LINUX Unplugged - Episode 27: Debian's systemd Decision | LUP 27

Episode Date: February 12, 2014

One of the bumpier chapters in Debian’s history looks to be drawing to a close, at least for now. But what was all the drama about? And where do things stand now? We’ll dig into the latest developments in the Debian init system debate.Plus inspiring a new generation to use Linux, your emails, and more!

This is Linux Unplugged, your weekly Linux talk show that's watching the Debian mailing list and it's fresh all out of popcorn. My name is Chris. My name is Matt. Hey, Matt. Here we are. We actually got the first word of it on Sunday as we were wrapping up last, and it looked like Debian was going to go with Systemd. And I thought, okay, that's good, but let's not run with it just yet. Because that would have been crazy. Because Debian doesn't just make decisions like that, right? They don't just... Boy, it has been an interesting couple of days. And I know a lot of you are thinking, why do we care

so much about an init system? Well, we're going to talk about that a little bit. There's a lot of actual larger ramifications. I think a lot of people are very aware that Debian is the base of so many distributions. And a lot of things are changing in the Linux world. And at the same time, some of these things are coming together. And the systemd discussion isn't just happening at Debian, right? It's been happening across all of the Linux distributions for a couple of years now.

And the Debian one's been one of the most watched. And unfortunately, not really been the greatest example of open community collaboration. And we could get into that whole discussion about should this stuff be on a public mailing list. But it was. And I kind of want to talk a little bit about that, too, and if maybe we've sort of sent a bad signal to the rest of the industry. We'll see. I don't want to overstate it,

but I think we'll discuss that aspect of it, too. I think at the end of this episode, if you haven't been sure why this has been a topic of interest for so many people, I hope by the time we're done, you will know why. You'll feel like you've got a good grasp on it. Hey, Matt, before we go too far, we should do a Valve update. Yes.

I just thought this was really cool. I wanted to update a story we ran a couple of weeks ago and unplugged about Valve donating games to Debian developers. Well, they're expanding that program now to Ubuntu developers, too. How about that? That is exciting because it's not only showing that they're – because,, cause I mean the Debian thing could be seen as a fluke, but I think the fact that they're being inclusive to the Ubuntu guys as well is that they're saying, look, we really want Linux to take off and we want to embrace those that put their time and energy into making Linux awesome. And so they really get that. 1204 was there, you know, that was the

distro they recommended. And yeah,, man, if they get Steam boxes, this is your chance now, guys. Go sign up, become a Debian developer or an Ubuntu developer. Get your Steam box, because you never know. If anything's going to happen, that's going to be next.

And there was another Valve story today, too. Oh, that's right, right, right. We were just talking about it on the pre-show. Steam Dev Days, the videos from Steam Dev Days are now up, and there's some of interest. One we talked about on last is this switching to Linux, where Iculus went through

some of the reasons why switching to Linux, porting your game to Linux is not nearly as bad as everybody thinks it is. It's called Getting Started with Linux Game Development. Anyways, all of the videos I think that are available now are linked on the SteamDevDays.com page, and I'm going to go through some of them, and if there's something really crazy,

I'll pull out and put it in Linux Action Show on Sunday, but otherwise, you can just go check it out on your own because there's so many on there that I'm sure we'd only be able to cover a tiny, tiny percentage of what was actually said. Speaking of last on Sunday, one last little bit of business before we get into our main topic of the day.

Sunday, Linux Action Show, 10 a.m. Pacific, jblive.tv, the place to be because it's episode 300. Oh my goodness. Big, big, big, big, big episode. Huge. So we got a lot of stuff to talk about in episode 300. We're going to celebrate. It's not going to be I haven't really decided how much

of a regular Linux Action Show it's going to be. Probably depends on what's going on in the week. True. But we have some stuff planned to talk about, so I'd really love to have you guys there, because it's a good one to join live, and I think we'll have a good active community. Maybe we can break the IRC server. Maybe we'll load it up with so many people.

So I'd love to have you there this Sunday. That'll be February 16th? I think that's it. Yeah, 16th. Yeah, I think that sounds right. That sounds right. And I think it's definitely one of those things to where if you don't normally show up for a live show, make this the live show you show up for.

I think you'll be pretty glad you did. Yeah, you know what? It's better than getting bit by a dog. This is true, especially if that dog wants to bite you. Yeah, yeah. That was redundant, but you get the point. Well, you reiterated, Matt. All right, well, so I want to take a second here and just thank Ting.

Ting is one of our sponsors this week, and they're doing something really awesome. So get started. Go to linux.ting.com. And if you're watching this live today, go over to their blog. I don't know of any other cell phone company that would have done this. Ting now, right now, if you go to ting.com slash blog, has the message up that a lot of sites are running with today because it's, you know, take back the privacy day on the internet. And they have the call your legislators numbers and the submit for an email address right here. Fact, the NSA is so out of control that the authors of the Patriot Act are sponsors of leading a bill to rein it in.

So they have these. We have one running right now on the Jupiter Broadcasting website, too. Let's see if you go over to our. Yeah. So here's the Jupiter Broadcasting website, the's see if you go over to our yeah so here's the Jupiter Broadcasting website the day we fight back.org a lot of sites are doing this I just thought it was so awesome that Ting is one of them they didn't need to do this I mean they you know but they did because Ting is they're really kind of internet savvy and that's one of the things I like about them quite a bit it shows in their dashboard too they have a really awesome and easy-to-use dashboard that follows web standards. In fact, it even supports the Mozilla login system, which I like a lot. We've had one of their developers on Coder Radio before to talk about it.

And what's great about Ting is there's no contracts. There's no early termination fees. You only pay for what you use. Each flat line is $6, and then, you know, taxes. And then it's just your usage. They take your message, your megabytes, and your minutes. They add them all up at the end of the month, whatever bucket you fall into. That's what you pay. It's really straightforward. You buy the device outright. You own it.

That way you're not paying some sort of subsidized price over the time of the device. It's yours. And one of the great things about Ting is every plan includes hotspot and tethering. And it's just part of your data usage. You don't have to be in some sort of special plan. You just turn it on. You know that feature built into Android? You should be able to just turn it on. That's why Google put it there. And that's how Ting works. Ting also has awesome no-hold customer service. You can

give them a call anytime between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Eastern, and an actual person answers the phone. What a concept. I've been able to activate like four Ting devices, though, all through the dashboard. It's really great. They have an iPhone and Android app to manage your account as well. And you can check them out by going to linux.ting.com. They'll take $25 off your first device or $25 off your first month. If you already have a compatible device, check out their BYOD page. I'm telling you, I've been using them for over a year and I love it. They just announced, too, that you can buy the Nexus Red phone from the Google Play Store and put it on Ting. Just get the Ting. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. You know what was actually really cool?

