FWIW, Sprint PCS phones now have the ability to connect to the Internet. FWIU, you can either surf on the little screen that's on them (I can't see how this is useful really myself, except for maybe sports scores or stock tickers), but you can also plug these things into a laptop's serial port. I believe these things use PPP, but I could be mistaken.
Then there's Detroit, where taxis aren't real popular except to go to the airport. (Even then, most people get a friend to drive them.) I guess in the Motor City, people like their cars too much.:)
Windows 2000 would tell my customers to go away because I didn't give Microsoft enough money?
Excellent point. It'll make people who setup secure Web servers think before they upgrade to W2k. Perhaps some of those people will instead choose Linux for their secure Web server?
If I decide to put up mikenash.com and I want to sell T-Shirts with my picture on them, for something uninteresting like me five CALs is all I need since I probably won't have more than five people buying at time," Nash predicted.
Some people are saying that this only counts authenticated NT users, but this statement would that.
Well, Nash's keyword here is buying. Not browsing. Microsoft is charging for each secure (authenticated) connection. LIke when people hit the "purchase" button.
Microsoft is going to scare off customers.
I agree. There will be a lot of confusion regarding the licensing terms, especially if Microsoft's PR department doesn't play their cards right. There will be a lot of people who will mistakenly say that Microsoft is charging for everyone connected via a Web browser, when this is simply not the case. Hopefully it will scare enough people to seek an alternative (Linux and FreeBSD come to mind:)
Oh, and I think that I might be able to tell you off hand who some of the people are with the highest - often, somebody who is "known" within the community, e.g. ESR, Perens, maybe Havoc Pennington, somebody like that will post in response to an article about them or written by them to answer relating to the article. Because they are the topic, and they are "known", they almost always get straight up into the sky, because people like them.
Err...isn't "Karma" mostly the sum of moderation you've done to other users comments?
Using the speed of technological change as an argument against them is novel, and I'm not sure how happy I am with that. It would be far better to strike down non-competion clauses completely.
I'm not sure how happy I am with non-competition clauses in general. You do have to see it from the the employer's point of view.
In this particular case, I don't think the company has a justification for suing the guy and I agree with the judge.
But let's say you work for General Widgets Corp. and you are heavily involved with the design of what amounts to a technological breakthrough in widgets. Just before General Widgets is about to patent its UltraWidget XLT incorporating the breakthrough, competitor Widgets R Us learns of this and decides to hire you to implement the breakthrough on its new MegaWidget Deluxe, which is will compete with UltraWidget XLT. General Widgets spent hundreds of millions of dollars on developing UltraWidget XLT, and now Widgets R Us has hired you and essentially gotten the technology for free.
Sure, UltraWidget XLT should also be covered by a Non-Disclosure Agreement, but these usually contain a clause non-compete clause.
So is it fair that GW has spent all this money developing UWXLT only to lose it to WRU? I'm guessing that most people would say "probably not." In this case, I would have to say that the non-compete clause is justified.
That's the most intelligent, well thought-out idea I've ever heard anybody say about Star Trek in a long time. Now if only you worked for Paramount...:)
Something like that would even work as a set of specials, with 2 one-hour stories. Another idea would be to pair your idea with classic episodes from TOS, TNG, DS9 (but not voyager because it sucks too bad:)... half hour short, one hour show, perhaps with commentary (ala the Sci-Fi Channel's Star Trek 2nd Edition) and then maybe even another half-hour short....
The studio for the original series was Desilu, which was purchased by Paramount later.
The interesting thing about that is that Paramount wasn't even interested in Star Trek or really any of Desilu's shows at the time. They just wanted their lot. So really, Paramounts "cash cow" is really quite unintentional on Paramount's part.
For the most part I agree with your statement. However, while, as previously stated I'm not a lawyer, I'd have to say that common carrier status is really, really tough here because we are talking about a mailing list. AOL lost this battle at least once already.
Although there is recourse. He could simply claim fair use, which is protected to some extent under trademark laws. For example, I could write a review in magazine about a Corvette, or even compare, say a Dodge Viper to a Corvette, and neither DaimlerChrysler nor General Motors could sue me for trademark infringement because I was reviewing their respective products. Even if I stated that I thought that GM should produce say a "Corvette Lite" which would be low-end version of the Corvette to combat the Mustang, for instance would not be infringement for the same reason. This line of reasoning could be easily extended into saying that the author of the message thought that IDG should produce a "Sendmail for Dummies (R)" is the same thing.
