Linux-Advocacy Digest #131, Volume #31 Fri, 29 Dec 00 22:13:03 EST
Contents:
Re: Newbie: "Linux has come so far only to seem so far away" (maximus)
Re: Profitability of Linux being a challenge (R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ))
Re: Windows - Is It Really Easier to Use? ("Les Mikesell")
Re: Linux, it is great. (Osugi Sakae)
Re: Windows - Is It Really Easier to Use? ("Les Mikesell")
Re: An Entire Day With Linux (Yukkkkk!!!) (John Travis)
Re: Linux, it is great. ("Adam Warner")
Re: Red hat becoming illegal? ("Chris Ahlstrom")
Re: Who LOVES Linux again? ("Les Mikesell")
Re: Windoze 2000 - just as shitty as ever (Steve Mading)
Re: Who LOVES Linux again? (Steve Mading)
Re: Profitability of Linux being a challenge ("Ayende Rahien")
Re: linux does NOT suck (oh yes it does) ("Ayende Rahien")
Re: Windows - Is It Really Easier to Use? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: linux does NOT suck (oh yes it does) ("Les Mikesell")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: maximus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Newbie: "Linux has come so far only to seem so far away"
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 02:14:31 GMT
Are you sure you spelled that right Nick? Did you use the King's
English correctly? Such a professional acronym. Did you make that up
all by yourself? You're such a creative fellow, especially when you
spew forth all the bs that you have become famous for. Don't give up
that day job at McDonalds..... Yahooooooooooooooooooooooo
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Nick Condon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> maximus wrote:
>
> > In article <92c704$pr1$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> > maximus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > <snip all>
> >
> > I entered this forum looking for help
>
> <snippage>
>
> No you didn't. You came in with a bad attitude and a giant chip on
both
> shoulders. That's not an ideal way to get others to assist you.
>
> So FOAD.
>
>
--
"Strength and Honor"
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
From: R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Profitability of Linux being a challenge
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 02:14:21 GMT
In article <jN636.111860$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Otto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> "R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:92ijql$mrj$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
>
> : Microsoft took Marc Andreeson's Open
> : Source product, published to the
> : NCSA under a government grant, and
> : proceeded to violate the license
> : (since they purchased it through a
> : "money laundering company" that
> : insulated Microsoft from the liability).
> : Then they proceeded to
> : introduce security holes, exclusive
> : extensions, and methods for
> : "watching the viewer" (giving them
> : the electronic equivalent of a
> : bugging device on every computer).
> : They then used this information
> : to bankrupt competitors ranging
> : from News services to Travel Agents.
> : Put simply, Microsoft produced an
> : inferior product and used it to
> : sell Windows 95, Windows 98, and
> : Windows NT (especially the NT server
> : market).
>
> That could explain why Microsft platforms
> are the leaders in the desktop and
> server market.
We're talking a number of felonies here. Cocain dealers are also
very profitable.
We have:
Defrauding the U.S. government.
Illegal Wiretaping for the purposes of Industrial Espionage.
Extortion (revoking Compaq's license for putting
Netscape icon on Desktop).
Blackmail (threatening big publicity over IBM "piracy").
Insider Trading.
Securities Fraud.
Illegal exclusion of competitors on OEM platforms
(pre-installations).
Illegal and misleading advertizing (first filed in 1987 under
the Raegan Administration).
Illegal tie-in contracts.
(Attempted) Bribery of corporate and government officials.
Illegal overreporting of sales volumes.
Illegal bait-and-switch advertizing (advertise LDAP
but not compatible).
Illegal use of government property for personal gain.
Illegal diversion of funds.
Copyright violations. (Piracy on the scale of $Billions)
Illegal use of an FCC regulated station (MSNBC leaked wiretap).
Attempted Overthrow of the United States Government
(Breaking Lewinski and Gore Phones - leaving Newt Gingrich
in the White House).
Over 100 counts of perjury in nearly 30 federal court cases.
Embezzlement of funds paid by IBM for OS/2 (diverted to Windows).
Sabatoge of computer programs used for business.
Sabatoge of computer programs and equipment used by Government,
Military, and regulatory bodies (NT4 SP2).
