Let's see... we don't have GCC 3.0, Linux 2.4.0 or KDE2 yet. This sounds to me like a perfect opportunity to release RH 6.3 - use updated versions of all the old trees, no incompatibilities, where's the problem?
Instead, the managers / marketing execs decide "oh no! we need a 7.0 release" and the techs have to scramble to get something that *looks* like a major upgrade. Bad news.
Red Hat's x.0 releases have a bad track record. I specifically avoided downloading RH 7.0 for that very reason, even before I heard about the bugs. Even in 6.2, the "sndconfig" scripts were horribly broken (at least for my ISA-PnP based AWE64, not a rare card by any means). For my dad's conversion to Linux, I eventually settled on Mandrake 7.1. Not perfect either, but *much* more polished.
As for GCC 2.95.2, I installed that on my RH 6.2 system a while back, and have subsequently compiled kernel 2.4.0-test8 and XFree86 4.0.1 under it - the two biggest release packages I can readily think of. No problems there...
http://achurch.dragonfire.net/irc3/ is a proposal called IRC3 that at least includes support for redundant links, by Andy Church (who originally wrote the most widely-used implementation of IRC Services currently available).
I read through it a while ago, didn't see anything obviously wrong with it - although at that point there were still a few loose ends pointed out in the text. Problems with retaining sync across a redundant-link network, in particular (this is why IRC-II, the current protocol, specified non-redundant links).
Other enhancements in IRC3 include better international support and features which should encourage better-designed IRC clients.
Interesting to note, I have a Quadra 840av (7 years old) which is still quite responsive under MacOS 8.1, has full 16-bit sound (decent DAC) and can write CDs at 8x speed *from it's original HD*...
I also have a PowerMac 8100, which I recently upgraded with a G3 CPU card (best £400 i spent yet) and an 18Gb HD... it can now play any game/program written more than 2 years ago, and it's a 6-year-old machine.
This is the *big* advantage of Macs - they just keep going, and you can upgrade them with a couple of components and they keep being as useful as a brand-new machine (if not quite as fast). Admittedly, one can throw together a PC for next to nothing and stick Linux on it (the PC i did that to is incredibly useful in it's own right), but it's not the same. Example: I have a P166/MMX on a "good" m/board from the day... and because I fitted extra RAM which took it over 64Mb, the L2 cache doesn't work any more. How lame is that?
....at which point you start running Linux or some other *IX instead, which is actually scalable. I don't remember seeing Pine slowing down by a factor of 100 or so over the past 10 years....
I am now running a fantastic amount of server-level stuff on my old 486DX/25 with 28Mb RAM. The fact is, 20 years ago you'd have killed for that 486 to run your entire business on.:)
Has anyone read through the official Apple Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines (available as a PDF from somewhere on http://developer.apple.com/)? This document dates from the relatively early days of the Mac, but it's great stuff - you can read it and see exactly what's wrong with Windows (and other UI's), even though it was written well before Win95 was released.
The Mac isn't "dumbed down". Instead, all the functions needed are accessible, even to a novice user. Extra functionality needed? Go get a shareware or freeware extension for the OS - there's tons of them (OK, there's very little open-source out there).
Windows is what I would call "dumb" - not "dumbed-down". I still remember the first time I used Win98, after having used Win95 a few times before - I tried to traverse the Start menu and wound up dragging menu items around the menu and onto the Desktop! And this from an experienced computer user.
Then I have to use M$ Word for my C.Sci. exam, and I spend at least 10 minutes searching for the "Turn off autocorrect" and "Turn off spelling/grammar checking" options because they frankly get in the way... I had to know exactly what I was looking for in order to find them. That is *not* ease of use. An electric typewriter is easy to use, because you know what it's going to do when you hit the keys.
As for Linux... well there are quite a few GUIs for it, but I've never really tried to use Linux as my primary workstation OS. My elderly 486 sits in the corner with my modem inside it and runs a whole lotta server processes rather nicely, thank you. I've tried KDE and GNOME, and prefer KDE because you can configure it to behave roughly like a Mac (ie. predictably). I use FVWM2 more often than not, though, because it's so lightweight and does everything I need it to.
The command-line looks daunting to a novice, I'll grant you that. But my mother has learned to effectively use a BBC Micro where she has completely failed to master any of three different GUIs (RiscOS, MacOS, Windows). I feel confident I could teach her to use Pine, Pico and possibly Lynx, whereas I would shudder at the thought of letting her loose on Eudora, X-Emacs or Netscape. Different people have different skills - most do well at following step-by-step instructions however, and that earmarks them for the command-line. But "ugh - it doesn't have pretty pictures!"....
