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OS/2 Vs. Windows... The Debate Rages On

Started by S.SubZero, 2007.11.02, 08:49:11

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S.SubZero

Quote from: RobertM on 2007.11.02, 02:41:15
(1) I find OS/2 to still be more stable than Windows. While GUI hangs are an issue with OS/2, tools like CAD help eliminate that issue (comes with eCS). In addition, even IF Windows was more stable when initially installed, it degrades severely over time, which OS/2 isn't prone to do to nearly the ame degree.
Unless you're using Windows 98, this is the exception rather than the rule.  When I retired my P4 in January it had been running the same Windows XP install since early 2003.  Four years on one install and never a blue screen, never a crash, never a quirk, and this PC was typically on 24x7 running any number of intense games or apps.  In the 'old days' it was common for Windows server operators to schedule periodic reboots.. They don't do that so much anymore.  Windows 2003 boxes can run for months and months without issue.  If Windows is not playing nice, 9 times out of 10 it is a sure sign there's something legitimately wrong with the hardware.
Quote from: RobertM on 2007.11.02, 02:41:15
(2) OS/2 still can serve more traffic than Windows on less resources (making it an ideal server solution).
OS/2 can be a good server if you have hardware it likes, the software you need, and nobody touches it.  Meeting all of these requirements may be tricky depending on what you want to do.  Bolting on *nix ported things like Apache and Samba are nice, but if you're at that point just to get the functionality you want, why not just run *nix?  They make VERY lean Linux distributions these days.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damn_Small_Linux ).  The benefit of OS/2 in this case again, is that it's virtually unhackable unless someone exploits a weakness in the the *nix-based code that happens to exist in the OS/2 port.

os2monkey


Quote from: RobertM on 2007.11.02, 02:41:15
Unless you're using Windows 98, this is the exception rather than the rule.  When I retired my P4 in January it had been running the same Windows XP install since early 2003.  Four years on one install and never a blue screen, never a crash, never a quirk, and this PC was typically on 24x7 running any number of intense games or apps.  In the 'old days' it was common for Windows server operators to schedule periodic reboots.. They don't do that so much anymore.  Windows 2003 boxes can run for months and months without issue.  If Windows is not playing nice, 9 times out of 10 it is a sure sign there's something legitimately wrong with the hardware.
I'm going to have to disagree on that one. My computer had a p3 notebook with 512 MB ram and windows xp that had never been reinstalled, and it ran insanly slow. Yes it was a p3 but it ran slower then a celeron with less ram that I had at home :). I kept telling my boss that we needed to reinstall windows, and he kept saying "no no.. that's hardly ever needed". He would spend hours clearing out log files, defraging etc etc.. (and no it did not have spyware/trojan issues)  Finally I got tired of it and just reinstalled the os without his permission, and it was like a totally different computer... Faster then lightning. I loved the look on his face that time although i'm sure he took credit for it anyway :)..

os2monkey


Saijin_Naib

:\ I do not have any slow-down on my personal computer (WinXP) at all. I do minimal maintenance and have ZERO issues. I game quite intensely and also do some photo/video editing. I am not sure why people seem to have such issues with Windows, I can only assume its shoddy hardware or something else even. I however, again, have found OS/2 to not be NEARLY as stable as windows, nor as fast with every day tasks, some as simple as unzipping a file, opening a Mozilla app. Sure, my windows 98 laptop locked up pretty frequently, but never with something as stupid as multiple sound streams being the culprit. Or Firefox going on the flake, or right clicking a png file, or any other little oddity that sometimes crops up when im using OS/2. That being said, so long as you don't mess with it, it seems to stay quite stable. Im not certain where these issues arise from, but I can only assume that if something like the CW classes dont work properly on my eCS 2.0RC2 install, there are some low-lying issues that need to be ironed out in the install CD that you download.

As for OS/2 and hardware, it seemed rather picky this summer as it REFUSED to install on the computer it had been running on previously for over a year, with no hardware changes. I even wrote Serenity to set up a support Ticket. One day, it magically installed and ran again, and we have NO idea why. What could have caused this? No idea. Will it happen again? Hope not. Now that its running, its quite fine with my hardware and I dont have any WPS locks or crashes that I cant attribute to some application on the fritz, which says alot about the stability of the base operating system, which is that its quite good.

S.SubZero

Quote from: os2monkey on 2007.11.02, 10:10:07
I'm going to have to disagree on that one. My computer had a p3 notebook with 512 MB ram and windows xp that had never been reinstalled, and it ran insanly slow. Yes it was a p3 but it ran slower then a celeron with less ram that I had at home :). I kept telling my boss that we needed to reinstall windows, and he kept saying "no no.. that's hardly ever needed". He would spend hours clearing out log files, defraging etc etc.. (and no it did not have spyware/trojan issues)  Finally I got tired of it and just reinstalled the os without his permission, and it was like a totally different computer... Faster then lightning. I loved the look on his face that time although i'm sure he took credit for it anyway :)..
We're veering off topic, but this is simple.  An XP box with 512MB and a P3 will run slow.  Why your Celeron with less RAM ran faster (I'm sure you benchmarked it, and it's not just a subjective estimation), well there can be many reasons.  The P3 may have had many apps running in memory, or maybe it was installed with poor/improper drivers.  You could be comparing a P3 with a later generation Celeron (they still make Celerons NOW which would totally destroy a P3 of course).  Really, most "WINDOWS IS TEH SLOW" commentary I see out there, people seem to be almost deliberately TRYING to make it run slow.  Which it will happily let you do.  But there are ways to determine why, built right into the OS.

