General TC > General TC Talk

some notes on the philosophy behind TC

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althalus:
Packages installed once and then never removed. Applications that get compiled from source because they aren't in repos. Packages that get compiled from source because the ones in the repos are too old for some other tool which is not in the repo. Sudden unexpected side effects when removing something that should not be in use. Installing something from a PPA repo which creates conflicting versions. These all contribute to bloat and rot.

To say rot and bloat cannot happen on linux is naive. If you stick purely to the packages in your distro's repositories, and do a clean install every new release, then perhaps you can avoid bloat and rot. Sure, it is going to depend upon an individual's usage pattern, but system rot is a very possible problem, especially under ubuntu based systems, where the versions in the repos are often far too old.

TC's principles result in a lean, efficient, quick to boot, operating system which does not needlessly waste resources.

jur:

--- Quote from: jamtat on June 16, 2010, 12:54:23 PM --- Because no Linux system I've set up and used has ever suffered from system rot.
--- End quote ---

Perhaps you are a bit lucky? Or more careful than the average user? I was ready to give up on linux after one after another problem after problem with ubuntu. And it was rot all right - something would go wrong with the display and rebooting didn't make it go away. I ended up reinstalling ubuntu a number of times and getting very tired of it. Then the new xubuntu ended up not wanting to boot up at all and I had enough - winXP was a lot better than that.

With TCL, it leaves one with total control over your PC. Essentially, it reinstalls with every boot. It was the philosophy that got me hooked on TCL in the first place.

jamtat:

--- Quote from: althalus on June 16, 2010, 06:11:10 PM ---To say rot and bloat cannot happen on linux is naive. If you stick purely to the packages in your distro's repositories, and do a clean install every new release, then perhaps you can avoid bloat and rot. Sure, it is going to depend upon an individual's usage pattern, but system rot is a very possible problem, especially under ubuntu based systems, where the versions in the repos are often far too old.
--- End quote ---

Coupla things. One, you're conflating rot and bloat. These two things may be logically related: since all data likely contains at least some corruption, the more data a computer holds, the more corrupt data it is likely to hold. But you're ignoring what I've written if you're saying I naively assume bloat can't happen. Did you read the part of my post where I marvelled at the thousands of discrete files I find on my system? That's a tacit acknowledgement of bloat, in case you didn't understand that. If I was making any point related to bloat it was that, despite the bloat, my system performs just as well as it did the day I installed it--before, theoretically, there was so much bloat. Thus, at least in my case, bloat has no discernable effect on system performance.

Note that I don't argue there are no cases in which bloat doesn't have a detrimental effect on systems. No, having worked extensively with legacy systems, I know well the negative impacts of bloat on those systems. I still recall how, on one of the first systems on which I ever installed Linux (Turbolinux in '98 or '99) how amazed I was that the initial installation took up most of my 1.3 GB hard drive. I also am aware that bloat negatively impacts embedded systems. And in general, I don't like bloat for aesthetic reasons: I generally try to do the most with the least. If saying you're that "system rot" expresses an aesthetic disagreement with the Linux developers/community over how much code should be used to accomplish a given task, or that programs and OS components should be as minimalistic as possible, I'm in full agreement with that sentiment. But, as I said in my OP, I take system rot to mean something else: to me it means the sort of performance degradation that plagued Windows machines (I don't know if XP or Windows 7 are any different) and that would, eventually, require a reinstalation of the OS. And I was arguing that I've never seen that sort of degradation on any Linux system I've set up and used over the last 10 years.

And no, I don't do a clean install every release (Arch has a rolling release schedule, anyway). I haven't done so since I switched to Debian about 6 years ago. I just keep doing a dist-upgrade or pacman -Syu and my machines continue to hum along nicely and effectivley--despite the bloat.

--- Quote ---TC's principles result in a lean, efficient, quick to boot, operating system which does not needlessly waste resources.
--- End quote ---
I'm fully on board with these principles. Sounds great to me. I don't know to what extent these principles will be embraced by the larger community, but I'm already very much in favor of them.  My guess is that, because industry is the major force driving Linux development, and since industry has a vested interest in keeping up the breakneck pace of technological progress (they do it both to out-compete one another, as well as to make greater profits off the new things you need to buy every year to keep up), the TC principles will continue to represent a fringe movement--at least as far as personal computing goes. For embedded systems, on the other hand--and, oddly enough, for legacy system users--TC will likely represent something cutting-edge.

James

jamtat:

--- Quote from: jur on June 16, 2010, 08:26:43 PM ---Perhaps you are a bit lucky? Or more careful than the average user? I was ready to give up on linux after one after another problem after problem with ubuntu. And it was rot all right - something would go wrong with the display and rebooting didn't make it go away. I ended up reinstalling ubuntu a number of times and getting very tired of it.
--- End quote ---
The odds that, over 10 years and countless Linux installations of all flavors, I was lucky in not having a system end up as degraded as Windows systems I've used over longer periods of time, are very, very, low. In fact, they're so low that I discount luck as a factor and attribute the much improved performance I've seen to the resiliency of the OS and to the hard work of the community maintaining it.

It's not to say I haven't had things go wrong. When I used Debian unstable and would do various upgrades, for example, it would happen that something would get broken: I couldn't get a graphical display, the browser would turn flaky, networking would go down, etc. I still encounter problems like that with Arch. They're irritating at the least. But when the solution doesn't require some sleuthing on the internet in order to find out how to tweak some config file or something, it's usually a matter of waiting until the package maintainers fix some issue with the program they packaged and release an update. I don't consider that a "system rot" issue; do you?

So far I've been able to fix each such issue that's arisen, or, after some waiting, to get an updated package to replace the faulty one. I won't say I've never gotten pissed about it; no, I heave a huge sigh whenever this happens, anticipating the trouble-shooting I'll have to get involved in. But I'll also say that I'll be very, very surprised if these sorts of problems don't crop up occassionally on any TC system I may set up. And I'll also be very surprised if maintenance efforts similar to those I've expended so far on my systems will not also need to be made on a TC system.

Has your use of TC really been entirely glitch free so far?

James

althalus:

--- Quote from: jamtat on June 16, 2010, 10:12:33 PM ---Coupla things. One, you're conflating rot and bloat....Thus, at least in my case, bloat has no discernable effect on system performance.

--- End quote ---
Bloat has quite a negative impact on apt's performance, in my experience. And the reason I so freely mixed bloat and rot, is that my interpretation of TC's core principles is that it aims to solve BOTH problems - and in my experience they are both very tightly coupled problems - system rot really only starts happening on bloated systems.


--- Quote --- the TC principles will continue to represent a fringe movement--at least as far as personal computing goes.

--- End quote ---
Oh, definately. TC will never be as simple to use as the current mainstream distros.

--- Quote ---For embedded systems, on the other hand--and, oddly enough, for legacy system users--TC will likely represent something cutting-edge.

--- End quote ---
TC will be held back in this regard by being x86 - As long as ARM rules embedded land, TC has no place there.

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