Re: Sunsets?

On 19 Apr, 08:05, johnny <johnnytouquenotthis...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
johnny <johnnytouquenotthis...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

Is this in a real DOS or something pretending to be DOS under Windows?

It's windows dos - crippled dos.

I still program in QB 4.5 as I have mentioned many times. I have it
running on a lot of DOS machines in the lab but for sheer comfort and
speed, I've done the bulk of programming from one of my office desktops
running it in a DOS window under Windows for the past 15 years. But
starting last August I've been using Ubuntu linux on one of my two
desktops and I'm now at the point where I much prefer it to the XP
machine - takes a while to get used to it but it's well worth the
effort. For about 6 months I lamented that I still had to keep the XP
machine running so I could run QB 4.5. But about two months ago I tried
DOSemu under Ubuntu and it works flawlssly. And since older pcs run much
faster in the first place under linux, so do DOS programs in DOSemu. If
you like running DOS programs, it's an idea for you to make them work
even better.

Johnny

I can't, ... not at this stage. I've briefly played with Linux - many
years ago. I was trained in the hardware; digital logic, processors,
digital signal analysis, machine code, assembly,  CPM , and learned
about Dos and Basic for myself. (Ooh, and M$ Access.) Everything I
learned was either useless from the start, or useless within a few
years. I've resisted learning any more, and I've forgotten most of what
I knew - though I could probably still draw the circuit for an 8 bit
processor board from memory.

I wish I had a memory that still worked.

Linux will always be there to try when you are ready. They've spent a lot
of effort recently making it user-friendly in order to attract frustrated
M$ Windows users. So it's not daunting to try like it used to be with all
the command line intricacies (although you can still use command line if
you like it's ruthless power). The learning side of it involves endless
choices of distributions (think of them as flavours - so many versions
out there!) and of GUI interfaces - they always give you more than one.
It's only challenging when it comes to fixing bugs. Not that it has more
than windows, but you need to think differently when you are fixing them.
You don't realise how effectively M$ has brainwashed us all until you
start working in an M$-free OS. You have to be logical all of a sudden.

Don't forget it's free - including software. And much is better than what
you get with Windows for all that $$$. Like Gnumeric - way more accurate
than M$ Excell at math. And Open Office does everything I need to do
including making PDF's of my documents to send to clients - at the push
of a button. And it's fast when you push that button. Not like M$ Word
and Adobe which chug along slowly and then sometimes crash after minutes
of wasted time.

Yesterday I downloaded a copy of the latest netbook remix of Ubuntu, used
my laptop (running another version of Ubuntu) to make a bootable version
of the netbook version on a USB flash drive, and then used that to boot
my wife's eeepc. That all took about 10 minutes. Then, running her eeepc
with netbook remix ubuntu, I essentially ghosted her Xandros OS in about
5 minutes. (I probably could have done that with Xandros itself but I
know how to do it in Ubuntu and I want her to consider switching to it so
doing it this way I had the added benefit of showing her Ubuntu running
on her eeepc.) Now I can play with her eeepc safely. Should something go
wrong, I can just burn her original Xandros back on it in about 5
minutes. I'm preparing to make an 8 Gb SDHC card ($24 and the only thing
that costs money) with a complete XP OS on it so she can have a dual boot
eeepc for those times when she has to run XP (like logging into her
'secure' office network and running her M$-only software for her GPS
wristwatch.) By putting XP on an SDHC card, it will take up none of her
on-board SSD memory so her Xandros will still have all the memory it
could possibly have. And I can make her many other OS SD cards so she can
play around and see which OS she likes best. Xandros is not great. It's
dumbed down so kids and grannies can use it. She's a UNIX person from way
back and so I figure a good linux is what she'd be more happy with. She
doesn't have time to play around like this though.

It's a lot of fun.

Johnny-

Lots of fun maybe J, but unfortunately it's hard to break away from
the Windows environment when it's the corporate choice of every
company I've ever worked for. As an individual I'd be concerned about
the (perceived) patchy support for drivers for Linux, using emulators
to run software that will load and run very easily with Microsoft, the
lack of legal comebacks if the software fails - at least with Windows
I have some legal redress if problems arise, the lack of high end
software alternatives such as Photoshop or Dreamweaver, and no real
support locally.

I can see the advantages, and it's a poor reflection on myself that
I'm clearly taking the easy route, but I find the Windows environment
does what I want and I can live with the poor performance when
balanced against the issues I've mentioned. If I had more time, or
indeed worked in a less corporate environment, I'd love to mess around
with Linux and I suspect that I'd be won over.

Lou

.

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