so that you don't miss anything. If you can manage that, I will forever support your right to call him an idiot.

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GreyPoopon
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Re:This guy is an idiot by nyteroot · 2004-09-22 06:44 · Score: 1

Boy I sure do love this one. Is gentoo easy for first-time linux users? Well, lets ask the guy with an iBook who now happily runs gentoo, his first linux distro. Or the guy who not only used to run WindowsXP, but was a big MS fanboy at that, who now runs gentoo 24/7 (his XP partition feels lonely). Or any of the 6-7 other people I started on gentoo and who love it. Hell, lets ask my mom. People say gentoo is hard for linux beginners based on some preconceived notions they have. I have empirical evidence to the contrary.

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but diden't I hear OSX was going to kill Linux? by adaminnj · 2004-09-21 12:14 · Score: 0, Troll

I'm sure I saw something here about OSX going to kill linux so whats all the Hubb bubb about a ppc linux distro?

http://www.wejher.pl/mpx/pic/apple-mac10a-linux.jp g

I dont belive that will happen but that's my 2 cents

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Re:but diden't I hear OSX was going to kill Linux? by adaminnj · 2004-09-21 12:51 · Score: 0, Offtopic

OUCH that's the last time I try to be funny! this Karma thing is new to me.

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Re:but diden't I hear OSX was going to kill Linux? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 18:43 · Score: 1, Funny

OUCH that's the last time I try to be funny!

THANK GOD.

I've been using it since v2 by marcushnk · 2004-09-21 12:20 · Score: 4, Informative

and it is quite nice.. and shows some great promise.. the only thing it lacks is the number of contributers.. comon people.. get in while its hot.. add more brains to this project and make it what it should be.

--
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far

Re:I've been using it since v2 by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 12:27 · Score: 5, Funny

the only thing it lacks is the number of contributers.. comon people.. get in while its hot.. add more brains to this project and make it what it should be.
And a spell checker?
Re:I've been using it since v2 by kgbspy · 2004-09-21 12:50 · Score: 1

Who does he think he is - Harry Potter?!

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Re:I've been using it since v2 by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 13:05 · Score: 0

That's right contribute and make me a package I can update through Synaptic because I don't want to use the command line! Give me the mplayer plugin for instance!
Re:I've been using it since v2 by packeteer · 2004-09-21 13:41 · Score: 1

becuase that is how to decide what project to contribute to... i personally only like software "while its hot"

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Re:I've been using it since v2 by LnxAddct · 2004-09-21 14:56 · Score: 1

I loved Yoper, unfortunately I couldn't get my X server to use hardware acceleration :/ Personally I've never had much success with Sax, but RH's detection/configuration and Fedoras has never failed me yet, and I've used it on many machines. Yoper already does use some Fedora related stuff, but I think they should definitly add its autodetection. Getting RH utilities to play nice with Novell utilities like YaST would be what some would consider heaven. I was really impressed by Yoper, I'd have kept it on my system if I could have gotten 3d working. If any /.ers haven't checked it out yet, you should (7 minute install for me).
Regards,
Steve
Re:I've been using it since v2 by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-22 03:37 · Score: 0

"And a spell checker?"

A fragmented sentence structure checker wouldn't hurt either.

Re:Yoper by starphish · 2004-09-21 12:20 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Could't think of anything for "R" eh? ;-)

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. The story is a dupe, the topic is boring, the facts weren't checked. WE GET IT!!

This guy rules by carambola5 · 2004-09-21 12:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

Some of the "secrets" of turning your distro into Your Operating System are:

0.) Performance patches from Con Kolivas, i686 2.6.7 kernel, reiserfs
1.) All original sources, minimal patches. ...

Well, at least we know he isn't some PR person faking being a dev.

--
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Re:This guy rules by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 12:37 · Score: 4, Funny

Well, at least we know he isn't some PR person faking being a dev.
Rather, he's a Dev faking being a PR person
Re:This guy rules by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 13:29 · Score: 0

actually, he happens to be a 14 year old boy. Ive just met him and the amount he knows about linux blows my mind.
Re:This guy rules by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 13:43 · Score: 1, Informative

actually, he happens to be a 14 year old boy. Ive just met him and the amount he knows about linux blows my mind.

Umm..

"I hold a Masters in Philosophy of Logic,and have worked for ISPs as a system administrator/manager since the dawn of the commercial internet. Linux was my daily bread as an admin since early on, and I am still contracted by companies for work with Linux. Right now I am with IBM, and in my spare time I work on Yoper. Though I have started taking extended holidays more frequently to dedicate myself to work with Yoper."

If this guy is 14 years old, he is some kind of genius.
Re:This guy rules by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 14:13 · Score: 0

I think he has a family and kids .. make it 20 years older and you probably get close to it ...
Re:This guy rules by Mr.Ned · 2004-09-21 14:49 · Score: 1

This is modded insightful, but am I the only one who sees the inherent contradiction in those two statements? I laughed, and then saw the mod rating...
Re:This guy rules by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 17:09 · Score: 0

What he is trying to say is that performance-enhancing kernel patches are good, but patches to applications are bad.

Or perhaps, they are just modding the post insightful, because you don't get Karma for "Funny" posts, so modding a post funny is a waste of a mod-point.

More pointless branching by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 12:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

The phrase "united front" mean anything to the linux community?

Re:More pointless branching by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 12:32 · Score: 0

The phrase "united front" mean anything to the linux community?

No
Re:More pointless branching by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 13:55 · Score: 0

Yeah. It means "Microsoft".

Oh, wait, I'm sorry -- what was that? Monolithic codebase doesn't work in the context of bored volunteers, as opposed to desperate programmers working for blood money?
Re:More pointless branching by Platinum+Dragon · 2004-09-21 14:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

The phrase "united front" mean anything to the linux community?

Maybe not, but my hackles tend to go up when I hear terms like "unity" and "united front" tossed around, perhaps because they tend to be used by Troktskyites and other vanguardists wanting everyone to follow their way, and only their way.

Yes, I hang around in some fringe circles. Hang around for a moment, this is going somewhere.

An anarchist would be more concerned with solidarity between groups that share common goals--you can have tens, even thousands of different projects and groups, but they work best when sharing ideas and supporting each other instead of each group demanding that everyone else follow behind their glorious leadership.

How might this esoteric political argument apply to software?

I cringe whenever I hear about "the next killer distro that will take over" or silly distro holy wars over Debian vs. Gentoo vs. Mandrake vs. Fedora as "the desktop distro." OTOH, cooperative efforts like freedesktop.org, the Linux Standards Base, and some of the efforts to bridge the KDE and GNOME desktops with common protocols make me smile. In situations like these, software "solidarity" can allow for numerous distributions aimed at different groups of people to work well together because they share common protocols and technologies, interchangeable stuff when possible.

Mind you, this submission bugged the crap out of me, precisely because the submitter came across in a combative, pseudo-underdog fashion that seems intended to bleed mindshare from other distributions in favour of one group's (or individual's) ego, rather than trying to just make a better collection of software or doing one thing better so that others can learn and benefit.

Bah, I'm exhausted, and I'm not sure this made much sense, but there you have it--I think what the real problem facing the FOSS community is false unity versus real solidarity.

--

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Re:More pointless branching by djcapelis · 2004-09-21 15:43 · Score: 1

Yeah, because United Linux all worked out wonderfully...

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Re:More pointless branching by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 15:56 · Score: 0

Unfortunately, just putting "United" in your name isn't quite enough...
Re:More pointless branching by Bongoots · 2004-09-21 22:12 · Score: 1

Mind you, this submission bugged the crap out of me, precisely because the submitter came across in a combative, pseudo-underdog fashion that seems intended to bleed mindshare from other distributions in favour of one group's (or individual's) ego, rather than trying to just make a better collection of software or doing one thing better so that others can learn and benefit.

Don't mind me.. I'm just the submitter :p
Re:More pointless branching by clayasaurus · 2004-09-22 01:16 · Score: 1

If there ever was such a "united front," with 1 distro to rule them all, then it's like the FOSS community has painted a big red bulls eye on its butt! Microsoft would know exactly where to hit!

I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by zecg · 2004-09-21 12:24 · Score: 5, Interesting

...being valued based on how 1337 they are or what other distribution they have spawned from and how politically correct its roots are re: OS ideology.

Modern distribution should focus on a system for upgrading / installing which handles dependencies well, a base of hand-picked packages covering as many functions with quality software, making the installation process as easy and transparent as possible, building a community and encouraging its members to provide well-written documentation and lobbying with hardware vendors for open drivers (e.g. ATI).

Also, some professional-quality design work for the website and visual presentation wouldn't hurt.

Most everyone is going to use Linux in another 10 years (barring a totalitarian world government which bans it as a tool of terrorism) - so get on with the program, people.

--
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Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by cranos · 2004-09-21 12:41 · Score: 1

Well off you go then, let us know how it works out.

Seriously, if all the people who demanded an easy to use yet just as powerful linux distro while slagging off the rest as being too hard/a big pain in the arse actually sat down and tried to build what they wanted, we could have it by now.

This is the joy of OS, if you don't like what the other guy is doing, take it in a new direction.
Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by dan_sdot · 2004-09-21 12:46 · Score: 5, Insightful

Seriously, if all the people who demanded an easy to use yet just as powerful linux distro while slagging off the rest as being too hard/a big pain in the arse actually sat down and tried to build what they wanted, we could have it by now.
I don't think that he was saying this "this distro sucks."
I think was he was saying was: "Who gives a crap?"
So somebody created a new distro, wow, thats special. And what does this have to offer? Exactly what he was saying, that it super 1337. These stories come out every so often, and the /. hive mind pays the distro homage, but the thing doesn't really offer what linux really needs.
Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by chris_mahan · 2004-09-21 13:10 · Score: 1

>Most everyone is going to use Linux in another 10 years...

I'd settle for half in 5 years. Then people wouldn't be able to say: "Everybody uses IE".

On an aside, when I hear that, I say "Oh, you mean IE uses everybody?" It's good for a chuckle...

Totalitarian governments, being paranoid, really want linux so no US govt interference.

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"Piter, too, is dead."
Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by William+Baric · 2004-09-21 14:26 · Score: 1

In what way linux distros are more "powerful" than say Windows? What is so special about Linux? If you mean that Linux is hard to use because it's powerful, sorry but linux is not more powerful than other operating systems.

