Disclaimer: Some of this can probably be interpreted as flame bait. So let 'er rip =)
>> > I've hever been able to open a CD drive without unmounting the volume -- the >> > drawer won't open. >> >> Along the same lines....this is the one mechanism of mac/sun/other(?) >> floppies that I would like to see somehow on x86 machines. I would much >> rather have a 'soft' eject button like on a cdrom or a software eject >> like the mac/sun floppies rather than a mechanical eject like on the x86 >> floppies. Okay, you want the "machine is smarter" deal. shouldn't you be on a Windoze list instead of here? =} >> Does anybody know the fundemental reasons why the x86 platform has not >> adopted such a setup? Because it bloody sux. I need to power up my bloody machine just to take the bloody disc out, and if something goes wrong and I can't umount, I have to stick a GD pin in the manual eject hole. Heaven forbid that my floppy drive should ever suffer the same fate. The bottom line is, it isn't appropriate for my machine to be making decisions as to whether it is appropriate to eject a dis(k/c) or not. I should be making those decisions because the machine is unreliable and if I make a bad decision then I, as the user, am the one who has to pay for my ignorance. Many windows users are uncomfortable with this idea, and that is perfectly sensical. (don't think that word exists, but hey, opposite of nonsensical, right?) They ought to just stick to windows, the inferior system that doesn't let you make mistakes (or intelligent decisions) and instead makes them for you. Unlike many others, I don't share the view that "linux needs to be made more newbie friendly." Doing that will kill everything that made it great, and turn it into another Windoze. I don't care if the entire world doesn't all use GNU systems, as long as I have them to get my work done. If somebody doesn't understand, I will be helpful and try to explain, but if they don't want to tolerate a system with a learning curve then they don't have to use it, and probably don't deserve to. Leave this domain to those of us who do care to learn. >This is personal preference, of course, but I hate >the "soft button" >setup. To me it seems to be one of those "the machine >is smarter than >the operator" type deals, and, in general, my machine >isn't smarter >than me (note the "in general";). >My SGI is entirely "soft button". If it crashes >sometimes I can't even >turn the power off on it, I end up having to unplug >the stupid thing >to reset it! There are many times when I need to eject even tho' my comp thinks I shouldn't. There are times in Word when I need to use a lowercase letter /i/ as a word but it doesn't think I should. This is precisely the reason we go to alternatives to M$, because M$ software always thinks it's smarter than we are and never is. So don't go bringing M$isms to us and our alternatives, please. >Of course it wouldn't be a determining factor on my >decision to buy a >machine, but it would be a factor. It would be a determining factor in my decision. I don't want a bloody M$ "I know what you want better than you do" style system, in hardware or software. (the only macs I'm interested in are the ones without internal floppy drives, so that isn't an issue here. If the cd drive doesn't want to eject, well no worse than an x86) Oh, and pardon my expletives. =} ===== Fish of Borg Visit me on the web! http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Frontier/4874/stccg.html ///Archaeologists near mount Sinai have discovered what appears to be a missing page from the Bible. The page is currently being carbon dated in Bonn. If genuine it belongs at the beginning of the Bible and is believed to read "To my Darling Candy. All Characters portrayed within this book are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental."///Red Dwarf __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com