My background is as an IT person in a small company. For business reasons I recently had to install Linux on a clean box. Here is a summing up of my thoughts. First off I have about 2 years testing with Microsoft and about 1year development with the Window's platform. So I am not your average at home user. I also have a Windows 98 Internet connection at my desk for resources, a large hardware supply and the ability to order any PC equipment I might need if there is good enough justification. I also have a small herd of geeks to ask questions of. None of who are Linux-centric. I am not overly attached to Windows or Linux but since I am installing this as a work related task that does color what I want to happen. I do not have a vast amount of time and my boss would frown on me spending too much 'mess around' time on the company clock. The Good - My previous failed attempt about 6 months ago was with Linux red hat 5.x. Due to time constraints I finally gave up after about 2 weeks of about 30 minutes a day of messing with the install when I had the chance. I got XWindows started but the monitor was only displaying about 25% of desktop. From a conversation I gathered that this version of Redhat (which I got from a book CD) was very out of date. This time I am using Mandrake 7 (or 6) and was much happier with the install. Again from a conversation I gather that the Redhat installer is as easy now. Besides the stuff listed below I would say this was much closer to just slapping the Windows 98 CD in and walking away. It was about even with an NT install where every time I try to install NT there is some wonderful new cryptic error message to deal with. I did like that I felt that it would be easier to track down why something was failing with Linux (because the install process was out in the open) then with NT (where you kind of achieve a working truce with what errors your willing to live with) The Bad - I had to switch out the video card because the display was being so horribly drawn (I could see the vertical lines across the screen.) The display is still not nearly as clean as my windows box (they are on a switch box). Xwindows took about four hours of configuration before it would come up. Another four hours to configure the network. The Ugly - After messing around with the KDE GUI for about 6 hours it seems to have some issues. First it did not seem to have any cut and paste between applications. I tried to cut a line of text from a text document and paste it into the command window. No luck. Xwindows is based on the old dos/win 3.11 days of a GUI riding on top of the command prompt. I think the Windows 95 approach of having the Operating System built from the ground up to be a GUI is a much better approach. (I know that this not totally true of Windows either.) Without a dedicated Internet connection and a supply of hardware to switch out I would of never gotten Linux installed. My final thoughts - At this stage is I am trying to keep in mind how long it took me to learn the Windows interface (about 2 years) and how many Song and Dance tricks I know to get things to work. Linux just requires a different set of Song and Dance tricks. Many of the KDE features seemed to be trying to copy Windows. Many of the articles (including the above) say the only way to beat Windows is to implement Windows and become Windows. It would be interesting if someone instead sat down and said what do we need to SURPASS Windows and take computers to the next level , not just aim at having the same GUI feature set as Windows.
Its not a linux/unix port but Age Of Wonders is an awsome game if you like the HOMM type of game. It is also real fun (if a bit buggy) in multiplayer. Lets you do simultanous turns and also view battles between players.
Re:Oregon -- Not able to pump own gas
on
Dumb Laws
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· Score: 1
I heard the reason this is a real law is a lady who was pumping her own gas was also smoking and the resulting explosion took out a city block or something. Of course thats an urban legend in the making.
Does NT support this by default? I should be able to just yank the power cord on one of my NT boxes and it should recover just fine right? Well it doesn't as any NT tech can tell you:) Mention this test and the face turns pale. So I don't understand why Microsoft is making such a big deal about it.
Everyone is suddenly making a big deal about it. I looked it up on the web and it says its kinda metadata on all the files that have been opened and their states. Is this log good for data recovery. Is this why NT takes so long to shut down? It seems to be some sort of marketing checklist thing that no one has explained WHY it is useful.
I think that I read that the Zippy comic strip creator grew up in the Disney or some other planned community. Show what happens with all that conformity on the poor souls who can't take it. The whole Disney community stinks of the Facist Utopia where you trade in your freedom for safety just to find your freedom gone and your not safe.
