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A Visual Comparison Between XP And Mandrake
Mifflesticks points to this interesting "visual comparison" between Mandrake 8.0 and Windows XP. Even though it's specifically a visual / aesthetic comparison, this piece actually sums up the good things about XP -- good device detection, multiple users set up from the install, improved network configuration -- better than anything else I've seen. The conclusion seems to be that anyone who's set up a modern Linux distro (Mandrake in particular) on supported hardware would find nothing too new in XP.
Sheesh yeah! I forgot about telnet not being installed. *COME ON!* It's still Linux - home user or not, leave telnet in there! That's as bad as MS saying they're getting rid of the DOS window - hide it, maybe, but don't completely get rid of it! :)
creation science book
I remember the days when Excel did not own the spreadsheet market, and they actually has a "pretend to be Lotus 1-2-3" mode.
You could do a lot of things in Excel using Lotus 1-2-3- commands in those days.
Now thats how you get users to migrate!
I think Linux should borrow a page from Microsoft's book there. With all the window managers out there, getting one of them to behave like m$-windoze is not such a bad idea.
Live today. Tomorrow will cost a lot more!
mandrake (from e not the dist) was working on something like this (i.e way more powerful) a while ago...
And, yes, I've run linux on the desktop for months at a time in the past, so I'm not a newbie and I do have a good sense of how usable the system is going to be for me in the long run based upon playing with it for a few hours
I'm sorry, but thats just crap. "A few hours" isn't long enough. You've used it "in the past"? How long ago was that? If it was a year ago or more, then "a few hours" isn't enough, because the system has changed a lot in the past year. You need "a few hours" just to orient yourself. I know - I've been using Linux for seven years, and I needed more than "a few hours" just to figure out where things were etc what shortcut keys were etc when I installed Mandrake 8 the other day. It takes "a few hours" just to start to learn all the shortcut keys for the various apps and WM, and to start to configure the file managers to open the applications that I like for various file types. It sounds more to me like you spent a few hours on it, got frustrated because not all the shortcut keys were the same as in Windows, and gave up. Use it for a week - anything less is simply NOT ENOUGH to make any FAIR judgments on. "A few hours" is not a fair chance by any means.
Something I've learned lately - "not being a newbie" on Linux doesn't mean all that much, specifically if the limit of your patience is only a few hours - Linux systems are changing rapidly, and it takes a bit of time (a few days) to adjust to a new version. This can perhaps ironically be regarded as a shortcoming, because things are not where people expect them to be when they install a new version - with new versions of Windows, normally not that much has changed, so its easy to reorient yourself. If your own personal patience limit for learning things is only "a few hours", don't blame it on Linux, just stick to systems you already know, i.e. Windows.
The geeks will always design for geeks, which is all well and good, but don't go saying that Microsoft products are playing catch up to Linux in ease of use. That's just ridiculous :)
Quite honestly, I've used Mandrake now for more than just "a few hours", and I've seen a number of clever, user-friendly features that have had me thinking to myself "Microsoft would do good to copy this". Its not so far-fetched at all. Compare how much Linux has changed over the last six years, then compare how much Windows has changed over the last six years - its abundantly clear which one is evolving much more rapidly than the other.
I'm using XP at work to test our software on. Let me state that XP offers VERY FEW stability or power enhancements over Win2K. The added "features" are purely user interface enhancements, which translates into sluggish performance. It's included firewall is weak (allows microsoft programs full access, so anyone can easily write a trojan that works as an explorer plugin)
As a developer, I've turned off all the user interface enhancements (fading menus, animations, anti-aliasing, etc) for optimal performance, and the result is, a slightly slower Win2000.
Furthermore, the biggest turnoff from XP is that it "calls home". Turn on Zone Alarm or Tiny Personal Firewall, and watch while screensavers try to connect to microsoft.com. Why? I don't know, presumably to send information about the system.
Win2000 is a rock-solid OS; It's stable, easy-to-use, looks good, and most importantly it's fast. XP looks a little nicer, runs a lot slower, and calls home; don't use it if you prefer speed or anonymity.
I have noticed over the years that what you are paid is not necessarily what you are worth. A skilled amin may actually be cheaper than the FUD spreading "Uber-Admin" who just got his MCSE and is demanding 70k a year. The question is if your organisation already has an admin that is capable, then it may make good financial sense to jump to Linux.
To be honest this descion will require some thought and a good deal of review. It's NOT a panecea!! and I'm not suggesting it is for everyone. BUT I am finding more and more Linux users and admins hiding in cubicles all over the place ;)
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Well, just remember that when someone posts a personal attack anonymously.
That attack will be taken with a grain of salt and the post will have the weight of a feather.
If someone has something CONSTRUCTIVE to say and is not afraid of confrontation, then I'm sure that they'll post using their REAL HANDLE as I have on this board FOR YEARS.
There are a couple of minor inconveniences (like if you connect via dialup and then connect to a LAN/ethernet, the LAN is ignored), but linux distros have a lot of catching up to do.
Telnet is only insecure once you start using it from remote locations (outside your LAN), and even then the security problems have been a bit overstated. Unless you're telnetting from work or something, generally the only people who will be able to read your sekr1t plain-text password are ISP netadmins and the like, who almost never care. If you're telnetting from an untrusted location, key-loggers would be far more likely than packet-sniffers, to which SSH would be just as susceptible.
I mean don't get me wrong: I use SSH whenever possible (mostly because I'm too lazy to type in my username, heh). But if I come across a place where only telnet clients are available (as is the case at many public access terminals) I don't freak out about it, and I'm glad I have telnetd running. I've been telnetting home from public places for over 3 years and never had any troubles caused by it. Actually I'd be more worried about things like FTP, POP3 and IMAP than I would about Telnet (yes, there are secure versions of those, too, but no one uses them).
Anyway, I think distros should come with telnetd. Maybe not enabled. I don't see any reason for them to have ANY Internet services enabled, but telnet is handy and should be easily available.
which user has access to the sound card?
Whichever one has permission to read/write to the device.
-- iCEBaLM
cavemanf16 --
I can't think of any reason I'd particularly want XP even if I was into Windows.
Completely agreed with you that under the surface (and in the development model, philosophy etc) that XP is full of privacy problems, untouchable code and general hassle anyhow, but that's just not what this article addressed.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
doesn't windows XP strip out the command line part? (kind of like losing 40% functionality, isn't it?)
In other words, despite all the FUD, marketing, and anti-competitive crap BillCo is engaged in, they're getting their User Interface pretty-damn near perfect in terms of usability.
Then why can't I use it?
I have a much easier time getting work done on Debian/Ximian. I depend on the command line, intelligent placement of user-settings, solid home-directory-scheeme, virtual desktops, and good focus-follows-mouse.
Windows XP is a HUGE improvement compared to Win9x. The UI is a lot better - and no, I don't mean in terms of looking cool - I mean it in terms of being usable - the way things are organized, etc.
Fully agree with you there; though I think Win2000 does everything that's needed; IMO XP provides the "coolness" factor that I don't want.
I'm using XP Professional on all my Win2K boxes right now and the major things I notice are reliability, not having to reboot every time I install anything and ease of use.
Actually I didn't think about that; That's true, XP can install drivers w/o rebooting. I haven't had to install drivers in a -long- time, so missed that.
The thing I notice most on my laptop is how fast the damn thing boots or resumes from standby. It makes it a whole heck of a deal more convenient to take my laptop to meetings, etc. The other big difference between Win2K Pro and WinXP Pro is remote access. It's awfully convenient for me to work on my desktop at work from home.
Never used either of those, (don't have a laptop, and used Radmin for remote access)...
but you've given some truly good points...thanks
and moderators, mod this up (the parent) please
Your point is well made. However, the UIs that you listed each represent a paradigm shift in usability. Each interface was incrementally perfected until the next style of interface was available.
So as for the 2D window-based GUI, it is reaching the 'pinnacle' of usability. And we need to be prepared for a paradigm shift to a new style of interface, that none of us can conceive of yet.
(At least we can hope it's not than 3D hallway thing from Microsoft Research)
I've actually had more problems with Linux than with Windos. Of course, on windos someone else figured out what all the settings should be, and all I had to do was put them in and reboot.
But Linux has a lot of trouble talking to Novell as a client. Or at least I've had a lot of trouble just trying to get it to do that. No success yet. Which means no file sharing, no printing, etc.
Rebooting is a big pain, but it doesn't compare with just not getting it to work. (It's especially annoying just now, since there's been a firewall change, and now KMail won't send e-mail, though it receives it fine. But Mozilla will do both. And I haven't been able to either logic my way through it or random path through. What does Mozilla do that KMail doesn't?)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Is the fact that WinXP is based on a microkernel implemented so poorly that it's being used as a monolithic kernel by the OS.
WinXP's use of raw IP socket's is another nightmare in the making not to mention the fact that XP has copied interface features from various other OSs. Nothing new there of course.
Also funny I find that as a former employee of Microsoft, there are current Microsoft employees trolling here. Why? We didn't do that when I was there 1990-1994.
Have things changed that much?
HAHAHAHA!!! Yeah... Couldn't get the screen shot function to work in the install mode. ;)
No, not quite...
:)
Because then the sister (who has obviously studied up on Linux) just hits ctrl-alt-F7 and gets to brother's windows, closes his transfers, signs him up for porno lists, etc
Dan
ls:
(A)bort, (R)etry, (I)gnore?
You mean like aRts on Linux/Unix?
Trust me...
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals
I've been testing XP extensively for my software company since Beta 1, and at this point (RC2), it is very close to replacing 2K as the OS on my windows box. Your points are totally right, but you miss a couple. First, the OS boots a lot faster. My main windows box is much faster than the test box running XP (athlon 700 vs k6-400) and yet it takes a full 27 secs longer to boot than the slower box running XP. Big deal, I know, but everything about the OS seems much faster to me-- application launch, ui responsiveness, disk access. Second, XP seems much more stable. While Win2k is definitely the most stable released OS from microsoft, I've definitely had a few crashes on it. Yet since installing RC1, I've had 0 crashes on the XP box. While not quite scientific, I've had to use to XP enough by now that I'm almost convinced I'll be upgrading to it because it is already far ahead (or so it seems to me ;) of Win2k in the exact things that made me go from Win98 to Win2k in the first place-- speed and stability.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
So far I've installed the following games on my WinXP box:
Unreal Tournament
Quake III Arena
Crimson Skies
Black & White
Half Life
Falcon 4.0
I've had no issues with any of them, beyond a video driver issue with B&W that was known beforehand. I haven't even had to invoke explicit compatibility mode to get these to work out of the box, although the games are a mix of Win98/Win2K compatible.
Just thought I'd share that.
Terry
no that's actually not what i'm trying to say, i went to american schools. my problem is with ebonics language that teens use, the day that i accept "ghetto" as a adjective is the day i hang myself with electrical wires! I'm conserned that post on slashdot uses ebonics to express their thoughts, because this site is not only read by moron teens who follow the trends. older people or people in other country who read slashdot may not understand or appreciate the kinda language. some Jewish grandmother is probably having a heart attack somewhere in germany seeing the word "ghetto" used to describe fucking software.
They are both really awesome, I use both.
Your example is way off base anyway. Brother is going to tell sister to take a hike, and sister is just not going to want brother reading her email. Too bad for sister, MSIE will continue to cache that mail where brother, or anyone local or remote for that matter, will be able to read it.
If they were really co-operative they would set up some scripts to su and call various applications, then put links on the desk top.
call bash
su sister
netscape -mail (or whatever)
Heh, I'm at an annoying NT machine at work or I'd paste a real script that worked. I think you can see how to do it from there.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Its the X SERVER dildo. su, kmail&, knapster&, exit.
True enough, but Napster exits when the user logs off. (assuming an NT based OS here)
My wife demanded to be the little green frog. She refused to accept any of the other icons!!
:1' (which only works if you know how many other people have logged on).
What's even better is that she now understands how to use her own account and switch to it without logging me off or having to type anything cryptic like 'xinit --
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
hmm maybe you just have no business installing *any* OS? lemme guess, you work at best buy huh?
Y'all always complain when people who don't understand Linux make poor reviews of it. Well, this guy doesn't understand MS operating systems. Easy networking setup? Been there since 95. 2K will put you on a DHCP TCP/IP network with nothing but an 'ok' click. The 'temptation to use another person's account because the name is already in there?' So tell NT to clear the last user logged in dialog. But I guess things like system policies are a bit technical for this guy; after all, penguins with wrenches are more important to him.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
a good mandrake install will run like crap on either of those 'boxes' so your claims are retarded. win95 will run just fine on thoseand is more comparable as a user interface than xp. sure you can run linux on anything, but you can also run DOS on anything. STFU.
Linux just has to beat Windows as gaming platform, and tadaa... we'll have shit loads of new Linux users!
Wouldn't they already have a skilled Windows admin anyway? I'm not saying that the Windows admin would be able to setup Linux, what I'm saying is that they are already paying an admin to run thier Windows systems.
In defense of SuSE 7.2, the PS/2 emulation is how usb mice are normally used, the mouse works right from the word go during the Yast2 installer, and the only problem I had is that the mouse wheel did not work straight away.
SuSE cannot provide the real Nvidia drivers because of licencing restrictions, but they are installed automatically and without fuss the first time you run Yast Online Update, which SuSE Yast2 installer recommends you do the first time it detects you have an Nvidia and installs the Open Source version of the drivers, during initial install.
Wow, it was so obvious!
http://www.blitzbasic.com/
Graphics3D 640, 480
You don't have to compile the kernel. Only for very specific purposes do you ever have to compile the kernel for yourself. The average Linux-user will never, ever have to compile the kernel. This kernel compile FUD is just that, FUD.
Kernel compilation is just a very neat added feature for the Linux savvy.
windows is easy and there is nothing you can do about it :)
Nah - it's not "easy". It's "familiar".
People have been so conditioned to the way that Windows works, and told over and over again that Windows is "easy" - that it has become "easy" for them, in their minds. They know how things work in Windows - not because it's intuitive, but because they've been taught that that's how it works.
I'm fully convinced that in an hour, I could make a complete (non-MS-conditioned) computer newbie pretty proficient with Linux. An MS-conditioned newbie would be harder to teach, because they've been coddled and told that using a computer is "hard" and that the MS way is "easy" -- and they believe it so much that they resist learning anything.
That's why "Dummies" books are so popular. People like thinking they're stupid, as it gives them an excuse not to learn. "I can't use linux - I'm stupid with computers" -- yet this same person will spend HOURS learning the MS way of doing things -- because it's "easy". Reality check: If it takes hours to learn, it ain't "easy", no matter what MS tells you.
Windows XP (and at least 2K, no idea about the 9x kernels) abstracts the sound card completely and multiplexes access to it. Multiple applications can emit digital audio and it all gets mixed in software automagically.
