...as long as you aren't trying to break your system by mucking around with things, you don't really need to know or be bothered with where a particular file is stored exactly.
That's the beauty of the Unix way of doing things.
Between PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH, stuff can be quite literally anywhere.
You could even have a different setup for every application if you really wanted.
However, there is something to be said for not trying to "fix" that which isn't really broken.
No. Anything outside of/home is NOT owned by the user.
Basically, I can wipe the system and reinstall it and run "apt-get install firefox" and that will all manipulate the rest of the system that end users never really see or touch directly. That is the system and is owned by itself. It doesn't need to be tinkered with by the end user and it can be easily and trivially rebuilt by any decent package manager. There's no good reason to muck around with it or even to make it easier for some Lemming n00b to muck around with it.
That's the beauty of how Unix files are organized. I can blow away the system owned files and recreate them and "my own stuff" doesn't need to be touched and won't be.
The end user doesn't need to see or be bothered by/usr/bin. All they need to know is what menu to click on to type "kdenlive" and where the "go button" is....total non problem pointless solution to something that didn't need to be solved to begin with.
If you want to have an OpenStep style setup, you can do that quite easily with the current Unix file system layout.
Infact, that's exactly what/opt is for.
Shared libraries "killing FOSS". That's rich. Not only are such things not "killing Linux FOSS efforts", they are also very useful on non-FOSS systems.
This isn't rocket science. Some things the machine should be able to handle on it's own. It's there to enable automation. So automate already. If "professionally developed commercial software" can't do better than a few ill conceived hastily constructed shell scripts, then no one should be making excuses for it.
Cruft simply should not accumulate until the machine stops.
Yeah. The machine should be smart enough to remove stuff it put there itself and hasn't touched in 2 years.
That takes a load off the whole "storage problem" right there.
It''s a lot easier to "get by" with a resource that you aren't really using to begin with. It's like one of my HTPCs that don't even store their apps locally.
It could stand to be a bit more granular than that though.
A MRU per directory could be very handy. Is very handy infact. I have implemented this myself for certain use cases.
Metadata is useful but there's really no good way to handle it that won't break things and serve as a compatability barrier. Simpler abstractions are useful because there are fewer moving parts and less things that can go wrong and fewer options for Vendor A to do something different from Vendor B.
Everyone pointing out how other vendors have already solved this problem is a great illustration of that.
No one believes that propaganda except for pro-Windows platform partisans (Lemmings).
"Normal users" don't even know what's being sold to them. They may or may not even buy into the propaganda based on their own firsthand experiences with Microsoft products.
I chose my current Samsung device based on "specs" and price. It turned out well but I could just as easily defect to a different brand. Android is handy that way.
That's the nice thing about the "open platform" model. I can feel fairly comfortable choosing between any brand out there based on features and price and whether or not I've been burned by them (Asus, Apple) in the past in some way.
I usually compare ARM processors to PC CPUs from the late 90s and early oughts, but I think you attempt to conflate them with the MC68x00 is even funnier.
Any other similar content like books or movies (like my "digital copy" of Clockwork Orange) can be used on Apple devices and Apple devices alone forcing me to buy more Apple devices to deal with a bit of data that should be vendor neutral like the associated BluRay.
Google may have it's problems but at least I don't need to jailbreak my Android to fix basic phone features.
Other vendors like Archos address other needs that Apple refuses to acknowledge.
> Just like any assumption it'll make an ass out of you and m. I'm not trying to pick teams. I have different issues with each modern OS. > > Linux is way too unfriendly and hodge podge
No. It will adapt to you and your data rather than the other way around.
Functionality and transparency won't be sacrificed just to make thinks look deceptively simple.
The only iPhone I would ever tolerate is a jailbroken one, so it doesn't really matter how many extra updates Apple has for me. I would be forced back onto the reservation to use them. Didn't seem that much of a tragedy though (not running the latest and greatest PhoneOS).
My gripes weren't something that a new version of PhoneOS could help with really.
We're fine with the idea that they will try to charge some absurd price for their streaming service and have it be a separate line item.
They are free to mind their "cash flow".
We are also free to dump them (or at least the streaming service).
