Linux-Advocacy Digest #415, Volume #30 Sat, 25 Nov 00 16:13:02 EST
Contents:
Re: Anyone have to use (*GAG*) Windows on the job? (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: Windoze 2000 - just as shitty as ever (Curtis)
Re: Time for another Lynn bait, this one's a beauty! (and another Win (Jacques Guy)
Re: I thought Linux was always available free of charge? (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: OT: Could someone explain C++ phobia in Linux? (mlw)
Re: KDE2 (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: Anyone have to use (*GAG*) Windows on the job? (mark)
Re: KDE2 (mark)
Re: Anyone have to use (*GAG*) Windows on the job? (Donn Miller)
Re: Linux + KDE2 + hello world = 8( (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: Windoze 2000 - just as shitty as ever (Curtis)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Subject: Re: Anyone have to use (*GAG*) Windows on the job?
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 20:10:23 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Donn Miller
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote
on Wed, 22 Nov 2000 23:34:27 -0500
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>I've applied to a lot of nice jobs. Unfortunately, a lot of them
>involve using some form of Windows (NT, 98, 95). I definitely try to
>stay away from those kind of jobs, but depending on location, it's not
>always feasible. For example, Microsoft is always sticking their butts
>in this state (PA), offering all kinds of services to various businesses
>and universities in this state.
Get used to it. The term "monopoly" definitely applies here;
Microsoft is on a very large number of desktops -- over 80%,
if I'm not mistaken. Regrettable, but until Linux becomes
more mainstream (and I am still hopeful), it can't be helped.
There are exceptions, of course; my second employer, for example,
used Unix and only got into NT as a port.
>
>Linux takes a second seat to my favorite OS, which is FreeBSD. But,
>it's still worlds better than working with that piece of you know what!
I've heard good things about FreeBSD, but haven't gotten around
to trying it; it's bad enough for me to try Debian. :-)
(I'm currently a RedHat user, although I'm not thrilled with
7.0 and haven't installed it. I'm downloading Debian even
as I type -- and with a 56k modem, it's a long download. :-/
Of course, I could have gotten slightly smarter and downloaded
only the bits I need, or used CheapBytes -- but oh well. :-) )
>
>Unfortunately, it looks like the best way to work with unix systems on
>the job is to find a job as a unix sysadmin. I've already checked this
>out. I'm an electrical engineer, and I love the field. Unfortunately,
>almost every position I've come across involves Windows NT, 98, 2000, or
>95. For this reason, I've stayed away from the EE field.
Your loss. While I can't say I'm thrilled with Windows software
(or PC hardware), there are times when I swallow my pride and
advocate it, as it is simply the best tool for the job.
Granted, the job would have to be already highly dependent
on Windows stuff anyway, but it would be a tad silly to
jump to another solution if one isn't willing to pay the
non-recurring engineering costs.
If one *is* willing, of course, one will most likely get a
better product. It's a tradeoff, perhaps.
>
>I figure that software engineers/developers have the best chance of
>choosing which OS they want to work with. For example, as an engineer,
>you more or less have to use what they give you, and most of the time,
>it's NT or some other sh*t. How many times have we seen this scenario:
>you are happily working at your workstation, which is running a nice OS,
>such as Solaris, BSD, or Linux. That fatassed, balding manager
You forgot "pointy-haired". :-)
>comes in
>and says "Alright, all the Suns, DECs, and PC Workstations running Linux
>are history! We're going to be running wonderful, state of the art,
>easy to use, user-friendly PC's running NT! Isn't that great?"
I'll refer you to the game 'xbill'; it ties in wonderfully
with this mindset, if one is so inclined. (It also is a handy
way of getting out one's aggressions regarding Mister Gates.)
>
>Hell no, it isn't great. And I can name quite a few companies that have
>ditched their SPARCstations for PC's running NT. The reason, I'm told,
>is that a lot of software has been ported from unix to NT! Oh wow, and
>this is a good reason to switch? Yechhhh....
Heh. While there might be value-added in a port (one could
slap on a menu, for instance, onto what is essentially a
terminal emulator), it's far from clear that that alone is
enough to justify switching operating systems. (Besides,
what's OpenLook on a Sun, chopped liver? :-) )
>
>Another reason I'm told that unix boxes are being replaced by Windows NT
>machines is that well, you really don't need unix unless you need
>ultra-high computational performance. Plus, Windows NT is so amazing
>with it's ultra-revolutionary clipboard.
