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THG Linux Migration, Part Two
LqqkOut writes "Tom's Hardware Guide has posted part 2 of their Windows->Linux migration article. This time around, we're presented with some nifty divx screen caps that make life look oh, so easy. The Tom's crew packed a lot into this article, but did they sacrifice some essentials like 'RTFM' and other sage advice? This follows up their first article where users were shown how to choose and download a distro, back up some important data, and check for HW compatibility."
Do they walk you through setting up a slashdot ID?
You are not the customer.
I love how they demonstrate video players by showing Steve Ballmer's sweaty-pitted Developers video on Xine.
the Redhat installation screen caps, then a SuSe background on the gui screen cap. That's callaboration for you.
Perhaps I missed something in the article... but why are the installation screenshots RedHat and the desktop screenshots SuSe?
-- If you can read this, you are too close to my signature.
I thought TFA said it was using RedHat9, but the screen shot of a fully installed system is SuSE.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
1. Move from MS Office to OpenOffice.org (cost: 2 weeks to settle down, 1 month to adapt fully)
2. Move from MSIE to Mozilla (cost: 2 hours to settle down)
3. Move from Outlook to Mozilla Mail (cost: 1 week to settle down)
4. Switch the OS when no-one's looking (cost: $40 for Xandros, 1 hour per PC).
Seriously: the key to migrating is to start with the applications.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Quote "They function similar to Internet Explorer. You basically type in a web address, and the browser takes you to the page"
Don't you just hate that phrase? The whole "RTFM" thing is quite funny if you ask me. I know of NOBODY that has RTFMed everything they touch.
If I RTFM before I did anything, I wouldn't ever get anything done, as I would still be RTFM.
I hardly ever RTFM, and when I do, it is in reference to a singular problem. As in, "how do I do ______", and RTFM section on that.
Actually, if one could write a FM, they ought to be able to SCRIPT it and put it in a GUI, don't ya think?
Here is a trick that nobody has thought of, how about a CLI command builder. You know a GUI interface to utilities and programs that doesn't actually do anything but create the CL necissary to execute a command you need done.
That way, a person could use the GUI to improve their CLI skills.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
it seems to me that THC linux migration would be a better choice.
I just recentally installed Fedora with out a problem. Every thing works great except my 3d card. I have installed WineX and am able to install games but they run slow due to the fact my card doesn't seem to be supported. I have had a good linux experience so far and hope to never have to use Windows again. I wish this guide would have been around before I got started to answer some of my questions. Escpecially on installing applications.
About two weeks ago I decided to try and install Linux on my old K6-2 450mhz machine gathering dust in the basement. A friend of mine gave me a few cd's that had something called 'Mandrake' on it.
He said "This is supposed to be the most user-friendly 'distro' out there. Give it a try."
So with trepidation about wiping out my beloved win98se install on the old machine, I jumped right in.
On firing up the install disk, the Man-drake installer asked me if I wanted to remove the win98se partition that already existed. After pondering this for several minutes I though, 'what the hell, I can always reinstall it!' So I let it fly.
After what seemed like 45 minutes of swapping cd's in-and-out of the drive, the man-drake (isn't that some sort of bird?) installer ask me what I wanted to use this linux machine for. So many choices! games, office, mail server, web server, about 2 dozen choices flooded my screen. This is madness! So after carefully considerating my options I decided to choose them all! I would be a Linux power-user to end all linux power-users!
So after this decision was made I waited. And waited. And waited. During this I started to wonder. My Windows XP Home intallation on my other Peecee didn't ask me thse kind of questions, and it easily has the all the abilities that man-drake advertised to have. After all, I paid for WinXP Home. Sigh, I guess this it the price one pays
for being part of the linux elite.
Approximately 50 mintues later I get another prompt from the man-drake installer asking me what kind of GUI I wanted to use, KDE or GNOME. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me! I selected both and let it fly.