THAT is business. Netflix isn't a charity. If they can't provide the product at a competitive price, then they will bleed customers. It doesn't really matter if it's their suppliers that are squeezing them. It's really not my problem as an end user.
Netflix is a business, not a charity.
I like them but I won't give them free money.
If they separate their services, it will not be obvious when their streaming selection is no longer lame. People won't have a good idea when it's time to start paying attention to the streaming side of their business again. They will be more likely to forget about Netflix entirely.
> When was the last time you saw every day run of the mill drag and drop to unlock a device?
Since always. The only difference is what form the mouse takes.
This is like any other patent that got granted because someone took something old and added the use of a computer or the Internet.
This one is wrong on so many levels, including the fact that it is nothing more than a description of something. Another fine example what's essentially an "idea" patent.
Your description of Linux actually nicely describes my last Mini. The main difference though that if there is a problem then there is likely a well documented fix. There is a lot more transparency with Linux or even Windows. If something does go wrong, there's a far better chance that you're going to find a usable solution with anything that isn't a Mac.
If you don't just use the machine as a Facebook terminal, "futzing" comes with the territory. That's just what a general purpose machine is.
System76 seems like the "vendor supported Linux machine" that the OP is after.
Slashdot Mirror
I am usually the first to flame Apple but I could see this very well coming to pass.
Apple kit may turn out to be the easiest consumer PCs on which to run the OS of your choice.
Freaky stuff.
...as long as you aren't trying to break your system by mucking around with things, you don't really need to know or be bothered with where a particular file is stored exactly.
That's the beauty of the Unix way of doing things.
Between PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH, stuff can be quite literally anywhere.
You could even have a different setup for every application if you really wanted.
However, there is something to be said for not trying to "fix" that which isn't really broken.
No. Anything outside of /home is NOT owned by the user.
Basically, I can wipe the system and reinstall it and run "apt-get install firefox" and that will all manipulate the rest of the system that end users never really see or touch directly. That is the system and is owned by itself. It doesn't need to be tinkered with by the end user and it can be easily and trivially rebuilt by any decent package manager. There's no good reason to muck around with it or even to make it easier for some Lemming n00b to muck around with it.
That's the beauty of how Unix files are organized. I can blow away the system owned files and recreate them and "my own stuff" doesn't need to be touched and won't be.
The end user doesn't need to see or be bothered by /usr/bin. All they need to know is what menu to click on to type "kdenlive" and where the "go button" is. ...total non problem pointless solution to something that didn't need to be solved to begin with.
If you want to have an OpenStep style setup, you can do that quite easily with the current Unix file system layout.
Infact, that's exactly what /opt is for.
Shared libraries "killing FOSS". That's rich. Not only are such things not "killing Linux FOSS efforts", they are also very useful on non-FOSS systems.
If everyone is supposed to be using the GUI, then monkeying around with old and well understood standards doesn't make much sense.
Unix has always supported an arbitrary and flexible setup for both libraries and binaries. There's simply no need to "simply" things.
This isn't rocket science. Some things the machine should be able to handle on it's own. It's there to enable automation. So automate already. If "professionally developed commercial software" can't do better than a few ill conceived hastily constructed shell scripts, then no one should be making excuses for it.
Cruft simply should not accumulate until the machine stops.
Yeah. The machine should be smart enough to remove stuff it put there itself and hasn't touched in 2 years.
Perhaps she just uses it as a Farmville terminal.
That takes a load off the whole "storage problem" right there.
It''s a lot easier to "get by" with a resource that you aren't really using to begin with. It's like one of my HTPCs that don't even store their apps locally.
It could stand to be a bit more granular than that though.
A MRU per directory could be very handy. Is very handy infact. I have implemented this myself for certain use cases.
Metadata is useful but there's really no good way to handle it that won't break things and serve as a compatability barrier. Simpler abstractions are useful because there are fewer moving parts and less things that can go wrong and fewer options for Vendor A to do something different from Vendor B.
Everyone pointing out how other vendors have already solved this problem is a great illustration of that.
Tablet interfaces are fine for tablet devices.
Knock yourself Canonical. Go after the brass ring in tablets and phones and whatnot.
That doesn't mean it makes sense to force that UI on things that are not tablets.
No one believes that propaganda except for pro-Windows platform partisans (Lemmings).
