Linux-Advocacy Digest #618, Volume #25 Mon, 13 Mar 00 21:13:11 EST
Contents:
Re: Linux Sucks************************* (Bob Hauck)
Re: Linux Sucks************************* (JEDIDIAH)
Re: A Linux server atop Mach? ("Charles W. Swiger")
Re: Predatory LINUX practices with NETSCAPE Navigator! (mlw)
Re: Giving up on NT (Bob shows his lack of knowledge yet again) (Dave)
Re: A Linux server atop Mach? (JEDIDIAH)
Re: A Linux server atop Mach? ("Charles W. Swiger")
Re: Salary? (Diego Berge)
Using Computers (and Cars) Requires Instruction and Intelligence (Mark S. Bilk)
Re: BSD & Linux (Noah Roberts)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hauck)
Subject: Re: Linux Sucks*************************
Date: 14 Mar 2000 00:17:13 GMT
Reply-To: bobh{at}slc{dot}codem{dot}com
On Mon, 13 Mar 2000 22:58:23 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED],net
<[EMAIL PROTECTED],net> wrote:
>Easily reached via [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Whatever you say...steve.
--
-| Bob Hauck
-| Codem Systems, Inc.
-| http://www.codem.com/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
Subject: Re: Linux Sucks*************************
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 23:57:39 GMT
On Mon, 13 Mar 2000 22:58:23 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED],net
<[EMAIL PROTECTED],net> wrote:
>On Mon, 13 Mar 2000 15:10:54 -0600, John Sanders
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>>
>>> Subject says it all***************************
>>
>> I'll bet you're the kind of guy that uses an application toaster. Am I
>>right?
>
>I prefer Bagels myself, but toast will do.
>
>
>> I'll bet the one you use is W95 or W98. Am I right again?
>
>Win 98SE in MY case. Works like a charm and supports just about every
>piece of hardware on the planet. Sets up my internet conncetion
>sharing, soundcard, network card, scroll mouse and so forth right out
>of the box so I can concentrate on applications. You DO run
>applications I take it?
So? Take a bit of hardware that is newer than your distro
of '98 and that starts to break down a bit. Alternately,
take a bit of hardware older than a Linux distro and
containing the appropriate drivers, you can replicate the
same effect even with Slackware.
Although, Windows-'lets have a unstable binary registry db and
no proper journalling'-9x is hardly comparable when comparisons
involve more robust OSes.
>
>>Those OSs are for 'point and clickers'. Just point at the icon of the
>>app you want, and (this is the fun part) 'click' on it. Pretty quick,
>>your app pops up! Am I right? Then you 'do your real work'. Am I
>>right?
>
>Yep. Something the Linux community dreams of at night. It's all about
Silly FUDing troll. Just because we don't, can't, won't run
MS FOO it doesn't mean we don't have any/enough shiny happy
applications to feed cycles to.
There's nothing at all magically about the user interface
that Microsoft took 10 years longer to finally develop
than Apple, and even Atari of all people.
>applications my dear, and since you have none, that the free world
>would be interested in anyway, you need not apply.
This is the same sort of 'MS rulez, everyone else sucks'
gibberish that idiots like you have been spouting since
the XT first debuted. You seem to be supporting it about
as much as most who spew it.
>
>Point click / Command line doesn't matter to me. Windows and Microsoft
>have the applications world locked up tight. Linux has only a hodge
>podge of ugly looking, hard to configure and hostile applications that
>only a geek would love. Even the Linux equivilants of Windows
It looks nice on a CRT but it's still a bed of lies.
What are you so afraid of that you find the need to
resort to spreading slander?
>applications are not up to the feature level of their Windows
>counterparts. How about environmental software for the SBLive?
Heavy Gear II.
>Taken a good look at Wordperfect for Linux lately? Notice how crappy
>it looks?
That's quite a subjective evaluation completely devoid
of any sort of detail that could be metered or measured.
>Windows version looks fine.
>
>Linux users can only dream of all the applications availible for
>Windows users. Take a walk through CompUSA some day and see for
>yourself. Now take a look at Freshmeat.net and see how many version
A lot of it is chaff or things that you would never be
interested it even.
>.998 applications are there. Also make sure you look at how long they
>have been in development and still have NOT reached even version 1.0.
>Trust my data to that crap?
>
> HELL NO!
So? We just are a bit more honest about the state of software.
When Linux developers state that something is a 1.0 release
they're typically a bit more serious about it.
Calling the first released version 3.1 just doesn't impress
any of the sort of people that would be paying attention to
a first Unix sourcecode release.
>
>Free software is just that....Free and full of comprimises...
