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On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 12:26:04 -0800 |
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Mark Knecht <markknecht@×××××.com> wrote: |
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> On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 1:21 AM, Alan McKinnon |
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> <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com> wrote: <SNIP> |
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> > Life is full of silly and not-so-silly conventions and /dev/dvd is |
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> > one of them. It has no good reason to be there, and equally no good |
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> > reason to not be there, but you already fixed your stuff to make it |
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> > do what you want. |
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> <SNIP> |
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> > -- |
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> > Alan McKinnon |
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> |
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> Alan, |
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> Maybe in the future you'll consider this story: For your |
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> entertainment, please imagine an 82 year old woman who, unknown to |
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> anyone, has somehow gone beyond simple web browsing and email and |
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> managed to teach herself to watch a DVD on her Gentoo laptop. Possibly |
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> she is hard of hearing? This works well for her as she can use |
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> headphones and listen at levels that work for her any time of day or |
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> night. Once you get your head around that picture, please imagine this |
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> user being frustrated for _months_ when her 'no good reason to be |
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> there DVD' goes away. This user feels, for no good technical reason, |
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> that she has somehow hurt her computer and worse worries about the |
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> costs of fixing it. She remains silent, doesn't ask for help and loses |
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> access to something that she enjoys all because someone in the dev |
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> community decides to 'make a change'. |
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I see what you want to communicate with that story, it's just not a |
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circumstance unique to Gentoo or even Linux. All computers and all |
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operating systems that upgrade go through the same thing, be it |
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Windows, Ubuntu, MacOS, Android, iOS, the other IOS, the whole lot of |
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them do this and break stuff if you let them update. MacOS has most |
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certainly got to be the worst - they almost have an official policy to |
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break APIs wantonly for fun and never supporting the breakage past the |
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next version. Windows fares best as the corporate customers insist of a |
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large measure of backwards compatibility. |
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|
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Unfortunately that is the nature of today's connected world. |
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|
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There is a way around it though, which is to not update the software |
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and apply only bug and security fixes. Think Ubuntu LTS here - that |
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would nicely solve the problem for the non-tech-savvy 82 year old and |
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it's a good compromise: no sudden unexplained changes together with a |
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good degree of safety |
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|
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But for your own use you have chosen Gentoo with it's implicit agreement |
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that you will keep both pieces. You've always been upfront about your |
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use case and why you chose Gentoo, and I took notice. It's now quite a |
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few years down the track and you are still here. The ricers have all |
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come and gone[1], but Mark is still here. Apparently Gentoo still suits |
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his needs for the most part, and he's dealing with Gentoo just fine. |
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|
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|
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> Not every user (of Gentoo or any other distro) lives in the |
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> rarefied world of a Linux Sys Admin, much less the far more lowly and |
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> infinitely more mundane world I inhabit. My experience is that people |
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> almost always need a little help and almost never ask. |
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I'll tell you a short story in return. Over the festive period I had |
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need to describe myself briefly. Without thinking I blurted out |
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"Borderline bipolar, OCD and somewhat Emo...". |
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I'm not really into self-diagnosis, but that description seems to fit. |
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I know I shoot my mouth off too often, but you shouldn't take it |
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personally. Software is engineering - there's a few ways it can be done |
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right, and lots of ways it can be done wrong (all fully documented...). |
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When I talk about these things I usually forget I'm talking to people, |
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not machines. So I apologize for my tone - I could have said the same |
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thing in a very different way and gotten a very different result. |
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I would so much prefer to not draw comparisons between sysadmins and |
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users - experience teaches that nothing good comes out of that. If you |
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describe yourself as a regular user then that's cool by me, I'd just |
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like to point out again that many years later you are still here and the |
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ricers aren't - that's gotta count for something. |
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For my part, I think you contribute more back to this community than |
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you might give yourself credit for. "Mere user" is not a good |
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description of where you fit in |
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[1] I'm not sure where that crowd all went.... they migrated en-masse |
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to Ubuntu a while back, then to Fedora. I think they might be hanging |
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out at Arch currently... |
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-- |
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Alan McKinnon |
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alan.mckinnon@×××××.com |