Linux-Advocacy Digest #752, Volume #25 Wed, 22 Mar 00 13:13:10 EST
Contents:
Re: Why did we even need NT in the first place? ("Mr. Rupert")
Re: Why Linux on the desktop? (JEDIDIAH)
Re: US politics (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: Why did we even need NT in the first place? ("Neil")
Re: Bsd and Linux (Donovan Rebbechi)
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From: "Mr. Rupert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why did we even need NT in the first place?
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 11:38:46 -0600
Chad Myers wrote:
>
> "Tim Kelley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > > So numerous apps not using, say, HKLM\USERS to store user preferences is
> > > somehow the fault of NT ?
> >
> > Look, it is obvious. If winnt was not hindered by having to be
> > backward compatible with other windows apps (a purely economic
> > focus on MS' part), they could've used a sensible multi-user
> > interface and filesystem standard, as unix has. They didn't. It
> > shows.
> > This is NOT the fault of any developer, that is absolutely
> > LUDICROUS. It is clearly MS' fault.
>
> NT provides the ability for apps to be truly multi-user and not
> have to write to HKLM for user-stuff and to the SYSTEM32 folder
> for user stuff as well.
>
> Granted, there are many apps that do this, and yes, MS allowed this
> to happen for backwards compatability.
>
> However, it's still stupid developers that CONTINUE to develop apps
> that aren't multi-user or at least securable.
>
> YES, those are stupid developers, and YES MS could do more to stop it.
>
> However, MS got where it is by pandering to developers, so rather than
> cutting them off and forcing them code correctly (which would be the
> best long-term solution), they're strongly encouraging them to program
> correctly by changing some of the APIs (like disk space usage reports
> the current user's disk quota usage, instead of the total space available
> to all users). With the whistler technology, this will all be irrelevant
> because pseudo registries and psuedo SYSTEM32 directories will be created
> for applications to keep them seperated.
<*sigh*> Dare I ask what this new 'whistler technology' is all about? Is
it a technology, or an MS mop and bucket?
--
Mr Rupert
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
Subject: Re: Why Linux on the desktop?
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 17:10:38 GMT
On Wed, 22 Mar 2000 14:14:22 GMT, George Richard Russell
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Wed, 22 , The Ghost In The Machine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>Well, those are server tasks. I the subject of this thread is "Linux
>>>on the desktop" which, in my mind, refers to Linux being used to run
>>>conventional desktop applications.
>>
>>Like spreadsheets? Gnumeric.
>
>Call us when it reaches a release version, comes out of alpha and beta testing,
>and has functionality equivalent to Windows 3.1 Works Suites.
Just how would the suites be any better now under Windows than
they were in the 3.1 era. Why would someone necessarily want
a spreadsheet that can satisfy all the bulletpoints of a 3.1
era version of 123?
>
>>Word processors? Lyx is pretty good, so I've heard; AbiSoft; StarOffice.
>> Emacs (sort of).
>
>LyX - is emphatically not WYSIWYG. Its more a document formatter / typesetter.
>
>AbiSoft - Wordpad on windows is free and better. When AbiWord reaches a mature
>tested release, let us know.
>
>StarOffice just is horrible. Usable, sure, but not nice.
Please define 'horrible' in less meaningless terms.
The 3D effects on SO5's graph are actually quite spiffy
and manage to be eye candy superior to it's MS counterpart.
>
>You should mention kword, WordPerfect and Applixware if you wanted to make an
>argument of it. Fwiw, kword is alpha, Wordperfect is only in 3rd place on
>Windows Word processors, and Applixware is a niche product that existed since
So? We are trying to utilize tools here not run a popularity
contest. Besides, Corel has taken efforts to ensure cross
compatibility with 'the one true option'.
>for years, nothing better could be had for Unix.
So? You still haven't told us why we wouldn't want to use
it over something else.
>
>>E-mail? Good old mutt and elm; Netscape (when it works); emacs.
>
>All lacking in the warm fuzzie ease of use and setup stakes - Netscapes client,
>essentially the same across platforms, sucks, and uses Motif.
So? Exactly how much easier would the competitors be to deal
with and why?
