Re: [tlug] Speaking of computer usage ....

["SL Baur" <steve@example.com>]

On 2/28/08, Nguyen Vu Hung <vuhung16plus+shape@example.com> wrote:
> 2008/2/29, SL Baur <steve@example.com>:
>
> > Just about *everyone* is missing the point why Linux rocks.  Free as
>  >  in beer?  Who cares?  I'd rather buy a CD/DVD of the distro or pay to
>  >  have it as a preinstall.  Free as in liberty?
>
> Is that the philosophy of the GNU project?

Yeah and I kind of mixed usage a little.  I do not mind having and buying
unfree software on my Linux boxen so long as it isn't anything that I can
live without.  I'm a most happy subscriber to World Of Warcraft, for
example.

> I am using Linux because I trust it.
>  It gives me everything I need to see ( source code ) when I need.

That's a good reason.  To be able to find and fix bugs is vital.  In the
Unix PC case I mentioned, there was a particularly annoying bug
that firmly drove me into what would become the Linux camp.
Strip(1) had a bug where if you fed it a program with the symbol
table already removed, it would delete the binary.   With no source
code and no vendor support, the only possible way I could fix it
was to mv /usr/bin/strip to somewhere else and replace it with
something to the effect

for i; do
  if file $i | grep not.stripped 2>&1 >/dev/null; then
    /usr/bin/strip.UNSAFE $i
  else
    echo $i:  already stripped
  fi
done

> The OS itself maybe a toy, but the applications that third parties are
>  building on it  are not.
>  For average users, using "toy" OS may give better productivity.

Average users don't do very much.  People like my mother use a
computer to browse the web sometimes and do web email.  She
used a WindowMaker based Linux box I set up for her before I
moved to Japan and only stopped when the hard disk died.  She had
three clickable things on her desktop:  connect to ISP, start web server
and stop machine.  Worked well for years.

>  >  I logged in 45 days ago, the system has an uptime of 83 days (I
>  >  don't have a UPS in my cube), I have only 1GB of memory and I'm
>  >  slightly over 1GB into swap. Everything runs with acceptable
>  >  performance except the Firefox running over the network on a
>  >  Solaris workstation. Oh and this all with the older, piggier and slower
>  >  KDE 3 *and* this is an "old" HP workstation that isn't likely to be
>  >  "Vista Capable".
>
> Richness of features and simplicity is a trade-off. KDE and Firefos
>  are feature-rich because
>  both projects are trying to compete with existing commercial applications.
>  Their works are great but like you said, both hit the performance barrier.

Actually no.  I've never had complaints about KDE performance.  That
statement was with regards to KDE 4, which I haven't had a chance to
try yet, but I've read amazing things about.  KDE 3 Just Plain Works for
me.  The stuff I've heard about KDE 4 makes me drool.

Firefox is kind of a pig (that's why I've switched to Opera), but that rather
underscores my statement.

I'm using a desktop environment that is not the latest and greatest in
which, backwards to Microsoft, is faster with smaller footprint and I
have a piggy application out there.  But I can do all that and a whole
lot more on a box that would barely, if at all, be able to handle Microsoft
Vista and a single application.

Twenty years ago, I had a .signature that read "if your O/S can't do 100
different things at the same time, maybe you're using the wrong O/S."
100 was the default value of NPROC on desktop Unix boxen of
the time.

Anyway, I think the best approach to Linux advocacy is to focus on
the things you _can_ do and focus a lot less on free-as-in-beer and
ignore religion entirely.  Religion is reserved for editor wars and
stuff like that, tongue in cheek.  Of all things usenet, I miss
alt.religion.emacs.

>  An inquisitive look at Harajuku

Been there, was too afraid to take any pictures ...

-sb