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Making the 'Best' Desktop Linux System
NorhLoudspeaker writes "Michael C. Barnes gives DesktopLinux.com readers an in-depth analysis of the technologies that make open source a great alternative to proprietary operating systems. Examining the various components that constitute a complete system, Barnes provides practical advice and instruction on how to improve your desktop experience and productivity with freely available software. He reviews desktop environments, communications using voice-over-IP, common applications, and more."
The best Linux desktop system will take advantage of the flexibility of open source and combine the ability to use any number of options.
....and I'd say it provides useful arguements for converting people from Windows and Mac platforms to Linux...but sadly, most people I try to convert use the "but this does what I want already, and that's more work, and I don't really see the benefit" excuse. It seems that people tend to suffer with what they have, if it works at all, rather than put in a little effort and change something to be much better.
Then again, I've always been a lousy salesman, so it may just be me. *wink*
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
IMHO the way we stare into a little window and operate things with a mouse and a keyboard is very very limited, and so no matter how hard you try, any desktop will basically suck....
I want the actual surface of my desk to be the desktop, one very lage touch sensitive screen.
I have used most Linux desktop managers out there, from KDE to Gnome, to blackbox, to xfce to nothing. I have used CDE. I have used Windows. I am using Mac right now. I have used BeOS and other alternatives.
... I am sure something will either mature enough, or port over. I believe Gnumeric is the closest to being a solid replacement for an Office app, but haven't used it in a year or so.
I think I liked the BeOS design best. But it lacked applications. And that is the real issue, I think. Most users just want an icon or menu to select the programs they want to use. Until an Office killer comes along, Linux is gonna have a hard time.
Not that this can't happen. Firefox and Thunderbird are awesome web and email clients. Sadly, Thunderbird can't play with Exchange. OpenOffice isn't it. I once though Word Perfect was the future, but that fell short. Oh well
It's pretty hard to explain to a user who doesn't care about such things why the look-and-feel is so different among the KDE desktop, the Mozilla browser, OpenOffice and Evolution. It's hard to explain the maddening complexity of clipboard issues among these apps. "Oh, you can't cut and paste between X and Y because X is a ___ app, but Y is a ___ app." That's fine for those of us who understand the differences among X, KDE and GTK, but ordinary desktop users shouldn't have to be aware of such things.
Fortunately it looks like there is a project to make OpenOffice fully integrated with KDE/Qt. Also, with both Evolution and Suse now owned by the same company (Novell) hopefully there is going to be some better integration there, too. I was somewhat disappointed when I installed the latest Suse 9.2 that there still is a confusing choice between Kontact and Evolution, and presumably Evolution isn't fully integrated with the KDE desktop, but I expect (hope) these things will be fixed in the next release.
Think more about seamless integration, less about apps. The apps are there! But the user experience is not.
These are my observations as a five-year exclusive desktop Linux user.
Damn, but that is well written! I can't think of something better to set in front of a prospective Linux user. It is concise, easy to read, pleasant, and just detailed enough not to make the reader feel like an idiot. I have saved the whole thing to a word doc as well as a pdf to send to friends who are thinking about Linux.
http://www.busyweather.com/
I want a desktop that with a browser that supports all the major video streams, right out of the box. I don't want to install, tweak or jack with shit.
The problem is that there is no "best" linux distribution. Everyone has a different definition of "best", so how can one be best for everyone? The article praises SimpleMEIPS. Except for the installation, the features he mentions are all available in a stock Debian install (he simple apt-get's the programs).
In my opinion, the article has a very "look ma, see what I can do" approach. He praises many open-source applications, but they are available the same way in any distro, and manages to knock all other distros in the process. Maybe for a newbie, SimpleMEIPS is a good distro, but it certaintly isn't the "best desktop distribution".
Typo in your URL, should be: http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ :)
liqbase
I am a new Linux user (21 years of Windows first) and ended up using Ubuntu because it installed easily and supported all of my hardware as well as detected the shraed volumes on my home network. The screen sots of Mepis look pretty slick. I am tempted to install it just to see what it is like though I don't really want to have to go back and re-install Ubuntu. Has any installed Mepis and Ubuntu that could comment on the differences?
http://www.busyweather.com/
(BTW, ubuntu is the best desktop distro I've had the pleasure of using so far. It's even Debian based, which is icing on the cake.)
no offense but that line alone is reason enough to believe you would say ubuntu is best before even installing it. Maybe you're not a deb snob sorry if you aren't.
that is ....wow...that is just so wrong
BEWARE, it's far far worse then goatse.cx....
21 years of windows? Wow. Well, I've been using Linux for 19 years and it's been a great time. Glad to hear you like it.
lol owned
Windows 85 mustv been REALLY good ;)
Regarding Ubuntu, I am just downloading a live eval from them. I also looked on the Mepis site, and I noticed a major difference between them, Mepis was pushing the premium services more than Ubuntu, I definately feel better downloading from Ubuntu.
liqbase
I have a -1 modifier on anonymous cowards these days. Try it.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
underneath they are about the same since they're both based on debian.
mepis' default desktop is kde, but you can install something else as you like, just like you would for ubuntu if you don't like gnome.
mepis has gui administrative utilities for things like net connections, users, data and time etc. much like the gnome system tools that come with gnome 2.8. i guess though if you use ubuntu and decide to go with kde instead of gnome you might not have these features anymore. if you go with mepis and switch to a different desktop evironment, you'll still have mepis' tools.
the main difference i would think is the packages that are available, and how compatible they are with debian's sources. i've only played around with mepis a little, and don't know the full story, though i think they keep their own repositories. on this subject, i'm a little more comfortable with ubuntu 'cause of all the debian people they have.
I stopped reading when he started pushing that there's no way to resolve dependencies with RPM files, and then went on to compare a packaging system (RPM) with a tool that lives on top of one (apt-get).
"Ford has an engine - with Holden, you get a steering wheel and comfy seats"
xterm
When I started in the industry in the fall of '83 there were some "windowing" things out there, and then, soon after, the first Mac, the 128K "skinny mac" came out. I remember when the nice folks from Quarterdeck came out to demonstrate their windowing app that sat over DOS. It crashed throughout their attempt to demo it to us and it never worked that day. They finally gave up and left. My favorite memory of those times in my reselling days was when a startup company called Novell came to call on us asking if we would sell their stuff in the government. Our VP said that networking was a "fad" and nobody would ever have a need to connect pc's together. Shortly thereafer the owner overruled him so we did not entire miss that boat. Those were very interesting days...selling IBM XT's with a 5MB hard drive (megabyte, that's correct) for $9,995 and a three to six week waiting list to get one.
http://www.busyweather.com/
Windows 85 mustv been REALLY good ;)
I'm sure after two years of using the previous version, it *was* really good. 2004 - 21 yrs = 1983
The way I see it, is too many small businesses choose to use packages like MYOB and more importantly Microsoft Access and do there own databases. What kind of linux alternatives are there for software like this? I think if this question could be answered satisfactorily, a wide section of the market could more easily be persuaded to linux based systems.
Thanks, friend.
;-} ) when he's been enjoying some of the better things aboot his homeland.
Ubuntu is difficult for a Canoodian to speel (
Apologies to the ubuntu developers.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Mixing desktop environments, with the resulting incongruities, overlap, etc is exactly the wrong way to create a coherent environment. At that point I would tell an arbitrary user to use either KDE or GNOME, but not "both".
but I think Mac OS X wins hands down.
