Censorship and old less

[h***@cock.li]

A few days ago i wanted to express my opinion on delaying fixes to
critical system components. Looks like the censor disagreed with me.

Alright,
I had a simple use case. Make less quit when the output fits on my
screen. There's a flag for that (--quit-if-one-screen (no you judging
anons, i am not gonna use the short flags because i don't remember
them.... just like you wouldn't use one letter function names or
parameter names unless you were a complete fuckhead (or a C creatin),
i won't use one letter flag names)). So i used it and when the text
was short, it didn't show anything because less clears the screen on
exit. Alright, that's pretty fucked up stupidity right there (like...
do you even test?). But ok, the devs knew they weren't exactly
geniuses and there's a flag for that too (--no-init (see how beautiful
it is when it's clear what it does from the name? you can read these
insults without looking at the manpage to understand why i am
insulting you)). It doesn't sound like exactly what i want but hey,
--no-init or --no-deinit, close enough, right? So i use that and
because it's 2018 i am used to scrolling with the mouse wheel. I do it
without thinking about it. Terminals are retarded enough by using
CTRL+C for something else but you fuckers are not taking scrolling
away from me. But --no-init breaks scrolling with mouse wheel. Because
idk why, i guess just because fuck me. Alright, so i rant on IRC
knowing i can't possibly be the only one who wants sane behavior from
less. And someone helpfully points out --quit-if-one-screen works for
him. So... he has a newer less. By 2 fucking years. At this point it's
clear the non-genius who wrote less is not getting hatemail but you
fuckers are. Because he fixes hit shit. Why the fuck does debian or
ubuntu or whoever retarded (yes, that word fits nicely here) piece of
shit consider it acceptable to ship 2 years old software. I update
every fucking weak and this is what i get? Why do i have to install
nix when debian thinks they have a perfectly good PM? Because those
dipshits don't. It can't handle multiple versions at the same time but
they'd never run into that because having multiple versions would
imply they actually update packages at some point. Fucktards.
Alright, despite sounding like an asshole, i am a pretty smart guy
(more than debian packagers for sure). I can be wrong. If there's a
sane reason for this stupidity, defend yourself. Yes, you can blame
others and i will then hatemail those fuckheads if shipping 2 year old
software is necessary to keep shit working but that would be pretty
fucked up, right? Surely it doesn't take 2 years to fix critical bugs.
Umm, to be clear, this is pointed at idiots who somehow believe they
gain "stability" by ignoring newer versions. Not the users or the
mailinglist, i just picked this one because it had at least some
activity. And seriously, what the fuck do you gain? Last year you had
broken cloc or whatever it was for half a year. And I couldn't update
because of the same reason. The bug was fixed the next week and you
dickheads made me wait for half a fucking year. I didn't like it, i
don't like you... in fact, i fucking hate you. You about you lick my
asshole right after i take a shit and see how you like that???

Yes I read your CoC(k) and that this is about being human or whatever.
For me being human is also expressing me feelings unfiltered.

[J]

On Wed, Nov 7, 2018 at 3:40 PM <***@cock.li> wrote:
Long Rambling invective laden diatribe snipped

Post by h***@cock.li
Yes I read your CoC(k) and that this is about being human or whatever.
For me being human is also expressing me feelings unfiltered.

Perhaps the reason your opinions are not treated with the respect you
feel they deserve is because your diatribe is laden with generic
insults hurled at anyone who cares to ready your drivel. You may well
have some valid points, I couldn't say, because the only thing that
stands out is your attitude towards others. Perhaps if you treated
the readers of this list with the same respect you seem to demand,
you'd be taken more seriously?

[Karl Auer]

Post by J
Long Rambling invective laden diatribe snipped
Perhaps if you treated the readers of this list with the same respect
you seem to demand, you'd be taken more seriously?

Indeed. This is my standard response to such muppets:

https://biplane.com.au/blog/?p=375

It offends me to give the little nasty what he wants, so hopefully this
isn't good enough for him:

Put this in a script or alias and call it e.g. lless:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#!/bin/bash

if [ -z "$1 ] ; then
   echo "No file to display."
   exit 0
fi

L=`tput lines`
W=`tput cols`
F=`wc -l < "$1"`
LL=`wc -L < "$1"`

# If the longest line is longer than the
# terminal width, use ordinary less
if (( $LL > $W )) ; then
      less "$1"
else
   # Otherwise, if the whole thing will fit
   # on the terminal, exit after display
   if (( $L < $F )) ; then
      less "$1"
   else
      less -F -X "$1"
   fi
fi

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That will output all lines and exit without clearing the screen if the
number of lines in the first and only argument is less than the number
of lines in the terminal window AND the longest line will fit in the
terminal width. Written without any testing, so use with care!

