Linux-Advocacy Digest #361, Volume #26 Thu, 4 May 00 10:13:07 EDT
Contents:
Re: Linux NFS is buggy (Bart Oldeman)
Re: UI Standards (was Re: KDE is better than Gnome) (Donal K. Fellows)
RE: Do us a favor and leave. (Was dreamers) ("Alberto Trillo")
RE: What will the restructuring of MS bring to the Open Source Community? ("Alberto
Trillo")
Re: at the risk of ignorance...a little too late for that (David Damerell)
Re: "Technical" vs. "Non-technical"... (was Re: Grasping perspective...) (Donal K.
Fellows)
Re: Dvorak calls Microsoft on 'innovation' (Geoff Lane)
Re: Government to break up Microsoft ("Otto")
Re: Essential software list ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: QB 4.5 in Win 2000 ("Tom Lake")
Re: Dvorak calls Microsoft on 'innovation' ("Nils stuart")
Re: Who is "S"?? (2:1)
Re: Which Flavour Is Best? (bytes256)
Re: QB 4.5 in Win 2000 (Arclight)
Re: X Windows must DIE!!! (bytes256)
Re: The Dream World of Linux Zealots ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Applix 5.0 it's getting better! (Matthias Warkus)
Re: Government to break up Microsoft ("Luke Webber")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bart Oldeman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux NFS is buggy
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 09:45:05 GMT
On Thu, 4 May 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> All you said was about NFS as a whole, not LINUX NFS! Please read the
> SUBJECT OF THE POST! I understand that NFS4 Will be made available for
> Linux as soon as it is released by Sun. BTW, I said that NFS did every
> thing *WE* needed to have done! Please don't tell me *I* am wrong with
> out knowing the NEEDS that were met!
> > > BTH, NFS does all we need mounting Linux to Unix or Unix to Linux.
> > Um, not really. If you have root on all the boxes involved it's OK,
> but in
>
>
> I said it met OUR NEEDS how can you say "Not really" when you DO NOT
> KNOW what *OUR* Needs are????
You don't have to shout at me. If you mean with "we" "the group I am
working in", of course I cannot say it doesn't work for _you_. But
"we" can also refer to the world as a whole. In an article or book it
frequently reads as "the reader and I".
Such as, "In Linux, we have plenty of command shells".
So don't take my comment personally, but generally. And indeed it's about
NFS in general, which includes Linux NFS.
Bart
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donal K. Fellows)
Crossposted-To: comp.windows.x.kde,tw.bbs.comp.linux
Subject: Re: UI Standards (was Re: KDE is better than Gnome)
Date: 4 May 2000 10:29:30 GMT
David Steuber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Speaking of UI standards, how would you (or anyone else) improve on
> IBM's CUA guide? There is an expectation of things being in certain
> places, particularly by Windows users. Users expect a menu bar. They
> expect menu items to be laid out in a certain fashion. Tool bars just
> provide graphical short cuts and take up space, but they look nice and
> have become expected. Status bars are often useful also.
>
> What makes a UI standard a good one?
Have you read _About Face_ yet? If not, do so as it is a most
informative book that is highly relevant to your questions. It
is also rather more than I care to summarize here...
Donal.
--
Donal K. Fellows http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~fellowsd/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- I may seem more arrogant, but I think that's just because you didn't
realize how arrogant I was before. :^)
-- Jeffrey Hobbs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
------------------------------
From: "Alberto Trillo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Do us a favor and leave. (Was dreamers)
Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 10:35:33 GMT
> 'Scenarios' such as this get resolved all the time (even in here)
> when not framed in a belligerent manner. Some of the responses
> have even been more patient than this troll deserves.
Hohoho.
------------------------------
From: "Alberto Trillo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: What will the restructuring of MS bring to the Open Source Community?
Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 10:35:33 GMT
Just two or more companies to blame about :-)
------------------------------
From: David Damerell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: rec.games.roguelike.nethack
Subject: Re: at the risk of ignorance...a little too late for that
Date: 04 May 2000 11:52:38 +0100 (BST)
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Karl Knechtel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> David Steinberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> spewed this unto the Network:
>>>There is a simple security reason for it.