I can't even remember all distributions I tried for the past 6 years, but they all sucked. So I guess I should "sat down and tried to build what I want", right? Well, even at full time, I alone couldn't build a whole operating system.

Then build parts to add to "Linux"? No, because I think Linux is a waste of time. Don't get me wrong... I use it, I install servers, I agree that sometimes it can do some things better than Windows, but it doesn't change the fact that I don't like Linux (btw, I don't like Windows either). I think Linux "philosophy" is wrong in about every way.

Then start a new project? Well, I'm thinking about it a lot of time. The problem is I know nobody (worthy enough) will join the project unless I create a significant part of it first... and unfortunately, I don't have the time to do it (I have to work to pay the bills). I did try to search for a good OS project, but everything I found was about implementing another Unix. Unix should be dead by now!

So tell me... What should I do?
Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by cranos · 2004-09-21 15:50 · Score: 1

Stop complaining so much for a start. If you aren't willing to either contribute in any way to an existing project, or head out on your own with your vision of Operating System glory then really stop complaining.

If you don't like the Unix way of doing things, then build something you would like to see, or maybe even put together a paper on your idea and share it around, you might find that others take it up. Then again you might not.

I guess its sort of like voting in the states, those that don't vote/contribute to the decision making process(however flawed it is) are often the first to complain.
Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by antiMStroll · 2004-09-21 16:32 · Score: 1

I read it to say Yoper's distinction is being tuned to be as fast as reasonably possible. Only as a secondary feature does it provide an opportunity to inflate one's ego by pissing on Slashdot readers.
Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by William+Baric · 2004-09-21 17:44 · Score: 1

People who vote get what they ask for. So they don't have the right to complain. People who don't vote have the right to complain about everything since everything is imposed to them.

I don't like Linux, I won't participate, but I have certainly the right to say that there is no good operating system available. I don't force anyone to make one, I don't _demand_ a good OS, I just say what I think.

Also, I did pay for some of the distributions I tried, so I think I have every right to say I'm unhappy with what I bought.

But you're probably right. I should build my own OS. After all creating an OS from scratch should not take that long, maybe two or three months? Right? Yes, I'm sarcastic, but this idea that if I don't like something then I should build my own, is not realistic.
Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by cranos · 2004-09-21 18:39 · Score: 1

I'm sorry but people who vote have more of a right to complain because they actually participated, as opposed to those who didn't because those who didn't cannot say, this is not what I voted for. By not voting, you are saying fine do whatever you want I couldn't give a shit, basically giving carte blanche to whoever wins.

On the OS side, fine you paid for a couple of distros and yes that does give you every right to complain. However, if all you are going to do is bitch and complain and not contribute constructivly to the industry through either suggestions, ideas, code whatever then nobody is really going to pay attention to you and you are going to be stuck bitching and moaning.

People not liking something and building their own is what has led to the explosion in both Open and Closed source software available. If everyone bitched and moaned and sat on their hands then we'ld be stuck with vacuum tubes and punch cards.
Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by Jollyeugene · 2004-09-21 20:16 · Score: 1

Modern distribution should focus on a system for upgrading / installing which handles dependencies well, a base of hand-picked packages covering as many functions with quality software, ... building a community and encouraging its members to provide well-written documentation and lobbying with hardware vendors for open drivers (e.g. ATI).
Sounds kinda like Debian with taskselect.
...making the installation process as easy and transparent as possible...
Also, some professional-quality design work for the website and visual presentation wouldn't hurt...
Nevermind...
I think e-build and portage are a slick build system. It is nice to build optimized packages. But then again, I would just like normal binary packages to be sane in the first place-- so I don't have to compile anything. Other than for compiling and learning, gentoo has poor management capabilities.

Sorry gentoo, I don't want to build gnome, kde, ect. for 2 days straight for fun... I'd rather get something done. Trying to find gentoo prebuilts of these packages on the net also proved frustrating...and unless they are optimized, misses the point anyway.

And, sorry Debian, no I do not like being stuck with i386 binaries for everything. Why doesn't Debian spend its time on i686 and athlon builds instead of wasting time on the 286, Atari, Color Computer II, Commodore64, Sinclair, UNIVAC, CRAYI, Amiga backports? Shouldn't the time, disk space and bandwidth be used for something that more than 5 people are going to use?

And sorry Red Hat... but if I never see another .rpm file it is too soon. Right now I am going to go put tape over the R.P.M. on the tach in my car.

And sorry Suse but my experience with Yast2 was that it was a good idea with a horrible proprietary implementation. Deselect default KDE... default windowmanager GNOME. Starting KDE... NO... default GNOME... starting KDE... AGG! And the "feature" of clobbering changes I made to /etc files without asking me, while putting back the options it decided belonged there was just too much... Wow! Suse makes Linux like Windows, click some buttons to configure and it does what it wants anyway! Yeah the manual was nice and covered how to fix most things. But it easier for me to reinstall something else than to learn how to administer unix the "Suse" way with their buggy gui.

Slackware is great. If you know exactly what you are doing... and don't plan to update very often. But how many people fall into this category? My guess is, all the people using Slackware.

And the only distribution that has been consistently painless to upgrade and download whatever software I want on, without stupid proprietary configuration and dependency management issues-- is Debian. But is a pain to install, the new installer will help, but it is no Red Hat Anaconda. And the multimedia packages are slllooowww. i386 does not cut it. So I stick with Debian, and boot Gentoo for games and movies. If Debian's installer was "pretty", and its site and documentation were "pretty", and it had some marketing behind it to demonstrate its advantages... it could dominate the unix desktop world and corporate desktop rollouts. But those are alot of ifs and IBM is not endorsing any one party and Novell has its own ideas...

It is not so much that FOSS and Linux are not ready for the desktop, it is these poor distributions that are not ready-- they take perfectly good software and break it to "differentiate" their product and create lockin-- Yast2 being a prime example and RedHats use of experimental glic another. And I don't think another distro is going to help-- especially one using Yast with 50 separate versions. I don't want a new "distribution" to "upgrade" to- or change over into something else.. or figure out its quarks... I want a software installation and management system built into the OS that is standardized and that frees me from having
Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by William+Baric · 2004-09-21 22:00 · Score: 1

Every day I read at least 3 different news sources. CNN, Le monde and Aljazeera (plus my local newspapers - I live in Quebec). When there's some important news, I also read The Pravda, and BBC news. You know why? Because I'm polically very active. Because I believe my first duty as a citizen is to be informed. And you know what? I refuse to vote. In fact, I'm always trying to convince people not to vote. Do you really think it's because I don't give a shit? Things are not as simple as you want them to be.

BTW, why do you think I'm "complaining" about linux? Why do you think I'm "wasting" my time posting on slashdot? Posting specifications about an interface or how to implement mandatory ACL won't get me anywhere. People don't like change. Just look at your keyboard. It's still designed this way so hammers don't jam. But ergonomic keyboards are no secret! So why is there 15 "different" keyboards at my local computer store but not a single ergonomic one? I could try to contribute to Linux. But like ergonomic keyboards, no one will use what I create unless it's the same old thing.

This means bitching and moaning is the best way to make things change. If enough people bitch and moan, then, maybe, the herd will realize they're following the wrong leaders.
Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by cranos · 2004-09-22 00:10 · Score: 1

All of the reading that you do, all of the browsing news sites and different news sources that you do is a waste if you are not prepared to have your say on the way that you want your country run. I am always amazed at people who want to change the system and complain loudly about the injustices being perpertrated by the current government, then refuse to excercise the only voice they have that means anything.

Where I live we have compulsory voting. You don't vote, then you get fined. This ensures that people at least have a glance at what the different parties are offering and while we have two major parties we also have a lot of different smaller parties representing all different views, from radical greens through the spectrum to the fundamentalist christians.

As to Linux, fine you don't like Linux big deal, find something that you do like and contribute to that. Believe or not there are other OS designs out there other than the Unix way.

On your last comment - all the bitching and moaning in the world is not going to get you anywhere unless you can offer an alternative. You don't like the current political system, fine show people something better, don't like the way Linux is designed and built, then find something that you consider to be better and champion that. People who only bitch and moan without offering an alternative very quickly get pushed aside as loud mouths with no credibility.

Believe it or not I am not attacking you personally, I am just really tired of people who complain about this and that and then don't offer anything different because its too hard or inconvenient. if you believe in something passionately enough there should be an alternative
Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by FictionPimp · 2004-09-22 01:35 · Score: 1

Yea, if we dont like the way the world is we should all just give up and bitch.

Just think, if everyone felt as you do we would all be sitting around in caves running from killer tigers and bears. Maybe you dont need to make an OS froms scratch. Maybe you need to write up a paper on how a "good" OS should be designed. Then you could potentally get some followers who would help you build that OS.

bitching without giving a solution is like a guy with no arms trying to jerk off.
Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by pete-classic · 2004-09-22 01:36 · Score: 1

If you have a vision for "the ideal" distro, you should implement it.

On the other hand, your needs aren't the same as everyone else's. Your ideals aren't the same as everyone else's. I happen to value Free Software ideology very highly. I'll happily use a lower quality, less complete, less featureful package that is Free vice one that is better in every way, but is not Free.

But I don't presume to tell you that this is what you should do.

-Peter
Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by FictionPimp · 2004-09-22 01:41 · Score: 1

You: "I dont like it"
Dev: "So what should we do to make it better?"
You: "Can't tell ya that, just fix it"

My god man, you should like the people I support.

Customer: "My email doesn't work"
Me: "Whats happening exactly?"
Customer: "Well, I dont know"
Me: "Do you get an error message?"
Customer: "Yes"
Me: "What does it say?"
Customer: "Stuff"
Me: "Can you read it to me please?"
Customer: "Oh I closed it, can't you just fix it"
Me: "Ok lets check your mail settings"
Customer: "Can;t you just fix it?"

I'm sorry, no one is going to fix a problem they themselves dont see. If you are going to point out a problem, then explain how it is a problem.
Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by mixmasta · 2004-09-22 02:07 · Score: 1

> I think Linux "philosophy" is wrong in about every way.

Funny you should mention... I am working slowly on a project now and would like to hear what you think is wrong, outside the blinding obvious. Don't be afraid to think too big either.

