APPLEVISION Monitor,, No shell = No power

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Tue May 7 01:08:29 2002

I don't see many people using Linux. I routinely see one, however, and he's
the guy who likes long drawn-out processes. I don't. I doubt they're
necessary, but he's not the only guy using Linux whom I've seen get wrapped
around the axle with procedures directed from the console that would take a
half-line of text under other circumstances, as you've demonstrated.

My question is why someone would do that when there are easier ways, again, as
you've spelled out, to get the job done.

Nobody's been able to tell me why a half line of text would be preferable to a
dropdown menu witha selection. The effect's the same.

The Macintosh doesn't even offer a command line interface, right?

It does effect all the functions of a Unix command-line driven system, though,
doesn't it?


----- Original Message -----
From: "Doc" <doc_at_mdrconsult.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 10:53 PM
Subject: Re: APPLEVISION Monitor,, No shell = No power


> On Mon, 6 May 2002, Richard Erlacher wrote:
>
> > While I agree there is plenty of room for preferences, I don't see why one
> > would want everything isolated from everything else on the LAN, when the
> > existence of the LAN is warranted by the need for shared access. ON top
of
> > that, typing half a screenful of text just to make some file on some other
> > machine accessible seems a mite burdensome. Even under DOS it only takes
a
> > single half-line of text.
>
> mount -t smbfs //server/share -o username=doc /mnt/remote
>
> Dick, I've seen you run that line of crap half-a-dozen times. Maybe
> in the Dark Ages it took "half a screenful of text just to make some
> file on some other machine accessible" It hasn't been true for a long
> damn time. The above command will mount a shared _Windows_ resource
> locally on a Linux box. That's iff you're too lazy to make it a
> 3-stroke alias, or an icon on your desktop. Actual Unix network
> resources are even simpler.
>
> > Some people just like *NIX because it enables them to stroke their own
need
> > for pseudo-sophistry.
>
> some people seem to parrot the same set of arguments over and over,
> without ever investigating their validity.
>
Well, they're conclusions based on observation. There's not much to
investigate since it has to do with the preferences of the people involved.
Information from outside is required. That's why I'm asking the questions.
It just doesn't help when people use terms like "better" when they're not
relevant, in any sense. Clearly each of these systems offers people someting
they want. Different people have different wants and needs of their
computers, hence, they choose different systems. Getting the straight poop,
not some rubbish about what's bad about other systems, or what someting not
under discussion won't do, etc, is what's needed. Having juvenile comments
from the peanut gallery doesn't lead to the flow of information.

The question that remains unanswered is, "Are all those millions that use
Windows really so much dumber than the Mac, Linux, Unix communities that
they're being duped, or what?" Since early this morning, I've been batting
this stuff back and forth on a Windows box that I primarily use for comm's and
all the while doing a few other things, with complete impunity. I've had no
crashes, no difficulties of any sort, and no need to reboot, reload an
application unexpectedly or any such problem. It seems that Windows works OK
for what I'm doing. Am I alone? How would I benefit from the advantages
offered by *nix if I were to make a switch? This OS seems to work OK for me
and for many others. Why does everybody seem to hate it so much?

Dick
Received on Tue May 07 2002 - 01:08:29 BST