In my experience, NT is fairly stable(ish) until you start installing lots of different apps & generally changing things around.
This is not a good thing, obviously, as the first thing I do with any computer system is install fuckloads of apps and tweak the bejesus out of everything in sight.
Mong: try to take a glance at some BSOD screenshots at somewhere like www.sysinternals.com (they do the rather fine BSOD screensaver). Taqke a long hard look - they will be your constant friend after just a few more months using NT.:-)
Linux has both a technically advanced (in the sense of 'having lots of useful features') text UI & a number of technically rather advanced GUIs.
Textwise, you can use bash, csh, ksh, etc. - all of which provide tremendously groovy task management, customisation and extensibility via scripts.
For more mousey types, the X window system provides a powerful client server architecture unrivalled by the likes of NT or MacOS (I presume it was these to which you were offering a comparison) which plays host to a variety of GUIs offering customisation, ease of use and innovation.
Also, you get a third mouse button - which has got to be better, no?:-)
>Do you need to know how mag tape works >and how to broadcast TV shows to operate a VCR?
Not essential, but it helps. It will help you do stuff like, not store your tapes in a strong electromagnetic field, and properly tune the thing when you buy it (particularly important if you have one or more cable/sattelite/etc sources you wish to videotape).
Speaking as both a sysadmin and a computer journalist, I feel obliged to yell a small protest at that last comment.
I was a geek first, then got into writing freelance features on computing subjects. I have written (positively, I believe) on Linux, open source software and crypto-issues for the UK IT press and have always tried to give a fair representation of those topics.
But then again, no major software companies have ever left jiffy bags full of unmarked bills on my doorstep, so perhaps I am the exception.:-)
It is easy to see that non-geeks (or certainly, non-programmers) might not see the point behind OSS and be confused by the idea that after trying to unify standards and improve user interfaces for the last ten years, we are now being asked to use another OS with an antidiluvian command line and no 'a:' drive.
The fact that these 'standards' have been achieved at the expense of consumer choice is not a consideration for most users, and is unlikely to be until they are shown a workable alternative.
If you are serious about wanting decent coverage of Linux, etc. then your time would be better spent giving journalists the information they need, rather than flaming them.
Everyone seems to have missed out on a correllation which not only encompasses the Internet, but also family values and shock-rock.
It is obvious to me that the biggest factor in these kids lives is that they all had parents who never used the Internet to vent frustration playing DooM and were prevented from listening to Marilyn Manson when they were teenagers. (those left wing fools can claim that this is because Marilyn Manson 'wasn't born' at the time, but this is clearly just handwaving)
Also, virtually *all* so-called 'psycho killers' in the last twenty years have attended either school or church (sometimes both!) at some point before their attacks.
Conclusion: we should probably ban church, school and most importantly baby-boomers.
Hmm. Pardon my french, but that is just fucking insane.
If you give everyone in America a handgun, do you *seriously* think that nobody is going to use it?
If you have a violent urge to harm someone, it is *much* easier, psychologically, to do it from a distance than it is to run up to someone and physically hit them or stab them.
Also, what happens if one person pulls a gun and fires - suddenly you have a whole street/shopping mall/schoolyard ful of people shooting each other.
I am starting to realy enjoy Jon's articles. As a relative newcomer to Linux (I am a Netware/NT sysadmin with a bit of Unix experience) I can appreciate most of the problems he is facing.
More than that though, I can remember feeling the same things when playing with my own systems for the first time. The thrill of finally figuring out how to edit a shell script of configure your network card is something which I think a lot of posters have either forgotten or had no real appreciation of.
Grow up and give Jon a break! It seems pointless to condemn the guy for having no Linux (as if that was some kind of requirement for citizenship all of a sudden) knowledge, and then turn around and start criticising him for trying to get some.
What he is going through at the moment is exactly the same thing that we all went through the first time we installed a system from scratch, or looked at a bit bit of code just *knew* how it worked. It is *fun* and it is what got me interested in computers in the first place.
Are you so insecure about your own geek credentials that you have to try to stop people like Jon acquiring any of their own? It makes sense, I suppose - after all, Jon is clearly an intelligent person with an open mind so I can imagine how you may see him as a threat.
