OpenEuphoria

Re: off topic : WinLinux

• Posted by "Cuny, David at DSS" <David.Cuny at DSS.CA.GOV> Nov 23, 1999
• 589 views

Brian Broker wrote:

> Wow, so you'd pay $90-$120 a year for Linux instead
> of paying $90 for Windows 98, an OS that installs
> itself and upgrades itself (when you go online) and
> has software support for just about any hardware available.

I only paid $10 for my Linux-Mandrake CD, and that included shipping. I've
seen other distributions (including Corel's) for a similar price (for
example, at www.cheapbytes.com). Like Windows 98, I can also upgrade when I
go online. The list of supported hardware is actually pretty darned
impressive. The autodetect technology seems to be floundering a bit. Much to
my suprise, I ran across the following review of Windows 98 SE at
http://www.cpureview.com/rev_win98_ep1_g.html:

   "I found it interesting that RedHat Linux 6.0
    and Caldera OpenLinux 2.2 were easier to install
    than Win98SE; they also fared better as far as
    driver support out of the box went."

It seems that when it comes to installing operating systems, Your Mileage
May Vary. I've spent too much time struggling with both Linux and Windows,
and as you've noted, there are certainly better things to do in life.

One of the most popular distributions is Linux-Mandrake. It's little more
than Red Hat with the K Desktop integrated into it. But a lot of people
think it's value added not to have to hassle with the thing. The current
version of automatically brings up a graphical login when I boot the OS - I
don't even have to type startX anymore. Little details like this are very
appealing to idiots like me who would rather blow away the partition rather
than read the manual. 

> But I may try again some day, if I find a good enough
> reason to put myself to the challenge.

Linux has made great strides, but it's not at the point where I can take
Windows off my machine. I still can't:

   ... afford $120 for a fast real modem
   ... figure how to run the kid's games under WINE
   ... run my DOS favorite app (ImpulseTracker) in DOSEMU

But Linux certainly seems to be moving in the right direction. Work is being
done on getting WinModems to work under Linux (http://linmodems.org), but
I'm not holding my breath. The latest version of WINE (http://winehq.com)
has been reported to run Word 97 and Visual Basic 6 (although I'm sure you
need to tweak the config scripts to get it to work).

-- David Cuny