Linux-Misc Digest #286, Volume #19 Wed, 3 Mar 99 19:13:11 EST
Contents:
Re: More bad news for NT (Mantikor)
Re: best offline newsreader? ("Michael Faurot")
Re: Best Free Unix? (why FreeBSD?) (Richard Tobin)
how to find what library is needed to get this symbol? (mike)
Re: Microkernels are an abstraction inversion (Emile van Bergen)
REDHAT UPdates directory... (A James Lewis)
Re: Linux Screensavers (Uncle Meat)
Re: demand dialing vs. the other demand dialing (Steven Sykes)
Re: Public license question (brian moore)
Q: mount msdos? (Goran Allerbo)
Re: ICQ in Linux (dream)
Re: ATI Mach64 and X-Windows. (dream)
Re: scanning program for Linux (Bruno Barberi Gnecco)
Re: Public license question (brian moore)
Re: Best Free Unix? (why FreeBSD?) (Steven Michael ROBBINS)
Re: Microkernels are an abstraction inversion (Craig Kelley)
Re: Cable Modems with Linux (brian moore)
FreeBSD vs. Linux vs. Windows (Donn Miller)
RH 5.2 does not include ruptime? (Georg Schwarz)
Re: More bad news for NT ("Jon Wiest")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: mantikor @ hotmail.com (Mantikor)
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.linux.advocacy,alt.linux
Subject: Re: More bad news for NT
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 1999 23:11:57 GMT
>No, no, no... This misses the point of professional computer usage
>altogether. As another commentator has already said, there are two types of
>computer user - the Gods and the Followers (I paraphrase slightly). We are
>the Gods - the computer- literate, who are happy to have a go and to try to
>understand the underlying code and operability of the system. The Followers
>are happy with what the Gods give them; they play (either Doom or MS Word)
>with what they have and don't care how it works.
Well, no, it doesn't miss the point, because I could give my followers
a linux box with a quick-ref sheet of little instructions (do this to
run doom, do this to run word perfect) and they could work. Exactly
the same in Windows. And dont tell me that Windows is easier, because
I still need to do the exact same thing for my windows-using
followers... namely set up the pc and provide a quick-ref instruction
sheet.
>There is too much of the 'I know operating-system-level commands, so I'm a
>REAL computer user' attitude. Microsoft gave us the ability to USE our
>computers - all of us, not just the nerd cognoscenti.
I can write programs and use low level os commands, so Im a REAL
computer enthusiast =)
>What does it matter
>whether 'they' understand what they're doing? If I write a letter to my bank
>manager, and he/she understands it and acts on it, then the computer has
>fulfilled its function. I don't need to know C, C++, VB6, Linux, Netware,
>etc, to achieve my objective - communication.
We're talking about different levels of understanding. My users dont
need to know the SMTP protocol to send mail. But they do need to
understand that they need an internet connection, how their email app
works, how they attach files to an email, how they save files from
that application. None of this is intuitive, and if they dont
understand some of the basic concepts, they will need the same
coaching in every single app they use.
>The simple fact, whether the computer community likes it or not, is that
>that terribly nice Mr. Gates has been a boon to computers - by providing an
>OS which the non-nerd can use.
Again, the non-nerd can use Linux, BeOS, whatever with the right setup
and support. Same as windows.
>I don't know exactly how my car works, but I
>can drive to Milan.
My car would get waterlogged if I tried to drive to Milan...
>W95 DOES MAKE COMPUTING EASIER FOR THE MAN IN THE
>STREET. Fact. Simple as that. Why argue about it?
Yet again, this is not a fact, merely a perception. Linux in its
default configuration is cryptic and strange. So is Windows.
Pictures dont make it any easier on the computer illiterate. How are
they supposed to know you should click twice in rapid succession on an
icon to start it up? The first impulse is usually "move mouse over
word icon, click once, nothing happens, click again, nothing happens,
call tech support".
------------------------------
From: "Michael Faurot" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: best offline newsreader?
Date: 3 Mar 1999 06:35:27 GMT
Kevin & Chelby Geiss <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: I can't find an off line news reader for linux whihc is as good!!!
There's three options, with which I am aware of, although there may be
others.
1) I understand slrn has this capability, however I don't use
it myself so I don't know.
