Deite kai auto !

[Sotiris Tsimbonis]

On Mon, 28 Apr 1997, Stupus Stupendicus wrote:
> Ti elege to ar8ro? Den exw kammia dia8esh na kanw registering stoys
> Sunday-Times gia na to diabasw. Rixte kammia perilhpsh 2-3 seirwn...

To ar8ro akolouthei parakatw.. Yparxei ena teraaaaastio thread sto
uk.comp.os.linux gi'ayto to ar8ro, kai opws apodeixtike, o syggrafeas to
exei kanei kai sto parel8on gia proionta poy den exoun mesa thn le3h
microzoft...


   April 20 1997 SOUNDING OFF  [LINK]Down[LINK]
   Line
   
   [INLINE]
   
   It is the craze of the month among geeks who love complexity. Avoid it
   at all costs 
   
   Linux, the PC program from hell
   
   WAS I the only one who broke into a scream of terror when I looked at
   this month's copy of Personal Computer World? There, staring out from
   a free CD-Rom on the cover was the program from hell, and all you
   needed to do to let it take over your PC was double click a couple of
   times and kiss goodbye to your sanity.
   
   The nasty piece of digital scurf in question is known as Linux and
   there are plenty of sad types who will tell you it is the future of
   personal computing. Do not fall for this bizarre line in geek
   thinking.
   
   Even Personal Computer World, after making it so easy to enter the
   twilight zone without a return ticket, saw fit to enter a few caveats
   in the fine print. Linux, it said, came with a serious health warning.
   Don't even think about it, the magazine said, unless you are
   technically proficient and have backed up all your PC files
   beforehand.
   
   Yes, but we know what the average PC user is like. He never reads the
   words, he just slings in the CD-Rom, clicks on the install icon, and
   hopes for the best. And if you are now looking at a blank screen with
   a few impenetrable commands where you once had a working PC, then all
   I can say is: "You have only yourself to blame."
   
   Linux, for the uninitiated, is a version of that old computer donkey
   known as Unix. If you need to run big computer Unix tasks then it is,
   I am told, not a bad solution at all. Equally, if you believe there is
   no point in doing easily something you can achieve the long way round,
   it is doubtless the way to go.
   
   Imagine a tougher version of MS-Dos  where the commands are even
   harder to memorise and less forgiving of errors  and you are starting
   to get there. And if you want to cheat a little, you can put on a
   pseudo-graphical front end and  bingo  you might just manage to turn a
   modern Windows NT-capable PC into a passable imitation of Windows 3.1
   circa 1992.
   
   However, to read some publications, you might think that Microsoft's
   Bill Gates is quivering in his boots at the idea that Linux will do
   what IBM and Apple never managed to achieve  kick Windows off the
   everyday desktop. Really? Well, no. Linux is flavour of the month with
   the geek community for two reasons  it's free, and it's not from
   Microsoft.
   
   For a certain breed of bug-eyed computer user, that really is all you
   need. Trivial details such as usability, the lack of decent everyday
   software, and the plain fact that, when things go wrong, you are on
   your own are not setbacks to Linux addicts. These are the very reasons
   why they like the wretched thing  because it sets them apart from the
   mainstream of tedious, ordinary users who just use PCs to get on with
   the job.
   
   Personal computers seem to have attracted some strange and obsessive
   people along the way to becoming common or garden information tools.
   If Linux hadn't been invented by a Finnish student a few years back,
   something equally strange and esoteric would have appeared to take its
   place.
   
   Computer geeks despise simple, common standards. Gates is the object
   of their hate simply because he won the operating-system war. If Apple
   or IBM had come out on top, the people now buzzing so excitedly around
   Linux would have treated them to the hate mail they reserve for Gates
   today.
   
   Fads like Linux are diversionary characters in a digital freak show on
   the sidelines of modern information technology. Finding them on the
   cover disks of mainstream magazines says more about the novelty value
   of computer journalism than the real issues facing those trying to
   make tomorrow's PCs a sight better than the ones we use today.
   
   The idea that great developments in personal computing will be
   invented in some dismal student bedroom in Helsinki might make nice
   bedtime reading for people who dream in hexa-decimal. But if all you
   want is a computer that you can aspire to understand, chuck that
   blasted CD-Rom in the bin right now.
   
                                                            David Hewson 
                                                                         
   Health: Video equipped ambulance puts casualty doctors in the picture 
   
   
   Your news selection in the Personal Times
   
   Key coverage in Election '97
   
   [ISMAP]
   
   COMDEX UK 97: Guide to the show
   
   Chip retains information when computer crashes 
   
   Webwatch
   
   Internet lets shoppers browse at leisure
   
   Health: Video equipped ambulance puts casualty doctors in the picture 
   
   Contact Us
   Line
   Copyright 1997 Times Newspapers Limited [LINK]Up[LINK]


--
====================================================================
Gia na mathete pos na xrisimopoiite ton majordomo, stilte e-mail
sto "majordomo at argeas.argos.hol.gr" me 1 grammi sto keimeno: help
Ta archives tis listas einai sto http://www.argos.hol.gr/lists
Gia opoiodipote problima stilte  e-mail ston owner-linux-greek-users
====================================================================