So which part of these instructions sets up the DHCP server?
After all, he says these people bought two PCs, two NICS, and a crossover cable. If they have *only* that, does Mandrake set them each up with a non-conflicting IP address? I know that Win98 and up do that by just pulling an unroutable address out of its collective wazoo. Does Mandrake do the same or is he missing the step I think he's missing? Someone with a more elaborate setup isn't going to just be picking up a cross over cable, but more likely a couple of straight-through cables...possible a new Palm, a few sticks of memory, some games...but that's beside the point. =)Of course, we don't live in an unconnected world anymore. Most likely them have some outside access already planned. BUT, if you have a cable modem that only dishes out one address, you're still going to need a third something to NAT through to provide DHCP addresses. Or you'll have to break down and pay the extra fee most ISPs want for multiple addresses. An SMC Barricade can do the trick of doling out the addresses, serving as a broadband firewall, is only $99, and even works with all my VPN setups into the corporate LAN.
To be honest, while I think this guy sounds silly in his article, comparing his apples to pineapples, he is the face of the average computer user out there in that we can see he is slightly familiar with these two worlds and are glimpsing into a decision being made.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
"or even the temperature of my CPU"
Yeah, but you forgot to mention that before you can use that feature you have to make sure that your kernel has support for it compiled in and if it does not you have to do it yourself.
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
Well, there's kpackage... just double-click the .rpm, and then click "Install" on the resulting dialog.
Of course, finding the dependencies could be a pain.
And then there's apt + stormpkg (or gnome-apt).
Just type the name of the software, it will search for it, and click "install"
It's not "standard" in the sense of the same across all distros, but who cares? If you set up an office with all debian, and only give them gnome-apt, how then how are the users going to be confused by the other options?
There's a very easy way to do it with XDM:
Run xdm on both VC's!
That was easy, wasn't it?
You can not easily kill X when xlock is running. It disables all "Zap" functionality, Cntrl-Alt-Backspace. The only way to kill it is to log in as root or the user and manually kill X (or type in the X lock password and then "Zap" it).
xlock?
The application specific point I've found is for applications like file sharing. Brother is transfering files on napster, but sister wants to use the computer to check her email and use her Web browser bookmarks.
This is why I think that the core of Napsteresq. programs should be seperate from the GUI. You close the GUI, log out, but the core process is still running allowing you to keep on downloading. You could then even use the GUI on another machine to connect back to the core of the program on another machine, over the internet even.
Sure some of this is can be accomplished with X, but it seems silly having to send the entire GUI over just to tell the server (or client in the case of X) to download a certain file.
While file sharing programs are the perfect example of this, the same ideas can be extended to any program that has features that do not require human interaction.
dunno - my parents were horny one night?
You forgot one important area: Labor costs can be reduced dramatically, since there's a 0% chance the software they need will run under linux, so they can downsize all employees and close the business up. That's ok, becuase money is evil. Join the communist revolution with linux!
I run linux for my server for half-empty. I'm far from "too stupid" to run Linux. Regardless, the topic at hand here is ease of use, and ease of use, weither you like it or not, is the concept of making a system that "stupid" people can use.
I said that it would be possible for my Mandrake install to become usable if I tweaked it to hell and back (like I have done in the past with Debian, Slack, Redhat, etc.) but I didn't feel like it this time; I didn't feel it was worth my effort.
The "you don't have to use it if you don't want to" comments here are pretty lame, and in this case, totally inapplicable. Since we're talking about ease of use stuff like network detection (which, despite the authors assertion, as been there since win95) we're not talking about me here, a geek, we're talking about the proverbial Joe Sixpack. It might be hard for you to fathom, but I *would* like to see Linux succeed, and I do feel that is a success in the server world. However, its dillusional to think that XP is copying Linux. It needed to be said, so I said it.
--
You can do this with VNC !
Win2k installation all day? WTF are you trying to install it on a 486?
I work in a compatibilty lab testing software on various hardware configurations which we have to build the machines from the ground up. Doing a win2k installation takes 1-3 hours tops on a normal machine (350mhz, 64mbram, and up) that includes driver installation etc. If I spent all day doing one installation I would be fired the next day.
I guess it could take much longer if you have to install all your apps and configure them the way you want to, but thats not the OS to blame.
the catch is that it doesn't matter how easy it is to install linux vs. windows, most people don't know and don't want to know how to install either. most people don't even have a real concept of what windows is, much less linux. they take what they're given, either by the vendor or the friendly neighborhood computer geek who put the computer together for them. the only thing to be done to get average people to use linux is to make it easy enough that they'll be able to do everything they expect to be able to do with relative ease once the friendly neighborhood computer geek puts it on their new computer, since vendors will never be able to sell computers with linux on them
Can anyone else forseen MS branded Linux before long?
.NET will also allow them to move thier systems to Linux with ease. (and Ximan is helping them out at it even!) When Office.NET hits the market place, not only will it run on Windows, it will also run on Linux. They will then not have to port Office to Microsoft Linux, it will already run on it. Maybe .NET was designed because Microsoft sees an end to the Windows line, and this will alow them to stay the big players no matter what takes over as the new system of choice.
I'm sure that that is exactly Microsoft's plan if Linux ever starts to take over the Windows rien. Not only will the get the entire code base for free, then can then turn around and sell it for a profit. Sure, they will have to provide a free download, but in my experiences getting something for free is fround upon since it implies that there is no accountablity and support. (even though I know this is simply not the case, but try to explain that to Joe Sixpack)
Microsoft's
Microsoft may not be able to write software, but they sure know how to take out any competition that comes thier way!
Mandrake is a desktop linux distro (note the 2 CDs enclosed). Do not run this on anything without a VGA adapter (embedded, serial console, router, etc.)
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
...but it lets the smart users be smart (FAQs, Man/Info pages, HOWTOs, etc).
Much of what is important to MS Win32 is stored in the Registry, and much of that is undocumented to the rest of the world. Ever try to trace a COM object's GUID thru the registry? Even with an improved Reg editor (like the one in Norton Utilities), it isn't easy or fun.
Has anyone thought of the overhead created when doing such a thing? Windows has never been known as a solid memory manager. Now, you can run multiple user spaces at the same time with several diferent applications. I am sorry, but you need a really powerful system to do this. Especially if you are running any memory intensive tasks.
Now, I know that X is a memory-hog and when you toss on a few extra applications from diferent users, you still need a whole lot of RAM and a very powerful processor.
It is a usefull feature to have that functionality in a system. The only problem is that you need expensive hardware to do that.
What is wrong with setting up X to allow multiple users to open up programs on it. Then simply open up an xterm, su [USERNAME] and then fire up the application that user wants to use. It is much easier on resources and allows home users to easily share a system and still have their own bookmarks or whatever. If typing in netscape at the command line is to dificult for someone then it would be relatively easy to setup scripts that will provide a menu-driven CLI interface to launch applications.
If that is a problem then someone could write up a tcl/tk script to generate a user interface to "switch" users and then open up the application. The tcl/tk script can be robust enough to even allow a user to add additional applications to the start-up menu. Well, I have always wanted a reason to learn some tcl/tk I suppose now is as good a time as any.
If I can get it far enough along look for "Swap User" on Sourceforge.
--
.sig seperator
--
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
That's because it wasn't meant to be a serious review. Whoever said it was? It's obviously a humor column. You seem to be pretty dense to assunme otherwise. There is nothing "review" about the column and it's pretty pretentious for you to think that they would post such a write up as a "review".
The conclusion seems to be that anyone who's set up a modern Linux distro (Mandrake in particular) on supported hardware would find nothing too new in XP.
Wow, I haven't used Linux in years, but I find it amazing that the setup has evolved to a point where people start comparing the ease of Windows setup to Linux setup instead of vice versa. Succulent.
This is a partially-equivalent work around, but not quite the same (or as convenient). You have to have a X session for each possible user. So if you have a house where there are 5 possible users for the system, you have to have 5 sessions ready for use... not as nice.
I'd buy XP for this feature alone (great for sharing the computer with my wife, I always have stuff I'd rather not shut down - or have anyone change/break). Of course, because of the registration and instrusive bundling (I don't mind the idea of bundling itself - if I can be rid of) I won't be upgrading from w2k.
I bounced around from distro to distro over the past year. Before that, I was a dedicated Red Hat fan. I found that Mandrake 7.2 was easier then 8. I ran into a number of odd little problems. Durring a fresh install, its good. Upgrading was a bitch ... there are a number of librarys and binarys that just don't fit together currently.
Of all the distros, I say Mandrake takes the cake for easy installation. Shit, I gave a Mandrake CD to my mother inlaw, she install without ANY problems. Gave her a Windows 98 2nd edition CD, it was a nightmare ... Guess what OS she uses ? :)
until (succeed) try { again(); }
Shh...Big Brother Bill is watching you...oh wait, this is Slashdot... ;-)
Viva la *nix!
"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
Yes we need to compare major apps to major apps on both platforms. Theres nothing really wrong with the Linux OS and its usability, its the programs that you run under it. This is why the BEOS failed. It was a great OS that I would even let my grandma use (which I still can't quite say about linux) but once you had it installed there really wasn't much the normal user could do with it.
The conclusion seems to be that anyone who's set up a modern Linux distro (Mandrake in particular) on supported hardware would find nothing too new in XP
You can't assume that hardware is going to be supported. Every attempt I've made to install any version of Mandrake (or other Linux distros, such as Red Hat) on my apparently non-supported hardware (plug-in PCI Maxtor ATA/100 IDE controller card) has resulted in a system that locks up inexplicably while trying to boot the kernal. On the other hand, every attempt I've made to install any version of Windows on any non-supported hardware has always resulted in a successful boot and an entirely usable system -- minus sound support, minus UltraDMA support, or minus high-resolution video modes, mind you, but still entirely working and usable. When a given GNU/Linux distro can't exactly identify your monitor to feed XFree86 the correct refresh rates, it usually ends up using some defaults that are so non-standard it causes your monitor to display a rolling, flickering, totally unviewable picture -- whereas I've never seen this happen on any Windows system because Windows just defaults to the VGA 60 Hz 16 color 640x480 standard refresh rates, which work on any (S)VGA monitor. Imagine that--handling failure gracefully!
In general, GNU/Linux distributions, drivers, and applications don't handle error or failure cases well at all. Why? Because those developers only care about making the success cases work well. Screw the poor user who can't happen to get everything perfectly right on the first try--it's their own fault for being ignorant, after all, and they should just have to keep doing the entire process all over again until they get it right. God forbid any developer should spend any time, effort, or skill making things easy to use for non-experts.
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
Code Red II huh? Maybe SirCam?
Maybe you made this up to make Windows look worse?
"These types of comparisons (reviews) for Windows XP have reallly got me confused. I have been running Windows 2000 for probably a good two years now and ... "
Odd - win2000, it only being 2001 and all ... or did I sleep in a _real_ long time this weekend!
Oracle only! http://members.tripod.co.uk/pjmoss/sql/pjm_sig.sql
Is it just me, am I a luddite, or is plug-n-play really a Bad Idea ? Every time I boot my Win2K machine, it wastes 30 to 40 seconds of my time checking to see if I've plugged in some new hardware. Over a year (esp. given the number of reboots needed) this wastes my time - given that I only add/change hardware say twice a year.
The fact that it keeps losing my external modem so I have to waste another 30-40 seconds doing a manual "re-scan for changes" just rubs salt into
the wound.
I'd be much happier if plug-n-play type features just remembered the last setup until I told it "hey I've changed something" or "hey, I'm shutting down now, when I reboot expect the hardware to have changed". Now that's a Device-Detection feature I'd say is worthwhile.
And yes, I run SuSE on my laptop, and I have a RedHat Sparc too, but some of us have to work on Windows too.
T
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
How can you possibly do a 'visual' comparison of a linux distro vs. anything? And that begs the question who really cares about a visual comparison? I'd rather see a comparison at how elegantly and efficiently each UI does a particular task. IMNSHO, OS/2's WPS has them all beat, and did it back in 1993 with 486's on 8MB of RAM!
I'm on Mandrake 7.2 here, running Windowmaker + ROX-Filer. I hate any UI that depends on a braindead 'task bar' somewhere on the screen. Either I'm smoking crack, or what I'm running must not be Mandrake, eh?
My preferred UI stays the hell out of my way, but is pretty enough to show off at the same time.
Completely agreed with you that under the surface (and in the development model, philosophy etc) that XP is full of privacy problems, untouchable code and general hassle anyhow, but that's just not what this article addressed.
And from the article (pg2):
XP chose my icons for me. I ended up as a guitar, and my wife was a frog. Never mind the Smart-Tags, IE6 privacy issues, registration reactivation for major hardware upgrades, product activation and all of the other issues that XP has that makes some of us weary of using it...Microsoft has managed to piss off my wife by making her default to a frog icon and has now nearly completely crossed over to the dark side of the "I Hate Bill Gates" club. As if the KMFMS t-shirt she wore to a Goth club the other night wasn't enough.
Sorry timothy, you're right. I guess I got a little carried away on my first post. I should have also included (instead of just implied) that Windows has a more polished visual appeal and organization to it's desktop, menus, folder structure, etc. than Mandrake 8 does. Unfortunately for me, any visual appeals and/or similarities between Mandrake8 KDE and WinXP are not sufficient enough for me to hang on to Windows.
Stop snickering around and simply say what you really want to say: you think Americans suck and you will use every occasion to point this out.
I haven't spetn much time with linux of any flavor... but my friend, an MS betatester, has been RAVING about the user interface and application integration (watch out on that second one... MSN Messenger is tight with the OS)...
and from some of the stuff I've read elsewhere, it also does really nice disk access (I guess MS decided that their next bottleneck was the harddrive)
It went RTM at the end of 1999 (November?). However there was a 1.5 year beta cycle proceeding that. It's quite possible to have been running 2K full time for 2 years.
You can accomplish the same on Linux by running multiple X servers.
Brother is transfering files on napster, but sister wants to use the computer to check her email and use her Web browser bookmarks.
At the same time, Father wants to load up HotTeenSex.com, and Mother wants to install memory-resident spyware so she can catch Father in the act.
It not the UI stupid, its applications.
We keep comparing Linux and Windows and how Linux is better et. al. But until when the set of available applications that are available for Windows make it to Linux, AND the marketing machine that MS has is used for Linux, I don't see Linux taking over anytime soon.
Think of a "killer app" for Linux and than you will see MS running for its money.
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
Imagine now, that one of these relatively clueless types has just managed to get past the idiot proof install of Yellow Dog or Mandrake. Unless they are completely happy with the installed base of software, they're going to have to learn how to download and install software. Some as RPMs, some as tarballs and some as binaries. Can you imagine taking a person who has difficulty with running setup in windows and explaining RPMs or heaven forbid, tar -zxvf;./configure;make;make clean;make install???? AAARGH!!! How 'bout explaining to them where they need to drop the binary files ...What's a path? They'll run for the hills.....
