Linux-Advocacy Digest #109, Volume #26 Thu, 13 Apr 00 14:13:06 EDT
Contents:
Re: Corel Linux Office 2000 and Win32 Emulator Making Progress (Mark S. Bilk)
Re: What GUI development tools are there for Linux? (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: uptime -> /dev/null (2:1)
Re: Linux for ex-Windows users (long story) (Cihl)
Re: What GUI development tools are there for Linux? (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: What GUI development tools are there for Linux? (2:1)
Re: Linux for ex-Windows users (long story) (Ian Mac Lure)
Re: Corel Linux Office 2000 and Win32 Emulator Making Progress (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: What GUI development tools are there for Linux? (2:1)
Re: Why Linux on the desktop? (Curtis Bass)
Re: No Microsoft Certification = NO JOB! (2:1)
Re: uptime -> /dev/null (JEDIDIAH)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mark S. Bilk)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Corel Linux Office 2000 and Win32 Emulator Making Progress
Date: 13 Apr 2000 17:55:38 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Itchy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
That is Steve-Heather, posting under another fake identity,
in violation of AT&T Worldnet TOS, as well as the promise he
made here not to do it anymore.
There are two components in his post. One is factual: Steve-
Heather says that Corel WordPerfect for Linux, which is essen-
tially the Windows version plus components of the Wine win32
emulator for Linux, is buggy, and that the problems are in
Wine.
This is probably true.
However, since the Corel developers have access to the WP
source code, and thus know what win32 calls it's making when
it crashes, it will be possible to localize and correct the
bugs in Wine that are causing the problem.
As Wine is perfected, not only will the Corel Office Suite be
able to run under Linux, but many other Windows programs will
too. The list of Wine capabilities that have been or are
being implemented is here: http://www.winehq.com/about.html
Steve-Heather also notes that WP will only print in Corel
Linux.
However, since Corel wants to make money by selling WP to
as many Linux users as possible, including those using other
Linux distros, they will certainly fix this problem, too.
The second component of Steve-Heather's article is a large
quantity of lies, hate, and FUD, which, as a Microsoft anti-
Linux propagandist (paid or not), he always includes, with
the hope of frightening people away from Linux, so they will
keep on giving their money to Microsoft.
That material is quoted here, with only a few comments:
>It's contaminated with WINE which SUCKS BIG TIME. I have YET to get a
>version of Agent that runs reasonably well, despite a 3 or 4 rating on
>the Wine website. And others I have spoke to say the same.
No one should take Steve-Heather's word on anything, since
he lies very frequently. Anyone who's interested in running
Windows software under Wine/Linux, can check the Wine appli-
cations database for the current status of the particular app
they want to use. http://www.winehq.com
>Hell Mark, if you really want to run all those "nasty sucky win
>programs" why the hell don't you run them natively instead of under
>some abortion like Wine?
>You and your like are always complaining how Windows applications suck
>anyway, so why Wine?
>Wine is a joke... It is always and will always be behind Windows and
>no matter how hard the programmers work it will still be behind.
>Run Windows for Windows software and Linux for Linux software. Emulate
>is a nasty word in the computer jargon dictionary.
Of course, this is absurd; emulation in various forms is one
of the most widely used methods in all areas of computer tech-
nology -- language interpreters, virtual hardware machines
(like VMWare), bytecode execution environments (like the Java
Virtual Machine), systems that run pentium programs on the
PowerPC or Alpha, etc.
>Maybe but based upon their SBLive track record I wouldn't hold my
>breath.
>Corel is a company in serious trouble and they are trying to niche out
>a market in Linux, thus the "I won't work with anyone else" concept of
>their programs.
>Try and get some to run under Redhat for example and see what happens.
>Try Wordperfect for example and see. It's a *.deb file. Kpackage dies
>on it.
>Doesn't require any fiddling under Windows. Why should Linux folks
>have to fiddle?
