XPost: comp.os.linux.advocacy   
   From: ldo@nz.invalid   
      
   On Sat, 17 Jan 2026 08:31:32 -0000 (UTC), Gremlin wrote:   
      
   > I also don't mess the centralized registry concept that MS foisted   
   > upon us.   
      
   Who is this “us”?   
      
   > I appreciate human readable text file configurations.   
      
   Funnily enough, Windows had that, in the form of .INI files that were   
   quite popular among Windows/DOS apps in the days before Windows 95 and   
   Windows NT.   
      
   The trouble is, Windows/DOS never had a standard place to put these,   
   like the /etc directory in *nix systems. So they ended up scattered   
   all over the filesystem. Which is why Microsoft brought in the   
   Registry idea, first in Windows NT and then retrofitted (in a slightly   
   different, incompatible form, wouldn’t you know) in Windows 95.   
      
   So now Windows developers make a mess all over the Registry, instead.   
   That’s what Microsoft calls “progress”.   
      
   In the meantime, the .INI file format that Microsoft created became   
   quite popular for configuration setups in apps developed for *nix   
   systems as well, and still remains in wide use on such systems to this   
   day. Ironic, don’t you think.   
      
   > I've practically fallen in love with the whole .appimage concept. I   
   > had to obtain a copy of Gimp the other day to work on something. A   
   > single file to download, right click to grant execute permissions   
   > and walla; a working copy of the latest version of Gimp. I could   
   > have also used chmod from terminal to do the same thing, but right   
   > click permissions table is helpful too.   
      
   All the common Linux distros have a basic app like Gimp already in   
   their standard package repositories -- no need for these special   
   “flatimage” or “app-pak” or other self-contained downloads: just one   
   click on the Install button in your package manager and it’s ready to   
   go. Leave it to the distro maintainers to package things up properly   
   to work amicably with the rest of the distro.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)