Rant
Nathan England
plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
09 Oct 2001 11:19:50 -0700
--=-5WdX3jZ3BDM9xb7edj6e
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Actually I use Midnight Commander all the time. That is my 'gui' file
manager. Otherwise it's all cli. I know I can view all the rpms in it.
I know I can get the source from 'most' ftps andd other places.. I'm
just saying it's something I don't want to have to do.
It would be nice to just find a simple tarball instead of the srpm. I
know how to get around it... It's just a pain in the ass.
nathan
On Tue, 2001-10-09 at 08:49, George Toft wrote:
> I guess I really am missing the point. If you want the source code,
> I suggest the following:
> 1. Use mc to browse the srpm, and copy the source tree to the=20
> directory of your choice;
> 2. Go to the author's web site / ftp site and download it from=20
> there. If all he/she provides is RPM format, refer to #1 above.
>=20
> mc is really easy to use, and it allows you to browse ftp sites
> like they were a part of your local file system. It allows you
> to browse tar balls and rpms. Check it out. You can do almost
> everything you need with the arrow keys and the function keys.
> No weird Unix commands to learn. If you have gpm installed,=20
> it is even point and click - almost like Windows!
>=20
> George
>=20
>=20
> Nathan England wrote:
> >=20
> > I understand the marketing perspective, but you missed my point.
> > I could care less if they only want to put out the rpm binaries, it's
> > the source I am after anyway. But the source is getting harder and
> > harder to find. Unless it's in a srpm format.
> >=20
> > Thomas, if you write something to break up rpms into the tar.gz file, I
> > would be very interested in that. Also, I'm going to look into alien.
> > I've never heard of that.
> >=20
> > I myself would more than likely only put out an rpm if I was a large
> > company writing software, but I'd like to think that I would only
> > release tar.gz files instead. Maybe build a generic installer, or use
> > loki's installer. I appreciate all that Red Hat does for the open
> > source community, but the Microsoft of the linux world is beginning to
> > bother me.
> >=20
> > As long as they continue to put out tar.gz files of the source,
> > everything is peachy, but when it only comes in srpms linux will begin
> > to fall apart. That's just my opinion. Unless there is an easy option
> > for getting the source out of the srpm.
> >=20
> > Kurt comes to mind on this one. Kde of course wants the largest market
> > share of the desktop for it's Gnu/Linux users. The developers for kde
> > work their asses off (without funding like the ximian group <none that =
I
> > know of, but I don't use kde, so I don't pay attention, honestly>) to
> > put out some very impressive software. I built all the kde 2.2.1
> > packages from source and have it running on my slack system so I could
> > see it, and though I've never much liked Kde, I must say, it's awesome.
> > Back to my point, I can go to any kde mirror and find the tar.gz files,
> > some in binary, others in source. And also the rpm's. But always I can
> > find the tar.gz
> > On the other hand, I remember a few months ago I went to the ximian sit=
e
> > to get the source for something and after jumping through an hours wort=
h
> > of hoops and not finding any source outside of srpms, I gave up... Late=
r
> > I found that any source I want I have to get from the Debian
> > directories, and it's usually a development cycle behind.
> >=20
> > Or maybe I'm just continually looking in the wrong spots. Though ximian
> > has straightened out a little bit. It's still a pain in the ass to get
> > the source for all the ximian stuff if I wanted to build ximian gnome
> > from source...
> > Not that I'd want to anyway. Gnome bothers me quite a bit as well!
> > Can't wait for E 17. But I'm addicted to Evolution. And now with well
> > over 4k messages in different folders spread through many directories
> > and vfolders, I'm too hooked to switch to kmail. So I still use gnome,
> > or the libraries anyway.
> >=20
> > Enough ranting... who's next.?
> >=20
> > nathan
> >=20
> > On Sun, 2001-10-07 at 16:09, George Toft wrote:
> > > I would look at it from a marketing perspective. Each of the
> > > distros you cited are backed by a company. I believe Slack is
> > > supported only by Patrick V. Also, look at the market share.
> > > Red Hat has 55-60% market share, Caldera 10%, and all others
> > > are less that that. Caldera and Mandrake are Red Hat spin-offs.
> > > So what it comes down to is how much effort is a company willing
> > > to spend on a distro (Slack) that has under 5% market share?
> > > Anyone willing to use Slack or Debian presumable knows enough
> > > to get it to work anyway, so they really don't need to support
> > > it.
> > >
> > > Looking at it another way, knowing that Netscape has under 20%
> > > market share, more and more web sites are being designed to work
> > > only with I.E. Why? The effort to appease the 15-20% is not
> > > worth the effort. That thought is more valid with only 5%
> > > market share.
> > >
> > > Of course, some will say that 5% is worth going after. Loki
> > > thought so, that's why we have some games. Linux on the
> > > desktop is about 5% market share - Windows taking up the
> > > other 95%.
> > >
> > > George
> > >
> > >
> > > Rick Rosinski wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Over time, I have noticed (as did everybody else, no doubt) that wh=
en
> > > > checking for compatibility / requirements for most of the software =
out there
> > > > (Notably, StarOffice), they support RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Mandrake,=
and even
> > > > YellowDog, and of course, Solaris. But they do not support Slackwa=
re, even
> > > > though they provide a tarball binary (so it isn't because of any pa=
ckage
> > > > management). This really irritates me, and I worry about future re=
leases of
> > > > my programs will no longer work on a Slackware system. I don't wan=
t to have
> > > > to change to one of the above distributions just because of some ma=
jor
> > > > oversight of one of the first - and ongoing - distributions of Linu=
x.
> > > >
> > > > Any comments, rants, verifications, discredits, etc.?
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Rick Rosinski
> > > > http://rickrosinski.com
> > > > rick@rickrosinski.com
> > > > ________________________________________________
> > > > See http://PLUG.phoenix.az.us/navigator-mail.shtml if your mail doe=
sn't post to the list quickly and you use Netscape to write mail.
> > > >
> > > > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> > > > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
> > > ________________________________________________
> > > See http://PLUG.phoenix.az.us/navigator-mail.shtml if your mail doesn=
't post to the list quickly and you use Netscape to write mail.
> > >
> > > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> > > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
> > --
> >=20
> > "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,
> > but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
> > -- Albert Einstein
> >=20
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------=
---
> > Part 1.2Type: application/pgp-signature
> ________________________________________________
> See http://PLUG.phoenix.az.us/navigator-mail.shtml if your mail doesn't p=
ost to the list quickly and you use Netscape to write mail.
>=20
> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
--=-5WdX3jZ3BDM9xb7edj6e
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org
iD8DBQA7wz/GjpHZ/aPnU7cRAljuAJ9aAgRunAmxEv6Q32bdsPPMXEE0mgCg2P3t
r3IM+m+eDkCTVFzXi20lwnY=
=iXE4
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
--=-5WdX3jZ3BDM9xb7edj6e--