Baslinux mailing list

[Day Brown <daybrown AT hypertech.net>]

> > bring back in the IBM PROPRINTER II, spray the dried out 
> > ribbon with WD-40, and am back in business with 9 pin dot
> > matrix pin feed.
> > I'd use it with Linux, but the distros I've seen didnt have 
> > a driver for it any more, 
> 
> ghostscript has a driver named ibmpro.  I imagine that would
> work with the IBM PROPRINTER II.
I have downloaded something, that name looks familiar, but the printer
setup menu didnt recognize it, and neither did the archive manager. But
it's no biggie. It aint a graphic printer, and I dont need hardcopy of
webpages anyway, just text, such as the instruction for configuring a
printer. And for that, I could just as well use dos.
> > the vast majority of Linux documentation sux. And there is 
> > so damn much of it. 
> 
> Ah, the old "too much documentation problem".  What a pain.
> In the early days of Commodore, we thought it was bad having
> no documentation at all, but clearly it's much, much worse 
> having too much documentation.
I had friends with Commodore, so I waited for the cash to get a
Franklin, which had a FD. But- to be more specific. Like when I get RH
5, the documentation was an 'installation manual'. Only later did I
realize that it was exactly what they said, which is not a user manual.
There was no clue about the virtual screen being larger than the real
one. Then, later on, I get Mandrake 7.0, which installed much better,
but there were some video card/monitor combos it would not run. 

and this time, it is a "USER GUIDE AND REFERENCE MANUAL". Which again,
is 90% installation,and *no index*, although there is a glossary. So,
next time, it is Corel. Well. Corel has been in the software business
for 15 years or so. and *they* do know how to write a manual for
newbies. And an install that got xwin down *automatically*. 
> 
> > I have some hope that BL can simplify the interface enough 
> > for newbies.
> 
> The vast majority of newbies want easy-peasy point-and-click
> with built-in wizards to make decisions for them.  BasicLinux 
> is not for them.
> 
> > There are some distros that are easy to install, but there 
> > seems to be a synergy of planned obselescence at work between 
> > the hardware OEMs and the distro outfits...  
> 
> Your evidence for this is...?
the flash and java from the net. The software installed on your machine
which can be called, and manipulated unbeknownst to you, which results
in sabotage software. With the BBS networks, ANSI bombs were a trivial
problem, which both users and sysops could eliminate. With the internet,
with the continual demand for new eye candy, we see the demand for ever
more powerful platforms and... operating systems. eg, The distros. 
> 
> > Debian seemed to have a really good idea with apt-get, but 
> > now I find their servers are down, 
> 
> Still down, are they?
yes, apparently taken out with malice aforethought, perhaps motivated by
the profits out outfits like Microsoft which are threatened. 

> > so it is totally useless. 
> 
> You give up too easily.  Surely there are Debian mirrors that
> are still functioning.  
I'd be grateful for a link. I did get a note from their newslist today,
that some servers are back online, and that they expect to have the
problem solved soon. But as you might see, I have other distros to use
in the meantime. 

> > Downloading and installing dos cdburners or printer drivers 
> > is lots easier than Linux. 
> 
> You think that because you are an experienced DOS user.  But 
> DOS is not inherently easy -- it had a learning curve and most 
> users did not climb it as far as you.  
Goto garbo, download the burner, unzip it in the ramdisk, read the
paragraph in FILE_ID.diz, and the 2k of the typical README.TXT, and, in
the case of something like a CD burner, type INSTALL at the dos prompt. 

With Linux, most of the time, you run with the distro right out of the
box which has the drivers you need. The gotcha is, if it dont work, the
newbie'd be better off just getting another distro. If he downloads, he
may find out that it is the newer version of the .RPM, or that he needs
.deb, or maybe tgz, or gz, or bz, or bz2,.... which his archive
administrator may or may not work with. 

BL comes as a .zip; I dunno if there's any dos users left who dont have
pkunzip. But a .RAR version might be worth consideration. The ansi color
scrollbar menu is gonzo easier to work with than the pkunzip CLI. 

> An experienced Linux user (with no experience using DOS) 
> would find downloading and installing Linux cdburners or 
> printer drivers lots easier than DOS.
Well, I can only go by my own kharma. An experienced debian user might
have a different opinion these days. There are others who warn you about
Redhat 8, or the video problems of Mandrake. I really liked Suse 6.4,
but its ppp driver wont logon to my ISP. (Corel & Redhat will) And when
I tried Suse 7.3, even though it booted off the CD, it later tells me it
cant 'find CD #1'. 

Reminiscent of the problem I had from the outset with Linux, Redhat 5.2,
in which, every time there was a CD read error, it trashed the whole
install. Only by noting every time what files it could not read, and
then on the next attempt, deleting them from the install list was I able
to get it up and running. At which point, in delicious irony, it wanted
me to go online to register- only the PPP driver wasnt working. :-} 
... But if you are reasonably lucky, you aint got a problem. 

But if DOS dont install, I know that in 5 minutes. If Linux dont, I
might not know that for 55 minutes. And waste days trying to work it
out. Redhat would crash, and wipe out the *whole install* if there was a
floppy error trying to make the 'rescue floppy'. 

This is some of the sloppiest programming I have seen since COBOL.