SCIENTIFIC-LINUX-USERS Archives

January 2020

SCIENTIFIC-LINUX-USERS@LISTSERV.FNAL.GOV
Options: Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
Re: Red Hat on the Desktop - was Re: Calibre current
From:
Konstantin Olchanski <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Konstantin Olchanski <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 30 Jan 2020 17:48:05 -0800
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (33 lines) 
On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 10:10:21PM +0000, ONeal, Miles wrote:
>
> That makes sense, and I agree. As far as I can tell, RH remains committed to the desktop
> (although more and more that means only GNOME).
>

Red Hat direction is confusing.

"committed to the desktop"
 - removal of choice of desktop environments (vs on Ubuntu: GNOME3, MATE, KDE, Cinnamon, plus a few more)
 - removal of support for NIS (LDAP is "light weight" is like Titanic is a row boat).
 - boneheaded defaults, i.e. login screen does not show the machine name, shows 100 icons for 100 available users instead of asking the user name

"shifts towards enterprise"
 - ModemManager and NetworkManager enabled by default - both tools are most useful for mobile laptops, do nothing useful for fixed location and hardwired installations
 - PackageManager asks the currently logged user "please enter root password, let's install system updates NOW!"
 - systemd prevents reliable reboot and shutdown (I have a scheduled power outage in 30 minutes, systemd waits for 10 minutes for the "currently logged user" to logout then waits forever to umount an NFS filesystem where the NFS server was already shutdown).
 - systemd prevents reliable boot (does not honor the services startup order specified in the service config files, no explanation, no error message, reporting systemd bugs to red hat pointless, reporting systemd bugs to systemd developer pointless, see the famous bug report about systemd rejecting some otherwise valid user names).

"dept of wtf"
 - removal of popular device drivers - clearly friendly to all three - laptop, desktop and server use.
 - no "install all packages" button when doing a fresh install (yes, "everything" will fit on my 120GB SSD)
 - no upgrade tool to go from version N to version N+1.

To me this smells like "we started with Red Hat Linux 9.0, added tons of laptop-centric stuff,
branded it as 'enterprise linux', and BTW we are also desktop friendly".

-- 
Konstantin Olchanski
Data Acquisition Systems: The Bytes Must Flow!
Email: olchansk-at-triumf-dot-ca
Snail mail: 4004 Wesbrook Mall, TRIUMF, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 2A3, Canada

ATOM RSS1 RSS2