Linux-Advocacy Digest #48, Volume #28 Fri, 28 Jul 00 00:13:04 EDT
Contents:
Re: Linux is blamed for users trolling-wish. (T. Max Devlin)
Re: Why use Linux? ("Spud")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.sad-people.microsoft.lovers,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Linux is blamed for users trolling-wish.
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 23:51:23 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Said David Brown in alt.destroy.microsoft;
[...]
>That's because Unix is bloated as well. The base Linux system is not too
>bad (yet), at least by comparison to Windozes, but X has always been a
>disaster in terms of code complexity, code size, and resource demands. You
>can build a Linux file/print server on a 486 with 4 Mb - add some more ram
>and it will be a web server too. But MS cannot even claim to have
>"innovated" code bloat for GUIs.
True, but that's simply why you can't run X comfortably on a 486. Or,
for those who are used to real software on a decent system, any
low-level Pentium, or at least for me.
Do you think there's any chance that the commercial possibilities of
developing Linux might produce a "re-draw" of X that's still somewhat
compatible without the bloat problem? That would be just *nasty*,
wouldn't it? A new super-optimized X? You could run it over the
Internet!
Anyway, (holy shit, he suddenly realizes in one of his characteristic
flashes of cross-linked ideas: that means you'll just use an interface,
and the *network* will be the *computer*.... - nah, he thinks,
remembering that real physical resources *are* always better, but can't
you just see it....) I say 'commercial' possibilities not to discount
non-commercial possibilities at all. I think they're all the more
exciting, simply bursting with potential innovation of honestly awesome
scope. But the general commercial trade in "software" will certainly
continue, for a potentially enduring period of time. However, the
commercial possibilities of the *exploitation* of software is,
hopefully, a thing of the past, what with Linux being GPL.
It'll be nice when I can at least *hope* that a software company who
"owns" a product I use is as ambitiously productive and honest and full
of general integrity as that sweet little outfit out in Utah. *God*,
wasn't that a great experience. Call them up, they got millions of
customers, but you get "Sure, we'll send some new stuff right out to
you." No pitch, no mega-corpo-media-madness bullshit. Good software at
a mighty good price. I'd *still* pay someone $200 bucks to fit me out
with a *real* wordprocessor that runs like a champ and does what I tell
it to. And I would hope that someone who wants to pay $50 can do the
same. Because after all, it isn't the *code* that costs money. Its the
*programmers*.
Software engineering is an art form, and so it was copyrighted. But it
leads to profiteering, so we need the GPL. Then the artists can get on
with their "works".
[...]
>You misunderstand me. I am not saying that that a big petrol tank or large
>hard disk is bad - I am saying that being forced to get one because of
>inefficient engines or bloat-ware is bad.
I certainly agree. I never meant to say that bloat was good. I was
being a bit sarcastic, I guess, but in an ironic way, when I pointed out
that Windows95 made it possible for Linux to run with X on a
bog-standard desktop PC. Without the *forced* expansion of *true
bloat*, Linux actually wouldn't be a viable option, IMHO. That might
be, as much as the GPL, why MS wasn't able to defend better against
Linux in their illicit campaign to inhibit competition. The Halloween
memos didn't get written until 1998, I think, and that was *long* after
MS should have had a response to the "competitive threat". Had they
been a competitive company, MS would have, I'm sure. But we've already
gone over that ground; had they been competitive, MS wouldn't still be
in business.
The issue of bloat is a double-edged sword, as you suggest. The way I
see it, one can easily tell 'true bloat', as in Microsoft's
developments, and 'virtual bloat', we'll call it, appropriately enough,
I think, so the sword is still a useful tool, and indeed all the more
powerful. Comparing Microsoft's methods, the 'reason' for bloat is
sloppy design, plain and simple. The 'justification' for bloat, however
is added features.
With virtual bloat, as evidenced by X and much, in fact, of Unix, the
hugeness of resources in any or all aspects is due to entirely different
causes, and to different effects. The 'reason' for such bloat is the
awareness of the designers that they were building a system who's
'purpose', if you will, was unknown to them. They knew what it needed
to do; they were intentionally and productively ignorant, other than in
the abstract, to why it would be doing it. What was "X" 'designed for'?
