Linux-Advocacy Digest #650, Volume #29 Sat, 14 Oct 00 05:13:11 EDT
Contents:
Re: Linus interview (R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ))
Re: Why does Linux have to be such a pain to install? - A speech (Arthur Frain)
Re: Video software for linux (R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ))
Re: Linux Out perfoms Windows (Goldhammer)
Re: David T. Johnson lies again ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Blatant anti-MS trolling... (R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ))
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linus interview
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 07:43:41 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (elmig) wrote:
> One month or to ago linus giva an interview (on some expo) and he
> admited linux was years ago from windows
> (for the average joe and jane). So why so many crap on cola?
> Interview available on slashdot (find yourself! :p )
Linus didn't even try to deal with Linux as a desktop engine
until 1998.
What's interesting of course, is that Linux had a number of very
good window managers and some pretty good applications back when
the only competition was Windows 3.1(1). Some of us wanted to see
Linux on the desktop as early as 1993. For a variety of reasons,
the focus was concentrated on:
1. Making Linux easy to install.
2. Making Linux reliable.
3. Making Linux easy to administer.
4. Making Linux easy to use.
In that order.
It really made sense. Since nearly every linux system had to be
installed on one of nearly 4 million possible combinations of
hardware, the system had to be manageble. Furthermore, installing
Linux from floppies was really tedious. You picked the packages
you wanted and spent the next 9 hours putting floppy after floppy
into the drive. Some people installed using 5 1/2" floppies which
was just **painful**.
SoftLanding Systems (SLS) brought us the first CD-ROM installation.
This dropped the installation time, and increased the number of
packages available. My initial floppy distribution was 100 floppies.
The CD-ROM held the equivelent of 500 floppies.
> I still (and mainly) use linux but some tasks like
> image retouching (or layng championship manger :) )
> i rather do it in windows. Don't give methe gimp
> crap...
If you only have one computer, and you have to run Windows, then
you should plan on getting a dual-boot system. If you have a fast
CPU and lots of memory, you can try VMWare. You can try some of
those applications with Wine. For example, Lotus Notes works
quite nicely with Wine.
If you already have a Windows machine and are considering getting
a new machine, you can use VNC to put your Windows Desktop on
your Linux machine (or vice versa). Many users will like the
Linux desktop because they can put Windows on one of the desktops
and switch to it when they need it.
> So why all this fuss?
> Choose what you want and let the others be.
Good point. Of course, getting your first exposure to Linux
has been very difficult for most people because of these nasty
contracts Microsoft has had with the OEMs for the last 18 years.
Microsoft makes it very difficult for the OEMs to introduce anything
else to the market, even Linux. Restrictions on public disclosures,
press releases, advertizing, and configuration pretty much forced
anyone considering an alternative to "do it yourself".
Some of the contenders, such as DR-DOS, GEM, DesqView, and OS/2 didn't
stand a chance. Microsoft made alterations to applications, drivers,
and kernels that assured incompatibility.
> don't flame A or B just because they
> say i use NT and i use Linux...
This is legitimate. In a corporate environment, it's possible
to share a few windows machines among a bunch of Linux users or
vice versa. In fact, one of the things that has held Linux back
was that Windows always took the front seat, while Linux stayed
hidden in the back rooms as a server. Nearly anyone who has ever
used the Internet is a UNIX and Linux user. They've never seen
a shell prompt, and wouldn't know a PERL script if it bit them,
but they conduct business, collect information, and stay up to date
through the magic of Linux and UNIX.
Yes, there are Windows machines. These usually "vanity" servers,
most often chosen to provide "glitz" features such as Active
Server Pages or Front Page extensions or ActiveX controls.
And just as often, these very features become conduits for viruses
and breaches disguised as "trojan horse" applications and featureful
pages. In some cases, the noises and motion actually distract the user
so that they don't notice the fact that their disk drive is spinning
like crazy and their ethernet card is sending packets as if it were
doing an FTP.
Meanwhile, Microsoft tried to hog all the glory, claiming "innovations"
that were literally stolen from Linux and UNIX, including Plug and Play
(Yddragisil), multitasking (UNIX), web browsers (UNIX and Linux), and
even web servers (UNIX and Linux). In fact, nearly 85% of all of the
features added to Microsoft's operating systems since MS-DOS 1.1 were
taken from the UNIX play-book (2.0 had hierarchal file system). And
of course, each adaptation has the quirky little twists to make it as
incompatible with UNIX as possible. The result is proprietary code
that is harder to develop, harder to manage, harder to maintain, harder
to enhance, and harder to support, than the simpler and well tested
utilities used on UNIX and Linux.
