Linux-Advocacy Digest #225, Volume #27 Wed, 21 Jun 00 07:13:04 EDT
Contents:
Re: Linsux as a desktop platform (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Paul_'Z'_Ewande=A9?=)
Re: Linux is awesome! (david parsons)
Re: I've got reiserfs. Drestin, now bash Linux. ("Ferdinand V. Mendoza")
Re: Linsux as a desktop platform (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Paul_'Z'_Ewande=A9?=)
Re: Claims of Windows supporting old applications are reflecting reality or fantasy?
(John Wiltshire)
Re: 486 Linux setup, 250 meg HD, which distro ??? (2:1)
Re: I had a reality check today :( (WhyteWolf)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Paul_'Z'_Ewande=A9?= <[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, 21 Jun 2000 12:10:17 +0200
"Aaron Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a écrit dans le message news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<SNIP> Some stuff </SNIP>
> > You launch apps and save your work the same way on the "clunky OS" or on
the
> > oh-so great MacOS.
> >
> > Paul 'Z' Ewande
>
>
> That must be why there's a cottage industry selling all kinds of
> "How to use LoseDows" videotapes.
Never seen one. Must be the "creative" naming.
> Intuitive, my ass.
If I'm not mistaken, there are books about using the MacOS. What does that
tell you ?
How is it different between the MacOS and Windows, opening an app, working
on it, saving your work, and shutting down the computer. AFAICT you click on
icons and
menus. Must be the fonts or the color themes I guess that make all the
difference.
> --
> Aaron R. Kulkis
Paul 'Z' Ewande
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (david parsons)
Subject: Re: Linux is awesome!
Date: 21 Jun 2000 02:17:26 -0700
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Linux sucks Mark and you know it. The only reason you support it is
>because it fits into the cult like left wing, screw the establishment
No, that would be the right wing, which has pretty handily co-opted
any ``screw the establishment'' rhetoric that the left wing used to
use (and they do it better, because conservatives are better at
deceit that lefties.) There are probably a few lefties in the Linux
developer base (RMS is a pretty good example of a fluff-headed
stalinist, but he doesn't like Linux because it has an independent
existance from the FSF borg) but they are WAY outnumbered by the
libertoonians who keep piling up like particularly noxious drifts
of mayflies everywhere you look.
____
david parsons \bi/ it wouldn't be so bad except the libertoonians
\/ keep trying to saw off their heads and hand them
to Microsoft on silver platters.
------------------------------
From: "Ferdinand V. Mendoza" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: I've got reiserfs. Drestin, now bash Linux.
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 14:35:36 +0400
Terry Porter wrote:
>
>
> Another Linux first. Perhaps dressed in black should sit down and try
> and rest, all that anger is bad for your heart you know ?
>
>
Ha-ha-hahahaha! indeed, Terry. It just simply means that the
Linuxcommunity can reciprocate in so short period of time with a quality
piece
of software. And I, sometimes, like to be angry. On the contrary, it
enlarges my heart and a good exercise once you have release it.
Ferdinand
------------------------------
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Paul_'Z'_Ewande=A9?= <[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, 21 Jun 2000 12:32:44 +0200
"Aaron Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a écrit dans le message news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<SNIP> Some stuff </SNIP>
> > You claimed that users didn't need to learn Windows. Just how are they
> > supposed to do the things you listed if they don't learn Windows?
>
> He's just demonstrating the usual stupidity of the typical LoseDows
> advocate.
Reading comprehension problems ? I said :"End users have no need "to futz
around trying to learn the clunkyOS", there are trained/experienced people
for that."
All they have to learn is how to click on icons and menus. You don't have to
futz around trying to learn the clnuky OS and spend thousands of hours doing
that. Or you'll have to spend a similar amount of time on the Mac, or you'll
have to show me how they are different.
BTW, one liners about people stupidity [insults means you have no real
argument, I'll gladly take victory on that one, thank you very much] laced
with "creative" naming is much more effective if you trim unadressed text.
But then again who am I to talk, I'm a stupid "LoseDoze" advocate, you are
the high and mighty UNIX admin.