To be "X". A remote graphical user interface display terminal
technology, network transparent and *very* adaptable. So the ultimate
'justification' for why X is bloated is because it was designed to
potentially do a very great number of things it isn't currently employed
in doing.
It might make tons and tons of sense, in fact, to re-do the thing almost
entirely. Maintaining at least *some* level of compatibility with
existing implementations is, of course, very important. But we can,
with more than twenty year's experience now, throw a group of engineers
into a "working group", or fund a few projects at CS schools, and do
something better. 'Knowing what we know now' is, after all, what "open
source" is all about.
Let's not be too incredibly hasty, though. I was spouting off a couple
of years ago about the problems with keyboards on Unix/Linux. That damn
backspace key. And it just *isn't* anywhere as *trivial* as it rightly
should be, to really 'work' your keyboard layout in its various and
hopefully 'integrated' guises.
But then, just as I was saying "what the hell is the point of having the
command input stream be so damn flexible that it can still use a
teletype?" And then I considered the differences between teletype, and
a keyboard, and the differences between old keyboards and new keyboards,
and of the difference between keyboards and voice input, and I thought
to myself, "Damn. That's one hell of a system. Do I really want to
second-guess it?"
OTOH, I fully believe that double-checking the implementation of X is
well called for.
>MS is famous for its bloat-ware, but it is by no means alone. Linux is just
>as bad (I am sure there is a lot of useful stuff on a 6-CD distribution, but
>there is a lot of useless stuff as well).
It isn't having stuff on a distribution CD which makes "bloat". If
never ever indicated that the size of the distribution (number of lines,
number of floppies, number of CDs, hours of downloading) have any
deterministic relationship with the value of the software. Hey,
sometimes multimedia is *good*.
>You seem to think that as we
>switch to Linux, things will get better. Exactly how much smaller is Star
>Office 5.2 for Linux, compared to the Windows version? Or Netscape? There
>are certainly some programs that are much smaller on Linux than anything
>equivilent to be found in Windoze (such as the KOffice), but then again they
>must build on the mess that is X.
There wasn't ever a single metric that I'm willing to point to and call
"bloat". There isn't even a particular instance of bloat that I would
be willing to say is a precise example. Software growing in size is not
a bad thing. Bloat is more ephemeral than that. In fact, I think when
I say bloat I mean something closer to "feeping creaturitis"* than
simple "increase in size out of proportion to functionality". The real
test of bloat, as I've described, is whether the size is out of
proportion because of the sloppy design or because of the extensive
design.
* You'll find this term in the Hacker's Dictionary, but you'll have to
look for it.
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/The-Jargon-Lexicon-framed.html
>> [...]
>>>There is one thing above all that demands power from a computer,
>>>and that is games. Much of the advance in PC power has been
>>>driven by games. And that would happen whatever MS had done.
>>
>>Quite true, but you'd have to rate new versions of Windows as #2, at
>>least.
>
>Only because Linux is not yet as popular. [...]
Of course. Or whatever *is* next as "as popular". Expansion will occur
in software which is useful. When you consider that somewhat
featuresome apps are indeed what the PC is all about, then you have to
admit that expansion of applications is not an entirely bad thing, to a
great extent. Its figuring out the *right* software to add, to make it
most flexible (yet efficient), rather than simple sloppy coding, which
is the issue.
I am aware, and subscribe to, the Unix notion of many small tools in
infinite combination. But I'm not *ever* gonna consider using emacs, or
TeX, or any of the other super-compact-ultra-tools that Unix has
generated and made convention. Those are for the developers to use, in
building end-user applications that are easy but still functional, and
which contribute and encourage to the end-users ability to *program* his
own environment, as much as possible.
And that's going to require some serious big apps, though they should
run light and nibble regardless. Three cheer's for Moore's Law. For
the last twenty years, it has been a sentence. Now it is time to make
it a dream.
>MS said "the old version of Windozes was slow and unreliable - get the new,
>faster, stable version with all those features you've been missing", i.e.,
>"we're ready to ROCK, now", with every new release.
I'm wounded that you would be so cruel as to compare my rousing,
heartfelt, and hopefully, I'll admit, moving sentiment to Microsoft
shmarketing propaganda.
Perhaps you should re-read
http://www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween4.html . I get
goose-bumbs, I swear.
[...]