2) Use leafnode. This provides you the same "offline"
functionality but lets you use just about any news reader you
want to. It acts as a minature news server, but can be
configured to only pull the headers from the groups you're
interested in.
3) Use INN coupled with something like newsx or suck.
--
==============================================================================
Michael | mfaurot | I have that old biological urge, I have that
Faurot | phzzzt.atww.org | old irresistible surge, I'm hungry.
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Richard Tobin)
Subject: Re: Best Free Unix? (why FreeBSD?)
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 14:06:08 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> jik- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> >Of course,a thousand years ago,the pound sterling(currency) originated
>> >as a troy pound of sterling silver
>Wasn't Troy burned to the ground long before Rome ever existed?
Yes, but Troyes (in France) wasn't.
-- Richard
--
Spam filter: to mail me from a .com/.net site, put my surname in the headers.
Butter - 20% fat free.
------------------------------
From: mike <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: how to find what library is needed to get this symbol?
Date: 3 Mar 1999 00:37:22 -0800
hello,
this control-panel used to work OK. I was played with rpm, I must have
uninstalled something, now I get this error:
[lib]# control-panel
control-panel: error in loading shared libraries
: undefined symbol: gtk_object_check_cast
[lib]# rpm -qa | grep gtk
gtk+-1.1.15-1
[lib]#
[lib]# ls *gtk*.so*
libgtk-1.1.so.14 libgtk-1.1.so.14.0.1 libgtk.so
libgtk.so.1 libgtkada.so
[lib]#
doing nm on all libraries in /usr/lib, I see only this:
library is libgck.so
U gtk_object_check_cast
library is libgimpui.so
U gtk_object_check_cast
and no other place this symbol is defined.
any idea how to find which library provides this symbol?
thanks,
Mike
btw, I get same error when I try to start gimp.
------------------------------
From: Emile van Bergen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Microkernels are an abstraction inversion
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 1999 00:28:39 +0100
Chris Morgan wrote:
> Before I ever got my hands on WindowsNT and learned how horrible it
> is, I was quite excited about it from my reading of "Inside WindowsNT"
> by Helen Custer (Microsoft Press) as the system it describes seems
> rather nice and elegant. There is a lot of OO talk in that book.
I read it too, but after I came into contact with the product. At that
point,
I was amazed by Microsoft's apparent ability to f*ck up such nice
groundwork to such great extent... Biggest problem however is the 'call
oriented' (LPC's) IPC-mechanism instead of pure message passing. The
latter, although less 'OO' is a lot easier to do. And right now a good
OS proves to be too difficult for the MS employees... ;-)
Just some bull from the top of my head, don't take it all too seriously,
please.
--
M.vr.gr. / Best regards,
Emile van Bergen (e-mail address: [EMAIL PROTECTED])
This e-mail message is 100% electronically degradeable and produced
on a GNU/Linux system.
------------------------------
From: A James Lewis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: REDHAT UPdates directory...
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 10:52:04 +0000
Hi,
If I have downloaded all of the updates for 5.2, is it possible to swap
these with the ones on the CD to make an updated distro? Or is the FTP
distribution already updated?
Obviously I'd have to burn a new CD, but that's OK....
Can anyone answering this question copy to email too, as I real lot's of
groups and never completely.
James ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Vortex Internet
My operating system unders~1 long filena~1, and yours?
------------------------------
From: Uncle Meat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux Screensavers
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 1999 04:58:11 -0600
T. Garay wrote:
>
> Are there any other screensavers out there besides "blank the screen"?
> How do you turn that one off (we have a Cybex Commander that rotates
> pc machines on one monitor)?
Been awhile but, I _believe_ the way is:
setroot -blank 0
This goes in .xinitrc for X and can be applied system-wide (/etc/profile
for RH will do) or on a user-basis for the console.
That will disable to blanking. But, no idea how to add new ones to a
console; never had a need.
If in X get the newer xscreensaver files and just call 'xscreensaver &'
in .xinitrc to disable the system-wide blanking and install the ones
that come with it. Won't work for root for security reasons.
--
Didja get any onya?
------------------------------
From: Steven Sykes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: demand dialing vs. the other demand dialing
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 21:35:43 +1300
In article <juXC2.703$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Alan Curry
<URL:mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Has anyone successfully used the pppd "demand" option, or is it considered a
> joke and diald the True Way?
