[NCLUG] root/superuser pwd question

[Ben West]

the -2 syntax has been listed as depricated in the man page for as long as I
can remember

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 10:57 AM, John L. Bass <jbass at dmsd.com> wrote:

> 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.
>>
>>
>>
>
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Benjamin West