Cool but obscure X11 tools • Hacker News Board

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#111

Post by big_chungus » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 3:48 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #76

craigsmansion wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget to thank him for `avahi' too. Avahi is a fun whack-a-mole game where your computer hides the network connection. You win the game by remembering to kill processes and setting up stuff manually, like most games produced by LP studios. edit: Other popular games include: SystemD: hack your way through a blob of intractability. Try it on Nightmare mode, where you're only given access to a empty bootscreen, f…

Lennart Poettering is a dev who has contributed massive amounts of code most people in this thread use every hour of every day. Code which, for most people, does work. It's not like free software has a shortage of talented contributors that people hate for a variety of reasons. At some point you have to actually point out the issues productively, rather than the boring character assassination, or just randomly saying…

> Code which, for most people, does work.

That doesn't mean other stuff couldn't have been better. Here's the problem the systemd argument: it's motte-and-bailey. Systemd is a huge collection of tools, not just an init system: it's got resolved, journald, logind, tmpfiles, bootctl, networkd, and more. However, whenever it's criticized, proponents fall back on "but it's a great init system!" I agree that the unit files are better than rc scripts in many ways. However, there's so much other baggage that comes with systemd. Many people who use systemd in serious production systems have to replace many of these parts: journald -> rsyslogd, tmpfiles -> scripts, bootctl -> grub, networkd -> networkmangaer (or other), systemd-timesyncd -> chrony. Systemd does the "PID 1" stuff fine, but isn't so good at the other stuff. The project has gotten to big for its britches, so to speak: there are ~70 total systemd binaries.

They also didn't do a great job of modularity, and don't use dbus like they should (dbus isn't built to be used with an init system; use a socket already). Rather, they have every thing depending on another. Suddenly, everything must re-tool to work with systemd or stop working. It basically unilaterally declared itself the standard.

Other stuff:

        * I hate binary logs

        * Lennart, Lennart, give me back my cgroups 

        * Stop stealing my cgroups to track processes  

        * Security is not great, nor is code quality.  This comes less from being inherently flawed and more from *sheer volume of code*, which is why you don't put that much code in PID 1.  More attack surface, more potential bugs.

Overall, init ought not to be it's own problem of this scope. Just make a stinkin' init.

Oh, and Lennart Poettering is also a jerk. Not an "I'm brash" kind of jerk (like Linus can be), but an "I'm an insecure person; don't critique my code" kind of way. Also, he thinks he's smarter than every one.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#112

Post by jordigh » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 3:49 PM UTC

jhallenworld wrote: post #100

Oh xfig is missing. I still use this awesome program for drawings. It's primitive but in many ways faster to use than inkscape.

xfig also has one of the few implementations of x-splines (x means "cross" here, like "pedestrian xing", unrelated to the X window system). I find x-splines very nice and intuitive.

Here's a little x-spline implementation I made:

https://jordi.platinum.edu.pl/xsplines/splines.html

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#113

Post by Volt » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 3:52 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #76

craigsmansion wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget to thank him for `avahi' too. Avahi is a fun whack-a-mole game where your computer hides the network connection. You win the game by remembering to kill processes and setting up stuff manually, like most games produced by LP studios. edit: Other popular games include: SystemD: hack your way through a blob of intractability. Try it on Nightmare mode, where you're only given access to a empty bootscreen, f…

Lennart Poettering is a dev who has contributed massive amounts of code most people in this thread use every hour of every day. Code which, for most people, does work. It's not like free software has a shortage of talented contributors that people hate for a variety of reasons. At some point you have to actually point out the issues productively, rather than the boring character assassination, or just randomly saying…

Code is code and code is good.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#114

Post by mceachen » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 3:56 PM UTC

sjmulder wrote: post #53

TickleSteve wrote: post #36

What? no xdaliclock?? https://www.jwz.org/xdaliclock/

Warning, clicking this link from here redirects to an NSFWish image on imgur. This guy has a problem with HN.

`Open link in new tab/window` avoids the referer header and JWZ's bile.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#115

Post by CameronNemo » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #69

microcolonel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For clarity, Lennart Poettering is an extremely prolific guy that people somehow love to hate. At the end of the day, his critics either use his software begrudgingly, or use somebody else's to their own detriment, just to spite him. I take some time every year to thank Lennart for systemd and PulseAudio; I remember when the grass was parched brown on my side, green has been a welcome change!

PulseAudio and systemd and avahi and probably other things he's been involved in solve problems I don't have, in intrusive ways, poorly and with much churn. It's not unreasonable to loathe someone who makes me wonder what exciting thing is going to break next in an exciting new way if i dare to update my system.

