The perfect Linux analogy

rmcellig · 2014-05-08 15:54:13

This is not meant to be some kind of a joke but something that I feel deeply about and I think it makes a ton of sense.

My wife and I do a lot of home cooking. We are always trying out new things, different ingredients, referring to cookbooks or online sources for tips and information. Then it dawned on me that Linux is the same thing. The other two mainstream OS's are like buying pre-packaged food, and Linux is like home cooking. Make sense. When you think about it there is a lot of truth regarding this. Maybe this is why after decades of using pre-packaged, I finally see the light when it comes to Linux. It might be frustrating and you may have to try stuff out several times to get it right but for me, it's the road in getting there that fascinates me and motivates me to explore and try different things. My cookbooks are the online support forums and any other resources I can find that will help me enjoy linux more.

In this quick paced packaged world that we live in, I find Linux is a breath of fresh air that needs to be appreciated and nurtured just like real food and ....well you guess it. Cooking. Some people may view linux as just a pile of code or distros that we use on a regular basis. I see it as way more than this. For me, it keeps me unsettled and always learning. And that means the world to me.

Any comments? How do you view this Linux way of computing?

Bearded_Blunder · 2014-05-08 16:17:24

Well I agree to a point, however, certain major disros fit the ready-meal pattern too.. operating on the principle that they should pile the ENTIRE buffet on your plate, without asking, so you have 10 text editors, 4 word processors etc.... (and next to no space left on the partition you made for them).

Your analogy only really holds for the "lightweight" distros.

xor · 2014-05-08 16:19:19

i used to tell interested people something like this: "linux is like LEGO (tm) ! you select the components you want, put them together in they want you like it, and there you go ! in more technical terms, it is a platform with a modular design. use what you need/want, remove what you want go get rid of. you don't like bananas ? OK, then try these grapes instead ! in most cases there is far more than just a single solution to a requirement. e.g. think of network-manager and wicd."

CSCoder4ever · 2014-05-08 16:19:20

Makes total sense, also explains why SliTaz has a "cooking" release of their distro lol.

Last edited by CSCoder4ever (2014-05-08 16:20:58)

damo · 2014-05-08 16:21:59

CSCoder4ever wrote:

Makes total sense, also explains why SliTaz has a "cooking" release of their distro lol.

...and don't forget all the carnivores roasting and cooking at Linux BBQ

Alad · 2014-05-08 16:22:02

OP: Well I'm afraid things are not that simple. First you have all the dependencies that come with your apps, making it difficult to pull in separate components. Try for example to install dolphin or gnome-control-center. It would turn #! to GNOMEBang or KDEBang. To some extent this depends on what package manager your distro uses (or does not use).

Then there's all the crapware that seems so hard to avoid in Linux, like udisks/2, pulseaudio, systemd, and so on.

Last edited by Alad (2014-05-08 16:24:24)

CSCoder4ever · 2014-05-08 16:29:12

damo wrote:

CSCoder4ever wrote:
Makes total sense, also explains why SliTaz has a "cooking" release of their distro lol.
...and don't forget all the carnivores roasting and cooking at Linux BBQ

And fedora's beefy miracle release! :>

Last edited by CSCoder4ever (2014-05-08 16:29:43)

xero · 2014-05-08 16:33:00

linux is delicious.

intoCB · 2014-05-08 17:16:16

I know what you mean. Everything in Linux is blends and flavours of the same thing. You pick this or that according to taste and you don't hear yucky words like premium. I like Linux because it just feels right and like modern computing should be. Computers bored me till I found Linux. Now, they still bore me but in a different, more better way.

Last edited by intoCB (2014-05-08 17:17:09)

rmcellig · 2014-05-08 17:30:12

Sector11 · 2014-05-08 19:03:48

Alad wrote:

Then there's all the crapware that seems so hard to avoid in Linux, like udisks/2, pulseaudio, systemd, and so on.

Yea, I just had systemd and udisk2 added to my Linux stewing pot ... leaves a bitter taste.

I like the cookbook analogy.

apt-get is the spice rack, if you're not careful even the local pig farms will refuse the meal.

Prepackages meals (OS's and Distros) - but the spice rack is always there.

Different Distros can be treated like different 'sections' in the Cook Book.

There's Heavy Meals, Light Meals, Appitizers and Fast Foods.

Once you have the 'recipe' it can always be modified.

Pass the steak and taters please!!

Head_on_a_Stick · 2014-05-08 19:17:07

rmcellig wrote:

Any comments? How do you view this Linux way of computing?

Like windows, but more fiddly & less user-friendly...

Iranon · 2014-05-08 19:32:26

I made the same connection.

