Linux-Advocacy Digest #596, Volume #25 Sat, 11 Mar 00 16:13:07 EST
Contents:
Re: In the middle of it all... ("Bobby D. Bryant")
Re: In the middle of it all... (Kool Breeze)
Re: What might really help Linux (a developer's perspective) (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: What might really help Linux (a developer's perspective) (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: 11 Days Wasted ON Linux (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux ("Jim Ross")
Re: What might really help Linux (a developer's perspective) ("Rich Cloutier")
Re: In the middle of it all... (Kool Breeze)
Re: Giving up on NT (Wolfgang Weisselberg)
Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux ("Jim Ross")
Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux ("Jim Ross")
Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux (Gary Hallock)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Bobby D. Bryant" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: In the middle of it all...
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 14:44:27 -0600
Drestin Black wrote:
> You do know that what you write has absolutely no supporting evidence and
> sounds exactly like what someone could just sit down and write.
Yeah. If it was contrary to any of our real world experiences, we'd all be
shocked and outraged at his claims.
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
------------------------------
From: Kool Breeze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: In the middle of it all...
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 20:45:06 GMT
On Sat, 11 Mar 2000 13:24:14 -0500, "Drestin Black"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>You do know that what you write has absolutely no supporting evidence and
>sounds exactly like what someone could just sit down and write. I mean,
>let's just swap linux and Win and repost the same text in the windows
>advocacy group and it'll mean exactly the same thing.
>
>Let me assume you are not making this up @hotmail and just say: you have
>idiot NT programmers and great linux programmers. 5 guys fail to produce
>1/16th what 2 guys do? how can you blame the OS for that? ANd I say to you
>that I flat out do not believe there can exist any application whatsoever
>that runs faster on a single PII350/128 versus 6 PIII450/256s (provided the
>app can actually work load balanced across multiple servers or do you have 6
>machines with one running the app and the others just sitting there idle, i
>mean, given how stupid I think your win guys are I don't doubt that is the
>case).
>
>Someone dare to show me one single instance of a single PII350 beating 6
>PIII450s at anything... pick the OS of your choice on either side. You think
>if cdrom.com ran on a single PII350 with bsd that 6 PIII450s running IIS
>would be slower?
>
> i do not believe a word of it...
>
>"Kool Breeze" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> Very few people posting to this group have real evidence of a REAL
>> WORLD application to compare NT and Linux.
>>
>> Not me. I am in the middle of it all.
>>
>> Our company has a Linux based system comprised of 6 applications. Of
>> course, we have a Win32 Client part to each of these apps that
>> connects to our Linux box which does the real work. BTW: We could not
>> sell this application without a Windows front end a few years ago,
>> hence the Win9x/WInNT client side to our app.
>>
>> The Linux based system took 2 programmers 2 years to finish. That's 4
>> man years. BTW. I am one of the two programmers.
>>
>> Our company was purchased at about the same time the buyer (now parent
>> company) had an NT product ready to deploy. They have had 5
>> programmers working for 5 years and they have ONE of the 6
>> applications ready.
>> That's 25 man years for 16% of a total (comparable) system.
>>
>> For up to 50 simultaneous users:
>> We run our 6 Linux based applications on ONE PII 350 with 128Mb RAM.
>> There ONE application requires 6 (yes SIX) NT servers to run.
>>
>> The MINIMUS REQUIREMENTS for EACH of the SIX servers:
>> PIII 450 + 256Mb EACH.
>>
>> Guess what. The one NT product does not yet have all the features our
>> (comparable) product has. The one thing that they had on one
>> application over ours took me about two weeks to add to our product.
>>
>> Guess what else. The NT based product's install program contains as
>> many lines of code as our TOTAL server side.
>>
>> Guess what else. Their support staff for their 20 clients is the same
>> size as ours. We have been supporting over 150 clients for several
>> years.
