Re: A good charge against free operating systems
On Fri, Mar 09, 2001 at 02:25:42PM +0000, Stephen Stafford wrote:
> She seems to be under the
> impression that linux is supposed to be a desktop operating system. It is
> not, it is a server operating system, and people like myself and probably
> yourself who like computers and like playing with the innards of your
> hardware and software are happy to use it as a desktop.
I hate it when people say "Linux is a Server Operating System". (Judging
by the rest of your message, you're not as dogmatic as some who say that,
though:) Linux is an operating system, not specifically a server OS or a
desktop OS. It is a system that operates computers. Use it for whatever
you want. People who use computers all day should put some time into
learning to use a powerful system. For text-oriented people like me, Linux
is ideal. I use it (or some other Unix flavour) for everything I do, except
play video games. (I would buy Linux games if I ever bought new games, but
I don't. I usually end up with second-hand games from friends, and besides,
the computer situation at home is such that having a fast computer running
windoze is pretty necessary, so it makes a good game machine :)
Unix is not a desktop operating system. Unix was designed before that
paradigm was invented, (or at least before it was common. At any rate, I
wasn't born then, so I'm exempt from having to know everything :). Unix was
designed to be used by users, not just programmers. Most people aren't used
to the command-line/terminal paradigm that Unix was designed around, so it
takes some getting used to, unless you get your kids started using a system
like linux builds understanding of what's going on, instead of memorizing
formulas for how to get things to work.
Unix doesn't impose much on the design of the system. Apple is using a
Unix kernel as the basis for OS X, which looks nothing like a tty login.
Damn, I can't remember where I was going with this. I'm going to bed.
Catch you guys tomorrow :)
> I fail totally to
> see why a rant like that should be perpetrated on something because it fails
> to be what it is not and was not designed to be (although it is slowly
> evolving towards this, hopefully without losing any of the power). This is
> like ranting at an apple for not being a strawberry.
Agree on that.
--
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@llama.nslug. , ns.ca)
"The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish the hours!
Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack
my day so wretchedly into small pieces!" -- Plautus, 200 BCE
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