Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.os.linux.misc > #89186

Re: KISS Still Active

Show all headers | View raw

Farley Flud <ff@gnulinux.rocks> writes:

>> https://kisslinux.github.io/
That's a project that requires Linux to install a Linux-like
environment. (Item #6, https://kisslinux.github.io/install ). It's only
"simple" because it pushes off the most complex things onto the user. It
says this about the kernel:

"This step involves configuring and building your own Linux kernel. The
Linux kernel is not managed by the distribution and is instead the
user's sole responsibility."

How many people reading this can configure and build a kernel from zero
by themselves? No looking at /proc/config.gz. No looking at
/boot/config*. No 'make oldconfig'. Just start with a blank config and
walk through the 10,000 options therein. You do know the chipset in your
USB ethernet, correct? Do you want support for Southern Islands in your
GPU? Thoughts on setting CONFIG_TICK_CPU_ACCOUNTING? Hint: if you have
an older Ryzen, you'll have to dive into the RCU Subsystem menu. 

> It does not matter.  As KISS demonstrates, GNU/Linux is amazingly
> simple and any single person can create his own "distro" with
> ease.
Untrue. And you're not creating your own distro by compiling someone
else's packages or ricing Ubuntu. Even doing LFS/BLFS is a massive
task. Then you have to keep it updated, which is way harder. Update
glibc... oops, a, b, c, and d won't compile anymore. Do they have a
patch?  Probably not. Perl loves to chop its own legs off at each
update. This goes double if you used 'cpan' to install stuff. Best to
just delete /usr/local/lib64/perl5 (or really anything under /usr/local
that even mentions Perl) and start again. Don't ask how I know
this... cough...xmltoman ...cough. OpenSSL major version jumps are fun
as well.

Then there's the care and feeding of shared libraries.
ldd /usr/sbin/smbd | wc -l
147
I think the above speaks for itself? One hundred, forty-seven shared
libraries for just one of the Samba daemons. 

Let's not forget the 5^H6 Linux audio stacks, revisions, "frame works"
or whatever we're calling them: OSS, ESD, Alsa, Gstreamer, Pulse Audio,
and Pipewire.

You know what the next programming language I'm going to learn is? NFT,
so I can configure my firewall. It's pretty C-like, so I'll have a
headstart: I can't see it taking more than 2-3 months. 4, max, if it has
pointers to structures and linked-lists. For those that think I'm
joking:

NFT example:
flush ruleset

table inet my_table {
	set LANv4 {
		type ipv4_addr
		flags interval

		elements = { 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, 192.168.0.0/16, 169.254.0.0/16 }
	}
	set LANv6 {
		type ipv6_addr
		flags interval

		elements = { fd00::/8, fe80::/10 }
	}

Now a C example:
bool validInput( int num, ... ) {                                                                                   
        va_list arguments;
        int i;
        bool valid;                                                                                                 
        int chkValue;
                                                                                                                    
        va_start( arguments, num );
        valid = true; 

And don't get me started on these massive desktop environments that are
basically their own operating systems both in scale and scope. Then
there's the managerial overlord system known as systemd (which is really
its own operating system that decided to cannibalize Linux instead),
seats, polkits, consolekit (are we still using that?), udev and message
buses. Then we have pixbuf, DRI, Mesa, and the whole extended clan of
graphics drivers, libraries, firmware, and toolkits. Your
middle-of-the-road desktop machine can't even compile QT6 on account of
being so massive. You get the idea. The words "simple" and "Linux"
should never be used together in the same sentence. If you want simple,
best start with the TX-0 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TX-0) and work
backwards.


-- 
PGP Key ID: 781C A3E2 C6ED 70A6 B356  7AF5 B510 542E D460 5CAE
       "The Internet should always be the Wild West!"

Back to comp.os.linux.misc | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

KISS Still Active Farley Flud <ff@gnulinux.rocks> - 2026-07-28 20:15 +0000
  Re: KISS Still Active rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-07-28 22:16 +0000
    Re: KISS Still Active Farley Flud <ff@gnulinux.rocks> - 2026-07-29 01:57 +0000
      Re: KISS Still Active jayjwa <jayjwa@atr2.ath.cx.invalid> - 2026-07-29 11:51 -0400
        Re: KISS Still Active The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-07-29 18:16 +0100
          Re: KISS Still Active rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-07-29 18:56 +0000
            Re: KISS Still Active c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-07-29 23:45 -0400
              Re: KISS Still Active rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-07-30 04:20 +0000
                Re: KISS Still Active vallor <vallor@vallor.earth> - 2026-07-30 05:09 +0000
        Re: KISS Still Active Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-07-29 23:15 +0000
          Re: KISS Still Active Farley Flud <ff@gnulinux.rocks> - 2026-07-30 02:38 +0000

csiph-web