>>>Say some nasty person manages to put a shell script like this
>>>#!/bin/sh
>>>rm -rf *
>>>in your home directory, calls it "ls," and makes it executible. The first
>Yes, but I was talking about this in the context of a single-user system.
Then add ./ to your PATH. UNIX offers you a choice. What's your problem
with that?
>*** additional random text to comply with Netscrape's inane quoted-length vs.
>contributed-length bickering - sorry folks, I'll be using rtin again as soon as
Alternatively, you could realise that that bickering is there to prevent
you from looking like a fool, and at least excise blank lines in the
quoted text.
--
David/Kirsty Damerell. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
| |I hear the fan of a big machine, Two days, I'm in between, break; | |
|---|lost, code fall through, Loop forever then process kill. Hermes is|---|
| | |broken and lyra's down, lyra's down. "Chimaera, my Nameserver"| | |
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donal K. Fellows)
Subject: Re: "Technical" vs. "Non-technical"... (was Re: Grasping perspective...)
Date: 4 May 2000 10:48:36 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Perry Pip <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Let's say you are asynchronously waiting on 100 descriptors, i.e. you have
> 100 async i/o calls outstanding. When one becomes ready, you want to
> process it and then make a new async i/o call on it.
>
> If the library uses 100 threads, each one waiting on a single i/o
> operation (read(), write(), etc.) then they are all sleeping. [...]
>
> Now lets say the library uses one thread, waiting on the poll()
> call. [...]
The problem with using a hundred threads as opposed to a single thread
is that every thread has to have its own stack, and you are doing very
well in most practical situations if you can guarantee that each
thread will only need a single page for its stack. In contrast, the
single threaded scheme will have a single stack and will therefore
have much lower memory overhead. Plus, it will have better
locality-of-reference properties and so will be able to run faster.
FYI, high-end server software tends to only spawn as many threads as
there are processors available. More is usually counter-productive as
the additional costs bite harder than any increase in performance.
(Not too many people have hundred-node multiprocessor machines,
Beowulf notwithstanding!)
Donal.
--
Donal K. Fellows http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~fellowsd/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- I may seem more arrogant, but I think that's just because you didn't
realize how arrogant I was before. :^)
-- Jeffrey Hobbs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Geoff Lane)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.lang.java.advocacy
Subject: Re: Dvorak calls Microsoft on 'innovation'
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 12:03:07 +0100
In article <oh1Q4.4292$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> So, a hard and fast question: Where is the MS innovation?
> Have you looked at Microsofts 1,227 Patents? By definition, a patent is an
> innovation is it not?
you would think so, but the us patent office is clueless.
--
/\ Geoff. Lane. /\ Manchester Computing /\ Manchester /\ M13 9PL /\ England /\
Badgers?, Badgers? We don't need no stinking Badgers! - Raoul in UHF
------------------------------
From: "Otto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Government to break up Microsoft
Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 11:37:01 GMT
"JEDIDIAH" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Microsoft can't take the credit for that. This again is something
> where all the 3rd parties are doing the work. Individual ISPs make
> it easy for WinDOS users to connect to their service.
And just how did the ISPs do that? Did they develop the "three click" system
on their own and then gave it to Microsoft? Doubtful to say the least. Prior
to any modem connection to the ISPs the OS needs to setup and initialize the
modem. Microsoft did make these steps easy on their own, without the help of
the ISPs. Windows user's don't need to read "Sane PPP documents" to use a
modem. On the Linux side Caldera's 2.4 version, AFAIK the only one, does the
same as Windows. It correctly detects and sets up the US Robotics modem. To
make the connection to the web, enter the phone number and user's info and
off it goes. No need for editing cumbersome config files. 5 years after
Windows95, but nonetheless working just fine.
