/dev/chat

6:51 AM

Purpose of /bin says, Essential command binaries that need to be available in single user mode; for all users, e.g., cat, ls, cp.

Purpose of /usr/bin says, Non-essential command binaries (not needed in single user mode); for all users.

Could not understand the difference, as it says, for all users,

Faheem Mitha

8:00 AM

@overexchange The difference is presumably the single user mode thing.

That's often rescue/recovery mode.

terdon

8:55 AM

@countermode @jasonwryan @dr01 @JennyD please don't use the "request for learning materials" randomly for any question you don't like! How is this question a request for learning materials? It may be a crappy question, but like it or not it's on topic. If you feel the OP hasn't done enough (or any) research, then downvote. That's one of the main things downvotes are for: lack of research. But don't abuse close reasons to get rid of bad questions.

Faheem Mitha

9:06 AM

@terdon Yes, that's definitely not a request for learning materials.

terdon

This has been bugging me for a while now. Many people seem to be abusing that close reason to get rid of questions they don't like.

15

A: Are we abusing "Request for learning materials" as a reason to close?

I don't see how any of your examples were requests for learning materials. Execute command on ranger selection has now been reopened. What is the difference between Docker, LXD, and LXC looks like it should be too broad but has received what appear to be two very good answers, one of which ha...

countermode

@terdon for me this question smells like "how to use the desktop". It is not that I don't like the question, I just believe that the question is not about skype at all but about fundamental desktop usage.

terdon

@countermode Fundamental OS usage even, yes it is. What it isn't is a request for learning materials. Or in any way off topic.

It's a crappy question, no doubt about that, but it is not asking for a tutorial or other learning materials and it is on topic.

Just downvote and ignore it.

Or answer it.

countermode

I take the liberty to disagree in this case, yet I'll take it into account for the future

terdon

@countermode You think it is requesting learning materials?

How?

countermode

9:20 AM

For me the question on how to do basic things is, in some sense, a request for tutorial guidance

terdon

@countermode No. Requests for tutorials are questions asking where they can find a video or an existing online tutorial. It is not about questions whose answer, if posted, would be a tutorial. Nothing wrong with those.

The only reason we have this close reason in the first place is to stop questions that are asking for links to external resources.

countermode

ok, got it

terdon

Here's the meta post that led to the creation of the close reason:

15

Q: How do we feel about requests for learning materials?

We recently had a brief discussion in chat about this question which asks for learning materials (specifically, online video courses). I feel that such questions are not a good fit for the site because: They are not about a problem. The SE network specializes in giving specific solutions to spe...

@countermode Cool, thanks :)

Faheem Mitha

10:04 AM

@terdon Huh? It does? I see gareth complaining that people are abusing the "learning materials" close reason. With a reply by you, and jason.

But maybe I've finally fallen off the edge into senility.

terdon

@FaheemMitha You're looking at the first one I posted, the one about abusing the close reason. The one which led to its creation is the second one, the one just above here.

Faheem Mitha

@terdon I refreshed, and now I see it. I'm not sure what was going on.

dr01

10:58 AM

@terdon Hi, which question are you referring to?

Could you please add a link?

terdon

@dr01 Yeah, the link is there but it's very easy to miss in chat. It's in the word "this". Hell, I know it's there and it's hard to see. Anyway, this one:

-2

Q: Open installed software with terminal

I have installed skype from the terminal on my Ubuntu with sudo apt install skype. Now, how can I open skype from the terminal?

terminal skype

dr01

Thanks. I voted to close it for "trivial question for which OP didn't do any research before posting" but this is not listed amongst the reasons for closing. I wasn't sure which option should be chosen so I saw other people flagged it as "request for learning material" and I went with the crowd.

@terdon Sorry, I forgot to mention your nickname in my reply above so you could be notified.

Faheem Mitha

@dr01 Going with the crowd is rarely a good idea. :-)

terdon

@dr01 That's the thing though. "trivial question for which OP didn't do any research before posting" is not a reason to close, it is a reason to downvote.

dr01

@FaheemMitha But taking advice from those more experienced than you is :-)

Faheem Mitha

11:10 AM

@dr01 Um. Advice?

terdon

As a general rule, we close questions only if they are off topic. If they're just crap, we downvote.

dr01

@terdon I see now. Thanks for clarifying this. I would have voted-close the question as "too broad".

terdon

@dr01 But it isn't too broad. If anything, it is too specific (since the answer is the same for pretty much any piece of software).

Don't think you need to close any question that's bad. Bad questions should be downvoted, off topic ones should be closed.

But closing on-topic crap as off topic just confuses users as to the site's scope.

So, crap -> downvote. Off topic (crap or brilliant) -> close.

dr01

@terdon What about "send me teh codez" questions?

Faheem Mitha

@dr01 What kind of codez?

dr01

11:16 AM

@FaheemMitha Any kind of question where the OP asks the readers to write a script for him/her.

terdon

@dr01 Too broad, OK.

But that's not off topic.