Sorry, but until there is a graphical install standard (defacto or otherwise) that's as easy to use as the defacto windows standard setup, it doesn't stand a chance in hell on the desktop.
You need people like me so you can point your fucking fingers, and say "that's the bad guy."
I have recently installed XP RC2 and Mandrake 8.0 and they both allow the installer to create all the accounts from the installation "script". Which is really nice when you are installing on a system and need to get on to the next task. Loved OS/2. Miss OS/2. Still running OS/2 Warp on our voice mail system and it hasn't been restarted in months. The last restart was for a hardware upgrade, and before that I don't even recall the last reboot. Never has locked up. oh well. what the hell.
I would say that under linux's hood is a huge 10 or 12 cylinder tank engine... Not quite as fast as a ferrari but much more torque and horsepower.. Windows would be a 4 cylinder compact car engine...
Shit adds up at the bottom...
saintlupus, i know this is offtopic, but can you tell me whether an iMac is able to be single-booted with linux? i mean, can i set up my iMac with ONLY linux, and no Mac OS at all? for the life of me i can't find the answer on the Yellow Dog or LinuxPPC websites.
MyopicProwls
My homepage
Actually, what I said is "this piece actually sums up the good things about XP -- good device detection, multiple users set up from the install, improved network configuration -- better than anything else I've seen."
:)
... the Windows 95 = Mac 85 ads had a good point, considering all the nice things the Mac had even way back then.
The summary of the good things about XP is what it better than I've seen -- I didn't say that those things themselves are groundbreaking
FWIW, I agree that the Mac OS is way ahead in most aspects of user interface and ease of setup, and has been since, oh, System 7 or so ;
Macs are great machines -- G4s have the most accessable cases going too -- and until I discovered Free operating systems, I was not interested in PC-clone hardware. Now that there are a few Free OSes that will run on Mac hardware, I may save toward a Mac again.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Try telling that to people with USB 2.0 hardware...Big Brother Bill is cutting them off...
"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
It keeps a connection open for each apache process that connects to it. If you have 200 apache children, but only 100 connections available on mysql - POW! - errors galore.
creation science book
You're asking the wrong crowd. What commercial quality apps exist for both windows & linux? If such an application did exist, who here would pay money for the linux version?
The only app that comes to mind is mozilla... don't even go there.
Why would anyone who has used mandrake (or any other linux) care about windows xp? If you are alredy out of windows hell, why would you want to go back?
We also alredy know that windows is easy to install. Thats the whole deal with windows. it's easy.
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Was copied by Mandrake from Neptune and Whistler before they (Microsoft) had a chance to release code based on them to the public. A good chunk of this stuff he talks about is even present in Win2k and NT4.
Lots of FUD.
Umm... You must have stopped reading the column at that point. In the very next paragraph, he says that he went in and changed his wife's icon, thus scoring points with his wife.
Why would you comment on something you didn't even read?
Isn't arrogance against stupid users one of the defining features of a Slashdotter as well?
Yep, all operating systems will eventually be identicle. Powerfull "features", look and feel, form and function will be the same. As long as they are all expected to attach to the same internet they have to be the same. But OS(x),Win(x) et. al. will never have Linux's price point.
/. gurus:
This reminds me of something I've been meaning to run by the
Let's say there are a bunch of clients running microsoft.net. Is it possible through ip spoofing etc. that Microsoft will not be selling time on their application servers at all but using our hardware and our bandwith to provide services to eachother? I have to run application (x), It requires a given amount of resources that I do not have onsite because I have a crippled client. I request resources from microsoft, they sell me the time and bandwidth from someone else's idle machine. Just like a distributed computing effort. Eventually, Microsoft would not even have the costs associated with running servers at all except for passport. Running my little client, I would see all this data arrive from a single IP since XP can spoof an IP. I cannot tell when my machine is acting as a server for someone else because the two "personal" firewalls that monitor outgoing traffic have been mysteriously disabled. Napster has shown that this sort of model is completely funtional. Microsoft is going to sell time on our computers back to us. It is a beautiful model for distributed computing, giving everyone access to a globaly shared beowulf cluster. Is your processor working 100% all the time? Are there times when you wished you had a hell of a lot more processing power? Do you use all your drive space all the time? Wouldn't you like to store your data encrypted on a global raid array? Need any file at all? Someone has it. Want to avoid redundant effort? Someone has done your work, and better than you could do it. Neat concepts except we could do it for ourselves for free and microsoft wants to charge us for the privelage.
We may now know why Balmer was jumping around like a monkey and bellowing the incredibly arrogant phrase "give it up for me!!".
Taking our culture from us and selling it back to us. RIAA,MPAA,Microsoft,AOL
Nasty, Nasty, Nasty, Nasty. Fuck I hate This
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
So, just wondering...
Is Micro$oft going to implement support for several desktops soon? Because what irritates me the most when I have to use a win-box, is that it only has one desktop. With several desktops it is quite much easier to have a "clean" desktop, and good control over all your programs.
When you have more than 4-5 programs running on a single desktop, it becomes chaos. It is really a nice feature, so I'm actually surprised over that M$ hasn't implemented it already. But then again, Unix would loose one of it's main advantages on the desktop-side.
"The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand languages." - Tao of Programming
Well, to add my little bit;
Change "source code" to "automobile" and maybe it will be a little clearer.
How many people out there own a car? How many of those that own a car have every repaired that car themselves? Rebuilt the engine? Reamed out the exhaust?, Added a lift kit? How about changed the oil or spark plugs? Adjusted the timing? I would be willing to wager it's about the same number of people who actually change/modify the source code of an "open source" program/os.
By your reasoning we should start sealing car hoods and "licensing" automobiles with restrictive EULA's that forbid reverse engineering, or modification. I mean what percentage of people actually change anything themselves? Of course that would mean that you would have to have all of your car service done at the manufacturer, or his authorized rep. (read dealer).
Just because most people won't/don't utilize a right doesn't mean we should get rid of it.
Just my $0.02 (Canadian, before taxes)
The problem is that 'usability' is a function of what the users are used to. When CLIs were first introduced (with Unix? I don't know my history well here) they sure beat the hell out of punch cards. Then people got used to CLIs and those were considered the pinnacle of usability. HD menus and text-based DOS shells like Norton Commander were popular for a short while, until Win3x took off. Ad nauseum.
Now that PC people are used to the Win9x/ME/NT4/2K GUI, that is considered the height of usability. Now, one could argue that GUIs on the PC sucked before MS added these enhancements (and Win3x certainly did suck) but who knows if something better would have came along without them? The MS GUI is the only benchmark of usability we have. Even GNOME and KDE default to showing a taskbar with a 'start'-type button.
I know that I'm used to the MS GUI and I can't function nearly as quickly with other GUIs (I use Solaris w/CDE at work). But if I had never seen Windows 95, CDE would look like gold to me.
Wow, that was a lot of talk with very little point. I guess the point is this - UI programmers of the world, don't give up on innovation just because MS has done a lot of research. There's always something better w/r/t MMI.
I had a similar experience, but usually the configure script will give you a pretty good idea of what's missing, e.g.
checking if flex is installed...no
If the script dies there, it's time to find and install the flex rpm, etc.
The thing that irks me right now is that the kernel sources are on the second CD (which I don't have). I'm trying to install the ALSA drivers for my soundcard (OPL-SA2/3/x), but it needs an valid kernel source tree (I tried a bait-and-switch by using the kernel headers, but the makefile caught me :-( ). Oh well, I guess I'll have to mail-order the second CD...
"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
for goodness' sake, what's missing in mandrake is the "click here to start" bouncy arrow! now how am i going to get any work done without it? what's XP again? :)
my blog
"But when i install Windows i don't need to muck around for a week, this is just the sort of thing i'm talking about!"
Welcome to monopoly land. Keep in mind that Mandrake is a change, not necessarily a change for the better or worse- a different system. People going from *nix to Windws have the same problem.
-Elendale
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
Not quite as fast as a ferrari, but just as diffictult to maintin
I too wish that Linux systems would revert to a low-end-but-workable video mode if whizbang features don't work.
;)
Is there something special preventing this? Will all the recent work on framebuffers help alleviate this?
Posting anon out of embarrassment
- anon.
Now if only their development teams put as much effort into application security as they do into UI. I would really have loved not cleansing my Mom's PC of Code Red II....
Why is your mom running IIS on her machine? C'mon. If your mom is gonna run a blue-haired dyke porn ring, at least pass us along a URL...
This is already available in Linux:
Now you have two completely separate X sessions running at the same time. I've no idea if there's a point-and-click (x|k|g)dm way to do this, but the capability is there.
Just set up more X-servers on virtual consoles and Ctrl-Alt-F[n] between them. Different users can stay logged in on different VC's.
--
jonmartin.solaas@mail.link.no
someone@somemachine>su someoneelse
password:
sorry.
Oops, wrong password. Try again.
someone@somemachine>su someoneelse
password:
someoneelse@somemachine>
There, that wasn't too hard.
And the 2.4 kernel series (and the later 2.2s) support USB. CD-writing works too.
Who says that windows is better at detecting hardware than mandrake. At least for my case i found that after a motherboard upgrade, mandrake 8.0 detected the new motherboard and installed all the relevent drivers for me (sound, usb). I also hav win2k on another partition and i had to reinstall win2k after the hardware upgrade. This fud about windows being more hardware friendly has to end. Install windows first, and then go thru countless reboots to get all the drivers in place. It is just plain stupid. For any linux distro u just need to do 1 reboot (if you recompile the kernel) and things start working after that.
you had to reinstall 2K probably because you had the specific motherboard IDE chipset drivers installed, and when you changed board these no longer worked.
It is a simple matter to revert to the MS standard IDE drivers that will work on all IDE chipsets before swapping hardware. Failing that, you can actually re-activate the MS ones using the Recovery Console.
As for Win98, Win98 has the luxury (ha) of being able to use BIOS during bootup, and will continue to use the BIOS should it find the native drivers dont work (AKA "Compatibility Mode").
As for Linux, it's IDE driver is all in one, with code for all IDE chips it supports in one module, therefore it'll work on anything.
Trade secrets aren't 1/10 as bad as patents. Patents can make Linux support illegal. And the way they've been extending the patents, that could be forever. Of course, patents aren't usually significant forever, but just suppose, e.g., the MS were to purchase the hyperclick patent from BT. And then decide that it could only be used with the windows os. ...
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
MS is trying to make XP easy by taking control out of the users hands. I saw that currently XP won't allow drivers that it considers unstable. XPeriance is not a good name for it since users who know what they are doing won't use it (unless MS changes this). I wish MS would try making things better for a change. ?what do linux users think of Mac OS X now that it is basicly a Unix distro? Bames53@angelfire.com
That's ok, You're forgiven for just not knowing any better ... We don't hold it against ya! LOL :)
iF yOu WAnT to C YOUr iP agaIn gAThEr tWO MilLIon dOLLArS IN Non - cONsEcuTivE TweNtY's AnD AWaiT FuRThER iNstrUctIoN
I haven't been able to read the article (/.'ed?) but to me it looks like they're doing a side by side "Joe Shmoe, install XP on this machine, Mandrake on this machine, and tell us which was a nicer experience". This is good news for the linux community. Joe Schmoe, the same guy who's told that XP is the way to go, has found a free OS that does the same thing. Recent versions of Mandrake and Redhat have been very easily installed. The hardware auto-detect actually works under Mandrake, which is a huge improvement over any version of Windows.
To get into an argument over which GUI is btter is a moot point. Joe Schmoe has discovered for the first time that he has options.. lots of them. Joe Schmoe will go command line, TWM (my favorite), Gnome, or whatever as he chooses.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
try doing an install of win2k on a modern computer and you will figure out that to get the system to a working level with all the drivers and common software, you will have to reboot the system way too many times.. and this thing gets realy frustating after the 3rd or the 4th reboot. I have been using linux for a long time, so i guess i have never had problems with compiling the kernel (and with most of today's distros you don't even hav to do that) And if u do happen to need any 3rd party drivers, mostly u don't have to reboot a linux box. I use both linux and windows. To set up a linux box, it takes me 1-2 hours max. To set up a win2k box it takes me a whole day. And for me a day lost to reinstalling an os is a big thing. And to do that after a motherboard upgrade is a real brain dead thing. Even win98 doesn't require a reinstall if u change the ide controller. And with mandrake 8.0 i didn't even need a reboot. I feel that if linux had a good web browser (and though mozilla is getting there fast, it is still not there), and a decent icq clone i wud switch to linux as my primary desktop.
Learn to spell dipshit.
What about things like Red Carpet? It's conceivable that a user could use a graphical installer and regularly upgrade through Red Carpet (and even install new software) and never touch a shell or edit any sort of config file. I can't think of anything the average user would need to get in source form.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
Well, Napster is one of many programs that trap the "X" button in Windows. When the user clicks the "X", Napster's window closes. The program still remains running in the tray, able to upload and download files just the same. I know a *lot* of users who allowed Napster to take advantage of their university-sponsored Internet uplink this way. Making Napster et al. into services/daemons is even worse: they could be running automatically on startup, and the user would never see any evidence of this.
Why can't people recognize that "X" should mean "eXit"? Methinks these programmers came from Mac backgrounds, where an application can exist with no open windows.
For more information, click here.
Here is a short list of reasons that Linux has not yet become mainstream that I ripped from one of my earlier posts:
Linux is not yet mainstream because:
I have to look through config files and search the internet to find out if my scanner, mousepad, modem, camera, network card, 3D video card, sound card, etc., etc., is supported.
When I go to the computer store to buy a new card or peripheral, I have to carry a small binder full of hardware compatability lists.
To get a new TrueType font to view and print in StarOffice I have to go through three separate manual proceedures for X, Ghostscript, and StarOffice which involve editing config files that could break my system or applications. Or I could use kfontinst, which still requires a major manual setup in order to be able to be used with StarOffice.
To get the same new TrueType font to work in AbiWord, I have to go through some addition manual procedures to those that were needed for StarOffice.
As someone else mentioned, for all the configurability of KDE and Gnome, I still can't right click on the desktop to change my screen settings.
To configure my system in most distributions, I have to look in several places for the configuration tools, they all behave differently, and many times don't do everything, often forcing me to edit config files manually.
The two major desktop environment camps give me 5000 themes and two dozen window managers, but can't get together on a common object embedding API, so I will soon be faced with choosing applications by desktop rather than by features, or giving up high level interoperability.
I have to spend extra money for VMWare express or Win4Lin and still have to spend hundreds on MS Office so I can communicate with all of my friends and co-workers who send me .doc and .xls files. (and no, StarOffice, AbiWord, and Gnumeric import filters are often not good enough). This is basically the "applicatin problem" that others have referred to.
