Re: [gentoo-user] Removing pulseaudio

[Mark David Dumlao]

On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 3:17 AM, Walter Dnes <waltdnes@××××××××.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 11:48:07PM +0800, Mark David Dumlao wrote
>> Analogy:
>> 99% of people aren't going to need a11y. But the whole point of
>> installing it by default on most desktop systems is that you can't
>> predict who will need it,
>> and _it does not harm_ (or very little harm) > to the people who don't.>
> [ list of pa horror anecdotes ]
>   And a Google search turns up a lot more cases.
>> So your tradeoffs are:
>> A) no a11y unless elected by user:
>> - for the 1%: a11y is a pain to install
>
>   How "painfull" is it to add "pulseaudio" to USE in make.conf and then
> emerge --changed-use world
>

So how "painful" is it to not add pulseaudio to your USE flag? You're
comparing a gentoo user's experience, where we willingly wade in stuff
to fix, to, say, an gnobuntudora user's experience, where all of this
is automatic and made to "just work"... I wouldn't be surprised if the
horror stories had to do with configuring the damned thing. It's
actually interesting how dated (read:solved) some of the lag issues
are when I _do_ google them which is revealing....

>> because the user might not even be able to see the screen (very big pain)
>
>   Are you seriously arguing that a linux system will black-screen at
> bootup due to lack of pulseaudio?

See my previous message: no. I'm arguing that a very simplistic take
on "more complexity = automatic bad" is misguided.

>   That is a strawman argument that avoids the question.  This is *NOT*
> about "a few megabytes" of disk space.  It's about an extra layer on top
> of the system, chewing up memory, slowing it down, and interacting with
> other software to cause problems.  *THAT* is what it's about.

The "extra layer" that eats up so much memory (megabytes), slowdown
(megabytes!), and software bogging (more megabytes!) that it's a
wonder why anybody's desktop works as is. Oh wait.

YES it is entirely about a few megabytes you don't like. A few
megabytes that OTHER people choose to put on THEIR computers to NO
effect on yours. Even your sig betrays your bias.

> --
> Walter Dnes <waltdnes@××××××××.org>
> I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
>

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