From: jon@robots.ox.ac.uk (Jon Tombs) Subject: Re: Splitting comp.os.linux, again Date: 26 Oct 1992 01:22:59 GMT
In article <1992Oct25.232430.18459@athena.mit.edu> alsaggaf@athena.mit.edu (M. Saggaf) writes:
>In article <pgr.212606.25Oct1992@prg.ox.ac.uk> pgr@prg.ox.ac.uk (Partially Grown Rhododendron) writes:
>
>Let's face it, linux users are interested in gcc and X only from the
>linux perspective. You can tell them to post articles related to gcc
>and X in some other groups all you want, but that does not mean that
>they will comply. In the past I have seen many requests along the
>lines of 'please take that elsewhere' and 'you could've have asked
>that in such and such group', only to be ignored by most posters.
I promised myself I wouldn't join in, but where did my kill file go?
Most posts are are installation problems not about either of these, a group
for poeple to ask questions and get back read the release notes (six times),
or read the FAQ/README seems rather pointless. If the energy spent on these
splitting threads had been spent on sorting out READMEs and INSTALL notes
none of this would come up.
>In Usenet, there is no correlation between where people should post,
>and where they actually do. People WILL post countless articles about
>X problems in c.o.l, even though they SHOULD post in *.xfree. People
>WILL post hundreds of articles about programming in the linux group, no
>matter how many times you tell them where they SHOULD post. If we ignore
>this and not create groups for these topics, all these posts would
>end up in c.o.l.misc, and we might as well not split the current group
>at all.
I think the last line sums it up, whatever you call the subgroups poeple
will still get it wrong.
>[...]
> *.programmer
>
>To discuss various topics related to using gcc, porting applications
>(where is SIGBUS?, what corresponds to sgtty in POSIX?, ..etc), and
>programming in the Unix environment in general (many people who come
>to linux have only programmed in DOS before). Crossposts from this
>group to comp.lang.c and comp.unix.wizards would make sense.]
>
I think you just about answered the questions for that newsgroup, this is
FAQ fodder not a world apart from linux.
>>> *.apps
>>How many *Linux* specific applications are there? Not many that I can see.
>[To discuss the various applications available for linux and their
>merits (is olvwm better than vtwm?), wither they have been ported (is
>there any BBS software for linux?), and where they could be found.]
sounds like *.linux.chat not part of the linux hierarchy surely?
>>> *.windows (or *.x)
>>This is covered by the windows.x.i386unix RFD. No need for Linux specific.
>
>[To discuss topics related to X11 and MGR. These could be pleas for
>help to run the packages (could somebody post their Xconfig file for
>NEC 5G?), as well as running applications in them (is there any way to
>use the cursor keys in minicom inside an xterm?). There would be
>crossposts from this group to comp.windows.x and the yet-to-form
>comp.windows.x.xfree86. However, they will all be from the linux
>perspective. People who do not use X11 or MGR will largely ignore
>this group.]
Why would you think linux users have such a different perspective to bsd386
users for example. Amancio and I are both working on the S3 X server, the
fact we are running different free operating systems has never come up. I
don't want server bugs to get lost in discussions of whose got the highest
score in xtetris, making windows a group to itself will just increase
pointless postings.
>>> *.hardware
>>How much Linux specific hardware is there? None that I can see.
>[This is a very relevant group. This will mainly discuss what hardware
>linux runs on (does linux support AHA1522? does linux run on EISA
>machines? ..etc.), what configurations are optimal to run linux (how
>much disk space do I need to run linux? is 2MB RAM enough for linux?),
>what hardware is problamatic (beware of Maxtor 7132 with rev < 52), as
>well as where to find good cheap hardware. There will be crossposts
>from this group to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.]
Back to the FAQ...
>There is no linux-specific hardware. There is hardware that would run
>linux, and hardware that won't (or be problematic).
>
>>> *.advocacy
>>No comment on this. I don't really see any point in it, though. Argue
>>about it if you like :-)
>I won't :-). I think it's an appropriate group though.
I don't.
The volume in col is too high, especially to keep track of annoucements, the
email I got from my posts about the S3 Xsever showed many poeple had not seen
the original post, but if we are going to have an annouce group it is going
to have to be moderated.