Baslinux mailing list

[Day Brown <daybrown AT hypertech.net>]

3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:
> 
> Day Brown wrote:
> >
> > What would a BL rescue system look like?
> 
> Same as it looks now.
> 
> > Bash,
> 
> Already there.
> 
> > MC, xwin, kppp,
> 
> Not needed for rescue.
> 
> > & browser.
> 
> Already there.
> 
> > Anything else needed to get you online
> 
> BL2 already has everything needed for a dialup connection.
For most folks, prolly. All my local ISPs use MS-CHAP, which most ppp
drivers dont support.
But with BL & RIP, while I see a very useful product, the reliance on
the CLI would preclude most windoz users from trying to do anything with
it. I realize now, that some of the failures I had was in not knowing
that Linux needs the correct case on every letter. DOS/Win users dont
expect that.

If anyone came out with a rescue system that not only booted from the FD
or CD, but also automatically mounted all the drives it could find
(win/dos users dont havta 'mount' drives), and then got online with a
gui browser, many would never bother with trying to install windoz
again. All they want from the computer is surfing and email. But it'd
havta run mozilla or opera or some other gui browser that was similar
enough to win IE that they could get by without having to deal with the
notorious steep Linux learning curve.

and to *do* that, it'd havta cope with xf86config. which is archaic and
clunky. I dunno how many times I had a video problem, but still hadda go
thru all the mouse and kybd setup, and then if I didnt get the monitor
or video card just right, havta go back and do it all, all over again.
And even right now, no matter what I do to xf86config, I cant get this
corel/debian to default to the hires; it always comes up in 640x480. I
like Mandrake, but there are some video cards that it never could get
right. I've seen some xf86config not work, and not only not work, but
screw up the *text mode screen* as well, making it blink so bad it was
easier to just reformat the damn drive.

To some extent, I think this a clue to the linux heritage as a network
OS; the sysads did not need nice monitors to manage a network; even an
ancient mono would do. And outside of frying the monitor, which I have
never yet succeeded in doing, nothing I could do to a gui mode of dos
messed up the text mode. Given the speed of today's hardware, I dont see
ARACHNE load, along with it's graphic driver, nearly as slow as Netscape
does with xwin already installed. I dont see any reason why a gui
browser couldnt be designed to run right from the bash prompt just like
arachne does, other than the problems programmers face setting it up. 

but with arachne, if you dont get the hires to work right, you can
always get the std 640x480 working, no matter what the video card, and
with it, get online to get here, and hopefully get advice about what to
do. I dont see that option with linux being offered in a way that the
typical win user would understand. Nothing I could do with the arachne
setup could screw up the text mode screen like I have seen xf86config
end up doing. That aint the fault of BL, but BL suffers on that account.

which keeps out win users from Linux. Which might be ok, there are
enough stupid Linux users already. But the small user base results in
crap like printers that wont work and winmodems.