For crying out loud

When I read rubbish like this http://www.zenofnptech.org/2008/06/linux-desktops.html I have to question that users ability. From reading his less that truthful rantings one must question which distribution he used. If it was one of the Ubuntu family then I can understand why he writes what he does. My wife and eldest lad both use Ubuntu so I can testify to how unstable they can be, unless, one has a sysadmin around that has years and years of experience, such as myself, who can tame the beast so that EVERYTHING works as it should. Wireless, video, software integration all work just fine as long as one has the ability to tame it, which I do. The same applies to just about every distribution out there.

One has to realise the machines that come pre-installed with MS Windows are setup by professionals so that every piece of hardware that comes with the machine works perfectly. A linux based install however rarely has that luxury. Instead people who try a Linux based distribution usually install it themselves on hardware that was designed for the Microsoft operating system and they wonder why something do not work? Well, do not work out of the box but can be made to work with a little ability in hand. Perhaps, that is the authors reason for writing his FUD? He has a machine designed for the Microsoft operating system and then goes on to complian things do not work out of the box with a Linux based operating system.

For what it is worth i have never, ever, bought a pre built machine. I have always cobbled my own together from hardware bought on a whim and I have yet to find any hardware, wirrten to specifications, that has failed to work. My current machine is an AMD x4 Quad Core Phenon with an nVidia 8600 GT and 4 GIG odf RAM. Sound is via a Creative Audigy LS. My mobile telephone connects via USB and is instantly recognised by the running kernel and udev automatically sets up the devices (yesm two of them, one for the MicroSD card and the other for the internal operating system layout. With a 2.6.x.x kernel and the relevant backend tools installed it all happens automagically. I honestly have never hit the problems that author claims to have hit, no matter what I have plugged into the machine. I do not go out of my way to find only Linux compatible hardware either. I buy hardware I want to use and 100% of the time within a matter of seconds I am using said hardware. So,  what he claims is pure FUD aimed squarely at the Microsoft fanboys and girls.

So, I read that rant above, and his others on the same topic, and come to the conclusion it is yet more FUD spread about by paid Microsoft shills. I do sometimes wonder what Mcrosoft are scared of. It cannot be the fact that Linux on the desktop is almost there for normal users could it? It couldn't be that people like the guy above takes backhanders to spread Microsoft FUD, could it? It couldn't be that the Linux Desktop is now so usable that even Granny Smith could use it, could it?

Sure there are things that could be better but that does mean they are broken.

I have to question the authors ulterior motives in writing what he wrote. All I see on page after page is FUD. Pure, unadulterated FUD.

Microsoft are running scared that is for sure and as long as people like that author are willing to help Microsoft spread their FUD then Linux on the desktop will struggle to gain wider acceptance. With more and more box shifters selling machines with a Linux distribution pre-installed   Linux on the desktop will make more and more inroads into former Microsoft territory.

Slackware free.

In times past every single one of the 12 machines in our house had Slackware, or a port of it, in use. Only one of those machines was set up to dual boot MS Windows XP and Slackware, the rest where pure Slackware machines. The dual booting machine is our middle sons machine. He is learning about a Linux based operating system but loves to play the odd MS only game, as he learns and I show him Wine/Cedega and KVM's abilities to play his favoured games on he is finding that he is using the MS side of his dual booting machine less and less. One area that is not yet fully doable on the Linux platform that he likes to play is Silverlight embedded on-line games and it is those, and those only now that Wine/Cedega play his favoured games as they play under an MS operating system, that makes him keep MS around just a bit longer until Mono's Moon shines in a fashion that makes the Silverlight experience not just an MS Windows one. My eldest lad, now 10 years old, started on slackwae 3 years ago and last year he made his own choice to move to Ubuntu "because on Ma's machine it looks easier to administer". So, he too smelled the coffee and after I watched him install Ubuntu so he made no mistakes as he went along he now administers his own machine. My wife has used Ubuntu since 6.x or something and she too now administers her own machine. The rest of the machines are servers that serve up such as email, local intranet, files etc. Each one has a specific task as I still believe in the age old doctrine of one machine, one task. And so it is.

But, I digress...

