Linux-Advocacy Digest #621, Volume #32 Sat, 3 Mar 01 19:13:03 EST
Contents:
Re: Windoze Domination/Damnation (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: [OT] .sig (was: Something Seemingly Simple.) (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: "Linux is Going Down" says Microsoft (Tim Hanson)
Re: New Microsoft Ad :-) (Shane Phelps)
Re: Crimosoft will get off scot-free (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: NT vs *nix performance (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: Another Linux "Oopsie"! (Karel Jansens)
Re: KDE or GNOME? ("Adam Warner")
Re: Mircosoft Tax (Ed Allen)
Re: KDE or GNOME? ("Adam Warner")
Re: Windoze Domination/Damnation (Chris Ahlstrom)
Re: KDE or GNOME? ("Adam Warner")
Re: NT vs *nix performance (J Sloan)
Re: NT vs *nix performance (Giuliano Colla)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Subject: Re: Windoze Domination/Damnation
Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2001 22:25:34 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Pete Goodwin
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote
on Sat, 03 Mar 2001 19:40:29 GMT
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] says...
>
>> Can't reject something that isn't even offered by the OEM.
>
>There's absolutely NOTHING stopping people from buying Linux or BeOS
>seperately.
Once they've bought Windows, of course. Microsoft gets compensated nicely
that way. :-)
Of course, the buyers might not know they've bought Windows already.
>
>--
>Pete
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- The Microsoft Tax. Pay it, or else.
EAC code #191 26d:04h:57m actually running Linux.
Hi. I'm a signature virus.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Crossposted-To: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: [OT] .sig (was: Something Seemingly Simple.)
Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2001 22:26:37 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Kelsey Bjarnason
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote
on Sat, 03 Mar 2001 19:05:48 GMT
<ggbo6.6874$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>"The Ghost In The Machine" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in
>message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Barry Schwarz
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> wrote
>> on 2 Mar 2001 02:12:46 GMT
>> <97mviu$r9d$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>> >On Thu, 01 Mar 2001 17:13:01 -0500, Aaron Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> >wrote:
>> >
>> >>> An 8th grade education, history of antisocial behavior, and a three
>> >>> foot long criminal record?
>> >>
>> >>In the US Army, that's 2 reasons that will bar you from even being
>> >>able to enlist as a private.
>> >Since the army no longer requires a high school diploma, anti-social
>> >behavior is not recorded unless it is also illegal, and a criminal
>> >record is only one thing (and possibly irrelevant since neither
>> >traffic nor parking offenses are impediments to enlisting), what two
>> >did you have in mind?
>>
>> How the heck is the recruit going to handle all the nifty neato
>> useful gadgetry the Army's going to have online in the next couple
>> decades if he can't even figure out which button to push? :-)
>
>
>"Point at enemy. Press green button. When finished, press red button and
>store."
Heh.
What if he's colorblind?
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Off-topic? What's that?
EAC code #191 26d:04h:58m actually running Linux.
This space for rent.
------------------------------
From: Tim Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: "Linux is Going Down" says Microsoft
Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2001 22:30:11 GMT
jtnews wrote:
>
> If Linux was really going down, Microsoft
> wouldn't be trying to put it
> down, they'd simply ignore it
> and try to improve their products
> instead.
>
> IBM's backing of Linux on the server end
> has really gotten Microsoft's attention!
>
> http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-5005017.html
>
> Bloody Viking wrote:
> >
> > Charlie Ebert ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > : In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Aaron Kulkis wrote:
> > : >Bloody Viking wrote:
> > : >> Charlie Ebert ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > : >> : And my verdict: YES, Microsoft is dead.
> > : >> Not quite yet, but it is in its death throes.
> > : >"I'm getting better"
> > : Look. Could you help us out here?
> > And Linux is still gaining.
