Linux-Advocacy Digest #640, Volume #27 Thu, 13 Jul 00 04:13:05 EDT
Contents:
Re: I had a reality check today :( (Ray Chason)
Re: Are Linux people illiterate? (Ray Chason)
Re: Linsux as a desktop platform ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: To Pete Goodwin: How Linux saved my lunch today! ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Are Linux people illiterate? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Linsux as a desktop platform (Peter Ammon)
Re: Why use Linux? (Perry Pip)
Re: Linsux as a desktop platform ("Christopher Smith")
Re: Corel Does Nothing To Help The Linux Cause
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ray Chason <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: I had a reality check today :(
Date: 13 Jul 2000 05:55:26 GMT
Tim Palmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On 8 Jul 2000 07:20:33 GMT, Ray Chason
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>Tim Palmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>>On 6 Jul 2000 03:40:57 GMT, Ray Chason
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>>Tim Palmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>It won't healp LIE-nux anny. Nobuddy want's to reed HOWTO after HOWTO after
>HOWTO. You alreddy have
>>>>>users reeding TOO HOWTO's PLUS the ones they alreddy half toreed to get the rest
>of CommyLie-nux working.
>>>>
>>>>Can't you set up your Windoze-based newsreader so it doesn't spew these
>>>>mile-long lines?
>>>
>>>Cant you make your Generly Not Usefall (GNU) CommyLie-nux crap to handall long
>lines propperly?
>>
>>1) My newsreader is of my own design and handles long lines just fine,
>> thank you very much...
>
>Proov my point again why do'nt you? In UNIX you half to rite your own programms, and
>your another exampel.
1) Replace "half to" with "*can* without shelling out even more $$$$$".
Some people are happy with SLRN or TIN or Gnus (Emacs -- yeeccchh!).
2) Somebody had to write Lookout. (And ought to be shot for it.) Likewise
somebody had to write this newsreader I'm using. Why not me?
3) You're jealous that I *can* program, aren't you, Timmy-boy? It just
pisses you off that you're stuck with what Mickey$oft sees fit to
send your way.
>>
>>2) but others read news in university labs and such, using VT100 terminals
>> with no GUI capability.
>
>Today's universitty's have Windows. If all your universitty has are UNIX, then your
>universitty is living in a cave.
*snicker* What color is the sky on your home planet, Timmy-boy?
>>
>>3) Then there are those who have to use large fonts just to read news at
>> all. Some of them are even Windoze users.
Another point that you couldn't address.
>>4) You could horizontally scroll but that's a PITA.
>
> ...only if you use SLRN. In Outlook its easie you just use scroalbar.
1) Oh, sure. So you scroll right to read the end of the line, and then
you scroll back to the left to read the next line, and then you scroll
back to the right to read the end of the line....it sounds trivial
until you've tried to read about 20 or 30 lines that way.
Like I said, you're perfectly willing to make others work harder to
read your drivel because you're too lazy to RTFM and set up Lookout
to reasonable margins.
2) It's not as if other systems don't have scrollbars.
3) Whadda dope.
>>
>>5) Hence long-standing rules of netiquette call for lines to wrap in the
>> low 70's.
>>
>>You piss and moan that Linux makes *you* work harder, yet you're perfectly
>>willing to make *others* work harder to read your posts. Timmy-boy,
>>you're not just a Wintroll. You're also a hypocrite.
>
>That only half to work harder becase they use UNIX and UNIX make's them work
>harder.
Bullshit.
>Thats' my
>hoal point. UNIX blows. Windo's is miles ahed of UNIX and you peopal are still
>acting like UNIX was
>stait-of-the-art.
>
>>>>...which is why nearly every Linux newsreader has a decent killfile,
>>>>unlike Lookout; why nearly every Linux newsreader honors user-
>>>>supplied margins, unlike Lookout; why no self-respecting Linux mail
>>>>client goes around spreading viruses, unlike Lookout....
>>>>
>>>>Oh, but Orifice does have that cute little paper clip. That paper clip
>>>>must fascinate you, doesn't it, Timmy-boy?
>>
>>I see you couldn't address this point.
>>
>
>I dont see any point to adress.
So it's not a point that Lookout doesn't have a killfile? Unix newsreaders
have had killfiles for years. Even some Windoze newsreaders have killfiles,
though most (other than ports of Unix news clients like SLRN) don't support
regular expressions.
(Oh, yeah. Killfiles don't exist. Microsoft hasn't innovated them yet.)
So it's not a point that Lookout ignores long-established Usenet conventions
like reasonable line lengths and not posting HTML to newsgroups? Do you
think Microsoft invented Usenet?
