Odd, why not? A decent free firewall like Agnitum Outpost, a decent free antivirus program like AVG, and Firebird as a browser, and away you go.
I get useful work (haha) done on my Libretto running w95, for heaven's sake. 16 Mb of RAM and a P120 processor. Still works fine for most internet stuff that I do.
Because W98OSS would compete with XP home, but on the other hand it would divert consumer attention away from Linux.
So, is it worth (to them) creating a competitor for their domestic product if it also subtracts some effort from Linux, which competes with their server market, primarily?
...more than 50%, given that we are writing in English?
I doubt 50% of users express any particular emotions about their computers. Hating inanimate objects is one reason why Basil Fawlty is funny - we know that he is being stupid when he kicks his car, as we know that it is stupid to hate a computer.
Since most people are fairly rational, it seems to me they would not use their computers if they hated them.
radars detect metal things much more easily than slightly compressed gases.
You can't see when an aircraft goes supersonic, except in the right conditions. The condensation that forms is just the same as you see on the wing of a 747 as it lands, that is, the high pressure/low pressure transition forces some of the water vapour to condense.
"OpenOffice includes every single useful feature, "
Wrong. It does not include a spreadsheet that is truly Excel compatible. The supplied spreadsheet is unusable for even moderately complex multipage budgets, never mind big engineering analyses.
There seems little point in pushing OO while claiming it is a full replacement for Office, when it isn't.
"They are able to buy a PC, install software, learn how to click here and there, play games, do all the other cool stuff that comes pre-packaged for them"
We call this/using/ the computer.
"But when they are confronted by other users, ostensibly the same as them, who are able and willing to use a technically more challenging system such as Linux or other *nix systems, they see that as a challenge to their own view of themselves as a knowledgeable "power user.""
Possibly. However I would guess that most people using their Windows machines to do productive work on don't actually have any opinion about users of *nix. If you forced them to pay attention to a *nix user they'd just think "Gosh, what an odd way to spend time. Now I'd better get on with doing some productive work"
You think "power user" is a compliment. They don't even think of it as a meaningful term. Hence your fury with them.
I half agree. However, Eco's fundamental ideas are not all that complex, he just dresses them up with literate references and examples, and then throws in a wodge of jargon, to make them sound more profound than they are.
Rose is the only fully readable and interesting thing of his I've read. That article was a few banal ideas dressed up in polysyllabic jargon, with a bit of culture thrown in.
Sorry mate, the UI in windows has remained more consistent from w95 to w98 to nt4 to xp across ALL mainstream packages than even just the obvious UI issues I can see in Knoppix 3.2, to pick on the most consistent distro I've played with.
People can cope with differences in UI across different packages that they use a lot, what (literally) tires them is that the UI is different for every little utility.
Accept it geeks, your idea of the perfect UI is not the same as everyone elses, and sadly, just like we moved the clutch out to the left in cars, conformity may be a better option in the long run.
As a Linux newbie I found Knoppix quite refreshing - there's only one (GUI) way to achieve each particular task (eg configuring a modem) so I didn't get lost in a maze of twisty tunnels all alike while trying to do something I'd done before.
Somebody needs to sit down and say - this package defines the default user interface. Then we flag up every deviation FROM that UI.
I guess this is the same as writing an HI spec, but is possibly a little easier. I suggest that for a desktop Linux the UI is probably going to be set by the office package, so I'm guessing OO takes the lead here (I have't used KOffice or whatever).
Now I could earn a flamebait mod by saying that the obvious UI to use is the one that has already had millions of dollars in usability clinics spent on it - but I won't. In my experience people will rapidly get used to even the most perverse UI differences between packages (who else still hits F7 for a print preview? thank you wordperfect) so long as there aren't too many of them.
As a non-confrontational example - look at Midnight Commander vs Norton Commander. MC is very close, but every niggling difference, well, niggles. (sorry, no specific example comes to hand).
Your OS already exists. The commands in RSX11M (and presumably RT11 tho I didn't use that much) were just about english language, or contractions thereof.
COPY
DEL
etc
Didn't help much as it turned out, cos the syntax was still screwy.
In other words, in airscrew terms, the effective pitch of the blade* rpm is a very linear function of speed.
Everyone who did physics at school will know that the optimum speed for a momentum transfer device (eg a waterwheel) is a very simple ratio of the stream velocity.
Damn, I thought it was a pretty neat article, now you tell me it is a (very pretty) statement of the bleeding obvious.
A Microsoft zealot who runs BeOS, Linux and OS/2 as dual boots. And a Microsoft zealot who has 2 Macs.
Get real. Joe Blow can use any of these operating systems, the differences between them aren't very important. The applications are the important thing.
So AC, tell me, how can 'luck' apply to a digital binary operating system?
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Odd, why not? A decent free firewall like Agnitum Outpost, a decent free antivirus program like AVG, and Firebird as a browser, and away you go.
I get useful work (haha) done on my Libretto running w95, for heaven's sake. 16 Mb of RAM and a P120 processor. Still works fine for most internet stuff that I do.
Because W98OSS would compete with XP home, but on the other hand it would divert consumer attention away from Linux.
So, is it worth (to them) creating a competitor for their domestic product if it also subtracts some effort from Linux, which competes with their server market, primarily?
If it works, and you are happy with it, why change?
You could probably run NT4, if it supports your hardware, at a reasonable speed, but W2000 and XP both really need 256 Mb of RAM to function happily.
98SE is fine as is. Sure, it doesn't have month long up-times, but on a stable machine with fixed hardware, why not just carry on?
Of course you could run a Linux distribution on it. With that spec machine look forward to glacial response from the desktop.
Informative?
Mildly amusing maybe.
