Linux-Advocacy Digest #207, Volume #26 Fri, 21 Apr 00 13:13:11 EDT
Contents:
Re: Elian ("Michiel Buddingh'")
Re: DCOM versus CORBA, some history (Craig Kelley)
Re: Sell Me On Linux (Craig Kelley)
Re: 'To Be Up or Not To Be Up' (Matthias Warkus)
Re: Elian (Craig Kelley)
Re: Windows2000 sale success.. (JEDIDIAH)
Re: Become a Windows Registry Expert! (Chris Wenham)
Re: which OS is best? (JEDIDIAH)
Re: KDE is better than Gnome (Christopher Browne)
Re: Elian (DGITC)
Re: Linux vs. BSD (Matt Corey)
Re: KDE is better than Gnome (Brian Langenberger)
Re: Grasping perspective... (was Re: Forget buying drestin UNIX...) (John Jensen)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Michiel Buddingh'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Elian
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 11:57:33 +0200
Crossposted-To:
alt.activism,alt.politics.communism,rec.games.video.misc,alt.destroy.microsoft,alt.alien.vampire.flonk.flonk.flonk,alt.fan.karl-malden.nose
[snip Linux=Anarcho-Communism/no it isn't/yes it is]
Someone who listened to his Santana album way to many times
inspired me with:
> Either you do not understand what anarchism is, you do
> not understand what communism is, you do not understand
> what linux, is, or some kind of combination of the
> preceeding.
Anarchism has it's roots in Communism -- remember, Bakoenin?
Originally, Anarcho-Communism was a more like pleonasm, but
since then, ideas like Anarcho-Capitalism have evolved, so
now a distinction must be made.
The idea with Anarcho-Communism (and Communism) is that the
services provided by man get `pooled', and then distributed
according to need.
The difference is that under Communism, there is some form
of government, whereas Anarchism has almost no government.
For Anarcho-Communism to work, the participating community
has to comply to three rules:
1. Every member has to be willing to share. If one
doesn't wan't to -- fine, but don't expect the
community to share it's resources with you.
In short, replace self-interest with
community-interest.
2. Total awareness of need and availability -- if the
need for some service exceeds the availability,
people will tend to provide that service.
3. Quick and easy distribution.
Now, tell me, does Linux (or GPL'ed software in general)
correspond with these three points?
--
Michiel Buddingh' - A.K.A. Ajuin
------------------------------
Subject: Re: DCOM versus CORBA, some history
From: Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 21 Apr 2000 09:51:17 -0600
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (SeaDragon) writes:
> On 20 Apr 2000 14:36:26 GMT, Donal K. Fellows <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >The main reason that apps for X have not typically supported anything
> >other than plain text is the lack of agreement on how the data should
> >be represented.
>
> They should give you some sort of an award for stating the obvious. The
> whole problem with X is that there is no agreement on anything. You have
> just restated the symptoms of the problem by stating its cause. You
> have contributed no insightful point to the discussion.
Only fools write X applications[1]; that's like writing a Windows GDI
app (never done).
There are 3 active widget sets: gtk, qt and tk.
> This is a fundamental flaw in free software which has been identified
> years ago by the critics of free software. The advantage of a single
> vednor who defines standards is that they can control the standards. You
> lose this when go to free software because the programmers are generally
> less professional and less experienced, and want to do things in their
> own, hackery way, instead of working of the fundamental problems. Superior,
> more robust systems such as Mac and Windows do not have such glaring
> limitations as the more fragile systems such as Linux and Unix have.
More un-supported, vague dribble.
--
[1] Of course, there may be good reasons for writing to Xlib -- like
a window manager author, for intance.
--
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: Sell Me On Linux
From: Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 21 Apr 2000 09:34:04 -0600
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (SeaDragon) writes:
> On Thu, 20 Apr 2000 20:39:47 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
> >Runs on more hardware (IBM mainframes, Dec Alphas-64bit, apple hardware,
> >Sun hardware...)
>
> Buying an IBM or an Alpha to run Linux is about as smart as buying
> a Porsche to drive around in first gear.