--
#6495ED - cornflower blue
Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by William+Baric · 2004-09-22 06:37 · Score: 1

Voting is not a voice. It's an illusion of a voice. Take, for example, what happened in Algeria. In 91 the ISF won the first round of election. So what did the "democratic party" do? It declared the ISF was illegal and cancelled the election in the name of "democracy".

In 1998 D.C. 69% of D.C. residents voted in favor of legalizing the medical use of marijuana. But congress blocked the implementation of the law and made sure another referendum on the issue was not possible.

Voting is just an illusion. But for most people this illusion is enough. The fact is they don't really care about politics and they don't give a damn about what it means to be a citizen. For most people, civic duties means watching a 1 hour debate on TV while eating popcorn and putting a ballot in a box once every five years. After they have done that, they believe they have performed their civic duties. I believe that's bullshit.

Sure, I could get in line and put my ballot in the box like everyone else. After all, it would take only 15 minutes of my time. But by refusing to vote, by going against the norm, I hope to make people think. That's my real voice.

Back to operating systems. Of course I know that there is other OS designs. There is even good things with Linux (L4Linux or SELinux for example). Some solutions already exists! But almost every Linux fanboys here on slashdot will say that Linux is reliable, secure OS. Most will say that mandatory fine-grained ACL are not needed since UGO is such a wonderful paradigm. They believe Linux is perfect and nothing should be changed. Like the perfect qwerty keyboard that everyone is still using.

The problem with OS is not a lack of solution. It's people ignorance and need for easy self gratification. This is what I hope to change. But posting a link to SELinux of publishing a nice paper won't do anthing. People already know about SELinux.

You may say that bitching and moaning only get someone pushed aside as loud mouth... But guess who's having the candy : the kid who's simply asking his mother once, or the kid who's comlaining for half an hour?

You may have faith in people intelligence. I don't.
Re:I'm a bit sick of Linux distributions... by William+Baric · 2004-09-22 16:21 · Score: 1

Here's some of the things I think are wrong with linux, distributions and most OSS in general (in no particular order) :

- Putting to much emphasis on code instead of thinking first where the project should go. Basically, a project should begin with a plan and then try to create code to reach the goal, not the other way around. Of course, goals should be flexible, but there should be a leader able to say : yeah, that code is nice but there is more important thing to do first, so we won't incorporate it for now (it's like "eat your vegetables first and then you'll have dessert").

- Lack of documentation. Documentation is more important than code for long lived programs. A project leader should not accept code if it's not well documented.

- Preferring choice over standard. There should be 1 standard kernel, 1 standard GUI, 1 standard package manager... Sure, if some people want to use the other GUI they should be able to hack their system, but someone should have the guts to say : this is the official solution for this release, sorry for the other guy.

- Prefering source over binary. Most projects have little documentation so compiling them is sometime a PITA. Programs that compile fine with an old version of GCC or library, but not on newer versions are not uncommon. The fact that source is available is nice, but developpers should always offer binaries.

- Prefering speed over security and reliability. Who cares about a 15% speed improvement on a 3 Ghz Pentium 4 that is used to read e-mails. Linux should be based on a micro-kernel. C should be avoided when possible (I'm a strong supporter of Ada). Binaries should be compiled with most run-time verifications on (it should be the default for makefiles).

- Lack of stability. Minor versions should not include new features. Once again, there should be a leader able to say : Yeah, this feature is nice and we will include it next year with the next major version, but not now.

- Prefering functionality over usability. What good is functionality if no one can understand the interface? This means that interfaces should be designed before the implementation of the functionality. And by interface, I don't mean only GUI. I also mean thinking about how users will backup and restore data and configuration file, how they will be able to export files, how they will install and be able to remove easily the application (which means no scatered files in 7 different directories)...

Do you want me to go on? ;)

Just out of curiosity... what is your project?

woah by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 12:32 · Score: 0

from TFA: my personal mission in life, which is to unseat the Microsoft monopoly

hey buddy, the peanut gallery wishes you the best of luck ;)

Re:Yoper by zaxios · 2004-09-21 12:44 · Score: 1

Could't think of anything for "R" eh?

I don't think he could think of anything for "P", either. Maybe trolling's more difficult than it seems... Nah.

What distros need to do... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 12:52 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yoper sounds neat; and to be honest, all the modern Linux distros I've tried (Mandrake, Suse, Knoppix) work out of the box as long as you're content to use whatever is included in the initial installation.

However, as a desktop OS, there are three things every user needs that no distro provides yet:

1. Easy installation of any Linux software. Don't give me RPM-hell, dependency hell, command-line compiling, proprietary click-n-run depositories, or any other excuses. Only the Mac does it right: you drag the icon to your Applications folder. Voilà. The first distro to accomplish this will be king.

2. Simple, centralized, user-friendly control panels for *everything*, with smart defaults. Why does Mandrake, arguably the most desktop-ready distro, still have printer settings in PrinterDrake, printer settings in the KDE control center, and another panel full of printer settings in the KDE menu?

3. Better support for basic peripherals, like printers and scanners. It's tough shopping for printers at Staples when you know that nothing on the shelf is likely to work.

I'm not saying I have the solutions, but these are major problems that all regular computer users have when grappling with Linux.

Re:What distros need to do... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 13:06 · Score: 1, Interesting

Only the Mac does it right: you drag the icon to your Applications folder. Voilà. The first distro to accomplish this will be king.

Ah, so the first distro who becomes a hardware maker with rock solid control over computer configurations so that every machine looks exactly like every other machine will be king.

Why does Mandrake, arguably the most desktop-ready distro, still have printer settings in PrinterDrake, printer settings in the KDE control center, and another panel full of printer settings in the KDE menu?

Meanwhile, their crack team of software developers will rewrite every application so that they all use the exact same interfaces.

Better support for basic peripherals

While their stealth ninjas will rappel down from Lexmark's skylight by moonlight and steal the secret implementation plans for the top secret drivers.

You may be saying you don't have solutions, but these ARE the solutions.
Re:What distros need to do... by bob65 · 2004-09-21 13:39 · Score: 1

Easy installation of any Linux software. Don't give me RPM-hell, dependency hell, command-line compiling, proprietary click-n-run depositories, or any other excuses. Only the Mac does it right: you drag the icon to your Applications folder. Voilà. The first distro to accomplish this will be king.
That's a very hard thing to do. The closest most distros have come is custom software repositories to serve packages in the right format for their distro. But as long as there is more than one linux, this problem will remain. It requires more then just a distro to solve this problem - arguably, apt repositories or emerge or similar already provide a solution from the distro's perspective. The other parts of the solution are not under the distro's control.
Re:What distros need to do... by Trejkaz · 2004-09-21 13:47 · Score: 1

The main issue here is that for "any Linux software" to work, you either need to statically compile it up-front, or you need all the right versions of all dependencies... or you compile it from source.

But I'm hoping that something like GoboLinux eventually ends up with your "easy installation" paradigm.

At the moment, a set of gobo scripts can fairly easily any app which uses the familiar "./configure && make && make install" mechanism. Applications once installed end up in directories by themselves in the application directory. The only real things missing here are (1) ability to more easily put things wherever you want, instead of in just that one directory, and (2) a quick drag and drop feature which runs the scripts when you drag the .tar.gz into that directory.

Where it falls down is that not everyone uses autoconf, because some people have started to realise that it sucks dick. I would be interested to hear ideas of how things could be properly bundled to work on multiple operating systems, complete with their own instructions for installation. Perhaps store ebuilds inside the tarball?

--
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Re:What distros need to do... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 13:55 · Score: 1, Insightful

" The closest most distros have come is custom software repositories to serve packages in the right format for their distro. But as long as there is more than one linux, this problem will remain."

Perhaps - but if you had a distro that:

1. Used binary packages with all libraries and dependencies included, à la Mac OS X.

2. Kept user-installed apps in an accessible Applications directory, represented like a single icon (again, like the Mac).

3. Was smart enough to compile and build such packages if an RPM or tarball was dragged to the Applications folder. ...then you would have a distro that could conquer Windows. Difficult to do? Undoubtedly. Worth doing? I think so.

And before anyone tells me to "do it myself" or accuses me of not actively participating in the open source world, I do support the best way I can - I buy open source products like Mandrake and Suse, in the hopes that one of them will build a Great Linux Distro one day.

For now, Linux seems to be taking the worst of Unix and the worst of Windows, mixing in some innovative but inelegant solutions, and pronouncing it a desktop OS. Look at who did it right - Apple - and go from there.
Re:What distros need to do... by arose · 2004-09-21 14:27 · Score: 1

Used binary packages with all libraries and dependencies included, à la Mac OS X.
Ugh. Imagine a security hole in zlib. Case closed.

--
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Re:What distros need to do... by William+Baric · 2004-09-21 14:29 · Score: 1

You should ask yourself WHY Lexmark does not make a driver for Linux.
Re:What distros need to do... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 14:39 · Score: 0

zlib is already statically linked everywhere, so what would be the difference?

Besides, OSX apps do not include ALL libraries -- quite a few are part of the operating environment.
Re:What distros need to do... by Daengbo · 2004-09-21 15:05 · Score: 1

Ah, but I don't understand... Lexmark was one of the first printer companies to offer drivers (and now even a developer kit) for Linux. In fact, for many models, foomatic recommends the Lexmark drivers over their own, suggesting you foomaticize them to use CUPS.

