Sourceforge.

I am sure I am not the only one when I say Sourceforge is going downhill fast. The web interface is utterly crap now.

Once upon a time you clicked download and the file came down. Then they added the ability to select an alternative source but still the download came down.

Now though it is hit and miss whether the download starts at all never mind come down the pipe.


Sourceforge while the bastion of open source and GPL software is now so slow in every area it it almost unusable.

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.

Linux the Kernel

When the Kernel went from 2.4.x to 2.6.x we saw a huge jump in the size of the sources. Of course a compiled kernel can be any size the compiler thereof wants it to be beyond the basics that get a usable kernel.

But, not only did the sources size change. Under the hood there were lot of other major tweaks like various sub systems.

As the Linux kernel has grown in size so the complexity of it has grown exponentially. And with complexity comes more and more errors. We can see this, given arbitrary hardware, if we compare kernel 2.4.x against 2.6.x compile time errors or kernel OOPS whilst running.

Given that we _need_ the kernel to grow because 1) We have more users of it now, 2) There is more hardware available now 3) 2*1 = more sources. All well and good. However, as good for Linux based operating systems as that obviously is it comes at a price due to ever increasing code complexity which creates errors/warnings at compile time and kernel OOPSES at run time.

As modular as 2.6.x kernels are, or rather can be, I think we, or rather the kernel coders, can take this modularisation further by splitting off basic kernel functions and hardware functions. I will admit my knowledge in this area is severely limited but that said I am sure this can be done.

What exactly am I talking about? The kernel, which _is_ linux, is the heart of all distributions. Without it distributions would neither function as we know them now nor indeed exist (witness GNU herd) but a radical rethink on how we perceive it is not only due but overdue.

As it stands now to get the latest all singing all dancing kernel sources one must:

1) download a huge archive.
2) build it. Assuming one knows their hardware and general requirements one can then build for oneself a new all dancing all singing kernel.

As far as it goes this is all well and good. But, the first step in that process is were changes could be made. Instead of downloading a huge archive one could:

1) download an archive of just the basics that enable the kernel, once built, to function.
2) Then one could download the various hardware sources, that would be split up into individual archives

As an example. On my main desktop workstation I would:

1) Download an archive of the basic kernel
2) download the driver for my SCSI hardware
3) Download the driver for my VIA hardware
4) Download the driver for my SATA hardware
5) Download the NetFilter sources

And so on.

All archives would extract to linux-2.6.x as they do now. Once everything has been downloaded then the configuration and build process can be done.

I know this all sounds more complex but the idea is to make the main kernel archive smaller and thereby hopefully make gcc spit out less errors/warnings and kernel OOPES less likely.

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.

Emulation.

Or as the wine blarb goes "Wine Is Not (an) Emulator". Which is certainly true of both the Wine project and the Qemu project. Both can use full blown MS Windows installs and that is where the problem lays. As GNU/Linux adoption via a collection of a kernel and several applications commonly known as distributions continues almost unabated we have wine and Qemu which in my honest opinion are fighting the good fight and slowing down Linux adoption in several areas. How and why are wine and Qemu slowing down Linux adoption? Well, the answer to both questions are basically the same. Because people who install a distribution then go on to install wine and/or qemu and then go on to install MS Windows within one or both of those and then go on to install whatever MS Windows application they see as being unavailable under their choice of Linux based distribution are simply stopping the improvement of applications in the same field from growing as the good folks who create these programs don't see the need to create further as people who use wine and qemu are settled on whatever application they used under the MS Windows operating system. And that is the why and how answered. If only these people who dogmatically insist on using applications designed for another operating system on their distribution of choice used whatever search engine they prefer, or look at web sites like this one which shows The table of equivalents / replacements / analogs of Windows software in Linux they would see that in almost every single case there is an equivalent application that runs natively under a Linux based operating system. They could then remove the baggage known as wine and qemu and quite possibly at the same time have a more stable system.

A.O.L.S. (and Usenet in general).

Or to give it its full title Alt.OS.Linux.Slackware (where OS stands from Operating System). Since switching from BSD to Linux during 1993 one of the things on the Internet that sure was an excellent place o get help and/or glean some excellent information was on UseNet. In those early days the Usenet was a place of gentlemen where every question about a given subject was, providing it was asked in the correct place, answered with a skill level so sublime as to be a joy to witness. Sure, even during those heady days there was those whose only premise was to disrupt proceedings. These were quickly identified and given the derogatory mantel of Troll. Overall though the eloquence and excelence of the vast majority of these early adoptors shone through. Because of this the Usenet was one of the first places any one would visit if in need of an answer. Back in the early 1990's I was something of a prolific poster to the Usenet reading as I did hundreds of messages, known as posts, a day and replying to as many of those as I wanted to. Sure, I got the odd thing arse backwards and got hung out to dry, known as being flamed, because of that but the overall experience was a good one. But as a whole new generation of posters came along so the quality of Usenet declined. Just as in everyday life English language skills declined so the quality of Usenet posts. Until today the situation is so bad the it could be said that the Usenet is a shadow of its former self. Nowadays I rarely post to the Usenet proper (to define Usenet proper one has to know the basics of how Usenet posts propagate. Basically, very basically, Usenet can be defined as being like motorway stopping points. Throughout all the motorways here in the U.K. you can get from one stopping point to another via the motorway road network. Usenet is similar to this methodology) though I do still read several Usenet groups added to this is the fact I run a subscription only news server of which I take part by posting and replying to articles posted. Why do I rarely post now? Well, the standard is generally so low now that I have dropped myself to the disinterested level. And so to the subject. A.O.L.S. The standard in that particular Usenet group is no different to any other Usenet group. But it does seem to have suffered more than most. As the Usenet more or less mirrors the outside world so the standard of the posts contents have dropped along with the general demeanor of the outside world. People are more arrogant. poorly, by comparison to the early/middle 1990's, educated and this reflects in the text of the Usenet articles. A.O.L.S. suffers as all Usenet has suffered from this blight. Oh and let us not forget the role in this decline google groups has and is playing. Remember that google groups is not Usenet but even with that fact known and understood the quality of google group users posts is so bad that it is dragging the Usenet ever further down. Why is this? I have one theory as to why this is. Permit me to espouse it here. Along the straight line of time we have taken the following route. Usenet, fidonet (another olde worlde but wonderful article based network), mobile phone texted'ing. Now that may look like a harmless route to have taken but consider how piss poor mobile phone texted'ing is quality wise is then apply that to what is left of Usenet and you get a huge drop in quality. Added to this is, as I said, the general decline in other areas and of course as the wider worlds populace has got more and more arrogant in their general demeanour and we have the stakes right there that are embedded deep in the carcase of Usenet.

Phoronix

That is a nice web site you have there with Linux users well catered for with some interesting articles. But, I have to ask one question regarding your choice of distributions.

Ubuntu? I mean why?

On my wifes machine it was as unstable as an unstable thing can be in a land called unstable. At least it was until I replaced it with another distribution.

If you don't want to lose the head of steam you have made for yourselves then please lose Ubuntu.

Use a distribution that carries little to no patches in its wake. Ubuntu, being Debian derived is, just like Debian, patched to Hell and back and carries all the baggage as well. Lose it. Seriously.