Kinda off topic, but did you try Word Perfect for Linux? Pretty sure that'd do what you're looking for.
Re:UNIX companies don't understand PC hardware..
on
Sun To Sell Linux PCs
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· Score: 1
Sun has 6 billion dollars in cash and no debt.
Its not going to be easy and success isn't guarenteed, but Sun is a major player and if they are really serious about this, they will certainly make an interesting run of it.
No offense to SGI (because I've used their products and have nothing but respect for them) but Sun is in a whole nother league.
Mandrake and Red Hat won't even run on a 486 anymore.
Debian worked great, I didn't try Slackware (my latest CD for that was 3.0, and I know that works, but its also 8 years old). Never used Gentoo, so I don't know about that, but:
SuSE requires 64 MB to install properly (theoretically there's an unsupported install program that only uses 48 MB though).
My problem isn't even neccesarily the RAM requirement (although 64 MB seems excessive), its the processor requirement. There are plenty of 486's around nowadays, and they make perfectly servicable workstations. Why is it that all the commercial distros are sys-reqing them out of the market? I really don't see how their install programs are any easier to use than Debian's, or FreeBSD's for that matter.
Upgrading my 486en to 32 or 64 MB of RAM is cheap enough these days, and certainly worthwhile for performance, but upgrading them all to a Pentium would be a royal pain.
Well yeah, but an "old Pentium Pro with 64 MB of RAM" is hardly bare minimum for running Linux, or even X-Free. Try those same distros on something another generation older (486 with 32 MB) and see what you get.
I'm not expecting some high end configuration install program on the low end, but why can't the installer default to a simpler version if the sys-reqs aren't there? A 486 with a PCI video card still makes a perfectly respectable X client, and it can also perform some light server duties.
My 5x86 runs as a DHCP server and also a boot server for a couple of NC's. It can do all that and still run X at 1024x786 (though that's pretty hard to read on the godawful Tandy monitor I'm using).
I'm not complaining about installer speed, I'm complaining about the number of resource hog installers that won't even attempt to run on systems which would be perfectly servicable Linux boxes.
I wouldn't care if they installer defaulted down to something simpler, or even just ran slow as hell. Its just absurd to require a Pentium and 64 MB of RAM to take an operating system off a CD and put it on a hard drive.
What's the deal with that anyhow? Linux sys-reqs are getting pretty bloated in their own right.
I mean, back when I first got my 5x86 it ran X-Windows like a dream (and a PCI video card, it screamed!), now its way below the minimum sys-reqs to even install most distros.
The funny thing is when I put Debian (and later FreeBSD) on it, it still runs X beautifully, same video card, same RAM, same everything.
So my question is: Why do the major commercial distros all insist on such ridiculously high sys-reqs to run the install program?
HoAC is a great book, and I really wish it had been used for a textbook.
$100 seems to most people like a lot for a book, but math majors routinely pay that much for much smaller and less interesting books in high level courses.
Holographic displays can't be far off at 1000-2000 dpi, can they?
I mean, seems like one could just render the Fourier transform on screen and have an expanded beam of something or other lighting it up (backlit, perhaps).
Perhaps the more poignant question here is:
If Paypal does this and it works so well, why should brick-n-mortars have to operate with so many annoyances?
Seriously, if people agree to Paypal's terms then whats the problem? Don't like the deal, don't agree to it.
If you don't like something about Intel's new chip, don't buy it.
If AMD does the same thing, don't buy it.
There are plenty of other chips out there. We're geeks, most of us don't use store bought systems anyhow. We build are own. If it means a little added work to get a working SuperH or umpteen multiprocessor MIPS system or a little more money to get a Sun or Apple or SGI box we'll adapt.
If for some reason AMD and Intel insist of boxing the truly computer literate out of their market so be it. I'll wager that within a year of the day you can't buy a DRM-free box in a store there will be a company started by one of us selling a system made from the most obscure damnedest DRM-free chipset they could find.
We may be heading toward a situation where "computers" that the average person use are some TV-like idiot box and "computers" that we use are hacked together from kits like they used to be. I don't think thats neccesarily a bad thing, and I certainly don't think we need to lose sleep over it.