Otto
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Essential software list
Date: 4 May 2000 10:54:17 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Daniel O'Nolan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
:http://www.freshmeat.org is an EXCELLENT place for linux files. It's about
:equivilent to http://www.winfiles.com
That would be: http://www.freshmeat.net
--
Rick Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.rmkhome.com
------------------------------
From: "Tom Lake" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.lang.basic,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: QB 4.5 in Win 2000
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 08:05:03 -0400
> of BASIC from the '80s). Where is he going to get a new compiler for
> the software conde he has? Visual Basic is so far from what he worked
> with that it is silly to contemplate for some. His costs have just
> gone up drastically just to keep up with the new hardware and software
> that is now mandatory.
That's what happens when you don't keep up with changes! If he had made
incremental changes as newer versions of the compilers were introduced, he
wouldn't be in this fix today. It's Darwinism in its purest form! Those
that can adapt to change will survive. Those that can't, become extinct.
Tom L
------------------------------
From: "Nils stuart" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.lang.java.advocacy
Subject: Re: Dvorak calls Microsoft on 'innovation'
Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 12:18:33 GMT
mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
</snip>
> No, I think we should brake them up, inhibit Microsoft's ability to
> bundle MS-Office with Windows, legally force MS-Office to be de-coupled
> from the Microsoft Windows undocumented API set, and let truly
> innovative packages be sold. If Microsoft can actually do something that
> people would want to buy, then they will go out and buy it. As it is
> now, it is still practically impossible to buy a name brand P.C. without
> Windows.
>
Please give me an example of an Undocumented API call
Not superseeded , not unsupported like anything in ICMP.DLL (microsoft
clearly states icmp.dll is nolonger supported)
I.E. calling the net32api with info structure 1003 doesn't count as the
lanmanager functions and structures are documented as superceded
Also exclude poorly doumented or incorrectly documented (like the original
writeprivateprofilestring from win3.1 )
Sources for documentation ..... all SDK's and DDK's published since 1982 and
the online knowledge base
or anything a professional developer is likely tho have (like MSDN level 3
and tech net)
I will give on Andre Shulman's undocumented stuff especially in the
generation of psp's.... but that documentation did exist if you knew where
to find it. (in the OS2/ DDK from 1988 and IBM's DDK for the PS/2)
Take a deep breath and contrast that to the horrific man pages for linux or
anything apple produces for developers
Not the same level as OS400 doc's or Sun's SDK but available at a fraction
of the price (2190 /year with a liscense for most of the important buisness
SW from microsoft)
Nils Stuart
CTO
Y2homes.com
------------------------------
From: 2:1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Who is "S"??
Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 13:36:56 +0100
The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
> and generally being super-stupid-ignorant and a Microsoft cheerleader,
> in the worst sort of way (he'd severely embarrass most of the current
> Winvocates, IMO). I doubt he'd even know how to write a decent
> Basic program (never mind C, C++, Java, Tcl/Tk, Eiffel, or Smalltalk).
> Even LOGO might have been too hard for him :-).
> Of course, LOGO might be too hard for me, since I've never used it. :-)
> It's supposed to be a language to move a "turtle" around a bitmap
> screen to draw things;
Not necessarily --- Its inherently a vector language, although it was
usually done on a bitmap screen. One in junior school, a teacher wheeled
out a round thing with wheels on. It lookes very modern and extermely
impressive. Anyway, we plugged it in to the computer and LOGO got it to
draw shapes. That is the only time I saw LOGO not working on a bitmapped
display.
> I don't know the details of the syntax,
> though -- although it can't be horribly difficult for someone who
> knows C++ intimately, Java quite well, Fortran, COBOL, various assemblers,
Things like
FD 100
RT 90
FD 100
RT 90
BK 50
To draw:
__|
|
|
A
(A is the starting posn of the turtle) You just give it commands like
forward, backwards, turn. There is some provision vor variables, but I
don't know about loops. (I last used it in earnest when I was 11 (on a
BBC) I still have a BBC with it on, but I don't use it anymore, tho I
recently installed a Linux version:-)
> But enough of my resume. :-) In any event, the other posters of
> this newsgroup probably all plonked S as soon as it became apparent
> that he had half the brains of a squished mosquito. (I'm not
> sure about the other half.)
The said mosquito's arse?
-Ed
--
Did you know that the highest point in the world is only eight foot?
