[uClibc] Re: [OT] Re: The naming wars continue...

[Dave Dodge]

On Thu, Oct 28, 2004 at 09:54:01PM +0200, Måns Rullgård wrote:
> Dave Dodge <dododge at dododge.net> writes:
> > It's probably closer to MacOS X.
> 
> I've never been able to get along with Macs.  MacOS9 would crash
> within five minutes,

Yes, don't even get me started on OS 9.

> MacOSX is slightly better, it only annoys me until I can't stand it
> and go find a Unix machine instead, usually within five minutes.

Most of my MacOS X usage is done through ssh, so I don't ever deal
with the GUI.  Unfortunately this does mean that some potentially
useful tools are unavailable.  For example there's some sort of fancy
profiler/optimizer -- but how you're supposed to use it on a headless
xserve, I don't know.

Also, gcc's handling of 64-bit function arguments when the G5 tunings
are enabled is scary; perhaps this will get better when they get a
64-bit userland.

> > My primary home machine has been using Gobo for a few months now, and
> > I find that some things I install with their packaging/building system
> > and others I just go ahead and build in /opt myself.  I have my own
> > much crazier ideas about how I'd like to do things, involving stuff
> > like per-application union mounts, but I haven't gotten around to
> > implementing it.
> 
> Intersting.  Do you have some good reason for this, or are you just
> being paranoid?

A bit of both :-)

For many years I had unprivileged access on a Solaris desktop, and had
been installing everything I needed, from gcc to all of Gnome, in my
home directory.  After years of doing this I got used to it, such that
even if I had root I'd still install software without privilege and
never in system directories if I could avoid it.  Anyone who's done
this knows the install/uninstall issues that show up.

The Gobo folks have a similar background.  I'd been wanting to take a
closer look at how their packaging system works.  The opportunity came
in the form of a rooted machine just prior to being off work for a
week -- since I had to wipe the system anyway, I figured I could try
Gobo for a day or two and if it was too weird go back to something
else.  The lingering paranoia after being rooted also made me more
willing to consider strange distributions.  So far Gobo has been
usable, and when I don't feel like dealing with it I can always revert
to building software myself unprivileged just like I've always done.
Frankly I still use the legacy pathnames myself on the command line
all the time, though I do try to avoid putting them into config files.

As for my "much crazier ideas", that stems mostly from version
mismatch problems that have popped up over the years.  I also have
issues with configure scripts that are too aggressive and find
libraries and headers that I _don't_ want them to use.  I want to be
able to have minor versions X.1.1 and X.1.2 of a library installed at
the same time, and control on a per-application basis which one is
seen at compile time and runtime.  And I want to have X.1.1 and X.1.2
self-contained, so that uninstallation of either one is trivial.  No,
I don't have any idea yet how this would be managed from user space :-)

                                                  -Dave Dodge