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Mom Meets Linux - A Lindows 4.0 Review
JimLynch writes "We just put up the first review of Lindows 4.0, with a twist. I actually gave it to my Mom to see if she could use it. Find out if Lindows 4.0 passed the "Mom Test.""
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Linux: Nerd tested, Mom approved.
I actually gave it to my Mom
I gave it to your mom last night, as well.
my mother can't stay awake for a whole movie, let alone try and learn a "new" OS
... has been using computers damm near 15 years. She still calls me occasionally for a reminder on how to get a console window in Win2k (can't call it a DOS window can I?) so she can copy files to her floppy drive from c:\docs
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
his mom is an electrical engineer, so of course she won't be able to understand Lindows...
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
then it must be *better* than Windows. Heck, first thing you know, they might have something that passes the PHB test.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
While I'm a mac user now (was windows, then linux, then OS X) I'd like to see a few more things done to round it out:
:P
Easy VPN setup (mentioned in the article already, but very important..PPTP and IPSec)
Start the user off as a user with sudo privelages, but not as root...touchy I know for user privs, and it starts off a whole load of but "it's not important" but "oh yes it is" all over the place. OSX manages it nicely, I see no reason why Linux can't do the same.
Bundle an office client. It's KDE...KOffice isn't there by default? ???
I think that's about it. Other than of course throwing in a dock and putty a happy mac face on it.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
It is always good to have access to more distros than just one. I assume you didn't also give her Lindows 4.0 since that wouldn't do her any good. So what was it, Redhat? Debian? Tell us what you gave her!
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
Well, my mom works for a software company. I don't think this is a very difficult test.
Linux needs advertising in the popular media. Sure, I can see Linux ads in computer magazines; however, when I turn my TV on, I see ads about how much money you can save by switching to .NET. We need advertising to gain the mindshare we need to become popular. A friendly desktop is a good start; now we have something that we can advertise. Now we need to get the word out there.
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
A thought for GNU/Linux users, BSD users, Mac users, and even MS users:
The more the desktop market becomes fractured, them more open standards have to be. The more companies will be willing to release hardware documentation (let the community write drivers, instead of attempting to write for 8 OSes). So, even if you don't like this distro, consider that the 'the average home user' buying a distro like this might still be a good thing.
-t
http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"
Sorry, but in my case, Windows doesn't even pass the "Mom test."
I know you were joking, but I want my Karma, so I'm going to reiterate your post in a serious tone.
Did they went through 4 major versions in one year?
I hope that they are planing to slow down when the reach the same version as red hat.
but can I meet your Mom ??
...has enough trouble using OS X, something tells me I wouldn't want her near Lindows.
"Son?? Help!!!"
The coolest voice ever.
I actually gave it to my Mom
I gave it to your Mom, too!
Best Windows Freeware
Of course she dosen't emerge stuff, she just logs in on the kdm.
Me: Mom, try Lindows 4.0
Mom: what's that
Me: New OS
Mom: new what?
Me: New operating system just like wind...
Mom: ZZZZZZZZZZZ
Looks like it'll be dual-booting for me sometime soon. My question though, is this a good OS for a Linux newbie such as myself to get started on, or is the GUI deceptive about the nature of Linux to the point when I move to a more hardcore style of linux that I'll be totally lost?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Lindows.com is also focusing on lower system maintenance with a Zero Maintenance Initiative â" which makes it possible for the user to upgrade the OS, apps or drives with one click.
I see how this could be nice. Whenever I upgrade drives (hard, optical, floppy, or otherwise), it's a 5 or 6 click process... which is precicely the amount of times the screw falls off the end of the screwdriver and dissapears somewhere in the case with a metallic click, to be heard rattling around just waiting to short something.
- Akky
P.S. For the brain dead, yes, I presume that they meant drivers.
i installed RH9 as an OS on a machine I bought for my parents
they are extremely happy with it and i don't see lindows as having any advantages. it costs money. it sucks. odds are it is still unstable as hell (the first version wouldnt even complete the install process). RH9 still passes the mom test, and doesn't suck!
Your mom!
My mother would certainally benefit from this.
Linux might or might not benefit. On one hand, this is it's chance to lose it's image as a cryptic, nerds-only OS.
On the other, this open linux to AOL people.
his patience is to be commended.
My mom, about a decade ago, took a class on Word Perfect. She learned what all those F-keys do, which is really useful since nobody seems to use Word Perfect anymore Alas, she brought home one piece of information that is useful for pretty much anything having to do with computers, and only one such piece of information:
"Read the whole screen".
I never realized how much stuff I just scan through when I do something on a computer. Like, when you're installing something, it may note "This action will consume 100 megabytes of space on your hard disk drive and will take a few minutes. Continue? [Back] [OK]": My mother will specifically read the entire thing. She'll ponder on that hundred megabytes. She'll consider whether or not a storm is likely to show up in a few minutes. And as you know, no dialog box ever has that little text in it.
I see "100 meg", "few minutes", instantly click [OK] and wander off for another Coke.
My mother reads EULAs.
I click [I Agree] while crossing my fingers with the other hand.
And as such, it drives one or the other of us bonkers if I ever have to show Mom how to do something on the computer. Either she's frustrated 'cause she's not sure what's going on, even though I try to slow down, or I'm about to pull my hair out wondering why she just doesn't click something, ANYTHING, DAMMIT!!
Ahem.
Anyhow, whether or not Linux is ready for Mom, I'm not ready to try to teach Mom Linux.
-JDF
Jim's mom has a huge thumb.
It passes if he hasn't managed to delete some critical files after using it for 2 hours.
Note to reviewers:
The title of the story is "Mom meets Linux", but Lindows is built on Debian (per the article).
I don't get it. Is debian a Linux distro or a variant of Linux? If a variant, why is it not "Mom meets Debian"?
Any reason to actually read the article on this one? I mean... if the article concluded with "mom" having a bad experience with Lindows, you know it wouldn't have been posted here.
Ah yes, the Linux elitist, making things hard for Linux users for no reason. Whether it's telling people to RTFM, referring to Microsoft with a $, or laughing at usability studies on GNOME done by Sun, the Linux elitist has all bases covered.
Lindows won't be considered a viable alternative to (insert MS-OS here) until my Grandma can install and run it.
The most glaring issue that I see, was the ability to run "apt-get," without a root password.
Ok, so Lindows can replace Windows on the desktop at home, so that the average user can be productive.
But have we really done ourselves any favors?
It seems that we have done nothing more than create a windows "clone", with a brand new feature set of security problems.
Do we really want to compete with microsoft at that level? They have far more experience in the insecurity realm than we do.
They'll beat us to death with experience.
Here's a quick summery:
"Lindows is a good OS! My *mommy* even said so."
"Oh yeah, well MY *mommy* has a better OS than *your* mommy!"
"Does not!"
"Does to!"
"Argh! I'm telling!"
Not much different than the usual stuff you read about operating systems on Slashdot.
My journal has hot
A friend just got back from an interview at NYU for grad school (MBA). For his job he reviews companies such as Red Hat. He told me when he ellaborated on what he writes about and mentioned Linux, the interview asked, "Isn't that the one with the cute little penguin?"
There's very little marketing of the penguin to the general public. (Red Hat has their, well, red hat... IBM has just their logo and targets corporate users, etc.) Yet this non-techie person at NYU knew something of the mascot. With that and other stories I've been hearing I think Linux is slowly gaining some mindshare, even will little marketing.
Developers: We can use your help.
Aunt Tillie wants to know if she will be able to use this. Also Penelope, who would like to ditch Melvin.
Sputtering nonsense. Linux is powerful enough and flexible enough to handle desktop and server applications. What is lost by making desktop variants available for less elite users?
Or have I just been trolled?
