Linux-Advocacy Digest #89, Volume #27 Wed, 14 Jun 00 22:13:06 EDT
Contents:
Re: Why We Should Be Nice To Windows Users -was- Neologism of the day (JEDIDIAH)
Re: Dealing with filesystem volumes (Alan Baker)
Re: Dealing with filesystem volumes (James Lee)
Re: Boring (david parsons)
Re: Dealing with filesystem volumes (JEDIDIAH)
Re: Try Linux and see for Yourself how much it sucks. ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Linux in the Reject Bin at CompUSA (Terry Porter)
Re: Run Linux on your desktop? Why? I ask for proof, not advocacy lies.... (Terry
Porter)
Re: Linsux as a desktop platform ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,talk.bizarre
Subject: Re: Why We Should Be Nice To Windows Users -was- Neologism of the day
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 01:02:07 GMT
On Wed, 14 Jun 2000 17:08:34 -0700, Alan Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH) wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 14 Jun 2000 15:26:44 -0700, Alan Baker
>><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>>>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH) wrote:
>>>
>>><much additional snippage>
>>>
>>>>>>So what you're saying is that I shouldn't be an absolitist. That I
>>>>>>should
>>>>>>be like
>>>>>>you and think that there is NOTHING a GUI cant do.
>>>>>
>>>>>Apparently you're not interested in real discourse. That is nothing
>>>>>like
>>>>>what I said. I said that making an absolute statement about what GUIs
>>>>>might be able to do in the future is absurd, given the history of
>>>>>computing to date.
>>>>
>>>> No it isn't. If anything has been taught to us by the ACTUAL
>>>> history of computers is that entrenchment is king. People like
>>>> you will forego just about anything new or better just because
>>>> it is different.
>>>
>>>On the contrary, I'll look at everything new that comes along and decide
>>>whether it has value for me. You on the other hand appear so admanant
>>>>that nothing could possibly change about the GUI that would offer you
>>>the benefits that you insist only a CLI can provide that if someone came
>>>along and said they had actually built such a GUI you'd refuse to look.
>>>
>>
>> Yet despite of this, you have to seek out particular special
>> purpose apps to demonstrate the utility of various attempts
>> to hybridize the GUI. IOW, the core GUI is still just as
>> lame as it always has been. You can't even point to replacements
>> for more general purpose parts of the GUI.
>
>I didn't seek them out. I just happened to be using a program that
>illustrates that such hybridizations are possible. And the core GUI is
>so "lame" as you put it that more people are able to do more with
>computers than have ever been able to before. This would simply never
>have happened if CLIs had remained the primary interface.
That never stopped all those people that insisted on buying
DOS based PC's over Macintoshes.
>
>I don't have to point to replacements. My argument -- my only argument
>-- is that anyone willing to state that computers will never be capable
>of something is being more than a little foolish given the history of
>the thing.
There you are just plain wrong. The history of computers shows
stagnation, and in the case of Windows and MacOS an EXTREME
aversion to anything different. The "consistency" mantra is a
rather visible aspect of this. In some cases, GUIs are actually
moving BACKWARDS.
>
>>
>> Stated willingess to choose is a bit hollow in the absense of
>> any choices.
>
>Not at all. I can't be responsible that "the next big thing" hasn't come
>along yet. I don't develop software (let alone GUIs). I was merely
>countering your specious argument that people "like me" (you meant "such
>as" BTW) will forego anything new or different. It just ain't so.
>
>>
>>[deletia]
>>
>> Your counterexamples only support our skepticism.
>
>Apparently so much so that you couldn't actually counter them with
>anything except "[deletia]". Are you saying that the history of
>computers is not littered with people saying things with absolute
>certainty that later turned out to be nonsense? (people with a lot more
>credibility than you and Josiah?
>
>How about (IIRC) the president of IBM: "There isn't a market for more
>than 5 computers in all of the United States"
>
>or the president of Digital Equipment Corporation: "Why anyone would
>want a computer on their desk is beyond me."
>
>Or Bill Gates: "640K out to be enough for anybody."
>
>To which august company I now nominate Josiah Fizer:
>
>"However there is not now nor will there ever be a GUI way to do 'ping
>131.161.50.1 | grep "is alive"' etc."
>
>Do try and remember that this is the rather nonsensical statement that
>started all this.
The fellow is still right.
There might exist a way, given a special purpose tool that someone
just might have had the foresight to construct, to a particular
task. However, the ability for a mere end user to do new and
interesting things with a few basic tools is still sorely lacking
from GUIs.
GUIs as they are now are aimed at simpletons who can't handle minor
cosmetic changes, nevermind arcana like regular expressions. An
interface that can replace the command shells will also require end
users to actually think. Most end users simply aren't interested
and most gui developers aren't either.