Text Adventures/Interactive Fiction
on
Zork CGI
·
· Score: 1
Check out ftp..gmd.de/if-archive for an idea of where text adventuring is at the moment.
They have interpreters (and compilers!) for Infocom/infocom-style games for pretty much every platform imaginable.
The thriving Interactive Fiction 'scene' can be found on rec.arts.int-fiction (creators) and rec.games.int-fiction (players) if you have news access.
Considering it is beta software,I have had very few problems with Litestep, although I have stopped using efx(efx is a titlebar changer which lets you 'theme' windows, much like many un*x window managers - also *way* beta) as it seems to break far too often for my liking.
You can actually run Litestep and explorer in parallel although you lose the background menus and shortcuts.
If all you want is the virtual desktops and/or wharf modules, you might also wantt o check out LSFloater (it'll be at floach.pimpin.net, probably) which allows wharf modules to run under any shell.
I would vastly prefer to use Linux @ work, but as I have to support Netware, NT & MS Office I am confined to running NT workstation.
(Although I have snuck a Linux box in to help out our ageing UNIX system with some extra disk space via NFS - today the back room, tomorrow the world!:-)
In the mean time, Litestep makes my MS-experience a good deal more tolerable.
Windows 9x/Nt users who are feeling a little left out might want to check out www.litestep.net or floach.pimpin.net
Litestep is a nifty Next/Afterstep clone which replaces the standard Explorer shell.
Features include virtual desktops, dockable apps, popup menus, etc etc.
Although still beta, it is pretty cool, a fair bit faster than explorer and (naturally) open source.
floach.pimpin.net features news, etc on the above and various other win32 shell replacements (including the as-yet-unamed port of Enlightenment for windows and KDE-NT)
Slashdot Mirror
In my experience, NT is fairly stable(ish) until you start installing lots of different apps & generally changing things around.
:-)
This is not a good thing, obviously, as the first thing I do with any computer system is install fuckloads of apps and tweak the bejesus out of everything in sight.
Mong: try to take a glance at some BSOD screenshots at somewhere like www.sysinternals.com (they do the rather fine BSOD screensaver). Taqke a long hard look - they will be your constant friend after just a few more months using NT.
Well...no, actually.
:-)
Linux has both a technically advanced (in the sense of 'having lots of useful features') text UI & a number of technically rather advanced GUIs.
Textwise, you can use bash, csh, ksh, etc. - all of which provide tremendously groovy task management, customisation and extensibility via scripts.
For more mousey types, the X window system provides a powerful client server architecture unrivalled by the likes of NT or MacOS (I presume it was these to which you were offering a comparison) which plays host to a variety of GUIs offering customisation, ease of use and innovation.
Also, you get a third mouse button - which has got to be better, no?
>Do you need to know how mag tape works
>and how to broadcast TV shows to operate a VCR?
Not essential, but it helps. It will help you do stuff like, not store your tapes in a strong electromagnetic field, and properly tune the thing when you buy it (particularly important if you have one or more cable/sattelite/etc sources you wish to videotape).
Not exactly rocket science, but useful.
Speaking as both a sysadmin and a computer journalist, I feel obliged to yell a small protest at that last comment.
:-)
I was a geek first, then got into writing freelance features on computing subjects. I have written (positively, I believe) on Linux, open source software and crypto-issues for the UK IT press and have always tried to give a fair representation of those topics.
But then again, no major software companies have ever left jiffy bags full of unmarked bills on my doorstep, so perhaps I am the exception.
It is easy to see that non-geeks (or certainly, non-programmers) might not see the point behind OSS and be confused by the idea that after trying to unify standards and improve user interfaces for the last ten years, we are now being asked to use another OS with an antidiluvian command line and no 'a:' drive.
The fact that these 'standards' have been achieved at the expense of consumer choice is not a consideration for most users, and is unlikely to be until they are shown a workable alternative.
If you are serious about wanting decent coverage of Linux, etc. then your time would be better spent giving journalists the information they need, rather than flaming them.
Everyone seems to have missed out on a correllation which not only encompasses the Internet, but also family values and shock-rock.