So it's not a point that Lookout spreads viruses like a cheap whore? Tell
me, Timmy-boy, which mail client brought down millions of mail servers
around the world a few weeks ago? Was it Lookout, or some Unix mail
client?
--
--------------===============<[ Ray Chason ]>===============--------------
PGP public key at http://www.smart.net/~rchason/pubkey.asc
Delenda est Windoze
------------------------------
From: Ray Chason <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Are Linux people illiterate?
Date: 13 Jul 2000 06:05:55 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>In article <8kic9g$sqj$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> --- I mean really,, what a bunch of retards! You all spent so much
>> time geeking that you never acquired spelling and grammar skills?
>> Well.. rest my case, the real world will ever take Linux seriously.
>
>All trolling aside, documentation is actually one of the biggest
>problems that I've had with Linux as well. Both Mandrake distributions
>that I bought had documentation that was pretty amateurishly written
>(english was obviously not their first language),
Mandrake is based in France IIRC.
>including
>instructions on how to mount devices that didn't work with an out-of-
>the-box install. The Red Hat Unleashed book that came with 6.0 had a
>typo in its Hello World listing, which is pretty glaring. Installation
>of any free open-source software is usually documented with a readme
>file that the person typed themselves (and there aren't many Writing
>majors pumping out open-source software these days). And as long as
>people keep singing the merits of man pages to newbies, criticism of
>their writing style can't be discounted.
One of the subthreads in this group ran to the effect of "I'm not a
programmer -- how do you expect *me* to contribute to open source
software?" I suppose one way is to WTFM.
--
--------------===============<[ Ray Chason ]>===============--------------
PGP public key at http://www.smart.net/~rchason/pubkey.asc
Delenda est Windoze
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linsux as a desktop platform
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 06:54:05 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell) writes:
>They are note quite that simple. ISA cards can't share IRQs, but
>with PCI it is up to the driver software. Linux drivers
>don't like to share them.
Huh?
bmeyer@wombat tmp]$ telnet ecci
Trying 192.168.242.30...
Connected to echidna.cs.monash.edu.au.
Escape character is '^]'.
login: bmeyer
Password: xxxxxxxx
[bmeyer@echidna bmeyer]$ cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0
0: 22271788 XT-PIC timer
1: 2910 XT-PIC keyboard
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
5: 267534 XT-PIC soundblaster
7: 3259033 XT-PIC Crystal audio controller
8: 1088 XT-PIC rtc
11: 33746049 XT-PIC advansys, advansys, eth0, Iomega BUZ V-1.0.1-0,
Iomega BUZ V-1.0.1-1, bttv
12: 0 XT-PIC PS/2 Mouse
13: 1 XT-PIC fpu
14: 366769 XT-PIC ide0
15: 690324 XT-PIC ide1
NMI: 0
ERR: 0
[bmeyer@echidna bmeyer]$ logout
Connection closed by foreign host.
[bmeyer@wombat tmp]$ telnet penpen
Trying 192.168.243.32...
Connected to penguin.cs.monash.edu.au.
Escape character is '^]'.
Red Hat Linux release 6.1 (Cartman)
Kernel 2.4.0-test2 on an i686
login: bmeyer
Password: xxxxxxxxxxx
Last login: Tue Jul 11 17:12:53 from wombat
[bmeyer@penguin bmeyer]$ cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0
0: 22348744 IO-APIC-edge timer
1: 8 IO-APIC-edge keyboard
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
5: 17579383 IO-APIC-level ESS Solo1, nvidia
8: 1 IO-APIC-edge rtc
9: 471881 IO-APIC-level eth0
10: 0 IO-APIC-level bttv
11: 1246 IO-APIC-edge BusLogic BT-542BH
12: 9 IO-APIC-edge PS/2 Mouse
13: 1 XT-PIC fpu
14: 7 IO-APIC-edge ide0
15: 438212 IO-APIC-edge ide1
NMI: 22349047
LOC: 22349223
ERR: 0
Tell me more!
Bernie
--
The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be
taken seriously
Hubert Humphrey
American Democratic politician
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: To Pete Goodwin: How Linux saved my lunch today!
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 06:54:08 GMT
Nathaniel Jay Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
[multiple virtual desktops]
>To some people they aren't, but to others (like me) we can't live
>without them. I think it's partially an aquired taste, and one that's
>very hard to get used to if you come from Windows.
Actually, this "acquired taste" is one of the areas where in my personal
behaviour, the power and stability are most noticeable.
Every couple of months or so, I end up rebooting my "interactive" linux
machine (i.e. the one I usually type on and look at), usually for some sort
of upgrade or configuration change.
