🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <slrn885pim.jq.rwatson@bluesharp.pwdltd.co.uk> rwatson@pwdltd.co.uk wrote...

> >and the useful software is written for Windows!
>
> Funny that. I always find that the useful software is available free for
> Linux.

I'm sure Linux is fine and dandy if you have a spare week or two to set
it up and get it running properly, but most people just don't have that
sort of time. Add to that the killer blow that it 'doesn't run MS
Office' and the whole deal is done, I'm afraid.

I dislike MS and use their products seldom if ever, but I've been around
this business long enough to know that the 'Unix is just around the
corner' cry comes up about every three years or so, and this is just
another example of it.

Mike Dickson, Black Cat Software Factory, Edinburgh, Scotland
fax 0131-665-1298 - Columnated Ruins Domino - Mellotron M400 #996

> > BTW, in a car, isn't the starter also the same switch to turn it off?
> > everyone who complains about this aspect of Windows, haven't you ever
> driven
> > car? operated a light switch? ran a bath? turned a telly on and off? All
> > toggle switches, i.e. the start is also the stop. I think the shutdown
> > option in Windows is in the logical place, if they put it elsewhere then
> > your average user probably wouldn't find it.
> 
> All that would be fine if the Start button functioned, or at least appeared
> to function as a toggle switch. It doesn't, it is just a button to make a
> menu appear.

So clicking on Start won't depress the icon at all - it'll look exactly
the same whether it's activated or not ... wait, no, it changes.


Hilary Gay


http://www.scottishmagic.co.uk

Plain text only, please.  No attachments.

Mike Dickson <news@blackcat..demon..co..uk> wrote in message
news:CheetahPRO_v1.13-n5_27380@blackcat.demon.co.uk...
> In article <slrn885pim.jq.rwatson@bluesharp.pwdltd.co.uk>
rwatson@pwdltd.co.uk wrote...
> .........
> I'm sure Linux is fine and dandy if you have a spare week or two to set
> it up and get it running properly, but most people just don't have that
> sort of time. Add to that the killer blow that it 'doesn't run MS
> Office' and the whole deal is done, I'm afraid.

To add to the religious wars...

Star Office for Linux is pretty compatible with Office at the file level and
IMO has about the same level of functionality as Office 95. I've used it to
word process Office 97 files and Office 97 could certainly understand the
result.

It even tries to look like Windows 95 - complete with the Start button.

That's what killed it for me. Why bother with an underequipped imitation and
the nagging doubt that it might not be totally file compatible? I've gone
back to MS.

TTFN, Jim

Jim Noble <Jim_Noble@bigfoot.com> wrote 
on Mon, 17 Jan 2000 22:44:38 -0000:
>
>Mike Dickson <news@blackcat..demon..co..uk> wrote in message
>news:CheetahPRO_v1.13-n5_27380@blackcat.demon.co.uk...

>To add to the religious wars...
>
>Star Office for Linux is pretty compatible with Office at the file level and
>IMO has about the same level of functionality as Office 95. I've used it to
>word process Office 97 files and Office 97 could certainly understand the
>result.
>

Well it is still work in progress although it's completely useable. I'm
not sure which era of MSOffice it corresponds to as I have to admit that I
haven't used Office in years. However over the year or so that I've been
using StarOffice it has been more than adequate for any task.  My wife,
who uses Excel at work all day, even likes the spreadsheet. High praise
indeed.

>It even tries to look like Windows 95 - complete with the Start button.

Yes but the good thing is that you don't ever have to use it :-)

>
>That's what killed it for me. Why bother with an underequipped imitation and
>the nagging doubt that it might not be totally file compatible? I've gone
>back to MS.

Luckily I'm the only person in my office so I'm always totally compatible
with myself. When I do get more people in here Star Office will be
compulsory :-)

I find this PC=Windows=MSOffice culture quite frightening though.

When were we sold this lie? I find the thought of having to live in a
microsoft world forever so disturbing that I'll do almost anything to
avoid it.

Sure I use windows for some things. Games mainly and I get less and less
time to play them anyway. However in the few minutes I get w98 seems to
lock up with alarming regularity.


I'm not saying that linux is the right thing for everyone. But it is the
right thing for most people who want to know what they are doing. I think
there should be scope out there for more than one PC architecture, more
than one OS and more than one office suite!


-- 
Richard Watson
rwatson@pwdltd.co.uk
Pentagon Web Design Ltd

Mike Dickson <news@blackcat..demon..co..uk> wrote 
on Mon, 17 Jan 2000 20:24:54 GMT:
>In article <slrn885pim.jq.rwatson@bluesharp.pwdltd.co.uk> rwatson@pwdltd.co.uk wrote...
>
>> >and the useful software is written for Windows!
>>
>> Funny that. I always find that the useful software is available free for
>> Linux.
>
>I'm sure Linux is fine and dandy if you have a spare week or two to set
>it up and get it running properly, but most people just don't have that
>sort of time. 

Took me about 30-45 minutes to get fully installed with my printer and
modem working fine. I admit you work a bit slower for a while as you get
used to it, but that would be the same if you were using W98 for the first
time. In reality although there's a learning curve it's no steeper, it
just goes on for longer.

I would dare say that most people in this group could install linux onto a
PC and get it going quite well in an evening. And the fun part is that
more and more peope are doing it.

>I dislike MS and use their products seldom if ever, but I've been around
>this business long enough to know that the 'Unix is just around the
>corner' cry comes up about every three years or so, and this is just
>another example of it.

Unix isn't around the corner - it's here! (Well unix has been here for
ages, it's Linux we're talking about really)

If you don't mind expending a small amount of effort getting to know a few
basics you can have your own little unix on your own PC running
non-microsoft software reliably and in the very large part *free*.

Wake up and smell the coffee :-)

-- 
Richard Watson
rwatson@pwdltd.co.uk
Pentagon Web Design Ltd

Hilary Gay <hilary@scottishmagic.co.uk> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.3.96.1000117150522.9112A-100000@localhost...
> > > BTW, in a car, isn't the starter also the same switch to turn it off?
> > > everyone who complains about this aspect of Windows, haven't you ever
> > driven
> > > car? operated a light switch? ran a bath? turned a telly on and off?
All
> > > toggle switches, i.e. the start is also the stop. I think the shutdown
> > > option in Windows is in the logical place, if they put it elsewhere
then
> > > your average user probably wouldn't find it.
> >
> > All that would be fine if the Start button functioned, or at least
appeared
> > to function as a toggle switch. It doesn't, it is just a button to make
a
> > menu appear.
>
> So clicking on Start won't depress the icon at all - it'll look exactly
> the same whether it's activated or not ... wait, no, it changes.

