Linux

[SINNER]

While strolling through alt.comp.freeware, mike ring was overheard
plotting:

[...]

What I did wrong was not to go for the dual boot option as it
passed by me without my realising it, so I could not get into
windows without constantly using a boot disk.

Reinstalling windows did the same thing to Linux!

You could have EASILY fixed either problem without reinstalling and
then made the system dual boot properly.

So I reinstalle d linux.... more carefully.

I've doenloaded the modem finder, but I can't even find the floppy
on linux,

Its not a DRIVE in linux, its a mount point, usually /mnt/floppy

let alone if a file downloaded on a windows box would be
recognised, this is a lifetime job

The fact that Windows ASSUMES the file type because of a three letter
extension, regardless of how easy it makes things, is not necessarily a
good thing.

You say its a lifetime job, you just KNEW how to use windows the first
time you saw it? I doubt that very highly.

An Anecdote:

My Buddy buys his parents a PC, sets it up with Windows to do basic
stuff and gives a small lesson. Goes back a few days later and notices
dad sitting at the PC when suddenly he gets up and moves the monitor a
few inches, my friend asked why. The mouse had been moved to a point
where it was touching the base of the monitor and could not move any
further but the arrow on the screen wasnt where he needed it, rather
then pick up the mouse and move it, he moved the monitor to create more
space for the mouse. Why? Lack of exposure.

 

[mike ring]

You could have EASILY fixed either problem without reinstalling and
then made the system dual boot properly.

You just don't get it, do you?

No, I couldn't; if I could have I would.

What you are telling me is YOU could easily have fixed either problem
without etc, etc.

I am not you; you were not here to assist. though I doubt if you would
have.

Because I think you would not have helped, it isn't worth my listening to
you - to avoid temptation to continue this unhelpful interchange I'll
have to exclude you till this thread goes away

Bye

mike r

 

[Max]

just for a change of pace . . .

Posted in the langalist

Brooks Hatch sends along this spoof of Linux:

If Linux was a car...Sense of Humor required!

Good one Susan. As loathe as I am to admit it, it *does* sound strikingly
familiar.

Max

 

[SINNER]

* mike ring Wrote in alt.comp.freeware, on 2004-01-13:

You just don't get it, do you?

No, I couldn't; if I could have I would.

You expected the information to come to you by Osmosis maybe? Did you
even ask for help? Where? In a Windows newsgroup?

What you are telling me is YOU could easily have fixed either problem
without etc, etc.

So you're the guy who never asks for directions but rather drive in
circles for hours.

I am not you; you were not here to assist. though I doubt if you would
have.

Of course I would have except if you came in saying how much Linux
sucks and other showings of infantilism. Come in and explain your
problem clearly and you would have gotten more help then you know what
to do with. The problem is so basic that even the newbies would have
jumped at the chance to help.

Because I think you would not have helped, it isn't worth my listening to
you - to avoid temptation to continue this unhelpful interchange I'll
have to exclude you till this thread goes away

You think? How would you even know without asking? Why would I have even
bothered with this interchange if I wasn't willing to help. You don't
know me from Adam and you just proved it. I HELP for a living.

Your loss.

You should lose that thin skin if you plan to keep posting on Usenet. I
said nothing derogatory to you, you on the other hand have been nothing
but standoffish and hostile, again, your loss.

 

[John Corliss]

Richard Steven Hack wrote:




You can change this behaviour. Use e.g. X-Setup
If you trust yourself with the registry you can do it manually:

From: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/tmcd2/Shutdown.htm :

Key : HKCU \Control Panel \Desktop
Entry : HungAppTimeout
System : 95, 95+IE4.x, 98, ME, NT, 2K
Type : REG_SZ
Range : 1 to 65536
Default : 5000
Delay in milliseconds until Windows closes a task after you have
clicked on End Task. Afterwards, the system indicates that the task does
not respond any more or closes it by force if AutoEndTasks is enabled.