>Oh I forgot, Linvocates like playing with os's instead of
>applications. No surprise here seeing as they have so few commercial
>strength applications to play with.
>Stop playing jedi and attempting to take the focus off the real point
>which is Corel Linux Office 2k sucks. Linvocates in the group have
>fairly reviewed it and now a mainstream of the industry has repeated
>such. Why can't you admit that it is true?
>Assine......at best.....
>In this case I don't even have to try. The honcho at InfoWorld, a
>Linux supporter BTW did all the work for me.....
Steve-Heather is admitting that he lied when he said he tried
to install WP under Red Hat and it failed.
>Stop twisting it... Corel is doing a damm shitty job of eliminating
>Windows by running parts of their LINUX office suite UNDER WINDOWS....
Steve-Heather is very confused.
>What a freaking joke... This is the great MS Office killer we have all
>been awaiting?
>I'm howling with laughter over this
>one..................................................................
>..........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>Steve
Steve-Heather is having an orgasm over what he hopes to be
other people's unhappiness. We'll leave him before something
greasy and putrid spurts out.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Subject: Re: What GUI development tools are there for Linux?
Date: 13 Apr 2000 17:55:01 GMT
On 13 Apr 2000 15:43:58 GMT, abraxas wrote:
>Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Actually, GNOME resembles KDE much more closely than KDE resembles windows.
>
>And FVWM95 resembles it even more closely. The point is that they both follow
>the windows GUI method exceedingly closely.
No, they don't. Compare MFC to KDE, and then compae GNOME to KDE. You
could just about write a perl program to translate a KDE program
to a GNOME program ( esp if you're using GTK-- ).
s/gtk_signal_connect/QObject::connect/g
etc etc. The APIs are extremely similar. They are certainly not similar
to MFC or Win32.
Now to the dumb user, they might "feel" like Windows, because they have
taken a few of the design/UI elements, like the shortcut keys and the
"taskbar". But the resemblence is rather superficial. OTOH, the resemblence
of GTK with QT and KDE with GNOME is extremely similar. They both use
this signal/slot type architecture ( though GTK calls them "callbacks",
they look and act a lot like KDE's slots. )
>Youd be wrong. KDE was purposely designed with some aspects of windows
>in mind, just as Gnome was.
Such as ? Give me KDE function calls and MFC function calls. I've given
my example : QObject::connect ( used to connect a signal to a slot )
and gtk_signal_connectS ( used to connect a signal to a callback ).
>> Hell, you could be forgiven for thinking that GTK/GNOME is QT/KDE without
>> name spaces at a first glance.
>
>GTK is a better system.
How so ?
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: 2:1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: uptime -> /dev/null
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 19:09:23 +0100
Pedro Ballester wrote:
> Since most home users switch on and off their computers every day;
> indeed, I'd say that they do every time they must use it, I'd just like you
> to stop telling about enormous uptimes as a matter to convince Windows
> users that Linux does a good desktop (note I am not saying that it is not
> the case).
When windows starts to go flakey (after a few month if you install/uninstall
stuff frequently), uptime can be less than the amount of time that you use a
computer for in one go. Also, a bad app can crash windows, making you loose all
your data. Since windows crashes a lot more often than linux (yep you can crash
linux using SVGAlib, or at least render it unusable ;-), work is lost more
often. If linux has long uptimes, then data is lost less often, whic is a big +
point for desktop use.
> What's more, let's be honest and say that given a kernel patch
> (with non-module code patch included) is out at least a couple of times
> each month, uptimes can as much be of (patch_N+1) - (patch_N) time.
Except that a desktop user need not apply each case.
-Ed
--
Did you know that the oldest known rock is the famous Hackenthorpe rock, which
is over three trillion years old?
-The Hackenthorpe Book of Lies
------------------------------
From: Cihl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux for ex-Windows users (long story)
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 17:55:53 GMT
> Nice post Cihl :)
Thanks. :-)
> Some of the Wintrolls ("Heather/Steve/Keys88") have been here 2 years and more
> and one has to wonder just what their motivation is ?