I had take him to mean that  it acted like a toggle switch permanently, for
example if you start something from the start menu that did not stop
immediately then the button would remain depressed until the function had
stopped.
I take your point about the button being depressed whilst the menu is up, so
it does function as a toggle switch for the menu itself, but not the
elements of the menu.
An attempt to make the menu function in the way I think the original point
was made would be to bring in menus like the one used now in Office - menus
with toggle buttons at the side, or wee bullet point like things to indicate
the state of that menu item.

andy

In article <Pine.GSO.3.96.1000117003123.15598F-100000@tardis.tardis.ed.ac.uk>,
Hilary Gay  <hilary@tardis.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>after the "Hotmail hacked" fiasco, they started hosting it on UNIX instead
>of MS products?

Actually, no.  It's always been on unix (FreeBSD/Apache).  It's
rumoured that after MS acquired Hotmail they tried to switch it to NT,
but failed.

The security loophole was straightforward operating-system independent
stupidity - your password was checked "on entry", but not by certain
later pages, because it was assumed that you couldn't get to them
unless you'd passed the entry page.  In fact, you could just type in
the URL if you knew it.

No need to lock the back door - after all, we won't send anyone round
there unless they've already come to the front door.

-- Richard
-- 
Spam filter: to mail me from a .com/.net site, put my surname in the headers.

"The Internet is really just a series of bottlenecks joined by high
speed networks." - Sam Wilson

In article <CheetahPRO_v1.13-n5_27380@blackcat.demon.co.uk>, Mike Dickson (md) writes:

md> I'm sure Linux is fine and dandy if you have a spare week or two to set
md> it up and get it running properly, but most people just don't have that
md> sort of time. 

Takes me on average a month or so to get windows vaguely usable (on
the same basis as I'd count a week for unix, ie a couple of hours
solid at the start, then significant proportion of the rest of the
working time twiddling.

md> Add to that the killer blow that it 'doesn't run MS
md> Office' and the whole deal is done, I'm afraid.

My Windows machine doesn't run MS Office either. Yet dispite it's high
cost in support tie I keep it around...

md> I dislike MS and use their products seldom if ever, but I've been around
md> this business long enough to know that the 'Unix is just around the
md> corner' cry comes up about every three years or so, and this is just
md> another example of it.

Maybe. There is more evidence that the application sellers are
interested in supporting it this time around though.

-- 
Mail me as rjc not spt@cstr.ed.ac.uk		_O_
						 |<

On Mon, 17 Jan 2000 20:24:54 GMT, Mike Dickson (news@blackcat..demon..co..uk) scribbled: 

> I'm sure Linux is fine and dandy if you have a spare week or two to set
> it up and get it running properly, but most people just don't have that
> sort of time. Add to that the killer blow that it 'doesn't run MS
> Office' and the whole deal is done, I'm afraid.

But Mike, you could use Star Office for Linux instead -- it's free for personal
use, and perfectly usable. Besides which, MS Office is Pantsville, USA.

Angus

On 18 Jan 2000 14:34:55 +0000, Richard Caley <spt@cstr.ed.ac.uk>
wrote:

>In article <CheetahPRO_v1.13-n5_27380@blackcat.demon.co.uk>, Mike Dickson (md) writes:
>
>md> I'm sure Linux is fine and dandy if you have a spare week or two to set
>md> it up and get it running properly, but most people just don't have that
>md> sort of time. 
>
>Takes me on average a month or so to get windows vaguely usable (on
>the same basis as I'd count a week for unix, ie a couple of hours
>solid at the start, then significant proportion of the rest of the
>working time twiddling.

then you are clearly one of the least computer savvy individuals in
existence.

4 hours is _tops_ even from a vanilla system

In article <gt598s8mjem5jui315a16r5v2q52nvf2ck@4ax.com>, Guy Fawkes (gf) writes:

>> Takes me on average a month or so to get windows vaguely usable (on
>> the same basis as I'd count a week for unix, ie a couple of hours
>> solid at the start, then significant proportion of the rest of the
>> working time twiddling.

gf> then you are clearly one of the least computer savvy individuals in
gf> existence.

We perhaps have different expectations of what it takes to be
usable. No intermittent lock ups or forced reboots for instance.

Now, a reinstallation is quicker of course (not that it's sane to have to do
that in any case, but that's a different question) I can remember most
of the things i have to install and fiddle with. But the initial
installation of Win95 took me easily a month real time, given the
number of drivers to be hunted down and installed and persuaded not to
fight with one another.

Compared to all that unix is a breeze. Run the installer and it
goes. 

X is sometimes a pig though.

OTOH my 19 inch monitor worked out od the box with X, but won't go
above 10XXx780 in Windoze to this day.

On the whole though I prefer psions. They just work reliably out of
the box. 

-- 
Mail me as rjc not spt@cstr.ed.ac.uk		_O_
						 |<

In article <eyh7lh7rym6.fsf@liddell.cstr.ed.ac.uk> spt@cstr.ed.ac.uk wrote...

> Of course the only reason Win9X doesn't ask about mount points is that
> it forces the user to name the disks (or partitions) explcitly in
> every day use. I hardly think this is an advantage.

Perhaps not. Then again, DOS' 'lettered' drives is o commonly used that
I can't see anyone used to it actually thinking that it's a
disadvantage.

> Actually, since 98 is at heart just 95 with some bug fixes, it seems
> to be more stable in general.

Here speaketh a man who has never installed 'active desktop'.  :-)

Mike Dickson, Black Cat Software Factory, Edinburgh, Scotland
fax 0131-665-1298 - Columnated Ruins Domino - Mellotron M400 #996

In article <slrn88a57k.i5.rwatson@bluesharp.pwdltd.co.uk> rwatson@pwdltd.co.uk wrote...

> >I've tried SuSE, Caldera and RedHat on all three main systems we have
> >and all of them failed to recognise at least one component part of the
> >system (usually the printer) and none of them picked up the sound cards.
>
> Did you try telling it what stuff you had connected? Most distributions
> have a separate tool for installing printers and soundcards etc *after*
> installation.

Yes, although the only tool I can recall using was SuSE's YAST which
singally failed to set up the printer (an HP-III) and couldn't even
locate the SB-16 sound card.

> I admit that there are some hardware compatibility issues but most of
> those are caused by manufacturors who don't let anyone else know how their
> machine works (e.g. winprinters- should be called "loseprinters") or
> decide to remove the brain from a modem (winmodem/binmodem).