If you don't care about lack of mousewheel scrolling, just use "less -F
-X file.txt"

Or update to the latest less :-)

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (***@biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
http://twitter.com/kauer389

GPG fingerprint: A0CD 28F0 10BE FC21 C57C 67C1 19A6 83A4 9B0B 1D75
Old fingerprint: A52E F6B9 708B 51C4 85E6 1634 0571 ADF9 3C1C 6A3A

[Rashkae]

Post by Karl Auer

Post by J
Long Rambling invective laden diatribe snipped
Perhaps if you treated the readers of this list with the same respect
you seem to demand, you'd be taken more seriously?

https://biplane.com.au/blog/?p=375

Thank you for that. Sometimes, far too often, *I* am the one making
complaints.. and in the process of venting my frustrations, I will from
time to time insult the devs in the process. That being said, and
admitting my own foibles, I fully stand behind this sentiment.

[MR ZenWiz]

Post by Karl Auer
https://biplane.com.au/blog/?p=375

Bravo and very well said, Karl. My hat's off to you.

+10!

Mark Richter
Senior Staff Engineer
http://www.linkedin.com/in/markrichter1
FSF Member #12694 http://www.fsf.org
Registered Linux User #472807 http://counter.li.org/

[Gene Heskett]

Post by MR ZenWiz

Post by Karl Auer
https://biplane.com.au/blog/?p=375

Bravo and very well said, Karl. My hat's off to you.
+10!
Mark Richter
Senior Staff Engineer
http://www.linkedin.com/in/markrichter1
FSF Member #12694 http://www.fsf.org
Registered Linux User #472807 http://counter.li.org/

And heres another +10. Well said indeed.
--
Cheers, Gene Heskett
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>

[Jared Norris]

Good morning/afternoon/evening all,

Your friendly moderation team representative here.

I think we can all agree this thread is probably not on topic or using
suitable language and appropriate action was taken at the time. To that end
if we can all please stop this thread and move on to more relevant topics
that would be great.

As always, the moderation team can be reached at
ubuntu-users-***@lists.ubuntu.com if you want to discuss any issues.

Regards,

Jared Norris

[Peter]

Not often I bother to respond to these types of e-mail. People do not
seem to realise just how much they have and need to be grateful for.  I
personally thank all the developers of the various flavor of linux. I
have been using Ubuntu for many years, and while each new version often
presents problems because of changes to the desk top the system is still
much superior to the various commercial offerings.  I should perhaps
mention that I wrote my first computer program in 1958 and have used
computers continually over the last 60 years. I have worked with a range
of operating systems, but since I used the Red Hat version in the late
1980s I have move all of my computers from windows to linux and apart
from one or two programs  ( in the genealogy field) I do not use
windows. I run the genealogy programs using VirtualBox and an old copy
of XP.


Regards


Peter Goggin

Post by Gene Heskett

Post by MR ZenWiz

Post by Karl Auer
https://biplane.com.au/blog/?p=375

Bravo and very well said, Karl. My hat's off to you.
+10!
Mark Richter
Senior Staff Engineer
http://www.linkedin.com/in/markrichter1
FSF Member #12694 http://www.fsf.org
Registered Linux User #472807 http://counter.li.org/

And heres another +10. Well said indeed.

[Tony Arnold]

Peter,

I guess you first started coding in Fortran, if it was in 1958? Or maybe something else? Just curious!

Have you looked at Gramps on Linux for your Genealogy work? I'd be interested in your views on it if you have.

Regards,
Tony.

On Fri, 2018-11-09 at 10:45 +1100, Peter wrote:

Not often I bother to respond to these types of e-mail. People do not

seem to realise just how much they have and need to be grateful for. I

personally thank all the developers of the various flavor of linux. I

have been using Ubuntu for many years, and while each new version often

presents problems because of changes to the desk top the system is still

much superior to the various commercial offerings. I should perhaps

mention that I wrote my first computer program in 1958 and have used

computers continually over the last 60 years. I have worked with a range

of operating systems, but since I used the Red Hat version in the late

1980s I have move all of my computers from windows to linux and apart

from one or two programs ( in the genealogy field) I do not use

windows. I run the genealogy programs using VirtualBox and an old copy

of XP.



