Wednesday, September 3, 2003

Linux: We Have Met the Enemy, and He is Us (我們遇到了敵人, 他就是我們)

Linux: We Have Met the Enemy, and He is Us (我們遇到了敵人, 他就是我們)
[人因工程 ]
(2003/09/03)

Linux: We Have Met the Enemy, and He is Us

I am constantly amazed and surprised by the resourcefulness, creativity and overall enthusiasm that abound in the Linux community. But why can't they create something that works easily?

GPL and open source translate into a sense of ownership among Linux users. The community effort to expand and improve the OS is amazing. But based on my experiences, Linux is still a mixed bag, with plenty of late-night-where's-the-nearest-hammer infuriation over stuff that just won't work.

I recently took a second stab at putting together a Linux-based PVR/media jukebox server system. I got further this time, but I'm still staring at a system that just won't work.

I took my time. I read all the documentation. I diagnosed and fixed multitudinous glitches. But instead of success, I'm sleep-deprived, frustrated, and ready to chuck the box out the window.

It's time for the Linux world to throw the "project" concept out the window too. Stop thinking of these development efforts as works-in-progress, and start thinking of them as products. Not in the charging money way, but in the "finish and ship" way. Linux applications need to just work.

Dependencies Must Go

Multimedia and Linux are often at odds with one another, and multimedia packages such as Freevo and MythTV have a list of dependencies as long as your right arm. And that's my first gripe: dependencies.

Apps like Red Hat's RPM are only "smart" enough to tell you that a dependency-check failed, but won't go out and get you the bits you need. And it often escalates geometrically: App X needs packages A, B, and C, each of which needs another couple of packages. Before too long the whole thing starts looking like a Ponzi scheme, only nobody's getting rich.

Solutions Are Coming: Tools like Debian's apt-get, Gentoo's emerge and Yellow Dog's yum do a very good job of addressing this problem. They do dependency checks up front, gather the needed bits from trusted servers, and surprisingly, they often get your app installed.

In my PVR project I used yum and I ended up downloading dozens of packages before finally getting MythTV to work. Or at least, I think it worked. But, as it turns out, once I cleared the monkey bars, now I had to crawl under the barbed wire.

MythTV needs a lot of other modules to be installed and configured, including xmltv and MySQL. An Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) audio driver is recommended. So while the yum installation utility installed almost everything, it missed the ALSA driver.

With a small amount of effort (altogether now, './configure; make; make install') I installed the alsa-lib and alsa-utils packages, and finally got it working on my Sound Blaster Audigy.

I wasn't so lucky with MySQL. The yum-based installation was incomplete and the program is so Byzantine I still haven't gotten it working right. Yes, I know it's a heavy-duty enterprise-class database server, but where are the graphical configuration tools?

Unfortunately, MythTV requires that MySQL be installed and working, or no soup for you. Suffice it to say, I'm still soup-less.

DVD Playback on Linux: One good thing came of all this bit-mashing: the mplayer media player and all the lib dvd packages were installed correctly, so now I can play DVD movies on my Linux system. But it's a small consolation prize for the still-dead MythTV bits currently inhabiting my system.

So what's the solution? How about adopting a single word-command? I suggest "install" to compile and set-up a package. This could be done through a Bash script.

Then the installation routine should launch a graphical configuration utility that will help you connect all the parts necessary to make the thing work.

Finally, this installer will tell you where it put the damned executables. Some apps put the bits in /usr/local/. Others put them elsewhere. But there's little consistency on this point, and dammit, there needs to be a lot more. Windows may be the devil, but at least you can easily figure out where an application installs itself.

Lindows Gets It Right: Companies like Lindows have had some success leveraging Debian's apt-get to address these problems. Many Linux pros scoff at Lindows, calling it "Linux for the AOL set," but the company is actually making some headway.

Still, more work still needs to be done. It begins with a fairly simple definition: an application is NOT installed unless it works as advertised. And the installer should ensure that that all the dependent modules are installed and actually configured correctly. The whole thing should just work after the installation is done.

We need 'Finishers'

The Linux community -- package developers, distribution makers and driver writers --need to understand that that theirs is a symbiotic relationship. They need each other to be successful.

Linux continues to face challenges from all sides: Microsoft still squarely has Linux in its cross-hairs, considering it the single biggest threat to continued success.. SCO is waging a proxy war against Linux while simultaneously shaking IBM down for cash, scaring many companies away from Linux in the process. Linux needs a more consumer-friendly OS to help to shore up its somewhat shaky desktop foundation.

Not Dumbed Down, But Smartened Up: I'm not proposing that we dumb down Linux. I'm not proposing that we bury code behind some curtain that no one can see. I'm just asking that Linux application developers think their projects through from A to Z, with Z representing a polished product that installs successfully with minimal fuss.

We're part-way there, but like many Linux packages themselves, the most sweat-equity goes into getting that last 10% right. If developers don't feel compelled to finish their applications, then we need a new group of developers. I'll call them "finishers," to get the job done.

I enjoy a good puzzle as much as the next guy, but that's what a Rubik's Cube is for (they're making a comeback, you know). My Rubik's Cube should be puzzling. My Linux application installation should just work.

Editor's Comments:

I never cease to be amazed at the mindset of some Linux users. These Linux True Believers are so emotionally overwrought they can't think straight. They rant endlessly about the evils committed by Bill Gates and Microsoft, then in the next breath demand that Linux remain so user-hostile it can never hope to replace Windows as the OS of choice. They issue hysterical denunciations of anyone who urges the creation of a more convenient distribution, i.e., one that takes only an hour instead of a week to configure properly. Lindows, Lycoris, Mandrake, Xandros are all uniformly denounced as "dumbed down."

Have these self righteous zealots forgotten that Linux is "free," as in "free speech?" If they don't like these user friendly versions of Linux, they are free to boycott them. No one is denying them the right to use their own favored distros. If these masochists insist on wearing hair shirts, no one is standing in their way. Let those of us who have more useful things to do with our time than searching the net for nonexistent hardware drivers enjoy our own distros, and we will leave the zealots to theirs.

-- Bevin Chu

Explanation: We Have Met the Enemy, and He is Us
Illustration(s): Lindows, Lycoris, Mandrake, Xandros
Author(s): Dave Salvator
Affiliation: Extreme Tech
Source: http://www.extremetech.com/print_article/0,3998,a=58657,00.asp
Publication Date: September 2, 2003
Original Language: English
Editor: Bevin Chu, Registered Architect

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