--
Put identity in the browser.
Re:What distros need to do... by poptones · 2004-09-21 15:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

1) You are thinking like a geek way too much. Why the hell whould I worry about what folder something goes into? The way software is installed on linux parts of an app go into several different folders anyway.
If you want to make it easy to install software, make a control panel app with some sanity that allows easy selection of all available software. With the exception of having four separate buttons and stupid nagscreen on each ("you just said you want to - install, remove, manage - software... is it ok if we do that now?") mandrake is pretty close to doing this. But you still have to set it up for the package repository, and the search capabilities suck. Both these issues could be fully addressed by someone wiling to create and maintain a proper website dedicated to the task and/or create a better installation panel. But it's already so very close as to be a non issue: how often do you launch software by drilling down to it's folder? I don't ever - if it's installed it's probably on my path, so I just type the name from a command line or the "Run..." box.
2) I recently setup a friend's computer to run mdk10. She's a 40 year old mom of a teenager who spends most of her time online in mud-type forums and playing games, and she got her first system MAYBE ten years ago. The one I was working on is an HP she bought at wal-mart and it's connected to an h-p printer/scanner/copier gizmo she also bought at wal-mart. I ran the mandrake install wizard, and when it was finished I showed her the basics of using her new linux system by scanning a picture of her daughter using the gimp, retouching it to get rid of the scratches, and printing it. The only thing that didn't work was the POS lucent winmodem, which I resolved by setting her up with a new Motorola winmodem that has (proper) linux driver support from motorola.
Lack of ability to do this universally is not a failure of linux - it's fucking amazing it even works as well as it does when you consider nearly every one of those drivers came from someone's individual dedication, not some corporate monkey's need for a weekly paycheck (although that noble volunteer may well be a corporate monkey by day). If you want better linux support for peripherals, get onto the folks at staples and tell them you need shit that works with linux. And when you find something supported by the manufacturer, make sure they know why you bought their product.
Re:What distros need to do... by InodoroPereyra · 2004-09-21 16:01 · Score: 1

I gotta try this weed from Anonymous Smoker really ;-) (no ofense, just kidding)
1. Easy installation of any Linux software. Don't give me RPM-hell, dependency hell, command-line compiling, proprietary click-n-run depositories, or any other excuses.
Use a front end to RPM or .deb - No dependencies hell, no pain at all. In mandrake, Control Center -> Software Management. I just installed skype. It was even easier. I clicked on the link for the rpm on their webpage, which in turn launched the mandrake software installer. I was asked if I wanted to install the package, I said yes, and that was that.
2. Simple, centralized, user-friendly control panels for *everything*, with smart defaults. Why does Mandrake, arguably the most desktop-ready distro, still have printer settings in PrinterDrake, printer settings in the KDE control center, and another panel full of printer settings in the KDE menu?
Use Yast in SUSE or Control Center in Mandrake. Printer Drake is in the Hardware -> Printers sections. You don't even need to know it exists. Oh, and Mandrake has a separate package for the duplicate options between Mandrake Control Center and KDE's one. It's called "kdebase-kcontrol-data". It is not installed by default AFAIK.
3. Better support for basic peripherals, like printers and scanners. It's tough shopping for printers at Staples when you know that nothing on the shelf is likely to work.
True, that's why I vote with my wallet. I bought a lexmark printer and got screwed. Wouldn't even print with generic drivers. I went to linuxprinting.org and I found out that Lexmark doesn't cooperate with the linux printing gurus. I returned the printer and got a HP PSC 1210 multifunction (because the same webpage advises that HP support is excellent in general). I pluged in, powered on, launched the Mandrake Control Center, it autodetected it, it installed all the needed software, and that was that.
Re:What distros need to do... by BrokenHalo · 2004-09-21 16:30 · Score: 1

I could have misread this, but it sounds to me as if Yoper has borrowed Slackware's pkgtools. Not that there's anything wrong with this; the simplicity and robustness of the tgz package format are part of what makes Slackware such a solid distro.
There are lots of people producing i686-optimized packages for Slack (Dropline Gnome is an excellent example), so in this respect I'm not so sure quite what Yoper is offering that is so different.
Re:What distros need to do... by kundor · 2004-09-21 18:51 · Score: 2, Interesting

1. Easy installation of any Linux software. Don't give me RPM-hell, dependency hell, command-line compiling, proprietary click-n-run depositories, or any other excuses. Only the Mac does it right: you drag the icon to your Applications folder. Voilà. The first distro to accomplish this will be king.

Zero-install does exactly that. http://zero-install.sf.net/
Re:What distros need to do... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 22:34 · Score: 0

Use a front end to RPM or .deb - No dependencies hell, no pain at all.

Until you want to install some software that isn't currently packaged for your distro. So you try to compile it from source - but it needs a newer version of a library than the one your distro has. Install that library yourself, and your distro is screwed. Sorry, looks like you can't run that software after all, but can we suggest Tux Racer?

Nope, I'm not impressed by flashy install programs that still only offer outdated versions of the five most popular programs. I want to use obscure software, and I don't want it to break my system.

That's why I use Windows.

No, really.

Cygwin's package management is much closer to what I want than anything I've found in Linux, in that it lets me install libraries from source if I want to without breaking the whole OS in the process.
Re:What distros need to do... by Tim+C · 2004-09-21 23:21 · Score: 1

That's great for people who don't mind downloading applications, but what about people with slow/metered/no internet connections?

Yes, I understand that it caches the app after the first download, but what if that first download is impossible or impractical?

--
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Re:What distros need to do... by Ed+Avis · 2004-09-21 23:29 · Score: 1

Can you explain how the Cygwin installer works?

(FWIW, I usually make the effort to package obscure program X as an RPM myself, it's not hard. Then you keep the benefits of automated dependency resolution blah blah blah, and if the new package is added to a public repository then it's quickly available to everyone else, or to you on a different/rebuilt box.)

--
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Re:What distros need to do... by Mr+Guy · 2004-09-22 01:10 · Score: 1

1. I can give you this, but as others have pointed out, it's the nature of the beast. You aren't going to get a solution that everyone likes. Personally, the Mac way drives me nuts.

2. This is FUD. It gives you more than one place because more than one program has been written to configure the same thing. Use whichever you'd like. Windows XP lets you get to the printer configuration at least four ways I can think of. Control Panel, Start->Printers, File->Print->Properties, System Tray->Printer Icon->{Various}, as well as having different printer setup systems for each printer manufacturer, HP and Lexmark provide their own configuration menus.

3. FUD. Most of what's on the shelf is going to work. It may not be highly optimized or pretty or whatever, but it'll most likely at least give you basic black and white printing. Windows has only just recently gotten their defaults to this point. Typically with Windows if you don't have the driver it refuses to talk at all, at least linux will try basic default drivers, like flat postscript.

--
Never confuse volume with power.
Re:What distros need to do... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-22 01:47 · Score: 0

I pose a serious question.

With the advent of cheap disk space. Why can't we just put dependancys in the same folder of their application.

I mean some dependacys (kde or gnome) would be installed like defualt, and apps would link to them. But would it kill me to have libdvdcss in a few folders.

this is one of the things windows does good. They have a single location for dependacys, but they allow you to overwrite them by putting the dependancy file in the actually application folder. This allows me to have as many versions of richtextbox32.dll as I want.
Re:What distros need to do... by kundor · 2004-09-22 06:36 · Score: 1

AppDirs can be distributed on CD-ROM and retain the same property of "just drag this wherever and run it."
Anyway, people need to get software somehow; it can't just magically appear on their computers. That's not anything specific to zero-install or any other package management solution, so your objection doesn't seem very relevant.

Re:Just use Windows, for Pete's sake by prtsoft · 2004-09-21 12:55 · Score: 1

I'd like to invite YOU to create a virus that will spread like mblaster on linux. It not the user/per virus ratio, its more like, virus/"dumb user and a OS with more holes than swiss cheese" ratio. You would need to be root all the time to have a virus spread like that on a linux system.The average Joe IRunWindows, will see an e-mail saying: "free PR0N!", and think "cool, somebody thought of me, i love spam!" and he will click it. On linux if he does that, it wouldn't matter.

umm...slackware? by flamesrock · 2004-09-21 12:59 · Score: 0

Why choose "yoper" when you have the almighty slackware?! [i]the only thing it lacks is the number of contributers.. comon people.. get in while its hot.. add more brains to this project and make it what it should be.[/i] I've got a better idea: Move the yoper brains over to another distro with similar goals (ie, Ubuntu)

Re:umm...slackware? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 14:00 · Score: 0

why because nothing is allmighty and if you would have tried Yoper you would certainly know that .... troll troll

Too Funny by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 13:00 · Score: 1, Interesting

There's a Google text ad next to the article on linuxforums for the following:

Linux Comparison
Get The Facts: Windows vs. Linux.
Read The Independent Analysis Now.
www.microsoft.com

So let me get this right: if I click on the ad linuxforums gets a dollar or so from Google via MS? The only thing better would be a SCO ad.

Time to throw an extra angle on the /. effect. =)

Re:Too Funny by stratjakt · 2004-09-21 13:07 · Score: 1

You won't do it.

You're too afraid of the FACTS within.

--
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!

Slashdotted... by dan_sdot · 2004-09-21 13:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

Wow. The yoper site is already slashdotted. You would think that they would try to beef up their site before putting it on Slashdot. Where do they think they are going to get most of their users?
I don't think that this is leaving a very good impression.

Re:Slashdotted... by erikharrison · 2004-09-21 13:12 · Score: 4, Funny

Yes, it's totally reasonable for someone to beef up a server in anticipation of a third party putting a link up on slashdot. This is because Yoper stands for I CAN SEE THE FUTURE AND ANTICIPATE THE ACTIONS OF ANONYMOUS THIRD PARTIES![*]

*This acronym is not english of course.
Re:Slashdotted... by kgbspy · 2004-09-21 13:23 · Score: 1

Especially considering the machine itself is running Yoper...

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Re:Slashdotted... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 13:46 · Score: 0

You scking troll. you have not even one single clue on how much a server costs. Yoper is done by one guy and his pocket. So go and give him money or shut up!

Yoper is free and rocks. I love it and all you people slagging other distros off are just good for M$ FUD but a shame to the community as a whole. Go and work for M$. They deserve people like you
Re:Slashdotted... by chadm1967 · 2004-09-22 00:58 · Score: 1

I seem to remember many, many, many other sites not working well for a couple of days after some sort of announcement on Slashdot. Are the Yoper folks supposed to read minds?

Do us all a favor and "think" before you write.......

Kinda like Linspire... by superrcat · 2004-09-21 13:15 · Score: 4, Interesting

with them ripping off icons and interface cues from Mac OS X. I wonder how much longer their site will be around seeing that they are running a trial version of IPB Portal. Let me pull out my venture capitalist checkbook!

Re:Kinda like Linspire... by Bongoots · 2004-09-21 22:47 · Score: 1

[Note: I'm the Yoper.com Site & Forum Administrator]

with them ripping off icons and interface cues from Mac OS X

This was discussed in the last Slashdot article on Yoper nine days ago. That is not our fault, we just modified a panel and use it. The icons came with it. If this really bugs you so much, join our forums and make a suggestion in the 'Ideas and Reccommendations' forum

I wonder how much longer their site will be around seeing that they are running a trial version of IPB Portal.