I like to do digital photography, and for the best results I still have to scan and print in Windows. (Most film scanners are not even supported at all in Linux.)
Hardware and software vendors *don't want* Linux to become mainstream. They already have to support two - Windows (multiple flavors) and Mac - and adding another mainstream OS will increase their costs. They are fighting it as long as they can, hoping it will never become mainstream.
Most of these things are not a big deal for me and other technically inclined Linux users, but if you think "Joe Sixpack" is going to find this fun, you have another thing coming
Some of these issues are far more difficult to solve than the pretty interface, an easier installation, and better hardware detection. I don't mean to belittle these things, they are important, it's just that there's much more work that has to be done before Linux is the right choice for the huddled masses.
It only took me a few hours to realize Mandrake is nowhere near usable.. out of the box it's slow, the apps are still as ghetto as they were 6 months ago
I'm curious as to what kind of apps you were using - were they CPU-intensive and/or disk-intensive? Most Linux systems I've run have felt faster than their Windows counterparts, but of course this is mostly a subjective observation. Has anyone actually run a benchmark between the windows version of an application and the linux version (assuming equal optimization, resources, etc.)?
#1. Why Mandrake vs. XP?
Because Windows XP is the Next Greatest Thing from Microsoft, and it has received a lot of press about it's asthetics and usability. Mandrake is widely considered *the* desktop Linux environment to use to switch people from Windows. Makes sense to me.
#2. Who cares if they are similar/different?
The manager who you are trying to convince to move the department to Linux, that's who. Not to mention the users themselves. Helps reduce the fear factor.
#3. It doesn't really say much.
If it doesn't say much to you, then you aren't a network administrator looking to rid your system from as many BSA...er...Microsoft problems as possible.
ummm... security? maybe i don't want my sister to read my pr0n pages?! ;-)
I couldn't have said it better myself. Think about hell, once you know what it's like, you never want to go there, but the Devil sure makes things tempting...
Well XP sure does look nice, but once you get it installed and you get assimilated, you sure wish you weren't there...
~ now you know
I've often thought the same thing. The best I've seen is the virtual desktop where you can slide the viewscreen across a large virtual desktop, but still not as easy to use as separate desktops.
hit ctrl-alt-F[1-6] to get out of the current X session to a virtual terminal
In the article, the author stated he tried this with Mandrake and it would not work. No idea why, perhaps it's xdm, or a disabled feature because it's not stable on all video cards.
Win2k was released in Feb, 1999 - 2 years and ~6 months ago.
Seeing how XP Professional is based on a new kernel...
XP is based on the same kernel as Win2k and WinNT before it. Sure there's been some revisions, but hardly even enough to justify a version change - if you look at the versioning it's gone from 5.0 (win2k) to 5.1 (winxp)
I just find it funny that the first time I saw this type of "easy network setup" was in Mandrake.
Guess he never installed a Windows system before. This has been around since Win95 and Win2k. In fact, the XP install is almost identical to the 2k install.
Microsoft has managed to piss off my wife by making her default to a frog icon and has now nearly completely crossed over to the dark side of the "I Hate Bill Gates" club.
She got pissed over the cute green frog, that you could have changed for her to just about anything (note that you can import pictures). Sheesh. Hardly a damning indictment that they kept the install simply by defaulting the user icons.
I actually like this better and it PROMOTES others to not use your account because your name happens to be already typed into the field.
Umm... you can turn this off in profiles if you want?
but I'm sure there's some keystroke out there that changes users easily in XP
Yup - right there in the help on it if you look. Window-L.
The real problem I have with XP is that by default it encourages you to run with root level permissions. This is going to get nasty from a security point of view pretty quickly.
Oh, yeah, you forgot that XP lets you have raw sockets just like Mandrake. Damn those evil Microsofties for implementing a standard!! The world will end! Well, at least according to Steve "Conspiracy" Gibson.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
I am currently dual booting between Mandrake 8.0 and XP RC2, The differences are obviously noticable but they are very similar in Look and Feel. And I'm sorry if i offend any old timers but that is what is important to new "Non Literate" users, the look and feel. Thy don't care how powerful the command line is or about how many differennt ways that you can manipulate a file. They just want it to be pretty and do neat visual things for them. They want security to be something that they don't have to worrry about. When I am in Mandrake the box is tighter then a drum but in Xp i am as open like a 5 dollar hoar. ZoneAlarm, BlackIce Defender, Nukenabber, MCafee, Norton, THEY ALL WON'T WORK! I have read that they are all releasing new version of their software so they will but i'm sure it will take months. If I could only play Counter Strike in Linux then I think I would ditch windows all together Anyone know when this might happen?
MOD THIS UP!
Microsoft claims that XP is a new kernel. I didn't bother to hack it to find out if this is true or not. I merely took their word for it, then again, it's a opinion column, not a technical overview. For what it's worth, I have installed 2000, and the networking connection wizard was NOT integrated into the install process. Again, this is a moot point since the column is an opinion column and not a technical overview. Yes, XP is not "too" bloated, but did I not say that Linux-Mandrake was bloated too? Never mind... It seems as if you like to quote out of context. Gam, dude... I don't know why you are so uptight. Did I offend you by pointing out how much my wife didn't like the frog icon? If so, I am sorry. :(
Who's bright idea was it to put that stupid terminal-specific ANSI penguin at the login prompt? Has it occured to anyone at Mandrake that not everyone will be using an ANSI terminal to log in with?
Bowie J. Poag
The problem I am having is with all these people who say they have tried Windows 2000 and hated it for some odd reason, yet they try Windows XP and think its the thing that will save Microsoft OSs. The thing is, as far as I can tell Windows XP is Windows 2000 with:
1. Windowblinds integrated into the OS.
2. Product activation
3. More MS apps integrated right into the OS
4. The latest compatibility updates for windows 2000.
I don't understand how anyone could say XP is better than Win2k when when you get right down to it, are the same OS. Personally, I know that there is no way in hell I am going to upgrade to Windows XP. People will always whine about compatibility with Windows 2000. I never saw it as that bad, and especially now, now that they have released two service packs with all kinds of compatibility upgrades inside, it is the best Microsoft OS.
I really don't want to buy another OS, and have it turn out to be the same one I'm using. I am not paying any money so I can have a green and blue start menu. I am fine the way I am. I actually bought Windows 2000, and to tell you the truth, it was worth the $250 (Canadian) I payed for it.
Commercial television and print publications everywhere, including Slashdot, appear to be promoting products in advertisements disguised as "News" stories.
It must be a requirement that all non-obvious instances of advertising must be disclosed as advertising to the reader or viewer. Deliberately failing to do so is a type of fraud.
The Anti-Marketeer
Hey Gamorock, get a life and go do something productive with your day!
No, sir. The command line is still around.
I am Providence.
I think for the 'normal user' this review was quite interesting, cause they learn that all the 'great, new' features Win XP promises to deliver, Linux (in this case Mandrake) has have had for a long time already.
raw sockets have been around since Win2k. this isn't the only place I've seen someone comment on XP's evil use of raw sockets.
and if its not that they are new, but XP's "use", of them, I'd certainly love to know what's so nightmarish about it, especially considering its identical to Win2k's use.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
Hey, it's got ssh installed and installing telnet is as easy as opening their RPM installer and selecting it. There is a reason telnet isn't installed by default... (Hint : de Mandrake people want to tell you it's not secure enough...). Next thing you know, people will start complaining it doesn't install a web server with default passwords by default... sheesh...
I wish I had my moderators cap on... Well said indeed. MS just took another leap ahead with XP, leaving linux in the dust *again*.
Wrong. Last night, they both sucked in the back-seat of my car.
who is this guy? "good device detection, multiple users set up from the install, improved network configuration -- better than anything else I've seen" never used MacOS then, eh?
Oooh... XP has logins. XP has logins. Didncha' hear me!?! XP HAS LOGINS!!!! Oh, and it can actually detect that ol' plug'n'play scanner you bought 2 years back, yeehawww. Everything we would expect from a modern next millenia operating system. Can it make coffee too?
...start running through the streets screaming 'the end is nigh' now, or later?
Of course the site is slashdotted so i cant read it.., but why are we surprised that MS is making their OS'es more similiar to their competitor's OS? if anybody , anywhere, ever, is even the least bit 'surprised', then a little wake up call is neccessary. Similiar 'looking' products are the mainstay of the competitive marketplace.
Of course i'm just stating the obvious here, and mod me down if you wish, but i'm willing to bet this article will generate a billion anti-ms 'oh my god i cant believe they ripped off linux' posts...
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
Is that it will almost immediately be ported to Win32.
If you think about it, most of the best apps on Linux have either been ported to Win32, or are in the process of being ported. Take Gimp, for example, often quoted as a Linux "killer app". It took a while, but even this one has now been ported to windows.
Sure, there are some advantages to having our Linux apps available during those times when we are forced to use Windows, but the downside is that by porting all of the good Linux apps to windows, we are making Windows the universal platform.
Whoever opens the sound card has access to it. In the scenario of User A leaving his processes running in the background, and User B being the new user, if User A had an MP3 player running or something then, yes, User B would have to listen to his shitty MP3s and there's nothing he could do about it. I'm not sure how this would compare to the Windows XP scenario. Likely User A won't leave anything running that has the sound card running (otherwise why would he want it in the background?).
try "man pico" or "man joe" ....
iF yOu WAnT to C YOUr iP agaIn gAThEr tWO MilLIon dOLLArS IN Non - cONsEcuTivE TweNtY's AnD AWaiT FuRThER iNstrUctIoN
I, however, learned more about computers (and cars for that matter) by opening up my hood and fucking up what was underneath. Anyhoo.. just my $.02 -Gehenna
What this article says to me is that if they can use XP they can use Linux. With the help of a skilled admin I'd say small business stands to save a good deal of money in several areas.
Could be interesting
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
That is pretty hard to do on Linux, sicne there is no accepted component model
Look at the Etherboot project: http://etherboot.sourceforge.net/
:) That would be running it, not "installing." But if the argument is about "Monopoly money" and what OS runs how well on what hardware, that has to be said ...
Even a low-end Pentium makes a fine X-terminal. With Linux, each user can have his own pretty desktop.
You might also want to see the story that ran on dot.kde.org about the city of Largo, FL converting to a system of clients running X+KDE, all served from a hefty machine in the background: http://dot.kde.org/995949998/
Unless Windows now allows similar remote operation, serving many thin clients from a single copy of no-usage-restrictions server (dunno, maybe it does and I am just unaware of it), it's perfectly possible to run Linux on the machines you say would run like crap.
I know -- that's not what you said, at least not exactly
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
In theory, the UI is skinnable in Windows XP, but IIRC Microsoft decided not to release details for theme creation because it would be too easy to completely screw things over if you slipped up.
Dude, this place is turning into ZDNet. "Insightful" comments from people too stupid to run Linux (i.e., dumber than my 11-year-old sister and 45-year-old mother)? Give me a break. If you don't like it, fine. Nobody said you have to use it. But to say it's unusable is just a baldfaced lie. Someone with moderator points put this troll and his AC replies to himself back where they belong.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
Just like this guy I have always noticed that Linux desktop seems slower "in general".
I could not stand old XFree at all and I am using Accelerated X which goes a long way to speed things up but still is not quite as smooth as equivalent Windows desktop.
Linux is still too hard for the typical Joe while XP will do everything for them
Maybe a year ago this was true, but I really don't think it is any more. I just installed Yellow Dog Linux on my iMac a few weeks ago - I've never seen such an idiot-proofed install. Everything works flawlessly, KDE is up and running fine, the network settings from install are carried over; in short, I couldn't find anything wrong.
Certainly things have come a long way since I watched friends struggling with Yggdrasil and Slackware back in the day. Mandrake is actually to the point that I'm recommending it to my, er, less computationally inclined relatives.
--saintMicrosoft is coming up on a decade of interaction with users and usability testing. I think they're nearing the point that Apple did with OS 9, before they broke all the interfaces for the 'Aqua' look that pervades 0S 10.
In other words, despite all the FUD, marketing, and anti-competitive crap BillCo is engaged in, they're getting their User Interface pretty-damn near perfect in terms of usability. Remember that because a person is employed by MS, he or she is not necessarily a borg. It looks like those who actually get WinXP will be getting a hell of an operating system.
We're seeing a lot of the same application elements expressed in slightly different ways in different OS's now. You can say that someone is copying someone else, but what it really means is that someone has found the 'best' way to do something in terms of usability or security. Take the graphical logins. I think Apple was the first to get the whole 'Icon-Username' setup, but this is apparently the best setup for a multi-user workstation, like most family PC's.
By the same token, I think that we'll probably see MS making their UI/Windowing System skinnable in the not-too-distant future ala Windowblinds to compete with Apple's 'themes', Kaleidoscope and all the different theme-window manager combinations for X.
Now if only their development teams put as much effort into application security as they do into UI. I would really have loved not cleansing my Mom's PC of Code Red II....
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Open source can still be a benefit, even if you don't do the programming yourself. Take this for example: I use Intuit's QuickBooks program at work, which is a closed source program. As it is, there are a number of features missing that would really save time. Since it's closed source, all I can do is call up Intuit, tell them what I'd like to see in a future version, and they 'think about it'. If it was an open source program, it would be possible to hire a programmer to add those features without waiting for the manufacturer, who may or may not even add them at all.
The fact is, that most people know so little about windows, they wouldn't be able to tell the difference if you just make linux look like it (and run aol). In my personal estimation, someone just starting with computers... I.e. a 7 year old will find linux easier to learn than he will windows. I know a lot more about linux in these last 1.6 years than I knew about windows in 3 years. Windows XP won't run on Joe's computer, meaning he's going to either have to go to the local computer store, and have them upgrade it for somewhere in the $200 range, plus the cost of windows xp, which he won't be able to figure out either, or he can buy a new machine and chunk out $1500. Price is a major consideration for people who aren't really into computers.
I always refer to software as "ghetto" too. The stuff with no hot keys and broken widgets and no help and no configuration options? People in my class always look at me funny when I say an application is "ghetto" though. Funny how many ghetto programs come with Gnome which is supposed to make stuff easier.
That said, I'm a lot more comfortable in Debian than Windows -- especially when writing code.
I always love the variety of opinions that come from Slashdot. Always a must read.
;)
:p
:D
Credentials? Who needs credentials... IT'S A COMMENTARY, not a review.
For those who saw the humor of the column, thanks. For those who are thinking too hard about why I would ever compare a Linux distro to XP... stick to the Wall Street Journal.
I'm just just jerking your chains, guys. If you take the column with anymore than a grain of salt, feel free to email me and I'll break down the sarcasm for you.
~jG~
Why can't Microsoft survive in this model?
