Author Topic: Computer Rage (rage against the machine)  (Read 2561 times)

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Nation of One

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Computer Rage (rage against the machine)
« on: November 24, 2020, 04:35:29 pm »
excerpt from wikipedia:

In 2007, a German man threw his computer out the window in the middle of the night, startling his neighbors. German police were sympathetic and did not press charges, stating "Who hasn't felt like doing that?"

While I can't see myself intentionally destroying a computer, there are times when an indescribable irritability begins to fester and grow in me, where I resent the industry itself.    I resent having to learn methods from others, or the sheer amount of dependencies, the learning curves, and the endless train of know-it-alls!   Sickening.

Ibra mentions the fanboy mentality.  So many "technology for technology's sake enthusiasts" ... it all makes me want to crawl under a rock.  I hiss at the world in general.   :-[

And this is me speaking here, a man who has grown to love a certain style of computing; so when I hate the industry, it is like the man who loves his Volkswagon but hates the automobile industry (and a world designed around highways and fuel).


On one machine with Void Linux, I am troubleshooting drivers for old broadcom wireless card.  The other, Kiss Linux (https://k1ss.org/), it is requiring a bit more ingenuity, but I am getting tricky, experimenting, seeing if I can transplant not only entire SageMath CAS enviroment (compiled for the same machine Kiss Linux will be running on), but all my math code, a binary Anaconda installer, and several configuration files.

CMake is not building, complaining of not wanting to use ZLIB, version 1.whatever.
I am going to attempt a transplant of this systemwide suite.

_____
update for broadcom : BCM43142 driver.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2020, 05:43:53 pm by Sticks and Stones »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Ibra

  • Philosopher of the Void
  • Posts: 132
Re: Computer Rage (rage against the machine)
« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2020, 12:40:43 am »
Hentrich,
I tinkered a lot with computing 7-8 years ago. tested many linux distros, Plan9 , Haiku OS (nice filesystem).

It is all tiresome for me, I tend to understand the system well in order to do anything ( this is the reason the underground man explains that he couldn't do anything, he needs a ground to stand on but it all murky). after long time to understand the mayhem of modern computing it is lackluster. the dependency hell is maddening. 
look at the this joke of the webshi-ttery development https://www.npmjs.com/package/is-even. a library to check a number if even or not. 500k download a month.

no matter how Prof Wirth "Plea for Lean Software, making things complex always pays better.

Cmake is monstrous, I dropped all my programming experiments and luckily will not see this the cluster-fukery CMakeList files.

Modern FreePascal is a better C/C++, little verbose but clear. if I ever returned to experiment again, will pick it up than C/C++. 

Sorry for my rant,
hope you take things slowly.

Suffering is the only fruit of human race

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Re: Computer Rage (rage against the machine)
« Reply #2 on: November 25, 2020, 09:06:09 am »
[long rant alert]

Quote from: Ibra
no matter how Prof Wirth "Plea for Lean Software, making things complex always pays better.

Self-inflicted complexity for the sake of adding a buffering of layer upon layer of abstraction so that object might be represented in a more human context, rather than in the context of the stupefying technical details occurring on the hardware level of memory management.  In general, I wish to at least tinker around with crafting some kind of piggy-back off of some Linux From Scratch project to patch together a system suited for the tasks I am caught up in, and to free resources (including my attention).  The system would be simple but powerful as a mathematical assistant.

That making things more complex provides professionals with careers is a frightening reality I had not considered.  How naive I have been all my life, even as an aging rotten-toothed mad part-dog/part-man beast-machine.  Still, I have lurked into modern C++, and, even as I might be fascinated by the Concepts being implemented by 'the eggheads,' I still get more fulfillment designing programs that perform one particular mathematical task.   It is no wonder that I would be drawn to the concept or idea of creating Matrix objects from scratch rather than have to rely on oh-so-complex libraries with dependencies.

Note that the term 'eggheads' was used by my paternal grandfather, never for one minute believing that he was an egghead himself.  Maybe some are brainwashed to believe that they themselves are the eggheads, and this massages their ever-so-sensitive narcissistic egos.  There may be relatively few genuine eggheads who might bring some order to the chaos of modern computing, but they would have to be a dictator of sorts who would shut down this corrupting influence.

