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Show of hands if you think Windows is easy to use ... If I'm driving a car with a radio, I usually fiddle with the dials way down around 88-90 FM to listen to NPR, for Car Talk, All Things Considered, and the occasional science show. Now AlKini gives me another reason: "National Public Radio's "High Tech" section covers the Linux World Expo: Linux Moves to Heart of Corporate America (top item ATM).
NPR's Chris Arnold for All Things Considered: www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/200008 16.atc.07.ram (Real Audio)"
A major issue raised by the High Tech section article is ease of use; maybe I'm crazy, but putting on Mandrake and going nuts with the included programs is pretty darn easy. Putting on 98 and NT I thought was rather a nightmare.
Well, surely all this has shown ... something! OK. Perhaps now everyone can stop submitting the story about the experiment which has been reported as showing a previously unheard of increase in the speed of light. drinkypoo writes: "It turns out that 'Not only does the speed of light remain unsurpassed, but Wang's experiment wasn't even about that.' To be specific, 'the team developed a method of manipulating the wavelengths of a beam of light, thereby altering the way it arrives at its destination. Because short wavelengths become longer and long ones become shorter, the natural fanning outward that marks a light pulse is eliminated; consequently the shape of the pulse at its destination appears the same as at its origin.' It seems that the journalistic frenzy and a NEC press release are to blame. Salon Magazine is carrying the full story here."
Reports have been greatly exaggerated. We reported a few days ago that IBM's Project Monterey had been killed. Not so, says dentar, who writes: "I am attending SCO Forum 2000, and contrary to what was published in Sm@rt-aleck Reseller, IBM is NOT ditching Monterey. It is going to be called AIX-5L. (NOT AIX-RL like the article says). The Sm@rt reseller article is very poorly researched and is pure yellow journalism. In fact, IBM is very ticked about the article."
Where are the software-release-date betting pool sites? fonixmunkee writes: "Found an interesting story on BetaNews regarding Microsoft reportedly working on porting some of their software to linux. Check it out here."
For either P.R. or experimental purposes at least, though, doesn't it seem like Microsoft will offer some Linux software soon? While there's often no accounting for corporate decision making, to ignore the large, vibrant, growing Linux market would be to ... ignore a large, vibrant and growing market. Fine by me; I never much like having my words mangled by Word, and I have never pined for Outlook.
The more numerous the laws ... werdna writes: "Counsel for Napster, Inc. just submitted their initial brief on Appeal, explaining why the preliminary injunction should be reversed. The brief sets other arguments, any one of which could be a basis for reversal.
Whatever may be said of Judge Patel's decision, she set forth her reasoning squarely, which made it possible for Mr. Boies to crisply and concisely join the issue: Whether the test for contributory infringement of an internet service will be that the services has a "mere capacity for substantial non-infringing uses" (the test adopted by the Supreme Court for VCR's), or Judge Patel's new creation of a "present primary purpose " test, in direct contravention of the Supreme Court's decision in the Betamax case. The answer to this question can have broad-sweeping impact on the internet as a whole.
Interestingly, the brief shows that the Ninth Circuit itself originally adopted the "primary purpose" test when it first reviewed the Betamax case, noting that the Supreme Court expressly rejected that argument there. It is sometimes advocacy to a judge to remind them that the District Court they are reviewing just made the same mistake they made years ago."
I know you guys hate to admit it, but a standard Win 95/98 setup is easy to install and operate. Its fine to stress Linux's strengths (ease of use ain't one of 'em), but don't be ridiculously biased...
--
Chaosnetwork
OliverWillis.Com
An Operative with an Agenda
Everyone here claims windows is the OS for idiots or the average dumb consumer, yet have trouble installing it :)
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
the line "I have never pined for Outlook" is hilarious.
Seriously though, I doubt microsoft will port much if anything to Linux. The reason MS dominates so often is that any windows box you buy, comes straight from the manufacturer with lots of its software installed. Of course IE beat out Netscape in browser wars, its right there on the desktop when you boot up for the first time. Similarly, I dont think people, especially not-so-techy people, will go out of they're way to install new MS software on a Linux box when it comes with free defaults ready to go. Add to that the fact that much of Linux's appeal is that it is free, who would want to ruin that by shelling out for some proprietary software?
peas,
-Kabloona
I guess I'm the History Nazi now, but "yellow journalism" doesn't mean what they think it means. It refers to the influential muckraking (and sometimes inaccurate and inflammatory) journalism practiced around the turn of the century by newspapermen such as H.L. Mencken. "Yellow" refers not to cowardice but to the yellow ink used.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
We are all pretty screwed
Any kind of new, filesharing technology will be pushed aside for the bland, boring, corporate controlled web.
The primary purpose of VCRs, before video tape rentals most certainly was Copyright infringement, but if it hadn't been allowed the video rental industry never would have started.
Similarly, any new technology that moves the Internet away from the highrachal, centrally controllable Web model to a more Peer-to-peer model could be used readily for copyright infringement. This judgment could mean that any technological advances in certain directions must contain copyright controls, limits on what the user can do with information on their own computer, in order to even be developed.
When Radio first came out, it was everybody talking to everybody else. It was going to liberate everyone, and free the information for the tech nerds. But we all know what happened, air filled with the meaningless chatter of a few, franchise radio stations owned by Disney. I would like it if that didn't happen to the Internet.
We don't know how bad things are in north korea, but here are some pictures of hungry children. -- CNN
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I am the anti-intuitive computer user, though.
:)
I'll admit that MacOS is easy to install and use, but when it comes to sheer joy of installation, I stand by my claim that Mandrake goes on easier than Windows. Doesn't even need a reboot till the process is complete.
Of course, that's with my particular rotating collections of hardware that pass as PCs, some of which grouse about having any OS at all.
Installing new software, that's a different story -- some things are ridiculously easy to install under Linux (a nightly build of mozilla, most any RPM), but there are some things I've never gotten on right, or that slip on in one distro but flounder when I try to put them on another. In that regard, Windows may be ahead, but I don't use it often enough to say, and I've never been much of a Windows user anyhow.
I'm excited about Eazel (and other Gnome related projects) because of the even greater ease of use they promise, though. The Mac -- now *that* I'll admit beats any Linux gui I know for intuitiveness, but "intuition" varies enough person to person that I can see why some people prefer windows-like GUIs better. Variety, spice of life, now available with extra flavor, from Lipton.
Trying to put an AOL client onto Windows NT, for instance (for my mom! for my mom!) gave me hours of trouble, until I found out that the Windows AOL client doens't work with NT anyhow. (maybe that's changed with 2000? Dunno, don't care.) Installing certain MS software has failed for me inexplicably at different installation points -- and so have some linux distro's installs. But I can try another Linux (for free) -- with MS you're stuck with an expensive annoyance.
So there's my natural bias, don't mean it to be ridiculous, only in keeping with my own experience. I certainly hope you have a better time with any OS than I generally do!
Cheers,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Yeh, windows(9x) is easy to install, kind of. I've heard NT can be a bitch though. But having installed both 95, 98, Red hat, Corel, and mandrake (as well as slack ware about 4 years ago). I can safely say that Linux is easier to install.
