[arch-general] [*] Re: conclusion: Another rant on arch way abuse and false promises

[Arvid Picciani]

Piyush P Kurur wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 01:54:10AM +0530, Raghavendra Prabhu wrote:
>> One thing I don't understand here is - why people crib that package B should
>> not have feature X. If you don't want that, ABS is for that. There are
>> plenty of packages which have additional dependencies like that mplayer(like
>> smbclient) or vlc(hal :) or lua).
>>
> 
> 	
> 	I don't think it is about not having a feature X. For example
> I think PnP is a worthwhile feature to have. But many do not like
> hal/dbus. Again the counter argument is that disabling hal/dbus is
> just an additional line in xorg.conf. Point well taken but if we can
> compile xorg-server package without hal/dbus enabled and then
> whomsoever wants to use hal/dbus make a small change in xorg.conf to
> facilitate it (I dont know whether this is possible) I would prefer
> such an xorg-server. Again it is purely my preference. Such an
> xorg-server, I think will be both ``minimalist'' and ``featurefull''
> whatever those terms mean.


I blame this one on the upstream. Leaving X dead with default config and 
no dbus started is one of the worst solutions they could have come up 
with. Similar, my main argument against dbus is based on the fact that 
software will fail when configured but not run with dbus.

"i dont want my software crashing because it requires a defect user 
space dameon for features i dont want anyway"

is signifcantly different to:

"i dont like feature X is wasting 2kb ram"

But this is a free world and people are  free to ignore the difference.

>> Finally, true anti-desktop is using lynx  or watching mplayer with ascii
>> renderer :) , all in virtual terminal(with directfb if required)
>>
> 
>   Yes many prefer lynx/w3m/elinks/edbrowse over other webbrowsers. But
> saying that anti-desktop means mplayer with ascii is just streatching
> it a bit too much. If you use screen + xterm + xmonad then you will, I
> hope, see the advantage of not using gnome/kde.

The general ignorance towards power user setups might explain why people 
describe us as "old timers who can't get along with change" or "ricers" 
  funny thing is that the wimp desktop didnt change in 20 years while 
antidesktop brings new and fresh ideas all the time.
Just think about keyboard-user browsers. THATS a HCI improvement.
Guess where 10GUi got its ideas from..

It's a vim vs emacs argument though, ie a waste of time for everyone, 
and a nuisance if the discussion participants generally know only one side.
Some people can't be educated, others are educated and chose a side 
based on own experience. I prefer the second kind, no matter which side 
they chose.

-- 
Arvid
Asgaard Technologies