>>>Even the explorer interface is not properly multi-threaded. The interface
>>>was a bit nicer, however.
>>
>>The same (except for the last) is still true of NT, as well.
>
>NT is much better than W9x in this respect. Not perfect, but much, much
>better than Win9x.
Certainly, but that doesn't make it an uncommon experience for people
who actually *use* their computer resources heavily.
[...]
>>You invert the case by accepting the common perception, without critical
>>insight. OS/2 was neither a brilliant product, nor a failure.
>
>OS/2 Warp 3.0 was a very good product, and much better (for most purposes -
>I am talking about desktops here rather than servers) than anything else
>available at the time.
I an in heartfelt agreement that OS/2 was a good product, and much
better than any other of DOS's or Windows' virtual competition. I
think, in fact, it was the best IBM product ever made. That doesn't
mean it was a "brilliant" product. I am not a fan at all of IBM
products in their entirety and for the most part. Their PC software
I've always found to be custom designed for "droid use". Useless for a
personal computer environment, I think, but really great at maintaining,
(and benefiting from!) the "glass house" in true blue shops.
[...]
>Your mixing things up again. Warp Connect 3.0, which was released shortly
>after Warp 3.0, had the connectivity you are talking about. IIRC, Warp
>Connect 3.0 was available significantly before Win95 came out. Warp 4.0
>(they dropped the "Connect" name for 4.0) had relatively small improvements
>over Warp 3.0, and came out quite a bit after Win95.
So when was it I attended a DB2 seminar with Warp featured as the new
thing? God, have I really been doing this that long? Ah, your words
slowly bring the memories back from swap. 3.0 was "Warp", 3.x was "Warp
Connect", which introduced the features. Warp 4.0 was where they were
actually supposed to be easy to use, and was an attempt to reclaim the
market after Win95. This meshes with IBM's testimony in court, which
described IBM's decision to try to push OS/2 even after Microsoft had
made their intentions clear concerning Win95's monopoly position in the
OS pre-load market.
>Your statement "everybody waited around for 4.x" shows your American bias
>again. Warp 3.0 was popular in Europe, where people tend to be more swayed
>by technical merit and less swayed by marketing, as compared to the USA. In
>Germany in particular (where this difference is most heavily demonstrated -
>no where is LaTeX more popular, for example), Warp 3.0 was a very serious
>competitor to Windows, and MS had to find hard and dirty to limit the
>damage.
Oh, don't get pretentious. You were just late to the party, because
mega-corp marketing hadn't indoctrinated your average consumers yet.
Many countries have often established the marked lead in technological
progress. I'll mention only briefly that I believe this is greatly
attributed to the ease with which Europeans allow their government to
"intrude" (in American parlance) into private affairs. Nationalization
is an easy way to build a national network or encourage use of
technology. "Not that there's anything wrong with that...", as we say
on Seinfeld.
[...]
>Warp Connect 3.0 (I have the manual on my shelf - it was version 3.0) was
>identical to Warp 3.0, except for added networking and communication
>software.
So because (before or after) of Win95, IBM rushed out a separate
version, with a TCP/IP stack and other stuff. This is why you noticed
my confusion, and I'll point out it reflects the market confusion, quite
accurately. Not recognizing the 'purpose', as opposed to the
'justification', of Window's inclusion of TCP/IP, the "forthcoming
version" of OS/2, which was to be 3.0, which would have "networking"
(which at the time meant, unbeknownst, it seems, to IBM, an integrated
IPX and NetWare client)... christ I just can't go on with this sentence.
Here's how I figure it:
IBM touts OS/2 3.0, 'Warp', to try to quell the focus on the NYRFPT
Win95. It will have networking, they say. (Or sources speculate, or
expectations are, or whatever.)
MS touts Win95, which will have "integrated networking".
IBM touts (possibly the first case of reverse anti-FUD) "the next
version" of Warp, which will also have "integrated networking".
Win95 is release, with an integrated TCP/IP stack to kill Trumpet and
defuse similar competition, and IE (though nobody mentions it at the
time), and so forth and so on.
IBM hustles together Warp Connect out, slapping a TCP/IP stack, and
other goodies, onto Warp, knowing that if they sit and wait until OS/2
4.0 is ready, they'll be dead.
The market gets confused, because suddenly there is a "next version",
that is not a next version. It has what IBM touted for 4.0, but
virtually can't compete with Win95.