>>
>> Guess what else. Our profit margin has dropped from a nice 40% to a
>> measly 20%. (Much of this is our cost for the NT Sever Licenses and
>> hardware).
>>
>> This is the kicker, the NT-based system has had more down-time in EACH
>> client than ALL of our 150 clients combined over 2 years. BTW: This
>> system IS mission and time critical.
>>
>> So no one will EVER convince me that there is better performance, less
>> down-time, lower cost of ownership in NT.
>>
>> BTW: Preliminary benchmarks have shown that Win2K does perform about
>> 30-40% better so we will might be able to drop one of the 6 servers
>> out of our NT-mess.
>> I
>
Oh, it's true. very true. I guess it would be hard form even me to
believe if someone else posted something like this. You may page me at
704-356-2222. If you are ever in the Charlotte, NC area, come by. This
is where we are based.
We have two clients in this area. I'll show you our office with a NT
product about to go out the door and a Linux product about to as well.
We have a whole room dedicatied to the large amount of hardware and a
full timer dedicaded to configuring the servers.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Subject: Re: What might really help Linux (a developer's perspective)
Date: 11 Mar 2000 20:45:47 GMT
On Sat, 11 Mar 2000 19:31:27 +0100, Davorin Mestric wrote:
>my generalizations would be wrong if there were tools on linux comparable to
>visual C, vb, etc. is there such a thing?
No, there are not. However, keep in mind that it took Microsoft years
to get their development tools to where they are. QT and GTK only
*started* after Windows 95 was already released.
>why would linux community work on something they perceive as a tool for
>idiots? motivation for doing this is simply not there.
Here are some "tools for idiots":
Kdevelop: IDE and GUI builder for KDE
Glade: Same for GNOME
Python: A scripting language for "idiots" ( AKA those without too much time
on their hands ).
>can you say that KDevelop is more powerful than vc ide? it looks to me like
No. Can you say that the VC ide is as new as KDevelop ?
Again, you are completely ignoring the fact that GTK and QT are
*newer than Windows 95*. IOW, MS had a mature development framework
in place before Linux was even starting. They probably (when ? ) had OLE
before kernel 1.0 was released.
Things are happening, but not overnight.
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Subject: Re: What might really help Linux (a developer's perspective)
Date: 11 Mar 2000 20:49:15 GMT
On Sat, 11 Mar 2000 19:36:15 +0100, Davorin Mestric wrote:
>
>Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> really true that we're resting on our laurels, why is it that so mouch
>> effort over the last two years has gone into development tools ( KDE,
>> GNOME, QT and GTK ) ?
>
>it looks like there is some big progress, but this is because it starts from
>a small base. going from zero to some tools and libraries might look like a
>big progress, but still linux isn't even close to the support developers
>have on windows.
True enough. Microsoft didn't write their development tools overnight,
and neither did/will the Linux guys. Don't forget that VB and VC++ were
pretty usable before the development on GTK/QT even began.
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Subject: Re: 11 Days Wasted ON Linux
Date: 11 Mar 2000 20:53:57 GMT
On 11 Mar 2000 15:19:03 GMT, Wolfgang Weisselberg wrote:
>> KDE is
>> (a) an API that includes QT widgets and some other stuff.
>> (b) a collection of applications including a WM.
>
>Ok, I have been unclear. I admit it. KDE _includes_ a WM. KDE
>is more than just a WM.
>
>> e <-> kwin , kwm
>
>e is not part of gnome, e is the enlightenment WM, unless I am
>very mistaken.
A Window manager is needed if you want to run the GNOME desktop
components, and the sample implementation to date has e.
> So it makes sense to install a WM like kwm (and
>all the rest?) so you can use gnome.
I'm not clear on what you mean. All you need to install if you want
to use KDE or GNOME are the shared libraries, then all the applications
written for those libraries will run.
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: "Jim Ross" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 15:40:26 -0500
JEDIDIAH <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> On Sat, 11 Mar 2000 02:23:41 -0500, Jim Ross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> >
> >JoeX1029 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> You're just a stupidass thats all. It's really quite simple to use
Linux.
