RE: Random thoughts - A spanner in the works

[Nathan Dietsch <ndietsch@mse.com.au>]

Oracle,

I agree Gary - but many people dont care too much about licence
agreements "sure borrow my disks - can I have them back
tomorrow"? I know I used to do that (all the stuff on this computer
is legal!!!!!!!)
Peter

This is where the training course (mentioned a couple of posts back) may come 
into it. If they realise they are gaining skills that really sell, UNIX Admin = 
$, then they will learn Linux. This is more appropriate in domain of computers 
for the unemployed, but I think it still stands.

Terry commented, all X needs is about 16 MB RAM, if we could supply machines 
with this config it seems that you would have one half the race. Netscape has a 
lot of features, but it very heavy. gzilla, while being a little thin on, is 
very light at the moment. X + gzilla could do the job on a 16 MB Machine.

ppl use Windows because it is easy and software is available readily, eg "can I 
borrow your disks" as outlined above. Provide a properly configured Linux 
machine with everything they need and they will use it.

With X machines, the command line causes problems, starting an xterm just to 
start netscape is a pain, we need something like the run box in doze, I know of 
a few project to implement it.

Another issue is, how are all these parts being tracked? Is there a database of 
some kind? It is easy to keep track of whole computers, but what If I have 
every part bar one, maybe a video card. A searchable database of some kind, 
with a web or telnet interface would be great. I have database experience in 
the windows world (Access, SQL Server, etc ) but not in Linux. I am keen to do 
some work in the Linux arena, is such a project on the cards already?

I can see a lot of requests like "does anyone have a X?"clogging the list, with 
a database you would just have to fire up a browser and run soem queries, 
locate the parts by their owner and you can get all the parts you need. 
Submission of available parts via the web.

Nathan