Re: [seul-edu] resend- Linux -- the Free, Fast OS Still Has a Long Way to Go. (full text attached)

[Manuel Gutierrez Algaba <algaba@gmx.net>]

At 06:43 a.m. 06/08/01 -0700, you wrote:
>A commentary that is a bit rough reading, but worth reading for some.
>(With the text below there is no need to fight GeoCities pop-ups)
>
>Bill
>
>  http://www.geocities.com/netmaniac00/linprobs.html
>
>Are we there yet?
>A member of the Linux Users Group raises issues that need to be dealt with
>before The Penguin can claim the coveted OS top spot.

It's the top spot . POINT.


>Desktop Dilemmas
>
>There still exists a scarcity of applications.

Yeah, only a couple of dozen of thousands, from spreadsheets, to drawing 
programms,
to cd burners, to educational soft,...
By definition, any Java app can run in Linux, how many Java app are out there ?

>Major projects such as the
>Mozilla Web  browser, the Nautilus file manager, the Evolution mailer, and
>the KOffice suite, all of which were expected to release stable versions by
>the middle of last year [2000], aren't here yet. Until they deliver, Linux
>isn't desktop material.

Don't tell me, I've used Netscape 4.7 for years , and pine ,.... which are 
far more
secure and stable than other Os'es counterparts.



>One project did deliver last year: XFree86 4.0. But it came minus all the
>functionality the hype promised. TrueType fonts are still a problem, drivers

How needs True Type, if Postscript fonts are much better ? Apart from the fact
that Wordperfect includes its own fonts.

>for older cards haven't been ported over from the older, incompatible 3.3x
>releases and new drivers aren't stable yet. I have used XFree86 4.0 on
>Mandrake 6.1 with a Trident 3DImage 9750 and with S3 Trio 3D/2X, and the
>experience has not been worth the effort of upgrading. While the driver for
>the first card consistently caused the system to reboot a few minutes after
>startup, that too without warning, the second would freeze every few days
>and require a cold boot.

Yes, some cards may give trouble, .... are you suggesting that other Os'es are
very stable with general hardware ? or just with video cards ?


>Configuration also remains a problem and features that are standard in
>Windows, such as multicolor mouse cursors and on-the-fly resolution
>switching, aren't possible yet.

Yes, I've seen such cursors, some with shapes of balls or birds,... I admit 
that Linux
hasn't got to such state of the art,...althought, thinking about it, Linux 
had dozens of
differents X cursors at the times Windows 3.1 was the star product of 
certain company.




>The X server is also superbly bloated. An X server on average requires 10 MB
>of RAM. Count in the various system daemons that are required for normal
>operation and the base GNOME programs, and you have a Linux desktop that
>will easily consume 70 MB of RAM before any application is loaded. If you
>choose not to use either GNOME or KDE (which is equally bloated), you'll
>have to forgo the desktop layout experience that is responsible for so many
>Windows users considering Linux today.


That's  a blatant lie. I had a Pentium 133 with 32 Mb , and I do live in X 
windows,
truly, I don't use GNOME, nor KDE, .... BTW, being GNOME a real CORBA, not
a  pseudo CORBA like COM from Micro$$$,  it's just a matter of time a far more
stable and steady way to build robust app. Have you tried to launch Word from
inside Lotus Notes  on a pentium 233 with 32 MB ? Yeah, yeah, I does suck...



>Sound is another issue. Cards from Creative Labs and ESS are well supported
>by the OSS/Free (Open Sound System) drivers that most distributions include,
>but if you have another card, tough luck. The ALSA project (Advanced Linux
>Sound Architecture) does, but ALSA comes minus the friendly sndconfig
>utility OSS gives you.

Well, I 'm not a multimedia guy, perhaps because I used MSDOS for many years,
while PC-Speaker and 512 kb were all that a decent man should expect to deserve
from the envisions of the rulers of the Wintel empire. De facto revolution 
in sound names
mp3 , and gnutella  free world principles and  methods being one of its 
most bravest
knights.



>Usability is another problem with existing applications too. Legacy
>applications such as Netscape which use the Motif UI tool kit, have very
>limited support for keyboard navigation. Access to most parts of a Motif
>application requires the mouse cursor. Qt, the widget library for KDE, does
>it better but isn't good enough yet. GNOME's Gtk+ meanwhile, has a problem

>that's just the opposite -- the keyboard can take you anywhere, even to the
>label buttons on a list view (like the right pane in Windows Explorer when
>in details view).


This a another (bigger ) blatant lie. Keyboard in Windows is rather unusable,
and nothing can replace a good trained shell. And what about visual tools, so
fond of the Windows environment ? Just a word to describe it: SHIT.

Windows philosophy is quite straight forward:' let's them keep them being fool'
No, definitely not, Windows encourages mouse as the main input event resource.
Really, this point doesn't deserve much time, it's almost a joke.



>Keyboard navigation is meant to work only between frequent used areas of a
>UI, to improve speed for touch typists who can press complex key
>combinations. Instead, Motif, Qt and Gtk+ all have warped keyboard support
>that makes the mouse the fastest way to navigate. And they said Linux was an
>OS for keyboard lovers.

It is, I don't know Qt and Gtk+ in full extent, but Visual-tree-oriented 
apps doesnt'
encourage typist AT ALL, nor massive text replacements, cross includes ,....


