I have to say that this is a good topic. What are the best open source projects on Windows, well with out a shadow of doubt Open Office would take the cake. My reasons for voting Open Office (OO) as the best.
OO brings a better office suite into computing, instead of focusing on fancy hidden menu's and limited file type support, OO bring a high, very high quality office bundle. I know many people will disagree with me and I'm ready to hear it but personally I haven't used Microsoft Office in years. Even at school the first thing I do each year is put on Open Office and remove Microsoft Office from my computer. I'm not going to list the inside details on why OO is better because really that will just spark issues, but if I have to stand back and pick the award goes to OO being the better office solution.
Other amazing Open Source software packages for Windows, well Cygwin. It's a great way to use a real tool chain on Windows with out the over head of Visual Studio. Allowing a user to access the GNU tool chain on a closed source OS is awesome. In fact I have cygwin replace the normal "shell" on windows, although I don't consider command.com a shell.
Octave a math program which is great when you just don't need Matlab. I'm not saying Matlab sucks, don't get me wrong, it has a place and a use. But when you at home and just want to quickly write a math script Octave is the way to go.
Apart from that there is no need to mention firefox and truecrypt. These programs speak for them selfs.
Thanks
Murdoch5
Why charge anything, I can get a OEM / RTM ubuntu release for free. I started this topic for a reason. People are being ripped off unfairly and I think it needs to stop
Charging a customer because they have an OS installed on a computer / notebook is completely wrong. Lately I've been trying to pick up a notebook for school and I've been getting a run around. I've called Dell, Asus and shopped at the all the major Ontario computers stores, all of them come back with the same answer, you need to buy an OS with the notebook. It doesn't matter if I don't want Windows because I don't get a choice, personally I think forcing a customer to buy an OS is horrible idea.
As a Linux user I don't understand why I'd pay someone to hit next 4 times and partitioning a drive which a 5 year old could do. Even when I talked to Dell they only offered to install the "Big" Linux names.
If I'm going to buy a notebook then I want to make sure it comes unbundled and with a clean HDD so I can put what I need onto it. The problem is I can't seem to get any one to send me a blank notebook that I can install a proper OS to, if I spend the 100 dollar software package bundle then I'll wipe the notebook when I get it wasting the 100 dollars, but when I tell the computer store / company I'm going to wipe it so don't sell me the bundle they tell me they can't.
You could just ask for the no software bundle and install Linux your self and be happy with a real OS, not one that is build on crap and the crapows API.
This article brings up a good point, Does the GNU/Linux desktop try to inovate to much, well I don't think so. It's a simple break down when you compair Gnome and KDE at least for what they offer a normal user face value. On the KDE side you have a very sleek indepth overall style. On the Gnome side you have a very nice toned down working style.
On a personal note I don't like KDE, I' a Gnome fan and I've been for years. I don't see the place of having extra graphical effects on the desktop, It's one of the sole reasons I hate Windows (Among there other long list of faliure). If you take a look at what a normal user wants to see just ask your computer basic user sister or mom. In my case my girl friend and sister and brother all want the same thing and thats to "look good". Most users don't case what is under the hood running the show and hence why the Windows OS has been so sucessful. The rest of us actually do care what runs the system and so we take little notice to what UI would work for us. As far as I'm concerned I just need a functional desktop enviroment to get the job done and thats Gnome.
If you want to bring up the other long list of inovations you'd be wasting your time. Sure Gnome and KDE were doing things far before Microsoft ever touched them but does that matter. Inovation is a good thing and it can lead to great computer experiance but theres's no point agruing at lenght about it. In the end it's what works for you.
I know what you mean, I had C Prof who couldn't stand Linux / Unix. So when I use to do my labs I'd always use a Linux box and write the code to work on my Linux box, to make sure I could use the same code in Windows i just use to include the unix standard lib. My prof hated that I did that and always said "If Linux was so good then there would be no Windows", I of course don't agree. My prof was also a one compiler only teacher and if you couldn't use Visual Studio then you couldn't hand in your code, well sure enought my code never compiled in Visual. When I told him to compile it in Dev he always got in a fuss.
It's not that my code didn't work, infact it worked better then 90% of the class. My code was more portable because of library's I used and it compiled under more standards of C, such as C99 GNU99 K&R etc....