It must have happened in literature as well.  That is the trail which Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces leads to, the mischief in the publishing industry, the goings on right there on the east coast of Turtle Island.  These corrupting complexities cause mayhem, and our age is not peculiar in this respect.   Even in the Far East long ago, the "Religious and Pious" were influenced by their Darker Shadows.  People would pay for "enlightenment" the same way modern day contemporary students pay for "degrees".

It is all so bloody corrupt, but this makes a hobbyist interest all the more compelling.

If I end up living isolated in the mountains, I will want my personal operating system to be minimalistic, lean, mean, and loaded with essential mathematics-oriented computer algebra system 'ecosystem' --- with personnel library of 'mathcodes' in my ~/bin.    This is what I mean by 'simple'.  I want that kind of simplicity as far as dependencies.  It is alright to be eccentric in such a world.  There are traps and pitfalls.

Thank you for sharing your dark and cynical perspective with me.  This helps me understand my 'failures' to thrive economically throughout my life.  Even without the corrupting influence of money, there is a level of complexity inherent in the systems themselves, dependencies that the so-called eggheads take for granted.

Things like the iostream of C++ ... There is an old book written by the author of this iostream library.  It would take me a lifetime to comprehend it.  The complexity of modern computing is daunting, and part of me wishes it might modernize its interaction with the machinery by enforcing a simple and minimalistic approach to setting up environments for interacting with 'digital computers'.  It might be purist impulses, hobbyist tinkering, or just a last refuge for my dwindling will to live ... an interest to keep me waking up in the morning or baking more bread.

Quote from: Ibra
It is all tiresome for me, I tend to understand the system well in order to do anything ( this is the reason the underground man explains that he couldn't do anything, he needs a ground to stand on but it all murky). after long time to understand the mayhem of modern computing it is lackluster. the dependency hell is maddening. 

In the novel, This Perfect Day, by Ira Levin, Chip's grandfather, one of the original computer programmers was able to see the ugliness [TOTAL RATIONAL MACHINE SYSTEM] underneath the UniComp World Computer System DICTATOR of The Human Family.  They were all medicated and had State-sponsored counselors and advisers, much like social workers of today.  Creepy read.

Dependency Hell.  It appears as though the most influential eggheads want us all to depend upon their libraries, hence their tendency to scoff at those of us who prefer to explore and experiment and LEARN BY OUR OWN MISTAKES, experiencing the joy of building our own little brute-force Frankensteins that are simple enough for us to enjoy creating and working with.

It is all so very disheartening.  No wonder there is this ambience of disillusionment. 

dependency hell ... a reflection of the macrocosmic social worlds ... from fuel to grocery stores ... existential helplessness ...

I think that if I live to be an old man, the code I have written might help me reflect upon the math behind them, and rekindle an interest.

For me, it is all a trick to keep the Steppenwolf from taking an eternal nap.    ;D

How about the slogan, "Linux From Scratch, an alternative to suicide ..."  ?

 :D

or, more honestly, maybe give Alpine Linux a try instead of troubleshooting CMake/ZLIB issue on Kiss Linux.  I can learn about s6/s6-rc using Artix and pacman.  Alpine uses OpenRC like Funtoo, but there is the epro/ego/emerge learning curve with USE flags on Funtoo.  Alpine uses its own package manager, apk.  Void uses runit as init and package manager xbps. I will try to learn a little of each of the systemd alternatives.

footnote: How to enable and start services on Alpine Linux (using OpenRC, like Funtoo)

Alpine would bring me closer to Funtoo while Artix teaches me about s6/s6-rc, and Void teaches me about runit.  It is, as it has been for a few decades with me, very much a Learning Ecosystem, lean and modern in the nooks and crannies, but FAT as a Multiverse cross-platform home network where I am free to be a run-of-the-mill literary madman/mad-scientist/philosopher who has nurtured some kind of emotional connection with the machinery.  I had rebelled as a teen (against mass-production of computers), but early in my twenties I became interested in mathematics.  Computer Algebra Systems were what motivated my intitial obsession with this craft.

I'm not prepared for an all out Linux From Scratch Revolution, and willing to trust a handful of others to at least talk me through the details (to expand my own notes) of installing sleek, lean, mean environments, highly personalized as far as doing without things I can live without.

I can live without Alpine. Maybe two different versions of Void, on two different machines, one with musl C library, the other with glibc C library just to get some kind of idea what the difference is there.

