Emacs is a working environment, not a utility
on
RMS Responds
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Typical Unix programs are small and have a very specific purpose. This makes them easy to maintain, understand and integrate with other programs.
Yes, if you mean utilities like sed and cat. Emacs is not that kind of program. It is the kind I start up within 1 minute of booting and interact with until 1 minute of shutdown.
It makes more sense to compare Emacs with X, KDE, or Netscape (or even, maybe, MS Word) than to compare it with grep or ls. Of course, you are perfectly free not to use any of these environments if you don't want to.
For maximum learning value, start with a libc5 system and refuse to put anything but glibc on the new partition.
Create a partition, put in/tmp/mnt/dev/proc (any others?). Also you may need to create/bin/sbin/var/usr if no package is bold enough to do it during installation. Give/tmp the correct permissions. Run/dev/MAKEDEV in your new/dev dir. (Look at MAKEDEV for bonus points.)
Then have a look at ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/. You can get most of the packages you need there (including glibc). You don't need a boot disk, you can just use lilo. Lilo, things like mount, and a few other Linuxy packages are not on the GNU site, you need to find them on ftp://metalab.unc.edu/. I remember using util-linux and smallutils (hate GNU false, which returns true when given the --version option).
Build and install enough to get a development environment. This includes at least glibc, gcc, binutils, make, sed, sh-utils, bash, (diff?), fileutils(?), grep, gawk. I am surely forgetting some. But if I told you everything, there would be no challenge, would there?
As someone else pointed out, most GNU packages can be installed onto a new system whose root is not mounted on/. For those that can't, you have to play games.
If you do have a purely libc5 system to start with, you will have to figure out how to build packages that will work with your new glibc libraries. It is possible to figure out how to do this. The glibc2 faq is helpful. I did it by installing glibc2 under/usr/local on the original system and building a gcc that used it. I may have played with the gcc specs file too, I don't remember.
Always worry about what permissions and ownership the files and directories have.
If you get lost along the way, give up. About three weeks after my installation, when I found myself mounting/usr/X11R6 by NFS over a PLIP connection, I realized it was time to install Debian.:-)
It's not all that hypothetical.... If you're willing to brave an alpha version, have a look at Perlmacs. I expect to have a new version out RSN. It's getting stable enough to call beta.
[I]f text-editing software built by hackers for hackers (such as Emacs) is any guide, average consumers and programmers may have almost antithetical ideas of what elegant, useful programs and documentation look like.
He seems to imply that "programmers" should adjust their ideas to be more in line with those of "average consumers". Wouldn't the world be better off if the reverse happened, and the median computer literacy level permitted one to use Emacs productively?
Slashdot Mirror
This appears to be the one they mean: http://www.patents.ibm.com/detai ls?pn=US04807182__ Says it was filed on March 12, 1986. Prior art, people?
Yes, if you mean utilities like sed and cat. Emacs is not that kind of program. It is the kind I start up within 1 minute of booting and interact with until 1 minute of shutdown.
It makes more sense to compare Emacs with X, KDE, or Netscape (or even, maybe, MS Word) than to compare it with grep or ls. Of course, you are perfectly free not to use any of these environments if you don't want to.
For maximum learning value, start with a libc5 system and refuse to put anything but glibc on the new partition.
/tmp /mnt /dev /proc (any others?). Also you may need to create /bin /sbin /var /usr if no package is bold enough to do it during installation. Give /tmp the correct permissions. Run /dev/MAKEDEV in your new /dev dir. (Look at MAKEDEV for bonus points.)
/. For those that can't, you have to play games.
/usr/local on the original system and building a gcc that used it. I may have played with the gcc specs file too, I don't remember.
/usr/X11R6 by NFS over a PLIP connection, I realized it was time to install Debian. :-)
Create a partition, put in
Then have a look at ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/. You can get most of the packages you need there (including glibc). You don't need a boot disk, you can just use lilo. Lilo, things like mount, and a few other Linuxy packages are not on the GNU site, you need to find them on ftp://metalab.unc.edu/. I remember using util-linux and smallutils (hate GNU false, which returns true when given the --version option).
Build and install enough to get a development environment. This includes at least glibc, gcc, binutils, make, sed, sh-utils, bash, (diff?), fileutils(?), grep, gawk. I am surely forgetting some. But if I told you everything, there would be no challenge, would there?
As someone else pointed out, most GNU packages can be installed onto a new system whose root is not mounted on
If you do have a purely libc5 system to start with, you will have to figure out how to build packages that will work with your new glibc libraries. It is possible to figure out how to do this. The glibc2 faq is helpful. I did it by installing glibc2 under
Always worry about what permissions and ownership the files and directories have.
If you get lost along the way, give up. About three weeks after my installation, when I found myself mounting
It's not all that hypothetical.... If you're willing to brave an alpha version, have a look at Perlmacs. I expect to have a new version out RSN. It's getting stable enough to call beta.
He seems to imply that "programmers" should adjust their ideas to be more in line with those of "average consumers". Wouldn't the world be better off if the reverse happened, and the median computer literacy level permitted one to use Emacs productively?
True, Red Hat Linux is 10 yrs from threatening MS, but by then everyone will be using Debian. :-P