Comments on: Why is Linux Better?

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 10:05:19 +0000

Pierce: Yes, exactly. Gentoo is the Mac of Linux, culturally. Gentoo can do no wrong, Gentoo is perfect, Gentoo is the best, Gentoo promises to always be good and wonderful. But they seem to have not kept their promise.I’m annoyed, generally, at Debian as well, for cutting support for continued powerPC development.I’ve got a power PC runing an earlier version of Ubuntu LInux and it works fine, but you can’t upgrade the “virtual machines” such as flash, so it is limited. I looked into upgrading it to the latest system X but found that the latest System X is a lot like Vista in this regard: The current system has left behind somewhat older hardware. Which leaves a bad taste in my mouth about Apple, frankly.I may have to go to plan B.

By: r000n

r000n — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 08:35:04 +0000

Translation to Russian: http://blog.r000n.net/2007/12/29/why-is-linux-better/

By: Pierce R. Butler

Pierce R. Butler — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:37:30 +0000

FYI: Uh-oh – the page you cite was, according to itself, last updated May 3 ’07, and the most recent item under its news heading came from July 1 ’06.Maybe I’ll have to remain unindoctrinated until I can justify buying an Intel box…

By: Pierce R. Butler

Pierce R. Butler — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:21:00 +0000

Greg -Ah, thanks much for the info – and good luck with the conspiracy!

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 14:13:37 +0000

Pierce: Sorry for the delay. We were busy conspiring and stuff.You can get earlier versions of LInux to run on a Power PC. However to my knowledge this is not an architecture that is necessarily going to be supported in the future. I’m pretty sure Ubuntu stopped upgrading much of their stuff for the power PC prior to or at the beginning of version 7.Indeed, my understanding is that Apple has dropped support or development for the power pc as well. In other words, the discussion we have been having regarding stable API’s, drivers, and such, pales in comparison to Apple dropping an entire category of computer that a lot of us are not, simply, stuck with.Power PC was never a Linux thing, so one could understand Linux dropping it as it was mainly experimental. Personally I think it is wrong for linux developers to drop the Power PC for a few reasons, no only because I happen to have one, and I run Linux on it, and I’d prefer to keep it up to date.Having said all that, Gentoo developers made a sort of promise, or a least a bunch of hooting and hollering, about how they were going to have the best, most, etc. etc. Power PC distribution ever, for anybody, everywhere, etc. I find Gentoo Linux geeks to be rather full of it sometimes, compared to other Linux geeks (not as bad as Mac geeks, of course) so I’m not sure if I believe this or not … but you can check it out here at their web site:http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/ppc/I may be installing Gentoo on our old PowerPC desktop, if in fact it is a more updated version of the Kernel than Ubuntu is giving me now.

By: Pierce R. Butler

Pierce R. Butler — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 12:20:44 +0000

… (crickets chirping) …Oh well: any cult that would have me as a member isn’t exclusive enough.

By: Pierce R. Butler

Pierce R. Butler — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 10:43:22 +0000

Not to divert a thread intended for deep geekery, and with thanks for the suggestions already made: can anyone here recommend a URL or two for someone without much spare time and with a beginner’s interest in exploring ‘nix from a Mac starting point (and PPC hardware)?

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:15:27 +0000

Jeff,You may have some good points, but I think it is also possible that we are talking cross purposes here. Please have a look at this and I'd love to know what you think.

By: Linux Operating System

Linux Operating System — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:13:20 +0000

I have written some time ago this post,http://www.go2linux.org/why-linux-is-easier-than-windowshope you may find it interesting.Guillermo.

By: Jeff Darcy

Jeff Darcy — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 15:36:52 +0000

It may be academic for you, Greg, but it’s an important all-day-every-day issue for thousands of developers such as myself. If the attitude were to become widespread that maintaining old APIs is more of an impediment than a benefit, with Linux vs. Windows held up as the “proof” of that, then not only will developers’ lives become more difficult but users will suffer as well. A new feature isn’t very useful if you can only get it by upgrading your kernel and everybody’s afraid to do that because they’ve learned that such upgrades will break other stuff. That’s the Vista mistake, and Linux shouldn’t imitate it. When enough people stop upgrading, stagnation sets in; before long “getting more done and having fewer problems” would no longer be true.The claim that “stable” APIs are better for proprietary software and “dynamic” APIs (interesting choice of not-antonyms BTW) are better for open-source software doesn’t hold water. They’re orthogonal issues. The “to break or not to break” debate occurs in both camps, and I know because I’ve been in both. If there’s a pattern to how such decisions are made, it has to do with the size of the user base for old vs. new, not with the development or licensing model. Linux is not to any degree better because its developers are more willing to sacrifice backward compatibility for the sake of attracting new users. That willingness, rather, is an after-the-fact reflection of where Linux stands on the adoption curve. As it continues to climb that curve, the “breakage is good” attitude – see, I can do framing too – can only hurt that for which you advocate.