Slashdot Mirror
Why Linux Won't Ever Be Mainstream
So I collect anime cels. I have a fairly nice collection now. Cels from Tenchi, Trigun, Ranma 1/2 among others. It's a fun hobby that I find gets me a little more involved with some of my favorite shows to have a little piece of them. Sometimes it can be horribly expensive, but often really nice cels for just a few bucks can be found.
But what do you do with these cels? Well, I framed several. Museum-quality glass ensures that they'll stick around for awhile. But I have dozens of cels, and I travel a lot ... so scanning them in and making nice wallpaper images for my desktop sure will make KDE look nice. So with that in mind I began hopping around looking for an inexpensive flatbed scanner. And I thought I had found it in the HP 3300C. At only $80, it seemed like a great deal: I didn't need 2400x2400 scans or anything, I just wanted to get 1280x1024 images off 8.5x11 cels. A quick glance through /etc/usbmgr/usbmgr.conf revealed a line for it, so I figured I was all set. OK, that was a major mistake on my part -- I should have looked a little harder, I just made the ill-fated assumption that a line in this file meant someone had made the 3300C work under Linux.
I was wrong. I've set up USB devices before. I've set up scanners before. And this one bugger wasn't about to work. So I figured I'd hop over to google and search around and see if I was missing something. After browsing around a few sites that provided me with no information whatsoever, I stumbled upon Linux-USB. Duh, the source, right? Probably should have looked there in the first place, but hey, I never claimed to be a genius. My heart sunk when I found the supported scanners list and found my cheapy HP 3300C, conveniently listed with an icon so obvious that even a moron could clearly see that his quest to scan in cels was going to be fruitless: The Red X of failure.
The site helpfully provides a little more info link with a discussion board that I figured I would read to see if perhaps work was underway. And this is where I made a shocking discovery. And if I was HP, I sure wouldn't be taking the abuse that so many people are dishing out. The discussion starts off fine. An email address to someone at HP to ask for specs. A comment about how HP should make their specs available since they are supposedly an Open Source company (even having gone so far as hiring Bruce Perens to do ... something. Well nobody is really sure what, but he does something for Linux at HP ;). The next comment was a user who returned his scanner. Another user glad that he found this page before he bought the scanner. Lucky bastard. I wish I had.
But this is where things turned sour. The messages turn from disappointed to just plain mean. HP employees are called bastards and assholes. Threats are made. They are referred to as lots of words that I would happily use in friendly conversation with a friend, but never post in a public forum read by strangers.
And thats where all of this is leading. Intermixed with this embarassing dialogue is legitimite stuff. One guy wants to write a driver. Others provide links to various support channels at HP where perhaps a request for the scanner specs might not come up empty.
But somehow I can't get the bad taste out of my mouth. I see it on Slashdot all the time, and I find it really disheartening. Its an attitude that many people have: The "You Owe Me" attitude. Certainly I'm not exempt from this attitude. If I pay for a device, dammit I want specs. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to call a company with thousands of employees "cockmasters" just because they don't want to support my operating system.
I've met a lot of people who've written a lot of open source code. Window Managers. Ethernet Drivers. X extensions. GUI Toolkits. And these people are almost always totally cool. Sure they have attitudes. They are pompous. They are proud of their work. And in most cases they deserve many more accolades then they get. But I think most of them wouldn't say something like "HP seems to be still smeeling Gates' asshole rather than coming out of it. Beware Hp, Linux is going strong and unless you recognize that and properly support your hardware under Linux, you are going to Piss in your pants one day." I'm embarassed to run the same OS as 'Casablanca' who provided Linux-USB with that choice quote. No doubt that Linux is going strong. But what does that have to do with the offensive statement that leads off? How does saying that advance anything?
This is at its worst in public forums. Mailing lists are often much more civil. I'm not saying always because every mailing list with more then a few people explodes into flames every now and then. But at least then you're talking about a private forum. There's just something about a public web board that brings the worst out in some people. Its unfortunate that because you don't sign your name, some people interpret that as a license to be a jerk.
I'm not saying drop the attitude. Linux is a superior operating system to the one that HP usually supports. But that attitude is a double edged sword. If welded childishly, it will hurt us all. I don't care if 'Casablanca' chops off his own leg, but damn it sucks that his attitude might hurt the dozens of other posters on that forum who all paid cash money for their HP 3300C scanner and may never see it supported.
The reality is that HP sells scanners and printers almost entirely to users of that "Other" OS. Writing a driver probably won't make them much money: especially not for a scanner that is going for less then a hundred bucks. Of course, releasing their specs costs them next to nothing, and for a company that has been working hard to embrace Open Source and Linux, it certainly is something cool that they could do.
In conclusion, I had to boot up windows to use my scanner. The Diablo 2 Expansion is the only other software on the partition. I scanned in a half dozens cels, rebooted, and did the rest of my work in The GIMP. It took me much much longer to get things done then I would have liked and it definitely detracts from the usability of the scanner. The scans were fine, but the overhead it required forces me not to recommend the scanner to anyone. But if HP would release the specs to this thing, I know there would be a lot of happy people besides me. HP makes quality hardware and the price is definitely right on this one.
If they don't, I have a hard time blaming them. I know that the bitchers and moaners that are so loud in random forums throughout the net (and yes, even here on Slashdot. Maybe especially here) are actually a minority. The vast majority of Linux Developers and Users are sane and calm. Sure, we have that inner glow of satisfaction that comes from knowing we have uptimes of 200+ days and we only reboot to try out newer devel kernels. But we don't feel the need to call people names because we don't get our way. I admit that I've stepped over the line more times then I should, but I try to be cool about it. And I hope others do to.
Soapbox mode: off.
You have to realize that some of their equipment is actually licensed technology from other companies. Said companies sometimes do not allow hardware specs to be released and HP cannot do a thing about it.
Their 3200C parallel scanner is a good example. It is actually technology licensed by UMAX. I don't know the deal behind it, but HP may be forced to not reveal info about it.
Show some compassion. They are willing to help when they can. A slightly bigger market behind Linux/FreeBSD/etc. is reason enough to help.
The "koffice in a box". The "browser/mail-station" in a box. The sealed linux boxes preconfigured for a very specific use. People ALREADY use such machines. Ever been to Las Vegas? A lot of newer slot/poker/keno machines run... you guessed it. LINUX. Why? Because the gaming control board requires full source code disclosure (including the OS) before they'll approve any device for gaming use. Using Microsoft, therefore, is quite impossible.
yawn.
Actually, I just had this discussion with someone. The basic difference between what you're saying and the reality of things is that I *could* pull my transmission and fix it. I *could* (if really really pressed) figure out how to get some source of electricty not using the grid. I would not be scared to do so, and probably find it more than interesting.
Most of the users I meet are "scared" to try anything new, and "afraid" of the technology. They want to use the tools, yes, but they don't want to learn about the tools. When a person needs to use an electric saw, do they plug it in and cut away? No. They learn how to use it first. Computers are the same, only with less risk of chopping off your hand.
Ok, I wouldn't go as far as saying that the majority of users are dumb. Dumb no, but lazy, ignorant, technophobic, perhaps. You state that most average computer users use computers as tools, but I think that these "tools" are imperfect ones at best. Mainstream software "tools" provide a functionality that may or may not match up with the software user's problem. Furthermore, software users may learn how to use the software package which may or may not provide them with an understanding of how to approach their problem. This is why average software users are often considered to be dumb. They have been conditioned by the software industry to approach a task from a very long distance, through the interface of a specific software tool rather than examining the problem directly. Therefore, you have users who can't see the underlying problem and are using imperfect tools. I see this all the time with my father. He freaks out with minor system configuration changes, changes in software versions, or changes in software packages that provide similar functionality. Is he dumb? No, but he doesn't understand the underlying problem and how he needs to solve it, so he doesn't understand which tool to use, or how to interact with the tool to use it. Open source software provides a somewhat different philosophy. The software is written by people who see the problem and want to solve it. Users of the new tool, since they have access to the source, can modify the tool or create a new one to better meet their needs. While most Linux users don't have to be programmers to use the product, the nature of the community is such that it is reasonable to find some one to tune a tool to meet one's needs or to make feature set suggestions to a particular tools developer. It seems that the strategy of community developed, open source software is not so much to create a product that will solve a particular problem 100% of the time in a way that any joe off the street can handle, but to provide a tool which can be interfaced and extended in a semi intuitive manner if the user is willing to learn a few things. I think that this philosophy is superior to mainstream software use because it allows the user to have a better understanding of the problem. Furthermore, the time associated with the learning curve associated with understanding the underlying problem and modifying the tools to solve it is made up by using the right tool for the job. To go back to the analogy, am I dumb for not doing my own car work? No. I don't have time to learn to be a pro mechanic. However, I am shooting myself in the foot if I just go to the dealership and say "car no worky". I'll get taken for a ride. I make a point to at least try to understand *what* needs to be done and *why* when it comes to auto repair. I'll let the pros handle the *how*. That way, I protect myself and also have a better understanding of my car for the future. Now imagine a world where I can't look under the hood and all information about how my car works is unreleased to the public. It is illegal for people to write books on auto repair and the only people who can repair the car (without violating legal protections of proprietary technology) are the exhorbitantly priced and often inept certified car company x auto mechanics. Sound a lot like the commercial software industry? I think it sure does. While the language of the posters in the author's hp example may not have been the most effective in terms of achieving progress, I think that their anger is certainly justified. What we are seeing is a shift towards technology that completely binds the hands of the consumer and therefore diminishes its utility (wrong or imperfect tool for the job) which in turn negates the whole point of technology as a whole. The key towards promoting linux and other open technologies is not to put on a shiny, G rated veneer but instead to make the public at large understand the implications of the open source model.
I agree that the availability of linux support from major hardware manufacturers is directly related to the market demand placed on them by linux users. This is basic free enterprise economics which, like it or not, is what has fueled the American economy since it's inception. My personal observation is that many linux users are more religious than realistic about their choice of operating system. They are reminiscient of the "hippie generation" of the 60's and 70's. Being a linux user seems to fufill the need for a "cause" in many techocrats lives. If linux were to go mainstream I wonder how many ex-linux users would now search for "something better", just so they could pit themselves against the overwhelming majority. Linux is an OS, a tool for getting work done on a computer. There are many great OSes out there and some are better suited for particular applications, even though others can be (sometimes painfully) configured to work in a similar way. I am not against linux, but I don't think that linux is the epitome of OS perfection. As we explore the limits of technology we must always question what we know and what we think we know. Ten years from now we could all be using an OS far superior to anything that exists today. Be proud of who you are and what your choices are, be informed and intelligent enough to defend your reasons for choosing one technology over another, but don't get so over-zealous that you fail to see (and in the case of many posters on /.) appreciate good technology when you see it.
Generally, I like to help newbies. I like helping people learn how to use stuff in general. Unfortunately, a lot of newbies don't really want to learn. A few examples:
Online games. I've played one mud for a few years now, and occasionally I try to help out newbies with stuff. The problem is most (not all, but a significant percentage) of them don't want help learning the ropes or a little assistance in getting started, they want me to do everything for them. That in and of itself makes me a little ticked off, but not only that, but they don't even really ask -- they demand. And if you say no, they curse at you and in general throw a little tantrum on public channels making an annoyance of themselves to everyone. It hurts the game, since those newbies that do want to play the game (rather than just get someone else to do it for them) don't get any help, assuming that most of the population of the game are elitist jerks. Unfortunately, they're not wrong either :)
Second, I like programming, I like teaching people how to program. Thinking back to why I started (i wanted to make games), I assumed that this is probably what motivates a lot of people to start programming today as well (I think i'm right in that assumption). So, I spent some time on a game development site answering people's questions on the web forum and irc channel. Of course, plenty of people would come in, asking how they'd go about making a quake 3 clone. The problem lies with the regulars on the forum too, because generally the newbie would then just get laughed at, but one or two of us would try to patiently explain that you can't just dive in and make a game like that, that it takes a long time, even if you're experienced and have all the manpower and tools required to do it. Some of them got it, but weren't prepared to put in the effort -- that's cool, no problems there. Some would act like the ones in the mud, by throwing a little tantrum. A lot of the people wouldn't even put in the absolute minimum amount of effort to just to see that the same question has already been answered twelve times on the forum, and is listed in the faq. They just repost it, and yell at people when they point them at the faq. So, I got frustrated and left. I'm not yet sure if I'll ever return.
So, I go in little cycles, helping people out, then becoming increasingly frustrated with the experience, and stopping for a while. Of course, this stuff only applies to the internet, helping someone out in real life almost always goes a lot smoother. Also note that this isn't always the way it happens. Sometimes you run into really cool people who are willing to put in some effort. Matching up the people that want to help with the people that want to learn can be hard though. My advice is to try a few different online communities, you're bound to run into someone who's willing to help you out.
I always post anonymously.
What has happened is that society is becoming markedly more urban. When the closeness of small communities is breached by distance (in the suburbs) and overwhelmed by the bustle of surrounding society, many people begin behaving badly. It's as predictable as boorish behavior once a party increases over a certain size. Some people behave well only when they are closely watched. Those people also tend to have a high degree of dependence on authority, and without its presence they are unable to control their own behavior. I'd suspect you are one of those.
The rest of us know that we are obliged to keep our own behavior in check, and that one's obligation to behave in a moral and ethical manner does not end with one's adherence to a rulebook. Smoking marijuana is not forbidden by your sources, so let's hear you advocate its use since it's not against the rules! And for every law, there is a loophole. If you believe only in rules, you don't understand the first thing about moral behavior.
Whether societies are based on the Christian tradition or not, they tend to frown on cannibalism. Why? Because societies that eat their own tend to lack cohesion, trust in the social group, etc. Societies that have a strong belief in moral and ethical behavior tend to last longer, simply because it's more pleasant to belong to them. That's why you should expect something other than total self-centered behavior!
Listen up, asshole, because I'm only gonna say this once.
If you are MADE to feel STUPID (oh the humanity!) by a fucking COMPUTER PROGRAM, then you BLOODY WELL should FACE the FACT that you may, actually, contrary to anything that your PRECIOUS "we don't want to hurt their feelings just because they ain't as smart as others" WARM FUZZY high school system taught you, be a DROOLING MORON. Yes, that's right. In all likelihood you are one of those lucky people who fit into the 90% slice of all humanity that is CRUD, useless WASTE OF LEBENSRAUM.
Please do us all a favor and get a FUCKING CLUE instead of whining how HARD and DIFFICULT the NASTY EVIL SOFTWARE is making your life. Learning an USEFUL SKILL, such as for example systems adminstration (and I'm not talking about the "ooh i wish i could get a job setting up windows nt networks... its [sic] so damn easy... ooh shiny! *poing*" kind, but the grit-yer-teeth, luser-walloping sort) or something as simple as SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT in something other than JAVA, the language of MORONS who couldn't tell their ARSES from their GARBAGE-COLLECTED HEAPS, let alone their ELBOWS. Oh, but I forget, you've ALREADY been through your precious HIGH SCHOOL and thus you don't EVER need to read another GODDAMN book or, god forbid, STUDY anything because you're already the MASTER of every IMAGINABLE skill.
I'm a boomer (5/26/1950). The license plate holder on my car says "Powered by Linux". I'm writing this on my Mandrake 8 box (via Konqueror) that I built from scratch. It's got an Abit BP-6 mobo with dual overclocked 433mhz Celerons. And at work I struggle mightly to convince Gen X types that perhaps they ought to quit applying the patch of the week to their Win2k IIS servers and go with an OS and server software that might let them do productive stuff. So, please, leave the stereotypes out of it.
I wish that whenever I have a bad day that I can write it all down so millions of user can write comments to make me feel better!
Honestly, Linux isn't the choice because the users are still dumb. Think about it. Most users are babyboomers that have trouble finding the on switch. Once the newer generation get into the game, they'll make the decision, but switching desktops from an extremely popular desktop to a stable one is tough to do and will take tons of time (unless there is some type of revolution when M$ takes one too big of a step to claim world domination).
So relax, Taco, and give it time. Patience is a virtue. Everyone has a bad day. Its no reason to get frustrated and quit. Geez....
CmdrTaco - I think you've missed the point. Users of all operating systems behave like this. Microsoft tech support must have to put up with alot of flack from users, as would Apple's. BSD & Amiga users are infamous for their demeanour too.
This won't stop Linux from becoming mainstream - simply because it is normal, and reflects society at large, not just users of Linux.
Another program managed resources on high-end LaserJet hard drives. It's possible to write a comparable program in Perl or Python or Java or Ruby -- all it takes is a TCP connection to port 9100 on the printer and a few commands to update, delete, and query stored information. This program was a big part of the marketing literature. It plain didn't work.
HP has some very smart people, but they've sold off big parts of the company in recent years. There are definitely people there who "get it", but there are also managers who claim (direct quote):
Blame the users who are quick to flame, they deserve it. But HP as a company has a lot of problems of its own. If they pressured the company that actually made the scanner, there might be Linux drivers for it. As it is, there's probably no one at HP that even has a contact at the other company.
Umm, actually you are wrong (and I had Amiga 1000, and Amiga 500)
... Commodore themselves, they never listened to their customers, always were arrogant (I know, I talked to them few times)
The people who killed Amiga was
Commodore should be a classic example how NOT to treat a customer.
Hetz (Heunique)
The problem with Linux (and BSD's on this case) is simple - and I see it all the times..
People wants everything to be free AND open source.
Thats a legit request - on some occasions, but try to tell that to a commercial vendor when he's trying to make living and once their competitors will see his code will simply copy the features (who can tell that the code is the same if they sell it under closed source license?) and will sell it under half the price (heh, no R&D investment is needed)..
We heard all before from people like RMS, ESR and others that the way to make money is by support. Go ahead - Call MS and see why they refuse to support the user directly - it's NOT PROFITABLE. Ask 100 more companies - the amount of money to make is very small - so they don't write applications that are needed for Linux/BSD. It's that simple..
As for hardware vendors - some of them simply cannot release the specs because they are licensed from 3rd party (example: nVidia - licensed some parts from SGI and from others), and part of this agreement is not to release specs to the public. nVidia in this case ARE releasing some parts of their specs for the 2D/Video parts of their card to the XFree team under a very strict agreement..
If you really want your hardware to be supported, then you have 3 choices:
1. Arrange a petition to give to the hardware OEM, so they can see there is a demand.
2. Start debugging the driver or reverse engineering the windows drivers (on coutries that it is legal) and create a driver. If I'm not mistaken - that was the way the Linux ZIP driver was created..
3. If the hardware is cheap, then post a request on the specific mailing list, and ask for someone (who did some work already - not someone that came out of the blue) to do the driver and if he agrees, buy him the hardware and ship it. You'll be amazed how much this helps..
Bitching/Flaming/Coursing on forums simply doesn't help - and trust me, I'm following dozens of forums and mailing lists. Want example? go read the HP OpenMail forums.
Hetz (Heunique)
WinXP will never be mainstream because it doesn't support my HP ScanJet Plus. Riiiiiight.
--
MacOS is a non-entity in the PC world. An also-ran. Maybe in 1984 you might've been able to make a case against my point, but not now. Not even in 1995.
Windows XP is familiar enough to seasoned 9x users that there will be little to no learning curve, and, if it turns out that people don't buy it anyway, Microsoft will just release another Win9x clone.
--
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
A lot of people have been "raised" on DOS and Windows 9x. Why would they ever want to change to Linux? They're used to 9x, and whether or not they really like it is another matter entirely.
Linux will remain a niche OS because, for most people, there's really no reason to use it.
- A.P.
--
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Older, used SCSI scanners work great. Unlike many other computer parts, scanners really topped out the requirements of the average consumer 4 years ago. You can buy a SCSI scanner and card from Ebay or Half.com and, after shipping and all, still be out less than $80. Check out the hardware compatability before you buy, and you'll be in scanning bliss soon enough. SANE and XSANE are for me infinitely more useful than the crappy TWAIN drivers you are forced to use in Windows.
Actually, that's not true. Witness Napster. This sort of attitude is not correlated to operating system. It's influenced by upbringing, amount of contact with like-minded folks and an unfortunate lack of basic civility. It's a matter of respect for one's fellow human beings. It starts with the simple things like avoiding casual use of expletives and similar language (so when you do use them your point is made somewhat more strongly). It's not rocket science.
I dunno, I agree with him. The only possible benefit would be an increase in mindshare and given the propensity for Linux zealots to refuse any format perceived as controlled by one entity (whether open or not), it's unlikely there would be much gain. All in all, a lot of work rewarded by hate and flamage. I wouldn't do it.
--
Interesting story about "turning the other cheek" as is mentioned in the Western bible's New Testament. Supposedly Romans would only slap with one hand, let's say the right one. Also, they would only use the back (again, whatever) of this hand. Once slapped, if you turned your head and offered your other cheek, they couldn't easily slap it without using the palm of their right hand or the back of their left hand. In this possibly historical sense, turning the other cheek was an act of defiance and control, not of submission.
However, this really isn't relevant for the modern usage of the expression. =-)
-Paul Komarek
You should have gotten her the tangerine iMac - everybody knows that tangerine is more user friendly than blueberry.
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
hawk
You are simply full of it. All TWAIN garauntees is that applications don't have to be re-engineered for each type of scanner. It's just a device driver layer. It does nothing to ensure that scanners will work on both Win9x and WinNT, nevermind between operating systems. TWAIN is a vendor standard and far from the open standards available for a USB device.