I also like above someone said that a Prof shouldn't had out Lab X year after year and I agree with that to, because my prof had ran the labs for 5 years he knew exactly what code worked his way the best so like you said any thing else was wrong. Well I think thats BS, The points a program should be rated on are as follows.
1) Does it work after being compiled
2) Does it compile on a normal none Microsoft compiler such Dev C++, GCC, Watcom C etc...
3) Does the code make sense to achieve the result.
It's to bad most profs don't mark this way but if they ever did it would be nice.
BTW I ended up snapping at my prof one day and theatened to take him to college board if he didn't pass me and sure enough he changed my 54 to 75, interesting how programs that worked were going to get 54 and after a few choice words that becomes a 75.
This prof should be taken into questioning by the University. How can he / she agrue that the student commited any breach of ethics. If the profs wants to tell the student that he can fail if he doesn't take his code down then just what does this prof think of Open Source projects. I had a simlar prof at my College who couldn't stand when students shared even the smallest line of code, even a printf.
I have to give the student credit because he didn't put it up till after the due date, meaning no one could cheat. In either case it's his right to share his code and if he wants to post it then he should be allowed. If another student copies the code then get the other student in trouble and not the original author.
If a student is dumb enough to copy code straight from a source with out understanding it then they should fail. There is nothing wrong with reading code to understand it and then writing the code yourself in your own style.
The student who posted his code did nothing wrong, he wouldn't of done anything wrong even if he posted when he finished even if the dead line was not up. His code his choice, as long as he put a disclaimer up saying not to copy it or even the GPL or one of it's variants then he's covered.
Any major platform yes, Abiword, OO, MS Office, Star Office, KOffice, GOffice, any of them should be accepted and PDF is a good document format for large documents not for little labs
I actually had profs in College up here in Ontario that would not accept documents submitted from Open Office, I'm not joking. All of my labs were done using Open Office because I prefer it over MS Office and it works on Linux my plateform of choice. We had to submit electronic copies of the labs to the professor to be checked for stolen work, well it turns out my prof couldn't open any of my labs.
I was in Computer Eng program and when I tried to defend my point that a Comp Eng prof should be skilled with computers he shot it down saying, "Well.... no I should know how to use Windows and MS Office and then some circuit software". I was pissed and ended up converting all the documents to PDF just so I could pass.
People who are all Open Office is horrible really don't understand it, it's a better office platform because it's supported on more OS's then MS office, future more a college who doesn't support it and yet has a Comp Eng program really makes there selfs look bad.
To be fair, I've only used it on the school computers that we were given. It could be completely probable that the computers are crap and they were, totally horrible computers, P4's with 1 GB Ram and Windows. We had 6 people in our class and all 6 computers had problems with Quartus. So I don't know if it was the computers but I have had nothing good to say about Quartus.
Here's my problem with FPGA's / CPLD's and yes I have negitive Bias towards them so I'm willing to come out and say it. Our prof was the kind of guy who would print from the text book and then not teach us. So i understand that HDL is not C and i can respect that but i also said that in special cases FPGAs and CPLDs are fine.
so for CPU design a FPGA / CPLD is the right tool but theres alot of stuff profs have us do that there is no reason for like pong.
I just never saw the use of them for every day work but that is just me i guess.
I agree with you, that I wont get much hands on value out of building my own compiler / language but the amount of knowledge I can gain from taking ont he project would be execellent.
Your also right in assuming the polymorphic array, I called the Marray, was not staticly typed. The array was a complex method of varable agrument lists and macros and etc... It took probley 50 + hours of work but I was able to finish it. and it was a very good project to future my understanding of C which went from good to excellent. I believe in understanding a language in and out and around before learning another.
Personally I'd rather only know 5 extrememly well like the back of my hand then know 12 only moderitly well.
I have to mention this because I think it's important, well you can find programs for helping with HDL there is one I have to point out Quartus, it's probley the most broken program for doing HDL.
It seems fitting that if your going to ask the question Verilog or Vhdl you need to also look at what your going to use to program these. In college we had to use a program called Quartus from
Everything we ever tried to do using Quartus was overly hard. Every time we needed to assign pins or select a device Quartus would either fail or it's servers JTAG would crash or we'd have to reboot Windows. I don't want to rip this appear but as a moral and ethical person I had to inform you of this.
Quartus can help with Vhdl and Verilog for sure. I'm not saying it can't but everything you'll ever do with it is made 10 x harder and more complex then it ever has to be. If you going to teach students make sure to say away from this software!
