Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 16:30:04 -0600 From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@freebie.atkielski.com> Cc: "Mike Meyer" <mwm@mired.org>, <chat@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Feeding the Troll (Was: freebsd as a desktop ?) Message-ID: <15368.2156.193643.17139@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <003301c179ea$8925d270$0a00000a@atkielski.com> References: <15367.37543.15609.362257@guru.mired.org> <040701c179af$4bda25f0$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <15367.43943.686638.723011@guru.mired.org> <003301c179ea$8925d270$0a00000a@atkielski.com>
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Anthony Atkielski <anthony@freebie.atkielski.com> types: > Mike writes: > > It makes for lousy tech, but it's smart management. > If tech alone were the deciding factor, we'd be running FreeMultics, not > FreeBSD. Can't argue with that. I have a habit of buying the best *technical* solution to a problem, and ignoring popularity. I've ownd a lot of orphans. > > I don't believe the world was ever Apple's > > oyster ... > There was a time when I and just about everyone else in IT lusted after Macs. > They were incredibly cool and light-years ahead of everyone else. But they were > very, very expensive, and the price didn't come down, nor did the functionality > dramatically increase. Finally Windows came alone, and it wasn't quite as nice, > but it was affordable--Apple took no notice of this approaching storm. We went > to Windows because we could. And Windows got better and better, whereas the Mac > just retreated into its little niche and pouted at the world. And so the Mac > faded away, and Windows became the alpha dog. This ties back to tech vs. marketing. Even when it had the best tech around, Apple priced it to high to compete with DOS. MS did what MS does best, and built a solution that would sell in the market. Apple hadn't done that because they had the prices to high. At that time, other companies were selling Unix workstations to people who could afford them. But they made Mac's look cheap. > > For Windowing environments, the Mac never caught > > up with DOS, so that clearly wasn't it. > The Mac was well ahead of DOS and Windows for a few crucial years. As usual, > Apple just stupidly ignored the open door, and plodded further towards oblivion. Are you claiming there was a time when there were more Mac's than there were DOS boxes? That would certainly surprise me. There was clearly a time when there were probably more Mac's than Windows on top of DOS boxes. Most of the the time Windows 1.0, which shipped before the Mac, and Windows 2.0 were shipping, for instance. > > As soon as MS had a windowing environment that > > was good enough - 3.0 - Apple lost the the windowing > > environment ... > Yup. And it didn't have to be that way. With management like Apple has had > through the years, it has never really needed any enemies. I can't argue. On the other hand, during that period I had an Amiga on my desktop. That was the first affordable desktop system that had true multitasking in it. Oddly enough, people using DOS and the Mac griped that multitasking was a waste for a personal computer, and nobody would ever need those things. They also complained that color was worthless, as what would you do with it? I wonder how many of them still think that way. For a time, the Amiga owned the desktop and home video Market. The Babylon 5 TV series was produced on Amigas. But CBM hired the same genius who brought us the PC Jr, and the company folded. > > They react to them like they do to most things > > that malfunction regularly. > The only problem with this is that Windows does _not_ "malfunction regularly." I thought we had already agreed that the consumer version - which is what these people are using - wasn't really suitable for heavy use because it malfunctions regularly. At least it does for these people. > > They all went where microsoft wanted them to go. > Where else was there to go? Unfortunately for them, nowhere. > > Proprietary standards lock you down. Open standards > > don't. > "Open" standards lock you down just as much when the system you are using > doesn't support them. That's what you get for choosing your platform, then trying to find applications to run on it. You need to do things the other way 'round to get superior solutions. Of course, as you're so fond of pointing out, there are 100,000 applications available for Windows. I'm pretty sure that applications that support most open standards can be found in that group. > But there are compensating factors that are particularly significant in server > environments. For example, PPTP can be a pain to get running on Windows, even > though Microsoft was one of the originators of the protocol. PPPoE is even > worse--as far as I know, only one or two solutions exist, all of them black > boxes from tiny companies. But all of this is standard stuff for UNIX; indeed, > _anything_ having to do with a network is standard stuff for UNIX. UNIX already > incorporates lots of IPv6 support; I don't expect to ever see that for Windows > NT. Uh - I don't think MS originated PPP. I know they originated some extensions that ISPs pretty much had to follow because 99% of their customers ran Windows, but that's a different thing. > > On the other hand, the ability to run Linux > > binaries meant I'd have a good shot at getting > > commercial Unix software running on FreeBSD. > Does Linux compatibility in FreeBSD extend to drivers? Nope, but it doesn't matter for me. Going the other way - being able to run FreeBSD drivers on Windows - is what would be important. Even though you didn't ask, I'll point out that you can't run linux shared libraries in a FreeBSD binary, either. This most often comes up with people wanting some Linux plugin for Mozilla to work. > I wish there were less hype for Linux; it's about at the bottom of the totem > pole of UNIX systems, and it pains me to think that it is being held up as a > model for all of them. It's like exhibiting a Yugo as a model of the auto > industry. I hate to tell you this, but it's *not* at the bottom of the Totem pole. At the very least, AIX is beneath it. AIX is a Unix with most of the user interface designed by the MVS group at IBM - or at least it felt that way to me. > > However, there is no single compenent that > > can't be replaced by another application > > with similar functionality should the need > > arise. > And how long would that take? Depends on the application. For some of them, zero time, because the functionality is duplicated. Converting to Linux would probably take a day or more. > > Except, as we discussed in the other thread, > > that even Windows NT still suffers from design > > decisions made during the Windows 3.1 era > > that catered to the single-tasking nature of > > DOS. > It still emulates certain things for compatibility. But the kernel doesn't > require this emulation. Nah, just the windowing desktop - which means it's incorrect to claim that Windows NT was designed from scratch for a windowing environment. > > Quit confusing the window manager and the server. > > The window manager doesn't require any extra priveleges. > Without a server, what good is the windows manager? If you are running UNIX as > a desktop, you're running an X server on the UNIX machine itself. True. But you don't have to run the window manager on that machine. There was a time when I ran the window manager on a VAX talking to a server on a Sun, because I got better response that way. My running the window manager on the VAX didn't change it's security whatsoever. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Q: How do you make the gods laugh? A: Tell them your plans. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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