Linux Mint 18.3: A breath of fresh air? Well, it's a step into the unGNOME The Linux Mint project turned out to be an early Christmas present, as it usually does, but this release is perhaps more important than usual given that Mint is much more alone in the Linux distro world than it was just one year ago. 2017 saw Ubuntu abandon the Unity desktop and come back to the GNOME fold, which means that …
"it and openSUSE are now the only major distros not shipping GNOME by default."
Slackware's not considered to be a major distro anymore?
(For those who don't know, Slack dropped Gnome back in 2005 after it had been hanging on as a vestigial appendage for a few years. The same folks might be rather surprised where S.u.S.E. started life.)
The Distrowatch PHR is just a light-hearted way of looking at popularity of distribution. It is by no means a scientific view into anything other than how many self-selected people click on that page at Distrowatch. (I had quite forgotten about DW. I'm kind of surprised that it's still there, and seemingly hasn't changed since I last looked at it around five years ago.)
"Have you been to the slackware website? It's 1991 in there."
Perhaps they spend their time doing important stuff like maybe, oh I dunno, updating the distro, rather than wasting time fucking about with style sheets and other bloated BS web stack eye candy which makes no difference whatsoever to the actual product.
Well, if that's what they are doing, then how about using the web site to, you know, actually PUBLICISE that fact.
Instead of gems like this, on http://www.slackware.com/config/ppp.php
"PPP
Most people connect to the Internet through some kind of dialup connection. The common one is PPP, though SLIP is still occasionally used. Setting up your system to speak PPP to a remote server is pretty easy. We've included a few tools to help you in setting it up."
Most people connect to the internet through a dial up connection, do they? I dunno about you, but I retired my 33k Trust Pilot modem in 1999. Does your machine even have a serial port?
Get the fuck outta here!
It may be a good distro - everyone says it is so I've no reason to think otherwise, but their website is *seriously* shit, and it's letting them down. Visitors to the site will be left thinking it's some dusty old abandoned, un-loved distro, and that's a shame.
Actually, most people still do connect to the internet via a dial up connection. Broadband connections are still "dial up" (*1), using PPP primarily (never seen SLIP on a modern broadband connection). If you use a broadband router provided by the ISP, it does the low level PPPoA or PPPoE stuff, and you just hook up to it via TCP.
If you are one of those people that uses a router to take care of that for you, then you don't need to read up on Slacks PPP page (you just do networking, probably with DHCP, which is a different page).
However, if you are using a broadband modem (or a router in "dumb bridge" mode) directly (or you want to run slack as your router), you will be configuring PPP settings to access the internet, in which case the page is relevant.
(*1) You still "dial-up" a broadband connection, some of the settings you get from your ISP are a dial up number,the country code number, login username and password, just like back in the days of 33k modems, just without the dialup noise (you can even get that if you don't use an ADSL filter and connect a phone to your landline, but your connection quality will drop). You can even do "on demand" dial up with timeouts, like the old days, but seeing as you pay a fixed monthly cost for the connection, there is little point to that (some security benefits to doing that though).
Yes, I was eluding to the fact that these days nearly all of us have an always on connection, the complexities of connection being handled transparently for us by our routers.
However, your point about running slack *as* the router is an excellent point that I hadn't considered.
My bad.
Beer, and up-vote on me!
" their website is *seriously* shit, and it's letting them down"
Personally, I think their website is fine -- as I said before, it's better than most that I see these days.
However, the sorts of people who would be put off by the appearance of the site are most likely the sorts of people who wouldn't be keen on using Slackware to begin with.
"Does your machine even have a serial port?"
Why yes. Yes it does. Several, in fact. How else would I connect my so-called "dumb" terminal? Serious question ... Nothing better than having an actual terminal with a shell when you want to get Stuff[tm] done. No distracting glitter. Kinda handy on development boxen when the GUI goes titsup, too. Or for easily sending error logs to a fan-fold printer. Try it, you might like it.
As a side note, you know that a USB port is a serial port, right?