You do have to see it from their point of view, though. Xerox (R) has had the same problem for years because people say "why don't you xerox a copy of that for me." When things become common usage, the company can lose their trademark rights. The message from IDG mentions Aspirin. Aspirin used to be a trademark of (I think) Bristol-Meyers but they lost that because people began referring to any headache pills as aspirin. Now anyone and their mother can all their product aspirin.
AOL is a trademark of America Online, Inc. Dodge, Viper and DaimlerChrysler are trademarks or registered trademarks of DaimlerChrysler Corporation. Corvette, GM and General Motors are trademarks or registered trademarks of General Motors Corp. Mustang is a trademark for Ford Motor Company. IDG and...For Dummies registered trademarks of IDG Books. Bristol-Meyers is a trademark of Bristol-Meyers-Squibb. Xerox is registered trademark of Xerox Corporation. Sendmail is a trademark of Sendmail, Inc. and/or Eric Allman. Surak is a trademark of Paramount Pictures. Please don't sue me, I'm very poor.:)
I have one of them all-in-one-no-name cheap mobo's and it has SiS chipset and and SiS vid chip. work fine with Linux and the newest X. Winmodems? Who needs them when there are cablemodems DSL:)
If you're lucky enough to have them. I live in a major metropolitan area, and cable modems are only available in certain suburbs. (And I can't afford a move right now).
DSL is available but its still like $200 a month. People who are going to buy low-end machines that these companies intend to offer certainly cannot afford $200 a month for DSL, let alone even know what DSL is or have ever even heard of it.
1) I thought OEMs typically pay a large up-front cost for unlimited license to redistribute MS's Shipping PCs that don't run Windows actually costs them because they don't save any money in and have to retool their factories.
M$ used to have a "per processor" licensing arrangement where OEMs would pay per CPU that they shipped. The DOJ told them no, no, shame-on-you and so they stopped doing that. The result was that OEMs now have to pay double and sometimes even triple for each copy of Windows that they used to pay. The fee is much higher than that $100 you pay at the computer store for a retail copy. (And its negotiated per OEM so the price is different for each OEM)
2) Norton Ghost can back up an entire system installation in a hidden partition. Some OEMs use this when a user really screws up their system: run this magic utility and your system will be just like it when you bought it.
Crap like this is why I custom build all my own machines.:)
Probably just those stupid CGI polar bears.:) Or maybe a sound booth like at the record store, only you can hear your favourite coke jingle while watching play a version of Quake featuring the CGI polar bears as target practice. Now that would be cool! Of course they'd have to run Linux...
Now if only I had a Beowulf cluster of coke machines...
In my admittedly somewhat limited experience with Notes, it tends to be slow. We have Notes at GM (they use it primarily for e-mail and phone number databases right now, but this is changing by March when the company will deploy what it calls its "Notes Restructured project" which includes calendaring and group discussions.
I've used Notes/Domino at two work places and helped design databases at one, and IMHO, Notes, while a noteworthy solution (there is nothing like Notes/Domino right now), it appears to try to be all things to all people and as a result has some severe performance problems. This *could* be related to network and server configurations (the networking setup at GM has its problems, and they are characterized by three letters [E, D and S in that order], but lets not get started on that shall we?:) but I think that Notes/Domino does have some performance limitations due to its design.
There are no plug-and-play solutions. Zope is open source and is generic enough that you could create an e-mail/calendaring/group-discussion system between it and Apache/Linux, but this is not as simple as just plugging in Notes and there you go. There are other solutions that are written in perl and python that would work as well, and other people in this discussion area have mentioned those. Again, its not as simple and not as powerful as Notes/Domino when it comes to making it easy, but they are open source solutions that would work.
Of course, you could always use Exhange Server and Outlook, but let's not even get started on the Evil Empire's braindead solutions...:)
Well, it clearly illustrates the government, despite the fact that the technology was well in place well before 1992, has never heard of spell checkers. Which doesn't surprise me.:)
Microsoft was funding a project to use this to put product serial numbers on the screen so they could drive truck through an office park and pick out software pirates. Honest.
Getting all my secrets department"? Uh-huh. More paranoid ravings from the YRO folks. The more YRO read, the less it sounds like a legitimate concern and the more it sounds like the delusions of people who been watching too many "X-Files" episodes. Here's a hint: TV isn't real.
