Available: DEC LA120 printer

From: Scott Stevens <sastevens_at_earthlink.net>
Date: Thu Apr 22 22:54:54 2004

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 17:05:51 -0400
Roger Merchberger <zmerch_at_30below.com> wrote:

> Rumor has it that William Donzelli may have mentioned these words:
> > > Why? Just because some supervisor says to do something is no reason
> > > to do something if it's senseless.
> >
> >It depends on how much you like your paycheck.
>
> Unforch, that is the way it goes sometimes...
>
> > > taxpayer, you certainly should be able to take a set of Linux or
> > > FreeBSD CD-ROMs with you to a public library and use them to "repair"
> > > at least one of their computer systems. Doing so may certainly freak
> > > a pretentious librarian out, who claims to know something about
> > > computers and doesn't, but that's not something that you need concern
> > > yourself with.
> >
> >Not with any of the librarians I know. They would not freak out - stay
> >cool and collected - as they telephone the police...
>
> Then you could make 'em look *real* foolish - download a Linux distro
> called "Knoppix" -> it boots & runs off of CD. Once you're done, reboot &
> yank the disk, it's back to winblows...
>

I don't know if I would trust a library computer system that was open to patron use but so insecured that it allowed a bootable CD-ROM to work. With spam problems being the way they are, I'd hope any publicly accessable, taxpayer funded computer system would be more secured than that.

I wouldn't mind a bit if said computer system was running NetBSD or even, perhaps, Linux. I think I'd like it better than a Microsoft (spelled correctly) Operating System. But that's really beside the point, as any of the above can be properly secured for use in a library.

As to email clients to use: this is the 21st century, and while it's fine for people to enjoy classic computers, and immerse themselves in them to whatever degree they like (I personally enjoy using my SparcStation IPX with a real VT-220 as the text console from time to time), I couldn't get by on this list without an email client that properly threads and nests the messages, like Sylpheed, which I run on a Slackware system. I suppose it could display messages with a monospaced font, though I haven't looked for that feature.

The great-great-grandparent post which flamed a sig did seem out of order and even rude, at least to me.
Received on Thu Apr 22 2004 - 22:54:54 BST