IBM eventually releases OS/2 4.0, with an integrated TCP/IP stack, IPX,
stack, NetBIOS stack, Stack stack, and almost working clients for each.
But virtual competition is "not competition", so it continues to be a
fascinating and powerful OS for an enduring number of people, until the
air in that particular mine shaft is used up entirely. Each OS/2 user,
lacking an air supply, drowning in poisonous gasses.
So do you think that fits your recollection of the facts?
>This additional connectivity was certainly superior to WfW, and
>in many ways better than Win95. Warp 4.0 (which was always "connected", so
>they dropped that part of the name) was a smaller upgrade which improved
>things more but was not revolutionary in the way that Warp 3.0 was.
The market couldn't keep up as well as you did, I think. I guess the
last thing you want to do when everyone is revving around you is to
*not* continually rev yourself. Even your own customers stop paying
attention to you. The 3.0 "Connect" pre-emptive strike might even have
been planned all along, but it wasn't release simultaneously, of that I
am absolutely certain.
So perhaps you did have a point saying it might have been a marketing
fumble that IBM made on Warp. I learned a lot, thanks. I still don't
think you can "virtually compete", but perhaps I'm merely cynical.
>>a big fan of IBM software, so I always saw a lot of problems with it for
>>the average user. But corporate desktops would have been five years
>>ahead of the game if OS/2 hadn't been destroyed by MS anti-competition.
>
>I can agree with that.
>
>IBM have always made some of the technically best software available. But
>they don't sell so much to the mass market (a combination of their own
>marketting deparment shooting themselves in the foot, then MS marketting
>cutting their arms off), and put correspondingly less emphasise on user
>friendliness and mass testing.
They *can't* sell well to the mass market, because they don't know *how*
to emphasize the end user. IBM software is written for "the
administrator", which is what we call them. In IBM's glory days, they
were a "user". And in the future age, they'll be "the programmer".
Administration of a personal computer is more of a mirage than an
activity.
[...]
>>And this is a reason not to prosecute a rich corporation?
>
>No - the US courts should do their best. But I don't think they will
>suitably punish MS for their crimes (in at least some other countries, the
>top leaders in MS would be personally on trial as well, not just the
>company) - history has shown that the US courts do not suitably punish or
>restrain rich companies or individuals. They should not give up, but I will
>not believe that MS will be properly punished by the US courts until I see
>it happen.
You misunderstand. The courts have no intention, nor power, to punish
MS for its crimes. Its unfortunate, but true. I mean, they could maybe
fine it an hour or even a day's profits, but the "Microsoft" is an
entity incorporated by law, not nature. It isn't a person, and can't be
"punished". It would be unlawful to punish its employees or
stockholders, either, though the courts have no responsibility or
authority to secure the jobs or guarantee the investment of either
group.
The breakup is a *remedy*, not a punishment. I'm not sure if the fact
is that European courts actually work to "punish" corporate businesses,
or whether that is merely your interpretation, based, I'm afraid, on
metaphoric descriptions. There are many in the U.S. who also make this
error, so I'll have to wait for more information on the anti-trust
activities and individual perspectives of the European courts.
All I have to go on in terms of European courts is what the big 16
decide to show me, and that's next to worthless, as far as I am
concerned.
[...]
>Americans have their rights "guarenteed" by their constitution, and probably
>most laws (with the exception of attrocities like the DCMA) are reasonably
>fair regardless of money.
I know its late to say this, but I am truly entirely unfamiliar with the
acronym "DCMA", though I've been able to get by on context to this
point. What the hell is it?
> But you are naive in the exteme if you believe
>that the optimum weapon for fighting oppression of liberty is "knowledge and
>integrity" - the optimum weapon for fighting in the American courts, more
>than in most other democratic countries, is money and good lawyers.
I believe that depends on if your criterium for what makes something
"optimum" is to be successful, or to be right. The courts are only one
battlefield against oppression, and the campaigns in the war are quite
complex, though guided only by the "invisible hand". Ain't evolution
spectacular?
Quite a number of "discontents" from Europe seem to have found the
shores of America. We have much more of a problem with ADD, but we also
are a hotbed of innovation. Go figure.
