Linux-Advocacy Digest #396, Volume #27 Thu, 29 Jun 00 18:13:04 EDT
Contents:
Re: Linux Upgrades (Mandrake 7.0 to 7.1) (Leslie Mikesell)
Re: Corel Does Nothing To Help The Linux Cause (Gary Hallock)
Re: Linux, easy to use? (Pete Goodwin)
Re: Linux Upgrades (Mandrake 7.0 to 7.1) (Pete Goodwin)
Re: Why linux sucks and why linux is best (Pete Goodwin)
Re: Why linux sucks and why linux is best (Pete Goodwin)
Re: Why linux sucks and why linux is best (Pete Goodwin)
RE: Why linux sucks and why linux is best (Pete Goodwin)
Re: Why linux sucks and why linux is best (Pete Goodwin)
Re: Why linux sucks and why linux is best (Pete Goodwin)
Re: Richard Stallman's Politics (was: Linux is awesome! (Stefaan A Eeckels)
Re: Linux, easy to use? (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: Competition and Open Source (2:1)
Re: Corel Does Nothing To Help The Linux Cause (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: M$ Exposed (was Re: Oracle's Dirty Tricks Department)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Subject: Re: Linux Upgrades (Mandrake 7.0 to 7.1)
Date: 29 Jun 2000 16:06:46 -0500
In article <8j5sgi$2io$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Mig Mig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Pete Goodwin wrote:
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mig Mig) wrote in <8j5jhk$g9e$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>>
>> >Ohhh... my dear.. you've never upgraded from win 95 to win 98?
>> >Try it - it can be a thrilling experience :-)
>>
>> Yeah, did that, no real problems.
>
>So "no real problems" means that there where some problems :-)
>You didnt notice anything funny with newtworking components like strange
>winsock behaviour and a faulty TCP/IP stack? And not even anything "funny"
>happenning to IE after installation?
>
>Congratulations.. as one of the few that manage that without any problems.
Or he waited for win98se which fixed most the the problems they
sold with the earlier upgrade.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 17:10:52 -0400
From: Gary Hallock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Corel Does Nothing To Help The Linux Cause
Nathaniel Jay Lee wrote:
>
> Perhaps that's true. The only recent experience that I have is with
> Commercial apps that use Wine to produce a "Linux" version of thier
> software. IBM and Corel specifically. These commercial ventures are
> worthless. Especially the Corel version. It takes forever for
> WordPrefect Office apps to launch, and each button you push on it takes
> a few seconds longer than the equivalent under Windows natively. It's
> really sad. But, I suppose that is something they will hammer out in
> time. But up to this point it is still a matter of showing Windows apps
> running slower on Linux. I hope you are right, and I've just seen the
> worst examples. Hopefully.
>
I've never used the Corel office suite that uses wine. But I do use Lotus Notes.
Notes is working well now under wine now and is quite fast. There is a very large
Linux community inside IBM and we are all required to use Notes. Until recently
there were a lot of complaints about Lotus not providing a native Linux port, which
was perhaps especially frustrating since IBM owns Lotus. But recently, running
Notes under wine has become so good that many people have changed their opinion and
no longer feel that a native port is necessary. Regardless of how the Corel apps
turned out I think their effort significantly helped wine and made running Notes
easier.
Gary
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Linux, easy to use?
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin)
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 21:16:13 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Roberto Alsina) wrote in <8jfo7s$c0r$1
@nnrp1.deja.com>:
>But even with a xterm: copy/paste behaviour in terminals in unix is
>much more consistent with other GUI apps than in windows, is it not?
CTRL-C CTRL-V work with any edit field in Windows. The same is not true of
Gnome, KDE etc.
Pete
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Linux Upgrades (Mandrake 7.0 to 7.1)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin)
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 21:17:19 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell) wrote in
<8jgdp6$2ick$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>Or he waited for win98se which fixed most the the problems they
>sold with the earlier upgrade.
Nope.
Pete
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Why linux sucks and why linux is best
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin)
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 21:21:58 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> One fellow with a Zip claimed on one of the other groups that
> Mandrake autodetected his USB zipdrive just fine.
Someone suggested I should try the IOMEGA website and get Linux drivers. So
I had a look, but there are no drivers for USB ZIP drives.
> Scanner support depends on how standard the scanner is and how
> cooperative the vendor is. HP, for example, has some engineers
> that are rather sympathetic to Linux.
It's a HP 4200C USB scanner.
Pete
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Why linux sucks and why linux is best
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin)
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 21:23:52 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (No Name) wrote in <8jfn16$ppq$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>99% of computer users don't give a fig about "3D Positional Audio on
>Sound Cards".
Where do you get that amazing figure? Seems like every sound card
manufacturer wants 3D Positional Audio, EAX or A3D support on their cards.