That's true of all engineering actually. If you think
otherwise then you are sadly delluded. In the case of
the toys that you like, engineering will take a back
seat to release dates, marketing fluff and ensuring
that you remain locked into a particular product.
>
>Go play with Biff. Pine or Lynx but make sure you don't get any Tar
>-xfv on your clothes.
Personally, I just doubleclick on the little icon...
...much like I did in the 80's while people
like you were still playing with DOS3.
[deletia]
--
|||
Resistance is not futile. / | \
Need sane PPP docs? Try penguin.lvcm.com.
------------------------------
From: "Charles W. Swiger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A Linux server atop Mach?
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 00:45:10 GMT
In comp.sys.next.advocacy MJP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> "Charles W. Swiger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:crbz4.482$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>>
>> In other words, there is a difference between solvable problems like the
>> above, which do not represent the same level of portability that having
>> "./configure ; make install" work with the out-of-box configuration.
>
> If that's the standard, then lots of Linux software isn't portable to Linux;
> specifically, anything that requires more than the standard GNU toolchain.
Any piece of software which can be made to run on a platform is portable (or
"can be ported") to that platform, by definition.
> The point is that your standard is a bit twisted: rather than saying that
> "portable" means "portable", you say that "portable" means "has been
> ported".
It requires a lot less effort to run dselect, pkg_add, or double-click on a
pre-built package. So yeah, software which has already been ported is easier
to deal with, particularly in combination with advanced software management
facilities which deal with dependencies.
> MacOS X may, indeed, be really more portable than Win98, but more software
> has been ported to Win98 than to MacOS X, which makes a statement
> about your standard.
You don't see a difference between the intrinsic difficulty of porting
software to a platform and the simple fact that a platform with a larger or
dominant marketshare has more software available for it?
Windows has more programs available not because it is more portable, but
because a huge number of software products were written against Windows first,
and because there are so many users that it is likely that good software from
other plaftorms will either be cloned or ported.
>>> You were far more generous with your definition, for trivial example,
>>> when comparing Adobe Framemaker+SGML availability.
>>
>> I thought I was simply being fair to both sides, not "generous"....
>
> Well... you say in this latest posting that xmille wouldn't be expected to
> compile on MacOS, not out of the box. But previously you made the argument
> that because a MacOS version of xmille exists, that counts as a portability
> credit for MacOS. If that's not generous, I don't know what it means.
If you want to play the "tile game of a thousand pictures" on a Mac, wouldn't
you rather simply play the native MacOS version rather than digging up an X
server, configuring xmille and getting it working?
If someone mails you a PowerPoint presentation or a Word document, wouldn't
you rather simply run Mac Office 98?
-Chuck
Chuck 'Sisyphus' Swiger | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Bad cop! No Donut.
------------------------+-------------------+--------------------
I know that you are an optimist if you think I am a pessimist....
------------------------------
From: mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Predatory LINUX practices with NETSCAPE Navigator!
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 19:46:41 -0500
hot_offer wrote:
>
> Everyone complains about Microsoft putting the Internet Explorer icon on the
> desktop and including it with the installation of their operating system.
> Monopolistic and controlling. And they give it away for free.
>
> Yet, install any distribution of Linux and they put the Netscape Navigator icon
> on the desktop and it is included with the installation of the Linux operating
> system. It is installed by DEFAULT. And they give it away for free.
It is installed by default, yes, however, one can choose NOT to install
it. Linux ALSO comes with lynx, kde (which has its own browser), gmome
(ditto), StarOffice (ditto), as well as others. So one has choice with
Linux. With Windows your system can come with any browser you want, as
long as it is IE.
>
> Hmmm....see the obvious parallel. Amazing similar isn't it?
Nope, I don't think so. Not even a little bit.
> And yet every
> Linux Lacky will claim this is TOTALLY different. No it's not. Same thing,
> same reasons, same way. But denial is far easier to swallow in the Linux camp
> apparently.
Obviously you are unaware about what comes with Linux.
--
Mohawk Software
Windows 95, Windows NT, UNIX, Linux. Applications, drivers, support.
Visit http://www.mohawksoft.com
------------------------------
From: Dave <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Giving up on NT (Bob shows his lack of knowledge yet again)
Date: 13 Mar 2000 18:51:09 -0600
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> This is true, but it is limited to the value of the chip cache. OS2 does over
> come it in the sense that it does keep track of files and other things, which
> do increase the overall performance levels to something beyond what we see
> from Winwhatever.
>
OSes have no bearing on this. This a hardware, chipset level
limitation.
