🚀 go-pugleaf

Lance Togar wrote:
> 
> In article <xohn2mf8t0h.fsf@mud.imperium.net>, edge@mud.imperium.net says...
> >
> >mind@ripco.com (Dr. Who) writes:
> >
> >> : >The simple message is - leave your windows baggage at the door when
> >> : >you enter Linux world. You _should_ be prepared to have to work at
> >> : >getting your machine stable, solid and working. If not, stay
> >> : >out!
> >>
> >> : I hate it when people say this. :( Why can't Linux be an OS that
> >> : competes with Windows, providing users with a choice? For that it must
> >> : be more user friendly. :-)
> >>
> >> This is precisely why I'm drifting every more quickly toward the *BSD
> >> camp.  I'm quite sick of seeing that Linux has become a trendy "Generation
> >> X" operating system.  The fact of the matter is that Linux is doing more
> >> or less what Microsoft does.  Even though it's not commercial, it
> >> certainly behaves that way.  Everyone is too busy trying to support every
> >> new crap hardware device that comes out on the market, but is not giving
> >> much thought to improving what already exists (ie: the "good" hardware
> >> support).  Do we *really need* plug and pray support under Linux?  I
> >> think not.  Especially judging by the typically poor quality of that
> >> type of hardware to begin with.
> >
> >If we don't get support of new hardware, it will be more and more
> >difficult to find a Linux-compatible computer.  One of the reasons I
> >used Linux in the first place is because it had support for all of my
> >hardware.
> >
> >
> 

I have to vote in favor of adding support for all these new hardware
designs.  I had to incorporate PnP capability into a Lynx-OS (not Linux)
driver for a data acquisition board from National Instruments because
that's the board we chose
to use, and Lynx-OS does not natively support PnP.  Now some folks
around here are
having difficulty getting internal modems that aren't PnP, because those
don't work with 
Lynx-OS either.  Of course, if MS/Intel have their way, the ISA bus will
disappear altogether
and we won't have to worry about ISA PnP support.  (Read the PC98
specification, in particular Appendix F, line 28.  It's on
www.intel.com.  Just do a search for PC98) What are you gonna do when
all the new PC hardware starts shipping with USB as THE port for mice,
keyboards, CD-ROMs, and floppy drives? Do you think I'm kidding?  


The pace at which MS/Intel wants to incorporate PnP, USB, Firewire, AGP,
etc is frustratingly fast.
But since most of us have chosen to run Linux on an Intel based system,
I feel there's little we can
do to resist the onslaught from WinTel.  Being stubborn and refusing to
support this stuff will only result in Linux users shopping for used
hardware at Computer Renaissance or the nearest equivalent computer
recycler.


I think Linux should support PnP - simply because I don't want to hack
my own PnP support like
I had to do under Lynx-OS.  Of course, I got paid for that, as it was my
job to make it work.
Additionally, I sure wish I knew how we could come up with a 
converter to read Office-97 documents under some Linux application. 
Office 95/97 is our
office's standard document format.  I run Linux because I remote X-term
into Lynx-OS boxes
all day to develop code, and I just couldn't take the overhead that NT
4.0 + Reflection X
was creating.  It wasn't very stable either.  NT 4.0 is, but my X
windows would spontaneously
"go away."  I wonder if the source code for Wordviewer 97 is
available....
So many things that could be done, so little time.  (sigh)

Just my $0.02.  Thanks for listening.

Jeff
-- 
Jeff McWilliams - Engineer/Trellis Software & Controls, an H.P.
Subsidiary