Quote: Original post by Arild Fines
Nothing, currently. Which is a pretty sad state of affairs, but one which is very much rooted in the reactionism of the unix community, and the lack of interest from Microsoft in the command line.

There is not a single CLI shell that meets your needs? What's wrong with bash, sh, tsh etc? There are even shells in languages like Python. Under Linux you can write scripts in any language you want. Prolog, Java, Perl etc. Do none of these meet your needs when you can essentially use any programming language you like? What features are you lacking?

Quote: Original post by Arild Fines
Hm? Running Windows Update usually gets me everything I need that isn't included on the Windows CD, except for the latest video card driver, which I get from the manufacturer's website. After downloading that, I only have to click Next a couple of times.

$ yum update (enter)
...
I am going to install these [...] is that ok? [N/y] y (enter)

$ sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1.run
[Next]
[OK]
[Done!]

Quote: Original post by seanw
You still have to know you need to go to windowsupdate.com though; there isn't even an icon for it or a recommendation that you'll get you video card driver there.

It's in a very privileged location at the top of the start menu.

Quote:
What's wrong with bash, sh, tsh etc?

They reek of 70's style thinking. This is 2004.

Quote:
There are even shells in languages like Python.

A shell alone is of little use - it needs a certain level of integration with the OS(unless you view a shell as something you merely use to enter OS commands, of course...)

Quote:
Under Linux you can write scripts in any language you want. Prolog, Java, Perl etc.

This obviously applies to Windows as well.

Quote:
Do none of these meet your needs when you can essentially use any programming language you like? What features are you lacking?

I believe we are discussing interactive shells.

Quote: Original post by Kwizatz
$ yum update (enter)
...
I am going to install these [...] is that ok? [N/y] y (enter)

$ sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1.run
[Next]
[OK]
[Done!]

Sorry, but you cannot expect a novice to use a command-line interface when a GUI is a much better idea. I think it makes the state of Linux look bad by suggesting it to be honest. Like I said, the major distributions will automatically install the nvidia drivers for you and if you need an update you can get them from one consistent GUI interface. CLI software installation is great for maintaining computers remotely though.

Quote: Original post by Arild Fines
It's in a very privileged location at the top of the start menu.

Ok, I never realised that. I just meant that XP doesn't say to you "run windows update to get your graphics drivers working", you have to figure it out for yourself or be told by somebody. You cannot expect a novice to know how to do this.

Quote:
They reek of 70's style thinking. This is 2004.

What specifically is wrong with them? I don't understand what you mean by "70's style". People still love C and that dates back to then, as do a lot of computing concepts. I don't have any issues with the shells myself and find them very powerful. Shell commands behave in a consistent manner, can be piped into each other and you get programming constructs like loops, conditions etc. What more do you want?

A shell alone is of little use - it needs a certain level of integration with the OS(unless you view a shell as something you merely use to enter OS commands, of course...)

What do you mean "integration with the OS" and "OS commands"? What specifically can you not do with the current shells? I really don't understand what you mean. For example, you can use bash to invoke commands to do a huge variety of tasks to fully script Linux such as backuping you hard drive at a certain time of day, updating software on a remote computer using SSH, automatically rip music from CDs when a disk is inserted etc. Why exactly do you need to "integrate with the OS" to be useful?

Quote:
This obviously applies to Windows as well.

Not to the same extent. Windows applications are not written to be scripted from a shell because the Windows shell is very weak and nobody uses.

Quote: Original post by seanw

Quote: Original post by Kwizatz
$ yum update (enter)
...
I am going to install these [...] is that ok? [N/y] y (enter)

$ sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1.run
[Next]
[OK]
[Done!]

Sorry, but you cannot expect a novice to use a command-line interface when a GUI is a much better idea. I think it makes the state of Linux look bad by suggesting it to be honest. Like I said, the major distributions will automatically install the nvidia drivers for you and if you need an update you can get them from one consistent GUI interface. CLI software installation is great for maintaining computers remotely though.

Fine, use up2date then, left click on the icon located neatly next to system clock, chose launch up2date, and off to a wizzard like GUI you go [smile].

Quote: Original post by nuvem

Quote: Original post by C-Junkie
Closed source drivers are buggy drivers. They are pissed upon by the majority of the kernel people for technical reasons, not religious ones, though there are some that do for both.

They seem to work just fine for windows.

Companies care about their Windows drivers. A lot of people will be pissed off if the drivers are buggy. With Linux, they can just throw something together and decide to not officially support it. If it's open source any linux hacker can fix bugs.

Quote: Original post by Kwizatz
Fine, use up2date then, left click on the icon located neatly next to system clock, chose launch up2date, and off to a wizzard like GUI you go [smile].

Oh, forgot Fedora had that. :) I'm using Mandrake at the moment and just get it to download and install updates automatically when there's new ones.

Quote: Original post by Arild Fines

Quote:
What's wrong with bash, sh, tsh etc?

They reek of 70's style thinking. This is 2004.

I can't think of a more modern timesaving shell than bash. Eterm+bash I can't see how you can complain about that not being a modern shell, looks better than quake consoles.

Quote: Original post by C-Junkie

Quote: Please explain. I'm sure nVidia and ATI didn't do it because they thought it would improve their customers' experience. I've got it! Microsoft paid them to do it. ;-) I apologize in advance for being a smart-ass.

I don't know what to say, you just don't have to. They're kernel modules, they don't require the kernel to be recompiled. And I shouldn't be that out-of-touch... my desktop machine has an nvidia card.

I had been informed that, because the Linux kernel is GPL, any code that links to it to call kernel functions must also be GPL. This primarily affects drivers, which run in kernel space. If I have been mis-informed, then I was mistaken.

If not, then the way nVidia and ATI side-stepped the GPL issue was to add hooks into the GPL kernel that could be used safely by their closed-source driver, and then open-source the hooks. This is what requires the kernel to be re-compiled. nVidia provides installs for popular versions of Linux to keep users from having to re-compile it themselves, but anyone with a less popular version will need to re-compile it. Also, upgrading your kernel can break your video driver.