using linux isnt exciting anymore - heres why

[learnhow2code]

i used gnu/linux before 2005. but lets say i started then. i still used windows until about 2007, and puppy was one of the most exciting things i used.

i was learning all sorts of things! above all, i was learning how to make new tools work for me-- and if i wanted to bring that feeling back, id go look for some new tools.

but im not looking for them. i have the software tools i need for the work i currently want to do. and thats just not as exciting as finding new tools.

you have a new file manager you like? thats awesome. ive got xfe if i need it, pcmanfm is what i use most (very infrequently i might add) and thunar works very reliably, but i dont use it. on the command line its probably been 6 months since ive used mc and i love ranger, but i dont actually need it.

i manage most of my files using the command line, or sometimes pcmanfm, and i find files i dont need using gdmap (which puppy probably introduced me to-- thanks puppy!) ncdu is also very useful. notice i already have two backups-- xfe and thunar, if pcmanfm decides to go windows-only or something equally ridiculous.

the biggest software problem ive had in 2 years was systemd in debian-- that was exciting, and i didnt want the excitement. thanks to devuan and refracta and the former reaching a certain level of status, all thats been boring for at least 6 months now.

i wrote a programming language, thats about the most exciting thing ive done ever, but for me its stable enough that i dont feel a need to add or tweak anything (i hope to work on it again, but its good enough for everyday use for me) and today i copied FIVE-HUNDRED (actually 575) binaries from refracta to librepup, just to update them. it barely changed the size of the iso (less than 2mb.)

im not saying im bored, im saying USING LINUX is not exciting anymore. we are like a couple that is more concerned with the next trip to the grocery store than we are with the next movie to go to or the next restaurant to check out.

its not that im unhappy. using such a high-quality os is still very satisfying, but its "comfortable." a roller coaster is exciting, but neither "comfortable" nor "uncomfortable" are the words to describe a roller coaster. and "comfortable" and "exciting" are words that rarely show up together with very few exceptions.

when i had windows tamed (and i did, i even replaced most of it with 3rd party stuff-- just to make it different than windows) it got very boring. it never gave me trouble, it never took over, the parts that would take over werent even active-- the only thing that wouldve made it more satisfying was knowing i could share it with friends. which i couldnt, so they had to use a version of windows that would make them complain a lot.

i was/am always technically interested in "linux" since i read about it in 1995 or 96 (i was still using windows 3.1.) but once upon a time, i was interested in experiencing it-- in trying it-- ive been using it for over a decade, its more like an old friend now.

sure, i can buy, trade or scrounge another machine, thats fun. do another installation, that doesnt take long. hunting for wifi drivers is boring, and i like wired ethernet-- if i need wifi i dont mind paying $15-20 for a usb adapter that works in ascii/stretch, and i have some old ones that work in jessie. i only occasionally use them.

everything else pretty much "just works," and thats pretty boring. and im not ungrateful, its wonderful. i had a pretty annoying problem come up once this year, where an update actually broke grub booting (can you believe it?)

so i spent a day or two upgrading from 32 to 64 bit (the machine in question is very fiddly, and by no means did i want to reinstall grub but i ended up doing that from a chroot. it didnt help. so i tried switching from 32 to 64, because why not?) of course this didnt directly help, though id never done it before (i dont recommend a cross-arch upgrade, its extremely nasty and tedious-- frugal ftw!) but through this i did figure out the issue:

it was a simple, unimportant package i didnt need, that should NOT break grub (and technically didnt.) remove it, grub works fine! install it, grub doesnt work and its not in puppy, so dont worry.

when using gnu/linux isnt exciting anymore, its time to get a new hobby. perhaps youre not like me, and you find editing or creating graphics exciting (it is, the first few times.) or perhaps youd like to write a book. or you could get involved DEVELOPING gnu/linux (or something for it.) thats still enjoyable.

but finding tools and making them work? thats boring now. i may find a REALLY COOL tool at some point-- i recently added petget to devuan, that was fun! i spent a day trying out pets, i made a list of ones that worked-- that was fun for a day. now its not so exciting.

just doing everyday things on puppy or refracta or fig os (even "proper devuan," which i use less than fig os or refracta) is not really fascinating, because it works.