Also from that report:
"Open standards also undermine such proprietary computer operating
systems as Microsoft's Windows and Sun Microsystems's Solaris. Both
companies are IBM rivals, and IBM Chairman Louis Gerstner has said both
companies' proprietary models are doomed. IBM is far along in a drive to
make all its software and hardware Linux-compatible."
--
The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up
in the morning, and does not stop until you get to school.
------------------------------
From: Shane Phelps <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: New Microsoft Ad :-)
Date: Sun, 04 Mar 2001 09:36:13 +1100
Bloody Viking wrote:
>
> Shane Phelps ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
>
> : I wasn't thinking about just servers. I just log out of my NT box at work
> : overnight, It's only had a couple of BSODs, and it only gets rebooted every
> : couple of months when it slows down too much. I think I've only had 1 BSOD
> : on the NT box at home, and it stays on most of the time (but not doing much).
> : As I said, I haven't had as bad a run with NT as many others have. OTOH,
> : most of the W9x users turn their PCs off every night and *still* get crashes.
>
> Of all people here, I surely had the worst imaginable expierence with NT of
> any flavour. When trying to install it on a _virgin_ computer (a homebrew) it
> would BSOD on the install _floppy_. I tried to get install floppies from
> another person, but alas, it would still BSOD. $300 (seppo) down the drain.
> So, in my case, NT got five zeros for reliability. It would reliably BSOD upon
> install attempt. Never again will I ever spend any money on an OS made by the
> Antichrist.
>
That's a real bummer for you, but I don't know if your bad luck is any more
representative than my good run. I've seen lots of Linux horror stories from
the usual suspects that bear no relationship to my Linux experience as well.
...and a certain well-known Black Knight's Solaris/CDE claim is just farcical!
> If a PC don't work on Linux, it does not work. Period. In any version of
> English, including Strine, mate. Now, ask yourself this one. If you have to
I *could* put one together that'd run DOS but not Linux. Linux won't run
on
an 8088, 8086 or 80286, and I suspect a floppy-based system with 384KB RAM
would have trouble as well :-)
> reboot becuse it's getting slow, don't you think something's wrong? An OS
> should never have to be rebooted due to memory leaks. Ever. That's bullshite
> from the get-go if memory leaks exist in the first place. There is no excuse
> for an OS that leaks memory until it inevitably crashes into a BSOD.
>
You have to read between the lines :-). Why do you think I mentioned it?
I think you're missing my point on this. possibly because of some earlier
snippage. I was only talking about uptimes, not the other virtues and vices
of NT. I said that my experience with NT uptimes was better than that of
many
others here, and that NT could probably average 4 9s (a reboot every
couple of
months), later amended to 3 nines and an 8 (a reboot a month) which just doesn't
have the same ring to it. I don't have a large enough sample of W2K to
have a
reliable feel for it, but it seems more stable than NT 4. I also said
that most
*n?x systems should give 5 9s on average with proper feed and watering.
In order of reliability (from lowest to highest) I'd rank it as:
Windows98, Windows 95, Windows95 (the original version) MacOS 8, NT,
W2K, SCO,
Linux/*BSD, Solaris.
I won't count the anything pre-1995, because that's ancient history in internet
time. I haven't used HP-UX, AIX, etc recently and I don't have
experience with
BeOS, Plan 9, VMS, MVS, OS/390, OS/400 etc so I can't say anything
about them.
There are lots of different operating systems around, just like there
are lots
of different CPU types. No single OS or CPU family is likely to be the best
for all jobs.
For all I know Plan 9 might be the nearest thing to a perfect OS.
> --
> FOOD FOR THOUGHT: 100 calories are used up in the course of a mile run.
> The USDA guidelines for dietary fibre is equal to one ounce of sawdust.
> The liver makes the vast majority of the cholesterol in your bloodstream.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft,alt.microsoft.sucks
Subject: Re: Crimosoft will get off scot-free
Date: 3 Mar 2001 22:40:56 GMT
On Sat, 03 Mar 2001 13:47:20 -0700, Dave wrote:
>On 3 Mar 2001 20:29:01 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
>wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 03 Mar 2001 19:38:38 GMT, Pete Goodwin wrote:
>>>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>says...
