I far prefer.program. Using a non-plaintext configuration file is very very poor design in my opinion. I'm sure there are people out there who don't want to use a GUI program to config things.
You should bear in mind that most Unix users would expect shell install and configuration of an httpd; just like anything else under Unix. It's not a big deal to learn how to use the shell; you just sit down and read a couple of howtos. I'm fairly sure that afterwards they'll realise why it is a good way to do things.
It's only 10 minutes googling if you don't already know what the program offers. You can hardly penalise it because you're new to using it. I'm not saying it offers everything that photoshop does, but it offers most of the important features, and it's a good enough replacement for most people.
Christ, it's not like it's critical to release a new OS every six months. I bet msot of the packages in ubuntu don't change between releases. Releasing every 6 months is just disruptive.
I know theres a lot of hate with regards to the debian way of doing things, but do we really need to spam out new binaries twice a year? Is there actually enough change to justify that?
"I made no statements about the suitability of an OS for a task, I was replying to *your* comments about UI and "ease of use"."
Which were? I was talking about the ability to use (from a programming POV) for an operating system... You mentioned UI. I was responding to someone who thought that Linux had "a long way to go before it becomes "widely adopted".
[MacOS is a unix] "Wow. I really had no idea."
You previously said: Windows isn't quite up there with MacOS (which has slipped a bit with OS X) but it's streets ahead of unix in almost every aspect of UI consistency.
What I find particularly hilarious about your comment is that one of the things Windows is typically criticised for by the unix crowd is that it's *too* abstracted and doesn't let them get "down and dirty" enough.
I haven't heard this in particular as a general critism, but removing much of the CLI functionality and forcing the user to use a WM isn't abstraction from an OS POV.
Hate to break it to you, champ, but that '"C" drive' *is* an abstraction. A different method, to be sure, but an abstraction none the less. (Not to mention Windows has been able to mount drives under directories for 5+ years now, if that's your preference.)
Only in the same what that using an on-screen keyboard with a mouse is abstraction of the keyboard. I'm clearly talking about abstraction in the context of hardware-from-software. The "different method" you speak of isn't a different method of abstraction, it's really very little abstraction what so ever. And as much as you want to pretend that mounting drives under directories is the same as a true hierarchical filesystem, it's not the same. It's not even close. There is a massive design principle chasm which you have not grasped. That functionality in Windows is a hack. It's not that same.
False. Windows is extremely portable and was specifically designed from day 1 to be easily implemented on multiple platforms. Indeed, Windows is almost certainly more portable than the typical unix (certainly its design is, at any rate).
Bringing this up as an argument is bullshit. While NT was originally designed like this, the reality is that as soon as they dropped the Alpha port, much of this design was ignored. NetBSD works on about 54 hardware architecture types with around 20 or so of them being different processor architectures. Windows 9x supported 1 processor (x86) IIRC. Windows NT has supported 5, although not all at once, and currently supports only 2 (x86 and amd64). It did have a complete ia64 port which has now been discontinued, mips and alpha didn't run in 64bit and have been discontinued. Further; I think it's almost consensus that all non x86 versions of NT were poor and that in my particular experience, amd64 windows is horrible.
"No, it's not. All OSes abstract. That's the whole point of having them."
While this is true to a degree, there are a lot of operating systems where the point is to abstract as little as nessicary. There's been a few of these around recently, and at least one I know of that has made it one of it main aims to abstract little. Windows doesn't abstract much at all, especially when you look at the management of file systems.
"Unix wasn't "designed" by anyone"
Yes, it was. Read up before you make spurious statements. The second line of the Wikipedia Unix page lists the three most important early contributors, who originally made most of the unix OS-level design choices we're talking about.
people who really love unix and "the unix way" don't use Linux (or OS X) as examples of unix - because neither of them are particularly good examples of it. Even the people for whom the unix aspect of OS X is actually compelling generally aren't using OS X because it's unix, they're using it because it's _not_.
I didn't use "Linux" to refer to an operating system at any tim
Unix is like the English language - the exception *is* the rule - finding consistent UI just about anywhere is quite rare. Windows isn't quite up there with MacOS (which has slipped a bit with OS X) but it's streets ahead of unix in almost every aspect of UI consistency.