>
> Me thinks they're paid trolls, cause no one can be that stupid, for that long.
As i said, i think we should try to get them to
actually *use* Linux for a while, so they can quit
their old jobs. ;-)
--
% make fire
Don't know how to make fire
% Why not?
No match
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Subject: Re: What GUI development tools are there for Linux?
Date: 13 Apr 2000 17:57:56 GMT
On 13 Apr 2000 15:41:55 GMT, abraxas wrote:
>> Hmmm.. keep in mind that Gnome is essentially a KDE clone and a bad one at
>> that
>
>Actually it isnt.
Actually, that's not far from the truth. There was a case where one guy
got his perl parser and converted one of the Qt APIs to a GNOME API
( I can't remember which one it was, maybe the html widget ). If you'd
programmed with either API and looked at the other, you'd know this.
It's not entirely fair to call GNOME a "KDE clone" though because IIRC,
GTK either preceded QT or at least was written independently ( as a
drop in replacement for Motif )
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: 2:1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What GUI development tools are there for Linux?
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 19:13:06 +0100
Cihl wrote:
> abraxas wrote:
> > > Actually, GNOME resembles KDE much more closely than KDE resembles windows.
> >
> > And FVWM95 resembles it even more closely. The point is that they both follow
> > the windows GUI method exceedingly closely.
>
> You seem to thing this is a very bad thing. Do you
> have a better idea? Now FVWM, THAT's ugly!
I use FVWM (the mwm lookalike version). I think it provides a nice interface (with
the right toolbars) and has a low overhead.
-Ed
>
> --
> % make fire
> Don't know how to make fire
> % Why not?
> No match
--
Did you know that the oldest known rock is the famous Hackenthorpe rock, which
is over three trillion years old?
-The Hackenthorpe Book of Lies
------------------------------
From: Ian Mac Lure <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux for ex-Windows users (long story)
Date: 13 Apr 2000 18:00:51 GMT
Terry Porter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[SNIP]
: Some of the Wintrolls ("Heather/Steve/Keys88") have been here 2 years and more
: and one has to wonder just what their motivation is ?
: Me thinks they're paid trolls, cause no one can be that stupid, for that
: long.
As an aside, "methinks" is one word.
And back to the topic at hand.
Some notable was once heard to utter something like the following:
"Never ascribe to malice what stupidity suffices to explain"
Remember these folks are in thrall to the wee man himself.
--
* Ian B MacLure ********* Sunnyvale, CA ***** Engineer/Archer *****
* No Times Like The Maritimes *************************************
* Opinions Expressed Here Are Mine. That's Mine , Mine, MINE ******
* VR Level=3/Holding **********************************************
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Corel Linux Office 2000 and Win32 Emulator Making Progress
Date: 13 Apr 2000 18:02:51 GMT
On Thu, 13 Apr 2000 08:19:06 -0700, Bob Lyday wrote:
>It will be the best thing that ever happened to any altOS. It's
>not an emulator. It'll be just like running a native app. Over
No, it won't be. It will be like "Windows on Linux". Or maybe like
running an awt application one Linux. Porting Windows to Linux is
hardly the most elegant answer to porting problems.
>and over again, I hear people tell me that the only reason they
>run Windows is cuz of the apps.
But more come to Linux as more apps become available.
> This will end that argument
>forever, or at least till M$ breaks it somehow...
No, it won't. RUnning a windows app on Linux will never be an adequate
substitute for just running the native Windows app. The people who want
to run WIndows applications really are better off using Windows, and this
will not alter that fact. What we need is native Linux applications.
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: 2:1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What GUI development tools are there for Linux?
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 19:17:53 +0100
Pete Goodwin wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (abraxas) wrote in <8d4hoh$u7v$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
> No, I want a reasonable desktop. What was there before wasn't usable
> compared to RISC-OS standards. RISC-OS isn't Windows BTW.