After only about 20 mintues this time it appeared the install was completed. The mandrake installer told me it was going to reboot and then I would revel in Linux goodness. I waited with baited breath while the reboot churned away, eagerly waiting the opportuntity to use the KDE/GNOME interface. Page after page of command line
stuff flew by my screen, seeming to get faster and faster as the time of my linux deliverance approached. Then, the screen flashed black (kinda like those scenes from the movie Wargames). I gasped and was presented with something like this:
bsh: blah/blah/blah/ ____
What the hell was this? Wasn't this man-drake linux supposed to be user friendly? Instead of the friendly confines of a WinXP like GUI instead I was given an ugly DOS like prompt, which looked supiciously like the TRS-80 system I first learned BASIC on in high school. Is this all the farther the great open-source movement has progressed?
After serveral minutes of sobbing and knashing of teeth, I came to a decision. All the linux fags out there were not going to defeat me! They were not going to cry "Bend over WinXP boy, you're going to take linux OUR WAY and like it!".
I quickly found my old musty copy of 'Unix in a Nutshell' from my college days and got to work. In a few hours I found out how to start the KDE GUI. This made life so much easier. After several days I was able to get the machine's 14.4 internal modem working with man-drake and connected to the internet, using a browser called Mozilla. Where oh where were the glorious pop-ups that appeared as I was surfing porn sites? Those bastards!
After several more days I was starting to feel somewhat comfortable. Using something called Gimp to manipulate my growing collection of adult images was becoming a habit. And because I was ashamed to let my friends and neighbors know I was using a gasp! free operating system like mandrake, I kept the pee-cee in the basement. Now my girlfriend things the sounds emanating from below are me just woodworking or lifting weights. I guess linux has freed me after all!
As a person who mainly cut his teeth on Windows and DOS-based PCs, this series of articles helps out a bit. Sure, it's fun to figure things out yourself, but I'm not always in the mood to have to reference Google every time I try something new and exciting. Now only if they had something that would remember all those console commands so my stupid brain doesn't keep filling up. =P
...this Divx video will be split up into 50 page views of 5 second video clips.
Dance, monkey boy ("Woohoo! I love this company!") (3MB)
and last but not least...
The 3-minute Developers music video (9.5MB)
-- If you can read this, you are too close to my signature.
I'm not just piping in on this topic, I have had to deal with dependency BS just like the rest of anyone who hasn't had some obscure perl module.
Thank microsoft's installapp creator (visual studio) for alleviating this problem on the Win32 side of things. Linux is left to flounder without, since there's no real way to baseline the needed dependencies and install them with the application across multiple Distros/versions easily.
Automation is what makes computers useful, big round buttons make them usable by the avg.
fucking immigrants.
This is a really great article. Tom, you're a brick!
Oooh look, a Linux article! Let's read it and I can find out how I can switch my machine over to Linux. *looks* Oh wait, I did that three years ago.
to show off browsing they have the groklaw site. To show off multimedia they have the sweaty Ballmer "preaching" to his choir. It's a welcomed note of humor for us ol' timers.
What happens when the other 99% of their software doesn't work anymore? Or half of their hardware?
Being sneaky about installing Linux under people's noses seems like a very sleazy way to spread adoption. I'm sorry, but Linux is not ready enough for that kind of bait-and-switch, and it's a tad bit disconcerting anyway to be that sleazy.
You spread through education and willing adoption, not sneaky forced adoption.
If you're using a GUI to build command line instructions, first off you may as well just use a GUI period, and second, clearly your CLI is too complex. You know, most people don't want "CLI skills." Slashdotters love to claim how much better it is, but it's not really better, you're simply used to it. Others may disagree. Anyone who believes they know the "one right way" of doing anything is someone to avoid.
A GUI program to build CLI commands, talk about overkill--yet I fully expect that someone has tried this on some inane Sourceforge project page...sigh...
