Linux-Advocacy Digest #44, Volume #28 Thu, 27 Jul 00 22:13:04 EDT
Contents:
Re: Linsux as a desktop platform ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
Re: Gnome or KDE (SL News Posting)
Re: Why use Linux? ("Colin R. Day")
Re: Why is "ease of use" a dirty concept?
Re: Linux is blamed for users trolling-wish. (Damien)
Re: Yeah! Bring down da' man!
Re: Am I the only one that finds this just a little scary? ("Colin R. Day")
Re: Slipping away into time. (Charlie Ebert)
Re: Just curious, how do I do this in Windows? (Leslie Mikesell)
Re: Am I the only one that finds this just a little scary? ("Colin R. Day")
Re: Which Linux should I try? ("Colin R. Day")
Re: LINUX GUI CRASHPROOF? (Moses Milazzo)
Re: Why is "ease of use" a dirty concept?
Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split Save It? (Marty)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linsux as a desktop platform
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 20:56:41 -0400
void wrote:
>
> [Mac and Windows groups trimmed]
>
> On Thu, 27 Jul 2000 17:00:23 -0400, Aaron R. Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >Close. That's the "Set User ID" bit
> > [...]
> >Example: you can't PROPERLY implement mkdir without it.
>
> Say what?
Whoops... brain fart.
>
> --
> Ben
>
> 220 go.ahead.make.my.day ESMTP Postfix
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
I: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
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.
H: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (SL News Posting)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.x
Subject: Re: Gnome or KDE
Date: 27 Jul 2000 21:01:28 EDT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In article <8lqfnk$bli$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
ishpeck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
|> Nothing better than strait windowmaker. :)
|>
Sure there is - straight twm - been using it for 10 years[*] and
have no need for all the desktop clutter, sound, moving menus,
themes, etc. *tvtwm is available to provide a virtual screen
larger than the physical screen for those who need such.
scott
[*] before that it was, if I remember correctly, uwm.
(and yes, I've tried gnome and kde)
Besides, twm is available on _every_ unix system.
------------------------------
From: "Colin R. Day" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why use Linux?
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 21:02:23 -0400
"John W. Stevens" wrote:
> Spud wrote:
> >
> > [snips]
> >
> > "Colin R. Day" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > "Gee, I need a car that offers me some protection against my being totally
> > mangled during crashes. This one has air bags, crumple zones and several
> > other related features. That other one doesn't. I'll take the second one.
> > Hey, why doesn't this car have the safety features I wanted?"
I didn't write that.
Colin Day
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ()
Subject: Re: Why is "ease of use" a dirty concept?
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 01:02:46 GMT
On Fri, 28 Jul 2000 00:43:34 +0100, 1$Worth <@costreduction.plseremove.screaming.net>
wrote:
>Byron A Jeff wrote:
>[snip]
>> But the Windows/Mac EOU interfaces deny that exact activity. Honestly
>> pointing and clicking is a interface for a child. Adults are prefectly
>> capable of constructing thoughts and abstraction using words. CLI interfaces
>> are typically deemed powerful precisely they allow for the user to completely
>> specify the parameters of the the task to be done.
>
>Thanks for comments...
>
>Adults are perfectly capable, but why should they? Many people do not
>have the time or desire to master our archaic cryptic commands that do
>magic things. That is NOT progress.
Quite often, it is 'babysitting the GUI' that is the collosal
waste of time...
--
Unless you've got the engineering process to match a DEC,
you won't produce a VMS.
You'll just end up with the likes of NT.
|||
/ | \
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Damien)
Crossposted-To: alt.sad-people.microsoft.lovers,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Linux is blamed for users trolling-wish.
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: 28 Jul 2000 01:03:27 GMT
On Thu, 27 Jul 2000 16:24:58 +0200, in alt.destroy.microsoft
David Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
| Is your K6-200 running on an Intel TX chip set, by the way? That chip set
| cannot cache more than the first 64 MB memory - performance with more than
| 64 MB depends greatly on the OS. For example, NT allocates memory from the
| bottom up and will make best use of the faster cached memory. Win95
| allocates memory from the top down, and will slow down considerably if I add
| more RAM. Have you any idea what Linux does?
