John Hinsley  <jhinsley at telinco.co.uk> writes:
> 
> rkiesling at mainmatter.com wrote:
> 
> > > It _will_ build on SuSE (see, I subtly changed the header!) But you do
> > > need to know which kernel sources to have (and, I guess that you need to
> > > know that you do need the kernel sources). This wasn't obvious to me,
> > > and I guess it'd be even less obvious to someone who'd not spent the
> > > last 4 years playing about with Linux.
> > 
> > The same version as the kernel that's running, ideally (type "uname -a"),
> > unless of course, it's an upgrade.
> 
> Ah yes. But SuSE comes with 3 lots of kernel sources (per kernel!). And
> this doesn't address the newbie-falling-into-this-hole issue!

I have a different perspective than most, perhaps, because I already had
UNIX and C experience (though not together) before first installing Linux.
  

> 
> > >
> > > I'd welcome a day when all a Linux/Squeak newbie has to know is a 10
> > > word vocabulary of commands to get a plug in built and running. It seems
> > > to me "wrong" that to use a Smalltalk one needs a fair knowledge of C
> > > and a good understanding of relatively arcane Unix stuff. (Of course,
> > > it's nice to have the openess that that introduces available, but I'd
> > > guess that relatively few people would use it from choice or even need
> > > it. I mean, how many people on the list actually write or maintain plug
> > > ins?
> > 
> > I certainly don't.  My experience, and that of most other people who
> > told me, is that the expense of time is approximately equal for system
> > related tasks.  
> 
> Well, I'm not saying that this should be obligatory! And I'm only
> looking at one particular component of the bigger picture. Of course,
> gimptool, which I use as an example of how it could be done, is either
> (I can't remember, and I've not got the time to snag the source and take
> a peek) a script calling C stuff or a C program itself. I'm all for
> people being able to tinker with the inner workings of the machine: I'm
> against them having to if that's not what they came along for. It's like
> inviting someone for dinner and, when they arrive, telling them they
> have to catch, pluck, gut and cook the chicken!
> 
> > Squeak in particular, unlike almost every other cross
> > platform app I've used, is less stable on my Linux systems, even when
> > building from source.  (The distro version of 3.0 segfaults immediately.)
> 
> I've never tried Squeak on other platforms. I've had the 3.0 binary (the
> not built from source version, that is) segfault on me once. In my
> experience it's about as stable as Windows stuff running on Windows.
> Acceptable, but not perfect. But then, it's a moving target within a
> moving target. 

That's about how I view MS Windows.  Squeak is quite bleeding edge on 
Linux, as are most OOP technologies - there's too much that's couched
in theory, and with some notable exceptions, for example Swiki, are 
all client-side apps.  I could opine ad infinitum about the advantages -
I have a system with Win 95 on it - it's for a job, really - and it
reminds me more of television than a computer desktop.  So I don't think
that standard arguments would cause me to switch my OS loyalties - 
certainly Microsoft's advertising wouldn't, even when it is true.  The
advertising certainly seems terribly idealistic and uninformative, but
then, I'm almost certain that if I would be declared persona non 
grata in Redmond forthwith if I ever decided to visit.

-- 
Robert Kiesling
Linux FAQ Maintainer 
rkiesling at mainmatter.com
http://www.mainmatter.com/linux-faq/toc.html  http://www.mainmatter.com/
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