From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] Plan 9 From: nigel@9fs.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="upas-nfnhakuvcxxqjxelsvezkkpith" Message-Id: <20011106134524.D1985199F2@mail.cse.psu.edu> Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 13:45:17 +0000 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 1661086c-eaca-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --upas-nfnhakuvcxxqjxelsvezkkpith Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I've gotten so fed up with fiddling with PC hardware recently > that I think my next PC will be a Dell or Gateway or something > instead of the built-it-myself one I now have. That way I'm > fairly sure the hardware will work together. Sorry to disappoint you, but buying such machines is often a recipe for ensuring only Windows will work. The hardware works very well together, yes, but it is not always obvious how it is connected together. This is why laptops are such trouble. Dell do their own motherboards, BIOS etc., and reason that if they also do the drivers, then it will all work. You then need to be sure that they do drivers for your OS of choice. Not good for Plan 9 users. Harking back to olden times, when a 386DX with 8MB was a huge machine, the supplier to buy from was Compaq. As PCs went at the time, Compaqs were the LEAST compatible, but also the MOST reliable. Of course, we only had a choice of one OS then. So, if you want zero hardware hassle, don't buy a PC at all, unless you want to run Windows, and only Windows. --upas-nfnhakuvcxxqjxelsvezkkpith Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Disposition: inline Received: from mail.cse.psu.edu ([130.203.4.6]) by cpu; Tue Nov 6 13:37:14 GMT 2001 Received: from psuvax1.cse.psu.edu (psuvax1.cse.psu.edu [130.203.30.6]) by mail.cse.psu.edu (CSE Mail Server) with ESMTP id F10F4199F2; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 08:35:06 -0500 (EST) Delivered-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Received: from oxe.cs.umu.se (oxe.cs.umu.se [130.239.40.14]) by mail.cse.psu.edu (CSE Mail Server) with ESMTP id 48CCF199BF for <9fans@cse.psu.edu>; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 08:34:57 -0500 (EST) Received: from hoth.cs.umu.se (rfc1413 says ath@hoth.cs.umu.se [130.239.40.145]) by oxe.cs.umu.se (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA12292 for <9fans@cse.psu.edu>; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 14:34:54 +0100 (MET) Received: from localhost (rfc1413 says ath@localhost) by hoth.cs.umu.se (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA15210 for <9fans@cse.psu.edu>; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 14:34:53 +0100 (MET) X-Authentication-Warning: hoth.cs.umu.se: ath owned process doing -bs From: Tomas To: 9fans <9fans@cse.psu.edu> Subject: Re: [9fans] Plan 9 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: 9fans-admin@cse.psu.edu Errors-To: 9fans-admin@cse.psu.edu X-BeenThere: 9fans@cse.psu.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu List-Id: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans.cse.psu.edu> List-Archive: Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 14:34:53 +0100 (MET) On Tue, 6 Nov 2001 at 10:31am, Jonadab the Unsightly One wrote: > forsyth@vitanuova.com writes: > > > the aim was to avoid the PC user having to put a network card > > in the machine to use ADSL. most machines (now) have got USB, > > but haven't got ether on the motherboard, which is just as > > well because when they do include one, it's often something > > stupid. > > Yes, as cheap as decent 10/100 cards are these days, onboard > ethernet seems silly. As far as not wanting to put in a card... > I thought most of the people who didn't want to open the case > and put in an expansion card used either MacOS or Windows > (because they use whatever came on the hard drive when they > bought the thing). Or they could be like me, and just hate fiddling with the hardware. I recently tried to install a new graphics card and a new hard drive in my computer, and got so frustrated by the experience that I wrote a 250+ lines rant about it. In the end, after upgrading the BIOS, I still haven't gotten the graphics card to work, and the BIOS doesn't detect the new hard drive, but Linux does detect it so I hope that will allow me to install and boot Win* and Plan 9 from the new hard drive through use of LILO (since Plan 9 under VMWare not yet seems to work). Some people like to dig into hardware, some like to dig into software, and some just like to use computers without sinking their teeth into neither hardware nor OS/software. If computers and computing is to evolve, we computer professionals have to accept that all these categories of people (and more) exist, and try to make computers and software that they can use without occasionally wanting to smash the monitor with a baseball bat. I've gotten so fed up with fiddling with PC hardware recently that I think my next PC will be a Dell or Gateway or something instead of the built-it-myself one I now have. That way I'm fairly sure the hardware will work together. /Tomas --upas-nfnhakuvcxxqjxelsvezkkpith--