@FaheemMitha That's SE-speak for lazy question where the OP has done no work and has shown no attempts and just expects us to do their work for them.

Faheem Mitha

@dr01 That would depend on the script.

The convention seems to be that shell scripting is on topic, but PHP (for example) isn't.

@terdon Yes, I'm familiar with the phrase.

terdon

@FaheemMitha Yeah, but "I need a script that does foo, bar and baz" (with no other information or attempts shown) is not a good question and should be closed as too broad. Just not as off topic.

Faheem Mitha

@terdon ok

dr01

11:50 AM

@terdon @FaheemMitha As I see it, "send me teh PHP codez" -> closed as too broad. Good question about PHP scripting -> closed as off-topic and migrated to SO.

terdon

@dr01 Yes, that sounds reasonable.

Jenny D

12:03 PM

@terdon You're right, I'm sorry and will do better here.

terdon

@JennyD no worries, thanks :)

Kusalananda

12:16 PM

Ow, forgot I had the yellow bash badge and single-handedly closed this question. I'm not used to having power like that. Let me know if I was totally off track on this occasion.

terdon

Oh hey, you have a gold bash badge? Nicely done!

@Kusalananda I think this might be a better target:

33

Q: Does ~ always equal $HOME

I know this has probably been asked before, but I couldn't find it with Google. Given Linux Kernel No configurations that change $HOME bash Will ~ == $HOME be true?

bash shell environment-variables home

The one you closed against is discussing zsh and dd.

Kusalananda

@terdon Yes, and it's not even my shell of choice. @Terdon, I believe I closed that question far too prematurely. Could you reopen it?

The Q requires an answer. He's not only using =~ but also uses the wrong path.

@terdon Thanks for fixing the dupe. I'll be more careful reading the tags list in the future... :-/

terdon

12:32 PM

@Kusalananda Yeah, but as it stands, I'd just close it again as unclear. I left a comment, let's see if the OP responds.

@Kusalananda Nah, the whole idea of the gold tag is that we trust your opinion so that if you think it's a dupe, the site agrees.

Granted, you chose the wrong target this time, but don't worry too much. You'll find you're usually right.

Kusalananda

Your a good moderator @terdon. And I saw you became a moderator on the bioinformatics forum too, right?

Henry WH Hack v2.0

WOW he did?

Kusalananda

I may have jumped to conclusions.

6

Q: Moderator Pro Tem Announcement

Throughout the beta, we need members from the site whose focus is to engage the community, both in community-building issues and site management. That's why we select a few members from each community to act as temporary, provisional Moderators. You can read about the program here: Moderators Pro...

discussion featured moderation

Henry WH Hack v2.0

Oh that

Note: SE is not a forum.

terdon

@Kusalananda Yeah, appointed, not elected though. I haven't duped another bunch of unsuspected users into voting for me yet :P

Kusalananda

12:38 PM

@HenryWHHackv2.0 I know. Old habit of mine. I started correcting it as you showed up.

Henry WH Hack v2.0

The forums has poisoned our minds. (Not minds.)

I have no idea what that^ means.

terdon

Imagine how the rest of us feel. . .

Faheem Mitha

3:44 PM

@dr01 IMO "send me teh PHP codez" -> closed as off-topic and not migrated. Because crap questions should not be migrated.

Priya Bansal

Hey guys. Have a couple questions about the booting process and device tree blobs

For example, is bootcode.bin always the same no matter what operating system you're on or what platform you're using?

Faheem Mitha

@HenryWHHackv2.0 It isn't? What's a forum, anyway?

Jenny D

@terdon Thanks for telling me, it's hard to learn to do better unless someone tells you what you're doing wrong...

Kusalananda

@PriyaBansal I've never heard of bootcode.bin.

@JennyD Word.

Faheem Mitha

@PriyaBansal That sounds more like a question for Superuser.

Priya Bansal

3:55 PM

What's superuser?

Oh, is that a person lol

Sounds like a bot or something :P

Faheem Mitha

@PriyaBansal superuser.com. Another of the SE sites.

Priya Bansal

Ah

Thanks

Faheem Mitha

U&L is Unix and Linux. If your question is OS-agnostic, which seems to be the case, it isn't a good fit for the site.

But a little more context might be helpful.

derobert

@PriyaBansal I think Stack Exchange might have an embedded site, that would be a better fit than Super User. Check the list of sites @ stackexchange.com

Hmmm. I guess we don't, unless its Arduino or RPi.

Henry WH Hack v2.0

@FaheemMitha I am not the person who uses forums that much.

So I don't really know.

Well a forum is more based on discussion.

terdon

4:06 PM

@derobert Embedded unix-like systems are on topic here. And at least one of the regulars is an expert on embedded systems so he should be able to help.

@Gilles wasn't there an embedded OS site at some point? Or was it just a proposal?

Jenny D

@terdon does that mean that raspberry pi questions would be on topic here? Because we get a few of them on Serverfault and they get closed

derobert

@terdon I'm guessing bootcode.bin is the vendor's weird bootloader. So probably nothing to do with Unix.

