NT has always had a CLI that you could do some routine Admin stuff from (register users, file perms, etc). In fact, certain things can *only* be done from the command line.
As for hardware/network configuration, that's probably always going to always be GUI-based. (Which sucks because the mouse port on one of these switch boxes just croaked.) --
A large group of idiots is smarter than a small group of idiots
Note in this case, the large group of Idiots are Windows users. The latest horrible "virus", Worm.Explorer (which you might guess is actually a worm), comes in e-mail with a message that basically says "Hey shithead, run this executable." When the shitheads have Linux on their computers, vulnerablity will be pretty much the same. --
Not to get into the holy war too much, but Win2K has lots of 'scriptablity' built in. I've only seen the VBScript/JavaScript stuff, but I would expect Perl to follow.
Also, do you really think Linux distributions are "permanently innoculated against viruses"? I would suspect that Win2K and Linux are about equally "inoculated". (=resistant to system viri, not as resistant to user-space viri like Melissa or worm.explore). --
Is he the guy that ate his words about the Internet collapsing. (I mean literally, someone who predicted that chewed up their article and swollowed it.) --
Both Intel and Microsoft have certain marketing philosophies to try to prove that they aren't *really* joined at the hip, market-wise. One thing Intel does is support alternative OSs and try to promote compiler technology. Microsoft tries to run on Alpha, etc.
AMD might realize that this is really all nose-thumbing at Microsoft on Intel's part. Is an optimized GCC a good thing? Yes. Will any optimized compiler make any difference at all in a CPU-maker's bottom line? Not really. --
Your post sounds like wishful thinking. I would expect Windows 2000 to ship in the fall of 1999, and if you've been seeing a little anti-Linux FUD here and there, the explosion is really going to hit when W2000 finally ships. So, stock up on the ammo, Linux advocates.
However, if you are actually responsible for IT decisions (and not just chatting on/.), 2001 is a more realistic time frame. Migrating a user base from NT4/Novell/whatever to either Windows 2000 or Linux is not a simple job. The rational types are going to wait to see how things pan out, or use a little of both, depending on the job.
Maybe. It looks like most pre-Pentium II systems have been dropped from the Win2000 Hardware Compatiblity List, although the older drivers still seem to be on the beta cD. (Of course the Windows HCL has about as much value as the Linux Hardware Compatiblity How-To -- you really have to try it and see in either case.)
That having been said, Win2Kb3 is chugging along on my P5-133, 112MB RAM, and is noticably quicker than NT4 on the same box. At least from a user/GUI standpoint, Linux+KDE is much slower than either NT4 or NT5 beta.
It's kind of interesting that this post is marked up as "insightful". Fact is that Win95 uses DOS (IO.SYS) as pretty much a boot loader only. It's like judging Linux on LILO. --
Just as a footnote, your setup used to be extremely common in the late-80s, early-90s with DOS-client LANs. Even when the clients had hard disks (which weren't cheap), applications were run off the network because it made administration simpler. There usually was a boot menu that launched from the Novell login scripts that insulated the users from the DOS prompt.
What killed this setup was Windows 3.1. Usually swapping over the network was extremely slow, and all of your Windows clients had to have exactly the same hardware for it to work (at least for the stuff it handled like video and mouse). Windows also did not like it's system directory marked read-only. --
I know some companies are experimenting with very high resolution screens (like 300dpi versus the current 70-80 dpi). If these become reality, the pixel-dependancy of X won't seem like such a pedantic problem. (PostScript to the rescue?)
While it's true that Linux/BSD has done more to popularize the use of X in PC space than anything else, X clients (if I have the terminology right) have been around on Windows, MacOS, and OS/2 (and maybe even DOS) for a long time. They were fairly widely used until Windows started getting more client-server stuff (like oDBC) built into it. --
Software dithering is really nice, if it can be gotten to work well, like it does on MacOS. People used to do desktop publishing on 256-color monitors and the like, because the Mac could pallette shift so well. It also allows you to drag windows between monitors of different color depths, etc.
I don't know enough about X to say, but is a rewrite (like Y) necessary, or can X be fixed? --
Even though you're using retail pricing, you're probably right.
If it's anything like the WebTV, they lose money on the hardware, and make back on the ISP service (which you have to sign a 12 month contract for). That and Ad revenue and you could possibly make some money (although WebTV hasn't, if I heard correctly). --
Re:Postscript on the display is seriously cool
on
Fifteen Years of X
·
· Score: 2
Good idea, except that NeXT, with it's display postscript, never really got much traction in the desktop publishing industry.