Computer Trespassing (ActiveX controls, Windows 95 configuration
reports).
Not properly reporting and responding to CERT alerts (suppressing
publication and recognition until a patch announced).
The total damages to the U.S. population exceeds 60 billion dollars
(1987-2000 - roughly 40% of Microsoft's revenue).
Would you buy a USED CAR from this company?
And this is the man whose software is used in Banks, Government offices,
Stock Brokerages, and most corporations. It comes in completely
unverifiable form, provides to mechanisms for audit, and supports
C2 security only in a nearly useless configuration.
Fortunately, Microsoft has the best lawyers money can buy (and the best
judges money can buy, and maybe the best president money can buy).
> Judging by your posting they should be the last in their
> respective categories, but they are not.
> That would make your posting what?
This would be the town fool pointing at the "Emperor" in his "New
Clothes" and shouting out for everyone to hear "He's naked as a
Jay-bird".
There is a great parallel here. Microsoft has essentially created
the same game. They have managed to persuade about 1000 key executives
(many of them with significant holdings of Microsoft Stock) that
anyone who would dare to claim that Microsoft's products are inferior
to any others (especially UNIX, 3rd party PC products, or Mainframes)
is obviously unfit for their position.
The vendor comes into "Big Investment Firm in Jersey City" and
says that they want to get rid of Microsoft software and use
Linux instead. "Big Firm's analyst lowers their reccomendation,
the stock drops like a rock, and the guy with the bright idea
is programming in the corporate equivelent of Siberia in an office
the size of a closet, on a Pentium 100 with 24 meg of RAM, that is
locked into Windows NT, and the office is right next to the
air conditioners.
Obviously, the only one who would dare to point out that the emperor
has no clothes would be someone who had nothing significant to loose.
Someone who isn't worried that he won't get another job because he
gets 3-5 calls a week even when his resume ISNT on display.
> : The biggest irony of all is that Most users browse the world wide
> : web, send e-mail, chat, and send JPEG and GIF files, and they
> : actually
> : believe that Bill Gates personally wrote every line of code used to
> : provide that service.
>
> He didn't :)?
And the moon is made of green cheese :-).
> : Microsoft is proof that P.T. Barnum was wrong.
> : Barnum said you can't fool all the people all of the time.
> : Yet Microsoft has been "showing
> : us the egres" for nearly 20 years. Each time they tell us not to
> : use Open Source because they have "something better in the next
> : release" ("A Better UNIX than UNIX"). Then they show up with paint
> : buckets and tell us to paint our half of the room from the center
> : of the room to the most isolated corner - while they paint their
> : half of the room toward the cash register and the exit. Even more
> : amusing is that they have been doing this for nearly 20 years.
> : (Since they introduced Microsoft BASIC on the Commodore Pet).
>
> Alternatively you could be wrong
> and P.T. Barnum is still right. Not to
> mention the fact that you would not
> be able to come up with a link which
> would show, that Microsoft tells us not to use Open Source.
You know that the original announcement of Windows NT (circa 1992)
hasn't been posted to the web in a referencable form. I'd love to
see the original text of that speech. Do you have a link I could
reference.
> Kind regards and Happy New Year.....
>
> Otto
>
> : Rex Ballard - VP I/T Architecture
> : Linux Advocate, Internet Pioneer
>
> You and Al Gore, what would be the internet....
>
>
--
Rex Ballard - VP I/T Architecture
Linux Advocate, Internet Pioneer
http://www.open4success.com
Linux - 60 million satisfied users worldwide
and growing at over 9%/month! (recalibrated 10/23/00)
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
From: "Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Windows - Is It Really Easier to Use?
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 02:21:25 GMT
"Kelsey Bjarnason" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:Jl836.38788$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > I don't understand why people think Windows is intuitive. It isn't. I
> > find it much easier when I want to run an app to type the name of the
> > app and hit return.
>
> Let's see, that was xf86config, right? Hmm... nope. Xf86config?
> Xf86Config? XF86Config? XF86CONFIG? Dammit...
That's not something you execute.
