Posts by James 132

The absolute most dysfunction I've observed from systemd has arisen from the NFS and networking, on two production servers. I think it was because of systemd's knowledge of the network state, or lack whereof, but I am not certain, and there's a couple of old bugzilla #s out there with similar issues. The developers don't give a toss.

It doesn't help that it's very difficult to tell what's going on, even if you can get to the journal.

Re: >Am I the only person who sees this as desperation?

Powershell.

Microsoft spent years trying to get rid of the command line, tucking it away and stripping back functionality, then Linux/BSD comes along and rips them a new one, and they reinvent it with the most verbose, clunky, slow syntax imaginable.

Re: *facepalm*

Some of these things are related, particularly Gnome 3.

Leaving aside technical considerations, Gnome's development (under the umbrella of Freedesktop.org) adopted a distinctly authoritarian tone; you will have your desktop this way, it will use this init system etc. The deliberate coupling (logind for Gnome3, see also the above poster's example of pam_systemd for similar) was not accidental (Poettering has said as much) and the resulting controversy was therefore not surprising.

I think - and I'm pretty sure it's been said elsewhere - that had systemd truly stayed within scope and looked after pid1 only, we would not be having this discussion. Instead it also became a userland hydra; that's the rub.

Re: What got hacked exactly.

According to a Gizmodo piece they left plenty of plain text files with passwords for all sorts of systems, so it's possible the intruders kept building up deeper and deeper access.

What's weird is that this took place before and after the big PSN hack, and I'm surprised they didn't thoroughly audit everything. It's the first thing you do, surely?

I still shoot with a 2004 Canon 20D. I've no plans to upgrade any time soon, because frankly the camera is still more than enough for my abiblity. I'm deeply envious of the low light performance of the high-ISO new bodies, but I have most of my pictures on the web and it's good enough for that.

I use it most commonly with a Sigma 20-40 F2.8, a discontinued and unloved lens in Sigma's lineup but one I got dirt cheap secondhand, and is more than useful on that body.

Re: Debian? Gnome???

The trouble is, what you're saying is totally true, but nobody remembers.

There's a strange Groundhog Day cycle of pointless reinvention (with little innovation) in Linux that I've never fully understood.

I've seen mentions in a few places that the current problem is one of success: Windows users are flocking to Linux and bringing that culture with them, which is in term driving development, so what's getting developed is an analogue of Windows but at an unbeatable price...

People don't need to go to UNIX summer school to understand the good design practice found there, but it would be helpful to understand why certain practices - tight coupling, no portability, for example - are frowned upon.

Re: The narcissism of small differences

I really like OS X. It's pretty well organised even if I can feel the slide towards fondleslab trends.

For Linux/BSD KDE has won me over through sheer utility (as had XFCE, but I do find KDE a very fluid and tidy experience) which is no mean feat considering I really disliked version 4 on release. I suppose it's just good to have something with lots of choices.

Re: Predictable

Come on. The tone of the whole article is painfully supercilious. And there you are alluding to failings in my reading comprehension. Plus ca change.

Re: Yet another tool to work around lazy developers.

Easily the most tiresome and time-consuming aspect of desktop management. And, it is worse the further away you get from mainstream applications. Some specialised educational / simulation stuff enormously stubborn about deploying nicely.