Paranoid rantings? Ok, for the vast majority of the population, who doesn't care what happens to the world as long as they can have a house in the burbs, SUV, 2.5 kids, and no one messes with their bowling night, yes. The NSA has already said in documents released through FOIA, that if you fit into this profile, they're not going to mess with you.
However, the rest of us, who have actually been paying attention to the events of the world, have reason to be nervous. Those of us who have noticed that our rights have been slipping away one by one, those of us who have noticed that the government is wresting control from the people, and those of us who may have been very vocal about their dissatisfaction with having their Constitutional liberties and god-given rights being taken away have a real serious reason to worry. And those of us who have seen the Justice Department kill innocent victims and children at Waco and Ruby Ridge have real reason to be upset.
Granted, the NSA, FBI, CIA, or whatever else government agency is not going to spy on everyone. But if the NSA find reason enough to tap you, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that you will be tapped. What violates national security might interest you. For all I know they could go definately go after ESR next, with all that huge arsenal he has. (HHOS)
Yes there is reason to worry, there is reason to look at the government with a cautious eye. Its people who are completely ignorant who will be the first against the wall when the revolution starts.
AMD NEEDS find a way to get word of their chip out to consumers!...This does not mean just lowering the prices, people (believe it or not) like to pay more it makes them feel as if they have the best their is!
Mostly, AMDs success has been gotten by keeping their prices low. AMD rules the low-end, sub $1000 and sub $500 PC markets right now. The Athlon is their way of breaking into the high-end market. (And it is far more expensive than AMDs other chips, but still WAY cheaper than Intel) Word of mouth is what has gotten them this far, and its working to some extent. I've recommended at least 5 people at work get AMDs because they are cheaper and kick Intel's ass on speed when we are comparing chips at similar clock speeds. Four of them got AMD K6/2 machines, one got a Celery chip but he's far tool clueless worry about.:)
But what do you suggest? People in neon suits? The AMD neon green bunny?:) I agree that AMD needs to establish themselves as a household name like Intel, but they simply don't have the market budget that Intel has.
Netscape went out of business? That's strange. I thought Navigator 5.0 was coming out.
AOL didn't buy Netscape for Navigator...AOL bought Netscape for Netcenter. The fact that Navigator development has slowed to a crawl should actually illustrate the point that Netscape is done...
It's already there. This is probably the best reason. Sure, you could show us all your nerdly prowess turn your Grandfather's really cool new flatscreen PC into a Frankenstein's monster, but would that better? Everything you need is there now, and there's little to be gained by a move as drastic as ripping and replacing the OS.
I don't usually disagree with people just to disagree, but let's play devil's advocate here. What is there to be gained?
reliability Let's face it. No matter how carefully planned and installed by the Gateway folks, Win98 is simply not very reliable. The guy's grandfather is more likely to become frustrated and give up if he's faced with an illegal operation exception five times a day. (Not unusual with any Win98 configuration)
Hardware Issues. The Gateway Profile, while not a laptop, uses laptop-ish hardware, and would similar challenges to Linux on a new laptop. Linux is very good, but it still has a ways to go before it's for serious laptop use. Keep in mind that things like ACPI and USB won't work, and things like sound not work for a long time, if ever. He might really enjoy a USB camera for Christmas!
True to some extent. USB may or may not work, some experimental support is available in the Linux kernel, but few, if any drivers for devices exist. However, USB support might not be an issue. Sound should work on at least a partial basis if it SoundBlaster compatible.
He will actually be able to get Gateway folks to help him so long as the software bears some resemblance to what they shipped.
True, but is grandpa likely to call Gateway for technical support? I think grandpa's most likely to call our illustrious poster, and expect him to fix it. If he's more comfortable with Linux, then there is a real advantage to using Linux over Win98.
In general, don't change things unless there's a *good* reason, and figure out how *he* would like it to before you start the serious twiddling.
That's the most intelligent response I've seen anyone on this thread say...:) (Agreed)
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FWIW, Sprint PCS phones now have the ability to connect to the Internet. FWIU, you can either surf on the little screen that's on them (I can't see how this is useful really myself, except for maybe sports scores or stock tickers), but you can also plug these things into a laptop's serial port. I believe these things use PPP, but I could be mistaken.
Then there's Detroit, where taxis aren't real popular except to go to the airport. (Even then, most people get a friend to drive them.) I guess in the Motor City, people like their cars too much. :)
Windows 2000 would tell my customers to go away because I didn't give Microsoft enough money?
Excellent point. It'll make people who setup secure Web servers think before they upgrade to W2k. Perhaps some of those people will instead choose Linux for their secure Web server?
