Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> 
> I often got Vim commands in the middle of POV-Ray code; since I was using
> POV-Win editor, where the Esc key doesn't really get into command mode :)
> And even more often, pressing Esc and noticing before typing a command.

I've tried to quit Excel with <esc>:q couple of times... Vi's commands
are somehow addicting :).

-Aero

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Invisible [mailto:voi### [at] devnull]
> Sure. And do you know how to *find* that?

man vi

Although I don't remember ever seeing anything about a tutor, at least
it tells you how to quit.

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Orchid XP v8 [mailto:voi### [at] devnull]
> Besides, I was under the distinct impression that it's *illegal* to
> reverse-engineer Windows. And that its implementation is covered by
> several billion patents precisely to prevent anybody ever making
> something compatible with it, for that matter.

WINE Is Not an Emulator.  They don't really reverse engineer anything 
(that is, they don't reimplement the Windows core DLLs or anything), 
rather they allow Windows .exe's to run on Linux, and allow dynamic 
linking of Windows DLLs under Linux.

In other words, it allows native Windows apps to run under Linux as if 
they were under Windows.

It's surprisingly effective (although none of the programs *I* needed when 
I tried it worked, it's still a cool concept).

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Invisible [mailto:voi### [at] devnull]
> Sure. The fact that the EULA says "you may not reverse engineer this"
> doesn't make it illegal at all. No sir.

I thought certain clauses have been generally considered as unacceptable, 
whether or not they're actually in the EULA.  Things like, "You agree 
never to sue us ever" don't really hold up when you can prove that the 
software in question did, in fact, kill your dog.

I don't know if reverse engineering falls in the same category or not, but 
I'd suspect that it does.

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mueen Nawaz [mailto:m.n### [at] ieeeorg]
> 	Especially only a few years ago. Back in 2003, most Linux
> distributions
> would not automatically get 3-D working on my card. A few had problems
> with sound as well (my chip is on the motherboard, and is not an
> obscure
> one).

The first time I tried it was in 1996, I believe.  Each and every time, 
I've had to work several hours to get my video card, sound card and 
internet access working correctly.  And I didn't exactly have exotic 
hardware.  (As far as the video card goes... no, I don't consider 80x25 
text mode to be "working correctly," even if I can technically run Linux 
with it.  If my card supports 3D, I want a 3D accelerated driver, which 
means going to out 3rd party sites (after getting 'Net access to work!) 
and hunting for a driver, then trying to convince it to install on my 
system.  This has never been as straightforward as it should be for me... 
maybe I just have bad luck or something).

In the earlier years, I had to work quite a bit to get my CD drive working 
as well, but that's pretty much out of the box now.

> 	Then there's the headache of installing software. If your binary
> repository doesn't have it, you have to compile it. And sometimes your
> distro will put libraries in a place that the source code doesn't know
> about. That's already way too much for even sophisticated users who've
> never dealt with compiling with source code.

Oh, I've got no problems compiling stuff (actually, the fact that many 
programs are distributed as source is attractive to me).

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

What's the difference between a drug dealer and a whore?  A whore can wash 
her crack and sell it again.

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mueen Nawaz [mailto:m.n### [at] ieeeorg]
> 	OK - to each his own. I long stopped trying to get people to
> switch to
> Linux, because I figured if they're happy with Windows, why switch?

For a Linux user, that's surprisingly mature of you :)

(Sorry, I couldn't resist.  You know, I think I've been biased by all 
those years hanging out with the anti-conformist, throw down the 
government and grow pot in your backyard Linux kids I used to know.  I've 
gotten so tired of all the BS they used to spout that any time MS does 
something right, I feel the need to go around and tell people "Guess what! 
You were wrong about them!"  I really have no problem with Linux on its 
own, I just don't think I'll be using it myself {at least until I give up 
Windows gaming... I thought I had when I got my Xbox, but then I went and 
bought a new graphics card so I've been playing all my old games on higher 
settings...}).

> 	For me, Linux works better than Windows as an environment. I do
> like
> the apparent greater flexibility in work environments you get with it.

I did like the flexibility that came with it.  And CompizFuzion.  *THAT* 
was cool :)

> 	As for software, I think a good financial app is the only non-
> game
> thing I lack in Linux. Of all the things I feel I need, I somehow doubt
> Windows has anything (free) to offer that's necessarily a great
> improvement over what I had in Linux.

Funny, the best financial app I've found is actually GnuCash.  But then, I 
don't like the attitude of "This is complicated, so we'll hide it from 
you."

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

The plural of anecdote is not data  --Elbows

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Darren New [mailto:dne### [at] sanrrcom]
> Mueen Nawaz wrote:
> > 	That and a number of other experiences taught me something about
> the
> > market. People don't choose the "better" product if they're using one
> > that's "good enough".
> 
> Hence the popularity of languages like C, for example. :-)

Isn't that the Patton Theory of Warfare?

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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Jim Henderson wrote:

> It's obvious once you learn to operate it.

Isn't everything? ;-)

> But a man page.  "man vim" is a good starting place on a modern *nix 
> system for learning how to use vi.

I'm pretty sure when I tried that, it told you how to invoke vi and all 
the command-line switches, but not how to actually work the editor. (A 
bit like the man page for GCC not telling you how to write C programs.)

(Also, I'm almost cetain it was vi, not vim.)