As far as I can tell, Display PostScript (on the Next) does virtually everything X does, and it prints 1:1. Too bad it was never more widely/cheaply licenced. --
Re:X, windows and things like Berlin.
on
Fifteen Years of X
·
· Score: 2
It's true that X has a number of very nice features not found elsewhere, but I think the orignal poster was expressing the feeling that "If I don't need it, and I can't get rid of it, it's bloat". This is a core tenant of the Linux philosophy, but it goes out the 'window' as far as X is concerned.
It would be nice to have a display manager that was designed for single user, non-networked workstations. But, 15 years is a long time. --
As a public company, I doubt RedHat is planning to survive on donations. Furthermore, they know that someone can/has/will undercut them on distribution and retail support, but having a GPL installer is one of the reasons they're the biggest guy on the block, so it's doubtful that they'll change that route.
Of course, I'd have no idea what RedHat's business plan is. (Wouldn't I like to though!) I would imagine they're thinking the real money in enterprise support contracts, contract programming (like Linux/Merced for Intel), and integration services for hardware companies, and so on. This is all vaild of course - just because Microsoft makes much of its money on shrinkwrapped retail doesn't mean that there's not other ways. --
Well considering the $80 that RedHat wants for the supported version, versus the $0 they'll charge you for the unsupported version, there's obviously lots of room here to undercut RedHat, and provide your own "support". This isn't inconsequential money either - RedHat's been one of the top selling retail software packages for a number of months.
This is nothing new. There's a whole bunch of $40 Linux books which are just reprints of how-tos and so on.
I think we're going to see a race to the bottom here, maybe even getting to the point where you'll get Linux in the mail with some offer like AOL CDs.
"NEC" is just another word for "Packard Bell", at least in the USA.
In my experience their stuff has to be near the bottom in terms of product quality. And their computer is a 20th Anniversary Macintosh ripoff (Which itself is a ripoff of a Bose? CD player). --
I think Apple pulled the plug on the ][ in 1993 or 1994. It had an odd name like "Apple//e+ enhanced". I guess people (or schools) were still buying them, even at $1200 or whatever, although they hadn't been manufactured for a while.
What screwed Apple was their decision to push the//gs as a low-end computer rather than making a cheap Mac. If only the LC + Apple ][ card came out years earlier! (When you look at all the Mac stuff - LocalTalk, HyperCard, Mac GUI, that they ported to the//gs, you wonder why they bothered.) --
Slashdot Mirror
NT has always had a CLI that you could do some routine Admin stuff from (register users, file perms, etc). In fact, certain things can *only* be done from the command line.
As for hardware/network configuration, that's probably always going to always be GUI-based. (Which sucks because the mouse port on one of these switch boxes just croaked.)
--
A large group of idiots is smarter than a small group of idiots
Note in this case, the large group of Idiots are Windows users. The latest horrible "virus", Worm.Explorer (which you might guess is actually a worm), comes in e-mail with a message that basically says "Hey shithead, run this executable." When the shitheads have Linux on their computers, vulnerablity will be pretty much the same.
--
Not to get into the holy war too much, but Win2K has lots of 'scriptablity' built in. I've only seen the VBScript/JavaScript stuff, but I would expect Perl to follow.
Also, do you really think Linux distributions are "permanently innoculated against viruses"? I would suspect that Win2K and Linux are about equally "inoculated". (=resistant to system viri, not as resistant to user-space viri like Melissa or worm.explore).
--
Is he the guy that ate his words about the Internet collapsing. (I mean literally, someone who predicted that chewed up their article and swollowed it.)
--
Both Intel and Microsoft have certain marketing philosophies to try to prove that they aren't *really* joined at the hip, market-wise. One thing Intel does is support alternative OSs and try to promote compiler technology. Microsoft tries to run on Alpha, etc.
AMD might realize that this is really all nose-thumbing at Microsoft on Intel's part. Is an optimized GCC a good thing? Yes. Will any optimized compiler make any difference at all in a CPU-maker's bottom line? Not really.
--
Your post sounds like wishful thinking. I would expect Windows 2000 to ship in the fall of 1999, and if you've been seeing a little anti-Linux FUD here and there, the explosion is really going to hit when W2000 finally ships. So, stock up on the ammo, Linux advocates.
However, if you are actually responsible for IT decisions (and not just chatting on
--
Yes, Win2K will run on your machine.
Maybe. It looks like most pre-Pentium II systems have been dropped from the Win2000 Hardware Compatiblity List, although the older drivers still seem to be on the beta cD. (Of course the Windows HCL has about as much value as the Linux Hardware Compatiblity How-To -- you really have to try it and see in either case.)
