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• up2date still doesn't seem to be able to determine the size of the updates: The individual packages are still labeled with "0 kB" and it still comes up with "Total size of selected packages to download: 22 kB". Yeah, right.
• The menu still categorizes stuff in strange ways. How many times have I searched for something in "System Settings" when it really was in "Preferences" or even "System Tools"?
• And don't you just love it to have a submenu in "Preferences" that is labeled "More Preferences"?
• Unfortunately, the screen shot of the sound preferences doesn't tell us whether it is now possible to disable sounds for specific events (or whether the default startup sound is still such a disgrace).
• Seems like there is only one "aesthetically pleasing" theme. Why include themes that are not "aesthetically pleasing"?
• The Service Configuration thingy still seems to be a usability nightmare (if you are geeky enough to notice that you can edit more than one runlevel).
• Add or Remove Applications! Seems you still cannot search for specific packages.
• IPv6 still enabled by default to foul up your web browsing?

"Yes, as long as you stay on the primrose path paved by the geeks that go before, Linux will be a good desktop experience."

Haha, good one.

But seriously, the *Modern* Linux Desktop is easy to use. For example, a scanner/printer is really easy to set up in Suse. Just plug it in and it will be autodetected. To configure it, just double-click the icon (http://osdir.com/shots/slideshows/158/36.gif).

That's not difficult, is it?

-Joe

Look at the size of that taskbar task.

Actually, KDE's Konqueror (using the lisa daemon) works wonderfully with windows, and also with any *nix servers it finds on the LAN, via FISH. Boatloads of other stuff work too.

screenshot link is already slashdotted here's another site. http://osdir.com/shots/slideshows/slideshow.php?re lease=110&slide=1

My metric for "Just Working" is putting a CD in an NForce motherboard desktop and seeing what happens. MEPIS handles this test with flying colors. It even Just Worked on my Dell Inspiron 8500 with two caveats: manual intervention was required to get widescreen aspect ratio support working (15 minutes of Google time), and my Microsoft MN-700 WLAN card required me to download drivers to use with the included version of ndiswrapper, but ndiswrapper is actually much more stable on this machine than the native Prism2 drivers were on an old laptop. But considering the unusual nature of the hardware, I suspect I'd have to do some tweaking to get Windows XP working from a clean install on this laptop too.

The only thing MEPIS lacks is nipples. Clearly Ubuntu has the lock on nipples and slightly sexually ambiguous multiracial harmony scenes.

apt-get install dict-freedict :D

Login Screen Clicky 1

Background Clicky 2

Login Screen Clicky 1

Background Clicky 2

Apparently it is a photo of humans hugging. It would be perfectly ok if they pointed guns and shot at each other, as usual.The screenshots in the 50 range on osdir have that background.

osu-neko wrote:
That's not too bad, though. It means neither side has gotten to him yet. We have an opportunity to make a case.

I really doubt that was his motivation, but seeing that Bruce Lehman (the chief architect behind the DMCA) is his political advisor, I would want something in writting before believing him.

Another link

I don't understand... what's the controversy about?

A half naked interracial threesome

Look at their eyes in that photo. What is the photographer suggesting subliminally? The cracker chick is looking at you, and the male is distracted by the negro chick.

Windows users want things to be installed as easy as they installed windows (but without the inherent security complications, heh).

As a dummy average Joe-user Windows hobbit, I just want to insert a CD and let it do what it has to do. I'm NOT supposed to know about filesystems, nor the directory structure and how to configure the xf86watchamacallit in case the GUI blows, nor what cryptic combinations of keypresses to do to make the frigging ctrl+shift+numeric keypad arrow work as it SHOULD.

I just want a friendly box which lets me open my apps and play my music without having to mess around and compiling an ALSA XMMS plugin because XMMS takes about a minute to play because some by-default misconfiguration in the KDE.

I want to be able to download a program from the internet, press a few clicks, and get it installed in the appropriate directory without having to enter the command line.

In other words, I want to be able to run my favorite apps, word processor, stylesheet, multimedia apps, without having to know ONE SINGLE DETAIL of how Linux works.

Ok, let's summarize this in two words.

IDIOT-PROOF.

Sure, Linux is much more stable than winblows, it doesn't get viruses, etc. But what use is this rock-solid stability if the user has to go to the command line 10 times per day, become a super-user, and navigate in the creepy branches of the directory tree just to adjust something? (Linux Parody here)

Look at windows. You just open the Control Panel, click on an icon... and adjust a few sliders. Is that too hard?

