3 ms·

The big difference is that stuff in /etc/, ~/.config, etc. are discoverable and something that can be made sense of. The Windows registry is something I never r

The big difference is that stuff in /etc/, ~/.config, etc. are discoverable and something that can be made sense of. The Windows registry is something I never really could make sense of. For example to change Caps Lock to be Ctrl you need to change "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout\Scancode Map" to "hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,1d,00,3a,00,00,00,00,00". To disable that stupid Thumbs.db generation you change "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoThumbnailCache" to "dword:00000001". These are for Windows 7, from my old files – may be different now. But how is anyone ever going to figure that out? xmodmap can be somewhat hard to use, but a least it's documented, and you can play around with it to discover stuff. Some random hex values in some registry thing? Yeah ... good luck with that.

kllrnohj 5y ago
For thumbs.db isn't there just a UI option for it in the file explorer settings? But I think you're confusing "discoverable" with "I'm already familiar with one of them." There's really nothing discoverable about '/etc'. There's no consistency in structure or even what type of configuration files are used. And that isn't even the only configuration path! There's also the smattering of random hidden folder crap in your home directory and then also the Linux registry. Sorry I mean dconf. Meanwhile the windows registry is quite structured and strictly typed.
- Beltalowda 5y ago
  > For thumbs.db isn't there just a UI option for it in the file explorer settings? Maybe? It's possible I just used for convenience to quickly set up a machine. I haven't used Windows in over ten years, and I don't really recall; this is what I still have in my dotfiles repo "just in case I might need it in the future" (together with my old tcsh config and such, heh). The CapsLock/Ctrl thingy certainly wasn't a setting though. Most (not all, most) files in /etc and ~/.config are fairly decently documented and "obvious". You're right it's not consistent or ideal, but I do find it a lot better than Windows. I spent many years repairing Windows PCs for a living and spent plenty of time mucking about with the registry back in the day, and I never found it easy to work with, at all. I've forgotten more than I remember, but there's loads of odd things in there in odd locations. A big chunk of that is not the fault of Windows or Microsoft but the fault of applications though, and in that sense it's the same as Linux: getting all application developers to use your system consistently and how it's intended to be used turns out to be hard. For what it's worth, the registry would be much more palatable if it supported comments somehow (and if many things were actually commented!)

kllrnohj 5y ago

For thumbs.db isn't there just a UI option for it in the file explorer settings? But I think you're confusing "discoverable" with "I'm already familiar with one of them." There's really nothing discoverable about '/etc'. There's no consistency in structure or even what type of configuration files are used. And that isn't even the only configuration path! There's also the smattering of random hidden folder crap in your home directory and then also the Linux registry. Sorry I mean dconf. Meanwhile the windows registry is quite structured and strictly typed.

Beltalowda 5y ago
> For thumbs.db isn't there just a UI option for it in the file explorer settings? Maybe? It's possible I just used for convenience to quickly set up a machine. I haven't used Windows in over ten years, and I don't really recall; this is what I still have in my dotfiles repo "just in case I might need it in the future" (together with my old tcsh config and such, heh). The CapsLock/Ctrl thingy certainly wasn't a setting though. Most (not all, most) files in /etc and ~/.config are fairly decently documented and "obvious". You're right it's not consistent or ideal, but I do find it a lot better than Windows. I spent many years repairing Windows PCs for a living and spent plenty of time mucking about with the registry back in the day, and I never found it easy to work with, at all. I've forgotten more than I remember, but there's loads of odd things in there in odd locations. A big chunk of that is not the fault of Windows or Microsoft but the fault of applications though, and in that sense it's the same as Linux: getting all application developers to use your system consistently and how it's intended to be used turns out to be hard. For what it's worth, the registry would be much more palatable if it supported comments somehow (and if many things were actually commented!)