That's weird. Surely there are far more drivers, and far more support, available for Windows for all ages of device than there are for Linux?
All manufacturer x needs to do is dust off some old driver diskettes and stick them online and Windows is covered. For Linux, they've got to go out, find if someone has made them a driver, check it (cos no one wants to risk their brand on an untested driver or employ someone to write their own.
Why would they bother?
Because an odd handful of 5% of the desktop computer population might find some old hardware in a second hand store? And this helps them how?
That comment about XP copying Linux is pretty funny. I know I'll get modded to hell for saying this, but I just have to. I just recently installed Mandrake on a separate drive and had to nuke the whole thing after an evening of use. Basically, I try Linux on the desktop every couple months to see if it's finally getting usable. It only took me a few hours to realize Mandrake is nowhere near usable.. out of the box it's slow, the apps are still as ghetto as they were 6 months ago (When I tried running Debian on the desktop) and it just plain sucks to use. Perhaps it was because I was using GNOME, but regardless, to say XP is stealing the great features of Mandrake is simply ridiculous. (The link to the article is dead, so I can't get into much detail) It's possible that if I had tweaked the system on a geek level and didn't use GNOME it would have been better, but I simply didn't want to waste my time once again doing the "week long Linux march" that I do whenever I decide to install it. I'll never use Linux on the desktop until I can just install it and have it work and be FAST. I was impressed with how easily Mandrake installed, but the fireworks stopped as soon as it came time for me to actually get some work done.
:)
And, yes, I've run linux on the desktop for months at a time in the past, so I'm not a newbie and I do have a good sense of how usable the system is going to be for me in the long run based upon playing with it for a few hours.
XP doesn't require a Passport account, and it is damn usable. The new GUI is pretty damn good, IMHO, and for the guy who referred to the taskbar being for idiots or whatever, well, you can hide it. It's configurable for the experienced and it took me about 10 minutes to turn off all the dumbing down features that are in there for the computer illiterate. One thing MS does do right is understand that not everyone is a geek.. and this is why Linux will never become mainstream unless a well off company comes in and takes it under its wing and starts a massive usability testing campaign. For example, I found the most functional and well designed apps to be (although they were notoriously slow) evolution and nautilus, and, surprise surprise, they were designed and created by companies.
The geeks will always design for geeks, which is all well and good, but don't go saying that Microsoft products are playing catch up to Linux in ease of use. That's just ridiculous
--
Well, you may have to still do a fair bit of manual tweaking.
/dev/input/mice), and did manual tweaking of the config file. It certainly didn't recognize the mouse (when connected to USB) during installation, despite having an option to do so.
SuSE 7.2, for instance, didn't reliably deal well with my USB mouse. The XFree86 version included can't automatically figure out the protocol, nor does Sax2 (SuSE configurer) have much clue about the device file, either. Eventually, I simply used PS/2 emulation (via a kernel boot-time driver, and
Likewise (due to licensing issues) it doesn't provide 3D acceleration for nVidia cards; those drivers need to be downloaded and installed manually, complete with symlink checking, config file editing, and so forth. That's probably not good for the Linux newbie, and may be a concern since nVidia cards aren't exactly rare (and these drivers are *necessary* for good 3D; TuxRacer goes from several seconds per frame with the XFree86 nv driver to 50-100+ FPS with nVidia's.)
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Try http://www.audiogalaxy.com/. It works very cool, pretty much just like you're saying. Only the GUI is their web page so its super accessable from any computer, yet any music you want still gets downloading to where you're running the "satellite" program.
FiGZ.COM - A waste of perfectly good web space
Why not just start another X?
The conclusion seems to be that anyone who's set up a modern Linux distro (Mandrake in particular) on supported hardware would find nothing too new in XP.
<sarcasm>Oh, I get it. Now they are copying us.</sarcasm>
Timothy, if you're the source of that comment (I can't tell because the site is Slashdotted) - get back in your cave.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
hmmm I thought pconnects made getting slashdotted easier on the system... like you're not opening multiple db connections so there's not as much overhead involved... isn't that what using pconnect is about instead of just using regular connect? please enlighten me as I'll be using php on my site and don't want to go down that easily...
Ya, it's all been there since win95 he smugly says.
Have you ever tried to freaking network W95 computers with each other? (or heaven forbid with other versions of windows?)I have done it with home LAN's and LAN parties and never once has it been easy. Even when you do everything 'right' Win9X refuses to recognize other comps on the network etc. What planet are you from anyway?
I find it just a weeee bit ironic that a "visual comparison" article doesn't have any pictures.
He is saying that Microsoft can't survive in a model where we all just keep on using the same old hardware. Windows XP will not run on a 486 or a P200. But linux will.
For microsoft to keep making money they need to keep adding <QUOTE>features</QUOTE> to their OS. This ends up need a lot more powerfull hardware to run it on. So if no one could be arsed to buy all the latest hardware Microsof would be dead.
Having bounced around between many distros the past couple years (slackware, debian, redhat, suse, caldera and mandrake) I found that the most *recent* mandrake 8.0 was actually about the most usable, from an installation and 'login/go' standpoint.
:)
However, during the installation I apparently didn't say I was a developer, so it didn't install ANY compiling tools. OK, OK there may have been *something* there, but about 60% of the stuff I wanted to compiled didn't compile. So, from a 'casual/everyday' Linux user's perspective, it isn't very good. For someone like my wife, who just wants to sit down and type a letter by clicking on an office icon, it's fine.
I'd have commented more on the article itself(!) but it appears to be unavailable. Any mirrors?
creation science book
Mind explaining to us why your mom's PC is running IIS?
I see that this has degenerated to an elementary school playground pissing match, so I'm out of here. ;)
tried to install OS X recently?
shutup johnyMCSE. Your article is deeply flawed. You may want to call it opinion now but that's not exactly what you were thinking where you wrote it.
> All manufacturer x needs to do is dust off some old driver diskettes
> and stick them online and Windows is covered
Aren't you a bit oversimplifying? Like there weren't any differences in the driver model of Win95 and Win2k. Eat my shorts.
Troll? So if you don't like my opinion you just call me names and rank me down? Very mature. Look, I was giving my opinion on an editorial (opinion.) I didn't put in anything offensive, and I don't appreciate your ranking. Once again, you moderators who misuse the system, you all can kiss my ass.
~ now you know
Have you checked to see whether your hardware was actually supported under Mandrake?
As for me, the Linux hardware support for my home-built PC is BETTER than Windows 98 SE's. Particularly for my HP Deskjet 952: its Windows drivers are utter crap. Modem support seems to be better as well. When I upgraded my modem, Mandrake didn't even hiccup. Windows 98 nearly died.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
I am amused wheneve someone throws something abt WINDOWS and LINUX.... and it starts a religious war. I am using WINDOWS XP build 2526... and I am "popular" for crashing any WINDOWS system anywhere including when I was giving my GRE exam. And the stupid sys-adm there refused to reboot the machine as it would affect the other people giving the exam ... dont worry even then I made it to MIT :)
Anyway XP is good, too fancy, more memory sucking. But stability ... forget it. 30% of the time my applications are crashing and I am tired of sending the bug reports to them.
I am happy that I can atleast rip apart the linux code and fix it myself.
XP is an click click OS .. and Linux is not for dumb users :)
BTW I am not a software programmer, but I still find Linux more systematic and structured.
Dont run after my ass after reading all this.
a
Not as bad in Linux because of the command line. Most of the stuff the IT staff would need to do can be done from the command line, which doesn't change. Not like Windows, where you need to go through the GUI to do anything useful, like changing network card settings or whatever. The GUI is exactly what it should be, a user interface. It's not the whole OS. Besides, you can just keep an administrative account on the machine (root or otherwise) with standard settings.
No, I didn't read the goddamned article.
Yes. I'm willing to troubleshoot a current problem, in addition to all the probable future problems that I'll have with an OpenSource OS which, because anyone can create apps for it, contribute to it, etc. will undoubtedly have more severe initial bugs with new software as opposed to a proprietary OS which when finally shipped is tested enough to not contain a glaringly obvious BSOD, and contains a 'polished' look and operation. Windows problems are usually annoying, but easily solveable (reboot). Linux hates the reboot. So while WinXP may actually be more stable and easier to use than Mandrake8, I'm willing to put the short term concerns aside (ease of use) over the long term concerns (security, privacy, extendability, upgradeability, etc). It's short-term thinking like yours that gave us such idiocies like the dot-com fiasco of 2000.
and a lot of windows users can't see any reason to switch to linux - yet every fucking day it seems this lameass 'news website' seems to poke and prod any shortcoming windows may have to try to get more people to rally around linux. linking to some lame story comparing mandrake to xp? wtf?
Reading this article (pretty good by the way) I couldn't help but chuckle on how the writer compares some of the new features of windows to those of the Linux Mandrake package. It reminds me of a few years back when I purchased a bumper sticker reading Windows 95 = Macintosh 89. I guess it's just the same thing happening again, the only innovations coming from Microsoft are those pertaining to new ways of pushing the limits of the law and leveraging their Monopoly. All of you Linux people out there, do something so that you aren't always stuck in the same boat I'm in, promoting the superior system, yet outnumbered 10 to 1 by the evil empire.
~ now you know
Windows XP has an excellent feature that I have seen nowhere else. The feature is called Switch User, and is available only when the machine is not part of an NT Domain(not sure about AD). The feature is enabled in the Users/Groups control panel by a allow users to switch checkbox.
At first glance the feature was nothing that couldn't be ackomplished with a good X session manager like gnome-session. A user logs out and another users logs in. Go back to that first users and all the programs are restored where they left off. But This is NOT the Microsoft switch user feature. In XP, the user never really logs off. All the programs are left running in the background while another person works. This is a huge contrast to current X windows usage, and is a feature I would love to see on X at some level.
The application specific point I've found is for applications like file sharing. Brother is transfering files on napster, but sister wants to use the computer to check her email and use her Web browser bookmarks. Today in X Windows land, brother would have to close his program and let sister login. But in Windows XP land, he could simply switch users.
I know that all this really equates to is a full GUI version of screen. But Windowing applications are much more user friendly than console applications. Try teaching your mother or grandmother to user screen.
If anyone could come up with a model for allowing X windows to do this, I would love to see ideas. Would this kind of feature be implemented at the Display Manager level, allowing xdm/gdm/kdm to wrap each users session and let them switch?
If any work is being done in this area, please do tell. It is a feature I am most interested in. And with Unix's inherent superiourity in multiple user features, This is something X Windows should be able to do much better than MS Windows(no NT domain support *laugh*)
-j
gee, I thought that's what those Linux guys did.
/. today... DAMN! So much for that resolution.
I will not troll
Unless you want a total spam of gay porn in your browser...
I'm not even sure this guy understands what he's talking about. The network setup in XP is the same as in Win2k so obviously Microsoft didn't steal anything from Mandrake.
Hey Coward - I thought you needed parental permission to get internet accounts if you are under 13...
Why isn't this article put under the microsoft category. Already got the daily load of microsoft bashing?? But is is still allowed if there is a mandrake icon with it!
arrogant linux tool alert, arrogant linux tool alert!
windows may have its hood bolted shut so that the 'riceboy' who is running it doesn't fuck it up and get $100 after making stupidass modifications when trying to trade it in for a different car? i know quite a few people who can benefit from computer technology being 'bolted down' so they can't screw up anything.
What USB 2.0 hardware? Did you consider that the drivers can't ship until the hardware does?
I appreciate your observations being less scathing than others, but please re-read what I actually said:
;)
Protected Kernel Mode Architecture: New as per MS, not me.
Built in Software Firewall: You are correct. But I wasn't doing a review on XP's software firewall. Merely a humourous (or so I thought) commentary.
Built in Remote Accessibility: Yes, I was talking about NATIVE.
Dual Head Support: Again, I was talking about NATIVE.
Auto Insert Notification: This is not 7 years old when inserting a SmartMedia card or a Zip in Win NT/2K. Only CDs have AINed in the past (at least natively. If there's something you'd like to shine some light on, however...) Auto Insert itself, of course, has been native since 95, but my SmartMedia cards and Zip disks didn't start AINing (is that a real word?) since I installed ME.
All manufacturer x needs to do is dust off some old driver diskettes and stick them online and Windows is covered.
Ack! Bad hardware vendor *NO TWINKIE*!!! ;-)
So you're going to release your new driver w/o testing it to see how it does on your specific hardware implementation. You're basically advocating vendors push out drivers for their hardware which hasn't been tested. *bad bad bad* Some of the drivers in Windows make the system _really_ unstable and MS's operating system takes the blame. Windows doesn't need any help falling over it does it enough for my tastes thank you very much. =P For Linux, they've got to go out, find if someone has made them a driver, check it (cos no one wants to risk their brand on an untested driver or employ someone to write their own. Why would they bother? Because someone else will likely write the driver or help maintain it for them so the hardware vendor doesn't have to devote as many resources to this task. If they open up their specs and the device is purchased with any substantial amount someone will get itchy and write a driver for it.
Because an odd handful of 5% of the desktop computer population might find some old hardware in a second hand store? And this helps them how?
There are many countries who either choose not to always get the latest and greatest hardware or are forced to by economics to whom this support is a huge plus. Just because the guy in the office across the street is running more or less state of the art hardware doesn't mean everyone is. Some people (IMO) wisely choose to stay out of the upgrade rat race if their machine does what they need it to.
-Pato
G. Washington on Government "it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
Why do you narrow the issue and confine it to "substantially large" applications? For small applications, having access to the source code has saved me hours of time on a number of occasions. Just because these applications are small, hours of my time don't matter?
As Bob Young says, the interesting thing isn't that you have access to source code; the interesting thing is that other people do. He compares software to cars. While 95% of people will never fix under the hood of their cars, just being able to is a good thing. Imagine you would like to make an improvement to your car. Would you rather have choice of hunderds of thousands of mechanics in the free market, or exactly one choice (the manufacturer)? Having access to source code gives you more control, not necessarily because you can do something with it (if you can -- great), but because other people can.
Module testing can cause errors that cannot be fixed by changing init levels.
Everyone has said it in one place or another but I'm going to take his list of 'new' things and point out they were almost all in 2k
Huh? You've been able to change the colors of various windows desktop components in windows since at least 3.1. Perhaps earlier.
Maybe so, but we were discussing benefits from the ability to modify open source. What you're describing is the benefit of having a hobby, not an economic benefit. We all know that some people enjoy tinkering with code in their free hours. Presumably, we also know that most people would rather have sex, read a book or watch a movie. So the benefit of this opportunity doesn't extend beyond a tiny subculture.
Maybe he did it and contributed it back to the keepers of the source, they implemented it, thus saving hundreds if not thousands of other people to have to go out and buy a new sound card.
That could be, and if so it would be an altruistic act, conferring a benefit through the economy of replication. Did he, though? It seems all he wanted was to get sound on his own system.