If I decide to put up mikenash.com and I want to sell T-Shirts with my picture on them, for something uninteresting like me five CALs is all I need since I probably won't have more than five people buying at time," Nash predicted.
:)
Some people are saying that this only counts authenticated NT users, but this statement would that.
Well, Nash's keyword here is buying. Not browsing. Microsoft is charging for each secure (authenticated) connection. LIke when people hit the "purchase" button.
Microsoft is going to scare off customers.
I agree. There will be a lot of confusion regarding the licensing terms, especially if Microsoft's PR department doesn't play their cards right. There will be a lot of people who will mistakenly say that Microsoft is charging for everyone connected via a Web browser, when this is simply not the case. Hopefully it will scare enough people to seek an alternative (Linux and FreeBSD come to mind
Hmmm...isn't the .GIF format patented by AOLpuserve? I believe CI$ attempted this a long time ago and couldn't make it stick.
(I know the Unisys LZW patent is another story...)
Oh, and I think that I might be able to tell you off hand who some of the people are with the highest - often, somebody who is "known" within the community, e.g. ESR, Perens, maybe Havoc Pennington, somebody like that will post in response to an article about them or written by them to answer relating to the article. Because they are the topic, and they are "known", they almost always get straight up into the sky, because people like them.
Err...isn't "Karma" mostly the sum of moderation you've done to other users comments?
How about periodically shuffling blocks of threads with the same score, to even out the exposure?
Well, this wouldn't work if your sort is set to chronological order.
Also, typically only one or maybe two posts at the top level end up with scores of 4 or 5, so shuffling their order will have little impact.
#include
Using the speed of technological change as an argument against them is novel, and I'm not sure how happy I am with that. It would be far better to strike down non-competion clauses completely.
I'm not sure how happy I am with non-competition clauses in general. You do have to see it from the the employer's point of view.
In this particular case, I don't think the company has a justification for suing the guy and I agree with the judge.
But let's say you work for General Widgets Corp. and you are heavily involved with the design of what amounts to a technological breakthrough in widgets. Just before General Widgets is about to patent its UltraWidget XLT incorporating the breakthrough, competitor Widgets R Us learns of this and decides to hire you to implement the breakthrough on its new MegaWidget Deluxe, which is will compete with UltraWidget XLT. General Widgets spent hundreds of millions of dollars on developing UltraWidget XLT, and now Widgets R Us has hired you and essentially gotten the technology for free.
Sure, UltraWidget XLT should also be covered by a Non-Disclosure Agreement, but these usually contain a clause non-compete clause.
So is it fair that GW has spent all this money developing UWXLT only to lose it to WRU? I'm guessing that most people would say "probably not." In this case, I would have to say that the non-compete clause is justified.
That's the most intelligent, well thought-out idea I've ever heard anybody say about Star Trek in a long time. Now if only you worked for Paramount... :)
:) ... half hour short, one hour show, perhaps with commentary (ala the Sci-Fi Channel's Star Trek 2nd Edition) and then maybe even another half-hour short....
Something like that would even work as a set of specials, with 2 one-hour stories. Another idea would be to pair your idea with classic episodes from TOS, TNG, DS9 (but not voyager because it sucks too bad
The studio for the original series was Desilu, which was purchased by Paramount later.
The interesting thing about that is that Paramount wasn't even interested in Star Trek or really any of Desilu's shows at the time. They just wanted their lot. So really, Paramounts "cash cow" is really quite unintentional on Paramount's part.
#include
...For Dummies registered trademarks of IDG Books. Bristol-Meyers is a trademark of Bristol-Meyers-Squibb. Xerox is registered trademark of Xerox Corporation. Sendmail is a trademark of Sendmail, Inc. and/or Eric Allman. Surak is a trademark of Paramount Pictures. Please don't sue me, I'm very poor. :)
For the most part I agree with your statement. However, while, as previously stated I'm not a lawyer, I'd have to say that common carrier status is really, really tough here because we are talking about a mailing list. AOL lost this battle at least once already.
Although there is recourse. He could simply claim fair use, which is protected to some extent under trademark laws. For example, I could write a review in magazine about a Corvette, or even compare, say a Dodge Viper to a Corvette, and neither DaimlerChrysler nor General Motors could sue me for trademark infringement because I was reviewing their respective products. Even if I stated that I thought that GM should produce say a "Corvette Lite" which would be low-end version of the Corvette to combat the Mustang, for instance would not be infringement for the same reason. This line of reasoning could be easily extended into saying that the author of the message thought that IDG should produce a "Sendmail for Dummies (R)" is the same thing.