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
funny
Shit, my mom doesn't pass the Windows XP mom test, she wouldn't stand a chance. Then again, I get confused on how to make programs run on a mac. Like that download to make them go thing is hard. Linux, you compile or unpack, easy enough. Windows you install. Apple, what.. this un-stuffing and copying around.... I don't understand how programs don't run with only one big file either. Come to think of it, when you screw up your configuration, how can you delete the .ini or .conf to start over and get the programming running.
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
I feel like this "feature" is going to make or break Lindows. I can see there being a problem with updating that will screw up all the users and kill Lindows forever.
Sadly, when Microsoft does this several times a year people just shrug and wait for the patch of the patch.
I just don't know if Lindows will be able to survive if they don't implement the update process in any way less than perfect - they don't have the acceptance and power of the Redmond giant.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Is Lunix a new Linux distribution from SCO? If it is from SCO then it is definately not _free_
Lunix: Lunatic's Unix
Problems regarding accounts or comment posting should be sent to CowboyNeal
my wife (mother of my child) still asks me how to turn on my computer... and last i checked, i keep the power button in the same place as everyone else.
on a power strip hidden behind the monitor, in a tangle of cords next to 2 other power strips.
I know that this test wasn't stiving to be scientific or anything, but it appears that he had his mom play with Lindows for a couple of hours. Wouldn't a better test be to have her use Lindows for a week or so totally replacing her normal windows machine? This would offer better insights into what typical users of Windows are looking for in an OS and how Lindows can better meet thier needs. Just my 2 cents
yeesh, buddy, don't pull a muscle patting yourself on the back so much...
Usability and functionality don't have to be mutually exclusive, and there's nothing "elite" about a system that has such a usability barrier. Although, that might be a neat way to pawn off user requests - "oh, you don't need that mod, do you? You're such an elite user, you know..."
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Due to the Open Source nature of Linux, it's very simple to be dumbed down. You can have "Dumbass Distro" and "Poweruser Distro". All the normal computer people buy Dumbass Distro, and it probably comes pre-installed (Lindows Boxen). All the people who feel limited by it (Err..) can go ahead and install the Poweruser Distro. Hey, and if you can't do that, then yer not ready.
I've been considering Lindows as my first non-Microsoft PC OS. Fearing that I would be unable to handle the learning curve of choosing and installing a linux distro AND a suitable desktop GUI, I decided that Lindows might just be the perfect introduction to the *nix environment.
I was not aware that a new version (4.0) was forthcoming. After RTFA, I'm quite sure that Lindows is "where it's at." Anyone care to clue me in to any disadvantages of Lindows versus some other solution?
Designed by Gurus, built by hackers, crashed by mothers?
Domesticated Pengiuns?
"The OS Your Mother Would Have Made You"
"Linux and Apple Pie"
"Linux, with extra chicken soup"
sorry... the idea of a 'mom test' blew my mind. my mom (at 65) has been using computers for more than 20 years, and i don't think there is any proof that age is a barrier to using linux. how about 'tried lindows on people with a measured IQ of one hundred'.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Mother, Isn't Lindows Fabulous!?
I thought companies couldn't charge for linux based software? Am I misunderstanding something or are they wrong charging $50 for a copy?
Exactly, it took my mom almost two years two figure out how to use the left-click, right-click (still has trouble with it). If you leave the idiots in the dark long enough, maybe they'll get sick of it and figure things out for themselves like most of us did when we started.
I can foresee shortly after the first "Mom-Approved Nmap" version hits the market, any web site containing pornography, Barney, or Martha Stewart will find itself under constant attack by a wave of vigilante 'Script Mommiez'.
You dumbass! You got the IP address wrong. That page has pictures of a dead whore on it!
After the thrashing that Consumer Reports gave the Lindows pc from WalMart.com in the latest issue, I hope they upgrade (one click?) to 4.0 and give it another go.
Now has anyone noticed the roll of paper towels right next to the keyboard. Are you sure you want o have your MOTHER sitting in that 'special' geek spot of yours?
6 9,s=10 27&iid=25483,00.asp
See the towels in this pic:
http://www.extremetech.com/image_popup/0,39
Its also ironic that the site is ASP, while they review Linux.
Oh, the day. The day
It's mostly a review of how much Lindows is similar to Windows, with a short note at the end on they gave it to his mom. I can summarize that part up much more quickly.
"We gave out mom a pre install Lindows box. She clicked around and stuff and had trouble finding MS Office, but opened Open Office once she found it."
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
my mom could probably learn any system if only she had enough time to do so.
I want a distro that passes the Grandmother test!
Ceci n'est pas un post.
She enjoyed every part of how I installed the Red One, version nein. She loved every minute of the hour long process, especially when I decided to use every package I could. Once I got her GUI going, she was ecstatic -- how could the blue curve disappoint her? She didn't want me to leave, but she had what she wanted.
P.S. OpenOffice crashed miserably on a simple memo right after I left.
5 mins till it gets r00ted :)
And apparantly mom can't open an image in a new tab or use the browser back-button.
Yes I'm talking about the pointless javascript.
If you read the article, you'll see that about two paragraphs are devoted to the "Mom Test" (which they conclude that she passed). Basically the "Mom Test" involved her watching a Lindows tutorial, clicking on the "start" menu, and launching OpenOffice. Color me unimpressed. Perhaps they should have extended the "Mom Test" to cover a week or two of normal usage. See how she reacts when she can't open those cute e-mail attachment programs (no, not VIRUSES) that her friends forward to each other. See how she reacts when she brings home the label-making software she bought that won't install under Linux. See how she reacts when the webcam she bought so she can send "video emails" to her family members won't work because Linux doesn't have drivers for it.
Somehow, I think the results of the "Mom Test" will be a little different under those circumstances.
I set them up on Knoppix 3.2 (HD based install) with Synaptic for "point and click installs". They love it. They can install what they want when they want. They paid....ZERO. Besides, Knoppix is a much better and more "robust" desktop platform in my opinion. I have tried to like Lindows...but I hate it. Just my $.02
is like installing a spoiler wing on a Bentley.
Totally unnecessary.
"Separate commercial applications such as VirusSafe are available for purchase from the Click-N-Run library."
Has Michael Robertson no shame?
batshit. I can't stand watching over someone's shoulder while they're reading the whole screen. I'm saying "just push next, next, next...go go go" and they're parsing out the disk usage. On the other hand, when they call with a problem their description of the error message is vague at best and could be applied to just about anything.
It's not much of a "Mom test," is it? I mean,all she did was boot it up, poke around the desktop, and eventually find the office suite. How about something a bit mor robust, like letting her use it for a week for everyday tasks without tech support?
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
How many times do you think they'll be able to use 'mom' as a resource?
"Hey?! Where's my big 'L'? I want to play Frozen Bubble!"
"Sorry ma, we need you to preview this new version of Trustix."
"But... But... There's no mouse pointer and the screen's all black!"
"Adjust ma, adjust!"
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Perhaps you could get your mom to write up a review. What was she thinking? What parts she found hard. What parts she found easy.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Is the next test gonna be,
Nine out of ten cats prefer Linux to other leading brands.... ?
BTW, my mom is also a Grandma, so my comment would have been applicable even if "Grandma Test" was used.
Do the Lindows Rock. Sorry, it had to be posted. Probably the scariest bit of this is that it's actually hosted on a lindows.com system.
My mom has used linux before. A couple of years ago i had the only computer in the house, and for quite a while my Mandrake partition had a login for my mom. She actually said she liked KDE more than windows, mostly due to visual appeal and legibility of text (I did a bit of extra tweaking to make the text larger and more readable for 40-something eyes). Though she had no internet experience beforehand, both Konqueror and Netscape 4.7x seemed adequately self-explanatory enough for her to do Google searches on various topics she was interested in.