What I've found is that the important things for general-purpose corporate users are these:
- Driver support - One of the biggest problems has always been, as the article mentioned, driver support. It's terrible that after over a decade of this being one of Linux's biggest issues (overall), in this day and age we still have some problems with "mainstream" hardware support. That's going to take desktop Linux moving from early adopters to leading edge stage.
- Slim down, stable apps - For a corporate user, there's very few apps that most IT departments want everywhere. Those few programs should be highly stable, integrated, well-tested, interoperable, and easy to use. For most users, those applications are an Office suite (OpenOffice and/or MS Office via CXOffice), e-mail program (Evolution or Outlook/Lotus Notes via CXOffice), web browser (Mozilla and/or IE via CXOffice), and file and print - usually provided by the OS or UI (KDE or Gnome). Naturally, every user has additional apps they need, but these were the core.
- Interoperability - Of course, any corporation of a significant size cannot afford to migrate every desktop at once. One big requirement of a Linux desktop is that it must have the ability to seamlessly interoperate with the existing infrastructure and systems. That means using existing directories (AD or eDir), accessing file shares, exchanging documents, and enabling user collaboration (e.g. IM, shared meeting spaces, etc.).
There are plenty of more issues and requirements, but those were the big ones. Also, along those lines, I expect a big advance in Linux on the corporate desktop from one of the big vendors very soon -- the existing capabilities appear to be creating "the perfect storm" for just such a release."Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
Either of GNOME or KDE qualify. Both have "good enough" apps across the board. Both are well integrated. The real problem is that you still cannot plug your digital camera in and have something intelligent happen. Devices are the roadblock.
But you still read his AC post.
I call BS.
I have used SuSE for several years, along with other distros - Red hat (gee, they cut us end users off though - sorry, no red hat), Gentoo, Slackware, etc...
SuSE is hands down the best distro out there for ease of install, ease of use.
shameless plug? You bet. Any truth behind it? Yes. Try it out. SuSE has some downloads available to try the SuSE 9.2 live cd right now....
have a great weekend,
dave
Desktop productivity is nice and all, but this being a site for nerds, how come there's so little talk about teh console? Let's talk framebuffers, screen(1), bash functions, perl scripts, and all the cool stuff that makes Linux/Unix worthwhile.
Some things are just as easy in Linux as on Mac and Windows. Once you have a system setup with applications you use etc it is not a problem for most users. They just click and run their things. Be i OpenOffice, Word, Mozilla, IE doesn't probabbly matter. IE does have one advantage.
:) great!
Internet Explorer is an intuitive name, Mozilla, Epiphany and Konqueror aren't. So it will take a few extra minutes to learn about that for a totally new user. It is expected and nothing to worry about IMO.
Other things are more difficult. Installing new software for example, or worse, change hardware settings.
There simply isn't a powerful enough, yet easy to use tool to change hardware things post install. Just adding a new mouse with more buttons is rather difficult for many users.
There is one field where Linux has a far way to go still. It is for photography, art and painting things. For example there is no colour management and colour calibration support for cameras, scanners, printers and monitors. Those are absolutely nessesary for this kind of work. They exist in Windows and on Mac. This is where Mac has shined for many years....
oh... just saw that Scribus has some support for colour management
Fingerworks have solved this problem, apparently. They sell a zero-force keyboard/mouse thingo. It will detect keystrokes and mouse movements (dragging the fingers), but will ignore stuff like wrists and palms sitting or sliding on the surface.
-ReK
md5sum -c reality.md5
reality: FAILED
md5sum: WARNING: 1 of 1 computed checksum did NOT match
As far as I know MEPIS is 100% compatible with Debian unstable repositories, and comes configured with those repositories in its list. MEPIS is great - I guess if you hate KDE, you probably won't like MEPIS' default configuration. If you hate GNOME (like me) you probably won't like Ubuntu. Other than that, the projects, their organizations and so on are very similar in aim and scope and quality. Ubuntu is better funded, but MEPIS has a more well-established user base at this point, and a great community support site at mepislovers.org. Basically, I'd say it's a toss up, and probably best to try them both if you don't already know whether you're a KDE or GNOME person.
Um... wrong discussion?
Personally, I've gone through GNOME and KDE desktops over the years in Linux-land. These days, when I use Linux, I far prefer to use KDE.
In most respects, the projects have very comparable goals, and both seem like they are of pretty high quality, though MEPIS has been around a while longer (but Ubuntu is better funded) - kind of a toss up in my mind. Both apparently do a very good job of keeping things Debian compatible, and apparently Ubuntu is just as easy to install as MEPIS (though it's hard for me to imagine, since MEPIS is the easiest OS install I've ever seen, and can be run without installing at all on the boot CD).
If all you do is check email, do some word processing and some web browsing, maybe so. But guess what? Most of the applications are NOT there. What about a good drawing/drafting package? What do I use when I want to use something like Illustrator or Corel Draw or Canvas? Yes there is the GIMP for image manipulation, but that is about it. What about some decent video software? Not something that has halfass functionality, but something like Adobe Premier, or Sony Vegas. What about audio software, like SoundForge or Cubase or anything like that? How am I going to get to use all of the directX plugins I am used to??
I would LOVE to switch to Linux, but the reality is, I can't use the programs I need. People scratch their heads and say "gosh why doesn't anyone switch? It's all here!" No, it isn't all there. Yes, there are some limited applications for audio and video, but there is a LONG way to go.
Hopefully if there is enough adaptation for your average joe office/web/email use, maybe the user base will go up, maybe we'll see some ported apps.
For me if it can run apt-get then the version of it's Kernel is totaly irrelevant.
[but sadly, most people I try to convert use the "but this does what I want already, and that's more work, and I don't really see the benefit" excuse.]
Here in lies the greatest challenge of linux. The general user.
For me, I am a happy windows user. Now don't be mistaken I am not a windows zealot. I would happily chose Linux over windows anytime if not for its crippling weaknesses.
Linux is a great operating system but it suffers from what i would call a geek-mentality. Linux is a perfect operating system for geeks it is powerful robust and stable. But for a normal user it is hell. It is hard to configure, and learning to configure it takes ages to find out. The value saved by the free-ness of it is taken back by the amount of time needed to learn to use and configure it. It is hard to configure and can be very daunting.
Now I see many argue that this is the very essence of geeky-ness or whatever. They say that its power and configure-ability is why so many geeks love it. Thats allright for geeks and all, but to the average user they do not care about such things. Sure they would care about the basic things that can be configured (eg. themes et al) but on the most detailed things they would not want to even bother with them.
Until such time comes that Linux is ready for mainstream use. I would beg the linux people to not push linux into the mainstream. The reason is the same reason as why it is not good for U2 to have a unfinished version of their song spreading about on the internet. When people have tried it they get a first impression. They would get scared away by linux. If they try it at first they would get confused and be scared away. If ever you try to convince them again to try it they would remember their first experience and would not try it again. First impressions do count.
So I would like to ask the slashdot crowd. Linux is not ready for use with the general user yet. And until it is ready do not push it down the throat of the general public. It is bad for linux, it is bad for you(since linux would not get the acceptance you desire) and it is bad for them.
-
As a personal comment in regards to security, viruses et al., I would say that the amount of viruses, spywars, adwares depend on the market share of the operating system. The greater the market share the greater the amount of viruses, spywares etc. Though I could be wrong. The theory will come about when linux does gain a large market share and is ready for desktop use.