Slackware, or a port of, was on every one of those machines. That is no longer the case. Over the course of several posts to this and other blogs I have complained and moaned about the direction Slackware is taking. That direction appears to be steered not by the main author, who seems to have less and less influence on his own distribution, but the ragbag of people he has taken on-board to help him maintain the distribution. As their influence, which can be so clearly seen, is foisted on the distribution, more and more problems are cropping up at post install time. The fact that Slackware has become so KDE centric,to the detriment of other Desktop Environments ("DTE") and Window Managers ("WM"), does not warm my appetite either. My personal dislike of KDE/QT is partly the reason I have moved away from it. Sure it includes XFCE4 which is excellent in its own right but as shipped with Slackware it is so bare bones it is almost useless. To get anything close to a nice, useful XFCE4 DTE one must dwnload the XFCE4 goodies, compile them and install them one by one. There are scripts out there to do exactly that but still the process is not something most users, and almost all new users, to the Linux platform do not want to do. It looks like a halfhearted attempt to get another DTE in the distribution. The rest of the Window Managers are old hat now so are not worthy of commentry. No offense meant to those who still use such as Window Maker or FVWM2 etc but they are old hat in todays world of flashy windows and glitzy shiny bits and a bobs users expect to see on ther Desktops.

My distribution of choice is customer driven. More and more of my customers are leaping head first into the X/K/Ubuntu world and because I must support them to maintain my business I had no choice but to use one of the ubuntu family myself. One cannot offer support is oneself knows nothing, or not a lot, about the very thing one is offering support for. So, my hands, and machines, where somewhat tied on this.

It has to be said though that the fact that Slackware, and the ports of, are going in a direction well away from where I think it should be heading, and even further away from its root philosophy, to which I bought into all those years ago and now find myself stranded in a KDE world I have so much disain for, is something I have had to deal with. And deal with it i have by moving away from my most cherished distribution.

I have sat by over the years and watched as new distribution after new distribution have slowly but surely eaten away at the Slackware insall-base. This is especially so on the Desktop but also happened in the server rooms around the world. When Ubuntu came out and with the strides in consumer usage and experience rising with each new release it had and has killing just about all other distributions in the Desktop area. CentOS has the server rooms just about all to itself. As these two have come to dominate those areas distributions like Slackware have become ever more marginal. It used to be said that real Linux users use Slackware but outside the Slackware specific places on the Internet I have no read that for some 5 or so years.

Does Slackware still matter in the current distribution world? Yes, I say it does, but not to any great lengths it held a few years ago. Slackware will always have a userbase, at least for the forseeable future, just like Gentoo, Mandriva etc will. But, it will, like all the others, play a side role as the Ubuntu family slowly, release by release, take over the Desktop install-base. It is also making strong inroads in the server space once upon a time dominated by Slackware.

It is a shame to see such a great distribution fade into a shadow of its former self but that is exactly what it is becoming and that is exactly where its future lays.

Usenet trolls

They have always been around. Since the dawn of Usenet itself. Well before the term Internet became common usage. They are so easy to spot. Here is a good example of what a troll will say.

"I'm looking for the best Linux distro in terms of user interface that requires none or a minimal amount of command line work. One that has a lot of working applications including a good web browser, office suite, email, games, programs that will playback music (mp3, lossless, ogg, MIDi, etc.,) no hassle drivers for all-in-one printers, will accept external usb hard drives and DVD drives, external usb modem - basically as complete an OS as possible without having to hunt down a lot of drivers and hack the system to work. I had enough of that with the Amiga. I will most likely be running this on a PC laptop without any other OS installed. I don't like crowds on a single computer when it comes to op systems."

Now, all of those things he/she demands have been standard on Linux distributions for the last 3 or 4 years. The fact that he/she covers such a wide range of hardware and software requirements spells out he/she is trolling the newsgroup. If he/she had done even the slightest bit of googling he/she would get the answers he/she seeks. Instead he/she has trolled a Linux newsgroup.

Why is this particular bit of text labled trolling? After all, isn't he/she is merely asking which of the numerous distributions has everything he/she demands? Well, no. For one, he/she asked in a Linux newsgroup. For two, he she covers a wide range of requirements. For three it simply smells foul. For four it has troll written all over it.

