Linux-Advocacy Digest #262, Volume #26 Wed, 26 Apr 00 14:13:43 EDT
Contents:
Re: Where is PostScript support?? (JEDIDIAH)
Re: Government to break up Microsoft (Mike Marion)
Re: Red Hat Linux Backdoor Password Vulnerability (Sierra Tigris)
Re: Become a Windows Registry Expert! (Bob Lyday)
Re: i cant blieve you people!! (Sitaram Chamarty)
Re: MICROSOFT IT THRU! MICROSOFT IS THRU! ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: on installing software on linux. a worst broken system. (Christopher Browne)
Re: which OS is best? (Christopher Browne)
Re: Backdoors in Windows 2000? (Christopher Browne)
Re: Red Hat Linux Backdoor Password Vulnerability (Christopher Browne)
Re: Where is PostScript support?? (Christopher Browne)
Re: Disabled lady needs Linux Corel (Christopher Browne)
Re: which OS is best? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: which OS is best? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: which OS is best? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: which OS is best? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
Subject: Re: Where is PostScript support??
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 23:15:25 GMT
On Tue, 25 Apr 2000 22:38:29 GMT, The Cat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Tue, 25 Apr 2000 22:20:21 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
>wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 25 Apr 2000 22:07:56 GMT, The Cat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>From that last statement it is obvious either you did not know what
>>>you were doing when you used Powerpoint, or you have never really used
>>>it at all.
>>
>> ...ah, yes: Microsoft copout #123,956,812... Blame the end user.
>Seems to me I see an awful lot of Linux advocates blaming the user
>around here.
>
>Xfree is Not Linux.
Considering that there are no less than 3 complete replacements
for it. This is completely true. There's even a distro that is
built around/by the market leader in this area.
>kde is Not Linux.
It's one of several options, such that you could pick a more
suitable one of you dislike KDE for some reason.
>Man foo.
>You're an idiot because you can't write foo script.
You must be hallucinating this one.
>
>Sorry but I both use and am subjected (meaning I have to sit through
>presentations) to PowerPoint on a daily basis and there is nothing in
>the Linux world that I am aware of that is even close for both ease of
>use and professional looking results.
This sounds more like a "microsoft are the most popular therefore
the best" sort of drivel that drives many away from Win32 with it's
alleged multitudes of options.
Short of Smartsuite & office itself: the available options are much
the same on Win32 or Linux. Applix & StarOffice come in NT variants
and PerfectOffice is a Win32 native app.
>
>
>> If you need the same amount of expertise that could be effectively
>> used against Tex, why bother with some wannabe ease of use tool?
>
>
>
>Because people have presentations to make and they can't be bothered
>using some arcane, 1970's based interface like Tex. Sorry to burst
If they 'must become experts in order to not make crap' then
the end result is really the same. This is the absurdity you
fail to acknowledge when trying to perpetrate a lame cop out
by claiming an end user is simply too inexperienced to fully
exploit 'the one true option'.
[deletia]
--
|||
/ | \
Need sane PPP docs? Try penguin.lvcm.com.
------------------------------
From: Mike Marion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Government to break up Microsoft
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 23:21:29 GMT
Otto wrote:
> So what, I have Caldera 2.4 runing next to my NT box and still do all of my
> work on NT.
You made the blanket claim that windows is a better desktop OS, when in many
cases (and I used myself as an example) it is not.
--
Mike Marion - Unix SysAdmin/Engineer, Qualcomm Inc.
"It is commonly the case with technologies that you can get the best insight
about how they work by watching them fail" - Neal Stephenson, "In the Beginning
was the Command Line."
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
From: Sierra Tigris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Red Hat Linux Backdoor Password Vulnerability
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 23:29:42 GMT
ccghst posted Apr 25 re: Re: Red Hat Linux Backdoor Password Vulnerability
|
|Darren Winsper wrote in message ...
|>Is having a default password really a back door? After all, any idiot
|>would set a custom password when they install something like that.
|
|
|Not -any- idiot. IIRC, Jim Seymour wrote some years
|back about walking into a number of Unix shops that
|left the root password set to the installation default.
|
|Anyone could login as root (it might not have been Jim
|Seymour who wrote this; it was some time ago)
|
Actually, aren't most distributions of Linux set to put the default
password of root to nothing? In other words, what's the difference? If you
are too foolish to change the password, you get what you sow.
--
Da Katt
[This space for rent]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 17:13:47 -0700
From: Bob Lyday <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Become a Windows Registry Expert!
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Russell Wallace <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
>
> >Bob Lyday wrote:
> >> Win 95 here runs pretty good for about a month and then it needs
> >> a reinstall. Damn that is stupid!