No 5MB hard drive has ever been made. The PC/XT, which was indeed the first PC to have a hard drive, actually had a 10MB hard drive.
I migrated to Fedora from M$ a year ago. I find linux faster and more secure, and I like being able to configure everything. And I like the fact that everythings free. But I've crashed my hard drive three times cuz I didn't know what I was doing when I took the plunge. I still find the shell cumbersome sometimes. In the U.S. anyway, most of the Cheeto-munching, reality-tv-watching, Coors-drinking communications majors are just going to want to point and click.
What the hell was I supposed to be doing? I was going to do something, and now I'm on
Hey dumbass the -1 modifier doesn't work unless you make sure to read at 0. lol. What a maroon!
Incidentally, I actually used Windows 1.0 on my 8086-compatible back in the 80s. It came on 360K 5.25" floppies; about 3 of them I think. It was neat, but you couldn't do much because while it came with a few small applications (descendants of which are still in Windows today), but there was no third-party software.
You're correct, I stand corrected.
http://www.busyweather.com/
i have been using different variations of redhat for almost 5 years (6.2 - fedora 2). i'm impressed by the advances but none have come close to what i consider desktop ready. the average user doesn't want to think. they want to play their mp3's (not supported in fedora 2?), they want to edit office documents at home (open office is close, but not there and why should they need to know the different programs like abiword and gnumeric?) linux will be desktop ready when people stop supporting their favorite distro and begin to support common software. take the lesson from apple - the less a user thinks or needs to know the happier they are. before you release software do a user test with your grandmother, if she can sit at the machine and browse the web, play music, send email, and use office apps without ever needing to think, linux is ready. until then i'll keep my iBook, i like getting stuff done, not worrying about dependencies, libraries, or if my laptop will see my windows machine
Except for where he says that it's the best distro he's ever "had the pleasure of using"?
I don't use Emacs; it uses me.
Are you trying to be sarcastic because you're coming off as an ignoramus. Windows 1.0 was released in 1985 dumbass.
Look here...
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Excuse the nit-picking, but the misspelling of "Foreword" which is the first word of the article really got me. How does this site expect to be regarded as credible when it has articles with misspelled words?
Guess I'm complaining to the wrong place, hey besides, knowing how to spell correctly is so uncool these days.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
Exactly. You want to break a KDE menu beyond repair within 5 minutes? Just edit it.
I don't see what the big logistical issue is with putting shortcuts in a hierarchial structure (i.e, link files in directories) and projecting them as menus - something Windows has done for 9 years. But somehow KDE needs shortcuts in a bunch of different places, the folder structure elsewhere, text metadata in yet another place, and so on. Completely retarded.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
A little bit of basic marketing will tell you that there's something called "market pull / technology push". The first is when the consumers seek certain qualities (e.g. GHz numbers). The second is when technology pushes new qualities (e.g. dual core systems).
The first one, you really only have to satisfy. The second, you need to market. You need to actively go out and explain to them why this would be better (on the ex facto assumption that it is, that's another discussion). Linux is very much a technology push. If you don't market it, people will not know that a better alternative exists.
Ever had one of those features/services, that you never requested (that is, up front you wouldn't be willing to pay for that feature), but turned out to be wastly superior to old ways of doing things? Because of that, it is right to market Linux despite there being no market pull.
Of course, that is under the assumption that Linux is better. If you look at general usage, I'm not entirely convinced. Remember that most people have *one* PC. If you come to a situation where "Uh oh, Linux does not support this (at all)", we would run it on our Windows box. They would wipe Linux and install an OS that does what they want (less EULAs and DRM, oh well).
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Install 'debfoster', which looks for packages that aren't depended on by anything else, and asks you if you want to keep them. It remembers your answers, so you just re-run debfoster after removing or upgrading things to see if there's anything newly-not-depended-on.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Well, I don't know whether you've tried configuring it, but I think Gnome can be made to look at least as shiny and aesthetically nice as any other desktop I've seen... I personally like the "9nome" skin myself. Shiny silver title bars, glowy buttons, rounded scrollbars (but not oversized or anything, and quite easy to pick out...)
But yeah, I suppose the default Gnome setup like they have in Fedora Core isn't anything to drool over- but I'd say it's downright passable.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
There are two issues which I've come across with convincing people to stick with a desktop linux.
1. Too much choice for an un-informed audience. When you install a distro, you get choices of what you want to use for a task. Which is great, for an experienced user. But when a new user is presented with 4 programs to perform the same job, they tend to get frustrated. There's nothing worse than using something wondering if it's actually the best tools to use for the task. Personally I'd like to see a desktop linux with a select version of each app installed, a single window manager, single browser, single word processor. Once the user gets the hang of it, build their confidence, then they'll look for alternative applications and improve their linux knowledge a little bit futher.
2. Integration. Make everything talk to each other properly. Fix the clipboard issues between applications. Windows users are used to being able to select stuff in one application, copying, and pasting it into whatever they want. All of a sudden they're faced with the problem of not being able to do this anymore.
Task Mangler
I've been thinking about this for a couple of years now. (I'm in an HCI-related research group, although not one that really focuses on this particular problem.) To me it seems that there's something fundamentally unsuitable about taking a desktop metaphor and trying to crunch it into a tiny screen that really looks and acts very unlike a desktop.
IMHO it's not really enough to just put the existing screen on the desk, though. Ideally, in my world, computers would be mostly invisible except for when it was convenient to have them around. Things like "clicking" are remnants of using a mouse to indicate things, but it's not absolutely necessary. A more natural way to deal with a display on a desk would use something like a pen.
But why stop there when you could integrate the computer into the paper or writing materials? You can pile it up, throw it where you want, keep it organised or disorganised. Everyone used to use paper, after all, but now it might be a pen and paper that helps you to write more efficiently if and when you want that help. Perhaps the paper works as an interface to some data storage somewhere. These are just ideas, of course.
Obviously it's necessary to try and get the best out of what's available and I like the progress that environments like KDE are making, but I think a lot of people tend to assume that tommorrow's technology has to be just like today's but with minor tweaks to make it different. It's not necessarily true. Oh well.
Things should work well and look good out of the box.
I am by no means a music professional, it's only a side hobby of mine, but I play a fair bit with midi stuff, and multitrack too, but only using everyday hardware.
:-}
With the Jack Audio Connection Kit things start to get pretty awesome, I'm getting close to zero latency (5-10ms) (with 2.4.26 low latency patches) with qsynth/fluidsynth. Something I never achieved on windows.. (And i'm not talking about fancy expensive hardware solutions)
Rosegarden? I admit it's not perfect, but a great foundation.
There's quite a few multitrack recorders around too. Audicity's not too bad.
There are starting to be some very useful tools for music. There's no Reason yet, but the foundation for that kind of power is definitly there. The rest of the work is just eye candy and pretty front ends..
And what can a well trained professional do in photoshop that a well trained professional can't do in the Gimp? not all that much...
Gimp does have a slightly gimpy name though.
My laptop currently triple boots Mepis, FreeBSD, and win2k. I'd like to believe I'm weaning myself of Windows since I feel it's just a matter of time til this system is compromised, but I've managed to keep it tight and problem free so far. I'm not fond of plenty of things about windows, but frankly the usability is great; Cut & Paste works everywhere, apps are often fully usable with just the keyboard, and many of the applications really are top notch.