From time to time we Usenet stalwarts see posts with content like this and simply ignore the poster. Unfortunately, we have some amongst our number that cannot resist such posts. That particular post will see one of two things happen. One, a distribution war will start. Where a number of people will be sucked in and start saying "this or that distribution is best" without even considering the original posters intents or wants/needs. Two, the poster will never post again as everyone else smells troll too and ignores the original poster.

I hope, in this case that the latter prevails.

old age creeping up.

It has to be that. I can no longer bother to build all the programs I use and have a need for that is missing from the main Slackware, BLuewhite64, Slamd64 etc distributions. It can only be old age creeping up on me making me think like this.

While there are plenty of faults with Slackware and it's ports this can be fairly and squarely laid at my own door. There are a few slackbuild places on the Internet but even there one needs to get the slackbuild, get the sources, in some cases rejig the buildscript to match a newer version and finally, assuming all it's prerequisite's are met, build the damn thing. I can no longer be bothered with this age old dance just to get some program working.

While I don't like Ubuntu because of its Debian roots my evermore demanding customers are forcing my hand. I have seen first hand the power that apt-get and friends offer the user. Some programs are ancient but they function within that environment. No need to get or create a build script, get the sources and with luck and the phase of the moon end up with a working package that can then be installed.

There are some places that offer Slackware and friends binaries but they are not guarenteed to work.

My time with Slackware and friends, is drawing to a close. As mentioned elsehere i have some 12+ years experience with Slackware and friends. Tons upon tons of notes nutured over the years. Hundreds upon hundreds of bulld scripts. All are soon to be consigned to the dustbin of yesteryear.

Long may SLackware and friends survive. It will certainly be without me.

The feature creep continues

Once upon a time Slackware users could rely on the maintainer to keep a nice, lean distribution, Amongst these aims was the removal of Gnome2 from the main distribution. There was always room for improvement in this area but that ideal seems well and truly dead with the latest release of Slackware-Current. Feature bloat has crept in. I don't know why this is happening but it is. Since the maintainer gathered a few 'helpers' this feature creep has gathered apace.

In -current there is the latest abomination from the KDE guys, KDE4. Along with the packages for KDE4 they have added all manner of bells and whistles. No doubt KDE4 will properly replace KDE3 in the main body of the distribution at some point in time which is leading me more and more to leave Slackware behind.

I am a Gnome2 guy and watching this KDE4 rubbish force its way into Slackware via the 'helpers' is a cause for crying. My once much preferred distribution is going ghe same way as many others as the feature creep creeps ever forward.

To get a fully working Gnome2 desktop is no harder than getting a KDE one. I prefer GTK2 over the much disliked QT. Yes, this comes down to personal preference but at the end of the day is my distribution of choice cannot or will not offer me what I want to use then the time has come, after some 12+ years of usage, to say goodbye to it.

There are many like myself who do not like some of these 'helper' and are considering moving distributions. Some moved as soon as Gnome2 was dropped, others moved when they learnt who the 'helper' are. More will move as time goes on.

It is a shame but the reality of my work situation dictates how I am viewing the latest developments in Slackware and my situation is to view these developments with the distaste they leave in my mouth.

Bye bye Slackware. You where once, rightly, the best distribution around. You maintained this level of best of breed for many years, but now the time has come to do what many before me have done and say bye bye.

The feature creep continues

Once upon a time Slackware users could rely on the maintainer to keep a nice, lean distribution, Amongst these aims was the removal of Gnome2 from the main distribution. There was always room for improvement in this area but that ideal seems well and truly dead with the latest release of Slackware-Current. Feature bloat has crept in. I don't know why this is happening but it is. Since the maintainer gathered a few 'helpers' this feature creep has gathered apace.

In -current there is the latest abomination from the KDE guys, KDE4. Along with the packages for KDE4 they have added all manner of bells and whistles. No doubt KDE4 will properly replace KDE3 in the main body of the distribution at some point in time which is leading me more and more to leave Slackware behind.

I am a Gnome2 guy and watching this KDE4 rubbish force its way into Slackware via the 'helpers' is a cause for crying. My once much preferred distribution is going ghe same way as many others as the feature creep creeps ever forward.