As long as it takes to unseat the monopoly. That "trial version" is unlimited, but we are looking into buying the full deal. Not just so that we can get rid of the "trial" tag, but so that we can use extra features that Invision Power Services provide.

Let me pull out my venture capitalist checkbook!

Please do. All donations welcome! :)

Re:Just use Windows, for Pete's sake by slug359 · 2004-09-21 13:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

A virus that spreads like like msblaster did is very easily possible, if someone discovered a flaw in a piece of popular software that runs on most linux machines, such as OpenSSH (please don't reply with stuff about openssh running as a user with no access to anywhere on some distros, it can somewhere, or home distros not having openssh, it's an example). You don't need root to connect to an IRC server, and listen for commands to fire packets at people.

Also you mention email worms/trojans, why do you need to be root to start a program that emails everyone in your evolution/kmail/syphleed address books?
All it needs is the ability to connect outwards on port 25 and read your address book, like your email client running as your user does.
It could even drop a DDOS zombie into your home directory that attacks people with your ping binary (forked off multiple times).
Additionally it it could add itself into your bash_profile/x startup file so it starts when you logon.

Yes, it couldn't affect other users on the local machine, but it would still spread and affect the user that opened it, just like running an email virus on Windows as a restricted user would.

Re:Debian is the future by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 13:41 · Score: 0

Not every complaint of mine.

Stable - so far out of date it's not even funny. Useless for me.

Testing - never used it, the software is still too far out of date for my tastes.

Unstable - up-to-date software, broken constantly. When I last tried it they updated KDE... and it wouldn't run after I did an apt-get. Then there was the famous break-in. After two months of a broken KDE I tossed Debian in the trash, where it belongs.

I've been using Gentoo ever since. It has the up-to-date software of unstable, but with the testing of stable. Gentoo rocks!

Danger! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 13:44 · Score: 0

Yoper "is not" a secure distro, use with care! The /etc/bashrc permissions on a default install are 777 (read,write,exec) which means a user can prevent the system from booting properly if he/she chooses to do so. Dont get me wrong, the latest release is a nice distro, just needs to be cleaned up is all.

Re:Danger! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-22 14:23 · Score: 0

Man what a noob /etc/bashrc is a symbolic link to /etc/profile and that perms are -rw-r--r--

You might need a lesson in Linux. Symbolic links are ALWAYS lrwxrwxrwx

Wasted Time by Saeed+al-Sahaf · 2004-09-21 13:49 · Score: 0, Troll

Yes indeed. And what is the purpose of this distro? Is he doing because he is very smart and simply wants to build his own? Does it serve any specialized purpose for which no other distro meets the need? Or, is it simply a "vanity" distro that only serves to muddy the waters of compatibility to further alienate non-Linux OS users? Another fucking distro is not what we need.

This guy should donate his time to another Linux distro in search of purpose, most of which have been mentioned here. Or better yet, look into a much more solid OS, OpenBSD...

--
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck

Re:Wasted Time by trewornan · 2004-09-21 17:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

This is exactly what Open Source is about:
Don't like any of the distros out there - roll your own! Then if you want to you can make it available to anybody else who wants it - very nice of him to do this. Don't like his distro - don't use it! Only like certain bits - take the code for those bits and use it in your own distro or submit a patch for whatever your chosen distro is!

Why is this a problem . . . the more the better, good for him!
Re:Wasted Time by byolinux · 2004-09-21 22:32 · Score: 1

This is exactly what Open Source is about

Open Source? Ugh.

I think the parent's point was that lots of half-arsed distros only tend to flood the minds of people who are coming to free software and GNU/Linux.

I think UserLinux could be really good for this, even it's not GNUserLinux.

--
Join the Free Software Foundation
Re:Wasted Time by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-22 01:52 · Score: 0

normal people know nothing of these obscure distros. you'll be lucky if you can find someone in public that has even heard of linux at all.

let these people experiment and good ideas will rise to the top
Re:Wasted Time by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-22 01:57 · Score: 0

let the market decide. maybe some good ideas will rise to the top
Re:Wasted Time by Saeed+al-Sahaf · 2004-09-23 08:08 · Score: 1

normal people know nothing of these obscure distros. you'll be lucky if you can find someone in public that has even heard of linux at all.
Perhaps. But Linux WILL NOT EVER replace MS as the desktop of choice in Big Business, unless there are standards that enforce compatibility of applications across Linux platforms, and MS will crush commercial and "Average Computer User" (ACU) aceptance over time.

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"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck

Re:Debian is the future by Trejkaz · 2004-09-21 13:49 · Score: 1

Neat, so Debian derivatives now have the ability to compile applications without GNOME support?

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Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!

Re:frost? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 13:53 · Score: 0

Yoper is not a secure distro, use with care! watch out for the /etc/bashrc file. Permissions are set to (read,write,exec) 777 for all users.. Do some nasty stuff in there and you can prevent the system from booting correctly.

Re:Debian is the future by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 13:58 · Score: 0

hahahahahaha debian ain't it since it is the slowest distro on the planet! hahahahaha very funny hahahaha

Yoper Again? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 13:59 · Score: 1, Interesting

Considering that the Yoper people have already told us what they think of us and that we are not their target market, I'm not sure why we're discussing Yoper again...

yoper (site admin): Why bother to be a rude and brainless chicken. Stay away. We do not need you. It might not be Your OS. This is freedom of choice. We convert businesses. We save businesses. You are obviously not a business or in any way our target market. We are a business.

We compiled, tested, packaged, compiled, tested, packaged, compiled, tested, packaged. Until one of you actually tries it how can you even start talking. It is a complete new Linux not based on anything else, targetting the i686 business market. You nerds arenot our business. You nerds are no ones business and this is the reason why as a community we fail to fight M$ properly. After years of dev you could have actually given it an objective go instead of slagging it off and blindly comparing it to slackware only because it was posted on /. in the same article as slackware. Ignorance is bliss. Stay in your matrix and stay blind. This is a business and not a charity organization for brainless and gutless chickens that fill a forum up with junk. Stay with your Linux and leave us alone. Business users need us, since they are sick of YOU. We do not need brainless nerds with too much time on their hand. We need businesses who want to save time and money and save their behind from having to hire you.

Of course, maybe they just think if they delete enough of their own forums, that we'll forget & forgive?

Original link was here.

And the forum where the deletion of the original forum was discussed used to be here.

rho

Re:Yoper Again? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 14:05 · Score: 0

Maybe you are as stupid as your memory, but if you talk about "we" you better go and look for a psychiatrist. Yoper rocks and underestimating it and slagging it off is exactly why that comment you cannot forget is actually appropriate.

Fight between distros is stupid exactly what Andreas said.

You are an ignorant that can only think what he reads and not think what he aquires on knowledge ... I pitty you for dragging up this old story .... you are sure a sad troll
Re:Yoper Again? by Dcnjoe60 · 2004-09-21 14:06 · Score: 1

Everytime there is a a /. article about Yoper, you post the same basic message. I don't know who did what to hurt you, but don't you think it's time to grow up and move on?
Re:Yoper Again? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 14:10 · Score: 0

I totally agree with you all. dragging up old postings is kind of strange .... it seems to me that Yoper has grown and that people can make mistakes. I know for a fact I do plenty ..... and I am kind of sure that I am not the only one :D

bittorrent by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 14:05 · Score: 1, Informative

http://apt.yoper.com/torrent/yoper.torrent

Danger by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 14:14 · Score: 0

Yoper is not a secure distro! watch out for the /etc/bashrc file. Permissions are set to (read,write,exec) 777 for all users.. Do some nasty stuff in there and you can prevent the system from booting correctly. Use with care!

Re:Danger by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 14:20 · Score: 0

You are soooooooo wrong. Yoper uses the /etc/bashrc from gentoo and it is set as

# 077 would be more secure, but 022 is generally quite realistic
umask 022

so what exactly is your problem FUD meister
Re:Danger by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-22 14:26 · Score: 0

You might need a lesson in Linux. Symbolic links are ALWAYS lrwxrwxrwx .... /etc/bashrc is a symbolic link to /etc/profile and that perms are -rw-r--r--

Re:Yoper by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 14:16 · Score: 1

I think the Y in Yoper stands for YOU and Yoper's idea of being Non Elitist. Did you actually read the interview? hmmmmm trolling sure is more difficult than it seems

real time PP200 report by zogger · 2004-09-21 14:16 · Score: 1

This machine I am on is a 200PP and I'm running gnome desktop on FC2 with 224 megs ram just fine. It's a dual CPU mobo but I only have one processor currently (weird one to find used), so I imagine it would run better with the other CPU installed and maxing the ram out. Only issue I finally ran into was installation, up to FC1 starting with RH 7.1 the graphical installer worked, this time I was forced to text based, but after that, it just works.

Currently have moz suite with 21 tabs open (I'm a news and forum junky, yeh),usually not that many though, usually around a dozen, the email is open, running xmms on a low bit rate live talk radio stream,it's fine, got one terminal window running, weather applet, yada yada. Not the most powerful or fast experience, but eminently tolerable. I don't know if broadband would help much, probably, stuck on rural dialup for now. As for apps, I admit open office is teh sux on this thing so I don't install it anymore, and mplayer is mostly unusable, in fact I'll probably not install it when FC3 is released. Xine is so-so but usable. And I know I could pop open a few more apps without much of a loss like irc, etc. I am pretty impressed with linux ability to multi task on lower quality machines, near as I can see, RAM is lots more important than CPU, when I added that last stick of 128 it made it useable, before that, nope. I got a max of 512 I can install but finding antique ram that's affordable ain't happening.

Just checked, mashed reload on a few tabs and opened system monitor, CPU is running at around 40%, RAM is using 165 megs and 99 in swap.

I fooled around with hdparm before but it really didn't amount to much in the way of noticeable difference, of course that could be me not doing it correctly I admit.

