Re: [gentoo-user] from Firefox52: NO pure ALSA?, WAS: Firefox 49.0 & Youtube... Audio: No

[Alan McKinnon]

On 26/12/2016 20:35, lee wrote:
> Tom H <tomh0665@×××××.com> writes:
>
>> On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 9:07 PM, lee <lee@××××××××.de> wrote:
>>> Tom H <tomh0665@×××××.com> writes:
>>>> On Mon, Dec 19, 2016 at 3:07 PM, Daniel Frey <djqfrey@×××××.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> It is even more frustrating that these so-called predictable network
>>>>> names actually can change on a reboot, it's happened to me more than
>>>>> once when multiple network cards are detected in a different order.
>>>>
>>>> >From Kay Sievers in [1]:
>>>>
>>>> <BEGIN>
>>>> Btw, predictable means it will not change between reboots, that names
>>>> will not depend on enumeration order within the same setup. It does
>>>> not mean or promise, that added kernel/driver/firmware features will
>>>> not result in different names. That is expected behavior.
>>>> </END>
>>>>
>>>> [1] https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2015-October/034614.html
>>>
>>> So the names will not change when rebooting and are to be expected to
>>> possibly change at any time.
>>>
>>> How is that more reliable?
>>
>> It's more reliable than using the kernel's names because the names
>> won't change UNLESS there's kernel/driver/firmware change for that
>> NIC. I doubt that these changes occur that often. Perhaps someone else
>> knows.
>
> What happens more often:  That a network card is replaced with a
> different one or that the software changes?
>


OK, let me try explain this again.

NIC names are tricky, several posters (myself included) have laid out
various methods and options by which it can be done. Experience shows
that in real life the simple traditional names are easy to remember but
prone to changing and (worse) prone to race conditions. Other methods
change less often in reality but the names are somewhat trickier to
remember.

Opinions on these things differ; experience on these things differ and
people's use cases on these things differ greatly. A coder working in
this area has to decide what sort of cases they want to support, what
problems they want to attempt to solve and what new features they want
to introduce; then they have to write the code.

Once the code is written, the coder then has to decide what nomenclature
to use when describing the software and the effects it has. In this case
centered around systemd a word was chosen: "reliable".

Some will think it's a good name, some don't care, some will think it's
a bad name; and all of those things are basically irrelevant because the
name doesn't tell you much abut what the software will do. Reading the
fine manual will tell you that. It's all a part of being human because
our languages are imprecise, heavily overloaded and hugely redundant. So
are our spellings. But we are stuck with it because that's the general
emergent behaviour of a homo sapiens brain.

Arguing abut this is about as nonsensical as arguing about whether "lee"
is a good handle on a forum or not. To a pedant it's a bad name, one
can't tell if you are male, female or if it's actually an Asian family
name....

Or one could do what most folk do, and not see a problem with 3 letters

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@×××××.com