Relax. Nobody is taking any freedoms from you or any other members.


I was just wondering whether a "why do people prefer buying ready to use cars to ones that need to be assembled" type of question really needs so many answers (mostly similar answers)....

.....BUT THEN I noticed that it's a General section of LQ and realised that my comment might have been out of place.

if you are a $50 an hour lawyer and PC engineer charges $20 per hour it makes economic sense to call the expert. As mentioned before - division of labour is at the centre of industrail revolution ;)

I was relaxed and still am. just pointing out the rather obvious.

There are topics that keep being brought up, in LQ suggestions and feedback one has come up again, and in these topics someone always says something like it has been discussed before why do we have to do it again. If people don't want to discuss it they don't have to, that's the point of my post.

That's a VERY cheap lawyer.

I agree with you 100%, and although I was never explicitly taught to try and fix something rather than chuck it, I am a tinkerer by nature so messing around with broken things is something I enjoy. I find it hard to believe that average intelligence is declining, but I believe there are a few things that explain the behaviour you're seeing.

(1) There's a lot more things to do now than there was in the 60's. Whether those things are worthwhile is decided on a individual basis, something that's worthwhile to one person may not be worthwhile to another.

(2) 'Things' in todays society are becoming exponentially more complex as technology progresses at an exponential rate, to the point where you need an expert/special equipment to accomplish tasks that you could have easily learned from reading a manual and a fiddling around before. Take cars for example. 8-9 years ago I worked on a ginseng farm with a bunch of guys who liked to partake in demolition derbys. They were complaining then that it was become increasingly more difficult to find cars for derby because lots of functions that used to be mostly mechanical and electrical have been taken over by microcontrollers. This meant that they had to figure out which systems to disable/modified in such a way as to keep the car functional operation but disengage the necessary safety protocols so that they could make the car derby compliant. That kind of complexity is happening everywhere and people simply don't want to deal with it.

(3) People view computers as household appliances (as I said in my first post). While I agree with you that people worked on their cars a lot more in the 60's than they do today, how many people do you think worked on their own stove/oven, refrigerator, or washing machines/dryers in the 60's? What I do believe happened then (and I could be completely wrong since I wasn't alive then) is that people were more inclined to call the repair guy back then than they are now. I think we're all well aware that companies have been used 'planned obsolescence' increasingly more to our (the consumers) detriment, and people are increasingly in the mindset of "If it doesn't work, time to get a new one (unless it's still under warranty)". This, in combination of the "I don't want to deal with this new-fangled technology" people, are only leaving the subset of people that are true tinkerers in any particular field.

This hits the nail on the head. With companies like Apple and Samsung releasing new phones every other year and Tv technology moving faster than anyone could have imagined we just chuck our old stuff to get the newer stuff. We talk to our phones now instead of talking into them. We talk to our cars instead of driving them etc.

Actually, I decided to change '#!/bin/sh' to '#!/bin/ash' as it comes with slackware and is updated more regularly than dash, which comes with Debian. All I had to change in my scripts was '==' to '=', because I am used to C syntax, and 'let x++' to 'x=$(expr $x + 1)'. The rest seems to work, so I guess they are POSIX compliant now. I think I may try to make the slackware rc.d scripts work with ash, but I'm not sure if it is worth it.

Well said.

I am not very proficient with Linux-based systems yet, and until I get to a point where I trust myself not to break something by noodling around with config files, I prefer everything to work 'out-of-the-box'. That is why, right now, I use Xubuntu and CrunchBang as opposed to pure Debian. :)

Fixing a car from the 1960s is very different from fixing a car from the 2010s. It's about like the difference between repairing a full tower PC and repairing an iPhone. The theory is the same, and all the same parts are ... well ... present, but the "figuring it out" phase is gone to be a lot longer and more costly with the iPhone unless you have very specialized tools and training.

Yeah, yeah ... off-topic, I know ... Here, I'll fix that ...

The same can be said of fixing a software problem with a commercial operating system as opposed to open source, but the issue is reversed.

Experienced computer consumers have been led to believe that the conventions of popular commercial operating systems are generally applicable to all situations, a condition which has obfuscated the actual underlying functionality of the system. It's like taking a green-behind-the-gills mechanic back in time to 1960 and asking him to diagnose an issue with a car. "Where do you plug in the diagnostics terminal?," he might ask.

Of course, that diagnostics terminal was only implemented in the later designs to save time for high-volume shops and to present an obstacle for hobbyists who likely wouldn't own such a device. An "open" design might have an indicator light or some other such stand-in, but probably not even that; it would most likely be simple and elegant instead and require neither, since proprietary concerns wouldn't enter into the design considerations.

So, really, an end-user using Linux will "distro-hop" to "solve" problems, because that is all that they know how to do.

The root problem here is end-users using Linux at all. It's not meant for them, or, really, it shouldn't be. It's like if non-mechanics like myself were all trying to build their own cars from parts ... It might be achievable if kit makers got "idiot-proof" enough, but what would be the point? We'd all be better off buying commercially available cars and leaving the kits to the true hobbyists. (The kits could stay a lot cooler, too ... eg Gentoo or Slackware.)

The fact that end-users are trying to use Linux is, to me, a symptom of a deeper problem, and that is ridiculous market conditions which have given Microsoft a de-facto PC operating system monopoly for 25+ years. They don't like the only commercial car available, so they order kits.