Why would they do that if nobody cared?
Pete
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Why linux sucks and why linux is best
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin)
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 21:25:24 GMT
hauck[at]codem{dot}com (Bob Hauck) wrote in
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>What the hell _is_ "3D Positional Audio"? I must not play enough
>games...
You have 3D graphics... you have 3D sound. 3D sound can be done with stereo
speakers, although it tends to work better with four speakers. In a game it
adds an extra dimension, as well as the smooth flowing 3D graphics you can
hear a rocket whistle past your ear (from front to back), or above or below
you.
Pete
------------------------------
Subject: RE: Why linux sucks and why linux is best
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin)
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 21:29:19 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Osugi Sakae) wrote in
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>>Really, then why does Unreal Tournament perform _better_ on
>Windows 2000
>>than Windows 98 SE on the same machine?
>
>Source and details please. I seem to recall an article in PC
>Gamer (or similar mag) specifically saying that unless your
>system is out of this world, most games run _more slowly_ under
>W2k than under win98.
Source is me. On a PIII 450MHz 128Mbyte system running Windows 98 SE and
Windows 2000 dual boot, Unreal Tournament runs smoothly on Windows 2000 as
opposed to jerky on Windows 98 SE.
>Win98SE USB support seems spotty at best to me, although I don't
>have a scanner. My Zip (driver-installing) software gave me all
>sorts of warnings about USB specs and not connecting fast and
>slow devices to the same port, yada yada. Never got that USB-
>ethernet device working. Gave up on it and installed a pcmcia
>ethernet card instead.
As I said, both USB 250 ZIP and HP scanner work fine on Windows 98 SE. Not
so on Linux.
>On the other hand, never even tried the zip drive in linux,
>since making cds in linux has never failed. Under windows, the
>same drive is 2 successes and 4 failures - hence the zip is more
>important for me in windows.
My HP Surestore 6020 has never failed to make CD's on Windows.
Pete
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Why linux sucks and why linux is best
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin)
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 21:34:59 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Charlie Ebert) wrote in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>Yes, exactly. Linux IS a RELIGION. It is not a corporation.
>Linux will not fall prey to corporate cancer like Microsoft is.
But it could fall prey to other problems.
>Linux will be here for decades to come. Microsoft will not.
I doubt it.
>Scores of corporations and regular companies have come
>and gone over time. Religion is still here.
To compare Linux and religion is a joke. That there are fanatics who make
it sound like a religion, does not mean it is a religion. Besides, religion
could be said to be "faith in things unseen". Linux can hardly be said to
be that!
>The Linux desktop is as function as the NT desktop with
>today's distributions. I haven't used Windows in 3 years
>now, maybe 4. It's been a while. I have no need for Windows.
3 or 4 years! Out of date or what! Ah that's probably why you believe Linux
desktop is as functional as Windows. However, I've been using Windows for a
while and am still using it, and as I keep saying, Linux desktop lags
behind Windows.
>Linux DOES support USB and plug and play.
Just not very well. It correctly detected my USB 250 ZIP drive, but if you
try to use it, error! As for my USB scanner, Linux doesn't even know its
there.
>Plug and play has been supported for some time now.
>USB has been for less time, but the next kernel {2.4}
>will support USB better. But, after all, when you
>compare this to the fact NT has no USB support
>then you really have to ask, what are you comparing
>against anyway. The competion has 98 and W2k
>and of the two, they have problems. At least the
>Linux kernel works for what they say it will support.
Funny, I've had no problems with Windows 98 SE and USB or the same with
Windows 2000.
>Lying to the public is a Microsoft tradition.
Such as your lies?
Pete
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Why linux sucks and why linux is best
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin)
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 21:37:39 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Nico Coetzee) wrote in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>One last note - wait till after Kylix is released and you can expect a
>software explosion on Linux.
Let's just hope its not as stillborn as Borland's C++ Builder V1.0. It took
them until V5.0 to get a version I could trust. Delphi on the other hand
has been pretty much stable from V1.0 (oh I did find the odd bug or two).
Pete
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stefaan A Eeckels)
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Richard Stallman's Politics (was: Linux is awesome!
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 23:17:11 +0200
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Volker Hetzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Stefaan A Eeckels wrote:
>> Correct. Both management and unions are in unison here, BTW.
> But the unions didn't press. (AFAIK!)
I've heard of examples (steel companies in Belgium) where
management and unions lobbied to stop imports from cheap
steel. The reasons always sounded nice, and social. And
truly, even if they wanted to, they could not compete, so
I understand their attitude.
>
>> Nonetheless, management will be less enclined to spend money
>> on importing foreigners when they're not cheaper than Germans.
> Why?
