OS Experimenters, keep your eyes on this one

[wtd]

http://www.pcbsd.org/

[Hikaru79]

Interesting idea, but they seem to have taken out a lot of key features that make Unix Unix for the sake of "user friendliness". For example, it seems that absolutely everything in their package repository is statically linked. Ouch

I'll still give it a try though, thanks for the link wtd!

[rizzix]

i am sick of linux anyway... time for a more stable system.. bsd!

[Hikaru79]

rizzix wrote:

i am sick of linux anyway... time for a more stable system.. bsd!

But ... wtd's link IS bsd

[rizzix]

i know...

[wtd]

Keep in mind I'm not in anyway bad-mouthing Linux, or showing displeasure with Linux. But it behooves us to not become as slavishly and mindlessly devoted to Linux as many people have become devoted to Windows.

[[Gandalf]]

How about something that actually uses meaningful folder names? Where has "use meaningful variable names" gone in relation to directories? No one needs three letter naming. I'm sure this one change would bring thousands of more people to try and keep Linux. If this has already been done, I was not aware since I haven't used linux much since Mandrake.

P.S. Sorry about this 'attack' if that is what it is, but I can't believe that something that has done so much well can make such a simple thing badly...

[wtd]

I think you're looking for gobolinux, or even better... Mac OS X.

[Hikaru79]

There is at least a decent excuse for the directory naming in Linux -- its based off of what UNIX used to use, back when the only people who used computers where researchers or students who hadn't had a bath in several weeks. /usr was enough for them. Now although it would probably be a good idea to change it to something more meaningful, it would be an absolute nightmare to maintain any sort of compatibility with a lot of established UNIX utilities. So, the lesser of two evils is to just stick with the bad names

Actually, you're right. That's not really a very good excuse

[rizzix]

yea... well the better excuse (used to be anyways) is that you had less to "type", hence the shorter the better.

but now with the leet shells and their leet shell-completion tricks.. it's not a problem anymore..

[wtd]

rizzix wrote:

yea... well the better excuse (used to be anyways) is that you had less to "type", hence the shorter the better.

but now with the leet shells and their leet shell-completion tricks.. it's not a problem anymore..

What about when you remotely access a box and tab completion fails?

GUIs and proper multi-user OSes also significantly mitigate the issue. Users stay in their "Home" directory, where thing generally have meaningful names.

[codemage]

Quote:

yea... well the better excuse (used to be anyways) is that you had less to "type", hence the shorter the better.

The TAB trick (that fills in next subsequent match to whatever starts with the part that has been typed - don't know how to describe it better at risk of making a grossly run-on sentence) ... fixed that, for the most part, a long time ago.

[wtd]

codemage wrote:

Quote:

yea... well the better excuse (used to be anyways) is that you had less to "type", hence the shorter the better.

The TAB trick (that fills in next subsequent match to whatever starts with the part that has been typed - don't know how to describe it better at risk of making a grossly run-on sentence) ... fixed that, for the most part, a long time ago.

Are you certain that that will always work under every circumstance?

[codemage]

Not necessarily; if you have a gazillion folders that will require you to hit TAB an equivalent number of times (interspersed with other keystrokes), the feature wouldn't help you at all.

However, that's usually a sign that the folders should be organized or named more intelligently. Additionally, if folder naming is done correctly in the first place, the TAB solution is much friendlier; and non-geeks can have their non-cryptic directory listings.

[wtd]

No no... I can't remember exactly the circumstances, but with how tab completion is implemented, there are things that will break it completely.