[mdlug] [OT] Perspective

[Michael Corral]

2007-07-20, Monsieur M. D. Krauss a ecrit:
>> http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198207/fallows-computer
>
> And think about it -- a Linux distro running off a
> single floppy disk, no X-Windows, armed with nothing  beyond the GNU
> utils and console-mode Emacs could do more, and more easily, than the
> multi-thousand-dollars word-processing systems of that day.

Hmm, I doubt you'd be able to put all the GNU utils + Linux kernel on a
single floppy (let alone Emacs :)). But I agree with the gist of what
you're saying, that a very minimal Linux system could do (for *free*)
even more than those old expensive "word processing" apps could do.

In fact, a barebones Linux system, without X, but with Emacs, the GNU
utils, groff and ghostscript, even today puts a modern "word processor"
like MS Word to shame. The postscript output produced by groff is far
superior to the ugly, cheap-looking stuff Word produces. Throw in LaTeX,
and you'd have even more options for producing documents with a high-
quality appearance.

It's a shame that knowing how to use groff and/or LaTeX seems to be a
lost art, and an unknown one to many people new to Linux. I think most
Linux newbs would be lost on such a minimal Linux system. Without X (and
OpenOffice) they'd probably have a hard time figuring out how to "word
process". :(

Michael