Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Umm. Actually, I was referring to Windows there,

I was too. I guess you never actually used DOS or something.

> True enough. One wonders why most of that stuff

What "stuff"??

> "while" playing the games that need that sound?

Don't even *start* talking about sound being poorly supported on Windows 
until you've made sound work on Unix.

> don't know a phone jack from a cat5e jack, some of this stuff is a pain 
> in the ass when they start messing with it.

I agree. Of course. I'm just disagreeing that this is unique to one 
operating system, or even that it's avoidable.

> would have to sell a kidney to be able to make changes to a product 
> written in something that they don't freely support. 

So, by "hard to support", you mean "commercial."  Come on, it's not 
*that* expensive.

> Yeah, yeah, I know the reason. It doesn't help my mood when I look at 
> the price tag. lol

Well, why are you even supporting Windows, then? It's a commercial 
product. If you want to work on stuff for free, there are excellent 
alternatives available.

> No, I mean that I was talking about core features, while you are talking 
> about a layer higher than that.

I'm not sure what you consider a "core" feature. Me, it's starting a 
program, reading and writing files, using internet connections, normal 
windows widgets like scrollbars and text entry, etc. I have zero problem 
moving my core programs between Windows and Linux with appropriate 
libraries underlying.

> bit more serious if the heart of your application is relying on some 
> core feature working, which doesn't work the same on the new OS, or come 
> close enough to patch over.

Well, yes.

> Point was, unless its hardware related (and that is a whole new can of 
> worms), *nix isn't likely to have too many of those, even between 
> different "versions".

I disagree. Where's /dev/mt?  Do you have /proc under Solaris?

And again, I point to autoconf as a trivial counterexample. Take a look 
at all the things autoconf can configure, and tell me which of those are 
hardware related, and which you're unlikely to need in a "core" application.

> Oh, Windows 95 worked great, so did Win3.1, as long as I was careful 
> what I let it patch over. XP has been good so far. 98... Lets not talk 
> about it. lol

Yeah, some of the older OSes could have problems if you installed 
crapware. If you didn't, no problem.

>>> argue that we have, partly in XP, and hugely in Vista, traded stability 
>>> for the equivalent of some goon at the door saying, "Now, you know we 
>>> can't do nothing about the bad guys outside, so whys you want to leave? 
>>> Just stay here, nice and safe like, and let us decide if that packet 
>>> shood get sent or not." Security via not letting you do anything. 
>> Again, a bizarre analogy. How about explaining what you dislike about XP 
>> by means of a reference to computers rather than to the Godfather movie?
>>
> Because, its like having a goon sitting "inside" your house telling you 
> what *you* are allowed to do sometimes, instead of standing "outside" 
> the house, to protect you from the real problems. 

The analogy police are on their way. You've been warned.

How does this differ from UNIX saying you're not allowed to delete 
something out of /bin for your own good?

> Sure, some people 
> *need* the goon, since they are not too bright and will do dumb things. 

I think it isn't that they aren't too bright. It's that they know 
nothing about how the computer works.

> I get a bit annoyed trying to learn how to "not" do dumb things and 
> having the goon tell me, "Yous sure you wanna do that?", all the time, 
> even when I know that it will work.

It's asking permission to elevate your privilege. If you're running as 
administrator, you're already doing something wrong, so complaining that 
you're being annoyed by the warnings is kind of silly, methinks.

>>  > Or an
>>> admittance that they can't stop the stuff that "requires" that kind of 
>>> security. 
>> What kind of "stuff" are you talking about?
>>
> Umm. People making your machine a zombie. They seemed to figure that no 
> one has a legitimate reason to create certain types of arbitrary 
> packets, so no one would mind if they limited what zombies could do, 
> even though it also torpedoed things that used the same principle to 
> work, and where legitimate products. Heh, its just one I ran into 
> recently, not a huge issue, but its not the only thing I hear people 
> griping about with how they did Vista's security model (and also partly 
> XP).

I expect they actually have a different interface of some sort for 
creating those alternate packets, and people are griping that it 
changed, but that's just a guess.

>>> Either way, I didn't like 95/98 because it robbed me of a lot 
>>> of control I *used to have* over my system. 
>> Like what?
>>
> Mostly trying to fix things if they broke, or changing settings that 
> even the admin user doesn't necessary have clear access to.

Sorry. "Admin user" in 95?  Impress me by explaining what you're talking 
about, given that Win95 is a single-user OS.

> annoying things I tried to adjust in them. (some there cases where you 
> could only change the setting via regedit though).

And UNIX is better at this, is it? ;-)

>>> XP, is kind of getting on my 
>>> nerves, and what I have seen of Vista... Well, I am not the only one fed 
>>> up at this point.
>> Yeah, Vista is certainly a step back in many ways. Many of the problems 
>> it's trying to solve, tho, are people who are saying "I should be able 
>> to do anything I want, oh and when it breaks we'll blame Microsoft."
>>
>> The thing I don't really understand is the number of people who use 
>> MacOSX, Linux, and Windows, and complain that Windows asks for 
>> confirmation for privileged operations, but equally croon about how 
>> great Linux is that you have to sudo a program so you know it's 
>> something dangerous.
>>
> lol Yeah. Though, at times I wish Sudo existed on Windows. 

Um, it does. It's called "runas".

> Frankly, I am 
> running, and shouldn't be, in a full access user, precisely because I 
> know if I change to a protected one I am going to be spending way too 
> much time arguing with the OS about what I am doing,

You'd be surprised, actually. I mean, unless you've got really old 
crappy software.

> or situations where 
> a sudo would solve an issue real easy, but where only logging out and 
> back in as admin would fix in Windows 

Why would you log out just to log in as administrator? Just lock the 
screen, and log in while the other user is still logged in.

> the system updates that the OS **incists** you reboot with,

Never had that happen. The worst I get is the little yellow shield in 
the corner saying "please let me know when I should install these patches."

> There doesn't seem to be a "let me fracking reboot when "I" want to option. 

Of course there is. Or do you think people have production servers all 
over the internet randomly rebooting on patch day?

Go to the control panel, under automatic updates. If you want it to 
reboot after installing patches, tell it when and on what day of the 
week in the drop-downs. Otherwise, set it to "download updates but let 
me pick when to install them."  Or "notify me but dont download them."

> Instead it keeps popping up 
> ever 5-10 minutes to ask you, "Heh! You done yet. Want to reboot?" No 
> frell you!!

If you let it get to that point at all, you can stop it by (surprise) 
stopping the windows update service.

"Gee, this CD player keeps playing this CD over and over! It's driving 
me nuts!"
     "Did you try stopping the CD player?"
"Oh. No. Didn't think of that."

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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