Cargo Cult sysadmining

[Joe Zeff]

On 08/07/2012 01:05 PM, Dave Ihnat wrote:
> Once, long ago--actually, on Tue, Aug 07, 2012 at 11:35:35AM -0700--Joe Zeff (joe at zeff.us) said:
>> >Then I booted into Linux.  It Just Worked.
> Again, to be fair, initial X configuration has been less than a joyous
> experience on many Linux distros.  It's gotten better--much better--but is
> still the point I sit forward in a new install.

I still remember when configuring X included selecting by hand the 
proper driver for your card, and how badly things would fsck themselves 
up if you had the wrong one.  At the time, I was using a Virge S3 card, 
which needed its own driver, as well I knew.  Then, an upgrade for X 
came out, and the README said that you didn't need the special driver 
for my card.  *WRONG!*  After reconfiguring with the proper driver, I 
sent a nice little email to the maintainer, letting him know about the 
error.

What I got back was an arrogant snotty-gram telling me that he's the one 
who wrote the driver and he knows that it works with my card.  I 
replied, telling him that he may have written the driver, but I'm the 
one trying to use it and No It Doesn't.  He shut up and stopped arguing.

The point of this, if there is one, is that things are much better now 
than they were back in the Second Millennium, and nobody in their right 
mind would want to go back.  Doing it by hand, including compiling and 
installing your own kernel to learn how it's done is one thing.  Having 
to do it because there's no other choice is another.  (And no, this 
doesn't include gentoo because they've automated the process so that you 
don't have to do it all yourself.)