I'm sure the marketing geniuses of the world are happy to know that you prefer an all singing, all dancing website to a stable, secure, no unnecessary bells & whistles operating system. Me, I'll stick to slackware and get my job done without even thinking about my OS, or it's web site.
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>Bah its not even 1990s really. Besides in 1991 the only internet most of us had was text based like gopher and just general email. Really most of us were still using Y Modem G or zmodem on BBBs with no internet. Think I sent my first email in fall of 1992 at college. Anything that doesn't look like a geocities page isn't 1990s.
Damn that web site I posted contains bitcoin miner javascript code that my AV just caught. Deleting original message and including minus link from above. Figures the internet in general is like public bathroom sex.
what's wrong with 1991-style web sites? "modern" (and the scripting/tracking/bloatware associated with it) is HIGHLY overrated... especially that 2D flatso light-blue-on-white crap (like Australis uses).
maybe slackware just doesn't want to break their 'working' web site. [or they're too busy slacking off, heh]
Didn't your DearOldMum teach you the dangers of judging a book by its cover?No, she did the exact opposite! "Jonathan", she said, "you can almost always judge a book by its cover. If it says 'dictionary' on the cover, it's almost a certainty that the contents will be be a dictionary. If it says 'Jane Austin' it's most likely a novel by Jane Austin". I know this doesn't comport well with Post-Modern Philosophy where bullshit reigns supreme. YMMV...
Presumably, Git, your early years were filled with beautifully bound books with unimportant content.Why would you presume that? You're the fool who stated that you can't judge a book by its cover.
My mother was an avid collector of books and being poor, they were second-hand. Most were published in the 19th C and therefore had sewn bindings unlike modern trade paperbacks. So, yes, they were beautifully bound for many decades of reading pleasure. Sad? Why would that be sad?
If, as you presume, their content was unimportant, do you approvingly refer to a quote from one of them? To wit, The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot?
Every single one of the 2,000 or so books I now possess has its contents described on the cover; Title and Author always, but often descriptions by reviewers also. Only someone who is completely illiterate would presume that a book's contents and cover are unrelated.
NB By the sheerest of coincidences, George Eliot, my mother and myself were all born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire.
I'm the fool because your sainted mother didn't teach you that the meaning of the phrase is (roughly) "Not everything has a true appearance"? I'm OK with you thinking that.
“If you deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in uttering it, and naturally get fond of it.” Eliot, TMotF
I'm the fool because your sainted mother didn't teach you that the meaning of the phrase is (roughly) "Not everything has a true appearance"? I'm OK with you thinking that.No. My mother taught me to think for myself rather than passively accepting the opinion of authority. And I too can quote:
Sometimes I read the same books over and over and over. What's great about books is that the stuff inside doesn't change. People say you can't judge a book by its cover but that's not true because it says right on the cover what's inside. And no matter how many times you read that book the words and pictures don't change. You can open and close books a million times and they stay the same. They look the same. They say the same words. The charts and pictures are the same colors. Books are not like people. Books are safe. [Emphasis mine]-- Kathryn Erskine
I'm sorry that the nuances of communicating with the English language upset your world view.I sincerely doubt that you are in the least bit sorry. FWIW I see the purpose of language to be communication (English or otherwise). To use the word "book" when what you mean is "person" seems to be directly contra communication. If book != book then I need to guess which of the many thousand possibilities you mean. What, precisely, is wrong with saying "don't judge a person by their appearance" when that is what you mean? If the meaning of words be entirely arbitrary, why the fuck do we have dictionaries?
Is it really sophistry to point out that words have accepted, defined meanings? Maybe you're the dude who wrote the manual for my first computer (a Tandy 200). I couldn't get it to respond to commands as described. When I took it back to the Tandy store, I was told that was because I was typing a semi-colon (;) where I was instructed to, rather than a colon (:) that "everyone knows" was what was intended.
Never been too sure about what "hot cool jazz" might mean, but Miles Davis' Kind of Blue is one of my favouritest albums ever. Almost as good as In a Silent Way.