You're just proving my point. If you want you rate an Operating System by its UI, you really arethinking about this all wrong. I not sure if you know (it seems like you don't) but FreeBSD, GNU, Solaris and MacOSX are Unixes. The GUI part of Unixes is not linked to a particular kernel. You're correct in identifing that Windows is not a Unix. MacOS is a Unix, so by your (poor) logic, Unix is ahead in the UI. By my logic, the GUI is not linked to the OS, and thus whether or not the UI is good is irrelevant.
People who write for Unix by definition don't like the way Windows does things.Really ? So how did anything get written for Unix before Windows was released ?
Unix works by abstraction; you abstract as much as possible so that it is independant of the hardware. This is one of the main design philosopies of Unix. Windows (and pretty much every operating system) is different; it doesn't abstract much (hence you have a "C" drive instead of having the hard drives mounted into an abstracted filesystem. The point of Unix is not to be directly linked to any specific hardware (this is why porting Unixes is a relatively small job), but Windows is.
Unix is different in that it abstracts. This was an idea that many at the time didn't like (read:Failure of Multics) and Windows is a descendant of this philosophy (of designing the operating system so that it is not abstracted). People wrote for Unix because it was better; it abstracted. Hence the Unix way is the opposite from the "non-unix" way, and many people who write for Unix dislike the non-unix way.
"FreeBSD is for people who love unix, Linux is for people who hate Windows".
I don't see how this is relevant... I have explained the reasons I like Unix on a technical level (the ultimate factor is the provision of source for everyone involved: Freedom) and the reasons why I dislike non-unix systems on a technical level (some not included are shell accessibility, pipes, true hierarchical filesystems etc)
If you want to continue a discussion on the points of Unix and non-unix methods, I would be happy to participate. Unix was designed by computer scientists ; DOS was designed by Tim Patterson in four months, and it shows.
"As far as ease of use goes, Windows has Linux beat"
WRONG. Windows is easier to learn how to use, and you need to bear in mind that this is not the same is ease of use. If you'd bothered to take a Unix further than Mandrake, and had actually wanted to use a Unix instead of wanted a free copy of Windows, you would understand.
Unix is far easier to use. It's quicker to work when you have a consistant interface; Unix has rules. On Windows the whole design is haphazard; poor design in my opinion.
People who write for Unix by definition don't like the way Windows does things. They aren't gonna mirror it. Part of our "adoption problem" is that people come along and are like "hey, why isn't this like my operating system? my friends would use it if it was" and don't think that perhaps in the 30 years Unix has been in development that someone has considered that and thought it was a bad idea. This is why no one uses Linspire.
Maybe you should consider that few people actually give a fuck about wider adoption. I, for one, welcome our new hardware company overlords^W^W^W^W^W^W^W couldn't care less.
The UI does suck. Who the fuck wants a javascript scrollbar when EVERY WEB BROWSER SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME has a perfectly good one on the right hand side. Redundant? Yes.
Waif69: when windows 3.1 was new, there was a saying that was going around. What sells windows? Three things; applications, applications, applications.
This point was basically saying that Linux on the desktop needed applications in order for it to do well.
Zarxarx: Don't you mean, "developers, developers, developers..."?
This was intended to be a pun on the famous speeches of Steve Ballmer
Khallow: I'm pretty sure he meant "applications, applications, applications" and I agree. Having a lot of developers generally means you'll have a lot of useful (and usable) applications, but they aren't equivalent.
It seems you missed the reference.
This event is quite a well known event in the slashdot circles. You really ought to know it. You really ought not to need someone else to do a simple search for you. You seem to think that Raymond's well-known piece on asking the right questions is "interesting" (i take from this that you haven't seen it before). Your lack of knowledge of customs in this community is your fault; we don't have many, compared to other communities; but not asking stupid fucking questions is one of them. I can only assume in the most slashdot sense that you must be new here.
My advice: read the rest of the Eric Raymond texts directed at newcomers, in particular the non-dictionary sections of the Jargon File, How to Ask Smart Questions and the "Hacker Attitude" section of How to become a hacker (and the rest if you are interested beyond interaction).
1. Try to find an answer by searching the Web.
2. Try to find an answer by reading the manual.
3. Try to find an answer by reading a FAQ.
4. Try to find an answer by inspection or experimentation.
5. Try to find an answer by asking a skilled friend.
6. If you're a programmer, try to find an answer by reading the source code.
When you ask your question, display the fact that you have done these things first; this will help establish that you're not being a lazy sponge and wasting people's time. Better yet, display what you have learned from doing these things. We like answering questions for people who have demonstrated they can learn from the answers.