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My background is as an IT person in a small company. For business reasons I recently had to install Linux on a clean box. Here is a summing up of my thoughts.
First off I have about 2 years testing with Microsoft and about 1year development with the Window's platform. So I am not your average at home user. I also have a Windows 98 Internet connection at my desk for resources, a large hardware supply and the ability to order any PC equipment I might need if there is good enough justification. I also have a small herd of geeks to ask questions of. None of who are Linux-centric. I am not overly attached to Windows or Linux but since I am installing this as a work related task that does color what I want to happen. I do not have a vast amount of time and my boss would frown on me spending too much 'mess around' time on the company clock.
The Good - My previous failed attempt about 6 months ago was with Linux red hat 5.x. Due to time constraints I finally gave up after about 2 weeks of about 30 minutes a day of messing with the install when I had the chance. I got XWindows started but the monitor was only displaying about 25% of desktop. From a conversation I gathered that this version of Redhat (which I got from a book CD) was very out of date. This time I am using Mandrake 7 (or 6) and was much happier with the install. Again from a conversation I gather that the Redhat installer is as easy now. Besides the stuff listed below I would say this was much closer to just slapping the Windows 98 CD in and walking away. It was about even with an NT install where every time I try to install NT there is some wonderful new cryptic error message to deal with. I did like that I felt that it would be easier to track down why something was failing with Linux (because the install process was out in the open) then with NT (where you kind of achieve a working truce with what errors your willing to live with)
The Bad - I had to switch out the video card because the display was being so horribly drawn (I could see the vertical lines across the screen.) The display is still not nearly as clean as my windows box (they are on a switch box). Xwindows took about four hours of configuration before it would come up. Another four hours to configure the network.
The Ugly - After messing around with the KDE GUI for about 6 hours it seems to have some issues. First it did not seem to have any cut and paste between applications. I tried to cut a line of text from a text document and paste it into the command window. No luck. Xwindows is based on the old dos/win 3.11 days of a GUI riding on top of the command prompt. I think the Windows 95 approach of having the Operating System built from the ground up to be a GUI is a much better approach. (I know that this not totally true of Windows either.) Without a dedicated Internet connection and a supply of hardware to switch out I would of never gotten Linux installed. My final thoughts -
At this stage is I am trying to keep in mind how long it took me to learn the Windows interface (about 2 years) and how many Song and Dance tricks I know to get things to work. Linux just requires a different set of Song and Dance tricks. Many of the KDE features seemed to be trying to copy Windows. Many of the articles (including the above) say the only way to beat Windows is to implement Windows and become Windows. It would be interesting if someone instead sat down and said what do we need to SURPASS Windows and take computers to the next level , not just aim at having the same GUI feature set as Windows.
Its not a linux/unix port but Age Of Wonders is an awsome game if you like the HOMM type of game. It is also real fun (if a bit buggy) in multiplayer. Lets you do simultanous turns and also view battles between players.
I heard the reason this is a real law is a lady who was pumping her own gas was also smoking and the resulting explosion took out a city block or something. Of course thats an urban legend in the making.
Or a mortgage and 2.3 kids even?
Does NT support this by default? I should be able to just yank the power cord on one of my NT boxes and it should recover just fine right? Well it doesn't as any NT tech can tell you :) Mention this test and the face turns pale. So I don't understand why Microsoft is making such a big deal about it.
Everyone is suddenly making a big deal about it. I looked it up on the web and it says its kinda metadata on all the files that have been opened and their states. Is this log good for data recovery. Is this why NT takes so long to shut down? It seems to be some sort of marketing checklist thing that no one has explained WHY it is useful.
I think that I read that the Zippy comic strip creator grew up in the Disney or some other planned community. Show what happens with all that conformity on the poor souls who can't take it. The whole Disney community stinks of the Facist Utopia where you trade in your freedom for safety just to find your freedom gone and your not safe.