It's better than putting NT on them.
(If we don't have to qualify our statements....)
[snip]
> >Stable command structure (minimal retraining every time a new version is
> >released).
[snip]
> 2. Linux commands, especially with respect to administrative tools,
> vary drastically from version-to-version, and especially from
> Linux distribution-to-distribution.
>From distribution-to-distribution, yes. From verstion-to-version, I'd
disagree. If anyone else made Windows, you'd see the same "problems"
there.
> 3. The documentation for this "stable command structure" is less than
> stable and wildly out-dated in some cases. On more than one occasion
> I have followed instructions in what were purported to be up-to-date
> HOWTO files on up-to-date distributions, and have been greeted with
> all kinds of errors since the tools have changed since the HOWTO was
> written (two or three weeks ago).
And yet, the programs I wrote in the 80s still run on today's
machines. The backup tapes are still readable (no flavor-of-the-month
backup formats like MTF). The AIX programs which banged Oracle on the
back end worked with very minor revisions under Linux running ASE.
Sure, the occasional HOWTO will be out of date. Yes, those evil
kernel and libc hackers will introduce incompatibilites while they fix
problems. No, it isn't as radical as:
DOS -> Win 3.11 -> Win 95 -> NT 3.51 -> NT 4.0 -> Windows 2000
> 4. Linux training locks you into Linux; I have met many a person
> who learned Linux and was mystified when using a Sun or HP machine
> (so moving from Unix flavor to Linux to Unix flavor costs mega-bucks
> in retraining).
Those people will be mystified regardless. A friend had some HP 700
Apollo workstations we wanted to try out. We plugged them in, fired
them up and within mintues we had the systms mapped out. Some UNIX
variants, like AIX or Sun require knowledge of the sysadmin tools
(like smit) -- but other than that, your *applications* and *data*
will port easily.
After all, isn't that what's really important? If you want to write a
stable application that deals with very important data, there is no
reason why you couldn't start out with Linux and mySQL and end up on
an RS/6000 running Oracle. If you start out with Windows NT and
MSSQL/MTS/DNA/DCOM/%MS PROPRIETARY SOLUTION%, you'll always be running
it, because porting *out* of Win32 is a nightmare. This is by
desgin. Microsoft wants you to run Windows-only shops. It is in
their best interest that your DNS server be a Windows 2000 machine,
and that your Kerberos ticketmaster be running WinKerberos.
For some reason, all these "mystic" UNIX flavors have managed to get
along very well with eachother over the years. In fact, the worlds
largest distributed database was born on it (you may have heard of the
world wide web).
> >Runs the most common Internet apps (sendmail, Apache...).
>
> Yes - sendmail - the application which singlehandedly brought down
> the internet in 1987. A program which I REALLY want running on
> my servers. I am so jealous...
You don't want to go there, if you're going to claim that Exchange is
any better.
> >Proven remote management.
>
> Proven to suck. When you disconnect from your remote session, and
> then reconnect to it, does Linux even bring you back to your previous
> session or does it restart, losing your old work? It does the latter,
> even though almost every OS built since 1970 (including Windows) does the
> former. Another example of Linux slipping further and further behind the
> technology curve.
1) Windows does no such thing after you logout. Hell, you couldn't
even change personalities under Windows without losing all your
current work up until Windows 2000.
2) Linux (or, I should say UNIX) has allowed people to keep a session
alive without being connected (man nohup, man crontab, man X) for
decades.
> >Large number of file systems supported.
>
> Ah yes. Exactly which filesystem do you need to read on Windows that
> you can't? This would improve your daily productivity in what way?
You've honestly never recieved a mac zip/floppy disk?
> >Multiple User interfaces, you can pick the on
> >the fits YOUR needs. Can run with OUT a GUI to save resources.
>
> Ah, yes. Today everybody is running 1 BIPS machines with 1 GB RAM,
> and you are concerned about the entire 1 MIPS and 2 MB RAM of overhead
> that the GUI costs? Come back and play when you solve the more
> fundamental speedpaths in Linux (like using a textfile for large
> databases), which Windows solved about 10 years ago.
