On Sat, 25 Feb 2006 10:18:02 -800 dg135@torfree.net wrote: >>On Wed, Feb 15, 2006 at 11:12:18PM -0800, S Clement wrote: >> >> If reinstalling the OS is the only thing you ever try to fix a problem, >> then you should be using Windows. Unix is not for you. > > This begs the question, who is Unix for? (We'll assume you meant "Unix" > to be synonymous with Debian in this context) What a shocking > suggestion that someone would expect an OS that was developed, and > tested, for years before its final release, to simply work upon > install. If you expect that, it's "not for you", apparently. Perhaps > you're suggesting it's for people who view computers not as tools to > make life easier and more efficient, but as an activity to do in and of > itself (like digging a hole for no reason -- just for something to > do!). Maybe you're saying that if you want to install and then USE an > operating system, "Unix is not for you". Expecting to "stick the disks > in and it installs and works" is only for people who "should be using > Windows", you feel; so perhaps you're suggesting that real Unix users > want a never-ending install and subsequent tweaking process, like a > program caught in a loop, never-ending. Never to actually be used, > just perpetually caught in the initial install. I know there's a lot of sarcasm in the above; but it seems that sarcasm is intended to reinforce what you're saying rather than mock it, so I'd just like to say that what you've written above shows a *terribly, terribly* lazy reading of what the person to whom you replied said -- truly stunning since it's only two sentences long, yet you still managed to say something very very different. How you can get from "if reinstalling the OS is the only thing you ever try to fix a problem" to "if you expect an OS to simply work upon install", I have no flipping idea. What was said was *not* "if you expect things to work upon install, Unix is not for you." His point was that, when you encounter something that's broken (which you will in *any* operating system), attempting to solve things by reinstalling the operating system is not the best way to proceed under Unix-like OSes. Indeed, the stability of an operating system and (hopefully, but of course not always) its applications would ensure that's not the best way to proceed -- reinstall and reboot doesn't make problems intrinsic to software go away, unless the problem is some sort of unpredictable instability. For years, the solution to serious misbehavior in Windows has been to reboot or reinstall. In Linux, the solution has been to attack the problem directly and solve it; rebooting or reinstalling won't make the problem go away. That's not a defect; to me, problems that are solved by rebooting *scare* me. But reinstalling/rebooting to solve problems is the approach that the Windows culture has cultivated; if you're going to use other operating systems, you have to abandon that approach. That's what the original poster was trying to say. Jeebus. -c -- Chris Metzler cmetzler@speakeasy.snip-me.net (remove "snip-me." to email) "As a child I understood how to give; I have forgotten this grace since I have become civilized." - Chief Luther Standing Bear
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