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<Obviously still irritated that companies think (or know...) that they can eek out more money by reinventing instead of refurbishing or augmenting something flexible enough to do anything they want. Face it: there is nothing I can't add to a Unix system, and it wouldn't have to affect existing programs one bit.>
Unfortunately, however, there are a lot of things that a lot of people can't do in a unix system. Unix is probably the most widely used unfriendly cryptic, and complicated operating system today. With the upcoming of Linux, this will probably change somewhat in the future, but until I can teach my secretary how she can use latex to type and print her letters, we are going to be stuck with getting us whatever the bastards at MicroSoft think we want.
While in a way what you say is true, latex isn't Unix, the shell isn't the only interface to Unix, etc. Unixware's setup was an example. Solaris's isn't too bad (setup printers, mounts, user accounts, ttys (kinda)), etc. Put Frame, WP, MS Word (some version at least), Lotus 123, Powerbuilder (was going to be out end 94, haven't kept track), etc. on a Unix system that boots to xdm and you have a pretty darn good replacement for Windows/NT/OS2, etc. With any kind of support staff, Unix systems are much smoother and robust than PCs. I've seen it at several really large sites. No comparison. Ok, I guess I'm getting 'religious' here, which isn't the place... sdw -- Stephen D. Williams 25Feb1965 VW,OH sdw@lig.net http://www.lig.net/sdw Senior Consultant 513-865-9599 FAX/LIG 513.496.5223 OH Page BA Aug94-Feb95 OO R&D AI:NN/ES crypto By Buggy: 2464 Rosina Dr., Miamisburg, OH 45342-6430 Firewalls/WWW servers ICBM: 39 38 34N 84 17 12W home, 37 58 41N 122 01 48W work Pres.: Concinnous Consulting,Inc.;SDW Systems;Local Internet Gateway Co.17Jan95