> --
> Aaron R. Kulkis
Paul 'Z' Ewande
------------------------------
From: John Wiltshire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Claims of Windows supporting old applications are reflecting reality or
fantasy?
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 10:39:05 GMT
On Tue, 20 Jun 2000 13:40:18 -0700, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>John Wiltshire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> On Mon, 19 Jun 2000 23:52:01 -0700, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >John Wiltshire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>> >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> >> On Sun, 18 Jun 2000 09:23:28 -0700, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >>
>> >
>> >Legal bases as well, the varations of the promised user interfaces was a
>> >result of the not knowing what would happen in court in their case agains
>> >Apple.
>>
>> Makes sense.
>>
>
>Except that their promised user interfaces faded away as soon as the legal
>battle with Apple ended. However, theend of the legal battle did not
>invalidate or negate the reasons that they had publicly stated for the need
>for the user interfaces.
Given that Windows 3.x was the major OS by the time NT was released
and other UIs were probably not going to increase the sales of the
product where was the financial incentive to develop these UIs?
>> You deny that drivers have value in their source. Your proposal
>> offers to strip hardware companies of the thousands of dollars
>> invested in a driver that gives their product an advantage over the
>> competition. Compare the nVidia GeForce to the S3 Savage2000. Chips
>> are about the same power. Drivers excelled on the GeForce and sucked
>> on the S2000. Why should (as you propose) nVidia give up this
>> enormous commercial advantage?
>>
>> The simple fact is your proposal does not hold water when you consider
>> the value which is contained in the driver. See my response elsewhere
>> in the NG for more.
>
>I deny nothing about the "value" of today's drivers. I also don't say that
>all drivers should be offered as open source. The choice is up to the
>manufacter. However, in the long run the hardware manufacters that would be
>better off are those that release the specs for the use of the devices
>and/or an open source reference driver. The money they save by not having
>to maintain version after version of their drivers and the additional sales
>to users of OS's and archtictures that they would not have otherwise
>provided drivers for.
>
>For a new NIC, the manufacturer should provide a packet driver and perhaps
>drivers for a few other popular driver formats. If those drivers are then
>release as open source, the manufacturer is then all set to crank out their
>hardware product and forget all about the driver side of the problem. No
>need for the manufacturer to give any more thought and apply any more
>resources to the drivers for that device, unless they would like to.
>
>For drivers that contain algorithms that can make piece of hardware a winner
>over its competitors and semihardware like winmodems and winprinters, is
>stupidity incarnate. The more of the hardware device is implemented in
>silicon the better it iis for the user and for the maufacturer. Key
>features of a hardware device implemented in silicon would make it more
>difficult for the competition to copy. The more work that is offloaded from
>the processor the better. Whatever is considered too sensitive in the
>driver to be release as source code, should be embeded into the hardware
>itself. If the hardware device must have access to a processor then a
>processor should be embeded into the device. If you need to upgrade the
>device personality by downloading software to the card this could be done by
>using a EEPROM or a similar device.
>
>A driver should have no more code than is need to handle the passing data to
>and from the device or where needed to control the behavior of the device.
>Consider a total bare bones hardware device, it would need two I/O ports.
>Port one when read from gets data from the device, port one when written to
>gives data to the device. Port two when read from gets the status
>information of the device, port two when written to send control information
>to the device, perhaps including the computer's willingness to recieve data.
>How much interal secrets would this give away.
The whole reason winmodems, winprinters and other devices were so
successful is hardware costs you money for every item you produce
while software is a fixed cost. Adding a extra macrocells, or even
VLSI layers to hardware devices can lead to the commercial success or
failure of a product. The assertion that all functionality should be
in hardware is where thinking was in the 1970s. Since then most
hardware companies have realized the value of sharing the design and
development load between hardware and software.
So, your statement that "The more of the hardware device is
implemented in silicon the better it is for the user and for the
manufacturer" (which is pretty much the key to your argument) is
false. This is bad for the manufacturer because:
i) Hardware is more difficult to fix defects than software.
ii) Hardware costs per unit shipped, Software costs once.
iii) Hardware is a very restrictive medium, software much less so.
iv) VLSI designers are much more expensive than programmers.
v) The four previous points means you don't sell as many units than a
competitor because your unit costs more.