Infact, some USB device vendors actually take advantage of these "standard device" types.
An open standard is something like USB HID or RS-232C. DirectX and GDI are merely interfaces devices and controlled by a single corporation.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
What xian prayer preaches civility? What xian prayer even teaches tolerance of others? The more likely end result of religion is infact intolerance and self-centrism.
Good Manners are completely orthogonal to religion.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
They intended for individuals to feel free to chose for themselves. They weren't the control freaks that dominate politically active religous groups today. They felt no need to push their religious practices on others.
Recent legal precedents are much more consistent with the views of Jefferson than are the anti-communist knee-jerk reactions that originally inspired blue laws.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
All it really takes is two men of reason who practice the dogma of two distinct sects of Xianity to realize that allowing the government to set policy in this area is a BAD idea. Even Xians can't agree on who or what should define orthodox dogman. This is especially true for those that tend to push for prayer in schools.
These tend to be the sorts that will attempt to discount other denominations as "genuinely xian".
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
This is simple Christian hypocrisy: pick and choose which parts of "the book" you will consider devine inspiration.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If I bought your product, YOU DO INFACT OWE ME. This is NOT an unreasonable expectation. This expecation actually has basis in the law. Most Sheeple tend to simply forget about this.
While a sense of entitlement might make civil interaction less likely, denying a sense of entitlement will also encourage corporations to grow more and more disrespectful of their customers.
The specs for a $100 scanner simply aren't worth anything. There are no great secrets involved that can't be replicated by a couple of Electrical Engineering undergrads in their spare time.
These corps need to get over themselves.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
1. Prayer was never outlawed in schools, institutionally lead prayer was, and it should be. Our society has become too diverse for any single faith to be able to claim it has the right to force others to participate in its rites. That's what that minute of silence was all about.
2. Religion does not have a cornerstone on civility or morality. From my personal experience, most people of faith are just as likely to be morally corrupt as someone who has never stepped in a church in their life. I've seen far too many unscrupulous "Christians" taking advantage of anyone that will give them a chance. It doesn't take too long for people to realize that God (in whatever incarnation you happen to believe in) isn't quite the big boogeyman in the sky that a lot of religions try to cultivate. If religions want to take the moral high ground, they need to do a much better job of explaining the basis of morality. "God said so" isn't good enough.
3. I agree with you that we should be doing a much better job instilling moral/ethical behavior in people. But merely exposing people to scripture isn't going to cut it. All that really does is allow the bible thumpers to be sloppy, and say that they've done their part. You've got to do much better than quoting some 2000 year old scripture.
You want to know my take on it? Civil behavior starts at home. If kids are not taught it from their parents, it is extremely unlikely that they will pick it up anywhere else, especially without any reinforcement from parents.
I would also argue that the internet is a different beast. The ability to be virtually anonymous as well as the lack of any knowledge of the people you communicate with means that you can get away with a lot more with little or no repercussions. In Milton-speak, the social contract online is different from the one in the big blue room.
Shop Smart, Shop S-mart!
Just b/c someone told you to RTFM does not mean you should whine all over the place about it. Honestly, getting the mouse to work in X is covered in just about every document there is on the Internet. If you are too lazy to look first before you ask, then they are too lazy to help you
Yup...sad thing is, the above it the exact elitism that drives people away. You saw just X mouse setup is covered real well.
Assuming I'm a home user that just got Linux and was trying it out. I went to yahoo and searched on "linux x windows mouse". According to your "solution is everywhere" one of the the returned documents should have answered it. Try it and see what you get back.
Japanese scalable fonts? Motif Programming? Aqua? A vague question about someone not getting their mouse to work? and of course X windows vs Win9x/NT.
So, which of these FM's should I have read that covered it?
Look at documentation for some config files. A lot of programs tend to define the language structure that makes up their files:
object = ( atoms )
atom = ( ( neutron && protron ) || nucleus )
neutron = keyword1 || keyword2
and think they have fully documented everything. yes...technically they have, and for someone who deals with that kinda stuff, it probably helps them out. But all it is doing is creating more of an elitist state, where you practically need a CS degree just to RTFM, which is NEVER going to get Linux into the desktops, at least not for the average user that everyone thinks will have no problem running linux.
If you're so easily discouraged that you can't be bothered to spend 10 seconds refining a search, maybe you shouldn't be installing & configuring an operating system.
More of the same elitist attitude. If you're too stupid to figure it out yourself, then fuck off and go back to windows?
Yes, I could have found it pretty easy, however, the point I was trying to make is that all these people that are being told that it's easy to find this and that have a great frame of reference for finding things - yes it is easy for them, but maybe not for the person at the other end of the line. http://www.linux-howto.com would always be a great and fast answer instead.
Linux has great support for sound cards, video cards
Well it would be pretty tough to use at all without support for video cards, and there are enuf people who live for video games to produce sound card support, but do you really think scanners are exotic?
I mean point well-taken re. checking before you buy, but at $80 ea. and available for oh, about 10 years now they're hardly unheard of to the average Windows home user.
_Everyone_ is an asshole on forums, not just linux users.
Yes and no. There are certainly zealots on every platform, but something about the attitude that everyone should give up their hard work for free seems to bring out an even lower level of flamers. I don't know if HP is moved by nasty names or not, but you have to know there are real people at those companies that read that stuff, and real people will on occasion get tired of it. If they're the ones pushing Open Source at HP and get rewarded with nasty insults they may just decide it's not worth it.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
let me see-- it is the single most common OS on web servers when counting per site according to Netcraft (Windows is more common when counting by server). It has made tremendous inroads into that industry.
Netcraft numbers mean nothing. Think of how many people are running a web server on their machine and don't even know it because they clicked the "web server" checkbox during their RedHat install. I have four web sites at home (two boxen) that are on Linux machine. That's simply ridiculous. If you wanted to prove your point about mainstream linux acceptance, check out the number of web servers running Linux found at Fortune 500 companies. That would be mainstream acceptance (oh yeah, there aren't that many).
Note that I have been using Linux for over two years and have seen immense improvement in the end user experience (RH5.1 is the oldest distro I have worked with, RH7.1 and SuSE 7.1 are the most recent but I have also worked with versions of Slackware and Debian). PnP and USB support are both becoming more powerful and user friendly in the system level (not only talking the kernel here).
Great, and while Linux is working on those wonderful features, Microsoft and Apple have already developed operating systems that support those and more, and do it better and more intuitively for the user. While Linux has been improving, what do you think other companies have been doing? Just sitting around on their hands? Microsoft's developing a whole new way to think about operating systems and software, which Linux is starting to copy. Apple refined the UI experience to a ridiculous level, which Linux promptly tried to copy (failing somewhat because they don't have the underlying technology.
Microsoft's current model of selling large ammounts of proprietary software is not sustainable, and Microsoft top execs know it. This is why they need to move to a subscription model. And it is why open source software like Linux will become mainstream in the end user market (it has been common in the server market for some time).
And somehow selling large amounts of free software is? Eventually, people are going to realize that to have a business and earn money and feed the kiddies at home, you're going to have to sell something, be it software or support. Software is a hell of a lot easier to sell because people need it for things to work. People don't need support. In fact, many large companies have their own internal support structure so they don't have to pay other companies for it.
Linux is a mainstream word, not a mainstream operating system. You can wax poetic about the "improvements" that Linux has made, but in the end, the mainstream user (be it individual or corporate) still finds better options in Microsoft and Apple.
My wife had it even worse. She bought an HP scanner for use with a Win95 system and when she wanted to "upgrade" to Win98, HP charged her $15 for drivers with less functionality.
Needless to say she'll never buy HP again.
When you think about it, is it really insulting to be called a "cockmaster"?
"Women! Exercise your right to multiple orgasms! Call on The Cockmaster Supreme!"
Or something like that.
Regards, Ralph.
I'm afraid Linux is stuck in server space.
I'm mostly leaving Linux alone these days in favor of my mac running os x. I can have my unix & use it too.
--
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
I don't think it's as much a "you owe me" attitude as an "it's my right, dammit" attitude.
I don't know if this is a peculiarly American disease, but I've been seeing it for a while now; it almost seems to be a peculiar backlash against "political correctness." Anytime anyone says anything that could be remotely construed as "PC," pseudo-libertarians crawl out of the woodwork screaming that it's their constitutional, God-given right to say what they want, where they want, to whoever they want, and fuck anyone who says otherwise.
I'm not a fan of PCisms, but I've come to believe that the problem of people being oversensitive--while real--is not as debilitating to our society as the problem of people taking pride in their insensitivity. Yeah, you're right--you do have a right to say whatever you want to whoever you want. But just because you can doesn't mean that you should.
Crazy idea--maybe What America Needs <tm>, from an individual level on up to an international policy level, is a better grasp of common courtesy.
The worst people are these yuppies who drive into a parking lot for just a few minutes, not realizing that it costs $5 to park. Then when they try to leave and see that there's a gate and an attendant, they scream and yell at the attendant. I have actually seen this happen in Chicago (Webster Place, by the Loews Theaters). This woman acted like it was her God-given right to park wherever she pleased, for free. She spat out a string of profanities. Some people are just completely rude. There was a similar story on http://www.salon.com recently, too. It seems to be a bit of an epidemic.
> The founding fathers were deeply religious, and
...back to work. (this comment brought to you by a summer US History I course ;)
> intended this as a Christian nation.
Um, incorrect. Whilst some of the authors of the Constitution were indeed Christian, there were also atheists and a large number of deists.
> Certainly they never intended this to be an
> atheistic or nontheistic nation.
No, but they did intend it to be a nation where you could be an atheist. Or a deist. Or whatever. They intended it to be a nation where no one was forced into any religion, and where church and state were separated. This partially came from their own beliefs (and the diversity therin), and partially from seeing the corruption that rose from the Church of England. Religion and government are both immensely powerful institutions, and are prone to corruption. Adding them together is like adding an oily rag to a bottle of gas, and thus we have a Molotov cocktail...and people get burned.
7.0 of which distribution? It's rather important.
I too weap for our future
:) But anyway...
I weep for our educational system.
What I don't understand in all this talk about people being assholes on message boards and all this other stuff is why we should care? I agree with the assertion that it's probably not just linux users who are being assholes on public forums, but even if it were, who cares?
I would like to think that people use an operating system because it fits their needs. Linus may be out for world domination, and others as well, but frankly I don't care to spend a lot of energy debating and worrying over whether or not the linux community is taking the strategy that maximizes chances for the widest popularity.
Getting drivers for new hardware is one thing, but why is it that all of the rhetoric here and elsewhere seems focused on making linux popular? It would be nice, but I'd rather cut the PR shit and keep writing software. I want people to come and use linux because we're better than the alternative, not because we're nice on message boards, or companies feel warm and fluffy around us, or because our PR department is better at lying to the customer than the competition is.
And even if no one else uses linux, it's still going to move forward. The types of users people are trying to attract aren't even really coders. They're not going to help the progression of the OS any except by making companies take notice, who often contribute non-free software.
Linux is linux, and it's going to be linux. Nobody has to pimp it out in order for it to be what it is.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
> What about the quote: An armed society is a polite society?
What about it? It's a quote from a work of *fiction*.
--
rant
1) The newbie who understands that he has to learn something (although he may not know how much) about what he is trying to use. He's willing to put forth some reasonable amount of effort, and if he throws his hands up in disgust, it's usually a sign that the thing in question is poorly designed.
2) The luser who insists on use without learning or thinking, who wants the computer (or whatever) to be a magic psychic box that just makes things happen.
I will help a person in the first group as far as they're willing to go (within the limits of what I know... I know at least one guy that started from zero, I helped him get started and now he's hacking away on X doing things I just manage to comprehend). The second group I have no time for. You can talk and explain till you're blue in the face and it will do you (and them) zero good.
The trouble comes with people who treat both groups as equivalent. They remind me of college professors who say "There's the reading for the course, test is on May 2, see you in four months." Excuse me? What the hell are you doing in charge of a class if you're not going to teach? If all you want is to do research, fine, but don't then try to claim you're a "teacher" too.
-- Old Man Kensey
Was it perfect? No.
Was it the best tool for certain jobs? Absolutely. In fact it turned out to be "pretty good, and easier too" for just about everything computer novices needed, and there was something there for a lot of power users too (particularly multimedia). Look at HyperCard. Look at ClarisWorks. Hell, look at MacWrite and MacPaint in the context of their times.
Apple put a lot of thought and research into designing MacOS (which was still just The System back then). Much of it has been imitated or outright ripped off. After using Macs for over 10 years, Windows and *nix for 7, I'd say the following:
Every place MacOS fails is because Apple either decided "you must do it this way, no matter what you think you want, because it's better" (example: lack of keyboard shortcuts in menus) or because they were imitating, not innovating (replacing SCSI components with IDE, IMHO, ultimately hurt the Mac).
What we need is for somebody to write a whole new OS around the Linux kernel. The first goal of this OS should be "the command line is always useful, but never necessary." The second goal should be "this OS does not try to outthink the user, but think with the user."
Essentially the usual Linux tools would still be there, with a whole new user-interface layer on top of it. Sound familiar? It should.
It's always a fatal mistake to think your company can't learn anything from the competition. The fact that Linux is not a "company" makes it no less true.
-- Old Man Kensey
No this isn't new, fidonet anyone....
Awesome!
The way I see it, and the people I work with for the most part share this sentiment, the vast majority of people are ignorant assholes who don't really give a damn. I am fortunate to live in a section of an apartment complex where it is reasonably quiet, so I have had no problems concerning the assholes with the loud speakers in their lowriders.
As to that pissant fuck who takes 30 items through the 10 item or less express lane, that aspect pisses me off to no end... i have been employed at a major grocery store that does excellent business. At this point, I have a semi-supervisory position of responsibility. In the rare event that I am in a checklane, i am for the most part a stickler for details, but I have been known to let an extra 2 or three items slip past. Another thing that irks me to no end is the new employees that seem too stupid to know better than to know when they are in an express lane. I have personally walked up to customers and told them "Sorry, but you can't bring that order through this lane... see the express lane sign?"
I may be many things, but I am not an asshole (IANAA anyone?), and have even been known to be an gentleman at times... holding the door open for someone else comes naturally to me. Must have been the way I was raised.
Just my 2 cents... don't waste your mod points on me, give them to someone who deserves them.
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
Are you referring to Fresnel, perhaps? That's pronounced as though spelled freh-nel. The "s" is silent.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
How did you, the hypothetical newbie, know to use a somewhat computer-field specific abbreviation of the word "configuration"?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Should you decide that you need a sig file, allow me to suggest that "Way too many of us need serious therapy. Or better games." would do quite nicely.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
The "F" is uppercase because it's some guy's name.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Ahh, yes. The "good-old-days", when RAM was $500/KB, computers were hulking beasts, and nobody owned them. I'm sorry, I don't want to go back to that time. You can if you want -- I'll keep my whizzo hardware, thanks.
They are marketing tacticts used by companies to sell computers. If Suzan Smith wanted to send e-mail and surf the net and all that was available to her was UNIX she would still buy that computer and she wouldn't complain about it being too hard to use because it realy isn't too hard.
A command line can be entirely as easy to use as a GUI! You have fallen for the biggest lie ever created in the computer industry -- "If's it's got windows, a mouse, and buttons, it's easy to use!" This is a fundamental blockage in the brains of the *nix community, and until they clear it out, *nixes will forever be relegated to the nerd ghetto.
It isn't windows and mouses and buttons that make a computer easy to use; it's the careful, reasoned, well-thought-out interface between man and machine, the tasks the man wants the machine to do, and the facilitation of those tasks.
There are a few hard-and-fast rules (Read Tog for more on that), but mostly it's about designing for people, not machines. A fundamental example: the computer's filesystem is built heirarchal, and that works for a computer. It thinks that way. Humans (by which I mean non-programmers) don't think that way. They think in amorphous, nebulous, loosely grouped items that apply to projects, tasks, or goals.
We've built the computer to act like a file cabinet, forgetting that a file cabinet is a poor solution to a problem, not the best that could be done with the available technology. Rather than make the computer a *better* file cabinet, we've slavishly copied it, and as a result, we have computers that are hard to use on the most basic level: the file manager.
The more "easy" you make computers to the more ignorant the users will be and the more "harder" using a computer will seem. Because the more about a computer you hide the more complex a computer seems to it's user.
That is patently ridiculous. All complicated devices become simpler over time -- we don't become dumber, we become more productive with fewer resources and do things faster than before. You see the computer as an end in itself, whereas most people see it as a time-saving device (a better, faster typewriter, basically) and think no further than that. I don't accuse you, neccessarily, it's natural for a computer professional to dispair over the sad state of the users. It's probably a similar feeling your mechanic might have if you are one of those people who go 4-5K miles between oil changes -- "What's wrong with him? Doesn't he know he's KILLING his car?!?"
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
ahhh yes. The infamous "RTFM"...
.02
If you are going to start using Linux (especially "a few years ago") you need to learn to read. Every OS should require people to read, it creates a larger userbase of knowing people... Not the point.
Just b/c someone told you to RTFM does not mean you should whine all over the place about it. Honestly, getting the mouse to work in X is covered in just about every document there is on the Internet. If you are too lazy to look first before you ask, then they are too lazy to help you.
---
As far as HP is concerned. As much as I disapprove of their lack of Linux support I like their products. I have been using the same HP Deskjet 400C for 4 years. It hasn't given me very many problems and even prints fast enough to make me happy.
I don't see any companies really being all that helpful w/USB devices in Linux (Intel's USB cameras for example) yet there are plenty of people out there using USB snoop (or whatever it is) to find out for themselves how to get the device to work.
I refuse to buy USB devices for the simple fact that Linux does not support them. Do not complain about Company X when they won't pass out your device's specs, and definitly don't flame them.
I really think that this post was only to flame HP "nicely".
Linux won't ever become a mainstream OS b/c it missed its oppertunity by several years. It isn't b/c of the users, the developers, or the companies.
Just my worthless
sorry, but that is correct. When I go anywhere I make sure to have fully researched (usually w/the Internet, sometimes w/maps) where I am going and what's going on. If you don't tough shit.
As far as you punching me. That's about as useless as me telling you to go look it up in the atlas.
How about, "the money doesn't belong to the government in the first place and they're wasting it" for a reason?
You forget: these are the same people who call tech support to ask where the "any" key is. They really have no clue as to what they're doing.
Especially since rival companies that want to figure out how some piece of hardware works (supposedly the reason they keep the specs private in the first place) have a lot of EEs on hand who will just reverse engineer the damn thing. Like the original PC BIOS.
Good post. The best solution is for enough people only to buy products that has Linux drivers and Linux clearly printed on the box. Second let the store personel know that that is what your are looking for and thiat is what you will buy regardless of what the specific store carries.
Help fight continental drift.
Actually, they were deeply religious. They were Theists: they believed in a supreme being, but *NOT* in personal salvation nor that Christ was God's son.
Shouldn't take you very long at all to hit Google and learn that Theists are not Christian, and that most of the founders were Theists.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
So I'm forced to wonder whether Tokyo is crawling with assholes.
Somehow, I doubt it. Politeness, respect, and courtesy are fundamental social laws in Japan.
Not so in America, and what's left of consideration for others seems to be rapidly dwindling.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
"Turn the other cheek" isn't going to change a thing. All that will happen is that they'll *continue* to act abusively towards everyone else around them.
I'm perfectly aware that busting heads isn't a wimpy nice-guy attitude. Tough shit. Dictatorships aren't overthrown by wishing them away, either.
If we want this society to change, then *we* have to take action to change it.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
"True story: A friend of mine and I were sitting at a red light in DC when a car full of gangstas pulled up beside us. We happened to be listening to NWA's "Fuck Tha Police". For some reason, these gangstas were offended that two white boys were listening to rap, and one of them pulled a gun and held it up to the window."
Or perhaps they were tired of hearing assholes with their crappy rap music cranked so loud that it can be heard in the next county.
They were probably trying to teach you some manners. Shame they didn't shoot your stereo.
Your one of the *causes* of the "fuck you" society we're living in, buddy. Turn down the stereo already.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
So fink her out.
If you don't, she is going to be rewarded for dishonest behaviour.
That's just going to take us one more step toward the sort of society we don't want.
Do yourself, do her, and do all of us a favour: make sure she pays the price for cheating and lying.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
All that you say would be perfectly fine and true if we were grizzly bears.
Griz are out for number one, because they live alone. They're not social animals.
The most important thing people in this society *must* come to understand is that the good of the whole is *more important* than the good of oneself.
If we don't start behaving in a manner that benefits society, then this society is destined to collapse. It has happened in the past, and it *will* happen again.
Now of course, someone is going to go on some riff about the evils of socialism or communism or some other dippy understanding of what I've said. Just please note that I didn't say anything at all about what the political structure would look like.
What I will say is that "good for society" *can* align with "good for oneself." The two are not mutually exclusive.
Let me Venn diagram it: two circles, overlapping. One circle is "good for society." The other is "good for oneself." What we want is to maximize the area of overlap, and position ourselves in it.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
'But somehow I can't get the bad taste out of my mouth. I see it on Slashdot all the time, and I find it really disheartening. Its an attitude that many people have: The "You Owe Me" attitude.'