> The CLI is great, *if* you remember what the *exact* name of the app is -
> including the case. And if it's in the path. If not, you have to
remember
> another command. Hmm... ls? find? locate? And with what parameters? A
> case-insensitive search of all files starting with xf? That's, let's
see...
> umm...
>
> Now, this is to be compared to using Start/Settings/Control Panel/Display,
> for example, or right-clicking on the desktop and selecting
"properties"...
> and is supposed to be easier. That is your argument, right?
Yes, assume you want to change your window manager. Where will you
find that in your control panel?
> >In Windows, I had to go and search for it. It used
> > to be a drag always trying to find if the thing was in File Manager or
> > Program Manager
>
> Excuse? A program being "in" file manager or program manager? Umm...
Things are in file manager automatically, but only in program manger
if something puts them there. But either case only works for small numbers
of things. My desktop machine NFS mounts a dozen other servers - there
would be hundreds of thousands of files to look through if I started
strolling
through a filemanager view. But I don't have any trouble reconfiguring
X when necessary....
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: Osugi Sakae <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux, it is great.
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 11:23:27 +0900
Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
> It should be noted that the MP3 patent owners believe that Vorbis still
> violates it's patents. There will probably be a lengthy court battle
> over this when Vorbis releases it.
>
This should be interesting. If I understand correctly, Ogg Vorbis is
already out there - not 1.0, but the code is available and it runs. All
the MP3 guys have to do is look at the code. Where does this leave them
legally if they wait another year or two to sue? "Yes your honor, we knew
they were infringing three years ago but decided to wait until their
software became widely used." "No your honor, it never occurred to us to
inform the Vorbis developers that they were infringing while they were
still developing the software. We prefered to wait and sue their pants
off."
Seriously, is there any sort of requirement that patent holders take
action soon after learning of possible infringement?
Or are they simply FUDing in hopes of scaring companies into staying with
the mp3 format.
BTW, anyone know how soon their patent (is it a patent?) expires?
------------------------------
From: "Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Windows - Is It Really Easier to Use?
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 02:25:05 GMT
"the_blur" <the_blur_oc@*removespamguard*hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:VQ_26.3724$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > After one year, the Linux users will be running circles around the
> > Windows users.
>
> Why?
Because they learn the shell's features for automating repetitive tasks.
Nearly
anything done in the CLI can be automated by simply putting the same lines
you would type into a file, and the variable parts can often be provided
at runtime through prompting or some completely automatic operation.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Travis)
Crossposted-To: alt.linux.sux
Subject: Re: An Entire Day With Linux (Yukkkkk!!!)
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 02:11:26 GMT
And John W. Stevens spoke unto the masses...
<snip>
:> Is there an ISO image for Debian?
:
:Yes.
:
:> How does one install it, as
:> compare to using th RedHat or SuSE installers, in brief?
:
:Installing Debian isn't that much different from installing
:RedHat, actually.
Not that much different from FreeBSD acutally ;-).
:One uses dselect, but after getting over the initial shock
:of that, it's actually much *BETTER*, because you can
:manage, install and update your system so much easier . . .
:I've been *given* security upgrades without having to ask
:for them, for instance, when I was installing something
:else. Very nice, especially now that I'm "always on".
Ackk, God no! I wouldn't ever tell a Debian newbie to use dselect, especially
during the initial install. It is way too "picky" for that task. Just using
APT would be far easier IMO. 'tasksel' can make things easy as well. Just start
apting higher level things you want, everything else will be taken care of. No
need to try and appease dselect with those thousands of packages available.
Dselect is kind of a love/hate issue, even among the maintainers. I have seen
them call it a flaming POS and worse. But that's just personal preference. If
you want a dselect like interface for APT you can always use CAPT (console-apt)
or Aptitude.
:> I like RedHat, but I'd rather support Debian, if it doesn't
:> eat up much more time.
:
:Any change will cost you some up-front time, but after that . . .
:it seems to be better and more efficient than RedHat. For me,
:anyways.
Agreed. Once you use dpkg/Apt rpms are just a pain in the ass. Yes I do know
there is an RPM port of APT but it isn't quite there yet (mainly becuase of the
lack of an extensive homogeneous binary pool). I actually have Conectiva 6 on
this machine as well. Quite a nice little package as well.
