10 Jun
2009
10 Jun
'09
2:38 p.m.
Ok, gotta throw my 2 cents in here... :)
On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 2:16 PM, Zane H. Healy<healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Brian Wheeler wrote:
No kidding. I remember booting the Linux kernel on floppies (I think
it was v0.99 or something like that), and I also remember the joy I
felt when I booted Yggdrasil Linux and saw X come up. Before that, I
had to use either SCO Open Desktop or Interactive ix/386 (both of
which were horribly expensive) on my Northgate 386.
I also can agree about RMS... I find him somewhat irritating, but I
have to give the guy credit for sticking to his principles. He really
believes what he says.
The attitude of the community can be horrible.
As one of the Penguin Crowd, I agree. ?The local
linux user's group
seems to be filled with people more interested in flashy gui stuff than
understanding how the system works.
Asking any kind of technical question of them usually meets with
silence. ?I guess if I asked about configuring compiz or upping my FPS
I'd get a lot of answers.
I haven't considered myself to be part of the "Linux Community" for a very
long time. ?I've been involved with Linux since January of '92, and I'm
typing this on a Linux box. ?Having said that I've been disgusted with the
attitude of the community since some time in the '98 timeframe. ?Don't even
get me started on RMS, as I view him and his Cult as being a large part of
the problem. ?The level of fanaticism and hatred of commercial software
really turns me off. Something else that irritates me is that Linux
programmers seem to be just
as bad about writing non-portable code as Windows programmers. ?This is the
main reason I continue to use Linux at home at all. ?I'd much rather simply
go with Mac OS X (which is now my primary UNIX platform at home), and I'd
just as soon use OpenBSD, Solaris, or even IRIX. ?OTOH, I'd rather run Linux
than AIX or HP-UX, but that's just a question of preferences. :-)
Oh, if I could, I'd haul one of my HP PA-RISC boxes down to work and
use that, but I work for McAfee and security about hardware here is
incredibly tight. I could easily bring it in here, but it would be a
major pain to get it back out of the building.
At the same time a *LOT* of good has come out of the
Linux community, and a
lot of really awesome pieces of software. ?The same can even be said about
Microsoft. ?While I hate Microsoft, I have to admit they have some really
nice developers tools. ?I for one really like the C# work that has been done
both by Microsoft and the Mono teams.
Agreed. I'm no fan of MS and I do have quite a bit of experience with
Windows. I spent 13 years writing code for Win16 and Win32, and when
they put their minds to it they can produce some cool stuff.
An interesting way of looking at this would be to
voice my key dislikes for
the various OS's I currently use.
Windows ?- It is a mess, and it is Microsoft
Yow. Vista.
Mac OS X - It is a resource hog, and I question the
efficiency of the
microkernal, especially based on tests against Linux.
True, but what a development framework! :)
Linux ? ?- The community (I have some performance
complaints, but am not
sure how accurate they still are)
The community wants to be on top but all the infighting is killing that.
OpenBSD ?- Theo de Raadt doing things that harm the
project
No comment. :)
OpenVMS ?- The Corporation(s) owning it trying to kill
it and starving it
for resources. ?I fear that HP has decided to kill it off, in a slow and
painful manner.
Yes, but at least you can get a decent semi-free license for it.
Solaris ?- I'm concerned about its continued
viability, as such I'm less
likely to use it in the future.
I'd love to see this continue... OpenSolaris can be a lot of fun.
IRIX ? ? - I wish it wasn't a dead end, as it is
really an amazing OS and it
ran on amazing hardware.
Damn... you hit that one on the head.
Mark