You can't imagine how this hard this simple information was to find.
http://www.lostcircuits.com/memory/dimms2.html
"How does exceeding the cacheable amount of RAM affect my system's
performance? That depends on the operating system. UNIX or LINUX
access memory from bottom to top (that means starting with the first
bytes / memory addresses available) and therefore, a performance hit
will occur only if the amount of used memory exceeds the amount of
cacheable memory"
Now how do I find out what kind of chipset I have. . . . .?
| Did you every try the QNX floppy demo? A single floppy with a full
| real-time 32-bit OS, a GUI, a text editor, a file manager, a web browser, a
| small web server, and more. Ok, it is limited, but it has about 60% of the
| functionality many people need in less than 1% of the disk space required
| for Linux or Windoze.
Yeah, QNX is impressive that way. The single biggest obsticle to
creating a similar Linux distro is the X window system. You'll find
at least ten different mini-distros, most fitting on a floppy disk,
with amazing capabilities. Most of them are text mode only, but I
have found at least on exception: mu-Linux
http://sunsite.auc.dk/mulinux/. Checkout the screen shot:
http://www.tmn.com/Community/callaham/muscreen.gif Even here though, X
has to be on a second floppy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ()
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Yeah! Bring down da' man!
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 01:10:06 GMT
On Thu, 27 Jul 2000 23:11:12 GMT, Marty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 27 Jul 2000 01:40:50 GMT, Marty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Wed, 26 Jul 2000 03:16:38 GMT, Marty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >> >[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> >> >>
>> >> >> On Tue, 25 Jul 2000 23:46:02 GMT, Marty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >> >> >[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> >> >> >>
>> >> >> >> On Tue, 25 Jul 2000 23:11:26 GMT, Marty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >> >> >> >Chris Wenham wrote:
>> >> >> >> >>
>> >> >> >> >> Jeff Szarka <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> [deletia]
[deletia]
>> Pretty much all GUIs have a fairly similar scheme for
>> communicating between applications and windows, even
>> including GEM.
>
>How is the socket-based X even remotely (pun intended) similar to entirely
>local PMSHELL or Explorer in terms of communications between applications and
>the window manager? Your "declarations of fact" are worthless.
You're simply fixating on a lower level mechanism.
>
>> >
>> >> What Fvwm95 does reflects interface elements present in X since 1990
>> >> and a little bit of dressup to make it look more superficially like
>> >> explorer.
>> >
>> >And it's that precise "dressing up" that nauseates me so. Why bother trying
>> >to look like Explorer when it can have its own unique and respectable
>> >interface?
>>
>> Then dress it up differently.
>>
>> This is what distinguishes actual Linux and FreeBSD users from
>> posers and whining Lemmings. If you don't like fvwm95, at the
>> very least bother to crack open .fvwm95rc and do something
>> about it.
>
>Geez you are thick. I'm not saying I *can't* do it. I'm merely mentioning
>that there is an alarming trend in a lot of Linux software to produce a
>Windows-like environment on Linux.
Why should it alarm you? What network effects do you think are
going to force you to suffer a 'bad windows clone interface'?
Those of us with a clue just continue on using alternate
interfaces or even build alternative interfaces that can
interoperate with common (or even uncommon standards).
[deletia]
>> >vomit.
>>
>> The user shell is typically not the worst aspect of any
>> Microsoft Operating Enviroment.
>
>But why make software that mimics it at all?
Why not?
This is the important part of your rant that is missing.
[deletia]
As far as why goes: function before form would be the
obvious practical reason.
Although, in terms of function: why be limited to the way
that Unix does things? Why simply whine about the derivative
nature of end user interfaces? Why not go after the whole
kit & kaboodle?
Wake us when you've got some code to show us.
--
Unless you've got the engineering process to match a DEC,
you won't produce a VMS.