Verilog, I've had to program FPGA's and CPLD's and the one thing I can say for sure is VHDL is the worst programming lanugange of all time. It's syntax is horrible, it's keywords are non sense, it's declerations are crap, all in all it's horrible.
Vhdl solves 0 problems with helping a student learn hardware design. From a personal note I don't think anyone should use FPGA's / CPLD's. They don't solve a single problem that can't be done in pure software. Future more what use is it to say make a Train program on a FPGA / CPLD. There is real use for these hardware device.
My prof made it sound like they were the most important devices in the world and I have to disagree with him completely. I would understand 5 - 10 years ago when we simply didn't have the hardware preformance we have now, then a FPGA / CPLD could be useful.
Well VHDL might have a ton of existing libs for it and it might be reconized widely, it's still a horrible and hidious method of hardware design period. We had to do many labs this year using it and really there was no time saved, NONE, and from what we were taught it would make the job easiler!
After spending 4 months with VHDL and then 1 week with Verilog, there's no completion. Verilog is a much much better method of programming FPGA's / CPLD's. Hands down it wins, it's like asking which is better for programming a airport system , Hand Assembling the software using ATT&T syntax in Windows Debug (VHDL) or using C (Verilog). All the labs the entire class did were preformed 1000x faster in Verilog with a much higher level of understanding.
If you have to pick, it's not a question just and answer it's Verilog all the way. VHDL has to retire, it's of no use, it's horrible to work with, it's horrible to use and forget trying to understand it to a decent level. Verilog is very nice to work with and it omits many of the down falls of VHDL.
I would also like to add that doing FPGA / CPLD design is also becoming rather pointless, with the advances in modern computer programming languages and compiler, it's no longer a case of not having a fast software solution. The hardware and the software are no longer seperated by such a huge amount, well there might be a slight and I mean maybe 1 - 5% increase in preformance using a FPGA / CPLD I don't think that becomes enough of a reason for using them anymore. At least not in college and university programs, doing labs where you have to program a game like Tetris or Space Invaders, what does that teach you. What it does is waste hours and hours of dealing with problems and bugs and crappy syntax do get something that doesn't satify any need.
All in all I think the FPGA and the CPLD,except in special cases, have served there purpose and are no longer a good solution to computer and electronic design. Unless someone can make a hardware desciption language that can actually make sense and flow, the FPGA and CPLD's are done.
Then you just have to build in the features you need, I've personally made some major libs for C, I made a polymorphic array with poly data type support and special list methods etc..., C is very flexible language.
The problem with all the high level one is that you get everything given to you and you don't nessary understand it. For instance, polymorphism, how many programmers actually understand it.
Actually the thing I'm most interested in doing is making my own language, I know it would be primitive and hard but I would think it would be enjoyable.
Personally I'd pick C as being the best all around programming language to work with, and that is C NOT C++.
C has all the features needed in a great programming lang (PL) . You can interface close enough to the hardware for complete control, you can inline assembler right into the code. The preprocessing feature work awesome, using macros to replace short functions, even the library's a user has access to. The syntax is great to work with, it's a quick to temp up PL, you can really make a functional program in less then 2 min that has meaning, with out comments mind you.
C is available on all modern platforms, C has the best compiler of all time on it's side GCC, The GTK / Gnome environment is even based off C. C has everything needed in PL to make it the number 1 pick of all time. Needless to say it's also stood the test of time.
I'e done something like this for a college project, not as complex but we built a 68020 using wirewrap. My only question, why didn't he send away for a PCB after the design was done?
None of the above, if Linux and Unix can run on very low memory why can't Windows, if MS wants to make Windows look like this Mecca of OS's then they should build it to go head to head with the real Operating Systems. Having you memory requirement set at 1GB just shows that the developers aren't thinking about Memory but more the features they want to build in.
This would be a problem. To prove that there are Linux distro's which can run under 32MB Ram here are some links.
http://damnsmalllinux.org/index.html
http://www.tinysofa.org/
http://www.slackware.org
http://www.gentoo.org
http://www.freebsd.org
http://www.openbsd.org
So this shows that maybe Windows isn't such a great OS as it's made out to be, well I'll agree Windows 7 isn't bad, Windows still needs a lot of work to come out a play in the real OS arena with the big boys of the *Nix community.