Winmodems are especially funny - you can install one and it 'finds'
itself on COM5. Delete the hardware resource, reboot and it 'finds'
itself on COM3. Or COM1. Or just about anywhere.

> >I didn't dwell on the problem since it was an intellectual exercise more
> >than anything else, but (much as I hate to admit this) I've yet to come
> >across any Win95 installation that I have made which *didn't* pick up on
> >all the hardware, far less concern the user with issues over 'mount
> >points' and 'inode density'.
>
> This is a rather strange point, if you don't mind my saying. One of the
> best features of linux is the filesystem.

Yes, and I'm not about to disagree with you here. The trouble is,
though, that matters such as the stability of the filesystem,
fragmentation, multiple users and high security matter not one whit to
someone who is mostly concerned with simply getting the word processor
running. Or whatever.

Case in point; only today I was looking for suitable Linux fax software.
I downloaded a couple of files and read through the installation
intructions. The better of the two said that to install it you had to

   * Edit the makefile and change the compile command and destination
     directories
   * Type "make" to compile the binaries
   * Edit the configuration information at the beginning of the script
   * Type "make install" to install the fax script, the binaries and
     the man pages.
   * Read the man page

Compare this against simply bunging an autoplaying disk into the CD and
letting the software do all the installing for you. Can you *really* say
that the average bloke isn't going to be put off by the Linux software's
installation instructions? I can guarantee that 99% of computer users
aren't even going to undertand what 'edit the makefile and change the
compile command and destination directories' is going to do, let alone
what it actually means.

In these terms, a 'better' system is the one that allows the most people
to get the most useful tasks done. Unfortunately, that is why a system
like Windows has already won the battle.

Mike Dickson, Black Cat Software Factory, Edinburgh, Scotland
fax 0131-665-1298 - Columnated Ruins Domino - Mellotron M400 #996

* Mike Dickson wrote:

> Perhaps not. Then again, DOS' 'lettered' drives is o commonly used that
> I can't see anyone used to it actually thinking that it's a
> disadvantage.

I'm used to it and I think it's a hideous nightmare.  Apart from
anything else it has a basically arbitrary limit of 26 possible mount
points, and it forbids you from stitching together a logical
filesystem in any kind of coherent way.  So (for instance),
/local/packages and /local/bin are different disks for us, and
/local/var is weird.  This seems to be basically impossible to do on
windows -- the best you can do is the \\fileserver\place\ syntax which
is about as horrible as the typical NFS /net/host/place thing.

--tim

In article <m2embec54n.fsf@bluesharp.pwdltd.co.uk> rwatson@pwdltd.co.uk wrote...

> When has DOS/windows ever even considered using partitions to its
> advantage???

I've seen Windows 95 use partitions to >my disadvantage< once. I
installed it onto the first 1Gb partition of a 6Gb HDD which was split
into 6 x 1Gb chunks. When it had finished, the partition table was a
shambles, with the first partition being 6Gb, but with all the other 1Gb
partitions intact on it. A novel kind of disk expansion mechanism.

   * DOS FDISK thought it was a single partitioned 6Gb disk
   * Linux FDISK reported it accurately
   * OS/2 FDISK reported it as a 63Mb disk with no partitions
   * Partition Magic wouldn't even start

Tentatively booting to OS/2 (all the other partitions were HPFS) I
copied off all the files to another drive. Then, as an exercise in
curiosity, I then wrote a DOS program which would write out 50Mb files
of random data until the disk filled up. It wrote out 6Gb worth, merrily
walking over all the other partitions until the disk more or less ground
to a halt. To get it back into working order I had to use another
program to overwrite the first 63 sectors with zeros before I could even
get nother FDISK to look at it.

I love Windows.

> When you consider that it is really an OS put together by enthusiasts
> (although based on unix) that is a tremendous achievement.

I quite agree - although I sometimes wonder whether users' enthusiasm
would be quite the same were it just another operating system
manufactured by a multinational and costing the usual amount of $$$.

Mike Dickson, Black Cat Software Factory, Edinburgh, Scotland
fax 0131-665-1298 - Columnated Ruins Domino - Mellotron M400 #996

In article <eyh66wqrw1z.fsf@liddell.cstr.ed.ac.uk> spt@cstr.ed.ac.uk wrote...

> And I put Linux up the firt tme in about that time |(I was watching a
> film while I did it, so I know it wan't more than 90 mins or so.

Oh I've installed it in less than hlf an hour. It has taken me upwards
of a few *days* to get it to do anything useful. (I mean...Ghostscript?!)

> Can't see that it really matters that much actually. Applications and
> standards are more of a problem than the OS.

...as IBM can attest.

Mike Dickson, Black Cat Software Factory, Edinburgh, Scotland
fax 0131-665-1298 - Columnated Ruins Domino - Mellotron M400 #996

"Trevor Best" <trevor@easynet.co.uk> writes:


> I can see word processors having about the same functionality as MS-Word,
> which is good, people today wouldn't be able to use all of the features in
> Word 2.0, let alone Word 2000 but I don't believe that Star's database is
> anywhere near Access.

Sure. The Star Office database is well hidden in the suite (i.e. no templates
or links on the explorer). I think they realise that it's far from finished.
The word processor is OK and the spreadsheet is fine though.






-- 
Richard Watson
rwatson@pwdltd.co.uk
Pentagon Web Design Ltd

In article <866gab$155i$2@quince.news.easynet.net>,
Trevor Best <trevor@easynet.co.uk> wrote:

>Perhaps you would like MS give you a "Stop" button, or make you some cocoa
>before you go to bed and tuck you in at night.

No thanks, I have no desire to switch my computer off through a
graphical interface at all.  Nor do i wish to be tucked by Microsoft.

I wouldn't object to a nice cup of cocoa though.

-- Richard

-- 
Spam filter: to mail me from a .com/.net site, put my surname in the headers.

"The Internet is really just a series of bottlenecks joined by high
speed networks." - Sam Wilson

In article <CheetahPRO_v1.13-n5_27520@blackcat.demon.co.uk>, Mike Dickson (md) writes:

md> In article <eyh7lh7rym6.fsf@liddell.cstr.ed.ac.uk> spt@cstr.ed.ac.uk wrote...
>> Of course the only reason Win9X doesn't ask about mount points is that
>> it forces the user to name the disks (or partitions) explcitly in
>> every day use. I hardly think this is an advantage.

md> Perhaps not. Then again, DOS' 'lettered' drives is o commonly used that
md> I can't see anyone used to it actually thinking that it's a
md> disadvantage.

People used to DOS didn't in general thing lack of multi-taksing was a
disadvantage. Indeed IIRC Gates once said multi-tasking was useless on
a PC.

