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On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 4:12 PM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com> wrote: |
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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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> |
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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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> |
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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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> |
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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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> |
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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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> |
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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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> |
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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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> |
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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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|
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I must have arrived after the ricers left, but I'd like to note that |
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both Mark and Dale fall into that group of "don't think they're all |
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that special"...but they still use a distro that requires you learn, |
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pay attention and *think* more than any other distro I know of. |
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|
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I can't think of a type of 'mere user' I'd rather have to deal with, |
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as a technical guy who dislikes people who regularly throw their hands |
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in the air and claim helplessness. Just by using the systems they use, |
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attacking the problems they attack...and remaining successful as they |
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do, they're head and shoulders above a lot of people I've known who've |
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merely 'claimed' to be technical. |
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|
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-- |
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:wq |