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>>>> (Actually, at the time I tried out klogic, we *did* have an Internet
>>>> connection, but I didn't even bother to *attempt* to make it work
>>>> under Linux. Making the "simple" stuff work was hard enough...)
>>> Well, then, there's really no excuse for not submitting bugs, is there?
>>> ;-)
>> How do you figure that?
> 
> Because you're on the 'net now?

And I don't use klogic any more?

>>> Tux Racer has been around for dog's ages (the last *update* is 7 years
>>> ago, in fact).  "Not much" isn't a good assessment unless you've bought
>>> into the FUD.
>> I guess for a suitable definition of "not much" you could argue it
>> doesn't apply. After all, 3 is greater than 4 for sufficiently large 3.
>> :-P
> 
> It's not 6, let's put it that way.  It's a number significantly larger 
> than 6.  Go up to freshmeat.net and do a search on "games" and see how 
> many hits you get.  That's a *start*.  Go look at the online repositories 
> for OSS games for openSUSE, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc.  That's a start.
> 
> The way you write, you make it sound like there's maybe 1 or 2 or maybe 
> even *gasp* as many as 10 whole games for Linux.  There are probably 
> thousands that run natively, and hundreds to thousands more that will run 
> under something like WINE or reasonably within a current release of 
> VMware.

I guess it depends on whether you consider XTetris to be a "game".

Sure, there are about 25,000 Mahjong clones for Linux. But how many 
large-scale games are there?

(If I'm not mistaken, there's one newish FPS that works on Linux - I 
think it might be a member of the Unreal series. Doom has been ported, 
but that's pretty tame by now. And there's Tux Racer...)

>> I'm not saying it's impossible to make cross-platform games. But when
>> you have a huge codebase invested in DirectX, it would be tantamount to
>> a complete rewrite to move to OpenGL. (Plus Valve games make use of lots
>> of advanted stuff like DirectX 10. Guess where that's supported...)
> 
> If you want broader platform support, then it becomes an investment to 
> look into.

Sure. And some day, there will probably be a lot more stuff for Linux 
than there currently is. All I said was that today there isn't a vast 
amount of stuff yet.

> And companies are doing it, as you said, Valve releases games 
> that are native on Linux now.  There must be money in it or they wouldn't 
> invest.

Valve don't release games for Linux. They make the game *servers* 
available for Linux. As far as anyone knows, there are no plans to ever 
make the games themselves available for Linux, or any other platform 
that isn't Microsoft.

Other developers, though, may have other plans...

>> Of course, why would complexity be any obsticle to comprehending
>> something?
> 
> It shouldn't be an obstacle to trying to comprehend it.
> 
> If you start with "this is so incredibly complex I'll never understand it 
> so why even bother starting to look at it", then sure, it's going to look 
> damned impossible.  You won't understand it overnight, but you can learn 
> about it over time.

Sure. A system designed by several thousand designers and programmers 
over the course of decades. A system that is *purposely designed* to be 
difficult to understand. Sounds simple to me. :-P

>>> Reverse-engineering is not generally illegal.
>> Sure. The fact that the EULA says "you may not reverse engineer this"
>> doesn't make it illegal at all. No sir.
> 
> EULAs are AFAIK not court-tested.

OK, fair enough...

>> Given how painfully difficult it is just working out how to *use* the
>> Win32 API, the chances of somebody correctly implementing a clone of it
>> seem vanishingly small.
> 
> Difficult for you != difficult for everyone on the planet.  'nuff said.

Alright, whatever...

> <sigh>  Again, it's not the specifics, it's the concepts.  A more complex 
> OS just takes more time and manpower.  That doesn't make it impossible.  
> If it wasn't impossible, WINE woudn't exist.  WINE exists.  Therefore, 
> it's possible.

And exactly how many thousand people are working on WINE?

>> I don't see anything in the FAQ about legallity.
> 
> I was sure there was something in there.  No matter, look at Mono - it 
> also addresses the patent issue.  Mono is a reimplementation of the .NET 
> framework - incidentally, done (I believe) through clean-room reverse-
> engineering.

Interesting - I was under the impression that it was an ISO "standard" now.

> So please stop saying "it's impossible!" when clearly it isn't because 
> it's being done.

Well if you want to be *technical* about it, what I *actually* said was 
"it's impressive because it should be impossible".

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Chambers wrote:
> (Sorry, I couldn't resist.  You know, I think I've been biased by all 
> those years hanging out with the anti-conformist, throw down the 
> government and grow pot in your backyard Linux kids I used to know.  I've 
> gotten so tired of all the BS they used to spout that any time MS does 
> something right, I feel the need to go around and tell people "Guess what! 
> You were wrong about them!"  I really have no problem with Linux on its 
> own, I just don't think I'll be using it myself {at least until I give up 
> Windows gaming... I thought I had when I got my Xbox, but then I went and 
> bought a new graphics card so I've been playing all my old games on higher 
> settings...}).

	Heh. I stopped hating Microsoft once I switched to Linux - for 2
reasons: 1. I no longer cared what idiotic things they did, it didn't
affect me any more. 2. I realized that Linux was a viable alternative,
and all those who whine should just switch to it (or Mac OS).

> Funny, the best financial app I've found is actually GnuCash.  But then, I 
> don't like the attitude of "This is complicated, so we'll hide it from 
> you."

	Gnucash is what I use, and it has matured quite a bit since I first
tried. But still, no (serious) budgeting capability.

-- 
BREAKFAST.COM Halted... Cereal Port Not Responding.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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