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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!metro!physiol.su.OZ.AU!john From: john@physiol.su.OZ.AU (John Mackin) Subject: Re: I hope this won't ignite a major flame war, but I've got to know! Message-ID: <1994Jul19.073440.26445@physiol.su.OZ.AU> Organization: The Land of Summer's Twilight References: <30drlt$7tc@news.u.washington.edu> <1994Jul18.093302.19670@wmichgw> <30e4dr$jno@bigblue.oit.unc.edu> Date: Tue, 19 Jul 1994 07:34:40 GMT Lines: 69 I'm amazed by things Linux advocates hold up as _advantages_: In article <30e4dr$jno@bigblue.oit.unc.edu>, ewt@merengue.unc.edu (Erik Troan) writes: > In article <1994Jul18.093302.19670@wmichgw>, > Patrick Khoo <31khoo@wmich.edu> wrote: >>Very simple Tim, Anyone and i mean Anyone can work on Linux development. The >>development is open and releases are fast (blazingly fast kernel releases!) As >>opposed to Free/NetBSD. >1) [...] Linux was all coded from scratch by people with no previous > OS coding experience. >8) Linux has faster bug fixes. New problems are almost resolved within > 24 hours and the solutions are posted to the net. >9) The Linux Documentation Project (LDP) is doing a fantastic job. Anyone > trying to decide between BSD and Linux would find the Linux's Installation > and Getting Started Guide a good incentive to follow Linux. [...] These arguments are truly astounding. ``Sure, we release a new kernel every three minutes.'' This is a VIRTUE? The last thing I want is loads of releases! Just give me some software I can install and use. I certainly don't want to be updating my system software all the time! I want to _use_ the software, not have it there for the sake of having it. ``We fix bugs faster than the rest.'' Sheesh!! What about _not having the bugs in the first instance?_ In other words, having some _solid code_ that's been in use for a long time? ``We're just getting around to writing some documentation.'' Ahem. It would have been preferable to have the documentation from Day One... well, Day Three. I won't even discuss the concept that having ``people with no previous OS coding experience'' writing your kernel is a good idea. Anyway, I have a contribution to make to this discussion, aside from being amazed by what others have said. In another article, someone referred to users of Unix systems on PC hardware as ``DOS refugees.'' There's another class of us: where I come from is many, many years of Unix experience on, dare I say it, real hardware. The last thing I want is a system where everything has been recoded from scratch! I _know_ how all the commands work. I want to be able to take advantage of my experience: as a marketoid would say, to `leverage' it (gag!). There's no way I can do that with Linux. Everything ranges between subtly and wildly different from what I'm used to. Using one of the BSD systems, on the other hand, until you get down to amazingly hardware-dependent levels, it's all the same, just like on a DECstation or SunOS or any other of the many different Berkeley systems I'm already used to. What it means is, I can do whatever I want, _easily._ For me, that's what matters. [Oh, and as far as `coexistence' is concerned, I'm very happy not to have a single byte of DOS software on my disks. If I need to boot DOS to run some kind of diagnostics, I use a floppy.] -- John Mackin <john@physiol.su.oz.au> Knox's box is a 286. Fox in Socks does hacks and tricks Knox's box is hard to fix. To fix poor Knox's box for kicks.