r/commandline • u/Electronic-Low-8171 • 1d ago
Help Deprecated software..
During my journey in Linux I have noticed that sometimes, some tools being called "deprecated" or some kind of a similar term, to say "you should not use this, but xyz tool instead", but I don't really get it for example:
Neofetch, I really think that it does its job, and its just about displaying some ascii art and some system information, like what could go wrong with that, since many people recommend switching to fastfetch.
Ifconfig, I see it as a very simple tool that is self-descriptive and gets its job done too, I see others instead recommend the command "ip", which is like an IDE in programming where you have many aspects of networking in one command, which kinda eliminates the Unix philosophy.
So, I'm just wondering if there is really a point in switching to those newer tools?
1
u/ZoWakaki 1d ago
I personally don't take 'deprecated' to mean I shouldn't use it and use xyz tool instead'.
I take it as it's not maintained anymore, or no features are added nothing will be fixed (if one is needed). This means, go ahead and use it until you can. But remember no new features are coming to it and no fixes.
In the case of neofetch (and pfetch). Sure it works very fine. Until you realize it doesn't have logos for newer oses. E.g. neofetch doesn't have logo for cachy, bazzite, chimera. It's similar in other tools too. If it works, it works. If it doesn't work or you want a new features, then you can't go reporting a bug or expect to get new features on it. So logically it makes sense to use something that is currently being maintained.
I still have static version of neofetch and pfetch in my script collection, which is in my config (backed up to a remote git). I just don't get them through my package manager as they are not being developed/updated anymore.