Re: SEUL: Text vs. X

[Rick <rickya@siservices.net>]

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On 15-Feb-98 Kevin Forge wrote:
- -> I don't care what it is.  It just shuldn't be alowed.

We intend to go forward in time not backward.  So the problem will dissapear
but not into a non-graphical boot process.  For the hell of it let's say we
do leave the green-horns in a menu shell.  Suppose their X config goes into
the loop-o-death because we never bothered to work on it, like other
distro's.  What then?  The green-horn is stuck at a console with bo idea what
to do.  I submit that Linux will be wiped from their disk before they bother
asking a mailing list for help.  If they do ask for help they'll try one
solution then go back to windows because they see the potential of spending a
week mailing back and forth trying to fix Linux.

If we do it right, which we will, there is *NO REASON* to start at the
console.

- -> Lot's of people do this.  Back in Win3.11 days we had the option of 
- -> booting to a command line or putting "win" in your autoexec.bat.  
- -> Few people did the later and nobody ever considered it hard to type
- -> a 3 letter word to "get into the system".   Hell, the username 
- -> + password is longer than that and nobody has proposed getting rid 
- -> of it.  What would be nice is to create a simlink from startx to 
- -> win.  Just for fun :)

We would get rid of usernames and passwords if it wasn't an important part of
a networking environment.  That's what PAP and CHAP are for on the ppp side. 
One day there will be a finger or retinal scan to varify a users identity.  I
guaruntee that will get rid of the login prompt.

I rarely found a machine that *didn't* start windows from the autoexec.bat
file.  The only ones that did were people that used mainly DOS programs, too
cheap to buy windows programs, or thought windows was a fad that would die
out.  These same people also were afraid of Windows.

Now back in the old win2x days was a different story.

- -> Now that I think about it some of the worst Win3.11 problems happened 
- -> when Windows was screwed up and the machine insisted on starting it
- -> anyway.  The user often knew just what to do to fix it ( she set the
- -> resolution to 1024*768 so she can set it back ), but had trouble 
- -> getting to a command line.  This means 3 or 4 hard reboots with all
- -> the disk corruption that goes with that.  For Linux this shouldn't be 
- -> an issue.  
- -> Some things are <IMHO> too close to impossible for us to hang our hopes
- -> on them being accomplished.  1, Is an unbreakable GUI.
- -> It may be possible, but I wouldn't want SEUL to depend on it. 

The keyboard commands to bypass and trace startup commands have been in place
since at least DOS 5.0 which you had to have to run win3x so something like
that was just stupidity.

You want SEUL to depend on a shell?  This new distro that is going to put
Linux into the hands of *Windows* users?  If you want to develop a distro
that drops the user into a shell menu or just the console then just modify
your shell file and login so you start a shell menu burn a CDROM and start
slinging CD's around the net like other distro's.

Sorry, but this is pure manuer you're slinging.


- ->>
- ->> BTW - excuse my ignorance -- what is a 'menu shell' ?

- ---
Rick Jones
rickya@siservices.net
A good reputation is more valuable than money.
                -- Publilius Syrus



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