OK, not loading tabs and just idling, it dropped to hovering around 20% CPU, 161 RAM and swap went up a scosh to 103 megs for some reason.

and there ya go for a PP200 (IBM box) report

Re:real time PP200 report by GreyPoopon · 2004-09-22 02:06 · Score: 1

This machine I am on is a 200PP and I'm running gnome desktop on FC2 with 224 megs ram just fine.
Can you do a test for me? Could you try stripping it down to 96MB and let me know how it runs? I'm trying to find some inexpensive EDO RAM and not having much success. Before I go dropping money on it, I want to get some idea of the performance impact. I know there will be far less swapping, but I don't want to rely on guesses that all my performance problems will go away.

--
GreyPoopon
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Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?

Re:Debian is the future by Kenja · 2004-09-21 14:16 · Score: 4, Interesting

From three years ago.

"Red Hat is the future. Well, maybe not Red Hat proper, but Red Hat derived distros such as whatever are it. period. Sorry, the games over now. Everything else will fade and Red Hat and it's derived distros are handle every_single_complaint I've ever had."

Sounds silly now.

--

"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"

HLaS by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 14:21 · Score: 0

LoL :-D

rho

Yooper Linux by JoshRoss · 2004-09-21 14:21 · Score: 1

It would come with beer brewing software, roadkill, country western Ogg Vorbi, pickup truck stickers, and GNU Deer Hunter(tm).

Re:Yooper Linux by Brandybuck · 2004-09-21 15:00 · Score: 1

It would come with beer brewing software...

And if it doesn't, you can still get it here...

--
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Re:Yooper Linux by JoshRoss · 2004-09-22 14:08 · Score: 1

That's SWEET! God, I haven't used that word in a while. If you read this message, check out QBrew!

most obvious astroturfing ever by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 14:23 · Score: 0

I'm reading the comments here, and every time anybody says anything negative about Yoper an Anonymous Coward who sounds remarkably like the Yoper guy replies.

Re:most obvious astroturfing ever by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 14:27 · Score: 0

so .. all Anonymous Cowards in here are the Yoper guy. New consiparcy theory .... right ... maybe you think I am the Yoper guy too ... ;)
Re:most obvious astroturfing ever by Dcnjoe60 · 2004-09-21 14:27 · Score: 1

Nothing like posting anonymously to add credibility to your post.

Re:Just use Windows, for Pete's sake by JaseOne · 2004-09-21 14:25 · Score: 1

But how is it executable without a "chmod +x freepr0n.exe"?

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In the drops - An Aussie's musings on all things cycling

One Question by ThoreauHD · 2004-09-21 14:27 · Score: 0, Flamebait

I don't use Yoper, but I'm just trying to figure out something from the responses listed below.

Does anyone here have anything intelligent to say about the topic aka Yoper?

Are you jerkweeds bored, retarded, or just lacking in experiencial knowledge as a whole. I'd like to hear some details about this distro, and not how gay your debian/slackware/gentoo/wtfever 5 years to compile POS OS is. Please advise.

Anyone? Anyone?

Re:One Question by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 14:34 · Score: 0

http://www.yoper.com/forum2/index.php?showforum=28
Re:One Question by AhaIndia · 2004-09-21 14:52 · Score: 5, Informative

I am a Yoper user. I downloaded Yoper 2.1 iso and installed Yoper on my notebook.
Important points about Installation
1) Text base installer
2) Default boot-loader LILO, with Grub as option
3) Partition type can be ext(2,3) or reiserfs
4) there is no step for chosing the packages (mentioned in the article)
Configuration
1) Detects most of your hardware automatically.
2) Launches Sax2 for X configuration (yes, it uses XFree86, not XOrg, yet)
Yoper Desktop
After installation, you'll have a KDE desktop, with (hopefully) all your hardware (network, sound, video etc.) working properly.
First thing that will surprise you, will be the speed. Even an old hardware will become more responsive.
Now you can update the system using apt (Yoper uses RPM packages and apt RPM for easy updates)

#apt-get update #apt-get upgrade

If you want gnome, then

#apt-get install Ygnome

Other information
It comes with...
1) kernel 2.6.8.1-3
2) KDE 3.3
3) Gnome 2.6 (installable from repositories)
4) Sax2
5) YoperConf (configuration utility to manage your system)
6) OpenOffice
...
And yes, it is so fast that I can play quake3 (windows version demo) with wine (not wineX, just simple wine) without any problems.

Some more comments on azeemarif.blogspot.com

--
~Aha~
Re:One Question by Bungopolis · 2004-09-21 17:26 · Score: 2, Informative

There is nothing special about being able to play a Windows binary of Quake 3 with Wine on a Linux machine. Most people report that Quake 3 Windows runs faster with Wine on Linux that it does in Windows. Remember that Wine is not a CPU emulator, it is a compatibility API. Most Windows software runs either faster or at the same speed as it does on the beast itself.
Re:One Question by AhaIndia · 2004-09-21 19:46 · Score: 2, Informative

I was just giving an example.... well, you find my example wrong ...
Ok.. another example ... I used gnome 2.6 on debian (unstable) and it was so slow on my system (not the latest hardware, a PIII) that I used to wait for mouse movements ... but on Yoper it is fast enough to be usable ....
And as the Yoper lead developer says...there is no magic trick.. any experienced linux person could have made debian as fast as Yoper using techniques mentioned in the article.. but Yoper gives this performance out of the box ... and thats my point !!!

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~Aha~
Re:One Question by ThoreauHD · 2004-09-21 19:54 · Score: 1

Thanks for the synopsis. I'll give it a shot myself. And why was I modded as a troll? I wasn't joking. :/ Ah well...
Re:One Question by moooooooo · 2004-09-22 00:51 · Score: 1

Yoper works. That's the key thing. I've been a Mandrake fan for a while, but in Mandrake 10, which i paid for, Totem doesnt work, streaming audio is flaky and videos only work in X-Movie (i think, i forgot its name now i no longer use mandrake).

All of my hardware is detected and works. And it's damn fast too. Noticably faster. Measurably faster.

Specs:
Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 mobo
AMD XP 3200+
1 GB DDR RAM
ATI 9600 XT (3D accelerated)
Sound Blaster Live! Platinum with Live Drive II (which actually works)
2*120 GB Seagates
MachTV BT878-based TV card
Realtek 8169 onboard nic
onboard firewire
usb1/2

fantastic.
Get it via the BitTorrent which is extremely quick.
cheers
peter
Re:One Question by island_tux · 2004-09-22 05:18 · Score: 0

okay, I'll emerge -C quake3 and instead use wine to play quake3...That's so fucking clever !!

--
What Sig

Re:Debian is the future by AhaIndia · 2004-09-21 14:27 · Score: 3, Informative

Here is my experience.... I started using Libranet (a debian derivative) which had some very good reviews. After some upgrade cycles my system just became more and more debian and less Libranet.
Debian is good and number of packges are huge... but then I tried Yoper .... Yoper is way faster than any other distro ... it gives you all you need to start using your destop for your work ....
The packages in Yoper repository are less but all are complied with usual Yoper optimization turned on.. so If I install any package from Yoper repository it wont slow my system down....
Yoper comes with KDE desktop by default... I installed gnome from Yoper repositories (apt-get install Ygnome) just for fun ... and wow .. it was the fastest Gnome desktop I had ever used....
I think Yoper has great future if the team somehow manages to maintain the quality and increase the number of packages available...

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~Aha~

Re:Just use Windows, for Pete's sake by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 14:35 · Score: 0

well,I`m not gonna argue about whether or not MS is more robust of a system, but I would be willing to agree its as good as linux. So why would I go with linux still, well that is easy.

1) if I want it free, I can have it free. I don`t have to pay for something as good as a several hundred dollar OS.

2) If I do pay for my operating system, I get good support. I haven`t ever recieved even half ass support for windows except something along the lines of `just try rebooting and lets make sure you didn`t go into setup and change something`

So really you should be asking yourself why you use windows when you get nothing better and have to pay for it. Frankly, if you are going to say you aren`t responsible for failures in your software then you had either better offer me support or not ask for a lot of hard earned money.

Misunderstood Yoper... by nickgrieve · 2004-09-21 14:36 · Score: 1

So its Your Operating System,.. Here I was thinking it was Yet Another Operating System...

Re:Just use Windows, for Pete's sake by William+Baric · 2004-09-21 14:40 · Score: 1

So you think "average Joe" will become "Joe the expert computer guy" if you put him in front of a linux box?

I just reinstalled Windows for one of client home computer. Before that, I created on his computer a regular account and told him to use that one. But after being annoyed a couple of time with having to login as administrator to install programs, he decided to always login as Administrator. Guess what happened...

Sorry, but I believe "average Joe" will simply log in as root, like he does with windows.

Dual Monitor in Yoper by jeffkjo1 · 2004-09-21 14:41 · Score: 1

I downloaded and have been using Yoper, however, in finally getting my dual monitor support working, I found a new problem:

Whenever I play a video (or visualization in Xine, for that matter), it
shows up, well, squished. Even the 'Xine' logo displays itself wrong.
That is, to say, that all of my videos are essentially only half as
high as they are supposed to be. It's taking my 4x3 videos and
essentially making them 16x9... and my 16x9 videos... well,
ultra-anamorphic.

Even if I switch to full screen mode, everything is still displayed
this way. I've already messed with the settings in the program that
allow you to change the display mode, but to no avail. Being that my
PDF files also display in a similar matter in KGhostview (8x11 pages
are pretty much 11x11), I'm pretty certian it's not an xine issue.

This sound familiar to any new Yoper users?

Re:Dual Monitor in Yoper by smeat · 2004-09-21 18:37 · Score: 1

It is a bug with xine.

Not possible to select display aspect ratio

smeat!

--
"Let's not bicker about who killed who." Monty Python

i would try out yoper if... by clayasaurus · 2004-09-21 14:41 · Score: 1

i can test it out via a live cd and the installation process doesn't destory my /home directory
mepis can do this. yoper, can you?

Re:i would try out yoper if... by LousyPhreak · 2004-09-21 21:51 · Score: 1

thats the usual reason (besides others) why /home should be on its own partition...

--
-- Karma: beyond good and evil - mostly affected by posting political

Re:Just use Windows, for Pete's sake by novakyu · 2004-09-21 14:43 · Score: 1

if someone discovered a flaw in a piece of popular software that runs on most linux machines...

