Linux-Advocacy Digest #889, Volume #25 Fri, 31 Mar 00 12:13:08 EST
Contents:
Re: xfs is out! (Mark Hamstra)
Re: BEOS 5 the new star in OS's (Matthias Warkus)
Re: Need help on compiling Linux stats (Ron Reeder)
Re: Why Linux on the desktop? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: BEOS 5 the new star in OS's (Craig Kelley)
Re: Why Linux on the desktop? (JEDIDIAH)
Re: M$, IBM & *nix (was I WAS WRONG)
Re: Why did we even need NT in the first place? (Craig Kelley)
Re: Need help on compiling Linux stats (dave mcallister)
Re: New Corel Office for Linux... (Craig Kelley)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mark Hamstra <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: xfs is out!
Date: 31 Mar 2000 10:52:39 -0500
Tim Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> horst wrote:
> >
> > Hey, sgi's xfs is finally out there.
> > That makes three journaling file systems in the works, jfs, xfs and
> > reiserfs.
> >
> > That's good news!
>
> Are there any guys out there that can give us the low down on this?
>
> Will it make it into 2.4? From what I've read, reiserfs does not look like it
> will make it until 2.6 (or whatever it'll be)
That's probably overly pessimistic. I doubt either reiserfs or xfs
will make it into 2.4.0, but it sounds like Linus is ok with the
idea of one or more of the journaling filesystems being added in
2.4.x, where x is small.
--
Mark Hamstra
Bentley Systems, Inc.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matthias Warkus)
Subject: Re: BEOS 5 the new star in OS's
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 15:46:35 +0200
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
It was the Fri, 31 Mar 2000 06:43:03 -0600...
...and Tim Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > Heretic! You've been tainted by looking at the decidedly non-childish
> > > and non-cartoonish style of GNOME for too long!
> > >
> > > :)
> >
> > I bought Corel Linux Deluxe the other day. I got around to trying it
> > out on a P5/200 today -- man, KDE is *ugly*; and it seems much slower
> > than GNOME on this machine...
> >
> > Although Debian is quite cool.
> the default kde is ugly as all get out, but there are themes and
> they are very easy to install, and the themes rival anything you see
> for GNOME. KDE with the MacOS theme is really very sweet looking.
Yet still a bit cartoonish, I suppose ;)
> gnome is better looking, but it is so much slower in my experience, no matter
> what wm you use.
I've experienced the exact opposite, that is, for me, KDE has always
felt slower. GNOME's memory footprint is smaller anyway, and its size
is going down with the next gnome-libs version, when we'll drop Imlib.
Saying "GNOME is slow" or "KDE is slow" is silly anyway, since neither
is a single application. Can you actually explain *what* feels slow
under GNOME? You're probably using something that is slowing some
component down, maybe your X authorisation has got problems, which
means long waiting periods whenever something tries to contact the
session manager or ORBit, or maybe you're using a pixmap-based GTK+
theme.
> <duck>I don't find gnome useable except as screenshotware </duck>
I suppose the hundreds of thousands of GNOME users would at least
slightly disagree.
> I am usually using windowmaker with no desktop or kde/kwm
> Also, can anyone explain why gnome puts a .gnome/ under /? What's
> up with that?
GNOME does not do that. Something must be broken on your machine.
Maybe / is your root's $HOME and you once ran a GNOME application as
root.
mawa
--
Fifty flippant frogs
Walked by on flippered feet
And with their slime they made the time
Unnaturally fleet.
------------------------------
From: Ron Reeder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,uk.comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Need help on compiling Linux stats
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 09:03:48 -0700
Tim Kelley wrote:
>
> Tom Steinberg wrote:
> >
> > I have spent the last couple of days reading endless Linux articles looking
> > for any and every bit of statistical data I can find concerning Linux. I'm
> > not getting very far very fast, so I've returned to the wonderful and
> > generous people on usenet ( butter butter ) to ask for suggestions and info.
> > Absolutely anything numerical is helpful, but I am especially looking for:
>
> Well, no statistics, but, I say that in 2002, everyone will discover that
> everyone else is using linux. :-)
>
> --
> Tim Kelley
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
You think you're being funny?
We've been testing a linux cluster (8 node Dell PIIIs)
in our divison for a couple of months.
One of our research guys attended a conference on clusters...
Found another representative from our company... different division,
that already had a 64 node cluster runnning.
--
+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+
| Ron Reeder | [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
| Denver Technical Support | Phone: (303) 389-4408 |
| Western Geophysical Company | Fax: (303) 595-0667 |
+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Why Linux on the desktop?
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 16:34:26 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"John W. Stevens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> JEDIDIAH wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 28 Mar 2000 13:44:32 -0700, John W. Stevens
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > >See above. Xess is pretty good.