> Some english speaking guy shows up, gets his contract without either
> one (company/employee) being able to change it a lot and goes to work.
Are you speaking about fellow Europeans (who have the right to
work anywhere in the Union), or say, Indians? When I hear "green card",
I think about companies forraging abroad, and "sponsoring" people.
Usually, these people get restrictive contracts, and are only
attractive because of lower wages, more stability (ie I pay your
plane ticket, and give you a settling-in allowance, but you've
got to pay back pro-rata if you leave within five years).
I'd venture to say that if such is legally impossible, many a
company (if not most) will not try to import foreign labour.
>
>> At the least, raising the price of foreigners above that of
>> Germans (travel allowances, settling-in time, language problems,
>> etc) of equivalent expertise allows the unions leaders to say that
>> there genuinely seems to be a shortage of skilled workers.
> ???
> I don't think they get travel allowances. They get wages. As to
> language problems, I can only speak for the department I work
> for. It's either english or german. Period. And if we (that is,
> the team mates of the future employee) decide they want him, management
> won't block him for reasons that wouldn't apply to a german.
But as far as I can gauge, these are people who are already
in Germany. Or is your company flying in Indians for your team
to interview? Then there really _is_ a shortage, I guess.
>
>> >> Which alternative would _you_ prefer, knowing that in both cases the
>> >> result is the same?
>> > Could you please be a bit more clear about point 1?
>> OK (if the above isn't enough already).
>> A company that employs someone wants to have the most skilled
>> person at the lowest acceptable salary and ancilliary costs.
> If there is a choice. And if the hiring of a foreign employee
> would make a difference to speak of. At the moment there isn't
> and it doesn't.
I can't believe that. I've been hired from abroad, in the early
'80ies, and it _did_ cost that company a lot of money (sending
managers to interview people, paying for the plane tickets,
paying for a hotel until accomodation could be found, paying
a salary for a couple of months while the new guy was running
around getting this arranged, etc, etc.). You only do this
a) if the guy costs you less money over the long term
b) if you really _are_ desperate, or have non-commercial reasons.
>> I believe
>> that in Germany (like here in Luxembourg), unions and employers
>> negotiate pay packets, and agree on both _lower_ and _upper_
>> limits for various jobs.
> Yes. But the band is narrow. This makes negotiating skills of the
> foreign employee less relevant.
Unless, due to loopholes in the social legislation, these people
aren't affected (like they work here, but are paid by their foreign
company, and fall under foreign law. It's not uncommon).
>> Third, our social system obliges employers to pay more based
>> on qualifications (even if they're not strictly required for
>> the job.
> Ours doesn't. At least not to a relevant degree.
Nonetheless, older people have tremendous problems trying
to find work. Are you telling me that they objectively
are less capable?
>> If you hire a university graduate, then you have to
>> pay her more than a graduate from a technical school).
> For the first year the difference is 100 or 200 DM per month.
> Again, we have never made a hiring decision based on this. I know
> of companies that don't even make that small difference.
It might be better in less regulated industries (typically,
the computer industry), and there are no unions to speak of
in (certain) computer outfits. The majority of computer jobs
is in other types of company (banks, manufacturing), and I
guess the HR approach would be quite different.
>
> So, around here, the country the guy comes from is largely irrelevant
> as long as he speeks either german or english.
> This goes for the green card example *only*.
I admit I know zip about the German green card scheme, but if it's
limited to people who take the initiative to travel to Germany at
their own expense, without guarantees of a job, then I tip my hat
to them, and would hire any such person on the spot. People that
motivated are worth their weight in gold.
If companies spend money to get them in, then my comments are, I
think, relevant.
> Construction workers are
> a different case and get exploited pretty heavily. And there, even
> miminum wage requirements didn't help.
No, because they continued to work for a Polish, or Portugese
or whatever company (my apologies to Poland and Portugal).
>> >> You have to understand that the reactions of companies and unions is
>> >> wholly self-serving.
>> > Pretty big generalisation, huh? Could you show a few examples please?
>> Monsanto and GM foods. Tobacco companies and lung cancer.
> Ok.
>
>> Trade union leaders getting paid big bucks for serving on
>> the board of a largely state-owned utility...
> The only relevance to protectionism I can see here is about
> private competition. Unions can't do anything about it.
No, but I recon a guy perorating on the rights of the workers
and then taking a seat on the board of an about-to-privatized
utility qualifies as a self-serving santimonious hypocrite, not?
>
>> >> Mealy-mouthing about free trade, or solidarity
>> >> is just selfrighteous bluster designed to hoodwink the public or
>> >> allow people to feel good when choosing sides.
>> > Why?
>> Because people cannot function when they know they are
>> "bad", hence they find nice sounding explanations for their
>> behaviour.
