On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 04:56:29PM +1000, Manu wrote:
> On 20 September 2013 14:23, Nick Sabalausky <
> seewebsitetocontac...@semitwist.com> wrote:
>
> > On Fri, 20 Sep 2013 12:11:51 +1000
> > Manu <turkey...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > On 20 September 2013 00:25, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 03:04:44PM +0200, Wyatt wrote:
> > > > [...]
> > > > > Dolphin is pretty nice, though there are cases where Konqueror
> > > > > still runs circles around it. For example, if you want a
> > > > > horizontal split or more than one split. Also, I don't think
> > > > > Dolphin has the file size view plugin, which is nice for
> > > > > finding hidden monsters in your ~.
> > > >
> > > > du ~ | sort -r -n | less
> > > >
> > >
> > > This is exactly why linux is shit.
> > >
> > >
> > > :-)
> >
> > It's exactly why those not fluent in Linux believe Linux is shit ;)
[...]
> I don't think there's any good reason for that line to make so little
> sense. If the argument is that typing more characters is too hard and
> time consuming, I'd then raise the question as to whether typing
> characters into a shell is the best interface in the first place...?
There is no argument here, actually. The problem is really historical --
names like 'du' or 'grep' or 'awk' meant something back in who knows
when, but they no longer mean anything to us today (well, those of us
not old enough *cough*). If I were to reinvent Unix today, I'd choose
better names for these things. But think about it, if the above line
were instead written like this:
diskUsage $HOME | sort --reverse --numeric | pager
it would make so much more sense, wouldn't it? So the "nonsensical" part
is really just in the poor choice of naming, not an inherent weakness of
the interface.
[...]
> I had a video card driver problem the other day. The bundled auto-update
> app failed, and totally broke my computer.
> I had to download kernel source, and run some scripts to compile some sort
> of shim that made the video driver compatible with my kernel to get it
> working again... absolutely astounding.
Uh... you do realize that this is because Linux actually *lets* you fix
things? If something like this happened on Windows, the only real
solution is to nuke the system from orbit and start from ground zero
again (i.e. reinstall). One can hardly expect that repairing a broken
car engine should require no thought.
Speaking of which, I managed to totally break my computer last night /
this morning too. Well, actually, it was already broken 'cos I upgraded
udev to a version incompatible with my kernel (custom-built, so it's my
own fault :-P), but the hardy little thing just kept going. It was
causing subtle breakages like my printer mysteriously failing to work,
and when I finally figured out the problem, I downloaded a new kernel
and recompiled it. Only to forget that /vmlinuz was still pointing to
the old kernel (I didn't know this until later), so when I rebooted, it
dumped me in single-user mode with *nothing* under /dev. Since I have
/usr linked to a different mount point, and the mount failed (it
couldn't find /dev/sd*), I had only a barely working shell (nothing in
/usr/bin, etc., was accessible). No internet access either (eth0
couldn't be found -- anything requiring anything in /dev didn't work
'cos udev was dead).
Then I figured that I needed to mknod /dev/sd* so that I can mount my
main filesystem and at least begin to recover the system, but I didn't
remember what major/minor numbers to use. After poking around a bit (and
the whole point of this dreary tale is to make the point that even
during catastrophic failure, there is *still* a way to fix things... I
couldn't even begin to imagine what I'd do if Windows broke on me like
this -- since the GUI wouldn't even start, there'd be no way at all to
recover), I stumbled upon a lucky break: /proc/partitions lists
major/minor numbers and conveniently maps them to hard drive partitions.
A few mknod's later, my main FS was back up, and enough was functional
that I could actually recompile the kernel. That turned out to be
unnecessary, though, because the mistake was in the /vmlinuz symlink,
not in the kernel itself.
Once I found that, the fix was trivial, and now I'm back in business.
:-P
The thing that a lot of people don't seem to realize is that even system
utilities and upgrade apps are written by people, and therefore prone to
stupid mistakes. Under such circumstances, what you need is the ability
to get under the hood and fix things when they go wrong... not to have
the hood welded shut and have only OS reinstallation as a recourse.
Because of that, I'd still prefer Linux with all its quirks than Windows
with all of its perfections, because on Linux I at least have a fighting
chance to fix stuff that breaks (as they inevitably will, regardless of
OS), whereas on Windows the only real recourse is the big red button.
T
--
My program has no bugs! Only undocumented features...
