Re: [9fans] Help for home user discovering Plan 9

This thing about Windows updates, I think it's a non-issue. It's not like updates are mandatory and, as a matter of fact, there's rather fine-grained classification of them on Microsoft's knowledge base which can be used by any more or less experienced user to identify exactly what they need for addressing a specific glitch and to download and install that and only that. Periodic updates of Windows are really unnecessary and can be easily turned off. Cumulative updates (like the service packs), on the other hand, are often the best way to go.

What seems to actually be the problem for you is that you don't like being told there's a closed modification to your existing closed software. Well, that's the nature of binary-only proprietary for-profit software. The only way to get you to pay out of anything other than good will, which is a rare bird.

P.S. On open/free software mailing lists and forums justice is often not done to Windows, et al. Particularly, no meaningful alternative is presented for carrying out the important duties Windows currently performs for general computing, i.e. non-technical home and office applications which combined together were and continue to be the killer application of microcomputers.

--On Saturday, April 18, 2009 8:11 AM +0200 lucio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

The update/installation process in Ubuntu sucks. If you try something
using BSD ports or Gentoo portage, you can fine tune things and have
explicit control over the update process.

I was specifically omitting BSD ports, as they are in a different
league. The point I _was_ making is that one readily sacrifices
control for convenience and that Linux and Windows users and those who
assist them have to accept second-rate management and pay for it (I
should know, I can see it when XP decides to use the GPRS link for its
updating :-(

Enough reason for me to prefer Plan 9 (and NetBSD, but I can only get
my teeth into so many apples), if there weren't many more reasons.

++L



.

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