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Dangers of Typecasting OSes
bjb writes "An interesting article has appeared on Byte's site on the dangers of typecasting operating systems. The article talks about specialization and purposes of Linux and BeOS. " Worth the reading, from the POV of dangers of stereotyping ideas/objects, in thsi case, putting BeOS throughly into the A/V corner, and Linux into the serve corner.
Yeah :) Hacker's the man when it comes to the BeOS. :)
Believe with me, my saplings.
I was thinking last night about just how cool it would be if you could get a mini version of Be ala Windows CE. CE is bad because it is built (I am lead to believe) as a cut down version of NT (which doesn't have the most... eloquent... design philosophy). Be could be nice cut down...
:)
I've been thinking also how cool it would be to get a palm machine and stuff around with assembler on it to the point of creating a mini-OS. I really love those little machines from the perspective that they're simpole enought to be able to do quite cool stuff with and feel constructive at the same time - just look at the PalmPilot linux project
Excuse me while I rant.
Believe with me, my saplings.
"In exchange for being barred from access to system source code, they benefit by being able to use a system developed under one roof, under a single, consistent vision..."
i.e. Windows...
>>It's not that the average user is stupid.... they are just too lazy to learn anything slightly technical.
It's not laziness, either. It's a matter of priorities. Most computer users don't give a rat's ass about what OS they use. They just want a way to type a quick email to grandma, write up letters, and play games with a minimum of hassle.
Think of it this way: Say Ford Motors (used strictly metaphorically and not meant to be any kind of statement about the Ford Motor Company or its business practices in any form, shape, or fashion) sold you cars in kits. You pick out the parts, and they ship it to you. Ford doesn't guarantee compatibility with all the parts you get, in fact, you can buy the parts from any third-party vendor you want. So, you get this generic car kit and bolt it together, with your own little machine shop to make the parts to fit one another. In the end, you get a car that is built to your specs. You also gleened a great deal of knowledge about cars as you probably made quite a few mistakes along the way. That's like Linux. Now, say Chevy (same disclaimer as above)sells premanufactured cars. The only options are the basics, say A/C, power options, etc, but the car you get is what you drive home in and use immediately. That's the BeOS or Windows. Who do you think is going to win the marketshare battle? Sure, you'll have your small percentage of car nuts who go bonkers over their little kit cars, but most people look at their cars as just a tool to haul the kids to the soccer game, go to work in, or whatever. They don't care or even want to know what a fuel injector is and why they have one in the engine. This is not laziness. This is called priorities and interests. Take the package and use the tool. And that is how most people view their Operating Systems. They don't care about *why* or *how* an operating system does the things it does, they just want it to be the most painless experience possible. You make your own inferences.
The time you spent editing a configuration file, they'd rather write a letter and get back to mowing the lawn.
As for me, I generally take the path of least resistance in computer use. I use the BeOS and Windows95, because they are, for the most part, hassle-free. I have Linux, I never use it, it doesn't have any appeal to me (well, e is the exception). When I find a use for it (i.e. internet gateway/firewall/etc), then I'll probably be thrilled to use it, as from what I can tell, Linux and the various BSD's are very secure and are constantly updated to fix security holes. For now, though, Linux remains a curiousity and I can imagine that 98% of the world's computer users are the same, if they even *care* about Linux.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Is "freedom" the only thing that makes linux so /. always brings up the
superior to all other OS's?
(since any discussion on
"but ain't open source!" issue)?
If so, then linux must be a pretty sad OS...
Yes, Adobe has the power to blow the OS market open, to their great advantage. And still they sit, and sit, and worry about Apple. *snip* Adobe's market isn't the home user, it's the printing industry and to a much greater extent the publishing industry. I think you'd have a hard time trying to get purup-magnum (or whatever the hell they are after that last round of buy outs) to port out drivers and configuration software to BeOS, imagesetters, plotters, high end drum scanners, it's a specialized field and it's been apple's last bastion for along time. BeOS isn't even in those people's vocabulary's. Then again what the hell could it hurt adobe to get a little crew together and port it out to Be. Guess it couldn't hurt, but far more end-users would pirate the software, than in the business world..
Yeah! And the ones with any sense will settle on vi! :p
Believe with me, my saplings.
How come everybody seems to have 4.5 except me? :(
Believe with me, my saplings.
How this? No can agree on anything. To many splinters. Linux is useful as a server OS and great for comanad line geeks. It will never defeat windows on the desktop.
ARG! Where do you work?
:-)
I would LOVE to do that...
It's just not worth the risk of putting all the apples into one cart.
Yes.
However, if you buy into the assumption that closed-source leaves me no choice, you're wrong. I always have the choice of not using that product anymore. If some large conglomerate decided to buy Be, Inc., completely redesign the UI along the lines of Windows 3.1, and then tries to charge $200, I have the option of no longer using BeOS.
However, I don't buy into the thought that simply because that _can_ happen means that it will, and that I might as well switch to Linux now because I'll have to switch later. It's a very speculative notion that can't be solidly argued. I've invested a fair amount of time, money, and energy in BeOS, and until it's being actively corrupted I don't see any reason to change.
opening it, isn't it? Some of the argument against BeOS I've seen here is genuinely philosophical (while I don't agree with the "I won't use anything but open software" viewpoint, I respect it), but a lot has to do with the $70 asking price. If it came with the source code for $70, would that change that attitude? I'm skeptical. When Red Hat 6.0 came out, a lot of the messages I saw about it were pointing people to the places selling CDs of it for $5. There's a lot of free speech talk, but there's a lot of free beer walk. It'll be an uphill battle to recoup the $50-odd million development costs of BeOS as it is; how can it be taken open source without making that battle harder, or even unwinnable? I don't really think it can... but I'd be interested in hearing people's (non-flaming) thoughts.
I used to think typcasting was an engineering trait, but I think it really is a general human trait. We can't help it. In order to understand our complex world we categorize things so they are easier to maintain in our brains.
The reason people typecast OSes the way they do is because of the problems that are best solved by the OS. Linux/FreeBSD/etc are strong server OSes. They are way too hard to setup and maintain as a desktop OS. Especially in comparrison to Windows or the MacOS. So it gets typecast as a server OS.
The MacOS gets typecast as a toy OS because of its crashability and its running on doofy looking machines. B-)
Windows gets typecast as a general purpose desktop OS becasue you can do most anything with that a desktop user may want to do. Its relatively stable and as long as you have decent hardware and don't plan on changing it, Windows is relatively easy to install and setup. (Unless you run into a problem. Then it can rather difficult to fix.)
The BeOS on the other hand doesn't provide any solutions over what other OSes provide today. It is not compelling other than being easier to install and maintain than Windows. As easy to use as the MacOS and as stable as Linux. (Almost.) It doesn't solve any problems. Yet. Hopefully in the next few months it will solve a lot of problems for those who work with audio. There are a lot of really sweet programs poised to be released for the BeOS that fold/spindle/mutlate sound. This is the reason for typcasting the BeOS as THE MediaOS. It is not the Media OS yet, but if things keep going the way they are. It will be.
Having said all that I should also say I'm a BeOS developer (#1234) and zealot. It really is a good general purpose OS.
geoff
I know that when money is brought up people will respond with variants of "but there should be so much more to programming than money" or, alternatively, "look at Red Hat." But neither of those really points to an open-source BeOS being viable.
There is more to programming than money. But the fact is that all programs have development costs in time, and that time is always paid for: the payment is often simply hidden. If you are a high school student, your time is paid for by your parents; if you are a college student, your time is paid for by your tuition. If you are Richard Stallman, your time is paid for by MIT. This software may be free in the "free beer" sense and the "free speech" sense, but both those sense of "free" refer to the end user--not the developers. In a lot of the canonical cases of free software--written at or around college campuses--the development is (significantly) aided by the fact that the developers are supported by the institution.
If this wasn't the case--if the developers were full-time software developers not supported by an institution or by unrelated employment--how do they make money? Just by charging for manuals and support? This isn't a proven model, and the less ongoing support your software needs--support, I might add, of a sort which cannot be simply had for free on the internet--the less viable it is. And, unlike institutions, a for-profit company must eventually recoup its development costs. The FSF doesn't, because your tax dollars are at work keeping emacs going.
And, yes, let's look at Red Hat. They have given back to the open source community; I don't want to look into the Pandora's Box of how much they're riding on other people's coattails, but the fact of the matter is that they don't bear the costs of Linux development. They only bear the costs of developing their own contributions. How significant is this when it's compared to a company like Be? If we look at the S-1 statements, we can see that Red Hat's development costs for all of 1997 and 1998 were less than Be's costs for the first three months of 1999. This is not because Be is inefficient; it's because they're doing nearly everything themselves.
So the relevant question isn't whether or not BeOS would get drivers faster if it were open source (obviously, it would), nor whether an open BeOS could survive the company and mutate in different directions (obviously, it could). The question is: how would an open BeOS recoup development costs for Be? Whether or not it might be more philosophically attractive to have the operating system open (something some BeOS engineers have said themselves), Be, Inc. is not MIT. There is a point in the future at which they must not only break even but turn at least a modest profit in order to stay in business.
"But an open BeOS is independent of Be, that's the point!" Yeah, that's a good business case for not opening it, isn't it? Some of the argument against BeOS I've seen here is genuinely philosophical (while I don't agree with the "I won't use anything but open software" viewpoint, I respect it), but a lot has to do with the $70 asking price. If it came with the source code for $70, would that change that attitude? I'm skeptical. When Red Hat 6.0 came out, a lot of the messages I saw about it were pointing people to the places selling CDs of it for $5. There's a lot of free speech talk, but there's a lot of free beer walk. It'll be an uphill battle to recoup the $50-odd million development costs of BeOS as it is; how can it be taken open source without making that battle harder, or even unwinnable? I don't really think it can... but I'd be interested in hearing people's (non-flaming) thoughts.
That utterly misses the point. Open Source is crucial because of the distribution of control.
With BeOS, just as with any other proprietary, closed-source OS, you are at the mercy of one company for bug fixes, feature additions, support, etc. With Open Source, one company can decide to discontinue its distribution, but the software lives on, as long as someone wants to use and/or improve it.
No one organization can control Open Source. That is why it is destined to become the mainstream software model of the future.
Using proprietary software, particularly operating systems, is just too risky, when there are Open Source alternatives.
--
Get your fresh, hot kernels right here!
The full text of this is the comment below this one. Sorry about that.
I agreed with what he had to say about Operating Systems. I think both the Open Source and commercial models are effective. Irix is another really nice OS that was made commercially. I use Be almost exclusively now. Things I found special about it were: the performance it pulls out of my dual processor machine, the way I can run my webserver off it so happily (but I wish there were php3 support!), the matroxwerx C IDE which I use for uni, the security of the fact that nobody else knows what the hell this Be thing is and so script kiddies are screwed.
:) :) I like Mac :) :) Freaks out people I show it to on my intel :)
I really like Be. It's a lot of what Windows isn't in terms of stability, speed and just general 'niceness'. The community is really good too. You can email the senior management of Be and get a friendly reply within two days: now that's service.
It's also a really excellent OS for teaching people about OS theory. I sat my father down with it and didn't have to tell him much to get started, and he's learnt heaps. That's like blood from a stone for people over 35.
Just for fun - hold down the left ctrl+shift+alt and click oin the Be button. You get a new option in the menu
- C
Believe with me, my saplings.
Linux is free.. but tell me the truth.. how many new users "buys" the cd?
let's get realistic here.
.....
I have a story about BeOS
For a few months last year, I had been using BeOS as my primary OS on a PMac. It was clearly superior to Mac OS in almost every way. I had used Linux, but didn't particularly want to use it on my own machine.
One day I switched ISPs. My new provider used QMAIL as their MTA. Turns out the mail_daemon that comes with BeOS is buggy, and doesn't actually generate correct SMTP. Most MTAs can still parse it, but QMAIL is a little stricter. The result: I can't send mail from BeOS.
I reported the bug with Be's tracking system, but they assigned it a status of "Will Not Fix". This despite the fact that it's a pretty easy problem to fix.
So maybe they eventually got around to fixing it. I don't know, I stopped using it, having suddenly realized the importance of free software. That sort of bug just doesn't happen.
Christopher Thomas wrote:
And if I want to tweak kernels, I can still use Linux. BeOS doesn't have to be the *only* OS; however, without meaning to offend, I think that many Linux advocates _do_ want Linux to be the only OS. This is a Bad Thing IMO.