There is a theoretical benefit to society from code sharing but it doesn't seem to have fulfilled the promise of systems with high reliability and low TCO yet. Part of the reason may be related to all the complaints from people who can't get their changes merged into the trunk of their favorite project. It seems to have become such a hassle that many people have stopped trying.
(And BTW, why the heck would someone have to read source code to understand how a kernel call works? Shouldn't he have been able to settle this using kernel docs rather than reading the source?)
Tim
Wow, that was a lot of talk with very little point. I guess the point is this - UI programmers of the world, don't give up on innovation just because MS has done a lot of research. There's always something better w/r/t MMI.
I agree wholeheartedly. MS has spent a lot of effort getting their UI to be the best it can, but it still serves MS's purposes, and doesn't really break any new ground.
Features I'd like to see in 'new' User Interfaces:
1. A departure from the 'Dock'/'Taskbar' modus operandi. Just about every GUI uses one of these in one form or the other. They eat up valuable screen realestate, and I can't help but feel that there is a better and more efficient way to accomplish the same tasks. Damned if I know what it is, though... Make everything a right-click menu?
2. Graphical Relational Links: One of the concepts I really like about 'The Brain' is that it helps you to build visual logical links between applications, files, and websites. For example, you can link your MP3 Player to your MP3 folder, Winamp.com, Gnutella, etc...
Unfortuneately, the last version of the 'The Brain' I used wasn't really an adequate shell replacement. There's no real file management. I would give up a lot to have those same kind of links in a 'real' UI.
3. 'Tearaway' components. This is a feature you tend to find inside office and productivity apps that could really help any given UI if they were made standard. We're starting to see this a little bit in the moveable menus inside most applications, but I would really like to be able to say, grab my bookmarks sidebar from Mozilla and yank it onto the desktop or another application when I'm doing work on the web. There are other examples, but there is a lot of room for improvement here.
4. 3d object manipulation - We're stuck in a 2D world. For most things this is okay, but I can't help but feel that I could be more efficient if I could manipulate files, folders, and applications as if they were 3D objects. There are a few UI's built around Doom and Quake for linux, but we have yet to see a comprehensive UI that was entirely 3D. The model that most quickly comes to mind is 'Black and White'. Use a 'hand' pointer to move objects around, keyboard chords or gestures to execute common commands, and have an environment that can be used at a macro- or a microscopic level.
I'd love to throw around all my downloaded files into a big 'sorting' bin, for example, and have more organized objects represent my media and application files.
We have the hardware to do these things now. It'd be nice to see them in action. I wish I were a little better coder so that I could try to impliment some of them...
Here's hoping Lionhead will release B&W Shell
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I have to agree that 00 is an improvement over 98, 95, etc. It's much easier to develop on, the increase in bloat isn't too extreme, it seems rather nice. A good balance.
I've played around with an XP beta, but not in any detail. It seems bloated and unecessarily memory-hungry. I've often wondered if XP is starting the Windows-quality-pendulum swinging the other way, and MS is off into crappiness in a whole 'nother direction, so to speak.
I'm very curious if three years from now, if I get over my increasing MS paranoia once again, I'll conclude that XP really is an improvement. This is what has happened for me in the past: I hesitated to upgrade from DOS to 95 because it seemed like unstable bloat, I hesitated to upgrade to 98 because it seemed like just bloat, I hesitated to upgrade to 2000 because it seemed like even more bloat. In all the cases I eventually upgraded, because after I had enough exposure to them, I decided there were justifiable increases in quality.
But will I think the same with XP? Or will this be the first time I think that the new OS really is just unecessary bloat? Will MS ever stabilize Windows?
I think this is the thing that scares me about MS--I don't know where they're headed, and I can't tell if the new product is for performance improvements or just revenue enhancement.
It's nice to be able to edit the kernel source in dealing with the occasional quirk. For example, I'm NOT a kernel hacker (never, ever wrote a device driver, for instance), but it was still simple (if, perhaps, inelegant; there was probably a better way to do it, like a parameter) to edit a network device driver to force detection of the 10B2 interface of a combo card on one machine. It'd been stubbornly using the unconnected 10BT connector, instead; changing a line or two of code fixed it, and work could go on.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
the people who benefit from having the hood bolted shut don't want to learn anything about computers. they just want to read their email, they don't care how it works.
<full disclosure>
I run an NT/W2k network, and use W2k at home
</full disclosure>
To me, the idea of a skinable OS makes me shudder. I already have to hunt for people's "My computer icon" because they've changed it to "compaq" and changed the icon. I spend ages looking around for the command prompt and the like. It's got so bad that now I just type "windows+R cmd return". The thought of giving users an OS they can change seemlingly beyond recognition should give IT staff nightmares.
yes, www.dotcomforwardslash.com is my real URL.
If you want remote access from just about any kind of machine, try VNC:
http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/
There are alternatives to Word:
Corel WordPerfect, http://www.corel.com
KOffice, (Open Source Office (Not Windows) Suite): http://www.koffice.kde.org
I believe Sun has a Office suite as well, but it escapes me for the moment. Oh well
Slashdot Hypocrisy at work?
Hope this helps!
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
You're willing to troubleshoot a problem with a computer without going out and buying a new OS and installing that?
Wow.
My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!
saintlupus, i know this is offtopic, but can you tell me whether an iMac is able to be single-booted with linux? i mean, can i set up my iMac with ONLY linux, and no Mac OS at all? for the life of me i can't find the answer on the Yellow Dog or LinuxPPC websites.
sure you can. boot from the mac os cd and run drive setup. reformat the drive as type "unallocated." then reboot, hold down the mouse button to eject the cd, put in the yellow dog cd, and run the installer. just remember that if you don't have mac os on there at all you're not going to get the fun of mac-on-linux.
(personally, i've got my machine booting to os 9.1, os x, and ydl. no problems yet.)
--saintWhere Mandrake can truly succeed is in the support of older hardware. The manufacturers and Microsoft are partners, in that they both want to sell new product to consumers. However, the open source philosophy is to use what you've got to it's fullest - new or old. Microsoft can't survive in this model, and many manufacturers of hardware don't understand the impact to their business models.
Microsoft controls the hardware market. No independent firm can develop new hardware without supporting and licensing Microsoft product. It's simply not financially possible, given the control by Microsoft of the marketplace.
Alas, trade secret laws sometimes makes Linux support counter-productive, as reverse engineering become tricky (if not impossible) business. As Ted McFarson said, "Trade Secret encourages Microsoft's Monolopy". How true.
Okay, so it has a nice interface, but I had to reboot my machine for each change to take effect. That's pretty annoying. I haven't used any of the nice Linux network utilities, but I imagine they can make changes on the fly without rebooting.. at least that's possible on the command line.
We're comparing Mandrake's device support to XP's? What are the chances Mandrake could detect my USB scanner and burner... And here's 3 words that make XP rock: Fast User Switching. Works great too, I love it. You guys suck.
my programming skills are of the "not escaping paper bag" variety, though I'm trying to improve them. So I've not contributed any code (worthwhile or not) to any open-source projects, though I'd like to one day.
...
I file bug reports though (and seen a lot get fixed -- yay!), have helped in small ways with documentation, etc -- little things that I hope will make certain projects seem more attractive and accessable. Most open source projects are still badly documented and frustrating, even more so than the badly-documented and frustrating proprietary stuff. (Most software is bad, most hardware is bad, computers are bad bad bad!)
The point to me about code being open is not that *everyone* has to fix or modify it -- no one would expect that! It's that anyone with the time and inclination can do so, for fun, or to sell (under GPL, BSD, or a lot of other licenses), or for particular in-house applications.
Lots of people can rally for open source for the advantages it means they derive for it even if they're not contributing to it. For instance, the lack of restrictions on use -- I advocate Linux for public schools, which tend to do a poor job stewarding tax money, and with upcoming Windows subscription models, will probably do even worse.
Eh, before I blather more
End.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
start with the obligatory "M$", bitch about bad security etc. even though other OS's have their security problems too. then saying you'd rather not use XP because of MS's arrogance, i'd see it's you thats being arrogant. when i use an OS, it's not giving me attitude about anything.
finally you prove your 3133tness by saying you'll stick with inferiority rather than succumb to the borg.
grow up and follow your own path instead of being slashdot lemmings.
Umm.. I never claimed to be an MCSE. And how would you know what I was thinking when I wrote it? Did I ever say "XP Sucks"? No. Is it still on my PC? YES. I sense a deep emotional void in your life. Did your goldfish die recently? PS: I love the "Anonymous Coward" title. It suits so many of the folks here. ;)
Wrong. XP is based on the same kernel as 2k. Both support dual processors natively. Next time dont buy a motherboard with an unknown chipset.
Wrong. 2k had the same "easy" Network Connection wizard. If he had actually installed 2k (as he indicated above) he wouldve seen it.
Wrong. XP has less bloat than most Linux distros. It only has 3 text editors instead of 20. One browser instead of 4. One interface instead of 10. One bootloader instead of 2. You may call it choice - but I call it bloat. BTW - I bet the XP interface is loads smaller than the latest Gnome/Nautilis abomination.
Wrong XP displays a welcome wizard on inital startup that allows you to configure the inital user. At the time you are UNABLE to give this user a password. Therefore you have no need to login (yes you can add a password later). This is true unless he is logging into a domain. In that case I suggest he get a brain because there arent many clueless home users who will have a domain server set up at their home.
Wrong Again. Thats exactly what happens in XP UNLESS YOU ARE LOGGING INTO A DOMAIN! Ummmm... thats very contradictory to what you said five minutes ago. Perhaps you ought to read over what you just typed..... anybody else seeing the trend here? Are you just completely clueless? I really dont know how to respond to that one.....
Needless to say this fool only described a small portion of the install process for each OS and the initial login process. Why in the HELL was this article even posted? What a waste of time.....
Gam
"Flame at Will"
huh, huh, perfectly useless without $900 of additional software. Someone reported spending ten minutes to turn off the "dumb down" stuff. Why bother? When you are finished you end up with W2K, NT, 98, ME, something like Win3.1. Same old, same old, it's not FUD to call it dull. If I were to use it, I'd expect the same quirky and inconsistent junk that everyone became familiar with and now considers "easy".
Code Red? Oh yeah, the XP call home features are much that. Expect MS.net to become very clogged and XP to be very slow or to quit working when you disconnect the internet.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
#1. Why Mandrake vs. XP?
.02
#2. Who cares if they are similar/different?
#3. It doesn't really say much.
In my experience you either (1) want Windows to look as far from Linux as possible (or you end up trying to type commands everywhere that are for the other OS) (2) Linux is not comparable to Windows in any way/shape/form (3) this article was pointless. Great, XP has logins, who cares?
Just my worthless
One of the things that drew me to linux in the first place was how dang cool it could look. I loved having little widgets here and there that would tell me the amount of CPU or Ram usage, or even the temperature of my CPU. When I first ran across enlightenment i could't believe how freaking cool it was. (and this was in the days when only winamp had skins).
It takes windows so long to adopt these kinds of things. Look how long it took them to be able to change single color on a window title bar.
If only they had native desktopX support in WXP. That would be the shiz.
darn right you are. Have the same experience with Suse. Autodetects everything, loads drivers and just works. My recent upgrade from NT4 to W2K was a disaster with 2 crashes, 15 re-boots and about 1/2 of my applications no longer working. Compare 45 minutes for a complete Suse install (incl. apps) vs. 9 hours Win2K (excl apps).
Appearantly you have very little reading skills.
What I said was that Linux has various distribitions, each with its own policies, friendliness, usability for different people, and stability.
Thus, it is ignorant and stupid to judge Linux by the newest Mandrake, or Debian, or whatever, because they *DO NOT REPRESENT Linux in its entirety*, and you *CANNOT concluce* that their faults are Linux faults and will be found in all distributions.
KDE *HAS* made Linux much easier for the average Joe, and I've *SEEN* average Joe's use it easily and successfully.
it is still insanely complex, poorly organized, inconsistent
If you think Linux is more complex than it should be, then you don't have a clue. Linux is designed pretty much as simply as ANY system with such functionalities can be designed. Grasping how Linux works is *MUCH* easier than grasping how, for example, the Windows kernel works, and involves much less details, because it is implemented much much more cleanly.
If you think it is 'poorly organized', then you are either referring to the file system - or to package layout.
In both of these fields, at least some distributions of Linux take the competitors hands down. Debian Linux, for example, has a VERY VERY organized file system, where each file belongs to a certain package, and its location is DICTATED by a STRICT SIMPLE policy. Can you say you can easily locate a file in Windows?
Hell, can you even tell what most of the files thrown around disorganized on a Windows HDD are? What rules dictate files' locations?
When it comes to software packages - Linux is also MUCH more organized - as there is a uniform and consistent way to install and manage packages, and often even CENTRAL repositries where those packages can be found, where you also know they will work with others. Windows, on the other hand, has packages thrown all over the Internet, without any central repositries or such centralization.
Think twice before comparing Linux's organization to others, its one of the best organized systems, in almost all distributions.
What the hell are you talking about when you mention inconsistency - I have no clue, because Debian GNU/Linux is the most consisten and uniform-way system I've ever seen.
and is more like an ongoing project for developers than a usable piece of software.
Yes, Linux is an ongoing project.
Like Windows - almost all distributions have a 'stable' release that is 0..2 years older than the current unstable package versions.
Unlike Windows - the unstable packages that are more interesting to developers you seem to be mentioning, *ARE* available to Users.
Get a clue.
"After the first initial bootup - you are taken through the network connection wizard."
;)
Right. And then you boot up again.
Crap, dude.. I'm not going to split hairs with you. I don't even think I said it was a "new" feature. I merely wrote a column pointing out aestetic parallels with a humourous twist and you turn on the flame thrower.
If Johnny Carson made a Monica Lewinsky joke, it seems as if you'd get upset at him because he didn't know Monica personally. Lighten up.
Apparently, from what I see here, my humor fell on deaf ears like Louie Anderson telling fat jokes at a Weight Watchers meeting. No sweat. Some people thought it was funny, some people picked it apart for technical inaccuracies while some people, such as yourself, resort to name calling and mudflinging.
Whatever floats your board... You're not hurting my feelings.
Actually, I had to to get my soundcard working. I have an Aureal Vortex 1, and the problem with the drivers for it, is that the majority of the code is closed-source, and Aureal has gone bust... meaning that there isn't a hope in hell of them being updated, and it's a right royal PITA to try and modify them. Luckily, some of the code is open source though...
When I tried to get them to work with Linux, the driver refused to recognise my sound card. I tracked down where this could happen in the driver, and then tracked the corresponding function in the Kernel source. Turned out to be an error in the driver, a one-liner. Fixed it, recompiled and bingo - sound in Linux.