Regards



Peter Goggin


On 8/11/18 4:47 pm, Gene Heskett wrote:

On Thursday 08 November 2018 00:17:45 MR ZenWiz wrote:


On Wed, Nov 7, 2018 at 3:56 PM Karl Auer <
Indeed. This is my standard response to such muppets:


<https://biplane.com.au/blog/?p=375>

https://biplane.com.au/blog/?p=375


Bravo and very well said, Karl. My hat's off to you.


+10!


Mark Richter

Senior Staff Engineer

<http://www.linkedin.com/in/markrichter1>

http://www.linkedin.com/in/markrichter1


FSF Member #12694

<http://www.fsf.org>

http://www.fsf.org


Registered Linux User #472807

<http://counter.li.org/>

http://counter.li.org/


And heres another +10. Well said indeed.

[Peter]

First programs were written in autocode for a computer using valves with
an average up time of two hours, then the establishment purchased an IBM
mainframe called Stretch which was the only true scientific computer
made by IBM. We could then use Fortran. The later IBM mainframes were
not really intended for scientific use and could no be used to invert
matrices foe curve fitting because of the limited range of numerical
precision.

I started using DEC mini computers in 1963 or 1964 and micro computers
in 1974  or 1975.  I used other high level languages like cobol and
pascal, started working with relational data bases in 1983 after I came
to Australia.  I retired in 2001.

Regards


Peter Goggin

Post by Tony Arnold
Peter,
I guess you first started coding in Fortran, if it was in 1958? Or
maybe something else? Just curious!
Have you looked at Gramps on Linux for your Genealogy work? I'd be
interested in your views on it if you have.
Regards,
Tony.

Post by Peter
Not often I bother to respond to these types of e-mail. People do not
seem to realise just how much they have and need to be grateful for.  I
personally thank all the developers of the various flavor of linux. I
have been using Ubuntu for many years, and while each new version often
presents problems because of changes to the desk top the system is still
much superior to the various commercial offerings.  I should perhaps
mention that I wrote my first computer program in 1958 and have used
computers continually over the last 60 years. I have worked with a range
of operating systems, but since I used the Red Hat version in the late
1980s I have move all of my computers from windows to linux and apart
from one or two programs  ( in the genealogy field) I do not use
windows. I run the genealogy programs using VirtualBox and an old copy
of XP.
Regards
Peter Goggin

Post by Gene Heskett

Post by Tony Arnold
On Wed, Nov 7, 2018 at 3:56 PM Karl Auer <

Post by Karl Auer
https://biplane.com.au/blog/?p=375

Bravo and very well said, Karl. My hat's off to you.
+10!
Mark Richter
Senior Staff Engineer
http://www.linkedin.com/in/markrichter1
FSF Member #12694
http://www.fsf.org
Registered Linux User #472807
http://counter.li.org/

And heres another +10. Well said indeed.

--
*Tony Arnold* MBCS, CITP | Senior IT Security Analyst | Directorate of
IT Services | G64, Kilburn Building | The University of Manchester |
Manchester M13 9PL | T:[phone] | M:[phone]

[Liam Proven]

First programs were written in autocode for a computer using valves with an average up time of two hours, then the establishment purchased an IBM mainframe called Stretch which was the only true scientific computer made by IBM.

Ooh, an IBM 7030! Nice!

The first IBM supercomputer, the first IBM transistor computer, and
the first computer to use instruction pipelining, prefetch,
speculative execution, branch prediction and recovery, memory
interleaving, multiprogramming, memory protection -- all standard
techniques in PC processors since the Pentium and almost all computers
today.

Roughly an order of magnitude quicker than any other computer in its
day, and roughly an order of magnitude more RAM.

Even so, they only sold 9, I believe, and it was considered a failure.
History sort of proved them wrong there.

https://www.cnet.com/news/fifty-years-later-ibms-inventors-celebrate-the-stretch/

http://www.drdobbs.com/its-not-easy-being-green-or-red-the-ibm/184404433
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: ***@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: ***@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: [phone] - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): [phone]

[Peter]

There were many things that IBM came out with but dropped. One of the
best op systems for micros was OS/2, a true multiusers system. I used it
for a few years and it was far superior to the MS offerings at the tie,
but IBM dropped it.  In the same misguided way they chose MSDos rather
than CP/M for there micro computers.