>It
>would be oversimplifying to say that the big company can just spend more and
>more money on the case, forcing the smaller company to do the same, until
>the smaller one runs out of money and has to conceed the case, but that is
>certainly a prominent feature of some cases.
Yes, unfortunately it is. Obviously one of the most critical problems
in a republican capitalist state. Some insist that I'm a socialist,
even a communist, for daring to think that the power of government is
pre-eminant over any business, or even an individual. But I still would
not go so far as to want conventional acceptance of government
interference in social interactions. We might guard our freedoms a bit
too closely for your taste, but we've reason to believe that's the only
way to keep them in the end.
>I have seen it happen - I know an American who wrote a program, and had been
>selling it for years. A company that he worked for fired him and then sued
>him for trying to use the program. After a long court battle, in which the
>company had obtained an injuction against him so that his personal business
>was ruined, and after he had been virtually bankrupt by legal costs, the guy
>won, as the facts were clearly in his favour. He has proved himself right,
>but at the cost of his house, his job, his career, his customers, virtually
>everything he owned, and an enormous amount of time, money, stress, pain,
>and dispair. Theoretically, he could counter-sue, but he does not have the
>money and could not face going through the court battles again even if he
>did.
A pitiful shame, to say the least. Why aren't you blaming the unethical
business on the fact that government didn't already protect his work?
I'm assuming, of course, that he actually was righteous in his claim.
You know, a lot of people just aren't aware of the extent of the claim
of "work for hire" that an employer has over the product of the
employee.
I'll know the world has become more perfect than I ever imagined when
programmers never engage in work for hire. Its demeaning to their art,
in my opinion.
>Now, explain again exactly how the US courts and legal system protected this
>"little guy", armed with knowledge and integrity, against the large company
>with piles of cash? I know that a single example does not prove that this
>is always the case, but it is certainly very strong evidence.
You haven't given any concrete reason to believe that the guy actually
owned the work. Chances are good, in fact, that the company just gave up
after many years of fighting, after the software was worthless anyway.
They paid the guy, just to make him go away; it was their software all
along, if he was their employee, and a programmer, particularly of
similar software, when he wrote it.
[...]
>I am not going to get drawn into a US versus the world debat - that is not
>the point here. Nor are the various successes and failures of the US in
>international affairs - every country has done good things and bad things in
>their past and the US is no exception. Such discussions just end up with
>everyone getting annoyed, and no one gets any wiser.
>
>I would merely refer you to examples from MS's own court cases. In
>particular, consider the case of MS-DOS vs. DR-DOS. At one time, DR-DOS was
>a much better alternative to MS-DOS and would have, in a fair market, have
>taken a significant market share. So MS illegally destroyed DR-DOS. DR-DOS
>(I am using the product name rather than the company name, since the product
>was sold several times during this time) complained and tried to sue MS. By
>the time the US courts actually concluded that MS was guilty, DR-DOS, which
>should have been a major market force, was virtually non-existant, and the
>sum paid out by MS was so small that MS hardly noticed it.
Oh, you certainly have my agreement there. The *pace* of U.S. Justice,
particularly in terms of intellectual matters, is abysmal, I'll agree.
There is something to be said, though, that a single case doesn't make
or break a society, and it might be better to be careful and thorough
than quick and decisive.
The fact is, MS should have been stopped, in my opinion, by re-alignment
of statue if necessary, when they did what they did with BASIC before
the PC ever existed. There just wasn't enough money involved at the
time to make any one claim substantial enough to be convincing. Such is
the power of unethical behavior, and why it must be stamped out.
[...]
>>Did you know that Thomas Edison was more like Bill
>>Gates than most people realize?
>Yes - among other things, he claimed he invented the light bulb, even though
>both he an Lumier simultaneously copied it from a Scottish schoolteacher.
I wasn't aware of that detail. Thanks.
>Did you know that Isaac Newton was a nasty, scheming plageriser who
>terrorised many of his contemporary scientists?
Well, sure. Didn't everyone? Are we know to make the argument that
only bastards make great contributions to society? ;-)
The story I heard was that he was a general pain to live with, but had
independently developed his work. What basis is there for considering
"scheming"?
[...]
>Perhaps, since MS is an American company, Europeans and their governments
>are more outraged and less accepting of MS's behaviour than the US is.
