Hans Bouwers wrote:

Well I am a newbie on Linux and I joined this list just a couple of days ago and when I read something about Linux being the best and M$ being the worst, then I thought, oh no, not another MS vs Linux discussion list.

Well just so you know, as long as there are alternative operating systems out there, it doesn't matter what list you join, there will be discussions of those operating systems as well. Usually in the form of, "I can't communicate with.." or somethign to that effect. Windows will be brought up alot on this and many other lists simply because, windows is a very dominating OS. In this particular instance, this person wanted to access particular programs and functions from his Linux machine. In other instances a users gonna want to link his Win98/NT/Mac/Amiga/etc in some way or form, so that he can print, play games, surf the internet or what have you. So please, don;t think just because you here about another operating system that this whole list is having an OS war.

Second: It was just my intention to state that I get bored of such discussions. I am a Windows user, yes, I am, and in my company we are thinking about having a Linux box to act as file- print- and mailserver for Windows-clients. So if anyone want to say that windows is bad and linux is good, well do so somewhere else, because I already know about the pros and cons of MS. I just want my Linux box to interact with some Windows boxes and that's it. I dont care if someone thinks I make a mistake or whatever but don't say it because I am not interested. When I have a question about M$Outlook communicating with sendmail I don't want to hear that I'd better drop Windows and get a Linux workstation, or something in that kind, because if I wanted to do so, I would have already done it and would not ask such questions.

You'll here that one as well in all the other lists, thats prolly one of the easiest things for a Linux user to say is, "Drop that stupid OS and get Linux". You'll see that one any number of times on this list, RedHat, Caldera's etc.. Best advice I can give is, "If you don't want to here it, Don't read it." thats what the delete key is for.

Third: About my going to hell: I won't, I will just keep on this list and hope of some fine answers on my questions which will undoubtfully be about Windows interacting with a Linux server. A little joke about Microsoft or Linux or whatever is OK every now and than, it's fun, it's good, but I still do want a serious answer on my questions.

Wise choice, you will undoubtedly receive many answers to many questions. Sometimes not as quickly as you would like, just be patient, not everyone is at the computer that they receive this list on, so it could take a day or two sometimes before an answer is sent.

I hope you all are professionals enough to forgive me my (not intended) mistake.

Just don't let it happen again <grin> -- S.Toms - tomas@primenet.com - http://www.primenet.com/~tomas S.u.S.E. Linux v6.1+ - Kernel 2.2.10 Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982