I know this was geared towards newbies, but I was hoping for a little more about the software. I never had a problem with linux, but I still think the software I use in windows is better than that available in linux. Yeah there's more choice, but all those options never seem to cut it for me. Actually, I think the only things holding me up are photoshop and windows media player and lack of printer support. Oh well, maybe next year...
People don't want to "see under the hood" or "download the GTK+ development library."
They just want it to work, hence the use of Internet Explorer. Many OSS advocates simply don't get it. The obsession with "choice" and "freedom" has produced difficult-to-use software that gets reinvented by about 20 other competing clones, all doing things differently. Somehow this is supposed to be good.
Why, oh why did they forget such gems as:
:)
- Always check your uptime. If it's better than the guy in your shop that's always preaching the benefits of BSD/Windows 2003 Server/Coco Puffs, then you have free rein to feel better than yourself. Otherwise, you should go home, beat yourself up, and make angry anonomyous coward postings to Slashdot.
- When trying to figure out a problem with a command-line utility, it shouldn't be "Awww, man!", but rather "[user]# man awk".
- Penguins are much more cuddly than windowpanes
And so on...
-JT
If you don't have any questions, then no one will tell you to RTFM.
If you have a question, then you RTFM.
If your question is NOT answered in TFM, then you ask it.
Actually, lots of people have thought of using a GUI to put together a command line statement. Lots of people have even thought of using a GUI to import/export text based config files.
ooh - meant to say "better ABOUT yourself".
Damn.
-JT
They missed out hardware, i think its important for them to mention that most hardware manufacturers are bitches when it comes to supporting, or even being in support of linux or any other OS than Windows, If you're switching to linux make sure your hardware is fully supported, its not enough that there are 'drivers availiable' you have to be ruthless and only buy the most popular and known to be supported stuff, make sure you search the forums and dont waste your time on anything thats not used by less than 30% of the linux community or anything that people complain about because its going to cause you grief.
let me just add to the list:
-Sagem f@st 800 ADSL USB Modem and PPPoA, just hassle
-ATI All-In-Wonder Pro dual screened with a 9200SE - if you get this working ill grovel down to you.
-Diamond S90 (vortex) sound card - shove it up your ass, you'll get better performance
and unrelated - IBM Deskstar harddrives - if you hear that grinding noise your screwed.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
My first reaction when watching the videos was duh, but then I realized what a great job he had done. We are a culture that flat out doesn't like to read instructions, having it done in a visual manner was a smart move. Also seeing something done right before your eyes is a much bigger confidence builder then just reading a quick howto on the internet. Look at the Outlook migration video. How nice is it to just say "download the video on it" and know that they probably won't need much assitance beyond that. People and companies especially pay big bucks for videos like this which train users how to install or use a product. While they are not the most comprehensive Linux video training out there and I have a few minor nitpciks, its Free so how can you knock it? Tom's has done a real service to the community with these articles and videos and they deserve our thanks.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
If you agree with any of this, feel free to repost it in the future.
* If "Linux" just refers to the kernel and not the operating system, how can "FreeBSD" refer to the operating system (userland tools, standard libraries, etc.) and not just the kernel? Face it, "GNU/Linux" looks and sounds ridiculous.
* If you expect companies to follow the copyright of the GPL, you should support the RIAA going after infringers of its copyright. If not, you're a hypocrite.
* There is absolutely nothing wrong with a company being upset that its product is being pirated freely over online networks. Try getting a real job sometime and see what it feels like when your work is everywhere, and you start worrying that your days are numbered. Does John Carmack want you to "sample" his new game via the "free advertising" happening on eMule?
* OSDN-owned Slashdot thinks its niche opinion represents the majority of the world. This is a result of people visiting every day and buying into the groupthink. Nobody outside of Slashdot knows or cares about "Linux," "RIAA", "M$," or anything else Slashdotters think is such a huge issue in today's society. Go to a mall or coffee shop sometime and see what people actually talk about.
* Speaking of OSDN--it's a Linux company...that owns a "tech news" site...that posts news stories negative toward competitors like Microsoft. If a Windows company or even Microsoft itself owned a "tech news" site and posted anti-Linux articles all the time, everyone would be up in arms. But with OSDN, it's a-okay.