This happens to be a slightly lengthy process --- partly, because the machine
isn't all that fast to start with, and is starting up a whole lot of stuff,
but mainly because in its heart, it is still a RH5.0 installation that has
been upgraded erratically; As a result, some network stuff has a bit of
trouble getting off the ground --- I *should* have upgraded the user space
along with the kernel, but after a few timeouts, things still work, and
I don't boot often enough to make the download over a 14.4k modem attractive.
So, there I am, looking at a booting machine. And then I hit ALT-F10 to
have a look at my email --- only to realize that won't work, the machine
is booting. 10 seconds later, I hit ALT-F2 to get to the telnet on my
number cruncher --- and *again* realize that won't work. And before the
boot is over, I probably have the impulse to "just do something else
while this console is busy" another 5 times or so.
The point is --- I am so utterly used to this machine being up, and to having
all those virtual consoles (17 in my setup, one of them being X with
its own virtual desktop) at my fingertips, that the whole idea of the
machine just doing a single thing, just having a single interface I can
interact with, has become foreign to me.
I have the same impulses on the rare occassions that I sit in front of an
already booted Windows machine (but of course, they get frustrated). *While*
booting a Windows machine, I find myself anxiously watching it, to see whether
it will succeed or fail.
That, among many others, is one of the deep down gut level differences
between the two.
Bernie
--
There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full
Henry Kissinger
American politician
New York Times Magazine, 1 June 1969
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Are Linux people illiterate?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 06:54:09 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>A WHOLE bunch of typos at the Linux documentation project!
Oh my. The world will end.
>From http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Firewall-HOWTO-5.html
>From the same HOWTO, right from the very start:
1.1 Feedback
Any feedback is very welcome. PLEASE REPORT ANY INACCURACIES IN THIS
PAPER!!! I am human, and prone to making mistakes. If you find a fix
for anything please send it to me. I will try to answer all e-mail,
but I am busy, so don't get insulted if I don't.
My email address is [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(oh, and you missed some of the more interesting mistakes in the section
you looked at --- problems with the distinction between singular and plural,
and the associated verb forms.
However, here is an interesting fact --- I set up a firewall a few days
ago. I worked through most of that HOWTO (albeit a slightly older version),
because I like understanding what is going on. And you know what? I never
noticed a single typo, missing word or grammatical screwup.
I am quite sure they were there. I am also quite sure that they didn't stop
the HOWTO from fulfilling its purpose, which was to tell me how to set up
a firewall.
Oh, and one more pointer for you:
http://okcforum.org/~markg/mark/Dyslixics.html
To quote the first line:
If you havn't guess yet, I'M Dyslexic!
And guess what the Firewall-HOWTO and that page have in common! That's
right --- the author.
>And the printed book "Running Linux" (3rd Edition mind you) has typos..
>Check page 47, "If this is the cas, it should be explicity stated on
>the package"
My oh my --- you don't read much, do you? You wouldn't believe how many
books come with typos much much worse than that. I remember my then
girlfriend (a dyslexic ;-) asking me to make sense of a passage of her
economy book. Turns out that someone had screwed up the axis designations
on the accompanying diagram, making it completely impossible to understand
what they were trying to say --- unless you were sufficiently well-versed
in maths to take what they *said* and, instead of using the supplied diagram
as illustration, make up your own diagram in your mind and compare it with
what's in the book, thus figuring out what happened.
And you complain about a missing 'e'? Or maybe about the possibly
not-completely-grammatical placing of the adverb?
>Well.. rest my case, the real world will ever take Linux seriously.
And example of your own writing. Just in case you can't work it out,
not only did you miss the "I", but you also failed to type the 'n' at
the start of "never".
For some reason I really can't work out, I have this image of a house of
glass in my mind....
Bernie
--
Older man declare war. But it is youth who must fight and die
Herbert Hoover
US President 1929-33
At the Republican National Convention, 27 June 1944
------------------------------
From: Peter Ammon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linsux as a desktop platform
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 00:14:30 -0700
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Christopher Smith wrote:
>
>
> CMT has no place and absolutely zero advantages on any
> general purpose machine where the operating system developer does not have
> absolute and total control over every instruction that is ever executed on
> it.
Then why did the original Mac OS team implement CMT?
(Hint: it wasn't because they were incapable of producing something better)
> You could certainly make an argument that on such a system any foreground
> app receives a boosted priority to improve response time. This is what
> Windows does. However, under no circumstances whatsoever should any
> user-space application ever be able to wrest control from the Operating
> System.
It is nice to have the complete attention of the CPU when you're doing
something. I miss it in Classic dialogs in OS X, which feel jumpy.
Windows is the same way.
-Peter
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Perry Pip)
Subject: Re: Why use Linux?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 07:16:48 GMT
On Wed, 12 Jul 2000 22:33:08 -0500,
Steve Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I have found that
>there are 3 main reasons for win unstability: poor HW
Poor HW can take down any OS.
