Quentin Hartman wrote: > > > <Devil's advocate> > > For me the question becomes, "Why not use it?". It's already there. > For my use, it's functionally the same as any other login method, and > offers no perceptible drawbacks[1]. Removing it would simply be more > effort without real purpose, which seems it would be counter to your > "simplify" mantra. Isn't the goal of simplicity to make things be less > work?
I appreciate the advocacy. :-) The reason is I'm figuring on doing a minimal reinstall; that is, on Debian anyway, installing just the base system and proceeding from there, installing what I need. So it's not so much a question of removing what's already here as it is, should I reinstall this? And the reason for that is, as I intimated, primarily as learning experience. I'd kind of like to work a bit with the bare bones to get to know them better, then add more bones and some flesh as I learn. I don't really want to go the whole Linux from Scratch route -- not enough time, energy, or interest to do that with a system I probably would get tired of trying to maintain anyway. I want a sandbox, but I don't want to have to haul in the sand. I've been using Debian for a while now, am pretty wedded to it I think, and it is sufficiently complex (to me, anyway) that by the time all these extras and do-dads are layered on top, I really don't understand very much about what's going on, especially when it comes to solving problems. It's like trying to learn anatomy by poking at a full-grown person -- it's really easier if you start with a skeleton. My approach to problem-solving has been: 1) Google, 2) mailing lists and newsgroups, 3) reference books. These have mostly come through for me, but it's left me with a spotty, haphazard and incomplete understanding of how this Linux thingy really works. And considering how long I've been using Linux, I'm pretty disappointed with myself that I don't get more of it and haven't advanced beyond where I am. I've no tech background or training, no programming experience, never taken a class remotely related to computers beyond command-line basics at Free Geek, when I volunteered there. I didn't grow up with computers (heck, back when I lived in Cupertino there were still vacant fields and old abandoned farmhouses). I don't think you have to have any of these things to use Linux, or even FreeBSD. (Most of my Windows-using friends response to something going wonky is, "I need a new computer," so I guess you don't need those things to use Windows either.) But I want to understand the system better than I do, and truthfully I probably do understand more that I realize. The problem is, I don't realize. > [1] - Sure it consumes some resources, but come on, it's not 1999. I > don't care about something that is consuming some fraction of a single > percent of my "mostly-idle most of the time anyway" computer's > resources. Computer time is cheap, my time is not. Yes, but I would like to invest some time in learning what uses those resources. I'd like to see, what does 'top' look like with a minimal install? What does it look like after adding various capabilities? How do system configurations and directories change? At what stages do all these .dot files show up in my home directory? (A few of them, to this day, remain something of a mystery to me.) The goal of simplicity for me, right now, is to make things more comprehensible, not necessarily make them less work. Also, I have been having some hardware issues, which got dramatically better when I got rid of GNOME. I'd like to get to the bottom of the problem (which may very well be, I need a new something-or-another, probably motherboard or power supply or CPU). I still have some more ducks to row before I do this. I can learn plenty with what I've got going, and intend to practice some more with certain CLI and ncurses apps, some bash lessons, some perl practice, so that I'm not lost in the dark with a minimal system and don't reinstall everything in a panic. That's why I'm taking a closer look at what I've got and trying to figure out, what's it good for? How does it work? Do I need it / want it? Michael M. _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
