Sun Mad Hatter Linux Desktop Revealed

Windows... by corkhead0 · 2003-08-24 09:58 · Score: 4, Insightful

If windows is so bad why do we keep trying to copy it?

fp

Re:Windows... by xyvimur · 2003-08-24 10:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

Maybe just to `convert' people. People are not willing to change their habits easily - so it's kind of bridge between `worlds'.
On the other hand I'm sick of all attempts to make WM's look'n'feel like windows environment. It's reasonable to a point, but `copying' every tiny detail is too much.
Re:Windows... by Gyorg_Lavode · 2003-08-24 10:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

The problem with windows was never it's gui. (Well, not for most users at least.)

--
I do security
Re:Windows... by Omega1045 · 2003-08-24 10:02 · Score: 3, Informative

I love the Windows 200 style interface. I get around in it very well, and as long as I am not doing anything too useful (like compiling, etc), it is very responsive.

It is all the stuff UNDER the hood that suck-didly-ucks. I don't mind Linux grabbing a Windows look at all. If nothing else, it will make it easier to get users to move over to Linux from their Windows machines.

--
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Re:Windows... by 0x0d0a · 2003-08-24 10:03 · Score: 5, Informative

There are a lot of good reasons.

First, we tend to focus on the flaws in Windows. Windows contains a lot of good ideas (which originated at many companies over many years...Apple, for instance, is a major contributor). Just because it isn't as good as it could be and isn't improving doesn't mean that it doesn't have value.

Second of all, many of the flaws in Windows are not UI-related. Windows has stupid file locking semantics...but that doesn't affect how you double click on an icon.

Third, even if Windows is a nonoptimal way to operate, many, many people know how to use Windows and Windows software. They're familiar with Windows interface conventions, and anything different from Windows will face an immediate barrier. Once folks are on Linux, we can continue working on making the environment better.

Fourth, many of the things that suck about Windows only affect folks that are writing software or do lots of network work. So Windows may be a poor OS choice for a typical Slashdot user, but that doesn't mean that its flaws are a big issue for a typical office user, which is who Sun is targetting.

--
May we never see th
Re:Windows... by repetty · 2003-08-24 10:11 · Score: 2, Interesting

"First, we tend to focus on the flaws in Windows."

Man, I wish that were true. I really do, but it's not.

Windows flaws are duplicated.

The flaw that bit my ass a couple weeks ago... auto-numbering in OpenOffice.com's word processor. Faithfully duplicates Word's shitting auto-numbering "feature". Godawful.

It's all about duplication. Period.

--Richard
Re:Windows... by MBCook · 2003-08-24 10:14 · Score: 2, Insightful

I think that the Windows GUI (the 9x/2K one, I don't like new XP one) is a fantastic GUI. It's VERY well done, and some of the things (like the start menu and the systray) are very well done.
When pepole bash Windows (this includes me), we're usually bashing the stability, the security holes, etc. The "standard" Windows GUI, is quite good though.

--
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Re:Windows... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-24 10:21 · Score: 2, Funny

What is a "new versio"? When making a comment about spelling, you should be careful not to screw up yourself.
Re:Windows... by dtfinch · 2003-08-24 10:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

I like the simplicity of it. I'm not a fan of the new XP look and feel though. 98 was a good year.

My main problems with Windows are the bugs, the licensing, and the built in limits meant to encourage home users to upgrade to their $4000 enterprise edition, which gives you comparable functionality to Linux and other free operating systems.
Re:Windows... by Spellbinder · 2003-08-24 10:35 · Score: 5, Insightful

i think that it is a problem if you copy the windows guy for users used to windows
most user will think "Ohh, this looks like windows, so it has to work like windows!"
like on a cd player or a vcr all the buttons look same
and i think may will get angry if it does not
if the UI clearly differs from the windows the user will realise "Ohhh, this is something else, maybe i should make the tutorial that pops up, or look at some documentation!!"
i think a move away from windows would be a real chance to change and improve the UI dramatical
we should not keep things because users are used to them but because they are the easiest way to do the job

--

stop supporting microsoft with pirating their software!!!!!
Re:Windows... by RoLi · 2003-08-24 10:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

Sorry, but can you even point out what is so "fantastic" about the Windows GUI and what sets it apart from KDE?
In my opinion, the Windows GUI is pretty simplistic. Sure it's fine if you just use a handful of apps at the same time, but as soon as you have more than 10 or so windows open, you need multiple desktops.
Re:Windows... by cscx · 2003-08-24 10:40 · Score: 2, Informative

At least in Word, this "feature" can be disabled... quite easily. If something can be disabled, I don't mind it being there.
Re:Windows... by CableModemSniper · 2003-08-24 10:42 · Score: 2, Funny

It was obviously a typo. He probably meant Windows 200K.

--
Why not fork?
Re:Windows... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-24 10:51 · Score: 2, Insightful

For me that's always been a large part of the problem. It's not so much the look (though it tends to be ill-designed even at that level), but the way one has to interact with it. It's just bad from a usability point of view.

Nonetheless I have no objection to people copying conceptual elements and general "look" to get people into the groove of a better user experience. Those will be essentially the same elements MS previously copied from Apple, without all the cruft and intentional obfuscation they pasted on afterwards.
Re:Windows... by Cloud+K · 2003-08-24 10:56 · Score: 2, Interesting

I've actually started to really disagree with making Linux as close to Windows as possible.

For the reason that you described, in a way.. "They're familiar with Windows interface conventions, and anything different from Windows will face an immediate barrier."

That much is true, but there are other consequences to it acting just like Windows.

I'm IT manager for a charity (before anyone asks, yes the pay is crap) and we're currently starting up an older-PC refurbishment scheme where we take Pentium-IIs and the like which companies would normally throw away, format them and sell them on cheaply to those who want a real budget system.

Due to licencing issues (Us: "can you pass on any software licenses with your donated hardware?" Them: "who? wha??? Where? How?") it's not usually economical to provide Windows with the machine. Who wants to buy a 50 machine with a 110 operating system?!!

So I explained (or tried to explain) the wonders of Linux to my boss. At some point I mentioned the word "free" and demonstrated how close it can resemble Microsoft software, and he was jumping up and down with joy.
"Great!" I thought! Good chance to promote Linux amongst the masses!

Boss: "Start a user group here. I'd be glad to use this building to host it"

Me: "Woohoo!"

Boss: "We can use this to sell the computers cheap, then when they have enough money they can upgrade to the REAL Windows" /sigh
Re:Windows... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-24 11:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

Ok, I'll bite. What's wrong with the Win32 file locking semantics?
Re:Windows... by kasperd · 2003-08-24 11:02 · Score: 4, Interesting

The problem with windows was never it's gui. (Well, not for most users at least.)

At least the GUI is not the major problem with Windows. The Windows GUI is not bad, but there are a few things I dislike about the Windows GUI. For example the virtual desktops available in most Linux GUIs should have been standard in Windows by now. In an earlier comment I told about some of the reasons I like the average Linux GUI more than Windows.

--

Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
Re:Windows... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-24 11:10 · Score: 2, Informative

You also miss things in Windows. For example, the ability to navigate the main menu with alphabet keys (ie not cursor). Windows 95 had this. IceWM and KDE have it. I hit "menu a i m" for "Apps, Internet, Mozilla" etc. Fast and effective, and one thing missing from the otherwise slick and smart GNOME desktop now.

Please, will someone add this? I'd file a bug report, but Havoc P would just kick my ass :)
Re:Windows... by 0x0d0a · 2003-08-24 11:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

That sounds like the most "optinal" UI to me.

It's not -- it falls prey to the same issues of getting trapped that running simulated annealing without keeping things hot enough long enough runs into.

People *do* seek minima, but they will seek out local minima, not just global minima. If they're offered a feature that will make things easier and better with no cost to them, they'll take it. However, if they have the option to use something better but there is significant relearning time, they may well choose not to put out the effort.

In the case of Windows, many people know Windows. There are known issue with Windows where it does not fit with current best practices in human interface research. Take...oh, say, the use of pie menus, for instance. However, people are familiar with Windows's current linear menus, and even if there was a long-term benefit to changing to a different interface, they are going to be unhappy with the sort term cost.

I believe that the same thing is true of Linux.

How will Linux UI become "better" in the future? Why isn't these things implemented now?

The UI on Linux has been *steadily* (and compared to competitors, extremely rapidly) been improving. About twelve years ago, Linux didn't even exist. About ten years ago, you needed to be a bit of a kernel hacker to consider touching Linux. Seven years ago, a fairly serious techie experimenter, comfortable with poking around with your bootloaders. Five years ago, you had to still be a pretty decent power user, be comfortable not having a GUI for configuring much of anything, and be able to deal with lots of incompatibilities with Windows software, much less little hardware support. Four years ago, you had to be willing to deal with pretty alpha-ish, flaky or archaic desktop environment software, and still had to worry pretty constantly about hardware compatibility.

Frankly, Linux as a general user desktop environment has essentially gone from zero to threat #1 on Microsoft's worry list in the last three or four years. In some areas, UIs on Linux have surpassed their Microsoft equivalents. KDE's use of detachable panes or GNOME's complete user-configurability of keyboard menu equivalents are pretty neat. Four years ago, Linux multimedia was a pretty sad thing -- there was a commercial mpeg player called mtv and a couple of projects. Today, properly set up Linux boxes smoke Windows in latency. Microsoft has not adapted will to the tougher security requirements of an Internet-connected age, as Linux has.