I said it needs a reinstall, not that it gets one. Why? File/registry
corruption.
> >And yet I've been running Win 95 for the last three years and never
> >reinstalled it, nor tinkered with the registry. It's crashed once so far
> >this year, and that was when I was debugging some of my C++ code that screwed
> >up the message queue - and then it gave enough warning that I could have
> >saved work in memory if I'd had any. I've installed and uninstalled many
> >gigabytes of software - applications, development tools, games - without
> >trouble. I do find it advisable to reboot once a week or thereabouts,
> >otherwise performance starts dragging, presumably due to memory leaks and
> >suchlike. Other than that the machine is up 24 hours a day, and under pretty
> >heavy load for a desktop machine.
>
> >What conclusions to draw from these anecdotes, I will leave up to the reader.
> You may be interested to know that a lot of people think I know something about
>computers. Why is it that all these other OS's almost never have any problems but
>then only the *super duper experts* can run Windows well? If Windows runs crappy,
>it's the user's fault. Yet another example of how M$ defensively attacks the
>self-esteem of most of the computing world.
>>--
Bob
"If you can't make it good, make it look good," Bill Gates, 1995.
Remove ".diespammersdie" to reply.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Sitaram Chamarty)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: i cant blieve you people!!
Date: 26 Apr 2000 00:16:31 GMT
On Tue, 25 Apr 2000 04:34:19 GMT, steve jobsniak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>i cant believe you peolpe... micorsoft is going down, taking the rest of
>the tech stocks down alogn with it, and you folks are
>*happy*!!! will you only be happy when the entire stock market
>crashess, taking the economy, your job, and preciuos apple with it???
>of course you'll change you're minds then, but why not change your mind
>now WHILE YOU CAN STILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE and keep it from happening?
If the market is so fragile that one company's misfortunes can
bring it all down, it's time for that company to die anyway.
Think of the result as a temporary fever while the body attacks
the virus :-)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.security,comp.os.ms-windows.networking.tcp-ip,alt.conspiracy.area51
Subject: Re: MICROSOFT IT THRU! MICROSOFT IS THRU!
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 19:27:42 -0600
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Charlie Ebert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> MICROSOFT IS THRU!
> MICROSOFT IS THRU!
> MICROSOFT IS THRU!
> MICROSOFT IS THRU!
> MICROSOFT IS THRU!
> MICROSOFT IS THRU!
>
>
> TELL EVERYONE!
>
> Microsoft has been forced to admit they created secret back doors to every
> computer
> system they sold out the DOOR!
>
> This MEANS to the STUPID and IGNORANT that the U.S. Government has ACCESS
> to every MS equipped machine in the world and therefore they
> CAN NOT BE TRUSTED ANYMORE!
>
> Charlie
>
>
Whats all this brew-ha-ha?
(...brew-ha-ha?)
ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.....
Your talk is just as bloated as the bloatation
classes used in your gui dos shells.
Don't y'all have some re-installations and/or re-boots
and/or code re-use(s) to do?
Leave Linux alone....
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Subject: Re: on installing software on linux. a worst broken system.
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 00:38:46 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Leslie Mikesell would say:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>lets talk a little about the broken way of installing software on linux.
>>>
>>>it is most certinaly is a broken system now.
>>>
>>>a simple example. I wanted to install some rpm package
>>>to try some application. ok, i do
>>>
>>> rpm -Uhv foo.rpm
>>>
>>>it tells me it needs 5 others packages that are missing or not
>>>to the right level.
>>
>>Red Hat <> Linux. On my Debian system, to install Mutt, I just type
>>"apt-get install mutt". It fetches and installs any depends. automatically.
>
>But do you expect your Debian system to install RedHat-built rpms?
>That is the situation here - a non-RedHat system that breaks
>the expected name conventions trying to install a RedHat rpm.
No, I don't expect a Debian system to _consistently_ install RPMs.
The fact that it is _comparatively_ easy for someone to become a
developer that can contribute packages to Debian means that, in the
long run, "open source" software that someone wants to use will very
likely get packaged for Debian.
To cope with at least _some_ of those packages where .deb packages are
_not_ available, there does exist the "alien" package translator,
which does an (admittedly shallow) conversion of .rpms to .deb form,
and vice-versa.
_Your_ argument would, I think, be more correctly targeted to suggest
that the use of RPM alone does not provide any "coherency." With
which I would certainly agree.
RPM is a perfectly good _package_ manager, but it is certainly _not_ a
potent enough tool to be presented as a _distribution_ manager.