For example Nero just spanks K3B, PowerDVD looks way better than any OSS player I've seen (better filters I suspect, and more optimised); You can get tools like KProbe to analyze CD quality. The list goes on and on. It may feel good to bash windoze, but if you're careful and you know what you're doing, everything just works and many of the best of breed applications are win only.
Mepis is terrific. It just works out of the box, and it's the best of Debian, so it's free-enough and easy to keep it current. Its a great live-CD, so it's easy to test it and know what you're in for, and trivial to install a well configured system. The package management is simple, my windows fonts look better under XFree86 than they do unders windows (probably the sub pixel hinting). It's not all a walk in the park; Cut&paste is a mess (different pasteboards for different applications, and it's too easy to click and past 2K of random text into a root shell). Keyboard layouts get forgotten, desktop icon behaviour is often non-intuitive, and KDE communications go haywire too often. I had to hack the S3 display driver config to get the system stable.
I would set my parents up with this distro, and I'm sure it would remain usable longer than any Windows install in their hands, but it wouldn't be a walk in the park.
That said, I spend almost all of my time on this laptop running KDE under freeBSD 4.10. I have set it up to be nearly identical to my Mepis install, and though I have run my servers on FreeBSD for about as long as it has existed, I feel that freeBSD is now a top notch desktop for hackers willing to put in gobs of time learning how all the pieces fit together. Obviously this is personal preference, and you have to be a bit of a sadist to go this route. Anyway, the BSD documentation is the best I've seen, I love the ports system, and I am most comfortable configuring FreeBSD, since it's exactly the same as my servers. I feel that it's a lot more work to get a freeBSD system to the polish of Mepis, but once you've learned all the KDE/X11/acpi/automount/etc-etc glue (which is admittedly huge) it's easier for me to further configure it, and I certainly know it better and own it more (in the sense of knowlege, control, and maintainability).
My freeBSD system is better configured and tuned than my linux install. Aside from this, the only functional difference I have noted between the 2 (in my world) is that my winmodem will probably never work under BSD, and I'm not holding breath to get Kismet working under BSD (It doesn't work under Mepis either, but I think I know how to patch that).
For me, each of these is best at something. I think it's awesome that OSS is really a viable alternative on the desktop. It doesn't yet have the 'cut from a single cloth' integration that I'd like to see, but it's clearly making great strides, and I love the way my OSS desktops work.
I quite liked the original article, it's like looking over the shoulder of a knowlegeable geek. I saw a bunch of things in there I've got to try.
One of his arguments which apparently make "SimplyMEPIS" better than Knoppix is that it "is not designed to be installed on a hard disk."
Total bs. There has been a nifty simple install script for knoppix for a while now. I had been running it off my HD on my workstation for ages now.
(Granted I just switched to ubuntu.. I'm finding gnome slicker simpler and speedier than kde these days... odd? )
--Zaq
GTKam hasn't had any problems with my kodak digital cameras. Connected to USB, turned camera on, and got a thumbnailed list of pictures.
If you wanted, you could probably use usbutils or something similar to automatically start gtkam when the camera is plugged in.
Now, if you're talking about webcams, they can be a bitch to setup. I've got a Creative Webcam Go, and it took me a fair bit of work to track appropriate drivers, etc.
I'm going to be setting up a logitech soon, I've heard they're a lot easier though...
Now, some things like out-of-the-box suspend to disk are needed, but the essential issue is perceived performance.
.xls files) was a very pleasant surprise. Sure, it has its quirks, and it's not half as pretty as a KDE desktop, but I manage to get work done.
Linux has objectively better performance in things like filesystems (going back to FAT32 is a pain, now that I've switched back to WinXP after a year and a half on Linux only), but the typical Linux desktop tends to be very processor-intensive, screen redraws will be very slow when doing basic stuff like scrolling a long document in OOo, application startups are painful and there's often no hint (even with KDE and app wait cursors enabled) that they're starting, boot up times themselves will be painful, there is no generalized copy-and-paste for nontext objects, etc.
I really like unix as a concept, I like the power that comes with it, but I actually need to get work done on my computer now. And after getting used to the general pain of being a Linux desktop user, going back to WinXP (a change first triggered by OOo piss-poor rendering of
Stuff works, already.
Yes, I tried every single performance hack. I used all kinds of experimental kernels, did all sorts of prelinking combinations, even did a stage 1 Gentoo install. With all the eye candy on (including some really pretty stuff like true alpha blending), WinXP runs cleaner/faster than Gentoo+ion3. I mean, there is something very wrong going on with Linux desktop.
Part of the perceived difference in performance might be that Linux is very very demanding in processor, and less demanding in memory (maybe Linux coders like doing things the niftier way?), while WinXP is much more forgiving processor-wise, but will take up more memory. As I have relatively abundant memory (384 megs) but a piss-poor processor (a K6-II 500), that might be a significant part of the effect.
But I've used Gentoo in P4's, and while the bootup times are civilized, many of the performance pitfalls are still there.
All in all, it was good that I got around to learning how to use a unixlike and saw the pretty sights of KDE/Enlightenment/Fluxbox desktops, but time comes when one becomes an adult.
And with all its faults, WinXP is a desktop for us adults. (Cue in predictable joke about garish colors in Luna Blue).
Doesn't anyone proof read their articles any more?
Photos mislabeled.
Chunks of duplicated text.
It became painful to read about half way through.
I was reading the same stuff, over and over, with only the application name changed.
..Linux user, I just spent a week with an OS X machine. I've lusted after them for a long time.
I don't think I'll buy one. Linux is really that close, relies less on "metadata" in the apps (iPhoto is horrible), and offers more freedom. Apple still has font rendering issues (have you looked at Appleworks? and fink GUI apps look like crap)..
Linux is extremely close today, preferable for people like me, and will absolutely be the indefensible as a choice within 1-2 years.
No doubt.
Objective-C. Objective-C. Objective-C.
The kernel is C. We know that.
But the best possible desktop is in Objective-C. There is no comparison.
C++ is an abortion, a mess. It is not object orientation but a hybrid. It is inferior to C and Objective-C and even P*SC*L from which it takes its worst ideas.
The desktop code in GNOME and KDE is a mess, and especially the latter is a true mess due in great part to its dependency on C++.
The world needs Objective-C now and will need it for some time to come.
I don't understand all the legal implications, as Objective-C has been considered proprietary, owned first by Stepstone and now by NeXT and Apple, but the best thing Steve Jobs can do for computing and his company is to release ports of OS X for other hardware platforms.
GNUstep is also a great move, but the main thing is no Linux distro will ever be able to touch OS X because their tools are so bad.
I was discussing the functionality of Linux today with a friend as I struggled to get sound working on an FC2 new install. I speculated that Google may be a future answer to the struggles of Linux. Google is and continues to develop new levels of functionality. Google runs linux on its server farms. Google is powerful, cash-rich, and business-savvy. If anyone can do it, Google can.
I heard that Google is working to develop a desktop environment, maybe a browser, who knows what, the rumor mill is rife with speculation. What if Google tried to deliver what could be the knockout blow to MS and takes on the challenge of funding a comprehensive, secure, functional, and most importantly user friendly distribution of linux? Could Google unitle the linux clans, or is that fundamentally anti-linux/open source thinking?
I have been a linux user for 2 years.
Windows is a security disaster, with Internet Explorer it's worse and with Outlook Express the disaster is complete.