In fact, I should go find this right now. So not only are they really savvy about the net in general, but if I go over to their Google Plus page, I'll wait for this bad boy to load up. Check out, here's how they posted it. This is on their Google Plus page. Okay, so they did this on social media. We're now selling the Nexus 5, but please

don't buy it from us. Order it on Google Play and save yourself $95. Okay, let me get this straight. So they not only said, hey, look, we want you to put the money back in your pocket and not in ours, but they're going to actually even provide you where to go and do that. I mean, that's really cool.

Here's their announcement on fight against mass surveillance. Help spread the word by sharing our blog post and signing the official petition for every share before the end of the day. We're donating a dollar to the Electronic Frontier Foundation up to a maximum of $10,000. Wow. So go over to linux.ting.com. See, this is why I've always talked about

vote with your wallet. Support these kinds of companies. And you know, we also had a listener reach out to them and ask them about Ubuntu Touch and they said they're eagerly following that project. So they're really kind of on to all of this stuff. And I think you could go check them out, try out their savings calculator. They just lowered their data rates. Try the calculator again. See if it's even more of a deal for you than before. Linux.ting.com and a big thank you to Ting for being so damn awesome. That's really cool. Good guys. Good stuff. All right, let's jump in the mumble room, bring in the guys.

Guys, we got a couple of things I want to hammer through. Before we jump into the Debian topic, I want to read some of our feedback. But you guys feel free to chime in on any of the feedback, too. And our first email came from Dalek. Hmm. Dalek, huh? Interesting. He says, hey, Chris, I just wanted to comment on your recent snafu on

LAS and your comments in Coder Radio and Linux Unplugged. I gathered your report on something incorrectly and someone complained on Google+. This was, we mentioned that, I reported that the KD Plasma next dates were firm when they weren't. He said, get over it. He says, to me, the only things that matter are, number one, you owned up to it when you found out that you were wrong. only things that matter are number one you owned up to it when you found out that you were wrong it wasn't intentional and you're taking steps to address the issue if you made a you have made a pledge to be more accurate and to me that is all that matters mistakes can and will happen it is what you do about them that makes all the difference this is my opinion and i will probably get trolled for saying this but you're doing the katie project a favor by reporting on anything

on the project instead of hitting google plus to, they should come directly to you and say, hey, Chris, you got this part wrong, and you should probably fix it. Oh, and by the way, insert a link here. This is where the post about info that's correct is happening at. I definitely agree with the latter part, especially. I think definitely going straight to the source versus publicly bemoaning crap is definitely the way to handle something. Yeah, for sure.

Although sometimes, yeah, I mean, I don't know. See, here's where I fall down on this is I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think mistakes will inevitably happen because there's not a ton of original reporting happening in the Linux and open source landscape. A lot of it is blogs. It's rewrites of mailing list posts. It's pulling out company announcements and then posting them online, and then people either do meta coverage of them or they go do some research on their own and do some. It's very little actual original reporting.

And so when you are trying to do some original reporting or trying to just cover some of the original reporting, there inevitably will be some errors that crop up just because that's human nature. And I think as long as, you know, we keep, we always try to follow up and make corrections in this show. And I think if the mistake is big enough, you know, we make corrections in the main show itself and we're very clear and open about it. And plus in the subreddit, you know, we get caught pretty quickly. And I think as long as, one of the things about a podcast is you really, you make it consumable for one episode if somebody's just doing a drive-by and they pick it up. But what you really want to do is curate a long-term community that can depend on quality of content.

And I think as long as we're addressing that by continuing to do corrections and updates down the road, then that audience is served in the long run. And I think that's what really matters. So I'm always going to do my best not to have mistakes, but when they do, I'll also always do my best to make corrections. And I think that's all you can really do. Yeah. All right, well, next bit of feedback comes in, and this is from Red Hands Guitar.

Reed Hands Guitar. Reed has guitar. Ah, well, I'll get it eventually. Give me about four more tries. He says he's following up on an email we got at the end of Linux Unplugged last week, and the emailer said, hey, you know what? Maybe I prefer Linux not to have that big of adoption. Let's keep it tight and small, right? Make it a small community. Maybe it doesn't need to go out to the masses. And I think we all kind of kicked around and said, nah, to really be successful,

we need to get wider adoption. He said, so Reid as a guitarist says, I think I would be satisfied if Linux became as popular as a desktop OS as Mac OS is, but maybe even more would be better. I think the most beneficial kind of growth initially is to allow other kinds of growth by hobbyist users. So we start there. If we have a huge influx of hobbyists who can commit

code, Linux and free software become better products and give better impressions to more casual users. I agree up until the last point. The last point, generally speaking, the more coding and the more coders and things you come into, you do end up with better stuff. But a lot of times, little things like UX and stuff like that tend to go out the window, especially in the Linux space.

So, you know, I don't know. Maybe so, yeah. in the Linux space. So, you know, I don't know. Maybe so, yeah. See, I do kind of, I see some aspects of like, sometimes if you build something for the geeks,

that serves a point, that serves a purpose for a while. Like, you know, that does help with get you to a level of adoption on a class of user a lot of times is sort of the trendsetter.

You know, Matt, one of the things that I know I'm sure you must have noticed, too, over the last 20 years, maybe, let's say, is like there used to be a day and an age when I would go to a restaurant and if somebody dropped a computer term like modem or Windows, like I would immediately pick that sucker up. I'm like, whoa, somebody just said something about a computer in a public place. And now these days, it's common vernacular to be throwing out Facebook.com, Twitter, whatever, right? So I think in some ways you could argue that the internet used to be a place only for the geeks. That eventually

because of the work they did and then the work to bring other people to it, eventually it became appealing to the common person. And I think the Linux desktop could be like that. And the Linux desktop shares a lot of similarities with the development of the internet in some ways. The fractured nature of it, right? The competing standards, all these things.

But eventually it all sort of moves forward as one big evolutionary organic beast. And I kind of feel like, in a way, this phase the Linux desktop is at right now could be its glory days in a sense, where it's for the geeks. It's really great if you're a nerd and you really want to tinker with your system. And you look at sort of the Ubuntuization of a desktop where they're putting a lot more polish on there. They're changing things. Polish might not be the right word, but they're package-izing, product-izing it, going with their own display server because that fits the needs of the product,

not because it might technically be the better thing for everyone in the community, but it helps them create a product that is good for general consumers, and so they're going that direction. I think what Canonical and Ubuntu are doing right now is going to be the leading edge of what's going to happen in a lot of products using Linux.

And I think that's one way Linux will be brought to a lot more people. It might not be that everybody has a big tower PC with a monitor and a keyboard and a mouse hooked up to it and an Ethernet jack and power and all this kind of stuff. It might be tablets and it might be Nest thermostats and it might be robots cooked in your Google Plus account and all these kinds of things that are running Linux. And eventually everyone will be using Linux in every single way. It just might not be in the exact vision we have today. That's a good point. And I think in many ways, we're already well into that direction as it is, especially in the embedded markets and things like that. Because I think the desktop market, it's such a tough, it's like whack-a-mole in so many ways trying to find that perfect sweet spot to where the market's saying, we don't care

if it runs Cheetos, we just want to make sure that it's accomplishing the tasks that I want to do. Right, look at the huge success of Chromebooks now, right? Yeah, exactly. Because it accomplishes tasks versus what display server does it run and whatnot. And I think the what display server, that sort of thing, that stuff matters, but it matters to a very compartmentalized group of people, to people such as myself. I care, but getting someone like my wife or someone else to care, that's a little bit tougher.

