Re: Raw devices de-support

From: joel garry <joel-garry_at_home.com>
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2011 08:56:23 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <ac7354d3-ea32-41e9-b751-ad87b0727569_at_e12g2000pri.googlegroups.com>



On Nov 18, 12:26 pm, Mladen Gogala <gogala.mla..._at_gmail.com> wrote:

> The last Linux version on which I was able to create raw devices was RHEL
> 5.7, in its CentOS incarnation. The venerable /etc/sysconfig/rawdevices
> which has made things unnecessarily easy for the administrators is now
> gone. The Oracle's decision to de-support character raw devices was in
> fact a Linux decision. They're also experimenting with replacing /sbin/
> init. In FC14 and Ubuntu, there is unfinished and undocumented POS called
> "Upstart". FC15 and FC16 have something completely different called
> "systemd", documented even less than "Upstart". Of course, they broke
> away with chkconfig, so the old utilities like chkconfig now offer only
> limited functionality. Upstart is now in RHEL 6. You can all be looking
> forward to "and now something completely different", Linux style.
> Linux is, for some reason, trying to break away from the Unix
> compatibility in a major way. I am not really satisfied by the result.
> Linux is taking away control from the administrators, introducing the
> major new features without properly documenting them and removing the
> features that have been in use for a very long time. I don't even want to
> mention the new GNOME and Unity interfaces which I have both ditched in
> favor of Xfce. I have to confess being less and less satisfied with
> Linux. I am not so sure that open source is a good idea. Sufficient
> number of bozos can destroy even the good things. Nothing is safe from
> morons, not even the work of Ritchie, Thompson and Kernighan. Linux looks
> like a moronization of Unix.

Yes, it is difficult to decide when to stop evolution and declare something as sufficient for the ages. DIY'ers especially want to keep tweaking, and they are the basis of this kind of open source. There's a lot of monkey-see monkey-do at work.

Of course, if everything were to be always backward compatible, that would be worse. But I for one still have problems understanding replacing simple text configuration files with some complicated scheme, especially all these registry type things that happen all over the place.

> I am not at all convinced that Oracle is doing a good thing by releasing
> their own distribution. Maybe they should have joined the BSD camp? It
> was probably a decision of financial nature, not a technical one.

I don't think it was originally a financial decision, I would guess it was more of a grass-roots thing, at least until it got to the point of being marketable. Hey, free OS! Monetize it!

iOS is partially BSD, and it is the epitome of closed. I wonder if Larry and Steve ever went on a walk and talked about BSD v. Linux? I guess it would have been a discussion about control.

jg

--
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http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/nov/17/lantronix-moves-production-onshore/
Received on Mon Nov 21 2011 - 10:56:23 CST

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