It's part of the 'going to hell in a handbasket' problem we've got going in this society.
The root cause seems to boil down to one thing: a lot of people these days are out for #1, and don't give a fuck for the consequences that affect others.
Maybe it's because those of us that try to play nice are too patient, too forgiving, and too unwilling to get in their faces and *demand* that they play nice. Instead, we let them walk all over us.
Myriad examples: the assholes with their 110dB subwoofer ripping through residential neighbourhoods at 2AM. The pissant little fuck who takes 30 items through the 10 items or less till. People who don't hold doors open when you both arrive at the same time. Dangerous fucking assholes running red lights. Ah, it's aggravating just thinking of all the examples.
Why do these people act like jerks? Because they can.
Perhaps it's because they're so powerless in every other aspect of their lives. Between their boss and the government, they can't fart without permission. So they take out their frustrations by pissing off everyone else. Maybe that's it.
Bottom line, at any rate, is that it's time for the nice guys to put their foot down and demand better from others. Don't like the behaviour you see? Don't be a milquetoast -- stand up and demand better!
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
This is why I make risky purchases at Best Buy. I always ask someone (anyone who will answer) if it will work with Linux, then if it doesn't, I take it back.
Of course, Taco probably doesn't need his $60 back that bad.
Joe
Joe Batt Solid Design
You got it right. In spite of what everybody would like to think, those kiddies will be the ones that bring linux into the mainstream; they'll grow up, get jobs and when THEY are the mainstream, they'll still prefer linux over Windoze.
In the 80's there was this annoying little high school punk that continually tried to break into my BBS. When I mocked his puny efforts, he put my voice line on autodial and rang it day in and day out. He even had it disconnected. Then he got my new unlisted number and went back to the autodial routine, and just for fun would go to the chat channels I used and pretend to be me. Today he is the very polite owner of my ISP, and I'm the one that responds to help requests on IRC with "Your MP3 software quit working? That's probably because your OS is DOG SHIT. Type 'format C:' and it will fix EVERYTHING."
This message was aged 10 full minutes before posting and it came out like this anyway.
My metamoderation cancels your moderation
K5 has 1/50 the user base; That's what is working. And it's degrading (of course); Todays ZEN Op-ed is a prime example of that.
Thank you so much for posting this. I've never enjoyed reading anything more. Today. :)
People who quote themselves bug the crap out of me -- Me.
Um... makes me wonder... What ever happened to moderated Usenet newsgroups? Are there any left? Ridiculous flamewars and blatently incendiary remarks were not allowed and it kept the SNR high. Most of the ones I remember were in the sci. groups (and similar). Can't remember any in comp.*. (Just thought of a funny thing: moderated newgroups under alt.*.) And, of course, someone had to volunteer to be moderator. Have we hit a shortage of them? (Sorry, but I'm not in a position to be stepping forward :-)
If an online forum really wants to remain useful to the participants, I can't see how you can avoid instituting moderation. It's not censorship to insist that people stay on topic and remain civil. If the immature folks avoid Kuro5hin because they can't make posts that don't use four-letter words in every other sentance and whose sole purpose seem to be to insult someone else, then great. You're not contributing anything useful to the `conversation' anyway and should go elsewhere. We'd do the same thing at a restaurant, bar, or other social gathering: ``Hey, buster! Any more of that or you're outta here!'' Maybe it doesn't work that well in a web-oriented discussion (where someone's got bills to pay and needs all the clicks they can get) but I don't think an online bouncer is such a bad idea.
--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Don't be so smug. You know perfectly well that what killed the Amiga off is Commodore's obsession with its unsuccessful PC line, and its unwillingness to do anything resembling mainstream promotion. Not to mention the many problems with the later members of the Amiga line - the Amiga 4000, that ran slower than any other 040 computer because of the screwed-up memory design, the A600 that was running on an 020 when *no-one* wanted one... there were many other problems, but Commodore killed the Amiga itself.
It does not take a pollster to tell you that users of a "free as in beer" operating system are on the whole not interested in buying new hardware every few years. We may be cheap, but we have incredibly high standards as well. These don't tend to mix well.
... my old K6/233 machine is now my firewall (gotta love OpenBSD and GNU/Linux for that).
.NET architecture, and XP product registration-key requirements once they are told about it. Nor is GNU/Linux (or *BSD if you prefer) beyond the average person's ability to grasp, if they are given time, encouragement, and friendly help along the way.
... no evangelizing required. Once again price isn't the issue -- they already own the requisite licenses. Freedom, reliability, and quality are the issue, and Free Software wins on all those counts hands-down, a few antisocial punks and Taco's rant notwithstanding.
I use GNU/Linux because of its features, stability, speed, and, most importantly, the freedom it imparts on me to do my personal and work-related projects in the manner I choose, rather than that to which my vendor constrains me. I do not use it for price (although free as in beer is a nice frosting on the freedom-in-general cake).
I am also not cheap when it comes to hardware (and I suspect most of us who work in IT as a living are not, just as most of us who are still in school and living on a college budget are). I have a renderfarm of two dual 733 MHz GNU/Linux boxes at home for my blender projects, along with a dual 1 GHz GNU/Linux box as my primary workstation for video capture, editing, and as a third ad-hoc node on the renderfarm when it isn't busy doing something else. All with very nice video, huge amounts of memory, obscene amounts of disk space, etc. I do recycle old equipment
I am preparing to purchase a good color printer to replace the epson which has since died and refused to respond to treatment (nozzle declogging, etc.). The printer will likely be an HP, although that is not yet certain.
What is certain is that every piece of hardware, from the standalone Sony analog->firewire converter to the Hauppauge capture board to the nVidia video card to the Intel NetportExpress printserver absolutely must work with GNU/Linux, either via vendor support or third party, volunteer efforts. Otherwise I do not purchase the hardware, period.
I do not own a copy of Windows (I build my own machines, thereby saving money, getting better components, and avoiding the payment of the Microsoft OEM tax), nor do I plan to ever own a copy of windows. Nor does my mother, my sister, my cousin, or any number of other people I have built and installed computers for.
They all run GNU/Linux, and any hardware purchases they make have as a necessary and uncompromising requirement that it work with their system, and not require them to go out and buy software they neither want nor need.
In all these cases it is usability, reliability, and freedom which resulted in the choice of software and hardware used, not price. Indeed, price was only a factor in one of the installations (which, being free, naturally contributed to reaching the same decision).
Users aren't stupid, nor are they blind and uncomprehending of the implications of Microsoft's new licensing policies,
The problem is that mainstream media hasn't made that reality abundently clear to everyone yet, so many are as yet unaware of the truly draconian conditions Microsoft is placing on the use of their software, nor are they aware of the relatively modest amount of effort required to learn how to use a new operating system.
This is slowly changing though, despite Microsoft's best anti-Free Software FUD efforts. I know several other non-techie types who want me to install GNU/Linux for them, if ever I get the time. They have come to me
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Do the math. More than 50% are below average.
pooptruck
Since they know Linux well,everyone should, and therefore, there should be as much support for it as with Windows.
Of course if they know Linux as well as they think, they'd be writing the driver themselves.
The problem is not with those that are knowledgable, it's with those who THINK they are knowledgable. They rant and scream because they cannot sort the problem out themselves and are disappointed with themselves, so they blame someone else.
I've been using Linux for more than 5 years now and admin a number of Linux machines where I work. This being said, I am still very happy to explain any part of it in average (not condescending) terms to anyone who is interested and has a question.
I guess it's just a personality thing, huh?
--
Delphis
Delphis
It was just when MS put out Windows and AOL came around that this new breed of computer users came about. It was then that the term "computer illiterate" was coined.
The personal computer market is about 100x larger than it was in the 1980s. You absolutely couldn't use a computer in those days unless you were willing to invest some of your own time into the process. Unlike today, if you were "illiterate" you didn't use a computer - Simple as that.
Put it this way: We all could still be using $5000 machines with stagnent hardware and obscure user interfaces from a tiny purchasing base, or we could open up the industry to everyone thus getting us $1000 machines that run at 1Ghz. Which would you rather have? Don't forget that lots of smart people also gained access to personal computing along with the AOLers and typical Windows droolers.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
No it's not. but the scary part is that Linux users are generally frm the top 1/3 of the IQ pool. you'd think that something simple as a civil, quiet letter or email to the company that refuses to acknowlege Linux that you bought a competetiors product because theirs didn't work under linux. this letter if sent by only 1/5 of the people that have looked at that scanner and use linux would have gotten some serious attention at the company. (100 letters stating that will get serious attention for sure!)
But alas, we as a group are the laziest bunch on the planet. we bitch and moan and whine.....
Linux could do well by emulating Mac users. Fanatical devotion to the cause and happily write letters (paper letters) and emails to supprot the cause.. and they rarely bitch (well except in the case of the shoddy quality of Microsoft products.. There's a kind-of universal hatred there by all)
Nope, what's holding linux back is it's users. Every one of you. Linux isn't mainstream? Your Fault.
Linux isn't being adopted fast enough? YOUR FAULT!
Linux isn't being taken seriously? IT'S YOUR FAULT!!!
get it through your heads fellow users. I know I am in the minority by being one that writes paper letters to companies telling them that I bought X instead of theirs because it doesn't work under linux... I show them revenue lost... but they don't care because only one nut is writing them..
I rarely point fingers that I cant point back at myself... but this is one....
you a linux user? then it's YOUR FAULT that linux hasn't dominated the world by now. Want to change that? then start writing paper letters to companies, people in power, and friends.
When was the last time you convinced a windows friend to use linux and made the effort to hand hold them through the first month? Ahhh, though so.
Go ahead and mark me as troll/flamebait whatever.. but honestly look at what you have done for "the cause"... can you expend just a tiny bit more energy and do more?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Installation, configuration and trouble-shooting aren't "using the tool". That's creating or fixing the tool. Non-slashdot people don't get computers so they can have something to make work. They get computers so they can get things done. They want to use the computers...not spend their time learning how to make it usable. A "tool" is generally something used to accomplish a task more efficiently. If your choice between two things that do basically the same thing is something that you just have to push a button and it works or something that you have to put together first and then push some buttons before it does the same thing...most people are going to choose the one where you just push a button. It's more efficient.
Can anyone bring me one such person who likes Linux?
I can give you two. My two younger cousins...They asked me to install Linux for them
Which is just what most people want. As you said, you installed it for them. You took all the learning curve out. They just have to use WindowMaker. For them, this was a "push one button" porcess. If everybody had a cousin handy to set-up their Linux with the apps they want to use, then I'm sure more people would use it. But this isn't the case for most.
My favorite:
6) Companies that tell you their hardware interface is proprietary, and so even though they're not going to write a driver, you don't get to do so either.
This is like refusing that Linux exists, but with extreme prejudice.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
>-Linux is a pretty good system. It's not the
>cleanest, most versatile, or most elegant thing on
>the block, but it does what it's needed to do
>wonderfully. But *it* *can't* *do* *everything*.
Why is that? Open source, modular construction, completely configureable. Maybe this is true right now that it can't do everything, but what is stopping it from being molded into anything that you may want???
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
"can do", "done" and "will do" I would guess are the 3 major things in this type of argument.
sorry i had no point in this.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
RTFM is important no matter what operating system you're using, but in the case of Linux TFM, when it exists enough in one place to be called a manual at all, is often poorly written, out of date, and so on that even if you read it and understand it it doesn't help.
I think that RTFM often really means "spend 200 hours fucking with it, you'll figure it out" or "My status is enhanced by not telling you how to do it" or "I've helped people before, but 4/5ths of the people I've helped before are just not sophisticated enough to grasp the details of actually running Linux and I'm out of patience".
I think the latter comment about end-user sophistication is probably true. Newer distros are often simple to use on common hardware, but getting limited-support devices to work or something other than dedicated-ethernet-IP networking is *not* a trivial accomplishment for a lot of people. Most people who don't do computers/networking for a living are trying to accomplish some other goal: web browsing, online gaming, shopping, email, graphics, and all the things that these tasks accomplish. They're not looking to gain a sideline CompSci degree.
So when someone gets slammed for not RTFM, deservedly or not, they give on Linux. Maybe they should, but its certainly not always their fault.
Ah, I think you may have missed the point. The old man in the story did not "turn the other cheek", but instead soothed the enraged drunk by being kind to him. I think the basic moral of the story is that being kind and understanding can solve an issue just as well or better than an aggressive action.
As this applies to the main topic, I think we can help reduce the problem by having a caring attitude toward others, which will make them less likely to post that kind of thing in the first place.
HP has gained more than one disgruntled ex-customer. I no longer recommend them with pleasure, but only when there really is no reasonable alternative. There are worse companies. HP does generally make good hardware. But I have disliked them for over two years now, and it's been getting stronger.
Yes, the companies may decline to support us. But we should decline to support those companies, also.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
EFNet #linux is full of the absolute biggest asshole fuckers that ever hid behind the linux name. (of course, EFNet is full of assholes of every type)
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Nice one. Axioms aren't long lived if they aren't useful, insightful or both.
/. I'm a preview button junkie. I hate making a stupid error obvious to the world.
"Measure twice, cut once" sure seems to fit the bill here, except in your case it's "Edit twice, send once."
Myself, on
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
They are under no obligation to write the drivers, especially when it's costing them money to do so.
/mnt/cam vfat noauto,user 0 0)
They might be motivated to, if it's costing them sales.
When you buy a piece of hardware, you are paying for the hardware and the *drivers* to run it.
With Linux, you're often at the mercy of independant developers to write these drivers, but some companies make it easier for them by following standards, releasing specs, or actually doing the development in-house.
I don't know if it is common in the US, but here in Japan, hardware is often sold with a little Tux sticker on it to let you know that it is Linux-friendly. Companies that do this are more likely to get *my* business, since I often buy on impulse and don't check ahead of time to read a compatability list.
I bet if you asked most scanner manufacturers about Linux, they'd say "This scanner is USB - USB doesn't work with Linux, does it?"
I can use peripherals with Linux now that I could not have hoped to a year ago. My digital camera shows up as a mountable drive icon on my desktop now and this alone makes Linux a *lot* more viable to me.
(/etc/fstab entry:
/dev/sda1
If being able to put a "Works With Linux!" sticker on the box increases sales by 5%, companies will start doing it.
When they do, give these manufacturers higher consideration and some feedback.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
MMDC Mobile Media
-- My Weblog.
This is why Linux will only ever be a Server or geek-OS.
People who don't want to work ON their computers to get them to work FOR them will never use Linux like this. These people are looking for something to make their lives easier. It's sort of like cars. Most people want cars that require as little attention as possible. When a little light comes on, they take it to a mechanic. That's it. (Of course, there ARE people who drive classic, muscle cars that require more attention, etc. They are not the mainstream.)
\//
Don't forget the Amiga - it's user base actually killed the Amiga off...
Other than that - I really hear you...
Thank you for proving my point. :-)
Balderdash! This is attaching your personal economic motivations upon another. You might feel you are a better person because you use one product over another, but that has absolutely no bearing on anyone else.
A) Download Linux for free. You benefit.
B) Purchase Windows. You and Bill Gates both benefit.
Option B has a greater positive economic benefit. Unless you're contributing back code to someone else's project, option A doesn't benefit anyone but you.
I do not chose option B because Windows is a shoddy product. But I certainly don't consider myself a better person for it. That's stupid!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I do believe someone who does things to support the good of all is a better person than one who does not.
I agree. But someone who downloads Linux for free and never contributes any code, documentation, money, or anything else back, supports no one else but themselves.
Merely using Linux does not make you a better person from any angle that I look at.
Which in the end makes your post hypocritical...
Reread my post. I attributed no moral relativity to anything (which I why I used the neutral yardstick of utilitarianism). I did, however, attribute the adjective of "stupid" to the idea that using Linux makes people morally superior.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
But I am *not* purchasing Linux! I am downloading it for free with no payments to anyone. My monetary vote in the free market election is "none of the above".
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Joe Average Computer User is getting pretty savvy, actually. These things have been around long enough for folks to have grown up with them. Matter of fact, my mother in law takes exception to the comment "your grandma could do it"... and points out quite rightly that most back offices are RUN by Grandma... not OUR grandmas born in ought-five but Greg Geek's parents, who are now grandmas because Greg is old enough to have finally found a geekette and decided to procreate.
Besides, somebody has come up with a distro aimed at Joe Random Windows User... ironically, it's made in Redmond, and it's called Redmond Linux. (Shamless plug for a business associate of mine.) I haven't had time to take a real good look at it, but given what I know can be done with Linux, it can't be that hard to put together something really User Friendly.
There is a newbie X mailing list, probably available from the xfree86.org site...
There are two things to learn from this story:
1) Check the availability lists before you buy, duh. When I got a scanner, I checked out the SANE page and went down the list, and cross-referenced that with what was up on ebay. I got a microtek E6 for 60$, and it can do 8.5x13 at 600 dpi with great color, and it has totally native support in the Gimp.
Linux has great support for sound cards, video cards, that sort of thing, but the second you stray into more exotic territory (scanners, digital cameras, etc) you gotta check the pages.
2) _Everyone_ is an asshole on forums, not just linux users. HP is not going to drop linux support because of some stupid web forum. Are windows users any more polite? What about mac users? I just think this is a non-issue. I really doubt that HP is subscribing to the linux-usb list, and if they are they aren't going to say "waahhh, they called us cockmasters... no drivers for j00!" Call them up. Have a friendly chat. You run a website that some people have heard of, this lets you do things. Bruce Perens works there? then get _him_ to talk to them! Take advantage of your connections, don't just be another email.
Assuming I'm a home user that just got Linux and was trying it out. I went to yahoo and searched on "linux x windows mouse". According to your "solution is everywhere" one of the the returned documents should have answered it. Try it and see what you get back.
Just did, thanks. You're right that the immediate results weren't right on. So I tried "linux x mouse config", and a few results in found a step-by-step guide to installing & configuring X on linux.
If you're so easily discouraged that you can't be bothered to spend 10 seconds refining a search, maybe you shouldn't be installing & configuring an operating system.
-sk
Fair enough the little kiddies are annoying and don't do us any favours, but I don't believe it's exclusively a Linux thing. Look at the hoo-haa about Windows 2000/XP drivers for things (notably HP gear) - I think these kiddies are all-pervasive in the computing world. ;)
Kiddies - shut up, let those of us who at least pretend to be mature sort these things out
Chris "Ng" Jones
cmsj@tenshu.net
www.tenshu.net
Indeed, being rebuffed for saying, in effect, "I want to help you sell more units and make more money, FOR FREE", is a bit thick.
It usually comes down to fears of reverse-engineering by competitors. Has anybody ever added up what it would cost to hire engineers to reverse-engineer a knock-off from specifications, vs. doing it from sample hardware, vs. just designing one's own product from scratch? Is it *really* that attractive? Remember, you've got to forward-engineer your product in any case, as well as designing the manufacturing process etc. Basically you save the cost of writing drivers by having your customers use someone else's. How much does that really save, compared to the cost of the reverse-engineering?
I can see something true in what you're saying, but beware of generalisations. I can hardly code "Hello world", nonetheless I wouldn't ever dream of calling people names because I don't get a driver with my scanner; the same is true for all of my friends (I swear :).
Remember that new users = ex-windows users in most cases, they just can't imagine a device not supported by the OS they're using.
He's been trying to get on the good side of the repo men, so he just buys off of the back of their truck.
.conf file?) and it's not like he doesn't have the internet access to investigate further.
Seriously though, you have a great point. It's not like he's new at this (making a purchase based on one odd line in a
It's also not as if there aren't tons of scanners that are a) cheap and b) linux compatible. Okay, so you might have to go to one of those closeout type warehouse places (egghead software used to be one a year or two ago. I'm sure there are others).
This sounds like "I was too stupid to research a purchase, and now the 'leet skript kiddies are keeping HP from writing a driver".
In the end, he found a common solution to a common problem: he booted into Windows. And that merely compounded the problem.
HP hears all of the people ranting about what kind of whore-mongers they are. And CT doesn't send them a letter saying "HP, this seems like a great product. Unfortunately, I had to return it, as it doesn't support my OS. I appreciate your work on the printers. Is there a chance you could expand your open source efforts to a SANE module?"
How tough was that??? Certainly less so than writing this. Instead of HP seeing one rational letter vs. 100 irrational rants, they see only the rants.
Good job, Taco. You have made the problem worse (or, quite possibly, done another journalistic disservice by not giving the entire story. You know, the one where, in the end, you did write a letter to HP. Or at least HP via Bruce Perens. I'm sure you know him better than I.)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
For Rod's sake, mod this up!
This guy is amazingly responsible. Too often, I have witnessed that the 'ease' of communication on the Internet has born exactly the type of irresponsible communicaes that Taco refers to. Ever notice that the searing email you sent off to someone that pissed you off is quite different than your tone of voice when you speak on the phone to a rep at a company (unless its your phone company!)
I can't speak for you, but for me - this is the case. After all, the person I'm talking to didn't personally ruin my day - they're probably getting paid close to minimum wage to listen to me moan and groan about something. If I want help, I certainly won't be yelling at them over the phone and basically using every expletive that comes to mind!
Take heed! Being 'Open' is an opportunity for greatness - the community can use it to breed a spirit of commonality and shared responsibility! Don't expect Win2K users to feel they have something in common with the next Win2K user. But we can be different - we can show the corporations that are willing to support Linux that we do appreciate their efforts, even when they make mistakes or missteps.
