On Sunday 19 October 2003 07:42 am, Jan Ciger wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was not going to contribute to this flamewar, but why everybody
> expects that Linux is used just by Windows converts ? "Windows users
> expect this", "Windows users are used to that", blah. Whenever somebody
> wants to push his personal agenda, this is the argument - "Windows does
> it like this or that !" I am not saying that it is not important but
> hey, I am using Linux, because it is more Unix than Windows !
>
> Brook, you may think that nobody from Windows converts ever uses Emacs,
> that's perhaps true. By the same logic, how many of them will touch Vi
> or any of it's clones ? The same for MC - I used Norton Commander and
> it's clones (Volkov Commander, Dos Navigator, good old times) in the
> past and I use MC as well, but users which started their PC experience
> with Windows have no idea what it is and how to use it (FYI, Win95 is 8
> years old already, that is huge amount of time in IT and not everybody
> is an old fart as me and you).
Nope I never said nobody uses it. It is used mostly by developers which we
have quite allot of but the normal every day user will not use it. Period.
Yes it is the same for vi and mc. My only point in mentioning them is that
they are not 100megs worth of bloat. They maybe reach 5 or 6 megs if they get
left out for room my point is that emacs is much larger source of bloat. An
amount of space that could be used for other packages to make the desktop
users experience more useful.
I still role my own cd's because of this. It's very easy to change the
rpmsrate so that mc is included when I select console tools. It is also very
easy for me to customize my install and not include emacs. For me this is no
problem. I leave out emacs, a bunch of games, and anything gnome that is not
in main or essential. with this I can include a fair portion of contribs and
some custom packages I do and it all comes to 4 1/2 cd's of stuff instead of
9 with all of main and contribs in there and without my custom stuff.
you are correct about mc of course but it still is a great tool when your
system is having major problems and you need to get in and do some work in
rescue mode. I suppose the new contrib package may obsolete this (mklivecd)
as then you could have a bootable version of fluxbox or wimea running
mandrake on the cd and then do your stuff from there. it would be slower but
more pretty to look at.
>
> On the other hand, packages like Emacs/XEmacs are essential for old-time
> Unix users, because that is what they used on Suns and SGI machines they
> are migrating from (not everybody switches only from Windows to Linux).
> That you do not use it does not mean that nobody uses it.
yes possibly but the majority don't use this either. All I'm saying is with
all the griping this is definitely not an essential package that needs to go
on the first 3 cd's the developers will know hot to get it also they cant be
that daft or linux would not be were it is now.
>
> Personally, I would prefer, that the kernel source was included and some
> server packages left out in the main tree or in contribs (the people
> going to need them are more likely to find them than a semi-newbie
> trying to compile an Nvidia driver), but the line had to be drawn
> somewhere. Whining like this will not help :-(
>
> Jan
Nope I was not whining. Somebody else asked were the space was going not me.
I've been rolling my own cd's since at least 8.0 or so so I don't really
care. It is very easy to rid the distro of fat for me. But somebody else
asked were the fat was coming from and I answered him in a frank way. Maybe
others don't like to hear it but it is true.
I do agree with allot of your points above accept for the server stuff. I use
mandrake for servers and it is invaluable for that but hey I just add what I
want and make it default also so still no foul for me.
--
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Brook Humphrey
Mobile PC Medic, 420 1st, Cheney, WA 99004, 509-235-9107
http://www.webmedic.net, [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Holiness unto the Lord
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