men.... feck linux!

[Roj]

No, AmigaOS is only a panacea in the mind of the few and the ignorant, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. They say "ignorance is bliss", and in this case it is most certainly true.

If the "ignorant" Amiga users are getting the things done with their Amigas that PC users who can only get work done if they're in front of a 3 GHz Pentium do, then the choice of the word ignorant is as poor as you can get. You may diss people who get work done with less. I've got nothing but respect for them. Having a faster computer doesn't make you a better person. A more arrogant person perhaps, but certainly not a better one.

I've always said, the less you know about computers, the faster they need to be. The only exception to this rule is the playing of games. I've worked with people who got more work done in a week on <20MHz processors (not Amigas) than many people with 3GHz systems will get done in a year. Which of those deserves more respect?

And, of course, I post this with only the nicest of intentions. :-D

[Roj]

Like what? Hmm? What do Amiga users do that PC users need 3 GHz for?

Based on the frequency with which I hear PC users chuckle, slack and otherwise pass off anything that's not as fast as their 3GHz systems, apparently it starts at the flip of the power switch. I've run into a lot of people who believe they need that much speed to get any work done at all. They seem to have a mental block that keeps them from being productive if they're not using what they perceive to be at least the minimum acceptable processor speed. It's like tortoisephobia or something.

I diss people who talk BS. Spreading ignorance and myths to make themselves appear smarter or more savvy than your average user. I don't diss people who do more with less, but judgung by this thread what you have is people who diss other operating systems on the basis of their own prejudice and ignorance.

Everybody seems to be talking from their own experiences. Linux doesn't lend itself to the uninitiated very well. We all know that. Drumming that up to intentionally spreading myths and then immediately talking down about them only makes it look like it's being turned into an out-savvy contest. To a greater or lesser extent, everybody disses other operating systems based on their own prejudices and ignorance. Nothing's going to change that. It's just confliction of opinion.

Really? How does that match up with the general ignorance of many Amiga users? They may know a lot about AmigaOS and Amigas, but they know nothing about anything else.

There's some serious courage behind that statement. Amiga users have a general ignorance about other operating systems? Wow, I don't think I've got the intestinal fortitude to spread a myth like that. Well done!

There's a reason only "nerds" bothered with computers and the mainstream wanted nothing to do with them back before the MHz/GHz craze started. Computers were simply too slow for people who didn't understand them. Anybody who refers to that older hardware as "ancient" probably wouldn't know the first thing about squeezing anything out of those pre-WIMP systems, or even systems that shortly followed. They worked fine back then. You just had to know how. If people of my generation had the attitude a lot of today's computer users do, computers would never have gotten out of the "stone age". Nobody could've been bothered to use the damn things long enough to figure out how to make them do anything.

Sure, a 3GHz processor won't make for a much better text editor, but you won't get much rendering or modelling done on that 20MHz processor. See?

No, I don't see. Creative people get rendering done on slower systems. Five years from now, people will be spewing the same crap about today's systems that were used to create Gollum, saying how unusable they suddenly are because the then-modern systems will somehow seem to change the older systems in "the enlightened" people's minds and have them believing they're totally worthless, unusable, and they need to throw good money after bad on the next best thing with a big, bright "NEW!" slapped on the side.

I suppose we all could've scrapped our library database toils to make a feature-length movie on our <20MHz processors, but our bosses would make us stay late and we'd never get to see it in the theater. In all honesty, if the computers of today were available back then, it wouldn't have made a hill of beans of a difference. We got an awful lot of records processed on our "ancient" equipment, but the time it took to write the software to do it still took much longer than it took for those processors to chew through all that data. Creative people (the ignorant, apparently) find a way to get it done. I'm just not willing to get caught up in the need to buy new hardware every year when the slower stuff does just as well for the most part. I don't come away stupider from those slower machines, as you seem to want to imply. If anything I'm better prepared to put the faster hardware to good use. It's the necessity of that that's in question. More often than not, it isn't.

AmigaOS is small and efficient. It is also primitive by modern standards and does a lot of things very badly indeed, if at all.

Some people prefer to dig a ditch with a bulldozer. I do it with a primitive shovel. I get a good tan, stay in shape, and ulimately have more control over where the ditch actually goes. If by modern standards you mean where Microsoft seems to want to take me, I'll just stick with primitive.

[Roj]

If you can't think for yourself about what can and can't be done with that older hardware then I really can't help ya. Are you telling me you make movies for a living? I can certainly understand Cecilia wanting as fast a machine as she can get hold of, but by the same token I'm not about to minimize her past work by saying those old, outdated machines she used before are worthless and unusable. I won't even touch on whether or not she can handle other operating systems. Feel free though. You've already got that foot half in your mouth. If she can make do with that stuff for all that time, I certainly can find a way to be productive with them, although I'm certainly not a professional videographer. I'd just be playing.

Other than games, what won't run on those slightly older, or as you put it, ancient, PCs, Macs, or whatever? Why do you _need_ high-end hardware to run Linux? What are you having trouble running that others aren't? I'm _not_ having trouble running anything. Why would I give examples of software I'm not having trouble with? Why don't you list some software that doesn't run well for you on slower hardware and we'll see where that takes it.

As far as Amiga = Good, Anything else = Bad, I can say the same for you. Bill Hoggett's preferred OS = Good, Anything else = Bad. If the shoe fits... Personally I've learned and subsequently forgotten how more systems worked than most kids these days can even list. And actually your assumption is wrong. My first choice is an old DEC VaxStation for getting my work done, but at times I prefer my Amiga. I've reworked much of it to work like my Vax anyway.

As much as AmigaOS4 won't run on an A500, so much that runs on an A500 won't run on an AmigaOne. Does that fact alone qualify either system? If you say yes you're not too bright. It just means that someone hasn't taken the time to rebuild for one system or the other. It's how it performs on those systems that qualifies them. On my system, my software runs as well as it would on other systems. I use PageStream on the Amiga. I've bought a copy for Windows, but guess what. It doesn't perform to such a degree higher on Windows that makes me stop using the Amiga version.

Shovel, spoon, half full, half empty, blah blah blah. My point is, you don't _need_ the latest and greatest to make a computer useful unless you don't know enough to get use out of them. Computers are as useful as the users can make them. People who know less about computers need more from the computer to get anywhere. I'll admit that I use A PC for certain games. But for work, real work, people who know more don't need as much to get to the same place. Clearly your computers need to be high-end for you to get your stuff done. That's not a bad thing, necessarily. But don't be all high-and-mighty toward people who don't have that requirement.