And if I got a dime every time I heard an implausible hypothetical situation...

FYI, my linux box didn't run openssh (or any kind of ssh at all) until the server hosting my website (er... it's a student organization at my school) decided that it will discontinue all "insecure" telnet and ftp services.

In any case, the point is, in order to get rid of that kind of virus, all an admin has to do (at the most extreme case) is "userdel IdiotJoe -r" (and hopefully IdiotJoe didn't have any permission to write anything outside his own home directory and /tmp.)

Re:Debian is the future by Brandybuck · 2004-09-21 14:50 · Score: 1

Sorry, the games over now.

Games? What games? I thought people just chose a system based on what they wanted. Oh well, at least by using FreeBSD I'm not getting all sweaty and stinky in that silly race you think you have to win...

--
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!

Our own worst enemy by thunderpaws · 2004-09-21 14:58 · Score: 2, Interesting

I find Yoper to be a great step in the advancement of Linux. Yoper, Linspire, Mandrake, and others I'm sure are marketing Linux distros that are easy for Windows users to install, use, and upgrade. Andreas has done an outstanding job and should be applauded. I have been very pleased that my wife and some friends are now happily using Yoper and are now free of the horrible frustrations that are Windows. Linux is about choice, and having fine choices such as Yoper for average home computer users should be supported and promoted. While I would prefer that my friends an family were all using Macintosh, I would never advocate they use my favorite PC OS, Slackware. With so many more people using Firefox instead of IE, there is a growing need for consumer level Linux distros. So far Yoper seems to me is one of the best.

Re:Our own worst enemy by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 23:20 · Score: 0

I smell Astroturf.

Re:Just use Windows, for Pete's sake by Dcnjoe60 · 2004-09-21 15:03 · Score: 1

2) If I do pay for my operating system, I get good support. I haven`t ever recieved even half ass support for windows except something along the lines of `just try rebooting and lets make sure you didn`t go into setup and change something`

You left out the second most heard support suggestion--"reinstall windows".

Re:Just use Windows, for Pete's sake by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 15:08 · Score: 0

so dont give out the root/admin password. thats you're own stupid fault.

Oh great... by Spy+der+Mann · 2004-09-21 15:25 · Score: 1

TONS of links in that text, and the REALLY IMPORTANT one is labelled "click here". Please!

Re:Just use Windows, for Pete's sake by Coryoth · 2004-09-21 15:43 · Score: 1

Also you mention email worms/trojans, why do you need to be root to start a program that emails everyone in your evolution/kmail/syphleed address books?
All it needs is the ability to connect outwards on port 25 and read your address book, like your email client running as your user does.

These sorts of examples are exactly why SELinux or similar technology should be pushed as standard in Linux distros. Set up properly such a system would have per process access control, so while evolution/kmail/sylpheed might have access to connect outwards on port 25, no subprocess fired off by users clicking icons would (and it would be possible to have the system warn the user that the process just tried to do so!).

A virus that spreads like like msblaster did is very easily possible, if someone discovered a flaw in a piece of popular software that runs on most linux machines

Again, this is where SELinux would kick in. even if you got a buffer overflow in a piece of software, under SELinux there's no "global authority to do everything" root account, so anything you tried to kick of via the overflow would be denied access from doing pretty much anything. Worst case it might knock over whatever process it exploited to get it. That means you could DoS servers with a hole, but you couldn't write an msblaster style worm.

And SELinux is coming. It didn't make Fedora Core 2 (issues with getting the security policy just right I gather - no easy task I admit), but they're still working on it. Hopefully they'll get it working, because then, finally, Linux will start being almost as secure as all the fanboys like to pretend that it is (but isn't currently).

Jedidiah.

--
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts

Fuckwit by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 15:58 · Score: 2, Informative

Either the interviewer or the Andreas guy is a stupid fuckwit.

1. Stripping does not improve runtime performance. Load performance is only marginally affected. Since the debugging data and comment crap is not used unless you are....DEBUGGING.. it doesn't have any effect on runtime performance. Because, Linux is demand paged, usually the pages of debugging crap won't even get into memory. Now, stripping might still be a good idea if a) you don't care about what you are stripping b) you don't want to waste secondary storage space.

2) Prelinking does not preload libraries, or at least that is a very misleading explanation. Prelinking is simply like a form of caching to get around the slowness of the ELF linking rules. ELF linking is "slow" because the lookup for symbols depends on the link order of the libraries and multiple libraries can provide the same symbol, and the hash function mandated by ELF sucks ass. So prelinking does it once using the general algorithm and essentially saves the results and the checksums for all the libraries. The checksums are stored so that if one of the dependencies changes, the normal slow generalized linking is done and everything still works correctly. Prelinking does affect runtime performance at program start, but it has nothing to do with core loading.

Re:Debian is the future by gujo-odori · 2004-09-21 16:33 · Score: 1

I've been running Debian Unstable for over a year and a half (used to run Stable with tons of backported packages from Sid and eventually just decided to dist-upgrade the whole lot; made managing it easier). I do a dist-upgrade no less than four times a week and usually every day. Twice on a slow day :-) During that time, KDE has *never* broken. I don't know what you did to yours to make it break, but it sure wasn't Debian's fault. Indeed, Sid has been quite stable over the last year and a half. I've never had any serious breakage and not even very much minor trouble.

Right now I have:

-Unstable on my primary desktop machine at home;
- Testing on my notebook;
- Ubuntu on my workstation (a neat distro; a few rocky spots but overall very solid and I think we can expect great things from them).

I tried Yoper on my workstation (had Gentoo before that) and wow, the speed was impressive, no one is exaggerating it. I didn't stay with it for two reasons:

1) It has a relatively small package base, and I'm using to having practically everything available in Debian (over 12,000 packages now, a number that I'm sure will only grow);

2) apt-rpm is a huge boost in the usability of RPM-based distros, adding functionality that RPM lacked for years (I used Red from 4.2 through 7.3, and when I switched to Debian I loved the package management system, it was and is worlds ahead of RPM), however, apt-rpm does not cover all the functionality of a system actually using the Debian package management system. I constantly found myself wanting to use dpkg commands and having to remember various rpm switches instead.

Finally, between the small package base and step backwards (for me, at least) that RPM represents, I overwrote it with Ubuntu after about a week.

If you are a person currently using an RPM-based distro (especially if it's one that doesn't use apt-rpm) and you want to have a very fast distro with the advantages that apt-rpm brings, Yoper is certainly worth a look. It's a solid, fast, and well put-together distribution that you will probably like.

However, if you are currently using Debian or one of its derivatives, you'll probably find that you miss the full power of having dpkg and dselect available (unless you do everything in Synaptic, in which case you'll never know the difference, so go for it).

Here we go again... by BrokenHalo · 2004-09-21 16:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

No, seriously, this guy is either an idiot, or has never really used gentoo.

Another obligatory post from a Gentoo zealot.

I don't have any particular beef against Gentoo (except that I don't use it because I have too many machines with different architectures), but this kind of message strikes me as clawing for trendy-geek points. If you want to be a true geek, you might consider rolling your own (Linux From Scratch, in other words). Following a series of instructions from a recipe-book doesn't qualify.

As far as the individual points you mention are concerned, most are available with any decent distribution, and the remainder are easily implemented from the command-line.

Re:Here we go again... by nyteroot · 2004-09-21 16:55 · Score: 1

Yes, you are quite correct, many of the individual points are available with many mainstream distributions, gentoo included -- something that this fellow claims is not the case. Thus, by illustrating this, you contribute to my point that he is an idiot.
As far as your thinly veiled claims that I use gentoo because it is "trendy", I give you extra troll points for mixing in an ad hominem attack with information that supports my point in a clumsy effort to demean gentoo users. I've tried LFS, and while it was an interesting diversion, I find that gentoo provides all the benfits of LFS plus the added bonus of real package management.
Better luck next time, troll.

--
Ratio of replies to old sig content : replies to actual post content > 0.5. Sig changed.
Re:Here we go again... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 19:30 · Score: 0

oooh! you called him a troll! *giggle-giggle* you are sooo sexy!
Re:Here we go again... by BrokenHalo · 2004-09-21 21:55 · Score: 1

you contribute to my point that he is an idiot...
I give you extra troll points for mixing in an ad hominem attack...
Err, if you go back and read the second sentence of my post, you'll see that I make no particular claims against Gentoo or any other distribution. But in any case, I did not call anybody an idiot, and you did.
If that is not an example of an ad hominem argument, I fail to see what is.
Re:Here we go again... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-22 05:07 · Score: 0

Calling someone a zealot would certainly qualify as an ad hominem.

Re:Yoper by BinLadenMyHero · 2004-09-21 17:14 · Score: 1

Neither for "A".
Duh.

A wish list, you say? Read on. by cbreaker · 2004-09-21 17:15 · Score: 1

I agree that easy installation of software would be nice. However, that's not how most OSS software is designed.

Because it's GPL or whatever, most linux software uses a ton of libraries and other software to operate. Unlike in a Windows environment where each company has to pretty much re-invent the wheel every time, and package up their own (or leased) software to make their package run. Not to mention, Windows itself is a big "distribution" - it includes a lot of libraries and API's.

Because of this, you need pre-req software to be installed in order for the OSS software in question to be installed. Because generally many different softwares from different people share the same libraries, it doesn't make sense to include them in the software itself. They let you get that one on your own, and if it's already there for something else, there's no problem.

It's a different way of developing software, and since there's no single big distribution to hang all Linux software from, you run into issues installing things. Each distribution includes different libraries of various versions.

Hope that sheds some light on it for you..

Point 2, well, with each release of Gnome and KDE, they are getting things "more right." I prefer KDE, but Gnome is great too. They are mature, usuable "desktop environments." Now that a lot of the peices are in place, we're seeing more improvements to UI experience. This is just a matter of time.

Point 3: It will be awhile before any peice of crap hardware from staples will support your OS of choice. It's a Windows world. Deal with it. Make sure your hardware will work before you buy it. And if it is supported, and you need "plug and play" functionality, there's some distributions that are pretty good at it. Sure, it's not perfect, but often the drivers are written by people with no association with the hardware vendors. They do it for free and they do a fuck of a good job. You can't blame Linux for this - and when Linux keeps gaining more acceptance, more hardware at Staples will support it out of the box.

