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Linux Users Are Spoiled
Dozix007 writes "NewsForge carries an interesting
article
on how spoiled Linux users are. It sites examples such as the
availability of wide ranging software packages that Microsoft can't hope to provide.
Microsoft has to be careful about what kind of application software it
ships with Windows. Microsoft reps sometimes point to Linux
distributions and ask why they can get away with shipping stacks and
stacks of applications without getting in trouble. The answer to that
one, of course, is that the Linux distributions give you a choice. You
aren't locked into one particular application. Most Linux distributions
include several choices for most program classifications; even
single-CD distros usually include several Web browsers and email
clients."
To discuss the actual article, I find it amusing that Microsoft reps can't handle the fact that Linux comes BUNDLED - LEGALLY - with TONS of applications and utilities.
.001 crap. But some of them are damn good (well, all right, at least as good as software gets these days - which is still mostly pathetic). This is true in the Windows world, too, if you spend some time on alt.comp.freeware.
And TONS more are available on Linux Format magazine CD's (and even 4GB DVD's)(I have over two dozen of these - GIGABYTES of software I haven't even looked at yet!) or from Web sites and places like Freshmeat and Sourceforge.
Sure, some of them are pre-release alpha
Microsoft's plan is obviously to buy up everybody who produces any software anybody wants to buy. This plan obviously has a few flaws such as the inability of Microsoft - despite $50 billion in the bank - to buy up the entire industry. Also not to mention that a lot of people would rather be CEOs of their own companies than slaves to Bill.
No way Microsoft can ever compete with free software in this regard.
Tough luck, Bill! Have a nice day!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
1 - Gimp doesn't crash randomly when editing very large images
.DOC and be certain it'll show up in Word as good as I made it.
2 - I can save some text in OpenOffice as
(Oh yes, and also if KDE and Moz could stop burning megabytes of memory for nothing, that'd be nice too, but I can live with it)
As long as there isn't a very reliable PS replacement, and a very reliable Office replacement, under Linux, I'll always feel like a one-legged athlete : really powerful and really good in handisport events, but never really able to compete in regular sport championships.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Microsoft writes the (closed source) os, when it writes the applications you always feel they've got an unfair advantage because they (and only they) know the os inside out and design the os API. With Linux no-one has the unfair advantage, every-one in theory is free to know how the os works and to build the best ever application. You are only limited by your talent and free time. You trust Linux because you know what's there.
Its true. From a wiped clean computer to productivity, Linux IS faster. I have yet been able to install Windows, install drivers, do Windows update, install applications, configure, etc faster than simply popping in the latest Linux distro and being done with it.
Of course, this assumes two things:
#1 -- Your hardware is supported
#2 -- The software you want/need is made for Linux
I'm finding that both of these requirements are being met more and more every day. The latest hardware seems to be supported, the applications are becoming more feature rich and very useful to a wide range of users (some of the apps are the best no matter how you slice it (mozilla, firefox, etc..))
As far as being "spoiled" well umm.. I dunno. I think its more of a "meets expectations" type of a thing -- stable, reliable, secure. Though I must admit, I do feel a lil' spoiled a bit when my Windows buddies get zapped with the latest spyware or IE issue -- but honestly, should I?
Bundling a package is different the bundling it all together as inseparable from the OS. If I didn't like Konqueror, I just wouldn't use KDE, all thats required is make a different choice when I log in as to what environment to use, maybe even remove KDE completely if I wish. If on the other hand I don't like IE, I'm stuck with it, because while I can use something else at some sites, IE is the OS, and for OS related actions, for example Windows Update, I have no choice but to use it. On top of that, there is no way to remove it, and many other OS bundled apps, (MSN Messenger), ignore the setting of default browser, and always launch IE.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
My favourite thing about installation in APT-based distributions such as Debian, and even those which are RPM based and are set up with APT-RPM, is the consistency. Just add in a graphical frontend (Synaptic or Kynaptic) for those who are terminal-shy, and you've got yourself an extremely consistent way of installing software.
While it may seem easier to install applications in Windows, you have to think about it from both sides --- you have to take complete beginners into account as well. If you're presenting a computer to Grandma, what would be easier to explain?
In Windows, it goes something like this: "if you want to install software, you must purchase a boxed set and put the CD in the drive. It may or may not start automatically, if it doesn't, you'll have to click on My Computer, D:, and double click on the Setup executable. If you want to install from the Internet, you must download it to your computer, and then double click on Setup.exe or Install.exe or whatever shows up." Can you see Grandma's head spinning yet?
But in a (well-configured) APT-based Linux environment with Synaptic, it's as simple as "OK Grandma, click on this icon here, and this is Synaptic, and you will use this to upgrade your system as well as installing and removing every single program you will ever need."
If I were a beginner, I'd appreciate the Synaptic method more. Just thought I'd add in my two cents.
emerge sync
emerge -UD world
Let's take a look at those, shall we? The emerge sync seems pretty easy. Just run the program responsible for package management and tell it to sync up with a mirror. Hey, that actually makes sense. then emerge -UD world. This one's a little trickier. There's emerge and world, which one might guess means update everything, but the -UD is so weird. Reading the man page for portage shows that these two options will update the currently installed packages and all their dependencies. Damn that manual page for making things clear. The && is just a command line 'and' that allows you to do both in one line (no waiting around for the first to complete) and does the second only if the first succeeds.
I've heard that God Himself has actually forbidden lazy users from learning anything about a CLI these days, but maybe, just maybe some people could take the && from C and guess at it's intent. Given that not everybody is a programmer, maybe somebody could wrap it up pretty in a two line shell script for you, and create an icon on your desktop called "Update" so you can be right at home. That seems to be about the level of effort we could expect from a user, right? Or maybe we could just have it in the crontab by default and save people from realizing their system is ever updated. Why bother having the users know anything about their computer?
