General Linux Chat and Small Questions v. I broke my Arch Install

[Lyokanthrope]

[QUOTE=lavacano;45224831]so i've been flipping a bitch because i couldn't get grub to use graphical mode at all for the past few weeks

turns out i haven't been building it with sdl/truetype support[/QUOTE]
I think there's a gentoo joke hiding somewhere here...

[nikomo]

How many Gentoo users does it take to change a light bulb?
None, light bulbs don't -pipe -O2 -march=athlon-xp -fomit-frame-pointer -ftracer -m32 -mmmx -msse -m3dnow -funroll-loops -fpeel-loops -funswitch-loops -fweb -fgcse-after-reload -fmodulo-sched -fgcse-sm -fgcse-las -ftree-loop-linear -ftree-loop-im -ftree-loop-ivcanon -fivopts -mtune=athlon-xp very well.

How many FreeBSD users does it take to change a light bulb?
None, light bulbs don't Clang very well.

[lavacano]

[QUOTE=Lyokanthrope;45231839]I think there's a gentoo joke hiding somewhere here...[/QUOTE]

there probably is since i'm using gentoo

[QUOTE=nikomo;45233200]How many Gentoo users does it take to change a light bulb?
None, light bulbs don't -pipe -O2 -march=athlon-xp -fomit-frame-pointer -ftracer -m32 -mmmx -msse -m3dnow -funroll-loops -fpeel-loops -funswitch-loops -fweb -fgcse-after-reload -fmodulo-sched -fgcse-sm -fgcse-las -ftree-loop-linear -ftree-loop-im -ftree-loop-ivcanon -fivopts -mtune=athlon-xp very well.[/QUOTE]

you joke but honestly if #gentoo saw that in your global CFLAGS they'd tell you to wipe your install and start over from stage3 because you fucked it up too hard

(also "3dnow", "mmx" etc are USE flags on any package where it even matters)

[nikomo]

I technically didn't joke, I always copy my CFLAGS for CFLAGS jokes from this moron: [url]https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=104437[/url]

[lavacano]

i thought those flags looked familiar

[nikomo]

That's it, too many weird problems with Arch all of a sudden, and I don't give enough of a flying fuck to try and figure them all out.
Going to back everything up on my laptop and go to Ubuntu temporarily whilst I figure out what I want to use next. I was thinking Bedrock Linux, but the lack of, well, an init system is putting me off.

[lavacano]

Gentoo. Serious suggestion. (Unless this is an ancient processor or something)

Isn't really any harder than Arch, hell of a lot more stable since the developers and package maintainers aren't riddled with various mental disorders, and we've already established you're a sane user so I won't have to tell you your CFLAGS are full of shit or whatever.

OpenRC is the default init system, and it supports the "modern" init system features that actually matter (including parallel booting, since I know someone's going to question it), but if you [b]really[/b] wanted systemd, [url=http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Systemd]the switching procedure isn't incredibly complex[/url] (flip a switch in the kernel, make a symlink, install dbus [i]then[/i] systemd, change kernel commandline).

also functions.sh is brilliant for personal scripts. here's yesno for example

yesno()
{
    [ -z "$1" ] && return 1

    case "$1" in
        [Yy][Ee][Ss]|[Tt][Rr][Uu][Ee]|[Oo][Nn]|1) return 0;;
        [Nn][Oo]|[Ff][Aa][Ll][Ss][Ee]|[Oo][Ff][Ff]|0) return 1;;
    esac

    local value=
    eval value=\$${1}
    case "$value" in
        [Yy][Ee][Ss]|[Tt][Rr][Uu][Ee]|[Oo][Nn]|1) return 0;;
        [Nn][Oo]|[Ff][Aa][Ll][Ss][Ee]|[Oo][Ff][Ff]|0) return 1;;
        *) vewarn "\$$1 is not set properly"; return 1;;
    esac
}

usage: yesno $THING_TO_TEST

returns 0 for "yes", "true", "1", "on", and isn't case sensitive, returns 1 for anything else.

