Linux-Misc Digest #742, Volume #18 Sun, 24 Jan 99 04:13:10 EST
Contents:
Pausing from the linguistic pecker-measuring for a moment ... ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: A Tale of Two Installations (John Girash)
Re: Linux instead of Windows - just one problem (Paul Hughett)
Re: Netscape Communicator 4.5 (128bit) problem ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
StarOffice and fonts? (Michael David Jones)
Re: LINUS Can Suck My Hairy Cock .. or Newbie Needs Linux Help ... ("Michael
'BeLFrY' S. E. Kraus")
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Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 01:13:31 -0600
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.misc,comp.emacs,comp.editors
Subject: Pausing from the linguistic pecker-measuring for a moment ...
Well, if y'all are willing to stoop to listen to a lowly ed-using knuckle
dragger, you should take a look at the old NorthGate OmniKey keyboards at
www.cvtinc.com (back in production) or the old Lexmark (i.e., Selectric)
keyboards still in production at www.pckeyboard.com. I prefer the Selectrics
myself, but many people swear by the Northgate units. I like the fact that I
can beat someone to death with my keyboard and resume typing, but hey, what do
you expect from an ed user, right? And I remain convinced that a good key feel
prevents RSI, based on the fact that there are lots of old secretaries who still
type 90+ wpm and only started having problems when they were given Dells or some
similar POS with a really crappy keyboard, so a good keyboard (as was pointed
out before this thread got silly) is an investment in your health.
I don't dislike Emacs, but some of the users ... geeeez ...
Brendan Todd Corkery
btc1@bga dot com
UNIX: Functionality is its own sufficient beauty.
Erik Naggum wrote:
> * [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Floyd Davidson)
> | Actually dear sir, I do understand it.
>
> I'm going to love this.
>
> | My particular field is communications, which is what this is all about.
>
> no, you just _restricted_ it to communications. but let's pretend.
>
> | And as with a better mouse trap, if you find a better way to communicate
> | people will rush to your door step to adopt it.
>
> when was the last time you actually saw that happen? and when was the
> last time you saw how people _fight_ new ideas that de-stabilize their
> own carreers and change the way they have to do business?
>
> if your field is communications, why don't you see that whether you have
> a better or worse mouse trap doesn't matter as long as your _marketing_
> is better? but I digress.
>
> | On the other hand if you remove all redundant information on the false
> | hope that it improves communications, you have missed one of the most
> | important aspects of communications theory and practice. And you have
> | defeated your purpose. It will make your communications less effective.
>
> as I said, if you can't attack what I do, invent something else and by
> all means extrapolate without understanding anything about the purpose or
> direction. "from one data point, you can extrapolate in any direction."
>
> Floyd, I have never given you grounds to believe that I have ever had any
> intention of ever removing _all_ redundant information. where did you
> get the idea that I was? _you_ invented it, didn't you? and since you
> can hardly attack me for not obeying the information-destructive process
> of destroying the case of words, you have to make it into something you
> _can_ attack. but this is foolish, and if your field is communications,
> you have just failed miserably, because you have _introduced_ something
> into the communication of others. some would call that intellectually
> dishonest, especially from someone whose field is communications and who
> should know better.
>
> | If what you are doing was actually better it would probably result very
> | quickly in a great number of people doing it on a regular basis.
>
> and would you not criticize every one of them, no matter how many?
>
> | You are not the first one to use it, and won't be the last either. There
> | is, however, a very good reason that it hasn't been widely adopted: [it]
> | sucks.
>
> *laugh* yup, that's the reason, and we know how badly stuff that sucks
> go in the market, don't we? MS Windows sucks, and sells more than
> anything that doesn't suck. K-Mart sells inferior stuff still, don't
> they? looks like I have a winner, Floyd. all I gotta do now is beef up
> the marketing.
>
> | Calling people moralistic morons because they point out the flaws in your
> | posted ideas is perhaps just a demonstration that such insults are
> | usually a reflection of the originator.
>
> this is truly fascinating. your particular field is communications and
> you suggest better ways to communicate ideas, yet you can't even _read_?
>
> if they had pointed out the flaws in my posted ideas, that'd been OK.
> what the moralistic morons do is point out flaws in their very own
> projections and extrapolations of what they no longer even _see_ as my
> flaw: they see _only_ their own projections and extrapolations. just
> like you did above, "if you remove _all_ redundant information" [my
> emphasis]. and your argument is based on my wanting to remove _all_
> redundant information, isn't it?