I used to have to have a piece of paper up on the wall above my
windows machine to remind my flatmates which disk various things were
on. 

>> Actually, since 98 is at heart just 95 with some bug fixes, it seems
>> to be more stable in general.

md> Here speaketh a man who has never installed 'active desktop'.  :-)

Guilty of sanity as charged. 

-- 
Mail me as rjc not spt@cstr.ed.ac.uk		_O_
						 |<

In article <CheetahPRO_v1.13-n5_27541@blackcat.demon.co.uk>, Mike Dickson (md) writes:

md> Oh I've installed it in less than hlf an hour. It has taken me upwards
md> of a few *days* to get it to do anything useful. (I mean...Ghostscript?!)

Oh, I never had to make it do anyhing useful :-) (well beyond runnign
perl and apache).

Never had problems installing ghostscript on BSD or Solaris, why was
it a pain on Linux?

Anyway, how easy is it on Windows? I've never had the nerve to try.

-- 
Mail me as rjc not spt@cstr.ed.ac.uk		_O_
						 |<

In article <m2embec54n.fsf@bluesharp.pwdltd.co.uk>, Richard Watson (rw) writes:

rw> When has DOS/windows ever even considered using partitions to its
rw> advantage???

MS used it to it's advantage for a while, asserting that it didn't
matter that their brian dead file system code was still living in the
age of small disks because you could always partition your modern disk
up. 


-- 
Mail me as rjc not spt@cstr.ed.ac.uk		_O_
						 |<

Richard Tobin <richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:866o4b$21o1$1@pc-news.cogsci.ed.ac.uk...
> In article <866gab$155i$2@quince.news.easynet.net>,
> Trevor Best <trevor@easynet.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >Perhaps you would like MS give you a "Stop" button, or make you some
cocoa
> >before you go to bed and tuck you in at night.
>
> No thanks, I have no desire to switch my computer off through a
> graphical interface at all.  Nor do i wish to be tucked by Microsoft.

Actually, mine does switch off after selecting "shut-down".

> I wouldn't object to a nice cup of cocoa though.

Don't use anything with embedded java/vbscript or anything plug-and-play to
make it, lest you get "Insert CD Rom with cocoa.dll on it" or "Failed to
create object "cup", so I sprayed your walls brown instead"
;-)
--
------------------------------------------------------------
trevor@easynet.co.uk
http://www.trevor.easynet.co.uk

Mike Dickson <mike@blackcat..demon..co..uk> wrote in message
news:CheetahPRO_v1.13-n5_27479@blackcat.demon.co.uk...
> In article <r6rTQQAObNh4EwnX@scot.demon.co.uk> craig@siliconglen.com
wrote...

> I was 'reliably' informed that one part of the unwillingness for them to
> move over to NT was that several programs exist which can be pointed at
> any NT server on a network and kick it straight over.

There was a certain packet or string of data sent in a "ping" command that
brought any machine down but this was patched years ago.

--
------------------------------------------------------------
trevor@easynet.co.uk
http://www.trevor.easynet.co.uk

Richard Watson <rwatson@pwdltd.co.uk> wrote in message
news:slrn888btd.lt.rwatson@bluesharp.pwdltd.co.uk...

> I'm not saying that linux is the right thing for everyone. But it is the
> right thing for most people who want to know what they are doing. I think
> there should be scope out there for more than one PC architecture, more
> than one OS and more than one office suite!

You already have it, the Mac is different to the PC in architecture, Amigas,
Atari STs, Acorn Archemedes are still out there and in use, there's more
than one office suit for the Windows environment, even MS themselves offer
another one (MS Works).

--
------------------------------------------------------------
trevor@easynet.co.uk
http://www.trevor.easynet.co.uk

Tim Bradshaw <tfb@cley.com> wrote in message
news:ey3u2k97nzt.fsf@cley.com...
> * Mike Dickson wrote:
>
> > Perhaps not. Then again, DOS' 'lettered' drives is o commonly used that
> > I can't see anyone used to it actually thinking that it's a
> > disadvantage.
>
> I'm used to it and I think it's a hideous nightmare.  Apart from
> anything else it has a basically arbitrary limit of 26 possible mount
> points, and it forbids you from stitching together a logical
> filesystem in any kind of coherent way.  So (for instance),
> /local/packages and /local/bin are different disks for us, and
> /local/var is weird.  This seems to be basically impossible to do on
> windows -- the best you can do is the \\fileserver\place\ syntax which
> is about as horrible as the typical NFS /net/host/place thing.

In NT you can stitch together several disks into one using either volume
striping or RAID-0 striping. Partitiion Magic seems to be able to do the
same thing and make this transparent to the OS, this is rather a permanent
step compared to mounting volumes under unix. The unix mount points are such
because there's no concept of separate disks/volumes, just one large one.

DOS came from a different background, ripped from a product called QDOS
(Quick and Dirty Operating System), was closely modelled on CP/M, which used
to run on such hardware as the venerable Zilog Z80, an 8 bit processor
that's just about 1 step up from the Intel 4004, which was used in all
pocket calculators. This all started out when there was just one disk, a
floppy disk, there was no sub-directories until version 2. Hard disks in a
PC back then was like having a jacuzzi in your car now.

Don't forget other operating systems have equally horrible naming
conventions when locating a remote drive, VAX/VMS has something like:

VAX1::[DSK$USER2]:[BLAH][BLAH]

or some such (it's been a while since I've used a Vax) so now UNC paths
don't seem so bad :-)

--
------------------------------------------------------------
trevor@easynet.co.uk
http://www.trevor.easynet.co.uk

Richard Watson <rwatson@pwdltd.co.uk> wrote in message
news:slrn88a57k.i5.rwatson@bluesharp.pwdltd.co.uk...

> I admit that there are some hardware compatibility issues but most of
> those are caused by manufacturors who don't let anyone else know how their
> machine works (e.g. winprinters- should be called "loseprinters") or
decide
> to remove the brain from a modem (winmodem/binmodem).

I agree here, I wouldn't buy any hardware with the name "win" in it, it
basically means it's going to chew up my CPU's time, gimme a Laserjet with
it's own 68K processor anyday.

> >I didn't dwell on the problem since it was an intellectual exercise more
> >than anything else, but (much as I hate to admit this) I've yet to come
> >across any Win95 installation that I have made which *didn't* pick up on
> >all the hardware, far less concern the user with issues over 'mount
> >points' and 'inode density'.
>
> This is a rather strange point, if you don't mind my saying. One of the
> best features of linux is the filesystem. It requires no defragmentation
> and supports, by default, multiple users and high security. The fact that
> you *can* define mount points and separate your data, programs and
> configuration files and "drivers"  is surely a bonus. I would have thought
> that anyone who has as much experience as you seem to have would
> appreciate this. (I've never needed to know anything about inodes.)

