VERY basic linux system 243

On Thursday 26 January 2006 21:50, xlar54 stood up and spoke the following words to the mbuttes incomp.os.linux.misc...:

Your reasons forplonking- is that even possible with Google Groups? - Grant Edwards are totally unfounded. He was only being truthful.

Dan C has less patience, and that is something we all know. Yet in this case, he has a point.

You are inquiring on whether GNU-Linux can be hacked to be more like Windows, which is a stupid thing to do. The simple answer is "Yes, the source code is free, so it's yours to do with as you please."

The more complicated answer is what you got in different versions from all those who replied to you - and I myself have refrained from doing that as I thought (and still think) that you're just another person who wants a free - whether it's as in "freedom" or as in "free beer" version of Windows or DOS.

In the event that you are indeed looking for such an initiative, check out FreeDows or ReactOS. Those projects are already in full development and I believe beta versions may already be available.

Most of what you say you want to do with GNU-Linux - bear in mind that Linux without GNU is only a kernel - is idiotic in this day and age. reason. UNIX is the most portable, rigid, versatile and flexable of all operating system architectures.

Flat filesystems are at best tedious if you're dealing with the great amount of files in a modern operating system. Genuine multiuser functionality is what makes an operating system secure and highly functional - think "remote access".

Windows drive letter designations - which date back to CP-M - are simply ridiculous on any real operating system. The reason they were introduced in CP-M and were maintained via QDOS in MS-DOS is simply that those systems were intended to be used with floppies in microcomputers that did not have - and could not even use - a hard disk.

Go ahead andplonkme too if that is what you want to do - believe me, I don't care if you were to - but the only thing you are showing by your original post - as well as by your rather chickeny way of replying - is that you are just another Windows-indoctrinated person who can't bring himself to accept any other operating system logic than what you've been conditioned with by many years of exposure to Windows.

An operating system as you suggest would not even clbuttify as reinventing the wheel. It would clbuttify as "throwing the wheel away and going back to towing stuff along in a bag over your shoulder". No offense, but your vision on what a modern operating system should be is simply perverse.

But then again, all GPL'ed code can be used freely and to your own discretion, on the condition that you re-release your source code under the same conditions as the GPL'ed code you're using and that you make a small reference in your code to the original code you've used.

So go ahead and do what you want to do. I doubt however as to whether your operating system will ever be used by anyone other than yourself, and should it ever be, then I doubt that it would ever prove a usable system.

To be quite honest - and I don't think there are any Free Software versions of DOS - I think that what you're looking for might be just a 32-bit, protected mode version of DOS.

P.S.: You *do* know what "protected mode" is, don't you?

-- With kind regards,

*Aragorn* (Registered GNU-Linux user #223157)