Linux still has issues that keep some people from using it. A lack of entertainment software (most traditional video games do not make very good open source projects) is significant. Poor inter-distro binary and library compatibility is also an issue. If I had to ship something in binary format that I knew would run on Linux boxes, I'd probably ship it in PE format, because Wine can provide stronger guarantees about binary compatibility than Linux itself can. Linux also does not currently, IMHO, cater as well to the power-user-but-not-techie as Linux does. The light user, who uses a spreadsheet, word processor, email program, and web browser (oh, and Solitaire), has little problem with Linux other than an inability to interact with Microsoft Office file formats reliabily, and enjoys increased stability. The techie loves Linux's ability to be remotely administered, its performance, customizability, scriptability, huge (and free) suite of development tools, and availability of source to fix irritating bugs. The almost-techie-power-user, however, runs into problems. Linux has a thinner layer of GUI over the internals than does Windows. They're probably going to have to interact with the CLI. The power user may want to install unusual software, the sort of thing that doesn't come packaged, but be incapable of dealing with any problems in compiling that software.

So I believe that Linux is getting better for most desktop users much faster than Windows is, but there are definitely categories of users that will not be happy with Linux.

--
May we never see th
Re:Windows... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-24 11:25 · Score: 2, Interesting

I rather liked the old windows gui. That's one reason why I use icewm over kde: the stock look and feel. XP seems a lot like KDE though, and I don't particularly like having everything lumped together. For most people, the problems with windows are really problems with select pieces of commonly used windows software: Outlook Express and IE's security (or lack thereof), MS Office being bloated, Winamp/Media Player/RealPlayer/what have you getting into advanced versions and starting to get slow and bloated. Stability is only a minor annoyance anymore as most people figure out workarounds to windows (sad but true).
Re:Windows... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-24 11:28 · Score: 5, Funny

They need a toggle setting in the preferences:
( ) Works like Ass (default) (o) Works the way it should
Re:Windows... by Reid · 2003-08-24 11:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'll bet it's related to one of my Windows peeves: I can't backup a directory of source code to cd with the windows explorer if I have Visual C++ open to that project. It complains that some file (or files) is in use and barfs. WTF.

If we're beefing about Windows, I also don't like how it manages windows. If a window is wedged, there doesn't appear to be any way to move it or iconify it. I much prefer the unix window manager style, where a separate window manager application handles all that.
Re:Windows... by 0x0d0a · 2003-08-24 11:42 · Score: 4, Interesting

Open a terminal window in Windows to a directory. Then try to move or rename that directory (or a parent directory). An error will come up -- sharing violation. Linux will let you move the directory and simply use the new location.

Open a file, and try to move or rename that file while it's open (drives me nuts when using less in cygwin). Sharing violation. Doesn't happen in Linux.

Try running any kind of update or setup program. You generally get told to reboot. Why? Because Windows forces you to close all libraries, which means closing all programs using libraries, before they can be removed and the new versions of the libraries slapped into place. Linux uses UNIX file locking semantics, so the files can simply be deleted. They won't actually go away until the library is closed, but any new instances of programs started after an upgrade will use the new libraries. These poor file locking semantics are the reason for almost all of required Windows reboots.

I was particularly irritated when I noticed Microsoft's (IMHO dangerous and complexity-inducing) workaround for this. In XP, some MS exec realized that constant sharing violation error dialogs coming up when users tried to rename or delete files or directories containing open files or directories were pissing off users, so they ordered that this be fixed. Instead of fixing the NT kernel to be more capable, they made a workaround in XP's Explorer. From now on, failures in moving or deleting files and directories would be silent. Furthermore, to provide the user the illusion of his operation succeeding, XP's Explorer will even remove the directory's icon from any open windows. However, it is not actually deleted, and upon refreshing a window showing the directory's icon, you will notice that the icon returns.

I use about six Windows machines operating off of a single share on a regular basis. Since I frequently have consoles open in a directory (or Explorer windows open to a directory on other computers), I constantly get sharing violations. This is annoying and time-consuming, but harmless. However, Microsoft trying to play work around poor kernel design choices in Explorer is, IMHO, pretty awful.

I could also mention the poor workaround in Explorer for another NT kernel shortcoming -- the lack of support for symlinks (Shortcuts), and a host of other technical issues I have with Windows. (Remember the 8.3->long filenames issues?) The thing is that Microsoft isn't as interested in issues internal to Windows as Linus and friends do. Microsoft developers work to get a paycheck, and don't care what happens as long as end users don't see any obvious flaws. Linus is trying to produce a code showpiece, and if people can use it to help themselves out, fantastic. As a result, most Linux failings are due to the fact that developers weren't interested or motivated enough to deal with some issue that was of interest to end users but not developers, and most Microsoft issues are due to the fact that Microsoft made a customer-driven poor engineering decision in the past.

--
May we never see th
Re:Windows... by Chanc_Gorkon · 2003-08-24 11:47 · Score: 3, Informative

Virtual Desktops are available if you run a powertoy but most users don't need em....contrary to popular linux geek opinion.

--
Gorkman
Re:Windows... by Overly+Critical+Guy · 2003-08-24 12:18 · Score: 2, Informative

...which is why there's a free Microsoft Powertoy for virtual desktops.

Next.

--
"Sufferin' succotash."
Re:Windows... by DoninIN · 2003-08-24 12:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

GUI preference is largely a matter of familiarity. I loved 3.1 I had no frame of reference, since then I've been configuring whatever GUI I use, (From KDE, afterstep, XP, 98 NT4 whatever) to work essentially the same way. Groups of "windows" you open up and use a number of icons inside to start the programs you use most often, or windows to double click on frequently used files. I hate the "start" menu, and I probably always will. I use the command line for a certain set of tasks, but I hate the whole start menu popup, it's 'cause I'm old and because I've developed these habits. Others love the start menu style GUIs I haven't seen a single.
Re:Windows... by Jace+of+Fuse! · 2003-08-24 12:58 · Score: 3, Insightful

XP usability can be identical to Windows 95.

I don't suppose you know enough to change to classic mode, set up the classic look, and simply turn off all of the fluff?

Most people I know who don't want to upgrade to XP because they don't like the look are exactly the sorts of people that aren't technically savvy enough to even begin to think about dealing with the higher learning curve of *nix.

I have less respect for someone that uses Linux because they think it's perfect, than I do for someone that runs Windows but realizes that it isn't.

--

"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"

Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Re:Windows... by Pharmboy · 2003-08-24 13:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

If windows is so bad why do we keep trying to copy it?

Excellent question. I see two basic reasons.

1. We are already familiar with it, so the learning curve is less steep. Although the Windows desktop is not perfect, it IS pretty good, and the flexibility of Linux will allow more configurability under all circumstances, so it can be made less like Windows and more like what you want it to be, if you know how. If you don't know how to configure it, then the "Windows like" look is probably the best desktop anyway.

2. The closer the Linux desktop looks to Windows 9x/xp, the more people will be willing and/or able to use it. The more people that use it, the more likely that popular applications will get ported to it OR some group will form to develop an open source application to replace the proprietary software. Linux doesn't need 97% to be successful. 20% of the desktop market is more than enough for this to happen. We are about 17%+ at this time.

In business, a company that want to compete with larger companies in the same industry will often compete on the lower price part of the market. Units are less expensive to stock, and you can gain "economy of scale" at a lower investment level. You make the cheap stuff and sell it for less, then work your way up the ladder, eating away your competitor's market share. The same holds true for Linux.

As an advocate of Linux, who uses Windows and Linux, I have faith that the applications and commercial support for Linux will continue to grow. Broadening the appeal of Linux to mainstream users will excellerate this process, by increasing the potential financial returns for companies who are considering developing or porting applications on Linux.

You may or may not like software from Adobe, Macromedia, and the like, but many DO, and they will be more willing to switch if they can get their favorite software (or free alternatives to a degree). Me, I just want Photoshop on Linux so I can work up CMYK stuff. But we need less technical minded people using Linux before we will get broader support by developers.

It is in our own best interest to welcome the broadest range of Linux users, an open tent that all are welcome in. This includes people who don't want to know how the OS works, they just want it to work. When all is said and done, Linux has the best potential to do this.

--
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Re:Windows... by factorinc · 2003-08-24 13:07 · Score: 2, Informative

You forgot to mention my #1 biggest UIpet peeve in Linux... if you copy text, data, ANYTHING to be pasted into another app, both apps must remain open. Some apps don't even allow copy/paste interactivity. Of course since Windows clipboard is system wide, this is not an issue for Microsoft. I hope this gets addressed soon!
Re:Windows... by ejaw5 · 2003-08-24 13:18 · Score: 3, Informative

read: not supported by Microsoft
Note We've taken great care to ensure that PowerToys operate as they should, but they are not part of Windows and are not supported by Microsoft.

--

$cat /dev/random > Sig
Re:Windows... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-24 13:25 · Score: 5, Informative

Just for the record: NT lets you move FILES that are open, but not delete them. You are entirely correct about directories.

As for symlinks, the NT kernel certainly does support symlinks (fsutil hardlink in XP from the command line), it's Explorer that doesn't use them. In general with Windows there's a lot of confusion about "Windows" vs. the NT kernel. "Windows" certainly has a lot of legacy design (such as shortcuts) in it that predates NT, but the NT kernel does the same sort of attention as the Linux kernel.

But the Linux & NT teams also have entirely different design philsophies. Linux obviously comes from Unix, which of course was a rebellion from Multics; the goal being to Keep It Simple, Stupid. But NT comes from VMS, and NT is partly a rebellion from Unix (remember all of the NT is going to kill Unix stories from a decade ago?).

Just to give you some concrete examples of what I mean, the NT kernel supports things such as a threadpool, IO completion ports, and a very robust synchronization API where many kernel objects (files, processes, threads, all represented in user space by handles) can all be "waited" on. Another good example of how NT is more advanced than Linux is that it doesn't kill processes "by heuristic" when it runs out of memory. It just quitely denies memory allocations in a reliable fashion, allowing programs to attempt to handle the OOM condition.