Actually, ext2 does sometimes require degragmentation and there are
defraggers out there for it. As for inodes, in DOS/Windows speak this is the
cluster size, smaller clusters being more efficient on space, e.g. using a
cluter size (or inode density) of 32K means that a file of 1 byte big will
use 32K on the disk, no other file may use this cluster. I once resized a
dos partition from 1031MB to 1019MB, this reduced the cluster size by half
(dos doesn't give you options on clusters, just uses the smallest it can
cope with), although reducing my capacity by 11MB it freed over 100MB of
space..

> In a W9X installation you can have drives C,D,E,F,G .... and the installer
> will put everything on C - swap file, windows directory, programs
> directory - everything. This is a totally inefficient waste of space. You
> can then try very hard to split things up but you'll find that over many
> things windows won't play ball at all.

It's not hard to override, I generally make a small c: partition, install NT
on D: and swap file on another, or spread swapfile across several disks if I
have them. Install programs usually give you the option to install anywhere
other than c:\program files\<app> but some badly written software can insist
on looking in there, can't blame the OS for that. In linux, Nutscrape
insisted on installing on my very small root partition and not on my /usr
partition where all the other apps went, it didn't give me a choice and
nearly broke the OS because the root was nearly out of space.

> I can't really even believe that it could even think of wanting the swap
> space on the same partition as your data. But it does and will advise
> you against changing the defaults should you try.

Message best ignored, for best performance in 95/98, defrag a partition, set
windows swap file on that partition with a fixed size, min & max being the
same, Windows tells you this will hinder performance but the message is
wrong, it gains you performance as Windows will no longer spend time
resizing the swap file so this is faster. The messages like that in Windows
are there because MS consider your average Windows user to be a Current Bun
reader :-) For NT it's best to spread the swapfile over several disks if you
have them (not several partitions on the same disk).

--
------------------------------------------------------------
trevor@easynet.co.uk
http://www.trevor.easynet.co.uk

Guy Fawkes <guy.fawkes@error404.surfbaud.co.uk> wrote in message
news:glmb8ssknrplrvk12dcet1u5ulmc93hiub@4ax.com...

> irony is only acceptable if supported by sufficient wit.......
>
> since _when_ has PM been a part of the operating system.......
>
> it isn't even good bloody practice...

PM is a fancy fdisk, there's fdisk in linux too, partitioning being below
the level of the OS, whatever OS. PM for me is a life saver, NT only
recognised my new 20GB disk as 8GB, I used PM to resize an NTFS partition to
10GB, now disk administrator (NT equiv of fdisk) still thinks that my disk
is 8GB that just happens to have partitions of 0.5GB, 2GB, 4GB, 10GB, 2GB
and 2GB and it's graphical view won't show me the last two, always off the
end of the window no matter how much I stretch it. PM reported errors as it
resized the partition but chkdsk OK'd it and I've been using it ever since.

And what's about good practice? Before DOS 4 you could get 40MB disk but DOS
3.3 and below only supported 32MB partitions, partitioning was essential
then, hell I've seen an ICL DRS95 with 600MB disk, running dos 3.3 with 18
partitions on and a little bit of unpartitioned space at the end.

Using FAT, you can only have 2GB partitions in Windows (4GB in NT). Even
with an OS/File system that can handle the size of your disk, you still HAVE
to partition it, just to get one partition on it, you cannot format the disk
without doing this first.

--
------------------------------------------------------------
trevor@easynet.co.uk
http://www.trevor.easynet.co.uk

This is the busiest thread I've ever seen.....

How did it get the 'Subject' Currant Bun.

Geoff

Richard Watson <rwatson@pwdltd.co.uk> wrote in message
news:m2embec54n.fsf@bluesharp.pwdltd.co.uk...
>
> When has DOS/windows ever even considered using partitions to its
advantage???

It needs one partition, everything needs at least one.

> I'm sure that you must be very good at running windows if it's so easy for
you
> to get a stable setup. Maybe you have a rare gift. Out of all the people I
know
> no-one who has actually tried to do much with their windows pc has avoided
it
> hanging on them at some point. Linux has *never* hung on me.

You must be gifted too, never seen the message "kernel panic!"? Ever ran
Enlightenment and found the only way out is to allow root telnet access to
shut the bloody thing down? OK so the OS was still up at this time but it
was next to useless.

On the whole it's more robust than Windows but indestructible it aint. I've
found NT to be really not that less reliable, I've probably had more crashes
with NT than with Linux but then I've used and abused it about 1000 times
more than I have Linux.

Each has it's good points, 9x is good at games (about all it's good at) and
surfing/newsreading. NT Workstation is where the serious Windows work gets
done (mainly because it's crap for games, although Half-Life runs better on
it than it does in 9x) and it's pre-emtive multitasking and NT Terminal
Server is around should you want lots of people to use a single machine. As
an OS, linux is probably the best, just wish it had more software support, I
must say last time I ran it (RedHat 5) it was on a P75, I now have a PII 400
so hope to get it on again (before I upgraded my motherboard from LX to BX
and processor from 233 to 400, RedHat CD refused to boot, it hung after
detecting disks) now I just don't have the space ATM to install another OS.

--
------------------------------------------------------------
trevor@easynet.co.uk
http://www.trevor.easynet.co.uk

QDOS? This is the multitasking operating system of the Sinclair QL (a
Motorola 68008 based machine). It's not at all like DOS or CP/M. There must
have been two QDOSs.
AFAIK Mr Torvalds used a QL before going on to greater things.
Sorry, this probably isn't of interest, but we are in "Current Bun".
Edgar
"Trevor Best" <trevor@easynet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:86b464$brm$11@quince.news.easynet.net...
.....................
> DOS came from a different background, ripped from a product called QDOS
> (Quick and Dirty Operating System), was closely modelled on CP/M, which
used
.....................

* Trevor Best wrote:
> In NT you can stitch together several disks into one using either volume
> striping or RAID-0 striping. Partitiion Magic seems to be able to do the
> same thing and make this transparent to the OS, this is rather a permanent
> step compared to mounting volumes under unix. The unix mount points are such
> because there's no concept of separate disks/volumes, just one large
> one.

But this is absolutely irrelevant.  Quite apart from the fact that
any serious Unix can do RAID, it just doesn't solve the problem.