Use tactics like doing a Google search on the text of whatever error message you get (searching Google groups as well as Web pages). This might well take you straight to fix documentation or a mailing list thread answering your question. Even if it doesn't, saying "I googled on the following phrase but didn't get anything that looked promising" is a good thing to include in e-mail or news postings requesting help.
Prepare your question. Think it through. Hasty-sounding questions get hasty answers, or none at all. The more you do to demonstrate that having put thought and effort into solving your problem before seeking help, the more likely you are to actually get help.
Beware of asking the wrong question. If you ask one that is based on faulty assumptions, J. Random Hacker is quite likely to reply with a uselessly literal answer while thinking "Stupid question...", and hoping the experience of getting what you asked for rather than what you needed will teach you a lesson.
Never assume you are entitled to an answer. You are not; you aren't, after all, paying for the service. You will earn an answer, if you earn it, by asking a substantial, interesting, and thought-provoking question -- one that implicitly contributes to the experience of the community rather than merely passively demanding knowledge from others.
On the other hand, making it clear that you are able and willing to help in the process of developing the solution is a very good start. "Would someone provide a pointer?", "What is my example missing?", and "What site should I have checked?" are more likely to get answered than "Please post the exact procedure I should use." because you're making it clear that you're truly willing to complete the process if someone can just point you in the right direction.
There is an ancient and hallowed tradition: if you get a reply that reads "RTFM", the person who sent it thinks you should have Read The Fucking Manual. He or she is almost certainly right. Go read it.
RTFM has a younger relative. If you get a reply that reads "STFW", the person who sent it thinks you should have Searched The Fucking Web. He or she is almost certainly right. Go search it. (The milder version of this is when you are told "Google is your friend!")
In Web forums, you may also be told to search the forum archives. In fact, someone may even be so kind as to provide a pointer to the previous thread where this problem was solved. But do not rely on this consideration; do your archive-searching before asking.
Often, the person telling you to do a search has the manual or the web page with the information you need open, and is looking at it as he or she types. These replies mean that he thinks (a) the information you need is easy to find, and (b) you will learn more if you seek out the info
Eh ? Windows has an _excellent_ record of being usable on older hardware. Typically if it's 5 years old or newer, it'll run the latest version of Windows either out of the box or with some very minor tweaks/upgrades.
Linux can be cut down to run on any box you can boot. This is a serious advantage, and while you may not have all the GUI features you want, chances are you can boot some kind of GUI. Even then, once you gain a reasonable ammount of skill in the shell, a GUI is really just a luxury with pretty colours. All work that doesn't explictly require to display a picture can run at the shell.
Windows XP and 2003, for example, are quite usable on ca. 1998 PCs if they're bumped up to 512M or more of RAM. They're both usable for very basic tasks (email, word processing, simple web browsing) on ca. 1995 Pentium machines, if you really want to.
Windows doesn't have enough support for low level machines that Unixes do. We have far more flexiblity than you do. I can't imagine needing 512 mb of RAM to boot fluxbox. I have a machine running a GUI with xfce (a low/medium weight enviroment) in around 80mb of RAM. I haven't do _any_ work to reduce the ammount of RAM used either; no special CFLAGS or any hacks at all. It's just a Gentoo box where I picked a handful of USEflags.
No feature-comparable version of Linux runs on a 486 (particulary a 486 as it would have existed ca. 1994). No KDE, no GNOME, no Firefox - at least not at any sort of acceptable performance level.
The advantage of Free OS's is that there is no standard package. The point he was making was that you can customise any machine to run Unix daemon; this cannot be said for Windows.
Much like Linux doesn't offer anything over DOS...
Moron.
If our root dns servers were seen as more international, we wouldn't be having this problem. Conversely, if the China Government weren't such jackasses, the same would be true.
Slashdot Mirror
I far prefer .program. Using a non-plaintext configuration file is very very poor design in my opinion. I'm sure there are people out there who don't want to use a GUI program to config things.
Yeah, but NT4 isn't supported anymore.
You should bear in mind that most Unix users would expect shell install and configuration of an httpd; just like anything else under Unix. It's not a big deal to learn how to use the shell; you just sit down and read a couple of howtos. I'm fairly sure that afterwards they'll realise why it is a good way to do things.
Ever heard of timezones?
