hapax: gregorynyssa: you could say that (or even say it's already been created), but i'm not really distributing anything, it's just for my personal use (since no other system (sans msdos) really suits me)
hapax: there's a lot of effort needed if you want to accommodate a userbase and i wouldn't really be able to maintain it on my own
hapax: (and i don't have a "repocentric" approach, it would either be similar to signpost's work or reseble the "linux from scratch" thing, i.e., build instructions and patches)
hapax: but i'm willing to share anything i stumble upon to make things work the way i want, my blog is really just what i thought other people might find useful
hapax: take xorg for example, i guess at least some people will benefit from being able to build a static x11 server
hapax: i'm also motivated by having this icky feeling whenever i read celebratory remarks from wreckers ("finally got rid of being able to build a static exe," cf. xorg changelog, it's actually there)
hapax: or see tex, i've seen people going "well, yeah, knuth does update the pascal source, but you can't really run it, you must use the convoluted tex distribution, complete with package manager"
hapax: i hate package managers, i want to build the pascal source and actually know what i'm building
hapax: turns out it does build if you put some effort into it, mf even displays pictures with the turbopascal graph unit (works on msdos/mswin of all things, i'll port it to x11 one day)
hapax: this is one of the two freedoms rms does not mention, "to build the program the way you wish," the other being "to actually understand the program" (asciilifeform's "fits-in-head")
asciilifeform: hapax: see also aha
discord_bridge[asciilifeform]: (gregorynyssa) http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/pest/2025-02-10#1034742 << A friend of mine had pointed out that the sys-calls of the MS-DOS platform were basically a parallel of POSIX but better conceived.
dulapbot: Logged on 2025-02-10 19:26:02 hapax: gregorynyssa: you could say that (or even say it's already been created), but i'm not really distributing anything, it's just for my personal use (since no other system (sans msdos) really suits me)
discord_bridge[asciilifeform]: (gregorynyssa) http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/pest/2025-02-10#1034745 << It has been very useful to me. (=
dulapbot: Logged on 2025-02-10 19:27:04 hapax: but i'm willing to share anything i stumble upon to make things work the way i want, my blog is really just what i thought other people might find useful
discord_bridge[asciilifeform]: (gregorynyssa) http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/pest/2025-02-10#1034748 << The way that LaTeX subsumed TeX, with the proponents of the former using the terms LaTeX and TeX interchangeably in order to bury the advocacy of the latter, was deeply depraved.
dulapbot: Logged on 2025-02-10 19:28:37 hapax: or see tex, i've seen people going "well, yeah, knuth does update the pascal source, but you can't really run it, you must use the convoluted tex distribution, complete with package manager"
discord_bridge[asciilifeform]: (gregorynyssa) I believe that the Linux kernel has some value owing to the sheer number of man-hours of revision and refinement which have been expent (the JVM is in a similar situation, though others here may disagree).
discord_bridge[asciilifeform]: (gregorynyssa) However, the project was based on some flawed and underhanded presumptions from the very start.
discord_bridge[asciilifeform]: (gregorynyssa) Linux was built with the following philosophy: you should not write programs for Linux; you should write programs for GCC, and the fact that those programs run on the Linux kernel should be treated as an implementation-detail.
discord_bridge[asciilifeform]: (gregorynyssa) Linux was built with the assumption that the team would not need to provide documentation, because Linux would be POSIX-compliant and when people have questions they should just go to POSIX for help.
discord_bridge[asciilifeform]: (gregorynyssa) Many FOSS projects embody this broken paradigm. For instance, MariaDB does not provide a manual because its aim is to be compatible with MySQL. The users of MariaDB are therefore expected to go to MySQL for documentation.
discord_bridge[asciilifeform]: (gregorynyssa) The Linux distribution which I have been constructing is an "oblative" distribution. What that means is, it is designed without the goal or presumption of self-hosting.
discord_bridge[asciilifeform]: (gregorynyssa) Self-hosting will still be possible, but compilation is viewed as the private activity of a particular user of that system, not as a systemic operation.
discord_bridge[asciilifeform]: (gregorynyssa) The term "oblative" basically means "sideloading." The distribution assumes the existence of a second machine which will cross-compile programs for the present machine.
discord_bridge[asciilifeform]: (gregorynyssa) There is no /lib, nor /usr/lib, nor /usr/include. These are all artifacts of self-hosting.
discord_bridge[asciilifeform]: (gregorynyssa) Another idea which I had was to eliminate sparsive packages not by creating one folder per package (as done by GoboLinux and also explicated in your article) but rather by compiling supportive files such as man-pages directly into the executables.
discord_bridge[asciilifeform]: (gregorynyssa) When man(1) is used to search for a man-page belonging to Section 1 or Section 8, it simply locates the file of that name in /bin (and in /sbin, but I would merge the two folders), treating it as a file-bundle (that is, as a tarball) and peering inside to see whether there is a man-page. If the man-page is p
discord_bridge[asciilifeform]: resent then it is extracted and displayed.
discord_bridge[asciilifeform]: (gregorynyssa) If the man-page is present then it is extracted and displayed.
discord_bridge[asciilifeform]: (gregorynyssa) hapax: https://dpaste.org/tfeMo