A little musing on Linux ( was Re: Zip files to multiple floppies)

[Parameshwara Bhat]

On Wed,  2 Jun 2004 21:11:15 -0400 (EDT), <fedora-list-request at redhat.com> 
wrote:

> Message: 16
> Date: Wed, 02 Jun 2004 21:09:00 -0400
> From: Phil Schaffner <P.R.Schaffner at IEEE.org>
> Subject: Re: Zip files to multiple floppies
> To: fedora-list at redhat.com
> Message-ID: <1086224940.19392.42.camel at tabb1.tabb>
> Content-Type: text/plain

> On Thu, 2004-06-03 at 00:25 +0530, Parameshwara Bhat wrote:
... snip ...
>  >But I have a great worry of this mount / unmount stuff (Konqueror has 
> >troubled me a lot).I only want to know whether tar is able to access 
> the >floppy device raw ( without mount / unmount cycle ).I do not know 
> enough.

> The floppy should not be mounted for use with tar, but if the user is
> other than root he/she must be granted write access - typically by being
> added to group floppy.  Use GUI admin tool of your choice or command
> line:

# usermod -G floppy <user>

> >Additionally ( a little off track ?) I must think creators of 
> Konquerors >and Nautilus'es very [KDE , GNOME]unimaginative.Why don't 
> they write a >nice GUI to these advanced abilities of various linux 
> utilities. E.g., I >use d4x for downloading.but I greatly deplore it's 
> inability to import a >broken download,which wget does so nicely.I had 
> halfdownloaded Knoppix,and >when I installed Linux,used wget to finish 
> it through symlink across ext3 >to vfat.Basically I miss nice GUIs here 
> in Linux.But guys are nice making >up for GUIs.

> Personally I'm just an old command-line guy.  GUIs are OK, look slick,
> and can be convenient for appropriate functions, but will never have the
> flexibility and power available at the command line.  OTOH they are
> important to the goal of world domination, so hopefully the nice guys
> can make them work better than the ones from Redmond. ;^)

That's greatly assuring.I think my initial not-so-nice experiences with 
various distributions Of linux have made me think a little harsh about the 
attitudes.As I said elsewhere on the list,security and other aspects for 
desktop installations should not be on the same footing as for a 
server.Also command line mentality still rules the roost.While granting 
their power,it is really a distraction for a guy like me twho wants to use 
computer only as a tool to get into their intricacies.Nice,functional GUIs 
and sensibly setup Desktop Environment spare me time to concentrate on my 
own job.

I am into Linux for long-haul.I have switched on a point of principle and 
not because in India here there is any dearth of easily available pirate 
copies of any new Windows versions.In fact in India,Linux costs and 
troubles far more than Windows.

Hope we will all be part of the Linux evolution into a nice desktop OS as 
user community.

Rgds,

Parameshwara Bhat

Phil