in reply to Re: My first "Windows Anonymous" session
in thread My first "Windows Anonymous" session

Well Rex(Wrecks), that's an interesting point of view, but I like it. The only thing I worry about in suggesting something like FreeBSD is that one might get too frustrated with it and turn back to Windows

I'm sure no matter how much you dislike "RedHate", you probably like Windows even less. My idea was just to get him something that would quickly and easily assimilate, but then again, Redhat does provide so much that you can do in terms of GUI setup, its not even really like *Nix anymore.

Perhaps the best solution would be as you say, use multiple Operating Systems. I know that's what I do... I'm using Debian, GenToo, Mandrake, and Windows XP.

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Re: Re: Re: My first "Windows Anonymous" session
by Rex(Wrecks) (Curate) on Jul 18, 2003 at 20:37 UTC
    Actually Win2k/XP is pretty tied with FreeBSD in my opinion.

    I see what you mean by the frustration factor, but the poster asked for quick learning, typically this means a bit painful as there is a ton of knowlege to assimilate is a short period of time. I like RedHate the least of all the OS's I use. They tweak basic things to make them unique to them. Any OS that tweaks basic things just irritates me. The cool thing about the *nix's is thier similarities, that you can port knowlege from one to the other, RedHate tries to break this, which is another reason not to learn from this platform.

    RedHate does have advantages, primarily in support for devices and software. Most software will have a port to RedHate quicker than other *nix's, and they have done quite a good job with driver support "out of the box". The other major advantage is one of the same advantages Perl enjoys, a HUGE online community to glean information from. I actually have several RedHate installations, 2 of them are even withing reach at the point of writting, but they are still my least prefered flavor of OS. To each his/her own though, and just because I don't prefer it, doesn't mean I won't use it :)

    "Nothing is sure but death and taxes" I say combine the two and its death to all taxes!
[reply]

      Good point on to each his own. How exactly is Win2k/XP tied with FreeBSD? I have never heard anyone make a claim like this before... I look forward to your response on the matter.

      As far as tweaking things to make them unique, you have to agree that Microsoft is the biggest abuser of this... although I guess that's not really the point.

      Lets just agree that its important to learn *Nix no matter what the flavor. I think it would be fine to take either direction.

[reply]
        Well, like I said in my origional post, I installed RedHat on a secondary system (the installation seemed almost "windowish" to me) and I have been playing with it all day (I even installed a couple of rpm packages). Still trying to figure out how to do some things that are simple in Windows (for instance installing Netbios on my Ethernet card) but RedHat has so far been (I believe) a good starting point for me. I was suprised when I typed "dir" accidently at a command prompt and it actually worked.

        Maybe I will blow away the redhat install and try FreeBSD (but not this month) I don't keep data on this machine so blowing it away and reformatting to a new OS is not a problem. Are the different versions of Linux THAT different from each other?

        After I get my network protocol problem resolved, all I have to do is figure out how to install from a CD Drive that is NOT bootable and I'll install it on another system.

        Oh, I found that I can use Remote Desktop Client to connect to my Win2k Server. And I found that I can use WinaXe to connect to my Linux box from my Windows PC (but that way costs $150 - Is there a cheaper way to do that?)

[reply]
        Tied, by tied I mean like "tie game", I like both almost equally :) The only similarity is probably Berkley Sockets :)

        Yes, learning *nix is a good thing. Some time back people were saying that *nix was breathing it's last, but they were very confused individuals :)

        As for the tweaking, we could argue all day :) However I do know that MS has been trying to be as RFC compliant as possible with Win2k and beyond. And by tweaking, they really don't have to be the same as anyone else, my point was just that RedHate was trying to break the *nix mold and in doing so broke some "Knowlege Compatability" with other distros and *nix flavours.

        Again, more of a personal frustration, and preference than anything.

        "Nothing is sure but death and taxes" I say combine the two and its death to all taxes!
[reply]

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