Novell Desktop Linux 10: getting closer to a toss up between Linux & Windows?

On a sunny day (Tue, 14 Feb 2006 22:08:55 -0500) it happened Keith
wrote in :

On Tue, 14 Feb 2006 13:50:47 +0000, Jan Panteltje wrote:

On a sunny day (Mon, 13 Feb 2006 21:10:36 -0500) it happened Keith
wrote in :

And you think that is "backup"? What about a fire in the building?
You are *that* dissatisfied with that job?

WTF are you on about now? Maybe you Europeons haven't invented fire yet?
You mean you cowboys learned it from the injuns?

On a sunny day (Tue, 14 Feb 2006 14:50:53 GMT) it happened Robert Redelmeier
wrote in
:

Jan Panteltje wrote in part:
I think some of the confusion perhaps comes from not
understanding Unix X windows. When you are using a 'xterm' a
text terminal in X windows, you are STILL fully GUI capable.

Yes, and I frequently see X screens just populated with
a series of xterms. Personally, I prefer using SVGATextMode
and running Linux virtual consoles at 160x73 chars.

And the 3 button mouse, 2 left clicks select a word, 3 a
sentence, one middle mouse click pastes at cursor.

Yes, and gpm does the cut'n'paste in CLI

ftp://panteltje.com/pub/d/ (I hope the ftp works for you,

Nope. Didn't work for me.

I will have to look at that, local connects work fine for all users...
This is 'proftpd' started from inet.d/

On a sunny day (Tue, 14 Feb 2006 20:01:49 -0500) it happened George Macdonald
wrote in
:

I've heard people describe Windows menuing interface as intuitive - what
utter tripe!... consistent *can* be its strength if programmers don't
wander too far. While I think we're all aware of the strengths of a CLI,
any suggestion of going without a GUI would be absurd - Jan's GUI avoidance
is err, perverted.:-)

Yes make fun of it, I put some desktop shots here, as ftp seems to have been
censored in the US ;-)
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/d/

Put them he

http://panteltje.com/panteltje/d/

use a real viewer....

George Macdonald wrote in part:
Hmm, I have to say I've found grep et.al. umm, also easy to
forget - I've invested the "time" 3 or 4 times over many years
with each new brush with Unix *and* had to endure the (x)sh
du jour and even had to mess with two different flavors at the
same time at one point... which I found extremely frustrating.

Of course! Almost everything is difficult to learn and retain
if you don't use it.

I've heard people describe Windows menuing interface as intuitive
- what utter tripe!...

Agreed. The only intuitive interface is the nipple. -- Jay Volmer

consistent *can* be its strength if programmers don't wander
too far. While I think we're all aware of the strengths of a
CLI, any suggestion of going without a GUI would be absurd -

For me, it's the other 'way around. Any suggestion of going
without a CLI is absurd in the long term. I can suffer for a
short while if I don't have admin to do. But it is painfully
slow and inflexible. With ssh, I can work across the 'net on
my home computer _exactly_ as if I were at the console. My mail
goes into the same folders, my usenet .newsrc is current and my
web favorites and cache are all there. I can easily & temporarily
run `putty` on most unlocked MS-Windows machines.

Graphics are only rarely important, like when I want to watch
traffic maps, weather or hurricane tracks. Perhaps I should
look into SVGAlib so I don't need to load X. I can navigate
most websites (except my bank's) with `links`.

Jan's GUI avoidance is err, perverted.:-)

Then I'm even worse. I load X less than once per day.
(I've been MS-free for 5+ years except at work). I can see
GUIs have some use. Just not much for me. I would have to
give up too much.

-- Robert

The little lost angel wrote in part:
Hmm interesting! I didn't know the shells can do filename
completion nowadays! That might make things a lot easier. Every
year or so, I make one attempt at setting up a *nix box and it
always end up as too much of a tedium to use :P

File name completion isn't all that new. I believe 4DOS had it 15+
years ago. I get irritated when I'm stuck with some dumb install
shell (like `ash`) without a history or filename completion.
FYI, filename completion will also do the quoting/escaping to
properly handle filenames with spaces in them.

