Linux-Advocacy Digest #763, Volume #25 Thu, 23 Mar 00 01:13:06 EST
Contents:
Re: Why Linux on the desktop? (Chris Lee)
Re: Why Linux on the desktop? (Craig Kelley)
Re: Bsd and Linux (Craig Kelley)
Re: They say it can be done...Can it? (Craig Kelley)
Re: Introduction to Linux article for commentary (Arjan Drieman)
Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic) (Andrew)
Re: Bsd and Linux ("Peter T. Breuer")
Re: Introduction to Linux article for commentary ("Francis Van Aeken")
Re: Absolute failure of Linux dead ahead? (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: Bsd and Linux ("Peter T. Breuer")
Re: Bsd and Linux ("Peter T. Breuer")
Re: Absolute failure of Linux dead ahead? (Christopher Browne)
Re: They say it can be done...Can it? ("xxx")
Re: RHCE (Frank Pittel)
Re: To all Windows 2000/98/95 Fans (The Ghost In The Machine)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Chris Lee)
Subject: Re: Why Linux on the desktop?
Date: 23 Mar 2000 04:09:07 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] says...
>
>On Tue, 21 Mar 2000 19:51:41 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leon Hanson)
>wrote:
>
>Well, since no one has been able to provide any answers to the seven
>items I want on a Linux desktop, I guess Linux isn't ready for my
>desktop.
As if you actually matter.......
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Why Linux on the desktop?
From: Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 22 Mar 2000 21:11:58 -0700
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leon Hanson) writes:
> On Tue, 21 Mar 2000 19:51:41 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leon Hanson)
> wrote:
>
> Well, since no one has been able to provide any answers to the seven
> items I want on a Linux desktop, I guess Linux isn't ready for my
> desktop.
That may very well be the case. Linux isn't for everyone yet.
It's been my desktop since 1995.
--
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
Craig Kelley -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.isu.edu/~kellcrai finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP block
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: Bsd and Linux
From: Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 22 Mar 2000 21:20:33 -0700
"Peter T. Breuer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> In comp.os.linux.development.apps Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[snip about PAM being horrible]
> : That's funny, both BSD and Solaris use it as well.
>
> And so? What for? A quick scan of your disk will show you that only
> su, passwd, login and xdm are linked to libpam or whatever it is.
> These utilities are only used to let you login. If you want to do
> tricks then, put them in the appropriate system scripts.
$ ldd /sbin/* /usr/sbin/* | grep -i pam | wc -l
18
Hmm, seems you're mistaken. Anything that needs to authenticate can
immediatly authenticate against anything if it links with pam. It's
what we like to call an n-to-n relationship. If you code it by hand,
then you have to do n^2 implementations; whereas with pam you only
need to do n implementations.
> : PAM is incredible; I can change from DES3 to MD5 to SMB to NIS
> : without much hassle at all.
>
> And why would you want to? Please keep passwd in crypt
> format. There's nothing wrong with it. And as for switching to NIS
> .. whether you use NIS or files to keep your passwd in is none of
> the business of login or anything else. It's a function of the
> getpwdentry() calls in libc.
Oh, so I should recompile libc every time I want to do anything?
Fun.
Crypt is outdated and old. We don't need salt anymore. Crypt only
does authentication via a secret -- pam does much more.
--
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
Craig Kelley -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.isu.edu/~kellcrai finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP block
------------------------------
Subject: Re: They say it can be done...Can it?
From: Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 22 Mar 2000 21:27:01 -0700
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (LFessen106) writes:
> I have heard that Linux can be run on a 386 wityh 4 megs of ram
> several times... WELL, I'd like to test that theory, and I happen
> to have an old working 386 12mhz with 4 megs of ram and a 200 meg
> hdd. Can it be done? You tell me (please!). What distro should I
> use? What in the world can I do with a 386 12 running Linux? What
> would it be good for (if anything)? This is just a fun project and
> I just *hate* throwing good hardware away. The pc is runnnig
> win3.11 happily right now, but I am SURE that we could make better
> use of it that that right? -Linc.
