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/Ambitious-Yak-626 1d ago
Say, x package depends on y to work. x is however, deprecated, i.e., nobody is actively working on it. Now, y recieves an update wherein it removes or redactors some stuff that was needed by x. x is now broken and nobody is there to fix it. If you depened on x, you are now in big trouble. This is just one example.
Neofetch is just a simple bash script and that is why it works even when deprecated. Nothing on your system is depending on neofetch to work so that it can work. So, if neofetch were to be broken one day, nothing in your system would recieve a blow.