You'll just end up with the likes of NT.
|||
/ | \
------------------------------
From: "Colin R. Day" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Am I the only one that finds this just a little scary?
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 21:13:32 -0400
Perry Pip wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Jul 2000 00:15:00 -0400,
> Colin R. Day <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >Perry Pip wrote:
> >
> >> On Mon, 24 Jul 2000 22:07:39 -0400,
> >> Colin R. Day <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>
> >> >Which presumes that the government would have acted with
> >> >foresight, rather than pursuing the immediate, selfish goals of
> >> >government officials.
> >>
> >> Did it ever occur to you that those two don't necessarily have to
> >> conflict one another? Government officials have to answer to voters,
> >> not stockholders.
> >
> >Wrong.
>
> Really?? First of all, even if it is, it does not disprove your
> persumption that forsight and short term selfish goal necessarily
> conflict each other in every single case.
>
I wasn't saying that, you were. I was criticizing your claim that
government officials would have more foresight.
>
> >Most government officials are civil servants, not politicians.
> >And civil servants don't have to answer to voters.
>
> Civil servants have to answer to elected officials, which have to
> answer to voters. So ultimately government officials have to answer to
> voters.
>
Ever try to fire a civil servant?
>
> >Nor, for that
> >matter, do federal judges.
>
> Federal Judges have little influence of Government investments in
> technology. Nice try.
Really? Thomas Jackson and Microsoft might disagree there.
Colin Day
------------------------------
From: Charlie Ebert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Slipping away into time.
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 01:16:39 GMT
mlw wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >
> > Microsoft wins on human factors. Users are comfortable with what they
> > know, even if the technology they are using is flawed. They've become
> > accustomed to it. Not losing documents, not crashing, not rebooting
> > regularly, that's weird. Its uncomfortable for them. Its alien. It
> > may take a generation to bury the attitudes of the current crop of
> > consumers before Linux and other alternative OSen can gain significant
> > ground.
> >
> > Exhort all you want, but promising a system that works as advertised
> > doesn't carry any weight with this generation. Bill Gates is their
> > hero, the DOJ is evil, and blue screens and CTRL-ALT-DELETE are as
> > common to them as the mouse.
>
> There is also the concept of being cynical. The current generation of
> computer users have been told over and over again that the "new" system
> is "better, fast, stronger" than the old system. The Microsoft "eat your
> young" attitude. "xyz version x.1 is a much improved over the unreliable
> x.0, you can trust x.1!" Then, x.2 comes out, and its "xyz version x.2
> is much improved over the unreliable x.1, you can trust x.2!"
>
> It is all marketing hype and lies. No one believes it anymore. When I
> tell someone they don't need to reboot Linux (or BSD) they look at me
> and you can see it in their eyes "yea, right, they always say that."
>
> Just the other day, I had a problem with my Linux box, the CDROM wasn't
> working. The first thing someone said to me was that I should reboot and
> "that will fix it, I do it all the time." Turns out it was a defective
> CDROM. Then I thought about the poor guy who reboots "all the time,"
> that would drive me INSANE! but people have come to accept it as
> inevitable.
>
> The real key to getting rid of Microsoft is not a GUI, not some ease of
> use BS, not even more applications, they will come, the real key is to
> convince people that rebooting is unacceptable, and that rebooting does
> not "fix" anything, it just makes the problem go away until the next
> time.
>
> >
> > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> > Before you buy.
>
> --
> Mohawk Software
> Windows 9x, Windows NT, UNIX, Linux. Applications, drivers, support.
> Visit http://www.mohawksoft.com
> Nepotism proves the foolishness of at least two people.
Let me also add the slavery cost to our society.
Think of all the software developers who must pay $$$$ to keep their
Microsoft certifications current. Probably 50% of the companies hiring
programmers require a current certification.
The most pitaful part about this method of selective employment
is it descriminates against those who don't have the money to keep
current and loose employment opportunities due to this kind of
descrimination.
So, rather than have YOUR company certify it's workers thru either
an in-house test or a trial period, they have Microsoft do it for them.
And, since companies don't offer a test for these people other than
this certification, I deem it as descrimination in the workplace.
