kb6vdo's Profile

Dear Savanna, You kind of hit the nail squarely, when you pointed out that Linux must "step up to plate" and produce a very good, and clean GUI desktop. KDE and Gnome have come a long way toward this goal, as you know. The individual distibutions such as Yos, Mepis, even old Mandrake, to a much lesser degree, have done this pretty well. Knoppix an Ubuntu are well on the way to spreading the "good word" about Linux being easy to use in the GUI mode. Unfortunately (?) for the average computer or PC user, if there is one, command line control is the easy way to fix things. It is also, in my opinion the best way to write code for doing some what tedious computer or computational tasks. One of the strongest points about Linux is there is something there for just about every one. The real problem with "converting the masses" is people are happy with doing things the Microscam way, even with all its drawbacks. Linux, in my considered opinion, will never go away, just get better with time. On the other hand as James Stoup points out in his next article (after the one above), on this same site, Microscam is, most likely, doomed to lose its market share. I will add: unless Microscam changes its ways regarding its very poor software James Stoup is correct. Apple will always be there, in my opinion, however, you may own equal to or better for less money, if money is important to you. Just keep in mind, all computer programs have bugs, finding and fixing them is the difficult part. Sorry but I am just another one of those poor, ignorant, dis-illusioned Linux users who grew up in a sequential fashion using the following boxes Smoke Signals, ATARI ST, NeXT, PCs with DOS then Windoze, finally Linux on PCs. I like Apple, but it is kind of expensive for me. Thank you for your comments. Jim Mills

Dear James Stout, I like what you have said, but feel that it may be, somewhat, misinformed; not too far off. It is, more or less, what I would expect to hear from a person who runs, largely, commercial software. GNU Linux is free software made by folks who do not necessarily get paid for what they do (monetarily, that is). Linux has several, many, different distributions, and each has strong points, as well as weak points. Many use Debian Linux as a basis for their particular distribution and each accomplishes different goals even though some of these goals are not very different from each other. Not every automobile user likes Ford, or Toyota automobiles, for example. I suppose it is only natural in the free software community to expect to find different distributions in use for different folks. Therefore, converging such distributions would be tantamount to Microscam welding its "engine's" bonnet shut; worse, there would be only one distribution to consider. Charging for the product will violate the GNU/GPL free ware license; this will not happen in the Linux community. BSD Unix handles this free-ware venture for those who like to pay for their operating systems(OS), and run Unix/Linux like OS. BSD Unix can be copy written or patented by any manufacturer once a change has been made by such a manufacturer. Also such changes are not required to be returned to the BSD Unix community as free ware, as would happen with any Linux modifications; Linux source code must be available to all. BSD Unix runs almost if not the same as Linux, perhaps, not quiet as well; beauty is in the eyes of beholder. The pay for use of free soft ware is contributions by those who are qualified to contribute by making successful, reliable, and documented modifications. This Linux community has a system of checks and balances (For example,Woody, Sarge, and Sid for stable, testing and unstable Linux kernels.). It is important to note that changes must be approved by qualified select journeymen who accept or reject such changes. What could be better than this? Autocracy => Microscam? Not in our fore-see-able future! Bug reports also provide a wonderful source for code corrective information. This source of data is perhaps larger than you might, causally, believe, and is invaluable to serious Linux distribution design-build entities. Standardization may, perhaps, already be accomplished. Linus Torvalds wrote the original Linux kernel (~1991), and it is yet the standard today. I understand that kernel replacement by it will run any modern legitimate Linux distro? However, since Linus Torvalds wrote this kernel there have been many new features added to both the desktop and server operations which are now available and were not there at the time Linus wrote this Linux kernel. (For example, wireless Internet connections are now widely available. However, this is not primarily a kernel function, it is usually included inside each Linux distribution's initialization script.) One of the greatest attributes of Linux is: If you do not like it, then fix it! Try this with windoze or Apple. There is no warranty from Linux to worry about. It is clear to me that you already know a great deal about Unix and Unix-like operating systems. Based on this assumption, you should become an active member of the Linux contributors community and enjoy the benefits of learning new and exciting computer soft ware useful tools. Join with us and have fun! One of the the strongest points of Linux and GNU, in general, is that modern computer usage research continues on a 24-7 operational basis for this world-wide community, literally, by thousands, if not millions, of Linux users. File transfers, and commercial operating system repair is also easily accomplished with, for example, a Linux run-from-a-CD distribution: Knoppix. Ask any system administrator who has had problems with repair of frozen OS or heavily virus infected windoze boxes who used Knoppix to fix the problem. For one, I really appreciate and welcome your comments and hope that you will consider becoming an active member of this wonderful GNU community. Thank you for "stirring the pot". Respectfully yours, Jim Mills PS. I have apache server/s running, which come with most Linux distributions; free for the download (Because you mentioned servers in your piece.).