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Devuan "discourse" down with expired cert as of yesterday

Sun Sep 18, 2016 8:19 pm

So the kinda-forum there has an expired cert now, can still get in of course....

I am in the big love with Devuan, but man that forum is all but unuseable. I understand their reasoning and wanting to try something new, and for the devs and people working on it IRC works better i'm sure.

But for my use anyway it's just bad. So not much in the way of support questions, which may be a relief to devs, but will limit who will use Devuan IMO. Also limit user-feedback which can be important. And also potential testing and input from intermediate users who would like to help. But maybe that's not a priority for the folks who work on it.

Dang shame. This forum is simple and works fine, no reason to change, kinda like sysvinit vs. systemd which is why the forum design over there is a bit perplexing given the philosophy that gave birth to Devuan in the first place. :?

All in all no biggie I reckon, just thinking out loud while Snapshot squashes on the other machine. :mrgreen:

Re: Devuan "discourse" down with expired cert as of yesterda

Sun Sep 18, 2016 8:42 pm

I left a note for hellekin on irc to fix the cert. I'll leave another one now. As to discourse . . . couldn't agree more. Perhaps you should post your comments to the dng ML. It could change things (but don't count on it).

Re: Devuan "discourse" down with expired cert as of yesterda

Mon Sep 19, 2016 7:18 am

if devuan is wildly successful, there will be things about it we hate. i mean truly loathe. well, i cant speak for all of us.

that "forum" software was the first thing, for me. i tried using it, signed up, tried posting-- everything about it is wrong. it cant decide whether its a wiki or forum-- its being used as a wiki and advertised as a forum.

since people will want a forum, and they want a wiki, they should just use a wiki. but-- but-- you can get at that thing from a mailing list!

if using discourse is like trying to budge a sedated elephant, then waiting for gitlabs ajax goodness to load is like cruising down the interstate in an old jeep. i mean theyre both leisurely, but with discourse you can actually go on holiday, come back, and your post will have caught up with your typing.

of course for most people it "just works." as does giving up entirely on the idea of devuan having a real forum, because i ignore discourse completely except when someone mentions how awful it is. let the cert stay expired.

Re: Devuan "discourse" down with expired cert as of yesterda

Mon Sep 19, 2016 8:42 pm

golinux wrote:I left a note for hellekin on irc to fix the cert. I'll leave another one now. As to discourse . . . couldn't agree more. Perhaps you should post your comments to the dng ML. It could change things (but don't count on it).


I already commented in one thread there, was agreeing with some other folks who expressed the same sentiment, so that's enough from me about it on their forum. I just posted that the forum set-up for me personally would most definitely limit any contributions I could make, reporting bugs, testing etc.

Looks like they renewed the cert, as it's back up.

I just really hope it doesn't affect them negatively, between Devuan and Refracta this is the most enthusiastic i've felt about linux in 4-5 years, I had completely gotten out of doing anything but just using it as a browser-life-support-system, now I want to contribute again and learn more.

Re: Devuan "discourse" down with expired cert as of yesterda

Mon Sep 19, 2016 9:57 pm

Toward trying to understand "what's appealing to the devs who adopt use of Discourse?", I checked out its platform requirements.
Oh man, I wouldn't wish that **** on anyone! I mean, you're resigned to dedicating an entire VPS to its use -- unlike phpbb or smf or whatever alternative. So, what in fact is appealing? Seriously (and sadly) my takeaway is "someone knows someone" and they rub each others' backs to get this awful "nextgen" software into use (my buddy's pet project, fiance of my daughter's bbf works over there, so help me out...)

In this (devuan) case, can we just shrug and chalk it up to learning curves and growing pains?
I don't think so. Expect devuan (if it survives) to follow the course of Slackware -- unapproachable, not intended for direct use by "mere mortal" endusers.

Although I detest paging through "mailinglist" archives, morbid curiousity occasionally leads me to do so.
At each catchup reading, all I see is a handful of self-important dweebs running in circles, attempting to decide-by-committee whether suchandsuch shade of blue is officially acceptable for use in the branding logo.

In light of what has (and has not) transpired, due to my earlier degree of enthusiasm yep I'm feeling bitter.
Fool(ed) me once, shame on me...

Re: Devuan "discourse" down with expired cert as of yesterda

Mon Sep 19, 2016 10:09 pm

thwak wrote:
In this (devuan) case, can we just shrug and chalk it up to learning curves and growing pains?
I don't think so. Expect devuan (if it survives) to follow the course of Slackware -- unapproachable, not intended for direct use by "mere mortal" endusers.


Boy I hope that's not what happens........I e-mailed one of the devs when I started this a couple weeks ago, just to touch base and make sure they were okay with me chopping on their distro and re-mastering it for a liveCD, and the guy who replied was super-nice and encouraging, made me very enthusiastic going forward.