It's descrimination as no other equivalent evidence of employability
is weighed into the equation for hiring in these companies.
Charlie
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Just curious, how do I do this in Windows?
Date: 27 Jul 2000 20:17:46 -0500
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Aaron R. Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Leslie Mikesell wrote:
>>
>> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>> Aaron R. Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> >Anybody who works in a multi-platform environment needs to be aware
>> >of the big/little-endian issue.
>> >
>> >> Platform-endian to neutral conversions and back, however, are very
>> >> handy things. Example: I have to send data from a big-endian box to a
>> >> middle-endian box; what use is a big-to-little endian here? None at
>> >> all. However, a halfway well written snippet of C code with a defined
>> >> neutral format doesn't care what the endianness of the platform it's
>> >> compiled on is, it just works. :)
>> >
>> >Try dumping a jpeg from a big-endian platform onto tape, and then
>> >loading it up onto a little-endian platform, and get back to me.
>>
>> Where's the problem? Jpegs have a platform-neutral representation.
>> A tar tape copy would load and display on any machine.
>
>Les. If the jpeg is thrown onto tape in little-endian format,
>and the exact same bytestream is uploaded onto a big-endian machine,
>the jpeg data will be all fucked up
No it won't, any more than it would be when delivered by
a web server on the same machine. Writing to a tape is
the same as writing to a socket.
>the stream
>
>ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWX
>
>as written by the little-endian machine
>will be READ from tape by the big-endian machine
>
>as the stream
>
>DCBAHGFELKJIPONMTSRQXWVU
>
>This will lead to unsatisfactory results, to say the least.
That would happen if you wrote an array of integers or a similar
data structure directly from memory, but a jpeg has a
defined representation that has to be the same on all
machines - anything processing it has to put the bits
in the defined order.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "Colin R. Day" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Am I the only one that finds this just a little scary?
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 21:21:27 -0400
Perry Pip wrote:
> >
> >But if enough people did want to travel to California by rail, then why
> >weren't the railroads privately financed,
>
> Because the 16 year research, surveying, design and delopment period
> was to long a payback time for the short-term oriented private
> financers. Didn't I already explain that elsewhere??
>
And you conveniently snipped my original question, so I'll rephrase it:
If the return was such that private investors would not have done it
of their own accord, then should government have done it at all?
>
> >Remeber Credit Mobilier?
> >
>
> This was several years after the Transcontinental Railroad and not
> directly connected to it. Furthermore, the fact that people got caught
> and politicians careers were destroyed is an attest to the checks and
> balances in the system working. I never said everything the Government
> does is good. You seem to make the presumption that everything the
> Government does is bad. That's as foolish as the reverse presumption
> that everything the Government does is good.
>
But you haven't stated why building the transcontinental railroad
with government financing was better than the alternatives. You
say that the first transcontinental railroad would not have been
built without government support, and for the sake of argument,
I'll agree. However, would alternate uses of resources have been
better?
>
> Remember the Donner Party??
No, I wasn't invited :-).
Colin Day
------------------------------
From: "Colin R. Day" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Which Linux should I try?
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 21:23:54 -0400
Tim Palmer wrote:
> Tom Loach <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >Do yourself a favor and don't buy Corel.
>
>
Which half did you keep?
Colin Day
------------------------------
From: Moses Milazzo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.x
Subject: Re: LINUX GUI CRASHPROOF?
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 17:48:35 -0700
Arthur wrote:
> Christopher's explanation is a good discussion of the underlying
> mechanics of apps under GUIs on Linux, and I doubt I can improve
> on it. What I can do is give you my actual experience:
>
> The system I'm typing this on has been running now for 38 1/2 days
> without reboot. I use it for web surfing/email/news, business stuff
> (mostly spreadsheets at the moment), and development in C++ and
> Perl (I'm just learning Perl, so there are lots of errors). I
> run KDE almost exclusively for everything I do - if I do command
> line stuff, I do it in a KDE xterm. I have also installed at least
> half a dozen pieces of software over that period.