;)
Of course, as soon as she discovered the GAMES section on the KDE panel, i had to fight my mom off of my computer almost constantly
This is something Linux has always needed: A theme song!
Thank god for Lindows. SCO will crap their pants now, where's their theme song?
Hey, it's even catchier than the Hampster dance. Rock-on, dude!
My mother was getting fed up with BSODs and unexplained freezes and the like, so I suggested that she try Linux and brought over a Knoppix CD. She was pretty impressed with it, but she had a few questions.
"Can I play Counter Strike on Linux?" she said.
"Counter Strike? You play that?" I'd been laboring under the impression that she was a Freecell addict.
"All the time. I love fraggin' n00bs."
"Mom!"
"And what about my pr0n? Can I use Linux to view it?"
"This isn't happening." I felt an icy ball forming in my stomach, a feeling of nausea rising in my throat.
"Don't be ghey. I have needs too, you know." She opened up her browser; the home page was set to goatse.cx! I shut my eyes and put my hands over my ears.
"LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA LA!" I felt as if my whole world was crashing down around me.
So yeah, Linux might not be the best choice for my Mom. Also, if you play CS on a low-latency East Coast server, watch out for Mom. She likes to AWP wh0r3.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
During the design and development phases of the Windows 95 project (which was codenamed "Windows 93", then "Chicago", but I digress), the mantra was to design for the VP Brad Silverberg's Mom. If she couldn't use it, it was not ready.
And now people are still saying Windows doesn't pass the Mom test. Things never change.
[
Linux owes much of its success to its position as an elite, powerful operating system, reserved for the best and the brightest of society. This allows us to turn any Micro$oft FUD about "usability" against them. It is our weakness which makes us strong. Okie Dokie. No comment.
I just installed MDK 9.1 linux on VMWare Workstation 4.
:))
X fails to start
Yes, way to go. Its hip and going places dude. Rethink.
Your mama is so not OS-Savvy, that she heard it was Chilly outside and grabbed a spoon and a bowl.
/3rdgrade
No wonder she had trouble hitting those little buttons on the keyboard...
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
They gave a pretty sad review of the Walmart PC w/ Lindows v3. I hope v4 does a lot better!
go MR, go!
I think not.
A number of years ago, I had a teen customer in my computer store getting his laptop upgraded and OS/2 installed. His mother was sitting there rather bored with our "geek" talk and asked was was the difference between OS/2 and Windows.
I simply handed her my laptop, loaded with OS/2 and the normal office apps, games, etc. and told her to try it herself. (Though she was a computer novice, she never asked any other questions.)
A couple of hours later when we were finished with the upgrades, we asked her what she thought. Her summary was... "It's just like Windows, only easier." And then proceeded to show us the things that she found better/different and that she'd done.
When any version of *nix can get that kind of reaction, it'll be a good home user competition for Windows.
BTW, she and I eventually got married (perhaps she was tired of paying for her son's upgrades!) and every time her Windows machine crashes ("get's stupid" as she puts it)asks why she can't have her OS/2 back.
So what about the Dad test?
Ferna of the Fern people.
y0 man i gots tha skillz cause i can install leen00x. f3ar this! 1 am s0 much c00l3r th4n th3se other fr34kz c4aus3 i g0t me s0me r00t pr0mptz 0n my b0x3n. w00t.
"Find out if Lindows 4.0 passed the "Mom Test."
As if this article would even be here if Mom had threw up her hands in exasperation and violently kicked the monitor in.
So are we to believe that this POS OS is now clueless-noob-friendly, just because some jerk's mom finally managed to find a word processor by hitting random keys with her giant thumb? And didn't she need some coaching just to do that?
What about real tasks for the clueless masses: sending email, instant messaging, sending home videos to grandpa, playing games, downloading snapshots from a camera, selling nicknacks on Ebay, printing out lame banners and cards, etc.???
Let us know how those things work out with your Lindows, Mom.
Mom: Hi. The power went off over here and now I can't get my computer to work.
Me: Uhm, OK. Does it do anything at all?
Mom: Well, the printer is on, and the screen says "Check connection".
Me: Hmmm. Alright. Is everything plugged in?
Mom: Yes, it looks like it. All the little doohickies are in the back of the computer.
Me: (avoiding this until the last--it just can't be the cause) Is the computer turned on?
Mom: I think so. There's something on the screen.
Me: Uhm, I meant, did you actually push the power button on the computer?
Mom: Nooo. Should I?
Me: (after a pause) Yeah, that might be a good idea.
Mom: Oh! There it is! Now it's working!
Me: (sigh) Well, there you go. Let me know if you have any other problems with it.
Now, if they'd tried their test with my mom, I don't think they would have faired quite as well.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks to the adoption of Linux on the desktop has been the nerdish nature of the whole installation, configuration and user experience. Your average PC user (and most likely non-/. reader) is doing good to figure out how to get a printer connected to their Windows machine. The typical Linux distro is a no-go for these folks. Forget configuring a NIC, modifying the defaults for Gnome or KDE, or trying to figure out how to FTP a file from an xterm shell prompt. It just won't happen. MS has made Windows what it is not on its technical merits, but because it's been dumbed-down to the point where almost anyone can make it do something useful right out of the box with only a modest amount of coaching. A while back Russ Mitchell offered this rather negative view of Linux's chances on the desktop. While not everything he says is golden, a lot of it does apply, and should be seriously considered by anyone with dreams of seeing MS pushed into the backseat. Apparently someone at Lindows did bother to pay attention and start to make the Linux experience less painful for those without the inclination or ability to fiddle around under the hood.
And before you poo-poo those poor sods who can't grok a regular expression or launch a background task from bash, just remember this: They're the ones with most of the disposable income, not us nerds, and Bill Gates et. al. know it.
Sorry, but that's was the weaniest test possible.
Can mom write a text file. Yes or No? If yes, Linux passes. If no, then it fails.
What you really want to know is:
1. Can mom read e-mails?
2. Can she send e-mails?
3. Can she handle attachments?
4. Can she find her websites and bookmark them?
5. Can she take pictures with her camera and download them?
6. Can she plug in a printer and print anything.
Because that's what moms as a whole want to do. Yeah, writing stuff is nice, but so's corresponding and printing. It's a good start, but I'd say you'd need to flesh out the concept of the "mom test".
But overall a pretty good review. First I'd ever heard of Click n' Run but it would seem to take care of one of THE biggest issues newbies have with Linux - aka "How the BLAST do I install something?! Compile?! Wazzat'?". I don;t think lack of the VPN should've gotten dinged as much as it did - most folks on the Mom level aren't using VPN anyway....
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
From my experience, as long as I can answer questions about how to get shit done, my mom wouldn't care what OS she was using... except for the fact that my brother introduced her to Diablo 2 and she'd probably ask me to set it up so that she can play it.
All Your Memory Are Belong To Java
Neh. I've never been very good at these. Anyone got links to a list of your mom jokes?
I guess it's expected that one would have to pay more for all the extras, and that $300 is still less than a barebones winOS purchase, but how often does someone have to sign back up for all these extras? In a five year lifetime, wouldn't you be paying double or triple that $300 up-front cost for a fully-featured virus-protected OS?
I don't see that Lindows offers a cheaper cost model than winOS in the long run. I'm pretty confident that Mom would use it, but how long would Mom continue to pay for these extras. Did I miss something?
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
IIRC, the first digital computer marketed to consumers was a Neiman-Marcus kitchen computer back around 1969, to be used for storing recipes. So howcome 35 years on, this mom-test is still a test? Certainly, the TRS-80's, Amigas, Apples, and early PC-DOS machines could pass a mom-test twenty years ago, no? Is there something inherently unmanageable about computers? About linux?
I passed YOUR mom test LAST NIGHT!
