Re: [tlug] State of "Linux" documentation [was: Books]

[Edward Middleton <emiddleton@example.com>]

Scott Robbins wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 09, 2008 at 09:57:16AM +0900, Edward Middleton wrote:
>   
> > >  
> > >       
> > The problem is that most current distributions are designed to capture the 
> > windows market and so aim to keep users in their pretty distro specific GUI 
> > creations away from all that UNIX commonness.
> >     
>
> Yuppers.  For instance, most Fedora developers seem to assume you'll use
> Gnome.  :)  Which is interesting, because on the testing list, they all
> use mutt as their mail client.  
>   

Well if they are using mutt at least it means the developers still 
appreciate the utility of console tools.  What annoys me, is what seems 
to be a move towards depreciating (i.e. not supporting)  the command 
line interface.

> There's an interesting quote around (I saw it on a BSD forum), to the
> effect that Unix doesn't keep its users from doing something stupid
> because that might also keep them from doing something smart.
>   

But then BSD users tend to be more technically sophisticated.  If I were 
setting up a BSD system for broad public consumption I would want to 
nail everything down.

> That seems to be changing however--Fedora did something to make it hard
> to log into X as root, and Alan Cox posted back something like, , What's
> the point of this, to make sure you can't fix a totally borked system?
>   

I guess for the people this would help they aren't going to be fixing a 
borked system.  What to me is more irritating is that you would need to 
login to X to fix a borked system.

> Ubunutu, with its "You're too stupid to be root."
>   

Doesn't Ubuntu let you login as root with sudo su - ?

Edward