Linux-Advocacy Digest #297, Volume #26 Fri, 28 Apr 00 17:13:08 EDT
Contents:
Re: IBM dumping more shares of RedHat (Gary Hallock)
Re: Government to break up Microsoft (Peter van der Linden)
Re: Awfulness of WordPerfect (Leslie Mikesell)
Re: Programming Languages (David E. Thomas)
Re: Disabled lady needs Linux Corel (Achim Nolcken Lohse)
Re: Linux from a Windows perspective (Pete Goodwin)
Web page rendering Linux (KDE) vs. windows 2000 ("Dan J. Smeski")
Re: Kernel Version Question (Paul Kimoto)
Re: Awfulness of WordPerfect (JEDIDIAH)
Re: Disabled lady needs Linux Corel (JEDIDIAH)
Re: Where is PostScript support?? (Bart Oldeman)
Re: Where is PostScript support?? (Bart Oldeman)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 15:10:07 -0400
From: Gary Hallock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: IBM dumping more shares of RedHat
boat_goat wrote:
> When IBM made the investment, it was widely reported that the investment
> meant that IBM was going to support Linux and adopt some form of it as an
> OS platform on their servers and/or workstations. Dropping the investment
> is indicative of the opposite.
Ok, one more time -
Redhat is NOT Linux
IBM is very heavily invested in Linux these days. I'm not talking about
buying stock in other companies, which is really a very passive form of
support. I'm talking about IBM actively supporting Linux by porting Linux to
all of its hardware platforms and porting applications to Linux. Buying or
selling Redhat stock is totally insignificant and has no bearing on IBM
supporting Linux.
Gary
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Government to break up Microsoft
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter van der Linden)
Date: 28 Apr 2000 19:12:54 GMT
In article <uTTFPxTs$GA.233@cpmsnbbsa03>, Ermine Todd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>And you forget that no matter how cheap something is, even if it's free, if
>it isn't what the consumer wants, then including it has no value and
>actually becomes an unnecessary cost.
The illegal bundling of Internet Explorer comes to mind as an example.
That rather undermines the point you are trying to make: you are arguing
against yourself here.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Awfulness of WordPerfect
Date: 28 Apr 2000 14:16:22 -0500
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
JEDIDIAH <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Fri, 28 Apr 2000 23:56:17 +1000, Christopher Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>"Christopher Browne" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>>> Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Full Name would say:
>>> >On Tue, 25 Apr 2000 04:59:37 -0400, Aaron Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>> >wrote:
>[deletia]
>>> The design of version 5.2 certainly didn't seem _great_; the serious
>>> problem I saw with it was that it could only run short periods before
>>> crashing. Saving documents often made it crash, which was Rather
>>> A Problem.
>>>
>>
>>Plus it didn't follow any of the Windows UI standards. And it was
>>horrifically slow.
>>
>>> Questionable design I could readily blame on WPC.
>>
>>But, it seems, you prefer to blame Microsoft based on things you heard
>>around the campfire ?
>>
>>> But it was a well-known "factoid" at the time that Microsoft didn't
>>> consider Windows done 'til it made WordPerfect for Windows crash.
>>
>>Ah, is this like the "till Lotus won't run" "factoid" as well ?
>
> The Lotus Wordprocessor actually ran circles around Word under
> 3.0 and 3.1. In some respects, that same old version still does
> even today (when compared to newer versions of Word).
>
> The phrase was: DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run.
>
> Considering how much of a bare metal hack any DOS app has to be,
> that's not really hard...
But apparently the tradition continues, if you noticed why there
was a 2nd release of sp6 as sp6a for NT.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Programming Languages
From: David E. Thomas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 12:21:20 -0700
In article <01bfaf3c$c3107f00$442bd3cf@buccaneer-s-den>, "Alaric
Fox" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>Well, compilers, shells, and interpreters do have one thing in
common --
>they are programs that run under an operating system. However,
compiled
>programs and interpreted programs (e.g., scripts) are *NOT* the
same. A
>compiled program needs only the OS to run[1]. An interpreted
program does
>*not* actually run -- rather, the interpreter runs under the
OS. Thus, one
>can run a compiled executable directly, but one needs to run the
>interpreter to run a script. Also, a compiler only runs once
for a given
>executable -- after that, the compiled program is in machine
language and
>can run immediately. An interpreter interprets a script every
time that
>you run the script. That is, the compiler overhead is a one
time cost, and
>the script overhead is a per-use cost. For short scripts /
programs (e.g.,
>"Hello World"), this overhead may be trivial, but for longer /
more complex
>operations (e.g., real-time telecommunications), this is
nontrivial.
