[PLUG] Distro Flamewar!

Denis Heidtmann denis.heidtmann at gmail.com
Fri Jun 5 23:25:27 UTC 2020


Thanks for the explanation, but my comment  was not sarcastic.  I just felt
out of the loop, as if everybody but me understood what the "discussion"
was about.  BTW,  I  do not consider John's reference to Rieser was out of
the blue--he made a genuine attempt to fill in the gaps, gaps which were so
large that perhaps I was not the only one here feeling out of touch.

I will just say  that your comments come across to a novice like me as
coming from an angry, impatient man.  May not be, but that is how I read
them.


-Denis

On Thu, Jun 4, 2020 at 11:03 PM Ben Koenig <techkoenig at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On 6/4/20 9:48 PM, Denis Heidtmann wrote:
> > This convinces me I am dense.
>
>
> Lost the will to discuss the issue when someone pulled a murder from
> 2006 out of thin air. I don't know what I said to prompt that but I can
> come up with theories why it resurfaced.
>
>
> Since your sarcasm is so inviting I'll explain my frustration, you asked
> for it ;)
>
> All I want is for people to  stop pushing the idea that slackware is the
> cause of a given software glitch. It's the only reason I bother offering
> to help Rich. After a couple years of lurking here I kinda snapped when
> I saw someone give slackware a try and the floodgates of stupidity
> opened. It seemed like nobody was interested in the facts and just
> wanted promote whatever random opinion popped into their head at the
> given moment. It was actually really bad and I felt a responsibility to
> set the record straight.
>
>
> It felt like sabotage. A bunch of people who had never used slackware
> kept offering advice, and then giving that disclaimer that they'd never
> used it. For someone who was actively trying to learn, this created
> severe problems in separating fact from fiction. He was clearly unable
> to decide who's advice was real, and who's was not. That's not his
> fault, but the fault of the people who actively worked to get in the way.
>
>
> As for Rich's questions, pretty much all of them are the result of
> either his inexperience or custom configuration (very custom). He gets
> fancy with his setup and it upsets me to see conversations head in the
> direction of "well maybe slackware..." when its something like rebooting
> a computer after 100 days of uptime.
>
>
> Any venerable user knows these questions are not slackware specific. But
> my concern is more about spreading knowledge to new users. When I leave
> the PLUG list and go do other things, I run into other linux users who
> say the dumbest things. Factoids and anecdotes that have nothing to do
> with what slackware actually is. People tell me about a flaw they heard
> about and I'm sitting there thinking about how that's literally not
> possible. The laws of physics kind of get in the way, know what I mean?
>
>
> People who know the truth are complacent, assuming that the facts speak
> for themselves. But they don't, and newer users are given unrealistic
> expectations and spread those like wildfire. I don't get the impression
> that people want to fight the fire because they just sit there watching
> it burn. This idea of spreading misinformation has become such a
> standard of life in the US that I start thinking that nobody here even
> cares about facts or truth. You just shout your opinions like its a damn
> twitter feed. If I thought anyone here cared about the design of the
> software and why it functions the way that it does, I would have offered
> to give a presentation on Slackware basics. It's not like there's some
> magical difference, we have binary compatibility with both centos and
> debian...
>
>
> At Free Geek I taught a class called "Linux Playground" where I walked
> brand new linux users through the basic differences of the various
> distributions. They would then go and get an ubuntu computer, but they
> left the class with an understanding of why free geek used Ubuntu, and
> what kind of options were out there if they chose to try something else.
> I firmly believe that we all have a moral obligation to promote the
> truth. This doesn't mean I think you should learn slackware, this means
> that you should acknowledge where your experience starts, and ends.
> Don't bother making a slackware specific statement if you have no
> experience with it.
>
>
> If you check the history of emails you'll not only notice that I've been
> critical of ubuntu, but that I've also offered pointed advice. This is
> because many of the issues that float through this mailing list are the
> same issues I solved at free geek. I literally maintained the book of
> "known issues and solutions" for several years. There are a lot of
> recurring problems, with easy solutions.
>
>
> When someone claims that I'm just bashing Ubuntu because I think I'm a
> "linux GOD", I find it hurtful. I feel excluded when I offer years of
> experience for free, and it gets tossed to the wind by people who think
> that it's the responsibility of the user to decide what is and is not
> correct. They are asking for help because they don't know what the
> correct path is, so when you throw out lots of information in a short
> period of time, people get confused.
>
>
> But you tried to do the right thing, and that's clearly all that matters.
>
> -Ben
>
>
> > On Thu, Jun 4, 2020 at 9:18 PM Ben Koenig <techkoenig at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On 6/4/20 9:00 PM, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> >>> On Thu, 4 Jun 2020 20:56:01 -0700 (PDT)
> >>> Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> dijo:
> >>>
> >>>> I believe that Ben referred to Resser (sp?). The file system developer
> >>>> who was a bit bonkers. I don't recall the whole story but it was
> >>>> really big news for a while.
> >>> It was Reiser. He was arrested for murdering his wife. Thereafter, his
> >>> filesystem fell out of favor.
> >>
> >> Not sure where reiserFS factors into anything, that happened in 2006...
> >> why are we talking about it???
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I vented several issues both old and new in that post. This is not a
> >> topic I want to discuss via email. I've lost faith in the idea that
> >> people can communicate effectively. text-only email only makes the
> >> problem worse.
> >>
> >>
> >> The Linux community is becoming more inclusive by excluding certain
> >> types of people. It just happened right in front of everyone on this
> list.
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> >>
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