so if i want excitement, i will have to put something together. as i said, my programming language isnt doing it for me: i use it all the time, it works. (thats a big deal, in a way.) but to really amuse myself, im doing this fig os.

if you ever get bored, start remastering. maybe code something.

the nice thing about remastering for me, is i dont "do" file management. i dont even install things. i write code, and things install themselves. then i use them.

im definitely not complaining. if i need it to be more interesting, i need to add a little challenge.

im not bragging, either. there are plenty of people here that know more about this stuff than i do-- anyone that has gotten woof to work is on that list. ive remastered-- youve built!

thats cool. if i really want a challenge, perhaps compiling the kernel? that has never appealed to me though.

the moral of this story has two parts:

1. gnu/linux can reach a level of reliability where its not exciting, and where you have the tools you need.

2. any operating system that reaches that level of reliability is less exciting, and requires you to do something else to amuse yourself.

NOT a moral of the story: operating systems should be boring... (not necessarily.) being boring is a biproduct of being reliable-- and its probably worth the reliability! but trying new things now and again is no vice; its a virtue.

i dont use wallpaper or icons-- they dont hold my interest. i tried a bunch of wallpaper when i was installing different pets in fig os-- that was fun! i currently have the pcmanfm desktop set to a #000000 background. if i change the color, it might feel more cheerful. ok, whats this forum using?

# mtpaint -s
* close popup
* double-click foreground color
* get color with dropper tool
* dee3e7

# hsetroot -solid "#dee3e7"

nope, pcmanfm is running the desktop:

* right click the desktop
* tap desktop preferences
* tap the color
* type in #dee3e7

thats better. #dfdfdf works too. and you can pick any color or wallpaper that works for you.

[Sailor Enceladus]

You haven't tried making a puppy with woof-ce yet though! lol

[learnhow2code]

You haven't tried making a puppy with woof-ce yet though! lol

oh, but i did try! hence the 575 binaries copied into puppy mode in fig os today. it probably broke some minor things, it still boots into to x / jwm / pcmanfm-- even with a new busybox and new bash.

in case anyone is wondering, these binaries in librepup were replaced with ones of the same name from devuan jessie:

bin/bunzip2 bin/busybox bin/bash bin/bzcat bin/bzip2 bin/bzip2recover bin/cat bin/chmod bin/cp bin/cpio bin/date bin/dd bin/df bin/egrep bin/fgrep bin/fusermount bin/grep bin/gunzip bin/gzexe bin/gzip bin/kmod bin/ln bin/lowntfs-3g bin/ls bin/mv bin/netstat bin/ntfs-3g bin/ntfs-3g.probe bin/ntfs-3g.secaudit bin/ntfs-3g.usermap bin/ntfscat bin/ntfscluster bin/ntfscmp bin/ntfsfix bin/ntfsinfo bin/ntfsls bin/ntfsmove bin/ntfstruncate bin/ntfswipe bin/ps bin/readlink bin/rmdir bin/run-parts bin/sed bin/sleep bin/tar bin/tempfile bin/touch bin/udevadm bin/ulockmgr_server bin/umount bin/uname bin/uncompress bin/zcat bin/zcmp bin/zdiff bin/zegrep bin/zfgrep bin/zforce bin/zgrep bin/zless bin/zmore bin/znew lib/libip4tc.so.0.1.0 lib/libip6tc.so.0.1.0 lib/libiptc.so.0.0.0 lib/libxtables.so.10.0.0 lib/xtables/libip6t_ah.so lib/xtables/libip6t_DNAT.so lib/xtables/libip6t_DNPT.so lib/xtables/libip6t_dst.so lib/xtables/libip6t_eui64.so lib/xtables/libip6t_frag.so lib/xtables/libip6t_hbh.so 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[6502coder]

Back in the days of the first home computers, there was a regular column in one of the Atari-oriented magazines that was authored by a married couple whose names I have forgotten. After a while the wife's byline disappeared. As the husband later explained it, one day he asked her why she wasn't interested in playing with computers anymore. She replied, the question isn't why I'm no longer interested in playing with computers; the question is why YOU still are! She had enough sense to know the difference between a hobby and an obsession.