It is Lovecraftain insane, isn't it?
« Last Edit: November 26, 2020, 09:43:16 pm by Sticks and Stones »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

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Re: Computer Rage (rage against the machine)
« Reply #3 on: November 26, 2020, 08:15:50 pm »
While this Adelie Linux has ISO images available, from their main page, the links to "Software" are dead.   Does this mean their "apk" package manager (Alpine's apk?) will have dead repositories?

https://pkg.adelielinux.org/

What is real?  The only way to know for sure is to proceed with a small installation on a partition.  I do not want to use "Virtual Operating Systems."

I have a couple small partitions made for Kiss Linux which are free, and I want to test out a /home partition's software.  I want to see if Sage 8.8, compiled in Funtoo will run with Kiss/Alpine/Adelie/Void/Artix/Slackware, even with a minimalist installation.

All I would require is something like screen (a terminal multiplexor) so alt-tab-whatever through terminals [sage, isympy, ~/bin, nano sessions].  And yet, some kind of minimal desktop may be necessary to run things like Visual Studio Code, Atom, a web-browser ... although there is text-based links for web-browsing, and emacs for writing code.

When I truly lose all my marbles I might grow a set of balls and build Linux from scratch; but, I am an honest man, and therefore a humble man.  I lack the confidence.
__________________________________________
and yet, with Adelie, while preparing the installation medium, the USB flashdrive, there is not the usual option for GPT partitioning.  Just MBR with BIOS (or UEFI-CSM). I would have to wing it and simply not install the bootloader, or I could do it manually ...

(Adelie Linux Documentation)

It uses an intuitive graphical interface for the installation, even KDE Partition Manager.  I just had to ignore the BIOS-centric layout and the weirdness of using the MBR-style format on the USB drive.  I do not want to trust this installer to  install and boot loader.  I will handel that manually with rEFInd and efibootmgr afterwards.  I may have to hit the F-12 key while turning on the computer to choose (after reboot if it sneaks the bootloader in somehow).
____________________________________
PS:  Ibra, I was researching that Plan9 UNIX distro. That was novel.  And Haiku - a completely unique operating system.  There is no solid ground for us to stand on ... all murky.  Those who may have noble intentions when they begin a project may end up sad, bitter, or otherwise, as disappointed and dissatisfied as the Buddha himself.   
« Last Edit: November 26, 2020, 11:11:55 pm by Sticks and Stones »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Ibra

  • Philosopher of the Void
  • Posts: 132
Re: Computer Rage (rage against the machine)
« Reply #4 on: November 27, 2020, 12:18:33 am »
Quote from: Hentrich
That making things more complex provides professionals with careers is a frightening reality I had not considered.

Hentrich, you are always a very articulate.

C++ is a beast but I think your code is quite readable, I browsed your code before and thought it is clear and straightforward.  It has some niceties too over C, such as string and some data structures. but they keep piling abstractions over abstractions, even it is as they advertise "zero-cost" abstractions. it is not zero-cost for understandability.

I think it is a human nature to make things complex.

of course, I am all for tinkering and trying to find yourself a cozy homemade environment for your experiments.

I find this distro https://nixos.org is good for packages.

for me, I become very frustrated easily, and can not afford my ever diminishing clarity of mind.

I will just test this windows 10 https://ameliorated.info/ and call it a day.
Today I will time for "A Confederacy of Dunces".

regards
« Last Edit: November 27, 2020, 12:20:39 am by Ibra »
Suffering is the only fruit of human race

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Re: Computer Rage (rage against the machine)
« Reply #5 on: November 27, 2020, 01:12:35 am »
That ameliorated Windows 10 looks spooky and fresh/clean ... I'm in my 50's already, so I remember DOS 6.0 to DOS 6.2 to Windows 3.1 ... It is tempting, that is, installing Ameliorated Windows 10 onto computers of those in need.   I may find a use for that one of these good old days.  Thanks for the heads-up, Ibra.

I think NixOS was one I was researching as well.  I see one can install this system to a different partition from within an existing Linux operating system without even needing a USB-drive to boot.  I think they use SystemD, and I have been intentionally trying to learn non-systemd ways.   I fear those who embrace systemd have embraced the idea of some people owning Linux.   I don't even know why any of it matters to me.   It seems ridiculous, but these distro-politics are getting to be like the in-fighting witnessed among practitioners of organized religion, each practicing different approaches to living, with a good deal of maligning, campaigning, and fanboyism.