>
>Good GUI X11 mail readers (most desktops these days assume GUI - console is
>just so retro) are Xfmail and Kmail.
>
>>News? slrn, tin, trn. All pretty basic, but they do the job nicely.
>> Netscape (when it works) if you absolutely, positively
>> need pictures (such as viewing
>> alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.bestiality.hamster.duct-tape,
>> or something like that :-) ).
>> Also emacs.
>
>Emacs is simply not an option for most casual users - the effort to learn to
>use and setup emacs outweighs the benfits to the casual users. i.e Desktop.
>
>Gravity and Forte have no mature equivalent on X11 - but Xagent, PAN, krn, knode
>etc are getting closer. Also, SOffices newsreader. Its a browser / mail / news
>reader as well as an Office suite. Shame it wants about 90Mb RSS.
Gravity and Forte don't need one. Most of their relevant features
are quite effectively delivered by multiple tools that can be
bundled as one unit if necessary. The last time we had this arguement,
the Forte crowd could only come up with some very superficial
advantages to Forte.
>
>>Text editing? vi, emacs, jed, joe, ked.
>
>More comfortably, Nedit, gvim, kwrite
>
>>Development? make, g++, emacs.
>
>Kdevelop
>
>>Web browsing? Netscape, kfm, Amaya, a few others such as Mnemonic
>> and Mozilla Real Soon Now(tm). Also, emacs.
>
>Netscape well, sucks.
Mosaic in general sucks, in all of it's forms.
>kfm - for light usage, no java / javascript / plugins / funky layouts
>amaya - not really usable
>mnemonic - alpha, source tree currently not compilable.
>mozzila - soon to be beta. Just like always. in 24days or less, now, though.
>konquerer looks to be good too.
Wait for Opera and buy it. This is advice one should also follow
as a Windows user.
[deletia]
>>Games? Well, that's where Linux falls down, but there's a few
>> out there: Quake III (available at Fry's Electronics!),
>> Doom, and Quake I source code (which I for one haven't
>> tried to compile yet). Linux would make a great
>> gaming/server platform when Open/GL gets hot, though.
>
>And he support is moer complete, the gaming API;s completed etc.
>Things like ClanLib, the 3d sound API etc.
3D sound? Our API was announced at the GDC and a game using
just went gold: Loki's Heavy Gear II. Dunno about clanlib.
Although SDL is being used in production and is cross platform.
>
>>So...why is Linux not ready for the desktop?
>
>Too much like Unix of course. I mean, if you don't realise Emacs is not an
>option for desktop usage, then you won't realise why linux isn't ready for the
>desktop.
This is an absurd argument. Just because he sees the world through
Emacs coloured glasses, that doesn't mean that Unix is faulty as
a desktop.
[deletia]
>
>Most desktop users have never started a text editor, and frankly, a decent
>desktop should remove the need unless their software developers.
[deletia]
I've had cause all the time to use a simple text editor in
Windows. Infact one of my biggest pet peeve about Windows
is that there isn't a fast easy way to tell the system by
default to open something as a plain text file.
This is without even getting into sourcecode.
--
So long as Apple uses Quicktime to effectively |||
make web based video 'Windows only' Club, / | \
Apple is no less monopolistic than Microsoft.
Need sane PPP docs? Try penguin.lvcm.com.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: US politics
Date: 22 Mar 2000 17:51:24 GMT
On Wed, 22 Mar 2000 11:55:21 -0500, DGF wrote:
>everything you will say that is why I don't argue with you anymore. Fine go
>ahead and believe your delusion that China isn't communist, that Stalin
I don't see how it's a delusion. IMO, you are just using "communism" as
a broad label for things you don't like.
>isn't communist and that communism hasn't been tried.
It's not that it "hasn't been tried", it hasn't been *implemented* ( hint:
how do you implement something that is essentially utopian ? Ans: you
can't, therefore you don't. )
> Just as some
>conservatives are deluded when they say the Nazis weren't a right-wing
>movement.
If you want to call China "communist", you may as well call the Nazis
communist as well. I fail to see why the Nazis count as "right wing"
while the current Chinese government count as "left wing".
