[arachne] Re: OS advocacy

Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!

>> The inflexible directory structure, the inability to mount
>> separate
>> partitions as separate logical drives,

> Interesting. I think the flexibility of the directory
> structure is a *nix strength :) Softlinks being key.

Apart from the fact that DOS also has this, just try to rename "usr" to
"user" on Linux and see what it breaks.

>> the lack of a defined API that
>> does not change between versions,

> While the changes required are more or less depending, all
> seem to have this issue to some degree. It doesn't seem to be
> more pronounced in linux than in other OSs. But maybe I just
> didn't notice.

Well, try to write a program for Linux in Assembly language in a way
that it will also work on other kernels and you will see what I mean.

>> the difficulty to uninstall software
>> again,

> Most versions have a very easy to use installer/uninstaller.
> apt and urpm are two. Just one simple command to uninstall or
> install

This would require the installer to know which program one is trying to
uninstall and which files belong to it. Which in fact means that someone
would have to tell it. In DOS I can simply delete a directory to
uninstall a program; there is no need to look in several system
directories for its remains.

>> the need to recompile almost everything if one downgrades to
>> an
>> older component, the necessity to mount removable media
>> before accessing
>> them and unmount them before removing them again,

> Mounting and unmounting is mostly automatic these days. I hear
> this argument a lot. But in several major distros it works
> just like you'd expect. You put the removable media in and it
> works. You take it out when you're done and that's it. That's
> it. You do have the option of making it work the old, harder
> way if you like. But that's up to you.

Well, if you refer to Supermount, I had to look for it on the Internet
and manually patch the kernels before recompiling them and edit the
fstab file before it would work as expected. Also, it is an awkward
mechanism that adds an extra device that only does the mounting. That is
not what I would call native support for removable media. Also, the
problem that removable disks have to be linked into the root partition
tree remains. So much to the flexibility of the directory structure.

>> the bloated X-Windows,

> The old bloated thing. I tend to agree. But on the other end
> it seems the non bloat solutions have other restrictions that
> keep them from using my hw. So I'm either running bloatware or
> ware that doesn't use my hw. I'd like to see a practical
> solution to this.

It is not even the insane amount of memory that X-Windows needs, it is
that it tries to emulate a remote server even if both are on the same
machine. That is so typical of the Unix world - using something that was
written for a totally different purpose just because it is already
there.

>> and of course, the inability to run PC software other then in
>> an
>> emulator -

> That is an issue. But since I'm doing my best to only use
> multiplatform foss these days, it's less of an issue for me.
> The exception is when I have to for work. Then I use a
> 'commercial' machine anyway.

Well, I do not really care if software is free or not as long as I like
it and want to use it. In fact, if I had to choose between two similar
products, one commercial and one not, I would choose the one that is
better suited for the purpose I have in mind, no matter whether it is
Open Source software or not.

I know that most people seem to want everything for free, but in fact, I
would rather pay a lot of money for a product that has been designed for
DOS and would run out-of-the-box then use an Open Source product that I
would have to rewrite first to suite my taste. Besides, you would be
surprised how much there is in a typical Linux distribution is *not*
Open Source.

Regards,

Udo

-- The DR-DOS/OpenDOS Enhancement Project - http://www.drdosprojects.de

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