We've already builty the community, guys (and girls). Now we should wield the power of it in a positive way.
Next time you get lost or are unsure of where something is (say, an obscure club that's hidden in an alleyway), don't bother asking anyone. Just go back home and jack off to Natalie Portman.
Is it so hard to say "Oh yeah, go down this street three blocks, turn left, go one block, right across from the Walgreens"? Or how about "I don't know?"
People get lost and confused all the damn time. Go fuck yourself.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Jesus, if I saw you on the street and you gave me an answer like that, I'd punch your lights out.
"Excuse me, sir, where is Third and Hawkins?"
"Well, it's documented on every map of the city that there is. Maybe you should have done the research before you came around here, bothering me and asking me for my help. Why don't you go buy a fucking map?"
*punch*
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Take a look at Mac message boards and you'll see that Mac users turn on eachother, and argue in a similarly childish and offensive manner. Yet many hardware producers provide drivers for Mac.
You'll even find pathetic arguing on ZDNet boards from Windows users.
As well as the development-effort-for-possibly-low-return issue, Linux may also face hardware vendors doubting its long-term viability.
And some may just assume that as long as you have your Windows dual-boot option, they can keep you resorting to that when required...
Good luck, Linux users.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Americans as a majority want prayer in their children's lives.
Yes, just like Americans as a majority picked George W. Bush to be our president. Where did you pull this tidbit from? From my limited perspective, most Americans know what a myth is, or at least a tall tale. If they can't put two and two together, well, Christianity is for them.
If anything, allowing our children to pray together would give them opportunity to learn about each other's faiths.
Oh, yeah. Just wait until that little Hindu or Wiccan gets up in front of the class and says a bunch of stuff that scares the class. Or even more likely, look at that Hindu or Wiccan in the corner afraid to say anything since they've just been told by a third of their class (the ones bad at math) that there is only one true religion, and their's isn't it.
Here's a nice happy loving kids sharing religion link.
Without a higher power laying down the rules, it's every man/woman for him/herself, and that's pretty much where we are right now.
Yea, and who is that talks to that higher power? Last I heard some people decided to use that unquestionable authority to kill, maim and conquer, and all with God's loving blessing. What, you questioning the word of God? Die, sinner!!
There are thousands of books written by saints, scholars, and psychologists about morality. Unfortunately you're not going to find any of those in your school library because they pissed off some athiest.
Yes and who can even guess at the number of texts that were burned since they didn't say that the Earth was the center of the Universe or challenged some other "divine inspiration". Let's go visit some parochial school libraries and see what a wide variety of viewpoints they offer.
We need to know that there is something bigger than us,
And we also need to accept that we can't know its will (at least not to the degreee of accuracy that most religions claim). So we're left with what we got, each other and damn nifty place to meet. I think any answers you need (or would be useful) will be found in that bunch.
--
+&x
Similar to the species of computer user who responds to requests for help with something along the lines of "You stupid #$@$! Can't you figure it out!?" is the user who says something along the lines of "XYZ is better than ABC!! You're an XYZ loser!" In other words, I'm talking about Mac zealots.
Up until 1996 I was completely agnostic about Macs. I'd never really used one since they first came out in 1984. I used PC's because that was what was there to use. I had no notions of one platform being superior to the other, just different. But then I had some run-ins with a few Mac culties and my opinions really changed. The first one I came accross I thought was just a lone nutcase, and not indicative of anything. But then I ran into another, and another, and soon came to realize that there were thousands of religious zealots bent on pissing everyone off who wasn't one of them. That was when I really looked at the mac. I figured that if all these people were so passionate about them, then there must be something to what they are saying. I soon determined that all those people had about as much of a clue as the people living at Jonestown did when they drank the cool-aid.
Today I do everything I can to get macs removed from our organization. I know this isn't wholly rational, but it is a direct result of being repeatedly assaulted by loony Mac types. There are plenty of reasons to hold the company and their platform in utter disdain, but its the actions of these so called "advocates" that inspired the deep hatred I sometimes feel.
Do we want that for Linux? Apple has a pitiful market share, and I believe that it is in no small part due to the behavior of zealous Mac users. I've seen plenty of the same behavior from fellow Linux users, and been on the recieving end of it from FreeBSD and Gnome users.
If we want Linux to become more popular, we can't go around attacking those in whom we would like to create an interest in the plantform. Riding around on a high horse and acting superior doesn't do anything but make people think we are jackasses.
Linux is a grassroots development. But to evolve beyond where it has and move out into the mainstream consciousness, it HAS to have GOOD PR. When people do the kinds of things CmdrTaco described, they might as well be getting a paycheck from Microsoft. I guarantee you that seeing a Linux user act in an abusive juvenile fashion is enough to fill Gate's and Ballmer's hearts with sheer joy.
The only way to win is to play nice. Microsoft plays nice. They don't play fair, but then these are not the same things. Microsoft doesn't go out of its way to piss people off. It kisses ass every chance it gets. If we don't learn to do a little of that ourselves as a community, our community is doomed to forever being an exclusive clique.
The thing to remember is that even if you can't help someone with a technical problem, or persuade a company to support a piece of hardware, leaving them with good feelings about you as a person will translate psychologically into good feelings about Linux itself. Every person we make feel good about Linux is a victory. Every person we piss off is a defeat. In both cases the person in question will pass their opinions on to others. So lets be smart and have lots of good PR ok?
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
the thing ive found from this experience, is that the main problem people have with using windows is when the computers freezes (or otherwise, generally fails). certainly, having a easy to use interface helps, but thats something that you can learn to deal with. every time you check your email, you go through the same steps, whether there are 50 steps, or 2 steps, they are always the same. however, when the computer starts flaking out, or crashes, its always different. you are hardly ever doing the same thing (with windows anyway) and the error message is never "user-friendly" (the first time i saw the "illegal operation" i thought the cops were on their way (i was kinda young)) and it is usually at least slightly different each time. most of the times somebody has problems with their computer seems to be when the computer is having problems.
so the point of all that rambling, is that, while it is vitally important that linux be more "user-friendly" if it ever needs mainstream acceptance, stability is a major factor in that "user-friendlyness."
ok, i see a little irony concerning my sig, and the nature of the article, but oh well...
"we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" --Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
I realize that's not the perfect analogy since no one will get killed if a clueless idiot uses a computer.
I see somebody has never watched, and therefore learned the lesson of, the movie Wargames.
Computers hooked up to critical systems (such as, oh, for instance nuclear ICBM launch controllers) could be potentially hazardous to ones health if operated by a Clueless Idiot(tm). Not to mention, a Clueless Idiot(tm) opening the back of his monitor and/or power supply to try and "fix" it could, and probably has, resulted in death.
-- iCEBaLM
Linux doesn't support my internal alcatel NIC. Do I scream at alcatel for it? No. They are under no obligation to write the drivers, especially when it's costing them money to do so.
I think you will find what actually annoys people is not if the manufacturer will or won't provided drivers. So much that some of them appear to be putting effort (and spending money) in attemptiong to make it harder for anyone else to write drivers.
It's the specs that people want, and it's frustrating when companies routinely keep denying them from those who could make their hardware more useful to the people who pay it.
WIth the excuse they give being nonsensical. Since a commercial competitor can simply buy the product and reverse engineer it anyway.
The companies do not know what's going on, this open source thing is new to them, and they instinctively keep the specs to themselves to protect their IP, which isn't usually worth that much, and protected by patents anyway.
How can it be new to them? It was problems with a piece of hardware which set RMS off in the first place...
As for the grabbing IP and over valuing it, this sounds very similar to the notorious telephone document involved in the "Hacker Crackdown".
The reason these companies won't give you the specs for their hardware isn't that they're worried you'll actually write an application which uses it -- it's that their corporate culture, with 40+ years in the hardware vending business, tells them "don't give out the specs, it makes it easier for our competitors to duplicate it, or even extend it".
This might make some sort of sense with a mainframe, but with something which someone can easily carry and buy (for cash) its utterly daft.
If your competitors want to do that all they have to do is go and buy some...
Face it, the majority of people don't want to have configure a window manager _and_ something like X just to run a _desktop_ operating system.
So why do they put up with the various versions of Windows which expects the person sitting in front of the machine to carry out system administration tasks.
That is what I like in my desktop OS, but at the same time give me a decent CLI, a real shell and proper tools. Give me documentation, give me configuration files, give me proper logs. Don't hide everything in one big amorphous entity called 'the registry', don't give me useless error messages. Don't treat me as stupid, if I want to issue a command let me, if I want to delete a file or terminate a process let me, I know what I am doing (otherwise I wouldn't be trying).
That's fine so long as we are talking about people's home/hobby machines. Once we get into the work place the last thing you want are regular users being able to tinker with machines.
We don't expect drivers to service the car/van/truck/bus issued with their job, so why on Earth should it be ok to be having secretaties installing software?
This was a misunderstanding of my first sentence where I said "if you don't know how to use the tool, either learn how or don't use it.".
Also using a tool is a different task from maintaining and setting up a tool. They are actually different tasks. No-one expects someone to be a motor mechanic in order to drive (or for that matter you don't even need to be able to drive to maintain cars.)
Problem is we have a commonly used set of software which expects the user to also perform system admin tasks. Also tends to generate error messages which are useless even to a software engineer.
And I completely agree that learning how to drive != learning how to install a new carburator, replacing the engine, lubing the pistons etc.
Installing software is analogous to these kind of tasks. If Windows were a car then it would require no driving licence, have unlabeled controls on the dash to adjust every engine paramater and be impossible to service without being driven at at least 40 Mph.
It may be that your young cousins use Linux but you still installed it for them and I bet you troubleshoot for them and install and configure any new devices that they get.
As they'd have had to do with Windows. Except that with Linux they no longer have to keep reinstalling. (Also they have the useful side effect that it is more difficult for the "young cousins" to mess things up.)
End user administration really isn't a sensible option for anything other than the hobbiest/developer situation. Even in home users in reality a relative or friend is likely to end up acting as system administrator.
Do you know every single bit of what happens in a computer have you disassembled a CPU to see what it looks like and examined every single etching.
Do car mechanics have PhDs in metallurgy, physics and chemistry? However a motor machanic is still preforming a different task and using a different skill set from a driver. You'd never see a motor racing driver pull up in the pits, get out and change their own tyres, would you?
At what level do you regard "using the tool"?
Using a tool is different from making and maintaining a tool
I drive a car. I know I put my key in and it starts. I know I need to change the oil every 3000 miles. And that's about it. I don't care that an alternator recharges my battery. I only care about getting in the car and driving. I have no need to know how the car works.
Would you want a car which was difficult and expensive to service, which expected you the driver adjust the fuel air mix, to rebuild the engine yourself.
If Windows was a car that is the sort of car it would be. With a unix style car all the complex bits would only be accessable with a mechanics key...
Installation, configuration and trouble-shooting aren't "using the tool". That's creating or fixing the tool.
Frequently involving a completly different skill set. Especially where the tool is being used in a commercial enterprise completly different people will do the tasks. (Except for a very small business where multi skilling is an absolute requirement anyway.) A bus company dosn't have bus drivers who are also mechanics, they have drivers, mechanics and spare busses.
They want to use the computers...not spend their time learning how to make it usable. A "tool" is generally something used to accomplish a task more efficiently. If your choice between two things that do basically the same thing is something that you just have to push a button and it works or something that you have to put together first and then push some buttons before it does the same thing...most people are going to choose the one where you just push a button. It's more efficient.
So why issue someone with a tool where the user is expected to maintain it?
Which is just what most people want. As you said, you installed it for them. You took all the learning curve out. They just have to use WindowMaker. For them, this was a "push one button" porcess. If everybody had a cousin handy to set-up their Linux with the apps they want to use, then I'm sure more people would use it. But this isn't the case for most.
Except that this is the most common case. It's the exact situation you find where computers are used in business, education or anywhere outside the "home" situation.
The problem with that is that most people have better things to do with their lives than mess around with OSes.
So why does Windows still exist in the corporate environment? Since by this criteria it's just about the worst operating system possible.
however, you're sysadmining parallel isnt what we're talking about. we're talking about end users using desktop systems running linux.
Except that if you sit someone in front of a Windows box they can (and probably will) end up having to perform sysadmin tasks. Which is an utter disaster waiting to happen in the workplace. Sit them in front of a unix box and not only do they not have to perform any system admin tasks they quite simply can't. They can stick as much removable media in as they like with no chance of altering anything critical.
I think that most of the instability and security problems comes from sloppy-sloppy admin's moreso than MS's software.
I disagree a lot of the problems are due bad design. (Some of which is there for legarcy reasons.)
Unix or for that matter VMS do a far better job of distinguishing between user and administration tasks.
Three months after Win2k was released, they finally came out with modem and sound card drivers, but stated emphatically, including an interstitial message in the download process, that this is unsupported, if it doesn't work, tough, if it causes your marriage to break up, tough.
Funny thing is that just about every piece of software says this anyway. Including the released versions of Windows...
Testing hardware here I've found that there are 5 types of hardware manufacturers
You missed off
0) Companies who's hardware works fine with a standard driver which has been in the kernel for years...
Unix would be the one where you have to control everything. But I guess you've never used UNIX before.
Once you drag your foot out of your mouth maybe you'd like to explain exactly which user tasks need to be performed as root. I'll make it easier you could even pick one from Multics or VMS...
And the mechanics key would be held by root, so unless you have someone else configging your boxes, you're going to need to use that key quite extensively.
This is the usual situation. Even for many home/hobbiest machines. Obviously you've never used a machine you don't own, either at work or in education. (And if you get caught trying to force the locks expect someone to be doing a good impersonation of the BOfH.)
since i didnt see it mentioned i figured i should throw in a plug for SANE as that's what i use with my scanner. their supported devices page lists some HP scanners which are supported and also has a link to further USB specific info. the USB page has this to say about the HP 3300C:
even if this scanner isnt specifically supported yet, there apppears to be lots of other supported hp scanners which you (or someone else) could work from. dont give up yet.
What do the good know...except what the bad teach them in their excesses? - Clive Barker
gonna have to pull out those BOFH sotries to get some more ideas...
... hi bingo
do you mean that since MS windows has been around, since everyone knows it, that we should just use it because people are "used" to it?
or is it that you want an 31337 system?
there will always be newbies. always.
... hi bingo
... hi bingo
(do you know how long i've been waiting until someone "got" my sig ?)
... hi bingo
i found it on an animated shorts dvd purchased at suncoast. the rest of the dvd is these really funny cgi skits. bingo is the last. first time i saw it, i stared at the tv in disbelief at the end of it. really really evil.
so... i've been sharing it with all my friends... its amazing... after people see the thing once, you can expect a response out of them when all you say is :
... hi bingo
GnerdFscker(f/20)
or
"stacy"
... hi bingo
however, you're sysadmining parallel isnt what we're talking about. we're talking about end users using desktop systems running linux.
i agree, i would trust a *NIX admin 100x more than your "average" MSCE guy. *note there are quite a few NT admins that actually know what they're doing and can set up a secure, reliable MS system, but the number of "get yer certification in 3 weeks and earn 80k a year as an MSCE *professional*" greatly outnumber them.
i actually think that this is MS's biggest error - dumbing down the administration so much that most of the people running their systems are dumb. I think that most of the instability and security problems comes from sloppy-sloppy admin's moreso than MS's software.
Linux needs a Newbie learning vector. Users that have a skill set that tops out at "Point and click" need to be able to use the system effectively.
its close... but it aint there yet.
... hi bingo
we've all been guilty of it, and its time for the insane zealotry to go.
yes, MS is the evil empire. Yes, Linux is the "better" OS.
but nobody wants to use something where they are made to feel stupid when they first sit down and use it.
Help and nurture newbies... Not laugh and ridicule. Leave that up to Mr. deRaadt... he's got enough venom for it.
I'd like to see this linux thing take of to the next level. We need to give the newbies and the less-computer "literate" a better hand, instead of the middle finger.
... hi bingo
Why does somebody owe you directions? Why are they obligated to stop what they are doing and take the time to tell you something you could have easily looked up in any map?
War is necrophilia.
Nonetheless nobody owes you their time or effort. This is america remember.
War is necrophilia.
Unfortunately, most feedback mechanisms employed by Fortune 500 companies don't have such mechanisms.
The Net, speaking generally, has no feedback mechanism. It has a really effective blowback mechanism, but that's it.
Feedback is when information--not data--is fed back into the system. If I'm learning how to SCUBA dive, I'll have a dive instructor watch me, critique my technique, and tell me what needs to change. That's feedback. He sees what I'm doing, separates the important from the unimportant, and gives me information back. This changes the behavior of the system for the better, and I become a competent SCUBA diver.
Blowback is when data--not information--is fed back into the system. Data, devoid of meaning. Noise, not signal. If I learn to SCUBA dive by listening to Stevie Ray Vaughn albums, well, I'm going to have a very short dive career.
The Net is a great source of data, but it's a mediocre source of information. Many sites are filled, not with people who want to carefully critique and correct each other's posts to separate out gold from dross, but a bunch of people who want to scream ``Me, Too!'' and get on Ye Olde Bandwagon... whatever the bandwagon is.
There's an old joke about two paranoids walking down the street. One of them stops and points at an innocent, innocuous shrub. "Who's in that shrub?" the first paranoid asks. The second paranoid answers, "I dunno, but I think I know the guy in there with him!"
... Blowback, not feedback.
Substitute "two loser Linux guys" for paranoids, and "Microsoft" for the shrubbery, and you've got a pretty good description of the behavior we've all seen and condemned.
A few sites--not many, but some, Slashdot among them--have tried to implement feedback mechanisms in an attempt to limit the damage blowback can cause. Moderation and meta-moderation are SLashdot's feedback mechanism.
It's a pretty badly broken mechanism, of course, but it's a helluvalot better than nothing.
I cruise slashdot at +2 and sort for highest ratings first (unless I'm moderating, sometimes a real gem is at -1). Ditto at k5. I only post to, and read, moderated sites. When I write an e-mail I save it, wait 10 minutes, re-read it, edit it, then send it. If I'm writing to (for example) Adobe, because I'm pissed at something they did , I wait an hour before I re-read it.
Best Slashdot Co
Good point but sometimes the best route is the path of least resistance.
How long did it take you to figure out Linux? What else could have been doing with your time? Are you that much better off by doing this?
Yes I agree sometimes you have to think for yourself. But sometimes its better overall to pick the fights that are worth winning.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Human beings are social animals. We live in groups, and are protected by the group we live in. If we piss off the group we live in, then our survival chances go way down. That's less true now than it was in more 'primitive' societies, but it's still true.
People who put themselves first and everyone else second have, historically, had a very poor chance of passing their genes on, and a very good chance of dying young. Which (IMHO) is a very good thing.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Hey, hey, hey.... PDP-11's most emphatically do NOT suck. Perhaps the best computer I've ever computed on. That thing's a legend. Just like you don't knock a '68 Hemi 'Cuda. Or a nice pair of broken in Levi's. Or the memory of that first real kiss under the bleachers... What were we talking about?
:)
--
Alex Johns
Actually, if you read at 1 or 2 threshold, there's no need to listen to idiotic comments like that guys.
Hey, if someone hadn't quoted it, I would have seen it!
Which is exactly what it was talking about, you self-important overgrown back of anal-fuck runoff. Actually THAT is exactly what we're talking about. It's that kind of language that the good Cmdr is bashing in his little peice.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Of course, I've been upset at HP for not supporting legacy hardware, like my old Deskwriter printer for OS X.
OK, so it's old enough that they're not going to write drivers. But if they release the specs, there could be some drivers.
They're not going to open-source their old drivers. Never happens, not when companies paid good moeny to write them.
Well, I know it's probably too late for your, but asking for help on IRC is much like begging for change on the street corner. A few people might take pity on you, or give you something just for fun. But most people will treat you like a worthless parasite and tell you to get a job. Fortunately, slackware has a small, technicallys savy and *very* friendly user base who answer these kinds of questions all the time. Strangely enough, they can be found on the Slackware forum.
BTW, you can get some really great (older) linux books in the bargain bin of most book stores. Books like "Teach Yourself Linux in 24 hrs" that you can buy for under $8 that will step you through most commong tasks in the command line. It's a great start for newbies who don't mind taking the time to learn something new and understand the concept of return on a learning curve.
But, Japan also has the highest suicide rate of any nation...
Um, this is my sig.
Different fights are worth winning to different people though. Yes, the average user won't want to waste time to learn to use Linux, just like someone studying political science won't want to take a physics or engineering class so that they can improve the design of their car.
;)).
However, there are steps around this. People who don't want to take the trouble to design their own car buy from a manufacturer that employs engineers. People who don't want to take the time to learn Linux would buy their OS from a company that specializes in making their OS easy to use for the average user. Trying to make Linux into something like that would be cross-purpose; it IS rough around the edges, because its customized by the people who use it. Of course, even to Linux users, this argument applies in part... after all, comparitively few Linux users have written their own OS from scratch (could be wrong about this of course
NichG
I see this a lot in my current job. I work for a large chip manufacturing company, and I do linux stuff for them. Trying to get specs internally is next to impossible if I need to write a driver to support a new card. I can't imagine how hard it will be for someone else to get specs to allow a device to work.