This pollutes the internet with viruses and spam in all its forms. Even when you're 100% (impossible) protected, just think about who's paying the bandwidth bill. And think about the people who are not as well protected.
tell people about software that doesn't cost money or has hassle with licenses or illegal serial numbers
PS:
educate people to use BCC to limit the spreading off e-mail addresses
even from 'only' running the Knoppix live-CD (yes, Windows managed to demolish itself again) i can tell that you're wrong.
Just an example: one of my roommates is not very technical at all, but runs Linux and does play some serious games on it.
designers use CSS a lot, which sucks in IE
i think the people who don't care much about security (you call 'm casual users) are either anti-social (thank them for your spam and too high internet costs) or ignorant which is partly the same
... the "perfect distro" context is way too diferent. For a newbie, something like Xandros is a very good thing. But for someone who wants all running under LVM over RAID, Debian and/or Slackware and even Gentoo are the best bets, since they give you more freedom to hack your box as you wish. Oh, not only for RAID'ing and LVM'ing, but for optimizing through compilation, too - in the case, Gentoo.
This gut has shown that there are many programs that make a useable Linux environment. That's nice, but I think the main advantage Windows has over Linux is that in Windows it's very easy to transport data from one program to another using the Copy and Paste functions. In this way it's a breeze to copy a picture from ACDSee to Word, for instance. Now try to copy a picture from GQView to OpenOffice. As long as this doesn't work in Linux it will not take off. People need this kind of functionality. On the other hand, we Linux users have gpm which works a lot better for copying texts that the Copy/Paste system in Windows!
-- Cheers!
the problem for most users is they are intimidated by the rediculous amoutn of choice they have when picking a distro...
with windows and osx it's not too complicated you get the most current version and it will "work"
all linux distros sound nice until you install them and really see for yourself what their strengths and weaknesses are...
with win/mac there is no coice... they do what they do and anybody who isn't using the one you're using is an idiot...
most people just don't have the time or patience to try any distro unless it's on a livecd (knoppix/suse...)
All the torrents you could want.
someone complains about bloat...
Sigh.
The thing that impressed me about this story is that sound in MEPIS seems to work right out of the box -- across a full spectrum of apps. I'm using Mandrake now, and I'm still fighting incompatible sound drivers that work with some apps and not with others. I desperately wanted to get Skype working on this box, but no amount of monkeying with the audio driver settings got it functioning. I was getting pretty fed up with Linux audio in general after this experience. Now I read that MEPIS even comes with Skype!
That and some better names. Linux is missing any sort of refined look and all the names are like "ymmv", "knrk", "ooo". Yeah, thats all great for us geeks and shit, but someone needs to take a few classes in psychology and marketing.
Firefox is growing in popularity not just because it's a solid browser, but because "Firefox" rolls off the tongue, they have a clean, concise, and very obviously laid out website, and they have a professionally created logo. Simple as that.
Packaging and catchy names sell. If you want to push your Linux to the masses, package and name it for the masses.
I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!
It's very hard for me not to be sarcastic about this topic. However, I'm trying to be as honest as I can in my opinion here.
:)
:)
In Summary: Just Make Linux Trendy!!
The general responses on this topic will be:
- It's not easy enough to use
- It comes with too many applications
- It doesn't come with enough applications
- I don't like the look of the desktop
- I want it to come with [insert MS program here]
- It's not compatible [the biggest fairy tale of them all]
However, the ONLY (i'll repeat that again) the ONLY excuse that's worth ANYTHING in my opinon is
- Hardware Support
I tried to Install Linux. Out of the box, the Audigy 2 did not work. I could not make it work out of the box from THREE out of THREE DIFFERENT DISTROS I tried. I also had the same failure with my Radeon 8500 All-In-Wonder at anything higher than 800x600. Trust me, I spent DAYS trying to set up Linux (after I'd downloaded Redhat, Mandrake and SUSE).
So why is compatibility a fairy tale?
a) Open Office often does a better job of converting documents between Office 97 and Office 2003 than Microsoft does. TRY IT FOR YOURSELF!!
b) How many people actually exchange Microsoft Office documents [MS Office has one of the few less portable formats]? Not MANY!! JPEG, GIF, PDF, etc. are all portable seamlessly!!
The fact is that Microsoft is seen as trendy. If most people have the money, they'll always pay 10 times more for Nikes than the cheap "KMart" brand shoes - regardless of the quality and comfort.
The same applies to Linux distros. People will continue to make excuses against Linux - some so laughable that I get entertainment from reading the more elaborate excuses
I recently asked a senior government employee involved with a large XP deployment why they were paying [** insert a large amount of money here **] to upgrade from Windows NT. The -SOLE- answer after lengthy discussions? Because of the distributed network capability - because it makes things easier to administer. However, when I pointed out that he could employ about 5,000 admins for 5 years and still have spare change to buy himself a rolls royce or 50 - he shrugged his shoulders.
I think he was influencing the upgrade to XP for the free MS T-Shirt
What can you do with a Linux distro? Make it trendy. Doesn't matter, good or bad - as long as it meets a user's basic needs it'll be OK. For goodness sakes - MS Word can't count pages correctly and people still rave about it. If Linux becomes trendy, people will snap it up no matter how bad it gets.
Anonymous Coward
crappy gimp? i am a profesional computer graphic user, spending a lot of time with photoshop. i am using it for years, the first version i have been using was 0.9 (and i still have it for fun). and i use gimp too (from 0.99 :)). And i wouldnt say taht the Gimp is crappy. It still lacks some features (for prepress mainly), but for jobs that can be done in it (and it can do some things Photoshop cannot, if you still count Cinepaint as a Gimp version) i strongly prefer the Gimp. It has superior (but harder to learn, may be) interface that makes me 300% more productive.
SHE does throw dice.
Because I'm sick of how un-friendly Gnome and KDE are becoming in there efforts to become more user friendly. In the case of KDE it seems to want me to do things it's way to much and Gnome has moved 1/2 the configuration options out to a seperate configuration editor which is quite a pain to traverse to every time you want a option which isn't normally fiddled with (what happened to the idea of an advanced option's section?).
Admitidly I don't use TWM, but I have in the past, and my current use of Enlightenment isn't a lot diferent to what TWM is but with a few bells and whistles.
That's the best desktop, or the best anything.
I have used mepis at both home and work with a great amount of success. Simply put it is the easiest to install system I have ever tried, a really great distro.
...ask
Now back to the article and all of the mentions of apt-get. Tell a user to bring up apt-get in a terminal to install software and you are going to get the deer in the headlights look. Ok there is synaptic but it is one of the most confusingly laid out applications I have ever run across. Fix this with something like click and run and mepis would really raise the bar.
Get rid of the mozilla default as soon as firefox hits a 1.0 release and stabalizes, the world has
moved on and it is way more user friendly.
Bruce P should have just adopted mepis as his user
linux deal and be done with it.
Google, what on earth are you doing? You guys have a most 1 year to attack the market. MS is going to make you irrelivant real quick. If they cannot attack you with marketing they are going to push their own search into the desktop. You only hope is to take that big wad of cash and take over the market. Grab something like this and start taking over the desktop. Grab firefox and push it to the world, if you don't you will just fade away
Netscape they will tell you how it works.
Got Code?
Here is what one would think is the URL.
XeeRz,
Jason.
THSsMCHshrtrTHN160chrs -- And I don't even like to SMS!
My pocket PC:
There are no usb drivers for ActiveSync compatability.