Sigh.
Of course you fail to backup these claims.
Without getting "into it" over the registry, lets just say that text
files are faster, more reliable, more extensible, easier to program
for [much of the time] and easier to backup.
--
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] (Matthias Warkus)
Subject: Re: 'To Be Up or Not To Be Up'
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 17:24:20 +0200
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
It was the Thu, 20 Apr 2000 21:23:55 GMT...
...and Mathias Grimmberger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I stopped reading _DOS International_ some time later because it was not
> that interesting anymore (hehehe, putting DOS into the name of a
> PC/computer mag was kind of dumb anyway). I don't know if this mag still
> exists.
DOS International turned into PC Magazin some years ago.
> I guess we are heading towards a future with no technical computer mags
> at all. Only tabloids hyping whatever vendors want to sell today. :-(
Um, no. It's just the number of "general-purpose" technical mags (c't,
iX) that's shrinking. Specialised mags for certain platforms, certain
software (e.g. Java) etc. still flourish.
mawa
--
> Laut deinem Geek Code bist du weiblich (x+++). Müßte das nicht y+++
> sein?
\begin{gay} Dabei trage ich doch so gerne Frauenkleiner \end{gay}
-- Stefan Kamphausen
------------------------------
Crossposted-To:
alt.activism,alt.politics.communism,rec.games.video.misc,alt.destroy.microsoft,alt.alien.vampire.flonk.flonk.flonk,alt.fan.karl-malden.nose
Subject: Re: Elian
From: Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 21 Apr 2000 09:45:51 -0600
mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > Michiel Buddingh' wrote:
>
> >Oh dear. Does this mean we're going to have to start scalping our
> >neighboring tribes and implement mass human sacrifice now? :)
>
> Hmm, I seem to remember a lot of bloody wars and atrocities in europe
> too. When one looks at history, one is appalled at the violence and
> blood shed in every civilization. Yes, you can point to the aztec and
> say they had human sacrifice. Yes this was bad. One can point to the
> european wars, spanish inquisition, and so on in europe as well, that
> was bad too. China and japan, had its problems, africa too.
>
> Humans are brutal. Human history of all nations and civilizations are
> full of brutality. One can not point to one atrocity without looking at
> all the atrocities.
No doubt. I wasn't attempting to disparage the Native Americans, but
we oft hear about how peaceful and communal life was before the white
man came. Examples can be found in most every culture, even islanders
with mono-theisitc, homogenous populations. (And I wouldn't be
opposed to giving all the land back, either.)
Linux is an example of what we *can* do, our potential. Not to be
cheezy, but it is one step closer to the peace enjoyed by the Star
Trek universe. A time when everyone is free to implement something
just because they want to, and not because their director wants to
lock customers into a "solution". Aieeeeee...
Now I know I've truely gone too optimistic.
--
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)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows2000 sale success..
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 15:55:05 GMT
On Fri, 21 Apr 2000 02:38:22 GMT, billwg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>"R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:8dnehk$thi$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>>
>> I wouldn't be suprised if by the end of the summer, we were actually
>> looking at Linux on retail shelves. Even Microsoft has hinted at
>> Microsoft Office for Linux. Once the remedy portion of the hearing
>> is established, I wouldn't be suprised if OEMs and Software vendors
>> started very agrressively backing Linux.
>>
>> If the remedies are reasonable (Giving FTC authority to regulate
>> and mediate Microsoft contract practices), the Supreme Court will
>> uphold the verdict and the FTC will relax controls as Linux captures
>> 30-50% of the desktop market. When Linux establishes a sufficient
>> share of the market that Microsoft can say it's no longer a monopoly,
>> the FTC won't need to regulate Microsoft because the OEMs will be
>> able to choose how much of a balance of each OS they want to sell
>> and market based on the terms Microsoft gives them.
