Linux-Advocacy Digest #707, Volume #25           Mon, 20 Mar 00 10:13:05 EST

Contents:
  Re: An Illuminating Anecdote (Klaus-Georg Adams)
  Re: LINUX IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY (Tim Kelley)
  Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux (Donal K. Fellows)
  Re: Dirty deeds... (was Re: Giving up on NT (Bob shows his lack of knowledge yet 
again) ("Daniel Johnson")
  A Micro$oft plot called Java (Walter)
  Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux (jack)
  Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic) (Bjørnar Bolsøy)
  Re: Giving up on NT (Bob shows his lack of knowledge yet again) (George Marengo)
  Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic) (George Marengo)
  Re: LINUX IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY ("xxx")
  Re: LINUX IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY ("xxx")
  Re: 3 out of 4 PCs do not need browsers (Carter Braxton)
  Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic) (Seán Ó Donnchadha)
  Re: 3 out of 4 PCs do not need browsers (abraxas)
  Re: A Micro$oft plot called Java (abraxas)
  Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic) (The Ghost In The Machine)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Klaus-Georg Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: An Illuminating Anecdote
Date: 20 Mar 2000 09:19:52 +0100

"Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> mr_organic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...

[...]

> > > which did simply exited if the condition occurred. Even the X Windows
> > > server does not properly handle failed allocations, and simply exits
> > > (bringing down the entire desktop along with it) when the condition
> >    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >
> >     but doesn't crash the whole OS, as happens with Windows
> 
> What exactly is the difference between the OS crashing, and X crashing?  In
> both cases you will lose all the open apps and the work you were doing with
> no chance of saving it.

Less chance of losing all your data on disk (you know, because of
write buffering in the OS)?
Not affecting any of the other users of the computer, logged in over
the network?
Not affecting your web-, dns-, mail-, ftp-, lpd- server running on the
same computer?

-- 
MfG, Klaus-Georg Adams

------------------------------

From: Tim Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: LINUX IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 05:44:15 -0600
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Ilya Grishashvili wrote:
> 
> Hi
> There was a discossion here that moved me to post this message.
> 
> This is my opinion you don't have to agree.
> 
> I'm a real Penguinist, but I have to admit:

> LINUX IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY
> AND NOT FOR EVERY NEED.
> 
> If you're a secretary who only needs email and office tools,
> linux is not for you! 

How many times must we dispell this crap?  This is EXACTLY the sort of person
linux is perfect for.  This is EXACTLY the sort of job windows (and Mac for that
matter) is HORRIBLE for.

I'll agree that linux is not suited to the typical home user/gamer.
Fine.  Almost no one here would say that it is.

> Unix (Linux) is an operating system developed by programmers
> and for programmers or researchers !!!

Yeah, and windows was developed by monkeys, for monkeys?  What are you talking
about?

--
Tim Kelley
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

------------------------------

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donal K. Fellows)
Subject: Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux
Date: 20 Mar 2000 11:40:37 GMT

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On UNIX ( Motif to be precise ) it's ALT-C and ALT-V. Only recently, we're
> seeing KDE and GNOME move towards the "Windows way" to make life easier 
> for new users.

Also, many Motif programs support Emacs-style keyboard shortcuts as
well (Ctrl-W for cut, Ctrl-Y for paste.)  Exactly what keys should do
what actions has been the subject of Holy Wars for as long as I can
remember...

Donal.
-- 
Donal K. Fellows    http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~fellowsd/    [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- The small advantage of not having California being part of my country would
   be overweighed by having California as a heavily-armed rabid weasel on our
   borders.  -- David Parsons  <o r c @ p e l l . p o r t l a n d . o r . u s>

------------------------------

From: "Daniel Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: 
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Dirty deeds... (was Re: Giving up on NT (Bob shows his lack of knowledge 
yet again)
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 12:02:53 GMT

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:38d57260$1$yrgbherq$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Stephen S. Edwards II" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
[snip]
> >This is what capitalism is... a fight to the death.  I for one find it
> >fitting that IBM get a taste of their own medicine.  But then again, I
grew
> >up in an time where Microsoft was the underdog.
>
> Then you might also be too young to know that when IBM engaged in too many
> "dirty deeds" e.g., they rigged the market, until the government stopped
them

The government *tried* to stop them. But to this day, IBM retains a
hammerlock
on the big iron market and at this point they have pretty well come to own
the minicomputer market as well.

Compelling IBM to unbundle it's applications software did little more than
to raise prices; IBM's bundling practices were not the main factor
responsible
for their success.

> -- just as they are going to do to M$.