The problem is that I have, say 20 fileservers and 400 workstations.
And I want the users of the system to see a filespace which
corresponds to *their* needs, and never to have to know which bits
come from which fileserver.  I also want this setup to be centrally
managed, and ideally I want to be able to change associations on the
fly. I want people to see names like /project/clim/work and /home/tfb,
and *not* //fs11/clim/work and //fs09/tfb.  The nerest that you seem
to be able to get to this in windows is centrally maintaining a bunch
of `mounts' (whatever it calls it) so you have a global association of
logical places with drive letters -- your home dir is always `H:' or
whatever.  So you can get maybe 22 possible locations with basically
random names.  Ick.

VMS incidentally had logical names to deal wit this kind of thing.
VMS was a lot more sophisticated than Windows seems to be...

--tim

* Trevor Best wrote:
> Actually, ext2 does sometimes require degragmentation and there are
> defraggers out there for it. As for inodes, in DOS/Windows speak this is the
> cluster size, smaller clusters being more efficient on space, e.g. using a
> cluter size (or inode density) of 32K means that a file of 1 byte big will
> use 32K on the disk, no other file may use this cluster. I once resized a
> dos partition from 1031MB to 1019MB, this reduced the cluster size by half
> (dos doesn't give you options on clusters, just uses the smallest it can
> cope with), although reducing my capacity by 11MB it freed over 100MB of
> space..

No. inodes aren't anything to do with cluster size.  inodes say *how
many files you can have* on a partition, cluster size or block size
say how much space a 1 byte file will take. 

--tim

"Trevor Best" <trevor@easynet.co.uk> writes:

> Richard Watson <rwatson@pwdltd.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:m2embec54n.fsf@bluesharp.pwdltd.co.uk...
> >
> > When has DOS/windows ever even considered using partitions to its
> advantage???
> 
> It needs one partition, everything needs at least one.
> 
> > I'm sure that you must be very good at running windows if it's so easy for
> you
> > to get a stable setup. Maybe you have a rare gift. Out of all the people I
> know
> > no-one who has actually tried to do much with their windows pc has avoided
> it
> > hanging on them at some point. Linux has *never* hung on me.
> 
> You must be gifted too, never seen the message "kernel panic!"? Ever ran
> Enlightenment and found the only way out is to allow root telnet access to
> shut the bloody thing down? OK so the OS was still up at this time but it
> was next to useless.
> 

I'm not that gifted and I've only been using linux about 18 months.

I admit to a kernel panic but it was during bootup on a cold pc
with dodgy RAM, a reboot sufficed to sort it out and it only occured 
once more in a similar situation. I blamed the hardware and changed PC.

I've never run enlightenment so I can't speak for it. I run XFCE and 
I find it very stable and fast.

I've heard of people having to use the magic sysreq from time to time.
I can't remember the key presses exactly but it goes something like
<CTRL>+<ALT>+<SysRq> you hold these down and you can safely stop processes,
unmount files and reboot if necessary. 


> On the whole it's more robust than Windows but indestructible it aint. 

I agree. Maybe I've been lucky.

> I've
> found NT to be really not that less reliable, I've probably had more crashes
> with NT than with Linux but then I've used and abused it about 1000 times
> more than I have Linux.
> 

Maybe you should get some serius Linux abuse in :-)


> Each has it's good points, 9x is good at games (about all it's good at) and
> surfing/newsreading. NT Workstation is where the serious Windows work gets
> done (mainly because it's crap for games, although Half-Life runs better on
> it than it does in 9x) and it's pre-emtive multitasking and NT Terminal
> Server is around should you want lots of people to use a single machine. As
> an OS, linux is probably the best, just wish it had more software support, I
> must say last time I ran it (RedHat 5) it was on a P75, I now have a PII 400
> so hope to get it on again (before I upgraded my motherboard from LX to BX
> and processor from 233 to 400, RedHat CD refused to boot, it hung after
> detecting disks) now I just don't have the space ATM to install another OS.
> 

Shame it refused to install. Usually there are install options you can use
to get around it. You must try the new Mandrake 7, based on RH but very
sexy :-)

I use linux for everything except games - oh and scanning at the moment
as no-one's made a driver for my [1] scanner. I suppose I could try accessing
it using wine or vmware but I don't mine booting windows for that.

[1] It's a parallel port scanner anyway and I hate the way that things
freeze while you're using it. SCSI is a much better interface for this
so maybe I'll upgrade in the near future.

-- 
Richard Watson
rwatson@pwdltd.co.uk
Pentagon Web Design Ltd

Geoff Lane <geoff@3lanes.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:38862cb6.16988251@news.freeuk.net...
> This is the busiest thread I've ever seen.....
>
> How did it get the 'Subject' Currant Bun.

More like "how did current bun get onto Linux vs Windows?"

Somebody posted some user instructions from the "current bun" ISP set-up,
things like inserting the CD shiny side up, pressing the up arrow on the CD
tray to eject it, etc.

I (and some others) noted that some users do actually need this level of
mollycoddling given that they have two brains, one's lost and the other's
out looking for it. Then it went onto setting up windows and then someone
mentioned linux and the windows guy said it's harder to set up to which the
linux guy disagreed, you get the picture.

It's good, for about a month before this thread, this group was dead.

--
------------------------------------------------------------
trevor@easynet.co.uk
http://www.trevor.easynet.co.uk

I think the size of this thread now warrants the creation of the
"easynet.current.bun" newsgroup :-)

--
------------------------------------------------------------
trevor@easynet.co.uk
http://www.trevor.easynet.co.uk

Edgar Iredale <Edgar@iredale-we.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:86bng6$eu6$1@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
> QDOS? This is the multitasking operating system of the Sinclair QL (a
> Motorola 68008 based machine). It's not at all like DOS or CP/M. There
must
> have been two QDOSs.

Popular name, I used to use a product called QDOS as well, it was an
alternative shell much like XTree or Norton Commander (linux users may know
Midnight Commander, this is based on Norton Commander).

> AFAIK Mr Torvalds used a QL before going on to greater things.
> Sorry, this probably isn't of interest, but we are in "Current Bun".

I think Linus did better things than Sir Clive :-)

--
------------------------------------------------------------
trevor@easynet.co.uk
http://www.trevor.easynet.co.uk

Tim Bradshaw <tfb@cley.com> wrote in message
news:ey3ogae44zd.fsf@cley.com...
> * Trevor Best wrote:
> > In NT you can stitch together several disks into one using either volume
> > striping or RAID-0 striping. Partitiion Magic seems to be able to do the
> > same thing and make this transparent to the OS, this is rather a
permanent
> > step compared to mounting volumes under unix. The unix mount points are
such
> > because there's no concept of separate disks/volumes, just one large
> > one.
>
> But this is absolutely irrelevant.  Quite apart from the fact that
> any serious Unix can do RAID, it just doesn't solve the problem.