So it's going to be an interesting divide until we can begin to smooth out those edges, I think. Yeah. Well, when we move forward, one weird, crazy device at a time that we all think is going to fail until it doesn't like Chromebooks. Wow. You know what I mean? Like I honestly was a big Chromebook hater. I still think it's a little wonky. I tried it. Uh, but you know what the market speaks and I think a lot of it's price based, but yeah, I think they're cute. I mean, like, I, like if you have a, I think they're like the ideal, uh, I don't know, a college student, teenager kind of thing. You know what I mean? Like, I think they're great for I think they're like the ideal college student teenager kind of thing. I think they're great for that. You drop it, you shrug, because it seems like you look at, we just had a really

great chat on Coda Radio yesterday about how what Microsoft is really up against is their whole model is software licensing, and that is completely vanishing. Subscription models, reoccurring subscription models, where it's essentially a license and you're getting access to the program, like Adobe Creative Cloud or Office 365. But selling somebody an $80 OEM license when they go to build a product, that's going to go away. And we speculated about perhaps even Windows going completely free at some point in the next year or two, especially with this new CEO stepping in. And I think if they don't, there's really going to be no reason

people don't use these free operating systems. When they just need a base-level OS and they're building on top of that you know when you look at chromebooks right it's exactly well and i'm not super familiar with windows 8 so i'm going to go out on a limb and say i assume that microsoft still makes their business out of selling stickers you know the little licensing stickers they like to put on computers that you know that they they are the biggest sticker-based business i've ever seen and so if you lose that sticker, your CD becomes a coaster. And I think they need to realize that that model is not only the worst customer experience possible, but as you pointed out, it's not going to work. Let's get out of stickers and let's – maybe they can look into, I don't know, opening up a nice pub or something. So what really helped Windows back in the day was they had a really kind of good relationship

between their desktop product and their server product. So if you ran... Ah, yes. And that drove a lot of people to run Windows Server and Windows desktops in the business, which then drove a lot of people to buy Windows in the home because they wanted to use what they're familiar with work. You know, I remember my stepdad specifically

didn't want to buy a Mac, didn't want to use Ubuntu because the job he was working at used Windows XP and that's what he wanted. He wanted to use exactly what they used at work at home. That way he wouldn't have a problem at all. And, you know, to be frank, I understood the logic there. I felt like, OK, I can totally empathize with that when you're not very comfortable with computers. And so, in a sense, that's going away now with the whole bring your own device initiative. And a lot of those devices are Linux powered, primarily through Android and things like that. So Microsoft is transitioning to this whole cloud infrastructure, Azure, Office 365 subscription

models, and also attempting to do the devices thing. But the problem is Linux is already there on both fronts, on the cloud front and on the devices front, and not just like a little bit, right? It's dominant. It's the boss there. And so they are really going to be up. This new CEO has a ton of work. And I wonder if because Linux is already the boss on the server space, it's already the boss on the device space, if you almost have that same thing again where, well, because we run it on the server and because I have it on my devices, I'm also going to put it on these other devices. And just for developers and for companies that are just trying to wrap their head around products and delivering a decent product, it almost just makes it easier for them

to just put everything Linux because, well, we're already using that on the servers over here. We're writing code for that. We're already shipping these Android devices. We're writing code for that. So you know what? Let's just make it all Linux. And I think that's sort of the thing we could be seeing put in place right now. I think we're seeing that. And that is what Microsoft's up against. And it's like this silent monster. It's not this big company. It doesn't have any one particular logo on it. No, it does not. But it's still this massive battle that I don't think they're fully equipped to fight. They're equipped to fight IBMs and Apples and Oracles, right? That's who Microsoft is armed to fight. Microsoft, in my opinion, is going to continue to eat their own face when it comes to the consumer

market. They hired who seems to be a really nice guy. I'm sure he's going to really means well and is going to do his very best, and I'm sure he's great. I don't think that, but they continue to make the same mistake they've always made, and that's, oh, why bring in someone new that might be able to help us in our shortcomings when we can hire someone from within again? Granted, he's got some great skill sets, and he's – like I said, I'm sure he's very talented, but it's the bigger problems that are still hiring within. They really do. They need somebody to go and do some weed whacking. Now, Bacon Drinker, you were going to make a point that you think if Windows goes free, it's better for Linux? No, it's worse for Linux, sorry.

Oh, it's worse for Linux? Tell me. You think people... It's the web browser model. You say like... Well, the web browser idea. So like when a web browser is... When you see someone running IE,

you switch them to Chrome. Or when someone's PC breaks and you reinstall it, you switch them to Chrome. Well, if someone's PC breaks, you haven't got the you switch them to Chrome. Well, if someone's PC breaks, you haven't got the moral problem of torrenting Windows, so you're probably going to install Windows for free anyway. Yeah, but who's going to want to run Metro on a...

I mean, you know, I think Microsoft is solving that problem for us. I think they are going to... I think web applications, HTML5, that kind of crap, the crap that we all hate hearing the buzz terms about, are making Windows less relevant. And I think Microsoft is the buzz terms about, are making Windows less relevant. And I think Microsoft is doing us all a favor by making Windows less relevant. Paul Thrott over at winsupersite.com ran a story, I think it's, I can't remember what the title was, but it was a good title.

And he makes the case that he goes through and lists all of the people that have lost their jobs, the entire divisions that they've done house cleanings on. And he even proposes a bomber's loss of his job is because of what a catastrophe windows eight is. And he writes, he says, he's talked to people in there that, you know, they think it's worse than Vista. And they think not in terms of sales, but in terms of public image. And they think that they may have set windows back a decade is the term they're using internally the windows have been set back a decade ouch yeah not shocking but ouch that's that's pretty you know that's pretty damning um and so some people are speculating now pretty openly well paul thurot is the person i'm talking about but other people as well that

you know um maybe this maybe they the reason why they went with satchi Nadella, I think is how you say the last name, Saatchi Nadella, is because they just really have to double down and focus on no longer making Windows the center of the Microsoft focus. Remember back, I think we all remember that quote for Balmer saying, Windows is the future of Microsoft. Hey, we want to make an Xbox, you put Windows on it. Hey, you want to make a device, put Windows on it. Hey, you need that server doing something, put Windows on it,

and then load SQL on it. You got yourself a winning combo, everybody. And it was Windows this, Windows that, Windows this, Windows that. Now it's all going to be about these reoccurring subscriptions, this Office 365, Azure, and all these things. But the problem with these is they inherently have a very high run cost. And while that might work good in the rich Western worlds, it's not going to work good in some of the poorer places in this world. And it's never going to lock them in as a dominant force. They're never going to be number one in cloud-hosted services. That's already been claimed, really. They do it to themselves, too. It's like if you look at Office 365, which I've had some limited experience with. It's been a couple months.

been a couple of months. But when I looked at it, I'm thinking, okay, so compared to the Google offerings, which are free, you want me to pay for something that for a non-enterprise user isn't really compellingly different other than maybe visually different. I don't really, you know, they seem to shoot themselves in the foot as soon as they launch something like that. They launch these products and say, okay, how can we either over-brand it with too many versions, charge something when quite frankly, no one's going to pay for it, not out of the enterprise anyway, and what the hell? I mean, their thinking doesn't make any sense. Yeah, it's like a lack of focus, I agree.