...more than 50%, given that we are writing in English?
I doubt 50% of users express any particular emotions about their computers. Hating inanimate objects is one reason why Basil Fawlty is funny - we know that he is being stupid when he kicks his car, as we know that it is stupid to hate a computer.
Since most people are fairly rational, it seems to me they would not use their computers if they hated them.
radars detect metal things much more easily than slightly compressed gases.
You can't see when an aircraft goes supersonic, except in the right conditions. The condensation that forms is just the same as you see on the wing of a 747 as it lands, that is, the high pressure/low pressure transition forces some of the water vapour to condense.
As to your last para, I agree 100%
"Original mac (128K, 512K, Plus, SE and SE/30) had no space for a hard drive inside."
Well I don't know what you mean by that. My SE 30 has a factory installed hard drive in it.
It is a shame you have so little confidence in your own parenting ability.
"OpenOffice includes every single useful feature, "
Wrong. It does not include a spreadsheet that is truly Excel compatible. The supplied spreadsheet is unusable for even moderately complex multipage budgets, never mind big engineering analyses.
There seems little point in pushing OO while claiming it is a full replacement for Office, when it isn't.
"They are able to buy a PC, install software, learn how to click here and there, play games, do all the other cool stuff that comes pre-packaged for them"
/using/ the computer.
We call this
"But when they are confronted by other users, ostensibly the same as them, who are able and willing to use a technically more challenging system such as Linux or other *nix systems, they see that as a challenge to their own view of themselves as a knowledgeable "power user.""
Possibly. However I would guess that most people using their Windows machines to do productive work on don't actually have any opinion about users of *nix. If you forced them to pay attention to a *nix user they'd just think "Gosh, what an odd way to spend time. Now I'd better get on with doing some productive work"
You think "power user" is a compliment. They don't even think of it as a meaningful term. Hence your fury with them.
Sorry mate, that doesn't work, in the long term.
Solar energy->grass->cow->meat->human
works
human->meat->human
and so on doesn't
I half agree. However, Eco's fundamental ideas are not all that complex, he just dresses them up with literate references and examples, and then throws in a wodge of jargon, to make them sound more profound than they are.
Agree 100%
Rose is the only fully readable and interesting thing of his I've read. That article was a few banal ideas dressed up in polysyllabic jargon, with a bit of culture thrown in.
Eco may be a great thinker, but he is usually a lousy communicator.
He either constructs sentences of great sounding phrases that mean little, or hits the reader with a barrage of multisyllabillic jargon.
George Orwell would not, I think, rate Eco's article very highly.
Ass is spelt arse, in your case.
You have also used capital F after a colon.
Oh, and some weirdo punctuation at the end.
Nice use of the Oxford comma, by the way.
You insensitive clod. Are you telling me that PKD didn't go to Heaven?
But how many crashes would have been caused by human pilots in the same timeframe if they had not been fly by wire?
It took a while, but it got the attention it deserved. Not many things on this site make me laugh, that one did.
How the fuck do you get -1 every time?
strikes again.
Sorry mate, the UI in windows has remained more consistent from w95 to w98 to nt4 to xp across ALL mainstream packages than even just the obvious UI issues I can see in Knoppix 3.2, to pick on the most consistent distro I've played with.
People can cope with differences in UI across different packages that they use a lot, what (literally) tires them is that the UI is different for every little utility.
Accept it geeks, your idea of the perfect UI is not the same as everyone elses, and sadly, just like we moved the clutch out to the left in cars, conformity may be a better option in the long run.
As a Linux newbie I found Knoppix quite refreshing - there's only one (GUI) way to achieve each particular task (eg configuring a modem) so I didn't get lost in a maze of twisty tunnels all alike while trying to do something I'd done before.
Somebody needs to sit down and say - this package defines the default user interface. Then we flag up every deviation FROM that UI.
I guess this is the same as writing an HI spec, but is possibly a little easier. I suggest that for a desktop Linux the UI is probably going to be set by the office package, so I'm guessing OO takes the lead here (I have't used KOffice or whatever).
Now I could earn a flamebait mod by saying that the obvious UI to use is the one that has already had millions of dollars in usability clinics spent on it - but I won't. In my experience people will rapidly get used to even the most perverse UI differences between packages (who else still hits F7 for a print preview? thank you wordperfect) so long as there aren't too many of them.
As a non-confrontational example - look at Midnight Commander vs Norton Commander. MC is very close, but every niggling difference, well, niggles. (sorry, no specific example comes to hand).
Your OS already exists. The commands in RSX11M (and presumably RT11 tho I didn't use that much) were just about english language, or contractions thereof.
COPY
DEL
etc
Didn't help much as it turned out, cos the syntax was still screwy.
Still, anything's got to be better than
chmod a+r *.txt
and as for cp
Very good.
In other words, in airscrew terms, the effective pitch of the blade* rpm is a very linear function of speed.
Everyone who did physics at school will know that the optimum speed for a momentum transfer device (eg a waterwheel) is a very simple ratio of the stream velocity.
Damn, I thought it was a pretty neat article, now you tell me it is a (very pretty) statement of the bleeding obvious.
"Smartarse comments about base 13 will earn you a clip round the ear."
Did you work that out yourself BEFORE anyone else told you? Unprovable assertion: I did.
I met DNA once. Didn't like him.
I think we might call this one a joke.
But your mileage may vary.
A Microsoft zealot who runs BeOS, Linux and OS/2 as dual boots. And a Microsoft zealot who has 2 Macs.
Get real. Joe Blow can use any of these operating systems, the differences between them aren't very important. The applications are the important thing.
So AC, tell me, how can 'luck' apply to a digital binary operating system?