Google To Challenge Microsoft in the OS Market? 4
According to The Register, Google is working on a Linux distro:
A version of the increasingly popular Ubuntu desktop Linux distribution, based on Debian and the Gnome desktop, it is known internally as ‘Goobuntu’.
Google has confirmed it is working on a desktop linux project called Goobuntu, but declined to supply further details, including what the project is for.
This could be interesting. With Google’s weight behind it, this might be the first serious challenge to Microsoft’s monopo dominance since it crushed OS/2.
I used to run OS/2 when I ran a Bulletin Board. It was a rock-solid operating system–never crashed, never heard of the BSOD or the GPF.
I ran it on a 486 computer with 16 MB of RAM, a real screamer for its day. One day I set out to lock up the computer. I had 16 programs open before it started to complain.
Once I brought the BBS live and treated the computer nice, it never crashed.
Kind of like a Linux box.
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February 2, 2006 at 9:31 pm
I’ve heard rumors pro and con about this. Google’s official attitude is that they have no idea what anyone’s talking about. I’ve used Ubuntu. It takes eons to boot up, but after that it’s OK.
Were you ever involved in the old Citadel BBS network?
February 3, 2006 at 6:48 pm
Never heard of Citadel. Most of the BBSs here were either PCBoard or Spitfire.
Those were fun times. When I travelled, I’d download the BBS list for the city I was going to and connect to various local BBSs. They all had their own styles and flavors. When AOL opened their internet gateway (and then were closely followed by the other online services), BBSs died off–within a year, most of them were gone.
Nothing close to them came along until blogging appeared.
And even that is not the same. The sysop ruled his or her BBS; the blogger prays for hits.
The “sysop” = “awe-some BBS god” days are over. Now it’s the “webmaster” = “person who struggles to keep the damn thing working.”
What? Did you run Citadel or something?
February 5, 2006 at 7:15 am
A guy here in town ran it. Now that I think back, I believe Citadel was started in Minneapolis.
Yeah, I decided early on that there was no use for a computer that didn’t have a modem.
February 7, 2006 at 6:08 pm
It’s the communications aspect of home computing that has always fascinated me, far more than gaming and all that other stuff.
My BBS, when I ran it, was a FIDO BBS. PCBoard, in its last incarnation before the whole BBS thing and Clark Development Corporation fell apart, included built-in FIDO support. There are still FIDO newsgroups out there, but I the days of the buggy have passed.