Linux-Development-Sys Digest #639, Volume #7 Tue, 29 Feb 00 21:13:19 EST
Contents:
Re: Linux or Windows (Richard Bowman)
Re: GCC and EGCS, SuSE say they can co-exist, I don't see how (Dirk Foersterling)
Re: BFD: how do I get source-line of EIP? (David Wragg)
2 graphicdevices in linux ("thomas")
Re: complex math in a device driver (Ulrich Weigand)
Re: complex math in a device driver (Oliver Bandel)
Re: System hanging with SMP-Kernel 2.2.13 (SuSE6.3)? (bill davidsen)
Re: how to list the printers available? (Bob Tennent)
Re: Binary compatibility: what kind of crack are they smoking? (Stephen Harris)
Re: Why a file system ? (Christopher Browne)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Richard Bowman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux or Windows
Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 16:31:34 -0500
Well, in terms of ease of use (not to mention free if you have a CD burner),
I would seriously recommend Corel Linux. It has an amazing setup system for a new
user, boots graphically and displays a very very nice altered KDE interface.
Little too simple for me, but a very nice distribution, I must say.
Richard
NoProblem001 wrote:
> >I am debating wheather to run Linux on my computer or to stick with windows.
> >
>
> <snip>
>
> >I know very little about linux and want to know which is best. I want to be
> >able to run it on the same computer as windows. Help please.
> >
>
> What you need are general hints with possibly a little specificity.
>
> If you think your MS-Windows addiction is pretty strong (as mine obviously is),
> my recommendation is for a "flavor" of Linux hat is a tad on the "consumerist"
> side. SuSE (which means you get to look east instead of across the Atlantic at
> us Yankees all the time ;) uses a graphical user interface to login if that's
> what you want, and it can fire up X Windows as automatically "by default" as
> MS-Windows. I bet you'd like that.
>
> Another think I think you would like is the "default" hugemongous quantity of
> application software that comes cheap from SuSE. Obviously, I spend dollars,
> which might not have anything to do with your (VAT-oriented) situation, but for
> only 35 American dollars, I got 6 cram-packed disks from SuSE, and the
> documentation in the paper manual is "in levels" so that the depth of your
> background is taken into consideration.
>
> Where SuSE is weak is in the steps BEFORE installation. If you can scrounge
> one, get a new or old copy of Red Hat Linux, and get the DOS tools from that
> CD-ROM (or from their generous Website at redhat.com).
>
> You need to partition your hard disk drive. I know others have said that
> another drive should be used, which is all fine and good, but when your
> computer starts up, it is a lot happier when it can look at the first hard disk
> drive, see some hardcore specific info about any available operating system
> startup code, and then go from there as the computer boots..
>
> Putting all the start-uppable partitions on one drive is not mandatory, but
> when you try to do another scheme, what happens is that you need to be an
> expert right away because you have to do a thing with liloconfig.
>
> One more thing that is important to a newbie. SuSE is probably cheap because
> YaST is what it says ("Yet Another Setup Tool"). Germans are great engineers;
> of that there is no doubt, but they don't make a lot of boutique-like fuss for
> the sake of user friendliness. If you can just hop that first hurdle, IMHO,
> you should be ok.
>
> I know that looks like a contradiction, but take the help system as an example.
> They engineered it pretty well, particularly for a Netscapish MS-Windows user.
> You can choose the layout plan (what we call "the window manager" with
> artistic motifs--no pun intended--that can keep you comfy in a couple of
> different variations of the Windows 95 theme). Other companies do too, but
> SuSE makes a consistent graphical setup tool an awful lot like Microsoft's "on
> the outside" without angering the folks who tweak with text files "on the
> inside". The different window managers that are available get altered
> according to different 'language" schemes of text file alterations, but SuSE
> has "GUI'd" all of that in a reasonably slick way.
>
> I have absolutely no gripes against Red Hat. In fact, it's the only
> distribution that I have currently loaded, and I was so satisfied with the
> 1995/96 version (3.03) that I have not yet installed the SuSE system that I
> just praised!
>
> Then again, I just want to do some C programming and learn about the
> fundamentals of the Linux kernel for now. For me for now, a superficial
> exposure to the user-level stuff is all that interests me. Obviously, I am
> using Microsoft code because that is all that works directly within AOL (even
> the Mac!).
>
> But I am not you, and that is what is nice about Linux in general. It is
> extremely flexible in matters of functionality and tastes and diverse
> priorities. Red Hat, SuSE, Caldera, Debian, Hard Hat Linux (Monta Vista), and
> many others all do their own interesting things, but where it really counts,
> there is solid consistency.