Now that's an excellent idea.
Bruce Perens and Bill Joy working for the same company? They'd have the whole world using Sparcstations in a couple years time.
Good thing its a nice buzzword too or IBM wouldn't have bothered with this story in the first place.
They could've made it a little less obviously a commercial though. Seriously, "Migrate your VisualCafé applications to WebSphere Studio by following this three-part series of articles:"?
Especially considering Monday's review
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/02/124523 8&mode=thread&tid=137
Lex = 6.2 (H) x 27.2 (W) x 25.2 (D) cm = 4274 cc
Mocha = 198x161x62 mm = 1976 cc
Ahhh the fickleness of mods. Any other day this would be -1, Troll (not to mention -1, Offtopic). Today however, it is insightful.
1. There are definately BSD's being used as servers. Probably not a lot of Macs, because Macs aren't built to be servers. Why pay for a built in screen and graphics and such when a faceless server would suffice? No one uses Linux running Xboxes for servers either, that doesn't mean Linux doesn't make a good server.
2. O'Reilly did a survey and more new Mac users were coming from the Linux camp than anywhere else. From what I've seen of Apple's sales figures (latest 10-Q) sales are much too high to be the same old Mac users, the new ones are coming from somewhere.
3. I love 'em too. Most Linux desktop users don't give two hoots about the underlying Linux kernel either. Developing for an API like Apple's OSX API would be like, oh say... developing for Gnome or KDE's API, or God-forbid Motif. Did I miss something, because I have yet to see Mozilla run in the Linux console?
Slashdot Mirror
I think Sun is looking down the road here.
Get the kids hooked on Linux/StarOffice and when they are all grown up they'll be more open to it in the business world.
Kinda off topic, but did you try Word Perfect for Linux? Pretty sure that'd do what you're looking for.
Sun has 6 billion dollars in cash and no debt.
Its not going to be easy and success isn't guarenteed, but Sun is a major player and if they are really serious about this, they will certainly make an interesting run of it.
No offense to SGI (because I've used their products and have nothing but respect for them) but Sun is in a whole nother league.
The store I worked at once gave 10 watermelons to a church. Was that an anti-competitive practice?
Enterprise lost me the minute they introduced the villanous "Saliban".
How is that unprecedented? That happens almost every week somewhere or another.
Now a Linux distro meant primarily for the Desktop that doesn't suck, that would be unprecedented!
More importantly though, what do thousands of dead bodies give a "good god damn" about?
True enough, but:
Mandrake and Red Hat won't even run on a 486 anymore.
Debian worked great, I didn't try Slackware (my latest CD for that was 3.0, and I know that works, but its also 8 years old). Never used Gentoo, so I don't know about that, but:
SuSE requires 64 MB to install properly (theoretically there's an unsupported install program that only uses 48 MB though).
My problem isn't even neccesarily the RAM requirement (although 64 MB seems excessive), its the processor requirement. There are plenty of 486's around nowadays, and they make perfectly servicable workstations. Why is it that all the commercial distros are sys-reqing them out of the market? I really don't see how their install programs are any easier to use than Debian's, or FreeBSD's for that matter.
Upgrading my 486en to 32 or 64 MB of RAM is cheap enough these days, and certainly worthwhile for performance, but upgrading them all to a Pentium would be a royal pain.
I'm not expecting some high end configuration install program on the low end, but why can't the installer default to a simpler version if the sys-reqs aren't there? A 486 with a PCI video card still makes a perfectly respectable X client, and it can also perform some light server duties.
My 5x86 runs as a DHCP server and also a boot server for a couple of NC's. It can do all that and still run X at 1024x786 (though that's pretty hard to read on the godawful Tandy monitor I'm using).
I'm not complaining about installer speed, I'm complaining about the number of resource hog installers that won't even attempt to run on systems which would be perfectly servicable Linux boxes. I wouldn't care if they installer defaulted down to something simpler, or even just ran slow as hell. Its just absurd to require a Pentium and 64 MB of RAM to take an operating system off a CD and put it on a hard drive.
What's the deal with that anyhow? Linux sys-reqs are getting pretty bloated in their own right.