>
> Does "pppd demand" randomly eat all your existing routes, effectively turing
> off the ethernet device, or am I seeing things?
I think you're seeing things cos it works fine for me! I'm using 2.3.35
of pppd with demand enabled.
Cheers,
--
Steven
Newsletter editor and Webmaster of WACC - Wellington Acorn Computer Club
WACC pages: http://www.paradise.net.nz/~pbrowne/WACC/
Phone: (03) 358-5601 or (025) 908-448
My pages: http://www.paradise.net.nz/~acorn/
... We all live in a yellow subroutine.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (brian moore)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Public license question
Date: 3 Mar 1999 23:26:28 GMT
On Wed, 03 Mar 1999 14:28:25 -0500,
Rick Onanian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> brian moore wrote:
> >
> > > > The Free Software Foundation does have lawyers, and they do pursue
> > > > license violations on code they control.
> > >
> > > I did not know they even had much money. I got the feeling that they
> > > didn't.
> >
> > No one needs to pay for lawyers.
>
> Really? Wow! Cool! Next time I go to traffic court with 4 tickets in
> the past year, I'll bring a free lawyer to help me keep my license...
Okay, do that; though if I had as crappy a driving record as you, I'd
save the time and hassle and just take the bus.
It's quite trivial to find good lawyers for free if you have a cause
that interests them. (And that can be for purely legal interest, or
financial.)
> Well, if I was not slightly more informed than the person who asked,
> than it would not have been possible for me to answer. Misinformation
> is still information, even if it's wrong. I stand corrected. I will no
> longer question what has been answered for me - and thankfully, the guy
> with the original question is finally getting some answers.
It's always possible to answer. It's even possible to answer
incorrectly. Doing so doesn't mean that you know more than the person
who asked the question: just that you think you do.
> Ever notice how, if someone posts a real difficult question, they get
> no answers..then, if someone posts that same question, but says that
> they're tired of trying to get linux to work and that they'll go back
> to windows..They get an answer. A lot of answers. Sometimes..you gotta
> say the bad thing.
If you define "difficult questions are those that don't get answers"
then you have a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There are many difficult questions that do receive answers.
--
Brian Moore | "The Zen nature of a spammer resembles
Sysadmin, C/Perl Hacker | a cockroach, except that the cockroach
Usenet Vandal | is higher up on the evolutionary chain."
Netscum, Bane of Elves. Peter Olson, Delphi Postmaster
------------------------------
From: Goran Allerbo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Q: mount msdos?
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 1999 14:20:52 +0100
Hi,
I've just got me an extra msdos-formatted disk to share data between
Windows and Linux Suse 5.3. I'd like to mount it as /msdos.
I've updated /etc/fstab but have a problem:
* I can only delete and write files on /msdos when being 'root',
I'd like to do it from the group 'users' aswell..
The disk is mounted from fstab with default setting + msdos-type.
Suggestions of a nice line to put in fstab is vastly appreciated.
TIA
/ga
--
Mr Goran Allerbo [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Carmenta AB Tel +46 (0)31 7755700
Box 31121 Fax +46 (0)31 246379
S-40032 Goteborg, Sweden http://www.carmenta.se/
------------------------------
From: dream <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ICQ in Linux
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 1999 23:28:03 +0200
> : I am running RedHat 5.2, with kernel 2.0.36, and am trying to get an ICQ
> : program going for it.. has anyone succesfully gotten ICQ to work in
> : Linux? If so, what version of ICQ (or copy) was it? And how did you go
> : about installing it? I have tried the glib, and the gtk versions, but
> : can't seem to get those libraries to compile properly, they always have
> : errors at the end of the compile.. help!
>
> Licq is great. Visit its homepage at http://licq.wibble.net
It is far from being great, but it's the best available... [sigh]
------------------------------
From: dream <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ATI Mach64 and X-Windows.
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 1999 23:25:57 +0200
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> : My system: a P133 with 32 MB of RAM, with a 2 MB ATI Mach64 video card. The
> : problem: when selecting a higher resolution, X-Windows reports that there is
> : no "mode" available.
>
> If you are getting X-Windows, I suspect you have it installed correctly. I'm
> looking at your 2 MB though, and I'm guessing that you don't have the
> horses to run at higher resolutions.