No Linux advocate that I have dealt with (me included) want Linux to be the only OS. What many of us want is for Linux to be able to do everything. There is a big difference, but because this would put it in competition with every OS, some people think we want them all to go away.
Competition in Linux is friendly. We implement features, you imlement features. We get users, you get users. If we get lots of users, that's great. If some platform only has five Linux users, that's fine too, particularly since I'm sure those five REALLY REALLY want Linux.
----
Open mind, insert foot.
...is fast becoming false.
:)
:)
I just upgraded my RH 5.0+ a whole lot of self-compiled extensions to RH 6.0 (I wanted Glibc2.1) and on a lark, I installed the GNOME+E packages.
And wow, was I suprised.
I've been an Afterstep guy for quite some time. Fast, powerful, and obscenely difficult to configure.
GNOME, on the other hand is MUCH, MUCH easier to set up and use (for the most part) than AS. It's not perfect (it's a little sluggish on my P5-233, actually, but I don't know if that's GNOME or E) but it shows tremendous promise. Give it a year, and it'll be near perfect.
I also used KDE at the Perl Conference last year, and that's not bad either. I'm in the "QT is evil" camp myself, but I have to admit that KDE was pretty slick.
I'd go so far to say that the Linux on the Desktop experience has gone from "better be a guru and be prepared to spend lots of time on it" to "better be a clueful user and be prepared to spend some time on it". With the speed that Open Source projects move at, I'd bet that a year from now, we can challenge anything that the Mac, Be, or M$ can put out for the "ease of use" gold medal.
And yet, bash is just a mousclick away....
Hey GNOME guys - make it run faster, willya? I'm getting flashbacks to MUI on my Amiga.
1. short-term: don't have to pay for linux. don't have to pay for any flavor of it. don't have to pay for most programs.
2. long-term: open source. i know linux or at least one of its distributions will stay cool. Beos may be cool now but what about 5-15 years from now?
That much is clear to me. I don't know much about BeOS but my guess would be that there are alot less applications available for it as well. Overall i think it makes much more sense to make linux more user-friendly than develop more apps for beos. If there was no linux/*bsd's, I'd probably be into BeOS or os/2..
- Rainy
That is a bad analogy. Linux himself keeps a tight leash on the linux kernel because he doesn't want fragmentation. There has been an update on the blender situation - if you're interested, look through past stories in beoscentral.
Believe with me, my saplings.
Yup! Proxy is available. I've had it working and it's luveryly, if simple. Check out http://www.deltanet.com/users/axly/
:)
I just wish (this is the third time I've written it today) I could get a php3 engine for a beos webserver.
Believe with me, my saplings.
Why not ask REDHAT To give away their cd for free?
if you really want beos to give it away for free?
Think Realistic.
enough said.
I'm going to try to keep my head here but I just spent all day trying to write programs for Win32 and MacOS so I may come off a little harsher than intended... :-)
:-)
:-)
i.There's a lot of baggage on the developer who wants to develop cool apps
for the linux desktop, too. Even with GTK or QT, you're still writing to a
wrapper to a library to a library to a driver, just to get a reasonably usable
API.
I think that you're missing the point somewhere here, which is that this is a Good Thing. Let me repeat that: *THIS IS A GOOD THING*. [ in fact, this is how Win32 works as well..although much less elegantly.. ]
Here is the setup:
X -- this is a display server. It has a single purpose for existance: accept requests to draw stuff and carry them out. The network-socket method of performing drawing operations allows a very flexible system. Often one sign (IMO) of a good design is that stuff that takes lots of hacking and kludging to get working in other systems simply arises as a natural offshoot of the way a given system works. For example, X's network transparency -- you can fake it in Win32 and MacOS with third-party software; X requires no modifications or special-casing.
Xlib: A simple (AFAIK) wrapper library which makes X protocol calls nicer by wrapping them in convenience functions. It has no other purpose.
Window Manager: One of the most villified aspects of the whole system because there are so many of them. A window manager (follow closely here) manages windows. It draws cute little frames around them, lets them be moved and resized, etc. This is generally its entire function. This may be accomplished with direct Xlib calls or not depending on the preferences of the window manager's author. Note that these are generally hairy beasts that people looking for an easy API probably want to avoid anyway
Widget Set (Qt, GTK+, etc): These use Xlib to draw useful things on the screen, such as buttons, dialog boxes, etc. Most programmers will use these, and they generally (except for monstrosities like XForms) have a nice simple API. The underlying layers can be ignored for most purposes. Issues like the fact that GDK is just an Xlib wrapper aren't necessary for new programmers to immediately grok as long as they can understand how to use GDK. [ the reason for wrapping Xlib again is to provide greater platform independence ]
So, in sum:
X server - displays stuff
Xlib - lets programs talk to X server
Window Manager - manages windows
Widget set - draws cute buttons, scrollbars, etc.
The thing that marks this as UNIX is not any feature of the complexity of the interfaces -- they vary by interface -- nor is it a silly amount of layering -- Win32 does this..it has a window manager (hidden from the programmer) and the common controls are essentially a widget set which uses Win32 drawing calls (Xlib) to do stuff -- but this:
** EACH FUNDAMENTAL SET OF OPERATIONS IS CONCEPTUALLY AND PROGRAMMATICALLY SEPARATED FROM (although not independent of) THE OTHERS. ***
If you have the kind of godawful mess that the Win32 API makes, where all levels of functionality are mixed together in the same place, it ain't UNIX. If you have programs that try to do 500 different things poorly (think IDEs or mail readers that know about SMTP and POP) you're using programs which are not UNIXey. If the you're outside the aegis of UNIX.
Why is this good? Programs that do a single thing well are simpler, easier to write and debug, and easier to use in unanticipated circumstances.
I'm personally interested in the Hurd; it looks like they may be going to out-UNIX UNIX and probably eliminate the worst cruft at the same time. Remember what I said about features arising naturally from a design? In the Hurd, several features that people have been trying to hack into Linux 'just happen', the most notable examples being userfs-type stuff and [I believe] per-process mounts. This is a Good Sign, although the Hurd is currently about five or ten years from being ready for general consumption
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Try "Robinson Crusoe on Mars".
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
because alot of times people see unix/linux as just the server OS. I use linux as a workstation, not a server. If I were building a server I would probably run a BSD on it merely because BSDs generally perform better in the server roles for high volume sites than linux does. Thats just that I've seen, it isnt the rule. It's the opposite of M$'s marketing on Windows NT, they offer it as a workstation (work being keeping it running for a few hours) and in a server flavor. Same kernel, same OS, different tools, same crappiness. I's like to see linux or one of the BSD's get a bigger workstation share, they are much better at it than NT.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
On the contrary, this 'average Joe' definition is exactly the same hideous argument some Mac advocates used to against command line interface. But in the end, even Apple added its own scripting ability with Applescript.
Such stereotype is dangerous in general, whether they want to program their own software or not. Sure, there are many users who hate programming now, but what makes Scot think the same people will never be able to program, or even love to program? Denying their chances for accessing the source code will not make the OS more reliable.
On the other hand, with open sourced OS, users who are incapable of programming can learn to do so much more easily, and can potentially program better than the ones using any proprietary OS.
The same goes for education system as well. Sure, not every one can (or care to) earn a doctor degree, but I am sure that everybody will be outraged if the government has banned postseconary education altogether. If I were to be rude, I would say Scot just don't 'get it'; but to be neutral, I say Scot just caught in his own typecasting fallacy.
Powerful Meme? God spare me from people who read too much Joseph Campbell...
One interesting point in the article is that the author claims not to wish the difficulty of a Linux install on anyone. Having installed Slackware (more than 20 machines), Red Hat and SuSe, I really don't see the big deal. I would wish the learning experience on anyone, because I have no patience for people who do not know what they are doing and who have no wish to learn. How hard does the point of a computer NOT being a toaster or an appliance have to be driven?
I respect the BeOS, and wish it well, but they have a handful of apps and a consistent interface. Linux has thousands of apps, and an inconsistent interface. Methinks that Linux can narrow the interface gap before BeOS narrows the app gap.
The universe is bad enough without people poking it. -Mustrum Ridcully
Most of them (in my experience) don't even know how to change their desktop wallpaper.
As for Linux installation, I have worked professionally doing tech-support and i much prefer installing Linux to windows. Windows 98 or NT are fine and dandy if everything goes according to plan, but frequently it doesn't. If NT screws up and can't use the network card, it sometimes takes a long time to mess around with it to get it to work, whereas with Linux it takes a lot less time to fix something.
Most of the people i worked with thought this too....In trying to make windows ultra-friendly, they've crippled it in many ways.
I think one of the big reasons there are complaints about Linux' install process is that many people don't actually install their own OS until they decide to try Linux. How can someone be expected to install ANY OS if they don't even know what a partition is? I've helped out many many people like this.
Since Windows is (unfortunately) pre-installed on most (x86) machines, average joe user often never installs windows.
-Doviende
"The value of a man resides in what he gives,
and not in what he is capable of receiving."
"The value of a man resides in what he gives,
and not in what he is capable of receiving."
--Albert Einstein
I think the original poster meant it is easier to install new software, not the original OS. As the Byte article said, anyone can get linux installed if they could have gotten Windows installed, but it is much easier to double click on a downloaded installer and have everything work than it is to install something under linux. Sure, RPM is nice (or dget, or whatever is it those wacky Debian people use :-), but if you don't have the right libraries and whatnot already on your system, no good. Most users don't even want to know that libraries exist. How many Windows users even know what a DLL is? So if someone came up with a good graphical installer for linux (like InstallShield) that would automatically and without telling the user install all the necessary libraries, things would be much easier.
Mike
Anonymous because I'm too lazy to create an account.
I enjoy typing them against Linux devices.
*Carlos: Exit Stage Right*
"Geeks, Where would you be without them?"
*Carlos: Exit Stage Right*
"Geeks, Where would you be without them?"
"Got Linux?"
The following is an excerpt from a mail I sent to the author after reading his article:
Something that I think that this typecasting touches on, is the conception of the "user". What we may have is not the typecasting of OSs, but the typecasting of "users" in a way which does even more damage. If OSs are marginalized, maybe a company or two goes under, but if people are marginalized, then voices go unheard and people are no longer able to excercise power thru computers, wether it is making web pages, sending love letters, or writing Free Software. I find the alienation of people a much bigger threat, and something which not only the marketers, but the pundits for each OS or "user" propogate.
In a Windows only world, the "user" is a consumer, passive and accepting of choices presented to them by the market. They are not supposed to create, contribute or otherwise influence the development of the computer, and their use of it, other than thru the very hollow power of the dollar. In the Linux only world, the technocrat wields alot of power, the user is expected to share the mania of computers that the developers have. This is just as disempowering for many, because instead of being confronted with opaque surfaces, they are inundated with complexities.
The same thing happens in a BeOS only world, as it also has a very specific conception of "user". Something very similiar to Apple or Windows with a more sophisticated technical edge. We should be careful not to typecast BeOS as the third part of a Hegelian dialectic of the "user", the synthesis of two opposing concepts. We should not do that with ANY OS for that matter, because that action STILL will produce a single conception of the user which will alienate and isolate many people.
As Linus and others have pointed out, Linux world domination should not be about being the only OS, but about making the OS a choice, by allowing all different types of people choose the computing platform they want, and which suits their needs. These platforms should then be able to interoperate with one another, so that no one "user" ever becomes dominant. Obivously, this is not what the present personal computing market looks like, but I think it's something that we can all achieve.
craig
--
Umm.. like most of newbies know what do download and install. after the download..
Yes.. most of newbies got a cable connection..
...
let's get realistic about linux being free...
I bought my redhat 5.2 and my first impression was "owww" insted "wow"..
Linux is not for average graphic artist(joe)..
more for geeks who got nothing else to do but tinker linux.. I just wanna get my job done and go to bed. Life is short.. I don't wanna devote my life on a os..
> A typical journalist, who can't tell emacs from a c-shell
:)
Mneee... IMHO although emacs is extremely powerful in its field only a few people will actually get more productive from spending time learning how to properly use it, in particular developers and may be a few minor user groups with strange software requirements. A journalist is not supposed to know emacs. IMHO emacs is included with most Linux distros only because linux is still centered on developers as it's primary users. As for c-shell... I wish it has never been written, the world might have been a much better and happier place
Everybody Lies. But it doesn't matter since nobody listens.
