> Also sprach 'D.L. Richardson' :
>
> >as some of you may (or may not) have noticed, I sorta fell of the
> >face of the virtual planet for a while. reason? big relationship
> >kerfuffle. as it suddenly turns out, I'm now a single person (got no
> >strings to hold me down 'n' all that). so, there it is. another
> >relationship come and gone, and now I'm sitting here pulling the
> >pieces back together. feh.
>
> Feh is right. As Greg said "Condolences on losing your partner/COngrats on
> ditching the less half, though it always is a bit of both. All you need is
> something to focus on, which is why you made an excellent course of action
> in deciding..
>
> >So, I'm considering making some big changes in my life (I recently
> >brought up the 'searching for an idenity' thread a while back). I don't
> >know what these changes will include, but one I am seriously
> >considering (and this may sound rather silly and non-eventful) is
> >turning my ol' Windows machine into a Linux box.
> >
> >Is changing one's primary OS a life-shaping event? Right now it
> >feels like it could be ;>
>
> If it's not a life shaping event, Linux will at least give you an
> intellectually stimulating hobby that will keep you busy engough to take
> your mind off that stupid dull ache. It's like Ben and Jerry's ice cream,
> but won't gain you any weight and will raise your salery (hopefully), and
> is quite honestly a heck of a lot of fun.
>
> A few comments on what others have said:
>
> Greg's advice is sound, double partition that sucker. Unless you are going
> to be using your machine as a server on the net, you probably want a small
> win95 partition to wordprocess (though there is a linux wp) and game
> playing. Though emulators abound this is the most expediant way to do it.
> Reformating the drive is the easiest way to partition it, but I don't think
> it's necesary. Though you will have to defragment it to get all the bits
> on one side.
>
> As to the BSD contingent, and let us not get embroiled in a regional war
> shall we, a few disagreements. Unless you plan on using it as a dedicated
> server on the net (And I think Deb plans to use it as her home computer)
> Linux scores big time over BSD. Not by any miracle of systems design, but
> just because there are far more rabid Linux cult members willing to port
> every dame type of application over to that system. So you have far more
Agreed, (at least partially) but not because of your arguments. It does
not matter if there are ports of all - you have also got to find them. Is
there any central Linux packages storing place? And what if when it is
a.out and you need ELF or vice versa or the shared libraries don't match
and work with that precompiled program? Porting programs is usually no
big fun - as is building them if you could get them built.
The part why I actually agree with you is that there are a lot of crazy
Linux fans around in the world and seemingly also around Deb, so any
person to person help will be nearer. It's funny how Universities around
the world which have tended to rather support BSD than anything else (all
those Sun's...) tend now to switch to Sys V. Linux person-to-person local
support is certainly better (the best to say so - but IMHO only personal).
> bells and wistles to play with. BSD doesn't yet have a java
> implementation, Linux has one running in the kernal. So while BSD is a lot
> more stable, unless you are setting up a mail server for your LAN, Linux is
> just a better toy to play with.
You don't like kaffe, do you? As far as I understand, for Java you need a
compiler and the JavaVM to run it on... And I rather would not have Java
in my kernel and rather execute Java programs the way I do with
tcl and perl... And I would not like perl or tcl in my kernel.
> >I'm also in the process of learning Perl (and possibly C++), but
> >that's sorta secondary.
OOPS! Something I somehow missed! I know I'm BAD, BAD, BAD - but try out
Tcl/Tk - as long as you stay with the scripts and don't go to embedding,
there are lot's of easy and beautiful things to be done. You can make
*interpretid* programs which run as fas as equvalent compiled programs
under Windows. It's easy. It's beautiful. But it is not compiled and so
many people don't like it.
Sander
> >I have finally succumbed to my geekish tendencies. Woo :)
>
> Revel in your geekdom while you can.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --- "How long have you been wanting me to talking like a bot?" ---
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> taylor@hotwired.com
>