I'm not usre how you can call it passing the mom test because she can figure out how to write a document in Openoffice, with some coaching, and with OpenOffice having been previously installed. To be any kind of real test, at the very least it should have been a default install and lasted longer that 15 minutes. Let's see if mom can figure out how to install OpenOffice, because she will have to if she buys a Lindows computer.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
So talking about how your mom would deal with Linux in a discussion titled "Mom Meets Linux" is offtopic? I see.
Based on this picture, his mom appears to be about three feet tall. Obviously a fake! ExtremeTech are shills, as this "review" is clearly the product of Lindows' advertising department.
Did anybody else notice the roll of paper towels next to the computer? And to think, he let his own mother type on that keyboard.
That's a metaphor for BSD dying. BSD - the whore - because the liberal license allows everyone to treat it however they want.
Lone Ranger: "Tonto, we're surrounded by savage Indians who want to kill us!"
Tonto: "What you mean, `we,' white man?"
Michael Richardson is the one that made this decision. I had nothing to do with it. Note that the Debian system which Lindows is based on (which I do have something to do with) doesn't work this way. But Debian clearly grants him the freedom to make his systems work that way. "I don't agree with what he has to say, but I'll defend to the death his right to say it" also seems like an applicable quote here.
This morning, a local TV news reported on Consumers Report's new research on cheap computers. The story centered on Walmarts cheap computer which (shockingly) did not have "Windows". They said it looked like "Windows", but isn't. The CR demonstrator showed the print manager window. He said there were too many icons, none of which were "Add Printer". He was confused with the "spooling" term.
Also, he plugged in a digital camera and an error message popped up. He did the same with a Windows system and it immediately started an install process. The short story: stay away from Walmart Lindows computers and buy Dell 2350.
Oh well. There are those who've used Linux and there are those who haven't learned it yet (like Windows used to be).
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
For those who say Lindows is charging money for something that you think should be free, I have one suggestion for you.
..... well, you can always dream :-) } Make it free.
Make your own puppy-walking distribution that starts simple - so there's nothing for neophytes to fear - and grows up with you rather than holding you back. {How about a file manager with a window that shows you what you could have typed into a terminal to achieve the same effect -- it would be off by default, but you could turn it on once you felt ready for it?} Make it better than Mandrake or Lindows. Make it easy to customise, so you can add features as you become more confident. {Start building web pages with a HTML editor -> put in your own Apache server -> do some programming in PHP -> progress to a "real" language -> become a kernel hacker
You can do it. All the bits are out there, for free -- all it is going to take is a bit of custom scripting to hold it all together. Nobody is stopping anybody from doing it.
Unless you can't be bothered to do it, in which case you've no place slagging off those that have at least tried.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Most people i,e user, don't want that, and yes, they acknowledge the risk.
If your customers want that, well, you give it to them. The only way around that is that all makers(distributors in this case) of a type of products adhere to a standard. If ALL other OS demanded a root passwor functionality, we could implement it without worrying that it will be a reason for somebody to not give us a try.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
NEWS BULITIN - Cupertino, CA
Rumors came to an end today. In a press conference, Steve Jobs announced the new Apple user input/output device. The device, called COCK(R), it is a radical shift in human interaction devices. COCK(R)'s enhanced as it also contains feedback support.
Basically COCK(R) looks like a shaft with two balls at the end. A user places the shaft into their mouth and keeps the balls pointed towards the monitor. There are sensors on the balls that track the motion of the COCK(R) in relation to the monitor. The user must look at the area on the screen to move the mouse. Thrusting of the shaft results in click actions. Additional functions may be provided by mapping licking and coddling the balls.
Since the device is used by one's mouth, bio-metric security can easily be used on OS X. COCK(R) has a built sampling device which can match saliva to specific users on the computer. As such, the user will have access based on their spit.
Feedback exists in several forms. First the shaft may increase in size to better fit the user's mouth. This usually takes a couple of minutes. There is also the ability to give the user a slight shock given error conditions on the computer. Additionally, in severe error states, a milky substance will be emitted from the COCK(R) to signify an error condition to the user.
Questions at the press release signified mixed opinions on COCK(R). There seems to be resistance to using such a device in the non-Macintosh community. Steve Jobs acknowledged this problem. As such, the current mice will still be available when purchasing Macintoshes. Currently Apple is marketing towards current users of their platform. "Product testing showed us that long-term Mac users were most willing to use COCK," Jobs stated.
Despite resistance, Apple does not feel it will hurt their sales, only increase them. Jobs said "We at Apple hope that COCK will be as important as our switch to G3 based computers. As such, our marketing staff are fully committed to convincing every one that COCK is the best."
Now that Steve Jobs released COCK(R) onto the world, he hopes sales will increase steadily. One mac fan stated "COCK is the best IO device in the world. Even the milky error substance tastes great!" Apple's stock has not significantly dropped or rose. However, Apple's online store estimates that sales of COCK(R) will rise in the next two weeks.
PROPS TO TED!
Of course, That just my opinion. I could be wrong
that's actually a good idea, especially if she has a large television to use for the monitor and her comfy chair. several folks I know use web tv because that's all they do, surf a little, email a little and chat. WebTv does IRC chat as well as messenger for that matter. It's perfect for them, evil empire or not. It's all my folks have, and my pops is a retired main frame hardware guy, he just doesn't want to fool with peecees of any flavor, just wants the intarweb. All of us kids have computers, but they didn't want one, finally one day my lil bro had the brainstorm of the web tv and just laid it on them, now they like it and there's no learning curve or much hassles with it.
The large roll of paper towels by his monitor in the picture of his mom?
I wonder what those were for...
*cough* one handed surfing *cough*
Perhaps the most likely to get quick desktop realestate on common home user desktops due to its preinstalls, cheap price, etc, but it is also the most likely to ultimately give the impression that linux is not much better than windows wrt viruses and worms. The problem is the default root runlevel that lindows uses. NORMAL and proper linux users will be exactly that, USERS. Lindows users are root all the time. A proper linux user can, at worst, wreck their home directory if they are dumb enough to run an untrusted/untrustable script or application they've downloaded (at worst). A lindows user is quite possibly going to get owned like a windows user in relatively short order - and their entire system is vulnerable. Their system is rooted out of the box with full priviledges. No better, no more secure than windows.
The only thing really saving them is the lack of a macro vulnerability, activeX, and other windows-assorted crap and builtin insecurity. They are marginally safer than a windows user but only just.
Lindows should trust people to be smart enough and capable enough to deal with a separate root account. It can be simple. Have lindows setup a generic, invisable user account that anyone using the system would actually use. During startup/bootup, it would automatically start that account and take you to the GUI. During initial setup, have lindows ask for a password for root. The user never needs to use this until/unless they run a software update or install, at which point a dialog box comes up asking for a password. That's it. It would be at least minimally safe and no virus or trojan would have access to the system, only the generic system-wide user home.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Apple, what.. this un-stuffing and copying around.... I don't understand how programs don't run with only one big file either. Come to think of it, when you screw up your configuration, how can you delete the .ini or .conf to start over and get the programming running.
.pkg files which are a lot like the .tgz files Slackware uses. They are unpacked when you doubleclick on them and then scripts inside the file move the various bits around, edit the Netinfo db, and so-forth. You may see a step that takes a long time called "Optimizing Files". If I understand correctly, pre-compiled object files are being linked then the resulting binaries copied to wherever. Apparantly, there are some runtime speed-ups to be had from this. Software Update uses packages in the background. This method seems more likely to be used if something has to update or change system files.
/Library/Preferences (99% of the time what you're looking for will be here) or in /Library/Preferences (be verrrry afraid).