>
> now, I'm truly intrigued by the fact that if you do some small little
> thing, people don't see it, they see this HUGE THREAT against established
> order, and are not at all satisfied to limit their responses to what's at
> hand, but invent something else that's _worth_ being afraid of. yet,
> they are so morally outraged that anyone could favor these things that
> they have invented (and nobody actually favors, of course), that they
> don't even see _what_ is being called "moralistic morons". they see
> their projections and extrapolations and _righteous_, and when their
> _righteous_ errors of logic are exposed, they do it yet _again_: they
> defend themselves as if they were criticized for what _they_ haven't
> done, which would have been to criticize the fact at hand.
>
> I find this interminably fascinating. if communications is a field that
> contains people who do this, I wonder where I can find people who _don't_
> extrapolate in every direction from a single data point, who _don't_ read
> _into_ people's communicated ideas something that they can object to
> becaus what's actually there is completely innocuous and defensible.
>
> | Rather than call people names because they disagree with you,
>
> and this _really_ takes the cake! *applause* god, I love this!
>
> it's not because they disagree with me, you moron, it's because they
> don't even bother to see that what they disagree with is their very own
> projections and extrapolations of what I say and do. I can't be held
> responsible for what people _want_ to see. that's their problem.
>
> if you see a girl with really short hair and you cry out "you lesbians
> are immoral!", I think "moralistic moron" is entirely appropriate because
> what happened is that _you_ imputed something to what you saw that you
> had no reason even to believe is there: it could have been chemotherapy.
> if you found out, you'd be _immensely_ guilty of harrassing somebody so
> unfairly, and you'd never do it again. but if you don't take the time to
> find out that it was indeed chemotherapy and her hair had just started to
> grow back and you had _really_ hurt her, would you still go around and
> tell others that she got nasty to you _because_ she was an immoral
> lesbian? you do the math and the communications, Floyd.
>
> | why not try posting cognitive well written articles that communicate your
> | thoughts clearly.
>
> I do, but it doesn't help against people like you, who accuse me of
> things I don't do, who accuse me of calling people names because they
> disagree with me, which I never, _ever_ do, and who can't read anything
> they don't already agree to. disagreement it good. moralistic morons
> who don't think so and who accuse people of things they haven't done has
> _nothing_ to do with disagreement.
>
> | That would demonstrate the value of your formatting better than anything
> | else.
>
> yeah. I expect you to stop capitalizing your sentence-initial words, now.
>
> | But in fact, the best way to communicate concepts via written language is
> | to include redundant clues indicating separations between thought
> | structures. Punctuation and Capitalization, for example.
>
> would that _seriously_ have helped you understand what I wrote? would
> you not have reacted _exactly_ the same way: projecting and extrapolating
> in the exact same fashion? or are you trying to tell me that because I
> didn't capitalize the sentence-initial, you somehow managed to lose track
> of the _entire_ meaning of my article?
>
> I find it immensely interesting to watch people destroy information in
> the grand scale after I have pointed out to them that capitalizing the
> sentence-initial word destroys information in the small scale. I do
> wonder what possesses people to do that. perhaps they really _are_ into
> destroying information and when capitalizing words doesn't do it, they go
> for all-out assault and battery on the meaning and context of what people
> write. or something like that. it's ever more interesting to watch.
>
> #:Erik
> --
> SIGTHTBABW: a signal sent from Unix to its programmers at random
> intervals to make them remember that There Has To Be A Better Way.
------------------------------
From: John Girash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A Tale of Two Installations
Date: 22 Jan 1999 19:05:20 GMT
Giftzwerg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: In article <78843r$50d$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] says
:> :> $ rpm -iv rvplayer-5.0-3.i386.rpm
:>
:> : Didn't work. So sorry. Next suggestion?
:> : And your answer couldn't have missed the essential point by a wider margin.
:> Let's make a few points first:
:> 1) RH != Linux
: Excellent point. But ... did I ever say it was? Nope.
:> 2) rpm != standard binary package format in Linux (common, but not standard)
: Another excellent point. I never mentioned RPMs, either.
(This is getting rather silly, but..) yes you did, implicitly. You wrote
"didn't work" to the suggestion of using rpm, implying you'd done it.
You also wrote:
#RPMs go a long way towards sorting this dipshit situation out, but even a
#successful "-I" command doesn't ensure success...
Why on earth would you claim not to have mentioned rpm's/RH? From this I
(wrongly?) inferred that the RH rpm command was what you _had_ tried to use.
:> 3) you having an install problem != all having that install problem
: Oh? Are you telling me that you have *never* had a vexing installation
: problem in the Linux world? Come now...
: Perhaps not everyone is having precisely the same installation problem I
: did of late, but everyone most certainly has come up against software
: installation nightmares in Linux.