>
The relationship of interperter to script is the same as
compiled program to data file.
The performance concerns are obviously well noted but this is
NOT a conceptual difference and furthermore a well written
interpeter/script can be more efficient than a poorly written
compiled program.
>Here is a short reason why compiled programs are superior to
interpreted
>ones: the Operating System cannot be an interpreted program
(otherwise the
>interpreter could be called the OS). Thus, compiled programs
are necessary
>for a system -- interpreted programs are not.
There is absolutely no reason why an interpeted program CANNOT
be an OS. I'm not sure why you would want to do it, but you
could. You'd need some sort of non-interpeted program running
underneath it of course, but the same is true of a normal OS, it
needs the microcode and cpu cyle algorithm running underneath
it. The OS does not 'know' if it is talking to the hardware or
to a compiled (or interpeted program) that is in turn talking to
the hardware.
David E. Thomas
Rivercrest Technologies, Inc.
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Achim Nolcken Lohse)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux.corel,alt.linux,alt.fan.linux
Subject: Re: Disabled lady needs Linux Corel
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 19:43:19 GMT
On 28 Apr 2000 10:53:09 -0600, Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Full Name) writes:
>
>> I have to concur with Achim's comments.
>>
>> All of the guys I work with are Linux advocates (with a definite
>> hatred of MS).
>>
>> One of them recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 7500 notebook and
>> promptly installed Madrake 7.x. He spent a fortnight trying to get
>> the PCMCIA network card running. I was rather amused to see him
>> camped in the communications cupboard with his notebook directly
>> connected to the switch in an effort to get the network running.
>>
>> He finally gave up on the card and installed one he new would work
>> with Linux.
>>
>> We purchased a second identical notebook (except for having a Linux
>> compatible PCMCIA network card). It dual boots Win98 and Linux.
>> Getting the Win98 networking took less than 15 minutes.
>
>And I have a dozen other stories in which Linux works "out of the box"
>with something while NT falls on it's face.
>
>What's the point?
>
Well, as it happens, I've just spent about 16 hours over the space of
the past week trying to get an OSITECH modem/Ethernet card working
properly on my laptop under Win95.
Happily, Ositech responds promptly and almost exhaustively to
requests for technical assistance. And they have drivers available for
WinXX, NT, and OS/2.
With Linux, you're pretty much on your own when something doesn't work
"out of the box".
Achim
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Linux from a Windows perspective
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin)
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 19:56:32 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH) wrote in
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> I've had relics of my own run circles around machines running
> Win95,Win98 or NTW4 with superior hardware, sometimes
> superior in all respects.
Running Linux or something else?
> Unless you're too poor to buy any software (remember, software
> typically costs $$$'s under Windows) then the $50 I suggested
> likely has very little impact while dramatically increasing your
> compatibility options and quite possibly being better hardware as
> well.
Software? I'm talking about hardware.
>>sound card and the SCSI card work, they are supposed to be supported,
>>so why shouldn't they work? After all, they work with Windows, why not
>>Linux?
>
> It's not the one or the other but the combination.
I got both to work together, as I said before. However, it strikes me it
ought to be a lot easier, as it was on Windows, before I could consider
Linux a serious contender.
>>I can run Windows just fine in 32M. Seems I can't run X, KDE et al on
>>this
>
> Then don't run KDE, or just use it sparingly. It's really not
> that complicated.
Ah yes. So I don't run X. What's the alternative? The multiple consoles
with the good ol' keyhole programming approach, and the cryptic command
shells.
The whole point about GUI's was ease of use. If X + KDE can't give me that,
then that's the end of the story.
>>system, without performance going to the dogs. I keep hearing Linux is
>>faster than Windows - how can that be? If Linux performs like a dog
>>doing the equivalent of Windows, how is it that Linux is faster? It
>>ain't.
>
> Sure it is. You're just skewing the comparison so the the results
> reflect your personal agenda rather than reality.
Oh yes it's faster if you consider just the command line on its own. But
that's hardly comparing like with like now is it? I'm looking for a
credible alternative to Windows. The Linux command line is not it.
