Linux-Advocacy Digest #755, Volume #29 Fri, 20 Oct 00 02:13:03 EDT
Contents:
Re: Microsoft kicked off the Web! ("Les Mikesell")
Re: Microsoft kicked off the Web! ("Les Mikesell")
Re: Is there a MS Word (or substitute) for Linux? ("Les Mikesell")
Re: Pros and Cons of MS Windows Dominated World? ("Harvey Louzon")
Re: Why is MS copying Sun??? ("Les Mikesell")
Re: Is there a MS Word (or substitute) for Linux? (Andrew J. Perrin)
D&D Master Tools port to MacOS and Linux ("Patrick Scott")
Re: [OT] Bush v. Gore on taxes (.)
Re: Is there a MS Word (or substitute) for Linux? (Praedor Tempus)
Re: who's WHINING dipshit! ("JS/PL")
Re: Why is MS copying Sun??? (Nobody)
Re: Is there a MS Word (or substitute) for Linux? (Praedor Tempus)
Re: Is there a MS Word (or substitute) for Linux? (Praedor Tempus)
Re: Windows 2000 challenges GNOME/KDE (Donn Miller)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Microsoft kicked off the Web!
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 03:11:27 GMT
"R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8so2oh$v4t$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Most simply, the "front-end" Web server is the one that serves the
> home page. Typically, it has all the "Glitz toys" but delegates nearly
> everything else to other back-end servers. In some cases, it literally
> passes users off to other Apache/UNIX or Apache/Linux servers using
> links, msfriend.com will have links to linux.msfriend.com everywhere.
> (whatever the hostnames).
>
> In other cases, ISAPI will simply pass all CGI and ASP requests to
> back-end servers that do the ugly work (server side includes, cgi
> forms, asp composition, calculations, database accesses, and dynamic
> content generation).
I realize that actual facts are a bit off topic for this group, but does
IIS have any simple equivalent to Apache's 'ProxyPass' directive
that just passes everything that matches though to a different backend
server or do you need extra programming to do it?
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Microsoft kicked off the Web!
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 03:12:56 GMT
"Otto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:VTMH5.31018$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> : > :
> : > : The intel architecture has yet to catch up to previous
> : > : shipping Sun hardware at this point. The sorts of comments
> : > : that you hurl really mean considerably less than you would
> : > : have people believe.
> : >
> : > And that suppose to make someone believe that Sun box is faster than
> Intel
> : > box, when it comes to crypto math calculation, right?
> : >
> : > : Besides, Sun hasn't been standing still at all.
> : >
> : > You are correct, it's been going down....
> : >
> : > Otto
> :
> : You have an odd sense of direction:
> :
> : http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/investor/2001-q1.html
>
> Have you considered the source :)?
>
Aside from the legal requirements for stockholder reports, they
would be the ones in the best position to know.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Is there a MS Word (or substitute) for Linux?
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 03:18:50 GMT
"Grant Edwards" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:qRDH5.2188$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Harry Lewis wrote:
>
> >Maybe it's the way I use Word (oops - did I just admit to using Word?),
> >as I start with an outline, then proceed in "document view" without any
> >formatting (other than the auto formats provided by Word (oops - did I
> >just admit to using Word "features"?)), then apply the formatting when I
> >actually need the text in output, but - to me - Word is very good at
> >separating content from its ultimate rendition (oops - did I just admit
> >to liking Word).
>
> I've never seen anybody else use Word like that.
>
> All the people I've worked with spend 90% of their time from
> the very beginning futzing with fonts and margins and
> backgrounds and colors and whatnot rather than actually
> producing content. It would almost be excusable if they ended
> up with something nice looking but vacuous. But the don't.
> They end up with something ugly and vacuous.
Word is actually capable of using style sheets where the
details are provided by the style which can be changed,
but I don't think many people use them.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "Harvey Louzon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Pros and Cons of MS Windows Dominated World?
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 22:23:33 -0500
Charlie Ebert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Microsoft has 37,000 paid employee's versus Linux's 200,000
> free lancing, free contributing programmer/analysts.
In in both cases the programmers are making what they are worth. Thus in
the case of Linux that would be precisely nothing.
> #5. The cost. At Microsoft's current rate of inflation, by 2005 the
> cost of the Microsoft operating system will be over $1,000 a copy.
Windows 98 upgrade costs about what Win 3.1 did a decade ago.
> #6. The upgrade problem. In not one instance, since the inception of the
> company has Microsoft recommended you stick with last OS's
> applications
> when you upgrade your OS.
MS has gone out of it's way to make their software backward compatible with
prior versions of its OS. What was the purpose of keeping a real mode option
in win 9x anyway? 99% of old software can still run on win 9x. MS has, to
a large extent, preserced people's investment in their software (if that is
what they choose to do). E.g., I am still running a 14 y/o version of Lotus
123 as my primary spreadsheet. Never had a need to incorporate new features
for my purposes. And it still runs perfectly well on win 98. So what's your
problem anyway?