Key : HCKU \Control Panel \Desktop
Entry : AutoEndTasks
System : 95, 95+IE4.x, 98, ME, NT, 2K
Type : REG_SZ
Range : 0 or 1
Default : 0
1 : Speeds up Windows shutdown by closing VDM and 16-bit applications
more quickly. See also HungAppTimeout

Key : HKCU \Control Panel \Desktop
Entry : WaitToKillAppTimeout
System : 95, 95+IE4.x, 98, ME, NT, 2K
Type : REG_SZ
Range : 1 to 65536
Default : 20
Delay after which Windows considers a task does not respond any more at
shutdown. Reduce this delay to speed up shutdown.

Key : HKCU \Control Panel \Desktop
Entry : WaitToKillServiceTimeout
System : NT, 2K
Type : REG_SZ
Range : 1 to 65536
Default : 20,000
Delay after which Windows NT closes a service at shutdown. Reduce this
delay to speed up shutdown.

HTH

Neat stuff there, Sietse! Thanks.

 

[Richard Steven Hack]

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 00:19:43 GMT, SINNER

You are being a little hard on the guy. Lighten up.

 

[Richard Steven Hack]

I've doenloaded the modem finder, but I can't even find the floppy on linux,
let alone if a file downloaded on a windows box would be recognised, this is
a lifetime job

Do a Google for "Linux mtools". There's a whole set of command line
tools that mimic the DOS commands for accessing floppies - there's an
mdir, an mcopy, they even recognize A: and the like.

If it helps, you can install explore2fs which is a Windows program
that allows you to browse a Linux partition in read-only mode, so you
can search the directories, read text files, etc. from the comfort of
Windows. Get it here
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs.htm

I use is occasionally when I want to look at something on the Linux
side but don't want to bother to reboot.

Also keep in mind you can find a lot of Linux documentation in pdf
format at places like the Linux Documentation Project (although a lot
of the stuff is a bit outdated, the basics of dealing with a
UNIX/Linux system aren't), and you can browse and read that stuff from
Windows with Acrobat. The LDP is here: http://www.tldp.org/docs.html

There's also sources of tutorials - a Google will return plenty of
places to look.

 

[Richard Steven Hack]

You can change this behaviour. Use e.g. X-Setup

Ah, learn something new every day! Thanks, I'll see if I can do it
with X-Setup first, then use the Registry if that isn't sufficient.

 

[Richard Steven Hack]

Longhorn error#4711: TCPA / NGSCB VIOLATION: Microsoft optical mouse
detected penguin patterns on mousepad. Partition scan in progress to
remove offending incompatible products. Reactivate your MS software (3
days grace period).

Hah! KNEW I'd seen it somewhere close by!

Longhorn, not XP, that was my mistake.

 

[Mike Uhl]

Have you tried the SUSE Live CD version? SUSE is supposedly a little
more cutting edge in hardware detection.

Also Mandrake now has a Live CD version called Mandrake Move. Since
Mandrake is considered the most user friendly of the distros and
pretty good at hardware detection, you might want to try it.

I have moved beyond the "Try-Me" stage and am now using Slackware 7.1,
which, after much hard work and research I have gotten to function
quite well. I may try one of the others if and when I decide to get a
newer laptop. Until then, I think I'll just kick back and enjoy what I
have. ;-)

You might be right, but I haven't tried the Live CD versions yet,
although I intend to because they are also useful for rescue CDs. I'm
just wary that Knoppix has as much resources behind its distro as
Mandrake or SUSE, and therefore I suspect it might not be as easy to
install as a main distro. I may be wrong, we'll see.

The main benefit I see with any "Try-Me" is that you don't have to
install it to see how it works. You simply run it from memory after
loading it in from the removeable media; CD, floppy, etc. If you
decide that you like it, -then- you install it according to whatever
instructions may be provided. This is what I did with BasicLinux; I
checked it out, it worked the way I wanted, and it all grew from that
point. My big mistake before was that I kept trying full-blown distros
without having a clue as to what I was doing. It was very
discouraging.

