Re: [tlug] Ubuntu 10.04 - kernel update snafu

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Kalin KOZHUHAROV writes:

 > I don't think it is that hard, iff you are willing to learn. And have
 > extra CPU(s) to spare and time to fiddle to perfection.

It's not that hard, it's just that it's a lot more fun with beer,
pizza (or fish, if you're a Finn or a penguin), and a good tutor.

 > I've been using more or less the same Gentoo setup with WindowMaker
 > for the last 10 years.

See, that's the key, though.  If you've been doing it for 10 (or 20 or
30) years, ripping off the veil and kissing the bride directly on the
lips comes natural, and you know all about what to do next.  Linux
virgins, though, don't know about removing the veil, and there are far
too many moving parts -- look, there goes another one, zipping into
/etc/exim4/conf.d/, no darn it, it's in /var/run/exim4/ now, oops, now
where did it go?!  [Word to the Wise -- I know, not even in GNU/HURD
would a file that started in /etc ever reappear in /var/run.  Not even
if POSIX_ME_HARDER is unset.]

 > For a pizza and 2 beers, I should be able to rsync an image to your
 > machine, set up proper kernel (or use stock) and show you around
 > Gentoo.

Sure.  And then *he* will need to drink the other 8 guys' worth of
beer because he hates your setup.  (That's not a *certainty*, of
course, but I'd bet an evening's beers on it!)  And I doubt he'll like
Gentoo if running a staticly-linked program doesn't work for him!

I don't know what Gentoo installs as a workstation environment by
default nowadays, but I'm pretty sure that whatever it is I would wish
it only on Richard Stallman.  Everybody else (except Debian, AFAIK)
hides the boot console behind some kind of pretty image, etc, etc.
And everything goes downhill from there.  Even Debian.  Even though
Debian doesn't hide the thousands of itty bitty config files all with
idiosyncratic syntax that nevertheless all looks alike, they do the
opposite by breaking everything down into a main config file with
almost nothing in it that automagically includes everything in a
conf.d subdirectory.

I'm pretty sure Brian wants something between Gentoo "Scorched Drive",
and Ubuntu "You're gonna love our GUI, 'cause if you don't we'll just
have to kill ya" Unity.  It ought to be possible to give that to people.

 > Install parties are not fun usually (well may be more fun than my last
 > presentation)...

No, but they're relatively effective in getting newbies up and running
(not to forget some folks who just have never gotten around to
changing something that wasn't quite painful enough to justify changing).

Then you've got a bunch of people who feel more comfortable trying a
few new things because they've got their basic setup under *firm*
control.