--
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -

Got benchmarks? by Rex+Code · 2004-09-21 18:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

Slack 9.0 is mostly optimized from i386 to i586 depending on the packages, so expect Yoper to be _much_ faster.

Slackware is already optimized with -mcpu=i686, and has been for a long time (yes, even Slackware 9.0). The fact that it also uses -march=i486 really doesn't slow it down, since very few things make use of the extended opcodes.

Since processor optimizations are often touted as a major advantage, I'd be interested in knowing a few programs where the difference between "-march=i486 -mcpu=i686" and "-march=i686 -mcpu=i686" is measurable. I've been unable to find any so far.

Re:Got benchmarks? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 20:57 · Score: 1, Informative

GCC itself seems to be noticably faster with -march=athlon-xp than simply -mcpu=athlon-xp.

I dont know about other archs.

Personal Mission by BillsPetMonkey · 2004-09-21 18:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

my personal mission in life, which is to unseat the Microsoft monopoly.

So it's not to make a grat Linux distro then?

Shame.

--
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax

Re:Personal Mission by littlem · 2004-09-21 23:00 · Score: 1

my personal mission in life, which is to unseat the Microsoft monopoly.
So it's not to make a grat Linux distro then?
Shame.

But if that's the side-effect, do his motives really matter? Look around the web and see how productive people fuelled by hate can be.
Re:Personal Mission by dfj225 · 2004-09-22 00:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

I don't know why so many people make it their mission to defeat Microsoft. I think it sounds really bad when you are asked about your operating system that you are developing and you start spouting off about how Microsoft is evil and they need to fall. To me, it seems childish. If you think Microsoft is evil, thats fine. If you use that as inner motivation to work a full time job, then come home and make a free linux distro, even better because I could probably never do something like that. However, judging by his article it seems like his goal is to make a free version for everyday users and have "enterprise" class software or something more customized for corporations. If I was looking for something to run on my servers, I would probably want a distro that seems like it comes from a professional source, not someone who just wants to topple a mega-corporation. I think he should ignore the success of MS (at least publicly) and concentrate on ways to do something innovative and better than than other distros and better than what comes out of Redmond. Helping this guy with his personal vendetta is not good motivation for me to use his product. Being able to get a great distro from him is.

--
SIGFAULT
Re:Personal Mission by belthezar · 2004-09-22 02:03 · Score: 1

Mod parent up!

I was completely put off by the continual remarks about his sole mission being to "unseat the OS monopoly".

Sorry, not interested! If he had just stuck to telling me why it was such a great OS to try, I'm sure I would have downloaded it to check it out.
Re:Personal Mission by Bongoots · 2004-09-30 21:41 · Score: 1

That is the stepping stone to success - by creating a great Linux distro that is easy to install, configure and use and is also very fast - we're well on the way to achieving this and from then on it will be climbing the ladder to compete with Microsoft and unseat the monopoly :)

Re:Just use Windows, for Pete's sake by BenjyD · 2004-09-21 20:58 · Score: 1

Yes, the "not running as root" argument is a bit silly.

if someone discovered a flaw in a piece of popular software that runs on most linux machines

Of course, we shouldn't get complacent, as this is quite easily possible. But the last OSS-targeting worm was 2 years ago, and it only targeted (IIRC) unpatched apache servers running on FreeBSD. There is sendmail, of course, but the less said about that the better.

The point is, there are many thousands of installations of Linux/*BSD+apache/mysql/postfix/qmail etc out there (more than there are IIS installs) and yet a *much* smaller level of worm traffic.

Re:Just use Windows, for Pete's sake by nutshell42 · 2004-09-21 22:30 · Score: 1

Yes, it couldn't affect other users on the local machine, but it would still spread and affect the user that opened it

It can. IDE I/O saturation (I think scsi would handle this better but I don't know) is the key. I did a test once when k3b was trying to kill my disk by overuse (old version, they were unstable as hell sometimes, and yes I mean the user part not the suid'd cd writing part). It took me almost an hour to change to a different tty, login as root, find out the pid (no killall because kde starts programs with kinit to escape the prelinking hell) and kill it off. On any multiuser system that's almost as good as a crash. Of course it can only go active again when the user who catched it first logs in unless it uses a root exploit

If someone wants to help a clueless person and tells me how to limit the I/O access of processes (something like nice for IDE) I'd be really grateful

--
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage

Love that blatent MacOSX ripoff by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-21 22:55 · Score: 0

Looking at the screenshots, Yoper is a blatent MacOSX rip-off.

The icons are not just emulated but are actually ones from OSX.

Even the Happy Mac is there.

I wonder if Apple have seen this ?

Is this a wind-up ?

Re:Debian is the future by Marrow · 2004-09-21 23:41 · Score: 1

Debian will be in MY future when I can pop in a CD and install the system WITH THE MOUSE, and have it boot into X with all the hardware recognized.

Until then, its just a pain.

and yes, I AM old school and have configured it all by scratch. Its just not fun anymore.

Re:Just use Windows, for Pete's sake by Tim+C · 2004-09-21 23:49 · Score: 1

Well...

a) check your umask setting - I believe that 0200 is default, but YMMV

b) there are Windows viruses/trojans now that spread as an encrypted zip file (to avoid virus scanners) - that requires that the user save the file, open it, type in the password from the email it was attached to, then run the contained executable. They still spread

--
It's official. Most of you are morons.

Re:Debian is the future by clayasaurus · 2004-09-22 00:18 · Score: 1

That's basically what Mepis Linux is (www.mepis.org). It does all that and it's Debian based.

Re:Debian is the future by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-22 00:43 · Score: 0

Knoppix and Morphix are exactly this.

Re:Just use Windows, for Pete's sake by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-22 00:46 · Score: 0

A virus cannot be a spam zombie without root access. SMTP requires port 25, and only root can bind to ports 1024.

Great! by emh203 · 2004-09-22 01:07 · Score: 1

Just what the world needs! Another Linux Distro!

Re:Just use Windows, for Pete's sake by Tim+C · 2004-09-22 01:17 · Score: 1

Since when do you need to open port 25 to *send* email?

--
It's official. Most of you are morons.

Re:Debian is the future by Geek_in_Marketing · 2004-09-22 03:22 · Score: 1

Xandros Desktop does the same.

It took about ten minutes to install and another 30 last week to run a complete update. I love it.

And yes, I know it's got proprietary components, but I really rate it for desktop use.

That said, I'm trying to pluck up the courage to install Debian on another box as a learning exercise!

Neilthemonster

--

"This is your life - and it's ending one minute at a time" - Narrator, Fight Club

memory report by zogger · 2004-09-22 04:53 · Score: 1

Don't even have to take it out I can remember clearly. At just a single 32 meg stick it sucked, it would only run what came with it NT or 95 or 98. 98 was a scosh boggy but ran. 95 is pretty fast really. GUI linux wasn't happening, well, not a gnome or kde desktop or graphical installer, it would choke. I didn't even know about alternative window managers back then and was really chicken to go some leet linux with text, as I am not much in the way of a command line guru, coming from a mac background and not windows or unix. NT4 and 95 ran swell with 32 megs. It came with NT4 installed originally, I bought the machine NIB but old surplus for 125 clams. Literally in the box, still stapled up, got all the everything with it, manuals, etc. Quite happy with it really, besides ram I've only added a slightly bigger used HDD (8 gigs instead of 1.6) and now I have a 40x CD drive instead of the 2x or whatever that was in it, again, used out of junkers. Upping it to 96 megs RAM by adding the 64 meg stick was my experiment to see if the machine was worthwhile for linux. THAT worked.(I buy kingston RAM it works for me always, but do a search for which vendor has it cheapest the day I am looking for it) When I had it like that it ran RH 7.1 and 7.2 and bluecurve 8 just fine, graphical installer, etc. Back then I did a full kitchen sink install, too, everything, but I don't do that now, need the space and don't really ever use 3/4ths of what is on a kitchen sink install so now I just mash custom and pick out what I want.. Adding the last 128 stick made it multi task better, that's about it, which makes it more practical to use. It would still multi task before, but swapped more, but still doable. I never tried RH 9, went right to FC1. I'd say if you can get by with one more reasonably priced stick of RAM go for it. Spending say 40$ clams or so is a lot cheaper than a new machine. Might get you by for a couple few more years, who knows. I know I'm planning on just adding another stick of 128 when I can get it cheap (got one more open RAM slot, so whut the heck...), and if I can find the appropriate CPU and voltage regulator used I'll add that to the mobo. I keep staring at the empty processor slot and I am intrigued, seems like for some purposes it would be much mo bettah to have both, and "just because". I'm beyond a tight budget here so I milk these machines out. I am a FIRM believer in maxing out a machines RAM if possible and affordable, no matter what machine I have done that too it has always dramatically improved performance. Heck, my GF has an old quadra someone gave her for some work, I sent away got more ram, maxed it to 64 megs. It's running Mac classic 7.5 with only IIRC a 25 mghz processor and it surfs like a big dog using iCab browser. And it used to play real audio files as well when you could still find the older codec streams like from Real 2.0.

I think vendors need to ship machines with maxed out RAM anyway, it's like going to get a car and they give you one tire instead of 4 and the rest are "options", it's just bogus, because the vendors are in the best possible volume buying situation to get the RAM the cheapest. I detest getting nickle and dimed for stuff like that. Then later on you go shopping for more RAM and it's ridiculous expensive compared to what it could be.

GPL Purism by wikinerd · 2004-09-22 05:38 · Score: 1

What the world needs is a GNU/Linux distro with *only* Free software (preferably GPL), including Free hardware drivers.

a minor error by alizard · 2004-09-22 12:03 · Score: 1

Most Windows software runs either faster or at the same speed as it does on the beast itself.

A quick look at Codeweavers will reveal that "Most Windows software" DOES NOT RUN on even the commercialware version of WINE. That's why I'm running Win4Lin over FC2.

--
Tech Public Policy stuff

Re:frost? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-22 14:17 · Score: 0

Not true /etc/bashrc is a symbolic link to /etc/profile and that perms are -rw-r--r--

You might need a lesson in Linux. Symbolic links are ALWAYS lrwxrwxrwx

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Interview With Lead Yoper Linux Developer

208 comments