Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >> The best part is when you say "make configure", and it says 
> >> "Unrecognised arch 'i586/SuSE 10.3'". And you're like "WTF? Now what do 
> >> I do??"
> > 
> >   Yes, it's clearly a problem with *linux* when some software you are
> > trying to install is broken.

> Right. And the fact that the design of Unix is overly complex and 
> incorporates several decades of backwards compatibility is unrelated? ;-)

  It's not like Windows is any better in that regard.

  At least Apple dares to break backwards compatibility with ancient
software and architectures. It hasn't slowed them down much.

> I do take your point - broken software exists on *all* platforms. 
> However, I do feel that Unix really doesn't help matters by being so 
> wildly complicated...

  Unix was never designed for people who don't know nor want to know
anything about computers. It was designed for sysadmins and the like.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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nemesis wrote:
> What I'm trying to say is that W95, WNT or Vista, 
> while not the same OS, continue using old API code to handle old user 
> apps.  So, it's MS made cross-platform software possible.  The old apps 
> are still relying on old API code, not new code from the new OS handling 
> the old apps.

Um, yes. So you're saying "Yes, MS made it possible to run the same 
executables on multiple operating systems over the course of decades. 
But that doesn't count, because it wasn't magic"?  I'm not sure why you 
think you're disagreeing with me here.

> What really made cross-platform software a little more closer to reality 
> were industry-strength standards,

Like what? I haven't seen any standards that actually allow for programs 
to run cross-platform. Maybe I'm not following what you mean.

> the internet, 

The internet doesn't make programs run cross-platform. It just gives you 
a way to access them when they're running on someone else's platform.

> quite a few cross-platform development languages (Java, Python, Perl etc)

And BASIC. Which used to run everywhere. And was promoted and 
implemented by MS (amongst others).

Note that Java, Python, etc are all libraries controlled by one company 
or individual that give you cross-platform APIs for your code. Just like 
Win32. Except they don't provide executables.

> and, yes, open-source software.  

Sure.

> You have the source and it's compiled and running 
> everywhere, so let's build more from there on and get done with it.

I agree that open source software is probably a better way to do stuff, 
as long as you aren't worried about making a living at it.

 >  No more proprietary APIs, more portability across truly different 
OSes...

Uh, so, how much Linux software runs without recompiling under Solaris? 
Does that actually work?

I think the only thing that's actually going to satisfy you is virtual 
machine stuff, like VMWare.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     On what day did God create the body thetans?

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Gail Shaw wrote:
> "Orchid XP v7" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
> news:47b1efb6@news.povray.org...
> 
>> They can, however, pay the hardware guys to only
>> supply new computers with M$ Windows preinstalled
> 
> Which clearly explains why the haedware companies (like say, Dell, HP, IBM)
> would never sell a computer pre-installed with Linux.
> 
> Oh, wait....

So M$ didn't win everybody over yet? ;-)

[Last I heard - and I don't have any hard data for this - the guys you 
named aren't exactly short of cash.]

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Warp wrote:

>> Right. And the fact that the design of Unix is overly complex and 
>> incorporates several decades of backwards compatibility is unrelated? ;-)
> 
>   It's not like Windows is any better in that regard.

I'm not going to disagree with you on that.

[At least Unix is mostly documented...]

>   At least Apple dares to break backwards compatibility with ancient
> software and architectures. It hasn't slowed them down much.

Don't have any experiene in that direction, but I've heard good things.

>   Unix was never designed for people who don't know nor want to know
> anything about computers. It was designed for sysadmins and the like.

Again, we are in agreement.

I think it's not so much a case of "Linux isn't ready for the desktop", 
but rather "Linux is misplaced on the desktop". But I don't see anybody 
developing anything else currently...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> Well, if the hardware doesn't support it, how is the software supposed 
> to offer that feature? Let's be realistic here.

Let's scroll back to your original question, shall we?

 > What *useful* stuff does Windows do that AmigaDOS doesn't?

Now, are you claiming that all the hardware like virtual memory and 
networking that Windows supports that the Amiga doesn't is not necessary?