This is an excellent article, and as the author states, everyone should read the 50 page write up. It is hilarious and extremely informing. It also makes you say "why in the world doesn't everyone else think like this? It's common sense!"
Don't you think there's an extreme danger of creeping featurism in your philosophy? I know it's heresy to say it, but having written software for a living several times in my life, sometimes you have to know when to STOP and "ship it."
...and to think we give M$ a hard time for s/w bloat.
I'm not suggesting that it's necessarily bad to allow groups of people to improve things, but I think that a truly inspired API and a group of clueful kernel developers can foster many or most of the "improvements" that you'd potentially see from an open source development effort.
I've used proprietary OS' in the past that Did The Right Thing so well, I haven't seen any successors really match them. Granted, most of them aren't in use now, but I'd be happy to just see us learn from the past. I have yet to see one OS that was a panacea for everything, and I don't think I ever will.
For example, if there were an OS that combined the job scheduling flexibility of TOPS-20, the self-diagnostic mechanisms of LISPM's, the security of Multics, and the UI of the Xerox Alto, you'd be ahead of most of what's out there.
Why don't you have such a thing? Because people don't learn from mistakes, and allow creeping featurism to distract them from their core goal.
On the not learning front, I count the Linux TCP/IP stack as a prime offender. It has come a heck of a long way, but slow start still doesn't seem to work right, and option handling is still coming along. Would it have been such a crime to learn from the BSD stack? I think not. The MS-Windows interface is another grand example - at least the Mac had human interface guidelines that were consistent.
On the creeping featurism front, I think that all the Unices are potential losers. Don't get me wrong, they're a damn sight better than most of what's out there, but does a _kernel_ REALLY need to be 2MB? GEOS managed in 120KB.
I think we sometimes miss the forest for the trees. A good proprietary OS is fine, if the API and the vendor support are decent. In much the same way I promised to pay for phone calls when I grew up, I'm willing to pay for an OS that is robust. That shouldn't threaten anyone who wants a free one.
P.S.: This was written on a BeOS/Intel machine.
Hello all,
Ok ok, all this talk aside...........I am here to tell you that if you want to know how fast your hardware is (especially at booting).....try BeOS. Please, you owe it to yourself, after years of Windows pissing you off (as it does me, every time it grinds over nothing), try a desktop OS that WORKS. SO GOOD.
He's right, of course, about the mantra of Open Source being a powerful meme. Look at comment #1 in this thread. Linux is attracting a great many users because of the press it gets, but this user base will shrink when the honeymoon period goes away. As sorry as WinWhatever is, it is still easier to use than Linux, and it will continue to be this way for the next few years, IMO.
This does not diminish what Linux has to offer. People who love Linux will continue to love it, even after a lot of new users have returned to their original OS.
What the writer of this article neglects to mention is the vast amount of hardware that Linux will run under vs. BeOS, which runs on older Macs and a pretty good array of PCs. (Someone from the BSD camp should post a reply to this to point out that BSD is the most ported OS in the cosmos.)
Other reasons for Linux being more popular (right now): 1. Cheaper. You can try it out, then go buy a full distro later, or not at all. 2. More press. Microsoft hasn't started an anti-Be task force. No one has heard of Be in the mass media since Apple threatened to buy them.
Linux share will grow on both the server and desktop side, but until installation, maintenance, and UI are improved, most users will run after a few short days left alone in the Colloseum. Penguins bite.
Wow...Timur Tabi talking about BeOS.
/.ers seem to detest actually paying for an OS, IBM has done their best to make it hard to buy. Sure, ISV's are trying to take pieces of the new one and make a consumer accessible OS, but, if the vendor doesn't care about supporting me, I don't care about supporting it.
See, I've been an OS/2 zealot for about the past 5 years, or whenever Warp came out. I loved it and used it as my home desktop of choice. I personally found the UI to be quite nice, and CONSISTENT. (Having been a Mac developer, that was important to me.)
I've basically switched to BeOS, with much soul-searching. Even with my paying IBM for quarterly updates, the support options were horrific, although I imagine the pricing is about the same as M$.
If OS/2 _really_ had Win32 interoperability, I might still be using it, but BeOS speed, flexibility and POSIX mostly-compliance are great things to me. It feels like the best of both worlds - If I want to port some UNIX hack, it's straightforward (EMX is fine, but only part of the picture.) If I want a nice UI, the BeOS UI rocks.
That having been said, my corporate web/mail/meeting maker server has been running OS/2 for 2 years without incident (security or otherwise) other than a power supply dying. I don't necessarily expect the BeOS to ever be that kind of platform.
I have to concur that the perception of OS/2 is exceedingly unfair. It's super-stable, and the virtualization is unparalleled, though I guess the VMware people are trying really hard to parallel it, as it were.
But..even getting past the fact that many or most
I don't want BeOS to go opensource. I think that would ruin it. Opensource gives you flexablility of course, but that's what linux is for. BeOS gives you a consistent interface that can never be achieved in the fractionized world that opensource leads to.
If you want opensource, use linux. Closed source is another option, and your for allowing everyone to have options aren't you? I'll be happy to pay a little money for the option to have a more consistant OS.
We can and should typecast HPUX as the OS from the Devil. I can't begin to explain how angry I am because of the rotten, nonstandard tools and libraries on the HP workstations I have to support. HPUX is nobody's friend. Were the designers at HP arrogant? Or did they design HPUX so early that they couldn't tell how stupid their decisions were?
It is interesting that my view of a company's competitive advantage has become how well they conform to standards, not how much they stick out from the pack. The reason is that I need to get work done, and non-standard stuff wastes a lot of time. In fact, HPUX has pissed me off so much I'm even wasting time writing comments about it.
Whether you're running BeOS or Linux, all you need to write drivers is adequate technical info from the hardware manufacturer _and_ enough programming knowledge to write the code.
I think what you're really saying is that there are a lot more knowledgable hackers interested in writing Linux drivers than BeOS drivers.
I think, though, that a lot of linux users are missing the point. Linux is a GREAT server OS.
I find you guilty of typecasting, as charged.
(I shall define great as being able to be used by most users immediately after install).
Not only do I disagree with your definition , but do I have to remind you about System 7? I mean , you could use it right away, for about five secs...
I have tried linux. I don't have the time to invest into setting it up or tweaking it so that it works.
I don't want to misunderstand this. Are you saying you have no time to learn?
Have any of you checked out the specs on Be? Be uses a 64-bit Journaling File System. It has pervasive multi-threading, pre-emptive multi-tasking, and excellent use of SMP. It already has a security/multi-user architecture set-up waiting for a time when it will be usefull.
Many have said that they could not use X. Well if you go to the BeWine page you will see that they have ported X-Windows over and are working on a port of Wine as well.
I think we can agree that X is a non-issue. Lack of X Windows is not why Be is weak.
I will finish with this last thought. Please remember that the OSS dev model transends all OS's. Just because an OS isn't open source does not mean you can't design a good app for it. The only reason there aren't a lot of OS apps on Be is because THEY HAVEN'T BEEN WRITTEN YET (and/or ported). Before you start thinking of how to flame me, remember that linux too was once really young with no apps, and that it took time before mainstream users started to notice it.
Let the moderation begin.
I agree, Be can be a great OS(but can Be be all it can be?), but please, for the love of all that's holy, ixnay on the "it works right out of the box" thing. Didn't anyone watch Kung Fu as kids? You think Kane was born good?
The universe is bad enough without people poking it. -Mustrum Ridcully
They're not going to change the APIs because it would ruin their reputation with the developers Be needs to make the OS exciting. Be needs an exciting OS more than it needs Office.
Incidentally, although I'm not writing this on a Be machine, I love GoBe Productive. True, it's not as feature rich as Office, but what it does it does very well.
D
----
Be is extremely "user-empowering" when it comes to encouraging programming by users. BeOS comes with an EGCS-based compiler, IDE, debugger, as well as complete source for hundreds of tools and a couple dozen demo apps. The API is well-designed and well-documented. It's not at all like the MS paradigm where they soak you for a couple thousand bucks to get complete development tools. Plus, there's a bash-style shell so you can run a ton of Unix stuff with little or no modification other than recompilation.
I really think that the Be engineers are proud of their work and would love for everyone to see the BeOS code, if it wasn't for the fact that releasing it would destroy any chance of the company surviving.
The assertion that 99% (or however many) users are NOT taking advantage of open source code is rather startlingly limited, given the otherwise erudite perspective of this author. In point of fact, "taking advantage" is implicitly defined as actually using open source to CODE, or at least to tweak, debug, code, etc.
Not so. Everytime a user loads an app or system which is improved from having been subjected to tweaking or recoding, etc., by ANY member of the open source coders, said user is "taking advantage" of open source, on a secondary or tertiary level. Simply because there is no "meta-level" activity is hardly the same as not benefiting/taking advantage.
A simple analogy. I'm an amateur chef, my wife does not cook. Simply because she never uses my cooking tools hardly means she has not taken advantage of them when eating some souffle or creme brulee or napoleon I've prepared with them.
This is a particularly surprising glitch in logic given the otherwise evident erudition of the author of the original article.
Thanks, Steve
The drivers will come. Everyone forgets how young Be is compared to Linux and other OSs.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
You would be highly wrong.
I'm a Ph.D. I work with many other Ph.D.s doing scientific research. Most would generally be classified as very intelligent. What are most of the machines they use? Macs. Why? Ease of use. They are tools to write documents with, or run a few programs. They aren't something we want to sit around and tinker with all day. We want to get WORK done, not just tinker with the computer all day. I hate to tell you this, but ease of use DOES matter, even for intelligent users.
To paraphrase from a favourite movie, "Sure, open source means _something_, but why does it have to mean _everything_?"
Unless you're a hermit living off of grubs and berries, you'll _always_ be dependent on products that involve patents and trade secrets. So you have a "free OS" - great, is anything REALLY different because in theory you can modify it and improve it? Let's see you modify and improve your processor or hack together a new and improved monitor from scratch. These things aren't open source. I'm obviously being facetious, but why is a computer operating system so intrinsically different from any other product? If you're truly knowledgable enough that having OS source code makes a practical difference to you, more power to you, but not many people can do that. Even with Linux, almost everyone has to wait for a real expert to tackle the problem.
In other words:
For the most knowledgable Linux users:
OSS == free speech
For the majority (including myself):
OSS == free beer
your last point. I think the fact that the Be OS works "right out of the box" is very relevent to what people are discussing on this board.
Also, I'm going to agree with the initial poster about Be providing lots of tools for the end user to create an APPLICATION to run on the Be platform. Who cares if the OS isn't open source? Heck, over the next few years a majority of Linux users will be using a COMMERCIAL version of Linux anyway. Heck, Red Hat,Caldera...COREL!
While Slashdot reported that quickly, they didn't report the followup--that Blender is going to be coming to BeOS and that it was described by the porter as an "error in communication" which Be took responsibility for. The new GL library, to my knowledge, required the rest of Genki (the next OS release), which is still in beta.
$79 ain't much. I know a lot of students don't have much cash, but on the other hand, I know a lot of students who have no problems spending $79 on a concert or a weekend of partying. It's not like Be is asking you to shell out $1500. Plus, you can return to product for a full refund, no questions asked (so if you're a sneaky SOB and leave it on your hard drive...).
I just can't believe that expense is a big barrier to more people trying BeOS.
The fact the Linux is free is a significant cause of its success. When will the big companies wake up? Give away the product to educational customers(students and schools) and that will have a great return on investment. Hell, some products could be given away to non-corporate customers too.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
I think the point here is that X should be thrown out!!
:)
I work on a program called SalesTrack. SalesTrack has a couple bugs I am almost sure are divide by zero bugs. If it were open source, I could fix those bugs as fast as I could find the section of code. The real benefits would accrue to my cow-orkers, who have to deal with the program for more than the summer.
The OS runs completely off the CD in the demo version. It's slower of course this way, and you can't save anything to it, but it lets you see how the OS looks/feels etc.
Oh, BTW, cheapbytes has BeOS for just $65, and another web-dealer (I forget which, sorry) has it for $60. Not much more than a good game nowadays, and the $25 upgrade Be's been charging for full #X. revision upgades is not bad either
Just suppose I don't have the skills or the time or the inclination to go digging in the sources of my software. Does that mean that I'm not taking advantage of my access to the source code?
Absolutely not! I know it's open source, so I know that other people with more time/skills/inclination than me can fix problems, add features. AND if I need something badly enough I can get it done. Perhaps myself, perhaps by paying one of my IT guys to do it.