> >
> > Xess is actually quite pathetic. A pox on you for
recommending it.
>
> How so? Are you saying that nobody should use Xess?
>
> --
As the developers of the XESS Spreadsheet products, we take pride in
our products and usually receive favorable reviews. We would appreciate
your input concerning specific issues, desired features, or problems
you have encountered. Please contact us at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: BEOS 5 the new star in OS's
From: Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 31 Mar 2000 09:45:32 -0700
Tim Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Craig Kelley wrote:
>
> > I bought Corel Linux Deluxe the other day. I got around to trying it
> > out on a P5/200 today -- man, KDE is *ugly*; and it seems much slower
> > than GNOME on this machine...
> >
> > Although Debian is quite cool.
>
> the default kde is ugly as all get out, but there are themes and
> they are very easy to install, and the themes rival anything you see
> for GNOME. KDE with the MacOS theme is really very sweet looking.
Yes, it does look much better now.
> gnome is better looking, but it is so much slower in my experience,
> no matter what wm you use. <duck>I don't find gnome useable except
> as screenshotware </duck> I am usually using windowmaker with no
> desktop or kde/kwm
It's good to have a choice then, because I totally disagree.
> Also, can anyone explain why gnome puts a .gnome/ under /? What's
> up with that?
What is your root user's $HOME?
I've never seen /.gnome.
--
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
Craig Kelley -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.isu.edu/~kellcrai finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP block
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
Subject: Re: Why Linux on the desktop?
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 16:48:52 GMT
On Fri, 31 Mar 2000 16:34:26 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> "John W. Stevens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> JEDIDIAH wrote:
>> >
>> > On Tue, 28 Mar 2000 13:44:32 -0700, John W. Stevens
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > >See above. Xess is pretty good.
>> >
>> > Xess is actually quite pathetic. A pox on you for
>recommending it.
>>
>> How so? Are you saying that nobody should use Xess?
>>
>> --
>
>As the developers of the XESS Spreadsheet products, we take pride in
>our products and usually receive favorable reviews. We would appreciate
>your input concerning specific issues, desired features, or problems
>you have encountered. Please contact us at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I'll dig it up, reinstall it and get back to you. This is the
boxed product that you've been selling at CompUSA that I'm
speaking of, BTW.
--
It is not the advocates of free love and software
that are the communists here , but rather those that |||
advocate or perpetuate the necessity of only using / | \
one option among many, like in some regime where
product choice is a thing only seen in museums.
Need sane PPP docs? Try penguin.lvcm.com.
------------------------------
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: M$, IBM & *nix (was I WAS WRONG)
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 08:56:39 -0800
>From a programmer's point of view there is no difference between
the 8088 and 8086. From a programmers point of view the 80186
is just a real mode only version of the 80286.
Xenix could run on the 8086 so it could also run on the 8088.
The original IBM-PC had no support for disks at all when it was first
released, it powered up into the BASIC interpreter and used cassette
tapes for off-line storage. The hardware was an 8-bit design with with
16-bit programability thanks to the 8088.
When the first floppy disk came available for the IBM-PC, IBM offered
a choice of three operating systems. CP/M-86, UCSD p SYSTEMS
and PC-Dos. A person purchasing their first floppy from IBM had to
choose to also purchase one of those three. The consumer price
for one was about $150.00, another was about $500.00, and PC-Dos
was $0.00. Even though PC-Dos was an poor clone of CP/M-86, it was
free and its name made it seem that it belonged to the PC and IBM
treated it as the default OS for the disks. Shortly there after the offer
of the other two OS's were withdrawn for lack of consumer demand.
At that point PC-Dos became the de facto standard OS for PC's and
with no real competition the $0.00 price tag went away with the
introduction of PC-Dos 2.0. With version 2.0 there were many
improvements and silly changes that would insure that the userbase
would have to abandon the free versions and upgrade to the non-
free, if they wanted to be compatible with the new software comming
out. Many of the changes were made to break any source code
compatibility between Dos and CP/M-86.
While the real name of PC-Dos was MS-Dos, Microsoft made deals
with the clone manufacturers that guarenteed that they would also
use MS-Dos only. For Manufacturers that wanted their own OS,
MS-Dos would be given a name that matched those companies such
as NCR-Dos and HP-Dos. All of these vendor specific versions of
Dos had trivial modifications to explaine the renaming of the OS. For
example with one version the format program was format.exe on
another it was format.com. Some had the comp.com command
others had comp.exe and still others had fc.exe instead.
Microsoft has never won a market share by technical capability, but
just by these kinds of shenanigans.