RobertM

Actually, Windows runs slower depending on the release. When XP came out, it wasnt uncommon to find 128MB or 256MB machines with it pre-installed. I've seen numerous older machines that are still at pre-SP1 or pre-SP2... and seem to run speedy - until you properly update the machine with the 300+MB worth of updates that come in SP2, and then the 100+ fixes since SP2. After that, you'll be begging for more memory. For some reason, some installs of Windows happily download any fix that will work on SP1 or pre-SP1 machines, without ever upgrading the machine to SP1 or SP2 and downloading the other fixes that rely on those SPs. Why? I dont know. It doesnt seem to be anything consistent (ie: it's not an issue with XP SP1... because many I've seen update to SP2, while others just dont - while claiming to have started at the same release level).

And of course, a fully patched XP machine will NOT run (will barely walk or crawl) with 128MB.

The other BIG contributing factor is AV and AntiSpyware software, which can bring many machines to a crawl.

As for OS/2 users in this forum having less problems with Windows, I'd expect to. You all are NOT your average joe computer user. You are less likely to infect or infest your machines with spyware, viruses or crappy programs. You are less likely to do things that hose your registry (which will bring Windows to a crawl far worse than hosing the OS2 INI files will).

As for speed, I dont know about you all, but I *have* done some benchmarks... namely via doing video transcoding, using ffMPEG and using mPlayer... my quad 550 WSeB machine beats our Athlon 2.8GHz XP machine on both tests per GHz (or more specifically, the WSeB machine takes 2-3 times longer than the XP machine - while using one CPU... meaning I can process 2-3 videos on the XP machine, while using all CPUs can do 4 to 6 on the WSeB machine - while if you do the math, the XP machine should crush it).


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El Vato

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.01, 22:29:55
How in the world does someone get an assignment about OS/2?

Well, whatever.[...]

An unbiased response can not be simply "whatever."

While I share with you the criticism at the Serenity business model, the rest of your non-constructive criticism directed at the OS/2 is from the perspective of someone indoctrinated into the family of  WinXX.  On the other hand, if you have been paying for the alpha and beta development of pseudo operating systems made by Gates --with each one really promising nirvana to its tribute payers-- why do you complain about Serenity's approach?  The latter is following exactly the same pattern as its WinXX countepart.

The development around the WinXX pseudo operating system overflows with commercial offerings, native drivers, applications, bells and whistles.  Not so with OS/2.  Accordingly, comparing the available resources to make WinXX "intuitive" --whatever that means to the Borg collective because I keep running away from the "intuitiveness" of WinXX and MacOS-- versus those available for the OS/2, is like ...comparing the "finesse" of people in resource rich "developed countries" against the "unrefined riff-raff" in "developing countries"  (using words from conservatives, er... narrow minded individuals).

Unless OS/2, or as a matter of fact, any other operating system, is executing in a paravirtualized environment, as your OS/2 instance is surely not the case, that emulated environment will no doubt greatly affect the performance of the virtualized operating system (driver issues, API mappings, etc.).  If you need help in distinguishing between paravirtualization, full virtualization, and software virtualization --and their relevancy to making a fair assessment of an operating system executing within those environments-- please become acquainted with the terms before making assertions based on shaky assumptions about the performance of any operating system –not just OS/2-- in those environments.

If  WinXX is the standard against which you are measuring the OS/2 environment experience, then you are right in saying that OS/2 is not for you.  And you should go back to the comfort of your Borg Collective environment.  Borrowing from a Unix saying, "OS/2 is not unfriendly –it simply is picky about who its friends are."

OS/2 is "not" Windows (and I for one would not desire it to be), and those of us who continue using it know about its limitations, but we also know about how to extend its functionality –either with free software and hacked drivers (like those from Daniela Engelbert), or with native applications that do not need to be upgraded with features that the herd only realizes it "needs" when hit with the marketing mob propaganda.  Yes ...and for those of us who also use Linux, the command line is what we regard as intuitive –not the mindless use of the critter.

It does not mean, notwithstanding, that I do not make use of the GUI components.  And I will simply state that if OS/2's GUI behaved as you described, i.e., hang after hang, I would have stopped using OS/2 and quite simply continue using Linux and/or Solaris instead.

Need a current office suite for your basic needs?  How about the free Software as a Service (SaaS) offering from Google Apps?  Those work from within your browser.  Speaking of the browser, there are certain OS/2 upgrade requirements that must be placed in the truth table cell before the assumption about crashes may be true.  Continuing speaking of the browser, Web applications might be the way to continue extending the existence of OS/2 since its proprietary masters do not want to let free the full potentiality of the chained OS beast and open source the code (my constructive approach).

In short, for our friend who is doing the research on OS/2, you can finalize your paper with the statement: OS/2 is being strangled by the proprietary business model --and by those who, like the paid MS "munchkins" of yesteryear, simply babble nonsense due to their basing their assertions on assumptions on stilts.

I am sorry if I offend the sensibilities of the WinXX users in the forum (I know there are many) but I have used MacOS, WinXX, Linux, Solaris, and of course OS/2 --all on real hardware and not only on virtualized environments-- and MacOS and WinXX simply are not as intuitive or stable as Linux, Solaris, or OS/2  (hint: I am simply following the pattern by our friend whom I am quoting  ;),

RobertM

#7
Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14

...In short, for our friend who is doing the research on OS/2, you can finalize your paper with the statement: OS/2 is being strangled by the proprietary business model --and by those who, like the paid MS "munchkins" of yesteryear, simply babble nonsense due to their basing their assertions on assumptions on stilts.

I am sorry if I offend the sensibilities of the WinXX users in the forum (I know there are many) but I have used MacOS, WinXX, Linux, Solaris, and of course OS/2 --all on real hardware and not only on virtualized environments-- and MacOS and WinXX simply are not as intuitive or stable as Linux, Solaris, or OS/2  (hint: I am simply following the pattern by our friend whom I am quoting  ;),

While El Vato brings up many valid points, there are some things I'd like to add. While OS/2 has a closed proprietary model (like Windows), it has many documented entry-points that at least allow it to be extended in numerous fashions (UNLIKE Windows).