It's only 10 minutes googling if you don't already know what the program offers. You can hardly penalise it because you're new to using it. I'm not saying it offers everything that photoshop does, but it offers most of the important features, and it's a good enough replacement for most people.
If my town had one of these, I'd be there every friday.
This post interested me so much, I'm actually going to read this book (A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens).
For anyone else interested, it's available at WikiSource.
Christ, it's not like it's critical to release a new OS every six months. I bet msot of the packages in ubuntu don't change between releases. Releasing every 6 months is just disruptive.
I know theres a lot of hate with regards to the debian way of doing things, but do we really need to spam out new binaries twice a year? Is there actually enough change to justify that?
Which were? I was talking about the ability to use (from a programming POV) for an operating system... You mentioned UI. I was responding to someone who thought that Linux had "a long way to go before it becomes "widely adopted".
[MacOS is a unix] "Wow. I really had no idea."
You previously said:
Windows isn't quite up there with MacOS (which has slipped a bit with OS X) but it's streets ahead of unix in almost every aspect of UI consistency.
What I find particularly hilarious about your comment is that one of the things Windows is typically criticised for by the unix crowd is that it's *too* abstracted and doesn't let them get "down and dirty" enough.
I haven't heard this in particular as a general critism, but removing much of the CLI functionality and forcing the user to use a WM isn't abstraction from an OS POV.
Hate to break it to you, champ, but that '"C" drive' *is* an abstraction. A different method, to be sure, but an abstraction none the less. (Not to mention Windows has been able to mount drives under directories for 5+ years now, if that's your preference.)
Only in the same what that using an on-screen keyboard with a mouse is abstraction of the keyboard. I'm clearly talking about abstraction in the context of hardware-from-software. The "different method" you speak of isn't a different method of abstraction, it's really very little abstraction what so ever. And as much as you want to pretend that mounting drives under directories is the same as a true hierarchical filesystem, it's not the same. It's not even close. There is a massive design principle chasm which you have not grasped. That functionality in Windows is a hack. It's not that same.
False. Windows is extremely portable and was specifically designed from day 1 to be easily implemented on multiple platforms. Indeed, Windows is almost certainly more portable than the typical unix (certainly its design is, at any rate).
Bringing this up as an argument is bullshit. While NT was originally designed like this, the reality is that as soon as they dropped the Alpha port, much of this design was ignored. NetBSD works on about 54 hardware architecture types with around 20 or so of them being different processor architectures. Windows 9x supported 1 processor (x86) IIRC. Windows NT has supported 5, although not all at once, and currently supports only 2 (x86 and amd64). It did have a complete ia64 port which has now been discontinued, mips and alpha didn't run in 64bit and have been discontinued. Further; I think it's almost consensus that all non x86 versions of NT were poor and that in my particular experience, amd64 windows is horrible.
"No, it's not. All OSes abstract. That's the whole point of having them."
While this is true to a degree, there are a lot of operating systems where the point is to abstract as little as nessicary. There's been a few of these around recently, and at least one I know of that has made it one of it main aims to abstract little. Windows doesn't abstract much at all, especially when you look at the management of file systems.
"Unix wasn't "designed" by anyone"
Yes, it was. Read up before you make spurious statements. The second line of the Wikipedia Unix page lists the three most important early contributors, who originally made most of the unix OS-level design choices we're talking about.
people who really love unix and "the unix way" don't use Linux (or OS X) as examples of unix - because neither of them are particularly good examples of it. Even the people for whom the unix aspect of OS X is actually compelling generally aren't using OS X because it's unix, they're using it because it's _not_.
and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter...
I agree. Is there a site anywhere to replace the old slashdot we know and love?
Unix is like the English language - the exception *is* the rule - finding consistent UI just about anywhere is quite rare. Windows isn't quite up there with MacOS (which has slipped a bit with OS X) but it's streets ahead of unix in almost every aspect of UI consistency.
You're just proving my point. If you want you rate an Operating System by its UI, you really arethinking about this all wrong. I not sure if you know (it seems like you don't) but FreeBSD, GNU, Solaris and MacOSX are Unixes. The GUI part of Unixes is not linked to a particular kernel. You're correct in identifing that Windows is not a Unix. MacOS is a Unix, so by your (poor) logic, Unix is ahead in the UI. By my logic, the GUI is not linked to the OS, and thus whether or not the UI is good is irrelevant.