On some of the Be web sites rumor has it that Adobe has Photoshop already ported to Be. Supposedly Adobe is just waiting for there to be enought demand to justify the cost of supporting the platform.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
Java's problems aren't over, and they're being perpetuated by just about everyone. It's a nice language; I've used it a bit, and I like it a lot. What I don't like is that even with JIT's and the like, Java apps are infernally slow. Drives me nuts.
I always thought that it would be nice if companies started coming out with native Java compilers; that is, ones that didn't make you target a virtual machine. (Not *everything* needs to run everywhere!) Microsoft did this with Visual J++ 6.0, and immediately got flamed terribly for something I actually thought was a good idea. So right away everyone backs off on this so they don't piss Sun off, and now we're stuck with Java, the nice language that isn't really good for much if you want native performance and don't give a dink about some user on a weird machine/OS being able to use your app.
Anyway, the point of this long spiel is that often the media isn't to blame for typecasting, but the originators themselves. i.e. Sun with "write once run everywhere and damn you if you want to go native", and Linux users constantly crowing about server prowess, Be doing the "Media OS" thing, etc.
- Slarty
Hi... I'm Larry... the shivering chipmunk... brrrrr!... I'm cold... I need a sweater...
Nice try...Any UNIX kernel and stdio is still slimmer than anything '98 needs to run an app.
Of course, GEOS would fit the kernel, library and app in about 300KB and have room to spare.
'nuff said
To the best of my knowledge, Scot Hacker has never written an article or posted a comment that wasn't level-headed, insightful, and fair. This article is no exception. I think his key points are:
1. Linux is powerful but to some extent a pain in the neck.
2. Using Linux well requires a lot of knowledge that isn't of much use to people whose field of expertise is something other than computing.
3. A product can be easy to use without being "dumbed down". For almost everyone, "easy and powerful" beats "difficult and powerful" hands down.
I don't see how any reasonable person could compare Linux and BeOS and not conclude that BeOS is a far better desktop replacement for Windows than Linux. As for "count the apps", isn't that the main anti-Linux argument used by Windowphiles? Face it, Windows kicks the shit out of Linux in that category.
As stated in my previous post, you don't need to recompile the kernel to add drivers to Be, or need access to the kernel source to write drivers. Most drivers are kernel modules loaded at boot-time, analogous to "modules" under Linux.
I have already said that I recognize that sometimes things _do_ need to be tweaked in the kernel - but I think that for the vast majority of _users_ who don't do kernel tweaking, BeOS is fine. Linux isn't going away any time soon, don't worry.
That makes no sense, becuase BeOS has less Win32 interoperability than OS/2 does. BeOS may be faster, but it's certainly not more flexible. It doesn't run any DOS or Windows 3.1 apps, and I don't think it has XFree86 or all those ported Unix apps. For every 1 BeOS app there are 20 OS/2 apps. For every 1 piece of hardware that BeOS supports, there are 10 pieces of hardware that OS/2 supports. OS/2 is definitely more flexible than BeOS.
As for the UI, the BeOS may have nicer icons, but the WPS is undoubtable the more powerful and more flexible UI. You can always change OS/2's icons to be more BeOS-like, and I think the BeOS UI is otherwise rather dull.
But I can't blame you for moving away from OS/2 because of IBM.
BTW, I have BeOS installed on two machines, but I don't use it. I had to spend $200 on additional hardware just to get it to install.
--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
The demo CD is not something that would be very usefull except to view how the OS works on a very basic level. It runs off of your CD-ROM drive and you can't put it on your hard drive. It's basically (for about $5 I believe + s/h) a good way to test the hardware in your comp.
I find you guilty of typecasting, as charged.
Ok.. Guilty as charged. My point was not about the typecasting though. I think typecasting is necessary to a degree. Different OSes serve different needs. To use the car analogy everybody else is using, if you want to drive REALLY fast you get a Viper or Porsche or something in that range. If you want something to tow a boat you get a truck. There is nothing wrong with using an item for what it does best. To tell me that linux runs equal to Windows/Mac/Be for easy of use as a desktop application is like saying I'll get the same performance towing the boat by putting a trailer hitch on my Porche.
but do I have to remind you about System 7?
*shudder* ok, you win on that one (I don't know how I forgot, I was a mac user as well as a PC user for most of my life)
Are you saying you have no time to learn?
Yes, this is exactly what I am saying. I have enough to do in a given day without having to take a good amount of time to learn how to do everything i need to do to run my OS. For me, my computer is a tool. Use should be transparent. I am not saying that Linux doesn't make a good desktop for those who know how to use it, but for the average person (or more to the point "adult") uses the computer as a tool. You should feel familiar in a new desktop OS, and you shouldn't have to re-learn the way to do everything.
but please, for the love of all that's holy, ixnay on the "it works right out of the box" thing
I have to agree/disagree with you on this point. On the one hand you are right. There is a bit more to it than just installing it. You must check and see if you hardware is supported. If it isn't well, then its a bit more complicated. But.... If you are running supported hardware then it's ease of use and installation is amazing. Windows tries to say it can do this, but for all their talk windows is clunky and burdensome. Be installs in less than half the time it takes Windows, and asks you far fewer questions. It truly auto detects most of your hardware (aside from networking mostly) and sets fairly good defaults. Yes, you do have to go in and change control panal settings for optimization, but it doesn't take the hour to two hours that windows/mac setups can take.
TC
IBM's price is way too high, I agree, but there are cheaper sources. Try Indelible Blue.
--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
...or to chose whatever OS suits your needs.
The mindless FUD I see here from the rabidly faithful makes all those Amiga-holes and GUS-maniacs look like enlightened free thinkers.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
This guy starts out with a wonderful hypothesis: You shouldn't typecast OSes, you should look at their real capabilities first. Then he abandons that theory and typecasts Linux as a server-only OS.
He criticizes Neal Stephenson for portraying Linux and Be as a tank and a Batmobile, respectively, claiming that Be isn't a Batmobile because you can drive it to the store every day, but, oddly, has no objection to that characterization of Linux.
Well, guess what. I drive my tank to the store every day. I use Linux for all of my ordinary tasks, on both server and workstation. I stopped multi-booting ages ago, because Linux is just a flat-out better desktop OS than Windows.
Is it better than Be? I dunno. I looked into getting a Batmobile, because they do look very cool, but I didn't in the end. I checked the HCL on the Be website and discovered that in order to run Be on any of my machines, I would have had to replace, at the very least, motherboard, CPU, video card, sound card, and mouse.
So 99% (to use the number he apparently pulled out of his butt) of Linux users don't use the source. Well, that means the other 1% do. 1% of a few million is a fscking lot. And, thanks to free source, all those people can (and do) write drivers. That's why Be has (woefully short) lists of the hardware it works with, and Linux has (amazingly short) lists of the hardware it *doesn't* work with...
Be has my vote for becoming the OS/2 of the next decade. Technically elegant, theoretically excellent, and practically doomed by a lack of third-party support.
No Linux advocate that I have dealt with (me included) want Linux to be the only OS. What many of us want is for Linux to be able to do everything. There is a big difference, but because this would put it in competition with every OS, some people think we want them all to go away.
Um, take a look at some of the other posts in this thread. And in the threads attached to the MacOS X post. Many of the posters here, who would certainly call themselves Linux advocates (whether or not they fit the definition that you use), have a strong knee-jerk reaction that says that any non-Open operating system is intrinsically evil and should be abolished. They then proceed to loudly make this opinion known.
They also generally don't mention *BSD. When it comes up, the reaction is along the lines of "Huh? Oh, well, since it's Open, it's ok.". And then they go back to bashing non-Open OSs.
This seems to indicate that many of these "advocates" _do_ want to actively destroy non-Open OSs regardless of whatever merits they may have. And for many of them, Linux == Open == Linux.
I'm not saying that _all_ Linux advocates are like this by any means - but a substantial and very vocal minority are.
But another deep-pocketed buyer can come by at any time and buy up the company and possibly ruin BeOS. At least with Open Source, likeminded individuals would be able to continue the development.
What they really need to do now is to finish implementing hardware OpenGL and get broader hardware (i.e. driver) support.
If they can get to the point where hardware manufacturers write their own BeOS drivers, they can start to work on things like multiuser support.
Suppose in a few years BeOS has a secure multiuser version with all the other technical advantages of the current BeOS (multiprocessing, multithreading, BFS, etc.) - I can't see that there will be any technical issues left to bitch about.
It may be too sweeping to say that "BeOS is fundamentally better than Linux", but you have too admit that starting fresh gets rid of a lot of problems. I bet that if for some reason Linus decided to start over and design an "ideal OS" from scratch, he would do some things differently. BeOS has a great filesystem, great SMP, and excellent use of threading. You must agree that if Linux did these things as well as BeOS, it would be a step forward (maybe in 3.0...)
Your missing the point of Be entirely. Be is put forth as a MULTIMEDIA OS. People working with huge graphics applications do not want to be running them remotely. They may put forward a remote option at some future point, but that's not the direct emphesis of what they are trying to do. Oh, and all the basics for multiuser use are already in the BeOS, but not turned on. It's in single user mode now because the intended audience will most likely be using their machines that way. Multiuser will come, but it's a lower priority on their list. First they need to get it doing all the things the single user needs, then they can worry about multiuser.
First, I have lurked around for a while, and I have been fairly impressed with linux, the users, and what can be done in the OSS model.
I think, though, that a lot of linux users are missing the point. Linux is a GREAT server OS. If I ever had to run a high traffic server I would run linux. But Linux is NOT a GREAT desktop OS. It can be a good one, but can anyone really say its great? (I shall define great as being able to be used by most users immediately after install). I have tried linux. I don't have the time to invest into setting it up or tweaking it so that it works. I have also tried Be. I was able to use it, go online, and start d/l software immediately without the help of a friend directing me. (btw I consider myself pretty technically literate, I am an MIS major with a CS minor). Be doesn't as yet have many apps for the general user, but that's because it is set up for being a Audio/Visual niche operating system. (Be is being smart. Remember they are a company that has to make money to put out a good product. Going head to head with the Redmond giant is suicide. Linux could do it because they don't need to come in on budget or have to make money) Look at linux 1-2 years ago. Where was StarOffice then?
A lot of people have stated that Be has no apps or they can't use the apps they have on linux. Just because Be is closed-source doesn't mean that you can't create apps for it or port apps to it. Be comes with a fully integrated BASH command line interface. It comes with a variety of GNU tools, most notably gcc. If you do some research you may notice that it is nearly fully POSIX compliant (they are not fully POSIX yet because they want to put their time into getting more hardware supported).
Have any of you checked out the specs on Be? Be uses a 64-bit Journaling File System. It has pervasive multi-threading, pre-emptive multi-tasking, and excellent use of SMP. It already has a security/multi-user architecture set-up waiting for a time when it will be usefull.
Many have said that they could not use X. Well if you go to the BeWine page you will see that they have ported X-Windows over and are working on a port of Wine as well.
I will finish with this last thought. Please remember that the OSS dev model transends all OS's. Just because an OS isn't open source does not mean you can't design a good app for it. The only reason there aren't a lot of OS apps on Be is because THEY HAVEN'T BEEN WRITTEN YET (and/or ported). Before you start thinking of how to flame me, remember that linux too was once really young with no apps, and that it took time before mainstream users started to notice it.
Let the moderation begin.
TC
Very well said (and perfectly correct). Unfortunately a majority of the people on slashdot don't seem to see it this way, and jist of their comments are rather offensive (or distasteful) to non-Linux users. (ex: your priorities are different from mine, therefore you are evil, stupid, lazy, crazy, and etc).
Sigh. Why can't we all just get along and be open minded?
OS/2 is a great operating system! It has all the right stuff to run mission critical apps. I designed and implemented software to control expensive STM-microscopes at IBM Research and OS/2 has done a terrific job!
I prefer to install a basic OS/2 system with no add-ons. After some tweaking I will let the system run. And it usually does run for months flawlessly. I also prefer very good hardware to run OS/2.
About the SIQ: Indeed the SIQ is not a big deal IF you know how to multithread properly. Everybody who struggles with the SIQ is welcome to send e-mail. I will teach them how to overcome the SIQ limitation (not a defect!) of the PM.
