Linux-Advocacy Digest #647, Volume #32 Mon, 5 Mar 01 02:13:04 EST
Contents:
Re: Sometimes, when I run Windows... (Brent R)
Re: Time for a Windows reinstall! (Bloody Viking)
Re: It's here! IBM's new Linux ad! ("Syncme")
Re: Seattle quake was caused by the GPL. (Ray Chason)
Re: definition of "free" for N-millionth time (Andres Soolo)
Re: If I delete using rm? ("Syncme")
Re: Time for a Windows reinstall! (Ralph Miguel Hansen)
Re: State of linux distros (Ralph Miguel Hansen)
Re: How much do you *NEED*? (Bloody Viking)
Re: Why can't Apple do it? (Neil Bradley)
Re: "Linux is Going Down" says Microsoft (Bloody Viking)
Re: The Double Fucking ala MS... (Bloody Viking)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Brent R <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Sometimes, when I run Windows...
Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 05:42:54 GMT
Donn Miller wrote:
>
> I start freaking out. There's something I can't stand about Windows,
> but I can't figure it out. I have to have a command line, and when I
> can't have a command line, I can feel my brain cells start to stagnate.
> I suffer from sensory deprivation. Windows just seems devoid of all
> intellectual activities.
You can get all the Unix shells for Windows, although some of the
utilities are rendered impotent by DOS's shortcomings. Still I find BASH
for Windows to be a great program.
> When I run Windows, I get this closed-in, claustrophobic feeling. With
> Linux, I feel as if I have more space to roam intellectually. I feel as
> though I am free, frolicking out in a spacious field someplace, using
> the window manager I want to use, the toolkit I want to use. I can run
> top and ps and find out exactly what is running, and where it is
> running. I get an exact number for CPU usage and memory consumption of
> any process or application, and what state each process it is in. But
> most of all, I don't have to hit control+alt+delete, and try to guess
> which instance of a program is hanging. And furthermore, when I kill
> something, it dies right then and there. With Windows, you never know
> if something is going to die or not, and if you've even got the correct
> instance of the app you want to kill.
Can't argue with you there. I think there's an algorithm that picks an
app to crash at random because BG likes to laugh at other people's
misery.
You also forgot pstree and vmstat, which I find to be the most useful of
all the process monitoring utilities
> Unix is an example of an operating system that was designed properly the
> first time. Windows 9x and NT seem amateurish by design. They are
> designs that assume every computer user is an idiot, and that all
> computer users like using something just because a company tells you
> it's good, or because it's popular.
I've always thought that Linux's greatest hindrance was it's amateurish
feel. Windows is a junky OS, but it's a more polished piece of junk.
Linux feels like a motley and chaotic conglomeration of code fragments.
There are about a billion apps released on Freshmeat that do a minor
task relatively well, but on their own or even in reasonable company are
not sufficient. So as a result you need 10 apps to do the job of one
program in Windows.
> In Windows, I am locked into a stale, closed, but yet comfortable room
> with no windows and no fresh air. With unix, I am frolicking in the
> wide-open field, doing the activities I want to do, not what some idiot
> company feels I should be using.
Again with the "Frolicking in the wide-open field"! I'm having visions
of a full grown man dressed as Heide, prancing around the Swiss Alps,
pigtails a'bouncing, smelling daisies and giggling like a schoolgirl.
It's not a pretty sight.
> Windows has gotten better, but its design is indeed amateurish compared
> to unix.
Yeah, what sucks was that if Windows were somewhat stable it wouldn't be
that bad of an OS. For now, though, I don't trust it for real
productivity. I use MS Windows for games/browsing, GNU/Linux for when it
really matters.
> -----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
> http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
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--
Happy Trails!
-Brent
http://rotten168.home.att.net
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bloody Viking)
Subject: Re: Time for a Windows reinstall!
Date: 5 Mar 2001 05:54:53 GMT
Michael Vester ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: Simple. Install Linux. If you must run losedos, ghost a
: workable configuration and burn it to a cd. I can reload my
: losedos system in about 15 minutes complete with applications.