@JennyD if they're about Unix on it, yeah. If they're about the hardware, probably not... Though there is Raspberry Pi.

Raspbian is more or less the same as Debian. No reason we shouldn't accept questions about it.

terdon

@JennyD Yes, sure. If the Pi is running a *nix, they're on topic. It's just that the Pi is kind of weird so often a better home for them would be Raspberry Pi

Jenny D

@derobert Yeah, it's the ones about e.g. running apache on it, or having weird login issues, stuff like that... I'll make a note of migrating them here instead then.

derobert

OTOH, if they want to know about hooking up transistors to the GPIO pins... probably not here.

terdon

4:10 PM

@derobert Yes, @PriyaBansal mentioned that they're building their own OS though so I thought if the question is a generic "How can I make my custom nix-like OS boot on hardware X", it might be OK here.

But I know next to nothing about how that thing works, so I'm sure you're right.

derobert

@terdon That might even fly on Stack Overflow, depending.

terdon

@JennyD If you it's a general *nix thing, here is fine. If it smells like a Pi-specific issue, Raspberry Pi would probably be better.

Jenny D

@derobert I've never seen those in SF. But we do get quite a few of "I'm running my home webserver on my Pi, amazingly it doesn't act the way I expect a server to act, please help" kind of thing :-)

derobert

@JennyD yeah, that's going to be no different than if that web server were running on a PC with Debian... so should be fine here.

Jenny D

@terdon nod I get that. I'm thinking of the questions that now get closed for not being on-topic at a business-oriented site

Faheem Mitha

5:00 PM

@JennyD A business-oriented site meaning SF?

Gilles

5:25 PM

@terdon There was an embedded site twice, and an OS site. All three failed in private beta. And there's now Internet of Things which has largely subsumed embedded.

@terdon I hope you aren't refering to me, because I've never worked on Linux embedded systems.

terdon

@Gilles Ah, but would questions about how to boot an OS on an embedded device be on topic there?

@Gilles I was, but I was referring to *nix, not Linux. I thought you've worked a lot on embedded systems running some sort of *nix flavor.

Gilles

@terdon On IoT? They would if you can convince the crowd that it's “IoT”. Given that the definition of IoT is so vague, most devices can qualify if you spin it right.

terdon

Even if it has nothing at all to do with networking, let alone the internet?

Gilles

@terdon embedded Unix is pretty much all Linux

Well, and QNX. Anything else is traces.

The systems I worked on run non-Unix-like OSes.

terdon

I see.

Gilles

5:30 PM

@terdon the question doesn't have to have to be about networking, if it's about an “IoT device”, whatever that means.

terdon

Cool, now I know where to go when my toaster breaks down.

derobert

@Gilles I presume any device which is likely to become an unsupported security nightmare in a few years time (or sooner) qualifies...

Jan 11 at 10:44, by Kusalananda

The "S" in IoT stands for "security".

:-P

Gilles

@derobert No. I don't think Internet of Things would stretch to accepting Windows XP computers used in vending machines and power plant control rooms.

derobert

@Gilles Well, Windows XP didn't become unsupported in a few years time. So of course not.

(Isn't XP still supported if you're willing to pay M$?)

And it did have a good decade of support...

Faheem Mitha

In theory my 10 year old laptop still runs XP, I think.

Whether it would actually boot, I don't know.

Faheem Mitha

9:24 PM

@derobert Can you check whether you see the following weird bug? Run mpv somefile either from the terminal or via Alt-F2 (run command) in Plasma 5. Put mpv in full screen mode. See if anything weird happens to the icons on the panel.

derobert

9:35 PM

@FaheemMitha Nothing happened to the icons on the panel. Various weird things happened with mpv (once it did static, hung once... the other few times it worked)

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Ah. The icons change when mpvis in full screen mode. They stop corresponding to the programs that they should correspond to.

derobert

@FaheemMitha how can you tell? The icons are hidden when its in full-screen mode....

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Two monitors. I full screen mpv on the left one.

derobert

ah, can't test that here then....

Faheem Mitha

If you have a two screen monitor setup, give it a try. I think I'll report it to Debian - it's being fairly annoying.

The nvidia drivers may or may not be relevant.

derobert

9:37 PM

my only dual-monitor setup is Intel cards, and isn't KDE.

My laptop can have a second monitor attached, also Intel

This nvidia card could have a second... if I had one here....

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Actually, if I switch back and forth between full screen and not on my right hand screen, I can see the icons change. You could try that - there seems to be some lag.

derobert

@FaheemMitha I wasn't getting that

Faheem Mitha

@derobert ok.

If you switch mpv from full screen to not, it shouldn't make any difference to the icons, right? But here I can see them change.

Also happens with mplayer2. Doesn't happen with vlc.

derobert

@FaheemMitha not unless its adding a systray icon, then they could all shift over

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Why would mpv add a systray icon?

derobert

9:43 PM