Linux-Advocacy Digest #272, Volume #30 Thu, 16 Nov 00 19:13:04 EST
Contents:
Re: Lets try serious advocacy/discussion. (Pete Goodwin)
Re: Uptime -- where is NT? ("Nigel Feltham")
Re: Uptime -- where is NT? ("Nigel Feltham")
Re: Uptime -- where is NT? ("Nigel Feltham")
Re: Uptime -- where is NT? ("Nigel Feltham")
Re: Linux INstability & Netscape : Insights? (tom)
Re: And it just goes on and on.... (Mike Raeder)
Re: Uptime -- where is NT? (.)
Re: Lets try serious advocacy/discussion. (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: Of course, there is a down side... ("Chad Myers")
Re: Of course, there is a down side... ("Ayende Rahien")
Re: Lets try serious advocacy/discussion. (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: Linux 2.4 mired in delays as Compaq warns of lack of momentum ("Chad Myers")
Re: Most important computer program in the history of humanity (JoeX1029)
Re: OT: Could someone explain C++ phobia in Linux? (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: Linux INstability & Netscape : Insights? (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: The Sixth Sense (Steve Mading)
Re: Companies supporting KDE? (Matthias Warkus)
Re: OT: Could someone explain C++ phobia in Linux? (mlw)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Pete Goodwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Lets try serious advocacy/discussion.
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 22:24:21 +0000
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Oh I thought it was a printer. Sorry.
>
> Scanner?
>
> Forget it. InSane (great name for a linux program) in it's current
> half aborted state only supports hardware that the pimple faced
> Penguinista's have been able to reverse engineer. By the time they get
> around to your scanner it will be obsolete. But Linux and obsolete
> hardware are a good match.
> Too bad it wasn't a printer. You stand a better chance, not much
> better, but better, with that piece of hardware :(
Um, you did actually _read_ what Gary Hallock wrote, I hope?
There _is_ a backend for SANE for my scanner.
I downloaded it, built it, can't figure out how to use it 8).
Ah, but then my scanner is plugged into a USB hub which Linux doesn't seem
to have told to power up. Oops!
--
Pete, running KDE2 on Linux Mandrake 7.2
------------------------------
From: "Nigel Feltham" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.os2.advocacy,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Uptime -- where is NT?
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 22:19:18 -0000
>I would disagree somewhat. OS/2 on a server is very stable indeed.
I think the point the previous poster was making was that Unix is more
stable than OS/2, not that OS/2 is unstable. If for example OS/2 systems
are stable enough to run for 9 months between reboots and Unix can run
for at least 1 year between reboots then they can both be called stable
operating systems as 9 months is a good uptime but the one with an uptime
of 1 year is more stable. If under the same example another operating system
can only stay up for 1 week then it is not stable (this was just an example
so don't flame me about actual details).
------------------------------
From: "Nigel Feltham" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.os2.advocacy,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Uptime -- where is NT?
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 22:26:17 -0000
>> > It appears that MS isn't so eager to have users measure
>> > uptime of their stuff, isn't it?
>>
>> Why should they be?
>
>I think we all know for sure why they shouldn't...
Why not - They have managed to stretch the uptime of
win9x ( which can often be measured with a stopwatch) to
the stage where NT occasionally reaches the wrapround
time of 49 days. This is a big achievement for such a crap
company.
------------------------------
From: "Nigel Feltham" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.os2.advocacy,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Uptime -- where is NT?
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 22:28:46 -0000
>Actually, GetTickCount() is not the correct way to do it. GetTickCount()
>cycles back to 0 after 49.7 days because it's only a 32 bit value holding
>milliseconds since boot.
>
>uptime.exe works by looking in the event log for the last time the log was
>started and calculating from the current time. Which means you need only
>set your clock ahead by 3 years to get a 3 year uptime ;)
>
Why does NT uptime reset after 49.7 days then - don't Microtoss know the
correct way to measure it?
------------------------------
From: "Nigel Feltham" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.os2.advocacy,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Uptime -- where is NT?
