Linux-Advocacy Digest #192, Volume #27 Mon, 19 Jun 00 17:13:06 EDT
Contents:
Re: stability of culture of helpfulness (brian moore)
Re: Linsux as a desktop platform ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Linux is awesome! ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: An Example of how not to benchmark (Pete Goodwin)
Re: 10 Linux "features" nobody cares about. (Michael Marion)
Re: 10 Linux "features" nobody cares about. (Michael Marion)
Re: stability of culture of helpfulness (Leslie Mikesell)
Re: vote on MS split-up (Aaron Kulkis)
Re: Processing data is bad! (Aaron Kulkis)
Re: Processing data is bad! (Aaron Kulkis)
Re: 10 Linux "features" nobody cares about. (Marada C. Shradrakaii)
Re: M$ is evil - WAS: Re: So where ARE all of these Linux users? (Aaron Kulkis)
Re: An Example of how not to benchmark (Pete Goodwin)
Re: 10 Linux "features" nobody cares about. (Marada C. Shradrakaii)
Re: Linsux as a desktop platform (Leslie Mikesell)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (brian moore)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: stability of culture of helpfulness
Date: 19 Jun 2000 19:50:53 GMT
On Mon, 19 Jun 2000 19:02:32 GMT,
Oliver Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
> This is a delayed crosspost that I first made to alt.os.linux. I've had
> one helpful reply so far, but it would be still more help to hear a
> couple more.
>
> Although I'm neither business savvy nor computer savvy, I'm writing an
> article for a trade magazine on the subject of a big company that has
> chosen Linux for its very big PC cluster. The business people at this
> company consider Linux a great way to save money on computer support
> costs--not just because they believe it to be more trouble-free, but
> because they feel they can just log onto the net and get expert free
> help any time, thus eliminating the need for most of their support
> staff.
>
> I have a couple questions:
>
> 1)Does this make sense--that they could reduce their support staff? (and
> if so, by how much? if anybody cares to make an estimate.)
17 supportile units less!
> 2) Is this culture of on-line helpfulness impervious to a)increasing
> numbers of Linux users, b)increasing numbers of queries from Linux users
> at companies who--it might be perceived--could afford to hire people to
> generate in-house the answers they are instead getting through the
> kindness of strangers.
If they have semi-clueful admin staff, Linux doesn't need much support.
There isn't a lot of "mystery black box" stuff with Linux: the vast
majority is very well documented and not very complex. As long as they
RTFM they will need very little support from others.
Without knowing their current staffing and how they spend their time,
it's impossible to say whether it will make a difference to them.
Certainly if their staff has Linux or Unix experience they will find
their jobs easier. If they spend much of their time training users
("okay, click the little letter picture to get a new font..."), that
won't change with an OS change -- they would have to replace the users
for that to change substantially.
> So far, one person has said it doesn't matter what the affliation is of
> who is asking (though their perceived attitude does).
I agree.
> I'd be grateful for any comments.
--
Brian Moore | Of course vi is God's editor.
Sysadmin, C/Perl Hacker | If He used Emacs, He'd still be waiting
Usenet Vandal | for it to load on the seventh day.
Netscum, Bane of Elves.
------------------------------
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: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 19:46:16 GMT
> >I disagree. Centralized processing is a waste. You need to get a
> >monstrously powerful central server if you're going to be splitting
up
> >the CPU horsepower between many people. It's easier and cheaper to
just
> >let people have computers on the desktop. This is why mainframes
failed
> >for the mostpart. They were big, hard to administer, ridiculously
> >expensive, and still too underpowered to do what was being asked.
Now
> >we've got PC's that are steadily creeping toward 4-digit Mhz ratings,
> >there's no need for centralized processing anymore.
>
> Nor is there any reason to avoid it. The point is that installation
> and adminstration of the software became much more expensive than
> the hardware some time ago - and doing this badly, allowing downtime,
> data loss and system failures is even more expensive than doing it
> well. Thus the place to economize is in central management whether
> the software is distributed or not. This is just inherent in
> mainframe operation and so far requires expensive and trouble-prone
> add-ons for most desktop systems.
>
Ah, what a load! You don't need a mainframe and centralized processing
to centrally administer a network. Hell that's what the MS
Domain/Active Directory and the Novell NDS is for. There you go,
central administration. You don't need centralized processing unless
you have a need for some supercomputing, such as modeling weather
patterns and such. 99.9% of the world can get by just fine without
them.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Linux is awesome!
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 20:03:28 GMT
Sometimes the truth hurts Nathaniel.
Linux in terms of market share is less than a hangnail on Microsoft or
Apples foot.