>( usually a power
>supply, but that's another NG)
I wouldn't know about that so I'll leave that to another NG.
> incompatible 3rd party apps ( dll hell),
Well nearly everything on Linux is a 3rd party app, and yet it does
not have this problem with library corruption. And it isn't just 3rd
party apps on Windows. Microsoft apps do it too. I have a Win98 Compaq
machine at work that was brand new a year ago, with Office97, IE5,
Netscape, and some other apps pre-loaded on it. It was a reasonably
stable machine...I would say quite stable. Then about three month ago,
when logging into the NT domain, the SMS server upgraded my machine to
Office 2000. The upgrade went fine. Office 2000 works fine. However,
ever since then certain things in IE5 will crash IE5 and often take
Windows down with it.
>or software development.
Of course. Because application code in Windows needs to "follow the
rules" or it will bring down Windows. Funny though, I spend much of my
time in front of the Win98 machine above using eXceed, an X-server for
Windows to to develop code on a SGI/IRIX machine with Xemacs.
Application code taking down IRIX is totally unthinkable. I have to
worry about my Win machine crashing instead, even though I know Xemacs
will recover my data. Much of the code I write on IRIX can be
prototyped on Linux and I often do that. I've never had application
code take down Linux, either. Windows can be stable in a tightly
controlled environment, that's about it.
>I definitely understand your desire for some balance in here,
Well then how is Pete creating balance when he has repeatedly made the
statement "Linux lags behind Windows" like a broken record, many times
without any qualification, and many times in regards to things that
are subjective, such as user interface? If Pete were to say "Linux
lags behind Windows in terms of meeting my personal needs", that would
be reasonable and I could respond with something like "In terms of my
needs Windows lags behind Linux, but our needs are probably
different". Then there would be some balance. But Pete is not doing
that. He is instead defining reality in terms of his needs, without
regard for the needs of others. Under those circumstances, there
can't be any balance.
>Since I have only posted a few times before now let me fully introduce
>my self. I'm (still) an undergrad CS student (SR). [finishing school
>after a 10 year drunk] I am a research team leader working with a very
>distinguished prof in the fields of AI, Image Processing, and Data
>Base. I do know almost every MS product inside out and happen to hate
>every one of them after I found the competition. I currently run 2
>GNU/Linux boxes at home and NO MS stuff at all. I truly believe that MS
>and BG are tring to take over the world but their not going to get mine!
That's nice. Now take a look at Pete's posting history and ask yourself if he's
really desiring balance:
http://www.deja.com/profile.xp?ST=QS&URN=628931923
http://www.deja.com/profile.xp?ST=QS&URN=635921400
Look at the threads he has started. I think it will become very clear
that he's frustrated trying to use Linux, and then instead of politely
asking for help in one of the support newsgroups, he's venting in
c.o.l.a. If that's his personality, Linux is not for him.
Perry
------------------------------
From: "Christopher Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linsux as a desktop platform
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 17:54:06 +1000
"Peter Ammon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
>
> Christopher Smith wrote:
> >
> >
> > CMT has no place and absolutely zero advantages on any
> > general purpose machine where the operating system developer does not
have
> > absolute and total control over every instruction that is ever executed
on
> > it.
>
> Then why did the original Mac OS team implement CMT?
>
> (Hint: it wasn't because they were incapable of producing something
better)
Insufficient hardware resources. Coupled with the, at the time, thinking
that desktop computers were really not going to be used for multitasking.
The Lisa was PMT, IIRC.
> > You could certainly make an argument that on such a system any
foreground
> > app receives a boosted priority to improve response time. This is what
> > Windows does. However, under no circumstances whatsoever should any
> > user-space application ever be able to wrest control from the Operating
> > System.
>
> It is nice to have the complete attention of the CPU when you're doing
> something. I miss it in Classic dialogs in OS X, which feel jumpy.
> Windows is the same way.
I really must say I don't understand what you're talking about.
------------------------------
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Corel Does Nothing To Help The Linux Cause
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 00:52:50 -0700
Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Christopher Browne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:RIab5.305341$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> would say:
> >Christopher Browne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> On the other hand...
> >>
> There isn't any third alternative.
>
> Suggesting that we use CORBA, and split off components in some other
> more sensible way, will require _redesign_, and amounts to "Don't
> bother trying to port the software."
Or port it with out bringing along the burden and mistakes of prior verions.
When software is ported it is almost never brought across precisly the same.
New feature are added that thake advatage of the new environment and old
mistakes and feature dictated by a past platform are dropped quite often.
We used to do the work just fine before without the OLE and the object
embedding even in the Windows envrionment. The result of the work was still
the same, but safer and without the overhead.
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Advocacy Digest
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