Slashdot Mirror
I have to say that this is a good topic. What are the best open source projects on Windows, well with out a shadow of doubt Open Office would take the cake. My reasons for voting Open Office (OO) as the best.
OO brings a better office suite into computing, instead of focusing on fancy hidden menu's and limited file type support, OO bring a high, very high quality office bundle. I know many people will disagree with me and I'm ready to hear it but personally I haven't used Microsoft Office in years. Even at school the first thing I do each year is put on Open Office and remove Microsoft Office from my computer. I'm not going to list the inside details on why OO is better because really that will just spark issues, but if I have to stand back and pick the award goes to OO being the better office solution.
Other amazing Open Source software packages for Windows, well Cygwin. It's a great way to use a real tool chain on Windows with out the over head of Visual Studio. Allowing a user to access the GNU tool chain on a closed source OS is awesome. In fact I have cygwin replace the normal "shell" on windows, although I don't consider command.com a shell.
Octave a math program which is great when you just don't need Matlab. I'm not saying Matlab sucks, don't get me wrong, it has a place and a use. But when you at home and just want to quickly write a math script Octave is the way to go.
Apart from that there is no need to mention firefox and truecrypt. These programs speak for them selfs. Thanks
Murdoch5
What will rebranding actually do for them, will it increase sales, will it make room for better expansion or is it really just pointless!
Why charge anything, I can get a OEM / RTM ubuntu release for free. I started this topic for a reason. People are being ripped off unfairly and I think it needs to stop
I know Linux in and out it wouldn't be hard to install even if you have to make a port.
I know I could find one on Google, thats not the problem, the problem is major computer company's aren't offering the option.
Really!!! sure, you have an online store, I'm interested and Dell can just make a live CD with hardware testing programs to run the tests
Charging a customer because they have an OS installed on a computer / notebook is completely wrong. Lately I've been trying to pick up a notebook for school and I've been getting a run around. I've called Dell, Asus and shopped at the all the major Ontario computers stores, all of them come back with the same answer, you need to buy an OS with the notebook. It doesn't matter if I don't want Windows because I don't get a choice, personally I think forcing a customer to buy an OS is horrible idea.
As a Linux user I don't understand why I'd pay someone to hit next 4 times and partitioning a drive which a 5 year old could do. Even when I talked to Dell they only offered to install the "Big" Linux names.
If I'm going to buy a notebook then I want to make sure it comes unbundled and with a clean HDD so I can put what I need onto it. The problem is I can't seem to get any one to send me a blank notebook that I can install a proper OS to, if I spend the 100 dollar software package bundle then I'll wipe the notebook when I get it wasting the 100 dollars, but when I tell the computer store / company I'm going to wipe it so don't sell me the bundle they tell me they can't.
Does anyone else have this problem?
You could just ask for the no software bundle and install Linux your self and be happy with a real OS, not one that is build on crap and the crapows API.
This article brings up a good point, Does the GNU/Linux desktop try to inovate to much, well I don't think so. It's a simple break down when you compair Gnome and KDE at least for what they offer a normal user face value. On the KDE side you have a very sleek indepth overall style. On the Gnome side you have a very nice toned down working style.
On a personal note I don't like KDE, I' a Gnome fan and I've been for years. I don't see the place of having extra graphical effects on the desktop, It's one of the sole reasons I hate Windows (Among there other long list of faliure). If you take a look at what a normal user wants to see just ask your computer basic user sister or mom. In my case my girl friend and sister and brother all want the same thing and thats to "look good". Most users don't case what is under the hood running the show and hence why the Windows OS has been so sucessful. The rest of us actually do care what runs the system and so we take little notice to what UI would work for us. As far as I'm concerned I just need a functional desktop enviroment to get the job done and thats Gnome.
If you want to bring up the other long list of inovations you'd be wasting your time. Sure Gnome and KDE were doing things far before Microsoft ever touched them but does that matter. Inovation is a good thing and it can lead to great computer experiance but theres's no point agruing at lenght about it. In the end it's what works for you.
I know what you mean, I had C Prof who couldn't stand Linux / Unix. So when I use to do my labs I'd always use a Linux box and write the code to work on my Linux box, to make sure I could use the same code in Windows i just use to include the unix standard lib. My prof hated that I did that and always said "If Linux was so good then there would be no Windows", I of course don't agree. My prof was also a one compiler only teacher and if you couldn't use Visual Studio then you couldn't hand in your code, well sure enought my code never compiled in Visual. When I told him to compile it in Dev he always got in a fuss.