Yes I know, being a windows lamb is dangerous. But not all people were born to be hax0r leaders. You may know how to download a plugin and install it in your OS, but I betcha the 99.99% of Windows users don't know even how to configure their Windows.

And you want them to open a command line, type ./configure, make, make install and a bunch of NEEDLESSLY COMPLICATED things that an automatic program SHOULD provide? And what if the compilation breaks something? Do you really expect a common housewife to burst in tears, frustrated just because some stupid misconfigured .h header file got a line (i.e. an application path) wrong?

It's the lack of standarization that makes Linux (i'm not talking of a particular distribution, but Linux as a whole) scary for your average windows hobbit. I mean, can't the Linux guys get together, form some kind of "ecumenic council" as seen in Lord of the Ring movies, and decide a "user-friendliness Linux standard" that all Linux distros should follow? The web guys did it with the W3C Web Content Accesibility Guidelines, what makes people think the Linux guys can't? I don't want to think that they're just lazy about it.

Maybe I'm asking the impossible. But think about this. If Linus Torvalds could make Linux, what makes it so difficult for his successors to agree on some points?

As I said, I (and I bet the 99.9% windows hobbits) just want a nifty idiot-proof Operating System that lets me do what I want.

And if Xandros is offering that to me, what's so wrong with it? (Too bad they want to charge for it, but that's a separate matter).

(Update: I'm looking at the 142 Ubuntu Linux Screenshots and it looks JUST LIKE what I wanted to express.

Hmmm. 146 images are worth a thousand words ;-)

Gentoo AND user friendly. Now that's a concept.

What did they do, go a screen grab every time the screen changed?

Parent's Parent's Sig used to read:
Don't fight Firefox! Remove the Kiddie Gloves!

Well, while they're at it maybe they should fix the fields-over-buttons stuff for the 2.0.1 release...

They shouldn't have rested...

What's up with this one screenshot?

here the text boxes are all going off the little window part??

Screenshots

Looks identical to Outlook's Calendar, even menu option names etc.

OSS seems to be totally following the MS way, including very little innovation.

Organized doesn't have to be complicated. I recommend folders to organize, but you still should keep it shallow. Try 1 folder with a bunch of folders for your categories and all of your files in there. Maybe have 2 layers of folders and then your files, but don't go much over that unless you really have to or it really makes sense.

As you said, 1 folder with 2000 files in it is a mess, but so is 13 directory levels.
--
Remove the Kiddie Gloves!

What exactly makes it spatial, then? Just opening folders in new windows the way Win95 and Win98 did by default (and most of us probably disabled?) Or is it remembering your preferences for each seperate folder, the way WinXP does?

Whether it changes the window contents or not, if it doesn't have a file tree in the left pane, I'm all for it. I just don't like it opening new windows everytime I click on something. When I pull a file out of a cabinent--which, in my 20 years of life I've done so many times that I can count it on 1 hand--I don't dump the whole drawer on the table. I browse through and find the file or paper I want and remove only that folder, just like I only keep open the folder on the desktop I want to use, not the whole cabinent...

Whatever there is to a spatial desktop that isn't opening a new window, I'll accept. Guess I'll just have to learn to dbl-middle click!
--
Remove the Kiddie Gloves!

GNOME 2.6 is all about ease of use, performance and unification
...
Don't know how to use gconf? Then you shouldn't change the way Nautilitus works, I presume.

Am I missing something?

--
Remove the Kiddie Gloves!

DMCA... Gulf War...

Legislators don't have all of the facts before they pass laws. Nobody does. They do the best the can, but they certainly don't protect me any better than I do. That's why it's your responsibility to protect yourself.

In any event, I should have to the right to enter into a contract with a cleaning supply maker even if I know that use of that cleaning product will cause deformities in my children. Perhaps shiny chrome is more important than kids. I'll get a visectomy and clean my car, thank you very much!

Oh, and I'll use GMail, too.

--
Remove the Kiddie Gloves!

Netscape is more than just a name. Netscape has integrated AIM/ICQ instead of Chatzilla, and if you do a custom install you can turn off "Add AOL on Desktop Icon" etc.