The reason IBM did not consider Xenix for the PC as an official OS,
because they were marketing the PC to compete in the microcomputer
market place and in their minds, a microcomputer had to have a
microcomputer style operating system in the same class as the other
microcomputers on the market. And a beside they feared that a too
advanced microcomputer OS could cut into the low end minicomputer
sales. A few year latter when IBM introduced the baby model of the
System/36 minicomputer they feared that it would cut into the sales for
their microcomputers by more sophisicated users. They solved that
problem by requiring any one who purchaed the baby System/36 to also
purchase a PC to serve as the system console for the baby System/36.
Shane Phelps wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>
>
>"R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )" wrote:
>
>> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>> "Drestin Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > wrong again - MS owned XENIX, a version of Unix.
>>
>> That's right. In fact, Microsoft owned XENIX before they
>> approached IBM to offer them an operating system. The myth
>> that Microsoft had nothing in it's back pocket when it approached
>> IBM isn't entirely true. For some reason, Bill decided to have
>> Paul Allen approach an old friend about QDOS - a clone of CPM/80
>> reassembled for the 8088 instead of giving IBM the rights to
>> use Xenix.
>>
>> There are numerous rumored reasons why Bill Gates decided to go
>> with QDOS. He may have decided that there was too much risk of
>> liability to AT&T. He may have decided that he didn't want to pay
>> royalties to AT&T. It may be that IBM feared that Xenix powered
>> PCs would threaten the Series 1, System 360, and System 3x markets.
>>
>
>This is probably just computer folklore, but the story as I understand it
>is:
>
>IBM were throwing together a aheap low-end microcomputer thing to compete
>
>with Apple, Altair, etc. They could lash the hardware together quickly
>but didn't
>want to allocate the resources for developing an OS for something which
>would
>only sell a few thousand copies (I see a market for perhaps 9 of these
>"computer"s
>in the world - Thomas Watson)
>
>IBM's CEO was on the board of a charity with Bill Gates's mother, who
>mentioned
>that her son had a small software company and might ve able to help.
>IBM approached Microsoft (long before it became M$ :-), who proposed
>Xenix.
>IBM wanted to use the 8088 (no MMU) instead of the 8086 to save money, so
>it
>couldn't run any *nix properly. Bill Gates suggested Gary Kildall
>(Digital Research),
>who didn't take IBM seriously enough. IBM came back to Microsoft , who
>then
>bought QDOS from Seattle Software. They tried to sell the rights to IBM
>without
>success, but were lucky enough to arrange a non-exclusive contract.
>
>If not for IBM's penny-pinching in using the crippled 8088 we might all
>be using MS-UX by now ;-)
>
>The 8088 was eons ago - I may be wrong about the reason it couldn't
>run Xenix. Xenix certainly ran on the M68K and 80186 (Tandy had a
>version)
>but I can't be sure it would run on the 8086.
>
>>
>> IBM was already seeing loss of Series one costomers who were using
>> Corvus Constellation, a Televideo Network, and a little start-up
>> called Novell.
>>
>> > "JoeX1029" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> > > damn it anyway i was wrong i read my info wrong about M$
>> > > they actually didn't have their own version of UNIX.
>> > > Although for quite some time (and they still
>> > > may) they ran on UNIX
>>
>> Microsoft sold Xenix, along with all rights to the UNIX market,
>> to the Santa Cruz Operation back in 1989 to fund the development
>> of Windows 3.0. The details of the contract aren't available on-line,
>> but they appearantly prevent Microsoft from reentering the UNIX
>> market (including creating it's own version of Linux).
>>
>
>Here's food for thought. M$ had a 15% share in SCO, at least until
>recently.
>Does that mean they have a legitimate right to the Unix tradmark and
>source code?
>
>>
>> --
>> Rex Ballard - Open Source Advocate, Internet
>> I/T Architect, MIS Director
>> http://www.open4success.com
>> Linux - 60 million satisfied users worldwide
>> and growing at over 1%/week!
>>
>> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>> Before you buy.
>
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why did we even need NT in the first place?
From: Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 31 Mar 2000 09:59:22 -0700
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
[snip]
> >If he can't answer a question, he'll either ignore the thread or jump
> >into super-flame mode in an attempt to brow-beat the opponent into
> >submission.
>
> Correct me if I am wrong but my understanding of the strawman
> disinformation tactic is to setup a condition or other wise channel
> you opponent into supporting an unsupportable position. When
> your opponent is fully commited into supporting that position you
> destroy that unsupportable position and thereby destroy the
> credibility of your opponents original position.