>
> I guess you'll find disagreement among people on stuff like this, but I hope
> that when it adds up, you will find your course of action your way.
>
> :)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dirk Foersterling)
Subject: Re: GCC and EGCS, SuSE say they can co-exist, I don't see how
Date: 29 Feb 2000 21:53:25 GMT
On Tue, 29 Feb 2000 19:36:53 +0000, Robin Collins wrote:
>According to the SuSE installer one can install EGCS and GCC together,
[snip]
I don't know what SuSE does, but...
>My problem is I don't see how to make them live together! If I
>install EGCS then GCC runs EGCS, if I install GCCFRONT GCC runs GCC
>2.7.2.3.
Ther may be more elegant solutions than mine. I compiled and installed
my compilers for myself: I got the sources of the various compilers
i'd like to use and installed the gcc-2.7.2.3 package. Using this
compiler, I configured and compiled gcc-2.95.2 with
--prefix=/opt/gcc/2.95.2/. Then I deinstalled gcc-2.7.2.3 and adjusted
the PATH to contain /opt/gcc/2.95.2/bin. Using this compiler, I made all
the other compilers I wanted (2.7.2.3, 2.8.2, egcs-1.0.3, egcs-1.1.2)
and installed them in /opt/gcc/<version-name>.
To use one of these compilers, I have to remove all compiler's bin
directory from PATH and add just the bin directory for the compiler I
want to use. If you use bash, you can switch compilers (or view which is
"active" right now) using the attached bash-script. It works for me with
my setup. Reviewing the script is recommended.
-dirk
p.s.: There exists such a thing like "module utilities" which is
specialized for making dynamic changes to the environment (such as
needed for switching compilers). Unfortunately I don't know much about
these and don't know where to get them.
--
D i r k F "o r s t e r l i n g
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ******** http://www.DeathsDoor.com/milliByte/
-------------
AND SUDDENLY THERE WAS :W:AR
=======[script 'compiler']==========
#!/bin/bash
#
# $Id: compiler,v 1.1 1999/03/03 03:46:35 dirk Exp dirk $
#
# manipulate the environment for using a special compiler...
# Use "source compiler" for getting this work.
#
# [[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
#
MYSELF=`basename $0`
if [ "$2" = "" ] ; then echo "+-----------------------------------" ; fi
if [ "$1" = "" -o ! -e /opt/gcc/$1 ] ; then
echo "| Available GNU compiler versions:"
echo "+-----------------------------------"
for NAME in `ls -1 /opt/gcc | grep \..\..` ; do
echo -n "| $NAME"
if [ "`which gcc`" = "/opt/gcc/$NAME/bin/gcc" ] ; then
echo -e " (active)"
else
echo
fi
done
else
if [ "$MYSELF" == "compiler" ] ; then
echo "| please source me"
else
for NAME in `ls -1 /opt/gcc | grep \..\..` ; do
PATH=`echo $PATH | sed s/"\/opt\/gcc\/$NAME\/bin:"/""/`
done
if [ "$2" = "" ] ; then
echo "| activating gcc-$1"
fi
export PATH=/opt/gcc/$1/bin:$PATH
fi
fi
if [ "$2" = "" ] ; then echo "+-----------------------------------" ; fi
------------------------------
From: David Wragg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: BFD: how do I get source-line of EIP?
Date: 29 Feb 2000 19:45:22 +0000
Henning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> what do I have to do to retrieve the filename and lineno by given eip?
>
> I have executable name.
You probably ought to look at the source for the addr2line utility
from binutils, which does exactly this.
David Wragg
------------------------------
From: "thomas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: 2 graphicdevices in linux
Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 23:49:11 +0100
hi!
i've got an interesting problem, and i think that one of you might be
able to help me. i want to install two graphic devices in linux. the primary
one is a matrox g200 mystique (agp) and the second one is a matrox mystique
(pci). right now the kernel boots with the secondary graphic device, but
when i start X my primary device gets active, and don't see nothing on my
second monitor. i think that this problem might depend on matroxfb, which is
an improvement of vesafb.
i want to run my X with my primary graphic device and run console with my
pci-card. is this combination possible?
thanks for each tip!
cheers,
thomas
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ulrich Weigand)
Subject: Re: complex math in a device driver
Date: 1 Mar 2000 01:38:51 +0100
"Dan Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>This is all well and good, but my computational requirements are *much* more
>complex than A/D conversion. A typical computation in my set is:
> temp2usl = 0x0000000f & (unsigned long) floor( 0.5 + 16.0*(( m1a *
> pow(2.0,-1.0*(double)( floor(log10( m1a )/log10of2) )) ) -
>1.0) );
Hmmm. This would appear to be just a fancy way of retrieving the four
most significant bits of 'm1a'; why don't you just use something like
temp2usl = m1a;
while (temp2usl >= 16)
temp2usl >>= 1;
This should yield the same results (except for slightly different rounding,
but that can be corrected for if it is important), and is much faster than
using floating point anyway ...