:'Course, I've a cable modem, so grabbing and installing new
:packages is almost totally painless.
Same here. If not I wouldn't apt-get upgrade daily ;-).
jt
--
Debian Gnu/Linux [Sid]
2.4.0-test12-ReiserFs|XFree4.0.2|Nvidia .95 drivers
You mean there's a stable tree?
------------------------------
From: "Adam Warner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux, it is great.
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 15:32:44 +1200
Hi Tom,
> > Actually, the algorithm itself can't be patented...
> > but the PROCESS can.
>
> Still pretty tenuous ground to stand on...
> There are so many different ways to accomplish the same task in code. It's
> damned near impossible to enforce.
That's why patents are so popular. If you copyright computer software then
you have a monopoly right to your expression. Someone can write new software
and duplicate the functionality without infringing upon your copyright.
On the other hand a patent grants a monopoly right to a (sometimes
so-called) "invention." This is expressed from very broad terms to narrower
terms. Only the narrower terms may be legally enforceable, if at all. But
the patent holder has a significant weapon to challenge any creativity in
the broad area of the patent and to threaten a costly legal battle/be
granted interim injunctions/negotiate royalties, etc.
On the face of it patents are a very serious threat to free software (see
how Eric responded "It should be noted that the MP3 patent owners believe
that Vorbis still violates it's patents. There will probably be a lengthy
court battle over this when Vorbis releases it.")
GNU software uses copyright law to enforce the terms of the license
agreement. Proprietary software companies probably cannot destroy open
source software even by lobbying for increased copyright protection. Frankly
the more restrictive proprietary software becomes the more attractive is
open source software.
Regards,
Adam
------------------------------
From: "Chris Ahlstrom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Red hat becoming illegal?
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 02:33:23 GMT
"John W. Stevens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
>
> So . . . show me the algebra that proves that Rush has nothing sensible
> to say. I mean, after all, you attacked him pretty visciously . . .
> you do have some rational, objective reasons for your stance, right?
>
> Some specific incident or exposition of stance that proves that
> Rush is not worth listening to?
>
> Two references to his web site were posted here, yet so far, the
> Rush-bashers have failed to post even one sentence of critical
> commentary pointing out "factual flaws" that "invalidate his
> position". . .
>
> So, C'mon now, where are they?
Let me get this straight. In order to satisfy you (a futile effort
anyway, I would hazard), I should have a compilation of
specific broadcasts with notes on Rush's topic, and the
date and time of the topic.
In other words, my recollections of myself listening
to him, shaking my spinning head, and muttering
"What a fucking moron", won't suffice for you.
Too bad. They suffice for me. You must be nuts
to think I'd waste my time trying to track down
further instances of his cretinism.
It's tempting, I'll admit, because I'm sure that, even if
I can't find some transcripts of his show, that others
have compiled great compost heaps of his "writings"
that adequately illustrative what a lying sob he is.
So, no thanks, I'll decline to respond to your trolling
for me to do some research work at this time, John.
Find another sucker.
Chris
------------------------------
From: "Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.linux.sux
Subject: Re: Who LOVES Linux again?
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 02:33:57 GMT
"Kyle Jacobs" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:Eqb36.71057$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> You CAN'T do an xkill or a killall or any other process terminations when
> the user session is LOCKED UP.
>
> (User Session=Your interface, period)
Yes, but what is your point? I run Netscape under Linux every day on at
least three different boxes and leave it running for weeks or months at a
time. Netscape itself has locked a few times, mostly from hitting some
broken java code, but it hasn't locked the rest of the system or interfered
with the ability to open a new window in at least a year, and back when
it did I think it was an X problem, not a Netscape problem. Even then
it didn't happen often enough to make much of a diagnosis.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: Steve Mading <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windoze 2000 - just as shitty as ever
Date: 30 Dec 2000 02:39:52 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: Said Steve Mading in alt.destroy.microsoft on 28 Dec 2000 18:07:42 GMT;
: [...]
:>: Actually, its the court cases that define the word "monopoly" to begin
:>: with, regardless of whether you are ignorant of that fact or not.