It's not that my code didn't work, infact it worked better then 90% of the class. My code was more portable because of library's I used and it compiled under more standards of C, such as C99 GNU99 K&R etc....
I also like above someone said that a Prof shouldn't had out Lab X year after year and I agree with that to, because my prof had ran the labs for 5 years he knew exactly what code worked his way the best so like you said any thing else was wrong. Well I think thats BS, The points a program should be rated on are as follows.
1) Does it work after being compiled
2) Does it compile on a normal none Microsoft compiler such Dev C++, GCC, Watcom C etc...
3) Does the code make sense to achieve the result.
It's to bad most profs don't mark this way but if they ever did it would be nice.
BTW I ended up snapping at my prof one day and theatened to take him to college board if he didn't pass me and sure enough he changed my 54 to 75, interesting how programs that worked were going to get 54 and after a few choice words that becomes a 75.
This prof should be taken into questioning by the University. How can he / she agrue that the student commited any breach of ethics. If the profs wants to tell the student that he can fail if he doesn't take his code down then just what does this prof think of Open Source projects. I had a simlar prof at my College who couldn't stand when students shared even the smallest line of code, even a printf.
I have to give the student credit because he didn't put it up till after the due date, meaning no one could cheat. In either case it's his right to share his code and if he wants to post it then he should be allowed. If another student copies the code then get the other student in trouble and not the original author.
If a student is dumb enough to copy code straight from a source with out understanding it then they should fail. There is nothing wrong with reading code to understand it and then writing the code yourself in your own style.
The student who posted his code did nothing wrong, he wouldn't of done anything wrong even if he posted when he finished even if the dead line was not up. His code his choice, as long as he put a disclaimer up saying not to copy it or even the GPL or one of it's variants then he's covered.
Any major platform yes, Abiword, OO, MS Office, Star Office, KOffice, GOffice, any of them should be accepted and PDF is a good document format for large documents not for little labs
I actually had profs in College up here in Ontario that would not accept documents submitted from Open Office, I'm not joking. All of my labs were done using Open Office because I prefer it over MS Office and it works on Linux my plateform of choice. We had to submit electronic copies of the labs to the professor to be checked for stolen work, well it turns out my prof couldn't open any of my labs.
I was in Computer Eng program and when I tried to defend my point that a Comp Eng prof should be skilled with computers he shot it down saying, "Well.... no I should know how to use Windows and MS Office and then some circuit software". I was pissed and ended up converting all the documents to PDF just so I could pass.
People who are all Open Office is horrible really don't understand it, it's a better office platform because it's supported on more OS's then MS office, future more a college who doesn't support it and yet has a Comp Eng program really makes there selfs look bad.
Who cares why it's coming back, the point is it is coming back!
To be fair, I've only used it on the school computers that we were given. It could be completely probable that the computers are crap and they were, totally horrible computers, P4's with 1 GB Ram and Windows. We had 6 people in our class and all 6 computers had problems with Quartus. So I don't know if it was the computers but I have had nothing good to say about Quartus.
Here's my problem with FPGA's / CPLD's and yes I have negitive Bias towards them so I'm willing to come out and say it. Our prof was the kind of guy who would print from the text book and then not teach us. So i understand that HDL is not C and i can respect that but i also said that in special cases FPGAs and CPLDs are fine.
so for CPU design a FPGA / CPLD is the right tool but theres alot of stuff profs have us do that there is no reason for like pong.
I just never saw the use of them for every day work but that is just me i guess.
I agree with you, that I wont get much hands on value out of building my own compiler / language but the amount of knowledge I can gain from taking ont he project would be execellent.
Your also right in assuming the polymorphic array, I called the Marray, was not staticly typed. The array was a complex method of varable agrument lists and macros and etc... It took probley 50 + hours of work but I was able to finish it. and it was a very good project to future my understanding of C which went from good to excellent. I believe in understanding a language in and out and around before learning another.
Personally I'd rather only know 5 extrememly well like the back of my hand then know 12 only moderitly well.
http://www.altera.com/products/software/quartus-ii/subscription-edition/qts-se-index.html
Everything we ever tried to do using Quartus was overly hard. Every time we needed to assign pins or select a device Quartus would either fail or it's servers JTAG would crash or we'd have to reboot Windows. I don't want to rip this appear but as a moral and ethical person I had to inform you of this.