That's not to say that Gentoo is unflawed about updates. It's inability to decide whether to just replace old configuration files or not is fairly annoying, forcing it onto the user in some cases. It would be really nice if they'd just check to see if they were old unmodified config files and replace them if they were at the very least, but it hasn't always done that for me.
But, as for the original poster, he's right. There's so much third party stuff that MS isn't allowed to think about keeping updates for on hand because it's all proprietary. Going out to the sites for every single bit of software you use, or doing their in application update is a pain as well and it would be nice if there was a central update. Despite any of Gentoo's downpoints on package management I've found it to be quite nice.
If not now, when?
The lock-in is where you can not remove IE, or Outlook Express (easily, or at all) in favor of another product.
Simply put, you are forced to waste your HD space even if you do not want to use IE. If you do not use Mozilla, you can uninstall it. You do not have that option with IE.
Lets not get started of the undocumented system calls, etc that their Office apps can take advantage of to give them the edge that everyone else can't get.
Or how once you begin using Microsoft apps (Office, etc), you can not easily switch to another product, because the data formats are incompatible (because microsoft refuses to release specs on how their programs do it).
Anything which tries to prevent you from using another product in favor of the included product is called lock-in.
Brielle
It isn't the typing of the letters. It's the waitng three hours while every application recompiles itself even if there have been no changes and hoping the whole time that some critical app hasn't had a drastic configuration or datafile change that will result in either an unusable system or a long debugging session.
I have never done this on Windows. Never had to. Which is one reason it's worth the $200 or whatever I paid for it five years ago.
I love gentoo too, but it's not the answer to whatever the problem with linux' general acceptance. It's the answer to "how do I maintain a cutting edge webserver without having to rely on shady binaries or doing everything by hand."
Incidentally, a buddy of mine used to compile ten different versions of new gentoo files on his fastest computer, then have the others -- ones owned by his mother, uncle, cousins, etc -- "phone home" and download their version. A very neat solution to this problem.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Interesting that for Federal Government Dell Desktops you can order them with Red Hat Linux. Not an option on the Home versions. It mentions Red Hat for small business desktops but its not one of the web site configuration choices. I wonder what the proce difference is for a machine with either Red Hat or no OS. Kevin
I have to say that I sit somewhere between the two of you. There are things that I love and hate in both linux and windows, though really I shouldn't say I hate anything in Linux but that's for later.
I love playing games on a rare basis, because I don't want to worry about getting the latest edition of wine and making the game work, I keep windows. It is solely for that purpose but it has other advantages. As an econ major, I deal for ages with excel files and usually I'm required to turn them in in a format that the teacher can easily read, any trouble he has could mean a lower grade and even though open office is great, it has lots of trouble on the randomest of things. I don't run into version problems with windows(between my computer and my teacher's, the computer lab is a completely different matter) but at least because of what my school does, we have version compatibility. This means I prefer to just do the spreadsheet work on windows rather than having to double check that everything on 20 or 30 excel sheets is exactly as I want it. Sometimes this isn't very easy as I might fill up 10000 cells on one sheet.
But then windows crashes constantly, can't move large files without explorer throwing up on me, has endless problems with compatibility of previous releases of their own software(Excel sheets can't port properly from the latest version to only 2 generations ago, and I don't use any new features, I versed enough to know that), I have to constantly be on the alert for the next major security exploit and lock down specific parts of my computer usage if as windows loves to do, wait for ages to come out with a patch.
So for many things, I just got fed up with windows and had a linux zealot as my good friend and neighbor at school get me started. When I say get me started, he gave me the install cd's. I'm not so ignorant as to have trouble with a right click functionality. Now get this, wtih my wierded out hardware, core 1 didn't want to install easily but I took about 2 minutes on the web and found the solution. It happens to be that any time I have a problem with windows I usually spend hours hunting down a solution, and that usually happens to be a functional program on sourceforge(example: VLC replaced windows media player when in order to get WMP to run I would have to spend hours hunting down the right codecs and how to use them while for some reason, they just flawlessly play on VLC).
So I'm caught in the transition between windows and Linux, I don't think I will ever fully migrate but slowly I use linux more and more. Anyone who has problems with the redhat desktop should probably crawl back under a rock. I can do everything on it and a helluva lot more than with windows, especially with that nice multiple desktop feature X does. My only real complaint with linux is what I had with windows years ago, I don't know it well. But oddly enough, I can almost do everything I do on windows. I know if I spend the time, I can make linux 100x more functional. I think the real problem is this, while linux users claim to be lazy people always looking for ways to save time and evergy, they aren't lazy when it comes to computers, they like the idea of learning something new. Anyone who defends windows way of doing this really just doens't want to learn something new. Because Windows is much older in most people's mind, its ways are cemented in. We actually associate their nonsensical names with certain program functions(no, excel and powerpoint in no way describe what the programs do, but after years of having the association drilled into our heads, it does). So of course, the argument that I like my program names to make sense really doesn't have any merit.
I think it any well versed windows user sat down and used X(not the mac) they would almost seemlessly integrate, all they would need to do is get used to programs being in different places. I love one thing about linux, you don't ever have to touch the command line if you don't want to(and frankly, because of
This is the Anty Trust penalty I would have put on MS. Volume based priceing.
I.e. You can sell Windows to an OEM at any price but an OEM who buys/ships more copies MUST get it cheaper or at the same price.
In other words. Dell must have the cheapest OEM price on Windows regardless of what they do other OSs. As long as they ship the most copies of Windows XP Home, they pay the cheapest price for XP Home.
Addvertising subsidies would be regulated in the same way.
MS would hate this but it would solve a lot of the problems.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?