I made a CD with a tarball of a virgin reinstall of Windows. If I have to
reinstall, I use Slackware disks and the tar CD and install it like Slackware!
Best backup method known. If you have a SCSI hard drive you normally don't
use, you can put the tarball on it for a faster reinstall. The ultimate would
be to put the tarball on a hot-swap hard drive and keep your Slackware install
floppies around. Then, to reinstall Windows, you take your Slackware floppies,
a DOS disk to format the Windows partition, and slip in the hard drive and
reinstall by untarring the tarball into place. Do not gzip the tarball, so it
installs even faster.
--
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: "Syncme" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: It's here! IBM's new Linux ad!
Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 05:59:23 GMT
I like the ad, it's cool.... I wish the best for their bold steps in this
direction.
Just a though....
Is there a flash creation tool for linux?
Sync
"Tim Hanson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Is this walkin' the walk? Or what?
>
> http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/linux/passport.swf
> --
> "Never underestimate the power of a small tactical nuclear weapon."
------------------------------
From: Ray Chason <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Seattle quake was caused by the GPL.
Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 06:08:18 -0000
Tim Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>"This earthquake demonstrates the destabilizing force that Linux and the
>Open Source software movement has on the earth. If people continue to
>support this type of software then natural disasters such as this
>earthquake will continue to occur," said Allchin.
>
>http://bbspot.com/News/2001/03/earthquake.html
Here's another one:
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010304
--
--------------===============<[ Ray Chason ]>===============--------------
PGP public key at http://www.smart.net/~rchason/pubkey.asc
Delenda est Windoze
------------------------------
From: Andres Soolo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,misc.int-property
Subject: Re: definition of "free" for N-millionth time
Date: 5 Mar 2001 06:13:10 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>The communism analogy is false in every respect. Under GPL, I may release
>>software for others to use. That is my choice and freedom. By releasing the
>>code as GPL I am not limiting my ownership or control.
> However, RMS says explicitly that he doesn't want to coexist with
> proprietary software, in other words, the ideal FSF world is one
> where programmers have no chioce but to release software for free.
In other words, everyone with a piece of software would have the right
to distribute it, no matter what.
Actually, FSF doesn't seem to have a problem with software on very
narrow vertical markets--like a programmer is hired specifically to
a single company.
> I realise that there are people who release software under the GPL
> and have a completely different philosophical outlook that is
> equally consistent with their choice of license.
Good. This is the first step to a two-way understanding :)
By the way, what do you think of the FD's Declaration of Software Freedom?
--
Andres Soolo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all Heaven in a rage.
-- Blake
------------------------------
From: "Syncme" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: If I delete using rm?
Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 06:15:03 GMT
Look here this may help...
http://www.linux-mag.com/2000-08/desktop_01.html
It may not help you now but may be usefull in the future.
Sync
"Interconnect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:97mlkh$lkj$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> If I accidentally delete a subdirectory and files is there any way of
> recovering these in Linux. That is without resorting to the tape backups?
>
> Thanks for any hints or tips.
>
>
------------------------------
From: Ralph Miguel Hansen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Time for a Windows reinstall!
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 07:17:10 +0100
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bloody Viking wrote:
>
> Michael Vester ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
>
> : Simple. Install Linux. If you must run losedos, ghost a
> : workable configuration and burn it to a cd. I can reload my
> : losedos system in about 15 minutes complete with applications.
>
> I made a CD with a tarball of a virgin reinstall of Windows. If I have to
> reinstall, I use Slackware disks and the tar CD and install it like
> Slackware! Best backup method known. If you have a SCSI hard drive you
> normally don't use, you can put the tarball on it for a faster reinstall.
> The ultimate would be to put the tarball on a hot-swap hard drive and keep
> your Slackware install floppies around. Then, to reinstall Windows, you
> take your Slackware floppies, a DOS disk to format the Windows partition,
> and slip in the hard drive and reinstall by untarring the tarball into
> place. Do not gzip the tarball, so it installs even faster.
