Operating systems
David Vander Velde (dave@kunmr.chem.ukans.edu)
Thu, 11 Jun 1998 09:00:11 -0500 (CDT)
At the risk of straying off the topic of how yet-to-be-built spectrometers
will be run, I'd like to add my $0.02 worth about what we do (some of the
time, anyway) when we're not in front of the spectrometer. A few months
ago I put a slick commercial Linux release (I don't aspire to be a
hacker), Caldera Open Linux, on my desktop PC, along with Word Perfect for
Linux. I think it's great! Although I kept Windows 95 on it too, and
found it is very straightforward to have as many operating systems as you
want simultaneously residing on a PC, I don't use anything but Linux.
There are several other commercial versions out there, and they are all
very inexpensive. If you're curious about what the bickering is all
about, I'd recommend giving one of those releases with a nice window
manager a try. You won't be out much if you don't like it, and you
might find you like it way better ... I'd buy a Linux-operated
spectrometer tomorrow. If I had the cash, of course.
Dave Vander Velde, University of Kansas