This is bad for the users simply because it makes them pay more for
the say thing.
By your argument, we should be using chips that natively run Linux
instead of chips that run the IA-32 instruction set. Each time the
kernel is upgraded we should throw out our machines and get new ones
that implement the next version in hardware.
>You not able to publicly support this point of view, since your company
>makes money by selling hardware and software development including drivers.
>You would still be making money if drivers were open source or the specs of
>the hardware were freely distributed; however, you feel that you would loose
>one of your major markets. It would be against your vested interest to
>support what I have been suggesting. So I will excuse your comments
>generated by your narrow view of a much broader subject.
Don't bother. My company is my wife and I. I can do and say what I
like. Most of my work is Win32 development, though I keep thinking
about fixing the ntfs driver for Linux so I don't need an ext2 or swap
partition on my home machine. One day I'll get to it.
>Linux and opensource sure does frighten you, I got a good laugh out of your
>anti-Linux biased comparison "Linux: An NT Point of View" on the website of
>your firm. Widen your view and you will see how it could work for you
>instead of threaten you.
Which points don't you like and what is biased? I really tried to
make it unbiased.
If I felt threatened by it, why have I replaced a couple of my NT
boxes with Linux where it suited?
>> Sometimes there may be value in not giving the product away? What if
>> a company stands to lose by giving a product away, but simply not gain
>> by trashing it? You fail to consider issues of technical support,
>> sales channel distribution and other non-software costs.
>
>What technical support? Release it as unsupported software. Sales channel
>for freeware? Just put it on their Website or FTP Archive and forget it.
You get phone calls. Given that it costs you money to have phones
ringing because you have to have staff to answer them this will cost.
It costs to host a web site that gets hits. If you are hosting this
site for a free product then you are out of pocket.
Not everyone has the web. Are you advocating discrimination against
people who don't have web access?
>* Continued alienation and hazing in public schools ensures a steady supply
>of misfit geeks to code for free.
>
>* Absolute adherence to open standards means technological development moves
>back to the control of government and academia, where it belongs.
>
>* Savvy Linux community media and development houses successfully selling to
>teen coders the concept that writing device drivers for free is a cool form
>of rebellion.
>
>-- Top 10 Reasons Linux Will Be A Smash Hit On The Desktop -- Linux An NT
>Point of View by John Wiltshire of CHaSE (Computer Hardware and Software
>Engineering)
You honestly can't see these as humor? Everyone who listened could -
especially as I'd just given a demo on the ease of install.
I did get in trouble for this talk bit. It was held at the offices of
a certain company which takes a dim view of Linux. ;-)
John Wiltshire
------------------------------
From: 2:1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: 486 Linux setup, 250 meg HD, which distro ???
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 11:36:55 +0100
peter wrote:
>
> I'm setting up two 486 linux systems, one will be a small web sever,
> firewall, and ip masq.
>
> The other will be a machine to write perl programs on.
>
> I have two 250 meg drives, I don't plan to install X, so which distro
> is out there that will allow me to do what i want to do on the 486's
> ???
>
> Thanks,
>
> Peter
RedHat 5.2 can fit in to 200 meg with X and netscape. It's quite a lot
smaller without. As for really small distros, Monkey Linux comes on 5
floppies _with_ X and there is an apache package for it. That will leave
loads of space for data and swap.
http://www.spsselib.hiedu.cz/monkey/
-Ed
--
The day of judgement cometh. Join us O sinful one...
http://fuji.stcatz.ox.ac.uk/cult/index.html
remove foo from the end and reverse my email address to make any use of
it.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (WhyteWolf)
Subject: Re: I had a reality check today :(
Date: 21 Jun 2000 10:25:42 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Daughter graduating middle school this week and going into high school
>and I thought a nice desktop computer system would make a worthwhile
>graduation present.
a computer is always a good choice for a grad present
for any level ... {even for people not in the industry}
>
>I have ALWAYS built every single one of my systems in the past all the
>way from DTK motherboard based PC clones up to the Abit based system I
>have now. Never, ever,ever, bought a pre-load.