But stuff happens in the 'nix world....that's what made me go to Debian when 8 came out, was really burnt-out on distro meltdowns.

Such is life, if it happens I reckon Refractasnapshot and Installer will work as good on Debian as they do on anything else. ;) And i'll just have to deal with systemd. :roll:

Re: Devuan "discourse" down with expired cert as of yesterda

Tue Sep 20, 2016 12:48 am

Two quick things...

The devuan devs (a bunch of sysadmins) are very happy to have people make remixes or derivatives of devuan.

Refracta tools grew up on debian. Last time I checked, which was a few months ago, refractasnapshot still works with debian with systemd. And when live-boot and live-config stop working, I expect we'll be using open-infrastructure-system-boot and open-infrastructure-system-config. (And glad we don't have to type that every time we want to use it.)

OK, three. I can't find my way around that site either. And the gitlab is just as bad.

Re: Devuan "discourse" down with expired cert as of yesterda

Tue Sep 20, 2016 2:48 am

greenjeans wrote:Dang shame. This forum is simple and works fine, no reason to change, kinda like sysvinit vs. systemd which is why the forum design over there is a bit perplexing given the philosophy that gave birth to Devuan in the first place. :?

Exactly my thoughts, until i realized you already nailed it.
(but then: forums seem pretty dead anyway ... ).

Re: Devuan "discourse" down with expired cert as of yesterda

Tue Sep 20, 2016 2:51 am

thwak wrote:In this (devuan) case, can we just shrug and chalk it up to learning curves and growing pains?
I don't think so. Expect devuan (if it survives) to follow the course of Slackware -- unapproachable, not intended for direct use by "mere mortal" endusers.

Tell me about it. Been struggling with Slackware during the last weeks. Not exactly what i would call comfortable ... (Salix is probably a good workaround. Or perhaps VectorLinux).

Re: Devuan "discourse" down with expired cert as of yesterda

Tue Sep 20, 2016 6:00 am

i commented on the approachability of the devuan team recently, and it was mostly negative. and then theres the forum-- i covered that too.

gitlab and the mailing lists are going to get mixed reviews-- i think gitlab is a really excellent idea-- host your own web-based git interface without hoping that some giant corporation wont purchase github someday. the implementation is awful, but thats probably 90% git-is-git and 10% really stupid ajax. compare that to discourse: 10% good idea, 50% really stupid ajax and 40% stupid layout.

irc stays dead, so you can read the logs with a stupid bloated ajaxy reader. but the same guys that ask you to take it elsewhere for being off-topic are just as off-topic themselves, with the worst offenders (i dont have a double standard about this-- a lively community is better than a log, but a cabal of chatters and a cadre of peons sent off to #debianfork might as well not bother with #devuan) constantly spamming the channel with a bot no one but one person sets up to abuse everyone with-- and hes a complete set of jacka**es when called out.

between the stupid forum i cant complain about, a mailing list i cant follow because its too busy (no, thats actually fine-- i used to follow it about 90% of the total) and an intolerable irc channel, it would be really nice to get the ajax out of gitlab. but i suppose thats what the command line is for.

im sorry, i did have a point here. i think devuan is a great distro, but the above has convinced me to limit my involvement with the devuan community. its just POINTLESS to try-- and if im not trying, im not staying up on it, im not providing support to devuan users, i dont even know what devuan is LIKE anymore-- im using refracta these days (and my own remaster of that.)

but i dont blame the devs for this-- their isolation was legitimate and caused by the absolutely endless sjw-like abuse from debians systemd fans-- who to this day smear the devs for the actions of other parties.

the devuan community (apart from anyone here i mean) is clearly something i wont be a part of, however. as much as im a fan of steve litt, and as much as i would love to thank devuan for all it does, i thought i might be part of a community like when debian first started.

i dunno if thats going to happen for anyone, but it didnt happen (and wont likely happen) for me. im done there-- and where i agree with other (also negative) posts on this subject is there are no signs of change for the better on that front.

thank you for reminding me that its not just me that notices. regarding the little group of fans forming there-- well, its just too bad. ive moved on but i wont lie about a slightly bitter taste. theres already some toxic cabal bs forming there-- perhaps it will improve, perhaps it will go the other way. i know jono bacon isnt the solution, and neither is a code of conduct. the solution is better people. well short of that, a warning against trying to force it: http://slated.org/respect_freedom_not_pragmatism

i wouldnt even be talking about this, but i dont want anyone to assume that this is about the devs. they really have it tough enough as it is, and theres next to nothing i can do to help them with this issue. i dont even want to anymore, its too annoying and its really not their fault.

the devs not only have more important things to do than build a community-- they hopefully always will. its up to other people to build that community, and theyre doing a really sh** job so far. so sh** that its actually the one thing i think could limit devuans success-- more than secure boot, more than systemd trolls, more than fud about the technical ambitions, the community just really sucks. good luck to them.
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