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 22:30:27 -0000
>It was never included in the original product, it was first released
>last year. It's available for download at
>http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?releaseid=15849
>
Another MS innovation then and obviosly not playing catchup to features
Unix had 20 years ago.
------------------------------
From: tom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux INstability & Netscape : Insights?
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 22:44:13 GMT
In article <8v0a1t$71b$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Osugi Sakae" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Mandrake should have put an icon on your desktop called "Xkill" - if
not,
> you could try right clicking on the desktop and choosing run command
(or
> hit ALT+F2, it will pop up the same box) and run xkill. You curser
will
> change, and then you just left click on a Netscape window and it goes
> bye-bye (hopefully).
Thanks for the tip. This is going on my sheet of notes for future
reference.
> What exactly happened to your gui? Was netscape still visible or not?
It
> has a way of hanging around, even after it crashes.
> Anyhow, I use ps -aux to veiw running processes (see man ps for
details).
> Kde prolly has a gui version, but i've never looked. you can also use
> "top" to see processes and the memory / cpu time they are using.
Netscape was still visible (2 or 3 windows). But of course, clicking
on the close buttons did nothing.
> Get used to that site, it is great for quickly getting a package you
want
> or need. go to the PByName.html page, click on the "i586" in the same
row
> as pan-0.8.0beta2-1mdk. The new page will tell you more than you want
to
> know about the package. At the top of the page in big letters is a
link
> to download the package (the text is the name of the package). Shift-
Left
> click and you are set.
Boy, do I feel like a doofus! (& not just because I'm not sure how to
spell "doofus") I flew right by the title and went down to the lists
below. Of course, these are the links that take you in the "circle."
But I found the right link and got the file now. Thank you very much.
If I can get pan working, I can just ignore Netscape (except maybe for
the browser part) and won't have to worry about it crashing.
Tom
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: Mike Raeder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: And it just goes on and on....
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 08:01:18 -0500
David Dorward wrote:
> > <snip long example of guy having problems with linux>
> >
> > Tek, what's your point? I think everyone here knows that Linux is
> > more difficult to set up than Win9x. What kind of life do you lead
>
> I disagree. On my system Windows took about 3 hours to get working, and it
> still crashed with when I try to use the TV card, even after updating all
> the drivers to the latest versions. On the other hand, Linux (Mandrake 7.2)
> installed in 40 minutes, even down to autodetecting my TV card, which works
> perfectly.
>
> In fact the only bit of hardware that doesn't work is my MPEG decoder card
> - which isn't supported at all, yet.
That's a good example. Sure, there's HW that's not
supported on Linux, but there's also HW that's not supported
on lotsa things. For instance, this RAID card that I put in
a server recently. Whilst supported for Linux/Unix, it
comes with a piece of paper (docmentation update) that says:
"Do NOT use M$ Software RAID with the Windows NT or Windows
2000 drivers. Testing has shown unpredicable behavior,
etc...."
*All* os's have some sort of HW problems. This is why
people should check and make sure the HW they want/have
works with their system. I'm certain that WinXX can't
support my cassette drive that ran flawlessly on my
Apple][. :)
And if anyone *still* wants to whi^H^H^Hrant about how
superior WinXX is with hardware, just hook a phone system up
to it and try to collect call logs from the serial port. :P
--
My Australian Shepherd is smarter than your honor student
------------------------------
From: . <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.os2.advocacy,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Uptime -- where is NT?
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 12:04:19 +1300
> Why not - They have managed to stretch the uptime of
> win9x ( which can often be measured with a stopwatch) to
> the stage where NT occasionally reaches the wrapround
> time of 49 days. This is a big achievement for such a crap
> company.
I want to know who the hell found out 95 couldn't stay up LONGER than
49.7 days... whoever did this is either a win95 genius, or the machine
wasn't used for anything more strenuous than timekeeping for about a
year, and they were curious about the regularity of the required
reboots...
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Subject: Re: Lets try serious advocacy/discussion.
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 23:10:49 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote
on Thu, 16 Nov 2000 16:49:06 GMT
<8v135v$j23$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>In article <13IQ5.20840$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> "Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>[snip]
>> In fact I have used Linux's 'cp -a' to move Win95
>> to a larger drive (after the format /s) when it failed at copying
>> itself.
