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Linux & Open Source Software, the Present
Mark writes to tell us that LinuxForums is running the second in a series of articles designed to reflect on "what Linux is, where it came from, where it's going, how to use it and why you should." With all of the recent talk about the perceived difficulties within the OSS community sometimes it is just good to take a look at our roots.
On a related note is an old but still relevant essay: Debunking Common GNU/Linux Myths by Jem Matzan.
Developers: We can use your help.
The article is not exactly ment to reflect...
Welcome to part two of a series for beginners explaining what Linux is, where it came from, where it's going, how to use it and why you should.
In short: nothing to see here, except the forever raging flamewar of KDE vs GNOME.
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
For example, if I'm seeking help with getting samba working nicely in a mixed environment or figuring out how to run a PHP app on a windows box, I get responses like, "Just ditch XP, d00d, it sux", and "Apache is better than IIS".
;-)
Many people underestimate the differences between the two platforms. Often there are odd problems such that even if the app is supported on Windows, it may have limited functionality. For example, HERMES (a PHP app) is a pain to install on Windows because of a lack of symlinks, and SQL-Ledger (a Perl app) can't use MD5 authentication with PostgreSQL on Windows, nor does the LaTeX support work right if you are trying to print directly to a printer. In once case, it is a DBD::Pg versioning issue, and on the other, it is a limitation with the printing mechanism.
My advice to you is this: If it is designed for Linux, run it on Linux. If it is designed for Windows run it on Windows. If you need to consolidate, use SFU and Apache on Windows (I have never gotten Apache on Cygwin to work properly with PHP and even if it did, I suspect there would be performance issues).
Otherwise, if you need help integrating even if you don't like my advice, you can pay for our services
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I've repeatedly bumped into the main barrier when integrating open and closed software. This is, simply, that there's no way to know how the closed software works in detail (short of reverse-engineering it).
When studying how a closed program interacts with an open one, you can only look at one side for any direct information. The other side is a black box, and you're limited to guess-and-checking to find a solution.
Likewise, many fewer people with knowledge of the code will have posted information online, and even fewer of those people are interacting with the community -- so you'll find technical forums are usually filled with guess-and-checking rather than detailed explanations.
This could well be the reason you've had such difficulty getting help. When someone uses open-source programs, it's not that they necessarily encounter fewer problems, but that those problems can be solved without the original developer. If you're asking open-source developers to solve problems involving closed-source components, they'll understandably shy away from the unnecessarily arduous task of guessing how that black box works.
(Note that none of this is meant to justify the rude responses you've apparently been given.)
What? Are you only counting Fedora as the major distro? The default desktop for Knoppix and Mandriva is KDE, and Slackware doesn't even include GNOME.