Problem? I've not seen it as a problem.

> The problem is that I have, say 20 fileservers and 400 workstations.
> And I want the users of the system to see a filespace which
> corresponds to *their* needs, and never to have to know which bits
> come from which fileserver.  I also want this setup to be centrally
> managed, and ideally I want to be able to change associations on the
> fly. I want people to see names like /project/clim/work and /home/tfb,
> and *not* file://fs11/clim/work and file://fs09/tfb.  The nerest that you
seem
> to be able to get to this in windows is centrally maintaining a bunch
> of `mounts' (whatever it calls it) so you have a global association of
> logical places with drive letters -- your home dir is always `H:' or
> whatever.  So you can get maybe 22 possible locations with basically
> random names.  Ick.

I've not come across anyone who needs to be able to see that many servers
simultaneously, are these users so superhuman that they can multitask as
good as a computer? Any competent dos/windows/Novell administrator can
create a central place where users can spawn off processes, unmap drives and
re-map new ones, the users need not know what is what and most users don't
know what a drive is let alone a subdirectory and they don't need to. You
only need see what you're doing.

I'm not saying the drive letter aproach is better or worse, it's different
and there are different ways of tackling any given problem, as for what you
want users to see I don't agree, most users would barf at /project/clim/work
just as much as they would f:\, g:\ or \\servername\share\dir

The beginning of this thread started with Current Bun readers and their
level of intelligence (as made famous by Jasper Carrot), now do think they
can handle directory names in any format?

> VMS incidentally had logical names to deal wit this kind of thing.
> VMS was a lot more sophisticated than Windows seems to be...

Of course it was, it was designed from the ground up to be multi-user and
multi-tasking, unlike dos, which came from a different background entirely,
what the "P" stands for in "PC". Unix was designed along the same lines as
VMS albeit to be more open (VMS being proprietary to DEC, as were most
minicomputer and mainframe OSs)

I'm not trying to say Windows is better than linux, I woudn't say that. I
only state facts gained from personal experiences. Sure Windows is inferior
to linux as an OS but not as much as most of the linux comunity seems to
think. I will defend it as far as I think it's reasonable too from people
who say things about it that are untrue or unfounded. A lot of linux users
in this group seem to have extreamly high horses to sit on and slag windows
off from. I'm here to put them straight as much as I can. Similarly I will
do the same for any Windows user who slags off linux if any of them dared. I
have the same thing to do Oracle users slag off SQL Server or vice versa,
each product has it's good points and bad. No one product is better overall,
it's all swings and roundabouts.


--
------------------------------------------------------------
trevor@easynet.co.uk
http://www.trevor.easynet.co.uk

Richard Watson <rwatson@pwdltd.co.uk> wrote in message
news:m24sc6pe6x.fsf@bluesharp.pwdltd.co.uk...
>
> I'm not that gifted and I've only been using linux about 18 months.
>
> I admit to a kernel panic but it was during bootup on a cold pc
> with dodgy RAM, a reboot sufficed to sort it out and it only occured
> once more in a similar situation. I blamed the hardware and changed PC.
>
> I've never run enlightenment so I can't speak for it. I run XFCE and
> I find it very stable and fast.

enlightenment's nice but it big and first time I ran it was on 16MB RAM,
next time on 48MB but it had got bigger as well. It's really a screen saver,
nice to look at but pretty useless if you don't own a three button mouse. I
found FVWM much better to use and something else I forget it's name along
with Gnome.

> I've heard of people having to use the magic sysreq from time to time.
> I can't remember the key presses exactly but it goes something like
> <CTRL>+<ALT>+<SysRq> you hold these down and you can safely stop
processes,
> unmount files and reboot if necessary.

I don't know if that would have worked im my case, I did manage to kill X
but the PC screen and keyboard were still frozen.
>
> > I've
> > found NT to be really not that less reliable, I've probably had more
crashes
> > with NT than with Linux but then I've used and abused it about 1000
times
> > more than I have Linux.
> >
>
> Maybe you should get some serius Linux abuse in :-)

Love too, I'll have to rumage for the CD now but I doubt I'll have time to
play with it if I found it, got too much to do and that's all within Windows
so being in linux aint gonna get those things done.

>
> [1] It's a parallel port scanner anyway and I hate the way that things
> freeze while you're using it. SCSI is a much better interface for this
> so maybe I'll upgrade in the near future.

There are USB scanners available now, for around 60 squids, the speed is
almost as good as SCSI and blistering compared to Parallel.

--
------------------------------------------------------------
trevor@easynet.co.uk
http://www.trevor.easynet.co.uk

Tim Bradshaw <tfb@cley.com> wrote in message
news:ey3ln5i442u.fsf@cley.com...
> * Trevor Best wrote:
> > Actually, ext2 does sometimes require degragmentation and there are
> > defraggers out there for it. As for inodes, in DOS/Windows speak this is
the
> > cluster size, smaller clusters being more efficient on space, e.g. using
a
> > cluter size (or inode density) of 32K means that a file of 1 byte big
will
> > use 32K on the disk, no other file may use this cluster. I once resized
a
> > dos partition from 1031MB to 1019MB, this reduced the cluster size by
half
> > (dos doesn't give you options on clusters, just uses the smallest it can
> > cope with), although reducing my capacity by 11MB it freed over 100MB of
> > space..
>
> No. inodes aren't anything to do with cluster size.  inodes say *how
> many files you can have* on a partition, cluster size or block size
> say how much space a 1 byte file will take.

Point taken, but FAT/VFAT/FAT32 and NTFS have no concept of this, they go by
clusters and that determines the maximum number of files that be held on a
disk.

--
------------------------------------------------------------
trevor@easynet.co.uk
http://www.trevor.easynet.co.uk

Richard Caley <spt@cstr.ed.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:eyh7lgubgxi.fsf@liddell.cstr.ed.ac.uk...
>
> So, which VxD do I need to delete and replace? Whatever a VxD is.

What whatever would I need to replace to cure the hang upon bootup of linux
on my PC? It doesn't even tell me it's crashed.

> It would be better if the message didn't apear at all, `has performed
> and illegal instruction' is vacuous and `will be terminated' is about
> to become very very obvious. Remove the message and at least everyone
> would be saved the bother of looking at the message to be sure it's
> not something useful and a mouse click to dismiss it.