>>
>
>I think that this is an incredibly optimistic view of things. The retail
>buyer is looking for games, internet, on-line banking, education, and
>work-at-home compatibility, generally in that order, based on motivation
>surveys that I have seen. Linux can deliver most of that, but doesn't
>really have a message that differentiates it all that much from Windows.
Sure it does. Infact, PenguinComputing has some banner ads that
explicitly hark upon this point. They are animations of a crash
test dummy running a WinTel PC or an iMac and crashing into the
screen with the caption "Tired of Crashing?".
[deletia]
Mind you, they could likely avoid such a situation by having run
NT but, MICROSOFT ISN'T PUSHING NT FOR THE MERE MASSES. MS insists
on shoveling their Frankenstien-DOS at the bulk of consumers.
Then, there's that whole notion of $0 vs. $300.
--
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.
------------------------------
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Become a Windows Registry Expert!
From: Chris Wenham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 16:05:20 GMT
"Colin R. Day" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Don't know that I was claiming THAT much. But then, I'm a TeX user.
How much TeX must you learn (syntax and structures) before being able
to start using it for making documents?
And out of curiosity, do you know if and how TeX compares with
Postscript?
Regards,
Chris Wenham.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.flame.macintosh
Subject: Re: which OS is best?
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 16:02:20 GMT
On Fri, 21 Apr 2000 10:33:52 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Fri, 21 Apr 2000 06:27:06 -0700, dakota
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>I must say, it's been so long since I've
>>>actually had to install WindowsNT, I wonder if I remember
>>how...<?>
>>
>>It's really not hard. But Openlinux and Redhat are MUCH, MUCH
>>easier (you don't have to reboot to convert partition
>>tables,upgrade buggy apps, etc. in Linux.)
>
>Having just come through a few Linux installs (notably LinuxPPC,
>Mandrake 7, and most recently RedHat 6.2) I'd still have to disagree
>here - NT (well, the current incarnation, Win2000) is easier. Face it
>- going through a bunch of MAN pages to do common things just isn't
>fun.
There's NO reason to consult a single manpage for the installation
of Redhat 6.2 (or even Piglet). Infact, if you don't care about the
data on a machine, the install is a one button process.
[deletia]
It also helps if you bother to actually USE the gui present to
fully explore the interface. I had to tell a senior programmer
about the 'boot-to-kde' menu option in gdm. It never occured to
him to poke around the interface of the gnome login screen.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Crossposted-To: comp.windows.x.kde,tw.bbs.comp.linux
Subject: Re: KDE is better than Gnome
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 16:28:37 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when abraxas would say:
>In comp.os.linux.advocacy Brian Langenberger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy Jerry Wong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> : I feel Gnome + Enlightment will consume more system resource than KDE,
>> : so I choose KDE.
>> : However, the default window manager in Red Hat 6.0 is Gnome.
>
>> I'm sure the responses to this will be numerous...
>
>> Gnome is not a window manager, Gnome is a whole desktop environment
>> like KDE. Enlightenment is a window manager, and a resource hog, and
>> is being replaced by Sawfish (formerly Sawmill) AFAIK. Sawfish takes
>> a lot less resources and is a lot more customizable than Enlightenment.
>
>Aaaahhhahahahahooo thats funny...
>
>Do rasterman/octoberx have anything to do with sawfish?
I think not...
--
Actually, typing random strings in the Finder does the equivalent of
filename completion. (Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the
intuitiveness of commands: file completion vs. the Mac Finder.)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - - <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
------------------------------
From: DGITC <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.activism,alt.politics.communism,rec.games.video.misc,alt.destroy.microsoft,alt.startrek.klingon,alt.alien.vampire.flonk.flonk.flonk,alt.fan.karl-malden.nose
Subject: Re: Elian
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 12:23:17 -0400
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Craig Kelley
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > > Michiel Buddingh' wrote:
> >
> > >Oh dear. Does this mean we're going to have to start scalping our
> > >neighboring tribes and implement mass human sacrifice now? :)
> >
> > Hmm, I seem to remember a lot of bloody wars and atrocities in europe
> > too. When one looks at history, one is appalled at the violence and
> > blood shed in every civilization. Yes, you can point to the aztec and
> > say they had human sacrifice. Yes this was bad. One can point to the
> > european wars, spanish inquisition, and so on in europe as well, that
> > was bad too. China and japan, had its problems, africa too.