The other main problem people have with installs is getting X to work
with a specific monitor/video chipset combo (or at least with the full
resolution and color depth the combo supports), and in getting certain
peripherals (usually motherboard-integrated sound, in fact
motherboard-integrated anything, and things like oddball NIC cards and
Winmodems or internal DSL cards) to work.

Getting X to work was the largest single hassle, in my case. After
much headbanging, I finally discovered an initialization file through
Google that worked very well on my setup.

There's no doubt that Linux still needs to work on ACCURATE and
COMPREHENSIVE hardware detection. It's not helped by companies that
refuse to write drivers or even make the specs of their Windows
drivers available to Linux driver writers. Nonetheless Linux hardware
support is light years ahead of where it was a couple years ago and
getting better all the time. Reverse-engineering can work.

This will change very soon, because the public will demand it. Linux
is slowly becoming more popular, and this popularity is enhanced by M$
licencing shenanigans. It is mainly for this reason that I forced
myself this one last time to give Linux another go. After this
hard-won and sweet success, no computer that I ever own will ever have
space enough for anything made by M$. ;-)

 

[SINNER]

* Richard Steven Hack Wrote in alt.comp.freeware, on 2004-01-14:

You are being a little hard on the guy. Lighten up.

Please show me where...

 

[Sietse Fliege]

The latest versions of KDE and GNOME are heavy-duty desktops and need
faster hardware to perform. You might try using a lighter window
manager instead of a full desktop.

W.r.t. heavy-duty desktops, I came across this comparison of the UI and
usability of several graphical desktop environments, i.e. :
Windows XP, MacOS X, BeOS 6, KDE, Gnome.

FWIW: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3064

(YMMV, not really trying to take part in this discussion.)

 

[Chris Lee]

Got to agree with that, I've found linux newsgroups very unfriendly
places

That's because most of us linux users have no use for idiots like yourself.

 

[Chris Lee]

I'd like to know exactly what you mean by partitioning being a mess.
How the bloody hell can a HD's partition be a mess?.

If he's using some of the more idiotic boot loaders created by the
Windows/DOS crowd instead of something like LILO or Grub,the partitions on
a HD *CAN* become a real mess *REAL* fast,especially if you have multiple
incompatible Mickysoft OS's installed on the drive.

 

[Chris Lee]

The Linux groups are full of arrogant A-holes.

Who basically don't give a shit about clowns like *YOU*

Later *BOZO*

 

[Chris Lee]

Yes John, but check out who was doing the badmouthing..

No I don't know how the linux filesystem works

(1) Buy and read a book on Linux. That's what they are for.

I do have difficulty sorting out the "Explorer" equivalent in linux,
I've
only had it a day.

See (1)

It did take me half a dozen tries to find a distro I could install

See (1)

My partitioning Can be a mess - it still is rather, and although
I've
managed to reinstall windows, dual booting doesn't appear to be
happening

See (1)

All these things, plus being somewhat of a muppet, are deadly crimes
to the
linux fraternity, at least those that post, as we've just seen, and
they love to see folks like me struggle vainly while they sneer.

See (1)

The MAIN thing I've got against linux, and why do they think I keep
trying if I don't want to get away from the gates empire, is that I might
turn into somebody like them, spiteful, sneering, intellectually arrogant
and emotionially undeveloped and unstable.

Get a life and quit acting like Linux users owe you something. We *DON'T*

You're the one imposing on *US*

 

[DC]

So you're the guy who never asks for directions but rather drive in
circles for hours.

FWIW, I swear by this method. My wife, OTOH, gives up *way* too easily.
}:O)

 

[DC]

Hah! KNEW I'd seen it somewhere close by!

Longhorn, not XP, that was my mistake.

I exist but to swerve. }%O)

 

[DC]

That's because most of us linux users have no use for idiots like yourself.

*PLONK*

 

[Tiger]

Get a life and quit acting like Linux users owe you something. We
*DON'T*

You're the one imposing on *US*

Wow...can you be more obvious? Oh, and....PLONK.