[ILUG] Mother and Father.

[Colm Buckley]

On Tue 09 Jul 2002 14:18, Brian O'Donoghue wrote:

> I would like to think that if I'm capable of adding a device string
> to an inf file off my own bat and getting a winmodem working that I
> have at least the cursory requisite skills to make a system from the
> ground up.

No, actually you are completely wrong here.  The skills in question
are totally disjoint.  It's like suggesting that being able to replace
the glass in a broken window qualifies you to build a skyscraper.

You do know what "cursory" means, don't you?

> You know at a certain level it's all just hardware and drivers... so
> when you have installed tens of thousands of drivers.. as I had in my
> role as a Gateway tech.. you get a feel for drivers and hardware and
> os configuration that most people plopping into IT who consider
> themselves hot stuff just seem to lack... but perhaps I'm being too
> harsh on people without as much experience as my self in setting up
> os and troubleshooting hardware and driver issues.. plus I don't
> really see how this fact pertains nor equates with your assertion
> that I'm incompetent, so no sorry I have a significant divergence of
> opinion with you on this one.

There's that "laughing-stock" thing again.  Do you realise the *real*
effect of your words here?

You've listed your most significant accomplishment as "getting a
winmodem working in Linux".

You've claimed that reinstallation of drivers equates to system
administration,

You've associated yourself with the customer service organisation with
possibly the worst reputation in the industry.

You've confused "installation" with "maintenance".

I don't like to be too harsh, because it's too close to shooting fish
in a barrel for my liking, but honestly you're asking for it here.

> Sorry... make a clear an unambiguous rule that people can read to and
> evaluate 'BEFORE' signing up to the ILUG, instead of awaiting what
> you consider infraction to make some sort of self ingratiating point.

Hang on, those goalposts were over *here* a moment ago!

> Either make a rule or don't, but don't half make a rule, because
> that's ambiguous and pointless, don't get me wrong the list is great,
> but if you're gonna have a rule, then have a rule... don't have a
> half rule...

Ah, but *I* am the list owner, not you.  So *I* get to say what the
list policy is, not you.  I'm a classic liberal; I believe that most
people will eventually do the right thing if they're given incentive
and have the alternatives pointed out to them.  This is so much better
than Procrustean rules, don't you think?

> Posting stuff like 'just change your damned mail' seems at best
> coercive to me perhaps a link like this would seek to illucidate
> people on this.
> http://www.fortunecity.com/campus/spanish/82/fags.gif

A minute ago you were arguing *for* a hard-and-fast rule.  Now you're
saying that such a rule would be coercive.  You have such a peculiar
use of language, I'm not sure whether you're intending "coercive" here
as a positive or negative thing.

And that image is of what relevance?

> Perhaps not.

Quite.

> The system runs quite well actually... apart from the former owner of
> it having put a UDMA hard disk onto a chipset that does not support
> UDMA... thus giving a nasty error on boot... plus if I want to remove
> hand compiled stuff what the hell is wrong with
> make uninstall?

Your very first mail on this subject stated that the installation
*overwrote* some other files.  How do you propose to get them back
when you uninstall?

I'm getting the impression once again that not only are you unaware of
the real issues facing professional system administrators, but you
seem unaware of the *fact* of such issues.  It's as though we're
patiently explaining the rules of soccer to you, and you've not even
grasped the notion of "sport".

> No offence but, you see how power corrupts and absolute power
> corrupts absolutely... hey colm.. do you honestly think that I need
> to listen to this from you?  Come on down off of your mailing list
> perch and join us in the real world.

... and the funniest thing is that you think that you're cleverly
winning your argument by attacking me!

Consider:

I control the subscription list to ILUG.
I control the mail server on which it runs.
I control the archives.
I control the web site.

If absolute power corrupts absolutely, do you *seriously* think you'd
still be allowed post to this list?

Come to think of it, do you seriously think your box would still be
on the net?

Get a grip.

>> I settled on Debian after many evaluations of different strategies;
>> Debian allows me to keep 20 boxes all patched and synchronised,
>> while maintaining and propagating customised changes, all for less
>> than an hour a day.  I strongly doubt that your system would scale
>> beyond a single box.

> Pot kettle... come on colm Debian the last time I used it was the
> thick end of slackware..

You haven't used it much in the last four years then.  Or else you
just don't know what you're seeing.

Debian has over ten thousand packages in the main development
distribution as of today; only a tiny fraction of these would ever be
installed on a real system; it's very non-bloated.

> it wouldn't exactly have a miasma of gui tools with bells and
> whistles to do the handholding... in fact I would put
> [Debian,Gentoo,Slackware,FreeBSD & Friends] in much the same
> category... to me this all sounds like a debian rant.. in which case
> you are partly right and partly wrong.. Debian is good too, but is
> so similar to Slackware (or at least the 2.2_r2 version I use is)
> that your entire argument about Slackware being a non-mission
> critical appropiate system seems like the biggest troll I have
> encountered in days.

Barely two paragraphs ago you were criticising not-Slackware for being
too bloated, now you're saying that Debian is just the same as
Slackware.  For what it's worth, you're wrong on both counts.  If your
"cursory" examination of Debian and Mandrake leads you to conclude
that they're not as suitable for production systems as Slackware, then
you're not a very effective examiner.  Mandrake is widely recognised
as being one of the most user-friendly systems; the automatic hardware
detection which you decry as unnecessary is a real boon - consider
trying to maintain your "manual" hardware configuration on 20 boxes.
Now imagine 100 boxes.  These are *real* problems faced by *real*
professionals; just because you've found a *SINGLE-BOX* system you're
happy with is of no relevance whatsoever.  As with so many other of
your comments, it just makes people laugh at you.

And Debian is expressly designed to make maintenance as easy as
possible; especially on multiple boxes.  As I mentioned, I have about
20 production Linux systems to maintain.  They're all Debian, and
maintenance is an absolute breeze as a result.  Having a hacky system
to play with and break at your leisure is one thing, but having
a rock-solid, dependable distribution which can be automatically kept
up-to-date with current patches and security fixes without breaking
anything else, and with all dependencies etc. taken care of, is quite
another.  I wouldn't put Slackware on my production boxes because my
experience tells me that it's a total waste of time.  If you don't
have sufficient experience to see the same thing, then that's your
problem.

Getting defensive because you've been criticised after (and I repeat)
YOU ASKED FOR HELP is childish and just plain rude.  Get over it.  The
essay Gary posted from ESR says it all; this chap has made a study of
the social behaviour of people on the Net, and he has some very astute
observations (and if he'd get over his obsession with guns, I'm sure
he'd be quite a decent sort).

             Colm


-- 
Colm Buckley | colm at tuatha.org | +353 87 2469146 | www.colm.buckley.name
I will always cherish the inital misconceptions I had about you.