Testing hardware here I've found that there are 5 types of hardware manufacturers
1) Companies that supply Linux drivers with their hardware
2) Companies that supply Linux drivers as an afterthought on thier web site
3) Companies that mention Linux support then direct you to a 3rd party website
4) Companies that release a product with Windows drivers and hope that someone will write a linux driver.
5) Companies that refuse to acknowledge that Linux exists
> 31337 h4x0r
eleet haxor, or elite hacker, in script-kiddie speak.
I've got the "31337 h4x0r" bumper sticker up in my cube. Several people have asked about it, only two chuckled without having it explained.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
Naah. You're analyzing too much. Think back to grade school... More than likely, you had some complicated mathematical steps that arrived at a final value of 7734. Turn your calculator upside down, and read it.
/. saying something like "1337 h4x0rs g07 j00 d0wn?". Same kinda thing.
There's also a banner floating around
ph33r m3 4nd my 133tn355! 1 0wn j00 4nd j00r w1nd0z333!!!!!!!
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
Just to preface: I primarily use that "other" OS. Don't worry. It's not just linux they don't like. I made the mistake of picking up an HP system to play with at home. Three months after Win2k was released, they finally came out with modem and sound card drivers, but stated emphatically, including an interstitial message in the download process, that this is unsupported, if it doesn't work, tough, if it causes your marriage to break up, tough. Personally, given the support they have, I never plan on buying an HP product again.
Of course, YMMV. Me, I had a bad experience at a burger king in college. I haven't set foot in a burger king in eight years now.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
> Most of the documentation avaliable for linux is useless to them because they don't understand the terminology involved.
That, and NO FRICKEN examples.
i.e.
- man for
- How do I change my timezone?
- etc.
Not that Window$ software is much better, but 4NT sure has a nice help system.
And here too:
A columnist from The Age dared report that Australian IT managers had no plans to run Linux in their datacenters
The resposes he got were along the same level.
For an example of what happens when you overcrowd a society, look at reaearch done on rat colonies (alas, I know of this only second0hand and have no direct access to such data...). IIRC, rat colonies have a definite and orderly social structure; overcrowd the living space, and you get social breakdown and inter-rat violence.
I would argue that human society, with our ever-growing communications and transport networks, is becoming socially more "crowded," and that a similar social degradation (epidemic rudeness, road rage, and the like) is taking place as a result.
Of course, a case can also be made that in any large group of people and at any point in time, a sizeable number will be acting like idiots.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
"I'm talking about the 31337 h4x0r kids with the bad attitude"...
31337 h4x0r is hacker-speak for eleet (elite) hackor (hacker).
3 = e
1 = l
7 = t
4 = a
0 = o
--
--
"What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."
I watched most of Jobs' keynote address. Pretty
boring to me. New iDVD software, OS X can talk
to your digital camera, etc.
And this rant about linux having too many
obnoxious users... grow up, but don't expect
everyone else to do the same.
Just b/c someone told you to RTFM does not mean you should whine all over the place about it. Honestly, getting the mouse to work in X is covered in just about every document there is on the Internet. If you are too lazy to look first before you ask, then they are too lazy to help you.
If you or they don't want to help newbies, fine, but I don't think you understand the true problem. If someone is asking questions like this, they probably have no idea where the manual or one of the "every document there is on the Internet" is. These are true newbies. They don't know what sites to go to, they figure they found a site and it even had a place to ask questions. They post their question and get a dozen flames in reply. If people don't want to wast their time with someone who isn't willing to spend time reaearching how to find help on their own, then don't. Just don't respond. I understand that these kind of posts can clutter up newsgroups and forums. If they don't want to deal with newbies, then they should go to a forum named Advanced X Topics, or something like that.
Sure, lots of newbies always start looking in the wrong places at first, just simply remind them where to look for documentation, but first actually listen to them so you know whether or not their circumstances are special or not.
Don't be a dumbfuck, what you say to a newbie can determine whether or not they will eventually learn or not. Not everyone has thick skin, nor should they be required to just to learn to use an OS.
Every time I go into a linux channel, I see the same thing every time. There's always some elitist dumbfuck who thinks he knows everything telling newbies to RTFM, while in fact he himself doesn't even know half of what he thinks he does, so I have to correct HIM while at the same time helping the newbies.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I think what you are saying is obvious. People should do their homework before making a hardware investment. Failure to do otherwise is your own damned fault.
I dont think this adresses CmdrTaco's piece however. CmdrTaco is complaining about users acting like idiots and destroying civility in our online community. He even complains about his own friggin site!! Well, I got one word for CmdrTaco and he might not like it
Censorship
Kur05hin has implemented censorship and a no-Anonymous-Coward policy. Guess what, it seems to be working.
CmdrTaco brought up the linuxusb web site. If linux-usb wants to have a corperate friendly exterior, then it should censor its talkback posts to only relevant posts. The best way to encourage trolls and flame-festers is to give them a soapbox in a very public place. I think it's time we learned to deal realisticly with our immaturity problem. 50% of web users are probably under 21 (that's my guess). Complaining about immaturity doesn't do shit to get it out of my face. It's time to face up to the facts and start censoring our public forums (where appropriate).
If someone has a better idea let me know. I'm not totally facist about this. I'm pretty open to any option that will work.
So what book would you recommend, because you know the newbie will end up with "Teach Yourself Linux is 24 Hours", which wouldn't help worth a damn if they're trying to configure their ISA PnP sound card.
:)
Granted, the situation is a lot better than it used to be. Back when I was a newbie, the local bookstore didn't *have* any Linux books, and linuxdoc.org was sunsite.unc.edu/ldp/ - oh, and Google wasn't on anybody's radar either. You try finding anything on Infoseek, much less decent Linux documentation.
Besides, with the sheer amount of Linux documentation, it's hard to tell the signal from the noise. What if they're following the two year old Sound-HOWTO (look, the boy can read!), only the aforementioned ISA PnP card won't initialize? What FM would you have me read then? (There is a note buried in the Linux kernel documentation, about three or four levels deep, IIRC. The average newbie isn't going to look there.)
Usually all people need is a nudge in the right direction. Four capital letters isn't going to do that. All that will do is make people think you work at the Gap. Or the post office. Now, you really wouldn't want that, would you?
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
Which situation is less likely to piss me, the newbie, off?
Me: [Insert question here]
l33t: RTFM
Me: What manuals? I'm not sure where to start. Point me to some decent manuals and I'll read them.
l33t: *massive arrogant l33t silence*
Or
Me: [Insert question here]
l33t: I think there's a document for that on linuxnewbie.org/a HOWTO for that on linuxdoc.org/a good book for that by O'Reilly that explains how to do that way better than I ever could. Have you read anything like that yet?
Me: No. Didn't know any of them existed. Thanks. *reads*
Telling people to RTFM is no good unless you actually hand them TFM first. How that little fact managed to escape the elitist bastards that run "help" channels (all of them are equally bad) is beyond me.
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
Funny, if I go to #LinuxHelp (or #WindowsHelp, or #MacHelp, or #Commodore64Help, or whatever), I damn well expect to get some help. I expect that to be a place where I can ask some questions, and get some intelligible answers. Otherwise the channel wouldn't be masquerading as a fucking Help channel, would it? I never expected help from #Linux, but #LinuxHelp is another thing altogether.
Which is why it always boggled my mind that the #[OS]Help channels were the worst place to get help on the face of the 'net. If you want to mock newbies, go to #MockTheN00bs already. I mean, come on, how fucking hard is it to type "go to linuxdoc.org and read the HOW-TO"? Really.
I hang out on the ArsTechnica forums a lot, and I do see the same questions bandied about a lot, but at least people there are willing to give you links to threads that already deal with the subject (which is good, because there are times when you just can't find what you're looking for in a search).
I'll say it again - you can't say "RTFM" until you give somebody TFM. If you do, you look like a jackass and a hypocrite. And if you're a jackass and a hypocrite, quite frankly, you are in no position to pretend to be helping people.
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
It seems that oftentimes quotations are thrown around without much knowledge to the context or the author's real-life beliefs. In any case...
Here are a couple of interesting sections...
- The founding fathers may have read the Bible, but explicit references to Scripture or Christian principles are conspicuously absent in the political discussions of the nation's early history. Biblical texts do not appear in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or the new state charters. Moreover, conscious reference to Biblical or Christian themes is also almost entirely absent from the places where it might be expected -- the pamphlet literature advocating independence, the various stated debates over the Constitution, and the political disputes of the 1790s. In short, the political spokesmen who read the Bible in private rarely, if ever, betrayed that acquaintance openly in public. ... The American Revolution was led by men who were not very religious: At best, the founding fathers only passively believed in organized Christianity and at worst they scorned and ridiculed it. So long as religion supported political harmony, few of them were all that concerned with what a person believed. Benjamin Franklin, for instance, had no use for a particular evangelical clergyman because "he wanted to make persons good Presbyterians rather than good citizens." (The Search for Christian America, pp. 81-107.)
- Marshalling an impressive array of census statistics, they [the authors] argue that, contrary to popular misconception, religiosity was fairly weak in Colonial America. About 17% of the colonists belonged to churches. If this proposition is true, then the oft-repeated claim that our forefathers were religious believers, is simply untrue. Moreover, the claim that moral purity accompanied religious piety at the founding of this nation is a myth. Nor were so-called traditional family values in dominance. For example, the authors cite data that one in three births from 1761-1800 occurred within less than nine months of marriage, despite harsh laws against fornication. They also say that the taverns in Boston were more jammed on Saturday night than the churches were on Sunday morning. [The Church in America, 1776-1990: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, by Roger Finke and Rodney Stark (1992).]
happy reading!
there is no thing
what else could you want?
Maybe your version of civil behavior started in a church/temple but mine started at home. So did a bunch of other people I know, who happen to be a lot more civil than many church goers I happen to also know. Not to say you can't learn civil behavior from religion, but there is no black and white here. Just going to church doesn't make you a saint.
I know what you meant towards the end there, but I have to restate one part. There is nothing bigger than us...as in all of us. The problem as I see it with society today and what has been repeated again and again in this discussion is that people don't think about US. The think about ME. What do I want...What do I need...What do I deserve. A whole lot of us today don't take into account how our actions effect others. Even if you do, I'd bet you don't do all the time. I try to, because that's how I was raised. Even still I catch myself sometimes looking out for #1 first before anyone else and not thinking about how it might effect someone else.
Now the problem we have reached is "Why should I think about other people? It's not like everyone is looking out for me." That's not gonna change, no matter how hard we try.
It all falls back to ME again. At the end of the day I know that I've done the best I could and tried to stick by my morals and not mess up anyone else's good vibe.
>Darn, you beat me to it. But I'd like to add to
:-)
>your comments.
>I've seen this kind of flame-fest ever since I
>started using the internet. Take usenet as an
>example. Outside of pr0n, I'd say more than half
>the posts in many unmoderated technical
>newsgroups are childish chatter.
You are wrong. I noticed one exception a few years ago. There is printer newsgroup (I think it was comp.sys...printers), where people just discussed printer issues and features with no discernable flaming. Boring - professional, but boring. I unsubscribed as soon as I got my Lazerjet problem sorted.
Apart from that case, you are completely correct.
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
I think the situation has to rule - sometimes people just need some space to vent and should be left to do so. I have found that a friendly smirk works well - it is often difficult to interpret if it doesn't seem arrogant.
2. Choose peripheral that has driver support for chosen OS.
IMHO, HP and the like will provide support in the form of drivers for their peripherals if there is a demand for them. Supply and demand - it's how the commercial world operates. If enough Linux users buy the 'X-Scan Super Scanner', then there will be a demand for support and drivers. As usual, It all comes down to money.
----------------------------
-----------------------
Moderator's essentials
Also I'm assuming i = 33. What else is there?
No, elite is just misspelled(phonetic spelling is the same though) as eleet -> 31337. The numbers kind of look like the letters, but slightly mangled. 5 = S and I can't think of the other ones off hand.
-----
"Goose... Geese... Moose... MOOSE!?!?!"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
---
/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
the most valid point here is profit motive. most of these bad attitudes just don't get it. they view it as a problem. i have a hard time thinking anyone who would comment like that has any financial woes, in the business sense, to manage (aside from maybe taking large salaries to the bank in the case of the grumpy gurus out there). that makes you learn to compromise, which is a skill they obviously lack. in the current system, you need to make money somehow. OSS is compatible with this, but the people who *need* to be convinced of this will never know it unless the attituders learn the fine art of give and take.
we speak the way we breathe --Fugazi
That article was great except for the stupid "how to pronounce Linux" tripe at the end. Who cares? Stuff like that is one of the many reasons I try to not associate with anyone else running Linux.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. Desktop users don't want to know all about the inner workings of their computers.
Big companies know this, which is why when they see posts to their discussion boards from Linux zealots, they probably scratch their heads and say, "Hmm.. more posts from the Linux fringe... ."
Think of it this way - a lot of people trick out their Volkswagens with all kinds of styling, body work, engine upgrades, and so on. Do you think Volkswagen cares more about these hobbyists, or about the millions of other people who just want to buy a car that looks good, drives well, and doesn't require a lot of maintenance?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The good thing about being an almost completely virtual community is that news and information can spread like wildfire. For example, watch what happens when a new Linux kernel is released. For the next few days, the volume of helpful and insightful traffic on Linux boards is phenomenal. People help each other and provide all kinds of evaluations of their experiences with the new kernel. It's times like that when I start to think that Katz is on-target with all of his hot air about virtual communities changing the world.
But the flip side of this virtual community is cases just like the unfortunate H-P discussion board. Here on Slashdot, we have ways of dodging the trolls. Because of the volume of comments on this site, and the number of registered users, the Slashdot system is able to filter out the trolls and their worthless comments.
Unfortunately, most feedback mechanisms employed by Fortune 500 companies don't have such mechanisms. in fact, they would be accused of filtering out negative feedback if they attempted to use a Slashdot-style moderation system.
The painful truth is that Linux consumers aren't your average consumer. They know more about how their computers work. They expect more. They're not taken in by the p.r. and the marketing as much as your average computer user.
Why is this painful? Because we often think we know it all, and we're idealists. We know how the world of computing *should* be, and we're impatient with companies or people who get in the way of that ideal.
How we as Open Source advocates deal with that frustration begs the question: are we capable of dealing with the "unenlightened" in a mature manner, or are we the spoiled hackers many people think we are?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
- Dependency: Computers are 'hard' and you need an 'expert' to tell you the 'incantation', which of course makes no sense so you write it on a yellow sticky.
- Oral culture - this is a characteristic of the Windows world. The Unix world is centered around the written word: RFC's, man pages, and lately HOWTO's. The Windows world is home to undocumented 'tips and tricks' - arbitrary bits of complexity that are handed verbally from one user to another until Microsoft obsoletes them.
Anyhow, I'd show the user both 'ls --help' and 'man ls'. Given the size of ls(1), I wouldn't mind providing navigational hints. But my overriding concern would be to establish a natural path for the user to look up information, a path which the user can retrace without me.You know, in hindsight you can put almost any meaning into any expression. However, I'm sure the original source meant it as it sounds. Especially if you bring the context in.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Why set someone straight when he can do it himself so much more effectively? Why act friendly when you're really not? It's harder to be compassionate towards abusive strangers, that's why we don't do it. We avoid compassion because we don't feel it. So when we finally break out of the cycle, we do so with careful baby-steps.
When people begin to do aikido, breath-exercises, meditation or similar, you get that "boost" to be able to make those steps. You can't get it from reading a book, listening to talks or watching a film as you can get from living it. If you have it already, consider yourself rich.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Thanks for brighten up this rainy day a little. Don't mind the others here.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
cd /usr/doc
ls
Very annoying: as a remedy, I chose Slackware, which sticks more or less to the absolute minimum when it comes to scripting and configuration tools. Actually, this makes it easier in some ways... particularly in that period of half-competency when you've understood what the files in /etc/ do, but you don't get bash scripting yet. At that point, Red Hat stops being userfriendly and starts being insanely frustrating.
I have to disagree with this point. I believe you are a better person for using Linux. Yes, you are even better for helping someone out, I agree.
Company A produces a widget that involves the exploitation of children (or kills dolphins whatever) person A uses this widget. Person B uses a widget made by company B. They're widget (is technically superior but that's besides the oint) doesn't exploit children... it actually helps them. Who's better person A or person B?
It's allright to feel superior becuase you use a better operating system than Windows (don't forget though that Linux is not the only quality alternative), but to be an ass about it is wrong.
I think part of the problem is that people like to believe that everyone is equal. That's a load of horse shit. People will never be equal (though their oppurtunity should). Some people will be better than others (not necessarily in all areas). In computer terms the operating system you choose is a reflection of your status in that arena. In the same way that being a sports star, or a model, or having a P.H.d, is s reflection of status in their respective arenas. (I will admit that it's not always an accurate reflection, again besides the point).
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
This is true, and I try not to act like that. Although when I'm attacked I can quickly get that way. Helping people with Linux can be fun IMHO. Not if it's someone who doesn't appreciate it. But I like showing people stuff and saying "isn't that f'in cool, now check this out..."
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
I didn't say that. It's not the ownership that makes you better, it's the choice to use something that promotes the free exchange of information, rather than something that inhibits it. Where you choose to spend your money (or not to spend it) does make a difference.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
What we have here is the root of the problem, it is all a matter of belief. I do believe someone who does things to support the good of all is a better person than one who does not. You it seems do not. Stupid I am not, and neither are my ideas, your phrase about having no bearing on anyone else implies a moral relativism that precludes you from catsing aspersions on anyone elses beliefs. Which in the end makes your post hypocritical, while you deride me for expressing my beliefs and (falsely I might add imply that I force them on others) you turn around and try to force yours on me.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
My point of view is that you ARE contributing just by the purchase. You are refusing to give money to that other organization. In this capitalist society you vote more with your dollars than anything else. Does the person who buys dolphin friendly tuna, have to actually go out and actively try to prevent a dolphin un-safe company from producing product, or help the dolphin safe ones? No, the consumer does the right thing by refusing to support a company that has morals that are aligned with his own, and refusing to support a company that does not.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Yeah, I'm not 1337, but I'm not really interested in being 1337. I use Linux where it's better and fall back on Windows when I find it lacking. I don't have time to go digging out some obscure rmp (I probably would at work, but I don't want to bug the firewall admins).
If Linux is going to become mainstream it needs a simple straightforward user interface that requires less effort to get to grips with (including getting stuff working).
one problem: you are using the assumption that l33t actually owes you an answer. he doesn't. by saying RTFM, he's probably just trying to brush you off. if you have spent any time in an IRC support channel, you'll see many people parroting the same question over and over. RTFM is a way of saying "yes, i heard you... there is some documentation out there... find it for yourself and leave us alone". this is especially true for common problems (like setting up PPP) where large volumes of information exist on the specific problem.
if you are new to X, the best way to find information about X would probably be to start with a search engine. then, if you truly cannot find any information, ask "anyone know where i can get some info on X?". and do not expect a reply. if you don't get an answer, just hop to another IRC server. and if you never get an answer... well, sorry. that's just the way it is. just because you logged into the IRC server and found the support channel for X doesn't mean you are actually entitled to support (unless you specifically paid for it).
The sad thing is that this type of behavior will eventually decrease the signal to noise ratio to the point that there will be so little useful information on some of these sites that people will stop using them.
What's even sadder is that there are people (translation: losers with no life) who think its COOL to actively DO this sort of thing...trolling, goatse posts etc. I keep wondering what's wrong with people to make them think this sort of thing is fun, cool (or should I say Kewl?) and 733t."I'm not a procrastinator, I'm temporally challenged"
See what I mean?
What a rush there was for someone to prove me right
Loser....
"I'm not a procrastinator, I'm temporally challenged"
I'm all for "converting the heathen masses," as it were. I like it when I see people looking for an alternative, and I can show them that alternative. It gives me that warm fuzzy feeling inside. But what I CAN'T stand, are people who abuse public forums. A lot of "newbies" treat people like me as if we were their personal tech support. I sometimes feel like HP in CmdrTaco's story: People to whom I owe nothing, and do not benefit at all from helping, treating me as if it is my duty to help them.
Just this week, (in one of those sporadic moments of EFnet connectivity), I was talking to one of my friends in a channel. Some guy who was installing linux for the first time had joined our channel, looking for ppp help, which anyone would have been happy to give him... could he remain civil. Unfortunately, he kept spamming with "PLZ HELP NOW!!!", "Y R U IGNORING ME?", "KWIT TAKING 2 HER AND HELP ME!!", et cetera. I was, as you can imagine, annoyed. If "making Linux mainstream" means I have to be the private and personal tech support monkey for every ungrateful Windows user who decides to give it a shot... then I'm content with Linux as a niche OS.
Isn't that just a bit of a leap of logic? I fail to see how one follows from the other.
God does not play dice with the universe. Albert Einstein
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
I too weap for our future
:) But anyway...
:-)
I weep for our educational system.
Damnit; I swar it wuz a typeo.
I too weap for our future as I read public message boards, especially ones that supply anonymity (ahem...Sl*shd*t at -1), but the same holds true for just about every internet message boards. If one was to examine the Windows tech support forums, I bet someone would be mad (and equally childish) over not support NT 4.0. Or not supporting some wacky video card API. Or someone who just plain couldn't make the thing work. The "idiots on messageboard" problem is much larger than just the Linux world, and for a company to not support something just because of a childish, vocal minority is more than a little shortsighted.