The recommendation is as previous OS
> applications
> will either not run properly OR not support new features of the
new
>
> OS you just installed. And this only magnifies the cost problem
in
Well of course as hardware has become faster (except for the Mac), software
features have increased and thus OSs have evolved to accomodate that.
When you look at the TOTAL COST of PCs (hardware and software), on either an
absolute or inflation adjusted basis, prices have decreased dramatically.
The original IBM PC with a floppy was $5,000. For that price today you can
get the largest LCD flat panel monitor, 256 MB RAM, a 1.2 GHz CPU and a
blazingly fast video card all bundled into a package that includes a
printer, an office suite and a 3 year warranty.
> #5.
> Most Microsoft 'innovations' are silly reincarnations of
exhausting
> old
> ideas found on UNIX.
And no doubt we have YOU to thank for bringing us UNIX.
Sometimes the Linux people are actually more pathetic than the Mac folks.
h
------------------------------
From: "Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.lang.java.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why is MS copying Sun???
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 03:37:06 GMT
"Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:fQMH5.13374$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> "Matt Kennel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > Simon Cooke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > :Yes. I have the courage enough to state that to my knowledge, Microsoft
does
> > :not write its products so as to deliberately cripple competing
companies'
> > :products. Its applications have no innate advantage over other
applications
> > :on the same OS.
> >
> > Do its programmers
> >
> > 1) know about future API's sooner than other non Microsoft programmers?
>
> If so, how does this cripple competitors products?
In every way possible. How long was MS developing Word for Windows
while misleading Wordperfect about the future of OS/2?
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Andrew J. Perrin)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Is there a MS Word (or substitute) for Linux?
Date: 19 Oct 2000 23:26:10 -0400
Haoyu Meng <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> U need to read a whole book to understand how to use Latex. I am in the business
> of writing books using computers. I don't want to have to learn programming to
> do that.
I spent half a day learning the basics and had typeset a chapter of my
dissertation in latex that afternoon. By the next day I'd already made
back the time I'd invested because of latex's superior efficiency.
Latex is the essence of *nix: spend a little extra time, get a lot
more efficient.
--
======================================================================
Andrew J Perrin - Ph.D. Candidate, UC Berkeley, Dept. of Sociology
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA - http://demog.berkeley.edu/~aperrin
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "Patrick Scott" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: D&D Master Tools port to MacOS and Linux
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 03:51:23 GMT
Q: What is the D&D Master Tools?
A: The Master Tools is a utility designed to create adventures and adventure
elements (characters, NPCs, monsters, encounter lists, treasure, random
charts, etc.) for the D&D tabletop game.
Q: Will there be a Mac or Linux version?
A: We'd like to hear from the user community before we decide to do a port.
If you want to add your name to a petition for a Mac or Linux version, go
to: http://www.extremesims.com/petition.htm.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (.)
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: [OT] Bush v. Gore on taxes
Date: 20 Oct 2000 04:59:13 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy Aaron R. Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> "." wrote:
>>
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy Aaron R. Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> > Strange, my girlfriend (who is in a MUCH better position to evaluate)
>> > disagrees with your assessment.
>>
>> Funny. Ive been told that you're a homosexual.
>>
> Your source is unreliable.
That could very well be the case. However, since there is no proof
positive in either direction, I shall find comfort in the blind
assumption that you are indeed gay.
=====.
------------------------------
From: Praedor Tempus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Is there a MS Word (or substitute) for Linux?
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 23:06:19 -0600
You do not need to waste time learning the arcana of latex. You can
use lyx. Add to that pybliographer and you have a nice bibliography
app, which can read and write bibtex and insert citations into your
document with almost the the efficiency and ease of use of EndNote.
If the bibliography app isn't critical to you, then there is
StarOffice, which actually is a good suite. I have an Athlon 700
with 128 MB RAM and an IBM Thinkpad Celeron 333, 96MB RAM. On both,
StarOffice runs fine. *It can read and write office format.* *Can
export or import Excel and Powerpoint*, and is very similar in
look and feel to Word (which MOST people are very familiar with,
for good or ill). I use it a lot without difficulty (sorry, you
can't do powerpoint-like presentations with latex or lyx or any
other available app with ANY consistency or compatibility with the
defacto standards of Word and Powerpoint).
I AM learning to deal with lyx and pybliographer because of the
bibliography app integration - in my work, this is a MUST. The
main problem with it is that its output (lyx and latex) is not
accepted by any of the scientific journals to which I could
conceivably publish. They all accept word, wordperfect, wordstar,
pdf. SOME accept simple ascii text, which lyx/latex can handle,
but not a single one will accept latex or lyx format documents.