--
Ulrich Weigand,
IMMD 1, Universitaet Erlangen-Nuernberg,
Martensstr. 3, D-91058 Erlangen, Phone: +49 9131 85-27688
------------------------------
From: Oliver Bandel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: complex math in a device driver
Date: 1 Mar 2000 00:01:18 +0100
Hi!
Dan Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Gordon Haverland wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>>Grant Edwards wrote:
>>>
>>> In article <89782j$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Oliver Bandel wrote:
>>> >
>>> >Dan Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>> >> I need to access some math library function in my device driver. I
> believe
>>> >> I've read here that one cannot do that, and I don't actually see a way
> to do
>>> >[...]
>>> >
>>> >Why should you use math in a device driver?
>>>
>>> To provide a layer of abstraction. For example, if I have a set of
>>> analog inputs, and I make an IOCTL call to read the voltages, it's
>>> awfully nice to get answers in volts. That way the driver has to keep
>>> track of the peculiarities of the hardware rather than the user
>>> software.
>>
>>Why not do a table lookup? Your N bit A/D converter returns
>>a number, do a lookup of that number to convert it to volts,
>>or whatever.
>>
>>Gordon Haverland
> This is all well and good, but my computational requirements are *much* more
> complex than A/D conversion. A typical computation in my set is:
> temp2usl = 0x0000000f & (unsigned long) floor( 0.5 + 16.0*(( m1a *
pow(2.0,-1.0*(double)( floor(log10( m1a )/log10of2) )) ) - 1.0) );
Argh!
A quick look to your formula tells me: You don't really need a FPU
for this.
Well, maybee I have to look in more detail, but, well, I start
with the innermost part:
floor(log10( m1a )/log10of2)
I think, that should be floor(log10( m1a )/log10(2))
that's the same as floor(log2( m1a ))
But then you have to write yourself a function log2.
But you only need an integer value (that's why you use floor).
(You really only need an integer value, because your
result is an integer...)
Ok, you want an integer value of log2(m1a).
That's the same as: Increment a counter for each "shift-right"
operation, on which the result of this
shift-operation is greater then 0.
Let's write a function, that does this ( floor(log2( <parameter> )) )
and call it i_log2(), whereas the "i" stands for integer-result.
Next part:
===========
pow(2.0,-1.0*(double)( floor(log10( m1a )/log10of2) ))
pow( 2.0,-1.0 * i_log2(m1a) )
^^^\
it's a double => no need for a cast here (if ANSI-C)
you want pow( 2.0,-1.0 * i_log2(m1a) )
thats the same as 1.0 / pow(2.0, (double) i_log2(m1a) )
You need the cast to double for the pow()-function, but you
really have only an integer value.
So you want 2 ^ intergervalue; that's the opposite
of log2().
So you shift the value "2" (two) n times left,
where n is the result of log2(m1a)
( Well... and you want 1.0 / (2 ^ integervalue),
but there is a way, to do it without FPU.... )
If you shift your m1a left n times (want to know n, it's
the number of shift-operations unless the shifted value
is 0), and then you want shift the value of 2 by n times
left.
Why dont you delete all "1" (but not the highest) and shift
this one one bit left?
... then: you want m1a * pow(2, -1.0 * ...) => that's not 1.0/pow(2, ...),
its m1a / pow( 2, ...)
and if you multiplicate the "16" into the inner part, then
its 16 * m1a / pow(2, ...) -16
... and so on.
If you can't resolve one part of the formula in this way,
you can use a multiplication or division table for the
part, closest to the FPU.
Well, in this view, it's not a problem of the OS
(is using FPU in the kernel a problem or not?),
not a problem of software design (use FPU in kernel or
rather use FPU in user space), it's a problem of:
"Do I know something about math?!"
So, well.... I think you should take a math-book
and look at power functions, exponential functions,
logarithmic functions and all the stuff with fractions.
