Linux Sucks!

dogs

That got your attention.

Seriously though, I'm getting tired of seeing all these distributions floating around with the same problems.

Could someone *please* explain to me the point of starting as many services as possible at boot ? After shutting off inetd for the 1000th time I decided to rant about this.

I'd have thought that anyone who needs rpc services will be smart enough to find+configure them themself. Even openBSD
starts some rpc services by default. OK, so they're done securely, but I still dont *want* them and have
yet to meet someone who uses them use the setups that are installed by default anyways...
ugh. </rant>

MiCr0

i agree
i used to run linux rh6.1 on a p75 with 16mb and f-all h/d space and it crawled with the default installed/running programs and demons ( ).
having said that windows does exactly the same...
but that is neither here nor there

spod

Have to agree with dogs

Mandrake, SuSE, RH etc. seem to install *Everything* including the kitchen sink probably.

If i have to use linux I generally use debian. It's got an amazing package manager for the lazy and a default minimal install is pretty neat and manageable. Still needs lots of tinkering with afterwards to shut down or disable bits and pieces but it's not too bad.

As for running inetd by default, well, it kind of is common practice and expected and used by most people even if it's not exactly a good thing.

OpenBSD is the way to go definitely though.

deRanged

RH didn't use to install everything by default - you had to chose the packages you wnated to install. FreeBSD still does that - and I much prefer it.
I think user friendliness is the reason they install and start everything at boot - they're trying to make it easier for people to install/configure/run linux. People who know enough to know what they don't want can remove the packages and have the daemons not run at boot. It's not that much hassle in fairness.

quozl

Linux is trying to come out of the closet of nerdiness. Those distributions you're talking about (except freebsd which isnt even linux) are aimed at the desktop user. Thats where the vast majority of their growth in the future is expected to come from. And those people cannt be expected to know how to turn everything on. Instead they want to have an apache web server installed and configured at default (remember americans with always on big connects). Anon ftps, telnet daemons and all the work.
If you know enough about it you can easily turn them off. Whereas the random desktop user might have more difficulty turning them on. And besides the average desktop user is going to have a p3 nowadays (certainly in america) and wont even notice the services running.
Quozl
And beside all those distributions come with handy dandy menu configs for changing these things, so its hardly a trial for you. But the average muppet might not even find those!

Hobbes

Most Americans don't own high spec machines, far from it. Same for high speed connections.

Also most high speed connections will shut down your service if they find some of the services running that startup by default on Linux.

Lastly desktop users don't need most of the services. Most wouldn't even know what the heck they are.

SantaHoe

Yeh I've dealt with lots of Americans and although a good few will upgrade every two years, there are the peeps who are still running P100's with 56k as their primary home PC, eve more so than irealand I would imagine.

But even still, how hard is it for linux distributors to add a few check box's here and there to allow people to install only what they want/need ?

---

[+_+] <--- omg!! it's a lego man!!!™

Cake Fiend

I tried out Definite Linux (based on RH; a covermount on Linux format) and it gave install options ranging from about 200 megs to 2 gigs (you can select apps and accessories individually). Quite user-friendly (considering I'm a Linux newbie), but still very controllable. You can select which apps are loaded at startup at the end of the installation.

quozl

Originally posted by Dead{o}Santa:
Yeh I've dealt with lots of Americans and

But even still, how hard is it for linux distributors to add a few check box's here and there to allow people to install only what they want/need ?

Have you ever actually installed linux? They all have check boxs to allow you to install what you want. Redhat 5.2 and newer (and oprobably earlier, I dot know), SuSe and every other modern distribution i've tried has a lsit of services in the install. Just dont check inetd and the rest.
quozl

SantaHoe

Yep, I've installed a few dists of Linux, and I know exactly what you mean about the check-boxs, and I agree totaly...
But looking at some of the other posts in this thread I would assume that there are some distributions that make it either hard or impossible to disable the installation of certain components.

quozl is always picking on me

sam

greg, youre wrong.. when i first used linux (trinity, CT Quake server, wow that was so long ago) i didnt have a clue about inetd or anything, but i know what i didnt want, and stuff like http servers, ftp servers etc., especially with default anonymous access enabled etc. were things that i DIDNT WANT.. but i didnt know how to shut them off

its actually easier to enable something in linux than to disable it for most users, because everyone who knows enough to disable something in linux will definitely have enough knowledge to find out how to enable something else, i mean most of the time its in the man pages or else there are usually some sort of instructions included with the thing they want to set up..
but how does someone who doesnt have a clue find out about inetd etc., from my experiences i remember thinking "i never enabled all this ****e, how the **** do i disable this" etc.

i didnt have the inclination to check every file and folder in /etc looking for startup scripts etc, because i didnt even know what i was looking for.. obviously i did figure it out eventually, but i dont think enabling everything by default is exactly being "newbie friendly"

sam

oh yeah, i gave up on redhat/redhat clones long ago, nowadays i would just install slackware and anything i actually want to use, eg. xfree86 4.0, i would download and install myself.
wouldnt trust redhat etc. to actually come with packages that worked.

surprisingly enough, once you take away all the "newbie friendly" scripts and "package managers" etc, linux actually isnt that hard to set up anymore, and anything you need, you can just download the latest version off the web and install yourself.. very few people actually need a http server, ftp server, rlogin, finger, sendmail, etc.

[This message has been edited by sam (edited 02-09-2000).]