In debate, a straw man is a phoney target which is there to distract
the opponent away from the real issue at hand. If it is successful,
it works great -- your opponent is caught going down a useless branch
of the discussion while you never have to substantiate your real
position. A common general-purpose debate tactic is the spread
attack, in which you construct as many straw men as you can
intersperced with your real arguments, so as to confuse the other
side. They can be useful if you think they will fall for it, but
they rarely do if they are experienced.
Another common defense tactic is to dismiss several points of an
attack as straw men, in the hopes that the judge (again, speaking from
debate theory) will throw the arguments out. If you declare a real
issue to be a straw man and your opponents do not challenge the issue
then the judge may well throw it out.
Of course, there are no judges on unmoderated usenet so you have to
just give it your best go and let the readers decide.
--
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: dave mcallister <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,uk.comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Need help on compiling Linux stats
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 09:58:31 -0800
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Tom Steinberg wrote:
> I h1) Info/guesses about the Linux and opensource user base. Growth patterns
> over time and projections are especially needed.
There are several market analysis groups that have done that. IDC, Aberdeen,
Gartner, et. al. I no longer have that info at my fingertips, unfortunately.
>
> 2) Value of markets, quantified cost benefits, market impact analyses of
> opensource.
This is even harder. I know again that Aberdeen did such a study.
>
> 3) Stock valuations of opensource ( esp. Linux ) firms.
Ha! You can best get this from SEC 10K or S1 doc's. Unfortunately, you miss
all those private companies that way. (Like mine)
>
> 4) Revenue streams associated with opensource.
As above
>
> 5) Surveys & stats on user/industry opinions.
This just generally costs money. For instance, Survey.com has a reat report on
some of this data.
>
> 6) Numbers
Find a "friendly" reporter and have them ask selected companies for this.
>
> 7) More numbers
Bribe people
>
> 8) er...
> 9) Thats it.
>
> Thanks very much!
>
> Tom
>
> -------------------------------------------
> Tom Steinberg,
> Institute of Economic Affairs
> http://www.iea.org.uk
--
Dave McAllister [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CTO Ph: 01-650-856-8818 x124
Maxspeed Corporation Fax: 01-650-856-8838
http://www.maxspeed.com http://www.natures-fx.org
"Simply Thin. Simply Linux. Simply Maxspeed"
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<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
<html>
Tom Steinberg wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>I h1) Info/guesses about the Linux and opensource
user base. Growth patterns
<br>over time and projections are especially needed.</blockquote>
There are several market analysis groups that have done that. IDC, Aberdeen,
Gartner, et. al. I no longer have that info at my fingertips, unfortunately.
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>
<br>2) Value of markets, quantified cost benefits, market impact analyses
of
<br>opensource.</blockquote>
This is even harder. I know again that Aberdeen did such a study.
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>
<br>3) Stock valuations of opensource ( esp. Linux ) firms.</blockquote>
Ha! You can best get this from SEC 10K or S1 doc's. Unfortunately,
you miss all those private companies that way. (Like mine)
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>
<br>4) Revenue streams associated with opensource.</blockquote>
As above
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>
<br>5) Surveys & stats on user/industry opinions.</blockquote>
This just generally costs money. For instance, Survey.com has a reat
report on some of this data.
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>
<br>6) Numbers</blockquote>
Find a "friendly" reporter and have them ask selected companies for this.
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>
<br>7) More numbers</blockquote>
Bribe people
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>
<br>8) er...
<br>9) Thats it.
<p>Thanks very much!
<p>Tom
<p>-------------------------------------------
<br>Tom Steinberg,
<br>Institute of Economic Affairs
<br><a href="http://www.iea.org.uk">http://www.iea.org.uk</a></blockquote>
<pre>--
Dave
McAllister
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
CTO
Ph: 01-650-856-8818 x124
Maxspeed Corporation
Fax: 01-650-856-8838
<A
HREF="http://www.maxspeed.com">http://www.maxspeed.com</A>
<A HREF="http://www.natures-fx.org">http://www.natures-fx.org</A>
"Simply Thin. Simply Linux. Simply Maxspeed"</pre>
</html>
==============AF6A14E78A679F8519069360==
------------------------------
Subject: Re: New Corel Office for Linux...
From: Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 31 Mar 2000 10:04:37 -0700
mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
[snip]
> Because, lets face it, if there is gold in Linux, there will be a rush.
> If we Linux users don't buy commercial software, then there won't be
> commercial software. We are in a great position to set the expectations
> of what the quality/feature level should be to sell into our market
> space.
I have Corel Office 2000 on order; I'll post a review after I get
it. I picked up Corel Linux just to be on the safe side -- but I will
give it a spin on RedHat as well.
--
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
Craig Kelley -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.isu.edu/~kellcrai finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP block
------------------------------
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