Cut the uninformed crapola. I have a friend who runs Windows 95 as his primary OS; it has never crashed for him. 8 megs RAM, 486DX2/66.
--
||Jonathan E. Brickman
--> Want to have a good time driving yourself crazy, but also have the
--> best PC Net connection in the world? Try Linux :)
bric...@databank.com
Well, you may pretend not to know what he is talking about,
but like it or not, the fact is that Windoze 95 has not yet been released -
your friend must have a beta copy...
As for never crashing - shrug -
I have been running linux on 8 PCs 24 hours a day ever since around 1.1 -
I've never seen a crash - and beleive me, a multiuser UNIX machine connected
to the internet with all the daemons and services running is doing a lot more
things than somebody's home OS/2 box...
just my $.02
jjs
--
j...@wintermute.ucr.edu / You can't figure out how to
A linux machine! because a 486 / ACCELERATE your Windoze NT box?
is a terrible thing to waste! / -9.8 m/s^2 works quite well!!!
My general principle on software existence is that if I can't go to a store
and buy it, it doesn't really exist. However many people may make claims
about beta editions, *it isn't a commercial system!*
I cannot go to Office Depot and ask them for a copy of Windows 0.95. The
only people who can get it are those that have a non-arms-length
relationship with Microsoft.
Until it's *on the shelves,* it isn't for real. There have been a whole lot
of announcements from a whole lot of companies (Microsoft and IBM both
included) of products that have been created, tested, and *never shipped.*
Books on Windows 0.95 exist, but if I can't order it from a computer vendor,
it's *not for real.*
This isn't something new that I'm suddenly applying to Micro$loth; it's
something I've been applying for *years* to a wide variety of vendors. I
remember saying very similar words close to ten years ago about some "neat
upcoming products" to come from Atari (the 1450XLD, to be specific. Only a
few units ever were made, all prototypes).
I'll say it again. It's not real until I can go to the store, pick up a
box, shake it, and pull out diskettes/cables/chips/boards/whatever.
And Windows 0.95 is, QED, *not real.* That's not uninformed; that's
reality. I could walk down College St. or Queen St. this evening; the
"fastest vendors" in the country who tend to have everything earliest *will
not* have copies of Windows 0.95 on the shelf. That's the true test of
existence for mass-market commercial software, which is what Windows 0.95 is
supposed to be all about. It *fails* this simple test. *Not Real.*
Computronix has OS/2 Warp on the shelf. They have Linux on the shelf. They
have PC-DOS and MS-DOS and Windows in various incarnations. *Real.* I can
plunk down dollars and buy them.
Computronix *does not* have Windows 0.95 on the shelf. *Not Real.*
--
Christopher Browne
"Microsoft isn't the answer... it is the QUESTION. ``No'' is the answer."
>As far as I'm concerned, no such thing like a "Windows 95" exists by now,
>thus it can't be real. Q.E.D.
I have always wondered : Why do people compare the 2 operating systems ?
They can't be compared !!!
1. To process email, setup an ftp server etc. I use Linux.
2. To scan documents and and do word processing and use tonnes of other
commercial software I use Windows.
As far as the free software is concerned, Linux is catching up. Also it
is not backed by a multi-billion dollar compnay but folks from all around
the world who don't get paid for working for Linux. I therefore support Linux.
My prediction : MS will bury Novell with NT and OS/2 with Win 95. There
will be a tough battle at the Linux front. Linux may win in the end. Linux
until August of next year to get ready. We need general purpose software to
work under Linux. For example, currently I can't use my flatbed scanner
under Linux.
Mubashir Cheema
che...@sparco.com
What Linux currently lacks are word processors and the *apparent* user-
friendliness provided my Windows. I really hope WINE 1.0 can be ready
soon. Then, users (including me) would be able to drop their DOS/Windows
and turn to Linux.
Well, in my posting, I didn't actually *compare* two OS's, did I? ;->
(Ok, you didn't claim I compared two OS's either)
However, I *do* think OS's can be compared.
However, when comparing operating systems, you can't compare Linux to
MS-DOG or MS-Windoze because none of the latter are operating systems,
but that's another story.
>
>1. To process email, setup an ftp server etc. I use Linux.
>
>2. To scan documents and and do word processing and use tonnes of other
> commercial software I use Windows.
Congratulations. You must have Ktons of $ if you use tons of commercial
software :-).
Btw, I use TeX for word processing, but it doesn't seem to run properly
under MS-DOG or MS-Windoze. However, it runs under almost any operating
system :-)
And I use 'grep' to scan my documents. Works well if you scan for
regular expressions (sorry, couldn't resist ;-)
[...]
>
> My prediction : MS will bury Novell with NT and OS/2 with Win 95. There
> will be a tough battle at the Linux front. Linux may win in the end. Linux
> until August of next year to get ready. We need general purpose software to
> work under Linux. For example, currently I can't use my flatbed scanner
> under Linux.
You might have made the mistake to buy a scanner with a proprietary interface.
My impression is that if some piece of hardware is sufficiently documented,
you don't have to wait long until a linux driver appears. (you could even
write one yourself, it shouldn't be too complicated)
You might want to ask the company that made your scanner for hardware
documentation.
As far as I'm concerned, some companies even begin to write their own
linux drivers for their hardware...
Greetings,
-Gerhard
Right on... from one Chris to another Chris...
I have been noticing quite an interesting reality distortion. Why are
people talking about airware/vaporware/betaware such as Waterloo 95 as if
it really is out in the market, that everyone can have them and compare
them with truly available OSes like Warp and Linux.
Compare one's betaware with the other side's betaware; compare one's
hotairware with the other side's hotairware. PPC Win NT 3.51 ? Compare
that with PPC Enterprise or Klingon. Compare Cairo with microkernel
Workplace OS with Taligent and OpenDOC. Compare Waterloo 95 with OS/2
3.1 or Klingon or Enterprise...or even Apple's Copland and Gershwin.
If one cannot make a valid comparison...then do the world a favor and don't.
Warp is here; Waterloo 95 or Win0.95 isn't.
End of discussion.
Chris
Engaging on a Lean Mean Warp Machine
Last I checked, it doesn't matter what type of scanner you buy, Linux doesn't
support any of them. Although there is a patch for a logitech scanner hiding
somewhere. Someone was actually kind enough to send me a copy of the patch,
but sendmail under TitanOS sometimes corrupts my whole mail box when I recieve
uuencoded stuff. In this case all I was able to salvage was the name of what
they sent me, but not who so I could request it again. Even so, my experience
has been you have to be very carefull when installing drivers that it is close
to the same kernel version. Since the patch is old enough to have disappeared
from all the ftp sites, it probably doesn't work at all with 1.1.83.
>As far as I'm concerned, some companies even begin to write their own
>linux drivers for their hardware...
Doubtfull, until there are enough examples of loadable drivers for them to
work from. I think that the kernel has been patched to allow loadable drivers,
but I've yet to see any working examples. You can't expect companies to write
linux drivers, when they have to then convince Linus to add it to the kernel,
or continuesly keep revising it so it will work with the latest kernel.
Bill
--
<A HREF=" http://physics.purdue.edu/~bcr/homepage.html ">
<EM><ADDRESS> Dr. Bill C. Riemers, b...@physics.purdue.edu </ADDRESS></EM></A>
<A HREF=" http://www.physics.purdue.edu/ ">
<EM> Department of Physics, Purdue University </EM></A>
>Warp is here; Waterloo 95 or Win0.95 isn't.
^^^^^^^^^^^
Waterloo 95???? What's it?
\\|//
{O-O}
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ooO~{_}~Ooo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Andy Ho-Fan Chan E-Mail: eai...@ea.oac.uci.edu
Information & Computer Science : h...@clyde.ics.uci.edu
University of California, Irvine Pager : (818)935-3343
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are 2 ways to write bug-free programs; only the 3rd way works
In '96.
It's when the forces of light and freedom crushed the encroaching forces of
dark and empire (depending on who wrote the history book).
> Last I checked, it doesn't matter what type of scanner you buy, Linux doesn't
> support any of them. Although there is a patch for a logitech scanner hiding
> somewhere. Someone was actually kind enough to send me a copy of the patch,
> but sendmail under TitanOS sometimes corrupts my whole mail box when I recieve
> uuencoded stuff. In this case all I was able to salvage was the name of what
> they sent me, but not who so I could request it again. Even so, my experience
> has been you have to be very carefull when installing drivers that it is close
> to the same kernel version. Since the patch is old enough to have disappeared
> from all the ftp sites, it probably doesn't work at all with 1.1.83.
I use this scanner with kernel 1.1.75. It works fine.
There are more scanner drivers available (eg. HP Scanjet) and there
is even a Scanner HOWTO or FAQ.
Mahlzeit
endergone Zwiebeltuete
--
PGP:1024/0xDCB8D00F I LOVE MY PDP-11/34A!
--
When in doubt, use brute force.
: DOS isn't a full operating system, it's only a *disk operating* system.
Please. Define operating system for us, O magnificent one.
---
Dan Freise d...@ulantris.csci.unt.edu
WWW: http://ulantris.csci.unt.edu/home/dan/www/dan.html
---
Why is age more than a number
When it comes to love?
Should we ask the ones who speculate?
The don't know what it's made of.
Prince, "The Morning Papers"
>In article <3g2op6$o...@jak.cosy.sbg.ac.at> gw...@cosy.sbg.ac.at (Gerhard Wesp) writes:
>>However, when comparing operating systems, you can't compare Linux to
>>MS-DOG or MS-Windoze because none of the latter are operating systems,
>>but that's another story.
>
>DOS is not an operating system? Who told you that? Its very name indicates
>its purpose - Disk Operating System.
DOS isn't a full operating system, it's only a *disk operating* system.
--
Chris Bitmead
chr...@ind.tansu.com.au
> : DOS isn't a full operating system, it's only a *disk operating* system.
> Please. Define operating system for us, O magnificent one.
Software to control the operation of computer hardware.
BUT, only if it is *not* produced by MicroSoft! <G>
Dave S.
: >: >DOS is not an operating system? Who told you that? Its very name indicates
: >: >its purpose - Disk Operating System.
: >
: >: DOS isn't a full operating system, it's only a *disk operating* system.
: >
: > Please. Define operating system for us, O magnificent one.
: An operating system is something that co-ordinates the use of various
: resources. One of these resources is the disk. An OS allows more than one
: file to simultaneously occupy the disk. The other resource is memory. An
: OS should allow more than one process to simultaneously occupy memory. The
: other main resource is the CPU. An OS should allow more than one process
: to simultaneously make use of the CPU. It is this last requirement that
: DOS fails.
In the olden days computers were difficult to *operate* The computer was
managed by a person called the *operator*. Around 1960 scientists tried
reducing wasted time by firing the operator and replacing him/her with a
program which was always executing. This program managed the tedious bus-
iness of performing accounting and maintennance tasks: it was called the
*operating*system*.
One of the original operating systems was the Fortran Monitor System
(FMS) running on IBM 709s. It had three operating system calls: *JOB,
*FORTRAN and *DATA -- used for accounting, compiling and data loading
respectively. FMS did not manage disks as it dealt with punch cards!
There was no memory management. There was only one process at a time.
An operating system provides a level of abstraction above the machine
code level. The complexity of this abstraction is immaterial. FMS did
not have disk, memory or multiple-process management yet was still an
operating system in every sense of the word. Your post seems to be an
attempt to create a definition of OS that includes linux but excludes
DOS. That stinks.
DOS is an operating system. The very name gives it away, though youve
ignored this once already. Ill repeat the original poster: DOS stands
for Disk *OPERATING*SYSTEM*. It manages disks. It provides a level of
abstraction so people can interact with disks. It meets the required
criteria to be called an operating system.
Information dragged from _Structured_Computer_Organization_ by
Andrew Tanenbaum. The poster makes no guarantees of correctness.
--
"Ive never been so insulted in my life" +-----------------------
"Well, its early yet" +-----------------+ nat...@bin.anu.edu.au
----------------------+ I read the news reguarly -- sad, isnt it
Greetings,
-Gerhard
MS-DOS may (it does) meet the required criteria to be *called* an
operating system. It certainly is instructive to look at the older
computer systems and see that the "services" provided aren't necessarily
identical to those that are common on "modern" computers.
Unfortunately, MS-DOS doesn't provide any reasonable way of managing
the other sorts of things that are useful abstractions on small computer
systems, for instance:
a) Memory. (Which is why there are various third party kludges that
do memory management.)
b) Printing. Windoze has a Print Manager; not one that's terribly
functional, but it does exist.
c) Graphics Interfacing. MS-DOS encourages the proliferation of
weird and awful screen writing libraries. In order to *portably* get
text onto the screen under MS-DOS, you've got to either print it
one character at a time, or write straight to Memory. (See a) Memory.)
d) Tasks/Processes. While MS-DOS was not originally designed as a
multitasking operating system, it has commonly been called upon to
do the job. It provides *no* way of handling switching between
tasks, or of managing the interactions between them.
--
Christopher Browne - cbb...@io.org
Fatal Error: Found [MS-Windows] System -> Repartitioning Disk for Linux...
Look at the history behind the name "disk operating system". It was
developed back in a time when many computers didn't have any disks at
all, not even floppies. They called it DOS because it was a
*superset* of what they had before -- it was an operating system, but
it would also let you use your *disks*.
Of course, continuing to use such a system today is somewhat
reminiscent of the banks that still run COBOL code every day...
--
Doug DeJulio | R$+@$=W <-- sendmail.cf file
mailto:dd...@pitt.edu | {$/{{.+ <-- modem noise
http://www.pitt.edu/~ddj/ | !@#!@@! <-- Mr. Dithers swearing
>DOS is an operating system. The very name gives it away, though youve
>ignored this once already. Ill repeat the original poster: DOS stands
>for Disk *OPERATING*SYSTEM*. It manages disks. It provides a level of
>abstraction so people can interact with disks. It meets the required
>criteria to be called an operating system.
Right. MSDOS meets the requirements for a DOS at the end of the fifties/
beginning of the sixties. It can manage (a fairly limited number of)
disks, a tty-style device (the console) and a number of printers.
The standard PC resources that MSDOS cannot manage (properly or at all)
are: the memory (hence the need for a "DOS extender"), the CPU (only
one program at a time -- MSDOS isn't reentrant and doesn't have a
scheduler) and the serial communication interfaces (all communications
software has to bypass MSDOS and handle the bare metal -- MSDOS would lose
characters whenever it has something else to do).
During the mid sixties, operating systems that did a lot more than MSDOS
were common. Unix was born at the end of the sixties, on a machine with
8 kilowords of RAM.
MSDOS was born, crippled, at the beginning of the eighties. It never
managed to overcome its initial limitations. During the years it
acquired new features, but it never evolved. It failed to meet the
expectations for an OS of its time, although it met the expectations
for an OS designed twenty years before MSDOS.
The major contribution of MSDOS to our world was crippling the personal
computing industry for 15 years. R.I.P.
Dan
--
Dan Pop
CERN, CN Division
Email: dan...@cernapo.cern.ch
Mail: CERN - PPE, Bat. 31 R-004, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland
>: >DOS is not an operating system? Who told you that? Its very name indicates
>: >its purpose - Disk Operating System.
>
>: DOS isn't a full operating system, it's only a *disk operating* system.
>
> Please. Define operating system for us, O magnificent one.
An operating system is something that co-ordinates the use of various
resources. One of these resources is the disk. An OS allows more than one
file to simultaneously occupy the disk. The other resource is memory. An
OS should allow more than one process to simultaneously occupy memory. The
other main resource is the CPU. An OS should allow more than one process
to simultaneously make use of the CPU. It is this last requirement that
DOS fails.
--
Chris Bitmead
chr...@ind.tansu.com.au
An interesting history lesson, but the meaning of computer terms changes
over time. Is a Pentium machine a supercomputer mainframe? Not today it
isn't but 30 years ago it would have been. Is DOS an operating system? 30
years ago it might have been called that, but these days it's more correct
to say it's merely a *Disk operating* system, because that is all it
really attempts to do.
>An operating system provides a level of abstraction above the machine
>code level.
What's machine code got to do with it? A computer *language* abstracts
machine code. The OS is supposed to abstract hardware details for
portability.
How well does DOS abstract the hardware? It's hopeless. Most DOS programs
access the hardware directly, making them completely non-portable.
>The complexity of this abstraction is immaterial. FMS did
>not have disk, memory or multiple-process management yet was still an
>operating system in every sense of the word. Your post seems to be an
>attempt to create a definition of OS that includes linux but excludes
>DOS. That stinks.
The only thing that stinks is DOS, and MS who've been flogging this
rubbish at least 12 years longer than they should have been.
>DOS is an operating system. The very name gives it away, though youve
>ignored this once already. Ill repeat the original poster: DOS stands
>for Disk *OPERATING*SYSTEM*. It manages disks. It provides a level of
>abstraction so people can interact with disks.
That's about all it does, manage *DISKS*. Even MS recognised this by
qualifying the name with the word "disk". What's so special about disks
that they became part of the product name? Because that's all the product
does. (And not very well at that).
>It meets the required
>criteria to be called an operating system.
30 years ago, maybe. If you don't agree, I've got a really fast
super-computer I'll sell you for a couple of million dollars.
--
Chris Bitmead
cfor a couple of million dollars.
--
Chris Bitmead
chr...@ind.tansu.com.au
True - but that's for the *original* DOS designed for an IBM
mainframe. The MS-DOS and PC-DOS are merely borrowing the term,
but probably with the same rational. (although CPM and Apple
both supported disks and preceded PC's by quite some time, so
advertising as a disk operating system wasn't all that marvelous)
--
Darin Johnson
djoh...@ucsd.edu
The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the
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