Things may change in time, I have no crystal ball, but for now
learn to deal with it. You'll feel a whole lot better about
simon
On Mon, 19 Jun 2000 12:00:29 -0500, Nathaniel Jay Lee
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>
>> Not at all, it's the attachments and embedded scripts, graphics and
>> other nice things that Linux office suites fail to translate properly.
>>
>> Example, in my company we use a lot of Web based education, usually
>> via Lotus Notes but also under Netscape. Forgetting about Notes, Linux
>> fall flat on it's face when trying to run these simulations using
>> Netscape.
>>
>> My company has gone so far as to ban all non Windows applications and
>> generated memo's and we were a long time OS/2 supporter up until last
>> year.
>>
>> You Linonuts just don't get it. The rest of the world is marching to a
>> completely different band and running Linux puts the entire concerto
>> out of sync.
>>
>
>
>Funny, I didn't know of too many concerto pieces that used only one
>instrument. Are you trying to say that adding a flute would screw up
>the orchestra who had standardized on violins? Well, a bit short
>sighted of that orchestra if you ask me.
>
>It doesn't matter how many times you come in here lying that Windows is
>the only operating system used ever. You can say it all you want, that
>won't make it true. It is the number one OS by numbers at the moment,
>but so what. If 90% of the population decided that committing suicide
>was better than facing another day of listening to dumbass bastards like
>you, that doesn't mean I would commit suicide just to join the trend.
>
>In short, SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!
>
>Thank you
>
>Nathaniel Jay Lee
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
Subject: Re: An Example of how not to benchmark
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin)
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 20:10:26 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH) wrote in
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>>>Incidentally, if I increase the Bounding Threshold to 25, so that
>>>POVray is now running the same on Windows as Linux, I see the
>>>following results:
>>>
>>>Windows 98 SE 28 minutes 30 seconds
>>>Linux 32 minutes 42 seconds
>>>
>>>Windows 98 SE is _still_ running faster than Linux.
>
> I thought it was established the the Windows version
> was running with a different configuration...
Nope, now running the same configuration.
Pete
------------------------------
From: Michael Marion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: 10 Linux "features" nobody cares about.
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 20:14:21 GMT
Tim Palmer wrote:
> Or you could just sell the POS and buy one that can run NT.
Man, if you sold a 386 today you couldn't get enough money to buy NT!
Let alone a machine with enough horsepower to run it... moron!
> I've alreaddy saturated the spealchecker's dictionarry with misspelt words so it
>thinks their
> all correct now.
Damn what a moron.
See?!? I told everyone, he's someone either doing this for kicks, or
he's doing some study to see how long people will debate with someone no
matter how stupid they are.
--
Mike Marion - Unix SysAdmin/Engineer, Qualcomm Inc.
Give a man a match and he'll be warm for an hour... Set him on fire and
he'll be warm for the rest of his life
------------------------------
From: Michael Marion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: 10 Linux "features" nobody cares about.
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 20:17:08 GMT
Tim Palmer wrote:
> One computer. No accounts. No 'administrative idneities".
...no way of stopping little Johnny from hosing the entire machine
because he doesn't know what he's doing... or keeping him from reading
your email, finances, etc.
--
Mike Marion - Unix SysAdmin/Engineer, Qualcomm Inc.
"But these are not inherent flaws in the operating system - they don't
happen by accident." - Mike Nash, "Director of Microsoft's
Infrastructure
Systems" explaining why NT has so many patches to fix crashes caused by
malicious net users.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: stability of culture of helpfulness
Date: 19 Jun 2000 15:15:27 -0500
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Oliver Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>Although I'm neither business savvy nor computer savvy, I'm writing an
>article for a trade magazine on the subject of a big company that has
>chosen Linux for its very big PC cluster. The business people at this
>company consider Linux a great way to save money on computer support
>costs--not just because they believe it to be more trouble-free, but
>because they feel they can just log onto the net and get expert free
>help any time, thus eliminating the need for most of their support
>staff.
>
>I have a couple questions:
>
>1)Does this make sense--that they could reduce their support staff? (and
>if so, by how much? if anybody cares to make an estimate.)
Compared to what? No one should try to put a 'very big' cluster
of anything into production without some research and testing.
Linux works in general and its users tend to be open about
sharing their experiences. I'm not sure you can draw any
conclusions from that about some specific application.
>2) Is this culture of on-line helpfulness impervious to a)increasing
>numbers of Linux users, b)increasing numbers of queries from Linux users
>at companies who--it might be perceived--could afford to hire people to
>generate in-house the answers they are instead getting through the
>kindness of strangers.
