Laptops that Linux likes?

Sat Apr 17 22:40:30 EDT 2004

On Fri, 16 Apr 2004, Gregory Nowak bovinely defecated:

> 
> Yes, so do I, but I never stated this view here before, for fear of
> launching a major flame war. Since this has specifically come up ... I
> don't know if Alex's observations are the same as mine, but ...
> 
> 1. I don't like how when you say "linux" almost everyone automatically
> associates that with redhat. It's like when you say the word windows,
> everyone associates that with microsoft (yes, I know the analogy
> doesn't totally fit).
Actually, it doesn't fit at all.

> 
> 2. The internet seems to be riddled with ready to run rpms, but with
> less debs, and certainly much, much less tgzs (I'm referring to
> slackware tgz packages here, not to tar.gz files).
Really, now.  Kirk has always maintained that there are a whole lot more 
debs on the net than RPM's, although I've never verified that assertion.  
And, how many TGZ's have you and your friends added to the collection?  
Should Red Hat be held responsible if there, despite your best efforts 
aren't enough?

 > 
> 3. Discussions on this list seem to indicate that redhat configures
> everything for you (cudzoo and so on), makes me think of windows
> configuring everything for you. This seems to mean that people can get
> away from microsoft and its practices, while still being blissfully
> ignorant of how their computer does what it does for the most part.
What a fragrant Load O'Krapp!  Do you really think *you* should be the
arbitrator of how much a person needs to know about their computer in
order for him/her to be allowed to use it?? Nothing is hidden from the
user.  While I understand that lots of folks like Red Hat's configuration
tools, I only use chkconfig, a tool for setting the links in the SystemV
startup tree and to turn services on and off in xinetd.d, and the service
command which runs the afore mentioned scripts to dynamically start and
stop services controlled by init.  For the rest, I edit the configuration
files as that's what I've been doing since my first admin job with a few
AT&T system 5 3B20S machines in around 1985.

 > 
> Finally, I posted here about wanting to install fedora on one of my play
> boxes a while back, but not being sure if I can do the install with 32
> mb of ram. Bill's reply was that I need 64 mb of ram for the installer
> to run, and my options were to either add more ram, or to put the hd in
> a different box, do the install, and then go about downgrading the
> kernel and other things to work on the lower cpu box. Frankly, since the
> linux kernel still supports 386 machines, a distro that is only tailored
> to install on newer systems isn't worth wasting my time over.
Yes, Anaconda is a bit resource-hungry, but I gave you a viable
work-around, and would have been happy to help you through the process in
any way I could, including talking you through it all on the phone.  As
for the demand that RHI support installations back to the dawn of Linux,
I'll go ya one better.  I should write to Linus telling him what a dirty
bastard he was for not supporting the 286 processors, which were plentiful
in the early days of his endeavors.
 > 
> Janina, Bill, or anyone else who may want to comment on this, don't
> expect me to respond, since I have no interest in keeping this
> discussion going.
Ain't that great, folks!  What he's really saying, is that now that he's 
had his say, he'd like the discussion to end.
Greg: no one would deny you the right to express your opinion, but I have a 
right to my opinion about your opinion, and you just got about 1% of my 
thoughts.
--  
          Bill in Denver