APPLEVISION Monitor,, No shell = No power

From: Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner <spc_at_conman.org>
Date: Tue May 7 02:02:39 2002

It was thus said that the Great Richard Erlacher once stated:
>
> 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.

  And I've met that fellow myself. I had to go in and take over a network
(of Linux systems no less) that he set up and ran for a few years. And
everyday I cursed him and his screwy setup; yet it wasn't Linux's fault even
though that was the primary system on the network.

  I had used Linux at a previous job (heck, I set up the Linux network
there) and it pretty much ran itself and we did have problems, it was a very
unusual situation that maybe happened once, twice a year (one time our
webserver ran out of open file handles and it took me about half an hour to
fix; most of that time was spent going to everybody in the company (there
were five or six of us) asking if they changed anything and browbeating them
until one confessed he had just added a few more sites).

  No, going back to your question---why do people do such complicated
systems? Perhaps they like micromanaging (my explanation for the idiot I
had to clean up after). Or perhaps they feel smarter. Or they feel it's a
form of job security.

> 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?

  In 1996 I received a Windows 95 box for a project I was working on. It
ran flawlessly for about a year (except that moving it from a network
connection to a dial up connection was a rather painful experience I had to
go through several times). In early '97 I was out of the office for about
two months, during which time my machine was used by a newly hired secretary
and the required business packages (Microsoft Office) was install.

  When I returned and took the machine back, it was unusable. It crashed
constantly. The *only* new software on it was Microsoft Office. I
attempted to reinstall Windows 95 (from the same CD set I had originally
installed it from) *six times* before giving it up as a lost cause and
installing RedHat (at that time, I think it was 4.2).

  I never had a problem with that machine afterwards.

  Funny how installing Microsoft appliations on a Microsoft operating system
caused the machine to fail.

  I personally benefit from Linux because it allows me to use machines that
otherwise would go to a landfill because it can't run the latest and
greatest from Microsoft. My colocated webserver is a 486. My firewall at
home is another 486. I have a 486 based laptop with Linux (granted, that
wasn't the easiest Linux system to install, mainly because of the 4M of RAM
and 120M harddrive, but I was able to get it working) and a 120MHz AMD 486
(or AMD 586---Linux treats it as a very fast 486) as my primary development
machine.

  If I was following the Redmond way, I would have to shell out for new
hardware every year or so, just to stay put.

  -spc (The entropy in Windows is just incredible ... )
Received on Tue May 07 2002 - 02:02:39 BST