On Wed, Jun 18, 2003 at 12:02:14PM +0200, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote: > Corking :) > > Hey, thats my word. :) I know :) > Definitely--and I would've said "GNU/Linux" if that's what I had meant ;) > > I was refering to your first paragraph when you said: Hurd is running > well enough for you that you don't [need] to touch Linux anymore? So was I.... > (you get the point ;), and this is all kernel-stuff, right?) :\ > > The Hurd replaces what used to be in the kernel, so one could call > it a kernel I guess. ... though, I know--it's not really proper. If I weren't confident that you knew this already, I'd be explaining to you that The Hurd is a multiserver designed to subsume the functionality of a kernel in a traditional unix-like system..., etc. But the point was, as you said, that they're in basically the same role. And I -did- mean the things in that role. The last time I used GNU/Hurd, everything actually seemed to be working really well..., except for The Hurd itself (as I noted) :) > Just put me on your list as `already converted', so you remember not to > worry about me in the future (I even told the Western-Digital > tech-support guy that I was running "... Debian--GNU on Linux", when my > last hard disk died--then I had to un-confuse him) :) > > That should have been Linux on GNU, not the other way around. > Since you are using a GNU variant and running Linux on that. Isn't the conventional viewpoint that the kernel of a system is the `bottom' layer? So, GNU runs on top of Linux, and Linux runs on top of hardware, right (`between a GNU and a hard place?' 8^))? And, as someone once pointed out to me, "GNU/Linux" looks a lot like the same sort of pseudomathematical pun as "TCP/IP" (and, about "TCP/IP", he said: `That's pronounced `TCP over IP', mister math-genius. Like `root-two over two''). > I prefer just saying that I am running a GNU variant; it easier to say > than "GNU slash Linux" and it raises some eyebrows at the same time. Heh. There was actually a long ellipsis after I said "GNU" to the guy, and he interjected "Whaaa?!??". I said "... on Linux", and he went, "Oh! I know what Linux is!", as I slapped my forehead. Maybe he did know what Linux was, and maybe he didn't.... He probably thought that `Linux' was RedHat (`technical support is usually more support than technical', someone once told me) :\ I'm generally uncomfortable talking on the phone with `tech support' people anyway, so my only firm goal was to get him to tell me that WDC would replace my disk :\, so I bailed out as soon as it was clear that he understood that I was using Linux to control my HD and that, if it was telling me that the HD was FUBAR'd, it was probably true, and he should tell me `yes, just send us your drive and we'll send you back a new one'. Maybe that much was wrong.... -- "Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around."
Attachment:
pgpvBV1FL673A.pgp
Description: PGP signature