For 10 years, Windows users have used UNIX and Linux without
knowing it. All they knew was that it was as easy to use as a
Mac, and seemed to be more reliable than their own computers.
We're about to see the switch. With Wine, Windows 2000, and and
various remote access, dual boot, and sharing capabilities, it will
be Linux in the foreground and Windows that sits hidden in the back
room. And the most frequently heard words will be "the Windows
machine is down again".
> just my 2 cents,
>
> elmig
> http://www.alunos.ipb.pt/~ee3931
>
--
Rex Ballard - I/T Architect, MIS Director
Linux Advocate, Internet Pioneer
http://www.open4success.com
Linux - 50 million satisfied users worldwide
and growing at over 5%/month! (recalibrated 8/2/00)
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 01:14:24 -0700
From: Arthur Frain <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why does Linux have to be such a pain to install? - A speech
kosh wrote:
> In article <8s8kh3$rc7$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > I've been reading all these messages around the internet about how
> > easily people have been setting up their Linux distributions. I'm here
> > to tell you that it is in fact, not easy at all to setup a Linux
> > distribution onto an older machine. I'm a software developer in real
> > life, and have been pushing my company to support more and more open
> > source solutions. I don't know why I've been doing this now, because I
> > have tried over the last two months to get my RedHat 6.2 distribution
> > setup on my older Compaq 133mHz machine.
First off, RH 6.2 is several versions back. I just installed
SuSE 7.0 on a P166 with no problems at all. The GUI install
worked flawlessly, and now even allows configuring multi-HD
systems, and automatically configures sound cards. I also
have SuSE 5.3 running on a Gateway P133 and it was no problem
to install (happens to be my mail server and has been up 192
days, which happens to be when I bought a UPS for it).
> > It took me several tries to
> > get it running, and a little personal help from a linux guru. After
> > that, I could never get the damn thing to talk to the internet. Why? I
> > don't know why, I have a 3C509B-TPO card, I guess I have to do more than
> > disable the PNP etc, blah, blah, blah.
All of my older machines use 3C509B's and the only problem
I've seen is that if you provide the 'options' line for the
card in /etc/modules.conf (or conf.modules on older systems),
then the driver doesn't work (look for the 'alias' line for
eth0 and comment out the following line that begins with
'options' and see if that works). The 3C509 driver autodetects
the I/O address and INT. PNP should be off - I never got it
to work under Windows anyway. Check out the Ethernet "HowTo"
for more info on this. SuSE does all this setup as part of
the install, so you never really have to look at the .conf file.
> > I have a Linksys firewall in
> > which it can talk to, but it refuses. I'm wondering why I don't just
> > set up another windows os on that machine. It's easy, and it works.
> > But, I HATE WINDOWS!! I own RedHat stock, I'm pushing for open source
> > solutions, but admit it!!!
RHAT did a nice jump today - +30%?
> > Linux is NOT ready for primetime as far as a
> > personal computer, desktop solution. Save the figures about Apache on
> > the web, and SendMail, I'm talking about a home computer desktop
> > solution!!
I've been using it as my sole desktop for over 3 years
and to run a small business for nearly 3 years. You'll
have to excuse me if I think your comment is incorrect.
> Try Mandrake 7.1 or the soon to be released 7.2 Although I think the
> largest problem might be the fact that it is a compaq machine. I have had
> more problems with compaqs then almost any other machine with the
> exception of acer and packerd bell. The boxes are very proprietary and in
> general not very well made. OTOH their server models are nice and work
> very well. It is just their desktop machines that bite. Mandrake is
> overtaking redhat in sales for a reason. It is an easier to install and
> use distribution.
