Originally Posted by Ned Radd
(Post 5559256)
Not to belittle Red Hat, Fedora, and Mandrake, but the Repositories on your side are not as extensive as with the Debian distros, of which Ubuntu or one of its deviants are most common. Lots of new software makes it to the Debian repositories first. and many 3rd party repositories offer deb packages for download. I began with Knoppicks and bought Mandrake and Red Hat disks my first few years, but Linux then was not what it is today, and it was slow go in the beginning. Then my job and the need to write new code in Powerbasic kept me locked to Windows for a few more years. Free at last, I went looking for what was running at the front, and found Ubuntu. But Unity/Dash on Ubuntu is not for me, too primitive, and I went for gnome classic, and that took mr to Metacity which I found suits me best. So when starting out, get several ISOs and see what you like before you lock in to one. And realize the desktop/interface is only part of the distro makeup, and you have choice there.
I remember a few efforts early on to bring in other interfaces/desktops/file managers for Windows, but Windows users were so locked into doing it the Microsoft way and with the Microsoft look and feel that these did not catch on. I had to live with that look and feel as part of my job as I was in user support as much as anything, and had to stay up to speed on what they dealt with daily.
Linux is Linux. But what sits on the Linux kernel depends on user preferences as much as anything. If a user feels he or she has a better approach, they can mix packages, add new code, and adopt any interface (Desktop/File Management/whatever) they want.
They can then offer it as their own distro, as long as they don't charge for it, except to cover basic costs. Most just ask for donations to help meet expenses, which is their right to do. The fact that you can get most or all of it free from other sources forces such requests to remain low.
It's possible to exchange packages between Depian and RPM using programs like alien, but this is usually frowned on and not widely supported. RPM has largely been superceeded by other methods such as yum. This is not my area of involvement, so I have no opinion in this area.
But Debian is deb and debsrc referenced sources and files in specific detail, and that is something of a constant. It is also coupled with PPAs and checksums and identity checks to ensure alternate sourcing and content validation. A pretty secure effort at making sure you get what was intended, so it has held up for years,
Key to good results often depends on knowing you are dealing with a known source that is consistent in its bahavior in such matters.
For instance, in dealing with a Public Affairs office or a press secretary, you know in advance they will only tell you as much as they want you to know , and it will be consistent with what the "official" line is. The press tries to bait them into saying too much, but if they are good at their job, they will evade these topics or give the "official" answer. In any case they have no right to make policy decisions.
It is only when a person in that position comes before the press can you hope to get the truth or solicit policy change. But these attempts are often short lived, as a person in power can end the interview at any time or redirect matters into a different channel.
Only when they are held accountable to a higher power can you keep at them and possibly force the truth out and into the open.
Only in exchange for leniency are some likely to speak out then, and you often only have their word for what they reveal. The truth is always revealed by facts, so unless they can present facts as well, the real truth remains obscure.
The only other thing that works is consistency in stories, where two or more who have no chance to collaborate give effectively the same account of whatever has occurred. Exact details won't agree, as humans don't see or remember things the same as the others present, so too much agreement, or a story told the same way each time, could be rehearsed and memorized.
Just a bit of knowledge I've picked up in watching the type of shows that interest me, where people of the law or science set out to find and deal with those outside the law.
I'm a big believer in laws, law enforcement be handles as efforts to find the real facts regardless of so-called human rights, and that convictions should be based on trial by facts and science and rules of logic.
This thing of a trial by peers where you are subject to convincing the untested and strange mix of people gathered for this one purpose, is greatly flawed. You probably already know what is true based on the science involved.
Juries can be swayed by emotions and made blind to facts, and restricted by a judge's ruling from hearing or knowing all the facts. That's not right. You don't get to the truth that way. Let the facts out regardless of how they are acquired, then base judgement on those, not what the judge, jury, and lawmakers deem appropriate.
You should only have to fear the truth, when the truth puts you in the wrong, and you have cause to fear the outcome of being shown to be in the wrong. If you are hones with yourself, you know you can't always be right or in the right, so admit when you were wrong in either account and be prepared to move on.
There are such things as being wrong for the right reasons, or right for the wrong reasons, and that is a part of life. The parking of planes in center of the field in rows at Hickam Field in Hawaii was right for preventing saboteurs from sneaking up on them, but wrong in that it left them in the open for strafing from the air by Japanese zeros during the attack that took place on Dec 7, 1941.
The Japaneses made a bad strategic error and a bad tactical decision in planning and carrying out the attack. The bad strategic plan was to plan to strike the oil storage plants on the third wave of the attack, not the 1st or 2nd. The tactical error was to leave without carrying out that third wave attack, apparently fearing that the American aircraft carriers would return from maneuvers while the attack was going on.
The importance of oil was that it fueled the U.S. Navy ships and was refined for gas and diesel fuel as well. Without fuel, the remaining ships and planes were limited to immediate stores. Had the refinery been hit as well, everything would have had to be shipped in. Hawaii has no oil reserves other than was in those tanks. Almost everything had to be shipped in by sea from far away, a slow process considering the distances involved. And those tankers and freighters would not have had much protection from navy ships or planes either, especially if they deployed and used up the limited fuel they had. So the importance of those storage tanks was not fully recognized at the time.
Just a way of showing the difference between short term and long term planning, especially when it comes to non-renewable resources. If America buys and uses foreign oil rather than use its own, it will still have its own when the foreign oil plays out. That would be the smart move in my book. Instead, people want to make money here by pumping our own. And instead of bringing in Canadian oil as we could, we are forcing them to sell it to other buyers, particularly China. In the long run, how does that
help us?
UIf America does not last, then we will be part of whatever takes its place. So will our decendents. Your kids and grandkids, if they survive, may think well or badly of you. Likely badly, as the freedoms allowed today will likely be done away with. The age of easy credit and living beyond your means, and the fallacy of putting an individual's rights first will be swept away by realisms that this does not work. We cannot spend more than we gain, and yet it is happening over and over. How is that possible? I have theories, but frankly, it can't last. What will bring it to an end is not known, but the world will bring an end to America at some point in retaliation.
|