As for the file deleting issue, I think there's some interesting arguments about program integrity here. But first let me point out: Windows offers a FILE_SHARE_DELETE flag when opening files, that allows other processes to delete that file. Given that flag I think it becomes obvious that guaranteeing an application's file will be there is actually a feature to enhance program integrity, rather than some weakness in NT.
Re:Windows... by thornist · 2003-08-24 13:36 · Score: 3, Insightful

Third, even if Windows is a nonoptimal way to operate, many, many people know how to use Windows and Windows software. They're familiar with Windows interface conventions, and anything different from Windows will face an immediate barrier.

Kind of like qwerty keyboards really...
Re:Windows... by 0x0d0a · 2003-08-24 13:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

Use a multi-clipboard program and you're fine.

--
May we never see th
Re:Windows... by zenyu · 2003-08-24 14:13 · Score: 2, Interesting

First, we tend to focus on the flaws in Windows. Windows contains a lot of good ideas (which originated at many companies over many years...Apple, for instance, is a major contributor). Just because it isn't as good as it could be and isn't improving doesn't mean that it doesn't have value.

I used to, but I hardly know what the flaws are anymore, except for the ones that have remained since Windows 95. Once I stopped having a Windows partition I had less and less opportunities to be annoyed by them, and much more likely to send patches to KDE projects with no idea if the UI problem I encountered exists in Windows or what their solution was if it didn't. I think it was maybe two years ago since I switched completely, but the two years before that I basically used Windows only with Visual Studio and the Cygwin tools for development. So I wasn't really exposed to much beyond changing the screen resolution and installing WinCVS for new developers and setting the clock. (The latter required you to log in with root privledges, though a Windows using friend tells me they have a Mandrake like "right click to run as admin w/password prompt" feature now.) I wrote up some docs on installing the IBM JDK and installing an NTP deamon too, but still it only required a half hour of actual exposure to Windows.

The point is the emphasis on Windows flaws will die out naturally as fewer Free Software and Open Source developers are exposed to their tools. Just using a Mac can be an entirely frustrating experience these days, "What do you mean there is no way to change the TCP/IP Window size? You need to sign over IP rights to even look at Apple's code? The MTU calculation has been broken for several releases and a patch was sent to them a year ago? So the user I'm trying to help is just screewed? Okay..." I actually managed to help that user by reprogramming the router to only send packet fragments to that machine, insane workaround in my book, the user offered to buy me a dinner in addition to the bottle of wine she gave me, at least Mac users are nicer than the Windows users you try to help.

PS It's not that I hate the Windows GUI, I absolutely drooled over Win95. Windows just evolves at such a glacial pace, and they don't seem to fix interaction bugs in any kind of organized way. Open Source is much maligned for only fixing interesting bugs instead of easy but annoying ones, but Gnome and KDE really are organized when it comes to improving the interaction model.
Re:Windows... by bob65 · 2003-08-24 14:41 · Score: 2, Informative

I totally agree. People aren't going to be stumped or hit a wall if they're faced with a totally different user interface, and as you mentioned, it's probably better to have different interfaces for things that function differently. The key thing is that the new interface must be *consistent*, so they can quickly learn its conventions and unique features. With linux, unless you stick to all Gnome apps or all KDE apps, etc, you're going to face inconsistencies, both in look and function, amongst various programs. *That* is what will annoy new users.
Frankly, though, I think user interfaces for linux apps are pretty much OK now, and most, if not all users can easily cope with slight variations and inconsistencies. *Using* preinstalled apps is really not a problem for anyone. Installing and maintaining apps, and configuring devices is what's really difficult, and GUI's for configuring settings often fail to expose the underlying organization of config files it modifies, and thus don't work as intended a lot of the time.
Re:Windows... by 0x0d0a · 2003-08-24 20:28 · Score: 3, Interesting

Huh...didn't know that the NT kernel understood symlinks -- I thought it was just hard links.

I'm not an NT systems coder, so I can't respond to some of these. I don't know why you'd need kernel-level support for thread pools. I don't agree that not having an OOM killer is more advanced design. I used to think that the OOM killer was an awful hack, but I've come to feel more and more that it's a lesser-evil solution. The overwhelming majority of software, and all large software packages that I can think of, simply do not check to ensure that they can succeed on all memory allocations. In a system where you don't have an OOM killer and run out of memory, things generally simply grind slower and slower, a couple apps get failed allocations (which may lead to crashes or odd behavior later in the lifetime of the app), and fairly soon something (generally one of the worse-written apps) crashes. So, essentially, you *have* an OOM killer on NT. It's just a bit less intelligent about choosing what to kill, and can wipe out more apps. The days of classic MacOS-style fancy application-level memory management are pretty much dead, IMHO. Too much programmer work. Finally, checking malloc() results doesn't do you a damn bit of good if the allocation is a stack allocation -- what are you planning to do, other than wedge the application or kill it?

Some of the things you mentioned seem to be features that are more useful in a Windows-like environment, where there's more of a focus on threads than processes. Given that UNIX coders have thread-based models and process-based-models available these days and tend to stick with process-based-models, I feel that this is more of a Windows flaw -- that if Windows allowed a decent fork(), process pools would eliminate the need for completion ports.

Finally, I think your argument supporting NT's file locking semantics is based on a misunderstanding of how UNIX file locking works. If I have a file open, it may be deleted. However, the file is refcounted, and each hard link and each open file table entry for that file counts as a reference. So the space for that file and all of its data remains valid until the application closes it. The only guarantee NT makes that UNIX doesn't is that if an application has a file open for read, then opening it again for read will not fail to deleted -- but it *could* change for a number of other reasons, like permission modifications. So NT's semantics provide very dubious benefits, and huge problems by way of forced rebooting and killing of applications.

Finally, WRT to FILE_SHARE_DELETE (which I admit that I did not know about) -- the thing is simply not a solution to UNIX semantics. First, it only works on NT, so no programmers will use it for anything but custom apps for at least a few years. Second, as far as I can tell, it requires the process deleting the file to take abnormal action to delete the file (OpenFile() with the FILE_FLAG_DELETE_ON_CLOSE). Third, I don't believe the file is deleted until it's actually closed (no Windows box handy to test on, however). This means that if you open the thing, you cannot create a new file with the same name in the same location until the process is closed. Fourth, it requires the process opening the file to take abnormal action (pass in the special flag). Fifth, there is a huge installed base of libraries and other functions that do not allow you to pass in FILE_SHARE_DELETE. The NT object loader doesn't do so, so DLLs cannot be replaced when an application is running (which means closing apps, rebooting computer, etc). It's a good bet that many userspace libraries also do not allow you to pass in this flag. This effectively makes it useless from the user's point of view.

--
May we never see th
Re:Windows... by cdh · 2003-08-25 00:56 · Score: 2, Informative

Get VirtualWin. Edge flipping, small, configurable keys, and it's even GPL.

nothing like a new sun product by scottking · 2003-08-24 09:58 · Score: 2, Funny

maybe i'm a big geek, but whenever sun releases something new, i get all giddy.

--
scott king

nice, but... by Thomas+A.+Anderson · 2003-08-24 09:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

Nice, but I like the beta redhat screenies better: https://listman.redhat.com/archives/rhl-devel-list /2003-August/msg00117.html

Gnome sure can be pretty - it mught be time for me to switch back from kde....

--
Personally its not God I dislike, its his fan club I cant stand (bash.org)

Hats? by Kryptolus · 2003-08-24 09:59 · Score: 2, Funny

What's the obsession with hats?

--

--
Violators will be prosecuted and prosecutors will be violated.

Re:Hats? by bersl2 · 2003-08-24 10:01 · Score: 4, Funny

People aren't wearing enough of them.

Kinda skimpish, by CoolVibe · 2003-08-24 09:59 · Score: 3, Interesting

but promising! Clearly, Sun has cooped something that looks good. Let's hope they'll be a nice player and release this vor x86 as well.

Re:Kinda skimpish, by 0x0d0a · 2003-08-24 10:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'm not so worried about Sun being a nice player. They've contributed some to GNOME development already.

The idea is to let Sun do the not-so-fun-but-profitable work of pulling people over to GNOME from Windows. Sun goes after Microsoft, and we get to keep making fun software.

A lot of the folks Sun's after aren't coders. There's lots of good software for coders out there, because OSS people like writing stuff that they can actually use themselves. Sun likes making money, so Sun does their thing.

I wish Sun had more of a Linux movement, but I suppose Solaris and BSD are really the only things out there that can compete with Linux and more, and Sun wants to keep their sunk investment in place.

--
May we never see th
Re:Kinda skimpish, by pete-classic · 2003-08-24 10:23 · Score: 2, Informative

From the article:

It will run on existing PC hardware, so CIOs can upgrade at their own pace and budgets

Looks like you skimped on the reading.

-Peter
Re:Kinda skimpish, by Arker · 2003-08-24 10:59 · Score: 2, Funny

Clearly, Sun has cooped something that looks good.

Cooped? Huh? They stuck it in a cage with a bunch of chickens? How do they expect to make money doing that? How come the article didn't mention this? Where did you find out?

--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.

Warning: Spoiler by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-24 10:01 · Score: 3, Funny

At the end of the planet of the apes, Charlton Heston discovers that HE IS ON EARTH!!!

Re:Warning: Spoiler by polyp2000 · 2003-08-24 10:03 · Score: 3, Funny

You swine, ... I've just bought the Charlton Heston Planet of the Apes DVD ...
I've not watched it yet.