I had my heart set on source-based for a small slot I robbed from Windows 10 C: partition. 

I am considering Exherbo or maybe Crux.

As I suspected, the Adelie installation was a flop.  All seemed to be going well, and then the Installer just complained and quit.  Fuck that, right?  I knew there was something fishy in the way the .iso was MBR partition, not GPT.

I hear the developers at Exherbo are those bad asses who had attitude problems in Gentoo-land.   I'm just curious.  Very bored, I suppose.

A Confederacy of Dunces is kind of in-your-face comedy with a bunch of characters.  Everyone is a character, and Jones steals the show.  The guy with the space-age sunglasses who is always blowing smoke ...

I think maybe I should stop and read as well ... something not so technical.   I don't know how I have come to be so obsessed with computing.   It is what it is.  Sometimes I feel like a great contradiction ... like a protagonist in a novel who is about to remember who he really is ...

So much time and effort to understand things, and the environments we try to understand.  Will we forever be behind the 8-ball surfing the Learning Curve of Sisyphus?

Even as much effort as I have put into my meager understanding of things, I feel extremely alienated from the computing industry.   And I am one who has had some serious interest.  There is a definite feeling of being an outsider, though.

review of Exherbo from 2009.

Thank you for appreciating the code I wrote and was able to upload to github.  To me, it is like some kind of mathematical poetry which forces itself to be expressed. Since I only produce such code while in a state of amazed concentration and focus, it might as well have been produced by the Holy Ghost, as Schopenhauer would say.  That is, I had been possessed with inspiration.  I can only hope to be possessed again god-willin & the crick don't rise.

The art and craft may come in when the code is written in a way to be read by a human programmer, with some help from comments.  In the future I would leave more "commented out, of course" print statements as a kind of spontaneous organic built in debugging practice.  The one who types these words is an appendage.  My own thoughts feel somewhat mechanical and calculated.  How would we know if our brains have not been hijacked by some super-computing Lizard?   :o ??? ;D :D
______________________________________________
technicalities: 

  • Sometimes when using Rufus to create (DD) image on the drive, the USB flashdrive becomes unrecognizable.  These little 4GB and 8GB drives are hard to come by, since stores usually sell minimum 16GB or even 32 GB flashdrives.   When you have a few that are misbehaving, you will have to roll up your sleeves, run cmd.exe as Administrator, and type "diskpart" : see repair USB drive
  • If the flashdrive is still not showing up (in Windows): reinstall disk driver

Here are more details on CRUX installation (warning:  from 2012, so be sure to refer to Crux Handbook 3-5).

Another resource (from 2018): Commonwealth Manual CRUX 3.4 CCIA

There is a more general example of an installation of CRUX that goes in absolutely no detail as far as compiling the kernel goes.

More details on kernel compiling specific to CRUX (2011).

While I would not follow the kernel section (I am not encryting), as I have different hardware, the guide to a crux installation is kind of streamlined and sleek:  Abdullah. (alarmingly fascinating) ... All-2-Lovecraftian!

I find more peace of mind with a strong dose of https://crux.nu/Wiki/UEFI

Quote
Kernel Configuration

There are several UEFI-related options that need to be enabled in the kernel for full support. They are:

    GPT disk label support (CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION):

-*- Enable the block layer  --->
   Partition Types  --->
     
  •    EFI GUID Partition support


    EFI runtime service support (CONFIG_EFI):

Processor type and features  --->
   
  • EFI runtime service support


    EFI stub support (CONFIG_EFI_STUB):

This option is only required if EFI stub support is desired in lieu of one of the more traditional boot loaders. See the EFI stub notes in the "Boot Loaders" section below.

Processor type and features  --->
   
  • EFI runtime service support
  •    EFI stub support


    EFI variable filesystem support (CONFIG_EFIVAR_FS):

NOTE: This option can be builtin (<*>) or module (<M>). If you build it as a module, be sure to load the 'efivarfs' module before attempting to edit UEFI boot entries.