Rene Pawlitzek
http://www.pawlitzek.halifax.ns.ca
/*disclaimer -- i am getting my numbers from the top of my head -- I am merely trying to make a logical point*/
well, if you were to do a survey of 1000 random computer users, I am pretty sure that you would find one person who knows how to programm (maybe none -- Remember, the *vast* majority of computer users just run internet, word and excel, and that's it about it.) Of any decent programmers, I would say maybe somewhere around 20% are advanced enough to be able to actually *use* the source code of a commercial application.
(a good percentage of programmers are casual dabblers, students, etc)
Basically, what I am trying to say that the people who can't *use* the source won't care about open source simply because it is open source. (I'd like to see someone sell software by saying "well, if you (the user) think it sucks, you can hope that maybe someone else will improve it".
Well only one OS has the security of OpenBSD, only Solaris can scale on the big boxes. Most mainframes only have one OS. FreeBSD has the best stability and speed for x86 type serving. You get the idea.
But this is precisely what the author is talking about: FreeBSD has only the security that FreeBSD can provide, and Solaris is most definitely not the only OS that scales well (c.f. SGI's IRIX and UNICOS, Digital UNIX, &c.).
To 'typecast' is to limit your own horizons, and potentially lock yourself into a state of mind that might leave you in the lurge should a vendor never actually get around to implementing features its competitors have had for years (which is why IRIX surpassed Solaris as a 64-bit OS: SGI was one of the first on the block. I think only Digital had SGI beat).
That sort of narrow thinking could cost you.
...might leave you in the lurge...
I meant LURCH.
Oy.
(Although, from a pure coinage issue, I could make that out to mean the opposite of 'surge,' with intent to mean listless, loagy, or lethargic, thus conveying the exact opposite while making a parallel construction from the word.)
Back to coffee for me...
Check out http://www.computability.com, better yet:t s_products.asp?action=quick&category=&manu facturer=&search_string=BeOS
http://www.computability.com/search/searchResul
$60 for BeOS. Apps for sale there as well. R4.5 is not shipping yet, but you can now buy it or get it free if you own R4.
Jace
Anonymous Coward because getting accounts here with a name I WANT is impossible, like on AOL. That is NOT flame bait.
Give away the product to educational customers(students and schools) and that will have a great return on investment.
yah, we all know how well that strategy worked for Apple. And Wordperfect.
I still use OS/2 as my primary desktop OS, even though I also have many other operating systems installed on my boxes. And I think it's really sad that more Linux users (who generally have little experience outside of Windows and unix) don't have a chance to see the WorkPlace shell in action, or to see how *good* a general operating system the folks at Big Blue created long ago.
I think it would open some eyes. KDE and GNOME are getting better and will be going places, but compared to the WPS they are still quite rough.
When people ask my why I don't use my Linux, BeOS, or NT setups fulltime on my desktop, I simply point to my OS/2 setup and smile...
--
-Rich (OS/2, Linux, Mac, NT, Solaris, FreeBSD, BeOS, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
While I agree with the author of the article that Linux does indeed have its major strengths in server applications, I have to point out that this is the best guarantee that it will excel in desktop applications, too.
Apart from that, I feel that the author has not understood the concept of open source software at all. I want my OS to be open source, not because I intend to hack at the kernel myself, but because I know that others (many thousands!) had a chance to do so and have in many cases done so! This is why open source software generally has better quality. Period.
Be is working with vendors to provide a version of BeOS (same as ours, without certain unneeded components) for embedded, or set top or web appliance stuff. The OS is very modular and compact, unlike WinNT and CE.
An Anonymous Jace
You got the layers wrong. X windows doesn't run on top of shell, it runs on top of kernel and libs. Same with Corba, it runs on top of libs, as it can be used by CLI applications.
:)
Its not a flame just a correctin
>That makes no sense, becuase BeOS has less Win32 interoperability than OS/2 does
Until and unless there is a working version of WINE on BeOS, there is NO Win32/16 in BeOS. Be design.
>It doesn't run any DOS or Windows 3.1 apps
Not intended to. Would be nice, but the idea of BeOS is to start from scratch and eliminate the legacy problems of WinXYZ.
>I don't think it has XFree86 or all those ported Unix apps
You should check out the Be news sites more frequently. There is an X11 port and a LOT of Linux software has been ported to BeOS.
>and I think the BeOS UI is otherwise rather dull
I wish IBM would let me see what the most recent OS/2 looks like. Warp was ugly to my eyes.
Jace
NOT anonymous
Besides, the OS/2 community has largely moved on to Navigator 4.04 now, and I tend to use Lynx for most of my web surfing anyway (there are three separate OS/2 ports of that browser).
I use the BeOS a little at home as well, BTW. If they ever add support for the Intel EEPro/100B, I think I could spend more time there, but so far my own experience is that OS/2's software and driver support vastly outstrips the BeOS. Hopefully that will change over the next couple of years...but it makes BeOS hard to use right now.
--
-Rich (OS/2, Linux, Mac, NT, Solaris, FreeBSD, BeOS, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Was that all there was to it? A bug in BeOS? Did you contact tech support?
This is interesting.
The Fifty page writeup is by a different author, Neal Stephenson, and(so far, judging by the scroll bar I'm about on page 45)the link to it is far and away the best thing about Scot Hacker's article and his article ain't bad.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
...by folks in the audience, sometimes directly from the soundboard, and the free distribution of said tapes among the fan base was encouraged. Their concert stuff is better'n most of their studio stuff anyway, right? :-)
--
-Rich (OS/2, Linux, Mac, NT, Solaris, FreeBSD, BeOS, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
It's been said many times in this discussion, but I'll say it again: BeOS comes with the gcc compiler, a full IDE and debugger, source code to hundreds of command line tools, source code to dozens of GUI apps... Be is very supportive of open source concepts, but they're not going to give away their business. But the point is, every BeOS user is as much a potential programmer as every Linux users. And there are lots of open source projects out there for BeOS users. Just look around.
Exactly. All of Be's support for x86 hardware has been created in 18 months! By my reckoning, development on BeOS is coming along *very* quickly. Lots of sample driver code, direct support for developers from Be, and very clean, simple APIs all mean that driver development happens fast.
Sigh.
But I'll sure bet at least some of the bootleggers paid to get into the concerts in the first place. And then here's where the analogy really falls apart: how good do you think a 3rd generation audio tape is going to be?
I disagree completely with the idea behind what the author is saying. First though, let me say that I do think that Be is a great OS and I do think that it is largely mishandled by the mainstream press and *in the industry*. But as to the underlying idea in the story and something which has gotten a lot of discussion here is the idea of a universal OS, one answer for everyone's needs. Going back to the Linus quote somebody mentioned earlier, world domination is the ability to have a choice. But more specifically, it is the ability of something (here, an OS) to do one thing and do it well. There is nothing wrong with a niche OS. That is half the problem with MS, it tries to do something with an OS which was not designed to do it. (Win 3.1 doing multitasking, or NT doing multiuser, etc...) There is one key word here, however-- interoperability.
Okay in my perfect world: I'd have OpenBSD on firewall and security sensitive duty, Solaris on the 64 CPU web-monster, whatever on the mainframes, FreeBSD (or maybe Linux) on remaining servers, BeOS for most users, Linux or FreeBSD on the desktops of us hacks and geeks. Java on koisks. Amiga for video editing, QNX for embedded..... Why? Well only one OS has the security of OpenBSD, only Solaris can scale on the big boxes. Most mainframes only have one OS. FreeBSD has the best stability and speed for x86 type serving. You get the idea.
But why not Linux on all desktops/workstaions? I haven't (personally) developed on BeOS. But from what I hear that it has a single, wonderfully designed API and most developers love it. This is great for most apps. But *nix, on the other hand, has dozens of mix-matched APIs, from POSIX to SVGAlib to GGL to xlib to Qt and GTK to OpenGL to whatever. It has wonderful flexibility and openness that is unattractive and unnecessary for many developers, yet perfectly suitable to those who _want_ to know what is going on *under the hood.* I've seen recent discussions on slashdot about what API to use for Linux game programming, and don't get started on GTK vs Qt. This is great for us hacks who love pointless flamew^H^H^H^H^H^H debates. One of the themes of Unix is the perfect tool(s) for the job. In a larger sense, this may mean that there are cases where Unix _isn't_ the perfect tool, so just use the proper one.
I sincerely hope that Be succeeds in replacing MS. If I had to choose, I'd pick a company that knows it's place and does well with interoperability with other OSes, and also has a fast, clean, well designed API (unlike some other monopoly OS out there). Furthermore, in order to maintain a single, coherent API you _need_ the single driving source. I'm not saying that open source _can't_, but remember that one of the ideals of OSS (remember the Cathederal...) is if something doesn't fit you, design your own. Companies are just more adapt to a single strategy (but that doesn't mean that they always stick to it).
Furthermore, from what I hear BeOS has done a decent job of interoperability, TCP/IP facilities etc. With a good secure distributed file system combining all these many OSes, it would make life _much_ easier on us sysadmins: centeralized data and app servers, stable, easy to use OSes, etc. Do I think that everyone will be using Linux or BeOS or whatever in 100 years?? of course not. Technology will change. But for now, w/ today's tech and climate this is what I'd like to see in the next few years.
Reid G. Ormseth, Esq.
Be actively supports the development of open source software for BeOS. Witness the port of Mozilla to BeOS, which Be is supporting financially. Not to mention the fact that Be releases tons of sample code, and source to many of the applications included with the OS.
The author says that BeOS has been cast into the wrong spotlight and is a "better" OS for the general user. Linux has the coolness of OpenSource that nobody takes advantage of.
I disagree with his thinking.
First if it was a case of simplicity then we would talking about the evil Mac empire and not Microsoft.
Open source does matter. It reflects a new way of doing software. It may not change the entire world. But it will be a way of developing software. And eventually there will be a viable business model.
And the other aspect that one cannot ignore is what MS knows very well. End users do not sell computers. End users want to do a job. Developers sell computer systems. Developers want to have fun developing the systems. Developers create the applications that people want. And the more developers that you have the more attractive your platform becomes.
Linux is building a core developer following just like the "user friendly" DOS and Windows. And in the end this will make the difference.
I wasn't meaning that to say that there is only one highlt scalable OS-- Solaris, but as an example. While Solaris is excellent in scalibility, it is also a hog on lower end machines. I do completely agree with you there are other excellent OSes out there for large machines, but most of those machines only really run on one OS, like the big SGIs from Cray or whatever. But for web serving on huge machines, Sun is your best choice. This reminds me of the Mindcraft fiasco, I kept thinking to myself: who would spend $25 grand on a windoze or linux box when for the same money you can get a far faster and more reliable Sun box or AIX or whatever. As if Win and Linux are your only choices. Linux runs best on desktop boxes (and so does Windows.) I do agree that there are a ton of great OSes out there, but don't think that one can do everything (as many Windows and Linux bigots seem to think.) I think that competition is great in business, and what competitions usually leads to is specizalization in niche markets. A Honda wouldn't fit everyone's needs, neither would a Tarus or a VW or Lexis or a pickup. While i agree with the general media standpoint that the article took on 'typcasting'-- that BeOS can only do multimedia is bad, far too many slashdotters reacted like there is a 'Single Solution' for everyone. There isn't.
Reid G. Ormseth, Esq.
The writer suggests that 99% of users couldn't care less about having access to the source code [of an OS]. He has it almost backwards here. If we accept his number of 99% and apply the remaining 1% to the 10 million or so Linux users, we are left with 100,000 people who *do* care about digging in source code. Thank you, Scot, for pointing out the mindboggling advantage that Linux holds over closed OS's.
I have no particular interest in kernel hacking. Ordinarily, I "couldn't care less" about digging in the source. However, when I found myself needing a tiny tweak to my server OS, I was *SO* glad I could just go in and change a single line of code and solve my problem.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
This article misses one of the most important features of Linux: you can use the software without signing any licensing agreement, or even paying for it. There's been a lot said about the virtues of "free speech" software, and I agree that it is beneficial. However, we shouldn't ignore the fact that "free beer" software is great, and that it's one of the main reasons that so much "free speech" software is available. Idealism is a fine thing, but it's hard to compete with free toys.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
You must've been using X10 (X Version 10, not the X10 home-appliance control system), rather than X11, then; X11 has almost always had window managers and GUI toolkits.
Are you saying that there's too much code there, or that it's too layered, or that there's too much code because it's too layered?
"Registering" in what sense?
Putting them into your desktop environment's menus? If so, that seems to me to argue more for a better way of standardizing root/panel menus (the only reason there's a standardized way of doing that in "Windows 4.0" systems - W95, W98, NT 4.0 and later - is that they came with a single standard desktop environment).