--
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Re:Warning: Spoiler by Sponge+Bath · 2003-08-24 10:48 · Score: 2, Funny

At the end of the planet of the apes, Charlton Heston discovers that HE IS ON EARTH!!!
The way he looked in Bowling for Columbine, I wonder if he will discover the same in real life. Kind of a Reaganesque way to go.

There's more to it than just that... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-24 10:05 · Score: 5, Interesting

Over at LinuxWorld, Sun was demonstrating the Mad Hatter desktop. However, it wasn't just Mad Hatter on a single computer, rather it was set up on dummy terminals connected to a network computer, with a login simply being a smart card inserted into a reader within the terminal. So, what's special about that?

Well, now imagine if your work (well, porn watching) was interrupted by a nosey boss (or mother). All you have to do is yank the card out, the screen locks itself and renders itself ready to other users. You can go on to another more private terminal and simply stick your card in, and presto - everything you were doing is now displayed on the new terminal. (back to porn!)

Cool stuff, but fairly much in competition with LTSP.

Re:There's more to it than just that... by _Sprocket_ · 2003-08-24 11:49 · Score: 3, Interesting

Over at LinuxWorld, Sun was demonstrating the Mad Hatter desktop. However, it wasn't just Mad Hatter on a single computer, rather it was set up on dummy terminals connected to a network computer, with a login simply being a smart card inserted into a reader within the terminal.

Sun has been doing this for quite a few years now. Their thin-client line is called Sun Ray. I've seen the Sun Ray 150 model demo'd in several places and used by a crew that runs the terminal room for a series of infosec conferences. Very nice.

Whats even more interesting is when you plug in a Citrix server and have access to Windows apps from your Unix desktop.
Re:There's more to it than just that... by fishbot · 2003-08-24 20:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

The point isn't to secure the machine, but to secure the user's logged in session. If I have some personal emails open with the screen locked, and the best a would be attacker can do is kill the X session, my data is still safe.

Having said that, if someone leaves a terminal logged in, you can Ctrl-Alt-F* to it and type 'killall xlock' or 'killall xscreensaver' and it releases the X desktop back for normal use.
Re:There's more to it than just that... by messju · 2003-08-24 21:30 · Score: 2, Informative

hmm, my XF86Config has this in it: # Uncomment this to disable the <Crtl><Alt><BS> server abort sequence # This allows clients to receive this key event. # Option "DontZap" but trying to secure a terminal via software-locks against somebody who has physical access to it is a race you can't win.

Why would anyone support this? by OS24Ever · 2003-08-24 10:06 · Score: 5, Interesting

I always think it's great when another hardware manufacturer sees the light of open source software. But when it's coming to sun the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is saying.

Here we have Scott McNealy telling people ""Don't touch open-source software unless you have a team of intellectual-property lawyers prepared to scour every single piece" of open-source code. " yet they're also releasing an open sourced distribution of Linux.

What's the deal with Sun? One minute their CEO is in a penguin suit extolling the world starts with open source, then it's Solaris will save the world, then it's Linux is doomed because of the SCO thing, etc.

I wouldn't want to support someone so wishy washy

--

As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.

Re:Why would anyone support this? by garcia · 2003-08-24 10:17 · Score: 3, Insightful

I wouldn't want to support someone so wishy washy

You might not (and the rest of the "community") but the real world people do want to listen to Sun.
Re:Why would anyone support this? by neo · 2003-08-24 10:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

"I wouldn't want to support someone so wishy washy "

If it were one person acting this way I'd agree with you, but it's a corporation. I have no problem with seeing part of that corporation survive while other parts become extinct. That's more likely to happen if you support the part that's making the right decisions.

Yes, but will it run on SCO? by LazloToth · 2003-08-24 10:09 · Score: 4, Funny

Heh heh. Just checking your reflexes.

--

It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.

Launch = Start = Sigh by h00pla · 2003-08-24 10:17 · Score: 3, Insightful

I know this kind of desktop is supposed to give MS refugees a warm, fuzzy feeling, but I am so sick of the Start/Launch/[Whatever] button. Sheesh! Free yourselves from this Microsoft cloning and get something like Fluxbox.

--
I've been swashdotted -- Elmer Fudd

Re:Launch = Start = Sigh by jeffehobbs · 2003-08-24 10:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

No KIDDING. How totally, completely dull. Congratulations, you've slavishly copied Windows 95; now how about doing something, anything else... linux has so much potential to be the back end to a truly revolutionary user interface, but it seems to be stuck on the "give the users what they know" stage -- even if what they know is a retarded, confusing GUI mess. What year is this again?

Apple got a lot of flack for interface changes in MacOS X, and some of that flack was for good reason, but at least they tried, and continue to be trying; check out Expose for a great example. I'd love to see some of that kind of innovation coming from the Linux camp, there would be a hell of a lot more reason to "switch" (or at least check out linux at all) if there was some easily demonstrable reason it was better than Windows/MacOS X/etc.

For most Americans, if "free" is not compelling enough then "equal" is probably not compelling enough either; there has to be something tangible linux offers that they can't get on their existing platform. And this ain't it.

~jeff
Re:Launch = Start = Sigh by garcia · 2003-08-24 10:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

this is Insightful?

People do NOT care about "freeing themselves from MS", they don't care about speed (we have insanely fast CPUs now), and they certainly don't want anything other than what they already are used to.

People HATED XP when it first came out (and most still do) because it was "different" and they couldn't find anything.

We have seen plenty of articles on here about how people are finding applications easily when switching from Windows-based OSs. They find the "start menu", they then find applications that are "familiar".

You think that a "freed desktop look" is going to have easy to find applications that are familiar?

We want people to switch but we don't want to make that switch easy? Get real.
Re:Launch = Start = Sigh by xigxag · 2003-08-24 11:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

Yeah, I'd like to see a major Linux player working on something beyond the bitmapped desktop. If Apple can do it, surely IBM with its vast resources can get cracking in this arena. Even the alleged copycat Microsoft is actively developing a scalable desktop solution for Longhorn. How about SVG? Any implementations of that on the desktop in development?

--
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Re:Launch = Start = Sigh by Overly+Critical+Guy · 2003-08-24 12:21 · Score: 2, Interesting

People HATED XP when it first came out (and most still do) because it was "different" and they couldn't find anything.

Um, no. In fact, Windows XP sold more than Windows 95 did at its launch.

What's different about XP? I keep seeing this FUD about how "everything's moved around," and "nobody can find anything," when the only major things that are changed from 2000 is a bunch of icons moved from the desktop to the Start menu (configurable). Oh, and Common Tasks (also configurable). The only other thing I can think of is file permissions, but Simplified File Sharing can be turned off so that it's like--you guessed it--Windows 2000.

In other words, I never get what's so radically different about XP other than better application/driver support, as well as minor interface changes like thumbnails, camera integration, etc. It's Windows 2000 but designed for home use. When I upgraded some 98 machines to XP for a network once, I found that nothing had even been moved around at all, because it was smart enough to retain all settings. The users didn't even know any better (except less crashing and faster startup times).

--
"Sufferin' succotash."

Hyperlinked by Hal+The+Computer · 2003-08-24 10:17 · Score: 2, Informative

Come on, what do you mean it's not clickable? what's so hard about gohere.com ?
Fine I'll do it myself: ;-)

https://listman.redhat.com/archives/rhl-devel-list /2003-August/msg00117.html

--

int main(void){int x=01232;while(malloc(x));return x;}

Unique Feature by Lozzer · 2003-08-24 10:19 · Score: 2, Interesting

Is there a new meaning of unique that marketeers use? Unique meaning "not in the equivalent Microsoft product".

Tabbed browsing - unique to mozilla, workspace switcher, unique to Linux???

--
Special Relativity: The person in the other queue thinks yours is moving faster.

it's the apps interface by b17bmbr · 2003-08-24 10:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

the interface that matters is the applications' interfaces. people are familiar with office. hell, ask most of the windows users if they can do mroe than minimize and close a window and they'll say no. most people are accustomed to a particular application. especially office. sun would be better off just to map /home to /My Documents and make the OO.org UI as identical to office as legally possible. this is even more true for more specific apps,like accounting apps, what have you. that is what holds linux adoption back. most people don't even "use" the operating system, nor do they even care to. they use a tool. they could really care less what the OS is. in fact, they only know what it is when it does nasty things.

--
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.

You press start to stop the computer by yerricde · 2003-08-24 10:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

It's VERY well done, and some of the things (like the start menu and the systray) are very well done.

You press start to stop the computer.

You press start... to stop the computer!

And pressing the Logo key between Ctrl and Alt will unceremoniously dump the player out of a fast-action full-screen game.

The "standard" Windows GUI, is quite good though.

The graphical shell lacks some things. Does it have a way to search for file names by regular expressions, by exact substring/phrase, or even by all the words? I can't get Windows 2000 to search by anything other than any of the word stems.

--
Will I retire or break 10K?

Re:You press start to stop the computer by fault0 · 2003-08-24 10:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

I really doubt that a company that current has more than 90% market share, and focuses it's products on 90% of the populace are going to worry about an obscure feature such as regular expressions that only 1% of the populace uses.

But hey, that's just me.
Re:You press start to stop the computer by fault0 · 2003-08-24 11:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

Microsoft implemented these kitchen sync features in Office in order to defeat its competitiors in market share. Most of these features had already appeared by Office95 when Microsoft really started dominating the Office Suite market.

Since then, there really hasn't been a competitor to Office that offers all of its features or has made any sort of dent in its market share, so Microsoft hasn't really had much of a compulsion to add a whole bunch of new features to its core Office apps (word/excel/PP). If you've not noticed by now, most of Office has been in maintainance mode for a long time. All Microsoft has done since Office97 is make the interface of the new versions of Office match the new versions of Windows and other related technologies.
Re:You press start to stop the computer by leonardop · 2003-08-24 11:30 · Score: 4, Insightful

... are going to worry about an obscure feature such as regular expressions that only 1% of the populace uses

All flammable opinions aside, this is a very sad fact (I don't know if 1% is correct, but the point is still valid).