The _disaster_ is in people trying to use RPM to manage distributions,
encoding dependancies manually within its functionality, when they
should have been building further "metatools" to have those
dependancies "compiled" at some higher level in the system.
Another problem that is quite rampant, amongst the RPM-based
distributions, at least, is that there is no agreement on a
"namespace" for package naming. SuSE names GNOME stuff "gncore",
"gnlibs", "gnnet", whilst RHAT names them "gnome-core", "gnome-libs",
..
To "fix" the problem would require two things:
a) For there to be some sort of common "registry" of package
information, notably recording unambiguous package names.
b) For there to be decent metatools for constructing not just _this
package,_ but also groups of packages, and indeed, the whole
distribution.
Caldera, RHAT, SuSE, TurboLinux and Mandrake are likely to be
sufficiently entrenched in their ways for this _not_ to happen.
Debian provides more tools in this regard, and a way of building
package repositories, that allows coherence.
It would be Very Interesting if a Linux distribution were to be built
based on the BSD Ports packages; that would provide access to a
well-known "package repository," possibly providing _more_ "coherency"
than any of the Linux distributions currently offer.
--
Last night I played a blank tape at full blast. The mime next door
went nuts.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
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?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 00:38:54 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Leslie Mikesell would say:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>As for instructing someone how to do it over the phone? With Linux, I
>>>can just do it for them faster than I can explain, and then just tell
>>>them to take a look at what I did.
>>
>>Over the phone, with no network?
>>
>>I give up. We're obviously coming from two completely different
>>paradigms here.
>
>I've talked people who knew nothing but how to type through
>some fairly complex setups under unix and even dos. All you
>have to do is say the words and spell a few things and the
>person on the other end knows what key to hit. I never have
>mastered the art of describing mouse-motions such that a
>beginner could do something at the other end with a GUI, or
>even of interpreting their description of the screens and pointer
>positions. It's about like taking all the words out of your
>books and replacing them with pictures, then trying to read
>it over the phone.
Indeed.
Reading and spelling _words_ that are to be _typed_ is a
well-understood sort of thing to do.
There may be an "unfriendly" command line there, but if there is a
friendly administrator on the other end of the phone, it doesn't
_need_ to be frightening.
What's easier?
"Type what I tell you to type, and read what I tell you to read."
which takes benefit from the several thousand years worth of
development of written communications,
or
"I'm going to try to describe, via something like charades, the menus,
dialogs, icons, and other hieroglyphics, what you're supposed to do."
which benefits from the several dozen hours that the typical person
has spent playing charades.
--
"I once went to a shrink. He told me to speak freely. I did. The
damn fool tried to charge me $90 an hour."
-- [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim Moore Jr)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,alt.conspiracy.area51
Subject: Re: Backdoors in Windows 2000?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 00:38:57 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Drestin Black would say:
>If there is a backdoor in W2K - show it to us, if not, shut up.
>Otherwise, modify your claims to: "There is a backdoor in every OS
>written."
_Anyone_ that can read C source code can search the source code for
Linux, or *BSD, or Hurd, or ECOS, or FreeDOS, and search for evidence
of vulnerabilities.
Someone can do a review of the sources, and claim "I didn't find
anything."
If someone else wants to disagree, it is straightforward for them to
come back and say,
"Here, look in the file mem/frobozz.c, in function foo(). This
fragment of code represents a vulnerability."
There may then be some disagreement as to what kind of vulnerability,
if any, is thereby represented, but it certainly represents something
that can be usefully discussed in a public forum.
In contrast, there is no equivalent way to _DISPROVE_ the assertion
that there _MIGHT_ be a backdoor in W63K.
Even if someone at an independent organization does a code review,
they still don't have access to the whole process of production of a
production release of the code. While they might be able to verify
that some exploits do not occur in the copy of the sources that they
were given, that's _all_ they can do.
a) They still are vulnerable to Trojan Horses of the style described
by Kernighan in _Reflections on Trusting Trust_.
b) There is no _public_ validation.
There is no way, without _public_ disclosure of the source code, to
provide _public_ verification of the nonexistence of backdoors.
--
"NT 5.0 is the last nail in the Unix coffin. Interestingly, Unix isn't
in the coffin... It's wondering what the heck is sealing itself into a
wooden box 6 feet underground..." -- Jason McMullan
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Red Hat Linux Backdoor Password Vulnerability
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 00:38:58 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Stefan Ohlsson would say:
>Chad Myers wrote:
>>Seeing as how a simple buffer overrun was mistreated as a "backdoor" that was
>>purposely placed by Microsoft, I thought it was only fitting to see how
>>Open Sores can fall victim to the same thing.
