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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => General Internet News => Topic started by: OSS542 on November 23, 2008, 01:27:45 PM
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In case anyone is interested, an editorial suggesting that the Linux desktop should look to the Amiga for inspiration appears at LinuxToday.com:
LinuxToday Editorial (http://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/2008112103535PS)
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Awesome !! It captures my feelings about Linux and Amiga.
Even considering the comments are a little bit old
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It certainly should look to something.
I find Linux really handy but its still much more rough around the edges than Windows. Some of this is due to its open mix-and-match philosophy, so things aren't as tightly integrated as they could be. But some of it I think is not, they are simply trying to outshine MacOS, Vista etc and failing miserably.
How I wish AmiWM was still being improved. If it was a full desktop suite instead of simply a window manager I would probably use it.
I use KDE4 now but I still think KDE and Gnome are just too heavy and the rest seem too light. I am yet to find a happy medium that hits the spot.
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I don't think Linux is a copy of Windows or Mac (in fact Windows 7 seems a copy of KDE 4),
And I am sure it's a lot more organized than
Windows. There's more than 500 unknown megas of dll inside C:Windows! In Linux, every library has it's own manual.
Last 2 years I had O.N.E. crash in my home-PC. Of course I am not Windows user.
If theres a Linux Distro close to mac os x, windows, etc, that's just the interface.
Workbench is the most user friendly OS of all I tried yet. Very easy. I miss it a lot. Waiting for 4.1-386 (because it would be cheaper and faster.)
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How I wish AmiWM was still being improved. If it was a full desktop suite instead of simply a window manager I would probably use it.
Then Anubis OS is for you
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Then Anubis OS is for you
pfft. "is".
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been searching for that Amiga feel for years but there is only one Amiga. As far as Linux goes, anyone who thinks its intuitive to have a system folder called "etc" is just kidding themselves. Linux is designed so that its neigh on impossible for the average user to install anything on their own, unless someone has packaged it for them previously. And then you have to sometimes BEG to get their distro Guru to do it: i tried to get E-Uae packaged for PCLOS, but they didn't like a few home truths i said about their distro and so they ignored it. Linux fans use Linux simply because its not a MS product, not because they enjoy it. A single 50k system file that's one version too old will stop it from booting, and believe me installing something as innocuous as a 500k emulator will do it. Its just a real shame that the open-source movement has selected this OS to work on. The hype and fanboyism for Linux has genuinely held back the development of alternatives to windows.
At one point didn't Amiga Inc as part of Gateway want the next AmigaOS to be based on Linux? Amiga users didn't want a bar of it, but having the device drivers from the Linux with the Amiga look and feel on top, with UAE, would have made a lot of sense
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Ye-ye, blame linux for unix legacy.
Not like the tripos one-letter names in AmigaOS is any better - C, S, L, T - yes, very intuitive, not :-P
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Linux fans use Linux simply because its not a MS product, not because they enjoy it.
I use GNU/Linux because it's an excellent product. It's amazing for doing development with, the desktop is fast and stable, and installing and updating software is stupidly easy (with apt anyway.) Not to say it's perfect, but it's hard to argue that any OS really is.
I don't care about Windows being an MS product, since I've had a job for years thanks to them.
Your experience is exclusive to you, just because you've had trouble doesn't mean everyone else does.
I run Linux, MacOS X, Windows and AROS at home (and OS 3.9 too.)
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@stefcep2
Linux fans use Linux simply because its not a MS product, not because they enjoy it.
Bollocks. I run MorphOS, Debian GNU/Linux, Windows XP and Mac OS X (all those natively, I'm not counting the virtual machines here). Out of these Linux is the obvious server OS choice.
I prefer the best tool for the job. If that's M$ product I have no problem with it.
A single 50k system file that's one version too old will stop it from booting
That's why any proper distro has dependicies. apt is your friend.
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"Gentoo for you, Ubuntu for your grandmother" ;-)
But yeah, let me join in the crowd of amiga users that also enjoy Linux. I have been running Linux on my old A1200 for more than a decade, and it's been a joy ride. Ofcourse Linux certainly has its issues on the desktop, but I _much_ more prefer Linux over any incarnation of Windows or MacOS.
I run my own gentoo setup on my ibook, my eeepc-901, 2 A1200 systems, a quadra 910, Linsys NSLUs, my Nintendo GameCube, the Wii, xbox, the PS3 before I gave it away, my zaurus, a few more PCs and a virtual machines and tings I've forgotten (oh yes, gumstix, asus wlhdd etc) - I also have between 10 and 15 working amigas (A500, A600, A1200s, A3000s, A4000s, CD32s) that are running (mostly) AmigaOS, MorphOS and even a PC where I test AROS... it's all for fun :-)
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I´ve tried Ubuntu for some time, then I switched back to Kurumin, because it crashed a lot in my machine. I can´t say it was an experience I would recommend to my grandma.
I think Linux is too much tied to the command line, and this is something I believe should be left on the past. Looking from this side, Windows is more friendly.
The last Mac I had used OS9, so I can´t say anything about OSX at all. Except that it looks nice ;-)
But anyway, I still think Workbench was the best in my opinion. Of course, we all know about the technology gap caused by not developing anything new all those years. This still doesn´t change my mind.
So I agree with them, let Linux looks like WB. This is something my grandma would use :-D
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I think Linux is too much tied to the command line, and this is something I believe should be left on the past. Looking from this side, Windows is more friendly.
There are things that can't be done in Windows unless you hit the prompt.
I've also spent a lot of my Amiga time in the Shell with scripts and ARexx, and couldn't imagine having a system without it.
Finally, with the wrong distro, Linux is admittedly heavy on the shell, but most of the newer community distros aim to cover the majority of settings with strong defaults or a GUI: it's only when doing something out-of-the-ordinary that will bring you back down to the shell. Look at the Eee for example: like the Amiga of old, all standard kit which you can expect to be there, all specified parts are known. The release distro is targeted specifically for those parts and everything 'just works'.
And that's what this whole game is usually about: it should 'just work'. This is why the Mac is making ground at the moment, and why the Amiga was so strong in the past where games were concerned (before the console industry strengthened enough).
If you read this far... I think I'll just sign off here.
jaminJay
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c= "command"
s="start up"
L= "fiLesytems"
T="temporary files". tell me once and I can remember it. Which is easier to remember: "startup-sequence" versus menu1st.
In Linux
etc="anything else we don't know what to do with or where to put goes in here"
oh yeah here's another one: modem port on Amiga= serial.device, in Linux ttyusb0blahblahbla..
And the app names k3b? thats cd/dvd burner software, really intuitive name ..
Limited to my experience? Go on the forums for each and every distro out there. See how many posts there are from people wanting to do really simple things, and the long-winded, sudo this sudo that, cut and paste of commands you will never remeber or know what they mean, editing of Xorg.conf files, kernel options etc.. Linux's ONLY advantages over a 20 year old OS like AmigaOS are memory protection and it runs on cheap modern intel/x86 hardware and its free. Thats it.
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@jaminjay
And that's what this whole game is usually about : it should 'just work'. This is why the Mac is making ground at the moment, and why the Amiga was so strong in the past where games were concerned (before the console industry strengthened enough).
thats Linux's catch cry. except it "just doesn't" far too often for the average user..
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@jaminjay
"
There are things that can't be done in Windows unless you hit the prompt.
I've also spent a lot of my Amiga time in the Shell with scripts and ARexx, and couldn't imagine having a system without it."
Used windows as my main system for 5 years, only command prompt I ever used was to execute run winuae so that i could read and write to a flash card.
Shell scripts, Arexx, never NEEDED to on Amiga, if you CHOOSE to because you WANT to, OK.
But in Linux to do many system-critical things You MUST fire up a command line and type or cut and paste archaic commands, that you will probably never remember. No choice, no GUI way to do it.
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@piru "That's why any proper distro has dependicies. apt is your friend."
Not always. There are numerous examples where the dependancies are not installed eg eg k3b burning software update that needed an update to a KDE GUI file that wasn't picked up in synaptic, no boot. Then fire up Windows (why should you have to?) so that you can get on the net and wait several days until others have that problem so that you get a fix. Oh what would you do if there was no windows? or yeah install another distro so that you can work out how to make the first distro boot..its a joke..
I have run XP Pro for 5 years: not one BSOD, never failed to boot first, time every time.
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@stefcep2
There are numerous examples where the dependancies are not installed eg eg k3b burning software update that needed an update to a KDE GUI file that wasn't picked up in synaptic, no boot.
I've never been left with unbootable Debian system. Then again, I don't run X, but even if X would fail to start I don't consider that "unbootable".
Then fire up Windows (why should you have to?) so that you can get on the net and wait several days until others have that problem so that you get a fix. Oh what would you do if there was no windows
Linux is the only OS on the server x86 box. If I have any trouble I can always boot with in the safe mode or select to boot with sash to get the root prompt. I've never had to do that so far with my home installation.
Windows has the same, too, btw: booting in safe mode or to command prompt.