I squeezed RedHat 4.1 on a 386 with 3MB of RAM and a 20MB hard disk
(it is a print server).
Do a normal install on a modern machine, then take out all the
packages you don't need. Compile a new kernel without modules,
putting in only what you absolutely need. Then, I put the bare-boned
filesystem on a ZIP disk and booted up the 386 with a floppy that knew
how to boot off the ZIP. I then fsked the disk, untarred the hard
disk image, ran lilo and rebooted. I'd use a 1.2.13 kernel (which
doesn't have modules anyway).
The problem you'll likely run into is that the distribution installer
programs can't run in that much memory; so as long as you install it
on a "real" machine you should be fine.
--
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
Craig Kelley -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.isu.edu/~kellcrai finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP block
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Arjan Drieman)
Crossposted-To: alt.linux,alt.os.linux,uk.comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Introduction to Linux article for commentary
Date: 23 Mar 2000 04:39:31 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Wed, 22 Mar 2000 15:51:15 -0000, Tom Steinberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>The internet revolution seems set to sweep away old business practices in a
>tide of cost savings and efficiency improvements, converting old business
>profit margins into new economy share value.
>
>Below decks, a different kind of revolution is quietly but quickly gaining
Here it seems that you state that the commercial developers made the
internet to what it is, and that Open Source is going to change that.
That's not true. The internet has always been an open development
environment, and always based on Open Source software. It's only since
"recently" that commercial software vendors are trying to make money off
it, and are trying to own certain developments through software patents.
A lot of people think that these software patents will cause internet
development to grind to a halt, because it will be harder to develop
internet applications. Instead of worrying if something can be done and
trying to find technical solutions for problems you encounter, you'll
soon need a battery of lawyers to find out if you won't violate
someone's patent rights. That makes it harder for the traditional open
source developer to develop web applications, since no hobbyist can
afford the lawyers.
>This paper aims to assess whether the threat of Linux to professional
>software is real, and if so, how this might affect the economies of
>developed countries.
This is better, it hits the nail on the head. It doesn't make much
sense to compare the development of Linux with the development of the
internet. It makes sense to compare it to the development of other
operating systems though.
What's the most used web server? Apache, open source. What's the most
used mail transport agent? Sendmail, open source. This really shows
that your first take at the problem isn't correct. Apache and sendmail
always were dominant, while only since recently commercial products
are trying to take their share.
The battle that's going on with Linux is the other way around, whether
it's servers or desktops, the market has always been dominated by
propietary operating systems.
Arjan
--
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
------------------------------
From: Andrew <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: A pox on the penguin? (Linux Virus Epidemic)
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 23:38:07 -0500
JEDIDIAH wrote:
>
> On Wed, 22 Mar 2000 20:34:56 -0500, Andrew <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >
> >I wasn't debating the fact that a 386 w. 4MB configuration was ideal for running
> >a semi-modern GUI. It's not. My point is that X running on a box of this nature
> >is bloated compared to the Microsoft product. The networking layers, for
>
> NO IT ISN'T.
>
> Win 3.x is just as slow and bloated and nasty as X is.
Slow? Yes. Nasty? For sure. Usable? Quite, in that exact configuration. I've
known people that actually used such a machine actively (with a 100MB HD) for 6
years. That probably says a lot about them, but it was very active as their
"school paper writing" machine for all that time. I doubt you could say the same
thing for Linux running X on the same system.
> Some of us wouldn't even tolerate running Windows on that
> kind of hardware. I certainly didn't. I thought anything
> short of a 486 was a step DOWN from an ST because of just
> how painfully slow Windows is below that point.
Awwwww. My first computer was a 386 with Windows 3.0.
> >> Gutenberg and the printing press had the benefit of a gratis
> >> open standard. The knowledge of how to decode a book is freely
> >> disseminated. Similarly, such things as Morse code, ASCII,
> >> NTSC, teletext, and mpeg are all open. Whereas QT4 is a source
> >> for vendorlock much like msword where the formats are secret
> >> and you have to pay a certain select few for access to those
> >> formats.