It really is. Also, ignoring something kind of important, that people will just use Windows because they know Windows. I've seen that change more and more, though. That is until they have a reason not to. And there's going to be a thousand different reasons not to i think like i mean just even if it's like tablets right if you shift if you're an average user and you shift 70 of your computing workload

over to a tablet when you're at home like reading email checking facebook all of these things tablets actually in some ways better at really um so uh isn't that a loss for microsoft just right there even if they're even people are just using the windows desktop 70 less of the time well not just that but i also know of three computer technicians here in town one of them who's a pretty big player um is tired of offering microsoft's only solutions and has now begun offering uh some linux solutions he's not going to say this publicly because he has a Microsoft agreement. But the point is that this is happening, and he's actually – a lot of people are saying, oh, okay, well, I want to do Windows 7 or Windows 8.

Oh, I have old hardware. Oops, sorry, I'm screwed. I've got to buy new peripherals because nothing's supported. And so it's becoming a value proposition for him to offer them an operating system he can still support and not look like a douchebag. So, you know, and then tablets and things that that's more of a younger audience. I there's a there's a pretty much 45. And I don't know.

I think I think seniors I think there's a pretty good use case. And I say that because in our own family, some of the older folks who who had computer phobias, the family got them tablets and they've really taken them. And one of the things like on the the Kindles, that they really like is they can really increase the size of the text, so it makes it a lot easier for them to read. Kindle Fires have been pretty good. Yeah, I've seen a few.

You know, my grandma hasn't had a computer her entire life, and now is on email all the time, and she's emailing with the church group and constantly on the thing. I mean, she's like – So for her, and it wasn't just her. It was also several family members who were just anti-technology but once they got their hands on one uh gosh you know it really was like a pretty big transformation for them so i don't know and perhaps the other value for the family members too is that you're no longer

you don't feel like you have to be afraid of it anymore right like you did with a windows box right you're not worried about the malware you're not yeah and it's so dead simple it's like you have to be afraid of it anymore, like you did with a Windows box. Right. You're not worried about the malware. Yeah. Yeah. And it's so dead simple. It's like you just turn it on, right? You just turn it on and push the mail icon. And honestly, for some of these people, the barrier was the mouse. They just didn't know how to use a mouse. Yeah. Now they can touch the thing. But Craig, you were going to make a point that it's convergence that's dooming Windows 8. Yeah. What I've seen while I worked at Memory Express was that the biggest issues with most customers' computers were that they didn't know how to use Windows 8.

And that when they went from a tablet to Windows 8, it still wasn't the same, even though they're made the same. And there's just a whole bunch of issues with people learning the new OS, and they're shooting themselves in the foot by making it too different without leaving in some key information that helps people transition. And by having a cell phone that acts like a tablet and a tablet that acts like a computer is just confusing people even more. Yeah. Yeah, I think they didn't go far enough, like in the sense. I think maybe the work that's being done now by folks to have that device more like role change and then try to be the same thing all the time, I think that's probably the more winning recipe. And it also makes more sense as devices get more powerful, they can afford to do that. You know what I'm talking about? You put in a dock, hooked up to a computer, you get a

desktop UI. I think the biggest problem is the model of, quote, convergence they went with. Canonical, they're going with a fairly similar UI, and with Unity 8, applications should be able to run across the different platforms. The KDE Plasma interface, you'll have the Plasma that you have on the desktop, they'll be your main Plasma interface on a tablet. Yeah, there's Plasma Active, which is definitely very Plasma driven, and then the idea there, just like with

Unity 8 would be that it would switch. And I think as long I think what we are all worried about in those scenarios is that the applications in desktop mode will feel like mobile applications. And I think that's maybe almost impossible to avoid for the first year or so,

as developers are just working on this stuff, adding features and changing things based on user feedback, because sometimes you just don't know until a couple thousand people have banged on it for a while. Sorry, I think the death of Windows 8 was in the desktop, not the tablet. Yeah, for sure, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Because if you look back at it, the uproar was

really not being able to access the start menu. No, actually people were pretty positive about it in the mobile sense. People love the tiles. Ooh, the tiles! Yeah, I definitely would say that when I was experiencing it and then listening to other people talk about it, they loved it. Some of the lower-end Windows tablets,

they weren't real impressed with the performance in comparison to other tablets, but they did like the layout. They felt it was easy to navigate. But yeah, the desktop was, boy, that's a mess. I think a KDE tablet would own them all for looks.

We will see. Stay tuned and find out. Alright, so one bit of feedback. Speaking of desktops, this is our last bit. The traditional desktop, Voodoo6, and find out. All right, so one bit of feedback. Speaking of desktops, this is our last bit. The traditional desktop, Voodoo6, who says he was going to make it this week, but I don't see him in here.

He says, I made fun of Mate in the past, and now I feel kind of bad about it. I listened to the show and decided to go grab the live CD and give it a run in VirtualBox, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed. They've actually come a long way with Mate and made some improvements in all the right places. And also, holy hell, is it fast. Even running from a live CD in VirtualBox with compositing enabled, it just zipped right along.

And then later on, he said, I went ahead and set it up on one of my workstations and been using it all morning. It's really good stuff. I felt like my opinion about the Mate desktop was changed during last week's episode, too. So it's cool to see that some of the folks in the audience felt that way. All right, Matt. during last week's episode too so it's cool to see that some other folks in the audience felt that way great all right matt well before we jump into the debbie and stuff and this is why we have a we have a big mumble room today it's we got a lot of folks in there i think people people have been following this topic with quite an interest it's been one of these things it has just i mean it's been like uh you could you could have sports commentary doing a live stream of this at some

point it has really just been a heck of a thing to watch. So before we get to that, I want to thank DigitalOcean, our sponsor for this week's episode of Linux Unplugged. DigitalOcean is so great. It's simple cloud hosting dedicated to offering the most intuitive and easy way to spin up a cloud server. These things are so super quick. Users can create a cloud server in about 55 seconds. I got it down to 47 seconds. I believe what? Our record right now, was it 44 seconds? Was that what it was? I haven't seen that beat. I think it was. I think it was 44 because I think you had the record previously. I did.