> >> Have you ever read any books on it?? Not everything is as simple as
Win
> >(or as
> >> shitty). The next project you try keep in mind you might need to use a
> >little
> >> more mental elbow grease.
> >
> >If something were "easy to use" you wouldn't HAVE to buy a book on it.
>
> No, if something were functionally trivial you would neither
> need any references (bought or installed in the form of man
> or hlp files) and you wouldn't ever need to expend mental
> effort on using it.
I disagree. A car is quite complex, but yet quite easy to drive.
>
> This kind of laziness and acceptance of one's own inadequacies
> is why we have game consoles. They function like toasters.
> General purpose computers are a bit different, really meant for
> people who need tools more complex than a hammer.
>
It isn't laziness. It's a highier standard one expects in the ease of use
department.
> >
> >I can jump right in and starting using a telephone, a tv, microwave,
coffee
> >maker, etc
> >Buy a book, please.
>
> All of those are relatively simple single function devices.
>
> Microcomputers aren't.
Depending on what you are trying to do with it.
Who saying that installing software must require 7 or 8 steps???
Windows and MacOS are in fact proof that Linux can be easier and I believe
should be.
>
> >
> >Here's easy to use.
> >
> >Install MS Office 98 in MacOS.
> >Insert CD. Wait. You are done.
>
> That sounds like a StarOffice install.
You forget the steps necessary in mounting and unmounting.
>
> >
> >Under Linux.
> >Since MS Office 98 doesn't exist for Linux or Windows, I'll use
Wordperfect
> >for an example.
> >
> >Download this big file.
>
> Or buy a CDROM.
>
> >Rename the file because Netscape screwed up the filename. Underscores,
etc.
>
> I didn't have to do that. What are you on?
It's a known issue. Maybe it's been fixed recently.
>
> >
> >Or put in your cd with Wordperfect on it.
> >Figure out how to mount the cd and how to access the file. Better copy
it
> >to your harddisk because of the next point.
> >Rename the file again. Corel screwed up the filename. (It's not a gz,
but
> >actually a tar file).
> >Untar it somehow.
> >Know enough to run ./setup instead of setup.
> >Wait.
> >Now unmount your Wordperfect cd.
>
> Except for the cultural issue of 'mounting' media, I had
> none of these problems installing my commercial copy of
> Word Perfect 8 on Redhat 6.1.
I don't have a problem either.
But I would not consider it easy.
>
> >
> >I estimate under MacOS you had to know 1-2 pieces of imformation.
> >Under Linux, you likely had to know 10-15 pieces of information.
> >Unscientifically you like had to know up to 7 times more about the
process
> >and ran into several "show-stoppers" along the way.
> >
> >Even for the experienced, these extra steps are still unnecessary.
> >
> >Mounting, come on.
> >
> >dos didn't require mounting of removable media for what 15 years now.
>
> DOS isn't sophisticated enough for media mounting to be relevant.
> Neither is WinDOS in this respect either.
>
> [deletia]
>
> --
> |||
> Resistance is not futile. / | \
>
>
> Need sane PPP docs? Try penguin.lvcm.com.
Either way dos was easier since it did not require mounting.
Jim
------------------------------
From: "Rich Cloutier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What might really help Linux (a developer's perspective)
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 16:06:21 -0500
"Donovan Rebbechi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message > Again, you are
completely ignoring the fact that GTK and QT are
> *newer than Windows 95*. IOW, MS had a mature development framework
> in place before Linux was even starting. They probably (when ? ) had OLE
> before kernel 1.0 was released.
>
MS had OLE on Windows 3.0, although it didn't really start to mature (read
"work") until Win 3.1. This was what, 1992-3 timeframe?
--
Rich C.
"Have you supported a new Linux user today?"
To reply by email, remove the "abc_" from my address.
