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07/04/2005: "Distros suck"

Don Marti writes:

Linux people are going to do their own client apps and tweaks anyway, and I want to update the software running on my machine through the package manager, not through a bunch of download sites—even if one of them is Google. Karsten Self has a good explanation of why the Package Manager is a good thing, toward the end of Spyware, Adware, Windows, GNU/Linux, and Software Culture.

Which is exactly whats wrong with Linux distributions, they all try to lock you into running binaries for which you don't have (but may be able to get) the source. All of them except gentoo, of course. Even debian makes you go around the normal mode of system software development, downloading a separate set of *source* packages, and using specialized *debian* tools. Bleah.

People, the *power* of unix is that you can (and should) compile from source, something that FreeBSD systems, and gentoo have kept, while the rest of the Unix/linux community wandered off in the direction of Microsoft.

Then there's this crapfest from Karsten, quoted in the above-referenced article:

I get the strong impression that both Apple and the various VARs tend to be extremely lax with security standards (ownership / permssions) concerning files with which users will have direct contact, to better accomodate Mac users' infamously low tolerance for frustration and for any need to know technical details. Thus, the vital distinction between system and user files tends to be blurry, in practice.

This is going to bite them, at some point. Of course, being Mac people, they probably won't notice the bite marks, except perhaps to decry their lack of anti-aliasing.

I get the strong impression that Karsen is full of crap. There are a solid ton of real Unix people riding herd on MacOS X these days, and this kind of thing won't fly any longer in the MacOS world than it will in linux-land.

Linux is a fine set of technology, useful for many things, and an interesting development model to boot, but these kind of elitist statements undermine linux's ability to progress. As a server, linux is about equal to FreeBSD. As a desktop, linux still runs a distant 3rd to both Windows and MacOS. In the embedded world, linux rocks.