Alpha Core Directions

Wed Dec 22 23:01:39 UTC 2004

Dude.  You COMPLETELY missed the point of everything I was saying.

> Hooray for Unix.

> >No, "Hooray for Unix Marketing."

Do you understand sarcasm?

I didn't say you could install linux on ANY architecture, I meant you could
install it on any architecture it was available for and you'd have the same
results.  As I have.  If the OS assumes you simply made a typo, then why is
it you read the man pages, you follow examples, and you get nothing?  That's
my experience. You can have seemingly identical environments to the example,
and it won't work.  Often times, hardcore linux people can't tell me why.

I do RTFM.  AH.  As I've said before, reading the Red Hat 6.2 manual end to
end years ago didn't explain itself.  If you're going to get anywhere, RTFM
isn't the best way to go.  Obscure websites and specifically forums are
seemingly the only way to find any real info.  Trial and error, trial and
error.

A modern OS will simply not work on old hardware?  Dude, the latest linux
variants will run on generally whatever.  The latest MacOS will not install
on a 9600, even with a G3 Upgrade, unless you force it.  I can't use a
Millennium or a Mach 64/Rage II/Pro or iXMicro card on OSX 10.3+ without
some kind of cheat, and even then it's not often functioning.  Why?  They
simply said, "no."  Not, "We can't."  Just, "No."  I can run the latest
linux with the same hardware on my 9600, 9500, 8600, 8500 with some work,
but Apple says, "No, give us vast sums of money for upgrades that won't work
on the old Mac."  Not even all that old.  The same cards that worked on a
xx00 series just fine (Matrox/ATI) simply don't do anything when you put
them in a B&W.  Apple has no loyalty to their long-faithful customers.  This
isn't about who is making a better product or who has better hardware...
it's about how a company talks in relation to how they act.  It's pitiful
the way Steve Jobs mashes drivel down people's throats, and they somehow
accept it as gospel and saviour of the world every time.  Apple's
hardware/OS control scheme is to obsolete everything as soon as people will
accept being forced to pay more money.  Kinda like SGI, only SGI clients
demand a little more out of their investment.  I can even shovel Windows
2000/XP onto some old junk, as horrible as XP is.  But we're not here to
discuss Mac or SGI...

Linux is not ready for the desktop, but regardless the reality is it's a
just a big, bloated, unfocused world.  I'm not trying to start arguments or
save the universe, I'm just pointing out where the problems are for people
like me trying to get into it.  The biggest problem being anti-n00bness.
The method is there, the reason is not, and there's always some dork telling
you to RTFM.  You don't get people into a sport or game by letting them play
and then telling them how stupid and useless they are because they don't
quite understand the big picture of trap defence, or saying "hahahah you
suck NOOB" because they missed a bank shot in pool.

Continuing on RTFM... isn't it great when you look at the schematic in the
164SX motherboard book, and there's numbers for thing but they aren't
explained?  Like XU59, U56, U39, etc etc etc... they give you the pinouts
for just about everything, but they can't tell you what a socket does even
though it's worthy of a place on Figure 2-1?

RTFM.

Thanks for the suggestion.  I'll keep that in mind next time I'm printing
the PDF's I print simply because I like wasting paper.

JA

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "William H. Magill" <magill at mcgillsociety.org>
To: "Linux and Red Hat on Alpha processors" <axp-list at redhat.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2004 10:27 AM
Subject: Re: Alpha Core Directions

