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From: mmead@Glock.COM (matthew c. mead)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Slight flame from Linux user
Date: 04 Jun 1995 05:36:08 GMT
Organization: Goofs R Us
Lines: 77
Message-ID: <MMEAD.95Jun4013608@Glock.COM>
References: <3ql3gd$je2@bell.maths.tcd.ie> <D9K4Iz.BJM@midway.uchicago.edu>
<3qo2af$nqo@bell.maths.tcd.ie> <3qq5i8$2jj@anshar.shadow.net>
<3qqotb$sla@hamilton.maths.tcd.ie>
NNTP-Posting-Host: glock.com
NNTP-Posting-User: mmead
In-reply-to: tim@maths.tcd.ie's message of 3 Jun 1995 23:49:15 +0100
Matthew C. Mead -> Virginia Tech Center for Transportation Research -
-> Multiple Platform System and Network Administration
Work Related -> mmead@ctr.vt.edu | mmead@goof.com <- All Other
---- ------- WWW -> http://www.goof.com/~mmead --- -----
In article <3qqotb$sla@hamilton.maths.tcd.ie> tim@maths.tcd.ie (Timothy Murphy) writes:
> dwhite@anshar.shadow.net (Don Whiteside) writes:
> >: >People who aren't ready to get their hands dirty shouldn't
> >: >be installing or administering Unix.
> >: Fortunately, your patronising attitude does not seem typical
> >: of FreeBSD people;
> > I don't think such a comment is patronizing at all - it's at least
> >unrealistic and at worst outright foolish to expect installation of an OS
> >as complicated as Unix with as varied a device support list as FreeBSD to
> >be a full walk in the park.
> I guess your attitude, and that of the original poster,
> encapsulate for me why 10 times as many people run Linux as FreeBSD.
I don't think there's any simple answer. I think a big part of the
answer lies in the fact that Linux is a "baby of the net." It would not be
(nor would the FreeBSD) where it is without the network. It probably never
would have gotten very far. People like that, because they feel they can
be a part of it very easily. Well, it's just as easy to become part of
FreeBSD. Trying to explain why Linux is so popular is like trying to
explain why Microsoft software is of such horrible quality, yet so many
people feel they must use it.
> There is no reason at all why installing Unix should be particularly difficult.
> It's not meant to be an obstacle race.
> You sound to me like one of those people
> who thinks if they make something sound complicated enough
> everyone will think they must be terribly clever.
How exactly did you construe that from the above few paragraphs?
> The Linux Installation Guide makes starting and running Linux a pleasure.
> I didn't find it any more difficult than installing Windows.
That's good and that's bad. When something breaks, is there a
little guide which can point you through the thousands of levels of
subtleties to find the problem? No. The meaning conveyed in the response
to your post which you're quibbling about was not that it shouldn't be
available, but that if you're going to seriously run a Unix type operating
system and administer it, you damn well better know what you're doing.
> Does FreeBSD support a larger number of "devices" than Linux ?
> It didn't seem to support my Pentium/PCI chipset (SiS)
> until the latest version, 2.0.5 .
I don't know if it supports more devices. I think the only real
concern is: Does it support the devices I as a user want to use?
> I'd love to run both Linux and FreeBSD on my PC.
> I can't see why they shouldn't share the same file-system --
> but I guess I'll have to look to Linux for that.
You're probably going to have to. In a lot of people's opinion,
the GPL is ass backwards about what you can and cannot do with someone
else's "freely available" code. I'm not saying we're right; I'm just
saying that's our opinion. The GPL endorsers can bloody well have their
own opinion, but the fact that those of us don't believe in the GPL's
philosophies may mean that FreeBSD won't have GPL'd code for a function
which Berkeley licensed code performs just as adequately. GCC is a
different story since there is (to my knowledge) no free Berkeley licensed
compiler.
-matt
--
Matthew C. Mead -> Virginia Tech Center for Transportation Research -
-> Multiple Platform System and Network Administration
Work Related -> mmead@ctr.vt.edu | mmead@goof.com <- All Other
---- ------- WWW -> http://www.goof.com/~mmead --- -----