Quoting Clarence Verge <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > A far better idea (excepting embedded interpretation) would be a JS to HTML > translation on the fly with the existing HTML interpreter doing the > work.;-)
Good joke, except that JavaScript is doing exactly the things HTML can't do... (99% of them) > > I think it will be easier to bring all Arachne fans to Linux than > > do for DOS that what is already done for Linux, or could be done easy. > > Linux isn't ready for prime time. It's a "nerds only" thing. I think anyone who have contributed text-only documentation files to Arachne package can be considered nerd ;-) The problem is, that there is not single Linux, but about 1000 different distributions, and about 5000000 individual installations worldwide, some of them very specific. It is not nerd-only thing, but of course, if you don't like GUI icons and don't want to learn new command line tricks, and want just to live with your existing DOS habits, it is hard to move. I think it should be fairly easy for anyone under 20 years to move to Linux - problem is that at that age, young people sometimes request latest effects in games, multimedia, etc. But not always - when I was twenty, I was crazy about "garage culture", all the things I could do myself. I moved to Linux when I was cca 25-26, and at that time, it was already quite hard to get used to new system. On the other hand, my father started to use Linux instead of Windows recently (at work), and he is over 50 years old. (At least learning new things helps you to keep your brain cells alive ;-) I think it is not hard to use Linux, but to maintain Linux. On the other hand, it is even harder to maintain DOS - most DOS boxes today live because their owners don't want to mess with modifying the hardware, installing new drivers, etc. Adding new driver in config/autoexec can be more painful, than recompiling kernel and rebooting - of course, as there are pretty straigtforward device drivers (like mouse drivers) in DOS, which are easy to install and easy to load high, there are also some perfectly supported components in Linux kernel, which will ALWAYS work - not only all your disk drives, serial devices, etc., but even some of latest graphical or sound cards. On the other hand, some hardware support is painful and requres you to specify manualy IRQs, etc. (older ISA sound cards...). Some hardware is supported in a very stable and reliable manner, but it is not easy to figure out how to make it work. Eg. IDE ATAPI cd burner is good example: Linux supports mainly SCSCI devices, as all Unix veterans were used that SCSI is something which always works with all Unixes, so they implemented that support first ;-) You can add SCSI over IDE emulation to your kernel, but this requires you to check two very unusuall options at two completely different sections of kernel setup. If you have this, cdrecord utility will find your CD, and with cdrec GUI frontend, you will find, that burning CDs is now just click away. But before you figure out what to do, it looks scary. On the other hand - how many of you have managed to install CD burner drivers for DOS ? Are the any such drivers available ? (If you tell me how to play MP3 files on background in DOS, and how to burn CD-ROMs in DOS, I may continue DOS only development of Arachne ;-) I think it will be possible to create Linux distribution oriented on DOS users. What has to be done, is to remove all the /etc/rc.d server-oriented stuff, and to launch all system daemons (equivalent of DOS drivers, more or less) from / etc/autoexec script file. This would reveal power of Linux even to DOS veterans... lot of people who say Linux is bloated are not aware of the fact, that common distributions automaticaly launch lot of services useless for end users, like http server, ftp server, telnet server... you can get usable linux command line on system with let's say less then ten files (kernel, shell, and couple of libraries - minimum is libc). I think this would be really interesting for for minimalists like you, Clarence. You would immediately realize, that such bare Linux would boot and respond faster than average DOS. My knowledge is so far insufficient to setup such system, but I am getting closer....