> What's wrong with a union advocating solidarity? At the moment unions
> across europe try to coordinate actions to counterbalance the "going
> international" of big companies. What's wrong with that?
Their words don't match their actions, or didn't you notice?
It's all hot air.
> What's wrong with choosing sides? You always have to. And usually you feel
> good after having done so. Regardless of the publicity.
Feeling good is the purpose of choosing sides, and it allows you to
suspend your critical thinking about the issues.
>>[Kohl ]
> Ok, so he screwed up and now can't cope with it. As I said, there are
> idiots.
That reminds me of a Kohl joke I heard back in 1988. Kohl has to visit
Paris, and he'd like to utter a few words in French. So his aides devise
a clever plan: they write a couple of sentences on a Post-It (in the
German approximation of French similar to the one used by Computer Bild
to teach its readers how to pronounce English words :-), and stick the
Post-It to the inner side of Kohl's tie. So, when he descends from the
plane, he can fidget with his tie, read the words, and deliver the speech.
So said, so done. Kohl descends from the plane in Charles-de-Gaulle
airport, fidgets with his tie, and says, loud and clear and very proud
of himself: "Pierre Cardin".
Take care,
--
Stefaan
--
--PGP key available from PGP key servers (http://www.pgp.net/pgpnet/)--
Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules:
The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of
the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Subject: Re: Linux, easy to use?
Date: 29 Jun 2000 21:46:55 GMT
On Thu, 29 Jun 2000 21:16:13 GMT, Pete Goodwin wrote:
>>But even with a xterm: copy/paste behaviour in terminals in unix is
>>much more consistent with other GUI apps than in windows, is it not?
>
>CTRL-C CTRL-V work with any edit field in Windows.
Some Windows apps use ctrl-ins / shift-ins.
> The same is not true of
>Gnome, KDE etc.
Can you name an application that doesn't support the xterm-style
and paste ? ( FYI, select with the left mouse and paste with the middle ).
This will always work in GNOME / KDE since the toolkits bind this way
by default ( you'd have to go out of your way to write a program that
doesn't do it this way ! )
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: 2:1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Competition and Open Source
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 23:03:02 +0100
> from windows.
>
> These new 3d-positional audio ideas still have no open standards
> to base drivers on. The only OS that can handle 3d-audio is
> Win98, with a proprietary standard.
Doesn't Irix ?
-Ed
--
Did you know that the oldest known rock is the famous Hackenthorpe rock,
which
is over three trillion years old?
-The Hackenthorpe Book of Lies
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Subject: Re: Corel Does Nothing To Help The Linux Cause
Date: 29 Jun 2000 21:52:48 GMT
On Wed, 28 Jun 2000 20:48:29 -0400, Colin R. Day wrote:
>As do we all. But do you expect Davidson to port Reader Rabbit to Linux?
>Or Mindscape to port Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing?
Nope. But a third party could do it. Who would have expected Activision
to port a D3d game ( HG2 ) to Linux ? But then it didn't matter because
Lokisoft did it.
Companies are afraid of doing ports because they are worried about how
much it might cost, but if someone like Lokisoft comes along and says
"we can port it for $(X)", it's a much less risky proposition.
>Getting applications and users is a chicken-or-egg problem, and
>Wine is one way to attack it.
Not a very good way though.
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ()
Crossposted-To:
alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,misc.legal,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.economics
Subject: Re: M$ Exposed (was Re: Oracle's Dirty Tricks Department)
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 22:04:47 GMT
On Thu, 29 Jun 2000 18:49:32 GMT, Marcus Turner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>"Bob Tennent" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> On Thu, 29 Jun 2000 16:47:57 GMT, Marcus Turner wrote:
>> >
>> >>
>> >> Actually, Oracle is only doing what the yellow journalists
>> >> and muckrackers should already be doing in this instance.
>> >> They must all be asleep at their posts...
>> >
>> >Perhaps you should focus on the fact that while Oracle has made
>accusations,
>> >they have provided no proof. Of anything.
>> >
>> >
>> The New York Times and the Wall St. Journal saw enough to make them
>> publish the claims as facts. What kind of "proof" did you want?
>> Let MS sue the New York Times if they think the allegations
>> are slanderous.
>
>Hmmm... You are missing the gist of the article. Microsoft supports a lot
>of things. The are public members of these groups.
>
>That doesn't mean that they have bought these independent trade
>organizations, just as Ellison's contributions to the Democrats doesn't mean
>he bought Al Gore.
There are likely orders of magnitude differences between the
organizations and the contributions involved here.
[deletia]
Comparing some private special interest group to either of the
major political parties in this fashion is rather disingenuous.
The scales might not even match up between the Reform Party and
one of these interest groups.
--
|||
/ | \
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