So who hasn't sworn at their hardware / software for being lame and designed to annoy and frustrate users, usually in a lame attempt to gain market by using proprietry crap.
.oO0Oo.
It's been with us since the dawn of hardware
I doubt HP decision makers skim messageboards to see if there are any nice people they can write drivers for.
If someone was calling my company a bunch of "cockmasters" (cool word) I'd want to know why. If they have the attitude "they called us cockmasters so they can fuck off if they think I'll write them a USB driver for a scanner" then they are a bunch of cockmasters.
Linux will stay where it is not because of name calling but because of legacy systems and inertia.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I bought the thing last year and used it for quite a while under windows. About six months ago I started attempting to move my main pc to linux and get rid of windows entirely. It was then that I realized that this was my problem. What did I do? After a few months of cursing about not being able to switch I jumped on ebay and bought an hp scanjet 4p for 30 some odd dollars shipped, works like a charm and I no longer have ANY microsoft software on my pc. The really bothersome part of hp's attitude toward this scanner is they also don't support pci macs either! I have a pci mac I thought I would hook it to, and then I realized that hp also doesn't support macos of any version either only windows! I hope they can fix this problem sometime, I gave my 3300c away to a friend who uses windows since it was of no value at all to me.
What is say is mostly true, but what you are talking about isn't linux proper, but rather linux and all it's support software. At it's core, the design and implementation of the linux kernel and associated modules is quite masterful in the world of Operating Systems. But anything else, including the shell (Command Line or otherwise), compilers, window servers, tools, etc. are only software which run on Linux.
Take a look at NT. At it's base, it has similar features to the Linux kernel. Yes, these are different implementations, and NT certianly has it's problems, but the main features (preemptive multitasking, protected memory, etc) are very similar. What you see visually as NT is just a pretty (or not) graphical shell put on top.
This can also be seen much more clearly in Mac OS X. At it's base, it's a BSD OS (Don't remember which one). Everything you see in the GUI is just a carefully engineered graphical abstraction of the OS. Do new users use Mac OS X? Of course.
Work has been done in Linux to make the distribution more user friendly, especially in the various window managers for X. But these are often designed for power users, with many shortcuts which sometimes need to be used. You see an obvious movement to prevent the systems behaviour from becomming too user friendly (just look at the screams when someone suggests getting rid of the startup message screen). True interface and visual design isn't as flashy of a job has making a cool looking window manager. Someday someone must take it upon themselves to recreate the Linux system's user interface before the users will be drawn in.
So to summarize: Linux as an OS may someday be accepted by users, since it's as good (if not better) an OS than the rest. But you are right in that the current user interface, created by programmers to be used by programmers, will not be tolerated by normal users, and must be partially recreated to fall into normal use.
Save a life. Eat more cheese
So there I was, juggling apples and small animals, when I accidentally bit into the wrong one...
No, I'm afraid you've got it backwards. You see, to these "jerks", you're just another "jerk". The solution isn't knocking everyone in line. The solution is for people to learn to respect each other from where they're coming from.
Changing folks' attitudes are the solution. Your message makes it seem you want to go bust heads (though I grant messages can be interpreted quite differently than intended). Why? Because you're upset that others aren't appreciating you. At the root, this is the same attitude problem that the others have. You just behave differently and have developed a martyr complex as a result.
Please don't take this as a personal attack. It's just that I used to get just as worked up and have since learned that confronting folks doesn't solve anything. The solution is to change your own attitude, and ironically, by so doing you can change others.
This story really brought it home to me:
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC04/Dobson.htm
You can't study the darkness by flooding it with light. --Edward Abbey
The original point of these transliterations was to avoid text-search engines from finding keywords; a scanner might be looking for "porn" but wouldn't care about 'p0rn', which a human could probably figure out. When it was reprogrammed to find 'p0rn' they changed it to 'pr0n.' And so on. Like so many things, it was then siezed upon by the masses, and used to mock them by the Intelligentsia. Now, of course, that mocking use is siezed upon by the masses, and the Intelligentsia need to find something else to use.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Some books are better than others. Some people might be very new to the whole internet search engine thing and not be using a good search engine. Some people might really want to learn about computers and need SOME place to start. You cant just assume they can go to the bookstore and pick just the book they needed when they may not even know what TCP/IP is and not even have a vague clue of where to start to debug a problem.
It is not fair to new users who are interested. Just saying go learn! Go do this go do that etc. Oh well.. its just elitist. Yeah it gets old. So make a FAQ website and say go here read a bit I think your Q is here. Or Suggest a good book or good website. All websites are not equal and what is better than a pool of humans to supply the best/book/website so the experience is easy? Why not share your knowledge a little?
Jeremy
As you said, you installed it for them. You took all the learning curve out. They just have to use WindowMaker. For them, this was a "push one button" porcess. If everybody had a cousin handy to set-up their Linux with the apps they want to use, then I'm sure more people would use it. But this isn't the case for most.
s/cousin/OEM/g and you have described the current situation. Have you tried installing Windows on a bare hard drive? Most people haven't; they rely on their system builder to create a half-working Windows system. (Even OEMs sometimes have trouble getting it right every time; when I first unpacked and turned on my Dell Dimension box with Windows ME pre-loaded, it blue-screened: "Windows protection error. You need to restart your computer. System halted.")
Will I retire or break 10K?
The average user doesn't give a rat's ass about how secure/stable/l337/whatever an OS is. They just want something that behaves in a reliable, predictable manner
Do you mean "a reliable, predictable manner" that the computer won't crash or freeze or hang or let some 13-year-old delete all your files, or do you mean the "reliable, predictable manner" of Windows 9x that that under a good-sized workload, it's "reliable" and "predictable" that the computer will put up a blue screen of death? To me, a reasonable amount of stability and security is necessary for reliability.
There's a reason there's so many jokes about the clock on VCR's.
Even without the auto clock set feature on modern VCRs, the clocks on most VHS VCRs I've touched (manufactured 1988 and later) are no harder to set than a $10 alarm clock from Wal*Mart. The problem here is with users that can't be bothered to read one page of quick-start documentation.
My favorite example is the automatic transmission. I know it works reasonably well, and know when it's broken.
The analogy breaks down when you realize that you can take an automobile into any transmission shop to get a blown tranny fixed, but for a proprietary operating system, you have to wait for a patch from the single point of failure more commonly known as the OS publisher.
Meanwhile, MS and Apple are trying to make computers easier for the masses.
I'll give Apple credit for Mac OS X, but until this year with the reliability improvements that come with the release of Windows XP, Microsoft hasn't deserved it.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I've been using Windows 2000 for some time not and I haven't noticed the same instabilities that plagued Windows 98.
By "Windows" in my comment, I meant "Windows 9x operating systems" because most users aren't willing to spend $200 to upgrade to an NT-based system such as Win2k. Perhaps what I said at the end about Windows XP being more reliable should have clarified that this is because Microsoft is moving to an NT kernel for operating systems in the $150 price range.
I'm not a student, I work for a living doing a very specific type of job that doesn't require that I know the OS and doesn't leave me with a lot of spare time to learn.
In that case, could you donate money to the netfilter project and earmark it for a better setup wizard?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I've seen this kind of flame-fest ever since I started using the internet. Take usenet as an example. Outside of pr0n, I'd say more than half the posts in many unmoderated technical newsgroups are childish chatter. People call each other nasty stuff and say stupid things all the time. I think it's probably the whole anonymity of the experience. I'm certain that most of those people wouldn't use language like that to someone's face.
You're exactly right. This stuff even predates the widespread use of the internet, but as the access becomes easier, cheaper, and more wide-spread, it becomes more of a problem.
They are referred to as lots of words that I would happily use in friendly conversation with a friend, but never post in a public forum read by strangers.
Taco's point tells us a little bit about why: Many of these people don't have friendly conversations with a friend, at least not face-to-face friends. They have been socialized (or desocialiazed) by the Internet and their computer. They don't understand what tacht is, and they see others using this behavior and accept it as OK. The sad thing is that this type of behavior will eventually decrease the signal to noise ratio to the point that there will be so little useful information on some of these sites that people will stop using them.
"When I go anywhere I make sure to have fully researched (usually w/the Internet, sometimes w/maps) where I am going and what's going on."
So you research where you're going. Who gives a flying fuck? Just because you did research doesn't mean you know where everything is. I see people who have their planned travel maps from AAA who still get themselves lost, and have to ask for directions. At least most people are kind enough to not have the "holier than thou" attitude you have, and help those people.
--
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
but the scary part is that Linux users are generally frm the top 1/3 of the IQ pool.
And out of that 1/3, fully 50% of them are below average.
I would like to believe that you are correct about the population of Linux developers, in a sort of self-reinforcing manner only the best /most appropriate patches will be accepted to a project anyway. But if a Linux distribution is to become ubiquitous, then we really hope that the user population becomes much more encompassing.
So, if you want Linux distributions to "win" and beat Micro$oft, then you must stop being superior about Linux users ... :-)
Quick wafting zephyrs vex bold Jim
Welcoming the trolls? I don't know if I can do that.
"Huh? Blue Screen of wha-"
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
I don't know about your claim about free beer. I'll bet your average Linux users spends considerably more on hardware annually than your average windows user. A lot of them fall into the "early adopters" category, and have disposable income to buy toys with. The funny thing is that with the current size of the linux market, a hardware company can probably only get ROI for writing a driver if they are one of the only companies that support linux in their class of products (capturing a large chunk of a small market--this is what Apple has done well for 15 years.) If there is already a ton of supported devices, it may not pay to support linux. So, we get what we have--spotty support. There are a few webcams, a few scanners, a few 3D video cards(ok, I'm just bitter because I haven't been able to get my Voodoo3 to play Tuxracer), and a few laptops that linux can use. Because there are already a few alternatives in each of these markets, their is less of an incentive for new entrants to support linux.
Despite our end-goal of making Linux a Swiss army knife that does everything for everyone on systems all the way from an 8 MHz Palm III to an IBM 3870 mainframe, it's still used mostly by technical hackers.
In other words, reasonably smart individuals. I'm not saying this to give us all a pat on the back -- the intelligence is a necessity borne of the operating system's continuing complexity. (In fact, it's rather embarassing that ten years later, we still don't have an operating system that I could install for my mother and walk away from).
Anyway, the point (at least, my interpretation of it) is that it's depressing that these smart individuals -- people who should know better -- still go around leaving sour tastes in the mouths of the corporations that we should be making nice with.
Remember: we're asking these companies for favors, not to fulfil obligations. These companies are composed of individuals with opinions and emotions, just like the rest of us. I f you piss these people off, they don't have any reason to cooperate. If you can make friends, there's a good chance that someone might just e-mail you an internal document so that you can run off and write the driver you want.
All I've heard from anyone bothering to respond to this is bitching about how newbies are so stupid and lazy and how they should shut up and stop whining.
If you want to give back to the user community by doing technical support for linux (ie, joining #linux on the undernet) then shut up, answer the goddamn questions, and stop whining and being lazy - ie, stop being a hippocrite.
Really, how hard is it to answer questions like "how do I get my mouse to work under X" with "Well, that's a complicated question with a complicated answer, and that question has been answered in painful detial at www.makeyourmousework.com," or even "RTFM @ www.makeyourmousework.com." Just saying "RTFM!" is just a petty way of denying your own lack of technical skill to yourself and newbies alike. It's a quick cover that makes you feel self-important and superior to those you believe to be the unwashed masses. The fact of the matter is that you couldn't answer the question yourself, you would have to go look it up, so instead of admitting that you don't actually *know* that information, you just tell them to fuck off.
And all this time you believe that you're the guru on the mountaintop, knowing all and giving out nothing, because after all, noone ever gave you a break, so you're not going to help anyone get to your mountaintop. The newbie sees you for what you are though - an arrogant prick. Actually helping them to find the answers on their own will elevate you to a technical god in their eyes, even if you aren't even close.
Give a newbie an answer, and you help him for a moment. Show a newbie how to find the answer, and he will always have whatever knowledge he needs.
So what if it's flamebait? You needed to hear that.
---
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Probably to save a buck or two? ;-)
--sig killed...
As I post this, there are about 1000 others attached to this article. As usual, only about 5% have floated to the top of the "insightful" and "informative" heap. Hoping to see some ray of light in what I was certain would be a madhouse of trolling, I bumped my filter up to +5, expecting at least one post that might show some insight about what we as a community need to do. Instead, all I read are posts piously echoing the article itself, articulating only complaints about the "psychology" and the "mentality" of the 133t and the kiddies. Do you think anyone with such a mentality is reading at +5, taking in the wise recommendations of the informed? No! All they're doing is going on with the usual bathroom humor. Saying that they need to contribute to the community won't make lightbulbs go off over their heads, and suddenly they'll start spending all thier idle time writing HP scanner drivers rather than posting about how dumb newbies are. For all the value an onlince community can provide, we can't make them change. This is a discussion board. Discussing the unkind/superiority-craving/hypocritical element among us won't change them. Discussing what the rest can actually do about them might, because those of us that are actually reading for insightfulness are also those who will act.
3 = e
1=l
4=a
0=o
7=t
and so on.
Generally derogatory nowadays. Something you call someone who hacks for destruction and generally has no soul.
"From a certain point of view..." If you look it in terms of a self-contained product, putting aside design issues (which should be irrelevant if specs are available), I guess it is defective, isn't it? (Looking at it like that, that means everyone who ever bought a winmodem got ripped off, but I digress...) I've had the same problem myself -- anyone got a Farallon PC card ethernet adapter they're willing to swap for a 3Com Etherlink, email me...
Anyway, CmdrTaco is right on on this. The fact is that any fringe movement overpopulated with zealots is going to stay fringe -- that's why rms has become a sideshow in the movement he created. The zealots among us must simmer down -- I used to be one of those myself (probably still am -- Radical Moderate and proud), so I know what I'm talking about.
Facts are these:
-Linux is a pretty good system. It's not the cleanest, most versatile, or most elegant thing on the block, but it does what it's needed to do wonderfully. But *it* *can't* *do* *everything*. Neither can Windows, or MacOS, or BSD, or whatever your personal flavor of the week is.
-Those that are quick to flame make the rest of us look bad. It's only a matter of time before someone gets fed up enough to fork Linux under the same acrimonious conditions as happened to BSD.
-Repeat after me: WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER. Whether we like it or not, the Linux world has both absorbed and contributed to the world around it. Zealotry don't mean shit when you have to work with someone you hate -- and he's got the wrench you need.
We've got Stallmanites. We've got Raymondites (that's me). We've got people who use Linux just because they like it (probably not the same people who appreciate elegance in design, but those people are still programming in Algol >:-) ). We all bring different things to the party, and some of us deeply resent the stain of being associated with nutjobs who put the cause ahead of minor things like Getting The Job Done.
/Brian
ObKarmaWhoring: For an early example, go to the Jargon File and look up B1FF!!!11!!!!1
The whole thing started quite a while ago and just got very weird from there. (Though I think h4x0r is becoming a verb in its own right with the advent of Net appliances; sort of a more stylish way of saying "pried open" when "crack" doesn't quite pass muster...)
/Brian
In other words they're stonewalling because they don't know any better, or at least don't understand the alternatives...
It's the same in politics, though. It's the story of Edward Teller's career -- come up with an idea, get allies, push the idea, and milk it until everyone realizes it won't work.
/Brian
"anything you can do I can do better"... okay, with OSS I'll grant you that's true -- that's why I'm a believer -- but "can do" and "done are two different things.
/Brian
True. The juicy bits are inside the system anyway. I heard a quote once about technology theft from a Russian intelligence agent to the effect that during the Cold War the Russians were always a couple of years behind the US with a lot of technologies because so much of their effort went into reverse-engineering instead of innovation...
Oy, did I ever say a mouthful. But that's a conversation for a different day.
I don't agree that the IP "isn't worth much", but it really is irrelevant in the driver world. I think what's going on is that these peripheral vendors, for whatever reason, are trying to play the same lockin games that people like Microsoft and Apple play, probably trying to milk the developers for license fees. They're missing the point, though -- fact is, it's not too likely that NVidia is loss-leadering every GeForce 3 chip that goes out the door, and HP's scanners have no place in the developer-licensing equation at all.
Fact is, HP has gained a disgruntled customer. This is not a good thing, and it's time companies like this realized that they are in fact screwing people over.
/Brian
Here's another data point: The same type of thing happend on bulletin boards --- even way back in the early 80s. Not as common, or as vicious, but it was there. No trolls as far as I could remember.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Instead, I think what prevents some companies from fully embracing Linux is customer base. If my company makes a computer product, and only 1% of all interested users say they would like to use my product with Linux, why should I bother to support it?
How accurate is your 1%? I really dont know, but I assumed that since Linux is freely downloadable, and there are so many distros and 'flavors' that a count was impossible.
Anyway, there are a few reasons to support Linux. These reasons may be looked at as a gamble, but most new ventures in business (esp technology) are. There's the whole, "We did it first," thing (only good if it cathces on). Of course, there's also the CEO who is willing to take a slight hit on the bottom line if his desires of supporting Linux are met.
If it were my decison to make for a company, I would support Linux as well most other OS's (if possible). Maybe I'd support non-proprietary OS's because I'm a Linux fan, but I think I'd take a look at what IBM is doing (link) and figure out why they are doing it, then copy-cat them.
If a comapny with the reputation IBM has is supporting Linux (the OS as well as having 'Linux affinity' in their new OS), then why should I?
I suffer from apathy, but I just don't care.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.-Franklin
I don't think that it just about Linux vs. Windows, or any purely computer ideology. My experience is that it has more to do with a personal frame of mind.
When I first thought about trying Linux, I asked a Comp Sci professor about what distro to try. (Being a MATH major and not CS,) He told me that it would be too difficult for me to do and not to bother. Needless to say, I ignored his advice, and went ahead anyway with a dual boot.
But in today's world, a person HAS to be able to do certain things for themselves. I learned more about Linux in the couple of months that it took for me to get my system running the way I like it. (with Apache, PHP, etc...) Its like a trial by fire to make sure that only people who are truly interested in it pursue it. I think it is probably a "good thing" that there is no easy path. I even have a mug with "RTFM" to remind me to find the answers myself, rather than always looking for the local guru. When you want something done "right" (read : the way you want it), you will probably end up having to do it yourself.
Although it would also be nice to have more universal driver support for scanners and such, but sometimes that's the way things go.
Why? Because its simple economics. A large majority of us want to see our favorite Windows applications and games on Linux, this will not happen as long as Linux holds a small market percentage. It has a small user base compared to something like Windows so software companies that port to Linux won't see any/much of a return on their investment, its simply not worth the time/effort.
I know this because I work at a software company and we've tried to convince them to port our flagship product to Linux. Management simply looks at the numbers and says 'No'.
Part of the solution to make it mainstream is to make it easy to use like Windows, thats the first step and probably one of the most important in this day and age of computing, maybe 10 years ago this wouldn't be an issue but now it obviously is. But it is today, nobody who just uses a computer as a tool wants to waste time learning arcane commands, etc. Therefore it become less cost effective for companies that need to train employees in the basic use of a computer. The next part would be getting more commercial software available for it. Although you can get lots of free software for Linux, some people have the 'You get what you pay for' syndrome, they feel better about getting something that costs more, therefore the conclusion comes if its free then its quality is low. Lots of managers or company owners feel this way.
Also, it just needs good commercial software, products from companies like Adobe, Macromedia, Quark, etc even Microsoft (which will never happen). Games also need to be appear on Linux, not just a couple here and there. If Linux had half the software that I run on Windows, I would use full time, all I use it now for is a firewall. But since it doesn't (mainly games) so I don't use it as my main OS.
In any case, people do spend a lot of time learning to use their computer. It takes a lot of time to learn to use Word and Excel as efficiently as the average secretary (if you don't believe me, try it sometime). That's the time they have to learn their computer.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Great point. Most people simply want to be productive without feeling stupid.
For some wonderful insight on that very issue (among other things), I would highly reccommend reading The Inmates are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper. (I'm reading it now and thoroughly enjoying it.)
That attitude is everywhere with some elitists. People who can rebuild a car from spare parts without needing to look at a book feel everyone should be able to take their own car into his garage and be able to fix it in less than five minutes. Anyone who can't is just dumb.
You get it with nearly anything. People who are fully knowledged in something, and have a chip on their shoulder, feel everyone should know something about it. So when you get what Taco described, people demanding support for Linux even though Linux still isn't a profitable operating system for many of the peripheral manufacturers. Since they know Linux well, everyone should, and therefore, there should be as much support for it as with Windows.
It's too bad, too, because without all this elitism people show on forums, and with more support and assistance with a smile, more people may migrate over, even to test it out. Systems are cheap, many have more than one computer in their houses, why not? But the demanding that there be support or you'll call the company names you used in seventh grade will just cause more harm to your operating system's PR, not only to the company, but to those who visit the forums for their new OS.
Who wants to keep Linux loaded when they see that people threaten companies because they won't support that OS? Watch how many get scared that this may happen to everything and get Windows back on the system. Double edged sword in more ways than one.