* Slashbots think people don't like the music coming out these days, which is the cause of the piracy. Never mind that if people didn't like the music they wouldn't be pirating it, most Slashbots--again, this goes back to the niche opinion thing--don't realize that most people these days love the music coming out and want to hear all of it. Probing around, you discover that Slashdot is made up of nerds and fogies who listen to things like The Who and Blind Guardian and techno--not what mainstream society enjoys.
* Any company ending in "AA" is evil. Especially if it doesn't want you distributing its works without paying for it. Somehow, this mindset is supposed to make sense.
* The inevitable result of all this is a world in which nothing can be profitable because people simply pirate free copies. Is that really what Slashbots want? OSS and free-ness in general reminds me of the hippie era of the 60s--idealistic socialism that only exists because of the surrounding capitalism around it that provides the environment for it to exist. We all know what happened to that idea.
* Slashdot editors are abusive. We all remember The Post. It's amusing the editors never mention the issue. The worst editor is michael, who will mod you down, insult you for your post count, and post unprofessional color commentary along with the article. This is the same bizarre person who cybersquatted Censorware for years--even as Slashdot posted articles negative toward cybersquatting! Michael played it off like he was some sort of stalking victim, which made it all the more bizarre.
* The moderation system is broken. If you mod someone as "Overrated," you can't be metamodded. People abuse this all the time to gang up and knock you down into oblivion.
* Somehow, user-ran executables are always a "New Microsoft Hole" (actual article headline). Meanwhile, LinuxSecurity posts weekly security advisories for all the Linux distributions. You never, ever, EVER see any of these mentioned on Slashdot--bizarre things like arbitrary code execution via MPlayer.
* Microsoft is supposed to be some sort of non-innovative rip-off artist. Meanwhile, the same people posting those comments do it through KDE with taskbars, sidepanels, start menus, similar print dialogs, and an integrated web/filesystem browser. Effectively ripping people off then criticizing those who came up with the ideas
This bothered me too, but maybe that's because I've been using Debian for so long. Seriously, do Linux users really work like this? Hunting after the right RPM's and such? I mean... I remember doing that in 1999 (and it was a solved problem even then) on Mandrake, but they had already begun work on urpmi or something similar at the time. Honestly, I haven't dealt with a real dependency issue in half a decade and I haven't had to compile an app that I didn't write in years (unless I wanted to package it myself for some reason). I thought this was long solved for all distros now.
Do you guys really live like this? If so... why?
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
URL Hashing would fix that problem.
Evryone made this whole Migrating from windows to linux thing such a big deal i dont know why...anyone who ever installed windows all the way...i mean setup for a blank hd then drivers then updates then some tweaking like turning off services and disabling and enabling some stuff can install any redhatish distro without a problem...but most people belive it or not can't do that with windows...i see many people who cant right click the right way ....those people need service with anything and i think more than half of computer users are like that that ive seen...migration is hard because its not in the OS...OS dosent even matter...if i put anyone with windows experiance in front of my Gentoo box they would not have a problem with my KDE they chat and browse just like on windows....but what if somoene needs some app thats not there for linux...I use Autocad for exaple to do work and i need it...same gouse for ALPHACAM and Cabined Vision and those are not avalable for linux ...now until they i have to work with windows cuz there are no viable alternatives for those apps....but for the basics like office stuff and browser multimedia OS or migration is a no issue...just choose whatever u like best and go for it.
And of course tons more run with Wine[X] including those Direct3D only ones.
Lets not forget the GREAT Linux games too...
NO reason not to use linux for games!
....Long live Slashdot.
"Thank microsoft's installapp creator (visual studio) for alleviating this problem on the Win32 side of things. Linux is left to flounder without, since there's no real way to baseline the needed dependencies and install them with the application across multiple Distros/versions easily."