[snip]
> >Besides the fact that your history's off a bit (literacy wasn't prevalent until
> >way after Gutenberg and restricted to the few elite), that's not what your .sig
>
> While literature wasn't widespread, it certainly wasn't a sealed
> secret. What you are trying to attribute to Reformation era
> Europe is rather more like chattel slavery in the US south where
> literacy amongst the serfs/slaves was just plain ILLEGAL.
It might just have well been a sealed secret. Nobody was really going to teach
Joe Peasant how to read the Bible. If they were going to learn, they'd have to
learn themselves. Nice parallel to reverse engineering, actually.
> Furthermore, there was quite a market for recreational literature
> amongst the relatively wealthy urban merchants soon after the
> introduction of the printing press.
The percentage of this segment of the population was probably less than the
percentage of the Net-going population unable to install QT. According to my
latest weblog report on a commercial site that is heavily multimedia-based,
about 1.8% of the viewers are not capable of installing QT (the 98.2% is all
Macs plus all Win32 systems). That's more likely why Apple has not put the
resources into porting QT to Linux. If Linux's web-going market share rises,
Apple might actually have a reason to invest in it. most of the Linux action I
see is server side.
> >says at all. You're saying that Apple is being a monopolist for, well, not
> >supporting your platform of choice. QT is hardly a gold standard in web video,
> >as RealVideo and MPEG, as well as countless new formats cropping up daily, have
>
> They're a monopolist for encouraging vendor lock. They choose to
> compete not based on the relative quality of their product relative
> to other choices but by working to ensure that you can't be free to
> choose anything else.
Sorry, you lost me. They're a monopolist because they spend most of their energy
in the market that can make them the most money? Errr... ok. How are they not
competing based on the quality of their product? They are competing in a rather
tightly packed field with dozens of other technologies (Real, ASF, Liquid, MPEG)
fighting for the same mindshare. AFAIK none of the other true streaming formats
are documented either. To those who create the content, it's actually a selling
point.
Andrew
------------------------------
From: "Peter T. Breuer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: Bsd and Linux
Date: 23 Mar 2000 04:53:34 GMT
In comp.os.linux.development.apps Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: On 23 Mar 2000 01:01:53 GMT, Peter T. Breuer wrote:
:>In comp.os.linux.development.apps I R A Darth Aggie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
:>All the mentioned "services" are more than adequately catered for
:>already. Authentication is the job of login (or kerberized login).
: Kerberized login offers similar functionality to pam, but standard
: login certainly doesn't.
Why would I want a kerberized -style login anyway? I have multiple NIS
servers precisely to provide redundancy, and the moment anyone placed
a strange machine on the net, alarms would ring. Doubly so if it duplicated
an existing IP address. A fake server would be (a) ignored by the
clients, (b) detected.
:>Account management is quota.
: Tell us how to set a limit on virtual memory using "quota".
Add it to their /etc/profile and /etc/csh.login. Or is your point that
I can't?
:> Session management is kdm.
: kdm doesn't let you set memory limits either.
Sure it does. It lets you do anything. Just add the command to the
Xsetup_0 file - at least I presume that's the right one. Could
be GiveConsole, however! Nah .. it'll be Xsetup_0.
Peter
------------------------------
From: "Francis Van Aeken" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.linux,alt.os.linux,uk.comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Introduction to Linux article for commentary
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 01:10:40 -0300
Tony Houghton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> As long as Internet access isn't included in the BIOS, people will still
> want their OS on disc :-).
PCs will be able to boot off the Internet quite soon, and a lot of appliances
have Internet access already built in (residing in ROM). Of course, CDs
aren't dead *yet*.
Francis.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.system
Subject: Re: Absolute failure of Linux dead ahead?
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 05:08:21 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, SetMeUp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote on Wed, 22 Mar 2000 19:43:06 GMT
<en9C4.1872$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>> What's wrong with Modula-3? ;)
>
> It's wrong that it is not C.