People who write for Unix by definition don't like the way Windows does things. Really ? So how did anything get written for Unix before Windows was released ?
Unix works by abstraction; you abstract as much as possible so that it is independant of the hardware. This is one of the main design philosopies of Unix. Windows (and pretty much every operating system) is different; it doesn't abstract much (hence you have a "C" drive instead of having the hard drives mounted into an abstracted filesystem. The point of Unix is not to be directly linked to any specific hardware (this is why porting Unixes is a relatively small job), but Windows is. Unix is different in that it abstracts. This was an idea that many at the time didn't like (read:Failure of Multics) and Windows is a descendant of this philosophy (of designing the operating system so that it is not abstracted). People wrote for Unix because it was better; it abstracted. Hence the Unix way is the opposite from the "non-unix" way, and many people who write for Unix dislike the non-unix way.
"FreeBSD is for people who love unix, Linux is for people who hate Windows".
I don't see how this is relevant... I have explained the reasons I like Unix on a technical level (the ultimate factor is the provision of source for everyone involved: Freedom) and the reasons why I dislike non-unix systems on a technical level (some not included are shell accessibility, pipes, true hierarchical filesystems etc)
If you want to continue a discussion on the points of Unix and non-unix methods, I would be happy to participate. Unix was designed by computer scientists ; DOS was designed by Tim Patterson in four months, and it shows.
"As far as ease of use goes, Windows has Linux beat"
WRONG. Windows is easier to learn how to use, and you need to bear in mind that this is not the same is ease of use. If you'd bothered to take a Unix further than Mandrake, and had actually wanted to use a Unix instead of wanted a free copy of Windows, you would understand.
Unix is far easier to use. It's quicker to work when you have a consistant interface; Unix has rules. On Windows the whole design is haphazard; poor design in my opinion.
People who write for Unix by definition don't like the way Windows does things. They aren't gonna mirror it. Part of our "adoption problem" is that people come along and are like "hey, why isn't this like my operating system? my friends would use it if it was" and don't think that perhaps in the 30 years Unix has been in development that someone has considered that and thought it was a bad idea. This is why no one uses Linspire.
As it stands, I dismiss your opinion.
Maybe you should consider that few people actually give a fuck about wider adoption. I, for one, welcome our new hardware company overlords^W^W^W^W^W^W^W couldn't care less.
The UI does suck. Who the fuck wants a javascript scrollbar when EVERY WEB BROWSER SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME has a perfectly good one on the right hand side. Redundant? Yes.
You used SuSE recently? You might want to check /opt Times have changed.
What the fuck are you on about? SCTP has nothing to do with microsoft, jackass.
(This starts about 7 parents up)
Waif69: when windows 3.1 was new, there was a saying that was going around. What sells windows? Three things; applications, applications, applications.
This point was basically saying that Linux on the desktop needed applications in order for it to do well.
Zarxarx: Don't you mean, "developers, developers, developers..."?
This was intended to be a pun on the famous speeches of Steve Ballmer
Khallow: I'm pretty sure he meant "applications, applications, applications" and I agree. Having a lot of developers generally means you'll have a lot of useful (and usable) applications, but they aren't equivalent.
It seems you missed the reference.
Note the first result in a google search for "developers developers developers".
This event is quite a well known event in the slashdot circles. You really ought to know it. You really ought not to need someone else to do a simple search for you. You seem to think that Raymond's well-known piece on asking the right questions is "interesting" (i take from this that you haven't seen it before). Your lack of knowledge of customs in this community is your fault; we don't have many, compared to other communities; but not asking stupid fucking questions is one of them. I can only assume in the most slashdot sense that you must be new here.
My advice: read the rest of the Eric Raymond texts directed at newcomers, in particular the non-dictionary sections of the Jargon File, How to Ask Smart Questions and the "Hacker Attitude" section of How to become a hacker (and the rest if you are interested beyond interaction).
You can't post and moderate in the same discussion. It wasn't him.
Poland? I had completely forgotten!
Look at the Wookie!
Greatest monologue ever.
Emphasis mine.