Much food is over-processed over-priced and over-marketed crud that should be avoided.
Many kitchen appliances are ridiculous and unnecessary if one knows how to use basic tools properly.

pvsage · 2014-05-08 20:07:58

intoCB wrote:

Computers bored me till I found Linux. Now, they still bore me but in a different, more better way.

No bitter aftertaste! 8o

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

rmcellig wrote:
Any comments? How do you view this Linux way of computing?
Like windows, but more fiddly & more user-friendly...

Fixed it for ya.

As for things like systemd and packages that pull in entire DEs as dependencies, I see those as cases of "too many cooks spoil the broth."

rmcellig · 2014-05-08 20:46:32

Iranon wrote:

I
Many kitchen appliances are ridiculous and unnecessary if one knows how to use basic tools properly.

And the one appliance I still can't figure out why it was invented is the dishwasher. People will waste so much time filling this machine with dishes and then complain that there are no dishes available for diner or whatever. Washing dishes by hand saves water, is fast and if so be you can have actual conversations with people helping you out. That's what I love and want to preserve. So the linux side of it for me would be for example Crunchbang. There are distros out there that many people love and that's fine, but Crunchbang allows me to do the things I need to do quickly and efficiently.

I don't know if I am making any sense but there has to be a reason why I keep coming back to this amazing distro even though I still don't understand many things, I just keep at it and push ahead like when I make something in the kitchen that is worthy being tossed in the garbage and then next time understanding what I did and improved on that. To me that's exciting, fun and well, introduces all kinds of possibilities!

Sector11 · 2014-05-08 20:48:10

pvsage wrote:

As for things like systemd and packages that pull in entire DEs as dependencies, I see those as cases of "too many cooks spoil the broth."

Well said!

And for those spice bottles that come with every spice in the world ... they can be countered with the good old fashioned One Spice to Rule Them All:

SpiceRack used:
--no-install-recommends

O:)

jdonaghy · 2014-05-08 23:45:27

I like it. Especially if we are talking about so called meta-distributions. Arch, Gentoo, Void (even if Void refuses to work for me), Debian netinstalls, etc.

gutterslob · 2014-05-09 12:11:44

pvsage wrote:

As for things like systemd and packages that pull in entire DEs as dependencies, I see those as cases of "too many cooks spoil the broth."

Not really. It's usually just one celebrity chef that ruins it for everyone. Pretty similar to real cooking, in that sense.

Last edited by gutterslob (2014-05-09 12:13:23)

Unia · 2014-05-09 13:49:17

The only issue I have with this analogy is that I can cook, but so far failed to manage an LFS install.. 8.(

Or is my cooking not good enough? ]:D

gutterslob · 2014-05-09 14:02:52

^ To install LFS you need to be a lvl 60+ noodle mage.

CSCoder4ever · 2014-05-09 14:03:45

^ Well you know what they say, practice makes perfect, so... keep at it lol 8o

Sector11 · 2014-05-09 14:41:03

@ gutterslob for both posts ...

You kill me!!

Aaron_ON · 2014-05-09 18:09:32

Iranon wrote:

I made the same connection.
Many kitchen appliances are ridiculous and unnecessary if one knows how to use basic tools properly.

My wife is a chef and her kitchen tools at home are a set of good knives, mixer, food processor and at work it's pretty much the same. My sister-in-law that is a big Food Network fan has a kitchen that is chocked full of every gadget you can think of and must have cost a fortune and her food is still terrible.

I think the analogy fits pretty well. With Linux you can do whatever you want and make something as simple or complicated as you like. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it because there are just so many options it's tempting to try them all but after doing far too many reinstalls I've kept my tinkering to very very VERY tiny steps and only once I've found I've avoided disaster do I move on. Just like home cooking the urge to deviate a bit from the recipe can pay off or leave you with a mess that goes straight in the trash.

damo · 2014-05-09 18:41:34

So, depending on the distro, how long do you think it is safe to keep the portions that haven't been used? I'm thinking that with linux I can just shop online for the ingredients I need, and I don't need to keep much in the fridge. But with windoze, ubuntu etc I would have to do a bulk supermarket shop.

#!_828 · 2014-05-09 23:29:02

xero wrote:

linux is delicious.

Exactly. Now I'm hungry, though But on a related note, yeah, Linux is like cooking your own food, whereas Windows is like one of those expensive French restaurants where you can maybe get little tweaks here & there, but ultimately the chef starts swearing at you & chases you out of the restaurant. Then Apple products (1999 & onwards) are like Michael Bloomberg, who will lock you up in jail for having a soda that's a drop over 16oz. & has calorie counts posted everywhere, hovering over you with a police baton, ready to bash open your skull if you go a crumb over your daily calorie allowance

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The perfect Linux analogy

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