Now, if I'd had this problem in Windows (which I have had with various other pieces of hardware in the past), what would I have done. Erm... Tried reinstalling the driver? The system? By a new sound card? etc. etc. etc...
Jason
Except for the M$ EULA, all the proprietary code that no one is allowed to touch, being required to signup your personal data on Passport which has been shown to be quite breakable and insecure (after all, it's a companies website which has had a notorious history of bad security - Code Red, Sircam, the list goes on), and the fact that I can't install XP on the new machines that I buy after the original one gets outdated and no longer used.
Sorry, but for all of Mandrake's (and Linux in general) shortcomings, I'd trust my important things (and personal data) to Madrake before XP. XP runs better, sure, but it's M$'s arrogant attitude towards it's 'stupid' users I have a problem with, not how well it's software runs. And to prove I'm not a troll: I've got 2 machines at home, one is running Mandrake8, the other Win98. the Mandrake 8 machine had a major system fart over the weekend and X isn't working now, my Win98 machine is still fine. But I'm still determined to wrestle with Mandrake until it's working again before I even THINK about buying XP.
On the surface only: the plumbings are worse. So mod that message up, it's insightful, buddy.
I think you mean "Apparently very few reading skills". But then what do I know? All I can do is spell and use proper grammar.
.bashrc file or whatnot, suddenly certain applications don't work and they have no idea why. More examples? Every application stores its configuration files in a different file format, and often times you have to learn a new scripting or programming language just to accomplish something as simple as getting X-Windows to work right with your video adaptor.
You probably speak better English than I -- not that it means much, English being a second language I don't speak often.
That's not what you said. Maybe that's what you meant to say, but it's not what you actually said. Sounds like you're the one with the reading problem. Try reading your own messages before hitting the "Submit" button.
I just re-read my original message - and its blatantly trivial I was bitching about the judging of Linux according to a specific configuration. I said:
"It seems you have a common disease - assuming Linux has One look, One way, One policy - as you have in Windows.
No, there is no 'general' way distriubtions handle errors and no 'default' graphical mode that distributions always select. "
Aka: Linux is not an OS, its a kernel, and GNU/Linux is a minimal OS that serves as the core OS of distributions.
It does not contain the management code - therefore you cannot bitch about its management sucking - you'd have to bitch about a distribution's management - but noone seemed to do that.
Really, is that so? Can you back up that statement with facts? I didn't think so. Anyone who thinks that a GNU/Linux system has to be as insanely complex and disorganized as it is just to provide the functionality it can offer is simply too lazy to learn anything about usability or human-machine interfaces. There are numerous specific aspects of any given GNU/Linux distribution that simply wreak from an unnecessary lack of usability, consistency, and simplicity. Want some examples? Just look at the recent corporate analysis of GNOME's usability that was posted on Slashdot and you'll see plenty.
You obviously have some basic misconception about the terminology of this discussion.
Linux is a kernel.
GNU/Linux is a core OS.
A distribution is a whole OS, bundled with all the software you may need.
When saying 'Linux is complex' - you are claiming that the kernel is complex. Or even 'GNU/Linux is complex' is claiming that the kernel, plus the set of simple command line utilities are complex.
These systems are very simple. The kernel is very clean and simple, and the tools are clean and simple.
What you mean to say - is that the Linux user interfaces are 'insanely complex'.
I have little experience with Redhat or Mandrake, but from that little experience - they seemed to have auto-configured hardware/software/etc. They also set up a trivial-to-use KDE desktop, where all I need to do is point&click, and all my hardware is supported.
I don't see where you claim the UI has any insane complexity, but perhaps you're referring to distributions such as Debian and Slackware - where the user is *expected* to know how to handle the lower-level interfaces.
If you try to argue that Gnome is not very usable - I'd agree. I don't use gnome, although many others find it usable.
I use KDE, my parents use KDE, and they are VERY computer illeterate.
Really? That's amazing. Then apparently Windows 2000 doesn't actually exist, and is a violation of some previously undiscovered universal law of reality. It offers the same overall functionality in a much more usable package--and that is they key reason people use it over any UNIX-like system.
Win2K is much much more complex than Linux -- using the correct terminology ofcourse.
If you look under the hood - you'll find a MUCH cleaner system under Linux, than under the Windows hood.
When comparing the user interfaces - KDE is more configurable, better looking (to most viewers), and much more quickly evolving.
Why do you incorrectly assume that I can't be speaking about more than either of those? While both the filesystem and "package layout" are poorly organized, GNU/Linux systems suffer from numerous other disorganizations. For instance, many applications hard-code filesystem paths into their source, so you actually have to recompile an application from source code if you simply want to install it to a directory of your choice. Another example? There is no distinction between a user's environment variables and system environment variables as there is in NT, so if a user unwittingly blows away a necessary system environment variable with their
Actually, automatic X configuration with Redhat/Mandrake is quite easy, and from my exprience - they autodetect the hardware.
If not - tough luck - you have to work through some admittedly more complex UI's to configure them.
Appearnatly you're missing that basic configuration is a one-time task that, like the hardware installation - can be done by a techie who knows what he's doing.
Using the machine is where UI usability should be compared.
Anyhow - why the hell would you be learn a programming language when configuring X?
About the 'standard configuration format', called the registry, that must be a hilarrious joke - because locating registry keys and interpreting their representations is at least as difficult than editting the dot text files in the home directory - not that you have to, given that applications provide a UI to edit their configurations.
I've never encountered any difficulties with my option to override system variable values.
Hardcoded paths are not a major problem - because the system is so well organized, that unlike Windows - files *DO NOT MOVE AROUND*. You are *NOT SUPPOSED* to install it in a 'directory of your choice'. Organization *leaves you no choice*, because choice, not based on policies is simply *unorganized*.
There is only ONE right location for a file under any given policy. This is actually far better organized and easier on the system than the Windows configuration of organize by-package, that can be moved around anywhere.
Yes--it's called "Search". And if you don't like using search, you know that an application's configuration is always in the registry, its files are generally always under "C:\Program Files\", and your documents are generally always under "My Documents". Pretty easy.
The fact you have to *SEARCH* for files shows poor organization. Had it been as well organized as *nix, you would be able to follow the simple policy rules to find your files.
Really? I'd sure like to see it. But all I've seen is that some things are available only as source, some are available as RPMs, some are newer RPMs that won't install on older versions of Red Hat, some require additional libraries to already be installed on your system that you might have to go track down, some are only available as slackware modules, and sometimes even when you get the source it won't even compile unless you manually hack away on some makefiles. You call that uniform and consistent?
I call apt-get install a uniform and consistent way to install things.
Once in around.. a year I have to look for a package out of the Debian repositries, and get a tarball/rpm of the package, and compile/debianize it. I didn't have to manually edit a Makefile or so in a year, and probably won't have to in a long while.
Typical Windows installation:
- Windows user opens his repositry, browses it/searches it for the wanted package. (~2 minutes)
- Windows user reads installation procedure and downloads the file (~4 minutes, not including download time which is usually large due to typical static linking and including all dependencies in the package)
- Windows user runs the installer, answers questions, chooses installation location, etc. (~3 minutes, or ~6 minutes, depending on whether he needs a reboot or not. Not to mention possible loss of time due to reboot)
Typical Debian user installation:
- apt-cache/auto-apt search for the package (~2 minutes)
- apt-get install package-name (~15 seconds, not including download time, which is small, because dependencies are separated and only downloaded if required).
Compare the ~10-15 minute Windows installation with the simple, and *uniform* 3 minute Debian installation.
You can also consider the fact Windows Update is a bad joke compared to apt-get's dist-upgrade functionality, but that's another issue.
Which way to manage software is simpler, uniform and more productive?
Wow--I guess you've never heard of http://www.winfiles.com, http://www.zdnet.com, http://www.cnet.com, http://www.windowsupdate.com, or any of the other numerous central repositories of Win32 software that are out there. But why should that surprise me--you've obviously chosen to stick your head in a hole, obssess about GNU/Linux, and ignore the rest of the world.
Those repositries are just links to various software packages. They are NOT central repositries, that I was talking about.
By *central*, I mean there is a *central* organization or entity, making sure they all work right with each other, and function as a *whole system*, not as a bunch of packages.
Like Redhat with its collection of RPM's, Mandrake, and the best in the regard: Debian.
Another unbiased, fact-based response from an obviously educated and objective Slashdot reader.
To summarize the points that you call a 'bias':
- I agree Linux configuration - when not automatically successful, can be complex for users, however, the hardware installation should be accomodated with the configuration - as it is with Windows (coming preinstalled from the OEM, and people installing the proper drivers for computer illiterate).
- Computer illiterate are successfully using KDE, everywhere. I haven't used Gnome in a while so in your comparisons, try to use KDE.
- Linux has official, central, and automatically managed package installation and upgrade systems, whereas Windows is typically using a bunch of EXE's and very weak registry settings to register installed apps - a poor excuse for a package system. Windows has no automated way of upgrading the system (No, not just Office and a few core componenets, the whole system - for its thousands of packages).
- Linux implements file system policies that make file locationing a predictable, simple, and senseful decision, whereas with Windows, although Microsoft published the hierarchy standards, nobody is following them, apart for My Documents and Program Files, which are a small part of the standard - go read it.
- Linux is more configurable and doesn't get in the way of users who want to do out-of-the-ordinary things, or fix problems that authors wouldn't fix on short notice (examples: strace, minikernels without support for devices you don't need, manual access to ALL of the running systems and their configurations, and of course source availability).
Uhh...isn't that what Apple did with OS X? Personally, I think you are correct. Once a flavor of Linux comes along for x86 that can do what OS X does for the Macintosh, THEN I think it will really take off. Only at that point will Linux ever become a real contender to the Microsoft throne.
I use Office 2000 at work, and it makes me miserable. It's just feature landfill.
There are serious bugs in Word that have been there for nearly a decade! Like the section break bug! And there are new bugs with every release! It's gotten to the point where I have to print out my docs and CHECK EVERY PAGE to make sure something hasn't spontaneously broken. It defeates the purpose of using a computer to do the work.
So, if switching to Linux means I have to use something else as my office app, I say bring it on!
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
untouchable code
I'm sorry, but this always bothers me. People always bitch about how Windows is not open source. Have you ever looked at the source code for any substantially large Linux application (or the kernel, for that matter)? Have you ever submitted a patch for an application? Has it been included, or has it fallen into the destructive in-fighting that has become synonymous with open source development?
I'm not asking this of you personally, timothy. I ask this of the general Slashbot public, the folks who use "open source!" as a rallying cry. It's not like open source software is released bug-free, you know. People joked about Windows 2000 having 63,000 "bugs" upon release, but Mozilla already has at least that many. (I'm defining a "bug" as an open issue, which includes feature requests and low-severity issues.) Are they being fixed? Maybe. It's not like one person is going to go through it and fix them all.
For more information, click here.
Finally got through to the article! What was just so surprising about it was this this person seems to have never used an MS OS before. Well, never installed one before, anyway.
/usr/www/users/syslogic/temp/layout/discussions/1. php on line 7
:)
"The first thing that popped up that made me think about this parallel during the set up was the Network Connection Wizard built into the tail end of the set up process. Of course, XP being as new as it is, has a very large database of native drivers for NICs, so odds are that XP is going to find your NIC while it's installing itself on the PC...much like Mandrake 8.0 currently does. Once it finds this NIC, a wizard pops up wanting to set up your network!"
Wow, so Mandrake 8 finally has network card detection, and pops up a wizard. This happened back in Win95, when IIRC, Mandrake wasn't even around - certainly not for sale at Best Buy. Yet the author somehow implies that MS is *copying* Mandrake!
Then we're get to read about which icons he and his wife prefer. Ok, so XP 'chose' his login icon for him - he apparently didn't want to be a guitar, or whatever. *IT'S BETA*. I have a feeling you'll be able to choose your own login icon in the final release.
Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (61) in
Hmmm... perhaps using pconnects isn't such a good idea if you're going to get slashdotted.
creation science book
I guess it was Windows 95 = Mac 89.
;)
Point the same though
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
..does wonderfully on my WinXP RC2 box - a few FPS faster than on WinMe anyways. I just had to replace the WinXP Nvidia driver with the Detonator3 for Win2000. Now video is great and sound is hella better (was choppy before replacing the video driver).
That is a good point, and I think there are a lot of people that talk about Open Source without necessarily ever using the source. I admit that I don't contribute back as much as I'd like - my day job and various family events keep me fairly busy. I've sent in a few patches for features that I like, which have made it into some open source projects. But I admit that I'm not as happy with my contributions to Open Source as I could be.
But, on the other hand, I think there is benefit to having the source. Even if just once you were able to look through an application and figure out why it was doing something weird in order to work around the problem, you've still benefited from Open Source. And since you can't always predict what software will work and what won't, the more source you have access to, the less likely it becomes that you'll be totally stymied by a software bug. I think there are a lot of people on /. who are Open Source supporters for just this reason - they don't necessarily contribute a lot back to the community, but they use Open Source because in the end it's easier to get it to do what you want it to do.
Is that enough reason to continually bitch about commercial software which is not Open Source? Maybe, maybe not. I don't spend my time complaining about Windows (well, not for that reason at least :), but I do put my time where my mouth is. My time and my money are too important to waste with non-open software, unless there is an overwhelming value to closed software that I just can't get from Open Source. And with every passing day and every little patch, the value of Open Source software to me increases, and the corresponding value of closed software decreases.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Linux isn't to hard for me, I'm not average joe. I did find somethings from linux that are somewhat usefull on windows, but nearly all of them are GNU projects, and thus they wouldn't be around if linux wasn't.
that is a testament to windows. Why? Windows doesn't have any real documentation, and if the only way I could find this information was to use Linux, or linux sites, somthings really messed up.
The upgrade issue is realistic, but consider what you "really" need to run OSX
This is totally unclear, but what I understand you saying is that everyone needs to run OSX. This obviously wouldn't work, because they're prices are ludicuous, and it doesn't allow near the flexibility that linux does. Sure it's UNIX, but you won't get it to install over a network.
My origional target was unclear, I admit. What I am saying is that the multi-userness of XP will end up making it harder than UNIX anyway, so why shell out $200 for something that's sluggish, and hardware-requiring. Most likely people will end up spending more money upgrading their machine that work work fine on Linux, than the actual cost of windows XP. XP will come out late, Gnome 2 won't.
I am sick of you and stupid ass rob malda sticking up for XP and .NET. You guys are f*cking idiots. You are not computer lovers, your slashsh*t column is getting pretty f*cking diluted you stupid morons.
2 pages of utter trash. Is news that slow?
What a biased writer
Doesn't this mean new license in XP?
I see that this has degenerated to an elementary school playground pissing match, so I'm out of here. ;)
As a general rule, I don't take anonymous posters seriously. Our friend Gamorck doesn't have enough confidence in his words to put his precious karma on the line, and so I won't either.