Assuming you are doing something where someone else is likely
to experience (and possibly solve) the same problems, increasing
numbers increases the odds that the question has already
been asked and answered, so a dejanews search will find
it immediately. More specific things like individual applications
are often discussed in more detail on mailing lists than
in news and increased numbers don't show up there to
the same extent. Most of these have searchable archives
so the same thing applies about questions that have already
been answered.
>
>So far, one person has said it doesn't matter what the affliation is of
>who is asking (though their perceived attitude does).
It is pretty common for people to ask questions (and answer
them) from a personal ISP account without revealing their
affiliation(s).
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: Aaron Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: vote on MS split-up
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 16:23:29 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
void wrote:
>
> On Thu, 15 Jun 2000 01:40:54 GMT, R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >The court must weigh the interests of the majority (Microsoft users)
> >against the interests of the minority (Linux users).
>
> I don't agree. I think that users of MS software suffer from MS'
> malfeasance as much as anyone else does. Though they don't always know
> it, due to lack of exposure to alternatives.
In fact, in Judge Jackson's latest release, he EXPLICITLY states that
M$'s behavior has harmed M$ users.
>
> --
> Ben
>
> 220 go.ahead.make.my.day ESMTP Postfix
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
H: Knackos...you're a retard.
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: "Jeem" Dutton is a fool of the pathological liar sort.
C: Jet plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a method of
sidetracking discussions which are headed in a direction
that she doesn't like.
D: Jet claims to have killfiled me.
E: Jet now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (D) above.
F: Neither Jeem nor Jet are worthy of the time to compose a
response until their behavior improves.
G: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
------------------------------
From: Aaron Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Processing data is bad!
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 16:25:55 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Aaron Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> >However, you DO have the option of doing that as well:
>
> >$ du -a / | grep [your_extension_here] | wc -l
>
> Uhm, while I did the same thing back in '89, under Xenix, it is not a very
> good idea --- mainly because the "du" will actually have to work out the size
> of each file, thus requiring accesses to each and every inode.
good observation.
>
> If you use
>
> find / -name \*.ext -print | wc -l
>
> then you only ever look at the directories, and thus things run a whole lot
> faster. And it also takes care of cases where the extension you are looking
> for occurs somewhere else in the filename --- e.g. you are looking for "txt",
> and have "mytxt.ps" or even "thesis.txt.dvi".
This is what I love about unix....
No matter what the problem is, there are MULTIPLE solutions.
>
> Bernie
> --
> Dream as if you'll live forever...live as if you'll die today.
> James Dean
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
H: Knackos...you're a retard.
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: "Jeem" Dutton is a fool of the pathological liar sort.
C: Jet plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a method of
sidetracking discussions which are headed in a direction
that she doesn't like.
D: Jet claims to have killfiled me.
E: Jet now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (D) above.
F: Neither Jeem nor Jet are worthy of the time to compose a
response until their behavior improves.
G: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
------------------------------
From: Aaron Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Processing data is bad!
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 16:27:31 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Donal K. Fellows" wrote:
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Aaron Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > In fact, for years, the only "extensions" on Unix systems were
> >
> > .h header files for C programs
>
> That was always convention, not force. For example, the .xbm image
> format is really the same as that used in .h since it just declares
> the C structures associated with the bitmap...
>
> > .c C program source
> > .o object files (output of the C compiler before linking)
>
> There were also .s for assembler source and .a for object file
> archives. And anyone willing to use the actual compiler, assembler
> and linker binaries directly (instead of the [g]cc front-end) could
> bypass even this.
>
> > tar files are suffixed with .tar by convention, not force.
>
> It was always mightliy convenient to have your compressed files end in
> .Z since that made using them far easier...
.z didn't come around until 1982 with pack (Huffman coding), and
.Z didn't come around until 1985 with compress (Lempel-Ziv).
>
> 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]>
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
H: Knackos...you're a retard.
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: "Jeem" Dutton is a fool of the pathological liar sort.
C: Jet plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a method of
sidetracking discussions which are headed in a direction
that she doesn't like.
D: Jet claims to have killfiled me.
E: Jet now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (D) above.
F: Neither Jeem nor Jet are worthy of the time to compose a
response until their behavior improves.
G: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Marada C. Shradrakaii)
Subject: Re: 10 Linux "features" nobody cares about.
Date: 19 Jun 2000 20:27:00 GMT
>The browser is for Windows. There isn't even a point in making a browser for
>DOS.
Tell that to the Arachne people. (www.arachne.cz)
>In Windos, if the softwhere is beta, you won't see it on the market.
If the programme is unstable under Linux, it's often called "Version 0.5" and
people can try it. If it's on Windows, it's 1.0
>This is the VI "shlel", which is reely an edditer
>but you still half to type commands just like a shell.