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all comes together. And this is the kind of stuff as we're about to, so when we're about to start talking about system D here in a little bit, it's this kind of stuff that when these distributions make these underlying infrastructure changes, it has such wide-reaching impacts, such ramifications. And the implementation of KVM into the Linux kernel, this is a great example of how something just blew up a whole new industry that is now providing a whole new level of service at a whole new price never possible for.

And what's even better is you can get it for free for two months. If you use our promo code Linux Unplugged February, when you check out Linux Unplugged February, all one word will get you a $10 DigitalOcean credit. You can use that $5 server for two months. I've been running that $5 server for a while now and've been running that $5 server for a while now, and it just, man, Linux performs like a champ, and you combine it with those SSDs and their bandwidth, it, man, it flies. It's so great. And the fact

you can actually, if you want to, like, say, bang out an Arch server, you can. And it's super fast, it's easy, what a great place to, it's like, oh, I wonder, you know, I've heard some things about this package, I've heard it enhances or hinders something, I can try it out on the server, it's like, oh, that's what it does. You know without actually having to do anything locally. It's great. And I really like that they're big fans of the Docker

project, too. They're always really staying in sync with that project. They're making it so awesome to deploy applications up on the server. It's really cool. So go check them out. DigitalOcean.com. Promo code Linux Unplugged. February. And a big thank you to DigitalOcean for their awesome support of Linux Unplugged. Okay.

So, Rotten, do you want to start by bringing us up to date on... Is he in here? Rotten, do you want to start by bringing us up to date on kind of where we're at right now with the Debian init system? Because I've got to be honest, I've got to make a disclaimer. After Sunday came around

and we kind of looked like we were locked into SystemD, I sort of stopped caring a little bit just because it seemed like a lot of drama after Sunday came around and we kind of looked like we were locked into System D, I sort of stopped caring a little bit just because it seemed like a lot of drama was, it seemed like things were getting a little nasty, a little personal. So what's happened in the last couple of days since like, say, Sunday, Rod? Well, the main issue is that they've kind of officially decided that System D is what they're going with, and the drama started with Ian kind of calling for a vote for B-Dale to be pulled down as chairman. That kind of pretty much backfired in him, and people were starting to say that he needs to be taken out of the TC. So to kind of stave off that, he – right, the technical committee.

To stave off that happening, he kind of voluntarily is taking a break for a couple days, he – right, the technical committee. He decided to stave off that happening. He kind of voluntarily is taking a break for a couple days, he said. And then as soon as that happened, the next day, B. Dale cast his vote, which kind of solidified System D being the choice. And if I'm correct – tell me if I'm not. B. Dale, because he's chair, in the case of a tie, his vote counts as two votes. So it would be two votes for system D if there's a tie, right? Anybody else know if that's true or not? I'm pretty sure it's something like that, but it wasn't necessary because basically Ian pulled himself out of voting. And this is kind of interesting, voluntarily standing down.

Now, did you guys get the impression that's because people were accusing him of having some sort of ulterior motive here? What was the reason for the step aside? Is it just because emotions were flaring up and things like that? It was getting really heated, whether that's why or not. But essentially, when he called called for the bdl to be dropped down um i think three people called for him to be kicked out wow okay wow so uh here's this is kind of stuff i just i'm not really that big on following but i just wanted to sort of set up what's been going on so that way people have some context of sort of the um you know the scope of this decision that apparently is it's really weighing on the on the Debian project here. And what has really struck me on the onset of all this is how it all seems like a foregone conclusion to me. And I think this is part of why I've been so frustrated with this whole thing, because technically speaking, system D seems like,

just from a pure technical standpoint, the superior solution. But then when you also consider the things like the CLA and other problems that would be introduced, that also seems like it clearly eliminates upstart, unless they want to take on some sort of fork. And then you look at other solutions like OpenRC that have a lot of critics. It always seemed like SystemD was the proper choice. And the fact that SystemD is already available in Debian testing seemed like it made it the obvious choice. fact that systemd is already available in debian testing seemed like it made it the obvious choice so what the hell what the hell am i not seeing here what am i not getting what is it what is it they have been debating over what has been the big roadblock here for them making a decision on this kind of thing and the reason why i almost sound a little upset is because it's almost

getting a little embarrassing at this point it's's Debian, though. Well, it's pretty much done now, it seems, but I'd say the only thing they were really arguing over is the, well, two things is the CLA and the other kernel connection, which basically systemd breaks that. I guess what I'm worried about is this,

are we watching sort of the, are we watching Debian become an ineffective project or has it always been this bad and this is just sort of the recent thing that highlights it? I guess, does that seem like a fair question? Well, I think you've mentioned before in the past that, you know, these type of debates and discussions have pretty much always happened inside, you know inside different Linux communities. But now, with so many different mailing lists and people looking to put out news articles, the moment something gets said, it gets repeated around so many times. So I think it's just, as you've stated in the past, the speed at which we now broadcast these discussions and these disagreements has grown so much that now it seems like it's worse than I believe it really is it seems like it's worse than

i believe it really is yeah it's basically the same for it's been like the same for the past five years at least that i can remember this one seems particularly bad though didn't get is as heated i think maybe that's why it's gotten the coverage it has and it's not just news outlets anymore it's just general interested bystanders are tweeting out links to the mailing list it's every every major new post is you know There's four posts of it to Reddit. Daredevil, I want to give you a chance to chime in here. What do you think? No, what I was about just to say is that pretty much the discussions

on the mailing list is always a slow communication medium. And until getting that, it's just a matter of we're constantly looking because it's an interesting project. That's it. But other decisions on Debian have been always sort of posing ethical and technical questions. They don't focus only on the technical side. Crossroads, do you think this is a lack of focus problem?

I mean, yeah, I think that they want to, I think that they want Debian to be available to as many people as possible. So they want it to even be available on the, on the BSD and since the system D requires C groups that it won't run on BSD. Popey is our resident upstart fan. I'm always interested to hear what you think. I wouldn't say I'm necessarily an upstart fan. I'm necessarily an upstart fan. I can. I'm just part of it. Yeah, I know. I'm not so sure. I mean, I mentioned last time that there's more eyeballs on this, partly because there's more eyeballs on everything because of social media

and everyone wanting instant updates on everything and everyone reporting everything pretty quickly after the event occurs and keeping an eye on mailing lists, and that becomes news. But also, don't forget the other side, which is a positive side. Debian is much more popular and much more heavily used than it ever was before. So any of these discussions that happened on a random Debian mailing list, the only people who are interested were nerds. Whereas now you've got

Ubuntu users, Mint users, system D developers, Fedora users, Red Hat users, all these people who are interested in Debian. So there's a lot of focus on it, not just from the media, but also from people who have a vested interest in what goes on in Debian. I think that is a big point to underscore right there. And Bank and Drinker, you sounded like you had a kind of perspective from a new Linux user. Does this look like insanity from the outside? No, it sort of looks like it's been overblown. So the way I look at it is, from what I can see, from a newbie's perspective, it sort of doesn't matter as much as it's been shown as. Because from what I can see, if systemd isn't your thing, you can just install upstart or openrt.