Regards

Peter Goggin

Post by Liam Proven

First programs were written in autocode for a computer using valves with an average up time of two hours, then the establishment purchased an IBM mainframe called Stretch which was the only true scientific computer made by IBM.

Ooh, an IBM 7030! Nice!
The first IBM supercomputer, the first IBM transistor computer, and
the first computer to use instruction pipelining, prefetch,
speculative execution, branch prediction and recovery, memory
interleaving, multiprogramming, memory protection -- all standard
techniques in PC processors since the Pentium and almost all computers
today.
Roughly an order of magnitude quicker than any other computer in its
day, and roughly an order of magnitude more RAM.
Even so, they only sold 9, I believe, and it was considered a failure.
History sort of proved them wrong there.
https://www.cnet.com/news/fifty-years-later-ibms-inventors-celebrate-the-stretch/
http://www.drdobbs.com/its-not-easy-being-green-or-red-the-ibm/184404433

[Joel Rees]

Post by Peter

Post by Peter
First programs were written in autocode for a computer using valves with

an average up time of two hours, then the establishment purchased an IBM
mainframe called Stretch which was the only true scientific computer made
by IBM.
Ooh, an IBM 7030! Nice!
The first IBM supercomputer, the first IBM transistor computer, and
the first computer to use instruction pipelining, prefetch,
speculative execution, branch prediction and recovery, memory
interleaving, multiprogramming, memory protection -- all standard
techniques in PC processors since the Pentium and almost all computers
today.
Roughly an order of magnitude quicker than any other computer in its
day, and roughly an order of magnitude more RAM.
Even so, they only sold 9, I believe, and it was considered a failure.
History sort of proved them wrong there.
https://www.cnet.com/news/fifty-years-later-ibms-inventors-celebrate-the-stretch/
http://www.drdobbs.com/its-not-easy-being-green-or-red-the-ibm/184404433

Heh. Channeling on Don Mclean's Vincent (aka Starry, Starry Night).

Things that work right just aren't meant for this world.

If you want it to succeed in the market, you have to get it out there
before you have it working right.

[Jonesy via ubuntu-users]

Post by Joel Rees

Post by Peter

Post by Peter
First programs were written in autocode for a computer using valves with

an average up time of two hours, then the establishment purchased an IBM
mainframe called Stretch which was the only true scientific computer made
by IBM.
Ooh, an IBM 7030! Nice!
The first IBM supercomputer, the first IBM transistor computer, and
the first computer to use instruction pipelining, prefetch,
speculative execution, branch prediction and recovery, memory
interleaving, multiprogramming, memory protection -- all standard
techniques in PC processors since the Pentium and almost all computers
today.
Roughly an order of magnitude quicker than any other computer in its
day, and roughly an order of magnitude more RAM.
Even so, they only sold 9, I believe, and it was considered a failure.
History sort of proved them wrong there.
https://www.cnet.com/news/fifty-years-later-ibms-inventors-celebrate-the-stretch/
http://www.drdobbs.com/its-not-easy-being-green-or-red-the-ibm/184404433

Heh. Channeling on Don Mclean's Vincent (aka Starry, Starry Night).
Things that work right just aren't meant for this world.
If you want it to succeed in the market, you have to get it out there
before you have it working right.

Thus the success of the IBM SYS/360

Jonesy
First [SYSTEM RESET] [START] [START] 1966

[Colin Law]

To bring this back somewhat to the topic, is there a good reason why
an old version of less is shipped (even with 18.10).

Colin

[Joel Rees]

Post by Colin Law
To bring this back somewhat to the topic, is there a good reason why
an old version of less is shipped (even with 18.10).

You mean, besides the general concept of not being too perfect for the
market?

;-)

I may have vague memories of having observed a thread on the question.

But I may be confusing it with threads on why less is more. (Really big
hint to the OP here.)

Basically, the OP seems to be a lazy (whatever) who wants his world perfect
according to his tomorrow's definition yesterday, so that when the boss
gives him a problem to solve he can already have it solved.

Life (and standard tools to be called from *sh) are not context free.
"Fixing" the behavior of stadard tools like system pagers has a ripple
effect, and should generally be held off to see what the consequences are
unless there are serious security issues.

If a particular user doesn't like things like the behavior of his system
pager's default behaviour, he should use alias -- or other local changes to
the shell login script, or local scripts in ${HOME}/bin or such -- to
override them. Carefully. And instead of ranting about how everybody else
must be wrong, he should ask for help figuring out where and how to tune
his own operating environment.

