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Having dabbled in Debian in the mid-late-90s, I seem to remember reading
a lot of HOWTOs - I assume that kind of thing is still around and still
the "official" way to fight with non-beaten-path items.
Of course, being recently divorced at the time gave me a lot of time!!
Vern
Paul Tuohy wrote:
Depends on what you mean by "ready for prime time" :-)--
As someone else pointed out, if you are looking for a standard desktop
then IMHO Linux is ready to go. Supported software is a LOT easier to
install than on Windoze - when the added benefit that it is not going to
screw the registry. I do agree that it gets very ugly very quickly when
you veer from the beaten track. But, at least for the developer, there
are somewhat recognizable paths you are veering onto.
What it really comes down to is whether or not the software/hardware is
supported in the OS. Of course the key word here is "supported". And the
question is how many suppliers are supporting Linux as opposed to the
open source community developing generic drivers/finding a way to get
software working.
Obviously, when it comes to i, IBM is NOT supporting Linux. The only
reason I still need to use Windoze (in Virtualbox) is to use Navigator
and WDSC/RDi/RSE. BTW I gave up on trying to get the Linux version of
Client Access to work - way too much effort for the minimal return it
offers. I find TN5250J to be a much better emulator and for the rest
there is my VM.
Given the choice between Windoze, Linux and Mac... let me rephrase that,
given the choice between Linux and Mac... it all depends on whether or
not you already have a Mac. Is the difference between Mac and Linux
worth the 2/3K I need to spend to buy a Mac? My little old Dell D620
just got a whole new lease of life thanks to Ubuntu - and all it cost me
was about the same length of time as the Windoze rebuild was going to
cost me - and it was a lot of fun and an "interesting" learning
experience along the way.
Regards
Paul Tuohy
ComCon
www.comconadvisor.com
www.systemideveloper.com
Jon Paris wrote:
Some of my "spare" time the last couple of days has been spent playing
with Ubunu - not the very latest version (which is probably called
"Randy Rhino" or something equally interesting but meaningless) and I
am reminded of the line from the Longfellow poem ... "When she was
good she was very very good, but when she was bad she was horrid."
I'm of course comparing it with Mac and it does seem to me that the
two are fairly comparable in some ways but ... when there is no
install package (or it is apparently not sufficiently automated) boy
do things get ugly quickly!
Case in point I had downloaded the iSeries Access a while back and
decided to have a try with that - after much messing about and
Googling I eventually worked out the commands to install it. But
there were no dialogs, nothing has been added to any menus, zilch. So
I dig and google and dig some more but I cannot get the #@$% thing to
run - all I get in the terminal is that it can't find the executable.
I've cd'd into the directory, tried sudo, added a .bin extension, etc.
and nothing.
Similar situation with a USB turntable - wasted hours on that last
night before discovering that it failed on Windows too. Miracle of
miracles though - Windows was actually _helpful_ in the diagnostics
and we realized that the supplied cable was faulty - first bad USB
cable I've ever had. Changed cables - worked with Windows instantly.
Ubuntu - that was a different story. It finally worked after two
hours of frustration and I still haven't a clue which of the
multiplicity of settings etc. finally fixed it.
The big problem for me as a Linux/Unix newbie is what the hell to do
when things don't work. Right now that renders it impractical from a
work perspective. I need stuff to "just work" - when to make the OS
do that causes me more grief than with Windows that's when I begin to
wonder.
The strides Ubuntu in particular has made in the 2 years since I last
seriously looked at it are amazing - but for me it still doesn't seem
"ready for prime time" unless you are a Unix hack. So me - I'll be
staying with my Mac for the foreseeable future. But I will see about
using Linux for file servers etc. in the Network
Jon Paris
www.Partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com
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