Not good.

Ignoring people is something the Americans are not alone in doing. But, my recent experience with some of our American friends shows that some, but obviously not all, of them are very well capable of doing it.

I use Bluewhite64 Linux. A 64bit port of my all time favourite Linux distribution, Slackware.

Bluewhite64 is a like for like port in that what it offers is identical to that which Slackware offers. Like for like except that Bluewhite64 offers a 32 bit compatibility layer (several packages that allow a lot of 32 bit only programs to run, but not be compiled, on 64 bit systems). Unlike its main counterpart Slamd64 that has a few added in packages, Bluewhite64 is as close as one can get to that unique Slackware experience. As you should have guessed by now I am a staunch advocate of Slackware Linux over all the other distributions, old and new, out there. Now that all my systems are 64 bit (and knowing I could run Slackware 32 bit proper on my 64 bit systems, but chose not to) I spent a not inconsiderable amount of time searching out 64 bit distributions, downloading them and trying them all one by one but every one of them at that time left me feeling that something was not quite right. In the end I found first Slamd64 and while the experience was much much better it too did not feel quite right. In the end I stumbled upon Bluewhite64 and a new love affair with a distribution was born. I never looked back nor have I installed anything else since, though I have tried a few of the newer distributions.

I have mentioned these new kids on the block before on this blog and have, rather reluctantly, mentioned how I think Slackware's relevance today is not a patch on what it once was. Even so I reckon that Slackware and its derivatives and ports will be around for a lot longer yet. Hopefully Slackware's creator will see that these new kids on the block are slowly killing, by their actions, the spirit which the author himself created and nurtured all those years ago and that has survived until now with a sharp drop starting 18months to 2 years ago. Roughly, the time these new kids on the block got their grubby fingers into the distribution.

In recent times a new web site offering Slackware compatible, but not identical, package build scripts has popped up and stolen the limelight from another web site offering the same which just happened to have been around for years. Probably before the new guys with their new web site were even born so long ago was that original web site started. They made no reference to that long established defacto web site. In point of fact it was, when the new site first started, plain for us old hands to see that the less the old web site was mentioned the sooner people would stop using it and a new defacto web site would be born. I reckon that, as unfortunate as many reckon it is, the new web site succeeded. Many of the long established web sites built around knowledge of Slackware were, in the eyes and minds of new Internet denizens, killed off in similar fashion. Instead of engaging in dialog with these older, much older, web sites and learning what those web site creators could teach them, the arrogance with which these newer ones aimed their destructive attitudes towards the older web sites lost Slackware a few long time users.

Those, like myself, who have sat on the sidelines watching all this happening noticed a sharp decline in long time Slackware users and, of course, with these long time users gone there are few left to spread the gospel according to Slackware with the ferocity the older long time users gave it. Which meant that the Slackware, and its ports, lost its relevance in todays market place. As these new kids on the block continue in their so obviously arrogant ways and keep on changing things as they grapple time and time again at lose straws in their efforts to stem that ever increasing movement away from Slackware, and its ports. Some have said that the long time Slackware users that left are defectors. I do not believe that for one second. Most of those long time users, if not all of them, left because they saw what was happening and what was happening they did not like. Many no longer use any Linux distribution preferring instead a BSD distribution which adheres to the values Slackware once did and of those long lost values the main value was based on the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle.

Recently I downloaded a set of Slackware build scripts and was slightly dismayed, but not surprised, to find that there was no 64 bit (x86_64) settings within any scripts. I have emailed them before asking them if they wanted me to add 64 bit to their scripts and where needed either patch myself or use someone else patch who got there before me but as was expected the email was ignored. Of course, like many do nowadays they may claim they never received the email but whatever the reason is/was for the email being ignored I simply chalked it up as another nail in the sinking ship.

It just is not right.

A long time ago a mate of mine and I worked out how to get gaim, now pidgin, working without the need for mozilla's nss. It took us about 15 minutes to get all the kinks worked out and we even provided all the slackbuilds and a binary builds created by our own slackbuilds.