Oh what would you do if there was no windows? or yeah install another distro so that you can work out how to make the first distro boot..its a joke..
And if the Windows installation breaks badly (lets assume it does, no boot in safe mode f.e.), the only option is to boot from the installation media and choose the repair installation. It hardly ever works. Is that better?
Repairing Linux installation is bloody heaven in comparison.
With Windows there's always some "black box" in there which does some magic things you can't possibly figure out. With Linux there at least is the possibility to figure out exactly why something fails. Granted, I guess most will just reinstall when things go south, but for "real techie" Linux is more salvagable.
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Limited to my experience? Go on the forums for each and every distro out there. See how many posts there are from people wanting to do really simple things, and the long-winded, sudo this sudo that, cut and paste of commands you will never remeber or know what they mean, editing of Xorg.conf files, kernel options etc..
People without problems don't go on forums asking about stuff. So that's not really an accurate measure of how many people are having success with something.
Linux has many distributions, right now Ubuntu is probably the best for not having to apt get this or that, it has a nice Add/Remove programs application and so on. The only time I've had to apt get something on the latest 8.10 is because I've wanted to do lower end stuff. It also names things logically in the menus in case you don't like stuff like k3b.
Also, arguably pasting text from ubuntuguide.org into a terminal is much easier than going to this website and downloading something, then another to download something else, then another and so on. Right now if you don't have the right codec to play something, it'll prompt you to download them, and it actually works. Windows Media Player tries to do the same thing but it doesn't work. MacOS X still requires you to download the codecs.
As a person experienced with computers, you no doubt assume that everyone can handle downloading and installing stuff. I work in a small office and have a family of luddites to support, and I can assure you that this is not in fact the case. In this situation, Windows or Linux are no different, it's an ordeal to add hardware or software and most of them lean on a family member or heaven forbid call Geek Squad or similar.
Also remember Linux as you refer to it is a large collection of different distributions targeted at many different end users. The fact is, whatever upsets you about Linux could be fixed (may already be in another distro) and is not inherently an issue with Linux but rather a distribution problem. Linux was built by developers for other developers, so it has a bit of a legacy to overcome.
Also, there's nothing wrong with /etc. I know etc contains configuration files and they're all in plain text. If the Amiga had anywhere near the software available or was useful at all as a server, you'd probably have a similar problem to solve there anyway.
If you don't like Linux so be it. To argue it has no advantages over a 20 year old OS like AmigaOS kinda implies you've not looked at the APIs and structures of either OS. AmigaOS is so far behind every other OS out there, it's ridiculous. Beyond that, internally it was built in such a way that improving it to the point where it competes with modern operating systems requires ditching so much of it (and all the legacy code that ran on it), it may as well be a new OS anyway. Right now we have people who can't even decide what AmigaOS is anymore let alone who owns the thing, so don't expect anything to change.
If you know better, feel free to prove me wrong, but Linux's advantages over AmigaOS go way beyond memory protection and it being free.
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@ Piru
My idea of "unbootable" in the context of a modern OS that purports to be user-friendly is that it doesn't get to the log-in screen. You are clearly an advanced user. The mere fact that you can install and maintain your own Linux server is testament to that. I have no doubt that most Linux issues can be resolved via the CLI. In fact 95% of the time thats the ONLY way. But will an average user be able to do this? Probably not. As you say you can boot to the prompt. And then do what? Issue a heap of text commands with switches that YOU know. But could I? Could I be arsed going back to 1978 to learn all of these. Thats the problem. eg i wanted to create a bootable USB thumb drive. In Linux: add syslinux, open shell, issue about 10 lines of cli commands, with switches, in the exact order. In Windows, download utility, click "install" utility, stick in USB drive into USB port, click on "make bootable". Which is easier?.
Fundamental to this is the fact that the GUI for Linux is not integral to the OS: GUI's in Linux are written on top of CLI, ie as a way to more easily access the cryptic commands and numerous switches that need to be known to get anything done. Often the GUI is not even written by the original software author. Hence the possibility that it won't work properly. But underneath it all its all cli commands going on. In principle its similar to the way Win 3 sat on top of DOS.
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The biggest problem with Linux has nothing to do with software availability, platforms supported, user interface, or any of the above. The biggest problem Linux has is the current Linux userbase.
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@stefcep2
You have valid points there, but it doesn't mean Windows is better either. If Windows does goof up, you can't fix it via "CLI". You're forced to reinstall basically.
Ubuntu has brought easy "desktop" linux to masses, but indeed there is still room for improvement. Yet I know several "CLI" impaired people who use it and have no problems whatsoever. I'd even go as far as to claim that they enjoy it.
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@uncleted.
its about the number of post made to do really SIMPLE things, or things that ought to be simple, but aren't
I agree that Ubuntu has tried to be more user-friendly, and yes add/remove is a welcome step forward (via synaptic (?) which has been inother distros for a while).
And I absolutely agree that different distro's fix problems that are present in other distro's. That gives rise to the phenomenon known as "distro-hopping": a chosen distro A won't do x, but distro B will, so you go to distro B, only to find distro B wont do y, which distro A could, and so on..
You mention Linux's server heritage: Linux is a great server OS, but the demands of a server OS are different to that of a desktop OS. Server OS's distribute the same software, doing the same tasks-usually database-related- on many clients. desktop OS's need to run many different apps, at the same time doing varied things, where user input is more frequent and variable. Result? The GUI stutters and locks the desktop user out far more often than it should.
I am not a programmer so i don't know much about the API's of different OS's, so I can't comment. But I am desktop user, and therefore I am eminently qualified to discuss the user experience it offers. Its not about liking or not liking linux, its about whether it provides a satisfactory user experience for the majority of ordinary users, relative to other OS's. It doesn't. Yet.
having said that I'd love it succeed, because I believe in the open-source philosophy.
Amiga was always about putting the user in control, and it was always easy to configure and with DOpus very easy to house-clean, very easy to know where installers put things, very easy to launch things via GUI (in fact in 13 years of using one maybe 5% of the time I used CLI). As Aminet shows with the countless free utilities, software apps etc the API was sufficiently accessable to anyone who was inclined to learn.
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There are things that can't be done in Windows unless you hit the prompt.
I've also spent a lot of my Amiga time in the Shell with scripts and ARexx, and couldn't imagine having a system without it
Yes I know. But they are not things one could not design a GUI for it easily. So there are few excuses for not having it, like lack of good tools for windowed apps, need to write small apps to run in tight memory spaces, lack of developing time, and lazy programming. Only the last two seems to be the real cause of the problem now.
The same thing happens for scripting. It is better to use any text or code editor than ed or similar software. And it can easily be associated to execute an interpreter by clicking the script file
One thing that I liked in my old Mac was that there was no command line. And no need for it. They proved it was possible.
It does not make sense to do so much eye candy in today´s GUIs if you need to go to the old command line very often.
Leave the command line and complicated commands in the past with 8 bit machines. Spend your brain in your apps instead. :-D
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Henngh. Some points:
*NIX, as about the fifth comer to the desktop market (after PC, Mac, Amiga, Atari, Acorn...) is facing a serious squash of namespace. Simple names like "Media Player" or "CD Burner" are already taken a dozen times over, and rebranding a standalone package (as Linspire has tried) requires constant maintenance of a rebranding patchset. If you look closely, Apple and MS are feeling the pinch as well, which is why you get things names like "Front Row" instead of "Presentations."
A *NIX desktop can be reasonably "polished" if you swear to only use GNOME or KDE apps. Maintaining this discipline is rough, of course, particularly if you don't know what you're doing. At least, these days, almost any "desktop" has twice the resources needed to run both at once.
That situation is not much different than an Amiga running both MUI and ReAction apps at once. But the Amiga didn't reach that point until the platform was practically dead anyway, so maybe no one noticed. (In fairness, the control panels/configuration utilities for both libs are probably more easily located.)
The UNIX hierarchy (original flavors or LSB) is slightly weird, but as long as developers stick to it it shouldn't cause problems. Approaches like iTunes (to pick one major example that most of you have probably learned to work with), or for that matter every search engine ever to exist for the web, show how hierarchy is an obstruction to UI anyway. What UNIX (and most OSes, really) are still missing are UIs that are both reliable yet also agnostic about specific paths... In front of any system, the big problem is getting the computer to "Show me what I want."
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Linux works (when the planets align, same as any other system), but Linux maybe wasn't the best place to start the desktop UNIX experiment. Linux as a codebase doesn't seem to "learn" well, since Linus continues shuffling isolated projects in and out of the tree. If Linus had decided to be disciplined and say "There ought to be limits to Linux," then certain things would be set in stone by now, but that's not his style... and his style is not necessarily cooperative with anyone's efforts to do anything. :-D
That's not meant to be an insult, but the 'Linux is about what Linus finds interesting' aspect does bleed over quite visibly every now and then. Thankfully, Linus is now interested in not being bothered by people constantly asking him to shuffle isolated projects in and out of the tree, so the situation (in terms of trying to generalize interfaces and stick with them) is incrementally improving. On the one hand, you should stick with the codebase you're handed (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html), but on the other hand, Linus is only human.
If this adventure had started with a boring, relatively static foundation (my bias is toward the BSDs, say circa FreeBSD 3.x-4.x) the attempts at desktop distributions may have faced much less breakage from underneath. But once Flash and Java in their proprietary forms became things, that route was closed off and Linux became "the codebase we were handed."
Having watched this for 10 years or so now, I'm ambivalent as to whether the openings of Flash and Java and some of the other blobbish formats floating around today will really change anything. A lot can happen in the next ten years, and new beasts will probably emerge by the time FOSS support for the old ones is fully-baked.
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Anyhow, I think the point I'm meandering towards is thus: About all there is to learn from the Amiga has already been the case on the UNIX desktop (diverse applications, diverse interfaces, diverse libs), albeit on a much more horrific scale than we ever had to deal with when 20MB was a massive disk. There's an element of tolerance to be learned, to be sure -- a "funny looking" tool may look funny because it's been designed for its purpose -- and humility -- a "Workbench" that does a few things well may be more accessible than the modern approach that mingles all sorts of metaphor-breaking desklets and so on before the user even knows what he's doing... but I think I've been converted: If you find yourself grunting "Why can't this be an Amiga?," you have to step back and consider how the system at hand differs from an Amiga.
It also pays to realize this: The initial whiz-bang of the Amiga was in the hardware, followed by just enough software to realize it. If technologies like SSDs and nonvolatile RAMs are about to solve the shutdown/startup debates, maybe it's time to welcome them, cheer Moore's Law, and get some other work done.
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I certainly welcome anything Amiga-like (and something Amiga-like is still required for good performance on 300MHz handhelds or Atom-powered machines that run like 300MHz handhelds), but I'd still be happier to see a "heavy" UI on UNIX get fully-baked than yet another XFCE ("It's smaller! It does less! We're really proud it has a calendar! Half the programs you run will pull in all the GNOME or KDE libs anyway!"). If you're still ambivalent now, see how you feel when 3GHz machines with 4GB RAM are propped up for free next to a dumpster.
:roll:
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@ aeroman.
been having that discussion with the Linux zealots who just don't get that CLI's belong buried in the past. Its NOT better, its not progress, its just holding back the widespread adoption of the OS by the masses. But what else CAN they say when the entire OS is, in fact command-line driven, and the GUI is just veneer over the top of it. Yeah right so the guys at Palo Alto, Atari, Apple, MS, Commodore, IBM , BE Inc, et al who went for the GUI and mouse etc were all wrong and the Linux community is right?
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@stefcep2,
I agree with you 100% - yours are some of the most intelligent posts I've read for a long time! :-)
I'm running XP Pro on my 3 machines, with dual-boot to Ubuntu (for when I'm feeling slightly masochistic!).
XP has been great - never had any problems with it in over 6 years. Plus it kept me employed and very well paid for quite a while! :-)
Ubuntu is interesting, but all of the layers (Kernel, X, Gnome) really make it no swifter than XP on the same hardware. Plus the apps that I need only exist on Windows...
And don't talk about WINE - the half-dozen or so apps I tried to get going caused me more stress and hair-loss that my 10 month old twins! :-)))
You're dead right when you say it's a pity that the OSS community ran with Linux, rather than a purpose-made desktop OS, along the lines of BeOS or AmigaOS, but that's history now!
Cheers,
Mike.
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been searching for that Amiga feel for years but there is only one Amiga. As far as Linux goes, anyone who thinks its intuitive to have a system folder called "etc" is just kidding themselves. Linux is designed so that its neigh on impossible for the average user to install anything on their own, unless someone has packaged it for them previously.
Isnt that the case for windows or even amigaos? A installable .exe is pretty much the same as a pre packed .deb for example. The only difference is that there is so many different linux distros that use different kind of package manager. I recommend you use a popular distro like Ubuntu and you will rarely or never have such problems.
It has been ages since i had to compile anything manually and i actually find it easier to install or update software under ubuntu. I had the same install for years and it never ever broke.
It would be tricky for the average user to compile software under windows or amigaos as well....
Updating ubuntu is also rather simple and much less painful than using windows update.. What you say just isnt true in my experience. It was true maybe a few years ago, but not if you use a decent modern distro.
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stefcep2's comments intelligent?
Funny, I found them mostly silly :-)
From his posts I can tell he doesnt know AmigaOS that much better than he knows Linux, and why he pulls in GRUB's menu.lst (me guessing), I dont know.
So how are they intelligent? :-D