That said, I've installed W2K on a number of machines, and have had mixed results with the network setup. Upgrades from 95/98 won't give you any network options during setup, leaving you in a real harware jam if the install can't find your network card. DHCP is the default in W2K, but it also doesn't give you a choice for manual IP during setup.
The perfect GUI would be attached to an OS that kept such attacks from happening in the first place.
It seems to me that the perfect interface would be a combination of CLI and GUI. A GUI is necessary for display purposes, but instead of click 20 times in 10 different spots, you would have a command interpreter orders of magnitude more powerful than bash or CMD.EXE, that would take plain-english instructions either typed or spoken and then intelligently figure out exactly what you meant by that, and make the necessary system calls to do it. There wouldn't be a need for all this MS crap anymore if you had a plain-english voice recognition system or CLI. The machine would conform to how the user wants to use it, not to how the OS vendor wants it to work.
Then again, I've been using computers for most of my life, and I know how they work so well that I could probably work faster that way. Some people couldn't. Look at the people that cover their monitor in post-it notes. They work better that way, and it's not my place to tell them that my way is better. - JW
BTW, I know you were joking, but I'm in an arguing mood today :)
I recall some NT 4.0 installations that took a better part of the day, but this was on Compaq server hardware, so there was all that SmartStart stuff, the OS itself, the service pack, the IE installation, the option pack, the service pack again, the 32 hotfixes that needed to be installed, and finally the software. Real fun when the server takes a minute just to POST.
When setting up a simple network of two computers with Win95 I would often have problems just getting them to see each other the first time. The solution was usually reboot them a couple of times then it would start working, and would keep working. Win98 and Me worked better for home use, and I never had this problem with NT systems. Not sure why someone moderated this to flamebait.
I suppose you never have tried to install W 2k in any computer with a modern SCSI controller and finishing with a beautiful message:
your CDROM is not currently supported
The thing that pulls my chain about mandrake is that it requires 64M to install! I've tried the 32 meg text install but it often leaves the machine in a crappy state. Don't even think about it on an old P5 with 16 megs. Not only does it fail, it fails with some obscure error message that doesn't initially appear to have anything to do with how much ram the box has. Yah, I know the box says 64M to install but christ I expect it to tell me "hey stupid this box only has 16 megs of ram" before it craps out.
Too bad you don't even have a clue what 'Linux' is.
Obviously you consider Mandrake with a crappy Gnome and Staroffice installation to represent Linux's usability, but there's news for you - unlike Windows - Linux has a choice between various applications. Yes, indeed - you can have more than one application do one thing so you can choose which you like.
Those new firewalls that allow only the Microsoft applications to run smoothly while others are blocked sure represent this policy well.
"One World. One Web. One Program." --
Someone, Somewhere dark
sounds like you just buy really shitty hardware.
It seems you have a common disease - assuming Linux has One look, One way, One policy - as you have in Windows.
:), but its just an example to the fact there IS NO one Linux policy, way or appearance.
No, there is no 'general' way distriubtions handle errors and no 'default' graphical mode that distributions always select.
Debian allows me to specify the exact mode I want, and does not even attempt to detect hardware automatically in its current installers (except for [in my experience] flawless detection of PCMCIA devices) - allowing me to specify the exact parameters I want, not risking hardware failures.
Debian will also not default to any stupid modelines, unless you ask it to (Use "Simple" configuration mode - and select the screen size).
I'm not saying Debian does it the right way (I think that although it is a wonderful and great distribution, it has a really crappy installer - fortanatly I deal with it once and forget about it
There is no constant of Linux usability.
This plague of ignorance about Linux has spread from ZDNet into the Slashdot crowd, it seems, as almost all Linux-based posts assume that Linux is as usable as Staroffice, Evolution and the Mandrake installer.
I'd like to see you try this experiment sometime. Get back to us after the $20,000 and one month you expected to spend has ballooned into six months and $150,000, without delivering you any features in a form you want to use.
Tim
Um, d00d, one hour of C programmer time costs a lot more than a new sound card. What did you save again? Negative a hundred dollars?
Tim
that's when you have an open repository where drivers for hardware can accumulate, like software [links] do on freshmeat... and you can group them according to vendor and then model no. perhaps there's already such, i dont doubt it, (but if so i dont have a link), in which case, why not bother?
;)
it's a lot easier to take something you can tinker with so you can get old hardware to work, than deal with something that's not always as susceptible to tinkering-to-make-it-work. and why make old hardware work? dozens of reasons... there are plenty of ppl who may want an old clunker to set up as a dinky webserver for something. or maybe you want to set up a freebie lab somewhere for kids/people who dont have their own computers. or maybe you just like to recycle. or maybe you just like to punish yourself on old, stiff-butt keyboards.
Insert mind here.
You obviously haven't even read the damned article! It compares absolutely none of the actual interfaces...just the MS installer vs. the Mandrake installer. Yes it is a stupid and pointless review that doesnt say much more than "i scored with my wife cause i was able to change her user icon from", but still, why post such an off base message based purely on the title/summary (which we all know are worded to generate the most interest/controversy/hits)?
Maybe he did it in his spare time.
Maybe he did it for a sense of accomplishment.
Maybe he did it and contributed it back to the keepers of the source, they implemented it, thus saving hundreds if not thousands of other people to have to go out and buy a new sound card.
load "linux",8,1
Just because most people won't/don't utilize a right doesn't mean we should get rid of it.
You don't have the right to see the source code to an application. That's a privilege granted by a sufficiently lenient licensing agreement. The issue is not whether to get rid of the free software licenses used by open source software; the issue is just how useful the source is.
I was finally able to get to the site to check out the article. It seems that many /. readers have totally missed the point of this article. Here we have a Linux user who has installed XP and noticed more than a few similarities. It appears, to the author, that Microsoft has "borrowed" a few ideas from this particular distro. Nothing more, nothing less. That's all that's being said here folks. Even though I use Mandrake (7.2 and 8) as my primary distro alongside Win98SE, I cannot comment on the validity of the author's comments since I have never (and will never) installed WinXP for a number of reasons (one of which is that Win98SE does exactly what I want it to do). The article seemed light and a bit silly. I think it was meant to be that way.
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
Rather than expect users to know VTs and startx -- :1 or
xinit -- :1
and other arbitrary concepts, you could just help fix this KDE wishlist item.
Shit nigger, don't you know i was playing? Yo it's all love bitch. and if i over did it, My bad. Truth is you right, them linux appz are wack, i dig the comment on MS. MAD PROPS TO MICOSOFT! Don't be pissed, yo no you my nigger?
I'd like to give a Shout Outz to my boyz, and my bitch with the wicked sweet ass. NAPSTER RULEZ! Peace out!
Wow, that's one of the most condescending, greater-than-thou comments I've read in a while.
Okay, I'm sure most people will probably agree that the article was sub par. If they would have taken some screen shots to illustrate specific examples. I've run Mandrake before so I know what the general layout is, I haven't touched XP with a 10 foot pole however. So I have no idea what is different about it. Some pictures would have been nice.
If u r so tired of FUD on /. then go away and don't post anymore on /.
/.
We don't need ur f***ed windows-centric opinions on
Go away and live happy in ur wonderfull micro$oftian world..
FLAME AT WILL
there IS NO one Linux policy, way or appearance. There is no constant of Linux usability.
You're simply proving my point: GNU/Linux lacks the essential factors that most people want and need.
This plague of ignorance about Linux has spread from ZDNet into the Slashdot crowd
Users aren't "ignorant" for wanting simplicity, consistency, or usability; these are natural needs for most people. I agree that publicity about GNU/Linux (and even projects themselves, such as GNOME and KDE) are doing both GNU/Linux and average users a disservice by claiming that the system has suddenly become easier to use or suitable for the masses. Despite new desktop environments, graphical installers, and the increasing number of games being released for the system, it is still insanely complex, poorly organized, inconsistent, and is more like an ongoing project for developers than a usable piece of software.
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
Scoring with the Mrs. Guru: jonny: 1, Bill Gates: 0.
How can you take anyone who's only scored with his wife once seriously?
Tom the Sigless
this is some text to pass the lameness filter this is some text to pass the lameness filter this is some text to pass the lameness filter this is some text to pass the lameness filter Ph157 PR057!!!!!!!
When you attempt to switch users in Windows XP, and you have an active internet connection, it warns you that you will have to disconnect from the internet to switch users. I have no idea if there is any way to turn this off, but I haven't seen one. You wouldn't be able to transfer those ?Napster files and check your sister's email at the same time, unfortunately.
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
Oh another (main) reason I prefer Linux is because it doesn't crash... ;b
Nevrar
agreed, windows doesn't like changes in the motherboard's chipset. I have pulled off several changes successfully at work, but my home system running win98se went to hell after I dumped my old Intel SE440BX-2 for an ASUS CUSL2. Windows 98SE had to be reinstalled... RH7.1 kept working.
IMHO: pathetic article. Don't waste your time reading it.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
An X-terminal is for (*nearly*) everything a user would want to do -- not access to accelerated video, say -- equivalent to sitting in front of the machine.
;)
I wonder how close Win XP's remote capabilities are to this. Of course, if you'd finished the sentence you'd snipped, the answer would be a lot different too
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
'XP chose my icons for me. I ended up as a guitar, and my wife was a frog...Microsoft has managed to piss off my wife by making her default to a frog icon and has now nearly completely crossed over to the dark side of the "I Hate Bill Gates" club.' Obviously, this guy cannot be reasonably competent. First, he's proficient with Linux Mandrake. Second, he can't figure out how to change his icon in WinXP. If he figured it out for Mandrake, how the hell could he not figure it out in WinXP??? It only takes half the amount of braincells to do anything in it. I pity these people.
While the article was well-written and was helpful, I think there should have been at least a couple pictures comparing the two. Just my 2 cents!
Wow, look at those pictures! They present a rather solid case for XP. I guess I'll finally make the switch.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Appearantly you have very little reading skills.
I think you mean "Apparently very few reading skills". But then what do I know? All I can do is spell and use proper grammar.
What I said was that Linux has various distribitions, each with its own policies, friendliness, usability for different people, and stability.
That's not what you said. Maybe that's what you meant to say, but it's not what you actually said. Sounds like you're the one with the reading problem. Try reading your own messages before hitting the "Submit" button.
Thus, it is ignorant and stupid to judge Linux by the newest Mandrake, or Debian, or whatever, because they *DO NOT REPRESENT Linux in its entirety*, and you *CANNOT concluce* that their faults are Linux faults and will be found in all distributions.
I have not formed my judgements about GNU/Linux based on only one distribution. I have used Slackware, Red Hat, Debian, Mandrake, Suse, and many others for several years. Although they do not all suffer from the same specific defects, they all suffer from the same common, general problems due to the basic GNU/Linux architecture and development style. When I cited my difficulty installing Mandrake 8.0, I was citing only the most recent particular example of these general and common problems.
If you think Linux is more complex than it should be, then you don't have a clue.
Really, is that so? Can you back up that statement with facts? I didn't think so. Anyone who thinks that a GNU/Linux system has to be as insanely complex and disorganized as it is just to provide the functionality it can offer is simply too lazy to learn anything about usability or human-machine interfaces. There are numerous specific aspects of any given GNU/Linux distribution that simply wreak from an unnecessary lack of usability, consistency, and simplicity. Want some examples? Just look at the recent corporate analysis of GNOME's usability that was posted on Slashdot and you'll see plenty.
Linux is designed pretty much as simply as ANY system with such functionalities can be designed.
Really? That's amazing. Then apparently Windows 2000 doesn't actually exist, and is a violation of some previously undiscovered universal law of reality. It offers the same overall functionality in a much more usable package--and that is they key reason people use it over any UNIX-like system.
Grasping how Linux works is *MUCH* easier than grasping how, for example, the Windows kernel works
But hey, end users and even IT administrators don't even have to know what a kernal IS in order to get the job done with Windows 2000. The fact that you have to know stuff like what a kernal is and how it works in order to simply configure and use GNU/Linux is just more evidence as to its unnecessary complexity.
If you think it is 'poorly organized', then you are either referring to the file system - or to package layout.
Why do you incorrectly assume that I can't be speaking about more than either of those? While both the filesystem and "package layout" are poorly organized, GNU/Linux systems suffer from numerous other disorganizations. For instance, many applications hard-code filesystem paths into their source, so you actually have to recompile an application from source code if you simply want to install it to a directory of your choice. Another example? There is no distinction between a user's environment variables and system environment variables as there is in NT, so if a user unwittingly blows away a necessary system environment variable with their .bashrc file or whatnot, suddenly certain applications don't work and they have no idea why. More examples? Every application stores its configuration files in a different file format, and often times you have to learn a new scripting or programming language just to accomplish something as simple as getting X-Windows to work right with your video adaptor.
Can you say you can easily locate a file in Windows?
Yes--it's called "Search". And if you don't like using search, you know that an application's configuration is always in the registry, its files are generally always under "C:\Program Files\", and your documents are generally always under "My Documents". Pretty easy.
there is a uniform and consistent way to install and manage packages
Really? I'd sure like to see it. But all I've seen is that some things are available only as source, some are available as RPMs, some are newer RPMs that won't install on older versions of Red Hat, some require additional libraries to already be installed on your system that you might have to go track down, some are only available as slackware modules, and sometimes even when you get the source it won't even compile unless you manually hack away on some makefiles. You call that uniform and consistent?
Windows, on the other hand, has packages thrown all over the Internet, without any central repositries or such centralization.
Wow--I guess you've never heard of http://www.winfiles.com, http://www.zdnet.com, http://www.cnet.com, http://www.windowsupdate.com, or any of the other numerous central repositories of Win32 software that are out there. But why should that surprise me--you've obviously chosen to stick your head in a hole, obssess about GNU/Linux, and ignore the rest of the world.
Get a clue.
Another unbiased, fact-based response from an obviously educated and objective Slashdot reader.
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
Its beyond their comprehension. Linux just won't take off as a home desktop till they hide the Unix file tree, even from the main home user.
Well, being not too familiar with the kernel docs, and not wanting to read them all, it was easier to grep the source tree and find the particular function I wanted to check out than it was to check the docs.
I'm a student, and so don't have the luxury of earning hundred dollars an hour yet.
But ok, if I bought a new sound card, I would still have to install it into my computer, there could be side effects (though I haven't had any such problems any time recently) It would still take several hours of my time, plus the time for it to arrive. Ok, it's not the most mission-critical piece of hardware ever invented (in fact I don't think I _have_ any mission critical hardware), and so really it's more of a "I can do this, so I'm going to" than anything else - it's all good practice.
And anyhow, I'm perfectly happy with the soundcard I've got, it still works perfectly now I fixed the driver, I don't see why I should have to throw it away and buy a new one.