That tends to limit the 'mainstream' GUIs considerably and will do
so into the foreseeable future.
--
|||
/ | \
Need sane PPP docs? Try penguin.lvcm.com.
------------------------------
From: Alan Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Dealing with filesystem volumes
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 18:08:37 -0700
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH) wrote:
>On Wed, 14 Jun 2000 17:19:45 -0700, Alan Baker
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH) wrote:
>>
>>>On Wed, 14 Jun 2000 18:42:10 -0400, Colin R. Day <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>wrote:
>>>>JEDIDIAH wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, 14 Jun 2000 14:43:03 +1000, Christopher Smith
>>>>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>>> >
>>>>> >"Colin R. Day" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>>>>> >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>>>>> >> "Lawrence DčOliveiro" wrote:
>>>>> [deletia]
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> And why would you copy files to an unmounted mount point?
>>>>> >
>>>>> >Because you *thought* it was mounted.
>>>>>
>>>>> In which case you should get a permissions error.
>>>>
>>>>Not in all cases. It just might copy.
>>>
>>>jedi@dementia /tmp >cp *txt /cdrom
>>>cp: cannot create regular file `/cdrom/LICENCE.txt': Permission denied
>>
>>
>>There's that bravery again (or was it foolishness, I forget <G>)
>>claiming that because it doesn't happen for you it can't happen for
>>anybody.
>
> It's a pretty mundane configuration actually.
Mundane or not, your entire refutation boils down to: "It doesn't happen
to me, therefore it doesn't happen".
>
>>
>>On that basis, I now claim the Mac OS to be stable because my machine
>>hasn't crashed in the past 3 weeks. Or perhaps you begin to see the
>>fallacy in such thinking...
>>
>
> Then find us an example of a distro or a commercial linux
> variant that sets it up such that what you would like to
> have happen does.
Sorry. Not my thing. Others have already pointed out that it can
happen. You made the ridiculous claim (that it doesn't happen since it
doesn't happen on your system at this moment), you back it up.
--
Alan Baker
Vancouver, British Columbia
"If you raise the ceiling four feet, move the fireplace from that wall to that
wall, you'll still only get the full stereophonic effect if you sit in the
bottom of that cupboard."
------------------------------
From: James Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Dealing with filesystem volumes
Date: 15 Jun 2000 01:12:21 GMT
In comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy Alan Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Picture it:
> You save some files to /usr/yourfiles not even knowing that /usr is a
> mount point that happens not to be available (hey, this is a machine
> used by everybody. Who knows what happens when you're not at it.) So the
> files are put into a directory which the next time you sit down is
> hidden by the now-mounted volume.
normal users cannot write to such directories!
not even /mnt.
unless you had root creating directories all world writable.
> "Where are my files" you cry?
same thing as when I save files under windows, and then I had to go and
find exactly where it is. For example, I use a windows machine in the
lab, and people create all sorts of links. But guess what. I like mine
to be under c:\users\<myname>. It took me a while to figure out where
exactly were the files I created and move it.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (david parsons)
Subject: Re: Boring
Date: 14 Jun 2000 17:27:09 -0700
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Nope, I deal with more Fortune 100 customers in a day than most
>yo-yo's in this forum deal with in their entire lifetime.
Okay. Names and references, please.
____
david parsons \bi/ Why, the crowned head of Europe come to Me! Me! Me! for
\/ their Linux needs.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Dealing with filesystem volumes
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 01:18:24 GMT
On Wed, 14 Jun 2000 18:08:37 -0700, Alan Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH) wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 14 Jun 2000 17:19:45 -0700, Alan Baker
>><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>>>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH) wrote:
>>>
>>>>On Wed, 14 Jun 2000 18:42:10 -0400, Colin R. Day <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>>wrote:
>>>>>JEDIDIAH wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, 14 Jun 2000 14:43:03 +1000, Christopher Smith
>>>>>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >"Colin R. Day" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>>>>>> >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>>>>>> >> "Lawrence DčOliveiro" wrote:
>>>>>> [deletia]
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> And why would you copy files to an unmounted mount point?
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >Because you *thought* it was mounted.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In which case you should get a permissions error.
>>>>>
>>>>>Not in all cases. It just might copy.
>>>>
>>>>jedi@dementia /tmp >cp *txt /cdrom
>>>>cp: cannot create regular file `/cdrom/LICENCE.txt': Permission denied
>>>
>>>
>>>There's that bravery again (or was it foolishness, I forget <G>)
>>>claiming that because it doesn't happen for you it can't happen for
>>>anybody.
>>
>> It's a pretty mundane configuration actually.
>
>Mundane or not, your entire refutation boils down to: "It doesn't happen
>to me, therefore it doesn't happen".
No, it's more like: it doesn't happen under the conditions under
which a Unix would typically configured.