Dragon Magic
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
Why is everyone so worked up about getting Linux into mainstream in the first place. Mainstream software (machines, devices, appliances, etc.) need to be dumbed down and when they are, they become unusable for the expert users. Hence I really don't want to see Linux in the mainstream.
:) ) in the Linux world? I don't...
Do we really need a horde of I-can-point-and-click-reaaaal-fast idiots^H^H^H^H^H^Hexperts (the certified ones only, of course
-----
I'm sure CT could find a parallel with the decline in civility at sports events. Hell, here in Philly they had to put a courtroom inside the stadium because people have gotten so out of hand at football games!
The perception of reality is more important than reality itself.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Unfortunately, it seems very unlikely that this is going to work. Why?
First, although cross-platform apps make it easier to migrate, they provide no incentive to do so. After all, if your apps will run as well on Windows as on Linux, why switch? Windows's reputation will ensure people continue to choose it; they'll stick with what they know; and not all apps will be cross-platform (Office, anyone?)
Also, being cross-platform is a lousy tradeoff. Generally, cross-platforms apps are slow, have awkward user interfaces, are locked to the lowest common denominator of platform features, and similar. And the tradeoff - being able to run the same binary on multiple platforms - is worthless to the majority of users, since most of them only use one platform anyway, and those that don't would be perfectly capable of handling two binaries that apply to different platforms.
The only possible benefits are for programmers who can't be bothered to maintain their code for different platforms. In a commercial environment, users will not be prepared to trade away so many of their features to make things easy for the programmers. After all, they are trading away a fair amount of money in exchange for the programmer doing something hard. Sorry.
The belief that programmers will somehow be "forced" to write cross-platform software and so a Linux-available set of applications will become available by the "back door" is pretty ridiculous, too.
It's free, but is this really obvious to the casual-type user who's been described in a few previous posts?
:-)
How do people like this first hear about Linux? They casually surf over to Red Hat's web site, and they see a link that allows them to ORDER Linux.
The means by which a person acquires Linux for free are seldom obvious unless a lot of information is scrutinized. And even then, the methods are generally too complex for a causal Windows user to understand.
Linux advocates need to remember that casual computer people don't think in terms of a free and open Linux kernel packaged in distributions that are sold with support but can also be freely downloaded.
Casual computer people think of Red Hat Linux 7.1 costing $39.95 when they think of Linux. In other words, their perception of Linux as a whole is the size of a pinhead, and they don't realize what Linux purely is, and they don't realize that it can be acquired for free.
I think Linux advocates should start an organization that accepts donations. This organization would then use the donations to distribute an easy to use Linux distribution on a CD with a lot of information targeted at the casual computer user. The CDs would then be mailed for free to people across the country like AOL CDs are now.
The distribution would have to install from Windows without overwriting Windows, and it would have to be idiot proof yet still provide access to the "under-the-hood" features.
People would use it, and their natural curiosity would make them eventually discover what's under-the-hood, and they'd be proficient at and appreciative of Linux. And if they didn't have this curiosity: hey, they might still just decide to stick with it, and the Linux community would have just recruited another casual computer user.
In any case, I wouldn't mind a few Linux coasters mixed in with my AOL coasters.
I was a geek kid, like many other /. readers. For me it was complicated even more by being a gay kid as well. So finding worlds where I could be myself was a major liberation. I think much of the hatred spewed by flamers is actually pent up anger because after we all found a world where we could be safe, along come the masses...
The fact is anti-social behavior under any guise is wrong. The fact that you can hide behind a pseudonym doesn't excuse the behavior. Postings at f*ckedcompany are as bad as anything CmdrTaco mentions...
Way too many of us need serious therapy. Or better games. Vent your anger against a dragon, not some poor shmoo slogging away for a paycheck in the heart of a megacorp like HP.
For the record, being a geek doesn't force me to check my humanity at the door. The fact that CmdrTaco THINKS about our behavior is good. Any group should have voices that question prevailing mores. It is time for the juvenile attacks to stop before we lose all of our outlets (EfNet anyone?).
Not everyone lives in the USA.
Here he means the chodes like on Scottish Soccer Holligan Weekly.
True, perhaps, but (not to sound like anyone's mom) just because "everyone is doing it" is no excuse for us to do it.
Linux users are in the minority: all the more reason for us to strive to behave with civility - to counteract, not reinforce, the unconscious "being different is bad" attitude of the majority.
Linux users are [in the habit of thinking of themselves as] more intelligent than the average person: all the more reason to treat the average person with dignity and thoughtfulness - whether he seems to deserve it or not, because this actually is the best way to demonstrate one's [self-perceived] superiority.
There is a certain primitive allure to treating people like dirt to demonstrate that "no one can make me play nice". But it is a far greater display of autocratic power to voluntarily treat people well. (Yes, it's a strange sensation at first. I recommend that anyone trying it out for the first time should occasionally mutter "I could crush you like a BUG" to avoid becoming dizzy.)
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
A better person for running Linux? Why haven't the religious folks heard about this yet?
While running Linux may make you a better computer user, it won't make you better as a person.
From what I've seen, most Linux users are middle-class folks, obsesed with technology, and have enough of an income to afford a second machine to play with. These are precisely the people who think they are better than their white-bread neighbors because they drive a standard car rather than an SUV, or that they recycle (only generate three bags of trash a week) while their neighbors don't (4 bags a week).
Don't fall into the trap that the things you own make you a better person. Sure, there is the potential to do good things with Linux, such as put together a low-cost system for those who couldn't afford one, and who could benefit from exposure to technology. But it may be more beneficial to expose them to MS Office, so they can get a better job with those skills. Despite the bad guy image, the Gates Foundation has donated thousands of computers to libraries and schools so that disadvantaged people can get that exposure.
Sure, you got mad skillz because you can use Linux and your peers and relatives are stuck on Microsoft and AOL. But in the real world, having a tech job doesn't make you a better person, doesn't give you more political clout, and, in many cases, doesn't make you more important than the next guy.
I may have misrepresented your arguement, but I see a lot of adolescent ego in the Linux community, and I think we would be better off getting rid of it, or marginalizing it so that folks know that they don't speak for us. Religious wars over operating systems are one of those areas that make the business world question if Linux is ready for prime time, the end result being less drivers for cheap hardware.
I would wager that it says on the box that the scanner is designed to work with Windows. It might even say that it works with the Mac OS. I really doubt, however, that it claims Linux support, and I don't think it's reasonable to presume that such exists.
It would be just as reasonable to "return" Linux, since it doesn't work with the scanner, as it would be to return the scanner because it doesn't work with Linux.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
I applaud your viewpoint. Slashdot needs more people like you to express balanced, sane opinions.
For example, back a few years ago, a friend tried to install linux, and got stuck configuring X-windows and his mouse. He went on IRC to ask for help, and got about 15 people saying "RTFM!!!!" and telling him to go back to windows if he couldn't figure out how to set up X.
So he asked where to find the manual, since he had just downloaded slackware and didn't know where anything was, and nobody replied. He gave up.
I'm trying to get him to try Debian now, but i'm sure things like this have turned off many potential Linux users.
I go to a college where a large number of students use linux. It's just as common to see linux on someone's laptop as the "other" OS. But even here, there is a "holier than thou" attitude about linux in general. The people who use it (myself included) tend to think they are somehow better because of it. When people ask simple questions because everything in linux is new to them, the common reply is "RTFM!" or "go learn it yourself!". This attitude even extends to certain professors (who are probably reading this :) that would rather force you to buy a book than just tell you to do "ls -la" instead of "ls".
This reminds me of my school. I had a programming problem that needed to be solved. One of the more funky solutions would have been to use database so I went off to my schoold IRC channel to ask if we had any database software installed on the Linux machines. It took me 15 minutes to get a clear 'No' having gotten insulted and ridiculed before that.
I'm no expert on Linux, as matter of fact I just installed it during the spring. Now I have to upgrade the installation as my graphics card isn't supported with the RH 6.2 installation. I still haven't upgraded to RH 7.1 which should solve the problem. Why? Too much hazzle.
While I think that's fine if you are taking a class as a CS Major, the average user just can't put up with that crap. Their lives don't revolve around this stuff like ours do. The user ends up resentful because you made them feel stupid for asking. Why not try to help out your fellow users instead of shunning them just because they are lost? You aren't a BETTER PERSON because you installed your OS off of a debian CD than a windows CD. You are a BETTER PERSON because you took the time to help out someone.
I do support at a large international engineering company when I'm not studying at a project which concerns the whole company world wide. We are 4 guys who sit in one room. Me and another are technically more apt. The two others are more business and process oriented. We help out the two others by giving them advice and help them with problems they have. The only problem I have is that when I have answered the same question three times within 5 minutes, I feel like putting an axe through the guys computer. When I catch my self thinking in lines like this I usually just go and grab a cup of coffee (I drink a lot of coffee). Yes I know, he's not here for the tech. I am. He's here to get things rolling process and business wise. For him the tech is secondary.
This is also a matter of web culture. You can get so much for free these days that we immediately suspect anything with a digital price tag on it. Reluctant consumers make for a crappy demographic when you're trying to sell ad space. If it weren't for t-shirts, the independent Internet as we know it would cease to exist.
My biggest personal gripe is how people spell Microsoft. Its M-i-c-r-o-s-o-f-t, not Micro$oft, MicroShaft, Micro~1 and the one-hundred and one other variations.
You wouldn't like it if people started calling Linux, GPOO/Linsux. It looks childish, immature, stupid and above all it drops your own personal credibility and the credibility of what you're trying to advocate below the ground.
Just don't do it.
--
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
I disagree with this. There are idiots in every group of people and the open source community is no exception. There are completely clueless peopl e out there using windows stirring up just as much horse shit as the next group. Thats just my 2 cents.
- Hyperbolix
While I think that's fine if you are taking a class as a CS Major, the average user just can't put up with that crap. Their lives don't revolve around this stuff like ours do. The user ends up resentful because you made them feel stupid for asking. Why not try to help out your fellow users instead of shunning them just because they are lost? You aren't a BETTER PERSON because you installed your OS off of a debian CD than a windows CD. You are a BETTER PERSON because you took the time to help out someone.
I'm trying to put this whole philosophy into action. That's why I've set up the site in my sig. I don't want users to have to search for hours to find a program that gets the job done or find the command listed in some obscure man page. Most of the documentation avaliable for linux is useless to them because they don't understand the terminology involved. It's like telling someone to read a technical journal when what they want is the Popular Science version, because they aren't a professional like you and I.
Uninnovate - Only the finest in engineering.
Because Windows is already firmly entrenched, you must first win the hearts of the consumers before you can sway companies.
...and yes, I know this is off topic, and has probably been beaten to death, but the simple point is, as it stands, Linux simply isn't positioned to even try to break into the consumer market [which is largely due to M$ practices, and AFAIK is part of the definition of the crime they've been convicted of]
The problem here is the recursive nature of the issue. You say you must win the consumers to get the companies to follow, which is at least plausible. However, most consumers won't buy something that is unsupported or only supported by small name, unknown shops. So, in a sense, you have to win over the companies to sway the consumers. This is why the M$ monopoly is such an issue. If M$ were forced to open their API's other companies could start small, writing programs that have versions on both Windows and Linux, the get people comfortable with alternative applications and make the move to Linux a painless matter of saving some money and frustration.
-={(Astynax)}=-
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"
Since I began using Linux my life has turned around completely.
I lost 100 lbs and am now not in danger of keeling over at the age of 30.
My estranged wife and I have reconciled after a 3 yr separation.
I just got a 30% raise at work.
And finally, might cat now actually let's me pat it.
So, as I have clearly pointed out, Linux can make you a better person, or at least change your life!
"It's comin' back around again..." -RATM
Sorry... I should have said, "Vax Sux!"
However, quite a few people don't get it. Either they're too young to know anything else, or too immature to take a large view of things. These people are always the loudest, so it is assumed that they make up the bulk of that platform's user base, even if they don't.
This is a problem that has existed on every platform. (How many MAc zealots do you know?) However, it is even more of a problem for Linux because of the nature of Linux Development. Since Linux development depends (for the most part) on open code written by volunteers, the community is much more dependant on the good graces of software and hardware vendors to support Linux.
Mac developers only have to deal with Apple on a regular basis. (Of course, they may not be the most mature people either..). But Linux developers have to deal with the entire community, and the morons shout loudest. Many companies may decide that it's not worth listening to all the morons to find the one or two people who are really interested in working with them. Others may decide (as many people have done with the Mac) that since you can only hear the morons, the entire user base must (by default) be morons.
So I guess that this is a problem that won't go away, because it happens on every platform. But the open nature of the Linux community makes it much more visible. Let's hope that in the future, a rising Linux user base leads companies to want to ignore the morons, or at least just mod them down....
<rant relevance="marginal"> /etc tree inherited from RedHat and then tangled further, and with a network of low-quality software linked by dependencies. Low-quality because it is the latest, and that's what the newbie (and, I confess, me, before I learned better) wants to hear.
Mandrake Linux 8.0 has a pretty install program, a 'control panel' and the latest versions of all those must-have apps, and none of it works properly: the install program claims to support insalling from ISOs on a hard disk, but actually requires some tweaking in a spare VT to do that. The configuation tools within the system are hopelessly narrowly focussed, do not always achieve what they claim to, and are unstable. The 'latest' applications are development releases and are also often unstable.
I will concede that the Madrake install tools did set me up a basic graphical system with all my hardware supported much more quickly than with RedHat, and in not much longer than it took simply to get a booting text based system with the kernel version I wanted, etc. under Debian. But after all that, I end up with an unstable system that I'm going to have to fiddle with to get it to work the way I want it. No Linux newbie (yet) is so new to computers that they don't feel the need to play with the configuration options. So our newbie is left with a choice between learning to use BASH and Emacs or accepting system that is simply not going to be a comfortable to use as Windows.
But as a more experienced user, I should be able to fix the faults and get a stable, functional system, right?
Well of course, and the Linux From Scratch site would be very helpful. This is not a matter of the kernel, or of the configuration file for any given program. This is a problem with the way the distribution fits together, with the spaghetti
</rant>
Now, the point: /etc/sysconfig directory was born, and the scripts had to be written to detect all the possible setups a system might have, rather than just catering for the setup actually present.
Linux is open, so ultimately anyone can of course do what they want with it, but there comes a point where is ceases to be practical to do so. Add a few configuration tools and this point can be reached entirely too quickly.
Again, this is not a problem with the configuation tool that comes with a single program, for example Samba's SWAT. The problem comes when tools have to perform much more varied tasks, such as RedHat's Networking and Dialup tools. Some of the files these tools needed to work were on originaly simple shell scripts. Other system components expect them to be shell scripts. But a configuration tool cannot easily work on those, so the
In cases like this, a sensible 'power' configuration method and a sensible 'newbie' configuration method can be mutually exclusive! The situation could certainly be alleviated somewhat by 'normalising' the configuration mechanisms of the programs/libraries involved, but this is likely to lead to a loss of expressiveness and an increase in binary components in the configuration process.
Ultimately, I see no alternatives to a large-scale overhaul of the user space tools and libraries that make up the core of a linux system. Manual and tool-based configuration cannot coexist peacefully until a configuration method can be found that is as powerful as shell scripts, but comprehensible to a tool. Probably something involving inheritance and overriding...
As the popularity of Linux increases, a continually larger portion of the user base will be even less and less technical. It is these users who will be frustrated with lack of hardware support and other such issues, and will not be in a position to do much about it except vent at support reps. As Rob says, this is the drag on adoption by vendors. It isn't the developers who have made great contributions to Linux, that are the offenders here. It's those who lack either the motivation, or slikk to contribute to the development who see postings like 'Linux Driver Unavailable' and have no other recourse but to object loudly and sometimes offensively, that are at fault here.
It really is a catch-22. As the non-technical userbase of linux grows, the incidents of this sort of thing will become more frequent, and as these incidents become fore frequent, the hardware manufacturers will look at their cost benefit analysys and not bother withlinux, in turn reducing the speed of Linux adoption. At some point, however there will be an equilibrium reached, where the speed with which the userbase is growing, will become constant, and eventually the userbase will be of sufficient size to warrant development of Linux drivers for hardware, by vendors of that hardware. Infortunately, the progress to that end might be slowed to a snails pace by the type of behavior that Rob mentions. I disagree, however, that Linux will Never become mainstream. It's progress to that end will simply become extremely slow perhaps to the point where it's influence will become insignificant. I certainly hope this prediciton doesn't come to pass though...
--CTH
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
1 +h1|\|K Th4+ |-|4X0R sp34k m4K3S U K-R4d 31337!!! Ahh, the good old days of being 12.... mfkap
I think what's going on is that these peripheral vendors, for whatever reason, are trying to play the same lockin games that people like Microsoft and Apple play, probably trying to milk the developers for license fees.
That's an old game for peripheral manufacturers, and one that doesn't work so well any more. The video card people, the sound card people, the printer people, the scanner people -- they've all played that game in the past. Those were the bad-old-days, though, when every program came with a half dozen driver disks just to support your printer or sound card.
Since then, we've evolved into a standards-based commodity market for peripherals. (And I hate to say it, but MS kicked off this whole trend with Windows 3.1.) Basically every peripheral out there must conform to (more-or-less) open standards, such as TWAIN, DirectX, or the Win32 printing API. And it's considered the responsibility of the manufacturer to supply drivers which provide that conformance.
There are essentially no developers for the HP scanner outside of Hewlett-Packard itself. Similarly, there are practically no developers for the latest SB Live sound card outside of Creative, and with the exception of some game companies out there, there is nobody developing a thing for your latest 3D video card.
The developers working for the manufacturer have to write the driver software, so that all of the other developers in the world can work with their hardware without paying any license fees.
The reason these companies won't give you the specs for their hardware isn't that they're worried you'll actually write an application which uses it -- it's that their corporate culture, with 40+ years in the hardware vending business, tells them "don't give out the specs, it makes it easier for our competitors to duplicate it, or even extend it".
I agree with you, BTW, that this IP really isn't worth as much as they think it is. They would have a happier, and more loyal customer base if they were to give out the specs, so that we know we can always write our own drivers, even 20 years from now. They are screwing us over, by locking us in to their drivers, which they have no obligation to support on past, future, or alternate operating systems.
Living better through chemicals
Oh wait.....
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
let me see-- it is the single most common OS on web servers when counting per site according to Netcraft (Windows is more common when counting by server). It has made tremendous inroads into that industry.
Note that I have been using Linux for over two years and have seen immense improvement in the end user experience (RH5.1 is the oldest distro I have worked with, RH7.1 and SuSE 7.1 are the most recent but I have also worked with versions of Slackware and Debian). PnP and USB support are both becoming more powerful and user friendly in the system level (not only talking the kernel here).
Microsoft's current model of selling large ammounts of proprietary software is not sustainable, and Microsoft top execs know it. This is why they need to move to a subscription model. And it is why open source software like Linux will become mainstream in the end user market (it has been common in the server market for some time).
Sig: Warning The following may be illegal under the DMCA (rot-13 decoder):
ABCDEFGH I J KLM
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I have to say that 110db isn't that loud. I can hit 140db. but i do have enough respect to turn it down when i'm driving through a residential area at night. I just wish that they would have the same respect for me when i'm sleeping in the middle of the day cause i work 3rd shift, but instead they mow their lawn, blast their radio, and allow their kids to scream and run around. wait....thats unreasonable, isn't it. asking someone to be quiet during their normal day, from 10am-9pm. hmmm, i sleep from 9am-5pm. my normal day is from 5pm until 9am. so is it fair to ask me to turn down my stereo, or not ride my atv during my normal day? but i still turn down my stereo, because I know what it's like to be woken up while i'm asleep. and i have enough respect to not do that to others.
Pseudocode is code to demonstrate a concept, not designed to be run. Like certain M$ software.
Some things should be hard or impossible to use unless you are fully coherent and concentrating on the job, because the consequences of fscking up are so severe.
A car SHOULD be (but isn't) hard enough to start and get out of the driveway that a drunk or drug-impaired driver can't do it. An airplane generally is that hard to start.
Several years ago I was higher than a kite from (legally prescribed) Vicodin painkillers, and yet was still able to turn on the computer, point-and-click through AOL, and post to my favorite newsgroup informing them that I was smashed off my ass. That experience convinced me that point-n-click interfaces are for utter morons; I certainly was a temporary moron at the time. It shouldn't be that easy to post to an international newsgroup, or send e-mail, or anything else that affects the world outside your own residence.
A computer hooked to the internet SHOULD require some concentration and understanding to use.
p.s. I don't let my doctor prescribe me Vicodin any more, either.
---dragoness
I agree that Linux requires some more understanding to use at this point in time than Windows (although this is changing everyday thanks to distros such as Mandrake).
However, I think the usability issue can only be part of the problem.
Consider Apple, for example. Apple introduced the whole user-friendly/GUI revolution to begin with, and is still arguably just as, if not more, user-friendly than Windows.
But Apple has a relatively small share of the market relative to Windows. Granted, much of this may result from the way hardware is bundled with the OS, but still--if most users didn't care, and were only interested in usability, you would think Apple would have a bigger share.
I personally think there many other issues at hand besides usability, especially availability. The average user isn't dumb, and would probably be relatively happy with any of OS X, Linux, or Windows. They're using it because its what's most available. It's most available because of MS monopoly. This monopoly drives vendors/developers to Windows, which drives availability, etc. It's a vicious circle of availability.