Do you complain this loudly when your Win95 software doesn't work In W2K, or XP?
Does anyone complain that their Mac software doesn't work under Windows?
Pick a distro that has the majority of the software you like and be done with it. Some people just can't handle having to make a decision.
BTW Yum and Apt do just fine dealing with dependencies, but don't tell a Winvocate that, or their heads will explode.
You are on the spot with the key issue; to start somewhere and start in smaller scale with the apps.
:)
There are several apps that can live side-by side with MS products without major harm done; Mozilla, Mozilla Mail, OOo as examples.
But before the migration is complete:
1. Don't underestimate the power of MS Office macros, VBA-scripts and specially the users that made them. They can be hard-necked.
2. Don't forget about the ActiveX components and other "MS standards", XML parsers etc. too often with connections to business apps that needs to be rewritten. (Of course they should have been industry standards from the start, but most corp. environments aren't.)
3. The PIM's from PocketPC's that people are used too synch with Outlook is also an issue. Yes, there are FOSS alternatives for synching, but you have to take that into the equation aswell, adding complexity (and cost!) to the migration.
4. I like the idea of guerilla migration when no-one's looking
All in all, the business case, with a clear budget for migration costs including and all the marketing, education (end-user, sys.mgr.) and communication efforts needed, must to be committed to be able to migrate successfully.
The more you know, the less you need. [Admin added: from me.]
I suspect that your 3D card is a Nvidia card?
If so, the lack of support for 3D is because Nvidia decided not to let people know how the hardware works, but instead to require you to use thier binary driver. See the Nvidia website for thier driver.
Seems to work for me.
RPM was really only meant to be used for installations. It somehow evolved into people distributing rpms and that's how we got into rpm hell. Really though, pretty much everything else is better than rpm. Debian's rules make sure you're not going to get impossible to find dependencies. Portage, well... portage kicks ass. It would be nice if Suse, Red Hat, or Mandrake got rid of rpm and adopted a portage like system. Autopackage will be nice once it reaches stable. Autoconf is even better than rpm. At least with autoconf it actually checks gcc -lstuff as opposed to the central database that gets broken the second you install a package from source.
At first, I thought: stupid troll, I hate trolls and people that post offtopic for now reason. But after reading it, I can't disagree. We need something like this as a story. Its 100% true.
Help Fight SPAM today!
the monkey got me!
Did anyone notice the statement that xmms was a great program for playing mp3s? On RedHat? Without mentioning that you have to download and install mp3 libraries, due to the proprietary nature of the mp3 codec...
Oops!
Aw, screw all that.
Isn't there an SCO story about to be posted?
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Haven't looked at the video, but the first (and only) RPM I have to find after installing Red Hat, is:
APT!
Just go to rpmfind.net, look up apt, and select the correct version matching the version of Red Hat you have installed. Download it, and install it:
rpm -Uvh apt...
Congratulations, that's probably the last time you'll have to search for an RPM! After that, keeping Red Hat up-to-date, and finding and installing most programs, is:
apt-get update
apt-get -u upgrade
(and occasionally "apt-get -u dist-upgrade", for when a bunch of stuff changes)
or, to find and install some package:
apt-cache search program
(review available versions)
apt-get -u install program-version
Done! All except for blowing away Red Hat, and installing Debian instead. Then, you can access the rest of APT's powerful features, and really pick and chose between what Debian release you want to run (stable, testing, unstable, experimental).
-- -pjk Perry Kundert perry@kundert.ca http://kundert.2y.net
In fact, [a particular program] is used in many some big movie studios such as ILM, Sony and DreamWorks. If it's good enough for them, it should be good enough for you.
Quotes like this make me cringe on so many levels.
1. What do they use the software for? Perhaps they only use it because some intern set up a script to automate a file renaming process. That doesn't make it good enough for me
2. What makes you think my needs are completely met by something that meets someone else's needs? This argument has no value. "Kibbles and bits - if it's good enough for lassie, it's good enough for your half a bee, Eric."
