In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
<newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote
on Thu, 27 Sep 2007 22:33:26 +0100
<2318135.vHBSDHX0QQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> Linux system can be useful Windows alternative
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | But now that many Linux distributions come equipped with a graphical user
> | interface (GUI) that is as user-friendly as the Window's GUI, the Linux
> | operating system is popping up on more and more home PCs and for many
> | different reasons.
> `----
>
> http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/articles/2007/09/27/features/marketplace/market937.txt
>
> It's amusing to read because it's clear that the author knows little about
> Linux (and probably never used it).
Well, lessee if they've got the basics right, at least.
* Linux is inexpensive. This is true, though again the
author (as usual) makes the usual mistake of not
calculating the cost required to download a 1 GB CD.
So Linux is not free, but it's damned close. Shipping
charges are a problem -- Cheapbytes is just as expensive
shipping about 10 disks as it is 1, last I looked (which
was awhile ago).
* Bugs, holes, and security issues tend to be found and
fixed quickly. This is true, though Linux security
is currently roughly equivalent to Windows security
by at least one metric -- and the trolls crow about
this metric. Personally, I think they're looking at
the wall in front of them and ignoring the wide gaping
holes to the side... never mind the rear -- and did I
mention the one over their heads?
* I'm not sure what "similar to Windows XP" means in
that context. Certainly a lot of Linux distros offer
"point-and-click" gooey stuff (either Gnome or KDE).
One can even set it to "click-to-focus" (to me,
that's personally very annoying; I highly prefer
focus-follows-mouse). And of course there's only so many
ways to implement a drop-down picker gadget, a spinner
gadget, a type-in text box (either 1 or multiline),
checkboxes, radio gadgetry. Most will probably go with
the standard window managers -- top draggable bar,
upper right "X-in-the-box" for closing.
Naughty. They mention Impress but don't explicitly
name it. Calc at least they can be excused for (way too
generic a name, though so is "Word", for that matter).
I rather doubt Firefox was originally designed to be used
with Linux. Unix, maybe. I suspect it came from the XUL
used by Netscape, modified to remove the proprietary bits.
I'd have to look.
The article could have at least mentioned bootloaders;
its dismissive comment of "it's possible to have both
Windows and Linux installed on the same PC. Then, it's
just a matter of selecting which operating system to
load at boot time" is OK as far as it goes, but not as
specific as it could have been. Then again...the audience
is probably not going to know what "LILO" stands for (it
stands for LInux LOader -- and just to confuse things,
"Lilo" is Stitch's sidekick in a Disney movie!) or "GRUB"
(GRand Universal Boot loader -- though now it's just
shorthand for "GNU GRUB" apparently). And then there's
LOADLIN, BOOT.INI/Windows NT's bootloader (that can be
modified to boot Linux), Live CD's, ...
As a generic "feelgood filler" article, it's not too bad.
But that's all this is...not really useful, though it's
nice to know smalltown papers are noticing Linux. Carroll
County is in Maryland; the newspaper is in Westminster,
some distance north from Washington, DC. Of course had
I thought to look at the title bar proper I would have
figured this out sooner... :-)
(The server reports itself as a fairly generic Apache, with
no OS designation. The HTML is not horrid, though it
could be cleaner, and shows no obvious Microsoft artifacts.)
--
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Windows Vista. Because a BSOD is just so 20th century; why not
try our new color changing variant?
--
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