L7 vs Linux

"Computer experts" are a byproduct of the Micro$oft's planned obsolescence business model. 


Micro$oft is a huge company.  They need money or they'll go out of business.  So, every few years they "sell" you another software product.  Maybe the product you were using worked fine... doesn't matter!  They need revenue and the product you already bought isn't generating any cash for them.


From one perspective they didn't really "sell" you anything anyway.  You are pretty much leasing your operating system.  You don't own your copy of Windows; it is licensed to you.  


Anyway, to assure their own perpetuity, every few years they "sell" you something.  It has to be different than their last version or people might suspect they're being scammed.  This process is called "upgrading" rather than "constant churn," which is how I think of it.  


Given that computers are difficult, picky and arcane, this constant churn creates a job position  for people who are good at memorizing lots of detail... voilà, you have invented the computer expert. 


This whole rant was generated by the extreme difference between my work computer Windows7 "upgrade" vs my recent Ubuntu kernel "upgrade..." unlike L7, I have a couple of post-upgrade scripts I run for Ubuntu, one for my wireless chip and this one (if I need it).
Most of my add-ons to ubuntu are handled by looping an apt-get command on an array of package names, but because Canonical doesn't support SciTE my poor little script has to work slightly harder.    


#!/bin/bash


# copy this file to your desktop, 
# and make it executable via sudo chmod +x 
clear
sudo su


declare programs=("chromium-browser" "octave" "gnuplot" "texmaker" "mysql-server" "r-base" "gimp" "gpaint" "scite")


echo "installing ${#programs[*]} programs: ${programs[@]}"


for program in ${programs[@]}
do
  problem=$(dpkg -s $program | grep installed)
  echo Checking $program: $problem
  if [ "" == "$problem" ]; 
  then
    echo "No $program. Setting up $program"
    sudo apt-get install $program 
  else
    echo "$program installed."
  fi
  clear
done


# add headphones
sudo echo "options snd-hda-intel model=thinkpad" >> /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf


# add scite as default text editor & make visible line numbers
sudo perl -pi.bak -e 's/gedit/scite/g' /usr/share/applications/defaults.list
sudo perl -pi.bak -e 's/\Q#line.margin.visible\E/\Qline.margin.visible\E/g' 



# ubuntu doesn't support scite... this installs scite v2.27
wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/scintilla/scite227.tgz
sudo cp scite227.tgz /usr/local
cd /usr/local
sudo tar -zxvf scite227.tgz
cd scintilla/gtk
sudo make
cd ../..
cd scite/gtk
sudo make
sudo make install

- nzvyyx