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Linux Software

The Atlantic Monthly on Linux 27

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
Jefe wrote in to point us to a nice Story about Linux that is currently appearing over at The Atlantic Monthly. Its definitely YALA but its one of the better ones. A good bookmark for the "What is Linux" FAQ.
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The Atlantic on Linux More

The Atlantic on Linux

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  • It's cause your dad has a working brain (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    IMHO, the triumph of Linux is inevitable. I've been using linux for everything I do (still boot dos for autocad, and win95 for my matrox mill 1 frame grabber dongle) for 6 mo. now- the rh 5.2 distro. I'm a ME, not a software guy, and my previous experience with real operating systems was VMS. I found the install easy- read the Redhat hardware list, RTFM that Redhat sent,(including the appendix on CD_ROM parameters) and use the TAB key. Got gimp (downloaded the 400 page manual from the web) blender (paid for the full version key and manual). Use Xemacs, ftp and telnet to create and update my web page. Every time I go over to freshmeat there are another 30 new programs for linux. Many are free. The vast majority seem to have been created by competant, talented people, who are willing to put the source code out for the blowtorch of public review.

    Anyway, my point- IMO, the reason people put up with windows is that they have no other point of reference. I had VMS, and I worked at DEC where there were plenty of intelligent people to answer questions about the more subtle aspects of the OS. (set file/owner=parent, anyone?). My Microvax workstation in my cube stayed up and running for FOUR YEARS. It only came down when i moved cubes. It never crashed in action, and I used Unigraphics 2 cad 10 hours a day. While sitting in my cube in Mass. I could set host annecy and login to a vax in annecy, france, or any other dec vax in the world, just as easily as using the workstation in my cube.

    When I left dec, I got my first windows pc. (hey, you dont need a pc when you have a microvax at home too!) I found dos/windows to be laughably bad/crippled/limited. But it (and the pc) were relatively cheap (compared to a VAX!!)

    I was lucky. I had unlimited exposure to an powerful and reliable OS, and so was unwilling to tolerate less. Most people have not had the chance to compare MS stuff to anything else, YET.

    That's changing now, and it's cause of the web. Anyone with an account can now get all the Linux info/help that they will ever need. And the majority of people are bright enough to use linux. It's not a big deal. When you go to Burger King, you ask for a hamburger. You don't click thru menus and submenus till you find a picture of a burger (and more menus to add cheese and leave out the ketchup!)

    Oh, yes- I cannot spell! (engineers are like that) ;^)

  • I thought it was a great article!
    It was neat to hear about someone's first exposure to our movement. It was like watching a blind man who's been cured and seeing his first sunset.

    Maybe I'm just being melodramatic, but I thought it was cool.
  • A professional journalist who, before writing about Linux and open source, tries out Linux, sticking with it 'til getting it to work.

    Wow, what a concept!

  • My father, who is 72 years old and doesn't even know how to turn on a computer, read this article and is now running around touting the greatness of Linux and predicting MicroSloth's downfall. Unbelievable.
  • This has to be one of the better articles I have read. The way it's written can certainly get a newbie's attention, and possibly make them think.

    Whereas Windows and Mac OS are intended in part to shield users from their machines, Linux forces people to grapple with their relationship to technology...

    ...Which is a Good thing. I see people coming into where I work (A well known computer retailer), not knowing a damn thing about computers, but they want one anyway. They don't care to learn about the machine either. Weeks, Days, sometimes HOURS after they buy the computer, they call the store (That's where I come in) and describe a problem that a quick check in the user's guide would solve. Windows, and it's friends, have made computer users lazy. Back in the days of owning a Commodore, it was something great to own a computer. You had something, and knew things that not everyone had even the slightest grasp on. These days, Joe Average is out there shopping for the latest Pentium III computer to do word processing, send e-mail, and play an occasional game of Solitaire.

    With Linux, you're forced to drive the car without the hood. Everything is working, and in front of your face. Something in the kernel needs to be changed to suit your needs? Fine. Dig around in the code, add the changes, and recompile. With Windows: Dammit, I really hate these redraw schemes, and I can probably make them faster. Bah, Too bad. Live with it. And you know what? Most users do. They take windows, with all it's bugs, and all it's inefficencies, and use it anyway. Why? Because it's too much trouble to do anything about it.

    These are the times, more than before, where I miss the days of the Commodore. Not necessarily for the technology, but for the spirit. I used to sit for days on end, and write programs in BASIC, just for the sake of doing it. There were tons of disk utilities out there, but by god, I wrote about 20 more, and you know what? Those 20 were more suited to MY needs than any of the hundreds of others that were available. That idea is brought back with Linux. (Although I need to work a lot more on my C. I need to get started on a Disk Utility.)

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • yeraveragelinuxarticle
  • It is great that the online version is just as cool as the printed version, but the printed version usually comes out almost 2-3 weeks before the online archives are updated. You do not know how frustrating it is to have read it, and not being able to reference an online version.

    But then again, maybe its just me.



  • The key phrases are "Joe Average is out there shopping for the latest Pentium III computer to do word processing, send e-mail, and play an occasional game of Solitaire" and "Back in the days of owning a Commodore"

    The difference between now and Back In The Day, is that computers are a million times more powerful and a million times more complex. But in many cases that power and complexity goes to waste. What if Compaq/Gateqay/YourFavoriteComputerSeller put out a cheap, simple 100 Mhz machine with a super simple OS (open source, of course) and a bunch of great little apps and -- MOST IMPORTANTLY -- put the right marketing spin on it? I'd wager they'd have a bunch of rather happy customers.

  • The article states:

    Unlike the Windows desktop, Linux desktops do not force people who want to turn off their computers to click a button labeled START. Unlike the Mac OS desktop, Linux desktops do not ask users to eject floppy disks by dragging them to the trash -- the same action used to erase files.

    The desktop environments currently available for Linux may avoid some of the above-quoted GUI bungles, but they're hardly a differentiating factor. Most people will agree that a GUI environment is "easier" for users, in that it offers context and discrete choices. I'm disappointed, though, that current commercial GUIs are all so windows-based. Few people seem to see beyond the bugginess of Windoze to the inherent problems of windows-oriented paradigms. (At this point you'll say, those problems are all solved by the command-line interface! Not true. And anyhow, with an ever-larger proportion of the computing population just marginally computer-literate, how do you expect to convert them to command-line aficionados?)

    I'm sure there must be some university research going on out there into non-windows GUIs. I think Linux could really surge ahead in public popularity if it offered something besides windows-look-alike desktop environments.

  • Once upon a time, the Atlantic Monthly published the work of Hemingway and Faulkner. Now, when you go to their website, you have the opportunity to click the fsckin monkey and win $20.

    Given that the current readership of this rag consists entirely of people who don't even understand the free market (witness their panegyric to Keynes last year), I wouldn't worry
    too much about any script-kiddie generation as a result of this story. Oh, what's the use.

  • I find it interesting how the author of the article talks about things like they are new and or foreign to computing, when they aren't new, they're just new to PCs.


    For example, his comment about having a 'back door' that others could access his system through the telephone or internet. There typcically referred to as 'computer accounts' or 'logon account', and, where they are realitively new to Personal Computers (like Macs and Windoze), they aren't new to people who have worked on IBM Mainframes, and even Digital Mini's (VAXes).
    These machines don't understand the concept of usage WITHOUT having a 'logn account'.


    I used to make fun of the COBOL class I took in college because the first assignment had to be done on punch cards. I'm beginning to respect those types of experiences, because a PC can't do EVERYTHING, and people that only know PC's (and NT is WAY closer to a PC than to anything else in computing..), are missing out on a lot of GREAT technology. Client/Server is a software paradigm... but it's not the ONLY environment. It's important to not forget some of the other computing paradigms, like Multi-user paradigms, or terminal environments, or even (gasp) single-tasking environments!.
  • The Atlantic Monthly is a difficult but rewarding
    read. It requires an industrial-strenght
    attention span. Its (notice correct form)
    readers aren't necessarily technically
    oriented but they've got to be fairly smart
    to understand it. Linux is an important
    phenomenon and these folks need to hear about
    it.
  • These sort of articles are usually breathless and ill-researched.

    It's great to see appropriate credits go to RMS. We owe him.
  • Sorry about that ... there are two reasons:

    1. Our staff isn't large enough to convert all of the articles so that they're out at the same time that the issue is mailed to subscribers.

    2. It's our corporate policy to leave some incentive for people to subscribe to the print edition, even though we're one of the only magazines around that puts its full edition online, rather than just teasers. Thus the two-week delay.

    Regards,
    Eric Westby
    Atlantic Unbound
  • "Hoi polloi," when used in an English, rather than Greek, sentence, can take a definite article before it. At least that's what our big fat unabridged dictionary says.

    Though as you point out, it's optional, and a bit redundant given the translation.

    Regards,
    Eric Westby
    One of the second-stringers
    Atlantic Unbound
  • I'm not finding any "its/it's" errors in our article, and I've looked a few times ... where is it exactly you're claiming they are?

    Or are you referring to something on slashdot, rather than on Atlantic Unbound?

    Regards,
    Eric Westby
    Atlantic Unbound
  • Ah, now I see: you were referring to the blurb *about* our piece, here on slashdot. I didn't think we'd let something like that get past us.

    eric.
  • :sigh: We just switched ad companies. This is what AdSmart is serving us so far. They're a great company, but the mix of network ads (we haven't been with them long enough for them to start selling targeted ads) that they're sending us so far is quite poor.

    Bear with us, it can only get better....

    Regards,
    Eric Westby
    Atlantic Unbound

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