You can type commands in almost ANY editor. Even the better pull-down,
click-n-drool editors (i. e. NEdit) let you type some commands.
--
Marada Coeurfuege Shra'drakaii
Colony name not needed in address.
DC2.Dw Gm L280c W+ T90k Sks,wl Cma-,wbk Bsu#/fl A+++ Fr++ Nu M/ O H++ $+ Fo++
R++ Ac+ J-- S-- U? I++ V+ Q++[thoughtspeech] Tc++
------------------------------
From: Aaron Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: M$ is evil - WAS: Re: So where ARE all of these Linux users?
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 16:31:43 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Jeff Szarka wrote:
>
> On Mon, 19 Jun 2000 04:19:54 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (billy ball)
> wrote:
>
> >>
> >>: Is Microsoft an important business?
> >>
> >>I guess it depends how you define "business," but assuming Microsoft
> >>can be considered at least in part a business, not merely a criminal
> >>organization, its market capitalization and the prominence of several
> >>of its products do qualified it as being quite important.
>
> I think you people have finally lost touch of reality.
Then why are they in court for criminal misconduct?
Why is Judge Jackson (A pro-business REAGAN appointed judge) throwing
the book at them?
Could it be because a great deal of M$'s testimony in court
was perjury, like the doctored videotape, where M$ puportedly
showed how a removal of IE would slow down the system, when,
in fact, the camera bounced between SEVERAL different systems
(easily noted because the M$ dorks FAILED to make sure that the icons
on all of the were identical...and thus, got caught in the lie
the FIRST TIME the videotape was shown in court).
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
H: Knackos...you're a retard.
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: "Jeem" Dutton is a fool of the pathological liar sort.
C: Jet plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a method of
sidetracking discussions which are headed in a direction
that she doesn't like.
D: Jet claims to have killfiled me.
E: Jet now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (D) above.
F: Neither Jeem nor Jet are worthy of the time to compose a
response until their behavior improves.
G: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: An Example of how not to benchmark
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin)
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 20:31:05 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in <8ijtfm$f6t$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>>I tried the official version of Linux and I get very different results
>>from you. The Windows version, as you correctly stated, takes 22
>>minutes 29 seconds, not much different from 22 minutes 51 seconds.
>
>Huh? Where did I ever state 22:29? I didn't.
You're correct, you didn't. Looks like I got the numbers muddled up wading
through all the text.
>>However, when you run it on Linux, it takes 19 minutes 20 seconds.
>
>For running the official version, on my Celeron400, with Threshold 3.
OK, so what happens if I run the official version on Windows with Threshold
of 25, as the Linux would run with by default (and as did my VC version).
I get 28 minutes 30 seconds with the official Windows version.
The Linux version with Threshold of 25 ran in 32 minutes 42 seconds. Still
slower than Windows.
>
>>My results on Linux are: 31 Minutes 15 seconds.
>
>I assume that's still with the Bounding Threshold at 25?
Yep
>Let's make a table:
>
> Pete Bernie
>================================================================
>Windows, official version, ???? 32:20 [5]
>Threshold at 25
28:30 [official Windows version]
26:36 [unofficial VC version]
>
>Linux, official version, 32:42 [1] 29:00 [2]
>Threshold at 25 32:36 [3]
> 31:15 [4]
>
>Windows, built with 26:36 [3] n/a
>VC++ 6.0, unsupported,
>reported unstable,
>Threshold at 25
>
>Windows, official version, 22:51 [1] 20:58 [2]
>Threshold at 3
>
>Linux, official verison, ???? 19:29 [2]
>Threshold at 3
Ah, I've not tried the Linux version with threshold of 3.
>Those are all the numbers posted so far.
>
>[5] Just for completeness sake, I just rebooted my Celeron into
> Windows once again, and ran the official Windows version with a
> Threshold of 25.
>
>There is also a time of 28:30 mentioned in one of your posts, for
>running on Windows, with Threshold 25. However, it is patently unclear
>what version of Povray you used to obtain that number, so I left it out
>of the table, not knowing where to put it.
I can't place what it is either.
>All you can see from the above numbers is
>
>a) That you still haven't done (or at least haven't reported) a test of
> the official Windows version against the official Linux version with
> same settings for both,
I did test the official version of Windows and Linux with the same
settings, with Threshold of 25 in both cases:
Windows 28 minutes 30 seconds
Linux 32 minutes 42 seconds
I repeated this from above.