My ATI Mach64 2Mb video card gives at most 16bpp at 1024x768 and 24bpp
at 800x600, so forget the horses. I think your problem is that you did
not correctly set up your X server. If you want - email me, and I'll
send you my configuration, maybe it would help.
------------------------------
From: Bruno Barberi Gnecco <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: scanning program for Linux
Date: 3 Mar 1999 07:46:04 -0600
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Before I buy Linux, I just wanna make sure that there is a free piece of
> scanning software available for download. I have Presto Page Manager that came
> with my scanner for Windows 98 but not for Linux. Anyone out there know of one
> 4 linux that's any good? Thanks.
There are some, but not for every scanner. Basically, if your scanner
is connected using a SCSI interface, you'll be able to use it.
--
Did you *REALLY* check that interface between the chair and the keyboard?
Bruno Barberi Gnecco <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ICQ #1383173 - PGP 5.0i user
[I'm running Linux] -=-=- Electric Engineering at Politechnic School, USP
http://www.geocities.com/RodeoDrive/1980/ * Check for C, 3D graphics, etc
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (brian moore)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux,gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Public license question
Date: 3 Mar 1999 23:34:37 GMT
On Wed, 03 Mar 1999 10:03:00 GMT,
Mark Mokryn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> My original question pertained to the intent of the GPL. Can one indeed make
> money on a project based on the Linux platform? And I do not mean to make
> money the Red Hat way, i.e. open up the source code and sell support. For
> argument's sake, let's say I intend to build a proprietary box (e.g.
> super-duper new video server) running on some OS, possibly Linux. Of course,
> an open-source OS can really help, and I can promise to release any
> modifications to the existing OS platform. I would most certainly not want to
> release the codebase to my project, however. I understand some of you may
> say, "wow, evil dude, does not give back to the community." Well, I would
> contend that I am actually helping the community by basing a serious project
> on Linux, and putting people's good work to use. Think of me as the good
> little guy, who does not want Micros**t, for example, to come around
> demanding my source code, so they can learn from it, and build a similar
> project on NT, thus driving me out of business. The prospect of this may
> cause one to seek another platform (even Windows!), which would not require
> everything to be released.
If you make changes to the kernel or other GPL'd works, you must
releases your changes to them.
If you add a 'Widget2000 SuperDuper Video Library Controller' program
and you don't use GPL'd source to write it, you don't have to give out
the source to that application.
> In other words, if I sell my super-duper video server box, I may be forced to
> release the code to the modules I wrote entirely by myself? Is this the
> intent of the GPL, to force the little guy to seek another platform? Look at
> it this way: I don't have the resources to chase after Oracle in the courts
> to get their Oracle for Linux code. But of course they can easily do this to
> me... The problem with the GPL is: how the hell do you define "work based on
> the Program"? If I use the "Program's" macros, etc., is this a work based on
> the program? Why doesn't the FSF provide simple, CLEAR, for god's sake,
> guidelines, so I may know what I am getting into? The ambiguity hurts us, and
> not the big guys.
The only ambiguity is what you're contriving.
Hint: Linux is just a kernel. Are you changing the kernel? Are you
writing just another userland program?
If the first, you must release your changes.
If the second, you only need to release your code if it is based on
GPL code.
This is no different from, say WP8 or Oracle or anything else: Corel
didn't have to change the kernel to run WP8, nor did Oracle have to
introduce secret syscalls for their server to run. They both wrote
their own code, thus they can do as they please with their products.
Oracle has no right to demand your source code unless they have a reason
to believe you stole theirs. That's precisely the same rights they have
on any other platform.
Please learn some copyright law.
--
Brian Moore | "The Zen nature of a spammer resembles
Sysadmin, C/Perl Hacker | a cockroach, except that the cockroach
Usenet Vandal | is higher up on the evolutionary chain."
Netscum, Bane of Elves. Peter Olson, Delphi Postmaster
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Best Free Unix? (why FreeBSD?)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Steven Michael ROBBINS)
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 1999 23:53:55 GMT
In article <7begp2$1gi$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Richard E. Hawkins Esq. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I can't back this up aat the moment (and it may be wrong, too :),
> but my understanding is that the $ sign came from the superimposed
> U and S (I forget what happned to the bottom part of the U).
