Re: [OT] Gnat cross compiling FreeBSD to Win32 ?

[Ingo Marks <adv@region-nord.de>]

James Ross wrote:

> On 13 May 2002 07:33:44 -0700, Ted Dennison wrote:

> Most people can't :(  Even if assuming you have seamless networking
> between your home and work, you still have to deal with file
> conversion (and isn't that a faulty process?).

MS has shot itself into its feet with their new customer-unfriendly License 
6.0 which forces them to buy every software upgrade (if they need it or 
not) raising software costs between 33% and 107%. Gartner and Giga state 
that about 30% of MS customers are not willing to sign the new license and 
other 30% don't know yet if they should. Many will switch to Linux and 
StarOffice.

> Windows is the best consumer available OS period. 

... until MacOSX came ;-)

> lack of standards and ease of use. The mentality that the primary
> interface is the command line and the only way to really install
> something is to ./configure will prevail on Linux for years to come.
> JR

That simply isn't true. Current Linux distributions provide precompiled 
(binary) applications and use nice-looking graphical administration tools 
which makes program installation a toy, even for beginners. Command shells 
are _not_ necessary to maintain a Linux system, but in many situations they 
make your work done much faster than clicking through several menus.

Keep in mind that most users buy pre-installed and pre-configured 
Windows-PCs. IMHO pre-installed and pre-configured Linux-PCs could be the 
same userfriendly as Windows PCs - even more secure and stable.