-The Hackenthorpe Book Of Lies
------------------------------
From: bytes256 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Which Flavour Is Best?
Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 13:11:57 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> It was the Sun, 30 Apr 2000 12:47:16 GMT...
> ...and Edward <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > Does anybody have a preference which flavour of Linux is best for a
newbie
> > to use?
> >
> > I hear the flavours from Caldera and Red Hat are the best to learn
on and
> > from.
>
> I have read very positive reviews about the latest Caldera, the latest
> Mandrake and the latest easyLinux. If you don't want a KDE-only
> distribution, you should try Red Hat, though, which isn't at all bad
> either.
>
> mawa
> --
> ps. If the technical bits confused you, feel free to ask a few
> questions and I will type a little slower for you
> -- just drieux, Andrew Hampe
>
I personnally recommend Mandrake. It's based on Red Hat, so it's fully
Red Hat compatible(for what that is good for) and it's almost always a
heluva lot cheaper than Red Hat and Caldera. (Don't spend alot on a
distro, when Linux is constantly changing. Some packages of Red Hat
cost over $150!)
I'm personally using Mandrake 6.2 and i love it. It comes with a great
set of manuals. Plus you get to choose between KDE, Gnome, and X-
Windows GUIs.
Hope this helps!
--
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll. -Led Zeppelin
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Arclight)
Crossposted-To: alt.lang.basic,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: QB 4.5 in Win 2000
Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 13:20:23 GMT
On 03 May 2000 21:43:10 -0600, Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Arclight) writes:
>
>> On 03 May 2000 10:56:02 -0600, Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Arclight) writes:
>> >
>> >> On Tue, 2 May 2000 18:26:50 -0700, "Bob May" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> >> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >Go buy a new copy of Word for Windows 1.0.
>> >> >Go buy a new copy of Visual Basic 2.0
>> >> >YOU CAN'T!!!!! All you can buy is the newer versions of the programs
>> >> >which also cost a lot more than the earlier versions.
>> >>
>> >> So? what's wrong with that?
>> >
>> >We run Office97.
>> >
>> >How do we buy new copies for the new machines (which aren't just
>> >replacing the old ones).
>>
>> You can still buy Office 97 from lots of places.
>>
>> >Either we all have to upgrade to Office2000, or the new machines go
>> >without...
>>
>> or you could just look in the computer press for somewhere that sells
>> Office 97.
>
>And in 2001, or 2002?
well you can still buy office 95 from some places, so I think it'd be
pretty safe to say that you will probably be able to buy office 97 in
2002,
>That doesn't solve the problem.
But why should you force microsoft to sell outdated products just to
support the few people who might want them?
anyway what's stopping you using office 2000 on some of the computers
and 97 on others?
TTFN
Arclight
Web Site:
http://www.daniel-davies.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
------------------------------
From: bytes256 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.x
Subject: Re: X Windows must DIE!!!
Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 13:17:03 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> It was the Mon, 01 May 2000 16:37:32 GMT...
> ...and Marty Dippel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Yeah- let's throw out X and rewrite it. And NFS. And the
filesystem(s).
> > And PGP. And SSH. And the printing system. And the man pages.
> > They all suck. Let's re-write it all, not document any of it, and
proclaim
> > it all to be the new "standard". And then we can all wink
knowingly at each
> > other, convinced that we've done something useful by creating a
much cooler
> > *nix than any of the other *nixes. And *our* stuff won't suck at
all, 'cause
> > we're so much smarter than the unimaginative twits that wrote the
originals!
>
> If you strike "not document any", this sounds like the stance of the
> VMS developers -- or the Windows developers, for that matter :)
>
> mawa
> --
> But when she was with Chacko, old limits were pushed back. Horizons
> expanded. She had never before met a man who spoke of the world [...]
> in the way other men she knew discussed [...] their weekends at the
> beach. -- Arundhati Roy, _The_God_of_Small_Things_
>
My point is quite simply put: XWindows does not best meet the needs of
the average Linux user. It is far more complicated than necessary.
And then it leaves out important functionality that people want.
(Standardized controls, High performance, easy installation, etc.)
Don't shoot the messenger...revolutions have to start somewhere.
