[arch-general] peaceful suggestion to clarify "the arch way" to avoid this to happen AGAIN

[Ng Oon-Ee]

On Thu, 2009-12-03 at 23:23 +0100, Arvid Picciani wrote:
> >> Allan McRae wrote:
> >>
> >>> I personally think your mis-reading the "Arch Way". 
> 
> 
> > So another person who mistakes the use of simplicity for minimalism. I 
> > thought we had been through that many, many times.
> 
> 
> Can we, independently of the technical details of dbus, agree all,
> that I and some other people have been interpreting the arch way wrong?

I actually think the you've been over-focusing on a single part of the
'arch way', that its 'all about' minimalism.
> 
> If yes, can we please change the wiki to reflect that?
> 
> i suggest removing the words "minimalistic" and "unix like"
> from
> 
> http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way
> 
> 
> also possibly "A freshly installed Arch Linux system contains only basic 
> core components" as the definition of "basic" is unclear.
> 
> additionaly i propose that a conclusion to this whole thing is noted on 
> the page, that says something like:
> 
> "Archlinux is optimized, to work well with all desktops, not just one, 
> including that it will not sacrifice commonly available desktop software 
> for the sake of simplicity."
> 
> It's very fuzzy, as i try not to offend anyone again.
> maybe more concrete:
> 
> "As an example: there have been ongoing discussions to sacrifice feature 
> X,Y for the advantage of commandline or antidesktop users, and to the 
> disadvantage of desktop users. This is not what archlinux is about, as 
> we want to provide a good user experience for the largest possible user 
> base"

Throughout this thread the vibe I've been getting for you is that you
somehow feel disadvantaged and biased-against because dbus/hal exist and
are selected as options in building general-purpose binaries.

As an example, I'm a pulseaudio user, and I'm very happy with its
features. Unfortunately (in my view) it is not integrated into our
current gnome packages though it is upstream, nor are packages with
pulse support provided in a binary form which can output to pulse (mpd
for one). I understand, however, that most do not want/need/care about
Pulseaudio, so I compile my own packages with pulse support.

DISCLAIMER: JGC has stated that he will eventually include Pulseaudio in
Gnome, but that its a lot of work, and I totally understand that.

Its not an either/or for 'minimalist' and 'desktop' users, for an entire
distro...

> I prefer a clear "this distro is not for you, go away" over "we share 
> your mindset. maybe. or maybe not.".
> and this would have helped to avoid this situation alltogether.
> 
> Thank you.
> 
Why is Arch not for the minimalist user? Because dbus/hal are enabled in
some packages in binary? Is Arch not for the standard desktop user who
doesn't have a wifi card because wifi modules are compiled into the
standard kernel26?

For me, one of the primary benefits of Arch is that PKGBUILDs are simple
to read and modify, allowing me to customize my system without having to
compile outside the package manager (try doing that in Ubuntu). This
allows ALL users the freedom to decide what their system should be like.

Arch is what you make it.