I can see if systemd isn't your thing, you can just install upstart or openrt. Yeah, I think this is part of... I almost feel like there was a bigger decision being made, in a sense, at the same time they were picking the init system. And I feel like that decision was, do we want to unify a great part of the core of Linux, in a sense? And some people feel like in part of doing that, we're throwing out a bit of the Unix philosophy and there's this constant

reevaluation in the Linux community about the, our Unix roots versus practical needs. And I, I feel like that was the meta discussion being had and perhaps that's why the interest was so intense and, and the Debian committee, a technical committee and, and,

and the other Debian developers maybe felt the weight of that meta discussion? What do you guys think? I also think, sorry, that a lot of it was emotion, to be honest. It was rather emotional discussion more than the technical one. Go ahead, Poppy. Russ Ulbry posted a lengthy mail recently, which kind of sought to explain some of the stuff that went on on the list on the technical committee and the fact that these guys are all friends and they get on fairly well and uh maybe people's perspective from the outside is not the same perspective as those guys on the inside have

right right yeah that's fair q5 why don't you chime i know you had something to say yeah i've talked with a lot of people uh recently about this and i've noticed a trend that there seem to be a large number of people you were discussing about meta discussions that a lot of people have become pro system d just because they're against some of the business moves that canonical has made and by extension i want to reject canonical by rejecting upstart so it's like a form of canonical hate in a sense to just like system D because it's not upstart. Yeah, I've actually heard that statement from people before regarding system D versus upstart where people have said, you know, I don't really know much about system D. I just don't want upstart to down the road now, what these kind of events do is they look really dramatic while they're happening. But in a sense, I feel like a lot of consensus has been built around SystemD now.

Like, I think the end result is the rest of the community just had this massive conversation and came to an agreement that they then all exerted upon the Debian community. But as a whole collective, systemd kind of went from this Lenard's interesting thing that he's building for Red Hat to, oh yeah, this is probably the way that all Linux that can should go. But it's not the end of all Linuxes that don't. And I think, but I do think it does underscore this interesting consensus-making process that happens as a result of these big flare-ups.

And in the end result, the community, the hive mind, comes to larger conclusions. What do you think of that? I'm inclined to agree with you. And I think there's a lot of focus on these things at the time. But then later on, we move on. Like, who really cares now that ubuntu move the buttons to the left hand side who really cares that ubuntu doesn't have gimp on the cd who really cares that the cd is the image is over 800 megabytes so only fits on a usb stick at the time these things seem

so important it's like the beatles or justin bieber you know at the time it seems like it's massively important to everyone on the planet right now. But you skip forward three years and nobody gives a crap. You know, my favorite go-to for that is the whole Microsoft Novell deal that we dedicated three weeks of the Linux Action Show to

covering, and everybody was ready to burn Novell at the stake, and here we are, what, three, four, five years later, and it doesn't really seem to have made too much of a difference on anything. And we were all worried that, like, it was – there was some sort of patent play at it that, you know, the Samba project was doomed and all these kinds of things. It really turned out not to be a big deal. It's interesting how that comes about in hindsight because, I mean, at the time, yeah, that was – you know, it was perceived as just like, you know, the clouds are turning blood red and the moon's going to fall out of the sky and everything. And I think the problem with this kind of consensus building is there are now tools available to manipulate the hive and like sort of.

And I think I think Lenart and crew kind of comes out looking like the good guys and not the good guys, but kind of look comes out looking better on this whole thing. And really, that was because he was able to go to his own Google Plus feed and have a platform to influence a lot of people and what they were, how they viewed it. And I think really, you really think Lenart comes out being the good guy in this? I do. Not necessarily in terms of like, like, like the traditional sense, but in terms of the most logical, maybe? I don't know. Having the clearer perspective of the group? That's not the right way to put it either. I think he comes away looking like he was right in the end, maybe? Is that the way to put it? be technically right but i challenge you to go back over the last six months of google plus and whatever other mailing lists and find every occasion where lennox has taken pot shots at upstart pointing out bug reports pointing out things that upstart does or doesn't do no i agree now now now go back and find upstart developers doing the same thing and you know what you won't find them i agree that that's not i don't really mean I don't mean all of that feed.

I just mean, like during the heat of the discussion, he's able to go and have a platform that he was able to influence a lot of people's thinking on the matter. I mean, I think if you look at like R slash Linux, a lot of people were just repeating things that he posted on his G plus feed as if it was their own ideas and their own concepts. And it reminds me of an American presidential campaign. Exactly. All these kind of Google Plus messages need to say underneath, my name's Leonard Pottering and I approve of this message.

That's exactly what I mean. And I think that's why we have to be a little bit worried about this form of consensus building because it is ripe for manipulation. That's my point. And I got to say, most of my opinion regarding this matter actually came out of these Linux unplugged discussions. And I kind of figured it was either going to be OpenRC or a systemd. Nothing against canonical, nothing technically against upstart, but I don't think they would have chosen that for the CLA. Crossroads, I want to give you a chance to jump in too.

I don't really think that anyone came out looking like a good guy, because the system D people, like Popey said, were going through and filing the bug reports and almost looked petty. And then the upstart folks were just kind of silent. So I don't think when there's this kind of arguing and this kind of tit for tat stuff, no one looks like a good guy. Yeah, good guy might not have been the right way to put i was just trying to think of a way to kind of frame it where i think people kind of rallied around the points he was making um and kind of decided to you know to pick up on what he was what he was championing championing well i think i think he had technical accuracy on his side you know he was he was able to point out the odd bug report here and there or point out where um systemd might be technically superior.

And he certainly has that on his side. And it's very easy to rally around someone who is articulate and able to express how their product is technically better than someone else's. But you don't have to be a douche when you do it. That is sort of the underscore. It's like if you can manage to do all that without offending a bunch of people, that's sort of a win-win. Bacon Drinker, I wanted to let you chime in

on the sort of the state of the debate. Yeah, so all I've got to really say is, as intense as it was, Linux debate is sort of meant to be this way. I was watching a TED Talk with Linus Torvalds' boss, and he explained how intense debate comes up with a better decision at the end of the day and I sort of think that people saying the way the debate

has not gone so politely, if you will, is kind of wrong. I think a debate should be this way and it's worked out better. It's actually almost been sickeningly polite in some ways like here's B. Dale's announcement that they're going with SystemD. He writes, Thank you, Anthony, for your analysis of the votes. Per 6.3.2, I use my casting vote to choose D

