yellowdog-newbie digest, Vol 1 #573 - msgs 8/9

[Harvey Ussery]

Thank you!! Derick for your excellent post--everything was so very well 
said.

I recently installed YDL on my iMac, & had a lot of trouble getting the 
GUI up & running, so I had to work exclusively from the command line. 
The process had its frustrations, of course, but I learned so much from 
going thru it. So many aspects of Linux that were completely 
opaque--about its structure, how the system fundamentally works--became 
clear(er) as I struggled to make it do what I was trying to do. It felt 
especially good when I started to come up with my own "workarounds" to 
resolve problems I encountered.

--HU

On Friday, August 1, 2003, at 12:22 PM, Derick Centeno wrote:

> Dear Katherine:
> Chaz is absolutely correct. You have 0MB of "free space".
>
> In the world of Unix and especially Linux (irregardless of
> version/vendor/etc.) you must learn to read the engineer's notes and 
> how
> computer internal systems communicate.  That means understanding well
> bit/byte/1K blocks/MG/G and other terms that any computer utility such
> as pdisk/fdisk and others, even Apple's Disk Drive utility will
> communicate in terms of.  Indeed the Apple Disk Drive utility may cause
> some harm and confusion because user's like yourself will expect a
> graphical interface to help them repartition their drive.  Clicking and
> selecting a partition with the Apple utility and dragging the thick 
> line
> to form one or two partitions, is a far cry, mon ami, from how pdisk
> behaves.
>
> It is not a laughing matter that the gulf of details required to
> partition, install, compile, etc. in the Unix/Linux environment,
> especially when one starts to comprehend and it dawns upon one how
> spoiled the Graphic User Interface has made all of us.  As the GUI of
> Windows or Macs get better, the gulf of comprehensibility in using and
> understanding, standard Unix/Linux utilities seems to get larger.
>
> I can only encourage you to get the manuals, or texts from where-ever
> you can and as you master the details you'll also come to understand 
> the
> limits of GUIs and such programs such as "auto-anythings" and 
> eventually
> you may become more confident to actually create your own partitions 
> and
> hacks.  This all takes time of course, but like anything else, once you
> know - you know - and that may be the ultimate time-saver.
>
> Besides do you really trust a program, any program, to do what you
> actually want done?  Unless you wrote the program, I recommend that you
> don't "trust" it that much; always have a way out you know works 
> because
> you, not any it, should always be in control.  And if you must "trust" 
> a
> program, whether it is in your microwave, or on your computer, make 
> sure
> you know exactly each and every step "it" is engaging in or doing. The
> computer may do a thing thousands of times faster than you, but if you
> cannot even do one step, even once manually on your own power, you 
> don't
> yet know what it is, in fact, doing. If you don't, you are allowing the
> universe to play odds or chances, and you are engaging in a gamble.  Of
> course, many consider the universe a marvelous and supportive place but
> that can change very fast, and often suddenly does.  Be prepared for 
> the
> consequences and in that event the dog will not only bite, you may
> discover too late that the dogs are not dogs, but wolves.
>
> Then again if you have prepared and practiced, then the wolves will be
> like any other creature, or situation, subject to human control and you
> will master it.  Linux and Open Source and the Net is the "Wild West"
> all over again, but in a new and very slick package; I think of it kind
> of like "Everyone's Pizza", like "Everyone's punch" or  "Pot Luck 
> Punch"
> used to be in the 70's.  The idea was anyone invited to a party or
> meeting would bring their ingredient or food or whatever and add it to
> the mix of what was being offered.  SOME people would add oranges,
> apples and strawberries, others would add bennies, uppers, downers,
> hannibis as an herb, coke, or LSD for a kick.  There is no telling
> people what type of "fun" is really not good for "everyone".  This is
> probably why viruses, worms and whatnot exist as well.  I may not have
> turned you off to Everyone's Pizza or Open Source, but hopefully you
> will have a better understanding that just as in the end only you are
> responsible for what goes in your mouth, you are also responsible for
> what goes on in your computer as well as understanding what it is 
> trying
> to tell you.
>
> You should consider getting an external drive and install Linux on
> that.  You'll be able to dual boot between the Mac OS and Linux,
> instantaneously but the data on your Mac will be physically separate
> from the data on the drive dedicated to Linux.  That is a very wise and
> good thing to do.  Your model may only have space for one internal hard
> drive.  In the event that the universe decides that your hard drive 
> will
> crash; the universe will tend, being the efficient and reasonable Being
> it is, to crash one drive, not two.
>
> Also the physical manner in which the read/write head of the drive
> behaves is different for Linux than for other OS's and so two
> independent drives acting separately and in a uniform manner on that
> particular drive lengthens the life of the hard drive.  Whereas one the
> same drive the read/write head has to shuttle between the Linux OS and
> the Mac OS portion and write files accordingly.  Consider the nearly
> blinding speed at which the read/write head is moving across the 
> various
> platters or disks and it should not be a problem to imagine how a hard
> drive could crash, or otherwise loose data or other physical problem.
>