> I am starting to get tired of redhat. I have had people install it the
> complain to me how linux is not easy to use and they installed redhat and
> it proved that. However I have been able to get most to give it a second
> chance and try mandrake and they changed their opinions. For what you
> want you should just wait a few weeks for 7.2 and install that or install
> 7.1 and upgrade later. I have been using mandrake for a while now and am
> very pleased with it as a dist. It does a good job with security and
> stability. Also some of the packages from the next release are very nice
SuSE is also very nice. The install takes a long time mostly
because it takes me about an hour to select from all of the
applications and other stuff provided. Even Sax and Sax2 (for
XFree 4.0) work great now, which were the only problems I had
in the past (but xf86config isn't that difficult either). It
also includes KDE 2.0beta, including KOffice, which is starting
to look very nice (although some the KDE apps are a little
rough yet).
> My system is pretty bleading edge right now I have been keeping my system
> updated against cooker and it is still not breaking.
I was going to wait for Linux 2.4, KDE 2.0, and some other stuff
before buying a new distribution - I just bought this one for
evaluation (which is the reason I've only put it on old, slow
machines so far), but I'm thinking about taking the weekend to
upgrade all of my machines.
Arthur
------------------------------
From: R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Video software for linux
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 08:12:24 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Does anyone know of any video software
> which works both in windows and linux ?
You're actually asking the wrong question. The more
accurate question would be:
Are there any video standards which are supported
on both Windows and Linux.
And the answer is yes.
The MPEG, MPEG2 and MPEG4 standards are all supported on
both Linux and Windows. In addition, Linux offers several
utilities, both commercial and GPL to support these standards.
The X.329 video conferencing standard is also available.
Between Linux users, functions such NetMeeting may be less
important. You could use VNC to create a shared view, or you
could run X11 over IRC-II.
Between a mix of Linux and Windows users, you might want to
explore something like RealNetworks, who support both Linux
and Windows on their machines. I believe there are also
quick-time videos as well.
Keep in mind that with Linux, many of the complex monolithic
programs that must run under a single exe image under windows
can be emulated using trivial pipelines and named pipes or message
queues under Linux.
> I'm thinking of applications such as Netmeeting,
> CuSeeme etc but they don't support linux.
This shouldn't be a suprise. NetMeeting is a Microsoft application
and Microsoft has a notorious habit of taking public standards and
"reengineering" them to turn them into exclusive high-profit monopoly
tools.
Microsoft has been doing this since the days of BASIC. They
implemented the original DEC BASIC, but then they created a
save format that guaranteed that nothing but Microsfot BASIC
could read it.
Microsfot couldn't even get text right. MS-DOS was so primitive, and
ran on such cheap and simple printers that Microsoft had to put the
carriage-returns and line-feeds into the file. Since there wasn't
really the equivalent to an "LPR" filter (to convert text into
printer-friendly format), Microsoft simply left both characters
in the files.
Later, when the rest of the industry standardised on the line-feed
as the record delimiter for text files, Microsfot clung to it's
original 1976 text file format (It actually dates back to RT-11
which MS-DOS was designed to emulate.
When you save word processor documents, a portable version ** Rich Text
Format ** or RTF is a published standard that can be understood by
most systems and word processing applications. Office 97 will also
let you save the document in HTML (really ugly and nonstandard HTML).
Office 2000 also offers the ability to save documents in XML, another
popular and standard format. Don't be suprised however, if your Linux
machine chokes on some Office documents. One of the classic problems
with Office is that there are "bells and whistles" that only Office
supports, and Microsoft encourages you to use. If you don't need it,
don't use it.
You may want to check to see if your webcam software supports one of
the industry standards. It's much easier to videoconference between
systems if you have compatible standards. You might like the control
panel on CUSeeMe or NetMeeting, but when the settings are configured
for the ANSI standard for video conferencing, you can also work with
implementations in KDE, GNOME, and Java. AOL instant messenger is
greate, but it's essentially IRC-II with a friendly GUI in front of it.
Unlike Windows, your Linux installation generally includes an IRC-II
server, free. This means that, within your firewall, you can be
the IRC-II server as well as the client.
Because all UNIX programs use streams of delimited data, it's often
very easy to encode the data into a suitable format, and ship it great
distances, multiplex it, or capture it using trivial connections.
> If you do .. please reply via email!
Since this isn't a unique issue to you, I posted it to the group,
but I also sent you a CC.
