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Author Topic: "Xorg-7.7-3d" should be renamed to "mesa"  (Read 3857 times)

Offline pq5190362

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"Xorg-7.7-3d" should be renamed to "mesa"
« on: October 25, 2015, 03:35:48 AM »
Hello,

the "Xorg-7.7-3d" extension contains Mesa, even the info file clearly states:

Quote from: Xorg-7.7-3d.tcz / Xorg-7.7-3d-dev.tcz
[...] This extension contains:
MesaLib [...]

So, then why call it "Xorg-7.7-3d"?

Could you please rename it to "mesa"?

Regards
« Last Edit: October 25, 2015, 03:47:19 AM by pq5190362 »

Offline Misalf

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Re: "Xorg-7.7-3d" should be renamed to "mesa"
« Reply #1 on: October 25, 2015, 08:48:28 AM »
I think "3D" makes a lot of sense. It's easy to tell what functionality this extension provides without needing to know about "Mesa". Naming of software is sometimes terrible and should, in my opinion, be rather named after what is actually provided if possible, instead of "made up" names. Take "X" for example. What a terrible name where nobody knows what is being talked about if no context is given.
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Offline pq5190362

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Re: "Xorg-7.7-3d" should be renamed to "mesa"
« Reply #2 on: October 25, 2015, 06:37:21 PM »
I think "3D" makes a lot of sense.

If you are so fond of it having "3D" in it's name, then "mesa3d" would also be okay, it would probably be even more accurate, see:

http://mesa3d.org/

 ;)

It's easy to tell what functionality this extension provides without needing to know about "Mesa". Naming of software is sometimes terrible and should, in my opinion, be rather named after what is actually provided if possible, instead of "made up" names. Take "X" for example. What a terrible name where nobody knows what is being talked about if no context is given.

So, you think "X" is terrible as a name but at the same time you are preferring "Xorg-7.7-3d" over "mesa"  ::) :P?

What's really terrible is that Tiny Core Linux is the only distro that I know of which is calling the mesa package "Xorg-7.7-3d", which definitely does not make it easy to tell what functionality this extension provides (at least at first glance and if you are searching for mesa).

"mesa" or "mesa3d" would be a lot more appropriate.

Regards
« Last Edit: October 25, 2015, 06:48:55 PM by pq5190362 »

Offline nitram

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Re: "Xorg-7.7-3d" should be renamed to "mesa"
« Reply #3 on: October 25, 2015, 06:49:37 PM »
Tomato, Tomahto. Tiny Core tends to do it's own thing for naming extensions, that's okay by me. They are not required to do what distribution abc or xyz does.

Open Apps, select 'provides' and enter 'mesa' as a search word. In a couple seconds you'll get results. Click on result then 'file' tab, you'll see Mesa files are included in Xorg-7.7-3d.tcz. Running Apps and searching 'tags' is also often useful, but not in this particular case.

Offline Misalf

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Re: "Xorg-7.7-3d" should be renamed to "mesa"
« Reply #4 on: October 25, 2015, 07:57:32 PM »
I didn't say I'm preferring "Xorg-7.7-3d", but replacing "3D" with something else would be less intuitive. "mesa3d" (or similar) might be a working alternative.
Using the 'Provides' feature of the Apps GUI is kind of hidden from new users. Only used when known, I'd guess. If one knows what to search for exactly, knowing the features of the OS might help indeed though. However, my thinking is that naming things after what is provided leads to faster understanding. Names of software might change faster than terms for the techniques.

PS: Being the only one doing something different doesn't make it wrong.
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Offline coreplayer2

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"Xorg-7.7-3d" should be renamed to "mesa"
« Reply #5 on: October 26, 2015, 01:09:50 AM »
I think the biggest issue is knowing what to ask for.   Knowing that already id say the battle is mostly over, making the extension name somewhat irrelevant. 
Unfortunately I think most folks (myself included in my early Linux days) will not know they need Mesa, however most folks can relate to Xorg 
I could be wrong but isn't Xorg a meta extension pulling in only those additional extensions required by the Xorg version we are installing.  In which case I think the naming convention is perfect already,  Mesa is only a component like all the other components.. Am I wrong???



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« Last Edit: October 26, 2015, 01:13:35 AM by coreplayer2 »

Offline Juanito

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Re: "Xorg-7.7-3d" should be renamed to "mesa"
« Reply #6 on: October 26, 2015, 01:18:38 AM »
Xorg-7.7-3d is not a meta-extension, i.e. it contains real files.

The underlying issue in this, and many other cases, is that the user needed to know how to use the apps gui "provides" function to search for the files he/she required.

Whilst there's no doubt that the documentation could be improved, a forum search would have found how to search the contents of extensions.

Offline yiyus

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Re: "Xorg-7.7-3d" should be renamed to "mesa"
« Reply #7 on: October 26, 2015, 03:24:58 AM »
I admit it took me more than it should to find the "Provides" feature. I think the GUI could be a bit more obvious.

Now, we have the Search-Provides-Tags option list. The small arrows at the right of "Search" are not easy to spot on when you are not familiar with the system. This list is followed by a quite long text box. But, in practice, you rarely write more than one or two words in that box. I propose to make the text box shorter and replace the option list with a horizontal radio list or 3 consecutive buttons. Once the "Provides" and "Tags" options are visible at first sight, new users will not need to read the documentation to know they are there.

I think I can easily write a patch for this, but I have not been able to see the code yet (does any mirror include git.tinycorelinux.net? isn't there a fork in github or some other place?).

Offline curaga

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Re: "Xorg-7.7-3d" should be renamed to "mesa"
« Reply #8 on: October 26, 2015, 04:43:25 AM »
I think three visible options would just clutter the GUI. Combo boxes are a pretty basic element, just clicking around one will quickly find what they do, even if they look different than on Windows/Mac.
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