Focus, Jonathan. The hot potato here is the idiom "Can't judge a book by its cover", which I used in regards to the Slackware website. In this case, to the proverbial thinking man it should be quite obvious that my meaning was something along the lines of "Don't let the lack of bells and whistles fool you, there are plenty of GoodThings enclosed within slackware.com ... if only you have the wit to see them". Or words to that effect. Nowhere did I call a book a man; that was your invention.
You know very well that English allows words to have multiple meanings, and that idioms are a part of the language. To suggest that such figurative use of words is somehow wrong is daft. To argue the point with intentionally deceptive reasoning is the very definition of sophistry.
Your guess is as good as mine, but I suspect we'll never see eye to eye over this. It takes two to tango, and I'm not going to burn the midnight oil, so I'm going to let sleeping dogs lie. I need to hit the hay. Elvis has left the building, g'night.
"Focus, Jonathan. The hot potato here is the idiom "Can't judge a book by its cover", which I used in regards to the Slackware website. In this case, to the proverbial thinking man it should be quite obvious that my meaning was something along the lines of "Don't let the lack of bells and whistles fool you, there are plenty of GoodThings enclosed within slackware.com ... if only you have the wit to see them". Or words to that effect. Nowhere did I call a book a man; that was your invention."So why didn't you say directly what you mean instead of being "clever" by using a very dubious aphorism? Nowhere did I call a book a man; you are the one making things up!
I do note that the opposing aphorism (and they always seem to come paired) is Shakespeare's "Clothes make the man." This latter we know to be true, so by the Law of Contradiction "Can't judge a book by its cover" must be false.
"You know very well that English allows words to have multiple meanings, and that idioms are a part of the language. To suggest that such figurative use of words is somehow wrong is daft. To argue the point with intentionally deceptive reasoning is the very definition of sophistry."
I do indeed understand that words have multiple meanings. That is why great care is needed in their use. I have nowhere suggested that "such figurative use of words is somehow wrong"; I have merely pointed out that one such use is clearly wrong both in its literal sense and by inference must also be wrong in its figurative sense.
Or do you believe Shakespeare wrong and that it matters not whether you wear clothes to go to work, or you do so in the naughty, naked nude?
"Can't judge a book by its cover" is not an aphorism, it's an idiom.
What you said was "To use the word "book" when what you mean is "person"". This is incorrect. I meant no such thing. I was referring to the slackware.com web pages (which can be considered a type of book, if you squint). True, I extrapolated the "man" part from yours. My bad.
If the idiom is wrong, clearly your would have no problem purchasing a book based on the cover alone. Can I interest you in a near perfect, signed by the author in 1926, first edition, first printing Winnie The Pooh? I'll mail you pictures of the front & back cover, and the spine. That'll be all you need to verify my US$5,000 asking price is a good value, right?
Clothes do NOT make the man. Shakespeare was a bawdy Elizabethan playwright, not a great sage or oracle. Clothes are just a tool, no more or less than a screwdriver or a typewriter. For more on my view on the subject, see this post.
But whatever. Clearly you have a pet peeve that isn't shared by the vast majority of the English speaking world. Hopefully you'll understand that I choose to bow out of helping to enable your quest. Enjoy the private crusade.
"'Can't judge a book by its cover' is not an aphorism, it's an idiom."
Jake, you really should get yourself a dictionary. From the OED:
Aphorism: Any principle or precept expressed in few words; a short pithy sentence containing a truth of general import; a maxim.Idiom: The form of speech peculiar or proper to a people or country; own language or tongue. In narrower sense: That variety of a language which is peculiar to a limited district or class of people; dialect.
What you said was "To use the word 'book' when what you mean is 'person'". This is incorrect. I meant no such thing. I was referring to the slackware.com web pages (which can be considered a type of book, if you squint).
Well I completely misunderstood you there! I took the website to be the metaphorical book cover and Slack to be the metaphorical book content. BTW, most explanations for the meaning of 'You can't judge a book by its cover' refer to clothes and people.