With the caveat that free information is worth what you pay for it ---
in Canadian dollars or otherwise --- I went looking for the etymology
of "dollar" on the web. The best thing I found was on Dave Wilton's
Etymology Page <http://www.wilton.net/etyma1.htm> which claims that
1) the world dollar predated the USA's adoption of it
2) the symbol $ was ripped off from Spanish royalty
Dollar
The origin of the almighty dollar is in what is now the Czech Republic. In 1519, a
silver mine near the town of Joachimstal (literally "Joachim's valley," from the
German Tal, meaning valley) began minting a silver coin called, unimaginatively,
the Joachimstaler. The coin, which was circulated widely, became better known by
its clipped form, the taler. In Dutch and Low German, the initial consonant
softened to become daler. English adopted this form, eventually changing its
spelling to the modern dollar.
In the American colonies, there was no standard currency. The coin that was in
widest use was the Spanish Peso, known also as "Pieces of Eight" because it could
be divided into eight pie-like pieces. The English colonists informally assigned the
name dollar to this coin. In 1785, when the Continental Congress established U.S.
currency, they adopted dollar as name for the standard unit of currency, at the
suggestion of Governeur Morris and Thomas Jefferson, because the term was
widely known and was not associated with any form of official English currency.
(Jefferson also coined the term disme, from the French dixieme, for a tenth of a
dollar. Pronounced deem, it eventually became dime.)
The origin of the $ sign has several folkloric stories attached. One says that
Thomas Jefferson invented it, perhaps as a sort of monogram for TS. Jefferson
was the first to use the symbol in relation to the U.S. dollar, but this story is
fanciful. Another says that originally it was U superimposed over an S, for U.S.
of course. Eventually the base of the U eroded due to poor printing technology,
leaving an S with two lines through it. Another says that it is a variant of a figure
eight that appeared on the Spanish Peso, standing for the pieces of eight. This
last is close to the truth, but not quite there.
The Spanish royal family used on its escutcheon, two pillars (representing the
Pillars of Hercules in Gibraltar and Morocco) crossed by an unfurled banner
reading "Ne Plus Ultra." This symbol appeared on the Peso, and looked much
like the modern $ sign. It was adopted as a symbol for the Peso in the American
colonies, and was transferred to the dollar.
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Microkernels are an abstraction inversion
From: Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 03 Mar 1999 16:55:55 -0700
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stefaan A Eeckels) writes:
> > Now, when you say that you want programs to be objects you still
> > haven't said anything about change. A program, by some defintion of
> > object, is already one in UNIX: It has methods, instances and data
> > all rolled up into a quantum thing. Again, what are you going to
> > change? -- just give a simple, detailed example (maybe with
> > pseudocode?).
>
> Hey, I'm not Francois-Rene Rideau :-) I just got into this discussion,
> so give some time to spew a few philosophical items first :-) :-)
> Seriously, I'd like to see a system that extends itself based
> on the stuff (for lack of a better word) the user runs. Where
> you'd select the editor across the system, and all editing
> activities happen through that editor (like installing Word
> and having vi as editor).
This is more of a desktop-implementation issue than an OS issue.
As a side note: Gnome 1.0 is out.
> > What is an object? At some point it is going to be serialized. UNIX
> > simply allows full control over when this happens. If you want to
> > design an OS that hides the serialization of objects -- you had better
> > put a lot of thought into it so that control isn't lost.
>
> I agree, but your argument resembles the one made when disk drives
> became widely available - the programmer had to be able to control
> the layout of the files on the disk so control would not be lost...
> I think that a well designed OS will handle object serialization
> a lot better than a programmer - once the subject :-) is fully understood.
> I wrote programs for a system where the disk was an extend of
> 256 byte blocks, and where we added a checksum to each block by hand.
> We had lots of control, but frankly, it was a mess, and an inflexible
> mess at that.
No, I believe that abstraction to the point of a file is sufficient.
I would not argue that being able to control the sector of a disk a
piece of data resided on is beneficial anymore (perhaps on slow disks,
a database system could eek a few more speedups by doing this). I
understand your analogy, though.
> > And you wouldn't need to launch objects? (Unless there is a system
> > object called 'esp' which know when you want to do something...)
>
> That's not such a wild idea - if you've got an interface that lets you
> combine objects into a working program, the objects could be found
> and made available by the OS, dynamically. They don't have to reside
> on the local machine either.
