Re: [Info-stow] Stow use cases (was: *SUSE)

[Jean Louis]

Thank you for exchanging.

On Mon, Nov 21, 2016 at 02:34:03PM +0000, Adam Spiers wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 21, 2016 at 02:09:47PM +0300, Jean Louis wrote:
> > Hello Adam,
> > 
> > I understand what you mean, and more than GNU Stow I do not need. I
> > have been using for years package managers, first rpm, later dpkg,
> > apt-get and now only GNU Stow. It helps me make clear distinction
> > between versions of software, and I do not need to think much of which
> > file belongs to which package, now I can be very sure of it.
> 
> That's great that you're finding Stow so useful!  Although honestly I
> don't really understand what the benefit would be for using it as the
> system's primary package manager.  For example it is trivial in other
> package managers to map a filename back to the package which owns it,
> e.g.:
> 
>     rpm -qf /path/to/file
>     dpkg -S /path/to/file

I may say from my view point, I cannot say from those users'
viewpoints, they mostly don't mind about building it from sources and
compiling the operating system themselves.

Free software is not only about freedom in software, it promotes
teaching people freedom, including privacy, we have  movement now that
means much more for schools, medicine sector, governments, so many
social changes happened to due free software. All the distributions
are finally there.

However, by corporate strategies, which are based on money profits,
not on the noble motivation of teaching others, users are brought to
passivivity, they are to stay users without possibility for creation.

Computers are for computing. If users don't get that, they don't have
a computer, they have a SmartTV, they just call it computer. But they
are SmartTV user, who don't get smarter.

In my opinion, distribution of free software is there to teach
others. This is really happening, only not as much.

When I was small, a purchase of a computer was always with the
assumption to learn and get involved in creation.

That is why I am slowly building a system where users may actually
learn about GNU, the tools, the programming, where they get powers to
choose what they wish and how they wish.

While I value distributions doing their works, myself, I get
constrained by their package managers, and principles, strategies. And
I am a power user. There are databases online, and they break, I
report the bugs, but the reason they break is that distribution did
not well think about it, they have bugs in installations. So I am
giving somebody out there powers over my computing.

By building a full distribution by hand, from sources, there is
immense knowledge to learn and to apply. There is also all the freedom
in how the file system looks like, it could be just /gnu like in GuiX
OS. I am using /package system right now:
https://cr.yp.to/slashpackage.html

So witht his /package system, GNU Stow becomes usable to symlink files
into /usr for previous compatibilities. Everything runs stable and
fine. Sometimes I need to remove share/info/dir file, overall it runs
well.

I am using S6 init system, simple and well designed:
http://skarnet.org/software/ and I am not bound to any of
distributions, totally free and all is under my control.

GNU Stow I also use on servers, when I wish to build packages without
interferring with the system.

> > My GNU system is built completely from sources.
> 
> Wow, how did you bootstrap it?  Is it a public distribution, or
> something you made yourself?

I am not sure if it will be distribution, it may be distribution of a
single script that makes it all happen, either by hand, for learning
purposes, with instructions, or semi-automatically.

> > I would not like
> > having a package manager on this side, it would break the
> > system.
> 
> Why?

They have their own rules.

Red Hat I stopped using somewhere back in 1999. SUSE I had, but was
not interesting for reasons I told you, I was in Germany, SUSE is
German as I know. Then I used Debian GNU/Linux for long time. And I
was satisfied with stability in the beginning. During the time I have
observed that my productivity goes much on system issues. It is not as
stable as I wanted. I have mass communication running, after simple
update, this all could break, and it did break. The one bug to repair
the CA certificates took months long to be repaired.

A distribution with large user base does not distributes only
software, it distributes all the bugs and flaws with it.

This way I have something to teach others, I have the system on the
MMC of 32 GB, I can quickly copy it, I am pushing changes into other
computers in network without problems, by using rsync. And I am always
on the latest, latest GNU Linux Libre Kernel, latest GNU Emacs,
programming languages as I wish, and so on. I am just using the
freedom given, and supporting the free system distributions such as
Trisquel, gNewSense, Guix OS and similar.

Also important part is that I am on travel, and cannot have 100 MB of
access to Internet when I wish and want. This is remote area, bush,
this email I am writing by using sollary charged battery, due to the
electricity outage. So downloading bulk software is not quite an
option here. When everything fits on a single USB or Memory Card, it
may be copied to new computers without Internet connection.

Finally, all the settings that I require for my people to work on, are
automatically there. I simply copy the system, my staff members
always get the same interface, same software, they know where to
start. There is no such thing as rpm -i or some installations, just
simplicity. 

> > When you are remote in some areas without Internet, there is
> > no access to Internet like in Western countries. So the packages are
> > on the local storages.
> 
> That is also entirely possible with modern package managers.

I would need to spend equal amount of time making a selection of
packages, or if I am compiling it myself. ISOs are there, available,
but ISOs are large, and my selection of software in many of those ISOs
or maybe not even there. It is constraint.

> > I may also think of making a customized, program based operating
> > system compilation, so that people may choose what programs to have in
> > the full system, and that it compiles itself.
> 
> Isn't that what Gentoo already does?

I am not sure if it does. People can choose packages, but they are not
really making choices on what and how to do, that is offered to them
by system maintainers. So I guess it is little of learning, but GuiX
and Gentoo offer more learning than other distributions in that sense.

Jean Louis