[dundee] [jtsmoore@revolution-os.com: Re: Screening of Revolution OS]

[Andrew Clayton]

On Tue, 2003-07-22 at 13:46, Jonathan Barber wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 21, 2003 at 07:38:46PM +0100, Jonathan Riddell wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 21, 2003 at 06:58:19PM +0100, Andrew Clayton wrote:
> > > On Mon, 2003-07-21 at 17:44, jim wrote:
> > > > I would love to see a preinstalled version of linux to compaire with 
> > > > windows preinstalled.
> > > 
> > > www.dnuk.com
> > > www.xinit.co.uk
> > > 
> > > are two...
> > > 
> > > 
> > > > I had to reinstall Redhat yesterday but it was pretty fast for a clean 
> > > > install. Windows XP and 2K both take a long time.
> > > > Mind you I still wounder about the ease of installing software once you 
> > > > get your computer home for new users comparied to windows.
> > > 
> > > Hmm, some kind of install shield wrapped around rpm/deb, would do the
> > > trick.
> > > 
> > > Though if you have an rpm or deb, it's pretty easy anyways...
> > 
> > Unfortunatly the lack of binary compatibility means you have to get
> > the exact right .rpm or .deb for your distribution version.  
> 
> Eh? ELFs been the standard executable format for donkeys years now on
> Linux. 
> 
> If you're referring to shared library dependencies then that's
> true, but its a problem that Windows has had for ages as well with it's
> DLLs, and I'm not sure there is a good solution for any platform, apart
> from building everything statically or including the required shared
> libraries with every package, which defeats the point of them being
> shared.
> 
> > Plus dependency resolution is always going to be less than perfect for
> > programmes which arn't included in your distributions CDs or a handy
> > apt archive.  At least unless the package contains all staticly linked
> > libraries like they do on windows.
> > 
> > Windows has binary compatibility from 1995 pretty much, Mac can still
> > run programmes from 1985.  You just can't get on GNU/Linux.  Which
> > makes it a lot easier on the developers of course.
> 
> See above. Binary executables are still compatible, shared libraries are

I'm not sure this is 100% correct, note the fiasco when Red Hat first
introduced "GCC 2.96"


> not, this is true for all platforms. Windows programs have certainly not
> always used static linking, and there was a period when there was large
> amounts of pain resulting from this, mainly because there was no version
> information held in the file name, so different versions overwrote each
> other.
> 
> As has been remarked, Linux executables that interface with the kernel
> will not run correctly if they use calls that no longer exist. But this
> is also true of Win95 vs. NT.
> 
> To comment on the majority of the rest of this thread (which is
> impressively large BTW) I can't help but feel that the argument
> is comparing apples and oranges.
> 

Well.. yeah....

It's more like this. Unix/Linux is your fruit salad, and windows is just
your apple.


> Windows is provided by a single entity, the software that you get
> off the CD is supposed to be left alone. Change it at you peril. Yet for
> some reason this is supposed to be different for Linux distributions
> [1].
> 
> People install random crap, change critical libraries without knowing
> what it is they're are doing, and then blame Linux when it all goes
> horribly wrong, and they're surprised!
> 
> But this is exactly the same thing that happens with Windows, except
> magically rebooting the box twenty times and reinstalling the same
> driver over-and-over again is unlikely to help with Linux.
> 
> I guess I don't see much difference between the Windows and the Linux
> "experience" (although as a developer, Linux makes things a lot more

Interesting... how many other people feel this?. I certainly don't. I
always find that when I sit at a windows box... I'm very quickly
frustrated... ;).

 
> productive), both are lacking in the same areas and both will continue
> to, because software/hardware is bloody hard and it's too complex for
> any simple solution. 
> 

Examples would be nice....


> [1] I don't hold that any of the distribut(ors|ions) are comparable
>     with Microsoft or Apple, they just don't have the same control
>     over the core software. And for the hardware they don't have control
>     over it, or the vendors bending over backwards to write drivers for
>     them [2].
> [2] Normal exceptions to generalisations apply.


--
Andrew