Do you remember why the thread started? Because Windows is more buggy 
than AmigaOS, and people said "that's because it does more"? Do you 
seriously think you can add support for VM, protected mode, networking, 
and lots of different kinds of hardware without making the OS more 
complicated?

> There's only a few things it could have provided but didn't.

This is incorrect also.

>>> The STOP messages give generic error codes.
>> Fortunately, the Amiga was far superior in this regard. ;-)
> Yes. It didn't crash. ;-)

Either you weren't programming at the time, or you're a far better 
programmer than I was.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     On what day did God create the body thetans?

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Darren New wrote:
> SUSE 10.1 would crash during install on my machine unless I managed to 
> interrupt it in the 0.75 seconds before it installed the buggy USB 
> driver that would take out the system.  It took me literally two days of 
> trying before I could get to a login prompt after an install.

hmm, you interrupt it before it installs a "buggy" USB driver?  It would 
crash without the interrupting?  what has you hooked to the USB port?

> On the other hand, Windows has been managing basic installs without user 
> expertise for decades. :-)

I understand that Linux just install everything automatically.  Under 
Windows, you install the basic OS and then go on manually inserting 
driver CDs or downloading them and installing for yourself, with any 
luck.  There are pros and cons for each method.

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nemesis wrote:
> Tom Austin wrote:
>> IIRC Win95 ran on MS-DOS 7.  It actually booted to DOS and then loaded 
>> windows.  The reboot to DOS only set up the environment customized to 
>> the application you were trying to run.
>>
>> The same went for Win98 & ME.  Just that DOS become less and less 
>> important.  But I remember that they all ran on top of DOS.
> 
> AFAIK, Windows 3.1 was the last purely windows system for DOS.  From W95 
> forward, Windows was already a full OS, though not 32 bits.  But yes, I 
> think DOS booted and then booted Win.  DOS became as irrelevant as the 
> old programs for it began being rewritten for true 32 bit OS.  It then 
> run in emulated mode inside Windows...

I do remember running win95 from DOS and exiting win95 back to day.

Essentially I believe win95, 98, and ME required DOS to run.


Windows NT was the product that what it's 'own' OS and didn't run on DOS.
Windows 2000 and XP are based on the NT code and therefore never needed DOS.



Tom

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Darren New wrote:

> Do you 
> seriously think you can add support for VM, protected mode, networking, 
> and lots of different kinds of hardware without making the OS more 
> complicated?

I guess the killer question is "can you do it without making it buggy". 
I think you can. Clearly you think it's impossible. (Or just impossibly 
expensive anyway...)

>>>> The STOP messages give generic error codes.
>>> Fortunately, the Amiga was far superior in this regard. ;-)
>> Yes. It didn't crash. ;-)
> 
> Either you weren't programming at the time, or you're a far better 
> programmer than I was.

I was programming in Pascal - why?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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nemesis wrote:
> hi, I can't help but notice your timezone is wrong.  This is 2008.  We 
> can write to NTFS partitions from LiveCDs,

Really? Which distro is that? It's not in the latest from SuSE 10.2, I 
notice.

 > let alone simple FAT which
> BTW is the standard format in thumbdrives, which work just fine as well.

I didn't say it didn't work. I said it tells me it's "alpha". Now, given 
that it's on a piece of software distributed worldwide, methinks the 
author of that message doesn't know what "ALPHA" means.

> Perhaps it's time to test a new Linux distribution?  From the 2000's?

Put a FAT32 drive in your /etc/fstab and look at the messages during 
boot. Maybe yours doesn't have that any more, but mine does.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     On what day did God create the body thetans?

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"Orchid XP v7" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47b1f941$1@news.povray.org...

> > Which clearly explains why the haedware companies (like say, Dell, HP,
IBM)
> > would never sell a computer pre-installed with Linux.
> >
> > Oh, wait....
>
> So M$ didn't win everybody over yet? ;-)

Other way round. They all started selling linux installed machines recently.
(Or at least Dell did. Don't know the time frame of the others)

And I highly doubt that MS pays people to sell their software. That's not
exactly a good way to do business. Windows pre-installed on a PC is cheaper
than windows bought seperatly. Means the retailers can get more of a profit
margin, which makes share holders very happy.

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