Is OS/2 the solution to everyone's needs? No, especially since many of those "needs" consist of GAMES, or specific software that will never be ported to OS/2 (or any other OS for that matter) like Office 2007. Many of those "needs" aren't needs, so much as WANTS... OpenOffice or Google's Web Suite provide far cheaper alternatives to those closed source solutions we wont see on OS/2 - but require fighting the group mentality MS instills in too many consumers.

Now, as for OS/2 (the GUI) being non-intuitive, again I agree with El Vato, and again I will add some extra points. OS/2's GUI is HIGHLY intuitive... and better yet, is HIGHLY consistent. Windows is NOT. That someone is USED TO Windows GUI doesnt make OS/2's GUI non-intuitive. It just makes it different. Once I learned the difference between right-click and left-click, I fell in love with the fact that OS/2's GUI is more consistent, and allows me to execute more tasks by simply using the mouse and picking a certain button.

Heck, to this day MS cant decide what keyboard shortcut sets they want to use (which is why, as one of MANY examples, CTRL-INS works someplaces and CTRL-V works others, or both work in certain places). That is primarily because when they bought (or "acquired") the numerous products that make up their Windows OS and Office Suite, they never bothered to standardize on a particular method, or implement both methods... so the interface is thus inconsistent because it uses whatever standard the original company decided to implement.

This same behavior can be seen in numerous places in their GUI, where right-clicking on an icon one place produces different results than in other places, and until recently, even pulling up property notebooks from a shortcut or original, or from different locations, could produce drastically different results - unlike on OS/2.

Another great example of non-intuitive nature of the Windows GUI is that (EVEN WITH HAVING ACCESS TO IBM'S Presentation Manager and WPS CODE) MS still cannot get shortcuts to (1) properly reference the original object or (2) properly note state changes of the original object (for instance, if you delete the original or move the object, it doesnt delete or update the shortcut - or another example, it has no way of updating shortcuts or the original icon for that matter, to show that an object is running). That to me is non-intuitive... especially when the code to do it is very simple in theory, and available to MS to do whatever they want with.

Such things alone make OS/2's GUI MORE INTUITIVE, even if it has (a) a slightly higher learning curve (which I dont believe it does - see Point B), or (b) the need to re-learn things that work differently in Windows.

Does OS/2 have it's issues? Sure... but so does every OS, and I think you (subzero) are severely downplaying Windows' deficiencies; and exaggerating OS/2's.

-Robert


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os2monkey

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.02, 17:42:44
We're veering off topic, but this is simple.  An XP box with 512MB and a P3 will run slow.  Why your Celeron with less RAM ran faster (I'm sure you benchmarked it, and it's not just a subjective estimation), well there can be many reasons.  The P3 may have had many apps running in memory, or maybe it was installed with poor/improper drivers.  You could be comparing a P3 with a later generation Celeron (they still make Celerons NOW which would totally destroy a P3 of course).  Really, most "WINDOWS IS TEH SLOW" commentary I see out there, people seem to be almost deliberately TRYING to make it run slow.  Which it will happily let you do.  But there are ways to determine why, built right into the OS.
It's not really varing off topic that I can see. It was claimed that os/2 was more stable over time compared to windows which the poster felt tended to degrade (IE being in the topic of "some problem and limition of OS/2 or Advantages of OS2"). We're debating that point, so it's a continuation of the original topic and still relevent.

Anyhow.. I had left out specific technical details to make the point quickly, but since you wish to know the office machine was a p3 900mhz 512mb ram ata133 hard drive. The home computer was a celeron 466 320mb ram ata100. My comparison to the home machine was subjective, but I know it was faster (which of course you don't have to believe :).. I really don't care).
The comparison to the home machine however was not even the main point however. The point is that the P3 machine ran slow no matter what common "maintanence" things we did to try to improve it. After reinstalling the same OS, reapplying the same updates, reinstalling the same software (anti virus etc) it was much much faster - fast enough that my boss who never likes to admit he is wrong did not have anything to say other then I was right.[(so it wasn't just in my head :)]
It seemed obvious to me that the OS itself had degraded in performance over time.

Now, i'll fully admit there was some key I could have missed. But.. I routinely fix home computers for both friends and profit, and this experience has been repeated many times. So for now I believe it until I find that element.

S.SubZero

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14
While I share with you the criticism at the Serenity business model, the rest of your non-constructive criticism directed at the OS/2 is from the perspective of someone indoctrinated into the family of  WinXX.  On the other hand, if you have been paying for the alpha and beta development of pseudo operating systems made by Gates --with each one really promising nirvana to its tribute payers-- why do you complain about Serenity's approach?  The latter is following exactly the same pattern as its WinXX countepart.
FYI - When you resort to MIKKKRO$$$$HAFT INTERNOT EXXXXPLODER!!!! GATE$$$$$!!!! logic, you really reduce your credibility.  I grew out of that thought process a long time ago, and now I see talk like this as pretty juvenile. 

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14
The development around the WinXX pseudo operating system overflows with commercial offerings, native drivers, applications, bells and whistles.  Not so with OS/2.  Accordingly, comparing the available resources to make WinXX "intuitive" --whatever that means to the Borg collective because I keep running away from the "intuitiveness" of WinXX and MacOS-- versus those available for the OS/2, is like ...comparing the "finesse" of people in resource rich "developed countries" against the "unrefined riff-raff" in "developing countries"  (using words from conservatives, er... narrow minded individuals).
Linux was in better shape than OS/2 on the driver and application side LONG before it became popular to profit from it.  It's also become more intuitive and simply better over time while still being free.  The Mac OS, and OS X especially, has always been very intuitive.  I bought a Mac G4 for the sole purpose of learning OS X, and I definitely did not get a good value, as I learned pretty much everything I wanted to know about OS X in the span of about an hour.  During OS/2's prime the Mac OS of the time was around 7.5-8.0.  I tinkered with these under Basilisk II (a pre-PowerPC Mac emulator) and for the time they really were user friendly.  They were restrictive, but if they offered an option, that option worked the way it was expected to.  OS X is still like that today. 