There's two main ways binary distributions of software get installed on OS X. One way is
The other major method is application bundles. This is a nifty idea that comes from OS X' NextStep heritage. An application bundle is nothing more than a directory full of files with a special resource file inside it that makes the directory look a single file to the Finder and and end user. Among other things, the resource file gives the directory an icon. Most anything that says, "drag this icon to the hard drive to install" is an application bundle. And yes there are tweakish ways of viewing them as directories and playing with the contents. Apps installed this way don't typically muck about with the system.
As for the preferences, those either per user in ~(that's short for "user's home directory"
One thing really surprised me about this Lindows review:
Jim's mom is really ugly
Frankly, the whole thing was fundamentally flawed, because they screwed with the computer beforehand and put OO onto it.
If you want to review Lindows, configure it as minimally as possible to make the _hardware_ work, and then hand it off to mom. Don't go around cheating by installing non-default stuff with apt.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Lycoris seems to be Lindows primary competitor in the "messy divorce from Windows" space. The other Linux distros won't hold your hand as much as Lindows and Lycoris although Mandrake comes close. Lycoris is a bit more expensive but they do bundle Crossover for running Office, IE, and IE plugins in Linux browsers. I've never played with either so I can't evaluate how reliable they are and so forth.
I last played with Mandrake in their 7.x days and gave up due to general flakiness. They may be better but since I'm a satisfied Debian user I have n't looked to see how much they've improved.
the "one file" is actually a folder, and the ".ini or .conf" are .plist files kept in your "Preferences" folder (in your ~/Library).
didn't the mindshare concept die with the dot com'ies?
... weren't these things that marketroids just sold us when we had money and no idea where to put it, and so those best at marketing directed us to nice approachable terms that reflected the 'newness' of the market, and inevitably led back to lining their pockets with our money?
...
i mean, counting eyeballs, mindshare
Do you have something against capital letters?
As with the sun's light
My mom was magnificent
Unquestionable
I don't want my parents installing software on their machine! They seem to feel the need to install every piece of crapware that presents itself to them on the Internet! If they want me to support their system, they get to play by my rules!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Maybe someone should simply re-brand OpenOffice - call it something like "MS Office" (for "MeSoft", or whatever), or "M$ Office". Hell, even "NS Office" or "|\/|S Officer" might be just close enough to fool most people. Please don't sue me.
What would be far more useful is to give "mom" a set of tasks to perform (surf the web, write a document, diagnose a disconnected ethernet cable, etc) in Lindows, Mandrake, WinXP, etc. Saying "mom had no trouble" doesn't convince me, "mom had less trouble than X" does.
Also, does anyone else note that this article was posted on Extreme Tech? Not exactly what mom would read.
I believe Consumer Reports reviewed Lindows-based computers in their latest issue, surely a rag much more likely to be read by mom. (I seem to remember it panned Lindows for anything more than web surfing.)
no one has stated the obvious: itÂs a little thing called age. Once you get to a certain age, you realize that carefully reading everything (ESPECIALLY EULAS) will protect you in the long run.
Frankly, when I see my mom (or anybody else for that matter) carefully reading everything, I know that sheÂll hopefully have a better understanding of whatÂs going on. If not a better understanding, sheÂll be able to ask clearer questions.
YouÂre all making it sound like itÂs a bad thing, when it really is not.
Each user can then do whatever they please in their environment, as they learn it. If they screw up, replacing to defaults is as trivial as a file copy.
USING linux is NOT hard. Administering it MAY be, but I find the guesswork with configuring and installing software on Microsoft's end-user offerings to be much more painful.
Maybe show your mom this music video (Flash): link.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
It's not just one failure, the distro failed the Mom test completely.
1) He had to install OpenOffice *himself* before Mom got on.
2) He had to prompt Mom, after waiting for her to find MS Office, that she should be looking for something else.
So, she *couldn't* find the MS Office substitute, and *wouldn't* have been able to find it in Lindows, because it isn't installed by default.
How is that passing the test at all? The computer didn't catch fire while she was using it?
Did anyone else notice that he left the screen names nojn blanked out? Normally they make sure you cant actually read them. Anyone want to send "Mom" a few messages?
SuDZ
Long preamble:
I have ventured into using Linux several times over the last few years. The major problem that has always made me turn back is lack of polish and usability. Little things, but they add up to bug me so much that I've run away from every single distro I tried. The most recent experience I've had was Mandrake 9.0. Examples of things I had issues with were the start menu, with many programs appearing in two places, and others not at all; the default catagories in which these programs were divided not making much sense. Then there was the fact of there only being crappy themes for how windows should look. Half of them had no borders, the other half had borders even when a program was fullscreen (which violates an important usability law as you can't just shove your mouse to the right and hit the scrollbar). I installed a recent Mozilla version, but could find no way to give it its own icon after dragging it to the desktop. Really inane stuff really, but it bugged me to no end, and finding out how to fix it simply was taking far too much time. (Installing Verdana took me 5 minutes; finding documentation on how to install Verdana took me half an hour.)
I have spent far too many weeks tweaking windows (learning over many long years) to now be happy with something this rough, something hampering my workflow at every point. I am fully confident that I could learn everything I need to tweak whatever linux distro I might be given into doing what I want - given a few months of nothing else to do.
I sadly do not have this time.
I do want to use linux though. Simply because I believe it is essential that ever more people do before all-pervading Digital Information Management and stuff like that comes rolling out of Redmond.
So I'm left looking for ditributions that really manage to polish away problems, and simply make things easy - _without_ of course taking away from the underlying power, which over many months of use I'll eventually learn to use and appreciate.
Ximian is one project I'm seriously looking at. Lindows is another. Yes really.
But of course, Lindows has issues. So now I get to my questions, wanting to know if it's possible to undo these issues.
* A default lindows install sets the user up as root. Is it possible to _easily_ undo this choice in Lindows? Will things still function?
* Lindows provides a fully tweaked and polished KDE desktop. Is it _easily_ possible to tweak this back or in other directions, to the full extent that KDE is capable of?
* [name your pet peeve bad choice made by Lindows and tell me if it can be undone...]
This is what I really like about Linux: targetted audiences.
Back when I started with Linux there were a few distros. I started with SLS (I think) and later used Slackware. Redhat came out a little while after that (in the Infomagic bundle) and I moved to Redhat because of the package management. But what struck me back then was that though they all fiddled with filesystem layout and configuration files, they were basically the same. There was very little differentiation in terms of what you received in the system.
Now we're seeing a much wider range of product differentiation. Lindows is obviously aiming at preloaded systems, ease of use, customer service, newbie-oriented tutorials, bundled applications, etc. Redhat is aiming (I think) at large desktop rollouts and backend servers with a focus on the core server products (RHAS) and management tools (eg, Kickstart). Debian is aimed at hobbyists so there's no real focus but a strong committment to keeping the distribution free. There are niche products like Smoothwall (firewalls) and Swelltech (proxies) where Linux has been "hidden" from the user with single-purpose GUIs.
If this was the UNIX market from the 80s then I'd be freaking out about now, because this product differentiation basically killed UNIX. But thanks to the GPL the Linux market is holding together incredibly well. Distributions are *sharing* their code! Despite the specialisation there's no sense of "what's yours is mine and what's mine is mine" from any of the vendors. I hope it stays this way because Linux is well-poised to win *all* markets by simple attrition. Linux attacks on all fronts at once. It's like watching an army of angry ants!
June 11: I have been observing Mom for quite some time. She has been facinating over the last few months. Today I decided to give her a little test. I placed a computer pre-loaded with Lindows 4.0 in her habitat to see what her reaction will be. I hope this proves to be a valuable experiment.
June 12: After ignoring the computer yesterday, she walked up to it this morning and stared vacantly at the monitor. I hope she figures out how to turn on the machine soon.
