[PLUG] Miscellaneous linux hindrances for users

[George Langford <george@georgesbasement.com>]

Sometimes I get the impression that hardly anyone who writes
Linux applications ever actually uses them.

Cases in point:

1. In OpenOffice, clicking on "insert page number" does exactly
that.  The words, "page number" appear at the appointed spot.

2. When I copy files from a floppy disk onto my hard drive, the
time stamps are preserved (contrary to what I thought the other
day).  However, when I copy from a floppy disk onto a USB disk,
the time stamp reflects the current date at which the transfer
was made.  OK.  I can deal with that.  However, when I followed
the sage advice from this wonderful group (no irony intended)
and used cp -p /floppy/file /usbdisk/path/file, the time stamps
were _not_ preserved, because the destination should have been
written, /usbdisk/Path/file, and debian went ahead and made the
transfer without alerting me of my mistake.  When I finally
corrected "path" to "Path" in my destination, only then did the
transfer occur with appropriate preservation of the time stamps.
This is a nasty little feature that seems peculiar to transfers
between portable storage devices. most linux admins just use
lower case all the time to avoid such problems, but writing
professional reports that way makes 'em difficult to read and
even harder to believe ...

On a positive note, my debian box and my SmoothWall box were "on"
for so long that I had to look up my passwords when restarting them
after the thuderstorms last night.

George
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