Hmm..."Not C"...um...is that close enough to Godwinize this thread? :-)
Mind you, I do know at least two operating systems (Apollo/DOMAIN Aegis
and older versions of MacOS) which were written in Pascal, or some
variant thereof, so I guess it could work... :-)
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random misquote here
------------------------------
From: "Peter T. Breuer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: Bsd and Linux
Date: 23 Mar 2000 05:07:18 GMT
In comp.os.linux.development.apps Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: "Peter T. Breuer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
:> In comp.os.linux.development.apps Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: [snip about PAM being horrible]
:> : That's funny, both BSD and Solaris use it as well.
:>
:> And so? What for? A quick scan of your disk will show you that only
:> su, passwd, login and xdm are linked to libpam or whatever it is.
:> These utilities are only used to let you login. If you want to do
:> tricks then, put them in the appropriate system scripts.
: $ ldd /sbin/* /usr/sbin/* | grep -i pam | wc -l
: 18
You are looking in the system administration area, which provides tools
to manipulate the pam setup. The user tools are restricted to those I
mentioned.
But I'd be interested to know what your links are. Could you list them
please! I'm somewhat suspicious that "grep pam" is not specific enough.
: Hmm, seems you're mistaken. Anything that needs to authenticate can
: immediatly authenticate against anything if it links with pam. It's
Nothing needs to "authenticate". "Authenticate" means "check the
passwd". Anyone logged into the system has a right to do whatever they
like within their compass. It's only at the moment of login that
they need to be "authenticated" by having login check their passwd.
: what we like to call an n-to-n relationship. If you code it by hand,
: then you have to do n^2 implementations; whereas with pam you only
: need to do n implementations.
This is pure nonsense, isn't it!
:> And why would you want to? Please keep passwd in crypt
:> format. There's nothing wrong with it. And as for switching to NIS
:> .. whether you use NIS or files to keep your passwd in is none of
:> the business of login or anything else. It's a function of the
:> getpwdentry() calls in libc.
: Oh, so I should recompile libc every time I want to do anything?
No. You edit host.conf or nsswitch.conf, where the sequence of lookups
is defined. Libc checks that.
: Crypt is outdated and old. We don't need salt anymore. Crypt only
It works fine. What's wrong with being old?
: does authentication via a secret -- pam does much more.
Who needs to? Why should anyone need any other sort of authentication!
And please call a spade a spade. "authentication" is a jargon word
that means "check the users password".
And there is no other form of authentication than checking that you
know a secret known to mankind. Well, I'm being disingenuous here,
but you get the idea. Consider why you consider md5 better than crypt
and you'll find that it's not because it avoids going "via a secret".
It doesn't.
As it happens, I give my password so rarely that I forget it.
All logins go via ssh on my systems, which are configures - without pam
- to use RSA-based "authenticatio", silently, without passwd. Now if I
could just remember my public key ...
Peter
------------------------------
From: "Peter T. Breuer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: Bsd and Linux
Date: 23 Mar 2000 05:12:26 GMT
In comp.os.linux.development.apps Paul D. Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: Uh... maybe on your system. On mine (Debian 2.2 frozen) this is what
: happens if I try to remove libpam0g:
: Remv telnetd
: Remv adduser
: Remv dialdcost
: Remv diald
: Remv ssh
: Remv pppconfig
Interesting! Why are all these linked to libpam instead of to libc? Are
you sure? I also have debian (potato), and I don't see any such links.
For example:
lm001:/usr/oboe/ptb% ldd /usr/sbin/in.telnetd
/lib/nfslock.so.0 => /lib/nfslock.so.0 (0x40001000)
libutil.so.1 => /lib/libutil.so.1 (0x40009000)
libncurses.so.4 => /lib/libncurses.so.4 (0x4000c000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x4004d000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x2aaaa000)
lm001:/usr/oboe/ptb% ldd /usr/bin/telnet
/lib/nfslock.so.0 => /lib/nfslock.so.0 (0x40001000)
libutil.so.1 => /lib/libutil.so.1 (0x40009000)
libncurses.so.4 => /lib/libncurses.so.4 (0x4000c000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x4004d000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x2aaaa000)
Please check.
Peter
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.system
Subject: Re: Absolute failure of Linux dead ahead?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 05:27:45 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when The Ghost In The
Machine would say:
>In comp.os.linux.advocacy, SetMeUp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>wrote on Wed, 22 Mar 2000 19:43:06 GMT
><en9C4.1872$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>>> What's wrong with Modula-3? ;)
>>
>> It's wrong that it is not C.