File systems  --->
   Pseudo filesystems  --->
      <*> EFI Variable filesystem

    EFI framebuffer (CONFIG_FB_EFI):

Device Drivers  --->
   Graphics support  --->
      <*> Support for frame buffer devices  --->
         
  •    EFI-based Framebuffer Support

      Console display driver support  --->
         <*> Framebuffer Console support
         
  •    Map the console to the primary display device


Please note that some of these options can technically be compiled as modules but it is NOT recommended due to the extra requirements that adds such as an initrd or initramfs to load the GPT partition support and EFI frame buffer early.

This is telling me to disable "Initial RAM filesystems" (initramfs)  and "RAM disk" (initrd) support. 

This would agree with using a standard kernel with no initramfs

In order to compile the kernel, I am also impressed with the built-in help system, where I may investigate according to my degree of patience.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2020, 09:41:40 pm by Sticks and Stones »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

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Re: Computer Rage (rage against the machine)
« Reply #6 on: November 29, 2020, 04:57:46 pm »
We have CRUX 3.5 booting from rEFInd menu alongside Windows 10, Artix [non-systemd arch linux, the art of linux), and Funtoo (workhorse that just can't emerge @world) ...

Void Linux is doing the research work, and sometimes ssh-ing (verb) into Crux while it is churning away in compile-mode.   Screen also allows one to ^a + c to create a new instance, ^a p/n to go to previous session, and even a^ + S and ^a V for splitting the screen horizontally or vertically, where '^' = Ctrl key.

I will try to build/compile SageMath from source on this machine in the same fashion I compiled it (sage-9.2) in Void Linux on the other machine.   To get around some of the frustrations, I can SSH from "the Void" (with MATE desktop manager) into CRUX (source-based minimalistic X11), where I favor the plain console.  I am using Firefox in X11 to post this.  I could even use links if I had to send important message.

I kind of like the primitive feel as it forces me to appreciate what it is I actually need/use the machines for.   I will only really require Windows 10 for the work of scanning notebooks, but when do I ever get around to that mundane and tedious task?     Maybe one day I will drink booze and listen to music all day .... Let Mr. Hyde scan the notes!

Dr. Jeckyl is too goddamn bat-shit crazy with these machines at the moment.  Getting cheap thrills from forcing myself to use "screen" program, as well as ssh and scp, Unix to Unix or Unix to P6Core (Windows Powershell).

I am next going to see about installing some high-scale text editors for programming, namely Atom, Visual Studio Code, Geany, Kate ... a pdf reader ... That should do it.  I'll only "startx" when I need such tools as those while in CRUX.

- Still keeping the bread machine busy.  I eat the bread as fast as it makes it, and I go through several bags of bread flour per month.   Waiting on the cheese-money to motivate me to make more pizza ... Mom and I have been eating.   The same uncle that gave us the bread machine slipped the Mother some turkey dough.   We mostly used the bird for leftovers - which vanished into our tubes quickly and spontaneously.

For a couple of jokers without any real teeth to speak of, the Mother and I keep throwing it down, always running out of carrots, celery, and onions (the holy trinity of soup).

I hope you each are finding ways to become more comfortable with the depressing conundrum of having been born, needing to eat and having to die.  All that.

Peace!
___________________________________________________________
UPDATE:   

I am not going to build/compile Atom, Visual Studio Code, or [KDE] Kate from source in CRUX !!
Hell no.  I can use Geany and/or Emacs.   Although I may one day try to build awesome window manager or i3 windows manager from source ... my plate is too full, and I might even prefer learning to get around (in CRUX) this minimalistic way for eternity.

So what if I become a totally geeked out freak.

NOTE:  https://crux.nu/portdb/
« Last Edit: November 30, 2020, 09:45:26 pm by Sticks and Stones »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Nation of One

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Re: Computer Rage (rage against the machine)
« Reply #7 on: December 02, 2020, 10:59:29 am »
What a strange coincidence that Void Linux has origins in Germany, and CRUX Linux has origins in Sweden --- both of which, Germany and Sweden, that is, being the origins of me-as-protoplasm.  I did not realize this when I was weeding the Linux Distro Garden.

It just turned out that way for totally different reasons.