>
>>
>>>
>>>On that basis, I now claim the Mac OS to be stable because my machine
>>>hasn't crashed in the past 3 weeks. Or perhaps you begin to see the
>>>fallacy in such thinking...
>>>
>>
>> Then find us an example of a distro or a commercial linux
>> variant that sets it up such that what you would like to
>> have happen does.
>
>Sorry. Not my thing. Others have already pointed out that it can
Then you're simply talking you your ass.
>happen. You made the ridiculous claim (that it doesn't happen since it
>doesn't happen on your system at this moment), you back it up.
You far too ignorant, and far too unwilling to educate yourself
to make any claims of that sort.
--
|||
/ | \
Need sane PPP docs? Try penguin.lvcm.com.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Try Linux and see for Yourself how much it sucks.
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 01:21:05 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> http://www.cheapbytes.com at $1.99 will get you started.
Or you can pay full retail for Caldera like I've done for the last three
releases, and it's still less expensive than a single Win9x upgrade.
> Make certain you back up everything first though because Linux like
> the VIRUS it is tries to take over your system.
> It WILL erase your data.......
Sadly, my Windows partition is still intact and bootable. Did I do
something wrong? Is there a hidden option like "fuckwindoze=yes"?
> Let us know how you fair..........
I've "fared" fairly well, thank you. And you need a grammar checker.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Terry Porter)
Subject: Re: Linux in the Reject Bin at CompUSA
Reply-To: No-Spam
Date: 15 Jun 2000 09:31:33 +0800
On Wed, 14 Jun 2000 14:17:12 -0400,
Alan Pilcher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Thu, 08 Jun 2000 00:01:20 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>>Yep, just visited the local CompUSA here and found
>>Redhat/SuSE and the various Linux PowerPacks in
>>the reject bin selling for $20.00 or less (mostly
>>$9.99).
>
>Interesting. Compare with my experience at CompUSA on Saturday, 10
>June 2000.
5 days ago!
> This was the store in Duluth, Georgia. I roamed the store
>looking for Linux and the Windows 2000 Upgrade. I couldn't find W2000
>AT ALL but sure found Linux.
<snip>
>Win2000 Upgrade and plopped it on the counter. I decided not to buy
>after learning the price.
What was it Alan, want to tell us $?
> Went back and bought Mandrake 7.0 Deluxe,
>my first foray into the Linux world.
Great, my first foray into Linux was in 1997, and I've since sold the Win95
CD I had, and never looked back.
>
>I don't know how you square the very different pictures presented by
>the original poster and myself. I'd suggest that the original
>poster's great leap to a negative conclusion after visiting only one
>CompUSA store was probably wish fulfillment on his part.
He's "Steve/Heather/Keys88" etc, a liar, and a anonynous poster, hes been doing
this kind of stuff for the last 2 years, here on COLA.
That poster was a Wintroll, nothing else.
>
>Happy Trails,
>Alan Pilcher
--
Kind Regards
Terry
--
**** To reach me, use [EMAIL PROTECTED] ****
My Desktop is powered by GNU/Linux, and has been
up 1 day 14 hours 53 minutes
** Registration Number: 103931, http://counter.li.org **
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Terry Porter)
Subject: Re: Run Linux on your desktop? Why? I ask for proof, not advocacy lies....
Reply-To: No-Spam
Date: 15 Jun 2000 09:41:01 +0800
On 14 Jun 2000 15:00:09 GMT, Mark S. Bilk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>In article <8i6j1b$m23$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>David Steinberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>: Talk to Earthlink, Worldnet, FreeWeb, AOL, Compuserv and see what they
>>: think of Linux.
>>
>>Just out of curiousity, Steve, do you have accounts on ALL of those ISP's
>>with which to troll this newsgroup?
>There are only a couple dozen people on the entire Net who are
>pissed off about Linux, and Steve/Mike is most of them.
>
>
Hahahahahaha
So well put, Mark!
Kind Regards
Terry
--
**** To reach me, use [EMAIL PROTECTED] ****
My Desktop is powered by GNU/Linux, and has been
up 1 day 14 hours 53 minutes
** Registration Number: 103931, http://counter.li.org **
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linsux as a desktop platform
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 22:54:49 GMT
That's what helpdesks were invented for....
Every company worht it's salt has one, contracted out or not....
On Wed, 14 Jun 2000 22:35:39 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
wrote:
>On Wed, 14 Jun 2000 22:25:00 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>wrote:
>>Point is you cannot provide even one valid reaon for someone to
>>abandon Windows and switch to Linux.
>
> Remote admin would be an excellent one. There are many Windows
> users that can't fend for themselves DESPITE all the hype. Unix
> can be efficiently and effectively remotely admined from a 2400bps
> serial connection, allowing relatives in other states to sort out
> any scary details for you.
>
>[deletia]
------------------------------
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