One day I may be able to do a lot with lyx and pybliographer but
for now I use StarOffice for presentations, spreadsheets, graphing
data in my spreadsheets, and writing documents that can be easily
shared with my colleagues who all use Word (scientists, every one
of them).
Another thing coming down the pike is koffice. It is a full-featured,
modular suite that may do you fine - especially after the conversion
features of the now GPL StarOffice are borrowed so that it can
export and import Word documents.
That is the future, however. Right now, give a try to both lyx +
pybliographer (to avoid the pain of learning latex and bibtex) and
to StarOffice.
praedor
------------------------------
From: "JS/PL" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: who's WHINING dipshit!
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 01:04:17 -0400
Reply-To: "JS/PL" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> 2:1 wrote:
> >
> > JS/PL wrote:
> > > It was enough of a pain in the ass getting it to see
> > > the modem and work the video card, which Windows manages to do all by
it's
> > > self.
> >
> > That's utter bullshit and you know it. Windows does not see anything
> > more than a VGA card by itself. You give it drivers and tell it
> > explicitly what card you have. So you had to do the same thing under
> > linux? So fucking what? How does this now make linux worse?
> >
>
> Actually, all of the Linux's that I've installed (RedHat, Mandrake, and
> SuSE) Found the hardware and drivers themselves, and put the drivers
> in place in the FIRST install step.
After two hours on two seperate occasions trying to get Mandrake 7.1 to
communicate with my Zoom Telephonics, Inc. internal 56k data fax dual modem
(not a winmodem) I finally just went out and bought a different modem.
Total aggravation= 5 hours including the 40 mile drive (as I live in
Bumbfuck, Egypt).
I place a price of $100/hr on aggravation.
So just getting the modem to work in Linux costs $500.00
Total time installing the same modem in Windows 2000 = 1 minute
Total cost of aggravation = $1.66
> Meanwhile, in MS-LoseDows land...it's Install a driver...reboot, install
> another driver...reboot....install another driver...reboot.....
>
> Fuck that noise.
You don't have to reboot each time in Windows 2000, refreshing the device
manager will do in most instances, but if not you can reboot once, when your
finished installing it all.
And to top it off I believe X makes you log off and back on just to change
the screen resolution. Windows doesn't.
------------------------------
From: Nobody <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.lang.java.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why is MS copying Sun???
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 22:45:26 -0700
On Thu, 19 Oct 2000 19:44:22 -0700, "Simon Cooke"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>"Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:QbOH5.10137$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> This is way late in the game. I thought we were talking about the
>> 'DOS isn't done ...' phase. How about a list of all the things
>> that broke with DOS 4.0? Remember, the one where, after
>> coasting for years, MS tried to match a few of the innovations
>> from DrDOS and failed badly. I forget whether they even
>> tried compression with that version or if the unpleasant business
>> with Stac happened in 5.0 where at least a few things actually worked.
>
>Ah... the Lemon version of DOS. :)
>
Weren't they all?
>I thought compression came in with 5.0. And, before anyone says it, no they
>didn't steal Stac's code. They infringed their compression algorithm
>patent -- which, as you'll read on Slashdot, isn't exactly difficult in the
>computer industry.
>
Especially when you've had access to the code. IIRC, compression came
in 6.0 - better memory management came with 5.0.
----
Glenn Davies
------------------------------
From: Praedor Tempus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Is there a MS Word (or substitute) for Linux?
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 23:35:59 -0600
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> On Thu, 19 Oct 2000 19:25:05 GMT, Haoyu Meng <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >U need to read a whole book to understand how to use Latex. I am in the business
> >of writing books using computers. I don't want to have to learn programming to
> >do that.
>
> You have an exceedingly unprofessional attitude regarding your tools.
>
What does THAT mean...that one should HAVE to learn programing in order
to
write papers?
What nonsense. The writing is secondary to the work, unless one is a
journalist.
If one is a scientist, your job is to do science, not learn
typesetting. Your
scientific WORK is what matters most and it is a waste of time and
effort to
learn something that isn't needed just to write about it.
Science, Nature, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Biochemistry,
Journal of Virology, Virology, Journal of Molecular Biology, Genetics,
Gene, Journal of Molecular Evolution, RNA...NONE of them accept latex
(tex) format
documents. They DO accept word and wordperfect. Some of them accept
Wordstar.
A few of them accept plain text, which latex _can_ handle in these
circumstances.
My colleagues are all scientists who publish in the above journals, and
a few
others. They all use Word. They do not have the need nor desire to
take time
away from doing X-ray crystallography, biochemistry, virology, or
molecular
biology research in order to learn something like latex when all they
need
to publish is Word or WordPerfect plus EndNote. For graphics they use
Freehand or Illustrator. The EDITOR(s) at the journal gets to deal with
all that
typesetting crap. That is what they are paid to do.
