[dev] Talk about suckless

2013-09-25 Thread Martin Kopta 
Hi, I will be giving a talk about suckless project on 6th October [1] for small
audience (from 10 to 100 people). Talk description is (translated):

"Introduction to ideology of software that smells less and presentation of
results of the suckless project. Demostration of dwm window manager, terminal
emulator st, statically linked distribution stali, minimalist web browser surf
and a few others. This talk is particularly suitable for minimalist hackers
who crave efficient work environment."

Is there something I absolutely shouldn't forget to mention?

I will post here my presentation slides and maybe even some people questions
after the talk.

Thanks.

[1] 
https://www.google.com/calendar/render?eid=bmJzYzU2dmo3Nm1ybjYzM2ExOWNrbGR0aGsgaHJ1c2Vja3kubmV0XzRwYWExYTNiY2hwdTZsOWVlczQxZ2c2dHQwQGc&ctz=Europe/Prague&sf=true&output=xml

Re: [dev] Talk about suckless

2013-09-25 Thread FRIGN 
On 09/25/2013 02:26 PM, Martin Kopta wrote:
> Hi, I will be giving a talk about suckless project on 6th October [1] for 
> small
> audience (from 10 to 100 people). Talk description is (translated):
> 
> "Introduction to ideology of software that smells less and presentation of
> results of the suckless project. Demostration of dwm window manager, terminal
> emulator st, statically linked distribution stali, minimalist web browser surf
> and a few others. This talk is particularly suitable for minimalist hackers
> who crave efficient work environment."
> 
> Is there something I absolutely shouldn't forget to mention?
> 
> I will post here my presentation slides and maybe even some people questions
> after the talk.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> [1] 
> https://www.google.com/calendar/render?eid=bmJzYzU2dmo3Nm1ybjYzM2ExOWNrbGR0aGsgaHJ1c2Vja3kubmV0XzRwYWExYTNiY2hwdTZsOWVlczQxZ2c2dHQwQGc&ctz=Europe/Prague&sf=true&output=xml
> 
> 

Hi Martin,

in the interest of giving a clear presentation of what stali is about,
you could clear up common misconceptions about static linking and show
why it is better today and why it was disadvantageous in the past.
The key points are:

* static linking in general *
_security_: The advantage of "higher security" with
dynamically-linked libraries is a fallacy. Today we're facing
versioned symbols and ldd-exploits on the one hand and blazing
fast computers able to recompile binaries in a flash on the
other.

_speed_: Which one is faster? Refer to the material linked on
the stali-page. Don't forget to talk about the dynamic linker   
in the Linux-Kernel, which has spread like cancer across other
Kernel sub-projects.
Also, don't forget to point out we are planning to use
non-bloated and segmented static-libraries for stali, which
allow the binaries to be leaner and faster in most cases.

Make sure to be well-prepared in regard to this highly
controversial topic.
If you plan to introduce your audience to the concepts of
stali, there sure will be many hackers wondering why static
linking should be better than the "dynamic-
linking" de facto standard.

* stali-project *
Generally speaking, the pages about stali are good enough.
However, make sure to bring these points in:

_filesystem_: Deprecation of the /usr-dir[1] and why. Reasons   
for building in a chroot-environment and how it works (broadly)

_init-system_: Another big point. As it's still in concept-
phase, you could present the ideas we want to bring in.
An excellent information would be the talk about runit by
Christian Neukirchen[2].

* dwm, st *
No problem. For detailed matters, I'd need to see the slides

* surf *
Not problematic, either. However, it could be interesting to
reflect on the future plans when it comes to the engine[3]


Generally speaking, I'm glad to hear from people like you who are
presenting and thus popularizing our ideals on software development.

With best regards

FRIGN

[1]: 
[2]: 
[3]:

Re: [dev] Talk about suckless

2013-09-25 Thread Martin Kopta 
On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 01:11:22PM +0200, FRIGN wrote:
> On 09/25/2013 02:26 PM, Martin Kopta wrote:
> > Hi, I will be giving a talk about suckless project on 6th October [1] for 
> > small
> > audience (from 10 to 100 people). Talk description is (translated):
> > 
> > "Introduction to ideology of software that smells less and presentation of
> > results of the suckless project. Demostration of dwm window manager, 
> > terminal
> > emulator st, statically linked distribution stali, minimalist web browser 
> > surf
> > and a few others. This talk is particularly suitable for minimalist hackers
> > who crave efficient work environment."
> > 
> > Is there something I absolutely shouldn't forget to mention?
> > 
> > I will post here my presentation slides and maybe even some people questions
> > after the talk.
> > 
> > Thanks.
> > 
> > [1] 
> > https://www.google.com/calendar/render?eid=bmJzYzU2dmo3Nm1ybjYzM2ExOWNrbGR0aGsgaHJ1c2Vja3kubmV0XzRwYWExYTNiY2hwdTZsOWVlczQxZ2c2dHQwQGc&ctz=Europe/Prague&sf=true&output=xml
> > 
> > 
> 
> Hi Martin,
> 
> in the interest of giving a clear presentation of what stali is about,
> you could clear up common misconceptions about static linking and show
> why it is better today and why it was disadvantageous in the past.
> The key points are:
> 
> * static linking in general *
>   _security_: The advantage of "higher security" with
>   dynamically-linked libraries is a fallacy. Today we're facing
>   versioned symbols and ldd-exploits on the one hand and blazing
>   fast computers able to recompile binaries in a flash on the
>   other.
>   
>   _speed_: Which one is faster? Refer to the material linked on
>   the stali-page. Don't forget to talk about the dynamic linker   
>   in the Linux-Kernel, which has spread like cancer across other
>   Kernel sub-projects.
>   Also, don't forget to point out we are planning to use
>   non-bloated and segmented static-libraries for stali, which
>   allow the binaries to be leaner and faster in most cases.
> 
>   Make sure to be well-prepared in regard to this highly
>   controversial topic.
>   If you plan to introduce your audience to the concepts of
>   stali, there sure will be many hackers wondering why static
>   linking should be better than the "dynamic-
>   linking" de facto standard.
> 
> * stali-project *
>   Generally speaking, the pages about stali are good enough.
>   However, make sure to bring these points in:
>   
>   _filesystem_: Deprecation of the /usr-dir[1] and why. Reasons   
>   for building in a chroot-environment and how it works (broadly)
> 
>   _init-system_: Another big point. As it's still in concept-
>   phase, you could present the ideas we want to bring in.
>   An excellent information would be the talk about runit by
>   Christian Neukirchen[2].
> 
> * dwm, st *
>   No problem. For detailed matters, I'd need to see the slides
> 
> * surf *
>   Not problematic, either. However, it could be interesting to
>   reflect on the future plans when it comes to the engine[3]
> 
> 
> Generally speaking, I'm glad to hear from people like you who are
> presenting and thus popularizing our ideals on software development.
> 
> With best regards
> 
> FRIGN
> 
> [1]: 
> [2]: 
> [3]: 

Thank you very much for your hints! I will surely mention all of the above in
my talk. Good idea to prepare myself to defend static linking :-)

Re: [dev] Talk about suckless

2013-09-25 Thread Carlos Torres 
On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 10:00 AM, Martin Kopta  wrote:
> Thank you very much for your hints! I will surely mention all of the above in
> my talk. Good idea to prepare myself to defend static linking :-)
>

there is also [1] a presentation that Anselm gave a while ago about
stali and static linking.

[1]: http://dl.suckless.org/stali/clt2010/stali.html

--Carlos

Re: [dev] Talk about suckless

2013-09-25 Thread Alex Pilon 
On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 02:26:08PM +0200, Martin Kopta wrote:
> I will be giving a talk about suckless project on 6th October [1] for
> small audience (from 10 to 100 people).

Did the same this month for OCLUG. Didn't turn out very well.
Ironically, a certain wmii hacker did a better job for his part of the
talk.

> Talk description is (translated):
> 
> "Introduction to ideology of software that smells less and presentation of
> results of the suckless project. Demostration of dwm window manager,

Don't just demonstrate. Try to prove that a dynamic window manager is
overwhelmingly superior to the current inefficient paradigms. Don't
forget to mention low dependency count, and quick compilation times.

> terminal emulator st,

Any theme in particular? *Straightforward* hackability? Comparison to
xterm or whatever is shipped by default in favourite distro X?

> statically linked distribution stali,

The first challenge I usually get is along the lines of “and then you
have to rebuild every single package that makes use of library X because
it has a security vulnerability”. I've gotten that one very often.
Expect it.

> minimalist web browser surf

Make a point about practical usage.

> Is there something I absolutely shouldn't forget to mention?

Sound your audience. Talk to them before the talk. If there's an
embedded guy/gal in there who doesn't have time for dealing with GNUshit
(ever feel like waiting two hours for GCC, Glibc, etc.) for his/her
fifteenth different ARM device (or Geode, which you can't use a VM too
build packages `-march=native` for, if you intend to run the test
suite), see what particularly interests him/her.

Is it worth advertising lesser-known suckless but not Suckless software?

Regards,

Alex Pilon


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