>
>My current Win95 partition came out of a cpio archive, no problems. Same
>reason, disk jockeying after adding a drive.
I've also had very few problems in restoring Win95
from a tar archive, backed up and restored while the computer was
running Linux (which it does most of the time now; the last time
I rebooted according to uptime is 65 days ago).
It's a reasonable method of defragmenting a disk as well --
although it depends on how intelligent the fat/vfat file system
module in the kernel is -- I doubt it's horribly bright,
but who knows? :-)
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Before you buy.
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random misquote here
------------------------------
Reply-To: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Of course, there is a down side...
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 22:56:28 GMT
"Tim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Chad Myers wrote:
>
> >
> > "Tom Wilson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:1dMQ5.154$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > >
> > > "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > > news:MCIQ5.8699$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> > > Hmmm.... rpm -qilp wine*.rpm
> > >
> > > four
> >
> > Oh that's MUCH better.
> >
> > Why not just rpm -l wine*.rpm?
> >
> > Why do I need FOUR, count them FOUR, arguments just to list the contents?
>
> Because, Chad, you are an unimaginative idiot as usual.
>
> Maybe you are querying a FILE; maybe you are querying an ALREADY INSTALLED
> PACKAGE, maybe you are querying WHAT PACKAGE OWNS WHAT FILE on the
> filesystem, or any other numerous query options you COULD use IF your OS
> had a DATABASE DRIVEN SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM. WHICH windows DOES NOT
> HAVE.
<sigh>
Listen, moron, I've said three times now, what if I just want
to list the contents of the RPM package?
Four command line arguments?
This just typifies the obscurity and lack of any thought to usability whatsoever
in Linux development.
Your response only polarizes this position, throwing Linux into the ever
downward spiraling through process that any user who can navigate through
this endless web of inconsistent and hopelessly unusable loosely associated
utilities is not worthy of using a computer in the first place.
It's that arrogance which will guarantee that Linux will never succeed.
-Chad
------------------------------
From: "Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Of course, there is a down side...
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 01:10:52 +0200
"Tim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Ayende Rahien wrote:
>
>
> > I knew what .bashrc was, and what alias was, and I still wasn't able to
> > get a simple
> > alias cd..='cd ..'
> > in a debian installation I tried.
> > Logging off and restarting didn't help.
> > Never understood why.
>
> because you are using special characters (..) and must put them in double
> quotes
>
> it has to be
>
> alias "cd.."='cd ..'
>
> that works for me.
I'll keep that in mind, the very same thing, however, worked on RH7 install,
though.
I also tried to turn ls to 'ls --color --all' which also didn't work, I gave
up on .bashrc and did everything manually.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Lets try serious advocacy/discussion.
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 23:14:08 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Ayende Rahien
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote
on Thu, 16 Nov 2000 21:54:08 +0200
<8v1hrc$3eg$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:8v1b7a$qn7$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>> Tore Lund <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > Les Mikesell wrote:
>
>
>> > > And you just ignore all those "can't open" file errors during such a
>> > > copy and hope it isn't anything you need? Anything running or
>> > > open will fail to copy.
>> >
>> > Hmmm. There are no such messages so I believe you are wrong here.
>> >
>>
>> Have you ever heard of a "Sharing Violation"?????
>
>
>The only file that I've not been able to copy successfully with windows (9x,
>though), was win386.swp
I think we can safely ignore that one. :-)
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random swap file here
------------------------------
Reply-To: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux 2.4 mired in delays as Compaq warns of lack of momentum
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 23:00:49 GMT
"." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8v11cd$3k4$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy Chad Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >> > I think they are talking about Tux, and I may be mistaken, but I do
believe
> >> > that Tux is only capable of handling static pages. Not very useful
> >> > today.
> >>
> >> Why not?
>
> > Because almost everyone uses dynamic content. Well, at least most, if not
all,
> > sites that count (e.g. not the hamster dance page)
>
> Lets see.
>
> Most websites are hosted with apache. This is a fact.