3. ???
"I'm not a real Linux user, but I advocate Linux on my hardware site. Testing hardware is tough, but when my working evironment consists soley of Windows machines, at the end of the day I like to go home and relax at the command line of my RedSuseBian. There's nothing like a good scripting session to clear the head and soothe my tender muscles. Try it! You'll like it - I gaurantee."
Bleah. Leave the PR quotes to real PR people, and just give us the facts.
-Adam
Just show apt and Synaptic and every problem with applications will be blown away. It is so easy.
- Download apt and Synaptic rpms
- Doubble click on the nice icons
- Type root password
- Run Synaptic from your K/Gnome-menu.
- Type root password once again.
- Download!
Ive shown Synaptic to many users who have no idea about Linux. They got it in 10 seconds. "Whoa, is it THAT easy?!".
You've got to be a supreme idiot not t make the migration for some of the easier distributions such as XandrOS, Mandrake, or maybe even Lindows. Knoppix is also fairly easy and only getting better..
Now, this isn't an elitist statement. There are plenty of distributions and ways to get to Linux that ARE difficult and fraught with peril, but if you need a dummy guide then you're not supposed to go that route!
Here is a comment that should be written ..
Although you have successfully switched over to Linux, the lesser evil of the Two (MS, Linux) You should note that your friends are still using Microsoft, and all documents will have to Neutrel when sending your files. Oh, BTW most of your Peer to Peer Networks won't run.. Good Luck!
i thought this article was trite and very weak especially coming from tom's hardware, the one thing that really got my goat up was when the author said that new users should install everything. in my experience when most distros give you the option to install everything; every kind of server known to man is installed, and this will eat up every resource the computer has making it unusable. in short tom's hardware would have been better to say download red hat/fedora, burn cds, click next*10, ..., profit. it would have saved me ten minutes i no longer have
lose != loose
I have said it once, and I will keep repeating it. Linux will not get any more popular until the Apps are as easy to load and setup as in Windows. RPM's are a nice step forward, but Linux is not there yet.
I have just one App that is keeping me in XP, it is Autocad 2004, soon to be 2005. Sure, I could run it under wine, but I need it to work 100% of the time, with all of its functions. I don't have time to deal with Wine in it current form.
...only heard about them.
That man is scary...
I recently discovered that IBM keeps instructions videos about it's hardware (also consumer hardware). Could be quite handy if you own some IBM stuff.
Are you waiting to post the next piece on howto take a dump while compiling a new kernel at the same time? Go find a barrel and chew on it if you thought this rated as news.
If you agree with any of this, feel free to repost it in the future.
* If "Linux" just refers to the kernel and not the operating system, how can "FreeBSD" refer to the operating system (userland tools, standard libraries, etc.) and not just the kernel? Face it, "GNU/Linux" looks and sounds ridiculous.
* If you expect companies to follow the copyright of the GPL, you should support the RIAA going after infringers of its copyright. If not, you're a hypocrite.
* There is absolutely nothing wrong with a company being upset that its product is being pirated freely over online networks. Try getting a real job sometime and see what it feels like when your work is everywhere, and you start worrying that your days are numbered. Does John Carmack want you to "sample" his new game via the "free advertising" happening on eMule?
* OSDN-owned Slashdot thinks its niche opinion represents the majority of the world. This is a result of people visiting every day and buying into the groupthink. Nobody outside of Slashdot knows or cares about "Linux," "RIAA", "M$," or anything else Slashdotters think is such a huge issue in today's society. Go to a mall or coffee shop sometime and see what people actually talk about.
* Speaking of OSDN--it's a Linux company...that owns a "tech news" site...that posts news stories negative toward competitors like Microsoft. If a Windows company or even Microsoft itself owned a "tech news" site and posted anti-Linux articles all the time, everyone would be up in arms. But with OSDN, it's a-okay.
