Reasons to preseve X on tty7

[Brian Wheeler]

On Wed, 2008-10-29 at 11:33 -0600, Dax Kelson wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-10-29 at 08:26 -0400, Brian Wheeler wrote:
> > I'm going to agree with the -1.  
> > 
> > Almost all of the "reasons" from the original email boil down to "we've
> > always done it this way".  
> 
> Absolute not! I gave 9 distinct, independent reasons. Only one of which
> was regarding tradition.
> 
> Listen, it's easy to win arguments if you rephrase/restate all the
> opposing arguments into one straw man.
> 

Ok, lets go through them.

Your first one is the tradition argument.

So is the second one ("developers should tread respectfully in such
hallowed places")

The third one is documentation.  That's a fair argument, but its not
insurmountable.  I can't think of any of the linux books/faqs/etc I've
used over the last 15 years that haven't become out of date at least
partially...and usually fairly quickly.

The fourth is "no other distros are doing this" is kind of a tradition
argument, but its also a compatibility issue.  There are all kinds of
differences between the distros, so I'm not sure how this advances your
argument that it shouldn't change. 

Fifth argument is just documentation (again) combined with the one
above.

The 6th argument is dealing with a non-standard startup.  When you don't
use the defaults, all bets are off.

The 7th is "nobody should care what tty X is on".  Indeed, why are
people so upset that it has changed?  Its not an argument for or
against, its an argument that this thread shouldn't be taking place at
all.

Eighth is tradition again.  "experienced users will try..."

Ninth is fast user switching.  Interesting side effect, but with
"argument 7" its moot.  Who cares if the 2nd user display is on tty7?

Tenth is "switching to vt7 causes no flicker".  Switching VTs takes
time, even if the flicker is not present.  Its not an argument, so much
as its a workaround.  Its a workaround with a (time) cost.


So, it boils down to tradition, documentation, and compatibility with
other distros.

Tradition is important, but I'd vote that a faster, flicker-free startup
trumps it.

Documentation is also important, but it is just documentation.  The move
from SysV Init is far more in-depth than the X vt thingy.

Compatibility isn't a driving priority, especially for something that's
low-level and used primarily by those who've been around for a long
time...


*shrug* 

I don't really get why there's so much anger about this change.  I
booted the rawhide and was very impressed by the speed of the startup
(as well as lack of flicker/monitor resync time).  It seems like a
reasonable trade off.  

Brian