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Friday, November
3, 2000
Jerry,
It has been my experience that most visible members
(especially the loudest and shrillest) of a movement are far from
representative. In fact, the set of "movers and shakers" of the
movement (that is those who have broad influence within the movement) is
almost entirely disjoint with the set of those who do the most flaming.
For example, last year when I wrote an article for
Slashdot, I got hundreds of flames in public - but I also got hundreds of
private emails, all but one of which was courteous and polite. Many of the
flames came from people who were just spouting off, and didn't really know
what they were talking about, whereas many of the polite emails came from
people who had been in similar situations and who had experienced what I
was talking about first hand. I feel that a lot of the flaming is really
just primate dominance instincts at work, marking territory and pissing on
trees - and as such, I expect it to make sense more from a purely
emotional level than I would trying to interpret it literally.
In the case of Linux, I have long observed that
those who spend their time actually doing work to benefit the Linux
community (e.g. writing code and documentation) are too busy to spend
their time flaming. Those who spend their time flaming have typically
contributed little to the community. There are of course exceptions to
this rule - occasionally you find individuals with so much zealotry and
copious free time that they can both flame and code, but this is
relatively rare IMHO.
There is also a "tradition" or
"bias" in the Linux community that the latter group - i.e. those
who spend their time flaming, and not coding - are to be ignored, or even
discouraged. Linux enthusiasts will seldom waste their time listening to
someone who isn't a coder or other form of contributor. It is extremely
rare for someone to become respected in the Linux community on the
strength of their words alone - no one would take Richard Stallman
seriously if he hadn't written Emacs. Lawrence Lessig (a legal scholar)
and Andrew Leonard (a journalist) are about the only exceptions to this
rule I know of, and their roles are hotly debated by many.
I don't want to make any excuses for Linux Today
(which I read regularly), except to say that I'm surprised that they let
that story through their editorial filters. I suggest you write to them
and demand they print a retraction. Such an action would likely result in
increased due diligence at Linux Today - you'd be doing us all a favor.
With respect to office suites: At the moment, the
office suite of choice for Linux is KOffice (http://www.koffice.org),
which is part of the KDE 2.0 (http://www.kde.org) project. The stable
version has just been released as of a few weeks ago, so you'll have to
wait a little while before it is incorporated into the major Linux
distributions. But I highly recommend you checking it out as soon as you
can - it is much less heavy than StarOffice, yet is very full featured.
Which brings me to another point: I have recently
been moving away from using Red Hat Linux, and switching over to some of
the other Linux distributions. Talking to other Linux users and comparing
experiences, I realized that Red Hat seems more and more oriented towards
the "enterprise" market, and has a number of complexities which
stem from that. I found adminstrating my Red Hat system to be more
difficult than I wanted. Therefore, I would like to make you aware of some
of the other alternatives that are available. For example, if your primary
interest is in Desktop computing, I would go with Mandrake Linux (http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/)
which concentrates on ease of use and graphical interfaces. If you are
more interested in business applications, then Caldera (http://www.caldera.com/)
is probably the best distribution. For the person who already has some
amount of unix experience, I recommend Debian - of all the Linux
distributions I have tried, it is the least cluttered and easiest to
administrate at a low level.
I would recommend you getting a copy of Mandrake
Linux 7.2 when it comes out, which should be very soon. This will have KDE,
KOffice, and a complete desktop environment including web browser, file
manager, email, calender, spreadsheet, contact manager, drawing program,
and hundreds of similar programs.
-- Talin (Talin@ACM.org)
"I am life's flame. Respect my name. www.sylvantech.com/~talin
My fire is red, my heart is
gold. www.hackertourist.com/talin
Thy dreams can be...believe in me,
If you will let my wings unfold..." -- Heather Alexander
Thanks for the sanity. As to asking for a
retraction, my observation in View that the piece was libel on its face
got an email inviting me to sue; I suspect they would welcome the
publicity. I fear you have a higher regard for their regard for
journalistic integrity than I do. Of course I am always extremely
reluctant to go to the law. Niven and I have refrained on far weightier
matters with real money at stake because, as Niven put it, if we had
wanted to spend our lives in courtrooms we would have been lawyers. I fear
that you regular readers of Linux Today will have to bear with their
editorial system, and either endure it or correct it without my aid. I
really see no point in communicating with people who publish articles with
that headline.
Roland wants me to experiment with a number of
new Linux versions; and of course what sparked all this was my showing how
you can get the entire OFFICE SUITE running on a Linux workstation,
letting you do all the Linux things as well as have Office available. That
point seems to have been missed by the Linux Today children. I'll continue
to look at what the rest of us can do with Linux and other alternatives.
It is what I have done for over 20 years now.
