Subj : Re: Open Source Leaving Microsoft Sitting on the Fence? To : comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux From : Juhan Leemet Date : Tue Jul 27 2004 07:05 am On Sun, 25 Jul 2004 06:21:38 +0000, Peter Lu wrote: > In article , > Jack Strangio wrote: >>We don't mind variety in vehicles... > > You neglect to notice that the user interface for a car consists of > some one dozen gadgets whereas that for computers it's some hundreds > to thousand. I recall having a rental car where come night time I > couldn't find the light switch because of some oddball design... I empathize with you here. A long time ago, I bought a used Alfa 2000 GTV. Beautiful car. I picked it up in the afternoon, and blew off work for the rest of the day (I was managing a computer lab, and it was under control). I drove until dusk, and then suddenly realized that I didn't know how to turn on the lights. As I figured out the next day, that Alfa had its headlights turned on by twisting the stem of the turn signal indicator. I had never seen anything like that before. I learned something important: never assume (thanks Benny Hill!) that you know how to operate something. > ... But, when different > distributions of an OS put basic apps in different places, such > as /bin, /usr/bin, /sbin, /usr/sbin, /usr/local/bin, /opt/bin, > /usr/local/xxx/bin, etc, it's just annoyance... Well, that's because it is a bit of a moving target, over decades of *nix development and evolution. Read the FHS (Filesystem Hierarchy Standard) document. It explains what all those places are, and their purpose. Then you might understand also why there is variation, or evolution. In some cases, people are still trying to figure out what is the best thing to do: e.g. where do "local" or "optional" things go? /usr/local? /opt? I mean literally decades of evolution, since before there was an MS-DOS even. Certainly before Windoze. Would you hold Windoze to adhere ONLY to MS-DOS "standards". No, I wouldn't think so. Are you suggesting that Windoze has never moved stuff around between releases? Not credible. > one searches for Linux discussion topics on the Web, one often needs to > qualify things by "which distribution," which to me is often a plain > waste of time. You'd rather have some kind of "thought police"? > One of the easiest ways to offer secutiry in a system is simply to > jumble things up by using non-standard user interfaces. For instance, > if my system simply switches the log-in prompt by having "user:" > request password and "password:" request user name, it could already > cause enough misery for the unfamiliar user. Or a car that switches > the gas pedal with the brake pedal could probably frustrate quite a > few car thieves... Huh? I don't understand your point here at all. The *nix crowd does NOT believe in security by obscurity. That's Mr. Bill and M$ Windoze idea, which does not seem to be working too well, BTW. -- Juhan Leemet Logicognosis, Inc. .