>>
>>>And if they are let off, won't they start cracking down on Linux?
>
>It's already begun. Trial or not, Microsoft just can't afford to let
>linux get any more of a foothold.
Well that's almost my point -- only I think Linux has more of a foothold
than they could afford to let it have.
> I suspect that the recent
>open-source comment by Allchin was an initial probe to see what they
>could get away with on the PR front.
I doubt it. Microsoft have been fudding for the last year or so, and
Allchin's FUD is basically mor eof the same. The main difference is
that he isn't even *trying* to FUD on techical grounds which makes
it look like an act of desperation. You can tell a man's down when he
wraps himself in the flag like that ...
>I can think of ways they could do linux in, that would be in keeping
>with past Microsoft strategies. How about launching a patent-violation
>lawsuit and demanding that linux be removed from all computers unless
>some absurd royalty is paid?
The problem is that lawsuits are local, but Linux is not. Their hands
are tied.
>corporations trying to decide whether to switch. Or, any hardware
>manufacturer cooperating with the linux community on drivers might
>find themselves left out of future releases of Windows.
They could try it, but it wouldn't be very effective, because it's
not that difficult or unusual for the user to install from a disk
(indeed, it's necessary if the user's hardware postdates their Windows
version). Because of this, the add-hardware wizard plays nice by
inviting the user to enter their driver disk.
>Personally I hope MS tries something like this. The backlash would be
>spectacular!
I agree. I'm not saying they won't try it, I'm saying that they wouldn't
enjoy a great deal of success if they did.
--
Donovan Rebbechi * http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/ *
elflord at panix dot com
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: NT vs *nix performance
Date: 3 Mar 2001 22:42:40 GMT
On Sat, 03 Mar 2001 20:05:06 GMT, Chad Myers wrote:
>You couldn't get OS/2 on a laptop?
Can't say I ever tried. I was only interested in "naked" or "Linux loaded"
machines.
>I seem to recall some vendors offering the ability to ship w/o
>an OS.
I don't recall this. It was very rare until quite recently. Even the
Linux vendors typically resold laptops that came with Windows.
--
Donovan Rebbechi * http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/ *
elflord at panix dot com
------------------------------
From: Karel Jansens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Another Linux "Oopsie"!
Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2001 00:41:10 +0100
Pete Goodwin wrote:
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] says...
>
> > > I'm surprised any OS or application needs extra or multiple drivers in
> > > this day an age. All the drivers (and there should just be one set)
> > > ought to be in the OS, not in an application. Is that clear enough for
> > > you?
> >
> > But that is just your opinion. Other people may have different ideas
> > about what they prefer (I know e.g. that I do like the fact that Applix
> > Office has native, fast drivers for PCL printers which bypass the
> > Ghostscript pipe).
>
> My opinion? What???
>
> Any OS that requires multiple copies of drivers per applications has got
> to be the DUMBEST OS around!
>
It doesn't _require_ them, it _allows_ them.
You get to _choose_.
That is a _good_ thing.
Unless you are a _dumb_ user.
In which case: do _not_ use this O/S.
> > So we come to the conclusion that this entire thread, which you have
> > baptised as an example of a linux flaw, has been about the fact that
> > _you_ prefer things done differently than others.
>
> So I come to the conclusion you're happy with an OS that REPEATS drivers,
> when every other OS around has learnt NOT to do that?
>
Yes, I am happy with that.
Because I know how to use the feature to my advantage.
If you don't, stay away from it.
BTW, could you enlighten us as to how you came to the conclusion that
"every other OS" doesn't allow for per-application printer drivers? I'm
interested, because I'm quite sure you're dead wrong.
--
Regards,
Karel Jansens
]]] "Go go gadget linux!" Zzzooommm!! [[[
------------------------------
From: "Adam Warner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: KDE or GNOME?
Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2001 22:57:40 GMT
Hi Mig,
It is my understanding (limited as it is) that GNOME provides a superior
component architecture that will lead to more code reuse and
interoperability between applications.
I obtained some of my information from here:
http://developer.gnome.org/arch/component/
These appear to be worthy design decisions, but if you don't think so
please enlighten.
Regards,
Adam
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: alt.linux.sux,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Mircosoft Tax
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ed Allen)
Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2001 23:01:03 GMT
In article <_ddo6.31$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Erik Funkenbusch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>"T. Max Devlin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> >I'm a little confused here. When exactly was Microsoft "almost giving
>away "
>> >the office products?
>>
>> When they were forcing OEMs to bundle it by threatening their Windows
>> licenses, dumping it by using monopoly revenues to subsidize it, and
>> further ensuring that consumers never saw the price tag for it, no
>> matter what it was. So if you got a new PC, you got Office; that's
>> "almost giving away", if you innocently presume it isn't monopolization.
>
>You state this as fact. Yet, I've seen no evidence to support this. It
>hasn't been asserted in any court of law.
>
>
>
>
"It's not illegal if you don't get caught."
Sounds like sock-puppet wisdom to me.
--
How much do we need to pay you to screw Netscape?
- BILL GATES, to AOL in a 1996 meeting
------------------------------
From: "Adam Warner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: KDE or GNOME?
Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2001 23:10:30 GMT
Hi Mig,
> Lets not forget that KDE is the default desktop for the majority of
> professionaly oriented Linux distributions like Caldera, Mandrake, Suse
> - only exceptions are RedHat (dont know about Debian). There must be
> a good reason for that :-)
Those distributors didn't care about preserving software freedom but
instead decided to ship the then more stable and polished KDE without
considering the implications of the Qt license.
Redhat deserves credit for supporting Gnome along with the Free Software
Foundation and of course Debian. To data Redhat has always behaved with
great respect for free software and I hope that continues.
If you don't know whether Debian would have been using KDE it means you
don't know that Debian couldn't with all conscience ship KDE as part of
their main distribution because KDE used to rely on non-free libraries.
> We dont even need to speak about Gnome 1.0 and partially 1.2 that where
> famous for their instabilities (my Gnome 1.2 in Mandrake 7.2 still sucks
> -but that could be my installation).
I can assure you that Gnome 1.2 with my Redhat distribution is stable.
Yeah, Gnome 1.0 crashed all the time.
Regards,
Adam
------------------------------
From: Chris Ahlstrom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Windoze Domination/Damnation
Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2001 23:12:56 GMT
Pete Goodwin wrote:
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] says...
>
> > Can't reject something that isn't even offered by the OEM.
>
> There's absolutely NOTHING stopping people from buying Linux or BeOS
> seperately.
Yes, there is. If someone gets an OS automatically loaded on the
system, the impulse is to look no further for another OS.
------------------------------
From: "Adam Warner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: KDE or GNOME?
Date: Sun, 04 Mar 2001 12:17:36 +1300
>> - only exceptions are RedHat (dont know about Debian). There must be
>> a good reason for that :-)
>
> Those distributors didn't care about preserving software freedom but
> instead decided to ship the then more stable and polished KDE without
> considering the implications of the Qt license?
(I meant to put a question mark at the end of the sentence).
Adam
------------------------------
From: J Sloan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,alt.linux.sux,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: NT vs *nix performance
Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2001 23:57:10 GMT
Chad Myers wrote:
> "Nik Simpson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:v4co6.3465$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >
> > "." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > > Amazing... but I think you are lying. Why? Well, how do you figure that
> > you,
> > > > joe blow average user, using a piece of crap pentium pro scraper can get
> > > > 4200 but it takes IBM a quad Xeon 700 to get 4200? You really expect me
> > to
> > > > believe that you generated 4200 rps on a PP200? ahahahaha
> > > > Where is your gigabit ethernet? Did you have 4 nics and 6 10k scsi
> > drives in
> > > > it? or maybe your just such a software guru that you figured out how to
> > do
> > > > what all the engineers at IBM couldn't.