as the winner. Therefore, the resolution reads, we exercise our power to decide in case of overlapping jurisdictions 6.1.2 by assuring that the default init system for Linux architectures in Jesse should be SystemD. Should the project pass a general resolution before the release of Jesse asserting a position statement about issues of the day on init systems, that position replaces the outcome of this vote and is adopted by the technical committee on its own decision. That's a really interesting way to speak. You know, it sounds like it's like legislation being passed. I could, well, yeah, except the difference is things are actually happening that's true um dubbing actually has activity no um the bigger thing there is i think that it's uh it's not only sounds official but it'd be hard not to bust into laughter doing it really i would think yeah i mean they want to they want to make it official

i suppose they are in a way making history with some of these decisions sure i guess there is that element to it all right guys well any other comments before we round off this discussion? Anyone else want to chime in? I would just like to say that actually earlier someone mentioned that the coverage, like it wouldn't matter because we thought it was important at the time. was important at the time. But I think actually covering such issues sometimes is what provokes people to think about it as an issue and actually try to find the best resolution and not attempt misleading directions. Yeah, it does make for interesting back listening too, when you go back and listen to the issues of the day. In a way, it's sort of a living documentation of what happened in some sense. You get some of the nooks and crannies of the issue that you don't get when you look back on it three, five years

later. So it's kind of fun from that standpoint to talk about today. And open source and Linux so much is about building one piece at a time. And that in itself inherently calls for analysis and discussion about the piece you're working on because every future piece after it is built on top of it. So every piece matters in a sense. And I think this one in particular, because of the weight of the overall decision, because of the meta discussion going on in the greater community that's been going on for a couple of years now, I think this one in particular reached beyond just the interest of bloggers and podcasters and et cetera. I think it really reached to the general user. Like, Popey made the excellent point.

It affects so many people now because the Debian project has grown and, you know, with other huge projects like Ubuntu based on it, it is really, it's an important player now. And what's really interesting about it is you could easily make it one of our most important players

and it is truly community-driven, and we have just watched this process unfold. I mean, who knows what kind of discussion there was internally at Red Hat before they set off on SystemD. We probably could glean some of it from mailing lists, but I bet you don't get the full scope like you do here with Debian. And it's just kind of interesting to watch a truly community-based project go through this process.

And I don't know if it's necessarily a bad thing it took him as long as it did. I wish it didn't get as heated, and I wish maybe people would give folks a little more slack and consider that they are watching something from the outside. Yeah, I think that's true. I mean we do need to be sensitive to the fact there may be a lot of underpinnings we're not aware of. You need to be sensitive to the fact there may be a lot of underpinnings we're not aware of, and I have no problem with the amount of time that it takes. But I think unless there was actual threats made against people or whatever, I do think the emotional side of it really is going to be hard to justify. But the rest of it I would definitely agree. I think that there's no question there's got to be things we're not aware of that could definitely get people a little bit riled.

But we're all adults, guys. At some point, you've got to... Like the person that stepped away, that's the right approach. That's good. That probably was a good decision. If you're still kind of a little stuck on all of this, well, I've got good news. It's one of these things that's maybe hard to wrap your brain around until you can play it as a video game.

Well, good news, we actually have a video game version of the Ubuntu init system debate. I'll have it linked in the show notes. You're kidding me. No, it's for real. It's like a... init system debate. I'll have it linked in the show notes. You're kidding me. No, it's for real. It's like a – here we go. I'm playing it right now. It's an attorney game.

The Debian init case, Great Emeralds Trial. And it explains to you what the hell is going on with all of this in video game style. Here we go. Look at that. There we go. There we go. Yeah, yeah. What kind of achievement do you get if you get the right one?

This is so 80s awesome right now, early 90s awesome. So, look, I mean, come on. How is this not the best way? This is like Final Fantasy meets the Debbie and Annette debate. I'm really disappointed that your idea of a game for this is not Flappy Bird. Oh, geez. It kind of felt like watching somebody play Flappy Bird. I'll tell you that.

That's true. Well, anyways, I'll have a link to the Debbie and Nick case in the show notes if you want to get in on some of that craziness. And then, you know, you get to learn a little something and have fun. This is true. Maybe next time they'll take Popey's advice and make the Flappy Bird edition. Assuming that... Well, and if you install it on your phone, then you can flip it on eBay for 50 grand

or whatever. Gosh, isn't that crazy? I know. All right. So, Ben, a 14 year old listener writes in and he says, hey, Chris and Matt, I'm a 14 year old Linux user who would self-proclaim himself as a Linux geek. And I'm an avid listener of Linux Unplugged. Well, hello, Ben. Says I use Arch.

Well, how about that? Inspired by the Arch challenge and roll my own Arch Linux Raspberry Pi LAMP server, as well as being a happy user of a custom rig built by myself. Oh, Ben, I want to adopt you. He says, and the more I look around, the amount of Linux advocates of my generation is a very small number, and it worries me. It worries me and surely could be some concern to people of your generation

as kids aren't getting sufficient education about computers. Other kids my generation in my so-called IT classes don't seem to be educated enough unless they really go and look for it like myself, which most people will not do. Personally, I think that kids of my generation, probably of others, are not being stretched and not getting the sufficient grounding they need. I could be arrogant here, although I reckon I could teach my IT class better than my minimum wage teacher does. Which brings me on to my next point. Linux doesn't seem relevant to a lot of people, and it seems somehow minor to them. I have largely covered my thoughts on the matter of Linux's popularity, which I cover on a blog that I call the Linux situation. It'd be great if you

would just look over it and share your thoughts. Thanks, guys, and keep up the good work. So Ben says that a lot of people don't find Linux relevant anymore, and the darn kids, now we've talked about this a little bit, the darn kids aren't finding Linux that interesting. And I just saw an article, and I don't have a link to it, but I just saw an article recently that said Linux

should be part of IT curriculum. And that doesn't, doesn't that kind of make sense to... For an IT curriculum, that makes complete sense, doesn't that kind of make sense to, for an IT curriculum, that makes complete sense. Like if you want to teach computers, teach them, teach them like to load a Linux distribution, you can learn so much about disk partitioning.

And so like, if you're really taking a computer class, it almost does seem like a disservice to use windows because it's like teaching somebody how to work on a car and you give them a car with the hood sealed. That's right. That's right. Because I know folks now that are suffering because

of that. They specialized in Windows and now are having to backtrack and learn stuff that they could have had the opportunity to learn a long time ago. So it's actually become a hindrance. Yeah. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I was just going to say that I think

the biggest part of all this is mainly like, you know, if you teach them one specific technology, then a few years later, you have this big setback. And what should really be the core part about it is teaching, okay, here's the basic parts of the computer, here's how to get a good sense for being able to read error messages or whatever, to basically give the foundation for a flexible mind about computing so that, you know, as time goes on, you're able to adjust to whatever various things may come in just because you have enough of a foundation that you're able to reason your way through anything that

gets put in front of you. And of course, knowing how to use Google or whatever to find anything that you just can't get. Do your own research, yeah. Well, that sounds good, but it's highly debatable what is a good foundation. So that would be hard to do a curriculum for.