To some extent, regexps suffer from the same problem many Free Software projects do, and it's that a lot of people simply don't want to get very far along the learning curve. We tend to live the moment and try to get the job done as fast as possible, so investing time learning something useful is usually pretty hard, no matter how blatantly obvious the potential benefits are.

Imagine how much efficiency could be gained from teaching at least some basic regexp skills to secretaries, just to mention one example.

Actually, many of us who use regexps everyday, still do it poorly sometimes.
Jeffrey Friedl put it clearly in his book "Mastering Regular Expressions":
You might think that with their wide availability, general popularity, and unparalleled power, regular expressions would be employed to their fullest, wherever found. You might also think that they would be well documented, with introductory tutorials for the novice just starting out, and advanced manuals for the expert desiring that little extra edge. Sadly, that hasn't been the case.
Re:You press start to stop the computer by PhoenixK7 · 2003-08-24 11:40 · Score: 2, Insightful

"All Microsoft has done since Office97 is make the interface of the new versions of Office match the new versions of Windows and other related technologies."

Actually, one of the things I find the most aggravating about Office XP is that the UI color scheme and widgets in Windows XP and Office XP do not match. They're different. Why did they bother?

On the topic of stuff that's been in maintenance mode, the damn equation editor still sucks and has plenty of wacky rendering issues, and it has had them for the past few versions. Come on guys, on the Windows side we've been through Office 95, 97, 2000, and XP. With XP coming out in either 2001 or 2002 (can't recall) we've had _6_ or _7_ years to work out bugs like these and they're still there. It doesn't really crash anymore, but you'd expect more polish out of this thing.
Re:You press start to stop the computer by usotsuki · 2003-08-24 12:45 · Score: 2, Interesting

Why do you think hackers hated the Mac?

The perfect GUI would be one that had the n00b-simplicity of Finder (MacOS 7), the taskbar of Windows minus the word "Start" (perhaps, instead, the name of the GUI; cf. KDE), and the ability to run a full Bourne shell in a window (Win9x, using MinGW's ash or Cygwin's bash; *x, using an xterm; even NeXT's os could do this, and so can AtheOS, AFAIK) and a lot of the typical utilities. And I like to run a program by hitting Win-R and typing the name of the program.

And...keep the eye candy to a minimum by default, Please! My bloody eyes!

-uso.

--
Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS
Re:You press start to stop the computer by Pseudonym · 2003-08-24 14:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

You press start to stop the computer.

So? I've been quitting programs for a decade or so using the "File" menu. Since when has quitting a program been a file operation?

The semantics of "Start" is that to do anything, you "start here". That actually makes more sense to me than putting Quit under the File menu.

--
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Re:You press start to stop the computer by babbage · 2003-08-24 14:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

I really doubt that a company that current has more than 90% market share, and focuses it's products on 90% of the populace are going to worry about an obscure feature such as regular expressions that only 1% of the populace uses.

Not that I disagree with you, but there is precedent for this at Microsoft.
There was an interesting interview a couple of years back -- I apologize for not googling for a URL, but it's been too long and I remember it too vaguely -- where one of the project managers for Microsoft Office acknowledged that the suite is, as many people accuse, bloated with features, 90% of which the average user never takes advantage of.
Of course that's a problem, and they were willing to try to fix it. The problem was, they did some user testing, and learned a curious thing: while pretty much all users felt that a suite with 10% of the functionality would meet their needs, every user had a different idea about what 10% should be kept & which 90% should go.
It turned out that, as bloated as Office is, there was some portion of the user population interested in each part of the available functionality, and that would have been unhappy (possibly unhappy enough to seek out an alternative product) if that functionality was removed.
Purging the suite would have been a bigger problem than the bloat itself.
The solution that they came up with was a more modular installer, first seen (as far as I can recall) with Win2000/Office2000, where the user could select which subsystems to install, which to permanently ignore, and which to allow to be installed on demand. [Ironically, this modular installer would be a perfect tool for the "thousands of versions of Windows" canard that MS execs started crying about when the government threatened to enforce the anti-trust decision; thankfully for MS they were able to afford an administration that would let them go about their business, illegal or not.]
---
But anyway, to go back to the point: yes, things like a regex engine would be of interest to only a small subset of the Windows userbase, but it wouldn't be the first time that a feature made it into the system that a similar small slice of the userbase would be interested in. (As another commenter noted, a regex engine would be at least as popular as, say, MIDI support.)
Personally, I think Microsoft is heading in exactly this direction -- or at least, parts of the heterogeneous behemoth that is Microsoft are collectively staggering in this direction. As was noted in articles here last year, and as confirmed by ongoing job postings on Microsoft's Indian Development Center, Microsoft is studying which aspects of Linux and the typical Linux command shell (bash, tcsh, ksh etc) appeal most to users, and seems to be working on bringing these ideas into a future version of Windows. Consider this quote from the above linked MS-India jobs site:

The Microsoft Next Generation Shell Team is designing and developing a new command line scripting environment from the ground up. The new shell and utilities, based on the .NET Frameworks, will provide a very rich object-based mechanism for managing system properties. To be delivered in the next release of Windows, it will include the attributes of shells (e.g. aliases, job control, command substitution, pipelines, regular expressions, transparent remote execution) plus rich features based on Windows and .NET (e.g. command discovery via .NET reflection API's, object-based properties/methods, 1:many server scripting, pervasive auto-complete).
Microsoft realizes that a big reason for OSX's popularity is that it's a soft creamy interface wrapped around a tasty, crunchy tcsh shell, and they want to bring some of that appeal to

--
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Re:You press start to stop the computer by mr_tap · 2003-08-24 20:37 · Score: 2, Informative

Mod up the parent For those that don't use "OS X", Quit is no longer under the File menu, it has been moved to the left most menu that is named after the application.

Gee... by Mark_MF-WN · 2003-08-24 10:28 · Score: 5, Interesting

An OS can have a great UI (like Windows), but still be terrible in most other ways (like Windows).

Microsoft Windows is the bimbo that everyone wants to date -- great looking exterior, but nothing underneath the surface. It's it only real purpose is to fuck you over.

Linux is like the mousy looking girl who works at the library. Smart and fun as all get-out, but not necessarily as pretty as the bimbo.

Now Sun is trying to offer a library girl with bimbo good-looks. I say more power to them.

usability over security? by maliabu · 2003-08-24 10:28 · Score: 2, Interesting

from the article, corporate users, or actually most people, are more likely drawn by the GUI [than the security], thus most linux distros are now trying to copy Windows' GUI, hoping users will eventually switch over.

for example, users might find the 'preview' feature in Outlook very userfriendly and easy, although it might 'preview' some virus for you.

so, my question is - can linux be so similar to Windows without forsaking the important security?

Re:Looks to much like Windows 95 by de+Selby · 2003-08-24 10:32 · Score: 3, Insightful

This looks like a step backwards compared to Mac OS X, RedHat's Bluecurve, or early screen shots of longhorn.

I guess that depends on what you think of OSX, Bluecurve and Longhorn. :)

Seriously though, I think interfaces have just been getting worse. (Ex: OSX, WinXP.) Someone really needs to cull the eye candy from the default setup and instead go back to ease of use.

by your analogy by SweetAndSourJesus · 2003-08-24 10:34 · Score: 5, Funny

Mac OS X is the hottie who goes all night long and makes you breakfast in the morning.

Mmmmm...I like that.

--

--
the strongest word is still the word "free"

Re:by your analogy by FunkSoulBrother · 2003-08-24 11:46 · Score: 5, Funny

OSX is the hottie who doesn't share any of your interests and wants a credit card so she can go shopping at the mall.

Great to look at, but expensive as fuck and not much to do with her.

But is it safe by pen · 2003-08-24 10:35 · Score: 4, Funny

Is it really that safe to stick your card into so many terminals?

This actually looks viable... by deviator · 2003-08-24 10:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

This desktop is not targeted at most readers of /. - so don't judge it based on what _you'd_ like your desktop to be.

Linux will _never_ gain any major ground in the coporate desktop world until it looks and feels like Windows. Most non-computer-industry types do not like change--no matter what the benefits are. This project appears to fill that very important hole - something that's almost a Windows "workalike" while eschewing any proprietary Microsoft code.

This *looks* good, a bit cleaner than WinXP & it is laid out a bit nicer. Things like "This Computer" instead of the pandering, cheesier "My Computer" set it apart yet the thing looks instantly familiar to anyone who has used Windows.

Kudos to Sun for finally getting the desktop right.

Re:This actually looks viable... by RPoet · 2003-08-24 11:16 · Score: 2

Most non-computer-industry types do not like change--no matter what the benefits are.

This is such a widely believed myth, but I don't believe it. Look at the changes between Windows 3.11 and Windows 95, and between Windows 9x/2k and Windows XP, and look at the screenshots from Longhorn to see how different that will be from XP. The fact is that Windows changes looks quite often, which makes the whole "it has to look like Windows" argument very dubious.

--
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Re:This actually looks viable... by penguin7of9 · 2003-08-24 15:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

Kudos to Sun for finally getting the desktop right.

Have you ever actually used any of Sun's user interfaces? SunView, OpenWindows, NeWS, Swing, OpenOffice? I don't think they have ever gotten user interfaces "right", and I seriously doubt they have gotten this one right.