Setting up slack ware in 1996 was a bitch, and I'm sorry to say but Corel's distro was completely fucked (network didn't work, when I tried to change the desktop rez, it consistently fucked my setup bad enough to require a reinstall)
Win 98 and 95 have the exact same install, and it takes about an hour. Mandrake and Redhat are also similar, detected my hardware as well as windows, and installed quicker. Also, remember, after you actually get windows on the hard drive you need to detect hardware, etc. Sometimes this can take a while, and sometimes things can go screwy. I've seen a lot more people with windows install problems then with Linux install problems, but then a lot more people run Windows.
As far as difficulty for me, I'd say installing both windows and Linux rate close to zero, with Linux being very slightly closer to zero then windows.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Dude, installing windows is not very hard, otherwise, why would windows users keep doing it over and over again (I know I have...)?
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
IE and Office are the two major needs for any corporate desktop. Like it or not, the lack of Office and IE are major reasons for companies not to adopt Linux. Standardization is a powerful thing. MS support for Linux will only help it's adoption on the desktop. Of course, MS Windows for Linux can't be far away...
Before porting 50 meg or so of Office Linux needs a GUI that doesn't suck, so why are we listening to this anti-MS FUD?
More Win98 users will be added in China in the next 6 months than all the present desktop Linux users total. Of course someone who thinks installing '98 is difficult is likely emotionally traumatized by the mere thought of anything Micros~1 and likely to sound like an idiot to anyone who can do both.
Just another perl hacker in Bangkok
So does anyone here really believe that Napster were not engaged in vicarious infringment - or, in other words, do they believe that Napster did not intend their software to be primarily used to copy MP3s of commercial music?
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
We recently migrated to Outlook due to corporate, and I made the comment: I never thought anything would make me pine for CC Mail again....
I work in a Unix shop where we all have to share one Winblows box for e-mail and I must say that Outlook is a major PIA. (Pain in the Artichokes)
But at least the web access works with Netscape. (At least until the next Exchange patch...)
And more to the point made by Kabloona, MS cannot port anything to Linux without losing much of the mindshare they currently enjoy. Our desktops are getting slicker, (Check out KDE2) our uptime is still better, and our reputation is better.
But heck, I just applied for a job as a Solaris admin and got: "Could you send me your resume in DOC format??" I sent it as a perl app instead.
~Hammy
"We're all Devo!" ~Boogie Boy
Why is everyone waiting for IE to come out for Linux. I always have found Netscape lot more stable on Windows NT 4.0 (I've hardly used 95 or 98)(Which I have to use at work 8) ) than IE. At home I run Linux Mandrake with Netscape (which is the least stable application on Linux) I am just wondering why people think IE for Linux is going to be any better. What about KDE's Konqueror and GNOME's Nautilus I am sure they'll be much better than IE or Netscape will every be for Linux.
-Jasa -- Linux - The SOURCE will be with you, ALWAYS
I hate to be the Terminology Nazi here, but "Nazi" doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. It refers to a murderous political party that rose to power in Germany after world war one. While its leader, Adolph Hitler probably did have lots of anal sex (really), it does not refer to someone who is anal about facts, rather someone who kills lots of Jews.
Also, newspapermen of the early 1900s used black ink, but on high-acid-paper that quickly turned yellow.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I agree as far as office goes, Linux wont make any inroads in business where M$ office is standard (witch is a lot), with out having a fully compatible office suit.
On the other hand, why do we need IE? what's wrong with Mozilla?
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
But then, napster itself didn't distribute anything, just allowed other people to share audio files. It happened that the majority of audio files people wanted to share were copyrighted to someone else.
Given that distribution of copyrighted audio for non-commercial gain is explicitly legal, I don't see what the problem is...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
It does seem that someone... whether NEC or reporters, I'm not sure... was a little irresponsible with the "faster-than-light" story. Even the title of the Nature article, "Gain-assisted superluminal light propagation," seems a little misleading. Although all the articles clearly indicated that this experiment was not at odds with Einsteinian relativity, none of them really explained it.
I don't know that much about physics, but I knew something weird was happening here, and I found a little bit of explanation in the Feynman Lectures on Physics (Volume 1, Chapter 31).
For light of frequency omega, in a material with electrons having resonant frequency omega0, the index of refraction is:
n = 1 + (Ne^2)/(2 epsilon0 m (omega0^2 - omega^2))
The dependence on omega shows that a material transmits light at different speeds, depending on the frequency (or, from a different point of view, the wavelength) of the light. This phenomenon is called "dispersion." Now, for some frequencies, (omega0^2 - omega^2) will be negative and n can be less than one, implying "superluminal" propagation in the sense that light of that frequency may be transmitted faster than "c", the speed of light in vacuum.
Feynman notes that the difference in index of refraction indicates a "that the phase shift which is produced by the scattered light can be either positive or negative." However, he is careful to point out that signals themselves are not transmitted faster than c, because transmission of a signal depends on the index of refraction at multiple frequencies. The index tells the speed at which the node of the wave travels, but the node in itself can carry no information. In order to transmit information, the frequency of the wave must be varied.
So, it appears that the idea of sending light at "faster-than-light" speeds is an old one, well understood by physicists. The theory of relativity has not been violated, and this has been known for some time. Feynman, apparently, taught it to beginning physics students at Caltech in the 1960s. News sources must have simply been attempting to make the story into something more appealing to the public. "Laws of physics break down!" But in reality, no laws have been violated, physics is fundamentally unchanged, and the net result seems to have been a confused public.
Matt Reece
I installed '95 and Mandrake last night. Mandrake was easier to install. Once installed, however, I'd say that Windows was easier to use. Linuxen just don't have a "/Program Files" concept down - and I think it is sorely missed.
Speaking of reboots I laughed outloud when our sysadmin said "its all installed except for the reboot". I told him a real operating system doesn't have to reboot after installing a simple application and heard him say "of course it does, or how would it know the new stuff is there"...!
hey, monterey is long dead. The code isn't, but monterey was ibm & sco's new unix, then sequent came on board, then IBM bought sequent, then caldera bought SCO.
So, does IBM kill the cool x86/ia-64 code? Or do they just keep the code, excuse themselves from the SCO commitment. Of course!
Now it's just them in monterey, no one else, so do they kill the brand they've been hyping for the last two years? Nope.. Watch, they'll probably rename AIX to Monterey (think warp or domino).
why is this so damn clear to me?
Linuxen just don't have a "/Program Files" concept down
/usr/bin for?
Then what is
=================================
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
It is easier to install. If the windows version is more than 6 months newer than all of your hardware, chances are you just hit return a few times during the installation, and you're done. I have never successfully installed linux with X (Debian, Redhat 5.something, redhat 6.0) because I've always had some hardware incompatibility (usually video). At least with windows, you're almost guaranteed to get it working at 640 by 480...Xfree86 couldn't even do that with my monitor (10 year old NEC POS).
