[Coco] Fedora 6 DVD ISO & Linux in General

[Mark McDougall]

Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Thursday 03 May 2007, John W. Linville wrote:
>> On Thu, May 03, 2007 at 10:42:07AM -0500, Frank Pittel wrote:
>>> I can offer to extend this OS flame war...
>> Oh, please...
> I'll second that exasperated "Oh please" motion, John.  

OK, I know this is OT but here's my $0.02 worth...

For the record, I'm a professional hardware/software engineer with ~20
years experience with all manner of computers. And that includes writing
device drivers on both Windows and Linux platforms...

I should also state that I hate what Microsoft stands for, hate what
they're pushing, and absolutely _detest_ writing software for Windows -
especially device drivers.

Having said that, I use Windows daily at home and at work.

I love what Linux stands for, I love the power and flexibility of the OS
and the almost endless variety of free applications, and don't really mind
writing Linux device drivers.

Having said that, I rarely use Linux (these days) as I have it installed
only on my 800MHz laptop - which I now use only for surfing the net in
front of the TV.

Why do I use Windows? Because it's a 'set and forget' OS. If you have a
fixed number of applications you use, then once they're installed you can
pretty much forget about having to do any maintenance. Yes, windows will
get slower each day. Yes, you will accumulate viruses, adware and other
annoying crap. Yes, you will lose files in long-forgotten directories
buried 18 folders deep in some dark corner of your hard-disk ... yes you
may need to re-install one day - but probably not until you need to
upgrade your system anyway...

My mother runs Windows.

Why don't I use Linux? Primarily because my work requires windows and it's
easier for me to be able to work from home on a Windows box. Some
applications I use only run under Windows - or at least they did. But yes,
every time I turn on my PC I cross my fingers that it will boot and some
virus hasn't wiped out my hard disk, or that some driver file has been
corrupted and it blue-screens.

I have had several Linux boxes in the past - Slackware, Red Hat (before
they joined the dark side), Gentoo - and now I'm drooling over YouTube
videos of Ubuntu running Beryl... ;)

But Linux _is_ work. And my poor brain tends to file things I don't use
daily in the section that is due to be destroyed with my next alcoholic
drink. Granted, if I used it daily it would probably ultimately become
less of a chore than using Windows, but that's not practical for me right
now. I live it hope that it may one day be the case!

Oh, and my mother doesn't run Linux either.

I thought it'd be interesting to recall the OS's on which I had experience
over the course of my hobby/employment/obsession... in roughly
chronological order of encountering...

NEWDOS/80, TRSDOS, LDOS, DECB, AMIGAOS, DOS3.3, GCOS/L66, UN*X, MINIX,
PRIMOS, VAX VMS, IBM MVS/XA, CICS, Tandem TOS, DOS 6.2, Linux, Windows
2.0, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11, Windows NT4, Solaris, pSOS,
Windows 2000, RTEMS, Windows XP, MacOS, ProDOS, (AppleII)GS/OS.

...NEWDOS/80 RULEZ!!! :)

Regards,

-- 
|              Mark McDougall                | "Electrical Engineers do it
|  <http://members.iinet.net.au/~msmcdoug>   |   with less resistance!"