Gnome by itself seems much more consistent and usable than any mix of Java, OpenOffice, and Gnome could ever be. Keep in mind that Java and OpenOffice don't even use the native Gnome toolkit or libraries.

Re:Looks to much like Windows 95 by ratfynk · 2003-08-24 10:38 · Score: 5, Interesting

Read Suns position they are right to make it simple. Looky and feely is stupid for offices. Make it work and not have bunghole dep and debug problems. Keep it simple and functional for business they will love you! That is why MS is not selling to small business the way they want. XP, 2003, need 256meg of ram minimum or they will run like a dog on an old hp P2 or P3 slot one! Get rid of all the anime and flash and bells and whistles if you run thin clients and you want to reuse your 3-5 year old machines! Microsoft is bloatware and businesses know this. By MS trying to be Nervana for gamers, music and movies they have lost track of business big time. Sun is right on with this approach, they see the throut and they are going for it, so is IBM. Linux and freedom for the business people right on brother!

--
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!

Creating our own desktops by frankjr · 2003-08-24 10:40 · Score: 2, Interesting

Hrm, if Ximian can release their own modified desktop, and Sun can release their own modified desktop, why don't we start a project that reintegrates all those features that had been removed or hidden back into Gnome, and call it "Hackers' Gnome" or something? We all know that the Gnome project likes to remove stuff in order to not "confuse" the newbie, so producing a "Hackers' Gnome" could be our chance of keeping all the functionality that we're used to having in Gnome.

gaack by sootman · 2003-08-24 10:40 · Score: 3, Insightful

Can we *please* not end every Linux desktop submission with "[perhaps this] could make Linux on the corporate desktop and laptop a bigger reality."?!?!?!

*If* it happens (and that's a big "if") it'll take years, and it's entirely likely that it won't. Assuming Microsoft has only 90% desktop marketshare, that's 10% split among Apple, Linux, etc. That means *no one* is even *close* to MS's dominance on the desktop. (Remember the Princess Bride? Think "land war in Asia") So why does anyone think Sun or Mandrake or anyone else is going to be the one who makes PHBs say "Well, gee, if Sun is behind it, I'll switch everything tomorrow!"?

I like Linux as much as the next guy, but this pie-eyed optimism is not getting anyone anywhere. Hell, headlines here oughtta read "Company X introduces Linux desktop that's nicer than last year's; world continues not to care."

--
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.

Re:gaack by wytcld · 2003-08-24 13:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

As someone who immediately liked Linux because it was so much like ZCPR (a CP/M replacement far better than DOS ever became) I can see the point of having Linux be familiar to Doze users. As someone who once accepted that there'd never be a future without 1-2-3 being the spreadsheet and WordPerfect writing the texts, I can tell you that present dominance is no guarantee of future success.

How did Word take over from WordPerfect? Word always assumed the user didn't want to learn so much. For command line users this was the wrong assumption - people who "talk" to their machines tend to enjoy learning. But it turned out to be just the right assumption once we went visual and pointing began to suffice for communication. Companies started firing their secretaries and having execs do their own typing, and the execs just wanted to get the job done the simplest way. Then they wanted to have the remaining secretaries' docs be compatible, so they forced stupidifying software on them too. In Word-land, document writes you.

Hello. Cheap, fast, free, doesn't catch viruses, doesn't crash ... if Linux can add "and you don't have to hardly learn anything" plus the obvious advantage of being more compatible with your company geeks, it could take over within two years, the same as Win/Word/Excel did. And old farts like me can fire up jstar and pretend we're back on an old hotrodded WordStar ZCPR system.

--
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton

sorry, but this interface for me by fault0 · 2003-08-24 10:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

actually looks like a step back from CDE.

I've never said that about any other interface, considering how I hate CDE :-)

It looks like a cheap clone of win95, just not properly done and with inconsistancies everywhere. I think they should have just used bluecurve or something like that.

Annoying that it's Gnome by soloport · 2003-08-24 10:45 · Score: 4, Insightful

Ok, I know I'm going to be flammed for this one, but here goes:

Please, Gnome developers, switch Cancel and Ok to a consistent Ok(LHS) and Cancel(RHS)... Please?!!!

So annoying! I'd use Gnome, be proud of it and recommend to all, if not for this one, single, pull-my-hair-out irritation.

As it is, every time I try to introduce Gnome to someone (Mac or Windows user), that's the first place they stumble. Then I have to say, "Well... Eheh... Why don't we try KDE. Mk?".

Look, it sure seems that the whole left-to-right-reading world thinks this way. I think Gnome is a terrific windowing environment, otherwise.

[puts asbestos suit on, real fast]

Re:Annoying that it's Gnome by tempest303 · 2003-08-24 12:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

This is actually pushed in GNOME, and is part of the GNOME HIG (Human Interface Guidelines)!

--
The Free desktop that Just Works
Re:Annoying that it's Gnome by babbage · 2003-08-24 15:25 · Score: 5, Informative

Actually, as at least one other person has noted, the correct way to do it would not be with simplistic "yes/no/cancel" dialogs, but with verbs. This is part of Apple's UI guidelines for the Aqua/OSX interface, and one of the commenters below notes that apparently this is a rule for Gnome as well (if, apparently, and ignored one).

Think about it, which is clearer --

Positive / negative assertions:

Would you like to quit without saving?
[YES] [NO] [CANCEL]

Verbs:

Would you like to quit without saving?
[QUIT] [SAVE FIRST] [DON'T QUIT]

Can you even parse out how "no" and "cancel" are different, or what would be the expected behavior if you chose one? Usually you end up seeing silly hints such as this:

Would you like to quit without saving? Hit NO to save first, hit CANCEL to not quit the program.
[YES] [NO] [CANCEL]

Note to UI designers: if you have to add explanatory footnotes to your dialogs, your dialogs are broken .

You can argue all your want about the sequence of the buttons. Some of the people responding have alluded to UI research suggesting that "NO" "YES" is more intuitive for people than "YES" "NO", but I'm not familiar with that research so I won't get into it. I do know, however, that people are very good at unambiguously interpreting what simple verbs mean, and don't have to think through the consequences of a simple "do this" or "do that". On the other hand, figuring out what "yes, no, maybe" in response to a seemingly simple question, like the one above, can be annoyingly ambiguous. Quit making this mistake!

Yes/No/Cancel may be the UI model that Windows is stuck with, but there's still enough wiggle room for Gnome & KDE to avoid that trap. I hope that they manage to do so. Don't you agree?

[I AGREE] [I DON'T AGREE] [I DON'T CARE]

--
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Re:Annoying that it's Gnome by Varitek · 2003-08-24 18:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

the correct way to do it would not be with simplistic "yes/no/cancel" dialogs, but with verbs

It also makes it easier to translate. I'm part of the team translating gnome into Welsh. Welsh doesn't have a word for "Yes", it has words for "Yes it is" and "Yes I would" and "Yes there is", etc.

A dialog box with Yes/No/Cancel in Gnome should have a bug filed against it.

The push is good... by Jerk+City+Troll · 2003-08-24 10:47 · Score: 2, Interesting

...but I think the software is not. Looking at those screenshots, I sneared. It's no improvement over RedHat's desktop, save for some shinier looking icons (pointless). The arrangement tries to look too hacker-like. We don't want a desktop that looks like most things from themes.org. Overall, this reminded me of what most open source interfaces looked like years ago when only 31337 people worked on them. Again, it's good to see backing from Sun, lending their credibility, but over all, I see nothing impressive about this.

On a more humorous note, they'll be sorry they put that comments form on the bottom...

--
Join Tor today!

Re:good but... by afidel · 2003-08-24 10:52 · Score: 2, Interesting

I was the Linux technical resource for a desktop support team that supported ~50K desktops, of those 10K were Solaris, 36K were windows (mostly 2K), and 4K were RH Linux. Linux was only 8% of the total but still a lot more than 20 systems =) And Sun was showing this desktop running on their thin terminals so I don't think you have to worry about resources too much =) Oh yeah and anything is an improvement from CDE.

--
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.

And a midi device routing capability by Ayanami+Rei · 2003-08-24 11:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

should be built into it too?

I bet less than 1% of the population needs that extra flexibility in the Multimedia Settings control panel.

What IS microsoft's aversion to regular expressions?

--
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON

Desktop icons by F452 · 2003-08-24 11:17 · Score: 2, Interesting

This Sun desktop has the same problem with icons that I'm seeing with Red Hat 9. They're huge! The icons and the text are quite large and clunky looking. Same with whatever file manager it is that I'm using out of the box. The icons in list mode are so big and you don't see that many items at a time.

Now before you flame me as a moron who doesn't know how to tweak /a/b/c.conf, let me confess: I don't know much about Linux. I've been using Windows for years and am pretty well versed in it, but for a long time I've wanted to switch to Linux, for the freedom, stability, power, what have you. So I'm trying again.

But I can see for myself that the Windows interface does look pretty good and is fairly easy to use. I think the hard-core Linux users miss something when they dismiss everything in Windows. There's good stuff there. I'm willing to dig to figure out how to do stuff in Linux, but I think I'm atypical of Windows users in general.

I shouldn't even post this because I'll probably get flamed in to oblivian, but I'm hoping someone will reply with an answer about how to fix the godawful icons on the desktop :-)

where do you get your figures? by SweetAndSourJesus · 2003-08-24 11:24 · Score: 2, Informative

Just going by Google's Zeitgeist, Mac users accessing Google outnumber Linux users 3 to 1.

The Navy buying Macs and installing Linux on them is about as irrelevant as it gets.

--

--
the strongest word is still the word "free"

Cygwin issues by yerricde · 2003-08-24 11:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

install cygwin

I do not have permission to install software on a significant number of Windows computers that I use. And does Cygwin (including its installer) work well on Windows 9x, on computers that connect to the Internet through dialup, or on computers whose Internet access is filtered to a whitelist of approved web sites? And is Cygwin XFree86 mature enough to be usable for everyday work?