(From How to Ask Questions the Smart Way: Before you Ask)
Before asking a technical question by e-mail, or in a newsgroup, or on a website chat board, do the following:
1. Try to find an answer by searching the Web.
2. Try to find an answer by reading the manual.
3. Try to find an answer by reading a FAQ.
4. Try to find an answer by inspection or experimentation.
5. Try to find an answer by asking a skilled friend.
6. If you're a programmer, try to find an answer by reading the source code.
When you ask your question, display the fact that you have done these things first; this will help establish that you're not being a lazy sponge and wasting people's time. Better yet, display what you have learned from doing these things. We like answering questions for people who have demonstrated they can learn from the answers.
Use tactics like doing a Google search on the text of whatever error message you get (searching Google groups as well as Web pages). This might well take you straight to fix documentation or a mailing list thread answering your question. Even if it doesn't, saying "I googled on the following phrase but didn't get anything that looked promising" is a good thing to include in e-mail or news postings requesting help.
Prepare your question. Think it through. Hasty-sounding questions get hasty answers, or none at all. The more you do to demonstrate that having put thought and effort into solving your problem before seeking help, the more likely you are to actually get help.
Beware of asking the wrong question. If you ask one that is based on faulty assumptions, J. Random Hacker is quite likely to reply with a uselessly literal answer while thinking "Stupid question...", and hoping the experience of getting what you asked for rather than what you needed will teach you a lesson.
Never assume you are entitled to an answer. You are not; you aren't, after all, paying for the service. You will earn an answer, if you earn it, by asking a substantial, interesting, and thought-provoking question -- one that implicitly contributes to the experience of the community rather than merely passively demanding knowledge from others.
On the other hand, making it clear that you are able and willing to help in the process of developing the solution is a very good start. "Would someone provide a pointer?", "What is my example missing?", and "What site should I have checked?" are more likely to get answered than "Please post the exact procedure I should use." because you're making it clear that you're truly willing to complete the process if someone can just point you in the right direction.
(From How to Ask Questions the Smart Way: RTFM and STFW: How To Tell You've Seriously Screwed Up
There is an ancient and hallowed tradition: if you get a reply that reads "RTFM", the person who sent it thinks you should have Read The Fucking Manual. He or she is almost certainly right. Go read it.
RTFM has a younger relative. If you get a reply that reads "STFW", the person who sent it thinks you should have Searched The Fucking Web. He or she is almost certainly right. Go search it. (The milder version of this is when you are told "Google is your friend!")
In Web forums, you may also be told to search the forum archives. In fact, someone may even be so kind as to provide a pointer to the previous thread where this problem was solved. But do not rely on this consideration; do your archive-searching before asking.
Often, the person telling you to do a search has the manual or the web page with the information you need open, and is looking at it as he or she types. These replies mean that he thinks (a) the information you need is easy to find, and (b) you will learn more if you seek out the info
The important SERP for anyone who didn't memorise this months buzzword.
Eh ? Windows has an _excellent_ record of being usable on older hardware. Typically if it's 5 years old or newer, it'll run the latest version of Windows either out of the box or with some very minor tweaks/upgrades.
Linux can be cut down to run on any box you can boot. This is a serious advantage, and while you may not have all the GUI features you want, chances are you can boot some kind of GUI. Even then, once you gain a reasonable ammount of skill in the shell, a GUI is really just a luxury with pretty colours. All work that doesn't explictly require to display a picture can run at the shell.
Windows XP and 2003, for example, are quite usable on ca. 1998 PCs if they're bumped up to 512M or more of RAM. They're both usable for very basic tasks (email, word processing, simple web browsing) on ca. 1995 Pentium machines, if you really want to.
Windows doesn't have enough support for low level machines that Unixes do. We have far more flexiblity than you do. I can't imagine needing 512 mb of RAM to boot fluxbox. I have a machine running a GUI with xfce (a low/medium weight enviroment) in around 80mb of RAM. I haven't do _any_ work to reduce the ammount of RAM used either; no special CFLAGS or any hacks at all. It's just a Gentoo box where I picked a handful of USEflags.
No feature-comparable version of Linux runs on a 486 (particulary a 486 as it would have existed ca. 1994). No KDE, no GNOME, no Firefox - at least not at any sort of acceptable performance level.
The advantage of Free OS's is that there is no standard package. The point he was making was that you can customise any machine to run Unix daemon; this cannot be said for Windows.
Much like Linux doesn't offer anything over DOS...
Moron.
If our root dns servers were seen as more international, we wouldn't be having this problem. Conversely, if the China Government weren't such jackasses, the same would be true.
Look up Steve Ballmer's "developers developers developers" speech.