Unofficial versions
Windows 26 minutes 36 seconds
Linux 31 minutes 15 seconds
>b) That my Celeron400 is running roughly 10% faster than your P2/400 in
> both linux and Windows, and
8)
>c) That the comparisons between official versions using the same
>settings
> that I *have* done show a 7-11% advantage for the official linux
> version
And the tests I *have* done show the opposite.
>Now, if I were you, I'd be most concerned about (b) ;-)
Must have put some goo on my PII.
>Only if that "ought" to be what I am out to prove, which would lead me
>to post a whole shitload of numbers in the hope of confusing the point
>that I still haven't done a proper comparison.
Are you implying that's what I was trying to do?
>But as I am actually interested in the facts, rather than in throwing up
>a smoke screen, I have compared like with like, official version with
>official version, with identical settings of the Bounding_Threshold
>parameter, and have come to a conclusion.
And I've come to the opposite conclusion, which leads me to suspect there's
something else going on here - how come your Linux version on a Celeron 400
is running faster than mine on a PII 400MHz?
>You have done all sorts of other stuff, but you haven't actually done
>the obvious, and thus you have come to some weird and unfounded
>conclusion.
I did the obvious and came up with different results. The question now is:
why?
>I apologize for applying proper methodology in an advocacy group, but
>I will stand by the results of said methodology. You are welcome to
>see whether you get different results if you do the same thing, but
>please abstain from
>
>a) comparing uncomparable things (as you have done all through this
>thred), and b) claiming that I posted some timings that I never posted,
>and from those
> timings deducing that your position is supported by my measurements
> (see above, the 22:29 thing).
In the end I did do comparisions with like settings and I get very
different results from you.
>>>I don't know about you, but my priorities for compilers are
>>>
>>>1) correctness
>>>2) correctness
>>>3) correctness ;-)
>
>>If you're talking about ANSI compliance, we all know that VC is not
>>very ANSI compliant
>
>Well, I for one didn't know that. In what ways isn't it ANSI compliant?
Let's see:
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
What's the scope of 'i'? In Visual C++ it's scope is outside the for loop -
I think this isn't ANSI. Certainly Borland C++ Builder allows multiple for
loops with the same variable like above.
>>>4) stability
>
>>My long experience with VC tells me it is stable.
>
>Then how do you explain the comment the good people who maintain Povray
>put into the Readme?
I don't. It depends what they're building - I mean a full blown GUI version
or a CLI version. I'm very surprised they consider it unstable.
Pete
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Marada C. Shradrakaii)
Subject: Re: 10 Linux "features" nobody cares about.
Date: 19 Jun 2000 20:34:19 GMT
>Or you could just sell the POS and buy one that can run NT.
The hardware economy is at a point where 486-class machines are literally being
thrown away. The amount that could be gotten by selling a 386/486/low-end 586
class machine wouldn't be enough to pay for an NT licence.
>Nobody even uses the CLI anymore. You can do everything from within Windows.
>So why does it
>nead it?
Under Win9x, I still do many of my file operations at the DOS box. There's no
way to say "*.x?f" with a mouse.
--
Marada Coeurfuege Shra'drakaii
Colony name not needed in address.
DC2.Dw Gm L280c W+ T90k Sks,wl Cma-,wbk Bsu#/fl A+++ Fr++ Nu M/ O H++ $+ Fo++
R++ Ac+ J-- S-- U? I++ V+ Q++[thoughtspeech] Tc++
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linsux as a desktop platform
Date: 19 Jun 2000 15:31:13 -0500
In article <8ilta6$2m$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> Nor is there any reason to avoid it. The point is that installation
>> and adminstration of the software became much more expensive than
>> the hardware some time ago - and doing this badly, allowing downtime,
>> data loss and system failures is even more expensive than doing it
>> well. Thus the place to economize is in central management whether
>> the software is distributed or not. This is just inherent in
>> mainframe operation and so far requires expensive and trouble-prone
>> add-ons for most desktop systems.
>>
>Ah, what a load! You don't need a mainframe and centralized processing
>to centrally administer a network. Hell that's what the MS
>Domain/Active Directory and the Novell NDS is for.
How do these keep the correct set of updated programs working
on every desktop and avoid dll conflicts with user-installed
applications?
>There you go,
>central administration. You don't need centralized processing unless
>you have a need for some supercomputing, such as modeling weather
>patterns and such. 99.9% of the world can get by just fine without
>them.
The 'processing' part is rarely a problem. The main issue
aside from just keeping the desktop machines running, has
to do with i/o bandwidth. If, for example, everyone's
job involves accessing a common database, it may well
be faster to run the job centrally and only send the
resulting screens back to the desktop even if has to
be done through a web interface, than to use a typical
PC shared-file database program.
Les Mikesell
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