You do have to see it from their point of view, though. Xerox (R) has had the same problem for years because people say "why don't you xerox a copy of that for me." When things become common usage, the company can lose their trademark rights. The message from IDG mentions Aspirin. Aspirin used to be a trademark of (I think) Bristol-Meyers but they lost that because people began referring to any headache pills as aspirin. Now anyone and their mother can all their product aspirin.
AOL is a trademark of America Online, Inc. Dodge, Viper and DaimlerChrysler are trademarks or registered trademarks of DaimlerChrysler Corporation. Corvette, GM and General Motors are trademarks or registered trademarks of General Motors Corp. Mustang is a trademark for Ford Motor Company. IDG and
I have one of them all-in-one-no-name cheap mobo's and it has SiS chipset and and SiS vid chip. work fine with Linux and the newest X. Winmodems? Who needs them when there are cablemodems DSL :)
If you're lucky enough to have them. I live in a major metropolitan area, and cable modems are only available in certain suburbs. (And I can't afford a move right now).
DSL is available but its still like $200 a month. People who are going to buy low-end machines that these companies intend to offer certainly cannot afford $200 a month for DSL, let alone even know what DSL is or have ever even heard of it.
1) I thought OEMs typically pay a large up-front cost for unlimited license to redistribute MS's Shipping PCs that don't run Windows actually costs them because they don't save any money in and have to retool their factories.
:)
M$ used to have a "per processor" licensing arrangement where OEMs would pay per CPU that they shipped. The DOJ told them no, no, shame-on-you and so they stopped doing that. The result was that OEMs now have to pay double and sometimes even triple for each copy of Windows that they used to pay. The fee is much higher than that $100 you pay at the computer store for a retail copy. (And its negotiated per OEM so the price is different for each OEM)
2) Norton Ghost can back up an entire system installation in a hidden partition. Some OEMs use this when a user really screws up their system: run this magic utility and your system will be just like it when you bought it.
Crap like this is why I custom build all my own machines.
ROFL. I wouldn't mind. I put Linux on them and start my own Beowulf cluster. :)
Sunil? Would that be Linus backwards?
:)
Maybe Xunil...no, still Arabic sounding...
How about Gates? I'll bet Billion-dollar Billy's gotta enough $$$ to push it through.
Probably just those stupid CGI polar bears. :) Or maybe a sound booth like at the record store, only you can hear your favourite coke jingle while watching play a version of Quake featuring the CGI polar bears as target practice. Now that would be cool! Of course they'd have to run Linux...
:)
Now if only I had a Beowulf cluster of coke machines...
(Sorry had to be said
In my admittedly somewhat limited experience with Notes, it tends to be slow. We have Notes at GM (they use it primarily for e-mail and phone number databases right now, but this is changing by March when the company will deploy what it calls its "Notes Restructured project" which includes calendaring and group discussions.
:) but I think that Notes/Domino does have some performance limitations due to its design.
I've used Notes/Domino at two work places and helped design databases at one, and IMHO, Notes, while a noteworthy solution (there is nothing like Notes/Domino right now), it appears to try to be all things to all people and as a result has some severe performance problems. This *could* be related to network and server configurations (the networking setup at GM has its problems, and they are characterized by three letters [E, D and S in that order], but lets not get started on that shall we?
There are no plug-and-play solutions. Zope is open source and is generic enough that you could create an e-mail/calendaring/group-discussion system between it and Apache/Linux, but this is not as simple as just plugging in Notes and there you go. There are other solutions that are written in perl and python that would work as well, and other people in this discussion area have mentioned those. Again, its not as simple and not as powerful as Notes/Domino when it comes to making it easy, but they are open source solutions that would work.
Of course, you could always use Exhange Server and Outlook, but let's not even get started on the Evil Empire's braindead solutions...:)
Well, it clearly illustrates the government, despite the fact that the technology was well in place well before 1992, has never heard of spell checkers. Which doesn't surprise me. :)
Microsoft was funding a project to use this to put product serial numbers on the screen so they could drive truck through an office park and pick out software pirates. Honest.
:)
Now why does this NOT surprise me.
Getting all my secrets department"? Uh-huh. More paranoid ravings from the YRO folks. The more YRO read, the less it sounds like a legitimate concern and the more it sounds like the delusions of people who been watching too many "X-Files" episodes. Here's a hint: TV isn't real.