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14Unless OS/2, or as a matter of fact, any other operating system, is executing in a paravirtualized environment, as your OS/2 instance is surely not the case, that emulated environment will no doubt greatly affect the performance of the virtualized operating system (driver issues, API mappings, etc.).  If you need help in distinguishing between paravirtualization, full virtualization, and software virtualization --and their relevancy to making a fair assessment of an operating system executing within those environments-- please become acquainted with the terms before making assertions based on shaky assumptions about the performance of any operating system –not just OS/2-- in those environments.
The virtualized environment is really not out of the range of PCs that could run OS/2 today.  Virtualization is matured, so much in fact that Intel and AMD both have specific hardware options just for it, and companies like VMware exist specifically because of it.  The software I run, Virtualbox, is made by a company called Innotek.  Perhaps you have heard of them.  I'd say they know a thing or two about OS/2, so if anyone could run it in virtualization it would be them (in fact Innotek wrote the OS/2 additions for MS Virtual PC).  The hangups I am seeing are typical OS/2 hangups, not some mysterious problem that nobody has ever seen before. 

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14OS/2 is "not" Windows
IBM used to sell OS/2 as a "Better DOS than DOS, and a better Windows than Windows."  Even IBM thought OS/2 was Windows. 8)

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14native applications that do not need to be upgraded with features that the herd only realizes it "needs" when hit with the marketing mob propaganda.
This is a strange idea I hear thrown around.  Operating systems, like the rest of the PC, evolve.  If they didn't, we'd all be sitting at our 4.077Mhz IBM PCs and doing awesome spreadsheets with Lotus 1-2-3 1.0 in DOS.  Things like hardware accelerated graphics cards, PCI, plug and play, DVD-RW's, and 21" LCD panels happen because the public wants these things.  The internet happened because the people that could use it in the early days told people and as word got out and as dial-up ISP's started getting all kinds of users it just exploded.  There was no "marketing mob propaganda" there.  If there was, hey you sold out too I guess!  As for software, yeah, sometimes we don't realize how much we need something until it exists.  This goes back to the first primitive man to figure out that an old bone can be used as a tool.  You only need to spend a day browsing the web with Lynx and doing all your email with PINE to understand why we have GUIs today.  As hardware evolves I'm sure we will see software in a few years with features we can't understand how we got by without them.

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14Yes ...and for those of us who also use Linux, the command line is what we regard as intuitive –not the mindless use of the critter.
Mindless?  A computer has a function.  To the average user, the function is simple, and I can quote an average user: 

"All I want to do is push the button."

This is it.  This is what the user wants.  It's all they want.  Push the button, complete task.  In 2007 we can complete many tasks with a tiny, tiny fraction of the time and work required in the 80's.  In 2007 anyone, *anyone* can produce music, write novels, post stupid videos of themselves, or whatever, and with a snap have it visible to a good percentage of the human population of earth.  I'd safely say the mouse has helped in more than a minor way.

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14It does not mean, notwithstanding, that I do not make use of the GUI components.  And I will simply state that if OS/2's GUI behaved as you described, i.e., hang after hang, I would have stopped using OS/2 and quite simply continue using Linux and/or Solaris instead.
This is pretty much what happened for the majority of OS/2 users from the 90's.  I gave up, everyone I knew gave up, hey even IBM gave up.  In my case the entire purpose of using OS/2 was to run a DOS-based BBS I ran back then.  It performed this task exceptionally well due to my "stability through inaction" I mentioned earlier.  In those days we also had a much more limited software library as there were no web browsers or email clients or Java or whatever else.  Heck, I was still using e.exe as my word processor.  When I stopped running the BBS I simply had no real need for OS/2 anymore, as Windows 95 did the things I really wanted to do, like play games and use things like Office, which even then people were giving me .doc files and Office was the only way I could reliably open them.  Apparently I wasn't the only one to reach this conclusion.  Windows NT 3.51/4.0 gave me the early NT knowledge I would rely on for the next several years and eventually get into some decent jobs doing work around Windows and networks that they run on, which was the right idea since really, how often do you see jobs for OS/2 support?  I haven't even had it on my resume in several years.

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14Need a current office suite for your basic needs?  How about the free Software as a Service (SaaS) offering from Google Apps?  Those work from within your browser.  Speaking of the browser, there are certain OS/2 upgrade requirements that must be placed in the truth table cell before the assumption about crashes may be true.  Continuing speaking of the browser, Web applications might be the way to continue extending the existence of OS/2 since its proprietary masters do not want to let free the full potentiality of the chained OS beast and open source the code (my constructive approach).
Google's apps so far are primitive but cute and show promise.  What happens though when those apps want to use a plugin like Flash 9, or some higher version of Java?  Youtube is a mere hint of the problems OS/2 has to face if these things become more "assumed" to be on all browsers that the provider feels they care about.  On the top-end this is already screwing with adopters of 64-bit OSs (which Linux and Windows both offer), since there is no 64-bit Flash.  The chance of a 64-bit Flash eventually happening is pretty high; the chance of Flash 9 in OS/2 is less certain.  It certainly won't be Adobe making it.

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14In short, for our friend who is doing the research on OS/2, you can finalize your paper with the statement: OS/2 is being strangled by the proprietary business model --and by those who, like the paid MS "munchkins" of yesteryear, simply babble nonsense due to their basing their assertions on assumptions on stilts.
Believe what you like.  Did MS make some predatory moves to get Windows installed on more machines?  The government already agrees they probably did.  Is MS unbeatable?  Linux has shown us they are certainly beatable in many areas.  Linux has a little ways to go before it will be at a Windows-level of consumer friendliness, but it's very close, much closer than even a couple of years ago.  Ubuntu 7.04 blew me away with how well they conceal the underpinnings, like OS X hides the fact that it's based on BSD.  Users don't need to know what /dev/hdc is.  Users don't care.