And after that remember, that you let be your driver
a driver and don't let it do math for getting voltages.
It's a more flexible way, if you do this in a library.
> ... and a large number of this degree of computation must be performed for
> each set of register modifications.
> I probably will use a library for now to encapsulate these computations;
Well, that's good; but this library don't need using the fpu. :-)
> it
> will solve my immediate problem.
That's what it should. Be happy. :-)
> Ultimately, though, this won't be a really
> good solution because I can anticipate at least one situation where the
> driver may realize on its own (with no user process attached) that it needs
> to modify the hardware, and it won't be able to...
A driver is a driver. Think about modifying the harware
more then one time...
Is it really the driver, which should do that?
Ciao,
Oliver
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (bill davidsen)
Subject: Re: System hanging with SMP-Kernel 2.2.13 (SuSE6.3)?
Date: 1 Mar 2000 01:05:15 GMT
In article <890g54$r75$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Yuan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
| Is there anybody who knows whether there is any problem with the SMP-kernel
| 2.2.13 [SuSE 6.3]?
| We've got a problem with this kernel on a Dell's PowerEdge 6350
| system [4 x PIII Xeon 550MHz, 2GB EDO DIMM RAM, Intel's Ether DualPort Pro100+]:
| it hangs sometimes.
| The /var/log/messages file didn't show any hints about what caused the hanging.
| Usually the system could only be reusable after rebooting (press reset-button)
| again (it didn't respond to pings during the hanging or anything else,
| i.e.: no telnet, no ftp-> a total k.o. :-<].
I've seen this on a distressing number of Linux SMP systems, and Alan
Cox seems to say that he agrees. On the other hand I have two systems on
2.2.6 and one on 2.2.10 which have been up for 44/88/69 days under heavy
network load. 2.2.14 seems better than 2.2.13, and you might try Alan's
latest pre-release patch if you are brave.
| Hope I can get a bit more hints from this gurus group, ;-).
Wrong group, lots of helpful folks here, but the gurus are pretty
quiet.
--
bill davidsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> CTO, TMR Associates, Inc
When taking small children to a carnival, always have them go potty
*before* you let them go on the rides, and let them eat all the junk
food and candy *after*.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Tennent)
Subject: Re: how to list the printers available?
Date: 1 Mar 2000 01:05:21 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Tue, 29 Feb 2000 09:40:49 -0700, han jibin wrote:
>what's the command to list all the printers available on the local network,
>the OS is Red Hat6.
>
lpc status
Bob T.
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.setup
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stephen Harris)
Subject: Re: Binary compatibility: what kind of crack are they smoking?
Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 07:32:33 GMT
Mario Klebsch ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: That is easy to explain. When I write programs for e.g. Solaris 7, I
: can be shure to know a set of shared libraries, that will be available
: on the target system. And I can be sure, they have the correct ABI.
Ah - note you've locked it down to a version. Version 7. If you write
programs for RedHat 6.1 you can be sure they will always be there on a
RedHat 6.1 system.
Now, take the wider view - if you write a program for Solaris 2.6 then it
may have problems with Solaris 2.5.1 (eg internal regexp functions appeared
to have changed). Ok... that's going from "new" to "old". How about the
other way? Lotus Notes for Solaris 2.4 regularly crashes and dies on
Solaris 2.5.1 and even more so on Solaris 2.6
: When writing a Program for e.g. Linux 2.2.13, I cannot rely on
You are writing code to a kernel version? Sorry, the OS is bigger than
just the kernel. IBM, Oracle and other big guys all write to a specific
distribution, because that _does_ define what you require. Indeed, it's
a measure of success that programs do end up working with other distributions
(albeit unsupported).
: Since Solairs is an operating system, specifying its version does
: specify the version (and th4e interface) of all shared libraries,
Ah - so you do agree with my point. RedHat 6.1 is an OS. "Linux 2.2.13"
is a kernel. Code to a distribution, and you have the parallel environment.
Redhat, SUSE, Debian et al are *DIFFERENT* operating systems. They have a
hell of a lot in common and interoperability between them is surprisingly
good, but they _are_ different.
: So if Linux will not be an OS, there sould be at least a way to define
: the ABI of the linux versions, and the build process of the individual
These are called "Distributions".
Ugh, I think I've been trolled...
--
Stephen Harris
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.spuddy.org/
The truth is the truth, and opinion just opinion. But what is what?
My employer pays to ignore my opinions; you get to do it for free.