Subject: Linux, Unix, and such
Hello Dr. Pournelle:
I feel a need to respond to your comment on the Linux culture. This is
something that I have been noticing for a while, and I am reassured to
hear someone else say it. The penguin thing is cute, and all of the baby
talk titles for the various interfaces and utilities bring a smile, at
first. Eventually all of this begins to grate on one's nerves, though. It
seems that many of these people are old "hackers" who long for
the lost days of incomprehensible computers, and operating systems,
accompanied by cryptic applications, which worked when they were in the
mood. The others seem to be those who are too young to have been a part of
all of that, but wax nostalgic over it, and see this as their second
chance. Naturally all of these people dislike Microsoft, which, to an
extent, brought us out of that era, and introduced the computer to the
world as an appliance like device, for the home, and the casual user. I
share some of this mindset, as I too am a bit disappointed in the dumbing
down of computers, but the world moves along. We may all look back a bit
misty eyed at the old time cars, and the "golden age" of the
automobile, but surely, none of us wants to go back to the old hand
cranked, smelly, and rough riding cars of a few generations back.
I suspect that this is the computer world's version
of the person who's politics would move him to vote for Ralph Nader, and
the Greens. In the same way that the Nader supporters dislike the
Republicans, and feel sold out by the Democrats, the Linux people loath
Microsoft, and feel that Apple has sold them out by turning their formerly
beloved Mac, into a rather pricey business machine (in designer colors).
It makes no difference that much of the Linux software is buggy, and that
set up and configuration is not quite ready for the average user. These
people are rebels, after all, and they are unimpressed with those of us
who meekly tread the paths of stable, easy to use, mainstream systems. It
is worth sacrificing a bit of utility to be one of the chosen few, and
heaven help the infidel who dares to criticize or find fault. You do not
tread lightly on the center of a person's belief system, whether that
center is Jehovah, Allah, Buddha, or Linux.
A big factor in the Linux movement, may also be
simple tight fistedness. Many of the hacker types, who are big Linux
supporters, are the same types who cheerfully copy, and crack software
packages. I am not writing here of the responsible users (of which I like
to include myself) but of the many, who grab a Linux distribution for free
off the net, install it, and then set themselves up as part of an elite. I
have the latest version of Redhat on one of my machines at home, and I
must say that I like it, but I would not be so happy with it, if this were
my one and only machine. I had enormous difficulty configuring it for my
network, and installing the sound card. I also had a degree of difficulty
with the install as a whole. It took me three attempts at loading the
system for me to get everything working acceptably well. Open source
software, is an intriguing, and very appealing idea, in theory. In
practice, you can not expect the same level of accountability from open
source, that you can from fully tested, supported, and paid for software.
I do network administration, and some development work here, and we have
tried using Linux in place of the SGI Unix we use in our products. This
was done for simple reasons of cost. It is not yet dependable enough, and
after testing, we decided against it. I have heard people make the claim
that Linux is at least as stable, as any version of Unix, if not more so.
I can only relate our own experience, which has been that it is not. Add
to this, this fact that Linux is not supported in the same manner as Unix,
or the Microsoft products, and you see it for what it is --- an
enthusiast's OS, with a great deal of potential. I hope this is not taken
as a condemnation of Linux. I like Linux, and enjoy playing with it, but I
do not use it for any serious work, nor do I use it for routine tasks.
The big attraction of Linux, at least initially, is
the prospect of having a cheap (free) Unix clone, on which to practice,
and learn. Even this, is no longer the attraction that it once was. Sun is
now selling media kits for Solaris 8, at a cost of $75. This is real Unix,
and includes Samba, Star Office, and a number of other add ons, including
Oracle 8. This is a full kit with cds, manuals, tech support and the
works. This is little different, in cost, to what some of the Linux kits
are selling for. Most Linux applications can be ported over to Unix, and
there are thousands of Unix applications out there. There was, for a time,
a kit for Solaris 7, which was available for about $30. I am not certain
that it is still out there, but for the extra money, I would probably go
with the newer version anyway. All of this software is available for the
Intel, or SPARC hardware platforms. In most cases, the kits will contain
versions for both. The Sun OS is very stable, and we have servers here
that go for months at a time without being shut down. The shut downs tend
to be for hardware maintenance, or service, and I am unaware of any of our
servers having crashed. Sun's website is at www.sun.com . Links there will
take you to the download sites. There is also a flourishing freeware, and
shareware community for Solaris, and I wonder if it may not give Linux a
real run for it's money. The Solaris kit is identical to the version we
have running on our servers here at work. I have it installed on a Pentium
II machine, and can see no difference. Those who are enthusiastic about
Linux, may wish to give the Intel version of Solaris a try, particularly
since much (if not all) Linux software will run on it (including the GNOME
GUI). Actually, Linux enthusiasts would be well advised to check out Sun's
web site. The company is allaying itself with the serious Linux community
in a big way.