Its not that users just want to point and click, it's that they just want to go the local mall or whatever and get their new computer.
Availability will trump everything until something pushes them to do otherwise, like privacy concerns or forced upgrade cycles.
She (Dragoness Eclectic) did admit to doing a dumb thing. She said:
Several years ago I...was still able to turn on the computer, point-and-click through AOL, and post to my favorite newsgroup
There. She admitted to using AOL to post to newsgroups. She's a braver person than I am. Had I been using AOL, I would have just claimed to be doing something less embarassing at the time -- like pleasuring the dog while listening to N'Sync.
I couldnt have said it better myself.
wow now i've seen it all!
----------
www.shockthemonkey.org
Photos.
Well, I hate taking quotes directly from your post, FFFish, because it will then seem like I am dissecting your opinions and individually shredding them. That is not my intent, and I can only hope you understand that, as I am going to cite from you, simply because it will make more sense to the readers.
...the assholes with their 110dB subwoofer ripping through residential neighbourhoods at 2AM.
It's part of the 'going to hell in a handbasket' problem we've got going in this society.
Sort of. You see, that 'phenomenon' does not exist, or at least not as far as I can tell. I would be very interested if you can show one way society is 'going to hell.' And Taco's does not count, as I shall show later. You see, for whatever reason, we illogical humans think that today is worse than yesterday. "Oh the times, oh the morals" as Cicero said. You see, they ain't. There was teenage pregnancy in the 50's, 60's, 70's, and etc, just as today. There were divorces, JUST as common as today, stretching into the very, very distant past. People stole, murdered, and were rude and hateful to one another for as long as humanity has been around. Allright, fine for me to say this, show me proof, since I am the one postulating. Very well, my proof is This Book by one Richard Shenkman. Read it, it's enlightening.
The root cause seems to boil down to one thing: a lot of people these days are out for #1, and don't give a fuck for the consequences that affect others.
Hello ladies and gentlemen, welcome to life. All life, human or otherwise, is governed by the rules of evolution (except in certain states, see your local laws for details). In evolution, we have this thing called survival of the fittest. Therefore, if you are not fit, you don't survive. How are you fit? By looking out for yourself first, and everyone else last. And I mean everyone else. Now we humans like to think we're above that sort of thing, but it's awfully damn hard to just drop a few couple billion (OK, I exaggerate) years of evolution. That means that although we are social animals, and work in groups, we still look after ourselves first and everything else last.
Yes, they are annoying, aren't they? Well, don't worry, at least there're people to get under his skin, too, just like he gets under ours.
Perhaps it's because they're so powerless in every other aspect of their lives. Between their boss and the government, they can't fart without permission. So they take out their frustrations by pissing off everyone else. Maybe that's it.
If you're powerless, it's because you let yourself be. Every day your life is filled with decisions, and you will make those decisions, even if your choice is to not choose, you are still choosing. If you don't like your life, start making different choices. The government makes a convenient scapegoat, and we all need one of those, don't we (see point two)? But scapegoating solves nothing, and that is something which I hope should be self-evident.
Bottom line, at any rate, is that it's time for the nice guys to put their foot down and demand better from others. Don't like the behaviour you see? Don't be a milquetoast -- stand up and demand better!
A CD from iTunes: $10 A Song from iTunes: $0.99 Not paying a cent to Microsoft: Priceless
This post is more about people's attitude rather than the tech support thing.
I see this kind of flamethrowing almost on every forum on the net. Especially if it involves technical stuff, people are so easy to get angry and use bad language and attitude. And the thing is, some of them don't even realize it. It's just too easy to stay in front of the screen and release your worst frustrations, since there is little feedback for self-control.
The same thing goes on with e-mail, it's all soo easy for people to missunderstand an email, it's scary.
This demonstrates how far Linux still is from the mainstream. CmdrTaco was able to boot up Windows and use his scanner, but most users want to run only one OS. The average home user isn't going to migrate to Linux, then keep a spare Windows machine or partition around just in case of a fsck up.
As far as most users are concerned, the main advantage of Linux is that it's free (as in beer). But If you have to buy Windows anyway, s/he will ask, why not just run that instead?
It says it all:5 89/1/
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/opinions/3
Nobox: Only simple products.
Get on IRC, either Undernet or DALnet and go into #linux and #linux help. Also choose a gender neutral or male nickname unless you want to be constantly harrased and not taken seriously. Its up to you.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Linux is cheap and works so well that I often try to buy inexepensive hardware to go with it. Usually works, sometimes doesn't. Them's the breaks.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
to the 50 or so people that have explained what "31337 h4x0r" means....
That message is encoded using "h 4 x 0 r - 5 p 3 4 |<" technology, which is a trademark (tm) of RSA Labs, Inc. Decoding the message is a violation of the DMCA and you will be prosecuted accordingly. Explaining the encoding scheme is another crime in and of itself, and charges will be filed regarding that act as well.
Incedentally, this message is encoded in ROT-26 and any attempt to decrypt it will also be investigated.
___
___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
There is a group of people who are attempting to put some pressure on hardware manufacturers in that time honored tradition, a petition. The petition is short, to the point, and does not throw insults. There is also a way to add hardware manufacturers to the list of potential recipients.
People who would actually use the phrase "should he be allowed to live?"
Just because you are nice, doesn't mean that you are going to be stepped on. I work in a call center, and if the person who calls me and is nice, I will be nice back and help them out. (even bending the rules if I need to) On the other hand, if the person has an attitude problem, I will make sure that all the rules are followed to the letter and if they don't have everything, they have to call back.
So climate's changing. So what? It has always changed. The big news would be if it wasn't changing. - Dr. Philip Stone
110db wouldn't be very loud.
:)
I'd say they're at least 120, and if it rattles your house from a hundred yards or so it's 140db+
So I've begun using Linux Mandrake at home. Is it the best at any one thing? Probably not. Does it do lots of things pretty well. Yes. Is it hard to learn? Yes, I think so. I don't want to have to switch, because Linux is a niche market. But I also don't want to be treated like a moron by the 'other' company selling the most popular OS right now, so see ya later MS! Maybe if they can win back my support by once again showing me some respect, as well as respect for everyone out there, then maybe I'll switch back. But going forward, I'll take difficult over disrespected.
P.S. Disrespect for what your users want will make a big difference in the end. Smith & Wesson paid attention to what some politicians and special interests groups wanted, gun locks on all new guns, but their actual customers didn't want such a thing. Guess which gun manufacturer is having the worst time selling their products now, despite their long-standing reputation for quality products for the 'masses'...
Don't they have a return policy? Seems to me if it doesn't work return it. Much better than FUD about how Linux will never be accepted by the masses.
What is pirate software? Software for inventory of stolen treasure?
do what I do: go check for that "red x of failure" before shelling out the cash, and buy one that's supported. For example I'm in the market for a cd writer and I was planning to use clonecd. I've spent some time cross-referencing the supported writers and in what mode they can write with the price lists of my local computer shops. Bottom line: you should have done some research first.
Reading your rant I kinda lost where "HP employees are asshole" became "Linux won't ever be mainstream". At some point when Linux gets big enough people will have access to the specs soon enough to have the drivers out at around the time the products hit the shelves.
5 = s 8 = b Maybe?
I personally see no reason why those who participate in these fora fail to recognize that the other participants are people like themselves who would appreciate a little common courtesy and a modicum of respect.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
From what I hear about XP, I'd think that more people would want to convert to Linux. I wouldn't want to get stuck in a payment scheme with Micro$oft. Would you?
It's all about the money.
As long as Linux is free.... it's more than a small threat as a mainstream OS.
Cockmasters
Maybe Terrance and Phillip shouldn't be our PR people.
Blame Canada!
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
If you read this book, you will begin to understand why Linux will always be that 3rd place contender -- loyal user base forever, I'm sure, but it will be very difficult for it to pop up to #2 and #1 is just about an impossibility.
I'm proud of all the geeks who have spent countless hours in their passionate pursuit of an OS and a software library that Is For The People and Owned By The People.
Unfortunately, in the world of Capitalism, such idealism and passion really doesn't equate to much of anything when it comes to Market Share.
Keep on truckin, Linux geeks.. I'll be rootin for ya. I'll keep my Linux geek box/server and my other little Linux firewall forever, I'm sure.. On my desktop, It's still W2K for now and the forseeable future.
--
$ chown -R us:us yourbase
I have to agree wholeheartedly. It's the idiots that give the scene a bad name (and by scene, I primarily mean linux but that can be pretty much anything). These are the people that demand massive tax cuts for no reason or who still think you can revive Aeris (random FF7 reference) in the Japanese version. Whatever you do there are people who feel that they need to "vent" in a much less civil manner than our good author.
Gotta love democracy. Everyone gets a say, even those who by all logical argument shouldn't.
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
OK, so we've got: 0 = o
1 = l
2 = ?
3 = e
4 = a
5 = ?
6 = ?
7 = t
8 = ?
9 = g
Is that right? Also I'm assuming i = 33. What else is there?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ now you know
Thanks everyone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ now you know
I was hoping someone would catch that :-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ now you know
I think if people would just ask in a civil way for the opportunity to write a linux driver then HP would comply, because they don't want to lose customers, just like anybody else out there. Also did you try to use the configuration of an earlier version of the scanner? I know with printers that sometimes works... PS - What does that code mean in: "I'm talking about the 31337 h4x0r kids with the bad attitude"... I've seen it on this site before but I'm confused as to what it is, is it ROT-13 or something?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ now you know
Don't you think this would become just like the interpretation of the Bible by your typical U.S. looney christian, where they quote sections out of context to justify their whacko views.
Just look at what the NRA does with the "right to bear arms" amendment. Imagine the political fights over the texts to be taught in schools. Even here we are seeing a fight about the religious beliefs of the founding fathers which would clearly lead to conflicting interpretations of the meaning of the constitution.
Also, George Bush presents himself as a Christian, as does Clinton. Is churchgoing for the cameras such a new phenomenon ? If they really are religious then it could be overrated as a leadership quality.
Computers are going to take the same road. They started off large and mostly incomprehensible, then were used for specialized projects. They are on the verge of becoming ubiquitous, and soon will disappear into the background. Constantly there, but not drawing attention to themselves.
When was the last time you were flamed over the company that makes the electric motor that starts your car?
I think you have made a couple very good points, particularly about the customer base. We have seen this time and time again from companies, particularly game developers and those with close relationships with MS. Many times gaming companies will quote statistics by other's experiences with linux games and say that "based on previous research, we have decided not to support linux." Although some developers (Dynamix, ID Software, and of course Loki) have started to move away from this trend, the majority have not not. I think that in the future we will see more of these companies move toward linux if for no other reason than being tired of MS.
There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and BSD. We don't believe this to be a coincidence.
"I either want less corruption, or more chance
to participate in it." -- Ashleigh Brilliant
They don't release for Non-MS because there is no MONEY there.
Start your own hardware company if you don't like it.
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. The person supplying the product does not have to customise to suit your needs. If the product does not meet your needs, BUY SOMETHING ELSE.
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
I've seen this kind of flame-fest ever since I started using the internet. Take usenet as an example. Outside of pr0n, I'd say more than half the posts in many unmoderated technical newsgroups are childish chatter. People call each other nasty stuff and say stupid things all the time. I think it's probably the whole anonymity of the experience. I'm certain that most of those people wouldn't use language like that to someone's face.
However, I don't think this is what stands in the way of more companies accepting and adopting Linux. One must hope that 1) people are less nasty in direct communications with companies like HP, and 2) that if employees are reading such mindless chatter, they realize that this is typical of the internet and not reflective of only Linux users. Instead, I think what prevents some companies from fully embracing Linux is customer base. If my company makes a computer product, and only 1% of all interested users say they would like to use my product with Linux, why should I bother to support it? Because Windows is already firmly entrenched, you must first win the hearts of the consumers before you can sway companies.
GreyPoopon
--
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Gee wow, Slashdot Story "People are arseholes".
And here I was thinking that "RMS talks about benefits of free software" was as glib as a Slashdot story could get.
I'm waiting with baited breath for "Ask SLashdot: Where do Babies come from?"
For my opinion on the debate, read the quote below.
--"Shared joy is increased; shared pain is lessened. Thus we refute entropy." - Callahan's Place.
-- This post is about truth, beauty, freedom, and above all things, Karma
Several distributions have done what you are calling "dumb down" of the OS. That is, they made the install in such a way that even my wife thinks it's pretty cool. ie SUSE, the SUSE install is all graphical, the LILO boot screen has the cool penguin. I bought her the penguin for Christmas without any explanation, so she is so impressed that it is on the boot screen now! For my machine I did not have to go into any config files to get a completely working system. (I had checked to make sure all my HW was compatible for this very purpose) This point did far more to convince my wife that Linux is more than some text based game I play with for hours then anything I have ever said.
Is the SUSE version of Linux "dumbed down"? I looked very hard at the Kernel source and it appears to still be just as "smarted up" as ever. Am I missing something? I went into the text configuration files and they all appear to still be just as "smart" as ever. When I put on the scroll mouse I was still able to go into the text config file and enable it with KDE.
Here is a distribution that was dumbed down pretty successfully, but I (a somewhat expert user, ran a text only system for 8 years) was still able to get into the "smart" text config files and do what I want. From what I understand, this is the case with all the "dumb" distributions. Give me root access and a terminal and I can be just as "smart" with any distribution.
I used FreeBSD and Linux before that. now I have XP. *shudders*
Screw 3...
Linux doesn't support my internal alcatel NIC. Do I scream at alcatel for it? No. They are under no obligation to write the drivers, especially when it's costing them money to do so. Benefits aren't necessarily going to come out of them, so... why bother?
Corporations are under no obligation. Do your homework before you get a product. It's that simple.
If you fsck up, well... use windows. it won't kill you.
Screw 3...
Good point. But going from "forums are a little mean to the people of HP" to: "Linux will never be mainstream" is an entirely different manner.
Linux WILL BE MAINSTREAM just because it is a kick ass operating system. Not because linux geeks behave talk nice to the people of Hp...
This is the way people are. Calling for a change is really somewhat useless. You reach millions of people and give them an opportunity to post anonymously with no chance of direct confrontation. (Drop 'Casablanca' in a conference room at HP with real people right in front of them- you wont get that nonsense) And you get stuff like that.
But the positives outway the negatives so I think that the smart focus is on ways to minimize the impact these people have.
Yesterday someone complained about all the "FP" posts. The reply was to set filters higher. Now that really made sense. Let the kids play FP games, mod them down and let others read what matters.
You can't get rid of the lowest common denominator- so find ways to get around them.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Oh, Windows is being blamed too, doesn't mean it isn't mainstream... :-|
</sarcasm>
Maybe the fact that somebody is being offensively blamed for not supporting Linux is actually a sign of Linux actually going mainstream, instead of a cause for not going mainstream? People start to expect Linux drivers the same way they expect Windows drivers.
There is absolutely no reason to panic.
David Duncan Scott wrote:
:P. You are correct, it does say on the box that it works with Windoes and Mac OS and does not say it supports linux. Howevber, it does say it has both USB & SCSI-2 interface. I was after the SCSI works. It's a nice peice of hardware ... 36-bit Internal color with 42-bit color output.
.. Last weekend my emissions coil went belly up while I was travelling. The only auto shop open (on Saturday) happened to be a Chevy dealership. I have a Pontiac Grand-Am. The Chevy dealer replaced my coil (to the tune of $500.00) and although I felt it was a ripoff, I was on my way again. Now I don't know shit about car mechanics, but I wondered what ever happened to the good old-fashioned *detect the problem and fix it yourself* carborator? I'm guessing car manufacturers are going with the same attitude as Microsoft and Mac --- People are too stupid to troubleshoot and fix things themselves so we'll make it easier for all and create stupid-proof machines. We'll also charge off-the-wall prices for the machines and the support as well. That's another reason why it's NOT *reasonable* for me to take Linux back.
I would wager that it says on the box that the scanner is designed to work with Windows. It might even say that it works with the Mac OS. I really doubt, however, that it claims Linux support, and I don't think it's reasonable to presume that such exists.
You had to make me pull out the box didn't you
It would be just as reasonable to "return" Linux, since it doesn't work with the scanner, as it would be to return the scanner because it doesn't work with Linux.
I'd return Linux (and get my $2.00 back) in a heartbeat if I could find a *reasonable* alternative.Mac is out of the question and I can't afford, nor do I want a quick and easy OS that doesn't offer the option to troubleshoot and fix beyond a point n click ---power PC. So Linux is not only the most *reasonable* solution for me, but it provides me with everything I want and need to run on my sucky PII and still be current with technology. It also provides a stable and fast OS for my two dollars and all the support I need if I'm willing to dig for it instead of dialing 1-900-Microcrap or whatever number Gateway provides.
If I buy a Chevrolet part and and it doesn't fit my Ford, is it a defective part?
Actually you probably could buy a Chevy part and have it work on your Ford considering the almost universal assembly line parts protocol of late. Example
This post couldn't be closer to the truth. It's a completely different way of seeing things from their perspective. This is nothing more than an appliance to them and they want it to work. Not for "200+" days but for a few hours at a time and when they are done with it they turn it off and go do something else. I think it's called "a life" but I'm not sure. For them it's not a crusade or a belief. It's like using the toaster. It's like turning the TV on and off. From their perspective why would or should it be anything else?
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Well, I guess they would make W2k drivers before Linux drivers, but as they haven't even gotten around to do just that, it's not very surprising there aren't any Linux drivers.
yeah football violence puts me off going down villa park these days, though the rather poor team we got these days doesn't exactly help ;)
i think there are a lot of people out there who lacked attention when they were growing up.
It will be a more well spent time to give help to build a device driver than to spend time flaming HP or others.
HP will probably release the specs if they see a more direct lobby to it. Not insults or flames.
------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
because...?
------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
That's like telling a person to go buy a Ferrari when they bought a Geo Metro instead.
It's pretty obvious that you don't know much about cars. The Nissan Maxima has as much room as a Ford Tarus and more than a Chevy Malibu, I should know, because i own a 2000 Nissan Maxima SE; the Maxima doesn't ever come out and try to compete with a car the size of a Licoln Town car. What it does compete with is the Grand Prix, Grand Am, Malibu, Montecarlo, V6 Camaro, etc. The Maxima has 222 horsepower and really embodies in SE form or 227 hp in 20th Anniversary itteration. Coupled with a limited slip differential and four doors the Maxima is far superior to the other cars I mentioned (I've raced my friend in his new V6 Camero and won so I can attest to the last matchup personally. American cars don't share the fit and finish of Japanese, British, German, or Italian car makers. American cars may be becoming more reliable, but this is only because they began losing business to other car makers. As for the comparison with the T100 and 85 GMC. Toyota stopped making them a few years back and replaced it with the Tundra. Where the Tundra lacks in horsepower difference and towing, it makes up in safety. If you believe nothing that I say in this article, at least believe this. On Dateline several weeks back they had a segment on pickup crashtest. Among the Toyota, General Motors, Ford, and Dodge pickups tested the Tundra was the only truck to pass. Think about that the next time you climb into your large pickup and realize that it's nothing more than a cardboard box with a large engie.
The only thing that having somebody else's specs does is let you see how, in high-level terms, they made it work. But nowadays, most of this is publicized (eg. nVidia improved memory bandwidth on the GeForce3 with a crossbar memory controller). So all that it boils down to is the ability to make cards that are 100% compatible, but not identical.
But any engineer will tell you that there are always things they would like to do different. So, while a new feature ("framebuffer blit engine" for older video features, for exxample) would be cloned by everybody if the word of it existing got out (and it got out fast, and was subsequently cloned, so now virtually all video cards have one of these), the implementations will almost always be different.
And it's always easier to hire 5 engineers than 1 good reverse-engineer, and reverseing takes a lot more effort (around 100x for some cases, meaning more staff).
I should point out here that reverse-engineering software (IE the drivers) is actually much simpler than hardware, although still challenging at best. In most cases, this is what happens, the actual competitors dismantle the drivers to see how it works, so really it doesn't protect them any.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
"You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox h" - That sounds like something I've heard... but I don't know where I might have heard that. Could you please give me some information as to where you acquired this text?
Well, it doesn't work that way. "Good" things don't come together that much. If a person is skilled at one thing, that doesn't imply that they're any good at an unrelated task.
It is amazing how quickly we forget. It was the innovation of the GUI that began to make computers accessible to the masses. Before the GUI you could only use a computer if you invested the time to figure out how it worked and what commands to use/avoid.
GUI enabled WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) to finally come of age. For the first time we could literally show the admin assistants (secretaries) why they should give up their typewriters. I still remember the look of sheer delight on the face of the first secretary I taught to use a word processor instead of her typewriter.
The more user-friendly computers become, the more people they become accessible to. The less time you have to invest in learning to use the tool, the faster you reap the benefits of the tool.
For Linux to reach the mainstream and have a hope of replacing Windows on the desktop, it has to evolve to the point where a user can install it and begin working without having to research how to do it.
Linux packagers have to develop an install interface that asks if you want a default or custom installation. The default installation has to configure the system to a reasonable level of security and optimization. Install and configure the standard applications. And load directly to a GUI. All without asking the user much more than their name.
Until we reach that level of automation, users and PC makers alike will stay with the easy choice.
Lord Slade