> Thanks
> --
> Martin Svensson
> Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
--
Rex Ballard - I/T Architect, MIS Director
Linux Advocate, Internet Pioneer
http://www.open4success.com
Linux - 50 million satisfied users worldwide
and growing at over 5%/month! (recalibrated 8/2/00)
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Goldhammer)
Subject: Re: Linux Out perfoms Windows
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 08:42:17 GMT
On Thu, 12 Oct 2000 07:50:52 GMT, Pete Goodwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>And LinuxTrolls complained about my generalisation "Linux lags behind
>same speed. Running POVray on Linux without X compared to Windows
>revealed Windows was faster. All done on the same hardware.
>
Try running the SETI@home client for windows, and the one for
Linux. Run them on the same dual-boot machine. Compare the results.
I've tried this on several machines. The Windows command-line client
runs consistently 20%-30% slower. Why? Compiler differences?
------------------------------
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: David T. Johnson lies again
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 08:48:29 GMT
Marty writes:
>>>>>> Marty writes [to David T. Johnson]:
>>>>>>> Do you utilize the same (to quote Joe Malloy) "mythical and ineffective
>>>>>>> lawyer" as Tholen?
>>>>>> My lawyer is neither mythical nor ineffective, Marty, despite what Joe
>>>>>> Malloy wants you to think.
>>>>> Who is your lawyer and what has he done for you?
>>>> You and Malloy made the claim, Marty, therefore the burden of proof
>>>> falls on your shoulders.
>>> I asked a question.
>> You made a claim about a "mythical and ineffective lawyer", Marty.
>> Substantiate it.
> I was quoting Malloy.
Quoting an unsubstantiated and erroneous claim doesn't make it any less
unsubstantiated and erroneous, Marty.
> Would you like me to substantiate his use of the phrase.
I want you to substantiate the claim, Marty.
>>> I made no claim, Dave.
>> Incorrect, Marty.
> How ironic.
Where is the alleged irony, Marty?
>>> You, however, made a claim that he is neither mythical nor ineffective,
>> A direct reference to your unsubstantiated and erroneous claim, Marty,
> Impossible.
Incorrect, Marty.
>> despite the fact that you deny making a claim.
> And for good reason.
And what might that reason be, Marty?
>>> and I was asking for some form of evidence on that matter.
>> I was asking for some form of evidence that my lawyer is "mythical
>> and ineffective", Marty.
> Ask Malloy.
Been there, done that, Marty. He failed to produce any evidence. One
would think by now that you would have disregarded Malloy's claims.
------------------------------
From: R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Blatant anti-MS trolling...
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 08:23:25 GMT
In article <8s059u$tsh$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> You know what pisses me off?
>
> The hotmail server that has my email account is down. (Guess they're
> switching back to BSD or whatever.) Anyway, it hasn't been able to let
> me in for almost two hours now.
Are they really switching back to BSD? Drestin, do you know
about this?
> I've gotten three different error messages because of it.
>
> I click on the "Problems signing in?" link.
>
> I get three possibilities, all of which are client-side symptoms which
> politely ask, "Are you sure you're not a moron who's never used the
> internet before?"
>
> Not once is there mentioned the fact that Hotmail just goes batshit
> every now and then. Even Netscape WebMail is better than this.
Keep in mind that, for Hotmail, this is a new experience. In fact,
the outage even made the CNBC morning show. It's normally very
unusual for hotmail to experience an outage.
But then again, they recently switched to Windows 2000. I don't know
that this is why the server went down (according to reports, the entire
east cost hotmail system went down).
Either Microsoft will switch back to UNIX and outages will be
the exception rather than the rule, or they will be so committed
to Windows 2000 that they will keep it there, even if it costs
hotmail every customer they've ever had. This could be a problem
however since advertizers quickly lose interest in sites that don't
produce any views or referrals.
> Rant mode = off. Thank you for your patience.
Similar things happened to AOL back in 1995. The were still using
X.3 PAD devices which made TCP/IP painfully slow. Suddenly users
were switching to local providers (who used Linux and BSD terminal
servers to feed the X.25 or frame-relay links). The delay created
whole new companies, many of which have become powerhouses in their
own right.
> -ws
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>
--
Rex Ballard - I/T Architect, MIS Director
Linux Advocate, Internet Pioneer
http://www.open4success.com
Linux - 50 million satisfied users worldwide
and growing at over 5%/month! (recalibrated 8/2/00)
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Advocacy Digest
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