I've been running the Open Look Virtual Windows Manager (OLVWM)on
Slackware 7.0 for well over 100 days, with basically no problems at all. I've
had
a couple applications crash on me, but that had nothing to do with the WM, and
didn't do anything to the WM.
Whenever there is a problem, I can kill off the offending program generally with
out touching the WM. When I do have to touch the WM, it NEVER hurts the
rest of the system (yeah, I have to kill the apps that are running over the WM),
I
haven't rebooted the machine in about 120 days, and that last reboot was because
I upgraded the kernel.
I had KDE and Gnome running on this same machine running RedHat 6.1 for a while,
but it wasn't nearly stable enough for me, and I had to return to Slackware.
I use this machine for image processing, so I need something which is very
stable, and on
which the Window Manager uses very little memory. Slack's stable, and OLVWM is
the most stable, smallest memory hog I've used.
Cheers,
Moses
------------------------------
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why is "ease of use" a dirty concept?
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 18:03:38 -0700
Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
1$Worth <"1$Worth"@costreduction.plseremove.screaming.net> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Byron A Jeff wrote:
>
> Yup, and that's why I feel that it does not have to be that way,
> although we (linux community) should accept some changes to accommodate
> this for the benefit of the majority of people.
Sorry, but on that point I must disagree. We of the Linux community should
NOT accept ANY changes to accommodate the majority of people. Not one
environment, not one program, not one byte and not one bit! Many people
have worked very hard consuming many man hours to create Linux as it is.
Many if not most have done that with out any remuneration of any sort. Linux
will continue to grow with or without the acceptance of the mass market and
the great majority of people.
The reason we have chosen Linux is because it serves our need just fine. If
all we wanted was a dumbed down OS we would not have selected Linux in the
first place. So, I say Terabytes for improvement desired by the community
but not one bit for appeasement to buy general public acceptance.
This does not mean that "easy to use" user environments should not be
developed for Linux. That it not what I said at all. I would like to see
more varity of user environments. I would like to see a Windows 9x user
interface developed for Linux. I would like to see a Window 3.x user
interface developed for Linux. I would like to see a MacOS user interface
developed for Linux. I would like to see a ....... Well you get the
picture. What I would like to see is a situation where someone could sit
down at the workstation login and forget that they are not using the other
operating system that they are used to using. As long as they don't do
things like try to edit the registery.
What is important here is that these are all user environemnt and not
operating system issues. I don't want to see on bit of the existing
programs changed to appease the mass market. Those environments could all
be implemented as window managers and perhaps any supporting libraries.
There is no need to make existing X programs adapt to those environments.
What I mean by that is that a program like xdvi is fine just as it is for
many of us. If there were a Windows 9x environment it should still pemit
the use of the existing xdvi program. If it is felt that there is a need
for a version of xdvi tailored for that environment then go ahead and
develop that other version of xdvi lets say wxdvi, but the existing code
base of xdvi should not be tampered with. Future releases of xdvi should
work as though the Windows 9x environment had never been developed.
Nothing here is limited to Linux either. What we are talking about is the
window managers, libraries and maybe their dependent programs running on X.
If they are properly written they should run on other unixes as well and
maybe even other non-unix X platforms.
The Linux community already has divergent user environment that do not
interfer with each other, first there are all the shells to choose from,
then there is SVGA graphics, then there is X. Under X we have a large
varity already of window managers and in some cases supporting libraries.
That is the way thing have been with Linux (and unix) and that is the way
they should remain. The Linux computing platform is about choice and I will
defened your right to choose and develop their prefered environment, but not
if it impact in any way someone else who has not made the same choice as you
have
------------------------------
From: Marty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split Save It?
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 01:28:51 GMT
Chris Wenham wrote:
>
> Marty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > He's right Chris, and for a very good reason: It's very difficult to tell the
> > words you wrote under Ed's name apart from something Ed would actually say.
>
> No it isn't. It's extremely obvious.
You're right. The words you wrote were much more well-thought-out than his
posts typically are.
------------------------------
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