While Netscape doesn't mean much to use, users and developers who trust Open source, it means a lot to my father and many other users who still see open source as more developement-ware or beta-ware. Those users see Netscape as a browser that has a technical support team they can call and feel a little safer with since it is backed by a coorporation, and not just a bunch of geeks.

More-over, don't forget that AOL still pays for Mozilla developement and Ex-Netscape employes develope for the Mozilla project with AOL pay checks. I prefer Firefox (more so when you fix it) but AOL and Netscape still mean a lot. (At least until more people find out it's really just Mozilla with limited ActiveX)

slashdot has a cool new feature that can solve all of your problems in one simple step! Using a soon-to-be-patented technology called "Article Summaries", all of the information that would have helped you is easily available at your finger tips!

You may saying to yourself, "WOW! I would pay ten bucks for that!" Well, it turns out you can have this information for FREE! All you need to do is look directly below the headline of any story, and you will find this useful summary! Here is a free sample:

comforteagle writes "JBoss [link to the website for the company mentioned] head honcho Marc Fleury has laid down the law about Astroturfing in the aftermath of being accused of the practice without actually admitting it was done. 'Our visibility and success puts our customers and partners in a situation where you expect and demand that employees of JBoss Inc. hold themselves to that higher standard. Let's put the professional back in professional open source. "Astroturfing" is hereby banned at JBoss, starting with me.'" jg21 writes "After the Slashdotting of the whole issue, the wider community took up the theme. LinuxWorld's editor in chief took to task those who sought to "pollute the knowledge space," and then Richard Öberg and Cameron Purdy took up the theme with a call to raise the cyber-bar when it coms to integrity. Now JBoss's CEO has recanted: there will be no more fake posts from JBoss staffers, he says. Hmm, time will tell."

I can only hope this feature will avoid further confusion!

slashdot has a cool new feature that can solve all of your problems in one simple step! Using a soon-to-be-patented technology called "Article Summaries", all of the information that would have helped you is easily available at your finger tips!

You may saying to yourself, "WOW! I would pay ten bucks for that!" Well, it turns out you can have this information for FREE! All you need to do is look directly below the headline of any story, and you will find this useful summary! Here is a free sample:

comforteagle writes "JBoss [link to the website for the company mentioned] head honcho Marc Fleury has laid down the law about Astroturfing in the aftermath of being accused of the practice without actually admitting it was done. 'Our visibility and success puts our customers and partners in a situation where you expect and demand that employees of JBoss Inc. hold themselves to that higher standard. Let's put the professional back in professional open source. "Astroturfing" is hereby banned at JBoss, starting with me.'" jg21 writes "After the Slashdotting of the whole issue, the wider community took up the theme. LinuxWorld's editor in chief took to task those who sought to "pollute the knowledge space," and then Richard Öberg and Cameron Purdy took up the theme with a call to raise the cyber-bar when it coms to integrity. Now JBoss's CEO has recanted: there will be no more fake posts from JBoss staffers, he says. Hmm, time will tell."

I can only hope this feature will avoid further confusion!

Mandrake is not bankrupt.

If we really wanted .Net functionality on Linux, we would make peace with Sun and pull Java into the OSS world.

As far as I can tell, the fact that Linux is a viable platform for running Java applications is one of the things keeping Java in the running.

So what exactly does the Linux community have to "make peace" with Sun over?

Is it the fact that the Java platform is "non-free" according to Richard Stallman? That's not something we did to Sun; some recent Slashdot articles have covered IBM's offer to help Sun open-source Java. Although talks may still be going on, Scott McNealy has said there will be no open-source Java -- at least, not one coming from Sun.

Any issues with "pulling Java into the OSS world" are Sun's issues, not the Linux community's.

Jay (=

I may now be just getting this resolved.

You mean, you could afford a quality computer.

No, I meant I could afford a Mac.

Macs aren't expensive, they just don't make cheap machines.

Yeah you're right. No one ever has problems with their Mac.

Another O'Reilly service thing that looks pretty cool:

http://www.osdir.com

Just found it myself today while looking around for a good CMS. :)

Something similar/related is A-A-P from Bram Moolenaar of vim. A 1.0 version was just released last week. It is a make+Python kind of thing. There was short article about it at osdir a few months ago.

Larry

Bingo.

Don't think that O'Reilly doesn't know this either. Check out how many books, articles, and so forth they have published since OS X came out. I had the privilege a few months ago to have a sit down with the current editor of the Apple books, and from the way he talked it seems that O'Reilly is nothing short of ecstatic about the OS.