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Let's see... we don't have GCC 3.0, Linux 2.4.0 or KDE2 yet. This sounds to me like a perfect opportunity to release RH 6.3 - use updated versions of all the old trees, no incompatibilities, where's the problem?
Instead, the managers / marketing execs decide "oh no! we need a 7.0 release" and the techs have to scramble to get something that *looks* like a major upgrade. Bad news.
Red Hat's x.0 releases have a bad track record. I specifically avoided downloading RH 7.0 for that very reason, even before I heard about the bugs. Even in 6.2, the "sndconfig" scripts were horribly broken (at least for my ISA-PnP based AWE64, not a rare card by any means). For my dad's conversion to Linux, I eventually settled on Mandrake 7.1. Not perfect either, but *much* more polished.
As for GCC 2.95.2, I installed that on my RH 6.2 system a while back, and have subsequently compiled kernel 2.4.0-test8 and XFree86 4.0.1 under it - the two biggest release packages I can readily think of. No problems there...
http://achurch.dragonfire.net/irc3/ is a proposal called IRC3 that at least includes support for redundant links, by Andy Church (who originally wrote the most widely-used implementation of IRC Services currently available).
I read through it a while ago, didn't see anything obviously wrong with it - although at that point there were still a few loose ends pointed out in the text. Problems with retaining sync across a redundant-link network, in particular (this is why IRC-II, the current protocol, specified non-redundant links).
Other enhancements in IRC3 include better international support and features which should encourage better-designed IRC clients.
Interesting to note, I have a Quadra 840av (7 years old) which is still quite responsive under MacOS 8.1, has full 16-bit sound (decent DAC) and can write CDs at 8x speed *from it's original HD*...
I also have a PowerMac 8100, which I recently upgraded with a G3 CPU card (best £400 i spent yet) and an 18Gb HD... it can now play any game/program written more than 2 years ago, and it's a 6-year-old machine.
This is the *big* advantage of Macs - they just keep going, and you can upgrade them with a couple of components and they keep being as useful as a brand-new machine (if not quite as fast). Admittedly, one can throw together a PC for next to nothing and stick Linux on it (the PC i did that to is incredibly useful in it's own right), but it's not the same. Example: I have a P166/MMX on a "good" m/board from the day... and because I fitted extra RAM which took it over 64Mb, the L2 cache doesn't work any more. How lame is that?
Where do you want to plug in the 1" square Mobile P-III in your desktop m/board?
....at which point you start running Linux or some other *IX instead, which is actually scalable. I don't remember seeing Pine slowing down by a factor of 100 or so over the past 10 years....
:)
I am now running a fantastic amount of server-level stuff on my old 486DX/25 with 28Mb RAM. The fact is, 20 years ago you'd have killed for that 486 to run your entire business on.
Has anyone read through the official Apple Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines (available as a PDF from somewhere on http://developer.apple.com/)? This document dates from the relatively early days of the Mac, but it's great stuff - you can read it and see exactly what's wrong with Windows (and other UI's), even though it was written well before Win95 was released.
The Mac isn't "dumbed down". Instead, all the functions needed are accessible, even to a novice user. Extra functionality needed? Go get a shareware or freeware extension for the OS - there's tons of them (OK, there's very little open-source out there).
Windows is what I would call "dumb" - not "dumbed-down". I still remember the first time I used Win98, after having used Win95 a few times before - I tried to traverse the Start menu and wound up dragging menu items around the menu and onto the Desktop! And this from an experienced computer user.
Then I have to use M$ Word for my C.Sci. exam, and I spend at least 10 minutes searching for the "Turn off autocorrect" and "Turn off spelling/grammar checking" options because they frankly get in the way... I had to know exactly what I was looking for in order to find them. That is *not* ease of use. An electric typewriter is easy to use, because you know what it's going to do when you hit the keys.
As for Linux... well there are quite a few GUIs for it, but I've never really tried to use Linux as my primary workstation OS. My elderly 486 sits in the corner with my modem inside it and runs a whole lotta server processes rather nicely, thank you. I've tried KDE and GNOME, and prefer KDE because you can configure it to behave roughly like a Mac (ie. predictably). I use FVWM2 more often than not, though, because it's so lightweight and does everything I need it to.
The command-line looks daunting to a novice, I'll grant you that. But my mother has learned to effectively use a BBC Micro where she has completely failed to master any of three different GUIs (RiscOS, MacOS, Windows). I feel confident I could teach her to use Pine, Pico and possibly Lynx, whereas I would shudder at the thought of letting her loose on Eudora, X-Emacs or Netscape. Different people have different skills - most do well at following step-by-step instructions however, and that earmarks them for the command-line. But "ugh - it doesn't have pretty pictures!"....