You mean like the one X Windows has had since 1984 or so? :-)
Bwhahahahahahaha....ahem....'scuse me. :-)
>Check this out: you can copy
>data to the clipboard, you can go to another application, and you get to
>select which format you want to paste FROM, such as MS-Word, text,
>bitmap, etc. etc. Yes, someone did tell me this. Managers love this
>all important OLE feature MS operating systems offer.
Just tells me that Microsoft has good marketing. But we knew
that already.... :-/
(One issue with X: I surmise that people aren't as aware of the
capabilities of the XSelection event as they should be -- and it's
not unreasonable; it's an event handled by the base X layer which
is almost as low as one can go without talking to the server or the
hardware itself -- but it's clear that X can do almost anything
Windows can do, and probably better [*]. The main limitation appears
to be that one can't highlight text on two windows at once (discussed
in another thread), and even then, it's not clear that that's a big
issue; it may be because programmers did (do?) not fully understand
the distinction between a selection in a window, and selection in a
server, for cut and paste, so they programmed apps to dehighlight
whenever they lose the "selection token" (an event is transmitted
for this, too). Not sure what we can do about it now; Windows now
has a slightly better selection model, visually speaking. What its
internals are like, I can't say because I haven't looked. But
it's very easy to ask for, say, a Postscript document during Paste
(although it may not be standard), and it's easy to provide one
(assuming the provider does have one handy, or can generate it
easily).)
>
>I had an interview recently, and the guy asked me which word processor I
>liked to use. I said that, in a nutshell, I think word processors
>suck. I told him I used html and LaTeX as a substitute. His eyes got
>all BIG and stuff, and he just sat there, frozen, smiling incrediously,
>with his eyes big as baseballs. You just knew what he was thinking:
>"WHAT??????!!!!! He doesn't use Microsoft Word?" And the worst part
>about it is, for most jobs, they look down on you if you refuse to use
>Word, as if using Microsoft Word is a prerequisite for computer
>literacy.
I've heard similar things from a friend of mine. It would
probably amaze him that people a century or two back actually
(*gasp*) used quill pens which actually had to be *sharpened*
on an occasional basis (presumably because otherwise the text
got slightly blobby and the calligraphy not as sharp, but I'm not
an expert on quills) to submit their resumes -- which back then
were probably called something else.
Oh, and they used *inkpots*, as well, dipping the quills therein.
(Or other things, such as a classmate's pigtails -- presumably,
the dipper was roundly switched therefor, while the dippee
retired to the girl's bathroom to "powder her nose".)
Even not that long ago, people were using mimeograph machines.
Type on a multilayer sandwich containing paper, a proptective
thin layer (much like tissue paper, only more cohesive), and
other stuff, then feed the typed-in thing to a machine and
crank away. I don't know how it worked specifically, although I
suspect it needed something rather smelly (something terpintinish).
On the software side, there were such things as vi/emacs
(on Unix machines); I was using VI as early as 1980 or 81.
I suspect a number of others were, too -- Wordstar came a
little later on, on the DOS PC end.
Do people today have any sense of perspective? In some cases,
I wonder...
>
>Yeah, I know, I'm going to get slammed for not being "open-minded".
>Screw that, though....
You're probably slightly more open minded than some of the
Windows advocates, though -- at least you recognize the difference
between a tool, and the data/text/document it works on, I think.
I do have to say that TeX is arguably one of the best tools
for typesetting equations that I've seen. I'll admit that
I haven't seen all that many, though -- Frame, though,
runs second, IMO.
>
>
>-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
>http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
>-----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----
[*] I am making a distinction between the underlying foundation
of programs, in this case X, Xlib, and the X server, and
Win32 and the implementation thereof (I'm not sure what DLLs
those would be), and the applications sitting on those
foundations; note that many X applications slide in a widget
layer such as Motif, Gtk, or Qt, whereas many Windows applications
use native DLL calls (not sure one can't really call them Win32)
to handle such things as requesters, menus, and such,
possibly even higher-level things such as ADO/database fetches.