Bluetooth chokes and doesn't transfer files properly, OBEX FTP is a pain to set up and buggy.
I end up using a digital camera as an SD card reader to transfer files.
A digital camera(or two),
Well, I can goto camera:// in konqurorm, but there's no kind of active feedback when I plug the cameras in. One of them mounts as a scsi device and doesn't appear in camera:// at all.
oh and that scsi device, it created a new bus and nocked my cdrw on to a new bus so I've had to re-configure my cdrw software.
And while were on the subject, cdrecord has supported native ide for way over a year, most GUI's only support scsi devices so I'm having to use ide-scsi.
Oh, and my modem, I've set it up using kppp which is just buggy as hell, and how the hell is my mum supposed to know which of the 1001 tty options to choose.
And my keyboard, I had to create my own xkb file for the internet keys, infact I've ended up writing a tool to create xkb files for internet keys.
Ok, enough of the hardware issues, lets look at software.
Development tools,
Gambas: well it's just gone 1 so I'm not going to be too hard on it, but it looks and feels like a bit of a hack, eveythings a little bit flakey and inconsistant.
QT designer, &co...
not too bad, they've been about for donkeys years and still arn't properly rad though, kdevelop seems to have turned into a mess. and have you ever looked at the source code for qt... jesus I'd have been sacked for writing code like that.
d, i, ct, ed well, I suppose it makes it just as hard for english speekers to read as non english speekers.
"d->completeNow = FALSE;
if ( !d->ed->text().isNull() &&
d->ed->cursorPosition() > d->completeAt &&
d->ed->cursorPosition() == (int)d->ed->text().length() ) {
QString ct( d->ed->text() );
int i = completionIndex( ct, currentItem() );
if ( i > -1 ) {
QString it = text( i );
d->ed->validateAndSet( it, ct.length(),ct.length(), it.length() );
d->current = i;"
OO, is big and clunky, koffice is just a bit flakey. mplayer exibits some weird behaviour with some ok files, xmms has poor video support and it's playlist support is almost non-existant.
The apps are there, they just don't work or do what I want.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Most windows apps, even the ones out of redmond, have well kinda the same UI, but with a weird mishmash of funcationalty and styling.
.
/etc/init.d/mydeamon restart to find out that there's a typo in the config file, since you can validate it against the dtd/xsd first.
Dockable menus, or non-dockable menus?
does crtl+insert work in this edit box, can I copy that text?
Try changing you background to something other that white, or deleting a default font and seeing how windows apps cope then windows is just as crap.
Oh, and take a look here
What do I think should be done, well, standards need to be written and addeared to, a light xml parser needs to be put into stdc libraries allconfiguration files need to be moved to XML using dtd's (yuck) or xsd's to document and validate the format that those XML files must be in,
no more
Command line apps also need standards, is that -v -V --version -version, is that -help --help -help something.
is the help myapp -xyzABC or is the help
myapp
-x --xsomething here is a description of what the flag does.
is that quit, exit, crtl+c, escape ahh...
Linux, GNU et all need a kick up the arse, standards need to be written, and everything needs to be harmonized.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
"any sort of refined look"
I wonder if you took classes in english, and understand the meaning of "any" in your rant. It means "none at all" and I really hope that you are one of the "geeks and shit" that are visually impaired so that you can't really see what it is on the screen in front of you.
Maybe your terminal window (since you are a geek (and shit)) isn't refined enough for you. Sad.
Or maybe it is the Kernel that is Linux that you are refering to? You ever see the WinXP kernel and how preety it is? Or the refined Registry?
For every present, there is a past
Personally, I think KDE is way better than XP as a desktop environment. And anything you don't like, you can configure. For instance:
Multiple desktops, Klipper, Select & Middle-click paste, and if you drag/drop a file, you get a very helpful tool-tip asking whether you want to copy, move, or link it, which is far better than the MS way of:
if (different disks){
copy, by default
}else{
move, by default
}
BUT if (shift){
do the opposite
}
Incidentally, there is nothing so dreadful about the Linux copy-paste system. Just get used to the fact that there are really 2 clipboards. It can sometimes be really useful to utilise this behaviour!
Also, once Linux is installed, no-one needs to ever use the Shell (my Aunt certainly doesn't!). But it's great that bash is still there - I for one find it can be extremely useful!
I'm not going to RTFA any more.
:P
I like how it starts off "right tools in the right places and makes no assumptions about the users' knowledge of Linux."
Why not say, "Made the assumption the user is moving from Windows to Linux." That's like the same as me saying, "I know I'm going to get modded down for saying this...."
Some aim to please, I aim to tease.
Actually, I've had audio problems on every linux I've tried, but Mandrake lately is the worst (pretty much the best at everything else, though!)
/dev/dsp not being available. WHAT? I JUST INSTALLED THE DAMN THING! If the system can't set itself up right on installation to work, what's the problem?
/dev/dsp (or something) such that the only way to get sound going is to completely kill gaim (fuser was the way I eventually tracked this down).
I've installed MDK a few times, and nearly every time - right after install during first boot and subsequent boots - I get notices about
The other thing I've noticed is 'artsd'. I generally have to kill that everytime I want to use sound, then kill it again when starting a new app that wants to use sound. Again, wtf?
Lastly, GAIM seems to be a big sound killer. if it's running, it will eventually lock up
I've found mandrake to be great in every respect except sound issues, and as I said before, even then, I've had issues with every other distro so this isn't something solely mandrake-specific.
creation science book
So what? Those applications have different looks/feel and menu items on Windoze too, unless you think that IE's menus are some kind of non changing standard. People learn how to use their tools. I had a good rant about how much better organized KDE is than Winblows yesterday.
"Oh, you can't cut and paste between X and Y because X is a ___ app, but Y is a ___ app." That's fine for those of us who understand the differences among X, KDE and GTK, but ordinary desktop users shouldn't have to be aware of such things.
I'm not really sure what you are talking about. I do cut and paste between GTK, KDE and X across platforms with ssh-X all the time. The only place I've had problems is with OO and some very specific programs. These problems, once again, are fewer than the average Windows user has to put up with.
But the user experience is not.
Then it is nowhere. RTFA again. Use synaptic instead of apt-get and you have the most feature filled, secure and easiest to install and use OS out there. The only way to get easier than that would be to have a Mac and all the resources of Apple at your disposal so you don't ever have to buy another CD.
These are my observations as a five-year exclusive desktop Linux user.
I think I'm in a better position to judge. I've been unable to avoid Winoze at work but have been an exclusive Linux user at home for about three or four years. More importantly, I've been using Mepis for about a year. I can say that computing has never been easier. Really, Winblows has gotten worse not better since your 98 experience. Part of it is viruses the other part is M$'s DRM control freak arrogance which has has made past EULAs look mild and has made the registry a true mess that will take your computer down. They have concentrated on that control freak stupidity instead of more useful and basic things such as real users, virtual desktops and network integration.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Linux has been heralded as the next big thing for a long time now but, there is no denying the incremental changes are just little, barely noticeable chnages. While "apt get" is indeed an improvement, let face it, it should be easier.
Don't flame me OK? I love Linux and currently have MEPIS as part of my dual boot. Hey, I am making a go of it and trying. I always have. However, what Linux users consider a big change doesn't mean beans to a newbie Linux user. I had my mom use Knoppix and told her to give it a go. She tried it for a week and said "for web and email it's fine but, other than that, what's the big deal?" She has a point. Having said that, I am building a box with spare parts and installing Linspire for my "kids only" system in the den. My kids ( 15, 9 and 5 ) have tried it and it does then things they need. Actually a pretty good distro I think. For it's intended target.