>
> --
> 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.
>
I do a reinstall of Windows via drag'n drop. No time to worry about M$ and
such crap. Linux is the OS probably fitting best the needs of lazy users.
Once configured, it runs and runs........ .
Cheers
Ralph Miguel Hansen
Using S.u.S.E. 5.3 and SuSE 7.0
------------------------------
From: Ralph Miguel Hansen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: State of linux distros
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 07:21:09 +0100
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bloody Viking wrote:
>
> Reefer ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
>
> : hardware from the late 80's is not "perfectly good hardware"
>
> We aren't talking about 286 equipment. And even so, if it works, it's
> still perfectly good. Just put Minix on it! 386 and better can run Linux
> all you want.
>
> 6 years ago I bought a Pentium-75 with 8M RAM. I still use it. And I use
> Linux, that UNIX style OS that gives Bill Gates nightmares. I paid a grand
> for it, and it lasted this long and still runs. I guess I got my money's
> worth out of my ancient Packrat Bell. Remember them? One day, it will die,
> like my previous computer, a 486. I even made a LAN before it finally
> died.
>
> I don't know about you, but I'm not made out of money, nor do I have a
> money well that's a gusher. It's not like I can go to a backyard, fire up
> the pumpjack and suck Susie B solid dollars out of the ground.
>
> --
> 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.
>
A modern mobile-phone has about the calculation abilities of the built-in
computers of Apollo 11.......... . In my LAN a Cyrix 486DLC (40MHz) with 8
MB is running and doing his job fine.
Cheers
Ralph Miguel Hansen
Using S.u.S.E. 5.3 and SuSE 7.0
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bloody Viking)
Subject: Re: How much do you *NEED*?
Date: 5 Mar 2001 06:26:20 GMT
JeffCochran wrote:
: I can afford to and am willing to pay for software. Free isn't an
: issue. Yes, I'd like to not pay for licensing, or not pay as much,
: but overall the licensing of the OS is a very small part of my budget.
: Apps licensing, Microsoft Office, Exchange, etc. is a much larger
: part. So far I don't see a viable option there. And no, Star Office
: doesn't cut it.
: Proprietary software also often dictates my spending. I have apps we
: need which require MS-SQL on NT. So we buy MS-SQL on NT. With a half
: million invested in apps such as these, switching isn't an option, and
: the cost of NT/SQL is a minimal protion of the overall application.
It sounds like you are thuroughly locked into the trap that is created by the
lame file format bullshit. A huge number of companies are in the same roach
motel.
If I was going to start a small business, I'd start off with Linux in the
first place. An advantage is that I already know the OS, which cuts down on IT
costs right there, and StarOffice could be used, while a company in the
MS-Trap(tm) can't, as like your situation. You can't switch becuse of all the
legacy files the apps made. It would cost a fortune to clean up the mess. A
simple solution like having people put a { at the start of text and a } at the
end to run a format stripper would be incredibly time consuming with ALL the
legacy files.
: This has not been our experience. It may be true for others, but it
: doesn't work as an argument when it just isn't true in our instance.
: Besides, you're justifying Linux on the desktop with this, and it just
: isn't a desktop OS. Sorry.
But Linux CAN be used as a desktop. I've been using it for years on a desktop.
: And I'd have 95% of the world's market available, as opposed to a few
: companies exploring the waters of a new OS in the shop and millions of
: Open Source junkies who wouldn't buy my application anyway.
This clears up reasons you can't switch, besides the legacy files. You are in
a business of developing proprietary software. For your business, having that
OS that people are programmed to pay big bucks per app for is mandatory. I
above this paragraph mentioned the legacy files, which has a lot of companies
in the same trap you end up helping to make stronger.
: I have yet to be hit by a VBS virus. In the real world, you protect
: your systems. Except for the occasional rogue user who tries to
: install their kid's school project on their system, we don't get
: viruses.
And if you used Linux, ordinary users wouldn't be able to mount the floppy in
the first place. No viruses, copies of SOL.EXE or other crap.