In the meantime, on the machine where CRUX resides, Artix and Funtoo are stable, even as Funtoo is set up to run both Gnome and Plasma5 desktops.
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Nation of One

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Re: Computer Rage (rage against the machine)
« Reply #8 on: December 05, 2020, 11:23:09 pm »
peculiar "Write failed" errors during building of "spidermonkey" (javascript-engine for firefox, version 68?  while current Mozilla Firefox (--version) is 83.0

My eyes are shot, very tired.  Inside my brain, cranky but on good terms with whatever the hell I am.  I kind of wish I had chosen Obaran with simple JWM.
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

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Re: Computer Rage (rage against the machine)
« Reply #9 on: December 23, 2020, 09:51:27 am »
While I was able to set up CRUX 3.5 and even get MATE desktop running smoothly, when it came to the upgrade from 3.5 to 3.6, things are fishy in Denmark.  The version of gcc is 10.2 immediately after update, but the local ports on machine show version 8.4.  If I update the system, gcc version returns to 8.4.

Again, in my best Eric Cartman voice, I have to say, "Screw this, I'm going home."



As for Exherbo, I will admit straight up that THAT particular community is too intimidating; they're out of my league (I am neither qualified nor worthy).

  I suppose I will go crawling back to Slackware, as I know not what direction to move in from here other than Void (rather poetic, no?).   All I require are the Computer Algeba Systems and some basic web browsing, sound, video, terminal/console, file manager, archiver, pdf-reader, text-editor, and I suppose Geany since others such as VSCode are not available. 

It is time to practice austerity and stay in my own lane.   Even Schopenhauer suggested that we know ourselves and not try to portray (to ourselves) a false representation to compensate for fragile egos.  A boxer would never want to over-estimate his strength only to be humiliated in the ring, nor would it be wise for a man to over-estimate his sexual prowess when it came to approaching "an object of his desire" ...

So, even though I am able to install and maintain such systems, I am not committed to nor devoted to nor employed by them.

I wonder if I can use the kernels I've built during this CRUX Interlude, like in some weird installation of Void.   I'm really drifting now ... going over Trigonometry again, even.  Suppose I am like Kafka, punishing myself by forcing myself to witness that, even after a lifetime of reflection, the noodles in the brain are lazy and require energy to follow the concepts honestly.

To me, all these attempts at mental discipline may be Exercises in Humility.  I become more grounded in the dizzy-ing complexity.   That may be the spiritual component in all these Techgnostic Tinkerings.

Arrrrr ... I found this thread informative and depressing, but what a strange diddy lurking therein!

Quote from: unport
On the next Slackware release, somebody please sing a modified version of the infamous Happy Birthday dirge:

Happy Ree--lease
Happy Ree--lease

Death, destruction, and despair
People dying everywhere

May the cities in your wake
Burn like candles on your cake,

May your deeds with sword and ax
Equal those with sheep and yaks,

Happy Ree--lease
Happy Ree--lease

Your servants steal, your wife's untrue,
Your children plot to murder you,

They stole your sword, your gold, your house,
Took your sheep but not your spouse,

This one lesson you must learn,
First you plunder, then you burn

Happy Ree--lease
Happy Ree--lease

Hear the Women Wail and Weep
Kill them all, But Spare the Sheep

May the children in the Street
Be your barbecuing Meat

Indigestion's what you get
From the enemies you 'et,

Happy Ree--lease
Happy Ree--lease

Children dying far and near
They say that cancer's caused by beer

Typhoid, plague, and polio
Coffins lined up in a row

Pestilence has struck your town
You yourself feel quite run-down

Happy Ree--lease
Happy Ree--lease

So Slackware's aged another year
Now you know that Death is near

When you've reached this age you know
That the mind is first to go,

See the wrinkles on your face
Like the pattern of fine lace

Happy Ree--lease
Happy Ree--lease

Soon your hair will all turn gray
Then fall out (or so they say)

Now you are the age you are
Your demise cannot be far

We brought linen, white as cloud,
Now we'll sit and sew your shroud,

Happy Ree--lease
Happy Ree--lease

Releases come but once three years,
Marking time as Death draws near,

Now another year has passed
Don't look now they're gaining fast!

It's Slackware release 15 never fear
You'll be dead this time next year

Happy Ree--lease
Happy Ree--lease
« Last Edit: December 24, 2020, 05:00:36 pm by Sticks and Stones »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Nation of One

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Why Slackware?
« Reply #10 on: December 24, 2020, 12:58:50 pm »
DISCLAIMER:  No, I am not a robot.  I take some excepts from an article and add a few comments at the end.  Not only am I not a robot, but neither am I these symbols being echoed.   A recap:

Typhoid, plague, and polio
Coffins lined up in a row

Pestilence has struck your town
You yourself feel quite run-down

Happy Release!
Happy Release!

