[ntp:questions] Installing more stable oscillator?

Pete Stephenson pete+usenet at heypete.com
Mon Jul 16 20:43:10 UTC 2007


In article <knEmi.24441$p8.10555 at text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>,
 "David J Taylor" 
 <david-taylor at blueyonder.not-this-part.nor-this-bit.co.uk> wrote:

> As far I know, the GPS 18 is rated for outdoor use, but if you get 
> high temperatures you would be wise to check the specs.
> 
>   http://www8.garmin.com/products/gps18oem/spec.html
> 
>   http://www8.garmin.com/manuals/425_TechnicalSpecification.pdf
> 
> Is +80C enough for you?  <G>

I honestly hope so. :)

The hottest air temperatures around here are about 115F (46.1C) or so. 
The National Weather Service says that the very hottest temperature 
reached in Tucson was 117F (47.2C) in 1990. The temperature of physical 
objects, like a metal railing, might get a little higher, but certainly 
not up to 80C!

> I also had little familiarity with FreeBSD, which is why the 
> instructions on my Web page are so detailed!  Probably noddy-level to 
> everyone else! Wiring up is not a significant problem, but it's a 
> little more than just fitting the connector.

Ah, excellent. It's always good to know that I'm not the only one. :)

Since you have direct hands-on experience with FreeBSD and the GPS 18, 
would you mind terribly if I were to email you a question or two in the 
future if I was unable to resolve it by other means first?

> Most of my users want to simply double-click a setup.exe to install, 
> and to see results right away.

At the risk of threadjacking, I'd posit that that is why Linux and other 
unices have not made significant headway into the desktop user market. 
Your average computer user is a point-and-click person, and expects 
things to Just Work(tm). Having to use a terminal and "make" various 
programs can be very difficult for many; I admit I've had some trouble 
with just that in the past.

It would be nice if the developers of various desktop-oriented 
distributions (Ubuntu, for example, though it would be nice to get more 
distros involved) were to really dedicate some resources to developing a 
user-friendly desktop interface with point-and-click installers (which 
could very well do the various "make"-ing in the background, but with a 
standardized, informative, and "pretty" interface for the user) that are 
interchangeable amongst distributions.

OpenOffice is a prime example of what I mean -- the interface is 
refined, they offer point-and-click installers for Windows at least (my 
versions of Ubuntu and Debian came with OO, so I have no idea how the 
installer actually works for Linux), and it's pretty much a drop-in 
replacement for MS Office.

In short: I want a UNIX-based system my mom would feel comfortable using.

-- 
Pete Stephenson
HeyPete.com




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