June 14: Success! The computer is on, and is currently loading Lindows. Mom seems facinated with the fsck's progress bar. The desktop is now loaded, and... what's this? A flash presentation has popped up and is explaining how to get started with using Lindows. This frightened Mom; she is currently beating the case with a large rock.
June 16: The computer has been replaced, and I took the liberty to disable the welcome presentation this time. It appears Mom is learning mouse movements fast. It took a few hours, but she managed to find and open OpenOffice.org. Her concept of written language is improving; yesterday all she could type is random garbage, but now she's at a level equivalent to an IRC user. Now that I think about it, that's a step backwards.
June 19: Like most mammals, Mom got bored of doing things like typing and playing solitaire. She found the shell and began exploring. Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed to see that the first programming language she discovered was Java, and she has also been getting attached to Emacs. How unfortunate.
June 21: Oh great, now she's starting a flame war on debian-devel. Where did I go wrong?
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
-
"Consider yourself a member of a virtual corporation with Mr. Torvalds as your Chief Executive Officer." - Linux Advocac
no comment
Interesting that this article came up today. Tomorrow my dad's borrowing my laptop to visit some relatives and scan a load of old family photos (he's into that stuff)... thing is, he's used to Windows and the laptop only has Debian on it.
:P
So, I set up SANE, plug the scanner into the firewire port, it all works perfectly. Nice. Set up a minimal, Windows-styled KDE desktop with a nice friendly icon, "Scan and OCR software". All he has to do is click his name on the KDM login screen. Cool. Even he can't get this wrong. I do a few test runs. It's dead simple, even more so than his Windows setup.
So I sit him down in front of the laptop to see if he can manage this. He just about figures out the login. OK. Now we've got the KDE desktop, nothing there but a few icons. Mouse is right over the "Scan and OCR" icon. He sits there for about 20 seconds in silence before saying "which one is it?"
If there's anything getting in the way of linux on the desktop, it sure isn't linux
I can see the need for anti-spam, but can someone remind me of the need for antivirus on a Linux box?
Uh...MS Office isn't installed by default on a Windows box. Therefore, had this been a vanilla installation of Windows, he would have had to install Office for his Mother anyways. Ergo, while you may be correct in saying that the test failed because he had to manually install Open Office prior to Mom, Windows would have failed the exact same way.
"Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
The non-tech-savvy people, OTOH, have basic needs that can easily be addressed by Linux: e-mail, internet, instant messaging, mp3 player, p2p app, word processing. That is all they need and want. If someone will wake up and do this (I suspect Lindows is in the best position) so that when it is installed, all this is good to go - you'd have the OS for your mom.
Now let me tell you why mom matters: Mom is looking for the cheapest PC there is. If you can undersell a Windows box with a Linux box, then you've just won. Also, marketing works. I suspect by your website you don't put much faith in marketing, but sales and marketing people make or break the product in the real world. You could have the best product there is, but if you don't have the right people hyping it up, there will be no sales=no money=you're out of a job.
Mom watches TV. She reads the magazines. If something promises to do something easier/cheaper/better/faster/safer/etc, she'll be interested. People listen to marketing. If she sees this, she'll install it. If Dad uses it at work, and he brings it home, kids will use it. You've just created a two-prong attack that does very well. You expose the kids from a young age. Everyone starts to use it more. If you're the dad or mom, work with they kids and they'll love it. You've just created a completely Linux family. That wasn't so hard to see why Mom needs advertising, is it?
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
after a I gave my mom the chance to use Linux, she held up a completly different finger...
I Joke.
It was the best thing that ever happened to me, because now she won't talk to me!
Slow down there slick, I'm still joking.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's bad enough with mom checking what sites I surf, what CD's I listen to, what books I read and what friends I hang out with, but now she's gonna beta test my software??
but lindows is one of the last distros i'd set up for my parents. They charge to download software, that's not what i'm looking for in a nice learning package to give to my folks. My mom is able to operate Mandrake (after i had configed it) as easily as she can run windows (which i also configed). Lindows is still a very rude company in my mind, and I won't support them.
the above is complete and utter flamebait and should be modded as such.
Nice sig. Very accurate.
(Score: -1, Stupid)
It is a collection of programs. If she was looking for "Microsoft Office", she wouldn't find it on my Windows PC, either. She would find Microsoft Word, Outlook, Access, and Excel, but no "Office".
The truth doesn't care what I think.
You are funny. Modding isn't what it used to be, but you deserve +6: Genuinely funny.
nosig today
do you have something against proper spelling? :>
at least us lower-casers have e e cummings to fall back on...
ed
Put an icon for OpenOffice on the desktop. Don't call it open-office, just call it Office.
...and other commonly used apps by home users
Sure, this will piss off 'lites, but so the fuck what? Elitists won't be using Lindows anyways: the person who's been using Macs and Windows all his/her life will, or who's never used an OS before.
On the desktop, put things like:
Office or Word Processor
Spreadsheet
Database
Slideshow Presentation Creator
E-Mail
Internet
Porn
Music Player
Movie Player
File Sharing
CD-Ripping/Burning
Or better yet, create a superior UI from the start. See some of my examples from my home page:
a model desktop
some explanation of the desktop model
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
click on the column 'file type' scroll down the list to see all the mp3s now clumped together.
Not exactly. The MP3 files are scattered among the .wav, .mid, .xm, .s3m, .ogg, and all the other files of type "Winamp audio file". But yes, if you want to select all audio files in a folder, grouping them by type is the right way.
Will I retire or break 10K?
click on the first .mp3, then shift+click on the final .mp3
What about all the other file types registered to the same audio player, such as .wav and .ogg? Wouldn't those get caught up in the middle?
how many mp3's are you planning on fitting in that floppy? :)
About 25.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You haven't read the GPL have you? You must only provide the source for the software.
"The pricing of Click N' Run software has changed from $49.95 a year to $4.95 a month" That means it's $60 a year!!!
Wrong. The pricing is either $49.95 a year or $4.95 a month. If you wish to pay monthly instead of yearly then you pay more, this is a common practice.
I think the OSS/GPL community should focus on making a seriously usable, more efficient and stable UI w/ a simple and powerful API. Maybe ditch X & C? I think that Java, Python, AOP, self-generating code (like LISP) and langugages w/ embedded expert knowlege systems (something like JESS) are the future... platform specific apps are headed for the dust-bin of history: C does not scale well and there's too many hacks/incompatibilities/evil things and C++ polymorphism is a inconsistent, incomplete kludge. You can argue and justify *NIX & C all day long, but the security issues (strcmp, gets) and wild pointers give programs zero protection, almost like each program is an old skool DOS machine, where it can go wild writing shit everywhere w/ pointers w/o security. I propose that programs and libraries have defensive security models *built-in*, so that private data is actually secured, in a real way.
Sounds nifty. How about you give me a copy when you've got a beta. Seriously though, no one cares what you think the OSS community should do. The whole point is to do what you want to be done. The source is open so you don't have to re-implement everything on your own. Whoever feels it's a good idea to implement "your" ideas, and is knowledgeable enough to do so, will do just that. So I suggest if you really want something like that then create it or shut up.
Time makes more converts than reason
Perhaps as part of their intro, Lindows could talk about how to use/find/install common Linux "equivalents" to widely used Microsoft programs. Someone was starting a table on a Web site about that very thing a while ago.
As for advertising, Lindows (and its founder) should have plenty of money for that. That's the best way they could "give back to the community": popularize their Linux distribution so that your boss uses it at home, and it seems natural to him when you suggest it be used in the server room (or on his desk at work).
Along those lines, our university just got done with a 2-day sales presentation by Maximus (basically the best facilities management software on the market). The backend can run on Oracle, but it also needs a Windows application server in order to use browser-based thin clients, or fat Windows clients. The Maximus folks mentioned that they sometimes encounter companies with resistance to anything Microsoft in the server room; when I asked them what they did in those cases, the one rep said that he generally managed to convince management with the argument that that's what they were running at home.