>
> Apache works exactly the same way; its function is independant of operating
system.
>
> Apache runs under linux, and quite well.
>
> It follows that it is very likely that at least SOME sites that count are
served
> by apache.
>
> It therefore follows that dynamic content is possible with apache, and
therefore
> linux.
>
> You moronic fool.
Jesus Christ, are you guys not capable of keeping on topic for AT LEAST 3 posts?
Was it not just you, idiot, that I was arguing that the Tux numbers are
completely worthless?
Was it also not you that said asked why non-dynamic numbers weren't very
useful?
I stated that this is the case, and then you start calling me a moronic
idiot because you can't even keep on topic for 2 posts!
You are the moronic idiot. The proof is above in this post.
NO ONE was arguing that LINUX was not capable of producing dynamic content,
"moronic fool".
<sigh>
-Chad
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JoeX1029)
Date: 16 Nov 2000 23:15:55 GMT
Subject: Re: Most important computer program in the history of humanity
>"mmnnoo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:w32Q5.195570$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> A Microsoft exec dubs Windows 2000
>> "the most important computer program in the history of humanity"
>> (http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/nov2000/nf20001113_046.htm)
>>
>> Although this strikes me as ridiculous and somewhat offensive, I can't
>> think of any other computer programs that really deserve the title,
>either.
>
>A few weakish suggestions: Lotus 123, Wordstar, Mosiac.
>
>--Chris
>
>
or how about: UNIX (PDP-8 ver.) UNIX System V, NeXTSTEP or the other systems
that help set the foundation for most of todays useful systems?
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Subject: Re: OT: Could someone explain C++ phobia in Linux?
Date: 16 Nov 2000 23:24:51 GMT
On Thu, 16 Nov 2000 21:15:38 GMT, Andy Newman wrote:
>Michael Livshin wrote:
>Very often proponents of C++ criticize those who dare to point out
>some of its issues as being "procedural programmers" or "stuck in
>the C mindset".
Some of the critics are.
> In my experience it has been the more experienced
>programmers with more knowledge of the original OOP systems that
>(usefully) criticize C++.
A lot of these people criticise it unfairly, in that they use the design
goals of *their* pet language as a yardstick to evaluate C++. Evaluating
other languages by the design goals set for C++ will also show C++ to
be "superior", but it's not a reasonable comparison.
For example, they criticise C++ for not being "purely OO", when it was
never intended to be. They criticise C++ for requiring manual memory
management despite the fact that GC was not a design goal of the C++
language, and is not a silver bullet. A lot of the common criticisms
completely ignore the design goals of the language. In fact the very
act of "comparing" languages is somewhat flawed in that the comparison
tends to assume a certain set of "design goals" that a language should
have, so such comparisons are invariably biased (in favour of the language
being trumpeted)
One thing about Bjarne's page that I find insightful is his refusal to
compare C++ to other languages, on the grounds that apples-to-apples
comparisons are not feasible.
--
Donovan Rebbechi * http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/ *
elflord at panix dot com
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Subject: Re: Linux INstability & Netscape : Insights?
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 23:30:29 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, tom
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote
on Wed, 15 Nov 2000 22:52:31 GMT
<8uv43c$14h$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>In article <8uv2gb$sv8$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Mig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Yes yes very believable
>>
>> This sounds like a hardware defect.. probably your cpu cooler or some
>ram.
>> And off course your Windoze will crash too so how could you boot it?
>>
>> Try again and with more effort please.
>
>Huh?
>
>I don't want to sound like a Win-troll, but I haven't add any
>comparable lockups in Windows lately. (but of course, I haven't let
>Communicator anywhere near my system in quite a while, either)
I'm not thrilled with Communicator myself.
It's OK for static web pages, but do anything with
Java and it's a bit like doing a tightwire act without
a net -- and it's not killable except by -9, either.
Ask me how I know... :-)
(Disclaimer: this is 4.7. 6.0 might be a lot better.)
Linux does tend to beat on hardware a little harder -- the paging
model for DOS had exactly *one* physical page available at a time
(bizarre); I don't know if Win95's virtual memory model is more
intelligent or not; I hope so for the sake of every Windows user.