* Meeeeow ! Call Spud the Cat on > 01708 442043 < for free Usenet access *
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Subject: Re: Why a file system ?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 01:24:50 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Nicolas Boulay would say:
>Wolfgang Denk wrote:
>>
>> Nicolas Boulay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>>
>> >I know it's look like a very odd question.
>>
>> >But in fact, file system it's a way to stock file. Files are from 2
>> >types : program and data.
>>
>> This is just a small part of the whole story.
>>
>> Under UNIX, a file can represent nearly _everything_:
>>
>> - program code
>> - data
>> - devices
>> - pipes
>> - network (sockets)
>> - per-process information ...
>> - hardware configuration
>> ...
>>
>> Have a look what a rich world you find just in the /proc filesystem -
>> you will probably be amazed.
>
>A file is nearly everything but some peripherical need more speed like
>video card, so you have to find an other system !
This is a commonly believed doctrine; I rather think that if a
suitable mapping were set up to provide a hierarchy of components of
the video hardware, it *could* be extremely efficient.
The way that people *tend* to access video hardware is via shared
memory.
If it was serialized onto a single file, /dev/video, this would *not*
be terribly efficient. But if it was hierarchicalized to a "video
hierarchy," with:
/dev/video1/framebuffers/, with a set of buffers,
/dev/video1/fonts/, with some hierarchy to express font support,
with further directories and subdirectories pinpointing the things
that you have to access, this would allow processing to directly hit
the things that need to be hit, and be both expressive and efficient.
Plan 9 explored this, and it is unfortunate that there *hasn't* been
an exploration of this approach to namespaces on Linux.
>I know all of this but if you are juste a secretary you absolutely
>nevermind about this. You just want to refind every file you have
>written. The system isn't your problem at all. But it's the same problem
>for common people at home. They want to use internet, write letter,
>maybe play networks game or have a little network with a server
>connected to internet. In the ideal word, they just need to plug the
>cable and some application will make it fine. It isn't because windows
>make it very bad, that nobody can make it clean.
>
>Or you think that linux arn't for common people ?
What precisely do you think is a problem with hierarchical filesystems
that could be resolved by having non-hierarchical filesystems?
>> You are coming from another (Windows?) universe, right? This is no
>> Unix thinking...
>
>It's a trial ?
>
>> >So, you need a kind of data base with your data connected to the
>> >application which can read it (throught the MIMe type ?). And the
>>
>> Why should you need a database? The whole idea is non-Unix.
>>
>> Under Unix, it does not matter it it's "program" or "data". I can use
>> the "program" `wc' to count the characters of the "data" - and "data"
>> and "program" are the same.
>>
>> There is no pre-organized, fix rule.
>
>What means count characters of a binary file ?
That counts how big it is, which is quite meaningful if you're trying
to figure out how much space it occupies.
What is *not* meaningful, with wc, is the number of "words" or "lines"
in a binary file, which merely establishes that not every "method"
that you might try to apply to an "object" in the system will be
equally meaningful.
>> >application are only visible by her name, not by a sudirectory and 100
>> >internal files plus some link.
>>
>> What do you mean?
>
>When you look the directory of an application you can see many other
>files than the executable file and many other directories, sometimes
>it's for configuration, but more often it's just internal thing. And
>it isn't usefull to see all that stuff.
>
>I know you can sleep well even you see that directory but it's just the
>concept of application that i want to clarify. If 'wc' use 'wc_foo'
>during a run, you don't need to see it in your file system.
That's precisely the reason why, on UNIX, there is the notion of
putting programs in a common set of places (e.g. - /usr/bin, /bin,
...) and configuration in other places (e.g. - /etc,
/usr/lib/[application-name], ...)
I think you're making up a problem that isn't really a problem.
>> >For expert, it could look strange to think like that. But for a
>
>> ...this would seriously limit what you can do with such a system. Let
>> me add a famous quote:
>>
>> "UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because
>> that would also stop you from doing clever things." - Doug Gwyn
>>
>
>That's why i say "warn" the user !And not doing something alone like
>Windows.
>
>> >This kind of ideas came to me when i try to manage the 300 Mo of
>> >documentation or application download on the net, or when i try to
>> >refind a data file which i can't remember where i put it. Or when (on
>> >windows, soory) i move a directory to clean my HD but finally it's crash
>> >the system. In fact, this system could looking for what you doing and
>> >made some alarm.
>>
>> Do What I Mean? Sorry, you won't get this easily.
>
>The idea is to find a system where the file could be relatively
>cleanly stocked with less work from the users.