Yes, it makes no sense to ME that the operating system on your home computer (which you probably yell at for crashing) would automatically make sense in a server room, but it apparently makes sense to enough management types.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
Its techies. ;-)
Quack, quack.
Windows, Lindows, whatâ(TM)s the difference? At first glance, the Lindows desktop may seem familiar. But the Lindows directory and file-naming conventions are very different. In addition, the computer didnâ(TM)t detect or install a memory-card reader plugged into the USB port. Attaching a scanner, digital camera, or PDA will be difficult or impossible.
There is no Lindows version of Quicken, Outlook, or other such applications.
Our computer crashed several times during tests, and its built-in help system didnâ(TM)t help much.
I won't even start enumerating all the answers to their stupid comments.
To think that I almost trusted them for my next car purchase... I'll stick with automotive magazines because they are obviously a bunch of nincompoops when it comes to objects more complicated than a can opener.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
You might as well ask that every single other Linux review focus just a little bit on actually using the distribution in question, rather than talking about the installer.
This fills me with much anger. Yes, the installer is important. But most people manage to rope someone more experienced into "helping" them install Linux. I don't know anyone (other than Linux reviewers) who spends most of their time installing operating systems.
What's important are things like:
How easy is it to get a new version of Mozilla when it comes out?
How easy is it to install applications after the initial installation process?
How do I know about security updates, and how do I install them?
When it comes time to upgrade to the next major version, how many small animals will I have to sacrifice?
IOW, does it age gracefully?
But very little time is spent on this; people would rather focus on whether the installer managed to recognize their development breadboard card from BitBoys AND their 300 baud modem. Forget that. You can buy someone from the local LUG pizza and have them take care of all that for you in the beginning, but you don't want to have to rent out a room to them.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
Hey! Don't confuse "Linux user" with "Debian user".
right click -> sort by file type
shift click pgdn copy paste
it's not that hard
now if you want to copy every file in the directory that matches a?c?e.txt you have a problem
MILF.
Mom
Is a
Linux
Freak.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Anyone got a picture of this guys Mom ? is she a hottie ? If so I can think of a coupla more Mom test's :)
Tom
Partner at a major consulting company calls me into his office because his computer won't boot. I boot from a floppy (this is in the old days of Windows on top of DOS) and discover that there are NO files on the root of C:.
I ask him what he had done. He had a first level directory that he wanted to get rid of, so he CDs to that directory. Then he does a 'DEL *.*'. When he runs a DIR, he sees two files: '.' and '..'.
So he deletes both of them...
Just make sure you replace the OpenOffice.org icons in the start menu with their windows counterparts and rename them to "Word", "Excel", etc.
I guarantee you that most of the time, Moms will not even notice the difference, at least mine will just assume her memory about how the software looked the last time just let her down.
I asked for a refund - and got my monkey back.
You know I modded him down as flamebait the last time I had mod points just cuz he told me to with that sig. Be Careful What You Wish For. :)
Either Jim is about 12 years old or age has been creeping up here...
Eventually the "DD" will become the accepted norm, while the "PD" will become even more difficult to use. And we'll have made the world just a little bit more insecure.
Instead, I'm happy to postpone Linux coming out in any major way on the desktop in return for keeping the user/root distinction. By spending more time we can make it easier to use naturally. Those who can handle it will. Those who can't will slowly be exposed until they are ready, as it becomes more popular.
Wish I had the points...
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself. --Billy Bragg
Just when I thought things had returned back to normal, you come out with this veritable rollercoaster ride of comedic smack-down. Here I was, just cruising Slashdot for thought-provoking discussion when somehow I mined this nugget of laughing gas in solid-form. The nerd-tested part? Pure genius. Mom approved? Man that sounds like it came from some sort of funny-lab. Solid gold. How are you not already half-dead from laughing so hard? It would be like setting off a chuckle-bomb in your own face each day. I've gotta fax my buddy in the next cubicle with this provided he doesn't knock over our walls with thrashing laugh-spasms. I hope the boss doesn't think we're experiencing some sort of contagious laugh-plague and calls a code hilarious! Let me tell you good sir, we are all blasting reams of laughing gas from every orifice due to this comedic-toxin you have unleashed on all of us. You are quantifiable funnyman! Mods, mod this thread +5 Hilarorrist!
OCR.
Quack, quack.
... you insensitive clod!!!
In any OS it's easy to migrate personal data, if you know what you are doing and where the data is stored.
But that is the point, in windows you don't know where the #@%^^%* data is stored. In linux your data is in /home/username, and you don't have the ability to write to much else (/tmp, which could perhaps be renamed to temperary_data, but I think that is clear enough already). Unfortunatly writing to floppies isn't as easy, and syncing for a laptop users is a pain. At least the data is easy to find, compare that to a Windows machine that several people will use.
I just helped a Windows XP user try to find some data. She opens WordPerfect (came with the comptuer), writes something, saves it, and then can't find it again. I eventially found it, but not in her directory, in some other users directory. Worse, I couldn't even figgure out how to make it start saving HER files to her directory. And this is a simple singer user computer. I challenge you to setup a typical windows machine on a network enviroment where the users won't know in advance which machine they will use on any given day.
...'cause it sounds like my wife is your mother-in-law! My wife and the computer....oh, the horror...the horror!
Come by for dinner some time, son, but keep this discussion under your hat.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
There are so many minor ways in which Linux and KDE and GNOME let you customize your desktop for efficient use.
In my case I simply cannot work effectively without the following:
1. multiple desktop spaces - when things get cluttered that I need to make use of constantly, I put it on my second desktop, and use ctrl+alt+->| 2. alt+left mouse button. i always use this combo to drag windows around. it is 1000%(not exaggerating, 10x) more efficient than trying to grab a small bar at the top of an app
3. customizable dock. OS X has this, kudos. third party software can add this functionality to windows.
4. good terminal + unix tools. there is simply no replacement for a good terminal emulator and unix utilities, GNU tools are even better for me featurewise
5. drop down window list, a la Mac OS 6. browsing huge directories over network shares. OS X is totally fucked in this respect(hopefully the new Finder in Panther fixes this), and windows is not too quick either. there's nothing better than a command line, and Nautilus is about par with iexplorer
7. scripting, on the command line or quick throw away scripts. there are just all these cases where you need to perform a set of complex operations on a certain set of files that simply cannot be done without a little bit of scripting. Perl, bash sed, awk, grep, wc, etc all are your friend. too bad OS X has weird links that can't be accessed through normal APIs, but so far i've not hit a problem with that.
Linux just comes with all this functionality... To each his own.
Cheers.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I have been evaluating linux lately for the desktop user as an alternative to the microsoft tax in my business. I sell computers to end users. My very first criteria was flash support out of the box. If I went to a website with flash and it did not work immediately or i was not presented an option to install flash, then the distro failed. I immediately tried another distro. Yes I do realize that you can go to macromedia and download a tar or rpm, but joe end user will know nothing about that. When linux gets that easy, it will be ready for the desktop.
Tis better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt --Abraham Lincoln
Uh, IIRC the last version of Lindows released wasn't even considered stable, where are they coming up with this version 4 junk?
I say, fix the dumb root-user only bug, and then take the version back to 0.3. Man, software companies today!
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Final Question: Why is there a giant roll of paper towels on his desk? Once mom leaves, I don't even want to know what he's up to.
...is because their techinical support switch. That's why my Mom has been using Mandrake for 6 months. She never did windows, and I don't do Windows(TM)...
Most Linux zealots are happily toiling away making a Linux desktop that's friendly to a generation of users trained on Microsoft Windows. Meanwhile, Microsoft is creating an entirely new operating environment and training the next generation of users to live in that environment: Microsoft Office.