The problem is that it takes for fucking EVER. At least my failed Linux installations were (not counting time I spent looking up the exact identity and specs where neccesary of my hardware) lightning-quick. A windows installation in less than 30 minutes is miraculous.
And what will the HR dude do with your perl app?
Back when I ran CPM/80 on a machine with two 8" floppy drives, it was habit to hit the reset switch any time the program disk was swapped in. This was because there were often OS 'tweaks' to make each application run optimally. Plus, the operating system fit onto a 2K area at track zero on every floppy diskette. The space was held empty unless the OS was put on it, so it made sense to put an OS on each program disk. And it only took about 2 seconds to boot. On a 4 Mhz 8 bit processor.
Those were the days.
I am so tired of Napster news on slashdot.
Could we create separate "Napster whining"
section so I can switch it off in my preferences?
Not that I am do not care about the freedom
of speach, but I do not use damned thing - I have
my minidiscs and happy with them.
The mandrake install is pretty awful. The checkboxes are very ambiguous and to the untrained eye it is hard to tell if they are checked or not. A check box is supposed to be a big, white box with a clearly visiable black worder that has a nice, fat black checkmark (or X) going through it. Apparently, Mandrake doesn't understand this, opting for some extrememly ambiguous checkbox that resembles a motif widget.
And there are a few checkboxes in even more confusing star shapes. And then they further screw up the UI by taking the colored balls they used in the last version as interactive bullets/radio buttons and replacing those with the confusing stars are well. Arrgh. There are so many people in the computer industry (especially in the linux and windows areas) who think they know everything about ease of use (such as GNOME) but in reality they do not have the slightest clue about making *anything* easy. But in the end this doesn't really matter, 'cause I've got the code.
There's /usr/local/bin and such.
/usr/pkg/...
/usr/pkgsrc and type 'make && make install && make clean && make clean-depends'. If you want to install KDE, just go to some esoteric higher-level package like kdegames, do the above command, and it installs all dependencies, which amounts to everything in the base KDE package scheme.
On NetBSD, there's
I think NetBSD has it down better than anything else I've used, actually. Install the base OS (it's about an 80 Meg download) then install the pkgsrc.bin.tgz tree properly, get your system online, cd to the subdirectory in
There's as easy a system for installing FreeBSD, too, but they tend to push a lot more at you in the default install than NetBSD. And NetBSD runs on anything, even your old Mac.
The same exact thing can be said (and has been said) of Microsoft Visual DOS, err, I mean, Windows when compared to MacOS. MacOS is vastly easier to use and less confusing and far less ambiguous than windows. MacOS actually has consistency in UI between applications, something windows (or rather, windows programmers) still can't grasp. MacOS actually uses Plain English for it's system file names. No MFC42.DLL DOS crap. Look in a mac's system folder, then look in a windows machine's "windows" folder and see which platform users more words that can be found in Websters Dictionary.
Windows might beat Linux on ease of use, but MacOS slams the bejeezus out of windows in that very same category. It's amazing just how hypocritical the windows world really is.
I've had exactly the opposite results. With Windows95, the best I could get with my POS 10 year old Leading Technology piece of junk monitor was 800x600x32 bit color. Under XFree86 it supports 1024x768 just fine in interlaced mode.. unfortunately Windows has no way to "tweak" the settings to get it to work.. it either does or doesn't. Granted, the monitor is a piece of shit and sits in my closet now, but at the time it was all I had. ;-)
For the casual web surfing game player, windows is clearly easier to get set up and use. It came with the computer to begin with...so the install process never even took place, and wizards are provided so that 97% of the populace can get their AOL up and running without cracking a manual.
However, if you are more interested in poking around and just looking at what all that nifty hardware actually does and how it interacts, I think poking around in the /proc tree is much more easy to do than navigating through a bunch of meaningless windows in the control panel. As a friend of mine demonstrated, it is easier to hook a remote control car up to the parallel port with joystick control in linux than in windows NT or 98. Try to get ttyquake running in windows, I imagine it is difficult.
The point is, for Nerds linux provides a better platform for monkeying around and doing inane things with computer science than windows. To do nerdy things, (outside of gaming which does not really count) linux is just easier to play with. Since /. caters to nerds and not normal people, one shouldn't consider normal uses when arguing about regular uses. The question should be: upon which os is it easier to write a driver for your homemade usb blender? On which os is it easier to pipe revving noises to the speaker when the load goes up? Under which os is it easier to send a message to your beeper when the ports get scanned?
Outside of the enigmatic and mysterious sect of the BSDs, I cant understand why any computer geek could not enjoy linux for just being nerdy.
(+1, I don't understand this post, but I think it's about physics)
I wholeheartedly agree. The reason Linux is /bin directories, instead
/bin.
stuck with all those
of plainly named ones is POSIX. There are two
things that must die: X and POSIX. Then Unix
world will be sane.
Note: don't tell me about creating links, it's
an ugly hack, since it doesn't eliminate the
confusing
That having said, Windows is no better. You can't
really rename key directories and expect it to
be happy.
Is there an OS with full abstraction of all user-
accessible content?
What distribution? What hardware? What the hell are you talking about???
To tell the truth, right now my Win98 distro if FUBAR...something happened to IE5; it was from a source outher than Micro$oft (Earthlink CD, I think.) Unfortunately, for some reason when the software is installed it's somehow marked as not being uninstallable (!) and I've yet to clean out all the crap it puked into the Registry. To top it all off, something happened (dunno what) to the MSHTML.DLL (or whatever the hell it's called) and IE5 segfaults everytime one visits a site. I tried downloading the IE5 installer from windowsupdate.com (which won't work in Communicator...no VBScript support) and the installer won't install over the non-uninstallable software (!!).
Yeah, Windows is easy...provided you get Windows with the hardware, never install software, and just try to keep from drooling on the keyboard.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Check out this story.
"However, confessing that even his parents and sister prefer Windows -- which is compatible with far more software programs -- over Linux, Torvalds predicted Linux will not "catch up" with Windows for "perhaps five or 10 years." "
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
I have spend countless hours getting stupid windows programs to work right. Just today I was trying to get Juno to install on a windows 95 machine and tried unsuccessfully for about 3 hours tinkering with various settings and upgrades from microsoft. I was not seriously impressed with my service nor my preformance with any of the associated software. That isn't ease of use.
Respond to s
(yes timothy, I've met you - CTY)
;)
:)
For the meat of this post relevant to the subject, skip the next paragraph and then everything after it. But I hope the rest has some interesting stuff too.
What I really like about Linux, especially with a good distro (Debian anybody?), is that stuff is rediculously easy to install as timothy says, and you get nice default settings and everything works (especially with Debian, where the package configuration mechanism is well-defined and thought out) and you don't have to mess with it, but when you decide to go "power-user", everything is right there, from simple-to-edit text configuration files to the complete sources of most available programs; you can mess around with stuff. And if you royally screw something up, apt-get reinstall <package>.
As far as user-friendliness, X Windows as-is, with GNOME and KDE (pick one...), is about as easy to use as Windows while being much more customizable (heck, throw in a new window manager if you don't like how yours works! then try that in windows...). The only problem is that the user that Eazel etc. tries to cater to has been force-fed M$ Windows GUI all of their (computing) life. Get people started on Linux, and people will be comfortable with it without (much) special catering.