All OSes "keep track of files and other things" via buffers and OS-level
caches. These buffers and caches are stored in main ram memory. This
has nothing to do with the *hardware* CPU cache, which is what we are
discussing here. The limitation is that the Intel 430TX Pentium
motherboard chipset does *not* cache main ram above 64 megs. You can
install as much ram as you want, and it all will be used by whatever OS
you are running (well, all except plain old DOS I suppose!), it's just
that the memory over 64 megs will not be cached by the hardware
motherboard static ram cache.
Now it may be true that OS/2 uses memory differently than Win9x (bottom
up instead of top down). I don't know enough about OS/2 memory
management to know. I have read in several places that Win9x does in
fact use memory from the top down. So OS/2 may in fact *minimize the
impact* of this hardware limitation, but in no way can it get around
it. As you use more memory in OS/2 by loading more/bigger apps, etc. it
will eventually show the effects of no cacheing as the used memory
overflows into the beyond 64 meg range.
Having said all this, I've run Win98SE and Linux on my 430TX chipset
Pentium 233 MB with 96 megs of ram and didn't notice any slowdown. All
other things being equal, more ram means less paging to the swapfile,
and ram access is always faster than disk access, cache or no cache!
Dave
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: A Linux server atop Mach?
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 00:51:32 GMT
On Tue, 14 Mar 2000 00:45:10 GMT, Charles W. Swiger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>In comp.sys.next.advocacy MJP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> "Charles W. Swiger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>> news:crbz4.482$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
[deletia]
>Windows has more programs available not because it is more portable, but
>because a huge number of software products were written against Windows first,
>and because there are so many users that it is likely that good software from
>other plaftorms will either be cloned or ported.
>
>>>> You were far more generous with your definition, for trivial example,
>>>> when comparing Adobe Framemaker+SGML availability.
>>>
>>> I thought I was simply being fair to both sides, not "generous"....
>>
>> Well... you say in this latest posting that xmille wouldn't be expected to
>> compile on MacOS, not out of the box. But previously you made the argument
>> that because a MacOS version of xmille exists, that counts as a portability
>> credit for MacOS. If that's not generous, I don't know what it means.
>
>If you want to play the "tile game of a thousand pictures" on a Mac, wouldn't
>you rather simply play the native MacOS version rather than digging up an X
>server, configuring xmille and getting it working?
>
>If someone mails you a PowerPoint presentation or a Word document, wouldn't
>you rather simply run Mac Office 98?
No, I would rather run the document editor of my choice and
merely be able to use documents that people send me in that
document editor of my choice rather than being restricted
to one and only one option.
As far as whether or not applications should be in a native
api: I think that is silly and counterproductive. The end
goal is that they run effectively. If they could do so under
Java or SDL or even a more transparent version of VPC it
really doesn't matter in the end.
--
|||
Resistance is not futile. / | \
Need sane PPP docs? Try penguin.lvcm.com.
------------------------------
From: "Charles W. Swiger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A Linux server atop Mach?
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 01:00:45 GMT
In comp.sys.next.advocacy MJP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> "Charles W. Swiger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:crbz4.482$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> The aspect you're really missing is the question of "how much effort" was
> put into making xemacs suitable for building on Windows platforms. The
> answer is "a lot", which indicates that Windows is actually a very
> non-portable platform.
I agree that Windows is a fairly difficult porting target, at least if you are
considering sources which come from Unix.
I am also well aware of the effort required to write portable code between
Windows and various Unix flavors (and Amiga, and OS/2, and Mac, and VMS, and
CrayOS (*), and a few other platforms). After all, Angband was one of the more
portable and ported Moria derivatives.
> If your argument is that many common software packages build on MacOS X
> without significant porting effort (which I suspect is quite true) then you
> have a completely different news posting to write.
Why? I already said that many common software packages build with
"./configure ; make install"-- ie, with zero porting effort at all.
Other software requires some changes, but MOSXS closely resembles FreeBSD or
NetBSD, and any package which was intended to run under a BSD 4.4 environment
should be trivial to deal with.
-Chuck
===========
(*) One of the more entertaining emails I'd gotten was from a guy at Cray who
submitted the patches for the Cray port. He insisted upon remaining anonymous.
Didn't want it getting back to his employer that he got Angband going on one
of the fastest supercomputers in the world available at that time. :-)
Chuck 'Sisyphus' Swiger | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Bad cop! No Donut.
------------------------+-------------------+--------------------
I know that you are an optimist if you think I am a pessimist....
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Diego Berge)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Salary?
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 01:55:50 GMT
On 12 Mar 2000 18:37:16 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
wrote:
>On Sun, 12 Mar 2000 04:11:30 GMT, Diego Berge wrote:
>
>> <g> Where was that?
