On 10/7/2011 7:36, Invisible wrote:
> I'm fairly sure Office v2 had that. I may be wrong. Certainly Office 97
> definitely had that. And that was, what, 14 years ago?

Pretty sure they didn't have .NET integration, integration with SQL server, 
or cooperative shared editting.

> In fairness, I'm not aware of anything else that does what Outlook and
> Exchange do.

And that is why the world still runs Microsoft. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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On 10/7/2011 2:38, Stephen wrote:
> That is a good point. But I've reached a point where I feel that computers
> and their software are no longer devices that need to be studied, understood
> and mastered but used as tools. My life and interests have changed over time.

Plus, Linux vs Windows isn't really that big a difference, if you really 
want to study something new. Learn how Lisp Machines worked, or how AmigaOS 
was organized, or how Singularity works, rather than studying two OSes that 
are at this point overall pretty similar.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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On 10/7/2011 12:07, Jim Henderson wrote:
> It's usually under "system tools", which is appropriate.

Funny enough, people will bitch that Window's CLI sucks, and at the same 
time show off how far Linux has managed to get away from needing a CLI by 
hiding it under "advanced system tools." :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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On 10/7/2011 15:04, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> No - that's just poor program design. Everybody has that... ;-)

Actually, I think it stems from programmers targeting in-house experts. 
Remember that Blender started as a custom program.

Ever see a level-builder tool for a game that wasn't expecting to release 
the level-builder tools? They're nightmares too, because it was easier to 
teach the 10 people using it what the hotkeys were than it was to design 
something usable.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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On 10/7/2011 12:08, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Or when my mom starts reading an error message to me - and after three
> words, I know what the next thing is and what to do next.

"Tell me what the window says, Dad."

"Well, there's a picture of an E with a circle around it, then it says 
"Internet explor.."

"No, no. Below that. In the big space."

"Oh. It says Done and Internet Protected Mode On"

"No, Dad. That's the status bar. See that great big white space between the 
two? What's in there?"

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 15:56:12 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 10/7/2011 12:08, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Or when my mom starts reading an error message to me - and after three
>> words, I know what the next thing is and what to do next.
> 
> "Tell me what the window says, Dad."
> 
> "Well, there's a picture of an E with a circle around it, then it says
> "Internet explor.."
> 
> "No, no. Below that. In the big space."
> 
> "Oh. It says Done and Internet Protected Mode On"
> 
> "No, Dad. That's the status bar. See that great big white space between
> the two? What's in there?"

LOL

Sounds *so* familiar.  Another reason to use Linux. ;)

(When I can afford it, I'm getting my mom a Mac.  I know next to nothing 
about using a Mac, but I can have her take it to the Apple store and 
drive someone at the Genius Bar 'round the bend. ;) )

Jim

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On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 15:51:14 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 10/7/2011 12:07, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> It's usually under "system tools", which is appropriate.
> 
> Funny enough, people will bitch that Window's CLI sucks, and at the same
> time show off how far Linux has managed to get away from needing a CLI
> by hiding it under "advanced system tools." :-)

The standard command interpreter in Windows (cmd.exe, not powershell) 
does pretty much suck.  bash/tcsh are *far* more powerful. :)

But part of the suckage that is the Windows CLI is the registry.  Linux 
using text files for most configuration means that using the CLI to make 
changes actually makes a lot of sense.

Jim

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On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 23:03:19 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> 1. How do you get it so a terminal is always available? (Most distros
>>> I've seen make the terminal program one of the hardest things to find.
>>
>> Alt-F2 ->  gnome-terminal.
>>
>> Done.
> 
> I presume that only works if GNOME is your WM?

Pretty sure that's also in KDE3 and KDE4 as well.

>>> It's easy to find Firefox or Evolution or Jabba, but the terminal
>>> window is usually somewhere under "advanced"... It's almost as if I'm
>>> using a Microsoft OS!)
>>
>> It's usually under "system tools", which is appropriate.
> 
> With Ubuntu, it's "accessories". With OpenSUSE, it was somewhere else. I
> forget where the heck it was with Debian.
> 
> KNOPPIX put it right on the desktop though. Smart guys...

Easy enough to do with other distributions, excepting GNOME3, which 
doesn't let you put anything on the desktop (but I actually quite like 
GNOME3).

>>> 2. Why type "bc" when you can type "ghci"? ;-)
>>
>> Because 'bc' actually does something on my system - namely, it starts
>> an arbitrary precision calculator. :)
> 
> Yeah, I wasn't entirely serious with that one. ;-)
> 
> Typing "ghci" starts the Glasgow Haskell Compiler in Interactive mode -
> i.e., an REPL for Haskell. Which has arbitrary math support backed by
> the GMP [which is probably what powers bc, I wouldn't be surprised...]
> But it's also a full Turing-complete programming language, not just a
> calculator.

See, that's why I get "command not found".  I do nothing with Haskell.  
But you're right, bc is more than a simple calculator.  bc is actually an 
'arbitrary precision calculator language'.

bc only has dependencies on libc, ncurses, and a few other things.  
Nothing related to GMP that I see.

Jim

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On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 15:42:39 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 10/7/2011 12:15, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Oh, right. I thought that refers only to when you run an X application
>>> that emulates a terminal in a window.
>>
>> That's technically called a 'pseudoterminal' - pts.  "man pts" is
>> interesting reading, if you like that sort of thing.
> 
> No, that's an xterminal or a terminal window. A pts (actually, ptty) is
> a device driver that isn't a terminal but exposes the same ioctls as a
> terminal (and in particular can belong to a process group). Because UNIX
> never figured out the concept of a "login".
> 
> Unless a pts is different from a ptty?

When not logged in on my console or terminals, typing 'who' gets the 
following result:

jhenderson :0           2011-09-08 16:21 (console)
jhenderson console      2011-09-08 16:21 (:0)
jhenderson pts/1        2011-10-06 13:25
jhenderson pts/2        2011-10-07 21:17 (:0.0)
jhenderson pts/5        2011-10-06 13:25
jhenderson pts/3        2011-09-08 16:24 (:0.0)

console, pts/2, and pts/3 are the GUI desktop (identified as display :0 
and :0.0).  pts/1 and pts/5 are currently running under screen.

jhenderson tty2         2011-10-07 21:50

That shows up if I hit alt-f2 and login on that terminal.

That should clear it up. :)

Jim

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On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 23:00:35 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>>> Audio certainly is an area that's recognised as being problematic.
>>>
>>> Really? I thought that was Wi-Fi.
>>
>> Nah, Wi-Fi is pretty easy - either it works or it doesn't.  Either you
>> have the firmware necessary or you don't.
>>
>> Audio is so horribly complex on Linux because there's at least 3
>> different systems to use it, and nobody's standardised on one.  OSS.
>> Alsa.  PulseAudio.
> 
> Ah yes, that's fun.
> 
> I especially like the way that installing one GNOME application installs
> the entire GNOME system, including the GNOME sound daemon. And all I
> actually wanted to do was run gedit...

Just like installing an app on Windows that requires specific DLLs, which 
require other components, which require .NET 3.5.

>> The standards were all not standardised, so they decided to fix the
>> problem by creating ANOTHER STANDARD.
>>
>> Gah.
> 
> Required XKCD quote: http://xkcd.com/927/

I knew you were going to cite that one. :)

Jim

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