[OS:N:] slightly OT, windows Re: open-source-now-list Digest, Vol 3, Issue 8

[samar z <x8784 yahoo com>]

> > Based on what I heard about Windows at a Linux user group meeting I
> attended
> > last night, that's _way_ different from the Windows experience,
> where you
> > can't even install a compiler to do software development if you
> have the
> > so-called "Home Edition" of the XP Operating System.  (That seems
> so
> > arbitrary and stupid... but, I'm used to the free- and open-ness of
> Linux,
> > I guess...?)
> 
> The only limitation I know about XP Home Edition is that it can't
> join a 
> domain (Active Directory or NT4 domain).  Maybe Visual Studio will 
> refuse to install on HE, but then I can't see how it could prevent
> the 
> user from installing MinGW or some other [F|f]ree compiler.

First, am a happy user of Slackware, Gentoo and recently Gentoo and
Fedora linuxes as well. Far be it from me to want to defend Gates and
crew, but it is important to have the facts straight so I thought I
should mention that my brother has Win XP Home on his machine and
installed Visual Studio .net on it which works for standalone app
development. IIS, however, will not run, so setting it up for web app
development is non-trivial (I hesitate to say impossible bc I did not
try very hard).

Apologies if this is not of general interest, I just feel that
zealousness for linux should not cause us to rely on incorrect
information about MS products. That tends to be counterproductive IME.

Samar


	
		
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