"Normal users" don't even know what's being sold to them. They may or may not even buy into the propaganda based on their own firsthand experiences with Microsoft products.
I chose my current Samsung device based on "specs" and price. It turned out well but I could just as easily defect to a different brand. Android is handy that way.
That's the nice thing about the "open platform" model. I can feel fairly comfortable choosing between any brand out there based on features and price and whether or not I've been burned by them (Asus, Apple) in the past in some way.
Certainly no worse than latest version of PhoneOS on a jailbroken iPhone.
That's true regardless of your brand fetish.
Android devices have no special advantage here despite the whining you hear from Apple fanboys.
I usually compare ARM processors to PC CPUs from the late 90s and early oughts, but I think you attempt to conflate them with the MC68x00 is even funnier.
> When have geeks been bitten and how?
The wife got caught by the whole music DRM thing.
Any other similar content like books or movies (like my "digital copy" of Clockwork Orange) can be used on Apple devices and Apple devices alone forcing me to buy more Apple devices to deal with a bit of data that should be vendor neutral like the associated BluRay.
Google may have it's problems but at least I don't need to jailbreak my Android to fix basic phone features.
Other vendors like Archos address other needs that Apple refuses to acknowledge.
> Just like any assumption it'll make an ass out of you and m. I'm not trying to pick teams. I have different issues with each modern OS.
>
> Linux is way too unfriendly and hodge podge
No. It will adapt to you and your data rather than the other way around.
Functionality and transparency won't be sacrificed just to make thinks look deceptively simple.
> And going with a locked-down, Microsoft-created format is better how, exactly?
It's not better, just the same.
Yeah but wasn't this supposed to be measuring the efforts of "first time users".
Maintaining someone else's code is an entirely different problem.
Trying to sort out someone else's code is generally a scary experience across the board. You can make spaghetti out of any language.
The only iPhone I would ever tolerate is a jailbroken one, so it doesn't really matter how many extra updates Apple has for me. I would be forced back onto the reservation to use them. Didn't seem that much of a tragedy though (not running the latest and greatest PhoneOS).
My gripes weren't something that a new version of PhoneOS could help with really.
We're fine with the idea that they will try to charge some absurd price for their streaming service and have it be a separate line item.
They are free to mind their "cash flow".
We are also free to dump them (or at least the streaming service).
THAT is business. Netflix isn't a charity. If they can't provide the product at a competitive price, then they will bleed customers. It doesn't really matter if it's their suppliers that are squeezing them. It's really not my problem as an end user.
Netflix is a business, not a charity.
I like them but I won't give them free money.
If they separate their services, it will not be obvious when their streaming selection is no longer lame. People won't have a good idea when it's time to start paying attention to the streaming side of their business again. They will be more likely to forget about Netflix entirely.
...except that tosses any advantage that Netflix had straight out the window.
Don't like the slow turnaround of the USPS? Then use streaming if available.
Don't like the weak streaming selection? Then use the disk service.
It was the perfect set of tandem options that could cover everything and take up the slack for the flaws of either.
As long as Netflix has another option, they can always turn their back on a bad deal.
> When was the last time you saw every day run of the mill drag and drop to unlock a device?
Since always. The only difference is what form the mouse takes.
This is like any other patent that got granted because someone took something old and added the use of a computer or the Internet.
This one is wrong on so many levels, including the fact that it is nothing more than a description of something. Another fine example what's essentially an "idea" patent.
Your description of Linux actually nicely describes my last Mini. The main difference though that if there is a problem then there is likely a well documented fix. There is a lot more transparency with Linux or even Windows. If something does go wrong, there's a far better chance that you're going to find a usable solution with anything that isn't a Mac.
If you don't just use the machine as a Facebook terminal, "futzing" comes with the territory. That's just what a general purpose machine is.
System76 seems like the "vendor supported Linux machine" that the OP is after.
...what exactly do you want to run in terms of Mac software.
That doesn't seem to be addressed at all in the original question.
It seems like this guy doesn't want or need a Mac as such at all. They just want a vendor supported FreeBSD box.
All the other "bells and whistles" are entirely gratuitious.
They might be better off with a Solaris laptop if there were such a beast.
...yes because no one every did anything like an "app store" before.