I have to agree with you, RISC-OS has a nice windowed interface, sadly,
though, Acorns don't seem very popular at the mo... :-(
The problem with RISC-OS, however, is that compared to X[1] it is not very
customisable, so if you don't like iot then tough.
[1] I know X is not a GUI, but it gives you the ultimate in customization by
allowing you to slap any old GUI on top of it.
-Ed
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> ------------
> Pete Goodwin
--
Did you know that the oldest known rock is the famous Hackenthorpe rock,
which
is over three trillion years old?
-The Hackenthorpe Book of Lies
------------------------------
From: Curtis Bass <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why Linux on the desktop?
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 10:59:45 -0700
"John W. Stevens" wrote:
>
> Curtis Bass wrote:
> >
> > "John W. Stevens" wrote:
> > >
> > > Matthias Warkus wrote:
> >
> > -- snip --
> >
> > > > Execution involves concepts such
> > > > as addresses and control flow.
> > >
> > > Location in the HTML stream: address.
> > >
> > > Control Flow: Where and how on the screen to display a bit of data.
> >
> > These examples seem like rather loose applications of definition. Isn't
> > the broswer rendering engine responsible for "where and how on the
> > screen to display a bit of data" based on the HTML markup?
>
> Is it?
>
> Will the browser place the data in different locations on the screen
> depending on whether you use a table tag, or a list tag?
Not necessarily, which is the point. There are many other conditions to
take into account, such as screen resolution, window size, font
selection and availability, etc, all of which are beyond the control of
HTML, and are up to the rendering engine to resolve.
> > HTML is the
> > GUI analogy to the command-line switch. If I type "ls -alF
> > --color=term" at a shell prompt instead of simply "ls," would that
> > qualify as "programming?"
>
> Yes.
That is an extremely loose (not "abstract") definition: program use ==
programming
A guy who types "dir /w" at a DOS prompt has written a program??!?!
> > > Programs are data structures. They are data, they are structured data,
> > > they are data structures.
> >
> > Perhaps program => data, but does it follow that data => program?
>
> Point your processor a your data. Say: go. Does the processor execute
> that data?
>
> The answer is: yes. The program may not be meaningful or useful to you,
> the user of the computer, but a program is actually being executed.
Then what you are saying is that literally *****ANYTHING***** qualifies
as a "program." If we define "program" as "anything" then we have
diluted the meaning so much that there is no meaning.
> > > In fact, some simple programs have exactly the same struture as an HTML
> > > program: a directed, acyclical graph.
> >
> > But HTML cannot go beyond a DAG,
>
> Really?
>
> How about:
>
> Page 1 --> Page 2 --> Page 3 --> Page 1
>
> Isn't that a cycle?
You tell us. After all, it was *you* who claimed that "the . . .
struture (sic) [of] an HTML program [is] a directed, acyclical graph" in
the tri-chevroned quote above. Now you are claiming otherwise?
Stating that *an* (which is to say "any" which implies "each and every")
HTML "program" *IS* a DAG implies that it cannot be anything beyond a
DAG. I was simply re-phrasing your statement as an introductory clause
to my statement:
> > whereas a "real" programming language
> > can.
>
> Please define the difference between a "real" programming language and
> an "unreal" programming language?
I used quotes specifically in order to avoid making definitions -- that
is your calling, not mine. I simply take issue with your definitions as
I consider them to be so overly broad as to be meaningless.
> > And you even implicitly admit that a program has to be "simple"
> > before it can even compare to HTML.
>
> Yes. Are you saying that simple programs are not programs?
Nope. I am saying that being simple isn't enough of a criterion on which
to judge whether something is a program. Just because a simple program
has a structure similar to an HTML document, it doesn't follow that the
HTML document is a program.
Or, if an HTML *document* is a "program" then so is *any* text document.