(Windows NT probably has its own ideas.)
Consumer-level equipment tends to have less beefy power supplies
than industrial-grade stuff like Sparcs. With an entry-level
configuration, it may be more than adequate, but load it down with
extra disks and peripherals, and it may become marginal, which may
yield such things as segmentation violations during kernel compiles (this
is mentioned in a FAQ) and other inexplicable behavior.
Solution? Invest in a beefier power supply. (I've also watched with
some interest as to how the wattage ratings for consumer-level
computers keep going up every year, and I also have a very old
AT power supply which was all of 65 watts, if memory serves.
State-of-the-art runs around 250 or 300 watts. I wonder why... :-) )
[.sigsnip]
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random misquote here
------------------------------
From: Steve Mading <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: The Sixth Sense
Date: 16 Nov 2000 23:34:32 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy Christopher Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: "Steve Mading" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
: news:8v0a8u$isu$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
:>
:> I fail to understand why this is even needed. You refer to a computer
:> by its hostname. Now, if this alias were at a low level, such that you
:> could, for example go to http://foo and http://bar and have them be
:> the same thing, then that would make sense, but shortcuts are only
:> at the interactive GUI level, where it doesn't matter what it's called.
:> The same is true for shortcuts to URLS or shortcuts to printers. These
:> things are just strings. A shortcut URL makes no sense since a URL is
:> something you *type* anyway. Once you've got a clickable icon thingy
:> to refer to a URL, who cares what it's called? You aren't typing it
:> in anymore at that point, you are just clicking on an icon, so who cares
:> what it's called?
: I really don't understand what you're trying to say.
: The point of being able to have shortcuts to any GUI object is that you find
: it *once*, then make a shortcut to it and you don't have to go through
: whatever rigamarole you had to go through to navigate to it the first time.
: You just open the icon and its there. I fail to see how what the shortcut
: is called is relevant at all.
Because in the case of printers and URLS the "shortcut" doesn't need to
be anything more than a dumb ascii string. Exactly what is the difference
between having one icon associated with this string vs having two? I
don't see why it needs to be a special thing - once you have the capacity
to associate an icon with a URL string, what's the difference between a
shortcut to that icon, and just making a totally new icon associated with
the URL string?
For example, in kde and gnome, the desktop can have an icon on it that
refers to a "URL" file, which is, behind the scenes, just a file that
contains one line of text - the URL itself.
: The advantage to these things is that you can move them around, or send them
: to other people, or take them with you.
URLs already have that feature, without shortcuts. That's why I'm
confused. There is no difference between making two separate copies
of a URL and making a shortcut to a URL. A URL is *already* a remote
reference anyway.
:> : You can make a shortcut to an object, move the shortcut to another drive
: and
:> : it will still resolve.
:>
:> This is also true of symbolic links with full paths in Unix. Furthermore,
:> if you actually *want* the relative path to change, you have that option
:> too - it all depends on whether you start your path at the root or
:> use a "../../.." type of path.
: A *lot* of links don't use absolute paths. More importantly, if a link
: breaks it won't try to fix itself, nor does it automatically keep track of
: the target if it moves.
That depends on the kind of link. Hardlinks (by i-node number) don't
care if the target moves, synmbolic links (by filename) do.
: These are all just UI issues.
:> : You can make a shortcut to an object, move the shortcut to another
: computer
:>
:> Stop - "Move the shortcut to another computer" how? Only in the explorer
:> window, or does this work everywhere else too?
: Floppy disk, email, whatever. The shortcut encodes information like the
: computer name, path to the file etc.
So, errr, it's basicly a URL? IMO it would have been better to just
make some extensions to URLs to handle different 'protocols', rather
than make up some new technique. (For example, refer to a printer
with something like: "print://printer1/", or for remote printers,
"print://other.machine.name/printer1/". URLS are *supposed* to be
extensible this way, just so long as you don't step on the toes
of the officially sanctioned protocol format strings (http://, ftp://,
etc).)
: It's very handy.
:> : and it will still resolve to the original object on the original
: computer
:> : and access it (assuming the other computer has appropriate permissions).
