[geeks] A Real OS? (was: Re: my capitalization.. etc.)

[Gregory Leblanc]

I'm going to stop replying individually now.  Lots of replies below,
ignore the threading headers and such (I can't figure out how to take
them out anyway).  

On Sun, 2002-05-19 at 06:03, Kurt Huhn wrote:
> If I had my druthers, Solaris/Sparc would be my choice for servers, it's
> a tossup for workstations (Solaris/Sparc, Linux, Mac OS X), firewalls

Gah!  How can you even contemplate Solaris/SPARC for a workstation over
OSX or Irix on Iris hardware?!?  I've used a lot of SPARCs as desktop
machines, and it's torturous.  Even my Ultra-1 170/Creator is hard to
stand compared with my Indy with 24-bit option.  

On Sun, 2002-05-19 at 08:47, alex j avriette wrote:
> > The BSDs need more hardware vendor support, too.
> 
> no, they dont. what makes linux suck is how over-extended it is 
> supporting everything. if they would just flatly say "no, we're not 
> going to support joebobs backwoods video card," the code wouldnt be in 
> your kernel config and it would be easier to know your kernel. the 
> developers could focus on more important things. linux supports 
> everything. but because they support everything, they support nothing 
> "well." except i guess the intel/amd x86 platform.

Uh, NetBSD runs on a shitload more platforms than Linux does.  And a lot
of them are at least as "backwoods" as "joebob's video card", if not in
terms of design, then at least in terms of documentation and number of
items produced.  I don't think that the argument that Linux supports too
much hardware is a good one.  It supports a LOT of hardware.  The stuff
that lots of people use gets fixed pretty quickly, and the stuff that
only a few people use languishes with a bunch of bugs that nobody knows
about, so they can't be fixed.  


On Sun, 2002-05-19 at 18:24, Brian Hechinger wrote:
> On Sun, May 19, 2002 at 02:49:56PM -0400, Kurt Huhn wrote:
> > 
> > I don't want to go off on a rant here, but...
> 
> too late?  ;)
> 
> i agree with most of what you say, however....

> > Since the subject was broached, the various BSD flavors really seem to
> > rely on this mentality to weed out the general populace.  If you're not
> > willing to drudge through highly technical, and somewhat obfuscate,
> > documentation, you need not attempt *BSD.  At least that's how they come
> > off to a lot of folks, not just me, other hardcore geeks are put off by
> > that attitude.  Some of these are so arrogant they make Saddam Hussein
> > look like a fawning yes-man...
> 
> not at all.  if someone were to put themselves to the task of writing a HOWTO
> for any of the BSDs, we would all gladly answer questions and help out in
> getting it written, but i think i speak the same attitude of most in the BSD
> community when i say that i'll be damned if i'm the one who's going to do it.

That's always the problem with documentation.  :-/

> and really, over the years, i've gotten more help, with a much nicer tone from
> any of the NetBSD port- lists than any of the linux lists i've ever asked
> questions on.  and i don't really classify myself as a drooling moron either
> to elicit such s response.

Yeah, I've had good replies from my very few posts to the NetBSD lists. 
But the OpenBSD lists are another matter entirely.  I had a couple of
people flame me (three replies from each side) because of a typo.  The
bugger complained that they didn't have enough time to hand-hold idiot
newbies, yet replied to me three times, when the correction would have
taken 12 seconds, and one reply.  GAH!  I'm not on OpenBSD lists
anymore, just not worth it.



> On Mon, 2002-05-20 at 04:56, alex j avriette wrote:
> On Monday, May 20, 2002, at 03:18 AM, David Cantrell wrote:
> 
> > I have never experienced any of those.  At least not since the crashes I
> > got with the pre-1.0 kernels.  And if your kernels are that big, YOU are
> > doing something wrong.  Here, have a kernel module.
> 
> i dont believe in kernel modules.

For any good reason?  Just curious

	Greg

-- 
Portland, Oregon, USA.
Please don't copy me on replies to the list.