I'm just concerned that when Linux FINALLY becomes a REAL and viable alternative ( ie; much more user friendly ) it will be the year 2012. Linux has yet to get over the hump IMO. I'll keep up trying to figure this OS out in the meantime. I think it's worth the trouble personally. It's all good. But, I keep waiting for THE distro.
YES! Same here, so let's expand on this more; I think it's important to recognize exactly what it is that turns off people who actually make an effort to switch to Linux but get repelled.
On paper/in writing, Linux is great. People say lots of good things about it, it has ideological advantages, installation and hardware support have improved by leaps and bounds, etc. So what's the problem?
It's not easy for geeks to understand; it still isn't easy for me to understand, even though I was the one going through it. In the end, I did emerge triumphant from the guts of my computer, and said, "See? I did it! What's so hard about that?" Then I thought to myself, "Hey, waitaminnit, I just spent seven $#*$#ing days trying to install something that should only take 30 minutes. How can I say that it was easy?"
In fact, it was so hard for me to answer such a simple question that I started keeping a diary while I was installing. (It's in bits and pieces on various Linux forums; someday I'll post it in one big piece.) The answer is this:
When installation/use of Linux goes well, it goes very well. When something goes wrong, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
Example: I install a Linux distro; it autodetects my monitor hardware and sets the resolution. It's wrong. After installation, I boot up and the monitor is wonky --I can't see anything.
What I should have done: press Ctrl-Alt-Plus or Minus to step to the next monitor resolution to get the screen to appear, and then I can use the GUI to permanently set the resolution to the correct value. Or press Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get to a text screen, and then manually set the XF86config file.
What the newbie would do: nothing. What can a newbie do? Call his friend over and get him to reinstall Windows. What else can you do when the screen is wonky?
But notice what I, as a geek but Linux newcomer, will do. I search the Internet from my other computer, find the solution, and correct it. I realize: "Ah! I clicked the wrong choice when I installed Linux --I thought they meant 'desired resolution' when they really meant 'maximum supported resolution'." If appropriate, I reinstall, this time clicking the correct option, and everything goes well.
And I discount the problem that I just encountered.
"It was my fault," I say to myself. "My mistake caused this installation problem with Linux. See, the second time I chose the correct option, and everything went well! Linux is so easy to install!" And besides, those people at Mandrake/ Fedora/ SuSE/ LibraNet/ MEPIS put so much work into making this a nice-looking distribution. "It would be a pity to just ignore the excellent interface and all that F/OSS on the desktop just because I couldn't install it properly! Let's mark it down: this is a nice distribution."
But you know what? If the newbie encounters a problem, it's a showstopper. If you can't see the monitor, who cares if Firefox has tabbed browsing or OpenOffice.org can export MS Word documents to PDF?
This, I think, accounts for the wide discrepancies between people's experience with Linux. Even in the comments for this very Slashdot article, we have people saying, "I had big problems with Linux!" "What are you talking about? I had zero problems!" It's because, when there *is* a problem everything comes to a grinding halt.
We Linux supporters have to work on this: make sure problems are not showstoppers for newbies. When there is an error message, tell the newbie where to go next. Make it work in degraded mode instead of not working at all. Make it easy to recover. Example: I can't write to my addressbook in KMail. The problem? "Can't write to addressbook" is the message. Like, thanks a lot, KDE! Can you be a little more obvious? Example: in Ogle, it can't identify the sound device
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Woops, Fedora does Digikam and other camera programs without a hitch. Works perfect for a plethora of digital cameras without additional drivers and other monkey business.
Devices a roadblock? Bull. If you get the device to work with Winblows, you will need to replace it a few years down the road when Winblows changes. The market is filled with equipment so "obsoleted" that works just fine, sometimes better than new equipment, under free software.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
(to make a point)
<over-the-top-mode>oh well see he knows that they suffer without they themselves knowing that they suffer. "How can men who've never seen light be enlightened?" How do you explain the 3-D world to the people chained in the cave that only ever saw their 2-D shadow on the wall, etc. He's wanting to save them from themselves. "Lord forgive these Windoze sinners, they know not what they do."</over-the-top-mode>
Basically, without realizing it, he's fallen prey to the messiah complex. I should know, I suffer from it on occasion myself. ;-)
Furry cows moo and decompress.
I've been using a Linux desktop as a primary (and secondary and tertiary) desktop for years. Recently I've had to (because of corporate policy) use a Windows XP desktop. Now I certainly have a bias against Windows -- years of grief with NT4 and earlier 2K revs have caused this -- but I wanted to approach XP with an open mind.
The first couple weeks were pretty horrible. Moving between Lotus Notes, Excel and IE would sometimes take two minutes as the apps swapped. Every once in a while the machine would become completely unresponsive as the hard drive light blinked. OK, no problem. I started removing all the junk put there by default in the corporate image. Zapped the client acces software, removed various alerts, set the virus scanner to a schedule rather than looking for idle time. Things got a little better.
Started customizing the machine: multiple desktop utility from the PowerTools kit, Firefox for tabbed browsing, Putty for SSH access, gvim set as the default editor, enabled the second monitor, added command line completion in cmd.exe, etc.. Added memory. Getting better still.
Then I started noticing the glitches. Excel and Citrix would act crazy with the multiple desktops. Interesting things like having dialog boxes pop up behind app windows so that you couldn't move the app (or even minimize it) to dismiss the dialog. Apps would pop up windows in seemingly random locations on either monitor or even different desktops. Putting the machine to sleep would randomly cause the keyboard to start acting crazy. Simple things like burning a CD while listening to an MP3 would fail. Then there were the crashes. Explorer dies once a day. The apps generally remain, but it's annoying as hell. Shutting down randomly results in a blue screen. Not *the* Blue Screen, but a completely blank blue screen that sits there until I force the machine to power down.
Now I know laptops aren't exactly what you'd want to keep a 5-nine application on, but it's ridiculous. The installation feels, I dunno, *fragile*. The closest thing I can remember was a problem with the Atari ST. Because of some weird glitch in the mouse driver routines, moving the mouse around during bootup could cause a hang and IIRC, a corrupted disk. I.e., experimenting with the machine is dangerous. And this is a bad thing.
Anyhoo, I've not given up and I certainly think that XP is getting to be very reliable. There are lots of nice features, not just eye candy gimmicry, but legitimate ease-of-use stuff that is lacking in several Linux desktops.
I really think the article missed out a link to their homepage? Anyway, here it is: www.mepis.org and a .torrent download (since their ftp mirrors all doesn't seem that fast): .Torrent
Cheers.
Albert
Maybe I'll have to give it a shot again...how's that sluggish X interface doing? Any improvements?
Blar.
Emphasis added.
Yes, I can see that you keep saying Linux is "hard to configure". But what, specifically, do you mean by that?
Most of the end users I deal with do NOT configure their systems. They take the defaults of the OS install and any app installs. The only things they "configure" are their backgrounds and sounds.
But now you're saying that the end-users don't do much configuration. Which I would agree with. But then, why is "hard to configure" a problem when most end-users would not do it much anyway?
That's not a question. Those are statements.
This is a question that I will ask you: Aside from backgrounds and sounds, what will the typical (non-geek) end-user try to configure that will be more difficult than in Windows?