[Liam]

turns out amd is a platinum sponsor of opensuse

well now i know why it is the only distro where i can get fglrx working properly :rolleye:

[nikomo]

[QUOTE=lavacano;45252316]Gentoo. Serious suggestion. (Unless this is an ancient processor or something)[/QUOTE]

I was thinking Bedrock with a Gentoo client.
I talked with the Bedrock dev one-on-one at one point, he said that a lot of Bedrock users are actually Gentoo users, and they basically run Bedrock like a Gentoo system, but when they want new software, they grab a binary package from some other distribution, test it out, and if they like it, they install it through portage.

You can keep using the binary package, and when the compilation is done, switch over.

[lavacano]

[QUOTE=nikomo;45255359]I was thinking Bedrock with a Gentoo client.
I talked with the Bedrock dev one-on-one at one point, he said that a lot of Bedrock users are actually Gentoo users, and they basically run Bedrock like a Gentoo system, but when they want new software, they grab a binary package from some other distribution, test it out, and if they like it, they install it through portage.

You can keep using the binary package, and when the compilation is done, switch over.[/QUOTE]

...that's...actually pretty fucking genius

[nikomo]

Doing dd | gzip | ssh dd in order to get a bit-perfect backup of laptop's drive.
I'm exceeding my LAN's theoretical max speed because of gzip, it's brilliant. Could have it decompressing on the other side instantly, but I'm going to keep the file around for a while, so no reason to decompress it right now.

[Jookia]

[QUOTE=lavacano;45252316]Isn't really any harder than Arch, hell of a lot more stable since the developers and package maintainers aren't riddled with various mental disorders[/QUOTE]

That's really mean spirited of you to say.

[lavacano]

[QUOTE=Jookia;45259910]That's really mean spirited of you to say.[/QUOTE]

I have had nothing but hellish experiences with Arch, and the one time I actually tried to ask for help on something the community revealed itself to be so toxic it makes MOBA players look like absolute fucking sweethearts.

Why the fuck can't I be mean spirited?

[mastersrp]

[QUOTE=nikomo;45259286]Doing dd | gzip | ssh dd in order to get a bit-perfect backup of laptop's drive.
I'm exceeding my LAN's theoretical max speed because of gzip, it's brilliant. Could have it decompressing on the other side instantly, but I'm going to keep the file around for a while, so no reason to decompress it right now.[/QUOTE]

This is the reason I fucking love things like ZFS (and maybe btrfs when it isn't experimental, although it's much more limited); the absolute ease of taking a backup with ZFS is just amazing when you can simply send raw or compressed datasets across the wire with whatever the fuck you desire.

[nikomo]

[QUOTE=mastersrp;45261552]This is the reason I fucking love things like ZFS (and maybe btrfs when it isn't experimental, although it's much more limited); the absolute ease of taking a backup with ZFS is just amazing when you can simply send raw or compressed datasets across the wire with whatever the fuck you desire.[/QUOTE]

You can do that same thing with btrfs, but I couldn't be bothered.
I just have a bit-perfect image of the drive from dd now, and an archive of all the files.

[mastersrp]

[QUOTE=nikomo;45262493]You can do that same thing with btrfs, but I couldn't be bothered.
I just have a bit-perfect image of the drive from dd now, and an archive of all the files.[/QUOTE]

While this is true, I'm just personally too paranoid to use btrfs right now considering the experimental tags everywhere. Other than that, most of the limitations of btrfs contra ZFS are probably mostly "cosmetic" or limits that btrfs hopefully shouldn't reach anyway.

[nikomo]

ZFS is an out-of-tree module built by fascists and Sun. Wait, same thing.
It's even less trustworthy than btrfs, at least on Linux. It's best to stick to BSD if you're really stuck on using ZFS.

[larikang]

[QUOTE=lavacano;45260712]I have had nothing but hellish experiences with Arch, and the one time I actually tried to ask for help on something the community revealed itself to be so toxic it makes MOBA players look like absolute fucking sweethearts.

Why the fuck can't I be mean spirited?[/QUOTE]
I've been using Arch for almost 4 years now on 6 systems (and have helped three other people install it) and though I've had one or two "hellish" experiences, after the fact I realized that I completely misunderstood some important concept and was doing something hilariously wrong. That's the way things are with Arch. Live and learn.