Not to mention Lennart has abandoned both PA and Avahi.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#116

Post by bch » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 4:06 PM UTC

bechampion wrote: post #9

xeyes isn't obscure , how else do you test that ssh x forwarding works otherwise :)

Ha! Yes! I used to call xeyes a network testing tool.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#117

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #106

randolando wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the fundamental shift away from the long accepted design philosophy of software doing one thing and doing it well. This means "grown adults" can't uninstall the software components that they like, because they aren't individual components anymore. Systemd would probably not be hated on as much if it was only a "better" init. But instead it is an opaque and centralized system that is replacing a growing…

You mean the myth of the UNIX way, never followed upon commercial UNIXes and somehow became a cargo cult on FOSS community only thank to a book of UNIX idols?

[deleted]

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#118

Post by cr0sh » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #41

dexen wrote: post #26

>XLennart is a modification of the arcade game XBill. >An evil and unpopular computer hacker named “Lennart”[1] tries to install his malicious init system on various BSD and Linux systems. >Like in XBill, the player has to hit him and restore infected systems. [1] https://cyber.dabamos.de/unix/x11/poettering.gif

For clarity, Lennart Poettering is an extremely prolific guy that people somehow love to hate. At the end of the day, his critics either use his software begrudgingly, or use somebody else's to their own detriment, just to spite him. I take some time every year to thank Lennart for systemd and PulseAudio; I remember when the grass was parched brown on my side, green has been a welcome change!

From my understanding, and I may be wrong, the reason why systemd is..."controversial"...had mainly to do with the heavy-handed way it was incorporated.

It was almost like it appeared out of nowhere, written by one person who "thought he knew better" (maybe he did? but that's not the point), without any community input or discussion, and yet despite all of this somehow it got crammed into a distro (I don't recall which) - in what seemed to be an almost unilateral manner. A "my way or the highway" attitude of sorts.

It smacks of the whole "rockstar coder" mentality, where you have one guy on the team who forces everything to be his way, and he's begrudgingly recognised as probably right, and good for his work - but you still feel slighted as not having input on anything, because you're supposed to be a team (or a community).

What I really don't understand is how systemd has been so "infectious" - it seems like every distro is or has switched over to it...

...whereas init was (from what I know) more organic in how it came about, which might also explain its warts and other pitfalls that systemd supposedly addresses. I haven't been so deep in the weeds of linux to really understand all of the arguments of this nature; while I sympathise with the init crowd, I am but mostly a mere user of the system, who occasionally throws on an admin hat, but has found over time this has become less of a need for me to do (ah, for the olden days of Turbo Linux 2.0 and kernel recompiling - though my first Linux experience was via Monkey).

Had he introduced it in such a way to promote a discussion and dissemination of his ideas, maybe it wouldn't have turned out to be exactly like it is today, but it might have been more accepted (and maybe not as monolithic as I understand systemd to be - maybe it would have been more akin to a hybrid between his ideas and init?).

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#119

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

randolando wrote: post #97

scrollaway wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lennart Poettering is a dev who has contributed massive amounts of code most people in this thread use every hour of every day. Code which, for most people, does work. It's not like free software has a shortage of talented contributors that people hate for a variety of reasons. At some point you have to actually point out the issues productively, rather than the boring character assassination, or just randomly saying…

The problem is the fundamental shift away from the long accepted design philosophy of software doing one thing and doing it well. This means "grown adults" can't uninstall the software components that they like, because they aren't individual components anymore. Systemd would probably not be hated on as much if it was only a "better" init. But instead it is an opaque and centralized system that is replacing a growing…

[deleted]

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#120

Post by derefr » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 4:20 PM UTC

dexen wrote: post #103

scrollaway wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lennart Poettering is a dev who has contributed massive amounts of code most people in this thread use every hour of every day. Code which, for most people, does work. It's not like free software has a shortage of talented contributors that people hate for a variety of reasons. At some point you have to actually point out the issues productively, rather than the boring character assassination, or just randomly saying…

>Code which, for most people, does work. Working is not the problematic part. There are two interrelated problems: how much complexity is introduced, and how to proceed when something is not working, or is flaky. You, me, and our fellow posters know very well that Lennart's solutions are complex - in fact, more complex than the problem domain. Accordingly, the ability to narrow down, fix, or work around problems suff…

> All so I can seamlessly play music on TWO bluetooth speakers while also browsing logs without learning regex.

Are you suggesting that the alternative is to choose to just not support these features at all? (Which isn't implausible as a suggestion; OpenBSD doesn't support Bluetooth at all, for example. But in an ecosystem where everyone is building software to scratch their own itch, and then adopting the software that gains traction...)