--
Will I retire or break 10K?

Re:Cygwin issues by usotsuki · 2003-08-24 12:53 · Score: 2, Informative

Does Cygwin work well on 9x? You bet your ass it does. However I think you'd do better with MinGW32 and MSYS/gnuwin32.

-uso.
"PathoLogic Linux+GNU" ...well, as soon as I get rid of those headrats...

--
Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS

Close... by lpret · 2003-08-24 11:48 · Score: 2, Interesting

but you need to realize that Microsoft and others have poured a lot of money into making it's system very user-friendly -- perhaps a little too much for nerds who aren't used to friends. As such, they front-end of their system (I would like to see a critique based on the actual interface) is very intuitive especially since us kids have been using Windows as long as we've used computers. So the Windows feel and the "this looks like Windows so it should act like it" is actually something we should want. Linux can only catch up in terms of end-user usability, but once it does that, it can then start to innovate. That's what I'm looking towards Mandrake and others to do.

--
This is my digital signature. 10011011001

Mmmmm, screenshots by commodoresloat · 2003-08-24 12:01 · Score: 2, Funny

What a great way to procrastinate doing work. Let's look at pretty pictures of someone else doing work.

Re:Why is OpenOffice *NOT* FREE? by luispo123 · 2003-08-24 12:03 · Score: 4, Interesting

GPC is indeed a requisite for building OpenOffice.org for Linux (see http://tools.openoffice.org/dev_docs/build_linux.h tml#GeneratingtheBuildEnvironmentandBuildTools ) .
According to the GPC site, http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/aig/staff/alan/software//i ndex.html, "This software is free for non-commercial use. Anyone wishing to use the gpc library in support of a commercial product please email gpc@cs.man.ac.uk." OpenOffice.org is non-commercial. It is not sold but obtainable for free from the website, http://www.openoffice.org/. But, of course, it would be more in keeping with open-source work methods if all the tools needed were open source. Thus, if you can create such a tool, or persuade the owner of GPC to open-source his tool,or point us to a satisfactory open-source equivalent, please go ahead. It seems a better strategy than to complain that OpenOffice.org is a sham.
Louis
OpenOffice.org

New life for Sun hardware by sbszine · 2003-08-24 12:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

I don't think this is going to overtake RedHat any day soon, but it's good news for me and people in a similar situation. I've been having lots of trouble getting Linux working on my Sparc Ultra 5, because everything is optimised for 32-bit i86 platforms. I'd would love to have the goodness of Linux optimised for my lovely Sun hardware. Sun's problem was always the software rather than the hardware, and this looks like the best of both worlds.

--

Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling

Continue to Cancel? by MyHair · 2003-08-24 12:48 · Score: 2, Funny

Please, Gnome developers, switch Cancel and Ok to a consistent Ok(LHS) and Cancel(RHS)... Please?!!!

Heh, that reminds me: I was cancelling an online subscription last night, and after verifying my password it gave me a summary screen of what I was doing and had two buttons : "Continue to Cancel" and "No, Do Not Cancel".

I printed it to PDF but haven't put it online yet.

Already have a Windows Workalike: FVWM95 by reporter · 2003-08-24 13:01 · Score: 3, Interesting

Linux already has something that looks and feels like Windows. It is called "FVWM95", the free virtual window manager. It emulates Windows 95 very well.

Still, FVWM95 has not helped Linux to penetrate the corporate desktop market even though FVWM95 has been available for at least 3 years.

However, there is good news. The vehicle that is helping Linux to penetrate the corporate desktop market is the powerful 80x86 chips by Intel and AMD. Numerous small American companies (like those in Silicon Valley and Boston's Route 128) are moving en masse away from Unix workstations with crappy processors like UltraSPARC to Linux desktops with powerful processors like the Pentium 4, the Athlon, and the PPC 970.

In fact, the CEO of one company developing radio-frequency chips deploys only Linux desktops and servers. The Linux desktops are powered by Pentium 4s. To quote her, "Linux running on an 80x86 chip creates a desktop that gives 3x the performance and 1/3 the cost of a Sun workstation."

The bell tolls. It tolls ominously for Sun.

Cancel and OK placement by LauraW · 2003-08-24 13:11 · Score: 3, Insightful

>Please, Gnome developers, switch Cancel and Ok to a consistent Ok(LHS) and Cancel(RHS)... Please?!!!

There's actually some fairly solid UI research that says the OK button should usually be on the RHS of a dialog. People who speak and read left-to-right languages like English tend to scan a dialog box from upper-left to lower-right, and their brains really want to click on whatever is in the lower-right corner of the dialog. Thus, the default button (usually OK) should almost always go there.

I remember reading this in a book on user interface design about 10 or 15 years ago. I think the research was done at apple, but it wasn't an Apple book. It was a collection of articles in a big blue paperback with a poorly-designed walk/don't-walk sign on the cover, but I can't remember the title. Now I may have to go dig through the boxes in my closet.

Re:Cancel and OK placement by Hektor_Troy · 2003-08-24 15:48 · Score: 2, Interesting

There's actually some fairly solid UI research that says the OK button should usually be on the RHS of a dialog. People who speak and read left-to-right languages like English tend to scan a dialog box from upper-left to lower-right, and their brains really want to click on whatever is in the lower-right corner of the dialog. Thus, the default button (usually OK) should almost always go there.
This is true. However - in the last 10 to 15 years people have been indoctrinated into having their OK button on the left, and the Cancel button on the right. End of story.

It's just like driving on the right hand side of the road. It's more dangerous when shit happens, because nine times out of ten, you'll pull to the left - into oncomming traffic. Driving on the left hand side of the road fixes this, as you'll be pulling off the road. It's just that pretty much everyone is used to driving on the right hand side of the road and changing that is not going to go over well with the general public.

Another example is how you open a door. Here in Denmark almost all doors open inwards, which is extremely stupid in an emergency situation, because in a panic and/or stampede you'll be unable to open the door. In most public buildings the doors open outwards for safety reasons, but it's a pain in the ass to get used to, when you're not dealing with automated doors.

--
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Re:Cancel and OK placement by babbage · 2003-08-25 01:37 · Score: 2, Informative

It's just like driving on the right hand side of the road. It's more dangerous when shit happens, because nine times out of ten, you'll pull to the left - into oncomming traffic. Driving on the left hand side of the road fixes this, as you'll be pulling off the road. It's just that pretty much everyone is used to driving on the right hand side of the road and changing that is not going to go over well with the general public.

Eh? Why do you figure that people would pull to the left in an emergency? Can you cite research to support this? Does it have something to do with typical people (right-handers) using the typical dominant hand (the, err, right hand) to push the steering whell, and so cause the car to go left? If so, how would lefties like myself be expected to react -- by pulling to the right, away from traffic?
Another example is how you open a door. Here in Denmark almost all doors open inwards, which is extremely stupid in an emergency situation, because in a panic and/or stampede you'll be unable to open the door. In most public buildings the doors open outwards for safety reasons, but it's a pain in the ass to get used to, when you're not dealing with automated doors.

Here in the USA, the rule is similar, but possibly simpler: private dwellings open inward, public buildings open outward. The only exception is if a building has dedicated "in" and "out" doors, in which case the "in" doors swing in, and the "out" doors swing out. (Private homes basically never have in/out doors, so the division doesn't come up on that side.) With things working this way, if there's an emergency in a home, emergency personnel can storm in efficiently, and you typically don't have to worry about a stampede of people leaving a private home all at once, even if there's a fire. (If a fire broke out when everyone was sleeping, which is the case I think these rules were designed for, getting emergency personnel in quickly is more important than allowing a "stampede" of residents to come out.)

The decision about which doors to build which way makes sense, if you think about it. I'm not sure if the arrangements are quite the same in Denmark, but it doesn't sound like it's completely out of step with this organization.

--
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL

Great by teslatug · 2003-08-24 13:11 · Score: 2, Interesting

Something clean for a change. I hate the clutter most Linux distros have. And if it looks like Windows, well maybe it's because the windows design works because of itself, not in spite of itself.

Too many flavours ... by Midnight+Thunder · 2003-08-24 13:33 · Score: 2, Interesting

One thing I never quite understood with Microsoft was the shear number of variations of the same OS. Surely having so many variations of the same operating system they are giving themselves a support nightmare? Apple and Sun seem to have two versions of their OSs, server and non-server. This simplifies support issues a whole bunch. Maybe Sun is not such a good example since they are 100% workplace, but Apple on the other hand is found in home and in the workplace.

Generally the only differences between a workstation version of an OS used the workplace are the networking features and the groupware style apps, but then again the latter is extra anyhow. Sure the kernel may be optimized differently, but the core components are architectually the same. Maybe I am missing something, if I am then please let me know?

Although I didn't mention Linux, it too, for any single distro, comes in a limited number of flavours.

--
Jumpstart the tartan drive.

Re:Too many flavours ... by AKnightCowboy · 2003-08-24 14:43 · Score: 5, Informative

I know of two - Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server.
Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Data Center, Windows XP Home, Windows XP Professional, Windows NT 4.0 Server, Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, Windows Me, Windows 98, Windows 98SE are all still in wide use. In fact, I've yet to see anyone running Windows 2003 Server, especially around work, since none of our software is certified for anything but Windows 2000 (SP 3 at that). We only got rid of the last NT server in our group last fall after one of our vendors finally certified their product for Windows 2000. I would imagine they'll support Windows 2003 Server sometime in 2005.

