BB> I agree. :)  I've tried Knoppix and a older version of Red Hat,
 BB> both suck  big time.

 BB> I believe that Lx has a place

 RJT> Lx?

Linux  :)

 BB> Kernal - a tightly focused thing and you can probably  make a very
 BB> lean machine that way.

 RJT> Yep,  been there and done that one.  What other 32-bit OS can fit on a
 RJT> floppy? :-)

On a floppy?   I see a few distros that run from 45-60 megs, but not one on 
a floppy.  :)  Must really be LEAN.   :)

 BB> But as far as 'run out of the box' thing forget it!  Mounting and
 BB> unmounting things is pain in the ass and if Windows had you doing
 BB> that the Lx dudes would be laughing their ass off.

 RJT> Yeah it is,  but you don't need to if you use mtools.  And I do for
 RJT> floppies for the most part.  But anything else excepting tape drives
 RJT> gets plugged into the filesystem,  rather than being treated as a
 RJT> separate entity.  It's a conceptual thing,  and it has its advantages.
 RJT> And the mount command is needed to tell it _where_ in the filesystem
 RJT> you want to put it.

This is what's maddening!  Mtools?  First time I've seen the term.  I have 
been reading about how all hardware is treated as a file. (Isn't that a bit 
odd, come on now admit it!)  :)   And I understand that most systems use 
the /mnt/ file/folder to handle the hardware - however it doesn't seem to 
work when I moved Knoppex off the CD onto the HD.   Obviously the mtool 
thing isn't there, or it didn't work.:)


 RJT> Personally,  I'd rather have that choice,  rather have the flexibility
 RJT> that it gives me instead of having to put up with some OS writer's idea
 RJT> of how it should work.  Got dos on this box,  and what with drives
 RJT> getting bigger I have a couple of choices -- make the partitions bigger
 RJT> or use more of them.  Make them bigger and all of a sudden I'm wasting
 RJT> lots of space,  on the average half an allocation unit _per file_,  use
 RJT> more of them and whoops!  We're out of drive letters!  And yeah,  the
 RJT> whole cluster size issue goes away (or at least recedes into the
 RJT> background further) if you go with the newer FAT setup, but at what
 RJT> cost?  And the whole mess is a flat structure,  you can't treat drive
 RJT> letters the same way as you can other stuff,  it's an artificial
 RJT> distinction that from the perspective of a filesystem only gets in your
 RJT> way.

All valid points, but thanks to willyboy large HD's are now fairly cheap 
and space really isn't that big an issue anymore.  I take it you're not 
using FAT32?   

 BB> Lx is making a move in the business world, that's for sure - but
 BB> again it fits the above.  Tightly focused machines to do one thing
 BB> well.

 RJT> That sure doesn't seem to be where m$ wants to take it,  there's
 RJT> neither tight focus,  doing one thing,  or doing it well.  :-)

 RJT> In fact,  they seem to want to do it all!

Oh, no arguement on that one at all!  He's a shark and will eat ya alive 
given a chance.   However you don't have to fall for all of his hype - I 
run W98SE (Lite).   "Lite" is W98 system that has had the embedded IE and 
OE ripped out of it.  By removing these two weak spots a lot of the W98 
problems go away like magic.

No way would I upgrade to the XP stuff mainly because of the tracking codes 
embedded inside it.  That whole concept is just unsavory to me. (And I 
suspect many others as well?)

 

 BB> My only reason to play with it at all was to see if I could do
 BB> something for my son who runs a small plastics company.  His heart
 BB> and soul are tied to "Peachtree' as it does all his inventory,
 BB> books, mailing labels etc.  No app even close out there in Lx
 BB> world.

 RJT> You're looking for _one_ app to do all this stuff?  That's not the
 RJT> right approach,  no wonder you're not finding it...

Peachtree does it. :)

 BB> Windows 98SE blows it away across the board. Easy to use, tons of
 BB> apps,  tons of drivers, and a few warts that you can stay away from
 BB> by using Mozilla firebird as a browser and Eudora as mail client.

 RJT> Yep.  Tons of bloat,  tons of bugs,  tons of files installed whether
 RJT> you need them or not,  tons of options in there but not where I'd put
 RJT> 'em,  tons of features that I'll never use,  tons of BS to come along
 RJT> with it...

But as I said above, you can pare it down.  :)


 
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