Perhaps in physics, math, and computer "science" this is different but
in the
above fields, it is practically useless to spend time learning latex.
To consider this reality unprofessional is ridiculous. Priorities.
praedor
------------------------------
From: Praedor Tempus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Is there a MS Word (or substitute) for Linux?
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 23:54:07 -0600
Jerry L Kreps wrote:
>
> On Tue, 17 Oct 2000, mlw wrote:
> >jazz wrote:
> >>
> >> I really need a powerful word processor with templates, styles, etc.
> >>
> >> What is available for Linux? How about for Powerpoint and Excel?
> >>
> >> Thanks ---
> >> Jazz
> >
> >You can download Star Office. I used to use Applix, but I got their last
> >version and it wasn't as good as their previous version. SO 5.2, OTOH is
> >as good as MS office in that it doesn't crash like MS office, and it
> >does not take down the OS like MS office.
> >
> >It has no problems reading MS office files, at least as far as I've
> >seen.
>
> I have it installed it on my Win98SE at work and loaded a 488 page Word95 doc
> without any sweat. I love SO5.2!!
Have you, by chance, figured out any use for the bibliography capability
that
is incorporated into SO5.2?
I wrote to Sun soon after they acquired StarDivision, suggesting that
they
incorporate a bibliography app into the suite, referencing EndNote for a
model.
It looks like they went ahead and added the bibliography app but from
what
I have seen of it, it is useless. Merely a holding cell for references
that
you cannot use.
I would have hoped that it would have been written to import several of
the
standards (medline, refer, bibtex) but no. I would have hoped that it
would
be capable of inserting citations into a starwriter document and of
generating
a bibliography/reference page for said document, but it doesn't appear
to
have ANY capabilities whatsoever. Did I miss something or has someone
actually been able to use the "bibliography" function/app in SO5.2?
praedor
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 02:04:03 -0400
From: Donn Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Windows 2000 challenges GNOME/KDE
James wrote:
> You are splitting hairs. Win2k is stable for the desktop. Period.
> Gnome/KDE needs a wake up call. Period 2.
I agree. I have been using FreeBSD and Linux, and these two OSes for
the most part have been very very very very stable. I also tried GNOME
and KDE, and when you properly configer these, any Windows user can feel
right at home using FreeBSD or Linux. But, the biggest problem is with
X itself. In order to get the most out of GNOME, don't you have to
stick with gnomelibs/gtk almost exclusively? Also, with KDE, you are
pretty much restricted to doing C++-only programming with Qt. So, you
are basically forcing programmers to stick with either Gtk or Qt
depending on which desktop they are using. If you want to do some Motif
programming or use some Motif apps, the API's don't really match up well
with either Qt or Gtk. DnD is also tricky between Gtk<-->Motif<-->Qt.
A lot of people hate the restriction Windows places you on sticking with
it's default UI API, but at least you don't have any toolkit mish-mash
that you have with X. Also, my experience with GNOME is that I find I
need much more than the 64 megs of RAM to get any comforable speed,
because there are quite a few GNOME components loaded by GNOME-session,
and they each consume about 2M each. Windows, as much as I hate it,
seems to be much more optimized in its use of memory. This is because
the graphical components of Windows are more monolithic, as opposed to
X, which has graphical components added layer by layer. Also, X with
KDE or GNOME seems to have this slightly disjointed "layer-by-layer"
feel, opposed to Windows, which more or less throws all the graphical
components comprising its "desktop environment" in one big monolithic
layer.
OK, I WILL admit that I like using GNOME/KDE on Unix much much better
than using Windows. Using KDE/GNOME on unix gives you awesome
stability. But, Windows seems to be more coherent, because everything
is so tightly integrated. The downshot of this is that Windows'
UI/desktop, being one big monolithic layer, must be one hell of a mess
in terms of C/C++ code! Also, it must be tough, very tough, for
Microsoft to keep Windows stable and bug-free having one big mass of
monolithic code to maintain. GNOME/KDE is much more stable and much
easier to maintain, because if something goes wrong, everything in the
desktop environment is loaded layer-by-layer. So it's pretty easy for
the GNOME/KDE developer to see what's going wrong. It would be like
"oh, it's the code in such and such a module". Windows 2000 developers,
OTOH, whould be like "Ahhhhhh! How am I going to pinpoint where the
error came from in this big monolithic mess???!!!!!!"
As a unix user, I am always tempted to run Window Maker standalone,
simply because I am a speed freak, even if I do love running
GNOME+Window Maker.
Don't get me wrong. I hate Windows. I try not to run it, and I try to
stay away from it. I plan on never running Windows on my machine,
except (heh!) maybe in a VMWare virtual machine under FreeBSD. But, I
just wanted to give my honest 2 cents on this whole desktop discussion.
- Donn
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