Maybe; and if so I expect it will play out about the same. Probably
MS will be compelled to unbundle, will raise prices, but since
bundling wasn't the fundamental reason they were on top, they
will remain there.

We'll all just have to pay a bit more for the privilege of getting
Windows and IE separately.

>  And one could add that in the process,
> IBM generally tried to produce good products -- while M$ has focused on
junk
> that looks good.

During it's heyday, IBM was also condemned for making junk; and
having worked briefly with some of the stuff from that period, I tend
to agree that it *was* junk, too. Somebody at IBM was just *waaaay*
too addicted to binary coded decimal, that's all I can say.

But they did have their moments. They invented virtual memory,
for instance. That was moderately clever. But for the most part,
IBM and MS both implement well known ideas, not fancy new stuff.

I suspect that in ten or twenty years time, MS's stuff will
look as primitive as IBM's does now. I certainly hope so.

But the success of these companies isn't co-incidence; both
paid at least *some* attention to what their customers wanted.

IBM  never did superlative hardware or software, but they did
supremely good *serivce*, and to the big companies depending
on those Big Blue big irons, that was *the* thing that they cared
about.

Unbundling did nothing to change that at all.




------------------------------

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Walter)
Subject: A Micro$oft plot called Java
Reply-To: n/a
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 12:35:28 GMT


Sometime i think Java is a M$ plot.

Without Java all the time and efforts of
good guys and groups like Blackdown
could have been aimed at shaping
Linux into a _decent_ gui-based
alternative to Windows.

What else?




------------------------------

Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 13:49:20 +0100
From: jack <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Top 10 reasons why Linux sux

Live free or die...
        ...there's nothing more to say.


------------------------------

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bjørnar Bolsøy)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic)
Date: 20 Mar 2000 13:17:09 GMT

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (abraxas) wrote in
<8b35sf$252i$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: 
>In comp.os.linux.advocacy Stephen S. Edwards II
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 

>> Could you be more specific?  After, one thing I can think of
>> that AmigaDOS has is a built-in GUI engine.  Would this not be
>> useful in an embedded environment?  
>
>It would indeed not be useful in most modern embedded
>environments, which include specialized console managers, robotics
>command queue programming and management, fuel injection systems
>(petrol to rocket), etc.  The majority of embedded systems do not
>exist inside the home. 

 True, of the 8 billion computers that will be sold this year 95% 
 of them will be embedded controllers. However computing is ever
 expanding into new groundbreaking ares of use. As the VISCorp deal
 showed 4 years back there is room for integrated GUI/HW systems 
 like the Amiga.

 Today the situation is different, as there are several big players
 on the market, but the market is also so big and diverse that one
 would be hard pressed to call it a day just like that. Things such
 as the "Smart home", for instance, would be a natural progression.


 Regards...

------------------------------

From: George Marengo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: 
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Giving up on NT (Bob shows his lack of knowledge yet again)
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 13:56:29 GMT

On Sun, 19 Mar 2000 22:44:02 -0500, Joseph <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
<snip>
>What should have IBM thought through?  

What IBM should have thought through is whether they were, 
as a corporate entity, going to push OS/2 with a united front. 
They were fractured, with one arm of IBM trying to sell OS/2 
while another arm was selling Windows with their machines.

They could have, if they so chose, decided that they would 
sell OS/2 on their hardware and see where it fell. Apparently 
it didn't make much business sense because their customers, 
with some exceptions here and there, didn't want OS/2 for the 
preload.

>> I ask them what they want to do with their computer. If it's surfing
>> the web, they don't need Windows. If it's to run specific software
>> like TurboTax, Quicken, and Word, they do.
>
>If someone told me they want to run these EXACT applications I tell 
>them to use the better designed Apple Mac.  

Sure it is, but if they use a computer at work, what are they most
likely to use?  I've suggested Macs several times, but those times
were to people who had little or no experience with computers, 
didn't use a computer at work, and had a generic need to use 
a word processor. 


------------------------------

From: George Marengo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic)
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 14:06:55 GMT

On 20 Mar 2000 15:52:28 +0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Terry
Porter) wrote:

>On Mon, 20 Mar 2000 05:22:59 GMT, George Marengo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>On 20 Mar 2000 08:31:43 +0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Terry
>>Porter) wrote:
>>
>>>On Sat, 18 Mar 2000 02:21:12 GMT, George Marengo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>>On Fri, 17 Mar 2000 20:08:05 -0600, Tim Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>>>Everything from MS is utter crap.
>><snip>
>>>Unlike you George, we have Tim's long history of posting in COLA
>>>to tell us he is a rational thinker.
>>
>>Saying that everything from MS is utter crap isn't a rational position
>>to take, regardless of his long history of posting in COLA.
>Well be a good troll and prove it isnt a rational position ?

