Iggy Drougge wrote:
>
> John W. Linville skrev:
>
> >Iggy Drougge wrote:
> >>
> >> Gordon C. Zaft skrev:
> >>
> >> > Linux != x86.
> >>
> >> Effectively, Linux is as i386-centred as Win NT. Nominally, it might not
> >> be.
>
> >That is a VERY unenlightened (and incorrect) opinion. There are a
<snip>
> Oh, but can you go out and buy yourself an m68k/MIPS/PPC meainstream distro in
> the bookshop, or can you buy any software for non-i386 platforms? Usually not.
> Yes, you can run "ls" and "more", as wellas "ifconfig", but beyond that? What
> about Netscape?
Are there any "mainstream" m68k or MIPS systems still around that would
deserve a mainstream distibution?
PPC is covered by (at least) Yellow Dog (www.yellowdoglinux.com). Sparc
and Alpha (while it survives) are supported by a number of
distributions, including Red Hat. According to the Yellow Dog website,
Borders is stocking their distribution at some of its stores.
I'm not sure about Netscape, but I'm sure Mozilla is available for these
distributions. Koffice, OpenOffice, etc are probably available as
binaries for these distributions. Besides, now you are talking about
which applications vendors support what platforms. Believe it or not,
Unix admins used to survive by (horror of horrors) downloading source
and compiling for their own systems.
Your original complaint was that "Linux is as i386-centred as Win NT",
which would seem to apply to the OS rather than the applications
vendors. Or are you changing the rules, now that you've been called on
your bluster?
> Embedded systems are a moot point, since they're in an entirely different
> field and reduces Linux to a kernel as opposed to the desktop/server OS which
> is what most people know Linux as.
Again, this smells like rule changing. Claiming that "Linux is as
i386-centred as Win NT" and then refusing to consider Linux running on
anything other than an i386 is like declaring allegations to be facts by
refusing to hear any contradictary evidence.
Now I regret having replied to the first off topic post. As if this
list doesn't have enough off topic content, now I'm guilty of adding to
it.
Iggy, please either reply privately to my address or (preferably) don't
reply at all...
John
--
John W. Linville
Bedrock Systems
Received on Sat Aug 25 2001 - 19:07:31 BST