It is obvious to me that the biggest factor in these kids lives is that they all had parents who never used the Internet to vent frustration playing DooM and were prevented from listening to Marilyn Manson when they were teenagers. (those left wing fools can claim that this is because Marilyn Manson 'wasn't born' at the time, but this is clearly just handwaving)
Also, virtually *all* so-called 'psycho killers' in the last twenty years have attended either school or church (sometimes both!) at some point before their attacks.
Conclusion: we should probably ban church, school and most importantly baby-boomers.
Hmm. Pardon my french, but that is just fucking insane.
If you give everyone in America a handgun, do you *seriously* think that nobody is going to use it?
If you have a violent urge to harm someone, it is *much* easier, psychologically, to do it from a distance than it is to run up to someone and physically hit them or stab them.
Also, what happens if one person pulls a gun and fires - suddenly you have a whole street/shopping mall/schoolyard ful of people shooting each other.
Does this sound like a good idea to you?
That is just silly. A lot of people *have* to use windows, etc. for a variety of reasons.
If Bill wont give up the source to the whole OS, then we can at least have some decent open source programs to make using NT or 9.x more bearable.
The whole point about open source is that it is *open*.
I am starting to realy enjoy Jon's articles. As a relative newcomer to Linux (I am a Netware/NT sysadmin with a bit of Unix experience) I can appreciate most of the problems he is facing.
More than that though, I can remember feeling the same things when playing with my own systems for the first time. The thrill of finally figuring out how to edit a shell script of configure your network card is something which I think a lot of posters have either forgotten or had no real appreciation of.
Grow up and give Jon a break! It seems pointless to condemn the guy for having no Linux (as if that was some kind of requirement for citizenship all of a sudden) knowledge, and then turn around and start criticising him for trying to get some.
What he is going through at the moment is exactly the same thing that we all went through the first time we installed a system from scratch, or looked at a bit bit of code just *knew* how it worked. It is *fun* and it is what got me interested in computers in the first place.
Are you so insecure about your own geek credentials that you have to try to stop people like Jon acquiring any of their own? It makes sense, I suppose - after all, Jon is clearly an intelligent person with an open mind so I can imagine how you may see him as a threat.
Check out ftp..gmd.de/if-archive for an idea of where text adventuring is at the moment.
They have interpreters (and compilers!) for Infocom/infocom-style games for pretty much every platform imaginable.
The thriving Interactive Fiction 'scene' can be found on rec.arts.int-fiction (creators) and rec.games.int-fiction (players) if you have news access.
You are obviously unfamiliar with the UK sat/cable channel 'Sky One'.
Typical Sky One show - "When invertebrates attack dumb criminals during the worlds scariest police killer shark chases VII"
Sky One is owned by Rupert Murdoch (i.e. Fox) and from what I hear the Fox network in the states is in a similar vein.
On the plus side, they do show the Simpsons & South Park, so its not all bad news.
Considering it is beta software,I have had very few problems with Litestep, although I have stopped using efx(efx is a titlebar changer which lets you 'theme' windows, much like many un*x window managers - also *way* beta) as it seems to break far too often for my liking.
You can actually run Litestep and explorer in parallel although you lose the background menus and shortcuts.
If all you want is the virtual desktops and/or wharf modules, you might also wantt o check out LSFloater (it'll be at floach.pimpin.net, probably) which allows wharf modules to run under any shell.
I would vastly prefer to use Linux @ work, but as I have to support Netware, NT & MS Office I am confined to running NT workstation.
:-)
(Although I have snuck a Linux box in to help out our ageing UNIX system with some extra disk space via NFS - today the back room, tomorrow the world!
In the mean time, Litestep makes my MS-experience a good deal more tolerable.
Windows 9x/Nt users who are feeling a little left out might want to check out www.litestep.net or floach.pimpin.net
Litestep is a nifty Next/Afterstep clone which replaces the standard Explorer shell.
Features include virtual desktops, dockable apps, popup menus, etc etc.
Although still beta, it is pretty cool, a fair bit faster than explorer and (naturally) open source.
floach.pimpin.net features news, etc on the above and various other win32 shell replacements (including the as-yet-unamed port of Enlightenment for windows and KDE-NT)