El Vato

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.03, 18:39:00
Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14
While I share with you the criticism at the Serenity business model, the rest of your non-constructive criticism directed at the OS/2 is from the perspective of someone indoctrinated into the family of  WinXX.  On the other hand, if you have been paying for the alpha and beta development of pseudo operating systems made by Gates --with each one really promising nirvana to its tribute payers-- why do you complain about Serenity's approach?  The latter is following exactly the same pattern as its WinXX countepart.
FYI - When you resort to MIKKKRO$$$$HAFT INTERNOT EXXXXPLODER!!!! GATE$$$$$!!!! logic, you really reduce your credibility.  I grew out of that thought process a long time ago, and now I see talk like this as pretty juvenile.

Did you grow out of it or did the notion actually consumed you --without you realizing it?  "The fish does not realize that the water is wet."  Besides, as is typical of an conservative, you avoid the gist of the concept and focus instead on the periphery of the argument.  The core of the argument –that-- you left unanswered. 

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.03, 18:39:00
Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14
The development around the WinXX pseudo operating system overflows with commercial offerings, native drivers, applications, bells and whistles.  Not so with OS/2.  Accordingly, comparing the available resources to make WinXX "intuitive" --whatever that means to the Borg collective because I keep running away from the "intuitiveness" of WinXX and MacOS-- versus those available for the OS/2, is like ...comparing the "finesse" of people in resource rich "developed countries" against the "unrefined riff-raff" in "developing countries"  (using words from conservatives, er... narrow minded individuals).
Linux was in better shape than OS/2 on the driver and application side LONG before it became popular to profit from it.  It's also become more intuitive and simply better over time while still being free.  The Mac OS, and OS X especially, has always been very intuitive.  I bought a Mac G4 for the sole purpose of learning OS X, and I definitely did not get a good value, as I learned pretty much everything I wanted to know about OS X in the span of about an hour.  During OS/2's prime the Mac OS of the time was around 7.5-8.0.  I tinkered with these under Basilisk II (a pre-PowerPC Mac emulator) and for the time they really were user friendly.  They were restrictive, but if they offered an option, that option worked the way it was expected to.  OS X is still like that today.

"LONG" is an ambiguous word and is used typically in arguments where the user attempts to hide his/her ignorance of the issue s/he is dealing with –conveniently changing the meaning of the word as an argument progresses.

Well at the risk of giving you an more definite reference for your "LONG" ambiguity, here is some insight from actual experience.  You obviously never installed an Linux distro before 1998 or 1999.   As I had 3 versions of OS/2 in a multiboot environment, the X windows in Linux distros required some painful tinkering to display properly (no, do not be deceived by current MS propaganda, the word "windows" existed "LONG" before the "intuitiveness" of your operating system name).

We should not forget that as far as 1998, companies like Oracle began noticing the traction that Linux was generating in the circles of those who regard your notions of "intuitiveness" as, to use a word of your own, "juvenile."  Accordingly, inhouse resources began to be pumped into continuing development of Linux so as to host  Oracle's crown jewel: its database.  IBM and others did likewise.  Needless to say, resources for the OS/2 were redirected to Linux.

I am not surprised that you regard Mac of "LONG" ago "intuitive," Gates has been stealing, er "borrowing" ideas from that OS since that "LONG."

Again, this is an specious and self serving argument.  You are simply exhibiting  the "wetness" property of the fish-in-pond analogy that I advanced before.  Not all of us are in that MS pond in which you comfortably swim.

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.03, 18:39:00
Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14Unless OS/2, or as a matter of fact, any other operating system, is executing in a paravirtualized environment, as your OS/2 instance is surely not the case, that emulated environment will no doubt greatly affect the performance of the virtualized operating system (driver issues, API mappings, etc.).  If you need help in distinguishing between paravirtualization, full virtualization, and software virtualization --and their relevancy to making a fair assessment of an operating system executing within those environments-- please become acquainted with the terms before making assertions based on shaky assumptions about the performance of any operating system –not just OS/2-- in those environments.
The virtualized environment is really not out of the range of PCs that could run OS/2 today.  Virtualization is matured, so much in fact that Intel and AMD both have specific hardware options just for it, and companies like VMware exist specifically because of it.  The software I run, Virtualbox, is made by a company called Innotek.  Perhaps you have heard of them.  I'd say they know a thing or two about OS/2, so if anyone could run it in virtualization it would be them (in fact Innotek wrote the OS/2 additions for MS Virtual PC).  The hangups I am seeing are typical OS/2 hangups, not some mysterious problem that nobody has ever seen before.

I asked you if you knew about the difference in the three major types of x86 virtualization –and how they affect the performance of any operating system.

As before your assumption about Innotek is walking on stilts.  I did not ask you about whether you "believed" that a virtualized environment "really not out of the range of PCs that could run OS/2 today."  You did not offer support for that assertion other than by reasoning by (faulty) analogy that "...they know a thing or two about OS/2..." because [they]  "...wrote the OS/2 additions for MS Virtual PC."

Virtual Box is "not" Virtual PC  --the former uses hardware extensions to provide the virtualization environment for OS/2; the latter uses full software virtualization to achieve the same task. Two very different approaches that effectively are  relevant in an unbiased evaluation of non- alpha or beta releases of Virtual Box, capisci? 

Please, do your homework and base your assertions on a solid foundation and not on self-serving and baseless arguments that only reveal your ignorance of the subject.

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.03, 18:39:00
Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14OS/2 is "not" Windows
IBM used to sell OS/2 as a "Better DOS than DOS, and a better Windows than Windows."  Even IBM thought OS/2 was Windows. 8)
Yes.  MS indoctrinates engage in history revisionism whenever they can.  I will not take credit for that observation, notwithstanding.  Jim Clark, the founder of Netscape Communications made a similar observation.  I never thought that history revisionism was considered "cool" in the MS pond.