Mac OS X looks darn sweet, though... I have to wonder what Linux's fate will be competing against that. Anybody ported Aqua to Linux yet?
Oh, forget AOL with network drivers. An AOL install will mess with configuration all over a Windows system (why in the world would an ISP adjust power management settings? Well AOL does, from what I've heard, source Fred Langa). You'll generally have a call to tech support to do any kind of network config after installing AOL, because in my experience it often just doesn't work anymore.
Odd that with all the "effort" that Microsoft has been putting into "compatibility" between "releases", stuff still doesn't work right between versions. Linux, on the other hand, has no problem with foreign packages (alien), and if it does, it's a simple matter to know why. But since most every Linux program is free and packaged in the two most common formats, rpm and deb, anyway, there is very often zero problems here.
My bias is of course towards Linux (because it's free, cool, ("enough, Ken" - shut up already, little voices!)), but I still maintain a power-user knowledge of Windows, and to a lesser extent MacOS, because those are what most people presently use. Realistically today, you cannot expect the average Windows user to go out and (gasp!) buy (you mean you actually have to pay money for Linux? Oh, you get it on a CD! Ah, okay.) a Linux distro and have a clue what [s]he is doing with it, but fortunately this is poised to change.
Linux has its faults. But the difference is, with Linux I can easily track down the root of the problem and have at least the chance to fix it if it involves modifying code (but if I don't, someone else can), but even with equal power-user status on Windows, I can still spend hours trying to track down a problem that should be obvious (try networking...).
If you've read this far through my hopefully informative, intersting ("this is your last warning, Ken" shut up already! I mean it! these little voices are really bothering me...) Oh, timothy is a cool guy; you should talk to him. He gave me a Slashdot / Andover dart gun! (oops, was I not supposed to tell anybody? oh well...) But more than that, he knows what he's talking about and he led an interesting discussion this year, first session (remember that, Tim?). No, I'm not trying to suck up
Kenneth
Two popular newspapers had competing comic strips. One was "The Yellow Kid" by Outcault and the other was an imitation. They both used yellow ink to fill in the shape of the boy's gown.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
Here and Here
So you're saying that a complete OpenBSD system with X11 fits in an 8 MB download? (30 min == 1800 s; 1800 s * 4.5 KB/s bandwidth = 8 MB).
Oh, you meant broadband. DSL is only available if you live practically next door (within two miles) to the phone company. Cable is only available in some areas and also requires the purchase of crappy television programming. Does OpenBSD even support most brands of cable and DSL modems?
Oh, you meant company LAN.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
Uhh, your system must really suck, because I installed RH 6.2 on a p90 with a 4x cd drive in less than an hour (that includes seting up all hardware).
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
S-100 bus based CPM systems, such as the Altair and IMSAI, were both state of the art and very cheap (for what you got) back in those days. While a used PDP-11/03 with 32KW (64KB) and an RX02 (8" floppy) might be had for $15-20K (but was only single user) one of many S-100 systems at the time, running CPM, could support up to 4 terminals, stunning 128x128x3 color graphics with the Dazzler card, a Z80 which supported up to 64kb of ram, along with another 64kb -- bank switched, and both 8" or 5 1/4" floppy drives, plus a large 5MB Shuggart hard disk for about the same price. Spartan by today's standards, but effective.
The bus was open and actively being developed for, and modular, allowing hobbyists to build a decent small computer for under a thousand dollars, while giving the small business owner the option of adding professional hardware; letter quality daisy wheel printers with envelope feeds, a spreadsheet and word processor named VisiCalc and The Electric Pencil, repectively -- things many business owners realized they could use, even back then.
Many hobby users at the time were trading software (where the famous Gates 'You're stealing my software..." letter came from) in a bazaar like community; growth was exponential and everyone recognized the hardware was good. Plus, there was plenty of platform competition: during the late '70s, the TRS-80, Apple II, Pet 2001, and Atari 400/800 systems gained popularity as well. Then IBM and Micro-Soft wrenched everyone over to their IBM PC through sheer marketing force and monopoly business tactics -- to the detriment of the entire computing industry.
Aren't you glad you own a PC now?
Yeah, I'd have to agree. Windoze is easier to get going initially. If your hardware isn't supported, you'll still be able to use it, if not very well. I can't exactly say that for X (or the kernel in general). However, Linux does surpass WinBlows after you finally (!) get everything in order. Unlike Windoze, 'nix doesn't really care what version of the filesystem or how many partitions you have. Not to mention the fact that there's not "prouduct key" to misplace ;-) While Windows (especailly 2k, and ME [i assume]) is very good at auto-detecting and improvising with hardware, Many distros are coming closer and closter each day. I suspect by this time next year, nearly every linux OS will be as good if not better than Windows in terms of installation.
-----------------------------------------
Perversely greped and groped by PowerPenguin
I disagree with this idea that "windows is easy to install". Here is a little rant that I sent off a couple days ago on the subject which explains why.
... fdisk gets
... the problem is that
\begin{rant}
I've installed Linux on several machinces in the last year, including a
bleeding-edge laptop, an older laptop, and a couple of desktops, one
overclocked. I've installed windows (mostly 98, once 2000) on all of
them at least once, as well.
Windows WILL find the hardware, every time, and doesn't have the right
drivers for it, and will drive your 21 inch monitor hooked to a big,
fast 3d card at 640x480x8bit until you take it by the hand, after many
reboots, and lead it to a driver for your card, and another for your
monitor, which YOU must dig up. Then you must reboot AGAIN!
Contrast this to Linux: it correctly detects the card, just as does
windows, and then loads a good driver for it. It offers you a sensible
default resolution, and you're off. All the other hardware is handled
similarly by Linux: it finds it, gives you a decent driver, and things
just work. The windows example is also standard: it finds some kind of
hardware, loads a lowest common denominator driver, and then expects YOU
to do the work of making it work right.
Don't try to install Win98 to replace NT, by the way
baffled, scandisk crashes, setup.exe craps out
they don't know that NTFS isn't FAT, and die in an uninformative
manner. I had to use Linux's fdisk to repartition as ef2s, then MSfdisk
thought that the partition was "unformatted", or some such, and could
work with it.
In short, it seems to me that Windows is MUCH harder to install than is
Linux. Windows does have a fancy graphical installation tool, not quite
so nice as Corel's, perhaps, but it really doesn't DO anything for you!
Linux, with or without the eye-candy, gives you far fewer hassles, far
fewer reboots than even win2000, and seems to me to require a bit less
knowlege of the hardware, as well. Linux only requires that you guess
which interrupt your soundcard wants. That you can get by trial and
error (some day I'll write down which one works, so I don't have to try
the guessing game at each install on a given machine).