"If the idiom is wrong, clearly your would have no problem purchasing a book based on the cover alone. Can I interest you in a near perfect, signed by the author in 1926, first edition, first printing Winnie The Pooh? I'll mail you pictures of the front & back cover, and the spine. That'll be all you need to verify my US$5,000 asking price is a good value, right?Well, that's just gratuitously rude. Fuck you, too!
Clothes do NOT make the man. Shakespeare was a bawdy Elizabethan playwright, not a great sage or oracle. Clothes are just a tool, no more or less than a screwdriver or a typewriter. For more on my view on the subject, see this post.Back in the 1970s, we tested this. We sent a recent university graduate for a job interview wearing jeans, T-shirt, sneakers and long hair. We had him use a false name. He didn't get the job. Then we gave him a haircut, a suit and tie and black leather shoes and sent him along for interview for the same job. He was offered the job. You might not like this, but no matter your feelings, appearances in our society matter a great deal.
But whatever. Clearly you have a pet peeve that isn't shared by the vast majority of the English speaking world. Hopefully you'll understand that I choose to bow out of helping to enable your quest. Enjoy the private crusade.Presumably you believe the "vast majority of the English speaking world" defer to your private definitions of words rather than the Oxford English Dictionary/Merriam-Webster. You are delusional.
slackware-current is the Slack take on a rolling or development release, with all the potential headaches that that brings. However, I've discovered over the years that if you are running hardware that is six or eight months old or older, -current is almost as trouble free as slackware-stable. I still wouldn't recommend it as a primary OS, though.
@Jake:
Some folks feel that Patrick's baby takes too damned long to do things. Some of us crusty types prefer that approach, its just all the agile devops hipster dudes that believe they have to crush out new features every other week at the monday morning standup that don't know about Slack. Or if they do they don't realize its a rock solid, slim and simple distro.
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I have mint at work. Like Linux generally, it runs fine.
I used chrome at first as a browser because it heading to be set that way by the person that left me the system.
But, after the machine essentially ceased to work and it took me fifteen minutes to persuade the mouse to be above the X so I could nuke it, it so wouldn't die.
It would have appeared to be a memory issue so I switched to Firefox.
I had the problem again a couple of weeks later but, of course had installed openssh and gotten the IP address so I could kill Firefox from my phone.
Even though I tested it worked, it failed when I needed it. I could ping the machine but not log in.
Eventually Linux crashed although sometimes it does trash Firefox on it's own saying a tab crashed.
Even though rebooting takes minimal time, it is the cost of setting up all those windows etc that irks me.
I am particularly bothered that Linux itself stops working when Firefox decides to melt down. I should be able to pop up a terminal and kill the process, like I do in windows.
There is no three fingered salute that brings up a menu for a task manager or console terminal.
Being unable to ssh in is particularly annoying, possibly because it is using Wi-Fi rather than Ethernet, we have no cable network. I couldn't source a cable to check at the time.
I can honestly say I can't recall the last time my mouse stopped moving on Windows 10 and was unable to recover without a reboot.
So, no, not overly impressed with it did and not have the issue with Ubuntu over the years.
Added to the fact that there is a nasty ripple in the graphics when I have the temerity to scroll the mouse wheel in either browser, on a new laptop with 8GB of RAM, it seems like it is not a finished system.
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That seems to be some pretty bad luck you've had. :(
I've been running Linux Mint at home since 17.0 (3 years?), and it's fallen over to the point of needing the reset button exactly 0 times. Firefox went wobbly a couple of times, but terminal (ctrl+alt+t), "xkill" and *click*, and done, and that's about the sum total of the issues I've had with it (really, I've been impressed at how everything's "just worked") ...
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Bringing up a terminal might have been useful, if any key combo had worked at all.
Since no response could be gotten from any key, anywhere, I fail to see how this could be accomplished.
Next time it happens I will try all the key combos mentioned here to see if any do work though, always willing to be educated.
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