We just need nerds from LQ to go out and start the GM and Chrysler to compete with Microsoft's Ford rather than spending so much time helping soccer moms put together do-it-yourself kits.

And now, another drink. ;)

I wasn't alive in the 60's so I wouldn't know, but maybe if I was I would also be tinkering with cars as well as computers.

It really concerns me how computing gets dumbed down:
http://slashdot.org/topic/cloud/bill...ch-interfaces/

They want you to interface with your computer a very simplistic, almost kindergarten-like level. I mean when I was younger I saw similar things being marketed as computers for kids ... not for me of course, even tho I was a kid.

They also want you to only do one job and not try for more than that. If you do try to branch out, you'll be criticized, bad-mouthed and hated by all who's toes you step on. It's the attitude that if you can do what they can do, and this is the only thing they can do ... then obviously their job/position is useless. I've seen it often. The down side of such a system is that nobody would understand the bigger picture. I've heard people outside the computing field say that there is some type of god inside the computer making it run, maybe even God. I've heard physics professors say that computers defy the laws of physics because coping data is a process of creation. This is the kind of thinking that this kind of specialization promotes. I suppose the great majority are completely content with their ignorance, as can been seen in some posts in this thread, but it is worrying to me. I won't even mention the lack of professionalism of people in most jobs, I don't see how they can live with themselves like this. It's true I have a hard time understanding people and the world of people ... I don't know if it can be understand, maybe it is mad and thus cannot be understood. I'm getting off topic.

EDIT:
I am thinking about starting to tinker with cars, but as most are computerized now, I'll probably have to invest in some special software or computer. I don't like changing the oil for sure, I'll leave the dirty jobs to the mechanics. Maybe one day we won't need oil to lubricate anymore, maybe like the magnetic fans they have now, some type of magnetic levitation. I've thought of it but I'm not sure it is practical ATM.

In reply to the OP:

Simple economics.

It's not economically efficient to have everyone be a polymath, RMS, Dennis Ritchie who writes their own programming language, operating system, userland toolset, license scheme and then uses it to get their work done. There's plenty of layers under that too: hardware, sourcing the materials for the hardware, researching the processes for *everything*, etc. Go read "I, Pencil" for some breathtaking perspective, then apply it to your computer.

By the elimination, or minimization of having to worry about all of those processes, we can worry about the things we actually want to do: browse the internet, use ssh or lynx, or write more software for others to use, or store data for dental appointments, or whatever.

Thankfully, there's plenty of Linux to go around for the minimalist and the maximality and the special needs, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down. :)

Unless you have the knowledge of what any changes you make to the control systems does please do not even attempt this. Control systems are very specialist units and changes here and there, without actual knowledge and testing in a safe environment, can have disastrous effects. It is not ony engines that are now controlled by computer modules, brakes, steering and body movement are all controlled to a certain degree (in quite a few new cars now) by control modules.

In 1986 when I was doing my apprenticeship we drained the oil out of a Holden Commodore and Wynns drove it from Darwin to Alice Springs without oil. Before they did this each time we serviced it we put in an additive from Wynns that had PFTE in it. After we drained the oil for the final time we changed the Camshaft and Lifters (originals were hydraulic new one was solid) that had previously been treated with the additive. The car performed without any problems apparently.

Interestingly ... people by-and-large don't want to "use Lynx" or even to "use a web-browser." They want to read a web-page. They don't want to "use ssh." They want their communications to be secure all the time. They don't want to "store data for appointments." They simply don't want to miss one. And so on.

Probably the biggest achievement lately has been Android, or iPhone. There's a Linux/Unix in there, and almost nobody knows it. Certainly millions of people don't care as they jabber away. No one has to. And, that's the key point.

A computer is a tool, and a complicated one at that. We're used to it only because that's the crazy thing that we do, but that's not what people want. Programmers should always be striving to work themselves out of a job.

I will speak for myself and answer this. While I can use any distro easy enough to set up all that I want but these days I often choose not to. I use Ubuntu Studio (XFCE4) because all the software I want to work out of the box works and is there. This leaves me more time to play around with what I want to. It also gives me the free time to trouble shoot issues right away if there is a problem. So while I joke about being lazy and choosing a distro like Ubuntu Studio but I am far from lazy. I just want things like Jack, Guitarix, Hydrogen, etc., already set up. Then I can go beyond all of that and do what I need or want to do. But as I said if I had to I could do it all myself, it really isn't that hard at all to do. For example in Debian, before I switched to Ubuntu Studio, I would combine testing, unstable and Experimental (For a few things.) The initial install of Debian would just be the basics to get me to the command line and connected to the internet. No DE, etc. Then I would go from there and install/set up only what I wanted.

I think it is more of a personal preference. As mentioned above people like buying cars that are assmebled and ready to go. Some people would rather buy a DvD player, TV, Bicycle, Calculator, Guitar... that was all together and worked out of the box without having to put it together. Depends on the person, what they know, what they want, what they feel like doing.

I'm in total agreement with your corrections. Now get out of my head! :P

The rest of your post is very eye-opening. That's come as a shock to me as I've only been using Linux for a short while and I seem to be seduced by the architecture or engineering aspects of it enough to kind of forget about or feel at odds with user facing interface.

It gives me a lot to think about, and I like that.