Each person has to decide for themselves whether what they're getting out justifies what they're putting in.

[amigo]

@learn, I seem to recognize the phase you're in. You'll probably spend the next 2-3 years trying create your own distro -based on some other distro. Then, you finally realize how that can never work out well.

Then, you spend the next 10 years learning how to create your own distro from scratching -the first few years of that using someone else's 'build system'. Finally, after a dozen years you are either content to watch your baby bitrot before your eyes. Or, you see that you really must start again from the start to get rid of the flaws from your last, best effort.

The trip is quite exciting and challenging, so move along now, get started.

[slavvo67]

Funny, I've never really been down that road. I always try to better what I have by either looking backwards to old puppies that had some good but forgotten applications or by trying to script in something better.

A few examples, the alt-ctrl-bksp doesn't work in Quirky Xerus so I coded it back in (RU Xerus). Also, the Getflash Install Flashplayer isn't working, and while Flash is not as important as in the past, there are still some sites that use it. So I found Flash_Install pet in another distro and added it while removing the Getflash Install program. Minor things, perhaps but things that help me perfect what I'm looking for.

[learnhow2code]

You'll probably spend the next 2-3 years trying create your own distro -based on some other distro. Then, you finally realize how that can never work out well.

but isnt that what puppy does? hasnt that worked out pretty well?

Then, you spend the next 10 years learning how to create your own distro from scratching -the first few years of that using someone else's 'build system'. Finally, after a dozen years

unlikely to go to that kind of trouble. i can imagine doing some of that.

The trip is quite exciting and challenging, so move along now, get started.

you might have me pegged for some self-torturing perfectionist when youd understand me better as a "power-user."

there are things im no longer interested in tweaking (ive only added two lines to .bashrc...) and things i am interested in tweaking (...in my own distro) and its not for its own sake-- i like a machine that responds well to my expectations.

but since i use that machine daily, it has molded my expectations too-- not just the other way around. it is not just a puppet whose strings i pull for fun... it is a puppet that has TAUGHT its master how to make it work. the instrument plays the musician.

i didnt think i was into learning a new language right now, and im probably not-- but despite this, i had a pleasant conversation with a fellow at a university today about string division. in python (and basic) you can do this:

"hello" + " there"

in python you can also do this:

"hello " * 4

we were talking about what this would do:

"hello" / "e"

and in his language, you would get "hllo" though ive considered this before and i thought it should give you what split does:

['h', 'llo']

whereas this is what should give you "hllo" imo:

"hello" - "e"

this was the highlight of the morning, if not the week. (actually theres a ridiculously pretty girl whose name i finally learned this week, that was probably the highlight.)

its possible for a mathematician to give up their interest in math, or a coder to give up their interest in code, but its not as common as users giving up their interest in software.

where you get me wrong is that you think im going to go to that much trouble. im extremely reluctant to do anything that isnt fun enough.

i put off copying those binaries for days. it wasnt possible to make myself finish up the list until the girl and i were sitting next to each other, and then i needed busywork. as it should be obvious, we dont know each other well. but she works on her laptop and i work on mine, and if shes at the table next to me it works out.

if shes working at the table across from me, theres not a lot of chance of getting much done. shes incredibly distracting.

ask me why im not putting more effort in. the past 365 days of my love life were interesting enough-- not all good, and not all unpleasant. i got spoiled a few years ago, when women started picking me up instead of the other way around. i would still like to experience that again-- trying too hard never worked out better than this, its certainly not for lack of interest.

sorry if these two threads dont seem related. in a way they are, and in a way theyre true regardless of each other. but hopefully the only reason i would ever compile a kernel is that i cant figure out another way to update it.

i am however, interested in whether the initrd is easy to fix. im not sure it needs to be fixed, so i dont want to delve too much into that-- its a point of curiosity. one thing i will agree on part way with the user-- the computer is supposed to do some of this stuff for me. i like when it does it right... other times we find workarounds.

[mcewanw]

I'm pretty sure that doing software development work is a distraction from 'pretty women' - I suspect that, even using Linux is often a substitute. Personally I don't think that Linux can ever truly win that battle for attention - the problem is, women are more difficult than Linux (EDIT: or should I say, as human beings, quite obviously more complex).