:>
:>The definitions used in court, laid down by the courts, don't apply
:>outside the court.
: They were not "laid down" by the court; they were observed and
: documented by the court.
:>The government doesn't have jurisdiction over the
:>English language, especially when the English language exists in
:>multiple countries.
: Neither do you.
Never said I did. I'm just observing that your usage doesn't match
the way the word is actually used by most others. Langauge is
completely arbitrary, such that whatever the common usage is BECOMES
the correct usage over time, whether it originally was correct or not.
The courts cannot legislate English language.
:>: were, indeed, bugs, and the speaker was using the term "issues" as a
:>: euphemism for bugs, not to describe any potential issue which may or may
:>: not be a bug.
:>
:>The above paragraph is self-contradictory.
: You may sincerely hope so, I guess.
:>You start out by correctly
:>saying that my stance is that "not all issues are bugs", then go on
:>to accuse me of saying that they are.
: The quote I mentioned was not yours.
Then you should have attributed it as such.
:>Perhaps you forgot a "not"
:>somewhere in there?
:>
:>: Maybe not *all* issues are bugs, but all of *those*
:>: issues were bugs.
: No, I don't think so. When the Microsoft employee was quoted referring
: to known and unresolved problem "issues", he was using the word
: euphemistically, and might as well have used "bugs", but for the fact
: that it is not politically (and therefore financially) correct to say
: so.
I'm amazed at your powers of ESP.
: Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
------------------------------
From: Steve Mading <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.linux.sux
Subject: Re: Who LOVES Linux again?
Date: 30 Dec 2000 02:32:05 GMT
Aaron R. Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: Ayende Rahien wrote:
:>
:> Because it craves memory like there is no tomorrow?
: That's what SWAP SPACE is for, you moron. Inactive processes get
: swapped out as needed, so it's a NON-ISSUE.
I've seen Netscape *GROW* its memory footprint over time, and also not
spend enough time sleeping (Or so I assume since the CPU percentage
starts rising if you leave it going a long time.) So yes, it can still
be worth it to shut it down occasionally regardless of how much swap
space you use. The worst culprit seems to be its Java engine (I really
wish you could just plug in any generic JVM to Netscape, so I could use
Blackdown instead of Netscape's broken Java engine.) Even after the
applet page is done being viewed and there are no more pages with
applets on them visible, there is sometimes a runaway java thread
laying about slowly eating away at your system resources.
------------------------------
From: "Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Profitability of Linux being a challenge
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 04:33:23 +0200
"R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard )" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:92jdq0$bji$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Neither do most "shrink wrapped products". One of the classic examples
> of this was a client who wanted to collect survey samples via e-mail,
> cut-paste the replies (embedded in a Word Document) into an excel
> spreadsheet so that he could dump it into an Access database which
> could then be converted to SQL Server 7. Had he only needed to collect
> 5-10 surveys, he could probably have skipped a number of these steps.
>
> Instead, he collected and hand-built 20,000 samples using these manual
> methods and very expensive consultants.
>
> Eventually, one of the consultants got fed up, wrote a perl script
> that used a Linux shell command to convert the word document to text,
> piped the input into a scanning program that parsed the desired fields,
> converted these to SQL Insert commands, and piped them to SQL Server
> using the CLI interface. The responses were sent to a robot which
> automatically handled the responses.
>
> When another such survey was suggested, our friend with the handy dandy
> perl script offered to write an Apache/PERL form/script that would
> identify and authenticate the user, collect their information, and
> insert the completed record into the appropriate SQL tables.
>
> The initial "Microsoft Solution Survey" used well-known products
> such as office, but required nearly 30 minutes of interaction per
> form (total time for all steps). That meant a total staffing cost
> of nearly 20,000/2 10,000 staff hours or 5 staff years (the survey
> would have been obsolete before the results were tallied).
>
> The Apache/Perl solution took about 3 days (15 hours) to build and
> took less time to complete than the original word document.
That has nothing to do with the technologies that they used.
It had to do with the stupidty of the users.
It should take few hours to build a VBS file that would extract the word
files from the emails, extract the content of the files using Word, and send
them directly to the SQL Server.
You don't need all those reduntent steps.