Windows requires that you have the manufacturer's driver on hand for
EVERY part in your machine! For a frankenstein box, assembled out of
old parts, that can be a big problem. You have to know what you have,
and go find the drivers, and on and on. First stop, the FCC website, to
try to find out who made each board, and then go find out that the
manufacturer is out of business and no more drivers. For a Compaq (don't
buy Compaq if you want to run windows), knowing your hardware is still a
big problem. Finding the drivers on the Compaq disk is painfull. For
Linux, all the drivers are on one CD, and the installer finds the right
one for you. THAT'S easy.
Yes, Linux app's do seem to be lagging a bit yet, but Staroffice 5.2 is
getting pretty close to MSOffice. You will soon be able to do
Microsofty things as well as MS, and serious work is already much easier
on Unix. By the way, administering NT on a home system doesn't seem any
easier to me than the same chores on Linux. Maybe even harder, since at
least with Linux, I know what's behind the GUI. You never really know
that with MS.
It always bugs me to hear this "Linux is hard to install" line, since
that exactly contradicts my experience.
\end{rant}
Nels Tomlinson
See what I've been reading.
Ok, here is a point that I'm sick of hearing, and am going to put to rest right now. Mircosoft products for linux isn't the reason it's not on business desktops.
If that were the case, MacOS would have the lion's share of the market here. Both IE and Office for the MacOS are better then their WIndows counterparts. IE5 being the most standards compliant browser there is. Office for MacOS being just as good. And with Office 2001 being completly carbonized, it will also be better then their Windows version.
There are reasons that people say why businesses aren't using linux on their corprate desktops. Inconsistant user interface, lack of bussiness apps for linux, fear of open source, etc. The MacOS doesn't have any of these "shortcommings". So why doesn't it own this market? Bases on the reasons that people give for lack of linux use in my eyes are invalid. There are other os'es that do everything they say is needed. Yet they are realatively unused and passed over.
The only negatives I can see to using MacOS on a corp. desktop would be cost of Apple hardware. But cost isn't something these businesses aren't concerned with. MacOS may not be a rock of stability, but is Win9x?
So what is the real reason that linux isn't on the business desktop? Or better yet, why hasn't MacOS been able to get to this market? And as a follow-up.....if linux gets to where the MacOS is in number of aps, ease of use, etc., will it even matter?
In cyberspace, nobody can hear you being sarcastic.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
It's not in the manual that comes with the OS, therefore it's "undocumented"
I know, I know, IHBT. YHAND too.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
maybe I'm crazy, but putting on Mandrake and going nuts with the included programs is pretty darn easy. Putting on 98 and NT I thought was rather a nightmare.
That said, Windows is more foolproof to install. It checks for more devices and writes progress to disk to mark how far along it is, in the event that it got crashed out by a rogue memory poke.
The fact remains that hardware detection and installation of appropriate drivers is an important part of OS setup. Having to find and download "experimental" or "beta" drivers that aren't included with the default CD (or network) install for a Linux or BSD system makes system installation a lot harder for many.
Hopefully it will inflict a blinding and painful awareness that he has no business deciding who does or doesn't get hired for the IT department. At least that. And maybe he'll remember those hieroglyphic stanzas of Perl on his deathbed and go to his God properly humbled.
Did I read a different story about this than everybody else? I got what was happening after reading the story only 2 times. I'm no physics genius either, just a guy who likes to read about it. I thought people were just misunderstanding the results (as tends to happen with physics stories that are reported by non science media), I didn't get anything close to a "cover-up" or result hiding by the scientists.
Yeah, because linux (*nix) is immature as far as operating system services are concerned...
Shmuck.
So the thing is acting a little like a LASER, only without a net amplification of the signal, sucking back the energy it gives to the output pulse from the input pulse.
Rather than actually somehow weirdly having precognition of the coming wave, the medium amplifies the leading edge of the pulse with its own energy, creating energy "holes" where it was taken, which collapse in reverse-order and suck away the energy of the rest of the incoming pulse, with the appearance of a backwards wave motion. The interaction of the pulse, the amplification, and the energy holes creates a pulse that very closely matches the shape of the center of the pulse nearer to the leading edge of the pulse, but the leading edge of the pulse isn't transmitted any faster than the speed of light, and the output pulse is different from the input pulse in that its leading edge is closer back to the highest point of the pulse, so it lacks the precursor that would allow the bulk of the output signal to be shifted forward as far second time, so the apparent FTL speed (to a device which can only detect the peak of the pulse) should drop off the longer the "wire" is.
The backward energy-sink "wave" is not truly a chain-of-events wave at all, like sound, but is merely a sequence of disconnected events that occur in wave-like fashion WRT their positions and timing, and is therefore not bounded by the speed of light (just as the area illuminated by a flashlight, or the point at which the blades of a closing pair of scissors meet, can theoretically be moved faster than the speed of light).
That's pretty funky. I can definitely see uses for it, if that's what it does.
---
Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
I have a whole ton of bandwidth at work. So what I did was download a snapshot of the entire 'distfiles/All' directory at ftp.netbsd.org one night. It makes a huge (I mean huge) tarball that has to be split across three CD-ROMs, but now I have a reasonably complete set of the whole ports collection in source form. I just share it across NFS on one of my machines (in my case a Slackware box) and every other machine on my home network can run squeaky clean built-from-source-only apps.
It was, I sometimes feel, a bandwidth crime to grab the whole thing that way, but it worked. And so many people into this stuff have high speed connections these days... There's no need for any of them not to use the Ports collection the way it's designed (the urls of ftp sites are built right into the makefiles, so it downloads every source package it needs). It's actually a very very cool way to run a BSD system, if you refuse to install ANY binary packages (except your base system).
It is amazing to see who makes up all of plaintiffs in the case. Take a gander!
You ain't nothin' but a hounddog, a cryin' all the time! You ain't nothin' but a hound dog...
-AP
This is not a flame. This is a fact. If you are interested - read this story. Disclaimer: This is not about ease of use, but on the topic: Windows VS Linux in use
At work I have a good 600 PIII box with 256 RAM. I used to have Win NT on it and the speed was alright. I am doing intense Java development (JBuilder) constantly running Apache Web Server/JServ + JBuilder + Oracle Client + 5*(IE Windows) + a lot of other crap. It was running fine, but my friend told me that with Linux it will fly.
I erased everything, installed Redhat 6.2 with KDE and GNOME. I did not recompile the kernel.
I did not see any performance difference between KDE or GNOME, both sucked. Yes, sucked, you open up Netscape (16 megs of RAM!!!!) window and try to drag it - it moves very very sluggy. Now what is that? I downloaded Mozilla, just a little better.
Now with JBuilder and couple of Netscapes my RAM was 217M full!!! Now I understand that this is not really actuall memory that is used, but still.
I could not take that, so I cleaned up everything and installed W2K Pro. And I love it. It is by far the best working environment I used.
The point is, Linux sucks on the GUI/X Windows big time. It is really slow and pretty buggy. On the other hand, I am using it as my firewall and loving it. With no X installed it makes the best server/firewall there is. It is relativelly easy to set up. And Java, Apache, Oracle run greatly on Linux as services. I think this is where Linux kicks major ass... But not on the client side.