Pete
------------------------------
From: "Dan J. Smeski" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Web page rendering Linux (KDE) vs. windows 2000
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 15:29:07 -0500
Why is my KDE sooo freakin slow when rendering web pages. This is using
Netscape. On Windows 2000 with netscape this is like 4 to 5 times faster. I
have a Voodoo 3500 video card? Is this another short coming of Linux? This
is on a dual boot computer, so it's the same hardware on Linux and Windows
2000 and my drivers are correctly configured in Linux.
Dan
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Paul Kimoto)
Subject: Re: Kernel Version Question
Date: 28 Apr 2000 16:48:03 -0500
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[posted and e-mailed]
In article <8ebcsg$70v$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Pig wrote:
> I found that the version no is gradually increase from Beta version 2.3.01
> to 2.3.5x.
> Thus, I think the no. will increase gradually from 2.3.5x to 2.3.99.
> However, it grows suddenly from 2.3.5x to 2.3.99.
>
> Q1.
> Why it does not grow gradually?
Because Linus Torvalds decided to do it that way. "99" is supposed to give
a hint to the (other) developers that 2.4.0 is imminent.
> The version no. is now 2.3.99-pre6 (pre-release 6).
> Q2.
> Is it mean that once the bugs are fixed the stable version 2.4.0 will be
> released?
Ideally, yes. However, no useful software is bug-free. 2.4.0 will still
have bugs in it, but not (major) ones known to the developers.
--
Paul Kimoto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Awfulness of WordPerfect
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 20:54:50 GMT
On 28 Apr 2000 14:16:22 -0500, Leslie Mikesell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>JEDIDIAH <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>On Fri, 28 Apr 2000 23:56:17 +1000, Christopher Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>
>>>"Christopher Browne" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>>>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>>>> Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Full Name would say:
>>>> >On Tue, 25 Apr 2000 04:59:37 -0400, Aaron Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>> >wrote:
[deletia]
>>>
>>>Ah, is this like the "till Lotus won't run" "factoid" as well ?
>>
>> The Lotus Wordprocessor actually ran circles around Word under
>> 3.0 and 3.1. In some respects, that same old version still does
>> even today (when compared to newer versions of Word).
>>
>> The phrase was: DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run.
>>
>> Considering how much of a bare metal hack any DOS app has to be,
>> that's not really hard...
>
>But apparently the tradition continues, if you noticed why there
>was a 2nd release of sp6 as sp6a for NT.
Touche'. I had forgotten about that...
--
|||
/ | \
Need sane PPP docs? Try penguin.lvcm.com.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux.corel,alt.linux,alt.fan.linux
Subject: Re: Disabled lady needs Linux Corel
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 20:56:27 GMT
On Fri, 28 Apr 2000 19:43:19 GMT, Achim Nolcken Lohse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On 28 Apr 2000 10:53:09 -0600, Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>wrote:
>
>>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Full Name) writes:
>>
>>> I have to concur with Achim's comments.
>>>
>>> All of the guys I work with are Linux advocates (with a definite
>>> hatred of MS).
>>>
>>> One of them recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 7500 notebook and
>>> promptly installed Madrake 7.x. He spent a fortnight trying to get
>>> the PCMCIA network card running. I was rather amused to see him
>>> camped in the communications cupboard with his notebook directly
>>> connected to the switch in an effort to get the network running.
>>>
>>> He finally gave up on the card and installed one he new would work
>>> with Linux.
>>>
>>> We purchased a second identical notebook (except for having a Linux
>>> compatible PCMCIA network card). It dual boots Win98 and Linux.
>>> Getting the Win98 networking took less than 15 minutes.
>>
>>And I have a dozen other stories in which Linux works "out of the box"
>>with something while NT falls on it's face.
>>
>>What's the point?
>>
>Well, as it happens, I've just spent about 16 hours over the space of
>the past week trying to get an OSITECH modem/Ethernet card working
>properly on my laptop under Win95.
>
>Happily, Ositech responds promptly and almost exhaustively to
>requests for technical assistance. And they have drivers available for
>WinXX, NT, and OS/2.
Yet you've still spent 16 hours on it? That 'spiffy' vendor
support doesn't seem to count for much in this particular
instance.
>
>With Linux, you're pretty much on your own when something doesn't work
>"out of the box".
...in which case you might have it resolved all by your little
lonesome in 16 hours or less (or at least come to the conclusion
that the situation is indeed hopeless by then).