Office is the franchise, not Windows. Microsoft Windows maintains its dominance on the desktop primarily because it runs Microsoft Office. The underlying OS doesn't matter. Mom doesn't care what the OS is. She cares that it runs Microsoft Office.
MS is slowly replacing Windows as the dominant platform with Office as the dominant platform. When the next generation of Office comes out, you'll see more and more applications written to run within Office. More and more applications will be Office plugins that run using Office APIs. Microsoft is changing the rules of the game. Go ahead, build a better OS. It won't matter because the world will have moved one step up to Microsoft Office.
In order to compete on the desktop, the Open Source world needs to devote the kind of energy to competing at the Office level as it does to competing at the OS level. Then maybe Linux will truely have a chance on the desktop.
Redhat's source navigator does what you say for development files like *.c or *.h or more complex like module_blah*.c.
Kashif
Yes, the point does appear to be obvious to all
I was actually extremely suprised to see this listed as insightful as well - funny, yes - offtopic, yes... I assume the mods thought that by pointing out something funny about a series of replies, I had discovered an 'insightful' way of looking at the conversation.
As for the slam on Lindows, I am sorry you feel that way. I believe it's a very good quality product, and commend the effort of it's development staff and management on it's recent improvements.
Yeah, I wondered why the windows shell doesn't let you type c:\temp\*.txt in the taskbar, since it seems trivial to do and quite useful. And DOS lets you do it with DIR. Before windows knew how to access 65537 bytes of RAM at once I wrote a silly graphics editor in DOS and that was one of the features I put in the file explorer.
My mom is actually a happy Debian user. I'm admining the box, and I've added latest Mozilla, KDE 3.0.5 and OO 1.0.2 on top of it, but it still works well!
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
LINUX DOES CRASH!
There. I've said it. It does crash. Not that often, but it does crash. However the thing that crashes quite a lot is X. Yeah, sure, you can just restart X and be thankful it hasn't ruined your 'uptime'. Whoopeedoo.
However all the applications you were running will have been killed, and any work that you had that wasn't saved will have been lost.
Yeah, but it's still not as serious as the benchmark of 'Grandmother Test'.
WikiCreole - a common wiki markup language
*You* miss the point..
The person's signature is the bottom-line statement to be used to end a conversation with one who is forcing thier beliefs onto you. It works every time too.
Also, your analogy is not applicable in this case either. The fact that you can be pulled over in a country and forced to pay a speeding ticket can be (and is) conclusively proven 100's if not 1000's of times a day, every day. In another logical sense it can be proven (to the parent poster's satisfaction) that the Monothiestic religion's God ~does~ cease to exist simply because the parent poster chooses not to believe in him.
I'd like to see you prove that.
The real question...is this Lindows better than my mom's Ninnle?
Probably not. Remember, Linus himself has endorsed the Ninnle kernal!
I was forced to use Lindows recently when I went back to visit the United States and stayed in the Green Tortoise youth hostel in North Beach. Until I found an open wireless access point, I had to use the free Internet workstations in the hostel itself.
:)
I must say, nobody seemed to have a single problem during many hours of the six stations being in constant use, and the people staying at the hostel didn't strike me as the geek type. I was impressed that the hostel didn't seem to constantly have confused users bugging them all the time. And it wasn't too bad to use for me, either, although I was glad when my laptop finally found that access point
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg. -- Samuel Butler
Not to argue or anything, but I just opened Konqueror on file://home/overshoot/*.mp3 and the only files showing (no matter which view mode I use) are the ones with mp3 extensions.
Could you be wrong about that "Why doesn't ANYONE do it?"
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
No, Mom doesn't care that it runs Microsoft Office, she just calls it Microsoft Office because she doesn't know any better. She just wants programs that do what she wants, and she wants to be able to find and run them easily.
The issue is not whether open source developers can make programs that do what users want; they definitely can and have. I see it more as creating an environment (OS & user interface & applications) that users can and will use. It doesn't have to be like Windows, it needs to be intelligently enough conceived that its quality will recommend it over time, with features people need, not with features that bloat and not with features that blur the distinction between these three levels.
On the operating system level, Linux is already well on its way to achieving this level of quality and IMNSHO needs no guidance.
On the user interface level, to use two ready examples, I find both KDE and Gnome to be pretty good, but the last time I checked they still seemed to be addressing savvier people as an audience. I find Lindows to be essentially a good idea if misguided (due to its basis on Windows). I have yet to see a New Idea in UIs -- it's what's most needed.
On the application level it's all about features and capabilities. Slap together the features contained in OpenOffice, Abiword, Gnumeric, Evolution, and other stuff I never use and, feature-wise, and you've got more than enough features to do the stuff you need to do -- it's just a question of the user being able to figure out how to do it easily, and that goes back to the UI again.
Problem is, trailblazing is hard. It's not like I have some magic idea for a new UI -- I just know in my gut that with some new UI ideas from some kind of Xerox PARC: The Next Generation, after not too long we won't need to make reference to Windows to make our applications usable.
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg. -- Samuel Butler
One of my concerns is that I don't think many Open source developers udnerstand the capabilities that MS has in Office 10 (Office XP), and the new capabilities that are being built into Office 11. I think Open Source developers tend to underestimate Office because it's not a core application they use heavily. They think that Excel is a spreadsheet and that Word is a text editor. They don't realize that Office is becoming an entire appliation development platform where spreadsheet, database, word processing, XML, and graphics tools are embedded in the platform.
i.e. don't think of Excel as the thing you want to build, but rather as a set of library functions available for you to build on.
Your comment:
is an example of this. Slap together the features contained in OpenOffice, Abiword, Gnumeric, Evolution, and other stuff you never use and you get the basic functionailty that most Open Source people think is what Office does. If you enver use this stuff, how do you know what it really does? You know it on the surface, but you don't know the real functionality underneath. You're playing right into Microsoft's hands.Regardless, I think Mom will be extremely disappointed if she's used to Office and tries to use OpenOffice instead. One of my points was that the decision for Mom will not be at the OS level (Linux vs. Windows), but at the application level (OpenOffice vs. MS Office). Those of us in the Open Source world need to realize that's where the decision is made.
I have myself experienced a few crashes of XFree86. It was over the course of a long period, though, and it was due to bugs that have been fixed since then.
I recommend you upgrade your XFree86.
As for the kernel crashing, that happened to me once and it seems to be because of an underlying hadware failure.
Debian has a good stability reputation because they aren't rushing to adopt the latest and greatest desktop toys -- precisely the kind of programs that are susceptible to memory leaks and weird behavior under X. So no, it's not the same thing running underneath, it's a few levels back, tried and true. But if you want the greatest, flashiest novelties, then of course Debian isn't for you.
Overall, I'd agree that you CAN manage to thrash X11. But it takes work or very buggy applications. However, I question the Consumer Report testers' claim to have done so several times within the course of an obviously very naive test. What the heck did they do? Pour coke into the cooling vents?
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
do you have something against proper spelling? :>
;-)
Good catch!
As with the sun's light
My mom was magnificent
Unquestionable
My whole point was that there is a level missing in your analysis, namely that of the UI. I stand by my statement that there are enough satisfying features packed into the ten tons of crap I never use, because it's not about that, it's about the UI.
The concept of Office as an application development platform is a little exaggerated in my opinion. People don't necessarily need to let their way of working be shaped by what MS chooses to offer them in its Office package. Everything that Office offers can be had elsewhere. Or if not, then I'm not seeing that one magic thing in Office that you wouldn't get if you (foolishly) decided to slap all those open source things together. There are also open source application development platforms, after all.
Quality will win out in the end.
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg. -- Samuel Butler