On Sat, Oct 20, 2001 at 01:17:15AM +0200, Massimo Scabbia wrote: OK, this is enough FUD, I'll bite.
> Well, UNIX was a good command line OS, but now is time is over. We all need > gui to simplify our work, and it's not really important if it's > administrative work or office work, or better multimedia work. A GUI to simplify my work? I'm currently writing a boot loader for StrongARM embedded boards. The basic work is simple: edit source, recompile, download to embedded target, test. Could you tell me where in this process a GUI can make my life simpler? > > Again, this is your choice, but consider that this reason is not why it is > > developed. > > Well, I think it was originally developed to make Linus Torvalds printers > working... No other seriuous reasons. No. He started Linux because: a) He had no money to buy a real OS at that time (real OS == UNIX) b) He wanted a modem dialer + terminal program to dial in to the university's UNIX systems c) At a certain point the terminal program evolved into a real operating system > Linus used to think Unix was too much > for his little job, and this is the way Linux was born. Wrong again. Consider buying his book "Just for fun" so you don't have to guess the real reasons. > And it still pay for > it. Also Linus still not pay his bills with Linux... :-))) Oh yes he does. He's currently payed by Transmeta to work on Linux (among other things). > This is becouse Linux is still a big pain for many people, complicated, buggy > and full of problems no one - like Brattli - is really interested to > generally solving. Linux complicated? Linux is quite easy to understand because it behaves exactly the same as any other UNIX system. It takes some time to understand, especially if you're coming from Windows or MacOS, but that's more because of the difference in underlying concepts. Linux buggy? I've used a PC running linux-2.0.36 with 463 days of uptime. The machine was a log server for a complete UNIX network, processed about 10K of log lines per minute. At the same time it was also a public terminal for my group. Pity we moved to a different floor so I had so switch the machine off. Please point me to an NT machine with similar usage that has the same uptime. Linux full of problems? I think you should have a look in my group, we actually measured this a year ago: The users of MS systems spend a day on average each month to solve the problems with their computer, while the IRIX and Linux users don't have any computer related problems at all. Nobody interested in solving problems? If you move to the linux-kernel mailing list, you'll find about 200 people (including Linus Torvalds) interested in solving problems, and indeed *solving* problems. > No one pay him to do it, so why do he have to solve IrDA > stack Linux problems? And I not complain for it at all. It's free, so it can > be a pain. My choice to use it... Quite a lot of people get payed to work on Linux or other open source software. I'm currently payed by a university to work on ARM Linux. But you're right, Linux is all about choice. > But I simply laugh when people speak bad about Windows, becouse that is a > real professional OS, and Microsoft try to make it better and better becouse > customers pay for it. OK, so let's assume it's a real and professional OS. Let's just assume it for a moment, right? Now could you explain to me why: - Over 65% of all web servers use the freely available Apache web server running on UNIX systems (and 40% of those systems run Linux)? - Over 99% of all DNS servers worldwide in use run BIND on UNIX systems? - Sendmail mail servers running on UNIX systems are still used to send the largest share of all mail send over the internet? - The Gartner group advises companies to stop using MS Internet Information Server and move to a better web server platform instead? > We can say NT/2000/XP have lots of Unix related code: > yep it's true, but it's more user friendly, more solid, more well supported, > more pleasure to use it. User friendly? Not for me. I hate those badly designed point and click interfaces with way too many features to be useful at all. Either do it right and take a Mac, or use a UNIX system with an xterm. Solid? No, quite the contrary, as I already pointed out. Well supported? Not really. OK, you can ask MS for support, but this is only a "best effort" support for which you have to pay quite a lot of money. Compare this with the amount of support you can get from the various Linux related mailing lists in which you usually get an answer to your question in less than a day. Pleasure to use? Not for me. > Obviously it's expensave, but what is it free in this life? I think the > famous statement: more u pay more u have or something like that is completely > true. Linux is completely free so it's a pain in the ass... LOL You are severely misguided. It's a well known fact that price is certainly *not* the same as quality. > Come on, be honest, how many times every person that really use a pc for > serious job think like that? More often than you think, obviously. > Just an example: main distros in this days try to convince users to log on on > theyre brand new system not as root users. So desktops are incomplete for > root users and thats ok, I think... But, log on as a user and try to use - I > say - a mean thing like a CD-R drive. Linux start to complain u are not a > root user; so u SUID the cdrecord apps, but they complain about libraries... I just did that and had no problem whatsoever. Why? Because the CD writer device on my system has the following properties: brw-rw---- 2 root cdrom 11, 0 Nov 5 2000 /dev/scd0 I am in group cdrom, so I am allowed to use to the CD writer. AFAIK this is all nicely explained in the SuSE manuals, and I'm sure the other distributions also explain this in their manual. Besides, this is all basic UNIX knowledge. > LOL, that's simply laughable. In Windows u make a backup copy of a cd in a > moment, in linux u have to lost your whole day, and finally u can use you > CD-R but just if you are a trained person... LOL LOL LOL You should read more about the UNIX philosophy. The reason you can't do that immediately in Linux is because you don't want all users to be able to screw up your system. Root has to give the right to use the CD writer to certain users. Now compare that with Windows, where the administrator has to take rights *away* to prevent users to screw up the system. Don't you agree that starting with zero rights and gradually giving more rights is a much easier way to get a secure system? > This is becouse I call Linuix a real pain in the ass and I use it becouse I > like to learn things and, well, when I'm really tired I have my good friendly > professional Windows to do serious things (like recording cd's, make movies, > working on DTP apps and stuff). I'm glad you like to learn things, but I think you should learn a lot more before you start giving unbalanced and uninformed critic on people. > Thats all and that's the truth. That was how *you* think about it, which is certainly not the truth. You should be more careful not to mix facts and opinions. All in all I think you should read more, it might help you to understand Linux and open source better. Here are a couple of titles: - "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", Eric S. Raymond, available online at http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/ - "Open Sources, voices from the open source revolution", Chris di Bona et. al., O'Reilly - "Just for fun, the story of an accidental revolution", Linus Torvalds and David Diamond, Harper Business - "Rebel code: Linux and the open source revolution", Glyn Moody, Perseus Press Erik -- J.A.K. (Erik) Mouw, Information and Communication Theory Group, Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Information Technology and Systems, Delft University of Technology, PO BOX 5031, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands Phone: +31-15-2783635 Fax: +31-15-2781843 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www-ict.its.tudelft.nl/~erik/ _______________________________________________ Linux-IrDA mailing list - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pasta.cs.UiT.No/mailman/listinfo/linux-irda