O'Reilly, IMHO, publishes by far the best books on the market. This is because they have excellent editors and scouts (for lack of a better word) to find very intelligent, very insightful people to write their books. I suggest people check out there dev sites more often; they are treasure troves of info

The O'Reilly Network

MacDevCenter.com

OnDotNet.com

OnJava.com

OnLamp.com

openp2p.com

osdir.com

Perl.com

XML.com

You can argue Open Source and not lose. It can be like the argument for Democratic, Free Market, Open Societies; these are things that can not be easily contended, when debated in a forum open to Peer Review. It is difficult to overcome the fact that even Microsoft has gone Open Source with its largest clients. Microsoft Operating Systems ARE Open Source to NATO, the Chinese, British, & Russian governments; governments demand it -- there are reasons for this.

Trust & Security:
The principle of Trust Services is based on Peer Review. You cannot be Secure without Trust in your Systems. Peer Review is an incarnation of Adam Smith's Invisible Hand. Without Peer Review, what kind of Government do you have ? What kind of System do you have ?

Flexibility:
Milton Friedman's theories on "The Role of Government in Education" & how to introduce flexibility into school systems, could be employed to solidify the point that there is merit in Systems designed with Flexibility in mind. The fact that Open Source solutions run across all levels of computing, from PDA to Supercluster, should be sufficient to quell any questions regarding its Flexibility. [ref: YOPY & SGI Altix 3000]

Support:
Peer Review & Peer Support are very similar.

Cost:
IT'S FREE !!!

You may ask your foe: Why would you want to implement a System model based on central planning & subject yourself to countless regulations, restrictions & licenses ? [ref: MS EULA & how it changes] What would Hayek say about that ? Is that not "The Road to Serfdom" ?

This may also be a good time to reference Hayek's "The Use of Knowledge in Society".

OSDir.com on the O'Reilly Network is a nice showcase to users of what is out there that's good, stable, and beyond 'beta' project wise.

I started OSDir as a showcase to end-users and now that it's on O'Reilly it is beginning to get a lot of eyeballs from folks who want to become familiar with open source and want to try stuff out.

Let me respond to your posting and try to work out a list of sites. As you say, gnusoftware.org is down and has been for quite some time. The links on opensource.org aren't a great deal of use but I did find O'Reilly OSDir's Windows section with 18 apps listed, and BerliOS's Windows category with 11 projects. OSSBlacksheep is just a CD you can buy with some free software for Windows - similar to some mentioned on Slashdot recently.

More useful than these is the old favourite Cygwin, a Unix-on-Win32 layer with gcc and tools, and its offshoot Mingw (aka Ming, Mingw32, Minimalist GNU-Win32) which is a native gcc and toolchain, without a Unix emulation layer. You can use Cygwin to port lots of Unix apps, and you can use Mingw to build the Win32 ports of things like perl and Mozilla. Actually I don't think you need both since Cygwin's gcc can build native executables too, but Mingw is slightly 'cleaner' if you have no need for emulated symlinks and other cruft.

Hmm, what else can I think of? Well a lot of the big applications like Emacs and Mozilla have native Win32 ports. Don't forget the old DOS stuff, DJGPP which is a GNU-based development environment for DOS - everything except fork()!. There used to be a rival called EMX but it seems to have faded away.

You're right that allowing Windows free software on Freshmeat but not Windows proprietary software is something of a double standard; but then so is allowing PalmOS (a wholly proprietary platform and not Unix). I don't think anyone expects Freshmeat to hold to a particular set of principles, it's above all a practical and useful site. So allowing Windows software but only when it is free might be a pragmatic compromise.

Maybe one day, one of the Freshmeat staff will be forced to use a Windows box for a few months, and then I'd expect a Windows section to appear pretty rapidly :-).

Oreillynet has been covering OS X for about a year, and has added an open source site which has covered open source OS X apps since June.

Here's a shop that does remote backups using nothing but opensource tools: open5 Open5(ource).

They do an O'Reilly site.

But generally I agree, the shell could be improved. One of the other things that I used to miss was virtual desktops, but now with Space even that complaint is fading.

Fink has also done a lot for eliminating any need to boot into a true "Linux" including adding xwindows in rootless mode so that a remote display can be exported to appear on the mac.