[Cumbria] A manifesto

[Ken Hough]

Roger Cope wrote:

> Firstly, this mail is being composed in Outlook in Windows XP. Why? 
> Because
> Outlook is good. Evolution may be better (and I hope to find out in 
> the near
> future) but I'm too busy to parp around fighting email clients and far 
> too
> interested in design and graphics to go text only.
>
> My Outlook client isn't connected directly to my DSL (hah!) line 
> though - it
> runs through my own qmail-pop server hanging off qmail on a RedHat 7.3 
> linux
> box in the room next door.
>
> My Windows XP client _thinks_ it's talking to a Windows NT domain but is
> sadly misinformed - it's samba 1.x.
>
> I have a linux client but it has only recently (with the release of RH 
> 8 and
> Mandrake 9) been able to be as productive as my Windows XP box. Even 
> now, I
> need XP in order to edit firewire based video quickly and effectively, 
> so an
> XP client won't be going away - I hope to access it from the Linux client
> using the built in terminal server and rdesktop.
>  
>
I now use Linux almost entirely.
I only fire up MS if I'm doing a job for someone else or if I wish to 
use my SCSI 35mm slide scanner. I have SCSI running under Linux, but the 
suppliers (Minolta) have not released a Linux driver for this scanner 
--- I should have gone for Nikon or Canon!

> GUI everything is the way to go.. And I speak as one of the few remaining
> people who can fly a DOS command line well, retains a subscription to 
> 4DOS
> and opens a terminal window on Linux in order to do anything substantial.
> You cannot expect an 'ordinary' user to do that - you only have to 
> look at
> the man page for 'ls' to work out why. Give me Konqueror any day...!
>  
>
I dissagree! I'm an old DOSer and often revert to the command line, 
because for some things it's easier and often quicker from the command 
line than by firing up an all singing and dancing GUI app.  There are 
lots of good horses for different courses!

Most of the time I run with KDE3. It's good, but does need a fastish CPU 
and preferably at least 256MB of RAM. I can just run it on my old 
laptop(233MHz Pentium with 64 MB of RAM), but only if I have a day or so 
to spare (swaps to disc like hell!)

KDE comes into it's own on a large high-res monitor (much better than MS 
offerings). It's a bit cramped at 800 x 600.

> If Linux stands still it will go the way of SlackWare and Mandrake 
> (almost
> RIP). If it is possible to take on Microsoft and win - the jury still 
> being
> out on that - then the RedHat way is the only way. Open source is good 
> but
> it needs to be packaged in a way that corporates can accept and 
> corporations
> can support. That means being in control and RedHat 8 is the end 
> result of
> applying that control.
>  
>
Red Hat are not alone. SuSE are now clearly pitching at corporate users.

> I also had a ZX Spectrum and am quite proud of it. My brother learned
> everything he knows about programming on it and and now makes a better
> living than I doing 'real' programming for a low level software 
> company. I
> get to shuffle paper at BNFL...
>  
>
I stiill have a Spectrum in the 'museum'. I quickly moved on to a 'BBC' 
(a great machine to learn about microprocessors and I/O) and still have 
one of these  ---  also an old IBM PC/XT. The latter is built like a 
battleship and probably capable of sinking one! I'ts even fitted with a 
maths co-pro! WOW!

BTW, What is the attachment? I don't recognise it.

Ken Hough