this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2022
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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This is definitely the incorrect way to install most software. Use your package manager. At least use a community repository or build system if you have to.
I would mostly agree. However, there are exceptions and customizing suckless' simple terminal (or st) is one of them. Last time I used it - which was about 5 years ago, granted - st didn't have a config file. If you wanted to change even the most trivial things such as fonts, colours, etc., you had to edit the code. As an example, here's a patch if one wanted to use the solarized colour scheme in st:
https://st.suckless.org/patches/solarized/
In these few instances, the article actually is helpful, since the user would have to compile the application from source.
I would agree that it is the incorrect way to install most software, but suckless software is different. In order to changes, even simple ones like changing the font or colors, you need to rebuild from source manually.