In the meantime, don't let these people bother you.
I read the article, and it is difficult to take seriously. There are
people in the world who consider that any opinion which might differ from
their own, can only be the result of ignorance, bad intentions, or
dishonesty. Generally, this is confined to arguments over politics (of
which there are many right now), but it seems as if the I.T. world is not
immune from such things. What makes this even less creditable, is the fact
that it seems your opinion of Linux is not all that far from their's, had
they bothered to read and understand it. Possibly they are shills for
LInux, after all, why else would they hold the opinions that they do?
Neal
http://home.earthlink.net/~notpurfect
Thank you. I don't let them bother me much. And
as you say, if you take away the sheer childishness of their blather,
their views aren't all that different from mine.
Interesting about the SUN OS UNIX being available
at low cost. Perhaps an adult company like SUN will help considerably.
The following was apparently posted on one of the
Linux conferences, but it was also sent to me by the author:
I am not terribly knowledgeable about Linux.
I've been playing with it on and off for 9 years or
so.
I haven't been able to use it to do my day-to-day
work. Not for WordProcessing, E-Mail or Web Browsing.
The Learning curve is just too steep.
And it doesn\'t have to be that way at all.
BeOS which is a much younger OS, was usable to me
right out of the box. I have a companion system running BeOS 4.5 (I
haven\'t upgraded yet to the newest version).
I use the Built-in e-mail and web browser
(primitive, but usable). I\'ve downloaded Opera for BeOS and Postmaster,
and they work great.
I\'ve played with AbiWord on BeOS, and that works
well considering how early in the development cycle it still is.
The best time I had using Linux was with an old
version of Slackware with Kernel 1.3, running Executor and the Mac Version
of Microsoft Office.
That ran ok on a 486 DX4 100 mhz system with 32mb of
RAM.
But that was 6 years ago.
I have a lot more experience using Unix System V on
NCR boxes. Not all of which transfers over to Linux. Especially since that
system was text only on VT-100 Terminals, no GUI or X.
My Atari-ST system is MUCH more usable to me than
Linux with 1st-Word or WordPerfect.
The bottom line is, that Linux is a great OS. But it
requires real knowledge and skill to use. Somewhat like a manual
transmission car. Most people prefer to drive Automatic Transmission cars
because they are easier to drive.
At some point, Linux will need a layer which dumbs
it down and makes it easy for the everyday user to operate. The advanced
user can still get behind that layer and run the thing manually.
I think MacOS X will come a long way towards this
ideal.
I enjoy Jerry\'s columns and have for years. I
usually agree with his opinions.
I think Microsoft has taken the wrong path with
it\'s products. They are making them more Rube Goldberg-ian and ponderous
with each release.
If Microsoft truly cared, each release would be
smaller, faster and more bug-free. It seems beyond reason that I have a
computer 100\'s of times faster than my first 4.77mhz PC (My very first
system being a TRS-80 Model I at 1 mhz Z-80), and the system as a whole is
no more productive.
I spend more time managing my system now than at any
time in the past.
In the DOS days, it just worked. Now I have to be a
heavily knowledgeable user to get regular work done.
Linux is basically cobbled-together software. The
whole development model for it is that someone needs some piece of
functionality. They hack away at it until it works well enough for them,
and then they stop.
This is the whole point of open-sourced software.
There is no great call for people to polish O.S. software to a commercial
level. And for the most part, that is what Linux is...
Working but unpolished.
The same can be said for most of the Linux Apps and
suites. Many of my friends find the G.I.M.P. VERY usable. But it is the
exception rather than the rule among Linux Apps.
I don\'t think you can fault Jerry for noticing the
state of the art of Linux apps. Or for being part of the trend to use
Microsoft Products because they do own the market.
Corel has all but given up on WordPerfect. They
haven\'t revved the Mac version, and don\'t intend to any time soon.
I\'ve been a longtime user of WordPerfect, but it
doesn\'t own 50% + of the marketplace as it used to.
Right now, Microsoft products and Wintel machines
own the market.
They do because to use Jerry\'s term, they are
\"Good Enough\".
And attacking Jerry personally seems so childish to
me.
Being that these apps are open-source, instead of
wasting time attacking Jerry.. The attackers ought to contribute code to
ease the shortcomings in those products.
That\'s the beauty of Open Source.
Regards, Al Hartman
The real point is "Good Enough." Wintel
is good enough for most of what we want to do. As I said in my column, it
now appears that Linux, with Microsoft Terminal Server and CITRIX, is good
enough to be the work stations for offices that don't want to run
Microsoft Windows workstations: you get the functionality of OFFICE plus
whatever additional utility Linux provides. I thought that was an
interesting thing to report.
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