I mean, back when I first got my 5x86 it ran X-Windows like a dream (and a PCI video card, it screamed!), now its way below the minimum sys-reqs to even install most distros.
The funny thing is when I put Debian (and later FreeBSD) on it, it still runs X beautifully, same video card, same RAM, same everything.
So my question is:
Why do the major commercial distros all insist on such ridiculously high sys-reqs to run the install program?
And lord knows nothing is more important than supporting theoretically black millionaires with pedophillic tendancies. Who speaks for them, after all?
The differences are a lot less significant than they used to be.
FreeBSD was originally designed to be the most feature rich, but limited to x86 architecture.
OpenBSD was designed to be the most secure, but with less features.
NetBSD was designed to run on every obscure architecture you can think of (dreamcasts, javastations, blenders)
Nowadays though, it means less and less.
OpenBSD is still by default the most secure, but if you know what you're doing any of the three is very secure.
FreeBSD still has the most ports, but binary compatiblity is now more or less a reality amongst them (and they can run 99% of Linux apps as well).
NetBSD still works on the most platforms, but even FreeBSD (with its 386BSD roots) works (or soon will) on most common platforms.
I personally use FreeBSD for servers (more options) and NetBSD for clients (easier to configure).
$100 seems to most people like a lot for a book, but math majors routinely pay that much for much smaller and less interesting books in high level courses.
My javastation's are once again obsolete... time to upgrade.
n/t
Holographic displays can't be far off at 1000-2000 dpi, can they? I mean, seems like one could just render the Fourier transform on screen and have an expanded beam of something or other lighting it up (backlit, perhaps).
Perhaps the more poignant question here is: If Paypal does this and it works so well, why should brick-n-mortars have to operate with so many annoyances? Seriously, if people agree to Paypal's terms then whats the problem? Don't like the deal, don't agree to it.
If you don't like something about Intel's new chip, don't buy it.
If AMD does the same thing, don't buy it.
There are plenty of other chips out there. We're geeks, most of us don't use store bought systems anyhow. We build are own. If it means a little added work to get a working SuperH or umpteen multiprocessor MIPS system or a little more money to get a Sun or Apple or SGI box we'll adapt.
If for some reason AMD and Intel insist of boxing the truly computer literate out of their market so be it. I'll wager that within a year of the day you can't buy a DRM-free box in a store there will be a company started by one of us selling a system made from the most obscure damnedest DRM-free chipset they could find.
We may be heading toward a situation where "computers" that the average person use are some TV-like idiot box and "computers" that we use are hacked together from kits like they used to be. I don't think thats neccesarily a bad thing, and I certainly don't think we need to lose sleep over it.
Now that's an excellent idea. Bruce Perens and Bill Joy working for the same company? They'd have the whole world using Sparcstations in a couple years time.
They could've made it a little less obviously a commercial though. Seriously, "Migrate your VisualCafé applications to WebSphere Studio by following this three-part series of articles:"?
What'd you want me to do, go fund an actual scientific survey?
Especially considering Monday's review http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/02/124523 8&mode=thread&tid=137
Lex = 6.2 (H) x 27.2 (W) x 25.2 (D) cm = 4274 cc
Mocha = 198x161x62 mm = 1976 cc
1. There are definately BSD's being used as servers. Probably not a lot of Macs, because Macs aren't built to be servers. Why pay for a built in screen and graphics and such when a faceless server would suffice? No one uses Linux running Xboxes for servers either, that doesn't mean Linux doesn't make a good server.
2. O'Reilly did a survey and more new Mac users were coming from the Linux camp than anywhere else. From what I've seen of Apple's sales figures (latest 10-Q) sales are much too high to be the same old Mac users, the new ones are coming from somewhere.
3. I love 'em too. Most Linux desktop users don't give two hoots about the underlying Linux kernel either. Developing for an API like Apple's OSX API would be like, oh say... developing for Gnome or KDE's API, or God-forbid Motif. Did I miss something, because I have yet to see Mozilla run in the Linux console?
Sure it is. DarwinBSD is the underlying portion and it is most assuredly a BSD.
A patent on the posting of redundant, karma draining material. This patent also applies to the method of getting posts moderated -1, Troll.