And while I'm not terribly active on the Arch forums, I have never seen any of this "toxic" behavior you claim. The worst behavior that I've seen is when someone asks for help but makes it clear that they have no interest in reading the wiki or man pages to get an understanding of what they need to do - such people are generally not treated nicely, but what do you expect? Such an attitude completely goes against the Arch Way.

I think that when you try out something new and unfamiliar, you need to be very cautious with your judgement of it since you might not have the right mindset to really grok it. This is a problem I see a lot among programmers when they criticize a language that they are only partially familiar with. They say "Ugh, language X is terrible! Look at how badly it does Y!" without realizing that they're stuck in the mindset of their preferred language and don't really understand the thing they're criticizing.

Realize that a lot of people really like Arch and have had nothing but good experiences with the community. When you then call that community "toxic" and say the developers have mental disorders, it just makes you sound like an ignorant prick.

[mastersrp]

[QUOTE=Larikang;45263894]I've been using Arch for almost 4 years now on 6 systems (and have helped three other people install it) and though I've had one or two "hellish" experiences, after the fact I realized that I completely misunderstood some important concept and was doing something hilariously wrong. That's the way things are with Arch. Live and learn.

And while I'm not terribly active on the Arch forums, I have never seen any of this "toxic" behavior you claim. The worst behavior that I've seen is when someone asks for help but makes it clear that they have no interest in reading the wiki or man pages to get an understanding of what they need to do - such people are generally not treated nicely, but what do you expect? Such an attitude completely goes against the Arch Way.[/QUOTE]

That may very well be, but if one day you're arrested and the police officer says you're under arrest, you might ask why you were arrested, but the officer simply tells you to "fucking read the law you moron!".
It's not exactly very helpful, and the least a person could do is explain WHY it would be a good idea to read the man pages (and how to do so), not to mention that there's a lot of beginners who don't read a lot or don't wish to read a lot.
A deeper understanding of some of those aspects are important in order to fully apprechiate how Arch Linux works, and why the Arch Way is the way it is.

[larikang]

[QUOTE=mastersrp;45263934]That may very well be, but if one day you're arrested and the police officer says you're under arrest, you might ask why you were arrested, but the officer simply tells you to "fucking read the law you moron!".[/QUOTE]
People get banned all the time on FP for breaking rules that they didn't take the time to read. Do you feel sorry for them?

That being said, I have never seen disrespectful behavior on the level of "fucking read the wiki you moron" from Arch users (and I imagine such behavior would be frowned upon on the forums). If anything, I am more often than not amazed at the patience with which experience users try to help a newbie through a difficult problem that they clearly don't understand.

The second paragraph of the stickied Arch forum rules:
[quote]If nothing else, use logic, common sense and read, read, read.[/quote]

And the first section of the forum etiquette wiki page:
[quote]When asking for help, read the manual, do your research and provide details for those you are asking for assistance.
When offering help, be as patient and tactful as possible.[/quote]

[lavacano]

[QUOTE=Larikang;45263894]I realized that I completely misunderstood some important concept and was doing something hilariously wrong. That's the way things are with Arch. Live and learn.[/quote]

Except when my problems came up, I understood the [b]concept[/b] just fine. It's the Arch-specific details of problem solving that I needed help with.

[quote]And while I'm not terribly active on the Arch forums, I have never seen any of this "toxic" behavior you claim. The worst behavior that I've seen is when someone asks for help but makes it clear that they have no interest in reading the wiki or man pages to get an understanding of what they need to do - such people are generally not treated nicely, but what do you expect? Such an attitude completely goes against the Arch Way.[/quote]

The biggest problem with just saying that is Arch users have a habit of saying "RTFM" and then screaming at you when you ask which manpage is relevant to the discussion. Users (quite reasonably) will react negatively to being told they need to memorize everything in /usr/man to fix a segfaulting web browser or whatever.