Also:Actually, it depends upon the security model and the implementation of such. You are confusing "marketshare" with "security".
To me, Windows is "hard to configure" because I want the OS/apps installed in one partition and the data in a different one. With Windows, I have to trick it into moving "Program files" to another disk.
So, how did a comment without any specifics about what is "hard to configure" AND the classic "marketshare == security" dodge get mod'ed up 3 times?
I did RTFA, until I found this:
One of the things that distinguishes Debian is that it has a packaging system called apt-get.
Which as any Debianist will tell you, is completely wrong. dpkg does all the hard work, apt is just a wrapper around it.
Against better knowledge, I kept on reading.
So he uses CrossOver Office to run Win Media Player on Linux? WTF? Isn't Xine+Mplayer+Realplayer enough? Then he goes on raving about VOIP and video conferencing stuff, which I personally do not see as the pinnacle of productivity. Finally he comes to a conclusion:
SimplyMEPIS is usable immediately. It is easier to install than Microsoft Windows.
When did he stop talking about a Live-CD? So what's the installation process? Open CD-Rom, enter CD, close CD-Rom, reboot (from CD-Rom). This fucking moron shouldn't be allowed to write about anything.
that's what it will take, as in NOT fixing peoples computers for free, or just not fixing them at all and let them take them to the store and get them fixed there. If someone won't take your advice, and insists on constantly borking their box, the best thing you can do for them is to use tough love and stop being an "enabler". I'd say one time only, then if they won't learn, ta heck with them, let them figure out that maybe THEY are the problem and it's not the computers fault.
So, did your friend decide to switch, or did he just suck you for the free work then go back to his old computing habits?
I'm hoping someone can save me from having to install multiple desktops merely to answer one simple question about desktop behavior.
When I use Windows, I dock the taskbar on the left of the screen (versus the default bottom), set the width to maximum, and the settings at AlwaysOnTop + AutoHide.
Benefits:
1. The taskbar consumes no screen space. And when I want to see it, I only need to slam the mouse-pointer full left to the screen border to make the taskbar appear, not requiring any precise mouse handling.
2. When I view the taskbar, instead of unlabeled icons or truncated titles (arrayed horizontally), I see amply-sized window titles (stacked vertically, 80+ characters wide).
Is there any Linux desktop environment which will allow me to replicate this configuration?
Thanks.
The article describes, quite well, the kinds of issues and problems a Windows user (like me) is likely to encounter when trying to make the switch to Linux (and I have met all of those problems). The common statement is the 'in Windows, it just works'. Audio, video, streaming of both, cameras, you name it, plug-n-play pretty much works in the Win world while with Linux, it works but often requires all kinds of interesting effort.
./configure, make, make install and god help you if anything fails. Robust install methods that 'just work dammit' are a must.
It's more complex that that and I propose that two issues work together to make Linux less than 'dummy' friendly.
First, installing apps can be a painful exercise in frustration. If you're lucky, the rpm or apt-get is available for your distro. If you're not,
Second, and less obvious, is the fact that most web sites that require something special (say a great web radio station like http://www.radioparadise.com says you need winamp or windows media player. Clearly, you don't need either, but there are NO links on the page for the Linux alternatives.
When it's easy to install something and Linux alteratives become common on web sites - it won't be 'the' answer, but it'll go a long way towards making Linux a choice for the common user.
Just some thoughts.
Dogu
Fore Word: word before the article; introduction
'Hardware Support' is a lame issue. Windows XP does not have support for a LONG list ov hardware that linux does have support for.
Like my Voodoo cards. Like my AVECIIc scanner (and the vast majority of other parallel port scanners). Like my Buslogic bt946c SCSI controller. like the 1,350,000 google returns for 'hardware not supported in xp'.
Anyone who even says that mac offers more hardware support should be slapped. Installing OS X on a PC is a chore that only uber-geeks can do, so that right there cuts off about 95% ov computer hardware from being supported by a mac. (PC hardware!)
Linux on the other hand, can work on x86 AND PPC machines. From this angle it looks like linux has the MOST support for hardware out ov any OS.
I built a system with AMD 2000+ and dedicated the whole 80gig drive to Linspire. I play around with it when bored. Not into Linux all that much but it seems to do the same thing windows does in a dossy sort of way,new commands to learn.I tried Red Hat and Mandrake some time back gave it up and now 3 yrs later trying again...keeps the mind alive and resists Alzheimers for a 61 yr old wannabe Nerd. I like the free things in Mandrake that one has to download for Linspire....A Coward
I've installed and used both Ubuntu and MEPIS and kept MEPIS.
The differences:
KDE versus GNOME. I just leave that one alone but people tend to have a real opinion about that. However you can install either DE on either distro if you want to.
Sudo vs. Root: In ubuntu, you run all your root commands through sudo. This really irritated me. Sudo is certainly fine for some applications but it got really old having to type sudo over and over and over when I would have much rather logged in as root and done my couple of things without having to enter my password repeatedly.
1 Guy in West Virginia vs. A South African astronaut + a bunch of debian & redhat develops:
Ubuntu should really have the leg up here since they have so much backing. MEPIS is created by an overworked software guru in West Virginia, who goes byt eh way of Warren. That being said I had a small problem with MEPIS and fired off and e-mail to them. I got a response from Warren himself a couple of hours later. Both distros have strong communities who can be quite helpful.
Functionality: The seemed to work about the same to me. I don't didn't notice any real differences other than those related to KDE vs. GNOME.
I have installed it for 5 of my friends in this town. They have been running it for months now, no hassles, viruses, worms etc. Download it -- it's free. Has all the apps a single home PC needs. Learning curve is easy. And these guys are NOT computer geeks -- just ordinary "Joe Blogs" EVERYTHING JUST WORKS.
I use a setting similar to yours on my KDE 3.2 desktop (MandrakeLinux 10). In my case, I have a permanent taskbar at the bottom and a child panel on the left side of the screen full of application quick-launch icons. Under the KDE Control Panel (known as "Configure Your Desktop" in the default Mandrake configuration), set the following:
For me, the above settings are for my child panel, since I have a permanent main panel at the bottom with the taskbar. You can set the above for your main panel, which will then be on the left side of the screen. Or, if you wanted some stuff on your screen permanently, like the clock/calendar etc., you could create a child panel as given above, move the taskbar to it, and shrink the main panel to be just big enough for the clock or whatever you want permanently. You can put it in the upper corner or whatever. You can make it semi-transparent to see what's underneath.
Here's an idea: if you're not sure whether it's what you want, boot up Knoppix, which defaults to KDE, and experiment with the settings. I'm pretty sure you can set it to something you like.
Now, I haven't used a MS Windows desktop on my home computer for over a year, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Windows gives you this much flexibility to make multiple bars in different positions, translucency, etc. Right?
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
Wait a minute. What the fuck is a Visio?
And let's not forget .NET and SharePoint. And Quicken. How about Encarta or Acrobat?
I think the only aptly named Windows program might just be Internet Explorer (probably more accurate would be World Wide Web Explorer... don't get me started).
Of course, in Linux, if I want to mail lorcha@lorcha.com, I type mail lorcha@lorcha.com.
Damn, that was hard. In Windows.... what do I do? Outlook? Eudora? Microsoft Mail (if there is such a thing)?
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
A really nice comment to read :-)
That you('vs), try do define a 'fix' standard.
*goes back to his 'drawing board'*
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.