Ah--maybe you're unhappy because you don't have pacman......

1 members found this post helpful.

I'm finding it 'interesting' that the distro put forward in this thread (ubuntu) as being the one distro to develop into a "new unified linux" while dropping all other distros is not the one most people in this thread would choose...

1 members found this post helpful.

Now, now. Lets not turn this into a "My package [manager] is bigger than your package [manager]" thread.

Interesting yes. Surprising, no. I will admit though, that this thread got me interested so I'm downloading a newbie friendly BSD to play with in Vbox.

I ran PC-BSD on a partition for a while and liked it. It just didn't strike me as being any better (or worse, to be fair) than Debian, Arch, or Slackware that I was already running. I've been thinking about trying FreeBSD for a while; I just may...

I don't think Slackware will die, but this subject pops up once in a while, so...

I voted for Arch. I have never used it, but I have had some nice contacts with people from the Arch community and found them to be helpful.

I have used FreeBSD / Debian / Fedora / RH / Solaris in the past / at work, and none of them will become my main *ix system at home.

1 members found this post helpful.

What on Earth are YOU talking about? Have you been sleeping for the past year or two? Linux is definitely changing, for better or worse, because of its increased mainstream presence. The 'big' distros with money and development teams end up pushing Linux in a certain direction, to the point that large projects are forced to support them, while leaving the little guys out in the cold. I'm not saying I am opposed to everything, and I am less annoyed than many others, but certainly the polkit-1 nonsense (for example) took its toll on the nerves of some KISS faithful. See here for example...I think that's reputable enough, at least in this forum. HAL jumps in and out of fashion, udev is liked by some and hated by others, the list goes on. I'm not saying BSD is much better in this respect but there are those with valid concerns for Linux's future.

But instead you go on about Arch. Again. We get it.

2 members found this post helpful.

I didn't see any major problems with FreeBSD, except updating it is a pain... I spent some time (not a lot of time, but some time) reading the handbook and manuals, and it seems like a lot of trouble to me. Not to say that FreeBSD isn't a good operating system, but for me personally (unless I learned a lot more about it and ended up getting good at upgrading) I'd definitely just burn a CD once in a while. Some of the releases are good for a couple of years, anyways. 8.1 is going to be one of those, and it's going to be released next month.

1 members found this post helpful.

Whoa---lighten up there!!! First, I responded to a negative connation in re change. Second, you missed the tongue in my cheek...

I worry about the future of ALL OSes....but I do not "go on" about Arch---I just use it.....

I tried Arch Linux once.
Couldn't find no pacman, just space invaders...

1 members found this post helpful.

Slackware = Linux. I like linux. So continue on Linux.

I voted for Debian, but I'm not sure ...

Health to Pat!

Hi Niels,

I've run Arch a few times and quite like it (I'm not running it atm). My Slackware/FreeBSD experience made me feel very much at home with Arch.
Agreed. The Arch community is a very helpful group. I voted for Arch. Debian would be my alternate choice.

I think he was talking about me. I'm 'people' too, and I'm worried about the future direction of linux.

udev is just an abomination. It's massively over-complicated and kludgy, and that probably goes some way to explaining why the udev and lvm2/dev-mapper guys are currently experiencing incompatibility issues with their recent versions. This OpenSUSE bug report being a good example, and we've also had issues with cryptsetup/luks on the latest Slackware which appears to be related to the same or similar udev issues.

And udev is just one of many over-complicated things that have been recently introduced into the linux ecosystem. It seems that linux developers have forgotten the merits of simplicity. I'd have thought as an Arch guy you'd have appreciated this as it's my understanding that the Arch community is also a strong believer in KISS principles, just like us slackers.

Beneath the pretty icons and fancy 3D rotating cubes ugliness is creeping in and if you ever do more than a 'pacman -Syu' and actually peer beneath the skin you'll start to notice it.

I have always got a BSD system around and when they fix the USB bug that freezes your system when you unplug a USB device it will be even better... LOL !

Sorry if I was too flip earlier...

My only point is that--in my perception--Linux has become more useable in the last few years. I like to look under the hood and tinker, but I am fundamentally a user. My perception is that usability has continued to improve. Just one example: My work laptop is currently dual-boot WinXP and Arch. Arch is the default and does 98% of what I need to do at work.
With this machine, I sometimes experience on a daily basis the difference between configuring various network connections on XP vs Arch (with WICD). Take a wild guess which one wins the useability test.

Of course, junk creeps in. I use KDE because certain things work better (for me)--eg user switching (the home machine is shared with 3 users.), but I certainly do NOT like some of the fluff that has crept in. But, Windows is full of junk too. Mac OS-X---I don't know.

Can we get really good, modern, useability without fluff and junk? I don't know.

BTW, Dolphin (KDE) is hands-down the best file manager I have ever seen.