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.03, 18:39:00
Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14native applications that do not need to be upgraded with features that the herd only realizes it "needs" when hit with the marketing mob propaganda.
This is a strange idea I hear thrown around.  Operating systems, like the rest of the PC, evolve.  If they didn't, we'd all be sitting at our 4.077Mhz IBM PCs and doing awesome spreadsheets with Lotus 1-2-3 1.0 in DOS.  Things like hardware accelerated graphics cards, PCI, plug and play, DVD-RW's, and 21" LCD panels happen because the public wants these things.  The internet happened because the people that could use it in the early days told people and as word got out and as dial-up ISP's started getting all kinds of users it just exploded.  There was no "marketing mob propaganda" there.  If there was, hey you sold out too I guess!  As for software, yeah, sometimes we don't realize how much we need something until it exists.  This goes back to the first primitive man to figure out that an old bone can be used as a tool.  You only need to spend a day browsing the web with Lynx and doing all your email with PINE to understand why we have GUIs today.  As hardware evolves I'm sure we will see software in a few years with features we can't understand how we got by without them.

This is something that continues to amaze me from the conservative bunch: how they lump all this notions into a self serving soup mixture to concoct an self serving and specious answer.  What does "evolution" of hardware, the Internet, etc., have to do with the marketing induced behaviour of the Borg collective???

I can only assume that MS has redefined the term "evolution" to hide the true or conventional meaning to its tribute payers.

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.03, 18:39:00
Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14Yes ...and for those of us who also use Linux, the command line is what we regard as intuitive –not the mindless use of the critter.
Mindless?  A computer has a function.  To the average user, the function is simple, and I can quote an average user: 

"All I want to do is push the button."

How many times?  What do you do when it does not work?  You go out and buy the "new version" of the "improved," "security enhanced," "one click," solution MS "snake oil" product.  Subsequently, a month or two down the road, you come against another "intuitiveness" barrier and the cycle is repeated all over.  This vicious cycle stuffs a lot of cash in your master's mouth and induces it to fight to maintain a firmer grip on you.

I do not have that problem with the command line, period.  OS/2 users know how to extend the OS/2 functionality because we do not share the mindless notion of "intuitiveness" that compels those in the MS pond to prolong the vicious cycle that keeps the MS pockets full of cash.

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.03, 18:39:00
Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14
This is it.  This is what the user wants.  It's all they want.  Push the button, complete task.  In 2007 we can complete many tasks with a tiny, tiny fraction of the time and work required in the 80's.  In 2007 anyone, *anyone* can produce music, write novels, post stupid videos

By any chance, at the push of a button, have you been spamming users like me with email headlines like: Dude, you have to see the funniest video?

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.03, 18:39:00
Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14
of themselves, or whatever, and with a snap have it visible to a good percentage of the human population of earth.  I'd safely say the mouse has helped in more than a minor way.

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.03, 18:39:00
Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14It does not mean, notwithstanding, that I do not make use of the GUI components.  And I will simply state that if OS/2's GUI behaved as you described, i.e., hang after hang, I would have stopped using OS/2 and quite simply continue using Linux and/or Solaris instead.

This is pretty much what happened for the majority of OS/2 users from the 90's.  I gave up, everyone I knew gave up, hey even IBM gave up.  In my case the entire purpose of using OS/2 was to run a DOS-based BBS I ran back then.  It performed this task exceptionally well due to my "stability through inaction" I mentioned earlier.  In those days we also had a much more limited software library as there were no web browsers or email clients or Java or whatever else.  Heck, I was still using e.exe as my word processor.  When I stopped running the BBS I simply had no real need for OS/2 anymore, as Windows 95 did the things I really wanted to do, like play games and use things like Office, which even then people were giving me .doc files and Office was the only way I could reliably open them.  Apparently I wasn't the only one to reach this conclusion.  Windows NT 3.51/4.0 gave me the early NT knowledge I would rely on for the next several years and eventually get into some decent jobs doing work around Windows and networks that they run on, which was the right idea since really, how often do you see jobs for OS/2 support?  I haven't even had it on my resume in several years.

Having spent the mid 90s resolving Linux issues so as to master (some of) the OS intricacies, never left me time to
engage in the shallowness of game playing.  Accordingly, I have contributed, by my early input to the Linux community, to enable WinXX users like you to be "bold" enough and try something "intuitive" to click-and-click, install and use, click-and-click, as Ubuntu.

Notwithstanding, I would like to know if there is a game level that you can attain that rewards you with nirvana, thus allowing you to escape the MS grip?

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.03, 18:39:00
Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14Need a current office suite for your basic needs?  How about the free Software as a Service (SaaS) offering from Google Apps?  Those work from within your browser.  Speaking of the browser, there are certain OS/2 upgrade requirements that must be placed in the truth table cell before the assumption about crashes may be true.  Continuing speaking of the browser, Web applications might be the way to continue extending the existence of OS/2 since its proprietary masters do not want to let free the full potentiality of the chained OS beast and open source the code (my constructive approach).
Google's apps so far are primitive but cute and show promise.  What happens though when those apps want to use a plugin like Flash 9, or some higher version of Java?  Youtube is a mere hint of the problems OS/2 has to face if these things become more "assumed" to be on all browsers that the provider feels they care about.  On the top-end this is already screwing with adopters of 64-bit OSs (which Linux and Windows both offer), since there is no 64-bit Flash.  The chance of a 64-bit Flash eventually happening is pretty high; the chance of Flash 9 in OS/2 is less certain.  It certainly won't be Adobe making it.

Again, do not try to deform the core of the argument so that it can fit into your preconceived notion.  I addressed the complaint that you raised about the lack of a current application for an OS/2er to collaborate with other platforms now.

And as long as there is an current OS/2 browser you can use Google Apps now

That effecively takes care of your complaint for an office suite for OS/2 now.   