Windows is both a bane and a boon here -- bane because it
locks apps into a single paradigm, boon because it does
have one, and only one, widget set to learn, inflexible as
it otherwise might be.
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random misquote here
up 74 days, 2:01, running Linux.
------------------------------
From: Curtis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windoze 2000 - just as shitty as ever
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 15:25:21 -0500
Ayende Rahien wrote...
>
> "Chris Ahlstrom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > Tom Wilson wrote:
> > >
> > > BTW, Outlook Express has crashed twice this evening and I'm trying as
> hard
> > > as I can to keep off-color vernacular out of my MS related posts. <g>
> >
> > As a professional MCSE (morbidly cynical software engineer),
> > I recommend you slick the disk and reinstall everything from
> > scratch. Bring along a good book.
>
> That is just the attidue that I hate when people talk about windows
> instability.
> I just came back from a very frustrated linux user who called me and started
> cursing windows.
> Why? His linux would refuse to run (he pull the plug on his system after the
> system refused to respond to halt & reboot commands, and his file systems
> are now accesible in read mode only, and only by root), he didn't have any
> linux installation disks, but he did have a spare HD and a win98 cd.
> It would be easier, he figured out, to just install windows, find out on the
> web what the problem was, and fix it.
> Win setup complained about a file missing, but kept installing.
> On loading, windows complain about a vnetbios.vxd missing, and he couldn't
> get windows to dial up.
> He called me, asked for advice, I told him to search for the file in the
> registery, search in the cab dir on win98 for the file, and extract to the
> path.
> Apperantly, it was too difficult for him, so he just format and reinstalled.
> Same problem. (bad cd)
> He called me, asking me to come over, and in the mean time, did it *again*.
>
> I came to him and had to wait half an hour to the installation to be done
> with, and then it took me five minutes to fix the problem.
> Oh, and one reboot, because you'd to de-install & install TCP/IP
>
> All in all, he wasted a day (multiply installation plus the applications he
> installed on windows that would now have to be reinstalled) that could've
> been solved in less than 5 minutes.
> And that is a regular user of slackware 7.1
> I excpected more from him than the average user.
Wow!! Typical account indeed. But the fact that he uses Linux regularly
says a lot for Linux and its present usability by those not in the know.
:=)
> Rant off, I'm having a bad day with linux & its users.
Windows and their users are typically worse.
--
| ,__o
!ACM _-\_<, A thing is not necessarily true because
<(*)>--(*)/'(*)______________________ a man dies for it.
mailto:martian*at*cwjamaica*dot*com
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 20:29:09 +0000
From: Jacques Guy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Time for another Lynn bait, this one's a beauty! (and another Win
mark wrote:
> The dead giveaway used to be 'sb live support', since noone
> else used to mention it, but all of steve/claire/heather etc.'s
> postings used to.
The recent posts by "Sir" are striking in this respect.
You don't have to be an expert in forensic linguistics
to see that "Sir" = "Claire Lynn". There used to be
quite some stylistic differences between the other
personalities, but "Sir" and "Claire Lynn" are exactly
identical. There remains however the remote possibility
that "Sir" is a prankster who has learnt to mimick
"Claire Lynn" to perfection. Perhaps again,
those posts from "Sir" are just old offerings from "Claire
Lynn" saved and now recycled by "Sir" -- since C.L.
prevented its posts from being archived, we really
cannot tell for sure.
On a different tack, I have just had a strange Windoze
experience. I use Win95 almost only in DOS mode, so
I had prevented Windows from booting by changing
BootGUI=1 to BootGUI=0 in MSDOS.SYS. It worked...
until yesterday. Now, like it or not, the GUI
boots. BootGUI=0 is still there in MSDOS.SYS, I have
searched all the files in C:\ and in Windows\ and
all its subdirectories for the string GUI, and I am
no nearer to an answer to that mystery. I have not
installed any new software, for at least a month,
nor uninstalled any old software. So search me.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Subject: Re: I thought Linux was always available free of charge?
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 20:28:22 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Glitch
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote
on Fri, 24 Nov 2000 15:27:29 -0500
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
>
>>
>> I have another word to add to this subject: CheapBytes. :-)
>>
>> Admittedly, it was awhile ago, but CDs from CheapBytes are
>> cheaper than the shipping costs, and if one buys them
>> in clumps (as opposed to one at a time), the shipping costs
>> per CD go down.
