>
> It's a moot point, though, since you appear to have thrown the baby out
> with the bathwater, and installed an entirely new OS rather than learn how
> to make minor, supported changes, and use the one you had.
>
This is a good point. You cannot always escape to a different land to start
your new kingdom. Lots of experimentation with VMs would have helped with this.
One comment on compilers and deelopment environments. I had mentioned here
before the use of environment modules. I had given an example to Brian of how
to put GCC 6.0.x on a system that already had GCC 4.x.x, and make it seamless
and non-fatal for the OS's function. The same can be done with just about
anything (compilers, virtualization, libraries, etc). Have a look:
MODULE(1) Modules package MODULE(1)
NAME
module - command interface to the Modules package
SYNOPSIS
module [ switches ] [ sub-command ] [ sub-command-args ]
DESCRIPTION
module is a user interface to the Modules package. The Modules package
provides for the dynamic modification of the user's environment via
modulefiles.
Each modulefile contains the information needed to configure the shell
for an application. Once the Modules package is initialized, the
environment can be modified on a per-module basis using the module
command which interprets modulefiles. Typically modulefiles instruct
the module command to alter or set shell environment variables such as
PATH, MANPATH, etc. modulefiles may be shared by many users on a
system and users may have their own collection to supplement or replace
the shared modulefiles.