>
>Hmm..."Not C"...um...is that close enough to Godwinize this thread? :-)
>
>Mind you, I do know at least two operating systems (Apollo/DOMAIN Aegis
>and older versions of MacOS) which were written in Pascal, or some
>variant thereof, so I guess it could work... :-)
The problem with Pascal, as distinct from the others, is that the
design just wasn't made for anything more than education.
a) It defines a single pass compiler;
b) It provides no way of splitting projects coherently into multiple
files;
c) The typing system doesn't cope all that well with dynamic arrays.
Extensions have been made, but they were inherently non-standard.
Those *aren't* problems with M3; it *was* designed with the ability to
use it as a systems programming language in mind. But Kernighan's
critique of Pascal is pretty well-put.
--
"Wow! You read advocacy groups once in a while, thinking you'll find
the occasional gem, but when you unearth the Taj Mahal you still have
to stand back and gape a little." -- Paul Phillips <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - - <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
------------------------------
From: "xxx" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: They say it can be done...Can it?
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 07:30:09 +0200
I have read somewhere about a Linux distro that supply a complete proxy (?)
solution that fits on a stuffy -
1) Was this correct?
2) Assuming 1=yes then I think the 386 will work
What says you ?
Nico.
LFessen106 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> I have heard that Linux can be run on a 386 wityh 4 megs of ram several
> times... WELL, I'd like to test that theory, and I happen to have an old
> working 386 12mhz with 4 megs of ram and a 200 meg hdd. Can it be done?
You
> tell me (please!). What distro should I use? What in the world can I do
with
> a 386 12 running Linux? What would it be good for (if anything)? This is
just
> a fun project and I just *hate* throwing good hardware away. The pc is
runnnig
> win3.11 happily right now, but I am SURE that we could make better use of
it
> that that right?
> -Linc.
>
------------------------------
From: Frank Pittel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: linux.redhat.misc
Subject: Re: RHCE
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 05:12:36 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy TARogue <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: On 11 Mar 2000 16:28:08 GMT, Joseph T. Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
: scribbled something about Re: RHCE:
:>In comp.os.linux.advocacy S. Christopher Cunningham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
:>: Ed wrote:
:>
:>:> Has anyone encountered employers requesting RHCE certification? What is
:>:> the general opinion about the value of the RHCE? Have you seen many
:>:> jobs for linux sys admins?
:>
:>: I have not seen or heard of anyone requesting RHCE so far. I have
:>: personally cheked out a few of the books though, just to be safe and was
:>: dissapointed in them. Save your money for now and just keep learning on
:>: your own.
:>
:>
:>RHCE certification is fairly expensive, and from what I hear, pretty
:>consistently booked months in advance. There has got to be a demand
:>for it somewhere, although to be honest, I haven't seen much in my
:>area (Cleveland, Ohio, which is a technological backwater).
:>
: FYI:
: I bought the Red Hat Certified Engineer Linux Study Guide, by Syngress
: Media, Inc., distributed by Osbourne/McGraw Hill. The first thing I
: tried to do was take the practice exam to find my strengths and
: weaknesses. Unfortunately, the test, though written in HTML, was written
: to by used by Internet Explorer.
: There was nothing on the outside of the book to indicate that
: Windows/Explorer were needed. I don't have or want a Windows machine.
: WHY a book/CD for Linux Certification would be written tobe run ONLY on
: a windows platform confounded me. I wrote to both Syngress and McGraw
: Hill and never got a reply. I am therefore passing the info here so that
: others don't make the mistake I did and buy this book. Also I wanted
: others to write to the authors/publishers to complain and (hopefully)
: get it fixed.
I ran into the same thing. I also sent mail and got no response. While the book
isn't bad. Without the cd it's not worth the price.
