Re: alternative motd and logo?
On Friday 02 August 2002 21:45, Craig Dickson wrote:
> Davide Inglima - limaCAT wrote:
>> On Thursday 01 August 2002 19:58, Craig Dickson wrote:
>>>> Mandatory schmandatory. "Credit where credit is due" is enough of a
>>>> reason to insist that it be called by it's true name: "Debian
>>>> GNU/Linux". Debian is far more than just Linux. My hat's off to the
>>>> GNU project, and if you think you owe them nothing (or that avoiding
>>>> giving them credit is something desirable/admirable) you are deluding
>>>> yourself (and probably only yourself).
>>> I agree completely. Anyone who doesn't care for the term "GNU/Linux"
>>> should try running a Linux system without any GNU components.
>> I Think they should also be made to administer a Solaris system without
>> any GNU component as well :)
> It might not be pleasant, but it's possible. I believe Sun have their
> own C library, compiler, and shells, none of which are GNU or GPL
> software.
Yes, I know, I know :)
My joke was more pointing at usability of the system. It's true that Sun
has got is own C library, compiler and shell, I've used in the past on
university machine. But I also admit that my experience with solaris Boxes,
while was interesting (shell scripting, using pine and procmail for e-mails,
and being able to joke all those other students using Windows NT, with account
closed on a "prevention basis" [1] because they received Outlook virusses),
was a bit painful.
I know I'll be flamed to death by seasoned UNIX admins, but in my short-lived
Unix||GNU/Linux career i've found the following facts.
The Solaris environment in itself is painful, and if you are used to GNU
extensions, rewritings and remappings of Unix (which usually are shortcuts or
clarifications), is even a bit more painful.
Man pages are way too much technical, the hierarchy is nothing rational (have
to check if Solaris has the Hier manpage as BSD and Debian) compared to
Linux, and even OpenBSD 2.9's installer, (as I tried to install Solaris on my
box), is cleaner. Sun supplied documentation (The one you found in pdfs on
Sunsolve) is a bunk consisting of several easy to follow steps and no quick
introduction or a large overview.
Oh, and Sun's decision to still use the System V's package with release 9,
the one with MEANINGFUL names like SSYSVET.pkg, rather than upgrading the
system to rpm or deb [2] while it is admirable for the compatibility with
running production systems, (which I admit is an important factor), will
simply mean that Sun will continue to sell Solaris on marketing skills,
rather than technical skills. [3]
Ok, now I get to my point :)
The thing that I want to say is this: the GNU system, the Free (Speech)
Software philosophy, in this 10 years has simply revolutionized the way we
approach to a Unix system.
Bash is far more complete and easier to program than CSH.
The LSB Filesystem Hierarchy Standard is clean and rational.
The GCC is complete and a very interesting project (I've done some
deep working on recompiling version 2.95 and was amazed in the
stuff that it let you to do).
You can find vast amounts of documentation everywhere for free, written for
all targets of readers.
The whole DPKG/Debconf/Apt structure is way too much superior to any other
Unix Packaging system (I'm still learning more every day I use them).
KDE is waaaaay faaaaar more complete [4] than any other desktop environment
on this planet, and there are also other desktop project who have a license
inspired by the GPL or a userbase captured by the GNU/Linux system (Mozilla,
Gnome, OpenOffice, XFree) that are almost as good as any commercial
counterpart.
Yes, in the end you will do the same commands as you did 25 years ago, maybe
changing rsh with ssh, and play nethack, but all the other bugfixes, patches
and tips and tricks contributed by the users of the OSS-user community that
are making your job easier, are going to stay for you, for me and for
everyone else coming in.
And that only because GCC made possible for a boy in a bedroom in Finland to
create his terminal emulator with filesystem management attached :). That's
why I think that is right to call the system GNU/Linus, and that's why I made
the Solaris joke in the first place :)
By the way: are there any SCO users in the audience? :D
> In comparison, you can't run any Linux distro I know of
> without GNU's C library. The GNU environment is integral to Linux
> distros in a way that just isn't true of Solaris or the *BSD Unixes.
Wasn't Mastodon Linux focused on using a.out files with the bsd c library?
(Yes, I know that Mastodon was focused on an entirely different world than
current GNU/Linux distros)
[1] It was just matter of asking a technician to clean their area, but
sometimes those virii were rather introduced by the students themselves.
[2] Sun could have used the dpkg/deb/apt structure in a straightfoward manner.
Their packages all behave accordingly to a pattern, to an ABI which is
fixed, and some applications anyway require some packages,
functionalities or patches (see OpenOffice for Solaris/Intel notes).
I hope someone at sun gets struck with the same lightning that struck
Apple when they decided to do MacOS X and base it on Unix, but I simply
fear that Solaris will be the next unix to go the Sco way.
[3] When (let's say) UnitedLinux will buy a good marketing department, only
technical merits will be left out, and technicians will probably come out
and say that a Gnu System can be administered better, faster and safer
than a Solaris system for personal experience. Of course, Sun can give
"appreciation gifts" to technicians who choosed Solaris on Linux, but
Sun can't bribe them all. Also based on the bang-banging of the press
during these years, that painted linux as the miracle system coming from
Finland, I predict it soon will substitute IBM and Microsoft in the famous
sentence: "no one has been fired because he bought BRAND X for his IT
department".
[4]
--
Davide Inglima - limaCAT
"Mana is rapidly disappearing from the World, even the"
"Mana Tree has begun to wither" - Seiken Densetsu 3
http://digilander.iol.it/nekochan/
Reply to: