From: kem@prl.ufl.edu (Kelly Murray) Subject: Re: "Killer app" Date: 21 May 1993 20:46:08 GMT
In article <1993May21.150856.7914@cs.tulane.edu>, butler@cs.tulane.edu (Larry Butler) writes:
|> ...
|> Applications that are designed for a
|> unix-like OS have a lot more available to them and have the potential to me
|> much more powerful and flexable than anything that runs on dos or windows.
|> Take seyon for example. Seyon is a terminal emulator package for unix. It
|> looks as good and works better than anything there is on dos or windows. It
|> takes full advantage or the multiprocessing capability of unix. It is very
|> logically divided into modules that make very flexable. The actual terminal
|> emulation and the file transfers are done externally. You probably know
|> that, but do you realize how good that is? No one has to reinvent the wheel
|> thus no incompatibillites between various wheels. I've never seen a dos
|> application that made as much sense as this. Using xterm for terminal means
|> less memory load on the system (shared pages, dos will never be able to do
|> that). That also means that any new terminal emulator you get for seyon in
|> the future you will also be able to use in the same way you use xterm.
|>
|> I'm starting to ramble. The point is unix is great. Don't try to reinvent
|> dos applications or make them run on linux. Linux is better and we can make
|> better application with less effort than would be needed for the same thing
|> on dos.
|> Larry
|>
I agree with this sentiment. However, I would like to point out that
Linux itself is simply a clone of Unix. You can create much better software
if you don't just try to duplicate and run all that existing Unix software,
and develop a true object-oriented operating system (NextStep...almost)
to run on your PC. I am serious.
The fact is that creating a full DOS emulator for Linux would be the single most
useful piece of software possible, just as the Linux kernel itself is the
single most useful piece of software you can run on your PC.
The problem is that it is very hard to do, and unpaid Unix hackers are
not interested for the exactly the reasons you mention.
-Kelly