> > >
> > > 4200 requests per second, if we assume about 512 bytes per request and
> > > the server is serving up 2k static pages, could easily be done over a
> > > single 100Mbit connection.
> > >
> > > 4200 * 512 + 4200 * 2048 = 10752000 bytes per second
> > >
> > > 10752000 * 8 = 86016000 bits per second, easily doable with 100Mb.
> >
> > But I'd hazard a guess that the web hits being measured by JJS are not the
> > same thing as measured by TPC benchmark which is really measuring database
> > lookups when front-ended by webservers, not simply hit/s a-la Webstone. I
> > ran some Webstone tests a few years on an NT 3.51/Netscape combo and got
> > numbers not dissimilar to those that JJS gets, but its not the same
> > benchmark or even close.
>
> I haven't been following this thread to intensely, so I'm not sure
> if this is relevant or not, but the TPC units are typically transactions
> per MINUTE, not second. I don't know if that changes anything or not, but
> it might be useful in whatever you're talking about.
You get an E for effort, but let's clear up a few things:
1. The specweb 99 units of measurement are "conforming connections".
2. This had nothing to do with specweb, but with a very suspicious
benchmark, no doubt sponsored by microsoft, in which some obscure.
incrediby slow and suspiciously expensive "unix" server was reported
to be capable of some figure around 3500 requests per second, and
supposedly represented the best that the unix world had to offer.
Of course this obscure "unix" server trailed the windows pc server
by a significant amount. The obvious question was, where in the world
did they dig this nonsense up, and why didn't they just look at something
sponsored by a neutral 3rd party, like specweb 99 for web benchmarks.
Answer: specweb would not show what they wanted to show, e.g. windows
victorious over all competitors; instead, it shows windows rather badly
beaten by several Unixen until microsoft pulled out all the stops and
tested with a special web cache to skew the results. This got them into
the ballpark, but still trailing both Linux and AIX.
I noted that in running a "quick and dirty" benchmark on an old test
box here, I see 4200 requests/second from a single 100 MB ethernet.
That statement created hoots and howls of outrage from the anti linux
crowd, but the numbers are easily recreated if any one cares to do so.
Hope this clears things up,
jjs
------------------------------
From: Giuliano Colla <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: NT vs *nix performance
Date: Sun, 04 Mar 2001 00:02:31 GMT
JS PL wrote:
>
> "Aaron Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >
> >
> > JS PL wrote:
> > >
> > > "Aaron Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > > > > Then why all the whining about a supposed microsoft tax. No one who
> has
> > > > > ever bought a computer in the history of man has been forced to pay
> > > extra
> > > > > for an OS they didn't want.
> > > >
> > > > Yes, they have.
> > >
> > > How so? At what time in history has it been impossible to buy the
> hardware
> > > to build your own computer? Seems to me that individual hardware
> channels
> > > were there long before people were building and selling packages that
> > > included MS Windows. Your about as dumb as they come.
> >
> > The average consumer has no more interest in building his own
> > computer from scratch as he does in building a kit car.
> >
> > now fuck off and die, idiot.
>
> That's not the point. It doesn't matter if NO ONE want's to build their own
> computer. The fact is, all the components are available and have always been
> available to buy a computer with any or no operating system you choose.
> Therefore, no possibility of a monopoly. Anyone who utters the sentence
> "Microsoft has a monopoly" is clearly advertising their own ignorance. Wait
> and see what the appeals court says.
You mean that if someone takes control of all the commerce of grain in
USA, imposing exclusive contracts with all farmers, and owning all the
warehouses where grain is stored, it could not be possibly sued for
monopolistic action on the ground that you may grow grain in your back
yard? I believe you're out of your mind, son.
------------------------------
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