> >
> > Humans are brutal. Human history of all nations and civilizations are
> > full of brutality. One can not point to one atrocity without looking at
> > all the atrocities.
>
> No doubt. I wasn't attempting to disparage the Native Americans, but
> we oft hear about how peaceful and communal life was before the white
> man came. Examples can be found in most every culture, even islanders
> with mono-theisitc, homogenous populations. (And I wouldn't be
> opposed to giving all the land back, either.)
>
> Linux is an example of what we *can* do, our potential. Not to be
> cheezy, but it is one step closer to the peace enjoyed by the Star
> Trek universe.
Except then, we'll have the Klingons to deal with.
> A time when everyone is free to implement something
> just because they want to, and not because their director wants to
> lock customers into a "solution". Aieeeeee...
>
> Now I know I've truely gone too optimistic.
I'll say.
Intergalactic warfare. This is precisely why Linux shouldn't succeed.
--
DGITC
Delete the NOSPAM to send a reply by email.
Bullshit. Go back under your bridge, troll.
Donovan Rebbechi flames me in Message-ID
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
------------------------------
From: Matt Corey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux vs. BSD
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 16:51:27 GMT
In article <8dnmin$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Derek Callaway <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> How is Linux better than (Free|Net|Open)BSD?
>
> --
> /* Derek Callaway <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> * Programmer: CISC, LLC -- S@IRC */
> char *sites[]={"http://www.freezersearch.com/index.cfm?aff=dhc",
> "http://www.ciscllc.com","http://www.homeworkhelp.org",0};
>
Thats a bladder control problem --- Depends. ;-)
They're more similar than they are different with different objectives.
I use all three and just about every other Unix flavor out there and
most of the time it isn't a matter of which is better, it's a matter of
what do you want to accomplish. Play with them all.
Matt
--
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: Brian Langenberger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.windows.x.kde,tw.bbs.comp.linux
Subject: Re: KDE is better than Gnome
Date: 21 Apr 2000 17:01:46 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy abraxas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
<snip>
:> Gnome is not a window manager, Gnome is a whole desktop environment
:> like KDE. Enlightenment is a window manager, and a resource hog, and
:> is being replaced by Sawfish (formerly Sawmill) AFAIK. Sawfish takes
:> a lot less resources and is a lot more customizable than Enlightenment.
: Aaaahhhahahahahooo thats funny...
: Do rasterman/octoberx have anything to do with sawfish?
No. I think it's pretty funny myself. I like a window manager
that has twice the speed, twice the features and half the code as
Enlightenment - and many times the configurability.
------------------------------
From: John Jensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Grasping perspective... (was Re: Forget buying drestin UNIX...)
Date: 21 Apr 2000 17:09:34 GMT
JEDIDIAH <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
: On 21 Apr 2000 13:54:28 GMT, John Jensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: >"tastes" is a wonderful catch-all. I may say that I want to get away from
: >[whatever] simply becuase I've been using [whatever] for for ten years and
: >am getting bored. It may just be a change in taste.
: ...or alternately: I used to use [something else] quite happily.
: However, I've used [whatever] for a few years and found myself
: completely disatisfied with it. I would very much like to be able
: to use [another something else] and not be excluded arbitrarily
: from doing any particular thing that one might want to do with a
: [sort of product].
: At any point in time, for any task, I've always viewed the M$ option
: as second best when compared to something else in the market.
I think it is often a case of choosing your own poison. No OS has every
benefit of all others, and each OS has its own unique inconveniences.
I get a big kick out of Linux right now, partly because a parade like this
doesn't come through town every day. (This five year window isn't going
to happen for another OS anytime soon.) Some grumpy old men say "baah,
who needs a parade", but I think it is worth some inconvenience.
John
------------------------------
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