Subj : Re: Windows vs Linux
To   : Arelor
From : tenser
Date : Thu Apr 21 2022 14:13:58

On 20 Apr 2022 at 04:55p, Arelor pondered and said...
 
 Ar>   Re: Re: Windows vs Linux
 Ar>   By: tenser to claw on Thu Apr 21 2022 07:32 am
 Ar> 
 Ar>  > So aside from superficial customization of the user interface,
 Ar>  > I'm not seeing what _most_ people are customizing.  Most people
 Ar>  > are not hacking the kernel.  Most people aren't hacking the
 Ar>  > services that start when the machine boots.  Most are just
 Ar>  > playing around with userspace stuff, which is fine, but pretty
 Ar>  > mellow.
 Ar> 
 Ar> I think the people who talks about customizing Linux wants to run a
 Ar> ports or pseudo-ports distribution with a GNU userland.

I do get the impression that most of what they mean
when they say, "customizing Linux" has to do with
installing custom software.

 Ar> When you talk about Linux, most people thinks of a Linux distribution
 Ar> with a traditional GNU userland (or something that simulates it).
 Ar> 
 Ar> I think that distributions such as Gentoo, CRUX or KISS are were hardcore
 Ar> customizers live since they allow to mess with deep components of the
 Ar> system. For most end users, however, the ability to replace a Desktop
 Ar> environent by another counts as heavy customization. Power users who
 Ar> make their own init ramdisks with custom kernel modules may think this
 Ar> is naive, but for a regular home users, being able to hotkey scripts
 Ar> with your filemanager is dope as heck and the pinacle of modding.

Sure, and there's nothing wrong with any of that.  I guess
the point is that once you get to that level, you can do the
same with BSD or Plan 9 or even custom Darwin kernels etc.
On the other hand, if it's just customizing the desktop
experience and shell environment, you can do that pretty much
anywhere, and there's little that sets Linux apart from other
systems.

More generally, people conflating "Linux" with "the OS on
my desktop machine" are missing a much broader set of application
areas.

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