On Sun, 28 Apr 2007, Day Brown wrote:
> I have always enjoyed the flicker fast flips between dos text mode
> apps, and even loading a graphic like DISPLAY to sort thru images
> comes up quicker on the same hardware than pu****ng a mouse around on
> Linux.
>
> But we are where we are, that is on the net, so I must use Linux/
> mozilla/tbird. I sometimes like to look at a video clip on Youtube
> also. But what are my options besides Linux? I refuse to sup****t a
> monopoly empire like Micky$loth.
>
> My low income, sense of frugality, and environmental sensibilities
> dont leave the PC on all the time, so I appreciate a quick boot and
> shutdown. Next to dos, OS2 is the best I've seen, and I have it
> installed on another platform that I could install the os2 versions of
> mozilla and tbird.
I spent considerable time with OS/2, both warp 3 and warp 4. Most of
the boxes I tried (about a dozen) would install Warp 3, but Warp 4 would
only install on one of the boxes. I'll tell you some additional dirty
little secrets about OS/2. They have a ton of fixpacks. You need certain
ones, not others, to get Mozilla to run, if you can keep it from cra****ng,
plus fairly stiff hardware requirements (go ask on netscape.mozilla.os2,
or whatever it it, for help). The installs won't work unless you can find
OS2 drivers for your CD-rom drives. Another one: IBM released subversions
of Warps all in the same boxes so you couldn't tell which was later (maybe
if you looked at file dates). I have three boxes of Warp 3, each box has
its own OS plus applications. Guess what, applications from box 2 will NOT
work with OS from box 1. Only applications from box 1 will work with OS
from box 1. Etc for other permutations. I tried a few DOS programs in the
DOS windows of OS2 and they were crap. Particularly graphics. Want to do
anything fancy? You might need autoexec.bat and config.sys files with 200
lines of configurations. In the Windows3.1 loaded OS/2 the file manager
was buggy. The only thing that installed, ran, and uninstalled well was
StarOffice 5.1 for OS/2. Interestingly, StarOffice for Windows9X has good
webbrowswer capability. Sadly, the StarOffice for OS/2 is so buggy as a
web browser that it crashes (window closes) on 98% of the websites I tried
it on. Also, OS/2 is not crashproof. The only good thing about a crash is
that all you need to do is reboot. Other bad things: no defrag. checkdisk
only from boot disks. And, several more.
If you can't get the CDrom drivers to install warp 4, you can "make" one
hundred 3.5 floppy disks at XDF density, and then you have to swap the
floppy drive out of the "make" box and put it into the "install" box so
head alignment and spin speed is right. I actually tried this. Big waste
of time.
Last big bad news. The TCP/IP stack is not robust (warp 3). hackers can
send a malformed packet and crash the stack. OS still runs fine, but you
can't redial in and set up ppp (not all Warp 3s have ppp, some only slip).
You have to reboot the OS to redial in. I've had this happen lots of
times.
I've had plenty of experience with Linux, Red Hat, vers 4.2, 5.2,6.2, 7.x,
and the workstations (bad news if you don't have the right cdrom drive).
But well meaning folks keep sending me links to
> youtube so I have some idea of what's on National TV without having to
> actually watch all the bullschitt myself.
>
> One of the reasons I use Xandros, is that it *automatically* finds and
> mounts all the dos partitions on all the drives, just like dos was
> born to do. I *never* get told I dont "have permission" to access a
> drive on my own *personal* desktop. Which is a clue to the basic Linux
> problem, that it was designed from the ground up as a network server,
> and thinks that my desktop is just one of the dweeb clients. It seems
> to take so long to boot cause of all the networking functionality that
> I dont need.
>
> Back in the BBS days with my 56k modem, I could turn on the 486, and
> come back later on after I fixed my coffee and granola to find my
> email sitting there. I didnt havta logon to the desktop, or the BBS
> host; back in the day of geeks, there wasnt nearly as much space
> wasted on ad hominum or flaming, and the BBS nets like WWIV or Fido
> had virtually no spam. i kinda miss that.
>
> So- I see mention of os2, ecomstation, & BEOS. Any other alternatives?
> Is there any effort to bring full net functionality to FREEDOS or
> DRDOS?
>
>
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