The Start button gap by yerricde · 2003-08-24 14:02 · Score: 2, Insightful

The long answer ultimately has to do with usability studies.

Then why, in Windows 2000 Explorer as configured by default, is there a 1-pixel gap between the corner of the screen and the Start menu? It would be nicer if I could slam the mouse pointer against the upper left and then click (Fitts's Law states that the corners are among the easiest screen pixels to hit), but no. Microsoft had to put in a gap between the screen edge and the Start button that does nothing but slow things down.

And why, in the taskbar, does a selected program lighten in Windows 2000 but darken in Windows XP? That difference confuses me every time I work at an XP machine.

--
Will I retire or break 10K?

regardless by SweetAndSourJesus · 2003-08-24 14:22 · Score: 2, Informative

Most statistics show Macs at about 4% of the market. Linux generally grabs between 1% and 2%.

I'm really sorry the numbers don't agree with you, but that's the way it goes.

--

--
the strongest word is still the word "free"

Already Switched / Best Home Distro? by Proudrooster · 2003-08-24 14:49 · Score: 3, Interesting

Last week in amongst the Blackout of 2003 and Blaster/Nachi worm taking down the Internet as well as the network at work, MY WINDOWS BOOT DRIVE DIED!

Not having the time or desire to replace it, I decided that I would throw my Linux box in as my primary desktop. After a few short days I am happy to report that the Linux Desktop is actually VERY usable and VERY stable.

First I needed an MP3 player capable of working with Shoutcast (streaming MP3's). RedHat decided not to include one. I headed over to source forge and picked up XMMS . XMMS is very similar to Winamp.

Once I had my tunes, it was time to get the core services working i.e. (Printing, Office Automation, and Digital Camera). Since I have an HP printer which handles postscript setting up printing was a no brainer. My color printer is an EPSON CX-5200 attached to a windows machine via USB. I know I can get connectivity via Samba, but I am not sure how the driver is going to work out. I'll tackle color printing later.

Open Office works extremely well, is compatible with MS Office and prints very nicely. For kicks, I went back to Sourceforge and downloaded and compiled the latest version of WINE and then, installed MS Office 97. My first attempt went poorly since the paper clip assistant crashes WINE. I wiped out the install and started over and minutes later I could run MS-Word and Excel under Linux. Let me repeat that, YOU CAN RUN MSOFFICE UNDER LINUX.

Next it was time for getting the pics off my digital camera. I have a USB Compact Flash reader plugged into the USB port. I stuck the compact flash card in and the harddrive blinked a bit but nothing mounted. After digging around in /proc a bit, I figured out that the USB reader gets mapped to a SCSI device. A simple:

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/camera

and VIOLA! Pictures!

Next I needed an image editor. I played around with GIMP, which is very very nice but longed for Photoshop 6.0. I tried to install Photoshop with WINE but had no luck. I googled for help and found the only way to do it was to use CrossOver Office. After downloaded and installing Cross Over Office I was able to install both Adobe Photoshop Elements V2.0 and Photoshop 6.0 . I haven't shelled out for the 7.0 upgrade yet but 7.0 supposedly works as well. Photoshop works well under WINE and I haven't had any problems except with the ALT-key. In GNOME pressing ALT and clicking in a Window is the shortcut for moving a window. You have to remap the ALT-Click to something else and I chose the WINDOWS/Logo key. I never knew this feature existed, but I find it quite useful :)

I was in bliss... GNOME, Photoshop, XMMS, OpenOffice, MS-Office, Ximian, and Mozilla with everything running in it's own workspace. If you haven't tried Linux as your Desktop, give it a shot. It's not as easy and point, click, install however, ./configure, make, make install or rpm -i package.rpm isn't exactly rocket science. I typically like to compile the code myself so it's better optimized from my processor and libraries.

Next I needed to get into work. Using SSH, I created a tunnel into work and cranked up VNC to my Windows 2000 box. VNC was running mightly slow, 40 secs for a screen update. The version of VNC that comes with RedHat 9.0 is pretty crusty so I went and obtained the new version and performance is much better (1-2 sec screen updates). Note: In VNC PRESS F8 get execute a remote CTRL-ALT-DELETE or shuffle clipboard contents.

I also used SSH to create another tunnel and used rdesktop over the tunnel to access a Windows Terminal Server. Very impressive and FAST! Between VNC and rdesktop I can access my remote deskop Windows box at work.

I haven't got any games to work yet. My favorites are Star Craft Broodwar, CIV3, and Age of Mythology. If anyone has gotte

Re:Already Switched / Best Home Distro? by RedBear · 2003-08-24 22:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

The grandparent post may be a troll, but if so it's a troll with a damn good point, and one that most of us probably wouldn't have identified as a troll. I know I found myself reading along with such gems as:

Next it was time for getting the pics off my digital camera. I have a USB Compact Flash reader plugged into the USB port. I stuck the compact flash card in and the harddrive blinked a bit but nothing mounted. After digging around in /proc a bit, I figured out that the USB reader gets mapped to a SCSI device. (emphasis added) A simple:

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/camera

and VIOLA! Pictures!

I have had to do exactly that, and the same goes for a lot of the other things he talks about. This is where you're average user will be saying, "The proc what?" And I'm using Mandrake 9.1, which most of us I believe would think of as one of the easiest distros to use.

It has to be said, over and over again whenever an article like this comes up: Linux has a loooooong way to go to create a usable desktop in the same sense that a Windows or Mac desktop is usable. Now, pardon me while I return to my MDK9.1 desktop, to watch my movies, surf the web and pull the pictures off my camera by opening Konsole and typing "mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/camera". Once you've figured it out, it's so easy!

Verb buttons -- great idea, especially in 1988! by Gandalf_007 · 2003-08-24 16:36 · Score: 2, Informative

That's a very good point. I never though much of it, but NeXTStep had it right 15 years ago (and therefore Mac OS X does now).

Close an unsaved document in Edit.app, and you get a dialog saying:

Save changes to UNTITLED.rtf?
[Cancel] [Don't Save] [Save]

Save is the default (activatd by pressing Return)

If you quit Edit.app, then the dialog is:

There are edited windows.
[Cance] [Quit Anyway] [Review Unsaved]

Review Unsaved is the default. Clicking it brings up the aforementioned Save dialog. It makes perfect sense. Much better than Yes/No/Cancel.

--

"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."

Suns commitment, SCO by ultrabot · 2003-08-24 16:36 · Score: 3, Insightful

Anyone wonder how Sun is suddenly making so much noise about Linux? They expect us to ignore all the recent backstabbing efforts (regarding SCO FUD) by merely distracting our attention with pretty toys?

Expect a statement along the lines of "but to really get the benefit of the cutting edge Mad Hatter, along with a robust, industrial strength OS, take a look at this Solaris-x86 over here..."

Sun certainly has a trust problem to deal with.

--
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak

Re:...and the first thing I do by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-24 16:52 · Score: 2, Funny

A real BOFH wouldn't have any friends.

Re:Remember, Sun finances SCO by mec · 2003-08-24 17:20 · Score: 2, Informative

One little problem with your one little issue: Sun paid SCO after SCO publicly announced they hired David Boies.

SCO hired David Boies on or before, January 10, 2003.

SCO Threatens to Press IP Claims on Linux

On January 22, 2003, SCO made their public announcement.

Has SCO Fired Shot to Start Linux War?

Sun closed their deal, paid their money, and received their stock warrant on or after February 1, 2003.

SCO 10-Q

I think Sun knew what SCO was planning to do with Boies, especially since SCO and IBM had already held talks by then, and Sun negotiated an equity stake in SCO as part of Sun's deal with SCO.

We'll find out more when SCO files their next 10-Q.

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2003-08-24 19:35 · Score: 2, Informative

Comment removed based on user account deletion

YAD by mnmn · 2003-08-24 20:09 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yet Another Distro

Now I like the looks of the desktop, the fact that Sun is bringing forward Linux and that my skills will have a bigger market in the future. But yet another distro confuses me. Why anyway?

I can understand Knoppix being based on Debian. It is Debian only prettier, so all debian packages will work with Knoppix. Knoppix also brings great hardware detection with it. Theres RedHat and SuSE, while I hate the fact that these two are incompatible with debian packages, they at least have compatible RPM packages with each other. Theyre also quite big and proprietary which makes it worth learning them. Hate it also that RedHat is not LSB, makes it tougher for software developers to package them for RedHat and SuSE.

Theres Gentoo and Slackware, each in its own niche. Then theres Lindows, Ximian Lycoris all competing with each other on the desktop (I know lycoris is based on debian too). Thats too many distros already. More so than the niches among current Linux users. One step forward is several distros use deb packaging and almost all can install RPM packages. But it still instills dependancy mayhem. Now you have a Sun distro that possibly uses its own packaging as WELL as RPM. So you need to install an RPM package that depends on another package on Mad Hatter. The other is already installed from .tar.gz but the system doesnt have it in its package database. Once you force the RPM package to install and fix scripts by hand, the system doesnt know the RPM application is installed since you didnt use Sun's package. Damn.

And of course you'll definitely have to install all of GTK and KDE dependency libraries to use various X applications. Total install size will exceed 2GB and overall the system will run slower and in the desktop, will have more problems than Windows XP. THATS how badly standards are needed in Linux.

--
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky

Looks very nice... by dnaumov · 2003-08-24 23:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

I think that the only "serious" Linux desktop is provided by RedHat. Mandrake just doesn't cut it and Ximian does not make a Linux distribution. Judhing from the screenshots, I can hope that there will soon finally be a viable alternative to the BlueCurve desktop. Personally, I wish SUN best of luck with this venture.

Slashdot Mirror

Sun Mad Hatter Linux Desktop Revealed

121 of 663 comments (clear)