>Oh so you mean they want to force people not to use birth control? If you
>mean abortion then that is so.
Yep. By the way -- I suppose those guys who run around murdering doctors --
they're conservatives, hence part of the "conservative movement", right ?
> But other than that I have not heard any
>conservative that wants a law outlawing ordinary birth control. That there
>are some people that may want to do it?
The religious institutions object to it at the very least.
>> * sweeping police powers
>> * strong punitive sanctions against "sexual immorality"
>> * overly punitive criminal justice system
>> * lack of social mobility. wealth is a birthright, not something you
>> earn
>> * extremely wide gaps between rich and poor
>
>That is a communist system. Actually there are less gaps between rich and
>poor in China.
Not true. Look, don't try to lecture me on China, my g/f lived there for
21 years.
> You will not find a Bill Gates there
The party members and their families have excessive wealth. They might not
be in Bill Gates' class, but they are up there. I know for a fact that
many of the worlds richest are from the third world ( the Suhartos and the
Sultan of Brunei )
> and most "businesses"
>are ultimately owned by the people's Liberation Army.
No, they're not. They're owned by the people in power and their cronies.
There does exist private ownership in China, surprise you though it may.
Hell, there are even companies in China.
>that China is fascist. Well the fact is that there is more personal freedom
>even in fascist regimes than in communist regimes. You may be surprised to
>find that fascist regimes have less regulations on "sexual immorality" than
>communist systems.
Since you're counting the Nazis as fascists, the homosexuals were sent to
the death camps.
>totalitarian. You can still own private property or choose your religion
>for instance. In a communist system your socialist ideological brethren
>tell people where to work, what they will study in university, where to
>live, impose their religion(atheism), impose how much money they'll make.
None of this is true in China. You can choose your religion, what you
wish to study, where to work, and how much money to make ( though the
latter partly depends on your political ties )
>up from your delusion becuase you are an unwitting supporter of
>totalitarianism. WAKE UP BECAUSE THE LIBERAL MOVEMENT IS TOTALITARIAN.
Again, you are foolish to tar all with one brush. Just because some wacko
does (X) doesn't mean everyone agrees with them. I don't run around
saying that all conservatives are McCarthysits, cross-burning hoodlums or
whatever.
>No. When conservatives get what they want they don't go on to some new
>cause.
I don't agree with this. It's a simple fact that any place any time,
no matter how leftist or rightist, will have those who are more right
than normal and more left than normal. In other words, no matter which
way or how far the pendulum swings, there are those that are trying to
push it further in the same direction.
>The leftist is never satisfied because he is not truly interested in his
>supposed goals,
Your leftist is a straw man.
> what he interested is to have some cause by which he can
>feel good about himself. For instance first liberals wanted equal
>opportunity with minorities which is fine.
No, it wasn't fine. There was a lot of screaming and foot dragging from
the conservatives.
> But when they got that, they
>then wanted statistical representation of minorities by affirmative action.
I don't and never will argue for "statistical representation".
[ more straw men ]
Look, if you're going to make these kind of arguments, I suggest you
go do it with a sock puppet. You're not going to get any fodder for
your straw man arguments from me.
>Now you'll say oh look at the EVIL Christian Right how they are out to
>impose their morality on everyone. Maybe so. That is not the point. The
>point is that liberals and leftists are out to impose their morality on
>everyone.
Wait -- does this not imply that the "conservative movement" is out
to do the same thing ? If you're allowed to tar all with one brush, why
aren't I ?
>universities. For instance my own aunt was prevented from entering law
>school because the leftists running the show didn't like her non-leftist
>views. My mother got in because she kept her mouth shut. Political
>discrimination.
This is a clear cut case of discrimination. This is why the leftists
favour anti-discrimination laws ( while the conservatives don't ). This
way, aberrant behaviour ( even that committed by the leftists ) can be
kept in check.
> You liberals yell and scream about McCarthy's black list in
>the 50s but you and your friends are doing the same thing and worse at the
>moment.
Don't belittle the black list like this.
