Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 18:42:36 -0700 (MST) From: Larry Lee <lclee@primenet.com> To: jfieber@indiana.edu, lclee@primenet.com Cc: chat@freefall.freebsd.org Subject: Re: Commerical applications Message-ID: <199701220142.SAA27858@usr03.primenet.com>
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> From jfieber@fallout.campusview.indiana.edu Tue Jan 21 09:09:14 1997 > Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 11:09:08 -0500 (EST) > From: John Fieber <jfieber@indiana.edu> > To: Larry Lee <lclee@primenet.com> > cc: chat@freefall.freebsd.org > Subject: Re: Commerical applications > In-Reply-To: <199701210332.UAA09421@usr06.primenet.com> > MIME-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > Content-Length: 2715 > > > --->>> Moved to chat@freebsd.org <<<--- OK > > On Mon, 20 Jan 1997, Larry Lee wrote: > Please keep in mind that I'm trying to identify major reasons of why FreeBSD is not more widely accepted, specifically features and applications that would make it useful as something other than a programmers development environment. I'm NOT trying to do a detailed comparison of OS features, nor am I trying to say my OS bigger or better than your OS. My general assumption is that the FreeBSD kernel is pretty good, and no more work is required here for general acceptance. There are other areas, predominately installation and applications and general cosmetics, which which I believe should be addressed to reduce some of the entry barriers that newcomers experience. The contention is that FreedBSD needs to be more widely accepted by more people. So what kind of people are we talking about? Computer science students, professional programmers, and Unix knowledgable commercial sites with embedded applications; Or do you want to address the larger arena of desktop applications? > > FreeBSD clearly outperforms W95 and WNT on the same size hardware and runs > > on smaller hardware platforms. > > If you want to do a general comparison (which I don't believe can be > done in a very meaningful way), you at *least* need to compare > similar configurations, which, in this case, means adding X and CDE > to FreeBSD. In this configuration, FreeBSD may still be competetive > with NT, but it flat out looses to W95 in terms of hardware > consumption. I disagree, although I have nothing but personal experience to support my position. I've run FreedBSD on an 386/8M, where the company refused to even install W95, I used 3.1 instead. I've never run CDE nor do I feel that icons help someone do useful work. Judging by the 'start' menu in W95 and WNT, I would say that Microsoft agrees. I typically run Xfree86 and tvtwm and the twm menus work fine for me. > > The basic UNIX commands are no more difficult to learn than the basic > > DOS commands and any UNIX shell is no more difficult to use than command.com > > and clearly has far more power and capabilities. > > Hold it here. You have suddenly switched to comparing Unix with > MS-DOS. Now MS-DOS runs quite nicely on an 8088 with 640K of ram, > but it is NT that people are comparing to Unix, not MS-DOS. Most of > the Unix shells and tools could be (and probably have been) ported to > NT anyway so this argument is nearly moot. So we agree that UNIX shells are not difficult to use and therefore do not present a barrier to entry? > The ease of use issue > is not command line versus command line, it is text interface > versus graphic interface. I've seen a demo on TV several times in which Microsoft shows that in DOS the command COPY C:\LARRY\MESSAGE.TXT A:\JOHN\LETTER.MSG can be accomplished in Windows with just drag and drop. Of course the target file had to previously exist for the demo to work, but that's not really emphasized. I don't think we can throw away our keyboards yet. As I pointed out above frequently used program are started in .xinitrc or twm menus. I don't believe typing some commands is a barrier to new users, YMMV. > > > The UNIX install process is much more difficult than Windows and when > > it's complete you still don't have a fully functional UNIX system. > > Yes you do, but but if you expect a fully functional Unix system to > be approximately the same thing as a fully functional NT system, you > are mistaken. Windows printer setup including selection of printer type is simple. Unix is challenging. Windows serial port installation to connect to several ISP's and a BBS and accept incoming modem calls and to use it fax machine is fairly easy. To do any one of those things in Unix is challenging. Windows installation of a LAN is simple, UNIX is not too hard... These are things (printer, serial port, LAN) that people want to do, but getting everything to work is difficult or even impossible for most people. > Compare xaw with other GUIs in existance around the time it was > designed and it doesn't look that bad. Its just that nobody has > bothered to update it. Think of xaw as a GUI time capsule. :) I think we agree here as well. In 1997, if you put a xaw based app next to a Windows app, guess which one they will pick. Unix's appearance presents a barrier to user acceptance. > > The world has gone graphical, but Unix still clings to its text based > > origins. > > Considering the application domains where Unix dominates, there are > many good reasons to maintain a text based interface. However, that > should not preclude the development of excellent GUI support. In Again we agree, although I think this was my weakest point. > -john > >
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