h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, it seems that more of L.U.G's are showing up around the H2G2 halls. It' a very good thing to see. I'm a Slack guy and swear by it. I agree that the "my-OS-is-better-than-your-OS" arguement is worthless. Though I can't wait for the Windozes domination to be over, I'm going to say that Linux is not for everybody yet. The day it becomes a point-and-click OS, it's going to take over the desktop market(if they can keep it as stable as it is now) I don't think that a p-a-c interface is the way to go(you lose the understanding of how a computer works and comunicates with the software) but that's my opinion.

Long live Tux

This is just the kind of thing the Ministry is hoping to promote. Excellent. Slack 7 is an excellent distribution, but you're right that Linux isn't for everyone. At the moment I can barely use it at all because of the horrendous state of the XFree86 Voodoo4 drivers. 3DF/X really need to get their act together on that.

May Tux live forever!

Yeah, voodoo is a pig to get working. Lucky for me I don't own one I agree with you that there needs to be a consensis(my bad spell) reached to get some of the issues(gnome vs kde vs cde) setteled.

CDE's effectively dead, in the Linux world anyway.
I think we should have both Gnome and KDE. More interoperability like with drag'n'drop (incidentally, Gnome uses the previously defined "standard" way while KDE doesn't, or so I'm told) would be good. And if Qt actually looked good...
I'm a Gnome fan, big-time, but I'm happy to have both (or more) because it creates competition and faster feature development. Look at Microsoft - enjoying a virtual monopoly means they don't seem to care about bugs and features anymore. Just money. Linux developer's can't be motivated by profits, as there aren't any, so instead they have to be driven by the threat of losing their backing to another project.

Isn't linux wonderfull. An operating system that actually works (mostly).
It is starting to develope one small set of problems however, it is falling into the same trap re gui's as microsoft fell into.
When gui's were invented at xerox parc, they were intended as shortcuts and front ends to command line tools. This kept the power of developement and automation in the command line, while letting any fool who can point and click use a really complex tool.
When microsoft & others stole most of the idea, they forgot this, and now the linux comunity is doing exactly the same thing.
If you keep the functionality in a command line tool, and then have a graphical front end to it, for most projects this results in better code on both the command line and in the gui.
There are some things where you can only sensibly use a gui to do them, but they are very few at the moment, and the silly situation that I found recently of being advised by perfectly sensibly programmers to install kde & then use kppp just so that I could use an old 386 I had lying around spare as a mail server points to the problem rather nicely.
I was expected to install 200Mb of code, so that I could use a single tool that should have been integrated into linuxconf anyway. Then having kppp as a front end to it might make sense.
There seems to be this attitude of down with bloatware (I agree), unless it's part of our new super snazzy all singing all dancing gui (or worse IDE). By keeping the control element on the command line, you make things easier to automate, while the gui allows for improved ease of use. It also aids in the debugging of the code, as you can check what the gui is trying to do, try it on the command line, and if it works there, the fault is in the gui, if it doesn't, the fault is either in the command line program, or in the documentation.
The other slightly suspect thing that was noticed from this farsical config advice, was that the RPM system was not being used properly by either KDE OR GNOME.
Both insisted on installing lots of sound processing applications, despite being told at the start of the install that there was no sound card in the machine.
RPM's can easily be made properly, can contain proper dependency information, and can insist on only having to install the other RPM's that the program you want actually needs.
The IDE(GNOME/KDE) situation is starting to get almost as bad as microsoft instinsting that you install internet explorer and outlook express, even though the machine has no modem.
Only one other tiny point. A freind of mine bought a linux for "name excluded to protect the guilty" book which included the cd to install the distribution. It stated quite clearly in the book, that their kernel would run on a 386 with 2 meg of memory, but when he couldn't get it to work, and brought it to me, the install routine to install this tiny kernal needed over four meg of memory to not completely crash the machine, and this was even before it got to the point of asking him any questions. THIS DOES NOT HELP!!!!!