Just my .02
http://dtum.livejournal.com
I think that the thing about waveform is about being able to prove that what came out is what went in. If you drive a car in one end of a mile-long railgun (at 55MPH) and, one second later, a smpking blob of molten metal pops out the other end (again, at 55MPH) , you can try to argue that the car went through the tunnel at 3600MPH. Other people might seriously question the claim.
It's more like driving a 12 foot car through a mile-long railgun, with 3 feet of the car sticking out the far side at the instant that 4 feet of the car have entered the near side.
It might even be like the above scenario, but with 5 feet of the car sticking out the far side at the instant that 4 feet have entered.
Yeah, it's that weird, if you view it as the same pulse/car coming out the far side.
On the other hand, try imagining that the car has an incredibly thin, stiff wire which has the car's plans magnetically encoded on it sticking out the front of it for miles (but which is not visible to the human eye), and the car drives into a car factory. An identical (except for having a shorter wire) car comes driving out the far side just as the car proper enters the near side. So it looks to our eyes as if the car has driven through very fast, or even been stretched or transported in time, but it has only actually been copied from the information on its leading wire. This is both easily understandable and a more accurate analogy.
---
Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
I was really impressed with the ease of writing drivers in Linux. However there needs to be MUCH MORE end user documentation (that actually tells you how modules are organized and how to set up kerneld to be be the sexy mofo that it is. the mocules-HOWTO at this moment doesn't cut it.)
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
Linuxen just don't have a "/Program Files" concept down - and I think it is sorely missed.
/usr/bin, /usr/lib, etc. This approach was great: you always knew exactly what software you had, you could always find exactly what package a file belonged to, and you could easily upgrade or uninstall. The best part, though, was that if an incompatibility was found, the "/usr/software/make" symlink could be redirected back to the older version in a matter of seconds while the problem was tracked down and resolved.
/usr/bin.
:)
I agree. Many years ago I worked for a well-known university installing Unix software. The policy there was to install every single piece of software into its own directory hierarchy. For example "/usr/software/make-3.74". Next we would create a symlink such as "/usr/software/make" to the package. Then we would create symlinks to the relevant files from
When it was desirable to support multiple versions of the same program, e.g. emacs-19 & emacs-20, the symlink to the "emacs" executable was replaced with a shell script that checked an environment variable and executed the correct binary. Each user could therefore choose the version most appropriate for them.
Most of these problems are solved nowadays by package managers, but IMHO package managers are still inferior because it is not as easy to see exactly what is installed, where. It is also not possible to have multiple versions of the same software installed simultaneously, because every version stubbornly places its executables into
In this regard, Windows has it right: each program should have its own directory hierarchy.
Hmm.. maybe I'll go create my own Linux distro now
/usr/bin is for the same thing as
o mething]. /System was shipped by the OS vendor. The others were obvious. Apps when in the app directories. Nobody cared (except unix geeks like me) that there was also the /.../bin/... morass - all the programs were in obvious places.
/usr/local/bin
/usr/gnu/bin
/bin
/sbin
/usr/sbin
/usr/local/sbin
/usr/X11/bin
/usr/local/X11/bin
etc, etc.
On my beloved NeXT machine (running OpenStep) it was
/[System,Local,Network]/[Library,Applications,s
I'll admit to stumbling over those little check boxes and getting misled by those ambiguities my first Mandrake install. I didn't mind tho, I was too blown away by the beauty of Mandrake, a work of art. And of course by the second install I didn't even notice those little smudges.
1000 SlashDot sigs
Well... Yes the Chinese government does strongly support the use of Linux as opposed to Windows. However, I have been to China and can tell you that software piracy is rampant. In Shanghai, for example, nobody actually pays full price for a "legal" copy of windows. They go down to their local mom and pop shop and by the burned copy.
As far as that goes, I went into a CD shop and all of the hits were mass produced copies of the originals.... They were very well packaged too!
Chinese support for Linux and things like unicode need to be built into a window manager for it to be attractive to the general population in China. Until that happens, no matter how free linux is... It is not as free as the pirated Chinese windows you can buy under the table or, for that matter, over the counter!
Hmm.. do you work at Danderyds Sjukhus? ;-)
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
And word from Microsoft about porting Office apps to Linux gets my thumbs up
Up what?
-- Count Spatula: The Culinary Vampire "...because my cooking sucks."
IBM's strategy? From what I've seen, it seem to be to diversify. Remember that they do work with Linux, which is in direct competition to their own operating systems (OS/2 and various server things). Then they make computers, both servers and home PCs, and do research and a lot of other stuff.
Of course, this is all from memory. Is there something I'm missing and/or wrong about?
-RickHunter
Recent versions of Framemaker can open some word docs; I use that whenever our local Citrix server is down (which is about 50% of the time, from my perspective as a user).
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
it was a p90. 48MB of RAM.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I run GNU/Linux+KDE on a 300Mhz AMD system with 128 MB RAM and an old ATI Rage Pro graphics card (PCI) with a 6 GB HD. I run Apache, IBM WebSphere (on a different port), a couple of Netscapes, and I always have at least 5 kedit windows, soundtracker, and a few terminals open. My system flies compaired to my old Windows setup not to mention the huge gain in stability (and six desktops to fill up with programming goodness). In windows, if I had Netscape open, an edit window open, winamp playing, and tried to compile a Java app my computer would reboot itself (which took quite a long time). My system has never crashed while running Linux. In fact, the only time I turn my computer off is when I install nifty new hardware.
Seeing as how you have about twice the machine I do, your computer should have absolutely rocked under Linux. I think if it was slow you must have had a video driver problem as it is fairly easy to pick an unaccelerated video driver.
On the RAM issue, why are you complaining about 217 MB being reported as used when you also say you know about caching -- it's not as if that RAM is locked up -- Linux will give the RAM back when an app needs it.
Mmmmmm.... Well this is my sig.
The FCC has a big list of products and manufacturers? I'll have to take a look at that for those odd bits of hand-me-down hardware that I've never identified.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
The point here is that most people don't install Windows - they get the PC and it's already there. All the drivers are already there. Everything is set up to work out of the box. If anything goes wrong, they call their PC manufactorers tech. support, and get told to insert the red CD labeled "rescue" and get walked through the automated restore of the disk image.
If you like to upgrade, though, then Windows is not the OS for you - my Linux install has survived all the hardware upgrades, while Windows usually craps out after an upgrade, forcing a complete reinstall. (Did you know that: If the Windows upgrade version causes a "segmentation fault" (yes, that's what it read) that you then need to go and obtain a Full Install license? Because it will leave your FAT32 system in an unbootable state (sorta - LILO won't have been overwritten, if installed, yet) - and the installer will refuse to "upgrade" the system because it corrupted the system files it checks to make sure the "upgrade" is OK.)
Frankenboxes aren't MS's target platform - it's those boxes sold by Gateway and Compaq and Dell that they're insterested in. Upgrades to those usually go through upgrade centers where the new hardware has already been tested.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
I really hate to admit that, but it's true. I definitely prefer to use Open Source software both for philosophical reasons, and for practical ones (quality and poverty).
