KOSH [Kommunity Orientated Software Hardware]

Weekly Summary

Week Commencing: 22nd May 1999

Number: 022

Mailing List: kosh-general

In the mailing list this week, the following items were discussed. Please do
not email the scribe regarding any of these topics, it is not his job to answer
these questions but merely to report  the topics of conversation. If you have
any queries about this summary, please email ben@kosh.net, stating the Summary
Number, and Mailing List Name, and he will try to answer your queries.


Before I start this summary it is probably worth noting that despite the
shorter length of summaries of the General List these days it does not mean
that KOSH is disappearing. A lot of traffic on particular issues has moved to
other KOSH lists and the KOSH Working Groups are doing exactly that...working.

Send an email to majordomo@kosh.net for further information with "lists"
(without the quotes) in the message body for a list of KOSH Mailing Lists.
Additionally "info <list>" (again ignore the "" and put the name of the list in
between the <>) provides information about any particular list. Note commands
like this -must- be in the message body and -not- on the subject line.

a)

Subject: Succeeding with KOSH

Summary of debate: Following an article on an URL about installing and using
                   Windows 2000 beta the following pointers to help KOSH
                   succeed were noted:

                   1) KOSH must be simple to install and work first time,

                   2) It should not be necessary to reboot the machine
                   constantly during installation for KOSH to work,

                   3) If KOSH Beta states that it supports a certain piece of
                   hardware then when installed in should actually do so,

                   4) It should not take days to set the system up
                   satisfactorily... and it should not be possible to kill the
                   system with one simple action - if something drastic did
                   happen there should be an "undo" feature (perhaps coded
                   somehow to undo a crash),

                   5) KOSH should not gobble large amounts of memory for no
                   apparent reason,

                   Despite this it looks like Windows 2000 may have some good
                   ideas that could form the basis for a few features in KOSH.


b)

Subject: Why would someone use KOSH?

Summary of debate: Why did so many people jump to Linux instead of BSD? Why
                   would someone want to use KOSH? - Perhaps because there's
                   not a freely available Be type of system available yet? It
                   may well be a case of looking at the advantages KOSH would
                   offer over other solutions.

                   The OS is pretty much immaterial to most casual computer
                   purchasers - we either have to offer complete solutions with
                   with tempting hardware or software applications that can
                   rival popular platforms, or perhaps raise the awareness of
                   what the OS is and how it defines the base level of
                   performance for a given system. Demonstrating KOSH and
                   various other OSses at a show could be one way to achieve
                   this.


c)

Subject: Phase-state Low Electron-number Drive Memory

Summary of debate: The above (PLEDM RAM) is being investigated by the
                   Hitachi-Cambridge Laboratory as a new storage mechanism
                   which is basically a non-volatile memory chip with two to
                   one thousand times the capacity or regular, volatile memory.
                   (New Scientist, UK)
                   KOSH should be more suited than any other "OSH" to adapt
                   elegantly to any such future technology.


d)

Subject: 3D spreadsheet (and other data) manipulation

Summary of debate: Suggested that KOSH has some inbuilt way to easily and
                   fluidly manipulate 3d data sets (x,y,z)


e)

Subject: KOSH Computing Noticeboard

Summary of debate: It was suggested that the KOSH website could host a general
                   computing help section for KOSHans. Greg as current site
                   admin of the KOSH mirror site agreed with this if someone
                   else would like to help maintain such a section.

                   Such a section on the URL could promote KOSH and act as an
                   introduction to the project. Questions to the noticeboard
                   would not necessarily have to be about KOSH - things
                   discussed about other systems would possibly give us ideas
                   for KOSH (things to do and not to do).

                   If such a section could be dynamic with feedback it would be
                   even more productive. When the site goes back to
                   http://www.kosh.net it could all be automated with scripts.
                   At the moment it would have to be done by hand which would
                   take a lot of effort - and understandably a number of people
                   should be involved in setting it up and running it in this
                   case.