To get a fully working Gnome2 desktop is no harder than getting a KDE one. I prefer GTK2 over the much disliked QT. Yes, this comes down to personal preference but at the end of the day is my distribution of choice cannot or will not offer me what I want to use then the time has come, after some 12+ years of usage, to say goodbye to it.

There are many like myself who do not like some of these 'helper' and are considering moving distributions. Some moved as soon as Gnome2 was dropped, others moved when they learnt who the 'helper' are. More will move as time goes on.

It is a shame but the reality of my work situation dictates how I am viewing the latest developments in Slackware and my situation is to view these developments with the distaste they leave in my mouth.

Bye bye Slackware. You where once, rightly, the best distribution around. You maintained this level of best of breed for many years, but now the time has come to do what many before me have done and say bye bye.

x86_64 Slackware.

When the realms of the improbable become the realms of now then the time has come to make those hard decisions. There was a time when Slackware was all I saw. None of the other distributions held any level of promise for me. It was all I used, or ever have used. Now though that time of intense personal investment is closing. It hurts to say it. The 2Gb of notes I have collected. The 2Gb of scripts, some large, some small, I have created or collected. The 52Gb of source, build scripts and binary packages I have collected over the years. The 10+ years of general evangelism I have given to it. All will soon be gone.

Yes, I am fully aware Slackware does not have an official x86_64 version but still, why do the various repositories of slackbuild scripts not do x86_64 scripts? It can be achieved in two or three lines with maybe a patch to increase compatabilty and yet these dinosaurs continue to service only the i?86 clones.

Just because Slackware itself stubbornly refuses to get with the times and either do their own x86_64 port or sanction one of the ones already available does not mean these slackbuilds people need to keep their heads in the sand as well.

Given that there are, as far as I know, only 3 x86_64 ports of Slackware the choice of which to sanction is not a hard one. Knowing past issues with application selection (the dumping of gnome2 is a prime example of going against its users wishes) and the arrogance displayed in ignoring the users wishes the choice will not be based on which is the best or a closest match for Slackware itself (Bluewhite64 wins here) but will be the one least used or liked by the users of. Of ccourse the Slackware creator himself will find the creator of whichever x86_64 Slackware port that can display the biggest suck up to the Man himself.

Once upon a time I would only recommend Slackware to friends and family. Not because it was easy to use (it is) nor because it was easy to install (it is) but because of the stabilty it held so proud and rightly so because it always was and has been the more stable distribution out of the 380+ distributions now available. Now i find even my own attraction to it is waning. After some 10+ years of usage I now no longer recommend it to anyone. Not because it has suddenly become somehow unstable but because I think its relevance it waning to an all time low. While distributions like the Ubuntu family exist, and there is no reason to suppose they will disappear, it is easy to see why people coming from their MS Windows system, and with all the baggage that brings with it, are drawn towards them.

Dell, HP and a few other of the big hardware players put one of the Ubuntu family on their systems and those systems sell (apparently they are selling quite well) it is the Ubuntu family that steals the limelight and distributions like Slackware become marginal at best. There will be those who say "So what." I used to have those thoughts as well. But I can no longer say it. For over 10 years I have been a staunch Slackware user but nowadays I find myself looking evermore and what else is available. I am looking to switch distributions because I am sick and tired of waiting for an officially sanctioned x86_64 port of my (once) favourite distribution.

Slackware will not die anytime soon but the writing is on the wall. If they do not bring out their own x86_64 port or sanction one, if not all 3, of those x86_64 ports already out there then that writing may very well come true.

For myself, I have decided that if this sanction is not given by the end of this year (2008) then I feel I have no choice but to move to another distribution. The main part of my work is distribution agnostic but when support is needed then more often than not it is one of the Ubuntu family mentioned. If I want to continue my work then I feel I should use what those i am supposed to be supporting use. I don't care what the AOLS (alt.os,linux.slackware) Usenet faithful say nor any of those who have already made the switch (one can see the handles in the various distribution specific newsgroups and on various forums that have at one time or another posted to AOLS or had some web page somewhere with Slackware specific information on it or posted to some Slackware forum. The time for Slackware on my systems is drawing to a close. I have decided that for myself that close will be at the end of the current year (2008).

I don't expect any Slackware faithful person to see what I am seeing nor do I expect them to agree with me but my decision is my choice to make and I have made it.