* Slashbots think people don't like the music coming out these days, which is the cause of the piracy. Never mind that if people didn't like the music they wouldn't be pirating it, most Slashbots--again, this goes back to the niche opinion thing--don't realize that most people these days love the music coming out and want to hear all of it. Probing around, you discover that Slashdot is made up of nerds and fogies who listen to things like The Who and Blind Guardian and techno--not what mainstream society enjoys.
* Any company ending in "AA" is evil. Especially if it doesn't want you distributing its works without paying for it. Somehow, this mindset is supposed to make sense.
* The inevitable result of all this is a world in which nothing can be profitable because people simply pirate free copies. Is that really what Slashbots want? OSS and free-ness in general reminds me of the hippie era of the 60s--idealistic socialism that only exists because of the surrounding capitalism around it that provides the environment for it to exist. We all know what happened to that idea.
* Slashdot editors are abusive. We all remember The Post. It's amusing the editors never mention the issue. The worst editor is michael, who will mod you down, insult you for your post count, and post unprofessional color commentary along with the article. This is the same bizarre person who cybersquatted Censorware for years--even as Slashdot posted articles negative toward cybersquatting! Michael played it off like he was some sort of stalking victim, which made it all the more bizarre.
* The moderation system is broken. If you mod someone as "Overrated," you can't be metamodded. People abuse this all the time to gang up and knock you down into oblivion.
* Somehow, user-ran executables are always a "New Microsoft Hole" (actual article headline). Meanwhile, LinuxSecurity [linuxsecurity.com] posts weekly security advisories for all the Linux distributions. You never, ever, EVER see any of these mentioned on Slashdot--bizarre things like arbitrary code execution via MPlayer.
* Microsoft is supposed to be some sort of non-innovative rip-off artist. Meanwhile, the same people posting those comments do it through KDE with taskbars, sidepanels, start menus, similar print dialogs, and an integrated web/filesystem browser. Effectively ripping people off then criticizing those who came up with the ideas in the first place.
* Linux is "ready for the desktop
What turns me off the most about *nix cluture is the whole RTFM mentality. It reveals a fundamental arrogance and disrespect that is not needed either in user-user dialogue, or in the employer-employee dialogue.
.NET is not production-ready on anything other than Windows (yes, I know about Mono, and when there is an IDE running on Mono on Linux I'll begin paying attention to that project), I shun the idea of joining such an arrogant usership lest I accidently be mistaken as one of them, nor do I want to be browbeaten instead of getting an answer to a question.
When I was a new programmer fresh out of college, I too had a bit of the arrogant "I know more than the users do about what is right" attitude. As a more expereinced sage of a programmer on that first job related to me: it's not what you know or how much you think you know, or even if you are right -- if you don't do what is asked of you then your replacement will.
In the user-user dialogue this holds as well. Aside from the fact that
A final, and slightly off-topic observation: I don't know which are more blindly zealous of their operating system, Linux users or Mac users, but I know that Mac users will go out of their way to help you learn and learn to love their chosen system while the linux users will tell you to essentially go f-yourself and continue using Windows if you don't instantly "get it." Again, you think your operating system will be globally adopted why???
Why, oh why, THG, do you make me choose the server to download videos? It's annoying to have to click, wait, cancel, ad nauseum, until you find one that's fast. Implement load balancing. Really, it's not that hard.
And what's with the ZIP files? This is like an article on migrating to Linux being available only as a Word document - albeit less proprietary. How about making gzipped tarballs available too?
Or, even better, how about figuring out how to use audio and video codecs so that the files are already compressed?
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
You'll get an answer there, but hey, that wouldn't be as much fun as stupid ranting, would it?
But a nice try anyway.
Better luck next time!
It's an OK article to get curious Windows users to switch. The videos are a nice touch. But on the desktop usability page there's a reference to typing 'unmount' to unattach the drive.
JP
You say self-important egomaniac like it's a bad thing. - Peter Dragon
I think this guide is too much lacking in specific details to be any use to some one who's migrating, for instance some advice about apt-get and where to find rpms would be useful.
