[NCLUG] root/superuser pwd question

[John L. Bass]

I just wish they would STOP needless changes to user interfaces that 
have stood for 30 years or more in some cases, especially for command 
line tools that break tens of thousands of scripts world wide, and take 
several times that in labor hours to track down and fix everywhere. 
Stupid changes like "tail -2" having to be changed to "tail -n 2", and 
sort, and other tools just because someone decided to create a new 
commandline UI standard.

John


Paul Hummer wrote:
>> Your "problem" with Ubuntu is contrary to why it even exists.
>> Distributions like Ubuntu and Fedora are looking to set up a Linux
>> installation that "just works". Yes there are other (possibly better)
>> ways of doing just about everything, but that's not what they are
>> trying to accomplish. I'd rather have them document their way of doing
>> things to get new users familiar with Ubuntu (or Fedora or whatever)
>> rather than confuse them by explaining the other 373783832 different
>> ways to do it.
>>     
>
> This is exactly right.  Mark Shuttleworth recently sent out an email
> Canonical-wide about a new initiative that has been formed at Canonical
> for the sole purpose of increasing the usability and user experience for
> open source applications (notice I didn't say Ubuntu).  It's based on a
> blog post by Matthew Paul Thomas, a Canonical employee.
>
> http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2008/08/01/free-software-usability
>
> Face it.  Lots of open source software, while great in the idea, has
> horrible usability, and we want to get away from that.  So yea, Ubuntu
> takes away the idea of a "root" password, because people don't grok it
> if they haven't used linux since Linus released 0.7 of the Linux kernel.
>  It's more about becoming the "gateway Linux" for people who want to use
> their computers.  Then, at some point, they'll try Fedora, or SuSe, or
> Debian, etc.
>
> Open source is about freedom, one freedom specifically is choice.  If
> you want a GUI with a task bar, (K)Ubuntu or Fedora are good.  If you
> want the "glory" days of Linux, you're probably better off with Gentoo
> or Slackware.
>
>