Zooming out, and surveying the limited logical patch where you connect that dots to form your specious assertions, one can see that you are thinking full compatibility with MS Office --but unless an user migrates to MacOS and/or WinXX, no other platform office application (Linux, OS/2, Solaris, in alphabetical order, only) can be 100 percent compatible because the proprietary office suite of reference implements an close format.  And there the reason that the Open Document Format (ODF) is being fought so hard by your master:  ODF implies loosening the grip on the likes of you.

That you insist on clobbering the OS/2  --performing on real hardware-- based on your virtualized instance experience simply represents an extension of your self-serving argument thread.  Additionally,  by hypothesizing future issues that an resource-starved operating system will face is like ...those conservatives that argue that  (humans) who live in "developing nations" will not achieve anything and therefore expendable since their fate is already determined.  In short, your answer is "juvenile" --using your own words.

Quote from: S.SubZero on 2007.11.03, 18:39:00
Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.03, 00:09:14In short, for our friend who is doing the research on OS/2, you can finalize your paper with the statement: OS/2 is being strangled by the proprietary business model --and by those who, like the paid MS "munchkins" of yesteryear, simply babble nonsense due to their basing their assertions on assumptions on stilts.
Believe what you like.  Did MS make some predatory moves to get Windows installed on more machines?  The government already agrees they probably did.  Is MS unbeatable?  Linux has shown us they are certainly beatable in many areas.  Linux has a little ways to go before it will be at a Windows-level of consumer friendliness, but it's very close, much closer than even a couple of years ago.  Ubuntu 7.04 blew me away with how well they conceal the underpinnings, like OS X hides the fact that it's based on BSD.  Users don't need to know what /dev/hdc is.  Users don't care.
No.  Believe what makes your master most comfortable --after all, it promotes Novell's SuSE distro because it serves their narrow beliefs of IP ownership, whereas at the same time denying any violation from software products like the MacOS.  On the other hand, I commend you on exploring alternatives to MS  --Ubuntu is a good "intuitive" first step in the process of coming out of the MS pond ...just leave behind the "juvenil" OS/2  bashing that is indoctrinated in the psyches of the Borg collective in your pond.   

There used to be talk, in the developers' circles, of implementing the OS/2 GUI into Linux  --take that as an indication of the maturity of that OS/2 interface.

Saijin_Naib

#11
Not to step into an argument where I dont belong, but I am fairly sure that bashing Windows and those who choose to use it is just as juvenile as he was implying you were. Further, it would seem rather base to call gaming a "shallow" endeavor just because you yourself do not partake of it or enjoy it. As a gamer, I find it affords me a nice past-time similar to watching movies, but with a level of interaction that affords it (in my mind) more value. This is neither here nor there, you two will obviously never see eye to eye and I do not wish to involve myself further, but I felt the above needed to be mentioned, if in passing only.

Edit:
Lol at the clip/new thread move, very apropriate :p

El Vato

Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2007.11.04, 01:00:56
Not to step into an argument where I dont belong, [...]
Saijin_Naib,

The last time I saw the inside of the headquarters of the X Men, Professor X was using OS/2's WSEB, Jean and Storm were using Linux distros (Slackware and Debian, respectively), Jubilee and Cyclops were using WinXX, whereas Beast, having finished the Bhagavad Gita, was immersed reading Dostoevsky's The Brothers karamazov --and he had nearby the works of the French Existentialist, Albert Camus.

Despite the fact that they were paranormal individuals with powers far beyond the mere mortal, they were not playing games  ;)


Saijin_Naib

Whoa.
You will forgive me, but I think that post was far beyond my comprehension.
Care to piece it up and explain it to me?
??? its been one of those weeks, Im all out of thinkability. And yes, thats a word now.

S.SubZero

#14
Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.04, 00:43:13
Did you grow out of it or did the notion actually consumed you --without you realizing it?  "The fish does not realize that the water is wet."  Besides, as is typical of an conservative, you avoid the gist of the concept and focus instead on the periphery of the argument.  The core of the argument –that-- you left unanswered.
I grew out of it, because I realized that people were insulting Windows more and more because they were simply jealous.  The more I used it, I realized it wasn't as bad as people said it was, it was more functional, and more compatible, and simply a better user experience. 

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.04, 00:43:13
Well at the risk of giving you an more definite reference for your "LONG" ambiguity, here is some insight from actual experience.  You obviously never installed an Linux distro before 1998 or 1999.   As I had 3 versions of OS/2 in a multiboot environment, the X windows in Linux distros required some painful tinkering to display properly (no, do not be deceived by current MS propaganda, the word "windows" existed "LONG" before the "intuitiveness" of your operating system name).
If you're going to get into my personal life, ok I'll bite.  My first experiences with Linux were in the pre-1.0 kernel days circa 1992, my friend at university showed it to me.  I really only tried it seriously in around summer 1993, installed off a brick of floppy disks.  I never said Linux was intuitive back then, I said it had the driver and app advantage.  And it did.  I mean even then it came with something like five desktop managers and all kinds of little tools and apps and games and whatever.  It was a pain to set up, but once it was running it was kinda nice.

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.04, 00:43:13
I asked you if you knew about the difference in the three major types of x86 virtualization –and how they affect the performance of any operating system.
You actually never asked any questions about virtualization.  There are no question marks in that entire paragraph.
Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.04, 00:43:13
Virtual Box is "not" Virtual PC  --the former uses hardware extensions to provide the virtualization environment for OS/2; the latter uses full software virtualization to achieve the same task. Two very different approaches that effectively are  relevant in an unbiased evaluation of non- alpha or beta releases of Virtual Box, capisci?
While Virtualbox can use hardware virtualization extensions it certainly doesn't have to, in fact the default setting for VB is to run without them.  Virtualbox will happily run on hardware that doesn't even have these features.  There's also nothing stopping MS from coding Virtual PC to use them either, except for the desire to do so.
*EDIT*  MS Virtual PC 2007 does indeed have an option to use hardware virtualization