I have just switched myself. One of the most fustrating part of it is installing apps, not because of the dependancy problems that's easy to solve. The real problems occured for me because you need to use two user accounts, one to install and one to run the app. Windows users aren't used to this, so get it all mixed up and end up with half the configuration settings in the root directory and half in their regular home directory.
Why are they installing RedHat 9 again? Isn't that the one that I got an email about a couple weeks ago saying there will be no official updates anymore?
Not that I'll stop using it, or that other people won't come up with updates, but for the very beginner, wouldn't something a bit more current like Redhat Fedora be better? And quite similar?
It's a poke at Slashdot; where when we're bored, if there isn't a dragon to fight, well, we'll just invent something directed against SCO/Microsoft.
Parody, really.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
It's probably zipped so the video doesn't stream.
1) Since you're so dumb, we're gonna show you how to configure your BIOS to boot off the CD. 2) Even though the installer is self-explanitory, we're going to include, not one, but TWO pages of screenshots and mindless blather so we can rake in advertising $$$. 3) Linux sucks because every program doesn't have a setup.exe. You actually have to think. God forbid we take the 5 minutes to install apt to shoot everyone of our "dependency hell" arguments out of the water. 4) Linux is good! We promise! Ignore all the negative stuff in this article! (This is not meant to be funny. In fact, I think it's quite insightful.)
Jay | http://oldos.org
Puzzle Pirates is another great game that runs on Linux.
Ok, so, in video5.avi they install Samba through RPM. Seems nice enough...
First they describe Samba as a web server for Linux. Then, on a first install attempt, it shows a screen full of conflicts, so they just --force it.
Couldn't they find a friend who knew a thing or two about Linux to say "Uhh..."?
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
* I am very sorry and want to retract all the things I said. I have started taking crack in addition to my anti-depressant and it somehow has some weird side-effects.
* I get paid by several companies ending in "AA" as well as "M$", which by the way also supplies me with enough crack to come up with these rather bogus lines like "Corporate-owned, subscription fees, banner ads, reposts, and complete falsehoods".
* While being under the influence I sometimes become a little psychotic and recently started fearing "idealistic socialism that only exists because of the surrounding capitalism around it that provides the environment for it to exist".
* After having a few critical and witty replies given by "Slashbots" I have become bitter and resentfull towards liberty and freedom of speech.
I am a f**ked up nobody that doesn't have the spine to use my Slashdot name when posting. Please disregard me.
Konqueror handles .zip's natively for me on a fresh Mandrake 10 install. What's the big deal? My only problem is, you have to download the whole thing before you can watch it.
I often start playing the video to see if it's any good, and if it isn't, I cancel the download (56k Modem here!).
Never overrestimate the ability of a windows admin.
But it won't do the trick.
One of the biggest boons of Windows is the ease with which multimedia playback (read: video) is integrated with the OS. IMHO, Windows Media Player is an undesirable program for many reasons, but it gets the job done.
On Linux, the only app that comes close is MPlayer. I've used Linux for several years in an academic setting and in the last year I've had a chance to become my own sysadmin for the first time. I had no problem installing Redhat 9 from CDs and things were going well, then I tried to install MPlayer and the associated Mozilla plugin. Hell on Earth, my friends. Eventually, I made things work, but not without a few days of constant headaches.
[Hang in there, the point is coming...]
When I saw Multimedia programs in the preamble to the THG article, I was delighted. Unfortunately, the author drops the ball by saying "you can choose from Xine or MPlayer, here are some links".
Sigh.
Realistically, I shouldn't be griping about this. I don't have the know-how to write a FAQ about getting MPlayer to integrate well and I'm not sure if such a person exists. What I do know is that if I'm ever going to convince myself to make the switchover from Win-to-Lin at home (and hopefully persuade my parents and my brother to do the same), I'm going to need some sort of comprehensive HOWTO for setting up MPlayer, including the Mozilla plugin.
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill