Moving Win98 to the Recyle Bin
Troy Bourdon
I've come to my wits end. I won't go into great detail but I've had a
string of problems with Windows OSs since '91 and I'm tired of it. It's
gotten to the point where dealing with the smaller software base of the
alternative OSs will be less painful than dealing with the crap that is
Microsoft Windows. Microsoft makes some great apps so I'm not going to
bash them to hard but there OS is just too unstable for me to put up
with any more.
I'm posting to the OS/2, Linux, and Mac advocacy groups to solicit
opinions about the pros and cons of each OS. It is not my intent to
start any flame wars between the advocates of the respective OSs but
only to get responses from those in each group about which OS they think
is best and why. Please people, no mud slinging.
Areas I'm interested in are:
- Hardware availability/Driver availability
- Software availability
- Cost
I'll list some of my thoughts and concerns about each OS so as to give a
bit of perspective.
*Mac*
I love the front end of the Mac OS and Apple hardware, I think both are
very elegant. The two things that concern me most are the price of the
hardware and the limitations of the OS in terms of multi-tasking. That's
not to say that Win98 was so great in this area but at work I develop on
an NT box and I developed in a Unix environment prior to that so it's
just something I've grown accustomed to. I suppose I could load NT at
home but it's a matter of general principal that I make the break from
Windows.
*Linux*
I messed around with Linux a few years ago and once I got it installed
with X up and running it was great. In the time I used Linux it NEVER
crashed. However, my determination back then was that it was a real
hackers OS and I just didn't have the time to get heavily into it. I'm
not afraid to run Linux at home but I do have my wife to think about.
She uses the computer primarily for surfing and for email but she does
do some work with MS Office. I wonder if StarOffice will be a viable
solution. I also wonder if the Window Managers have come far enough for
my wife to coexist with Linux.
*OS/2*
My first job out of college I developed on OS/2 v3.0. I thought this was
a cool OS. VERY stable, configurable, just really cool. My concerns are
the same as with the Mac OS and Linux in terms of how many apps are
available and what type of hardware limitations I'll be under do to
driver availability. I'm also concerned about getting my cable modem
running under OS/2.
All insights are appreciated, and again no flame wars please. Just
advocate the OS you find best.
Thank you;
- Troy
Eric Bennett
<bou...@home.com> wrote:
> All insights are appreciated, and again no flame wars please. Just
> advocate the OS you find best.
I think you will find that which is best depends on what sorts of things
you want to do with the computer. If you like to develop software as a
hobby, for example, I would steer you away from Mac OS (unless you want
to wait for OS X), which will drive you nuts after your experiences with
NT and Unix since lack of total protected memory is a major headache
when writing software. If you want to use entertainment software, then
all three platforms are clearly inferior to Windows, but the Mac much
less so than OS/2 or Linux.
I have nothing against OS/2 and I'm sure that people for whom OS/2 is
currently okay are fully justified in continuing to use it for awhile,
but if I were looking to *switch* to a new platform I would be rather
wary of OS/2... seems to me Linux and the Mac are both gaining software
support while OS/2 is probably losing it. And if you're after a
long-term commitment, the folks who develop Mac OS and Linux are clearly
standing behind further development of their respective OSes. OS/2 on
the other hand...
In general terms, not knowing what sort of software and hardware you
want to use, since you are concerned about cost and already have an x86
box and since Linux is cheap, I would suggest that you try Linux first.
If you don't like Linux, then you can consider OS/2 or Apple.
Personally, looking at where the two platforms are headed in the future,
I would suggest Apple, but of course that will require you to buy new
hardware.
(I currently use Macs and Unix heavily. Lack of PMT and a decent
command line in MacOS are annoying, but the lack of a decent GUI,
configuration nuisances, and software availability problems for most
Unix systems are also annoying. I call it a draw for now. That will
probably change when Apple ships OS X, although I wouldn't be surprised
to see OS X delayed one last time from its current projected late summer
2000 ship date.)
--
Eric Bennett ( http://www.pobox.com/~ericb/ )
Cornell University / Chemistry & Chemical Biology
Drawing on my fine command of the language, I said nothing.
-Robert Benchley
Marty
>
> I'm also concerned about getting my cable modem
> running under OS/2.
I'm posting this via my cable modem connection through OS/2 right now.
Sarek
wrote:
>Hello all;
>
>I've come to my wits end. I won't go into great detail but I've had a
>string of problems with Windows OSs since '91 and I'm tired of it. It's
>gotten to the point where dealing with the smaller software base of the
>alternative OSs will be less painful than dealing with the crap that is
>Microsoft Windows. Microsoft makes some great apps so I'm not going to
>bash them to hard but there OS is just too unstable for me to put up
>with any more.
1) What current problems are you having?
2) What equipment do you have?
3) How often do these problems occur?
It's very hard to suggest alternatives until we know what you have and
what you do with it. Many of your problems may be coming from poor or
old hardware, at the least, we should at least determine whether or
not that is the case.
>I'm posting to the OS/2, Linux, and Mac advocacy groups to solicit
>opinions about the pros and cons of each OS. It is not my intent to
>start any flame wars between the advocates of the respective OSs but
>only to get responses from those in each group about which OS they think
>is best and why. Please people, no mud slinging.
>
>Areas I'm interested in are:
> - Hardware availability/Driver availability
> - Software availability
> - Cost
>
>I'll list some of my thoughts and concerns about each OS so as to give a
>bit of perspective.
>
>*Mac*
>I love the front end of the Mac OS and Apple hardware, I think both are
>very elegant. The two things that concern me most are the price of the
>hardware and the limitations of the OS in terms of multi-tasking. That's
>not to say that Win98 was so great in this area but at work I develop on
>an NT box and I developed in a Unix environment prior to that so it's
>just something I've grown accustomed to. I suppose I could load NT at
>home but it's a matter of general principal that I make the break from
>Windows.
The hardware costs too much compared to PCs. It's not so bad for the
typical iMac or the base level G4 ($200-300 more than an equivalent
quality PC), but it escalates from there, and no one here is able to
tell me what you get for the extra money.
If you think you are getting better hardware for your money, you
aren't. Much of Apple's hardware is industry-standard equipment; the
same items you find in a quality PC.
If you are concerned with stability and multitasking, MacOS 9 doesn't
seem to be particularly suited for you. MacOS X seems a much better
choice. However, that won't be available until the fall. On the
hardware side, unfortunately, Motorola apparently cannot ramp up the
G4, so any current machine is going to look increasing uncompetitive
against x86 competition as the year progresses. If you decide to go
with a Mac, it seems that waiting for the G4+ and MacOS X would be the
best bet.
Even when MacOS X comes out, software availability for the "new" OS
will be an issue for at least a while, and the cost of that software
is going to be a big factor. .
>*Linux*
>I messed around with Linux a few years ago and once I got it installed
>with X up and running it was great. In the time I used Linux it NEVER
>crashed. However, my determination back then was that it was a real
>hackers OS and I just didn't have the time to get heavily into it. I'm
>not afraid to run Linux at home but I do have my wife to think about.
>She uses the computer primarily for surfing and for email but she does
>do some work with MS Office. I wonder if StarOffice will be a viable
>solution. I also wonder if the Window Managers have come far enough for
>my wife to coexist with Linux.
I installed Open Caldera 2.3; I wouldn't call it a real hackers' OS
anymore, but I wouldn't want to toss anyone not used to editing files
on it without support. I doubt this will be a big factor for you.
StarOffice does not appear to be anywhere near as compatible with
Office as it is portrayed.
One big advantage of Linux, though, is that you can easily set up a
dual-boot system on your current machine. You can work in Linux to
your heart's content, and you wife can continue to use Windows should
she choose. Linux. If Linux doesn't work out, then you aren't out a
lot of hardware cash.
Software and hardware compatibility are issues which you should look
into. Linux software availability is limited, but that will improve
over the course of the next year.
>*OS/2*
>My first job out of college I developed on OS/2 v3.0. I thought this was
>a cool OS. VERY stable, configurable, just really cool. My concerns are
>the same as with the Mac OS and Linux in terms of how many apps are
>available and what type of hardware limitations I'll be under do to
>driver availability. I'm also concerned about getting my cable modem
>running under OS/2.
OS/2 is pretty much a dinosaur that just hasn't died yet. I don't
find it a viable alternative like the others.
>All insights are appreciated, and again no flame wars please. Just
>advocate the OS you find best.
I'm writing this using a late RC of Windows 2000. Since you work in
an NT environment, why don't you also look into that possibility?
It seems that a dual-boot Linux system is the most prudent first step.
If stability is what you are looking, that seems to be the best first
step. It is likely to give you what you want without upsetting your
wife's routine. If you and your wife like that, great. If you don't,
it's no big deal, and then you can consider the much bigger and
expensive jump to a Mac.
Bob Germer
Sarek <sare...@zdnetonebox.com> said:
Before reading on, look at the source of this drivel of a reply to an
honest inquirer.
> On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 06:11:17 GMT, Troy Bourdon <bou...@home.com> wrote:
> I installed Open Caldera 2.3; I wouldn't call it a real hackers' OS
> anymore, but I wouldn't want to toss anyone not used to editing files on
> it without support. I doubt this will be a big factor for you.
> StarOffice does not appear to be anywhere near as compatible with Office
> as it is portrayed.
This is from someone running Windows who has no idea of what he is typing.
It is pure MS sponsored FUD.
> One big advantage of Linux, though, is that you can easily set up a
> dual-boot system on your current machine. You can work in Linux to your
> heart's content, and you wife can continue to use Windows should she
> choose. Linux. If Linux doesn't work out, then you aren't out a lot of
> hardware cash.
As one can with any OS other than W2K. Sarek better watch out what he is
saying. If Billy hears of it, Sarek might find his password changed.
> Software and hardware compatibility are issues which you should look
> into. Linux software availability is limited, but that will improve
> over the course of the next year.
On what fictional information does he say this? I haven't heard of any
major releases planned or announced.
> >*OS/2*
> >My first job out of college I developed on OS/2 v3.0. I thought this was
> >a cool OS. VERY stable, configurable, just really cool. My concerns are
> >the same as with the Mac OS and Linux in terms of how many apps are
> >available and what type of hardware limitations I'll be under do to
> >driver availability. I'm also concerned about getting my cable modem
> >running under OS/2.
> OS/2 is pretty much a dinosaur that just hasn't died yet. I don't find
> it a viable alternative like the others.
Unlike Linux or any MS product, OS/2 is not dead, is not a dinosaur
despite your obviously biased comments. One only has to look at your
address to see who puts the money in your pockets, namely Billy Gates who
is the principal owner of ZD and ZDNet.
Unlike the lemmings of the world, millions of users love the stability of
OS/2 Warp, especially Warp 4. Warp Server for eBusiness is very robust and
successful. Unlike offerings from Redmond, the product is well and
actively supported by its author with fixpacks updating it and adding
features issued with some regularity at no cost other than time to
download if you are paying by the minute.
> >All insights are appreciated, and again no flame wars please. Just
> >advocate the OS you find best.
> I'm writing this using a late RC of Windows 2000. Since you work in an
> NT environment, why don't you also look into that possibility?
From personal experience with W2K, the available version based on Release
3 of the beta and the "gold" code, one cannot have a dual boot machine
with ANY other OS unless one is willing to boot from floppies to restore
Boot Manager after each invocation of W2K. DOS support, particularly for
WordPerfect is extremely slow, much slower than in W9x. Java support is
far less robust than that in 1.1.8 for OS/2.
> It seems that a dual-boot Linux system is the most prudent first step.
> If stability is what you are looking, that seems to be the best first
> step. It is likely to give you what you want without upsetting your
> wife's routine. If you and your wife like that, great. If you don't,
> it's no big deal, and then you can consider the much bigger and
> expensive jump to a Mac.
Of course, you lose Quicktime movie support, Adobe (other than the buggy
as hell Java version assuming you can get reliable Java support in Linux),
Real Movie and Sound support which works well in OS/2 as well as W9x, a
meaningful choice of suites such as StarOffice, Lotus SmartSuite, etc., a
dearth of fax options, and problematical support for most printers,
scanners, cameras, etc. Moreover, many if not most Windows 3.x compatible
programs run beautifully in Warp and without the constant GPF's under DOS
or Win9x.
As far as drivers for OS/2 are concerned, hardware not specifically
designed for Windows 9x, there is not too much of a problem. With hardware
a couple of years old, there are problems with W2K and even some with W98
for equipment designed to the W95 standard.
The most problematical hardware issues with OS/2 are sound cards. One must
pay about $20 to $40 more than for low end Windows cards. For the most
part, the GRADD drivers for video adapters solve the issue for the vast
majority of current hardware.
About the only thing that Warp doesn't do better than Windows 9x is run
games. And the "shockwaves" of the world are a poor substitute for a
PlayStation.
Windows 9x advocates claim that Warp is impossible to set up. It is more
difficult to be sure, but then once installed, it doesn't require hourly
reboots. For someone who has experience with NT, Linux, etc., installing
Warp is not an issue.
The goal of the original inquirer was to be MS free. This is indeed a
worthy goal. Your solution is not a solution which fits the request. Nor
is is appropriate in a newsgroup dedicated to OS/2 advocacy.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Germer from Mount Holly, NJ - E-mail: bo...@Pics.com
Proudly running OS/2 Warp 4.0 w/ FixPack 13
MR/2 Ice 2.01 Registration Number 67
Aut Pax Aut Bellum
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Trettel
>
snip..
>
>I'm posting to the OS/2, Linux, and Mac advocacy groups to solicit
>opinions about the pros and cons of each OS. It is not my intent to
>start any flame wars between the advocates of the respective OSs but
>only to get responses from those in each group about which OS they think
>is best and why. Please people, no mud slinging.
A reasonable request, which I predict will get ground into the mud.
>
>Areas I'm interested in are:
> - Hardware availability/Driver availability
> - Software availability
> - Cost
>
>I'll list some of my thoughts and concerns about each OS so as to give a
>bit of perspective.
>*Mac*
I'm not a big Mac user, so I can't give you a realistic answer here.
>
>*Linux*
>I messed around with Linux a few years ago and once I got it installed
>with X up and running it was great. In the time I used Linux it NEVER
>crashed. However, my determination back then was that it was a real
>hackers OS and I just didn't have the time to get heavily into it. I'm
>not afraid to run Linux at home but I do have my wife to think about.
>She uses the computer primarily for surfing and for email but she does
>do some work with MS Office. I wonder if StarOffice will be a viable
>solution. I also wonder if the Window Managers have come far enough for
>my wife to coexist with Linux.
Yes, they have. See below.
>
>*OS/2*
>My first job out of college I developed on OS/2 v3.0. I thought this was
>a cool OS. VERY stable, configurable, just really cool. My concerns are
>the same as with the Mac OS and Linux in terms of how many apps are
>available and what type of hardware limitations I'll be under do to
>driver availability. I'm also concerned about getting my cable modem
>running under OS/2.
Ok, I use both OS/2 and Linux extensively-OS/2 since 1994 and Linux since
around 1995. My advice, in all honesty, is to go with Linux. OS/2 will
give you nothing that you can't get under Linux, with the exception of the
elegant Work Place Shell. To top it off, Linux is growing by leaps and
bounds and is garnering major attraction, while OS/2 is essentially gone
stagnent. Here's why:
1) Hardware support-Linux at this point has better hardware support than
OS/2. As an example, Aureal just last week announced that their series of
popular 3D audio processors will be natively supported by Aureal
themselves, while OSS (the Linux sound people) will add the support into
the Linux sound module. Video cards are another example-most high end
cards have OpenGL support available through the Mesa library. Linux
hardware support definitely isn't as good as Windows, but it's better than
OS/2's. As new hardware is created, the Linux people add it to the mix of
usable hardware-this is important for future long term use. A more
practical point-getting my SB64 AWE working properly under OS/2 was a
major pita-under Linux it was a snap. The SB64 is hardly an exotic sound
card at this point.
2) Software support-there's plenty of good software available for OS/2, no
doubt about it. However, quite a few major players have dropped out over
the past few years and have ended up releasing their products as freeware.
Embellish and TrueSpectra are examples. This is very nice of them, but it
also means that those products will no longer be enhanced. Meanwhile,
Linux is getting big names such as Corel creating native verions of their
products, such as WordPerfect 8 or the soon the be announced WordPerfect
Office suite. Staroffice is available for both platforms (it actually
runs better under OS/2, btw) and will easily handle most of your MS Office
type file formats, so that's a wash. Java used to be a strong point for
OS/2, but Blackdown has changed that-the latest JDK for OS/2 is 1.1.8, and
Blackdown has released a beta 1.2.2. Most Linux or Unix software can be
easily ported to run under OS/2, but if you think about it that is another
wash. All in all, in my opinion Linux is now attracting the attentions of
those developers who are looking for an alternative to Microsoft, and thus
is now getting the development cycles needed to create new software.
3) Usability-OS/2 has the WorkPlaceShell, and there's nothing else like
it. The WPS hasn't been enhanced or improved by IBM for at least 3 years
now, though. In it's favor, IBM made it easily extensible, and really
nifty packages such as Object Desktop, PC/2, and XFolder are real pluses.
Linux has two excellent GUI's in KDE and GNOME, KDE in particular is what
I would term production quality. It's stable and configurable, and anyone
familiar with a GUI would have no problem working with it. It (and GNOME)
is being actively developed and enhanced at what can best be called a
feverish pace. Other little things have been dealt with, for example
RedHat 6.1 does automounting of removable media by default. Another
point-RPM (the RedHat Package Manager) is really the best thing since
sliced bread for the end user. RPM works a hell of a lot better than that
InstallShield thing under Windows. RPM is in a few of the Linux distros
besides RedHat, such as Caldera and SUSE. IBM totally pudged the Install
object, and replaced it with the awful Feature Installer thing. Very,
very evil. Both Linux and OS/2 require a fair amount of configuration to
really get it right. A final point-OS/2 would require the application of
at least one fixpack to make it Y2K compliant. This is not a real
problem, but should be mentioned.
> >All insights are appreciated,
and again no flame wars please. Just >advocate the OS you find best.
>
>Thank you;
>
>- Troy
You're welcome.
--
===========
Mike Trettel trettel (Shift 2) fred (dinky little round thing) net
I don't buy from spammers. No exceptions. Fix the reply line to mail me.
Steve Nospam
<bobg.REMOVEME.@pics.com> wrotf:
>On 01/24/2000 at 07:35 AM,
> Sarek <sare...@zdnetonebox.com> said:
>
>Before reading on, look at the source of this drivel of a reply to an
>honest inquirer.
You don't have any more credibility than he does.
>> On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 06:11:17 GMT, Troy Bourdon <bou...@home.com> wrote:
>
>> I installed Open Caldera 2.3; I wouldn't call it a real hackers' OS
>> anymore, but I wouldn't want to toss anyone not used to editing files on
>> it without support. I doubt this will be a big factor for you.
>> StarOffice does not appear to be anywhere near as compatible with Office
>> as it is portrayed.
>
>This is from someone running Windows who has no idea of what he is typing.
>It is pure MS sponsored FUD.
StarOffice is not as compatible as some people are claiming. If you
don't have any complex tables, unusual formats, etc. it's fine, but it
isn't even close to 100% interchangeable with Office. There is, of
course, another alternative which is Corel's WordPerfect.
<snip>
>> Software and hardware compatibility are issues which you should look
>> into. Linux software availability is limited, but that will improve
>> over the course of the next year.
>
>On what fictional information does he say this? I haven't heard of any
>major releases planned or announced.
That just shows how you lack credibility. For example, Corel is in
the process of porting all of its apps to Linux during the course of
this year.
<snip>
>> It seems that a dual-boot Linux system is the most prudent first step.
>> If stability is what you are looking, that seems to be the best first
>> step. It is likely to give you what you want without upsetting your
>> wife's routine. If you and your wife like that, great. If you don't,
>> it's no big deal, and then you can consider the much bigger and
>> expensive jump to a Mac.
>
>Of course, you lose Quicktime movie support, Adobe (other than the buggy
>as hell Java version assuming you can get reliable Java support in Linux),
>Real Movie and Sound support which works well in OS/2 as well as W9x, a
>meaningful choice of suites such as
>StarOffice,
available for Linux
>Lotus SmartSuite, etc.,
WordPerfect 8 is available for Linux (is it for OS/2?) and all of
Corel's products will be ported to Linux this year.
>a dearth of fax options,
don't know about that one.
>and problematical support for most printers,
This is true with respect to non PS printers, and is one of my major
gripes with Linux. Although it's not difficult to get non-PS printers
to work in Linux, it is difficult to get high-quality output, and set
them up for multiple configurations.
>scanners, cameras, etc.
don't know about these either.
>Moreover, many if not most Windows 3.x compatible
>programs run beautifully in Warp and without the constant GPF's under DOS
>or Win9x.
If you primarily run ancient DOS and Win16 apps, then Windows 9x/NT/2k
is probably not the best choice. Not very many people fit into that
category, but if the person who asked does, and has no intention of
running new apps in the future, then OS/2 might be the best choice.
<snip>
>The goal of the original inquirer was to be MS free. This is indeed a
>worthy goal. Your solution is not a solution which fits the request. Nor
>is is appropriate in a newsgroup dedicated to OS/2 advocacy.
This is a cross-posted thread. His response was at least as
appropriate as yours was.
I would second the suggestion to try Linux first, since it is
inexpensive. Corel and Caldera distros are probably the easiest to
install, although I prefer SuSE.
-Steve
*The only thing certain about the future is that it hasn't happened yet.*
Jim Frost
> Troy Bourdon wrote:
> > I'm also concerned about getting my cable modem
> > running under OS/2.
>
It would probably help if you mentioned what KIND of cable modem you're using,
if not brand.
Clearly any of the ethernet bridge modems are going to work fine (and those
are still rather common). You may have worse luck with the internal cards,
which may require their own driver.
I'm not saying it won't work with OS/2, I just don't know, but I'd look before
I bought. Same goes with Linux in this respect; my Linux box has been my cable
modem gateway for years but my modem is a bridge -- J-Random-Ethernet-Card is
the interface in the computer. I've seen support for internal cable modems
but I'm not sure how good it is or how broad its coverage.
jim
Joe Ragosta
<bou...@home.com> wrote:
> Hello all;
>
> I've come to my wits end. I won't go into great detail but I've had a
> string of problems with Windows OSs since '91 and I'm tired of it. It's
> gotten to the point where dealing with the smaller software base of the
> alternative OSs will be less painful than dealing with the crap that is
> Microsoft Windows. Microsoft makes some great apps so I'm not going to
> bash them to hard but there OS is just too unstable for me to put up
> with any more.
>
> I'm posting to the OS/2, Linux, and Mac advocacy groups to solicit
> opinions about the pros and cons of each OS. It is not my intent to
> start any flame wars between the advocates of the respective OSs but
> only to get responses from those in each group about which OS they think
> is best and why. Please people, no mud slinging.
>
> Areas I'm interested in are:
> - Hardware availability/Driver availability
> - Software availability
> - Cost
>
> I'll list some of my thoughts and concerns about each OS so as to give a
> bit of perspective.
>
> *Mac*
> I love the front end of the Mac OS and Apple hardware, I think both are
> very elegant. The two things that concern me most are the price of the
> hardware and the limitations of the OS in terms of multi-tasking. That's
> not to say that Win98 was so great in this area but at work I develop on
> an NT box and I developed in a Unix environment prior to that so it's
> just something I've grown accustomed to. I suppose I could load NT at
> home but it's a matter of general principal that I make the break from
> Windows.
>
> *Linux*
> I messed around with Linux a few years ago and once I got it installed
> with X up and running it was great. In the time I used Linux it NEVER
> crashed. However, my determination back then was that it was a real
> hackers OS and I just didn't have the time to get heavily into it. I'm
> not afraid to run Linux at home but I do have my wife to think about.
> She uses the computer primarily for surfing and for email but she does
> do some work with MS Office. I wonder if StarOffice will be a viable
> solution. I also wonder if the Window Managers have come far enough for
> my wife to coexist with Linux.
>
> *OS/2*
> My first job out of college I developed on OS/2 v3.0. I thought this was
> a cool OS. VERY stable, configurable, just really cool. My concerns are
> the same as with the Mac OS and Linux in terms of how many apps are
> available and what type of hardware limitations I'll be under do to
> driver availability. I'm also concerned about getting my cable modem
> running under OS/2.
>
> All insights are appreciated, and again no flame wars please. Just
> advocate the OS you find best.
OK. Here's the deal:
Hardware:
Linux will probably run on the hardware you already have, with a
possible need to buy one or two different cards.
OS/2 will probably run on the hardware you have, but may require
replacement of more expansion cards.
Mac OS will require new hardware (only partly offset by selling your
Win98 box since PC prices for used equipment are so low).
Software:
Linux offers plenty of functional software. The key word being
functional. Plan on spending much more time becoming prolific, and don't
expect the apps to have the polish of Mac apps.
OS/2 will have a limited selection of software. While OS/2 remains
available (this week), it's use as a desktop OS is nearly over. If you
were running a server, it might make more sense.
Mac OS. Plenty of apps, although you might have to change from one
you're familiar with to a different one. But with its low learning
curve, it won't take long.
Cost:
This one's misleading. If you were starting from scratch, buying new
hardware and software, the Mac probably wouldn't be drastically
different than OS/2 (but more than Linux). If you're planning to reuse
your existing hardware, the cost is Mac OS > OS/2 > Linux.
Finally, go with your gut. Unless you have to save every penny, you've
stated that you like the Mac front end. That's what you're going to be
working with every day.
--
Regards,
Joe Ragosta
---- Tom Elam, January, 2000 "I know nothing."
Eric Bennett
<sare...@zdnetonebox.com> wrote:
> I'm writing this using a late RC of Windows 2000. Since you work in
> an NT environment, why don't you also look into that possibility?
Because he already stated in his original message that he doesn't want
to use any Windows products, including NT/W2K?
Karel Jansens
Could you give us an indication of your current hardware and what you
want/need to do with your PC?
Of course, for Windows and Mac, your hardware setup is irrelevant. The
Mac, although a good platform on its own (I wouldn't worry too much
about the Mac's memory model, unless - as Eric Bennett indicated -
you're into software development: Mac programs are kept on a much
shorter leash than their Windows counterparts) will need you to buy a
new computer, and Windows problems are always referred to as
hardware-related by it's advocates (it's always easier to say it's
your fault, right?).
I currently run both OS/2 and Linux (SuSE 5.3) on partitions on the
same PC (a pentium 75 with 40 MB RAM, about as bottom-of-the-line as
you can get these days). I find both platforms more or less on a par
re stability and ease of use (Linux running X with KDE 1.0 as the
desktop environment and OS/2 - obviously - with the WPS). The WPS has
the upperhand in configurability and consistency of interface (KDE has
unfortunately borrowed a little too much from Windows 9x <G>).
Internet connections appear to be slightly faster and more responsive
under Linux (both platforms running NetScape 4.6), but I really miss
the equivalent of a newsreader like ProNews in Linux (I'm still
struggling to get the tandem slrn-slrnpull working right).
Of the three platforms you mentioned, OS/2 probably has the lowest
number of available commercial packages. This used to bother me, until
I realised I had everything I need (DeScribe WP, Mesa spreadsheet,
CorelDraw 3 under WinOS/2,...). If you have a reasonably powerful
machine, there is always StarOffice 5.1, which gives you everything
but the kitchen sink. If games are an issue, keep a small Windows 95
partition, or buy a Playstation <G>.
Under linux, I run ApplixWare Office. It's not free, and lacks some of
the bells and whistles of StarOffice, but is fast and customisable.
Linux has more games available than OS/2, but getting them to run is
often somewhat of a hassle.
The main difference I see between OS/2 and Linux is that with the
latter your system innards are always much closer to the surface.
Whether you see this as an advantage, is entirely up to you, but to my
experience both operating systems can be set up to give you an equally
capable and easy to operate workstation.
Karel Jansens
jansens_at_attglobal_dot_net
=======================================================
"The method employed I would gladly explain,
While I have it so clear in my head,
If I had but the time and you had but the brain -
But much yet remains to be said."
the Hunting of the Snark (Lewis Carroll)
=======================================================
rj friedman
wrote:
ŻI'm posting to the OS/2, Linux, and Mac advocacy groups to solicit
Żopinions about the pros and cons of each OS...
You have to be careful about what replies you get in these
advocacy groups. Here in os/2 there are quite a few
individuals who I can only describe as `juvenile
delinquints' who don't use OS/2, but get some sort of
prurient pleasure in participating in our newsgroups for the
sole purpose of being disruptive and denigrating OS/2 to any
who come with honest inquiries.
In addition, incredible as it may seem (but it has been
proven on several occasions), there are actual microsoft
employees who anonymously post in the newsgroups of (what
they consider to be) their "enemy" operating systems for the
sole purpose of spreading FUD and denigrating those
operating systems - the purpose being to mislead those with
honest questions.
If you want an excellent (IMO) assessment of the state of
OS/2 and its place in the computing environment of today,
you should go to Tom Nadeau's "OS/2 Headquarters"
(www.os2hq.com) page and read everything that he has written
there. You will learn what there is to know about OS/2, and
you will avoid the morons and the snake oil salesmen who
have made it their life's work to spread FUD in the
newsgroups of their "enemies".
[X Posts to linux and mac advocacy deleted]
________________________________________________________
[RJ] OS/2 - Live it, or live with it.
rj friedman Team ABW
Taipei, Taiwan r...@yyycomasia.com
To send email - remove the `yyy'
________________________________________________________
Karel Jansens
> On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 07:49:16 -0500, Bob Germer
> <bobg.REMOVEME.@pics.com> wrotf:
>
> >
> >This is from someone running Windows who has no idea of what he is typing.
> >It is pure MS sponsored FUD.
>
> StarOffice is not as compatible as some people are claiming. If you
> don't have any complex tables, unusual formats, etc. it's fine, but it
> isn't even close to 100% interchangeable with Office. There is, of
> course, another alternative which is Corel's WordPerfect.
>
And ApplixWare, which has very good filters for documents from other
office suites (especially if you visit their homepage regularly).
> >a dearth of fax options,
>
> don't know about that one.
>
This is a gripe with Linux I forgot to mention: FaxWorks for OS/2 is a
majorly easy and transparent program. None of the Linux solutions come
even close. Can't comment for Mac or Windows equivalents, though.
> >and problematical support for most printers,
>
> This is true with respect to non PS printers, and is one of my major
> gripes with Linux. Although it's not difficult to get non-PS printers
> to work in Linux, it is difficult to get high-quality output, and set
> them up for multiple configurations.
>
But Linux (and OS/2) has Ghostscript, which will turn basically any
printer into a PostScript eating monster.
>
> >Moreover, many if not most Windows 3.x compatible
> >programs run beautifully in Warp and without the constant GPF's under DOS
> >or Win9x.
>
> If you primarily run ancient DOS and Win16 apps, then Windows 9x/NT/2k
> is probably not the best choice. Not very many people fit into that
> category, but if the person who asked does, and has no intention of
> running new apps in the future, then OS/2 might be the best choice.
>
Just wanted to make something clear: WinOS/2 does _not_ equal "Win16
apps". It will merrily run any 32bit Windows app that was coded for
the 32 bit DLL in Windows 3.xx. If you stick in the latest DLL's
(specialists are invited to jump in and give the right numbers), it
might even run a fair share of so-called Windows 95 apps as well.
>
> I would second the suggestion to try Linux first, since it is
> inexpensive. Corel and Caldera distros are probably the easiest to
> install, although I prefer SuSE.
>
I guess you can't be all evil then <G>.
Troy Dawson
I would ditto everything of the previous post, and add:
Try Win2k before ditching MS completely; it'd be real sad for
you to desert MS in their time of need (of paying beta testers).
=td=
Eric Bennett
r...@yyycomasia.com (rj friedman) wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 06:11:17 Troy Bourdon <bou...@home.com>
> wrote:
>
> ?I'm posting to the OS/2, Linux, and Mac advocacy groups to solicit
> ?opinions about the pros and cons of each OS...
>
> You have to be careful about what replies you get in these
> advocacy groups. Here in os/2 there are quite a few
> individuals who I can only describe as `juvenile
> delinquints' who don't use OS/2, but get some sort of
> prurient pleasure in participating in our newsgroups for the
> sole purpose of being disruptive and denigrating OS/2 to any
> who come with honest inquiries.
You think cooa is bad, you should look at csma sometime. You guys have
nobody as prolific as "EdWIN" (except on the rare occasions when he
crossposts here).
Jim Frost
> > Software and hardware compatibility are issues which you should look
> > into. Linux software availability is limited, but that will improve
> > over the course of the next year.
>
> On what fictional information does he say this? I haven't heard of any
> major releases planned or announced.
If you haven't heard of any, it would have to be because you weren't paying
attention. Several major game vendors are pledging support (check out
Slashdot or Linux Today for more information), several major hardware vendors
have either already started supporting it or have pledged support in the near
future (I'm thinking of Creative Labs and nVidia in particular here, although
others and even PC vendors are jumping on it too -- Dell officially supports
Red Hat on my laptop, for instance, starting just two weeks ago.) Even in
cases where official vendor support doesn't exist you very often find terrific
support (eg Mesa's support for 3Dfx, and it doesn't do so bad on Matrox
either).
New software vendors jump on it all the time (though as you might expect
Microsoft is notably absent). IBM in particular has quite a lot of
Linux-based products at this point. But just check Freshmeat. Check it
often, it changes minute-to-minute.
The 2.4 kernel, due out in a matter of weeks, will drastically improve support
for things such as USB and laptops (and Linux is already pretty darn good on
laptops, second only to Win98 and often a close second).
The biggest problem with Linux at this point is video support (not video
cards, video protocols). MPEG is choppy, Quicktime is limited, and DVD is
effectively nonexistant (although clearly progressing, hence the lawsuits).
Considering the raft of video hardware vendors that are jumping on Linux this
is likely to not be a problem much longer, but for the moment it's not up to
the standards of Windows, the Mac, or even OS/2.
> > OS/2 is pretty much a dinosaur that just hasn't died yet. I don't find
> > it a viable alternative like the others.
>
> Unlike Linux or any MS product, OS/2 is not dead, is not a dinosaur
> despite your obviously biased comments.
Whether or not OS/2 is dead is an item of constant debate, isn't it? It's
certainly not getting the kind of corporate support it got back around the
release of Warp and of course hardware and software vendor support is just
this side of nonexistant. It's even behind in terms of browser support.
Netscape builds their stuff for everything, and yet OS/2 support is lagging.
Hmm.
The big whoop-de-doo in OS/2 software nowadays seems to be NetLabs -- which is
largely porting software from Linux! (Open Source is good, even for OS/2.)
MS is still actively developing both strains of Windows and hardware and
software support of Windows is as good as it gets. It's hard to see how "any
MS product" is in any way dead as you imply (with perhaps the exception of MS
Money, which has good corporate support but which people just won't buy -- or
even use for free).
As for Linux, I could generally agree that it's not quite ready for prime time
as an end-user system. But dead as you imply? There you deny all
credibility.
Linux is seeing extremely active development on all sides. Even as an
end-user system it has improved by leaps and bounds in the last six months.
Hardware and software vendors are jumping on it like salmon swimming upstream
to spawn, and the 2.4 kernel -- due out Real Soon Now -- is going to improve a
whole raft of basic capabilities. (Don't want to wait? Try a development
version of the kernel and pretend its version ends in "RC" -- though "Beta 40"
(yes, four-zero) would really be more accurate and of course it's more stable
than any vendor beta you ever took part in.)
To me this turn of events is nothing short of amazing, and I have to wonder if
it's because a lot of people are really pissed-off at the Microsoft Tax.
> Unlike offerings from Redmond, [OS/2] is well and
> actively supported by its author with fixpacks updating it and adding
> features issued with some regularity at no cost other than time to
> download if you are paying by the minute.
I can maybe agree a bit with "well supported", but "actively?" Microsoft is
pretty active in their support, and usually at no cost. NT service packs have
always been free and Windows Update is too. Yea, you get to buy each new
release, but that was always true of OS/2 too. You may have forgotten because
you haven't seen a new release in a long time (hmm).
Of course if you're using Linux *every* release is free, *every* bug fix is
free, and you can even do it yourself if you are capable and don't want to
wait. Or you can buy releases on CD for as little as $3, or get full-blown
official Red Hat releases for the whopping cost of $30 (or get perfect clones
from Cheap Bytes for $5). Investigations of vendor bug turnaround time have
put Linux ahead of everything by about 50%, even considering the overhead of
going through Red Hat. (If you watch the bug lists yourself the turnaround
time is often less than 24 hours, an order of magnitude better than anything
available from any vendor.)
> DOS support [in Win2k], particularly for
> WordPerfect is extremely slow, much slower than in W9x. Java support is
> far less robust than that in 1.1.8 for OS/2.
Hey man, if you're still using DOS applications, maybe your problem isn't
Win2K.
> > It seems that a dual-boot Linux system is the most prudent first step.
>
> Of course, you lose Quicktime movie support, Adobe (other than the buggy
> as hell Java version assuming you can get reliable Java support in Linux),
> Real Movie and Sound support which works well in OS/2 as well as W9x, a
> meaningful choice of suites such as StarOffice, Lotus SmartSuite, etc., a
> dearth of fax options, and problematical support for most printers,
> scanners, cameras, etc.
Some of this I can readily give you, some of it is completely wrong.
Quicktime isn't well supported, but Acrobat works extremely well (and is
native). JDK 1.2 support is first-rate -- as good as Java support for any OS
anywhere. Note that OS/2 support of JDK 1.2 is still not here, six months
behind Linux and thirteen months and counting behind Windows. You have a
point about Real Player, but I can't seem to find a current version of that
for OS/2 on Real's website, so it's hard to give OS/2 the leg up on that.
A choice of office suites? Ok, Linux doesn't have SmartSuite, but it has Star
Office and Applix and WordPerfect -- and others that I've never bothered to
try. Heck, you get an official Star Office CD in the box with Red Hat 6.1.
The only place you'll find broader office suite support is on Windows. Not
even the Mac does as well (though the quality of the Mac releases is usually a
lot better than you find on Linux).
Printer support is generally quite good, contrary to your statements. I
haven't run into anything that doesn't work yet, although ghostscript (the
PostScript rendering engine) does have some quirks so output quality is not as
good as it is under Windows for certain applications (those that emit
PostScript) with certain printers (especially those that use HPGL, which are
of course quite common). I can tip the hat in OS/2's direction here, but it's
not like the support is bad or particularly limited in Linux.
Where you're really wrong is scanner support, which is excellent. Only
Windows beats it (and that's a close call). For image manipulation there's
Gimp and in terms of capabilities it's second in capability only to PhotoShop
-- and that, too, is a close call. (There are a bunch of other programs but
Gimp easily outclasses them all.)
Cameras -- now that I have to give you. USB support isn't in the production
kernel yet, and tools to interface with serial cameras are hard to come by.
They do exist for some cameras, though. PCMCIA adapters for CompactFlash work
fine, but you'll have trouble with SmartMedia or MultiMediaCard. As for OS/2:
I seem to have misplaced the OS/2 software for my camera. Oh wait, it didn't
have any. Nor did the floppy disk reader for SmartMedia. Hmm.
Some of what you say is completely off-base. Some other statements are
accurate, but OS/2 is generally no better and usually worse off -- and Linux
support of these things is improving with every passing day. I've had cases
where it didn't work when I looked, but when I checked back *a week later*
there was production-quality stuff. Not just once, but for network cards
(3com 10/100/56k card), wireless network cards (ZoomAir), sound drivers (ESS
Maestro 2), and video drivers (ATI Rage Mobility). To date the only hardware
I have that *doesn't* work with Linux is the MultiMediaCard reader I got with
my I-Jam MP3 player (the Rio is of course fully supported), the American
Express card reader, and my SmartMedia floppy disk adapter (I think; I haven't
actually looked for that).
The rate of Linux' progression has been unmatched in the history of operating
systems. Nothing has moved this fast. Nothing has even been close. Even so,
it's an early-adopter system right now, not the kind of thing you want to give
to your mother. But it's getting really close.
> Moreover, many if not most Windows 3.x compatible
> programs run beautifully in Warp and without the constant GPF's under DOS
> or Win9x.
See my previous comment regarding DOS programs. It applies just as well to
Win3.x programs.
> As far as drivers for OS/2 are concerned, hardware not specifically
> designed for Windows 9x, there is not too much of a problem. With hardware
> a couple of years old, there are problems with W2K and even some with W98
> for equipment designed to the W95 standard.
I'll grant you that Win2K is going to have real serious issues with hardware
support for awhile. Win98, though? Not much that works with Win95 doesn't
work with Win98. (Or, at least, I've yet to run into anything, and I have a
lot of weird stuff.) Perhaps some examples would be in order. Remember to
double-check for Win98-specific drivers on the vendor websites.
> The most problematical hardware issues with OS/2 are sound cards. One must
> pay about $20 to $40 more than for low end Windows cards. For the most
> part, the GRADD drivers for video adapters solve the issue for the vast
> majority of current hardware.
How's that nVidia GeForce support? (Just to make a point.)
Now is probably a good time to mention that sound support on Linux is second
only to Windows, and second only because it doesn't have much in the way of 3D
support (yet). Legacy sound card support is BETTER than Windows (because it
emulates capabilities that the cards don't offer.) And if you like MP3, well,
it doesn't get any better than Linux. More decoders, more encoders, more GUI
front ends....
> About the only thing that Warp doesn't do better than Windows 9x is run
> games.
And maybe support sound cards, and maybe support video protocols (particularly
DVD), and maybe have much in the way of vendor support -- hardware, software,
or system.
But hey, it sure does run those DOS and Win3.1 applications well, doesn't it?
That's what *I'm* looking for in an OS!
> The goal of the original inquirer was to be MS free. This is indeed a
> worthy goal. Your solution is not a solution which fits the request. Nor
> is is appropriate in a newsgroup dedicated to OS/2 advocacy.
I got the impression he was interested in investigating possible alternatives,
not necessarily going for an MS-free solution. As for appropriateness: The
original request, and the answer you replied to, and even your reply, was
cross-posted. So not only are you off-base, you're a hypocrit.
Have a nice day,
jim
Jim Frost
...and go invest in some more memory. Everyone I know who's using it says
that 96MB is the bare minimum. CPU speed doesn't seem to be that much of an
issue, though, which is a pleasant surprise.
'Course support for oddball devices is, at best, limited.
Personally I'm going to give them 6-12 months to shake things out before I
consider a Win2K installation. It's hard enough finding drivers for NT4 for
some of my stuff.
jim
Jim
jansens_at_ibm_dot_net (Karel Jansens) wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 06:11:17 Troy Bourdon <bou...@home.com> wrote:
>
I'm not (yet?) an OS/2 user Karel, but my "Using OS/2 Warp" reference says
that OS/2 runs windows software better than windows does. Have you tried it?
Any comments?
> Under linux, I run ApplixWare Office. It's not free, and lacks some of
> the bells and whistles of StarOffice, but is fast and customisable.
> Linux has more games available than OS/2, but getting them to run is
> often somewhat of a hassle.
>
> The main difference I see between OS/2 and Linux is that with the
> latter your system innards are always much closer to the surface.
> Whether you see this as an advantage, is entirely up to you, but to my
> experience both operating systems can be set up to give you an equally
> capable and easy to operate workstation.
>
> Karel Jansens
> jansens_at_attglobal_dot_net
> =======================================================
> "The method employed I would gladly explain,
> While I have it so clear in my head,
> If I had but the time and you had but the brain -
> But much yet remains to be said."
>
> the Hunting of the Snark (Lewis Carroll)
> =======================================================
Where did you find the kewl .sig?
--
Jim Naylor
jrna...@concentric.net
Microsoft's technical skills in developing innovative and robust
software do not strike fear into the hearts of anyone except its
customers. -Eric Bender, PC World
Jim
<bobg.REMOVEME.@pics.com> wrote:
> The goal of the original inquirer was to be MS free. This is indeed a
> worthy goal. Your solution is not a solution which fits the request. Nor
> is is appropriate in a newsgroup dedicated to OS/2 advocacy.
You noticed that too, Bob? Sounds like Sarek doesn't get over here often, as
he spends humonguous amounts of time (unless he literally *is* a M$
committee, which I strongly suspect is the case) on csma doing exactly the
same thing re Mac OS. When the rare occasion presents itself that something
complimentary to Mac OS is strongly indicated by the facts he so insistently
claims to love, he damns with faint praise in a truly masterful fashion
second only to Walter Mossberg. And then shows how much better you can do it
with wintel. In csma.
I enjoyed your post, as I've just had a friend install OS/2 on an old
donated 486 just to play around with. If I can find a good enuf deal on some
modern AMD based box which hasn't got any built-in M$ SW or license fee, I'd
like to build a dual boot OS/2-Linux machine, so I'll start lurking here
from now on. My MT-Newswatcher "from" filter will sort you to the top of the
list.
--
Jim Naylor
jrna...@concentric.net
Sarek to Pascal (on csma): "I told you how I handle most of my problems, and if it's good enough for me, it's good enough for you."
[another defining example of just what he means by good advocacy]
Sarek
>On 01/24/2000 at 07:35 AM,
> Sarek <sare...@zdnetonebox.com> said:
>
>Before reading on, look at the source of this drivel of a reply to an
>honest inquirer.
You might see what I've had to say about a few things first.
>
>> On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 06:11:17 GMT, Troy Bourdon <bou...@home.com> wrote:
>
>> I installed Open Caldera 2.3; I wouldn't call it a real hackers' OS
>> anymore, but I wouldn't want to toss anyone not used to editing files on
>> it without support. I doubt this will be a big factor for you.
>> StarOffice does not appear to be anywhere near as compatible with Office
>> as it is portrayed.
>
>This is from someone running Windows who has no idea of what he is typing.
>It is pure MS sponsored FUD.
I'm sorry, sir, but Linux isn't quite as easy to use as Windows yet.
I had to make a few modifications to get the dual-boot to work
properly, for instance. Nothing horrible, but I had the gentleman's
wife in mind when making those comments.
>> One big advantage of Linux, though, is that you can easily set up a
>> dual-boot system on your current machine. You can work in Linux to your
>> heart's content, and you wife can continue to use Windows should she
>> choose. Linux. If Linux doesn't work out, then you aren't out a lot of
>> hardware cash.
>
>As one can with any OS other than W2K. Sarek better watch out what he is
>saying. If Billy hears of it, Sarek might find his password changed.
Did you see me mention W2K there. One can do so with 98 also.
Actually, I can boot into Linux, W2K or 98.
>On what fictional information does he say this? I haven't heard of any
>major releases planned or announced.
You ought to look around a little bit at the application websites.
Corel is leading here, but plenty of others are planning Linux
releases. I didn't say things would be wonderful, just improved.
>> >*OS/2*
>> >My first job out of college I developed on OS/2 v3.0. I thought this was
>> >a cool OS. VERY stable, configurable, just really cool. My concerns are
>> >the same as with the Mac OS and Linux in terms of how many apps are
>> >available and what type of hardware limitations I'll be under do to
>> >driver availability. I'm also concerned about getting my cable modem
>> >running under OS/2.
>
>> OS/2 is pretty much a dinosaur that just hasn't died yet. I don't find
>> it a viable alternative like the others.
>
>Unlike Linux or any MS product, OS/2 is not dead, is not a dinosaur
>despite your obviously biased comments.
I very rarely see an OS/2 package. If OS/2 is alive and well, why
isn't there a lot of software for it?
>One only has to look at your
>address to see who puts the money in your pockets, namely Billy Gates who
>is the principal owner of ZD and ZDNet.
Actually, it's Hotmail.
It's a free email account, just like the many others that exist on the
Net, but then you might not know that running OS/2.
>Unlike the lemmings of the world, millions of users love the stability of
>OS/2 Warp, especially Warp 4. Warp Server for eBusiness is very robust and
>successful. Unlike offerings from Redmond, the product is well and
>actively supported by its author with fixpacks updating it and adding
>features issued with some regularity at no cost other than time to
>download if you are paying by the minute.
Paying by the minute? Did some timewarp sweep you up? This is the
year 2000.
>> >All insights are appreciated, and again no flame wars please. Just
>> >advocate the OS you find best.
>
>> I'm writing this using a late RC of Windows 2000. Since you work in an
>> NT environment, why don't you also look into that possibility?
>
>From personal experience with W2K, the available version based on Release
>3 of the beta and the "gold" code, one cannot have a dual boot machine
>with ANY other OS unless one is willing to boot from floppies to restore
>Boot Manager after each invocation of W2K.
This is absolutely untrue.
>DOS support, particularly for
>WordPerfect is extremely slow, much slower than in W9x. Java support is
>far less robust than that in 1.1.8 for OS/2.
I really think you have been swept up by a timewarp. Not too many
people are using DOS applications nowadays.
>> It seems that a dual-boot Linux system is the most prudent first step.
>> If stability is what you are looking, that seems to be the best first
>> step. It is likely to give you what you want without upsetting your
>> wife's routine. If you and your wife like that, great. If you don't,
>> it's no big deal, and then you can consider the much bigger and
>> expensive jump to a Mac.
>
>Of course, you lose Quicktime movie support, Adobe (other than the buggy
>as hell Java version assuming you can get reliable Java support in Linux),
>Real Movie and Sound support which works well in OS/2 as well as W9x, a
>meaningful choice of suites such as StarOffice, Lotus SmartSuite, etc., a
>dearth of fax options, and problematical support for most printers,
>scanners, cameras, etc. Moreover, many if not most Windows 3.x compatible
>programs run beautifully in Warp and without the constant GPF's under DOS
>or Win9x.
I'm sure we'll see those coming along shortly, and I don't run a
single Windows 3.1 program.
>As far as drivers for OS/2 are concerned, hardware not specifically
>designed for Windows 9x, there is not too much of a problem. With hardware
>a couple of years old, there are problems with W2K and even some with W98
>for equipment designed to the W95 standard.
>The most problematical hardware issues with OS/2 are sound cards. One must
>pay about $20 to $40 more than for low end Windows cards. For the most
>part, the GRADD drivers for video adapters solve the issue for the vast
>majority of current hardware.
>
>About the only thing that Warp doesn't do better than Windows 9x is run
>games. And the "shockwaves" of the world are a poor substitute for a
>PlayStation.
>
>Windows 9x advocates claim that Warp is impossible to set up. It is more
>difficult to be sure, but then once installed, it doesn't require hourly
>reboots. For someone who has experience with NT, Linux, etc., installing
>Warp is not an issue.
>The goal of the original inquirer was to be MS free.
Which I questioned a bit, and I see he has a response, so I'll have to
see how receptive he was to that. It is always wise to consider all
the options.
>This is indeed a worthy goal.
Then why haven't you done better with your solution?
> Your solution is not a solution which fits the request. Nor
>is is appropriate in a newsgroup dedicated to OS/2 advocacy.
From what I've seen, you aren't earning your keep.
Eric Bennett
<sare...@zdnetonebox.com> wrote:
> Paying by the minute? Did some timewarp sweep you up? This is the
> year 2000.
Depends on what part of the world you are in, doesn't it, Sarek? I
believe lots of countries' telecom services still charge by the minute
for dial-up connections.
Maybe you're caught in your own dimensional warp, but not all Internet
users live in the US.
Brad BARCLAY
>
> *OS/2*
> My first job out of college I developed on OS/2 v3.0. I thought this was
> a cool OS. VERY stable, configurable, just really cool. My concerns are
> the same as with the Mac OS and Linux in terms of how many apps are
> available and what type of hardware limitations I'll be under do to
> driver availability. I'm also concerned about getting my cable modem
> running under OS/2.
Hi Troy:
Welcome to the alternative-OS universe :).
Driver availability is a concern under every OS (including Windows,
where the concern about available isn't so much wether you can find the
drivers or not, but wether *quality* drivers are available for a given
piece of hardware or not). If you are designing a new system and are
specifing what hardware goes into it, then for the most part you should
be okay. Some peripherals and vendors have excellent OS/2 support,
wheras some vendors and peripheral types have little or no OS/2 support
available (ie: newer Creative Labs cards have no driver support under
OS/2, and the only DVD support available under OS/2 at this time is
support for their use as CD-ROM devices). Items such as printers,
network cards, DASD devices and video cards have excellent driver
support (especially now that we have SciTech Display Driver technology
support :).
IBM does run a driver availability website for OS/2, at:
http://service.software.ibm.com/os2ddpak/
If you're going to be building or upgrading an existing system, or if
yu just want to see if what you have today is going to have suitable
OS/2 drivers available for it, I suggest you peruse this website to get
an idea of what is and is not supported.
One thing that I can tell you (from personal experience :) is that
getting a cable modem up and running under OS/2 is a breeze. I signed
up for @Home service last month, and had it up and running in 5 minutes
(note that I already had a network card installed and running with OS/2
drivers, with the TCP/IP protocol already attached to it). All I did
was enter 4 IP addresses into the TCP/IP configuration panel, and that
was it - I was instantly online. You'll find that alot of people in the
OS/2 community who are using cable modems have a similar story - in
short, it's not a concern.
I hope this helps the decision somewhat!
Brad BARCLAY
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Posted from the OS/2 WARP v4.5 desktop of Brad BARCLAY.
E-Mail: bbar...@ca.ibm.com Location: 2G43D@Torolabs
Darren Winsper
> Now is probably a good time to mention that sound support on Linux is second
> only to Windows, and second only because it doesn't have much in the way of 3D
> support (yet). Legacy sound card support is BETTER than Windows (because it
> emulates capabilities that the cards don't offer.) And if you like MP3, well,
> it doesn't get any better than Linux. More decoders, more encoders, more GUI
> front ends....
I might agree with you if there was a Linux port of Sonique (I love
that program).
--
Darren Winsper (El Capitano) - ICQ #8899775
Stellar Legacy project member - http://www.stellarlegacy.tsx.org
DVD boycotts. Are you doing your part?
"Now they can put you in jail if they *THINK* you're gonna commit
a crime. Let me say that again, because it sounds vaguely important"
--george carlin
Jim Backus
> Hello all;
>
> I've come to my wits end. I won't go into great detail but I've had a
> string of problems with Windows OSs since '91 and I'm tired of it. It's
> gotten to the point where dealing with the smaller software base of the
> alternative OSs will be less painful than dealing with the crap that is
> Microsoft Windows. Microsoft makes some great apps so I'm not going to
> bash them to hard but there OS is just too unstable for me to put up
> with any more.
<snip>
As you can see from the sig line, I'm an OS/2 devotee. It's a
pleasure to get home after using WinNT all day at work to OS/2 _but_
if you're looking for something with a future to it, Linux has to be a
better bet. Cannot comment on Mac - it's been too long since I used
one.
--
Jim Backus OS/2 - 32 bits without the bloat
bona fide replies to jimb(at)jita(dot)demon(dot)co(dot)uk
http://www.jita.demon.co.uk
Tim Mayer
"Troy Bourdon" <bou...@home.com> wrote in message
news:388BED4F...@home.com...
> Hello all;
>
[SNIP]
>
> All insights are appreciated, and again no flame wars please. Just
> advocate the OS you find best.
>
>
> - Troy
Troy,
Why not just try Linux. Certainly it will run on your existing hardware,
modern distributions are easy to install, and the cost is almost trivial
(www.cheapbytes.com). I have tried Mandrake 6.1 and would recommend it as a
complete and easy to install distribution. I hear that Corel has a version
that is even bundled with Wordperfect for only a little more $$$. RedHat is
one of the best distributions, and will likely provide the best support in
the event of problems. Overall, with a very small investment of time and
money, you can know for certain if a modern Linux is for you or not.
In the end, if you don't like it, simply select from the remaining two OSes
that you asked about -- although neither one I can recommend for numerous
reasons.
One other advantage of using Linux, is the ability to support dual boot in
case you still need WinXX for some reason in the future.
Without knowing more about your intended use, this is the best suggestion I
can offer.
Tim
Sarek
wrote:
>In article <317p8scdfuiml2tru...@4ax.com>, Sarek
><sare...@zdnetonebox.com> wrote:
>
>> Paying by the minute? Did some timewarp sweep you up? This is the
>> year 2000.
>
>Depends on what part of the world you are in, doesn't it, Sarek? I
>believe lots of countries' telecom services still charge by the minute
>for dial-up connections.
>
>Maybe you're caught in your own dimensional warp, but not all Internet
>users live in the US.
My bad. You're right. My apologies to Mr. Gerner and all.
Michael A Rowley
>*Mac*
>I love the front end of the Mac OS and Apple hardware, I think both are
>very elegant. The two things that concern me most are the price of the
>hardware and the limitations of the OS in terms of multi-tasking. That's
>not to say that Win98 was so great in this area but at work I develop on
>an NT box and I developed in a Unix environment prior to that so it's
>just something I've grown accustomed to. I suppose I could load NT at
>home but it's a matter of general principal that I make the break from
>Windows.
My wife runs an iMac at home, and I have to admit, while I do not particularly like this OS, it is very good. Fairly stable (though not as stable as OS2 or Linux) and
has most of the applications that you would want. Just a matter of tast.
>*Linux*
>I messed around with Linux a few years ago and once I got it installed
>with X up and running it was great. In the time I used Linux it NEVER
>crashed. However, my determination back then was that it was a real
>hackers OS and I just didn't have the time to get heavily into it. I'm
>not afraid to run Linux at home but I do have my wife to think about.
>She uses the computer primarily for surfing and for email but she does
>do some work with MS Office. I wonder if StarOffice will be a viable
>solution. I also wonder if the Window Managers have come far enough for
>my wife to coexist with Linux.
I just installed Linux-Mandrake 7.0 which went like a dream. It will default to starting the X interface on boot up, runs most of the Windows Managers I know of from
the CD, and starts the two most popular (Gnome and KDE) by default. Great application support, (both GNU and commercial. The shareware market is growing
rapidly here) but you will have to know a little more than the average Windows Weenie. But, for this you will get a _very_ stable OS for free (yes, mandrake is free
for the download. I downloaded the .iso file and burned my own cd of it, which is bootable for the install.) With RPM, installation of software could not be easier.
>*OS/2*
>My first job out of college I developed on OS/2 v3.0. I thought this was
>a cool OS. VERY stable, configurable, just really cool. My concerns are
>the same as with the Mac OS and Linux in terms of how many apps are
>available and what type of hardware limitations I'll be under do to
>driver availability. I'm also concerned about getting my cable modem
>running under OS/2.
By far my favorite OS. Runs here at home wonderfully. Rock solid, with plenty of application support as far as I can see. The drawback here is popular games
and such. You won't find much here. You will provably have to boot over to 'blows or Linux for most games (though I never have time to play the damn things
anyway, so don't have a 'blows partion on any of my machines.) I have my OS2 box running as the firewall for my home network behind Injoy FIrewall for the Road
Runner cable modem. Works flawlessly. I run emx 0.9d (as any OS2 user should. Lots of stuff requires it now) and Xfree89OS2 with lots of application support. I
will be running OS2 for many years to come as I see it.
So, as you see, I think all three of the options are pretty good. Mandrake is very usable, even for the novice, and getting better every day. OS2 is perfect in my
eyes. Mac OS is adequate. Whichever you decied will service you well I am sure. Linux will be by far the cheapest though. Let me know what you decide.
Michael A Rowley,
Marty
>
> Marty wrote:
> > Troy Bourdon wrote:
> > > running under OS/2.
> >
>
> It would probably help if you mentioned what KIND of cable modem you're using,
> if not brand.
>
> Clearly any of the ethernet bridge modems are going to work fine (and those
> are still rather common). You may have worse luck with the internal cards,
> which may require their own driver.
True indeed. I have an ether bridge one. There was also a concern about
proprietary login software used by some ISPs which require Win32 or Mac
executables, however most ISPs have done away with this now and use straight
DHCP (as mine does).
> I'm not saying it won't work with OS/2, I just don't know, but I'd look before
> I bought. Same goes with Linux in this respect; my Linux box has been my cable
> modem gateway for years but my modem is a bridge -- J-Random-Ethernet-Card is
> the interface in the computer. I've seen support for internal cable modems
> but I'm not sure how good it is or how broad its coverage.
It takes a bit of research about the cable service provider, but most common
setups will be supported. I can't say I've heard of any internal cable modem
drivers for OS/2, however.
As far as tech support from the ISP goes, it's usually quite laughable. I
called Time Warner to report an outage one night. They asked various specs on
my machine, including the OS. I told them OS/2. They then proceeded to give
me basic "idiot-check" instructions for Mac users. I interrupted them and
told them I have OS/2. They then asked me if I had a PC, to which I answered
yes. Then they told me to run WinIPCFG. After patiently attempting to
explain that I couldn't do that, I asked them what it was they actually wanted
me to check or do. They wouldn't tell me, and kept insisting that I run
WinIPCFG. I told him I'd have to reboot to run it. He responded that I
wouldn't have to reboot at all, just run WinIPCFG. By this point I was
laughing out loud.
dc
<bobg.REMOVEME.@pics.com> wrote:
>From personal experience with W2K, the available version based on Release
>3 of the beta and the "gold" code, one cannot have a dual boot machine
>with ANY other OS unless one is willing to boot from floppies to restore
>Boot Manager after each invocation of W2K. DOS support, particularly for
No problems here; I have a 233 with BeOS, Linux (for a while), Novell
5, Win98, and W2k.
>As far as drivers for OS/2 are concerned, hardware not specifically
>designed for Windows 9x, there is not too much of a problem. With hardware
>a couple of years old, there are problems with W2K and even some with W98
>for equipment designed to the W95 standard.
W2k hardware setup is a nonissue - it's a breeze, and it's got a
massive hardware driver library of drivers that automatically just
-work- once you plug in the card. Tell me, how good is OS/2 support
for the GForce256? Voodooo 3? Yamaha 724? Savage 4? Savage 2000?
Soundblaster Live?
>The most problematical hardware issues with OS/2 are sound cards. One must
>pay about $20 to $40 more than for low end Windows cards. For the most
>part, the GRADD drivers for video adapters solve the issue for the vast
>majority of current hardware.
It's good to see you admit this.
>About the only thing that Warp doesn't do better than Windows 9x is run
>games. And the "shockwaves" of the world are a poor substitute for a
>PlayStation.
Playstation's been obsolete for some time now; still fun, but pretty
weak compared to a PC or even just a Dreamcast.
Mike Ruskai
[snip]
>*Mac*
>I love the front end of the Mac OS and Apple hardware, I think both are
>very elegant. The two things that concern me most are the price of the
>hardware and the limitations of the OS in terms of multi-tasking. That's
>not to say that Win98 was so great in this area but at work I develop on
>an NT box and I developed in a Unix environment prior to that so it's
>just something I've grown accustomed to. I suppose I could load NT at
>home but it's a matter of general principal that I make the break from
>Windows.
I don't like MacOS at all, personally. I do like the hardware platform.
Keep in mind that you don't have to run MacOS on a Mac. The downside to
this choice is that you will need to buy an entire new machine. Of the
three, this is by far the most expensive.
>*Linux*
>I messed around with Linux a few years ago and once I got it installed
>with X up and running it was great. In the time I used Linux it NEVER
>crashed. However, my determination back then was that it was a real
>hackers OS and I just didn't have the time to get heavily into it. I'm
>not afraid to run Linux at home but I do have my wife to think about.
>She uses the computer primarily for surfing and for email but she does
>do some work with MS Office. I wonder if StarOffice will be a viable
>solution. I also wonder if the Window Managers have come far enough for
>my wife to coexist with Linux.
Linux is not for the novice, at least not yet. StarOffice is
file-format-compatible with MS Office, so it should be viable, if you go
with Linux. The most appropriate choice of window manager is KDE, if a
relatively shallow learning curve is desired. Your wife might not have
much trouble at all, if you do all the configuration before she touches
it. This is, of course, the least expensive choice of the three.
>*OS/2*
>My first job out of college I developed on OS/2 v3.0. I thought this was
>a cool OS. VERY stable, configurable, just really cool. My concerns are
>the same as with the Mac OS and Linux in terms of how many apps are
>available and what type of hardware limitations I'll be under do to
>driver availability. I'm also concerned about getting my cable modem
>running under OS/2.
Has the best interface of the three, by far. Hardware support is good for
the most part, but specialty hardware requires more effort to use
(scanners, CD burners, etc.), since typically only WinXX software is
bundled. Application support has seen better days, but every major
category of program has at least one candidate. StarOffice is available
here, also.
As for the cable modem, you have two possibilities: 1) It's an internal,
proprietary interface card, with only WinXX drivers, in which case you're
SOL; 2) It's an external bridge, with a standard ethernet interface, in
which case you'll have no problems (I used a cable modem with OS/2 for
over two years, until I moved out of the service area).
Evaluating a Mac would require buying the machine, but evaluating Linux
and OS/2 would require only procuring the software. I'd recommend doing
just that, and installing both to try them out. Both operating systems
have no qualms about being installed on a logical drive, and both come
with utilities to facilitate booting multiple operating systems.
If you play any number of games, then keeping a copy of Win9x around
wouldn't hurt, either.
On this machine, I have Win95, Linux, and OS/2 installed. Win95 is just a
game loader, Linux is for playing around, and OS/2 is where I do
everything else (such as reading news).
--
- Mike
Remove 'spambegone.net' and reverse to send e-mail.
cbas...@my-deja.com
Bob Germer <bobg.REMOVEME.@pics.com> wrote:
> On 01/24/2000 at 07:35 AM,
> Sarek <sare...@zdnetonebox.com> said:
-- snip --
> > I installed Open Caldera 2.3; I wouldn't call it a real hackers' OS
> > anymore, but I wouldn't want to toss anyone not used to editing
> > files on it without support. I doubt this will be a big factor for
> > you. StarOffice does not appear to be anywhere near as compatible
> > with Office as it is portrayed.
>
> This is from someone running Windows who has no idea of what he is
> typing. It is pure MS sponsored FUD.
Have you tried loading a reasonably complex Excel spreadsheet into
StarOffice? Or even a reasonably complex Word document? Just because
someone is runing Windows, it doesn't mean they don't know what they're
talking about, and Sarek's comments regarding StarOffice are not exactly
erroneous.
> > One big advantage of Linux, though, is that you can easily set up a
> > dual-boot system on your current machine. You can work in Linux to
> > your heart's content, and you wife can continue to use Windows
> > should she choose. Linux. If Linux doesn't work out, then you
> > aren't out a lot of hardware cash.
>
> As one can with any OS other than W2K. Sarek better watch out what he
> is saying. If Billy hears of it, Sarek might find his password
> changed.
These kinds of comments do nothing for your credibility. It appears
that Sarek's comments have the potential of being true, as it seems
that only IBM's Boot Manager is affected by W2K.
> > Software and hardware compatibility are issues which you should look
> > into. Linux software availability is limited, but that will improve
> > over the course of the next year.
>
> On what fictional information does he say this? I haven't heard of any
> major releases planned or announced.
Corel is porting their entire office suite to Linux as an example, and
the general trend has been upward. The 2.4 kernel is due out any time,
which will make Linux much more suitable as a desktop OS. This is all
pretty common knowledge among those keeping an open eye on Linux trends.
-- snip --
> > OS/2 is pretty much a dinosaur that just hasn't died yet. I don't
> > find it a viable alternative like the others.
>
> Unlike Linux or any MS product, OS/2 is not dead,
Well, whether OS/2 is dead or not is debatable, but it seems primarily
to be on life support in the form of being an Open Source beneficiary.
The biggest hope for WPS right now seems to be the port of XLIB to WPS,
paving the way for those Linux / Open Source programs to run natively on
WPS, rather than on XFree86/2. Frankly, the activity on the XFree86/2
front seems more exiting than the WPS front, with GNOME and
Enlightenment either being available or ported.
And claiming that either Linux or Windows is dead simply damages your
credibility. Windows is solidly mainstream, and will remain so for the
forseeable future. Linux is definitely on an upward spiral. Frankly,
OS/2's future prospects appear rather dim, outside of XFree86/2 and the
port of XLIB. And frankly, these developments don't really leverage the
strengths of WPS -- it makes more sense to simply run the open source
Linux underneath X/GNOME/Enlightenment than to run the proprietary and
spottily supported OS/2 in that situation.
And oh, don't forget that you have to now pay for the priviledge of
downloading outdated versions of Netscape and Java from Software Choice,
to the tune of US $100.00 per year, while Linux provides Java 1.2 and
Communicator 4.7 right now, for free.
-- snip --
> Unlike the lemmings of the world, millions of users love the stability
> of OS/2 Warp, especially Warp 4. Warp Server for eBusiness is very
> robust and successful.
Millions of users? I have my doubts. Yes, Warp Server is a fine server
OS, but the client is going nowhere fast, and again, I doubt that there
are millions of client users.
-- snip --
> From personal experience with W2K, the available version based on
> Release 3 of the beta and the "gold" code, one cannot have a dual boot
> machine with ANY other OS unless one is willing to boot from floppies
> to restore Boot Manager after each invocation of W2K.
Again, it appears that only IBM's Boot Manager is affected, and there
are other boot managers available which seem to be unaffected. Linux'
LILO is a prime example, but there are others.
> DOS support, particularly for WordPerfect is extremely slow, much
> slower than in W9x.
Just how much of an issue is DOS supports these days? Or Win3.1 support,
for that matter?
> Java support is far less robust than that in 1.1.8 for OS/2.
Are you sure? Are you aware that Java 1.2 is available for Linux?
> > It seems that a dual-boot Linux system is the most prudent first
> > step. If stability is what you are looking, that seems to be the
> > best first step. It is likely to give you what you want without
> > upsetting your wife's routine. If you and your wife like that,
> > great. If you don't, it's no big deal, and then you can consider
> > the much bigger and expensive jump to a Mac.
>
> Of course, you lose Quicktime movie support, Adobe (other than the
> buggy as hell Java version assuming you can get reliable Java support
> in Linux), Real Movie and Sound support which works well in OS/2 as
> well as W9x, a meaningful choice of suites such as StarOffice, Lotus
> SmartSuite, etc., a dearth of fax options, and problematical support
> for most printers, scanners, cameras, etc. Moreover, many if not most
> Windows 3.x compatible programs run beautifully in Warp and without
> the constant GPF's under DOS or Win9x.
Again, how much of an issue is Win3.1 support these days? And no, OS/2
does not have native RealPlayer support; you have to use the Win16
version, which incurs the overhead of a complete Win16 session to run.
RealPlayer version 5.0, although somewhat dated, is available natively
for Linux. Also, Acrobat Reader is also natively available for Linux.
As for the rest (cameras, printers, etc.), progress is being made.
Your information seems to be rather out-of-date, which indicates how
fast Linux is moving. In terms of the RealPlayer and Acrobat Reader
examples, Linux is ahead of OS/2.
> As far as drivers for OS/2 are concerned, hardware not specifically
> designed for Windows 9x, there is not too much of a problem. With
> hardware a couple of years old, there are problems with W2K and even
> some with W98 for equipment designed to the W95 standard.
>
> The most problematical hardware issues with OS/2 are sound cards. One
> must pay about $20 to $40 more than for low end Windows cards. For the
> most part, the GRADD drivers for video adapters solve the issue for
> the vast majority of current hardware.
I beg to differ; video card support for OS/2 is severely lagging behind
Linux. XFree86 supports more modern hardware with better feature
support than OS/2 does, and the gap is widening. Hell, XFree86/2 has
better hardware support than WPS in many cases.
I tried the GRADD drivers for my S3 Vision 868 card, and went back to
"native" drivers immediately. GRADD offered nothing that the native
drivers didn't provide, and in fact, the GRADD drivers were less
flexible wrt scan rate settings at higher resolutions.
> About the only thing that Warp doesn't do better than Windows 9x is
> run games. And the "shockwaves" of the world are a poor substitute for
> a PlayStation.
Warp also doesn't surf the web as well, considering the RealPlayer
issue. Also, Shockwave and Flash are not supported under OS/2, but
Shockwave is available under Linux. Granted, it's beta, but it's still
ahead of OS/2.
Admittedly, the Win16 shockwave plug-in is availble for OS/2, but again,
it's a kludgey solution which requires an entire Win16 instance to be
running.
-- snip --
> The goal of the original inquirer was to be MS free. This is indeed a
> worthy goal.
If this is truly the case, then Win3.1 and DOS support become
non-issues, which is a strike against OS/2. Also, there are the obvious
facts that Win-OS2 is Microsoft code, as are certain components of OS/2
itself. No, if being MS free is truly the goal, then OS/2 becomes a
non-contender.
-- snip --
Curtis
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Gerben Bergman
Win98 to the Recyle Bin!"
| >Personally I'm going to give them 6-12 months to shake things out before I
| >consider a Win2K installation. It's hard enough finding drivers for NT4 for
| >some of my stuff.
|
| But Jim, Win2K is really NT5. If you've already got your NT drivers, then
| you've already got your Win2K drivers
Not entirely true, Jeff. I'm running Win2K now, and in a few cases (mouse,
scanner, and perhaps others I didn't bother to test) the NT4 drivers simply
don't work -- meaning I'm stuck with the semi-functional ones which came on
the CD-ROM. It would appear that the architectural differences between NT4
and Win2K are indeed sufficient to require the development of new drivers.
--
Gerben Bergman
rer...@planet.nl
Karel Jansens
[snip]
> Cameras -- now that I have to give you. USB support isn't in the production
> kernel yet, and tools to interface with serial cameras are hard to come by.
> They do exist for some cameras, though. PCMCIA adapters for CompactFlash work
> fine, but you'll have trouble with SmartMedia or MultiMediaCard.
[snip]
Check out
for camera support under Linux. Now, if only they had a driver for my
stone-age Mustek VDC-100...
It will work under OS/2, though <snigger>, using the Win 3.x drivers
(did I read a sarcastic remark about using DOS and Win 3.x programs
somewhere in that post? FYI, the 16bit version of Mustek's image
uploading program is a lot faster and more reliable than the Win9x
equivalent - I tried it out on a buddy's PC with Windows 95 on it -of
course, it might have something to do with WinOS/2 vs Windows 95).
Karel Jansens
[snip]
>
> I'm not (yet?) an OS/2 user Karel, but my "Using OS/2 Warp" reference says
> that OS/2 runs windows software better than windows does. Have you tried it?
> Any comments?
>
It's just Windows programs running, albeit in a windows on the OS/2
desktop. The difference is that when the Windows program goes down
(note that I didn't say "if", it has been my experience that every
Windows program will crash at one time), it's just that: a program
going down. I don't think it is possible for a Windows program to take
out the operating system, if the operating system happens to be OS/2
(to my experience, at least, which dates from december 1994). You can
even cut and paste between Windows and WPS programs.
One caveat: for reasons of speed and economy of RAM, IBM gives the
possibility to either run all your Windows programs in one WinOS/2
session, or start a seperate virtual machine for each Windows
application. The latter gobbles up a lot of RAM and requires longer
loading times for the application, but in the former a haywire app can
bring down all the other Windows apps, running in the same
environment.
This - and just about everything else - can be set individually for
every application.
Oh! Wait! I just thought of another fun thing OS/2 shares with Linux,
but not Windows: uptime! I usually reboot only when switching from
OS/2 to Linux, else I just don't bother. Neither operating system
suffers from the dreaded memory leaks (although, in fairness, OS/2 can
still, from time to time, show signs of "the Incredibly Growing Swap
File": the algoritmes that are supposed to shrink the swap back to
minimal don't always do their job right; in any case, I suspect it's
more a matter of data security (conservative cleaning of swap) than
sloppy programming). It's not that bad, really, and a reboot cleans it
up nicely. But I hate it when things in OS/2 are not perfect <G>.
>
> Where did you find the kewl .sig?
>
The snooty answer would be: "From reading the book, of course".
Now, as it happens, I _did_ read (parts of) it, in my highschool (as
the Yanks call it) English class.
Of which I naturally remember nothing.
This quote comes from a Belgian (!) book on Mars by Gerard Bodifee (I
do read a lot of weird stuff, I admit). I used to cycle .sigs (most of
them came from Terry Pratchett's books - some even from imaginary
books of his!), but I kinda like this one: it's so *right* for this
group <G>.
ZnU
<bou...@home.com> wrote:
[snip]
> *Mac*
> I love the front end of the Mac OS and Apple hardware, I think both are
> very elegant. The two things that concern me most are the price of the
> hardware and the limitations of the OS in terms of multi-tasking. That's
> not to say that Win98 was so great in this area but at work I develop on
> an NT box and I developed in a Unix environment prior to that so it's
> just something I've grown accustomed to. I suppose I could load NT at
> home but it's a matter of general principal that I make the break from
> Windows.
If you're considering a Mac you'll definitely want to check out the
information on Mac OS X at <http://www.apple.com/macosx/>. It looks like
it will address the current technical deficiencies of Mac OS, and it
takes the Mac UI up to the next level as well. It's based heavily on
NeXTStep and *BSD, but with the ease-of-use expected from a Mac.
Apple claims it will ship this summer, though like every other major OS
release it will probably be at least a bit late. It's a bit late
already, in fact.
[snip]
--
There are running jobs. Why don't you go chase them?
ZnU <z...@znu.dhs.org> | <http://znu.dhs.org>
William V. Campbell Jr.
Mike Ruskai at retsie...@spammoc.beoohaygone.net wrote on 1/24/00 5:28
PM:
> On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 06:11:17 GMT, Troy Bourdon wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>> *Mac*
>> I love the front end of the Mac OS and Apple hardware, I think both are
>> very elegant. The two things that concern me most are the price of the
>> hardware and the limitations of the OS in terms of multi-tasking. That's
>> not to say that Win98 was so great in this area but at work I develop on
>> an NT box and I developed in a Unix environment prior to that so it's
>> just something I've grown accustomed to. I suppose I could load NT at
>> home but it's a matter of general principal that I make the break from
>> Windows.
>
> I don't like MacOS at all, personally. I do like the hardware platform.
> Keep in mind that you don't have to run MacOS on a Mac. The downside to
> this choice is that you will need to buy an entire new machine. Of the
> three, this is by far the most expensive.
I have a 7500/g3 for sale really cheap. :)
>> *Linux*
<snip
> Linux is not for the novice, at least not yet.
<snip>
No, you are kidding right?
<snip>
> Evaluating a Mac would require buying the machine, but evaluating Linux
> and OS/2 would require only procuring the software. I'd recommend doing
> just that, and installing both to try them out. Both operating systems
> have no qualms about being installed on a logical drive, and both come
> with utilities to facilitate booting multiple operating systems.
>
> If you play any number of games, then keeping a copy of Win9x around
> wouldn't hurt, either.
I have a copy in the garage just for this situation.
> On this machine, I have Win95, Linux, and OS/2 installed. Win95 is just a
> game loader, Linux is for playing around, and OS/2 is where I do
> everything else (such as reading news).
--
"Whatever you want-Wants you"
"A Course in Miracles"
Soup
Steve Nospam
wrotf:
>On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 14:23:19 nospam@nospam!.kom (Steve Nospam) wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 07:49:16 -0500, Bob Germer
>> <bobg.REMOVEME.@pics.com> wrotf:
<snip>
>> >and problematical support for most printers,
>>
>> This is true with respect to non PS printers, and is one of my major
>> gripes with Linux. Although it's not difficult to get non-PS printers
>> to work in Linux, it is difficult to get high-quality output, and set
>> them up for multiple configurations.
>>
>But Linux (and OS/2) has Ghostscript, which will turn basically any
>printer into a PostScript eating monster.
Yes, that was why I said it wasn't difficult to get non-PS printers to
work. However, the output quality is far inferior to Windows drivers
(particularly for graphics), and setting up all the options is a major
hassle (try to use Ghostscript to provide all of the features
available for an Epson Stylus Color printer in Windows, and you'll see
what I mean.
<snip>
>> I would second the suggestion to try Linux first, since it is
>> inexpensive. Corel and Caldera distros are probably the easiest to
>> install, although I prefer SuSE.
>>
>I guess you can't be all evil then <G>.
I try hard ;-)
-Steve
*The only thing certain about the future is that it hasn't happened yet.*
Jim Frost
> called Time Warner to report an outage one night. They asked various specs on
> my machine, including the OS. I told them OS/2. They then proceeded to give
> me basic "idiot-check" instructions for Mac users. I interrupted them and
> told them I have OS/2. They then asked me if I had a PC, to which I answered
> yes. Then they told me to run WinIPCFG. After patiently attempting to
> explain that I couldn't do that, I asked them what it was they actually wanted
> me to check or do. They wouldn't tell me, and kept insisting that I run
> WinIPCFG. I told him I'd have to reboot to run it. He responded that I
> wouldn't have to reboot at all, just run WinIPCFG. By this point I was
> laughing out loud.
The way I deal with this is to translate what they're asking into the tools I
should actually use. In the case of ipconfig (which I think is what you
really meant), you'd use ifconfig on UNIX. That dumps the interface
configuration information, which includes the IP address.
But usually I already know what the problem is ahead of time and can guide
them through it. "The modem doesn't have block sync. Is something wrong on
your end?" "DHCP isn't responding. Is something wrong on your end?" "My
cable TV is out. Is something wrong on your end?" That kind of thing.
Once the problem was on my end -- the cable modem somehow died. Usually,
though, they get a hundred calls from users in a particular area so they know
it's their problem....
jim
Jim Frost
> >Personally I'm going to give them 6-12 months to shake things out before I
> >consider a Win2K installation. It's hard enough finding drivers for NT4 for
> >some of my stuff.
>
> But Jim, Win2K is really NT5. If you've already got your NT drivers,
> then you've already got your Win2K drivers
People I know using the release candidates say otherwise, and so do some of
the vendors I spoke with.
I don't know what defines what will work and what won't, but there's this
Murphy's Law thing....
jim
Marty
>
> > As far as tech support from the ISP goes, it's usually quite laughable. I
> > called Time Warner to report an outage one night. They asked various specs on
> > my machine, including the OS. I told them OS/2. They then proceeded to give
> > me basic "idiot-check" instructions for Mac users. I interrupted them and
> > told them I have OS/2. They then asked me if I had a PC, to which I answered
> > yes. Then they told me to run WinIPCFG. After patiently attempting to
> > explain that I couldn't do that, I asked them what it was they actually wanted
> > me to check or do. They wouldn't tell me, and kept insisting that I run
> > WinIPCFG. I told him I'd have to reboot to run it. He responded that I
> > wouldn't have to reboot at all, just run WinIPCFG. By this point I was
> > laughing out loud.
>
> The way I deal with this is to translate what they're asking into the tools I
> should actually use. In the case of ipconfig (which I think is what you
> really meant), you'd use ifconfig on UNIX. That dumps the interface
> configuration information, which includes the IP address.
Actually, it was WinIPCFG, which is just a little utility thingee with Win9x
that lets you release and acquire a DHCP lease. Of course, until I actually
booted Win95 I couldn't find this out, because that was too complex for the
tech to explain to me.
> But usually I already know what the problem is ahead of time and can guide
> them through it. "The modem doesn't have block sync. Is something wrong on
> your end?" "DHCP isn't responding. Is something wrong on your end?" "My
> cable TV is out. Is something wrong on your end?" That kind of thing.
That's what basically happened here too. Before I could tell them what was
wrong the tech jumped into this whole absurd conversation. When I translated
it back to the tech in a language they could understand (WinIPCFG gives me an
error when I try to renew the lease) the tech then had the presence of mind to
ask where I was located, and sure enough found that some maintenance was
occurring in my area.
> Once the problem was on my end -- the cable modem somehow died. Usually,
> though, they get a hundred calls from users in a particular area so they know
> it's their problem....
Yeah. The latter has been my experience so far.
Bob Germer
Sarek <sare...@zdnetonebox.com> said:
> Did you see me mention W2K there. One can do so with 98 also. Actually,
> I can boot into Linux, W2K or 98.
You are full of shit! If you install W2K, release version, with any Boot
Manager, it wipes out that boot manager every damn time you boot W2K.
Unless you are into reinstalling LILO, BM, LVM, etc. from floppies after
each time you run W2K, the above statement makes you a lying sack of shit.
And if you ARE into constant reinstalls of the boot manager, you are a
stupid idiot.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Germer from Mount Holly, NJ - E-mail: bo...@Pics.com
Proudly running OS/2 Warp 4.0 w/ FixPack 13
MR/2 Ice 2.01 Registration Number 67
Aut Pax Aut Bellum
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Germer
Sarek <sare...@zdnetonebox.com> said:
> >> OS/2 is pretty much a dinosaur that just hasn't died yet. I don't find
> >> it a viable alternative like the others.
> >
> >Unlike Linux or any MS product, OS/2 is not dead, is not a dinosaur
> >despite your obviously biased comments.
> I very rarely see an OS/2 package. If OS/2 is alive and well, why isn't
> there a lot of software for it?
Well, you must be looking solely at the MS website, then. Ever hear of
Lotus? I thought not. Ever hear of CDS? I didn't think so. Ever hear of
IBM, I suppose you think they only sell hardware.
You prove yourself a lemming once again.
> >One only has to look at your
> >address to see who puts the money in your pockets, namely Billy Gates who
> >is the principal owner of ZD and ZDNet.
> Actually, it's Hotmail.
You really have lost touch with reality. Your address here shows as
<sare...@zdnetonebox.com. That's MicroSoft you asshole.
> It's a free email account, just like the many others that exist on the
> Net, but then you might not know that running OS/2.
I have heard of them and used a couple under OS/2. They are too slow and
unreliable for me. I much prefer to pay $150 a year for DSL access.
> >Unlike the lemmings of the world, millions of users love the stability of
> >OS/2 Warp, especially Warp 4. Warp Server for eBusiness is very robust and
> >successful. Unlike offerings from Redmond, the product is well and
> >actively supported by its author with fixpacks updating it and adding
> >features issued with some regularity at no cost other than time to
> >download if you are paying by the minute.
> Paying by the minute? Did some timewarp sweep you up? This is the year
> 2000.
For your education which is totally lacking, free internet access is not
generally available to commercial accounts. Those companies with T1 or
ISDN lines pay by the minute for time used in most cases.
> >> >All insights are appreciated, and again no flame wars please. Just
> >> >advocate the OS you find best.
> >
> >> I'm writing this using a late RC of Windows 2000. Since you work in an
> >> NT environment, why don't you also look into that possibility?
> >
> >From personal experience with W2K, the available version based on Release
> >3 of the beta and the "gold" code, one cannot have a dual boot machine
> >with ANY other OS unless one is willing to boot from floppies to restore
> >Boot Manager after each invocation of W2K.
> This is absolutely untrue.
This is absolutely the case as documented here by many who have tried
including myself. RC 1 and 2 did not overwrite the BM partition of the LVM
partition. RC3 and the release versions do each time Y2K is invoked. You
are obviously a liar paid by Billy Gates.
> >DOS support, particularly for
> >WordPerfect is extremely slow, much slower than in W9x. Java support is
> >far less robust than that in 1.1.8 for OS/2.
> I really think you have been swept up by a timewarp. Not too many
> people are using DOS applications nowadays.
What planet do you inhabit? I have dozens of commercial clients happily
using WordPerfect for DOS with no plans to change. It is quite obvious you
never visited a law firm which has been computerized for more than 6 years
or so. It is quite obvious that you have never looked at the internal
network of many small banks. It is quite obvious you have never seen the
internal network at many insurance companies. It is quite obvious you have
never seen the software being run at many accounting firms. You seem to be
completely ignorant of networking issues with Novell and W2K.
> >Of course, you lose Quicktime movie support, Adobe (other than the buggy
> >as hell Java version assuming you can get reliable Java support in Linux),
> >Real Movie and Sound support which works well in OS/2 as well as W9x, a
> >meaningful choice of suites such as StarOffice, Lotus SmartSuite, etc., a
> >dearth of fax options, and problematical support for most printers,
> >scanners, cameras, etc. Moreover, many if not most Windows 3.x compatible
> >programs run beautifully in Warp and without the constant GPF's under DOS
> >or Win9x.
> I'm sure we'll see those coming along shortly, and I don't run a single
> Windows 3.1 program.
Well, since you only seem familiar with games, I am not surprised.
> >
> >Windows 9x advocates claim that Warp is impossible to set up. It is more
> >difficult to be sure, but then once installed, it doesn't require hourly
> >reboots. For someone who has experience with NT, Linux, etc., installing
> >Warp is not an issue.
> >The goal of the original inquirer was to be MS free.
> Which I questioned a bit, and I see he has a response, so I'll have to
> see how receptive he was to that. It is always wise to consider all the
> options.
Not when the source is a corrupt, criminal organization. Chosing MS
software is like choosing the Mafia as your cigarette wholesaler.
Karel Jansens
> On 24 Jan 2000 15:22:00 GMT, jansens_at_ibm_dot_net (Karel Jansens)
> wrotf:
>
>
> Yes, that was why I said it wasn't difficult to get non-PS printers to
> work. However, the output quality is far inferior to Windows drivers
> (particularly for graphics), and setting up all the options is a major
> hassle (try to use Ghostscript to provide all of the features
> available for an Epson Stylus Color printer in Windows, and you'll see
> what I mean.
>
I have three printers: a worn-out DeskJet 550c (I still use it because
my colour requirements aren't very high), a Canon BJ 10ex (favourite
little printer on the road, produces great stuff with a Psion 3a) and
a LaserJet 4 (You must have figured out by now that I'm not really
into cutting-edge stuff <G>). I've used all of them with their native
DOS (meaning WordPerfect mostly) and OS/2 drivers, and through
Ghostscript. The main difference I observe is that Ghostscript
defaults to rasters instead of scattering when printing grayscales,
which could be a hassle sometimes, but I'm told there are ways around
that (I don't bother, because I actually *like* Ghostscript's
rasters). Finding the right colour PostScript printer for the
pass-through to Ghostscript required some research and lateral
thinking sometimes, but that's a one-time job.
The WinOS/2 drivers are on a par with native OS/2 drivers, and I
really have no idea what those other Windows drivers could do that I
might need.
> <snip>
>
> >> I would second the suggestion to try Linux first, since it is
> >> inexpensive. Corel and Caldera distros are probably the easiest to
> >> install, although I prefer SuSE.
> >>
> >I guess you can't be all evil then <G>.
>
> I try hard ;-)
>
Only kiddin'. You're kewl.
Karel Jansens
wrote:
> On 01/24/2000 at 01:55 PM,
> Sarek <sare...@zdnetonebox.com> said:
>
>
> > Did you see me mention W2K there. One can do so with 98 also. Actually,
> > I can boot into Linux, W2K or 98.
>
> You are full of shit! If you install W2K, release version, with any Boot
> Manager, it wipes out that boot manager every damn time you boot W2K.
> Unless you are into reinstalling LILO, BM, LVM, etc. from floppies after
> each time you run W2K, the above statement makes you a lying sack of shit.
> And if you ARE into constant reinstalls of the boot manager, you are a
> stupid idiot.
>
This is really starting to get confusing. I see people writing that
W2k only affects OS/2's Boot Manager and leaves LILO and the others
alone; you (and some others I forget) claim it will destroy every BM
around.
Some say it will only nix BM(s) at installation; others state it will
do so at every boot, again and again and again.
Could somebody _please_ bring some clarity into this mess? Which
release of Win2k does what to whom (and why)?
It's only of trivial value to me personally: I wouldn't dream of
letting the Win2k hog loose on my system (it probably wouldn't even
install to begin with), but some in this group might have an academic
interest in it (if only to "know thine enemy").
Steve Nospam
wrotf:
Settings for paper type (plain paper, inkjet paper, photoquality paper
(matte or glossy), transparencies)
Settings for paper orientation and printable area.
Settings for print quality (360 dpi, 720 dpi, 1440 dpi)
Settings for halftoning (none, dithering, diffusion)
Settings for high speed printing vs. normal.
Color adjustments (brightness, contrast, saturation, C,M,Y)
In theory, you could set up Ghostscript filters for all of this, but
in practice, it would be difficult, and it would be unwieldy to use as
compared to a single print properties dialog that pops up allowing you
to set all of these when you print.
But, again, the biggest gripe is that color graphics print quality is
far inferior to that under Win9x/NT (no longer even near photo
quality).
<snip>
Andrew J. Brehm
> I don't like MacOS at all, personally. I do like the hardware platform.
> Keep in mind that you don't have to run MacOS on a Mac.
G4 and G3 machines will run MacOS, MacOS X, Linux altaugh Linux is just
now being ported to the G4), and NetBSD (altaugh NetBSD still requires a
seperate hard disk because the PowerPC port does not support any
partition scheme but their own, also, I have never tried to install
NetBSD on a G4, but it should work. The same goes for the G3.)
2nd Generation PCI PowerMacs (603 and 604 CPUs) run BeOS, MacOS, and
Linux, but won't run OS X.
Anyway, the choice of operating systems for new PowerMacs is limited to
Linux, BSD, and the two Apple systems.
But I take it OS X and Linux will be all one might need anyway. :-)
--
Fan of Woody Allen
PowerPC User (MacOS, Linux, BeOS)
Supporter of Pepperoni Pizza
Andre Ervin
> On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 07:49:16 -0500, Bob Germer
> <bobg.REMOVEME.@pics.com> wrote:
>
> >Unlike Linux or any MS product, OS/2 is not dead, is not a dinosaur
> >despite your obviously biased comments.
>
> I very rarely see an OS/2 package. If OS/2 is alive and well, why
> isn't there a lot of software for it?
I actually find it telling that IBM is one of the few (possibly
the only) PC manufacturers that ship business-class machines
without a Windows key on the keyboard...
--
dre http://home.earthlink.net/~dre77/picks/
Jim
<bobg.REMOVEME.@pics.com> wrote:
[snip]
> > >The goal of the original inquirer was to be MS free.
>
> > Which I questioned a bit, and I see he has a response, so I'll have to
> > see how receptive he was to that. It is always wise to consider all the
> > options.
>
> Not when the source is a corrupt, criminal organization. Chosing MS
> software is like choosing the Mafia as your cigarette wholesaler.
Yeah, Bob. The smokes are cheap, obnoxious to others, and the habit will
surely turn out to be hard to break. All in all, a very apt analogy.
--
Jim Naylor
jrna...@concentric.net
Sarek to Pascal: "I told you how I handle most of my problems, and if it's
good enough for me, it's good enough for you."
[*not* excerpted from the Sarek Good Advocacy Manual]
Karel Jansens
>
> Settings for paper type (plain paper, inkjet paper, photoquality paper
> (matte or glossy), transparencies)
>
> Settings for paper orientation and printable area.
>
> Settings for print quality (360 dpi, 720 dpi, 1440 dpi)
>
> Settings for halftoning (none, dithering, diffusion)
>
> Settings for high speed printing vs. normal.
>
> Color adjustments (brightness, contrast, saturation, C,M,Y)
>
> In theory, you could set up Ghostscript filters for all of this, but
> in practice, it would be difficult, and it would be unwieldy to use as
> compared to a single print properties dialog that pops up allowing you
> to set all of these when you print.
>
> But, again, the biggest gripe is that color graphics print quality is
> far inferior to that under Win9x/NT (no longer even near photo
> quality).
>
I believe you but, like I said, if I needed any of those I probably
would have ditched that 550c long ago...
BTW, (at least in OS/2's Ghostscript) on the printer settings dialog
is a "uniprint" button which contains pre-set conditions for many
printers that might alleviate your anger a bit (it's pretty meager on
DeskJets though, but my Ghostscript is pretty old, so maybe it has
been expanded a bit).
je...@dementia.mishnet
>On Tue, 25 Jan 2000 14:14:29 nospam@nospam!.kom (Steve Nospam) wrote:
>
>>
>> Settings for paper type (plain paper, inkjet paper, photoquality paper
>> (matte or glossy), transparencies)
>>
>> Settings for paper orientation and printable area.
>>
>> Settings for print quality (360 dpi, 720 dpi, 1440 dpi)
>>
>> Settings for halftoning (none, dithering, diffusion)
>>
>> Settings for high speed printing vs. normal.
>>
>> Color adjustments (brightness, contrast, saturation, C,M,Y)
>>
>> In theory, you could set up Ghostscript filters for all of this, but
>> in practice, it would be difficult, and it would be unwieldy to use as
>> compared to a single print properties dialog that pops up allowing you
>> to set all of these when you print.
>>
>> But, again, the biggest gripe is that color graphics print quality is
>> far inferior to that under Win9x/NT (no longer even near photo
>> quality).
>>
>I believe you but, like I said, if I needed any of those I probably
>would have ditched that 550c long ago...
Besides, you can control ghostscript with a shiny happy
dialog. Most distros already do. They just don't go the
rest of the way.
Nevermind that a 'standard dialog' is likely to not cover
everything anyways. That's why the networked HP I use with
NT here has it's own little applet for dealing with the
printer (which you could do just as well under Linux,
prepending a control file to print job).
Of course, the simple options end up in obscure places.
>
>BTW, (at least in OS/2's Ghostscript) on the printer settings dialog
>is a "uniprint" button which contains pre-set conditions for many
>printers that might alleviate your anger a bit (it's pretty meager on
>DeskJets though, but my Ghostscript is pretty old, so maybe it has
>been expanded a bit).
Assuming it hasn't been done already, Linux merely needs the
same applets that HP ships with Windows to tweak the printer
past the point where the 'standard dialog' fails.
--
The best OS in the world is ultimately useless |||
if it is controlled by a Tramiel, Jobs or Gates. / | \
Searching for sane PPP docs? Try http://penguin.lvcm.com
Sarek
<bobg.REMOVEME.@pics.com> wrote:
>On 01/24/2000 at 01:55 PM,
> Sarek <sare...@zdnetonebox.com> said:
>
>
>> Did you see me mention W2K there. One can do so with 98 also. Actually,
>> I can boot into Linux, W2K or 98.
>
>You are full of shit!
I do this every day. Machine boots, I get the Open Caldera screen,
type in linux if I want that or win if I don't, then I get the Windows
choice of 2000 or 98. I've set this up twice, and here is how I set
it up:
First I installed 98, then W2K, then Linux. Put LILO in the boot
drive. Added a little piece to LILO so I can boot into Windows.
>If you install W2K, release version, with any Boot
>Manager, it wipes out that boot manager every damn time you boot W2K.
You're wrong. I haven't used any boot manager other than LILO.
>Unless you are into reinstalling LILO, BM, LVM, etc. from floppies after
>each time you run W2K, the above statement makes you a lying sack of shit.
I'm sorry if you haven't figured this out yet, but it works, no
floppies involved at all.
>And if you ARE into constant reinstalls of the boot manager, you are a
>stupid idiot.
I'm neither booting from floppies, reinstalling the boot manager, nor
a stupid idiot, but I'm not sure my last statement is as applicable to
you.
Sarek
<bobg.REMOVEME.@pics.com> wrote:
>Well, you must be looking solely at the MS website, then.
No.
>Ever hear of
>Lotus? I thought not. Ever hear of CDS? I didn't think so. Ever hear of
>IBM, I suppose you think they only sell hardware.
I've heard of all of them, but the PC software market is a little
bigger than that.
>You prove yourself a lemming once again.
It takes no lemming to see that there is much more software available
for Windows than OS/2.
>> >One only has to look at your
>> >address to see who puts the money in your pockets, namely Billy Gates who
>> >is the principal owner of ZD and ZDNet.
>
>> Actually, it's Hotmail.
>
>You really have lost touch with reality. Your address here shows as
><sare...@zdnetonebox.com. That's MicroSoft you asshole.
To my knowledge, Microsoft does not own ZdNet. If I am incorrect,
could you please give me some indication of this ownership?
>> It's a free email account, just like the many others that exist on the
>> Net, but then you might not know that running OS/2.
>
>I have heard of them and used a couple under OS/2. They are too slow and
>unreliable for me. I much prefer to pay $150 a year for DSL access.
I have a regular ISP and email account, I use this one for certain
communications for my own personal convenience.
>> >Unlike the lemmings of the world, millions of users love the stability of
>> >OS/2 Warp, especially Warp 4. Warp Server for eBusiness is very robust and
>> >successful. Unlike offerings from Redmond, the product is well and
>> >actively supported by its author with fixpacks updating it and adding
>> >features issued with some regularity at no cost other than time to
>> >download if you are paying by the minute.
>
>> Paying by the minute? Did some timewarp sweep you up? This is the year
>> 2000.
>
>For your education which is totally lacking, free internet access is not
>generally available to commercial accounts. Those companies with T1 or
>ISDN lines pay by the minute for time used in most cases.
I had acknowledged that, but you seem confused as to what you use and
what you pay for it. You used DSL and paid a flat fee well below the
going rate a couple paragraphs ago (just how are you getting DSL
service for $150 a year?) , now you talk about T1 and ISDN
>> >> >All insights are appreciated, and again no flame wars please. Just
>> >> >advocate the OS you find best.
>> >
>> >> I'm writing this using a late RC of Windows 2000. Since you work in an
>> >> NT environment, why don't you also look into that possibility?
>> >
>> >From personal experience with W2K, the available version based on Release
>> >3 of the beta and the "gold" code, one cannot have a dual boot machine
>> >with ANY other OS unless one is willing to boot from floppies to restore
>> >Boot Manager after each invocation of W2K.
>
>> This is absolutely untrue.
>
>This is absolutely the case as documented here by many who have tried
>including myself. RC 1 and 2 did not overwrite the BM partition of the LVM
>partition. RC3 and the release versions do each time Y2K is invoked. You
>are obviously a liar paid by Billy Gates.
I have a system that does this every day. Perhaps this only happens
with OS/2, it certainly doesn't with 98, 2000 and Linux.
>What planet do you inhabit? I have dozens of commercial clients happily
>using WordPerfect for DOS with no plans to change. It is quite obvious you
>never visited a law firm which has been computerized for more than 6 years
>or so. It is quite obvious that you have never looked at the internal
>network of many small banks. It is quite obvious you have never seen the
>internal network at many insurance companies. It is quite obvious you have
>never seen the software being run at many accounting firms. You seem to be
>completely ignorant of networking issues with Novell and W2K.
Then you must specialize with people using old software.
>> >Of course, you lose Quicktime movie support, Adobe (other than the buggy
>> >as hell Java version assuming you can get reliable Java support in Linux),
>> >Real Movie and Sound support which works well in OS/2 as well as W9x, a
>> >meaningful choice of suites such as StarOffice, Lotus SmartSuite, etc., a
>> >dearth of fax options, and problematical support for most printers,
>> >scanners, cameras, etc. Moreover, many if not most Windows 3.x compatible
>> >programs run beautifully in Warp and without the constant GPF's under DOS
>> >or Win9x.
>
>> I'm sure we'll see those coming along shortly, and I don't run a single
>> Windows 3.1 program.
>
>Well, since you only seem familiar with games, I am not surprised.
I have not mentioned games once.
>> >Windows 9x advocates claim that Warp is impossible to set up. It is more
>> >difficult to be sure, but then once installed, it doesn't require hourly
>> >reboots. For someone who has experience with NT, Linux, etc., installing
>> >Warp is not an issue.
I have no opinion about the ease or difficulty of OS/2 installation,
but I don't engage in hourly reboots, either.
>> >The goal of the original inquirer was to be MS free.
>
>> Which I questioned a bit, and I see he has a response, so I'll have to
>> see how receptive he was to that. It is always wise to consider all the
>> options.
>Not when the source is a corrupt, criminal organization.
Didn't IBM have similiar problems a while back, and have to sign a
number of consent decrees on their business practices, too?
>Chosing MS
>software is like choosing the Mafia as your cigarette wholesaler.
You obviously are very disturbed about Microsoft. For that matter,
you seem pretty disturbed in general. If OS/2 suits you, that's fine
by me, but it's not exactly the future in operating systems.
Jeff Szarka
wrote:
:Hello all;
:
:I've come to my wits end. I won't go into great detail but I've had a
:string of problems with Windows OSs since '91 and I'm tired of it. It's
:gotten to the point where dealing with the smaller software base of the
:alternative OSs will be less painful than dealing with the crap that is
:Microsoft Windows. Microsoft makes some great apps so I'm not going to
:bash them to hard but there OS is just too unstable for me to put up
:with any more.
:
:I'm posting to the OS/2, Linux, and Mac advocacy groups to solicit
:opinions about the pros and cons of each OS. It is not my intent to
:start any flame wars between the advocates of the respective OSs but
:only to get responses from those in each group about which OS they think
:is best and why. Please people, no mud slinging.
:
:Areas I'm interested in are:
: - Hardware availability/Driver availability
: - Software availability
: - Cost
:
:I'll list some of my thoughts and concerns about each OS so as to give a
:bit of perspective.
:
:*Mac*
:I love the front end of the Mac OS and Apple hardware, I think both are
:very elegant. The two things that concern me most are the price of the
:hardware and the limitations of the OS in terms of multi-tasking. That's
:not to say that Win98 was so great in this area but at work I develop on
:an NT box and I developed in a Unix environment prior to that so it's
:just something I've grown accustomed to. I suppose I could load NT at
:home but it's a matter of general principal that I make the break from
:Windows.
:
:*Linux*
:I messed around with Linux a few years ago and once I got it installed
:with X up and running it was great. In the time I used Linux it NEVER
:crashed. However, my determination back then was that it was a real
:hackers OS and I just didn't have the time to get heavily into it. I'm
:not afraid to run Linux at home but I do have my wife to think about.
:She uses the computer primarily for surfing and for email but she does
:do some work with MS Office. I wonder if StarOffice will be a viable
:solution. I also wonder if the Window Managers have come far enough for
:my wife to coexist with Linux.
:
:*OS/2*
:My first job out of college I developed on OS/2 v3.0. I thought this was
:a cool OS. VERY stable, configurable, just really cool. My concerns are
:the same as with the Mac OS and Linux in terms of how many apps are
:available and what type of hardware limitations I'll be under do to
:driver availability. I'm also concerned about getting my cable modem
:running under OS/2.
:
:All insights are appreciated, and again no flame wars please. Just
:advocate the OS you find best.
:
:Thank you;
:
:- Troy
I think you're missing the most obvious choice, Windows 2000 Pro.
Chad Irby
> Troy Bourdon <bou...@home.com> wrote:
>
> :I've come to my wits end. I won't go into great detail but I've had a
> :string of problems with Windows OSs since '91 and I'm tired of it. It's
> :gotten to the point where dealing with the smaller software base of the
> :alternative OSs will be less painful than dealing with the crap that is
> :Microsoft Windows.
>
> I think you're missing the most obvious choice, Windows 2000 Pro.
In other words, "Yeah, every version of Windows has really sucked, but
the NEXT one won't for a change..."
--
Chad Irby \ My greatest fear: that future generations will,
ci...@cfl.rr.com \ for some reason, refer to me as an "optimist."
Karel Jansens
> Why wouldn't it install? Boot off of the CD, and away you go - what
> about your system wouldn't work?
1. It's a P75 with 40 MB RAM. I don't think W2k recognizes this as a
computer (but that's okay, I don't recognize most Windows releases as
operating systems either).
2. _I_ wouldn't work.
Jim Frost
>
> In other words, "Yeah, every version of Windows has really sucked, but
> the NEXT one won't for a change..."
NT4 was a pretty nice compromise between getting Windows applications and the
stability of a UNIX. It has its problems, but it didn't outright suck unless
you were trying to make it run on servers (shudder). It sure was a vast
improvement over Win9x and especially Win3.1, enough so that it lured me away
from UNIX for several years.
Win2K might end up being more of the same. My only serious gripe with it out
the door is its memory use -- 96MB minimum according to RC2 and RC3 users I
know. That's a LOT more memory than anything else, and so far I don't see
that you're really getting much for it. But until it gets widely deployed we
won't know for sure. I griped a lot about SunOS 4's memory use too, and I was
really wrong about that.
jim
Joseph
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Original Message <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
On 1-26-00, 1:14:32 PM, dc <d...@foo.bar> wrote regarding Re: Moving Win98
to the Recyle Bin:
> On 26 Jan 2000 09:55:04 GMT, jansens_at_ibm_dot_net (Karel Jansens)
> wrote:
> >On Tue, 25 Jan 2000 23:11:25 dc <d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> >
> >> Why wouldn't it install? Boot off of the CD, and away you go - what
> >> about your system wouldn't work?
> >
> >1. It's a P75 with 40 MB RAM. I don't think W2k recognizes this as a
> >computer (but that's okay, I don't recognize most Windows releases as
> >operating systems either).
> I see no reason why it wouldn't.
> >2. _I_ wouldn't work.
> Then say so, don't say W2k won't install.
How about SHOULD NOT install.
1) Do you seriously think W2K was tested to be hardware compatible
with older PCs circa the time P70's were state-of-the-art?
2) MS wouldn't tell him to try W2K on a P70 - they stretch low end
requirements and are requiring a P133 or higher. Reviews disagree
saying a Pentium Pro 200 (my system) is NOT adquate.
cbas...@my-deja.com
Jeff Szarka <JeffS...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 06:11:17 GMT, Troy Bourdon <bou...@home.com>
> wrote:
>
> :Hello all;
> :
> :string of problems with Windows OSs since '91 and I'm tired of it.
> :It's gotten to the point where dealing with the smaller software base
> :of the alternative OSs will be less painful than dealing with the
> :I'm not going to bash them to hard but there OS is just too unstable
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
-- snip --
> I think you're missing the most obvious choice, Windows 2000 Pro.
What's obvious is your inability to read. Either that or you're just
trolling.
Again.
Curtis
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Karel Jansens
> On 26 Jan 2000 09:55:04 GMT, jansens_at_ibm_dot_net (Karel Jansens)
> wrote:
>
> >On Tue, 25 Jan 2000 23:11:25 dc <d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> >
> >> Why wouldn't it install? Boot off of the CD, and away you go - what
> >> about your system wouldn't work?
> >
> >1. It's a P75 with 40 MB RAM. I don't think W2k recognizes this as a
> >computer (but that's okay, I don't recognize most Windows releases as
> >operating systems either).
>
> I see no reason why it wouldn't.
>
Oh puuulllease. Are you saying W2k will run on a machine with these
specs? Even while the stated _minimum_ hardware requirements are
higher?
Linux? No problemo? OS/2? Hums like a bumblebee. Win95? Probably (if
you call what Win95 does, "running"). NT 4? Would be gasping for
breath. 2k? "No reason why not." Yeah, sure.
> >2. _I_ wouldn't work.
>
> Then say so, don't say W2k won't install.
I did start by saying that I wouldn't dream of installing it (even if
I had a machine up to specks which, from what I hear, would have to be
a PIII with 128 MB RAM to get comfortable speeds).
Brad BARCLAY
> You are full of shit! If you install W2K, release version, with any Boot
> Manager, it wipes out that boot manager every damn time you boot W2K.
> each time you run W2K, the above statement makes you a lying sack of shit.
> stupid idiot.
The LVM is *not* a boot partition selection tool. It is the Logical
Volume Manager, which acts as a sort of flexable abstraction layer
between the filesystem layer and the partition layer.
I have heard no reports of W2K messing around with the LVM (not to say
that it doesn't or won't - simply that I haven't heard of anyone who has
had any problems with this at this time).
Brad BARCLAY
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Posted from the OS/2 WARP v4.5 desktop of Brad BARCLAY.
E-Mail: bbar...@ca.ibm.com Location: 2G43D@Torolabs
Eric Bennett
jansens_at_ibm_dot_net (Karel Jansens) wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Jan 2000 13:14:32 dc <d...@foo.bar> wrote:
>
> > On 26 Jan 2000 09:55:04 GMT, jansens_at_ibm_dot_net (Karel Jansens)
> > wrote:
> >
> > >On Tue, 25 Jan 2000 23:11:25 dc <d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> > >
> > >> Why wouldn't it install? Boot off of the CD, and away you go - what
> > >> about your system wouldn't work?
> > >
> > >1. It's a P75 with 40 MB RAM. I don't think W2k recognizes this as a
> > >computer (but that's okay, I don't recognize most Windows releases as
> > >operating systems either).
> >
> > I see no reason why it wouldn't.
> >
> Oh puuulllease. Are you saying W2k will run on a machine with these
> specs? Even while the stated _minimum_ hardware requirements are
> higher?
>
> Linux? No problemo? OS/2? Hums like a bumblebee. Win95? Probably (if
> you call what Win95 does, "running"). NT 4? Would be gasping for
> breath. 2k? "No reason why not." Yeah, sure.
ZDNet suggests a functional minimum of 128 megs for Windows 2000.
Blech.
--
Eric Bennett ( http://www.pobox.com/~ericb/ )
Cornell University / Chemistry & Chemical Biology
Drawing on my fine command of the language, I said nothing.
-Robert Benchley
dc
wrote:
>On Wed, 26 Jan 2000 13:14:32 dc <d...@foo.bar> wrote:
>
>> On 26 Jan 2000 09:55:04 GMT, jansens_at_ibm_dot_net (Karel Jansens)
>> wrote:
>>
>> >On Tue, 25 Jan 2000 23:11:25 dc <d...@foo.bar> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Why wouldn't it install? Boot off of the CD, and away you go - what
>> >> about your system wouldn't work?
>> >
>> >1. It's a P75 with 40 MB RAM. I don't think W2k recognizes this as a
>> >computer (but that's okay, I don't recognize most Windows releases as
>> >operating systems either).
>>
>> I see no reason why it wouldn't.
>>
>Oh puuulllease. Are you saying W2k will run on a machine with these
>specs? Even while the stated _minimum_ hardware requirements are
>higher?
It will run. It won't be blazing fast, but if I can run WinNT4 on a
P90 *laptop* with a very slow HD with 40M, W2k will be fine on a
similar setup.
Please don't "oh puuuuleease" me. It will run - period. I suggest
you try it *before* you start complaining.
>Linux? No problemo? OS/2? Hums like a bumblebee. Win95? Probably (if
>you call what Win95 does, "running"). NT 4? Would be gasping for
>breath. 2k? "No reason why not." Yeah, sure.
You are absolutely wrong about NT4, and I see no reason to believe you
are correct in your assessment of W2k. Would more RAM help? Of
course. Would it work? Of course. How much does RAM cost these
days? Even at the local CompUSA ripoff shop I see 64M going for $90
or so; add some RAM if this is such a big issue for you.
josco
> On Wed, 26 Jan 2000 06:46:42 GMT, Joseph <jo...@ibm.net> wrote:
>
> >1) Do you seriously think W2K was tested to be hardware compatible
> >with older PCs circa the time P70's were state-of-the-art?
>
> No. And MS says it requires a P133 or higher. But it's certainly
> binary compatible, which leaves the fact that MS doesn't think the
> user experience would be fast enough. True? Perhaps. But I see no
> reason why it wouldn't run.
DRIVERS, Compatibility with older motherboards and BIOSes. A P70 isn't
just a reference to a CPU. It is a class of system MS has abandonded long
ago. I wouldn't want to suggest a technical challenege is the same as a
consumer experience.
> >2) MS wouldn't tell him to try W2K on a P70 - they stretch low end
> >requirements and are requiring a P133 or higher. Reviews disagree
> >saying a Pentium Pro 200 (my system) is NOT adquate.
>
> Oh, I tend to agree - a new Celeron 433 runs $400 or so around here,
> so it's tough to argue, but it should _work_. A good test would be
> just to try it - or, if it balked during install, stick a P133 into
> the socket 7 motherboard, install the OS, and then stick in the P75,
> and see what happened. I have not heard yet how hard and fast MS's
> requirements are for a P133 - does it check speed and STOP if a P133
> isn't present, or will it simply throw up a warning?
I don't think MS will stop a foolish act or a hack or system update that
repaces everything but the case.
With the P70 syustem their is another issue -- What's the likelihood of
hardware support given PCs are more than a CPU with x86 binary
compatibility. Is the chip set supported and running within tolerances?
-- you see W2K does a lot of fault detection. In fact OS/2 would FAIL to
run on legacy systems that ran DOS and Win95 becasue of the fault
detection OS/2 had was more robust than Win95. W2K is going to be very
pickey about old hardware.
You cannot assume the motherboard will support a P133. You also have to
recognize the RAM limits a P70 system/MB will support. (also it seems
that W2K does not respond as well to RAM as NT 4.0 - more RAM does not
scale W2K's performace as it did with NT 3-4. That's a bummer and the
usable RAM requirements seem to be ~96MB+)
IMHO It's futile to offer a p133 or p166 CPU upgrade as the solution being
no reviewer thinks the p133 or even my PPro 200 is worth the bother of an
upgrade to the new OS.
While we can debate the costs and merits of NEW PCs I offer this -- a
consumer device and a corporate device that requires such rapid hardware
updates is at a competitive disadvantage. More so in the era of low cost
PCs and PCs sold a web access devices. W2K requires substancial hardware
I'd love to spend my money on hardware but I have large set of
responsibilites and goals. Most of use want a better hardware investment
and more choice -- as of this week W2K is the de facto Consumer OS too.
I wish all Windows users at home the best of luck. There isn't a thing
wrong with a 40MB P70 for web surfing and productivity work.
Koan Kid
<d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> It will run. It won't be blazing fast, but if I can run WinNT4 on a
> P90 *laptop* with a very slow HD with 40M, W2k will be fine on a
> similar setup.
>
> Please don't "oh puuuuleease" me. It will run - period. I suggest
> you try it *before* you start complaining.
Perhaps "run" is too strong a word. Might I suggest "saunter vaguely"?
:)
KK
Eric Bennett
<d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Jan 2000 18:35:58 -0500, Eric Bennett <er...@pobox.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> >> Linux? No problemo? OS/2? Hums like a bumblebee. Win95? Probably (if
> >> you call what Win95 does, "running"). NT 4? Would be gasping for
> >> breath. 2k? "No reason why not." Yeah, sure.
> >
> >ZDNet suggests a functional minimum of 128 megs for Windows 2000.
>
> And ditto for NT4....which does nothing to change the fact that NT4WS
> boots with just 12M of RAM.
Yeah, and it does nothing to change the fact that my Apple II can boot
on 48k of RAM. So what? Surely you are not suggesting that NT4WS is
really usable on a 12 meg system. So what is your point?
If you do not agree with ZDNet's suggestion, please tell us how much RAM
you suggest for W2K. Surely more than 12 megs!
Eric Bennett
<d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> > (also it seems
> >that W2K does not respond as well to RAM as NT 4.0 - more RAM does not
> >scale W2K's performace as it did with NT 3-4. That's a bummer and the
> >usable RAM requirements seem to be ~96MB+)
>
> More RAM is always better. "Usable" means that which can be used, and
> Win2k is "usable" in less RAM than 96M.
Oh, that's just lovely. MacOS multitasking is "usable" too by your
definition, and yet to bash it at every opportunity as not worth using.
Joe Ragosta
<d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> On 26 Jan 2000 18:22:47 GMT, jansens_at_ibm_dot_net (Karel Jansens)
> wrote:
>
> >On Wed, 26 Jan 2000 13:14:32 dc <d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> >
> >> On 26 Jan 2000 09:55:04 GMT, jansens_at_ibm_dot_net (Karel Jansens)
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> >On Tue, 25 Jan 2000 23:11:25 dc <d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> Why wouldn't it install? Boot off of the CD, and away you go - what
> >> >> about your system wouldn't work?
> >> >
> >> >1. It's a P75 with 40 MB RAM. I don't think W2k recognizes this as a
> >> >computer (but that's okay, I don't recognize most Windows releases as
> >> >operating systems either).
> >>
> >> I see no reason why it wouldn't.
> >>
> >Oh puuulllease. Are you saying W2k will run on a machine with these
> >specs? Even while the stated _minimum_ hardware requirements are
> >higher?
>
> It will run. It won't be blazing fast, but if I can run WinNT4 on a
> P90 *laptop* with a very slow HD with 40M, W2k will be fine on a
> similar setup.
>
> Please don't "oh puuuuleease" me. It will run - period. I suggest
> you try it *before* you start complaining.
Good.
Yet another Wintroll who admits that Virtual PC level performance is
acceptable.
--
Regards,
Joe Ragosta
---- Tom Elam, January, 2000 "I know NOTHING"
Eric Bennett
<d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> Fair enough. It's just that the CPU issue is easily solved
Throw more hardware at it. The usual solution to Microsoft problems.
Okay, how far do you want to go to solve it? At what amount of RAM does
Win2K no longer have a problem?
Jeff Szarka
:In article <0c3t8sc37lstcmank...@4ax.com>,
What I read is someone who is to much of a bigot to use NT simply
because it's called "Windows"
Now Win2k is still called Windows but it does offer exactly what he
wants. Great software support, good hardware support, improving
day-to-day now that its release is weeks away.
You could argue about the cost but if you already own NT or Windows 9x
the upgrade price isn't bad at all. Considering what you're getting,
the cost is very justified. Windows 95 second edition, aka Windows 98
cost almost as much and offered integration with a program you could
freely download.
Jeff Szarka
wrote:
:> > I think you're missing the most obvious choice, Windows 2000 Pro.
:>
:> In other words, "Yeah, every version of Windows has really sucked, but
It is pretty memory hungry. I've used it on some lower end systems and
it's usable but for heavy multi-tasking 128MB is a must.
If it weren't for these beta video drivers I would have never got a
chance to see the Win2k blue screen. Going back to the TNT 3.66
drivers seemed to fix it though.
Jeff Szarka
wrote:
:> I see no reason why it wouldn't.
:>
:Oh puuulllease. Are you saying W2k will run on a machine with these
:specs? Even while the stated _minimum_ hardware requirements are
:higher?
:
:Linux? No problemo? OS/2? Hums like a bumblebee. Win95? Probably (if
:you call what Win95 does, "running"). NT 4? Would be gasping for
:breath. 2k? "No reason why not." Yeah, sure.
KDE is slow on my Celeron 500/128MB. I can't imagine using it (or
Win2k) on a p75.
You need to ask your boss for a raise... a i810/Celeron/memory would
cost next to nothing.
Andre Ervin
<d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 03:38:22 GMT, Joe Ragosta <jrag...@earthlink.com>
> wrote:
>
> >In article <gjju8s0b3u7kslpnp...@4ax.com>, dc
> ><d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> >
> >> On 26 Jan 2000 18:22:47 GMT, jansens_at_ibm_dot_net (Karel Jansens)
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> >On Wed, 26 Jan 2000 13:14:32 dc <d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> On 26 Jan 2000 09:55:04 GMT, jansens_at_ibm_dot_net (Karel Jansens)
> >> >> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> >On Tue, 25 Jan 2000 23:11:25 dc <d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> >> >> >
> >> >> >> Why wouldn't it install? Boot off of the CD, and away you go -
> >> >> >> what
> >> >> >> about your system wouldn't work?
> >> >> >
> >> >> >1. It's a P75 with 40 MB RAM. I don't think W2k recognizes this as
> >> >> >a
> >> >> >computer (but that's okay, I don't recognize most Windows releases
> >> >> >as
> >> >> >operating systems either).
> >> >>
> >> >> I see no reason why it wouldn't.
> >> >>
> >> >Oh puuulllease. Are you saying W2k will run on a machine with these
> >> >specs? Even while the stated _minimum_ hardware requirements are
> >> >higher?
> >>
> >> It will run. It won't be blazing fast, but if I can run WinNT4 on a
> >> P90 *laptop* with a very slow HD with 40M, W2k will be fine on a
> >> similar setup.
> >>
> >> Please don't "oh puuuuleease" me. It will run - period. I suggest
> >> you try it *before* you start complaining.
> >
> >Good.
> >
> >Yet another Wintroll who admits that Virtual PC level performance is
> >acceptable.
>
> It will -run-, Joe. Please don't get excited, and please stop your
> long habit of misquoting me (and/or flatly making things up that I've
> never said).
Your words:
It will run. It won't be blazing fast, but if I can run WinNT4 on a
P90 *laptop* with a very slow HD with 40M, W2k will be fine on a
similar setup.
Joe's words:
Yet another Wintroll who admits that Virtual PC level performance is
^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^
acceptable.
Doesn't sound like a misquote to me.
--
dre http://home.earthlink.net/~dre77/picks/
Bob Germer
Eric Bennett <er...@pobox.com> said:
> In article <tihv8ss07qkd3s6fh...@4ax.com>, dc
> <d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> > Fair enough. It's just that the CPU issue is easily solved
> Throw more hardware at it. The usual solution to Microsoft problems.
> Okay, how far do you want to go to solve it? At what amount of RAM does
> Win2K no longer have a problem?
About 15.9 megs. It won't load then so it has no problems.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Germer from Mount Holly, NJ - E-mail: bo...@Pics.com
Proudly running OS/2 Warp 4.0 w/ FixPack 13
MR/2 Ice 2.01 Registration Number 67
Aut Pax Aut Bellum
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Karel Jansens
wrote:
> On 26 Jan 2000 18:22:47 GMT, jansens_at_ibm_dot_net (Karel Jansens)
> wrote:
>
> :> I see no reason why it wouldn't.
> :>
> :Oh puuulllease. Are you saying W2k will run on a machine with these
> :specs? Even while the stated _minimum_ hardware requirements are
> :higher?
> :
> :Linux? No problemo? OS/2? Hums like a bumblebee. Win95? Probably (if
> :you call what Win95 does, "running"). NT 4? Would be gasping for
> :breath. 2k? "No reason why not." Yeah, sure.
>
>
> KDE is slow on my Celeron 500/128MB. I can't imagine using it (or
> Win2k) on a p75.
>
It all depends on tweaking, I guess. I run KDE 1.0, with Applix
Office, and it is responsive as hell.
> You need to ask your boss for a raise... a i810/Celeron/memory would
> cost next to nothing.
I pay myself, Sir. And I don't earn a raise.
Besides, my granddad taught me never to throw anything away while it
still could do useful work.
So I threw Windows away...
Karel Jansens
>
> You are absolutely wrong about NT4, and I see no reason to believe you
> are correct in your assessment of W2k. Would more RAM help? Of
> course. Would it work? Of course. How much does RAM cost these
> days? Even at the local CompUSA ripoff shop I see 64M going for $90
> or so; add some RAM if this is such a big issue for you.
You still don't get it, do you? I have named two perfectly adequate
modern - Yes: Modern! - operating systems (OS/2 and Linux) that will
offer me smooth productivity (not "a minimal hardware platform")
within the specs of my machine. The fact that, for W2k to give the
same kind of performance, I would need to buy a Pentium III with 128
MB RAM, is enough reason for me to consider W2k "sub-standard".
It just needs too much to deliver hardly more.
Karel Jansens
>
> ZDNet suggests a functional minimum of 128 megs for Windows 2000.
>
> Blech.
>
Oh my, Eric. Such a biased, yet eerily concise and adrem review of
Windows.
<this positively begs for that asthmatic snigger from the dog in the
Doc Magoo cartoons>
Joe Ragosta
<d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 03:38:22 GMT, Joe Ragosta <jrag...@earthlink.com>
> wrote:
>
> >In article <gjju8s0b3u7kslpnp...@4ax.com>, dc
> ><d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> >
> >> On 26 Jan 2000 18:22:47 GMT, jansens_at_ibm_dot_net (Karel Jansens)
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> >On Wed, 26 Jan 2000 13:14:32 dc <d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> On 26 Jan 2000 09:55:04 GMT, jansens_at_ibm_dot_net (Karel Jansens)
> >> >> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> >On Tue, 25 Jan 2000 23:11:25 dc <d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> >> >> >
> >> >> >> Why wouldn't it install? Boot off of the CD, and away you go -
> >> >> >> what
> >> >> >> about your system wouldn't work?
> >> >> >
> >> >> >1. It's a P75 with 40 MB RAM. I don't think W2k recognizes this as
> >> >> >a
> >> >> >computer (but that's okay, I don't recognize most Windows releases
> >> >> >as
> >> >> >operating systems either).
> >> >>
> >> >> I see no reason why it wouldn't.
> >> >>
> >> >Oh puuulllease. Are you saying W2k will run on a machine with these
> >> >specs? Even while the stated _minimum_ hardware requirements are
> >> >higher?
> >>
> >> It will run. It won't be blazing fast, but if I can run WinNT4 on a
> >> P90 *laptop* with a very slow HD with 40M, W2k will be fine on a
> >> similar setup.
> >>
> >> Please don't "oh puuuuleease" me. It will run - period. I suggest
> >> you try it *before* you start complaining.
> >
> >Good.
> >
> >Yet another Wintroll who admits that Virtual PC level performance is
> >acceptable.
>
> It will -run-, Joe. Please don't get excited, and please stop your
> long habit of misquoting me (and/or flatly making things up that I've
> never said).
Unless you read the part where you said "W2K will be fin on a similar
setup" (referring to a P90 laptop). VPC easily exceeds that performance
level.
No misquoting at all.
--
Regards,
Joe Ragosta
---- Tom Elam, January, 2000 "I know nothing."
Craig Kelley
> On Wed, 26 Jan 2000 18:35:58 -0500, Eric Bennett <er...@pobox.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> >> Linux? No problemo? OS/2? Hums like a bumblebee. Win95? Probably (if
> >> you call what Win95 does, "running"). NT 4? Would be gasping for
> >> breath. 2k? "No reason why not." Yeah, sure.
> >
> >ZDNet suggests a functional minimum of 128 megs for Windows 2000.
>
> And ditto for NT4....which does nothing to change the fact that NT4WS
> boots with just 12M of RAM.
Oh, that's rich.
"But it boots!"
A lot of good that does you.
--
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
Craig Kelley -- kell...@isu.edu
http://www.isu.edu/~kellcrai finger i...@inconnu.isu.edu for PGP block
Joe Ragosta
<d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 14:49:56 GMT, Joe Ragosta <jrag...@earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>
> >> >Yet another Wintroll who admits that Virtual PC level performance is
> >> >acceptable.
> >>
> >> It will -run-, Joe. Please don't get excited, and please stop your
> >> long habit of misquoting me (and/or flatly making things up that I've
> >> never said).
> >
> >Unless you read the part where you said "W2K will be fin on a similar
> >setup" (referring to a P90 laptop). VPC easily exceeds that performance
> >level.
> >
> >No misquoting at all.
>
> It does? Please do tell. I had a P90 with a Voodoo card in it. The
> VPC can't *approach* that level of performance. It also can't
> approach it for most other graphics-using apps. And for raw CPU
> speed, that's also questionable.
Nonsense.
Other than games, a VPC on a current Mac easily beats a P90.
Heck, my 7500 with G3/366 (and only a 44 MHz bus, mind you) easily beats
a P90 at most things.
Games are a different story. But you were talking about how W2K
runs--not how some games run.
Chris Stumpf
:>
:>Buddy at a local computer store says MS has told them in no
:>uncertain terms they are NOT to promote/offer/sell W2K for home
:>consumers...it's strictly business software. Wonder why they
:>would do that?
:>
Because Windows2000 is nothing more than NT4 SP6 with active directory.
Plus, MS has special plans for the consumer market. They want to keep them
upgrading their OS and computer yearly.
Chris Stumpf
C.S.E. Computer Services
Computer Consultant (OS/2, Lan, Wan, CTI)
Serenity Systems Channel Partner
IBM Certified Systems Expert - OS/2 Warp 4
web: http://cse.anterras.net
email: c...@anterras.net
phone: (732)496-4699
G. Wayne Hines
> -- you see W2K does a lot of fault detection. In fact OS/2 would FAIL to
> run on legacy systems that ran DOS and Win95 becasue of the fault
> detection OS/2 had was more robust than Win95. W2K is going to be very
I found it worked the other way around. OS/2 V4 worked fine on a
386DX40, although not especially snappy. Win-95 would not
install on this machine
> and more choice -- as of this week W2K is the de facto Consumer OS too.
> I wish all Windows users at home the best of luck. There isn't a thing
> wrong with a 40MB P70 for web surfing and productivity work.
Buddy at a local computer store says MS has told them in no
uncertain terms they are NOT to promote/offer/sell W2K for home
consumers...it's strictly business software. Wonder why they
would do that?
gwh
# w.d....@ns.sympatico.ca G. Wayne Hines #
# Team OS/2 Kentville, NS, Canada #
# I don't wanna work. I just want to ride on the train all day #
# http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/w.d.hines/express.html #
cbas...@my-deja.com
Jeff Szarka <JeffS...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Jan 2000 17:36:02 GMT, cbas...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> :In article <0c3t8sc37lstcmank...@4ax.com>,
> : Jeff Szarka <JeffS...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> :> On Mon, 24 Jan 2000 06:11:17 GMT, Troy Bourdon <bou...@home.com>
> :> wrote:
> :>
> :> :Hello all;
> :> :
> :> :I've come to my wits end. I won't go into great detail but I've
> :> :had a string of problems with Windows OSs since '91 and I'm tired
> :> :^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> :> :of it. It's gotten to the point where dealing with the smaller
> :> :^^^^^^
> :> :software base of the alternative OSs will be less painful than
> :> :dealing with the crap that is Microsoft Windows. Microsoft makes
> :> :some great apps so I'm not going to bash them to hard but there
> :> :OS is just too unstable for me to put up with any more.