Paranoid rantings? Ok, for the vast majority of the population, who doesn't care what happens to the world as long as they can have a house in the burbs, SUV, 2.5 kids, and no one messes with their bowling night, yes. The NSA has already said in documents released through FOIA, that if you fit into this profile, they're not going to mess with you.
However, the rest of us, who have actually been paying attention to the events of the world, have reason to be nervous. Those of us who have noticed that our rights have been slipping away one by one, those of us who have noticed that the government is wresting control from the people, and those of us who may have been very vocal about their dissatisfaction with having their Constitutional liberties and god-given rights being taken away have a real serious reason to worry. And those of us who have seen the Justice Department kill innocent victims and children at Waco and Ruby Ridge have real reason to be upset.
Granted, the NSA, FBI, CIA, or whatever else government agency is not going to spy on everyone. But if the NSA find reason enough to tap you, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that you will be tapped. What violates national security might interest you. For all I know they could go definately go after ESR next, with all that huge arsenal he has. (HHOS)
Yes there is reason to worry, there is reason to look at the government with a cautious eye. Its people who are completely ignorant who will be the first against the wall when the revolution starts.
Minor point: HP-UX on PA-RISC 64 has only been available on servers up until like next month, when HP-UX 11 debuts. 10.20 isn't really a 64-bit OS.
:) (BTW--I have always felt that Mr. Packard should have demanded that his name be first :)
But point taken
AMD NEEDS find a way to get word of their chip out to consumers!...This does not mean just lowering the prices, people (believe it or not) like to pay more it makes them feel as if they have the best their is!
:)
:) I agree that AMD needs to establish themselves as a household name like Intel, but they simply don't have the market budget that Intel has.
:)
Mostly, AMDs success has been gotten by keeping their prices low. AMD rules the low-end, sub $1000 and sub $500 PC markets right now. The Athlon is their way of breaking into the high-end market. (And it is far more expensive than AMDs other chips, but still WAY cheaper than Intel) Word of mouth is what has gotten them this far, and its working to some extent. I've recommended at least 5 people at work get AMDs because they are cheaper and kick Intel's ass on speed when we are comparing chips at similar clock speeds. Four of them got AMD K6/2 machines, one got a Celery chip but he's far tool clueless worry about.
But what do you suggest? People in neon suits? The AMD neon green bunny?
I LOVE my AMD K6.
Agreed. My K6/2 450 kicks major ass!
Netscape went out of business? That's strange. I thought Navigator 5.0 was coming out.
AOL didn't buy Netscape for Navigator...AOL bought Netscape for Netcenter. The fact that Navigator development has slowed to a crawl should actually illustrate the point that Netscape is done...
Plug-and-Play is easy to talk about when you make 90% of the peripherals for your platform.
Euro-Din connectors are nice, but hardly an innovation.
It's already there. This is probably the best reason. Sure, you could show us all your nerdly prowess turn your Grandfather's really cool new flatscreen PC into a Frankenstein's monster, but would that better? Everything you need is there now, and there's little to be gained by a move as drastic as ripping and replacing the OS.
:) (Agreed)
I don't usually disagree with people just to disagree, but let's play devil's advocate here. What is there to be gained?
reliability Let's face it. No matter how carefully planned and installed by the Gateway folks, Win98 is simply not very reliable. The guy's grandfather is more likely to become frustrated and give up if he's faced with an illegal operation exception five times a day. (Not unusual with any Win98 configuration)
Hardware Issues. The Gateway Profile, while not a laptop, uses laptop-ish hardware, and would similar challenges to Linux on a new laptop. Linux is very good, but it still has a ways to go before it's for serious laptop use. Keep in mind that things like ACPI and USB won't work, and things like sound not work for a long time, if ever. He might really enjoy a USB camera for Christmas!
True to some extent. USB may or may not work, some experimental support is available in the Linux kernel, but few, if any drivers for devices exist. However, USB support might not be an issue. Sound should work on at least a partial basis if it SoundBlaster compatible.
He will actually be able to get Gateway folks to help him so long as the software bears some resemblance to what they shipped.
True, but is grandpa likely to call Gateway for technical support? I think grandpa's most likely to call our illustrious poster, and expect him to fix it. If he's more comfortable with Linux, then there is a real advantage to using Linux over Win98.
In general, don't change things unless there's a *good* reason, and figure out how *he* would like it to before you start the serious twiddling.
That's the most intelligent response I've seen anyone on this thread say...