I won't be able to prove it to anyone who would make such a silly
pronouncement in the first place, so you go right on believing that
all of it is crap. Meanwhile, you could do likewise and prove your
position.

>>Some of their products are quite good, even if they may not be the
>>best product available. Looking at the recent TPC-C benchmarks 
>>and the number of e-commerce sites that run on NT are evidence
>>of that. Very few commerce sites run on Linux -- they tend to be
>>either commercial Unix varieties, *BSD, or NT.
>Now who's confused ?
>We were talking about MS software being utter crap. Which of their products are
>"quiet good", and why  ??

You know, if you're going to resort to silly spelling criticisms, you
should AT LEAST get the criticism correct. Look back up at my original
sentence and you'll see that I spelled "quite good" correctly.


------------------------------

From: "xxx" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: LINUX IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 16:11:03 +0200

Here follows my humble opinions:


> Hi
> There was a discossion here that moved me to post this message.
>
> This is my opinion you don't have to agree.
>
> I'm a real Penguinist, but I have to admit:
>
> LINUX IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY
> AND NOT FOR EVERY NEED.
>
> If you're a secretary who only needs email and office tools,
> linux is not for you! Same for this cache program. Same for
> children who want to play Quake. Same for those who use their
> computers mainly for browsing web or for chats.

Hello ! Linux is PERFECT for the secretaries of the world. There is such a
complete bunch of packages already available for secretaries that I find it
hard to belief you made the statement.

OK, With games I have to agree...

> I feel sorry when I see that Linux more and more looks like
> M$ Windoze (understand me right, I mean user interface, all
> the fancy buttons and stuff).

Fortunately the Windows style GUI is here to stay. End users identify with
icons - and thats the bottom line.

> Unix (Linux) is an operating system developed by programmers
> and for programmers or researchers !!!

Not anymore - and Linus (which started it all) is part of a major driving
force to fully comercialize Linux in every aspect of our daily lifes.

> If you're doing a real development like file/mail/web/database
> servers, or developing some new network protocols, or
> calculating some huge amounts (~Tbytes)
> of statistics data, or some intelligent pattern
> recognitions e.t.c (endless list) then Linux is what you need.
> But trying to install Linux with intention to use
> it as an mp3 player (substitute here by GnuCach or
> whatever) this hurts my feelings.

I have to disagree here. This low end installation is basically what schools
are after and because Linux come very attractively priced, they can now
concentrate more on their sallybus then the budget.

> I myself use WinNT when I need to prepare a presentation in
> PowerPoint. But I would never go that low to make my
> distributed memory systems project in Visual C++.
>

I agree somewhat... The only app I use now on NT is FrontPage - I have a
couple of sites already on FrontPage and a switch to something else is going
to take to long, so I'm a bit stuck there.

> I hope you understand my point, and will express your
> opinion. Please don't be mad, I didn't try to hurt anybodys
> feelings.
>

Not at all - It's just very striking that you have the typical argument of a
programmer. My speciallity is educational (practical IT training stuff) so I
see the world from the end-user perspective.

Anyway... Cheers and good luck at your department.

Nico

>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------
> Ilya Grishashvili
> Computer Systems Group
> Ph.D. CS Department
> Marlan & Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering
> University of California, Riverside
> Office: Bourns Hall B246
> Phone:  (909) 787-2893
> Email:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Web:    mirage.cs.ucr.edu/~elias/
> ------------------------------------------------




------------------------------

From: "xxx" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: LINUX IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 16:11:40 +0200

http://bboothe.vr9.com/linuxfiles.htm


Ilya Grishashvili <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Hi
> There was a discossion here that moved me to post this message.
>
> This is my opinion you don't have to agree.
>
> I'm a real Penguinist, but I have to admit:
>
> LINUX IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY
> AND NOT FOR EVERY NEED.
>
> If you're a secretary who only needs email and office tools,
> linux is not for you! Same for this cache program. Same for
> children who want to play Quake. Same for those who use their
> computers mainly for browsing web or for chats.
>
> I feel sorry when I see that Linux more and more looks like
> M$ Windoze (understand me right, I mean user interface, all
> the fancy buttons and stuff).
>
> Unix (Linux) is an operating system developed by programmers
> and for programmers or researchers !!!
>
> If you're doing a real development like file/mail/web/database
> servers, or developing some new network protocols, or
> calculating some huge amounts (~Tbytes)
> of statistics data, or some intelligent pattern
> recognitions e.t.c (endless list) then Linux is what you need.
> But trying to install Linux with intention to use
> it as an mp3 player (substitute here by GnuCach or
> whatever) this hurts my feelings.
>
> I myself use WinNT when I need to prepare a presentation in
> PowerPoint. But I would never go that low to make my
> distributed memory systems project in Visual C++.
>
>
> I hope you understand my point, and will express your
> opinion. Please don't be mad, I didn't try to hurt anybodys
> feelings.
>
>
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------
> Ilya Grishashvili
> Computer Systems Group
> Ph.D. CS Department
> Marlan & Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering
> University of California, Riverside
> Office: Bourns Hall B246
> Phone:  (909) 787-2893
> Email:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Web:    mirage.cs.ucr.edu/~elias/
> ------------------------------------------------