Yes, quite possibly there is an appreciable amount of nationalist
sentiment.
>For
>example, the German government has a rule that says official offices cannot
>have financial dealings with Scientologists. Since W2K uses defragmenting
>software written by a Scientologist company, the German goverment ruled that
>no official body would touch W2K. MS then had to make a special version for
>them without the deframenting software. Would the US government have made
>such a strong stand as to refuse to even consider buying products from one
>of its biggest companies?
You have to love the very real and forthright nature that the European
shows sometimes. The U.S. is so much more a matter of facade and
pretention. Three cheers to the German government, I say, if they can
strike a blow against both Microsoft and Scientology with one sweep.
The US gov't, or parts of it, has certainly taken such a stand, and
promptly ignored it, I'm told.
[...]
>The EU courts are also incredibly slow - I would recommend we send Judge
>Dredd instead.
Now you got me thinking about Aaron's sniper rifle again....
>The American courts said "You illegally used your OS monopoly to get a
>monopoly in the browser market - we will stop you doing the same thing in
>the future". The EU courts are saying "You are trying to illegally use your
>desktop monopoly to get a server monopoly - we will stop you before this
>happens". Of course, it remains to be seen whether the EU courts have any
>success.
Good luck, certainly. The Outlook/Exchange thing is the most horrendous
boondoggle I think has ever been executed.
[...]
>>To the US court's mind, that is the entire intent and purpose of the
>>breakup. In the 80s, this was commonly referred to as a "chinese wall".
>
>And that is why the breakup is necessary (although I am not sure it is
>sufficient).
It doesn't stand alone, not by a long shot. In fact, at first it seemed
that the breakup was aligned with the restraint conviction, and the
"behavioral restrictions" were premised on the monopoly charge. Since
the restraint conviction is more dubious (for reasons I've explained
elsewhere, I won't bore you again unless you ask) many believed that the
breakup will be overturned. Still do, AFAIK, though I think it almost
impossible for this to happen at this point. Microsoft's continued
leveraging of their pre-load monopoly to extend their power to
additional markets (notably the .NET strategy to cut off the ASP threat)
is clear evidence that the breakup is essential for any remedy of either
'activity'.
But the behavior restrictions, which are seldom talked about, are really
the meat of the matter; the breakup is merely the necessary step to
prevent alternative monopolistic strategies.
Microsoft, as far as I have heard (and not in clear language, I'll point
out) will be unable to negotiate discriminatorally, which means they'll
no longer be able to use their quintessential strong-arm tactic, "Go
along with us or we'll raise the price of Windows." That seems almost
enough by itself, but it goes on to prohibit a lot of individual
mechanisms for "leveraging" monopoly power.
The goal is to neither *remove* nor to *supplant*, and certainly not to
*regularize*, the monopoly. The goal is to allow the free market to
refuse it if it is in the market's best interest, or not.
A lot of trust us 'mericans place in the "invisible hand", I'll agree.
But we've been trained since infancy to trust almost anything more than
the government. Unfortunately, I think the lesson took a little too
much for some folks, and they're convinced that someone trying to sell
them something is more trustworthy than a public official. Neither line
of work is necessarily a character reference, of course, but unethical
behavior shouldn't be tolerated any more in one than the other, either.
--
T. Max Devlin
-- Such is my recollection of my reconstruction
of events at the time, as I recall. Consider it.
Research assistance gladly accepted. --
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------------------------------
From: "Spud" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why use Linux?
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 20:54:43 -0700
[snips]
"John W. Stevens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Spud wrote:
> > Had it come *without* a
> > preconfigured mess, just with a clean Win98 CD, I wouldn't have
had
> > that problem in the first place. So, let's see... what MS gives
me
> > works, what HP gives me doesn't... so I blame MS. Yeah, that's
the
> > ticket. Makes perfect sense.
>
> Yes, it does, because in *BOTH* cases, you get what MS gives you.
Oh? The HP box I had the fun of working on came with HP's little
"Easy Windows Install" CD... which had all sorts of unusable drivers
and assorted crap loaded by default.
You were using an *exact* copy of the Windows 98 CD that one can buy
off the shelf? Or were you using an HP-mangled abomination?
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You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux.advocacy) via:
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Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites:
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sunsite.unc.edu pub/Linux
End of Linux-Advocacy Digest
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