From: Tom Frauenhofer (tvf@cci632.cci.com)
Date: 10/01/92


From: tvf@cci632.cci.com (Tom Frauenhofer)
Subject: Dead Asks: Is UNIX byte? (Was Re: BYTE asks, is UNIX dead?)
Date: 1 Oct 1992 13:45:20 GMT

Seriously, who cares, really?

I run both Dos/Windows 3.1 and Linux. What were my requirements?

1) Support for my ST-02 SCSI card on my 16 Mhz. 386sx.
2) I run a small news feed where I get a subset of the Usenet
   hierarchies and forward them to another machine.
3) I occasionally send e-mail to/from home.
4) I write a lot of documents for my work, I need to use the standard
   word processor, FrameMaker.
5) I teach a class in Discrete Mathematics at a local technological
   institute, and I will be teaching a course in Computer Architecture
   during the spring. I need C++ and Unix to have a similar
   environment to what my students will be using.

Linux doesn't do everything I want. Dos/Windows doesn't do everything
I want. If I had a Mac running System 7 it still wouldn't do
everything I want. Dos/Windows and Linux co-existing comes pretty
close, but I have to swap systems, which is a pain, but I can live
with the pain.

To argue the merits of any of the above (Dos/Linux/Unix/System 7)
against each other misses the real issue - I don't run Linux for the
sake of running Linux. I run Linux because it does things for me that
other systems I have access to can't. Same goes for Dos/Windows.