------------------------------

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Carter Braxton)
Crossposted-To: 
comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.microsoft.sucks,alt.conspiracy.microsoft
Subject: Re: 3 out of 4 PCs do not need browsers
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 14:18:08 GMT

On Mon, 28 Feb 2000 15:39:08 -0600, Chad Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Or anything that requires elaborate client-side activities.

I personally would not visit a site that requires "elaborate client-side
activities." No way in hell am I going to allow outside sites to download
software onto my system to execute. (In fact I normally use lynx for whatever
limited web browsing I may want to do.)

==============================================================================
                Carter Braxton (Remove "NOSPAM" for e-mail)
     US CENSUS 2000: What response is required? Learn the facts! See:
              http://www.save-a-patriot.org/census/census.html
==============================================================================

------------------------------

From: Seán Ó Donnchadha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic)
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 09:22:40 -0500

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stefan Ohlsson) wrote:

>
>As a matter of fact, AmigaOS is safer than W95/98 when it comes to viruses
>or at least worms. There's no Internet Explorer with ActiveX and no Outlook
>that blindly runs attached programs...
>

Stefan, I realize that AmigaOS was a monumental achievement at the
time, but let's be realistic here. The whole system is basically a
single process with multiple preemptive threads. There is no file
security, memory protection, or any notion of user accounts. Any
program can patch the OS at runtime, for God's sake. The design makes
perfect sense if you take into account its goals, but in the Internet
age the Amiga would be easiest machine to blow up, or the ultimate
DDoS weapon.

------------------------------

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (abraxas)
Crossposted-To: 
comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.microsoft.sucks,alt.conspiracy.microsoft
Subject: Re: 3 out of 4 PCs do not need browsers
Date: 20 Mar 2000 14:27:32 GMT

In comp.os.linux.advocacy Carter Braxton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Feb 2000 15:39:08 -0600, Chad Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>Or anything that requires elaborate client-side activities.

> I personally would not visit a site that requires "elaborate client-side
> activities." No way in hell am I going to allow outside sites to download
> software onto my system to execute. (In fact I normally use lynx for whatever
> limited web browsing I may want to do.)

In my mind, the biggest reason that the world went the way of "client-side
activities" is that the marketing force behind electronic commerce was driven
much, much faster than the technology it pushed.  I remember clearly standing
in the Sun Microsystems booth at a certian trade show some years ago 
interrogating the poor representative (with about half a dozen other people) 
as to why exactly "java" was excecuted on the CLIENT side.  Then when we all
saw the neat yellow bouncing ball on a *web page* we quietly changed our tune.

Because we all knew exactly what that bright, bouncy, shiny object was capable
of selling, and we were right.




=====yttrx


------------------------------

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (abraxas)
Subject: Re: A Micro$oft plot called Java
Date: 20 Mar 2000 14:32:19 GMT

Walter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Sometime i think Java is a M$ plot.

No.  J-script is a microsoft plot.  Java is a Sun Microsystems
plot.

> Without Java all the time and efforts of
> good guys and groups like Blackdown
> could have been aimed at shaping
> Linux into a _decent_ gui-based
> alternative to Windows.

Without java, the point of linux would have been exactly the
same.  The only people talking about creating a "decent gui-
based alternative to windows" are distribution companies---

Who actually have nothing to do with the way linux actually
WORKS.




=====yttrx




------------------------------

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic)
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 14:33:39 GMT

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Terry Porter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote on 20 Mar 2000 08:31:43 +0800
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:

[snip for brevity]

>But dont listen to me, tell us why MS is NOT utter crap ???

MS is not utter crap.  However, it's not clear that it's all that
good, either.

But Windows does work, most of the time.

Of course, there are solutions that work better than Windows NT/Win2K 
and Win95/98 -- Solaris, for one; Linux, for another, FreeBSD
for still another.

All are more or less freeware (although I don't know if Solaris
is completely free or not -- but Sun did promise to publish
the source).

However, MS does have some very interesting value added.

[.sigsnip]

-- 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random misquote here

------------------------------


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