So Slackware's aged another year
Now you know that Death is near


why you should give Slackware Linux (another) chance

stability ---

[this is not a sale's pitch, since there is no monetary incentive for me to proselytize any particular way of "operating systems" ...]

If you are using Slackware, you are going to enjoy some serious reliability, at least as far as operating your system goes.

A few statements directly from the article (which has some kind of grammatical mistake, mistakenly implying that Slackware is used mainly for servers ... does no one proofread?  :-\ )

Slackware doesn't use package managers like Synaptic or yum, so any application is generally installed from source. 

Since Slackware doesn't depend on a package manager, it enjoys much more neutrality than any other distribution does. This is mostly because most applications are installed by source, but also because Slackware has no affiliations with any companies.

Slackware has a much more neutral feeling. This even applies to the desktop. Slackware allows for the installation of numerous desktops. 
________________________-
 I wonder if one might combine i3 window manager with XFCE in Slackware ... rebuild kernel to make it less "huge" or even minimalistic.   Remove all those "games" ... Inspect and explore as though it were actually 1999, not in the popular sense, but in the actual sense!

Time stand still.



The one machine:  Windows 10, Funtoo, Artix, Slackware

The other machine:  Windows 10, Artix [the only non-systemd distribution that handles the BCM43142A0 Brodcom Wireless card (other than Slackware)].

 If I ever replace that card ($30 or so) with something less problematic (as far as Linux drivers go), that other machine might morph in other directions.

I installed Obarun where Slackware is now.  I am ever so tempted to replace the one Artix with Obarun (so as to learn about this 66 and s6 supervision suites, how they work, how they handle the tasks ... and I wish to compare just where Obarun and Artix are distinct from one another (and why).

I want Slackware in this mix, just as a kind of barometer of sorts.  It's running the gcc suite version 9.3, which is perfectly fine with me.   CRUX jumped from gcc 8.4 [in 3.5] to gcc 10.2 [in 3.6].  Of course, none of this matters should one catch the bug, go blind, or get run over by a motor vehicle in the road or parking lot.

Quote
One of the complaints against Slackware is the lack of graphical configuration utilities. This goes for just about every subsystem on the installation. If you want to add users, you're using the command line. If you want to configure Samba or start up services, you're using the command line. But this helps create much cleaner configuration files. Now, anyone can also argue that this is dependent upon the user's ability to create clean configuration files. But as I have experienced, most end users who are willing to use a distribution like Slackware are going to create clean code... much better than most GUI tools.

My apologies to the romantics and poets and musicians.  There is just no hiding my geekiness.  The so-called nerd in me is simply the bare bones reality of being a human animal having to navigate this terrain ... these machines have consumed a great deal of my time and attention, but I can't deny being "in it" or "down with it" somehow.

Why would one deny what one is?

As Silenus reminds us, without food and water, all these sophisticated systems will not mean anything, right?   Speaking for myself, I can become so engrossed and obsessed with Computer Land that I can momentarily forget that I am a creature in a hostile universe.   That actual human animals can communicate and organize such systems gives me a lot more respect for such people in general, whether stereotyped as "nerds" or "geeks" or "eggheads" or whatever.

I haven't been camping in a long time.  Maybe that is a consequence of having at one time been "homeless".   Eventually "camping" lost its appeal.  It's not that I have become more conservative or fearful, just less adventurous, more honest with myself about my "hooked on coffee, tobacco, and technology" existence.

As Holden suggested, I am also, like him, trying to allow the innermost observer simply experience what it feels like to exist.  We cannot demand it be other than it is.   If reality has a nature, it can't be other than what that nature is.   We do not have to be happy about anything.

We are not even under any obligation to make sense.  When the animal body is puking up its food, or is under the weather in the least, the miserable nature of creaturely existence is exposed.

Without health (physical and mental), these Universes of Abstraction, from the math and computing to the philosophy and disputing, are made of symbols, meaningful only to this mental creature, this manimal made of meat.  We are symbol-using animal-creatures.  We will be food for worms.  Does the code care?  Does the code even need to care?

It's Slackware release 15
 never fear
You'll be dead this time
next year

___________________________________________________
« Last Edit: December 24, 2020, 02:46:55 pm by Sticks and Stones »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~