Nonetheless, as my WordPerfect loving friends and family will point out, Word is very quickly becoming the standard (even where government policy specifies differently).
At my school (University of Pennsylvania) Word is the defacto standard, because most students get new computers as freshmen and MS Office is the default option for preloaded software. When people at Penn exchange papers we don't even bother to talk about format - it's assumed everyone uses Word.
Microsoft apparently had plans to change the format of Word documents to XML in Word 200. This would have allowed for easier conversion to/from HTML, and would have been a nice Open standard. But these plans never panned out. In addition, Microsoft won't release any documentation on the .doc format to open developers. I don't know if you could call this unethical (it is their format after all) but it certainly appears as if MS wants to make sure that only MS Word can view and edit MS Word documents.
Meanwhile, I and other Linux users are sort of left in the lurch. I love to use Linux but I have to collaborate with other people, which means I need to use Word.
I just got StarOffice and it seems to work alright (not well) for working with Powerpoint files. I've yet to see how its word processor does with Word files, but I'm hopefull... Maybe then I'll only have to boot into my Windows drive to watch DVDs (another instance where the Linux community is detrimentally -to the MPAA ;-)- ignored) If anyone has any suggestions on better Linux programs for doing the things that the unenlightened (Windows users) do. I'd love to hear them...
credo quia absurdum
Windows 2000 is a bit better, but the fact is that installing windows requires AT LEAST as much knowlege as does installing Linux. My father, now a grandpa, couldn't install either. He was an electronics technician for many years, a ham radio operator, and took several programming classes over the last 10 years. His first experiences with computers were back before magnetic core memory. I spent over an hour on the phone long distance getting him through installing windows. GUI's are terribly unintuitive at first use. The hundreds of little conventions about which window is active, how you move about, how you change things, the fact that dialog boxs pop up and CHANGE which window is active, are all confusing. That is actually one of the great things about the linux text-based installers: they don't require that you have the years of experience with the GUI.
The fact is that a new user is unlikely to be able to install any useful operating system on his own. Or windows, or BEOS. Would you expect a new auto user to be able to fix a car? Even a model T? New users have to be told how to find a gas tank! Remember the first time you tried to cook? Followong a receipe is easy when you know how: divide two eggs, cook some spagetti, reserve some of the water, and so on... if you aren't familiar with the jargon and the basics, it's gibberish. Same with computers. Nothing is easy until you understand it.
I posted a comment above, RE:windows is (NOT) easy to use, which details some other of my experiences with windows. I am convinced that windows is actually NOT easy to use, nor easy to install, when compared with old-style, command line unix. At the Purdue stat department the secretarys, who have windows pcs on their desks, use pine and vi on AIX for most of their work. They find it easier, and they teach it to temps because even for temps, the learning curve is short enough. They use those windows pcs for xterms, and for netsurfing.
When you start using a computer, you learn, through trial and error, how to accomplish the things you can imagine to do. Once you've learned it, and forgotten how you struggled, it's easy. By this standard, windows would be easy. So was VMS.
See what I've been reading.
I work as a Unix admin (mostly Solaris) in a medium size corp. network, and over the years I have come to LOVE outlook!!! It means I dont have to deal with sendmail.cfg macros, and I have mv'd /etc/rc2.d/S88sendmail to /etc/rc2.d/s88sendmail (the lowercase 's' means the startup script will not execute). I no longer deal with whiney users that dont know what an eof marker is for... The other benefit is that on occasion I get to sit back laugh at the NT admins as they scramble to eradicate the latest mutation of the I LOVE YOU worm from the exchange servers.
Ahhh... life is good!
The facts expressed here belong to all, the opinions to me. The distinction between fact and opinion is yours to decide.
That would be now?
No, that would be in about 3 1/2 months or so...
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Why? Office seemed to do ok on Microsoft Windows, and their GUI was/is pretty rotten by mid-90s standards (e.g. compared to MacOS and OS/2 Warp). I am skeptical that a good GUI is a prerequisite to office app success, since the historical evidence contradicts this.
LOL! While I was typing the above a coworker interrupted me and asked for help backing the contents of a Win95 hard disk up, to a directory on the file server. He opened two explorer windows, and dragged the hard disk icon from one, to the target directory in the other window. The computer told him it couldn't copy it and asked if he would like to create a shortcut instead. So I solved his problem by telling him to use the XCOPY command instead. If your assertion that Linux needs a GUI that doesn't suck before Office should be ported is correct, then perhaps Windows also needs a GUI that doesn't suck before Office is released for Windows.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Windows handles upgrades just fine, provided you know what you're doing. The absolute first step is to remove the old drivers, preferably under safe mode. THEN install the new device and the new drivers. Safe mode also allows you to see every driver that is loaded on the system, whether or not it is loaded and present under device manager when Windows 9x boot into the normal mode. Those excess drivers that nobody bothers to take out properly are usually the cause of the conflicts when performing an upgrade.
First off, what version of fdisk were you using?!?!?! When you run fdisk on against a hard drive that has NTFS partitions the newer versions of fdisk that come with W98 ask you ,"Would you like to treat NTFS permissions as large?" And yes it does recognize them, it can delete them, or whatever you like. To change the master boot record, you have to run FDISK /MBR from the command prompt. Actually all of this has to be ru from the command prompt, not a command prompt window under Windows.
As far as the standard VGA driver being loaded, I don't know exactly what video card you are using, but you are being completely unreasonable. Microsoft CANNOT be expected to supply litterally thousands of drivers for every video card out there to be shipped with windows. Do you realize how many video card driver cd's would have to be provided just so you don't have to go to the internet or heaven forbid, open the disk bundle the video card came with to install your driver. I know even Linux does not supply a driver for every video card in the world. Let alone as you put it,
"For Linux, all the drivers are on one CD, and the installer finds the right
one for you. THAT'S easy."
You've been lucky or you bought hardware that was on the list of Linux supported hardware. It's not possible for 1 CD to have drivers for every computer device in the world.
You also say,
"For a Compaq (don't
buy Compaq if you want to run windows), knowing your hardware is still a
big problem. Finding the drivers on the Compaq disk is painfull."
I agree 100% with the don't buy a Compaq. Friends don't let friends do Compaq, Packard Bell, etc.... But, you are placing the blame on the wrong company. Place the bad driver support issue where it belongs, COMPAQ. I don't know anyone with worse driver support.
Another comment you make, "By the way, administering NT on a home system doesn't seem any easier to me than the same chores on Linux. Maybe even harder, since at least with Linux, I know what's behind the GUI. You never really know that with MS." That just may be because you're used to the Linux interface. It feels the same for me on a Linux interface. 2 different ways to do the same thing. As far as getting behind the GUI, the CLI in windows is more powerful and informative than most people realize. There have been many times I've had to troubleshoot, diagnose, and repair NT systems strictly from the CLI since the GUI wasn't working properly.
I personally like both platforms, and both have their place. I just hate to read someone's opinion about windows that has had a bad experience and condemns the platform.
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
I am quite civilized, and I should be brought a beer immediately. -- Bruce Sterling
Did anyone notice this line from the Napster legal brief?