Actually, no I haven't. What I have come across is soundcard config
nightmares... but only involving soundcards that aren't-quite-supported.
(And I've had soundcard nightmares in DOS & Win16 & Win32 as well).
:> : The crucial issue here is not whether some dumb plugin can be
:> : made to work, but whether Linux is ever going to be more than a toy for
:> : geeks who have nothing better to do with their lives that dick around
:> : with installing software.
:>
:> 4) Linux is especially useful to those who are already Unix-savvy (amongst
:> others). This is a rather broad category that only partially overlaps
:> with "install geeks". Just 'cause _you_ don't have any more important
:> use for a computer than streaming audio doesn't mean the rest of us don't
: You need to read for content, since not only are you misattributing
: comments, but you're blundered past the entire text of my post to this
: assumption you make here.
: (sigh)
Misattributed? I have to blame my newsserver then, 'cause it still lists
the article with you as author that contains that quote. (Apologies to other
readers, but Giftzwerg is the one who removed the references from his latest).
As for the "assumption", I'd refer to it as "sarcasm". It's my usual
response to being insulted. I'll also note in passing that I'm not the
first person in this thread who you'd claimed misread your intended meaning.
: I have an entire network of Linux systems - and other *nixs - here at
: work. I installed them all, whistling cheerfully. And it was worth the
: pain to install (for example) Sybase under Linux.
: But the mass market could care less; they want "streaming audio."
: Get it now?
I get it. My response is: so what? Unices aren't point-and-click OSes,
hopefully they never will be. I don't say that b/c I want them to remain
arcane, I say that b/c I don't want them to make the compromises necessary
to change far enough in that direction to compete with the MS _mindset_.
:> : The point is how can Linux *ever* hope to challenge Microsoft in the all-
:> : important business and home market while the poor schlub who owns a Linux
:> : system is stuck typing "./make config" and similar nonsensical
:> : incantations in diminishing hopes of ever getting the software he needs
:> : to use working.
:>
:> 5) Linux is an OS, and a development model for that OS. It doesn't "hope"
:> to do anything other than what those who design it to do, hope for it
:> to do. To the best of my knowledge this doesn't include challenging MS.
: No? I guess you're new to the Linux/Unix world, since challenging
: Microsoft is one of the cardinal hopes of this and other Linux
: newsgroups, user groups, and users as a whole.
BS. That's what cola was created for: to keep the jihaders away from those
who don't care for it. You're right though, my experience with Unix (and
later Linux) came after several years of already using VM, VMS and CyberOS
(hmm, can't even remember the official name for that last one [*shudder*]).
Perhaps you've been reading too much Sun or Oracle propaganda.
[NB: despising MS and wishing to directly challenge it are different things.]
:> 6) Linux is not a commercial product. Your market models don't fit.
: Tell that to RedHat, chief.
Now you're missing my point. RH may sell a commercial packaging of Linux,
but that don't make Linux itself commercial. There's a big difference.
:> 7) People who are afraid of "./make config" should reconsider using Linux.
:> I for one home that the "incantations" never go away. They may require
:> some learning and some manual digging, but in the end they make sense.
: Exactly. The mass market *will* reconsider using Linux, and it will
: forever be relegated to dingy rooms at ISPs, anonymously churning out web
: pages...
: If Linux continues to force installers to jump through needless hoops,
: then it will always be a niche operating system valuable only to geeks
: who have nothing better to do with their time than dig through manuals.
: Those of us who hope for something a little more from this excellent
: system would like to avoid this.
But it's not a binary choice. Aiming to emulate and directly compete with
the MS mindset and not evolving at all aren't the only options. Linux can
chart its own course, improving in all areas including "ease of use",
without having to compare itself to WinXX every step of the way. The huge
advantage that Linux has *even over the other Unices* is that it is free
of "mass market" pressures. Let Sun tackle those if it wishes, but there's
no reason to introduce them here for no good reason (and many bad ones).
I say that in the end, chasing MS would reduce Linux' flexibility so much
as to relegate it to niche status. Let those who aren't afraid of actually
learning something about their OS try Linux, but leave the others to MS.
:> 8) I've never heard of an OS in which install 3rd-party binary packages was
:> guaranteed to "work" every time. At least in Linux's case a user-
:> installed package won't trash the OS.
: It will just trash the patience of the installer. Nice compromise.