That having been said, Win2Kb3 is chugging along on my P5-133, 112MB RAM, and is noticably quicker than NT4 on the same box. At least from a user/GUI standpoint, Linux+KDE is much slower than either NT4 or NT5 beta.
--
It's kind of interesting that this post is marked up as "insightful". Fact is that Win95 uses DOS (IO.SYS) as pretty much a boot loader only. It's like judging Linux on LILO.
--
Just as a footnote, your setup used to be extremely common in the late-80s, early-90s with DOS-client LANs. Even when the clients had hard disks (which weren't cheap), applications were run off the network because it made administration simpler. There usually was a boot menu that launched from the Novell login scripts that insulated the users from the DOS prompt.
What killed this setup was Windows 3.1. Usually swapping over the network was extremely slow, and all of your Windows clients had to have exactly the same hardware for it to work (at least for the stuff it handled like video and mouse). Windows also did not like it's system directory marked read-only.
--
I know some companies are experimenting with very high resolution screens (like 300dpi versus the current 70-80 dpi). If these become reality, the pixel-dependancy of X won't seem like such a pedantic problem. (PostScript to the rescue?)
--
While it's true that Linux/BSD has done more to popularize the use of X in PC space than anything else, X clients (if I have the terminology right) have been around on Windows, MacOS, and OS/2 (and maybe even DOS) for a long time. They were fairly widely used until Windows started getting more client-server stuff (like oDBC) built into it.
--
Software dithering is really nice, if it can be gotten to work well, like it does on MacOS. People used to do desktop publishing on 256-color monitors and the like, because the Mac could pallette shift so well. It also allows you to drag windows between monitors of different color depths, etc.
I don't know enough about X to say, but is a rewrite (like Y) necessary, or can X be fixed?
--
Even though you're using retail pricing, you're probably right.
If it's anything like the WebTV, they lose money on the hardware, and make back on the ISP service (which you have to sign a 12 month contract for). That and Ad revenue and you could possibly make some money (although WebTV hasn't, if I heard correctly).
--
Good idea, except that NeXT, with it's display postscript, never really got much traction in the desktop publishing industry.
As far as I can tell, Display PostScript (on the Next) does virtually everything X does, and it prints 1:1. Too bad it was never more widely/cheaply licenced.
--
It's true that X has a number of very nice features not found elsewhere, but I think the orignal poster was expressing the feeling that "If I don't need it, and I can't get rid of it, it's bloat". This is a core tenant of the Linux philosophy, but it goes out the 'window' as far as X is concerned.
It would be nice to have a display manager that was designed for single user, non-networked workstations. But, 15 years is a long time.
--
As a public company, I doubt RedHat is planning to survive on donations. Furthermore, they know that someone can/has/will undercut them on distribution and retail support, but having a GPL installer is one of the reasons they're the biggest guy on the block, so it's doubtful that they'll change that route.
Of course, I'd have no idea what RedHat's business plan is. (Wouldn't I like to though!) I would imagine they're thinking the real money in enterprise support contracts, contract programming (like Linux/Merced for Intel), and integration services for hardware companies, and so on. This is all vaild of course - just because Microsoft makes much of its money on shrinkwrapped retail doesn't mean that there's not other ways.
--
Isn't Tivoli owned by IBM? They might make a good "partner".
--
Why don't you be a man and just use those switches on the front of your computer.
--
I believe that either 2/3 or 3/4 of the states can call for a constitutional convention without requiring any action by the Federal government.
--
Well considering the $80 that RedHat wants for the supported version, versus the $0 they'll charge you for the unsupported version, there's obviously lots of room here to undercut RedHat, and provide your own "support". This isn't inconsequential money either - RedHat's been one of the top selling retail software packages for a number of months.
This is nothing new. There's a whole bunch of $40 Linux books which are just reprints of how-tos and so on.
I think we're going to see a race to the bottom here, maybe even getting to the point where you'll get Linux in the mail with some offer like AOL CDs.
--
Oops! I was actually thinking of B&O!
Something like this: http://www.bang-olufsen.com/default.asp?id=214
-
"NEC" is just another word for "Packard Bell", at least in the USA.
In my experience their stuff has to be near the bottom in terms of product quality. And their computer is a 20th Anniversary Macintosh ripoff (Which itself is a ripoff of a Bose? CD player).
--
I think Apple pulled the plug on the ][ in 1993 or 1994. It had an odd name like "Apple
What screwed Apple was their decision to push the
--
Actually the black Bell+Howell Apple ][ (while cool) were actually pretty common. I doubt that it's worth a lot more than a standard Apple ][
--
Actually, I think what when wrong with the "manufacturing process" is that Steve Jobs insisted that the machine wouldn't have a fan.
--