>
>I bet you it was NYC.
Somehow I was going to bet NYC too -- "If there's a way to
accidentally shoot oneself with that weapon, NYPD are going to find
it" I once heard down there in Kingsport, TN :)
>> I lived for a while in rural NE Tennesse, and
>>can tell you I approached a cop more than once asking for directions.
>>They were always helpful and relaxed, and none ever pointed a gun,
>>loaded or otherwise, at me.
>
>I found the same thing in Austin TX. Small town, fairly dull but pleasent.
Ok, in Texas everything is bigger, but to call Austin a 'small
town'...
Regards,
Diego Berge.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mark S. Bilk)
Subject: Using Computers (and Cars) Requires Instruction and Intelligence
Date: 14 Mar 2000 01:29:15 GMT
In article <iEdz4.1926$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Jim Ross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> A car is also difficult to drive, under certain conditions.
>> (Think snow, too high a speed, and that curve ahead -- whoopsie!
>> Or an invisible patch of black ice. Or ramming something at
>> 70 MPH in thick dense patchy fog. Try as the Legislature might,
>> one can't repeal the laws of physics. :-) ) And then there
>> are the right-of-way laws around e.g. pedestrian crosswalks
>> and stop signs.
>
>You got me.
>
>I guess I'm saying learning how to work a car is obvious.
>
>Not necessarily to drive (but that to do with traffic, conditions, etc, not
>really WRT how to learn to operate the car itself which is nearly as easy as
>possible.)
Sure, if "operate" includes, e.g., driving it into a tree.
Both a car and a computer are easy to operate in the sense
Ross is talking about -- turn on the switch, press the pedals
or keys, and move the wheel or mouse. An untrained monkey
can do these things. But the results won't be good.
To make either machine perform useful tasks, and not destroy
anything, requires hours, days, or weeks of training (depend-
ing on the student and the level of skill desired), and
consists largely of *understanding* and becoming familiar
with the objects encountered and the operations required in
using the thing -- streets, highways, lanes, signs, signals,
acceleration, braking, steering, shifting, parking, etc.,
or bytes, files, directories, programs, data, ASCII, binary,
reading, writing, copying, moving, deleting, etc.
Two examples:
A university English professor (Ph.D) using MS-Word under
Windows 95 with very little instruction, wrote and printed
documents, regarded the resulting little pictures on the
screen (icons) as the product; didn't know what a file or
directory was, didn't back up files anywhere, lost some of
them, and had to retype them from the paper copies. Also
required substantial instruction to understand the difference
between ASCII and binary (.doc) text files, and to convert
docs to ASCII and insert them into the body of an e-mail, so
they'd be readable by people all over the world who have
e-mail, but can't deal with attachments, let alone MS-Word
files.
An art librarian (Master's degree) using Windows 98, did not
understand directories, and could not figure out how to do
some simple file operations in the file manager, even with
me (programmer for 35 years, but at the time not familiar
with MS-Windows beyond 3.1) helping on the phone. Turns out
those operations are now only available from the right-mouse-
click menu, and not from the File menu at the top of the
file manager window (as they were in 3.1).
Conclusion: GUI is a little bit easier for naive users than
CLI, since they don't have to remember the dozen or so common
command verbs -- copy, delete, etc., and the file manager
and other apps show them diagrams of the directory structure
(however, XTree under DOS does this as well or better than
the file manager of any version of MS-Windows). Beyond that,
however, they must be educated to understand the objects and
operations involved; otherwise, they simply won't be able to
make the computer do the ordinary things they need it to,
safely, just as a person with no instruction could not drive
to the store for groceries without having a good chance of
injuring or killing someone.
------------------------------
From: Noah Roberts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.openbsd.misc
Subject: Re: BSD & Linux
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 17:16:57 -0800
Peter da Silva wrote:
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Noah Roberts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Second major problem, NetBSD fdisk likes to fuck up partition tables.
>
> Then don't use it. FreeBSD's plays nice with other operating systems, and
> IIRC the ID numbers are the same so NetBSD should happily use them. But if
> you're running FreeBSD's fdisk, why not install FreeBSD?
Who said I was using FreeBSD's fdisk? And to answer your question, the NetBSD
install runs fdisk automatically, and even if you choose not to alter the table,
NetBSD changes it anyway.
And to answer your other question...I am lazy. I downloaded NetBSD, not
FreeBSD. To get FreeBSD I need to remove my CDRW, take it to my freinds house
(when she has time to do it) and download it with her DSL line. When my
removable HD trays get here, and I can connect throught he T1 at school, maybe I
will consider it ok?
And whatever man.
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Advocacy Digest
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