>>
>> To download it off the net costs money, too -- in a sense.
>> Assume a 56k modem line (which in my case translates to
>> 3.7kB per second -- probably something to do with the
>> quality of my phone lines),
>
>either the line or just your ISP, lol.
Oh tha-rill.
>I get 5.2k/sec from most
>servers. From some servers, such as ftp servers on cable modems, I've
>got upwards of 15k/sec but for daily use from webpages I get 5.2k/sec.
>With that speed I can get 20 megs/hour or approx. 480MB/day although
>I've never let it go a whole day.
My lines aren't so bad that it won't go a whole day, usually,
although I do get hangups about once a week. It's not too bad,
but I do wonder if I'd ever get ISDN to work -- and I'm not
sure I'd want it, anyway.
(I use a Perl script to generate a shell script. It's a bit
wacky looking but it works nicely, and it also allows me to
"pre-create" the directory structure from an ls-lR file with
zero-length files (REGET requires the file to exist). It's
my own creation and probably extremely mucky. :-) )
>
>
>> or 319.68 MB / day,
>> or 9.5904 GB / 30 day month. Since I pay $30/month,
>> this means my downloading costs are $3.13 a GB,
>> and it takes me 3 days straight.
>>
>> A person with a 128Kb ISDN line would pay about half that,
>> if not less, depending on his monthly fixed costs.
>> A person with a 384Kb ISDN line would pay even less.
>>
>> There are also disk storage costs, although if one pays
>> $100 for a 30 GB drive, this works out to .33 cents a megabyte,
>> or $3.33 a gigabyte. There are issues with MTBF and amortization,
>> which I won't go into here, but if one wants to keep the data
>> for a year, the cost would be one-half, or $1.67 per gigabyte-year,
>> if the drive MTBF is 2 years (note that 20,000 hours = 2.28 years).
>
>Typical MTBF for drives at present is 100,000 hours I believe.
Ah...in that case, that would be 11.4 years. Not bad!
Of course, I'm assuming in that case that the drive is left
powered on 24/7.
The costs therefore would be $.33 per gigabyte-year. There is,
though, the rather silly notion of "refreshing hardware" every
3 years or so, which would make it $1.00 per gigabyte-year.
(I think asset depreciation assumes 3 years, as well. Or maybe 5.)
Sigh. Thank you Windows for introducing such ... erm ... useful
concepts to the business community (which include BSOD,
hardware refreshing, Microsoft Word, and Outlook Express). :-)
>
>>
>> It's still cheaper to go by CheapBytes, but it won't be for long. :-)
>>
>> --
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random misquote here
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random misquote here
up 74 days, 2:40, running Linux.
------------------------------
From: mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Could someone explain C++ phobia in Linux?
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 15:29:54 -0500
Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
> One thing that stands out in this discussion is that most of the C++ bashers
> make a lot of unsupported blanket statements that seem based more upon
> prejudice than any kind of sound reasoning. Maybe they have some subconscious
> association with Windows and C++ and think they are the same thing ("MFC and
> Windows programming" are seen in the same sentence as "C++".) Nothing could be
> further from the truth. C++ is an ANSI standard, while Java is proprietary.
>
> The exception is Russ Lyttle, who has at least attempted to back up his
> claims with supporting arguments.
I remain confused. I have look at ever argument put out to support using
C instead of C++ and with the exception "for backward compatibility"
arguments, which was a caveat at the beginning, they are all nonsense.
I started this whole thread so that I could better understand engineers
that try to argue this point with me. All the arguments are all just
silly. "C++ is slower." Fact: Doing the same things as C, it is 100%
just as fast. "C++ is bloatware, it's huge." Fact: When doing the same
things as one does with C, it is the same size. One can't argue that C
is better, because C++ has all that C has. The big difference to me is
formalization of exceptions, 'class', and a stricter environment.
Lastly, the "because you can" argument which is just plain silly.
"Because C++ allows [put bad code example here] it is a bad
environment." This is like that old joke: "Doctor, doctor!! It hurts
when I do 'this'" the doctor answers: "Then don't do that."