But then, earlier, you submitted that *any* data stream is a "program,"
so any further discussion seems rather pointless. You are welcome to
your all-encompassing definition, but, again, I see it as being
meaningless.
> > IOW, again, HTML isn't "executed code" but simply a set of switches,
> > like command line switches/arguments.
>
> Command line switches are instructions . . . IE, programs.
>
> Simple programs, but they are programs.
So is random data, or even noise . . .
> > > Hmmm. . . so neither English, nor the language you use in your own head
> > > to plan and describe things, is a programming language?
> >
> > It depends on how loosely we define "programming."
>
> A misnomer . . . the term you should use is not "loosely", but
> "abstractly".
With all due resepct, I'll stick to "loose" as it, quite frankly, seems
more appropriate.
> > Personally, I
> > consider "English, [and] the language [I] use in [my] own head to plan
> > and describe things" to be *analysis* and/or *design* languages,
> > although they certainly can be used to low-level "program" (again,
> > depending on how loosely we define the term). Setting up a television
> > broadcast schedule is called "programming" and it's generally done using
> > English or its equiv.
>
> So . . . are you saying that English has no imperative tense?
>
> How about: "Shut the door!"
>
> Isn't that a program?
Is it being executed by a computer? Are we now defining any instruction
directed to any*thing* a "program?"
I guess so, because, again, you have defined *any* data as a "program."
-- snip --
> > Again, it goes back to "Yes, X can do that like (simplified) Y can, but
> > Y can do several orders of magnitude more than X, ergo, X is not Y."
>
> Actually, you *DO* say that X is a Y even when X is simpler than Y.
>
> This is, in fact, the basis for taxonomic classification, and of course
> the heart of the specialization relationship in the Object Oriented
> paradigm.
You seem to be saying that the set of markup languages such as HTML is a
proper subset of programming languages, which is a proper subset of
natural languages like English. I disagree. Markup languages and
programming languages are both proper subsets of natural languages, but
I see them as having some overlap, but not one being a proper subset of
the other.
IOW, purely markup languages have *some* trappings of programming
languages (electronically stored, some level of resusability), but not
enough to make them programming languages. And although some languages
can be used for both programming and markup, HTML is not among them.
Curtis
------------------------------
From: 2:1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: No Microsoft Certification = NO JOB!
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 19:22:39 +0100
Charlie Ebert wrote:What will also excite you to death is the FACT that
virtually
> ALL government offices these days, Federal, State, County or City
> ALL REQUIRE you to have Visual Basic skills before your even
> CONSIDERED for a job as a programmer!
Yeah, but C sucks, compared to visual basic, I mean c'mon, it's so much
faster!
Imagine that, a whole infrastructure based on BASIC! Geez, it was a language
invented for teaching not serious work, hey, mabey I'm on to something :-)
> Imagine that! Visual Basic, the development platform which ONLY runs on
> Microsoft products.
It's also dreadful.
-Ed
--
Did you know that the oldest known rock is the famous Hackenthorpe rock,
which
is over three trillion years old?
-The Hackenthorpe Book of Lies
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
Subject: Re: uptime -> /dev/null
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 18:07:35 GMT
On Thu, 13 Apr 2000 17:45:24 GMT, Pedro Ballester <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Since most home users switch on and off their computers every day;
>indeed, I'd say that they do every time they must use it, I'd just like you
>to stop telling about enormous uptimes as a matter to convince Windows
>users that Linux does a good desktop (note I am not saying that it is not
>the case). What's more, let's be honest and say that given a kernel patch
>(with non-module code patch included) is out at least a couple of times
>each month, uptimes can as much be of (patch_N+1) - (patch_N) time.
So? Just because there is a patch out this week, it doesn't
mean that you need to apply it. Also, just because you might
be shutting your machine down nightly doesn't mean it wont
have crashed by noon.
[deletia]
--
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.
------------------------------
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