Yeah, that's true. So the guy in here says he's part of this generation. He has some thoughts on this. Go ahead, the guy. Hi, Chris. Yeah. So I'm part of this newfangled teenage generation. And I just wanted to say that I really agree that there's not enough education about that, this sort of thing. I go to a school with over a thousand kids, and of them, I'm one of maybe five people that's heard of Linux, and I'm the only person that actually uses it that I'm aware of.

It's just a matter of people don't know. Everything that I learned about Linux was just on my own. I first heard about it through a conference, and most people don't go to that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah. Urban120, go ahead. Yes, I think that I heard first of Linux one time that I was with some guys that know a lot about computers, but I actually started using Linux

because I started watching Linux Action Show and I figured out that it is awesome. Well, thanks. I'm 16 years old, and in my school, we mentioned Linux, that it exists, but in school, we used Word, we use Microsoft. Everything is based on not free software. Right.

Everything is from Microsoft or from other companies. When we give an assignment for school, we need to have it in font Times New Roman, which is from Microsoft, and.file. And everything is based on proprietary solutions. All right, BitPuffin, go ahead. Yeah, I was just thinking that this doesn't only apply to operating systems, but also software in general. For example, in my school with 3d program we learned maya and

photoshop but it would have been better i think um if we learned gimp and blender because that we could use after school yeah you can get on commercially i know we can do like freelance work and stuff so yeah crossroads you're from this generation that the generation we're speaking of what do you think um i mean i go to a school of probably about 2,000. There are very, very few kids who know what Linux is. And I can say the word Linux or the word open source and I just get kind of this look like, what are you talking about? Actually, our homecoming king this year is a Linux nerd. He's one of my best friends.

But anyway, I would love is a Linux nerd. He's one of my best friends. Anyway, I would love for there to be some basic computer education because I've had people ask me why the internet's broken and why... There needs to be something. Even if it's not Linux, there needs to be something like, this is the internet.

Yeah. I do worry about getting down a path of like you see on Star Trek where the Captain Kirk arrives to the planet and it's being run by one giant computer and nobody knows how it works and they all think it's their god and they all worship it or something. Withered Don, I know you wanted to make a point. Go ahead. I think the problem goes further than that. I mean, I've just completed university and the number of people that couldn't even install basic software was ridiculous. So I don't even think they're teaching anything at all in IT classes. So it's pretty much a joke. Isn't this why tablets are seeing the success they are? Because it is really

just so much easier for people to pick them up and install apps. I mean, I literally, I mean, I'm looking at people who've never used a computer in their lives, and they're in their 50s, 60s, and even 70s, and they're picking these things up, and they're installing applications like Netflix and Kindle, and they're using them, and it's just blowing my mind. I mean, there's still kids my age who, I had one girl come up to me and ask me, how do I install this app? And she was running, she was an iPhone.

It's not like it's even difficult. She didn't even know how to install an app. Well, there is that. if she was an iPhone, it's not like it's even difficult. She didn't even know how to install an app. Well, there is that. Derek Devlin, I wanted to give you a chance to make your point. So I actually think we can have a different view for a while on this matter. I think in the overall picture, IT education has been focused on application usage and getting just whatever the school is sponsored to sort of make advertising propaganda. the user base that Linux has, has been pretty much a matter of getting people into learning on their own and they actually become much more informed.

And at that point, I think it benefits the overall community and helps actually introducing users, not just as users, but as also contributors or part of the community. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think it could be improved. And I think actually shows that's a bad thing. I think it could be improved. And I think actually shows like this do their part on putting the word out. I hope so. And I think you're right to an extent that if it's important enough and people need to get a job done, they eventually come

across it. And a lot of cases, people don't know about Linux is simply because they've never needed to solve a problem that it solves. All right, well, we're going to wrap up with the last two here. M.W. for M.Woofer. M.Woofer? I like that. I apologize for that. I never really thought about the name ever being pronounced out loud. It's just my first two initials and then the first four characters in my last name.

It's okay. It's okay. Yeah, well, I was just going to say that what I've been seeing more and more of is people developing this blind spot where it's not quite fear, but more just willful ignorance of some kind where they just say, well, it's a computer. I probably can't understand it. I'm not going to try to understand it. And, you know, when they have to do something on the computer, they go in and they flail around, but it's like they're developing this mental block that maybe at a lot of points they aren't even realizing is operating. That's just keeping them from picking up information. It's a computer, therefore I'll never learn how to do it. So therefore I just won't.

That kind of thing. Bacon Drinker, do you want to take us out with your last point? Yeah, I think the problem lies in modern technologies. I'm 16, so I'm from the new generation, but when you go back in 10, 20 years, when you bought something, you had a screw in the back of it, and you could open it quite easily with a Phillips screwdriver and look inside. But nowadays, you've got, like like Torque 5 screws on the MacBooks

and glued together phones, and there's no incentive to go ahead and open this stuff. Right, in fact, there's every incentive not to open it. Exactly, yeah. Because you damage it and void the warranty in the case of a glued phone and things like that. Yeah, but you don't truly own a device until you void its warranty.

Very good, right? Very true. Or until you've taken it apart and put it back together again. Well, let's take the rest of this in the post-show discussion because I think that's a good point to wrap up to in a response to Ben's email. And Ben, I hope some of that's helped provide some insights. And one thing you can always do is show folks, wait for folks to have a need to be solved,

a problem to be solved, and show them how Linux solves that problem. And I think once you show them what it can do for them, maybe they want to finally get into some sort of application development. Maybe they want to set up a file server at home and run Plex. Honestly, it always depends on the person. That's one of the reasons I used to love Compiz. I used to show Compiz off at work and clients,

and people would be like, oh my God, what is that? How do you do that? Oh, this is Linux. Let me show you. And that was a door opener. And nowadays, I just had somebody over at my god, what is that? How do you do that? Oh, this is Linux. Let me show you. And that was a door opener. Nowadays, I just had somebody over at my house, a total computer noob, and they were just blown away by Plex. Blown away by Plex. Could never see anything like

Plex. Can't believe something like Plex exists. It's incredible. Like, well, here's what you need. And you know, that could be an example. Well, here, let me help you set up a Linux box. I'll install Ubuntu here. We'll put Plex Media Server on it. Bob's your uncle. Bob's your uncle. Bob's your uncle. All right, Matt. Well, I think that's a good spot to wrap up here for this week's episode of Linux Unplugged.

You know, I know I mentioned it earlier, but you've got to come over on Sunday to jblive.tv, everybody, and watch us. We're going to be doing Linux Action Show 300. Don't worry. I think we'll probably release it for download if you can't make it live. But, you know, that's coming up. All right. Well, very good, Matt. Also, I want to remind folks you can also watch this show live and participate

in our virtual lug. We do this at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday. You can also go to jupiterbroadcasting.com slash calendar, and then you just get it converted in your local time. You don't have to do the time math. And you can hang out in our awesome chat room. Thanks, chat room. And thank you, Matt. I'll see you on Sunday. See you then. All right, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in to this week's episode

of Linux Unplugged. See you right back here next week!