>>
>>http://xforce.iss.net/alerts/advise46.php3
>
>>"With this backdoor password, an attacker could compromise the web
>>server as well as deface and destroy the web site."
>>
>"If the affected "piranha-gui" package is installed and the
> [default] password has not been changed by the administrator, the
> system is vulnerable."
>
>So, if the admin installs the package and does not alter the default
>password, then people who know this default password can log in.
>Any secutiry-concious admin would change it upon installing.
Indeed.
<http://www.data.com/lab_tests/token_authentication.html> describes
how security systems have to be competently administered, in that they
start out with a _default password._
The same sort of thing is true for _ANY_ password-based security
device, including such "legacy systems" as ATM systems and safes.
(Remember those big iron boxes with dials on the front? :-))
Richard Feynman's "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" described the
1940's version of the problem, which was where a Seriously Secure
Military Site installed the latest and greatest in Highly Secure
Safes, and he was able to "crack" the safe due to the security breach
that the staff neglected to _change the password._
They thought the safe was secure because it was big, thick, and fancy;
in contrast, because it was being operated by incompetents, it was
only secure against people that didn't know that the safe had a
default setting.
The problem with the web, today, is that it is thrusting people that
have no _concept_ of computer security into the situation where they
have to manage computer security.
UNIX-like systems have the _slight_ advantage over Microsoft solutions
that since they lack a point-and-drool interface, people assume that
it might require at least a _little_ intelligence to get such systems
running.
_Reality_ is that anyone that didn't pass the set theory portion of
their mathematics education should probably not be let anywhere _near_
computer security. Of course, reality _also_ is that
Pointy-Haired-Bosses have no concept of this, and so make Other Policy
Decisions...
--
"NT 5.0 is the last nail in the Unix coffin. Interestingly, Unix isn't
in the coffin... It's wondering what the heck is sealing itself into a
wooden box 6 feet underground..." -- Jason McMullan
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/security.html>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Subject: Re: Where is PostScript support??
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 00:38:59 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Stephen Cornell would
say:
>However, I still haven't found a satisfactory way of preparing decent
>presentations. It is de rigueur to give conference talks on-line from
>one's laptop. However, I simply haven't found an alternative that
>compares to the ease of use, appearence, and speed of presentation my
>colleagues enjoy with PowerPoint.
The BIG problem is that DPS never caught on, due to Adobe's licensing
constraints.
The technology that might get us to where you want to be is SVG, the
upcoming XML standard for Scalable Vector Graphics.
Gill is the one Linux-based package that works with SVG; it's
definitely not quite There Yet, but I'd think this something to watch
over the coming year...
--
Question: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: Two, one to hold the giraffe, and the other to fill the bathtub
with brightly colored machine tools.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux.corel,alt.linux,alt.fan.linux
Subject: Re: Disabled lady needs Linux Corel
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 00:39:03 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when ROSAPHILIA -->> cuz NYC
Could BE BETTER!! would say:
>i am disabled and poor on a fixed income.
>if you have a spare, unopened copy of the full linux corel with word
>processor and browser in it on diskette, not cd, could you please snail
>me it?
>
>i am sick of windowz and it killed my pc-266 and i cannot even recognize
>my cd reader anymore either.
>or if you know of a linux that is easier to install and has more useful
>things for the web-surfer/web-page-maker/email-reader i would appreciate
>it.
>help me.
>please? thanks for your patience and i can't wait till the break
>b.gates. will computers become cheaper after the doj's decision? will
>there be more choice? should i wait and if so for what kinda machine?
Rosaphilia, a few suggestions:
a) If you are new to Linux, you may want to try to locate a Linux User
Group some place in your area, so that you may locate some people that
are geographically nearby that may possibly be of assistance.
It is common for LUGs to have some sort of "Installation Project"
whereby you may bring your computer in, and someone knowledgeable may
help you install Linux on it, and help get you started.
Here are four places you may look.
<http://www.linux.org/users/>
<http://www.nlug.org/webring/>
<http://lugww.nllgg.nl/>
<http://www.ssc.com/glue/>
b) As for providing floppies, there are few Linux distributions that
offer the option of installing from floppy. All you are likely to be
able to do is to boot (that's the initial part of "starting the
machine up") from floppy.
That's not necessarily a big problem; it is quite likely that whatever
flavor of Linux you might try to install would have greater success
recognizing the CD-ROM drive than Windows had.
You see, the problem Windows is having is that it can't directly
"talk" to the CD-ROM; it needs a bit of computer program called a
"driver" to do so. If that bit gets lost, Windows does not know the
CD-ROM is there anymore. Linux tends to keeps the drivers a bit
closer to hand, and is rather less likely to "get lost" in this way.
c) As for selecting a "flavor" of Linux, I suggest you look into
whether you can get assistance from some local people first, and look
to what _they_ suggest.