Or registering them as installed applications? If so, that's more a "UNIX diversity" issue - not every commercial UNIX system was SVR4-based, so not all of them had the SVR4 package system, and the free UNIXes ended up rolling their own (multiple ones, in the case of Linux distributions).
...which seems to me to argue more that either
Good question. I'm not sure I think anybody knows the answer yet; I suspect you won't find out until it does snap.
I think they're a way of the future; I often find GUI-based packet capture and analysis program more convenient than text-based ones like "snoop", for example.
I don't think the elimination of CLIs is necessary, however.
Boy is that true. He can't even play _himself_ without getting made fun of. And that's just about the only role he can get, too.
I'd like to see Adam West in some other stuff.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
So I can't go to, say ftp.cdrom.com and download a complete distribution of Linux without paying for it?
A typical journalist, who can't tell emacs from a c-shell, won't be able to correctly describe the differences between, say, BeOS and Linux. But he can repeat what he read somewhere: That BeOS is a "Multi-Media-OS" and Linux is a "Server-OS", whatever that may be. This is the whole secret behind this type of typecasting.
Don't the folks over at Be "typecast" their own OS. IIRC, I remember them focusing alot on the fact they were aiming for a niche market as a media OS and therefore weren't competing with MS...
Use it where it works well, but remember what it was designed for... you can use an axe as a hammer, but... I dunno, I think I'm rambling.
The effect on the OS market I'm imagineing would be a side-effect, but it could be large. Linux with professional graphics software, Linux with OpenGL apps and games. Sounds like a giant killer. Maybe more opportunities for Adobe. But I guess they'd rather keep doing what they're doing.
Hey, it's more of a Shelbyville idea anyway
I think they're a way of the future; I often find GUI-based packet capture and analysis program more convenient than text-based ones like "snoop", for example.
I don't think the elimination of CLIs is necessary, however.
No, absolutly not. An xterm provides everything the console does and more. And I don't think a GUI necessitates a WIMP interface (Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pointers). In fact, I'd rather the keyboard be the major input device of a GUI. But this is all forward thinking thought. I would really like to see Unix evolve into a GUI world.
--
I am a user of BeOS and I think that it is a brilliant piece of software. I bought it as soon as it was available for x86 hardware, but encountered problems immediately. It didn't like my video card or nic. I wasn't too distraught, though, and bought hardware that made Be happy. I now have a fully functional BeOS system that is astounding in it's responsiveness and general speed, but I never use it. There are so few applications for it that I can't use it. I have things that I need to do and I can't do them in BeOS. I stick with Linux most of the time, as it has nearly everything I need. Plus, Linux never needed me to buy hardware to make the system work. Best of luck to Be, though, I'd love to be able to make it my desktop OS.
Joshua Pearson
History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion-i.e. none to speak of. - Lazarus Long
Just putting a bit of the blame at the feet of those who deserve it...
--
Agreed (=
Many of your criticisms about windows seem more idealogical then totally factual. Sure Windows isn't the greatest OS in the world, but it is much simpler to use (at the cost of quality) right off the bat than linux is. Windows is widely supported for two reasons:
1. It gave a set standard of it's API for hardware and software developers to use. While it's not open it's a more focused model than linux has been in the past (notice I said past, the libraries have become alot more standardized and developing for linux has become much easier) 2. They grabbed up a huge market share, so hardware vendors decided they would go with the short term winner in the desktop OS race. Theres lots of hardware that will never work with windows because it's designed for SPARC or MIPS computers or some other processor/chipset/OS. Windows has the desktop market for now so thats why hardware developers wrote drivers for it.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
to the supermarket. Hey, who wouldn't?
+--
Given infinite time, 100 monkeys could type out the complete works of Shakespeare.
+-- (Score:-1, Moderator on Power Trip)
DON'T liken BeOS to Windoze. You just show your ignorance. The only thing BeOS and Windows have in common is they both run on Intel machines. BFD.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I run BeOS. The rules don't apply.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I run BeOS. The rules don't apply.
The difference is when i buy a commercial version of Linux i still have the source.
When i buy the commercial version of Be I don't have them. And when i get the free version...Oh wait, I can't have a free version.
I don't think sources are important for me because I want to fix codes but this is important because I CAN fix code if I want, and other can and do it.
What people using this argument (I don't care about sources because I don't read them) are saying is the same as "i don't care about free speech because I have nothing to say". But the day you will have to defend you rights you will be happy to have free speech. It's the same with the source.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
As a person who has enjoyed Scot Hacker's enthusiasm towards the Be OS I took offense to the creator of this thread. I bet this guy doesn't even know about the BeOS Bible that Scot has out right now.
A few Linux users on this board REALLY need to step back and chill. Insulting someone for his OS preference is down right juvenile.
There also appears to be a big "oh it's not open source so it sucks" feeling going on here as well. Well, everyones entitled to their opinion.
Do I agree? No. I like the fact that I KNOW where the product I'm buying comes from and who I need to contact if I have a problem. If I'm a professional, and I am, I want to spend my time using my "TOOL" to make money, and while I do this I want the "TOOL" that's the most pleasing to use making said money. Hence, the BeOS.
BeBooster
But it isn't open source.
Typical Slashdot-fanatic response...
Why does this always come up? If linux being
open source is the only thing that makes it
superior to other OSs, then that's pretty sad...
If you've got a 100 user system, it's likely that the price of installing the OS isn't going to be that big an issue, considering the cost of
a) Hardware
b) Software applications
c) Maintainance & support
You'd go with the OS that supported the software that you wanted with the minimum of fuss, and had the support options you wanted.
Me too. Until then, though, give me Photoshop. ;)
Jace
The reason I bring up OS/2 is because I think BeOS has a chance of avoiding what brought down OS/2. Granted, some of what brought OS/2 down is that IBM did a sloppy job of marketing it (or so I've heard). But another problem was that Microsoft successfully altered people's perceptions to see Windows as a "standard" part of their PC, and OS/2 a useful "extra", or an "alternative" OS. These days, Linux (with the help of Linux users and advocates) has been altering people's perceptions and they are realizing that Windows doesn't necessarily have to be their OS by default. It's my hope that the success of Linux will be the wedge to drive open the OS market, making products like BeOS available for those who just want their computer to work and don't want to spend fifteen hours poking around inside the nuts and bolts.
What I'd like to see is for Linux to bring about a new OS market in which competition can flourish. Of course, what I'd really like to see is for an open-source "category killer" to arise in the OS arena (similar to sendmail, for example) but that doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon. In the meantime, I hope BeOS succeeds.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
"The Source will be with you... Always."
The author tells us that he wouldn't wish his Linux installation problems on anyone. But is difficulty of installation really still the case? Red Hat 6 and Suse 6.1 offer smooth installs, as long as your hardware is listed. And as time goes by, more and more hardware gets listed. Everyone's looking forward to the day when Linux will be easy to install; they're overlooking the fact that for a significant percentage (the majority?) of hardware, it's already a breeze. It doesn't even require that poxy CDROM loader that Windows (typecast as "the easy-to-install" OS) needs.
How many Linux users take advantage of access to source code?
The OS source is like a "home defense" handgun--not essential but Really Nice To Have in certain situations. I find that having gcc around is the best thing about Linux. How many other OSes have free compilers practically built in?
BeOS, on the other hand, is immediately satisfying.
Immediate gratification may be the American Way, but generally, the more powerful things are, the longer they take to learn. Tricycles are easy to ride; bicycles are not. Guess which goes faster. Everyone here knows where Linux stands in this setting...
Give a monkey a brain and he'll swear he's the center of the universe.
don't get me wrong -- BeOS is cool, but they run the risk that a lot of ventures do -- you only get so much venture capital before you have to go out and prove yourself and find a niche to be successful. BeOS isn't going to be a MS competitor any time soon, so it seems to me that Be is searching hard to find a niche, possibly at the cost of support for a "standard desktop OS".
not that i'm an expert, nor do i care that much, but it points out one of the advantages of linux. it can be whatever it wants to be without feeling the pressure of investors and businesses & it's a lot harder to disappoint and alienate people that way.
We all hear things like "My pet rat who doesn't know the first thing about computers hates Windoze but loves the linux installation I gave it", but realistically, we're nowhere near the ease of use and fun for the average user provided by Be, or (gasp!) Windows.
Gnome is cool, KDE is nice, but maybe pushing linux into that space is the wrong way to go. Linux is wonderfully configurable, but it's still a unix at heart, and unix has way too much baggage for the novice to slog through.
There's a lot of baggage on the developer who wants to develop cool apps for the linux desktop, too. Even with GTK or QT, you're still writing to a wrapper to a library to a library to a driver, just to get a reasonably usable API. The sound system(s) are OK, but they certainly could be better. Contrast this with programming for BE, and it becomes pretty obvious that we don't hold up well.
What we in the open source community need is really a fresh start on the desktop. Linux is evolving wonderfully as a server and workstation OS for the power user, but if open source is going to win the average user, I really do believe we're going to need something very different from UNIX.
For now, though, I'm sticking with Linux since, though I think BE is a cool company, corporate control of an OS has repeatedly proved disastrous in terms of benefits for the end user.
NetBSD has a great emphasis on portability. One example is that NetBSD supports more "machine types" of the DEC Alpha arch. I didn't even know there was a such a thing as "machine types" in the alpha arch until I read it on the NetBSD page.
He's saying that some (most, 99%?) of those users should be using Beos? Why? They chose on some set of criteria that for them made Linux the best choice. Second guessing that or whining about it isn't going to change those criteria. Beos might have a lot of neat stuff, but ultimately it's just another closed operating system. Having access to under the hood is incredibly powerful, and he's greatly underestimating exactly HOW powerful. And he'd be doing a lot of users a disservice in the process.
I think the point is that _outside_of_the_Linux community_, hardly anyone has the desire, let alone knowledge, to hack the kernel, particularly if the OS works great. Even among Linux users, I bet that there are 10 people who boldly state "show me the source or get lost" for every person that actually DOES anything with the source code.
It's really not fair to lump all "closed OS's" together. It would be more honest to talk about "the mindboggling advantage that Linux holds over closed OS's, like Windows, _that_suck_"
Yes, it does. I have a BeOS machine sitting next to me right now.
While the OS is closed, you still get all of the header files and semi-complete documentation (what isn't there is being written). Applications can be closed or open as the applications programmer wishes; AFAICT, Be doesn't care. More applications are good regardless of the license they're released under, and Be is too small to write applications itself. It loses nothing from open apps, and loses nothing from making the entry points to the OS visible.
Java got a slow start due to it's 'web language' typecast, which gave M$ enough time to destroy what it could have been. Perl is strong enough for more than just scripting. C/C++ (with libraries) is full enough to cover scripting duties. Typecasting is just an easy for for PHBs not to have to learn or think.
OK - so maybe 99% don't ever look at the code - But isn't it nice to know you can? Isn't it nice to know that a developer (any competant developer at all, not just one that is in the Monopolist OS holder's favor) can get access to the code they need to build the app they want to build?
Not many folks use all the horsepower that their cars are capable of producing - but knowing that extra something is still there is quite comforting.
I don't do any work on the kernel, but I appreciate its free nature every day beause that free nature has allowed those who do have an inclination to improve Linux to do so. I don't have to work on the kernel myself to appreciate the benefits of its free nature.
The BEos situation reminds me of the Amiga. (I grew up on one) A great all-around platform with killer multimedia and no marketing. By the end, most Amigas were only used by media people and fans.
I do believe that BEos could/should be the desktop replacement "Windows Killer" because in the end all that most "normal" users want are games, wordprocessing, email, and web browsing.
To sum it up:
Use the right tool for the right job.
Usually I dont touch source except my own. However, when a need a little tidbit I want to be able to implement it now, not wait for my suggestion to turn into a patch (or never happen). For example, I wanted to generate gifs from xfigs through a script, fig2dev didnt have it yet but xfig could output gifs, so i added 10 lines to xfig and got my feature. Fvwm2 was missing a nuance I wanted. 50-60 lines and I am done. Easier than figuring out where to submit a request, and much faster.
Sure, there are some legacy problems that will never get eliminated. The Single-Input-Queue (SIQ) is a real pain, but it's mostly a pain because many OS/2 apps don't multithread properly (BeOS gets around this by creating multiple threads on behalf of each application, something that might work for OS/2). OS/2 drivers are mostly 16-bit, but it's possible to write 32-bit drivers. Yes, the WPS has some bugs, but it's vastly more complex and powerful than any other GUI, and the bugs are typically in third-party WPS add-ons like Object Desktop. I have one OS/2 machine which has no add-ons, and it's rock solid. My other machine has a bunch, and it has problems.