If everything sits in a database that *doesn't* have some form of
directory hierarchy, then the users will be bombarded by the problem
that their "directory" is an immense list of items.
Your idea of "trying to improve manageability" is indeed a good one; I
*don't* think that it's as simple as saying "stick it in a database
and everything will be manageable."
>> >I know that there is many means to answer to those question. Using find
>> >or locate, creating it's own little data base to manage
>> >documentations and never work under root login. But this problem appears
>> >every days, usualy a common user, erase this partition every
>> >4 months to have a clean system. I know that i speak for Wxx. But for
>>
>> No user will erase a partition under Unix.
>
>I'm not sur. What could you do, if you have install some programs
>without package manager, and some others with rpm. If you look what
>is install with rpm you can't easly know if a pakage is need by a
>program that you have installed without rpm. And some times you want
>to delete all program that you don't need but it's hard to know
>exactly what you must keep.
If there are a bunch of components sitting out there, and you don't
know what you need to keep, you've got a problem.
This is true regardless of whether we're using:
a) Slackware-style Tarballs,
b) RPMs,
c) Debian .deb packages,
d) Everything shoved into a PostgreSQL DBMS,
e) InstallShield,
f) The Windows Registry,
g) NeXTStep-style configuration files under the GNUstep hierarchy.
>> >linux, if you don't manage to install correctly in the good directory
>> >your application in tgz, your system could become very dirty in few
>> >month.
>>
>> What makes you think so? Either you know what you are doing, or you
>> better use pre-build packages and rely on the sense of others and a
>> package manager like RPM.
>
>Maybe i'm a little lazy but i didn't remenber all what i have doing
>with my system !
>
>Sorry, but each package manager use the informations given by the file
>it self. Under windows, if every programs could have a clean remove
>option, our system directory will not explode. And you have to trust
>the people who create the rpm pakage.
Trust is a given.
If you don't trust those that create the package, of whatever type,
then it is *mandatory* for you to *fully* understand the meaning of
EVERY component of the package.
That puts you into the "Slackware bigot" situation of a mindset where
you prefer compile from source, and install *everything* by hand.
That mandates that you be knowledgeable about:
- Make
- C
- Installing from source
and that you become *INTIMATELY* familiar with every single thing that
you install.
That may be acceptable to some, but many of us have better things to
do with our time than to become so intimate with every bit of software
we install.
>> >I know that you can used rpm or some other pakage manager but each
>> >distributions have their own system. And i beleave that the power of
>>
>> ...and all follow, more or less, the filesystem standard.
>
>Has you say, follow more or less the standard.
>
>> >linux is the source. So why not create a pakage manager which contain
>> >only the source and make the compilation with the information given by
>> >the system ?
>>
>> You already have that: use RPM and install source RPM's. If you
>> really like, you can do this *now*. No changes needed. No problems
>> involved.
>
>Yes and you have to make ./configure and ./makefile and to pray for
>everything would be fine. In the opposiste, you have to be an expert
>or take many hours to earn how to solve the problem.
>My imaginary system will have enough information to manage it-self
>with dependancies, ... And give you enought information to face the
>problem.
Your imaginary system is a "pipe dream;" you seem to *think* that it
inherently resolves all the management problems, whereas all you're
doing is to sweep the problems from one place to another.
>> >The idee is to have a global answer to all of his question. Maybe i
>>
>> NO!!!
>>
>> The Unix idea is to have small building blocks, small ideas for small
>> problems, not one genral unified solution for the Meaning of Life and
>> Everything.
>
>Euh, it's a joke i hope. Read your own first line of this mail, it's
>writen that everything under unix is thinking with the idea of file.
>If it isn't a global answer for many big problem !
The abstraction that everything can be treated as a hierarchical set
of files is a remarkably useful abstraction for the implementation of
systems.
>Maybe this last line could explain yours positions : This system is
>fine and if you want to try to make it easier it would seems like
>windows and it's bad.
>
>My position is to think for beginer or for user who absolutely
>nevermind about how it's system work. I want that everything could be
>easly installed (maybe the only thing that Wxx does well) and that is
>application should work fine.
In order to design the system, the *designer* must know how things
work below the veneer that you are suggesting.
In order to usefully describe the design, you *have* to talk about the
lower level objects; to hide or ignore them means that you're avoiding
the issues.
--
"When people understand what Microsoft is up to, they're outraged."
-- Tim O'Reilly, President, O'Reilly & Associates
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
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