Quartus can help with Vhdl and Verilog for sure. I'm not saying it can't but everything you'll ever do with it is made 10 x harder and more complex then it ever has to be. If you going to teach students make sure to say away from this software!
Verilog, I've had to program FPGA's and CPLD's and the one thing I can say for sure is VHDL is the worst programming lanugange of all time. It's syntax is horrible, it's keywords are non sense, it's declerations are crap, all in all it's horrible.
Vhdl solves 0 problems with helping a student learn hardware design. From a personal note I don't think anyone should use FPGA's / CPLD's. They don't solve a single problem that can't be done in pure software. Future more what use is it to say make a Train program on a FPGA / CPLD. There is real use for these hardware device.
My prof made it sound like they were the most important devices in the world and I have to disagree with him completely. I would understand 5 - 10 years ago when we simply didn't have the hardware preformance we have now, then a FPGA / CPLD could be useful.
Well VHDL might have a ton of existing libs for it and it might be reconized widely, it's still a horrible and hidious method of hardware design period. We had to do many labs this year using it and really there was no time saved, NONE, and from what we were taught it would make the job easiler!
After spending 4 months with VHDL and then 1 week with Verilog, there's no completion. Verilog is a much much better method of programming FPGA's / CPLD's. Hands down it wins, it's like asking which is better for programming a airport system , Hand Assembling the software using ATT&T syntax in Windows Debug (VHDL) or using C (Verilog). All the labs the entire class did were preformed 1000x faster in Verilog with a much higher level of understanding.
If you have to pick, it's not a question just and answer it's Verilog all the way. VHDL has to retire, it's of no use, it's horrible to work with, it's horrible to use and forget trying to understand it to a decent level. Verilog is very nice to work with and it omits many of the down falls of VHDL.
I would also like to add that doing FPGA / CPLD design is also becoming rather pointless, with the advances in modern computer programming languages and compiler, it's no longer a case of not having a fast software solution. The hardware and the software are no longer seperated by such a huge amount, well there might be a slight and I mean maybe 1 - 5% increase in preformance using a FPGA / CPLD I don't think that becomes enough of a reason for using them anymore. At least not in college and university programs, doing labs where you have to program a game like Tetris or Space Invaders, what does that teach you. What it does is waste hours and hours of dealing with problems and bugs and crappy syntax do get something that doesn't satify any need.
All in all I think the FPGA and the CPLD,except in special cases, have served there purpose and are no longer a good solution to computer and electronic design. Unless someone can make a hardware desciption language that can actually make sense and flow, the FPGA and CPLD's are done.
Thanks
Murdoch
Then you just have to build in the features you need, I've personally made some major libs for C, I made a polymorphic array with poly data type support and special list methods etc..., C is very flexible language.
The problem with all the high level one is that you get everything given to you and you don't nessary understand it. For instance, polymorphism, how many programmers actually understand it.
Actually the thing I'm most interested in doing is making my own language, I know it would be primitive and hard but I would think it would be enjoyable.
True, but it's not practical to use Assembler for much any more, maybe a short uC program but other then that, there is not alot of use for it.
Personally I'd pick C as being the best all around programming language to work with, and that is C NOT C++. C has all the features needed in a great programming lang (PL) . You can interface close enough to the hardware for complete control, you can inline assembler right into the code. The preprocessing feature work awesome, using macros to replace short functions, even the library's a user has access to. The syntax is great to work with, it's a quick to temp up PL, you can really make a functional program in less then 2 min that has meaning, with out comments mind you.
C is available on all modern platforms, C has the best compiler of all time on it's side GCC, The GTK / Gnome environment is even based off C. C has everything needed in PL to make it the number 1 pick of all time. Needless to say it's also stood the test of time.
I'll see if I can find it, I'm pretty sure we used a 16 Mhz Clock and we had to write the OS in Assembler
I'e done something like this for a college project, not as complex but we built a 68020 using wirewrap. My only question, why didn't he send away for a PCB after the design was done?
http://damnsmalllinux.org/index.html
http://www.tinysofa.org/
http://www.slackware.org
http://www.gentoo.org
http://www.freebsd.org
http://www.openbsd.org
So this shows that maybe Windows isn't such a great OS as it's made out to be, well I'll agree Windows 7 isn't bad, Windows still needs a lot of work to come out a play in the real OS arena with the big boys of the *Nix community.