Alternatively, you could just use ASP & html forms, and write the results
directly into the SQL server.
------------------------------
From: "Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.linux.sux
Subject: Re: linux does NOT suck (oh yes it does)
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 04:39:30 +0200
"Kyle Jacobs" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:vlb36.71054$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Yes, standards would make this fascinating idea possible. Pity NONE
exist.
>
> This is why the Windows registry shines. It's truly uniform.
Actually, not in the way I'm talking about.
It's quite possible, and very easy, to do what I'm talking about here in
Windows.
But what I'm talking about here is a global configurator for all
applications.
The registry is similar to config files in that you need to build a seperate
part of your program for each application you want to support.
That is not going to work unless you use some sort of conventions.
Something like that:
[HKLM\Applications Settings\Company\Application\]
key: position
value: "remember" = 0
value: "explanation" = "This tell the program if it need to remember its
last position."
key: options
value: "0" = ""
value: "1" = ""
And so on, you need to handle it a little better, because you would need ,
but that is a start.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Windows - Is It Really Easier to Use?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 02:52:20 GMT
On Sat, 30 Dec 2000 02:25:05 GMT, "Les Mikesell"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>"the_blur" <the_blur_oc@*removespamguard*hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:VQ_26.3724$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> > After one year, the Linux users will be running circles around the
>> > Windows users.
>>
>> Why?
>
>Because they learn the shell's features for automating repetitive tasks.
>Nearly
>anything done in the CLI can be automated by simply putting the same lines
>you would type into a file, and the variable parts can often be provided
>at runtime through prompting or some completely automatic operation.
>
You are making the assumption that they will still be using Linux a
year from when they start which for the average desktop user is highly
unlikely.
Flatfish
Why do they call it a flatfish?
Remove the ++++ to reply.
------------------------------
From: "Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.linux.sux
Subject: Re: linux does NOT suck (oh yes it does)
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 02:53:34 GMT
"Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:92jgm4$qgt$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> >
> > A single tool has handled all text config files for as long as anyone
> > has used them. Actually many tools are useful with them besides
> > the editor: diff, patch, cvs, etc. can all be very handy when you have
> > several versions to maintain.
>
> Irrelevent to the discussion, because that isn't what I'm talking about.
> I'm talking about making a global config tool, and why it is so hard to do
> so.
The text editor is a global config tool.
> Why is LinuxConf is so popular?
Personally, I dislike it and don't understand why it is
popular at all. Webmin seems like a much nicer
approach to me - it doesn't try to 'fix' all the
services whenever you touch any one of them.
> Because it's much nicer to have UI instead of flat text files when you try
> to configure something.
Why? If it is something you can automate, why should I touch it
at all, and if you can't automate it how does hiding the config
file help?
> > The part that really is a problem with text files and can't be easily
> > solved with a simple syntax-driven wrapper is that what you
> > really want from a config tool is some protection from making
> > preventable errors that might crash the application. For example,
> > a menu pick list can keep you from entering invalid choices, but
> > to get this right, the tool has to know as much as the app itself and
> > may need to cross-check against all the other settings. A more
> > attainable goal would be to teach the apps themselves to do a
> > syntax-check pass with reasonable error messages. Apache does
> > this with 'httpd -T' so you don't have to break a running server by
> > attempting to reconfigure with a bad config file.
>
>
> What I'm propusing would include the bad syntax checking internally, so
the
> configurator will be able to handle it, and not the application.
> See link above, to see what I'm talking about.
You can do a certain amount of syntax checking against a DTD or schema
but you can't do the hard part: complex relationships with other values
that may or may not be part of the same configuration. That leaves the
hard part to a human who now has no understanding of what would have
been the easy things about the configuration. You are back to the basic
problem of the GUI - it makes easy things easier and difficult things
impossible.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
** FOR YOUR REFERENCE **
The service address, to which questions about the list itself and requests
to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is:
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
You can send mail to the entire list by posting to comp.os.linux.advocacy.
Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites:
ftp.funet.fi pub/Linux
tsx-11.mit.edu pub/linux
sunsite.unc.edu pub/Linux
End of Linux-Advocacy Digest
******************************