In my opinion, OS/2 is STILL a viable desktop alternative. IBM may not market OS/2 to the end-user, but they still update it and provide support, contrary to popular opinion. And don't forget that a kick-ass server (which in all likelihood scales better than Linux on SMP boxes) was just released.
Let's talk about applications. XFree86 is available for OS/2, and several Linux applications have been ported to OS/2, such as Gimp and Apache. Star Office is also available. I could go on, but there are quite a few big-name applications available for OS/2 but not BeOS.
As for purchasing OS/2, there are several copies available on eBay, and you can always mail order it from IBM Direct or Indelible Blue.
I think if everyone gave OS/2 another look, quite a few people would see something they like. The public perception against OS/2 is much worse than with BeOS, and that's unfair.
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Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
Strange, I like HP very well but aside from that I consider typecasting an OS not that bad. Building too much into whatever usually results in some average quality tool. I must admit though that I do not see the future as a PC on every desk, but just a nice, large, flat screen with something at the other end of the cable.
int freemem = 1, *bill;
char *windows;
do {
windows = (char *)calloc( 1024, sizeof( char ) ) ;
if ( winmem == NULL ) {
freemem = 0;
} printf("haha %s", (char)bill);
}while (freemem == 1);
Only 'flamers' flame!
The author of this article frequently fails to distinguish between problems that are inherent to a philosophy and those that inhere in the selection of an OS. For example, he tries to hang the albatross of Linux's emphasis on user-as-administrator on the open source movement, which is silly. He seems to be making excuses for BeOS's development model, which hasn't proven nearly as successful as Linux's. Count the apps, folks.
Of course, Neal Stephenson's essay has the same problem, but not to the same degree. Stephenson can be forgiven his tendency to hang the impossibility of low-level adminstration of the Macintosh on the GUI paradigm; he is, after all, partly right. However, the author of this piece of BeOS special pleading has no such excuse.
Following his reasoning, one might as well use Windows. After all, open source is inherently hard to use, according to his argument; one might as well pick the most closed, dumbed-down OS out there.
I hope he goes unheeded. He deserves nothing better.
--
Some keywords for the NSA in the Lord of the Rings universe: One Ring bind find Sauron quest Nazgul freedom
some of the Adobe products such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and ImageReady, I'd run out and buy BeOS today. I played with it a little bit when a coworker bought it but there was little for me to run on it. This may seem short sighted to people who are used to porting apps but oh well.
"Dogs and cats, living together...it's mass hysteria!"
As sorry as WinWhatever is, it is still easier to use than Linux.
The only thing that makes Windows easier to use than other OSes is that people are used to its interface. If I put my grandmother in front of a computer, regardless of the operating system, she wouldn't have a clue what to do. I was born and raised on an Amiga (which supports both a GUI and a CLI), and I found the CLI easier to use. Some of my friends were raised on Windows, and don't even know what to do at a DOS prompt, but they'll poke around the registry all the time.
Our main problem is that we allow computer users to be too stupid. I know what tech support people go through every day (eg. the "mug-holder" keeps closing), simply because people don't really know how computers work. Instead of trying to find better ways to make it harder to put a coffee mug onto a CDROM tray, why don't we just tell them what it's really for?
Bottom Line: "Easier to use" can only be defined as "whatever you're used to". Exclusive use of GUIs make stupid users. People live up to what's expected of them. Expect them to be stupid, and they will.
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BeOS comes with a port of gcc and all the tools you need to start making BeOS apps come for free with the OS. A huge chunk of BeOS apps come with the source code. BeOS has all the makings of a next generation home OS and workstation OS and Be is always trying to make it flexible enough so that it doesn't get stuck in one area. Supposedly Be has been able to get the basic parts of BeOS to where they are small enough to work in embedded systems without changing the code much if any. Remember too that every generation of BeOS is faster than the previous. r4 was faster than r3, r4.5 will be faster than r4 and Be is will be working on making r5 faster than r4.5
---Got Coffee?---
The author seems to miss an important point. The reason people aren't flocking away from Windows in favor of ANY other desktop OS, superiour technology or not, is the staggering cost (time and money) of retraining the user on a new OS. This applies to Linux AND BeOS. Retraining cost is NOT, however, a significant barrier to penetration of the server market, where Linux is currently increasing market share faster than all others, and where Linux adoption will continue to accelerate.
People's perception of the OSes isn't the problem; the problem is that techno-weenies don't consider all the real (human) costs of switching to a different OS in their analysis. Maybe they don't remember taking hours and hours to learn Unix; maybe it was easy for them. Real people are different from you and me; they're stupi... er, not as quick at learning new computing paridigms than you and I.
In short, BeOS will always be a marginal OS because it's going after a market it can't possibly win, in addition to the chicken and egg problem of people not using it because there aren't enough apps, and no apps being written because not enough people are using it. Open source can help to solve the chicken-and-egg problem, but still does nothing to aleviate the very real cost of learning a new system.
There is still a lot of life left in OS/2. If IBM would port the WPS, the WinOS/2 subsystem and create a Linux/2, it would be the best of two worlds: rock solid kernel and a great desktop.
As an alternative, KDE and Gnome could become more WPS like, but KDE is going the Win95 route (an overextended file manager with no single conceptual model) and Gnome is more concerned with snazzy themes.
It's one of the designs I like to toy with : a super-WPS , written in Python+some toolkit. If only the days had 30 hours.
I am keeping my hopes up, hoping that something like the Hurd and the Berlin Project may make an Operating System that is as good with a graphical user interface as Unix is good with the console.
--
In a way. Linux will not free us from M$. Attacking M$ on the desktop with Linux will never work. One, the baggage argument here is valid. Two, even if the linux desktop is better (which in my opinion it already is...X has always been) the consumer 'knows' M$'s destop already. If people can get a job done w/o learning a new trick it is difficult to change them. A funny manifestation of this is that most end users (not us geeks, but the bulk user) dont even know much about the simple M$ interface they are on. Usually just enought to get the job done, even at a lower efficiency level than the M$ interface allows (much lower than X).
This leads me to believe that the real end of M$ is the death of the general purpose desktop itself as a consumer product. This is already happening, but the real killer IMO is going to be HDTV coupled with settop boxes. That will torpedo the home market. The business market will get slashed by administrative costs. The general purpose OS has too mcuh overhead in installation and maintainence. This overhead is spiralling out of control due to security, viruses, etc. Just look at the sysadmin market. The demand for sysadmins is astronomical and increasing. Personally, I think $70-$100k for a sysadmin is an absurd bubble that even PHBs want to pop.
:Red Hat 6 and Suse 6.1 offer smooth installs, as long as your hardware is listed.
I agree to a point, but:
I picture a program asking my sister
what video card she has (it's a Rage PRO
and yes I know it's lame) she would not
have a clue. Until Linux' plug/play
support is near perfect your comment
won't be true for most users. It's getting
pretty good but isn't even as good as M$'
and that sucks pretty bad.
garyr
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
Bear in mind that these are applications. There's nothing to prevent apps under BeOS from being Open or Free. It is only the kernel that's closed. Now, you could make the same arguments about the kernel as you do applications, but in practice I see fewer kernel bugs that need fixing.
And if I want to tweak kernels, I can still use Linux. BeOS doesn't have to be the *only* OS; however, without meaning to offend, I think that many Linux advocates _do_ want Linux to be the only OS. This is a Bad Thing IMO.
Re. drivers, I'm happily doing driver development under BeOS with no more access to the kernel source than any other user. The headers are all that's needed.
BeOS r5 could actually be more a threat for M$ than Linux because r5 will specifically target desktop and workstation aggressively and by r5 there will already be a hell of a lot of hardware support for BeOS and already there are a lot of high end appz (audio and video) being ported to BeOS. Personally I don't see linux getting into the desktop market. It's not that the average user is stupid.... they are just too lazy to learn anything slightly technical. The best bet for taking down M$ is pushing for Linux in the servers and BeOS on the desktop/workstation. My parents are typical computer users, they can barely use windows and if they can barely use windows Linux will be a nightmare. Besides the whole distro war will REALLY confuse first time computer users and newbies.
---Got Coffee?---
The people to take that up with are the BeOS users, not Be itself. Be makes an active effort to publish all of its API and document as much of it as possible. If you want to release an open application under BeOS, there's nothing stopping you. Porting isn't that hard either, because the guts of BeOS are Unixoid.
Well, that depends.
Do you believe that the Open Source model produces better code (better by some measure that is significant to you) than closed-source models?
Do you think it is advantageous to not be tied to a single vendor for support or bug fixes?
Do you find it nice to be able to talk directly with developers, to make requests for features or bugfixes?
If the answer is yes, then OSS has something to offer even if you never look at the source. Myself, I can code but don't plan on digging in the kernel source (though i do dig through other OSS projects). Still, I answer yes to all the above questions, and so I'm very glad that I'm using free software. That's the point - I may not use the source, but I benefit from the efforts of those who do.
The enemies of Democracy are
This points out a big problem with not having source code in terms of "typecasting users". If Be is the only company with the ability to improve BeOS itself, and since Be, as a small company, doesn't have the ability to improve it in every way, then they are forced to typecast their users into a few basic categories, simply to focus on what to improve next. These basic categories would hopefully encompass most BeOS users, but would certainly leave out large subcommunities.
Whereas if BeOS were open sourced, individual communities of users, no matter how far from the mainstream (such as the BeBox owners) would have the freedom to improve BeOS in ways that might only benefit them, and Be would never commit to doing themselves. You might even see other companies providing customized versions of BeOS, and a market of different BeOS flavors, like the different Linux distributions.
--
Jake
He forgot to mention OS/2!
It's like Adam West, OS/2 _always_ get typecast as the dead OS and can't get a decent job anywhere.
(Or maybe it's the "undead" OS)
Damn it! Oh well, it still lives on my machine! (At least until GNOME or KDE or somebody gets their act together). Spending half an hour configuring the compile and waiting for it the compile just to get sound card support in is not my idea of fun!
If you don't like the way X works, rewrite it..
:)
It would be very useful to have an integrated (but most definitely not SOLE) interface graphical for 'desktop users'. I think if it were possible to combine Linux's power in networking and speed with BEOS' power in graphics and speed. They would have to be seperate, run like 95's "MS-DOS Only" and "Normal" selections, but through lilo. Both would have Linux in them. Both would have Be in them. But to a limited extent for the "command line only" in the Be integration (who knows, they might have a better way of doing something?).
The graphical 'Be-nix' would have most (ideally all) of the networking power and base speed of the average linux box, but graphically.
Ok, now I'm rambling..
Later.
There's plenty of advantages for average users. For example, I downloaded an mp3 player for my mac. It had a slight bug, making it to allocate too little ram for mp3 playback, causing skips. I reported this, then waited 6 months until the writer fixed the problem.
On the other hand, I downloaded an ftp client for linux. It had some bugs also, which were reported to the proper newsgroups by undoubtedly many other users. In a matter of days, some anonymous user had fixed the problems.
Advantages of OSS for the average joe? I see plenty.
The demo cd is only about $10 including s&h I believe.
---Got Coffee?---
Scot was talking about the average joe, non-computer wizkid who just wants to play around. The average person could care a less because the average person doesn't know anything about writing code. What good does the source do if the user of the computer can't make use of it, as is the case of the average joe. All it does is eat up disk space. You can talk about the advantages of OSS all you want (and there are plenty if you are a programmer) but what does it offer the person who just wants to listen to mp3z, do some word processing, play a few games, surf the net and shutdown their computer? Then answer is.... nothing.
---Got Coffee?---
I think a point that the author, and many of you, missed was that BeOS is a fundumentaly better Desktop OS than Linux. Sure it can't run servers and doesn't have the raw power of linux, but it is fast. It has better threading, better media support, better install, not to mention that it does not have to use X11. Once they get hardware acceleration for OpenGL in, you can be sure that it will be faster than the X11/Mesa/DRI thing. Just putting all those acronyms together suggests a kludge. Lastly, Linux is not hard to install, but it is hard to install stuff on it. Never in windows was I ever missing a library. But with Linux, library compatibility has changed 3 times in the last few years. Under windows, I did not have to install Open GL, under Linux I had to spend two hours setting up Mesa. Under Windows the API is very integrated, under Linux, to get the best APIs, you have to get LibGGI for console, Mesa for 3D, ALSA for sound, etc. People don't want to mess with that. Finally, most home users will not set up a server, but many want to dabble in media. And why the hell, does KDE not run much faster than windows?