On positive points, I think Slakware have it right in keeping its aplications small enough to fit on a few floppy disks, Debian has it right in giving you a minimal working and stable install, and letting you add any extras that you need after that, and Definate and Mandrake have got it right in having a graphical front end to this install process.

Why can't the makes of distributions look at what the others are doing right, and adopt best practice, rather than just repeating microsofts mistakes.

PS anyone here know how to get some legacy NE2000 network cards to stop defaulting to twisted pair, and to use the BNC socket instead, without having to get hold of the unobtainable dos setup tools that is. Any help would be thankfully received, as this NE2000 problem is stopping me from getting my beowulf cluster up and running.

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I disagree. Partly.

Yes, Gnome and KDE are big, and I agree that they shouldn't depend on sound libs. But they do. If you compile it from source, it won't compile without the sound libs present, so it's not the fault of the person who makes the RPMs (which you shouldn't be using anyway. Compile it yourself). But you don't have to install all the applications, and you don't have to install them at all really. Linux is not heading towards Microsoft-like bloating - not compulsory bloat, anyway. And the Gnome code to make a Windows-like interface is still smaller than the Microsoft version.

It doesn't help that most Gnome distros use Enlightenment, the most bloaty window manager in the world. Try Sawfish if you're running a Gnome desktop - it'll speed up noend.

Most tools still come on the command line - things like the Gimp obviously can't run in text mode, but many things do. There's no requirement to use any graphical configuration tools - I think even Gnome and KDE's configuration files are human-readable.

The system requirements in that book are stupid, but you can't blame the authors of the software for the book's publishers printing misleading or incorrect information. Just as we can't blame Linus for Microsoft's "Linux Myths" page which is actually quite amusing, mostly focussing on "Oh, more people use Windows NT so it must be better" and "Just because Linux is free doesn't mean it costs less".

And as for attracting Windows users - that's what distributions like Mandrake and Red Hat are for. Nice installers, package management and automatic configuration. Linux needs to keep the variety - from the very simple text console system running on a 386 to a whizzy Gnome session on a quad Athlon.

Umm, I'm going to agree whole heartedly

Good for you!

Weeeeelll, I think it will take a lot to tempt me form my Mac, but it would take almost nothing to persuade me to ditch that buggy Billware in favour of something more penguinesque.

Well if you get a hefty enough Mac you can run Mac OS X which is basically UNIX anyway... I think it's great! Now if they'd only port the MacOS GUI to Linux... if they've got it to run on the BSD-based Mac OS X then it should be possible to make it work on Linux...

Hence OS X - it's just a flavour of X, under the rather attractive skin. I'll be running OSX when I can get the public beta to load on my old beige G3.

I thought it ran like a drain on anything other than a whizzy G4? People have been moaning about all the graphical tweaks that slow down Cubes...
The Linux version would have to be more turn-offable.

I don't know, because it Panics on my G3.....

Dear Patron, Keeper and Defender of the Superior OS,

I already joined the winning OS and I'm glad to see that our number here at H2G2 is growing and growing...as it is out there, in the world. The Gates-tyranny will soon be over! If you ever set up an army to fight against the last bastions of ignorance, just call me, I will gratefully join your troops and be your brother-in-arms.

Greetings from the other end of the world,

Kazuya

Other end? Are we going to campaign across the face of it and meet in the middle then?

Anyone who thinks the Ministry should organise a Bill-bashing expedition, please vote here.

We've already met in the middle, didn't we?

Loyal Linux greetings

Kazuya

Well let's go back to the start again and see if we can do it again shall we?

Hello, I thought this might be a forum I should post in, so here I am. And I swear by Red Hat

So do I, except when I swear at it (or any of the other distro's that I find myself using).
I just wish that they would all get together, and come up with a common install routine, so that you can get a minimal install running on just about anything, and work from there.