If someone has a real reasonable argument why C is better than C++, with
the exception of backward compatibility. I have yet to either hear or
read it.
--
http://www.mohawksoft.com
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Subject: Re: KDE2
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 20:30:03 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, A transfinite number of monkeys
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote
on Sat, 25 Nov 2000 16:59:59 GMT
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>On Sat, 25 Nov 2000 17:14:58 +0200, James <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>: IMHO the Gnome team is now in serious catchup mode.
>
>Since it's your opinion, I'm sure you can back that up with a justification,
>RIGHT? Let's hear it.. KDE still looks very cartoony to me. If I want a
>cartoon, I'll go watch TV...
How cartoony does Win2k look? :-)
[.sigsnip]
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random misquote here
up 74 days, 2:48, running Linux.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (mark)
Subject: Re: Anyone have to use (*GAG*) Windows on the job?
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 20:20:25 +0000
In article <HGUT5.25979$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Pete Goodwin wrote:
>Donn Miller wrote:
>
>
>I think you're muddling up Windows 95/98/ME with Windows NT/2000. The
>former is unstable, the latter isn't.
And you were doing so well, posting statements which were at
best difficult because they were so personal, and then, ah,
and then, you said that NT5/Win2k is stable. Well, I'm afraid
that we don't know that yet - the jury is out, and will
remain out for a fairly long time. Microsoft's marketing
cannot a stable OS make - only experience will shed light on
this most arcane of questions.
Mark
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (mark)
Subject: Re: KDE2
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 20:21:02 +0000
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, matt newell wrote:
>> On Sat, 25 Nov 2000 17:14:58 +0200, James <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> : : IMHO the Gnome team is now in serious catchup mode.
>>
>> Since it's your opinion, I'm sure you can back that up with a justification,
>> RIGHT? Let's hear it.. KDE still looks very cartoony to me. If I want a
>> cartoon, I'll go watch TV...
>>
>You are what I consider an idiot.
>KDE2 has a very powerfull ability to use themes. Themes can make your system
>look however you want. It even supports gtk themes so it can look just like
>gnome if that is what you would like. You critisize KDE without even
>exploring the options. What a shame.
>
>Matt Newell
Now, what did I say - GNOME/KDE war trying to be created?
Mark
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 15:37:42 -0500
From: Donn Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Anyone have to use (*GAG*) Windows on the job?
Bob Nelson wrote:
> Hell, Donn, some of us even have been known to drink an Iron City if there's
> no Shiner Bock around. Just pragmatic, ya know. :-)
Windows, the Iron City of operating systems....
====== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News ======
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
======= Over 80,000 Newsgroups = 16 Different Servers! ======
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Subject: Re: Linux + KDE2 + hello world = 8(
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 20:47:29 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, The Ghost In The Machine
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote
on Wed, 22 Nov 2000 23:03:51 GMT
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Pete Goodwin
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote
>on Tue, 21 Nov 2000 21:25:36 +0000
><TJBS5.20246$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
[snip]
>>Now, how do you do "hello world" in WIN32, or X, or KDE2?
>
>The X "hello world" takes about 50 lines or so.
Update: I've just looked at a rather simple implementation (my own)
of "hello world" using raw X windows (no widgets). It takes 80
lines, or 1,540 characters -- and that's without comments.
It draws two windows (one inside the other) with the text more
or less in the center of the secondwindow, and does almost
everything properly. At least, I think it does... :-)
>The Win32 "hello world" takes even more.
136 lines for the .cpp file, 7 lines for an include file,
and 80 lines for the .rc file, for a grand total of 223 lines.
Note that the .h and the .rc file are auto-generated by
Borland. And this isn't even quite the correct solution,
as it simply draws an 'X', instead of printing "hello world"
(although a one-line substitution would take care of that, I think).
10 of those lines are comments; 17 of these lines are dedicated
to class registration (which must be done prior to opening
a window, if it's not one of the "standard" window types, I guess).
It also doesn't open a second window within the first.
(I don't remember if Windows can support that or not; X can
implement an arbitrary tree of windows.)
Note that there's more up-to-date technology available, as
well; I don't know if VC++ would use so many lines, for example.
(Of course, it might cheat and use additional DLL calls, too. :-) )
Another update: the GTK tutorial has a "hello, world"-type program
that has 98 lines, but has a lot of comments explaining things
and some extra glop regarding delete events and button pressings
(the "hello world" is in fact a pressable button).