good for you .. I havn't had the luxrey of always being able
to build my own system but I still did it when i needed
something more solid then normal
>
>This time, possibly due to laziness or just a wearing down by all of
>the glossy advertisements in the Sunday NY Times, I decided to go out
>and look at all of these "ready made" systems that the typical Joe 18
>pack will buy.
hey we anit all perfect
>
>BTW my daughter wants an iMac. Anybody know anything about them?
well ... in a sence it's like the original mac
extreamly dificult to upgrade the guts but you
can plug stuff into the ports ...
{plus it's lacking a floppy drive which in a
*normal* desktop PC I don't think we've reatched
the level for}
I havn't seen one in action really but I have
heard they are decent systems ... I have even
had thoughts of giving one a go for a while
to test them out ... altho I would most likely
end up thorugh linux on it ... and my current
GF would kill me if I didn't ... {just because she
hates Macs}
>
>Anyway, I went to CompUSA, Staples, Electronic City and several local
>places, the kind of places I would avoid like the plague on my quest
>and here is what I found.
>
>1. Win Hardware is EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!
> Motherboards have built in modems, Ethernet, SoundChips, video
>and so forth. Much of this is Win hardware.
the built in modems tend to be winjunk
but the Ethernet, SoundCards and Video
are ushaly based off of real chip sets
my Video card is a TrioV64+ thats built into
the MB
but I hafta admit all this built in
junk it a pain in the ass if one wants
to update a soundcard but it's in the
MB .. so ya hafta cut the old one out
through the BIOS or jumper settings
then go through the normal setup
ot your out a IRQ that could be
better used
this is the legacy of ecomputers....
>
>2. The included printer is usually some POS Win printer. Same for
>scanner and USB devices are sometimes included as well.
well thats why they are included ...
they are cheap ... and they manufactures
tend to give included stuff thats junk
and will most likely generate a resale of
better hardware cause they had to upgrade
early
>
>3. The operating system is always Win 98SE and no credit is given for
>not getting it.
sad but true ... {unless you shop on the web}
altho some stores are starting to carrie alternatives
I saw both BeOS and four Diffrent Linux Distros
for sale at the local BestBuy about a month ago
and extreamly soon this is about to change
to Windows Me. Microsoft just realased it
to manufactures yesterday
>
>4. Internet bundles (you are hostage to Compu$erve for 3 years) are
>typically used to lower price.
this is another sad but true story...
>
>5. You get a bunch of low priced software and nothing of real
>substance. The exception was MS Works which is pretty decent.
and has been included with most new computers
sence it's release
>
>
>The iMac is starting to look better all the time :)
it's not a bad system
for your daughter actualy
if she doesn't like computers
they shouldn't be forced on her
in general she should be able
do what she wants with computers
and if it's Art then a Mac is a good
choice ... altho sence you can afford
a nice system a G4 might be a better
choice
>
>Anyway, my point is that this is the typical way that a user buys a
>computer. They are not like you and me who build our own, they walk
>into a chain store and buy what seems, to them, to be the best value.
exatly ... if I had the capital I would
start my own computer store ... selling
a mixture of linux computers and Windows
and Mac's to let the user decide ...
sence alot of them don't know whats out there
>
>My question is, how is Linux going to realistically overcome this?
well its' starting to ... what needs to be done
is microsoft stop penalizing companys for not putting
Windows on ALL there systems ...
Compaq, Dell and a few other companys have
been offering linux computers for awhile ..
but refuse to bring them to the store front
you can buy a linux computer from either of
thease companys but ya need to dig layer
through there web site to find them ...
{I once spent a hour looking out of
curioosity}
>
>Looking at the specs for Compaq, HP, Sony VIAO and others, absolutely
>NONE of these would run Linux and support all the I/O devices the
>person paid for.
>
>This IS the computer hardware market, like it or not. And I for one
>DON't like it.
>
>Comments?
>
>
>
--
-=-=-=-=-
SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out!
-- Ken Thompson
-=-=-=-=-
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