A better message was in Win 3.1 (Unexpected Application Error), the the
program closed, users complained, each version of Windows has a different
message, UAE, GPF, IPF because users didn't like the message, what a f***ing
waste of time people spend on the message when it's the actual crash we
should be worried about.

> So you are doing the work the system and applications should do for
> you? I thought even Microsoft programs had got the idea of autosave by
> now.

They do for Word, I've used Word since version 2.0 and version 5.0 for DOS,
Winword 2.0 had autosave.

In article <86t3fp$grt$1@quince.news.easynet.net>,
Trevor Best <trevor@besty.org.uk> wrote:

>But an acronym of what it does, Get Regular Expression and Print.

Close... it's actually a representation of the "ed" command

  g/re/p

where "re" is some regular expression.  "p" does indeed mean print,
but the "g" is for global.

This is one of Usenet's most frequently asked questions, or at least
it was until "where can I get nude pictures of Cindy Crawford" came
along.

-- Richard
-- 
Spam filter: to mail me from a .com/.net site, put my surname in the headers.

"The Internet is really just a series of bottlenecks joined by high
speed networks." - Sam Wilson

> Grep is an application name. No more obscure than Excel or
> Outlook.
>
Point taken, I thought it was a command. 
When I first got a PC and Dos 3.? It came with a file called DosHelp 
which listed all the commands, detailed their uses and syntax, with 
which I taught myself what I know. Subsequent editions of Dos and 
windows came with help files containing instructions I can understand. 
Not so Linux. When I started to get fed up with W3.1 I bought the 
Walnut Creek Linux. No wonder it was called Slackware. After 3 attempts 
at a coherent install and about 36 hours of sweat I finally got what 
appeared to be a prompt. I tried several commands and bashed keys at 
random in frustration. All I managed to get was a message which read "I 
bought some batteries, but they weren't included". Someone up Walnut 
Creek certainly had a sense of humour.
Of course, it's what you're used to. I hate driving my wife's car 
because the indicators are on the other side and I keep switching the 
wipers on to turn left. I dread to think of the similar mistakes to be 
made while working two different operating systems. I've invested much 
dosh in W95 software, and Linux software is not exactly free to someone 
with dial-up access who pays his own phone bill. 
I do admire the principles under which Linux has come into being, I 
wish it well andhope one day to be able to use it. In fact I have 
RedHat 6 on my PC, but I've made little progress with it. It's just too 
unintuitive and time consuming. W98 is second nature to me and runs the 
programs that get my work done.
Stuart Grant

> Go look in your dictionary. The fact that you're habituated to them
> doesn't remove them from the technobabble category.
>
I'm used, ok habituated, to interpreting meanings according to the 
context of their use. Anyone who took semantics as literally as you do 
here would have an upside down view of the other tv channel for 
starters:-)

> So, which VxD do I need to delete and replace? Whatever a VxD is.
>
You don't. Whatever goes haywire does so in RAM, and can be reloaded in 
its correct form from ROM, along with everything else, with a 30 second 
re-boot. If it happened every 10 minutes it would indeed be a nuisance, 
but to me at least, it doesn't.

> So you are doing the work the system and applications should do for
> you? I thought even Microsoft programs had got the idea of autosave by
> now.
They do, even Wordperfect 3 for Dos did that about 10 years ago. But I 
prefer to choose for myself when to save. I don't always like the 
changes I make to a file and often revert to saved.

> Assuming it was big eneough to get past the power supply and any
> precautions, cause the machine to reboot. What do you expect, fire in
> the hold?
ISTR receiving dire warnings about hard resets in Linux from an 
extremely helpful and knowledgable chap who once tried to teach me Linux 
by email. Not so?

> If you're in that kind of area I'd have expected it would pay to buy a
> UPS or switch to a laptop (and hence get the advantage of a battery)
> How much time to you lose and what is your time worth?
The blips are about a second in duration and I get 2 or 3 a month. They 
cost me a minute or two each time, not enough to justify the cost of a 
UPS. It's easy enough to hit Ctrl+S every few minutes.
Stuart Grant

Stuart Grant <sg@cwcom.net> writes:

> > Grep is an application name. No more obscure than Excel or
> > Outlook.
> >
> Point taken, I thought it was a command. 

A command is just a call to invoke a program.

A program is the same as an application.






-- 
Richard Watson
rwatson@pwdltd.co.uk
Pentagon Web Design Ltd

* Stuart Grant wrote:

>> So you are doing the work the system and applications should do for
>> you? I thought even Microsoft programs had got the idea of autosave by
>> now.
> They do, even Wordperfect 3 for Dos did that about 10 years ago. But I 
> prefer to choose for myself when to save. I don't always like the 
> changes I make to a file and often revert to saved.

That's right -- they have half the idea of autosave but they haven't
yet worked out that you should save the changes *somewhere else* than
the main file.  Oh well.

--tim

Tim Bradshaw <tfb@cley.com> wrote in message
news:ey3emb1caua.fsf@cley.com...

> That's right -- they have half the idea of autosave but they haven't
> yet worked out that you should save the changes *somewhere else* than
> the main file.  Oh well.

If that's such a problem then explain to me why if I save a document in
Word, then don't save it for a while (let autosave do it) and then pull the
plug, next time I open the document it is a recovered version, I can carry
on with that or revert back to my last save.

> That's right -- they have half the idea of autosave but they haven't
> yet worked out that you should save the changes *somewhere else* than
> the main file.  Oh well.
>
And what's your brain for?
Stuart Grant

> ROM? What modern desktop compuers use ROM? 
> PCs certainly don't.
>
Read Only Memory - one of the first technical terms I learned, and 
still a pretty accurate description of what a hard drive does. My PC's 
still got one of those.
You call them compuers these days do you? About what I'd expect from 
someone who thinks of other people as entities and refers to them as 
"it".
Stuart Grant

* Trevor Best wrote:

> If that's such a problem then explain to me why if I save a document in
> Word, then don't save it for a while (let autosave do it) and then pull the
> plug, next time I open the document it is a recovered version, I can carry
> on with that or revert back to my last save.

Ah, that's because it saves lots of versions in the document isn't it?
So when you mail it to someone they can use strings and grep to find
the bits you didn't want them to read (see RISKS passim...).

--tim

* Stuart Grant wrote:
>> That's right -- they have half the idea of autosave but they haven't
>> yet worked out that you should save the changes *somewhere else* than
>> the main file.  Oh well.
>> 
> And what's your brain for?

Huh?  Are you suggesting I should remember all the changes?  or
manually `autosave' to a different file?  I find a working autosave
system combined with a version control system if need be do both those
much better than I ever could. I'm confused.

--tim