Just the act of doing it:
(mail (uniq (sort (cut (file passwd)))))
is simply a semantic one. I would wager that there is already a
functional shell for UNIX somewhere.
I agree with your desire to have this functionallity, but I don't
think we need to scrap UNIX in order to do it. A uK does not make
this any easier either.
--
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
Craig Kelley -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.isu.edu/~kellcrai finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP block
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (brian moore)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,alt.linux,linux.redhat.misc
Subject: Re: Cable Modems with Linux
Date: 3 Mar 1999 23:56:23 GMT
On Wed, 03 Mar 1999 03:47:29 GMT,
Charles Boivin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I have
> noticed a strong performance boost of my cable modem connection under
> Linux compared to under Win95 and Win98... I can sometimes get transfer
> rates that are 4-5 times higher in Linux... I thought that was strange
> (there might be something wrong with my setup in Windows!), but I won't
> complain!
That's actually not surprising: Windows TCP/IP stack is not known for
good performance.
(I tried moving a bunch of files to a Windows98 machine and started
with an 64kbps transfer rate on a quiet 10Mbps network. After tweaking
the setup, I was able to get it to 1.2Mbps. My Linux machine was able
to move 6Mbps on the same network.)
There are a bunch of tweaks you can do to improve Windows performance,
but why bother?
--
Brian Moore | "The Zen nature of a spammer resembles
Sysadmin, C/Perl Hacker | a cockroach, except that the cockroach
Usenet Vandal | is higher up on the evolutionary chain."
Netscum, Bane of Elves. Peter Olson, Delphi Postmaster
------------------------------
From: Donn Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: FreeBSD vs. Linux vs. Windows
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 1999 17:50:56 +0000
I don't know which is better, FreeBSD or Linux, but I think we can all
agree that these two collectively kick Windows' ass. Here are the areas
in which FBSD & Linux are better than Windows:
* Speed -- both win in this area. M$ needs to cut down on the bloat in
order to compete with UNIX, no two ways about it. I don't know where
the bloat is coming from; must be MS's "desktop environment", i.e.,
Explorer being used as the Window manager.
* Multitasking -- Windows 98 multitasking is still a joke. However, M$
claims that UNIX still isn't as sophisticated as Windows when it comes
to threading and running threaded apps. Maybe, but the multitasking
isn't nearly as good as in FreeBSD or Linux. It's better than Windows
3.1's "multitasking", but what OS doesn't have better multitasking than
Windows 3.1?
* xanim is better than "Media Player". Recently I tried to play an avi
file under Win98, and it tried to download a new codec from some web
server somewhere, but failed. Then when I try to select the option
"check for player upgrades", it says I don't need one. Meanwhile, Media
Player can't play a basic avi file. I tried the same file(s) under
xanim, and it worked OK.
Here are some areas in which Windows is still better than FBSD and
Linux:
* better books on programming, systems programming, etc. I don't think
there's any books out there on specifically programming for FreeBSD
(although Stevens' book might be close).
* Microsoft Office is less bloated than Star Office.
I wonder if Charles Petzold ever did any UNIX/X11 programming? He
probably did, but won't admit it in public. He's got this image of "Mr.
Windows Programmer", so he probably doesn't want to destroy that image.
I wonder if Charlie is interested in writing a book on "Programming
FreeBSD-current"? That would be neat! ;-)
Donn
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Georg Schwarz)
Subject: RH 5.2 does not include ruptime?
Date: 3 Mar 1999 13:18:38 GMT
It looks to me as if RedHat 5.2 does not include ruptime (it does
include rwho and rwhod). Is this by accident or intentional? Any RPM
that fixes that shortcoming?
--
Georg Schwarz ([EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], PGP 2.6ui)
Institut für Theoretische Physik +49 30 314-24254 FAX -21130 IRC kuroi
Technische Universität Berlin http://home.pages.de/~schwarz/
------------------------------
From: "Jon Wiest" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.linux.advocacy,alt.linux
Subject: Re: More bad news for NT
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 18:07:37 -0600
Greg Yantz wrote in message ...
>The rest of your system is almost certainly OK. You just can't communicate
>with it. It's still breathing, just deaf-mute. :\
O that's great. Maybe he should just let it sit there, fully content that
Linux itself hasn't been violated.
Jon
------------------------------
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