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Date:      Mon, 23 Dec 2002 17:44:05 +0200
From:      Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@freebsd.org>
To:        Chris Fox <a-chrisf@exchange.microsoft.com>
Cc:        jfm@blueyonder.co.uk, newbies@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: BSD or Linux?
Message-ID:  <20021223154405.GC1622@gothmog.gr>
In-Reply-To: <0A0B36F65A314D4AB8D2CF1D1FD835F1014058EA@df-muttley.dogfood>
References:  <0A0B36F65A314D4AB8D2CF1D1FD835F1014058EA@df-muttley.dogfood>

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# Format of quotes recovered.

Please fix your mailer.  It seems to quote the text of the original
poster without any sort of indication of where the original text is.
This makes it very difficult to read the message and clearly see what
you are replying to, and what your part says.

On 2002-12-22 17:11, Chris Fox <a-chrisf@exchange.microsoft.com> wrote:
> John Murphy [jfm@blueyonder.co.uk] wrote:
> > Yup.  I've never tried a Linux variant myself; sometimes tempted
> > but...  I've just 'looked at' a friends win2k PC which was _very_
> > unstable.  Trying to get some low level access to it was a
> > nightmare, as is trying to explain to someone how to do any kind
> > of configuration to a Microsoft OS via email "Left click Start..."
>
> Huh?  Windows2000 unstable?  I don't think I've ever heard that from
> anyone except maybe some kiddie on slashdot.  W2K is extremely
> stable and is more so than most versions of Linux I've used.

This is a personal opinion.  Instead of attacking the original poster
by calling him names (like `kiddie on slashdot'), you could have just
pointed out that his friend's PC being unstable does not necessarily
mean that it was Windows' fault.

Your addition, that argues W2k is more stable than Linux is, IMHO,
unasked for, and unsupported by anything else in your post, so let's
not go on with it.  Stability is something that needs to be defined
first, and only when the criteria of stability in a system have been
agreed upon, research by knowledgable users of both Linux and Windows
has been finished... only then can anyone be able to make statements
like this one.

> It's also a lot easier to administer.

The word ``easy'' is very easy to write, but very hard to explain, in
contexts like this.  What you consider easy, others might find pretty
near to silly, bloated, uncomfortable, cumbersome, inconsistent, and a
whole ton of other adjectives.

> Anyone who told you to "click" on something to administer in Windows
> is someone who probably rides a bicycle with the training wheels on
> it.

Are you arguing that the GUI is then unnecessary and can be avoided
for all the tasks that someone administering a Windows machine might
find himself doing?

There are many things that can't be done without going through the
mandatory maze of point n' click interfaces in Windows.  Installation
of new drivers is just one that I can think off the top of my head.
Configuration of a new dialup interface is another.  Many programs
save their options in the Windows registry.  Reading and tuning their
options without having to go through regedit, at all, is another task
that requires using the GUI.  There probably are tons of other tasks
that have to be done with "clicks" too.

> I do Linux, BSD, and Windows and while I prefer the unices for
> anything network-related, and while I don't gloss over Windows' real
> weaknesses of MS' business practices, I won't sit back and let this
> go unremarked:

That looks remarkably like something that Anthony Atkielsky would
write, but nevermind :)))

I won't go again down the path of why "I prefer the unices for
anything network-related" is wrong.  This has been the cause of
hopeless, never-ending, bandwidth wasting, huge, monster-discussions
in the past, and you can find a lot about it in the list archives.

All I can say is ``Please not again.''

> Windows is *way* easier to administer than any version of UNIX, and
> that includes RedHat and Mandrake Linux.

It might be.  For you.  I find it rather difficult to work with the
tools of the system when sitting on a Windows machine though.  This is
because I'm not used to point and click through a maze of dialogs to
change my system's configuration.  But this doesn't mean that Windows
is harder to use.  It only means that *I*, just me, not everyone, find
Windows more difficult to work with.

> The barriers to entry in Windows are trivial; the barriers to entry
> in UNIX are quite high.

True.  That's both good and bad at the same time though.  It's
probably one of the reasons why tasks go wrong so often in Windows
installations after a while.  Users who try pretending that they are
the 'Administrator' on Windows machines, and have no patience to read
the documentation that comes with their system (precisely because the
barrier is so low, and they couldn't care less about it), tend to make
silly mistakes like messing with their partition tables, blocking
themselves out of the system by disabling their passwords, or
installing drivers that can crash the whole thing.

> Try getting anything done in BSD without knowing some UNIX editor,

This is partly true.  You don't have to use vi(1) if you don't like it
though.  Dozens of packages are available on the installation CD-ROMs
with editors like joe, pico, jed for text terminals, or more complete,
full of features, bells and whistles editors like nedit, and emacs.

There's also an editor installed with FreeBSD, under the very
predictable name of "edit" in /usr/bin.  It's (sort of) menu driven,
and has a rather visible "help screen" on top of the edited text.
It's easy enough to be used when one begins working with FreeBSD.
You're not expected to know anything to be able to use it.

> and try learning that editor with any expectation that anything else
> you know helps.  It doesn't.  It's deliberately inscrutable and that
> does not help get more people using UNIX.

I don't understand what is being said above.
What is it exactly that you are referring to?

- Giorgos


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