And not a GUI oriented friend. A simple, small, embedded OS. With a POSIX interface. Actually, the lite Linux distros w/ RT kernels may be close. ACTUALLY, before I comment more I should really check those out.
Be wouldn't want M$ Office because that would hurt GOBE which has been there for Be since day 1 and GOBE Productive makes better use of BeOS than Office does on a Mac (of course it would take full advantage of windows). Besides Be has made it known many times that it supports the OSS movement. If Be is so willing to sellout then why are they paying duncan wilcox to work fulltime on Bezilla while they have scott barta working on NetPositive?
---Got Coffee?---
Our main problem is that we allow computer users to be too stupid.
Be careful here. The extremely vast majority of people use computers as simple tools, not icons of worship. Ease of use is VERY important.
Exclusive use of GUIs make stupid users.
Again with the ego. "Linux users are smart, everyone else is a bunch of freakin' loons." World Domination will never be achieved with such an attitude. People bitten, flamed, or shat upon, will not embrace something used by the biters, flamers, and shatters, no matter how cheap, powerful, or easy it is.
Give me a PC to fix and I can go to town, give me a car to fix and I'll stare blankly and fiddle with some screws. Just b/c people don't know what you know doesn't make them stupid. Saying they are makes you ignorant.
+&x
I have done a quick and dirty driver and I have added a little extra to the proc FS. I suppose I should submit the proc thing, but the driver is just something I needed short term and isnt up to any standard of quality.
I'm actually crazy enough to want to try this, but I've been having a hard time synching myself up to it. I'm going to try again this weekend. Wish me luck! :)
--
Jake
Face it, it doesn't matter really if the majority of the current linux users boycotte redhat. RH is getting contracts that no other vendor is getting.... like ones with Compaq and Dell. If they get HP and maybe Gateway walking lockstep as well.... do you honestly think the OEMs will be interested in other distro's? No..... because most OEM's wouldn't see any point. Sure slackware and debian will be around, but how long will COL and suse last if RH gets exclusive contracts with basically every OEM and becomes the only name that linux newbies know? OSS doesn't prevent monopolies, it just takers longer to get a monopoly in an OSS world.
---Got Coffee?---
Me again, same coward as above. I agree that wanting Linux as the only OS is bad. I have had discussions before about the precariousness of standards in general. An only thing of some kind can be considered a standard. A standard ideally does not change. Innovation is inherently change. Life moves on. Standards have their place, but they also have their limit and their poison. Even the posix interface has its poison.
NT:
100 Users@$200
2 Servers@$1000
--------------
$22,000
Linux:
100 Users
2 Servers
-------------
~$50
Of course this necessitates the skillz of a local Guru, but at least he doesn't have to explain what a BSOD is.
Free Beer Here! Now go get in your tank and make 'em all faster and more fuel efficient.
+&x
Oh! I was looking forward to techie article about
typecasting as in C data types, and this is some
geebo wanking about Adam West's typecasting. (He's another Feckless who doesn't like to learn
the choices he has so he won't have to make any.)
You know what OS you like, right? So go home.
(Don't you have something to re-compile?)
If I want the system to stop discriminating against me by artificially limiting me to 10 open sockets, I needed (once upon a time) that registry change. MS made sure I had to buy a bunch of crap on top in order to get it (legally) changed. This is (was) bullshit. In order to run a *DIFFERENT* piece of server software effectively on NT, like Netscape's server, I'd have had to buy the version of NT that comes with IIS. This was bundling of a much worse degree than the stuff the DOJ is complaining about. They required the purchase of MS's server-type software before decrippling the system so it would work with anyone else's server-type software.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I used it because I got teh student version for free and it worked better than Win3.11 But damn if it wasn't ugly.
The WPS is confusing and unintuitive and annoying if you come to it from a Mac or Windows (I used both regularly at university at the time).
Examples
The WPS is very powerful but too hard for most people.
my blog: good times, man, good times
Maybe unices needs to be rewritten for modern hardware and technologies, but if unix dies then many people may end up stuck with *GASP* windows
---Got Coffee?---
If you are not allowed by your PHBs to use or develop applications for OSS, wouldn't you rather be allowed to use BeOS instead of Windows?
I do.
What we in the open source community need is really a fresh start on the desktop. Linux is evolving wonderfully as a server and workstation OS for the power user, but if open source is going to win the average user, I really do believe we're going to need something very different from UNIX.
I disagree - what is being built will do quite nicely, thankyou. Make a CD that boots straight into 600x800 SVGA resolution (for example) under KDE (disclaimer: I use BOTH gnome and KDE), automatically supporting as much hardware as possible. *Now* the install program starts - it doesn't have to ask the user much more than whether the system should be permanently installed on the hard disk, and if so, whether it should attempt to preserve the system that's already on there. User says yes, it does it, then (optionally!) reboots just to make sure everything's OK, straight into a normal user account (already set up) and with the xterm buried a couple of menues down.
The innocent new user sees no Unix anywhere, just a slick desktop with lots of apps, ready to play. If the innocent user wants to lose their innocence, of course, just find the xterm, su to root and play away.
This is not science fiction... we're 99.9% of the way to being able to such a CD *now*. To make it perfect, the file format of the CD will have a windows-clickable linload on it, and the CD will be windows-autoplay (*evil grin*).
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
But for God's sake, how many text editors, open source or otherwise, do you use at once? How many mailers? Web browsers? Vector-based drawing programs? Real-time video editing systems? If BeOS only has 10 text editors and Linux has 50, there may be more theoretical choice, but 99% of the users will settle on vi or emacs.
The point of Mr. Hacker's article wasn't that open source is "inherently hard to use," but that Linux is more of a server operating system at this point, and that--in his opinion--it's not going to be able to mount a credible bid for a desktop OS. If you'd like to prove him wrong, don't blather on about how he's promoting "dumbed down" operating systems: whatever BeOS's faults may be, being dumbed down isn't one of them. Instead, figure out what the BeOS UI is doing right and see if you can bring it to X11. (And good luck.)
I don't want any ports of Adobe stuff to the BeOS.
I want native fast clean beos code.
you should read the Neil Stephonson Artical that was linked to from the page, it was intresting as hell and had a pretty good car metiphor for linux and diffrent OSes, it also talked about american culture (or lack therof) and teletype macines.
here's the URL:
http://www-classic.be.com/users/cryptonomicon/b
---------------
Chad Okere
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Of course, if you never get a flat tire then it doesn't matter, does it?
What if the seat suits you fine?
All you ultra-open source guys (and gals) out there miss one critical point--don't fix what's not broken!!
If you have supported hardware (I know, the one major drawback Be has), nothing breaks. It just runs and runs and runs and runs.... Well, you get the idea.
I've been toying with the idea of replacing my Linux box (that I use to connect all my computers to the net) with BeOS. BeOS has a neat little check box in the Network Preferences panel that says "IP Forwarding". One click and it works. I've tested it, and it works quite nice, actually. Also, drop a plug-in into the network's add-on folder and I suddenly have NAT as well. Beats the Linux way. (Which took nearly a week to get right)
All I need is squid or some other web proxy for BeOS and I'll probably be switching. Get rid of Linux here at home. It's such a huge mess and nearly impossible to configure when you start from scratch. (Oh sure, if you've had years of experience in this sort of thing, then maybe it's a piece of cake, but not from my point of view)
Anyway.. I rant. Sorry. But, it's the truth.
Microsoft sells licenses to run a workstation or a server. That's what you pay for (the legal right to run the software in a certain way), not the bits on the CD.
This is as it should be. Intellectual property should be licensed for its specific use.
"how about reading my mail via IMAP?"
Not sure about this one, but you could always use Pine. It's been ported.
"Or displaying X programs on my monitor?"
Pretty sure you can do this. Heck, I think XFree86 has even been ported to BeOS, so I'm sure there's an X viewer out there.
Hey, if not why not take all that wonderful Open Source(TM) code out there and port it? Oh wait.. It's not Linux. Can't use Open Source ANYWHERE but Linux. Gee. How could I be so stupid?
"Or reading Slashdot in a browser that renders it readable?"
What's wrong with N+? Works fine for me.
"Or running StarOffice?"
You just don't get it. There is no Star Office for BeOS. (Yet) So use something else!!! Use Gobe Productive. Or some other one. I swear you don't like BeOS because *gasp* it's DIFFERENT!
"Or working on graphics in the Gimp?"
Gee.. Same problem. I think Gimp is being ported, but you could always use e-Picture. Or some other graphics app. There are a few out there. Heck, one of Gobe Productive's graphics applications will even use Gimp plugins!
"Or...well, you get the point."
Yeah, I do. I see that you are just as bad as all the Microsoft luzzer users that won't switch to Linux. You are so stuck in your ways that you are too blind to see ANY alternative. Remember, if you use nothing BUT Linux, all other OSes (like even Windows itself) are alternative OSes. Linux is no longer an alternative for you. It's required. You can't live without it. You're JUST AS BAD AS THE GENERAL PUBLIC. *gasp!* How can this be? But but.. Linux is the OS of the GNU generation... I'm somehow BETTER THAN THEY ARE!
Wrong.
Get your head out of your ass and look around. Yeah.. A lot different out here isn't it.
*pause*
Oops.. Guess he couldn't handle it. That's got to hurt...
Yea, compared to a Mac or Win 95 the graphics stank like my septic tank. But, the technology under there was awesome. I mean what other Os do you know of that run 2 Desktops at the same time. The second one ready to jump in if the first crashed. It didn't always work right and I ended up restarting most of the time, but I got a warm fuzzy feeling just knowing that the OS was trying to recover on the fly. Ask any OS/2 user if the 3 backups that the system made ever bailed out their machine? It certinaly did on my computer. It had things that I miss on my Mac. IBM's marketing did doom OS/2 to an also ran. It didn't help that version 2 was difficult to install. It demanded a lot out of systems that just dinna have the power. I believe their slogan was "A better windows than Windows." A big myth that was around then was that OS/2 had to run on a PS/2. Also, when a fresh install was up and running, it required extensive tuning to get a decent speed out of it. Moving and resizing SWAPPER.DAT comes quickly to mind. I sincerely hope that Linux and Be can crack open the OS monopoly. I might just my old hard drives out that still have an OS/2 install on them and get my Alternate OS machine running. Just to stick to the Man!
Why do people immediately have to scream Open up the BeOS source? It has many disadvantages as well as advantages :
1) It has controlled and organised design and strategy - Something the open source model doesnt do well is promote _designing_ systems and maintaining them. Can you see an open source project creating a GUI + API like Be's from scratch in anywhere near the time? They group would argue via email forever about details and eventually abandon the project in favour of another X port (because its avaliable)
2) Because it is commercial it can be adopted more widely than 'unsupported' (in the legal sense) free software by companies.
3) Hardware companies are happier to supply proprietry specs for writing support for commercial systems rather than free ones.
People should stop bickering about the 'principle' of it being closed source and take it for what it is and look at both sides of the story subjectively.
Peace,
~Pev
Furthermore, not everyone using linux is obsessed with it succeding in the comercial world. I for one find it extremely useful as a learning platform for Unix stuff and development (I'm a cs student).
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
As to your first question, baggage is all the layers you have in a Linux system. Kernal->libraries->shell->X Windows->Windows Manager->GUI toolkit->Desktop Enviroment->Corba. When Unix was still young, there was only the first three or four layers. Now we have so many complexities. This, in my opinion is baggage.
And your second question, Unix was designed for a text-based system. I can name several consequences. Firstly, the directory structure and PATH argument assume you are typing commands from the command line. There is no standard way of registering applications to the system. Secondly, common Unix things like piping and standard input have no equivalence in a GUI shell. The point is that Unix was made for the console. Unix is flexable to allow for modern GUIs and such like many of us use now on our Linux systems. But how far can you stretch Unix until it snaps?
I shouldn't have asked for the death of Unix. But it isn't evolving either. It is just extending itself to incorporate anything new.
Oh, and thanks for not flaming me. As I read your post, I saw how easilty flaming could have been and I asked for it in part. This is just my opinion as to why Unix doesn't give the newbie a good first impression. And I know some people hate to hear it, but GUIs are the way of the future.
--