If he produces something that seems to be useful to lots of other users, he
might take it to the devs to ask if they are interested in adding it to the
default pager. That's basically how more/less got all the optional
behaviors they/it have/has now.

[Joel Rees]

Post by Colin Law
To bring this back somewhat to the topic, is there a good reason why
an old version of less is shipped (even with 18.10).

[Lots of hot air]

But of course you know this, Colin. So what were you trying to point out
that I'm missing?

[Colin Law]

Post by Colin Law
To bring this back somewhat to the topic, is there a good reason why
an old version of less is shipped (even with 18.10).

[Lots of hot air]

But of course you know this, Colin. So what were you trying to point out that I'm missing?

Forgetting about the OP (which is the best plan I am sure), I was
actually wondering why Ubuntu is shipping an old version of less,
which does have some enhancements apparently. Curiosity rather than
any pressing need for it though.

Colin

[Colin Watson]

Post by Colin Law
To bring this back somewhat to the topic, is there a good reason why
an old version of less is shipped (even with 18.10).

Because the Debian maintainer apparently hasn't got round to it yet
(https://bugs.debian.org/892879, though perhaps concerns about
https://bugs.debian.org/906261 are slowing things down), and nobody in
Ubuntu has felt it important enough to diverge from Debian. I don't
think there's anything more significant than that going on.

[Colin Law]

Post by Colin Watson

Post by Colin Law
To bring this back somewhat to the topic, is there a good reason why
an old version of less is shipped (even with 18.10).

Because the Debian maintainer apparently hasn't got round to it yet
(https://bugs.debian.org/892879, though perhaps concerns about
https://bugs.debian.org/906261 are slowing things down), and nobody in
Ubuntu has felt it important enough to diverge from Debian. I don't
think there's anything more significant than that going on.

OK, thanks.

Colin

Post by Colin Watson
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Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users

[Peter Flynn]

Post by Tony Arnold
Have you looked at Gramps on Linux for your Genealogy work? I'd be
interested in your views on it if you have.

[Different Peter here]

I'm using it quite a lot now. It's excellent, although there are a few
usability glitches which make certain operations extraordinarily hard to
find.

P

[Ken D'Ambrosio]

Post by Karl Auer
https://biplane.com.au/blog/?p=375

Heh. Your and my starts with Linux seem to parallel each other rather
nicely -- nothing beat downloading those zillions of Slackware floppies
one at at time. However, I'm a-gonna put my nitpick hat on: there was
no 6.04 Ubuntu. That was the time that Shuttleworth delayed release by
two months for bug squashing; Dapper Drake was 6.06, and my first
release as well.

$.02,

-Ken

[Karl Auer]

Heh.  Your and my starts with Linux seem to parallel each other
rather nicely -- nothing beat downloading those zillions of Slackware
there was no 6.04 Ubuntu.  That was the time that Shuttleworth
delayed release by two months for bug squashing; Dapper Drake was
6.06, and my first release as well.

You inspired me to visit the Vault and drag out the first Ubuntu disks
I ever installed from. Two *real* Ubuntu CDs, obtained from Canonical
and given to me by the guy who first introduced me to Ubuntu. It turns
out my memory was even more wrong than we thought - they are marked
"Version 5.10 for your PC".

I distinctly recall Dapper Drake though (well the name, anyway), so I'm
guessing it was my first upgrade.

Regards, K.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (***@biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
http://twitter.com/kauer389

GPG fingerprint: A0CD 28F0 10BE FC21 C57C 67C1 19A6 83A4 9B0B 1D75
Old fingerprint: A52E F6B9 708B 51C4 85E6 1634 0571 ADF9 3C1C 6A3A

[Liam Proven]

Post by Karl Auer
I distinctly recall Dapper Drake though (well the name, anyway), so I'm
guessing it was my first upgrade.

Warty Warthog FTW.

After a while of watching www.nonameyet.com for announcements... Which
it seems Canonical have now sold...
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: ***@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: ***@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: [phone] - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): [phone]

[Dave Stevens]

On Wed, 07 Nov 2018 21:38:19 +0100

despite sounding like an asshole

+1
--
In modern fantasy (literary or governmental), killing people is the
usual solution to the so-called war between good and evil. My books are
not conceived in terms of such a war, and offer no simple answers to
simplistic questions.

----- Ursula Le Guin