[snip]
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random misquote here
up 74 days, 2:49, running Linux.
------------------------------
From: Curtis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windoze 2000 - just as shitty as ever
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 15:50:39 -0500
mark wrote...
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Curtis wrote:
> >T. Max Devlin wrote...
> >[...]
> >> >Win2k offers a stable environment in which I may run my
> >> >preferred apps, all of which are not from MS.
> >>
> >> Yes, it is a monopoly; we are aware of that. I think many may argue
> >> about the term 'stable environment', but that's beside the point.
> >>
> >> >I'd be beside you saying the same thing if Win9x was all there was to use
> >> >to run the apps I wish to run.
> >>
> >> Somehow, I doubt that.
> >
> >Mr. Presumptuous strikes again. I migrated from Win9x to OS/2 in 1996
> >because I disliked Win9x. It was too damn unstable and OS/2 provided a
> >better environment to work in. A better shell.
> >
> >I put aside all the Windows apps I was using and bought OS/2 equivalents.
> >I learnt how to use them. I also learnt OS/2 itself.
> >
> >Linux provides a better solution today than OS/2 did in 1996.
> >
> >If Win9x were all that MS offered, I'd either be still running OS/2 or
> >now running Linux. There's no doubt whatsoever in my mind about that.
> >
> >Win2k irons out a lot of the hangups I had with NT. I installed it in
> >January and am yet to experienced a system lockup or BSOD. Do I need
> >better stability that this for my purposes?
> >
>
> According to your own history, you've not used NT, you used win9x, OS/2
> and then Linux.
I've used NT before and I said so before.
This is how it went:
Win3.1 1994-1995
Win95 1995-mid1996
OS/2 mid1996-mid 1998
WinNT mid1998 to Jan2000
During the OS/2 to NT transition, the latter three of the above OS's were
installed on the same system, as well as RedHat Linux. I did this with
the aid of PowerBoot <www.blueskyinnovations.com>.
Win2k Jan2000 to present.
I had linux installed 4 times along the way. Just fiddling and
familiarising myself really with what it's about and what it offers.
BeOS, I installed once. It lasted about 2 days on my system.
MacOS, I've used on my friends machines. I've tried every viable
alternative OS.
> I recall someone predicting a few months back that we'd start to get
> the 'I used to use Linux but now Win2k is out it really rocks'.
No, I'm not one of those. :=) I've never seriously used Linux before
because I've never had it doing everything that I'd want to do with my
computer. If you've found decent sanctuary in Linux, I doubt you'd
migrate to a MS solution since Linux is improving.
> I really couldn't imagine making a rational OS decision on whether
> I've _yet_ had a BSOD.
Oh, come on Mark, don't play the ass and say something like that.
I only brought that up because the Linux advocacy mantra is 'oh it's so
stable .... I've never had an unscheduled reboot in XXXX days" :=)
Stability and reliability are two very important ingredients, both of
which I have no problems with, when running Win2k. Does that mean that's
all that concerns me and the only deciding factors? If you wish to play
the ass then that's what you'll think.
> I'm fascinated by exactly what applications were available for
> Win9x in 1996,
A lot.
> OS/2 at the same time (or at least functional
> equivalents),
Do you seriously want a comparison?
> Linux at some undetermined point after 1996 and
> up to and including today, (wonder which version & which
> distro?), and now Win2k with its somewhat restricted set of
> available apps?
Restricted apps for Win2k. Hehehehe. What apps are you looking for that
gives you this impression? Or is this second hand information that you're
stating?
> I'm kind of suprised you haven't worked Solaris in somewhere.
I have never even *seen* Solaris running.
> This is like one of those daytime TV quiz show questions:
>
> Was it:
>
> a) Norton commander
> b) GNU Utils
> c) Netscape Navigator
>
> quickly now, and you must answer the question as a
> question... :)
>
> I'm finding this story a bit less than credible.
True it is. Understood by you it isn't.
--
| ,__o
!ACM _-\_<, A thing is not necessarily true because
<(*)>--(*)/'(*)______________________ a man dies for it.
mailto:martian*at*cwjamaica*dot*com
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