When something like RVPlayer doesn't install smoothly, I consider it a minor
annoyance. When MS-Money corrupts the system registry, when Windows stops
talking to the printer for no apparent reason, when you can't turn off
hardware auto-detect even though it's hanging the install every time, when
a 3rd-party app is allowed to overwrite a system DLL with an (incompatible)
one of its own, all of which require restoring the whole system from backup
(or wiping the disk and installing afresh), I consider it a major annoyance
and a huge waste of my time. I'd much rather have a machine w/o RVPlayer while
I lookit dejanews for fixes than no machine at all. So where's the compromise?
My linux boxes, even though I have much more time spent using them, have
_never_ given me the headaches and frustration of my Windows machines.
cheers
jg
p.s. yes, perhaps not all those situations require reinstalling Windows.
But just _try_ to find the alternative solutions. Windows owners don't
read manuals because _there_are_none_, and MS hides the information.
I'm lucky enough to have never had to maintain an enterprise-level Windows
machine, but the people who I know that do have to, have learned through
experience that reinstalling anew is the fastest (and often only) option.
I'll stick with my arcane -- but in the end, *transparent* -- command lines.
--
"don't listen when you're told / about the best days in your life : Spirit of
a useless old expression, it means / passing time until you die." : the West
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- John Girash --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- http://skyron.harvard.edu/ --
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Paul Hughett)
Subject: Re: Linux instead of Windows - just one problem
Date: 22 Jan 1999 20:14:29 GMT
Ben Sandler ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: I'm running an all-Linux shop here. There's someone (the boss) who
: wants one machine for himself just to do data entry in Excel. I'm sure
: if I sat him down at a Linux box with Star Office and told him it's just
: like Windows, he'd be fine. That is, until I told him that he needs to
: type mount /mnt/floppy before he uses his floppy disk, and umount
: /mnt/floppy afterwards. Is there any simple way to have the floppy
: drive automatically mounted and umounted, without running development
: kernels or hacking at it for 3 days and 3 nights? I'm running RedHat
: 5.1, standard install out of the box.
I've never tried it myself, but it looks like the am-utils package
(included in redhat) will do what you want. There might possibly
be a problem with making sure that everythings gets written out to
the disk before it is removed.
Paul Hughett
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Netscape Communicator 4.5 (128bit) problem
Date: 21 Jan 1999 20:53:40 GMT
Patrick O'Neil <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I am running RH 5.2, kernel 2.0.36-1 (all other files are the latest
> updates). Hardware: 64 MB SDRAM, Celery 300a, Abit BH6 mobo.
> Freshmeat is setup as my homepage. Ever since the change in format of the
> page, I have found that Netscape 4.5 will crash ("Bus error" in an xterm
> if started from a terminal) at the same point during each page load...just
> after the title header and search dialog box appears, just before the body
> of the page loads. This occurs about 9 times out of 10. If I keep trying
> to load the page again and again, eventually I will succeed.
I don't know why this happens, but I can confirm that bug with my
Netscape 4.5 non-128.
--
Daniel Dorau [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<< If a train stops at a trainstation, what happens at a workstation? >>
PGP key available, send mail with 'Subject: send pgp key'
fingerprint: 8D7E0B2F9E2E5338 DB7B24742E8B2EAE
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Michael David Jones)
Subject: StarOffice and fonts?
Date: 22 Jan 1999 15:20:32 -0500
I'm trying to move off Win95 to Linux on my laptop. Things are going
fine for the most part, but I do a lot of presentation development
with PowerPoint which I'm trying to move to StarOffice. The problem is
that the presentations are *ugly*. Big jaggies on the fonts is
probably the worst problem. Any suggestions on getting StarOffice to
behave better?
Mike Jones | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The space shuttle was nothing compared to a New York taxi.
- Astronaut Sally Ride, asked if space flight frightened her.
------------------------------
From: "Michael 'BeLFrY' S. E. Kraus" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.linux,alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: LINUS Can Suck My Hairy Cock .. or Newbie Needs Linux Help ...
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 05:40:42 +1100
G'day...
> >Interesting that you know 80x86 assembler or c and you cant figure out
> >unix(linux).... Considering that unix was developed by the same guys who
> >developed C I'd say the logic is the same....
>
> you mean unix - ritchie & co , I thought linus somebody wrote linux
Linux is a "unix-like" OS. Ie it is a unix / unix variant.
> but hey I have set up 7 diferent OS on 7 systems for clients
> NT x 2 , mac OS , pick , win98 , sco (which was a breeze BTW)
> in 3 days
> and linux was the last straw
> I've had 6 hrs sleep in all that time and 2 oz jars of coffee
Heheh... I suggest you get some sleep. If you found SCO to be a breeze, Linux
should not be a problem.
Ciao...
Michael.
------------------------------
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