: Wow! No coffee yet? That's a strong statement about an OS/Initiative
: that has simply been announced and isn't anywhere near implementation.
: It's also somewhat misinformed as well. Personally, if a user is
: forced to pay for a product instead of stealing it, it doesn't really
: bother me.
In any company, no matter how careful, warez is always present. The more
warez, the bigger the financial time bomb when .NET is implimented. Techies
may well be planting warez at your company knowing it could ultimately destroy
the company. A loose cannon techie could use warez as a virtual nuke. Would
you sit on a ticking time bomb? With the Windows "solution", you are sitting
on one.
: You want me to switch? Give me options that make sense in my
: environment.
You are trapped.
--
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.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 04 Mar 2001 22:29:21 -0800
From: Neil Bradley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.next.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why can't Apple do it?
> > > > Gates' quote about 640k being all the memory anyone would ever need.
> > > We all know Bill only said that because it was all he had to offer and what
> > > MS has to offer defines the limits of the universe.
> > Gates never said that. It was Thomas Watson Jr.
> > Think about it. The 640K limitation wasn't a Microsoft curse, it was
> > IBM's architecture. IBM Made the mistake of mapping system ROMs above
> > the 640K region instead of down lower. Microsoft worked within those
> > bounds.
> That was due to the limits on the original chips.
Sorta right - the 8088 couldn't address more than 1 megabyte. However,
IBM could have easily put in bootstrap hardware to force the 8088 to
execute at another address, but didn't!
> required complex paging. Plus on reset, the cpu execuited the 16 bytes
> at the high end of the 1meg boundary (0xFFFFF0).
Um... not quite. It would START its execution at 0xf000:0000 but they'd
immediately jump to BIOS control. It's not that it would require
execution at that address.
But IBM could've put hardware in that caused the first fetch to come
from elsewhere and disabled it after the first memory fetch. It would've
been a few more gates - probably purely cost.
> The ROM had to include
> that address.
Sure, but ROMs can appear anywhere and it could easily be faked.
> When software grew to need more memory, MS never bothered
> to include the page switching mechanisms in its OS.
Until the 386 it wasn't possible to do page swapping with just system
memory, and expanded memory had already been in place in other forms. It
wasn't until the LIM 4.0 spec for expanded memory and XMS that made it
possible.
> Thus the need for
> such junk as emm386. Remember all the problems with "extended" vs
> "expanded" memory?
Oh yeah. Caused massive confusion. But still, the fault lies with IBM.
They could've caused the restart code to be fetched from another address
but didn't.
> > BTW, The quote about there being a need for only 4 computes worldwide
> > was Thomas Watson Sr.
> What year? I think that was in the late 40's or early 50's wasn't it?
Late 50s I think.
-->Neil
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bloody Viking)
Subject: Re: "Linux is Going Down" says Microsoft
Date: 5 Mar 2001 06:38:27 GMT
Joseph T. Adams ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: If I'm not mistaken, he's been doing that for a while now.
The biggest rat jumping ship. We all know what they said about the Titanic
before it took off to sideswipe a berg.
--
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] (Bloody Viking)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.x
Subject: Re: The Double Fucking ala MS...
Date: 5 Mar 2001 06:49:35 GMT
Charlie Ebert ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: And everybody else who does the Windows thing will be getting a Mac
: or using Linux.
Or simply shitcan their computers. Or pay up.
: The people I feel the sorriest for are the owners of business's who've
: let themselves be conned into buying into Windows over the years to
: run their business's. They will be fucked doubly as they will finally
: be FORCED to pay for a licensing fee for ALL their computers **AND**
: be facing servicing a market with dwindling customer base using Microsoft
: compatible products to interface with their business.
tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick...
The ticking you hear is the ticking of a time bomb inside your computer if you
use Windows. The time bomb is like the neutron bomb in a way. It is designed
to only wipe out your wallet, leaving people ans buildings intact, and the
explosion is silent.
And it's ticking. You defuse the bomb by installing Linux.
--
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.
------------------------------
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