> It was thus said that the Great Richard Erlacher once stated:
> >
> > Nevertheless, I'd say the the UNIX and others of that
> > ilk were designed for use by and for nerds, from the standpoint that
> > producing software is useful work. That's only true if you're a software
> > vendor. If you're in the business of selling tires, or of making them,
> > generating software is overhead that you'd like to avoid.
Well, the Minicomputer OS's were designed that no user could damage the
system through the use of utilities and customer applications and such.
The system wouldn't allow a user to accidentally delete a database, data
file, command or anything else that they were dependent upon.
They could enter data, generate reports, print programs, but not damage
the apps (if written and installed correctly).
Unix, VAX/VMS, RSTS/E, RSX/11M were examples of this -- but they're not
always used as development platforms... sometimes they were application
platforms.
> > Maybe Windows isn't for you. I use it because it's hard not to. I have
> > half a dozen LINUX versions none of which has been left installed for more
> > than a day or two, and they wouldn't meet my needs. Likewise, I've not
> > gotten a comfortable feeling with SCO, UnixWare, etc. for the '386 and up
> > types.
I haven't got a choice, nor do my coworkers at Lucent. Office97 is the
default set of apps... even for programmers... for docs, spreadsheets,
presentations...
We use FrameMaker at times, but most people don't have licenses for
that.
I haven't got a choice, nor do my coworkers at Lucent. Office97 is the
default set of apps... even for programmers... for docs, spreadsheets,
presentations...
We use FrameMaker at times, but most people don't have licenses for
that. Microsoft has site licensed the Office suite for all of Lucent at
a price... therefore we must run Windows 9x/NT/2000 (and the later isn't
site licensed yet).
We've got Sparcs and Linux boxes for project work and development and my
web server and backup server are FreeBSD boxes with Samba and Apache --
but we've got everything dual booting to suport the 40mb attachments
from Powerpoint. Ugh.
(this could be done better with a corporate supported web/ftp server
with individual and departmental directories with an htpassword file
controlling access and some cgi or something allowing the management
types to upload and download these files in a controlled manner without
the proliferation of exchange servers and overloading Unix mail servers
with HUGE attachments and Word docs in mail clothing. Email should be
short and in ASCII and readable with any type of terminal access and
text to speech programs for the handicapped.
Unfortunately, Microsoft can barely get large font support up in
Windows...
IBM did a lot with Screen Reader with Windows and OS/2...
I haven't seen anything from Microsoft like that.
>
> Different users, different needs. Personally I've been able to use Linux
> to save what otherwise would have been thrown-away PCs (one is even running
> my personal website).
Me too... this is from a FreeBSD box logged in from an OpenBSD throwaway
Sparc ELC.
>
> -spc (One running on a diskless machine)
>
>
>
Bill
this ELC isn't diskless -- but will be a diskless Xterminal to the
FreeBSD box when I get the blasted software configured right.
--
bpechter_at_monmouth.com | Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?
| Linux: Where do you want to go tomorrow?
| BSD: Are you guys coming, or what?
Received on Sun May 07 2000 - 18:35:05 BST