Hello Francis, :-)
>> I know DOS and am used to it. Linux is different and >> I am not used to it. >> If I learn Linux will I have to learn new stuff for every distro? > >Not really, they are generally the same, more or less like the >differences between win98, nt, 2000, xp. >Look at linux as a sort of: >* superduperdos, OK - I hear that DOS is based on Unix commands? >* pathnames are now with forward slashes instead of backward slashes I did have a bash with bash and the other shells or interfaces to the linux command line (usually to try and open or mount my CD) Linux hijacked my CD! outragious behaviour! - gonna tell Bill Gates (I am sure he will help - at a price) >* no drive names but devices mapped to a folder >* device drivers are called modules and are loaded and unloaded on >demand (or hard compiled into the kernel) >* comparable with tools formely residing in c:\dos they are now in >/usr/local/bin or /sbin or so. very useful to have this info :-) >Conceivably one could create a shell that emulates the dos >appearance, and compiles and renames the dos utilities for linux. >Such is being done for the Windows GUI: >http://images.google.nl/images?hl=nl&lr=&q=xpde Very nice - I like XP and I think the new MAC OS is lovely (and I feel that a gorgeous gui is a geek basic right) Also I wonder what you think about the Gnome/KDE debate? Gnome is much better looking but KDE seems more reliable - is that fair? Who else has a Linux preference? >The huge benefit of linux over dos is the smoother multitasking and >the huge amount of compiled open source and impressive kernel >capabilities. > >One couldstart from there with easy tasks like >* exploring the capabilities of the different tools like grep, >(g)awk, cat, tail, ls - by typing man cat or man gawk and try the >different parameters. I can talk a bit of linux lingo - I know 'man' and 'info' (to get help) ls - the list or DIR command Cat - not sure - a way of seeing the structure of system? - m m m will look it up tail I think shows you the end of a file (the tail end of it . . .)? grep I have heard of but do not know what it does? awk is some sort of database querying? - looked that up - an ancient language precursor to perl . . . - I remember Knoppix had 3000 commands and DOS has what - 100? so it is possible (my idea to script them all together into mini programs) but then one could not be sure every command was on every Linux? >If you are really afraid you can setup dosemu on alt-f1, keep running >your favorite dos applications like norton commander, pkzip and jump >to a alt-f2 linux shell session whenever you feel like it. Ofcourse >there are clones for pkzip and norton commander also in linux: >midnight commander and zip/unzip. To be honest some of the utils for Linux are no different - what is different are the commands Expanding compressed files from KDE was OK but when I wanted to install new programs - whether I used RPM, -apt get or the easy Debian systems - they were ALL atrocious and beyond my reasoning and patience . . . Done that been there enough already (with Dos installing some software could take a while .. . .) I am sure it will get easier . . . - maybe it all ready is? >There also is the option of running linux within win32 (afaik not >dos). Yes I tried several but was unsuccesful. I did have cgi-win (I think it was) but this was just a command line - command lines interests me very little . . . except when essential XP even refused to allow one of those 'run under windows linux' :-) >i used hal91 for a while: >http://chris.silmor.de/hal91/ > >Another minimalistic system: >http://phatboydesigns.net/0sys/ these I found very interesting - thanks :-) >then there are also those firewall lrp derivates, which were handy >once (now the functionality is tucked away in the "hardware" >firewall). > >As the floppy and disks are also going the way of the dinosaur.... I >generally keep a set of very handy and small win32 and linux >commandline utilities in two supercompressed files (i like 7-zip) on >the web or usb disk, so I can download it over 14k4 or gprs and setup >my favorit environment independent of operating system in no time. That sounds good. I have Puppy Linux on a USB keydrive but the boot time (this is a USB thing) is too long Here is another (tool orientated) keydrive linux- have not tried it - my keydrive is only 64 meg http://www.ncsu.edu/project/runt/ >That also goes for dos. Only nostalgia keeps me longing for dos, I >won't give into it as it costs me time. OS/2, CP/M and C64 (Frodo >emulator) are also nice when feeling nostalgic, but except for OS/2 >not always very practical in todays demanding IT world (xml parsing, >web database serving, programming). A nice alternative to linux and >the bsd's I find BeOS. I have only had BEOS running on a system once and it ran multiple movies as I remember - other than that it was GUI - very clean very nice. OK now what do I do with it? People reinvent the wheel and then wonder why no one is interested in underlying innovation that is no different in appearance (where most users reside) Linux has a unique software base - that is something . . . >> Win 3.11 is dead because MS do not support it > >I never needed MS's support personally. There are other parties which >could support Win3.11 - if a cultural wave of Win3.11 craze would >spread, all across the internet there would automagically appear >win3.11 support groups - perhaps there still are like the calmira >forum? Funny how IBM are now the good guys (a role MS once had) . . . >So here's an idea, partition your disk to 640 mb the size of a cd. >Create a minimal win98, 2000 or xp system, with every file you don't >need stripped out, use abiword and gnumeric (when it's available >later this year), firefox and family, the compiled gnu utilities and >whatever else you need. Bake a bootable cd with a ramdrive out of it, >and tada. Your personal system on a disc. >To big you say? >Well try to get it down to on one of those business card discs. > >Already done for linux: http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ as it's easier >to do. >Put xpde inside it, and you won't see the difference between a >damnsmallxp and a damnsmalllinux or would you? I do and I would. also here is a XP type version http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ People do serious work with linux - often they set it up for the things they need and this it does. I tend to examine a lot of things. See if I can get some useful work out of them or whether they need years of study before becoming useful. I gain a lot and learn a lot from using linux. The real test is what do I use when I need to get something done. It ain't Linux - yet So I try and use software that is the same on both systems - like open office. I went through a bate of creating small live CD distros recently ;-) I have: * damnsmalllinux - too dark (that is an empathic evaluation) * morphix (about 200 meg - a cut down knoppix) - very safe and I like the silly matrix pic at the start * Slax (based on slackware) seems stable as one would expect * Beatrix (boot up time was about 2 and half minutes) nice cats *Puppy (this is my favourite - I also installed this on the hard disk - a single file under fat32) you then boot from floppy and in 20 seconds you have a Linux in ram - a net connection and any config or files are saved in that one file on your hard disk - very safe and works with either Opera or Firefox (two versions) * Mandrake Self Boot - this is out of date (9.2 Mandrake) and takes a while to load up and configure * Austrumi - I liked this - it is Latvian and fast and small and uses Opera - but I could not get on the net * Feather - also based on knoppix - put this on a keydrive (which I also did with puppy but this does not work as well as booting from CD - take too long) I have a hard disk ready for linux - any suggestions? Yoper and Mepis sound good but we now seem to be moving more and more into commercially orientated Linux (which is good and bad) I had an early Fedora (it was red hat - this seemed tight) I have knoppix 3.6 ready for turning into an ISO and am familiar with their install to hard disk set up Sometimes there is too much choice . . . for eg: http://www.baddaystudio.com/linkpage.html :-) Lobster ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/J8folB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HolyGeek/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