--
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll. -Led Zeppelin
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: The Dream World of Linux Zealots
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 13:40:58 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH) writes:
>On Tue, 02 May 2000 09:19:09 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>wrote:
>>OK, here is another question: Why didn't Win98 include the "find computer"
>>program when it installed on my laptop? It's a real pain --- instead of
> ???
> You can put the IP of your Linux Samba server in lmhosts if you
> really need to. You should be able to browse a Linux samba share
> under '98.
I also didn't get a "network neighbourhood", or anything else related to
sharing resources. I'd love to know why (and would love even more to know
how to overcome the problem), but quite frankly, I am stumped.
>>simply copying back and forth from the Samba exported filesystems of my
>>linux boxes, I have to use the (sickening) ftp client or put the files
>>up on my linux box's http server, and use IE to download them.
> ...samba.org has a really nice troubleshooting guide.
Oh, the problem isn't on the Samba side. I have set up several machines
to share my resources. But this machine doesn't have anything on it that
would allow me to even start. No idea *why*, though.
Bernie
--
Dream as if you'll live forever...live as if you'll die today.
James Dean
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matthias Warkus)
Subject: Re: Applix 5.0 it's getting better!
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 22:42:33 +0200
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
It was the Wed, 3 May 2000 22:25:14 +0200...
...and Mig Mig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Matthias Warkus wrote:
> > It was the Tue, 2 May 2000 21:59:33 +0200...
> > > Probably KDE at the moment has less than 1/3 of the developers of Gnome..
> >
> > Very improbable, considering they had about four times as much as
> > GNOME in mid-1999.
>
> Are you sure of this. I read somewhere last autumn that there were about
> 200 Gnome vs around 50-60 KDE developers working on the core libraries.
> The volume of posts in the gnome and kde lists also indicate that there are
> more developers (or rather more posters) working on Gnome.
An interesting perspective. A core team member told me at LinuxTag
1999 that there were about 1000 people with CVS write access to the
KDE source trees. At the same time, GNOME had slightly more than 250.
Maybe GNOME has got a drastically higher percentage of core
developers. But I don't really believe that. Anyway, the situation
today is more than a bit different because we've got at least three
commercial shops banging on GPLed GNOME code 25 hours a day as it
seems, looking at the logs. Thus, development on things such as the
future core components Bonobo, GNOME-VFS and GtkHTML is advancing very
rapidly.
BTW, we're going to release a new stable version of GNOME soon (1.2).
This'll be kind of an interim release before the
all-brand-spanking-new GNOME 2.0 platform has its rollout in the 3rd
or 4th quarter.
> > > that could and will probably change very quick once Kylix is out.
> >
> > Is Kylix KDE-specific? Eeeek...! Evil.
>
> Nah.. but it will use Qt as the /(one of ?) toolkit.
Hopefully it'll have a GTK+ backend, too.
mawa
--
Vollrauschverweigerer!
Videobandsortierer!
Vorbohrer!
Wärmflaschenfüller!
------------------------------
From: "Luke Webber" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Government to break up Microsoft
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 23:46:28 +1000
Otto wrote in message ...
>And just how did the ISPs do that? Did they develop the "three click"
system
>on their own and then gave it to Microsoft? Doubtful to say the least.
Prior
>to any modem connection to the ISPs the OS needs to setup and initialize
the
>modem. Microsoft did make these steps easy on their own, without the help
of
>the ISPs. Windows user's don't need to read "Sane PPP documents" to use a
>modem. On the Linux side Caldera's 2.4 version, AFAIK the only one, does
the
>same as Windows. It correctly detects and sets up the US Robotics modem. To
>make the connection to the web, enter the phone number and user's info and
>off it goes. No need for editing cumbersome config files. 5 years after
>Windows95, but nonetheless working just fine.
Give over Otto. Trumpet Winsock was almost as simple as Microsoft's present
PPP dialler and how long ago did that come out? Then, M$ bought the first
versions of their dialler from Shiva. Innovative maybe, but not an
innovation you can chalk up to M$. Sorry.
Luke
------------------------------
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