> :
> :-- snip --
> :
> :> I think you're missing the most obvious choice, Windows 2000 Pro.
> :
> :trolling.
> :
> :Again.
> :
> :
> :Curtis
> :
> :
> :Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> :Before you buy.
>
> What I read is someone who is to much of a bigot to use NT simply
> because it's called "Windows"
Well, you see what you want to see, but you still aren't getting what
the guy wrote. It's still underlined above, but I'll repeat it here,
not that it'll necessarily sink into that thick head of yours:
"I've come to my wits end. I won't go into great detail but I've had a
string of problems with Windows OSs since '91 and I'm tired of it."
He's been using various versions of Windows for nine years, yet you call
him "too much of a bigot to use NT simply because it's called
'Windows'." This further indicates your inability to read, for he said
in his first post, "at work I develop on an NT box and I developed in a
Unix environment prior to that . . ."
So, the man *does* use NT, and he is in a position to evaluate the
relative stability between whichever version of Windows you would care
to name and a platform like UNIX. But none of that matters to you;
apparently, the only thing that your intellect can grasp is, "He's Gotta
Use Windows Or He's An Anti-Windows Bigot."
And calling someone who's been using Windows for nine years an
anti-Windows "bigot" is simply idiotic.
> Now Win2k is still called Windows but it does offer exactly what he
> wants.
This statement is stupid. What he *wants* is NON-Windows, but you are so
arrogant that you presume to know more about his needs, and his decision
-making process, than he does. For nine years, he's heard the repeated
promises that the *next* Windows version will "really be good this
time," and for nine years, he's been repeatedly burned. He has simply
said, "enough is enough," and decided to explore other options, which
actually do exist.
Yes, he mentions:
Areas I'm interested in are:
- Hardware availability/Driver availability
- Software availability
- Cost
However, his desire is to explore these issues as they relate to the
non-Windows alternatives. I am confident that the man is aware of
Win2K's imminent release (who couldn't be, with all of the hype that
traditionally spews forth from Redmond?), so responding, "I think you're
missing the most obvious choice, Windows 2000 Pro" is nothing more than
an insulting troll.
-- [irrelevant Win2K sales pitch snipped] --
Karel Jansens
> >> KDE is slow on my Celeron 500/128MB. I can't imagine using it (or
> >> Win2k) on a p75.
> >>
> >It all depends on tweaking, I guess. I run KDE 1.0, with Applix
> >Office, and it is responsive as hell.
>
> It's called "subjective opinion".
Indeed.
Karel Jansens
> On 27 Jan 2000 11:06:25 GMT, jansens_at_ibm_dot_net (Karel Jansens)
> wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:59:59 dc <d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> You are absolutely wrong about NT4, and I see no reason to believe you
> >> are correct in your assessment of W2k. Would more RAM help? Of
> >> course. Would it work? Of course. How much does RAM cost these
> >> days? Even at the local CompUSA ripoff shop I see 64M going for $90
> >> or so; add some RAM if this is such a big issue for you.
> >
> >You still don't get it, do you? I have named two perfectly adequate
> >modern - Yes: Modern! - operating systems (OS/2 and Linux) that will
> >offer me smooth productivity (not "a minimal hardware platform")
> >within the specs of my machine. The fact that, for W2k to give the
> >same kind of performance, I would need to buy a Pentium III with 128
> >MB RAM, is enough reason for me to consider W2k "sub-standard".
> >
> >It just needs too much to deliver hardly more.
>
> Karl, keep believing it requires 128MB of RAM. You're wrong, but if
> that helps you get over OS/2's absolute failure in the marketplace,
> that's fine.
Where did I give the idea that I even cared about marketplace results?
I have this weird habit of judging an operating system by what it
does, not by how many units it sells/is preloaded.
OS/2 at the moment does everything I need, in a fast and relyable way,
which makes it the perfect O/S for me. And that was what I told the
original poster; I don't remember him mentioning market results as a
determining factor for changing operating system.
And BTW, I'm pretty sure W2k can get by with less, just as Windows 95
could "run" in 4 MB, and Windows 3.1 in 2, and Windows 3.0 in 640 KB.
My, do we see a pattern here?
David Sutherland
<cst...@monmouth.com> wrote:
>On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 18:44:48 GMT, G. Wayne Hines wrote:
>
>:>
>:>Buddy at a local computer store says MS has told them in no
>:>uncertain terms they are NOT to promote/offer/sell W2K for home
>:>consumers...it's strictly business software. Wonder why they
>:>would do that?
>:>
>
>Because Windows2000 is nothing more than NT4 SP6 with active directory.
>Plus, MS has special plans for the consumer market. They want to keep them
>upgrading their OS and computer yearly.
>
Such cynicism. It's probably true, too. I wouldn't be at all
surprised if MS did plan to keep the consumer market on the treadmill
for a while longer.
Fortunately, all the games that matter from the consumer market (well,
to me anyway) run fine on W2K, and all my productivity software runs
too (surprise). With the introduction of DX7 into things, even stuff
like DVD rippers using DirectShow API's to do do their magic work.
This W2k thing has eliminated any need I had to boot into Win98. I
wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people decide to move to W2K for
those reasons - I have often been tempted to get friends to move up to
W2K from the current crash-prone W9x, but I've always been aware that
NT didn't give the same plug&pray and 100(-)% compatibility with
Windows software - now that's changed.
I must, however, take exception with your claim the W2K is nothing
more then NT4sp6 - there is a lot of new stuff in there - like a whole
new driver model - hardly a trivial change.
>
> Chris Stumpf
Regards,
David Sutherland
(note **ANTI-SPAM** in reply field)
je...@dementia.mishnet
>On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 13:51:22 -0500 (EST), "Chris Stumpf"
><cst...@monmouth.com> wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 18:44:48 GMT, G. Wayne Hines wrote:
>Such cynicism. It's probably true, too. I wouldn't be at all
>surprised if MS did plan to keep the consumer market on the treadmill
>for a while longer.
>
>Fortunately, all the games that matter from the consumer market (well,
>to me anyway) run fine on W2K, and all my productivity software runs
>too (surprise). With the introduction of DX7 into things, even stuff
>like DVD rippers using DirectShow API's to do do their magic work.
This sounds vaguely like something that should have already
been in DirectX to begin with.
>This W2k thing has eliminated any need I had to boot into Win98. I
>wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people decide to move to W2K for
>those reasons - I have often been tempted to get friends to move up to
>W2K from the current crash-prone W9x, but I've always been aware that
>NT didn't give the same plug&pray and 100(-)% compatibility with
>Windows software - now that's changed.
>
>I must, however, take exception with your claim the W2K is nothing
>more then NT4sp6 - there is a lot of new stuff in there - like a whole
>new driver model - hardly a trivial change.
A whole new driver model is hardly something to brag about.
This both demonstrates how poorly Microsoft (again) at
planning for the future and undermines the usefulness of
W2K as a part of the Windows 'standard'.
[deletia]
As far as games go "we'll wait and see".
--
The best OS in the world is ultimately useless |||
if it is controlled by a Tramiel, Jobs or Gates. / | \
Searching for sane PPP docs? Try http://penguin.lvcm.com
Jim Frost
> However, to state 128M is
> the "functional minimum" seems a bit silly to me when we all know it
> works in less than that.
Most people I've spoken with have said that 96M is a practical minimum. Below
that performance degrades a lot -- similar to NT4 with 48M memory.
Seems like an awful lot of memory to me.
jim
tinman
<ji...@frostbytes.com> wrote:
Naw, it's pretty fair, given that Win2k isn't really a consumer OS, and
given current hardware.
--
______
tinman
dc
wrote:
>> >No misquoting at all.
>>
>> It does? Please do tell. I had a P90 with a Voodoo card in it. The
>> VPC can't *approach* that level of performance. It also can't
>> approach it for most other graphics-using apps. And for raw CPU
>> speed, that's also questionable.
>
>Nonsense.
Benchmarks? Or just your word? If you have benchmarks, please post
them.
>Other than games, a VPC on a current Mac easily beats a P90.
>Heck, my 7500 with G3/366 (and only a 44 MHz bus, mind you) easily beats
>a P90 at most things.
No benchmarks?
Not in my experience, with a G3/450. Perhaps I just had a faster P90
than you did - or I had more RAM, which is fairly likely. Try VPC
with 16M available to it, which is, chances are, what the P90 you're
comparing against has, and tell me again how VPC fares.
Heck, Millenium won't even install, and that has software that checks
for a P133 or faster, and VPC can't return that kind of a speed.
Given that my 450 is faster than your 366, and you claim your 366
"beats" P90s at most things, I would think my 450 would answer as
being fast enough to run Millenium, if what you suggest is true. But
it won't let me install it.
VPC is nice, don't get me wrong - it's cool to be able to trivially
start a new hard drive, boot up the machine, and switch between OSs
just by playing with the hard drive container you boot from. It's
nice that it runs as a task, so I can watch one OS in another. But I
wouldn't call it close to the speed of a P90. Among other things, on
a real P90 I can use MSIE5 and also play an MP3 w/o interruption. In
the VPC environment, I don't find this to always be the case.
>Games are a different story. But you were talking about how W2K
>runs--not how some games run.
I wouldn't want to run W2k on either VPC or a P90, but when it comes
down to it, I still believe a P90 is going to work better (faster) for
most things.
Marty
>
> Because Milleniuim has no way of knowing how fast it's going to run. It
> merely polls the processor to see what is there. It doesn't test it.
There's no way that I know of to obtain the CPU speed by a simple query. One
can query the revision level and maker of the chip using a special
instruction, but this instruction does not return the chip's operating speed.
Speed has to be tested empirically. If an app is mis-reporting the speed of
the CPU, it's possible that the timer hardware is not emulated as precisely as
needed, or it's possible that the pipelining that the speed test is depending
on is not functioning the way a real x86 would.
Peter Ammon
Windows doesn't allow this? How sad. On the Mac, you just need to call MaximumProcessorSpeed.
-Peter
--
The Shame Eliminator: http://shameeliminator.cjb.net
je...@dementia.mishnet
>On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 23:30:17 GMT, Jim Frost <ji...@frostbytes.com>
>wrote:
>
>>dc wrote:
>>> However, to state 128M is
>>> the "functional minimum" seems a bit silly to me when we all know it
>>> works in less than that.
>>
>>Most people I've spoken with have said that 96M is a practical minimum. Below
>>that performance degrades a lot -- similar to NT4 with 48M memory.
>
>>Seems like an awful lot of memory to me.
>
...some of today's more expensive machines.
The cheaper ones are still coming with 32M.
Plus, RAM prices have stopped their rapid
decline and actually started to increase again.
[deletia]
Joe Ragosta
<d...@foo.bar> wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 17:54:51 GMT, Joe Ragosta <jrag...@earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>
> >> >No misquoting at all.
> >>
> >> It does? Please do tell. I had a P90 with a Voodoo card in it. The
> >> VPC can't *approach* that level of performance. It also can't
> >> approach it for most other graphics-using apps. And for raw CPU
> >> speed, that's also questionable.
> >
> >Nonsense.
>
> Benchmarks? Or just your word? If you have benchmarks, please post
> them.
ZD PC bench.
Or WinTune.
Or MS Office.
Or, you could go to the URL on my website which found that a 300 MHz G3
ran a whole slew of real life applications on VPC at roughly P133 to
P150 speeds.
>
> >Other than games, a VPC on a current Mac easily beats a P90.
> >Heck, my 7500 with G3/366 (and only a 44 MHz bus, mind you) easily beats
> >a P90 at most things.
>
> No benchmarks?
>
> Not in my experience, with a G3/450. Perhaps I just had a faster P90
> than you did - or I had more RAM, which is fairly likely. Try VPC
> with 16M available to it, which is, chances are, what the P90 you're
> comparing against has, and tell me again how VPC fares.
Why? You're claiming that VPC is much slower than a P90 laptop with 40
MB. Why should I use a P90 with 16 MB.
Swoooooossshhhhh. There go those goalposts again.
>
> Heck, Millenium won't even install, and that has software that checks
> for a P133 or faster, and VPC can't return that kind of a speed.
Why don't you learn what you're talking about before posting?
Millenium doesn't benchmark anything. It merely asks the system what
processor it's using. VPC says P75 or something like that--no matter
what hardware it's running on.
To use this as a benchmark shows that you really don't have a clue how
VPC performs.
> Given that my 450 is faster than your 366, and you claim your 366
> "beats" P90s at most things, I would think my 450 would answer as
> being fast enough to run Millenium, if what you suggest is true. But
> it won't let me install it.
Because Milleniuim has no way of knowing how fast it's going to run. It
merely polls the processor to see what is there. It doesn't test it.
>
> VPC is nice, don't get me wrong - it's cool to be able to trivially
> start a new hard drive, boot up the machine, and switch between OSs
> just by playing with the hard drive container you boot from. It's
> nice that it runs as a task, so I can watch one OS in another. But I
> wouldn't call it close to the speed of a P90. Among other things, on
> a real P90 I can use MSIE5 and also play an MP3 w/o interruption. In
> the VPC environment, I don't find this to always be the case.
>
> >Games are a different story. But you were talking about how W2K
> >runs--not how some games run.
>
> I wouldn't want to run W2k on either VPC or a P90, but when it comes
> down to it, I still believe a P90 is going to work better (faster) for
> most things.
Then you don't have a clue.
--
Regards,
Joe Ragosta
---- Tom Elam, January, 2000 "I know NOTHING"
bme...@cs.monash.edu.au
>I found it worked the other way around. OS/2 V4 worked fine on a
>386DX40, although not especially snappy. Win-95 would not
>install on this machine
Just out of curiosity --- why? I know that Win98 wants a 486, but I have
Win95 installed on a 386SX20 or so. Yes, it takes the whole night to install,
and yes, it isn't really useful in any meaningful sense of the word, but
it *did* install.
Bernie
--
Biography should be written by an acute enemy
A.J. Balfour
British Prime Minister 1902-1905
Observer, 30 January 1927
Jim Frost
>
> given current hardware.
Just because the hardware is cheap enough to make it affordable doesn't mean
you have to be profligate about using it. Win2K effectively doubles base
memory requirements. I can go with that if you can give me a good reason why
it should need that kind of memory, but honestly I don't see that any of its
features should really require that.
What does it do that wasn't done in NT4 that really needs that kind of memory?
jim
je...@dementia.mishnet
>On Fri, 28 Jan 2000 01:22:54 GMT, je...@dementia.mishnet () wrote:
>
>>>Sounds about right - the 48M bit, at least.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> ...some of today's more expensive machines.
>
>> The cheaper ones are still coming with 32M.
>
>machines, also, probably won't be the ones running W2k.
Yet again we come back to that age old DOS Lemming attitude:
'real operating systems' aren't for 'mere peasants'. Even
grannies and joe sixpacks appreciate it when there OS crashes
less and their registries don't spontaneously combust.
>
>> Plus, RAM prices have stopped their rapid
>> decline and actually started to increase again.
>
>Quite true.
>
>Sorry; I just can't get excited about this. A Mac needs 128M for
>starters, and even more to really be able to load things without any
>significant constraints and without VM. Expecting a PC to have 64M or
>more isn't bad.
Macs also start at 3 times the price that a PC does. Without
those cheap PC's, much of the 'dos is cheap' advantage goes
flying out the window.
Although, I don't care if that nice big market is encouraged
to run BeOS or Linux rather than Windows...
Eric Bennett
> On Fri, 28 Jan 2000 02:11:28 GMT, dc <d...@foo.bar> wrote:
>
> >Sorry; I just can't get excited about this. A Mac needs 128M for
> >starters, and even more to really be able to load things without any
> >significant constraints and without VM. Expecting a PC to have 64M or
> >more isn't bad.
What sort of stuff are you running? We have four Macs in our lab we use
for writing up research papers and preparing research presentations.
They all have 64 megs, plus about 16 of VM. Sometimes somebody gets a
big PowerPoint presentation that could benefit from having 96 megs in
these machines. But 128 would leave plenty of room to spare. I don't
understand why a Mac would need 128 megs just "for starters". 64 is
acceptable; I would probably suggest 96 these days for most people.
--
Eric Bennett ( http://www.pobox.com/~ericb/ )
Cornell University / Chemistry & Chemical Biology
Drawing on my fine command of the language, I said nothing.
-Robert Benchley
tinman
<ji...@frostbytes.com> wrote:
> > > Seems like an awful lot of memory to me.
> >
> > Naw, it's pretty fair, given that Win2k isn't really a consumer OS, and
> > given current hardware.
>
> Just because the hardware is cheap enough to make it affordable doesn't mean
> you have to be profligate about using it. Win2K effectively doubles base
> memory requirements. I can go with that if you can give me a good reason why
> it should need that kind of memory, but honestly I don't see that any of its
> features should really require that.
Doesn't have anything to do with "should" really, it just what MS can get
away with for what they are doing, given the price of the hardware. I'm
sure the code could be tightened. It just seems to me that a workstation
OS that has a 64-128 meg footprint in the year 2000 is about par for the
course. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of bloat, but in the commercial
world it does seem a fact of life.....
> What does it do that wasn't done in NT4 that really needs that kind of memory?
Probably some little freaky GUI eye candy thingie in addition to some big
freaky caching thingie and some "gonna load .dlls for office in advance so
office will open lickity split fast" thingies.
('
--
______
tinman
Jim Frost
> > What does it do that wasn't done in NT4 that really needs that kind of memory?
>
> Probably some little freaky GUI eye candy thingie in addition to some big
> freaky caching thingie and some "gonna load .dlls for office in advance so
> office will open lickity split fast" thingies.
That isn't likely to be it. The Mac does tons of eye candy and it works with
a lot less memory, and some of those Linux window managers (I'm thinking
specifically of Enlightenment) are awfully heavy on the eye candy. DLLs ...
maybe, but Office 97 and 2K have a "quick start" system that preloads the DLLs
and they still run reasonably well on a 48M NT4 system and quite well on 64M.
And NT4 always preloaded bunches of DLLs.
So I thought about caching, but if that were it the thing would still work OK
with a lot less memory. And I thought about the requirements of Active
Directory but Novell manages to do it with Win9x without big requirements and
really Active Directory is primarily a network file system and we know that
those aren't really all that big.
I just don't see what they're using it for. I'm thinking that this might be a
case like with OS/360 where large numbers of developers were pretty lazy and
generated code that used resources like crazy. Individually this wasn't a
problem, but when you integrated it into a whole it was really bad. I bet
that the requirements come down a LOT as the thing matures.
jim
Jim Frost
> I don't
> understand why a Mac would need 128 megs just "for starters". 64 is
> acceptable; I would probably suggest 96 these days for most people.
Most of the Mac owners I know have only 64. Our designers have a lot more
than that, but they're using Photoshop all day long -- not a lightweight app.
And the Mac's PPC chip will tend to use more memory than Intel boxes, about
30% more, due to the RISC instruction set and data layout requirements.
jim