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Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.misc:4851 comp.os.linux.misc:33479 comp.os.os2.advocacy:74452 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msunews!caen!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!news1.oakland.edu!vtc.tacom.army.mil!ulowell.uml.edu!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!sgiblab!cs.uoregon.edu!reuter.cse.ogi.edu!hp-cv!hp-pcd!news1.boi.hp.com!hpax!news.waterloo.hp.com!fisher From: fisher@waterloo.hp.com (Kevin Fisher) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.os2.advocacy Subject: Re: Linux thoroughly insulted by Infoworld! Followup-To: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.os2.advocacy Date: 17 Jan 1995 22:12:58 GMT Organization: Hewlett Packard (Panacom Division) Lines: 109 Message-ID: <3fhfda$oh8@hppadbk.waterloo.hp.com> References: <950116203411@lambada> <MANOWAR.95Jan17145517@ww.engin.umich.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: hppadap.waterloo.hp.com X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] krisztian flautner (manowar@engin.umich.edu) wrote: : I got my copy of InfoWorld today and I think that there is lot more in the : column than Linux bashing. : This is the bit about the underware part : : "Linux - how shall we describe ir ? It is the Volkswagen Unix for the PC. It's : the layman's Unix. It's underware. (...) We classify Linux as an underware : because, technically, we can't call it shareware or freeware, especially : if we're talking about one of the professionally supported, licensed versions : of Linux such as our copy of Slackware Linux from Morse Telecommunications : Inc. So we've arbitrarily ranked it at some nebulous level below commercial : software, at least as far as how it is developed, maintained, updated, and : supported." Pffft. Nonsense. I ftp'd Slackware from ftp.cdrom.com. The only thing I paid for was the connect time. I'd hardly call Linux the 'volkswagon' of Unices...in my experience it's more stable than SCO. : Part about comparing Linux users to Amiga users : : "In fact, Linux users have a dogged enthusiasm for their product unmatched : even by thepassion of followers of the, well, the "A" word. (Psst ! It's : a machine once sold by a company with a name that sounds something like : "commode door" -- wink wink, nudege nudge). Just what I like, nice impartial reporting of an issue. I bet he never even USED an Amiga (but probably read lots of Dvorak's rantings about the machine). : This is what he says they looked at Linux in the first place : : "Just between us, our target readership generally doesn't want to risk using : underware in a mission-critical environment, so we wouldn't normally look : at an operating system like Linux. But we are just the sort of rabble to : champion the cause of a piece of really good underware if it's appropriate, : so we're taking a look at Linux in our product comparisons of Internet : gateways." Translation: "Since we think that our readers are all drooling morons who are too scared to step out of the M$ fold and try something new, we're telling you that you won't want to try Linux. Trust us, we're professionals." "Mission critical"? Hmm, my network provider uses a Linux box as a nameserver, news hub, router, etc... that seems pretty mission critical to me, since if it goes down he's got a lot of pissed off customers banging at his door. I develop Motif programs on my home Linux box. I've written an operating system (pre-emptive, with all the bells'n'whistles) for my undergrad thesis on my Linux box...that was pretty mission critical to me, and it served JUST fine. And I didn't even have to pay a CENT for my development environment (thanks GNU!) ....well, except for the Motif license, that is. : He then goes on to describe how they screwed up the installation and that they : thought that the network disk was needed to install the network part of Linux : but in fact it is only needed when Linux is installed from the network. Also : the author mentions that there are too many optional pieces at installation, : they were pleasantly surprised by support for the 3C509 network card, they : like the color coded output of ls and they had a bit of trouble trying to : install X support from the CD. Note that almost everything criticised in the : column is a critique of the installation process but even then the author : says that "We admit, the installation is going more smoothly than what we'd : expect from an underware product. Most of the problems aren't anything a : little extra documentation wouldn't fix." Funny, when I did my last install, everything was menu-driven with a nice colorful menu that had loads of help info. And that was 8 months ago, I can only imagine things have gotten better since then.. True, in the past the whole distribution needed to be raw-written to disks, but now everything can be done on top of MS-LOSS. Compared to some other OS's I've installed, Linux was one of the most painless. (try fighting with a new install of Domain/OS for a couple days for an experience in pain). : So this is it. The column will continue next week. The column was written : by Nicholas Petreley. Personally, I did not find the column too out of touch, : nor too insulting. Especially if you consider the reviews that InfoWorld : gives about other OS's. Well, from what I've read it seems overly sarcastic...sort of written from the perspective of "we don't expect much from this pseudo-OS"...but I guess I'm a FANATICAL RAVING FOAMING AT THE MOUTH GLOBAL ALERT FOR ALL JESUS IS COMING SOON K-RAD K00L KIBOZING GREEN CARD SPAMMING HERBAL StUdLeY CaPs former AMIGA OWNING LINUX RUNNING SCSI MOLESTING OS/2 ZEALOTING hacker-type Linux user then. :) (for the humor impaired) : Later, -- Kris -Kev, former Amiga owner and Linux runner (who just happens to like OS/2 and a variety of other OS's as well!) -- Kevin G. Fisher | "We all stand next to Jesus fisher@waterloo.hp.com | close to Satan we're both the same..." My opinions, not HP's | - L & R, _American Dream_ MIME Mail OK! | M$ - "What do you want to crash today?"