>by saying that it doesn't exist. Similarly you remain silent about the
>crimes of China or try to claim that China isn't communist. Just as you
>remained silent of the crimes commited by the USSR or claimed the USSR
>wasn't communist. If you think China or the USSR were/are not communist,
>you are deluding yourself.
"Were" and "are" are not the same. Mao was more communist than the other
leaders. I admit that there are "bad communists". Cuba is a good example
of leftism gone wrong.
> Either you remain silent or you deny that the
>crimes have been committed. Wake up! Again Liberalism is a totalitarian
>force. If
Yeah, and the sky is falling in. If I choose liberalism, I'll resurrect
the Khmer Rouge ! If I choose conservatism, I'll resurrect McCarthy,
and Hitler.
I'll tell you something -- if I choose *MODERATION* , nothing of the
sort will happen.
>you cannot suppoprt the liberal movement. The liberal movement is taking
Your "liberal movement" is a straw man.
>what you want is human freedom then you should join the non-leftist movement
>called Libertarianism.
No thanks. What you're suggesting is that if I don't become libertarian,
I'll somehow turn into Pol Pot, or at least a Pol Pot sympathiser.
I could counter-argue that asw a libertarian, you'd be part of the
"conservative movement" ( hey , if you have a straw puppet, why can't
I have one too ? ) and hence you favour lynchings, burning crosses,
segregation, death camps for homosexuals and Jews, and blah blah blah.
But my counter argument would have no more substance than yours.
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: "Neil" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why did we even need NT in the first place?
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 18:07:41 -0000
"Alan Burns" <aburns@!SPAMTRAP.ebicom.net> wrote in message
news:8ba3k8$tit$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> I guess the most prominent example would be the way NT handles multiple
> users. Under NT, you have software trying to write crap *all over* the
> hard drive, including the system root, because NT comes from a lineage
> of basically single-user OSes. You try to lock down the system root
> as read-only, and you break about 70-80% of your apps. It looks to
> me like they took a basic structure that was intended to be single-user
> and just stuck some user validation on top of it to make it multi-user.
To be fair, how developers develop their apps, in terms of where they store
files, and permissions they require to run, isn't really something that's
wholly Microsoft's fault.
If the developers have been historically developing apps for previous
Windows versions, with nary a thought to concurrent multi-user access, and
continue to do so, then it's their shortcoming.
> Am I wrong here? (I'm just waiting for somebody to say, "yes" :-)
Ok, "yes". I deploy the Office 97 suite, IE4, Acrobat and quite a few other
apps, and the users have nothing more than read-only access to %systemroot%
and it's entire contents. Same for all the other files and directories on my
TSE servers system drives, apart from \temp.
YMMV. Or indeed your application demands and problems may vary, but this is
in practically all the cases I've experienced, due to short-sighted or
dim-witted application implementation, not (IME) operating system
shortcomings.
> *NIX, in contrast, seems to me to be designed as multi-user on a very
> basic conceptual level. No application I've ever seen tries to write to
> /bin or /sbin or /etc,
There - you've said it yourself "No application" (emphasis on the
"application").
Neil
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: Bsd and Linux
Date: 22 Mar 2000 17:58:56 GMT
On 22 Mar 2000 14:15:57 GMT, Peter T. Breuer wrote:
>: Better -- if you're smart enough to use Redhat (-; you can use
>: PAM to do this.
>
>That's not better, it's worse. Would someone mind telling what use is
>pam except for introducing another layer of redhat-style obsucrantism
>that is likely to break at any moment.
Whatever. It's not Redhat-specific. I believe it was originally on
Solaris, and now it's available on several UNIXs. Which UNIX do you
use ? I bet they have it.
>Suuurrre I want my login to call a dynamic library, oh yeah. Like NOT.
It's awfullly nice to have centralised control over both the login
proceedure and session management. Suppose you want everyone to authenticate
against one server ( rather than requiring seperate user accounts on
different machines ). You can do it with PAM. Suppose you want to set user
limits without having to close all loopholes ( ie the login files for
every user shell, plus X sessions ). It's one file with PAM. Suppose
you don't want anyone logging in between 1-2am on Sundays. PAM makes this
easy.
--
Donovan
------------------------------
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