>Standard applications have their share of quirks and limitations. For
>instance, GIMP, birthplace of Gtk+ and regarded by many as a strong
>challenger to Photoshop, has a serious limitation: it does not support CMYK
>color. That means anyone in the print industry, including this magazine
>[Chip], has little or no use for it. That quickly reduces GIMP to a Web-only
>tool.

Well, if you're revising Print Industry,  Postscript is the standard there, so
TeX, and some other standard tools are there in the first front line, 
please ask
to a printing professional about typesetting a book using Word. I don't know
much about CMYK, but I guess there're conversors, more or less accurate,...
so from a Linuxish point of view is just another filter more, nothing 
important,
of course quality may suffer, but this may count on a Raphael painting 
(considering
that the photo has been made in good light conditions and properly scanned and
handled), and this (colour quality) doesn't count on some sucking ads of 
companies
in certain pseudo-computer-magazines (much more an ads magazine of products
to buy that anything else ).



>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>----
>
>Server Straits
>
>The picture isn't very rosy on the server front either. While considerably
>more mature than the desktop scene, enough issues exist to make an
>administrator reconsider carefully before deciding to migrate. To start
>with, Linux has a poor security model.

 From a Windows standard of point Linux is very unsafe, that's a great true,...
in fact, I haven't found an antivirus for Linux....


>File permissions are limited to read,
>write and execute, and can be applied only to the 'file's owner', 'group',
>and 'everyone else'. There is no way to specify that a group of users A has
>read, write and delete rights, group B has read and write but no delete,
>group C has only read rights, and everyone else, no rights at all. There is
>also no way to explicitly deny rights to a member of group D, when that user
>acquired rights via group A or B (users can belong to multiple groups).

Yeah, Windows have innovated in this field, as always does in just any field.
I do remember a remarkable app whose name was Back Orifice, it allows
to read, write and f**k whatever you wanted, and not only you, but what
other people wanted to .



>This complexity becomes necessary when an administrator delegates
>responsibility to sub-administrators. Currently, delegating such
>administrative responsibility requires sharing the root account, which is
>providing too much power to a sub-administrator.

It's safer to delegate responsability to desk help Microsoft clerks, and to
expect that SQL server or other is not stealing or sending critical info
about your company to unwanted individuals or companies.
Windows is nice to delegate to the unknown forces of the closed source code.


>These limitations are tackled very well by sudo (DO as SuperUser), which
>provides for fairly flexible security, but has a problem -- security belongs
>in kernel space, while sudo is a user-space implementation, limited to
>controlling executable permissions. This makes it impossible to integrate
>with security settings in large applications like Samba, the file server.
>The Linux ACL (Access Control List) project is working on fixing this by
>attaching extra permission settings to each file. Preliminary results are
>available in the newer 2.2 series kernels, but reliable ACL-based security
>won't make an appearance until 2.4. Linux 2.4 (also delayed) is promising to
>fix a number of other issues too. Plug and play does not work that way yet,
>and WinModems don't work at all.

How many Os'es can work with dozen of file systems at the same time ?
Perhaps, I don't know, the leader of the innovation : Windows,... which in 
their
2015 will discover symbolic links, "INNOVATION UBER ALLES".

>  Despite all arguments, WinModems are
>usually the only affordable choice for students (phone bills are the
>parents' problem). But even though 2.4 will have the framework, someone will
>still have to write drivers.

You can have a real modem for less than a license of certain OS'es.


>Samba too has its share of problems. Shares are specified in a single
>smb.conf file that can be edited only by root, making it impossible for
>non-privileged users to share their folders.
>
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>----
>
>Community Capers
>
>Even while these issues continue to plague us, community members have
>started to express fundamentalist viewpoints. Last July saw me [the author]
>in an intense debate with several members of the Mumbai LUG (Linux Users
>Group) over whether Linux being free meant anything at all to a company that
>could afford to pay for commercial software.


Yeah, oh you rebels that resist to the empire, pay your (Microsoft) taxes, 
don't
resist any more,...


>Later in the year, a disagreement over control of the linux.org.in domain
>became opportunity for slinging mud at people who were working on improving
>the community. The OS is continuing to evolve and issues are being fixed all
>the time, but the community's 'we're-the-best' beliefs are not helping any.
>If you like Linux, by all means promote it, but not by denouncing the
>competition or attacking fellow users.

We attack ourselves just to train, our goals are the non-Linuxers, we need to
recover them from that computer-sect, to show them that they don't need to pay
more to get less.


>Linux needs working on, and you can
>help. The list of issues above is just a sampler. Several projects need
>coders; go to www.sourceforge.net and find a project you like. Or if you
>can't code, many items also need technical writers, beta testers, etc., and
>lots of moral support. Find your place and work on making a difference.
>Whatever you do, please don't ever express your support by going around
>declaring that Linux is the best.

Yes, it'd be better to express that Windows is the best,.... at the very 
least it pays
the salaries of many computer magazines every month .


God, bless them!

|Kiran Jonnalagadda
>kiran_jonnalagadda@jasubhai.com
>
>in Chip Magazine, January 2001.

Dear Kiran, you should propose the Computer Inquisition, to burn those 
nasty Os'es in pires...
The truth is only one, and I'm the only owner of it.

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MGA