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.04, 00:43:13
Yes.  MS indoctrinates engage in history revisionism whenever they can.  I will not take credit for that observation, notwithstanding.  Jim Clark, the founder of Netscape Communications made a similar observation.  I never thought that history revisionism was considered "cool" in the MS pond.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2
QuoteOS/2 2.0, released in April 1992, was touted by IBM as "a better DOS than DOS and a better Windows than Windows."
I even remember seeing this exact quote in the trade mags of the time.  It was an honest to goodness slogan used by IBM .
Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.04, 00:43:13
This is something that continues to amaze me from the conservative bunch: how they lump all this notions into a self serving soup mixture to concoct an self serving and specious answer.  What does "evolution" of hardware, the Internet, etc., have to do with the marketing induced behaviour of the Borg collective???
There is no doubt that MS's movements can shift the industry and push things in certain directions.  It's no small coincidence that memory prices get crazy (and usually plummet) when MS releases an OS with higher memory requirements.  Windows 95 did it, XP did it, Vista is doing it now.  Microsoft brought us into the PnP world kicking and screaming.  Windows single-handedly created the current video card market.  I remember before Windows 95, Linux shipped by default booting to text mode.  Soon after Windows 95, most linux distributions of the time suddenly decided to make a GUI as the default.  Interesting.

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.04, 00:43:13
How many times?  What do you do when it does not work?  You go out and buy the "new version" of the "improved," "security enhanced," "one click," solution MS "snake oil" product.  Subsequently, a month or two down the road, you come against another "intuitiveness" barrier and the cycle is repeated all over.  This vicious cycle stuffs a lot of cash in your master's mouth and induces it to fight to maintain a firmer grip on you.
What "does not work?"  When is a user forced to buy a new version?  Does the old version expire and suddenly cease function?  If I broke out Windows 3.1 and tried to install it (on hardware it would work on) would it refuse because it's too old?  Would Office 4.2 refuse to install strictly because it reached some expiration date?  No.  Your perception of forced updating comes from the fact that the outside world upgrades, and we upgrade to keep up with the Jones'.  Microsoft isn't forcing you to upgrade, the guy sending you a .docx file is.  Microsoft doesn't send people to your house to make sure you are running Vista.  Windows XP is still a very good and viable OS that many people don't want to give up.  People will stop using XP when Vista and it's successors offer enough to encourage it, or the hardware makers decide that there is no reasonable purpose to do so. 

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.04, 00:43:13
I do not have that problem with the command line, period.  OS/2 users know how to extend the OS/2 functionality because we do not share the mindless notion of "intuitiveness" that compels those in the MS pond to prolong the vicious cycle that keeps the MS pockets full of cash.
If you consider intuitiveness to be mindless, why are you here?  Go break out a chisel and find a stone and chip out your opinions.  The command line is dead to the general public.  They don't need it, they don't want it.  The use of the command line today is akin to a time in man's history when people had to kill all their own food and make all their own clothing.  Do you kill all your own food and make all your own clothing?  That computer you are sitting at, did you construct it from the atomic level right down to the traces on the chips?  To do anything else is way too easy.

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.04, 00:43:13
By any chance, at the push of a button, have you been spamming users like me with email headlines like: Dude, you have to see the funniest video?
I rarely get those kinds of emails.  If you get them, perhaps your friends are more "average user" than you think.

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.04, 00:43:13
Having spent the mid 90s resolving Linux issues so as to master (some of) the OS intricacies, never left me time to
engage in the shallowness of game playing.  Accordingly, I have contributed, by my early input to the Linux community, to enable WinXX users like you to be "bold" enough and try something "intuitive" to click-and-click, install and use, click-and-click, as Ubuntu.
Game playing, shallow?  Gaming is a relaxing way to release stress and is fun.  If you do not game that is too bad, but don't dis gaming.  These people are "shallow gamers":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Carmack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Bleszinski
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garriott
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Fong
There's also that F4tal1ty guy I can't find since I can't figure out the right spelling of his nickname

Would you consider yourself to be (more) or (less) successful than these gamers?

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.04, 00:43:13
Zooming out, and surveying the limited logical patch where you connect that dots to form your specious assertions, one can see that you are thinking full compatibility with MS Office --but unless an user migrates to MacOS and/or WinXX, no other platform office application (Linux, OS/2, Solaris, in alphabetical order, only) can be 100 percent compatible because the proprietary office suite of reference implements an close format.  And there the reason that the Open Document Format (ODF) is being fought so hard by your master:  ODF implies loosening the grip on the likes of you.
???
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3618176
They officially agreed to back ODF over a year ago.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/may07/05-16ANSIVotePR.mspx

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.04, 00:43:13
No.  Believe what makes your master most comfortable --after all, it promotes Novell's SuSE distro because it serves their narrow beliefs of IP ownership, whereas at the same time denying any violation from software products like the MacOS.  On the other hand, I commend you on exploring alternatives to MS  --Ubuntu is a good "intuitive" first step in the process of coming out of the MS pond ...just leave behind the "juvenil" OS/2  bashing that is indoctrinated in the psyches of the Borg collective in your pond.
See, I don't understand this "master" and "borg" thing.  To me a computer is a tool used to complete a task.  I use the operating system that best allows me to complete that task.  OS/2 was not the best tool for that task.  Linux is not the best tool for that task.  Windows is the best tool for that task.  My tasks, and your tasks, seem to be very different.  Operating systems are not a "one size fits all" thing, though Windows would appear to scale better to the tasks of the general public, and beyond that.  I hardly use Windows because OOH SHINY!!  Because really, Linux is far shinier.  But again, Linux doesn't do what I want to do.  Windows is the prerequisite for the tasks I want to perform.  It's not a fashion show.

Quote from: El Vato on 2007.11.04, 00:43:13There used to be talk, in the developers' circles, of implementing the OS/2 GUI into Linux  --take that as an indication of the maturity of that OS/2 interface.
There's nothing stopping anyone from coding an open source PM for Linux now.  You'll notice there's no such thing.  Take that as an indication as to how much people who don't use OS/2 care about OS/2 today.