------------------------------
From: Kool Breeze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: In the middle of it all...
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 21:02:05 GMT
On Sat, 11 Mar 2000 14:40:16 -0600, "Bobby D. Bryant"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Kool Breeze wrote:
>
>> Guess what else. Their support staff for their 20 clients is the same
>> size as ours. We have been supporting over 150 clients for several
>> years.
>
>A friend who works for a very well known software company told me about a
>scaling test they did for one of their networking products. To set up the
>test, they installed it on 100 NT systems and 100 Unix system. Elapsed
>time for the installation: 3 days for the NT systems, 3 *hours* for the
>Unix systems.
I must admit. The NT installation requires punching thru many dialogs
and configuring RAID + clustering. Upon failures at this level,
reinstalling NT is commonplace. New hardware and RAID devices prevent
programmers from automating much of this process.
Once the clustering/RAID is configured, then the client's
customizations are put in (by punching thru dialogs again).
I presume this is why Linux is so easy, almost ALL aspects of the
Linux configure (RAID + customization) clustering uses scripts and
text editing. Plus we do much of the customization over the phone
line(s) and or internet.
For the benefit of MS, I DO expect NT (Win2K future) to be much easier
to install in the future. But those poor programmers have their work
cut out for them, they must handle many times more problems than we
did when we first rooled out the door.
>> BTW: Preliminary benchmarks have shown that Win2K does perform about
>> 30-40% better so we will might be able to drop one of the 6 servers
>> out of our NT-mess.
>
>I thought it only performed better when you only had 32Mb of memory, and
>worse otherwise, with the gap widening as the amount of memory increases.
>And this was by MS's own report just a few weeks back. Has someone come
>out with a new study?
>
>Bobby Bryant
>Austin, Texas
>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Wolfgang Weisselberg)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Giving up on NT
Date: 11 Mar 2000 21:04:15 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Sun, 05 Mar 2000 23:29:17 GMT,
Chad Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> So, NT doesn't run so well on 32. What can you do with
> NT Server on 32MB? Run file sharing, Mac file sharing, DHCP,
> DNS, WINS, and a PDC for a small network That's pretty much basic
> functionality with a server.
> You probably could do more with Linux, but why?
Because:
1. small shop owners are short of money, almost always.
2. think cost * 10.000 for some corporation. Don't forget: you
need to upgrade all your hardware and buy licenses for NT.
These numbers can get pretty big, so you need equivalent boni
from your investment.
3. Because it's cool to be able to do so.
4. How much was that ISDN-LAN-router with masquerading (or even
NAT?) Why can't we use one of the obsolete machines?
5. You just cannot spend the money for a P-III-666, so you got an
oldish pentium from a garage sale. Why not get the most out of
it, even if you have an unused NT license at home?
6. Such a box makes a nice, cheap, fast, reliable division
intranet web server, mail handler, fax machine ... and you
don't need to fill any purchase orders, so you can have it
running within hours (at most) instead of within weeks.
(However, all the above, perhaps with restrictions to ISDN, can be
applied to Free|Net|Open-BSD as well.)
Why not to use Linux?
1. You don't like it or like something else better ... enough to
purchase an upgrade for your hardware. (a perfectly valid
reason. Actually, there are reasons to use Linux and still
upgrade. A centralized webcache with 32 MB _is_ short of
memory.)
2. You need a program that only runs under QNX or OS/2.
3. The Powers That Be decided you may only run CP/M. But see 6
above.
> With 64-128MB of RAM, you can do just about anything with NT
> up to about 35-50 users. 128MB of RAM is around $80 for PC100
> so what's the big deal?
$800.000 is a respectable sum. See 2.
> 64MB isn't much to ask these days, in fact,
> it's pretty much the standard for desktops.
Corporations do not like buying new hardware for every
MS-release. It does cost money, and if what they have now does
the job as well as 3 years ago ...