Perhaps this is a variant of the particular medium we use (you mention forums, and I went on the IRC channel because I prefer immediate answers - after that experience I'm convinced that channel needs to be juped and all it's users given a permanent G-line)

[quote]I think that when you try out something new and unfamiliar, you need to be very cautious with your judgement of it since you might not have the right mindset to really grok it. This is a problem I see a lot among programmers when they criticize a language that they are only partially familiar with. They say "Ugh, language X is terrible! Look at how badly it does Y!" without realizing that they're stuck in the mindset of their preferred language and don't really understand the thing they're criticizing.[/quote]

I fully realize that even if I know exactly how to solve a problem in Gentoo (which I did 9/10 times), most of that isn't going to carry over. I've said this multiple times to the community - "I know what the fucking problem is, and I can fix it if it was my distro of choice, but I don't know Arch for shit so I need help". Even with this, I've been told my options were ([b]and I quote[/b]) "install Ubuntu or kill yourself".

[quote]Realize that a lot of people really like Arch and have had nothing but good experiences with the community. When you then call that community "toxic" and say the developers have mental disorders, it just makes you sound like an ignorant prick.[/QUOTE]

You need to realize that a lot of other people have had nothing but bad experiences with a distro and it's community. When you just sit there and call them an ignorant prick for retelling their experiences and feelings about it, it makes you look like a stuck up elitist.

[ipha]

I just realized that I still have redshift running. I've gotten so used to it that I haven't noticed it in months.

[larikang]

[QUOTE=lavacano;45265795]Perhaps this is a variant of the particular medium we use (you mention forums, and I went on the IRC channel because I prefer immediate answers - after that experience I'm convinced that channel needs to be juped and all it's users given a permanent G-line)[/QUOTE]
Well, ffs why didn't you say so? I'm really sorry for the bad experience you had with IRC channel, but I really don't think that population is representative of the Arch community in general. As I said, I've had nothing but good experiences with people on the forums and wiki. I still don't get why you feel the need to repeatedly disparage the distro and the community over it. It just doesn't seem constructive.

[nikomo]

My laptop is now running Debian GNU/kFreeBSD.
Don't ask me why, I don't know, and I'm definitely not going to keep using it for longer than a day, just playing around with it.

[mastersrp]

[QUOTE=Larikang;45269263]Well, ffs why didn't you say so? I'm really sorry for the bad experience you had with IRC channel, but I really don't think that population is representative of the Arch community in general. As I said, I've had nothing but good experiences with people on the forums and wiki. I still don't get why you feel the need to repeatedly disparage the distro and the community over it. It just doesn't seem constructive.[/QUOTE]

I might be in way over what is respectful, but in my most humble opinion, I believe that my observation tells me you've missed the point.
There's something more important in that post, something more important that your experiences or his.
I do belive that there's a lesson to be learned, about people and the way they help (or as some people would refer to it: "most of the time, don't"), and about communities at large.
Constructive critique and helpful advice should first and foremost be encouraged in ALL communities, especially the larger ones like the Arch and Ubuntu ones. However, it isn't always the case, and when this problem comes up, someone who may be new to Linux, or may just be new to the distribution, will be put off very quickly by the negative attitudes that certain individuals may come across as having.
Now, this isn't anything personal obviously, but the problem persists.

There's a need in these communities for people willing to read a PR guide and realize that while certain users can be "stuck up" or even "dumb", telling them so does nothing to solve the issues at hand.

The fact of the matter is that this is something that's happening time and time again, in places where it shouldn't, and in places where it should not be encouraged either. It's a shame, but the reality is just that.

[Liam]

[QUOTE=nikomo;45270554]My laptop is now running Debian GNU/kFreeBSD.
Don't ask me why, I don't know, and I'm definitely not going to keep using it for longer than a day, just playing around with it.[/QUOTE]

8 years later

[editline]3rd July 2014[/editline]

also hi from safari in linux

[shodan]

[QUOTE=Little Donny;45272254]8 years later

[editline]3rd July 2014[/editline]

also hi from safari in linux[/QUOTE]
Did you change your user agent or did you get it running?

[shodan]

Great and all that you installed linux but please don't use ubuntu. The main issue with it is that it gives users a wrong impression of what linux really is. Ubuntu used to be the go-to first linux distro but that isn't the case anymore.
Give elementary OS a go. It's great.

[lavacano]

[QUOTE=Little Donny;45272254]8 years later

[editline]3rd July 2014[/editline]

also hi from safari in linux[/QUOTE]

'Fraid I already have you beat

[Liam]

it was actually just konqueror