Completion (both command and filename) and persistant (on disk)
command history are two important CLI usability features. I can
look back and see what command worked to do something I need done
again. And just type !321 if I want to repeat it, or !321 if
I want to edit it. This helps when I look back 6 months to see
how I burnt a backup of my son's MS-WinXP box across the network.

Even MS-WinNT cmd.exe has filename completion (but not command
completion). You many need to adjust registry settings under
HKLM\sw\MS\Command Processor , but I believe XP has reasonable
defaults [TAB].

-- Robert

On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 14:31:05 GMT, Robert Redelmeier
wrote:

Even MS-WinNT cmd.exe has filename completion (but not command
completion). You many need to adjust registry settings under
HKLM\sw\MS\Command Processor , but I believe XP has reasonable
defaults [TAB].

Thanks for the tip!

--
A Lost Angel, fallen from heaven
Lost in dreams, Lost in aspirations,
Lost to the world, Lost to myself

On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 12:40:49 +0000, Jan Panteltje wrote:

On a sunny day (Tue, 14 Feb 2006 22:08:55 -0500) it happened Keith
wrote in :

On Tue, 14 Feb 2006 13:50:47 +0000, Jan Panteltje wrote:

On a sunny day (Mon, 13 Feb 2006 21:10:36 -0500) it happened Keith
wrote in :

And you think that is "backup"? What about a fire in the building?
You are *that* dissatisfied with that job?

WTF are you on about now? Maybe you Europeons haven't invented fire yet?
You mean you cowboys learned it from the injuns?

Unlike Europeons, we learn.

--
Keith

On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 12:49:38 GMT, Jan Panteltje
wrote:

On a sunny day (Tue, 14 Feb 2006 20:01:49 -0500) it happened George Macdonald
wrote in
:

I've heard people describe Windows menuing interface as intuitive - what
utter tripe!... consistent *can* be its strength if programmers don't
wander too far. While I think we're all aware of the strengths of a CLI,
any suggestion of going without a GUI would be absurd - Jan's GUI avoidance
is err, perverted.:-)

Yes make fun of it, I put some desktop shots here, as ftp seems to have been
censored in the US ;-)
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/d/

Censored? I don't think so - you just don't know how to do it apparently.
If you were expecting people to run an FTP to download *your* files, which
could be infections for all we know, and then run them through a viewer
program you're as daft as a brush.

As for the content, I still don't know what you're trying to present he
so you have a few graphical interface progs which run under X. So bloody
what? You think we've never seen an X application before?

--
Rgds, George Macdonald

On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 14:07:01 GMT, Robert Redelmeier
wrote:

George Macdonald wrote in part:

consistent *can* be its strength if programmers don't wander
too far. While I think we're all aware of the strengths of a
CLI, any suggestion of going without a GUI would be absurd -

For me, it's the other 'way around. Any suggestion of going
without a CLI is absurd in the long term. I can suffer for a
short while if I don't have admin to do. But it is painfully
slow and inflexible. With ssh, I can work across the 'net on
my home computer _exactly_ as if I were at the console. My mail
goes into the same folders, my usenet .newsrc is current and my
web favorites and cache are all there. I can easily & temporarily
run `putty` on most unlocked MS-Windows machines.

But it sounds to me like Jan is trying to "sell" a vertical solution to end
users - most people can't cope with anything more than a browser.

Graphics are only rarely important, like when I want to watch
traffic maps, weather or hurricane tracks. Perhaps I should
look into SVGAlib so I don't need to load X. I can navigate
most websites (except my bank's) with `links`.

I don't think I could go "back" to something like `links` - sounds like
wearing a hair shirt to me.:-)

Jan's GUI avoidance is err, perverted.:-)

Then I'm even worse. I load X less than once per day.
(I've been MS-free for 5+ years except at work). I can see
GUIs have some use. Just not much for me. I would have to
give up too much.

On the subject of M$ dependency, I came across this last night:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...021200942.html
$22Billion and this is what they came up with! I can't see any mention of
what the actual dependency is -- ActiveX maybe? -- but it's odd that they
only mention Mac users as those who are excluded.

--
Rgds, George Macdonald