Napster also has, since the District Court's May 5 ruling, strengthened its method of terminating user accounts. It now disables the user name and password and places a code on the user's computer to prevent further use of that computer to access Napster under any account name.
- Pages 56 and 57
A code placed on my computer? Do they ask about doing that? I'd doubt it.
Contrast with Linux, which doesn't properly detect my video card, nor does it have drivers (not even default ones)that work on it, so I can't run a GUI. No big deal, I grew up with DOS, so command lines don't scare me. What really bugs me is that Linux locks up every time it tries to detect my DMA controller, and the only sollution I've been able to find is to recompile the kernel so it predends the card doesn't exist, leaving me with one drive that I can't access. The manufacturer has released beta Linux drivers, but they don't work with my distro, even after I recompiled them from the source.
Sure, with Wondows you don't know (generally) what's behind the GUI and that's annoying, but you don't have to. Any idiot can install Windows. Linux, on the other hand, is only easy if you know it. Even the man pages assume that you already know everything and simply need to be reminded of your options. Before anyone accuses me of bias, I want to say that I really want Linux to work for me. I really dislike MS, but I find myself coming back to their products time and again because they work.
I agree with almost every argument for Linux, except that it's easy to install. It's not, and if you think it is try talking a newbie through a Linux install over the phone. And yes, I've done that with Wndows. More than once, in fact. On Frankenboxen and prebuilt systems new and old. That's the true test of ease, not whether a hacker can get it to work on all his/her boxen.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
Mac people always go on about how important a consistent desktop is. And really Mac does have an elegant and consistent desktop. But judging from where I work that has about nothing to do with corporate acceptance.
I work at a grocery in my home town in northern Minnesota. We use all NT machines. But our main data base program is a DOS program written in pascal. Our time clock program is part graphical and partly DOS based. We use Microsoft access to generate daily sales figures. We have a VASDN line for email etc. We have a satellite dish for credit cards. About three times a day someone has to use a DOS based program that uses a modem to call Georgia (or somewhere down there). Needless to say you rarely get a quality connection to the place.
None of the programs have the same password conventions. In some capitalizing the name matters. In some capitalizing the password matters. Some allow an underscore. In one you can only use a id number instead of a user name. Also that one only allows numbers for passwords.
Each of these programs has it's own special personality. In MS Access at a couple points you have to press the "ok" button and then press "enter" before you can continue. Yesterday I tried to run our time clock program but since someone was already logged on it crashed and we had to phone up the company to to access the data the program lost. There is nothing really positive to say about the main DOS based database program. It's older than the hills and it shows. The use of f-keys is not often consistent. It's simply not a joy to use.
Then you have two types of handhelds and the cash registers. Neither of these are especially "consistent." Apparently, it may not be too hard to reprogram the handhelds so I shouldn't complain. But they'll never be very, "newbie friendly."
But today I learned how to strap a handheld to a phone so that it could order new price tags from Minneapolis. So I guess that makes it all worth it in the end.
It's all too easy to configure a linux system so you get terrible performance. At a bare minimum you should:
/dev/hda" is *probably* safe, especially if you have a newer IDE drive. If you aren't using DMA, then your drive is running slooooowwww.
/etc/rc.d by hand.
1) Update your kernel.
This isn't the easiest improvement, but it's not too hard, and the payoff includes increased security. You could probably use the 2.4.0-test6, but if you want to be safe, then go with 2.2.16. For performance reasons, try to only compile in what drivers you need, and leave out what you don't.
2) hdparm is your friend.
Read the docs carefully, but "hdparm -d3 -c3 -u1
3) Pick through
RH is especially bad at running silly services. You don't need half of the stuff the have in there. As a general rule, trash anything starting with an r (rstad for example). These tend to be RPC daemons, which you (usually) don't want/need. RH6.2 starts the power-management daemon no matter what. That is utterly brain-dead. Get rid of it. Basically, the only stuff you (usually) need running all the time is init (duh), syslogd, klogd, crond (maybe), inetd, identd (maybe), lpd, gpm, xfs, sshd, and the mingetty's. Even atd is superflous. Most of the stuff RH runs is a small cycle drain, and eats a few pages. Some can be a signifigant security risk though (finger). It pays to clean it up.
4) Configure X by hand.
You don't have to do it all by hand, but do run xf86config. It's a pain (especially when you have to dig through manuals to find your monitor's specs), but well worth a responsive x. If you want to take advantage of a nVidia graphics card, you'll need XFree4. And if you feel that the UI is lacking, spend some time (read: many obsessed weeks) tweaking just about everything. It is amazing how much nicer a custom X setup feels than the KDE/GNOME defaults.
Linux can be a very responsive, efficient, slick OS. The big packages, however, take a very conservative approach towards initial configuration. You basically end up with an setup that doesn't take advantage of your hardware, but rather sinks to the lowest possible denominator of capabilities. You also end up with a setup that doesn't use the latest (and most improved) versions, and tends to run/install everything, just in case the user needs it.
Remember, Mandrake 7 ships on 3 CD's, and those 3 CD's contain just about all of the software (+source for most) most people could possibly want (except crypto), will run on almost any system, and is has documentation out the wazoo. Most people also have little use for the majority of it, and have a much better system than Mandrake assumes. Sure, the pretty autoconfiguration GUI's will configure you system with no trouble at all, but you'll get a very nasty setup.
Oh, and BTW, try Emacs/JDE/blackdown for java on linux. I've been using that, and it works great. The latest version of the JDE even has nifty support for automagic javadoc.
Ken -
:(
... well, the problem is (I postulate) that people like to extend their experience to those of other people, and like all processes of analogy, can do so only imperfectly. X was easy for me, it must be for you! Z was tough for me, so I bet it's tough for you! But yes, if I had to say what's usually the easiest thing to put on a computer, with or without an OS already, I would say at this point "start with mandrake and see how it goes." If you already have windows, it will even politely leave it there (i the automated install). Note that this reasoning is a little circular, but ... I stand by it.
:)
I came back 2nd session too, but I wasn't supposed to give out any more guns (besides which I was out of them, only had the few).
Heh, glad you liked it -- it was a good excuse for me to come and see Lancaster again, which I miss as both student and staffer each summer
And with this UI stuff
I like the Mac interface - consider how nice / snappy an SE/30 still is! Amazing! -- and I've been pleased (if baffled at first) by most of the window mgrs / desktops available for Linux. Windows still feel foreign to me, but it's certainly better than the *old* windows (for me).
What bothers me about windows is being tied to one company. With Linux, that can't happen!
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
It means I dont have to deal with sendmail.cfg macros
exactly why I use postfix....and still use 'pine'.
But heck, I just applied for a job as a Solaris admin and got: "Could you send me your resume in DOC format??" I sent it as a perl app instead.
seems similar to the job I just got - did my resume/CV in HTML with vim....nice and portable between companies.
Never heard of "postfix"... Please enlighten me. Thanks ;)
The facts expressed here belong to all, the opinions to me. The distinction between fact and opinion is yours to decide.