Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 19:10:16 +0100 (BST) From: Stephen Roome <steve@visint.co.uk> To: Christoffer Walther <chrw@proventum.net> Cc: isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Internet providers discouraging customers from unix Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.95.970611190001.9660E-100000@dylan.visint.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <Pine.SGI.3.95.970611152138.18640C-100000@indy4>
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On Wed, 11 Jun 1997, Christoffer Walther wrote: > On Tue, 10 Jun 1997, Blaine Minazzi wrote: <BIG SNIP> > Anyway, unix is meant (imo) as a server os, and most isps wants the > clients to be windows based, NT and win95, becuz performance and > STABILITY doesnt really matter that much when we are talking clients. And > NT and win95 is, after all easier to handle for the average "normal" > person, than a unixbox is. I think its ok. I wouldnt advise any of my > customers to put FreeBSD and X on their lan PCs. I would however, hear > of no other OS than unix (be it freebsd, irix, solaris, linux, etc.) if > the customer wanted to setup his own mail, dns, web etc. server. This is the isp list, surely you folks have noticed the web and how much it's taking off. There's a lot of people out there who just want a box on their desk which gives them email, web browsing and news access. It's not hard to justify that for just those needs any UNIX with xdm and an average 'idiot' account would be perfectly adequate and possibly (although I'm not getting into that) more reliable. > > In short, go for a heavy unix server u put away in the basement and use > telnet for administration. Put NT on ur desktop (unless u need heavy > workstations ofcuz) Or if you wanted a lightweight desktop machine to be just a browser reader, use X, it's pretty much impossible for some idiot to do anything wrong to it, especially without the reset button. Then above that level there's the millions of office people worldwide who now want web/email & WORDPROCESSOR. So, because word is the only word processor (in their eyes), then they use that. All someone needs to do is actually come out with a decent word processor for say FreeBSD and you have probably put the number of possible users up by a few million, with less admin than for a windows machine. (it won't go wrong). I just thought I'd have to interupt here because customers never need root access really, you can sudo shutdowns etc. Being a normal user with only X access and some menuing shell as default wouldn't require a lot of support. Now, if someone wrote a decent unix wordprocessor, I can think of 8 people in this company here who I would move over to unix, for a start I'd not have to restart the stupid windows print server every third day when it regularly falls over. Just my $0.00001 worth. Steve
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