--
Keep working millions on welfare depend on you
===================
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Subject: Re: To all Windows 2000/98/95 Fans
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 05:41:41 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote on Thu, 23 Mar 2000 11:22:03 -0800 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>1. The New Zealand Army uses Sun Servers running Solaris for mission
>critical needs. Use Linux for Intranet server. When I asked the system
>administrators why they did not use NT there response was:
>
> "You have got to be joking, we would not touch NT with a
> 40 foot pole"
Admittedly, that's not a highly specific response. :-) One
might as well criticize an automobile model, a jet plane, or
even a slice of cheese with a similar response, and get nothing
useful.
I will note, however, that there's enough wrong with NT to
make one wonder about its security, and possibly its reliability
as well. (I also wonder if Win2k will magically fix all of
these issues. Somehow, I rather doubt it...)
>
>2. 90% of ISP's in New Zealand use Linux as their Proxy server running
>squid. Xtra (250,000 users) and Ihug (40,000 users) to name a few. Over
>60% of Websites in New Zealand (Including Government departments) use
>linux/FreeBSD and Apache for their websites.
Well, um, NT is used in certain ships... :-)
>
>3. Unix has been around for over 20 years thus making it a superior
>operating system. If Microsoft believes they can cram 20 years of
>devlopment into 9 years then I must be a millionaire!
Admittedly, they are... :-)
This doesn't mean NT is good, of course, just that Microsoft
are good at "shoveware". (Not to mention marketing same.)
Side point: AFAIK, Unix has been around since the early 70's;
this makes it over 25 years old, nearing 30. Of course, the
bits that were originally released as "Unix" have been very
heavily modified in some form or another since then; I still
remember V6 from my college days (1980-83). V6 didn't have
shared libraries, and its memory management was far cruder
than today's operating systems (blame it on the limitations
of the PDP 11/xx segmentation registers, at the time :-) ).
Also, the Linux kernel is fairly new code (1991+), although it's
probably borrowed heavily from various design concepts in Unix
and possibly from other such notable operating systems as AmigaDOS
and even language environments such as C++ -- although it doesn't
use C++ internally, there are some structures in there reminiscent
of virtual tables. But it's been eyeballed and beaten on quite
a bit (the virtues of open source!) and of course modifiable to
suit one's needs if required.
NT? Well, um...it has a neat game of Solitaire and Pinball and
Visual Basic+HTML and pretty icons and pointy-clicky... :-)
>
>I am currently running Corel Linux, although the GUI is not as smooth as
>you would get on such os's as BeOS it is gradually getting there. The OS
>itself (Kernel and associated files) is at stage where to make the
>'Great Leap Forward' to the average persons desktop the GUI needs to be
>tightly intergrated with the OS, take the best aspects of each GUI
>(BeOS, KDE, GNOME, Windows, QNX) and create a package that can be
>installed with minimum fuss. Although Hardcore Linux users may say that
>this is terrible one must realise the average person does not want to
>type in commands and learn cyptic codes, they want a simple point and
>click interface in which they can interact with minimal learning
>required. Once this occurs it can then jump onto the Business desktop
>because of the low learning curve required there is only a small cost in
>training, and now that there is Citrix Winframe Client for Linux, Linux
>can now be used as a cheap thinclient.
>
>What do you think of this observation?
>
>MattyG
2 or so years ago Linux was for the very expert. Now it's for
those who like to tinker, and very close to those who are
total neophytes, and those who would like to have an end-to-end
ultra-standard solution for intra-office E-mail, spreadsheets,
and documents. (For that matter, inter-office and Internet
E-mail, as well.) [*]
I've even seen Quake III for sale. For Linux. At Fry's
Electronics. Granted, it was right next to some packages of
RedHat...but it's clear that Linux isn't going to stay boxed up
in a cute little niche for much longer.
If it ever was boxed up, in any event.
(Disclaimer: I know very little about Corel Linux; I'm a RedHat fan.
But the last RedHat install -- on a Sparc, no less -- went
very smoothly.)
[*] While Netscape is standard, 4.7's pretty buggy right now. I'm
not sure it's all that useable for E-mail, or browsing.
I'm hoping Mozilla will be better; the latest stuff looks
slow, but interesting. But we'll see.
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- preferring the quiet groundswell to the merely flashy :-)
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