watch for heresay

[Frank Carmickle]

On Mon, 15 Oct 2001, Tony Baechler wrote:
> when I can.  Besides, it is probably better to compile the source rather
> than using precompiled binaries in most cases.

I used to think like this.  I have been converted though.  Why should we
all use cpu cycles if were all going to be building the same aps with the
same libs.  This is why I am such a huge fan of Debian.  Most all of the
stuff that anyone will ever want is available in the distribution.  It is
all compiled with the same libs and the dependencies are all taken care of
when you install.  The only time that I ever have to build stuff from
source is when I am working with cvs snapshots of apps that may need cvs
snapshots of other libs.  But the slackware way of just compiling things
when ever you need them or want to upgrade doesn't help anyone else but
myself.  If a package is broken don't just compile the source report
it.  I personally think that it is great for every new user to appreciate
what they have in freesoftware.  I think that this requires a system like
slackware.  This shows the user how much work actually goes in to getting
the system working.  Slackware is very easy to setup.  It's very easy to
configure.  But it's not pretty!  It's dirty!  You may end up with
hundreds of files laying around on your machine from old packages.  Most
of the time you don't even notice.  But if there ever is a problem how the
hell are you going to know what's what.  I like the fact that dpkg knows
about every file on my machine that it put there.  I like the fact that I
can tell it to purge a package and it will remove all of those files from
my machine.  I don't want to realize that I have one version of an app in
/usr/bin and one in /usr/local/bin.  I want a clean system that looks
pretty!  If there are apps that aren't packaged with the distro why not
make debs for them so that others can spend there cpu cycles working on
seti or something.  But it's not about cpu cycles as much as it is my
time.  I don't know how the rest of you feel but I don't like the fact
that I had to become an expert on a lot of packages just to get them to
even work.  I have no desire to understand how print spoolers work.  I use
a printer maybe 4 or 5 times a year.  Well to get a printer working
under slack I had to read the docs over and over and over and I still
didn't get it.  When I wanted to get one working with debian I had to make
a choice between lpr and appsfilter or lprng and magic filter.  I chose
lprng and magic filter.  With in five minutes of running the magic filter
setup utility my printer was working.  This brought me great joy.  And you
know what I actually got other work done that day.  I spent a whole
afternoon one day trying to get my printer working on a slack box.  That
may have been my lack of understanding of a few things or it may have been
that it was actually a lot of work.  Either way this was simple.  I didn't
need to know a thing about how to make it work.  This is frowned on by
folks in this community.  I say it's a good thing.  What isn't a good
thing is not being able to know all of what one might want to know or may
need to know.  Freesoftware is a very beautiful thing.  It gives us the
opportunity to know everything about our software.  Not just some things
but everything.  I may not want to know everything but I will not run
software that I can't know about.  

"Free software" for a better world!

-- 
     Frank Carmickle
phone:     412 761-9568
email:     frankiec at dryrose.com