:> : You can make a shortcut to an object on a remote computer, disconnect
: from
:> : that machine and the shortcut will re-connect to it if necessary to
: resolve
:> : the shortcut when you open it (assuming correct permissions etc).
:>
:> : Aliases on MacOS and Shadows on OS/2 have similar pros/cons vs links,
: for
:> : the same reasons.
:>
:> :> Shortcuts are handy, no doubt, but they only cover a small subset of
:> :> what can be done with unix symbolic links, which is why they look
:> :> like they have limited functionality to someone used to unix. If
:> :> you don't try to compare them to symbolic links, then sure, they
:> :> do a fine job. Something doesn't lose functionality just because
:> :> something else is better.
:>
:> : It's an invalid comparison because a) they operate at totally different
:> : levels (filesystem vs shell) and b) have almost completely different
:> : features and purposes. About the only similarity they share is that
: both
:> : can point to files.
:>
:> True - they are totally different. I don't consider the things shortcuts
:> do to be *good* things though, because they lock you into one user
: interface.
: And links lock you into a certain filesystem, so ?
?? Links exist and work the same way regardless of the filesystem
used. If the filesystem supports it, it works the same - A piece
of software that ends up using a link somehow does it the *same*
way regardless of whether the link comes from a efs, xfs, ext2,
reiserFS, or whatever type of filesystem.
: Shortcuts are a *User Interface* feature and a damn useful one.
: You might care to all decent GUIs have some equivalent - KDE with .kdelnks,
That sentence no verb. Huh?
: for example.
I know they exist. I don't use them. There's very little point to it,
precisely because I don't want to lock myself into just kde or gnome.
:> (By making you rely on things that don't exist "for real" on the
: underlying
:> system. You can't "fopen()" a shortcut in a program, and so they only
: work
:> for those programs that expressly make use of them with special code.
: (the
:> MS user interface). (When you make the change at a lower level, it retro-
:> actively works in old programs that never heard of the idea.) )
: But the disadvantage is you lose features like being able to refer to
: high-level objects, because something as low-level as a filesystem can't
: know about the UI implemented on top of it.
True, but the problem is that shortcuts are *all* you have in Windows,
and they are woefully inadequete for anything other than the one
workplace shell that implements them.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matthias Warkus)
Subject: Re: Companies supporting KDE?
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 00:24:37 +0100
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
It was the Thu, 16 Nov 2000 16:45:50 -0500...
...and Donn Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I'd likle to see some of this. KDE is offering the capability for a
> nice application framework. AFAIK, no companies are putting $$$ into
> KDE as a desktop.
Then you're misinformed. From the top of my mind:
SuSE (pay KDE developers)
Corel (Corel File Manager etc.)
Troll Tech (employ KDE developers)
theKompany (works on KOffice)
I suppose that Mandrake are doing some KDE work, too, considering that
it is their default desktop.
mawa
--
Not everything in the world exists because of or for the benefit of
economics.
-- Arthur
------------------------------
From: mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Could someone explain C++ phobia in Linux?
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 18:54:08 -0500
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Russ Lyttle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Easy. It isn't an emotional dislike. C++ just isn't suitable for the
> > job. C++ is slower than C by an order of magnitude (almost as slow as
> > Java). It is difficult to manage any sizable project in C++. Multiple
> > inheritance and friend functions are just two reasons. C++ is almost
> > impossible to maintain. C++ has all the weakness of C and none of its
> > advantages. I can think of any number of alternatives to both C and
> C++.
> > But C does have the history behind it.
>
> Precisely. Operating Systems, unlike application software,
> need to be quick on its execution. C++ just does not cut it.
> With its on the fly resolution of a member function to execute
> (polymorphism) and other nitty gritties, god knows how long
> long, compared to C, does C++ need to execute a simple function.
You mean like:
movl -40(%ebp), %eax
movl 8(%eax), %eax
call *%eax
Seems like the overhead of one move, at most.
>
> It is not an emotional dislike, but due to some concerns which
> are very practical.
You have made no practical arguments.
--
http://www.mohawksoft.com
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