Online article: "Microsoft funds African PCs amid open source debate"

[Michael Shigorin]

On Wed, Oct 05, 2005 at 10:57:50PM -0400, Eric Dunbar wrote:
> Windows 95 runs quite comfortably on a P I/166 64 MB RAM 1 GB
> HD with IE 5.5 and Office 97

I was running Linux 2.2, XFree86 3.3.6 and KDE 1.1.2 on K6/166
with 32Mb back in '99 or so in the university just fine (things
were worse with SO5.2 but still bearable IIRC).  And people were
complaining that KDE1.0b was way more lean than actual KDE1.0,
they were running that beta with 16M RAM!

I was also working with StarOffice 5.2 at home on K5/75 with 48M.
Loaded for almost a minute, then just worked.

I was doing graphics processing on 486 with 16Mb in gimp 1.0.x.
And a bit more serious (multilayer 3000x2000) on P133/96Mb.

It just worked.

Actually I'm a bit puzzled at how the things do (and/or don't)
change, but it's a raw material, not ready to reflect on it.

> and, IMNSHO gives a user experience comparable to anything
> offered by a _current_ Linux

Eric, I'm clearly violating CoC once again but just to tell you
the truth -- you're talking BS^H^Hcomplete nonsense.

Go get yourself the setups you compare and please get back with
facts checked.  *I* _do_ remember the feeling when meeting win95
shop after having worked quite a bit with Linux (and eventually
getting a bit bored with Linux [software] bugs).

It was quite refreshing to understand that I'd better live with
these bugs or help fixing them than crashing for no reason (that
was OSR2.1, no lame hands around) and having *ugly*, *pathetic*
and *rigid* UI which would _require_ explicit buffer
manipulations for copy/paste!

(errr... just for a record: calm as a tank, still not liking when
people bend over a bit too much)

> The GUI is as polished as GNOME/KDE and the quality of Office
> 97 certainly surpasses what's on offer from OO.org 2.0

No comments. (again, I actually know the matter, and you seem to
either not or are just very used to the bugs of win95/mso97 to
tell such... funny things -- even if G/K/OOo *do* have piles of
troubles, you're missing the department 100%)

> Linux simply ain't efficient if you're looking for a full
> desktop OS for an old machine

True.

> (yeah, you can use it with one of the "lite" interfaces, but,
> they are pretty crippled, user-unfriendly, unpolished and not
> well supported).

Bullshit.

> I'm not try to advocate that Win 95 is _better_ than Linux.
> Merely point out that propaganda is different from reality.

Especially yours.

PS: Eric, I don't intend to hurt your feelings but *please* go
and get your facts straight -- or don't forget to add common tags
like "IMHO" or "X-Ears: Red" to highly taste-dependent messages.

Peace.

-- 
 ---- WBR, Michael Shigorin <mike at altlinux.ru>
  ------ Linux.Kiev http://www.linux.kiev.ua/