William

EDIT: I should add that I believe the problems suffered by some men is not always that of finding the company of some pretty woman but sometimes that of giving too much of their time to their Linux alternative. All the same, I imagine, will apply, with gender reassignments depending on gender preferences to any and everyone. However, on the whole it seems, from my observations, to be men who tend to bury themselves away in their endless quest to dress up their Linux Mate.

[learnhow2code]

I'm pretty sure that doing software development work is a distraction from 'pretty women' - I suspect that, even using Linux is often a substitute.

this is wonderfully freudian. rather than argue with it, i will simply posit an alternative: i like both.

Personally I don't think that Linux can ever truly win that battle for attention - the problem is, women are more difficult than Linux (EDIT: or should I say, as human beings, quite obviously more complex).

that i cant argue with. i dont usually bother with bsd, not because it isnt an excellent os-- it definitely is, but because its a little more trouble than gnu/linux. sometimes. i tried gnu kfreebsd when debian jessie was giving me hassles, and i dropped it for something easier.

if gnu/linux were a suitable alternative to dating, i would have dropped the latter ages ago. it is no alternative, but it does give one something to do.

when i was in a relationship lasting years, i managed to write a programming language. perhaps the relationship led to that, but i think it was the fact that i didnt have a distro i could rely on for at least a year, and i was still interested in computers.

id point out the age that i started getting interested in computers but it wouldnt bear relevance here-- ive been interested in women since i was 4.

I should add that I believe the problems suffered by some men is not always that of finding the company of some pretty woman but sometimes that of giving too much of their time to their Linux alternative.

a common issue-- mitigated (of course this could all be denial, thats easy) with the fact that women value their alone time more than they did 10 or 20 years ago. clingy women are a dying breed, unless its the one that clings only to tell you to go away-- and thats not really clingy, thats just borderline.

All the same, I imagine, will apply, with gender reassignments depending on gender preferences to any and everyone. However, on the whole it seems, from my observations, to be men who tend to bury themselves away in their endless quest to dress up their Linux Mate.

lol. im not going to compare your theory to the really high-quality 3rd party pup that it might actually fit. im trying to let that guy have some peace (been doing a good job of that for years now) all i can say in my defense is-- with the obvious and blatant exception of creating a sort-of distro recently, the trends been away from customizing and towards using defaults-- but the darned defaults keep changing, is the thing. thats a large part of why i switched from windows in the first place.

i do like "mate" though, it certainly beats what gnome has turned into. i will keep watch and make certain i dont buy fig a dress.

one thing though-- the girl put a red shell on her laptop, do you think she is really dressing up a man? should i buy a jacket to match? (you go on, im already considering it.)

[Pete]

Hmmmm!!

Best of both worlds.
Get her a costume.

[learnhow2code]

Get her a costume.

you guys are really weird.

[amigo]

Use the command-line on her -they really like that!
As for casually 'fixing' things in puppy, that is what is wrong with it -it's cobbled together out of -the darndest things. Sorry I got you way wrong.

[learnhow2code]

Use the command-line on her -they really like that!

thats ok, i rarely eat sandwiches. https://www.xkcd.com/149/

As for casually 'fixing' things in puppy, that is what is wrong with it -it's cobbled together out of -the darndest things. Sorry I got you way wrong.

suppose you cobbled it in the other direction though? i mean youre forgiven for assuming thats an oxymoron, i like to play with words (a little. too much and it gets out of hand like everything else.)

[amigo]

First, you have to understand how it works -from the initrd and init process. On the way you find out what a mess it is -and that de-cobbling is not the way forward.

Then, you need to decide which features of puppy you want to implement, study the init process fo something like slackware & Co, or *old* archlinux. You need to study both the normal boot-through-init process and the boot-through-init of the installer which uses an initrd.

Then, you see how entertaining it is to construct your own boot sequence the right way, where the boundaries between any initrd used and the normal boot sequence is properly separated. And the normal init process is handled in a proper early-boot -- late-init way. Everything has to be able to work and be configured from the command-line before designing real GUI tools which use them as a back-end.

