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Date:      Fri, 26 Jun 1998 07:56:22 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Tim Gerchmez <fewtch@serv.net>
To:        ML Duke <mlduke@concentric.net>
Cc:        freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG, Patrick Hyland <pbh@iafrica.com>
Subject:   RE: Reference: Unix in 20-30 years
Message-ID:  <XFMail.980626075622.fewtch@serv.net>
In-Reply-To: <35932437.48E4@concentric.net>

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On 26-Jun-98 ML Duke wrote:

> Indeed, Unix is for the inquiring mind. Those in search of stability.
> A kernel that does not allocate equal time to idle applications. Its
> actually somewhat difficult for a single user with over 8 megs of ram to
> keep the cpu busy if its over 486/66.

I'll tell you one thing - I'm getting addicted to it!  I find myself drifting
away from the DOS/Windows environments for the first time since 1987.  This
kind of stability and power is so seductive, it has kept me awake for 36 hrs
straight in front of the computer just enjoying it (kind of scary - is there a
Unixaholics Anonymous?) :-)  I have a P200MMX with 64 megs RAM, and needless to
say, that is a damned nice machine for running Unix on (especially being that
I'm not running it as a server - it's a desktop platform here, with some
Internet access over a modem).  I just wish I had support for my sound card,
scanner, Syquest SparQ drive and special drivers for my inkjet printer so I can
print in color, etc, not just via a mindless text dump to the printer port. 
These things need to be worked on for Unix to become a more viable desktop
platform (it's the ONLY OS I'd use as a server platform however - Windows NT
be damned, unless you like wasting money on quadruple the hardware power to do
the same thing Unix can, only not as well).  As it is, there's no way I could
use it as my sole platform unless I wanted to sell all my hardware and buy all
new hardware.  My next machine, I will plan SPECIFIC hardware that is supported
under BSD, but for now, I have to go back to Windows to do a lot of things.

I'm concerned also that when high-speed Internet access becomes viable for
the public (via xDSL and related technologies) that BSD will be lagging behind
Windows as far as drivers for the new 'modems' goes.  That could be a problem,
and could cause me to drift back to Windows for a while until it's fixed.


----------------------------------
E-Mail: Tim Gerchmez <fewtch@serv.net>
Date: 26-Jun-98
Time: 07:46:32

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