Return to BSD News archive
Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.misc:4844 comp.os.linux.misc:33464 comp.os.os2.advocacy:74409 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!newshost.marcam.com!zip.eecs.umich.edu!caen!news-server!manowar From: manowar@engin.umich.edu (krisztian flautner) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.os2.advocacy Subject: Re: Linux thoroughly insulted by Infoworld! Date: 17 Jan 1995 19:55:16 GMT Organization: University of Michigan Lines: 53 Message-ID: <MANOWAR.95Jan17145517@ww.engin.umich.edu> References: <950116203411@lambada> NNTP-Posting-Host: ww.engin.umich.edu In-reply-to: ed.duomo@lambada.oit.unc.edu's message of 17 Jan 95 01:34:44 GMT I got my copy of InfoWorld today and I think that there is lot more in the column than Linux bashing. This is the bit about the underware part : "Linux - how shall we describe ir ? It is the Volkswagen Unix for the PC. It's the layman's Unix. It's underware. (...) We classify Linux as an underware because, technically, we can't call it shareware or freeware, especially if we're talking about one of the professionally supported, licensed versions of Linux such as our copy of Slackware Linux from Morse Telecommunications Inc. So we've arbitrarily ranked it at some nebulous level below commercial software, at least as far as how it is developed, maintained, updated, and supported." Part about comparing Linux users to Amiga users : "In fact, Linux users have a dogged enthusiasm for their product unmatched even by thepassion of followers of the, well, the "A" word. (Psst ! It's a machine once sold by a company with a name that sounds something like "commode door" -- wink wink, nudege nudge). This is what he says they looked at Linux in the first place : "Just between us, our target readership generally doesn't want to risk using underware in a mission-critical environment, so we wouldn't normally look at an operating system like Linux. But we are just the sort of rabble to champion the cause of a piece of really good underware if it's appropriate, so we're taking a look at Linux in our product comparisons of Internet gateways." He then goes on to describe how they screwed up the installation and that they thought that the network disk was needed to install the network part of Linux but in fact it is only needed when Linux is installed from the network. Also the author mentions that there are too many optional pieces at installation, they were pleasantly surprised by support for the 3C509 network card, they like the color coded output of ls and they had a bit of trouble trying to install X support from the CD. Note that almost everything criticised in the column is a critique of the installation process but even then the author says that "We admit, the installation is going more smoothly than what we'd expect from an underware product. Most of the problems aren't anything a little extra documentation wouldn't fix." So this is it. The column will continue next week. The column was written by Nicholas Petreley. Personally, I did not find the column too out of touch, nor too insulting. Especially if you consider the reviews that InfoWorld gives about other OS's. Later, -- Kris