> 128MB is minimum for
> workstations. Is it too much to ask to put 128MB in a server to
> get full fuctionality out of NT?
No, if you are buying the hardware after you decided on your OS.
But then I'd go for 1/2 Gb for NT. Unluckily, you do not always
have the choice.
> NT workstation, on a default install takes 12MB total.
> NT Server will usually boot to about 20-24MB.
Linux kernel takes ~ 1-1.5M. X takes (here, an oldish 32 MB
P-166 laptop ... try upgrading that!) 8.5 MB RAM ... and can be
swapped out or not used, if you want to. Another 600 k for the WM.
If you want to, you can make Linux boot in under 1 MB ram, but
that is just some form of masturbation.
> Talking about Red Herrings, your arguments are straw men. Working
> under 32MB is simply irrelevant in this day in age. If you want to
> keep dwelling in the past to make your arguments, that's fine,
> but you'll end up in my killfile.
I have an older laptop ... want me to run NT on it?
> Anyhow, Win2K's memory consumption is not that bad, so this argument
> is moot anyhow. Disk space could be argued, but then, that's dirt
> cheap these days anyhow.
If you start wasting it because it's cheap, you'll be filling it
faster than you can buy more. If you use it because that allows
you to do more/better stuff faster, that's good. Word, as one
example, is inefficient in it's disk usage.
-Wolfgang
------------------------------
From: "Jim Ross" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 15:48:39 -0500
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> On Fri, 10 Mar 2000 04:06:46 GMT,
> The Ghost In The Machine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> (snip)
>
>
> >I'll admit, the browser situation on Linux is somewhat less than
> >satisfactory
>
>
> No it isn't. Lynx is a perfectly satsifying browser. Many of us
> couldn't give two shits if Navigator, IE, Mozilla, Mnemonic, HotJava,
> etc, vanished tomorrow.
Most people don't consider a web browser that doesn't support images and
tables, etc.
That really isn't that useful to most people.
I don't feel you speak for most users.
>
>
> (snip)
>
>
> --
> GUIs make you stupid.
GUIs are an excellent way of steamlining a decision.
There are in fact just one more interface, not at all a threat of any kind
to other interfaces.
Jim
------------------------------
From: "Jim Ross" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 15:51:56 -0500
Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> On Sat, 11 Mar 2000 01:55:07 -0500, Jim Ross wrote:
>
> >All this is true and when I use Linux as a desktop OS it is very obvious.
> >Plus there are other issues like copy, paste and drop and drop. One
usually
> >doesn't work, the other rarely works ever.
>
> Perhaps because you don't know how to use it. You claim that you can't
> paste from kedit to netscape ? SOunds like a user error to me.
>
> (1) Select text with left button
> (2) move to netscape window, and select that window
> (3) use the middle button to paste text.
>
> >I often can't use DEBS, I don't know why, but they won't work in Corel,
and
> >are hard to find.
>
> This is not really accurate. THere are only two distributions that use
this
> format, and one is built upon the other.
>
> >I see a source .tar.gz. I don't know what to do with it, and it only
> >compiles on RedHat.
>
> This is not accurate either. Source compatibility is preety good.
>
> --
> Donovan
I guess my experience with Corel and Netscape differ from yours.
I don't feel Linux is ready yet for the desktop.
Jim
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 16:09:28 -0500
From: Gary Hallock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux
Jim Ross wrote:
> I guess I'm saying that for me the Netscape Location Bar doesn't accept a
> paste at all.
> I commonly under Windows copy URLs from text files and often paste into IE
> Address Bar.
> This is very convenience and hurts when not available in Linux.
>
It does for me. What version of Netscape are you using? Currently I'm
using 4.7 but I'm sure it worked for 4.61 and I think 4.5.
> Sorry that's what I meant. I want new GUI apps to all install into the DE's
> launcher, not the desktop/root window.
> Many apps still don't.
> Jim
Ok, that sounds good.
Gary
------------------------------
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