> On 21 Dec, 2004, at 18:23, Jeff A. wrote:
> > My point is, the systems are getting a little too far away from each
> > other.
> > There is "freedom" and then there is "mess because everyone is doing
> > their
> > own thing."  Someone else said it... why do we need 35 different text
> > editors?  The same thing will have an entirely different name on
> > another
> > machine, and that's assuming you even found it to install in the first
> > place.
> >
> > I'm sure some of you are familiar with this thing...
> >
> > http://bhami.com/rosetta.html
>
> Better than nothing, except for the fact that it is full of errors:
>
> Ultrix: An early DEC Unix, superceded by Digital Unix (now Tru64).
> FreeBSD: Derived from 4.4BSD-Lite and 386BSD.
>
> Missing lots of information, and it lumps all distributions of linux
> together.
>
> > Hooray for Unix.
>
> No, "Hooray for Unix Marketing."
>
> Unix never was what the marketing folks claimed it was -- the same thing
> on every platform.
> Oh, it was (or could be) for the end user. You could have both SystemV
> and BSD versions of the commands and your choice of shells, but for the
> SysAdmin, other than BSD, Ultrix and SunOS (NOT Solaris), there have
> never
> been multiple Unix variants close enough to each other to allow one to
> switch
> from one box to another without doing "something nasty," as in "oops!"
>
> > I can make the SRM console
> > boot my linux install, but I don't really know what any of the other
> > settings do.  The assumption is that I know ahead of time why I am
> > setting
> > certain paramaters.
>
> Blame DEC for this one. The SRM was/is proprietary and never documented,
> at least to the outside world.  However, there is (or was) a fair
> amount of
> information around on the SRM which would allow someone with a System
> Administration background to intuit what much of it did.
>
> The same problem exists with the so-called "Open Firmware" used by Sun,
> Apple
> and others. There is quite a bit of documentation on it, and Forth is a
> "well
> known" language, but there are still significant and important parts
> that are
> proprietary to each hardware vendor.
>
>
> > As far as compiling things goes, you can follow everyone's instructions
> > perfectly, and something may still be missing.  Then you try to
> > compile the
> > missing piece and it won't compile.  Barely-technical people like
> > myself
> > won't know why.  For example, I tried to complile xine on Alpha.
> > Well, it
> > said something was missing, go get it here.  So I did.  Then that bit
> > wouldn't compile.  I think it was pkgconfig or something?
>
> This is the difference between DarwinPorts and Fink on OSX. DarwinPorts
> is
> oriented at Mac users trying to use Unix -- Fink is oriented at Unix
> users
> trying to use OS X.
>
> > You can install linux on *any* architecture,
>
> Actually this is not a true statement in and of itself -- it's just
> like the
> "Unix marketing" statement of yore. You CAN install some version of
> "Linux" on
> any architecture, but you cannot install "Linux" on any architecture.
>
> > You click on a program in the launchbar thingy,
> > it sits there for a while rumbling the hard drive, then nothing
> > happens.  No
> > reason, no warning, nothing.  NOTHING HAPPENS.  You run a command from
> > the
> > command line.  It sits there thinking for a while.  THEN NOTHING
> > HAPPENS.
> > What's going on?  How am I going to know?
>
> This is part and parcel of the Unix philosophy. It's described in the
> early
> documents by K & R -- "We don't tell you that you did something stupid,
> because
> you already know what you did wrong and are just waiting to type it
> over."
>
> > I know all about OSX.  It doesn't matter what OSX is *based* on...
> > it's what
> > they've turned the final product into.  What the final product is is a
> > bloated mess of Apple.  If you've ever installed it, you know all
> > about the
> > barrage of "give us your personal info, your parents, a cookie and your
> > first born child" screens.  You know the, "Hey!  You can't have the
> > hardware
> > support we promised you we would give you a long time ago!"  No, you
> > can't
> > use that video card with this update because we said so.  No, you
> > can't use
> > that network card, we don't want you to.  No, you can't install me on
> > an old
> > machine... that interferes with us owning your lifestyle.
>
> This is no different than any OS or Hardware vendor. A modern OS simply
> will
> not run on old hardware.
>
> > See?  I don't know what I'm doing!  Mostly because I can't get the
> > information I need.
>
> RTFM.  It really is all out there, you just have to find it.
>
> Linux is NOT the MacOS any more than OSX is the MacOS ... yet that 100%
> vendor
> controlled and dictated environment is what you are really looking for.
>
> Simply BECAUSE Linux runs on many platforms, it is complex and full of
> options.
>
> And despite all the evangelical marketing hype to the contrary,
> Linux is not ready for the desktop! Especially for users like yourself.
>
> Linux is a classic 90% problem -- 90% of the work takes 10% of the
> resources;
> the remaining 10% of the work takes 90% of the resources.
>
> Sadly, that last 10% involves the packaging and documentation. And the
> more
> "bullet proof" those are to be made, the more work it requires.
>
> Look at it this way, it took the automobile almost 60 years to get to
> the point
> where "almost anybody" could simply sit behind the wheel and go. ...
> but if you
> rent cars regularly, like I do, you quickly discover that the
> differences between
> models by the same manufacture, let alone different manufacturers, are
> quite different.
>
> This one puts the key slot on the dashboard, this one on the steering
> column.
> This one locks the steering column so that you have to pull the wheel
> to insert
> the key, that one doesn't. Then we have the "comfort controls,"  argh
> ... turn
> on the defroster and the AC starts up, not the heat. (yeah, I know, but
> it didn't
> use to work that way.)
>
>
>
> T.T.F.N.
> William H. Magill
> # Beige G3 - Rev A motherboard - 768 Meg
> # Flat-panel iMac (2.1) 800MHz - Super Drive - 768 Meg
> # PWS433a [Alpha 21164 Rev 7.2 (EV56)- 64 Meg]-Tru64 5.1a
> # XP1000  [Alpha 21264-3 (EV6) - 256 meg] Open BSD 3.6
> # XP1000  [Alpha 21264-A (EV 6.7) - 384 meg] RH7.1
> magill at mcgillsociety.org
> magill at acm.org
> magill at mac.com
> whmagill at gmail.com
>
>
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