--
|||
/ | \
Need sane PPP docs? Try penguin.lvcm.com.
------------------------------
From: Bart Oldeman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Where is PostScript support??
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 20:45:46 GMT
On Wed, 26 Apr 2000, Tim Cain wrote:
> Bart Oldeman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > The "classical" way (after *roff) of producing documents under *nix is:
> > write a (La)TeX file containing the text and structure.
> > produce EPS graphics using xfig/gnuplot/another package.
> > run "(la)tex" on the (La)TeX file.
> > preview with xdvi (you can see the figures here already, although it's not
> > as nice as gv/ghostview)
> > convert to PostScript with dvips.
> > preview ps/eps files with gv or ghostview.
> > send to the printer.
> >
> > Many articles, reports, theses and books have been written this way.
> >
> > LyX (www.lyx.org) is a nice GUI frontend to LaTeX, nowadays.
> You've got to be fucking joking.
No.
> I can just see John Doe sitting down at his 386/66,
> and going throught the 7 (SEVEN! Count em!) steps
> you've outlined in the slim volume above.
A 386/66 does not exist. I would immediately buy a faster computer if I
was stuck with a 386 and had to run LaTeX. And I was not speaking about
John Doe. John Doe publishes zero scientific books/articles/reports/theses
in his life.
> I'm going to slaughter my first born child in honour
> of Bill, as he will surely grind Linux beneath his
> cloven hooves, if this is the best solution on
> offer.
>
> Yours, looking over at the dark side (and my, how
> green the grass looks over there),
Ok let's make it more complicated then. What I have done: (John Doe would
never ever do this, but for me it was flexible, the use of all these
tools: unix is about using small programs which do one job very well.)
1. Put mathematical model and input data in C/FORTRAN/text files
2. Run "make" to compile.
3. Run program.
4. Extract the relevant columns from the output data.
5. Edit a gnuplot script.
6. Plot data using a gnuplot script (should investigate Grace though).
7. Import figure in xfig and add (LaTeX mathematical) labels to the
figure.
8. Export figure to "combined ps/LaTeX"
9. Write text and structure.
10. Run latex
11. Run xdvi to preview
12. Run dvips to convert to PostScript
13. Run gv to get a last check
14. Print
That's only 14 steps and I even combined a bit ;-).
Bart
------------------------------
From: Bart Oldeman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Where is PostScript support??
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 20:29:27 GMT
On Wed, 26 Apr 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> "Tim Cain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >Bart Oldeman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>
> >> write a (La)TeX file containing the text and structure.
> >> produce EPS graphics using xfig/gnuplot/another package.
> >> run "(la)tex" on the (La)TeX file.
> >> preview with xdvi
> >> convert to PostScript with dvips.
> >> preview ps/eps files with gv or ghostview.
> >> send to the printer.
>
> Or, to be more precise --- why not do it in less than 5 steps? Because
> the current xdvi will happily display the EPS graphics just as nicely
> as gv will (as they are both using the same backend to do so), so the
> "preview with gv" step is unnecessary --- which in turn means that the
> "convert to PS" step can be done transparently by lpd rather than
...
Not always. If you're on a network printer then lpr foo.dvi in my
experience sends the dvi file to the server, the server converts to ps and
prints this, but it misses all the included ps files (empty
graphics). According to the Printing-HOWTO, pdq can solve this.
xdvi uses the same backend as gv for graphics, but _not_ for text. If I
combine graphics and LaTeX mathematical text labels in one figure, there
is a slight but noticeable displacement of the graphics. Sometimes the
label overlaps the curve it refers to in xdvi, but not in gv and in print.
And \rotatebox[90]{foo} doesn't show up rotated in xdvi, but it does in
gv. But if you don't use these gimmicks then xdvi is all you need, indeed.
I should take a look at Grace (formerly xmgr), though, for an alternative
of gnuplot. I'll see whether it can solve the tedious use of \put commands
to place labels on top of a numerical graphic.
> And of course, you might want to do all this in Xemacs, which will give you
> lovely pull-down and pop-up menues to do the last 3 steps.
Yes, emacs with AUCTeX is very nice. Have xdvi running and press Ctrl-C-C
Alt-Tab gives an updated view. I sometimes need to tinker with graphics
using \put commands and then this is a convenient method. And you don't
need to know about xdvi and dvips, since they are under Command/view and
Command/print.
Bart
------------------------------
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