Netscape, the usual web browser, is available for pretty much all
"flavors" (aka "distributions"); there is pretty good software for
dealing with mail on all distributions. And it is not _too_
difficult, more-or-less, to install a word processor like WordPerfect
on just about any of the distributions.
More critical is what you can easily get help with. For instance:
- If you can find local folk who prefer "Mandrake," then that makes it
easier to get help with Mandrake, and that may make it a better
choice.
- If they like SuSE, then that is surely a good choice, as it includes
a _boatload_ of software.
- If there are some that really like Debian, that likely makes it easy
to get good help with Corel Linux and StormLinux as well (they are
based on Debian).
Hopefully you get the idea. :-)
There are several notable word processing packages that can be
acquired "gratis," or quite inexpensively, notably:
- StarOffice
- The "personal" version of WordPerfect.
The overall "package" that you describe appears to be Corel Deluxe,
which is really a rather expensive "boxed set." If your means are
modest (and you call yourself "poor"), you should almost definitely
look to a less expensive option.
In particular, you should look to your local Linux Users Group, as
they may place orders at some of the "discount" CD vendors, where a
stack of CDs that will more-than-suffice will cost just a few dollars,
and they may even be able to provide something for free.
--
If there's one thing I can't stand, it's intolerance.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 19:40:49 -0500
On Tue, 25 Apr 2000 06:04:43 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim Richardson)
wrote:
>>> Actually, that would be a far more individual thing than you
>>> acknowledge. No matter how much M$ would like to think of them
>>> as such, end users are not borg drones.
>>>
>>> Besides, a simple list of commands is far less ambiguous and
>>> less bulk of information.
>>
>>Nevertheless, clicking on an icon for a drive letter and clicking
>>sharing seems, to me, to be something far easier for most people to
>>digest, remember, and do.
>
>
>but as my mom said, what's an icon?
>(not to mention that the drive letters aren't on the desktop, they're hidden
>in My computer, right?)
Which do you think is more common - someone who knows what an icon is
and can do basic things with it (like right-click in a given area) or
someone who is already familiar with dir, grep, cat, pico, etc.?
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 19:42:31 -0500
On 25 Apr 2000 01:14:02 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
wrote:
>>I've been less than impressed with VNC; I find X-terminals far more
>>impressive and useful.
>
>Are you sure you tried it in the configuration I suggested: vncserver
>with your favorite window manager running on a Linux box, the viewer
>on windows or another Linux box?
Yep. On a 100BaseT Network. It was... "ok", but for some reason I
like X-terminal better.
>If your network is reasonably fast
>it is essentially the same as X at the console. You can tune the
>geometry and color depth down for speed if you want.
Perhaps I just didn't do this. I tried VNC with the Mac being the
client & Linux/x86 as the server, and with NT as the server and
Linux/x86 as the client, and then reversed that, too. Maybe I'll have
to try it again based on your suggestion.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 19:44:19 -0500
On 25 Apr 2000 01:20:35 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>JEDIDIAH <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>On Mon, 24 Apr 2000 21:21:35 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>On Mon, 24 Apr 2000 16:37:56 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>> The vast majority of them will look at you as if you're from another
>>>> planet once you start talking about file sharing. In the end you would
>>>> end up essentially writing a 'visual howto' for them.
>>>
>>>...which is far easier to follow.
>>
>> Actually, that would be a far more individual thing than you
>> acknowledge. No matter how much M$ would like to think of them
>> as such, end users are not borg drones.
>>
>> Besides, a simple list of commands is far less ambiguous and
>> less bulk of information.
>
>Yes, for a real test, try to describe a procedure over the phone
>to someone who has not used a computer before, having them write
>down the directions that they must follow when they get to the
>machine and you can't talk to them anymore. I've been fairly
>successful at this with remote equipment that required typed
>commands. I don't even want to think about it for something
>that uses icons and pointers.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Finding someone who
doesn't know at least a little bit about a GUI nowadays is pretty odd,
but finding people who abhore the CLI is commonplace. I would
anticipate just the reverse of what you've said...
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 19:44:40 -0500
On Tue, 25 Apr 2000 16:09:15 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
wrote:
>>...by expecting a user to right click on a file, click sharing, and
>>then say OK?
>
> Yes, that is UNREASONABLE. That all presumes a level of knowledge
> of the system that a novice CAN'T be expected to have.
>
> Have you ever actually dealt with dufus end users?
Sigh. Used to do it almost daily. :)
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