Even though we stopped providing these scripts and binaries a while ago we still get emails about them. At the time we created them all and for a good 2 or 3 years afterwards the files where downloaded over 1 million times. The web page that hosted the files had over 4 million page views. All in all we was happy with the results of our work.

Fast forward to the present and we find there are several people claiming they created both the slackbuilds and the work around to get gaim, now pidgin, working with GnuTLS and friends. This is a situation we find all to often on the Internet where new people to slackware claim they created this and that but what they don't tell their readers is that they have everso slightly edited the slackbuilds that people like my mate and i, have had on the Internet years before this new unethical crew came to slackware.

It is unfair but then i suppose this is the state of the western world now where new people make a new for themselves off the back of those who went before.

Old timers.

Are being forgotten.

As I transverse around the Internet it becomes clearer and clearer. Those trailblazing old timers are being what can only be described as forgotten.

Look at some of the once nail-on-the-head web sites that offered up free advice and information. Then look at some of the new kids on the block web sites and you will see lots of the advice, information, scripts etc etc on the new kids web sites looks remarkably similar to those old timers web sites. Plagarism in all but name is what it is.

Oh yes, I know all about how the Internet is supposed to be in that everything bar very little is avaialable for others to copy etc but I am not whining about that. I am whining about how these new kids totally ignore and have utter disregard for other peoples work and by extention the authors of those old time web sites.

Take my own web site which has been available to all since 1998. Since that time it has gone through several redesigns but the basic premise always remained. That is to give the reader advice on some of the problems they may be having. Well, problems they are having else why would they search a solution that ultimately brings them to my web site. I have not done much work on the web site since around 2004 and it shows. It looks dated, it has information pertinant to 2.4.x kernels and little to nothing about 2.6.x kernels. But, the information offered is as valid now as it was when written. Some, if not all, of the scripts and coding bits are just as useful now and it is those bits I find eleswhere on the Internet apparently written by someone else! Line for line stuff that cannot be mistaken. Slackware build scripts written some 4 or 5 years ago have been slightly reworked and put out as someone elses work.

It is downright annoying to find my own code and information elsewhere on the Internet with not so much as a cocked hat in recognition. People who one would assume are fine upstanding individuals who should know better but apparently don't.

As far as people accessing my site goes I get, give or take a few either way, approx 4000 uniqute hits a week even now. I know that is not many but still for a web site that has not been updated for going on 4 years that is not bad, but that is not the point of this whiney rant. The point is that all us old timers want is the recognition we deserve.

Oh how laughable!

In other blog posts here and here I have derided new, new as in springing up on the Slackware scene in the last 2-3 years, Slackware users for their attitudes. So, it was with much laughter I saw on one web site "Approved by..." as if that approval means anything to anyone except the person who deems him, or her, self important enough to give it.

I mean. Who gives a rats arse if some web site administrator deems him, or her, self important enough in the Slackware world that he, or she, gives his, or her, approval to something someone else has done.

What the fuck is that all about huh? Approval? Eh?

This particular web site administrator bursts onto the scene a couple of years ago pimping his web site at every given opportunity. Even today he pimps and pimps and pimps o such an extent that it is bloody annoying. Up until the time he came on the scene no-one had heard of the guy and now here he is giving his approval for something that someone has taken from elsewhere, adapted to fit in with this guys way of doing things then he deems it okay by giving his approval to it?

I do not give a flying one and I strongly doubt many long time Slackware users do either for his approval and that is why I will never, ever, submit anything to that web site even though I have hundreds of scripts that would expand his web site a hundred times over. I will never, ever submit anything because:

1) I don't like the way the his scripts are designed and I will not change my scripts to suit.
2) I don't need anyones approval to know my scripts are suitable for the purpose they were written and
3) I seek approval from no-one.

Damn Americans, not all of them obviously, seeking to dominate everything they touch. It does my head in it does and it is totally, utterly and laughably laughable in the extreme.