[learnhow2code]

im just talking about opening the initrd file and zipping it back up. i dont know if it uses gzip or xz or something more exotic like cpio.

with mksquashfs it was easy enough, but i still needed some parameters to make it work properly. its very possible i wont be unzipping initrd at this point, and ultimately i would just do a search. but thanks for the summary, outlines are helpful.

[tallboy]

You made some interesting observations, learnhow2code! I think that a lot of us are very active initially, when it comes to finding the perfect Puppy for our current needs. We test several, learn how to modify them, in a search for the perfect pup. And finally we have OUR PUPPY! My personal treasure, that gives me exactly what I need!
And then we slowly sink into our personal comfort zone:
A new Geany?
Why, the one I have modified is perfect for me!
New fonts?
Really, so you cannot read my writings anymore, huh!
Latest Gimp?
Hello, have you seen my perfect artwork lately, will it improve with a newer version? A carpenter won't build faster with a new hammer, or what!

You have reached a turning point. You download a new puppy for fun, just for the point of playing with it for a while before trashing it - just like you knew you would! I think that what you describe may be what prompted BK to drop out from the active puppy scene. He is howering out there, but the enthusiasm is maybe gone, for a while. I am a car enthusiast, and active in a forum. I have a friend who has been one of the creative and most knowledgeable anchor people in that forum, and he suddenly stopped. He went for a walk instead of working in the garage, and even talked about selling his car. He could not explain it, but he felt both good and bad about his reaction.

I have Linux, I have my cars, and I've been active in genealogy for many, many years. I regularly drop out of one interest field for a while, for just the same reason that you describe, but I have learnt how to restrict the interests from taking over my life.
Many of us reach that point without refections, but most of us come back, maybe with another point of view compared to earlier.

Donald Knuth set out to develop LaTex during a couple of summer months. It took him more than 10 years. Most of the development work in LaTex afterwards have been done by orther people.

Find yourself a task that need a solution, and start working. In Linux, of course. Rewrite old basic code, add or remove functions, add flexibility which is suited to a new technological reality that suddenly surround us.
Or something else.

But first, just take a break!

tallboy

[mcewanw]

I think he is now on his break (since he has been banned from the forum at his own request)...

[greengeek]

First, you have to understand how it works -from the initrd and init process. On the way you find out what a mess it is -and that de-cobbling is not the way forward.

Then, you need to decide which features of puppy you want to implement,

BK has his set of rules regarding what constitutes a Puppy - I think mostly jwm and Rox are the cornerstones - but for me what differentiated Puppy from the other distros i tried were the setup wizards.

I didn't have to know too much - it was ok to be ignorant of Linux. There was still a way forward by trying the wizards.

And then in the fullness of time I realised how much of Puppy was built around Bash - even I could have a bash at it!

How great it would be if puppy could be rebuilt from the ground up, shed it's dirty underclothes and get a bit tidier, but still retain Jwm, Rox and the collection of (rewritten) wizards - as well as collecting a whole bunch more wizards to do anything and everything that everyone wanted.

Maybe there could even be a wizard for making Linux fun again! All that would be required is some sort of keymap that would turn qwerty keyboards into azertz or Dvorak keyboards, then back again, every 5 minutes. Simple. And lots of fun.

[Colonel Panic]

Some interesting thoughts here. I once rented a room in a house owned by an automotive engineer, and he and a friend of his (another engineer) who used to visit were always tinkering with and rebuilding old British cars and motorbikes - Alvises, Velocettes etc. (The final car he had was a slightly shabby looking Citroen DS - I’ve been a fan of those ever since).

Anyway, when I got talking to him and his friend about why they spent so much time tinkering, the reason I got was firstly nostalgia, but also that by working on an old bike or car you build a relationship with it and get a sense of satisfaction when it works properly, goes a bit faster etc.

If I get a new distro, as often as not it starts freezing up on my old computer when I'm doing several things at once (or have windows open in Firefox), so I start looking for a window manager to install; for example, I've been experimenting with dwm in AntiX recently.

It's that interactive relationship which is behind a lot of the satistfaction I get from Linux - the ability to try things out and tweak them to get them to work better. It’s not that different from packets of cake mix which are sold without egg powder (which used to be added) on the basis that the cake bakers like to be able to add the egg to feel that the cake is their creation.